[Wittrs] Re: Bogus Claim 3: Validity Issues: Conjunction or Equivocation
- From: "gabuddabout" <gabuddabout@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: wittrsamr@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 27 Apr 2010 21:20:33 -0000
Stuart writes:
> While it's true enough that I have made and acknowledged errors over the
> years (including once thinking the CRA was correct!) I hardly think that you,
> Budd, can be trusted to give a fair account of what my past errors were.
> Perhaps you can offer a link here to where I acknowledged the mistake you say
> I made?
Are you saying that you don't remember entirely omitting the noncausality claim
of the third premise in one of your demonstrations that the conclusion of the
CRA was, ipso facto, entirely gotten from nowhere?
Secondly, I don't buy that you were mistaken in thinking the CRA was correct
once. Where you are mistaken is thinking that Searle equivocates. But this is
because you apparently can't distinguish between what Searle is actually
distinguishing, i.e., S/H vis a vis nonS/H systems. Once you conflate the two
you can hold Searle's position while denying it. But you lose what Searle was
talking about, thus getting both S/H systems wrong and Searle's meaning of the
first premise wrong.
In fact, Neil told me point blank that Searle shouldn't have taken the AIers so
seriously. And that he shouldn't even have distinguished strong from weak AI.
I don't think he makes this claim from an informed reading of the target
article from BBS.
He can correct me if he thinks I'm mistaken.
>
> In fact, I initially thought the problem with the CRA lay elsewhere, i.e., in
> a dual meaning of the identity aspect of the claim and have since revised my
> view to note that it's a conflation of the identity and causal readings of
> the third premise.
>
> I also, for what it's worth, think there are other problems attendant on the
> other premises including ambiguities in the meanings of "syntax" and
> "semantics" but I think they are rather marginal concerns compared to the
> equivocal wording of the third premise and the underlying dualistic
> conceptualization of consciousness which informs what Searle wants us to take
> away from the CR scenario.
Well how many times are you going to remain oblivious to the noncausality claim
inherent in the first premise. RUNNING PROGRAMS are still abstract unless they
are spelled out in 1st order brute causal terms. Programs are not so spelled
out and it is in virtue of this that they have the power to simulate as well as
they do.
If you want to conflate simulation with duplication, then you're a behaviorist.
If you want to say that some computational systems aren't complex enough (the
CRA and the rote translation idea which amounts to denying that the CR is UTM
equivalent), then the complexity you're after is in terms of brute force (this
is Searle's position) or it is in terms of computation (somehow) adding to the
brute force (and this trades on conflating computation with brute force when,
like I said, computers don't work that way).
>
>
> > After that, he then tried to say that the noncausality claim was being
> > squeezed from the nonidentity claim of the third premise. I eventaully got
> > around to saying that the noncausality claim is part of what the first
> > premise entails.
> >
>
> A link or two to show us what I said and what you "eventually got around to
> saying" would be most helpful. It certainly beats self-interested testimony!
I end by acknowledging that you're a forgetful sort or are lying.
>
> > He insisted on treating the CRA as if it had no connection with his target
> > article because, as an argument, it could be evaluated separately.
>
> "He" still insists on that since an argument, if it's any good, stands or
> falls on its own terms. Note that this is not to deny the significance of
> context but only to say that one should read the argument and not try to
> reinterpret it according to what one hopes will be the least deleterious
> reading of it.
But you've insisted on not seeing the premises from the enlightened view of
them reached through understanding the target article.
>
> On the other hand, Searle himself has spent years revising and refining it
> and many of the iterations look quite different from earlier ones.
Are you really trying to sell us the idea that of the different forms his
argument has undergone, any content whatsoever is different? I claim that if
you can understand his claims, every single formulation of his arguemnt,
including the summary in eight points in the APA address all have the same
content.
That said, I have always agreed to consider ANY version of the argument
offered on this list by any of the posters (as long as it is an honest
rendering of what Searle actually said at one point or other). Given that we
have discussed here the 1980 version, the late eighties version and the early
nineties version. I'm not particular and always prepared to consider any
legitimate version of it you or anyone else here has desired to offer.
Would that include the target article too?
>
>
> > He kept on insisting that Searle made the argument and I kept insisting
> > that he should see the argument in relation to the target article.
> >
>
> You have still failed to tell us what in the "target article" (what, by the
> way, does "target article" even mean???) is relevant and not being addressed
> in these discussions here?
So after all these years Stuart doesn't know what the target article is that
started the whole business of the CRA? That's just a lie or a case of being
benighted! Cf. "Minds, Brains and Programs," BBS (Behavioral and Brain
Sciences) 3, (3): 417-457, 1980.
>
> Moreover, why not provide a link, along with the information about what is
> relevant, to the "target article" (circa 1980) that you deem so important to
> understanding Searle's CRA circa 2010! It should be easy enough to do if you
> think it's so critical.
You entirely are out of your gourd and lazy to boot. The APA address served to
clarify Searle's thought too. It's just that you are too used to being what
Austin would claim of Wittgenstein: "It's just too loose!"
>
>
>
> > I thought this a bit cheesy. And it continues to this day when just a
> > couple days ago Stuart seemed not to know what I weas referring to when
> > speaking of the target article.
> >
>
> I still don't. If you mean the earliest article by Searle on this subject, it
> is surely outdated given all his subsequent refinements and iterations.
Not so. It's just that you refuse to make a distinction Searle makes.
Moreover, the distinction he makes blocks every attempt of yours to prove he
must have a dualist conception of the mental and physical in mind.
My thesis is that it is you that holds such a thesis so bad that you must find
it even in the only place in the world where it isn't! Yes, I just asserted it
without argument because, I haven't shown why you get Searle wrong in the past,
because, well, you are very forgetful.
Cheers,
Budd
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