[Wittrs] Re: My Chinese Encyclopedia
- From: Justintruth <truth.justin@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: wittrsamr@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Fri, 16 Apr 2010 17:49:58 -0700 (PDT)
Here is the problem illustrated:
Gordon Swobe's Red Chicken:
Let us say I have the Chinese encyclopedia situation as Gordon
describes.
Further assume that Searle's axiom 3 = true; syntax by itself is
neither constitutive of nor sufficient for semantics.
Now let us say that whenever this Chinese encyclopedia task occurs a
Red Chicken appears and a Red Chicken never appears unless an attempt
is made to decipher Chinese from the syntax using the encyclopedia.
I think what SWM is saying is this:
A red chicken is not the same as the deciphering of Chinese.
A red chicken is caused by the deciphering of Chinese
It is an empirical fact whether a Red Chicken always, and only,
appears when the deciphering Chinese situation occurs not a conclusion
that can be drawn apriori independent of fact.
On this fact the assertion of causality is based.
Seale is not producing any factual basis
(Ok I understand Kant enough to know that neccessity implies the
apriori but I am using shorthand - you know what I mean when I say
"always and only" re the meaning of a theory of "always and only"
whose
"always and only-ness" has been checked and never found to fail but is
perpetually disprovable as in Popper.)
Now here is the interesting part of what I think at least SWM is
saying....
The red chicken is not a separate entity from the deciphering even
though the fact of it is not the fact of the deciphering because the
red chicken is always and only caused by the deciphering.
Now substitute "blue chicken" for red... same answer... substitute "a
planet like mars" .... same answer... so substitute... "the semantics
of chinese".... same answer - QED for SWM.
You cannot determine that something is caused or not caused by
something simply by determining that the fact of it is not the fact of
the something that is causing it.
Therefore the chinese room fails because causality can only be
determined by a factual determination so no conclusion can be obtained
without an empirical source.
(I note only that for consciousness - as opposed to the red chicken! -
we will never have such any empirical source but the room may! ;)
This is true as long as we don't do what is being posited with respect
to melding minds with memories remaining intact etc. But its second
order)
The confusion is in the meaning of causality and its relation to
being.
There is a deliberate fallacy in the analogy I am making because
consciousness is not an object and a red chicken is but it illustrates
the logic of the problem still.
The real problem:
I assert that it is possible for anything to cause anything as SWM
states, provided no mechanism for the causality to occur is required
to assert causality. I note that for example electron-positron pair
production lacks a mechanism also as does most of physics so the
absence of a mechanism for the cause does not imply any sense of
lacking relative to the effects documented by the physical sciences. I
therefore assert that mechanism-less causality is inherent in material
causality for all but naive materialism.
Some believe that a mechanism for the causality of consciousness does
in fact exist and is now being determined by neurology and
cybernetics. Which mechanism causes consciousness we may find, but
that is not the same as finding a mechanism for the cause. If I
scratch my head and a rabbit always and only appears then I have found
that scratching my head is the cause of the rabbit but it does not
mean I have found a mechanism for that cause. A mechanism for a cause
is a kind of principle that explains how the movement of the mechanism
results in the caused effect not a statement that the movement of the
mechanism does in fact reliably cause the effect.
That does not exclude causality. In fact, physics in the usual case is
no longer mechanistic except in an approximate sense in the case of
macroscopic material objects. That a material arrangement when made
causes consciousness is a very old fact known by parents. That there
exists a mechanism for this like some complex watch cannot be true -
and it is wrong to assert that it is being found. No matter. Most of
the effects that physics documents also lack mechanism. We just assert
that they reliably occur and hence gain the predictive power of the
science. And the determination of exactly what physical effects
produce exactly what consciousness will be more than enough
accomplishment for neurology and cybernetics.
On Apr 15, 7:07 am, Gordon Swobe <gts_2...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> --- On Thu, 4/15/10, SWM <wittrs...@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> > Your encyclopedia example is just more of the same mistake
> > you keep making. It's just another version of the CR with
> > the same fundamental error
>
> Unbelievable!
>
> <rolling eyes> :)
>
> -gts
>
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