Joseph Polanik wrote:
> Cayuse wrote:
>> Joseph Polanik wrote:
>>> Cayuse wrote:
>> Any postulate of an "experiencer" is unjustified and without
>> application.
>>>> What is to be gained by postulating any such entity?
>
>>> there is no postulating. as I demonstrated, experience implies an
>>> experiencer --- unless, of course, you want to resume your attempted
>>> refutation of that claim.

You demonstrated only a propensity for bad logic.

>> The claim that "there is experience, therefore there is an
>> experiencer" is simply bad logic. I've no great desire to disabuse
>> you of your error,
>
> after trying mightily *and failing* to refute the proof that
> experiencing implies that there is something that is experiencing, you
> suddenly conclude that you have no great desire to disabuse me of my
> 'error'.

Bad logic is proof enough, and I have no interest in any view that
is grounded in bad logic. Nor do I have any interest in disabusing
anybody who is incapable of recognizing their bad logic
-- that would be a waste of my time.

>> which is as much to say as that I'm happy to agree to disagree in
>> order to avoid wasting any more time on this issue.
>
> it's not that simple. we are discussing the way in which 'philosophy
> can talk about the self'; but, it is not clear that you accept that
> there is a self that philosophers may talk about, a self or an 'I'
> that is not the human being, the human body or the human soul.
>
> do you?

I do -- it is the stream of experience, and not something that
in some inexplicable manner "experiences" that stream.

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On Dec 20, 12:01 pm, "J" <jpdem...@rocketmail.com> wrote:
> Kirby,
>
> My last post was badly expressed.
>

I think you were clear, and I'm encouraged you would spend some energy
on this thread.

You point out that a tabular arrangement of rows and columns is easy
to read, whereas a grid of triangles is less familiar, more
problematic, even if it provides a logically consistent model of
multiplying lengths to get area. In making the transition, one is
likely to slip up, make mistakes.

The tetrahedral model of 3rd powering is somewhat alien as well,
compared to the cubic.

This isn't a show stopper though, as reassurance is what we're after.

Our goal is to provide math teachers with a canonical arrangement of
nested polyhedra (our so-called concentric hierarchy), complete with
easy and memorable whole number volumes. This arrangement will crop
up in multiple lesson plans, will be applied in various contexts.

Here's another sneak peek at said volumes table (abridged):

rhombic dodecahedron (RD): VOL 6 (space-filling casements for closest
packed spheres)
octahedron: VOL 4 (RD's long face diagonals; dual of cube)
cube: VOL 3 (RD's short face diagonals; dual of octahedron)
tetrahedron: VOL 1 (face diagonals of the volume 3 cube; dual of
itself)

Is this too good to be true? Philosophical disquietude may attach to
this tetrahedral unit, our basis for these other measures. "Are we
really allowed to use that? What's the catch? Why haven't we seen
this before? What rules are we breaking?" We may have a need for
philosophy's cures, Wittgenstein's especially.

The above discursion regarding multiplication has an "under the hood"
flavor. Specific language games and elsewhere published RFM-style
diagrams show we have a logical basis for this triangles-based model,
even if most lesson plans focus elsewhere.

These low level grammatical details might come up in a philosophy
course at the university level, when math teachers are still in
training. However, a curious high schooler could easily motivate the
discussion, which is why it pays to be well prepared.

We wouldn't use Russell-Whitehead's Principia to prove 1 + 1 = 2 in an
everyday classroom, either.

If it's OK to have a unit volume tetrahedron, then we know how to go
on. This was more a quick glance over the shoulder, to make sure we
won't run afoul of some eternal principle only the Oxford dons know
about (or pick your preferred rarefied atmosphere).

> Let's try this.
>
> I see 81 pebbles arranged in a 9 x 9 array. (9 or some other number large enough that I cannot know their number by sight alone, as I obviously can with groups of around 5 or less)
>
> It is obvious to me that each row forms a group of the same arrangement (pebbles in a line) and obvious because of this arrangement that the members of each row can be correlated with the members of every other row, because the rows line up with one another. Likewise, with columns.
>
> I could also arrange the pebbles into a triangular "array". And having 9 pebbles along one edge and 9 along the other would demonstrate that there are 81 pebbles. I do not dispute this.
>
> (But note the temptation to make a 4 x 4 triangular "array" having only 10 members rather than 16! Think of bowling pins, a tetractys. This obviously does not correspond to what we're meant to be doing here.)

Yes. Our focus is less on the corners or crossings (the pebbles) and
more on the tiles, the spaces. A triangle with n intervals along each
edge may be subdivided into "n-squared" similar triangles simply by
connecting corresponding tic marks with parallel lines, creating a
grid.

But then is "n-squared" appropriate terminology here? We're working
with n x n triangles. One could say "n-triangled" or "n to the 2nd
power" instead. The objective is not to therefore forsake squaring,
only to show that "squaring" and "2nd powering" may be logically
decoupled, likewise "3rd powering" and "cubing".

We're making room for a competing alternative, where there had been a
monopoly. Our motivation is to have these simple whole number volumes,
beginning with a unit tetrahedron. A tetrahedron is topologically
simpler than a cube (fewer edges, faces), is called a simplex in some
math texts, is the simplest polyhedron. So why not make it a unit of
volume in some (not all) lesson plans? Is there some logical,
foundational, mathematical reason we can't do this?

>
> But what is "grouping" here? And what is "correlation" here? It is not at all obvious to me how this should be done.
>
> What we do with these pictures, not just counting and calculating and measuring but also grouping and correlating, are all tied up with our concept of multiplication.
>
> I am not saying that one picture is "correct". Only making a contrast in the different ways the pictures can be used.
>
> JPDeMouy
>

Yes, you're defending the practicality of our rectilinear 90-degree-
based conventions. I have no objection, provided we're free to
establish / explore a logically permitted alternative in some
lessons. We want to keep using that concentric hierarchy with its
volumes table.

Therefore we need to reassure math teachers, on philosophical grounds,
that it's not an either/or proposition but a both/and one.
Mathematics has room for both these camps, and many more besides.

Mathematics is more free and open than some students might guess.
Jiggering with Euclid's 5th postulate has been for some time another
exhibit of permitted freedoms. Here we have another way to open that
door.

There's a duckrabbit aspect to this going back and forth between
alternative paradigms (grammars, namespaces). One challenge is to
keep the gear-shifting experience smooth and trouble free.

I thank you again for your assistance.

Kirby
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On Dec 19, 2:41 pm, J DeMouy <jpdem...@rocketmail.com> wrote:

> 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.
>

Yes, your insights are on target.

There's a definite and strong contrast between a conventional 90-
degree-based practice, deeply entrenched, and a more novel late
arrival or newcomer to the scene, more 60-degree based.

It would be counter-productive to try converging these starkly
contrasting approaches into some kind of hodgepodge, pretending the
differences are of little consequence.

On the contrary, given the 60-degree-based approach seems more alien
and unfamiliar, we need to capitalize on its novelty. The idea of
"something new under the sun" at so accessible a level is a feature,
not a bug, as we say in the IT business.

> 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.  
>

You're saying we want to avoid provoking a defensive reaction among
our teachers, and I think that's right.

One approach is to suggest that brief forays into this more alien
content helps stabilize student understanding of the conventional
content. We're getting into empirical, measurable questions here, as
to whether that's true or not. An analogy: wrapping one's brain
around Linux leaves one feeling stronger and more competent in Windows
as well.

Notice I say "brief" as another quasi-truism (recalling an earlier
thread) is that effective learning experiences needn't be long, drawn
out affairs.

> 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 hearken back to Wittgenstein and his imagery in giving this picture
a more anthropological spin, going back to his "tribes" motif.

Tribes with language games, forms of life. Here we've got the
dominant cubists and I tiny ethnic minority (like gypsies) with a
somewhat counter-intuitive alternative, one that seems to hold water.

Yes, there's even a conversion constant for use between tribes (but do
they agree on it? -- more philosophical perplexities), a number
slightly greater than 1 (specified to any number of decimal points).

This derives from how a cube's volume would be expressed by a delegate
from each tribe, upon being confronted with a set of length measures.
One would say "sqrt(2) cubed" whereas the other would say "three". So
that gives you a ratio. This would make a fun skit on Youtube. More
details any time.

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

Truly helpful sir, I kid you not. My need is sincere and most people
are preoccupied by other concerns. I also think a Wittgensteinian
approach is especially apropos as there's a strong sense of knots in
need of unraveling, resolution through some assembling of reminders.

To further reader interest, perhaps attract additional players:
here's an old color poster showing how, once you have your unit
tetrahedron, you can start slicing and dicing to get these other
shapes and their volumes (imagine the corresponding animations).

Although the wording seems quirky (archaic?), the visuals themselves
make enough sense, i.e. some semblance of familiarity has returned.
This looks like something we could get used to, as long as we're
allowed to keep using all our squares and cubes based tools without
interruption.

http://www.rwgrayprojects.com/synergetics/plates/figs/plate03z.html

Ideally we get to a "best of both worlds" equilibrium wherein neither
"camp" feels defensive. Rather, there's a shared desire to form an
alliance and get on with the business at hand (such as providing a
timely, relevant digital math course at the high school level).

Kirby

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

>
> --- In Wittrs@yahoogroups.com, "SWM" <SWMirsky@> wrote:
>
> > What can possibly make a difference? I have been wondering for a long
> time what it takes to convince anyone of anything.
>
> As I've suggested earlier, though I would love for you to change your
> mind and credit me for getting you to see the light (The Henry Fonda
> character in 12 Angry men), changing your mind is not on my agenda.
> Changing my mind is.

If as you say to J you would be reluctant to enter this debate if you weren't already in it, I would just note there is nothing to keep you in it. I only reply on the subject when you raise issues I think warrant a reply (though sometimes I do find myself repeating myself -- but that seems to come with the territory of this kind of debate). But really, there's nothing to argue about if you don't care about convincing me.

The point of any discussion like this is to make a case for what we hold. If we are right we ought to be able to make that case, whether others see it (are convinced) or not. I believe I have made that case while still acknowledging you remain unconvinced (though you seem to say the same things over and over again in response, ignoring points I think I have made effectively and definitively.

Perhaps we never make these points for any but ourselves in the end, though. Unlike law where one works to convince a judge and a jury or debating societies where one aims to convince a panel of expert judges, philosophical debate in the end is about understanding. If only one person in the world gets that understanding that is enough, even if we find ourselves all alone in the court of public opinion. Understanding, in the end, is an individual matter.

Now in science, it's not just about understanding though it isn't about agreement either. Science (and other academic disciplines (including academic philosophy) do indulge in peer review exercises. But that is at best a flawed mechanism for determining what is the case. At different times in human history the majority of one's peers thought the world was flat, the center of the universe, etc.

> That is to say, I've found that you have forced me
> to be clearer and clear, at least by my lights, and for that I'm
> gratefu;.
>

Well, yes, I say the same. I have reached a stage in these arguments where I think I can state more clearly the position I've come to hold and that is certainly do to having to deal with your arguments (and that of others, including some of those over on Analytic who, while I thought rather intolerant and high-handed with regard to certain approaches, in some cases to Wittgenstein, too, were still an intelligent and sharp minded group).

> > Sean has often suggested that debates like this are more about
> allegiances
>
> Yes. And we need to sharpen "allegiance to what?"

Do we need to sharpen our allegiances at all? Isn't the issue better put as seeing the role allegiance plays in these kinds of discussions and how it so often obscures understanding? If philosophy is about enhancing understanding, then the competition of allegiances must work against that.

> Oversimplification:
> You start with the physical and try so say how it yields mind, etc.,
> while I start with the person making sense out of his world. I can't
> wrap my mind around the proposition that the world I make sense of, in
> part, that is, the physical, caused me to make sense. No way can I cause
> you to change your mind.
>

Definitely an oversimplification since, chronologically, I started with a sympathy for Searle's idea that consciousness cannot be reduced to algorithmic processes and only moved away from that as I saw errors in his argument (starting with his initial Chinese Room Argument). The issue I had to grapple with was how it could make sense that consciousness was existentially dependent on a physical platform (brains) and yet seem to be entirely different from anything physical. Admittedly it seems odd, a great challenge. But Searle's errors actually pointed the way for me. First I had to see why he was in error, why his argument's conclusion wasn't true when it looked so obviously to be true.

Insofar as you can't "wrap (your) mind around" it you are, as far as I can see, where I was when Searle's argument seemed to be true to me. It just looked like it must be the case. How could computer operations, how could programming possibly have the same features that we recognize in ourselves as features of being conscious? But once you see the errors Searle has made, the Searlean magic dissipates.

> > 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.
>
> Agreed.
> >

> > 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.
>

> And you know that I reject all of the them, including the mysterian. But
> you are not clear about my arguments.

That may be. While you do not acknowledge being a "mysterian" as Walter terms himself, I am suggesting that a claim of "unintelligibility" is tantamount to the same thing. I have also noted, numerous times, that the reason you see "unintelligibility", the reason you cannot "wrap (your) mind around" this idea is because you are still holding an implicitly dualist notion of mind. IF MIND IS A SEPARATE THING IN TERMS OF WHAT IT IS MADE OF, IF IT IS NOT PHYSICAL IN ANY SENSE, THEN ONE CANNOT SEE HOW THE TWO THINGS (MINDS AND PHYSICAL THINGS) CO-EXIST IN AN ENTIRELY PHYSICAL WORLD. THEREFORE IF ONE IS NOT PREPARED TO AFFIRMATIVELY AND EXPLICITLY ASSERT DUALISM ONE HAS NO OTHER CHOICE THAN TO SAY IT'S IMPOSSIBLE TO EVEN TALK ABOUT THIS.

Of course, I dispute that assertion of unintelligibility for all the reasons already given.

> Also, my view, Emergence, somehow
> can't get a footing in your thought. You think that it is version of
> mysterian. But it ain't. Because I'm not saying that there is something
> we cannot know. I'm saying that the relationship between mind and brain
> is not to be grasped in any sense of causal.
>

Insofar as all you mean by emergence is that something like the feature of wetness in water is an emergent property of water's more basic atomic constituents, we are on the same page. I just call it "causation" (with Searle) and you call it emergence. As I have often said, the word we use is unimportant. What is important is what we mean.

But if you mean something else by "emergence" then you have to explain it. It's not enough just to say the word. (I suspect you are okay with the water example but then we don't really have a dispute about anything more than the choice of word we use to name the concept.)

> > it is merely to say that consciousness is explainable in physical
> terms
>
> Which you know I can't accept because every explanation of C is in
> non-physical terms.

No, every explanation at a certain level would be (e.g., we talk about why we did this instead of that, etc.). But that is to say nothing about scientific explanations regarding the brain's role in why we believed certain things, felt certain things, operated with in a certain context of ideas, etc.

You recognize correlation only but the point of a correlation is to get at what is the cause, not merely what happens along with. If the latter is all that correlation denotes in this case, then you are again on the side of dualism, i.e., brains and mind happen in parallel.

> But you hold to physical causation. Giving up the
> rest. But I think. If my experience of the day was caused by my brain,
> where am I in the process.
>
> bruce

The same place you always were. You are the product of certain physical factors, including the occurrence of a certain mass of cells including those that make up the brain in your skull, the certain set of experiences those cells have logged and reacted to, etc.

SWM

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--- In Wittrs@yahoogroups.com, "BruceD" <blroadies@...> wrote:
>
> 9.4 Neural theories
> Neural theories of consciousness come in many forms, though most in some
> way concern the so called "neural correlates of consciousness"
> or NCCs. Unless one is a dualist or other non-physicalist, more than
> mere correlation is required;
>
> (Yes, one must show causation. And how to do that?)
>

> > An explanatory neural theory needs to explain why or how the relevant
> correlations exist,

> (Yes, how does one map the correlation. A C-fiber fires and some people
> say "ouch", others nothing, and yet others start talking about a past
> foot surgery.)

Dehaene shows the way one begins to do that. His theory is not that there is a firing in neuron N and that THAT is the instance of consciousness. His point is that he is explaining consciousness (including its constitutive instances) as a global event, when many different events, performing many different functions, work together, communicating and affecting each other. Why do you think one has to find a particular localized event that is the conscious moment or the stream of such moments? Isn't that to imagine that consciousness is something tangible like other things that have that level of specificity in space?

>
>
>
> Such theories are diverse not only in the neural processes or properties
> to which they appeal but also in the aspects of consciousness they take
> as their respective explananda. Some are based on high-level systemic
> features of the brain, but others focus on more specific physiological
> or structural properties, with corresponding differences in their
> intended explanatory targets.
>
> (That seems to evade the issue of causation)
>
>

Why? Are you clear on "causation" here? Aren't you still looking for the eight-ball-in-the-side pocket kind of causation?

> A sampling of recent neural theories might include models that appeal to
> global integrated fields (Kinsbourne), binding through synchronous
> oscillation (Singer 1999, Crick and Koch 1990), NMDA-mediated transient
> neural assemblies...
>
> (Wonderful neurological account, but does have to with mind. Do the
> global-integrated fields "cause" consciousness (which sounds Dualistic)

Why? What is dualistic about an idea that consciousness is the result of such activity? Is it dualistic to say that wetness in water is caused by the activity of masses of water molecules on the atomic level under certain conditions?

Isn't the dualism you purport to see here just a function of your own inability to shake a picture that consciousness must be another thing on a par with things that have spatio-temporal dimensionality?

> are the GIF identical with. If identical, in what sense.

The two-sides-of-the-same-coin sense as I have mentioned numerous times. That is NOT identical as in X=X, not logical identity (or indiscernbillity identity as Joe has preferred to put it). Is wetness identical with water's molecular constituents? No. But we could say it's identical with the behavior of those molecular constituents under certain conditions. Still, you wouldn't find the feature we recognize as wetness if you could shrink down to the atomic level and observe that behavior! So in another sense it is not identical. What you might see, instead, is whirling masses of eneergy or atomic collisions, etc. The observed feature at the different levels aren't the same but they are the same phenomenon. That is the two observational positions yield two different observations, two aspects of the same thing.

> The evening
> star morning star are identical because they refer to the same object.)
>

That is the case of logical identity discovered empirically. However, the observation is the same though the times of observation differ.

>
> Global fields or transient synchronous assemblies could underlie the
> intentional unity of phenomenal consciousness.
>
> ("Underlie" means what?

Be the underlying phenomenon which is observed at one level as instances of being conscious.

> Do my hands underlie my piano playing?

Why liken the idea of synchronous activity in the brain to the use of your hands to play piano? What kind of point is made? No one would ever say your hands underlie your piano playing. "Underlie" just isn't used that way. But it's not used in a myriad of other ways either. Just because it isn't doesn't mean that it can't be used as the text you quoted uses it.

> Wouldn't
> it maker more sense to say that I use the GF when I'm in a intentional
> frame of mind?)
>

Why would it make sense to say YOU use the global field if you are just the global field in operation which is the point of the claim. Do you use your mind or your brain to be you? How would the you be anything if it wasn't already there to use something? And if brains are the source of our mental lives then how can we use them to have mental lives? Where are we then?

>
> Thus it is possible for multiple distinct neural theories to all be
> true, with each contributing some partial understanding of the links
> between conscious mentality in its diverse forms and the active brain at
> its many levels of complex organization and structure.
>
> (The "link" between brain and mind. That's the question.
>
>
>
>
> bruce
>

Which you keep raising with an apparent intention to keep it unanswered. But your uses of language go off the rails when you try.

SWM

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--- In Wittrs@yahoogroups.com, Joseph Polanik <jPolanik@...> wrote:
>
> Oh! So It's Common Ground You Want?
>
<snip>

> I don't think that you and Bruce will ever find a common ground upon
> which to stand until you establish a common language within which to
> carry on the debate about what is or isn't common ground.
>

> my suggestion is that we all agree to speak in the language of
> correlation (between the experiencable and the measurable (or some
> other pair of terms)) rather than in the language of causation ---
> unless actually engaged in presenting an argument showing that there is
> causation involved.
>

All claims of causation are grounded in observations. We never see causation per se. We presume causation under certain conditions. Plus we use "cause" in a number of different ways. I have indicated how I use it but that I am prepared to use some other term numerous times as long as the concept is the same as what I have in mind.

> the sad truth is, Stuart, that science can only establish that there is
> a correlation between experiencable phenomena and measurable phenomena.
>

See above.

> to establish that a correlation between experiencable phenomena and
> measurable phenomena means that the measurable phenomena causes the
> experiencable phenomena, you need to prove or assume that the
> experiencable phenomena can't have a causal impact on the measurable
> phenomena; and, that there is no non-physical causal influence operating
> --- not even as a contributing factor.
>

We don't assume non-physical factors in explaining the physical universe. If consciousness is a product of brains it is a product of the physical. So why assume some additional factor in this case alone?

> since you purport to be open to considering that dualism might be true,
> you really out to stop using language that assumes that dualism is
> false; and, if you are really interested in finding common ground among
> the various disputants --- here's a good place to start.
>

I accept physicalism de facto, without feeling a need to argue for it, because all the evidence seems to make it the best theory around. The issue is whether the existence of minds constitutes evidence to the contrary. If minds can be explained as physically derived then there is no prima facie reason to think they constitute such evidence. Why suppose dualism to be true if there's no need to and no evidence suggesting we should?

SWM

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--- In Wittrs@yahoogroups.com, Joseph Polanik <jPolanik@...> wrote:
>
> Oh! So It's Common Ground You Want?

<snip>

>
> I don't think that you and Bruce will ever find a common ground upon
> which to stand until you establish a common language within which to
> carry on the debate about what is or isn't common ground.
>
> my suggestion is that we all agree to speak in the language of
> correlation (between the experiencable and the measurable (or some
> other pair of terms)) rather than in the language of causation ---
> unless actually engaged in presenting an argument showing that there is
> causation involved.
>
> the sad truth is, Stuart, that science can only establish that there is
> a correlation between experiencable phenomena and measurable phenomena.

I was rushed before and so could not give this a fuller response. But now that I'm back and have a bit of time (which I probably should be applying elsewhere but which I'd rather apply here for now!) I can add a bit more. In a very real sense, we can never see causes anywhere. What we see are coincident events. One of the ways we have of describing some of these is by invoking the notion of causation, i.e., that one thing brings about the other. What this means is that we are assuming (perhaps presuming) that there are no other events that we missed (failed to observe or otherwise be apprised of) that are also necessary to the occurrence of the follow-on event.

Of course we can always presume there are other factors we are missing. The rock formed as a result of geological forces but someone might want to say well God formed it because God is the source or author of those geological forces, etc. But we, as human beings, have learned that most explanations, including ascriptions of causation, are best (read most adequately) accounted for by not supposing added causes (that is by not adding further necessary preexisting conditions or events or event sources than the evidence of observation provides).

On such a view science may not be able to do more than discover a correlation between some brain event and some experience (reported or, perhaps, subjectively "observed"), true, but then science cannot do more than that with anything. All it can do is note that everytime I pour liquid X into this beaker and heat it, reaction (event) Y occurs.

As Hume pointed out a long time ago, how do we know that that will also happen the next time? We don't. We presume it because that is part of how we see things, how we explain things. It's an aspect of the structure in which we come to understand things. And sometimes (indeed rather frequently) it works, but we can never be sure it will always work and, what's more, sometimes we get it wrong (e.g., when our information about the events being described isn't complete or is less complete than, perhaps, it might ideally be).

So does this mean that there is a special problem for science in accounting for the apparently existentially dependent relation of minds on brains in us?

Why should it? What special problem is here that isn't to be found anywhere else in the domain of science?

Well, perhaps it's that we don't have enough information, that something about the question of what consciousness is is just excluded from our apprehension? In the case of the eight ball in the side pocket, we can see all the elements (except the causal relation, itself, of course) and so can presume the cause is there. As Bruce likes to say, he can see the cue stick and the cue ball and the eight ball and the trajectories of the balls, when in motion, and where the trajectory finally takes our eight ball. Bruce and the rest of us can also see the pool player who wields the cue stick, etc. But, Bruce says, he cannot see the mental phenomenon the way he can see the eight ball rolling along and plopping into that side pocket (or wherever it's been sent to).

In your lexicon, Joe, the experience isn't available to the objective observer, the way the movement of the eight ball is, even if it is available to the subject of the experience, the experiencer.

So we cannot see causes in any event, even if we presume causes and causation and are comfortable with this in some contexts. But where minds are concerned, we cannot see what is caused in the particular area of concern we are addressing here per you and Bruce.

But is that really true?

After all, as subjects, we can have experiences and, in having them, we do "see" them in the sense that seeing is just "observing". Well, of course observing something going on in ourselves isn't the same as observing something in a public context, e.g., the sun coming up or any of a myriad of other publicly observable phenomena. On the one hand we could be wrong about what we "observe" in ourselves subjectively, deceived, because there is no objective standard to compare it to, no one to say, by golly you're right, I see it, too. Thus Wittgenstein's private language point. How can we speak a language when there are no standards external to us to give us reference points? But still, what could be more certain than what each of us happens to experience? I may be deceived about lots of things going on about me but I can't be deceived that I am aware of something going on, even if it is only that I am aware of being aware (the old Cartesian point, of course).

In a very basic and quite ordinary sense, we can observe what is happening in ourselves, questions of levels of veridicality apart. I know, for instance, that alcohol makes me feel high (when it does) and, if imbibed too heavily it causes me to lose track of things going on around me, to become less aware of aspects of my environment, to respond inappropriately and, if really taken in heavy quantities, to make me feel sick, nauseous, to throw up. I also know, from recall that it leaves me with a miserable headache in the morning. Thus I know that some physical factors cause mental events which I have and which I cannot control. So I know that what I experience is at least in some cases physically caused.

Similarly, one can envision all sorts of experiments where physical changes can result in observable mental changes in ourselves. (If I do this to you, what do you feel, etc.?) We can also observe changes in others who report mental phenomena (and behave as they would if they had such phenomena).

So experiental phenomena ARE observable in the way science needs them to be in order to study how physical factors relate to them.

There is no reason to think that what is experienced isn't measureable or that experiences differ from the phenomena we can measure because they are observable.

Different criteria of measuring may obtain but the distinction you want to draw, between what is measureable and what is experienceable just doesn't stand up.

>
> to establish that a correlation between experiencable phenomena and
> measurable phenomena means that the measurable phenomena causes the
> experiencable phenomena, you need to prove or assume that the
> experiencable phenomena can't have a causal impact on the measurable
> phenomena; and, that there is no non-physical causal influence operating
> --- not even as a contributing factor.
>

Do we need to prove that God isn't responsible for the world as we find it in order to demonstrate that the world itself evidences causal relations between two or more instances of observable phenomena?

> since you purport to be open to considering that dualism might be true,
> you really out to stop using language that assumes that dualism is
> false;

Why?

Do I also need to stop using language that assumes idealism is false? Or mysterianism is false?

We have to use some set of words when we say anything. That doesn't mean we are shutting out alternative possibilities.

For instance, if a ghost suddenly appeared to me and informed me he was the spirit of someone I knew, now dead, and could demonstrate to me enough evidence of this to convince me here was, indeed, a disembodied spirit (I'd need to be assured that there was no likelihood of my being victim of some hoax or that I wasn't in a delusory state, which might be hard if I was, of course!), then I would have to say here is evidence that the world is different than I have conceived of it until now.

Under such a circumstance I would change the way I describe things and my vocabulary would also start to change. The fact that I had previously spoken in a way that indicated I accepted there were no disembodied spirits and that this was not a serious possibility in the world as I thought I knew it, would not necessarily preclude my changing my mind.

But why should I change my mind absent such evidence? Why not just stick with the historically successful approach that we don't need to posit extra stuff if a leaner explanation will do?

> and, if you are really interested in finding common ground among
> the various disputants --- here's a good place to start.
>
> Joe

Finding common ground doesn't mean simply accepting the others' views. I think there is room for common ground with Bruce because what he seems to want to call "identity" I call "causal" but I can accept the other use readily enough. What holds me back from sim;y embracing his use is the concern that his notion of "identity" implies certain things that I take to be mistaken about my notion of identity in this case, namely the idea that by "identity" we must mean the logical kind (A=A). Since THAT is not what I mean, accepting that term will lead to further dispute and confusion. The common ground I have in mind is where we come to recognize that we share a meaning for a common term, e.g., "identity".

Given your fairly strong and explicit commitment to Cartesian dualism, I'm not sure there is room for us to find common ground though. Perhaps it may be in this: That we each agree that dualism is not impossible and that there could be some kind of evidence for it. Our current difference seems to be that you think it can be argued for successfully via logic, with everything else in the world remaining just as modern science tells us it is and I do not. In fact, I see no point in arguing about something for which evidence is not held to be relevant. But give me the right evidence and I would agree even to dualism.

Is that common enough ground do you think?

SWM

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