[Wittrs] Re: The Problem for Dennett
- From: "SWM" <SWMirsky@xxxxxxx>
- To: wittrsamr@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 13 Apr 2010 14:45:28 -0000
--- In Wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, Gordon Swobe <wittrsamr@...> wrote:
> --- On Tue, 4/13/10, SWM <wittrsamr@...> wrote:
>
> > Moreover, Budd's distinction between first and second order
> > properties is inadequately explicated by him or you
>
> In other words you don't understand what we're talking about. But we already
> know that.
>
Well that's always a possibility. On the other hand, it's possible you guys
don't understand the point I've made that no one in the AI field imagines that
by computer programs some abstraction (and thus without causal capacity) is
meant. They always mean processes implemented (running on) computers. Arguing
against anything else is arguing against a strawman.
> > and fails to resolve this issue of claiming that computational
> > processes running on computers are inherently inadequate for
> > producing instances of consciousness.
>
> Syntax is inherently inadequate for producing semantics (axiom 3),
No, THAT is NOT demonstrated by the CR. That's the point! It is not the same as
semantics of course. We don't disagree. But not being the same does not
preclude it having the capacity to cause it.
You don't argue against this claim by just REPEATING over and over again that
it is "inherently inadequate for producing semantics". What is your evidence
for that>
The only reason for the failure to find understanding ("semantics") in the CR
is that there isn't enough going on to cause it there. If you think its absence
alone is evidence that it cannot be there then you are saying (whether you
realize it or not!) that it must be present as a property of at least one of
the CR's constituent elements. But if that is taken to its logical conclusion
it is nothing more than to claim that it is an irreducible phenomenon!
Of course, if consciousness is conceivable in another way, as a system level
property, then the obvious conclusion is that the CR is just the wrong kind of
system because it's inadequate to its assigned task.
> and conscious minds have semantic contents (axiom 2). Ergo syntax is
> inherently inadequate for producing minds, *but only in light of axiom 2*.
>
That minds have semantic content and syntax is not the same as semantics
doesn't demonstrate that syntax cannot cause semantic contents which are
essential for mind!
Not being the same as something DOES NOT imply not being able to cause
something!
And the CR only shows that the so-called "syntax" is not the same as
"semantics" because "Nothing in the Chinese Room understands Chinese and the
Chinese Room doesn't either" (John Searle). If that is so, then the absence of
"semantics" is being taken as evidence of non-causality but all such absence
can demonstrate is non-identity (that something called "semantics" is not a
property of some instances of something called "syntax").
> (Dennett rejects axiom 2 also, by the way.
I'm aware of that. I am not addressing it in my argument here.
> According to him, minds have no contents. I suppose he uses his own mind for
> reference. :)
>
> -gts
>
What he means is what he means vis a vis "qualia", i.e., that you don't need to
identify some particular entity in minds named "semantics". The point is rather
easily grasped if you just note the fact that it is rather strange sounding to
speak of minds as "having" "semantics". What is it to have semantics? How many
do we have? Can we have one "semantic"? What does it look like?
Here Searle radically diverges from ordinary language and, of course, Dennett
is pointing straight back to it by noting the rather gratuitous designation of
instances of understanding any of us may have as "semantics".
Indeed, the term "semantics" usually refers to a certain kind of discipline
that studies meanings, including the assignment and recognition of meaning in
terms, symbols, etc. So from a discipline of study, Searle derives a name for a
something which can nowhere be found and which ordinary language never bothers
to name at all!
Better to speak of knowing and understanding than of "having semantics" as the
former make more sense.
SWM
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