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The Language of Thought : Part I

The Language of Thought : Part I. Joe Lau Philosophy HKU. Readings. Ned Block’s “The Mind as the Software of the Brain” Murat Aydede “The LOT Hypothesis” at http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/language-thought/

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The Language of Thought : Part I

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  1. The Language of Thought : Part I Joe Lau Philosophy HKU

  2. Readings • Ned Block’s “The Mind as the Software of the Brain” • Murat Aydede “The LOT Hypothesis” at http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/language-thought/ • Ch. 10 “The Language of Thought” in Braddon-Mitchell and Jackson's Philosophy of Mind and Cognition. • Fodor and Pylyshyn’s article.

  3. Two types of mental states • Intentional vs. Phenomenal • Intentional = aboutness, with content/meaning • E.g. beliefs, knowledge, desires • Phenomenal = qualitative (“what-is-it-like-ness”, qualia) • E.g. pain, itches, sensations • Might have both features • E.g. perception, imagination

  4. The Language of Thought Hypothesis • LOT : Intentional mental states - • Linguistic mental representations • Possess a combinatorial syntax and semantics • Complex representations built from atomic ones. • Meanings of complex representations depend on menaings of the atomic ones and the syntax.

  5. LOT says nothing about : • Whether LOT is NL. • Whether LOT is innate or learnt. • Whether all humans, or all thinkers, have the same LOT. • The material basis of LOT.

  6. Why think that LOT is plausible? • Explains mind-body interaction. • Explains the productivity and systematicity of thoughts. • Explains the opacity of thoughts. • Explains inferential reasoning.

  7. Mind-body interaction • Intentional mental states can causally interact with perception, behaviour and other mental states. • Example : visual experience causes belief, belief causes action • Explanation : Intentional mental states are mental representations in the brain. Being physical states they can interact with our sensory organs and motor systems and other physical mental representations.

  8. Productivity • Productivity : The number of thoughts a human being can entertain is practically infinite. • Explanation : A finite number of atomic mental representations can combine with one another in different ways to generate a huge number of complex mental representations.

  9. Systematicity • Systematicity : the thoughts we can entertain are all systematicaly related in content. • Example : Evans’ Generality Constraint - if a thinker can think a is F, and b is G, then he must be able to think a is G, and b is F. • Explanation : the atomic representations that constitute thoughts must be able to recombine to form thoughts which have distinct but semantically related contents.

  10. Opacity • Opacity : The thought that a is F is distinct from the thought that b is F, even if a=b. • Example : One can believe that superman can fly without believing that Clark Kent can fly, even though Clark Kent is Superman. • Explanation : There can be distinct mental representations that refer to the same thing, and which have different conceptual roles.

  11. Inferential Reasoning • It seems that there are rule-like regularities in reasoning. Examples : • Normally we do not believe in contradictions (P and not-P). • If we are aware that if P then Q and P, then we would normally believe Q (modus ponens). • Explanation : Reasoning consists in formal operations on structured mental representations according to their form.

  12. Some Objections from Dennett • See Block’s paper

  13. Evaluating the Hypothesis • How to evaluate scientific hypothesis? • Inference to the best explanation. • What is the best? • Evidence, predictions, consistency, simplicity • Any alternative explanations?

  14. An Alternative : The Map Theory • Proposal : Intentional mental states are map-like and not language-like. • See Braddon-Mitchell and Jackson for further discussion. • The map theory can also explain mind-body causal interaction, systematicity, productivity, opacity. • What about: • Inferential reasoning • Abstract concepts in logic or mathematics • Disjunctive or conjunctive beliefs • Special representations are needed, but then how is it different from LOT?

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