Robin Faichney <robin@faichney.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> Who or what is "funk and wagnalls"?
It's my best dictionary -- the only dictionary I know of that actually does
justice to most scientific concepts (e.g. it's quite pleasant definition of
evolution). Of course, it is 25 years old, and thus woefully out of date,
especially in such fields as AI...
> But my own view is that there is no
> significant difference between consciousness and simple
> awareness, while being conscious of one's self is something
> else again.
I disagree, but it's just a word. You may use your term, and I'll use
mine, and we'll get along just fine. Consciousness = self-awareness.
> To wrap up simple awareness of one's surroundings
> with awareness of "possessing a self" (whatever that means)
> seems to me to ignore a fascinating and important difference.
Yes, well, that's why we have two words:
1) awareness
2) consciousness
You seem to have two words which mean the same thing.
> But I'm afraid simple awareness is still a mystery.
Yes -- awareness itself is deeply intertwined with intelligence, no doubt;
partly I suspect because awareness is such an exercise in pattern
recognition and chunking. It's hard to be aware of that car if you can't
recognize "cars".
> What does "emerge because of" mean (!) here? (Or do we all
> have to go and read Hofstadter before we can have this
> discussion?)
I'll see if I can give Hofstadter's own example -- a (primitive) formal
mathematical system: (pg46-53 of Godel, Escher, Bach)
There are three symbols: p q -
Defintion: xp-qx- is an axiom, whenever x is composed of hyphens only.
Rule: Suppose x, y, and z all stand for particular strings containing only
hyphens. And suppose that xpyqz is known to be a theroem. Then xpy-qz- is
a theorem.
So lets use
--p-q---
As our axiom.
Our rule tells us that
--p--q----
Is a theorem of the pq system.
So is --p---q-----
But not -p--p--q-----, since it can't be derived from any axiom plus use of
the rule. (sorry, I'm not being very formal myself, but you get the
picture)
Pretty meaningless, eh?
Now lets add the isomorphism:
p <--> plus
q <--> equals
- <--> one
-- <--> two
--- <--> three
etc.
Then our *interpretation* shows us that our axiom is "two plus one equals
three", and the theorem is "two plus two equals four", both of which are
meaningful and (incidentally) true.
In this sense, the *meaning* of --p----q------ emerges because of the
isomorphism, and THAT is what I meant.
> While it might be arguable that isomorphism is at the root of
> meaning, in that it's possible in principle to trace all
> meanings back in time to isomorphisms, I'm utterly convinced
> that when etymology's left out of the picture, ie we focus on
> *present* meanings, there is very often no isomorphism to be
> found.
Really? Wade is right that meaning as isomorphism is an elementary
statement about the function of language -- e.g. "car" has meaning because
I perceive the symbol as isomorphic to the external object. Basically, the
function of a dictionary is to supply you with an/the/some isomophism[s]
for the word in question. I'm curious as to what you mean by "present"
meanings?
I think we are going to have to clarify different types of meanings is we
wish to make further progress. Any volunteers with more philosophy
background than I?
ERiC