[Wittrs] Re: An Issue Worth [Really] Focusing On
- From: "gabuddabout" <gabuddabout@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: wittrsamr@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sat, 08 May 2010 20:31:08 -0000
Stuart writes:
"My point is that this is a discussion and debate about what Searle was doing,
not what you stipulate you mean. Thus what's at issue is what Searle means (or
seems to mean) by the statements he incorporates into his Chinese Room argument
(CRA)."
And offers some reiteration at the end (of another long post):
"I'll reiterate then. This isn't about whether "constitutes" can be used in
ways that aren't equivalent with identity claims (it can be and I have
acknowledged that from the first) but about whether Searle uses "constitutes"
in the third premise of the CRA in a way that is."
I agree that Searle is using "does not constitute" as a nonidentity claim. But
there is also another different claim being made in this premise. It is a
claim of noncausality pace the histrionics of those who seem to have trouble
with English, again. And, you know, you're right about this being an issue
about what Searle was doing--and not what you are doing when displaying poor
English skills while trying to make one claim out of two in the third premise.
I have quoted a reviewer who agrees with my "insufficient for" reading as a
noncausality claim--the reviewer writes "insufficient to generate."
I had it as "insufficient to cause."
The first premise, though, (huffing and puffing now) contains an implicit
noncausality claim. This insures that the noncausality claim is really
connected to another premise in the argument--not that the argument is a
standard form syllogism. Indeed, I even saw in the dictionary that the word
"syllogism" has a somewhat pejorative use as in: "That's just a syllogism;
whether the premises are true is more important." I made up the example but
seem to recall this sense of syllogism in some dictionary entry. Anybody is
welcome to find an example on their own.
We are to distinguish between S/H systems and nonS/H systems, if we are to be
about getting to what Searle was getting on about, lest we be on a mission to
get him on about something else given what "we" might be on about.
Now, if you don't distinguish the above types of system, then you have a
problem identifying just what strong AI is, even if you don't buy Searle's
distinction between strong and weak AI as Neil hilariously (to me) suggested he
shouldn't have done because maybe he was being ignorant or dishonest. Honestly!
Anyway, if you don't buy the distinction, then you end up with the spirit of
Searle's biological naturalism but without any independent case for strong AI
systems being different from nonS/H systems like brains. You've been in this
part of the existential map before. Below you show up in a different place:
OTOH, if, as you sometimes suggest, we say that maybe computers can cause
consciousness/semantics in a way that is _different_ from how brains do it,
then the only specification that is different is in terms of computation.
Searle simply went all the way to bed with this and found out how inept it was
in the sack (does _anybody_ appreciate "the sack" here?). If you have an S/H
system and want to say that such a system may cause things in virtue of the
computation _added_ to the brute causal mechanisms of electricity, then one
could just as well as imagine someone being trickled on by all of the
computational part while still not knowing what was trickled.
Some "trickle down" theories don't trickle down enough. Some are incoherent
tricklings because there are no relevant tricklings in a nonobserver-relative
computational sense.
So, the following bad argument may seem good to others:
1. Every case of syntax demands semantics since syntax does not name an
independent natural kind and transformations of bit strings to other bit
strings are meaninful to computer engineers.
2. Computers have Syntax.
Ergo 3., Computers have semantics.
Maybe Searle was being too scholarly when making his distinction between S/H
and nonS/H. Maybe we shouldn't distinguish computers from people at all.
And how many enjoy pushing buttons!
Anyway, there are two independent clauses intended in the third premise.
If one's interpretation fails to note this, then we have a problem. I don't
think it is Searle's, though. In fact, it can't be. He went out of his way to
say two distinct things in the third premise and no amount of bad English is
going to get him as saying the same thing in two different ways--that would be
like making Searle look like a monkey but only due to monkey shines on the part
of the interprer.
Which brings us full circle to Stuart's original point:
"My point is that this is a discussion and debate about what Searle was doing,
not what you stipulate you mean."
And not what Stuart or Gordon stipulate as to how to understand the third
premise. So it is how I do instead? Well, me Searle and that reviewer I
quoted. That should be sufficient enough and should constitute in part an
overwhelmingly plausible story as to what Searle is saying in the third
premise, especially given the first premise and the target article.. But even
more especially because Searle wouldn't go to the bother of saying the same
thing twice in one premise. If one thinks one can make a case for this, they
are just not serious or seriously confused.
Cheers,
Budd
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