[Wittrs] Re: System Level Features vs System Level Features of Another Level
- From: "SWM" <SWMirsky@xxxxxxx>
- To: wittrsamr@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sun, 16 May 2010 01:45:18 -0000
I thought we were ending this with your last remarks?
--- In Wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, Joseph Polanik <jPolanik@...> wrote:
>
> SWM wrote:
>
> >... though we can restate the third premise more clearly (to wring out
> >the ambiguity), Searle manifestly did not do so and relied, instead, on
> >an ambiguous way of stating what he wanted to say. THAT ambiguous
> >method serves to mask the requisite presumption of irreducibility in
> >semantics qua understanding qua consciousness that is embedded in the
> >argument.
>
> it seems to me that anyone who sincerely believed that Searle was
> concealing his presumption in ambiguity would insist that the ambiguity
> be removed; but, you resist restating the third axiom more clearly.
>
The problem is deeper than the ambiguity as we see when it is wrung out. Nor
have I "resisted" it as you put it. I have merely pointed out that removing the
ambiguity exposes the flaw at the heart of the argument. Indeed, THAT'S what I
did when I explained the equivocation in the first place!
> >If the causal claim is not true, of course, that is, if it is neither
> >conceptually true and nor true based on demonstration by the CR
> >(because [see above] it requires the presumption that understanding is
> >a process level feature within the the CR system, while there is no
> >reason to assume that THAT is the case and plenty of reason to think it
> >might not be), then the third premise is not demonstrated to be true,
> >in which case it does not support a claim that the conclusions derived
> >from the premises in the CRA are true! Why? Because an argument's
> >premises must be true if the conclusions derived from them must be.
>
> you've never given a plausible reason why the claim of non-causality in
> the third axiom presupposed that understanding is a process level
> feature of something.
The failure of the "syntax" of the CR to produce "semantics" does not show that
"syntax" cannot produce "semantics" in any R UNLESS YOU BELIEVE THAT, TO
PRODUCE "SEMANTICS", "SYNTAX" MUST BE "SEMANTICS".
Since this is to claim that "semantics" is irreducible to anything more basic
than itself, it is to make a dualist claim. But there is no basis for this
claim in the CR itself, no convincing independent reason to embrace dualism
that has been provided AND Searle denies the dualist claim!
Therefore the third premise, read as a non-causal claim, is not established as
true. (Searle gets over this hump by stating it in an equivocal fashion that
allows his claim to be read as a non-identity claim. But that doesn't work
unless you already believe that identity is the key to having understanding in
the CR -- the dualist presumption.)
> neither have you given a plausible reason for
> supposing that, unlike the case with Dennett, when Searle says that mind
> is a system level feature of the brain he secretly means that it's a
> process level feature.
>
I make no claims about what he "secretly means". My claim is that he is in
self-contradiction, which is to say he is confused.
> moreover, you've recently claimed that there was no difference between a
> system and a component of a system because a component (of a larger
> system) is itself a system (with lower level components).
>
Yes. I think it's a mistake to think in terms of a basic level property or
feature or entity or whatever. Everything comes down to systems. This just
shows the deeper problem in Searle's assumption in the CR that drives his CRA.
There cannot be any real process level features that aren't, themselves,
reducible to something more basic than themselves, i.e., a process is a
combination of other processes, etc. Of course, at some point we reach an end
in description. As Wittgenstein put it in On Certainty, the spade is turned. We
come to a stop (for various reasons). But that end is delineated not by our
hitting some ultimate, metaphysical bottom but by our exhausting our resources
to probe further.
> interestingly enough I share this view with two qualifications. once one
> sees the entire universe as a system, it is not necessarily the case
> that there is a more inclusive system. secondly, physicists may discover
> that, at the lowest level, there are elementary entities that do not
> have components. they may not discovery such entities. we don't know.
>
> in any case, treating the difference between components and systems as
> perspectival renders incoherent your attempt to say that the third axiom
> is flawed because it presupposes that understanding is a system level
> feature of some level rather than a system level feature of some other
> level.
>
Actually it shows the incoherence in the Searlean view which presumes
irreducibility in order to sustain its conclusion. And, as we know, Searle does
claim that consciousness is irreducible "ontologically" while asserting that it
CAN be causally reduced (to what brains do). There is a deep tension between
these claims since causal reduction involves ontological assertions, too, just
at different levels.
SWM
> Joe
>
>
> --
>
> Nothing Unreal is Self-Aware
>
> @^@~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~@^@
> http://what-am-i.net
> @^@~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~@^@
>
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