[Wittrs] Re: Focusing on the Refusal to Focus
- From: "SWM" <SWMirsky@xxxxxxx>
- To: wittrsamr@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 12 May 2010 12:42:17 -0000
--- In Wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, Joseph Polanik <jPolanik@...> wrote:
<snip>
> your point (if you have a point) is better stated in reverse: the actual
> truth of an argument's premises is irrelevant to the question of
> validity.
>
You continue to confuse the form of an argument with the question of an
argument's truth (or lack of it).
The CRA (the "Chinese Room ARGUMENT") fails because its actual premises do not
sustain the claimed truth of its conclusions. It is also invalid when stated as
Searle states it. When restated as you do, it is no longer seen to be invalid
but its failure to demonstrate the truth of its conclusions becomes more
painfully obvious.
> that's precisely why the issue is whether the third premise is true.
>
And we have seen that its truth isn't established by any claim of conceptual
truth nor by any analysis of the CR scenario.
> >>the focus then shifts (precisely as you say) to the question: "The
> >>issue is on what basis do we take the third premise to be true?".
> >>[2010-05-03 - 09:52 AM]
>
> >We are arguing here about Searle's CRA case against the
> >computationalist thesis of mind
>
> my argument is that the CRA is formally valid and that its axioms are
> true.
>
No, Searle's CRA is not formally valid. Your restatement is. But Searle doesn't
make it, you do. Moreover, your restatement reveals even more clearly that the
CRA fails as an argument. It fails NOT because it isn't valid in the restated
form but because it is not constructed of three premises that can be taken to
be true (because they are conceptually so or have been otherwise demonstrated
to be).
> >The problem for your argument, Joe, is you haven't falsified the claim
> >for anything more than the CR system.
>
> thank you, Stuart, for recognizing the fine quality workmanship that
> went into reformulating the CRT in a way that has no effect on the
> outcome *except* for the reducing the possibilities for conflation and
> equivocation.
>
It still misses the whole point of the criticism, but I'm glad you feel good
about what you've done. (Twenty-eight steps to do what Searle did in four or
five, including the conclusions, though, does seem a bit much, especially given
all the back and forth internal relations the twenty-eight steps generate. But
to each his own!)
> the reformulated CRT still concerns understanding as Searle defines it
> and the CR as Searle specked it.
>
I presume you mean the "CRA" rather than the "CRT", since this is about an
argument, not the "thought experiment"?
The specking issue that I raised had to do with what Searle incorporates in his
CR (Chinese Room). Your reference to "specking" appears to be a reference to
his definition of "understanding". Though we have each used "specking" here, we
are clearly referring to different things so this opens the door for yet
another confusion, best avoided if we can.
Note that I have disagreed with your recently presented claim that Dennett
redefines "understanding" in a way that removes it from the realm of what
Searle means. This is simply false since both are talking about the same thing:
the phenomenon of understanding as found in entities like ourselves with
whatever that entails (including the subjectivity that goes with realizing what
we are doing when we are doing it, etc.).
> however, I specifically defined the hypothesis evaluation procedure to
> consider claims of identity in the language of identity, claims of
> constitution in the language of constitution and claims of causality in
> the language of causality.
>
Again, you artificially constrain linguistic uses according to certain
stipulations of your own. But Searle makes his argument in plain English, not
in any stipulated language, yours or anyone else's.
> that should have no effect *except* insofar as it reduces the
> possibilities for conflation and equivocation.
>
Your 28 step argument is an example of logical overkill. Searle did it well
enough with four or five steps if only he had avoided ambiguity. Absent the
ambiguity (which is easily wrung out as you have shown even before your 28
steps!) the argument has a valid form. The problem, however, is that its
conclusions remain untrue (or, perhaps to put it more precisely, their truth
remains in doubt because it is not established by the premises in combination).
> >Once the possibility that subjectivity is a system level phenomenon,
> >instead of one that is associated with one of the system's
> >constituents, is recognized, the idea that the constituents of the CR
> >can't produce subjectivity, merely because they don't in the CR,
> >collapses.
>
> you still need to give us a coherent explanation for
>
> [1] why the CRT/CRA or the third axiom is required to take a stand on
> whether subjectivity is a system level phenomenon or a phenomenon
> generated by a system component.
>
If the CRA is an argument for why the CR's constituents can't produce
understanding in any conceivable configuration, then it has to address the
question of treating understanding as a system level phenomenon. But it doesn't
do that. It merely assumes that understanding is not such a phenomenon. But
others (Dennett) have shown how it could be. If it can be, then you can't
assume that it isn't.
> [2] why it presupposes one of these possibilities instead of the other.
>
Because it only addresses the constituent elements of the CR, not the system
question which it assumes is irrelevant. Such an assumption is demonstrably
unwarranted.
> [3] why the possibility that you say is presupposed is more Cartesian
> than the other.
>
The presumption of irreducibility is, finally, a presumption of ontological
basicness (implies more than one ontological basic in the universe) which is
dualist in the same way that Descartes' claims about minds and bodies are
dualist.
> >>your argument in its various forms has always incorporated at least
> >>the following two claims:
>
> >>that the CRT doesn't show that syntactic operations can't cause
> >>subjectivity and subjective experience to emerge as a system property.
>
> >>that the *only* way to make the CRT show that syntactic operations
> >>can't cause subjectivity and subjective experience is to presuppose
> >>something you claim is dualism.
>
> >No, that is found in the logical way that Searle proceeds. But it is
> >possible that there are other, perfectly empirical, reasons for why a
> >system made up of constituents like those found in the CR can't
> >succeed. You keep missing this aspect of what I have been saying.
>
> you seem to be missing a point that philosophers have understood for
> thousands of years.
Yeah, my bad, I'm such a dumkpof!
> if you say that Y is the only alternative to X, I
> can contest your claim by showing that there are other alternatives.
>
> that's what I'm doing.
>
We are talking about the success or failure of the CRA as an argument, not
about whether its conclusions are true or false for other reasons. I have often
said, here and on other lists, that this is, finally, at least an empirical
question, i.e., that Dennett's thesis is not an argument for its truth but an
argument for its viability as a theory. Searle, on the other hand, argues for
the truth of the denial of that viability. There is an important asymmetry here
which, of course, relates to what we are addressing when arguing over whether
the CRA succeeds in proving its conclusions to be true.
> the alternative in question is the actual CRT conducted and its result
> described without the equivocation that you say you see.
>
> try to focus on that fact.
>
> Joe
The CR only demonstrates that there is no understanding in the kind of system
it is. It says nothing, finally, about what might be possible in some other
system consisting entirely of the same kinds of constituent elements. As long
as you keep missing this you will not get the point of why the CRA fails.
SWM
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