display all the ideas for this combination of texts
3 ideas
15602 | Mental files are devices for keeping track of basic coordination of objects [Fine,K] |
Full Idea: Mental files should be seen as a device for keeping track of when objects are coordinated (represented as-the-same) and, rather than understand coordination in terms of mental files, we should understand mental files in terms of coordination. | |
From: Kit Fine (Semantic Relationism [2007], 3.A) | |
A reaction: Personally I think that the metaphor of a 'label' is much closer to the situation than that of a 'file'. Thus my concept of Cicero is labelled 'Tully', 'Roman', 'orator', 'philosophical example'... My problem is to distinguish the concept from its labels. |
3614 | A machine could speak in response to physical stimulus, but not hold a conversation [Descartes] |
Full Idea: One may conceive of a machine made so as to emit words, and even emit them in response to a change in its bodily organs, such as being touched, but not to reply to the sense of everything said in its presence, as the most unintelligent men can. | |
From: René Descartes (A Discourse on Method [1637], §5.56) | |
A reaction: A critique of the Turing Test, written in 1637! You have to admire. Because of the advent of the microprocessor, we can 'conceive' more sophisticated, multi-level machines than Descartes could come up with. |
15588 | You cannot determine the full content from a thought's intrinsic character, as relations are involved [Fine,K] |
Full Idea: There is no determining the full content of what someone thinks or believes from the individual things that he thinks or believes; we must also look at the threads that tie the contents of these thoughts or beliefs together. | |
From: Kit Fine (Semantic Relationism [2007], Intro) | |
A reaction: I'm not sure what 'full' content could possibly mean. Does that include all our background beliefs which we hardly ever articulate. Content comes in degrees, or needs an arbitrary boundary? |