[Wittrs] Re: What Is Ontological Dualism?
- From: "SWM" <SWMirsky@xxxxxxx>
- To: wittrsamr@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 08 Apr 2010 00:40:34 -0000
--- In Wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, Joseph Polanik <jPolanik@...> wrote:
> iro3isdx wrote:
>
<snip>
>
> >Your CD player works by manipulating symbols according to their shape.
> >Nothing could possibly create the sound of orchestral music by such
> >manipulation. Anybody who thinks that a CD player could actually
> >produce the sounds of orchestral music must be caught in the grips of
> >an ideology.
>
> The DVD and CD players, to the extent that they are digital devices,
> work by manipulating electrical impulses that are arbitrarily assigned
> the values of '1' and '0' based on the strength of the impulse.
>
> human intentionality is required to designate the high voltage impulse
> as a '1' and the low voltage as a '0'. it's arbitrary. it could have
> been done in reverse.
>
> everything built on top of that arbitrary decision is just a programming
> convention, syntax if you will.
>
> syntax doesn't generate semantics because it is an act with mental
> content (semantic) that creates the possibility of syntax.
>
> Joe
The issue is what does it take to generate "an act with mental content
(semantic)", not whether it takes "act(s) with mental content" to program
computers.
It's no argument against the possibility of physical processes producing the
features we associate with minds to say that minds alter, shape and produce
particular physical processes. That the causal relation flows in one direction
in certain scenarios (computer programming, engineering, etc.) doesn't mean
that that relation cannot flow in the other direction in other scenarios
(brains producing minds and computers replicating what brains do).
So we see that non-identity doesn't imply non-causality AND a causal flow that
moves in one direction doesn't logically preclude the idea of a causal flow
that moves in the other. Logic doesn't resolve this for us. But empirical
research might.
SWM
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