[Wittrs] Re: SWM on causation
- From: "SWM" <SWMirsky@xxxxxxx>
- To: wittrsamr@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Fri, 05 Feb 2010 14:15:11 -0000
--- In Wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, "BruceD" <blroadies@...> wrote:
> --- In Wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, "SWM" <SWMirsky@> wrote:
>
> > How can your brain cause you to do this or that?
>
> I'm puzzled by the question. You insist brains cause consciousness. And
> being conscious means doing this or that. If the brain causes
> consciousness, it causes doing this or that.
>
Different senses of "cause". See past discussions.
> > To think about turning, as in a wheel turning, is not to think about
> two entities: the wheel and the turning.
>
> Right! It is to think about one entity in two positions. But
> consciousness is not any position of brain!
>
No, it's to think about the changing of positions in a certain way. Is the
changing itself an entity? Of course not. But it's real AND it's physical no
less than the thing that has turned.
> > This is why I keep noting that you are thinking of consciousness as if
> it were entity-like ... But it is your picture, not mine.
>
> Which makes your position quite mysterious. You start with a literal
> thing, a brain, and then it causes something non-literal, an abstraction
> that we attribute to people.
>
Only mysterious to you who thinks that if there is an X that causes a Y then
the Y must be just like the X.
> Can a literal thing cause an abstraction attribution? When someone says
> "the morning sun causes me to have a good day" is it like saying "the
> morning sun causes the birds to chirp?"
>
> bruce
> =========================================
Is saying either "the morning sun causes me to have a good day" or "the morning
sun causes the bird to chirp" an "abstraction" or an "atribution of an
abstraction"? Do statements with meanings really lack them because meanings
aren't entities?
SWM
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