Wittgenstein on Language games

         Wittgenstein is an interesting philosopher to study. He is famous for his contribution to a different understanding of language, the concept is known as Language games. He wrote in his work 'Philosophical Investigation' that Language is a game. The meaning of any word depends on context. Some of his significant ideas about language are...

-Language is a private thing. As the meaning which one people generate in his mind is very much individual for example the meaning of love, hate etc. words have personal meanings.

-Language is necessarily comprehensible only to its the single originator and inaccessible to other people. ('Problems of other mind').

- Then how do people communicate? Due to its intersubjectivities. There are communities which share similar thoughts, context so becomes similar linguistic community as well. Understanding of the meaning/communication within these similar linguistic communities is possible. So even if language is a private thing, remaining in similar thought communities, the message can be passed.

- Saul Kripke has elaborated Wittgenstein's many concepts. He further develops a paradox about how meaning is generated. There is so much guessing in understanding the meaning of a word. For example, pointing towards an object and speaking "table", other person may guess that the object is called table or the action of pointing is called a table or the guess can be anything else. So as learning words includes guessing, true meanings of words are never attainable. This leads to the inadequacy of knowledge.

- Meaning changes over time. So study of language as rigid, logical system is not possible.

Substance dualism

        In this age of technology, the mind is compared to the computer, why the metaphor of a computer is given to the human mind? Is it because it is too complex like a computer processor or is it because of its functions, how they work? The answer is here. It all starts with #Descartes #Substance dualism theory. Descartes says that the human mind is made of two substances- physical stuff and immaterial stuff. Immaterial stuff could not be traced by scientists. This immaterial substance affects the physical stuff of the body. For example, I know something about Substance theory and it leads me to post this on Facebook. Well, the answer to the question of how this immaterial substance causes an effect on physical movement is still unanswered. So, the functional theory suggests that one should look at the functionality of the mind instead of what it is made of.

The mind is a complex thing. It is made of something and what it does is entirely different. Similar to a computer, a computer is made of stuff like metal, other hardware, etc. but what it does; the programming is different than the material it is made of. This is one reason for the metaphor of the computer mind.

Nowadays computer is replacing the human mind. Machines are able to do what the human mind can. Contemporary computer philosophy has some interesting experiments to go through. Alan Turing’s #Turing_test in which, the same questions are asked to humans and computers to distinguish them, Searle’s experiment of the #Chinese_room is the best way to understand how a computer works. How it gets Input and output of the answer. 

If you have any idea why the human mind is compared to the computer. Share your thoughts.