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>From: chalmers@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu (David Chalmers)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy,sci.philosophy.tech
Subject: Re: A rock implements every FSA
Message-ID: <1992Apr17.202258.20091@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu>
Date: 17 Apr 92 20:22:58 GMT
References: <1992Apr7.183603.10809@husc3.harvard.edu> <1992Apr14.064644.16892@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu> <1992Apr17.142040.11231@husc3.harvard.edu>
Organization: Indiana University
Lines: 79

In article <1992Apr17.142040.11231@husc3.harvard.edu> zeleny@brauer.harvard.edu (Mikhail Zeleny) writes:

>A couple of comments.  Pro primo, if, in your capacity as a functionalist,
>you succeed in distinguishing the identity-conditions for the minds from
>those of the physical basis of the implementation (or, for that matter, if
>you succeed in giving a materialist basis for the copper/statue distinction
>-- see Peter van Inwagen's "Material Beings", or any discussion of
>Chisholm's modal formulation of "the ship of Theseus"), I'll eat my beard.
>Pro secundo, I would like to see some textual support for your bizarre
>interpretation of Kripke, preferably from his technical writings on modal
>logic.  Once again, slowly: the familiar Kripke possible-worlds structures
>are paradigmatically haecceitist, insofar as they presuppose trans-world
>identity conditions for the individuals in their domains.

I'll skip the pro primo, which is only tangentially relevant to the
discussion and would lead to a very long digression.  For the pro
secundo, see _Naming and Necessity_, p. 17 and thereabouts, and p. 44
and thereabouts.  He's explicit in disclaiming the need for the
specification of trans-world identity conditions (and incidentally
concedes that his technical writings on modal logic give a
misleading picture of trans-world identity).

>Now, haecceitism
>ina and of itself doesn't generate any problems for your position: witness
>the situastion with the lamp.  It's only when you try to simultaneously
>stipulate trans-world identity conditions for mind-brains, and for their
>contingent properties, that you run into a logical problem.  For
>haecceitism with respect to the individual properties is tantamount to
>rejecting the intelligibility of stipulating identity conditions for
>individuals independently of their satisfaction of the said properties;
>conversely, haecceitism with respect to the individuals is tantamount to
>rejecting the intelligibility of identifying their contingent properties
>(e.g. functional states) across possible worlds.  You pays your money and
>you makes your choice.  Why is it that this simple technical point should
>be so difficult to get across?

The application of the relevant properties across possible worlds is
trivial.  They're simple properties like "lamp on".  If you have a
problem with the conditionals involved in specifying implementation
conditions, you must have a problem with conditionals like "if the
lamp is off, and one flicks the switch, the lamp turns on" (in fact
this is just the kind of conditional that might be invoked in showing
that the lamp implements a simple 2-state FSA, although one would
of course specify the properties more precisely, in terms of amount
of light emitted, or some such).  If you have problems with this
utterly straightforward conditional, let's hear them.

>I would like to hear more about your notion of nomic possibility.  In
>particular, what enables you to rule out the possibility admitted by
>Kripke, that physical necessity is the same as metaphysical necessity?

I havent't seen Kripke admit that possibility; he just notes that
some things previously thought to be only physically necessary are
in fact metaphysically necessary, and wonders how far that might go.
Personally, I find bizarre the idea that such blatantly contingent
facts as the law of gravity or the mass of an electron could be
metaphysically necessary.  However, even if it turned out that
nomic necessity was metaphysical necessity (which it surely isn't),
it wouldn't cause too many problems for my position.  What's important
is that qualia aren't conceptually supervenient on the physical (which
is the basic intuition that Kripke and I share).  Kripke's argument
can't do any damage to a consistent position that concedes this (as
indeed it shouldn't be expected to).

>So far, so good; but if I were you, I wouldn't rest until I discovered
>exactly what it is that would enable your supervenience theses to escape
>the fate of the identity thesis.  Of course, it may well be that you've
>succeeded in so doing; however you certainly haven't communicated it to me.

The trouble with the identity theory, like materialism generally, is
that it requires that the connection between the physical and qualia
be necessary, which it certainly doesn't seem to be.  My position
accepts that the connection is contingent, so it doesn't have any
"escaping" to do.

-- 
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."


