Autonomous, responsible, free personhood is a prerequisite to rationality.
If external forces beyond my control shape me with insurmountable arbitrary constraints and if there is nothing but blind ‘potentiality’ running into those imposed constraints, then I am not in control over my actions and thoughts. And if I am not in control over my actions and thoughts, then I am not rational. And if I am not rational then I ‘have no hope of providing an adequate understanding of the nature of reality.’ — Querius
The mind isn't LIKE software, it IS software. — tom
Not true. Software is part of a computer - that's the actual definition. Humans are not computers, and thoughts are not software. At best it's a model or an analogy. But, there's been a thread running on Online Philosophy Club, since 2007, about this very question, and it just keeps running. (Maybe it has a halting problem — Wayfarer
Of course, if you managed to formulate an argument that the brain is not computationally universal, and that it could not be programmed (e.g. by training), and that therefore the mind could not be an abstraction instantiated on a brain, then you might have a point. — tom
Denial is always an option I suppose, but history will not be on your side. — tom
Of course, if you managed to formulate an argument that the brain is not computationally universal, and that it could not be programmed (e.g. by training), and that therefore the mind could not be an abstraction instantiated on a brain, then you might have a point. — tom
I would also readily grant that mental abilities can be multiply realized in a variety of biological or mechanical media ... — Pierre-Normand
I would readily grant that humans are smart enough to execute whatever algorithm is given to them. Indeed they can do it as mindlessly as any old CPU, or as Searle would do it in his Chinese Room. — Pierre-Normand
I would also readily grant that mental abilities can be multiply realized in a variety of biological or mechanical media (be they better conceived as specifically implementing computational operations, or not) but this shows no more than that possession of mental skills is a formal feature of rational beings. — Pierre-Normand
The mind/software analogy also glosses over other significant differences between rational beings and computers. — Pierre-Normand
Computers don't give a damn. — Pierre-Normand
The brain is computationally universal, but the mind certainly is not. There are many operations a mind will not perform, for reasons as diverse as morality and boredom. — tom
Brains don't give a damn either.
Of course, if you managed to formulate an argument that the brain is not computationally universal, and that it could not be programmed (e.g. by training), and that therefore the mind could not be an abstraction instantiated on a brain, then you might have a point.
Might be easier to show that the entire theory of computation is wrong though. Go for the jugular and attack computational universality. Best of luck! — tom
I'm highly sympathetic to dualism, but I think everyone is flummoxed by the idea of how 'res cogitans' coud be a 'non-extended substance', because the very idea of 'non-extended substance' appears self-contradictory. (I think I know how to resolve that, but I am never able to explain it.) — Wayfarer
Exactly. I mean who needs a physics textbook to know about physics, or a neuroscience textbook to know about brains? Just make the damn shit up to suit yourself. — apokrisis
By saying that human beings create a group-mind, without attributing this unity to God, you assign to the human race the property of God, and commit the sin of the fallen angel. — Metaphysician Undercover
Cripes. So social constructionism is the work of the Devil. — apokrisis
This doesn't show that humans can't perform those operation; only that they may choose not to. Humans don't really instantiate universal Turing machines because they are finite mortal beings, but then so are human brains. But I don't quite know what your argument is anymore. You seemed to be arguing that the mind was the software of the brain. Your ascribing vastly superior computational powers to brains than you do to people supports this contention how? — Pierre-Normand
I've never said this. I've never said through the laws we know nature as it appears to us, nor have I ever implied such a noumenon/phenomenon distinction. In fact I said quite the contrary - the laws themselves do not even reveal the phenomenon to us.If we are not knowing nature-as-it-is through the Laws and they are merely predictive models that tell only about how nature appears to us — John
This is true.then our understanding of nature through science tells us nothing about 'what really is', nothing of ontological or metaphysical significance — John
Not so, because it's something that we observe phenomenally directly. We observe how the self is given birth and arises out of nature and out of our community.On that assumption the notion that the self would seem to be groundless — John
Why not?The self as we experience it to be cannot be understood by rational and empirical means — John
That would depend on what you consider its essence to be I think. If you consider its essence to be the special significance of the Trinity, or man-become-God and God-become-man and such Hegelian notions then I'd agree with you. If you consider its essence to be love, then I don't think it's contradictory at all, except in showing that God cannot love us the way we love God. But I don't see why that's so bad for Christianity. Furthermore - it is utterly rational and undeniable, so given that philosophy is such and such, we have to shift our religious understanding by its lights.Spinoza's philosophy, for example, which you say you so admire is completely incompatible with any reasonable conception of Christianity, with any conception of it that does destroy its essence; its uniqueness as a religion, that is.
:s — John
I've never said this. I've never said through the laws we know nature as it appears to us, nor have I ever implied such a noumenon/phenomenon distinction. In fact I said quite the contrary - the laws themselves do not reveal the phenomenon to us. — Agustino
entanglement — tom
big-bang — tom
You realise all these are nothing except useful fictions which we have invented in order to conceptualise our measurements, and create a system which enables us to make conceptual-based predictions? There is no big-bang, entanglement, cosmic-microwave background, etc. above and beyond their effects and predicted effects. We could re-name and re-conceptualise all of those. The Big Bang could be a Small Whirl, etc. There's an infinity of re-conceptualisations which we could use, and which could predict the same things.cosmic microwave background — tom
Again - this is pure concept, it has no reality. It's useful because it helps us think about a model, and thinking about the model helps us predict the world.gravitational waves — tom
Big-bang, CMB, etc. are concepts, not realities. They are pieces which together form a coherent whole, which is our scientific model of reality. Nothing more.And don't forget cosmology takes us to times before the big-bang, whose signal is revealed to be within the CMB. — tom
I see nothing revealed there about reality.No, theory clearly reveals nothing. — tom
Big-bang, CMB, etc. are concepts, not realities. They are pieces which together form a coherent whole, which is our scientific model of reality. Nothing more. — Agustino
What does this mean? Does this mean that if I go in a straight like I will return ultimately to the point I started from? Yes it does. Therefore the Earth not being flat is a model for the underlying reality. The underlying reality is what you experience directly - ie returning to your starting position if you go in a straight line.the Earth really is not flat — tom
What does this mean? Does this only mean that if I go in a straight like I will return ultimately to the point I started from? Yes it does. Therefore the Earth not being flat is a model for the underlying reality. The underlying reality is what you experience directly. — Agustino
I've never said this. I've never said through the laws we know nature as it appears to us, nor have I ever implied such a noumenon/phenomenon distinction. In fact I said quite the contrary - the laws themselves do not even reveal the phenomenon to us. — Agustino
And I think laws of nature are merely models we use for purposes of modelling and predicting the world. — Agustino
If we are not knowing nature-as-it-is through the Laws and they are merely predictive models that tell only about how nature appears to us, then our understanding of nature through science tells us nothing about 'what really is', nothing of ontological or metaphysical significance. On that assumption the notion that the self — John
The salient point is that the laws are models that tell us stories about the world only as it appears to us. They do not tell us anything about the world as it is in itself. — John
At the risk of repeating myself, it has been proved that all real universal computers are equivalent. The set of motions of one can be exactly replicated on the other. It has further been proved that any finite physical system can be simulated to arbitrary accuracy, with finite means, on a universal computer. The brain can thus be simulated on a universal computer, whether it is itself universal or not. Whatever a brain can do, a computer can do. There is nothing beyond universality. — tom
It is how these principles are related to what is outside the category, how we relate an epistemology to an ontology for example, which is where we should make such judgements of good and bad. — Metaphysician Undercover
Except what if there is nothing besides nature as it appears to us? Away with the noumenon/phenomenon distinction. The noumenon doesn't exist in the sense the phenomenon exists - empirically. Hence there is no discussion of noumeonon asking what is it, bla bla - that is what you ask with regards to empirical matters.Now, as I understand it, there is no difference between "models we use for purposes of modelling and predicting the world" and "they are merely predictive models that tell only about how nature appears to us" since "the world" just is the term we use for "how nature appears to us", or vice versa; they are synonymous. — John
I agree, but I'd say the laws are merely models which we can use to predict certain sense experiences in the world.The laws are models that tell us only about how the world appears to our senses, and including about the functions of our senses themselves vis a vis their objects. — John
Only if you accept a noumenon/phenomenon distinction.The salient point is that the laws are models that tell us stories about the world only as it appears to us. — John
Well I can conceive of flying pigs too - are flying pigs therefore important? :PIt's importance lies only in the very obvious fact that we can conceive of it. — John
Why do you say this?The fact that we can conceive this way of something hidden from us has had incalculable effects on human social, historical, religious and creative development. — John
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