[Wittrs] Re: When is "brain talk" really dualism?
- From: "swmaerske" <SWMirsky@xxxxxxx>
- To: wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Fri, 04 Sep 2009 15:00:02 -0000
--- In Wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, "Cayuse" <z.z7@...> wrote:
>
> Stuart wrote:
> > Cayuse wrote:
> >> I don't dispute that "subjective experience" is imputed to others on
> >> grounds of structural and behavioral criteria.
> >> I only dispute that "subjective experience" is empirical (and therefore a
> >> suitable matter for scientific investigation).
> >
> > I've already told you that I am talking about "subjective experience" as
> > being a subject, i.e., having experiences. We know what that is, at least
> > for
> > ourselves, because that is what we are. We know others are like us in
> > various behavioral ways and associate that being "like us" with having
> > similar if not
> > the same kinds of subjective experiences. Indeed, we can talk with others
> > about their private mental events even if we can never have them with them.
> >
> > You want to use "subjective experience" to reference an idealist picture of
> > the mind
>
> Wrong on two counts. Firstly I'm not making any claims about mind, but about
> what some want to call "subjective experience".
> Secondly, your assumption of idealism is the kind of metaphysics that I'm
> rejecting here.
> If you wish to uphold a claim for idealism then you'll have to present your
> argument.
>
I've already responded nearby. But here is the relevant portion from that post:
If mind is not explainable as a function of the physical then it must either
co-exist in what would, at minimum, be a dualist world or it must be the only
real existent with the physical a mere illusion (an idealist world) or, as you
and Bruce have argued (albeit for markedly different reasons) we must grind to
a screeching halt and simply acknowledge a mystery, that something about the
world, namely minds, is unexplainable. . .
You get there by asserting that the issue is really about something that is
beyond the capacity of language to reference and then proceed to use language
to talk about it, a contradiction in terms, I'm afraid, even if the same
approach was to be found in the early Wittgenstein of the TLP. My response to
you is that I am not talking about the non-referent referent you claim to be
talking about when you use the same terms I do (e.g., "subjective experience")
. . .
>
> > (or use whatever other term you like if you don't like "mind"), i.e., it
> > encompasses "all". And we agree there is that aspect to all this.
> > In a very real sense each of us is his or her own world, both the sense of
> > being a self in that world and the objects, at whatever level,
> > one encounters through one's senses that together constitute the "external"
> > part of the world.
> >
> > But THAT, as you have often said here, is a use without any grammar, a word
> > without a definable or definitive referent. Such a use is simply outside of
> > language.
>
> And as such, is unsuitable matter for scientific investigation.
>
Whatever you say, but I am trying to explain to you that THAT idea of yours
("subjective experience" = "the microcosm" or "the all") is simply NOT what I
am talking about. Continuing to conflate your idea (which I hold to be
untenable by the way for reasons previously given) with mine is to make an
argument where there isn't one.
>
> > We can imagine things about it, use it as a target toward which to aim our
> > efforts at understanding, as a placeholder for what is unexplainable,
> > as a catalytic agent for achieving a sense of mystery (a very psychological
> > experience). But we cannot talk about it in any discursive way.
> > It is outside language. So why insist on substituting this idea for what I
> > have explicitly said I mean by "subjective experience"?
> > And how can making this substitution say anything about what I am talking
> > about since I am clearly not talking about IT?
>
> If you think you can divorce your idea of consciousness from Nagel's idea of
> "what it is like" then please go ahead.
>
Already done nearby but to make this easier, here's the relevant portion of
THAT post again -
I am speaking of consciousness as being the agglomeration of features of
subjective experience we recognize in ourselves (and in others) including but
not limited to:
Being aware (consists of a complex of things, some of which are seen below)
Distinguishing self from non-self (a form of awareness, of course)
Having intentionality (the capacity to think ABOUT things)
Comprehending (the capacity to recognize and link different representations
within various picturing and mapping systems in order to make constructive new
links to form other pictures and maps)
Intelligence (the capacity to operate in the world with foresight, e.g.,
thinking ahead, guessing right, etc.)
Thinking (the capacity to have ideas, mental images and the connections that
link them)
Picturing/mapping (the capacity to construct, retain and utilize complex
representations of the inflowing stimuli we get)
Perceiving (awareness of the stimuli we get, consisting of our sensory inputs)
Memory (the capacity to store and pull up specific thoughts, images, scenarios,
behaviors and put them back into use)
These certainly don't exhaust the features I think we find in our consciousness
and it may also be the case that many of them are aspects of others in this
list rather than stand-alones. It's also possible that some are more basic than
others and that for the less basic ones to occur we need the more basic ones,
etc. Certainly, the model of the mind I think is best presumes that some very
basic (non-mindlike) algorithmic functions must be performed in order to get
the less basic features listed above though I'm not at all sure how these
layered processes and features fit together. But it seems to me that mind is
conceivable in precisely this way.
None of this, however, has anything directly to do with the idea that what we
know (either conceptually or perceptually) is all of a piece with the knowing
subject [what you are pushing], which is a very different notion and irrelevant
to the model of consciousness I think makes the most sense . . .
SWM
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