Re: Analog vs Digital

From: Perplexed in Peoria (jimmenegay_at_sbcglobal.net)
Date: 06/30/04 

Date: Wed, 30 Jun 2004 15:35:42 +0000 (UTC)

"John Wilkins" <john_SPAM@wilkins.id.au> wrote in message
news:cbs4a7$12d2$1@darwin.ediacara.org...
> Perplexed in Peoria <jimmenegay@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
>
> > "John Wilkins" <john_SPAM@wilkins.id.au> wrote in message
> > news:cbnls7$2os1$1@darwin.ediacara.org...
> > > ... It can't be "real" intentionality unless
> > > it has a brain.
> >
> > Please revise this to read "It can't be "real" intentionality
> > unless it has a mind, and, as I see it, minds can only arise
> > from brains."
> >
> > I don't know how you do things "down under", but where I
> > come from it is considered bad form to attempt to close
> > an open philosophical issue by dictating what words must
> > mean. Though I doubt that it is a very successful
> > tactic in any venue.
>
> Words mean what they are used to mean (Wittgensteinian view of meaning),
> and a term has an exemplary application from which we generalise and
> metaphorise. "Design" means the sort of intentional activity done by
> agents, all of whom have a brain, as we know.

As you believe... I have friends who believe in the existence of
disembodied minds that are quite capable of doing a little designing.
And, while I disagree with them, I don't consider their belief
to be absurd or to be a product of inappropriate use of the word
"design". I have heard it speculated that collective entities
such as bureaucracies and ant colonies might be said to possess
some of the attributes of mentality. (Certainly they can act
as agents). I might speculate that somewhere in the universe,
there exist minds as powerful as our own that are not based
on anything remotely resembling a brain. Such entities might
have arisen through natural selection or they might be AIs,
created by intelligent design.

> (I am not concerned with
> 17th century uses of "mind" here. We are discussing the proper
> scientific use of a word. "Mind" is so vague as to be useless in a
> scientific context.)

Funny, I thought I understood what "mind" meant. But I have no idea
what an "agent" is in your mind (or should I say "brain"?), perhaps
because I have become contaminated by technical uses of the term in
computer science and game theory. In these fields, the posession of
a brain is by no means required to "get your agent's license".

> I consider we should try to ascertain the clear and central sense of a
> disputed term first, before we consider if it rightly applies elsewhere.
> This is not exactly stipulation - I can't do a Humpty Dumpty and define
> them any way I like - so much as a look at the terrain the map is
> supposed to represent.

I am perfectly happy to take human intentionality and mentality as
the central exemplar for all of this disputed language. And that
is the terrain that we can look at. But the map is not yet drawn.
I want to draw the map with some open spaces beyond the known
terrain - marked, if appropriate, with the warning "Here there be
dragons." You seem to want the map to cover only the terrain that
was considered exemplary.

Perhaps you ought to revise the quote that started this discussion
to read "It can't be exemplary intentionality unless it has a brain".
I might agree to this. However, as the previous paragraph indicates,
my agreement doesn't commit me to much.

Relevant Pages

  • Mapping the Connectome
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  • Re: Mapping the Connectome
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    (uk.philosophy.humanism)
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