- z10
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Offline - Registered: 7/07/2015
- Posts: 13
Re: Ross's Argument for the Immateriality of the Intellect
ccmnxc wrote:
Sorry for the post-and-run earlier. Hopefully we can dive back in. One caveat though: for some reason, I've been mulling over your response and am struggling to comprehend it, so this will for now be a request for some clarification, as I am having trouble stringing some of the ideas together.
Heh, I think I'm getting in over my head here, so would it be possible to dumb this down a bit? What is it that makes the input-output pairs in this causal analysis and addition inputs and outputs different? Further, when you say calculators don't work for all input-output pairs, is this for all possible physical inputs-outputs or only those that would fall under the process that calculator set for addition?
Just on this part, the input-output pair for calculators cannot be the same as the input-output pairs for addition because addition is defined as the sum of any two numbers up to infinity. But we know that a calculator only has a finite lifetime so it cannot realize the full addition function.
- Greg
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Re: Ross's Argument for the Immateriality of the Intellect
He makes a few related points. First, the calculator won't be adding, because the inputs-output pairs (given their "standard" interpretations--I'll return to this) given by this causal analysis are just not identical to addition input-output pairs. Calculators don't work for all input-output pairs, but addition is defined for all input-output pairs.
Heh, I think I'm getting in over my head here, so would it be possible to dumb this down a bit? What is it that makes the input-output pairs in this causal analysis and addition inputs and outputs different? Further, when you say calculators don't work for all input-output pairs, is this for all possible physical inputs-outputs or only those that would fall under the process that calculator set for addition?
z10 is correct. I mean that there are true statements of addition, of the form "x + y = z" such that, when you enter "x + y" into the calculator, you do not get "z" back--you'd get an overflow error, or something. (So I mean all input-output pairs associated with addition. The inputs would be of the form I specified.) And a causal analysis of the calculator would tell you that.
Second, he claims that the calculator is still really under-determined. For the causal/dispositional analysis is in terms of the causal inputs to the calculator that are physically possible, and even granting their "standard" interpretations, it is not possible to enter all of them; the life of the universe, for instance, imposes limits on what is physically possible so that the dispositions of the calculator cannot correspond to the form of addition.
Thus even its disposition leaves it indeterminate which function, if any, it performs. This is real and not merely epistemological indeterminacy.Could one argue here that what is physically possible is already determined by the initial state of the universe such that the calculator runs all and only the inputs-outputs that are physically realizable?
Well, I am not sure if it is determined by the initial state of the universe since determinism may not be true. The question of what it could perform "through the end of time" is relevant for Ross because of the Kripkean background of his argument. Kripke is asking the skeptic to identify a fact that shows that a person is really adding. But what fact shows that the person is adding rather than performing some quus-like function? If the calculator's activity is limited (even if not determined), then whatever fact you do try to point to can't be the fact that the calculator will perform all additions or what have you--because for some quus-like function q, those outputs are also consistent with q. But addition and q are incompossible, so if it's indeterminate between them, the calculator is doing neither.
Feser adds an additional point. Ross more or less grants that if you enter "1 + 4" this means 1 + 4; but Feser emphasizes that the symbols here have derived intentionality, so there is something misleading even in allowing that the calculator has a disposition that corresponds with even many of the input-output pairs of formal addition, unless one brings human intentionality into the picture.
Sorry, could you clarify what you mean in saying denying that "the calculator has a disposition that corresponds with even many of the input-output pairs of formal addition"?
Yes, that was vague, sorry. An assumption of the above conversation is that when I hit the "1" key on a calculator, I mean 1, and when I hit the "4" key, I mean 4. And when the calculator returns "5", that means "5". Ross basically grants this, and argues that the calculator is still not adding.
But Feser asks, why grant this? What makes "1" mean 1? I can add with a calculator that replaces all of the "1" symbols with asterisks, so then "*" means 1--but here it means that because that is what I, the creator and user of the calculator, designed it to mean. Its meaning 1 depends on my human intentionality. (Feser's canonical example here is a triangular symbol.) But functions like addition are defined "ideally". They are relations between numbers, not numerals. Thus even the input-output pairs that the calculator can perform do not really coincide with input-output pairs associated with addition, unless you bring in human intentionality. But if you bring in human intentionality, then computationalism cannot help explain human cognition and semantics.