[Wittrs] Re: Are We Actually Going to Discuss Searle's Reasoning Now?
- From: "SWM" <SWMirsky@xxxxxxx>
- To: wittrsamr@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 20 Apr 2010 13:47:22 -0000
--- In Wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, Joseph Polanik <jPolanik@...> wrote:
> SWM wrote:
>
> >I made a case for Searle's dualism based on what Searle says in his
> >CRA ... I defend my position by going through Searle's reasoning that I
> >have said involves making a dualist assumption in order to support the
> >conclusion of the CRA.
>
> at last you are beginning to recognize the problem; and, that's a small
> step toward overcoming that problem.
Is that so?
>
> instead of alleging that Searle's reasoning based on the CRT was
> inadequate to prove that the third axiom of the CRA was true, you've
> spent years alleging that something in Searle's reasoning implied,
> entailed and/or presumed Cartesian dualism.
>
I'm not going to continue wasting a lot of time on this kind of nonsense, Joe.
To discuss the flaws in a set of claims, includes taking into account the
implications of those claims. This IS to discuss the reasoning.
> do you wish to continue discussing Searle's alleged dualism; or, do you
> you wish to begin discussing Searle's reasoning in relation to the
> argument that the third axiom is true?
>
I guess you just miss the point. Or choose to.
> if the latter, then there are *many* unanswered questions about your
> reading of Searle's reasoning. here are two to get you started.
>
Is this like one of your presumptuous logic lessons?
> for Dennett, consciousness is a system property of the brain. you allege
> that, for Searle, consciousness is a process property of the brain.
> assuming that this is Searle's position, would you explain how the claim
> that consciousness is a process property of the brain undermines
> Searle's case that the third axiom is true --- without digressing into
> further irrelevant blathering about implications of dualism.
>
Any "blathering" here is your own. If you can't follow my points, it's not my
problem or concern any longer. (You may, of course, go back to the point I made
about how only a non-identity claim is conceptually true and how, to be
relevant to the CRA's conclusions, consciousness [or its proxy here:
understanding] must be seen to be identical with something present in the CR,
as it has been specked, and how, for that to be the case, consciousness needs
to be conceived of in a certain way. But I know that my saying even this much
is an invitation for you to embark again on that same road of endless
argumentation you like to travel -- but I guess I'm a sucker for punishment.)
> secondly, would you explain the basis for the claim that Searle holds
> that consciousness is a process property of the brain?
>
I'd rather NOT be drawn again into repeating myself just so you can keep this
going in another endless cycle. The answer you claim to be after has already
been provided numerous times!
> it seems to me that Searle's actual position is that consciousness is a
> system property of the brain; although, AFAIK, he never uses the exact
> phrase 'system property'.
>
Right, I make no claim he uses that term. I do make the point that he is in
self-contradiction, holding one idea of consciousness with regard to brains,
another re: computers.
He gets by, doing that, by avoiding explicating how he supposes brains do it
(leaving that to science). But the mere supposition that brains do it in a
system way, dependent on physical processes, suggests that other physical
platforms could do the same and computers are physical platforms, too. So the
issue is why can't computers do it?
His argument purports to make a case that they can't because of what they are,
i.e., they are abstract in nature, just syntax as he likes to say. But
computers are no more abstract, no more syntactical, than brains as far as we
know. The obvious differences between brains and computers are that computers
are manmade, consist of inorganic materials, and run on the principle of
electrons flowing through gateways embedded in silicon chips while brains are
naturally occurring, organic (cellular based on organic chemistry) and operate
on a chemical basis to generate their much slower electrical charges.
While some, like Edelman and Hawkins, advance reasons which they believe
disqualify computers as candidates for emulating brains, their reasons are
empirically based claims, subject to experimental considerations. Edelman, for
instance, proposes that only a certain level of organically generated
complexity, for which we need serendipitous selectionism, rather than planned
programming, could achieve something equivalent to what brains do. Hawkins, for
his part, says that brains are inherently too slow to operate like computers so
they must rely on a mechanism that is finally different AND simpler than the
multi-step algorithms of computer programming. (That is, Hawkins posits a
relatively simple algorithm at the level of the neuron that enables neuronal
clusters to operate with greater complexity in groups.)
Searle's case, on the other hand, is a logical one, i.e., that the very nature
of computers precludes them from consideration (syntax not being enough for
semantics). But since we don't know what it is about brains that does the job,
we don't know that computers can't do it, too, and the Searlean idea of
"syntax" is inadequately explicated and given to confusion between the concept
of an abstraction and the idea of physical events.
The argument about syntax not being enough for semantics is not demonstrated in
the CR, contra Searle, because it is not shown by that scenario to be
conceptually true as Searle asserts unless one already assumes it is.
There is ONE possibility for the Searlean argument to work and that is that
consciousness (or its relevant proxy) is taken to be identical with some
constituent of the CR, i.e., for it to be present it needs to be there as a
property of one or more of the system's constituent processes. But that is
assumed by Searle, not demonstrated, reflecting the idea that consciousness
isn't reducible to some constituents that aren't themselves conscious.
This assumption is the underlying dualism implicit in Searle's thinking which
Dennett rightly notes in that passage I cited.
My point from the beginning has been that this finally comes down to competing
conceptions of consciousness. But you can't make a successful argument for a
particular conception if you start out by assuming THAT conception.
(Note that my argument isn't that Dennett's thesis is true while Searle's is
false. It's that Dennett's is a viable thesis for empirical testing contra
Searle's assertion that it isn't.)
> my impression as to Searle's actual position is based on the following
> passage from "Consciousness as a biological problem" which is one of the
> essays collected in _The Mystery of Consciousness_ [p. 17-18].
>
> "To summarize my general position, then, on how brain research can
> proceed in answering the questions that bother us: the brain is an organ
> like any other; it is an organic machine. Consciousness is caused by
> lower-level neuronal processes in the brain and is itself a feature of
> the brain. Because it is a feature that emerges from certain neuronal
> activities, we can think of it as an 'emergent property' of the brain.
> An emergent property of a system is one that is causally explained by
> the behavior of the elements of the system; but, it is not a property of
> any individual elements and it cannot be explained simply as a summation
> of the properties of those elements. The liquidity of water is a good
> example: the behavior of the H20 molecules explains liquidity but the
> individual molecules are not liquid".
>
> you may be tempted to explain how this passage shows that Searle is a
> closet Cartesian dualist; but, you are free to explain how this passage
> undermines Searle's case that the third axiom of the CRA is true.
>
My argument isn't that Searle is completely mistaken about everything nor would
I suggest that THIS passage demonstrates the dualism I have accused Searle of.
In fact, I think his description about how brains work to produce consciousness
looks right, as far as it goes.
My point, rather, is that he is in self-contradiction here since he doesn't
stick with such a view of consciousness when he starts talking about computers.
There his argument depends on a picture of consciousness that is inconsistent
with what he says about brains. So either he is contradicting himself or he is
dualist with regard to the emergent properties of consciousness that he
ascribes to brains. That is, he is supposing that these properties or features
pop into the world as some new, irreducible entity. Since I don't think he
would actually say that, I believe his mistake lies, rather, in the conclusions
he wants to take from the CR thought experiment via his CRA, i.e., he is unable
to shake the idea that consciousness is an irreducible, even while admitting
that it IS reducible in brains.
If you have actually been processing my past posts you will recall ample
evidence on this and prior lists that part of my point is that Searle
contradicts himself. Thus finding some explicit statements of Searle that are
contrary to some of the things I assert of Searle cannot be evidence that he is
not in self-contradiction. If he contradicts himself, it follows that there
will be some statements of his that are contradictory to other claims he makes.
> it's your call.
>
> Joe
>
See above.
SWM
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