[Wittrs] Re: Is the brain a hammer?
- From: "BruceD" <blroadies@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: wittrsamr@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 05 May 2010 20:48:53 -0000
--- In Wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, "SWM" <SWMirsky@...> wrote:
what I take to be the most careful account of another person's account
(with which he strongly disagrees) I've yet to read on this List or
anywhere else. I found this very helpful because now I can focus on just
where our paths diverge.
Simply put, both Stuart and I want an account of mind but he feels it
appropriate to start with the "mindless" physical world and I feel the
only intelligible course is to start with the person. However, we meet
in both agreeing that the our mental life is rooted in a "highly complex
brain system. He asks.
> How can we use the system that we are? Do we use ourselves?
Yes. Why does it seem strange to him yet obvious to me? My body is at my
service, though it resists, sets limits, then again provides
opportunities. He can't make sense out of this position. I think because
for him "mind" refers to some "something" which must be accounted for by
saying from what "something" it emerges. Whereas for me "mind" refers to
the way a entity relates to me and the world. To say an entity (allowing
for all sorts of beings) "has a mind" is saying that the "entity is
minding."
Where does this "minding" come from? How is it produced? Answer: We are
the sort of beings who, in face of entities behaving in a certain way,
attribute mind to them, which is to say "we take the entity is mindful."
This holds whether we are looking at ourselves and other creatures,
alien and/or inorganic.
When an entity is taken to be mindful there ought to be no presumption
that any new something has been created or produced. Yes, the brain
(organic or inorganic needs to be working in a certain way) but this
working is not a cause of any effect. An entity that acts in a certain
way prompts one to see it (itself) in a certain light. One have the
choice to refuse it (even oneself) mindful status.
> Maybe to someone with no interest in what brains do
which couldn't be further from the truth. Since I use my brain, I sure
want to know what I can and cannot hope to do with it. So, here, Stuarts
explanation for my odd seeming way of talking -- at least to him--
fails.
> Isn't Bruce merely insisting on certain usages
Yes. But not arbitrarily. A causal account of an intention being is a
contradiction in terms. Stuart has still not said how the causality of
brain yields the intentionality of mind. Note: if one treats the brain
as an instrument, then its causality is not at issue. My auto is best
described causally, but my driving is best described intentionally
without any conceptual confusion between cause and intent. Why? Because
I'm putting the causal mechanism to use. The car doesn't cause me to
drive.
I can hear Stuart saying: The car is external, the brain is internal."
No matter. Both are not me. With both I have significant but limited
input.
> He doesn't think gaining an understanding of other
> individuals' minds requires a consideration of their brains
I've repeatedly shown how this is a wrong inference. My rejection of the
causal model of brain is not a rejection of a red-blooded scientific
account of mind emergent from and yet rooted in the brain.
> The loss, impairment of other changes in that person's mental
faculties
> are merely seen as events happening to the person and
> not factors that alter the person.
That's a wrong impression. Disease surely alters. A blow to the head can
CAUSE irreversible brain damage. But how this damage emerges depends
upon how the person lives his limitations. This point of view is
critical to my work with brain injured.
> Well, it depends what we mean by "choice" doesn't it?
> Does the fact that we have some physical constraints
> mean we have no choice at all?
No, it means that have a choice. The notion of "restraint" only makes
sense if we have choice. These concepts have no place in physics, Does
this tell us something?
> AI researchers are looking to find a way to replicate,
> via certain kinds of machines (computers) what brains
> actually do to produce what we call "minds"
But we will not say that entity has a mind unless it uses its brain the
way we do. For example: a player piano is taken to be "playing the
piano." Is this just a matter of words? What is at stake here?
> Bruce seems to want to do, insist that choice,
> if it is to be that, can only be absolute and unfettered?
Have I put this impression asleep?
A final note: Stuart wants his account of mind to start with the
mindless stuff of the universe. Didn't it come first? Sure it did.
That's our conception. So what comes first in any account?
bruce
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