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>From: zeleny@zariski.harvard.edu (Mikhail Zeleny)
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech,comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: A rock implements every FSA
Message-ID: <1992Mar30.231418.10488@husc3.harvard.edu>
Date: 31 Mar 92 04:14:16 GMT
References: <1992Mar29.003736.25807@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu> 
 <1992Mar29.144854.10432@husc3.harvard.edu> <1992Mar30.064140.8996@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu>
Organization: Dept. of Math, Harvard Univ.
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In article <1992Mar30.064140.8996@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu>
chalmers@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu (David Chalmers) writes: 

>In article <1992Mar29.144854.10432@husc3.harvard.edu>
>zeleny@zariski.harvard.edu (Mikhail Zeleny) writes: 

MZ:
>>Not so.  Read on, and you will discover that Putnam allows to subsume
>>inputs into the state descriptions in a way wholly compatible with my
>>suggestion, by discussing an input-free machine behaving exactly as if it
>>had the inputs in question.

DC:
>Alas, you have seriously misread the passage in question.  I quote:
>
>  Imagine, however, that an object S which takes strings of "1"s as
>  inputs and prints such strings as outputs behaves from 12:00 to
>  12:07 exactly as *if* it had a certain description D.  That is, S
>  receives a certain string, say "111111," at 12:00 and prints a
>  certain string, say "11," at 12:07, and there "exists" (mathematically
>  speaking) a machine with description D that does this.  [p. 124]
>
>It is abundantly clear that this machine possesses real inputs and
>outputs.  The point of the "as if" is to compare it to a machine
>whose internal organization is specified differently.

Read on:
  															                 (by being in 
   the appropriate state at each of the specified intervals, say 12:00
   to 12:01, 12:01 to 12:02,..., and printing and erasing what it is 
   supposed to print and erase when it is in a given state and scanning 
   a given symbol)

Now, if the last anaphoric pronoun were meant to refer to the machine with
description D, the theorem proved earlier would have nothing to do with
this machine.  Since I know Putnam not to be an idiot, I concluded that it
referred to the object being modelled, and the machine with description D
was meant to satisfy the theorem's constraints.  Even if Putnam meant it
otherwise, my own argument still stands; I suggest that henceforth you
argue against my own theses, rather than dismiss them as a failed exercise
in hermeneutics.

MZ:
>>You being a self-professed "reluctant dualist" might find a way around this
>>one, but for materialists like Dennett and Churchland, the very distinction
>>between inputs originating in the external world, outputs going into it,
>>and internal states, is altogether spurious.  Putnam, with his "internal
>>realism", will likewise be able to make the requisite distinction; yet he
>>is in no way obligated to grant it to his opponent.

DC:
>I don't claim to speak for Dennett and Churchland, but they are free to
>use precisely the criterion I mentioned, that of spatial distinctness.
>Inputs must supervene on a region distinct from that on which internal
>states supervene.  Which is enough to rule your example out of court.

Not so.  If there be two or more causally independent physical strata, I
can do my trick by mapping inputs and internal states on them independently
of each other; if, as many physicists would like to believe, there ain't no
such thing, then your distinction is wholly bogus.  Think about it; if
necessary, refer to some discussions on the identity of material objects.

MZ:
>>It is my express policy never to ask anyone to go in too deep, while
>>lacking an adequate supply of oxygen.  Note however, that Einstein's
>>conditional depends only on physical necessity, whilst your own relies on
>>the mathematically contingent relation between logical and physical laws.
>>Moreover, your functionalist edifice calls into question the modal strength
>>of all human sciences.  You may recall Dummett's example of a man who dies
>>without ever having faced danger; Dummett concludes that the question of
>>his courage has no determinate truth-value.  Not so under your theory,
>>which calls for individuation of a certain class of *logically* possible
>>mental states, allegedly necessarily possessed by all human minds,
>>regardless of their (presumably contingent) individual personalities.  
>>
>>Note that haecceitism is very much an issue here: you have to be able to
>>uniquely identify yourself in a possible world where your individual
>>characteristics are evenly distributed among any number of putative
>>counterparts.  

DC:
>This is all very cute.  (1) The conditionals I require depend precisely
>on physical necessity (take a look at them).  (2) Invoking Dummett's
>anti-realism is a desperation move (why not invoke Berkeley's idealism,
>or Unger's nihilism?  They'd also be enough to defeat functionalism if
>they were true, which they very probably are not).  However, if you like
>you may feel free to evaluate the truth of all the strong conditionals
>ahead of time, avoiding any problems with past counterfactuals.  (3) As
>I said previously, any problems with trans-world identity are no worse
>than they are with innocuous conditionals such as "if I flip the switch
>on the lamp, it will turn on".  I don't imagine that too many of us have
>problems with the truth-value of that one.

You know, Dave, you have my unqualified, unmitigated, and wholly
unsolicited admiration as one tenacious fucker.  No matter how many times
you are shown to have been wrong, you always manage to come up with yet
another rhetorical device.  Consider: (1) Functionalism reduces biology and
psychology (and, by implication, -- history and sociology; I'll spare you
the examples from these disciplines) to the same nomological status as
physics.  This means that your conditionals are of the nature, "If my
grandma had a beard, she would've been my grandpa", and "If I stroked the
pussy instead of striking it, it would have purred, instead of hissing".
You take a look at them.  (2) You might have surmised that I don't care
much for Dummett's anti-realism, except when it suits me for pointing out
the frailty of your position.  In this case, it shows the problematic
status of precisely those strong conditionals that can't be evaluated ahead
of the time: how would you know the causal status of an FSA instruction
activated by a physically impossible condition? are you going to be a
realist about the disposition represented by such an instruction?  (Unger
sounds like fun; who he?  Not the fella from "The Odd Couple", I presume.)
(3) Trans-world identity is a big problem indeed.  You have a conflict
between the mind-brain haecceitism, necessarily presupposed by your modal
interpretation of counterfactual functionalism, and the brain state
haecceitism required by the nature of your conditionals.  This should be
your biggest worry: if mind-brain is a logical individual, there seems to
be no way for its functional states to share the same status.  Aside from
that, your putatively innocuous conditionals remind me of Russell's
chicken, who comes to expect the farmer's benevolence as his due.  Still,
lamps end up burning out when they are supposed to get turned on, while
chicken end up with broken necks.  Again, your theory doesn't distinguish
between the modal strength of physical, biological, and social necessity,
so I recommend a bit of circumspection there.

MZ:
>>It's too bad you set a lower standard of excellence for Internet banter
>>than you do for formal expression.  

DC:
>Hilarious.

See my reply to Osan Yigit.

>-- 
>Dave Chalmers                            (dave@cogsci.indiana.edu)      
>Center for Research on Concepts and Cognition, Indiana University.
>"It is not the least charm of a theory that it is refutable."


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: Mikhail Zeleny                                                     :
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