Tuesday, February 12, 2013

The limits of eliminativism


Eliminativist positions in philosophy are a variety of anti-realism, which is in turn typically contrasted with realist and reductionist positions.  A realist account of some phenomenon takes it to be both real and essentially what it appears to be.  A reductionist account of some phenomenon takes it to be real but not what it appears to be.  An eliminativist view of some phenomenon would take it to be in no way real, and something we ought to eliminate from our account of the world altogether.  Instrumentalism is a milder version of anti-realism, where an instrumentalist view of some phenomenon holds that it is not real but nevertheless a useful or even indispensible fiction.

So, for example, a realist account of the mind would hold that it is both real and (just as it appears to be) irreducible to anything material; a reductionist account of the mind would hold that it is real but “really” just “nothing but” something material; and an anti-realist position would be that the mind is not real at all and should either be regarded merely as a useful fiction or eliminated altogether from our account of human beings and replaced by concepts derived entirely from physical science.  A realist account of free will would hold that it is both real and (just as it appears to be) incompatible with causal determinism; a reductionist account would hold that free will is real but compatible with determinism; and an anti-realist position would be that it is in no way real.  And so forth.

Some forms of anti-realism might seem at least coherent, whether or not they are true.  For example, someone who takes an anti-realist position in ethics -- that is, who denies that moral notions like “good” or “right” name any real features of the world -- is, arguably, not taking a self-defeating position, even if he is taking an incorrect position.  The same might seem to be true with respect to anti-realism about the existence of God, i.e. atheism.

In fact, I think, things are not quite that simple.  At least given an Aristotelian-Thomistic metaphysics of the good, on which the true and the good qua transcendentals are convertible with one another, you cannot coherently affirm that it is true that there is no such thing as goodness.  (See the relevant sections of chapters 3 and 5 of Aquinas.)  Nor, I would say, can you consistently affirm that the world is intrinsically intelligible while denying that there is something that is actus purus rather than a compound of act and potency, or ipsum esse subsistens rather than having merely derived existence.  And in that case at least certain forms of atheism will ultimately be incoherent.  (I addressed the incoherence of denying that the world is intrinsically intelligible in a couple of earlier posts, here and here.)  However, it obviously takes a fair bit of work to establish such claims about the good and God.  The incoherence (as opposed to mere incorrectness) of denying their reality is certainly not obvious or blatant. 

Blatant incoherence is more commonly attributed to eliminativist views about consciousness or thought.  Even here there might seem to be wiggle room.  The eliminativist vis-à-vis consciousness can claim that what he denies is not consciousness per se but only the existence of qualia -- those aspects of conscious experience that are accessible only from the first-person point of view of the subject of the experience.  The eliminativist about thought can claim that what he denies are merely propositional attitudes like belief, desire, and the like, but not that there are other information-bearing states in the brain that need to be understood in terms of neuroscience rather than commonsense psychology.

In both these cases I think the incoherence is only disguised rather than avoided.  With respect to qualia, one problem is that it is dubious at best whether there is anything left to consciousness when qualia are entirely subtracted from it; another is that the motivation for denying qualia is often supposed to be scientific, but to deny their existence would be to undermine the evidential base of science itself.  (This is a paradox which, as I’ve pointed out before, has been noted by thinkers like Democritus and Schrödinger, whose respectability from the point of view of scientism can hardly be denied.)

In the case of thought, the trouble is that the motivation for eliminativism here is the difficulty of accounting for the intentionality, “aboutness,” or directedness of thought in terms of a modern, mechanistic, anti-Aristotelian conception of matter, on which matter is inherently devoid of finality, directedness, or teleology of any kind.  Getting rid of beliefs, desires, and the like only eliminates one kind of intentionality.  But some kind of intentionality must be affirmed if notions like theory, concept, model, evidence, inference, truth, and the like -- which are central to the very notion of, and practice of, science itself -- are to be affirmed, or even reconstructed in some more scientistically “respectable” way.  The notion of “information” seems to do the trick only because it is systematically ambiguous.  If meant in something like the technical, Claude Shannon sense, it is itself prima facie compatible with scientism, but irrelevant to reconstructing inherently intentional notions like theory, concept, truth, etc. in materialist-friendly terms.  If meant instead in the ordinary sense, it is relevant, but then smacks of intentionality of just the sort the advocate of scientism was supposed to be explaining away.  (I’ve discussed these sorts of problems with eliminativism about intentionality in several places, such as here.)

But I would say that all of this is secondary to what I take to be the two areas in which eliminativism reaches its absolute, undeniable limits in principle: formal or abstract thought; and change.  The first is what James Ross, in an argument I defend at length in an article in the latest ACPQ, notes is essentially determinate in a way material properties and processes cannot be in principle.  As Ross argues, to deny that our thought processes are ever really determinate -- to deny, for example, that there is ever a fact of the matter about whether we add, square, reason in accordance with modus ponens, etc. -- is doubly incoherent.  For one thing, it entails that none of our arguments -- including the arguments that purportedly support the denial that we ever have thoughts of a determinate form -- is valid.  For another, even to deny that we ever really add, reason in accordance with modus ponens, etc. requires that we grasp what it would be to do these things, and that requires having thoughts that are determinate in the ways in question.

That denying change cannot coherently be done has been obvious since Parmenides and Zeno first tried to do it.  Even to entertain their sophistical arguments requires that one work through their premises and, if one is to come around to their view, that one be convinced that their reasoning is sound -- all of which involves change.  Modern, Einstein-inspired attempts to deny the reality of change face a similar incoherence if pushed through consistently, as I argued in my recent paper on motion and inertia

Now it is the reality of formal or abstract thought that, in the view of classical philosophers, provides the chief reason why our intellectual faculties cannot possibly be entirely accounted for in material terms.  (See my defense of Ross for the full story.)  And the reality of change is the foundation of the Aristotelian theory of act and potency, which is in turn the key to the chief Aristotelian-Thomistic proofs of the existence of God.  New Atheist types in love with the ad hominem will no doubt be quick to conclude that this must be the reason why some philosophers insist that change and formal thought cannot coherently be eliminated.  But it is rather obvious why someone might agree that there is something fishy in denying the reality of change or formal thought processes even if he is not inclined either to theism or dualism.  What is much harder to see is why anyone would for a moment take seriously eliminativism about change or formal thought unless he was motivated to try to avoid theism and dualism.  As is so often the case, the person quick to fling an ad hominem will soon find he has thrown a boomerang. 

More interesting, perhaps, is the question why eliminativism about change and formal thought does not these days get the attention that eliminativist views regarding consciousness, intentionality, and the like do -- especially given that, as I would claim, the existence of change and formal thought processes ultimately pose the gravest challenge to naturalism, scientism, and related views.  Part of the answer is the general ignorance of the arguments of classical (Platonic, Aristotelian, Scholastic) natural theology and philosophical psychology that prevails today, and about which I so often complain.  When the modern reader hears talk of arguing from the world to God, he thinks of Paley and Leibniz, of “irreducible complexity,” Sufficient Reason, and the like -- not of the theory of act and potency.  When he hears talk of the immateriality of the mind, he thinks of qualia or perhaps of intentionality understood as mere directedness on to an object -- neither of which have much to do with Aristotelian or Thomistic arguments for the immateriality of thought.

A more remote cause, I would speculate, lies in the two epistemological doctrines that first vied to replace the Aristotelian-Scholastic conception of knowledge -- rationalism and empiricism.  The Scholastics affirmed the principle of causality, according to which any actualized potency must be actualized by something already actual.  This is a claim about objective reality, part of the theory of act and potency, whose foundations lie in the philosophy of nature and the analysis of how change as a feature of the objective world is possible.  The rationalists pushed this aside in favor of the “Principle of Sufficient Reason,” which is a purported “law of thought” rather than a thesis about objective, empirically knowable reality.  Change per se as the starting point for arguments in natural theology dropped off the “mainstream” radar screen, and failed to return even after the desiccated rationalist versions of the old proofs were dealt their supposed death blows by Hume and Kant.

Meanwhile, the empiricists crudely conflated conceptual thought with mental imagery, thereby obscuring that aspect of the mind that the Scholastics regarded as truly distinctive of human beings and the obvious mark of immateriality.  Even though later philosophers would see through the empiricists’ sophistries on this particular score, Locke, Berkeley, and Hume had succeeded in kicking up enough dust that the debate over materialism would no longer focus primarily on conceptual thought but instead on secondary issues (again, qualia and intentionality understood as mere directedness on to an object -- neither of which are essentially incorporeal on an Aristotelian-Scholastic view).

(I said more about the role modern rationalism and empiricism have played in obscuring the arguments of classical and Scholastic writers in a post on the philosophy of nature some months back.)

In any event, a failure to see their theistic and dualistic implications is surely at least one reason why change and formal thought do not show up in the contemporary eliminativist’s crosshairs as frequently as (say) intentionality or consciousness do.  One way to avoid seeing the obvious is to try to convince yourself that your eyes are lying to you.  Another is just to look in the wrong direction.

453 comments:

  1. "And whether or not something is right or wrong, again, sometimes I can, sometimes I can't. That's true for all of us, is it not?"

    That's for sure! - But the important point is that you need to explain what it is you're doing, what it is you're actually referring to, when you claim to be able to see something in the act of intentionally representing something.

    "No, what I said is that I can't always do it. Some arrangements of wiring and logic circuits are so complex that I can't untangle them. Some I can."

    Okay, so dead guy has no electro-chemical activity, so no representation. Computer has electrons flowing and beats me at chess so representation. Can you generalize that for me into a general criterion for recognizing intentionality, for recognizing when something is representing something? Do you think that it's fundamentally Kasparov vs. Deep Blue (intrinsic vs. extrinsic), or rather Kasparov vs. programmers of Deep Blue (intrinsic vs. intrinsic)? It seems you think it is the former, but why? (Most here would think it's the latter.) Is this purely an ad hoc, intuitive thing for you - you just know it?

    (Do you believe that a thermometer represents the temperature?)

    ReplyDelete
  2. How do I convey the definition of "truth" as a calculation?

    ReplyDelete
  3. "Can a non-mental process result in a self-replicating organism?"

    Yes it can, provided that a self-replicating organism exists, because some 'self-replicating organisms' just *are* 'non-mental processes', and of course non-mental processes can cause other non-mental processes. What say you?

    ReplyDelete
  4. ...I should add that we know this is possible because we observe it. (We do not similarly observe non-mental processes resulting in mental processes, i.e., abstract thought.)

    (Aliens = redherring, not epistemic indigestion)

    ReplyDelete
  5. "Do you know what reality really is? I don't."

    YES! Correct answer. You don't. (Unless maybe you're wrong about that? Is that possible?) As a working hypothesis, anyway, let's assume that you do know this one thing (at least): that you don't know what reality really is. Now that's quite an achievement - what's the isomorphism relation for that little proposition supposed to be? How do you program a computer to understand *that*? More computational horsepower? (or should I say horseshit?)

    "That's why aliens are a valid thought experiment."

    Okay, seriously. Your aliens prove nothing. Either they're capable of abstract thought like us or not. If they're not, then they're just like goats or dogs and irrelevant. If they are, then they're just like another human being whose language we don't understand (think Helen Keller, for example), and the question remains: how do you make intelligible the notion of a purely material grounding for abstract thought?

    The Jeopardy proof - seriously? I can get a monkey to pull random answers out of a box and thus get him to play Jeopardy againt my 2-y-o... If the monkey wins, you think that proves that he's 'representing' something about the correct answers in abstract thought? Do you think Google 'understands' stuff when it answers your questions?

    Anyway, enough from me for now. I look forward to you responding to Michael Brazier's last comment. PBUY

    ReplyDelete
  6. How do I explain what "=" means using just computation and/or physics?

    ReplyDelete
  7. Anonymous: I was having a discussion with a mathematical anti-realist who claimed that all math is a fiction invented by humans that is merely useful. He claimed that 1+1 does not always equal 2, which I found rather odd.

    I can shed some light on that: some things are too dumb to believe without a college education. (A little learning is a dangerous thing/So drink deep or, if you're having trouble with 1+1, just give up on attempting to do philosophy already for crying out loud.) That example is approximately equivalent to pointing out that sometimes putting one and one together:

    11

    ...gives you eleven. It's a funny joke when you're seven years old; not quite as funny a joke when you're an adult; and just plain sad when you offer it with a straight face. (Really, am I being too harsh? Random ramblings over some beers is one thing, but to have such "arguments" put forward seriously is disturbing. This isn't particularly hard, right??)

    ReplyDelete
  8. How do we decide what aspect of a material thing counts as its "aboutness?" Why say that the material's cause or result is what it is "about?" Why not say that a material thing's "aboutness" (if it even has any "aboutness") is what it is made out of? A computer circuit is composed of moving electrons, semiconductors, metals so it is about "moving electrons, semiconductors, metals."

    ReplyDelete
  9. @Anonymous:

    For the lying, sniveling vermin of an Anonymous coward that said in February 13, 2013 at 1:11 PM:

    "By the way I did look up your reference, and I found it laughable that anybody would parade such nonsense in the 21st century."

    Since you have not presented your "biased, sloppy, and necessarily probabilistic" exposition of Aquinas' theory of knowledge and then your "biased, sloppy, and necessarily probabilistic" reasoning that shows it is "nonsense", we can safely say that you are "all bluster".

    ReplyDelete
  10. Not the aspect, but simply part of that objects being that contains aboutness.

    ReplyDelete
  11. "all math is a fiction invented by humans that is merely useful"

    Is the above statement merely a useful fiction invented by that mathematician?

    And is the usefulness itself fictional?

    "Oh, no, it gets a free ride! But hey, that's useful fictions for ya!" --Benny Hill

    ReplyDelete
  12. @grod – have you been obsessing over me for the last three days? I’m honored.

    Nonetheless, I’m not in the business of performing at your command.

    Might as well clarify a few things though. "biased, sloppy, and necessarily probabilistic" refers to what we might call the native state of the human mind, or everyday cognition. We are, somehow, able to construct more rigorous and powerful forms of thought on this messy substrate, such as formal logic, science, and philosophical argument. That we can bootstrap in this way is quite an interesting phenomenon. I think my original point was: while performing formal logic, one must be consistent and inconsistencies have strict consequences, but the underpinnings of the human mind are not doing formal logic and are not obeying laws like the law of noncontradiction. Your lame jibes indicate either you don’t understand the distinction between these different levels of thought, or are deliberately obfuscating them in order to engage in /ad hominem/.

    As for Aquinas, I have not read him in depth and don’t intend to. Perhaps if you do a rich and powerful theory of mind will be revealed, but from my very small sampling, my instinct tells me that it would be a waste of my time. Judging by the quality of thinking displayed around here, even in-depth study doesn’t produce much in the way of wisdom.

    ReplyDelete
  13. @Anonymous:

    "As for Aquinas, I have not read him in depth and don’t intend to. Perhaps if you do a rich and powerful theory of mind will be revealed, but from my very small sampling, my instinct tells me that it would be a waste of my time. Judging by the quality of thinking displayed around here, even in-depth study doesn’t produce much in the way of wisdom."

    As I said: as a lying, sniveling vermin of an anonymous coward, you are "all bluster".

    ReplyDelete
  14. DavidM,

    Right. Nothing to do with determinism, so far as I can see. Determinate means having a settled terminus. For thought to be determinate is for it to be about one thing and not another, or to perform one action and not another.

    Thanks for the clarification. I am a little uncertain how that undercuts idealism though. Do you might elaborating on it a little? By the way I am not refering to subjective idealism that all is the product of the human mind but a milder version of idealism that entails that reality's building blocks are of 'mental' character.

    I ask because this is the first time I see this type of argument.

    ReplyDelete
  15. @anon

    First I already addressed your modernist superstitions and how absurd they are (popularity amongst the current philosophical zeitgeist, which is enmeshed in naturalism/materialism along with your:
    1. straman fallacies
    2. Your newer therefore better & older therefore worse fallacies
    3. You blatant ad hominem (ironic of you to call other out on it, no?)

    But, since you brought this up:

    As for Aquinas, I have not read him in depth and don’t intend to. Perhaps if you do a rich and powerful theory of mind will be revealed, but from my very small sampling, my instinct tells me that it would be a waste of my time. Judging by the quality of thinking displayed around here, even in-depth study doesn’t produce much in the way of wisdom.

    How exactly are you to judge something as nonsense if you have not read it? IF you don't understand the metaphysics this thinker is talking out of? The mode of his reasoning and so on?

    The problem with you accusing grodrigues of ad hominem is that nothing he has said is far from the truth. You're an anti-intellectualist, who for the most part is full of shit as your own admission evidently implies.

    So unless you can demonstrate what grodrigues has requested of you, you have no grounds to dismiss Aquinas, just a pathetic and unfounded bias.

    You see, when people here reject naturalism and materialism, they actually take the time to engage and understand said literature, prior to demonstrating its intellectual bankruptcy and absurdity. In you case, your ignorance was the only basis for your claims, which is quite laughable.

    ReplyDelete
  16. *Correction


    ...how absurd they are (popularity amongst the current philosophical zeitgeist means nothing!)

    ReplyDelete
  17. let me see here if get what is going on...

    Anon thinks that Grod is obsessed with him, but if I recollect what happen correctly, Anon made a number of non-substantiated assertions, and Grod is calling his bluff; this bluff calling behavior, for Anon, is considered obsession.

    Funny is that Grod simply wants Anon to substantiate his hardcore claim, but ops, Anon is not the type to follow Grod's commands. Unfortunately, that is not what any sane person looking at this conversation would understand, they would rather think that Anon was just bluffing and had to fold so people wouldn't know his game.

    Now going back to the sloppyness deal... I think Anon really did made pretty that sloppy and biased thinking were just our native thiking mode, the problem is that what we humans perceive is just the noisy and imprecise evidence coming from the outside, or rather just the data comingo from outside....... errrr how come a system that is sloppy, biased, and probabilitic somehow get this fuzzy data and transform it into a better system? Unless human cognition get less and less biased, slooppy and probabilistic as it study data, there doesn't seem to be any reason to believe that it will create any better system. So in effect, grodrigues complain was sort of right, although he might have been confused somewhat.

    The funniest part is the end, Anon infers that will be a waste of time to read Aquinas because well you people don't impress of convince me so Aquinas must be a waste of time. Literally he has just used the sloppy, biased and necessarily probabilistical thinking that he was bitching about, good thing that the substract of his brain is in no way using the the law of contraction, or care about coherence.

    ReplyDelete
  18. "biased, sloppy, and necessarily probabilistic" refers to what we might call the native state of the human mind, or everyday cognition. We are, somehow, able to construct more rigorous and powerful forms of thought on this messy substrate, such as formal logic, science, and philosophical argument."

    So is the above just improbable sloppy bigoted thinking? How do you reliably know to begin with what to attach those labels to and what gets exempted from those labels? Seems like that would apply to those kinds of pronouncements themselves, as well as requiring a fault/bias recognition system that is held to be exempt from those things in order to even analyze the issue.

    Or do we somehow break out of the native state with a fixed set of fault/bias-exempted criteria. and then just hope no one calls attention to it and keep making universal claims without any arguments for them?

    This self-excmpting universal reductionism stuff is the greatest intellectual labor-saving device in the history of philosophy!

    ReplyDelete
  19. Unfortunately, that is not what any sane person looking at this conversation would understand, they would rather think that Anon was just bluffing and had to fold so people wouldn't know his game.

    Which is to say that a sane person would be in agreement with Aquinas--vis-à-vis what is clearly Anon's misplaced sense of what it is that is deficient.

    o A proposition may be called not-intelligible in two ways[, one of which is that] it may be on the part of the one understanding, because of the deficiency of his intellect[.] – Aquinas

    ReplyDelete
  20. "I am a little uncertain how that undercuts idealism though. Do you might elaborating on it a little?"

    I'm a little uncertain about it myself. My basic idea is that it is usually assumed that the existence of matter (an ateleological substrate) is obvious, but really that's much harder to prove/understand than the existence of form. Idealism claims there is no matter, since everything is composed of 'ideas' or determinate formal realities. Accordingly there is no matter, i.e., no primordial stuff which composes with the formal reality and is a basic condition of existence (for material substances). If we can establish the intentional indeterminacy of material reality, it seems that we may have good grounds for positing the existence of matter in order to account for this lack of determinacy. (That's at least a sketch of the argument that struck me while reading Feser's fascinating argument.)

    ReplyDelete
  21. He doesn't need to read Aquinas because Aquinas' thoughts and arguments are based on Aristotelian meta-physics, and Aristotelian physics has already been dis-proven. So it is perfectly rational to assume that Aristotle's meta-physics are also unsound.

    /sarcasm/

    ReplyDelete
  22. @Roger Wasson: So is the above just improbable sloppy bigoted thinking?

    No. I see you haven’t understood a word I’ve said. Try again, it isn’t that complicated.

    How do you reliably know to begin with what to attach those labels to and what gets exempted from those labels? Seems like that would apply to those kinds of pronouncements themselves, as well as requiring a fault/bias recognition system that is held to be exempt from those things in order to even analyze the issue.

    Like I said, the question of how more reliable systems of thought are layered on top of an unreliable substrate is a very interesting one. That is another way of saying that we don’t know the answer, at least not in full.

    Here’s an example which may serve to illustrate what I’m talking about. The unaided human eye is not very good at determining the length of an object. The visual system is prone to illusions such Muller-Lyer Arrow that everyone has seen. Yet, we have invented ways to measure more reliably, such as rulers and the technique of using them. Before rulers and universal standards of length like the yard and meter, somebody at the dawn of civilization had to invent the more basic technique of lining up an object against each other, and using one object as a standard to make sure others were the same length.

    So, somehow humans have bootstrapped themselves from a sloppy system of measurement to a much better one, using simple technology and techniques.

    What I am saying is that something analogous happens with thought. Formal reasoning isn’t built in, it was an invented technique and it is a skill that must be learned and practiced. And like any tool, it is possible to misuse it.

    ReplyDelete
  23. DavidM wrote: Intentionality usually refers to 'aboutness'. A plant may be phototropic but it is not 'about' light. Plants exhibit *finality*, not intentionality. A plant is *constituted* in virtue of information, which determines its finality (and which is intelligible in virtue of its finality), but a plant has no *intentional representation* of its own intrinsic information.

    Really? How do you know? What specific tests can we perform on a plant that shows it has no intentionality that, if they were performed on, say, a dog might show intentionality and, if on a human, intentionality? What would these tests show if it were performed on the universe itself?

    ReplyDelete
  24. Humans and dogs don't have intentionality. Thoughts do.

    ReplyDelete
  25. DavidM asked: ...the question is: is there a clear demarcation between uninterpreted 'information' and interpreted information?

    Sure. If an interpreter interprets it, then it's interpreted information. Information is just a sequence of bits. Whether or not it has meaning is in the eye of the interpreter. Whether or not the interpretation is correct requires confirmation of the sender; which requires transmission of a secondary message, secondary interpretation, and so on.

    ReplyDelete
  26. What interprets the bits of information in the brain?

    ReplyDelete
  27. Anonymous wrote: Humans and dogs don't have intentionality. Thoughts do.

    So how do you know whether humans, dogs, plants, computers, or the universe have thoughts?

    ReplyDelete
  28. Anonymous wrote: What interprets the bits of information in the brain?

    The brain's neural network, just like electronic network in a computer interprets bits.

    ReplyDelete
  29. I'll just chime in here. I think it's self evident that humans have thoughts. And we don't know (yet) if plants, the universe or atoms have thoughts. But it doesn't matter. I think the point is any thought that is about something cannot be wholly material, whether the thought is generated in a human brain, a computer network or a plant. Also, computers were intelligently designed, with their interpretation systems pre-programmed into them. Humans evolved.

    ReplyDelete
  30. And by "cannot be wholly material" I mean that a thought that is intrinsically about something cannot be exhaustively define by physics, at least the typical materialist/naturalist understanding of physics. Panpsychists and property dualists get away with it because they have a different interpretation of physical matter.

    ReplyDelete
  31. Michael Brazier wrote: No, you don't. ... What you can make by pushing electrons through NAND gates and wires is something that takes two blocks of 32 bits each through input wires, and produces 33 bits through output wires, such that if each block is interpreted as a number in binary notation, the number encoded in the output block is the sum of the numbers encoded in the two input blocks.

    That's a bit simplistic. First, whether or not an adder is 1-bit, 8-bit, 32-bit, or 60-bit depends entirely on the wiring. Second, it doesn't have to be binary digits. It could be ternary or decimal or sexagesimal digits. Third, change the wiring and the logic circuits and something else happens.

    Note the word "interpret". In itself, apart from the prior knowledge of binary notation, the circuit does not mean the operation of addition; it does not mean anything at all. And binary notation is a convention defined by people, not a fact of nature.

    Nature is full of binary things. Up, down, left, right, light, dark, ... (as well as analog things). The circuits in the human brain are a fact of nature as are the circuits in a computer.

    That's why we say computers have only "derived intentionality".

    First, that's orthogonal to whether or not thought is matter in motion in certain patterns. "Derived intentionality" in machines is still intentionality.

    Second, you're saying that "intrinsic intentionality" cannot arise from unintentional processes; i.e. that evolution couldn't possibly have produced the human brain. As far as I can tell, that's the sole reason for the "intrinsic" vs. "derived" distinction.

    ... Well, if I assume that this arrangement is a series of numerals in unary notation, I notice that it matches the first seven numbers in the Fibonacci sequence; and if I also know that you are a human being with some knowledge of math, I can guess that the next group of bits will be the eighth Fibonacci number in unary notation. But without those assumptions I'd be totally in the dark.

    If you worked for SETI and came across those patterns in a signal, what would you think?

    Even in Shannon's sense, there is no information in a bare sequence of bits without some prior knowledge of their source;

    That's not quite true. There are patterns in nature that our minds are capable of understanding (because of the immense complexity of the wiring). A species with equivalently complex wiring could be able to understand them, too -- and that would be the start of the basis of the ability to communicate.

    a sequence of coin flip could produce exactly this sequence, and my uncertainty about what bit it will produce next wouldn't be reduced one iota.

    After how many elements of this sequence would you stop thinking "random event" and start thinking "purposeful behavior"?

    ReplyDelete
  32. ozero91 wrote: I think the point is any thought that is about something cannot be wholly material, whether the thought is generated in a human brain, a computer network or a plant.

    What part of a computer is immaterial?

    Also, computers were intelligently designed, with their interpretation systems pre-programmed into them. Humans evolved.

    So "intrinsic intentionality" (which is what is claimed for humans) came about through no intentionality whatsoever?

    ReplyDelete
  33. I gtg for now, so I'll leave one last reply.

    The computer doesn't need to have an non-physical component. The thought does. What is that non-physical component? Intrinsic intentionality.

    "So "intrinsic intentionality" (which is what is claimed for humans) came about through no intentionality whatsoever?"

    Again, the way I see it, intrinsic intentionality is not claimed for humans, it is claimed for thought.

    ReplyDelete
  34. "of how more reliable systems of thought"

    I'm talking about theory itself, not "Hey kids, let's look at the eye!".

    How do you first get to the vantage point where you can call things unreliable or reliable, sloppy, bigoted, etc.?

    How do you measure the first step of bootstrapping without exceptionless criteria that classify according to exceptionless categories of gradations of correctness or accuracy in order to assign the labels you are using?

    ReplyDelete
  35. @anon

    You see, when people around here call people like you superstitious, it's precisely this type of incoherent rubbish that we usually have in mind:

    So, somehow humans have bootstrapped themselves from a sloppy system of measurement to a much better one, using simple technology and techniques.

    What you have effectively done here is this:

    1. Assumed without proof human nature at bottom is irrational
    2. Carried into this world the intellectual bankruptcy of anti-realism and materialism (without justification)
    3. Committed the taxi-cab fallacy
    4. Performed a magic trick - bootstrapping
    5. Looked at us with a shit-eating grin on your face expecting us to take your anti-intellectualisms seriously.

    It was a pleasure refuting you. You're welcome. ;-)

    ReplyDelete
  36. @Roger – How do you first get to the vantage point where you can call things unreliable or reliable, sloppy, bigoted, etc.?

    I don’t know, yet here we are.

    What’s your explanation? You keep demanding things of me, but I don’t claim to have all the answers, just a portrayal of what we know about how cognition works. I’m not even sure what we are arguing about – are you people really opposed to the notion that human perception is less than perfect, or that we have learned to produce a more accurate model of the world using technology and culture than we could in their absence?

    ReplyDelete
  37. First, that's orthogonal to whether or not thought is matter in motion in certain patterns. "Derived intentionality" in machines is still intentionality.

    Do you understand why everyone here happily concedes to the existence or potential existence of derived intentionality in non-living things (even, contra your claims, rocks and the like)? Do you understand why this doesn't really help you?

    Second, you're saying that "intrinsic intentionality" cannot arise from unintentional processes; i.e. that evolution couldn't possibly have produced the human brain. As far as I can tell, that's the sole reason for the "intrinsic" vs. "derived" distinction.

    Wrf3, as someone who has watched you discuss things for a long time, both here, at your own blog, and at other sites (Vox Populi for example) I have to say... you have this really nasty habit of translating what people are saying into a view you feel more comfortable with, and losing much of what they were saying in the process. And whenever someone tries to explain their position to you, all you do is go back and retranslate it into a position you seem to wish they'd have. You never pull back and say, "Wait, I apparently don't understand. Is (x) an accurate description of your view?"

    The problem here is not evolution. Even "intelligent design" could not accomplish this, because ID still takes place with a mechanistic view. The discussion is about competing metaphysical views where the very idea of what nature is - regardless of evolution's role - plays a big part.

    I spent a lot of time asking you about whether there was intrinsic intentionality in the universe. You seemed to not want to answer that - then said yes, it does exist. Do you really understand what is meant by intrinsic intentionality? Do you know how it differs from derived intentionality?

    Also, you keep asking for a way to empirically test the presence or lack - in a foolproof way - of intentionality. But that's by and large irrelevant anyway. Insist that everything from squirrels to rocks to the universe itself may have intrinsic intentionality. These metaphysical views do not purport to, nor do they need to, provide some failsafe empirical test. Science has limits, and if the limits chafe you, that's more your problem than anything else.

    ReplyDelete
  38. I don’t know, yet here we are.

    Indeed.

    You keep demanding things of me, but I don’t claim to have all the answers, just a portrayal of what we know about how cognition works.

    No, you don't get to hide behind the safety of the innocent agnostic after taking potshots at views that you don't even understand because they aesthetically or politically offend your sensibilities. The fact is, what we know about cognition is - as far as science goes - not only extremely limited, but likely limited in principle. Metaphysics and philosophy is where the action is, like it or not, and whether or not we discuss it. If you want to say "I don't know how to answer this..." then kindly stop lecturing people whose views you don't even understand about how they're wrong because you heard an atheist wannbe-scientist snort at an idea you think is related.

    I’m not even sure what we are arguing about – are you people really opposed to the notion that human perception is less than perfect, or that we have learned to produce a more accurate model of the world using technology and culture than we could in their absence?

    No, we're not opposed to that, the most mediocre observation, because it's entirely compatible with the metaphysical and philosophical view being espoused here anyway.

    ReplyDelete
  39. DavidM: My basic idea is that it is usually assumed that the existence of matter (an ateleological substrate) is obvious, but really that's much harder to prove/understand than the existence of form. Idealism claims there is no matter, since everything is composed of 'ideas' or determinate formal realities. Accordingly there is no matter, i.e., no primordial stuff which composes with the formal reality and is a basic condition of existence (for material substances). If we can establish the intentional indeterminacy of material reality, it seems that we may have good grounds for positing the existence of matter in order to account for this lack of determinacy.

    Sorry for butting in here but I'd really like to explore this line of thought further. I'm currently trying to understand Aquinas' Fifth Way in relation to Aristotelian and Platonic thought on form, matter and mind.

    Doesn't Aquinas rely on matter being ateleological and indeterminate in his proof? If so, he must have developed that idea further elsewhere I would think.

    ReplyDelete
  40. I don’t know, yet here we are.

    Well that's a nice piece of circular "logic" now isn't it?

    Claim without proof some form of materialism/reductionism/scientism/naturalism, which are in principle inept to account for the subject at hand. Observe the reality of Reason amongst human being and point to said empirical reality as justification for prior un-argued metaphysical belief.

    Sorry, but the reason we observe this reality encapsulated in your statement "yet, here we are" is precisely because your metaphysic is not the true description of reality.

    ReplyDelete
  41. Perhaps he is talking about the referential content of the symbol, not necessarily the symbols we use.
    Girl Games

    ReplyDelete
  42. Meaning and aboutness aren't physical properties according to materialists.

    ReplyDelete
  43. @anon

    1. Assumed without proof human nature at bottom is irrational

    I don’t think I used either of the terms “human nature” or “irrational”, so kindly don't put words in my mouth.

    2. Carried into this world the intellectual bankruptcy of anti-realism and materialism (without justification)

    No idea what you mean by anti-realism. As to materialism, yes, well, there are no good alternatives and the last time I challenged people here to describe their alternatives, they basically couldn’t with a straight face.

    3. Committed the taxi-cab fallacy

    ???

    4. Performed a magic trick - bootstrapping

    I didn’t perform it, nature did.

    5. Looked at us with a shit-eating grin on your face expecting us to take your anti-intellectualisms seriously.

    I couldn’t care less if you take it seriously. Those who do will get something out of it, those who can't or won't, won't.

    It was a pleasure refuting you. You're welcome. ;-)

    I don’t think you would know a refutation if you fell over one.

    ReplyDelete
  44. "No idea what you mean by anti-realism. As to materialism, yes, well, there are no good alternatives and the last time I challenged people here to describe their alternatives, they basically couldn’t with a straight face."

    You were told to go read an article. No straight or crooked faces involved. Although if even if you did read that article, I doubt it would make much sense to you, you have to start from the ground up for that sort of thing. But nobody here feels like explaining it via combox. Honestly, grod should have just directed you to Feser's Aquinas, and then maybe some older blog posts, and THEN that article in the cambridge companion.

    ReplyDelete
  45. Independently of any minds, matter does not represent anything, regardless of its composition or form. A representation is a way of showing or describing something. But what is the representation being shown to or described to, apart from minds?

    ReplyDelete
  46. wrf3: First, that's orthogonal to whether or not thought is matter in motion in certain patterns. "Derived intentionality" in machines is still intentionality.
    No, the questions are not independent. Anything which is only matter in patterned motion, for that very reason, cannot be about something else, except in a relative sense; any meaning it has comes in some part from its context, and cannot be recovered without that context. If everything that exists is only matter in patterned motion, nothing that exists has meaning of itself; A means B relative to C, C means D relative to E, and so on infinitely. But this is absurd - like the old story that ends "It's turtles all the way down!" Derived intentionality cannot be real intentionality, unless something has intentionality that is not derived.

    Second, you're saying that "intrinsic intentionality" cannot arise from unintentional processes; i.e. that evolution couldn't possibly have produced the human brain. As far as I can tell, that's the sole reason for the "intrinsic" vs. "derived" distinction.
    No, that's doubly wrong. The processes by which beings with intentionality came to be (their efficient causes) form no part of the argument; how an adding machine was made, and whether it means "addition" when separated from a human operator, are independent questions. And the distinction of intrinsic vs. derived intentionality wasn't invented just for this purpose; it's an obvious fact that can't not be noticed.

    Let's turn, for the moment, away from thought, and consider perceptions. I suppose nearly anyone (certainly you) would agree that the perception of a thing is about the thing perceived - that when you see an apple, the sight means the apple. Moreover, that meaning is in perception as such, owing nothing to any context other than the thing perceived. This contrasts with a picture of the apple, which also means the apple, but only relative to the quirks of human visual processing. The picture has derived intentionality, the direct vision has intrinsic intentionality. Manipulating symbols according to formal rules stands to genuine thought as pictures of apples do to seeing apples; claiming thought just is symbolic manipulation is like claiming that the picture of an apple just is a vision of it.

    ReplyDelete
  47. Oh wait, Anon is concluding that since nobody wanted to write a book in a combox, there are no alternative views to his materialism!

    ReplyDelete
  48. I think Anon propositions can be said to be the following:

    #1- nature bootstrapped our cognitive capabilities.

    #2- since it was nature's doing, the better system need no justification they are better simply as brute fact that they are better.

    -------------------------------------------

    ReplyDelete
  49. Roger vs Anon

    R: but how you get to the vantage point where you can judge these ideas, how do argue your way there or know that you are in that vantage point.

    A: I don't know, yet here we are!



    Man this is non-sense comedy, seriously.

    ReplyDelete
  50. I’m getting a sense that you people do not believe there can be such a thing as improvement, learning, or evolution. Those kind of processes (which I have been referring to as “bootstrapping”) seem ludicrous to you. How could something improve itself? How would it even know that it had?

    So, because it is literally inconceivable, you posit some all-powerful God as the source of all knowledge and value. Then all that stuff can flow down into mere creation, which no longer is being burdened with having to be creative. Self-improvement does not require bootstrapping, just pulling yourself upwards along God’s pre-built ladder. Much easier to understand.

    You remind me of schoolchildren who only got to the stage where all the answers are in the back of the book, and never made it to college level where one is expected to grapple with questions that don’t have pat answers.

    ReplyDelete
  51. Brethren, forgive me, for I have sinned. I imagined myself licking the asshole of Rihanna. I am ashamed, but only because my Son of Man cock shot a wad the size of Palestine during Joel Osteen's sermon. Where is that woman who washed my goddamned feet when I really need her."--Jesus H. Christ, as told to Kirk Cameron

    ReplyDelete
  52. Anon, in 250 posts we haven't said anything as using God to bootstrap our cognition, you are attacking a strawman, and I think you are doing it because it makes you feel happy in the inside....

    Second, I said, have you read carefully all posts, that these improved systems only make sense if our cognition improves itself as it analysis more and more stuff.

    Third, people criticized all for all sorts of problems, that were ideas are self refutIng, that are intelectually coward, that you lack understanding, that infer things that don't come out of your premises, that you do multiple logical fallacies. You could just try to understand where people are criticizing you and try to show they are wrong for some reason, but you mever did it.

    Fourth, you are extremely confuse, you don't understand a word we are saying so you conclude that the problem is us!!! Nope the problem is you!!! You can't understand what we criticize and what we say, you can't formulate answers that are connected to the questions, you can't read books because you don't want to know what is written in there, you can't criticize people's ideas, but only what you think their ideas are... you, you, you!

    ReplyDelete
  53. Anonymous wrote: Meaning and aboutness aren't physical properties according to materialists.

    Is this what you meant to say?

    ReplyDelete
  54. Anonymous wrote: Do you understand why everyone here happily concedes to the existence or potential existence of derived intentionality in non-living things (even, contra your claims, rocks and the like)?

    I think so. It allows certain philosophers to maintain the fiction that thought is immaterial. Like so:

    It is conceded that computers have "derived" intentionality. I would hope that it is agreed that computers have no immaterial components. Everything computers do is via wires, logic gates, and electrons.

    So by dividing intentionality into "intrinsic" and "derived", one can maintain the idea that there is something "immaterial" in humans that doesn't exist in computers.

    It's like the old debates in physics about the ether. IMO, "intrinsic intentionality" is nothing more than the philosophical equivalent of the now know to be non-existent ether.

    N.B. one can maintain the same fiction by claiming that what computers do is somehow fundamentally different from what humans do. But the only difference is in the complexity of the wiring. It's an engineering difference, not a fundamental difference.

    Do you understand why this doesn't really help you?

    That all depends on what you think I'm trying to do, now doesn't it?

    ReplyDelete
  55. Anonymous wrote: Wrf3, as someone who has watched you discuss things for a long time, both here, at your own blog, and at other sites (Vox Populi for example) I have to say... you have this really nasty habit of translating what people are saying into a view you feel more comfortable with, and losing much of what they were saying in the process. And whenever someone tries to explain their position to you, all you do is go back and retranslate it into a position you seem to wish they'd have. You never pull back and say, "Wait, I apparently don't understand. Is (x) an accurate description of your view?"

    It isn't a question of "comfort" as is it "understanding". Neither I, nor anyone else, can retranslate something into what they don't understand (well, there are, perhaps, certain paid professionals who make a living that way). All I can do is reply with what I think you're saying. If I'm wrong, I expect that the response would be, "no, this part is wrong for this reason."

    So it's a matter of style. I say, "this is how I understand it" (with this part usually being tacitly understood, since this is how humans communicate) more often than "I don't understand." I think I know how "your side" is connecting the dots. It's how I used to connect them. So, at this point, it isn't that I don't understand except, perhaps, were you're using some odd terminology to hide an improper concept.

    ReplyDelete
  56. @Eduardo:

    "So in effect, grodrigues complain was sort of right, although he might have been confused somewhat."

    From February 13, 2013 at 10:16 AM:

    "Human thought is biased, sloppy, and necessarily probabilistic since we don’t have access to formal statements of predicate logic but only the noisy evidence of our senses."

    Human though is said to be "biased, sloppy" with no qualifications, and "*necessarily* probabilistic" (my emphasis). It is right there, the whole "philosophy": we only have access to the noisy evidence of the senses. So no, I was not confused. That human thought is often sloppy and biased no one disputes; the Anonymous referred to is an obvious example. Then the same Anonymous qualified his previous statement to (from February 15, 2013 at 8:20 AM):

    ""biased, sloppy, and necessarily probabilistic" refers to what we might call the native state of the human mind, or everyday cognition. We are, somehow, able to construct more rigorous and powerful forms of thought on this messy substrate, such as formal logic, science, and philosophical argument."

    So now it is not human thought, but "everyday cognition". The exclusive access to the "noisy evidence of our senses" has also been dropped. And then we are somehow (the "somehow" is really telling) able, on top of this "messy substrate", to construct rigorous arguments. So what are we to make of this? As far as the original intended point goes, Anonymous has already conceded it. But of course as you yourself explained, his "bootstrapping" is nothing short than ludicrous. Not content with all the bluster and hot air that he has graced us with, now he has made yet another turn and now he has a "sense" that we do not believe "there can be such a thing as improvement, learning, or evolution", which is "all" that his bootstrapping amounts to (which is exactly nothing relevant as far as the arguments go), and straw-manned a caricature that no one here has ever formulated, much less defended.

    My only wonder is what exactly is said Anonymous doing here? This is a Thomistic blog, and he already knows by dint of magic divination that it is all "nonsense" so why does he keep asking questions? Later he changed the tune (after having been caught lying what else could he do?) to:

    "Perhaps if you do a rich and powerful theory of mind will be revealed, but from my very small sampling, my instinct tells me that it would be a waste of my time. Judging by the quality of thinking displayed around here, even in-depth study doesn’t produce much in the way of wisdom."

    The same question: he does not intend to learn, his instinct tells him it would be a waste of time. The quality of thinking here is not bound to produce much wisdom. If the "quality of thinking" is so low what exactly is he doing here? Besides lying, making unargued, self-refuting claims and trolling, that is. Or is *his* "quality of thinking" so abysmally low that he has to come to a blog with a low "quality of thinking" to even to be able to engage in a semblance, no matter how pathetic, of rational argumentation?

    ReplyDelete
  57. @wrf3:

    "So by dividing intentionality into "intrinsic" and "derived", one can maintain the idea that there is something "immaterial" in humans that doesn't exist in computers."

    This is a Thomistic blog. The argument that purports to arrive at the immateriality of thought *CANNOT* proceed via the distinction between derived and intrinsic intentionality, because every Thomist worth his salt will grant that natural substances (*natural* substances, not artifacts) have a sort of immanent, intrinsic teleology. The argument is about the nature of thought and what thought is.

    Intentionality comes about because you, as a rank materialist (notwithstanding any lame protests of yours), cannot even explain the intentionality of thoughts, much less though itself and its distinct applications.

    The division between derived and intrinsic intentionality is not arbitrary or ad hoc either; it is parallel to the division between natural substances and artifacts. That you do not grasp such a simple conceptual distinction is *your* problem and *your* failure, not ours. Here is the acid test: re-explain to us what we mean by the distinction.

    ReplyDelete
  58. wrf3

    A-T posits that all things have intrinsic intentionality, also how exactly because of derived and intrinsic intentionally you arrive that thought is immaterial?

    So you defend that all thought is material, but I wonder what exactly metaphysically, matter is to you. If it is the materialist dead matter concept so it has no intention any where and computers are just accidental or designed structures that you fool yourself to believe it has intention or anything similar.

    ReplyDelete
  59. wrf3

    You seem to be missing the game field, where supposly we are playing. The problem of intentionality for your adversaries is a matter of metaphysics and it independs on what mechanism will produce what, to you intentionality depends on the structure, but not on metaphysics.

    ReplyDelete
  60. wrf3 vs Co

    Debate seems to be pretty interesting, if only we could say exactly what each one thinks.... We could solve the problem.

    ReplyDelete
  61. Grod.

    Wow dude.... I lol'ed hard right now.

    ReplyDelete
  62. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  63. @wrf3:

    "So by dividing intentionality into "intrinsic" and "derived", one can maintain the idea that there is something "immaterial" in humans that doesn't exist in computers."

    The argument that purports to arrive at the immateriality of thought *DOES NOT* and *CANNOT* proceed via the distinction between derived and intrinsic intentionality, because every Thomist worth his salt will grant that natural substances (*natural* substances, not artifacts) have immanent, intrinsic teleology, intentionality being just a special case. The argument is about the nature of thought and what thought consists of.

    Intentionality comes about because you, as a rank materialist (any lame protests of yours notwithstanding), cannot even explain the intentionality of thoughts, much less thought itself and its distinct manifestations.

    The division between derived and intrinsic intentionality is not arbitrary or ad hoc either; it is parallel to the division between natural substances and artifacts. That you do not grasp such a simple conceptual distinction is *your* problem and *your* failure, not ours. Here is the acid test: re-explain to us what we mean by the distinction.

    ReplyDelete
  64. "So by dividing intentionality into "intrinsic" and "derived", one can maintain the idea that there is something "immaterial" in humans that doesn't exist in computers."

    For the millionth time, it is thought that has immaterial aspects. If it thinks, there must be some non-physical aspect. The argument here is that reductive materialsm fails to explain thought regerdless of where it comes from. And also, I'm pretty sure that panpsychists and property dualist will say that the computer DOES have non-physical propeties, because ALL matter has non-physical properties.

    ReplyDelete
  65. "It is conceded that computers have "derived" intentionality. I would hope that it is agreed that computers have no immaterial components. Everything computers do is via wires, logic gates, and electrons."

    Of course things that are "wholly material" can have derived intentionality. The key word is derived. Draw a "+" sign, and show us which of its physical properties "means addition."

    ReplyDelete
  66. wrf3: What part of a computer is immaterial?

    All of it except for the prime matter. And prime matter is virtually nothing, so that means basically all of it! Voilà.

    Instead the approach as been "non-mental processes cannot result in mental processes". It's a nice sentiment, but you can't prove it.

    It's been proven. I take it you didn't read the ACPQ paper referred to in the original article? Or the linked pieces? Or any relevant literature at all? I'm not saying that if you read it, you would immediately agree (although you probably should); just that you seem to be quite unfamiliar with the basic thrust of the argument in the first place. This isn't something new or obscure; it's a well-known problem in philosophy of mind, yet you don't seem aware of the issues.

    You can find plenty of material about it on the Internet, starting with the many posts by Ed Feser on this very site. But to begin with, I heartily recommend his Philosophy of Mind, which is an excellent introduction to this very topic and related matters. I'll also recommend Feser's Aquinas (and/or The Last Superstition, if you appreciate extra entertainment value); those books not only cover the fundamentals at stake here, but they explain all the terminology and background necessary for us to engage in a productive conversation.

    That all depends on what you think I'm trying to do, now doesn't it?

    To be honest, I don't know. This site is primarily about Thomistic philosophy, but you don't appear to have come here to learn Thomism, nor do you know enough about it to provide an interesting or challenging debate about it. So what exactly are you up to?

    ReplyDelete
  67. Anonymous: I’m getting a sense that you people do not believe there can be such a thing as improvement, learning, or evolution.

    I was beginning to worry that this Anonymous actually thought it was possible for one to lift himself up by his own bootstraps, but maybe there is something to the whole circular idea after all, seeing as before our very eyes Anon. has bootstrapped the "sense" that folks believe something for which there is no evidence, claim, or reasoning. Bravo!

    ReplyDelete
  68. God bootstrapped himself into existence. What do?

    ReplyDelete
  69. ... Eternal ... Bootstrapping into existence ...

    Copy that.

    ReplyDelete
  70. The materialist is committed to the view that the universe and all that's in it (including ourselves) is isomorphic to one huge Turing Machine (a point of view, incidentally, that Turing himself rejected).

    In particular, all causality is isomorphic to the state transition table, and all 'form' is isomorphic to the data tape. The workings of the universe can thus be modelled (in principle if not in practice) by the operations of the read/write head on the tape, as directed by the state transition table.

    If you can find an inadequacy in this model, then you're well on the way to refuting materialism/physicalism/computationalism/naturalism.

    ReplyDelete
  71. "are you people really opposed to the notion that human perception is less than perfect, or that we have learned to produce a more accurate model of the world using technology and culture than we could in their absence? "

    The point is that you can't know what an imperfection or an inaccuracy is, without already having an ideality of perfection to judge by. That doesn't mean all of our knowledge is perfect, but it does mean that there is a recalcitrant ultimate of rationality, perfection, and goodness that is in back of all thought.

    For example, in the same way, you can't know there is evil in any sense beyond mere human repugnance, without giving a prior notion of ultimate goodness a free ride past scrutiny so that evil can be recognized as evil, through that necessary contradistinction. Consequently, for both atheists and theists, the alleged existence of evil already assumes a problem-free perfect goodness, in order to even formulate that stupid childish so-called "problem" of evil.

    ReplyDelete
  72. @wrf:

    "So by dividing intentionality into "intrinsic" and "derived", one can maintain the idea that there is something "immaterial" in humans that doesn't exist in computers."

    You don't understand the distinction between derived and underived intentionality. This distinction has nothing directly to do with whether the mind is immaterial or not.

    The distinction simply picks out the difference between systems that intrinsically posess intentional properties, and those that have their intentional properties imposed upon them by some external agent.

    Everybody knows that strings of symbols are intrinsically meaningless and need an interpreter and a set of conventions in order to exhibit intentionality.

    Minds, however, are different and exhibit intentionality independently of whether anybody interprets their thoughts in accord with certain conventions.

    So, in other words, you can be a physicalist and still accept the distinction between derived and underived intentionality. Acknowledging the distinction doesn't automatically committ you to anything with respect to the physicalism debate.

    Our point is that, once this distinction is acknowledged, then there is no plausible explanation for underived intentionality unless the mind has immaterial aspects.

    And failing to acknowledge this distinction leads to either instrumentalism a la Dennett or eliminativism. And both of those positions are demonstrably incoherent.

    ReplyDelete
  73. wrf3: It is conceded that computers have "derived" intentionality. I would hope that it is agreed that computers have no immaterial components. Everything computers do is via wires, logic gates, and electrons.

    So by dividing intentionality into "intrinsic" and "derived", one can maintain the idea that there is something "immaterial" in humans that doesn't exist in computers.


    As I've already mentioned, what a computer does is meaningful, and thereby has intentionality, only relative to the context of conventions invented by humans. An adding machine means addition only if a pattern of signals on a bundle of wires means a number, and the pattern of signals has meaning only because some humans agree on what it means. To maintain your position, you must therefore say that when humans think, what they do has meaning only relative to a context; that if I realize that addition is commutative and associative, there is some thing that gives meaning to that thought that is not the concept of addition.

    If we pretend for the moment that this is so (contrary to all experience of thinking) then the problem is: where does this context get its meaning from? Either it has meaning on its own - which brings back the distinction of intrinsic vs. derived intentionality - or it does not, in which case yet another thing gives meaning to it, and the same question must be asked about that thing's meaning. If the sequence never stops, nothing in it really means anything, and if it does stop, the last member has meaning of itself and thus is different from every other member.

    If you doubt this, try to supply a context to human thinking, analogous to the conventions that give meaning to computations, without falling into infinite regress.

    ReplyDelete
  74. @Roger
    Now we seem to be getting somewhere (in contrast to @grod who seems to be unable to use his apparent intellectual skills for anything but spluttering).

    The point is that you can't know what an imperfection or an inaccuracy is, without already having an ideality of perfection to judge by.

    That is an interesting point, but I think it’s wrong. To take the analogy of measurement (and it is only an analogy, so doesn’t prove anything): we can now measure distance with unimaginable accurately, using rulers and micrometers and wavelengths of laser light. Whereas 10000 years ago, we could not. Yet the standard meter is not something that pre-existed that we just converged upon, it is something we laboriously constructed.

    Now, the very notion of accuracy itself – is that something that existed all along that we just discovered, or did we invent it? That is a harder question, and it is very similar to the question discussed earlier about whether mathematics is constructed or discovered.

    ReplyDelete
  75. @anon

    I don’t think I used either of the terms “human nature” or “irrational”, so kindly don't put words in my mouth.



    That’s what your entire thesis implies. And then somehow, to quote Nietzsche, you manage “to pull yourself (as a human) out of the swamp of nothingness” with some magic bootstrap trick.
    What you said, is there for everyone to see.

    No idea what you mean by anti-realism.
    So you don’t even understand the implications of rejection Essentialism (you did with your ignorant dismissal of Aquinas and strawman misrepresentation of it by calling them something like magic things was it?

    As to materialism, yes, well, there are no good alternatives and the last time I challenged people here to describe their alternatives, they basically couldn’t with a straight face.



    What surprises me is that you actually appeal to materialism as the only good alternative with a straight face. Not only is not a good alternative it’s not an alternative period! It’s incoherent and intellectually absurd.
    You have no idea about other philosophical positions it seems or you’re too narrow-minded to step outside your limited little materialism.


    3. Committed the taxi-cab fallacy

???


    Well that’s telling isn’t it? Unaware of logical fallacies you’re committing…

    4. Performed a magic trick - bootstrapping 

I didn’t perform it, nature did.


    It doesn’t make it any less magical. If only you knew how impossible it is for what you claim to have happened to actually happen. Anyways, I’m not going to pick on word games with you. Your “explanation” was worse than magic, regardless of who you thing did it.

    I couldn’t care less if you take it seriously. Those who do will get something out of it, those who can't or won't, won't.


    Nobody get anything more than a superstition out of materialism.
    I don’t think you would know a refutation if you fell over one.

    Yet, here I am refuting you pointing to your falsehoods and fallacies. ;-)

    ReplyDelete
  76. It's kind of telling when the most promising naturalistic/materialistic explanations of intentionality (Dretske, teleosemantics, etc) are dangerously close to being restatements of Aristotelian metaphysics.

    Also, the whole natural/supernatural distinction is illusory and pointless. Chomsky realized that a long time ago.

    ReplyDelete
  77. Michael Brazier wrote: As I've already mentioned, what a computer does is meaningful, and thereby has intentionality, only relative to the context of conventions invented by humans.

    But you seem to think that there's something special about human context. There isn't. What we put into computers on purpose, nature put into humans via evolution. There isn't any difference between computer brains and human brains, except that one is based on silicon and the other on carbon; and the carbon based one has more convoluted wiring than we've yet been able to duplicate in silicon.

    An adding machine means addition only if a pattern of signals on a bundle of wires means a number, and the pattern of signals has meaning only because some humans agree on what it means.

    How is that any different between one human who says "apple" and another who says "apfel"? Our visual system "digitizes" the external object; out auditory system digitizes the external sound, and the circuitry that does the pattern matching that says "this sound is that image" is the same circuitry that says "different sounds for the same image" and this allows us to translate between two groups that have different, arbitrary, labels for external objects.

    To maintain your position, you must therefore say that when humans think, what they do has meaning only relative to a context; ...

    That's exactly right. But we share a context that appears to be common to us -- as well as the alien from another galaxy. That's why, if you started receiving "↑ ↑ ↑↑ ↑↑↑ ↑↑↑↑↑ ↑↑↑↑↑↑↑↑" from out in deep space you'd be tempted to think that something unusual was going on. Because while the Fibonacci sequence is in nature in a lot of places, it isn't usually transmitted via electromagnetic radiation.

    ... that if I realize that addition is commutative and associative, there is some thing that gives meaning to that thought that is not the concept of addition.

    Sure. You observe that one apple and one pear is the same as one pear and one apple. Over time, a set of symbols and operators are discovered. Over time, a correspondence (more pattern matching) is between these operators and nature is discovered.

    If we pretend for the moment that this is so (contrary to all experience of thinking) then the problem is: where does this context get its meaning from?

    It works. It allows us to reproduce, it seems to conform to nature, or bridges don't (usually) fall down.

    ... If you doubt this, try to supply a context to human thinking, analogous to the conventions that give meaning to computations, without falling into infinite regress.

    That's not hard. There's an external reality that we keep bumping into that doesn't change. That's what stops the recursion.

    ReplyDelete
  78. @Anonymous:

    "Now we seem to be getting somewhere (in contrast to @grod who seems to be unable to use his apparent intellectual skills for anything but spluttering)."

    Now, where did I heard the expression "getting somewhere"? Oh I know. From said Anonymous, February 13, 2013 at 12:04 PM, in response to me:

    "Obviously, words like "dog" do not intrinsically refer to dogs. It is a matter of human convention...Rather, words are signs of thoughts or ideas. Words are then used to communicate, or make common, the *same* thoughts and ideas

    Now at least we are getting somewhere."

    Tsk, tsk.

    ReplyDelete
  79. @wrf3
    No matter how convoluted you make the wiring, you will never make any computing device into anything other than a Turing Machine.

    So, from a state transition table, and a one dimensional array of meaningless characters, the materialist has to explain the production of:

    (1) Intentionality
    (2) Qualia - qualitative experience, as distinct from logical or discursive thought.
    (3) A sense of agency, including free will.
    (4) An awareness of being a particular sentient creature, such as a human or a bat (or some Transylvanian combination).
    (5) Motivations of craving or aversion, such as for blood or garlic.

    In fact, the materialist needs to explain why we should have any conscious experiences at all. Wouldn't we function just as well if we were automata?

    ReplyDelete
  80. But circuits dont "say" anything. What is it about the pattern matching that "says" anything? You are sneaking intentionality into your explanation of intentionality, and it is thus circular. Things like "saying" and "corresponds to" are not intrinsic physical properties.

    ReplyDelete
  81. How does a cluster of neurons "know" that this pattern "corresponds to" to that pattern?

    ReplyDelete
  82. Humans aren't special. Thought is.

    ReplyDelete
  83. "The fallacy Coyne commits here should be cringe-makingly obvious to anyone who’s taken a philosophy of mind course. Coyne “explains” intentionality by telling us that “brain-modules” have evolved to “make sense” of our environment. But to “make sense” of something is, of course, to apply concepts to it, to affirm certain propositions about it, and so forth. In other words, the capacity to “make sense” of something itself presupposes meaning or intentionality. Hence, if what Coyne means to say is that an individual “brain-module” operating at the subpersonal level “makes sense” of some aspect of the environment, then his position is just a textbook instance of the homunculus fallacy: It amounts to the claim that we have intentionality because our parts have intentionality, which merely relocates the problem rather than solving it. If instead what Coyne means is that the collection of “brain-modules” operating together constitute a mind which “makes sense” of the environment, then he has put forward a tautology – the brain manifests intentionality by virtue of “making sense” of the world, where to “make sense” is to manifest intentionality. Either way, he has explained nothing."

    http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2011/05/coyne-on-intentionality.html

    ReplyDelete
  84. These are also relevant:

    But in that case, Putnam says, the suggestion that the dog really has a “proto-concept” of meat in the first place is groundless:

    [T]he whole idea that a unique correspondence between the data structure and meat is involved in this bit of natural selection is an illusion, an artifact of the way we described the situation. We could just as well have said that the data structure was selected for because its action normally signals the presence of something which has a certain smell and taste and appearance and is edible. (Renewing Philosophy, p. 31)

    In short, there is nothing in the situation described that entails that anything in the dog’s brain corresponds to meat specifically, and thus there is nothing in the situation that entails that the dog has a concept (or “proto-concept”) of meat. The point is completely general, applying to any concept. Natural selection favors survival value, not truth or falsity. Hence you are not going to get truth or falsity from natural selection, and neither will you get from it the concepts that thoughts and statements – the sorts of things that are susceptible of being either true or false – presuppose.

    http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2011/02/putnam-on-causation-intentionality-and.html

    ReplyDelete
  85. Indeed, the very idea that the evolutionary processes under discussion have anything to do with explaining the origin of intentionality in the first place is an illusion. After all, gazelles’ legs were favored by natural selection because they allowed gazelles to run fast and thereby to escape predators. But no one suggests that this shows that a gazelle’s leg has the concept of running fast, or the thought that now would be a good time to run. As Putnam writes:

    Isn’t it with dogs as with gazelles? Dogs which tended to eat meat rather than vegetables when both were available produced more offspring (gazelles which ran faster than lions escaped the lions and were thus able to produce more offspring). Just as we aren’t tempted to say that gazelles have a proto-concept of running fast, so dogs don’t have a proto-concept of meat… The “reference” we get out of this bit of hypothetical natural selection will be just the reference we put in our choice of a description. Evolution won’t give you more intentionality than you pack into it. (Renewing Philosophy, pp. 32-22)

    In other words, in order to make the evolution of certain neural structures relevant to the explanation of intentionality, a “biosemantics” theorist has to presuppose that such neural structures “represent” the external world in a way that the gazelle’s leg structure (say) does not; he is reading intentionality into the biological facts, not deriving it from them.

    http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2011/02/putnam-on-causation-intentionality-and.html

    ReplyDelete
  86. " we can now measure distance with unimaginable accurately, using rulers and micrometers and wavelengths of laser light. Whereas 10000 years ago, we could not. Yet the standard meter is not something that pre-existed that we just converged upon, it is something we laboriously constructed."

    You wouldn't be able to even begin any kind of standard unit measurement without pre-existing standards for doing so.

    "Now, the very notion of accuracy itself – is that something that existed all along that we just discovered, or did we invent it? That is a harder question, and it is very similar to the question discussed earlier about whether mathematics is constructed or discovered."

    Again, what about that statement itself?

    You can't even start an inquiry about whether it was invention or discovery without an already existing system of thought: general reason, logic, a hierarchy of values, and so on. Truth is that which fits into an already-existing ultimate God-level system, a system that can even handle questions about that system itself, proposed competing systems, etc.

    There's no way around this. Whatever the question is, that question necessarily presupposes this same analytic system as a vantage point for scrutinizing whatever is at issue.

    And by God-level system I mean a system none of whose primitive or core components can be questioned or denied without being thereby assumed.


    The pre-existence factor is resolved by realizing that this system is made up of the necessary presuppositions of all possible thought, including what is possible to think about with regard to existence, transcendence, necessity, etc. Analyzing the questioning of this cognitive system demonstrates its pre-existence in that it is necessarily presupposed by even that questioning of it, whether by humans or automated theorem provers. This analytic-criterial system is transcendent as well as necessary, however much the vissisitudes of finitude may skew its application in specific instances. For any such skewdness must itself be adjudicated by that same system.

    These considerations, combined with a couple of others, yields the conclusion that the structure of our own conceptualizing is a finite instantiation of the structure of God's mind.

    ReplyDelete
  87. Just as we aren’t tempted to say that gazelles have a proto-concept of running fast, so dogs don’t have a proto-concept of meat

    What an utterly weird thing to believe. Of course dogs have a “proto-concept” of meat. Anybody who thinks otherwise has obviously no experience with dogs. Or, more likely, has a very stilted and artificial view of what a concept or proto-concept is.

    In your view, do dogs have intentional representations?

    ReplyDelete
  88. Amazing how, groundless become non existent.

    They are different things.

    ReplyDelete
  89. "What an utterly weird thing to believe. Of course dogs have a “proto-concept” of meat. Anybody who thinks otherwise has obviously no experience with dogs. Or, more likely, has a very stilted and artificial view of what a concept or proto-concept is."

    Why a "proto-concept of meat" rather than "a proto-concept of something tat smells and tastes a certain way?"

    ReplyDelete
  90. Becuase the second option would totally screw up the way he sees things, that is why.

    Oh and because scientists believe the first option makes more sense...

    There I answered for him, based on the previous data I could gather from his answering patterns.

    ReplyDelete
  91. Those parts that were quoted make more sense if you read the whole blogpost. It shows how evolutionary/causal theories of meaning have problems.

    ReplyDelete
  92. "Anybody who thinks otherwise has obviously no experience with dogs."

    What experience with dogs shows that they have a proto-concept, as opposed to a concept?

    ReplyDelete
  93. Why a "proto-concept of meat" rather than "a proto-concept of something tat smells and tastes a certain way?"

    And these are different things how, exactly?

    Let me guess – there is a Platonic form of meat that is quite different from a mere collection of sensory properties, and dogs don’t have this because it was injected into the minds of humans directly from God, probably so that we’d be able to supply him with burnt offerings.

    ReplyDelete
  94. Just to be clear, the point of that blogpost isn't to argue that non-human animals can't have thoughts, it's a discussion of biosemantics and crude causal theories of intentionality.

    ReplyDelete
  95. Anon please get lost!February 16, 2013 at 2:55 PM

    It means he doesn't see meat per se, but a collection of things that makes him eat it, it doesnt have to know met per se.

    Yes Anon, you are right, wow you grasped the concept of burnt platonic divine offerings so quickly dude!

    Amazing that you can grasp that complex thing while utterly uncapable of understanding anything other people say!

    ReplyDelete
  96. Feser, if you are reading this, please remove the option for anonymous posting.

    ReplyDelete
  97. wrf3: But you seem to think that there's something special about human context. There isn't. What we put into computers on purpose, nature put into humans via evolution.

    The biologists all say (and support with masses of empirical evidence) that evolution has no intentionality, proceeding by random walk through the set of all possible genomes. Unless you are prepared to contradict the biologists, you have just affirmed that human thought derives its intentionality from a process that has none: which is impossible. I think we can leave the argument at that.

    To be quite clear, the difficulty in your position is not confined to human thought; it appears again in every case of intentionality in nature. I mentioned perception before - a faculty humans share with many other species of living things. If a dog, a man and a microphone are close together when the dog's master calls it, the dog and the man have an experience, while the microphone does not, but only records the vibrations in the air. The dog's hearing the call and the man's hearing it are about the call in a way that needs no interpreter. The microphone's recording does need an interpreter to discover what it's about. And to those who claim that the man and dog have interpreters given them by evolution, the reply is the same: evolution is blind to meaning according to the biologists, therefore it cannot produce an interpreter.

    ReplyDelete
  98. Eduardo:
    A-T posits that all things have intrinsic intentionality

    This will be my third post in this thread basically asking the same question, so if it gets ignored again I guess I'll just take that as a "go away"...

    As I understand it, all natural things have intrinsic intentionality, but that intentionality is ultimately derived from God (because there is no intentionality without a mind as its causal source).

    So, my question is: how do we get away with classifying natural objects as intrinsically intentional if their intentionality is ultimately derived?

    Does that make sense?

    ReplyDelete
  99. Michael Brazier wrote: The biologists all say (and support with masses of empirical evidence) that evolution has no intentionality, proceeding by random walk through the set of all possible genomes. Unless you are prepared to contradict the biologists, you have just affirmed that human thought derives its intentionality from a process that has none: which is impossible. I think we can leave the argument at that.

    Well, no, we can't. Because that would mean it has been shown that the random walk cannot produce the equivalent of a circuit. I don't know that could possibly be demonstrated.

    To be quite clear, the difficulty in your position is not confined to human thought; it appears again in every case of intentionality in nature.

    The only difference between the man, the dog, and the microphone is the complexity of the wiring -- the way their material processes the sound waves.

    ReplyDelete
  100. Daniel, I think it would be better if Eduardo said that all things have intrinsic finality. It's kind of like intentionality, meaning that they both involve "pointing at" something beyond themselves. But the final causality of a thing involves pointing at something that it is somewhat related to. Like the final cause of a rubber ball is to be bounced and played with. However, a thought, which is a series of neurons firing in an organized manner, can point at something totally unrelated to what they are "doing" or what they are composed of. The neurons are computing, organizing, processing, etc, but the thought which they correspond to does not have to be related to computing, organizing or processing. This probably doesn't answer your question, but I think it is important to ask your question with this distinction in mind.

    ReplyDelete
  101. "Well, no, we can't. Because that would mean it has been shown that the random walk cannot produce the equivalent of a circuit. I don't know that could possibly be demonstrated."

    I don't think he's talking about circuitry. Intentionality =/= circuitry, because things that are not circuits can still be about something, like a symbol.

    ReplyDelete
  102. Michael Brazier said: No, the questions are not independent. Anything which is only matter in patterned motion, for that very reason, cannot be about something else,

    But that's exactly what a logical operation is, whether via NAND gate or neuron: what is calculated is not the calculator.

    except in a relative sense; any meaning it has comes in some part from its context, and cannot be recovered without that context.

    That context being nature.

    If everything that exists is only matter in patterned motion, nothing that exists has meaning of itself; A means B relative to C, C means D relative to E, and so on infinitely.

    No, as I wrote elsewhere, the recursion stops at the external world. If "A" is "the digitization of the visual input of an apple" and "B" is "the digitization of the sound 'apple'" then the brain sets up the linkage (which is another string of bits) equating A and B.

    Let's turn, for the moment, away from thought, and consider perceptions. I suppose nearly anyone (certainly you) would agree that the perception of a thing is about the thing perceived - that when you see an apple, the sight means the apple. Moreover, that meaning is in perception as such, owing nothing to any context other than the thing perceived. This contrasts with a picture of the apple, which also means the apple, but only relative to the quirks of human visual processing.

    I don't understand why the "quirks of human visual processing" is brought up for the picture of the apple and not the apple itself. Both are processed by the same system. One is the direct digitization of the apple, the other is the digitization of the painting of the apple. I.e., one is the symbol, the other is the symbol of the symbol.

    ReplyDelete
  103. I honestly think wrf3 and Brazier are talking past each other. I'm not sure what the brain's ability to make an association between the sight of an apple and the sound of the word "apple" has to do with terminating the regress.

    ReplyDelete
  104. How do we decide what a logical operation is intrinsically about?

    ReplyDelete
  105. @Brazier: you have just affirmed that human thought derives its intentionality from a process that has none: which is impossible.

    Why would you say it is impossible? That is, in fact, how things work.

    I have to say that I have a hard time understanding why theists think intentionality is some big mystery that can only be explained by recourse to supernatural forces. Free will -- now there is something hard to understand. But a materialist model of intentionality is just not that hard to construct or comprehend. We know how evolution can generate complexity, and we know (a bit about) how brains manipulate representations of the world. Problem solved.

    ReplyDelete
  106. "Why would you say it is impossible? That is, in fact, how things work.

    I have to say that I have a hard time understanding why theists think intentionality is some big mystery that can only be explained by recourse to supernatural forces. Free will -- now there is something hard to understand. But a materialist model of intentionality is just not that hard to construct or comprehend. We know how evolution can generate complexity, and we know (a bit about) how brains manipulate representations of the world. Problem solved."

    You must be new around here. You are aware of the history of the mind-body problem right?

    ReplyDelete
  107. Also, you seem to be pinning some type of occasionalism on us, when we certainly don't subscribe to that. And you don't even seem to understand the materialist accounts of intentionality. The crude causal theory relies on causes and effects, and biosemantics relies on survival value. I don't know where you are getting brain manipulations and the generation of complexity.

    ReplyDelete
  108. Why is my thought about a cat rather than the digitization of a cat?

    ReplyDelete
  109. You are aware of the history of the mind-body problem right?

    I've heard of it, I believe it used to be something people anguished about until the advent of the information sciences. I guess you didn't get the memo.

    ReplyDelete
  110. The explanation for why a mental state is about something, like being about a cat, is because the underlying neural processes are about a cat. The problem with that explanation though, is that it is uninformative. For the materialist, a mental state just IS an underlying neural process, so what they are essentially saying is that the explanation for why a mental state is about a cat, is because the mental state is about a cat. Really, if it was that easy for a materialist to explain intentionality, then I don’t think materialists would be hard at work on things like the crude causal theory or biosemantics.

    ReplyDelete
  111. wrf3: The only difference between the man, the dog, and the microphone is the complexity of the wiring

    wtf3: The world is flat!
    Anon1: What? Obviously it's not. The world is full of three-dimensional objects: kumquats, cabbages, kings...
    wtf3: No, everything's flat. [Pulls out a thick volume and starts flipping through it] See? Page 142, here's a cabbage, totally flat. Sealing wax, p. 820, flat. Eiffel Tower [more flipping]... flat!
    Anon2: Those are just pictures. Pictures of things are flat. We're not talking about pictures.
    wtf3: You can say that, but you can't prove it.
    Anon29: Uh, do you even know what a picture is?
    wtf3: Of course I do. Look, here on p.173 is an apple; and on p.174 a picture of an apple! They're exactly the same! Both flat! The only difference is in the complexity of the shading!!!
    Mr. Green: I don't suppose you'd be interested in finding out what we're actually discussing here...
    wtf3: It's flat! Flat, I tell you!! Flat like my head!!!
    Mr. Green: Yeah, that's what I figgered.

    ReplyDelete
  112. "The only difference between the man, the dog, and the microphone is the complexity of the wiring -- the way their material processes the sound waves."

    What an utterly astonishing statement.

    ReplyDelete
  113. "Purpose" is a qualitative feature, unlike color, which can be understood as a quantitative feature. After all, the color of a compound is just due to light of a particular wavelength being absorbed by the compound. That's why color changes in chemical reactions are unsurprising. The new color doesn't "emerge." The compound's structure is changed, and thus it will absorb different wavelengths than before and appear a different color. However, no combination of physical, quantitative proprties will get you "purpose." Thus, any purpose which we see in ourselves and nature is illusory. Evolution didn't produce purpose, it produced organisms that are sorely deluded.

    ReplyDelete
  114. Well, there are three choices here (as in other questions that tend to come up over and over):

    - Purpose doesn't exist (eliminativism)
    - Purpose exists and is created via natural processes (naturalism, emergentism)
    - Purpose exists but can't arise naturally, rather only through supernatural interventions (theism or whatever nonsense you people believe)

    Eliminativism just seems stupid to me -- clearly there is some class of phenomena that the word "purpose" refers to, although their exact nature may be disputed. The last choice is also stupid, leaving only one non-stupid alternative.

    ReplyDelete
  115. Or, there is purpose at every level of nature. From atoms to cells to organisms. In fact, it's a simpler explanation than non-purpose -> purpose, because the former only has one type of matter and the latter has two types.

    ReplyDelete
  116. wrf3: Well, no, we can't. Because that would mean it has been shown that the random walk cannot produce the equivalent of a circuit. I don't know that could possibly be demonstrated.

    Come, sir, you know better. Random sequences can contain subsequences of arbitrary length that look non-random, and a random sequence continued long enough will contain something that looks like an intentional pattern. "An infinite number of monkeys banging on typewriters will eventually produce a copy of the complete works of Shakespeare"; but nobody would seriously suppose that the monkey who did finally type the works of Shakespeare understood what it had typed. The process that made the monkey's typescript is meaningless, so the appearance of meaning in the typescript is an illusion. Replace the infinite monkeys with the evolutionary process - it's just as random and meaningless, so how can the appearance of meaning in its results be anything but an illusion?

    No, if human thought gets its intentionality from evolution, what it has is a counterfeit.

    I don't understand why the "quirks of human visual processing" is brought up for the picture of the apple and not the apple itself. Both are processed by the same system. One is the direct digitization of the apple, the other is the digitization of the painting of the apple.

    I am not surprised. But it's fairly simple. To a non-human animal, especially one with a different visual system, any direct perception of an apple means the apple, exactly as a human's direct perception does. A picture of an apple, however, means the apple only to someone who has eyes like those of humans. Just for one example, a picture made for humans assumes that mixing pigments in three colors creates the same hue as an apple's skin. To the human eye the illusion works, but an eye that sees ultraviolet light will not be fooled. The maker of a picture assumes that whoever sees it can't see UV light; the viewer of an apple needs no assumptions.

    ReplyDelete
  117. @Brazier -- your combination of ignorance and utter confidence makes my head hurt.

    Replace the infinite monkeys with the evolutionary process - it's just as random and meaningless, so how can the appearance of meaning in its results be anything but an illusion?

    Evolution is not random. Evolution consists of variation coupled with differential survival and reproduction (selection). Variation is random, selection is anything but. Any 6th grader of average intelligence should know this.

    There are a couple of equally glaring misunderstandings packed into your last comment, but let's start with this one.

    ReplyDelete
  118. The changes or mutations are what produces every feature.

    The selection is just the variation in reproduction success of these features.

    ReplyDelete
  119. Oy, Eduardo, how original. Here's SJG to answer you:

    As the epitome of his own solution, Darwin admitted that his favored mechanism "made" nothing, but held that natural selection must be deemed "creative" (in any acceptable vernacular sense of the term) if its focal action of differential preservation and death could be construed as the primary cause for imparting direction to the process of evolutionary change. Darwin reasoned that natural selection can only play such a role if evolution obeys two crucial conditions: (1) if nothing about the provision of raw materials—that is, the sources of variation—imparts direction to evolutionary change; and (2) if change occurs by a long and insensible series of intermediary steps, each superintended by natural selection—so that "creativity" or "direction" can arise by the summation of increments.

    Under these provisos, variation becomes raw material only—an isotropic sphere of potential about the modal form of a species. Natural selection, by superintending the differential preservation of a biassed region from this sphere in each generation, and by summing up (over countless repetitions) the tiny changes thus produced in each episode, can manufacture substantial, directional change. What else but natural selection could be called "creative," or direction-giving, in such a process? As long as variation only supplies raw material; as long as change accretes in an insensibly gradual manner; and as long as the reproductive advantages of certain individuals provide the statistical source of change; then natural selection must be construed as the directional cause of evolutionary modification.


    ReplyDelete
  120. What is it like to be a vampire?

    Intentionality goes way beyond simply mapping something 'out there' to an image 'in here'.

    An intentional mental state is characterized by reference to, and/or direction toward an object, which is not necessarily a real 'thing'. Each mental phenomenon includes something as an object within itself. That object may or may not refer to something in the real world. That is why these indwelling mental objects are said to be 'inexistent'.

    The word 'inexistent' refers to two attributes of intentional images:
    (i) They exist as indwelling images within thoughts.
    (ii) The actual physical existence of the objects referred to is irrelevant. They can be either existent, or non-existent, or somewhere in between.

    The mind can grasp generic images of non-existent objects, including objects of its own creation. These objects can be potentially existent, such as a new device in the mind of its inventor, or formerly existent such as the Dodo, or they can be completely non-existent such as a vampire.

    So it's a completely rational and sensible question to ask what it is like to be a non-existent entity, for example if you're an actor in a horror movie, or just a kid messing about on Halloween.

    On a more serious note, this property of 'inexistence' - the ability of the mind to construct internal objects before they exist - is also the fountainhead of creativity and transcendence in art. According to Roger Scruton, all great art has a 'spiritual' dimension, even if it is not overtly religious. It is this transcendence of mundane 'real' images that we recognise as 'beauty'.

    ReplyDelete
  121. Yes, I know the system can work that way, for a moment I thought Gould was going to say something I haven't thought about, it seems I was not mistaken during my musings.

    Gould's point rests on the idea that, if a modal group that is random like a sphere that expands for all sides, is shaped by something else this thing will give direction to this group.

    Now I can obviously see why Gould thinks it gives direction, but it sounds awkward to say it has creative powers, because natural selection is just the outcome of the struggle for life... It is similar to say that a patch of dirt shows the creative power of wind and gravity, or that ice floating shows the creative power of water... It sounds just trivial really.

    Now your proposal is that natural selection gives purpose to the various parts of a creature, now this doesn't seem to be necessarily right, does a heart needs a purpose to maintain an animal alive? Nope. It could be there for no reason whatsoever, the only reason it was chosen is because the animal that was carrying the raw data to produce it survived and reproduced. Natural selection could give no purpose for any part and yet, the outcome could be the survival of that collection of purposeless parts.

    ReplyDelete
  122. Jebus

    wow your trolling powers have diminished, now you are habing to post the same crap twice?!?

    ReplyDelete
  123. Anonymous (please pick a name, guys or gals or intelligent shades of the color blue) wrote: However, no combination of physical, quantitative properties will get you "purpose."

    What it will get you is goal-seeking behavior, which is what we call purpose. After all, the purpose of chess software is to win at chess, and at the bottom, it's just an amazingly complex arrangement of wires, gates, and electrons.

    Thus, any purpose which we see in ourselves and nature is illusory.

    Not all perceptions have to be illusory. The problem is whether or not our perceptions are mappable to something consistent outside of us. Does nature have a purpose? That's a hard question. The two main candidates seem to be life and death, but there's a lot more death than life, and the laws of thermodynamics win in the end.

    ReplyDelete
  124. wrf3

    Yeah, one that WE humans call purpose. You are still just sneaking purpose yourself.

    Or you simply mean that a goal-based behavior is sign of purpose as a definition, which quite literally seems to be using a different definition of purpose that your adversaries are using.

    I sincerely think you guys can solve it all if use a simple example.

    wrf3

    Could a pump have meaning? Simple yes your no, we go by baby steps.

    Btw sorry I sort of stopped asking you questions I just thought you would profit more talking to other.

    --------------------------


    Daniel Smith

    Don't go bro, I feel really lonely in a place like this stuck with psycho jeebus and clueless Anon!

    ReplyDelete
  125. Scott wrote: What an utterly astonishing statement.

    All the more so because it's true. Once it is grasped that all software is hardware, then it's easy to see that the complexity of the software is related to the complexity of the hardware. But hardware (aside from messy engineering details) is only wires, NAND (or NOR or whatever) gates, and electrons. The more the software does, the more wires and gates are needed. Or memory, which is just the ability to re-wire something on the fly.

    And this leads to:

    BLS wrote: Really, if it was that easy for a materialist to explain intentionality, then I don’t think materialists would be hard at work on things like the crude causal theory or biosemantics.

    Part of the problem may be that certain schools of thought, not knowing how the universe works, have so muddied the waters that they can't see the trees for the forest.

    "Intentionality" is easy. It's just a state change and nature is full of state changes. The result of two electrons passing through a NAND gate is not the input electrons or the circuit. But for there to be a state change, there has to be something to change.

    Now, why the universe changes state is just as unanswerable as why the universe exists in the first place.

    The fun is in showing how simple state changes combine to explain thought. It's all in the arrangement of the wires.

    ReplyDelete
  126. Eduardo asked: Could a pump have meaning? Simple yes your no, we go by baby steps

    Could it? Yes.

    ReplyDelete
  127. Eduardo asked: You seem to be missing the game field, where supposly we are playing.

    The key word is "supposedly". My "adversaries" (your word, not mine) have constructed a game field that isn't based on physics. It isn't "metaphysics"; it isn't "paraphysics"; I wouldn't go so far as to call it "aphysics", but my Koine greek is so rusty that I don't remember the word for "sort-of-but-not-really".

    ReplyDelete
  128. wrf3

    So a pump could have meaning, my next question would be: When and how it has meaning?

    -----------------------------------

    This is a sort of Debate W, you are in one side they are in another, you two are adversaries XD, no belical connotation!

    Right you have then no idea what metaphysics is, your own conclusions is definetely not writte in the wires, it is your interpretation, your metaphysics, that for now people have been betting it is materialism at least about mind.

    Basically you are betting that you fully understand what people is saying when you are not. That is why I wanna ask one question at a time because I noticed you had no idea where the target is, and that explains the awkward answers you have been giving.

    So do you mind if we go step by step? Personally I am delighted to talk with you man, shame I can't rise to your level of expertise, but is way better than most braindead maniacs like the anon guy here.

    ReplyDelete
  129. Michael Brazier wrote: Random sequences can contain subsequences of arbitrary length that look non-random, and a random sequence continued long enough will contain something that looks like an intentional pattern.

    Sure, but you're comparing apples and oranges. We aren't talking about patterns of numbers, but rather computing engines. Can evolution put together a neuron? If so, then that's all you need, since neurons and NAND gates are functionally equivalent.

    "An infinite number of monkeys banging on typewriters will eventually produce a copy of the complete works of Shakespeare"; but nobody would seriously suppose that the monkey who did finally type the works of Shakespeare understood what it had typed.

    Sure but, again, irrelevant. A human typing randomly on a typewriter would produce the works of Shakespeare, too. Said human might understand what it had typed.

    The wiring in monkey brains isn't as complex as the wiring in human brains. Can evolution produce the wiring in monkey and human brains?

    The process that made the monkey's typescript is meaningless, so the appearance of meaning in the typescript is an illusion. Replace the infinite monkeys with the evolutionary process - it's just as random and meaningless, so how can the appearance of meaning in its results be anything but an illusion?

    Meaning is a correspondence, and "isomorphism" between two things. If nature is an illusion then, yes, all meaning is an illusion. If not, then it isn't.

    ...But it's fairly simple. To a non-human animal, especially one with a different visual system, any direct perception of an apple means the apple, exactly as a human's direct perception does. A picture of an apple, however, means the apple only to someone who has eyes like those of humans.

    So it isn't the eyes, but the complexity of the neural system that processes the information.

    Just for one example, a picture made for humans assumes that mixing pigments in three colors creates the same hue as an apple's skin. To the human eye the illusion works, but an eye that sees ultraviolet light will not be fooled. The maker of a picture assumes that whoever sees it can't see UV light; the viewer of an apple needs no assumptions.

    But surely this is irrelevant. Once could create a picture of an apple that uses more than the three primary colors we normally use. So the picture of the apple would look the same as the apple to the entity that could discern UV components. It isn't the color hues that are the issue, but the wiring in the brain that takes the input from the visual system.

    ReplyDelete
  130. ""Intentionality" is easy. It's just a state change and nature is full of state changes. The result of two electrons passing through a NAND gate is not the input electrons or the circuit. But for there to be a state change, there has to be something to change."

    I would agree that change is necessary for intentionality, but it is not the same thing as intentionality. Intentionality = "about something external to itself." I'm not sure how your definition is equivalent to the one everyone else uses. Yes, there are changes in that circuit, but what is the circuit about? Is it about the matter it is made of? The input? The output? The causes that generated it? Its function? What criteria would we use to decide between these options? The melting of ice is a state change. What is melting about?

    ReplyDelete
  131. wrf3, would you agree that atomic decay can be understood as a type of goal-seeking behavior? A heavy, unstable nucleus "points toward" a more stable conformation, a "goal" that is achieved via decay. Or that a halogen's reactivity can also be described in a similar way, the halogen "seeks" a single electron to achieve its "goal" of valence stability. If you agree, then you are in agreement with most of us here (see final causality). However, I would wager that the typical materialist would reject these explanations/characterizations. But also, keep in mind that finality and intentionality are similar, but not the same.

    ReplyDelete
  132. BLS wrote: I would agree that change is necessary for intentionality, but it is not the same thing as intentionality.

    Are you sure? How could you possibly know?

    Intentionality = "about something external to itself." I'm not sure how your definition is equivalent to the one everyone else uses. Yes, there are changes in that circuit, but what is the circuit about? Is it about the matter it is made of? The input? The output? The causes that generated it? Its function?

    It's function is it's output.

    What criteria would we use to decide between these options?

    You have to look at how that function is connected to other things.

    I can design a two-bit adder with 9 NAND gates. It's a simple circuit with no loops. Memory can be built with two NAND gates, but it requires a loop in the circuit. Memory increases complexity. I can write a function that recognizes whether or not a particular circuit is an addr. Takes about 30 lines of LISP. But I couldn't begin to show you the circuit diagram -- it takes thousands, if not millions, of gates and wires arranged just so. A circuit that recognizes that it recognizes something? I can't do it. I'm guessing, but it might take something more complex than my brain to untangle my brain. But it's still wires, electrons, and logic gates.

    Hofstatder advanced the idea that meaning comes from "strange loops" in the brain. He isn't wrong. We can see it in the construction of a circuit that recognizes what (some simple) circuits do.

    The melting of ice is a state change. What is melting about?

    If it has meaning, then there is an interconnected network that can interpret that meaning. Does that exist in nature outside of brains and computers? I don't know.

    ReplyDelete
  133. "It's function is it's output."

    "You have to look at how that function is connected to other things."

    So would you say that the "aboutness of a thing is its effect or outcome? And what connects functions? Physical cause and effect?

    ReplyDelete
  134. "If it has meaning, then there is an interconnected network that can interpret that meaning. Does that exist in nature outside of brains and computers? I don't know."

    But it's a state change, and by your definition state changes = aboutness. So it has to be about something. Couldn't you say that the melting is about an increase in temperature? The state change is about the cause.

    ReplyDelete
  135. "If it has meaning, then there is an interconnected network that can interpret that meaning."

    One more minor point. If something has an intrinsic meaning, then that does not mean that there HAS to be a network that can discover that meaning. If a circuit is intrinsically about its function, then it does not need anything to analyze it and say that "this circuit is about function X."

    ReplyDelete
  136. @Daniel Smith:

    "Doesn't Aquinas rely on matter being ateleological and indeterminate in his proof?"

    Aquinas does *not* view matter ateleologically, so how can he rely on it? The indeterminacy is connected to the character of thought that grasps *universals* and can form *abstract* concepts, contrary to say, sense perception, memory or imagination (imagination as the capacity to combine and re-combine memories), that are, and can only be, perception of, memory of particulars.

    If I you sense perceive, say, see a triangle, you *always* see a *particular* triangle, of this or that color, with such and such angles, in such and such a background, etc. The same if I ask you to imagine a triangle. What will pop up into your head will *always* be an image of a *particular* triangle, of this color or that, with such and such angles, in such and such a background, etc. But intellect deals with universals not with particulars, so when you conceive (not imagine, conceive) the universal triangle what you are thinking of is the universal defined by three rectilinear sides whose internal angles add up to 180 degrees (ambient space fixed to an Euclidean plane; do the necessary modifications for other ambient geometries). It is neither this or that particular triangle, but rather the universal triangle-ness.

    An even more striking example is if I ask you to imagine mathematical objects like an infinite-dimensional Banach space. Even if you do not know what this is, I think you will agree that such a task is intrinsically impossible; because even if we can form images of 3-dimensional figures (e.g. the shapes of the familiar objects of our concrete experience), we can only have but an approximate image of higher-dimensional figures. And images about whole classes of spaces? Forget about it.

    Is is *this* fact, that thought deals with universals as abstracted in the mind and not particulars, that leads to the immateriality of thought.

    "So, my question is: how do we get away with classifying natural objects as intrinsically intentional if their intentionality is ultimately derived?"

    As far as I can understand your question, I think this was directly addressed by Prof. Feser in one of his responses to you. When we say that the computers, as artifacts, exhibit only derived intentionality, we are not saying the same thing as when we say that the teleology exhibited by natural substances ultimately relies on the ordering of final causality by God. The sense of derived is different in the two cases.

    ReplyDelete
  137. BLS asked: would you agree that atomic decay can be understood as a type of goal-seeking behavior?

    It can be so understood. Whether or not that understanding is correct, however, is another matter.

    As an aside, we are pattern matching creatures that currently exceed the abilities of our best machines. The problem is that sometimes we see patterns that aren't there (cf. The Drunkard's Walk) and sometimes we miss patterns that are there. We also know that different individuals interpret patterns differently. Some people think teleologically; others think teleologically but suppress it, while others don't think teleologically at all (e.g. here and here [shameless blog whoring]. So any argument that is advanced for or against goal-seeking behavior has to take the vagaries of human cognition out of the equation.

    So, I am not an expert in quantum mechanics, but from what I think I understand, atomic decay is a completely random event. So how does one determine whether a random event is part of a larger goal, or is just out there, by itself?

    If you agree, then you are in agreement with most of us here (see final causality).

    I neither agree, nor disagree. I don't know how to decide the issue (well, in theory I do, but I can't begin to know how to compute it).

    However, I would wager that the typical materialist would reject these explanations/characterizations.

    Which puts us back to the vagaries of human perception. Show me how to impartially rule between the two. And, remember, nature is stranger than we can imagine. Quantum mechanics has shown that nature has no objective reality until we look at it (cf. the Bohr-Einstein debates).

    ReplyDelete
  138. You are missing te game field again wrf3...

    seriously... you are doing touchdowns by yourself.

    And I am not saying this mock, but to help, if any help can be given...

    ReplyDelete
  139. I just can't figure out wrf3's explanation of intentionality. But from what he's written in terms of function, it sounds like the crude causal theory.

    ReplyDelete
  140. Pretty much, but wrf3 doesn't know what the other side is saying, he is obviously not exactly here to listen, but maybe he is here to talk, if only we were more fine grained with ideas...

    ReplyDelete
  141. @wrf3:

    On February 17, 2013 at 8:18 AM:

    "Are you sure? How could you possibly know?"

    Followed by:

    "A circuit that recognizes that it recognizes something? I can't do it. I'm guessing, but it might take something more complex than my brain to untangle my brain. But it's still wires, electrons, and logic gates."

    Right...

    ReplyDelete
  142. wrf3: Sure, but you're comparing apples and oranges. We aren't talking about patterns of numbers, but rather computing engines.

    Any computing engine can be encoded as a pattern of numbers, so the point remains. The result of a random process is not meaningful, even if it appears to be; evolution is a random process; therefore, evolution cannot generate meaning.

    Meaning is a correspondence, and "isomorphism" between two things.

    If you're a materialist, you can, just barely, make that work for perception, but it fails completely for rational understanding. To what material things do these propositions correspond?

    1) 1 + 1 = 2
    2) The equation x^n + y^n = z^n has no solutions when n > 2.
    3) Dogs have four legs and a tail.
    4) Human beings are rational animals.

    (If you are not a materialist, why are you arguing that thought just is computation?)

    ReplyDelete
  143. Because maybe he is a computation loving person???

    Remember he told me he was working on a introductory text about the subject... which if I was not so lazy I wold to read that XD.

    ReplyDelete
  144. Grodrigues, I was thinking the same thing. But then again, why should we expect coherence from something that is nothing more than a web of firing neurons? After all, there is nothing to order this firing of neurons both temporally, or epistemologically, so as to give coherence to the whole system.

    ReplyDelete
  145. By _thinking_ of course I mean "thinking"

    ReplyDelete
  146. wrf3: "Scott wrote: What an utterly astonishing statement ('The only difference between the man, the dog, and the microphone is the complexity of the wiring -- the way their material processes the sound waves').

    All the more so because it's true."

    That's not what's astonishing about it.

    Because you're convinced that "'[i]ntentionality' is simply motion in a certain direction," you've been able to miss the entire point of every post here on the subject of intentionality. Those posts are not about the goal-directedness of processes; they're about the "aboutness" of thoughts.

    So you've managed to drag half of this thread off-topic and into a discussion of the "intentionality" of processes, which was never at issue in the first place. Meanwhile, your own view of what everybody else means by "intentionality" is apparently that it reduces to some sort of isomorphism.

    But "isomorphism," in this context, is just a fancy word for correspondence. When a thought of mine is about (say) my dog, what is it that corresponds to what? Does my thought consist of a symbol that's somehow isomorphic to my dog? In what sense? (As Brand Blanshard once asked, does St. Peter's "mean" St. Paul's merely because the two cathedrals resemble one another?)

    And (perhaps most seriously) how do I know anything about such alleged correpsondence/isomorphism if I can never know, or think about, my dog directly but always have to rely on internal symbols/representations? How can I ever compare them? (By contrast, Aristotelianism/Thomism and the various sorts of idealism have no such problem, because they accept from the outset that when we think, the object of our thought is in some sense literally present to or in our thought.)

    Because you don't bother answering, or even raising, such questions, you've managed to convince yourself that a human, a dog, and a microphone are all "the same" as regards intentionality, completely ignoring the fact that the physical processes in a microphone aren't, so far as we can tell, about anything at all. Humans listen to music; microphones carry electric current. Human nerves may carry current as well, but that's very obviously not the same thing as listening to music. (Even if the two were 100% correlated, they'd have to differ in order to be "correlated" at all.)

    And that's what's astonishing: that you can ignore such an obvious difference between humans (and dogs), on the one hand, and artifacts like microphones, on the other, all because your thought has been drawn so far out of orbit by the influence of an incoherent, self-stultifying (I hesitate to use the term) theory.

    ReplyDelete
  147. "Does my thought consist of a symbol that's somehow isomorphic to my dog? In what sense?"

    It might also be worthy of mention here that given any string of zeros and ones, there's some cipher according to which it's an encrypted version of anything we please: the first few words of the Gettysburg Address, for example, or the first so-many digits of the decimal expansion of π. So if meaning consists of isomorphism, then there's a sense in which anything can "mean" anything else, and "meaning" is pretty much meaningless.

    ReplyDelete
  148. Scott wrote: So if meaning consists of isomorphism, then there's a sense in which anything can "mean" anything else, and "meaning" is pretty much meaningless.

    As I wrote yesterday at 11:45 AM: "... we share a context that appears to be common to us -- as well as the alien from another galaxy. That's why, if you started receiving "↑ ↑ ↑↑ ↑↑↑ ↑↑↑↑↑ ↑↑↑↑↑↑↑↑" from out in deep space you'd be tempted to think that something unusual was going on. Because while the Fibonacci sequence is in nature in a lot of places, it isn't usually transmitted via electromagnetic radiation."

    We start building meaning by isomorphims to things in nature that we experience in common. Dogs, leaves, the sun, one apple and one apple.

    ReplyDelete
  149. Michael Brazier wrote: Any computing engine can be encoded as a pattern of numbers, so the point remains.

    If you had said that any computing engine could be encoded as a Turing machine then I'd agree. One of the features of a Turning machine is motion, whether it's the transitions in the instruction state or the motion of the read/write tape. Where is the motion in your pattern of numbers?

    To what material things do these propositions correspond?

    The same material things that chess playing software belongs. The things for which you asked examples aren't any different in kind from "this is a pawn", "this is check mate", "that move isn't valid".

    ReplyDelete
  150. This is completely off-topic and may be obvious, but in order to prevent blogger from eating up your longer comments, it's better to type them up in Word first, and then copy them over, it's what I do. This lets Word check for spelling and grammar, and if the comment doesn't get through you can just copy it over again and resubmit.

    ReplyDelete
  151. Man, this is tedious.

    Let's grant that it is not obvious to people who have no experience understanding or building complex systems how a mechanical system could implement intentionality. teleology and other attributes of intelligence. To those who do, on the other hand, it seems quite possible. There is a gulf between differing intuitions that will never be bridged by argument, especially when each side has no motivation to understand the other's perspective.

    But to the doubters, I say, what's your alternative? Saying that God sprinkles magic mental dust over everything, giving rise to purpose where there was none, or meaning where there was none, is not very satisfactory. You can explain anything that way, and so it explains nothing.

    ReplyDelete
  152. well anon since this is all tedious, please leave, you are worthless, you won't lose a thing by leaving.

    oh amazing that people that intentionality exist intrinsically in all nature but you think that it is God sprinkling pixie dust... seriously how much more idiotic can this get?

    Man I think everybody here will be happy to see you leave, including you.

    ReplyDelete
  153. For f***'s sake, this not about God or occasionalist pixie dust, but rather our understanding of nature itself. Requesting ban.

    ReplyDelete
  154. grodrigues:

    Aquinas does *not* view matter ateleologically, so how can he rely on it?

    In the Fifth Way, Aquinas is basically saying that mindless things exhibit teleology and that such teleology cannot come from the matter itself but must come from a mind. That's my sense of his argument anyway.

    So I am drawing a distinction between form and matter - even though standard A-T thought views the two as inseparable. So, in a world where all matter is 'formed' (as opposed to 'formless'), one could view 'formed matter' as having intrinsic teleology. But Aquinas seems to be saying that the 'form' part of the form/matter hybrid is the part that requires a mind. IOW matter - by itself - is ateleological.

    Now I know that, in this world, there really is no such thing as "formless matter" but that's because God has given form to all matter. Hence the distinction in things one from another.

    (BTW, I'm not really concerning myself at this time with how all of this relates to human thought. Sorry for the confusion - I know that's the main thrust of the discussion here but I'm focusing on a more fundamental level.)

    When we say that the computers, as artifacts, exhibit only derived intentionality, we are not saying the same thing as when we say that the teleology exhibited by natural substances ultimately relies on the ordering of final causality by God. The sense of derived is different in the two cases.

    That's the part I'm struggling with - the difference between 'derived' in the two cases. I totally get the fact that God 'creates' and man 'constructs', but is that it? Is that the whole basis for the difference in sense - that one is derived through the act of creation and the other is derived through construction?

    What about things that are not created directly by God? Isn't Aquinas' argument actually about those things? So if something is generated by birth and exhibits teleology all on its own, does that negate the Fifth Way? I'm sure it doesn't!

    It just seems to me that Aquinas is saying more (than what I've heard from a lot of thomists) about the inability to account for teleology materially. It seems to me that he is saying that it is impossible for mindless things to exhibit directedness on their own. And, (again) it seems to me, that the only basis for that view is the knowledge that matter - on its own - is indeterminate.

    ReplyDelete
  155. "Saying that God sprinkles magic mental dust over everything, giving rise to purpose where there was none, or meaning where there was none, is not very satisfactory."

    Which is no doubt why no one on this board has said it. Who are you arguing with? The voices in your head?

    Even if you're not the same Anon who wrote:

    "[T]here are three choices here . . .

    - Purpose doesn't exist (eliminativism)
    - Purpose exists and is created via natural processes (naturalism, emergentism)
    - Purpose exists but can't arise naturally, rather only through supernatural interventions (theism or whatever nonsense you people believe)"

    . . . and then ignored another Anon's reply:

    "Or, there is purpose at every level of nature. From atoms to cells to organisms."

    . . . you still ought to be able to grasp that fourth alternative after it's been spelled out right in front of you.

    ReplyDelete
  156. @Anonymous:

    "Let's grant that it is not obvious to people who have no experience understanding or building complex systems how a mechanical system could implement intentionality. teleology and other attributes of intelligence. To those who do, on the other hand, it seems quite possible."

    Because what is more obvious that only you in this whole comments section has such an experience? What is more obvious that such an experience is so life-changing that it automatically invalidates all the *arguments*, those pernicious little buggers, that irrational materialists never deal with?

    You are indeed a tedious bore with your "magical mental dust"; no one here defends that, but since you *really* are convinced we do despite all the evidence against it, then what the heck are you doing here? Get lost and take your claptrap elsewhere.

    ReplyDelete
  157. @Daniel Smith:

    "I totally get the fact that God 'creates' and man 'constructs', but is that it? Is that the whole basis for the difference in sense - that one is derived through the act of creation and the other is derived through construction?"

    I may be misremembering, but I thought Prof. Feser was fairly explicit that the difference is *not* in the origin.

    Let us be absolutely clear on this distinction: the distinction between natural substances that have intrinsic, immanent teleology, and artifacts which only have derived teleology. The distinction is not in the origin; after all, God could pop up an artifact like a hammer right in front of your eyes. Similarly, when we synthesize water in a lab, we are not thereby committed to saying that the water synthesized is an artifact. Rather, the distinction is in the *nature* of the two things; water on the one hand which is a natural substance, in the suitable, technical sense of natural, and the hammer on the other which is an arrangement of certain bits and pieces of matter, that neither have the intrinsic character of arranging themselves hammer-like, nor are *for* hammering of themselves intrinsically as opposed to being just accidentally so.

    ReplyDelete
  158. Or, there is purpose at every level of nature. From atoms to cells to organisms. In fact, it's a simpler explanation than non-purpose -> purpose, because the former only has one type of matter and the latter has two types.

    I guess I ignored this because the first part (that you recently quoted) doesn't seem too significant to me. Whether the magic is sprinkled over the machinery after the fact, or baked in at the beginning, is not a very important distinction to me. It's still magic.

    The second part, about "two types of matter", indicates that the author is completely confused. There is only one type of matter, and it is capable of arranging itself into complex configurations that display emergent properties such as purpose.

    ReplyDelete
  159. "It's still magic."

    Intentionality as part and parcel of nature is "magic" . . .

    "There is only one type of matter, and it is capable of arranging itself into complex configurations that display emergent properties such as purpose."

    . . . but intentionality somehow "emerging" from what lacks it isn't. And why? Because you say so.

    Right. I think we're done here.

    I join grodrigues in inviting you to bugger off.

    ReplyDelete
  160. Guys, lets use the eliminativist method. Lets solve this "problem" by pretending that it doesn't exist.

    ReplyDelete
  161. wrf3,

    > The only difference between the man, the dog, and the
    > microphone is the complexity of the wiring

    If you habitually beat a man with a stick, you can expect a visit from the police. And if you habitually beat a dog with a stick, you can expect a visit from some SPCA. But if you habitually beat a microphone with a stick, you can expect a visit from the white-coated men with butterfly nets (whom, alas, we rarely any longer see (presumptively due to the pernicious influence of Thomas Szasz's classic, The Myth of Computing-Engine Illness)).

    > Sure, but you're comparing apples and oranges.

    That software is hardware while 'apples' and 'oranges' are horses of a different color must mean that your definition of 'conflation' is... something done by other people.

    > Once it is grasped that all software is hardware

    Grasping that all software is hardware simply means that there has been a short in the circuitry between your ears. Embracing that all software is hardware, however, means that your 'NAND gates' have been fried, possibly beyond all repair.

    > Hofstadter advanced the idea that meaning comes from
    > "strange loops" in the brain. He isn't wrong.

    Earlier you had isomorphisms as inducing and giving rise to meaning, now it's "strange loops" from which meaning comes. Oh well, take yer pick. Nonetheless, the fact of the matter is that Hofstadter has been unwavering in his position that analogy mediates meaning.

    Btw, it is ironic that you should invoke Hofstadter amidst your going on about NAND gates, and that Hofstadter should invoke Escher amidst his (Hofstadter's) going on about strange loops--just so happens that my favorite of all Escher's work is his, "Look ma, no NAND gates!" here.

    ReplyDelete
  162. Anonymous,

    There is a gulf between differing intuitions that will never be bridged by argument, especially when each side has no motivation to understand the other's perspective.

    This sounds very much like an explicit acknowledgement that you haven't any motivation to understand the perspective of those who have: a) examined materialism with care; and, b) reported their findings.

    Also, there are people here who, aided by sound arguments (and argumentation), have extricated themselves from the lobotomizing clutches of materialism.

    (I myself am not one of them, but only because I've not been its clutches (no feather in my cap because of this; it's simply the way it is). Still, I trust the sound and cogent findings of those who once were. As for those who still are... well, they tend to be too lobotomized to see that others can see that they have been lobotomized.)

    If you take/make time to go through prior posts, you'll find quite many which address materialism from an informed perspective.

    However, there is every reason to believe that you will take/make time to do that:

    a) you have already clearly announced a lack of motivation to do so; and,

    b) you have already shown what great difficulty there is in your doing a little research (e.g., using a search engine to discover the meaning of 'taxi cab fallacy').

    ReplyDelete
  163. s/b "that you won't make/take time"

    ReplyDelete
  164. Let's grant that it is not obvious to people who have no experience understanding or building complex systems how a mechanical system could implement intentionality. teleology and other attributes of intelligence. To those who do, on the other hand, it seems quite possible.

    As it happens, I make my living from building just that kind of mechanical complex system that you (whoever you are) imagine can support the attributes of intelligence; and I am well-versed in the theory of those systems. It's because I know what computers are capable of that I can say confidently that they are not capable of intelligence. Don't make the mistake of assuming that everyone who disagrees with you is ignorant.

    wrf3: Let's go back a bit and take a hard look at your defining meaning as isomorphism, because there's a problem with it even as applied to human-made artifacts. There is quite obviously an isomorphism between two editions of any work of fiction, say one of Shakespeare's plays. If isomorphism is meaning, then one edition of a play by Shakespeare means all other editions of that play, as well as meaning the play itself. Worse, each performance of the play has to mean all the printed editions of the play, and all other performances; and each printed edition must mean all the performances that have or will been staged. It should be clear that this is a hopelessly extravagant multiplication of meaning.

    It gets worse when you try the definition on natural examples of meaning. Every perception of a specific wavelength of red light is isomorphic to every other perception of the wavelength; does it follow that my perception of that wavelength means your perception of it, and your perception of that wavelength means my perception? Every belief in a proposition is isomorphic to every other belief in that proposition; does it follow that if I assert "George Washington was the first president of the USA"" I mean every occasion on which someone believed in the presidency of Washington?

    ReplyDelete
  165. This sounds very much like an explicit acknowledgement that you haven't any motivation to understand the perspective of those who have: a) examined materialism with care; and, b) reported their findings

    No, I had more in mind the strenuous efforts here to misunderstand extremely basic facts of science, such as how natural selection works.

    I'm not the least bit interested in the views of people here on materialism; I haven't seen any evidence that anyone here has anything worthwhile to say in that regard. You aren't great spokesmen for Aquinas either; I thought I might like to actually learn about a figure who is obviously of historical importance in the development of Westen thought, if nothing else. You lot have made me less interested.

    ReplyDelete
  166. You lot have made me less interested.

    Of course you're less interested. The whole point of your presence here was to snottily lecture everyone about how materialism must be correct and Aquinas had to be wrong, largely because he wrote centuries ago.

    Instead, you got your ass handed to you by everyone you spoke with, and your ignorance was exposed. If you actually try to read and understand the criticisms of materialism presented here, to say nothing of in the books and writings recommended, it will shatter your precious worldview as well.

    Better to cling to that blissful ignorance. Avoid the scary, scary world of Aristotilean metaphysics and *gulp* anti-naturalism.

    PS: I love that attempt to pretend that eliminativism was not just yet more naturalism. ;)

    ReplyDelete
  167. Michael Brazier wrote to one of the flavors of Anonymous: As it happens, I make my living from building just that kind of mechanical complex system that you (whoever you are) imagine can support the attributes of intelligence; and I am well-versed in the theory of those systems. It's because I know what computers are capable of that I can say confidently that they are not capable of intelligence. Don't make the mistake of assuming that everyone who disagrees with you is ignorant.

    I make my living doing the same thing and I've reached the opposite conclusion. Given your background, what do you think of the statement "all software is hardware"? On February 17, 2013 at 7:39 PM, Glenn chimed in at with:

    Grasping that all software is hardware simply means that there has been a short in the circuitry between your ears.

    Do you agree with Glenn, or do you agree with me?

    For the record, I'll note that I discussed this idea with a friend of mine who designs integrated circuits. He noted that he had read somewhere a textbook where the author made the same claim, namely, that a circuit could be built to implement some previous version of the Windows operating system but that, of course, no one does it for reasons of cost.

    So, Glenn's derision notwithstanding, it isn't a unique idea. But it does appear to be rare in software circles.

    ReplyDelete
  168. Michael Brazier wrote: Let's go back a bit and take a hard look at your defining meaning as isomorphism, because there's a problem with it even as applied to human-made artifacts. There is quite obviously an isomorphism between two editions of any work of fiction, say one of Shakespeare's plays. If isomorphism is meaning, then one edition of a play by Shakespeare means all other editions of that play, as well as meaning the play itself.

    What do you mean by "as well as meaning the play itself"? The isomporhism between the editions of the play (which can be fuzzy, btw, due to typos or updates to language, etc...) is not the same isomorphism between an individual's interpretation of the text of the play and the actual performance.

    Every perception of a specific wavelength of red light is isomorphic to every other perception of the wavelength;

    We both agree on the color 'red'...

    does it follow that my perception of that wavelength means your perception of it, and your perception of that wavelength means my perception?

    Of course not. Suppose your brain digitizes red one way and mine another. We aren't comparing your digitization with my digitization. We're comparing the label (which is another digitization) attached to a shared (which is a digitization and a distinction) object (which is another digitization).

    Every belief in a proposition is isomorphic to every other belief in that proposition; does it follow that if I assert "George Washington was the first president of the USA"" I mean every occasion on which someone believed in the presidency of Washington?

    Of course not. "x" is not the same thing as "I believe x" or "You believe x".

    ReplyDelete
  169. Why do compilers always strip the intentionality out of their source code? Why can't they carry it across into machine code?

    ...and another thing. Any competent programmer can take a specification for controlling systems as diverse as payroll, Mars landers and chemical plants and produce code to implement the system.

    So is there a 'mother of all algorithms' within the programmer's mind that can produce any required algorithm to order? And if so, is this 'mother of all algorithms' itself an algorithm, and if not, what is it?

    ReplyDelete
  170. Sean...

    Give up, making these Yoda-like questions will only get things worse, they are more than tangled around in their discussion...

    ReplyDelete
  171. Isomorphism is similarity in form. What is the similarity in form between a cat in my thoughts and the underlying digitization? Saying that the brain matches the digitization of the word cat and the digitization of the sound cat only explains how we associate a word with how it sounds, not how the digitization of cat is isomorphic to my thought about a cat.

    ReplyDelete
  172. Most likely he means isomorphism between two patterns in the brain. One pattern is created by outside simulus and stored and the second is ..... create by some stimulus and then the brain.... errr .... has another pattern that tell itself that........ there is isomorphism among the two patterns, of course ........

    *no this..... seems to create eternal regress...*

    ReplyDelete
  173. wrf3,

    So, Glenn's derision notwithstanding, it isn't a unique idea. But it does appear to be rare in software circles.

    Do you believe that a computer has beliefs? And do you believe a computer is (or could be made) capable of deriding? Or is (or could be made) capable of noticing that its 'ideas' have derided by another computer? Btw, I'm glad you noticed the derisive nature of my humorous comments--there may be hope for you yet.

    Back in the '60s, someone suggested that it would one day be possible to build an entire calculator on a single chip (see The Man Behind the Microchip: Robert Noyce and the Invention of Silicon Valley, p. 184).

    That 'one day' is now in the distant past.

    And, in fact, there currently are chips which do have operating systems built into them. Such OSs are not yet general purpose, thye are only special purpose. For now.

    But so what?

    Actually, it is a big deal; but...

    Embedding software in hardware does not support the notion that software itself is hardware.

    But if you're going to claim that it does, you may as continue on and claim:

    a) that ink is paper; and,

    b) that people can make sense of ink/paper configurations offers strong support in favor of the notion that meaning arises from ink/paper configurations.

    ReplyDelete
  174. s/b "my (intended to be) humorous comments"

    ReplyDelete
  175. Glen wrote: Embedding software in hardware does not support the notion that software itself is hardware.

    There isn't a single line of software that can be written that isn't equivalent to wires, nand (or nor) gates, and electrons. Please show me the non-physical component therein.

    But if you're going to claim that it does, you may as continue on and claim:

    a) that ink is paper; and,


    What chain of reasoning could possibly lead anyone to say that?

    b) that people can make sense of ink/paper configurations offers strong support in favor of the notion that meaning arises from ink/paper configurations.

    You think? Nobody (at least, that I'm aware of) argues otherwise. The argument is over how that happens.

    Suppose you have an atom with an electron in a high energy orbit. The electron moves to a lower energy orbit and emits a photon.

    Is any part of that system immaterial? If so, what?

    ReplyDelete
  176. From the SEP:

    "Every mental phenomenon is characterized by what the Scholastics of the Middle Ages called the intentional (or mental) inexistence of an object, and what we might call, though not wholly unambiguously, reference to a content, direction toward an object (which is not to be understood here as meaning a thing), or immanent objectivity. Every mental phenomenon includes something as object within itself, although they do not do so in the same way. In presentation, something is presented, in judgment something is affirmed or denied, in love loved, in hate hated, in desire desired and so on."

    (Franz Brentano (1874, 88-89) in his book, Psychology From an Empirical Standpoint)

    http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/intentionality/#7

    The key part is "which is not to be understood here as meaning a thing"

    Just what is Brentano talking about and just what are we talking about?

    ReplyDelete
  177. Anon

    Things slowly changed, because we are talking about a language now, we REALLY are talking about things that mean something, that can be translated to something else...

    ReplyDelete
  178. I thought we were talking about intentionality, not meaning. I think that people here (on both sides) might be mixing up meaning with intentionality.

    ReplyDelete
  179. Well see if you agree with me:

    A language means something, but not by itself, but because an outside agent gives meaning to it, so the meaning is given by this agent's intentions.

    ReplyDelete
  180. but the real problem is that wrf3 doesn't get what people are proposing, and because as each question and answer both sides gets more and more baffled, they will soon be telling each other to fuck off... pretty soon...

    ReplyDelete
  181. I suppose, but consider this.

    When you love, the love is directed at something. For example, you can love your dog. But it does not make sense to say that your love "means" the dog.

    ReplyDelete
  182. “ass handed to me” — that's rich. Every single argument offered here boils down to the argument from incomprehension — “I can't imagine how evolution can be creative, therefore it can’t be, therefore Goddiddit” “I can’t imagine how a mechanical system could have intentionality, therefore it can’t be, therefore Godduzzit”

    “No, no, we don’t believe Godduzzit, that would be occasionalism and we are much more sophisticated than that! We’re talking about something that subtly permeates existence, that gives a telos to every electron. It is the form of nature! It is utterly different from naturalism, but it isn’t supernatural, because we are extremely sophisticated thinkers, thank you very much!”

    ReplyDelete
  183. LOL

    "every argument here boils down to an argument of ignorance/incomprehension."

    amazing how you couldn't prove a single time that it was so.

    Man I vote for banning this Anon troll.

    ReplyDelete
  184. if being outside naturalism = supernatural, yeah it would be supernatural but since naturalism is just as well defined as Anon's thinking skills which amount to:

    "Oh shit they say X, but I am pretty sure that either this is wrong because I KNOW IT, or they didn't really mean that, so must be talking about Y so I will criticize Y and do a victory dance!!!"

    Putting simply, Ban the Anon troll, he was unstable before, but after Roger talked about God with him he went crazy, doesn't matter that he couldn't even understand Roger's argument, that is beyond him, but seriously Anon has turned into a slighlty more sophisticated version of Papa Kilo.

    ReplyDelete
  185. To the other serious Anon... dude get a name, put "Mr ?" XD.

    Yes that much I agree with you, the difference between what I said and what you said is that my example is a language, while yours is an emotion.

    The words in a language really ARE suppose to mean something, to be translated into something else.

    ReplyDelete
  186. >> b) that people can make sense of ink/paper configurations
    >> offers strong support in favor of the notion that meaning
    >> arises from ink/paper configurations.

    > You think? Nobody (at least, that I'm aware of) argues
    > otherwise.

    If no one you are aware of argues otherwise, then either you are not aware of yourself (or one Douglas Hofstadter), or you hold that 'isomorphisms' and 'strange loops' are 'ink/paper configurations'.

    So, which of the following statements is true:

    a) Meaning comes into being (i.e., 'arises') from isomorphisms.
    b) Meaning comes into being from strange loops.
    c) Meaning comes into being from ink/paper configurations.
    d) All of the above.
    e) None of the above.

    Also, if meaning comes into being from ink/paper configurations, then it would seem inescapable that any meaning you encode in ink/paper configurations must itself have previously come from other ink/paper configurations.

    ReplyDelete
  187. Eduardo wrote: but the real problem is that wrf3 doesn't get what people are proposing,

    I'll note that it's a two-way street.

    and because as each question and answer both sides gets more and more baffled,

    Can someone please answer my question at February 18, 2013 at 8:23 AM? Namely:

    Suppose you have an atom with an electron in a high energy orbit. The electron moves to a lower energy orbit and emits a photon.

    Is any part of that system immaterial? If so, what?


    I think that would go a long way toward clearing things up. At least I hope so.

    they will soon be telling each other to fuck off... pretty soon...

    I promise you I won't.

    ReplyDelete
  188. Me: Every perception of a specific wavelength of red light is isomorphic to every other perception of the wavelength; does it follow that my perception of that wavelength means your perception of it, and your perception of that wavelength means my perception?

    wrf3: Of course not. Suppose your brain digitizes red one way and mine another. We aren't comparing your digitization with my digitization.

    But that's just it. On your premises, why is the correspondence between a mental state (perceive the color red) and a physical fact (light of a red frequency) a source of meaning, while the correspondence between mental states of different people is not? Both of them are equally valid isomorphisms, and (again on your premises) there is no difference in kind between them or the things related by them.

    What do you mean by "as well as meaning the play itself"? The isomporhism between the editions of the play (which can be fuzzy, btw, due to typos or updates to language, etc...) is not the same isomorphism between an individual's interpretation of the text of the play and the actual performance.

    Why should that matter? It's enough that both sets of isomorphisms exist; on your premises there's no grounds to choose between them, to say that the correspondence from performances to printed editions of a play is meaningful while the one between different printed editions is not (or vice versa.)

    ReplyDelete
  189. Every single argument offered here boils down to the argument from incomprehension — “I can't imagine how evolution can be creative, therefore it can’t be, therefore Goddiddit” “I can’t imagine how a mechanical system could have intentionality, therefore it can’t be, therefore Godduzzit”

    No. It's more like we never see matter, as such, demonstrate intrinsic intentionality (which is necessary condition for genuine thought), so there is no reason to believe that it can have it. This position is further strengthened by the principle of proportionate causality.

    Your argument is that God doesn't exist, therefore everything must be explained by a reduction to material mechanisms.

    Our position is developed through the observation of the real world. Yours is mere question begging.

    ReplyDelete
  190. wrf3

    Heyyy you replied to me, the electron and the atom's layers, if one can call those layers to begin with.

    hmmm, I think that the A-T answer would be, you have a material object, the electron, that has among other things telos, teleology.

    now is teleology immaterial? I don't know, people never discussed the telos of the electron here, but obviously the property is not made of matter, since it is a property not a thing, or an extra object inside or connected to the electron.

    I mean this is my overall take, could be wrong.

    btw, I wasn't thinking it would be you who would tell others to fuck off XD, most critics here have a hard time grasping the concepts, so they slowly get mentally unstable and start attacking us personally, especially because it is a blog run by a rightist and a catholic.

    the net is just fucked up and I bet you agree wrf3

    ReplyDelete
  191. Glen asked: So, which of the following statements is true:

    a) Meaning comes into being (i.e., 'arises') from isomorphisms.
    b) Meaning comes into being from strange loops.
    c) Meaning comes into being from ink/paper configurations.
    d) All of the above.
    e) None of the above.


    a) is true. However, an isomorphism is the result of symbol manipulation. It isn't a static operation. It's a computation. Electrons (or photons, or water, or ...) move. Hence my question at February 18, 2013 at 8:23 AM.

    b) A "strange loop" is a part of the "wiring" of the isomorphism.

    c) False. Meaning can be conveyed by ink/paper combinations, but it is not the source of the meaning.

    ReplyDelete
  192. Steve

    stop, you will just feed his insanity

    ReplyDelete
  193. Eduardo,
    Sorry, my neurons did it. It's not as though I can exercise self control ;)

    ReplyDelete
  194. Eduardo wrote: ... especially because it is a blog run by a rightist and a catholic.

    I came so very close to converting to Roman Catholicism this afternoon at lunch because of what they're hiding under St. Peter's square. The Risen Christ and what they're hiding? That's a win all around.

    ReplyDelete
  195. wow that looks like the ... ENTERPRISE!!!!!

    Have I got the ship wrong XD?

    ReplyDelete
  196. Steve...

    My neurons neither, I mean what am I if nothing but a slave of my neurons... if I exist that is...

    ReplyDelete
  197. Aboutness is an intrinsic feature of a thought.

    A thought is a physical event.

    Aboutness is an intrinsic feature of a physical event.

    If X is an intrinsic feature of a physical event, then X must be a feature definable and measurable via physics.

    Therefore, aboutness is a feature definable and measurable via physics.

    So, how do we measure aboutness? What is it a measure of? For example, Temperature (C, F, K) is a measure of the vibrational and kinetic energy of some physical thing. Acceleration (m/s^2) is a measure of change in velocity with respect to time. The rate of a reaction (k[A]) is the measure of how fast a reaction proceeds.

    ReplyDelete
  198. 316wrf3,

    c) False. Meaning can be conveyed by ink/paper combinations, but it is not the source of the meaning.

    Yet electrons (or, e.g., photons or water) are?

    Or is that not what you are suggesting, but, rather, that it is their movement which is the source of meaning?

    Or, if that last is putting it too strongly, that their movement is at least implicated in the conveyance of meaning?

    ReplyDelete
  199. Anon

    Information theory. We use bits and bytes, you get some data coming from the neurons and postulate that as let's say Cerebral Information Unit, and measure the rest.

    However IF you want to know the content in that grou of data the you are fucked XD. You have ot ask the person so you can correlate that data with a given sentence of some sort and THEN you measure data again.

    -----------------------------------

    Now I do get what you mean to argue there for but the question was sort of loose XD.

    ReplyDelete
  200. s/b "...it at least seems that their movement is implicated in the conveyance of meaning?"

    ReplyDelete