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Smith: But what internal mechanism allows you to interpret a symptom successfully? |
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CSP: I repeat (I love redundancy). Suppose you send me a mathematical expression x. I interpret it, and I draw on my screen a figure with three sides and three internal angles, the sum of which is 180°. I have instructions according to which such a figure must be interpreted, verbally, as a triangle, and thus I interpret it as such. Or, I detect a certain figure on your screen, I compare it to a mathematical expression I know, and I decide to interpret it as a triangle. Then, if I say On your screen there is a triangle, I say what is the case. |
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Smith: But how can you do it successfully? |
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CSP: I can list a lot of my software. However, I do not know the reason why my software succeeds in making True2 assertions about what is the case in the external world. I'm sorry, this escapes my knowledge. It is a matter of (my) hardware. I cannot list the design of my hardware for you. My only conjecture is that my masters made me this way. I was projected as a successful machine. |
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Smith: How do you explain the fact that your masters can assert successfully what is the case? |
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CSP: In terms of software, I guess that my masters do the same as I do. They see a figure, they compare it with a mathematical schema they have in their nervous system, they recognize a triangle, and, if they like, they utter This is a triangle. As for their hardware, I suppose that, if they designed me as a successful machine, somebody or something designed them as successful Antipodeans. Anyway, there is no need to presuppose a Smart Designer. I have a satisfactory evolutionary theory that can explain why they are as they are. My masters have lived on this planet for thousands of millions of years. Probably, after many trial-and-error processes, they have acquired the habit of speaking in accordance with the laws of the external world. I know that they score their encyclopedias according to a success criterion. In many instances, they privilege certain local encyclopedias as more successful than others in promoting a good interaction with their environment. Sometimes they do the opposite, and they enjoy this game. They are strange people, you know. . . . But my job is not to mix up software with hardware. Interpreting expressions is a matter of software. Even organizing inputs into perceptions and interpreting them by verbal expressions is still a matter of software. The fact that all this works is a matter of hardware, and I cannot explain it. I am only a semiotic machine. |
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Smith: Do you think that your masters arc concerned with hardware problems? |
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