[Wittrs] Re: My Chinese Encyclopedia: The Red Chicken Footnote
- From: "College Dropout John O'Connor" <sixminuteabs@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: wittrsamr@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Mon, 24 May 2010 16:05:13 -0400
SWMirsky wrote on Tue, 27 April 2010 15:15
> --- In Wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, "College Dropout John O'Connor"
> <wittrsamr@...> wrote:
>
> > >If I rightly understand it, you are pointing out that the >reason I deny
> > >that Searle's CRA works to show that computer >programs can't bring about
> > >consciousness in the form of human >type understanding is because whatever
> > >it is that accompanies >understanding (what happens in a mind when
> > >understanding >happens) is an ancillary accompaniment of that instance of
> > >>understanding. Therefore whether it occurs or not is not going >to be
> > >deniable merely because it isn't observed in some sense?
> >
> > Why does there have to be this something that goes with understanding, why
> > the mind?
>
>
> There doesn't but there is. That is, the question of what brains do and how
> they do it is a legitimate scientific concern though it isn't necessarily one
> for philosophy. What makes it philosophically interesting is when conceptual
> issues cloud the research questions.
SO what of Occams's Razor? What questions are answered by the postulation of
concepts that no one agrees upon? Are scientists going to say one day: "These
words are true, these words are false; we have deduced this from many arguments
about qualia and other metaphysical claims"?
Quote:
> Obviously, we don't have to define understanding if it isn't of interest --
> or seek to discover what it is, what makes it happen. But sometimes, as in
> brain research, that IS of interest and then the question is does it make
> sense to be interested in such things and can we successfully research such
> questions scientifically?
How is geometry, the bible, and making connections in general important to
brain research? Will the scientists say: Here is where people think about
analytic geometry; here is where they think about Cartesian coordinates. Have
you seen Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind? It isn't science, but I do
like the movie. Maybe these questions pigeonhole too much, but I do wonder at
what you think can come from such research.
Quote:
> Quote:
> > > The beetle-in-a-box shews such pretenses to be irrelevant. The private
> > > language argument says that semantics is irrelevant, for there is no
> > > private language, like Searle suggests.
>
>
> Like Searle suggests? That's a Wittgensteinian insight and I don't know
> Searle's opinion on it though I would hazard a guess that he may not be
> entirely in accord with that view.
I will of course agree with that notion of Searle. I won't claim any expert
knowledge of Searle. But does not the private language argument and the
chinese room have a certain overlap in the notions of private semantics? I
guess W says there is no such thing, and Searles conclusion is that the man in
the Chinese room cannot understand (therefore, there are private languages?).
In hindsight, I guess they might be opposites if we are to go by these thought
experiments. Of course, Searle's is actually subject to empirical analysis.
He does miss the greater significance, though. Its in the next quote!
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. I guess it could be a contradiction, but it doesn't
appear to be so. Religious language, metaphysical language, aesthetic
language, is not open to scientific discourse.
3.03
We cannot think anything unlogical, for otherwise we should have to think
unlogically.
3.031
It used to be said that God could create everything except what was contrary
to the laws of logic. The truth is, we could not say of an "unlogical" world
how it would look.
3.032
To present in language anything that "contradicts logic" is as impossible in
geometry to present by its coordinates a figure which contradicts the laws of
space; or to give the coordinates of a point which does not exist.
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?
>
>
> That's one of the questions, isn't it?
It is the same question as the one above. Will a computer say something like
"Christ died for my sins"? Will it say "Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one
must be silent?" (an obvious tautology)
Quote:
> Quote:
> > > >Which brings us to the private language question.
>
> >
> > >My view is that Wittgenstein's point about the public venue >that language
> > >requires for its formation and operation is >correct, on balance. Speaking
> > >of mental phenomena, of our >mental lives, is not an easy task because
> > >such referents are >not part of the public domain and language, formed in
> > >a public >domain and dependent on publicly accessible criteria, fails to
> > >>provide clearly specifiable referents for description in the >private
> > >domains of our mental lives. Word usage requires >agreement on the
> > >criteria of usage but when each of us has the >only access to what we are
> > >trying to denote or describe, we end >up having a hell of a time
> > >communicating.
> >
> Quote:
> > > Absolutely. There is no objectivity in such language, for what it refers
> > > to is without content.
>
>
> No, I would say it has content but that it is ill-equipped to represent such
> content. That is, here language as we ordinarily use it in the public sphere
> breaks down.
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:
It appears to me as thought religious belief could only be passionately
committing oneself to a system of coordinates. Hence, although hit is belief,
it is really a way of living, or a way of judging life. Passionately taking up
this interpretation.
See 5.101 :)
Quote:
> Quote:
> > > It's all referring to 'the self' or whatever.
>
>
> The reference to "whatever" seems to me to be key here.
>
> Quote:
> > > If we are going to talk about mental phenomena, we might as well use
> > > religious language... in truth, we ought use neither. Tautological
> > > statements cannot be logically differentiated no objectively verified.
> > >
> >
> > Again, it is a legitimate issue for science to study what brains do and one
> > of the things they do is produce minds like ours and all that entails.
>
>
> And now back to the question of coordinates.
>
> 6.1
> The propositions of logic are tautologies.
>
> 6.13
> Logic is not a theory but a reflexion of the world.
> Logic is transcendental.
Quote:
> > But what was the Red bird thing?
--
He lived a wonderful life.
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