[Wittrs] Mind vs. Brain (Hawkins, Wittgenstein, Transcendentalism etc. -- Urner) -- long
- From: kirby urner <kirby.urner@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: Wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 18 Aug 2009 15:57:15 -0700
On Tue, Aug 18, 2009 at 1:58 PM, Stuart W. Mirsky<SWMirsky@xxxxxxx> wrote:
>> This begs the question of whether fantasizing about how the brain
>> works, imagining lots of ghostly "mechanisms" and encouraging readers
>> to "sing along" (to follow the bouncing ball through introspection),
>> is really helpful to people designing tomorrows computers. I doubt
>> that it is. I'm more of the view that he's banking on his reputation
>> to feed the brain talkers with a kind of "salty fish" that they crave.
>> He's feeding the seals.
>>
>
> And you have come to this conclusion based on an analysis of his proposal
> then? If so, what are the problems with it that you see?
>
So far I'm not seeing any serious proposals, just stuff I could also
write if I put my mind to it, not that difficult to generate such
prose. I'd start with operating system talk of process and threads,
how these run in parallel, then have workshops teaching how to
multi-task more effectively. Is the mind really like a web server? I
could go on for pages. If you look inside, you'll even catch yourself
evaluation "regular expressions" (OK, pattern matching) -- a kind of
switchboard (lots of old brain movies here), then handing off to a
kind of lookup function (memory = like an SQL database, looking for
"overlapping meanings" i.e. filtering to reach "matching memories"
relevant to the current sensory environment), then doing some
"dressing up" of the response to make it socially correct i.e. that
kind of "think before you speak" censoring and revising (if you look,
you'll see yourself doing it).
This is what we call Model-View-Control architecture (MVC) i.e. the
incoming stimuli go through the controlling switchboard, back to the
model (memory, databank) then filter out through the visualizer i.e.
that which packages the response for public consumption.
A lot of these processes are going on in parallel, some not reaching
the level of consciousness (under the radar) and at varying rates i.e.
some responses come long after they're relevant and we kick ourselves
at night going "if only I'd thought if it, I'd have said..." You've
done that right? This proves I'm on track with my model of brain
functioning, plus with all this introspective confirmation (you've
switchboarded right? pattern recognition?) we now know that MVC is a
viable proposal. And given MVC is exactly how web applications are
coded (in Django, in Rails), we now have a model of brain functioning
wherein consciousness is hosted much as Apache hosts multiple
processes.
We could say Apache is the "consciousness host" (analogy) and that the
various Python threads (running Django) are the "streams of
consciousness". If you close your eyes for a moment, you might just
catch one of those snakes slithering along, thinking about something
different than the others (because we host multiple snakes, but only
give one at a time the "time of day" as it were -- the waking state
consciousness, versus all these unconscious mental processes that
"wake up" and "sleep" according to complex biorhythms....).
This is all meant in spoof, it's a terrible hodge podge, but I bet I
could bottle it and sell it. Some geeks I know would tolerate it as
it vaguely reinforces their thinking habits as programmers and web
developers. Some psychologists would tolerate it, maybe because it
helps them think about SQL and PHP in ways that keep them from dozing
off. Wittgenstein would throw it against the wall of course,
recognizing it immediately for what it is: utter crap.
>> >> It's not philosophy or is maybe quasi-philosophy, but then it's not
>> >> really science either (I've said "science fiction", but then I have my
>> >> own spin on that, have elsewhere published aphorisms like "there is
>> >> science fiction, and there is nothing", patterned after Erhard's
>> >> "there is semantics, and there is nothing" -- or at least I think he
>> >> said that, s'been a long time).
>> >>
>> >
>> > It's science if he successfully develops and implements devices that can
>> > deliver as promised.
>> >
>>
>> I'm not sure what he's promising but it all has a kind of "not in my
>> lifetime" flavor. To me, it sounds like he's taking some time off
>> from serious computer engineering, working on developing a shared
>> fantasy life for brain talkers. That could be useful in its own way,
>> though I doubt in the way you propose.
>>
>
> I guess time will tell. But I don't see what you're basing this on since you
> haven't offered any substantive challenges to the meat of what he's
> proposing. Basically it seems you are just calling his motivations into
> question and complaining about his verbiage.
>
I'm not immediately buying that there's any "meat" here. Yes, it's
salty fish to the brain talker seals, but I'm not one of those seals
and don't find these fish especially appetizing. But then neither do
I own a Treo.
I like Jungian talk better because it doesn't make such a pretense of
being "a science".
This need to be "a science" to be taken seriously is what Wittgenstein
ridiculed as well i.e. he had little patience for people "consulting
philosophy" as if it were some scientific oracle that would hand down
an opinion from on high, lend its music of authority, or not, on
demand.
Was that some quote Sean shared with us recently? I need to go back and check.
>> Designing computers thus far has had everything to do with *not*
>> knowing much if anything about how the brain works. A computer is not
>> an electronic brain and doesn't function the way brains do.
>
> He argues that he isn't designing a computer but a thinking machine that
> operates more like brains and less like today's computers.
>
I don't think he's "designing" anything at all. He's "holding forth"
by jumbling together a lotta language games in a "nothing that
special" kind of way.
>> I think
>> we might go rather far with AI-bots by the way, as they're already
>> doing work as receptionists, booking train tickets and so on. Canning
>> a lot of responses with speech recognition on the front end, is a lot
>> of what people fantasize about. But you don't need to introspect,
>> unless that means putting yourself in the frame of mind of a customer,
>> a client, wanting to get calls redirected. Getting AI-bots to do
>> phone sex should be no problem, maybe those are already working the
>> front lines.
>>
>
> No, for programming to meet certain functional needs for a customer you
> don't need to introspect. On the other hand, if you want to find a way to
> replicate what minds do, it might pay to actually look at what minds do and
> one of the ways is to look at our own.
The idea that we "actually look at what minds do" by introspection is
fraught with problems. Some people see spirits in there, others
archetypes, others a kind of TV program (brain as transceiver).
These are all valid enough metaphors or ways of talking if doing real
work (and who is to judge? -- that's why "agreement in judgments" is
at the heart of a form of life -- we don't all agree what "real work"
looks like, Wittgenstein obviously in the minority in some ways, in
finding his contemporaries indulging in "on vacation" lifestyles even
while tenured to so indulge).
The brand of American Transcendentalism to which I subscribe includes
a kind of brain talk, uses the word mind in a distinctly different
way. Let's see if I can find a juicy quote:
"""
The human brain is a physical mechanism for storing, retrieving, and
re-storing again, each special-case experience. The experience is
often a packaged concept. Such packages consist of complexedly
interrelated and not as-yet differentially analyzed phenomena which,
as initially unit cognitions, are potentially re-experienceable. A
rose, for instance, grows. has thorns, blossoms, and fragrance, but
often is stored in the brain only under the single word-rose.
As Korzybski, the founder of general semantics, pointed out, the
consequence of its single-tagging is that the rose becomes reflexively
considered by man only as a red, white, or pink device for paying
tribute to a beautiful girl, a thoughtful hostess, or last night's
deceased acquaintance. The tagging of the complex biological process
under the single title rose tends to detour human curiosity from
further differentiation of its integral organic operations as well as
from consideration of its interecological functionings aboard our
planet. We don't know what a rose is, nor what may be its essential
and unique cosmic function. Thus for long have we inadvertently
deferred potential discovery of the essential roles in Universe that
are performed complementarily by many, if not most, of the phenomena
we experience. But, goaded by youth, we older ones are now taking
second looks at almost everything. And that promises many ultimately
favorable surprises. The oldsters do have vast experience banks not
available to the youth. Their memory banks, integrated and reviewed,
may readily disclose generalized principles of eminent importance.
The word generalization in literature usually means covering too much
territory too thinly to be persuasive, let alone convincing. In
science, however, a generalization means a principle that has been
found to hold true in every special case.
The principle of leverage is a scientific generalization. It makes no
difference of what material either the fulcrum or the lever
consists-wood, steel, or reinforced concrete. Nor do the special-case
sizes of the lever and fulcrum, or of the load pried at one end, or
the work applied at the lever's other end in any way alter either the
principle or the mathematical regularity of the ratios of physical
work advantage that are provided at progressive fulcrum-to-load
increments of distance outward from the fulcrum in the opposite
direction along the lever's arm at which the operating effort is
applied.
Mind is the weightless and uniquely human faculty that surveys the
ever larger inventory of special-case experiences stored in the brain
bank and, seeking to identify their intercomplementary significance,
from time to time discovers one of the rare scientifically
generalizable principles running consistently through all the relevant
experience set. The thoughts that discover these principles are
weightless and tentative and may also be eternal. They suggest
eternity but do not prove it, even though there have been no
experiences thus far that imply exceptions to their persistence. It
seems also to follow that the more experiences we have, the more
chances there are that the mind may discover, on the one hand,
additional generalized principles or, on the other hand, exceptions
that disqualify one or another of the already catalogued principles
that, having heretofore held "true" without contradiction for a long
time, had been tentatively conceded to be demonstrating eternal
persistence of behavior. Mind's relentless reviewing of the
comprehensive brain bank's storage of all our special-case experiences
tends both to progressive enlargement and definitive refinement of the
catalogue of generalized principles that interaccommodatively govern
all transactions of Universe.
"""
[ http://www.rwgrayprojects.com/synergetics/intro/well.html ]
A lot of people run screaming from prose like that, but it's no worse
than Heidegger's and is, in my estimation, embedded in a truly meaty
philosophy (yes, a philosophy, a true metaphysics, with links to
empirical sciences but "in itself" a kind of American literature --
the author is a grand nephew of Margaret Fuller Osoli, publisher of
Dial magazine wherein the writings of Emerson and Thoreau would
appear).
The lengthy passage about the rose is clearly an allusion to such
phrases as "a rose by any other name is just as sweet" or "a rose is a
rose is a rose". He works in quite a lot of texture.
This is work in the humanities, yet work nonetheless.
In my estimation, Hawkins doesn't hold a candle to this poet of 42
college degrees, Medal of Freedom, Royal gold medal of architecture,
from Her Majesty the Queen on recommendation of the Royal Institute of
British Architects, Boss of the Year (National Secretaries) same year
and blah blah (didn't invent the Treo though).
>> On the other hand, we have a lot of people looking for meaningful
>> stuff to do and I'm not a big fan of putting huge numbers out of work
>> just because an AI-bot is able to simulate human intelligence to some
>> painfully low degree.
>
> Obviously he is saying his aim is to get past that "painfully low degree".
>
>> If I had a choice between a roomful of actual
>> people, versus a room full of computers, with the goal of doing
>> serious analysis work, maybe some translation, I'd choose the actual
>> people.
>
> I suspect Hawkins would to. Why would he not?
>
>> On the other hand, what really works best is a hybrid i.e.
>> humans using computers as tools.
>>
>> There's this cultural fantasy of computers becoming conscious and
>> replacing humans in jobs that require consciousness, I realize that.
>> There's also the cultural reality of people turning themselves into
>> knee-jerk AI-bots, escaping from freedom, escaping their existential
>> responsibility to hold on to their humanity. The latter is the real
>> danger, a terrible development, whereas the former is pie in the sky
>> and verges on infantile.
>>
>
> I don't think impugning motivations is much of a criticism of the substance.
>
I haven't detected much in the way of "substance" or "meat" as of this
juncture, but maybe I'll find some down the road.
>> Why I was asking about insects and whether these brain talkers were
>> doing any serious work around replicating "insect consciousness" is
>> this would potentially represent an actual advance in the empirical
>> science. You'd need humility, patience, painstaking experiment, the
>> hallmarks of real science.
>>
>
> Hmmm, yes, humility indeed!
>
I don't mind seeming to puff myself up sometimes -- puffer fish do it.
I've learned over the years that I'm expected to strut and puff in
some social situations, talking about how I'm Minister of Education in
a fledgling dictatorship or whatever seems most apropos. I milk my
associations sometimes, name drop.
This is all in the tradition of "omnitriangulation" i.e. helping
readers "echo locate" and figure out for themselves how to pigeon-hole
me, or anyone, at the end of the day. We all have our blurbs on the
back of whatever book jackets.
People want to be entertained sometimes, and it helps if they know
this circus clown has a long track record in the circus i.e. comes
with the imprimatur of Barnum & Bailey, Circque du Soleil or whatever
outfit. "At least he's *supposed* to be funny (a lot of people think
so)."
You and I both got to have our names in that Wittgenstein Dictionary,
way cool, albeit if only buried in the acknowledgments no one reads.
I'm also in the acknowledgments for Google App Engine (O'Reilly),
Bucky Works (Wiley & Sons) and some others, woo hoo (no, I truly
genuinely appreciate it, not meaning to be sarcastic -- is a kind of
currency for we who still need to make a living for a living, wouldn't
turn down an honorary degree or two either (some hints in my blogs)).
>> If they're just asking us to fantasize about "thought processes" and
>> pretending they know how this relates to brain functions, then I'm
>> back to my "science fiction" reading. Much closer to "language on
>> vacation" in a Wittgensteinian sense, a lot closer to the "blood talk"
>> of Victorian times, and to the Freudian stuff, which is less
>> pretentious as no one pretends to find "the ego" in the brain (as
>> such).
>>
>
> Different ways of looking at things. I doubt Wittgenstein would have thought
> there was no point to thinking about these things or trying to do something
> along these lines. But he's not here to tell us I guess so it's my view
> against yours and others here.
>
I think we can build evidence though.
I think the Hawkins stuff smells of the "philosophy of mind" problems
Wittgenstein worked hard to resolve at a higher logical level.
Plus LW hardly ever wrote about the brain. I can't imagine how any
results of neuroscience would impact what the author of the PI was
endeavoring to communicate, one way or the other.
Plus it's really hard to picture the guy asking us to close our eyes
and turn inward to figure out what "thinking" means. That seems
*especially* inappropriate in his case.
His entire later philosophy is about how the meaning of words is not,
repeat not, right in front of our faces and/or mind's eye or any other
observational facilities (ears, nose...).
You need to (a) investigate and this requires (b) looking at multiple
use cases. Just closing your eyes to observe what it means to
"understand" is *antithetical* (repeat *antithetical*) to the spirit
not to mention letter of his approach.
>> As I said, it's degrading to associate Wittgenstein with this stuff.
>> I'm pretty sure that won't fly.
>>
>
> "Degrading"? Oy.
>
A big step back to pre-Wittgensteinian ways of thinking at least.
>> You're basically claiming he's solving the age-old mind-body problem,
>
> I don't know what he's solved. I am interested in what he might solve
> though.
>
He doesn't claim to be solving the mind-body problem does he? He
wouldn't come right out and say that right?
He wants to design "thinking machines" but then those wouldn't be the
AI-bots we're already seeing out there, or the ouija board type social
networking tools like Google's, leveraging "network effects" (these
require human intelligence to work, but abet it with algorithmic
stuff).
How does one say, sensibly, something like: by the time we have
"thinking machines" we will no longer have recognizably the same
concepts of either "thinking" or "machine" in the sense that we use
them today?
<fiction>
A "thinking machine" would not be able to make head or tail of this
nonsense we're scanning here, pretending to understand.
It'd just look like noise, music from another age and time, so much
computer code gone haywire, the way ancient alchemy reads today (ever
try to read much Plutarch -- it's understandable I suppose, but just
barely in a lot of places).
Sense *fades* in the review mirror. Belief systems *leak*. You don't
find out that they're wrong so much as you awake from a fevered dream
and wonder "what was THAT all about?". Concepts shift, aren't pegged
to the ground. This is especially clear if one has weaned oneself
from what I call Nominalism (not many have, but if you want to,
Wittgenstein is your man).
Am I a thinking machine? Let's say yes. As Wittgenstein points out,
the body is very like a machine and sometimes we see it that way.
Am I able to make head or tail of this nonsense. Hardly.
So there, I'm already making my prophecy come true...
</fiction>
>> and in the very terms in which the Victorians proposed it. He's doing
>> this with flowery / flowing descriptions of so-called mental processes
>> that one might write about as a novelist would, then sketching in a
>> few details of what we actually know about synapses, adding a dash of
>> computer science here and there, using words like "algorithm" (from Al
>> Khwarizmi, the famous resident of Baghdad aka Algebra City).
>>
>> Again, this is pretentious, over-inflated BS, pop culture crappola in
>> my estimation, nothing to do with real science and nothing to tar
>> Wittgenstein with.
>>
>
> I'm sorry but none of this is much of a criticism of anything Hawkins is
> saying. It's just huffing and puffing!
>
Yes, a different animal sound from what Hawkins is making, is what it
boils down to, I agree.
We're somewhat past the point where "criticism" is meaningful because
the language games are so different. It's important to realize that
humans, neighbors in so many ways (shared planet) get to this point.
They talk past one another.
Given I see no explanations, proposals, meat or substance in the
Hawkins quotes so far (my MVC stuff was way better in my own
estimation), it's hard to see where one would criticize. "Criticize
what?" Like flailing at a gas, chasing a rainbow, a mirage.
I think we're mostly talking mirages here. Hawkins does not provide
an oasis. My thirst for knowledge is not quenched by his brand of
brain talk (a kind of fantasy blend of various discourses).
>> > But the point is to consider what someone says in light of our own
>> > experience, the more so when what someone is saying has to do with
>> > having
>> > experience!
>> >
>> >> That's trying to take the realm of
>> >> novelists and inner landscape painters and attempting to dress it up
>> >> as an empirical endeavor one might do in one's recliner at home,
>> >> simply by shutting one's eyes and "observing". LOL!
>> >>
>> >
>> > No Kirby, I am not proposing that I'm doing anything empirical, only
>> > that I
>> > am comparing his claims to aspects of my own subjective experience and
>> > see
>> > how they could actually provide an explanation.
>> >
>>
>> There's no "explanation" going on. You keep using that word. I reject it.
>>
>
> And I reject your rejection. I guess this spade is turned then.
>
Yes, we're just mapping out where the termini are, how our "synapses"
come to these "gaps" where you'd have to recognize "crossing into
alien territory" in either direction.
This happens *a lot* among humans, even among those ostensibly
speaking "the same language" (a misleading picture in so many ways, as
usage patterns diverge).
>> >> This is where we disagree. I personally think Wittgenstein would have
>> >> no patience for this brain talk.
>> >
>> > I definitely don't agree. But even if you were right, would it really
>> > matter? The issue is what bearing some of the things Wittgenstein
>> > actually
>> > said has on these issues and what bearing they have on what he said.
>> >
>>
>> Would it really matter to whom? I'm fairly confidant it's safe to
>> ignore the brain talkers as a minor footnote in contemporary
>> intellectual history, nothing important coming from that corner.
>> Wittgenstein's contribution, on the other hand, continues to have
>> lasting value. If your project is to hook these two together, I have
>> to ask why? What is your motivation?
>
> To understand how brains make minds. I should have thought it was pretty
> self-explanatory. But I see that again you talk in terms of motivations
> rather than substance. Why?
>
>> You've already given me the
>> gist of an answer: you're vested in brain talk and wanna pump up its
>> reputation by piggy backing on Wittgenstein.
>>
>
> Oy.
>
>> >> He's a big name and if there's any
>> >> "credibility enhancing" it's entirely a one way street, trying to get
>> >> Wittgenstein to underwrite Hawkins.
>> >
>> > We disagree again. Being a "big name" is nothing and shouldn't prompt us
>> > to
>> > stand in awe. Every thought, every "big name" should be constantly
>> > reconsidered and held up to close scrutiny. As soon as something becomes
>> > a
>> > dogma, as soon as it becomes doctrine, we're in trouble and I think
>> > Wittgenstein would clearly have held to that as well.
>> >
>>
>> That's a somewhat facile response as obviously we need to keep
>> reconsidering and seeing how, if, a body of work remains relevant or
>> not, withstands the test of time. There's a huge literature on
>> Wittgenstein already out there,
>
> At one time there wasn't, then there was. Things happen like that. Smart as
> he was he was just another guy, like the rest of us and might even have had
> a few things wrong on occasion. It pays to keep our minds open to that
> possibility.
>
Yeah, true, we could make this a contest about who is smarter than
whom or whatever.
I could say Hawkins is really smart, is playing his cards well. Why
not write a book that brain talkers like? They're a legitimate
demographic. Not everyone wants to read murder novels 24/7.
Wittgenstein, on the other hand, was born into a rich family but ended
up being a POW, living like a pauper a lot of the time.
Which of these two is "smarter"? Hawkins right?
>> a lot of it quite good, despite how I
>> like to denigrate some of the earliest commentators (Wittgenstein
>> encouraged this, expressed considerable skepticism he'd be understood,
>> judging by the quality of his own students, mired as they were in that
>> "influenza zone").
>>
>> Wittgenstein rarely mentions the brain and I'm so glad of that.
>
> Well he wasn't a neuroscientist or anything like that was he? So why should
> he have talked about brains?
>
Because they're not important to philosophy as he conceived philosophy.
>> This
>> is part of what keeps his philosophy from falling into the black hole
>> of contemporary brain talk. We have that low frequency of the
>> occurrence of the word "brain" as empirical evidence that he was not a
>> brain talker.
>
> Or that he was focused elsewhere.
>
>> To try to make him one or to play the game of
>> allegiances (Sean) to make him one, is, I think, a fruitless exercise,
>> a waste of time.
>>
>
> I don't believe I said anywhere here or elsewhere that he was some kind of
> crypto cognitive science type did I? If you think I did, where?
>
I'm sure you don't believe that he was a crypto cog-sci type.
But I have trouble with your idea that were he to be among us today,
he'd be patient with the Hawkins BS. That's just not my sense of the
guy.
And that's *interesting*.
I encourage you to go on doing what you're doing, being as verbose as
you like (disk space is inexpensive) as I'm curious as to why on earth
you'd think he'd be patient with this "introspect to see what
consciousness is" kind of thinking, apparently what Hawkins
encourages. I'm so differently biased, harped on this word
"antithetical" above (with emphasis).
I'm *intrigued* that our readings are so diametrically different.
>> >> I don't support doing this, think
>> >> its to cheapen and dumb down the Wittgenstein stuff to make it fit a
>> >> faddish/vogue nonsense of our day. It's a gross trivialization of
>> >> Wittgenstein's contribution in my estimation.
>> >>
>> >
>> > He wasn't a god and no one should ever imagine his ideas are beyond
>> > questioning.
>> >
>>
>> No, he was just a way better than average philosopher. I never said
>> he was a god, or if I did, it'd be in a namespace in which we're all
>> gods and goddesses (some people talk that way, registering their
>> appreciation for human beings, but that's not the normal way of
>> talking, obviously). If any time I say "Wittgenstein was many orders
>> of magnitude a deeper thinker than Hawkins" triggers a knee-jerk "he
>> was not a god!" then obviously we're at a dead end, have reached a
>> kind of broken record terminus in our discussion. And that's not
>> useless. I like to see where we fizzle out, not so I can keep playing
>> the same tapes over and over, but so I can avoid repetition, get it on
>> the record once and then say enough is enough.
>>
>
> Then that spade is certainly turned. Anytime someone says Wittgenstein was
> the last word on anything, I believe that someone to be deeply mistaken.
> There is always more to think about, new ways to see things, etc.
>
I didn't say "last word". You seem to always read in this authority
thing. It's more like comparing painting styles. Would Picasso have
had any appreciation for X? Would Salvador Dali have liked Y?
If I say "Wittgenstein would have had no patience for Hawkins" that's
not saying "Wittgenstein had the truth and Hawkins did not".
I'm saying "Wittgenstein, in outlook and posture, had views which run
counter to this other" so.... if you want to really "get Wittgenstein"
then get your head out of Hawkins.
But if you want to really dive deep into Hawkins, maybe stay away from
Wittgenstein.
But as soon as I say this, you thinking it's about "being a guru" or
"authority figure" whereas I said before and say again, it's more
about diet, taste, cultivation of the senses (double meaning).
If you want to appreciate this fine wine, then have this cheese and not that.
Wittgenstein is a "different cheese" than Hawkins. The taste is
lovely in my estimation and I want other people to sample it and look
at me wide eyed and go "this is GOOD!"
But then if they look at me and go "hey, this tastes a lot like that
other cheese over there" I might just roll my eyes and think "wow! we
sure don't see eye to eye on that do we! -- I can't imagine two
cheeses more different in flavor, so in different categories."
So let's just stop with the "guru" nonsense? Is that possible here?
Why do you think Wittgenstein would have enjoyed Hawkins?
If you say "because Hawkins might be on to something" I have to say
"why would that matter?" Wittgenstein wasn't a scientist.
So if we agree Hawkins is doing science then shouldn't we agree that
Wittgenstein was playing in a different ball park?
Why say "apples are like oranges" (OK, they're both round -- they both
used words and wrote books...).
>> As if "the final analysis" were for you to judge and not me? It
>> matters plenty in the final analysis, so I'm glad I got around to
>> providing one -- is another spin (resisting your attempts to
>> trivialize my assessment).
>>
>
> I don't have to if all you keep doing is focusing on motivations and
> conformity to some Wittgensteinian boilerplate!
>
There's that concern about "authority" again.
You worry too much I'm trying to "railroad" some dogmatic version of
Wittgenstein. I'm just saying there's no reason to link authors of
such a different texture and smell -- unless playing some game of
allegiances and needing to "make them agree" for no apparent reason
and in light of evidence to the contrary.
>> I'm glad we're getting it on the record, on this list, that some in
>> the Wittgenstein camp are quite willing to disavow Hawkins and brain
>> talkers more generally.
>
> What's to "disavow"? He isn't a Wittgensteinian to start with. The question
> is to see what he is bringing to the table on his own.
>
... in relation to Wittgenstein's philo, given the purposes of this list.
I think we could just agree they're not on the same page and there's
nothing in Wittgenstein that feeds the Hawkins fire and indeed what
Hawkins is doing is not in the same spirit --- note I didn't say
"because it's not true".
Let's say for the sake of argument that "truth" is simply of no
interest. We're talking about compatibility at a different level,
whether one is in line with the other.
This is especially important with Wittgenstein because he left
everything as it was.
If making his philo and Hawkins "agree" means imputing all this
retroactive philosophy of mind on Wittgenstein, saddling him with
controversial theses, then clearly we're corrupting his meanings, by
his own consistency checks (his theses come across as truisms,
agreeable to all).
>> It's all in the same category as disavowing
>> behaviorism as somehow a necessary or consequent legacy. It's good to
>> nip these in the bud before too many people sucker for these party
>> lines.
>>
>> >> > As to whether people who talk in terms of brains rather than Freudian
>> >> > categories are more boring . . . well I suppose that will have to be
>> >> > left up
>> >> > to the readers here to decide -- each for him or herself!
>> >> >
>> >>
>> >> Yeah. I still recall how heartened by daughter was by the Pauling
>> >> Lecture above. She was like 14 but saying stuff like "wow, people are
>> >> really out there doing science, making progress, getting somewhere..."
>> >> No thanks to Hawkins, is what I'd mutter today.
>> >>
>> >> Kirby
>> >>
>> >
>> > I don't think Freud did much in the way of science, for my part. As to
>> > Pauling, well I'd have to look into it. For now though I have a better
>> > feeling about Hawkins than you do, whether he ultimately turns out to be
>> > right or wrong.
>>
>> Yes. Art is just as important and influential as science. It's The
>> Art of Computer Science (Knuth), not the Science. People who think it
>> has to be Science to be valuable are on my list of suspects (for being
>> sloppy thinkers, slumdogs). Freud's art was a great contribution, as
>> was Jung's. We'll see about Hawkins, but if he's committed to calling
>> it Science then I'm pretty sure his drastically limiting his relevance
>> and appeal in circles that matter (where the gods and goddesses reign
>> -- just tweakin' ya).
>>
>> Pauling got two Nobel prizes and his chemistry is legendary. He
>> started learning it in the house where we meeting weekly, as Wanderers
>> (a think tank). Linus Pauling House (LPH). Lots more in my blogs.
>>
>> Kirby
>>
>> >
>> > SWM
>>
>
> I'm too busy to follow up on every suggestion but if you have something
> relevant to point out that he has said, I'll gladly consider it.
>
> SWM
No requirement you follow up on any or every. I've changed the thread
name as I'm clearly taking over with my own points here.
Kirby
Other related posts:
- » [Wittrs] Mind vs. Brain (Hawkins, Wittgenstein, Transcendentalism etc. -- Urner) -- long - kirby urner
