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Article 4809 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: onstott@a.cs.okstate.edu (ONSTOTT CHARLES OR)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Language as Technology: A Phenomenological Study
Message-ID: <1992Mar29.224635.1698@a.cs.okstate.edu>
Date: 29 Mar 92 22:46:35 GMT
References: <1992Mar29.045831.14523@mp.cs.niu.edu> <1992Mar29.085440.24838@a.cs.okstate.edu> <1992Mar29.172136.95@mp.cs.niu.edu>
Organization: Oklahoma State University, Computer Science, Stillwater
Lines: 63

In article <1992Mar29.172136.95@mp.cs.niu.edu> rickert@mp.cs.niu.edu (Neil Rickert) writes:
>In article <1992Mar29.085440.24838@a.cs.okstate.edu> onstott@a.cs.okstate.edu (ONSTOTT CHARLES OR) writes:
>>In article <1992Mar29.045831.14523@mp.cs.niu.edu> rickert@mp.cs.niu.edu (Neil Rickert) writes:
>>  Yes, but theory is something different than what I am talking about.
>>Theory is the collective product of language use of a phenomenological
>>observation.  Think of it as Karl Popper's world 3.  Theories are
>>dependent on language which is dependent on intelligence.  Not the
>>reverse.  Further, if one does NOT have a theory, it does not follow
>>that one does NOT understand the world in which he lives, or the activites
>>that he has.  However, it is true to say that a person who can not 
>
> But this is a rather limited view of understanding.  Biologically we are
> Yes, without language we could understand our "world".  But it would be
>a very different and much simpler "world" than the one we understand
>with language.
>
 I don't think it is limited.  I think your view is limited.  You limit
understanding to understanding-by-means-of-a-theory.  I think understanding
can exist without theory.(Such as in the case of the chimps that you brought
up.) THe theory isn't limited; you may not like it, but it is not limited.


>>>>I have been using 'thinking'
>>>>in terms of 'reacting,' 'working with,' 'appropriation,' of a creature
>>>>and an environment in a dynamic way.  Intuition is generally beyond that
>>>
>>> This is a strange view of thinking.  Many mechanical contraptions would
>>>meet this description, but I doubt you would consider them to be
>>>thinking.
>> They do not have thinking because they do not have worlds.  It requires
>>a world to think.  If I were to remain strictly Heideggerian, I might
>
> Dave Chalmers likes to use the example of a thermostat, which he claims
>has consciousness.  I think it is at least fair to say that the thermostat
>has a world -- the rooms whose temperature it is attempting to
>maintain -- and that it interacts with this world in a dynamic way.
 It does not have a world in the Heideggarian sense of the word.  If you
do not know what Heidegger means by world, it would be impossible for
me to expalin it on here.  I would recommend reading _Being and Time_.
A thermostates "world"(which isn't right at all) is only a product
of the present at hand.  The "world" is no world, it is an interpretation
of a thermostat by means of the present-at-hand.-Ie, Chalmers is dead wrong
on this.  The theormostat has no more world than that which Chalmers has.
He is caught within the present-at-hand.

>  Neil W. Rickert, Computer Science               <rickert@cs.niu.edu>

BCnya,
  Charles O. Onstott, III

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Charles O. Onstott, III                       (onstott@a.cs.okstate.edu)
Undergraduate in Philosophy                   Oklahoma State University


"A man is a philosopher of genius only when he succeeds in transmuting 
the primitive and merely natural vision into an abstract idea belonging 
to the common stock of consciousness...The golden apples drop from the 
same tree, whether they be gathered by an imbecile locksmith's 
apprentice or by a Schopenhauer."

                                                       -- Carl G. Jung
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