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Article 3423 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: boroson@spot.Colorado.EDU (BOROSON BRAM S)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy,sci.philosophy.tech
Subject: Re: Is understanding algorithmic?
Message-ID: <1992Feb3.025904.19668@ucsu.Colorado.EDU>
Date: 3 Feb 92 02:59:04 GMT
References: <1992Jan28.122457.8161@husc3.harvard.edu> <1992Feb1.015307.18388@ucsu.Colorado.EDU> <1992Feb2.020220.8338@husc3.harvard.edu>
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In article <1992Feb2.020220.8338@husc3.harvard.edu> zeleny@zariski.harvard.edu (Mikhail Zeleny) writes:
>In article <1992Feb1.015307.18388@ucsu.Colorado.EDU> 
>boroson@spot.Colorado.EDU (BOROSON BRAM S) writes:
>
>>In article <1992Jan28.122457.8161@husc3.harvard.edu> 
>>zeleny@zariski.harvard.edu (Mikhail Zeleny) writes:
>
>MZ:
[stuff deleted]
>
>BB:
>>There are no ``causal relations'' in anything, as Hume has shown.  Reference
>>consists entirely of a correlation between information in neural pulses (etc.)
>>and information in the outside world.  Of course we can refer to objects
>>that do not exist (Centaurs, sets, etc.) but this is always by a combination
>>and reshuffling of our ideas about objects that do exist.
>
>Hume hasn't "shown" anything to anyone who doesn't accept the Lockean
>empiricist premiss that all knowledge must come from experience or
>introspection; even then, one could reject his argument because of
>consideration advanced by Thomas Reid, that causal relations are known to
>us directly from the experience of volition.  Furthermore, Frege has shown
>that empiricist philosophy of mathematics is a flop.
>

You originally claimed you could find a contradiction in the materialist,
reductive conception of reference.  Your argument is laden with ideas
that many reductive materialists would not accept.  I pointed out one
such idea, causality, and you said that you could believe it if you wanted
to.  That is not sufficient to reduce reductive materialism to absurdity.

What are your sources of knowledge besides experience and introspection?
(This must be knowledge about the physical world and not mathematics,
since we are discussing cause and effect).  

I hold an empiricist philosophy of mathematical thought, but a formalist
philosophy of mathematics.  We can reason about patterns, but I can't 
think of a single area of mathematics that has grown neither from thinking
about other mathematics or about the world (this includes number theory,
algebra, geometry, analysis, set theory (transfinite numbers arose from
saying 1-1 mappings of sets made them equal--an extension of finite ideas),
differential geometry, topology, logic, etc.etc.etc.)

In other words, No, I haven't read Frege, but I dare him to refute me.

BB:
>>In this interpretation, reference *does* have to do with external entities,
>>since this correlation of information would not exist without an external
>>entity.  Reference is not a wholly internal affair.
>
>I never claimed that it was.  Explain the correlation on empiricist grounds.
>

When I have specific sensations of sweetness and sourness, redness and
roundness, my Apple Neurons fire (unlike Searle, I do not consider
hamburgers, since I am vegetarian).  

In other situations, they do not fire.

Of course, the obvious question is: could an outside observer, just by chance,
find other neurons that fired only on Apple Input?  (Or replace "outside
observer" with "homonucleus" or "CPU" inside the brain: why do we think
some mental events "stand" for real events, when with proper decipherment,
other events are also correlated?)  The answer is that if other events
have been correlated in the past with the experience of eating an apple,
then we will be classically conditioned to associate those mental events 
with apples as well.  

It is also important that such a correlation stand up to attempts to falsify 
it.

>>>On the other hand, should one assume that neural pulses are connotative
>>>signs, which refer by virtue of expressing an intensional meaning, then
>>>such meanings, by the above observation, must be entirely captured in the
>>>physical states of the brain.  Now, as I have argued elsewhere on the
>>>Putnam thread, it's well known that intensions, once admitted, bring in a
>>>transfinite hierarchy thereof; in other words, on the connotative theory,
>>>reference depends on the grasp of (and, under the reductive materialist
>>>assumption, physical embodiment of) meanings, which depend on meanings of
>>>meanings, which in turn depend on meanings of meanings of meanings, and so
>>>on.  For at each intensional level it is reasonable to interpret the
>>>concept as yet another sign, asking what is the factor in virtue of which
>>>it succeeds in referring to an object; in other words, it does us no good
>>>to argue that in practice a brain or a computer only uses a finite initial
>>>segment of the intensional hierarchy, for the question of the nature of
>>>reference will only reappear on the highest admitted level thereof.  On the
>>>assumption that the brain, like a computer, is a finite state automaton,
>>>this amounts to a reductio ad absurdum of materialist semantics.  Moreover,
>>>as is well-known, classical model-theoretic semantics is incapable of fully
>>>characterizing reference, and ipso facto it is incapable of sufficiently
>>>constraining any derived operational criteria that purport to implement the
>>>AI notion of success of reference.  Thus, if I am right, AI projects of
>>>creating a machine capable of signifying independently of its creator,
>>>surely a prerequisite for machine intelligence, are doomed to failure.
>
>
>BB:
>>When I refer to something (say an apple) within my own brain, I am aware only
>>of a web of sensory memories and abstractions derived from my experiences
>>with apples.  Where does meaning come in?
>
>Like I said, this view doesn't work with numbers; see Frege's "Foundations
>of Arithmetic".  Moreover, your awareness of a term's meaning is surely not
>a necessary criterion thereof; otherwise everyone would ipso facto always
>know what he were talking about.
>

You meant to assert the contrapositive: a term could have meaning you are
not aware of.  But yes, it is true also that people sometimes think they are
meaningful when they are not.

>>>Now, in Mark's example, the machines are programmed in a deterministic
>>>manner; I take it that this programming is performed by a rational agent
>>>(N.B. for David Gudeman: this factor, pace Kant and others, serves to
>>>assign all moral responsibility).  This agent stipulates the operational
>>>characteristics of the machines to the extent that he is capable of
>>>controlling their functioning within their environment.  As I stated above,
>>>the machines merely succeed in matching an internal representation of their
>>>location, as well as of some objects likely to be found there, with a
>>>preprogrammed description, perhaps through the use of a visual pattern
>>>matching algorithm.  The reference, if any, belongs to the programmer.
>
>
>BB:
>>I know positivism is out of fashion in some circles, but Zeleny seems
>>to think showing someone believes it is akin to refuting them. 
>
>Not really; however, in light of the history of XXth century philosophy, it
>suffices to make them look quite ridiculous.
>

No, no, it makes those who would throw away positivism (instead of build on
it) look quite ridiculous.

Unless you think relativity and quantum theory were embarassing failures...

>BB:
>>         And read Michael Freedman's _Philosophy of Spacetime Theories_:
>>while relativity theory does not provide direct support for logical positivism,
>>there is a definite but subtle historical link between the two.
>
>Of course, Einstein was as thoroughgoing a realist as science has ever
>produced.
>

Of course, his realism was strongest in his last 40 unproductive years.
He also praised Mach's ideas very highly and thought relativity embodied
them.  His 1905 paper on Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies begins by
criticizing Maxwell's theory for using unobservable theoretical constructs.
Then his 1915 paper considers two isolated spheres relatively rotating,
and does not accept that one will experience a centrifugal bulge because
it is absolutely rotating... because again, absolute rotation can not
be observed.

>
>`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'
>: Qu'est-ce qui est bien?  Qu'est-ce qui est laid?         Harvard   :
>: Qu'est-ce qui est grand, fort, faible...                 doesn't   :
>: Connais pas! Connais pas!                                 think    :
>:                                                             so     :
>: Mikhail Zeleny                                                     :
>: 872 Massachusetts Ave., Apt. 707                                   :
>: Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139           (617) 661-8151            :
>: email zeleny@zariski.harvard.edu or zeleny@HUMA1.BITNET            :
>:                                                                    :
>'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`

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