--- In
Wittrs@yahoogroups.com, "BruceD" <blroadies@.
..> wrote:
>
> --- In
Wittrs@yahoogroups.com, "SWM" <SWMirsky@> wrote:
>
> > But the issue is where do we get the "we"
>
> We start with the "I." Alternative?
>
"I", "we", whatever. It's the same point. The issue is not who is tasting when the part of the brain involved with that is doing that but, rather, how tasting comes about and how it fits with the rest of the entity that sees a self in itself.
> > What has this to do with the notion that brains cause consciousness?
>
> If you elect to place the brain in a causal relation to the person's
> consciousness, the it seems you have two options.
>
> 1. Reconciling with common sense. The brain causes me to sense myself,
> to feel pain, sorrow, to see things, but what I choose to do is actually
> a choice, I'm an agent, somewhat constrained, but not to be described in
> accordance with causal laws.
>
The brain doesn't cause you to do anything, it causes the "you" that does anything (in the wetness-of-water sense of "cause") in the first place.
> 2. Reductionism. The brain causes not only what I experience but what I
> seem to feel and do and hence the "I" is just a place-maker, a way of
> referring to this entity called Bruce. No different in kind then my
> computer who I affectionately call Buddha.
>
This is a way of saying it, I suppose, but not an especially intelligible way. But I'm good with reductionism, definitely not good with any locution that supposes the brain causes me to think or do anything. The heart doesn't cause me to pump the blood of my body. It pumps the blood. In the same way, the brain generates the subjective experience that is the self, that is the mind.
> >The point of Dehaene's research is to explore and discover
> > how the brain produces the phenomenon of subjective awareness.
>
> Same question,
> Should I think of the "brain producing awareness" the way I think of my
> heart pumping blood, something I feel and can see?
While we can become aware of our heart pumping blood under certain circumstances we are not typically aware of it as it is going on, let alone the regular contractions and expansions of the heart muscle that is involved in producing the pumping action.
> If so, where is the
> "I" in relation to the phenomena I observe.
>
Aside from the fact that blood in the circulatory system is a different phenomenon than subjective experience (i.e., subjectness, being a subject, etc.), and so we should not expect to discover or attend to them in quite the same way, the analogy does hold. The "I" is found in the aspect of being a subject that we count as the experiencer, the construct of mental features that count as the mechanism which yields our sense of being a self.
Now the question has arisen nearby as to whether there is really a there there. As Kant pointed out long ago, if you peel back the layers of the onion of consciousness, pretty soon you come to a point where there is nothing to behold. The subject perceiving isn't, itself, an object of perception.
Does this mean there is no "I", no self? Well on one level it does. It tells us that the I or the self are fundamentally different kinds of concepts than anything that can be directly objectified as the referent of a subject. This is an interesting and useful insight. But on another level it does not mean there is no self at all. As Hume showed, what we consider the self, the "I", is just an array of lots of phenomena known to the subject. So the subject, as the experiencer, is not a discreet phenomenon, though it is part of a complex of phenomena that we label the self, the "I", just as other parts are labeled as our percepts and concepts.
As Dennett points out, we don't need to posit a distinct, irreducible self to account for the fact that we see a self in ourselves upon looking inward, upon introspection. So in this sense the self is illusion. Who sees this illusion? The illusion does, of course. It's just that kind of illusion.
>
> > He says consciousness (he means awareness here) arises when a certain
> threshold
> > in brain operations is crossed,
>
> Arises where? Same question
>
Same answer if it's the same question. But it can't really be the same question since above I am describing Dehaene's proposal as to the role of the brain, i.e., that there is no consciousness organ within the brain because the whole brain (or at least a large part of it) IS THAT organ and the consciousness in question occurs as various processes reach a certain threshold such that certain functionalities are initiated in a synchronous way.
But your initial question asked "where is the 'I' in relation to the phenomena I observe?" And I answered that in a phenomenological way because that's what it appears to be asking.
> "Dennet never equates consciousness with matter but with the operations of certain kinds of matter."
>
> Yes. But does the brain operate on its own, somehow creating the
> illusion that I'm different from the brain chemistry.
What "illusion"? We don't have direct experience of the brain chemistry which is a conceptual construct, a way of explaining how certain things work. There is no intrinsic illusion that you have nothing to do with your brain (or its chemistry), though that is certainly one of two intuitions that we derive from being in the world in the way we are. The illusion you allude to is the dualist one, that our being a self is to be a free standing entity in the universe, derived from the intuition that minds are apart from the physical. While this can be very compelling it is not obviously true, especially because we have a second intuition, at least equally strong, that we are creatures of the physical world in which we find ourselves.
You can't blame the fact that the brain causes consciousness for the particular illusions any individual consciousness happens to be laboring under.
> Or do "I" operate
> with my brain. I wish I could ask D this question.
>
I suspect he would wonder what you think you are asking, as I do here! What kind of question asks if the "brain operate[s] on its own"??? What are the alternatives? A soul running in tandem along side it? A two-way communication device linking the brain to soul central?
And how can one answer a question of whether you "operate with [your] brain"? Insofar as this locution makes any sense at all in ordinary language it refers to whether you are applying intelligence in some fashion to what you do or just running on autopilot, that is, behaving mindlessly, thoughtlessly, without any evidence of intelligent considerations.
But of course for you to be running at all the brain must be operating one way or another, whether you are on autopilot or not.
What would would it be like to not operate with your brain at all? Wouldn't you just have to be like some notion of a zombie or automaton, or a corpse inert on its slab or in the ground?
> > ...we can say persons become conscious upon awakening... None of this
> gets at how
> > brains produce consciousness
>
> Right! The task for the reductionist is to show "how" the brain
> neuro-chemstry produces.
Well that's part of Dehaene's project isn't it?
> Presently, we can show a correlation which
> means "production" can go in either direction, brain making me sad as I
> react to its shifting chemistry
You don't "react to its shifting chemistry"! This picture supposes you exist along side your brain, separate from it yet subject to input from it. But that isn't the picture being proposed at all though, if it's your picture, it's just one more evidence of your dualist presumption!
> or me making me happier by causing my
> brain to change its chemistry.
>
This way of speaking makes no sense to me.
> Of course, this is unforgiveable Dualism. So, get past it.
>
> bruce
>
But Bruce, the dualism here is all in your way of interpreting what is being said. The picture proposed by Dennett and shared by researchers like Dehaene is not susceptible to any of your peculiar interpretations all of which presume dualism. It seems that you cannot see their point without becoming trapped by the dualist picture, suggesting to you that there is something wrong. But the error lies in persistently misinterpreting what is being said, in being unable to see past the dualist idea that consciousness cannot be reduced to what isn't conscious itself.
SWM
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