[Wittrs] Re: Is Computation too Static to Sustain a Mind?
- From: "gabuddabout" <gabuddabout@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: wittrsamr@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 18 Aug 2010 22:24:26 -0000
--- In WittrsAMR@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, "iro3isdx" <wittrsamr@...> wrote:
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> --- In Wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, "gabuddabout" <wittrsamr@> wrote:
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> > Thanks for the thoughtful responses, Neil. If you would be so kind to
> > provide a link again to your paper, I wouldn't mind going for a spin with
> > whatever I might understand of it.
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> I think you are referring to the one I posted several months ago.
>
> http://faculty.cs.niu.edu/~rickert/drafts/mathdual.pdf
Thanks Neil,
Minor quibbles: When you write that "Our perception is not limited to the
physical," you offer examples that I think are examples of perceiving things in
the physical world. When I see someone in some mood or other, I wouldn't say
that the mood is not limited to the physical world, for example.
Also, it is hard to understand how perception as such is a product of learning.
What we _say_ is perceived, though, is very largely influenced by a culture
and its language. Way back at Analytic the Piraha people's lack of color words
was being discussed. Perhaps they _could_ and do see different shades of color
despite their having no reason to discuss them; but if so, it makes it hard to
understand why they wouldn't communicate notions such as that red thing is
poisonous and co.
Also, perception is a biological phenomenon that happens causally and not
necessarily due to measurement. Of course there is a lot to say about actual
measurement but I find it a kind of humunculus fallacy to say that there is
actual measurement going on as part of the causal story about how perception as
such is possible. When talking about perceiving particular things, though, it
sounds reasonable to enter into measurement-talk.
What I'm indirectly getting at is Fodor's notion of narrow content in his "The
Revenge of the Given" found in _Contemporary Debates in Philosophy of Mind_.
There's a great debate about narrow content--the externalists (Putnam and other
direct realists who share a family resemblance to the later Witters) think that
there is no viable notion of narrow content.
Fodor has argued that we have to start somewhere and he gets to stipulate at
least that there are some concepts we have that get a, say,
philosophy/psychology of concept possession rolling, if anything does.
Have you had a look at Fodor's review (of Putnam's _The Threefold Cord_) I
pasted in a reply to Bruce? Maybe any thoughts on it?
Budd
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