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. — Terrapin Station
It doesn't indicate the presence of meaning (to be deciphered).
It's possible if there are people present for them to assign meanings to any arbitrary thing. — Terrapin Station
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? — fdrake
There is a "material difference" between the two texts: and that difference is the way they were created. — Janus
It doesn't matter whether we can tell the difference or not. — Janus
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. — Janus
So, you claim there is no difference between an ancient tablet and an object that displays naturally produced marks; that both embody no inherent meaning, that meanings are arbitrarily assigned to both, and that researchers who claim to have deciphered ancient texts are merely assigning arbitrary meanings? The researchers couldn't possibly have "cracked the code" and reproduced a translation of the ancient text, because the script on the manuscript or tablet is simply meaningless? — Janus
I don't see how this differs from Solipsism. The only reason we see an apple on the table is because we assign some meaning to the breaking of the symmetry of the white tablecloth at the point it becomes red apple. It's all just 'stuff' without our meaning applied to it. Yet we do not act as if solipsism were the case, so I can't see how theories which assume it could be much use to us. — Isaac
You claimed that the pattern is only in the mind of the person observing the pattern, — Isaac
Linguistic meaning is a redundant term. "il n'y a pas de hors-texte". — emancipate
Right, so you're happy for the pattern to be a property of the text in an objective sense, — Isaac
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