This is a test of a new feature we here at Wittrs are developing. It's a web blog. But it's not just your average, run-of-the mill web blog. No siree.  If this works correctly, any post to the Lords will go to the blog first, then go down into the email group, then go to the message board. And if it also works correctly, any comments deposited on the blog site should get piped through the system as well.

Imagine. Lord X offers something. It automatically goes to the group. The group can reply to themselves in "the group," or can go to the blog to leave their comment, which also goes to "the group." 

If this works, the only thing we haven't done is beam the message to the moon.

Yours, the neurotic engineer.

Dr. Sean Wilson, Esq.Assistant ProfessorWright State UniversityRedesigned Website: http://seanwilson.orgSSRN papers: http://ssrn.com/author=596860Twitter: http://twitter.com/seanwilsonorgFacebook: http://www.facebook.com/seanwilsonorgNew Discussion Group: http://seanwilson.org/wittgenstein.discussion.html

(sent to Wittrs)

For my dear old blood, Stuart.

I've come to a conclusion on this issue involving "consciousness" and the Star Trek character Data. (Keep in mind, however, that I do not know the character well. Although I've seen him on television several times, I have never seen a full episode because I would never watch such a dreadful show. So let us consider this a conclusion based upon what I think Data represents, in theory).

This is indeed a langauge game of the most gnarly sort. Saying that Data is "conscious" is no different from saying that he is "organic." Tell me Stuart, what is your prejudice against calling Data "organic?" And if your langauge arrangement says that Data is "conscious," why does it not say that your current computer is retarded? Is destroying your computer the ethical equivalent of destroying a turtle or a fetus? Are current computers that stop working fossils? Can Data is rebuilt, was he resurrected? Can you die if you can be put back together? These are nothing but games with the grammar of language.

Here's where the problem is. "Consciousness" arises from a species-specific grammar. Once you change the species, you create problems with the deployment of the idea. For example, is God "conscious?" Are spirits? (Surely there is another concept for this idea). If so, the conditions of assertability would suggest that the dead are conscious if there is an afterlife. But this isn't meant as a scientific matter (as a matter of fact), it is meant only as a grammar. And the grammar of "consciousness" is such that its existence cannot be the same sort of thing in Gods, spirits, the dead, and machines (and probably animals) (although it might be the same idea in the resurrected). As Wittgenstein rightly said regarding afterlife, "I don't know, because I haven't any clear idea what I'm saying when I'm saying 'I don't cease to exist.' "

Let's do it this way. If I say to you that Data cannot be conscious because .... such-and-such, there is nothing you can show me other than another meaning of consciousness. (I mean, unless I say something like "he's not conscious because he can't blink his eyes -- in which case we can have a tournament for that. But that is not what I mean). Let's say I say he is not conscious because (a) he is not organic; (b) he doesn't have a soul; (c) he wasn't birthed; .... and so forth. These are not "facts," they are the grammar of my lexicon. All you can ever do in this situation is suggest that I have a facile grammar, not that I am wrong about whether Data is "conscious." This is why the matter is pointless.

Note the way "bachelor" often plays in language. I say the Pope is a "bachelor" because of a rule (unmarried male). You say he is not because of a larger point (ineligible to date). This is the same sort of language game. I say, e.g., only the birthed, organic creatures with souls are conscious. You can do nothing in reply other than give a different meaning of the term. You can do nothing other than cause a language accident.

One time, some people had used the word "earth" to mean the center of the metaphysical universe where God's chosen resided. "Earth" was a sort of status or place in a story. If one then said "hey, it's not the center," it would sound like a contradiction in some language frames. It would sound like "married bachelor." In fact, if certain people found that the earth wasn't the center of the universe, they might validly say, "well it isn't earth then." (Just as Moses isn't "Moses" unless he truly did save the Israelites). If this is the grammar or usage of the word, it does absolutely no good to assert a contrary meaning of the term. (Moses as a person with DNA-profile so-and-so). All this does is confuse Moses the title with Moses the real person. The only solution is to talk around the traffic accident.

Here is what I am trying to say. There is no genuine issue or right answer whether Data is "conscious." There is only the grammar of the expression and the ideology of the discussants. And if you play this word in the way you are -- sort of like playing a Jack in a card game -- you are going to end up with cousin terms in the same grammar waiting for play. One good one is organic. It seems to me that if you call Data "conscious," you would also have to call him "organic," because, after all -- isn't that some sort of functional prejudice, too? Who are you to say that a perfect and even superior representation of a finger isn't "organic" merely because engineers made it? Once you play the Jack, there are a whole slew of cards that want to be played.

And that really is what the issue boils down to -- a straw man. Because if humans ever do create a truly conscious "machine," there would no longer be a need for speaking of "machines" versus "organics." This way of speaking would no longer be necessary or useful. But so long as differences do remain -- so long as Data appears machine-like in some respects -- all that exists is a public policy issue (like animal rights) masquerading as a philosophic one. And this gets muddied by playing the word "conscious" outside of its usual grammar. It does absolutely nothing but introduce mischief.

And so I say that it is nonsense or pointless to say that Data is "conscious" any more than we can say he is "organic." And that, if we ever reach a point where we can say he is conscious and organic, we have only said that he no longer is a "machine" -- or that saying so has become a little like calling him Italian. In other words, our sense of "machine" is now no longer the same.

And so, if we reach that point, there would be no controversy. And while we haven't reached it, it is a false problem.

Regards and thanks.

Dr. Sean Wilson, Esq.
Assistant Professor
Wright State University
Redesigned Website: http://seanwilson.org/
SSRN papers: http://ssrn.com/author=596860
Twitter: http://twitter.com/seanwilsonorg
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/seanwilsonorg
New Discussion Group: http://seanwilson.org/wittgenstein.discussion.html

(sent in reply to a post on Wittrs)

There are two answers to this. One is merely taxonomic. The other
horribly complicated intellectually (hard to wrap your mind around).
Let's take the easy one first.

TAXONOMIC IDEA

In one sense of talking, "philosophy" is merely a social club. To
get in, you have to get admitted (get your Ph.D in philosophy, get a
job in the academy). You know, get your union card. Therefore, in this
sense of talking, philosophy only is what philosophy does. If
philosophy-the-social-club wants to do empirical work, it's considered
a kind of "philosophy." If philosophy-the-social club wants to debate
or prognosticate about science -- sort of in the way that journalists
or anyone else can -- this, too, is "philosophy" when done by club
members. Another way of saying the same exact thing is that there is no
such thing as "philosophy" at all. There is just what the club is doing.

Wittgenstein did not live in this world. He did not take
philosophy to be a social club. He took it to be an activity. And by
this he meant it was its OWN activity. It wasn't an activity belonging
to something else. It wasn't, in short, a mushy kind of word. The idea
sees philosophy as a BEHAVIOR. It differs from the behavior of
"science," for example, which is falsifying hypotheses (just accepting
Popper for the moment). And so the question becomes this: if philosophy
is its own behavior, what does the behavior consist of?

Early on, it consisted of solving a set of problems handed down
through the ages (given to him by Russell). Philosophy was thought to
be the place where great thinking problems are worked on not unlike the
way the Church and the Pope were thought to be the ones working on the
God problems. So early Wittgenstein invents a way to solve all of the
problems, he thinks, when authoring TLP. This has the effect of saying,
"there is no need for the Church any longer." The answer in the
TLP assigns most of the problem's resolutions to the fields of science
and logic (early analytics were of the belief that logic was the
foundation of mathematics). And it relegates metaphysics and most other
cereal-box topics in philosophy to either nonsense or silence. So,
problems solved. Philosophy over.

(Parenthetically, let me make this comment. You will note that in
this era, philosophy-the-social club presents itself sort of as a
hand-maiden to science and mathematics. Because it is seen as being the
one that can pronounce or watch over science's findings to make sure
they are factual, logical, not metaphysical, etc. It would be like
science having a lawyer or something. Or it would be like the Church
hiring an independent contractor to solve the God issues, and
having this service report he findings to the Church, which had final
authority to recognize validity. So, this ideology purported to both
end cereal-box philosophy and turn its own social club into being a
managing partner for the scientific and mathematical fields.

Enter Wittgenstein II. Later in life -- actually, as early as 1930
--Wittgenstein sees that the edifice he created from the problems
handed to him by Russell was seriously flawed. So he went back to work
set on the mission of getting the matter straight. This time, the
result will still be the same -- philosophy ends -- but so will the
status and role of the social club.

Just how does philosophy end this time? Very simply: the problems
philosophy was trying to solve were false and imaginary. They were
never there to begin with. All that they ever amounted to are a kind of
game with the languaging activity. All that philosophy can be are a
series of thinking puzzles that trace their origin to the manipulation
of sense and grammar. The problems are not real; it's just playing with
the mind. The key to all of its "problems" is seeing that the game is
to navigate well a person's sense of reference (to navigate grammar
well). All that philosophic ability is, therefore, is the ability to be
insightful with how words are played as an activity within the overall
lexicon. And that if discussants are keen in this way, the problems
dissolve into informational ones. That is, they dissolve into problems
for scientists, empiricists, journalists and anyone else who is
gathering "news" about the subject.

Therefore, the only true and legitimate role for philosophy as a
BEHAVIOR is to untangle knots in expression, so that all that remains
are problems for other fields to solve. This is a taxonomic program.
Philosophy-the-social-club has no exclusive license to be the ones who
debate scientific ethics (e.g., should Star Trek's Data have diapers?).
That is a policy debate, not a philosophic one.
Philosophy-the-social-club has no exclusive right to conduct
experiments or gather data. If they do this, they are not doing
philosophy the BEHAVIOR. The only license given to
philosophy-the-social club in the wake of Wittgenstein is showing what
expressions mean so that discussants can be kept from tripping
themselves in a language game. All that philosophy really is,
therefore, is being a sort of therapist for the formation of ideas
during the ritual of disputation or pronouncement. Just as English
professors help with syntactical rules and voicing opinions with good
structure and so on, philosophers watch over conditions of
assertability (they merely navigate grammar). There is no other
remaining mission for the social club.

Note what this means. We no longer ask of Plato the false
question, "What are the forms?" -- we ask, "What is this expression
doing and what are the implications of its grammar in the wider lexicon
of talking?" Once we do this, we break the matter down for a problem
relegated to another field. Philosophers are sort of like field
processors in an intellectual mill. (Making sure wires aren't crossed
and making sure problems go in the right bins so other workers can
varnish them or something). Philosophy is not logic, or debate, or
being a hand-maiden for science. It is, simply, being refined and
insightful. The relationship between philosophy and art is much closer
now. Philosophy now is simply a kind of craft or task -- highly
intellectual and refined, yes, but menial in its service. (Imagine
being good at quilting).

You will note that, today, many universities consider philosophy a
humanities. I want to suggest that this is one of the legacies of
Ludwig Wittgenstein. But I think Wittgenstein would be upset if he saw
what a philosophically-poor academy we have these days. He'd see a lot
more of what he once called "soapy science" and he'd see a hell of a
lot of nonsense being wrongly committed in his name.

The reason why is that philosophy is misunderstood today both
within and outside the social club. If things were done correctly,
philosophy would not be a humanities. It would be a training field
where people learned "thought games," the purpose being to refine their
cognitive capacities. Students should be taught skills first (logic),
then games (all of philosophy's false problems), and then Wittgenstein
in their final year. They could give the highest orders to those who
understood Wittgenstein the best upon graduation. So instead of
philosophy honoring Socrates or Plato as those who primarily began the
great journey, it would honor the one who saw the problems to be a
false sort thing resulting from the way people languaged with one
another -- or of the languaging process itself. And, once fixed, those
problems became relegated to other fields for whatever else (real)
needed done.

In other words, at the end of philosophy, there is the recognition
that one has just been through a mental puzzle, and is now sensitized
to how that puzzle confuses -- and how, once clear, it belongs to
other fields.

SECOND IDEA
... I'm too tired for this right now. It's too complicated. I'll try to get this clear as I can later.

Regards and thanks.

Dr. Sean Wilson, Esq.
Assistant Professor
Wright State University
Redesigned Website: http://seanwilson.org
SSRN papers: http://ssrn.com/author=596860
Twitter: http://twitter.com/seanwilsonorg
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/seanwilsonorg
New Discussion Group: http://seanwilson.org/wittgenstein.discussion.html

(sent to Wittrs re a discussion about whether the character Data on Star Trek is conscious)

Stuart:

If I said the following to you, what would you say:

Saying that Data is "conscious" would be the same as saying he is
a "slave." (Keep in mind that I don't watch the inferior Star Trek so I
don't know a great deal about this character). In other words, both
involve the same sort of game with grammar.

Or how about this. Data has a mental illness.

You seem to think these language issues are about "what we mean"
or what we want the term to mean (as though this is legislative). But
what it is really about are conditions of assertability. If there is
change of the conditions on the ground (change in the facts), you
cannot take yesterday's grammar and say "so do we want to let Data in
the group?" Rather, you will end up talking in language that fits the
NEW conditions. Hence, you will no doubt see a new grammar emerge.
Double hence, it is of no value to take a position on whether Data is
"conscious" any more than it is to take a position on whether Data has
"mental illness" or is a "slave." It would be like asking whether an
Ipod is a Jukebox. The words "conscious," "slave," etc., reflect
conditions of assertability that make up a certain arrangement in our
grammar. When that recipe is rearranged or disturbed, the forms of
expression will not follow the ones you have today.

Compare: is a spaceship an airplane? Is an email a letter? Is
cloning birth? Do plants have sex? Does Data have a soul? Is scanning
typing? Do computers remember? Is a CD a record?

Making claims about Data's state of mind is a language game. The
whole matter should be avoided. All that should be talked about is the
journalism and the prognostication -- what science is doing these days,
what it might do in the future, and what consequences it might have for
our life. We should see no true philosophic problem here. If humans
want to give anything rights -- desks, chairs, animals,
machines, robots, etc. -- that is a matter for politics and social
utility. There are no genuine philosophic problems to solve here other
than helping people see great confusions from language games.
Regards.

Dr. Sean Wilson, Esq.
Assistant Professor
Wright State University
Redesigned Website: http://seanwilson.org
SSRN papers: http://ssrn.com/author=596860
Twitter: http://twitter.com/seanwilsonorg
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/seanwilsonorg
New Discussion Group: http://seanwilson.org/wittgenstein.discussion.html

(sent to Wittrs in response to a post)

For me, "definition" had meant what it does in some ordinary
vernaculars, which is "the law of the term" rather than "the
collections of how people are currently using it." Tell me, in your
grammar, is it okay to violate a definition? Let's say someone says
"behaviorism is x" and you consider it a violation of the definition.
If enough people violate the definition in the same way, does the
violation then become the definition? If someone were to say to you,
"define your use of the term 'definition' in this sentence" -- how
would you do it? Would you state something law-like or would you just
say "this is what I mean." (Or it is like this). Would you offer a
showing or a proposition?

Most people don't deploy the word "definition" as a particular;
they deploy it as a general. But I think there is an interesting
language game here. I think the culprit is this: "definitions" outside
of the business of lexicography are very different in form and function
than they are in the business of linguists. So, fore example, you have
things called "definitions" in textbooks and mathematics wherein the
term means a sort of a law-like account for the word (or a general
account). But in lexicography, the definition is in theory only a
catalog of uses in the language culture. It is, in short, a newspaper
for the anthropology of language. (And also a history book).

Of course, people use definitions as police books too. They say
things like "your use is not in the book," as if to say "you cannot
mean that." Surely that view is flawed. That was Russell's view at one
point. The only way that this sort of maneuver is helpful is if the
person has what we might call a "foreign language problem." In this
case the book acts as a sort of a map of linguistic destinations. And
all it really does in that case is police polysemy, not family
resemblance. But if you know the destinations of language and create
another one on the map, it does not good to say "the book won't allow
it." It would be like saying, "you aren't allowed to call that
behaviorism."

You know my daughter asked me for the meaning of a word that I had
used in a sentence the other day, and I couldn't describe it, even
though I had used it perfectly and would be completely understood to
anyone else who knew of its deployment. I was so frustrated that I
could not explain it to her. She looked at me like I was faking my
intelligence. You know, the grade school rule: don't use it if you
cannot define it. It would be like saying: don't dance if you don't
know the name of it.
Regards and thanks.

Dr. Sean Wilson, Esq.
Assistant Professor
Wright State University
Redesigned Website: http://seanwilson.org
SSRN papers: http://ssrn.com/author=596860
Twitter: http://twitter.com/seanwilsonorg
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/seanwilsonorg
New Discussion Group: http://seanwilson.org/wittgenstein.discussion.html