On 6/19/2016 7:00 PM, Bruce Kellett wrote:
On 20/06/2016 4:09 am, Brent Meeker wrote:
On 6/19/2016 10:10 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
To ask for that explanation to also somehow encompass the
experience itself is both incoherent, and an illegitimate use of
the word 'explanation'."
Of course. Everybody agree here, but that is not what is done by the
philosopher of mind. We still want an explanation for the
experience, and computer science/mathematical logic provides it (at
least a solid embryo). The point is that it should be precise enough
to get physics, which it does, at the propositional level at least.
If you think about explanations deeply, you realize that they bottom
out, if at all, in engineering - in prescriptions for how to control,
create, and manipulate. This is like ostensive understanding.
Right.
The alternative, which Bruno actually suggested once but disowns, is
for explanations to form a "virtuous circle" in which everything is
explained in terms of other things ultimately forming loops: NUMBERS
-> "MACHINE DREAMS" -> PHYSICAL -> HUMANS -> PHYSICS -> NUMBERS I
call this "virtuously circular" if it is comprehensive so that
everything is somewhere in the circle.
The thing about such a loop is that you can start at any point -- for
instance, PHYSICAL, HUMANS, PHYSICS, or anywhere else. The question
then is whether this actually achieves you anything?
What achieves is explanation. One can only understand an explanation if
it is in terms of something you already understand. In a virtuous circle
of explanation you can go around the circle until you reach things you
already understand. Of course if you don't understand anything....
Brent
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