In this house we obey the laws of thought!

Mar 28, 2022Philosophy/Ethics, Tech0 comments

Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing admiration and awe, the more often and steadily we reflect upon them:
the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me

Kant

Julia and John are talking about the following article:
The Normative Status of Logic

In this post the dialogue is realised by an interaction of virtual characters, for more information please check the page “Virtual characters

Julia

OK, so I did some digging and I’d like your feedback 😊                     

Today 17:08

John

Great! Let’s have it!😊

Today 17:09   

Julia

So, I looked up the idea of “laws of thought” and whether we can put them in a computer

Today 17:09

Julia

First issue: if we find laws of thought, what kind of laws are these?

Today 17:09

John

What do you mean? 🤔

Today 17:10   

Julia

Are they laws like traffic regulations, laws you should follow, but sometimes don’t?

Today 17:11

Julia

Or are they laws like the laws of nature, which you follow whether or not you want to?

Today 17:11

John

Oh, I see. I remember something about prescriptive and descriptive laws …

Today 17:11  

Julia

Exactly! That’s it. So do the laws of thought tell us something about how the brain is wired,

Today 17:12

Julia

how we should think if we want to think the right way, or are these ideal laws

Today 17:12

John

Ideal laws? 🤨

Today 17:13   

Julia

Not sure what the right expression is here: these would be descriptive laws, but not like natural laws 🤔

Today 17:14

John

Oh, you mean like math and logic, and so on

Today 17:14   

Julia

Yes, we don’t discover them by generalizing from facts, but they are formal, ideal

Today 17:15

John

OK, so now we have different types of laws. We can explain that to the reader, but then what?

Today 17:15   

Julia

Well, there’s a bunch of psychologist, philosophers, and engineers that argued back and forth on this

Today 17:16

Julia

and it seems to matter a lot to whether and how we can put them into a machine.

Today 17:16

John

Right, so can we just build a copy of the brain and then it will automatically follow the same laws, or not?

Today 17:17   

Julia

That is indeed the type of question! But there is more! 😊                

Today 17:18

… Continue reading our conversations that are posted every Saturday …

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