By virtue of what property do these representations have the content that you attribute to them?
By what virtue is a chess game a chess game and not two people playing with statues? The rules by which the chess computer operates parallel the rules by which chess operates—the behavior is mirrored within it. If you gave someone a brick wall, they couldn’t analyze it to learn how to play tennis, but if you gave someone a chess program, they could deduce from it the rules of chess.
By what virtue is a chess game a chess game and not two people playing with statues? The rules by which the chess computer operates parallel the rules by which chess operates
I don’t think it’s quite that simple. If a couple of four-year-olds encounter a chess set, and start moving the pieces around on the board, they might happen to take turns and make only legal “moves” until they got bored. I don’t think they’d be playing chess. Similarly, if a couple of incompetent adults encounter a chess set and try to play chess, but because they aren’t very smart or paying very close attention, about a quarter of their moves aren’t actually legal, they’re playing chess—they’re just making mistakes in so doing.
The equivalence I’m proposing isn’t between results or actions, but the causal springs of the actions. In your example, the children making legal chess moves are only doing so by luck—the causal chains determining their moves at no point involve the rules of chess—whereas the adults playing chess badly are doing so by a causal chain which includes the rules of chess. If you changed those rules, it would not change the children’s moves, but it would change the adults’.
By what virtue is a chess game a chess game and not two people playing with statues? The rules by which the chess computer operates parallel the rules by which chess operates—the behavior is mirrored within it. If you gave someone a brick wall, they couldn’t analyze it to learn how to play tennis, but if you gave someone a chess program, they could deduce from it the rules of chess.
I don’t think it’s quite that simple. If a couple of four-year-olds encounter a chess set, and start moving the pieces around on the board, they might happen to take turns and make only legal “moves” until they got bored. I don’t think they’d be playing chess. Similarly, if a couple of incompetent adults encounter a chess set and try to play chess, but because they aren’t very smart or paying very close attention, about a quarter of their moves aren’t actually legal, they’re playing chess—they’re just making mistakes in so doing.
The equivalence I’m proposing isn’t between results or actions, but the causal springs of the actions. In your example, the children making legal chess moves are only doing so by luck—the causal chains determining their moves at no point involve the rules of chess—whereas the adults playing chess badly are doing so by a causal chain which includes the rules of chess. If you changed those rules, it would not change the children’s moves, but it would change the adults’.
Wow, great minds think alike. ;-)
(No, I didn’t see your reply before posting.)