[Wittrs] Correction - Re: The System Level Issue
- From: "SWM" <SWMirsky@xxxxxxx>
- To: wittrsamr@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sun, 06 Jun 2010 12:13:40 -0000
Correcting a miscast sentence in my prior response to you, Budd (since your
post was so long I decided to forego double checking what I had written in
responding -- leading to an error), here is what I should have written:
I wrote -
> > Insofar as his "reasons" are what you have given, "not machine enough", that
is a slogan, nothing more at this point.
>
>
To which Budd replied -
> You must be retarded. His "slogan" is still a reason even after you used a
name-calling word to refer to it.
I then wrote in reply -
"Not machine enough" is a slogan because it doesn't say more than those words.
It requires a comprehensive explanation of what it means to be "machine enough"
and how THAT is missing from the machines Dennett points to. But all you have
to offer is "not machine enough" and "software on hardware no good because
software is abstract and lacks causality but if anyone thinks that the machine
itself is the issue (hardware only) then they really agree with Searle". But
these points are demonstrably wrong at every turn.
1) No one thinks that "software" in the "abstract" is relevant, only
"implemented software" is, in which case the issue has to do with the machine
implementing it, in which case it would be "machine enough".
[Now here is where I failed to write what I meant]
2) The argument advanced against the CRA, based on its mistaken reliance on the
description of software as abstract, is absurd
because even Searle acknowledges it is "implemented software" that is relevant;
[I should have written "The argument advanced against the CRA is based on its
mistaken reliance on the description of software as abstract, which is absurd
because even Searle acknowledges it is "implemented software" that is relevant"]
THE REST CONTINUES AS ORIGINALLY WRITTEN -
moreover suggesting that to make such a case is really to agree with Searle is
even more absurd because Searle insists that Dennett's thesis is wrong on the
grounds of both his CRA and his
later argument! So to argue that the Dennettian thesis does not deny the CRA
runs up against Searle's use of the CRA to deny the Dennettian thesis.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Anyway, it was my error due to my decision not to double check what I'd
written. It's true that internet communications do seem to produce these kinds
of oversights more than more carefully checked writing milieus do but we still
need to be careful, perhaps more so on lists like these since confusion is so
rife and so easy to stumble into in these forums. No sense in compounding what
is already a major problem with on-line discourse.
SWM
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