[Wittrs] Re: Searching for Evidence of Claims of Self-Evidencing Truth

  • From: "SWM" <SWMirsky@xxxxxxx>
  • To: wittrsamr@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Sun, 11 Apr 2010 01:28:19 -0000

--- In Wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, Joseph Polanik <jPolanik@...> wrote:
<snip>

>  >>to convince your readers that Searle actually makes the statements you
>  >>attribute to him.
>
>  >I don't need to convince you
>
> you may need to convince others as well; because, no one wants a repeat
> of the debacle regarding your claim that Dennett agreed with you that
> Searle is a Cartesian style dualist --- even though Dennett understands
> what you apparently do not: Cartesian style dualism is interactive
> substance dualism and requires having two kinds of 'stuff'.
>

Your kidding, right?

But I expect you're not and really do think that by refashioning history here 
you can turn around my demonstration that Dennett did assert that Searle's 
argument was dualist! Recall the sequence then: you said Dennett never said any 
such thing. I found a passage in Consciousness Explained showing that he did, 
and you then spent untold hours here trying to parse it in such a way as to 
show that he didn't really mean what he actually said, including your launching 
into a an effort to show that Dennett didn't mean what the context shows he 
meant. You did this by arguing that to be a Cartesian Dualist one had to 
embrace the entire philosophical doctrine of Descartes!

This is rather like the way George Orwell showed how totalitarians re-write 
history in 1984 -- repeat something often enough until it takes hold for you 
have been repeating this falsehood since I called to your attention that I had 
found text that supported my claim in contravention of your claim that there 
was no such text!

Of course, we are now far away from that text I transcribed here and I'm sure 
not going to do it yet again. But anyone then reading along will know you are 
re-writing history here.


>  >moreover, it is common knowledge in the field that Searle has claimed
>  >that the third premise is self-evident, that it is just a conceptual
>  >truth.
>
> ah! you are trying to recover from your fumble by emending your claim to
> suggest that a conceptual truth is always a self-evident truth.
> that's
> not necessarily the case; although, it might be now and then.
>


Oh bull. I always equated "self-evident" with "conceptual truth" (I did so many 
times on Analytic) and so does Searle in the context of his presentation of the 
premise in question. I am not going to waste my time looking for exact words, 
however. That he is on record saying it's a "conceptual truth" is enough.


> a self-evidencing truth is one where the statement itself is sufficient
> to justify the conclusion that it is true. for example, the statement
> 'I am self-aware' is self-evidencing ('self-verifying' might be a better
> word) because merely asserting the claim provides the evidence that it
> is true.
>
> on the other hand a conceptual truth is a statement that is true in
> virtue of the concepts used in the statement. it isn't necessarily
> self-evidencing and may require considerable conceptual analysis to
> justify the conclusion that it is true.
>

That what is self-evident isn't always immediately evident to the inattentive 
or uninitiated is irrelevant to its being self-evident once that is shown via 
analysis.

> interestingly enough, the possibility that conceptual analysis might
> support a claim that the third axiom is true provides additional
> independent grounds for accepting the third axiom as true.


If you have another argument for it derived from the CR, have at it. If you 
don't, if you have to reach beyond the CR (as many do, e.g., Edelman, Hawkins), 
then the point about the failure of the CRA remains, i.e., the performance of 
the CR does not lead to the conclusion that no constituents of the same type 
that make up the CR could not produce consciousness in a different 
configuration.


> in addition
> to the CRT, there is the use of a highly similar assumption by formalist
> mathematicians; the results of conceptual analysis; and, any empirical
> research that may come up. none of these require anyone to belief in
> Cartesian style interactive substance dualism.
>

Show how the argument for formalism is:

1) to be found in the CR; and

2) even if it isn't, that it supports a claim that computational processes 
running on computers cannot produce consciousness (or understanding, if you 
want to embrace Gordon's latest restatement).


> even more interesting is the possibility that you and Budd might have
> something useful to say about the value of conceptual analysis in the
> present case; providing, that you can each keep a civil tongue while
> discussing it.
>
> Joe
>
>

That was gratuitous, as usual. More, the one lacking a civil tongue has tended 
to be you. But I suppose, if you must re-write history why not do it all the 
way, eh?

SWM

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