Further Investigations
- "He said it but he didn't mean it..." -- What do you mean when
you say this? "Why I mean that he spoke the words, and I understood them, but
that he was insincere." But then what accounts for his insincerity? How is it
possible to speak the words without meaning them? "When he speaks words which
have meaning, but he doesn't mean the words he speaks, then that is
insincerity."`Why can't a dog simulate pain? Is he too honest? (250) `When I
withdraw money from the cash machine, and it says "Have a nice day," does it
mean it? We would both say that it doesn't -- wouldn't we? -- then is the cash
machine being insincere? Hasn't it spoken words which have meaning, but which
it doesn't mean?"No. To be insincere you must first be capable of meaning what
you say. The cash machine cannot be insincere because it isn't capable of being
sincere."
- Then what is it to be capable of meaning what you say? First, what
does it mean to mean what you say? Does it mean that your words have reference
to things outside yourself? This won't work, for clearly the words "have a nice
day" have as much reference when the banking machine says it as when I do. What
would it be like to speak words which have no reference to anything outside
myself? We would say I was speaking gibberish, but the bank machine is not
doing this.
- Imagine a child who spoke only English, being taught a phrase in
French. Imagine this child was trained to bow and say "enchante'" whenever he
met a new person. If the child is not yet old enough to know what role bowing
plays in many cultures, then wouldn't we say that he was acting much as the
machine in section 1?We certainly wouldn't accuse the child of insincerity, for
he does not yet know what his words mean. We say that his words have reference
(although what it would mean for "enchante'" to have reference is not yet
clear).
- Do we not in fact teach our children manners in much the same way
as the child in section 3 was taught? We raise our children to say "thank you"
when they are given what they want, and often do not let them have anything
until they have said it. Do we assume that the child knows what he is saying?
Do we assume that we are teaching the child gratitude or only the motions of
gratitude? Perhaps we are teaching the child a sort of game, which he does not
yet quite understand, but which will later be understood and perhaps felt
sincerely."Then I would not say that this child was insincere until he had been
playing the game long enough to know what it feels like to be grateful. Only
knowing this could he then say `thank you' without meaning it."But when does
this happen? Will there be a moment when the child suddenly understands his
words? Will we be able to watch and say `No, he is still speaking the words
without understanding them' then later `Now he knows what gratitude is, he has
understood his words'?
- Imagine the child in section 3 saying "enchante'" and bowing
to each new guest at a party, not yet knowing what either his words or his
gestures mean. If a beautiful young girl were to enter, and the child was
suddenly actually enchanted by her, would we then say that he was sincere as he
bowed and uttered the words?
- I have awakened in the middle of conversations and somehow been
able to remember what I'd said before being awake. I concentrate my attention
on the "memory" of my words and bring their meaning to mind. I do not recall
choosing the words or thinking them as I spoke them."How do you know that these
were the words you'd spoken and that you didn't make them up in the attempted
`memory'?" -- Well, I'll suddenly stop and ask my roommate, who had come to
wake me up `Did I just say ...?' and he'll agree, looking slightly worried. And
don't ask yet how I know what his nod meant, or we will never be able to
progress.
- In what way am I like the child from sections 3 and 5, when I wake
up as I'm speaking, and recognize the meaning of my "unconscious" words?
Wouldn't we compare this to his suddenly understanding what the words mean
which he has already spoken?But I don't question the sincerity of my
sleep-spoken words. Would the child not think to himself, after understanding,
`Well I certainly wasn't enchanted when THAT one came in!'?
- If someone tries to wake me up, and I say `Thank you, I'm awake
already', and then I wake up and realize I'd actually been asleep, would we say
I'd been lying? "Well, that depends: did you want him to go away and let you
sleep longer? If you did, didn't you misrepresent yourself toward that end?" --
I probably did want to sleep longer, but I'm not sure.What does it mean when we
say that we're not sure what we wanted? (We say this quite often.)
- "These are complex cases, and either you were or weren't
insincere, certainly. You may not be able to recall whether you misrepresented
yourself toward a certain end, but if you did than you were insincere." -- If I
lie to you now, and know that I'm lying, then I am insincere, whether or not I
remember the insincerity in the future. But can't I say that I didn't know I
wasn't really awake until after I'd awakened and remembered saying so? `Is my
having consciousness a fact of experience?' (418)
- `Was I establishing a connexion or reporting one?'When were you
awake? "When I said so..."((Where is the electron?))
- `"I no longer remember the words I used, but I remember my
intention precisely; I meant my words to quiet him." What does my memory shew
me; what does it bring before my mind?' (648)How can people misrepeat jokes,
without having misunderstood them? How can people tell jokes better (funnier)
than when they first heard them? Why are people able to repeat stories, without
repeating the words in which the stories were first told?
- John Hodges told a story in class about the linguist who while
practicing "thinking in Bantu," saw a man open a wall and step through it. Only
after returning to English, could he realize he'd watched someone enter an
elevator.It is hard for us to imagine this story being accurate, because we
hear and process all the words in a language which does have elevators and
office buildings. Presumably, the linguist was thinking to himself in a
language which didn't even have smooth or solid walls.
- Children have been found who were raised by wolves, never having
learned language. How do you teach a pre-teen to use language, when he has
already grown up living without one. Babies need to use language to interact
with their environments, which are as much linguistic as they are physical. How
do you teach a child who can already survive in the woods how to say "Je
voudrais du cafe', s'il vous plait"? And how will you know when, if ever, the
boy is speaking French with more understanding than the anglophone in
section 3?
- Imagine asking the wolf-boy what it was like before he knew how
to speak. What possible answer could he give to that question?Suppose he
described a young wonderment at the existence of the world, and as he said
this, he opened his eyes wide. He might say that he wondered why he looked
different from the other creatures around him, and that he dearly loved his
mother-wolf. 'Are you sure -- one would like to ask -- that this is the correct
translation of your wordless thoughts into words?' (342)If we ask whether or
not this translation is correct, we seem to be admitting that there could be a
correct translation -- even if this one isn't it. What would a correct
translation of wordless thoughts be like? "Well, what is a correct translation
between languages like?" I don't know. When do we call a translation correct?
If I say "I love you" translates directly or correctly into the words "I love
you," I have said nothing at all.But we do say "I love you" translates to Je
t'aime. "No that means I like you." Well, Je t'aime beaucoup? "No: that's I
like you a lot. The French have no verb for love."Can the French feel no love?
"Certainly they can." Then can they feel what I feel when I feel love? Do I
even know what I mean by this question?
- We ask what babies are thinking `as if it already had a language,
only not this one. Or again: as if the child could already think only not yet
speak. And "think" would here mean something like "talk to itself"` (32).In
California, the police once found an abused little boy whose mother and father
had kept him locked in a closet all his young life. They never spoke to him.
They would only open the door to throw food at him, or let him use the bathroom
once a day. He never saw any human beings other than his two psychotic parents.
He grew up without any social interaction, never learning a language of any
sort. The police arrested his parents and the boy was taken care of by doctors
who thought him to be retarded. He eventually learned English, turned out to be
of average intelligence, and was able to slowly become a member of the
linguistic community -- if only an estranged member. People tried not to ask
him what his pre- o73 linguistic life had been like.An adolescent girl was
found who had been raised under the same conditions. She was already past
puberty when they found her. The girl was never able to learn any language and
is considered retarded, although doctors assume that there is no physical basis
for her mental limitations. They speak of a critical age of
language-acquisition.If we asked her what life was like in the closet, the girl
would not be able to answer -- she's past the critical age. If we imagine her
using a private language, a way of speaking with herself, or of having the
thoughts wordlessly but not knowing the English for them, shouldn't she be able
to learn how to translate, no matter how old she is, the way adults can learn
foreign languages, even though they learn more slowly than young children?"But
the little boy could tell you what the closet was like. He may be emotionally
unable to face his past life, but if he were sufficiently removed from the pain
of his situation, he could give you an account in English of his pre-linguistic
thoughts."Why do you think so? `To imagine a language means to imagine a form
of life'(19), and how can one translate a nonlinguistic form of life into one
which uses language?{`verbal expression of pain replaces crying and does not
describe it.(244)'}
- "After all, one can only say something if one has learned to
talk" (338). In a Heinlein novel, a sentient computer transfers her
data-patterns into a newly synthesized human body. She describes her first few
moments ever occupying an organic being as sensual chaos. Although she had seen
for years through cameras and heard through microphones, she could not focus
through her eyes and ears. Everything was a confused clamor of noise and color.
After adjusting to her new sense-organs, she incorporated her old visual and
audio memories into the new schemas. She had already mastered the language of
her description, and so one could imagine her actually thinking these things as
they happened -- but how can we know if she actually did? How can she know?
- "Think of a color!" Say this to someone who does not work with
colors."OK, I have one" -- a word? a memory? a specific color?"Is it this one?"
showing him a piece of cloth."Yes, it was red." Does this mean that the color
you chose was precisely this red? Could it mean "I thought of red, and you've
shown me red -- the color I thought of."Did you choose this color? "Close, but
mine's darker."Think of a bird -- not to an ornithologist, but to a city
rat."OK, I see a pigeon." No, not a particular bird, or a particular type...
just a bird. What do I think when someone
tells me to picture a bird? Sometimes I picture a specific bird, or kind of
bird, but usually I don't. Have I understood the request? I think I have, yes.
What am I picturing if not a specific shape, color, etc.? Or: What is it like
to think of a bird without picturing anything?"Well, I though things like
'small', `winged', and the like." Are you sure that these are things you
thought at the time, or are they the first things which you think before
picturing a bird?
- When Wittgenstein writes `Imagine a red circle here...' (451), I
understand -- I think I do -- even when I haven't actually done
pictured anything. In reading philosophy, I catch myself reading "with
understanding" without mental images. When doing so, the phrase
"Picture a soft circle" slows me down, and I have to actually do so,
somehow overcoming the odd combination of words."Picture a square
circle." This sentence has become common place in philosophical
discourse. I read it without trying to picture anything because I don't
need to. When I first read the request, I did try. An image flickered
between circle- and square-ness. This flickering showed me, quite
quickly, that it couldn't be done. How often do we do this when reading
and listening?
- Think of "birdness". Is a robin a bird? Is an ostrich? An
airplane? When I say "I expect him to visit," do I picture him doing so? Do I
picture him at all? If we can say that I do, how is the "picture" like a visual
picture? Do I see him as in a photo or film, arriving, etc.? what he is
wearing? whether he's shaved?
- Imagine having to explain a word like `pain' to someone who's
language you don't know. You might hurt him slightly and say `"See, that's what
pain is!" This explanation, like any other, he might understand right, wrong,
or not at all. And he will shew which he does by his use of the word, in this
as in other cases. (288)'But even assuming he understood you were giving him an
ostensive definition, how will we know if he has understood properly? How can
we tell that he felt pain when we pricked him, and not something else? or
nothing at all? How do we know he can feel anything?
- Wittgenstein suggests an experiment in which we actually try --
in real life -- to think of the people we see and with whom we interact as
automata (303): "Those children over there are only acting as if they're
enjoying themselves. They actually feel nothing," or "That man only looks like
he's in pain (he looks as I do when I'm in pain), when in fact he's simply
going through all the external (or perhaps even internal) signs of pain." Or we
could do the opposite: "It's amazing that everyone can behave so normally when
they are all in such excruciating agony. How do they do it?"
- A man named Milgram ran an experiment at Yale, where he had
subjects who thought they were lab assistants, administer pain to actors who
the "lab assistants" thought were the subjects. The actors screamed and
contorted themselves to show all the pain behavior, but were not actually ever
in pain.
- What is the difference between (1) doubting the pain behind
inaccurate attempts at pain behavior, (2) doubting the pain behind accurate
attempts at pain behavior, (3) believing the pain behavior, then learning that
it was only simulation (The Milgram Experiment)?
(1) "The actress is supposed to be in agony -- but she looks like she has
indigestion" or "She's behaving more like a cartoon of pain-behavior". But
never: "Not only is she not really hurting, but she's never really hurt, nor
thought nor felt anything -- she's an impostor." Even when we don't trust the
outward signs, we still speak of things which could be shown through outward
signs. We don't completely deny "inner experience," although we may want to
call it a misnomer.
(2) "I knew at the time he was faking it. He had all the motions right -- he
may have even thought for a moment that he was in pain -- I've never seen a
better simulation, but I just knew it was all physical." Or: "I know you think
you're in pain -- but it's really in your mind." (Next time you are in pain --
try telling yourself you are mistaken.)'It can't be said of me (except perhaps
as a joke) that I know I am in pain. What is it supposed to mean -- except
perhaps that I am in pain? (246)'
(3) The real subjects were quite upset by Milgram's experiment. They sued him
for emotional damage, prompting a debate in the academic community about ethics
in psychological testing. This suggests to me that they did in fact believe the
actors were in pain during the test (several even turned the dials to
administer unrequested pain when they thought the testers weren't looking).
What was it like to learn afterwards that their was no physical pain taking
place? Did they reconstruct their experience to match their new knowledge? Did
any of them still suspect the actors might have been in pain or question the
concept of pain, or is this something only philosophers do? Is it enough for
most people to be told that there was no physical connection between the dials
and the actors?Who is doing the testing? Suppose the simulation had to be
accurate even in its physical manifestations? Why say "We stimulated the pain
reactors," and not "We inflicted pain"?
- A generation of children have been raised watching adventurers
teleported on Star Trek. When Captain Kirk says "Beam me up, Scotty!" the
teleporter maps everything about Kirk's body, including all electro-chemical
brain patterns at the time of transmission, encodes this information in a beam
of light and reconstructs him in a different location. Captain Kirk steps off
the transporter and takes the helm of the ship."But that's just a science
fiction show. It's like magic." If the technology did allow it, and the
transported body looked and acted just like the original person -- even seemed
to have the old memories -- would you say that this was a soulless automaton?"I
may not say this body was an automaton, but I wouldn't say it was the same
person, either." Or as Liz said: "it wouldn't have the same presence." What is
being referred to here?"Suppose the beam got misguided and reconstructed two
bodies in two locations, each with exactly the same brain patters as the
original; or suppose the original wasn't destroyed in the mapping process?
Would you say that all three were the same person?"If "same" means equals (=)
then I wouldn't. They are not in the same time or space. But then neither am I
now the same person I was yesterday. If "same" means something else, than I
might say something different. Again you are asking a question about a word.
- I once discussed teleportation with someone who had just been
reading Bertrand Russell. He said "Imagine you wanted to map this pencil into a
different location. You would map its shape, it's color, even its material
configuration. But this pencil has an infinite set of attributes, and we can
only perceive or map a finite number of them. The pencil you'd get on the other
end, might write the same and look the same, it would even have these teeth
marks -- but it wouldn't be the one I bit last night when I was reading. It
wouldn't have some other attribute that you and I don't even know
about."Stephen Write tells this joke: "Every night, while I'm asleep, all of my
furniture is stolen, and replaced with exact duplicates."
- "Imagine being able to see the dynamic maps of two different
brains. Imagine the maps are identical, but the people whose brains we are
watching are behaving differently, saying and doing different things." -- Can
this be done?
- What if we were to map the brains of two different people as they
were in pain, and found that the maps had little in common?
- Theodore Sturgeon wrote a story called "It wasn't Syzygy" in
which the protagonist becomes convinced that he is the figment of someone
else's imagination. We could be too. He warns us that our mental images won't
save us, because he has them also, that he has detailed memories of a life
which never happened. Memories of details -- sounds, smells, disconnected
sense-impressions -- all the personal chaos which seems to fill our heads. How
would we respond to someone who told us this?
(("I think I'm in pain, but it's really all in his head."))"Well, clearly we
would take him to be joking -- or mad." But why does this strike us as
nonsense? Is it because we can't imagine any sane person thinking he is someone
else's delusion? Nevermind not being able to imagine ourselves as someone
else's fantasies, why wouldn't we be convinced that this other person is?Why do
we call some people insane? "Perhaps they are chemically unbalanced." Need
there be anything physically wrong with someone -- like a neural malfunction --
to say a person is insane?
- In the movie, Blade Runner, androids are given memory implants to
increase their performance. Although they may have come out of the factory
"full grown," they have memories of growing up in the suburbs, of people in
their lives who have never actually existed.If you found out that your memories
were implants, and that people you love were never born, what would it be like
to think of them?Remembering for these androids might feel like going insane.
What would it mean to feel as if you're going insane when you're not? Is
insanity something other than a group decision?After my Granny had a stroke,
she couldn't understand what people were saying. She spoke gibberish with
English words, but did so with strong conviction. Is it appropriate to wonder
what that was like for her?
- Imagine appearing sane in all important aspects but one: you have
and have had for quite a while a fully detailed imaginary friend. She's never
appeared blurry (except when you'd o73 been drinking), and you have had long
talks with her in which she can more than hold up her end of the conversation.
She's not fond of being called an imaginary friend -- she thinks it's a
dismissal -- but admits that only you can see her. Other than this and her
quick wit, she is no different than anyone else you know. Would you forever
think of her as a product of your insanity, or eventually come to terms with
her as a person? If you cut her does she not bleed? Certainly she seems to, and
she looks like it hurts -- but is she in pain?'The common behavior of mankind
is the system of reference by means of which we interpret an unknown language.
(206)'
- `"But doesn't what you say come to this: that there is no pain,
for example, without pain-behavior?" -- It comes to this: only of a living
human being and what resembles (behaves like) a living human being can one say:
it has sensations; it sees; is blind; hears; is deaf; is conscious or
unconscious. (281)'"But it isn't enough for something to behave like, or be
able to behave like a human being for us to say of it that it has sensations."
What do you imagine you are excluding by such a statement?
- I suspect that John Searle would change his mind after living
long enough in a space ship with HAL 9000. .[1]
- Sometimes we use the word `person' to mean a human being. But
often we have no species or physiology in mind. We mean one of us. This is what
we are talking about: Who are we going to recognize as a person, and who not.
This may not be up to any one individual, but certainly it is up to the group.
When do we count something as participating in our form of life the way we
imagine ourselves participating?
- Then why can't we teach a dog to lie? `...Perhaps it is possible
to teach it to howl on particular occasions as if he were in pain, even when he
is not. But the surroundings which are necessary for this behavior to be real
simulation are missing. (250)'
- On `Stupid People Tricks', a four year old boy was being
interviewed. David Letterman asked the little boy if he knew how tall he was,
and the boy nodded. Silence. Titters in the audience. "How old are you?"
Letterman finally asked. "This tall," said the boy pointing to the top of his
head.Adults are always laughing at children for not yet being able to
participate in the linguistic community. The "cute" things kids say show that
they do not participate in the grown-ups' forms of life. Children only begin to
laugh at each other when they want to show that they have joined the
language-game of the grown-ups.
- The Turing Test treats the soul like the beetle in the Beetle Box
game, where `No one can look into anyone else's box, and everyone says he knows
what a beetle is only by looking at his beetle. -- Here it would be quite
possible for everyone to have something different in his box. One might even
imagine such a thing constantly changing. -- But suppose the word "beetle" had
o73 a use in these people's language? -- If so it would not be used as the name
of a thing. The thing in the box has no place in the language-game at all; not
even as something; for the box might even be empty. (293)'According to the
Turing Test, if no one can tell the difference between a conversation with a
person at a terminal, whose words are displayed on a computer screen, and a
conversation with the computer itself, then we can say that the computer is
sentient.Whether that sentience is in the hardware or the software, or even
anywhere at all is not of concern to the Turing Test. Neither is the form of
the control program which can pass the test.'Where our language suggests a body
and there is none: there we should like to say is a spirit [geist]' (31). But
when our language suggests a spirit and we are used to thinking of a body, we
say we are speaking inaccurately, or that we are joking: "The TV is feeling
sick today" or: "the bank machine tried to trick me."
- And what if I told you that everything was growing ten times as
large every second, but all in proportion, what would you say? "I see what
you're trying to say, growth only makes sense in relation to other things. But
I don't agree with what you are implying. Not all terms are relative. You can't
pass everything off as language-game!"But everything we say will fit into a
language game if we are to say that it has meaning.
- "So, could a machine in the future -- a HAL 9000 -- actually mean
what it said?" At which level of description? "But I'm not asking a relative
question, I could answer such myself -- I want to know how it really is! If it
could play all the language games accordingly, and I could never tell the
difference between messages originating from it and messages coming through
from other people [if it passed the Turing Test], would there actually be any
meaning in the machine?"How can you ask for an absolute answer concerning
relative terms?"Look! These are only relative terms because they are used
differently in different contexts, but I assume you do understand my question
in this context. I'm not asking you what I mean by my words. I know what I
mean. I'm asking how things really are -- how God would see them."To use your
personified God, He would see them according to the laws of seeing things, so
we're still using operational definitions, and you are apparently quite unhappy
with that. "God isn't limited by any such laws, other than His own..."What can
this possibly mean?You seem to be asking after system-independent truths
according to system-dependent categories. `"Your questions refer to words; so i
have to talk about words... You say: the point isn't the word, but its meaning
and you think of the meaning as a thing of the same kind as the word, though
also different from the word"` What categories are there in our language which
do not reflect our form-of-life?
- "The very concept of foundation -- as it is used in philosophy --
is incoherent!""Incoherence" is a manipulative word.
- Pushing you off a cliff is not the same as telling you to jump.
Commands require agreement or compliance. What about domination? ((violence
again))What is the difference between an order and a bayonet? "When you give
someone an order, you are communicating with him. It is not enough that he do
what you say, but that he understand that he is doing what you say, and that he
know that you know he's doing it."Can't striking someone be communication?
Suppose I want you to be quite. "If you shut me up by hitting me, that's not
communication, that's cause." How does communication connect with [how is it
disjoint from] cause?
- Is negation like negative-feedback? A steering mechanism? A
guided missile turns to the left a micron (air-resistance) and it's turned back
at its target. The governor goes high enough to turn off the engine, then low
enough to turn it back on. How are these things like saying "Don't go to far in
that direction"?A ball bounces off a wall. Isn't this like the wall saying
"Don't go through me!" The ball need not go through for the negation to keep it
from going through."But that's not at all like communication! That's just
physics!"
- My physics professor said "What I like about Stephen Gould is his
dedication to Darwinism. Carl Sagan keeps talking with a mystical reverence for
nature, as if there were a meaning to Evolution."The mystical and the reverent
are not part of the language game of physics. Is physics the only appropriate
language game for thinking about nature?
PART II
The Philosopher of Cognitive Science: "Philosophy is 'A full blown
representation of our grammar. Not facts; but as it were illustrated turns of
speech.(295)' The study of Philosophy has suffered greatly for its sedentary
nature. It is not a coincidence that philosophers talk of "chairness" when
discussing form and abstraction. Chairness has played too great a role in
philosophy. Stationary meditation has yielded static theories of epistemology
and understanding. Thought and perception have not been sufficiently recognized
as dynamic, because intellectual reflection has dealt predominantly with the
exceptions and extremes of the mind. "As a human body moves through the world,
it has to adjust itself constantly to the changing circumstances around it.
Think of walking barefoot in the dark over unfamiliar terrain. We test with our
advancing foot to assure ourselves that there is still an unobstructed path
over a still present surface ahead to walk on. That there is nothing against
which to stub our toes and that the surface is not sharp enough to hurt our
feet. We extend our hands in front of us to protect our heads from higher
obstructions, and to open our tactile senses to more input on our surroundings.
Everything is searching for and adjustively responding to the feedback of our
environment. This is an extreme case which shows in high relief the processes
of feedback, but it is representative of how we perceive and move in the
world."[2]
Inspired by the fields of Robotics and Artificial Intelligence,
a philosopher of mind might take the following approach to
self-consciousness: "Think of our self-conception as being
similar to our TV viewing: A matrix of individual points of
perceptual stimulation (sense data, etc.) transmitted with only
artifactual and indirect intensionality. We
construct
in our viewing,
usually without thinking about it, see the hard edges to the
fuzzy shades, intuit motion where there is only flux in pixel
color, assign necessary connection between the soundtrack and
the visual projection."
In thinking about memory, it is good to imagine a VCR, where all
the TV metaphors continue to obtain, while the play back adds a
more complex interplay between our active structuring and the
element of time and motion. Continuity."
The ego is the continuity we perceive between the instantaneous
moments of flux. In a sense we impose hard edges on our 'selves'
the way we do on the Objects in our visual field.
Who is perceiving the continuity? This is a difficult question,
but it's still a question, not an answer.
Wittgenstein's influence is felt in cognitive science -- even if
unknowingly -- especially in the practical fields of language
simulation where work is being done to develop semantic networks
for English interface. In the data structure, a node represents
a word, its connections to other nodes represent its uses in
different contexts, and a word's meaning is its location and
role in the network. But Wittgenstein seriously questions the
assumption of neutral pre-interpreted sense-data which the TV
metaphors imply. In a recent letter, my father wrote "I cannot
overemphasize the misappropriation of concreteness: We are
seldom aware of how arbitrary our 'things' are. Even extensional
things. See that rock? The emphasis should be on 'see' as much
as on 'rock'. Our grammar makes us see it as it, as singular. We
think that 'see' is a hardware function. No. We need the
hardware, but seeing is a software function."
Kathleen Write said that Wittgenstein was a Kantian. Kant's
"Copernican Turn" was from the outside to the self, the
Transcendental Unity of Apperception.
Wittgenstein takes "original" meaning (direct intentionality)
out of the head and puts it back outside -- not in things, but
in life, in processes which are not mental. Contrary to the
Cartesian model, the activities I do to myself -- thinking
words, calculating in my mind, picturing and such -- are
secondary or 'parasitic'. They are more like reflections than
pictures. The inter-subjective nature of meaning: "If we start
over again from an understanding that we participate in mind
rather than that we have or have ever had an exclusive on it,
we can begin to be right,
or at least, less wrong."[3]!
[1]
Searle, J.R., 1980. "Minds, brains and programs,"
Behavioral and Brain Sciences 3:417-57.John Searle is a British
philosopher who insists that even if a computer (or robot) could fully
participate in our forms of life, showing technical mastery in our language
games, it would never have the inner experiences or direct meaning which we do.
The thought experiment which he thinks demonstrates this is called the "Chinese
Box", in which a woman follows all the mechanical steps of an AI "synthetic
sentience" controlprogram, yet never understands what the program is saying.HAL
9000 is the artificially intelligent computer in 2001.!!
[2]
Brian Knatz, 1988. "Toward a Dynamic Theory of Mind".
For Epistemology and Metaphysics, Haverford College.!
[3]
Paul Knatz, letter of December 1988.