On Fri, Dec 18, 2009 at 9:06 PM, J DeMouy <jpdemouy@rocketmail.com> wrote:

> Kirby,
>
> First, thanks for sharing this. I'd be very interested in a progress
> report as things develop.
>
> Second, could you specify more clearly the nature of the obstacles as you
> see them? I'm hearing a lot of intriguing ideas, but having difficulty
> figuring out precisely what you're seeking.
>
>
Here's a real situation that's happened more than once.

Lets imagine a short video clip (a composed scene):

<take_one>

A guest math teacher comes into the classroom.

She or he is prepared with a set of polyhedra into which liquid or dry
grains (sand, beans) might be poured.

She holds up the regular tetrahedron and says "this is my unit cup measure,
the cup I will use to fill these other mixing bowls" (we're extending the
cooking analogy). These "mixing bowls" are other polyhedra with one face
open, making them easy to pour into and out of.

She then has students come up in turn and start pouring colored water from
this unit cup (a tetrahedron) into the mixing bowls, filling them according
to various ratios (what this lesson is about). Other students might fill
out a volumes table on the white board. We'll take a discovery approach.

The unit cup fills the octahedron exactly 4 times, the cube 3 times, the
rhombic dodecahedron, a space-filler, 6 times...

Of course these definite numbers require specific proportions in edge
lengths as well -- more of what this lesson is about (this nested
arrangement of concentric polyhedra is what we call the "concentric
hierarchy" in some lesson plans).

</take_one>

<analysis>

In what way guest math teacher has disturbed an equilibrium?

Suppose there's not much follow-up in the rest of the curriculum. This was
some out of the blue, one shot deal and now it's over.

The case could be made that the guest has weakened the game of the host
teacher, who will have the same students tomorrow but is not prepared to
follow up or provide context.

Apparently this idea that volumes always need to be cubes is incorrect, but
what are the implications? The whole thing dead ends, unresolved.

Nothing in the text book mentions using the tetrahedron in this way.

The guest teacher is like a visitor from Mars, is talking about some alien
way of doing geometry that Earthlings simply do not do.

</analysis>

Alternatively, lets script this a whole different way.

Fast forward and take two:

no guest teacher, just the original teacher, newly equipped with a set of
lesson plans, all interconnecting.

Tomorrow's lesson will feature a whole hour on the rhombic dodecahedron,
with stories about Kepler (twas one of his favorites).

Its role as a space-filler in a lattice we wanna yak about, well known to
chemists as the FCC, will help tie us back to the lesson on the day before.
That cube of volume 3 (remember pouring water) was embedded in said
dodecahedron as face diagonals.

The Portland World Trade center uses the FCC lattice (connecting a dot --
place based education means consistently referring to local geometry,
wherever one is).

Yes, these used to be college topics, but with the Obama administration is
pumping stimulus money into making the USA education system more world
class, there's pressure to come up with something more worldly and world
class. More use of a computer programming language will be another feature.

Of course I'm not sure how familiar you are with adventures in math reform,
in the USA or anywhere else.

My goal in this thread is not to focus on money and politics so much as the
philosophical difficulties some teachers may have with these interesting new
lesson plans coming from various corners (e.g. Oregon).

> With those caveats, I'll offer some thoughts which may or may not be
> relevant.
>
> My suspicion is that any discussion of, e.g. the arbitrariness of grammar
> might be counterproductive, perhaps even becoming another skirmish in the
> "culture wars" where "liberals", "secularists", or whatever else you may be
> called are accused now of seeking to even undermine mathematics.
>
>
Yes. Your comments show me you're quite aware of how debates quickly
deteriorate away from any philosophical content.

People get into food fights backed by pseudo-science, with precisious little
logic or even rules of road for debating a topic (the media has encouraged
this).

Getting back to some elementary philosophy of mathematics: the picture I
paint is of sandcastles on the beach, each one an "axiomatic system" with
foundations holding up some superstructure of proved theorems.

However the sandy beach itself is "neutral" enough to host these multiple
sandcastles, i.e. at "the level below axioms" there's simply the "natural
grain" of ordinary language and reasoning. Nor do you need a full-fledge
sandcastle with formal axioms to get what we might call a mathematical
language game, a gizmo with tight rules, such as chess or Chinese checkers.

Philosophers sometimes like to construct and/or get inside axiomatic systems
(like sand castles), and that's more like being a theorizer. You might even
be a mathematician some days of the week, working on some project with
polytopes, in the lineage of Coxeter (a student of Wittgenstein's -- see
'The King of Infinite Space').

I think those practicing a more Wittgensteinian brand of philosophy are less
likely to see themselves as system builders than as system brokers, i.e.
people comfortable going between and among systems, finding the raw material
of philosophy (language games, rule following, forms of life) everywhere one
visits.

That's partly why I turn to Wittgensteinians here, as I think the situation
requires ambassadors or at least mediators between the sandcastles, offering
reassurance that collaboration, not enmity, is the name of the game.

This doesn't preducle friendly intramural competition, as in speech and
debate, athletic events -- traditional inter-school rivalry, rah rah
(sandcastle = school of thought, wrapping some formal or core system e.g. a
Euclidean geometry).

What seems more likely to persuade are demonstrations of consistency (or
> rather, relative consistency: consistency with Euclidean geometry and
> familiar systems of measure) and applicability (which your remarks seem to
> suggest are available).
>
> A Platonist who is troubled is a candidate for Wittgensteinian therapy.
> Someone who simply accepts Platonist-sounding assumptions without ever
> making them explicit let alone being troubled by them is likely not.
>
> But please elaborate if these observations completely miss the point. as I
> fear they very well may.
>
> JPDeMouy
>
>
Here's an excerpt from a recent exchange with a USA midwesterner. He is not
a classroom math teacher, and the midwest is not a target demographic for me
(because I'm not there), however I think his disquietude is characteristic
of what I'm up against even around Oregon:

[ If wanting to follow closely, this would best be understood by consulting
these pictures first:
http://www.rwgrayprojects.com/synergetics/s09/figs/f9001.html (Fig 990.01)
]

<exchange>

Midwesterner:

That's three 100s, one for each edge, right?

Kirby:

Yes. The grid of triangles inside (on the grid paper) are 100 x 100 in
number, just like with squares. We're getting all the right answers with our
triangles. Is this what Klingons use? No wonder their spaceships are weird.

Midwesterner:

Sorry, violates my excellent (highest grades of any class in g-school)
geometric sensibilities (and triggers my anticreationism alarms) : "100x100"
makes no sense as you use it above ("...just like with squares"). *Not*
"like with squares." With squares "100" is the number of divisions along one
edge, and "100" is the number along a second edge at right angles to it.
"100x100" is the number of little squares that this situation *creates*; it
is not the number(*) of squares one merely counts up, by putting finger on
little square and saying "one," then another and "two," and so on, which
*is* what you are doing when you say "100x100" is the number of little
triangles you made with your 100x100x100 edges.

It's either speciousness or that personally despised Sophistry for you to
above say "..are 100 x 100 in number,..." instead of saying "are 10000 in
number, just like with squares" (which would not have raised my 'Warning!:
Sophist at Work!' red flags).

<exchange>

You see he mentions I'm triggering his "anticreationism alarms" meaning I'm
coming across as a threat, am being protrayed as anti-scientific or somehow
assaulting rationality.

In the more local context, what's at issue here is a new Digital Mathematics
curriculum for Oregon, a course that will count towards the required three
years Oregon requires for its high school graduates.

Lots of people besides me are working on this (per planning meeting Aug 7)
and here I'm just looking at some of the more problematic puzzle pieces,
ones engendering the most disquietude.

We're expecting a surge into spatial geometry topics simply because we're
moving to bigger and brighter screens and our students already have well
developed spatial sensibilities. Also, some of the industries around here
would like students to have well-developed spatial imaginations for economic
reasons, so a win there as well.

Spatial geometry means more GIS/GPS, more Google Earth type stuff, but it
also means doing more with polyhedra, not resting content with just the
flatlander stuff (plane geometry, everything flat). Going spatial means
doing more with these lattices, such as CCP (FCC) -- also known as the
octet-truss in architecture.

"Lattices are like the 3D correlate of 2D tessellations, or tiling, and we
already do quite a bit with the latter." Saying that is reassuring to
teachers i.e. explaining "this is nothing new" seems to be the best way to
appeal to the conservative element -- math being one of the more
conservative of all disciplines.

So now a real question (one with time pressure behind it) is whether to
include or bleep over the "whole number volumes" lesson plan above, and
those that connect to it (lots of lessons about number sequences, sphere
packing, geodesic spheres, space frames, some virology and crystalography
etc.).

My camp says "yes, we should include them, to do otherwise is to deprive our
students of important mathematical heritage they'll likely need in their
future, could use right now today".

Some other camps say "no, it's too alien, rocks the boat, and is therefore
wrong to include" (e.g. more such passages from our midwesterner on request
-- he's thankfully verbose, gives plenty of insight into his thinking).

Others will be on the fence whereas still others aren't yet aware of any of
these issues, don't track curriculum concerns closely enough to really care.

Those who've been through earlier chapters involving swift innovation within
the curriculum (e.g. "New Math" in the 1960s) know it matters a lot how we
communicate with teachers on the front lines. Our goal is to empower them,
back them up, not weaken their game. Giving them better mathcasts to
project (better math cartoons) is at the top of my agenda.

So how might philosophy, Wittgenstein style, reduce the level of xenophobia
around somewhat alien content? We need to help math teachers integrate the
new material without too much stress and anxiety.

Some schools will go ahead with piloting and training teachers in this
material (I have some gigs scheduled), others will not. My challenge, given
the role I'm playing, is to increase acceptance by keeping philosophical
confusions to a minimum. I could probably use some coaching, take advantage
of more field experience. Just letting my peers know of this challenge is a
positive step.

Kirby

--
>>> from mars import math
http://www.wikieducator.org/Digital_Math

On Sat, Dec 19, 2009 at 12:15 PM, kirby urner <kirby.urner@gmail.com> wrote:

<< SNIP >>

>
> The Portland World Trade center uses the FCC lattice (connecting a dot --
> place based education means consistently referring to local geometry,
> wherever one is).
>
>
... "referring to local geography, wherever one is" I meant to say, though
these two (geometry and geography) are historically and conceptually
conjoined. **

To make all this more intelligible, the lesson plan below might be helpful.

http://www.wikieducator.org/Sample_MM_Lesson_Plan

You'll see a link to said Portland World Trade Center in the caption beneath
the unit-volume tetrahedron, made by 6th graders out of A-modules, four
years ago. Click on 'octet truss'.

You'll see Alexander Graham Bell was into this truss. As a scaffolding, it
divides space into tetrahedral and octahedral volumes, which have relative
volume 1:4. The unit volume tetrahedron "lives in this lattice" one might
say. We compare and contrast with the XYZ lattice (or coordinate system).

I think what some math teachers fear is we might wanna take XYZ away and
replace it with our truss.

That's a silly paranoia tracing to a weak philosophy of mathematics (would
be my analysis, judging by the midwesterner's writings, other sources).

Too many people far too easily fall into the trap of "either/or" thinking,
not guessing that "both/and" is truly an option. They give lip service to
"tolerance", but not in mathematics perhaps, which is "too close to home"?

Kirby

** re Columbia Gorge through history of photography:
http://worldgame.blogspot.com/2009/01/columbia-gorge-recent-history.html

Kirby,

Unfortunately, some people are asshats. And Wittgensteinian therapy is no cure for general asshattery. As I suggested before, the method is about dissolving confusions. But someone who does not believe that they are confused is unlikely to benefit. Unless of course one first sets out to lead them to a confused condition so that their own dogmas begin to cause them discomfort. (If we were bound by the Hippocratic oath, would this violate "first, do no harm"? The vaccine metaphor shared by Anna Boncampagni is suggestive here.) It seems that's not an option here. And really, asshats are more inclined to cover their ears and say, "la la la sophistry la la la I'm not listening," when beliefs are challenged in this way.

This does seem like more a matter of politics and diplomacy.

Still...

> Kirby:
>
> Yes. The grid of triangles inside (on the grid paper) are
> 100 x 100 in number, just like with squares. We're
> getting all the right answers with our triangles. Is this
> what Klingons use? No wonder their spaceships are weird.
>
>
>
> Midwesterner: 
>
> Sorry, violates my excellent (highest grades of any class
> in g-school) geometric sensibilities (and triggers my
> anticreationism alarms) : "100x100" makes no sense
> as you use it above ("...just like with squares").
> *Not* "like with squares." With squares
> "100" is the number of divisions along one edge,
> and "100" is the number along a second edge at
> right angles to it. "100x100" is the number of
> little squares that this situation *creates*; it is not the
> number(*) of squares one merely counts up, by putting finger
> on little square and saying "one," then another
> and "two," and so on, which *is* what you are
> doing when you say "100x100" is the number of
> little triangles you made with your 100x100x100 edges.
>
>
> It's either speciousness or that personally despised
> Sophistry for you to above say "..are 100 x 100 in
> number,..." instead of saying "are 10000 in
> number, just like with squares" (which would not have
> raised my 'Warning!: Sophist at Work!' red flags).

It seems to me that it is vital to emphasize from the outset the differences between the expressions, to warn the one must avoid equivocation between the two uses, because then the sense that some "sleight of hand" has taken place, that differences are being suppressed, is defused.

Pointing out the great similarities between the two expressions must be accompanied by a frank (even "excessive") emphasis on the differences.

That analogous transformations are possible, that there is comparable consistency between one usage and the other, is important. But glossing this as "just like" is needlessly contentious when the same points can be made without raising their hackles.

That "100 x 100" has the meaning it does with orthogonal measurements is merely a matter of the system we use. But that does not mean that we can speak of "merely using one system or another". One is entrenched and a part of a great many of our practices. The other is not, though it is no less consistent and may be quite useful.

And whether we understand them as thinking that the one usage is "absolutely the correct one" or more charitably as making the valid point that one is established and ties up with a great lot of what else we do doesn't much matter.

That one "creates" 10000 squares but the other merely counts up to 10000 triangles is a curious attitude. Is the latter supposed to be contingent? Might we count up another total on some later occasion?

A demonstration using conversion between the systems, proofs on one systems axioms in the other might address this peculiar attitude.

Also an analogy. "There are 10 kinds of people..." The validity of arithmetic on different bases is by now widely accepted, particularly with their relevance to computer science.

Making clear that transformations mustn't equivocate, using the analogy of binary, decimal, and hexadecimal notations, but also showing the equivalence through translation - not just that the transformations are analogous - might go a long way.

I'm sorry if this rambles and I hope it was some small help.

JPDeMouy

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Cayuse wrote:

>Joseph Polanik wrote:

>>Cayuse wrote:

>>>There is a stream of experience -- that much is, as Chalmers puts it,
>>>a "brute fact" --

>>there is not just one stream of experiences. the brute fact is that I
>>have my steam of experiences, you have a different stream of
>>experiences, your stream of experiences.

>Negative -- that is not a brute fact but a plausible supposition.
>A stream of experiences cannot be demonstrated by anybody to anybody.

you've previously said: "Given the conviction that there are streams of
experience other than the one in which this conviction appears, all such
streams of experience would, on the face of it, be different streams of
experience consisting of different experiences." [11/21/2009 11:34 AM]

have you changed your position about there being a different stream of
experiences associated with each person?

Joe

--

Nothing Unreal is Self-Aware

@^@~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~@^@
http://what-am-i.net
@^@~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~@^@

==========================================

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Joseph Polanik wrote:
> Cayuse wrote:
>> Joseph Polanik wrote:
>>> Cayuse wrote:
>>>> There is a stream of experience -- that much is, as Chalmers puts
>>>> it, a "brute fact" --
>
>>> there is not just one stream of experiences. the brute fact is that
>>> I have my steam of experiences, you have a different stream of
>>> experiences, your stream of experiences.
>
>> Negative -- that is not a brute fact but a plausible supposition.
>> A stream of experiences cannot be demonstrated by anybody to anybody.
>
> you've previously said: "Given the conviction that there are streams
> of experience other than the one in which this conviction appears,
> all such streams of experience would, on the face of it, be different
> streams of experience consisting of different experiences."
> [11/21/2009 11:34 AM]
>
> have you changed your position about there being a different stream of
> experiences associated with each person?

I believe both my statements to be consistent -- there is a *conviction*
that there are streams of experience other than the one in which this
conviction appears, and that it is a plausible *supposition* that there is
not just one stream of experiences. What it is *not* is a brute fact.

==========================================

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--- In Wittrs@yahoogroups.com, "SWM" <SWMirsky@...> wrote:

> In this, though, my assessment of the nature of the problem departs
from Searle
> who relies on the notion that we have to stop asking why at some
point.

My position. Given what it is for us to know, there are some questions
that can't be put in the "I know that..." format. Of course, there can
be no proof her. Psychologists call it "affirming the null hypothesis".
If you propose that there us a rat in the garage, and we look for it, at
some point all I can say "It is isn't to be found." But I can't proof it
ain't there.

More specifically, my position is NOT that there is no relationship
between brain and mind, but it isn't a causal relation. We can dig into
D's texts. I read "correlation." Not causation. As I have said numerous
times, this distinction is vital in my work with chronic illness.

> what produces the attraction that is gravity.

Can be addressed in physical theory...but neither can physical theory
address consciousness (unless you claim C is conscious under a different
guise, which I think you do when you turn to "process") nor can mental
events cause physical, without denying the basic tenets of physical
theory.

> Harnad obviously...thinks the "why" of physical causation of
consciousness ought to be answerable
> in the same fashion as we can answer other questions about the
workings of the physical universe

Yes. If it can't, we ought to figure out what's up.

> He wants to say that consciousness is a something in the universe in
the same way other familiar things are.

Right!. If it isn't what is it? Not a tangle produce! OK.

> ...If we can come to see how consciousness is computation-like...

I'm uncertain. Do you mean that we can talk about our mental life on the
analogy of a computer? That works for me. It also works for me to talk
about as if it were a computer. But how do we put these two computers
together?

> then there is no longer a struggle to understand how physical
processes can produce instances of experience.
> Computations are tasks performed by processes and processes are
physical in the end (if you dig deeply enough).

The way I see it. You've got yourself into thinking you know something
you can't know by using the term "process" for both mind and brain. But
what is the relationship between these two process??

> Consciousness, being a subject, having experience -- all of these
notions -- just looks like it MUST be fundamentally
> different from other things, from all that "stuff we encounter through
experience.

I'm not saying that C is a thing, different or the same. But that a
strict physiological account of GNW, that stays true to "how matter
works", can't play the mental language game. I think you agree. The two
games are radically different. But you want the mental game to be
causally dependent upon the physical. It is this causal dependency that
troubles me (because physical events are explained by cause-effect while
mental events are explained by reasons...so I agree..

> on the other we see in our everyday lives how we are limited by the
physical

Yes limited. But no two people get drunk in the same way although at the
brain level the alcohol is robbing the brain of oxygen.

I rather like the tone of this conversation. I've stayed with this
Thread because you "hold my feet to the fire." I'm much clearer, only to
myself perhaps, then a year ago.

bruce

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--- In Wittrs@yahoogroups.com, "BruceD" <blroadies@...> wrote:
>
>
<snip>

> my position is NOT that there is no relationship
> between brain and mind, but it isn't a causal relation. We can dig into
> D's texts. I read "correlation." Not causation. As I have said numerous
> times, this distinction is vital in my work with chronic illness.
>

As I said, we don't need to get hung up on a word. The concept I am aiming at is existential dependence, i.e., that something cannot exist unless something else does and that something else is all that's required. Thus the brain performing certain operations (working properly) becomes the cause or source or engenderer (or what have you) of what we recognize as consciousness.

Yes, we can argue about what we mean by "consciousness" (and have done so nearly forever as it seems now) but let's assume that we don't need to do that for the moment. Let's assume we agree that "consciousness" names like the subjective experience of being you (or me or anyone else with such an experience). Assuming that then the question is where does THAT come from? What IS it? And now we get to YOUR reluctance to say well it comes from my brain, while still granting, using other words ("correlation", etc.) that it does.

Now here we are arguing about words again, aren't we? But if you already agree, as you say you do, that Dehaene's research is good, useful, productive, then who cares if you feel better naming it research into correlations while I feel better naming it reasrech into causes?

Well there is an implication here that we ought to pay attention to. My use implies something for what can be done with it: Ways to fix "broken" brains or to develop synthetic brains (defined as physical platforms having the same behavioral capabilities as brains have). Your use, perhaps, doesn't carry that implication. And yet I can't imagine you saying that calling the relation a "correlation" precludes researchers like Dehaene from finding ways to fix damaged brains or even from building synthetic brains of other materials.

Perhaps you really WOULD say something like that but I don't get the sense that you are denying such scientific possibilities. In which case WHAT ARE WE REALLY ARGUING ABOUT? Perhaps only about some verbiage that may enable us to preserve or not preserve some limited sense of mystery that at least one of us feels more comfortable with?

After all, isn't it kind of nice at some point to be able to say, 'but humans are different'? We are somehow outside the rest of the physical universe and its seemingly mechanistic physical laws. We have free will. We rise above the physics. We are special.

So in the end perhaps all this sturm und drang comes down to different commitments driving us? And maybe that's all that the Wittgensteininan approach brings to the table, this recognition that in the end philosophy may really just be about ways of talking, ways of thinking about the same things we all accept on an everyday level in our lives!

> > what produces the attraction that is gravity.
>
> Can be addressed in physical theory...but neither can physical theory
> address consciousness (unless you claim C is conscious under a different
> guise, which I think you do when you turn to "process") nor can mental
> events cause physical, without denying the basic tenets of physical
> theory.
>

Well yes, I am claiming one can develop a perfectly sound scientific theory as to what consciousness is and how to get it BUT I AM NOT CLAIMING ONE DOES IT THROUGH PHILOSOPHY. I am saying, though, that philosophy does some work here, namely that of clearing the debris so that we can see what kinds of theories might make sense. (What kinds actually do make sense, in the end, though, what actually work, remain the work of science.)

> > Harnad obviously...thinks the "why" of physical causation of
> consciousness ought to be answerable
> > in the same fashion as we can answer other questions about the
> workings of the physical universe
>
> Yes. If it can't, we ought to figure out what's up.
>

Yes, we're apparently in agreement here. But you and I diverge from this point as we have seen.

> > He wants to say that consciousness is a something in the universe in
> the same way other familiar things are.
>
> Right!. If it isn't what is it? Not a tangle produce! OK.
>
> > ...If we can come to see how consciousness is computation-like...
>

> I'm uncertain. Do you mean that we can talk about our mental life on the
> analogy of a computer? That works for me. It also works for me to talk
> about as if it were a computer. But how do we put these two computers
> together?
>

Put them together? I don't see that. I am speaking of the idea that consciousness be understood as, at bottom, certain tasks, certain processes accomplishing certain things, i.e., algorithms. Computer programs are algorithms, as are any set of steps one may follow to achieve an end. The issue arises in whether we conceive of consciousness as some thing in the sense of it having some kind of tangible presence in the universe or as a thing in the way turning is a thing that some wheels do.

I am suggesting that consciousness can be understood as algorithmic in the way computer programs are, as process, without supposing that there is some finite thing to be singled out in the world as consciousness. It's a different conception of consciousness which allows for seeing how brains can be its cause (under certain conditions) and, thus, for grasping how we can say consciousness is a part of the physical universe but not, itself, a physical object (or like a physical object) in the universe.

Once understood in this way, there is no reason to think science cannot develop successful theories about what brings it about and sustains it, about what it is.

The ongoing argument seems to be about whether it makes any sense to think of it in this way or whether it must finally be 1) unintelligible to us (as you have explicitly suggested); or 2) something having a different form, a different quality, e.g., a mental something divorced from the physical world, even as it co-exists with that world -- in us and others (dualism, which I think some of your arguments tend to imply).

> > then there is no longer a struggle to understand how physical
> processes can produce instances of experience.
> > Computations are tasks performed by processes and processes are
> physical in the end (if you dig deeply enough).
>
> The way I see it. You've got yourself into thinking you know something
> you can't know by using the term "process" for both mind and brain. But
> what is the relationship between these two process??
>

Both are algorithms, even if they are performed by different equipment and even, perhaps, in different ways.

> > Consciousness, being a subject, having experience -- all of these
> notions -- just looks like it MUST be fundamentally
> > different from other things, from all that "stuff we encounter through
> experience.
>
> I'm not saying that C is a thing, different or the same. But that a
> strict physiological account of GNW, that stays true to "how matter
> works", can't play the mental language game. I think you agree. The two
> games are radically different.

Different, yes. But when talking about how something comes to be in the world the scientific language game (or games) applies. So in that sense it's the same game!

> But you want the mental game to be
> causally dependent upon the physical.

No, I see no reason so-called mental phenomena cannot be understood as being causally dependent on the physical. Either they are or they are independent and, if independent, they co-exist and if that, then we have a presumptive dualism. Do we need to presume dualism to explain the occurrence of subjectness? On your view we seem to, even if you don't want to acknowledge it. On my view we don't because an account in terms of processes (perhaps "algorithms" makes this clearer?) is enough. The work of Dehaene gives credence to this point of view.

> It is this causal dependency that
> troubles me (because physical events are explained by cause-effect while
> mental events are explained by reasons...so I agree..
>

Here you mix language game issues with descriptive issues in the scientific sense (which is within a single language game). That we speak differently about persons and motivations than about rocks and hurricanes doesn't mean we cannot understand brains and what they do as we understand rocks and hurricanes. As you, yourself, so often say, we don't typically ascribe feelings and motivations to brains! But that's just because THAT is a different game with a different field of play.

> > on the other we see in our everyday lives how we are limited by the
> physical
>
> Yes limited. But no two people get drunk in the same way although at the
> brain level the alcohol is robbing the brain of oxygen.
>

There is enough similarity to note when two people have been drinking, even if one holds his liquor better (greater tolerance, greater body mass, etc.).

> I rather like the tone of this conversation. I've stayed with this
> Thread because you "hold my feet to the fire." I'm much clearer, only to
> myself perhaps, then a year ago.
>
> bruce
>

Well I am, too, Bruce, even if you do test my thresholds at times!

SWM

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SWM & BD,

I'm not sure if either of you have read these before, but perhaps reviewing such general background material might make your discussions more fruitful.

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/consciousness/
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/mind-identity/

This might also help.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correlation_does_not_imply_causation

JPDeMouy

==========================================

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Thanks for the input but this is a very old debate between us reaching back through at least four lists including this one. It began, actually, on Wittgenstein-dialognet where Bruce and I were both posting and continued to Analytic (Borders of) which was a list created by various people from more traditional analytic schools of philosophy (Frege, Russell, early Wittgenstein, Quine, Kripke, etc.) for people who didn't quite fit THAT mold. Later we moved over to Analytic itself and continued there (which is where we "met" Sean).

Eventually I fell afoul of the main Analytic crew who found my self-avowed focus on a Wittgensteinian approach to be weasely, i.e., they felt I merely used the approach to avoid accepting being pinned down by some of their number via claims against my view that pivoted on questions of logic, e.g., the apparent contradiction to be found in asserting an "identity" claim (which my view often seems to be) while, at the same time insisting that I was not thereby claiming that having a certain thought was completely identical with a certain physical event.

There are nuances here, to be sure, but I don't think we need to go into them now. Suffice it to say that their view was that claiming ranges of meaning for words like "identity" was just a strategy I had adopted to avoid what they saw as the logical consequence of my claim, which often sounded like a claim of classical identity to them. (Note that this just one example as we also argued over the meanings of "cause", over whether there are qualia and if there are what the term means, over whether Dennett's model accounts for experience, etc.)

The breaking point on analytic came when one disputant claimed I had not done anything more than assert something I had said and I replied that I had shown it. Of course, I meant by that that I had offered an argument (given reasons to back up what I had claimed) but the moderator and several of his colleagues felt that that was especially weasely of me because they believed that if I hadn't convinced them, it was not "shown" and I was misrepresenting to say I had shown it when they said I hadn't.

When I explained that that was not the sense of "shown" I had in mind, the moderator informed me that he had decided to boot me from the list because I would not accept the consensus judgment that I was wrong. Presumably he meant about the "shown" issue but, in fact, I believe it was a much bigger issue than that. At around the same time Sean was setting up this list and, since I consider myself a sort of Wittgensteinian (though perhaps not just the same as ALL self-avowed Wittgensteinians), here I am.

Your effort to provide some background for Bruce and myself in this debate is laudable but, in fact, we have been over all of this before. Just reviewing the literature has not made the difference.

What can possibly make a difference? I have been wondering for a long time what it takes to convince anyone of anything. Not "convince" in the logical sense necessarily (though that would be included in the concept) but just to get them to say, ah yes, I see your point, I agree, etc., etc.

Sean has often suggested that debates like this are more about allegiances than questions of fact or logic and I, after prolonged discussions like this, am inclined to agree with him on that (though he and I disagree on many other things, e.g., the likening of Wittgenstein to a prophet).

I think that different allegiances certainly explains the ongoing disagreement where Bruce and I are concerned (though naturally I tend to think his allegiance obscures his clarity whereas mine stems from clarity -- but then I'm sure he sees it the other way).

In the end, what any of us happens to think ultimately boils down to seeing it, getting it, realizing it. It's about insight not argument. Even a logical argument is powerless unless the person to whom it is presented sees the implications of the premises in the context of how they are presented (how they are put together).

My debate with Bruce on the subject of consciousness comes down to arguing about the best way to understand the referent of the term "consciousness", i.e., how we use it to apply to what.

I have made the point that there are a number of ways we can conceive of consciousness, a number of things we can have in mind when we use the term. There is the idealist way, the dualist way, the physicalist way. There is also a way that affirms mystery, that says this is simply beyond our capacities to grasp. At various times Bruce has asserted this via a claim that it is "unintelligible" and others in the past have invoked a claim of "mysterianism" (which strikes me as the same point). I also happen to think that Bruce's view is informed by an implicit (unacknowledged) dualism but he denies it.

Note that I am arguing that consciousness CAN be understood in a way that is consistent with a physical understanding of the universe but not that this is PROOF that consciousness is physically derived (i.e., something else, say dualism, could still be true). Nor is mine an argument FOR a physicalist understanding of the universe. It is merely to say that consciousness is explainable in physical terms and it is not, therefore, required that we posit more about the universe than science or our everyday experience requires given our current state of knowledge. In that sense mine is a very minimalist argument.

Against this view, Bruce (along with many others) has argued that consciousness cannot be conceived that way because no explanation of it in such purely physical terms can ever make sense, given what we know about consciousness.

I think that's just wrong. And that is what we have been disputing here.

How does this fit into a Wittgensteinian approach? Well Wittgenstein DID talk about consciousness and mental pictures, etc. He didn't theorize about them in any formal way, of course, but he did not dismiss such talk and he did rely on it in making his own points. There is no reason to think he was concerned in any serious way with questions of whether minds are brain processes in some scientific sense or whether they can be synthesized by machines built to perform the same processes. But that doesn't mean that it's therefore out of bounds as a concern for others. Daniel Dennett, for instance, takes a great interest in this and he is a philosopher who acknowledges a great debt to Wittgenstein.

Insofar as the argument about consciousness becomes a metaphysical argument it would, of course, be something that a Wittgensteinian would want to dismiss as irrelevant to philosophical concerns. Insofar as it involves failing to see how we use our language in many different ways, it would be philosophically misguided. But that is not the case in this ongoing debate.

Both Bruce and I consider ourselves heavily influenced by Wittgenstein and acknowledge the potency of his insights. (Bruce has said so in the past and I have said so repeatedly.) So the issue here is NOT what the history of this dispute in philosophical circles has to tell us (though some past comments may be quite relevant and even useful -- and if you think some point made in the links you've offered is particularly relevant and helpful, please, by all means cite or direct us to them).

Rather the issue is at what point do Bruce and I (and others here who have embraced what I take to be the same kind of consciousness-as-stuff view Bruce has) find common ground -- if we ever do.

SWM

--- In Wittrs@yahoogroups.com, J DeMouy <wittrsamr@...> wrote:
>
> SWM & BD,
>
> I'm not sure if either of you have read these before, but perhaps reviewing such general background material might make your discussions more fruitful.
>
> http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/consciousness/
> http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/mind-identity/
>
> This might also help.
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correlation_does_not_imply_causation
>
> JPDeMouy

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