wex@ittvax.UUCP (Alan Wexelblat) (08/31/83)
Tom, you say that I have not responed to your points and then go on to not only ignore what I have said, but twist and distort it so that it is no longer even close to what I said. I will put up with your redefining the English language to suit your argument, but I find this deliberate obfuscation *extremely* annoying. If it continues, I shall simply stop responding. The idea here is to have a reasonable discussion. How can one understand the meaning of spoken or written language, if one does not have rational ability? If we are to believe Chomsky, we understand language by virtue of structures in the brain (which are genetically inherited). These structures automatically interpret the samples of natural langugage we hear, and construct what he calls 'phrase-structure rules,' which pick out the important elements in a sentence. These elements are then somehow transferred to memory, often with contextual information "attached." (This is essentially a paraphrase of a Psych 150 lecture; I don't know exactly who is responsible for the theories.) The child makes these associations early on, before 'reasoning' abilities are demonstrably present. In fact, some psychologists theorize that the activities associated with learning natural language help build reasoning abilities. I am not aware of any current theories supporting your position of inborn rationality. (Though you *did* say "No" in response to "are you saying that you dont have to think to understand". Is this agreement? The context made it seem like you were disagreeing.) My apologies if I was vague. What I meant to say was this: if you define 'thinking' as conscious cognitive activity, then, "No, thinking is not necessary to understanding (see NL-learning, above)." If you define 'thinking' as *all* cognitive activity, then, "Yes, it is trivially true that thinking is necessary to understanding." Is that clearer? How does one *come* to the state of being able to understand the meaning of a language, if not by application of reason? See above. Unfortunately, no one can really say how one comes to understand anything! Everyone admits that the NL sample given to the average child is too small to account for acquisition by example. But if you say that I learn language by application of reason, then I must ask what you mean by reason. As I explained in my last note, the dictionary does not connect learning and reason at all. How would one decide how to apply those rules [of NL usage] - by instinct? As explained above, Chomskian theory attributes this to structures in the brain. You did respond to the my points on the "exactly human" issue, but until you can answer the above without reference to reason, your definition of "human" is not any more inclusive than mine. Two things: one, I've just answered your points without reference to reason, and two, I did not claim that my definition of human was any more inclusive than yours (nor do I see why it should be). All I said was that it was possible to subdivide homo sapiens into categories of human/not-human without reference to rationality. Please read my articles more carefully if you want to respond to them. I claim that rationality is required to learn this [NL]. I did not claim that all learning (EG memorization) requires rationality. Yes, Tom, I know what you claim. Care to support it? I think I've supported the counter-claim. Now we get to the place where I started to get pissed off. Tom has weaseled and twisted my example (from Plato) around so that it no longer bears any resemblance to the argument I made. He then goes on to use that twisting to justify accusing ME of supporting murder. I refuse to re-print ANYTHING from the TC example,s ince it bears so little resemblance to anything I have been trying to say. I'll simply state the case as Plato put it, and show how it supports my conclusions. First, the context of this example (in Plato) is the discussion of the goodness or badness of keeping one's word. Tom has argued (as did one of Plato's students, pardon my bad memory) that the only rational thing to do is to keep one's word. He has argued (against Paul Torek's claim to the contrary) that the rationally selfish person would keep his promise, even if he knew he could get away with breaking it. Plato presents this case to demostrate, as I now wish to do, that it is clearly the case that keeping one's word runs counter to morality. Ergo, the rational thing to do is not the moral thing to do. The purpose of showing this is to destroy TC's fundamental claim that for all X, where X is an action, RATIONAL(X) == MORAL(X). I do not want to say that the opposite is true; rather, I wish to say that for all X, where X is an action, RATIONAL(X) ?= MORAL(X), and the truth or falsity of this possible relation is independent of the rationality property. Now, let's put the example back to its original form: A has loaned his sword to B, contingent on B's promise to return it whenever A asks for it. One day, A comes to B and asks for the sword. The following conditions now hold. A desires the sword for the purpose of killing two people. B does not know these people (this is to avoid personal involvement, which might bias results). B is a rational individual, as is A. If B does the rational thing, and returns the sword, A will certainly commit murder. No ill consequences will befall B if he follows this course of action. By reason, it is the rational thing to do. If B does NOT return the sword however, it is not certain that A will not commit murder anyway. Additionally, B will have the harm of A's anger befall him. That harm may or may not be physical; in any case, it is worse than the no-harm stipulated above. Lastly, B will have acted irrationally, by breaking his word. By reason, this is the irrational thing to do. Plato says that the second course of action, despite its irrationality, is the moral one. He says that this morality is obvious to all men (something he thought was true of all morality, but that's another story entirely), and I think that in reading this, most people will agree with Plato. Now, Tom, do you think that you can deal with this case based on the facts, or are you going to resort to invention and distortion again? Sincerely angry, --Alan Wexelblat decvax!ittvax!wex (as of Sept 12: ucbvax!wex.UPenn@UDel-Relay)