[Wittrs] Re: SWM's concept of consciousness
- From: "SWM" <SWMirsky@xxxxxxx>
- To: wittrsamr@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sun, 14 Feb 2010 01:19:49 -0000
--- In Wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, "BruceD" <blroadies@...> wrote:
<snip>
>
> What's a functionality? Speaking, thinking, walking, ...what people do
> and say. Right?
Yes, I use the term to denote the capacity to do a range of similar type
things, accomplish a related range of tasks. If walking is a function, it may
also be a functionality if it could be accomplished in more than one ways.
However, getting from here to there, might be a larger functionality, including
something like walking by leg movement and walking by rolling on wheels, etc.
> And developmentally psychology present a vast literature
> of studies that show the increasing complexity. And in that description,
> one takes for granted that the person under study is conscious. Since
> consciousness is an assumption, it's origin is not studied.
Right. It's a different field, that's all.
>Unless you
> are referring to the brain areas associated with consciousness. But then
> again, this is a cor-relational study in which one assumes that the
> person is conscious and measures brain activity.
Or wonders if the person is and hopes to make a determination by measuring the
right kind of brain activity. This sort of thing doesn't purport to enter into
the person's subjectivity though nor do I suggest otherwise (however I would
note Dehaene's suggestion that if his thesis is right, it would be at least
possible in principle to
achieve that kind of access -- I think Ramachandran says the same thing, by the
way).
> Of course, in doing so,
> the brain is considered a necessary condition for C,
In humans so is air and sufficient nutrients and water. But the brain plays a
different role than any of these so it is not merely a necessary condition.
>but this research
> never asks HOW the brain causes (produces) C.
It does if you're doing the kind of work Dehaene is though. That there are
different kinds of research doesn't imply that either kind is nonexistent or
even mistaken!
>That the brain becomes
> increasingly complex does not address the HOW.
It certainly may. If one is going about this by examining the brain morphology,
then increasing complexity in brains under scrutiny would be a relevant concern.
> Moreover, if we build an
> entity that we considered consciousness, it will not, in itself, tell us
> HOW the material we put in became conscious.
Of course not. So what?
>It just does.
>
> > ...But if intentionality is describable
>
> No "buts" about it. We can describe intentionality.
Well there is the describability of saying what it feels like to be intentional
(which may or may not be something we can really say), the describability of
saying what we mean when we use the term in discourse and inquiry, and the
description of the processes involved in brains, at varying levels, that
manifest as intentional behavior and experience in subjects.
So "describability" will certainly vary depending on context and our objectives.
> My question for you
> is this. If we describe intentionality in purposive terms, "I wrote this
> post because I enjoy conversing with you", then how do you reconcile
> this purposive account with a causal, non-purposive account of the
> brain?
>
First, the usual way I am using "intentional" here refers to the aboutness
meaning, not the purposive one. However, that is still not an issue in your
question if we assume we both mean purposiveness here. Why would I need to talk
about what your brain is doing? (This is one of the reason I don't agree with
Sean's reduction of meaning as use or family resemblances to a matter of "brain
scripts" -- though it's at least conceivable that science will ultimately
explain these Wittgenstein-noted phenomena as something like what Sean seems to
have in mind.)
Now I suppose what you really mean above though is how do I reconcile the idea
that you act with purposes (you have motivations, make choices from various
options, etc.) with the idea that brains produce minds (and all they entail) in
some physically based causal way. And the answer to that is that I don't have
to reconcile these because they involve different contexts of discussion for
me. I have no problem supposing we have free will (in the every day sense we
mean that term) and yet are physically generated, physically caused in every
aspect of what we are. The physical universe is much more massive and complex
than any idea of determinism-quashing-free-will can accommodate.
SWM
> bruce
>
>
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