Why did Quine give up on behaviorism later?
Eray Ozkural exa
http://www.cfh.ufsc.br/~lhdutra/ar-qr.html
This would suggest that Quine later dropped the behavioral analysis
view in Word and Object. In fact, his view that "both physicalist and
mentalist talks are inescapable for us human beings" is an excellent
observation that I agree with in my protocol-stack theory of mind.
As you recall I also proposed a "number of naivete in subjectivity". I
had awarded high naivete scores to David and other minions of Skinner.
I don't know if he has an english version of the whole work.
Anyway....
Abstract
In his more recent reflections about the mind Quine argues that man is
a ‘forked animal.' According to this view both physicalist and
mentalist talks are inescapable for us human beings. This doctrine
about the forked character of human language and mind is presented at
the same time Quine acquiesces in both Davidson's anomalous monism and
Dennett's theory of intentional systems. Quine gives up the
behavioristic stance he adopted in his Word and Object period. In
this paper I will examine these doctrines and argue that Quine's view
on our forked character is to be construed along with his doctrine
about the biological roots of human language he presented in previous
works. In addition to this, I will try to show that Quine's theory is
not fully compatible either with Davidson's or with Dennett's
doctrines
David Longley
"From Stimulus to Science" on intension and anomalous monism. I've done
this several times and I did so several years ago when first drawing
attention to Quine's behaviourism and extensionalism.
The fact that we are embedded in folk psychology is an empirical fact!
The fact that we use intensional idioms as a modus vivendi is something
which is at he heart of "Fragments of Behaviour: The Extensional Stance"
and in the rationale for the whole PROBE/Sentence Management system more
generally. This point has been made several times - you just don't
listen.
The very existence of folk-psychology does not mean one abandons
behaviourism or extensionality - What it does reflect is that we have
not solved all the problems in behaviour science and neuroscience!
Don't quote papers which you don't understand in the hope that they
vindicate your hopelessly uninformed position.
In article <fa69ae35.03080...@posting.google.com>, Eray
Ozkural exa <er...@bilkent.edu.tr> writes
--
David Longley
David Longley
all the problems of psychology and neuroscience, that wouldn't mean that
the intensional idioms of folk psychology would disappear overnight. At
the same time, most reasonable folk would accept that if the intensional
idioms are prone to the problems I have highlighted elsewhere, it would
be prudent not to try to include them in extensional frameworks, and
certainly not give them causal roles in theories of behaviour -
anomalous monism is just a pragmatic necessity. It certainly isn't a
reason to abandon Quine's behaviourism.
In article <nC6iv5KY3YN$Ew...@longley.demon.co.uk>, David Longley
<Da...@longley.demon.co.uk> writes
Bill Modlin
"David Longley" <Da...@longley.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
news:+SkkLCNhQZN$Ew...@longley.demon.co.uk...
> In fact, just to reinforce the point - even if we had managed to solve
> all the problems of psychology and neuroscience, that wouldn't mean that
> the intensional idioms of folk psychology would disappear overnight. At
> the same time, most reasonable folk would accept that if the intensional
> idioms are prone to the problems I have highlighted elsewhere, it would
> be prudent not to try to include them in extensional frameworks, and
> certainly not give them causal roles in theories of behaviour -
> anomalous monism is just a pragmatic necessity. It certainly isn't a
> reason to abandon Quine's behaviourism.
Since uneducated behavior is prone to just those problems you associate with
intensional idiom, it hardly seems that the existence of the problems can
justify excluding them from causal roles in behavior.
I have no idea what sort of a fallacy to call this, but it is certainly
incorrect to reason that because intensional idioms can lead to not fully
rational results they cannot be causally related to not fully rational
behavior.
It seems to me that if anything must be excluded from a theory of behavior,
it is that extensional logic has a primary causal role in the naive
production of behavior.
If we manage to solve all the problems of psychology and neuroscience, it
would remain that behavior is directed by heuristic processes, not by fully
extensional logic.
Bill Modlin
Eray Ozkural exa
"Bill Modlin" <mod...@metrocast.net> wrote in message news:<wmednXqP4K9...@metrocast.net>...
> Since uneducated behavior is prone to just those problems you associate with
> intensional idiom, it hardly seems that the existence of the problems can
> justify excluding them from causal roles in behavior.
>
This was a difficult sentence to parse. Could you please explain in
more detail?
> I have no idea what sort of a fallacy to call this, but it is certainly
> incorrect to reason that because intensional idioms can lead to not fully
> rational results they cannot be causally related to not fully rational
> behavior.
>
I think it's a fallacy of the most awful kind. My new theory of mind
(I don't know if you recall) would suggest that we will have to
maintain both intensional and extensional idioms when talking about
the mind.
However, as I have indicated elsewhere, I think natural language isn't
the "core" of thought. It's simply an encoding system for
communication, and I don't believe how we talk could possibly
influence the truth about our minds... I would never write a theory of
"which words you should speak". That is religion, not philosophy.
Regards,
__
Eray Ozkural
David Longley
What's the betting that before too long Eray will be telling everyone he
has a new theory - and what's the betting that it will sound remarkably
like what that "crackpot" Longley has been explicating over the past few
months. Like Rickert, there will be a nuance change here and a subtle
distinction there so he can assert his originality. The penny hasn't
fully dropped yet...but it will.
Doesn't it just reinforce your faith in the power of the human "mind"?
--
David Longley
David Longley
improve the predictive utility of our science of behaviour. It
highlights something awry with some elements of our verbal behaviour
which is taken to reflect facets of our other behaviour.
In article <wmednXqP4K9...@metrocast.net>, Bill Modlin
<mod...@metrocast.net> writes
--
David Longley
Eray Ozkural exa
I had explained IN THE PAST with "protocol-stack theory of mind". You
probably never bothered to understand what I might have been saying.
Sure. Why should you listen to a young person from a foreign country
who thinks he has a new approach to philosophy of mind? The
protocol-stack theory of mind claimed that we cannot drop any of the
behaviorist, computationalist and (mathematical) functionalist
theories of "subjectivity" and therefore in the whole philosophy of
mind. It might not be possible to arrive at a "unified" theory of
mind, all of them are valid in their domains but none of them
constitutes an explanation on all interesting properties of
subjectivity it seems. However, computational view still seems to have
a special place in the scheme of things because it is the link between
function and the rest of the physical world...
If you had discussed *your* theories like civilized persons it
wouldn't have been like this and we could have actually discussed
Quine's philosophy. But no. You can't do that. You have to assert
things because you have access to truth. A priviledged access, indeed
because "Skinner said so." You have to be a teacher and everybody else
are your students. Then, there are some holy books that you should
refer to. It's really strange.
You are pretty much the perfect example for bigotry. Unfortunately,
you don't even have that "I did X" excuse for such behavior.
David Longley <Da...@longley.demon.co.uk> wrote in message news:<RYcPJIHCdhN$Ew...@longley.demon.co.uk>...
Eray Ozkural exa
> Bear in mind that this is a linguistic division, and the aim is to
> improve the predictive utility of our science of behaviour. It
> highlights something awry with some elements of our verbal behaviour
> which is taken to reflect facets of our other behaviour.
Beware!
Hypocritical deconstructionism!
Bill Modlin
> Bear in mind that this is a linguistic division, and the aim is to
> improve the predictive utility of our science of behaviour. It
> highlights something awry with some elements of our verbal behaviour
> which is taken to reflect facets of our other behaviour.
I don't understand what you are saying.
What is a "linguistic division"? And of what?
How does ruling out heuristic processes in the mechanisms which produce
behavior increase the predictability of that behavior?
Why is it not reasonable to suggest that behavior which appears to be
generated by the use of approximate heuristics may indeed be produced by
mechanisms implementing those heuristics?
Neil W Rickert
>Bear in mind that this is a linguistic division, and the aim is to
>improve the predictive utility of our science of behaviour. It
>highlights something awry with some elements of our verbal behaviour
>which is taken to reflect facets of our other behaviour.
If you think that there is something awry with our use of language,
then you simply do not understand language.
But then anyone who uses "verbal behavior" to describe language is
already confused.
Acme Debugging
> In article <fa69ae35.03080...@posting.google.com>, Eray
> Ozkural exa <er...@bilkent.edu.tr> writes
> >Hi Bill,
> >
> >"Bill Modlin" <mod...@metrocast.net> wrote in message
> >news:<wmednXqP4K9...@metrocast.net>...
> >> Since uneducated behavior is prone to just those problems you associate with
> >> intensional idiom, it hardly seems that the existence of the problems can
> >> justify excluding them from causal roles in behavior.
> >>
>
> has a new theory - and what's the betting that it will sound remarkably
> like what that "crackpot" Longley has been explicating over the past few
> months. Like Rickert, there will be a nuance change here and a subtle
> distinction there so he can assert his originality.
Maybe Neil simply doesn't remember or doesn't consider it important or
relevant enough to dig up a cite. But if he has some relevent info
that is only worth the time to simply recall and type, it can be a
worthy contribution and usually is.
I don't think it relevant enough to link to a page about "cites" or
"the relevences of remembering" either.
There are 8 million university groups in the Naked Usenet City. This
hasn't been one of them. (Sorry no cite).
Academic responsibility is a matter of choice in this newsgroup,
including for the academics, and there are legitimate arguments for
and against. If anybody wants to have one, I'm waiting. Until then,
nobody should feel excluded on this basis.
Larry
David Longley
>> Bear in mind that this is a linguistic division, and the aim is to
>> improve the predictive utility of our science of behaviour. It
>> highlights something awry with some elements of our verbal behaviour
>> which is taken to reflect facets of our other behaviour.
>
>I don't understand what you are saying.
>
>What is a "linguistic division"? And of what?
Intensional contexts vs extensional contexts.
>
>How does ruling out heuristic processes in the mechanisms which produce
>behavior increase the predictability of that behavior?
>
See review in "Frag.htm" of actuarial vs clinical judgement research
evidence. We never totally exclude our natural assessments - but we do
endeavour to do so when working as scientists.
>Why is it not reasonable to suggest that behavior which appears to be
>generated by the use of approximate heuristics may indeed be produced by
>mechanisms implementing those heuristics?
>
Our behaviour is not completely under the control of our immediate
personal sensory stimulation and reinforcement history. That is the
value of science (and verbal behaviour more widely). Where we do not
rely on the latter, we are subject to the vicissitudes of the biases
inherent in our natural assessments (heuristics). Just think of the
unrepresentative way in which we data comes our way.
--
David Longley
Acme Debugging
Maybe by "verbal behaviour...reflect other behavior" David is
referring to subconscious associations such as the one possibly
demonstrated from one of our previous exchanges:
- - - - -
> >[Larry] I predict that calling logical argumentation "folk psychology" isn't
> >going to fly. >-:)
>
> [Dave] Maybe not - but then what does one want to do, science or politics? It
> really depends what the *argumentation* is for, is it really in pursuit
<snip>
>
[Larry ]Surely I'm deserving of that criticism, and surely I've hit a
touchy
spot, maybe related to the word "politics" which doesn't fit. My
- - - - -
I put "possibly David have political problems in the prison system" on
my list of things to try, to be tested later as the opportunity might
arise.
Then again, maybe this isn't what David is talking about.
Larry
David Longley
I may not be responding to what you have said here Bill, but having read
what you have said several times I'm not 100% clear of what you are
saying.
The point is that when analysing behaviour, the use of intensional
idioms leads to problems. I've illustrated that here both formally and
in actual exchanges with posters. (using the canonical form "Said
That"). I've tried to explain how things go awry in applied contexts -
such as inmate management, and there I illustrate what I consider to be
a corrective alternative.
Do you fully appreciate the significance of the review of actuarial vs
clinical judgement literature and the nature of the biases in the
intensional heuristics such as "availability", "salience",
"representativeness" and so on?
--
David Longley
David Longley
think it is due and 2) to minimize the likelihood of arguments about
whether or not so and so said such and such (ie in the interests of
accuracy). This is people working in my field(s) tend to write papers.
They don't always quote, but they do reference a lot. In review papers
and theoretical articles, especially 'philosophy of ' articles, one does
find authors using quotation quite frequently.
As to TRUTH - well, I had hoped I'd been very clear on that. I may say
that it is true that Skinner or Quine wrote such and such. This does not
mean that what Skinner or Quine wrote was true (although as respected
empiricists I suspect that their statements probably are).
In brief, fundamentally, I'm a scientist. I think scientists collect
observation statements. What you see in my writings is someone
presenting observations statements or collections thereof which I think,
having read the research base, are worth considering. This is not
something to argue about (that's an old, I believe discredited, way to
advance knowledge (hence the Two Dogmas reference). What I find
pragmatically valuable is Radical Behaviourism (Skinner) or Evidential
Behaviourism (Quine) not Philosophical Behaviourism (Carnap). The 'new
kid on the block' here is Quine's Evidential Behaviourism, although
given the extent to which it has been misrepresented and sometimes
poorly defended, I think Skinner's Radical Behaviourism shares much with
what Quine has to offer.
Expecting me to *argue* betrays a profound misunderstanding of what I
have been saying.
In article <fa69ae35.03081...@posting.google.com>, Eray
Ozkural exa <er...@bilkent.edu.tr> writes
--
David Longley
Bill Modlin
> In article <BnmdnUk3vKP...@metrocast.net>, Bill Modlin
> <mod...@metrocast.net> writes
> >
> >"David Longley" <Da...@longley.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
> >news:urkwFWAhVjN$Ew...@longley.demon.co.uk...
> >> Bear in mind that this is a linguistic division, and the aim is to
> >> improve the predictive utility of our science of behaviour. It
> >> highlights something awry with some elements of our verbal behaviour
> >> which is taken to reflect facets of our other behaviour.
> >
> >I don't understand what you are saying.
> >
> >What is a "linguistic division"? And of what?
>
> Intensional contexts vs extensional contexts.
Ok. I recognize that division and appreciate the difference.
> >
> >How does ruling out heuristic processes in the mechanisms which produce
> >behavior increase the predictability of that behavior?
> >
>
> See review in "Frag.htm" of actuarial vs clinical judgement research
> evidence. We never totally exclude our natural assessments - but we do
> endeavour to do so when working as scientists.
We endeavor to base our scientific judgments on extensional schema, where
possible. Agreed.
But that is not a reason to exclude the intensional from the things
described: i.e. the mechanisms of behavior. You are making an unwarranted
leap from "as a scientist I should use extensional reasoning in my study of
behavior" to "I must therefore discover that behavior is produced by
extensional reasoning".
The studies mentioned in frag.htm that point out a difference are evidence
that human behavior is often based on non-extensional processes.
> >Why is it not reasonable to suggest that behavior which appears to be
> >generated by the use of approximate heuristics may indeed be produced by
> >mechanisms implementing those heuristics?
> >
>
> Our behaviour is not completely under the control of our immediate
> personal sensory stimulation and reinforcement history. That is the
> value of science (and verbal behaviour more widely). Where we do not
> rely on the latter, we are subject to the vicissitudes of the biases
> inherent in our natural assessments (heuristics). Just think of the
> unrepresentative way in which we data comes our way.
Again you are confusing the methods appropropriate for use by a scientist
with the methods he may study.
I agree that a scientist studying behavior should, to the extent possible,
rely on extensional processes for assessing the data he collects.
I do not agree that he must impose this constraint on his discoveries: if
indeed behavior is generated by heuristic assesments rather than rigorous
logic, a proper explanation of that behavior must necessarily posit the
existence of those heuristic processes.
Don't conflate the assessments of the scientist with those of his objects of
study.
Bill Modlin
Neil W Rickert
>In brief, fundamentally, I'm a scientist.
Fundamentally, you are a charlatan.
> I think scientists collect
>observation statements.
And that is pretty much the proof that you are no scientist.
> What you see in my writings is someone
>presenting observations statements or collections thereof which I think,
>having read the research base, are worth considering.
And that is the evidence that you are clueless as to what an
observation statement is.
> This is not
>something to argue about (that's an old, I believe discredited, way to
>advance knowledge (hence the Two Dogmas reference).
That's a remarkably stupid thing to say, especially given that "Two
Dogmas" consists entirely of philosophical argumentation.
Bill Modlin
Yes.
Do you fully appreciate the difference between using those heuristics to
study behavior (undesirable) and studying their operation in the production
of behavior? (acceptable)
You claim that "behavior is (often/partially) caused by intensional
heuristics" and cite all the work demonstrating this.
But then you say "because such heuristics are unreliable no scientific model
of behavior may include heuristics posited as playing causal roles".
Can you not see the contradiction?
Bill
David Longley
You have an implicit model of how things work and it keeps showing
through. Glen did an admirable job of showing you how to speak
differently, but you dismissed him as torturing language.
Now you appear to be trying to falsify what I've written by asserting
internal contradiction.
The contradiction appears to be fabricated. You use quotation marks
below then write something that I have not written.
>
>You claim that "behavior is (often/partially) caused by intensional
>heuristics" and cite all the work demonstrating this.
>
>But then you say "because such heuristics are unreliable no scientific model
>of behavior may include heuristics posited as playing causal roles".
>
>Can you not see the contradiction?
>
>Bill
>
>
When I warned of the nature of intensional heuristics and how indirect
quotation is canonical, did you understand what I was showing? Why have
you used quotation marks in the above sentences?
--
David Longley
Bill Modlin
I used quotation marks as a typographical device to set off paraphrases
which I used to illustrate a sort of thing that I take you as typically
saying. My repeated use of a paraphrase in quote marks in something
addressed to you may have Freudian origins... I know full well that it is
one of your hot buttons, and may have done it just to annoy you though I was
not conscious of that intent.
Nevertheless, they serve the usual purpose of restating a message received
in my own words, to let you know what it appears to me that you have said.
You cite many works whose central message is that human "clinical judgment"
is unreliable because it is based on "intensional heuristics". If this is
not intended to convey a message that "behavior is (often, at least
partially) caused by intensional heuristics" (Quoting myself with a slight
alteration for clarity) then it would be more productive to explain how I
have misinterpreted you than to quibble over whether you used those precise
words. I could have dug through your many posts to find places where you
have said equivalent things. Would that have served a useful purpose?
The second paraphrase is again a summary in my own words of a message
received from you many times. You seem to be telling me/us that no proper
theory of behavior can include the things your own references prove to be
causes of behavior.
I see a self contradiction in your position. If you wish to show that I am
mistaken about your position, it would be useful and productive for you to
re-state your position in such a way that it can be seen not to be
contradictory.
But please note that actually quoting yourself, or referring to any of your
usual citations, will NOT further the discussion, since it is just those
prior words and references that led me to my current understanding of your
intent. Repeating them can only reinforce my opinion that you are
contradicting yourself.
To move forward, you must provide a new way of saying things. The old one
has done its work, you don't like the results, you have to change something.
Bill Modlin
David Longley
1) This is a misuse of English
2) In the context of our exchanges (and others on these matters) it is
dishonest and, what's more, either nefarious rhetoric or just further
illustrative of the point I have been making about the problems
caused
by intensional context - 'you said that' ....x
If you can not see in PRACTICE what the problem is here and how this is
avoided by the extensional device of direct quotation, you are either
being obtuse and argumentative or just illustrating what we see
elsewhere - ie that these notions seem very easy t o grasp, but require
such a radical re-orientation in how one goes about looking at
psychology that most folk will not grasp it.
>My repeated use of a paraphrase in quote marks in something
>addressed to you may have Freudian origins... I know full well that it is
>one of your hot buttons, and may have done it just to annoy you though I was
>not conscious of that intent.
There are no Freudian origins - my suggestion is that it is just
characteristic of your inability/reluctance to abandon what is
fundamentally a folk-psychological stance - the intensional stance.
>
>Nevertheless, they serve the usual purpose of restating a message received
>in my own words, to let you know what it appears to me that you have said.
But that is PRECISELY how these contexts work and beguile.
They disguise our ignorance from ourselves, and we have a convention
which permits this. It exists as "mind theory" - something which fills
in the gaps in an otherwise reasonably accurate way of dealing with the
world.
Thinking that, remembering that, believing that, interpreting... all of
these notions run into one another in one closed circular loop and they
don't cache out to behaviour.
The point is I DIDN'T SAY what you quoted me as saying.
I do understand what is bothering you - but it bothers you because you
still misunderstand the nature of the extensional stance (a large part
of Fragments is really about why we DON'T make connections).
I'll put some time aside to try and put things differently as you
request. I'll come back to you in another post.
>
>You cite many works whose central message is that human "clinical judgment"
>is unreliable because it is based on "intensional heuristics".
>If this is
>not intended to convey a message that "behavior is (often, at least
>partially) caused by intensional heuristics" (Quoting myself with a slight
>alteration for clarity) then it would be more productive to explain how I
>have misinterpreted you than to quibble over whether you used those precise
>words. I could have dug through your many posts to find places where you
>have said equivalent things. Would that have served a useful purpose?
>
Possibly - but so long as I'm making a big thing of verbal behaviour and
you are STILL talking as if you can substitute words and phrases here
and there with impunity, and so long as you insist that when I go to
lengths to SHOW you and others how this works EMPIRICALLY I'm just
"quibbling" we are not going to communicate.
>The second paraphrase is again a summary in my own words of a message
>received from you many times. You seem to be telling me/us that no proper
>theory of behavior can include the things your own references prove to be
>causes of behavior.
>I see a self contradiction in your position. If you wish to show that I am
>mistaken about your position, it would be useful and productive for you to
>re-state your position in such a way that it can be seen not to be
>contradictory.
>
>But please note that actually quoting yourself, or referring to any of your
>usual citations, will NOT further the discussion, since it is just those
>prior words and references that led me to my current understanding of your
>intent.
I really don't believe that - I think you need to spend more time on it
- and on what Glen has posted.
> Repeating them can only reinforce my opinion that you are
>contradicting yourself.
>
>To move forward, you must provide a new way of saying things. The old one
>has done its work, you don't like the results, you have to change something.
>
>Bill Modlin
>
>
I'm quite happy with the results Bill. You're the one asking for
clarification.
Here are two things to consider in the meantime:
1) Check out "Anomalous Monism" on Google.
2) The Conditioned Taste Aversion experiment: This is a standard
conditioning paradigm. A contingency is arranged between a toxic
stimulus (such a Lithium Chloride or X-Ray Radiation) AND a novel food.
Later, the animal is given the food and the amount consumed is measured.
Animals like rats find the food quite aversive (although unlike us they
can not vomit). Most of us have had an experience like this.
Sometimes such acquired aversions really do have something to do with
the food (e.g.some contaminant or toxic excretion of bacteria) we've
eaten, sometimes it doesn't (as with radiation or some other independent
illness inducing agent). However, trying to persuade someone later in
time that it wasn't the food that made them ill (when in fact it wasn't)
can be almost impossible. In fact, the very sight/smell of the stuff can
make them retch. This is true for all sorts of phobias (and
preferences), attitudes, "tastes" and so on.
--
David Longley
Bill Modlin
> The point is I DIDN'T SAY what you quoted me as saying.
There are two possible reasons for saying anything at all.
First, you may be talking to yourself. This is often a useful activity, to
help focus ones thoughts and examine them.
Second, you may be hoping to communicate with someone else.
If the communication channel is one-way, all you can do is pick the best
words you can manage and throw them out, hoping for the best. Sometimes
your targets get the message, sometimes they don't.
If you are fortunate enough to have a two-way channel open between you and
your target, you are able to do better. You may then enter into a dialog, a
back-and-forth conversation, an ongoing exchange of information during which
both parties may receive feedback about the progress of the information
transfer, and eventually both may come away satisfied that there is some
agreement between them... there may remain differences of opinion, but at
least it should be possible to agree about where the differences lie.
A major portion of such dialog consists in paraphrasing and re-stating the
messages received at each end, providing feedback to the other party by
which they may gauge the progress of the communication. In this context
direct quotation is seldom useful... your ability to quote my words, or mine
to quote yours, is no indication at all of any common understanding of those
words.
There are legitimate objections to indirect quotation as a means of
reporting "what someone said" to a third party. These objections are quite
beside the point when one is in dialog with the person who made the
statement in the first place. In such dialog indirect quotation is not only
permissable but required if communication is to be verified and achieved.
The problems with indirect quotation are that a paraphrase may introduce
distortions which mislead the hearer as to the original message. But if
the hearer is the source of the message, are we really to be concerned that
he may be misled as to his own message? Certainly not. He may be
enlightened by seeing his message from a new perspective and may decide to
change it, or he may see the distortions as evidence of imperfect
communication and issue new corrective messages. Either is surely a
desirable outcome, not an argument against the use of paraphrase in this
context.
You said "The point is I DIDN'T SAY what you quoted me as saying."
And I'm pointing out that in a dialog with me what you literally said is far
less important than what I think you meant. If I quote you literally, I am
not giving you any new information since you presumably already know what
you said. It may be useful as a reminder occasionally, as in this point.
But it does not contribute to the purpose of the dialog, it does not
encourage convergence of understanding.
You are seriously distorting Quine's message, applying his words
innappropriately, when you use his arguments to excuse your own
unwillingness or inability to engage in productive dialog.
Bill Modlin
Acme Debugging
> "David Longley" <Da...@longley.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
> news:UbE+J2MsnAO$Ew...@longley.demon.co.uk...
<snippy apologizes to David>
Bill, I hate to say it, but this sounds like me giving an excuse to a
client for a software bug. I starts going, gets down the runway, gets
faster and faster, but never quite makes it off the ground. You're too
good to beat this one to death.
Ignoring all the Quine business (reading ahead to Dave's reply), when
most people see ...said "blah, blah, blar" they expect it to be pretty
much a cut and paste. Maybe the quoted wanted to sound like a pirate
on the third "blar" and I would like to notice that. But these are
Usenet messages, not copy-edited manuscripts, so I don't think the
guillotine is appropriate, at least on the first offense. A simple
correction would suffice. Who's going to take a Usenet quote to the
bank anyway?
*But* there is an easy solution! :-)
...said (as I recall) "Blah, etc."
Replace (as I recall) with (as I remember) or (roughly) or
(essentially) or (and I got this from Larry)...
Recently I wanted to quote the Gibsons. But it takes psychologists
3-10 times as long as you to say anything (Quine rates an 11). Here
was the original quote:
"...said "Psychology, or at least American psychology, is a second
rate discipline. The main reason is that it does not stand in awe of
its subject matter. Psychologists have too little respect for
psychology."
Am I going to clutter up one of my messages with such never-ending
long-windedness? No way, except if I'm quoting myself as you can see.
So, if you didn't understandably have me kill-filtered, you would
remember that I replaced it with:
"...said (as I remember) "The problem with psychology is that it
doesn't stand in awe of its subject matter."
Same thing, even better without the Yankee-bashing, much shorter even
with the extra three-word qualification. Appropriate in context.
Thanks. As a fancy editor yourself, I knew you'd be impresssed.
Remember David posted a *huge* rambling Quine quote about "nefarious
rhetoric?" Well there was nothing in the 85 pages (perhaps I
exaggerate slightly) that anyone hasn't heard 100 times. The whole
thing could have been shortened to a paragraph beginning with:
...Quine said (essentially) "I don't like nefarious rhetoric like what
politicians do" or not so direct but considerably improved,
(essentially) "I don't like persuasive argumentation."
I replied with this improvement and was flabbergasted that Dave was
not very impressed. < : - O
Larry
David Longley
<mod...@metrocast.net> writes
>
Given what you say above, I now suspect you really may not be asking for
any help at all. instead, you appear to be determined to defend the
status quo.
If that is indeed the case, please show the utility of the cognitive
notions. In the meantime, these are a few extracts that might make you
at least consider that there may be something to worry about and why it
may be worth spending a little more time listening to what might
initially seem to you to be incoherent posts.
'In his recent critique of realism, Putnam extends the
insight behind his Twin Earth examples. In "The Meaning
of 'Meaning'" he showed that nothing in the mind
determines meaning; his later work demonstrates that
nothing outside it does either. It follows from the
Lowenheim-Skolem Theorem that the axioms of a first-
order theory have multiple models in a given domain....
...Translation is not determinate.
It follows that the introduction of a 'language of
thought' or a 'deep structure', far from alleviating the
problem of radical translation, simply provides another
instance of it. For the prelinguistic child's task is
then the same as the field linguist's. Each seeks to map
initially alien utterances onto a language he already
has - the linguist, onto his home language; the child,
onto his innate language of thought. And as we have
seen, the same evidence is available to both. So the
child, endowed with a language of thought, is no better
off than the linguist. A spoken language admits of
multiple models in such a psychological structure, each
with an equal claim to be the determinant of meaning.
Moreover, none can be singled out as causally
responsible for the generation of surface locutions,
since 'cause'is not univocal. The term 'gavagai' no more
has a unique mental counterpart that it has a unique
English one. Translation, whether into the language of
thought or by means of the language of thought from one
spoken language to another, remains indeterminate.
Linguistic competence is not the ability to articulate
antecedently determinate ideas, intensions, or meanings;
nor is it the ability to reproduce the world in words.
We have no such abilities. It consists, rather, in
mastery of a complex social practice, and acquired
capacity to conform to the mores of a linguistic
community. It is neither more nor less than good
linguistic behavior.
Catherine Z. Elgin (1990)
FACTS THAT DON'T MATTER
Meaning and method - Essays in Honor of Hilary Putnam
'As soon as you get to interesting concepts, things go
poorly. You may find that hoping or expressions of anger
or joy don't have a place in that culture, thanks to the
lack of the same array of practices that we have in
ours. Likewise for THEIR important concepts. Moreover,
having grasped "hope", the other people needn't by
analogy grasp our "joy" or "anger", for each is embedded
in its own web. This may even be true for speech acts,
like promising or even stating, that are sometimes held
out as neutral between cultures.
What Hacking reports about joy, anger, and hope is also
apparently true of belief and its conceptual cousins.
Needham gives a painstaking analysis of various more or
less belief-like mental states recognised by a variety
of societies and concludes that in many cases there just
is nothing that matches up with our own notion of
belief. The practices of stating, reporting, avowing,
defending, and so on, which form the backdrop for our
own notion of belief, are unrecognizable in those
societies. Thus to the extent that these practices
constitute a necessary prerequisite for belief, persons
in these societies simply do not have any beliefs.
All of this poses some obvious difficulties for the
cognitive scientist who tries to press the folk notion
of belief into service in his theory.'
S. Stich (1983)
Will the Concepts of Folk Psychology Find a Place in Cognitive Science?
From Folk Psych ology to Cognitive Science:
The Case Against Belief p 217-8
'This argument was part of a larger project. Influenced
by Quine, I have long been suspicious about the
integrity and scientific utility of the commonsense
notions of meaning and intentional content. This is not,
of course, to deny that the intentional idioms of
ordinary discourse have their uses, nor that the uses
are important. But, like Quine, I view ordinary
intentional locutions as projective, context sensitive,
observer relative, and essentially dramatic. They are
not the sorts of locutions we should welcome in serious
scientific discourse. For those who share this Quinean
skepticism, the sudden flourishing of cognitive
psychology in the 1970s posed something of a problem. On
the account offered by Fodor and other observers, the
cognitive psychology of that period was exploiting both
the ontology and the explanatory strategy of commonsense
psychology. It proposed to explain cognition and certain
aspects of behavior by positing beliefs, desires, and
other psychological states with intentional content, and
by couching generalisations about the interactions among
those states in terms of their intentional content. If
this was right, then those of us who would banish talk
of content in scientific settings would be throwing out
the cognitive psychological baby with the intentional
bath water. On my view, however, this account of
cognitive psychology was seriously mistaken. The
cognitive psychology of the 1970s and early 1980s was
not positing contentful intentional states, nor was it
adverting to content in its generalisations. Rather, I
maintained, the cognitive psychology of the day was
"really a kind of logical syntax (only psychologized).
Moreover, it seemed to me that there were good reasons
why cognitive psychology not only did not but SHOULD not
traffic in intentional states. One of these reasons was
provided by the Autonomy argument.
Stephen P. Stich (1991)
Narrow Content meets Fat Syntax
in MEANING IN MIND - Fodor And His Critics
'The thesis we have been defending in this essay is that
connectionist models of a certain sort are incompatible
with the propositional modularity embedded in
commonsense psychology. The connectionist models in
question are those that are offered as models at the
COGNITIVE level, and in which the encoding of
information is widely distributed and subsymbolic. In
such models, we have argued, there are no DISCRETE,
SEMANTICALLY INTERPRETABLE states that play a CAUSAL
ROLE in some cognitive episodes but not others. Thus
there is, in these models, nothing with which the
propositional attitudes of commonsense psychology can
plausibly be identified. If these models turn out to
offer the best accounts of human belief and memory, we
shall be confronting an ONTOLOGICALLY RADICAL theory
change - the sort of theory change that will sustain the
conclusion that propositional attitudes, like caloric
and phlogiston, do not exist.'
Ramsey, Stich and Garon (1991)
Connectionism, eliminativism, and the future of folk psychology
What makes some of the above particularly difficult to accept is that it
is difficult to see, in the absence of more effective alternatives, what
one does if one does accept the above.
In your case, Bill, I would have thought that some closer attention to
what Glen has been explaining would be the answer. To date, you do not
appear to be genuinely interested, instead, you keep defending the face
validity of common-sense folk-psychology. You've dismissed what I have
said pretty much out of hand as irrelevent. I suggest you think again and
lok up category and intension on Google.
Some time later I'll share some of my own neuroscience research interests
with you, but first I'd like to see a few pennies drop.
--
David Longley
David Longley
Debugging <L.F...@lycos.co.uk> writes>Sm6DIUa9...@metrocast.net>...
You still don't get it do you?
Science is all about reliability, prediction and control. What was
Quine's little last book entitled? "From Stimulus To Science". The one
before? "Pursuit of Truth". What does he say TRUTH is? What does he say
philosophy comes down to? What has the long term objective been behind
all these exchanges?
Please read through these again and do more than skim them. What Glen
and I have been doing is sharing our knowledge with people. We don't
claim that what we have been sharing is all our own work or that it is
true by authority, or that you or anyone else have to take it as true.
All we ask is that you understand what we have said in its own terms
oOo.
'I have had neither the aptitude nor the temperament for
debate, public or private, when confronted with motives
recognizably other than the pursuit of truth. If in
discussing with a student I sensed that he was animated
rather by some ideological preconception, or by a wish
to have been right for the sake of high marks or self-
esteem, I make short work of the dialogue. A vast gulf,
insufficiently remarked, separates those who are
primarily concerned to have been right from those who
are primarily concerned to be right. The latter, I like
to think, will inherit the earth.'
-
W.V. Quine
The Time of My Life (1985).
'Rhetoric is the literary technology of persuasion, for
good or ill. It is the rallying point for advertisers,
trial lawyers, politicians, and debating teams.
-
Debating teams are promoted in schools as a spur to
effective language and incisive thought. They serve that
purpose, but only by setting the goal of persuasion
above the goal of truth. The debater's strength lies not
in intellectual curiosity nor in amenability to rational
persuasion by others, but in his skill in defending a
preconception come what may. His is a nefarious knack of
disregarding all the discrepancies while regarding every
crepancy.
-
The same skill, along with legal lore, is the strength
of the trial lawyer or barrister, and the strength also
of the successful politician, one or the other of which
careers the captain of the the debating team is clearly
destined for. Happily there are lawyers who will only
take on such cases as they deem to be just, and
politicians who will espouse only a case which is
righteous; but these scruples are not adjuncts of the
rhetorical pole, nor are they keys to success in the
legal or political profession.
-
When an electorate or a jury is the sway of a
demagogue's rhetoric, cold reason and the marshaling of
facts bear little promise in rebuttal. Marshaling more
rhetoric, then, in a contrary vein, we fight fire with
fire. Rhetoric is invaluable homeopathically in
withstanding its own assaults.
-
In scientific circles there is little demagogy to
combat, but rhetoric is sometimes of service even there;
for in an extremity it may happen that a scientist needs
more than a cold statement of his theory and his
evidence if he is ever to shake the stubborn and
mistaken preconceptions of some of his students, let
alone his dissident colleagues. But rhetoric in the
wrong scientist's hands can do disservice to science. It
can help him put his theory across for his reputation's
sake despite some shakiness in the evidence.
-
Rhetoric, then, is sometimes nefarious and sometimes
not. In its nefarious use it is the art or practice of
defending a proposition on grounds other than one's own
reasons for defending it. An auxiliary device is
innuendo. A 'referentially translucent' expression, as
Randal Marlin call it, is subtly ambiguous: it can be
taken as objectively stating a result of an action, and
it can be taken as accusing the agent of intending that
result. One of Marlin's examples is the headline 'Pope
Fouls Up Bar Mitzvah'. The Pope's arrival in town caused
a traffic jam that rendered the synagogue inaccessible
for the Bar Mitzvah; but the headline can be taken as
hinting unjustly of hostility on the Pope's part towards
Jews. It is an insidious device, effective in warping
unsuspecting minds while still adhering, in a sense, to
the verifiable.
-
Nefarious rhetoric is rife not only in tendentious
journalism, television commercials, courts of law,
Congress, political rallies, and the United Nations, but
also in homelier settings. In a New England town meeting
a citizen will describe in glowing terms the public
advantages which accrue from some proposed measure, when
what is at stake deep down has to do with his own
interest as proprietor, abutter, investor or c ontractor.
In such a case we do not cope with abuse by meeting
rhetoric with rhetoric, fire with fire, we just expose
the man's motives. What is important is to be alert to
what is going on, and not accept insincere argument at
face value. This much applies to the august and the
humble ones alike.
-
What I have been calling nefarious rhetoric recurs in a
rudimentary form also in impromptu discussions. Someone
harbors a prejudice or an article of faith or a vested
interest, and marshals ever more desperate and
threadbare arguments in defence of his position rather
than be swayed by reason or face the facts. Even more
often, perhaps, the deterrent is just stubborn pride:
reluctance to acknowledge error. Unscientific man is
beset by a deplorable desire to have been right. The
scientist is distinguished by a desire to BE right.
-
Rhetoric
-
QUINE (1987)
Quiddities
--
David Longley
Bill Modlin
> In article <ykqdnVYA7IQ...@metrocast.net>, Bill Modlin
><mod...@metrocast.net> writes
>>
>>"David Longley" <Da...@longley.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
>>news:lnaymRLXvNO$Ew...@longley.demon.co.uk...
>>> The point is I DIDN'T SAY what you quoted me as saying.
<snip Modlin on the necessity of indirect quotation for convergence of
understanding in a dialog>
(Longley)
> In this context, I wasn't looking for dialogue.
But I was.
> Given what you say above, I now suspect you really may not be
> asking for any help at all. instead, you appear to be determined
> to defend the status quo.
The "status quo" is that we don't yet know how to do AI. I'd appreciate
cooperative help in advancing beyond that.
> If that is indeed the case, please show the utility of the
> cognitive notions.
I'm not talking about cognitive notions. That's what I would like you (and
Glen) to recognize: that you are mistakenly lumping some extensional
functions (heuristics and heuristically based categorical discriminations)
with "cognitive notions", and thus refusing to consider their necessary
place in a coherent theory of "how brains work".
I'll concede up front that there is a bit of pure stubbornness in my
continued battering at the point, and that I'd gain some personal
satisfaction if you ever were to show that you can understand what I'm
talking about rather than smugly trying to "teach" me things I already know.
But I would not bother if I didn't also want your potentially valuable
contributions. I seldom argue with people who have nothing to offer in
exchange for the effort. You have more knowledge of facts about the brain
and neurological studies, and of academic literature in general, than I do.
I'd like to tap into that, but I am prevented from doing so by what I
perceive as your rigid determination to misconstrue a few elementary
notions.
Incidentally, the reason I know some of those things that you repeatedly try
to teach me is that I learned from your earlier attempts. I do listen, I do
read, I do learn. When first we talked many years ago, I had for example
never heard of Quine, was uncertain as to just what Skinner and others had
studied, and had no names for many of the things I vaguely assumed.
You've improved my understanding of many things. I wish you would allow me
to do the same for you.
There is nothing "cognitive", there is no "intensionality", in a theory that
neurons in the brain adapt to discernible features of the statistical
behavior of the ensemble of signals available to them as accessible inputs.
It is not "mentalism" to explore, either by abstract reasoning and math or
with computer modelling, the results of such adaptations. And it does not
render these things less extensional if I characterize the result as the
discrimination of heuristically derived categories of (broadly interpreted)
experience.
> In the meantime, these are a few extracts that might make you
> at least consider that there may be something to worry about and
> why it may be worth spending a little more time listening to what > might
initially seem to you to be incoherent posts.
<snip Elgin on Putnam on indeterminacy of translation>
<snip Stich on problems fitting "concepts" and "belief" into a coherent
theory>
<snip Stich on impropriety of intentional notions in cognitive theories>
<snip Ramsey, Stich and Garon on the lack of causal states corresponding to
propositional attitudes in a plausible model of cognition>
<back to Longley>
> What makes some of the above particularly difficult to accept is
> that it is difficult to see, in the absence of more effective
> alternatives, what one does if one does accept the above.
>
> In your case, Bill, I would have thought that some closer
> attention to what Glen has been explaining would be the answer.
> To date, you do not appear to be genuinely interested, instead,
> you keep defending the face validity of common-sense
> folk-psychology. You've dismissed what I have said pretty much
> out of hand as irrelevant. I suggest you think again and look up
> category and intension on Google.
I have paid very close attention to Glen. I find that he does not
understand the information theoretic impossibility of some of his
assumptions, particularly his notion that all of the function approximation
necessary to account for behavioral adaptation can be achieved by error
feedback.
He is not alone. I suspect that you do not appreciate this point, and I
know Curt and Neil do not.
A network of elements capable of implementing N instances of some
Boolean-complete set of primitive functions is a "universal function
approximator", theoretically capable of performing any function expressible
in fewer than N terms, with appropriate selection of functions at each node.
It takes a certain amount of information to select the appropriate function
for each element, and the information is different for each non-redundant
term of the desired overall function.
I think each of you has accepted the information theoretic argument that the
information available from DNA is bounded, and that there cannot be enough
information in DNA to account for the individuation of each neuron into
performance of a specific function in the brain.
What you have not yet fully appreciated is that the information available in
feedback about any output of a network is also bounded, by the information
available in that output.
The effective outputs of the brain, those which have an effect which might
generate feedback, are funneled through a small percentage of the peripheral
cells in the network: most internal cells do not directly produce outputs
which could generate feedback.
This means that there cannot be enough information in outputs, and therefore
there cannot be enough information in feedback, to account for all that
internal individuation either.
The sum of all the information in DNA plus all the information from all
conceivable sources of environmental feedback, is dramatically smaller than
that necessary to account for the individuation of neural functions known to
occur in the brain.
(I can go into more detail if you wish. But that's the gist of the
argument.)
The inescapable conclusion is that most of the individuation into specific
functions is driven by information which does not originate in DNA nor from
feedback. In other words, the information comes from general inputs not
caused by the actions of the net.
More specifically: We cannot learn most of what we do in fact learn by
operant conditioning, construed as feedback-directed selection of outputs
from the net. We cannot account for most behavioral change by any
refinement or adaptation of any feedback-based theory, and we cannot account
for it by assuming that the missing information is innate. A proper theory
to account for observable behavior must, as a formally demonstrable
necessity, include mechanisms for extracting information from data not
causally related to either DNA or current behavior.
This does NOT entail introduction of such notions as "beliefs" or any other
intensional idiom. It DOES entail introduction of mechanisms for learning
which are not feedback directed, mechanisms usually described as
implementing unsupervised learning.
As Glen suggested, there are still deep and interesting questions to be
resolved about operant conditioning and its pivotal roll in the final
shaping of behavior. But as I told him, those answers will require
recognition that there are other necessary supporting mechanisms not
explainable in terms of operant conditioning itself.
> Some time later I'll share some of my own neuroscience research
> interests with you, but first I'd like to see a few pennies drop.
That would be appreciated, if you drop some of those pennies too.
>
> --
> David Longley
Acme Debugging
>
>>Remember David posted a *huge* rambling Quine quote about "nefarious
>>rhetoric?" Well there was nothing in the 85 pages (perhaps I
>>exaggerate slightly) that anyone hasn't heard 100 times. The whole
>>thing could have been shortened to a paragraph beginning with:
>>
>>...Quine said (essentially) "I don't like nefarious rhetoric like
what
>>politicians do" or not so direct but considerably improved,
>>(essentially) "I don't like persuasive argumentation."
>>
>>I replied with this improvement and was flabbergasted that Dave was
>>not very impressed. < : - O
>>
>>Larry
>
>
>Please read through these again and do more than skim them.
Ok, Dave. I will read it critically with comments. Just this one time.
My intention isn't to convince you or anyone of anything regarding
content. It is only to demonstrate why people are not convinced when
you send them to Quine links; to demonstrate how the absence of
editing leads away from content and into the readers own experience.
And how repetition then only causes negative conviction and the
off-switch.
In fact, one has a very short window of opportunity to gain a reader's
attention. It is crucial to use that window to maximum advantage,
including proper editing.
Remember that I make a very clear distinction between this piece,
which I view as an accident of publishing, and some very significant
work that Quine has done.
Note: I suspect nobody can wade through this never-ending Quine/Larry
long-windedness. But please scroll to the bottom to read my three
concluding remarks.
>
> oOo.
Hello Mr. Quine. I'm Larry. Your student, David Longley has asked me
to read your piece critically. With utmost respect to you, sir, I will
do so with maximum vigor. I'm sure you would expect no less.
> 'I have had neither the aptitude
Just like David Longley. He says he doesn't have the aptitude either,
unless he was just indirectly paraphrasing you.
> nor the temperament for
> debate,
Neither does David. You are very much alike in your aptitudes for
rhetoric.
> public or private, when confronted with motives
> recognizably other than the pursuit of truth.
Hmmm... not to be disrespectful Mr. Quine, but nobody knows what
"truth" is. Search on "The Mastermind" in this newsgroup in google
groups. I would appreciate any comments.
> If in
> discussing with a student I sensed that he was animated
> rather by some ideological preconception,
Who determined that, Mr. Quine? Such preconceptions are usually
imparted by parents. Did you teach in a locality where the parents
were particularly dumb compared to you and Eray?
> or by a wish
> to have been right for the sake of high marks or self-
> esteem, I make short work of the dialogue.
Was it easy to "win" arguments with your students, Mr. Quine? Did you
feel nice and secure in your priveleged position? And when you won,
was their self-esteem and natural desire to learn increased? Did you
feel better after winning the arguments?
> A vast gulf,
> insufficiently remarked, separates those who are
> primarily concerned to have been right from those who
> are primarily concerned to be right.
Mr. Quine, did you also teach your students that they should be
"right," and not "correct?" Did you "ideologically judge" your
students exams, and not "correct" them? Of course you, sir, know the
difference. Did your students like David eventually learn to always be
"right" instead of "correct" and isn't it much harder to question a
belief in being "ideologically right" than a belief in being
"academically correct?"
> The latter, I like
> to think, will inherit the earth.'
The person you are indirectly paraphrasing here said that the meek
shall inherit the Earth. Are you saying that those who are
"ideologically right" should instead inherit it?
> -
> W.V. Quine
> The Time of My Life (1985).
Thanks for telling us about an interesting time in your life. However
I could offer that, like some posters in this newsgroup, it can be a
mistake to reveal too much of your personality in a public forum.
>
>
> 'Rhetoric is the literary technology of persuasion,
Well in High School English class one learns that what you are calling
rhetoric is not necessarily the technology of persuasion. Rhetoric
includes a great deal more. The technology of persuasion is correctly
called "persuasive argumentation." May I recommend some reading in
informal logic, Mr. Quine? Or would you see that as preconceived
ideology which is not "right" and doesn't move us towards Truth?
> for
> good or ill. It is the rallying point for advertisers,
> trial lawyers, politicians, and debating teams.
Advertisiers usually do not use nefarious rhetoric because the
attention span is much too short. That's called something else.
Trial lawyers have good arguments for using persuasive argumentation,
and they mainly revolve about the observation that humans are
incapable of objectivity, thus the dialectic requiring two sides. You
could legitimately disagree, of course, but the issue remains
undecided. The founders of the U.S., for instance, were learned men,
quite aware of all history in this regard, and considered persuasive
argumentation necessary. However, they did not consider it necessarily
evil when practiced by lawyers. I do consider 100 lawyers at the
bottom of the ocean a good start, but that is a personal unobjective
opinion which I happily argue against in the interest of analyzing
more closely to the facts.
Each side usually does adopt the goals of either society or the
accused, which are of course one-sided and persuasive. But this
process is generally considered among your intellectual elite to be
the best humans have yet devised to achieve justice. Perhaps AI
reasoning might someday be employed as an assistant to change that
equation. Oh, sorry, that was a little before your time. Nevermind.
The same logic applies to debating teams. Instead of hearing one
dogmatic point of view, such as a college professor's opinions, one
hears two sides. I could go on and on, Mr. Quine, but I suspect my
long-windedness my be causing you just to skim over my words.
> -
> Debating teams are promoted in schools as a spur to
> effective language and incisive thought. They serve that
> purpose, but only by setting the goal of persuasion
> above the goal of truth.
What High School did you attend? This is simply not correct. The goal
of debating teams is to more closely approach the facts in the cases.
Like my two arguments for and against Longley's motivations. I could
make both arguments because, as I learned as a child, also in High
School, the goal is to define the problem, not to persuade. Persuading
only happens when only one side is presented, as you are doing here,
and as you (apparently) did with your students like Dave. I've advised
Dave to be critical of your work several times as a
demonstration of objectivity, but so far he seems to follow in the
tradition of this less-than-representive piece.
> The debater's strength lies not
> in intellectual curiosity nor in amenability to rational
> persuasion by others,
Well, being a self-described poor debater, a fair debate would always
sway listeners against your opinions (sorry, Truth). There is a proven
and well-accepted method to cure deficiencies in any requirement of a
field of study: learn to do it. It is a big disappointment to us all,
upon graduating and entering the real world, that one needs to learn
whatever is necessary to get a job done, like it or not. Not all that
true in academia, of course, except in the administration thereof.
Life is not always fair, like it or lump it.
> but in his skill in defending a
> preconception come what may. His is a nefarious knack of
> disregarding all the discrepancies while regarding every
> crepancy.
"Crepancy?" Well of course we all know what it means here. But do you
want me to be thinking about the word "crepency" or the point you are
making? Who published this Mr. Quine? Get your money back. I will give
10 - 1 odds it was a university press. This piece would never in a
million years get past a professional editor in the real world. That's
why I always look for the name of the publisher before
buying an academic book at random. Ayers directory is a big help here.
> -
> The same skill, along with legal lore, is the strength
> of the trial lawyer or barrister, and the strength also
> of the successful politician,
Each has it's system of ethics. It is so involved that your persuasive
argumention above can only be taken as bare conclusions without force.
> one or the other of which
> careers the captain of the the debating team is clearly
> destined for. Happily there are lawyers who will only
> take on such cases as they deem to be just, and
Everybody knows this. It is not that big a problem. You are confusing
imperfect implementation of a policy with the policy itself. It's true
that a policy must allow efficient implementation, but there is rarely
such a thing as perfect
implementation in politics. You are just fishing for things to prove
an opinion. One can always take one's opinion and find things to
"prove" it this way. It means nothing. It is one thing you are arguing
against.
> politicians who will espouse only a case which is
> righteous; but these scruples are not adjuncts of the
> rhetorical pole,
"Adjuncts of the rhetorical pole" is a 10th grader looking up words in
a thesarus. I suppose what you are getting at, Mr. Quine, is that
sometimes lawyers and politicians have evil or self-serving agendas,
but which I think you already said once or twice, though I cannot
remember for length and all the *rhetoric* here that leads me away
from whatever point you are trying to make.
Quine should be sentenced to a year of William Buckley tapes, repeated
in an endless loop.
> nor are they keys to success in the
> legal or political profession.
What are not keys to success? You lost me with the "Adjuncts" and the
"rhetorical pole." How do you grade yourself as a professor? By your
tenure? Or by the grades of your students who are attentive? I suspect
the former.
I don't think you could teach Einstein to tie his shoes. One could
only learn your message by rote memory and repetition. Perhaps I
exaggerate slightly.
> -
> When an electorate or a jury is the sway of a
> demagogue's rhetoric, cold reason and the marshaling of
> facts bear little promise in rebuttal.
The only alternative is to have only one opinion presented, which you
would like to be objective, which in fact and in practice only means
you would like it to be your opinion. Of course that is not a surprise
going by your introduction.
I wonder if your students are buying this philosophy? Well, I think I
know of one who did. It's a blanket get-out-of-jail-free card for
someone in an emotional-intellectual bind. One's opinion becomes the
Truth. I've seen it before.
> Marshaling more
> rhetoric, then, in a contrary vein, we fight fire with
> fire. Rhetoric is invaluable
Any logician worth 2 cents would recognize that "invaluable" is a
useless word except as a pun. But don't take that as "dissident"
criticism, Mr. Quine. I know what you are doing here. It isn't exactly
within the focus of your profession.
> as
> homeopathically in
> withstanding its own assaults.
God, get a new editor. Who is the editor for your university press?
Are they freshmen or sophomores? Get somebody in charge of that. No
wonder nobody can understand David half the time.
> -
> In scientific circles there is little demagogy to
> combat, but rhetoric is sometimes of service even there;
> for in an extremity
"At the margin," Mr. Quine, "at the margin."
> it may happen that a scientist needs
> more than a cold statement of his theory and his
> evidence if he is ever to shake the stubborn and
> mistaken preconceptions of some of his students,
"Students?" Well, that would be quite extreme, for a scientific theory
to be peer reviewed by one's students. But of course I know where you
are coming from. It is just elitist terminology coming thru, like with
some others I know. Good editing could fix that too, and it would take
people very much longer to find out.
> let
> alone his dissident colleagues.
Peer reviewers are "dissidents?" Only to politicians, Mr. Quine. Are
you running for office now? But I appreciate your little rhetorical
trick to persuade me. Yes, "dissident" is a loaded word.
> But rhetoric in the
> wrong scientist's hands can do disservice to science. It
> can help him put his theory across for his reputation's
> sake despite some shakiness in the evidence.
Especially if the peer review is by his students or "dissident" peers.
> -
> Rhetoric, then, is sometimes nefarious and sometimes
> not.
Crows are either black or not black. What does that say? I'm telling
you, Mr. Quine, your piece should be chopped to one paragraph, and if
you were here you would probably agree. This is surely some accident
of sorts. Too bad your students weren't informed. Like JFK said (as I
recall), there's always some
poor S.O.B. somewhere down the line who doesn't get the word. Like
David, who keeps posting this piece, not realizing some publishing
accident was made and that it only trivializes your work.
> In its nefarious use it is the art or practice of
"Art or technique" not "Art or practice."
God, does this thing still go on...? Does it never end? I just
scrolled ahead. I'm only half done!!! Time to speed this up.
> defending a proposition on grounds other than one's own
> reasons for defending it. An auxiliary device is
> innuendo.
We all know what "innuendo" is. But of course anyone could benefit
from a more clear, concise definition.
> A 'referentially translucent' expression, as
> Randal Marlin call it,
Wow, that's really clear and concise. It really helps a lot to reduce
the ambiguity of language, especially if you don't know who Randal
Marlin is. Is he a lawyer, politician, or debater?
> is subtly ambiguous:
Hey you used the "A" word. Did you know that your devotees are afraid
to use that word? They are afraid someone will link them to a pun
group to demonstrate how silly all their technical jargon about
language ambiguity is.
> it can be
> taken as objectively stating a result of an action, and
> it can be taken as accusing the agent of intending that
> result. One of Marlin's examples is the headline 'Pope
> Fouls Up Bar Mitzvah'. The Pope's arrival in town caused
> a traffic jam that rendered the synagogue inaccessible
> for the Bar Mitzvah; but the headline can be taken as
> hinting unjustly of hostility on the Pope's part towards
> Jews.
You seem to think you discovered this yesterday. In fact, everybody
else has known this forever. Do you argue these ideas with others
beforehand? Or do you just type them into your manuscript and send to
the freshmen editors down the hall for editing? Do you notice the
freshmen looking at one another and giggling? Are they the ones not
having the "right" ideology?
> It is an insidious device, effective in warping
> unsuspecting minds while still adhering, in a sense, to
> the verifiable.
> -
> Nefarious rhetoric is rife not only in tendentious
> journalism, television commercials, courts of law,
> Congress, political rallies, and the United Nations, but
Blah blah blah blah blah. Now "lawyers" is "courts of law" and
"politicians" is "congress." You already said that two or three times
already. Am I getting paid for this? Oh yeah, my pal Dave. Usually my
billing clock is running, max rate for this work.
> also in homelier settings. In a New England town meeting
> a citizen
In New England it's usually the brother-in-law of the developer. Har
har, I know all about that one. So does every other sentient being,
and it's all those old guys on the park benches talk about all day.
How old were you in '87?
> will describe in glowing terms the public
> advantages which accrue from some proposed measure, when
> what is at stake deep down has to do with his own
> interest as proprietor, abutter, investor or c ontractor.
Hey, I resemble that remark! True, but everybody knew that even if you
only found out yesterday and think it's news.
> In such a case we do not cope with abuse by meeting
> rhetoric with rhetoric, fire with fire, we just expose
> the man's motives.
What part of New England did you come from? Must have been real close
to the NY border! One of the rarest things in the universe is a
crooked local N.E. politician who got prosecuted, or even stopped. But
it's almost all petty stuff, so no big deal. Not like the mob. That's
a big deal. Guess you never ran into
that in your classroom or office at the college.
> What is important is to be alert to
> what is going on, and not accept insincere argument at
> face value.
Yes. In this newsgroup we will all promise to be alert and not accept
insincere argument at face value. Actually I think I saw a contrary
case of that back in 1997, Xmas day, one or two messages.
> This much applies to the august and the
> humble ones alike.
Is this a novel or what? There's an award every year for the absolute
worst prose in the world. I think it's called the "Dark and stormy
night" award. Not sure.
Entry #429, "The Rhetoric of Quine": "It was a dark and referentially
translucent night. The august and homeopathic humble ones were
adjuncts of the rhetorical pole's crepancy."
> -
> What I have been calling nefarious rhetoric recurs in a
> rudimentary form also in impromptu discussions.
That would be us! NOOOOOO Kidding!
> Someone
> harbors a prejudice or an article of faith or a vested
> interest, and marshals ever more desperate and
Mr. Quine, did you read that article at www.theonion.com recently
"(Name) withholds 95% of opinions at family reunion?" In fact, Mr.
Quine, all families have disagreements. Perhaps your family members
were particularly ideological and not "right" and didn't see your
Truth. My family members were just that way too.
> threadbare arguments in defence of his position rather
> than be swayed by reason or face the facts. Even more
> often, perhaps, the deterrent is just stubborn pride:
Thanks for the psychoanalysis. I do it too. But people criticize me
when I do it. I guess a lofty logic professor or Freud is more
qualified. Did you ever stop to think it could just be insipient
homosexual tendencies?
> reluctance to acknowledge error. Unscientific man is
> beset by a deplorable desire to have been right. The
> scientist is distinguished by a desire to BE right.
And the professor is convinced he IS right.
- - - - -
Look, I'm not going to defend this post. It is so long-winded I could
only just scroll and type 120 wpm. I only went thru one time and
lightly dusted the comments and filled in the Quine "Novel." I'm sure
I said some stupid things. But I did it to make my point crystal
clear. Nobody can be faulted for being unconvinced by Quine. Further,
there is no deep thought in this particular piece. It would be a much
better if edited to "I don't like nefarious rhetoric, like what
politicians do." Finally, it is loaded with the "persuasive
argumentation" Quine is arguing against, though he obviously doesn't
see it. He is simply unobjective, but doesn't realize that enough to
test his arguments with others, or others who think differently from
him.
Note how unfair it is to argue against a dead person. Also how unfair
it is to the critic that the dead person cannot correct me and help me
learn. It is much more efficient and noble to argue with alive
persons, including David. Quine is dead. Time moves on. New people
have new ideas, and argue them in the short time they are alotted.
FYI: It may sound like I'm promoting a certain kind of publishing, or
that I am in the editing business, or that I am invested in either
field academically or otherwise. None of that is true. I have written
some books that have been professionally copy-edited and have been
paid to edit web page content and some client documents, etc., and am
no professional editor. I do, however, recognize the value of proper
editing simply from reading and maximizing my learning rate in light
of the minutes left in my life, and the clock never stops ticking.
Quine does not rate my attention, from everything I've seen lately,
though at
one time in my life I remember reading him and I would also have
(probably severely) edited the content at that time. I recently
brushed up on some of his work on the ambiguities of language, and was
again impressed in the sense of academic logic, which has been out of
my focus for a very long time.
Larry
David Longley
>though at
>one time in my life I remember reading him and I would also have
>(probably severely) edited the content at that time. I recently
>brushed up on some of his work on the ambiguities of language, and was
>again impressed in the sense of academic logic, which has been out of
>my focus for a very long time.
>
>Larry
In the quote, the "as" before "homeopathically" is my erroneous
insertion.
The book is published by Penguin
I suggest you read some of the reviews - e.g..
"Quine is not only a great philosopher, but also a master of the English
language.." London Review of Books.
oOo
From what you write and your stated preferences, I guess you are here in
the newsgroup solely for entertainment. Sadly, there are issues at stake
here which are as central to some people's careers and lives as your
business interests. You belittle that with your facile remarks and
irreverence.
What I have been drawing attention to has nothing to do with
*ambiguity*. It has to do with knowing what one is talking about in such
a way that reliable predictions are possible.
Quine is renowned for his austerity when it comes to ontology.
To be/exist is to be the value of a variable.
The ignorant, uninformed and plain stupid think they can give the
intensional *values*. What makes them ignorant, uninformed and plain
stupid is that they don't realise that other folk in the reinforcing
community agree, *but ascribe DIFFERENT values*. This is anathema to
science. It is, at root, a problem of *logical quantification*, and that
means one should expect problems of rationality. I have gone to extreme
lengths not only to provide extensive empirical evidence to show just
this, but I have also practically demonstrated it by exploiting the
contingencies available to me in this limited medium to highlight how it
causes problems.
To the egocentric ignorami who believe otherwise we will hear no end of
how it must be otherwise - they argue with the research evidence because
they are sure *they* are rational.
--
David Longley
Acme Debugging
> In article <35fae540.03081...@posting.google.com>, Acme
> Debugging <L.F...@lycos.co.uk> writes
> >Quine does not rate my attention, from everything I've seen lately,
> >though at
> >one time in my life I remember reading him and I would also have
> >(probably severely) edited the content at that time. I recently
> >brushed up on some of his work on the ambiguities of language, and was
> >again impressed in the sense of academic logic, which has been out of
> >my focus for a very long time.
> >
> >Larry
>
comments.
> In the quote, the "as" before "homeopathically" is my erroneous
> insertion.
I hope that's not a sin or something.
>
> The book is published by Penguin
Ok. I lost my 10 - 1 bet.
>
> I suggest you read some of the reviews - e.g..
>
> "Quine is not only a great philosopher, but also a master of the English
> language.." London Review of Books.
>
"But also" is poor. It doesn't flow. Better would be:
"Quine is not just a great philosopher, he is a master of the English
language.." Shorter too. <smirk>
I demonstrated in the post you are replying to that the Quine piece
was a garbagy piece of rhetoric. You've refuted that by quoting an
authority. Why am I not surprised? An entity that doesn't think for
itself cannot program an entity that thinks for itself. It's a
universal law of programming.
Maybe Quine wrote fantastic poetry or vocabulary books like William
Buckley. But who cares. There is nobody here who doesn't know the
difference between long-winded, redundant, unobjective, masterful
Shakespearian rants and explanatory text.
>
> From what you write and your stated preferences, I guess you are here in
> the newsgroup solely for entertainment.
Translation: Larry is bad. Please ignore what he writes about my hero,
Quine.
> Sadly, there are issues at stake
> here which are as central to some people's careers and lives as your
> business interests.
Did my little blurb about running a business back in the 70's bother
you? I wonder why? That was eons ago. Now it's the 21st century, and
I've managed to keep myself busy with this and that, including
neutralizing privileged positions of posters like yourself, no doubt a
pesky bother as well.
> You belittle that with your facile remarks and
> irreverence.
Translation: Larry is bad. Please ignore what he writes about my
"revered" hero, Quine.
>
> What I have been drawing attention to has nothing to do with
> *ambiguity*.
American Heritage Dictionary: "1. Susceptible to multiple
interpretation. 2. Doubtful or uncertain."
Hope you don't mind me quoting a language authority accomplished
people rely on every day. Regardless, nobody doesn't know what
"ambiguity" means, and nobody wants to argue about it including me.
> It has to do with knowing what one is talking about in such
> a way that reliable predictions are possible.
Well you finally got half of my "rely" argument. Now you just need to
admit the existence of all those famous people in history who designed
and accomplished great technology without stumbling over every word
according to your misinterpretation of Quine's excellent work.
<snip>
>The ignorant, uninformed and plain stupid think they can give the
>intensional *values*. What makes them ignorant, uninformed and plain
>stupid is that they don't realise that other folk in the reinforcing
<snip>
Who are these "ignorant, uninformed and plain stupid" people? That
sounds quite excessive and uncharacteristically emotional if just
describing most of the accomplished posters in this group.
I think the original "ignorant, uninformed and plain stupid" people
may have been those *folk psychological* UK prison administrators
and/or politicians who, by your various accounts, dumped you and your
prison program, no doubt due to not extensionally "questioning their
experience" with you. Hope that doesn't conflict with your "employee
interests" Mr. Middle Management scientist who replaces thinking with
radical behavior. Seems Quine doesn't like politicians
any more than you. And you don't seem to like business administrators.
Nor do you seem to like people of accomplishment who rely on language
and their experience. Your misinterpretation of Quine would get you
out of that emotional-intellectual bind very nicely, if so.
Note that nowhere in the above did I say your prison program was a
failure. You may have been treated most unfairly in this or some other
experience in your life. That would explain the excessive anger that
comes out only when the heat is on.
I hear the quotemobile revving up...
Larry
David Longley
That's *your* translation - it wasn't what I said or meant at all. I see
no reason why you shouldn't be here solely for the fun of it. I see some
value in that, it helps keep a sense of balance.
>> Sadly, there are issues at stake
>> here which are as central to some people's careers and lives as your
>> business interests.
>
>Did my little blurb about running a business back in the 70's bother
>you? I wonder why? That was eons ago. Now it's the 21st century, and
>I've managed to keep myself busy with this and that, including
>neutralizing privileged positions of posters like yourself, no doubt a
>pesky bother as well.
I'm sure Curt has business interests, just as Dan does and I'm sure Bill
does. With some reservations about Dan (who I still hold out hope for)
these folk take what they have been posting quite seriously.
>
>> You belittle that with your facile remarks and
>> irreverence.
>
>Translation: Larry is bad. Please ignore what he writes about my
>"revered" hero, Quine.
There you go again. After a couple of decades or so working as a
psychologist I re-discovered somebody's work which as an undergraduate,
I had regarded as rather dry and academic. That re-discovery came after
doing quite well in the work I was doing (so I was told). What I have
done here is tried to share some of that re-discovery, and in a way that
I hope might help others appreciate it faster than I did. You have
probably had the opportunity to pick up what took me years of reading to
find.
>>
>> What I have been drawing attention to has nothing to do with
>> *ambiguity*.
>
>American Heritage Dictionary: "1. Susceptible to multiple
>interpretation. 2. Doubtful or uncertain."
It has nothing to do with anything so shallow.
>
>Hope you don't mind me quoting a language authority accomplished
>people rely on every day. Regardless, nobody doesn't know what
>"ambiguity" means, and nobody wants to argue about it including me.
I don't mind at all - but you are way off base.
>
>> It has to do with knowing what one is talking about in such
>> a way that reliable predictions are possible.
>
>Well you finally got half of my "rely" argument. Now you just need to
>admit the existence of all those famous people in history who designed
>and accomplished great technology without stumbling over every word
>according to your misinterpretation of Quine's excellent work.
And how is what I have QUOTED and demonstrated a "misinterpretation" of
Quine's work?
>
><snip>
>>The ignorant, uninformed and plain stupid think they can give the
>>intensional *values*. What makes them ignorant, uninformed and plain
>>stupid is that they don't realise that other folk in the reinforcing
><snip>
>
>Who are these "ignorant, uninformed and plain stupid" people? That
>sounds quite excessive and uncharacteristically emotional if just
>describing most of the accomplished posters in this group.
Cognitivists who are screwing up behaviour science, and who are
responsible for filling the heads of undergraduates with vacuous
nonsense which does nothing but translate common-sense folk psychology
into obscure academic terms which sound clever and say nothing.
>
>I think the original "ignorant, uninformed and plain stupid" people
>may have been those *folk psychological* UK prison administrators
>and/or politicians who, by your various accounts, dumped you and your
>prison program, no doubt due to not extensionally "questioning their
>experience" with you.
That's NOT the case. Most of the administrators were quite happy with me
personally, the problem was other psychologists! The reason why what I
proposed was not nationally implemented are only really known to the UK
Prison Service Prison Board, but I know that one substantial impediment
was other psychologists. They would not have taken to such work very
readily, and I upset them by saying as much. To make it work would have
required the creation of a Behaviour Science and Profiling Unit, and
this would have required the recruitment of people very different from
your mainstream psychology graduates.
> Hope that doesn't conflict with your "employee
>interests" Mr. Middle Management scientist who replaces thinking with
>radical behavior.
You'll have to rephrase that - I don't understand.
> Seems Quine doesn't like politicians
>any more than you. And you don't seem to like business administrators.
They both have their own jobs to do. The latter have to look to
resources and make practical decisions. Given the lack of resources and
the gamble required in trying to find enough behaviour orientated
psychologists prepared to do the work I outlined, I don't altogether
blame them. As to my personal situation - well, things are a little more
complex than you imply.
>Nor do you seem to like people of accomplishment who rely on language
>and their experience.
I don't know where you get that idea from.
> Your misinterpretation of Quine would get you
>out of that emotional-intellectual bind very nicely, if so.
>
What's this "misinterpretation" you keep nefariously bandying about?
>Note that nowhere in the above did I say your prison program was a
>failure.
It *was* a failure - it would only have been a success if it had been
implemented. Fighting the tide of "Cognitive Skill" programmes as an
instrument to bring down recidivism is a bit of a lost cause, but as
it's based on empirical data which I thought was not being seen for what
it was I've persisted. That particular field of application is just
personal though - the problem is far more extensive as Glen will attest.
It's the wider picture that matters.
> You may have been treated most unfairly in this or some other
>experience in your life. That would explain the excessive anger that
>comes out only when the heat is on.
No - you misunderstand and you really are trivializing matters. You seem
to have some well established prejudices here. How do you know I have
not been making these points for years? They are NOT a reaction to
anything other than what I perceive to be a gross distortion of what
works.
>
>I hear the quotemobile revving up...
>
>Larry
The extracts have been provided because if I can find someone who has
made the same point better than I can, I'll cite them.
--
David Longley
Eray Ozkural exa
Neil. Right on. You rock :)
Neil W Rickert <ricke...@cs.niu.edu> wrote in message news:<bh8gf3$47l$1...@husk.cso.niu.edu>...
Neil W Rickert
>In article <35fae540.0308...@posting.google.com>, Acme
>Debugging <L.F...@lycos.co.uk> writes
>><snip>
>>>The ignorant, uninformed and plain stupid think they can give the
>>>intensional *values*. What makes them ignorant, uninformed and plain
>>>stupid is that they don't realise that other folk in the reinforcing
>><snip>
>>Who are these "ignorant, uninformed and plain stupid" people? That
>>sounds quite excessive and uncharacteristically emotional if just
>>describing most of the accomplished posters in this group.
>Cognitivists who are screwing up behaviour science, and who are
>responsible for filling the heads of undergraduates with vacuous
>nonsense which does nothing but translate common-sense folk psychology
>into obscure academic terms which sound clever and say nothing.
You forgot to mention the radical behaviorists who are filling the
heads of a different set of undergraduates with their own vacuous
nonsense, which does nothing but translate common-sense psychology
into a different set of obscure academic terms that also say
nothing.
>>I think the original "ignorant, uninformed and plain stupid" people
>>may have been those *folk psychological* UK prison administrators
>>and/or politicians who, by your various accounts, dumped you and your
>>prison program, no doubt due to not extensionally "questioning their
>>experience" with you.
>That's NOT the case. Most of the administrators were quite happy with me
>personally, the problem was other psychologists! The reason why what I
>proposed was not nationally implemented are only really known to the UK
>Prison Service Prison Board, but I know that one substantial impediment
>was other psychologists. They would not have taken to such work very
>readily, and I upset them by saying as much. To make it work would have
>required the creation of a Behaviour Science and Profiling Unit, and
>this would have required the recruitment of people very different from
>your mainstream psychology graduates.
In other words, some genuine psychologists outed you as a
charlatan. So now you pollute c.a.p, where you can at least
maintain the self-delusion that you are a real scientist.
David Longley
Rickert <ricke...@cs.niu.edu> writes
>David Longley <Da...@longley.demon.co.uk> writes:
>>In article <35fae540.0308...@posting.google.com>, Acme
>>Debugging <L.F...@lycos.co.uk> writes
>
>>><snip>
>>>>The ignorant, uninformed and plain stupid think they can give the
>>>>intensional *values*. What makes them ignorant, uninformed and plain
>>>>stupid is that they don't realise that other folk in the reinforcing
>>><snip>
>
>>>Who are these "ignorant, uninformed and plain stupid" people? That
>>>sounds quite excessive and uncharacteristically emotional if just
>>>describing most of the accomplished posters in this group.
>
>>Cognitivists who are screwing up behaviour science, and who are
>>responsible for filling the heads of undergraduates with vacuous
>>nonsense which does nothing but translate common-sense folk psychology
>>into obscure academic terms which sound clever and say nothing.
>
>You forgot to mention the radical behaviorists who are filling the
>heads of a different set of undergraduates with their own vacuous
>nonsense, which does nothing but translate common-sense psychology
>into a different set of obscure academic terms that also say
>nothing.
>
I didn't forget at all - the research literature clearly shows the work
done by radical behaviourists to be useful both clinically and across a
wide range of biological research programmes.
You make contrary assertions - let's see how you substantiate them.
>>>I think the original "ignorant, uninformed and plain stupid" people
>>>may have been those *folk psychological* UK prison administrators
>>>and/or politicians who, by your various accounts, dumped you and your
>>>prison program, no doubt due to not extensionally "questioning their
>>>experience" with you.
>
>>That's NOT the case. Most of the administrators were quite happy with me
>>personally, the problem was other psychologists! The reason why what I
>>proposed was not nationally implemented are only really known to the UK
>>Prison Service Prison Board, but I know that one substantial impediment
>>was other psychologists. They would not have taken to such work very
>>readily, and I upset them by saying as much. To make it work would have
>>required the creation of a Behaviour Science and Profiling Unit, and
>>this would have required the recruitment of people very different from
>>your mainstream psychology graduates.
>
>In other words, some genuine psychologists outed you as a
>charlatan. So now you pollute c.a.p, where you can at least
>maintain the self-delusion that you are a real scientist.
>
Are you going to substantiate that?
--
David Longley
Acme Debugging
> In article <35fae540.0308...@posting.google.com>, Acme
> Debugging <L.F...@lycos.co.uk> writes
> >David Longley <Da...@longley.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
> >news:<udvQ4sDDr1O$Ew...@longley.demon.co.uk>...
> >> In article <35fae540.03081...@posting.google.com>, Acme
> >> Debugging <L.F...@lycos.co.uk> writes
>>
>
>>> What I have been drawing attention to has nothing to do with
>>> *ambiguity*.
>>
>>American Heritage Dictionary: "1. Susceptible to multiple
>>interpretation. 2. Doubtful or uncertain."
>
>It has nothing to do with anything so shallow.
<unsnipping> ...nobody wants to argue about it including me.
>>> It has to do with knowing what one is talking about in such
>>> a way that reliable predictions are possible.
>>
>>Well you finally got half of my "rely" argument. Now you just need
to
>>admit the existence of all those famous people in history who
designed
>>and accomplished great technology without stumbling over every word
>>according to your misinterpretation of Quine's excellent work.
>
>And how is what I have QUOTED and demonstrated a "misinterpretation"
of
>Quine's work?
Your misinterpretation is that language is unreliable without your
special knowledge.
<snip>
>There you go again. After a couple of decades or so working as a
>psychologist I re-discovered somebody's work which as an
undergraduate,
>I had regarded as rather dry and academic. That re-discovery came
after
>doing quite well in the work I was doing (so I was told). What I have
>done here is tried to share some of that re-discovery, and in a way
that
>I hope might help others appreciate it faster than I did. You have
>probably had the opportunity to pick up what took me years of reading
to
>find.
Replace "re-discovery" with "revelation." "doing quite well...I was
told" with "I have special ability." "Years of reading" with "special
ability to see." "Help others" with 8 years of dogmatic repetition. Of
course those are not your words, they are the implication or result of
your words. It is the language of a prophet. Just one example among
many.
>>
>><snip>
>>
>>I think the original "ignorant, uninformed and plain stupid" people
>>may have been those *folk psychological* UK prison administrators
>>and/or politicians who, by your various accounts, dumped you and
your
>>prison program, no doubt due to not extensionally "questioning their
>>experience" with you.
>
>That's NOT the case. Most of the administrators were quite happy with
me
>personally, the problem was other psychologists!
Ok. I stand corrected!
>
>>Note that nowhere in the above did I say your prison program was a
>>failure.
>
>It *was* a failure - it would only have been a success if it had been
>implemented. Fighting the tide of "Cognitive Skill" programmes as an
>instrument to bring down recidivism is a bit of a lost cause, but as
Ok, thanks for clarifying that. I believe I now remember you saying as
much before.
>
>> You may have been treated most unfairly in this or some other
>>experience in your life. That would explain the excessive anger that
>>comes out only when the heat is on.
>
>No - you misunderstand and you really are trivializing matters. You
seem
>to have some well established prejudices here.
My prejudice is that describing a group of accomplished posters in
this newsgroup as "ignorant, uninformed and plain stupid" just in
response to my criticism of a trivial Quine piece is excessive in my
view. If you had just used it to describe me, I would have understood
it as a reaction to my criticism of Quine. Thus, I try to look for an
explanation. I try to define the problem. It's my nature. In my
experience, excessive anger often stems from a perception of
failure due to unfair treatment, and the obvious first choice would be
your prison work. So I thought I would test that idea. Maybe it is
anger transferred to posters in this group who you identify with those
cognitive psychologists, and that is the explanation. I think you have
said as much, but don't know for sure.
Larry
>--
>David Longley
David Longley
I've said on a number of occasions that unless you are quoting me, what
you assert about my beliefs is *your* interpretation, your translation.
You now claim what? That I've said that language is unreliable without
my special knowledge?
What I have said is that there are problems with the intensional idioms,
and that these problems become particularly acute when one is working on
scientific and engineering projects. This is particularly so with
"Artificial Intelligence".
>
><snip>
>
>>There you go again. After a couple of decades or so working as a
>>psychologist I re-discovered somebody's work which as an
>undergraduate,
>>I had regarded as rather dry and academic. That re-discovery came
>after
>>doing quite well in the work I was doing (so I was told). What I have
>>done here is tried to share some of that re-discovery, and in a way
>that
>>I hope might help others appreciate it faster than I did. You have
>>probably had the opportunity to pick up what took me years of reading
>to
>>find.
>
>Replace "re-discovery" with "revelation." "doing quite well...I was
>told" with "I have special ability." "Years of reading" with "special
>ability to see." "Help others" with 8 years of dogmatic repetition. Of
>course those are not your words, they are the implication or result of
>your words. It is the language of a prophet. Just one example among
>many.
Call it what you like - and over recent years I've not used this
newsgroup at all (I've posted here over the past four months in fact,
and at the time, it inactive).
Either you have found what I have posted true, informative and
interesting or you haven't. In Either case, you should look up "the
genetic fallacy".
I wasn't referring to you *or* any other posters in this newsgroup. By
"Cognitivists" I am referring to professional Cognitive Scientists who
are in my view, corrupting psychology as a science. It may well apply to
people using this newsgroup - but that wasn't why I said what I said.
The fact that you tend to trivialize these issues is not really all that
important.
> If you had just used it to describe me, I would have understood
>it as a reaction to my criticism of Quine.
No Larry - let's be quite clear on this. I think you flatter yourself
and have a rather high opinion of yourself. That's fine - most of the
self-aggrandisement I can just dismiss as a personal foible. I haven't
read anything form you which shows much of an interest or understanding
of what I have written, and you don't have to. I *do* think you are
pretty ignorant though - I suggest you spend some time reading material
and it's pretty clear you don't bother. The issues being discussed go a
lot deeper than I think you are prepared to look. But you tell me this
ignorance is just lack of interest - Quine's not in your focus, nor is
"academic logic" <??>
> Thus, I try to look for an
>explanation. I try to define the problem. It's my nature. In my
>experience, excessive anger often stems from a perception of
>failure due to unfair treatment, and the obvious first choice would be
>your prison work.
Spare me the psychoanalysis - I'd be saying these things regardless (I
was saying them as far back as 1987 on an internal network I set up, and
by 1991 I was merit promoted to top of my grade as a psychologist). None
of that really matters. There *is* a problem out there, and it's bigger
than any problems or successes I had with the UK Prison Service.
>So I thought I would test that idea. Maybe it is
>anger transferred to posters in this group who you identify with those
>cognitive psychologists, and that is the explanation. I think you have
>said as much, but don't know for sure.
>
>Larry
>
>>--
>>David Longley
OK, a seemingly honest question. The answer is *no* it was not aimed at
posters to this newsgroup. I do find a lot of what I am reading in this
newsgroup quite offensive - and in the past I've put a lot of that down
to ignorance.
I've gone a long way to correct that ignorance by providing primary
source material and references - I can't correct plain stupidity.
Take that as you will.
--
David Longley
David Longley
<Da...@longley.demon.co.uk> writes
<LF>
>>
>>Replace "re-discovery" with "revelation." "doing quite well...I was
>>told" with "I have special ability." "Years of reading" with "special
>>ability to see." "Help others" with 8 years of dogmatic repetition. Of
>>course those are not your words, they are the implication or result of
>>your words. It is the language of a prophet. Just one example among
>>many.
>
<DL>
>Call it what you like - and over recent years I've not used this
>newsgroup at all (I've posted here over the past four months in fact,
>and at the time, it inactive).
>
That should have been "and at the time I began posting, it was
inactive/low in activity).
What I think the last few months demonstrates very clearly is how
difficult most people find it is to NOT fabricate. Folk psychology is so
short on facts and genuine predictive utility that it turns to a priori
heuristics which are little more than cliches, canned speech acts which
the authors hope will fill the intensional void as a modus vivendi. As
I have said before, "Cognitive Science" purports to study how folk "go
beyond the information given" without, in my view, appreciating the
extent to which this is not amenable to reliable scientific
investigation.
The alternative sounds simple, is austere, is far more useful in fact,
but requires a level of discipline which most folk simply can not master
or sustain. The reinforcing community largely sees to that.
--
David Longley
Acme Debugging
> In article <35fae540.03081...@posting.google.com>, Acme
> Debugging <L.F...@lycos.co.uk> writes
> >David Longley <Da...@longley.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
> >news:<OYjI5$F2vhP$Ew...@longley.demon.co.uk>...
> >> In article <35fae540.0308...@posting.google.com>, Acme
> >> Debugging <L.F...@lycos.co.uk> writes
> >> >David Longley <Da...@longley.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
> >> >news:<udvQ4sDDr1O$Ew...@longley.demon.co.uk>...
> >
> >>>> a way that reliable predictions are possible.
> >>>
> >>>Well you finally got half of my "rely" argument. Now you just need
> to
> >>>admit the existence of all those famous people in history who
> designed
> >>>and accomplished great technology without stumbling over every word
> >>>according to your misinterpretation of Quine's excellent work.
> >>
> >>And how is what I have QUOTED and demonstrated a "misinterpretation"
> of
> >>Quine's work?
> >
> >Your misinterpretation is that language is unreliable without your
> >special knowledge.
>
> I've said on a number of occasions that unless you are quoting me, what
> you assert about my beliefs is *your* interpretation, your translation.
> You now claim what? That I've said that language is unreliable without
> my special knowledge?
>
> >>>> It has to do with knowing what one is talking about in such
> >>>> a way that reliable predictions are possible.
That "such a way" can only be your various assertions about language via Quine.
Larry
David Longley
michaels <d...@oricomtech.com> writes>news:<GdiaonEzx0P$Ew...@longley.demon.co.uk>...
>
>
>> What I have said is that there are problems with the intensional idioms,
>> and that these problems become particularly acute when one is working on
>> scientific and engineering projects. This is particularly so with
>> "Artificial Intelligence".
>>
>
>about AI on this forum.
>============================
>
>
>By
>> "Cognitivists" I am referring to professional Cognitive Scientists who
>> are in my view, corrupting psychology as a science.
>> No Larry - let's be quite clear on this. I think you flatter yourself
>> and have a rather high opinion of yourself. That's fine - most of the
>> self-aggrandisement I can just dismiss as a personal foible.
>I *do* think you are
>> pretty ignorant though - I suggest you spend some time reading material
>> and it's pretty clear you don't bother. The issues being discussed go a
>> lot deeper than I think you are prepared to look. But you tell me this
>> ignorance is just lack of interest - Quine's not in your focus, nor is
>> "academic logic" <??>
>>
> I do find a lot of what I am reading in this
>> newsgroup quite offensive - and in the past I've put a lot of that down
>> to ignorance.
>>
>> I've gone a long way to correct that ignorance by providing primary
>> source material and references - I can't correct plain stupidity.
>>
>
>
>self-aggrandising, ignorant, lazy, and stupid ..." [see above DL
>quotes] is certainly not in the same league as offensive. At least
>you're not directly abusive, David. You get credit for that bit.
>
>And the word for today is ... 1-way street.
I'm describing behaviour - (and you've slipped in quotes and words
there), rendering what you've said inaccurate.
Take my descriptions as accurate and apposite.
What I've explained about the intensional (and illustrated) is the tip
of the iceberg. The material which is worth reading and understanding
(and Glen's contributions are a good example), require one to talk about
these matters in a different way.
For some research which may well pay good dividends:
http://www.biozentrum.uni-wuerzburg.de/~rewolf/
Although even here the brain looks rather daunting in its complexity.
I arrived at this whilst looking for material relevant to Bill's message
claiming that initial visual pathway development etc could not be
accounted for by operant conditioning. Recalling some discussions back
in the early 80s I looked up their more recent work on Xenopus and
tectal mapping (Udin & Grant "Plasticity in the Tectum of Xenopus
Laevis: Binocular Maps" 1999). This is led me to e-mail a chap who
specialises on bee learning and then to the work on Drosophila and
Operant Conditioning.
--
David Longley
David Longley
I have explained and illustrated how it is that serious problems arise
when one uses intensional language. The alternative is not my "special
knowledge", in fact, it's the opposite - it's the language of science.
--
David Longley
David Longley
michaels <d...@oricomtech.com> writes
>David Longley <Da...@longley.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
>words there), rendering what you've said as self-referential.
Nonsense - As I said before, your reading of what I have said is as
inaccurate and confabulated as your reading and reporting of Brooks.
You're just another magpie.
Until you learn to respect some of the things I've pointed out to you,
that's all you'll ever be.
--
David Longley
David Longley
michaels <d...@oricomtech.com> writes
>David Longley <Da...@longley.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
>
>
>> >
>> >I was describing your behavior - (by slipping in your own quotes and
>> >words there), rendering what you've said as self-referential.
>>
>> Nonsense - As I said before, your reading of what I have said is as
>> inaccurate and confabulated as your reading and reporting of Brooks.
>>
>> You're just another magpie.
>>
>> Until you learn to respect some of the things I've pointed out to you,
>> that's all you'll ever be.
>
>
>after the crow. Please choose an insult that doesn't involve our state
>bird.
>
>And I simply quoted your own large effluent of insults from 2 msgs
>ago. Verbal behavior from DL. Once your words are out in cyberspace
>... you can't ever deny you said them. Marked for eternity.
OK, why note quote me then, cut and paste what I said and show everyone.
You have a serious retention problem (amongst other faults).
When you quote someone, you don't take words from different sentences
and paste them together into something they didn't actually say, nor do
you splice in words which they didn't use. You do this when you read as
well, that's why you end up with such simplistic tabloid ideas. I've
pointed out how several of you have been doing this sort of thing in
this newsgroup and elsewhere. I pointed it out in an effort to teach you
something quite fundamental about the nature of "cognition". Do you
understand anything I have been saying over the past three months?
--
David Longley
Acme Debugging
> when one uses intensional language. The alternative is not my "special
> knowledge", in fact, it's the opposite - it's the language of science.
You don't acknowledge a language of science by consensus. You are
constantly criticizing the consensus. So your distinction between some
consensus about the language of science and your special knowledge
doesn't work. You are just replacing your special knowledge of "such a
way as to make language reliable" with a special knowledge of the
"language of science." You're just restating your terms. It changes
nothing.
Most interesting is your substitution of "serious problems" for
"unreliable." It is interesting because the key issue is the ambiguity
of language, and that Quine's work identified *imperfections* in
language rather than your interpretation that language is
*unreliable.* But *imperfections* doesn't work for you as a device to
gain privileged position in your arguments with other posters, because
they would just say, "Oh, sure, my language is imperfect. So what?"
To gain the privileged position, your adversary's language must be
*unreliable.* But whenever you use *unreliable* or equivalent, Larry
zonks you with the "famous people," or common usage examples of how
people "rely" successfully on language, which cannot be reconciled
with your assertion of unreliability. So now it seems you are trying
out the term *serious problems* which is somewhat more than
*imperfect* but somewhat less than *unreliable.* It is really
interesting from a logic perspective to see how you play with the
terms in an argument. You think you are making yourself a moving
target. I think you are only digging yourself in deeper.
Why did you replace "knowing what one is talking about" with
"intensional?" Are these changes to the terms of your argument what
you call the language of science?
Why have you not addressed the "famous people" mentioned at the top
after so many exchanges. You find plenty of fault with everything
else. Those "famous people" exist, they did accomplish technology, and
they didn't know you or (as now revised) your special knowledge of the
"language of science." So your statement that "reliable predictions
are possible" only upon your "such a way" or special knowledge of the
language of science via Quine is an obvious contradiction.
Holding out specific work on AI semantics, I count three reasons why
there is *no problem to solve* of language ambiguity in our newsgroup
posting, i.e. in our arguments about science and AI.
1. Ask for clarification upon confusion.
Common everyday usage is a part, usually the major part, of most
tasks, and certainly in newsgroup posting. There is no great "cost of
being wrong" and confusion is almost always recognized and can be
easily clarified.
2. Special words within a task.
It's not a problem for one person to remind another of the "special
words." It is only a problem when that person claims unique knowledge
about what the special words are. The special words are by definition
consensus words, not words of someone who read some philosophy and
"saw" the meaning that others cannot see. That is pure nonsense.
Nothing would work if that were the case. Everyone would have their
favorite philosopher or psychologist or linguist and their own special
words. And it applies equally to scientific theory or any task,
especially if the person is using it to enforce a point of view with
his colleagues, i.e. as a privileged position.
3. Not adding to the confusion.
You often replace common usage words that are perfectly adequate in
context that everyone agrees with like "ambiguity" with your own
terminology that people disagree with. It only adds to the confusion
and causes disruption. You make more and more distinctions, based more
and more on the philosophy of Quine that people disgree with, but like
the legal code, only create a tower of babble. It is no problem to
suggest a new word to the group. It is only a problem when the new
word is rejected by a substantial portion of the group, thus making it
unuseful as a special word.
Anyway, that's the way I see it. :-)
Larry
David Longley
And I spent time showing you (and others) how to see things differently.
All the above shows me is that that time was wasted.
--
David Longley
David Longley
I've spent time showing you (and others) how to see things differently.
All the above shows me is that that time was wasted, and that you, like
several others, prefer to have your preconceptions reinforced.
There's no news there for me.
--
David Longley
David Longley
michaels <d...@oricomtech.com> writes
>David Longley <Da...@longley.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
>> In article <4b4b6093.03081...@posting.google.com>, dan
>> michaels <d...@oricomtech.com> writes
>> >David Longley <Da...@longley.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
>> >news:<jY4DJpElXRQ$Eww$@longley.demon.co.uk>...
>> >
>> >
>> >> >
>> >> >I was describing your behavior - (by slipping in your own quotes and
>> >> >words there), rendering what you've said as self-referential.
>> >>
>> >> Nonsense - As I said before, your reading of what I have said is as
>> >> inaccurate and confabulated as your reading and reporting of Brooks.
>> >>
>> >> You're just another magpie.
>> >>
>> >> Until you learn to respect some of the things I've pointed out to you,
>> >> that's all you'll ever be.
>> >
>> >
>> >Hey, watch it, mister. The magpie is the state bird of colorado. Right
>> >after the crow. Please choose an insult that doesn't involve our state
>> >bird.
>> >
>> >And I simply quoted your own large effluent of insults from 2 msgs
>> >ago. Verbal behavior from DL. Once your words are out in cyberspace
>> >... you can't ever deny you said them. Marked for eternity.
>>
>>
>> OK, why note quote me then, cut and paste what I said and show everyone.
>>
>>
>> You have a serious retention problem (amongst other faults).
>>
>
>
No.. you THINK it was a cut and paste.
Go ahead and prove what you say if you are so sure, quote the whole
message with header.
I have repeatedly used this behaviour as a canonical example of all that
is wrong with cognitivism and implicit folk-psychology That is, I have
warned you and others by using empirical illustrations from your own
behaviours of the consequences of NOT taking the extensional stance. You
and others in this newsgroup do this through using folk psychological
idioms so un-self-critically that you turn what your behaviour into
creative writing.
You then judge each others contributions on the basis of how stimulating
you find them.
You, like several other vociferous posters to this newsgroup have no
grasp of science or the nature of truth.
You are oblivious to the facts of all of this - which sadly is a
reflection of your verbal behaviour skills - specifically, your reading
and writing abilities.
--
David Longley
David Longley
>news:<fa69ae35.03080...@posting.google.com>...
>> I came across an interesting work on philosophy:
>>
>> http://www.cfh.ufsc.br/~lhdutra/ar-qr.html
>>
>> This would suggest that Quine later dropped the behavioral analysis
>> view in Word and Object. In fact, his view that "both physicalist and
>> mentalist talks are inescapable for us human beings" is an excellent
>> observation that I agree with in my protocol-stack theory of mind.
>>
>> As you recall I also proposed a "number of naivete in subjectivity". I
>> had awarded high naivete scores to David and other minions of Skinner.
>>
>> I don't know if he has an english version of the whole work.
>> Anyway....
>>
>> Abstract
>>
>>
>> In his more recent reflections about the mind Quine argues that man is
>> a ?forked animal.' According to this view both physicalist and
>> mentalist talks are inescapable for us human beings. This doctrine
>> about the forked character of human language and mind is presented at
>> the same time Quine acquiesces in both Davidson's anomalous monism and
>> Dennett's theory of intentional systems. Quine gives up the
>> behavioristic stance he adopted in his Word and Object period. In
>> this paper I will examine these doctrines and argue that Quine's view
>> on our forked character is to be construed along with his doctrine
>> about the biological roots of human language he presented in previous
>> works. In addition to this, I will try to show that Quine's theory is
>> not fully compatible either with Davidson's or with Dennett's
>> doctrines
>
>
>Re "... both physicalist and mentalist talks are inescapable for us
>human beings ..."
>
>If this is true, and I suspect it is, then Quine simply had recourse
>in his later years to reflect back upon 30 or 40 years of neuroscience
>research, and to modify his early theories accordingly.
>
>Of course, this is the way science is supposed to work.
If we didn't do it, how could we point out the intensional !
--
David Longley
Acme Debugging
> In article <35fae540.03081...@posting.google.com>, Acme
> Debugging <L.F...@lycos.co.uk> writes
> >David Longley <Da...@longley.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
> >news:<Xi$u3oD7TKQ$Ew...@longley.demon.co.uk>...
> >> In article <35fae540.03081...@posting.google.com>, Acme
> >> Debugging <L.F...@lycos.co.uk> writes
> >> >David Longley <Da...@longley.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
> >> >news:<GdiaonEzx0P$Ew...@longley.demon.co.uk>...
> >> >> In article <35fae540.03081...@posting.google.com>, Acme
> >> >> Debugging <L.F...@lycos.co.uk> writes
> >> >> >David Longley <Da...@longley.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
> >> >> >news:<OYjI5$F2vhP$Ew...@longley.demon.co.uk>...
> >> >> >> In article <35fae540.0308...@posting.google.com>, Acme
> >> >> >> Debugging <L.F...@lycos.co.uk> writes
> >> >> >> >David Longley <Da...@longley.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
> >> >> >> >news:<udvQ4sDDr1O$Ew...@longley.demon.co.uk>...
> >>
in the interest of *not winning* but learning, I will become "Larry 2"
to argue for your side, and this can wrap it up here as far as I'm
concerned.
>>>
>>> >> >>>> It has to do with knowing what one is talking about in
such
>>> >> >>>> a way that reliable predictions are possible.
>>> >> >>>
>>> >> >>>Well you finally got half of my "rely" argument. Now you
just need
>>> to
>>> >> >>>admit the existence of all those famous people in history
who
>>> designed
>>> >> >>>and accomplished great technology without stumbling over
every word
>>> >> >>>according to your misinterpretation of Quine's excellent
work.
>>> >> >>
>>> >> >>And how is what I have QUOTED and demonstrated a
"misinterpretation"
>>> of
>>> >> >>Quine's work?
>>> >> >
>>> >> >Your misinterpretation is that language is unreliable without
your
>>> >> >special knowledge.
L2: But everybody has "special knowledge" unless they grew up in a
closet! That is the purpose of this group! To share our knowledge! DL
never claimed all language to be unreliable, just that sometimes it
is. One of the things he feels he has to offer is some insights about
language from a great deal of particular study of Quine and others. He
thinks this would help make scientific discussions *more* reliable.
Regarding DL's statement "It has to do with knowing what one is
talking about in such a way that reliable predictions are possible." -
I admit that sounds like he's saying reliability is impossible without
improvement. So what? DL is making 5+ posts a day. 'Scuse us if our
explanations are not *perfect* in every post, and don't meet the
standards of *perfect* posters like yourself!
>>> >>
>>> >> I've said on a number of occasions that unless you are quoting
me, what
>>> >> you assert about my beliefs is *your* interpretation, your
translation.
>>> >> You now claim what? That I've said that language is unreliable
without
>>> >> my special knowledge?
>>> >>
>>> >I was referring to your own words from above:
>>> >
>>> >> >>>> It has to do with knowing what one is talking about in
such
>>> >> >>>> a way that reliable predictions are possible.
>>> >
>>> >That "such a way" can only be your various assertions about
language
>>> >via Quine.
>>> >
>>> I have explained and illustrated how it is that serious problems
arise
>>> when one uses intensional language. The alternative is not my
"special
>>> knowledge", in fact, it's the opposite - it's the language of
science.
L2: I'm sure DL meant an "improved language of science" due to Quine's
efforts and others.
>>
>>You don't acknowledge a language of science by consensus. You are
>>constantly criticizing the consensus.
L2: No, just criticizing certain scientific terminology that DL thinks
could be improved. If he can convince most people that it is a real
improvement, then there would be a concensus. Isn't that how "special
words within a task" are chosen in the first place? Doesn't someone
make the original suggestion? Isn't "philosophy" in the group title?
>>
>>Most interesting is your substitution of "serious problems" for
>>"unreliable." It is interesting because the key issue is the
ambiguity
>>of language, and that Quine's work identified *imperfections* in
>>language rather than your interpretation that language is
>>*unreliable.* But *imperfections* doesn't work for you as a device
to
>>gain privileged position in your arguments with other posters,
because
>>they would just say, "Oh, sure, my language is imperfect. So what?"
L2: That DL is trying to gain a privileged position is a fact not in
evidence. That DL has gained a privileged position with any poster is
a fact not in evidence. Almost everyone says something now and then
that can imply that they have a privileged position, sometimes
inadvertently - DL is no different. Besides, if we have devoted
particular study to a certain area, most posters will grant an
assumption that we have some degree of authority with respect to it,
pending some demonstration for or against.
>>
>>To gain the privileged position, your adversary's language must be
>>*unreliable.* But whenever you use *unreliable* or equivalent, Larry
>>zonks you with the "famous people," or common usage examples of how
>>people "rely" successfully on language, which cannot be reconciled
>>with your assertion of unreliability.
L2: I repeat that DL doesn't claim all language is unreliable. He only
claims that reliability can be improved.
>> So now it seems you are trying
>>out the term *serious problems* which is somewhat more than
>>*imperfect* but somewhat less than *unreliable.* It is really
>>interesting from a logic perspective to see how you play with the
>>terms in an argument.
L2: You are splitting hairs that aren't there, since DL never claimed
all language is reliable, nor all scientific language. Only that it
can be improved. If DL thinks there is a case of confusion that goes
unnoticed or unclarified, then he thinks somebody may waste their
valuable time or other poster's time. That could be a *serious
problem."
>> You think you are making yourself a moving
>>target. I think you are only digging yourself in deeper.
L2: You have no way of knowing what DL thinks.
>>
>>Why did you replace "knowing what one is talking about" with
>>"intensional?" Are these changes to the terms of your argument what
>>you call the language of science?
L2: Maybe DL was just using plain language in favor of simpletons like
yourself! But in the next post he chose to use what he thinks is a
more precise word.
>>
>>Why have you not addressed the "famous people" mentioned at the top
>>after so many exchanges. You find plenty of fault with everything
>>else. Those "famous people" exist, they did accomplish technology,
and
>>they didn't know you or (as now revised) your special knowledge of
the
>>"language of science." So your statement that "reliable predictions
>>are possible" only upon your "such a way" or special knowledge of
the
>>language of science via Quine is an obvious contradiction.
L2: I repeat, DL is not saying people have not accomplished great
technology. He is only saying reliability of language could be
improved.
>>
>>You often replace common usage words that are perfectly adequate in
>>context that everyone agrees with like "ambiguity" with your own
>>terminology that people disagree with.
L2: What terminology do people disagree with? I haven't noticed that,
except from you. Maybe you like simple language. DL has spent a lot of
time on his vocabulary and he can decide which of his words are most
appropriate.
>>
>>Anyway, that's the way I see it. :-)
>>
>>Larry
Yah, well that's the way I see it! 8-)
Larry 2.
>
>And I spent time showing you (and others) how to see things
differently.
>All the above shows me is that that time was wasted.
>
I think you must see something of value in Quine's work that at least
I don't see. But I think your message suffers in its delivery. In my
case at least, examples would help a lot. If I saw a "before" and
"after" example where the language was made more reliable, and it was
something new, I would have learned something.
Larry
>--
>David Longley
David Longley
Larry 1 should listen to Larry 2 a little more.
The following is for Larry 2:
'Finding right words of my own to communicate another's
saying is a problem of translation. The words I use in the
particular case may be viewed as products of my total theory
(however vague and subject to correction) of what the
originating speaker means by anything he says: such a theory
is indistinguishable from a characterization of a truth
predicate, with his language as object language and mine as
metalanguage. The crucial point is that there will be equally
acceptable alternative theories which differ in assigning
clearly non-synonymous sentences of mine as translations of
his same utterance. This is Quine's thesis of the
indeterminacy of translation.'
D. Davidson p.100
'Much of what is called for is to mechanize as far as
possible what we now do by art when we put ordinary English
into one or another canonical notation. The point is not that
canonical notation is better than the rough original idiom,
but rather that if we know what idiom the canonical notation
is for, we have as good a theory for the idiom as for its
kept companion.'
D. Davidson (1967)
Truth and Meaning
'..the meaning of words are abstractions from the truth
conditions of sentences that contain them.'
W.V.O. Quine (1981)
The Five Milestones of Empiricism: Theories and Things p.69
--
David Longley
David Longley
michaels <d...@oricomtech.com> writes
>David Longley <Da...@longley.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
>
>> >> >> You're just another magpie.
>
>>
>> grasp of science or the nature of truth.
>>
>> You are oblivious to the facts of all of this - which sadly is a
>> reflection of your verbal behaviour skills - specifically, your reading
>> and writing abilities.
>
>
>postings. Like using UV lamps to kill skin bacteria.
That sounds rather complimentary ! (though it could just be more
evidence of the poor writing abilities <g>)
Here's hoping the above means that we can now hope to see less of the
misrepresentation, misquotations and other signs of intensional
infestation in the future.
--
David Longley
Bill Modlin
'..the meaning of words are abstractions from the truth
conditions of sentences that contain them.'
W.V.O. Quine (1981)
The Five Milestones of Empiricism: Theories and Things p.69
Each of us makes our own abstractions of words, sentences, and truths. We
employ similar innate heuristics in making these abstractions, but as the
details of the experience from which we abstract meaning vary from
individual to individual, so do the internal results. Each of us constructs
a private internal "web of belief", which may differ in arbitrary ways from
that of any other individual. We map between words and regions of our
internal webs: since the defining webs differ, words and sentences have
different meanings for each user of the language.
One result is that translations from one set of words to another are
uncertain, as discussed by Davidson in a quotation included by Longley in
the same posting:
'Finding right words of my own to communicate another's
saying is a problem of translation. The words I use in the
particular case may be viewed as products of my total theory
(however vague and subject to correction) of what the
originating speaker means by anything he says: such a theory
is indistinguishable from a characterization of a truth
predicate, with his language as object language and mine as
metalanguage. The crucial point is that there will be equally
acceptable alternative theories which differ in assigning
clearly non-synonymous sentences of mine as translations of
his same utterance. This is Quine's thesis of the
indeterminacy of translation.'
D. Davidson p.100
This is undeniably a problem. We can never be certain of what another
really means by his words, or even that his words have a meaning which can
be mapped to our own internal structures. So any translation we make to a
new set of words of our own introduces some uncertainty, and successive
translations through a series of individuals can mutate the original message
beyond recognition.
Longley appears to internalize the message delivered by Quine and Davidson
and others in a way that influences his own utterances according to a rule
which I abstract and translate approximately into "indirect quotation is
always bad".
What this misses is that direct quotation is in itself subject to inherent
uncertainty in translation. The words quoted are themselves an uncertain
translation of the speakers original intent, and are subject to further
uncertainty in their translation to internal understanding of the hearer.
We do not avoid uncertainty by direct quotation, we simply encourage
consistency of error.
The only tool we have for reducing uncertainty is indirect quotation:
rewording, paraphrasing, restating in new terms from a different
perspective.
If I read a passage, say from one of Quine's works, I translate it into my
own internal understanding. This translation may improve somewhat on
subsequent readings: I may notice some aspects of his words that escaped
notice at first glance. But while a more careful reading may at first
improve my understanding, there is nothing about continued study of the same
words which ensures convergence toward accurate understanding of their
original intent. Indeed, with intense study of a given passage I may come
to read into it subtlety of meaning far beyond that intended: eventually I
will over-interpret the passage and imbue it with significance related only
to my own idiosyncratic internal web of belief. My internal translation of
any particular set of words ultimately diverges from original intent, rather
than converging.
The only cure for the problem is liberal application of indirect quotation.
If my intent is to understand what Quine intends I may read other works of
his, other passages in which he provides alternative translations of his
internal meanings into different words. Each of these alternatives
provides a new set of fuzzy constraints on the original intent, and by
matching up many different points in my web to his words I can reduce the
uncertainty of translation of each of the original passages. I extract his
message from the redundant aspects of many different translations, and the
more translations I have to work with, the more certain I may become of the
message.
What may not be obvious at first glance is that indirect quotations by
others may be more informative to me of Quine's intent than his own
re-statements of his thoughts. Quine will tend to be consistent in his
translations of certain of his thoughts to words, and I will tend to be
consistent in my own translations of those words to understanding. Errors
in these consistent mappings will never be corrected by reading Quine. If
I am given access to other translations by independent observers of his
words, I may be confronted with conflicts which reveal inconsistencies in my
direct interpretation, which force me to adjust my reading. It is not
that another paraphrase of Quine will be more accurate than mine or Quine's,
but that its pattern of ambiguities will be different, allowing clearer
discrimination of the persistent or redundant aspects of the message.
Far from being always bad, it appears to me that indirect quotation is
necessary to the communication of meaning, and that direct quotation can
play at best a minimal supporting role.
Bill Modlin
Lukasz Stafiniak
I'm new to this group; I've found something interesting down here:
Bill Modlin <mod...@metrocast.net> wrote in the message
news:RUCdnd12Zpr...@metrocast.net...
<snip of the conversation going on>
>
> I'm not talking about cognitive notions. That's what I would like you
(and
> Glen) to recognize: that you are mistakenly lumping some extensional
> functions (heuristics and heuristically based categorical
discriminations)
> with "cognitive notions", and thus refusing to consider their necessary
> place in a coherent theory of "how brains work".
>
<snip>
>
> There is nothing "cognitive", there is no "intensionality", in a theory
that
> neurons in the brain adapt to discernible features of the statistical
> behavior of the ensemble of signals available to them as accessible
inputs.
> It is not "mentalism" to explore, either by abstract reasoning and math or
> with computer modelling, the results of such adaptations. And it does not
> render these things less extensional if I characterize the result as the
> discrimination of heuristically derived categories of (broadly
interpreted)
> experience.
>
This comment isn't important, unless you care to correct me, for sure I'm
seriously wrong, or worse -- not even wrong (I'll learn more when I have
time):
As I See It, It is actually a difficulty of the kind: "top-down" vs.
"bottom-up" AI, mind-body dualism. The neurobiology describes brain as a
mechanism (thus taking for granted the "physicists" ontology: particle,
action, cause, quantity, signal transfer, response); the behaviourism
abstracts over the brain (black-box approach), chopes reality into chunks
called object, stimuli, reaction -- mechanistic ontology + "higher-order"
descriptive structures (the trouble is to
have them as complicated as needed and yet stay mechanistic); the
functionalism or cognitivism apply the works of logicians somehow "the other
way": while logicians analysed our thinking and developed the ontology for
the world to convey what they learned of how we can know something (is
true), reason about the world etc., cognitivists turn this ontological model
of reality into functional model of the brain (since when we think about the
world we represent it in our heads). (The trouble may be that ontology isn't
something that perhaps exists and can be falsified, it is a framework and
can be "falsified" by not proving useful.)
<snip>
>
> A network of elements capable of implementing N instances of some
> Boolean-complete set of primitive functions is a "universal function
> approximator", theoretically capable of performing any function
expressible
> in fewer than N terms, with appropriate selection of functions at each
node.
>
> It takes a certain amount of information to select the appropriate
function
> for each element, and the information is different for each non-redundant
> term of the desired overall function.
>
> I think each of you has accepted the information theoretic argument that
the
> information available from DNA is bounded, and that there cannot be enough
> information in DNA to account for the individuation of each neuron into
> performance of a specific function in the brain.
>
> What you have not yet fully appreciated is that the information available
in
> feedback about any output of a network is also bounded, by the information
> available in that output.
>
> The effective outputs of the brain, those which have an effect which might
> generate feedback, are funneled through a small percentage of the
peripheral
> cells in the network: most internal cells do not directly produce outputs
> which could generate feedback.
>
> This means that there cannot be enough information in outputs, and
therefore
> there cannot be enough information in feedback, to account for all that
> internal individuation either.
>
> The sum of all the information in DNA plus all the information from all
> conceivable sources of environmental feedback, is dramatically smaller
than
> that necessary to account for the individuation of neural functions known
to
> occur in the brain.
>
> (I can go into more detail if you wish. But that's the gist of the
> argument.)
>
> The inescapable conclusion is that most of the individuation into specific
> functions is driven by information which does not originate in DNA nor
from
> feedback. In other words, the information comes from general inputs not
> caused by the actions of the net.
>
> More specifically: We cannot learn most of what we do in fact learn by
> operant conditioning, construed as feedback-directed selection of outputs
> from the net. We cannot account for most behavioral change by any
> refinement or adaptation of any feedback-based theory, and we cannot
account
> for it by assuming that the missing information is innate. A proper
theory
> to account for observable behavior must, as a formally demonstrable
> necessity, include mechanisms for extracting information from data not
> causally related to either DNA or current behavior.
>
> This does NOT entail introduction of such notions as "beliefs" or any
other
> intensional idiom. It DOES entail introduction of mechanisms for learning
> which are not feedback directed, mechanisms usually described as
> implementing unsupervised learning.
>
Here we come at it. I advertise the works of Gerald Edelmann, if you already
rejected his ideas, please tell me the arguments. He heavily uses the notion
of feedback, but it is internal feedback: not necessarily a feedback from
environment. He introduces the term "neurodarwinism", which is the "lightly
supervised" learning he advocates for. Now how it solves the problem of
information shortage for the developement of brain:
- information compression: phylogenetic information only codes developement
control, not the structures that get developed
- structure equivalence: the "compression" is destructive -- from identical
phylogenetical infromation, even given the same environmental information,
not exactly the same structures develop, there are lots of solutions
equivalent w.r.t. performance
Summarizing, the information shortage is a problem but not a paradox: it is
not the information about brain structure that's relevant, but the
information about behaviour, and this has surely enough storage in DNA and
sensor feedback.
> As Glen suggested, there are still deep and interesting questions to be
> resolved about operant conditioning and its pivotal roll in the final
> shaping of behavior. But as I told him, those answers will require
> recognition that there are other necessary supporting mechanisms not
> explainable in terms of operant conditioning itself.
>
I don't know what is "operant conditioning"
>
> > Some time later I'll share some of my own neuroscience research
> > interests with you, but first I'd like to see a few pennies drop.
>
> That would be appreciated, if you drop some of those pennies too.
>
May this be considered as "my penny"? :-)
Best Regards,
Lukasz Stafiniak
Neil W Rickert
>"David Longley" <Da...@longley.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
>news:dxecjYK8FrQ$Ew...@longley.demon.co.uk...
> '..the meaning of words are abstractions from the truth
> conditions of sentences that contain them.'
> W.V.O. Quine (1981)
> The Five Milestones of Empiricism: Theories and Things p.69
That was a silly thing for Quine to say.
-----
>One result is that translations from one set of words to another are
>uncertain, as discussed by Davidson in a quotation included by Longley in
>the same posting:
> 'Finding right words of my own to communicate another's
> saying is a problem of translation. The words I use in the
> particular case may be viewed as products of my total theory
> (however vague and subject to correction) of what the
> originating speaker means by anything he says: such a theory
> is indistinguishable from a characterization of a truth
> predicate, with his language as object language and mine as
> metalanguage. The crucial point is that there will be equally
> acceptable alternative theories which differ in assigning
> clearly non-synonymous sentences of mine as translations of
> his same utterance. This is Quine's thesis of the
> indeterminacy of translation.'
> D. Davidson p.100
>This is undeniably a problem.
I wouldn't say it is a problem. Language pretty much has to be that
way.
>This is undeniably a problem. We can never be certain of what another
>really means by his words, or even that his words have a meaning which can
>be mapped to our own internal structures. So any translation we make to a
>new set of words of our own introduces some uncertainty, and successive
>translations through a series of individuals can mutate the original message
>beyond recognition.
>Longley appears to internalize the message delivered by Quine and Davidson
>and others in a way that influences his own utterances according to a rule
>which I abstract and translate approximately into "indirect quotation is
>always bad".
>What this misses is that direct quotation is in itself subject to inherent
>uncertainty in translation. The words quoted are themselves an uncertain
>translation of the speakers original intent, and are subject to further
>uncertainty in their translation to internal understanding of the hearer.
Radical behaviorists probably deny that there is such a thing as
"intent".
>We do not avoid uncertainty by direct quotation, we simply encourage
>consistency of error.
>The only tool we have for reducing uncertainty is indirect quotation:
>rewording, paraphrasing, restating in new terms from a different
>perspective.
This is correct. However, you are wasting your time trying to
persuade Longley of this.
Acme Debugging
> "David Longley" <Da...@longley.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
> news:dxecjYK8FrQ$Ew...@longley.demon.co.uk...
>
> '..the meaning of words are abstractions from the truth
> conditions of sentences that contain them.'
(I respond to this one "stand-alone" statement, ignoring possibly
relevant context.)
This is a self-fullfilling, unfalsifiable statement that just
contrives a paradox because if the terms of a proposition (i.e.
sentence) might be indecidable, then validity (truth condition) cannot
be determined, i.e. real-world logical arguments can't work. Yet, as
with Zeno's paradox, we observe that real-world logic does in fact
work.
So to say, "I am on earth, the earth is within the solar system, so I
am within the solar system" is logically meaningless because I can't
be sure what "I" am, or what "earth" is, or what "solar system" is.
Since my "web of belief" can be anything at the margin, I could be in
another dimension, or perhaps the universe only exists in my mind, or
perhaps God is just giving me a vision, etc.
My refutation to this, posted redundantly in this group and sci.logic
without being disputed anywhere is that 1) Sure, there can be a
not-logic (e.g. this paradox and 100 others), 2) It is unknowable by
humans and therefore irrelevant and useless, and 3) We only really
care that "things apparently work."
All who have agreed that we only care that "things apparently work,"
realize that that isn't the definition of science or logic. It is a
very specific real-world issue of reliability, or put another way, a
probability to satisfy the importance and circumstances of the
subject. Again, many will recognize my repetition of all this and that
nobody has disagreed, at least openly. So if you have agreed in the
past, please keep "rely" and "work" in mind as you read my
"questionaire" below.
(BTW, recall the Quine pieces about lack of his student's "right
ideology" (edited) and the piece about "nefarious rhetoric"
demonstrating Quine's effusive dislike of persuasive argumentation.
What his statement here accomplishes is to make argumentation of any
kind logically unreliable, nefarious or not. This would explain why
many find Quine "simply irresistable." It would be wonderful if our
opinions and beliefs could be unfalsifiable, e.g. the joy of religion.
But of course philosophy, Quine, and the language of science don't
sound at all like religion.)
Why don't people bump into walls?
Why do people constantly bet their lives on other's webs of belief?
Why do aircraft carriers work?
Why do I understand your last sentence?
Why are you reading this if there is no objective and consensus
meaning of the words "Cancel" and "Send?"
Why do I drive when I might accidently run over a child?
I'm not sure you are quoting Davidson correctly, or he paraphrasing
Quine, because it appears he qualifies the problem of ambiguity to
"clearly non-synonymous sentences." Why am I able to note my confusion
and ask for clarification?
I would agree with everything below (fine analysis and exceptional
wordcraft too!), if I agreed with the assumption in your last
("never") sentence above. But at present I don't. While it may be
theoretically true (what isn't?), I see it as real-world trivial.
Larry
P.S. I understand that you may have adopted the statement to find a
starting point of agreement. I'm disagreeing with the idea independent
of the source.
David Longley
<mod...@metrocast.net> writes
>
>"David Longley" <Da...@longley.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
>news:dxecjYK8FrQ$Ew...@longley.demon.co.uk...
>
> '..the meaning of words are abstractions from the truth
> conditions of sentences that contain them.'
>
> W.V.O. Quine (1981)
> The Five Milestones of Empiricism: Theories and Things p.69
>
>Each of us makes our own abstractions of words, sentences, and truths.
When you say this, I hope you are not asserting any more than that each
of us do this the same way that each of us breathe.
>We
>employ similar innate heuristics in making these abstractions, but as the
>details of the experience from which we abstract meaning vary from
>individual to individual, so do the internal results.
No. And even if we do, that in itself would not matter. Our language is
a *public* system. The denotation or reference of words is not the same
as the connotation or meaning of words. The former is what is
established through public operant conditioning of verbal behaviour by
assent/dissent in the presence of a speaker, an object and an utterance
and a listener. We are not concerned about the particular point of view
taken, or the intensional content. We learn to use words correctly or
incorrectly. This is shaped by the verbal community by checking for
assent or dissent in the presence of particular referents.
> Each of us constructs
>a private internal "web of belief",
We may well learn about things from different space-time coordinates in
the world, ie specific locations, objects, but this is not really
important and more than your conception of sodium chloride and mine may
difer in some trivial ways. What is important in science is that what
matters is public and the relations ostensive. You have to be careful
not to be seduced by the notion of "meaning" aka "connotation aka
intension. What Quine is saying is that the very notion communicating
"meaning" or propositional content is not what words and sentences are
used for.
What is important is the extension of words, sentences etc.
> which may differ in arbitrary ways from
>that of any other individual. We map between words and regions of our
>internal webs: since the defining webs differ, words and sentences have
>different meanings for each user of the language.
No, the extension "table" is the same for both of us. Recall that the
extension of "table" is all the things which are true of the class
"table". We learn to use words publicly. This is particularly clear in
the case of languages such as chemistry, mathematics, Fortran, C etc.
>
>One result is that translations from one set of words to another are
>uncertain,
I think you are doing what I sense you do in lots of places - you have a
preconception of what is being said and you are trying to make this fit.
Quine says it's indeterminate. The indeterminacy of translation and
inscrutability of reference arguments need to be read very carefully or
you'll miss the point.
> as discussed by Davidson in a quotation included by Longley in
>the same posting:
>
> 'Finding right words of my own to communicate another's
> saying is a problem of translation. The words I use in the
> particular case may be viewed as products of my total theory
> (however vague and subject to correction) of what the
> originating speaker means by anything he says: such a theory
> is indistinguishable from a characterization of a truth
> predicate, with his language as object language and mine as
> metalanguage. The crucial point is that there will be equally
> acceptable alternative theories which differ in assigning
> clearly non-synonymous sentences of mine as translations of
> his same utterance. This is Quine's thesis of the
> indeterminacy of translation.'
>
> D. Davidson p.100
>
>This is undeniably a problem. We can never be certain of what another
>really means by his words, or even that his words have a meaning which can
>be mapped to our own internal structures. So any translation we make to a
>new set of words of our own introduces some uncertainty, and successive
>translations through a series of individuals can mutate the original message
>beyond recognition.
I'm not happy where you're going with this - but it is empirically the
case that messages get distorted through serial reproduction. Good
experiments were done on this by Postman and Egan in the 1940s.
>
>Longley appears to internalize the message delivered by Quine and Davidson
>and others in a way that influences his own utterances according to a rule
>which I abstract and translate approximately into "indirect quotation is
>always bad".
No you are really going wrong. The key notion here is TRUTH. This is how
we determinate class membership extensionally. "said that" is one of the
INTENSIONAL idioms. There are serious problems with the
truth-functionality of these idioms. There may well be several ways to
refer to the same object 3 + 4 = 2 + 5, sodium chloride = NaCl - and so
long as you stick with the truth conditions of class membership there is
no problem. But when one starts talking about sameness of meaning, or
properties, one starts getting into trouble. You are starting to get
into trouble in your post because of this.
>
>What this misses is that direct quotation is in itself subject to inherent
>uncertainty in translation. The words quoted are themselves an uncertain
>translation of the speakers original intent, and are subject to further
>uncertainty in their translation to internal understanding of the hearer.
How - it doesn't need translation. If you translate it into other words
and then claim I said that, you have simply confused yourself by
becoming a victim of another intensional idiom other than said that,
perhaps, think that, or believe that, or recall that. This is what you
*have* done in at least one instance in the past where you misquoted me
and inserted your own beliefs of what was said.
Note, my purpose here is to illustrate what is wrong with the
intensional, not to specifically to personally critical per se. We all
do this when we use intensional idioms, and in the above case you have
just not noticed how you have slipped into using one.
>
>We do not avoid uncertainty by direct quotation, we simply encourage
>consistency of error.
This is a muddle. I think the rest is riddled with the same errant
reasoning.
--
David Longley
David Longley
>news:<Eomdnacg5aT...@metrocast.net>...
>> "David Longley" <Da...@longley.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
>> news:dxecjYK8FrQ$Ew...@longley.demon.co.uk...
>>
>> '..the meaning of words are abstractions from the truth
>> conditions of sentences that contain them.'
>
>(I respond to this one "stand-alone" statement, ignoring possibly
>relevant context.)
And I reply to this with:
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/courses/log/tru-val.htm
And suggest you read some of the material I've referenced as I don't
think you have much of an understanding of what it's all about.
--
David Longley
Glen M. Sizemore
"intent".
GS: Quite right. But behaviorists do not deny the existence of the behavior
said to require the existence of "intentions."
"Neil W Rickert" <ricke...@cs.niu.edu> wrote in message
news:FcW0b.10255$Ih1.3...@newssrv26.news.prodigy.com...
Bill Modlin
"Acme Debugging" <L.F...@lycos.co.uk> wrote in message
news:35fae540.0308...@posting.google.com...
"Bill Modlin" <mod...@metrocast.net> wrote in message
news:<Eomdnacg5aT...@metrocast.net>...
> "David Longley" <Da...@longley.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
> news:dxecjYK8FrQ$Ew...@longley.demon.co.uk...
>
> '..the meaning of words are abstractions from the truth
> conditions of sentences that contain them.'
FINE:
> W.V.O. Quine (1981) The Five Milestones of Empiricism:
> Theories and Things p.69
Larry, I take the "truth conditions" in that Quine quote as philosopherese
for "the situations in which a sentence is used", and overall find it rather
an innocuous observation. To me, your dramatic negative reaction to the
words is excellent evidence for the point made here: that the meaning of
words is subjective and inexact.
To me there is no paradox at all, and nothing to be refuted. For practical
purposes our subjective abstractions clearly are similar enough for language
to be effective. But it would be silly to pretend that meanings are fixed
and exact. Even in mundane concrete situations it still arises on occasion
that people may have important differences in interpretation of common
words, and the possibility of disagreement in some critical aspect verges on
certainty as we move away from the mundane.
FINE:
Why don't people bump into walls?
Why do people constantly bet their lives on other's webs of belief?
Why do aircraft carriers work?
Why do I understand your last sentence?
Why are you reading this if there is no objective and consensus
meaning of the words "Cancel" and "Send?"
Why do I drive when I might accidently run over a child?
I'm not sure you are quoting Davidson correctly, or he paraphrasing
Quine, because it appears he qualifies the problem of ambiguity to
"clearly non-synonymous sentences." Why am I able to note my confusion and
ask for clarification?
I would agree with everything below (fine analysis and exceptional
wordcraft too!), if I agreed with the assumption in your last
("never") sentence above. But at present I don't. While it may be
theoretically true (what isn't?), I see it as real-world trivial.
Larry
P.S. I understand that you may have adopted the statement to find a
starting point of agreement. I'm disagreeing with the idea independent of
the source.
-----------
Larry, I agree with Quine and Davidson on this basic point, and I stand by
the "never be certain". I have on numerous occasions been shocked to find
that people can indeed disagree over things which appear to me quite
unambiguous. This is not in conflict with your indignant assertion that we
do routinely rely on the pragmatic working of the process... certainly we
do. Certainly we expect that we usually understand each other, even to the
extent of betting our lives on it. But it remains that it is a bet rather
than a certainty, and in the real world the problem is far from trivial. We
are here engaged in a non-trivial expenditure of real-world effort and time
because our understanding of a few words is demonstrably different.
The most dramatic examples of the problem arise when the ambiguity is
compounded by sequentially dependent translations without corrective
feedback:
> So any translation we make to a new set of words of our own
> introduces some uncertainty, and successive translations through
> a series of individuals can mutate the original message beyond
> recognition.
But it is also possible to overreact and mistakenly attempt to eliminate
translation by fiat, which is the error I attempted to address:
Acme Debugging
> "Acme Debugging" <L.F...@lycos.co.uk> wrote in message
> news:35fae540.0308...@posting.google.com...
> "Bill Modlin" <mod...@metrocast.net> wrote in message
> news:<Eomdnacg5aT...@metrocast.net>...
> > "David Longley" <Da...@longley.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
> > news:dxecjYK8FrQ$Ew...@longley.demon.co.uk...
>>>
>>>
>>> '..the meaning of words are abstractions from the truth
>>> conditions of sentences that contain them.'
>>
<repeat to alleviate scrolling>
>>> '..the meaning of words are abstractions from the truth
>>> conditions of sentences that contain them.'
>Larry, I take the "truth conditions" in that Quine quote as philosopherese
>for "the situations in which a sentence is used", and overall find it rather
>an innocuous observation.
Ok. That changes everything. In logic there are only two truth
conditions: true/false or valid/invalid. I was assuming he knew the
logical meaning of "truth conditions" and wouldn't use that term
elsewhere.
Assuming your interpretation, why would he obscure the term "truth
conditions" in such an odd way when the word "context" fits so well?
Maybe I'll go and read David's Quine link and that will explain
everything!
Larry
Acme Debugging
> In article <35fae540.0308...@posting.google.com>, Acme
> Debugging <L.F...@lycos.co.uk> writes
> >"Bill Modlin" <mod...@metrocast.net> wrote in message
> >news:<Eomdnacg5aT...@metrocast.net>...
> >> "David Longley" <Da...@longley.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
> >> news:dxecjYK8FrQ$Ew...@longley.demon.co.uk...
> >>
> >> '..the meaning of words are abstractions from the truth
> >> conditions of sentences that contain them.'
> >
> >(I respond to this one "stand-alone" statement, ignoring possibly
> >relevant context.)
>
> And I reply to this with:
>
> http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/courses/log/tru-val.htm
If this link is intended to explain what Quine meant by "truth
conditions" it would tend to confirm my interpretation and not Bill's,
thus tend to confirm my analysis with respect to that issue. He would
probably not agree that this link explains what Quine meant by "truth
conditions" though, as he said it meant something entirely different.
>
> And suggest you read some of the material I've referenced as I don't
> think you have much of an understanding of what it's all about.
I understand that you think I don't understand what "it's" all about.
One reason is because I call "it" language ambiguity, and you call it
other things. I have yet to see anything clear and concise enough for
me to understand that doesn't fall within the definition of ambiguity,
which I have posted. Of course that would be a minority of what you
have posted. Maybe I'm just too dumb.
Larry
Bill Modlin
In article <Eomdnacg5aT...@metrocast.net>, Bill Modlin
<mod...@metrocast.net> writes
>
>"David Longley" <Da...@longley.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
>news:dxecjYK8FrQ$Ew...@longley.demon.co.uk...
>
> '..the meaning of words are abstractions from the truth
> conditions of sentences that contain them.'
>
> W.V.O. Quine (1981)
> The Five Milestones of Empiricism: Theories and Things p.69
>
>Each of us makes our own abstractions of words, sentences, and >truths.
LONGLEY: When you say this, I hope you are not asserting any more than that
each of us do this the same way that each of us breathe.
MODLIN: It is an automatic rather than a conscious process, if that is what
you mean. Just as with breathing, some conscious direction is possible on
an exception basis.
> MODLIN: We employ similar innate heuristics in making these abstractions,
but as the details of the experience from which we abstract meaning vary
from individual to individual, so do the internal results.
LONGLEY: No. And even if we do, that in itself would not matter. Our
language is a *public* system. The denotation or reference of words is not
the same as the connotation or meaning of words. The former is what is
established through public operant conditioning of verbal behaviour by
assent/dissent in the presence of a speaker, an object and an utterance and
a listener. We are not concerned about the particular point of view taken,
or the intensional content. We learn to use words correctly or incorrectly.
This is shaped by the verbal community by checking for assent or dissent in
the presence of particular referents.
MODLIN: We do, and it does matter. Our *public* language is a negotiated
compromise among users of the language, each with separate but generally
similar private definitions. The meaning of a set of words is initially
suggested by correlations between observed usage of words and our *internal
depiction* of conditions possibly relevant to that usage. Over time we each
adjust our internal models to improve the correlations between our usage and
that of others.
We infer objectivity of a particular usage from the consistency attainable
in independent application of the usage across various contexts by different
individuals.
You may pretend that words are directly connected to objective referents and
that you may therefore ignore their intensional mediation. Most of us
recognize this as an oversimplification. We are indeed concerned with
intensional content, as without consideration of that content it is
impossible to account for the process whereby we arrive at nominally
objective consensus.
Word usage is seldom actually acquired through "public operant conditioning
of verbal behavior". Even in childhood most words are learned by
observation and abstraction rather than by experimental production and
correction.
As a personal example, according to my mother I babbled normally as an
infant and experimented with a few words at about 6 months. But I then fell
silent for an extended period. When I spoke again I started with well
formed sentences of considerable length and an extensive vocabulary,
presumably acquired from listening to my mother and grandmother as they
conversed and read many books to me. I don't consider this unusual: I've
seen other reports of such a progression. How does this fit into your
picture of learning by operant conditioning?
For that matter, probably many of us acquire much of our vocabulary through
reading. I know many words that I have never spoken, written, or even seen
formally defined. Yet I do know what they mean, and can respond
appropriately to their employment. How does operant conditioning explain
this?
> MODLIN: Each of us constructs a private internal "web of belief",
LONGLEY: We may well learn about things from different space-time
coordinates in the world, ie specific locations, objects, but this is not
really important and more than your conception of sodium chloride and mine
may difer in some trivial ways. What is important in science is that what
matters is public and the relations ostensive. You have to be careful not to
be seduced by the notion of "meaning" aka "connotation aka intension. What
Quine is saying is that the very notion communicating "meaning" or
propositional content is not what words and sentences are used for.
LONGLEY: What is important is the extension of words, sentences etc.
I can appreciate your concern with objective extension. My problem is that
your explanation of how we arrive at an association of appropriate
extensions with words is inadequate to account for what is observed to
happen.
You generalize from a few examples of concrete clarity of reference to
assertions about the way language works, and to me it is evident that you
are wrong: that's not the way it works. If we are to construct an AI
which can use language as we do we need to understand how language actually
works, not how you would prefer that it work.
(further discussion in the next section)
> MODLIN: ... which may differ in arbitrary ways from that of any other
individual. We map between words and regions of our internal webs: since
the defining webs differ, words and sentences have different meanings for
each user of the language.
LONGLEY: No, the extension "table" is the same for both of us. Recall that
the extension of "table" is all the things which are true of the class
"table". We learn to use words publicly. This is particularly clear in the
case of languages such as chemistry, mathematics, Fortran, C etc.
MODLIN: First a quibble. That definition as stated doesn't make sense to
me. Are you sure that's the right wording? I thought the extension of
"table" would be the members of the class "table": the things for which it
is true that they are tables?
In any case. Please point to the extensions of: "No", "the", "extension",
"is", "Recall", "that", "things", "which", "are", "true", "of", "class",
"learn" and so on. Each of these is abstracted from many complex situations
in which the words are used, and I suspect that you would have difficulty
claiming that our extensions for each of those is necessarily identical.
Even for something so concrete as a "table", there is fuzziness at the
edges. Is a table used as a desk still a table? Is a counter or ledge or
shelf extending from a wall a table? If not, does a table stop being a
table if I bond its edge to a wall? And this fuzziness gets worse as we
consider the range of related usages of the word, including water tables and
tables of figures and the tables on which motions may be placed...
There is no fixed set of all the things that are tables. There is only
statistical consensus that there are some situations in which most people
would consider the word appropriate, and some others in which most would
consider it wrong. And even this consensus is subject to change: slowly,
through evolution of the language, and almost instantly, when a word is used
in a special way in a given context and accepted by the parties to a
conversation.
You focus on scientific objects with clearly delimited static bounds
described in artificially constrained languages, and contend that we should
endeavor to similarly constrain our natural language.
What you ignore is that by so doing you would eliminate the expressivity of
language, you would make it not just "undesirable" but actually impossible
to discuss things outside the formally circumscribed domain of the language.
You mention languages such as chemistry, math, Fortran and so on as though
they were examples to be emulated by natural language. But I challenge you
to teach or explain any of those using only the elements of the language
itself, or to use any of them to describe a unicorn or a flower in such a
way that someone not already familiar with the thing described could know
what you are talking about.
I submit that you cannot, that you require the generality of a natural
language with its ambiguous and mutable heuristic extensions to express
anything really new.
> MODLIN: One result is that translations from one set of words to another
are uncertain,
LONGLEY: I think you are doing what I sense you do in lots of places - you
have a preconception of what is being said and you are trying to make this
fit. Quine says it's indeterminate. The indeterminacy of translation and
inscrutability of reference arguments need to be read very carefully or
you'll miss the point.
MODLIN: To some extent I am doing this. So are you. So do we all. I
suggest that you carefully examine your own reading in this regard, and
recognize that Quine's indeterminacy and inscrutability are much less
absolute than your own. You speak as though translation were always
uninformative, while Quine seems only to be claiming some level of
unavoidable ambiguity, which may matter only in certain contexts.
> as discussed by Davidson in a quotation included by Longley in
> the same posting:
>
> 'Finding right words of my own to communicate another's
> saying is a problem of translation. The words I use in the
> particular case may be viewed as products of my total theory
> (however vague and subject to correction) of what the
> originating speaker means by anything he says: such a theory
> is indistinguishable from a characterization of a truth
> predicate, with his language as object language and mine as
> metalanguage. The crucial point is that there will be equally
> acceptable alternative theories which differ in assigning
> clearly non-synonymous sentences of mine as translations of
> his same utterance. This is Quine's thesis of the
> indeterminacy of translation.'
>
> D. Davidson p.100
> MODLIN: This is undeniably a problem. We can never be certain of what
another really means by his words, or even that his words have a meaning
which can be mapped to our own internal structures. So any translation we
make to a new set of words of our own introduces some uncertainty, and
successive translations through a series of individuals can mutate the
original message beyond recognition.
LONGLEY: I'm not happy where you're going with this - but it is empirically
the case that messages get distorted through serial reproduction. Good
experiments were done on this by Postman and Egan in the 1940s.
> MODLIN: Longley appears to internalize the message delivered by Quine and
Davidson and others in a way that influences his own utterances according to
a rule which I abstract and translate approximately into "indirect quotation
is always bad".
LONGLEY: No you are really going wrong. The key notion here is TRUTH. This
is how we determinate class membership extensionally. "said that" is one of
the INTENSIONAL idioms. There are serious problems with the
truth-functionality of these idioms. There may well be several ways to refer
to the same object 3 + 4 = 2 + 5, sodium chloride = NaCl - and so long as
you stick with the truth conditions of class membership there is no problem.
But when one starts talking about sameness of meaning, or properties, one
starts getting into trouble. You are starting to get into trouble in your
post because of this.
MODLIN: Ah. TRUTH. Well, that is of course the point at issue here, isn't
it? You want to allow only language for which all referents are well
behaved formal objects, so that you can unambiguously determine truth or
falsity of propositions. Unfortunately you can't have that and also have
general expressivity. A formally extensional language is limited to
discussion of classes defined by finite combinations of a finite set of
words. Any such language is necessarily incomplete, and inadequate to the
needs of intelligence. We require mutable heuristic "extensions" (i.e.
intensions) to allow introduction of new categories.
> MODLIN: What this misses is that direct quotation is in itself subject to
inherent uncertainty in translation. The words quoted are themselves an
uncertain translation of the speakers original intent, and are subject to
further uncertainty in their translation to internal understanding of the
hearer.
LONGLEY: How - it doesn't need translation. If you translate it into other
words and then claim I said that, you have simply confused yourself by
becoming a victim of another intensional idiom other than said that,
perhaps, think that, or believe that, or recall that. This is what you
*have* done in at least one instance in the past where you misquoted me and
inserted your own beliefs of what was said.
Note, my purpose here is to illustrate what is wrong with the intensional,
not to specifically to personally critical per se. We all do this when we
use intensional idioms, and in the above case you have just not noticed how
you have slipped into using one.
MODLIN: While you do indeed illustrate what is wrong with the intensional,
you fail to address what is wrong with the extensional.
The necessary incompleteness of formally extensional language is a fatal
flaw, while the ambiguity of the intensional is only a remediable
inconvenience in some contexts. Given natural (intensional) language, you
can always invent and explain as many special-purpose formal languages as
you need. But if you start with formal language, there is no escape from
its limitations.
> MODLIN: We do not avoid uncertainty by direct quotation, we simply
encourage consistency of error.
LONGLEY: This is a muddle. I think the rest is riddled with the same errant
reasoning.
MODLIN: The muddle is yours, not mine. I understand what you are saying,
and reject it. You do not yet understand what I am teaching you. You
assume that words in natural language have extensional referents in order to
hold that they have a certain "true" meaning which can be retained by direct
quotation. Yet at the same time you continually remind us of the
intensional character of natural language, which means that there is
uncertainty which is preserved in direct quotation. Pick one... you cannot
have both.
> MODLIN: The only tool we have for reducing uncertainty is indirect
quotation: rewording, paraphrasing, restating in new terms from a different
perspective.
------- end of new stuff ------
Acme Debugging
> "Acme Debugging" <L.F...@lycos.co.uk> wrote in message
> news:35fae540.0308...@posting.google.com...
> "Bill Modlin" <mod...@metrocast.net> wrote in message
> news:<Eomdnacg5aT...@metrocast.net>...
> > "David Longley" <Da...@longley.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
> > news:dxecjYK8FrQ$Ew...@longley.demon.co.uk...
> >
<snip>
>To me, your dramatic negative reaction
:-)
>to the
>words is excellent evidence for the point made here: that the meaning
of
>words is subjective and inexact.
"Some" words, since we have not used all words. A term in a Quine
quote is not what I'd call the epitome of exactitude, unless you want
to grant my position on those grounds. Your interpretation of "truth
condition" would not be taken at face value in any rigorous setting
simply because it supported your point-of-view (not implying you were
dishonest, just stating a rule of evidence). That's three reasons why
the evidence is less than excellent. Were you being dramatic?
<snip>
>For practical
>purposes our subjective abstractions clearly are similar enough for
language
>to be effective.
Agree. But I prefer "reliable" because "effective" begs a question
(effective at what?). Language is reliable in any circumstance where
it is used for any length of time.
>But it would be silly to pretend that meanings are fixed
>and exact.
Yes that would be silly. Like when I drop something in the garbage
bucket, it would be silly to think it entered the bucket precisely
equidistant from all sides every time. That probably never happens.
Speaking of "silly," have you ever read the children's "Book House"
story titled "The Three Sillies?" Remember the girl who sat at the
bottom of the stairs crying because someday she might get married, and
her husband might walk down those stairs, and the hammer might fall on
his head and kill him? To me, this is the same thing as worrying that
the object will miss the garbage bucket, or that
language ambiguity will make language unreliable.
Not to say that language ambiguity isn't a monumental subject. Tens
(hundreds?) of thousands of experts are working day and night to make
language reliable. As a result, it is. If it wasn't, people would stop
talking and technology would stop working. Again, I refer anyone to
the introduction to any hardcover dictionary. You should get a nice
*representative* overview on this subject. You probably won't see
Quine mentioned. Mine has a lengthy piece by William Buckley. He knows
about scientific language too.
>Even in mundane concrete situations it still arises on occasion
>that people may have important differences in interpretation of
common
>words,
Of course, all the time in mundane situations where the cost of being
wrong isn't too high, like getting a poor grade on a philosophy test.
>and the possibility of disagreement in some critical aspect verges on
>certainty as we move away from the mundane.
I think just the opposite, that as we "move away from the mundane" the
cost of being wrong goes up. That's why I asked "Why do carriers
work?" In fact they do, they are way less mundane that newsgroup
posting, yet there is much less language confusion.
<snip>
>>> ... We can never be certain of what
>>> another really means by his words, or even that his words have a
>>> meaning which can be mapped to our own internal structures.
<snip my series of (unaddressed) examples in the form of questions>
>Larry, I agree with Quine and Davidson on this basic point, and I
stand by
>the "never be certain". I have on numerous occasions been shocked to
find
>that people can indeed disagree over things which appear to me quite
>unambiguous.
I agree with the latter. Thanks for using "unambiguous" and not
"humphidorkulous."
>This is not in conflict with your indignant
:-)
> assertion that we
>do routinely rely on the pragmatic working of the process...
certainly we
>do. Certainly we expect that we usually understand each other, even
to the
>extent of betting our lives on it.
If there was a language problem, they would all be dead. But we
observe that nearly all of them are not, which trumps philosphy and
logic. When there is a rare accident, only a tiny percentage of those
are due to a language ambiguity. So we're talking very minute
probabilities. That was the reason for the example "Why do I drive
when I might run over a child." People who worry about such unlikely
things are considered to be mentally unstable. (Not meaning you - I
know you don't think it so unlikely).
>But it remains that it is a bet rather
>than a certainty,
Then I think we could resolve this issue. You are talking theory,
where things can be certain, and I'm talking about the real-world
where everything is a bet.
> and in the real world the problem is far from trivial.
Can you provide an example where someone would not make the bet due to
language ambiguity? I don't mean historical examples - that's how we
calculate the odds for the bet. Of course I am presenting you with a
self-defeating problem. When there is an accident due to language
ambiguity, the problem is corrected and people continue betting. But
maybe you can find a contrary case.
If you will say people lose the bet in newsgroup posts, I will say
they just use that to calculate the odds, and decide language is
reliable enough to continue posting. But if we didn't have the
opportunity to ask for clarification, I bet some posters would quit,
and others would be more careful. But we do notice our confusion and
ask for clarification, so it is a moot point. I think our
clarification of the definition of "truth condition" is "excellent
evidence" of this. :-)
>We
>are here engaged in a non-trivial expenditure of real-world effort
and time
>because our understanding of a few words is demonstrably different.
Maybe we could resolve this issue too. You seem to think the cost of
being wrong in a newsgroup post is a lot higher than I do. Nobody gets
killed or maimed, everyone can ask for clarification and it seems to
me that all is made well. If we didn't enjoy doing it, we wouldn't,
because I doubt too many are being paid for it. (Though of course some
content is most annoying). Some time is lost due to language
ambiguity, also windows bugs, and 100 other things. We could improve
on all of those by discussing them, but none of them mean we can't
post and achieve reliable communication. In fact, we observe that we
can almost always post, at least in time to prevent death or
destruction.
>
>The most dramatic examples of the problem arise when the ambiguity is
>compounded by sequentially dependent translations without corrective
>feedback:
When I was 8 years old, me and a backyard symposium of other
8-year-old researchers gathered for a scientific experiment. One of us
researchers whispered something in another researcher's ear. That
scientist then whispered the same thing in another researcher's ear.
Finally, it got to the last scientist. According to the rigorous
protocol not yet obscured by popsicle stains, the last researcher
announced the statement, followed immediately by the announcement of
the statement by the original researcher. The two statements were not
the same! We scientists then repeated this 30 times for a significant
sample size, then calculated the probability of error with sticks in
the mud.
Our equations were conclusive. People don't hear things the same!
Sometimes they interpret imperfectly and make slight changes.
I'm glad adults have discovered this great truth too! But it changes
nothing. One of the researchers grew up to be a submarine captain. He
remembered the experiment. He knew that by the time a sentence was
passed down to Scotty in the engine room through several people it
would get changed for sure. So he made up a phrase that would be
self-correcting as it moved down the chain of command. "Full Steam
Ahead." Scotty and the others *within the task* were required to write
that on a chalkboard 5,000 times. So when Scotty heard "Bull cleans
your head" he took it as "Full Steam Ahead" every time, without ever a
failure. If he heard "You're standing on my foot" he was confused and
was trained to ask for clarification. That's why aircraft carriers
work: Ability for clarification of common usage, special words within
a task, and obfuscators who quote philosophy books with their own
cherished words are thrown overboard.
(The reason I keep mentioning carriers is because I talked to someone
a few days ago who made them work, and we discussed this language
subject at length.)
>
>> So any translation we make to a new set of words of our own
>> introduces some uncertainty, and successive translations through
>> a series of individuals can mutate the original message beyond
>> recognition.
So, you were an 8-year-old researcher too? What was the name of your
experiment? Our research napkin was titled "Telephone."
Whenever you tell me (and all readers) something any 8-year-old would
know, I might grandstand with a little sarcasm. But not viciously,
because I know you didn't intend it. I calculate that neither action
amounts to much and both are quickly forgiven.
>But it is also possible to overreact and mistakenly attempt to
eliminate
>translation by fiat, which is the error I attempted to address:
I have no argument with the rest of the issues in your post. I
more-or-less agree with them.
Larry
Bill Modlin
Larry
Hmm. I don't know why he would do that. I could be misreading him
entirely. But if I take your reading as accurate, it doesn't seem to
make any sense at all. Perhaps you can explain it for me? What
would it mean to say that the meanings of words are abstractions from a
set of true/false indications? I can't see anything to "abstract"
from that except that there are two states of the world: true and false.
If we are to abstract from anything, it has to be from the situations or
conditions on which those true/false indications are based. In other
words from the situations in which the words are employed, as contrasted
to other situations in which they are not. It does seem an odd way to
say it, now that you mention it.
Bill
David Longley
>David Longley <Da...@longley.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
>news:<0QHG7GGcrJR$Ew...@longley.demon.co.uk>...
>> In article <35fae540.0308...@posting.google.com>, Acme
>> Debugging <L.F...@lycos.co.uk> writes
>> >"Bill Modlin" <mod...@metrocast.net> wrote in message
>> >news:<Eomdnacg5aT...@metrocast.net>...
>> >> "David Longley" <Da...@longley.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
>> >> news:dxecjYK8FrQ$Ew...@longley.demon.co.uk...
>> >>
>> >> '..the meaning of words are abstractions from the truth
>> >> conditions of sentences that contain them.'
>> >
>> >(I respond to this one "stand-alone" statement, ignoring possibly
>> >relevant context.)
>>
>> And I reply to this with:
>>
>> http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/courses/log/tru-val.htm
>
>If this link is intended to explain
The link was provided to show you how to use VALIDITY and TRUTH in
logical inference. You muddled the two.
My point has been, for some time, that you keep trying to express things
in ordinary language which you (and that means all of us) can not do. We
just don't have the appropriate terms. We learn these other languages
for a reason - ordinary language suffices for its own purposes, but
science is not one of them.
*You* may think you can express yourself clearly in natural language,
perhaps in some areas that is indeed the case. It is NOT the case when
it comes to the issues I have been referring to. To understand those
things you must learn to speak the language.
> what Quine meant by "truth
>conditions" it would tend to confirm my interpretation and not Bill's,
>thus tend to confirm my analysis with respect to that issue. He would
>probably not agree that this link explains what Quine meant by "truth
>conditions" though, as he said it meant something entirely different.
>>
>> And suggest you read some of the material I've referenced as I don't
>> think you have much of an understanding of what it's all about.
>
>I understand that you think I don't understand what "it's" all about.
>One reason is because I call "it" language ambiguity, and you call it
>other things.
And you are wrong - and you'll learn nothing if you insist on trying to
make sense of what I'm trying to show you in terms which are already
familiar to you.
> I have yet to see anything clear and concise enough for
>me to understand that doesn't fall within the definition of ambiguity,
>which I have posted. Of course that would be a minority of what you
>have posted. Maybe I'm just too dumb.
>
>Larry
It has nothing to do with you being "dumb" (although you are rather too
fond of the apparent merits of naive psychology in my view [yes - just a
synonym - cf referential opacity]), it has to do with you being stubborn
<g>! Or just not interested enough to do some primary source reading and
careful analysis perhaps.
Bill has the courage to have a go (despite, I suspect, being pretty sure
before hand that he has nothing much to learn).. You should do the same,
buy larry 2 a few drinks from me by the way!
--
David Longley
David Longley
Debugging <L.F...@lycos.co.uk> writes
Quine was a mathematical logician.
>
>Assuming your interpretation, why would he obscure the term "truth
>conditions" in such an odd way when the word "context" fits so well?
Look up EXTENSIONALITY.
>
>Maybe I'll go and read David's Quine link and that will explain
>everything!
>
>Larry
It wasn't a Quine link, it was a basic logic link.
--
David Longley
Acme Debugging
>>>> '..the meaning of words are abstractions from the truth
>>>> conditions of sentences that contain them.'
>
>>Larry, I take the "truth conditions" in that Quine quote as
philosopherese
>>for "the situations in which a sentence is used", and overall find
it rather
>>an innocuous observation.
>
>Ok. That changes everything. In logic there are only two truth
>conditions: true/false or valid/invalid. I was assuming he knew the
>logical meaning of "truth conditions" and wouldn't use that term
>elsewhere.
>
>Assuming your interpretation, why would he obscure the term "truth
>conditions" in such an odd way when the word "context" fits so well?
><repeat again to alleviate scrolling>
>>>> '..the meaning of words are abstractions from the truth
>>>> conditions of sentences that contain them.'
>
>Hmm. I don't know why he would do that. I could be misreading him
>entirely. But if I take your reading as accurate, it doesn't seem to
>make any sense at all. Perhaps you can explain it for me? What
>would it mean to say that the meanings of words are abstractions from
a
>set of true/false indications?
Not "indications" - "sentences." If not for the "abstractions" we
could have true/false "sentences." But since the terms ("meaning of
words") are abstractions, we cannot decide if the sentence is true or
false. Thus, logical argumentation is unreliable according to the
statement. I read it this way from the first time I saw it and it was
very clear to me, not knowing any context. I should also mention that
when I read a "universal affirmative" proposition (which this is)
stated by a logician, I supply the word "All." If he had said "some"
it wouldn't have bothered me. In common usage (by non-logicians) it
could be "all" or "gee, really a lot" - you have to ask for
clarification if it is important. Sometimes posters will emphasize a
universal with underlines, etc., then I will supply the "All."
Actually, it jumped off the screen and bit me on the leg. In that
sense it is remarkably succinct, precise, and says a great deal - I'll
give him that much.
Then I gave an example of a real-world syllogism (solar system)
demonstrating why that is ridiculous in my view, and said that we
observe that logical argumentation does, in fact, work. Also, I think
Quine doesn't like argumentation, especially of his opinions - just a
guess from the two pieces Dave supplied.
>I can't see anything to "abstract"
>from that except that there are two states of the world: true and
false.
Same explanation. Nix that "two states of the world." Only sentences
(more accurately called propositions).
>If we are to abstract from anything, it has to be from the situations
or
>conditions on which those true/false indications are based.
Yes. Replace "indications" with "sentences" and I think this restates
my explanation (point-of-view).
>In other
>words from the situations in which the words are employed, as
contrasted
>to other situations in which they are not.
I don't get "other situations" (context) out of his statement. I only
get the same words (terms) used in the same sentence, but those terms
cannot be defined according to Quine. In academic (theoretical) logic
it makes no difference - the meaning of terms is irrelevant. But in
real-world logic (logical arguments) if you can't define terms the
argument is meaningless. From what Quine I remember, context would be
part of the abstraction, ontologies of the community, continuous
reality, subjective experience and interpretation (and probably a lot
more I can't remember) would also be part of the abstraction. But you
know the rest of the material...
I can think of lots of examples where terms can be defined well enough
for logical arguments to work. But I can also think of plenty of
examples where it can't - where words cannot be defined. Nobody in
this group has identified more terminology that can't be defined (in
my opinion).
>It does seem an odd way to
>say it, now that you mention it.
Just about everything (very little actually) I've seen from Quine
lately seems rather odd. But I wonder if we may be getting a
representative sample. I googled on Quine one time in the interest of
learning more about Dave's hobby. What I read didn't seem much like
the quotes I've seen here. And I think I remember from college days
that I had a favorable impression of him. As I keep telling Dave,
Quine's work is academic/theoretical and not in my focus. But these
generalizations about Quine, and now this quote, which say a lot of
weird things about language and logical reliability - well, that is in
everybody's focus. <g>
I should add that I am quite sure Quine towers over me intellectually
in all these logical subjects. Anything I can think of, I am sure he
already thought of a lot quicker. Thus, all my criticism of Quine is
not really of Quine. It is these interpretations, generalizations,
self-serving and dogmatic comments, the terminology used in a ritual
way that is so particular that it could not possibly apply in all the
various ways it is used, the quotes out of context that come from who
knows where - some casual magazine interview? Some heated dispute with
a colleague? His auto-biography? His rough drafts? Some commentary
outside his academic focus? And Dave uses quotes that IMHO *do not*
reflect well on Quine. I am quite sure that if Quine were here, he
would deal with all my objections right quick, and to my complete
satisfaction as well, assuming he would bother to give me the time of
day, which he probably wouldn't, and I wouldn't blame him.
Larry
>
>Bill
>
David Longley
Debugging <L.F...@lycos.co.uk> writes
>"Bill Modlin" <mod...@metrocast.net> wrote in message
>news:<q9mdnW-1trw...@metrocast.net>...
>> "Acme Debugging" <L.F...@lycos.co.uk> wrote in message
>> news:35fae540.0308...@posting.google.com...
>> "Bill Modlin" <mod...@metrocast.net> wrote in message
>> news:<Eomdnacg5aT...@metrocast.net>...
>> > "David Longley" <Da...@longley.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
>> > news:dxecjYK8FrQ$Ew...@longley.demon.co.uk...
>> >
>
><snip>
>
>>To me, your dramatic negative reaction
>
>:-)
>
>>to the
>>words is excellent evidence for the point made here: that the meaning
>of
>>words is subjective and inexact.
>
>"Some" words, since we have not used all words. A term in a Quine
>quote is not what I'd call the epitome of exactitude, unless you want
>to grant my position on those grounds. Your interpretation of "truth
>condition" would not be taken at face value in any rigorous setting
>simply because it supported your point-of-view (not implying you were
>dishonest, just stating a rule of evidence). That's three reasons why
>the evidence is less than excellent. Were you being dramatic?
>
Larry - just look up the paper in the book for the extended context, and
whilst you are at it, read the on-line paper "Two Dogmas of Empiricism".
><snip>
>
>>For practical
>>purposes our subjective abstractions clearly are similar enough for
>language
>>to be effective.
>
>Agree. But I prefer "reliable" because "effective" begs a question
>(effective at what?). Language is reliable in any circumstance where
>it is used for any length of time.
It's not reliable in contexts where it is not designed to be
appropriate!
>
>>But it would be silly to pretend that meanings are fixed
>>and exact.
>
>Yes that would be silly. Like when I drop something in the garbage
>bucket, it would be silly to think it entered the bucket precisely
>equidistant from all sides every time. That probably never happens.
>
>Speaking of "silly," have you ever read the children's "Book House"
>story titled "The Three Sillies?" Remember the girl who sat at the
>bottom of the stairs crying because someday she might get married, and
>her husband might walk down those stairs, and the hammer might fall on
>his head and kill him? To me, this is the same thing as worrying that
>the object will miss the garbage bucket, or that
>language ambiguity will make language unreliable.
That's either because 1) you don't have to work in science or 2) because
you are so arrogant that you don't notice that other people will often
walk away with completely the wrong idea of what you said! The same will
go for you understanding other people.
Why do you think there *are* languages other than natural language?
>
>Not to say that language ambiguity isn't a monumental subject. Tens
>(hundreds?) of thousands of experts are working day and night to make
>language reliable.
Natural language is not truth-functional for many reasons.
> As a result, it is. If it wasn't, people would stop
>talking and technology would stop working. Again, I refer anyone to
>the introduction to any hardcover dictionary. You should get a nice
>*representative* overview on this subject. You probably won't see
>Quine mentioned. Mine has a lengthy piece by William Buckley. He knows
>about scientific language too.
This all just sounds very silly to me.
>
>>Even in mundane concrete situations it still arises on occasion
>>that people may have important differences in interpretation of
>common
>>words,
>
>Of course, all the time in mundane situations where the cost of being
>wrong isn't too high, like getting a poor grade on a philosophy test.
This just shows us how *you* think about these matters - and it reveal
ignorance.
>
>>and the possibility of disagreement in some critical aspect verges on
>>certainty as we move away from the mundane.
>
>I think just the opposite, that as we "move away from the mundane" the
>cost of being wrong goes up. That's why I asked "Why do carriers
>work?" In fact they do, they are way less mundane that newsgroup
>posting, yet there is much less language confusion.
>
><snip>
I suggest that you just don't notice the confusion you are immersed in.
>
>>>> ... We can never be certain of what
>>>> another really means by his words, or even that his words have a
>>>> meaning which can be mapped to our own internal structures.
<snip>
>
>If there was a language problem, they would all be dead. But we
>observe that nearly all of them are not, which trumps philosphy and
>logic. When there is a rare accident, only a tiny percentage of those
>are due to a language ambiguity. So we're talking very minute
>probabilities. That was the reason for the example "Why do I drive
>when I might run over a child." People who worry about such unlikely
>things are considered to be mentally unstable. (Not meaning you - I
>know you don't think it so unlikely).
>
>>But it remains that it is a bet rather
>>than a certainty,
>
>Then I think we could resolve this issue. You are talking theory,
>where things can be certain, and I'm talking about the real-world
>where everything is a bet.
No you're not, you're just being an arrogant smart ass anti-intellectual
- and that's me being helpful. You are sounding more and more "red-neck"
(is that the term?) with each post. We can all talk the language of
probability. What's being referred to here has nothing to do with
probabilities.
And like so many other things you post, this post just shows you don't
understand what the issue is. You arrogantly ie over-confidently fail to
appreciate what is being discussed and its implications. It isn't the
empirical problem of serial reproduction, nor is it the ambiguity of
natural language. It's about the nature and ontological status of terms
like "meaning", "synonymy", "understanding", "translation",
"connotation", "thought", "ideas" - that there are problems with a
subset of language, the intensional or psychological idioms.
--
David Longley
Daryl McCullough
[Here's Quine's quote]
>>>> '..the meaning of words are abstractions from the truth
>>>> conditions of sentences that contain them.'
>Ok. That changes everything. In logic there are only two truth
>conditions: true/false or valid/invalid.
I don't think that's common usage. True and false are truth *values*,
not truth *conditions*. The meaning of "truth conditions" is given
in http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truth_condition as
"In semantics, truth conditions are the circumstances that must be known to
determine whether a sentence is true. Therefore truth conditions are part of the
meaning of declarative sentences."
>What would it mean to say that the meanings of words are abstractions
>from a set of true/false indications?
That's not what Quine said---he said the meaning of a word was an
abstraction from the truth conditions for sentences involving that
word. In other words, if you know when it is appropriate to say a
word, then you know everything there is to know about the meaning
of that word.
>If we are to abstract from anything, it has to be from the situations or
>conditions on which those true/false indications are based.
That's what Quine said. That's what "truth conditions" means.
--
Daryl McCullough
Ithaca, NY
David Longley
Debugging <L.F...@lycos.co.uk> writes
<snip>
The whole point of my drawing attention to Quine is that most people are
NOT aware of the things I am drawing attention too - most people outside
philosophy and especially the philosophy of mind, that is.
When are you going to wise up and realise that the reason why it all
seems so "strange" is because it is all unfamiliar to you.... ie, that
you have something to learn here.
--
David Longley
Bill Modlin
"Daryl McCullough" <da...@atc-nycorp.com> wrote in message
news:bi5cv...@drn.newsguy.com...
Bill Modlin says...
>[Here's Quine's quote]
>>>> '..the meaning of words are abstractions from the truth
>>>> conditions of sentences that contain them.'
>>Ok. That changes everything. In logic there are only two truth
>>conditions: true/false or valid/invalid.
(note that this was Larry's statement, not mine)
>I don't think that's common usage. True and false are truth *values*,
>not truth *conditions*. The meaning of "truth conditions" is given
>in http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truth_condition as
>"In semantics, truth conditions are the circumstances that must be
known to
>determine whether a sentence is true. Therefore truth conditions are
part of the
>meaning of declarative sentences."
Thanks, Daryl. That's what I took it to mean, with a generalization to
circumstances of occurence for non-declarative word usage.
Bill
Daryl McCullough
>
>
>"Daryl McCullough" <da...@atc-nycorp.com> wrote in message
>news:bi5cv...@drn.newsguy.com...
>Bill Modlin says...
>
>>[Here's Quine's quote]
>
>>>>> '..the meaning of words are abstractions from the truth
>>>>> conditions of sentences that contain them.'
>
>>>Ok. That changes everything. In logic there are only two truth
>>>conditions: true/false or valid/invalid.
>
>(note that this was Larry's statement, not mine)
Sorry. I thought it was from you.
--
Daryl
David Longley
Now you are talking Modlinese. I don't want to debate the truth or
falsehood of that as a theory, I want to make sure we both know what we
are talking about when we are talking about Quine's theory (and for the
sake of argument, I'm lumping Skinner in here too).
This talk of "negotiated compromise" is not something we see children
doing at school, or at home.
> The meaning of a set of words is initially
>suggested by correlations between observed usage of words and our *internal
>depiction* of conditions possibly relevant to that usage. Over time we each
>adjust our internal models to improve the correlations between our usage and
>that of others.
>
Bill, this is all very interesting, but it's not the way to get anything
sorted out. If you want to go off and re-write Quine or Skinner in
Modlinese, that's your privilege, but can we just agree here to try to
show each other that we can grasp what Quine is saying?
>We infer objectivity of a particular usage from the consistency attainable
>in independent application of the usage across various contexts by different
>individuals.
>
But Quine is quite clear in denying truth by convention, so is Skinner.
>You may pretend that words are directly connected to objective referents and
>that you may therefore ignore their intensional mediation.
No, it's not a matter of "pretence" it's matter of parsimony and
evidence.
> Most of us
>recognize this as an oversimplification.
The rest of us think you over complicate to the point of befuddling
yourselves into believing that all sorts of chimera are in your heads,
behind words, and in other dark and spooky places. You use these
chimerical notions to fool yourself into believing you understand all
sorts of things about behaviour and the world which really you do not.
> We are indeed concerned with
>intensional content, as without consideration of that content it is
>impossible to account for the process whereby we arrive at nominally
>objective consensus.
One wonders why Quine and others have written so much to the contrary -
especially re truth by convention.
>
>Word usage is seldom actually acquired through "public operant conditioning
>of verbal behavior". Even in childhood most words are learned by
>observation and abstraction rather than by experimental production and
>correction.
If you are just going to say that you don't accept that we learn our
language by being exposed to a verbal community, then how come we learn
English and some other language? How is it that we pick up the accents
and mannerisms we do?
Yes, there is some analogical synthesis which accounts for new sentences
etc, (ironically, part of the task here is to bring it under better
behavioural control <g>)...
>
>As a personal example, according to my mother I babbled normally as an
>infant and experimented with a few words at about 6 months. But I then fell
>silent for an extended period. When I spoke again I started with well
>formed sentences of considerable length and an extensive vocabulary,
>presumably acquired from listening to my mother and grandmother as they
>conversed and read many books to me. I don't consider this unusual: I've
>seen other reports of such a progression. How does this fit into your
>picture of learning by operant conditioning?
With all due respect to your mother, it's anecdotal. But it is not the
point here. If you don't like the idea of talking about natural
language, shift to chemistry, or mathematics or some other language -
BASIC if you like. Think about the points being made from that
perspective.
>
I'll come back to the rest later - but - believe it or not, you DON'T
understand what Quine, Skinner, Glen or I are really trying to point
out.
--
David Longley
David Longley
<da...@atc-nycorp.com> writes
What they said was:
LF: Ok. That changes everything. In logic there are only two truth
conditions: true/false or valid/invalid. I was assuming he knew the
logical meaning of "truth conditions" and wouldn't use that term
elsewhere.
Assuming your interpretation, why would he obscure the term "truth
conditions" in such an odd way when the word "context" fits so well?
Maybe I'll go and read David's Quine link and that will explain
everything!
BM:
Hmm. I don't know why he would do that. I could be misreading him
entirely. But if I take your reading as accurate, it doesn't seem to
make any sense at all. Perhaps you can explain it for me? What
would it mean to say that the meanings of words are abstractions from a
set of true/false indications? I can't see anything to "abstract"
from that except that there are two states of the world: true and false.
If we are to abstract from anything, it has to be from the situations or
conditions on which those true/false indications are based. In other
words from the situations in which the words are employed, as contrasted
to other situations in which they are not. It does seem an odd way to
say it, now that you mention it.
I'm not happy that either of them fully understand what is being said.
What Bill goes on to say in his post to me just reinforces that doubt.
--
David Longley
Acme Debugging
Just to support what Daryl is saying. He obviously knows the context
of the Quine statement, and that it was intended to be interpreted
"semantically" and not "logically" as I did. I have no knowledge of
"semantic truth conditions." I didn't even know there was such a
thing. (And, please, I don't want to know! I have enough trouble
keeping academic logic (dozens of them) and real-world logic (too many
kinds of argumentation) straight in my head. But now I know to ask
"Are you using semantic truth conditions?" (Great.) <g>
Larry
Acme Debugging
Ok, I guess I should say something about this. I originally wrote
"true/false and valid/invalid." But then I thought, this just opens a
can of worms about the distinctions between those terms. That can of
worms was irrelevant. So I changed the "and" to "or" thinking that was
a little better. But I left it *purposely vague" (i.e. it can be read
two ways) to avoid argument about those distinctions. Sure enough,
Dave pointed them out!
So to Dave and everybody: my use of "true/false" was "muddled" all
through that post. I was adopting (apparently) everyone else's
favorite conditions true/false just to avoid a big explanation and
make a point having nothing to do with that.
I also confused academic logic with real-world logic, again not to
make a big explanation about that. Actually, neither true/false *or*
valid/invalid are best in arguments: The best is correct/incorrect. I
can imagine if I added that! And worst is "right/wrong" but that is
constantly used here too, so I find myself using it too. It's not my
agenda to generally spread my dogma about logic, and certainly not in
a post where I was trying to make a totally unrelated point in the
very least number of words possible.
Now, to add to the confusion, we have "Semantic truth conditions." But
that appears to be the *correct* interpretation!
Life is so interesting!
Larry
Acme Debugging
> In article <35fae540.03082...@posting.google.com>, Acme
> Debugging <L.F...@lycos.co.uk> writes
> >David Longley <Da...@longley.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
> >news:<0QHG7GGcrJR$Ew...@longley.demon.co.uk>...
> >> In article <35fae540.0308...@posting.google.com>, Acme
> >> Debugging <L.F...@lycos.co.uk> writes
> >> >"Bill Modlin" <mod...@metrocast.net> wrote in message
> >> >news:<Eomdnacg5aT...@metrocast.net>...
> >> >> "David Longley" <Da...@longley.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
> >> >> news:dxecjYK8FrQ$Ew...@longley.demon.co.uk...
>>>
>>
>>If this link is intended to explain
>
>The link was provided to show you how to use VALIDITY and TRUTH in
>logical inference. You muddled the two.
Yes I did. I'm not sure which instance you refer to, but I muddled it
throughout the post. I'm glad you pointed it out.
>My point has been, for some time, that you keep trying to express
things
>in ordinary language which you (and that means all of us) can not do.
This conflicts with my experience. I have lots of good objective tests
of my use of language outside of this group, including both theory and
technology that worked. It could stand a lot of improvement. I've
learned "transitivity" and "apposite" from you - thanks again.
>We
>just don't have the appropriate terms. We learn these other languages
>for a reason - ordinary language suffices for its own purposes, but
>science is not one of them.
Yeah, I know all about special words within a task, including what I
think you are calling science.
You know something funny? I qualify statements with "I think" maybe
more than anyone else in this group. I am constantly spreading your
Quine dogma! ;-O
>
>*You* may think you can express yourself clearly in natural language,
>perhaps in some areas that is indeed the case.
Every area of my life so far, as long as I learned the special words
within tasks I needed to do. Every newsgroup except this one,
according to you. Lots of newsgroups since the '80s. Lots of email
correspondence. Plenty of "intellectual" and "scientific" and
"technological" issues with highly credentialed people. But there is
evidently something about this newsgroup that makes my language
unreliable. I wonder what that is? Could it be something weird, like
the ASCII value of the characters in the group name? It' a real
enigma.
> It is NOT the case when
>it comes to the issues I have been referring to.
Obviously. I've said as much, redundantly. It's not in my focus. I
have a big rap about the liabilities of learning useless information.
I'm sure you're dying to hear it. :-)
>To understand those
>things you must learn to speak the language.
Yes, that's usually the case.
>
<snip>
>>
>>I understand that you think I don't understand what "it's" all
about.
>>One reason is because I call "it" language ambiguity, and you call
it
>>other things.
>
>And you are wrong - and you'll learn nothing if you insist on trying
to
>make sense of what I'm trying to show you in terms which are already
>familiar to you.
>
I'm "wrong," doubt my language and experience, and you will show me
the way. It's all there in that one sentence, the face of religion.
You would be surprised at the different types of people outside of
major religion who have said that to me and others I know, almost
word-for-word. All apparently very upstanding citizens, most evil or
with evil controllers. But I know you mean no harm. You just don't
understand these implications because you are a naive true believer.
And you are reacting to my sarcasm in my reply to Bill. That is the
nicest possible face I can put on it, so that's how I'll interpret it.
Obviously, I am immune.
>
>>have posted. Maybe I'm just too dumb.
>It has nothing to do with you being "dumb"
No, I wasn't being sarcastic. I meant it with respect to your "truth."
Maybe I am just too dumb in that respect to see it. Then again, maybe
your "truth" isn't true. You can't know that either. Unless...
>(although you are rather too
>fond of the apparent merits of naive psychology in my view
I understand what you are saying, and plead guilty. But I am just as
unqualified as everyone.
<snip>
>it has to do with you being stubborn
><g>!
Innoculated and totally immune to religion, likely more so than anyone
you will ever know in your life. But I am the victim of empirical
facts and logic, with facts taking 100 - 1 precedence. By my count I
have said "I stand corrected" and "Thanks for correcting me" more than
any other poster in c.a.p. Give me a try sometime. It works in
newsgroups via examples based on shared experience accompanied by
simple/compelling/short logic with the emphasis on "short." But of
course you are unable to think that way because you don't trust
language (i.e. required for logical arguments), common usage (required
for simple/concise/short), you don't trust experience (required to be
innoculated against religion), and you simply reason differently by
your nature (however that translates...).
>Or just not interested enough to do some primary source reading and
>careful analysis perhaps.
That so true. I've told you many times. But every time I say, "That is
academic logic, it's not in my focus" you have answered with "??" So
it appears that you don't think there is a difference between academic
logic and real-world logic. Or you think real-world logic is something
different than I do. From my perspective, you constantly confuse the
two, as with your link at the top. But I don't know whether the link
applied to Quine's statement or not. I took it at face value out of
context.
>
>Bill has the courage to have a go (despite, I suspect, being pretty
sure
>before hand that he has nothing much to learn)..
He agrees with you more than I. He called me "dramatic" and
"indignant" and I'm sure that made you feel good.
>You should do the same,
I respect Bill. He has a lot to offer. I still say you should use his
great editing piece about your site as an introductory page.
>buy larry 2 a few drinks from me by the way!
>
I'm glad you like Larry 2. I was afraid you would find him too
patronizing. I will by him a drink and put it on your tab. It's one of
the devices I use to question my beliefs.
Larry the 1st
>--
>David Longley
Acme Debugging
>>story titled "The Three Sillies?" Remember the girl who sat at the
>>bottom of the stairs crying because someday she might get married,
and
>>her husband might walk down those stairs, and the hammer might fall
on
>>his head and kill him? To me, this is the same thing as worrying
that
>>the object will miss the garbage bucket, or that
>>language ambiguity will make language unreliable.
>
>That's either because 1) you don't have to work in science
Well, it says "Science" on the wall. Big deal. I mostly do logic.
>or 2) because
>you are so arrogant that you don't notice that other people will
often
>walk away with completely the wrong idea of what you said!
You mean like when I type a simple 1,2,3 procedure and nobody anywhere
can follow them? <g>
>The same will
>go for you understanding other people.
The only two people I have difficulty understanding are you and my
wife.
>Why do you think there *are* languages other than natural language?
Redundantly answered. I am stating it as "special words within a task"
for a reason. I am avoiding your terminology for a reason.
>>
>>Not to say that language ambiguity isn't a monumental subject. Tens
>>(hundreds?) of thousands of experts are working day and night to
make
>>language reliable.
>
>Natural language is not truth-functional for many reasons.
>
As listed quite frequently in sci.logic. Not very interesting to me
these days. In college I was quite the star "converter" of natural
language into logical propositions. Long time ago.
>> As a result, it is. If it wasn't, people would stop
>>talking and technology would stop working. Again, I refer anyone to
>>the introduction to any hardcover dictionary. You should get a nice
>>*representative* overview on this subject. You probably won't see
>>Quine mentioned. Mine has a lengthy piece by William Buckley. He
knows
>>about scientific language too.
>
>This all just sounds very silly to me.
>
Me too, but for a different reason I'm sure.
>>
>>>Even in mundane concrete situations it still arises on occasion
>>>that people may have important differences in interpretation of
>>common
>>>words,
>>
>>Of course, all the time in mundane situations where the cost of
being
>>wrong isn't too high, like getting a poor grade on a philosophy
test.
>
>This just shows us how *you* think about these matters - and it
reveal
>ignorance.
>
I thought the bit about the "philosophy" test was clever. Well, it
gave me a chuckle anyway. Two opinions for the same low price.
>>
>>>and the possibility of disagreement in some critical aspect verges
on
>>>certainty as we move away from the mundane.
>>
>>I think just the opposite, that as we "move away from the mundane"
the
>>cost of being wrong goes up. That's why I asked "Why do carriers
>>work?" In fact they do, they are way less mundane that newsgroup
>>posting, yet there is much less language confusion.
>
>I suggest that you just don't notice the confusion you are immersed
in.
That conflicts with my experience.
>
>>>But it remains that it is a bet rather
>>>than a certainty,
>>
>>Then I think we could resolve this issue. You are talking theory,
>>where things can be certain, and I'm talking about the real-world
>>where everything is a bet.
>
>No you're not, you're just being an arrogant smart ass
anti-intellectual
:-) Fair trade for the "obfuscator" who gets thrown overboard.
>- and that's me being helpful. You are sounding more and more
"red-neck"
>(is that the term?)
Yes. You can tell a red-neck because when the porch collapses, four
dogs are killed. :-)
> with each post.
Does it bother you when I reference children's books when talking
about your dogma? Well, doesn't it annoy you when you see people just
duplicating work that others have already done?
>We can all talk the language of
>probability.
That might be good. I would probably like it.
>What's being referred to here has nothing to do with
>probabilities.
You wish.
I read your one or two short messages. Don't see any good reason to
continue are repartee today.
Larry
>--
>David Longley
David Longley
But what *experience* do you have of 1) professionally providing a
service in psychology 2) trying to develop an AI project or 3) applying
research findings in psychology/neuroscience?
I'm not peddling a philosophy of life here - just a philosophy of
science apposite to some specific problems relevant to this newsgroup.
These may not be your interests, but then perhaps you are not interested
in anything (like the appropriate use of this newsgroup) which is not
already in your "focus"?
>
>>We
>>just don't have the appropriate terms. We learn these other languages
>>for a reason - ordinary language suffices for its own purposes, but
>>science is not one of them.
>
>Yeah, I know all about special words within a task, including what I
>think you are calling science.
>
>You know something funny? I qualify statements with "I think" maybe
>more than anyone else in this group. I am constantly spreading your
>Quine dogma! ;-O
So *you* are learning something - but as I say, I'm not here to sell a
personal philosophy - I'm looking for others to contribute in the
interests of problem solving.
There's far more to what I have said than just Quine's work.
>>
>>*You* may think you can express yourself clearly in natural language,
>>perhaps in some areas that is indeed the case.
>
>Every area of my life so far, as long as I learned the special words
>within tasks I needed to do. Every newsgroup except this one,
>according to you. Lots of newsgroups since the '80s. Lots of email
>correspondence. Plenty of "intellectual" and "scientific" and
>"technological" issues with highly credentialed people. But there is
>evidently something about this newsgroup that makes my language
>unreliable. I wonder what that is? Could it be something weird, like
>the ASCII value of the characters in the group name? It' a real
>enigma.
No, other newsgroup posters etc just collude with you in your ignorance.
Either you want to learn something or you don't, but just because I
don't spend my time bantering folk-psychological cliches about with you
doesn't mean you have the upper hand. You really do delude yourself if
you think otherwise.
>
>> It is NOT the case when
>>it comes to the issues I have been referring to.
>
>Obviously. I've said as much, redundantly. It's not in my focus. I
>have a big rap about the liabilities of learning useless information.
>I'm sure you're dying to hear it. :-)
>
How do you know what's useful or useless until you've learned it? You
come out with all the classic statements of ignorant arrogance (which I
would prefer to believe is not really the case). However, it is possible
that one reason you have the glib self-serving attitude is that you have
daft heuristics like the above.
>>To understand those
>>things you must learn to speak the language.
>
>Yes, that's usually the case.
>>
><snip>
>>>
>>>I understand that you think I don't understand what "it's" all
>about.
>>>One reason is because I call "it" language ambiguity, and you call
>it
>>>other things.
>>
>>And you are wrong - and you'll learn nothing if you insist on trying
>to
>>make sense of what I'm trying to show you in terms which are already
>>familiar to you.
>>
>I'm "wrong," doubt my language and experience, and you will show me
>the way. It's all there in that one sentence, the face of religion.
It's also how we teach anybody ANYTHING!
You do appreciate that up until the turn of the century, most of the
teachers in the world were clerics. All education is fundamentally
authoritative. Those who teach, mark those who learn, they tell them
when they are right and when they are wrong. Where this is not the case,
teaching does not occur.
You just keep spouting politically correct verbiage - something too many
people confuse with free-speech.
>
>You would be surprised at the different types of people outside of
>major religion who have said that to me and others I know, almost
>word-for-word. All apparently very upstanding citizens, most evil or
>with evil controllers. But I know you mean no harm. You just don't
>understand these implications because you are a naive true believer.
>And you are reacting to my sarcasm in my reply to Bill. That is the
>nicest possible face I can put on it, so that's how I'll interpret it.
I consider what I'm saying to be benevolent and ultimately harmless.
Sarcastic and self-aggrandizing you may be - but there's a glimmer of
self-doubt and that's what I'm working with.
>
>Obviously, I am immune.
Errmmmmm no.
>>
>>>have posted. Maybe I'm just too dumb.
>
>>It has nothing to do with you being "dumb"
>
>No, I wasn't being sarcastic. I meant it with respect to your "truth."
>Maybe I am just too dumb in that respect to see it. Then again, maybe
>your "truth" isn't true. You can't know that either. Unless...
Forget about truth (that's an abstraction from a relation - and prone to
becoming metaphysical as a consequence). Stick to knowing how to tell
the difference between sentences etc which are true or false.
>
>>(although you are rather too
>>fond of the apparent merits of naive psychology in my view
>
>I understand what you are saying, and plead guilty. But I am just as
>unqualified as everyone.
>
And there is an agenda here which is related to that - the place of the
intensional in explanations - and how this muddies or clarifies what can
and can not be achieved in behaviour science/AI/
><snip>
>
>>it has to do with you being stubborn
>><g>!
>
>Innoculated and totally immune to religion, likely more so than anyone
>you will ever know in your life. But I am the victim of empirical
>facts and logic, with facts taking 100 - 1 precedence. By my count I
>have said "I stand corrected" and "Thanks for correcting me" more than
>any other poster in c.a.p.
How genuine is it though?
> Give me a try sometime. It works in
>newsgroups via examples based on shared experience accompanied by
>simple/compelling/short logic with the emphasis on "short." But of
>course you are unable to think that way because you don't trust
>language (i.e. required for logical arguments), common usage (required
>for simple/concise/short), you don't trust experience (required to be
>innoculated against religion), and you simply reason differently by
>your nature (however that translates...).
I don't find your posts short or succinct. I think you grossly
underestimate the compression in Quine's writing, and mine too.
>
>>Or just not interested enough to do some primary source reading and
>>careful analysis perhaps.
>
>That so true. I've told you many times. But every time I say, "That is
>academic logic, it's not in my focus" you have answered with "??" So
>it appears that you don't think there is a difference between academic
>logic and real-world logic.
It's quite clear that I do see a difference - and if you read "Frag.htm"
carefully you would know that.
> Or you think real-world logic is something
>different than I do. From my perspective, you constantly confuse the
>two, as with your link at the top. But I don't know whether the link
>applied to Quine's statement or not. I took it at face value out of
>context.
You were muddling TRUTH with VALIDITY.
>>
>>Bill has the courage to have a go (despite, I suspect, being pretty
>sure
>>before hand that he has nothing much to learn)..
>
>He agrees with you more than I. He called me "dramatic" and
>"indignant" and I'm sure that made you feel good.
None of these posts "make me feel good". I don't think either of you
agree with me, but that isn't the point of these exchanges. I am just
trying to ensure that you understand what I have to say. I don't much
care whether you agree or not.
That's pretty much the way it should be if newsgroups are to be of any
value.
>
>>You should do the same,
>
>I respect Bill. He has a lot to offer. I still say you should use his
>great editing piece about your site as an introductory page.
>
Bill has yet to satisfy me that he really understands what I am saying
about the problems of intensionality and the nature of the extensional
stance.
>>buy larry 2 a few drinks from me by the way!
>>
>I'm glad you like Larry 2. I was afraid you would find him too
>patronizing. I will by him a drink and put it on your tab. It's one of
>the devices I use to question my beliefs.
>
>Larry the 1st
>
>>--
>>David Longley
I didn't say I liked Larry2 - I just find is behaviour preferable to
that of Larry1.
--
David Longley
David Longley
Debugging <L.F...@lycos.co.uk> writes
>David Longley <Da...@longley.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
>news:<RWevqcH5YfR$Ew$t...@longley.demon.co.uk>...
>> In article <35fae540.03082...@posting.google.com>, Acme
>> Debugging <L.F...@lycos.co.uk> writes
>>
>>>Speaking of "silly," have you ever read the children's "Book House"
>>>story titled "The Three Sillies?" Remember the girl who sat at the
>>>bottom of the stairs crying because someday she might get married,
>and
>>>her husband might walk down those stairs, and the hammer might fall
>on
>>>his head and kill him? To me, this is the same thing as worrying
>that
>>>the object will miss the garbage bucket, or that
>>>language ambiguity will make language unreliable.
>>
>>That's either because 1) you don't have to work in science
>
>Well, it says "Science" on the wall. Big deal. I mostly do logic.
>
>>or 2) because
>>you are so arrogant that you don't notice that other people will
>often
>>walk away with completely the wrong idea of what you said!
>
>You mean like when I type a simple 1,2,3 procedure and nobody anywhere
>can follow them? <g>
Sounds like you are now shifting languages. In the case of programming
languages you have no choice but to operate extensionally.
>
>>The same will
>>go for you understanding other people.
>
>The only two people I have difficulty understanding are you and my
>wife.
And presumably your wife matters to you - you will notice your failings
there more so than with others - who will collude or just not care.
>
>>Why do you think there *are* languages other than natural language?
>
>Redundantly answered. I am stating it as "special words within a task"
>for a reason. I am avoiding your terminology for a reason.
Is that an answer?
>>>
>>>Not to say that language ambiguity isn't a monumental subject. Tens
>>>(hundreds?) of thousands of experts are working day and night to
>make
>>>language reliable.
>>
>>Natural language is not truth-functional for many reasons.
>>
>As listed quite frequently in sci.logic. Not very interesting to me
>these days. In college I was quite the star "converter" of natural
>language into logical propositions. Long time ago.
I'm not asking to convert one to the other - I think large parts of the
former are just "snake-oil". We have no adequate natural language
translation programs. Like learning to use words appropriately, we can
learn to use other languages in given situations. There is no underlying
"meaning" mediating between them.
It would - wouldn't it !!
>>
>>>>But it remains that it is a bet rather
>>>>than a certainty,
>>>
>>>Then I think we could resolve this issue. You are talking theory,
>>>where things can be certain, and I'm talking about the real-world
>>>where everything is a bet.
>>
>>No you're not, you're just being an arrogant smart ass
>anti-intellectual
>
>:-) Fair trade for the "obfuscator" who gets thrown overboard.
Care to elaborate? And try to stick to facts rather than intensional
fillers.
--
David Longley
David Longley
<mod...@metrocast.net> writes
>(further discussion in the next section)
>
>
>> MODLIN: ... which may differ in arbitrary ways from that of any other
>individual. We map between words and regions of our internal webs: since
>the defining webs differ, words and sentences have different meanings for
>each user of the language.
>
>LONGLEY: No, the extension "table" is the same for both of us. Recall that
>the extension of "table" is all the things which are true of the class
>"table". We learn to use words publicly. This is particularly clear in the
>case of languages such as chemistry, mathematics, Fortran, C etc.
>
>MODLIN: First a quibble. That definition as stated doesn't make sense to
>me. Are you sure that's the right wording? I thought the extension of
>"table" would be the members of the class "table": the things for which it
>is true that they are tables?
>
>In any case. Please point to the extensions of: "No", "the", "extension",
>"is", "Recall", "that", "things", "which", "are", "true", "of", "class",
>"learn" and so on. Each of these is abstracted from many complex situations
>in which the words are used, and I suspect that you would have difficulty
>claiming that our extensions for each of those is necessarily identical.
You'll have to look to "Word and Object" 1960 and "The Roots of
Reference" 1974 for an answer to this. Suffice it to say that "recall"
is intensional as is "learn". You can see which of the above are natural
quantifiers etc.
Or, discussion could be left to another dedicated thread if you are
really that interested, but I'd expect you to do some of the research
with me.
The point to be taken here - and it covers the rest of your post, is
that it has to be understood that research is an ongoing programme in
many areas of behaviour science. There is much that remains to be
explained, but that does not mean that we need "intensions" to provide
the explanation. My point is that there MUST BE gaps in what we can say
about things and processes which we as yet do not fully understand. This
shows us where research is still likely to be worthwhile, and this in
itself is usually only ascertainable AFTER one has trained to PhD level
in a specific field.
What I have been urging you and others to accept is restraint. I am not
asking you to plug the gaps with some imaginative theory - just to
recognise that when we turn to using intensional idioms and heuristics,
it is just as a modus vivendi.
I don't have to give a detailed explication of what intensional
heuristics are any more than pointing them out. (There *are* in fact
behavioural explications of how they operate - and I have briefly
covered those in Frag.htm, but it isn't really the point of what I have
been saying).
>
>Even for something so concrete as a "table", there is fuzziness at the
>edges. Is a table used as a desk still a table? Is a counter or ledge or
>shelf extending from a wall a table? If not, does a table stop being a
>table if I bond its edge to a wall? And this fuzziness gets worse as we
>consider the range of related usages of the word, including water tables and
>tables of figures and the tables on which motions may be placed...
See the difference between meaning as determined by intension and
referents being determined by extension. See the difference between
properties and classes, and the whole issue of natural kinds (cf.
Putnam's volume 2 of collected papers referenced elsewhere).
>
>There is no fixed set of all the things that are tables. There is only
>statistical consensus that there are some situations in which most people
>would consider the word appropriate, and some others in which most would
>consider it wrong. And even this consensus is subject to change: slowly,
>through evolution of the language, and almost instantly, when a word is used
>in a special way in a given context and accepted by the parties to a
>conversation.
Is there just a statistical consensus about what H2O is? What about
glucose? Gold? People who are 6' tall, diabetes, cancer, roses.
We determine these things by expertise - maybe somethinhg non-PC to the
US sensitivity to freedom of thought and expression, but a matter of
fact nevertheless.
>
>You focus on scientific objects with clearly delimited static bounds
>described in artificially constrained languages, and contend that we should
>endeavor to similarly constrain our natural language.
>
I didn't say the boundaries have to be clearly delimited. That's your
wording. I'm quite happy for class membership to be statistical. I'm not
happy about giving chimera values though.
>What you ignore is that by so doing you would eliminate the expressivity of
>language, you would make it not just "undesirable" but actually impossible
>to discuss things outside the formally circumscribed domain of the language.
That's pretty much the case anyway - ordinary language has its usages
outside of science, and one doesn't take it too seriously inside of
science. The world runs on digital machines these days, and carefully
drafted legislation and contracts. Why do you think we prize those
skills so highly?
>
>You mention languages such as chemistry, math, Fortran and so on as though
>they were examples to be emulated by natural language.
I didn't ay this, I said they are used in place of natural language.
They are more apposite for some purposes, ie science and technology.
Ordinary language is more appropriate for literature, art, entertainment
and heuristics.
> But I challenge you
>to teach or explain any of those using only the elements of the language
>itself, or to use any of them to describe a unicorn or a flower in such a
>way that someone not already familiar with the thing described could know
>what you are talking about.
Nonsense, we do this all the time when we teach technology. We just make
people feel more comfortable by giving them something familiar at the
same time. Think about learning a new natural language in an alien
community. People do it - they have to.
See Quine on radical translation - the GAVAGAI example in chapter 2 of
"Word and Object".
>
>I submit that you cannot, that you require the generality of a natural
>language with its ambiguous and mutable heuristic extensions to express
>anything really new.
>
This is silly, it just shows you don't understand what this is all about
- and you don't Bill, talk that on trust. This is at the heart of all
that I have been talking about and you just assert that it can't be
done!
<more later - read some of "Word and Object" first>
--
David Longley
Patty Cutman
> In the case of programming languages you
> have no choice but to operate extensionally.
What does it mean to operate extensionally in a programming language?
In knowledge engineering we frequently define a term by some
criteria, by some intension; for example: (=> (young ?x) (> (age ?x)
5) ); then we change the context of usage of the term ... consequently
the extension of the term changes. When we do that in our knowledge
engineering programming languages, how are we 'operating
extensionally' ?
Please answer the question directly.
Patty
David Longley
Cutman <patty...@excite.com> writes
You tell me Patty.
Date (1983)* in discussing the nature of a data model speaks of a data
model as an abstract programming language. He refers to a database as a
large structured variable and the database schema or database intension
as defining the TYPE of that variable. He also says that a database
instance or state or extension is a value of the variable defined by the
database schema.
*C J Date "What is a Data Model", p 193 Vol II An Introduction to
Database Systems.
One can call a schema or data definition 4GL query "intensional" and the
values of the variables stored in the database the extension if one
wishes, just as one can call the pointing device that moves a cursor
around a screen a "mouse". However, these are appropriations terms to
suit discussions of database and computer technology. There's no harm in
referring to the values of the database as extensions (I have done this
myself) but referring to the query as "intensional" and a pointing
device as "a mouse" is surely just analogy or metaphor. The fact that it
may be becoming more common practice, is, I suggest, just bad
convention.
If used literally, it would amount to yet another instance of importing
mentalism into Computer Science - something I have been specifically
criticising. It starts quite innocently, e.g. talking about "querying" a
database as "asking it a question" or "interrogating" it (via QBE, SQL
or a 4GL) - then folk start referring to the data as "knowledge" etc
etc, and ultimately, lots of folk end learn to talk this way by
convention (rote). Somewhere along the way such folk begin to wonder why
anyone should object to what they are doing being referred to as
"knowledge" engineering or "data mining".
In brief, your database queries no more "knowledge" engineer or data
"mine" or "retrieve" data than you pointing devices eat cheese. These
are just metaphors. Higher order language cliches to make it easier to
talk about things.
More directly still:
The term "intension" is being used differently in the context you cite -
possibly inappropriately.
--
David Longley
Bill Modlin
"David Longley" and "Bill Modlin" wrote:
<much noise>
Why are we having this conversation?
David is a behavioral psychologist. He defines intelligence in
behavioral terms, and appears to claim that only a behavioral approach
to AI can ultimately succeed. I'm in a different camp. I feel that
intelligence is not defined by behavior. I claim that we can only
produce a true AI by working out the internal processes whereby
intelligence comes to understand things, and that coupling this
understanding to behavior is a secondary concern.
So, we have very different views of what constitutes a proper philosophy
of AI and how therefore one should go about achieving AI. While it is
unlikely that either of us will convert the other, I thought we were
trying to see if we could find any useful common ground, if we could
learn anything at all from each other. At the very least I hoped that
each of us could formulate our positions clearly enough that we could
understand what we disagree about.
David seems to think the purpose of the discussion is to test whether I
understand Quine, and shows no interest in either formulating a position
of his own or explaining why he feels Quine is relevant to AI.
So. David, why are we having this conversation? Do you have any
interest in AI? Do you have any interest in what I might be able to
teach you? Or do you know it all and just want to show what a patient
and longsuffering teacher you are?
If you are interested in having a meaningful conversation, please
address some of the points I've raised.
For example:
As I understand it, you claim that language is acquired through operant
conditioning alone.
I've pointed out that much of our linguistic competence arises from mere
exposure to language, without emission of reinforcable operants. As for
example in the acquisition of vocabulary from the silent reading of text
in which previously unfamiliar words acquire meaning for us from the
contexts in which they occur.
Do you deny that this occurs?
If not, how do you explain this as operant conditioning?
I'd appreciate a self-contained response, not a reference to some other
work. I'm asking a question about your own position on this matter. If
other work is relevant in support of your position, that's fine, we can
get to it. But first please gloss your position for us.
Bill
Patty Cutman
> In article <4e799a1d.03082...@posting.google.com>, Patty
> Cutman <patty...@excite.com> writes
> >David Longley <Da...@longley.demon.co.uk> wrote
> >
> >> In the case of programming languages you
> >> have no choice but to operate extensionally.
> >
> >What does it mean to operate extensionally in a programming language?
> > In knowledge engineering we frequently define a term by some
> >criteria, by some intension; for example: (=> (young ?x) (> (age ?x)
> >5) ); then we change the context of usage of the term ... consequently
> >the extension of the term changes. When we do that in our knowledge
> >engineering programming languages, how are we 'operating
> >extensionally' ?
> >
> >Please answer the question directly.
> >
> >Patty
>
> You tell me Patty.
OK, Actually there is a rather clear example of operating
extensionally or operating intensionally in [1]. Apparently, when we
program, we do have a choice.
<snip>
irrelivant Quote from CJ Date
</snip>
> More directly still:
No, David, that is not a direct answer. That is merely a continuation
of the verbal behavior in question.
> The term "intension" is being used differently in the context you cite -
> possibly inappropriately.
Ok, fair enough, perhaps I chose the wrong sense of the word
"intension" to exemplify. Did you perchance mean "Intensional
context" as in "Opaque context" re [2] ?
Again, I would appreciate a direct answer to my question. What do
*you* mean by "In the case of programming languages you have no choice
but to operate extensionally" ?
[1]
<http://www-old.cs.uiuc.edu/Dienst/Repository/2.0/Body/ncstrl.uiuc_cs/UIUCDCS-R-93-1822/postscript>
[2] <http://users.info.unicaen.fr/~tlebarbe/Linguistics_Lexicon/ll_o.html#opaque_context>
Patty
Glen M. Sizemore
BM: As I understand it, you claim that language is acquired through operant
conditioning alone.
I've pointed out that much of our linguistic competence arises from mere
exposure to language,[...]
GS: You've asserted this, and offered one anecdote. It is likely, as Skinner
came to believe, that some amount of imitation is innate. However, it is
unlikely that "...MUCH [emphasis mine,GS] of our linguistic competence..."
is acquired in this fashion. Also, imitation itself becomes a response class
and then "linguistic competence" accelerates quite rapidly. We need merely
say the word that we want the child to say, and then we reinforce when it
says it.
BM: [...]without emission of reinforcable operants.
GS: There is no evidence that this is the case. It is easy to demolish the
"poverty of stimulus" nonsense.
BM: As for
example in the acquisition of vocabulary from the silent reading of text
in which previously unfamiliar words acquire meaning for us from the
contexts in which they occur.
GS: Which of course is explicable in terms of operant conditioning.
BM: Do you deny that this occurs?
GS: Apparently not.
BM: If not, how do you explain this as operant conditioning?
GS: You are, at this point, talking about fairly high-level processes. They
are still due to operant conditioning but their explanation gets somewhat
complex. Let's start simple. You probably wouldn't find this too miraculous
if the silent reading was of the dictionary, and the word "acquired" was the
word being defined. Of course, it depends on what you mean by "acquired."
And when you tell me what it means, please point to observable phenomena. A
person who can merely recite the definition to you has probably not
"acquired" the word by your standards, and also not by mine (given that we
are using "acquired" in a fairly nebulous way now) - it would be a mere
textual response (which is easily explicable in terms of operant
conditioning). The fact is, the effect of a fragment of verbal behavior
(including the products of verbal behavior we call "text") on the behavior
of a listener is always a function of the surrounding fragments, except
where they do not exist as in the child's "cookie!" Now, let's return to our
dictionary reader; many adults can read a dictionary definition and then
immediately go on to "use the word correctly" at least by some standard of
"use the word correctly." Here the context is, of course, specifically
designed to make this the case. Take a simple case where a person enters,
say, a display of laboratory items. Above a machine there is an arrow
pointed down at the machine with the words "This is a high-performance
liquid chromatograph." Later someone points at the thing and says "what is
this" and the person answers correctly. Can you say how this is operant
conditioning? I think that you should think about this before we proceed. As
you think about this, try to phrase your explanation in terms of response
classes and not stuff like (let's see, he already knows what an arrow
means). Actually, this is a very good exercise and it is not that easy.
BM: I'd appreciate a self-contained response, not a reference to some other
work. I'm asking a question about your own position on this matter. If
other work is relevant in support of your position, that's fine, we can
get to it. But first please gloss your position for us.
GS: If you are interested in having me continue, I will.
"Bill Modlin" <mod...@metrocast.net> wrote in message
news:Wy-dnfQnIP0...@metrocast.net...
David Longley
<mod...@metrocast.net> writes
>
>"David Longley" and "Bill Modlin" wrote:
>
><much noise>
ie, you have ignored what I have said to you.
>
>Why are we having this conversation?
>
You tell me Bill.
>David is a behavioral psychologist. He defines intelligence in
>behavioral terms, and appears to claim that only a behavioral approach
>to AI can ultimately succeed.
I don't define "intelligence" in behavioural terms. I've agreed with
Minsky that we don't really know what we mean by the term. I've said
it's intensional and that's why we don't know what we are talking about
when we use the term. mean by it. This is the case whenever one takes
intensions (properties or attributes) and tries to make them the
determinants of extensions.
On the other hand, people seem to be talking about what radical
behaviourists call operant behaviour when they are talking about
intelligent behaviour. This being so, if one wants to build a machine
which people talk about as behaving intelligently, it would seem to be
worth building a machine which instantiates operant conditioning.
How does one do that? I've provided a couple of pointers. One was that I
would start with a simple biological organism which has been shown to
instantiate operant conditioning. I'd then try to reverse engineer that.
I drew attention to a review on plasticity in binocular mapping in
xenopus when it metamorphoses, but pointed out that although that is
suggestive of how plasticity occurs it is still too complex and has not
been fully worked out (and is not necessarily operant anyway). I also
suggested you looked at Honey-Bee operant conditioning as the nerve net
seems to be relatively small, but 250,000 neurones is still perhaps too
complex. I then pointed to a site where there is some interesting work
was being done on the neural, chemical and genetic basis of operant
conditioning in Drosophila.
The purpose here is quite clear I would have thought, and it is clearly
a practical instantiation of the method I am advocating..
Charitably speaking, II regard what you say in this post to be either
indicative of you having forgotten or not understood this, or that you
have an altogether different agenda which I find rather offensive.
The answers to empirical questions will come from empirical research.
I am prepared to look for that research, analyse data, discuss in order
to clarify findings in pursuit of answers. I am not prepared to make up
answers "a priori". The latter is what's wrong with so much of Cognitive
Science.
> I'm in a different camp. I feel that
>intelligence is not defined by behavior. I claim that we can only
>produce a true AI by working out the internal processes whereby
>intelligence comes to understand things, and that coupling this
>understanding to behavior is a secondary concern.
But you literally don't know what you are talking about - and nobody
else really can understand what you are saying when you talk about
"working out the internal processes whereby intelligence comes to
understand things" - such sleight of hand is all illusion - and when you
say your focus is not primarily on behaviour, it is delusory. Rather
than deal with, albeit incomplete facts of behaviour and their
functional relations, you turn to metaphor.
>
>So, we have very different views of what constitutes a proper philosophy
>of AI and how therefore one should go about achieving AI. While it is
>unlikely that either of us will convert the other, I thought we were
>trying to see if we could find any useful common ground, if we could
>learn anything at all from each other.
I have been explicitly critical of intensionalism - you assert that what
you are trying to do is not intensional. I say you don't seem to realise
how what you are doing is intensional. Rather than demonstrate this, you
ten start questioning whether operant conditioning can account for your
grasp of language - I respond by saying, go and read some of "Word and
Object" and "The Roots of Reference" if you want to see how he gives an
account of language learning through operant conditioning and analogical
synthesis. I don't have the time or perhaps the inclination to do so
here given what I think the important issues are.
> At the very least I hoped that
>each of us could formulate our positions clearly enough that we could
>understand what we disagree about.
>
>David seems to think the purpose of the discussion is to test whether I
>understand Quine, and shows no interest in either formulating a position
>of his own or explaining why he feels Quine is relevant to AI.
I have suggested that *you* read the above if you want to understand how
someone from the stance I am advancing, provides an answer to your
questions. If they are not genuine questions, but disagreements with the
answers, then say so, and say why the answers Quine provides are
inadequate. He clearly thinks they are adequate and has argued with
Chomsky about this at length.
>
>So. David, why are we having this conversation? Do you have any
>interest in AI?
That's a silly question.
> Do you have any interest in what I might be able to
>teach you?
Not if it's going to be a type of psychology which I am already pretty
much an expert in but which I now reject.
> Or do you know it all and just want to show what a patient
>and longsuffering teacher you are?
No, I want to get some points clear about AI - but what I keep getting
back is misconceptions, misquotations and a refusal to get the facts of
what others who have written extensively on this for over 50 years -
accurate.
>
>If you are interested in having a meaningful conversation, please
>address some of the points I've raised.
>
>For example:
>
>As I understand it, you claim that language is acquired through operant
>conditioning alone.
You select the most complex part of animal behaviour and demand an
operant account of its acquisition as a sine qua non for your acceptance
of the reality and merits of studying the basis of operant behaviour as
what we call "intelligent" behaviour. This is RIDICULOUS. I'm not
playing this game - go and read Quine, Chomsky, Katz, Fodor and others
who have argued about this for the past 50 years.
I suggested operant conditioning of yaw and pitch in fruit flies as a
model - perhaps you misread or recall me suggesting jaw and pitch - an
example of how analogical synthesis (induction) goes awry?.
>
>I've pointed out that much of our linguistic competence arises from mere
>exposure to language, without emission of reinforcable operants. As for
>example in the acquisition of vocabulary from the silent reading of text
>in which previously unfamiliar words acquire meaning for us from the
>contexts in which they occur.
But you aren't "pointing out" anything, you are referring to something
you believe which I have said has been addressed elsewhere over the
years - and still has not been resolved.
>
>Do you deny that this occurs?
>
>If not, how do you explain this as operant conditioning?
>
>I'd appreciate a self-contained response, not a reference to some other
>work.
No doubt you would - No doubt you'd also like the solution to a number
of other major scientific questions too - In my view you have a poor
grasp of the nature of the questions you are asking and so you don't
appreciate the answers you get.
Ask yourself this question: If the cognitivists are correct - why don't
we have computer speech and automatic translation which works? if they
have the internal models, the generative and transformational grammars -
which don't we see them as PC applications? Where are the
instantiations? Where is any of the Cognitvist nonsense instantiated?
I've already told you where the behavioural work is applied.
Read the "I accuse" extract from Skinner about why he is not a Cognitive
Psychologist, and give it some time to sink in. It took him some time
and effort to write it - why do you think he did that?
> I'm asking a question about your own position on this matter. If
>other work is relevant in support of your position, that's fine, we can
>get to it. But first please gloss your position for us.
>
>Bill
And I have answered that over and over again. You just don't seem to
understand it. My position has even been made available as an online
document - one you claim to have read and which you even summarised in
part.
http://www.longley.demon.co.uk/Frag.htm
--
David Longley
Neil W Rickert
>David seems to think the purpose of the discussion is to test whether I
>understand Quine, and shows no interest in either formulating a position
>of his own or explaining why he feels Quine is relevant to AI.
>So. David, why are we having this conversation? Do you have any
>interest in AI? Do you have any interest in what I might be able to
>teach you? Or do you know it all and just want to show what a patient
>and longsuffering teacher you are?
Maybe you should ask yourself that question. Just why are you
persisting in your vain attempt to reform this recidivist?
>As I understand it, you claim that language is acquired through operant
>conditioning alone.
>I've pointed out that much of our linguistic competence arises from mere
>exposure to language, without emission of reinforcable operants. As for
That far too simplistic.
It doesn't work the way radical behaviorist think it does. It
(language acquisition) doesn't work by mere exposure either. A
child acquiring language gets a lot of reinforcement, but it is not
the kind of reinforcement that radical behaviorism supposes.
Glen M. Sizemore
(language acquisition) doesn't work by mere exposure either. A
child acquiring language gets a lot of reinforcement, but it is not
the kind of reinforcement that radical behaviorism supposes.
GS: Won't you elaborate on this, Dr. Rickert? BTW, the term reinforcement
presumes a reinforced class of behavior. Are you asserting that "language
acquisition" is about the reinforcement of classes of responses?
"Neil W Rickert" <ricke...@cs.niu.edu> wrote in message
news:cH42b.15046$Ih1.4...@newssrv26.news.prodigy.com...
Glen M. Sizemore
enough for language
to be effective.
GS: See.....here's what's funny about this, Bill. If "subjective
abstractions" exist at all, they exist "in" the behavior from which they are
inferred. Since language IS, obviously, effective, it is quite natural to
say that the "subjective abstractions" are similar. They are inferred from
behavior, and simply assigned whatever properties are needed to explain the
behavior from which they are inferred!
Anyway, "meanings" are "subjective" in the sense that no two individuals'
conditioning histories are likely to be identical. People will likely
respond differently in many circumstances even when what is responded to is
simple like a monochromatic light projected on a screen (i.e., at certain
wavelengths, some will say "orange" others "red" etc.). Meanings aren't
inside the head, they are to be found among the determiners of the response
and these include conditioning history, current stimuli, current states of
deprivation, satiation, and aversive stimulation etc. etc. etc.
"Bill Modlin" <mod...@metrocast.net> wrote in message
news:q9mdnW-1trw...@metrocast.net...
>
> "Acme Debugging" <L.F...@lycos.co.uk> wrote in message
> news:35fae540.0308...@posting.google.com...
> "Bill Modlin" <mod...@metrocast.net> wrote in message
> news:<Eomdnacg5aT...@metrocast.net>...
> > "David Longley" <Da...@longley.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
> > news:dxecjYK8FrQ$Ew...@longley.demon.co.uk...
> >
> > '..the meaning of words are abstractions from the truth
> > conditions of sentences that contain them.'
>
>
> FINE:
> (BTW, recall the Quine pieces about lack of his student's "right ideology"
> (edited) and the piece about "nefarious rhetoric" demonstrating Quine's
> effusive dislike of persuasive argumentation. What his statement here
> accomplishes is to make argumentation of any kind logically unreliable,
> nefarious or not. This would explain why many find Quine "simply
> irresistable." It would be wonderful if our opinions and beliefs could be
> unfalsifiable, e.g. the joy of religion. But of course philosophy, Quine,
> and the language of science don't sound at all like religion.
>
> > W.V.O. Quine (1981) The Five Milestones of Empiricism:
> > Theories and Things p.69
>
> Larry, I take the "truth conditions" in that Quine quote as philosopherese
> for "the situations in which a sentence is used", and overall find it
rather
> an innocuous observation. To me, your dramatic negative reaction to the
> words is excellent evidence for the point made here: that the meaning of
> words is subjective and inexact.
>
> To me there is no paradox at all, and nothing to be refuted. For
practical
> purposes our subjective abstractions clearly are similar enough for
language
> to be effective. But it would be silly to pretend that meanings are fixed
> and exact. Even in mundane concrete situations it still arises on
occasion
> that people may have important differences in interpretation of common
> words, and the possibility of disagreement in some critical aspect verges
on
> certainty as we move away from the mundane.
>
> > Each of us makes our own abstractions of words, sentences, and
> > truths. We employ similar innate heuristics in making these
> > abstractions, but as the details of the experience from which we
> > abstract meaning vary from individual to individual, so do the
> > internal results. Each of us constructs a private internal "web
> > of belief", which may differ in arbitrary ways from that of any
> > other individual. We map between words and regions of our
> > internal webs: since the defining webs differ, words and
> > sentences have different meanings for each user of the language.
>
> > One result is that translations from one set of words to another
> > are uncertain, as discussed by Davidson in a quotation included by
> > Longley in the same posting:
>
> > 'Finding right words of my own to communicate another's
> > saying is a problem of translation. The words I use in the
> > particular case may be viewed as products of my total theory
> > (however vague and subject to correction) of what the
> > originating speaker means by anything he says: such a theory
> > is indistinguishable from a characterization of a truth
> > predicate, with his language as object language and mine as
> > metalanguage. The crucial point is that there will be equally
> > acceptable alternative theories which differ in assigning
> > clearly non-synonymous sentences of mine as translations of
> > his same utterance. This is Quine's thesis of the
> > indeterminacy of translation.'
> >
> > D. Davidson p.100
> >
> > This is undeniably a problem. We can never be certain of what
> > another really means by his words, or even that his words have a
> > meaning which can be mapped to our own internal structures.
>
> FINE:
>
> Why don't people bump into walls?
>
> Why do people constantly bet their lives on other's webs of belief?
>
> Why do aircraft carriers work?
>
> Why do I understand your last sentence?
>
> Why are you reading this if there is no objective and consensus
> meaning of the words "Cancel" and "Send?"
>
> Why do I drive when I might accidently run over a child?
>
> I'm not sure you are quoting Davidson correctly, or he paraphrasing
> Quine, because it appears he qualifies the problem of ambiguity to
> "clearly non-synonymous sentences." Why am I able to note my confusion and
> ask for clarification?
>
> I would agree with everything below (fine analysis and exceptional
> wordcraft too!), if I agreed with the assumption in your last
> ("never") sentence above. But at present I don't. While it may be
> theoretically true (what isn't?), I see it as real-world trivial.
>
> Larry
>
> P.S. I understand that you may have adopted the statement to find a
> starting point of agreement. I'm disagreeing with the idea independent of
> the source.
>
> -----------
>
> Larry, I agree with Quine and Davidson on this basic point, and I stand by
> the "never be certain". I have on numerous occasions been shocked to find
> that people can indeed disagree over things which appear to me quite
> unambiguous. This is not in conflict with your indignant assertion that
we
> do routinely rely on the pragmatic working of the process... certainly we
> do. Certainly we expect that we usually understand each other, even to
the
> extent of betting our lives on it. But it remains that it is a bet rather
> than a certainty, and in the real world the problem is far from trivial.
We
> are here engaged in a non-trivial expenditure of real-world effort and
time
> because our understanding of a few words is demonstrably different.
>
> The most dramatic examples of the problem arise when the ambiguity is
> compounded by sequentially dependent translations without corrective
> feedback:
>
> > So any translation we make to a new set of words of our own
> > introduces some uncertainty, and successive translations through
> > a series of individuals can mutate the original message beyond
> > recognition.
>
> But it is also possible to overreact and mistakenly attempt to eliminate
> translation by fiat, which is the error I attempted to address:
>
> > Longley appears to internalize the message delivered by Quine and
> > Davidson and others in a way that influences his own utterances
> > according to a rule which I abstract and translate approximately
> > into "indirect quotation is always bad".
>
> > What this misses is that direct quotation is in itself subject to
> > inherent uncertainty in translation. The words quoted are
> > themselves an uncertain translation of the speakers original
> > intent, and are subject to further uncertainty in their
> > translation to internal understanding of the hearer.
>
> > We do not avoid uncertainty by direct quotation, we simply
> > encourage consistency of error.
>
> > The only tool we have for reducing uncertainty is indirect
> > quotation: rewording, paraphrasing, restating in new terms from a
> > different perspective.
>
> > If I read a passage, say from one of Quine's works, I translate it
> > into my own internal understanding. This translation may improve
> > somewhat on subsequent readings: I may notice some aspects of his
> > words that escaped notice at first glance. But while a more
> > careful reading may at first improve my understanding, there is
> > nothing about continued study of the same words which ensures
> > convergence toward accurate understanding of their original
> > intent. Indeed, with intense study of a given passage I may come
> > to read into it subtlety of meaning far beyond that intended:
> > eventually I will over-interpret the passage and imbue it with
> > significance related only to my own idiosyncratic internal web of
> > belief. My internal translation of any particular set of words
> > ultimately diverges from original intent, rather than converging.
>
> > The only cure for the problem is liberal application of indirect
> > quotation. If my intent is to understand what Quine intends I may
> > read other works of his, other passages in which he provides
> > alternative translations of his internal meanings into different
> > words. Each of these alternatives provides a new set of fuzzy
> > constraints on the original intent, and by matching up many
> > different points in my web to his words I can reduce the
> > uncertainty of translation of each of the original passages. I
> > extract his message from the redundant aspects of many different
> > translations, and the more translations I have to work with, the
> > more certain I may become of the message.
>
> > What may not be obvious at first glance is that indirect
> > quotations by others may be more informative to me of Quine's
> > intent than his own re-statements of his thoughts. Quine will
> > tend to be consistent in his translations of certain of his
> > thoughts to words, and I will tend to be consistent in my own
> > translations of those words to understanding. Errors in these
> > consistent mappings will never be corrected by reading Quine. If
> > I am given access to other translations by independent observers
> > of his words, I may be confronted with conflicts which reveal
> > inconsistencies in my direct interpretation, which force me to
> > adjust my reading. It is not that another paraphrase of Quine
> > will be more accurate than mine or Quine's, but that its pattern
> > of ambiguities will be different, allowing clearer discrimination
> > of the persistent or redundant aspects of the message.
>
> > Far from being always bad, it appears to me that indirect
> > quotation is necessary to the communication of meaning, and that
> > direct quotation can play at best a minimal supporting role.
>
> Bill Modlin
>
>
Glen M. Sizemore
GS: There is no evidence that this use of "heuristics" is anything but
metaphorical or could ever be anything else but metaphorical.
BM: but as the
details of the experience from which we abstract meaning vary from
individual to individual, so do the internal results.
GS: There is no evidence that there is anything internal that is a
representation of "details of experience. You simply assert that this is the
case and then proceed to interpret observations in such terms.
BM: Each of us constructs
a private internal "web of belief", which may differ in arbitrary ways from
that of any other individual. We map between words and regions of our
internal webs: since the defining webs differ, words and sentences have
different meanings for each user of the language.
GS: There is no evidence that any of this stuff is any more "real" than
phlogiston. None of it is directly observed, and the "entities" are simply
imbued with whatever is necessary to explain the behavior from which these
"things" are inferred. This wouldn't be so bad, but guys like you (and there
are ever so many) imply that the things are hypotheses to be evaluated,
rather than being the rather vacuous assumptions that they are.
As I have said repeatedly, the brain is changed by ontogenic variables
(i.e., "experience" - which once meant "what happened to a person," BTW,
Bill) but it does not follow that the world is in any way "stored, " as a
"web of belief" or anything else.
"Bill Modlin" <mod...@metrocast.net> wrote in message
news:Eomdnacg5aT...@metrocast.net...
>
> "David Longley" <Da...@longley.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
> news:dxecjYK8FrQ$Ew...@longley.demon.co.uk...
>
> '..the meaning of words are abstractions from the truth
> conditions of sentences that contain them.'
>
> W.V.O. Quine (1981)
> The Five Milestones of Empiricism: Theories and Things p.69
>
> be mapped to our own internal structures. So any translation we make to
a
> new set of words of our own introduces some uncertainty, and successive
> translations through a series of individuals can mutate the original
message
> beyond recognition.
>
David Longley
Cutman <patty...@excite.com> writes
>David Longley <Da...@longley.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
>news:<dsZMU5arNCS$Ew...@longley.demon.co.uk>...
>> In article <4e799a1d.03082...@posting.google.com>, Patty
>> Cutman <patty...@excite.com> writes
>> >David Longley <Da...@longley.demon.co.uk> wrote
>> >
>> >> In the case of programming languages you
>> >> have no choice but to operate extensionally.
>> >
>> >What does it mean to operate extensionally in a programming language?
>> > In knowledge engineering we frequently define a term by some
>> >criteria, by some intension; for example: (=> (young ?x) (> (age ?x)
>> >5) ); then we change the context of usage of the term ... consequently
>> >the extension of the term changes. When we do that in our knowledge
>> >engineering programming languages, how are we 'operating
>> >extensionally' ?
>> >
>> >Please answer the question directly.
>> >
>> >Patty
>>
>> You tell me Patty.
>
>OK, Actually there is a rather clear example of operating
>extensionally or operating intensionally in [1]. Apparently, when we
>program, we do have a choice.
if it's all so clear to you - why ask the question? If you have
something to cite, make sure it's text or html. I can't convert
postscript.
>
><snip>
>irrelivant Quote from CJ Date
></snip>
Irrelevant to *you* perhaps - not to others who may like some
authoritative context on the usage of the term in this context.
>
>> More directly still:
>
>No, David, that is not a direct answer. That is merely a continuation
>of the verbal behavior in question.
Yes, Patty, it was a direct answer - just not the one you wanted.
>
>> The term "intension" is being used differently in the context you cite -
>> possibly inappropriately.
>
>Ok, fair enough, perhaps I chose the wrong sense of the word
>"intension" to exemplify. Did you perchance mean "Intensional
>context" as in "Opaque context" re [2] ?
>
If you really want to know the answer to this, try a Google search. I've
been through this often enough.
>Again, I would appreciate a direct answer to my question. What do
>*you* mean by "In the case of programming languages you have no choice
>but to operate extensionally" ?
>
http://www.longley.demon.co.uk/Frag.htm
>[1]
><http://www-old.cs.uiuc.edu/Dienst/Repository/2.0/Body/ncstrl.uiuc_cs/UI
>UCDCS-R-93-1822/postscript>
>[2]
><http://users.info.unicaen.fr/~tlebarbe/Linguistics_Lexicon/ll_o.html#op
>aque_context>
>
>Patty
--
David Longley
Neil W Rickert
>BM: We employ similar innate heuristics in making these abstractions,[...]
>GS: There is no evidence that this use of "heuristics" is anything but
>metaphorical or could ever be anything else but metaphorical.
I have to agree with GS on this.
>BM: but as the
>details of the experience from which we abstract meaning vary from
>individual to individual, so do the internal results.
>GS: There is no evidence that there is anything internal that is a
>representation of "details of experience. You simply assert that this is the
>case and then proceed to interpret observations in such terms.
I also agree with GS on this.
>BM: Each of us constructs
>a private internal "web of belief", which may differ in arbitrary ways from
>that of any other individual. We map between words and regions of our
>internal webs: since the defining webs differ, words and sentences have
>different meanings for each user of the language.
>GS: There is no evidence that any of this stuff is any more "real" than
>phlogiston. None of it is directly observed, and the "entities" are simply
>imbued with whatever is necessary to explain the behavior from which these
>"things" are inferred. This wouldn't be so bad, but guys like you (and there
>are ever so many) imply that the things are hypotheses to be evaluated,
>rather than being the rather vacuous assumptions that they are.
I even agree with GS on this.
Neil W Rickert
>NR: It doesn't work the way radical behaviorist think it does. It
>(language acquisition) doesn't work by mere exposure either. A
>child acquiring language gets a lot of reinforcement, but it is not
>the kind of reinforcement that radical behaviorism supposes.
>GS: Won't you elaborate on this, Dr. Rickert? BTW, the term reinforcement
>presumes a reinforced class of behavior. Are you asserting that "language
>acquisition" is about the reinforcement of classes of responses?
No, I am not asserting that.
The language acquiring child is developing internal procedures to
effectively communicate ideas. When the child observes that
his/her communication attempts were successful, that acts as a
reinforcement in support of the internal procedures used.
Granted, you are unlikely to agree. The eliminativism of radical
behaviorism denies internal ideas and internal intentions to
communicate those ideas.
Still, you will never satisfactorily account for language acquisition
on the basis of reinforcement of externally observable behavior. Chomsky
was quite right about that.