[Wittrs] Re: Searle in his own words!
- From: "SWM" <SWMirsky@xxxxxxx>
- To: wittrsamr@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 22 Apr 2010 22:57:28 -0000
Budd, I'm going to try to point out the problems with your response. Perhaps
we'll make some progress here.
--- In Wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, "gabuddabout" <wittrsamr@...> wrote:
>
> Stuart writes:
>
> "So this passage doesn't support a claim that my point, that his denial of
> computationally caused consiousness contradicts his affirmation of brain
> caused consciousness, is wrong."
>
>
> Yes, and I spelled out why. Here's another way of putting it:
>
> 1. NonS/H systems (brains) cause cons. (abductive inference--except for
> those who think such an abductive inference conceptually incoherent (Hacker,
> prolly Dennett, given eliminativism or quietism, er, maybe not Dennett then,
> who can say?)
>
This is not "spelling out why". It's just argument by declaration. It's
certainly not to provide a reason for why my saying X is Y just to say it's not
unless you're one of those who thinks it isn't. But that's what the above
amounts to. You do see that, don't you?
> 2. S/H systems, for Stuart, are "just like" brains what with all the
> electricity.
>
This is false. They are like brains only in certain relevant ways on my view,
i.e., they involve physical events and in both cases those events consist in
part of electrical firings. You shouldn't overstate my position because you
will likely draw the wrong inferences from that.
> 3. All nonS/H systems can be interpreted as if S/H systems (resulting in
> otiose explanations if we can get one in 1st order property terms but never
> mind this if you're a committed conflationist of computational and 1st order
> properties).
>
So here, again by declaration (not reasoning), you claim that to hold a certain
view with which you disagree is to be something reprehensible, i.e., a
"committed conflationist of computational and 1st order properties". Do you not
see that by this all you are again doing is asserting that someone holding the
position with which you disagree is wrong BECAUSE you disagree (i.e.,
characterizing that disagreement by using a pejorative label for that person,
that is, calling him a "committed conflationist")?
> 4. Searle argues against 2. because he distinguishes S/H from nonS/H by
> noting that the essence of S/H involves functional properties which are not
> causal and admits in the Sci. Amer. article that it is okay, on one
> definition, to say that a computer can _think_ (we are computers accord. to
> 3.). This is not a contradiction because Searle, while not arguing against
> 3., is nevertheless pointing out that explanations as if some nonS/H system
> is S/H are otiose when we have a causal explanation already in 1st order
> property terms.
>
First, you have my claim wrong since it is not what you write in #2. Second,
you already know that I challenge the claim that there are certain properties
that you call "second order" and thus non-causal. While I agree we can use a
term like "property" for things that are not physical (as in the property of
certain kinds of integers), my view is that proposing that that is the kind of
"property" relevant to programs (understood as computational processes running
on computers) is simply a mistake. That is, when we speak of programs running
on computers we don't mean abstract algorithms but actual operations happening
in the real, physical world.
Now I know that you disagree and cling to your view. But it is no argument
against my response to simply declare it wrong because you disagree, i.e.,
think you (and Searle) are right.
> All the above is just ducky for me. Here's how to make hay, Stuart style:
>
> Simply say that Searle argues against 2. for no good reason.. ;-)
>
Again, you have mischaracterized item #2 but I will agree that Searle might
share that mischaracterization given some of the things he's on record as
saying. But if that's so, it is still no argument against my view to declare it
wrong because you (and he) disagree. You have to make a case. You have to give
reasons. Otherwise this is just about who can shout more loudly on-line here.
> Please excuse the funny ambiguity above!
>
> Now, if we may finally be done with Stuart and his inept attempt to show
> problems for Searle by ignoring the distinctions he makes and
> supporting his biological naturalism without knowing it,
Aside from the offensiveness of your characterizing my comments as "inept",
especially in light of the fact that you fail to make any arguments in
opposition to my position and merely content yourself, instead, with huffing
and puffing, note, as well your failure to respond to my point, often made
here, that it is false to claim, as you do, that my view actually endorses
Searle's position, unbeknownst to me because 1) we know my view is consistent
with Dennett's and 2) we know that Searle doesn't think Dennett endorses his
views and that Searle, in fact, denies Dennett's view! If the view I've
expressed is consistent with Searle, why doesn't Searle, himself, notice it?
Note, Budd, that I have just given you reasons for my claims, reasons that go
beyond just declaring that you are wrong.
This is what you still haven't learned to do in all these years that we have
been discussing and debating this question.
> some might want to investigate some papers that make all sorts of
> distinctions like the ones in _Meaning in Mind_, where Fodor gets to reply to
> his staunchest critics.
>
Referencing off-line papers without summarizing or otherwise presenting the
position you think relevant, is NOT an argument either.
> Another intense book on philosophy of mind:
>
> _Contemporary Debates in Philosophy of Mind_, Ed. Brian P. McLaughlin and
> Jonathan Cohen, 2007, which includes a paper by Fodor: "The revenge of the
> Given."
>
A bibliography is NOT an argument!
> Note: Maybe there is a contradiction in Stuart vis a vis thinking that
> brains must cause cons. computationally while conflating computation with
> causation? Maybe that wouldn't count as a contradiction since it merely
> rests on a muddle, though.
>
Can you demonstrate there is such a muddle or do you think it's enough to claim
it?
> Anyway, I hope to have shown that Stuart just isn't buying Searle's reason
> for the first premise.
>
Whose "first premise"? The one provided by Searle in the CRA or the one in your
itemized list above?
> He also isn't buying that every formulation of his CRA (the target article
> didn't contain a three step proof, his 1984 did, his Sci. Am. listed axioms,
> and his APA Address lists eight summary points).
>
I have been willing to work with any version any of you have wanted to use.
Gordon, while he was here, insisted on the one from 1994 so I used that one.
You keep arguing for a "target article". Of course I've read some very early
pieces by Searle but I don't know if what I've read matches your "target". But
if you feel there is something to be found in such an ancient piece, even
though Searle, himself, has reformulated and recapitulated it over the years,
then please just post it here and we can consider it.
That has to be better than the forever moving target of the 'target article, no
the revision circa 1994', etc. Pick any version of Searle's argument that you
want which you think make's the best case and let's consider it. Just stop
constantly shifting the target and making off-line references that don't allow
us to come to grips with the claims right here on this list in full view of all
posters!
> These all have essentially the same content due to Searle's distinction
> between computational properties as functional properties which don't cause
> anything (except mindless behehavior when RUNNING in concert with hardware)
> and brutish 1st order properties of actual brains which cause consciousness
> in some diachronic way(s).
>
And I have told you why I think they are mistaken. In response, all you seem
prepared to do is to restate the Searlean positions (as you understand them).
> So I leave it where I had to leave it six years ago. I suggested we nail down
> Searle's newish argument (same content though but Stuart pretends he can't
> believe it..) in his APA Address.
>
Put the link up and any relevant quotes and we can consider it.
> I even offered to discuss it with Gordon..
>
> I'm also willing to move on and talk about something else or nothing at all,
> given how well I've painted both Searle and what motivated Dennett in the
> first place.
>
> Cheers,
> Budd
>
So you are prepared to finish this by giving yourself a few pats on the head
for being so clever? Well, okay, I can drop it, too. You're the one, after all,
who brought this back to center stage when you joined this group and started
talking Searle and his CRA again. Prior to that, we only touched on it in
passing while discussing a wide range of other issues.
But since you think you have done such a bang-up job and want to move on now,
okay. I'm inclined to do the same since I don't think there's any hope of
getting you to grasp any of this any better than you have so far been able to
do.
SWM
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