My ex-girlfriend wrote lowercase a without it joining at the top such that I read it as a u. Others could clearly see it as an a. Finding a bunch of A in different fonts we're all familiar with isn't going to interrogate much. Finding a bunch of corrupted A might be more telling. — Kenosha Kid
(I've been encouraged to learn that Ernst Mayr, who is considered a giant of 20th century biology, is likewise not reductionist. He says In The growth of biological thought , that 'the discovery of the genetic code was a breakthrough of the first order. It showed why organisms are fundamentally different from any kind of non-living material. There is nothing in the inanimate world that has a genetic program which stores information with a history of three thousand million years!’) — Wayfarer
Form is what life is about. Whether you use these or those molecules of water makes no actual difference, but the form is what 'matters'. — Olivier5
people like Chalmers say that there's still a question as to whether such a thing really experiences anything, or if it just behaves as if it does. — Pfhorrest
I would say that the right form and thus function IS what determines phenomenal consciousness, and that the mystery is: what kind of form generates consciousness and what kind of form doesn't?that metaphysical quality (which Chalmers et al call "phenomenal consciousness") is already present everywhere, so all you have to do to get some matter into the right form and thus function and it already has whatever else is metaphysically needed to experience things the way a human does. — Pfhorrest
The reductionist view is that if you modeled all of the chemicals involved in DNA arranged in just the right way, you would model everything there is to model about DNA, and nothing would be missing. An anti-reductionist view in turn would be a claim that DNA isn't made of just chemicals arranged in the right way, but that there's something else besides that involved. What is that something else, and why do we need to suppose it exists, or equivalently, what noticeable difference in the world does its existence make? — Pfhorrest
what noticeable difference in the world does its existence make? — Pfhorrest
There are people, like Chalmers, who think that even if you had some matter in the exact form of a human, which consequently functions exactly like a human, there's still an open question of whether or not it's "really conscious", even though it does all of the functional stuff like thinking, — Pfhorrest
if there were such machines with the organs and shape of a monkey or of some other non-rational animal, we would have no way of discovering that they are not the same as these animals. But if there were machines that resembled our bodies and if they imitated our actions as much as is morally possible, we would always have two very certain means for recognizing that, none the less, they are not genuinely human. The first is that they would never be able to use speech, or other signs composed by themselves, as we do to express our thoughts to others. For one could easily conceive of a machine that is made in such a way that it utters words, and even that it would utter some words in response to physical actions that cause a change in its organs—for example, if someone touched it in a particular place, it would ask what one wishes to say to it, or if it were touched somewhere else, it would cry out that it was being hurt, and so on. But it could not arrange words in different ways to reply to the meaning of everything that is said in its presence, as even the most unintelligent human beings can do. The second means is that, even if they did many things as well as or, possibly, better than anyone of us, they would infallibly fail in others. Thus one would discover that they did not act on the basis of knowledge, but merely as a result of the disposition of their organs. For whereas reason is a universal instrument that can be used in all kinds of situations, these organs need a specific disposition for every particular action. — René Descartes, Discourse on Method
Memory, like the quote said. As Mayr says, DNA basically preserves the whole history of evolution in a single DNA molecule. There’s nothing corresponding to that in inorganic matter. — Wayfarer
it could not arrange words in different ways to reply to the meaning of everything that is said in its presence, as even the most unintelligent human beings can do
[...]
even if they did many things as well as or, possibly, better than anyone of us, they would infallibly fail in others — René Descartes, Discourse on Method
I've never heard anyone in day-to-day language talk about the ideal mental concept of the letter 'A'. — Isaac
What about "triangle". We clearly talk about the "ideal triangle" all the time in math, not any particular triangle. — khaled
We can come up with properties relating to the ideal triangle, though no triangle that ever exists will be the ideal triangle. — khaled
Oliver is currently 'talking about' the ideal 'A', so we clearly need a bit more than merely talking about X as if it existed for us to conclude that X exists, yes? — Isaac
My name isn't actually "Oliver". It is "Olivier", — Olivier5
In my opinion, that correct French spelling does exist, somehow, as does the correct English spelling "Oliver". If correct spellings do not actually exist, thln whqp thi fruck? — Olivier5
i don't require an ideal 'correct' word. — Isaac
You actually do need to know how to write e.g. "polysaccharides" correctly in order to be understood as saying "polysaccharides". If you write it as "pauleessakorrydz", nobody will understand what you mean. — Olivier5
You don't need a memory of all the other attempts; you just need to know the one and only correct spelling of "polysaccharides". — Olivier5
Your computer spell check would normally tell you. Otherwise there are resources called dictionaries — Olivier5
And yes, it include a model of each word's correct spelling in terms of the one exact order of letters to be used, not some vague, ill-defined similitude. — Olivier5
The same tends to be true of universals — Olivier5
What you are saying is that "universals" are not as universal as we may think, their limits are hazy, which is true and indeed an important point in that the verification of universals by interviewing locators is never perfect. You can always find a guy who disagrees somewhere. — Olivier5
Maybe it would help if you could tell me some properties of this ideal triangle. — Isaac
so we clearly need a bit more than merely talking about X as if it existed for us to conclude that X exists, yes? — Isaac
We can come up with imaginary triangles, yes. — Isaac
I'm not seeing how this proves that they are the 'ideal' triangle against which all shapes are compared to determine the correct name. — Isaac
It has 3 vertices connected by 3 edges and all of them are perfectly straight. — khaled
Nothing material fits that description. — khaled
Are you proposing that the idea of a triangle doesn't exist, and only real physical triangles exist? — khaled
You can tell the difference between a triangle and a square right? How do you do that except by comparing with some ideal triangle/square? — khaled
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