You would just need to stimulate the appropriate are of the brain to recreate an experience which would be indistinguishable from one in ordinary life. — Manuel

I understand this was intended as an example of the sort of conclusion you find useful, so my question is a bit off-topic, but, very briefly, if we could do without the external world, from where is the stimulation to the appropriate area of the brain coming? Whence the electricity to power it, the mechanism to convert it, the materials from which this 'stimulator' is made?

From a super scientist or an alien species, or God (for those who believe in Him/Her/It). Yes, you can always ask that where is that super scientist or alien species located? It must be in a world in which all these things happen. Perhaps or maybe we lack the imagination to think of how such a situation in which a brain in a vat could be carried out. All I'm saying is that there need be nothing in the world to which our representations are about.

suspect some philosophers think that by sticking to externalism, they're putting aside spooky stuff like experience (looking at the blue of the sky, or explicitly thinking about a beach, etc.) and then stick to things that are publicly observable and hence be "scientific". It's hard to say. — Manuel

One last question, the physics community does a pretty good job of at least trying to communicate with the nonacademic world. Do you think the philosophy world could do more of that?

I think so. Look at Bryan Magee's work, he did an excellent job in explaining philosophy.

But as far as the modern technical stuff goes, I'm not so sure. The philosophy world could surely use better communicators for the lay person. I mean Dennett's lectures are fun and Chalmers has appeared in popular science shows. But a lot of the interesting details need a bit more clarity, it's just too much jargon at this point.

But a lot of the interesting details need a bit more clarity, it's just too much jargon at this point. — Manuel

And the books are really expensive. I'll check out Magee, thanks.

And the books are really expensive. — frank

Yes, stupidly expensive. :groan:

thanks — frank

:up:

All I'm saying is that there need be nothing in the world to which our representations are about. — Manuel

Isn't that the conclusion you drew from the thought experiment? You're now using it as a premise. That doesn't sound like the thought experiment has done anything.

The thought experiment suggests that we don't need the world to have representations that we have, these could be stimulated and it would appear as if there was a world there.

I think that's accurate. The things we see in manifest reality: trees, rivers, apples and so on, need not be aspects of the world. They happen to be so recognized by virtue of the cognitive capacities we have.

I find this idea useful. If you don't or you think I'm wrong, that's fine. We initially were speaking about the usefulness of extreme thought experiments. It seems that you think you don't find them useful, or maybe I misunderstood.

Either way usefulness is subject to a person's preferences. As you said, this topic is now removed from the OP.

The thought experiment suggests that we don't need the world to have representations that we have — Manuel

Well that's why I asked where the stimulation comes from. Because if it comes from 'the world', then the thought experiment doesn't suggest we don't need the world, does it?

As you said, this topic is now removed from the OP. — Manuel

Maybe. It seems related to me - externalism, stimuli (as in stimuli-response)...

.

Maybe. It seems related to me - externalism, stimuli (as in stimuli-response)... — Isaac

I think the view you're advocating is internalism: that the world stimulates the brain to form representations.

Maybe. It seems related to me - externalism, stimuli (as in stimuli-response)... — Isaac

Fair enough.

Well that's why I asked where the stimulation comes from. Because if it comes from 'the world', then the thought experiment doesn't suggest we don't need the world, does it? — Isaac

The stimulation could come from the world or it could come from a brain in a vat. We assume, very plausibly, that these come from the world. But they could also come from a brain in a vat, given a genius scientist.

If one is interested in philosophy of mind, I think that it makes sense to see what happens in experience. After all, very similar experiences could have different causes. For example a dog starts barking when they look in a mirror, assuming they see another dog.

A moth will fly to lamp and kill itself, confusing it for the moon.

What I think happens in these cases is that the stimulus gets interpreted as belonging to something in the world (another dog, the moon, etc.). I don't think it's unreasonable to suppose that if we knew enough about moths or dogs, we could induce these experiences in a lab.

Likewise, for us, when we confuse one object for another. We interpret a stimulus in a certain manner, regardless of the source.

I think the view you're advocating is internalism: that the world stimulates the brain to form representations. — frank

My aim was to inquire rather than advocate. I don't mean to disrupt your thread if it's off topic...

The stimulation could come from the world or it could come from a brain in a vat. — Manuel

You mean the brain stimulates itself? It certainly happens. Real experiments show that. You were talking about external stimulation earlier, that's all.

What I think happens in these cases is that the stimulus gets interpreted as belonging to something in the world (another dog, the moon, etc.). — Manuel

But it does belong to something in the world, a mirror and a lamp respectively. Mirrors can cause dogs to bark, lamps can cause moths to fly to them. What does it matter that they're not other dogs or moons? Maybe the dog 'thinks' it's another dog, but the moth doesn't 'think' it's the moon, it doesn't 'think' anything, it hasn't got the substrate in which 'thinking' takes place. Yet, if its behaviour, including errors can be modelled in the same way as the dog's, then on what grounds do we say the dog 'thinks' there's another dog? These errors of modelling (the dog's, the moth's) don't make the sources of the data internal, they're about generating appropriate responses. If the model generates an appropriate response, then in what way is it an error of interpretation?

These errors of modelling (the dog's, the moth's) don't make the sources of the data internal, they're about generating appropriate responses. If the model generates an appropriate response, then in what way is it an error of interpretation? — Isaac

I don't believe I said it was an error of interpretation. We would say that the moth made a mistake, on the assumption that living creatures generally speaking, don't commit suicide.

Yes, "the model generates an appropriate response...". I agree here.

Isn't the model internal?

My aim was to inquire rather than advocate — Isaac

That's kind of rare on this forum. :grin:

. I don't mean to disrupt your thread if it's off topic... — Isaac

Not at all. I'm interested in your conversation.

My aim was to inquire rather than advocate — Isaac


That's kind of rare on this forum. — frank

All I ever do. Admittedly sometimes I inquire quite obdurately...

I don't believe I said it was an error of interpretation. We would say that the moth made a mistake, on the assumption that living creatures generally speaking, don't commit suicide. — Manuel

A mistake in behaviour though, no? It ought not have flown into the lamp (to its death), the result of any modal of lamp/world should have had it remain alive at the very least. Soft behaviourism?

How could we understand such an error, in a functionalist sense, without an external world being one way such that some model of it can be another?

Yes, "the model generates an appropriate response...". I agree here. — Manuel

So stimuli-response then...?

Isn't the model internal? — Manuel

Yes, I believe it has to be by definition. In my early days I wrote from a behaviourist perspective, it was the advances in computational cognitive science that changed my mind. The degree to which we can accurately assume a model-dependant cognition. To declare anything to be a model it has to represent something else (otherwise it's the thing itself, not a model), so we already have this division simply by the definition of 'model'. When talking about minds and worlds, 'internal' is just a marker for 'mind' - one half of the division we set up definitionally.

So, relating back to the thread... externalism would be simply mistaken from a grammatical point of view. That which the model is 'internal' to it is internal to by definition - the model, not the modelled. We might say that models span more than one mind, but we'd be mistaken to say that makes them external in the same way that the world they're modelling is, otherwise they are 'that which is modelled', and they're not just by definition.

In a sense, @frank's right. This kind of externalism does lead to the sort of extreme behaviourism that you theoretically posit (though no-one actually believes it). It removes models entirely and says that all there is is that which is modelled. If that were the case, there'd be no errors, the moth would have meant to fly into the lamp. Since talk of 'errors' and 'intentions' seems so useful, I can't see the utility of a system which would exclude them.

But to be fair, I've never fully understood externalism, and hard behaviourism doesn't exist outside of one's imagination, so it's possible that I've missed the point entirely...

A mistake in behaviour though, no? It ought not have flown into the lamp (to its death), the result of any modal of lamp/world should have had it remain alive at the very least. Soft behaviourism?

How could we understand such an error, in a functionalist sense, without an external world being one way such that some model of it can be another? — Isaac

Loosely speaking, in a model in which all sensations (stimulus, sense data, etc.) of the type X are interpreted as the moon, things that resemble X close enough, would lead the moth to act as if the X is the moon.

Of course, the moon could not be out that night due to cloudy weather or it could cease to exist. The moth would still interpret anything that causes X as the moon. Something like that.

So stimuli-response then...? — Isaac

That's fine.

If that were the case, there'd be no errors, the moth would have meant to fly into the lamp. Since talk of 'errors' and 'intentions' seems so useful, I can't see the utility of a system which would exclude them.

But to be fair, I've never fully understood externalism, — Isaac

There are several versions of it, linguistic, perceptual, etc. I don't know what's supposed to be revealed in most versions of it that I can recall.

I think that for phil. of mind, what matters is how the relevant creatures acts (behaves, responds, interprets) given sensory data.

But to be fair, I've never fully understood externalism,
— Isaac

There are several versions of it, linguistic, perceptual, etc. — Manuel

But to be fair, the OP quotes discussion of a "social version" in which

what this individual means by a sign on any given occasion depends, at least in part, on this external practice. — SEP

I.e., cutting out, at least in part, the middle man in this too-universally-accepted picture:



A step which (taken in full, and ironically further than Ockham) Wikipedia calls "childish", but is arguably the natural perspective of any child or other socially-embedded language-learning machine. E.g., "what does this symbol refer to, in this language game?"

Loosely speaking, in a model in which all sensations (stimulus, sense data, etc.) of the type X are interpreted as the moon, things that resemble X close enough, would lead the moth to act as if the X is the moon.

Of course, the moon could not be out that night due to cloudy weather or it could cease to exist. The moth would still interpret anything that causes X as the moon. Something like that. — Manuel

All of that seems to require an external world. The stimulus or sense data of type X must come from outside of the model.

the OP quotes discussion of a "social version" in which

what this individual means by a sign on any given occasion depends, at least in part, on this external practice. — SEP


I.e., cutting out, at least in part, the middle man in this too-universally-accepted picture: — bongo fury

I see, thanks. That makes sense. It seems little more than a context dependant frame. In linguistics it's not useful to consider the thought node at all (since a single individual can't have a meaningful symbol/referent link PLA etc). But in a different context - say psychology or neuroscience, it's simply a cold hard fact that the sign is modelled by the brain so as to be attached to a referent. The mid-stage is there whether we like it or not.

All of that seems to require an external world. The stimulus or sense data of type X must come from outside of the model. — Isaac

I haven't been as clear as I would've liked.

When I say there doesn't need to be a world, I mean the world we take for granted so you look outside the window and you see all that you see: cars, sidewalk, people, trees, etc.

A moth, granted, wouldn't see these things. A moth would see whatever it is that moths see: ultraviolet light and everything else they interact with.

But it could be, in principle at least, stimulated in a lab such that the world in this sense (described above) isn't necessary for the moth to experience (or react to) its "world". It would all be a stimulation in the moths brain.

Yes, the stimulation is external. But in this case the stimulation is not caused by something in the world (the moon), it would be caused by whatever electrical signals lead the moth to behave as if a moon existed.

But to be fair, the OP quotes discussion of a "social version" in which

what this individual means by a sign on any given occasion depends, at least in part, on this external practice. — bongo fury

There's also knowledge and justification externalism. That might have more to do with reference than mental content externalism.

To be fair.

Yes. I get what you're saying, I think.

What I take issue with is the (what I see as) false distinction between the data coming from 'the moon' and the data coming from an electronic signalling device. Neither has any better claim the be the 'actual' moon. We would not have been deceived if we found out that, rather than a lump of rock, our model of the moon modelled electrode signals. More it would be the case that electrode signals are what lumps of rock are.

There is no moon, there are only hidden states which we model as being the moon, the model just is a connection between signal and response (a dynamic and interactive model, mind, not a passive, fixed one).

This is why I don't get what the BIV gives us of interest. It says that the hidden states we model as 'the moon' might be electrodes. Well, they might, but 'electrodes' are themselves just a model of some hidden states. No deception has taken place, we always assume that our models might be slightly (or even massively) off sometimes, to not assume so is to believe one is always right.

Ah.

You already believe something akin to BIV when you say "there is no moon... only hidden states which we model as being the moon...". We are liable to find more "hidden states" the more we discover about the brain.

So it makes sense why such a thought experiment would not be appealing to you. Others might have Sellars' distinction in mind in terms of thinking about the manifest image (the world as we experience it) and the scientific image (the the world as it is absent people).

I think the impact of the BIV depends on how you think about this distinction.

I think the impact of the BIV depends on how you think about this distinction. — Manuel

No doubt. It seems there's two levels on which one could interpret it.

One is saying that the form of the hidden state we currently share a model of might be something radically other than we think (electrodes, Cartesian demons, etc)... For me, this misunderstands what it is for an object to 'exist'.

The other, which I prefer, is to say that there is no 'something' at all that is not a model of the hidden states outside our Markov blanket. So it makes no sense to say that our world might be something other than it seems, some way it seems is the sum total of all things, there is nothing 'other'. To be a 'thing' is to be some way it seems.

the sign is modelled by the brain so as to be attached to a referent. — Isaac

Attached directly? Sure. So,

The mid-stage is there — Isaac

Apparently not. Not in the model.

Even in contexts of individual judgement, a speaker (game-player) may infer (model) the individual occasion of reference as a relation from the token (utterance) of the symbol to whatever the inferred referent(s), without psychologizing per the picture.

Attached directly? Sure. So,

The mid-stage is there — Isaac


Apparently not. — bongo fury

I only meant that it cannot be eliminated materialistically. It may be of no consequence in terms of systems analysis (though I'd argue it is, but later perhaps). For now, all I'm saying is that in certain contexts it can't be removed. For example, someone with damage to Broca's region will show a noticeably different relation between sign and referent than they would prior to that damage. To take account of that, we have to have a mid-stage to our model.

later perhaps — Isaac

I would much rather you had waited five hours anyway.

Why people have to reply within five minutes I never understand. The result is rarely worth it.

Suggestion.

Sounds good. :up:

Why people have to reply within five minutes I never understand. The result is rarely worth it. — bongo fury

What an odd criticism. How do you suppose my seminars would have proceeded if every question was only answered following a five hour pause? Discussions with colleagues likewise. I was in a meeting only last week where I was being quizzed on a matter significantly more important and complex than our current discussion topic, yet I was expected to answer each question after only a few moments pause to gather my thoughts.

If seminars, research discussions and consultancy meetings can all proceed at pace, it seems odd to think that the little parlour game we play here requires five hours of deliberation before making the next move.

I think Chomsky avers (somewhere on youtube) that Hume and Heraclitus were privy to the same insight [the inscrutability of reference]. Of course he draws a different lesson from it than Quine. But he doesn't say the doctrine itself is mistaken, or even that it is behaviouristic. And it isn't. It points out that you can't objectively ground reference in behaviour. — bongo fury

I was about ready to back-peddle on that, reminded of this,

In psychology one may or may not be a behaviourist, but in linguistics one has no choice … There is nothing in linguistic meaning beyond what is to be gleaned from overt behaviour in observable circumstances. — Quine, Pursuit of Truth

So it's gratifying to find Kripke agreeing that,

Given Quine's own formulation of his theses, it appears open to a non-behaviorist to regard his arguments, if he accepts them, as demonstrations that any behavioristic account of meaning must be inadequate - it cannot even distinguish between a word meaning rabbit and one meaning rabbit-stage. — Kripke p57

I'm not sure whether Kripke thinks that Quine would be happy with that way of regarding. I do. I think.

Quine shows that the human (or linguistic animal) condition is to have to hypothesise about a reference relation that is inherently indeterminate when conceived externally (cutting out the middle man).

Kripkenstein shows that the same indeterminacy arises for the relation conceived internally (per the diagram):

But if Wittgenstein is right, and no amount of access to my mind can reveal whether I mean plus or quus, may the same not hold for rabbit and rabbit-stage? So perhaps Quine's problem arises for non-behaviorists. This is not the place to explore the matter. — Kripke p57

42

the possibility of meaning something by a sign is dependent on the existence of a practice external to the individual meaner, and that what this individual means by a sign on any given occasion depends, at least in part, on this external practice. — frank

The answer to your question is that there is a desire for knowledge to take the place of acknowledging the other person. But the above explanation takes the same desire for looking inside someone to create a picture of how we express ourselves only moving "meaning" to something external.

"Behaviorism.. emphasized the outward behavioral aspects of thought and dismissed the inward experiential."

I could go down a rabbit-hole to try to correct everything wrong with these pictures of our relationship with language, only to say that Wittgenstein was trying to remove our fixation with "meaning" being a thing either inside or outside--our desire to know that; internally, to actually salvage our ability to be individual, personal, secret; and outside, to show how we are responsible for what we say and do.

I think this brand of externalism leads to behaviorism and a pending collapse in meaning of any kind anywhere. How can this be avoided? — frank

I think the sense of loss is the continuing desire for knowledge to contain our entire relationship to the other. The most powerful image I've come across is that we do not know the other person's pain, their pain makes a claim on us that we either accept or ignore. Our relationship to the world is more than (just) knowledge.

this methodological challenge to the scientific bona fides of consciousness (on behalf of empiricism) — frank

So we continue to search for a way (as it were into, or past, the other) that does not involve our actually engaging the other, and, in doing so, turn their actions into movements, their words into sounds. We are entirely separate, but still capable of expression, response; though our impulse is to find something to take our place.