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0 pointsukj6y ago0 comments

Note how you insist on a definition for “mind”, but if we are going to keep raising the bar on missing definitions let’s just go for the sacred cow. What is a definition anyway?

Could you give me a definition for “definition”?

At some point you have to be content that your inability to define every single term in your vocabulary doesn’t hinder your ability to use that term in practice.

All we have in way of creating/communicating knowledge is symbol manipulation. Language.

Turing machines are language recognisers, and I am comfortable using them as practically sufficient (for the purposes of conversation) models of minds.

To be sure you see my point, defining “definition” is recursive and that puts you on the computer science turf.

I am a computer. Mathematics is a language; or more precisely - it is a grammar. Our Mathematical models of the universe are computational, and since Mathematics can only prove things up to isomorphism that is as far as colourless, formal, linguistic reductionism will take us.

As for Kantian transcendentalism. Look no further than Jean-Yves Girard’s work on Linear Logic, Geometry of Interaction and transcendental syntax. Is all computer science intersecting with Quantum Physics.

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echelon6y ago

> I am a computer.

You are a biological system. A massive, noisy and dynamical system of interactions we can never hope to model in fidelity. You exist because of unstable equilibria and tiny little proteins pushing against entropy.

> All we have in way of creating/communicating knowledge is symbol manipulation. Language.

We can communicate with more than abstract symbol language. A dog grows and bears its teeth. A thunderstorm communicates its approach.

We're pattern recognizers, but messy, soupy ones.

ukjOP6y ago

>You are a biological system.

That is the language of systems theory.

You are welcome to use the Church-Turing-Deutsch principle as a semantic.

>A massive, noisy and dynamical system of interactions we can never hope to model in fidelity.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geometry_of_interaction

We are already modeling it.

The only argument here is the degree of fidelity required or possible.

> You exist because of unstable equilibria and tiny little proteins pushing against entropy >We can communicate...

Begging the question: why do proteins exist?

Entropy, Information, Communication. Heh! That is the language of Information Theory.

>We’re pattern recognisers

Yes. That is what I said - computer/language recogniser. If there's no pattern/structure you can't parse it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pattern_recognition

However you define/conceptualise us, every time you use the word “I” or “we” you are exemplifying recursion.

That is the great thing about self-locating beliefs - they are unfalsifiable.

webdva6y ago

An inspiring critique of and response to confident realist materialism founded on a certain anthropocentric presumption of Cartesian dualism. It exemplified skill—its own powerful confidence—and experience, deserving great commendation. The education born from witnessing such activity has a high aesthetic value to me.

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