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

From: "SWM" <SWMirsky@xxxxxxx>
To: wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Date: Wed, 30 Sep 2009 15:51:34 -0000
--- In Wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, "Cayuse" <z.z7@...> wrote:
>
> SWM wrote:
> > "Cayuse" wrote:
> >> It doesn't matter how these terms are used, except inasmuch as
> >> they are not synonymous. Since they qualify different kinds of items
> >> in the "contents of consciousness", the "contents of consciousness"
> >> encompass /both/ of these qualified categories.
> >
> > If the "qualified categories" are not adequately explicated then they
> > are just words, appearing to have sense while lacking it. So it
> > certainly does matter how they are used!
> >
> > Here you want to do with these terms what you have previously done
> > with "consciousness", "experience", and "the all." It strikes me as
> > obscurantism since it seems to be set against any real attempts at
> > clarity.
>
> What is being clarified here is that it doesn't matter how a proper
> subset is qualified with regard to a set of elements, any set of
> elements cannot be a member of a proper subset of itself.
>

But there are elements and elements. And what is the set that contains them all 
in your view, "the all"?

>
> >> Example:
> >> The set of all integers /encompasses/ the the set of all positive
> >> integers /and/ the set of all negative integers (i.e. the /union/ of
> >> those two sets), but does not /consist/ of that union since it omits
> >> something. The set of all integers /consists/ of the set of all positive
> >> integers /and/ the set of all negative integers /and/ zero (no
> >> remainder).
> >
> > So zero is like all the other integers? Isn't that a stipulation
> > though, i.e., can't we simply agree to stipulate that zero is not,
> > itself, an integer in which case it wouldn't fit into your set?
>
> If we stipulated that zero is not an integer, then the set of all integers
> would /consist/ of the union of the set of all positive integers with the
> set of all negative integers.
>

But what is the set you are so concerned about? Remember this began as an 
effort to say what consciousness is. You have maintained that it is "the all" 
(and various other formulations) and yet agreed that such formulations are 
ultimately empty. So what's the point of going on about this in terms of 
abstractions piled on abstractions, sets of sets, etc.?

>
> >>> Phenomenal consciousness has no empirical content? But we can get
> >>> reports about what anyone is seeing all the time and that's pretty
> >>> empirical don't you think? We can also determine what someone or
> >>> some inarticulate subject is seeing via various research strategms.
> >>
> >> Reports are publicly observable. Regarding "what someone or
> >> some inarticulate subject is seeing via various research stratagems",
> >> the overt /behavior/ of that someone or of that inarticulate subject
> >> is also publicly observable. Based on such behavior (including any
> >> verbal reports they may make), we can /imagine/ what another
> >> /may be/ experiencing, but their /experience/ is not publicly
> >> observable.
> >
> <snip>
> > What about our own subjective experience (the subjective aspect of our
> > lives)? Well no one claims that is accessible to others but that doesn't
> > mean we must assume that we are qualitatively different than other
> > organisms that behave like us, etc.
>
> It sounds like you're saying that you /imagine/ others to have subjective
> experience,


I'm saying that what we mean by "subjective experience" in others is determined 
by the observed behaviors (including verbal and non-verbal behaviors). I agree 
that I don't know what it is like to be someone else and that to some extent I 
am presuming they are like me in terms of their subjectivity but the language 
we rely on carries just such presumptions and that is enough.

Nothing hinges on whether or not my experience of being a subject is exactly 
the same as someone else's. But everything hinges on how they behave.


> and that this /imagined/ subjective experience is not publicly
> accessible. Not much different from what I said to start with.
>

The difference is that I am pointing out that we recognize other minds in 
others by their behavior and that that is what our language gears to. This is 
not a denial of our own subjectivity or others' because of inaccessibility. 
Accessibility is not an issue for recognizing other minds.

>
> >> Since you say that consciousness "involves" experience, you can't
> >> be using the two words synonymously. In what way do they differ?
> >
> <snip>
> > The point is that "consciousness", on the view I have adopted and for
> > which I am arguing, refers to a somewhat open ended array of features
> > we find in ourselves and which may have no clear delineating line
> > between what is and what isn't going to be counted as conscious.
> <snip>
> >> http://www.bbsonline.org/Preprints/OldArchive/bbs.block.html
> >
> > Thanks. I suppose I am just unduly dense here though. I don't see how
> > this distinction applies to what we have been discussing. I have said
> > that I take access consciousness to be what we have access to in
> > ourselves (as opposed to things going on below the surface of our
> > aware minds. Block is saying the opposite, i.e., that it's what we
> > seem to lack access to (awareness of) that is what he means by
> > "access consciousness". So we cannot agree that I am interested in
> > what you call access consciousness while you are interested in
> > phenomenal consciousness. Indeed, I am interested in precisely what
> > you characterize as phenomenal consciousness, having experience.
>
> Then you are saying much more than merely that "consciousness, on the
> view I have adopted and for which I am arguing, refers to a somewhat
> open ended array of features we find in ourselves and which may have
> no clear delineating line between what is and what isn't going to be
> counted as conscious" -- you are identifying one particular member
> of that family as the focus of your interest, namely what Block calls
> P-consciousness and what Nagel calls the "what it is like to be [...]".
>

I have always said that being a subject is what is of interest here, not brain 
activities per se. Of course, I see no reason to doubt a causal relation 
between the two and plenty of reason to recognize one.


> From the paper referenced above:
> "I'll say more about phenomenal consciousness later, but for now, let me
> just say that phenomenal consciousness is experience; what makes a state
> phenomenally conscious is that there is something "it is like" (Nagel, 1974)
> to be in that state."
>

So? I have always said that being a subject is what is of interest when 
discussing what consciousness is and how it is caused. But I deny your claim 
that being a subject is beyond discourse.

>
> > Where we seem to be at odds is in your insistence that this awareness
> > somehow stands over and apart from all the things of which we are
> > aware.
>
> This is not an accurate portrayal of my view. Consciousness is
> not something over and above the "contents of consciousness",
> but rather it denotes the very existence of that "content".
>

What is something that "denotes the very existence of that 'content'"? What 
does that mean? Do you want to say it is just to name the grab bag of features 
I have already referenced? If so, then we are talking about the same thing 
although I continue to deny that this same thing is beyond discourse. Moreover, 
since you continue to discuss it, apparently you don't think that's the case 
either, even if you have made statements to that effect. More important than 
what we say is, often, what we do.

>
> >>>> To take this "third-person world" as the primary datum (in which
> >>>> this "first-person perspective" now has to be accounted for) is to
> >>>> put the cart before the horse.
> >>>
> >>> There is no horse if you are right vis a vis "the all".
> >>
> >> Sticking to the terms I used in my comment above,
> >> are you saying that there is no "third-person world"?
> >> Or there is no "first-person perspective"?
> >
> > I am saying that, on your own statement, there is no way to conceive
> > of, or even imagine, "the all",
>
> /Sticking to the terms I used in my comment above/,
> are you saying that there is no "third-person world"?
> Or there is no "first-person perspective"?


I have said neither and cannot fathom why you would have even been moved to 
think I might have!


> Or are you saying something else in regard to the
> "third-person world" and/or the "first-person perspective"?
>

What else do you have in mind?

SWM



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References:
- [Wittrs] Re: Minds, Brains and What There Is
  - From: Cayuse
[Wittrs] Re: Minds, Brains and What There Is

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