[Wittrs] Re: Meaning, Intent and Reference (Parsing Fodor?)

  • From: "jrstern" <jrstern@xxxxxxxxx>
  • To: wittrsamr@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Thu, 11 Feb 2010 17:09:11 -0000

--- In Wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, "SWM" <SWMirsky@...> wrote:
>
> I have the same experience reading Fodor.
> He's very esoteric. On the other hand I find
> Dennett pretty easy to grasp and Searle, ...

Fodor requires a bit more philosophical background,
Dennett writes at least half for the layman at all
times.  Dennett is an outstanding writer, Fodor is
merely very good.  Fodor, I think tries, for better
or worse, to grapple with details, Dennett is more
about frameworks.


> But Fodor just gets my head spinning.
> I wonder if he is more like Edelman here than Hawkins?

I don't think either of those are in the game.


> > Certainly he's a physicalist in that physical brain state
> > corresponds with meaning, but just what that means (!) is not
> > necessarily clear, in regards to balancing "methodological solipsism" and 
> > correspondence with distal objects.
>
> Yes, not at all clear. The mental language is
> presumably some corresponding set of processes

Wow there cowboy, slow it down.

Is a language a process?  Is English a process?


> that underlie each and every distinct thought
> we have

Does the print on a page "underlie" the
content of the book?


> and which somehow get translated into the
> language(s) we actually speak to one another
> and think in.

Speak, yes.

But the idea of an LOT is that it *is* the language
we think in.  *I*, but NOT Fodor, think that the LOT
is not only the language we think in, it IS the
thought itself.  Yes, "your thoughts are written in
the brain like writing on the page", that is the
sentence that everyone tries to disclaim before
launching into endless rantings about "thoughts"
and "concepts". Except me.  I embrace the demon.


> What kind of "language" must such
> a mental language be?

It is quite clear that the advent of the digital
electronic computer was the motivation for modern
theories like Chomsky's and Fodor's.  Any language
should be physically realizable by a TM, and any
language that can be realized by a TM can be
emulated by a UTM, of which you are reading this
on one now.  So, it doesn't really matter exactly
what it is like, it will be highly intertranslatable.
It will be interesting to find out, after all,
exactly what it is like, but only for practical
reasons, there is nothing theoretical riding on it
at all.


> How do we discover it, recognize it when we see it,
> distinguish it from other brain processes, etc.?

Compsci 101, intro to programming
Compsci 201, turing machines and automata
compsci 202, neural networks
Compsci 301, compilers
Compsci 401, operating systems
Compsci 501, computational linguistics

Knowing it when you see it, is indeed the question.

It seems likely the brain's physical organization
will be more like the "neural networks", which are
a bit harder to recognize in action, and a bit harder
to translate back to linear, symbolic forms.  But
we *do* speak and hear linear language, so there
should be paths to follow, as we develop better
instrumentation.


> I'm skeptical of this approach.

There is no other.

Fodor has always said that,
and I have always agreed.

Josh


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