Is Communication Possible?

If you create a system where "truth" is just a symbol within the system, if there is no semantics in the system and no meaning, if the system consists of nothing but syntactic procedural manipulation of formal rules, can there be communication between two such systems? If the reasoning process of a human being is expressible completely (except consciousness) by a syntactic process, what is occurring when they "communicate" with each other? Is there any way to determine that what one says, the other understands? If reason is a game where each player sets their own change values to different sentences, is this game inherently just a "private language"?

One motivation for the whole framework of semantics, including meaning and reference is that if there are absolute facts about these things, then one can account for true communication between two rational individuals. Therefore, the question arises, if semantics is abandoned for a syntax-only system, does this mean that true communication is impossible?

There are two strategies for responding to these questions. The first strategy will focus on the fact that a human reasoning system is a syntactic system, which is, in principle, exposable to any other human syntactic systems. The second strategy will focus on the possibility of the creation by two syntactic systems, of a third syntactic system that they jointly manipulate.

We tend to think that an individual human thinker is automatically subject to problems of subjectivity.  However, if you think in terms of a syntactic system the problem does not arise, at least not in principle. In theory, the human brain is exposable to external  neurological observation. The changing states of the brain can be input as data to a second human (mind). Of course, we don't know how to use this data today, but there is no in-principle reason that a human brain's symbolic syntax - the sequence of changing brain states - could not be completely visible.

This assertion only holds true in a syntactic framework. From a semantic framework where meaning plays a critical role, even a full exposure of one brain will not yield any understanding of what is going on for the human being whose brain it is. There are two classes of reasons for this failure. The first involves mentality or consciousness. However, even for a hard-nosed materialist who denies the existence of consciousness, there is a second problem caused by the under-determination of meaning.

Consider the issue of consciousness. Either consciousness can influence the operations of the brain (interactionism) or it can't (epiphenomenalism). In the latter case, there is no problem for the syntactic approach. Syntax is no more than the dynamic development of symbols in time. These symbols can be implemented using concrete physical configurations of material, field strengths or both. Therefore a complete exposure of all the neurons at every moment in time along a sequence is a full description of the syntactic development of what is going on in brain. According to this epiphenomenalist view, the fact that the conscious mind experiences these symbols in a rich subjective way, is of no relevance to the syntax of the system.

For the interactionist, the situation need be no worse. Assume that that the conscious mind is able to make choices of one verbal path rather than another. However, assume that these decisions are restricted in the following ways. Firstly, the decisions thus made do not violate the restrictions on well formulated formulae (wffs). Secondly, the conscious mind may only pick between generative options that would have been available anyway. In this case, the mind does not disturb the syntactic correctness of the symbolic system. If the brain is a syntactic reasoning system, it stays so even in the case of this limited interactionist scenario.

On the other hand, if consciousness need not be considered, then there still remains the question of the under-determination of meaning. How could we know which brain state refers to what? Of course, one could go through the same process as one might to learn any foreign language; comparing stimuli with resulting brain states to try and decipher the meanings. However, this may fail in practice because of the complexity of the task and in theory as pointed out by Quine (1951).

However, this problem need not concern the syntactic proceduralism presented in these posts. Neither meaning nor reference is required. There are no propositions that are the content of sentences, in any form - vocal or electronic. Once one discovers the intrinsic rule of the brain (not that this is presumed easy), the procedures, written in the system, can be interpreted using this intrinsic rule. There is therefore nothing, in principle private, about verbal reasoning. The practice may take millennia, but human beings need not be considered in their essence communication-incapable islands.

However, the remoteness of the technology required for this solution, leads to a more practical way of understanding inter-human communication. This option is a direct consequence of the syntactic nature of reasoning presented here. Both a human mind and a computer implement syntactic processing systems. However, there are other means of implementing a syntactic system. A group of people can together implement a syntactic system.

Imagine two people manipulating a set of magnetized plastic letters on a board. Assume the two people have agreed, internalized or trained themselves to follow some intrinsic rule regarding the manipulation of these plastic symbols or configurations. The dynamically changing configuration of plastic pieces is a syntactic procedural system. It exists separately from each of its two implementors yet is experienced by each and shared by the two together.

Extending the thought to a large number of people and widening the symbolic material to include vocalizations or written symbols, the same can be said of the culture shared by a society. The culture as a dynamically evolving configuration of symbols is a syntactic system too. It is experienced by each of the members of the community and perhaps that experiencing is subjective, but the syntactic system is itself not subjective. Thus the individuals do not so much communicate between one and another as each observe/experience a joint evolving symbolic system.

References:

Quine, W.V., 1951, “Two Dogmas of Empiricism”, Philosophical Review, 60: 20–43.