[Wittrs] Re: My Chinese Encyclopedia: The Red Chicken Footnote
- From: "SWM" <SWMirsky@xxxxxxx>
- To: wittrsamr@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 25 May 2010 00:34:48 -0000
--- In Wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, "College Dropout John O'Connor" <wittrsamr@...>
wrote:
<snip>
> > > 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"?
>
Not sure I follow. The issue, as I see it, is that research into what brains do
and how they do it is a scientific enterprise that is obscured in some quarters
because of a notion that minds are so radically different from brains (and all
other physical things) that there is nothing science can discover about minds
through research into brains and/or into what it is brains might be doing (as
in AI research) to produce minds. I think it is at least philosophy's role,
minimally anyway, to offer some clarification on the concepts involved to
determine whether or not science has a role to play in studying how brains make
minds.
> 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?
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.
> 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.
>
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.
> 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 don't know that it is a 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 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 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?).
I don't think Searle would argue for private languages but, rather, for
something or some subjective feature of understanding that is not linguistic
but is clearly present in each of us TO EACH OF US whenever we understand
something.
> 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!
>
But Searle thinks he can forego empirically based analysis in favor of a
logical argument that shuts the door on at least one particular empirical path
of inquiry (so-called computationalism).
> 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.
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 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.
>
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.
> 3.03
> We cannot think anything unlogical, for otherwise we should have to think
> unlogically.
>
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!
> 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.
>
That strikes me as a good insight!
> 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?
> >
Whose quote was this?
> >
> > 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)
>
A computer that is brought to our level of operation certainly might!
> Quote:
> > Quote:
> > > > >Which brings us to the private language question.
> >
> > >
The one that follows is most certainly mine.
> > > >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:
>
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.
> 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.
>
Yes, that is a way of seeing it.
> 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.
> > > >
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.
> > >
> > > 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.
>
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".
> Quote:
> > > But what was the Red bird thing?
>
>
Now you've lost me!
SWM
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