[Wittrs] Re: SWM on causation
- From: "BruceD" <blroadies@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: wittrsamr@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Fri, 12 Feb 2010 00:50:04 -0000
--- In Wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, "SWM" <SWMirsky@...> wrote:
> If "physical forces" it's physical. Every physical thing is not an
object!
or a "physical force" has no material reference because "force" is an
abstraction like work and love, just as mind is an abstraction without
material reference. But you don't see it that way because, I think, you
are obsessed with entities. So when I say "change" isn't physical (but
an abstraction), you suggest that the only alternative is that...
> It's certainly not a matter of spirits!
which, of course, I agree since "spirits" are just another entity made
out of something else. So what is consciousness?
> Certainly consciousness isn't an entity, isn't like a physical object.
Then you agree that is is a concept we apply in certain contexts, I
presume. So let's examine this concept.
> the mistake is in presuming that it makes sense to carry the feature
> we see at our level down to levels that underpin it.
Are you saying "it is a mistake to attribute intention to the underlying
brain? If so, it is equally inappropriate to attribute causation to
mind. That leaves us with a substance monism -- it's all physical -- but
no way of relating physical x (brain) with physical y (mind) unless you
want to say "C is caused but then everything else is intentional." Makes
any sense?
> Consciousness ...appears on our level of operation
> though this is to say nothing of how it comes about.
Is that necessarily the case? Love appears on our level and we explain
its origin. If C is a concept, and concepts only appear on our level,
then it makes sense to explain how it comes about. And that is how its
done. The physiological correlates show the conditions of what must be
in place for mind but there is no way of explaining how physiology makes
psychology because psychology doesn't appear physiologically.
> There is no sense in arguing that consciousness works
> at our level according to the laws of physics even if it
> is the outcome of undergirding physical phenomena that work
> "according to the laws of physics".
There is no sense in arguing that consciousness works according to
physics because it is obvious that physics concepts don't apply. The
problem is relating to where they apply -- the brain -- to where they
don't. Undergrirding is a nice word but itself tells us nothing.
One alternative: The "physical" is no less a concept than the "mental"
and what we need to relate are two concepts, not two entities, and
conceptual relations are logical, not causal.
bruce
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