Re: Dogs, Computers, Joy

Posted by gepr on Jul 28, 2020; 6:46pm
URL: http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/Dogs-Computers-Joy-tp7597998p7598001.html

Hm. I appreciate an attempt to cleanly separate the predicative parts from the impredicative parts. But you don't seem to be allowing *any* impredicative parts. Your push to the universal foundation *smells* like predicativism to me, especially when you go off into monism la-la land.

My claim would be that Doug is correct that the words (or concepts even) are never *defined* because they cannot be defined in the way the predicativists want. This perspective is anti-foundationalism. It's not turtles all the way down. It IS that there is no such thing as *down*.

On 7/28/20 11:33 AM, [hidden email] wrote:
> I saw you coming!  My bottom line is not predication but the explicitness of whatever predications one makes.  What could, of course define consciousness as "whatever humans do that seems to me conscious" or "Whatever is produced by a human brain".  But, after trying to do science with such definitions, I think most would realize that these definitions are incapacitating.  At that point, a scientist relinquishes those definitions and begins to seek others, definitions that actually direct one toward the possibility of finding answers.  Thus, I stipulate that definitions are part of the dialectic of discovery.  Neither I, nor Frank, is allowed to say M is the meaning of P for all time; we are only allowed to say that for some set of purposes, in some context, M is the meaning of P.  Are we constantly pressing a head toward the most universally applicable definitions?  You bet!  Do we ever get there?  Not yet!

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