[Wittrs] Re: How mind works

  • From: "SWM" <SWMirsky@xxxxxxx>
  • To: wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Fri, 18 Sep 2009 20:26:17 -0000

--- In Wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, "BruceD" <blroadies@...> wrote:
>
>
> --- In Wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, "SWM" <SWMirsky@> wrote:
>
> > I am asserting that we can explain the occurrence of minds in totally
> physical terms,
>
> Right! Minds occur in physical beings. Naturally, in nervous systems and
> synthetically in new fangled computers. Tell me what philosophical issue
> this claim addresses. It rejects Spiritualism. No spiritualists on  this
> List, I trust. So let's move on
>
> > Dualism is the idea that we need to posit some non-physical basic,
> > alongside whatever gives us the physical world,
>
> Not sure about others, but I'm not Dualistic because I posit no basic,
> material or otherwise, if by basic you mean some substance we know the
> core what it is and what it isn't.


Nope. This only refers to whether or not we think that whatever it is that 
makes up the physical universe is not enough to account for the fact that minds 
are evident in the physical universe, too. If one thinks that the physical 
universe is all we need for minds to also occur, then one is not dualist. If 
one thinks that there must also be something else that is not, at its most 
basic level, of physical type or derivation, then one is being dualist (at the 
least).

If one thinks minds and bodies are different things and never the twain shall 
meet, nor will either ever be understandable as the basis/cause/source/raison 
d'etre for the other, then one is subscribing to dualism, even if one dislikes 
the term, wants to explicitly deny it, etc.


> Put differently, while I see the
> difference between a surge of hormones and sexual arousal, I don't see
> the two as manifested in different mediums. Simply put, my criteria for
> detecting hormone surge is different from detecting sexual arousal.
>

Fair enough.

> > Now note that I am NOT arguing for or against dualism;
> > only for the idea that we don't need to assume dualism to explain
> minds.
>
> In contrast, I find Dualism as worthless for explaining how minds work,
> >


Metaphysical dualism yes. But it is conceivable that it COULD be an empirical 
question. It just isn't given the world as we now have it.


> > ...I accept a default physicalism BECAUSE I see no need to jettison
> common sense
>
> And I see physicalism, the ontological commitment


THAT is about arguments and I make no arguments for or against physicalism 
because I think it is outside the realm of argument insofar as it is a 
metaphysical position which is what it is once we start to talk ABOUT whether 
this or that ontological commitment is in order.


> to the notion of
> substance that lies outside of our experience and yet know it for what
> it is,


What does THAT mean? "Substance" in ordinary language refers to a non-specified 
material. The philosophical notion that that term denotes is a different matter.


> and the only thing that can exist, contrary to common sense which
> allows for the existence of all sorts of immaterial edxperiences.
>

????

> > If we agree about the existential dependence of minds on brains...
>
> we are first stating the body/mind problem. That's the first move.


There is no such problem if we agree. The characterization of the issue as a 
problem IS the metaphysical move which forces you down this road.


> The
> we have to say how the body and mind are related
>

That is the point of noting that minds and bodies aren't ontologically separate 
even if they are conceptually.

> > The point is to recognize that minds can be explained adequately in
> physicalist terms..
>
> If this was obvious, there would be no body/mind proble.


There isn't. We only come to think there is when we fall into the dualist trap.


> There is a
> problem because mind cannot be explained in physical terms


THAT is the trap! As soon as you insist that they are separate things at some 
basic, causal level, you have presumed dualism and everything else flows from 
that.


 -- which you
> agree with if we talk "language-game." But then you add...do I have this
> correct?...the mental events can't occur without the brain events.


Without some physical events. I am not committed to the idea that only brains 
can serve as an adequate platform for this.


> But
> that tells nothing about mind, as such, and doesn't deal with the B/M
> problem.
>

There is no such problem. One only thinks so if one thinks minds are 
ontologically separate from the physical. The point of my arguments here have 
been to show why one need not conceive of mind that way!


> In the past I've asked. Does B/M stand in a causal or identity
> relationship. You've answered "both" which  makes no sense to me.


That's because you want to define these categories in a narrow, predetermined 
way AND because you insist on imagining that mind is something other than its 
physical underpinnings and this because you seem unable or unwilling to think 
of physical things in any terms other than as physical objects or combinations 
of such objects.


> A
> cause is a cause if it is separate from its effect.

Depends on the description and the context. I don't want to go over this again 
but I cause you agita by disagreeing with you or insisting that you are a 
dualist while a drop of water causes you to feel wet but it is the behavior of 
the water's constituents under certain conditions that cause the feature you 
feel as the wetness. Lots of uses for "cause". Just ask Aristotle. Or 
Wittgenstein.


> If the cause is part
> of the effect, if every mental event is identical with the brain event,
> then we have your two-sides of the coin, with no causation.


Think of the wetness and what causes water to feel that way! Lot's of uses for 
"cause", lots of ways to use this word.


> And if the
> coin is our conceptual life, then we have my position. If the coin is
> material, then mind drops out.
>

I have suggested, in regards to this metaphor, that we think of the coin as our 
brain's processes, but not as the brain and not, as you put it, the "conceptual 
life" or, as I would, the mental life. These processes have a physical side 
(the observable brain events) and a mental side (the experience of being a 
subject, the phenomena of a mental life).


> > My smile is caused by your joke, by my interpretation of it..
> >...by the chemicals in certain cells that produce certain cerebral and
> other signals
>
> Consider the mixed metaphors of physicalism. First the smile is caused
> chemically in your brain. You are not doing anything. It is just
> happening. There is no you. But then you see that the meaning of the
> joke demands your understanding. So you insert a "You" admist the
> chemicals.
>
> The question is whether you can give a full account of mind without
> importing "You?"
>
> bruce
>

That is NOT the question at all. The question is whether, to give a full 
account of mind, we can do it without reference to the physical causes of its 
occurrence.

SWM


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