An interesting corollary of this fact is that it's likely that syntax evolved way before semantics in the primate brain. — Agent Smith
That does not follow, though, because evolution did not have to mimick computer science. My understanding is that apes and even birds have a vocabulary, but they lack syntax -- the capacity not just to say a word but to combine several words into a meaningful whole. — Olivier5
I would've expected our copies of nature's creations to be hi-fi so to speak, right down to the sequence in which they occurred. — Agent Smith
More likely, the sequence reflects what was necessary or possible. You cannot invent syntax before vocabulary, because the latter is needed for the former to exist. — Olivier5
Perhaps for the same reason than an abacus can help you count, but will never help you think.
A computer is basically a sophisticated abacus, right? — Olivier5
it is the first-person nature of consciousness which they are obliged to deny. — Wayfarer
I'm actually curious about what it is about their method that you dislike? — GLEN willows
The Churchands, Paul and Patricia? — GLEN willows
I'm being careful NOT to claim it WILL be explained by science, just that it could. — GLEN willows
‘Rational inference’, which neuroscientists, materialists, and everyone else rely on whenever they use the word ‘because’, neither has, nor requires, a scientific grounding. Rational inference depends wholly and solely on the relations of ideas - ‘is’, ‘is not’, ‘is greater than’, ‘is the same as’, and so on. Judgements based on those simple elements are intrinsic to any rational claim about anything whatever, including the claim that thought can be explained in physical terms. Yet those very same elements of thought are not the object of scientific analysis, because they precede scientific analysis - in order to engage in scientific analysis, such judgements are needed in the first place. — Wayfarer
A practical example. Consider a neurological expert who claims that data shows that some area within the brain performs a function. You won’t see anything like ‘a function’ when you look at the data, which presumably consists of graphical images of neural activity and so on. You must take the experts word for it that this data means such-and-such. That ‘meaning’ is always internal to the act of judgement - you won’t see that in the data, not unless you are likewise trained in the interpretation of what the data means. — Wayfarer
That's mice, right? With smells. So good luck with working out the neurology of Justice, or Truth, or Beauty! — Wayfarer
But the Churchland's (and by the way I don't agree with everything they write) use the term eliminative materialism. — GLEN willows
I would argue consciousness is a separate "thing" from the brain — GLEN willows
I think consciousness may require a NEW method of study - that we don't yet have. You know - like when they invented those "microscopes" to study bacteria? — GLEN willows
Thoughts and the like possess inherent meaning or intentionality; brain processes, like ink marks, sound waves, and the like, are utterly devoid of any inherent meaning or intentionality; so thoughts and the like cannot possibly be identified with brain processes. — Ed Feser
First person consciousness is not objective, it is 'what observes'. — Wayfarer
But the Churchland's (and by the way I don't agree with everything they write) use the term eliminative materialism.
— GLEN willows
I've tagged an article about the Churchlands in the Atlantic, but I haven't read it yet. I'll see if I have anything to add after I read it. — T Clark
Good metaphor. I would say a computer is still a sort of clutch. It doesn't really do the work for you, it just assists.
Like an abacus cannot count, like a clutch cannot walk, a computer cannot think. — Olivier5
And the distinction between valid and sound inferences is completely lost on you (or are you just disingenuously obfuscating the distinction under the label "rational" make a quixotic point)? Intelligible demonstrations – historical, juridical, clinical, technical, scientific – about matters of fact require soundness. Otherwise, mere validity suffices.‘Rationalinference’, which neuroscientists, materialists, and everyone else rely on whenever they use the word ‘because’, neither has, nor requires, a scientific grounding.Rationalinference depends wholly and solely on the relations of ideas - ‘is’, ‘is not’, ‘is greater than’, ‘is the same as’, and so on. — Wayfarer
As usual, another facile distortion. "Eliminativists" argue that folk psychological concepts (e.g. "consciousness", "qualia", "intention", etc) occult more than elucidate and therefore are useless in formulating explanatory models of (meta)cognition which in no way "obliges them to deny" subjectivity, or first-person phenomenal awareness. If your disagreement is rational (i.e. philosophically non-trivial) with the eliminativist argument, Woofarer, make a counter-argument which soundly concludes that folk psychological concepts are needed to explain (meta)cognition in neuro-cognitive science. :chin:Churchlands, Dennett, et al, are called 'eliminativists' - it is the first-person nature of consciousness which they are obliged to deny. — Wayfarer
Just as digesting doesn't emerge from guts and walking doesn't emerge from legs.... minds[/u[ don't emerge from matter. — RogueAI
That depends on how "matter" is defined as well as what you mean by "exist".It's probably the case that matter doesn't exist.
:sweat: This spectre of Lord Kelvin needs exorcizing.Fundamentally [ ... ] We're no closer to the answer now than we were during Descartes' time, ...
. It is possible to study consciousness objectively just like it is possible to look at eyes, think about minds, etc — T Clark
Eliminative materialism (or eliminativism) is the radical claim that our ordinary, common-sense understanding of the mind is deeply wrong and that some or all of the mental states posited by common-sense do not actually exist and have no role to play in a mature science of the mind. Descartes famously challenged much of what we take for granted, but he insisted that, for the most part, we can be confident about the content of our own minds. Eliminative materialists go further than Descartes on this point, since they challenge the existence of various mental states that Descartes took for granted. — SEP, Eliminative Materialists
Dennett asks us to turn our backs on what is glaringly obvious—that in consciousness we are immediately aware of real subjective experiences of color, flavor, sound, touch, etc. that cannot be fully described in neural terms even though they have a neural cause (or perhaps have neural as well as experiential aspects). And he asks us to do this because the reality of such phenomena is incompatible with the scientific materialism that in his view sets the outer bounds of reality. He is, in Aristotle’s words, “maintaining a thesis at all costs.” — Thomas Nagel
Again, inference from observations is the way we know almost everything. When I'm reading about some scientific finding, I often say to myself "How did they get that conclusion from that data?" I assume that they know what they are talking about. Is that the problem? — T Clark
“My brain and I are inseparable.” For Churchland, “I equal my brain” and “brain equals me.” On its own, the former equation is hardly an existential challenge. The brain’s central role in selfhood is well known. (A loose screw affects both you and your brain.) But flip the equation—“brain equals me”—and a whole new cosmology is provoked. The implication is that I am definable, accessible, even divisible. The seeming solidity of me comes from a place, the brain—and what is the brain? The mental image Churchland conjures is that of a thicket of neurons and specialized regions of activity, all of them subject to pervasive unconscious actions and designs. Far from an ethereal soul or some intangible essence, then, selfhood means that I am the end result of innumerable processes occurring inside a pale pink, three-pound sack of meat. No spirit, no soul, no opaque differentiation between mind and brain. Put another way, I am just a brain.
And the distinction between valid and sound inferences is completely lost on you (or are you just disingenuously obfuscating the distinction under the label "rational" make a quixotic point)? Intelligible demonstrations – historical, juridical, clinical, technical, scientific – about matters of fact require soundness. Otherwise, mere validity suffices. — 180 Proof
"Eliminativists" argue that folk psychological concepts (e.g. "consciousness", "qualia", "intention", etc) occult more than elucidate and therefore are useless in formulating explanatory models of (meta)cognition which in no way "obliges them to deny" subjectivity, or first-person phenomenal awareness. — 180 Proof
What, then, is the relation between the standard ‘third-person’ objective methodologies for studying meteors or magnets (or human metabolism or bone density), and the methodologies for studying human consciousness? Can the standard methods be extended in such a way as to do justice to the phenomena of human consciousness? Or do we have to find some quite radical or revolutionary alternative science? I have defended the hypothesis that there is a straightforward, conservative extension of objective science that handsomely covers the ground — all the ground — of human consciousness, doing justice to all the data without ever having to abandon the rules and constraints of the experimental method that have worked so well in the rest of science. — Daniel Dennett
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