Quining qualia.

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Instead of using this thread as a private broadcast channel for your own series of word salads, please concentrate on addressing the individual issues 01001011 raises before piling on more of your own. Otherwise, it begins to look like you're just making a noise to stifle discussion.

01001011 stated that he does not believe in intentionality. I showed the consequences to his argument. I am not allowed to respond?
01001011 has asked me questions, even calling me a believer in something as silly as demons.*
I am not allowed to ask questions? "word salad"? In what way is asking "if pain does not exist, what is wrong with torture" a question too difficult to understand? An answer would clarify his position.
I have addressed ALL of 01001011 's points. Unfortunately 01001011 's responses to mine,at best have been asking the same question over and over,"why do you believe in something (intentionality, concepts etc) as silly as demons?"
* That is why I responded to 01001011's assertion that intentionality is a ghostly, demon like concept by showing that his concept of matter is even more ghostly and demon like. I was responding to his assertion.

Last edited by wittgenstein on 12 Jun 2013, 4:30 pm, edited 3 times in total.

Perhaps my post 5th from the top of this page was confusing. I'll simplify it.
1. Intentionality =statements and words can refer.
2. No intentionality = statements and words cannot refer.
3. "true"and "false" refer to statements and/or words.
4. Therefore, if there is no intentionality, one cannot say "true" or "false" about (referring to) any statement.
In other words,if there is no such thing as referring, then true and false cannot refer to any statement.
I realize that words like "intentionality " and the complexity of syllogisms longer then 2 * premises look like word salad.
* Most people expect 2 premises. For example the classic syllogism,
1. All men are mortal.
2. Socrates was a man.
3. Therefore,. Socrates was mortal.
However, longer syllogisms are legitimate.

Just the same baseless assertion again. What do you mean by 'can' refer?



Not having touch qualia =/= not physically touching. Empirical data is encoded in the brain. There is no need for an extra homunculus to 'review' the data. You are just equivocating.



How is qualia relevant? By your logic, it is OK to water board a person in vegetative state because s/he has no pain qualia as well.



Because ALL your response is repeating the same baseless assertion "Without such silly thing you call intentionality, words cannot refer."

Are you saying that you believe in referring but not intentionality?
And obviously there is nothing wrong with torturing an unconscious person (except that the person doing the torturing would be very weird) if no physical damage occurs. It would not even be torture because there would be no pain.

Would you say that the word "blanco" refers to anything if the person using it has no understanding of spanish?

How can a person be using a Spanish word if s/he does not understand Spanish? Or do you mean he is just producing the word.

It depends what do you mean by 'understanding'. If you mean some 'understanding qualia'*, then I obviously disagree and think that is irrelevant.

If you are talking about understanding in a functional sense, i.e. the ability to associate words with objects and other words, and manipulate and produce words correctly, then he is unlikely to produce any Spanish words to begin with.

* Not even among Epiphenomenalists there is any agreement whether understanding should be considered qualia.

I want to be clear that I am using “intentionality” in its philosophical sense http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/intentionality/.
Intentionality is closely related to consciousness http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/consc ... tionality/ (I realize that you do not believe in consciousness). My point is that without consciousness, referring makes no sense. Therefore, you cannot refer to any of my statements as “false”.

“Here is where the problem of consciousness rears its head. For there would be no connection at all between scratches on paper and any intended referents if there were no minds mediating those intentions, via their own internal means of picking out those intended referents.
So the meaning of a word on a page is "ungrounded."] Nor would looking it up in a dictionary help: If one tried to look up the meaning of a word one did not understand in a (unilingual) dictionary of a language one did not already understand, one would just cycle endlessly from one meaningless definition to another. One's search for meaning would be ungrounded. In contrast, the meaning of the words in one's head—those words one does understand—are "grounded" (by a means that cognitive neuroscience might eventually reveal to us). And that grounding of the meanings of the words in one's head mediates between the words on any external page one reads (and understands) and the external objects to which those words refer.”
FROM
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symbol_grounding
PS Note Searle’s Chinese room argument in the above. Here is a more intense investigation of Searle’s Chinese room. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/chinese-room/ Also, note that as I did, the article mentions http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sense_and_reference and how that presents difficulties for an exclusively computational theory of meaning.

“…the ability to associate words with objects and other words…”
01001011
As I showed in the above post, that is impossible for an exclusively computational theory of meaning to explain.

”But you believe 'meaning' is something real. You believe there is real difference between a meaningful word and meaningless pattern. Where do you think is the difference lie?'
01001011
See post above

Look at this primary source http://cogprints.org/3106/1/sgproblem1.html
No consciousness is required. There is simply no point to postulate some 'consciousness' to 'connect symbols with meaning'. That is just magic. Even WIki notes that this particular may be baised.



But Seale's objection to is nothing but claiming the man in the Chinese room is unconscious of his knowledge. This is just circular argument in our context.


How is that relevant?

“But Seale's objection to is nothing but claiming the man in the Chinese room is unconscious of his knowledge.”
01001011
Are you saying that he is unconscious and understands Chinese? Searle’s point is that obviously the man does not understand Chinese even though he could pass a http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turing_test
If I understand (and only understand ) Einstein's brain do I understand Relativity?

“How is that relevant?”
01001011
For an eliminative materialist there cannot be a difference between a statement of sense and a statement of reference. Both are (and only are) brain states. Similarly, an eliminative materialist cannot differentiate between a literal statement and a metaphor. Or even between an abstraction (eliminative materialism for example) and a literal physical object.

Last edited by wittgenstein on 15 Jun 2013, 4:43 pm, edited 2 times in total.

If the article is biased does not mean that its arguments are invalid. Similarly, just because your arguments are biased ( nothing wrong with that. You are defending your position just like I am mine ) does not mean they are invalid.

What do you mean by 'understand'? Based on what do you decide a system (Man + set of cards in the Chinese room) understand something or not? What do you mean by 'understand' Einstein's brain?



More strawmen. Why don't you say an eliminative materialist cannot differentiate between a cat and a dog because both are only brain states?

Can you (or anyone ) differentiate between a brain state that corresponds to an abstraction and one that corresponds to a literal statement?*
Eliminative materialism can only say (actually even that is contentious because statements don't exist for an EM) that a particular brain state accompanies a particular impact (photons hitting the eye for example). That is not an explanation. Eliminative materialism has no explanatory power. Eliminative materialism (for the EM) is and only is a pattern of neurons firing.
* If you say (and I agree) that for an EM there is no difference between a statement of sense and a statement of reference because neither exists, then you prove my point. Everything an EM says lacks sense and reference.

How is that different from differentiating between a brain states that encode a cat and a dog? More dodging form you.


Just your misunderstanding. Information processing of the brain (even a modern computer) is a lot more sophisticated.


Explain what? The demons in your myth?


The same strawman again.


The same equivocation again. Are Batman and Harry Potter the same because neither exist? Are you really so naive that you cannot distinguish between reality and fiction?

OK, can you differentiate between a brain state that corresponds to a dog from one that corresponds to a cat? In what way do the neurons fire differently?
What is eliminative materialism for an EM then if not a brain state? A concept, belief? But EM's don't believe in concepts or beliefs.
I can differentiate between fictions and reality because I believe in concepts. If something is unreal that means that a particular concept does not correspond to reality. For example the concept "Unicorn" is fiction because there are no physical unicorns. Since EMs do not believe in concepts they cannot differentiate.