I wonder whether this is due to the fact that he’s used to thinking about human brains, where we’re (AFAIK) nowhere near being able to identify the representation of specific concepts, and so we might as well use the most philosophically convenient description.
I don’t think this description is philosophically convenient. Believing p and believing things that imply p are genuinely different states of affairs in a sensible theory of mind. Thinking through concrete mech interp examples of the former vs. the latter makes it less abstract in what sense they are different, but I think I would have objected to Chalmer’s definition even back before we knew anything about mech interp. It would just have been harder for me to articulate what exactly is wrong with it.
Something that Chalmers finds convenient, anyhow. I’m not sure how else we could view ‘dispositional beliefs’ if not as a philosophical construct; surely Chalmers doesn’t imagine that ANNs or human brains actively represent ‘p-or-q’ for all possible q.
To be fair here, from an omniscient perspective, believing P and believing things that imply P are genuinely the same thing in terms of results, but from a non-omniscient perspective, the difference matters.
I don’t think this description is philosophically convenient. Believing p and believing things that imply p are genuinely different states of affairs in a sensible theory of mind. Thinking through concrete mech interp examples of the former vs. the latter makes it less abstract in what sense they are different, but I think I would have objected to Chalmer’s definition even back before we knew anything about mech interp. It would just have been harder for me to articulate what exactly is wrong with it.
Something that Chalmers finds convenient, anyhow. I’m not sure how else we could view ‘dispositional beliefs’ if not as a philosophical construct; surely Chalmers doesn’t imagine that ANNs or human brains actively represent ‘p-or-q’ for all possible q.
To be fair here, from an omniscient perspective, believing P and believing things that imply P are genuinely the same thing in terms of results, but from a non-omniscient perspective, the difference matters.