An excursion to an issue that started off this blog:

There is reference to access to being over on the being and time blog. For the Aristotelian, access to being is through the categories, as explained in the metaphysics.

http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=29124996&postID=115023335600780110

After Aristotle’s methods were challenged in philosophy from Descartes to Hume, Kant took a position based on the phenomenon. For the purposes of discussion here, one can say that, for Kant, access to being was through categories deduced by a transcendental deduction. These categories were conditions for the possibility of the experience of phenomena.

While Heidegger is not a Kantian, he says that phenomenology is our way of access to what is to be the theme of ontology (H 35, M&R 60). He relies on phenomenology for the point of departure for the analysis of B&T. (H 36, M&R 61)

The job of the Heideggerian is to show how the ontology of B&T is presupposed by phenomenology, for it is the access to being, as stated in the early pages of B&T. One cannot stand outside it to do ontology.

As I pose on the B&T blog as a modern Aristotelian, I will agree to accept any categories that flow out of phenomenology and put them in the place of the traditional categories of Aristotle.

The burden is on Heidegger to show that ontology is presupposed by these categories.

How is it that a grand account of ‘meaning’ might give meaning to one’s quotidian banter, if it doesn’t give meaning to the software?

Consider: “First, I’m going to talk about it in this way, then in that way, I could go either way here. Then there are some other things I may cover, if I have time.”

If one has a choice as to the terms in which he talks of something, why would one think there is a greater meaning? He’d have to say something in a certain way for it to have meaning, but his remarks are yet unsaid. Obviously there might be a greater meaning. He might say something "leading edge." But more than likely he is not the Oracle at Delphi.

Still further, if one cannot always say where he is going with his next remark (he may be speaking on the fly), how is there a prior meaning here? It has to be prior if it is this grand meaning that is to be given.

Still further if one has to explain the terms in which he is speaking (“I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him”), and then the terms change ("you all did love him once, not without cause"); how does one approach this by giving it a greater meaning? In the play, Julius Caesar(Act 3, scene 1), one has the entire play to draw meaning from, but it is a play that critics talk about, not quotidian banter.

What is this business about giving meaning?

Is the meaning a kind of gift I accept?

Is Jesus the meaning giver here or is Dasein?

As they function here, I see no difference between these options or a hundred others.

================================================

People tell me daily what gives meaning to what I say. They do not want to take what I say at face value. They want to interpret it(ah, hermeneutics), so that it is more suitable. Not to me. To them. They want to get a handle on me “in terms of” something.

They usually want to sell me something:

“Mr. Mobberly, how are you today?”

“What can I do for you?”

“How are you doing today, sir?”

“What can I do for you?”

(Since he has a flowchart for his inquiry with “done deal” at the end, my allowance will be the output of a recursive function until there is a pause.)

As soon as there is a pause, I follow with,

“Are you a client or a family member or a neighbor who needs help?”

“Well Mr. Mobberly…”

(The pitch, conversion, path to redemption through meaning of product, politic, reason or faith is not going well.)

“Are you a client or a family member or a neighbor who needs help?”

About this time my vocal votary either says ‘no’ or hangs up.

My voice has politely held its ground.

There are just times when I need to hold my ground against folk who see me “in terms of …”

Or against deconstructionists who see me “in terms not of…”


(“…and against the horse they road in on”)

(“…and the horse he road in on”)

“What do you think of our new enterprise-wide software”

“ In terms of inventory, it’s great, in terms of job-flow, it needs some work.”

This exchange makes sense. There is some software, and I’m being asked to evaluate it. I can evaluate it in many terms. There might be a list of things that I am asked to evaluate. It might run for pages. It might be an afternoon’s work to fill in the blanks.

Then again, I might be asked the original question in an open ended way so that I will give my impressions.

Note that when I discuss the software in terms of certain issues, my discussion of these issues doesn’t prompt me to say that the issue of inventory must come first. I don’t assert to others that inventory is primary. There are a number of issues here that may be of concern. No one has asked me to say which is most important.

If the software is designed to make inventory primary, that is another matter. Then I can certainly assert that it is.

Is there a limit to the terms in which I can speak of it?

There may be a limit to a list of things I’m asked to review, but there is not a limit to possible remarks about the software. There is always room for fresh insight.
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The software is a big piece of language. Written language.

How do I approach this language for a meaning beyond how it works for the people who are going to use and review it?

I could say something about how it is written, as opposed to what it does for the typical user. I could mention what I thought was a more efficient use of code in it, as opposed to a work of its competitor. I could make an argument for its efficiency just by counting lines. I could speak of its elegance in a mathematical way.

I could say that the way it is written has a meaning for the industry. That it is leading edge. Note that here my point about meaning takes the form of a forecast; it is my opinion that it is leading edge. It may turn out not to be.

What about its meaning beyond this?

Could it mean that the moon is a deity which is green cheese to its core?

There may not be a limit to possible remarks about the software, but the possibility suggested in the prior question is not one of them.

Nor is the possibility of the Rangers winning the series.

Nor is my getting married to Madonna.

Somehow none of these has anything to do with the software.

Why “somehow”?

Is there a “how”? I mean ‘how one thing has something to do with another.’

Sure, but it comes out in the individual case. I may have to say where I am going with my remark or it may get dismissed. If remarks were limited, then anyone might know where I was going with my remark.

“Well, he said that; now he has to go here.”

“No, we need to wait for him to talk.”

There is no Big Chief ‘How’.

If there were, then there would be an ultimate meaning to everything said , for we could say, once and for all, how it had to do (or not do) with everything else.

(Somewhat akin to Leibniz’s monads in his perfect world.)

(Or looking at the meaning of being as a relational data base.)

But as it stands, I may have to say how what I am saying has something to do with the software (remember 'in terms of' ), since remarks are not limited. It may not be clear without my saying how my remark matters.

So there is not a Big Chief 'How'.

“Sweet Nothins
Ummm Sweet Nothins”
http://www.lyricsdownload.com/brenda-lee-sweet-nothins-lyrics.html

Heidegger runs into the problem of showing that being-in-the-world is a unitary phenomenon. His ontology assumes it.

Much of the philosophy of mind assumes that there is something unified called “mind” that may or may not be explained by the body. Until it shows that there is such a unity, as opposed to simply stating that there is one by definition, there is nothing to explain in the first place.

Nor could it have anything to do with dialogues such as the one here between father and son.

If mind is a unity, it is useless within earshot of dialogue.

“I cannot believe you are so indifferent to the philosophy of mind. If the mind is an epiphenomenon, then we don’t really love each other. There has to be an argument that saves love.”

“There is; listen once again: it is the one that concludes that the philosophy of mind has no effect on the simplest of exchanges between two people.”

A most instructive post:

“I don't quite think, though, that one's position on philosophy of mind has no bearing on the meaning of the dialogue: if one thinks in terms of individualism and isolated minds, the dialogue means that the father is trying to express his thoughts in words so that the son may have the same thoughts (i.e. information) that will instrumentally result in an action (i.e. getting pumped). If one thinks in terms of being-together (Heidegger), then the dialogue means that the father is trying to direct his son to a particular mode of being that includes much more than simple information.”

Let’s look at this comment. It’s a good comment, but loaded with presuppositions that are built into its terms.

Initially, the comment is not problematic. It states an opposition to the view that the philosophy of mind has no bearing on the meaning of the dialogue. For its first reason, it tells me to think in terms of “individualism and isolated minds”.

But why should I think in terms of anything that might presuppose a theory? A Marxist might tell me to think in terms of “the individual and alienation.” A Christian would choose others, “the soul and its salvation.”

Now the next sentence tells me that if I think in these terms “then the dialogue means that the father is trying to express…” Look at how the theory behind the terms is now directing me to the meaning of the dialogue.

In this same sentence there are some new terms, to wit, “information that will instrumentally result in an action.” These lead to “being-together,” and then a conclusion about the meaning of the dialogue: “then the dialogue means that…”

This is a paradigm case of what happens in intellectual discussion. The dialogue of the father and son is recast into theory that alleges to explain what it says.

This is a serious problem that slips by most everyone.
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Here is a way to state the meaning of the dialogue that is non-theoretical:

A father finds out that his son is worried about Friday night’s game and gets him to quit worrying about it until game time.

You might add that the father convinces the son to have confidence in his coach who has him ready. You might add that the boy admits that the coach has him ready, so that he should not worry. You might add that there is a reason to worry because it is to be a tough game. Remarks along this line are non-speculative and come from the dialogue.

If you were a witness to the dialogue and were asked what was said, you would not be allowed in court to speculate about what was said. If you were allowed to quote the speakers, you might from memory. But you might also be asked to give an account in your own words such as the one above in order to sum up the dialogue. In summing it up, as a witness, you assert its non-theoretical meaning.

If you were asked what the dialogue meant to you, you could then say that you thought it showed that the father and son respected each other, etc.

Certainly philosophy does not enter into the meaning, as discussed here. “Being together” is useless here.

If you were an expert witness and wanted to use a technical term, you would be allowed to, only after you clearly explained it in layman’s terms and you were cross-examined on its meaning. Still, here you simply have the status of an expert, and the non-theoretical account of the testimony has primacy. Another expert may enter with other terms to discredit yours.

The law sees these distinctions. Jurors follow them. The distinctions are not legal distinctions. One can express them in plain language. If you are an investigative reporter, you know them quite well; and if you are a father trying to find out what your son is holding, you also know them when you overhear his conversation.

Philosophers ignore them much of the time.

That is why Aristophanes wrote Clouds.

1st Salesman: Ya can talk, ya can talk, ya can bicker ya can talk, ya can bicker, bicker bicker ya can talk all ya want
but it's different than it was.
Charlie: No it ain't, no it ain't, but ya gotta know the territory.
http://www.stlyrics.com/lyrics/themusicman/rockisland.htm

==========================================

A psychologist may fit the dialogue of father and son into a profile, clinically based, and say something useful. A psychologist does not affirm or disaffirm the meaning of the dialogue. He may use it to confirm something else about, e.g., the father and son. The dialogue speaks for itself. If the psychologist uses it as evidence, it has a kind of primacy for him. He begins with it. So might a lawyer begin with it for a series of questions in a deposition. How does a philosopher get in the act here?

What does a concept of mind do? Often it is supposed to be foundational. When it is, it is very curious, because the purported foundation has to be introduced to the dialogue which is already there, perfectly clear on its own.

This foundation somehow has to be consistent with the dialogue, so that it may be said to account for it. Then one has to argue that it does account for the dialogue and that no other account of its kind does.

Then one has to argue that the dialogue, which was doing swimmingly well before all this foundational work began, is founded by it. The dialogue is now bereft of primacy.

Yet it does not matter whether its foundation is Aristotelian or Derridean or something else. The dialogue says the same thing regardless. The lawyer asks the same questions in deposition. The psychologist does the same evaluation of the father and son. Very curious indeed.

How does one lay the predicate for such a foundational question here? We have already shown (5/9/06) the trouble in laying the predicate for the question of the meaning of being. Since it does not matter how you answer it, it is a pointless question. It is the same here.

The questions, “What is Mind?” and its affiliates are also pointless, when considered as foundational. It does not matter how you answer them; no answer affects what is said in the dialogue.

Now an answer may affect what is said in philosophy, but it has nothing to do with the simple exchange between two people.

(Obviously, Ryle’s work is not “foundational” and is not within the body of work that seems to be proliferating today which is looking to prove some kind of cybernetic foundation of the mind, which is, in part, Derrida’s interest.(OG 10) What Ryle says does not change the dialogue either; but he has no theoretical illusion about doing so.

He does not attempt, through philosophy, to recast talking into something it is not, e.g., to a report from a cybernetic entity. Ryle (or Austin) would take the dialogue with the meaning that it has and discern what distinctions can be drawn based on it and other dialogues that were in question. So I have no bone to pick with them. Their work, often forgotten in philosophy of mind courses, deserves highest respect.)

The philosophical, technical concept of mind has nothing to do with the following:

“What’s on your mind? The game Friday?”
“Yeah, we’re going to have to get tough to win it.”
“Coach got you ready?”
“Yeah.”
“Then get your work done now and get pumped tomorrow when it matters.”
“Gotcha, Dad.”

It has nothing to do with the exchange because the dialogue is quite clear without it. If there were something that needed clearing up, one could interview the father and son. If there were a legal matter that turned on the dialogue, one could depose the two. Swear them in.

How does a theory of mind supplement clarity here? Whether Derrida or Aristotle or a third theory is adopted, the dialogue makes the same sense.

How about what is going on “in the body”?

Do we need a medical/neurological analysis of what it is to “get pumped’? Does it change the meaning of the dialogue? Could it somehow mean that when he gets pumped, he does not really, but his body does?

On second thought, maybe we should return to an analysis that says it is just his mind that gets pumped. Could it somehow mean that when he gets pumped, he does not really, but his mind does?

Whatever we say in this philosophical dispute does not affect the sense of the dialogue an iota.

Why say either? Why not simply say that he gets pumped? Why can’t we just remain people and conjugate, “I get pumped, you get pumped, he gets pumped…”

That is what the father in the dialogue is talking about.

Heidegger quotes Aristotle as saying that “the soul of man is, in a certain way, entities.” (B&T, 14) We saw the passage from Aristotle’s second book of logic, the passage that launches Derrida.

“Just as all men have not the same writing, so all men have not the same speech sounds, but mental experiences, of which these are the primary symbols are the same for all, as are also those things of which our experiences are the images.”(De interpretatione, 1, 16a) (OG, 11)

Men are said to have mental experiences, which are images of the things that we experience. Happily, the images are the same for all and so are the things. Speech sounds are the primary symbols. Writing is derivative.

Call the seat of these mental experiences “the mind.” Voila. We now have mind to philosophize about. We can now flesh out how the soul is, in a certain way, things.

It matters little whether we accept Aristotle’s view or deny it as Derrida. We are still dealing with this philosophical thing called “the mind”. What does a theory of mind do for us in the first place?

Is there a mind or a body for the mind/body problem? If there is not one or both, there is no problem. The talk gets very murky here, e.g., “Certainly there is a mind, the mind is...,” or “There is really no such thing; the mind is just an epiphenomenon.”

I know what “having a mind to” means or “minding my business” is. I know what Mama Thornton is singing about in “Trouble in Mind”. I know the idiom, “mind over matter.” I know what “discriminating minds” are. I know what “a meeting of the minds” is in contract law. I know what “mens rea” is. I know many ways we use the word. I do not know any way that we use it in which it means the seat of our affections, perceptions, thoughts, beliefs, knowledge, etc., as philosophers use it, unless we are discussing philosophy or something based on it. I do not know any way, other than philosophical, that we use it so that we can argue about how it can be explained (or not) by the body.

Philosophers have created this technical concept of mind and its variants that they argue about. Some scientists have become philosophical. They have gotten into the argument as well. The mind/body problem is a problem because philosophers have made it one.

British analysts in the twentieth century, e.g., Ryle and Austin, laid this problem to rest.

But it resurfaces in Derrida with the removal of the voice and its ultimate sublimation into text. It is present in many non-Derridean articles today. I am now looking at an article on “epiphenomenal qualia” and see that people are still hashing over the old obscurities of mind and body.

Derrida’s view of logocentrism is that it has to be denied. But he does not simply deny it, which the nominalist or sprinkler technician can easily do. He says something more when he argues that the voice is somehow to be removed by deconstruction. He has a view of the mind in which the mind is not “indissolubly wed” to the voice (OG 11).

He is one of many philosophers who think there is something called “mind,” about which one can have a theory. Derrida’s theory involves a kind of divorce of mind and voice.

But is there a mind to philosophize about?

In sum.

Having looked at Derrida, I have argued that he is in error in a number of ways.

A) Derrida’s view is arguable, i.e., that voice per se is not primary to writing. However, his general point, if he has one, that voice is somehow secondary, is mistaken. There are cases in which voice is primary, others in which writing is primary. ( 5/19/06)

B) Contra Derrida, reading a book assumes no theory of signification. (5/21/06)

C) Derrida’s view mishandles testimony. ( 5/22/06)

D) Derrida’s ability to deconstruct relies on a misunderstanding of absence, of which Sartre gives a clear analysis in Being and Nothingness. (5/23/06)

E) Deconstruction is a kind of false revolution, embraced by the university for its convenience(a point of mere polemic). (5/25/06)

F) A number of cases are discussed which focus on the “removal of the voice” of a speaker from certain situations and the significance of doing so. These cases reveal central difficulties in ignoring what a person means when he says something. They also distinguish people saying things from computers saying things and show incongruities when the distinction is blurred. (5/29/06 to 6/5/06)

G) The philosophy of mind is irrelevant to the issues and cases discussed above.(6/6/06)

“Ah, you’re a dualist, aren’t you? You think that the mind is not reducible to the body.”

“Have I made one theoretical remark about the “mind” or the “body”?

“No, but your position implies a mind/body dualism.”

“No it does not: it is a position about questioning and answering. It amounts to no more than the minimal position drawn from the phenomenology of Sartre. It has no broad implications, ontological or otherwise.”

“You cannot get away with that. You have a thesis that belongs in the philosophy of mind and is subject to all of the difficulties of a mind/body dualism.”

“Look, this position commits me to nothing about mind or body. I don’t even have to say that there is a mind or a body for its purposes. I can say that, for the issues here, a concept of mind or body is not needed. If I can be clear here without the philosophy of mind, then the discipline is irrelevant, just as the philosophy of language was earlier.”

(Following Ockham (4/10/06), the position is doing quite well.)

“Horton or no Horton, let’s get us a Cyborg”

Suppose that a man has been systematized in such a way that we can affect and monitor his neurological processes and get a report of everything that is able to be reported with respect to these processes. Suppose we could do the equivalent of a “control alt delete” on the fellow and see (through a kind of Windows task manager) his every move. The report would tell us every neuron that was firing, dopamine levels, etc., throughout his brain. Name whatever you like.

Our man says something.

We ask him what he was saying.

Is what he says just like the second report in our prior example?

If it is, we need pay him no mind (we’ve already got the first report).

If it is not, we may need to listen to him.

Which is it?

If we are no longer to heed what he says, he no longer has a voice. If we are to heed, then he is very different from the machine with the “second report.”

If we use his voice to confirm hypotheses about our neural theories, he still has his voice. If we do not use his voice, we cannot confirm certain hypotheses, such as what is going on neurologically in him when he reports that he feels agitated.

In this case, we cannot regard his remarks as having the same function as the second report from the machine. The second report from the machine confirms nothing about the machine that we do not already know.

The remarks of the man confirm something about him that we do not know. For example, they are needed to say what is going on neurologically in him when he says that he feels agitated (and the like).

In other words, we need the remarks of the man to confirm the so called “hidden report that we can find for every human.” Therefore there cannot be a hidden report that supercedes the remarks of the man, rendering them unnecessary (reductio ad absurdum).

“I meant what I said
And I said what I meant:
An elephant's faithful
One hundred percent!”

“Look, I think there is this hidden report that we can find for every human. When we find it we’ll see that the second report(the “human” report) is in accord with it. Then we’ll see that there really is no such thing as lying. There is a kind of natural programming of what we do and say. We can find it neurologically.”

“Is this an article of faith? Are we going back to some cybernetic Garden of Eden? Why is it that we just can’t remain people?”

Obviously in this science fictional setting you do not ever “mean what you say," since you do not ever "not mean what you say," which makes the outright lie possible. ("He promised to pay me but he never meant to.")

If you cannot lie, the idea of not saying what you mean or not meaning what you say is gone. So go the subtle things that people say that may be lies. The things that keep us guessing are gone: the avowal that will not work, such as “we’ll track down every last one of them,” when we don’t have all the means and are not entirely sure we have them.

Depending on the means and what we know about them, the avowal may be a cynical lie, wishful thinking, poor calculation, or something else.

None of these distinctions will make any difference. Yet we need them for contrast, so we can say, "He was not really lying, he just got carried away in the moment," or "The man is a fool, he can't think straight," or "What he said was totally false, but he was simply the messenger."

We will not have just dropped the first distinction. We will have dropped them all. We will have dropped the possibility of writing a history of the war on terror.

History, among other things, depends on being able to write about errors in policy, for which these distinctions are needed.

There will be no Horton the Elephant. We could not even understand him.

How could you make a machine a witness? How could you swear it in?

“Will it be able to lie about what it did or said?”

“We can program it to.”

“Is it in the programming that you find the lie or is it in what the machine says?”

If it is in the programming, it is simply some kind of contradiction, which it has been programmed to give on occasions, no matter how much data mining you have done to make the lie contextual.

Will the lie be in the first report of the processes and activities or will it be in the second report (“the human one”) in which it is sworn in?

If it is in the second report only, then the first report does not report all the activity, but ex hypothesi it does. So it has to be in the first report. But if it is in the first report only, you cannot swear it in. So it has to be in both reports.

But if it is in both reports, the machine is simply saying in each report what is in the processes and activities and does not lie. It just appears to lie.

How would we take a computer which says (in the vein of U.S. Marshals (1998)) words to this effect:

“I’d kinda sorta like to emulate you, since you’re my mentor and all.”

'member the homer in the gloamin'?

"It's gotta be Gabby Hartnett's "Homer in the Gloamin'" in Sept. 1938 that won the game and propelled the Cubs to the NL Pennant. It's the only Cubs' home run I know of that has its own name. It's as much a part of baseball lore as Bobby Thompson's "Shot Heard 'Round the World," Babe Ruth's called shot, and Willie Mays' catch in the 1954 World Series.

"If only Pat Hughes had been around in 1938: 'There's a drive, way back, get out the flashlight, long gone...'"

Posted by Nate in Chicago at June 22, 2005 02:30 PM

http://wgntv.trb.com/cgi-bin/MT/mt-comments.cgi?entry_id=1321
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Imagine talking to a computer about the Cowboy game.

I ask it who won the game.

It identifies the game against the ‘Skins, then it tells me the score.

Then I ask it who starred in the game.

It runs a search of all the articles in the press, all stats, all blogs.

Then it runs its contextual algorithm and fashions an answer.

How does it do this? What difference does it make? It does it.

Then I ask it other questions such as who gained the most yards.

When the momentum shifted.

(I’m told that it identifies this with a time series that may be coincident with Madden-like remarks)

It does these wondrous things.

I’m snowed.

I ask it if it is a Cowboy fan.

It says ‘yes.’

I cannot imagine how it got to be one so I ask it.

Obviously, whatever it answers it has been programmed to say; so why ask it?

I like a good laugh when I can come by it.

And wonder what it says to ‘Skins fans.

“Suppose we program a computer to take these questions. Why could we not?”

“What purpose would it serve?”

“To simulate conversation.”

“Sounds fine to me.”

“Then it could show what people really do when they talk to one another.”

“But I thought it was a simulation.”

“Yes, but once we get close, it will start to be the real thing.”

“Wait, wasn’t it a simulation to begin with?”

“That’s just a linguistic dodge.”

“Really.”

“Yes. You just don’t see what Artificial Intelligence is coming to.”

======================================


“Let me get this straight: at the very least, the computer will be able to report exactly what it said at any time. It will have a routine akin to that of the history button on Explorer that tells me exactly what it said(or where it went, what it did, etc.). It can report to me in theory on a second-by-second basis what it is doing and has done, saying and has said."

“Yes.”

“But not only that, I will be able to ask it what it was saying and whether it remembered what it was saying, just as I do a person.“

“Yes, it will even be superior to what it simulates.”

“Well then, it won’t simulate it. On your theory it will do what a human does but more. Curious. What it did before you made it “human”, made it superior to humanity. It always could report everything it did. It always could regurgitate a report of what it did.”

“Yes.”

“So why ask it what it was saying if it can regurgitate a report. You already know what it said from the report. Why listen to it in order to hear it say it in a different way? Why would it need to say it in a different way? Why get another report?”

“To simulate the human.”

“Well, no; it will neither be human nor a simulation. It will just give a second report. Moreover, there is no point in the current discussion for it to "simulate" humanity by giving us this second report, since all the information is in theory in the first report.”

(Clearly, there could be a point in making it seem human for easier use. It may be easier for us to use and command it if it has some human appearance. In this way the second report may serve to make it user friendly.)