Michael

It's a real thing. An abstract person can't compute grief, either. An actual computer actually does something, just as an actual person actually does ...

You're just reasserting the claim that humans can understand and computers can't. I want to know what evidence supports this claim. We build humans to...

You give it something, it does something with it, and then it gives you something back. Do you actually have anything meaningful to say about the diff...

What does it mean for something abstract to use symbols? I don't understand what you're asking. We're talking about physical computers here. Give it a...

What would get me further? Presumably more symbol manipulation. That's what mathematical proofs are, right? Take some input sentences (the axioms) and...

Use gives meaning to symbols.

Yes. Just as a human is made different from an abstraction by being made of matter. You seem to be avoiding the question. Why is it reasonable to assu...

You confused me. I thought you meant a machine that passes the Turing test. Bringing up abstract things is a red herring. Nobody is saying that abstra...

So when I say "there's 1 apple" I'm saying "there's any individual thing in context of counting or sets apple"?

Then what does 1 mean?

I don't see how that answers my question. It seems a non sequitur.

If we're just going to accept that the humans experience emotions then why not just accept that the Turing machine does? And if it doesn't make sense ...

Sure. And you asked how it's come to mean this thing. I pointed out that we're provided with some input (of which there may be many that resemble one ...

What evidence shows that humans can form emotional bonds and grieve but that computers can't? You can't use science because science can only ever use ...

Then what does reference mean?

If it's not dogma then there's evidence. What evidence shows that the computer who says "I'm sorry" doesn't understand and that the human who says "I'...

When the input is "•" the output is "1". When the input is "••" the output is "2", etc. We're taught what to say in response to something else.

So dogma?

I might or I might not. And I might or might not doubt the computer that says the same thing. I'm not really sure what this question is supposed to hi...

What does fully understanding maths consist of? Knowing the axioms, the rules of inference, and then being able to apply the latter to the former? So ...

I could ask the same about you. You read faces and emotions and tell a grieving person that you're sorry for their loss. How would I determine that yo...

True. But only because the machine is being taught to use the words in a different way to how a human does. So obviously it won't understand it like a...

Sure. But she understands the sentences in the Martha-specific language. Just as I understand the word "bite" in English.

That depends on how the sentence is supposed to be used. If it's supposed to be used in the world then to understand it is to understand how to use it...

If we take a Wittgensteinian approach to language, knowing what a sentence means is knowing how to use that sentence. In the case of the symbol transf...

That's the question I asked. When it comes to maths, doesn't understanding consist in knowing how to manipulate the symbols, or at least knowing what ...

When I was taught derivative functions I was taught to move the power to the left of the letter and then reduce the power by one such that x3 becomes ...

What about maths? Isn't that just symbol manipulation? Given the input 22 I've been told to output 4. This is even more evident when we start to use i...

Well, no, you're not. A number of times you've said that the celibate assents to this position. That's the claim we've been arguing against.

Thorongil's anatalism is the position that doubts that having children is justified, and so doubts that having children is permissible. I can believe ...

My point was that not having children is not a practical assent of anti-natalism. But now that you've clarified anatalism as the doubt that having chi...

Then what's anatalism? Because I thought you were defining anatalism as a practical assent to anti-natalism. In your opening post you said "It could a...

You're not just defining "anatalist" as someone who doesn't have children. You're defining it as someone who practically assents to anti-natalism. But...

Because not having children does not indicate that one assigns a negative value to giving birth. If one doesn't assign a negative value to giving birt...

Sure. For instance, donating money to a homophobic political party could be construed as a practical assent of homophobia. But this sort of thing does...

Me not having sex with men is not a practical assent of homophobia. So me not having children is not a practical assent of anti-natalism.

I just think ¬K¬? is false. The premise "I don't know that I'm not omniscient" is a contradiction. You do know that you're not omniscient.

So your claim that language is "logically distinct" from the things it talks about is meaningless? If not then you need to explain what it means to be...

Yes, you keep saying this, but you're refusing to explain the meaning of "logical distinction". As far as I can see, it doesn't mean anything. I don't...

Then could you explain what a non-semantic logical distinction is? Except this very discussion was over you claiming that if one criticizes the corres...

What's a logical distinction (if not a semantic distinction)? No I don't. I also talk about cats, and unicorns, and Harry Potter. But this doesn't mak...

Yes. But that they are separate by definition is a matter of semantics, not a matter of metaphysics. If all you're arguing for is a semantic distincti...

See, now you're engaging with the actual metaphysics and the criteria for correspondence. As I said before, it's not just "we can talk about things (a...

It's not clear to me what you mean by "defined in themselves". Definitions are to do with language, so to say that something which is putatively apart...

I don't know how much simpler to put it, Willow. Almost every theory of meaning says that we can talk about things, and almost every theory of truth s...

Who's Iran?

Why? Because society believes that there is a truth to what happened. I'm unsure what you're trying to show here. That realism is true? Or that prior ...

Not quite. The claim is that there are trials and convictions and that these trials and convictions are subjective/phenomenal. After all, we don't say...

What? I didn't insist that correspondence – in the sense you described – is incoherent. I said that those who deny correspondence don't claim that we ...

People who deny correspondence don't claim that we can't talk about things, or that none of the things we talk about exist.