What is in the shepherd that is not in the automated, curtain-based sheep-tracking system?
Do you agree that there is a phenomenon of subjective meaning to be accounted for? The question of meaning does not originate with problems like “why does pebble-tracking work?”. It arises because we attribute semantic content both to certain artefacts and to our own mental states.
If we view the number of pebbles as representing the number of sheep, this is possible because of the causal structure, but it actually occurs because of “human interpretation”. Now if we go to mental states themselves, do you propose to explain their representational semantics in exactly the same way – human interpretation; which creates foundationless circularity – or do you propose to explain the semantics of human thought in some other way – and if so in what way – or will you deny that human thoughts have a semantics at all?
Do you agree that there is a phenomenon of subjective meaning to be accounted for? The question of meaning does not originate with problems like “why does pebble-tracking work?”. It arises because we attribute semantic content both to certain artefacts and to our own mental states.
If we view the number of pebbles as representing the number of sheep, this is possible because of the causal structure, but it actually occurs because of “human interpretation”. Now if we go to mental states themselves, do you propose to explain their representational semantics in exactly the same way – human interpretation; which creates foundationless circularity – or do you propose to explain the semantics of human thought in some other way – and if so in what way – or will you deny that human thoughts have a semantics at all?