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>From: chalmers@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu (David Chalmers)
Subject: Re: A rock implements every FSA
Message-ID: <1992Mar30.064140.8996@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu>
Organization: Indiana University
References: <1992Mar28.100350.10367@husc3.harvard.edu> <1992Mar29.003736.25807@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu> <1992Mar29.144854.10432@husc3.harvard.edu>
Date: Mon, 30 Mar 92 06:41:40 GMT

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

>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.

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.

>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.

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.

>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.  

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.

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

Hilarious.

-- 
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."


