[Wittrs] Re: What Is Ontological Dualism?
- From: "SWM" <SWMirsky@xxxxxxx>
- To: wittrsamr@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 08 Apr 2010 00:00:15 -0000
--- In Wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, "gabuddabout" <wittrsamr@...> wrote:
> --- In WittrsAMR@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, "SWM" <wittrsamr@> wrote:
> >
> > --- In Wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, Gordon Swobe <wittrsamr@> wrote:
> >
> > > Meant to write below that "this conclusion does NOT fall under the
> > > definition of 'intuition' as you want to say."
> > >
> >
> > A Freudian slip then? If it's not about your intuition, what do you think
> > it's about? Is it just the claim that non-identity implies non-causality
> > (which we already know is not logically the case)? -- SWM
>
Budd writes:
> Your problem is that you focus on the premises as if they poofed out of
> nowhere. If you grasp the target article, you will grasp that Searle is
> saying that symbol manipulation alone can't cause anything. It is simply the
> case that functional properties are second-order ones and they don't cause
> anything.
>
SWM:
Cite the relevant text in the "target article" please, and provide the link(s).
As I've already said, Budd, the claim about "symbol manipulation" misses the
point if it is just a claim that computer processes running on computers are
"abstract" and therefore lack "causal" power. No one in the AI community argues
that something in the abstract makes anything happen in the real world. Nor
does Dennett.
It's true that Searle equates computational processes running on computers with
what he calls "syntax" which is to say symbol manipulation according to set
rules and it's true that such manipulation isn't an example of understanding.
But the issue is what do such processes cause, not what they are, and what CAN
they cause and whether computational processes running on computers CAN cause
what brain processes running in brains cause.
If brain processes are physical and they cause understanding and computer
processes are physical, why shouldn't they cause understanding, too, if they're
doing the same kinds of things?
Everything depends on what we take understanding to be, of course -- whether
it's a process level property or a system level property, whether it's a
bottom-line irreducible ontological basic or just an outcome of other things
more ontologically basic than itself. But this important aspect of the debate
seems to elude the Searlean side and it is precisely this failure to grasp this
important point that informs the ongoing Searlean claim.
> You can't turn around and say that what Searle means above is due to claiming
> that "non-identity impliesnon-causality." That is just not the case.
>
And your reason is ____________________
> What IS the case is that you simply wish it were that easy to critique
> Searle. But wishing doesn't make it so.
>
>
> Cheers,
> Budd
As with some others here, Budd, your arguments for Searle and against his
critics always seem to come down to assertions without reasons to back them up.
In your case, though, you do try to do reasons on occasion as when you spin the
fantastical story about "first order" and "second order" properties, claiming
that the first have causal power while the second don't. But nothing you say
about this distinction has any relevance to the actual claims of AI researchers
or people arguing for a Dennettian type model of mind because they have never
argued for programs in the way Searle and many of his adherents have ended up
asserting.
So, in the end, it always comes back down to assertions, accusations and
aspersions.
If you Searleans had any real of arguments substance, I should have thought
you'd have been able to trot them out by now instead of hanging onto the same
tired old refrains of "not causal", "it's so obvious even a kindergartner can
understand it", and Searle's critics are just "wedded to their ideology".
SWM
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