Relevant quote from Rene Descartes:

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, nonetheless, 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 any 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. — Rene Descartes

Discourse on Method, 1637.

existence of your interest or ability to decipher meaning says nothing about the existence of meaning itself — Janus

You are correct, of course. Generally, however, it must be admitted an intelligence is required for the existence of meaning, whether the instantiation of it, or the subsequent recognition of it. Given the abundance of theories on the topic over the centuries suggests a serious lack of consensus on the very idea of meaning itself.

Seems more parsimonious to think meaning is like the tree on the corner of 4th and Maple, Anytown, Anywhere......if there is one, fine, if there isn’t, fine. If we can’t tell the difference, the truth of the matter is moot.

Relevant quote from Rene Descartes:

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, nonetheless, 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 any 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. — Rene Descartes


Discourse on Method, 1637. — Wayfarer

If we were to artificially build a human out of just the same materials that naturally-formed humans are made of, in just the same relations, undergoing just the same processes, then they would be genuinely human.

That's building a machine. We'd just be building it out of materials and in a manner that we do not usually build machines.

We don't have the knowledge or technology to actually carry this out yet, but it's maybe not too far off.

If the universe exists without conscious minds inhabiting it, then of course it must embody meaningful information. Which would just mean that there is information there which would be meaningful to a conscious mind if there was a conscious mind. Why is this so difficult to understand? — Janus

It is difficult to understand because the argument is being forwarded by an intelligence the major premise denies. It does not stand to reason that a universe sans conscious minds must embody information, this claim stemming merely from the fact such entity currently inhabits a universe where meaningful information is embodied. Experience informs him one extant universe involves information, but that in itself does not permit him to say extant universes without him must also contain information. Just because it would seem absurd otherwise, is not sufficient reason to ground the impossibility of other kinds of universes beyond his ken.
“....those who do philosophy should not fear absurdies...” (Russell, 1912)

Furthermore, the minor premise negates the major, which dissolves the argument by creating a new one, and tacitly relegates the very concept of reactionable “meaning” to be intrinsic to the conscious mind.

It is well worth bearing in mind......constantly......human rationality is absolutely restricted to the human condition alone, and nothing should be ventured outside it with an expectation of knowledge.

So... when looking at a text how do you know that it's been correctly deciphered? — creativesoul

My answer to that is "there are no correct interpretations."

There are interpretations that either match (if more or less exact with respect to a particular expression) or that people interpret to match (if more paraphrased in one's opinion) what other people, including the author, explain as an interpretation.

And there are interpretations that allow consistency, coherence, etc. among a number of different texts, where that can be opposed to interpretations that do not allow that.

But neither of those amount to an interpretation being correct.

Is anyone here arguing that the universe would hold meaningful information without conscious minds existing to make it “meaningful information”? — Noah Te Stroete

That's S's (the thread-starter) view.

If the universe exists without conscious minds inhabiting it, then of course it must embody meaningful information. Which would just mean that there is information there which would be meaningful to a conscious mind if there was a conscious mind. Why is this so difficult to understand? — Janus

It's easy to understand that you're reifying a potential.

are those two patterns the same?

What about these?: — Janus

Your examples are not the same, because you cannot represent the Fibonacci series in a partial way, starting in the middle. It has a unique starting point of one unit, which is replicated. And the whole series relies on replicating that original unit. The pattern is not properly represented without the starting point.

No physically instantiated pattern can represent the whole series, or even any more than the tiniest part of it. So, although both natural and man-made patterns may instantiate the intentionally conceptualized series, the series as mathematically expressed is not a visual pattern, but a pattern that consists merely in a recurring specific operation of addition. — Janus

So the question then. When a thing, produces a pattern based in that sequence, is this not necessarily an intentional pattern rather than a natural one? The pattern relies on assuming a fundamental unit, and then a "specific operation of addition" follows from that assumption of a fundamental unit. If this operation is intentional, then I would think that all so-called natural instances are really intentional. The thing creating the pattern must assume a fundamental unit and perform a specific operation of addition. But if the so-called natural occurrences of this pattern are not intentional, they actually are natural, then why assume that the human occurrence of the pattern, the assuming a fundamental unit, and performing a specific operation of addition, is necessarily intentional?

The debate offer extends to you as well...

Missed the boat on this question a bit, so excuse me if I'm repeating stuff others have said. Anyway, I'd want to avoid a situation where you have identical sets of marks and only one considered meaningful because of the intention of its creators. So, accidental meaning is OK by me. If Robinson Crusoe walking randomly around his beach created a well-formed arrow with his footprints, I would say he had created a sign that would not require a plane flying overhead to imbue it with meaning. So, I'm thinking of linguistic meaning here as a kind of orientation. Meaning is meaning to ____ or meaning for ____ . As long as you can fill in the blank with a perspective holder capable, at least in theory, of making meaning from x mark or set of marks orientated to their perspective then that's enough for me to say that x is a meaningful set of marks.

(Of course, in doing away with one issue, you create others. A problem for this view, for example, could be that in an infinite universe, there may be a perspective holder for any given set of random marks, making them all meaningful!)

So, I'm thinking of linguistic meaning here as a kind of orientation. Meaning is meaning to ____ or meaning for ____ . As long as you can fill in the blank with a perspective holder capable, at least in theory, of making meaning from x mark or set of marks orientated to their perspective then that's enough for me to say that x is a meaningful set of marks. — Baden

@S @Janus

I think I'm more or less on the same page here. It seems weird to say that meaning is somehow injected, through intention, into an object and then remains there, dormant. That you can only awaken meaning if someone else had set it there to rest, so to speak.

But, I was thinking more about that view - and I think it may come from the intuition that a meaningful object is somehow trying to speak (or allow someone to speak through it.) Like, the french term for meaning is voulour-dire, wanting to say.

Always a mistake to make too much of language-specific etymology (I'm looking at you Heidegger) but I think it captures a certain intuition that I believe is playing out in the meaning-as-endowed-through-intention take. I think you can 'feel' it if you consider the feeling you'd get deciphering an ancient text versus the feeling you'd get reading a moving story you know was written by some insentient neural-net program.

In the first case, there's a deeply moving feeling of being spoken to across generations. In the latter, a weird uncanniness, possibly even horror.

It seems like the intuition behind these feelings has to do with meaning being part of a conversation - hearing and being heard - rather than a self-contained understanding.

I think the conclusions about meaningful objects drawn are wrong, but I feel like they're wrong for the right reasons, if that makes sense. Like there's an implicit understanding of meaning as communal, maybe?


(sidenote: a lot of these concerns are straight out of Derrida's voice and phenomenon. I thought it was a deeply flawed text, but it seems like a similar constellation if themes)

Wouldn't that require there to be some material difference between the two texts? And does the meaning of the intentional text then travel with every copy or representation of the text? How could a viewer tell whether the text they are looking at is a copy of the original, intentional sonnet by Shakespeare or the random work of monkeys? — Echarmion

There is a "material difference" between the two texts: and that difference is the way they were created. It doesn't matter whether we can tell the difference or not. The other point is that works of art never would be created by the "random work of monkeys" anyway, and nor would objects indistinguishable from ancient tablets or manuscripts occur naturally, so the whole thought experiment is not really of much significance.

Generally, however, it must be admitted an intelligence is required for the existence of meaning, whether the instantiation of it, or the subsequent recognition of it. Given the abundance of theories on the topic over the centuries suggests a serious lack of consensus on the very idea of meaning itself. — Mww

Yes, I haven't said intelligence is not required for the existence of meaning; it is in the sense that intentional meaning is always the product of intelligence. I don't think there is really any significant "lack of consensus on the very idea of meaning itself".: as I have said I think the common understanding of meaning is that it consists in intentional patterns; what there may be controversy over is the metaphysical or ontological implications of the existence of meaning.

A potential decipherability is still a decipherability and indicates the presence of meaning to be deciphered, so it is not a case of reification. It is possible that something might appear to be potentially decipherable and that this appearance is false. This shows that there is a real distinction between something that is decipherable and something that is not.

To whom are you addressing the quote and what's its purpose?

D’accord.

Metaphysical or ontological existence of meaning........reason. Everybody knows that.

If we were to artificially build a human.... — Terrapin Station

Machines are built, but organisms grow. The organic and the mechanical are different.

Also the same information can be represented in a variety of different ways, whilst still retaining its identity. This works in a number of ways. For instance, individual brains all operate in slightly different ways. Attempts to pinpoint which areas of the brain are utilised to learn even very simple words have never been able to identify any relationship or repeatable pattern.

And in the case of subjects who have adapted to an injury, whole areas of the brain can be re-purposed to perform functions completely different from those they are associated with in non-injured subjects.

Furthermore, the same information can be encoded in, or represented by, any number of languages or symbolic systems. It might be something very exact: a formula, for example. Get one element wrong, and the formula is not represented correctly. But the representations might all be fundamentally different - different languages, or in binary code, or in morse code. So, the physical representation is separate from the semantic content. And the semantic content can't be reduced to a physical state.

There is no physical equivalent anywhere in nature of "equals" ( "="). "Equals" is a purely intellectual entity. Yet it's used all the time, whenever we make a judgement.

↪Wayfarer

To whom are you addressing the quote and what's its purpose? — fdrake

To those suggesting that meaning can be understood in terms of 'brain states'. I think Descartes' quotation is a succinct refutation of the possibility (all the more impressive, as it was written in 1633.)

Your examples are not the same, because you cannot represent the Fibonacci series in a partial way, starting in the middle. It has a unique starting point of one unit, which is replicated. And the whole series relies on replicating that original unit. The pattern is not properly represented without the starting point. — Metaphysician Undercover

This is not true.

The ratios between successive pairs of numbers in the sequences;
1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34
2, 2, 4, 6, 10, 16, 26, 42, 68
3, 3, 6, 9, 15, 24, 39, 63, 102
4, 4, 8,12, 20, 32, 52, 84, 136
are identical. Look at the vertical columns. the numbers in the sequences below the numbers in the first sequence are multiples of those numbers. You can start with any number and the ratios between the numbers in any vertical column and any other vertical column are the same throughout. This means that every number is part of a Fibonacci sequence, which is as it should be.

D’accord.

Metaphysical or ontological existence of meaning........reason. Everybody knows that. — Mww

Désolé je ne comprends pas.

What if all universes were incapable of supporting life? Would they still hold meaningful information?
— Noah Te Stroete

Obviously there could then be no intentionally meaningful information unless they were created by an intentional entity (God). Would there be any energetic relations, processes and differences or inorganic entities in your scenario? If so, I say they would still embody accidental meaningful information. — Janus

There very well could be energetic relations, etc. in these “sterile” universes. However, “relations” and “differences” and “entities” are observational qualities that assume a conscious observer. In such a universe, an observer would be impossible. Unless there is God there, there is no accidental meaning even (in my view). However, the matter would still exist, it just would have no meaning.

Personally, I don’t think it makes sense to talk about matter or energy without assuming an observer. Hence, my shared belief with you that the idealism/materialism dichotomy is false. How would observation work without a physical location for that matter?

As a spiritual person, I am open to the possibility of consciousness surviving the death of the brain, but the mind would have to live on as some kind of energy. I don’t really know, though.

Yes, and here we seem to be back to the point introduced by @Baden about the impossibility of speaking about the noumenal. We don't know what the Real ('the Real' signifying here the absolute conditions that give rise to the world) is in itself. If there were no energetic differences or relations in whatever gives rise to our world of infinite differences, though, then the existence of this world of differences becomes incomprehensible.

@Baden is correct.

Btw, I edited my post if you have further comments.

Machines are built, but organisms grow. The organic and the mechanical are different. — Wayfarer

If the structure and processes are the same, it doesn't make a difference how it was achieved.

Re the rest of the comment, dismissal of nominalism aside, the fact that brains can do "the same things" in different ways is no sort of argument against physicalism. And neither is that we don't have some blueprint yet.

Are you agreeing, via shared belief, that the idealist/materialist dichotomy is false, but the subject/object dualism is not?

I read for context but didn’t find anything to answer my own question.

I couldn't detect any change there, and I have nothing to add at the moment.

A potential decipherability is still a decipherability and indicates the presence of meaning to be deciphered, — Janus

It doesn't indicate the presence of meaning (to be deciphered).

It's simply that just in case there are people present, and those people think about the phenomena in question so that they assign meanings to it, there are meanings. It's possible if there are people present for them to assign meanings to any arbitrary thing.

Like I said earlier, I sort of jumped in without reading through the thread. What were people saying about subject/object dualism? I think subject/object dualism is true in the phenomenal realm.

Ok. Then how does the idealist/materialist dichotomy fit in? I just brought up subject/object dualism because it seems to relate one-to-one with idealist/materialist, plus you mentioned an assumed observer. What difference do you see between the two ways of describing the same bilateral doctrine?

To those suggesting that meaning can be understood in terms of 'brain states'. I think Descartes' quotation is a succinct refutation of the possibility (all the more impressive, as it was written in 1633.) — Wayfarer

I'm not familiar enough with how you think to know why you think a distinction between organic and machine has a structural symmetry to the distinction between meaningful activity and meaningless activity. Do you see the fact that brain states are actually states of an organism - and only organic things can have brain states - as undermining that structural symmetry? If not, why not?

I think mind and matter are both necessary conditions of existence. (As an aside, there may also be something called “spirit”, but I don’t know if this isn’t just energy.) The dichotomy is false because the two interact inextricably where it doesn’t make sense to talk of one without the other. Subject/object dualism is true (if I understand what it is) because observation requires separate physical location.