--- In Wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, Joseph Polanik <jPolanik@...> wrote: <snip> > >[Searle] does not reject the system account vis a vis brains ... Now > >this puts him in contradiction since, if brains do it in a system way, > >then why shouldn't other physical platforms (say computers) do so? > > there is no contradiction. Searle is not saying that brains 'do it' > because units performing syntactical operations are combined in a > 'system way'. > > Joe > > There is a contradiction because he thinks computational processes running on computers (which he calls "syntactical" in the original argument but denies are even that in his later argument when he moves beyond the CRA!), cannot do what brain processes running in brains can do, on the grounds that understanding cannot be reduced to physical processes in computers while never denying such a reduction in the matter of physical processes in brains. He slips this one past us (in the context of the CRA at any rate) by speaking of computational processes running on computers as "syntax", thus suggesting a lack of physicality vis a vis programs. But, of course, every "implemented program" is physical, has a physical platform. That is, an "implemented program" is instantiated (to use a common philosophical term) in physical events. No, he does not call brain processes syntactical but that is part of the trick. By keeping this term exclusively for computational processes running on computers he leads us to forget about the physical nature of the processes which are actually going on. Computers are no less physical than brains, their operations no less physical events than those of brains whether we call them "syntax" or something else. SWM ========================================= Need Something? Check here: http://ludwig.squarespace.com/wittrslinks/