handwaving and "content"

[Jeff Inman]

    Date: Thu, 25 Jan 90 20:36:20 EST
    From: AMR at ibm.com

    (1) George Lakoff's comment about the irrelevance of this issue in
    light of the fact that it does not address the question of "content"
    esp. of natural language concepts bothers me because all the talk
    about "content" (alias "intentionality", I guess) is so much hand-
    waving in the absence of any hint (not to mention a full-blown account)
    of what this is supposed to be.  If we grant that there is no more to
    human beings that mortal flesh, then there is no currently available
    basis in any empirical science, any branch of mathematics, or I suspect
    (but am not sure) any branch of philosophy for such a concept.  All
    we can say is that, in virtue of the architecture of human beings,
    certain causal connections exist (or tend to exist, to be precise, for
    there are always abnormal cases such as perhaps autism or worse) between
    certain states of an environment and certain states (as well as certain
    external actions) of human beings in that environment.  There is no
    magic in this, no soul, and nothing that distinguishes human beings
    crucially from other living beings or from machines.  

Please pardon my philosophical intrusion in this technical forum, but I
must respond to your statement.  I think you have touched on a critical
issue that underlies much of AI, cognitive science, etc.  It is good that
we examine this issue occassionally, because we may eventually have to
face fundamentalist picketers, machines that don't "want" to be powered
off, or machines that produce wonderful music, art, science, etc.
I appreciate this recap, as it provides focus for the discussion.

That the issue is popular can be seen by the fact that it appears in the
form of a pair of "dueling" articles, in this month's Scientific American.
For my money, however, the crucial idea appears in a profile of Claude Shannon
[pg 22], where he says "we're machines, and we think, don't we?".

It is uneccessary to devalue the human experience, as you do (above),
by attempting to *reduce* it through its contigency in physicality.
If humans are machines (as we agree they are), then that indicates
that physicality is more complicated than a lot of science has acknowledged,
rather than indicating that experience is really "nothing", or that biology
is really based in lifeless material.  The latter point seems equally to be
"handwaving" to me.

I agree that "there is nothing that distinguishes human beings .. from
other living beings or from machines", or even from clouds of hydrogen atoms.
A little more complexity perhaps, or perhaps not, but nothing significant
on the grand scale.  As you suggest elsewhere, these systems are all
embedded in a certain specific universe, and I take that to be extremely
important.  I also agree that there are causal connections at the root
of all phenomena (though the important ones are systemic and difficult
or impossible to isolate).  Somehow, plain ordinary matter is capable
of "experiencing", or whatever it is that we do.  As scientists, let's
take it from there.  Please note, I am not suggesting at all that there
are some concepts that shouldn't be examined.  By all means, let's
investigate this fascinating field.  I'd just like to see us remain
open to discovering things that we don't already know.

Thanks,

Jeff