[Wittrs] The Searlean Case and its Hold on Us
- From: "SWM" <SWMirsky@xxxxxxx>
- To: wittrsamr@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 14 Apr 2010 21:01:51 -0000
After many years of discussing and debating John Searle's case against the
possibility of using computational technology to produce conscious entities
(consciousness in synthetically produced machines), and after arguing with many
different individuals expressing many different understandings of Searle's
argument(s) and so forth, it seems to me that there is a common thread in all
these discussions.
Searlean partisans generally have a strong aversion to the possibilities
implied by the AI project. They don't want to see AI succeed and, therefore,
attach themselves to Searle's argument in a way that simply does not allow for
reasoned debate. Arguments for the CRA are more about intuition than about the
individual premises or the logic. Gordon is only the latest and, perhaps the
most blatant example of this when he falls back on a claim of "it's obvious"
while dismissing the various arguments against the CRA.
But when it's about what anyone thinks is "just obvious", then it seems reason
and argument take a secondary role (if even that). The issues involved with
comparing meanings, weighing reasons, etc., just get lost in the verbiage as
the same claim is repeated, mantra-like, as though repetition can affect a
conclusion about truth or validity.
Perhaps, in a sense, this is just how it is with most arguments and perhaps
this is why Wittgenstein just tended to dismiss such logical exchanges in favor
of trying to get his interlocutors to see his point. Perhaps argumentation in
most cases is just a facade behind which we hunker as we defend our most
cherished beliefs.
If so, then Wittgenstein's approach makes even more sense since he wanted to
dispense with the endless back and forth of argumentation and just say look,
it's right there, before your eyes.
But even the logic of arguments is about what is before our eyes, too, because
no matter how thoroughly an argument is laid out, how comprehensive its
premises and its logical implications, it still comes down to seeing it, as
Wittgenstein realized. No matter how many times I have made certain arguments
with various Searlean defenders, it has never done much good in the course of
the discussions. Perhaps, for a time, there would be a hiatus, as an
interlocutor held his peace and pondered something I had said. But that didn't
mean some moment of expressed agreement would then follow!
Rather, and inevitably, there would be a return to the fray, a renewal of the
former claims, most of the time as if the prior points and rejoinders I had
made had never been made. It would be as if what had been said in response to
the others' points had never been processed by them and that is how it has been
here, on my view, with Gordon.
Sean will no doubt say "it's not about convincing anyone, just sampling the
dishes of others' ideas". That has always been his position and, though I don't
think that is really the Wittgensteinian way, I do think he has a point. One
doesn't usually convince others of much in these discussions and, when issues
are held so closely to one's heart as is the commitment to a non-mechanistic
(or, better, non-physical) view of mind, then the back and forth of the
exchanges involved seems to be especially robust and, inevitably, rancorous.
I doubt whether, in all the years I have argued against Searle's CRA, and for a
more Dennettian view of mind, that I have even convinced a single person. Even
my son who, in his college days, first got me interested in this stuff again by
introducing me to Searle and the CRA, still sides with Searle, despite the fact
that, after initially agreeing with Searle, I reconsidered and switched and
tried to convince him to do likewise.
But the view I take doesn't match what he wants to believe about himself, about
the nature of what he is, and so he remains in Searle's camp, regardless of the
points I make. It's not a matter of the quality of the Searlean argument but of
the position that argument is defending. I think, in the years I've been
dealing with this, that is still the case for all those with whom I've engaged
on this issue.
Maybe that's how it is with all such debate. Maybe, finally, changing our minds
isn't driven by logical or factual considerations at all but by the
predispositions that drive us. But, if that's so, then this, too, would seem to
be an argument against Searle's CRA and for a physical conception of mind. Just
ask Bruce!
SWM
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