Rosenberg's Argument Against Beliefs

[Neo-Scholastic]

Do you have a blog called Subversive Thinking and go by the name Jime? Your argument looks a lot like this:http://subversivethinking.blogspot.com/2010/12/alex-rosenberg-powerful-metaphysical.html

Perhaps it is a coincidence, but I was working on the same idea. My thesis was based on semiotics and the relationship between signs and the signified. It occurred to me that since signs, as physical artifacts, had no inherent meaning that other physical properties such has brain-states also had no inherent meaning. From a purely objective point of view meaning must be assigned to physical systems from the outside via intellection. I have not made up my mind as to whether meant the absence of an epistomic link or an ontological one. Either way mental properties cannot be reduced to physical ones.

I came across Jime's blog some time ago and learned about Alex Rosenberg's argument. It seemed to present the thesis in a much more succinct way. I also found it interesting that a self-avowed atheist would present the same idea, so I posted it to see what others thought.

...Brains states which underpin beliefs aside from being configurations of matter are already about something. Similarly if I write out a "Spare any change?" sign on a scrap of paper, the piece of paper is just a piece of inert material, compositionally. But now it also conveys my belief that someone is going to throw me some coin, which is my intention.

In your example, the paper does not in itself have meaning. It must be interpreted and assigned meaning from the outside. If your note is written in English it will have no meaning to someone who only knows Chinese. Likewise a brain-state, as a physical thing, has no meaning unless one is assigned to it. When you say conveys your intention, what then is the ontological status of your intention. Is the intention a thing in and of itself, conveyed first by your brain then transferred to paper? This implies something independent of both your brain and the paper that has been transferred. What is that thing?

And yet, I have beliefs. At least I think I do. Does this thought constitute a belief?

It may not, as Apo and I are so fond of chewing on -in one way or another- from time to time, lol.

Exactly the point. So what is the logical conclusion of such a belief if not nihilism?