[Wittrs] Re: The Epiphenomenalism of Dennett-Consistent Philosophies of Consciousness
- From: "SWM" <SWMirsky@xxxxxxx>
- To: wittrsamr@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Mon, 01 Feb 2010 14:29:52 -0000
--- In Wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, "BruceD" <blroadies@...> wrote:
>
> --- In Wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, "SWM" <SWMirsky@> wrote:
>
> > In fact, Dennett is asserting mind is physical in this sense: Minds
> are part of the physical universe...
>
> I take it the "physical universe" refers to material objects, sticks and
> stones, plants and animals but not dreams and feelings...or does the
> "physical universe" refer to any and all possible experience?
>
To sticks, stones, oceans, lightning bolts, electro magnetism, gravity, light
waves, microwaves, atoms, strong and weak nuclear attraction, etc.
> If the former, mind is invisible entity.
Is electromagnetism and entity? Is the spin of a wheel an entity?
> If the latter, well, why bother
> affirming the obvious.
>
Because the issue is where do minds come from, how do they occur in a physical
universe made up of apparently non-conscious stuff? One doesn't have to assert
that minds are entities to assert that they are part of the physical universe,
that they require nothing more to occur than is required for everything else in
the physical universe. (I feel like I am endlessly repeating myself here,
Bruce. Why is this so hard to see?)
> > All this means is that, on a view like Dennett's, the occurrence of
> minds in the universe is explainable
> > in terms of what we currently know, or what is implied by what we
> currently know, about the physical universe.
>
> Now you shift from "mind is physical" to "the occurrence of mind"
> requires a body. A claim no one can deny.
>
>
So what's the problem? I am not asserting minds qua entities and never have
been and have frequently explicitly explained why I wasn't. Yet you persist in
interpreting everything I say as though it were to do just that. My point to
you is that it is YOUR apparent inability to shake this picture that keeps you
coming back to this everytime you read my remarks on the issue.
For some reason you cannot separate the idea of being a physical entity (having
extension, mass, texture and a myriad of other observable features) with the
idea of being physically derived (part of the total physicality of the
universe). As long as you persist in making this switch in your head, everytime
you read what I say about this, you will continue your reading of something I
am not writing here.
> > It means, rather, that all these things (minds, selves, experience)
> are explainable, on this model,
> > in physical terms by reference to what brains do and how they do it.
>
> Now you shift again to "explaining how mind works."
There is no "shift" in what I am saying. It's all of a piece. You see a "shift"
because you cannot shake the picture of mind as entity and your preferred
solution, simply to declare the mystery, to pronounce descriptions of mind in
this way "unintelligible" doesn't resolve the matter. It's just an effort to
shut the door on the discourse. But that only takes you out of the
conversation. Scientific researchers and others proceed apace, even if you want
to say they cannot accomplish their goals.
> And now the claim is
> that "minds are explainable in physical terms but if, and only if, you
> import mental terms.
Since we are talking about explaining mind we have to use "mental terms" to
describe what is being explained. Otherwise, there really is unintelligibility,
a gap. Your mistake is in presuming that "mental terms" foreclose the option of
physical description. But then what is it that folks like Dehaene are doing in
your mind?
>So, we explain falling in love by the secretion of
> a hormone. The trick is to import the mental terms to the physical and
> then claim the mind is physical.
>
Sometimes that would be the appropriate explanation if it were true. It would
depend, of course, on the context.
> > Against this Dennettian type view, are arrayed a variety of dualist
> positions which propose that the only way mind
> > can be accounted for is by assuming there is something that is
> extra-physical
>
> Doesn't Dennett recognize, as we all do, that mind, as such, isn't
> physical.
For god's sake man, what do you think I have been saying here all this time? He
explains the occurrence of experience by resort to description of real or
theorized physical phenomena. But that isn't to say mind is physical in the
entity sense. The ENTITY SENSE Bruce!
> But then wants to call it physical by giving a physical
> account of the body parts that are critical for having a mind. We play
> music with our brain and hands, but no account of music can be given in
> terms of brain and hand, except to say..
>
> > Asserting a physical cause or physical derivation for mind IS to say
> it is physical in a certain sense
>
> In the sense that everything originates in the bang. And the emergence
> of mind?
>
Part of the same array of phenomena that started out with a bang!
> > Mind, while it may be localized in any given brain, is a different
> category of thing, more akin to the turning of a wheel...
> > There is the wheel and the turning. Both are physical though we would
> not want to say both are physical objects.
>
> Sorry. A wheel at rest or turning is a physical thing. Yes, the concept
> "turning" isn't physical.
It most certainly is! What is non-physical that turns? Can turning occur in a
ghostly way? A turning spirit? Where is that? How do we know it is turning?
> No concepts are. You need a mind to conceive
> of a wheel of turning. You need a mind to conceive of your mind as
> actually physical.
>
This has NOTHING to do with whether or not anyone conceives it this way! Even
if no one figured it out, the brain would still be the source of our minds
because of how it works.
> > So it all depends on what we mean by "physical".
>
> True. Again, is everything that is or could be "physical."
>
> bruce
>
>
If part of the physical phenomena of the universe, yes. But note that we
SOMETIMES use "physical" in a different way, i.e., to distinguish between
things that have extension, etc., and things that don't. Energy and matter
offer one such dichotomy in common (though perhaps dated) usage, yet both are
part of the physical universe. Dollar bills and a notation of dollars in an
account offer another kind of dichotomy.
The issue vis a vis minds arises when some want to say that the mind, because
it isn't physical (as in being a physical entity), must be some different kind
of entity that comes from a different source, a source that is either outside
the physical framework of the universe or else that mind must be a special
something that is sometimes added to the universe through some sort of
inexplicable (mysterious? magical?) production.
Anyway, this looks like an endless debate again. Everytime I think we're
getting somewhere I am rudely awakened by the kinds of statements you've made
here. We have moved no farther than where we began five lists ago in talking
about this, I fear.
As Wittgenstein might have said: How can we go on?
SWM
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