[Wittrs] Re: My Chinese Encyclopedia: The Red Chicken Footnote
- From: "SWM" <SWMirsky@xxxxxxx>
- To: wittrsamr@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 03 Jun 2010 22:25:51 -0000
I won't try to address every statement as I am a little lost with the loss of
context. I will try, however, to address specifics that strike me as clear
enough (to me, at least) to address:
--- In Wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, "College Dropout John O'Connor" <wittrsamr@...>
wrote:
>
> <snip>
>
> SWM wrote:
> Only insofar as they are examples of some of the things minds do. If brains
> make minds, then the things minds do are relevant to brain research.
>
> I write:
> Brains don't make minds anymore than do minds make language. The world does.
>
Well of course, in one sense. But that isn't the sense that we need when
talking about how brains and their activities relate to our subjective lives
(the mental realm of our "private" worlds). Note that, in at least one sense,
it makes no sense at all to say "the world makes minds." After all, the world
makes everything except, of course, that when we're speaking of making things
we don't really ever think in terms of the world as a whole as doing the making
since making takes place IN the world and is ascribed to certain kinds of
agential entities that are also thought of as IN the world.
> SWM wrote:
> Not if this is about research into how brains make minds. Scientists will,
> rather, say this is what it takes to understand things (say geometry or
> language or difficult concepts or any notions at all), e.g., the brain does
> this and this and this, thus THIS is what understanding is. And so forth.
>
> I write:
> It is as if you are looking for the power of revelation.
No the underpinnings of understanding, of recognizing and referencing semantic
content.
> It is the case that doing certain mathematics is how one learns those uses of
> certain mathematics. Your post on scaffolding, in replay to Sean's recent
> topic, is illuminating in that you say the "laws of nature" are not that, but
> merely models for natural phenomena.
>
They aren't "laws" as I think Neil meant them, i.e., being of nature. They are
generalized descriptions of how things in nature work which we take to be true,
on the basis of past discoveries, until shown otherwise. So, yes, in a sense
they are models, in the same way that Dennett's thesis about what minds are is
a kind of model.
> SWM wrote:
> I would think not or at least not much. The issue of the beetle in the box
> only tells us we can't see inside in the sense that we can see things on the
> outside (because it's a different realm of occurrence). But the Chinese Room
> is founded on the premise that there is something happening in any instance
> of understanding that each of us would expect to see occurring in any other
> entity that has understanding (and presume it is happening in other creatures
> like us) but that, in fact, it is nowhere to be found in the contraption
> called the Chinese Room (at least, I would say, as Searle has specked it).
>
> I write:
> Talk of Searle floods this forum, and it appears to only detract from our
> conversation.
That's because that appears to be what interests some of the more robust
posters. Personally, I left Searle behind on other forums (except for an
occasional passing reference) until a number of parties joined us here who have
a strong belief in the truth of his Chinese Room Argument and who are loath to
accept the criticisms I had previously offered of it and they brought the
matter up again. Eventually, with their accession to this list, some of us
(including me) fell into old habits of argument, i.e., fighting over the
adequacy of Searle's infamous CRA.
> I'll leave these aside if you do not mind; should you mind, however, speak
> your mind and I will attempt something. ('speak your mind' is notably a
> figure of speech in this sentence)
>
I have no strong commitment to arguing ad infnitum over Searle and his CRA, or
its successor argument.
> > Quote:
> > > Quote:
> > > > Of course, the fact that computers cannot recognize a tautology in
> > > > "Christ died for my sins"
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > How is that a "tautology"?
> >
> >
> > It is religious language.
>
> SWM wrote:
> What about that makes it a tautology though? Isn't it more, on the
> Wittgensteinian view, like an expressive statement, on line with showing
> another a feeling we have, etc.? This wouldn't be a tautology in any ordinary
> sense of that word.
>
> I write:
> Wittgenstein revolutionized the notion of tautology. That is the calculus.
> 5.101 is a picture of logic of our language, and obviously religious language
> is not scientific. It is nonsense, and I think it is apparent that a
> metaphysical assertion has the form of a
> tautology, at least in this instance.
Hmmm, I don't see that. Perhaps you mean to stipulate that it, too, is a
tautology in the sense that it has the same level of content as a tautology. I
would not, however, call it that. I think level of content is not the key. That
is, we can have different kinds of nonsense where some would be tautologous and
others would not be. Better to focus on the idea of nonsense here rather than
the idea of a tautology which has a technical sense in logic and other areas of
analytical philosophy than that of ordinary language and/or Wittgenstein.
> I have heard that Buddha once told two men contradictory claims, namely that
> God exists and God does not. "Christ died for my sins" is a fair description
> of the life of Christ and the Christian- ala, a tautology. I could say, "I
> will see you when I see you" or "it is what it is" or "this sentence is true"
> or "substance is"... all of the tautological form. "I know nothing" and "The
> Tao is not the real Tao" etc. have the form of contradiction.
>
I think that it is better to concentrate on the differences in these various
uses rather than try to unify them by squeezing them into any single rubric.
One of the things about Buddhism (or at least the form with which I'm familiar)
is that it aims to jam up the thought processes so that we stop trying to think
things through, to reason, and just approach the world on a more basic
intuitive level. Take things as they are, you might say, tear away the cobwebs
of the discursive mind.
> SWM wrote:
> Yes that is the classical Wittgensteinian (both the later and earlier) view.
> I am inclined to agree generally speaking though perhaps not exclusively so,
> i.e., I think he was wrong about religious talk, i.e., sometimes I think it
> is open to empirical consideration in which case it is open to scientific
> discourse.
>
> I write:
> Then you are doing it wrong...
Well perhaps. We always think others are wrong if they are doing something
differently than we are doing if we are confident in the rightness of how we do
it. Certainly, I have come to the conclusion that one cannot fully embrace a
religious picture of the world without embracing the facts it implies. I think
Wittgenstein missed that, i.e., that maybe he was the one who was doing it
wrong. But then who knows? I only know what I have experienced, how I have seen
things when trying to practice religion . . .
> "Man has to awaken to wonder -- and so perhaps do peoples. Science is a way
> of sending him to sleep again." -LW
>
> http://www.funnychill.com/files/funny-pictures/engineer-mistake.jpg
>
> http://sci.waikato.ac.nz/bioblog/science%20-%20you%27re%20doing%20it%20wrong.jpg
>
> SWM wrote:
> And yet we do think unlogically at times or we would all be in agreement all
> the time, no? Sometimes some of us must have the logic wrong!
>
> I write:
> To be confused is not the same as being illogical.
Agreed, it's not, at least not always. But sometimes it is. Logic is about the
true and the false but also about what is coherent or isn't. What do we mean by
"illogical"? It can mean to get something wrong because we fail to see the
implications of certain logical relations. But it can also mean a failure to
apply logic and to act, say, emotionally or thoughtlessly.
> "It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know
> for sure that just ain't so." -Mark Twain
> The logic of our language is sorely misunderstood because of the notion that
> a contradiction is unlogical or illogical or whatever it is that philosophers
> like to call it.
>
Logic has one meaning for technical philosophers, another for the average
person on the street.
>
> > Quote:
> > > Quote:
> > > > >and, at the moment no one knows how to make a computer recognize as
> > > > >such complicated statements, sorta changes the whole issue. Can a
> > > > >computer be inductive?
> > >
>
> SWM wrote:
> Whose quote was this?
>
> I write:
> Mine. Check out the wiki on tautology.
>
I don't see the relationship you have in mind.
> I wrote:
> An analogy: One cannot count with the number zero, for it is without content;
> but that doesn't make it any less important to mathematics. It is often
> called the origin. So too, tautologies and contradictions are senseless,
> but... let me quote, if you do not mind:
>
> You wrote:
> There is "nonsense" as being without sense (as in meaning) and "nonsense" as
> in being without a point and "nonsense" as being wrong in such an extreme way
> as to be silly. The nonsense of tautologies and contradictions are clearly
> without sense in one way (they are without any referential meaning beyond
> themselves) but in terms of the later Wittgenstein I would think they are
> more rightly thought of as trivial but in a constructive way as sometimes
> seeing a truth that is trivially so is to recognize something that is part of
> a larger point.
>
> I write:
> "Meaning" is a nonsense word.
I don't agree. It just has various meanings and maybe sometimes it is nonsense
to ask for a meaning or nonsense to seek a definition of "meaning" that goes
beyond familiarity with how the term is used in English or its variants are
used in other languages!
> I mean what I say and say what I mean (a tautology).
A statement we might make in order to be emphatic, hence a purposive remark.
> Without a point? "It is what it is" ... etc. "The slithey and the plithey
> and not so cuembicle as the aspiragot" (feel free to quote your favorite in
> my stead) does not evoke any different reaction that the other two- namely,
> me being rather speechless. One can surely not agree or disagree with such
> statements.
>
As I've said, I think there are many types of nonsense and it is a mistake to
think that, because there is this one word "nonsense", there must be a common
thread of meaning in every application of the term.
> In mathematics class, you might be asked whether a+b=c. What is one to say
> to that?
That it depends on context, e.g., do we have values to place within them, are
we talking about a formal equation for certain purposes, etc.?
> To propose an answer is a grave misunderstanding of the logic of our
> language. One cannot say yes or no to a+b=c
One certainly can, depending on context. It's all about context, not about
universal claims that we can assert as an overarching rule of use.
>any more than "The slithey and the plithey and not so cuembicle as the
>aspiragot". One is not informed by tautologies or contradictions, so how
>could one agree or disagree?
>
Depends on the kind of nonsense. For instance (and here comes Searle again), in
the CRA Searle tells us that it is a trivial truth, a conceptual truth, that
syntax is not semantics. If that truth (admittedly trivial!) has a role in
supporting the conclusion of the three premises of the argument when combined,
then Searle would have made a logical argument that binds, so to speak. But
examination reveals that the conclusion relies on a different interpretation of
the syntax isn't semantics claim, i.e., that it isn't causative of semantics.
But the non-identity assertion that IS trivially true, is not relevant to a
non-causal conclusion. Hence the argument fails. But suppose it were relevant?
On Searle's view it is though that can be traced back to a dualist
presupposition on his part about what understanding is which he not only
doesn't defend but doesn't even claim it because, in fact, he denies being a
dualist.
My point is that it is at least an open question whether the nonsense of a
trivial truism is relevant in the given argument. So we cannot just dismiss
such claims because they ARE trivial. There is a role for the trivial in
philosophy, too. And I think it's clear that Wittgenstein recognized that.
> You wrote:
> Not sure about this quote. Whose is it? Yours? Why should we speak
> religiously exclusively when speaking of mental phenomena? I see no reason to
> think that would be required.
>
> I write:
> That was not what I was trying to enunciate, but that all such metaphorical
> talk is patently senseless (or nonsense or whatnot).
I don't think that's true nor do I think Wittgenstein held that, or at least
not in a way that asserted that whatever is senseless is patently senseless and
therefore without use!
> I think W's Lecture on Philosophy, and it conclusion on Freud (I have the
> right Lecture in mind, I hope) illustrates this. So does the Beetle in the
> box. There is no use in making a science about the beetle, even if the
> beetle is really important in life.
>
When there is no access to something I would agree. But we do have access to
subjective experience. Each of us has it and presumes it is shared by others
like ourselves. Moreover, we can talk about it, observe behavior that we
ascribe to it, etc. So there is enough access for science to be involved.
> You wrote:
> But the study of minds is, at least in part, a study of what brains do and
> how they do it. Logic is a tool for thinking about and expressing one's
> thoughts on the subject but the study of mind is not, per se, the study of
> logic let alone anything that is "transcendental".
>
> I write:
> How is talk of God any different than talk of minds (and all such entities or
> essences)?
We have direct experience of minds which is indubitable but while some may
claim to have direct experience of God or gods, on examination that is
generally seen to be inexpressible and/or explainable in other terms. I know
where my feelings are, right here with me. I have them. Where is God, on the
other hand, except as some abstraction, some concept I talk about and can,
depending on how I define the concept, associate with all sorts of things
including with the totality of everything?
> I think you are passionately committed to a set of coordinates as well, just
> not the same ones as me.
>
> The red bird lives on!
>
> Nonsense and such,
> College Dropout John O'Connor
> --
> He lived a wonderful life.
> ==========================================
>
Yes, the red chicken. I wish I understood that reference a little better but
maybe that is not the point, right?
SWM
=========================================
Need Something? Check here: http://ludwig.squarespace.com/wittrslinks/
Other related posts:
