No sane person deliberately seeks to misinterpret messages or to incorporate falsehoods into their reasoning. We pay attention to symbols because the consequences of ignorance or misunderstanding can be disastrous. Driving through a red traffic signal is an act that thankfully almost all drivers wisely avoid. If we weren't careful about the ways that we use symbols — their meanings — then communication would quickly descend into incomprehensible babble. It really does matter how we use signs and for the most part we stick to the rules. But sometimes even scientists are sloppy. This post is about a very specific but widespread form of scientific sloppiness: the misattribution of symbol-use to cells and simple organisms.
Symbol users act in extremely strange ways. On the basis of a simple sign — a word, a coloured light or an abstract scrawl — we can be led to engage in some of the most elaborate, sophisticated, and sometimes the most bizarre, behaviours. And perhaps the most bizarre thing of all, is that the sign itself can be formed from absolutely anything. That is the extraordinary power of symbols: we can use anything to symbolise anything else, so long as the people we are communicating with know the rule we are using.
Rule following is perhaps the most fundamental requirement of symbol use. If we do not know the rule, we cannot know how to respond. This is why only the most intelligent creatures are capable of using symbols — because only the most intelligent creatures are capable of using tools; of putting raw materials to uses for which they were never designed.
A very brief scan of current research within the biological sciences will be sufficient to demonstrate that talk of chemical "signalling" between organisms (and even between cells) is extremely common. And neuroscience is almost entirely committed to the conviction that neurons produce signals. In my experience the merest suggestion that such talk is mistaken is often regarded as tantamount to heresy, not because there are particularly compelling reasons for supporting such a view, but because there seem to be so few reasons against it. In other words, talk of biological signalling is simply a terminological habit or convenience that adds just a little glamour to terms that would otherwise be restricted to "stimuli" and "causal triggers".
I am sometimes asked whether I think it does any harm to talk of biological or neurological signalling. My usual response is to say that I’m not in a position to know. But a better response would be this: what good does it do to suggest that we can observe the rudiments of language in a petri dish? Since when was it wise for scientists to get it manifestly wrong about their philosophical foundations, and since when was it wise for philosophy to follow suit?
277 comments:
«Oldest ‹Older 201 – 277 of 277 Newer› Newest»I actually think that question is scientifically meaningless, but perfectly legitimate to ask in terms of the manifest image. I think that's where our differences lie: you don't seem to know enough science to correctly choose a discipline and correctly formulate a hypothesis. A good rule of thumb for that is knowing your journals and their regular contents.
Jim Hamlyn; what you say regarding action may be true in the technical sense of the word but action is not really used like that in the literature. Action is anything which shows activity, perceptually mediated or not. like gut peristalsis or stomach churning movements are its actions even when the person is under deep anesthesia; or neurons showing electrical activity are in action. Same with beating of the heart, respiratory movements, pupillary actions, etc. I think what you are saying action is really how the word behaviour is used in behavioural science. That usually involves higher centers.
Well you dodged my question quite nimbly there Matt, by calling it “vague”, but it will have escaped no one that science cannot help us to determine a creature’s intent by scrutinising the innards of the organism. Intentions are manifested in public, not in cells or putative intracranial representations. There is no inner intending going on because there is no inner intender. We don’t put brains on trial.
Even if your metaphysics is faultless, which costs us nothing to doubt, you will be no nearer an answer to the challenge I placed before you with this post. The problems of intelligent life are not touched by your beloved symbol pushing mathematics or logic because the problems of life are not explained by predictable causal sequences of events. Intelligent creatures anticipate future states of affairs and these predictive behaviours are categorically distinct from the straightforward causal mechanisms of rudimentary lifeforms and physiological behaviours in general.
Efficacious future directed actions violate standard causal explanations because the future cannot exert causal influence upon the present. The only way we can get around this otherwise insurmountable obstacle is through the skilled agency of representation and its embodied correlates.
To be caused to respond intelligently as if to a state of affairs that has not yet eventuated is an unprecedented shift in the causal proceedings that we simply cannot account for with maths or logic. The creaturely knowhow involved is simply too contingent upon the infinitely variable vagaries of morphology and circumstance. Knowhow is nonverbal in nature and therefore unnameable to reduction to verbal (symbolic) representation.
You and I are arguing across a great chasm between two fundamentally different ways of representing the world (the verbal and the nonverbal). And whilst we might be able to understand the gulf that lies between us, there will never be a possibility of reducing one to the other.
Why can't science study intent?
Science can study just about anything really. According to Chomsky the things that do not seem to be amenable to science is not because of a fault of science but that of the cognitive capacity of homo sapien sapiens; we are not that intelligent to convert it into a science.
It can, just not by looking for an inner source. The perceiver as a whole is the source. that's why we hold agents accountable for their actions.
Gottlob, Yes, science can study anything. But if we want to study purposeful behaviours (actions) then we need to find ways to trigger the capacities to represent the anticipated consequence of the action on the part of the agent. In the human case this is easy: we can simply ask them.
If it can't be studied it doesn't exist. Intent is a psychological mechanism that *is* studied, a lot. Again, scientific image though.
And I'm not going to bother explaining it to you in terms of information theory. Information processing is widely discussed in psychological literature, sometimes moreso than you'd find in other sciences, and I'm not doing your homework for you.
Matt, like Gottlob you missed the important element of my point. It makes no sense to examine the innards of the organism to determine intent. If there is an intender in the organism all you will have discovered is that there is a wee homunculus. Now you wouldn't really want that would you?
"Matt, like Gottlob you missed the important element of my point. It makes no sense to examine the innards of the organism to determine intent."
You don't examine innards if you are studying intent; you examine behaviour, whether non-verbal or verbal, and you might take psychophysiological data like galvanic skin response, heart rate, etc, like an experimental or clinical psychologist would.
How many times do I have to say I'm a non-reductionist?
I will say anyway that Jim does write beautifully.
Matt Bush my reading of you is dead on. If you deny that agency is ontological real you are a reductionist.
Jim: "The problems of intelligent life are not touched by your beloved symbol pushing mathematics or logic because the problems of life are not explained by predictable causal sequences of events."
Sure they are, they are intimately penetrated by mathematics, logic and fundamental physical science because life just is a predictable causal sequence of events (well predictable within the limits quantum physics seems to impose). Or are you denying physicalism? Of course that doesn't mean all explanations can be reduced to those of basic physics or all questions answered by it. Not even those within science and philosophy (see the debates on inter-theoretic reductionism and broader debates on ontological/explanatory reduction). But it does still imply an intimate but complex relation between any correct explanation and the explanations in physics and other basic sciences. Even if you can argue that your account is on solid ground and there is a chasm between it and the scientific account you can't argue there aren't bridges between the two and they must be accounted for in any complete explanation. You can't posit that your explanations float entirely free of physics if you are a physicalist.
(Also you attacked logic there, are you saying your account is not logical? Really?)
Jim: "Efficacious future directed actions violate standard causal explanations because the future cannot exert causal influence upon the present. The only way we can get around this otherwise insurmountable obstacle is through the skilled agency of representation and its embodied correlates."
That doesn't work, causal explanations of efficacious future directed actions do not imply backward causation. In fact you seem to make this clear when you rightly say "intelligent creatures _anticipate_ future states of affairs", it is this anticipation, which wholly occurs in the present, not the future states of affairs that are responsible. This anticipation by physically realised intelligent creatures is entirely open to causal analysis.
(Also in fact there is some debate on whether backward causation is possible, among physicists and even philosophers, http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/causation-backwards/, another example of ordinary language not according with the actual world as science and philosophy finds it).
You'll be arguing for the plausibility of negative causation next or the perceptibility of absence (I can provide cited papers to both if you like). You guys must be really desperate. Ok, no fair enough, you want to make sure all bases are covered. Well at least doubting Thomas does. But do we really still need to dispel fairies every time we do philosophy?
So Thomas, you claim that the problems of life "sure are" explained by predictable causal sequences of events? So you are an old style radical determinist after all? What do you suppose brought about the so called "cognitive revolution" then if predictable causal sequences of events were sufficient to describe behaviour? Were the behaviourists right all along? Were they just misunderstood? Are nonverbals just elaborate automata? These are not merely rhetorical questions. I want to know. In my experience you have never once staked a claim to anything other than orthodoxy. Even Matt is prepared to put his ideas on the line but you just wait in the wings looking for a chance to pounce on me for what are sometimes the most petty mistakes like previously referring to Exposure Values instead of Light Values (as if the two are not entirely correlated). Perhaps I should point out, for the benefit of others, that I have been using and teaching the use of light meters for the last 25 years. And when I pointed this out to you along with the fact that these devices have exactly the same internal workings you persisted as if my minor mistake had any bearing on the argument I was making.
Now we all have our moments of punctiliousness and to some extent I appreciate your stringency with me because you encourage me (with a stick and a few tiny carrots - though thanks for the link to the Gleick book BTW) to improve my arguments. But I want you to appreciate that it isn't easy taking an unorthodox view here and the road is full of treacherous pitfalls and obstacles and few helpers. It's also extremely difficult to make a fairly complex set of interwoven ideas understood on Facebook. You obviously think I am talking "shit". That's fine but spare me the one upmanship or else put your own views on the line because I'm getting tired of your nitpicking. In my experience you have never once stuck your neck out into interesting philosophical territory and given us something to really think about. Dropping links to interesting counterexamples just doesn't cut it, not for me anyway.
So no, of course I'm not denying physicalism. Where previously have I ever given such an indication? If you had read my comment with your usual careful scrutiny you would have noticed that I wrote "the future cannot exert causal influence upon the present." Your backward (hmm, that says it all really doesn't it) causation link notwithstanding we, at least most of us, don't take the view that the future influences the past in any significant way, if at all. However, how is it Thomas, that I can draw a picture of the house i might like to retire to and use this as a goal for something that may not eventuate for decades? How is it that the aspiration conjured by a short statement about putting men on the moon before a decade is out can galvanise a whole nation? Are you telling me that such extraordinarily powerful influences are the consequence of predictable causal sequences of events? They are certainly the result of causal sequences of events, yes. But predictable? Really? If you are a determinist then perhaps you should let me know so I can reassure myself that there is no hope of explaining to you what I think.
Just looking back at your questions I realise that I have addressed them both at once, but a further point needs to be made. Of course anticipatory capacities are open to causal analysis. I don't deny that. What I deny is that you can do relevant (to the intention) mathematics or logic operations on a drawing of an imaginary house that could quite easily become the basis of a whole sequence of further complex actions of nonverbal representing none of which are amenable to logical or mathematical analysis of the kind that we -- at least I -- am interested in.
Apologies for my rant, but you do have an uncanny knack of making me feel as though you want to discredit me rather than understand my view. If you really think it's shit then I suggest you just ignore me because I'm not going to stop trying to make myself clear no matter how coherent or incoherent you think I am. At least I'm trying, which is more than I can say of you.
Causality is great for modal structures, but in fundamental physics it doesn't always hold:
http://arxiv.org/abs/1105.4464
http://arxiv.org/abs/1206.6578
Fundamentally, determinism is false, since modal structures by definition are constrained by quantum mechanics, which obviously includes the insanely complicated and barely understood structures that psychology aims at trying to uncover from its fuckton of confusing data.
Matt, I agree with you entirely about determinism. Perhaps I can triangulate something from that then in an attempt to reconcile our positions a little (or build bridges as doubting Thomas suggested). I'll link to an article I have just read that gives an excellent example of Chomski's distinction between competence and performance. The writer cites a useful phrase from Edward Lorenz, the pioneer of applied nonlinear dynamics: “Climate is what you expect; weather is what you get.” He goes on to formulate a version for explicating Chomski's distinction: "Competence is what you expect; performance is what you get."
In the context of the present discussion I'd like to suggest that the following encapsulates our difficulties and disagreements very well:
Representation is what we expect, reality is what we get.
If determinism is false, then I think Thomas is mistaken (or I have misunderstood him and him me) that the problems of life are easily explained by predictable causal sequences of events (they wouldn't be problems otherwise). Or perhaps better is this: the entirely accurate prediction of future sequences of events will always be to some degree impossible on the basis of our knowledge (our possible representations) if indeed we do not live in a deterministic universe.
http://chronicle.com/blogs/linguafranca/2015/05/18/competence-performance-and-climate/?cid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en
Jim:
Firstly:
//You obviously think I am talking "shit". That's fine but spare me the one upmanship or else put your own views on the line because I'm getting tired of your nitpicking. In my experience you have never once stuck your neck out into interesting philosophical territory and given us something to really think about. Dropping links to interesting counterexamples just doesn't cut it, not for me anyway.//
I don't think you are "talking shit". I think you are wrong on various points, but employing considerable nous to get to your IMO wrong positions. If you don't want considered criticism then don't offer your views up, though why else would you. That's why I offer my negative views up, so you can give considered criticism on them, so I learn and develop my views. I take it by admitting I proffer "interesting counterexamples" I do offer _considered_ criticism some of the time (though I'll freely admit not always).
On the actual issues:
//So Thomas, you claim that the problems of life "sure are" explained by predictable causal sequences of events?//
No, I didn't at all. I said they sure are "touched" by them (your phrase) or "intimately penetrated" by them. Never did I say explained. In fact I explicitly said:
//Of course that doesn't mean all explanations can be reduced to those of basic physics or all questions answered by it. Not even those within science and philosophy (see the debates on inter-theoretic reductionism and broader debates on ontological/explanatory reduction). But it does still imply an intimate but complex relation between any correct explanation and the explanations in physics and other basic sciences.//
Here, explicitly denying all problems of life are wholly explained by "predictable causal sequences of events".
//They are certainly the result of causal sequences of events, yes. But predictable?//
I take it all causal sequences of events are, in principle, to varying degrees, predictable. In principle and to varying degrees due to human limitations and various other issues, many central to the long running debates on a normative epistemology of science (Vienna circle, Popper, Kuhn, Quine etc). I did not by predictable mean deterministic and quite clearly noted "well predictable within the limits quantum physics seems to impose". If your argument is that human intention can't be explained scientifically because of indeterminism then I was misreading you, I took the emphasis to be on the "causal sequence of events" and didn't take "predictable" to mean deterministic (taking the intimate relation to "causal sequences of events" to be core to physicalism, the reason I mentioned that, verifying that was not what you were arguing for, not imputing it). Though indeterminism doesn't I think get you what you want, I don't think. Indeterminism doesn't preclude prediction it just limits it. If we take it for granted that the world just is probabilistic at root as quantum indeterminism seems to show then within that we can still in principle have perfect prediction. Quantum indeterminism is no great show-stopper for scientific explanations, as the continued growth of physics in the quantum age shows. Also, I don't think you can couch any explanation in terms of this indeterminism. That harkens back to the ancient notion of swerve in relation to free will and the manifest issues there. How can randomness outside of the organisms control be the basis for intent?
//What do you suppose brought about the so called "cognitive revolution" then if predictable causal sequences of events were sufficient to describe behaviour? Were the behaviourists right all along? //
I think new scientific tools (methodologies, measuring instruments and theories) brought about the cognitive revolution. The move from behaviourism was warranted. Analysis solely in terms of stimulus-response isn't sufficient to explain higher cognitive powers and attempts to do so presuppose cognitive concepts (Chomsky's critique of Skinner's Verbal Behaviour as I take it, from my distant memory of it). Though this wasn't a complete demolition of behaviourist theory, as some seem to hold. Behaviourists were not wrong they just over-reached. Behaviourism is still taught (positively) in psychology, I took a 2nd year course that on 'learning psychology' that very much followed the initial behaviourist model and significantly concerned the initial behaviourists and those who've continued the tradition, after the 'cognitive revolution'. Yes, psychology moved on from behaviourism but it did not discard it (apart from its rejection of any talk of inner mechanisms). Nor was the cognitive revolution an abandoning of explanations in terms of "causal sequences of events".
//Are nonverbals just elaborate automata?//
Yes, non-verbals, and verbals, are elaborate automata. A key question is how we automata realise such incredibly sophisticated cognitive tools and how this evolved. How we explain (to whatever extent possible) these cognitive tools in terms of causal sequences of events.
(Taking automata in the non-technical sense, in the technical sense - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automata_theory - which is closely allied to information theory no we are not automata but they can be applied as explanatory tools.)
//What I deny is that you can do relevant (to the intention) mathematics or logic operations on a drawing of an imaginary house that could quite easily become the basis of a whole sequence of further complex actions of nonverbal representing none of which are amenable to logical or mathematical analysis of the kind that we -- at least I -- am interested in.//
I think non-verbal representation are amenable to logical, mathematical and scientific analysis. At least at the level of them being implemented in causal sequences of events. Maybe this level of analysis doesn't answer all the questions you are interested in. I clearly noted I don't take scientific explanations, much less those of any particular science, to be an exhaustive explanation. But it is just wrong, or at least seriously myopic given no further specification of what problems are important, to say "The problems of intelligent life are not touched by your beloved symbol pushing mathematics or logic". Hence my objection to that.
Thomas, these are good objections to my rant.
So you think I have a surplus of erroneous nous that you think I should be hung by! Fair enough. If we are going to be hung by anything it should really be by a nous of our own making. Thanks for the veiled compliment though. You too.
"I said they sure are 'touched' by them (your phrase)"
Actually "my" phrase was a nod to Wittgenstein's famous point about the limits of scientific knowledge in relation to "the problems of life." I added "intelligent" to acknowledge the distinction between predictable behaviours and actions.
"or 'intimately penetrated' by them."
I definitely prefer Wittgenstein's much less thrusting choice of terminology.
"I explicitly said: 'Of course that doesn't mean all explanations can be reduced to those of basic physics or all questions answered by it.'"
Why "basic"? Does the most complex physics explain the problems of intelligent life? Otherwise I obviously agree.
"But it does still imply an intimate but complex relation between any correct explanation and the explanations in physics and other basic sciences."
If you mean to endorse a correspondence theory of truth then yes, I agree. Nonetheless, we elevate this notion of truth far more highly than other skills of representation that are often just as efficacious. And "efficacy" is the operative term here. Nature doesn't give a tinker's cuss about truth. Only we symbol pushers do. And the more caught up we are with our symbolic skills the less likely we are to appreciate the extraordinary efficacy of nonverbal predictive skills in intelligent action.
"I take it all causal sequences of events are, in principle, to varying degrees, predictable."
I find that claim absolutely extraordinary. You clearly didn't dwell on my point about discovery then. Are discoveries predictable in principle? Do we just need The Principle to help us discover the next big thing? Sure, I can predict that there will be a next big thing but that is obviously not what I am getting at here. Discoveries are by no means predictable in principle. That's what makes them discoveries after all. If we knew all there is to know of the universe then there could be no surprises because there would be nothing more to discover. However — and this is the crucial bit — we couldn't know that there is nothing left to discover because there is no principle we could apply to know the as yet unknown. Anyway, my point stands. I think you will struggle to prove to anyone that discoveries are predictable.
"...I did not by predictable mean deterministic..."
But perhaps you have some unexamined deterministic leanings within that principle of predictability of yours. What happened to the doubting Thomas?
"If your argument is that human intention can't be explained scientifically because of indeterminism then I was misreading you..."
Or I wasn't clear enough. Fair point.
"If we take it for granted that the world just is probabilistic at root as quantum indeterminism seems to show then within that we can still in principle have perfect prediction."
In your deterministic universe perhaps.
"How can randomness outside of the organisms control be the basis for intent?"
Great question. Well here's a wee conjecture for you. Randomness outside, and possibly inside organisms also, might influence intent in quite significant ways. The important thing to bear in mind here is that life under ordinary causal relations relies fundamentally upon universal regularities. Random fluctuations undermine those regularities and depending upon the severity of the fluctuation the consequences will usually be predictably devastating. Nonetheless, in some rare circumstances it is conceivable that randomness could influence genetic variation with unpredictable but efficacious consequences for a species. However, once creatures begin anticipating future states of affairs — of intention that is — the potential for randomness to influence decision making becomes a real possibility. I'm not saying that decisions are random at their core but I am suggesting that random fluctuations might influence decisions on occasion in radically unpredictable ways. Likewise, random fluctuations might sometimes trigger a thought or generate a hallucination or just form a mark on a tree or piece of fruit that might have a significant and otherwise unpredictable influence upon a representation user. Yes? No? Maybe?
"Analysis solely in terms of stimulus-response isn't sufficient to explain higher cognitive powers and attempts to do so presuppose cognitive concepts..."
You may already know that I have strong reservations about the notion of cognitive concepts. The explanation is complicated but suffice it to say that I take a concept to be a technique in the use of symbols that is fundamentally reliant upon learning through public exchange. For this reason I deny that nonverbals have concepts. The term "nonverbal" should be sufficient indicator in itself!
"...non-verbals, and verbals, are elaborate automata. A key question is how we automata realise such incredibly sophisticated cognitive tools and how this evolved."
Once again you obliterate the very distinction that I am trying to establish. It evolved when we organisms of various sorts started responding to our conspecifics through the production of representations. That's when we became agents/perceivers.
"I don't take scientific explanations, much less those of any particular science, to be an exhaustive explanation. But it is just wrong, or at least seriously myopic given no further specification of what problems are important."
Well here are just few problems/questions to be going on with: love, purpose, uncertainty, fulfilment, desire, wonder.
Once again though Thomas, we seem to be in danger of becoming mired in issues tangential to intention and its underlying causal drivers. Sometimes it seems to me that you expect me to thoroughly address a whole slew of philosophical perplexities before you are willing to grant me any authority to even claim that I am a perceiver capable of acting with intent whilst knowing as I do so that I am subject to numerous ongoing bodily processes over which I have no control and only the most superficial conscious awareness. I don't need to know any metaphysics, logic, maths or even much in the way of science to be aware of that far from simple but commonplace fact.
I am doing my best to offer an explanation of the fundamental difference between actions and mere organismic responsiveness and in so doing I am forced by the logic of this distinction to reject all theories of intracranial intention. It makes no sense to suppose that we have producers of intentions within us because these producers would also have to be intentionally directed. Why is this not a searingly pressing question for someone as perspicacious as you? The buck stops with us. We are agents, not our parts. There is only one agent that is embodied by Thomas Brandon.
You have already acknowledged anticipatory capacities but you have offered nothing by way of an explanation as to what you believe lies at the heart of such capacities. Nor have you offered any widely accepted alternative that avoids the very obvious problems I have pointed out numerous times and that are well enough documented in some of the literature.
I do not suppose that I am alone in believing that I am the instigator of my actions and deserve to be held solely responsible for them — at least those the consequences of which I might reasonably be expected to be capable of envisaging. If my thoughts are mine alone then why not my actions also? Are thoughts not actions of a fundamental sort anyway — certainly several prominent theorists have expressed such an opinion?
My autonomic responses on the other hand are nothing to do with my intentions. I cannot intend to blush or to narrow my pupils. And what of those desperately unfortunate victims of rape who find themselves in abject confusion because they become aroused and sometimes even orgasm as a consequence of the event. Do you really want to endorse the indefensible thesis that such responses are intentional? What on Earth do we have such concepts as autonomic responses and physiological processes for if not because we recognise to some significant degree that a fundamental distinction needs to be made.
And ask yourself this, if you were utterly incapable of any kind of anticipation then what actions do you suppose you would be capable of? Would you even be conscious? If you agree that we have powers of anticipation then presumably you also agree that there is every reason to believe that many other animals are also capable of envisaging future states of affairs. There is certainly no good reason that I can see to suppose that anticipatory capacities are linguistically enabled.
I don't know of any respected theory that doesn't either posit endogenous representations or skills in the production of exogenous representations right at the root of intention. But if I am correct that the skill of representation is necessarily intentional, then this at once rules out all inner representing because it also rules out all inner intending. If the theoretical consensus on the necessity of representation (or capacities for representation) for intentional action is true, then it follows that intention is the preserve of representation-capable creatures. We do not suppose that the bacteria responsible for a common cold are acting with intent. At least I don't. Nor does it seem likely that plankton and earthworms are capable of producing representations of future states of affairs.
Of course you are welcome to think I am wrong, but what then do you think is so persuasively right that convinces you that you know the facts of the matter?
Karl Buhler's language functions form a nested-hierarchy:
1. Expressive (revealing/not) e.g. when a man or lion yawns or a man yells, "Ouch", or a baby cries or snores
2. Signalling or Communicative (efficient/not): message encoded in signal, "Look out", dog barks to play ball
3.Descriptive or Informative (true/false), "Pollen containing flowers are north west, 1 km away"
plus Popper's extra function:
4. Argumentative or Critical (valid/invalid) only possible with advanced language "If all swans are supposed to be white, and this bird is a black swan, then all swans are not white or this is not a swan in fact"
Bees function in levels 1,2 and 3 but do not tell lies, it seems. Dogs can lie maybe, humans excel at it.
It seems like Jim's issue is something to do with representation at the interface of 1 and 2 levels, but it is not at all clear to me what sort of representation this is. I also think that the propensity to signal, once realised in the signal, has a feedback on the propensity and produces changing propensities. Part of that feedback is social, maybe a good part.
I do not understand why earlier propensities are discounted from being "knowledge". There seems to be a forced artificiality about this. A reinforcement of dogma that Donald Brooks "On Non-Verbal Representation" is correct in ways that Jim is interpreting it. I am not yet convinced by Brooks.
As for bacteria, they are autopoietic, self regulating even without a self that can sense its self ( a meta-self). They eject chemicals that are meaningful to other bacteria - in the sense that they can be assimilated with the net effect of performing as though they are signals. One can metaphorically at least say that bacteria signal other bacteria. Maybe this is more than metaphorical, we due to our philosophical obsession with subjectivity overrate our own degree of consciousness.
"I do not suppose that I am alone in believing that I am the instigator of my actions and deserve to be held solely responsible for them — at least those the consequences of which I might reasonably be expected to be capable of envisaging. If my thoughts are mine alone then why not my actions also? Are thoughts not actions of a fundamental sort anyway — certainly several prominent theorists have expressed such an opinion?" -Jim Hamlyn
We do say, we do, and I agree that we think, but none of us know what we say nor what we do, let alone know what we think!
Once we speak or act we create new propensities and change existing propensities. Our theories have informative content far beyond what we can grasp at any one moment. Even a basic statement like "Here is a red kangaroo" contains the universals, red and kangaroo. Newton, and Kant, had no idea that part of the informative content of his theory was that it could be contradicted by Einstein's.
Bruce,
Buhler's formulation is ok-ish as a first approximation, but in comparison with Brook’s (no “s”) optical system it’s as rudimentary and fuzzy as a pinhole camera. I’m glad you read “On Non-Verbal Representation”. Perhaps it might help to explain my reservations about Buhler’s theory. And perhaps I can also recommend Brook’s 2014 eBook “Get a Life” published by and available from Artlink Australia here:
http://pocketmags.com/viewmagazine.aspx?catid=1029...
I wrote a review of it that you can read here:
http://thoughtsonartandteaching.blogspot.co.uk/.../get...
So called “expressive” behaviours of the basic kind that you mention, do not function by way of meaning. We must reserve meaning for fully linguistic forms of symbolic exchange because if we do not, then the whole explanatory story becomes a morass of confused distinctions and conflicting opinions. I should point out that I am NOT saying that these behaviours are not causally influential upon other members of the same species (and other closely associated or similarly endowed creatures). They clearly are. But what I am urging is that we avoid the assumption that a yawns, snoring or hiccoughs are representationally symbolic of inner attributes that other creatures decipher and then respond to. I’m claiming that these behaviours are regularly occurring states of the organism that other members of the species have become efficaciously responsive to through evolutionary selection.
Brook sometimes begins his explication of representation with a discussion of what he calls “efficacious substitutability”. For Brook all forms of efficacious substitution are representational and fall into three strict categories: two nonverbal and one symbolic/verbal. We need not distinguish between the two nonverbal forms of efficacious substitution here but instead we can simply say that all nonverbal representation relies one or other of two forms of resemblance. In other words: all nonverbal representations are like the things they are substitutable for in one or more ways and in one or more respects. Pictures and statues _look-like_ the things they represent, whereas symbolic representations do not.
Brook’s account of the evolutionary precursors of language is completely different from Buhlers. For Brook, all symbolic forms of representation depend upon the a necessary capacity to represent our causal encounters nonverbally. So, for example, for bees to be capable of proto-symbolisation they must first have been capable of copying the behavior of one another, of following a trail (as is the case with their close evolutionary cousins: ants). Mimicry comes before symbolisation… often long before. As I already mentioned; newborns cry with the same vocal patterns as their mother’s and infants are very quick to mimic the gestures of their carers.
If you’re interested to know my take on the emergence of language from more rudimentary communicative skills then this might be of interest: http://thoughtsonartandteaching.blogspot.co.uk/#bc
But the point I want to reiterate is this. Representation is a public affair. There is no possibility of a private language, no inner symbolic system, no language of thought, no meanings inside the brain or organism. Causal correlates, yes, but no meanings. Meanings only come with the emergence and development of complex practices, not just of efficacious substitution, but of efficacious exchange – of a small ripe apple for a large unripe one, or a few nuts for a piece of fruit or a hand axe for a bison. Only once we begin to treat objects as though they have properties that they do not actually possess can language get a foothold - or so I argue.
Just to exhaust (and I mean f*ing EXHAUST) my thinking on this one: Since OP is about Matt, I would say I take Matt seriously as a philosopher, i.e., not someone I routinely ignore (and not just because he and David (my favorite philosopher in this forum) are excellent moderators). His views are thoughtful, never sophomoric, and (in my view) generally speculatively conservative (in the good "~woo" sense; if occasionally laden with unfortunate toxicity (on that score, I basically want everyone to be as philosophically cheerful as John Ragin)). But I can't, for the life of me, make any coherent sense of a meta-philosophy that is: a) analytically philosophical; b) proudly pythagorrean; c) eliminativist about consciousness and intuition, and d) robustly contemptuous of "lingua-formalism" (the only definition of which I know is Frege/Russell/Godel/Quine/Tarski meta-mathematics; the heart and soul of this tradition). It's conjunctively unintelligible to me. If it were a single isolated view, ok, it'd be ignorable. But it's not. (E.g., I don't think philosophical interlopers like Lawrecne Krauss give a fig about meta-mathematics) So, on the deeper frequencies, which is perhaps where Jim is trying to go, and as Tim Maudlin (not just Gertrude Stein) likes to remind anyone interested in this kind of metaphysics, you sever the link and it's likely there's no logical (or ontological) there there;, no place at all to position an initial primitive first step. Even Quine is on board with that.
Thanks for the kind words Joe. I will address your points. A) I guess in the analytic tradition, I take from two branches extending from Quine - that of neurophilosophy and the other going to Dennett, and on to Ladyman and Ross. It makes things incredibly complicated but I feel that I've made some progress towards reconciling those views (reductionism being the huge challenge because some adjustments here and there are as hoc). B) sorta pythagorean - the distinction between physicalism and information-theoretic neopythagoreanism is probably collapsed. C) I'm no eliminativist about consciousness; I flirted with it last year but I was wrong, and I'm pushing towards a neurophilosophical take on intuition now, but it's mostly descriptive. D) only in that Paul Churchland (Plato's Camera) way :)
Ah, apologies if I misrepresented your views. The most important (for me) is D (well, given C is a non-issue). E.g., I think it's crucial to segregate 'truth' (as formalized by Tarski) and imported epistemology problems like warranted belief (legit, but different). And since I haven't read Churchland's book, I don't what you mean by Churchland's views on metamathematics; or even if you agree with them! I do own the book though (based on a recommendation from this forum).
Linguaformalism is opposed connectionism in epistemology. The problem with the former is that it denies animals the ability to know and learn things... but empirically we can see that they know and learn things.
Just riffing on truth (I don't know much about it! I just assume it's what we hope to get glimmers of through our investigations) and going a bit off-topic (well, since the topic is me, I guess not), a person can seriously believe that all truth is subjective, and that tables are only hard if you believe them to be. The great thing about those idiotic doctrines is that the person espousing them still knows that these aren't true - the nonverbal bits in their brains know that tables are hard, and this is reflected in behaviour. Mathematical reasoning is also distinct from verbal reasoning (cf dyscalculia and dyslexia).
I think that's interesting - it makes subjectivism harder when you reduce the status of language in terms of knowledge.
Lingua-formalism doesn't deny cognitive proto-predication in animals at all (a huge topic, beautifully examined by Gareth Evans); i.e., the evolutionary disposition to pick out specific objects against the buzzing, blurring confusion, and then recurrent objects, and then kinds, isn't language-requring. That's primitive predication. Some animals (my dog Stan is an exemplar; maybe not the mosquito I just whacked) clearly know things along these lines; i.e., they're interacting with more or rless the same primitive macroscopia as us. The regimentation of that formalism needn't take any position on that whatever. Again, cf. Evan; or Samuel Wheeler's austere post-Kripke Davidsonian semantics (though I'll concede McDowell's Kantian beef with Sellars (at least in "Mind and World") would deny animals this level of conceptual awareness; he thought it imported "the given". He's wrong. I think he may have changed his mind).
Btw, the idea that Quine is some kind of proto neuro-philosopher seems to me a tendentious misread. He's a formalist through and through. Seems to me Quine just mentioned 'sensory irritations' and waved his hands. Chomsky, by comparison, seems far more neuro-philosophically sensitive; though of course he thinks much of it is still worthless. I.e., he admires neuroscience, but isn't fond of neurophilosophy. I'm more or less with him on that. Maybe Churchland's book will show me the way.
Linguaformalism, knowledge as logical relations between propositions - this is Churchland's target. And yeah neurophilosophy is Quinean as hell, it's epistemology naturalised about as far as it can be naturalised. Churchland sees things formalised in terms of sublinguistic or nonlinguistic activation vectors in higher dimensional algebra (ie, 3D neural nets) rather than set-theoretic wordy things. It's Post-Quine.
Linguaformal = language+ formalism as the core of knowledge. Nah, neural nets. Language has its uses but is a bit too noisy and convoluted for most scientific tasks and probably needs to take itself less seriously.
It's not "quinean as hell". It's not about knowledge. That's Quine's point. (I'm not talking about Paul Churchland; I don't know his wor). Truth is a Tarskian recursive functor, a formality, antinomy-free. Keep it segreated from knowledge, and warranted belief, else move into murkier waters.
"Language has its uses but is a bit too noisy and convoluted for most scientific tasks and probably needs to take itself less seriously."
Wait. Mathematics is a language. That's the point of closed sentence and quantificational regimentation. At least per Frege, Poincare, Godel, Carnap, Quine. Even Brouwer and Dummett. Anyway, I've def. exhausted my amateur observations. But I will read this damned Churchland book before summer ends!
Yeah me too! I will finally (and most cheerfully) commit to reading Plato's Camera when I get back to my annual Summertime book reading sabbatical in just a few weeks from now. Funny how cold is setting in here, heaters are turned up and the brown leaves are falling, but in just a night of flying, I will be in the steamy jungle of South Carolina, with the air conditioner on high and great books at the ready. It's magic!
Lolz John. Lastly (sorry), Quine's lingua-formalism is about shoring up the apparatus of first-order logic, predication, truth; against antiomies and gratuitites. His epistemology is the related but separate business of getting by, using regimentation, without unnatural entities like facts, meaning, propositions, etc. I happen to believe he could've used some help from Carnap's vast use/mention mechanism to help sort out ontology questions. And that Carnap could've used some help from Kripke, so that the use/mention apparatus wasn't quite so egalitarian. But that's far afield.
I would argue that maths is distinct from language on behavioural neurological grounds. Ie, dyscalculia and dyslexia being associated with distinct average activation patterns using different brain regions; nonlinguistic creatures being able to count and reason about numbers, etc. It terms of epistemology, yeah, Plato's Camera is basically Quine and eliminative materialism.
I mean there's huge differences but descriptive epistemology entails finding out how the brain actually handles this sort of thing.
"...the brain actually handles this sort of thing."
The brain possesses no neurohands or neurofingers and is manifestly incapable of "handling" anything. You'll say that I am being a language nazi again but you still haven't addressed the question of what good it does to ignore the distinction between actions and autonomic behaviours (other that "expediency" which is the best that Thomas has managed to come up with).
Am I wrong to insist that there is a sharp distinction to be made? Did my arguments about rape victims not prove persuasive? Is an erection an act after all? I still cannot see what possible explanatory efficacy arises from saying such preposterous things as "brains handle" things. If philosophers treat language like a frippery then why should we bother to take them seriously?
Can anyone else please explain to me why Matt and Thomas seem so willing to disregard the distinction between actions and autonomic behaviours? Why will they not acknowledge that agency can only be reasonably attributed to whole organisms and, even then, only to behaviours that can reasonably be expected to be the result of learned techniques in the use of representations of future states of affairs?
Chomsky thinks arithmetic may be an offshoot of the language faculty.
Jim, peristalsis is an autonomic behaviour but it is still an action or activity.
Jim: I don't deny a distinction between actions and autonomic behaviours (obviously distinct differences in neural activation patterns across various and occasionally different regions - and any distinction should not be taken as black and white)... I have no idea where you got that idea from.
Gottlob: Chomsky should learn some neuroscience then. And stop with the silly classicism.
And obviously erections aren't in the same scale as rape. Rape is in a whole different scale to anatomy and physiology. Jeeze. What tissue is rape mostly composed of? Is there a gene that controls the rate of tissue repair after damage to rape? How do metabolic rates affect the function of rape? Do you see where I'm going? It's the same as asking "is cortical glial density a crime against people or property?", etc
Erection is under autonomic control.
The basic anatomy and physiology of an erection in rape or consensual behaviour is largely the same. The behaviour is totally different, however.
Jim, you said to Thomas that, '...issues tangential to intention and its underlying causal drivers'. Perhaps intention does not have causal drivers but is a type of cause or causal relation in itself?
Normative manifest and scientific image milkshake philosophy?
I think you are hitting on the right point Gottlob Frege. Taking normative actions to be real causes is the point here. Alvin I. Goldman wrote "A Theory of Human Action". In that book he argues that there are many different events in what we take to be human actions. For example, when someone shoots someone there are the following events, 1) the pulling of the trigger, 2) the neural activity that moved the finger, 3) the intent to shoot that person. All of these events count as explanations in their own right, but for certain explanations we don't go further that the intent. Knowledge itself satisfies such an intentional explanation. It is the intent to follow the evidence when we actually get things right.
"I would argue that maths is distinct from language on behavioural neurological ground... "
(I started typing this last night, but was passing out and assumed I was badly misreading). So I don't think I'm following the point. Are saying the subject of mathematical logic isn't language? Because of the findings of neurophilosophy? That the subject matter of Principia, Godel, Hilbert, Kleene, Zermelo, Church, etc. is something other than formal language? Is mathematical grammar not real grammar? Are Godel sentences not real sentences? A Tarski truth predicate not a real predicate? And what does primitive animal numeracy have to do with anything at all? As I mentioned above, there's nothing apriori anti-animal going on at all. Is the point supposed to be that since animals can count mathematical logic can't be about language? That's a remarkable claim.
You can have "formal" without the "lingua" bit. Set theory is fine and dandy and you could give a lecture on it and I'd be able to follow it while struggling to not be bored by it... But in that vein you could also read me some notes off a page in a music book, but you're not serenading me - you're just making me reconsider the date. (I am just poking fun but you get the idea.)
Maybe for some purposes, you could call maths a language. But, for naturalised epistemology, it just isn't.
I'll stake out one of the extremes: a completed neuroscience will not model the nervous system as an information-processing system, because semantic properties (meaning, truth values, logical relations) are not natural properties. I'll go further: a natural philosophy of language will explain language itself without reference to semantic properties. So Jim Hamlyn's position lies between my own and that of Matt Bush.
The symbols shunted around when you're playing with formal systems (say you're reading GEB) have an arbitrary meaning - literally just defined by their relations to the other symbols permissible in the system. If you're reading GEB, you notice that Hofstadter is happy to keep reminding you this all the way from the MU system through to his walkthrough of Gödel's incompleteness theorems. You can translate them with whimsical abandon for effect and the sake of communication and possibly a Pulitzer Prize but really, it's just maths.
I have no idea what you're talking about. Sorry. (I have many blind spots of ignorance.) But I'm aware of no non-linguistic sense of formal grammar (of formal demarcation of the class of strings of phonemes that belong to a language), nor of syntax, proof, model, recursion, etc. Kleene 1952 is the locus classicus. But perhaps the Plato's Camera will teach me that things are otherwise.
Math has to be a language otherwise we could never learn to use it. It also has its own grammar that we refer to as well formed formulas (wffs).
I agree with the consensus here that mathematics is indeed a lingua in the sense that it relies upon symbol manipulation. Where it differs from natural languages is in the absolute strictness of its rules.
"...a natural philosophy of language will explain language itself without reference to semantic properties. So Jim Hamlyn's position lies between my own and that of Matt Bush."
Can it be true that I'm halfway closer to the burning Bush than I ever thought!? Reconciliation is around the corner! Seriously though Anderson, could you flesh out what you mean by how a system of semantic relations will explain itself without reference to semantic relations? Or have I misunderstood you? I agree with your first claim entirely.
Matt Bush; a perisitaltic action, or an erection, is not normative. It is factual. Even though its involuntary.
Gottlob, we hold people responsible for their actions but we do not hold them responsible for their hiccups, sneezes, tics, shudders, blinks or coughs. Do you think that there is no distinction necessary between what we are accountable for and what we are not?
A hiccup is still an action. Same as sneezes and tics. It is just an involuntary action.
Action doesnt necessarily mean it is voluntary. Like when a uterus contracts to expel a foetus, it is an action.
I mean it is mentioned as actions in the medical literature.
Action just means to influence something, not the act of influencing something. It is a noun, not a verb.
I find it both curious and puzzling Matt, that you regard the efficacy of mathematics — with its necessarily formal procedures — so highly, yet you seem unwilling to recognise that some of the problems of scientific explanation might actually be due to an avoidably informal use of natural language amongst the people who should be using their tools most precisely.
I'm also perplexed as to why you say that there is no black and white distinction between actions and autonomic behaviours. Are you saying that the mortifying erection of the male rape victim is partially intentional? Or perhaps a less extreme example would be preferable. Do you suppose that halfhearted actions shade towards autonomic behaviours? Could you provide a good example somewhere towards the middle of the supposed spectrum between the black of response and the white of action (or visa versa)?
I'm a simple soul and I stick close to metaphysics. I don't do angels and demons and I don't do ghosts and goblins and I don't do semantic properties and the Platonic entities that would have to exist to have them. But I'll venture three more comments before I go back to posting pictures of the flowers in my yard: 1) a formal rule-governed symbol-manipulating device, per se, doesn't know that anything it's doing involves meaningful symbols at all (because it doesn't know anything at all). Computers are like that: humans attach "meaning" to the "symbols." Computers are more like rocks that way. 2) He'd probably shoo me away, but I'll claim Fodor for a compatriot on this: his idea (LofT and subsequently) was that syntactical structure was not only necessary for generating representations, but syntactical structure could itself constitute a formalization of semantic content. That is, syntax could be a causal bridge between the semantic content of representations and the physical processes that occur in machines/brains. Here is a visualization exercise to help understand the idea: imagine a simple symbol system in which a triangle stands for “yes” and a circle stands for “no.” Now consider those same specific (token) triangles and circles not as symbols but as physical objects with those shapes, and imagine a wheel with triangular cogs that will take triangular objects, but not circular ones, through a barrier. The cogwheel can sort out the “yes’s” from the “no’s” without symbolic interpretation because the shapes also constitute the distinction between them qua symbols. This dual function of geometrical shapes is one simple way that a physical system might function as a symbol processor: shapes can simultaneously have both (conventional) symbolic and (physical) causal roles. 3) If Fodor hadn't already told me to buzz off, he definitely would when I said that I think that Wittgenstein's functional-role semantics, a kind of nominalism about "meaning," is far better (metaphysically speaking, as always) than magical talk about the necessity of symbolic content (I get "magical" from Putnam, Meaning of Meaning, Brain in a Vat etc.).
Jim, the diaphragm, which is the main respiratory muscle, is a skeletal muscle that is both under voluntary and involuntary control. Also coughing and blinking can be both voluntary and involuntary. (Skeletal muscle is a voluntary muscle).
Swallowing is a mixture on voluntary and involuntary
Same as defecating or urinating.
Even walking is involuntary to a degree, like a pendulum.
Yes, isn't it incredible the skills we learn? And just imagine how few would emerge or develop if we were not social creatures embedded in a culture of accumulated knowhow.
Its not a skill, its an act ;-)
Anderson,
RE: 1) I could t agree more.
RE: 2) He'd be doing you a favour.
RE: 3) indeed.
Gottlob, yes, if they improve through practice then they deserve to be called acts.
In physiology an act is a portion of the dynamics of the system that has a particular end point in place. In labour, the contraction of the uterine smooth muscles is an act because it is geared towards the deliverance of the baby. Or swallowing is an act because it is directed towards propelling the food down the gullet. Urination is an act to expel urine, moving your thumb is an act say of opposition, or vomiting is a reverse peristaltic act that expels gastric contents. Muscular contraction is an act to oppose to ends of the bone, or neuronal firing is an act to propagate an action potential down a nerve fiber. This is how it is used.
Walking on a line is an act of coordination, coordinated by the cerebellum. Aerobic respiration is the cellular activity which converts glucose to water, CO2 and energy using oxygen, or in cancerous cells there is increased mitotic activity.
The seeding of malignant cells in a distant site from that of a primary tumour is an act which results in a metastatic deposit.
Gottlob, So you think there is no distinction necessary between what we are accountable for and what we are not?
I'm just talking about cells and tissues, not higher mental functions.
Your use of the word act is not incorrect I am just talking of a particular usage of the word in physiology.
I know. You're not wrong either. I'm just suggesting that we can distinguish between two radically different forms of behaviour by reference to actions and responses or agency and autonomic processes. You may have noticed that I have quite often used the word "intentional" in conjunction with "action" even though I view this as a tautology. I know where you are coming from though. Do you have any suggestions of alternative terms then to help illuminate the difference or would you always use the conjunction of "intentional action" to distinguish this from the behaviour of chemical reactions and autonomic processes?
"I'm also perplexed as to why you say that there is no black and white distinction between actions and autonomic behaviours."
It's about degree of regional activation, assuming that we're talking about the relevant branches of neuroscience. Otherwise feel free to carve out whatever manifest image distinctions you like, because we aren't doing science when we're picking up the milk while stressing about whether or not we'll make it to that stupid dinner thing on time.
"Are you saying that the mortifying erection of the male rape victim is partially intentional?"
No, I'm saying that "intention" has nothing to do with the science of anatomy and physiology, just as neurohormone concentrations have nothing to do with determining whether shoplifting occurred. It's like asking how to calculate the evolution of the wave function of a verb.
And animals that don't reason symbolically understand quantities and basic logic and stuff. Humans have some symbolic prostheses which makes us better at abstracting away towards higher mathematics but the basic underlying cognitive system is not linguistic. It's actually more spatial.
Jim you can use action. Even in physiology there are many single words that are used in a variety of ways. Action can mean a dynamic, it can refer to a molecular mechanism, it can refer to higher behaviour, and so on and so forth. Your idea of an action directed by an intention can still be called action if you like. Or it can be called volition. Or anything else.
So Matt, for you intention is "about degree of regional activation..."
So the higher the degree of regional activation, the more someone intends their associated action. And where there is lots and lots of regional activation then the owner of the activation — at least on your account — must really really mean what they are doing. So whims are merely a nominal patterns of activation with near unintended consequences. Herein lies the profound vagueness and inadequacy of your view Matt. What we want to know is what makes us intentionally directed agents but all you and other neuroaficionados can offer us is "activation patterns". You might as well be offering clusters of atomic excitation or ghosts in the glia for that matter.
But perhaps your dismissiveness is really just a grudging acknowledgement that the Scientific Image cannot provide the answers that we need in this instance, because it cannot touch what it means to be a embodied embrained creature possessed of skills and skilfully exploitable fallibilities.
"I'm saying that "intention" has nothing to do with the science of anatomy and physiology..."
I submit that intention has nothing to do with neuroscience either, at least not in the way that you tend to paint its picture.
The Scientific Image is a human construct after all for the consumption and use of human beings and as such it is an inextricable part of the Manifest Image no matter how objective it turns out to be. Only together do the two images bring things into stereoscopic relief in the way that Sellers intended the metaphor. You seem to have overlooked this and instead to have adopted the hubris of proud scientism as a monocular perspective in which the only things that come into relief are ever more finely divided patterns of activation.
Well Matt, I think your repeated reference to Sellars distinction between the Manifest and Scientific Images may well turn out to be your undoing. Reading his short essay again I find that he was aware of the very danger I have been trying to draw attention to all along:
"The first point I want to make is that only a being capable of deliberation can properly be said to act, either impulsively of from habit. For in the full and non-metaphorical sense an action is the sort of thing that can be done deliberately. We speak of actions as becoming habitual, and this is no accident. It is important to realize that the term 'habit' in speaking of an earthworm as acquiring the habit of turning to the right in a T-maze, is a metaphorical extension of the term. There is nothing dangerous in the metaphor until the mistake is made of assuming that the habits of persons are the same sort of thing as the (metaphorical) 'habits' of earthworms and white rats."
I told you Jim Hamlyn writes beautifully. Sometimes, I feel convinced that I agree with him just for the sheer beauty of the writing alone!
I was thinking exactly this just a couple days ago:
Jim wrote: <>
I was thinking exactly this just a couple days ago:
Jim wrote: "The Scientific Image is a human construct after all for the consumption and use of human beings and as such it is an inextricable part of the Manifest Image no matter how objective it turns out to be."
The trouble with Jim's Sellars' quote is it is an extended answer to a 'what is' question, a problem of word meanings. I have been guilty of this sort of low fruit picking myself, but rather than finding causal explanations it turns a problem into a word puzzle.
"the common math circuitry is there."
Again, primitive conceptual continuity with animals is no argument against linguaformalism in mathematics. Heck, I think vigorous criticism of the Cartesian idea of animals as automata is pretty much a moral requirement. The macroscopic structure we share with higher animals is not discontinuous; It's shared and similarly predicative. Language abstracts that austere predicative structure (it doesn't impose it; our shared evolutionary heritage does), and then other interesting things happen. It's perhaps worth noting btw that, unlike most of mathematics, counting doesn't require quantification.
I think Jim Hamlyn was simply trying to say that actions sometimes count as real efficient causes. For example, in a Court of Law, we are not concerned with the neural wiring of the Defendant. We are concerned with whether or not the actions of the Defendant were compelled or if they were of his own free choice. We certainly, take this distinction to be real. Otherwise, the choice between guilt or innocence is illusory.
Ok I give up. Could someone please tell me what "linguaformalism" means?
How can we decide whether a person has performed what we might characterise correctly as the action (for example) of hailing a taxi, when she s/he has demonstrably performed the incontestable bodily behaviour of raising a hand in the street?
The answer has two parts:
A. The objectively assessable street situation must be one in which there is traffic visible in the street, some item of which seems to qualify passably as a taxi,
and (because this is not enough)
B. The person must be demonstrably disposed to respond appropriately to some such question as (in verbal form) "What are you doing?" by saying "I'm hailing a taxi."
If the street is empty we must say that, whether or not it is identifiable with some other action, this person's behaviour is not identifiable with the action of hailing a taxi (although it could be identifiable with the action of showing us how to hail a taxi).
If the person actually says 'I'm greeting my friend over there' we must also say that (unless s/he's lying) that this person's behaviour is not identifiable with the action of hailing a taxi.
The way to determine whether a behaviour is intentional is not by scanning the brain but by triggering the display of the associated representational capacity. We can do this with one another very easily but we haven't even begun to explore how we could trigger such displays on the part of nonverbals or to ask what would qualify as a viable representation that other members of the relevant species would accept. Maybe scientists will stumble on this unexplored possibility by accident one day and a whole new chapter of investigation will emerge.
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