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Showing posts from January, 2016

pessimal miscellany

From 2008: the first original philosophical argument I remember making: Searle: "all purely syntactic systems lack subjective experiences." Searle: "I have subjective experiences." So Searle: "I am not a purely syntactic system." (modus tollens, 1&2) The only system that Searle has knowledge about the subjective experiences of is himself. So if Searle is not a purely syntactic system, he has no knowledge of what it is like to be a purely syntactic system, He cannot therefore cannot assert premise 1. (5 & the knowledge account of assertion ). If Searle is a purely syntactic system, (1) is false. (by 2) Therefore premise (1) is either unwarranted or false. (by 6&7) (These days I wouldn't use infallibilist knowledge as the baseball bat I did; I'd go at him with probabilism instead. And I'd do something against Searle's odd dichotomy between representational machines who are 'pure' syntax vs those wh

generally

the only beautiful object, event, or abstraction of any kind within shooting distance of Riga airport is the spew of a squat smokestack, a pure grey stream of hot sideshow. parthenogenetic and progeroid. a boiled definition, lit to make many monochromes wash out, a collective paling, lines breaking, becoming the static milk-blue back of this, a winter. beside it snow is mute. clouds don't intrude. and I could study this! Really ; not by eye or for mere art. Given the itch persisting I might spend a week with the profound and careful dead. the vapour painting has a million twins running the selfsame script of physical law, probably known; on average each twin seen truly. we found out the world without us. made it reel. what's written in the flames underneath chokes mutely. my stoichiometrist mate can code its dead language in a trice. it solves for seven unknowns, but can be given in the eternal manner since Boyle or Navier-Stokes who solved mysteries