Can we first agree that some questions are not dissolved by observing that meanings are conventional? If I run up to you and say “My house is on fire, what should I do?”, and you tell me “The answer depends, in part, on what you mean by ‘house’ and ‘fire’...”, that will not save my possessions from destruction.
If I take your preceding comment at face value, then you are telling me
there is nothing to think about in pondering the nature of art, it’s just a matter of definition
there is nothing to think about regarding whether the universe exists, it’s just a matter of definition
there’s no question of whether artificial intelligence is the same thing as natural intelligence, it’s just a matter of definition
and that there’s no “house-on-fire” real issue lurking anywhere behind these topics. Is that really what you think?
Well, I’m sorry. Please fill out a conversational complaint form and put it in the box, and an HR representative will mail you a more detailed survey in six to eight weeks.
I agree entirely that meaningful questions exist, and made no claim to the contrary. I do not believe, however, that as an institution, modern philosophy is particularly good at identifying those questions.
In response to your questions,
Yes, absolutely.
Yes, mostly. There are different kinds of existence, but the answer you get out will depend entirely on your definitions.
Yes, mostly. There are different kinds of possible artificial intelligence, but the question of whether machines can -truly- be intelligent depends exclusively upon your definition of intelligence.
As a general rule, if you can’t imagine any piece of experimental evidence settling a question, it’s probably a definitional one.
The true nature of art, existence, and intelligence are all substantial topics—highly substantial! In each case, like the physical house-on-fire, there is an object of inquiry independent of the name we give it.
With respect to art—think of the analogous question concerning science. Would you be so quick to claim that whether something is science is purely a matter of definition?
With respect to existence—whether the universe is real—we can distinguish possibilities such as: there really is a universe containing billions of light-years of galaxies full of stars; there is a brain in a vat being fed illusory stimuli, with the real world actually being quite unlike the world described by known physics and astronomy; and even solipsistic metaphysical idealism—there is no matter at all, just a perceiving consciousness having experiences.
If I ponder whether the universe is real, I am trying to choose between these and other options. Since I know that the universe appears to be there, I also know that any viable scenario must contain “apparent universe” as an entity. To insist that the reality of the universe is just a matter of definition, you must say that “apparent universe” in all its forms is potentially worthy of the name “actual universe”. That’s certainly not true to what I would mean by “real”. If I ask whether the Andromeda galaxy is real, I mean whether there really is a vast tract of space populated with trillions of stars, etc. A data structure providing a small part of the cosmic backdrop in a simulated experience would not count.
With respect to intelligence—I think the root of the problem here is that you think you already know what intelligence in humans is—that it is fundamentally just computation—and that the boundary between smart computation and dumb computation is obviously arbitrary. It’s like thinking of a cloud as “water vapor”. Water vapor can congregate on a continuum of scales from invisibly small to kilometers in size, and a cloud is just a fuzzy naive category employed by humans for the water vapor they can see in the sky.
Intelligence, so the argument goes, is similarly a fuzzy naive category employed by humans for the computation they can see in human behavior. There would be some truth to that analysis of the concept… except that, in the longer run, we may find ourselves wanting to say that certain highly specific refinements of the original concept are the only reasonable ways of making it precise. Intelligence implies something like sophisticated insight; so it can’t apply to anything too simple (like a thermostat), and it can’t apply to algorithms that work through brute force.
And then there is the whole question of consciousness and its role in human intelligence. We may end up wishing to say that there is a fundamental distinction between conscious intelligence—sophisticated cognition which employs genuine insight, i.e. conscious insight, conscious awareness of salient facts and relations—and unconscious intelligence—where the “insight” is really a matter of computational efficiency. The topic of intelligence is the one where I would come closest to endorsing your semantic relativism, but that’s only because in this case, the “independent object of inquiry” appears to include heterogeneous phenomena (e.g. sophisticated conscious cognition, sophisticated unconscious cognition, sophisticated general problem-solving algorithms), and how we end up designating those phenomena once we obtain a mature understanding of their nature, might be somewhat contingent after all.
I am unimpressed by your examples.
Can we first agree that some questions are not dissolved by observing that meanings are conventional? If I run up to you and say “My house is on fire, what should I do?”, and you tell me “The answer depends, in part, on what you mean by ‘house’ and ‘fire’...”, that will not save my possessions from destruction.
If I take your preceding comment at face value, then you are telling me
there is nothing to think about in pondering the nature of art, it’s just a matter of definition
there is nothing to think about regarding whether the universe exists, it’s just a matter of definition
there’s no question of whether artificial intelligence is the same thing as natural intelligence, it’s just a matter of definition
and that there’s no “house-on-fire” real issue lurking anywhere behind these topics. Is that really what you think?
Well, I’m sorry. Please fill out a conversational complaint form and put it in the box, and an HR representative will mail you a more detailed survey in six to eight weeks.
I agree entirely that meaningful questions exist, and made no claim to the contrary. I do not believe, however, that as an institution, modern philosophy is particularly good at identifying those questions.
In response to your questions,
Yes, absolutely.
Yes, mostly. There are different kinds of existence, but the answer you get out will depend entirely on your definitions.
Yes, mostly. There are different kinds of possible artificial intelligence, but the question of whether machines can -truly- be intelligent depends exclusively upon your definition of intelligence.
As a general rule, if you can’t imagine any piece of experimental evidence settling a question, it’s probably a definitional one.
The true nature of art, existence, and intelligence are all substantial topics—highly substantial! In each case, like the physical house-on-fire, there is an object of inquiry independent of the name we give it.
With respect to art—think of the analogous question concerning science. Would you be so quick to claim that whether something is science is purely a matter of definition?
With respect to existence—whether the universe is real—we can distinguish possibilities such as: there really is a universe containing billions of light-years of galaxies full of stars; there is a brain in a vat being fed illusory stimuli, with the real world actually being quite unlike the world described by known physics and astronomy; and even solipsistic metaphysical idealism—there is no matter at all, just a perceiving consciousness having experiences.
If I ponder whether the universe is real, I am trying to choose between these and other options. Since I know that the universe appears to be there, I also know that any viable scenario must contain “apparent universe” as an entity. To insist that the reality of the universe is just a matter of definition, you must say that “apparent universe” in all its forms is potentially worthy of the name “actual universe”. That’s certainly not true to what I would mean by “real”. If I ask whether the Andromeda galaxy is real, I mean whether there really is a vast tract of space populated with trillions of stars, etc. A data structure providing a small part of the cosmic backdrop in a simulated experience would not count.
With respect to intelligence—I think the root of the problem here is that you think you already know what intelligence in humans is—that it is fundamentally just computation—and that the boundary between smart computation and dumb computation is obviously arbitrary. It’s like thinking of a cloud as “water vapor”. Water vapor can congregate on a continuum of scales from invisibly small to kilometers in size, and a cloud is just a fuzzy naive category employed by humans for the water vapor they can see in the sky.
Intelligence, so the argument goes, is similarly a fuzzy naive category employed by humans for the computation they can see in human behavior. There would be some truth to that analysis of the concept… except that, in the longer run, we may find ourselves wanting to say that certain highly specific refinements of the original concept are the only reasonable ways of making it precise. Intelligence implies something like sophisticated insight; so it can’t apply to anything too simple (like a thermostat), and it can’t apply to algorithms that work through brute force.
And then there is the whole question of consciousness and its role in human intelligence. We may end up wishing to say that there is a fundamental distinction between conscious intelligence—sophisticated cognition which employs genuine insight, i.e. conscious insight, conscious awareness of salient facts and relations—and unconscious intelligence—where the “insight” is really a matter of computational efficiency. The topic of intelligence is the one where I would come closest to endorsing your semantic relativism, but that’s only because in this case, the “independent object of inquiry” appears to include heterogeneous phenomena (e.g. sophisticated conscious cognition, sophisticated unconscious cognition, sophisticated general problem-solving algorithms), and how we end up designating those phenomena once we obtain a mature understanding of their nature, might be somewhat contingent after all.
So what’s the difference between philosophy and science then?
Err… science deals with questions you can settle with evidence? I’m not sure what you’re getting at here.
How does your use of the label “philosophical” fit in with your uses of the categories “definitional” and “can be settled by experimental evidence”?