On 03/04/2016 11:17 AM, Russ Abbott wrote:
All that is much to sophisticated for me. I don't have a theory or a model (e.g., in terms of interpreters) for how the mind works.
Heh, you claim it's too sophisticated and that you don't have a theory or a model for how the mind works, yet you _write_ as if you do. The things Eric and Nick have said would make complete sense if you had no theory/model. They may end up being incomplete. But they're coherent (as far as I can tell). I believe I'm the same thing they're saying, just in different language. What I think is actually happening is that you do have a theory/model and what Nick and Eric say simply doesn't fit your theory/model. That's OK, of course. But it'll continue to be difficult to compare your model with theirs as long as you won't explain your model.
This all started as a discussion of subjective behavior. It has drifted into a discussion of thinking more generally -- and in particular thinking about mathematical "objects." I see the drift as a positive development since we all presumably agree about what things like "the square root of 2" means. Yet the referent of "the square root of 2" is not (I still claim) a material thing. It is (I still claim) a mental construct, and it exists (at least and perhaps only) in the mind.
We don't all agree, I think. The √2 is extremely hard to conceive, I think. Irrational numbers are naively defined in the negative, as any number that's not a rational number. This indicates to me that they are _not_ mental constructs at all. They are linguistic/algebraic/definitional (whatever) constructs for most of us. (I'm not ruling out that people like Leibniz or Penrose did/do conceive them... but most people probably don't.) And language/algebra/definitions are concrete things referred to by symbols like √ in the same way actual cats are referred to by symbols like "cat" (and interpreted by things like humans).
I see that as important to this discussion since Nick and Eric claim (as I understand them) that talk of things being in the mind is meaningless.
I don't think they've intended to say that it's completely meaningless. I do think they've said that whatever happens in "the mind" can be (can only be) precisely described through it's I/O. This seems like the same thing as the holographic principle: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holographic_principle And although it may not be true, it's certainly a pretty solid idea. -- ⇔ glen ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
