Chrisw wrote:

BWE wrote:I wonder how he [Dennett] feels about paul.churchland's eliminative materialism. He may have some problems but it is largely his work that is shaping the direction in cognitive studies.departments in at least the.western world.

Whose work, Dennett's or Churchland's?

Sorry, dennett's.

Have you ever heard of his term "heterophenomenology"? It's his way of making (or trying to make I guess) behaviorism acceptable in cognitive sciences again. It didn't really take off but people have found other work arounds.

Personally, I think philosophy of mind took a wrong turn when they abandoned the more behaviourist approaches. I don't mean old-style Watson behaviourism, no philosopher has ever espoused that, though some modern philosophers aren't above knocking down that straw man to try and discredit any ideas which even sound behaviourist. But even Wittgenstein was a quasi-behaviourist in that he thought nothing intelligible could be said about purely private mental states and so philosophers should not even try.

Well that was a bit too austere for most philosophers (who make their living by saying interesting things that can't be easily refuted) and it has become fashionable again to waffle about inner states. So there has been a turn away from external reality and to ridiculous construI tions like "qualia". Computationalism is another way of ignoring the real world and pretending our experiences are the activity of symbols inside our heads.

I think Dennett is a transitional figure. The embodied cognition movement and related externalist ideas is where philosophy of mind is headed, in my opinion, and Dennett isn't really a part of that. But he probably laid a lot of the groundwork, if only by being such a good critic of the alternatives.

lots in this. I agree that behaviorism has its place. Of course that runs.into the problems.of isms and straw men but your point was clear and to some extent i agree. Also that dennet is a transitional.figure. we had to go from gofai, a la deep blue, to something different, accounting for the.distributed nature of the.stuff we used to think of as brain computing.

The history of pandemoneum models is interesting and now that we are starting to get some real.computing power i think we are stuck fleshing out a science of emergence and recursive levels of description in modeling before we get much further. In lots of ways Hofstadter's geb strikes me as the.watershed moment in the whole discussion.

I need a keyboard and monitor to write these posts. Sorry if they are disjointed.

Don't buy siegelmanns book. It is spendy and old. Read some of her papers instead.

So I believe x about Loki. X is, Loki believes bags are waiting in the shadows and trying to kill him.

But I no more believe that, in practice than he believes what I attribute him.

There are couple of things here. Not sure how to draw them out but let's see.

t0: I am not near my cat or thinking about my cat and nothing related to him is happening to me.
t1: I walk into the room where I would expect him to be.
t2: I have a thought about him come to me.
t3: I try to be gentle and not startle him
t4. It doesn't work and he runs off into the library.

t is for time. I like time.

Now the first of those things is the physical state description of brains and other things that is actual in myself, the cat, and the world, at various times as this scene evolves.

The second is, I guess, the intentional stance I take in reviewing this scene or in predicting the next one or actually in unwinding this semi-fictional thought experiment.

The physical description is the one I prefer but it depends entirely on what we want out of all this. The menacing thing is that by the time we decide what stance we are to take we have progressed several layers into the meta-regions. The physical stance does not suffer this.

Progressed several layers into the meta-regions, eh?

Ok. I'll try to bend that a bit. Try a simpler example. Say you are walking by a dog and the dog barks at you. The owner says "the dog barked because you are wearing a hat. He doesn't like hats."

From an intentional stance, that is an attempt to create a rule which can be used later to inform action. If the man believes the dog barks at hats, he might ask his friends not to wear hats or something.

From a design stance, you can say that by selective breeding, we designed dogs to protect us and this dog barks when it encounters something that we somehow trained it to recognize as a potential threat. Then you go down the behaviorist tunnel and figure out when the association between hats and potential threats was established.

From a physical stance you could say that the dog's brain is wired such that yada yada. you get the picture.

From a buddhist stance, the dog barked. That is all.

Which stance offers the most information? And, what is the point of the information? What makes it information?

LucidFlight wrote:Progressed several layers into the meta-regions, eh?

fuckin-A! Way we roll around here.

BWE wrote:Ok. I'll try to bend that a bit. Try a simpler example. Say you are walking by a dog and the dog barks at you. The owner says "the dog barked because you are wearing a hat. He doesn't like hats."

From an intentional stance, that is an attempt to create a rule which can be used later to inform action. If the man believes the dog barks at hats, he might ask his friends not to wear hats or something.

From a design stance, you can say that by selective breeding, we designed dogs to protect us and this dog barks when it encounters something that we somehow trained it to recognize as a potential threat. Then you go down the behaviorist tunnel and figure out when the association between hats and potential threats was established.

From a physical stance you could say that the dog's brain is wired such that yada yada. you get the picture.

From a buddhist stance, the dog barked. That is all.

Which stance offers the most information? And, what is the point of the information? What makes it information?

I doubt you can find that.
The dog barks at the man wearing a hat
the owner says (when? to who?) that the dog doesn't like hats.
the owner creates a rule. Where? And where does he leave the rule when it's not employed?
Now the owner believes that the dog hates hats and now the man he spoke to believes the owner believes it.

Hope I don't frustrate you with this but it frustrates me. Here's why.

We are offering examples and trying to find what is information. How do we do that and what stance are we taking as a means?

I see no way to tackle any problem like this, from our meta-view (I call it the god's eye view), except a physical description. Every other means takes itself hostage as it goes.

(This is an extension to my last post. Just saw your recent one)

Point being, in the cat's case, you want to use information to make something happen. The cat come sit on your lap and give you good kitty lovin' for example. So you use the various stances to try to make that happen. Probably all three are employed somewhere along the way, and eventually you get the good kitty lovin' so whatever stance you felt most informed your actions is the one you privilege the next time. Your behavior refines over several times and you come to believe the almost absolute fact of whatever model you are using to get the good kitty lovin'. The bottom line is it makes no difference why it works as long as it works. And there is no way to know whether your privileged model is right, only that it produces the results you want.

Make that more complex by using shared models to inform multiple copies of the actions on multiple felines around the world. Now there is evidence which confirms the efficacy of the model. Does that mean that there is a metaphysical 'truth' to the model beyond effectiveness? No. There is no way to tell and no reason to care. What we have is the ability to manipulate our world by choosing actions which bring about states of affairs we want. We do that by modeling. The key in their is want I think.

SpeedOfSound wrote:

BWE wrote:Ok. I'll try to bend that a bit. Try a simpler example. Say you are walking by a dog and the dog barks at you. The owner says "the dog barked because you are wearing a hat. He doesn't like hats."

From an intentional stance, that is an attempt to create a rule which can be used later to inform action. If the man believes the dog barks at hats, he might ask his friends not to wear hats or something.

From a design stance, you can say that by selective breeding, we designed dogs to protect us and this dog barks when it encounters something that we somehow trained it to recognize as a potential threat. Then you go down the behaviorist tunnel and figure out when the association between hats and potential threats was established.

From a physical stance you could say that the dog's brain is wired such that yada yada. you get the picture.

From a buddhist stance, the dog barked. That is all.

Which stance offers the most information? And, what is the point of the information? What makes it information?

I doubt you can find that.
The dog barks at the man wearing a hat
the owner says (when? to who?) that the dog doesn't like hats.
the owner creates a rule. Where? And where does he leave the rule when it's not employed?
Now the owner believes that the dog hates hats and now the man he spoke to believes the owner believes it.

Hope I don't frustrate you with this but it frustrates me. Here's why.

We are offering examples and trying to find what is information. How do we do that and what stance are we taking as a means?

I see no way to tackle any problem like this, from our meta-view (I call it the god's eye view), except a physical description. Every other means takes itself hostage as it goes.

I am very difficult to frustrate so don't worry about that. I am easy to amuse and am sometimes an asshole in pursuit of amusement (apologies in advance if I do it, it's unintentional) but love to think about stuff and don't have any huge investment in my ideas so feel free to shred them whenever it seems like it's appropriate.

Now I am a hard physicalist. A friend and teacher said I'm the worst he has met. I tend to bring everything down to this system level. I really doubt there is any other way to make the kind of sense we feel we should make. If i am wrong about that I would love to know how i am wrong.

With the cat example (I think it's real simple), when I walk into the room my suspicion is that nothing about a belief ever enters his mind or mine. Enter embodied cognition. I think very little other than some emotions and a few meager neural goings on are all that happens inside us. The rest is out there in our interaction.

AI researchers should heed this. They are going too deep in trying to represent the world internally. Something else entirely is at work in our brains. I'm trying to figure out exactly how it all works.

Yeah. I get what you're saying I think. I do agree that searching for the.representational states isn't going to be.fruitful in terms of ai, if that is what you mean. But we clearly can reason. Whether logic as a formal system is isomorphic to mental reasoning, I have some.doubts.

But I wonder what you are really looking for? If you got the answer to whatever question you are asking, what would you do with it? And, I think if you can answer that, you will discover that it doesn't matter what model you happen to find your answer in.

BWE wrote:Yeah. I get what you're saying I think. I do agree that searching for the.representational states isn't going to be.fruitful in terms of ai, if that is what you mean. But we clearly can reason. Whether logic as a formal system is isomorphic to mental reasoning, I have some.doubts.

But I wonder what you are really looking for? If you got the answer to whatever question you are asking, what would you do with it? And, I think if you can answer that, you will discover that it doesn't matter what model you happen to find your answer in.

Mostly, if I had the answer, I would put it in a bottle on my fireplace and stare at it for hours.

So curiosity is my motivation. Mostly. I also find that in understanding, on a physical level what my brain is actually doing is useful in ordinary life. Instead of believing in my beliefs I am coming to understand the operational, on-demand, nature of what motivates me.

But we do have this god's eye view thing. Where we stand aside and figure things. So yes we reason. As best we can.

Still reading the book BTW. Will take me some time as I have none.

https://sites.google.com/site/pteraster ... edirects=0

Song I wrote about that.

I think the main theme for Dennett is that the intentional stance gives us predictive power that no other method avails us. That would be TheoryOfMind territory. As a model it's well-honed and incredibly useful.

Now if we want to take it further and worry it for it's truth value we have problems. It's not about that. It's a useful myth nearly as useful, and most certainly more often successfully used, than our myth of atom-balls.

So far I do not see what anyone could criticize Dennett for.

SpeedOfSound wrote:I think the main theme for Dennett is that the intentional stance gives us predictive power that no other method avails us. That would be TheoryOfMind territory. As a model it's well-honed and incredibly useful.

Now if we want to take it further and worry it for it's truth value we have problems. It's not about that. It's a useful myth nearly as useful, and most certainly more often successfully used, than our myth of atom-balls.

By "atom balls", do you mean chemistry in general?? If so, I do not agree! The "atom balls" myth has been extremely useful to science.

So far I do not see what anyone could criticize Dennett for.

I criticise him specifically for going along with Schrödinger's mistaken belief that colours (and, by extension, other qualia) don't have any basis in reality, just because he didn't understand how the "yellow" (and, no doubt, "violet") qualia are formed.

DavidMcC wrote:

SpeedOfSound wrote:I think the main theme for Dennett is that the intentional stance gives us predictive power that no other method avails us. That would be TheoryOfMind territory. As a model it's well-honed and incredibly useful.

Now if we want to take it further and worry it for it's truth value we have problems. It's not about that. It's a useful myth nearly as useful, and most certainly more often successfully used, than our myth of atom-balls.

By "atom balls", do you mean chemistry in general?? If so, I do not agree! The "atom balls" myth has been extremely useful to science.
...

Never said it wasn't a useful myth. It's my favorite myth of all.

SpeedOfSound wrote:

DavidMcC wrote:

SpeedOfSound wrote:I think the main theme for Dennett is that the intentional stance gives us predictive power that no other method avails us. That would be TheoryOfMind territory. As a model it's well-honed and incredibly useful.

Now if we want to take it further and worry it for it's truth value we have problems. It's not about that. It's a useful myth nearly as useful, and most certainly more often successfully used, than our myth of atom-balls.

By "atom balls", do you mean chemistry in general?? If so, I do not agree! The "atom balls" myth has been extremely useful to science.
...

Never said it wasn't a useful myth. It's my favorite myth of all.

OK, but on what basis do you assert that the intentional stance is more useful to science than atom balls?

DavidMcC wrote:

SpeedOfSound wrote:

DavidMcC wrote:

SpeedOfSound wrote:I think the main theme for Dennett is that the intentional stance gives us predictive power that no other method avails us. That would be TheoryOfMind territory. As a model it's well-honed and incredibly useful.

Now if we want to take it further and worry it for it's truth value we have problems. It's not about that. It's a useful myth nearly as useful, and most certainly more often successfully used, than our myth of atom-balls.

By "atom balls", do you mean chemistry in general?? If so, I do not agree! The "atom balls" myth has been extremely useful to science.
...

Never said it wasn't a useful myth. It's my favorite myth of all.

OK, but on what basis do you assert that the intentional stance is more useful to science than atom balls?

You said science not me. See how you get wound up in the barbed wire?

DavidMcC wrote:I criticise him specifically for going along with Schrödinger's mistaken belief that colours (and, by extension, other qualia) don't have any basis in reality, just because he didn't understand how the "yellow" (and, no doubt, "violet") qualia are formed.

That's ridiculous. Dennett is not saying anything similar to Schroedinger. Schroedinger think there are colour qualia (though he would not have used that word as it was not in regular use in philosophy until the 1980s) but that they cannot be physical. Dennett thinks there are no qualia. Not similar at all.

Why don't you try reading that article I linked to where Dennett explains in great detail exactly what he does and does not think about qualia? And try to read it as a piece of philosophy, not psychology or neuroscience.

Chrisw wrote:

DavidMcC wrote:I criticise him specifically for going along with Schrödinger's mistaken belief that colours (and, by extension, other qualia) don't have any basis in reality, just because he didn't understand how the "yellow" (and, no doubt, "violet") qualia are formed.

That's ridiculous. Dennett is not saying anything similar to Schroedinger. Schroedinger think there are colour qualia (though he would not have used that word as it was not in regular use in philosophy until the 1980s) but that they cannot be physical. Dennett thinks there are no qualia. Not similar at all.

Actually, similar. The idea that qualia are non-physical was likely used by later philosophers to dismiss them altogether, once it was generally realised that there are no non-physical processes in the brain (or anywhere else).