SWM wrote:

>Joseph Polanik wrote:

>>SWM wrote:

>>>What is there about the von Neumann claim concerning the I,II,III
>>>categorization, relative to the matter of observers collapsing the
>>>wave function (by observing phenomena on a quantum level), that you
>>>think undermines a Dennettian like description of consciousness?

>>I've already answered this question. to repeat, the incompatibilities
>>between a von Neumann-consistent philosophy of consciousness and a
>>Dennett-consistent philosophy of consciousness include these:

>This isn't about incompatibilities.

what else could it possibly be about?

I undertook to show that that your mechanistic, Dennett-consistent
theory of consciousness can't possibly be true unless the von Neumann
Interpretation of QM is wrong.

I don't have to prove the von Neumann is right or that Dennett is wrong
to accomplish what I've set out to show; and, you don't have to prove
that von Neumann is wrong or that Dennett is right to contest my claim.

it's all about compatibility.

>We know your account and Dennett's are incompatible. Your claim hinges
>on there being an essential feature of whatever it is we mean by
>"consciousness" that isn't adequately accounted for in Dennett's type
>of model.

>>2. in a Dennett-consistent PoC, consciousness (as defined therein) is
>>epiphenomenal --- causally ineffective and certainly not the source of
>>a free will (if there is one at all in such a PoC).

>Ah, here we seem to be getting at something that has been passed over
>lightly before. But first let me say that Dennett's account does not
>imply epiphenomenalism if by that you mean that mind has no effect on
>the world but merely goes along for the ride. Since Dennett's model is
>that there is no separate realm of mind, only a particular realm of
>physical interactions which happen to have the features of
>subjectiveness, mind and the physical behaviors of the brain are seen
>to being part of the same phenomenon (though expressed in both
>objectively observable and subjectively apprehendable ways).

>Freedom of will is another and different issue and requires unpacking
>on its own terms.

what needs unpacking now is the metaphor Dennett uses to describe the
true state of the self (which admittedly thinks of itself as a causally
effective agent). Dennett says that the self (that narrative center of
gravity that claims to be an agent) is like the press secretary who is
out of the decision-making loop.

how can the out-of-the-loop press secretary be anything other than
epiphenomenal?

how can a narrative center of gravity be causally effective at anything?

Joe

--

Nothing Unreal is Self-Aware

@^@~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~@^@
http://what-am-i.net
@^@~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~@^@

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--- In Wittrs@yahoogroups.com, Joseph Polanik <jPolanik@...> wrote:
>
> SWM wrote:
>
<snip>

>
> >This isn't about incompatibilities.
>
> what else could it possibly be about?
>
> I undertook to show that that your mechanistic, Dennett-consistent
> theory of consciousness can't possibly be true unless the von Neumann
> Interpretation of QM is wrong.
>

You did and I replied. The last I looked it appeared that you had boiled this down to a claim that Dennett's model precludes free will and that free will is the feature of consciousness it cannot account for.

The incompatibility of the two models isn't the point. Many models are incompatible with one another but just being incompatible doesn't say that one is wrong if there is no reason to believe the one the ostensibly "wrong" model is incompatible with is right. What undermines a claim like Dennett's is if it can be shown to fail in giving a full account of what it is intended to account for.


> I don't have to prove the von Neumann is right or that Dennett is wrong
> to accomplish what I've set out to show; and, you don't have to prove
> that von Neumann is wrong or that Dennett is right to contest my claim.
>
> it's all about compatibility.
>

Compatibility with alternative accounts is irrelevant. Dennett's model is incompatible with many kinds of claims but then they are incompatible with Dennett's. Unless Dennett's is shown to be right, then that incompatibility has no implications for their potential rightness or wrongness.

<snip>

>
> >Freedom of will is another and different issue and requires unpacking
> >on its own terms.
>
> what needs unpacking now is the metaphor Dennett uses to describe the
> true state of the self (which admittedly thinks of itself as a causally
> effective agent). Dennett says that the self (that narrative center of
> gravity that claims to be an agent) is like the press secretary who is
> out of the decision-making loop.
>
> how can the out-of-the-loop press secretary be anything other than
> epiphenomenal?
>

By presuming that the self (consciousness in this case) is multi-layered and that the "press secretary" isn't the bottom line agent. That doesn't mean there isn't an agential aspect to the process-based system in the brain that constitutes the consciousness. It just means that all aspects of the agential system are not equal.

> how can a narrative center of gravity be causally effective at anything?
>
> Joe
>

See above.

SWM

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--- In Wittrs@yahoogroups.com, "J D" <wittrsamr@...> wrote:

> SWM,

> You really are incorrigible.
>

You mean you don't like my approach to dealing with seemingly endlessly long posts like your last one?

> > Suffice it to say I
> > initially responded to all of that but, on noting half way
> > through that you finally get down to some brass tacks I
> > realized there was no reason to respond to all your initial
> > caveats and hemming and hawing.
>
> Your seeming complete inability or unwillingness to read things through before replying,

Of course my point was that I had read through the last one of yours and had decided to focus on your second half (setting aside my response to your ongoing caveats about why you didn't feel obliged, or think it sensible, to look at the older commentary to back up your earlier claims about the older commentary, etc.). But then, after telling us why you didn't do what I had asked in the first half you proceeded to do at least a little of it in the second half.

But I am "incorrigible" for deciding to focus on that second half? Good grief, why should you expect me to have endless hours to devote to reading through repetitive remarks which mostly make the same claims repeatedly? Isn't that more about filibustering than discussing?

After all this sturm und drang, it looks to me like you have finally managed to specify your objections to my view and that, based on this, we can be seen to have one or two main points of disagreement, the most important being your claim that by "solely in virtue of" Searle means to so narrow the field of possible models that just about every response anyone produces is going to fall outside of his category of "Strong AI". As noted I find that unconvincing on the merits of what he says 1) in the course of his many defenses of the CRA, 2) on the basis of how he actually uses the argument in discussion with his critics and 3) because to treat "Strong AI" as you claim he is treating it is to trivialize it which he shows no sign of doing (i.e., he clearly thinks he has made a substantive and important point about computationalism).

> your compulsion to rush through without thinking about the overall discussion - as evidenced by what you describe here - seem to be
> symptomatic of an overall intellectual laziness.

Say rather that you wrote one of the longest (and most repetitive) posts that I have ever encountered and that I haven't the time to treat your work on this list as a treatise warranting scholarly attention (much as you may desire that). In that last post of yours, as in many of your posts, you make the same point over and over. After a while what is the gain in my responding in the same way each time? It can all be said much more succinctly and clearly (as I have just done above in this post).

> Be that as it may, it only confirms my suspicion that exchanges with you are utterly pointless.
>
> Not that further confirmation was needed.
>

I have concluded the same about you, even before I read that latest massive (and massively repetitive) post. As I've long said, you are under no obligation to correspond with me and I am under none to do so with you. I usually respond when anyone says something substantive to a point I've made or if they just say something that interests me. Your assertion that I had misunderstood Searle fit both criteria. But now I see what your position is (that Searle really didn't mean to talk about computationalism generally by his Chinese Room argument) and I think it is quite wrong.

Whether you proceed to adduce evidence for your position or not, as I have requested, is up to you. If you think you can and try to do this, and it looks like it warrants a response from me, I will weigh in on the matter. If not, I no longer see a strong reason to play this game with you.

> Any conceivable obligation I might possibly have had to answer you has been completely discharged. And if you presume now to suggest otherwise, then you are as arrogant and manipulative as you are lazy and thoughtless.
>
> JPDeMouy
>

And you, whatever your gender, are obnoxious and uncivil.

SWM

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--- In Wittrs@yahoogroups.com, "SWM" <SWMirsky@...> wrote:

JPD:
> And if you presume now to suggest otherwise, then you are as arrogant
> and manipulative as you are lazy and thoughtless.

SWM:
> And you, whatever your gender, are obnoxious and uncivil.

Now, children, can you take that outside?

What's really going on here, is that we are talking about vague
concepts, and people disagree on meaning. So one person can present
what seems to be a convincing argument, while the other can see that as
missing the point entirely.

In short, people are talking past one another. It would be better to
recognize the miscommunication, and to avoid ascribing motives.

Regards,
Neil

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--- In Wittrs@yahoogroups.com, Sean Wilson <whoooo26505@...> wrote:
>
<snip>

>
> Consider. What is the essence of "chair?" This is a problematic question. But it is much less problematic to say what framework does a "chair" have? The answer is sitting. And so the one thing that all "chairs" have in common is being used as a seating device. This isn't a definition. It doesn't mean that anything you can sit on is a "chair;" it's a framework.  It means that all those things we call "chairs" are seating items.
>

Perhaps not. What of the sculpted chair in an art show, the painting of a chair, a doll house chair, the model of a chair for reproduction purposes? Moreover, a rock that we sit on would still generally be called a rock and not a chair, no? (Though we can think of instances where someone might haul a rock home and set it up along side his or her chairs in the house and declare it a chair, too. I know a sculptor who works in wood and carved a seat out of an old tree stump and sold it as a chair. Was it a piece of sculpture, a chair [presuming the buyer decided to use it as such in his/her home despite its high cost] or just a carved out tree stump?)

Well they all have some things in common (can be used for seating, at least if there were sitters who could use them [does the doll placed on the chair in a doll house sit on it?], can be deployed in a habitation as a part of the furnishings or can represent something that would be so deployed, etc.). What it looks like is just more family resemblance here, no essence unless one defined "essence" so abstractly as to incorporate a class of family resemblances -- but then how do we close the class and, if we can't, can we call it an "essence"?

Yet we do use "essence" and "essential" in everyday language and usually understand what we mean. This "essence" can be the source of fragrance in a perfume but also a particular quality, factor or element which, within a very particular context, serves in the role of being the common element shared by several items.

> Consider another family-resemblance word: "games." What is the essence of games? We don't know. What is the framework for things we call "games?" Answer: playing. Show me a game that isn't played. Once again, this isn't a definition -- we play instruments, too. But it is the one thing that family resemblance items have in common.
>

But is "playing" always the same thing? We play chess or baseball or solitaire but someone who is said to be engaging in game playing in how that person relates to other people is not doing anything like the play involved in participating in a game yet there is a relation between the different kinds of "playing", too. To play chess and to play with someone in conversation aren't really to do the same thing either. So "playing" is as much subject to a family resemblance analysis as "games".

  
> Consider: what is a Kennedy? It's a stipulated-rule for a family membership. We stipulate that the offspring of X and Y, or adoptions, count. That's the framework. And each individual member of "Kennedy" may or may not have certain features -  wealth, teeth and hair -- but each is still different and bears family resemblance to each other. And so, the things we call "Kennedy" are a cluster of things with a shared framework.
>
> Can we replace talk of essence with framework?
>
> P.S. -- I just stuck it in my paper, so if not, do a favor and help an old man out.
>

It sounds a little odd to my ear. What is a "framework"? Is it the conditions within which something may happen or is it the skeletal underpinnings of a physical thing (the framework of the boat or house we are building), or the context within which something works? Mustn't "framework" also be understood in terms of family resemblances? And, if so, what is gained by explaining essences in terms of frameworks?

Are "family resemblances" all the same or is there an essence (essential meaning) of this term's uses, too? Is a family resemblance that's characterized by a similar looking nose (or a group of recurring characteristics among family members including nose similarities) the same thing as a family resemblance characterized by things that we do (how we use certain words, the ways we engage in certain activities like games)?

Are all "family resemblances" to be understood as a series of similarities that overlap and, if so, is THAT best seen as being the essence of the term "family resemblance" itself? Or its "framework"? Can we do without a word like "essence" or "essential"? Presumably not (or we would have dropped the term, having no use for it), in which case isn't the problem just that sometimes philosophers and even lay people tend to look for a more rigorously applied use of "essence" than our real everyday uses actually provide?

In seeking to explain family resemblances as frameworks, aren't you looking for the essence of that term and, if so, can that work within a Wittgensteinian framework grounded in the replacement of a belief in essential features with the idea that there are only gradations of likenesses which can be grouped in different ways depending on context and need? Maybe it would be best to avoid looking for this kind of formulation entirely?

SWM

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--- In Wittrs@yahoogroups.com, "jrstern" <jrstern@...> wrote:
>
> > > Have you read Ruth Garrett Millikan?
> >
> > Not firsthand but only by way of references elsewhere. Is "Biosemantics" the term you were searching for?
>
> No, I think it must be "proper function", although I was recalling
> it as "proper type".

The other term used to categorize her is "teleosemantics" which
some see putting her together with Fodor.

I think it fits Millikan, much less so Fodor.

And I'm afraid it's time for me to do a quick reread of Millikan's
"On Clear and Confused Ideas", the shorter and more readable version
of her complete theories.

Josh

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