I'd like to thank Prof. Feser for his continued patience in responding to my critique of Ross's argument. I've been very busy, but I finally had some time to look at his most recent response. He misconstrued the A, B, C, of my previous post (understandably, since I hadn't spelled them out clearly), and I began a long post carefully laying out the logic of my argument and why Feser's response didn't answer it. Then I realized that it did answer it, in spite of the misunderstanding about A, B, and C. The "purely physical" assumption is indeed the critical assumption in Ross's argument that I wasn't taking into account, and it does eliminate the Hilda objection in a non-question-begging way. I apologize to Prof. Feser for the unwarranted and unnecessary snark in my last post. I am hereby giving Hilda the boot.
I hope to return to my original epistemological objection (as time permits), but I wanted to get this apology out in a timely manner.
Crow is a dish best eaten warm.
Now that is a most gracious response. I am glad to see that civil discourse is not dead.
ReplyDeleteI'd like to second Peter. The willingness to put truth above personal victory is rare and precious–and all involved gain from it.
ReplyDeleteHat's off to you.
Classy response.
ReplyDeleteI aprove.
It's good to see a point of disagreement settled, with graciousness on both sides.
ReplyDeleteOpportunities for mutual misunderstanding abound in philosophical discussions. If there's to be any progress we must be constantly open to the possibility that we've misunderstood the other's position, and to the possibility that we haven't made our own meaning clear.
If you do return to the subject of Ross's argument, I suggest that you concentrate on what he has to say about "pure functions". I see that as the core of his argument. In fact I see the translation of this point into the language of determinacy/indeterminacy as a misleading distraction.
Thanks for your remarks, guys.. Sometimes I wonder if I'm the only blogger who ever admits he's wrong. At least it seems somewhat abnormal....
ReplyDeleteRichard, I agree that is an interesting point. I wonder if you would like to write up your thoughts on it for a guest post. I'm currently still trying to catch up on my grading so I don't have a lot of time for the blog.
In my opinion, premise B will be found faulty in Ross's argument. The problem is neuroscience is not yet advanced enough to prove it. B doesn't appreciate the possibility that abstractions like "to add" are available to cortical processes in the brain. In other words, the cortical representation of "addition" will be about as determinate as any formal process ever gets or needs to be, will be found to be defined by neural processes that represent semantic relationships, and will be quite physical. If this is true (and IMO it almost certainly is) it would settle the argument against Ross. It may seems as if I haven't really said anything but pure conjecture, but at least it's focused conjecture. Ross's argument will fall if the brain is physically able to represent concepts like addition or subtraction. That's really all there is to it. That is an equivalent way to frame the problem. Now, how many "things" are required for that to be true, and is it really that outlandish to suppose that they are physical? "Not many" and "no" are the answers. When someone mentions "addition" your brain must have the capacity to register a concept. It must be able to carry out an operation congruent with that operation (and even that isn't really a requirement). These are really the only ingredients for making a formal operation physically determinate in a brain.
ReplyDeleteIf you're still reading, Prof. Oerter, I wonder if you might consider the following argument (I'm on your side, by the way):
ReplyDeleteThe Ross/Feser argument is vacuous because it provides no independent definition of "physical process." It claims that *all* physical processes are indeterminate, but gives us no independent criteria defining the class over which that "all" quantifies. All of Ross's examples rely implicitly on a "common sense" notion of the "physical" (basically a mechanical one). In fact, he avoids the issue, referring only to "Whatever the discriminable features of a physical process may be..." But it is perfectly sensible to understand as physical processes *any temporal events I encounter that show some sign of being governed by universal laws.* Formal thinking surely qualifies: it's a temporal event, I encounter it, and exhibits patterns that strongly hint at the universal. Given that explicit definition, the premise "no physical process is determinate" is simply false; the Ross/Feser argument has no force. I am free to investigate formal thinking *in the same way* as I investigate other natural phenomena. Should I discover that it shows no law-like behavior, I might again become skeptical about whether or not it is "physical" in any useful sense, but until then there is no reason not to include determinate phenomena amongst the physical.
The history of science shows that our notions of the "physical" and the "material" are subject to reevaluation and evolution. In the present example, I know of no independent argument to exclude a phenomenon from the physical simply because it is determinate. Neither Ross nor Feser provide one: in *assuming* as they do that all physical processes are simply all the non-determinate ones, it follows trivially that formal thinking is not a physical process. But that is a conveniently arbitrary notion of "physical." Of course, there's a huge difference between determinate and indeterminate phenomena, just as there's a huge difference between deterministic and non-deterministic phenomena. But the Ross/Feser argument provides no insight into whether or not both (or either!) deserve the label "physical."
What does and doesn't count as "physical" is a trivial part of the argument. The point is that there's a significant, indeed crucial, difference between "stuff" than can instantiate pure functions/operations/forms and "stuff" that can't, and the intellect is an example of the former while (what we usually call) mechanical systems are examples of the latter.
ReplyDeleteYou might as well criticize an argument that claims to show that God is beyond nature as vacuous because it assumes "nature" can't include god. The meaning of the word isn't the point.
@ Scott:
ReplyDeleteWhat does and what does not count as "physical" is the topic of Ross's argument; it is hardy "trivial."
But I am glad to see that you consider intellectual stuff to be "stuff," for there could hardly be a more concrete yet general word than "stuff" to refer to the physical. Our pillows are stuffed with stuff -- as are our heads!
@Natural MInd: "But I am glad to see that you consider intellectual stuff to be "stuff," for there could hardly be a more concrete yet general word than "stuff" to refer to the physical."
DeleteQuestion-begging response of the year award! Whether all "stuff" is physical is precisely what is disputed, and yet you triumphantly declare that by using the word "stuff," your critics assume the physicality of the mind!
@Gene Callahan: there was no "triumphant declaration," it was a playful tease, don't you see.
DeleteAnd I'd like to second and third all the posters above who congratulate Oerter on his intellectual honesty! I strive to admit mistakes myself, but I am not sure I do it all that well. But Prof. Oerter tops me here.
ReplyDelete@Unknown: " In other words, the cortical representation of "addition" will be about as determinate as any formal process ever gets or needs to be, will be found to be defined by neural processes that represent semantic relationships, and will be quite physical. "
ReplyDeleteAre you really so poor at following an argument? The case is not about what neuroscience may discover: it is that no physical state can POSSIBLY determinately point to some meaning. To look to "future discoveries" is to completely miss the philosophical issue under dispute.
Yes, I understand the argument. I just don't agree that it's sound. Boiled down, Ross's argument is that brains cannot handle abstractions of thought, like the "pure functions" of addition, etc. But of course, Ross doesn't think brains (and I'm using "brains" as shorthand for "physical processes of thought") can support any type of thought abstraction (working alone as physical processes), the "forms" that capture all infinite realizations of any function. He only makes use of formal thinking because that allows him use of incompossible functions, curve fitting, etc., in his argument.
DeleteWell, sorry, I don't buy it, though admittedly you have me at the unique disadvantage of not being able to reference literature that really explains what brains are doing when they think about things like love, castling in chess, or addition. This is compounded by the fact that Ross doesn't preclude that thought is still coupled dependently to physical brain processes, so I can't even cite brain stimulation studies where surgical patients will recall thoughts and emotions when certain regions of the cortex are probed. Ross would simply take this in stride.
The only thing I can really tell you is to stay tuned. I'm quite sure the next few years and decades will be quite revealing.
@Unknown: In fact, Ross's picture collapses even if we *never* figure out how the neurons in brains do the work. All he is doing is asserting that indeterminate processes are "not physical." But it is natural inquiry which informs our concept of the physical, and it will be natural inquiry, not stipulation, that tells us whether indeterminate phenomena are physical.
DeleteThere are many domains of cognitive science in which quite a lot is known about the way the mind structures information, especially in the visual and language systems, even though we have little or no understanding of how any of it works neurologically. That doesn't make it any less "physical."
Yes, it is all a little vague, but first, unless I'm badly misunderstanding the original argument, you mean "determinate" in the first paragraph, not "indeterminate" (?)
DeleteI actually think both propositions A and B can be attacked, though as above, I find it more fruitful to suggest that B is in error, that no physical process can be determinate. By this Ross and Feser must also mean all attempts at machine (artificial) intelligence, neural networks, semantic networks, and a whole raft of other research topics. In other words, all attempts to capture formal operations like addition at a conceptual level and not just the rote operation appear to them to be futile. That I find pretty presumptuous. Now, Ross was working twenty years ago, at least that is the time from which his paper dates, but of course Feser is modern day. He seems to dismiss all modern attempts to give machines conceptual, rather than rote, understanding of problem spaces, and indeed, it is at the conceptual level that we make operations (functions) like addition determinate. We don't conceptualize by enumerating inputs and outputs. If we have physical processes that do these things, they are processes that somehow capture addition and other formal processes at a conceptual level. Yet Ross and Feser don't grant that anyone will ever invent a way for machines to do something similar. All machines will ever be able to do is curve fit and spit out numbers. As I say, this is presumption.
All the same, I'm grateful that philosophers have made the point. To me this is philosophy at its most useful, pointing out contentious issues.