[Wittrs] Re: Bogus Claim 4: Searle is Refuted by Redefining 'Understanding'
- From: "SWM" <SWMirsky@xxxxxxx>
- To: wittrsamr@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Mon, 19 Apr 2010 11:37:58 -0000
--- In Wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, Joseph Polanik <jPolanik@...> wrote:
<snip>
> > SWM:
> >I've also showed that the notion that the interpretation of the
> >statement that is needed to be true is only thought to be true based on
> >a particular idea of the "understanding" in question but that that is
> >not the only possible understanding of "understanding" and that nothing
> >in the CR shows that it is. If it is not, then it is not established as
> >true in which case the interpretation that's needed to be true is not
> >seen to be based on the CR.
>
> Searle claims that neither the CR nor the man in the CR understands
> chinese as he defines 'understanding' --- as the experience of
> understanding --- and the CRA shows that syntax does not constitute and
> is not sufficient for generating the experiential aspect (the 'mental
> content' necessary for semantics) of understanding.
>
The CR shows only what a CR can do and the CRA, in drawing a general conclusion
about all possible Rs from the CR, depends on a concept of understanding that
holds that for understanding it to be present in an R like the CR it must be
identifiable in some process (operation) of that R.
Obviously, if it's a system level property then the real problem lies with the
system represented by the CR, not with the constituents from which it is
assembled.
> so, in some sense the CRA presupposes the use of certain definitions for
> the words used in stating the CRA; but, every argument does that.
>
It's more than definitional, it's conceptual.
> Dennett has every right to redefine 'understanding' so that it doesn't
> require any experiential component or any mental content whatsoever;
He doesn't define experience away, he merely notes that what we call
"experience" is itself a function of certain otherwise perfectly physical
processes and that, if so, understanding exists on a contiuum and is not a
fixed kind of thing of which something is or isn't an example. But THAT is the
conceptual point here.
> but, doing so doesn't refute the CRA. doing so just *ignores* the CRA;
> and, makes Dennett's 'response' irrelevant to it.
>
The CRA is intended to get us to a general conclusion about all possible Rs
from the example of the CR. Insofar as it is hung on a particular conception of
consciousness and insofar as that conception of consciousness cannot be
established as the only way to explain consciousness, the CRA cannot sustain
the general conclusion it leads us to.
Of course, if we accept THAT conception of consciousness, then it seems
obvious. But then the argument is not resolved at the level of the CRA but at
the level of the CR itself, i.e., we have to consider what consciousness in
ourselves, finally, is, i.e., what is the best explanation for it. So this is
finally about competing concepts of mind.
> in essence, Searle is saying that syntax does not generate experience in
> the CR;
He is and he's right on my view. But the CRA, which aims at a general
conclusion based on the CR, is wrong because it cannot deny what is possible in
other, more robust, R's based on the CR. And insofar as anyone does do that,
they are simply asserting a particular conception of mind which may or may not
be true and which, based on available evidence, probably isn't. The CRA offers
NO reason for thinking that understanding cannot be achieved via computational
processes running on computers.
> and, in essence, Dennett is saying that a higher tech CR might
> generate something besides experience.
>
> these are logically independent claims.
>
> Joe
See above.
SWM
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