[FRIAM] Warring Darwinians for Glen, Steve

[Prof David West]

Two contributions, hopefully, to this conversation — first to something Nick said, then Glen.

Nick said: "It was me that floated the thought that “all thinking is metaphorical”. (I was trying to draw Dave West in on my side of the argument, at the time.)" I remember the conversation — at St. John's — quite a while back.  I also remember that the statement was quickly qualified. (And Nick, you should be ashamed of having uttered such a universal statement seeing as the speed with which you chastise others, especially me, for doing the same.)

Not all thinking is metaphorical. A major exception is thinking about things of which we know enough to speak in formalisms: mathematical expressions, logical statements, formulas ala any of the hard sciences, etc. No metaphor there. (Nick will object saying that even those things express models and all models are metaphors, but ignore him.)

Metaphors are an essential (so says Quine) device for extending our knowledge - for attempts to understand that which is not reducible to formal expressions. In science this is at the 'fringe,"with the fringe being a moving target.

A metaphor, in this case is just a working hypothesis: can we think about, come to understand, this unknown thing in terms of something we already understand, know about? The metaphor provides a framework that we can use to confirm or refute the hypothesis. If confirmed, we gain the ability to think formally about the new thing and the fringe of science moves outward.

Now we can pay attention to Nick again and accept the fact that some models are indeed metaphors, but other models are formalisms. It matters not, that a formal model is inaccurate because we are never going to measure the coast of Portugal in microns and therefore discover that it is near infinitely long instead of being 1793 Km.  We think in practicial terms and think formally, not metaphorically.

 Towards the hard problem of consciousness. On The Origin of Objects by Brian Cantwell Smith can provide some solid background ideas, especially with regard how we get to the general from the particular. Glen parallels Smith's insights in what he presented - including the Object ---> Class issue.

I would propose that the hard problem of consciousness is the lack of any known thing that might be used as a metaphor to understand the unknown thing, consciousness.

We might (Nick excepted) agree that consciousness is a thing. We might (including Nick) agree that we do not know / understand what that thing is.

But what other thing in our experience "feels" sufficiently like consciousness that we can say, "Oh, consciousness is like _____________.  If we could fill in the blank we would have a metaphor (perhaps a model) to think with.

We cannot use another (perhaps our internal awareness of being conscious) instance of consciousness because we do not know/understand it either.

If we had a computer that was incontrovertibly conscious, then maybe.

We certainly have no formalism we can use to think about and come to understand consciousness.

Steve likes to sign off with "mumble"  I'll stop with

babble
 



On Thu, Apr 30, 2020, at 9:44 AM, uǝlƃ ☣ wrote:
> OK. Here's the setup:
> 
> Nick says 1: Metaphorical thinker maps their experience onto another's 
> experience, modeling that other's experience with their own.
> 
> Nick says 2: I don't understand the hard problem of consciousness.
> 
> Glen says: Expressions 1 and 2 are contradictory.
> 
> I suppose it's on me to show that they're contradictory. The idea that 
> abduction is an inference from the unique to a class might be helpful. 
> But I think it's a jargonal distraction. So, here goes.
> 
> Let's propose that there exist unique situations/objects ... things or 
> points in time or whatever that are not, cannot be, exactly the same 
> anywhere else or at any other time. They are absolutely, completely 
> unique in the entire universe. Because they are unique, there's 
> absolutely no way any *other* thing/situation can perfectly model them. 
> E.g. no 2 electrons are in exactly the same state at exactly the same 
> time in exactly the same place. There will always be something 
> different about any 2 unique things. So analogies/metaphors/maps from 1 
> unique thing to another unique thing will always be slightly off.
> 
> Now, a metaphor/model/analogy/mapping thinker will accept an imperfect 
> mapping and go ahead and model a unique thing with another unique 
> thing. That's what a metaphorical thinker does, inaccurately models one 
> thing with another thing.
> 
> The hard problem of consciousness is that any given 
> creature/object/thing/situation has a qualitative experience, a 
> *comprehension* of the situation/state/condition that creature finds 
> itself it at any given time, any given place, or any given trajectory 
> through time and space. The hard problem is one of uniqueness. The 
> uniqueness of that experience.
> 
> The AI/ALife component of the hard problem asks how can we build a 
> machine that will have these experiences. But that's not important to 
> this conversation. The modeling/mapping/metaphorical component is how 
> can any one thing (machine, rock, golfball, human) *understand* the 
> experience of any other thing (car, elephant, galaxy, bacterium).
> 
> The answer is that one thing *models* the other thing imperfectly. The 
> only reason anyone would be a "metaphorical thinker" is because they 
> recognize the hard problem. If they don't recognize the hard problem, 
> then there's no need to use metaphor. Sure, it might be convenient to 
> use metaphor, but there's no NEED because there is no hard problem.
> 
> Therefore, Nick *does* understand the hard problem, even if only 
> tacitly, and even if he doesn't *believe* in it. He states it and 
> restates it every time he insists that thinking is metaphorical.
> 
> 
> On 4/29/20 8:19 PM, thompnickson2 at gmail.com wrote:
> > I think the first was Glen, and I agree, I don’t see how a belief in the centrality of metaphor to thought commits one to a belief in the hardness of, or even the existence of, the hard problem. 
> > 
> >  
> > 
> > It was me that floated the thought that “all thinking is metaphorical”. (I was trying to draw Dave West in on my side of the argument, at the time.)  I meant only to say that the application of any word (save perhaps grammatical operators or proper names) involves abduction, which I think we both believe, is a very close relative of metaphor.  You and I have struggled over this for years, decades, almost, but I think we believe that abduction is an inference from the properties of an object to the class to which it belongs whereas a metaphor carries the process further in some way I have trouble defining.  For instance, when Darwin said that evolution was caused by selection, it definitely was an abduction of sort.  But as selection was understood at the time, it involved the intentional intervention of a breeder.  So the metaphor not only abduces selection, it seems also rupture the original concept in some say. 
> 
> 
> -- 
> ☣ uǝlƃ
> 
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