[Wittrs] Re: Nominalism / Sean
- From: "iro3isdx" <xznwrjnk-evca@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sat, 05 Sep 2009 21:46:50 -0000
--- In Wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, "jrstern" <jrstern@...> wrote:
>> Naturally, I disagree with that. What makes something computation
>> is a matter of intention, and intentions are not anything like 100%
>> observable.
> Further down you concede another usage, that computation
> is what computers do. I believe that is not just a good
> folk usage, but a good theoretical usage.
But that begs the question of "what is a computer." For folk usage, a
computer is a box you buy at the store that has "computer" on the
label, but that won't do for theoretical usage.
> Let us call any brute computation C0 and computation that is
> intentional C1.
That begs the question of "what is brute computation."
> Some random program, some infinite loop, that occurs in a forest
> and nobody hears it, should be C0, right?
And that is where the begged question about brute computation begins to
present a problem.
>>> The first is Searle's "derived intentionality", which claims
>>> computer systems, like written words on a page, don't say
>>> anything, until a privileged human comes along and makes sense
>>> of them.
>> I can go along with that - sort of. But it fails to account for
>> what computers do when there is no human trying to make sense
>> of them.
> And that in turn fails to account for why it should matter,
> if humans are trying to make sense of them.
It matters if you are trying to give an account of computation that is
purely physical, independent if human intentions. I am inclined to
doubt that can be done without changing the meaning of "computation"
beyond recognition.
So let's get back to dealing with it in terms of derived
intentionality.
What we consider computational, about computers, is that they represent
information for us. And their action is based on what is represented.
What makes it derived intentionality, is that they are representing the
information for us, under our interpretation, and not for themselves.
In order to have original intentionality, a computer would have to
represent information for itself under its own interpetation. And our
computers don't do that.
There's actually an interesting point here. If we examine what is
happening in the operating system, rather than in the application
programs, then we see the representation of information about the state
of the computer. Mostly, we don't care about that, provided only that
the computer works. So, within the activity of the operating system,
we have representation of information for the system (rather than for
us), albeit under our interpretation. So this seems to be something
that is stronger (more significant) than derived intentionality, though
weaker than original intentionality. It's a kind of in-between
intentionality. It perhaps has a similar status to the use of hormones
in our bodies to represent internal biological states, and perhaps also
has some similarity to the proprioception system.
There is another important point, however. The operating system does
not conform to the Turing model of computation.
You might say that there is a sense in which the operating system
represents a self for the computer system, and the representations used
in the operating system are used for self-interest.
It is my contention that this "in between" kind of intentionality is a
stepping stone toward original intentionality. Maybe I'll leave
further discussion of that to future posts.
If you want to think of the brain as a computer, then I would say that
what it is doing is 100% operating system, and 0% applications. So we
should not expect it to conform to the Turing model, since that is
really intended to characterize the kind of computation that is used in
applications.
Regards,
Neil
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