[Wittrs] Re: Minds, Brains and What There Is

  • From: "blroadies" <blroadies@xxxxxxxxx>
  • To: wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Mon, 07 Sep 2009 18:40:36 -0000

--- In Wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, "swmaerske" <SWMirsky@...> wrote:

> ... if all it means is that we cannot know if others have minds as we
do,
> Wittgenstein has already dealt effectively with this via his private
language remarks

BTW: Have you noticed that we are in agreement on this point?

> It does for Chalmers since he is a self-acknowledged dualist.
> His dualism rests on a claim that explaining consciousness is a "hard
problem" in a sense of being empirically insurmountable.

If it is a "hard problem", then it can only be relatively difficult. I
don't think you have Chalmers quite right. Closer to, the empirical
study of consciousness must be conducted along different lines than of
the brain. Closer to my position.

>  Get past the presumption of dualism and there is no special
"hardness" at issue.

Exactly! One way, is to hold to a monistic physicalism (your position?)
and the other, mine, is to abandon any doctrine of substance. There are
empirical laws of physics, chemistry, biology, psychology, economics,
etc. which are testable with reference to the stuff of any of these
disciplines

> But certainly MANY philosophers have veered into a religious qua
metaphysical perspective.

Yes, and physicalism is one of them. Religious in these senses: It
posits what exists outside of anyone's experience. It attempts to
explain all of experience in terms of one thing, matter, which is stand
in for God. If the brain causes mind, then what we are is determined by
the nature of matter (independent of what we think). This is what my
religious friends tell me of God.

bruce


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