[Wittrs] The Article That Did Not Die
- From: Joseph Polanik <jpolanik@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: wittrsamr@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 29 Apr 2010 19:36:30 -0400
gabuddabout wrote:
>Stuart writes:
>"But Searle takes the third premise as grounds for a denial of
>causality, as in computers can't cause consciousness (as brains do),
>which means he uses the third premise in a way that the claim that it
>is conceptually true doesn't support because non-identity does not
>imply non-causality and the non-causality claim is not, itself,
>conceptually true UNLESS you take the claim of non-identity to be
>tantamount to a non-causality claim (i.e., think that to cause X
>something must already be X -- see below for more on this)."
>Your argument above needs us to be blind to the first premise. That is
>another place where the noncausality claim is implied. The third
>premise is really two, what with the conjunction of independent
>clauses. You're simply shown to be mistaken in thinking that Searle
>needs one of the independent clauses to be belched out of the other
>(i.e., the non-identity claim as grounds for the non-causality claim)
very good point. the two clauses of the third axiom are independent and
each has its own meaning.
>There are many convolutions to what you say. But if you can find an
>equivocation or a bit of fuzziness in the target article, that would be
>a feat I'd like to witness.
>Target article: "Minds, Brains, and Programs," Behavioral and Brain
>Sciences 3 (3): 417-457.
I'd like to point out a curious bibliographic point that may encourage
some to read this article. it was first published in 1980 and has been
collected into _The Mind's I_ by Hofstadter and Dennett.
by now list members are certainly aware of the passage in _Consciousness
Explained_ where Dennett discusses the CRT. on page 436 (in the
paperback edition anyway) you'll find (in footnote 2) the following:
"The definitive refutation [of the CRA], still never adequately
responded to by Searle, is Douglas Hofstadter's, in [_The Mind's_]"
so, this is the article that was refuted, but did not die.
Joe
--
Nothing Unreal is Self-Aware
@^@~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~@^@
http://what-am-i.net
@^@~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~@^@
==========================================
Need Something? Check here: http://ludwig.squarespace.com/wittrslinks/
Other related posts:
- » [Wittrs] The Article That Did Not Die - Joseph Polanik
