http://users.ecs.soton.ac.uk/harnad/Papers/Py104/searle.comp.html
I don't think this refutation by Searle is limited to the Hard Problem of Consciousness which relates to qualia and self awareness.
In fact, [as far as I can tell] he is claiming that even the "easy" parts relating to sensory interpretation are not "computational", that the very idea is ultimately nonsensical. There's a very subtle point being made, either that or he is shadow boxing against straw men of his own invention.
What's hard to grasp, for me anyway, is his insistence that computational models demand that syntax plays a causal role.
As a layperson who is not a philosopher, I found it worthwhile to read the summary before diving into the paper:Quote1. On the standard textbook definition, computation is defined syntactically in terms of symbol manipulation.
2. But syntax and symbols are not defined in terms of physics. Though symbol tokens are always physical tokens, "symbol" and "same symbol" are not defined in terms of physical features. Syntax, in short, is not intrinsic to physics.
3. This has the consequence that computation is not discovered in the physics, it is assigned to it. Certain physical phenomena are assigned or used or programmed or interpreted syntactically. Syntax and symbols are observer relative.
4. It follows that you could not discover that the brain or anything else was intrinsically a digital computer, although you could assign a computational interpretation to it as you could to anything else. The point is not that the claim "The brain is a digital computer" is false. Rather it does not get up to the level of falsehood. It does not have a clear sense. You will have misunderstood my account if you think that I am arguing that it is simply false that the brain is a digital computer. The question "Is the brain a digital computer?" is as ill defined as the questions "Is it an abacus?", "Is it a book?", or "Is it a set of symbols?", "Is it a set of mathematical formulae?"
5. Some physical systems facilitate the computational use much better than others. That is why we build, program, and use them. In such cases we are the homunculus in the system interpreting the physics in both syntactical and semantic terms.
6. But the causal explanations we then give do not cite causal properties different from the physics of the implementation and the intentionality of the homunculus.
7. The standard, though tacit, way out of this is to commit the homunculus fallacy. The humunculus fallacy is endemic to computational models of cognition and cannot be removed by the standard recursive decomposition arguments. They are addressed to a different question.
8. We cannot avoid the foregoing results by supposing that the brain is doing "information processing". The brain, as far as its intrinsic operations are concerned, does no information processing. It is a specific biological organ and its specific neurobiological processes cause specific forms of intentionality. In the brain, intrinsically, there are neurobiological processes and sometimes they cause consciousness. But that is the end of the story.
QuoteBut syntax and symbols are not defined in terms of physics.Here's the miss step. I'll try and describe his thoughts in my own words, to show I do understand - his thoughts are: The source of syntax and symbols is not related to the source of physics.
The miss step is treating a definition as mattering somehow - did a god define it or something?
So so what if someone, somewhere didn't define syntax and symbols in terms of physics - doesn't mean their definition automatically counts for much, does it?
I think he addresses your criticism here:(click to show/hide)
QuoteBut if we are to suppose that the brain is a digital computer, we are still faced with the question "And who is the user?"So reminds me of 'If conciousness is an illusion, then who is being fooled?'
It's sublime semantic martial arts - as I understand it, he's basically using the argument against him, but attempting to turn it around at the last second to support him.
I don't know what the people he talked to about computers said, but it doesn't come down to "zeros and ones". A series of physical interactions occur. May as well say when the tide is out it's zero, when the tide is in it's one. In as much as it's not. The tide is out. The tide is in. Various electrical currents affect chemistries which affect the flow of other electrical currents. No zeros. No ones.
He's taken what little remnant human projection of values remains in the phrase 'digital computer' and really worked to make them the be all and end all of 'digital computer' (his homonculi), then here's the sublime bit - he's said "How can we be a computer, when that homonculi is us, eh?". Karate!
I love this phraseQuotethey admit, does not really multiply 6X8 as such, but it really does manipulate 0's and 1'sHow he makes it them admitting. When really it's better read "I admit" at the start. "I admit it doesn't do 6X8...but it REALLY DOES manipulate 0's and 1's!". Judo flip that claim onto someone else by making them admit what you want to be the case! Brilliant!
So yeah, the people who spoke to weren't semantically hygenic - they used a phrase still containing their projections of value - they still projected ones and zero's, instead of clensing that from their descriptor. And you judo flipped that shit right back at 'em!QuoteBut you do not understand hammering by supposing that nails are somehow intrinsically implementing hammering algorithms and you do not understand vision by supposing the system is implementing, e.g, the shape from shading alogorithm.Oooh, then twist and pop the shoulder, mofo! Dislocate that bitch!
USE that naturalism of the hammering absent an algorithm to like it SUPPORTS your supernatural! Hey, now weve prised algorithms away by saying it still comes down to 1's and 0's, now utterly dislocate even the algorithm with a swift comparison between not using it with a hammer then *snap pop!* not using it with --- oooh, not even a direct reference to the mind, but not using it with a a vision system! Sublime sideswipe! Implication is your final weapon! All based on ostensibly turning naturalism, of all things, to his supernatural favour!
Fuck yeah, this is gunna convince alot of people! What a beutiful train wreck!
It's shit like this that makes me KNOW a universe exists outside of my mind (to touch on an old philosophical chest nut)! I could NEVER make up shit like this!
AFAIK Searle is a materialist. Not sure why you think he is supporting the existence of something supernatural.
His point is not to promote dualism or idealism. His point it just that the comparison of a brain to a computer, or more specifically a Turing Machine, is flawed and nonsensical.
As far as I understand the term 'materialist', he aint. Otherwise he'd have let go of 1's and 0's as well instead of building an empire on other peoples mistaken wording.
I mean, ask yourself why he says 'For real computers of the kind you buy in the store, there is no homunculus problem, each user is the homunculus in question' if he's a materialist? He's dualist - he even follows up withQuoteBut if we are to suppose that the brain is a digital computer, we are still faced with the question "And who is the user?"because he has this special user position in mind.
His point is that saying the brain is a computer means accepting a form of dualism, because it implies someone is reading the programs.
Look at his final point in the summary quote in OP.
I actually struggled with the paper at first because I swore he was trying to say something about what consciousness is, but then I realized the entirety of the paper is talking about what consciousness isn't.
Quote from: sciborg2His point is that saying the brain is a computer means accepting a form of dualism, because it implies someone is reading the programs.I know - after considerable effort on his part to put homonculi in, which he does by getting a few people to blunder into saying 1's and 0's are 'in' the machine he's JUDO FLIPPED those people into claiming dualism, whilst he's just the practical materialist.
Look at his final point in the summary quote in OP.
Read it through - who is saying there are 1's and 0's IN the digital computer? Are there quotes in the full version from the people who said this?
Do you read them as genuinely believing there are 1's and 0's in the machine?
Or did they describe things in a ham fisted, kludgey and inaccurate way...and they don't actually believe there are little homonculi in the machine who know only 1's and 0's? But he's gone and taken them as having said that...or more accurately, said what HE says.
So you're saying he's wrong, and that signals firing and not firing (or firing at different voltages) ultimately leads to consciousness?
That's fine, but not sure why that makes Searle a dualist?
QuoteSo you're saying he's wrong, and that signals firing and not firing (or firing at different voltages) ultimately leads to consciousness?Ultimately leads to something, yes.QuoteThat's fine, but not sure why that makes Searle a dualist?The 'were the homonculous' part and in conjunction with that, his careful preservation of 1's and 0's.
How do you identify a dualist, Saajan? Specifically when they wont say they are?
QuoteThe 'were the homonculous' part and in conjunction with that, his careful preservation of 1's and 0's.
I think all he is saying is that there can never be a program that mimics conscious awareness. As I recall he's said that a physical copy of a brain would bring about consciousness whereas that wouldn't happen with a mere program.
Of course, Searle does get accused of being a "dualist in denial" so you're in good company but AFAIK that has more to do with his explanations on how consciousness arises from physical processes than his refutation of consciousness as only computation.
Also, dualist to me is someone who thinks there is a component to consciousness that interacts with the material world but is not part of it. It's admittedly hard to pin down people like Penrose and Chalmers, as AFAIK they base consciousness in the material but ascribe [what I would consider] supernatural properties to matter or programs respectively.
The thing is, computation is just physical processes as well. It's just he's tripped up a few people into accidentally saying that 1's and 0's exist, to make it look like computation somehow isn't related to physical processes.
It would actually make a brilliant novel, I think, the way he's constructed that.
Our thinking is currently so coloured by the seductive analogy between brains and computers that this is hard to accept, but it must be remembered that the human brain is not a discrete-state machine. Computers are constituted that way precisely in order to guarantee that their behaviour is predictable with certainty (or in practice, with a very high degree of probability), and can be specified by the designer or programmer. Human beings, on the other hand, are not artefacts; they were never designed, or specified; they are the products of intentionless evolution, and no one ever declared that they should have only a finite number of valid states. In fact, just as the map shows an infinite number of routes, our brains have an infinite number of valid states.
It's clear, back on the mentalistic level, that if we had been the products of design rather than evolution, with our behaviour carefully specified in advance by a designer or programmer, we really could not be free, responsible, or indeed, people. The causal relations which operate within a brain are determined by the detailed physical constitution of that particular brain, but the causal relationships which operate within a computer are independent of its physical details, barring accidents.
Curiously enough, then, it turns out that those who see people as programs or data have something in common with those who would see them as immaterial spirits. The computationalists, at the end of the day, are not materialistic enough: they want people to be Platonic abstractions rather than the one-off physical objects they really are...
rather than the one-off physical objects they really are...The one off objects which aren't like computers, because computers causal relationships have nothing to do with their physical details?
Aren't emergent property theories both biological and irreducible?
That powerpoint cites Wolfram so I don't think that's his specific work but... a cursory search:
- computational irreducibility - Wolfram|Alpha (http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=computational+irreducibility)
- A New Kind of Science (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1579550088/ref=nosim/weisstein-20): this seems to be where I get directed for citations to computational irreducibility[/url]
Jaron Lanier, computer scientist & artist, author of You are Not a Gadget, argues against consciousness being reducible to computation. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RgfFFRFPvyw)I don't understand why he says 'you can't say conciousness is in the hail storm'? I'm not sure why it appears to him or anyone it did, except some reflexive rejection of hailstorms. A sort of 'ugh!' moment? No doubt somewhat like the one that came with the phrase 'a monkeys uncle' not long ago.
I started with the usual sort of brain-replacement yarn. Your neurons are replaced one-by-one with silicon devices. That sort of thing. Young zombies-in-training assume that nothing fundamental will have changed if they are turned to silicon.
We then transferred our brains into software. Each neuron was now replaced by a software expression and they all connected together functionally in the same way as they did when they were mushy.
The zombies still felt at one with this proposed zombie-on-a-disk. It is worth pausing for a moment and noting that accepting one's ontological equivalence to some data on a disk does not necessarily banish the demons of vitalism. Zombies might still imagine their data interacting with biological humans (as we see in the Star Trek character "Data"). They might still turn to the natural world for confirmation, relying on that old ritual of vitalism, the Turing Test.
Harder core zombies are ready to leave all that behind and imagine living on a disk in which they only interact with other minds and environmental elements that also exist solely as software. It is here that we must ask a question that seems obvious to me, but seems to shock zombies: What makes this software exist? What makes the computer that it runs on exist?
There can be only one proper basis to judge the existence of computers and software. We should be able to confirm their existence empirically, using the same scientific method we use to study the rest of the natural world. As it turns out, we cannot do that, for reasons that I will make clear later in this paper. We are the only measure of the existence of computers. So the assertion that computers and software exist is a stealthy conveyor of rampant vitalism and mystical dualism.