Messages In This Digest (13
Messages)
Messages
- 1.1.
-
Sat Dec 26, 2009 3:06 am (PST)
Cayuse wrote:
>Joseph Polanik wrote:
>>there are only three claims
>>[1] as we have been using them, the terms 'the stream of experiences' ,
>>'the philosophical self', 'instantiation of consciousness' and 'the
>>microcosm' are synonymous.
>>[2] LW wrote "I am my world (the microcosm)". TLP 5.63.
>>[3] (hence) for LW, the philosophical self is capable of first-person
>>self-referencing.
>Claim [3] is the non-obvious claim -- you'll have to clarify your
>interpretation of LW's comment in order to support that claim.
>>in TLP 5.63, the parenthetical _expression_, 'the microcosm' explains or
>>specifies what is meant by 'my world'.
>>since 'stream of experiences' and 'microcosm' are synonymous, one
>>could explicitly translate TLP 5.63 as 'I am this stream of
>>experiences' .
>Agreed, but how does this become your claim [3] above?
because 'the stream of experiences' and 'the philosophical self' are
synonymous terms, if 'I am this stream of experiences' is true; then, it
follows that 'I am this (instance of a) philosophical self' is also
true. do you agree?
Joe
--
Nothing Unreal is Self-Aware
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- 1.2.
-
Sat Dec 26, 2009 5:05 am (PST)
Joseph Polanik wrote:
> Cayuse wrote:
>> Joseph Polanik wrote:
>>> [3] (hence) for LW, the philosophical self is capable of
>>> first-person self-referencing.
<snip>
>>> since 'stream of experiences' and 'microcosm' are synonymous,
>>> one could explicitly translate TLP 5.63 as 'I am this stream of
>>> experiences' .
>
>> Agreed, but how does this become your claim [3] above?
>
> because 'the stream of experiences' and 'the philosophical self' are
> synonymous terms, if 'I am this stream of experiences' is true; then,
> it follows that 'I am this (instance of a) philosophical self' is also
> true. do you agree?
Yes, with the exception of the parenthetical text (which implies
an unnecessary nonsensical and application- free additional claim).
But how does the claim that "I am this philosophical self" become
your claim[3] above -- i.e. that the stream of experiences,
the philosophical self, has "capabilities" by virtue of which
it "takes the action" of *making* first-person references?
This seems to be another unnecessary nonsensical and
application- free additional claim, over and above the
incontrovertible claim that the stream of experiences
*encompasses* the experience of first-person language use.
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- 1.3.
-
Sat Dec 26, 2009 6:35 am (PST)
Cayuse wrote:
>Joseph Polanik wrote:
>>Cayuse wrote:
>>>Joseph Polanik wrote:
>>>>[3] (hence) for LW, the philosophical self is capable of
>>>>first-person self-referencing.
>>>>since 'stream of experiences' and 'microcosm' are synonymous, one
>>>>could explicitly translate TLP 5.63 as 'I am this stream of
>>>>experiences' .
>>>Agreed, but how does this become your claim [3] above?
>>because 'the stream of experiences' and 'the philosophical self' are
>>synonymous terms, if 'I am this stream of experiences' is true; then,
>>it follows that 'I am this (instance of a) philosophical self' is also
>>true. do you agree?
>Yes, with the exception of the parenthetical text (which implies an
>unnecessary nonsensical and application- free additional claim). But how
>does the claim that "I am this philosophical self" become your claim
>[3] above -- i.e. that the stream of experiences, the philosophical
>self, has "capabilities" by virtue of which it "takes the action" of
>*making* first-person references? This seems to be another unnecessary
>nonsensical and application- free additional claim, over and above the
>incontrovertible claim that the stream of experiences *encompasses*
>the experience of first-person language use.
if this philosophical self that I am states "I am this philosophical
self"; then, I am self-referencing.
do you agree?
Joe
--
Nothing Unreal is Self-Aware
@^@~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~@ ^@
http://what-am-i.net
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- 1.4.
-
Sat Dec 26, 2009 7:13 am (PST)
>
> because 'the stream of experiences' and 'the philosophical self' are
> synonymous terms, if 'I am this stream of experiences' is true; then, it
> follows that 'I am this (instance of a) philosophical self' is also
> true. do you agree?
>
> Joe
>
> Wilson's work is based on the assumption that people are not always aware of why they feel the way they do. Bem's self-perception theory[42] makes a similar assumption. The theory is concerned with how people explain their behavior. It argues that people don't always know why they do what they do. When this occurs, they infer the causes of their behavior by analyzing their behavior in the context in which it occurred. Outside observers of the behavior would reach a similar conclusion as the individual performing it. The individuals then draw logical conclusions about why they behaved as they did.
"Individuals come to "know" their own attitudes, emotions, and other internal states partially by inferring them from observations of their own overt behavior and/or the circumstances in which this behavior occurs. Thus, to the extent that internal cues are weak, ambiguous, or uninterpretable, the individual is functionally in the same position as an outside observer, an observer who must necessarily rely upon those same external cues to infer the individual's inner states." (Bem, 1972, p.2)
The theory has been applied to a wide range of phenomena. Under particular conditions, people have been shown to infer their attitudes,[43] emotions,[44] and motives,[45] in the same manner described by the theory.
Similar to introspection, but with an important difference: with introspection we directly examine our attitudes, feelings and motives. With self-perception processes we indirectly infer our attitudes, feelings, and motives by analyzing our behavior.
Golden Dictionary
thank you
sekhar
> --
>
> Nothing Unreal is Self-Aware
>
> @^@~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~@ ^@
> http://what-am-i.net
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>
>
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- 1.5.
-
Sat Dec 26, 2009 11:52 am (PST)
Joseph Polanik wrote:
> if this philosophical self that I am states "I am this
> philosophical self"; then, I am self-referencing.
>
> do you agree?
No, the philosophical self doesn't DO anything
(in this particular case, that means that it doesn't
"make statements" such as "I am this philosophical self").
All statements (including the statement that "I am this
philosophical self") are part of what appears /within/
(or what is emcompassed by) the philosophical self.
Statements are attributable to *physical organisms*.
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- 1.6.
-
Sat Dec 26, 2009 7:30 pm (PST)
--- In WittrsAMR@yahoogroups.com, "Cayuse" <wittrsamr@. ..> wrote:
>
> Joseph Polanik wrote:
> > if this philosophical self that I am states "I am this
> > philosophical self"; then, I am self-referencing.
> >
> > do you agree?
>
> No, the philosophical self doesn't DO anything
> (in this particular case, that means that it doesn't
> "make statements" such as "I am this philosophical self").
> All statements (including the statement that "I am this
> philosophical self") are part of what appears /within/
> (or what is emcompassed by) the philosophical self.
> Statements are attributable to *physical organisms*.
So the nonphilosophical self does things like make philosophical statements about how the philosophical self does nothing?
Cayuse, doesn't Searle just get it pretty much right in his paper "Why I AM Not a Property Dualist?"
Google Searle's homepage and have a read and tell me what you think. I already heard how Stuart liked the paper but is too full of it to understand Searle's CRA as well as his ten-year-later APA Address.
Cheers,
Budd
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- 1.7.
-
Sat Dec 26, 2009 7:31 pm (PST)
> >the experience of first-person language use.
>
> if this philosophical self that I am states "I am this philosophical
> self"; then, I am self-referencing.
>
> do you agree?
>
> Joe
>
> -- M/other presents the world and knowledge to her infant: in what I dub the "Question-Response" System: the few questions about the world (Who, what, when, where, how many?), are responded to by "open" sets of responses: essentially infinite in number when combined in syntax.
Thus finite and infinite: don't need to go outside the human condition to explain how we are and how we know.
As the child develops ? becomes abler, stronger, faster, dangerous to itself ? the m/other needs and wishes the child to emerge into its "self" ? an increasingly less dependent, more its-self, eventually the "I" who each of us sees as our-self.
"Somebody" there: a most powerful moment in the human experience ? essentially neglected in the depiction and understanding of human nature. Hopefully this insight will enable us to more fully describe the human as-we-are, rather than how our ancient theories have claimed (still claim) that we are.e
We "emerge" from a deep "attachment" with our m/others, as the self, the "I" develops. (G.H. Mead) Who we are and how we know are not directly from the world, but from our being as and with our m/others. How this happens: the Question-Response System by which our m/others frame questions (who, what, when, where, etc.) to which we learn responses as "open sets." How a finite being (you and I), comes to be able to phrase all the ideas and syntax: development, not fixed.
>
From human nature
thank you
sekhar
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>
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- 1.8.
-
Sun Dec 27, 2009 12:46 am (PST)
Cayuse wrote:
>Joseph Polanik wrote:
>>if this philosophical self that I am states "I am this philosophical
>>self"; then, I am self-referencing.
>No, the philosophical self doesn't DO anything (in this particular
>case, that means that it doesn't "make statements" such as "I am this
>philosophical self"). All statements (including the statement that "I
>am this philosophical self") are part of what appears /within/ (or what
>is emcompassed by) the philosophical self.
>Statements are attributable to *physical organisms*.
if the physical organism states 'I am this philosophical self' then it
is mistaken.
that would mean that your interpretation of LW is based on the
assumption that TLP 5.63 is false. not just wrong, false.
Joe
--
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- 2a.
-
Sat Dec 26, 2009 8:56 am (PST)
--- In Wittrs@yahoogroups.com, Joseph Polanik <jPolanik@.. .> wrote:
> what 'mundane purposes' do you have in mind?
>
> we've only been discussing the impact of quantum physics theories on
> theories of consciousness.
Hmm.
Von Neumann makes a claim about consciousness, and therefore I must consider this if I do, or don't, mention consciousness?
How about a mundane game of pool? A few simple calculations of angular momemtum, and a lot of beer. Where does von Neumann come in on that?
My physicalist theory of consciousness is like a game of pool, no more than simple Newtonian mechanics involved. Doesn't reify consciousness into a thing that would fit the old "waveform collapse" story, or heck, maybe it does, I don't know. Or care, is the point.
My empirical game of pool sends the balls to the pockets, and to that extent puts limits on what QM must say, if QM doesn't fit the evidence, QM is a bad theory. But surely that's von Neumann's problem, not mine. I'm just playing pool.
I suspect I'm rehashing some arguments you and Stuart have already had a hundred times.
But for the record, my take on the mind is that "consciousness" such as it is, is purely brute physicalist in the simplest terms, requiring no more physics than it takes to make a Turing machine out of tinkertoys or whatnot. The term is pretty much "dissolved" in the Wittgensteinian way.
Is this enough to fit von Neumann's concerns? Maybe it had better be. And I have seen some speculations, that the "observer" effects are simply physical interactions, no more mysterious than gravity or any boson-mediated physics, Penrose even suggests something like that. Then, the simplest mass aggregations the size of a fermion collapse themselves. Whatever problems are left over from dual-slit experiments have to resolve themselves some other way.
But I can play pool all day long while you worry about that. And I can build a physicalist theory of mind without any concern about what von Neumann said about consciousness.
I think you get the direction of causality backwards, when you raise up von Neumann's theories about consciouness and say that affects what a philosophical theory of consciousness should consider. The pool balls come first, the theory of consciousness comes first, and von Neumann's theories better fit the evidence.
Like I said, I'm sure you and Stuart have been over this a hundred times, and I'm not adding any smashing arguments. But I thought that Stuart was qualifying his physicalism somewhat, so I thought I'd just stick my oar in. For me, the physicalism comes first, and I will qualify pretty much ANYTHING else it takes in a theory, so that the physicalism stays as simple and direct as possible. And fwiw I have not even the smallest concern about waveform collapse in anything I assume or imply by such theories.
Josh
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- 2b.
-
Sat Dec 26, 2009 6:40 pm (PST)
--- In Wittrs@yahoogroups.com, "jrstern" <jrstern@... > wrote:
>Like I said, I'm sure you and Stuart have been over this a hundred times, and I'm not adding any smashing arguments. But I thought that Stuart was qualifying his physicalism somewhat, so I thought I'd just stick my oar in. For me, the physicalism comes first, and I will qualify pretty much ANYTHING else it takes in a theory, so that the physicalism stays as simple and direct as possible.
And fwiw I have not even the smallest concern about waveform collapse in
anything I assume or imply by such theories.
Josh
~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~
Not sure what you mean about my "qualifying" my "physicalism" Josh. I wasn't saying much about physicalism at all except that I accept a common sense generic version of it and have no problem with the idea of there being certain descriptions of it in terms of theoretical physics that look strange, don't seem common sensical, etc. I don't presume to be second guessing physicists or to want to do their work for them.
What does interest me, as you know, is how we ought (in the non-ethical sense of "ought") to think about mind, that is about consciousness (being a subject with experience of the world). Like you I take the view that we can fully account for the occurrence of consciousness, at least in theory, by a description of certain physical phenomena though I do think that, in the end, there are important empirical questions which must be answered before we can rest on these particular oars.
For some reason, Joe (and he is not alone) has wanted to make my argument for a conception of consciousness as physically derived as an argument FOR a physicalist theory of everything that is. But this is a mistaken interpretation of what I have said. If minds can be explained in terms of physical phenomena then the existence of minds in the universe is not evidence or argument for a non-physicalist account of what is. But it is not proof of a physicalist account either.
Nearby, though, Joe seems to have shifted to an argument that Von Neumann's suppositions concerning "collapsing the wave" is evidence AGAINST an idea of consciousness as being physically derived. I await his clarifications re: what he means by "collapsing the wave" in terms of where this feature is actually discovered among the range of features we associate with consciousness (is it "awareness" and, if it is, do we NEED to presume something about wave collapses to account for an occurrence of awareness?), how this works to actually be relevant to the question of what consciousness is, and why we cannot have an instance of consciousness without it.
I think that if Joe can adequately address these questions he may have the makings of an argument against the kind of model I've been pushing. But I will admit, going into this, that I don't think he can adequately answer these questions. Time will tell, I suppose.
SWM
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- 2c.
-
Sun Dec 27, 2009 1:37 am (PST)
jrstern wrote:
>Joseph Polanik wrote:
>>what 'mundane purposes' do you have in mind?
>But for the record, my take on the mind is that "consciousness" such as
>it is, is purely brute physicalist in the simplest terms, requiring no
>more physics than it takes to make a Turing machine out of tinkertoys
>or whatnot. The term is pretty much "dissolved" in the Wittgensteinian
>way.
>Is this enough to fit von Neumann's concerns? Maybe it had better be.
>And I have seen some speculations, that the "observer" effects are
>simply physical interactions, no more mysterious than gravity or any
>boson-mediated physics, Penrose even suggests something like that.
>Then, the simplest mass aggregations the size of a fermion collapse
>themselves. Whatever problems are left over from dual-slit experiments
>have to resolve themselves some other way.
>I can build a physicalist theory of mind without any concern about
>what von Neumann said about consciousness.
the question is whether such a theory can be true unless von Neumann is
wrong.
it seems pretty clear that your physicalist theory of mind is that there
is no mind, only the brain. if so, your theory would be in conflict with
the von Neumann interpretation of QM which requires that there be
something non physical to collapse the wave function.
Joe
--
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- 3.
-
Sat Dec 26, 2009 12:34 pm (PST)
Stu writes:
"There are ways to argue that a Dennettian model not only doesn't work
(ultimately an empirical question) but cannot."
Actually, just how do Searle and Dennett differ? Can you say? Have you read Searle's review of _Consciousness Explained_? Give it a try.
"Insisting that qualia cannot be
explained in terms of a processed based system is one way (the method PJ
ultimately fixed on)."
By whom? Surely it would be wrong to accuse Searle of denying that nonconscious processes in actual brains cause consciousness. So by whom really?
"But insofar as this is based on either a misreading of the
Dennettian argument or an assertion of an insurmountable "hard problem", an
"explanatory gap", it also fails.
What exactly fails?
"The first way fails because Dennett does NOT
deny experience, he only explains it, via reduction, to something else
(something physical)."
Actually, since Dennett is motivated by considerations of strong AI, he denies that consciousness needs to be explained at all. I think strong AI both incoherent and unfalsifiable. Biological naturalism, Searle style, is both coherent, natural and doesn't depend on an abstract description of consciousness the way strong AI (Dennett) has it.
"Explaining something in this way is not denying."
Dennett doesn't really end up explaining consciousness in _Consciousness Explained_.
"And,
insofar as the argument against the Dennettian model hinges on the notion of an
ultimately "hard problem", it is circular since it implies dualism so it becomes
an argument for a dualistic account that begins with the assumption of dualism."
Ah, so if there is a hard problem, its only solution is dualism!!!!! Well I'll be damned after all. I never would have thought of that!!!!
Seems to me we have a case of either no hard problem (then one doesn't need to explain consciousness, ... and while not explaining it, one could be not doing so while writing an actual book about explaining it!) or a hard problem which implies dualism. Stuart sets it up thusly:
1. If we can explain the hard problem, we will have to do so from a dualist perspective.
2. We needn't think that there is a hard problem--we can explain away consciousness in the form of Dennettian strong AI such that whatever is meant by consciousness, it can be simulated by abstract computer programs.
The funny thing about 2. is that it, like the thesis of strong AI, really doesn't bottom out in the physics. Cf. Searle's APA address: "Is the Brain a Digital Computer?"
Yet the proponents of strong AI will beat up their opponents by implying that any critique of strong AI is tantemount to dualism.
I wonder why Stuart couldn't have learned a thing or two at analytic?
Perhaps he had no help?
It turns out that the real dualists are strong AIers.
It may not appear that way because they are up to their ears in conflating programs with physics--something of which Searle attempted to disabuse them. They (some) remain all wet.
I include Stuart since he's making the same stupid arguments as ever.
Refs.
Searle, John. Review of Dennett's _Consciousness Explained_. NY Review of Books, Date?
Ibid. "Minds, Brains, and Programs," target article for Chinese Room thought experiment, 1980 (ish).
Ibid. APA Address, cited above, 1990.
Ibid. "Is the Brain's Mind a Digital computer?" Scientific American, 1990.
Dennett, Daniel D. _Consciousness Explained_.
Budd
- 4a.
-
Sat Dec 26, 2009 5:21 pm (PST)
--- In Wittrs@yahoogroups.com, Joseph Polanik <jPolanik@.. .> wrote:
>
>
> SWM wrote:
>
> >Joseph Polanik wrote:
>
> >My only point is that, if consciousness CAN be explained in a way that
> >is consistent with a physicalist account of the way things are, then
> >there is no reason to suppose a different account of the way things are
> >is needed because consciousness is present in the universe.
>
> your position assumes that there is one and only one physicalist account
> of the way things are; and, that assumption is false.
>
It does not make any such assumption. It merely makes a proposal based on any of a number of possible related physicalist accounts. It is not dependent on some particular variation because it is not dependent on any such account at all.
I will try this again: THE PROPOSAL IS ONLY ABOUT HOW CONSCIOUSNESS MIGHT WORK IN A WAY THAT IS CONSISTENT WITH A PHYSICALIST ACCOUNT.
Try as you like, you still cannot shoehorn it into an argument FOR physicalism or for any particular physicalist account because IT IS NOT ABOUT WHETHER ANY SUCH ACCOUNT IS TRUE. It is only about whether we can explain consciousness in a way that would be consistent with such an account.
If we can, then there is no reason to count the existence of consciousness as a reason to think physicalism is an inadequate account of the way things are though it is also not an argument for the success of such an account.
I really don't know how to make this point any clearer. You are arguing the wrong issue with me insofar as you want to insist that this is about whether physicalism in some form is a true account or not.
> >competing arguments about physics questions are not the domain of
> >philosophy
>
> true; but, certain differences between various interpretations of QM
> affect philosophers of consciousness; because, a theory of consciousness
> that is inconsistent with some interpretations of QM can not be true
> unless those interpretations are false.
>
That may be but it is irrelevant to my point which is only whether consciousness can be explained in a way that is consistent with a physicalist viewpoint.
> >>it seems that you are claiming that you can account for consciousness
> >>(to your own satisfaction) on the basis of a physicalism that some
> >>physicists reject as inadequate to explain physics.
>
> >I am arguing that we CAN account for consciousness this way, yes. But
> >consciousness is a much more limited phenomenon than the entire
> >universe (or the universe of universes)!
>
> >My argument that we can account for it hinges on examining the various
> >features we recognize as part of what it means to be conscious and
> >determining to what extent they are explicable as operations performed
> >by physical processes
>
> your argument is, therefore, falsifiable by finding at least one
> 'feature' of consciousness that can not be explained as an operation
> performed by physical processes.
>
Yes indeed, and I have always said so. But now you seem to be moving away from claiming this is about the truth or falsity of physicalist presumptions to what we should be talking about, namely is there anything about consciousness that precludes an explanation based on a reduction to a physical process based system.
> the crucial feature for the physics of consciousness is the ability (if
> there is such an ability) to collapse the wave function. if
> consciousness is required to collapse the wave function; then,
> consciousness can not be an operation performed by a physical process
> because (according to the von Neumann Interpretation) something
> non-physical is required to collapse the wave function.
>
> Joe
I don't know about you but when I engage in a little introspection I don't find anything that counts as "collapsing the wave function". Now perhaps you can elucidate this technical notion in physics for us to show how we find that in consciousness, in one fashion or another, and if you can do so I'm prepared to consider it. But just latching onto a concept which some physicists think is important in theoretical physics doesn't demonstrate either that it is important in this kind of example as well, or even what it is. Again, I am familiar with the terms "collapse the wave function" in physics but I don't see how that fits with actual instances of consciousness as experienced in ourselves so it is for you to elucidate this.
Now it's true enough that there may be lots more to consciousness than we find by introspection and, indeed, I am inclined to grant that there is. But THAT is not evidence against a Dennettian model but, rather, consistent with it since Dennett's thesis holds that the features we associate with consciousness can be reduced to features that are not, themselves, conscious. Thus what we encounter in ourselves through introspection is not necessarily veridical. On the other hand, just naming a new feature, "collapsing the wave function", without fully elucidating what you mean and where it fits in isn't an argument (though it could well be the beginnings of one).
If you want to assert that "collapsing the wave function" is the missing link which is 1) a critical feature of consciousness and 2) irreducible to the phenomena of physics, then the onus is on you to describe this collapse of the wave function as a feature of our minds, point out to us where we will find it, and explain how it is irreducible as you say.
I would, indeed, be most interested to read your response to these questions as this is an intriguing challenge to the possibillity of Dennett's model.
Note, however, that the issue we're now addressing is not whether physicalism (or some form of it) is true or not (which you wrongly raise above) but whether some feature that IS present in the universe AND IS CONNECTED WITH WHAT IT MEANS TO BE CONSCIOUS is such that it is outside all the rest of the phenomena of the physical universe and so cannot be reduced to any other phenomenon or feature of the universe.
Thanks.
SWM
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