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

  • From: "Cayuse" <z.z7@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: <wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Mon, 7 Sep 2009 22:59:27 +0100

swmaerske wrote:

"Cayuse" wrote:

Whether or not another person has a "what it is like"
cannot be known, and moreover it has no application.


The first part of your claim is obscure because of your use of "what
it is like", but 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 (the so-called private language
argmument). As to the absence of "application" itself this "it has no
application" comment of yours has become something of a mantra,
repeated endlessly albeit without support. I dispute this claim
because you are talking about it on this list and thus it has an
application.


Talking about it is like the disconnected wheel, the empty loom, etc.



The fact of the /existence/ of the "what it is like to be me" does not
implicated a different ontological category to the /contents/ of that
"what it is like to be me".


It does for Chalmers


Chalmers does not make this particular argument.



Chalmers is correct in identifying this as a uniquely hard problem
for any physicalist account since the existence of the whole cannot
be explained in terms of the relationships between its parts.


That says nothing because there is NO reason to presume we must
define consciousness as some "whole", some "all", nor is there any
sense to such a definition as you, yourself, admitted.


Science can investigate whatever empirical content we wish to give to our
concept of consciousness, but Nagel's use of the word has no empirical
content.



I continue to discuss this issue since I'm happy to take on anybody
contesting Chalmers' claim that there is a use of the word
'consciousness' that presents a uniquely hard problem for any
physicalist account.


So you are defending his naturalistic dualism? If so, on what
grounds? If not, how are you defending his claim?


I support Chalmers in his claim that Nagel's definition of consciousness
presents a hard problem for any physicalist account of consciousness.



Sounds like you agree that the question is specious.


Understanding Wittgenstein is not, on my view, buying into a few of
his insights in isolation. It is, rather, a matter of rethinking
everything according to the full range of his insights. It's not just
about quoting a few passages selectively and in isolation because
they appear to support a particular interpretation. You have to look
at the whole way he had of seeing the world. Selective citation
doesn't work anymore for the mystic's eye view than it does for the
behaviorist.


There's no shortage of people accusing each other of misinterpreting LW,
so I'm not too concerned about any accusation of misinterpreting LW.
And I'm sure not going to join them in their accusations.



Chalmers:
"There is not just one problem of consciousness. "Consciousness" is
an ambiguous term, referring to many different phenomena. Each of
these phenomena needs to be explained, but some are easier to
explain than others.


Relative difficulty is not the issue. It's when he gets to the point
of asserting a "hard problem" as in being insurmountable that any of
this matters.


Chalmers:
"It is not too soon to begin work on a theory. We are already in a position to understand certain key facts about the relationship between physical processes and experience, and about the regularities that connect them. Once reductive explanation is set aside, we can lay those facts on the table so that they can play their proper role as the initial pieces in a nonreductive theory of consciousness, and as constraints on the basic laws that constitute an ultimate theory." 
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