[Wittrs] Re: An Issue Worth Focusing On
- From: "SWM" <SWMirsky@xxxxxxx>
- To: wittrsamr@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Mon, 10 May 2010 13:15:29 -0000
--- In Wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, Joseph Polanik <jPolanik@...> wrote:
<snip>
>
> >Your version of translating "doesn't constitute" into "doesn't count
> >as" is still a non-identity claim. Of course, the CR does show the
> >non-identity of syntax and semantics as I've already said. The problem
> >is that we still have to get to a non-causal claim as in brains cause
> >minds but computers can't! And the CR does not demonstrate that what we
> >call minds are not just an outcome of a certain arrangement of
> >syntactical constituents which is a legitimate way in which we could
> >say that causation occurs.
>
> >The problem is that the claim of constitution as "counts as" that you
> >have offered unpacks to a variant of a claim of identity. While
> >"constitutes" has a range of uses in English, the only one that's
> >relevant here looks like it has to do with identity. Noting that a
> >thing is not the same as the class in which it is placed, that while it
> >counts as a member of that class it is not the same as that class, is
> >still a claim of non-identity. And such a claim still does not imply
> >non-causality.
>
> you appear to be saying that I am mistaken to claim that the hypothesis
> of scenario 2, 'syntax constitutes semantics', is falsified by the
> absence of understanding despite the presence of syntax in the CR
> *because* every claim of constitution is a claim of identity and the
> hypothesis, 'syntax is identical to semantics', is falsified by the
> absence of understanding despite the presence of syntax in the CR.
>
Here we get into the linguistic issue. Searle, as we know, uses a constitutive
example (molecules of H2O behaving in a certain way) as a basis of making a
causal claim about water's features. That is not the same as saying 'the cue
ball caused the eight ball to roll into that corner pocket' of course, and it
has been argued that Searle's use is better described as an identity claim. I
don't agree because, as Searle notes, wetness is not found on the atomic level
where, if we could be present as observers, we would "see" something entirely
different and unrecognizable as what we mean by "wetness" going on.
Thus, while it's fair to say that wetness is just these molecules behaving in a
certain way, the phenomenon we recognize as wetness only occurs at a certain
level of observation. Those molecules and their behavior can be said to be
causal of the phenomenon of wetness. In this sense of "cause" constitution is
the relevant dynamic (though on a purely atomic level, of course, we could
explain everything in terms of the same physics, i.e., both the striking of the
eight ball by the cue ball and the wetness of water reflect the particular way
in which particular atomic level particles are arranged and interact -- which
is why a scientific causal explanation can have this constitutive form).
If Searle's "does not constitute" claim means what we mean in the above
description of the way water's molecular behavior constitutes wetness, this
would be a causal claim, using Searle's own terms and it would NOT be
demonstrated as "conceptually true" by the CR because, in fact, the CR's
failure to be conscious (to understand) only relates to the particular
arrangement of its constituent elements. After all, not every atomic
arrangement yields wetness!
If Searle means, rather, 'is not the same as', then this (as a logical claim)
IS conceptually true as he points and shown to be so in the CR (though we don't
need the CR to realize this, it's just an aid).
But then it is just a claim of non-identity of the constituent elements and
non-identity of the constituent elements is irrelevant to the question of
whether some combination of those same elements are the same as what we mean by
"consciousness" (proxied here as understanding). That is, such non-identity is
irrelevant to what can be caused by these elements in particular combinations
just as individual H2O molecules aren't wet but in the right combination under
the right conditions, they are.
SWM
> if I have misunderstand, would you clarify what you are saying in these
> paragraphs?
>
> Joe
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