[Wittrs] Re: Nominalism / Neil
- From: "jrstern" <jrstern@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 09 Sep 2009 22:55:34 -0000
--- In Wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, Neil Rickert <xznwrjnk-evca@...> wrote:
>
> No realm is required. I can recognize that they are fictions, and
> thus do not actually exist. It is simply a matter of convenience
> to talk about them as if they exist, since that's the language game
> in use.
Be very careful, or you'll simply be describing nominalism!
> >But, I am not telling you to not invent realms,
> >but I am describing how one does things like have
> >a thought about realms.
>
> >You start by producing some symbols like, "Take this realm".
>
> That's not likely to work. Often I will have an idea first, and
> then invent a name for it later.
An idea is its own default name - usually a not very convenient one.
> > It's a restatement of the Church/Turing thesis in physicalist
> > terms.
>
> The Church/Turing thesis proposes a logical account of computation,
> not a physical account. It would not work as a physical account.
That's why it needs restating.
> For one thing, humans doing computations make mistakes, which they
> sometimes go back to correct. CT does not attempt to account for
> that. It's a logical account of idealized mistake free computation.
In its pure form, I suppose you have a point.
However, I believe Turing, Church, and Godel, and maybe Post,
include full enumerations in their theories, including all possible
errors as well as correct theories.
You don't think computers ever give wrong results?
> >But I, and millions of others, do this every day, when we program
> >computers. Yes, I know, we leave our magical vibrations on the
> >marks, such that even in our absence, the symbols we've made,
> >when the computer is plugged in and operating, do the right thing.
>
> That seems confused.
>
> The computer is an electro-mechanical device. You, and others,
> make a computational interpretation of what that device is doing.
I believe that is too simple, that is, untrue.
Comes down to the paint on Searle's wall.
If it's all about interpretation, Searle is right.
> And then you make changes that appear as symbols in your intentional
> interpretation. However, physically those changes are simply
> changes in the causal structure of the electro-mechanical device.
> When the computer is later operating, even in your absence, it is
> doing so as an electro-mechanical device. No symbols are involved,
> and no invisible magical vibrations are required.
That seems odd. Even by your theory, I put symbols in there.
So, they are symbols only when I'm watching?
I cannot accept that. Can you?
> >What horribly unlikely (and regressive, and essentialist)
> >explanations!
>
> The essentialism comes from you, with your insistence on considering
> computation to be physical.
A physicalist theory is by convention not "essentialist", but I
suppose you could argue the point - with nothing really riding
on it by phrasing.
> If you properly recognize the computer
> as just doing electro-mechanical operations, then there is nothing
> essentialist.
Exactamundo.
> >Now, what of our man Wittgenstein? Well, per Sean's last post to
> >me, we can take Wittgenstein at his later word, which I think is
> >an extreme, eliminativist empiricism, that neither abstractions
> >nor generalizations nor rules, explain discourse, belief, analysis.
>
> That seems misplaced. I would think of eliminativism as the denial
> that there is any belief, and perhaps the denial that there is
> any discourse. I don't see that in Wittgenstein. Surely, he is
> just pointing out what should be obvious, namely that the rule
> based explanations that are traditionally given are failures.
Well, that is problematic.
It suggests rule-based would not work for machines, either,
when obviously it does.
Rereading my Shanker#2, Chapter 4, "Models of Discovery", mostly
review Wittgenstein's remarks and lectures on psychology. I've
never read them, and I guess I skipped over most of this chapter
when I read it before. Under this "psychology" heading, Wittgenstein
sounds behaviorist - and even more eliminativist about that. IOW,
from the quotations and discussion in Shanker, I'd say these remarks
on psychology are even further from the Turing / mechanist theories,
than even the rule-based arguments. Have you read those, RPP I,
RPP II, GWL?
Per Shanker, I believe Wittgenstein's discussions of rules has
something to say, but then turns out to be only part way into
his skepticism, and further out, I think there is less of value,
to be polite about it.
BTW, I'm also reading parts of Hodges "The Enigma", biography of
Turing, which does suggest more context and connection for Turing's
two major works, than I'd really known before. Not a lot there
about Wittgenstein, though.
Josh
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