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

  • From: "SWM" <SWMirsky@xxxxxxx>
  • To: wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Tue, 22 Sep 2009 23:21:58 -0000

--- In Wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, "Cayuse" <z.z7@...> wrote:
>
> SWM wrote:
> > "Cayuse" wrote:
> >> SWM wrote:
> >>> "Cayuse" wrote:
> >>>> No, I said that we don't need to envision or imagine "the all" in
> >>>> order to understand that, WHERE 'PARTS' ARE IDENTIFIED,
> >>>> /COLLECTIONS/OF 'PARTS' ARE ALSO IDENTIFIED.
> >>>> We may or may not envision or imagine some kind of 'whole' at the
> >>>> limit of those collections, but it is not necessary that we do so
> >>>> in order to understand the idea of /collections/.
> >>>
> >>> Collections of what?
> >>
> >> Anything you care to imagine.
> >
> > Why is that relevant to the question of whether and how brains
> > produce minds?
>
> If your use of the word 'minds' includes phenomenal consciousness
> then it involves a misguided attempt to account for the fact of the
> existence of the "contents of consciousness".
>

You've often called certain statements "nonsense" so I feel justified in using 
the term in that context. Your statement above strikes me as fitting this 
description, I'm afraid. How can we of mind as anything but "phenomenal 
consciousness"? What other kind of consciousness is there, even if we mean just 
to be aware as in to be attentive! At the bottom of it all MUST be an 
experiencing experiencer. What other "contents of consciousness" can there be 
than the many aspects, facets and bits of experience? This is still just going 
round and round in circles.

>
> >>>>> If you're equating "consciousness" with "subjective experience"
> >>>>
> >>>> I'm not equating "consciousness" with "subjective experience"
> >>>> but with "experience".
> >>>
> >>> It should be clear from our past discussions that, in this context,
> >>> I equate the two
> >>
> >> And to do so is to force experience into a category arising within
> >> it.
> >
> > This makes no sense to me.
>
> "Subjective" and "objective" are /categories/ of the
> "contents of consciousness", the union of which is
> therefore /neutral/ in that respect.
>

What does THAT mean? This, too, reads like mere words to me with no underlying 
meaning. Can you provide one in clearer language?

>
> >>>>> and saying this is the same as "the all" or "the microcosm"
> >>>>
> >>>> I'm not saying that "consciousness" or "experience" is "the same as
> >>>> the all or the microcosm", but that we /conceive/ of a whole on
> >>>> the same model as the parts/whole relationships that obtain
> >>>> /within/ experience. Moreover, that any such conception is
> >>>> nonsensical.
> >>>
> >>> Then why would we conceive of it or worry about the possibility of
> >>> doing so?
> >>
> >> To point out that any attempt to account for the fact of the
> >> existence of "the contents of consciousness" is misguided.
> >
> > Again, I don't see what you can possibly have in mind by the above
> > statement. How can it be "misguided" to speak of brains as the source
> > of our minds?
>
> I haven't mentioned 'minds' but 'consciousness', and
> to be more specific, what Block calls p-consciousness.
>

I have said again and again and again that what I mean by mind is consciousness 
and that I use the two terms interchangeably. Moreover, even the above title to 
this thread makes clear that this is about minds and brains, at a minimum.

You previously accused me of wrongly complaining that you were speaking about 
minds when we were talking about consciousness and noted that the thread in 
question had "consciousness" in its title, not minds and I accepted that. But 
now you accuse me of wrongly invoking the idea of minds even though the thread 
in question explicitly refers to minds! You can't have it both ways, Cayuse.

Anyway, if you're speaking about MY use of "consciousness" THAT is what I mean, 
i.e., mind = consciousness.


>
> >> I have a suggestion. In his paper "On a confusion about the function
> >> of consciousness" (1995), Ned Block distinguishes between what
> >> he called "access consciousness" and "phenomenal consciousness".
> >> Regardless of my conviction that this is too simplistic a
> >> distinction, we could agree that you're interested in
> >> a-consciousness and I'm interested in p-consciousness.
> >
> > That may be. Certainly we seem to be interested in very different
> > things. The kind of "consciousness" that seems to intrigue you is the
> > mystery of the first person perspective in an apparently third person
> > world.
>
> Your portrayal of my view is inaccurate.


I think ANY portrayal of your view will be because you have explicitly stated 
that you are talking about something with neither grammar nor referent to guide 
you. Therefore you either hold some esoteric, inexpressible view or your view 
is simply incoherent because it purports to be about things it manifestly 
cannot be about based on your own claims.


> If the "first-person"
> category of the "contents of consciousness" stands in contrast to
> the "third-person" category, then the "contents of consciousness"
> (being the union of those categories)

What is "the union of those categories"? Can you point to it? Describe it? 
Explain it in other words? Or is it just a slogan here, for recitation rather 
than explication.


> is /neutral/ in that respect.
> If these categories /don't/ stand in contrast to one another then
> what is their relationship?
>

What are you talking about? I note that periodically you come up with some 
claims that have a slogan like nature to them and then you repeat them over and 
over again throughout the discussion, relying on the precise same words and 
word formations. This seems to be the case again here. What does the above 
statement actually mean in ordinary language? Can you state it more plainly?

SWM


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