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

  • From: Donal McEvoy <donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: "lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Fri, 6 Sep 2013 13:44:01 +0100 (BST)



________________________________
 From: Walter C. Okshevsky <wokshevs@xxxxxx>

 

>As is so often the case, Donal offers some interesting thoughts - even if
mistaken.>

Thanks; though many would find this patronising, it can instead be taken as 
harmless preamble.

Of course, if we define [or 'conceptualise' etc.] "mistake" so that a "mistake" 
is something that can only be made by a conscious being, then the making of a 
mistake will be one measure that separates a conscious being from an 
unconscious being. This vindicates Walter's suggestion, but it also makes it 
question-begging as the conclusion is built into the premise by definition. We 
may as well say "All elephants are pink" given that something cannot be an 
elephant if it is not pink, as say "All mistakes involve consciousness" given 
where consciousness is not involved it cannot be a mistake. [Omar's criticism 
re question-begging, as if Popper's paper against a physicalist view of naming 
were somehow merely this kind of definitional argument (a mistake on Omar's 
part), might have been better directed at Walter's post here.] 

This definition (or 'conceptualisation') has little to recommend it 
substantively - '2 + 2 = 5' seems wrong, a "mistake", whether made by a human 
or an unconscious computer. Nevertheless even if we accept this definition 
(perhaps on the recommendation of someone like Walter) we have merely furnished 
ourselves with something true by definition - not with anything of substance or 
v. interesting philosophically. 

Nor, I suggest, do we need to answer 'What is a mistake?' here. (This question 
is something of a mistake.) But, if asked, we may answer it by saying - 
"Answering '2 + 2 = 5'" - and, if challenged on this answer, we may say this is 
a mistake in more ways than one.

Walter then offers this reasoning:-

>I can't see how the capacity to correct my mistakes is more
accurately/genuinely a distinct criterion of human thought than the capacity to 
make mistakes. The
former capacity would seem to be possible only through piggy-backing on the
latter capacity. >

Even if we grant that correcting mistakes piggy-backs on making them, this is 
no reason why the capacity to correct mistakes could not be philosophically a 
better guide - to differentiating conscious from unconscious beings - than is 
the capacity to make mistakes. The point is that the capacity to correct 
mistakes in a non-programmatic way may distinguish humans from computers and we 
may attribute this non-programmatic capacity to conscious intelligence on our 
part (Popper accounts for this, at the human level, using his theory of World 2 
and World 3 and their interaction).

"To err is human" may be true enough but "To err is uniquely human" would seem 
false; - and so would "To err requires consciousness" if we treat this as a 
proposition that is not merely true by definition but which may be falsified by 
any example of something lacking consciousness making an error - in which case, 
a manys a computer may suffice.

Walter's post does not amount to anything of substantive interest and his 
'piggy-backing' reason is not a valid one - we may as well say that as all 
biology piggy-backs on physics [if you entirely remove the physics of anything, 
there is nothing left biologically] then we "can't see how" the biological 
capacity offers anything "distinct" to the physical capacity. Yes, Walter's 
reasoning really is that bad here.


Donal
London














A quick note on Socrates for RP: I'm not sure that Socrates ever held a theory
of Forms in Plato's sense. His calls for examples do not in themselves show
that his epistemic procedure involved assessing an example's degree of
accordance with its original Form. I think that Socrates' dissatisfaction with
his interlocutors' provisions of examples was not that they failed the
Form-test but that the examples were part of a theory or account that was
itself incoherent or self-contradictory. I believe my muses here are Vlastos
and Friederikson, but of course I may be mistaken. But if so, at least you know
you're reading the thoughts of a human, the thoughts of a human, the thoughts of
a human .... Message and author will self-destruct in 15 seconds.

Walter O


Quoting Donal McEvoy <donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx>:

> 
> 
> 
> 
> ________________________________
>  From: John McCreery <john.mccreery@xxxxxxxxx>
> 
>  
> 
> 
> >Omar beat me to it. No reason why a machine [snip] can't be programmed to
> make mistakes.>
> 
> Correct: and its programme may also contain "mistakes" that have not been
> intentionally programmed in or of which the programmer is unaware: and,
> through physical dysfunction, it may even make a mistake contrary to its
> programme (if that programme were functioning properly on the computer).
> 
> So I agree that the capacity to make mistakes is not a sound basis for
> distinguishing humans from machines.
> 
> What may provide a basis is the capacity to correct mistakes - for humans may
> consciously correct errors without this correction being merely
> 'programmatic', whereas a computer cannot consciously correct its errors this
> way but can only correct its mistakes in so far as it has a programme to
> detect and correct those mistakes. 
> 
> Obviously this basis needs some arguing out.
> 
> My reply to Omar on physicalism as "empirical" is posted separately.
> 
> Donal
> London


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