[Wittrs] Re: An Issue Worth Focusing On
- From: "SWM" <SWMirsky@xxxxxxx>
- To: wittrsamr@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Mon, 10 May 2010 13:44:20 -0000
--- In Wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, "BruceD" <blroadies@...> wrote:
<snip
> . . . I appear to deny that Mind comes from Brain. The only other
> alternative, according to this logic, is that mind is there from the
> start.
>
> But that logic doesn't hold for me because I don't see mind as object or
> a phenomena that makes an appearance. Though there is a sense in which
> I'm saying "mind, i.e., the person giving the account, must be present.
>
> I'll try once more. When we take some physical entities to be "mental",
> no new object or phenomena has been discovered. Rather we just shift our
> stance on how we see and treat this object. So mind not only doesn't
> come from brain, it simply "doesn't come from or is caused by anything."
>
You mean like Dennett's intentional stance then? As I said, I think that our
dispute finally boils down to a matter of how we each choose to speak though I
do think you dig your heels in against certain locutions with which I am fairly
comfortable.
> To say this, is not to deny certain experiences, pain, after-images,
> what-have-you can be caused by events internal and/or external. But
> these experiences are not objects, not things of any substance. Not more
> stuff added to the universe.
>
I would agree in the sense that they are not physical objects qua entities but
not that they are not part of the physical universe, i.e., not physically
caused (say better "brought about" since you have such a thing about the word
"cause" here).
> To summarize: My problem with "brain causes mind" is that it puts mind
> at the end of a causal chain that began, I guess, with the Big Bang.
I think you are just hung up on a particular way of using "cause". But I can
accept lots of substitutions. Try:
engender
bring about
produce
make happen
> What I've called "Bottom-Up" accounts, which, if we follow Joe's point,
> viz., there is no coal or diamonds at the particle level, wouldn't even
> account for chemistry. Why? Because chemistry emerges for us as, as
> thinkers. It isn't there at the Big Bang.
The discipline isn't. The concepts aren't. These require thinking entities. But
whatever it is the discipline studies and the concepts represent would
presumably be there, assuming we have the right concepts and are relying on the
right disciplines, etc.
It's a mistake to confuse human activity with timeless truth, reality, etc.
>Then again, the Big Bang is
> also an conceptual account. Hence, the Bottom-Up account fails us at the
> start.
>
Not if we're after explaining the outcomes (the "ups") of the bottom!
> The Top-Down account, that our understandings must begin with the person
> who understands
This makes no sense to me! How can we understand the universe by beginning with
looking at our method of understanding it? Isn't that an echo of the old,
discredited Rationalism of an earlier era?
> and, hence, can't be the result, the effect of any
> understanding, doesn't deny the role of the brain in human functioning,
> and, more importantly, should be confused with a pan-psychism. Mind
> isn't there at the start. Nor is it there at the end. It isn't an "It."
> And isn't anywhere.
>
> bruce
>
Except even you refer to it as an "it" when you write "Mind isn't there at the
start. Nor is it there at the end. It isn't an 'It'".
So okay, why do you feel constrained to use "it" in referring to mind? Isn't
this just about how we speak? I agree that mind isn't an "It" but it certainly
is an "it" when we speak of it!
SWM
=========================================
Need Something? Check here: http://ludwig.squarespace.com/wittrslinks/
Other related posts:
