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

  • From: "Cayuse" <z.z7@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: <wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Mon, 14 Sep 2009 22:32:01 +0100

swmaerske wrote:

"Cayuse" wrote:

But still there's nothing "mysterious" about a collection of contents
summing to an entirety.


If the "entirety" is beyond comprehending in all its particulars then
there is no referent other than an abstract idea.


Quite right -- just like the idea of "the universe".



And neither can we proceed to speak of the "what it is like" as if
it were a concrete referent -- to do so leads us into metaphysical
speculation after the fashion of materialism, idealism, dualism, etc.


But I am not speaking of "the what-it-is-like", you are, and for some
reason, known only to yourself, insisting that this IS equivalent to
what I am speaking about!


I pointed out that there is a use of the word 'consciousness' that is
overlooked by any empirical investigation, and that is the subject of
Chalmers' "hard problem". You could at any time have expressed your
disinterest in that use, but instead you have continued to engage in
conversation, and so I continue to indulge you.



It means that the "what it is like" is at the limit of explanation,
and any attempt to explain its existence is a hiding to nothing.


I don't know how your "what it is like" says much of anything at all,
frankly, nor do I know what you mean by "a hiding to nothing". I
presume it is taken from someone's comment? Whose?


http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/on-a-hiding-to-nothing.html



If there is nothing to be said, don't say. (Those things whereof we
cannot know . . . .).


Precisely!


So why do you keep saying?


Because this is where metaphysical speculation (materialism, idealism,
dualism, etc.) enters in an attempt to explain the existence of what is at
the limit of explanation.



Consciousness can be "tied to physical media" if we turn a blind eye
to the use of the word to which Nagel adverts and focus on what
Chalmers calls the "easy problems of consciousness" (in a relative
sense). My point is (and has been all along) that anybody thinking
the existence of the "what it is like" is explicable is surely up
against a very hard problem.


I don't recognize a "what it is like" in and of itself so there is no
hard problem unless one thinks there's something to be explained with
that phrase! But since no one here has asserted there is something to
be explained what is the point of your continually arguing against a
claim that there is?

The fact that you use the phrase "turn a blind eye" suggests that you
think there IS something important here but that the answer, given
your denial of any possible explanation, is rather to assert some
ultimate incomprehensibility. Well, there's lots of stuff we cannot
comprehend, some of it because we don't yet have the information and
some because it's nonsense disguised as sense. I submit that likening
consciousness to "the what it is like" is precisely this latter kind
of nonsense.


The fact of the existence of the "contents of consciousness" is
incontravertible.



Inasmuch as we are both talking about the "contents of consciousness",
this identifies the area of overlap between us. Relationships between
various aspects of those contents may avail themselves to explanation,
but not the brute fact of the /existence/ of those contents.


I am not talking about "the brute fact of the existence" of
subjectness anymore than I am talking about the brute fact of the
existence of matter or energy or anything else. Why is there
something and not rather nothing?


That would be another nonsensical question.



It is an error to think that language /always/ operates on the
principle of "object and designation", and it is precisely this
error that leads us into nonsensical metaphysical speculation.


Speaking of a "what it is like" as if it were a something renders it
a referring term. Then denying it refers to anything subtracts that
element. Now if you let it go at that we could say, okay, a moment of
benign confusion at a great mystery has been had and accept it as
that. Instead, however, you persist in trying to equate it with
referring terms I am using,


I pointed out that there is a use of the word 'consciousness' that is
overlooked by any empirical investigation, and that is the subject of
Chalmers' "hard problem".



If your use of the word includes "what it is like to be in pain",
then it includes "what it is like".


And that is all about the contents.


The "contents" of WHAT?

<snip>

If you mean the contents of /consciousness/ (as you're using that word in
this case) then what is this "consciousness" over and above the very
/existence/ of those contents?


I have said before and will say again: I take "consciousness" to be a
term we use to refer to those features we recognize in ourselves that
make up our mental lives, our minds.


But when you say "And that is all about the /contents/ [of consciousness]"
the term 'consciousness' takes on a broader aspect.


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