Upvoted because there’s something interesting here, but my reaction to most of the points in the post was either “this seems obvious, why is it interesting?” or “I don’t get this at all”, so I know I didn’t really get it, but I trust that if you find this worthwhile then it likely is. In light of that, I would like a more detailed, in-depth post, so I could understand what this is about.
If it’s helpful, the idea of teleosemantics is, in my judgement, the same thing I’m trying to point people at when I write about the problem of the criterion.
I go into some depth about the stuff around purpose in this post. I think that’s the deepest and trickiest part to grok, and failing to grok it I think the stuff about truth being contingent will fall flat.
I’m also writing a book about this topic. The chapter I hope to post this week tackles the problem of the criterion more head on, and the next chapter I’ll write is about purpose (telos). You might find that helpful to in understanding the idea, but alas it’s not done yet.
ok, I reread the essay. I no longer feel like there’s a bunch of things I don’t understand. One point I still don’t understand is why the map/territory distinction commits a Homunculus Fallacy (even after reading your Homunculus Problem post). But I also don’t feel like understand the notion of teleosemantics yet, or why it’s important/special. So by the end of the post I don’t feel like I truly understand this sentence (or why it’s significant):
Teleosemantics identifies the semantics of a symbolic construct as what the symbolic construct has been optimized to accurately reflect.
Also “reflect” seems to do some heavy lifting in that sentence which I wouldn’t usually object to, but it seems similar to “correspondence” which this essay has some objections to.
Later in the essay, I don’t understand why all the distinctions you make require teleosemantics.
My current understanding of the argument is something like this:
The map reflects the territory. How does it reflect the territory? Because it can be interpreted by somebody/something as reflecting the territory/conveying information about the territory. But the act of interpretation itself instantiates a belief that refers to (reflects) the territory. So we’re back to square one unless the kind of reference relationship between a literal map (or more generally, an information-about-territory-carrier external to the mind) and the territory is importantly different than that between a belief and the territory. In that case, the belief-as-map analogy/way of thinking doesn’t make sense.
Upvoted because there’s something interesting here, but my reaction to most of the points in the post was either “this seems obvious, why is it interesting?” or “I don’t get this at all”, so I know I didn’t really get it, but I trust that if you find this worthwhile then it likely is. In light of that, I would like a more detailed, in-depth post, so I could understand what this is about.
If it’s helpful, the idea of teleosemantics is, in my judgement, the same thing I’m trying to point people at when I write about the problem of the criterion.
I go into some depth about the stuff around purpose in this post. I think that’s the deepest and trickiest part to grok, and failing to grok it I think the stuff about truth being contingent will fall flat.
I’m also writing a book about this topic. The chapter I hope to post this week tackles the problem of the criterion more head on, and the next chapter I’ll write is about purpose (telos). You might find that helpful to in understanding the idea, but alas it’s not done yet.
Perhaps if you could gesture toward some of the points you don’t get at all?
ok, I reread the essay. I no longer feel like there’s a bunch of things I don’t understand. One point I still don’t understand is why the map/territory distinction commits a Homunculus Fallacy (even after reading your Homunculus Problem post). But I also don’t feel like understand the notion of teleosemantics yet, or why it’s important/special. So by the end of the post I don’t feel like I truly understand this sentence (or why it’s significant):
Also “reflect” seems to do some heavy lifting in that sentence which I wouldn’t usually object to, but it seems similar to “correspondence” which this essay has some objections to.
Later in the essay, I don’t understand why all the distinctions you make require teleosemantics.
My current understanding of the argument is something like this:
The map reflects the territory. How does it reflect the territory? Because it can be interpreted by somebody/something as reflecting the territory/conveying information about the territory. But the act of interpretation itself instantiates a belief that refers to (reflects) the territory. So we’re back to square one unless the kind of reference relationship between a literal map (or more generally, an information-about-territory-carrier external to the mind) and the territory is importantly different than that between a belief and the territory. In that case, the belief-as-map analogy/way of thinking doesn’t make sense.