Combining Texts

Ideas for 'On the Individuation of Attributes', 'The Runabout Inference Ticket' and 'The Rediscovery of the Mind'

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5 ideas

18. Thought / A. Modes of Thought / 4. Folk Psychology
We don't postulate folk psychology, we experience it [Searle]
     Full Idea: We do not postulate beliefs and desires to account for anything; we simply experience conscious beliefs and desires.
     From: John Searle (The Rediscovery of the Mind [1992], Ch. 2 App)
     A reaction: Searle is too fond of reporting what we 'simply' know. Beliefs and desires are pushed forward by a cultural tradition. What I actually experience is a confusion, always laced with emotion.
18. Thought / B. Mechanics of Thought / 6. Artificial Thought / b. Turing Machines
Computation isn't a natural phenomenon, it is a way of seeing phenomena [Searle]
     Full Idea: Computational states are not discovered within the physics, they are assigned to the physics.
     From: John Searle (The Rediscovery of the Mind [1992], Ch. 9.V)
     A reaction: The key idea in Searle's later thinking, with which I have some sympathy. There always seems to be a sneaky dualism buried deep in Searle's physicalism. Computation is very high-level physics.
18. Thought / C. Content / 1. Content
Content is much more than just sentence meaning [Searle]
     Full Idea: Sentence meaning radically underdetermines the content of what is said.
     From: John Searle (The Rediscovery of the Mind [1992], Ch. 8.II)
     A reaction: We have body language, and we have tone, and we have context, and we have speaker's and listener's meanings. I take sentence meaning to be the basis which makes the rest possible.
18. Thought / C. Content / 6. Broad Content
There is no such thing as 'wide content' [Searle]
     Full Idea: I don't believe in the existence of 'wide content'.
     From: John Searle (The Rediscovery of the Mind [1992], Ch. 3.IV)
     A reaction: I sort of agree, but if I accept the rulings of experts (e.g. that water is really H2O), I am admitting that what I mean may not be in my head.
18. Thought / C. Content / 7. Narrow Content
We explain behaviour in terms of actual internal representations in the agent [Searle]
     Full Idea: In intentional explanations of behaviour patterns in the behaviour are explained by the fact that the agent has a representation of that very pattern in its intentional apparatus, which functions causally in the production of the behaviour.
     From: John Searle (The Rediscovery of the Mind [1992], Ch.10.IV)
     A reaction: Problem cases would be where someone's behaviour doesn't come out quite as planned (e.g. the sentence spoken failed to match the proposition intended), and panic behaviour.