[Wittrs] Re: Bogus Claim 3: Validity Issues: Conjunction or Equivocation
- From: "SWM" <SWMirsky@xxxxxxx>
- To: wittrsamr@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 27 Apr 2010 22:57:32 -0000
--- In Wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, "gabuddabout" <wittrsamr@...> wrote:
> 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?
>
I'm saying I don't know what errors you're talking about and have asked you to
be specific.
I certainly didn't always understand the CRA the same way as I now do. In our
early discussions on the Philosophy of Language list, I thought the problem lay
in different meanings of "is" as used in the various premises. Later I
concluded the real problem lay in the confusion of an identity (an "is") claim
with a causal claim as seen in the third premise.
As to omitting the "non-causality claim of the third premise" as you put it, if
you mean I omitted the third premise in my examination of the CRA that would be
false. If you mean I didn't see some of its aspects, that would no doubt be
true as I've said that myself, subsequently, in our later discussions on
Analytic.
> Secondly, I don't buy that you were mistaken in thinking the CRA was correct
> once.
Then that is your problem and you are presumably calling me a liar (which
you've done before). As I have never lied in our discussions and have no reason
to, all I can do is deny your assertion. I can't prove it to you because my
acceptance of the CRA occurred before you and I had our first discussions some
years back. So you can take me at my word or call me a liar. It doesn't really
change anything including the fact that I once held a view like Searle's.
(Perhaps it would help if you recalled that I was once a philosophical idealist
and that I spent a number of years as a practicing Buddhist who subscribed to
he various Buddhist doctrines which are either idealist or at the laest
dualist, depending on how one thinks about this.)
> Where you are mistaken is thinking that Searle equivocates.
Well, I've made my case for why I see an equivocation at the heart of the CRA.
It doesn't seem likely my arguing it yet again will manage to convince you!
> 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.
This is a bit of nonsense, as already explained numerous times.
> 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.
Neil has his views about this and I have mine. Why should what he thinks affect
what you think of what I think?
> 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.
>
What is your point about this alleged "target article"? Also, while I
understand (or think I understand) Neil's point about the difficulty of
distinguishing so-called strong from weak AI, I don't agree with him that it is
a distinction without sense. I think Searle is right to make a distinction
between simulating (as in modeling) consciousness on computers and actually
replicating consciousness on computers. Whether there is really just a fine or
fuzzy dividing line between them, as I think Neil believes, is a different
question on my view.
> 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.
That first premise is about what computer programs are. The non-causality claim
is about what they can do. What they are is a different question and does not
logically determine what they can do. THAT's an empirical question.
> 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.
>
Running programs are physical operations occurring on a perfectly physical
platform, a platform no less physical than brains.
> If you want to conflate simulation with duplication, then you're a
> behaviorist.
Oh, is it that simple for you then?
> 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),
No it doesn't.
> then the complexity you're after is in terms of brute force (this is Searle's
> position)
No it's not.
> 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).
>
No it doesn't.
>
> >
> > > 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.
>
Yes, well you have accused me of lying before, not least in what you write at
the top of this post. Well, sticks and stones, as they say!
> >
> > > 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.
>
Try spelling out what you mean instead of being so bloody cryptic.
> >
> > 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.
>
And I have said, repeatedly, that I will deal with any legitimate rendering of
his argument, from any period of his career, that anyone wants to take up. And
have done so.
>
> 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?
Sure, if you ever manage to specify what you have in mind. A link with an
indication of what is relevant would be nice.
> >
> >
> > > 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.
>
Read it in our past discussions! And I even commented to you about it in
response to your past remarks. So what do you think is still not being
addressed?
> >
> > 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.
A link if you can provide it. If not specific text or description of what you
think is relevant in it and where to find it.
> 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!"
>
>
A pointless remark.
>
> >
> >
> >
> > > 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.
>
Prove that it does!
> 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
>
All you gotta do is make your case here. You have many potential allies on this
list so you don't need to be timid about it. I will consider any argument and
facts you manage to present.
SWM
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