[Wittrs] Do Computers "Learn?"
- From: Sean Wilson <whoooo26505@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: Wittgenstein's Aftermath <wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 31 May 2012 18:10:17 -0700 (PDT)
... discussion with Eray over on Serious Philosophy.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Phil-Sci-Mind/
At issue is whether Computers "learn." Eray took issue with something in these
slides, about computers, mathematics and rule following:
http://ludwig.squarespace.com/lecture-topics/2012/5/24/11-rule-following-psychology-mathematics.html
------------------------------
Eray writes:
"Well about the difference between computer and human, computers can also learn
anything that humans can learn so the difference there is vastly
exaggerated :)
IOW, computers too can learn mathematical languages, formalisms, rules,
etc. It's called "machine learning".
-----------------------------
My response:
... if they do "learn," it's only in a sense of speaking.
This is the point that's never understood. There is no genuine philosophic
issue in any of these discussions. There is only the uniforms that people wear.
The only issues should be informational. If there are things that certain kinds
of computers are doing that I do not know about, then I would need to
understand that. And once both agree on what occurs in the world, how we speak
about it is of no concern.
1. The computer learns X
2. Bob learnt Spanish
3. My dog learned his name
4. My cells have learned to attack the bacteria.
In each of these, the only point is to know what the expressions are doing when
they are voiced. What is happening, empirically (factually), in the world. It
does no good to dispute anything else.
Regards and thanks.
Dr. Sean Wilson, Esq.
Assistant Professor
Wright State University
Personal Website: http://seanwilson.org
SSRN papers: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/cf_dev/AbsByAuth.cfm?per_id=596860
Wittgenstein Discussion: http://seanwilson.org/wittgenstein.discussion.html ;
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