tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post368127916425210074..comments2024-03-27T15:34:14.749-07:00Comments on dangerous idea: Author Meets CriticVictor Repperthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10962948073162156902noreply@blogger.comBlogger101125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post-5700553867937213012012-11-14T15:23:56.727-07:002012-11-14T15:23:56.727-07:00Grodrigues,
As with everybody else, my patience is...Grodrigues,<br />As with everybody else, my patience is worn thin. This is going nowhere, so for the last time:<br /><br />I tend to agree, you keep making the same mistakes that I have pointed out and have failed to address them. The only progress made was that you listed some features of how to determine rationality, but it still fell short of my request of creating criteria that didn’t also apply to computers. I wish you would save us the time by using Google for a second to actually see what computers are capable of before making declarative and incorrect statements about their abilities. It would have saved us a lot of time.<br />1. …But we do have rationally inferred beliefs…<br /><br />I’ve repeatedly asked how you determine this. Anything close to a response has also applied to computers (More content under point three.), which is where you’re misconception of point two comes from. Please support this premise. <br /><br />2. “You somehow think that I am using some ad hoc definition that "axiomatically" (as that other clueless skeptic put it) excludes computers from the community of rational beings.”<br /><br />I don’t presume to know what definition you are using. I’m just pointing out that you are not applying the definition consistently, not that you have definitionally excluded computers.<br /><br />3. “The evidence is all around us; you know, those things called art, philosophy, culture, science and technology.”<br /><br />So when we design robots that can paint, assign meanings to symbols, interact with other robots, test hypotheses, and build things, they would be considered rational? I hate to break it to you but we already have robots that can make art, music, interact with humans, assign meaning to objects, create hypotheses and experiments in which to test them, and create tools. Computers already fit your criteria for rationality, so it’s simply inconsistent to insist that they aren’t.<br /><br />Just for fun, here’s a sample of Emily’s music: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QEjdiE0AoCU<br /><br />“If you want to deny this you are committed to saying that human beings are rational only accidentally and not essentially -- but then it is *inexplicable* why *every* human being, barring some *accident*, is capable of rational thought and it is also inexplicable why you have been blessed with this unique capacity that your other fellow members of the species seem to lack.”<br /><br />It’s not inexplicable at all. Our genomes have a lot in common. If we took the programming of say Emily Howell and inserted a few mutations in the code, it’s likely that it would still work just fine (granted that most of the code is commented to simulate junk DNA). For the times that it disrupts some essential function, it was just an accident. Also, I’m not saying that I’m immune from non-rational factors. If I had grown up in the slums of Africa, or in downtown Egypt, I would not have received the education that I have received. I would not have learned the value in different methodologies and would have had a small sample size with respect to the evidence available to me. I would have likely been extremely superstitious, gullible, and uneducated; in other words, not rational.<br /><br />4. “Back to computers. A pattern of 0's and 1's stored in the computer's memory is no more about this than about that.”<br /><br />And neurons being off or on are no more about this than about that. So a fortiori, humans cannot think; it is a meaningless to apply such a predicate to them.<br /><br />“because we human beings with real, actual reasoning powers, interpret as such.”<br /><br />Which begs the question of how we determine that we have those reasoning powers.<br /><br />Crude, <br /><br />Misunderstanding aside, your objection is still irrelevant. You asked me how I know that I am not just dreaming when I demonstrate to myself my ability to walk. The answer to that is that walking is more than a visual phenomenon and that I don’t experience the sense of touch when I dream. It’s easy to differentiate different experiences when they are so starkly different. The only fallback you have is an argument for solipsism, good luck with that.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post-39105784202098644412012-11-14T07:02:37.392-07:002012-11-14T07:02:37.392-07:00@cautiouslycurious:
As with everybody else, my pa...@cautiouslycurious:<br /><br />As with everybody else, my patience is worn thin. This is going nowhere, so for the last time:<br /><br />1. The argument as Martin laid out is a reductio: reasons, as when we say "I believe X because of reason Y" are a very different sort of beast than efficient causes are. Efficient (and material) causes are the only thing that exist under metaphysical naturalism. But if you say that "I believe X because the belief is efficiently caused by Y" than the belief X is *NOT* rationally inferred. But we do have rationally inferred beliefs, so metaphysical naturalism is false. No mention of an immaterial soul anywhere.<br /><br />2. You somehow think that I am using some ad hoc definition that "axiomatically" (as that other clueless skeptic put it) excludes computers from the community of rational beings. Rational thought involves the capacities of abstraction and concept formation and the various modes of reasoning. At a minimum, and taking the stock example of Socrates syllogism, it involves grasping what the concepts mortality and human being *mean*, recognizing an application of a valid, that is truth preserving, deductive rule, etc. Nothing ad hoc here, just what everyone, everywhere, everywhen held rational thought to be.<br /><br />3. Now you ask me to substantiate the claim "Human beings are rational animals". This is Aristotle's real (not nominal) definition of human being: we, human beings, have the genus animal with the specific difference rational. The evidence is all around us; you know, those things called art, philosophy, culture, science and technology. The evidence is in *yourself*. If you want to deny this you are committed to saying that human beings are rational only accidentally and not essentially -- but then it is *inexplicable* why *every* human being, barring some *accident*, is capable of rational thought and it is also inexplicable why you have been blessed with this unique capacity that your other fellow members of the species seem to lack. In practice, it amounts to agreeing with the conclusion of the argument as Martin laid out as if humans do not have rational thought essentially but only accidentally (if that even), then there is really no reason to think that we think. This last sentence sounds like an oxymoron: it is, discussion's over.<br /><br />4. Back to computers. A pattern of 0's and 1's stored in the computer's memory is no more about this than about that. It is only about Socrates, or about mortality or human beings, because we human beings with real, actual reasoning powers, interpret as such. So a fortiori, computers cannot think; it is a meaningless to apply such a predicate to them. They do not "grasp" what mortality or human being is, neither do they "know" what a deductive rule is much less "apply" it, nor can they "form" abstract concepts. All this not because of any ad hoc, perverse definition of rationality on my part, but because of what computers *are*: human artifacts, not natural substances, with only derived intentionality, not intrinsic one.<br /><br />5. Of course, metaphysical naturalists deny any and all intrinsic teleology anyway, so invoking it is tantamount to denying metaphysical naturalism. On the other hand, because Thomists *do* accept intrinsic or immanent teleology in natural substances, the above arguments *cannot* be used to prove the immateriality of the intellect, contrary to what you and that other ignorant skeptic keep harping about, precisely because our thoughts -- or even neural patterns in the brain -- can be "about", or "point" to something else. The problems of intentionality, qualia, etc. are typically modern philosophical problems. Classical theists use other type of arguments to get to the immateriality of the intellect, specifically the determinateness and universality of thought -- but I do not need to invoke these big guns to kill a puny fly.grodrigueshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12366931909873380710noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post-68732921810669035802012-11-13T22:40:19.228-07:002012-11-13T22:40:19.228-07:00This is quite ironic since I feel the same with re...<i>This is quite ironic since I feel the same with regards to the second issue.</i><br /><br />Sure, CC. ;)<br /><br /><i>By all means, then they’ll know that you were unable to differentiate between the sense of sight and the sense of touch.</i><br /><br />If you think hallucinations and dreams only cover 'sense of sight' - and you'd have to, because I nowhere said they were the same - like I said, run with that.<br /><br />You'd be better off saying, "Okay, I'm sorry Crude. I misspoke." But it's a bit too late for that anyway.<br /><br /><i>Correct, brain states mean a particular outcome in the world, a particular thought. A particular neural arrangement will produce http://www.iasaglobal.org/images/iasa/poland.jpg and that’s what that arrangement entails, that’s what that arrangement translates to, that’s what it means. To actually get to the meaning of it being “Poland,”</i><br /><br />CC - seriously. Stop, go, read. Start with Searle's "The Rediscovery of the Mind". Maybe The Last Superstition if you need something more direct. But when you say the things you do, consistently, it becomes clear that you haven't even apprehended the basics of this discussion - not even from a materialist point of view. And I'm just not interested in teaching the basics lately.Crudehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04178390947423928444noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post-22704569019425828552012-11-13T17:09:20.003-07:002012-11-13T17:09:20.003-07:00Crude,
“And I think you should spend time thinking...Crude,<br />“And I think you should spend time thinking about it, because really - it's very clear as is. At this point you're becoming confused left and right about what are really very clear distinctions. I've tried to accommodate you, but now the effort's got to come from your end. It may simply be the case that you can't grasp some of this.”<br /><br />This is quite ironic since I feel the same with regards to the second issue.<br /><br />“I'll let you and others go read your responses to this question. As I said, at this point, I'm content to let your past responses stand. I think they say more about yourself than you care to admit.”<br /><br />By all means, then they’ll know that you were unable to differentiate between the sense of sight and the sense of touch.<br /><br />“Remember: this came after your talk about 'words not having intrinsic meanings', and I pointed out I was talking about brain states, not words. So you said, sure, you presume that brain states have intrinsic meanings. It was only after you realized you had uttered heresy against materialists that you backed off, and now want to go back to 'meanings of words' - which, again, I pointed out I wasn't referring to. This is another case of my asking a very clear, non-confusing question.”<br /><br />Correct, brain states mean a particular outcome in the world, a particular thought. A particular neural arrangement will produce http://www.iasaglobal.org/images/iasa/poland.jpg and that’s what that arrangement entails, that’s what that arrangement translates to, that’s what it means. To actually get to the meaning of it being “Poland,” you have to add on a layer of semantics, which is why I initially answered in the negative, but you stipulated that we weren’t talking about that part so I was free to avoid the semantic part. I only backed off when you made it clear that you were adding back in the semantic part. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post-77730171154844787682012-11-13T13:07:34.023-07:002012-11-13T13:07:34.023-07:00I think you should rethink what you are trying to ...<i>I think you should rethink what you are trying to convey and pick a different sequence of words, rather than simply repeating it and hoping that it will magically become clearer.</i><br /><br />And I think you should spend time thinking about it, because really - it's very clear as is. At this point you're becoming confused left and right about what are really very clear distinctions. I've tried to accommodate you, but now the effort's got to come from your end. It may simply be the case that you can't grasp some of this.<br /><br /><i>That was emphatically not my response.</i><br /><br />I'll let you and others go read your responses to this question. As I said, at this point, I'm content to let your past responses stand. I think they say more about yourself than you care to admit.<br /><br /><i>And they are correct. The ‘aboutness’ is something added onto later when applying the meaning of words, which is all derived. I thought I made this clear when I said “The meaning that we give to words would not be intrinsic but certain neural patterns would elicit specific responses.”</i><br /><br />Sorry, but no. Because, as I pointed out in the followup question - I wasn't talking about 'the meaning of words'. Again, my question:<br /><br />"Does a given neural pattern intrinsically mean 'I am thinking about Russia'?"<br /><br />Your response:<br /><br />"I’m not sure, but I would presume so."<br /><br />Remember: this came after your talk about 'words not having intrinsic meanings', and I pointed out I was talking about brain states, not words. So you said, sure, you presume that brain states have intrinsic meanings. It was only after you realized you had uttered heresy against materialists that you backed off, and now want to go back to 'meanings of words' - which, again, I pointed out I wasn't referring to. This is another case of my asking a very clear, non-confusing question.<br /><br />If your main interest here is in maintaining fidelity to materialism because you have some attachment to it, well, go for it. But when I start to get the impression that you haven't even read up on this, and are just kind of blindly feeling around for what you think a materialist would say and trying to say that, I gotta say - interest drained over here.Crudehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04178390947423928444noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post-80117252954197458512012-11-13T09:39:59.771-07:002012-11-13T09:39:59.771-07:00Crude,
“I already did, multiple times. If you can&...Crude,<br />“I already did, multiple times. If you can't understand it at this point, all I can say is take a few days and think about it. Specifically, think about what it means to make 'a comparison' and 'a valid comparison oriented towards truth'.”<br /><br />No, you didn’t. An example is not an explanation. Anyway, it seems to mean exactly what I said before; that a valid comparison is an equivalence function returning a value of true.<br /><br />“On the flipside, think of what it would mean to say 'all comparisons are valid and oriented towards truth'.”<br /><br />Again, this is grammatically clumsy. I think you should rethink what you are trying to convey and pick a different sequence of words, rather than simply repeating it and hoping that it will magically become clearer.<br /><br />“Buddy, the only one irrelevant here is you. I gave the broadest possible example here - the idea of having an experience, via dream or hallucination, of one doing something they cannot. Your response is, 'Well *I* always know when I'm hallucinating!'”<br /><br />That was emphatically not my response. I specifically said that people can be fooled by hallucinations, but that hallucinations are a different sort of phenomena than the one I described so it’s irrelevant.<br /><br />“You can find Dennett, for example, insisting that all meaning is derived meaning and must be given materialism. You can find Alex Rosenberg insisting that brain states are never 'about' anything in an intrinsic sense - again, because if they were, goodbye materialism.”<br /><br />And they are correct. The ‘aboutness’ is something added onto later when applying the meaning of words, which is all derived. I thought I made this clear when I said “The meaning that we give to words would not be intrinsic but certain neural patterns would elicit specific responses.” You can have a dream that mirrors the physical location and we then say that you had a dream about said physical location due to the meaning of the words involved, not because the picture intrinsically means anything. That sort of meaning I ascribe to words, which I was incorrectly advised that it was not the scope of the question.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post-27945301080031483732012-11-13T04:02:31.086-07:002012-11-13T04:02:31.086-07:00It would be much easier if you explained what you ...<i> It would be much easier if you explained what you mean.</i><br /><br />I already did, multiple times. If you can't understand it at this point, all I can say is take a few days and think about it. Specifically, think about what it means to make 'a comparison' and 'a valid comparison oriented towards truth'.<br /><br />On the flipside, think of what it would mean to say 'all comparisons are valid and oriented towards truth'.<br /><br /><i>I said that hallucinations are significantly different to the example given for the reasons already given. If you can’t deal with this and update your examples, then you’ll simply remain irrelevant. </i><br /><br />Buddy, the only one irrelevant here is you. I gave the broadest possible example here - the idea of having an experience, via dream or hallucination, of one doing something they cannot. Your response is, 'Well *I* always know when I'm hallucinating!'<br /><br />Like I said: okay, take that tack. I'm going to suggest that the problem here is on your end, not mine - I am truly content to leave it at that.<br /><br /><i>This would simply be a physical consequence of your material state, which I would think would qualify as a materialistic view.</i><br /><br />Nope. If you believe that physical patterns have intrinsic meaning, rather than derived meaning, then you are off into the land of Aristotle and you've left the land of materialism behind.<br /><br />You can find Dennett, for example, insisting that all meaning is derived meaning and must be given materialism. You can find Alex Rosenberg insisting that brain states are never 'about' anything in an intrinsic sense - again, because if they were, goodbye materialism. By locating meaning and intentionality as an intrinsic property of the physical, you're ditching mechanistic materialism. The fact that 'matter' is involved, even fundamentally involved, doesn't suffice to secure materialism - Thomists and Aristotileans do the same. They are not materialists.<br /><br />Hey, this isn't a criticism. I applaud it. Good for you - I do the same.Crudehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04178390947423928444noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post-27566023910509543842012-11-13T00:01:18.612-07:002012-11-13T00:01:18.612-07:00Crude,
“It wasn't about the evaluation of the ...Crude,<br />“It wasn't about the evaluation of the comparison, but about the comparison and its conclusion.<br /><br />So, there's a difference between 'making a comparison' and 'making a valid comparison with a disposition towards truth'.”<br /><br />I still don’t know what you mean. Also, the evaluation is the only conclusion that I was getting at. I don’t even know what conclusion you are referring to. My best guess of what you mean when saying 'making a valid comparison with a disposition towards truth' is comparing two equal values and returning a true positive, but I doubt you mean that. It would be much easier if you explained what you mean.<br /><br />“Yeah, like I already said: in your opinion, when people talk about having had hallucinations or dreams, what they means is 'I had this experience that I knew at the time was false.'”<br /><br />I said that hallucinations are significantly different to the example given for the reasons already given. If you can’t deal with this and update your examples, then you’ll simply remain irrelevant. I don’t think people talk about whether they believed their dream to be true or false at the time, I think they simply tell it like a story, just like any other (non)fictional story.<br /><br />“You didn't 'reduce thoughts to their material counterparts'. What you did was say that such-and-such a neuronal arrangement has intrinsic meaning. That's exactly what mechanistic materialists deny. But if intrinsic meaning exists in the material, then the mechanists are wrong and some other group - the Aristotileans, for example - are correct.”<br /><br />Let’s go back to the example again. Let’s say I can manipulate your neurons such that this picture pops into your head (just a picture taken somewhere in Poland): http://www.iasaglobal.org/images/iasa/poland.jpg This means that whenever your neurons are arranged in that way, you will be thinking about that picture (of Poland) because thought reduces to neural activity. This would simply be a physical consequence of your material state, which I would think would qualify as a materialistic view. What else could you mean when you ask whether a neural pattern ‘intrinsically means’ something?<br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post-73759875338962422822012-11-12T22:48:36.864-07:002012-11-12T22:48:36.864-07:00I think the second question is whether this evalua...<i>I think the second question is whether this evaluation of false we come up with is reliable, and the answer to that is yes, simply due to the meaning of the terms involved.</i><br /><br />It wasn't about the evaluation of the comparison, but about the comparison and its conclusion.<br /><br />So, there's a difference between 'making a comparison' and 'making a valid comparison with a disposition towards truth'.<br /><br /><i>I can only speak from my own experience, but when I dream, I can tell that it’s fake.</i><br /><br />Yeah, like I already said: in your opinion, when people talk about having had hallucinations or dreams, what they means is 'I had this experience that I knew at the time was false.'<br /><br />Run with that, I guess. <br /><br /><i>Not sure how you came to this conclusion, especially when the answer specifically implies that our thoughts reduce to their material counterparts.</i><br /><br />You didn't 'reduce thoughts to their material counterparts'. What you did was say that such-and-such a neuronal arrangement has intrinsic meaning. That's exactly what mechanistic materialists deny. But if intrinsic meaning exists in the material, then the mechanists are wrong and some other group - the Aristotileans, for example - are correct.<br /><br />Like I said, welcome to the world of Aristotle (among others). It's a great metaphysic. It's just not naturalism. And hey, don't sweat ditching naturalism too much - it doesn't mean you're suddenly a theist, or anti-science.Crudehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04178390947423928444noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post-58118120138348620142012-11-12T22:26:20.392-07:002012-11-12T22:26:20.392-07:00Grodrigues,
“You do not know what rational thought...Grodrigues,<br />“You do not know what rational thought is? You cannot recognize the numerous manifestations of rational thought in yourself and in other human beings? (note: see next post)”<br />I’ve already been told what I consider rational is not the ‘correct’ definition being used here, so I want you to explain how you define the term. <br /><br />It is obvious that humans can think; I hope you are not questioning that. What Searle's thought experiment shows is that the Turing test cannot conclusively decide if whatever it is that is inside the chinese room (a chinese man or a chinese computer) really does think. If whatever is inside the room did passed the test, it certainly was a good indication that it does think.<br /><br />The question is whether humans can think in such as way that they are distinct from computers. I think you are saying that the Turing test is not conclusive, but it constitutes evidence of rationality. If so, then I would support that notion. The question then becomes how did you determine that humans easily gain the title of rationality when computers don’t.<br /><br />“You misunderstand the point. Rationality is not defined by giving correct answers -- precisely because you can arrive at correct answers in various non-rational ways -- but the *process* by which you arrive at them: rational thought. You do not know what rational thought is? You cannot recognize it and its manifestations?”<br /><br />The problem here is that you are presuming that rational thought is unhinged by our neural activity. You keep on pointing out that the computers calculations in its virtual machine are simply the manipulation of bits, but humans have the same analog. I can recognize rational thought in humans, but by the same criteria, I also recognize it in computers. In order to realize why you deny this, I need to know how you recognize rational thought and the most I’ve gotten is “it’s obvious”.<br /><br /><br />“Did I mentioned anywhere a thinking immaterial soul? The argument is a reductio, can you stick to it?” <br /><br />Perhaps you should reread what I wrote. The people in the example (Einstein and Shakespeare) didn’t have thinking immaterial souls. The people in the example simply pulled random characters out of the alphabet and number line to create their works. Also, you are proposing that humans are capable of rational thought (that would be the thinking part); in conjunction with the argument, this means that you are proposing that naturalism is false (that would be the immaterial part) and I simply used soul to denote something special that we have that computers don’t have to enable this rational thought (since we are capable of thought when computers apparently aren't), so I don’t think my comment was out of line or in any way inaccurate. Anyway, the question remains, how do you know if someone is actually rational versus say acting like a computer?<br /><br />“1. Rational animals are capable of rational thought.<br />2. Human beings are rational animals.<br />3. Kasparov is a human being.<br />4. Kasparov is capable of rational thought.<br /><br />Both arguments are deductively valid. So which premise do you want to deny? Guess: you do not want to deny anyone actually, but you will ask how can I...”<br /><br />I would want you to explain premise two in such a way that it doesn’t include computers. As far as it holds true to computers, I think that premise two is true. As far as it doesn’t, I don’t think that premise two is true.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post-85258916120458013592012-11-12T22:23:11.522-07:002012-11-12T22:23:11.522-07:00Crude,
“Again: It's like how chickens and slot...Crude,<br />“Again: It's like how chickens and slot machines are both tongue depressors.<br /><br />Question 1: Is that a comparison?<br /><br />Question 2: Is it a valid comparison with a disposition towards truth?”<br /><br />Not sure how this has any relevance, but I’ll play along. To question one, you are making two comparisons, one comparison between chickens and tongue depressors and another between slot machines and tongue depressors. By the way, the truth value for each is false. I think the second question is whether this evaluation of false we come up with is reliable, and the answer to that is yes, simply due to the meaning of the terms involved.<br /><br />“So you're telling me that, in your opinion, when people talk about having had hallucinations or dreams, what they means is 'I had this experience that I knew at the time was false.'? Seriously?”<br /><br />I can only speak from my own experience, but when I dream, I can tell that it’s fake. It’s like watching a movie from a first person perspective of one of the characters or like playing a first person shooter with your face two inches from the screen. You get the visuals of being there (and they are just as good as real life), but you don’t get all of the sights and sounds and other things such as say the force of gravity from jumping down from something. I can tell from the absence of these other things that I am experiencing a dream. <br /><br />“Congratulations - you're not a materialist. We non-materialists welcome you to our camp. Don't worry, you don't have to believe in God.”<br /><br />Not sure how you came to this conclusion, especially when the answer specifically implies that our thoughts reduce to their material counterparts.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post-28539280152490736902012-11-12T18:44:39.680-07:002012-11-12T18:44:39.680-07:00@cautiouslycurious (continued):
"How do you ...@cautiouslycurious (continued):<br /><br />"How do you determine that Kasparov is able to assign meaning to his own actions without some sort of Turing test?"<br /><br />I do not know what you mean by "assign meaning to his own actions". If you want to ask me how do I know that Kasparov is capable of rational thought, here is one way how I know it:<br /><br />1. Rational animals are capable of rational thought.<br /><br />2. Human beings are rational animals.<br /><br />3. Kasparov is a human being.<br /><br />4. Kasparov is capable of rational thought.<br /><br />A slightly different argument:<br /><br />1. I am capable of rational thought (note: this is an indexical statement).<br /><br />2. Being capable of rational thought is part of the essence of what I am, a human being.<br /><br />3. Kasparov is a human being.<br /><br />4. Kasparov is capable of rational thought.<br /><br />Both arguments are deductively valid. So which premise do you want to deny? Guess: you do not want to deny anyone actually, but you will ask how can I...grodrigueshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12366931909873380710noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post-13561498151177452742012-11-12T18:42:46.448-07:002012-11-12T18:42:46.448-07:00@cautiouslycurious:
"I don’t know what you m...@cautiouslycurious:<br /><br />"I don’t know what you mean, so please share."<br /><br />You do not know what rational thought is? You cannot recognize the numerous manifestations of rational thought in yourself and in other human beings? (note: see next post)<br /><br />"I see no reason why this can’t be said for humans."<br /><br />That is precisely what Martin claimed is entailed by metaphysical naturalism. Glad you agree.<br /><br />"I mean it in the same capacity as when I use the term to humans. By the same logic, the Chinese room experiment could be used to show that humans can’t think either."<br /><br />It is obvious that humans can think; I hope you are not questioning that. What Searle's thought experiment shows is that the Turing test cannot conclusively decide if whatever it is that is inside the chinese room (a chinese man or a chinese computer) really does think. If whatever is inside the room did passed the test, it certainly was a good indication that it does think.<br /><br />"So how do you decide whether someone is rational or not? If we are going to wash away every correct response as they could have been lucky, then you can’t ever call anyone rational."<br /><br />You misunderstand the point. Rationality is not defined by giving correct answers -- precisely because you can arrive at correct answers in various non-rational ways -- but the *process* by which you arrive at them: rational thought. You do not know what rational thought is? You cannot recognize it and its manifestations?<br /><br />"Their works would have been devoid of any content apart from us other humans with some sort of ‘thinking immaterial soul’ were able to interpret it."<br /><br />Did I mentioned anywhere a thinking immaterial soul? The argument is a reductio, can you stick to it?<br /><br />"I would say that Deep Blue is ‘thinking’ when it tries to find the best move to play."<br /><br />Deep Blue is not "finding" anything, much less "thinking". It counts as finding an optimal chess move because human minds interpret the bits in memory and the transformations that these undergo as finding an optimal chess move, but apart from the human minds and their intentions, the only thing Deep Blue, a human artifact not a natural substance, is doing is shuffling bits around in memory. What a computer does is no more about this than about that; apart from the intentions of the programmers, a computer neither is for this nor for that, it has no intrinsic or immanent telos.grodrigueshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12366931909873380710noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post-55765104939539998352012-11-12T16:18:08.489-07:002012-11-12T16:18:08.489-07:00I think this is you trying to tell me that they ha...<i>I think this is you trying to tell me that they have nothing in common, but that doesn’t answer the question. Asking “how they are different?” is specifically asking for the differences. In other words, tell me what you mean by the phrase.</i><br /><br />Again: It's like how chickens and slot machines are both tongue depressors.<br /><br />Question 1: Is that a comparison?<br /><br />Question 2: Is it a valid comparison with a disposition towards truth?<br /><br /><i>I’m telling you that a hallucination of me walking would be distinguishable from actually walking. I would be able to tell it is not be real since the visual phenomenon is not accompanied by the other stimuli that are accompanied by actually walking.</i><br /><br />So you're telling me that, in your opinion, when people talk about having had hallucinations or dreams, what they means is 'I had this experience that I knew at the time was false.'? Seriously?<br /><br /><i>I’m not sure, but I would presume so.</i><br /><br />Congratulations - you're not a materialist. We non-materialists welcome you to our camp. Don't worry, you don't have to believe in God.Crudehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04178390947423928444noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post-27305671249317776152012-11-12T16:09:27.927-07:002012-11-12T16:09:27.927-07:00Crude,
“It's like how chickens and slot machin...Crude,<br />“It's like how chickens and slot machines are both tongue depressors.”<br /><br />I think this is you trying to tell me that they have nothing in common, but that doesn’t answer the question. Asking “how they are different?” is specifically asking for the differences. In other words, tell me what you mean by the phrase.<br /><br />“You are trying to tell me that you cannot hallucinate or have the illusion of the experience of walking, and frankly, the wealth of evidence is against you on this front. You may as well be saying, 'senses cannot be fooled'.”<br /><br />I’m telling you that a hallucination of me walking would be distinguishable from actually walking. I would be able to tell it is not be real since the visual phenomenon is not accompanied by the other stimuli that are accompanied by actually walking. This would be akin to saying that someone in the desert thought that they saw a body of water. This is very plausible, but not similar enough to the example I gave. To make the analogy more accurate, the person would have to start ‘drinking’ the water, and still be fooled. They would have to continue eating the sand despite its gritty texture still thinking its water. Now, is this realistic? I was hesitant since I’ve never heard an example like this so I asked for one; I’m still waiting.<br /><br />“I am saying that, as far as fundamental physical law is concerned, there's no 'winning' or 'losing' or even 'chess game' going on with Deep Blue. The idea that Deep Blue is 'trying' to do something - if we're limiting ourselves to physics - doesn't come up at all.”<br /><br />Well, if you are simply going to base everything on physics, then most of the sciences are in trouble. Even the ‘next level’ science, chemistry, would be in trouble. You could say that there is no reason why given physics that different arrangements of protons, neutrons, and protons would produce different substances with very different properties and there is no physical law that predicts those properties. Lucky for us, physics isn’t the only scope of looking at physical phenomena.<br /><br />“Does a given neural pattern intrinsically mean 'I am thinking about Russia'?”<br /><br />I’m not sure, but I would presume so.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post-62438633935523030762012-11-12T13:28:18.113-07:002012-11-12T13:28:18.113-07:00What’s the difference then?
It's like how chi...<i>What’s the difference then?</i><br /><br />It's like how chickens and slot machines are both tongue depressors.<br /><br /><i>I’ve dreamed myself ‘walking’, but I didn’t have the feeling of walking so I don’t see how it would serve as a counterexample. Experiencing walking is more than just a visual phenomenon. It requires impulses to your legs, which also elicits feedback from other senses such as the feeling of your clothing moving, or the impact of your feet hitting the ground, and changes in the ‘balance center’ of your brain. </i><br /><br />You are trying to tell me that you cannot hallucinate or have the illusion of the experience of walking, and frankly, the wealth of evidence is against you on this front. You may as well be saying, 'senses cannot be fooled'.<br /><br /><i>Are you proposing that Deep Blue might be trying to lose every game and failing or that it impossible to say that it is trying to win a game?</i><br /><br />I am saying that, as far as fundamental physical law is concerned, there's no 'winning' or 'losing' or even 'chess game' going on with Deep Blue. The idea that Deep Blue is 'trying' to do something - if we're limiting ourselves to physics - doesn't come up at all.<br /><br /><i>The meaning that we give to words would not be intrinsic but certain neural patterns would elicit specific responses. So theoretically, if we could manipulate your brain, we could manipulate how you behave, think, feel, etc. to our hearts content.</i><br /><br />I didn't ask about the meaning of the words. I asked about the meaning of the pattern itself.<br /><br />Does a given neural pattern intrinsically mean 'I am thinking about Russia'?<br /><br />ozero,<br /><br />Remember that this particular argument has a variety of instantiations. Plantinga's EAAN and Lewis' Argument from Reason are in the same ballpark, but are different arguments.Crudehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04178390947423928444noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post-49887897860933763392012-11-12T07:37:44.036-07:002012-11-12T07:37:44.036-07:00Since that was you're last reply, I'm just...Since that was you're last reply, I'm just going to ask a question to grodrigues, since I think it also goes to what he was saying.<br /><br />"The same might apply to Kasparov, but he is capable of assigning meaning to his own actions."<br /><br />How do you determine that Kasparov is able to assign meaning to his own actions without some sort of Turing test?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post-80111542794598588232012-11-11T22:40:33.139-07:002012-11-11T22:40:33.139-07:00"Anyway, I still don’t get what you are tryin..."Anyway, I still don’t get what you are trying to say. Are you proposing that Deep Blue might be trying to lose every game and failing or that it impossible to say that it is trying to win a game? Whatever the point, why couldn’t I also ascribe the same thing to Kasparov?"<br /><br />I think what he's trying to say is Deep Blue is not objectively doing anything "meaningful," after all, it is just matter in motion. The "meaning" comes from an outside observer, who gives it the description as a computer which plays a game. No observer, no meaning. The same might apply to Kasparov, but he is capable of assigning meaning to his own actions.<br /><br />This will be my last post on this issue as I have been doing some research on the AfR, and it turns out my understanding on the issue is not complete. I’ll probably buy Reppert’s book. The whole computer thing, I think, is irrelevant to the debate. The argument deals with human rationality. “Computer rationality,” including any super-complex AI system we develop, is a result of rational causes (human brains/minds), which the AfR does not address.ozero91https://www.blogger.com/profile/15383910270101919080noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post-85891901283126996372012-11-11T19:45:23.111-07:002012-11-11T19:45:23.111-07:00Crude,
“There's a difference between 'a va...Crude,<br />“There's a difference between 'a valid comparison with a disposition towards truth' and just 'a comparison'.”<br /><br />What’s the difference then?<br /><br />“No, that's not what I said, and not what you said either. I've dreamed and imagined doing a lot of things I've never done. And you simply said 'How do I know I can walk? Well, I walk.' I pointed out, you can imagine or hallucinate or dream yourself doing things you can't actually do.”<br /><br />I’ve dreamed myself ‘walking’, but I didn’t have the feeling of walking so I don’t see how it would serve as a counterexample. Experiencing walking is more than just a visual phenomenon. It requires impulses to your legs, which also elicits feedback from other senses such as the feeling of your clothing moving, or the impact of your feet hitting the ground, and changes in the ‘balance center’ of your brain. <br /><br />“For one thing, just what a machine is doing is observer dependent. There is no 'how to play chess' or 'how to win at chess' at the level of physics and chemistry - those things are meanings we assign. Is Deep Blue good at what it does, or bad at what it does? The answer to that is dependent on who's asking the question and what they have in mind.”<br /><br />I thought this was an issue, despite what ozero said. Anyway, I still don’t get what you are trying to say. Are you proposing that Deep Blue might be trying to lose every game and failing or that it impossible to say that it is trying to win a game? Whatever the point, why couldn’t I also ascribe the same thing to Kasparov? <br /><br />“Let me ask this. Do you think a given series of inputs/responses has an intrinsic meaning? Like, say, would a given series of neural patterns in the brain intrinsically mean 'I am thinking about Poland'?”<br /><br />The meaning that we give to words would not be intrinsic but certain neural patterns would elicit specific responses. So theoretically, if we could manipulate your brain, we could manipulate how you behave, think, feel, etc. to our hearts content. In small part we already know this is true from experiments on the brain.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post-48268341660747776722012-11-11T18:13:06.419-07:002012-11-11T18:13:06.419-07:00Not relevant? That’s exactly the sort of compariso...<i>Not relevant? That’s exactly the sort of comparison I was talking about in the section you quoted. What kind of comparison are you talking about?</i><br /><br />There's a difference between 'a valid comparison with a disposition towards truth' and just 'a comparison'.<br /><br /><i>I suppose you could ask what if we are all in a permanent dream and actually can’t do the things we think we can a la the Matrix, which basically plays the nuclear option.</i><br /><br />Nope, no need for permanent dream talk at this point, or solipsism at any point. You said your answer to 'how do you know you can walk' was 'you walk', and you suggested you can get by without any a priori knowledge/claims. I'm pointing out that 'I just do it, then I know I can do it!' doesn't get you where you want to go without issue.<br /><br /><i>So, to generate the belief that you could walk, you at some point walked. Congratulations, that’s exactly what I said.</i><br /><br />No, that's not what I said, and not what you said either. I've dreamed and imagined doing a lot of things I've never done. And you simply said 'How do I know I can walk? Well, I walk.' I pointed out, you can imagine or hallucinate or dream yourself doing things you can't actually do.<br /><br /><i>So when a machine runs simulations and picks the move that has the highest chance of winning, that’s not it finding the optimal response? To me, that’s exactly what the phrase means so I just don’t understand where you are coming from.</i><br /><br />For one thing, just what a machine is doing is observer dependent. There is no 'how to play chess' or 'how to win at chess' at the level of physics and chemistry - those things are meanings we assign. Is Deep Blue good at what it does, or bad at what it does? The answer to that is dependent on who's asking the question and what they have in mind.<br /><br />Let me ask this. Do you think a given series of inputs/responses has an intrinsic meaning? Like, say, would a given series of neural patterns in the brain intrinsically mean 'I am thinking about Poland'?Crudehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04178390947423928444noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post-10860407247154598852012-11-11T17:25:55.943-07:002012-11-11T17:25:55.943-07:00Crude,
“Not really all that far removed for the pu...Crude,<br />“Not really all that far removed for the purposes of this discussion - keep in mind I asked about 'valid comparisons with a disposition towards truth'.”<br /><br />Not relevant? That’s exactly the sort of comparison I was talking about in the section you quoted. What kind of comparison are you talking about?<br /><br />“CC, c'mon. You've never heard of someone hallucinating? Or dreaming? Specifically, hallucinating/dreaming themselves doing something that they cannot actually do?”<br /><br />Both don’t demonstrate the phenomena we talked about. Walking is more than simply a visual phenomena and dreaming doesn’t require any sort of belief (I’ve had dreams that I’ve known were not dreams, almost like watching a movie in first person). I suppose you could ask what if we are all in a permanent dream and actually can’t do the things we think we can a la the Matrix, which basically plays the nuclear option. You might as well ask if I can refute solipsism as if it’s a serious objection. I’m not really sure what point your getting at…<br /><br />“I can imagine a variety of ways I can infer my ability to walk - which goes beyond 'I walk' to 'I remember walking recently', 'I have the memory that I am able to walk', etc.”<br /><br />So, to generate the belief that you could walk, you at some point walked. Congratulations, that’s exactly what I said. You didn’t need some sort of hyper-rationality to analyze all of your joints and biochemistry to conclude that you could walk, you simply did it. And what if your memory becomes suspect? You simply do it; you take a walk to demonstrate your ability. No thought or rationality required.<br /><br />“Except, on a mechanistic naturalism, at no point is there 'finding an optimal response' - there's just whatever succession of causes there happens to be. 'Optimal' doesn't get wedged into fundamental physics anymore than 'truth' does.”<br /><br />So when a machine runs simulations and picks the move that has the highest chance of winning, that’s not it finding the optimal response? To me, that’s exactly what the phrase means so I just don’t understand where you are coming from.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post-49681888153723731092012-11-11T16:27:40.611-07:002012-11-11T16:27:40.611-07:00Just to back up what ozero is saying to a degree.
...Just to back up what ozero is saying to a degree.<br /><br />First, I maintain that 'supernatural/natural' is a red herring here. But there are multiple possibilities - maybe rationality is intrinsic in the universe somehow. Maybe it's bestowed. Maybe a variety of options.<br /><br />The argument mostly works as a negative argument - showing what cannot be the case given mechanistic materialism. The positive case is in principle broader. (I vaguely recall Victor saying that this sort of argument moved Lewis out of the materialist/naturalist column, but not into full blown theism.)Crudehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04178390947423928444noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post-30663347484422916002012-11-11T16:15:14.875-07:002012-11-11T16:15:14.875-07:00Thinking could be as simple as taking a set of inp...<i>Thinking could be as simple as taking a set of inputs and then finding the optimal response to them. I would say that Deep Blue is ‘thinking’ when it tries to find the best move to play. When I played chess, I would follow a similar method (although at a much slower rate) and I would call that thinking about my move.</i><br /><br />Except, on a mechanistic naturalism, at no point is there 'finding an optimal response' - there's just whatever succession of causes there happens to be. 'Optimal' doesn't get wedged into fundamental physics anymore than 'truth' does.<br /><br />When you toss a rock down a hill, is the rock 'thinking'? Does it 'find an optimal path' to the bottom?Crudehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04178390947423928444noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post-4877060017580355282012-11-11T16:15:00.050-07:002012-11-11T16:15:00.050-07:00ozero91,
"a mind does not HAVE to be superna...ozero91,<br /><br />"a mind does not HAVE to be supernatural"<br /><br />Of course not, but according to this argument if it isn't supernatural, it isn't rational. What else could be the implication of "if naturalism is true, then no belief is rationally inferred"? If rational inference can be accomplished at all, it can only be accomplished by a supernatural entity.<br /><br />And I think it is impossible to separate rationality from meaning. Speaking of a computer manipulating symbols, grodrigues says, "Of themselves and apart from a human interpreting mind they are meaningless and devoid of content." I take that to mean that the assignment of meaning to things is a key element rationality.<br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post-16480729838995047142012-11-11T16:02:56.789-07:002012-11-11T16:02:56.789-07:00No, you asked me something else. You asked how som...<i>No, you asked me something else. You asked how someone knows they have the ability to compare sense data to a prediction. I said that this is something someone knows simply by doing it, akin to walking. This is far removed from knowing deductive laws.</i><br /><br />Not really all that far removed for the purposes of this discussion - keep in mind I asked about 'valid comparisons with a disposition towards truth'. <br /><br /><i>I have never heard of a case like this, could you link me to an example?</i><br /><br />CC, c'mon. You've never heard of someone hallucinating? Or dreaming? Specifically, hallucinating/dreaming themselves doing something that they cannot actually do?<br /><br /><i>However, I think the more interesting question is how do you know that you can walk?</i><br /><br />I can imagine a variety of ways I can infer my ability to walk - which goes beyond 'I walk' to 'I remember walking recently', 'I have the memory that I am able to walk', etc.<br /><br />And the question at hand is about knowledge and confidence in said knowledge given naturalism - actually, given mechanistic materialism. "Naturalism" is too vague, especially nowadays.Crudehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04178390947423928444noreply@blogger.com