RT list: Is it right to think about RT as a materialising theoretical attempt?

 
A new (indirect) interchange between Dan and Malfet.
I think I better cease being an intermediate from now on.
Guijarro wrote: Here is what Dan Sperber has just replied:
Quote: Dear Jose Luis,

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I don't take part in this interesting debate because I don't have a particularly original point of view to defend. I see a materialistic (or, as I prefer, naturalistic) account of mind, cognition, and hence in particular of comprehension abilities, as a goal towards which important steps have already been made. As I understand it, the idea of a Turing machine has played a major role in moving the issue from the category of 'mysteries' to the category of 'problems' (to use Chomsky's distinction). In any case, I want to understand cognition in general and comprehension in particular as natural systems -- I don't even understand what it would mean to understand them as formal system, and why it should matter to empirical science. I see, on the other hand, formal models as essential tools.

Cheers,

Dan

MALFET WROTE: Unfortunately, this is as I expected. In much of cognitivism, it seems people understand the notion of Turing materialities as nothing more particular than a general way to "turn mysteries into problems". It is a "free pass", so to speak, a way of taking about material process without needing to dwell on underlying mechanisms. That is a profound misunderstanding of the work. I think I'll never understand why, in a paradigm founded on computation, so few people seem interested in understanding the basics of computation.
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I re-thank Dan and Malfet for their positings!

José Luis Guijarro
Facultad de Filosofía y Letras
Universidad de Cádiz
11002 Cádiz, España (Spain)
tlf: (34) 956-011.613
fax: (34) 956-015.505
Received on Wed Sep 26 16:40:22 2012