6 ideas
| 15785 | Our commitments are to an 'ontology', but also to an 'ideology', or conceptual system [Hintikka] |
| Full Idea: We must distinguish between what we are committed to existing in the actual world or a possible world ('ontology'), and what we are committed to as a part of our ways of dealing with the world conceptually, as a part of our conceptual system ('ideology'). | |
| From: Jaakko Hintikka (Semantics for Propositional Attitudes [1969], p.95), quoted by William Lycan - The Trouble with Possible Worlds 02 | |
| A reaction: I think this is the most illuminating idea I have read on the subject of ontological commitment. I'm fighting for the idea that what we think is true should be kept separate from what we think exists. Ideology is a nice addition to the mix. |
| 15786 | Commitment to possible worlds is part of our ideology, not part of our ontology [Hintikka] |
| Full Idea: Quantification over members of one particular world is a measure of ideology, quantification that crosses possible worlds is often a measure of ideology. | |
| From: Jaakko Hintikka (Semantics for Propositional Attitudes [1969], p.95), quoted by William Lycan - The Trouble with Possible Worlds 02 | |
| A reaction: I like this. See Idea 15785 for the underlying distinction. It leaves the question open of what we might mean by 'ideological commitment'. |
| 3193 | Turing showed that logical rules can be specified computationally and mechanically [Turing, by Rey] |
| Full Idea: Turing showed that any formal process can be specified computationally, and captured by a Turing Machine. Hence logical rules (and arithmetic) could be obeyed not by someone representing and following them, but by causal organisation of the brain. | |
| From: report of Alan Turing (works [1935]) by Georges Rey - Contemporary Philosophy of Mind 8.2 | |
| A reaction: It is questionable whether logic is an entirely formal process, if it involves truth. You would need an entirely formal notion of truth for that. But a brain can do whatever a flow diagram can do. |
| 3979 | The Turing Machine is the best idea yet about how the mind works [Fodor on Turing] |
| Full Idea: Alan Turing had (in his theory of the 'Turing Machine') what I suppose is the best thought about how the mind works that anyone has had so far. | |
| From: comment on Alan Turing (Computing Machinery and Intelligence [1950]) by Jerry A. Fodor - Jerry A. Fodor on himself p.296 | |
| A reaction: I am not convinced, because I don't think rationality is possible without consciousness. The brain may bypass the representations used by a computer. |
| 5321 | In 50 years computers will successfully imitate humans with a 70% success rate [Turing] |
| Full Idea: In about fifty years' time it will be possible to program computers to play the imitation game so well that an average interrogator will not have more than 70% chance of making the right identification after five minutes of questioning. | |
| From: Alan Turing (Computing Machinery and Intelligence [1950], p.57), quoted by Robert Kirk - Mind and Body §5.9 | |
| A reaction: This is the famous prophecy called 'The Turing Test'. The current state (2004) seems to be that the figure of 70% is very near, but no one sees much prospect of advancing much further in the next 100 years. Dennett sees jokes as a big problem. |
| 9381 | If some inferences are needed to fix meaning, but we don't know which, they are all relevant [Fodor/Lepore, by Boghossian] |
| Full Idea: The Master Argument for linguistic holism is: Some of an expression's inferences are relevant to fixing its meaning; there is no way to distinguish the inferences that are constitutive (from Quine); so all inferences are relevant to fixing meaning. | |
| From: report of J Fodor / E Lepore (Holism: a Shopper's Guide [1993], §III) by Paul Boghossian - Analyticity Reconsidered | |
| A reaction: This would only be if you thought that the pattern of inferences is what fixes the meanings, but how can you derive inferences before you have meanings? The underlying language of thought generates the inferences? Meanings are involved! |