[Wittrs] Re: Nominalism / Neil
- From: "iro3isdx" <xznwrjnk-evca@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Fri, 11 Sep 2009 03:29:42 -0000
--- In Wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, "jrstern" <jrstern@...> wrote:
>> Searle's wall is not running the WordStar program, no matter
>> how you look at it.
> Quite. And no other interpretational view is
> significantly better.
> I mean, sure a cat is a cat only if I interpret it
> as such, if I interpret it as a dishrag, well, it
> may make a nice dishrag in a certain context. But
> it's still a cat, too.
That sort of argument only works because the question of what is a cat
is not contentious.
> I approve of "mechanism". Shanker calls the entire Turing
> project "mechanist". I think that's right.
Okay, good.
> But just slapping the label on it, is not enough. How is
> it a mechanist system works? "Derived intentionality" just
> pushes the problem around, doesn't touch it.
Well, sure. Problems such as intentionality still remain.
> Or, how about Penrose's microtubules - quantum "mechanist",
> doncha know.
I am inclined to think that biological systems are not mechanical. I am
also inclined to think that the weather is not mechanical. But perhaps
that gets back to the question of what is mechanical. And maybe that
will also turn out to be contentious.
Maybe we should start a thread on "What is mechanism?"
> But wait, if I write a mundane payroll program, and
> have a variable "person", and a statement person = "John",
> and the computer executes that, you want to say the computer
> is not using symbols?
The compiled code doesn't even contain "person" anywhere, unless that
was made an extrn, or you turned on symbolic debugging. However, my
comment was about the computer as electro-mechanical system, where no
symbols are being used at all.
> So, here's the spectrum.
> On the west horizon, that computation works by correspondence.
> On the east horizon, that computation works by derivation.
> Right in the middle, is the idea that computation works
> by mechanism.
> Each view has at least some utility, but the mechanist
> view, I believe, is both the most important (by far),
> and the one least explored, just perhaps because we
> are standing right on top of it.
I agree that the mechanist view is the most important. I'm not so sure
that it is unexamined. More likely, it is just considered passe. It
goes back at least to Babbage's Analytical Engine
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analytical_engine> .
> If LW tells us rule explanations are insufficient for how
> Johnny extends the sequence 2,4,6 ..., just why would it
> be any better for a machine?
I think I will start a separate thread on rule following.
Regards,
Neil
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