[Wittrs] On the Varieties of Dualism
- From: Joseph Polanik <jpolanik@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: wittrsamr@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sun, 24 Jan 2010 15:07:53 -0500
SWM wrote:
>Joseph Polanik wrote:
>>SWM wrote:
>>>Joseph Polanik wrote:
>>>>the abstract I is non-physical;
>>>That doesn't necessarily mean it isn't physically derived in which
>>>case it is not non-physical in every sense.
>>you've yet to show that something other than a phenomenological
>>reality could be non-physical and yet physically derived.
>What's to "show"? This is about competing ways of conceiving the
>phenomenon under consideration, i.e., the presence of conscious
>subjects, in the universe, that have causal relations with the things
>of the universe beyond themselves.
>Subjects are indisputably present in the world (if you doubt that we
>cannot even discuss this) so the only thing left to show then is how to
>explain this presence.
>There are a four ways on the table that I can think of offhand here:
>1) The self or subject is seen as a separate existent from the things
>it apprehends. (This is dualism though it may have more than one form
>or way of being described: It could be a transcendental subject a la
>Kant or a monad a la Leibniz or it could be a parallel dimension of
>existence, co-existing with the physical phenomena of the world and of
>which it is aware -- a Cartesian kind of dualism.)
this account of substance dualism is quite confused.
a hard core physicalist would likely agree that the experiencing I is
not identical to the stone, or the afterimage that it apprehends. that
alone doesn't make the physicalist a dualist.
what's important is how many 'substances' (types of metaphenomenal
objects) and/or how many sets of properties are needed to explain the
phenomenon in question: experiencing *as* an experiencing I, the self or
subject.
all of those you mentioned, Kant, Leibniz and Descartes would be
considered substance dualists according to this definition.
>2) The self or subject is one or more (an amalgam) of properties that
>some physical phenomena (brains or parts of brains or activities of
>brains) have/produce but which are irreducible to anything else (this
>is also dualism but a more confused picture on my view -- it supposes
>that brains somehow summon/bring/introduce some fundamentally new
>existent into the world).
this seems to be an attempt to describe property dualism; and, it is
good to see that (despite years of claiming that they are
indistinguishable) you are now striving to articulate the difference
between them.
all that is required to establish property dualism is using two sets of
properties to explain ... whatever.
>3) The self or subject is one or more (an amalgam) of properties
>(features) that some physical phenomena (brains or parts of brains or
>activities of brains) have/produce and which ARE reducible to those
>phenomena (which are not, themselves, subject-like, i.e., they lack the
>qualities we associate with being a subject, etc.).
>4) The self or subject is not explicable in any way, it just happens to
>be present in the universe and we can't say how or understand why,
>etc., etc. It's just an unresolvable mystery of being.
we've covered this possibility before. neither of us believes that the
presence of subjectivity in an otherwise objective universe is
inherently inexplicable. you think that the presence of the experiencing
I has already been solved; whereas, I don't. you think there is no
mystery; but, I think the mystery remains.
in any case this option is not relevant to discussions of whether the
von Neumann Interpretation of QM is or is not dualistic.
>As you know, I hold that #3 offers the best explanation for the
>presence of subjects in the universe. But I don't pretend to "show" why
>#3 is true because I don't claim it is true! It's a way of explaining,
>of understanding, the phenomenon.
>On this view, it strikes me that #3 is the best choice because it
>doesn't require that we posit extra existents in the universe (the
>dualism of 1 and 2),
property dualism doesn't postulate extra existents; unless, you have a
weird definition of 'existent'; otherwise, property dualism just
requires two sets of properties.
in any event, just having a taxonomy of belief systems is not enough.
one must also apply it consistently and coherently; but, you are not.
you, Dennett and Searle are all trying to be in category 3; but, neither
you nor Dennett can avoid the same latent property dualism of which
you've accused Searle.
physical objects have physical properties that cause measurable
phenomena. some objects also have physical properties that cause
experienceable phenomena.
>Now you can continue insisting that a "phenomenological reality" cannot
>be "physically derived" unless someone can show you that it can but all
>you are doing by this is insisting on a dualist picture (as seen in
>either #1 or #2 or, perhaps, some variant I haven't accounted for
>above).
my claim is that the von Neumann Interpretation is dualistic (type 1)
because the abstract 'I' von Neumann postulated is best classified as an
I-3 (an entity of reality type 3) on the grounds that it is required to
be non-physical and causally effective.
>But it is no argument against a Dennettian model to say that it is
>wrong because it doesn't explain things dualistically.
I am saying that a Dennettian account of consciousness such as your own
does not explain how a fictitious entity, the self, described as a
'narrative center of gravity' make a free choice (as to how to set up
its measurement apparatus) or be causally effective at collapsing the
wave function of a subatomic particle.
>You can't say it's wrong because it doesn't account for dualism (of
>course it doesn't!)
I'm saying that you and Dennett refuse to admit to being property
dualists.
Joe
--
Nothing Unreal is Self-Aware
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http://what-am-i.net
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