Representation
# Symbolic Representation
- Dretske just kinda doesn’t agree w/ the pioneer 10 space probe plate lmao
- symbols will not mean anything to any alien life
- we find it easy to understand because we have the context and we live on this planet
- what sort of things can be representations
- words/pictures/numbers/diagrams
- state of mind, can represent almost anything at all
- what sort of things can be objects of representations
- almost anything (physical objects, sentences, numbers, moods, feelings, emotions, non-existent things)
- pictures represent by resemblance → derivative
intentionality
- ‘resemblance theory of pictorial representation’, or the ‘resemblance theory’
- X represents Y → suggests that representation is a relation between two things
- is there a basic type of representation underlying everything else?
- Crane says mental representations are the most basic level
- pictures dont work
- represent by resemblance
- When we try to represent the difference between … and …, if … then …, and either … or … in pictures, we draw a complete blank. There just seems no way of doing it.
- words don’t work either
- represent by convention (see terminology)
- same words in same context mean the same thing to different people
- all other kinds of representation all depend on mental representations in order to work
- many things that we take for granted cannot be represented in terms of pictures → e.g. relations between ideas like “if it doesn’t rain this afternoon, we will go for a walk”
- Mental representations are either naturalistic or conceptual
- naturalistic → matter of correlation, “these spots mean measles”, spots are a reliable indicator of measles
- teach us about the term, they appeal to natural laws and science
- conceptual → “this read light means stop”, matter of convention, connection is arbitrary
- what a competent speaker knows when he/she knows the term
- naturalistic → matter of correlation, “these spots mean measles”, spots are a reliable indicator of measles
Related thought experiments: Brains in a Vat, Twin Earth Argument