[Wittrs] [C] Re: Free Will and Wittgenstein
- From: "SWM" <swmaerske@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: wittrsamr@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 28 Apr 2011 13:22:56 -0000
I don't know the context of that Wittgenstein excerpt (it's apparently not from
the PI -- I just checked) but, aside from the fact that it recognizes that
there is no logical necessity inherent in the physicalist view of minds, it is
completely out of sync with what we do believe we know today about how minds
come about and how they work, as the second amply quote demonstrates. Absent
the context I am loath to judge Wittgenstein's comment but, taken in terms of
today's knowledge, it looks remarkably wrong. -- SWM
--- In Wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, kirby urner <wittrsamr@...> wrote:
>
> On Sun, Apr 17, 2011 at 4:48 PM, kirby urner <kirby.urner@...> wrote:
>
> 610. I saw this man years ago: now I have seen him again,
> I recognize him, I remember his name. And why does there
> have to be a cause of this remembering in my nervous system?
> Why must something or other, whatever it may be, be stored
> up there in any form? Why must a trace have been left behind?
> Why should there not be a psychological regularity to which
> no physiological regularity corresponds? If this upsets our
> concepts of causality then it is high time they were upset.
>
> > Ah excellent, so that's where that quote is! I've been looking for
> > that for some time, based on faded memories.
> >
>
> Compare:
> Modern psychology takes completely for granted that behavior and
> neural function are perfectly correlated, that one is completely
> caused by the other. There is no separate soul or lifeforce to stick a
> finger into the brain now and then and make neural cells do what they
> would not otherwise. Actually, of course, this is a working assumption
> only. ... It is quite conceivable that someday the assumption will
> have to be rejected. But it is important also to see that we have not
> reached that day yet: the working assumption is a necessary one and
> there is no real evidence opposed to it. Our failure to solve a
> problem so far does not make it insoluble. One cannot logically be a
> determinist in physics and biology, and a mystic in psychology. --
> D.O. Hebb, "Organization of Behavior: A Neuropsychological Theory",
> 1949
>
>
> Kirby
>
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