[Wittrs] Re: The CRA: Is the Third Premise True?
- From: "SWM" <SWMirsky@xxxxxxx>
- To: wittrsamr@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Fri, 09 Apr 2010 16:27:12 -0000
--- In Wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, Gordon Swobe <wittrsamr@...> wrote:
> --- On Fri, 4/9/10, SWM <wittrsamr@...> wrote:
>
> >> But as Searle points out in his answer to Dennett in _The Mystery
> >> of Consciousness_ his actual CRT shows that syntax cannot
> >> produce either conscious OR unconscious understanding.
> >
> > I am quite content to speak of understanding in either way.
>
> You should in that case accept the 3rd axiom at face value.
>
> The CRT and the 3rd axiom show merely that the syntax of a program does not
> suffice for understanding the semantics of a language, consciously or
> otherwise. Period.
>
"does not suffice for" like "does not constitute and is not sufficient for"
has, in English, the possibility of at least two interpretations: "is not the
same as" and "does not result in". The first reading is a non-identity claim,
the second a non-causality claim.
The point of the CRA is to make a statement about the non-causality of the CR.
It does this by relying on the non-identity claim, i.e., that not being
understanding matters to whether what isn't understanding, in itself, can cause
(as in produce) instances of understanding. But, in fact, non-identity does not
imply non-causality and so it is a flawed inference.
The non-causal reading is what the CR is supposed to demonstrate (which is then
articulated in the third premise) but it only manages to "demonstrate" it if we
confuse being the same as with causing (identity with causation). Thus the
confusion, the ambiguity found in the third premise, is already embedded in the
CR scenario itself.
Because of the ambiguity in the reading of the text of the third premise, we
don't notice the subtle shift from something that IS obviously true (but
irrelevant to the CRA's conclusion) to something that ISN'T obviously true (and
is relevant to the CRA's conclusion).
If the three premises of the CRA are not all seen to be true, then the argument
isn't valid and its conclusions are not demonstrated by the argument to be true.
It is, of course, possible that they are still true and can be so demonstrated
by other efforts (empirical or logical) but the CRA doesn't invoke or rely on
them. Thus the CRA's conclusion is not established by the CRA (because the
third premise is fatally flawed).
> If you could set aside your biases about strong AI
I will once again repeat that I started out seeing things Searle's way and it
was only my realization that his argument is rife with errors that made me
consider why that may be and brought me around to the view that consciousness
is, at least in principle, synthesizable on computational platforms like
computers.
Later, reading Dennett, I found him saying things that I had already concluded
separately (which is probably why I found Dennett relatively easy to read and
understand while others have complained that he isn't or have simply continued
to misstate his views).
> and see through the lens of a philosopher of language then you would see that
> syntax is neither constitutive of nor sufficient for semantics, no matter how
> we conceive of consciousness.
>
I have no problem agreeing that syntax is NOT THE SAME AS semantics, i.e., when
you have an instance of syntax you don't, therevy, also have an instance of
semantics. But that isn't the issue since the question before us is whether
what Searle calls "syntax" (somewhat mistakenly, by the way, if you go with
Hauser) can "cause" (in the Searlean sense) what Searle calls "semantics".
The question of what causes what is independent of what is the same as what.
Identity does not imply causality nor does non-identity imply non-causality.
As to the question of the relevance of "how we conceive of consciousness", I
submit to you, again, that if consciousness is a system level property (or
feature or whatever we call it) rather than an irreducible something (a
property of some constituent element or elements of the system) then "how we
conceive of consciousness" certainly does matter and all your denials that it
does simply don't change that fact.
> There is nothing else to the 3rd axiom. But you/Dennett try to make it into
> something else -- you introduce a giant load of balderdash about
> consciousness and dualism and what you call system properties and so on and
> so on and so on.
>
> -gts
It's called analyzing the text to see what it implies, what it's premised on
and what follows from it. Your problem is you insist on reading it in one,
simplistic way that does not go beyond a single surface level interpretation
that happens to cohere with what you already believe.
If I had approached Searle's CRA in that way I would never have changed my mind
about it, of course. But then that wouldn't have been to do philosophy but
simply to subscribe to the doctrinal formulations articulated by someone else.
If that's not what you're doing here, by the way, then you ought to be able to
give us some arguments in support of your position (and Searle's) re: the CRA
which don't just repeat previous shibboleths about the CRA in a mantra-like way.
In that case we could deal with your claims on their merits (just as you should
be dealing with mine and/or Dennett's). Instead you seem bent on impressing on
me a certain orthodoxy of opinion which you happen to believe yourself. I would
be more than glad to consider and react to some substantive argumentation from
you on the matter of the CRA. I might even turn out to be wrong on some (or
all) of my views here. But you cannot convince me if all you do is repeat and
repeat and repeat while denying, denying, denying.
SWM
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