[Wittrs] Re: When is "brain talk" really dualism?
- From: kirby urner <kirby.urner@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: Wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 3 Sep 2009 11:59:27 -0700
> He disavowed the TLP while he is nowhere on record as saying that "if you
> appreciated the TLP, then you're really going to like where I go in the PI".
> This last is just your sock-puppet talking and I don't think the puppet is
> adequately channeling Wittgenstein.
>
I think "disavowed" is true strong a word in that he also mentioned
wanting them published together (the TLP and PI). You'll find other
commentators besides me looking for the continuity, not just the
contrasts. Same guy wrote both. I don't think he actually changed
what he was trying to show, so much as his way of showing it (PI way
more effective, another kind of ladder).
> Different discussion, different points.
>
I don't follow your thread structure remember. These are like hiking
trails in some well known part of Bavaria, swarming with people in
lederhosen, with walking sticks. We cross at these sign posts. I
don't need to backtrack the whole way to figure out all the subject
experiences you've been having, in order to converse, and vice versa.
No one here but us Germans, as they say.
>> Neuroscientific conclusions about how brains work wouldn't necessarily
>> have anything to do with an "understanding process" though.
>>
>
> Depends what you're looking at as the "process". If the issue is what your
> brain does when you understand something then it is extremely relevant. How
No, there's no one thing that occurs because "understanding" is not a
physical event *in our grammar* i.e. it doesn't mean something
happening, like an alka seltzer going pop pop fizz fizz. You don't
need any empirical science, just a decent memory, to investigate in
this way,to remember ordinary situations where we talk about someone
understanding something.
We see, together (share the experience) that understanding is free,
unencumbered, doesn't kow-tow to "mental process" game, doesn't "doff
its hat" as it were -- "by definition" I might add for Josh's benefit,
though more Wittgensteinian to say it's a truism (tautology,
grammatical remark).
> does your brain's behavior become your subjective experience of
> understanding something. Think back to my anecdote about the drive up from
> the Carolinas. In that I wondered about what mental events might be
> occurring. The question then would be to relate them to whatever physical
> evnts were happening in that brain.
I'm quite able to understand stuff with no subjective experiences
whatsoever, whereas other times I might report on this "aha!" sense,
like a light going on. But I don't always have those lights going on,
just because I understand how to work my toaster or understand why
electricity is dangerous if mishandled (that "aha!" might happen after
the fact i.e. too late).
The problem is if you think "understanding" always means "sense of a
light going on" and then start looking for correlations in the brain
i.e. "light going on process associated with understanding". To make
these leaps is to completely ignore all those times when understanding
occurs minus any lights going on, is to forget about the actual rules
governing our use of that word. To start finding the understanding
process in the brain is to loose touch with reality (the reality of
what we actually mean by "understanding").
>
>> It's like you can dissect a pineal gland and study its chemistry, but
>> the minute you impute a continuing cogito process or cog-sci theory to
>> the thing, you've gone over the line from science to scientism, to
>> Cartesianism in particular, a corner in philosophy where you'll find
>> precious few loyal fans these days, whereas in his heyday you could
>> probably sound like Mr. Sophisticated at cocktail parties, yakking
>> about that silly gland.
>>
>
> There's more to neuroscience these days than Cartesianism and pineal glands.
I'm never attacking neuroscience in these posts. I'm attacking
pseudo-science aka "bad philosophy". I notice that when I attack bad
philosophy, it's exponents seem to wanna wrap themselves in the flag
of neuroscience, a kind of faux patriotism? Because they're not
neuroscientists, these bad philosophers. Neuroscientists are too busy
for such claptrap (has been my line all along).
Kirby
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