On 26 October 2015 at 17:08, Bruce Kellett <[email protected]> wrote:
> On 26/10/2015 5:01 pm, Russell Standish wrote: > >> On Mon, Oct 26, 2015 at 03:40:45PM +1100, Bruce Kellett wrote: >> >>> I think Carroll's Paradox (or 'What the Tortoise Said to Achilles') >>> effectively undermines computationalism, or any argument that >>> arithmetic is prior to physics. >>> >>> See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_the_Tortoise_Said_to_Achilles >>> >>> In order to escape the paradox, you have to resort to a formalist >>> approach, and that renders the formalism devoid of semantic content. >>> >>> I don't see why that undermines computationalism. Could you please >> expand? >> > > Modus ponens is only a formal manipulation of symbols, with no semantic > content. This is an argument John Searle has made. The problem is, the brain can also be described as manipulating symbols with no semantic content - so where does semantic content come from? -- Stathis Papaioannou -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
