[Wittrs] Re: Focusing on the Refusal to Focus
- From: "SWM" <SWMirsky@xxxxxxx>
- To: wittrsamr@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 12 May 2010 01:53:33 -0000
--- In Wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, Joseph Polanik <jPolanik@...> wrote:
<snip>
>
> we've already know that the conclusion of the CRA does does in fact
> follow from its premises. I presented a formal proof and you conceeded
> that the conclusion would be true if the premises are true --- which is
> precisely what you'd expect from a formally valid argument.
>
You are again confusing the formal structure with the argument itself (with the
semantics plugged in). The purpose of the structure is to enable clarity in
going from point to point, driven by the actual meanings. The CRA is not an
empty formal structure though it is arranged formally (and thus follows that
structure). The CRA is an actual argument, presented in the formal structure.
That it would be true if its premises were true is irrelevant to whether it is
true!
> the focus then shifts (precisely as you say) to the question: "The issue
> is on what basis do we take the third premise to be true?". [2010-05-03
> - 09:52 AM]
>
> >Whether there is some other argument for the same conclusions that
> >doesn't fail (because it does logically demonstrate its conclusions) is
> >a different question.
>
> yes. each such argument *is* a different question; and, each is a
> relevant question.
>
We are arguing here about Searle's CRA case against the computationalist thesis
of mind, not against, say, Hawkins' argument based on the brain's insufficient
speed to operate as a computer would or Edelman's argument that the very
mechanism of programming can never attain the requisite level of complexity we
find in brains! There may be lots of arguments for why computers can't produce
consciousness (and some may even be right) but such arguments don't make the
CRA a good argument (as in one that establishes the truth of its conclusions)!
> your argument in its various forms has always incorporated at least the
> following two claims:
>
> that the CRT doesn't show that syntactic operations can't cause
> subjectivity and subjective experience to emerge as a system property.
>
> that the *only* way to make the CRT show that syntactic operations can't
> cause subjectivity and subjective experience is to presuppose something
> you claim is dualism.
>
No, that is found in the logical way that Searle proceeds. But it is possible
that there are other, perfectly empirical, reasons for why a system made up of
constituents like those found in the CR can't succeed. You keep missing this
aspect of what I have been saying. There is even a possibility that there
really is a better logical argument that can do what Searle's CRA can't do
though I haven't seen it yet. Searle's CRA implies dualism but arguing that
computers cannot do what brains can do, in itself, does not!
> *any* way of showing that the CRT makes and supports a claim of
> non-causality refutes both of these claims you are making; so, it is
> foolish of you to expect anyone to abandon any such counter argument
> just because you say Searle never mentioned it; particularly since, at
> the moment, it is *you* who is unwilling or unable to explain why the
> hypothesis of a causal relation between syntax and subjectivity can't be
> rejected when it is falsified.
>
> Joe
The problem for your argument, Joe, is you haven't falsified the claim for
anything more than the CR system. Once the possibility that subjectivity is a
system level phenomenon, instead of one that is associated with one of the
system's constituents, is recognized, the idea that the constituents of the CR
can't produce subjectivity, merely because they don't in the CR, collapses.
SWM
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