On 10/26/2015 12:15 AM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
On 26 October 2015 at 17:51, Bruce Kellett <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:On 26/10/2015 5:32 pm, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:On 26 October 2015 at 17:08, Bruce Kellett <[email protected] <mailto:[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?I can point at it, or when I kick the dog, he yelps. The same with an appropriately specified and programmed computer.
The semantic content of the yelp is, I've been kicked. If the computer could detect a kick and respond with a yelp it would indeed have that semantic content.
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