[Wittrs] Re: Focusing on the Refusal to Focus
- From: "SWM" <SWMirsky@xxxxxxx>
- To: wittrsamr@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 13 May 2010 12:56:46 -0000
--- In Wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, Joseph Polanik <jPolanik@...> wrote:
<snip>
> yes, I have validated the CRA.
>
> let's move on to the question of 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.
>
> we disagree as to whether the truth of the third premise is, has been or
> can be established. that's why the issue is *whether* the third premise
> is true.
>
We don't disagree on whether there is a possibility that the third premise
could be true. I have already said, on numerous occasions, that it might be
(i.e., it's at least an empirical question and could even prove to be a logical
one -- only not based on the logic Searle uses).
Apparently where we disagree is over whether Searle's CR provides a basis for
assuming the third premise of the CRA is true. I have argued that it does not.
You seem to have argued, at least at times here, that it does. (Other times you
invoke other claims and arguments to support your belief in its truth but that,
of course, is a separate issue, to be considered and argued separately, with no
bearing on the CRA as given us by Searle.)
> focusing on that issue may help you understand why an analysis of the
> CRT is relevant.
>
> >>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"?
>
> no, I meant the CRT since the third axiom is constructed from simpler
> claims that the CRT shows to be true.
>
The "CRT" is what I call the "CR" which is the scenario presented by Searle
from which he elaborates his argument, the "CRA". Are you saying you have
altered Searle's CR?
> >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".
>
> when I want to talk about the definition of 'understanding' I'll mention
> "the definition of 'understanding'".
>
Yes, I misread you there and only noticed it after I posted. I withdraw the
point.
> when I use 'specking', I'm using it to deal with issues concerning what
> Searle incorporates into the CR. you seem to think that the CR is
> 'underspecked' because 'more of the same' hasn't yet been incorporated
> into the CR.
>
By "more of the same" let's be clear. What I have in mind is a more robust
system consisting of the same types of processes but doing lots more things and
operating interactively. Essentially I am proposing a CR that is more like a
brain, i.e., capable of running processes that do the kinds of things brains
do. The CR, after all, is running a relatively simple algorithm of receipt and
matching of one symbol to another. While simple processes like this may lie at
the root of what brains do, too, these processes in brains combine to produce
far more complex processes including representing, associating, storing and
retrieving (remembering), combining, etc. Matching inputs to outputs in the CR
is a barebones application of a straightforward algorithm. But in brains such
algorithms would be used to produce many other types of applications and these
would work together in a common system, overlapping and affecting one another.
Dennett's point about "more of the same" addresses this question.
> what do you want to add to the CR of Searle's CRT to make the man
> understand Chinese?
>
See above for a basic list of additions. These, of course, would then need to
be used to produce world and internal pictures that overlap and, of course,
reflect (to varying degrees of accuracy) the elements which are the source of
the sensory inputs being depicted; a thinking process (reasoning, imagining,
associating); a sense of self (or selves), etc.
On the Analytic list and, later, on the AI Philosophy list, I offered various
lists of what I had in mind. Although I'm sure you were around when I posted
variations of these, perhaps you just missed them or missed my reason for
posting them. When and if I get the chance, I will try to find one of those and
post it here (to save myself the trouble of reinventing the wheel).
My point is that, when carefully examined, all that we mean by subjective
experience, the foundation of what we mean by "mind" or "consciousness", can be
seen to be just these various functionalities operating together. It is at
least theoretically possible that they can all be replicated via computational
processes in which case a kind of synthetic consciousness could be constructed.
Whether this is precisely the way brains do it is a different (albeit related)
question. Jeff Hawkins' thesis, alone, gives some reason to think that brains
do accomplish this differently. On the other hand, if consciousness IS just
these functionalities running together in a common system, then there's no
reason to think brains have a lock on this particular accomplishment. That is,
it is at least theoretically possible that other physical platforms can do what
brains do.
> do you want to add more people? do you think that adding an audience
> that watches the man work will make the man in the CR understand
> chinese?
>
As noted above, I want to add more processes accomplishing more things. On the
Searlean CR model this is presented as more people going through more steps.
The Churchlands proposed an enlarged room with many little clerks at many
desks, each doing his own thing and sending his outputs back and forth between
the different desks, in constant communication with one another. Allowing for
the metaphorical nature of this image, I think this is about right (and in
keeping with the spirit of Searle's CR). But, obviously, a clerk in a room or a
thousand clerks in a really, really big room would be unlikely to match, in
real time, what brains actually do. As Hawkins notes, this is even less likely
for computers which are hundreds of times faster than brains.
> what else is there? what do you want to add more of that will make the
> man in the CR understand chinese?
>
The underlying processes that are part of what it means to understand anything.
> >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.).
>
> [Joe: 2010-03-14: #4614 (in a reply to Neil)]: the systems reply changes
> the subject by changing the meaning of 'understanding'. the
> understanding that Searle refuses to attribute whether to the man or to
> the room as a whole is different from the understanding that Dennett and
> others are willing to attribute to the system as a whole. to Searle,
> understanding is a qualitative aspect of experience, a quale. to
> Dennett, understanding is just complex functionality without qualia.
>
> [SWM: 2010-03-14: #4635]: Yes, Joe is right about the meaning. It does
> change the meaning of "understanding" because understanding is
> inadequately conceived initially and this whole debate is about what it
> really takes to constitute it, to have it.
>
> have you changed your position since then?
>
My reference was not to the meaning of "understanding" in terms of how we use
the term but to how we conceive its referent. This shows how words may do
double and even triple or quadruple duty and why context is so important. Note
that I followed the first sentence you quote above by adding "because
understanding is inadequately conceived initially and this whole debate is
about what it really takes to constitute it, to have it". That was an important
part of, and clarification to, the preceding sentence.
The point I was making dealt with understanding as in how we conceive it, not
with understanding as in what we mean by the term "understanding" (how a
dictionary might define it).
However, I can see why you might have misunderstood my point. Sometimes it
takes lots of words, which we don't always include -- and which others
sometimes simply don't read or process if we do include them, to be as clear as
we need to be.
If I was unclear in that case, that was my error. I hope this clarifies it now:
Dennett does not change the meaning of the term "understanding" (as we might
find it in a dictionary).
Dennett does aim to change the understanding we have of the term
"understanding" by giving us a different way to conceive it (i.e., to see it
for what it is, etc.).
SWM
> Joe
>
>
> --
>
> Nothing Unreal is Self-Aware
>
> @^@~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~@^@
> http://what-am-i.net
> @^@~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~@^@
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