RB minds the mind
RageBoy talks a quick trot through AI, cognitive psychology and philosophy, proving once again that autodidacts are the best educated people on the planet.
Since RB ties me into the piece — I am not worthy, I am not worthy — let me answer the question he ends with: “I don’t know quite how I got here from Fodor’s funny take on Dasein.”
Here’s how you got there, muh friend. In a few pithy — and NC-17 — paragraphs you raise the notion of Dasein, and then take us through the clumsy way AI has tried to reincorporate the baby it threw out with the bath water: the mind. But, as you quote Bruner as saying, mind “has been technicalized in a manner that undermines the original impulse.” (BTW, I’ve never read Bruner. Thanks for the tip.)
So, here’s the connection, as if you didn’t know, you sly boots. Dasein is Heidegger’s term for human existence. He uses it precisely to keep his readers from making the mistake Bruner says AI has made: thinking of the mind or self as a thing. Consciousness is always of the world, Heidegger says (building on the insight of Husserl, a Jew he later betrayed). We experience the world, not a thing-like self. In fact, you can’t find a thing-like self even if you look. Nor can you find a self experiencing inner representations of an outer world; that concept comes not from experience but from having certain ungrounded theories about consciousness. We are always beyond ourselves in in time, too, understanding the present in terms of the future we’re heading ourselves towards. So, Heidegger used the weird term “Dasein” — “being there” — to keep us from thinking too easily of our minds and existence as being substances or things.
But there’s more…We are in the world not as knowers but as creatures that care about ourselves and our fellows. That is, the “of” in “consciousness of” isn’t neutral or rational. It’s how the world matters to us.
Anyway, read RB. He’s got a head full of ideas that are driving him insane.
Categories: Uncategorized dw
“…acceptance of the computational theory of the mind leads to a sort of methodological solipsism as a part of the research strategy of contemporary cognitive psychology… My point, then, is of course not that solipsism is true; it’s just that truth, reference and the rest of the semantic notions aren’t psychological categories. What they are: they’re modes of Dasein. I don’t know what Dasein is, but I’m sure that there’s lots of it around, and I’m sure that you and I and Cincinnati have all got it. What more do you want?”
My take is that Dasein must be like the 70% dark energy component of the universe required to explain the cosmological constant (from E=mc2 [E=m/sqrt(1-v^2/c^2)*c^2], or C>M>C [or, C>M>K] and M>C>M Prime, where M Prime=M + DeltaM, Delta=sV [Pi] and C [fK]+L [vK]=C Prime: where C=K, and L=C, L= wealth as Delta.). It just keeps sneakin up on you when you least expect it to; and that the AI theory of computational mind is impotent to stop it.
PS: and here’s one if you really want to bust a gut or break a bench!(Socrates was not cozy with democracy, granted, but do we really need THIS kind of apologia?)—
Argument Analysis for Socrates’ Defense Speech
Contact: Dr. Jan Garrett
Last revised date: October 6, 2003
A sketch of the logic of Socrates’ Defense Speech as reproduced in chapter 1 of Manuel Velasquez, Philosophy, 8th edition.
P=premise
IC=intermediate conclusion
(sometimes intermediate conclusions are left unstated; expressing them explicitly will clarify the reasoning) A=assumption (unstated, used as premise)
FC=final conclusion
:. = “therefore” or “so” (used to indicate a conclusion)
There are two charges against Socrates:
1) he is impious, which is treated as meaning that he is an atheist;
2) he corrupts the youth. Socrates wants to disprove both.
Thus, the logic of his refutation of the first charge is roughly thus:
Several premises are buried in the facts about how he got involved in philosophy and how that, in his view, reflects the will of the gods.
(1, P) I took seriously the unclear statement of the [god Apollo’s] oracle at
Delphi concerning my supposed wisdom.
(2, P) I tried to see whether its apparent meaning was true by questioning
reputedly wise persons.
(3, P) When I found nobody wiser than me, I realized the oracle wanted me
to discover this, and the gods wished me to expose sham wisdom (of
reputedly wise persons who are not wise).
(4, P) I understood that they wanted me to get people to examine
their lives.
(5, P) I acted on their wish.
:. (6, IC) I have tried to discover the will of the gods and live in accordance
with it. (Based on 1-5)
(7, A) Anyone who tries to discover the will of the gods and live in
accordance with it cannot be an atheist.
:. (8, FC) The charge of atheism is groundless. (based on 6,7)
He undermines the second charge–that he is a corrupter of youth–by proving that he is deliberately engaged in improving people (at least as he understands improving).
This leaves open the possibility that he is corrupting the youth accidentally, but his accusers do not want to reduce the charge to this less serious offense.
Here is where he lays out his key vision of philosophy as improver of souls.
(9, P) I think that body and soul (inner self) are distinct;
(10, P) I think that soul is more important to the person than body;
(Velasquez, Philosophy, pp. 26-27, see also p. 29) (11, P) I think that inquiry about justice and other virtues improves the soul;
(12, P) I think that self-satisfied ignorance about such matters is unhealthy for souls
(13, P) I promote inquiry about justice and other virtues
(14, P) I challenge self-satisfied ignorance about such matters
:. (15, IC) I am only doing things I believe will improve souls. (9-14)
(16, A) Anyone who only does things he believes will improve souls is not trying to corrupt them.
:. (17, IC) I am not trying to corrupt people. (15,16)
(18, A) Anyone who is not trying to corrupt is not a deliberate corrupter.
:. (19, FC) I am not a deliberate corrupter. (17, 18)
In reference to the math and logic: See? This is *always* what happens when one tries to get serious!
Meanwhile, Dr. Weimeraner, you have seen me and raised me 10. Perhaps it’s time for one of our little filosofikal debates in which I whip your ass good by refusing to be taken in by your erudition! you haven’t heard the last of this, trust me…
There does not seem to be anyplace to post unconscious material on RageBoy’s website? Is he Cuban? I would like him to take THIS!–
Journalism For Everyday’s Child
Culture-bound myopia is like talking to the wall. brainwashed brand-name dumb nuts make for a victory dump over your dinnertime investment. Dvorak violin, worth three mile island at least, in the mid-winter scrum, is essential to equilibrium within natural four-fold force fields. I can add and subtract it that way, but I can also lose faith. I haven’t been so warm before her pure music before, so utterly hot and beauteous. just ice is growing fast south of manhatten and bound for new england, though. the night brings the neighbors home, like floatsam and plankton, salty and easily soothing for relaxation after hyper-expectations are prolonged in sweet marginalia. the autodidact appeals for just ice (the space is nothing short of meaning), as the power cable snaps electromagnetism without pausing for ecological transmissions. just ice prevails, and sprinkles on everyone, down to the lingering details. king bush appoints pecker judge. this is just ice again. Dvorak concerto Eros stings the caucus hounds, and bombs are like Corso antagonisms, even more now that the academic overture is completely redrawn by the mouse that scrolls the wall of the missing temple for signs of vociferous code and economic predilection with ambidextrous imprecision. the proof of Socrates? dismissal is a lesson plan for chaos with just ice in the circular theater of art and humanity. the condition of mankind is again blinded by bright just ice. the people were quiet and respectful, practically conservative in style, about the whole affair under two by four wooden cross, stained with dark oil on a background of whitewashed demise. classical mood prevailed upon them all. they were transitionally spirited from reality, at an eye blink of darkness outside above. rational man tells the dead why. we want to touch Venus. bring her to us. demand to know why she killed Hesperos, only too lonely in heaven, and for what? has strife become lord of Jesus with king bush king fish Washington in algonquin winter from quonaughticut to quinnihticut? forgery chilled to excessive boot steps on barefoot snow like sand in seminole martyr fountain of eternal babylonian sphinx. the sounding pipe pneumatic life blows sundown afternoon, when shadows crawl backward to servants who collect them for scrapbooks in the historical museum. diplomats curse the excuse of expression and greek marbles call from among jealous urchin crabs and slick worms. land along rivers of expiation and prayer. clean hands only spill holy wine. all is just ice in mid-winter, perfect to form, from quilted cloud clusters, whispering white drizzle among squirrels and brown leaves. the study is now complete, and the conclusions amended for shelter beds, without tea or tobacco, written in ledgers of the budget cut back. america is hyper extended on the pills they push at us from high above the profit hall. we take one for every mood, and then some when we forget that state of mind. that way we stay sedate and content, and we don’t notice the brand-name brainwash, nor care about abuse of chemical wisdom. by the time it hits us we?re already there, but not high they remind us in no uncertain terms, just ice on the tombstone where the flowers of springtime should be, rather knowing and sick of trying, face down on the least resistant path, so as not to ever complain, and banned to twilight’s last gleam without recourse of bail or bond. look straight up and see Saturn. the god of time is the brightest object right now, even as the dog barks across the yard full of just ice. part of us says that we should not blow up, but part of us blows up anyway. hiroshima blew up, and so did new york. we should stop blowing up, for God?s sake, and eat at mcdonald’s, because we need the elements, and we would only blow chunks on our knees without the love that comes with president stones on mountain walls, wholly unbuddha-like for good reason. with a base on the moon, this will be a foregone conclusion, but for now it must be proven by action and rigorous debate in the congressional committee on the future of empire embraced with heart and mind. we are the strongest, and no one can stop us, neither philanthropic corporate listings, nor marilyn monroe’s unreal romantic estate. the unamerican committee wants to grow cucumbers on moon dust, and power cars on hydrogen mist, with or without us, so get with the program, and vote for your country soon, or be left to the sinister forces of religion, or to nightmares of terror and multiple families of thorn bushes and Tallahassee election machines. we have not lost a war ever. even the Iliad is won by us only in critical retrospect, and the guts that are opened are glorious, one nation at a time, under God, with virtue got from cod liver and fungus excretion, choked out of underground laboratories from the treasury mint. false advertising is normal etiquette these days, and honest politics a contradiction, like france is to spain, and Madonna with child in rough relief during saturnalia feast with Latin Pope who rules from fantastic emerald island exile, as sky diamonds dazzle in Moroccan sand. the eagles die from heat exhaustion where poverty hungers beyond comprehensive just ice, and where uniforms are pulled and pinched green and white and wet, losing the only dignity imaginable near the inner city chinatown. bad poets are exceptionally well read individuals who cannot talk. you can see them taking long walks in arabian nights. they wear different coats than we do, and colorful hats that stand for something, and make promises that are never delivered, offering only common and ordinary things incognito. journalists work on the audience. you are their target. don?t freeze: it’s just ice.
Peter,
did you write that? even if you didn’t, you posted it. and it belongs in some wrapper more elevated than a comment. in either case and at any rate: respect.
RB
I am sympathetic to views like Heidegger’s, but the way you present it doesn’t make sense. The argument seems to be that there is no thing that is consciousness or the mind because we need to remember that consciousness is consciousness “of” the world. It seems to me that this is just pointing out that consciousness has intentionality. Most people in AI agree that representations have intentionality. It’s not clear how it follows from this that there is no thing that is mind or consciousness. There is the thing that is the representation and that representation has content. What’s the problem for the AI guy here?
Also, what does this mean. “the clumsy way AI has tried to reincorporate the baby it threw out with the bath water: the mind.” Are you advocating some kind of substance dualism here. The mind can’t be in naturalistic terms?
Yes, I am referring to intentionality. But you seem to be taking intentionality as a property of a “thing” (consciousness) whereas I believe Heidegger takes intentionality to mean that there is no self-substance or mind-substance that has that property. There is such a thing as consciousness for Heidegger, but rather than using bodies and substance as the metaphor, he prefers metaphors such as “a clearing in the forest.” To be human, says H, is to be out in the world, not locked in a self gazing at representations of the world.
On the one hand, this sounds like nonsense, I admit, especially since I’m not putting it very well. On the other hand, it is a close phenomenologically description of our experience: when we look at experience, we see the world, not our self and not mind-substance. Heidegger’s task, especially in Being and Time, is to explore carefully what we can learn of our existence by looking at it without the traditional assumptions about mind-as-substance.
As for what I meant by the baby and bath water remark, well, I know I meant something at the time.
Heidegger’s strength lies in his philological facility with old Greek and Latin. As far as his personal philosophy is concerned, it is just that, personal: thoroughly unGreek and idiosyncratic. There is no harmony within its walls, and no way to test any of its principles. Any actual thought in Being And Time takes its point of departure from the same metaphysical considerations as in the tradition of Aquinas, Hegel, and Husserl, who I consider great thinkers, by the way, in that they each had great roles in grounding logic and psychology on the same foundation–Dasein, but how can you compare it to the great contemporary work in physics or chemistry, for example? Sure, Dasein is not a “thinking thing,” but isn’t it obvious to any hyper-conscious individual that the world is always unique and absurd?
I do not absolutely agree with the author. It is disputable article.