[Wittrs] Re: are objects causal
- From: "jrstern" <jrstern@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: wittrsamr@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 17 Mar 2010 18:56:59 -0000
--- In Wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, "SWM" <SWMirsky@...> wrote:
>
> --- In Wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, "jrstern" <jrstern@> wrote:
> <snip>
>
> > Searle asserts that brains have some unknown physical property that enables
> > them to play this critical role. It's not being a hammer that drives the
> > nail, it's being hard and in motion, it IS a hammer because it is hard and
> > in motion, and has some other properties of shape or origin if you like, it
> > is "multiply realizable" by other token hammers, rocks that are hard and in
> > motion, etc. Until and unless the magical properties of "brain" are
> > enumerated, it seems entirely natural to suggest that substitutes should
> > work there, too, and Searle cannot prove a negative result, that a computer
> > cannot fill that role, from an unknown property of brain.
>
> Ah, I couldn't agree more, rare occurrence that such agreements on lists like
> these are! -- SWM
I'm glad that's clear and agreeable, but I hope it also shows the point of
taking physicalism seriously as a general doctrine, not just a matter to be
argued inside of a discussion of mind.
It is physicalism, not computationalism, that hosts multiple realizability.
Even Fodor gets this wrong, insofar as he spends a lot of time defending
against a naive physical essentialism, and then throws out a foundational
physicalism with the bathwater.
Josh
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