[Wittrs] Re: My Chinese Encyclopedia: The Red Chicken Footnote
- From: "College Dropout John O'Connor" <sixminuteabs@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: wittrsamr@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 3 Jun 2010 16:14:44 -0400
The overlapping and self quoting was getting a bit much for me, so I will just
be taking your most recent words in this post. I hope the strand of dialog is
not lost in this; if so, a gentle prod is welcome.
SWM wrote:
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.
I write:
"To imagine a language is to imagine a form of life." -LW
The talk of minds is entirely superfluous. Even the talk of language can be
misleading at times, but this is preferable because, in doing so, we cease
speaking of something internal (like the beetle in the box) and gain the world
we share (whilst still remaining rather metaphysical). The language games of
the PI show how propositions can acquire varying use; how then is something
rigid, like the axioms of computation, supposed to replicate that? If
philosophers have a role, it is to misunderestimate the use of words ;P
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.
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. 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.
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. 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)
> 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.
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.
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...
"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.
"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.
> 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 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 mean what I say and say what I mean (a
tautology). 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.
In mathematics class, you might be asked whether a+b=c. What is one to say to
that? To propose an answer is a grave misunderstanding of the logic of our
language. One cannot say yes or no to a+b=c 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?
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 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.
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)? 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.
==========================================
Need Something? Check here: http://ludwig.squarespace.com/wittrslinks/
Other related posts:
