[lit-ideas] Re: view of names, or in ginocchio da te

  • From: Omar Kusturica <omarkusto@xxxxxxxxx>
  • To: "lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Wed, 4 Sep 2013 10:22:07 -0700 (PDT)

Well, chess programs make mistakes as well, it's just that these days they are 
so much better than us that we don't see it unless we analyze it with another 
program. The so-called centaur or cyborg players regularly use 3-4 programs to 
compare.


O.K.




________________________________
 From: Walter C. Okshevsky <wokshevs@xxxxxx>
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx; Robert Paul <rpaul@xxxxxxxx> 
Sent: Wednesday, September 4, 2013 7:08 PM
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: view of names, or in ginocchio da te
 

I like Robert's conclusion here, but I fear there may be a few premises
missing for a sound argument. We need more justification, and articulation, of
the claim that intentionality is not a capacity machines possess. At first
glance, this premise is false as machines can direct their "attention" to all
sorts of (noematic) objects and configurations. Think of the chess programme
that keeps beating you at level 7. Machines can also be programmed to attend to
their own functioning (noetic awareness, meta-cognition) and alter their
initial
programmed "behavior." 

Attempts to argue that machines cannot think because they lack a "background
horizon of meaning" necessary for "aboutness" (Dreyfus) or because they lack a
capacity for "inferentialism" (Brandom) necessary for cogent and intelligible
intentionality, are flawed I believe since such capacities can be programmed
into the machine. If the argument is that humans think and behave
"autonomously," independent of any programming, then it needs be shown that
determinism is false and free will is possible. Not even Kant dared to claim
that we know that humans possess free will.

My theory of choice is that machines can't think
because they are incapable of making a mistake. The true mark of thought on this
view is fallibility and machines ain't got it. Machines can be dysfunctional or
broken, but they are incapable of making a mistake. Hence they cannot think.

Cheers, Walter


Quoting Robert Paul <rpaul@xxxxxxxx>:

> Donal wrote (in a long and interesting post)
> 
> > If this accurately reflects Searle's view (or if Searle thinks machines
> > can have 'intentionality') then his argument and position are very
> > different from Popper's - on Popper's argument 'intentionality'
> > transcends any physical or mechanical principle, and machines cannot
> think.
> 
> Searle does not believe that machines 'think,' or that they can have 
> intentional states. Quite the opposite
> 
> 'Intentionality,' is a Medieval concept introduced into modern 
> philosophy in 1874 by Franz Brentano, in Psychology from an Empirical 
> Standpoint CPsychologie vom empirischen Standpunkt).
> 
> Intentionality concerns the directedness or ‘aboutness’ of 'many, if not 
> all,' conscious states. No state of a machine has such a relation to 
> anything else; this would seem to entail, more broadly, that machines 
> can't think.
> 
> Robert Paul
> 
> 
> 
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