[Wittrs] Re: On the Varieties of Dualism
- From: "SWM" <SWMirsky@xxxxxxx>
- To: wittrsamr@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 28 Jan 2010 02:47:54 -0000
--- In Wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, "BruceD" <blroadies@...> wrote:
>
> --- In Wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, "SWM" <SWMirsky@> wrote:
>
> > Moreover, one has the problem of explaining HOW
> > brains do the trick of bringing something wholly new into the world
>
> Unless one doesn't recognize brains as bringing anything, nothing new or
> old. I know I'm clipping out of context. Is it your position that brains
> do bring us something new? That is, thoughts and feelings are new
> phenomena, that now occupy the world along with sticks and stones?
>
No, I was actually arguing against that view (see the full text wherein that
statement appeared).
My point was that to hold the above view is consistent with dualist thinking,
as is arguing against a Dennettian model on the basis of a claim that the
features we associate with consciousness are irreducible to anything that is
not, itself, conscious already.
If thoughts and feelings, etc., are reducible to things unlike themselves, as
the Dennettian model claims, then nothing new is introduced into the world,
it's just the same stuff doing different things. But if they are not reducible,
then that implies that the physical brain brings into being something totally
unlike itself. And now you've got dualism again.
My argument against Searle's CRA is partly based on this, i.e., he claims to
hold that brains cause consciousness while computers can't. But the reason he
draws the general conclusion in favor of this assertion from the CRA is because
he is conceiving of consciousness as irreducible, i.e., it cannot be explained
as a system property.
But since Searle agrees that consciousness IS reducible to brains (or to
something they do), then he is stuck because, if it is reducible in brains then
there is no reason in principle it should not be similarly reducible in
computers, contra the conclusion of his CRA. But if it isn't reducible in
computers, as per the CRA, and brains are, indeed, responsible for bringing it
about (as Searle claims), then the only way brains can be responsible is by
acting as an agent for bringing SOMETHING NEW (an ontological basic, something
irreducible) into the world.
I'll grant this is a subtle argument and that many don't see it. But I think
it's compelling when you really think about it.
>
> > As noted, my view is that there is only dualism and non-dualism.
>
> Where dualism means there are TWO and non-dualism means there is only
> ONE -- but, as you wrote above, now ONE or TWO substances but ONE or TWO
> what?
>
> bruce
Ontological basics.
"Substance" is an outmoded way of speaking about things that exist and, as I've
said before, it's really to misuse the term "substance" because the term is
more properly applied to dog poop and similar things under appropriate
circumstances. There is no basis, given the state of our current theories of
physics, for speaking of ontological basics as substances any longer.
I had asked that perhaps you would be good enough to explicate your own view
since I have been explicating mine for a long, long time now. I think it's only
fair that we figure it's your turn now.
SWM
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