[Wittrs] Re: Wittgenstein and "Brain Scripts"
- From: "SWM" <SWMirsky@xxxxxxx>
- To: wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Fri, 25 Sep 2009 20:00:53 -0000
--- In Wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, "seanwilsonorg" <whoooo26505@...> wrote:
>
> (reply to Stuart)
>
So long as we have a script language that accounts for sense across all sorts
of similar contexts -- a large territory of expression -- we have an
illustrative way of accounting for traffic accidents like "If Moses didn't save
the Israelites, would he still be
Moses?" Answer: DEPENDS UPON THE BRAIN SCRIPT BEING USED (hello!) Translation:
there is no issue here!!! (Philosophy professor: either become Wittgensteinien
or go home).
There might be an interesting scientific implication here, however. And that is
this: inasmuch as we can describe the workings and confusions of thought as a
kind of brain script, maybe this means that brains are, in fact, significantly
like the sorts of machines we are beginning to build now? I don't ever get into
this. I'm not a scientist; I'm a Wittgensteinian. I don't care how the
journalism comes out. As my other hero Brett Favre says, "It is what it is."
I'll read the newspapers like the rest.
>
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Okay Sean, I think I see where you want to take this (correct me if I'm wrong).
You are looking for a way to systematize in some standardized form of notation
the variant uses and nuances of ordinary language. As those in pursuit of ideal
languages (formal, symbolic logic and its offshoots) once sought to wring out
all ambiguities from propositions, you want to find a way to institutionalize
the richness of ordinary language and so offer us a reliable system for
navigating our way through and around the built-in ambiguities.
While the ideal language philosophers wanted to replace fuzzy ordinary talk
with leaner and meaner, scientifically rigorous communication techniques, you
want to give us a tool or method, that can be learned, to do, in a standardized
and systematic way, what Wittgenstein showed us how to do ad hoc through cases.
Is this it or am I still missing something?
SWM
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