[Wittrs] Re: Algorithms, Abstractions and Minds

  • From: "BruceD" <blroadies@xxxxxxxxx>
  • To: wittrsamr@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Mon, 09 Aug 2010 00:28:43 -0000

--- In Wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, "gabuddabout" <wittrsamr@...> wrote:

> Hacker says that the very idea of the brain causing consciousness is
incoherent.
> Searle accuses Hacker of denying a legitimate empirical inquiry.

My take. Hacker is not denying that one can/should find the brain part
"responsible" (to use Dehaene's phrase) for mind. But the relationship
between brain part and mind isn't causal in the sense used in the
physical or biological sciences.

> It amounts to both the ontological subjectivity and the possible cause
of it.

Guess that is the heart of it. What does it mean to say that my firing
frontal lobes caused my subjectivity? They fire and I awake. Where is
the "I" placed between the lobes and the subjectivity? And what is the
subjectivity? A product of its firing, like a candle flame?

bruce


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