[Wittrs] Re: An Issue Worth [Really] Focusing On
- From: "SWM" <SWMirsky@xxxxxxx>
- To: wittrsamr@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 11 May 2010 02:13:38 -0000
I'll limit my responses to those remarks of yours, Budd, that actually seem to
warrant responses:
--- In Wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, "gabuddabout" <wittrsamr@...> wrote:
<snip>
> >
> > 2) "Syntax doesn't constitute semantics (syntax doesn't make up semantics)
> > and thus to have an instance of syntax isn't sufficient to have semantics
> > (because syntactical constituents cannot combine to give us semantics).
> >
> > Note that #2 is a claim of non-causality.
>
> Yes, but you still are trying to use the constitutes idea when insufficient
> is sufficient for "insufficient to cause.
Searle could very easily have said that but he didn't. On the other hand, he
did make a point of saying of the third premise that it is conceptually true
when the only conceptually true claim in the third premise is the non-identity
assertion.
But no matter. Let's agree that Searle really meant the causal denial to be
what he was asserting as his third premise. If so, and given that it is not
conceptually true and that he gives no argument for asserting its truth beyond
his remark about its conceptual truth -- which isn't relevant to the claim of
non-causality, he now has a serious problem with his argument and that is the
main point I have been making.
> What you end up doing is puutting more into the third premise than is
> stated. There are two thoughts, and for the life of me I can't understand
> why you ever would have had such trouble as you seem to have. So my first
> guess was that you were just playing a game. It was later that I thought to
> give you a choice between that and outright inept interpretation.
>
I think you simply have trouble grasping what may seem like an overly subtle
point to you. No matter. I have made the case. You still insist you don't see
it but who am I to gainsay that? I take you at your word that you don't. Time
to move on, no?
> >
> > Recall that Searle asserts that the premise in question is "conceptually
> > true".
>
> It is conceptually true that syntax is not semantics.
The non-identity claim, yes.
> It is true as a matter of fact (first premise) that syntax is formal. Given
> all that, it is conceptually true that syntax is insufficient to cause
> semantics.
No, there is nothing in the non-identity of syntax with semantics that implies
insufficiency of causation. To claim that you need some other reason (either
hard evidence or another logical claim, if there is one that will do).
> But perhaps it is not _just_ conceptually true after all. So be it.
> >
In that case Searle, who asserts the conceptual truth of the entire first
premise, has it wrong, doesn't he? Nor does he give us other reasons for
thinking it true (neither another logical argument nor any claims based on
empirical evidence). Therefore the third premise is NOT shown to be true and,
if it's not, it cannot imply the conclusion that finally depends on it, i.e.,
that computers (which consist of syntax in the form of implemented programs)
cannot cause (in Searle's sense) minds.
Therefore the CRA fails to prove its conclusions and is thus a failed argument.
> > Note that the causal reading isn't conceptually true though the identity
> > claim in #1 can be said to be.
>
> I'll have to buy that. Perhaps Searle had the first premise in mind?
>
> >
> > Note that the conclusion of the CRA (that computers can't cause minds, as
> > brains are said by Searle to cause them) is a causal claim (about an
> > assertion of non-causality).
>
> Okay.
>
>
> >
> > Note that the non-identity reading doesn't imply anything about
> > non-causality.
>
> Okay....
> >
> > Note that Searle's assertion that the third premise is conceptually true
> > only applies to the reading in #1.
>
> Unless it is parasitic on the first premise..
> >
The first premise only asserts that "Computer programs are syntax (formal)".
This doesn't imply anything causal because what things are does not, of itself,
imply anything about what they can do. (We need empirical information about
them to get at that.)
> > But note that Searle, as you say, went out of his way to formulate the
> > third premise as a compound sentence (X and Y). Therefore he presumably
> > wanted to make two distinct claims.
>
> That would be good English parsing, I should think.
> >
> > However, the claim that the premise is conceptually true only applies to
> > one reading. But recall that Searle does not make THAT distinction. He
> > doesn't say part one of the premise is conceptually true. He says the whole
> > premise is.
>
> Perhaps he had the first premise in mind..
He said it of the third premise, not the first. If he really meant the first,
then wouldn't that make him even more confused than I have asserted? No, I take
him at his word, that when he said of the third premise that it is conceptually
true, he meant the third premise just as he said.
> And I would allow a reading where it is false to say of something that it is
> conceptually true when it in fact was discovered to be true. Perhaps some
> context. Where is Searle saying that the third premise is conceptually true?
> Keep in mind that I don't think this issue trades on understanding the CRA.
> >
We've actually seen that in some quotes offered earlier on on this list.
However, my recollection places the claim in either Minds, Brains and Science
or Language, Minds and Society. I'm sure a search of one of them will turn up a
version of that claim. More, I'm sure we can ferret it out in an on-line search
again. However, you were on this list and following along when it last came up
so I suppose you are asking us to assume that you somehow missed the reference
last time?
To help you in your recollections, I had asserted that Searle had said of the
third premise that it was self-evident. I believe Joe did a search and couldn't
find any indication of him saying "self-evident" but he did find reference to
Searle's saying it was "conceptually true". As it happens, to be conceptually
true is to be self-evident (though Joe pointed out that something could be
conceptually true but not immediately self-evident and I agreed with that,
while noting that to be "conceptually true" is still to be self-evident once
the requisite analytical work is accomplished). In fact, on reflection I seem
to recall Searle actually claimed that the third premise was "trivially true"
because it was conceptually true.
Now we can get into a snit about parsing the fine points of these various
formulations but for my purposes claiming "conceptual truth" is enough because
it's no different than claiming something to be "trivially true" (or
self-evident upon analysis).
> > Therefore he is eliding the distinction between one part of the premise and
> > the other and, in doing so, allowing the notion of conceptual truth to
> > serve as the basis for believing the conclusion that rides on the
> > non-causal reading.
>
> Or he has the first premise in mind..
> >
In which case he is either thoughtlessly slipping his references or
intentionally aiming to misdirect his reader. I think neither is likely to be
the case as Searle is an intelligent and certainly respected philosopher.
> > Because both sides of the premise can be read either as a non-identity or a
> > non-causal claim, this confusion allows us to buy into the idea that the
> > CRA's conclusion is logically inescapbable.
>
> Perhaps he only needs the first premise after all.. Hence the modern
> formulation of his view in the APA address.. Check out the eight point
> summary. Please.
>
I've read his later argument which he proposes to supercede the CRA and I find
it less convincing than the CRA because it hinges on supposing that programs
(which in the CRA he called implemented) are mere abstractions without causal
efficacy which denies his earlier statement that the programs he has in mind
are implemented (running on computers)!
> >
> > But as we have already seen, in order to believe the non-causal part of the
> > claim is true, we have to believe something else about the CRA, i.e., that
> > what Searle calls "semantics" cannot be present as an outcome of some
> > particular combination of what Searle calls "syntax". But that, unlike the
> > non-identity claim, IS NOT CONCEPTUALLY TRUE!
>
> It is simply true given that programs are formal. Perhaps once one
> understands the first premise, the third premise seems conceptually true?
>
Ah, you see? You believe it is true on the basis of the claim of its "formal"
nature alone. But his "formal" is no better explicated than his "syntax",
leaving us in the same position as before, namely thinking that computer
programs running on computers can't do the job because they are something they
are not, namely merely abstract, when, in fact, they are perfectly physical
instantiations of the algorithms they document and represent. As physical
instantiations they are no different than brain processes and, therefore, no
less possessive of causal efficacy in the world than brain processes!
The idea that syntax is not semantics is not enough to sustain a claim that the
right combination of what Searle calls "syntax" might not, in fact, do the
trick BECAUSE non-identity does not imply non-causality.
The only way around this is to assume that semantics, itself, cannot be reduced
to syntax, i.e., that it is a constituent level property within the system
rather than a system level property (the result of the right combinatorial
arrangement of syntactical processes). And that, finally, is the dualist
presumption, i.e., that what we call consciousness cannot be reduced to
anything more basic than itself.
>
> >Indeed, it depends on our adopting a particular conception of "semantics",
> >i.e., that it cannot be broken down to anything more basic than itself! And
> >that, again, is a dualist presumption.
>
> But that doesn't follow. You are forcing the issue by being blind to the
> first premise and particularly blind to Searles reasons for the first premise
> and particularly blind to how the first premise may allow for the third to
> seem a conceptual truth.
> >
No, insofar as the first premise is about asserting what computer programs are
it holds nothing more for us. What is needed is a premise about what we can
expect of whatever it is we can expect of what computer programs are. In this
case, we need the third premise which tells us that "Syntax does not constitute
and is not sufficient for semantics". This says something beyond what is found
in the first premise where we know nothing about syntax (or the "formal")
except that computer programs are said to be THAT.
> > So the CRA hinges on a dualist presumption which is obscured by the
> > ambiguous wording of its third premise.
>
> But it really is not ambiguous unless one is playing a game or is having a
> hard time with plain English, as I think I should stil think.
>
My English is pretty decent Budd even if my other languages are weak these days.
> > The logic of the CRA is driven either by accepting a misleading elision
> > between two readings of the third premise (the equivocation) OR by
> > accepting another (suppressed) premise regarding "semantics" itself that is
> > not self-evident, not "conceptually true" based on the CR, but, rather,
> > arguable based on empirical information that drives our conceptualization
> > of it.
> >
> > SWM
>
> Or, it is about the consequences of programs being formal. See how easy it
> is to forget that?
>
> Cheers,
> Budd
>
One problem here is that "formal" is inadequately explicated. Another is that
we don't know the salient thing (in the context of the CRA) about what that
which is formal can do (or cannot do) until we get to the third premise.
And now we have seen that the third premise is not established as true in any
indubitable way because the reading we need to reach the recommended conclusion
of the CRA is no longer available to us because non-identity (even expressed as
a claim of non-constitution) does not imply non-causality!
And the non-causal reading, for its part, stands on logical sand.
SWM
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