[Wittrs] Re: On the Mechanism of Understanding
- From: "Stuart W. Mirsky" <SWMirsky@xxxxxxx>
- To: Wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Fri, 14 Aug 2009 20:39:35 -0000
--- In Wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, kirby urner <kirby.urner@...> wrote:
>
> >> telepathy
> >> (Ã¥ ) å¿Æ'é Ë?æâ??Ÿæâ?¡â?°, Ã¥â??³å¿Æ'è¡" (getting this Unicode
> >> OK?)
> >>
>
> Yikes.
>
> > Again, the idea that understanding "understanding" is just a matter of
> > asking about the many uses of the word in ordinary language is simply the
> > wrong approach here. What's of interest in this case is how minds work (in
> > this case that means how brains work). The question before us, what does it
> > mean "to understand" is not directed to word usage in a range of typical
> > contexts. It's not behaviorally oriented. It's after a mechanical type
> > answer. The context is very precise: it is how do human minds achieve
> > understanding and what happens in the brain to produce or manifest
> > understanding?
>
> And I'm saying that whole line of approach is a dead end based on
> philosophical confusions, that so-called "cognitive science" as
> represented here by Edelman and Hawkins is little more than
> refurbished mind-body dualism from the Victorian era, popular in some
> ethnic neighborhoods, mostly anglophone.
>
So you are "saying" that there is no possibility that science could someday
produce a machine that has consciousness, has a mind?
And this is because why?
Minds are special and stand apart from what is physical (Chalmers, Strawson)?
Brains aren't computers (Edelman, Searle)?
Minds aren't based in physical processes (Searle, though he doesn't quite admit
this because he acknowledges minds are produced by brains[!] though he is never
quite willing to hazard a guess as to how)?
Do you want to say where the "dualism" is in a notion that minds are not
synthesizable? Isn't the reverse view (for any of the reasons shown immediately
above) more consistent with a claim of dualism?
> > Yes, it may be we don't think the same way. It's pretty clear to me that
> > different brains work differently. I'm pretty crumby at math but pretty
> > decent with words. I tend to think in pictures a lot but abstractions (when
> > I can't conjure up some kind of picture) don't work for me. I'm also deaf to
> > the fine points of movies though I love visual arts. My best writing (and
> > the kind I most like to read) tends to be highly visual. I expect this is
> > not the same way everyone operates.
>
> Or put it a different way: there's a family resemblance in usage
> patterns, among folks who deploy words from the English dictionary to
> printed media, but if you do more than scratch the surface, you'll see
> we're more like composers playing the guitar differently, even if
> using the same chords.
>
Does that mean computers might be an appropriate platform for a mind?
> Whether "the guitar" is "the brain" or "the printed media" (text)
> depends more on which university department you're in. Most of these
> fine associations and auto-rewiring circuits you find in "the brain"
> (because you speak a dialect of cog-sci) others find in "the text"
> (because of their literary training).
>
> Without the printed word, other records, to store the collective
> aggregating wisdom of the human species, we'd have no thinking as we
> know it today. Individual brains can't do it on their own.
> Individual brains are more like individual servers on the Internet --
> rip away the other servers and most the links break.
>
There's certainly a role for interconnectedness but I think there's no reason
to believe a person in isolation would cease to be able to think coherently
after a certain period of time.
> Most Robinson Crusoe types don't find a man Friday and become
> dysfunctional within weeks, because not connected to other brains (the
> only way they're able to work effectively). Untouched and unloved
> babies die or fail to mature.
>
Babies are one thing as there are developmental issues. But adults quite
another. What evidence do you have that most Robinson Crusoe types "become
dysfunctional within weeks"?
> A single ant does not explain the "thinking" of the ant colony, any
> more than a single brain explains the "stream of consciousness" we
> associate with civilization -- it really does take a village, at
> least.
>
> Gotta have TV to have Kirby-style or Katie-style consciousness, brains
> alone won't ever do it.
>
That's too bad!
> > In that case, there isn't a lot of point trying to talk about other usages.
> > It is THIS specialized usage that is at issue. Is that "standardized"? Well,
> > I have, over the years, developed a picture of how this works in connection
> > with my understanding of consciousness as a phenomenon in the world. I might
> > be right or I might not. But I find the suggestions of Edelman and Hawkins
> > vis a vis memory in connection with our understanding the underlying
> > constituents and dynamics of human type intelligence to be rather helpful in
> > this effort.
>
> There's a large body of mythology developed around this notion of
> "consciousness" and how it relates to "the brain".
>
There's also a large body of theory. What makes one man's theory another's
mythology? And how do we know when a theory is really a theory and not just a
mythology and vice versa?
> I'm not a big consumer of this material and don't consider it to be as
> valuable as some do, wouldn't put it on the same pedestal as computer
> science or some branches of mathematics. When it comes to thinking
> about thinking, I prefer staying with my more Wittgensteinian style of
> wiring (not in my brain, but in my texts, which will live on after my
> brain is just dust).
>
> > I suspect you are confusing metaphysical claims with scientific ones here
> > and that may be because the dividing line is often vague and difficult to
> > discern. It may also be because you have some kind of dogmatic (of your own)
> > commitment to a Wittgensteinian approach which you wrongly take to override
> > or sidestep science in certain areas (like minds?).
>
> You think it's me with the confusions. That's OK with me. I think
> you have little choice given your allegiance to those science fiction
> writers you favor.
>
I don't read science fiction and haven't since high school which, for me, was a
long time ago!
> >> What you're calling science in this context I call "science fiction"
> >> and/or "old skool philosophy" and/or "anemic metaphysics".
> >>
> >
> > You are wrong then. I think that sounds like a prejudice you are carrying
> > with you.
> >
>
> Sounds like, but I call it a bias, not a prejudice.
>
Bias is in favor of, prejudice the opposite.
> > I am not claiming a unique "understanding process". I am suggesting there
> > are proocesses which do certain things which in effect produce our
> > subjective selves including its various constituent elements and that one of
> > these is understanding. However, what we call "understanding" might be a
> > number of different processes rather than just one. More, I am suggesting
>
> I'd say understanding is not a mental process of any kind, though by a
> humongous stretch of the imagination, you can make yourself believe
> otherwise.
Or you are doing that, eh?
> I'd have to "suspend my disbelief" to get into the mood
> for such thinking.
>
In the end it's a scientific question. Simply niggling over the language
doesn't change that.
> > that the meaning of anything we understand may never be a single thing but,
> > in keeping with Edelman's idea, a constantly shifting reconstruction. Again,
> > think of the film Rashomon where different people have different memories of
> > the same event. We, according to Edelman, will also find that we remember
> > the same thing differently over time and that is likely because we are
> > relying on the mechanism of adumbration, of structural recall, that Hawkins
> > described and because, as Edelman notes, each time we remember, new
> > associations happen while older ones may fade. Memory, on this view is a
> > dynamic assembling process, contra what we call memory in a computer.
>
> It'd be fun to write an AI-bot that spits out reams of "cog-sci" of
> the type these guys write. Wouldn't be that hard.
>
You've read Edelman and Hawkins then?
> I've seen similar servers on the Internet that write "postmodernist
> papers" on the fly, with footnotes and everything. Written in Perl I
> think it was. Let's see if I can find it...
>
> Well, I found a CS paper generator instead:
>
> http://pdos.csail.mit.edu/scigen/
>
> Note that these pass the Turing Test all too often, i.e. get accepted
> at academic conferences and taken seriously.
>
> > I think that bank may need an FDIC bailout because I think you are not
> > really getting the Wittgensteinian point here, even if your view is a common
> > one among Wittgensteinian exegetes. I recall reading Malcolm a while back on
> > private language (I think it was) and marveling to myself that he seemed to
> > have missed Wittgenstein's point. (Perhaps though it was about another
> > issue. It was a long time ago.) Just being in Wittgenstein's thrall is not
> > evidence of our getting his points.
>
> Let me be an arrogant bastard from Princeton, Rorty my thesis adviser
> (wrote on Wittgenstein): I understand Wittgenstein very well, much
> better than most of my competition.
>
And yet, as you rightly point out, we are often not the best judges of our own
competence. But I take it you are invoking your thesis adviser's authority here
as certification.
Malcolm actually studied with Wittgenstein and was a good friend of his and yet
I thought he got certain things wrong. Waismann worked directly with
Wittgenstein and yet Wittgenstein thought he got him wrong, too.
> >> The grammar is malleable though. If we bring in telepathy or thought
> >> control or any number of competing science fiction ideas into the mix
> >> (as distinct from the more standard "solitary cogito" fantasy (fairy
> >> tale)) then we get changes in ethnicity (as I'd put it). We become
> >> more Chinese in our thinking, or more North American (as distinct from
> >> Anglo-European). Or maybe we're simply "crazy" (a catch all for
> >> people who wear tin foil hats cuzza HAARP or whatever -- Patrick and I
> >> are planning a beer by that brand, with the tag line: mind control:
> >> inexpensive, not cheap).
> >>
> >
> > Here you are tempting me to resume that lurker status you earlier
> > recommended to me!
> >
>
> Yeah, we're straying into other flavors of science fiction. You have
> definite and refined tastes, now what you like. I respect that in a
> man.
>
> >> I get the feeling you'd consider telepathy out of bounds, but are OK
> >> with "understanding" being an introspective process.
> >
> > You misunderstand. I am not saying understanding requires our introspection,
> > only that introspecting into what we mean by understanding yields a picture
> > of physical processes doing certain things and they may work in a certain
>
> ... a misleading picture we should immediately be suspicious of, if
> habituated to think like Wittgenstein taught us to...
>
Are you saying Wittgenstein would have claimed, as Searle does, that it is
impossible to reduce mind to non-mindlike constituent processes as part of a
scientific analysis of what brains do to produce minds?
> > way or in another and it's worth considering these different possibilities.
> > I see you are confusing this with a claim that when we understand we are
> > engaging in some special category of introspection. THAT is NOT what I have
> > presented here.
>
> You've dismissed responding re telepathy I notice.
> I assume that was
> intentional and not just an unthinking reflex or the result of mental
> blinders.
>
Yes.
> Understanding is not a process so much as an aspect of our reputation
> and therefore identity. "He understands Wittgenstein" is something
> for the resume.
I was at a wedding at one point, seated at a table with a physicist on one side
of me and, across the table, a clinical psychologist. The physicist and I were
talking about certain things vis a vis the universe (I forget the precise issue
-- the memory's among the first things to go I'm discovering). At one point the
physicist said something which I thought had a linguistic problem so I offered
a clarification and noted that this was how Wittgenstein might have dealt with
that. From across the table the psychologist's ears perked up. He said, 'ah
yes, Wittgenstein, he demonstrated the uncertainty principle, I believe'. (I
suppose he meant Heisenberg.) I responded with a little background on
Wittgenstein's ideas (though that was hard to do with the band blaring). The
psychologist nodded sagely and responded with some other not-to-the-point
remarks and we moved on to other matters (I think I went back to talking to the
physicist).
Later that evening my wife took me aside and said the psychologist had confided
to her that he was sorry to say that I really didn't know the first thing about
Wittgenstein but he didn't want to embarrass me at the table. I guess we often
aren't the best judges of our own competence, as you noted.
> How we "get there" (reach some level of
> understanding) is through all sorts of learning processes (flash
> cards? books on tape?).
>
Again you are talking about something different. I am talking about how the
brain works to produce mind whereas you are talking about the many ways human
beings achieve and express understanding. These are not the same issues. Do you
know my friend the clinical psychologist?
> Teaching others is a great way to learn as you'll get more feedback
> and reality checks. Our concept of "understand" is very intertwined
> with our concept of "able to teach others".
>
Again, this is not about the concept of understanding in all its
manifestations. It's about a particular application of the term in a very
specific domain, that of how brains produce minds. That creatures like us with
brains listen and use flash cards, books or tapes to learn and understand
things says nothing about what instances of understanding consist of. Neither
does the fact that we use the word "understand" in a broad panoply of ways.
> If a person is "not understandable" then it's difficult to accredit
> said individual with "understanding".
>
> So I see "understanding" is a social concept. Any approach that
> focuses on a solo individual and/or something private going on inside
> said individual (e.g. "in the head" or "in the gut"), is probably not
> going to be very useful to me.
>
That's because you're talking about something different than I am talking about.
> Wittgenstein's philo isn't a brand of behaviorism though. We don't
> wean ourselves off talking about mental imagery, even if we don't
> confuse said mental imagery with what it means to think, read,
> understand, know etc.
>
Gerardo, at least, seems to be saying that isn't what behaviorism really is
anyway. He may well be right and some of its critics may just be
oversimplifying it.
> Of course maybe there's a brand of behaviorism that's just fine with
> people talking how they ordinarily talk, in which case we might say
> Wittgenstein was a behaviorist of that kind even though he didn't
> think so (because this brand hadn't been invented yet).
>
> That'd be kinda like calling Jesus a Christian -- he'd have had no
> idea what that meant at first, might've gotten angry if someone
> explained it to him (like he did with those money-changers).
>
> >> I'm also trying to establish, that in saying "understanding is not a
> >> mental process" that I'm providing what many would call mainline
> >> exegesis, i.e. this isn't some quirky curious
> >> only-Kirby-thinks-that-way reading. Hence the lengthy quote above, me
> >> approving.
> >>
> >
> > I don't think that quote from Pears went to the point I was making. And I
>
> Yeah, he wouldn't have known anything about your points obviously, so
> we'll forgive him immediately.
>
Well he didn't apply it to what I was saying, you did. So if anyone stands in
need of forgiveness . . . well, it wouldn't be him!
> > certainly don't think the Wittgensteinian quote did. In both cases they seem
>
> Yeah, I'd paraphrased that Wittgenstein quote previously but wanted to
> give the verbatim version (#97), though I snipped a bit off the top.
>
> > to reflect your misunderstanding that I am arguing that in understanding
> > anything we are introspecting. I am not. I argue only that there is a
> > particular process that enables us to behave in a way that manifests what we
> > call understanding, that that process is a brain process and that this (what
> > I have sketched out) may be what it looks like (how we can describe it).
>
> I don't think there's any such process in the brain. It's not just a
> "misnomer", it's a deep logical confusion, a symptom of the kind of
> philosophical illness the PI is aimed at curing.
>
I think Rorty may have been insufficiently rigorous with you! What process do
you think is a "deep logical confusion"? Are you saying it is a logical
confusion to suppose that there are processes going on in the functioning brain
and that some of these may be implicated in the occurrence of consciousness (as
constitued by features like understanding)? If so, how is it a logical
confusion to say so? What is illogical about supposing that brains have
processes and that these are causally implicated in the occurrence of
consciousness in brains?
> Trying to make "understanding" mean a "brain process" of any kind is
> not a smart design is how I'd rate this proposal -- it's a dead end,
> grammatically speaking, too at odds with work that concept is already
> committed to doing for a day job.
>
Again. . . I will try again. Note that I am not saying anything like 'we
understand by performing some mental process or other'. I am saying that our
understanding may well best be explained as a function of certain processes
going on in the brain and that Edelman and Hawkins have separately offered
interesting ways to describe the said processes.
> These mind-body NeoVictorians can try to spin it (that concept) to
> their own purposes but I'm thinking there's too much inertia already
> built up and their house of cards therefore has a short half life.
> Time will tell.
>
What mind-bodyism do you think you see? If anything, there's is the reverse of
any notion of mind-body dualism. But perhaps you can lay it out more clearly?
> I see Wittgensteinian analysis as useful for explaining why a given
> conceptual system is unlikely to catch on, less as a tool for directly
> countering said systems i.e. we're talking predictively not
> proscriptively.
I think you see it, rather, as a tool for deciding in advance of science what
is possible through science. And that is clearly a mistake and certainly
inconsistent with Wittgenstein's own actual teachings!
> To have Wittgensteinian training is to have a more
> polished crystal ball.
Oy, no it's not. It may be to have a more polished lense for looking at the
here and now but it certainly is no mechanism for foretelling the future or
what is possible via empirical research!
> Good training for oracles (more of that
> cultish Athena talk).
>
> >> Yes, not being critical of your doing that. Plus I welcome your doing
> >> it for reasons stated above: I think in having "understanding" being
> >> some interior introspective "mind's eye" type process, you're
> >> providing valuable contrast vis-a-vis those who don't entertain such
> >> notions (including other Wittgenstein-trained analysts besides me, I'm
> >> sure of it).
> >>
> >
> > As I said, I think you've missed my point.
> >
>
> I think I got your point a long time ago. I just don't share your
> belief system.
>
Or you missed my point and don't realize it.
> > You're much more the renaissance man than I am! I feel like I've been
> > wasting my life after reading the above.
> >
>
> That's a kind and diplomatic remark.
>
> You've written about Vikings did I see? Maybe we're fellow goths in some way?
>
> Kirby
>
Not really about vikings. That's just how the aveerage joe interprets it so I
don't make a big deal about it. Helps with the marketing. It's an historical
novel, actually, based on the old Norse sagas and on the record of the Vinland
explorations. Most of the characters in the story never knew a viking (with one
important exception who is kind of a retired viking himself). Besides, it takes
place circa 1050 AD, at the tail end of the official Viking Age. Not many
vikings shooting around the coasts by then. The characters are mostly farmers
or ne'er do well riff raff doing a stint as sailors or farm hands. Not as much
fun as doing philosophy, of course, but easier to be original since in
philosophy I keep finding myself late to the party, others having gotten there
first and said what I wanted to say before me.
SWM
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