Does that mean that any statement with any content can be inferred from any other with any content?
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Thursday 6 October 2016
'and' and 'tonk'
Thursday 15 September 2016
Kenan Malik's Extended Mind
This is a commentary on the ‘Extended Mind’ chapter of Kenan Malik’s book Man, Beast and Zombie. (Read an account of this book here.)
Kenan Malik offers us a basic argument; which I’ve simplified using his own words:
i) The “human mind is structured by language”.
ii) “Language is public.”
iii) Therefore: “The mind is itself is public.”
Malik characterises “computational theory” (and quoting Hilary Putnam) as one that
“suggests that everything that is necessary for the use of language is stored in each individual mind”.
Here we must make a distinction between necessary and sufficient conditions “for the use of language”. It may indeed be the case that “everything that is necessary for the use of language is stored in each individual mind”. Yet it may also be the case that such things aren’t sufficient for the use of a language. In other words, the mechanics for language use are (as it were) internal; though what follows from that is not. And what follows from the (brain and computational) mechanics of language is, of course, the use of language itself (i.e., in “everyday contexts”).
Thus Malik’s quote from the American philosopher Hilary Putnam (1926–2016) (that “‘no actual language works like that [because] language is a form of cooperative activity, not an essentially individualistic activity’”) may not be to the point here. Indeed I find it hard to see what a non-cooperative and individualistic language would be like — even in principle. That must surely imply that Malik (if not Putnam) has mischaracterised Fodor’s position. Another way to put this is to say that Jerry Fodor (1935–2017) was as much an anti-Cartesian and Wittgensteinian as anyone else. The Language of Thought idea and “computational theory” generally aren’t entirely individualist (i.e., in the philosophy of mind sense) when we take them beyond their physical and non-conscious reality. How could they be?
There’s an analogy here between this and the relation between DNA and its phenotypes (as understood in very basic terms). Clearly DNA is required for phenotypes. However, DNA and phenotypes aren’t the same thing. In addition, environments (not only DNA) also determine the nature of the phenotypic expression.
As I hinted at earlier, Malik’s position hints at a debate which has involved Jerry Fodor, Hilary Putnam and Noam Chomsky.
Malik rejects Fodor’s internalism (or individualism); as already stated. It was said that Fodor believed that something must predate language use. So let Fodor explain his own position. Thus:
“My view is that you can’t learn a language unless you already know one.”
Fodor means something very specific by the clause “unless you already know one”. As he put it:
“It isn’t that you can’t learn a language unless you’ve already learned one. The latter claim leads to infinite regress, but the former doesn’t.”
In other words, the Language of Thought isn’t learned. It’s genetically passed on from previous generations. It’s built into the brains of new-born Homo sapien babies.
Hilary Putnam gives a more technical exposition of Fodor’s position. He wrote:
“[Fodor] contends that such a computer, if it ‘learns’ at all, must have an innate ‘programme’ for making generalisations in its built-in computer language.”
Secondly, Putnam tackled Fodor’s rationalist — or even platonic — position in which he argued for innate concepts. Putnam continued:
“[Fodor] concludes that every predicate that a brain could learn to use must have a translation into the computer language of that brain. So no ‘new’ concepts can be acquired: all concepts are innate.”
Meanings Ain’t in the Head
Because Malik argues that references to natural phenomena are an externalist affair (as well as sometimes scientific), it may follow that non-scientific individuals may not know the full meanings of the words, meanings or concepts they use. As Putnam famously put it: “Meaning just ain’t in the head.”
Malik gives the example of the words “ash” and “elm”. Ash and elm trees are natural phenomena. In addition, their nature is determined — — and perhaps defined — by their scientific nature. In other words, the reference-relation isn’t determined by the appearances of elm and ash trees. This results in a seemingly counterintuitive conclusion. Malik writes:
“Many Westerners have a distinct representation of ‘ash’ and ‘elm’ in their heads, but they have no idea how to distinguish ash and elm in the real world.”
I said earlier that references to ash and elm trees can’t be fully determined by appearances. However, they can be fully distinguished by appearances. But that distinction wouldn’t be enough to determine a reference-relation. The scientific nature of ash and elm trees must also be taken into account. Thus when it comes to the reference-relation to what philosophers call “natural kinds” and other natural phenomena, the
“knowledge of gardeners, botanists, of molecular biologists, and so on, all play a crucial role in helping me refer to [in this instance] a rose, even though I do not possess their knowledge”.
Malik backs up his anti-individualistic theory of language and mind by offering an account of reference which owes much to Kripke and Putnam — certainly to Putnam.
Prima facie, it may seem that reference is at least partly individualistic (or internalist). That is, what determines our words is some kind of relation between it (as it is the mind), and that which it refers to (or represents). This means that reference isn’t only a matter of the individual mind and the object-of-reference.
Malik, instead, offers what can be seen as a scientific account of reference.
Take his example of the (as he puts it) “mental representation” of DNA. (Does Malik mean word word/initials “DNA” here?) The reference-relation between “DNA” and DNA isn’t only a question of what goes on in a mind (or in collective minds). Indeed
“your mental representation of DNA (or mine) is insufficient to ‘hook on to’ DNA as an object in the world”.
There’s not enough (as it were) meat to make a sufficient reference-relation between “DNA” and DNA in individual minds alone. Instead the scientific nature of DNA determines reference for all of us — even if we don’t know the science.
Malik quotes Putnam again here.
The reference for the word/initials “DNA” is
“socially fixed and not determined simply by conditions of the brain of an individual”.
Of course something that’s scientifically fixed is also “socially fixed”. DNA may be a natural phenomenon; though the fixing of the reference between the word “DNA” to DNA is a social and scientific matter.
References
Fodor, Jerry. (1975) ‘How There Could Be a Private Language and What It Must Be Like’, in (1992) The Philosophy of Mind: Classical Problems, Contemporary Issues.
Putnam, Hilary. (1980) ‘ What Is Innate and Why: Comments on the Debate’, in (1992) The Philosophy of Mind: Classical Problems, Contemporary Issues.
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Wednesday 20 April 2016
Scraps of Kant (1)
In a sense, Kant is quite at one with Hume in that he believes that we never actually experience the self; or, in Kant’s terms, the “soul” (or the “substance of our thinking being”). This is because the soul is the mode through which we experience and is not, therefore, an object of experience. Perhaps it would be like a dog trying to catch its own tail. We can, of course, experience the “cognitions” of the soul; though we can’t experience the soul which has the cognitions. Like all other substances, including the substances of objects, the “substantial itself remains unknown” (978). We can, however, prove “the actuality of the soul” through the “appearances of the internal sense”. This is a proof of the soul, however, not an experience of it.
The Antinomies and Experience
What are the “antinomies”? They are subjects of philosophical dispute that have “equally clear, evident, and irresistible proof”(982) on both sides of the argument. That is, a proposition and its negation are both equally believable and acceptable in terms of rational inquiry.
Kant gives an example of such an argument with two equally weighty sides. One is whether or not the world had a beginning or as existed for eternity. The other is whether or not “matter is infinitely divisible or consists of simple parts” (982). What unites these arguments is that none of them can be solved with the help of experience. In a sense, this is an argument of an empiricist. In addition, according to the empiricism of the logical positivists, these arguments would have been considered non-arguments precisely because they can't be settled or solved by experience. As Kant puts it, such “concepts cannot be given in any experience” (982). It follows that such issues are transcendent to us.
Kant goes into further detail about experience-transcendent (or even evidence-transcendent) facts or possibilities. We can't know, through experience, whether or not the “world” (i.e., the universe) is infinite or finite in magnitude. Similarly, infinite time can't “be contained in experience” (983). Kant also talks about the intelligibility of talking about space beyond universal space or time before universal time. If there were a time before time it would not actually be a time “before” time because time is continuous. And if there were a space beyond universal space, it wouldn’t be “beyond” universal space because there can be no space beyond space itself.
The Unperceived Tree in Space and Time
This is very much like Berkeley’s argument.
Thus, when we imagine a tree unperceived, we are, in fact, imagining it as it is perceived; though perceived by some kind of disembodied mind. Or, as Kant puts it, to represent “to ourselves that experience actually exists apart from experience or prior to it” (983). Thus when we imagine the objects of the senses existing in a “self-subsisting” manner, we are, in fact, imagining them as they would be as they are experienced. That isn't surprising because there's no other way to imagine the objects of the senses.
Space and time, on the other hand, are “modes” through which we represent external objects of the senses. As Bertrand Russell put it, we wear spatial and temporal glasses through which we perceive the world. If we take the glasses off, then, quite simply, space and time would simply disappear. They have no actuality apart from our minds. Appearances must be given up to us in the containers we call “space and time”. Space and time are the vehicles of our experiences of the objects of the senses. In a sense, it seems like a pretty banal truism to say that “objects of the senses therefore exist only in experience” because quite evidently there are no experiences without the senses and our senses themselves determine those experiences.
Freedom and Causal Necessity
“…if natural necessity is referred merely to appearances and freedom merely to things in themselves…” [984]
Thus Kant manages to solve a very difficult problem: the problem of determinism. That is, “nature and freedom” can exist together. Nature is not free. However, things-in-themselves (including the mind’s substance) are free. The same things can “be attributed to the very same thing”. That is, human beings are beings of experience and also beings-in-themselves. The experiential side of human nature is therefore subject to causal laws; whereas the mind transcends causal necessitation. We are, therefore, partly free and partly unfree.
Kant has a particular way of expressing what he calls “the causality of reason”. Because reason is free, its cognitions and acts of will can be seen as examples of “first beginnings” (986). A single cognition or act of will is a “first cause”. It's not one of the links in a causal chain. If they were links in such a possibly infinite causal chain, then there would be no true freedom. First beginnings guarantee us freedom of the will and self-generated (or self-caused) cognitions. In contemporary literature, such “first beginnings” are called “originations” and what a strange notion it is! What does it mean to say that something just happens ex nihilo? Would such originations therefore be arbitrary or even chaotic – sudden jolts in the dark of our minds? They would be like the quantum fluctuations in which particles suddenly appear out of the void. Why would such things guarantee us freedom rather than make us the victims of chance?
Knowledge of Things-in-Themselves
Kant both says that we can't know anything about things in themselves, yet he also says that “we are not at liberty to abstain entirely from inquiring into them” (989). So which one is it to be? Can we have knowledge of things-in-themselves or not? Perhaps Kant means that although we can indeed inquire into things in themselves, nevertheless it will be a fruitless endeavour. Or perhaps it's the psychological need to inquire because “experience never satisfies reason fully” (989). Alternatively, though our inquiries into things-in-themselves won't give us knowledge, we can still offer, nevertheless, conjectures or suppositions about such things. That is, we can speculate about the true nature of things-in-themselves; though we'll never have knowledge (in the strict sense) of them.
There are questions that will press upon us despite the fact that answers to them may never be forthcoming. Kant, again, gives his earlier examples of evidence- or experience-transcendent issues such as “the duration and magnitude of the world, of freedom or of natural necessity” (989). However, experience lets us down on these issues. Reason shows us, according to Kant, “the insufficiency of all physical modes of explanation” (989). Can reason truly offer us more?
Again, Kant tells us that we can't be satisfied by the appearances. The
“chain of appearances…has…no subsistence by itself…and consequently must point to that which contains the basis of these appearances”. [990].
Saturday 19 March 2016
John Heil on the Mind-Body Problem
“It could turn out that the human mind is constitutionally unable to understand itself.” [756]
“Gödel showed us that formal systems rich enough to generate the truths of elementary arithmetic were, if consistent, in principle incomplete. (A system is incomplete if there are truths expressible in and implied by the system that cannot be proven true in the system.) The incompleteness of mathematics reflects an established fact about the make-up of formal systems generally. Now, imagine that we finite human beings are, as we surely are, constitutionally limited as to the kinds of thought we could entertain. Imagine, further, that our cognitive limitations were such that we could not so much as entertain the deep truth about our own minds.” [756]
It is indeed quite wrong to simply assume that the "deep truth" (or truths) of mind will some day be available to us (as many scientists may imagine). Heil writes:
“Indeed, we should be hard put to establish in advance that the deep truth about anything at all – including the material world – is cognitively available to us. To think that it must be is to exhibit an unwarranted degree of confidence in our finite capacities, what the ancients called hubris.” [756]
“… we cannot positively prove that we are cut off from a deep understanding of mental phenomena.” [756]
Reference
Tuesday 23 February 2016
Consciousness: Sapience & Sentience
sentience = phenomenal consciousness
sapience = psychological consciousness
What does this distinction amount to?
“Chalmers points out that psychology and neuroscience have made significant progress toward increasing our understanding of sapience – psychological consciousness… In contrast, we seem to have made little or no progress in understanding sentience. What understanding we do have consists mainly in the discovery of brute correlation between conscious episodes and neurological events. The identification of correlation represents at most a starting point for explanation, however, not a settled goal. Unlike the case of sapience, where it is reasonable to expect incremental progress, it is hard to see what we could do to move ahead in our understanding of the basis of consciousness.” - John Heil
"… all there is to being conscious is acting and interacting intelligently in a complex environment (see e.g. Dennet 1991)."