[Wittrs] Re: The Epiphenomenalism of Dennett-Consistent Philosophies of Consciousness
- From: "SWM" <SWMirsky@xxxxxxx>
- To: wittrsamr@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 03 Feb 2010 03:06:19 -0000
--- In Wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, Justintruth <wittrsamr@...> wrote:
> <snip
> You wrote: "The issue is not to describe it but to account for it
> causally."
>
> Ok. I now understand I think better how you are thinking. My response
> to you should be much longer than I am capable of writing right now as
> I must earn a living. However, I think it would be worthwhile to
> summarize rather than just remaining silent.
>
> Basically, if I understand you, you believe that physics accounts for
> things causally. (By things I do not mean to limit it to just things
> but the whole "state of affairs")
>
> I guess I should say that that is what I think you believe. Is it?
>
Gives causal accounts, yes. (With predictive potential of course.)
> The second thing I will do is make a supposition that you do not study
> physics. Is that right? If you can tell me it would help me. I do not
> mean this rhetorically and stipulate that whether you do or not is for
> the most part irrelevant, but it would help me to know whether you
> have done the math and crunched some numbers and actually done any
> physics to be able to communicate more effectively with you.
I am not a physicist, no, and don't offer opinions on problems in physics.
> Above
> all I do not think that those who have done the math are embodied with
> any "special" knowledge or anything like that. The meaning of physics
> is understandable by those who do not do it ? although it is a great
> view once you grind through some of the equations! But oh what a
> laborious walk up the hill! Still, if I knew you knew I could become
> more technical in language.
>
Don't. I am not technically versed in physics. Ordinary language is my milieu.
> I do not believe that physics can account for anything causally. My
> view of physics is that it is descriptive.
There are causal descriptions, of course, along with other kinds. That is, we
can describe a set of phenomena that are related in a causal way and science,
of course, whether physics or something else, aims to give descriptions of how
such relations work, whether it is a causal relation at work, etc.
> There is however within the
> descriptions of physical theory numerous uses of the word "to cause".
Absolutely. In ordinary language, too.
> But when you study the theories in detail you realize that physics
> actually does not contain any account of causality at all. It is
> purely a descriptive discourse.
One cannot give a physics based account of causality itself because it is a
concept, not a phenomenon in the world. That is, it's a way of relating things,
of classifiying by naming certain kinds of relations. It's a conceptual
question not a matter for physics equations or other kinds of scientific
accounts.
> When a physicist says that an apple
> falls because of the force of gravity he does not mean it as you might
> think. It is a way of describing what occurs, of parsing the motions
> of things into that which is "natural" and therefore not "in need of a
> cause" and that which is external to the nature of the thing (motion)
> being considered and therefore in need of a cause.
Notice how "cause" is presumed in what you say. That is the physicist, like any
scientist, starts out by thinking in terms of certain categories, in certain
ways and proceeds to study the world and formulate his/her
predictions/descriptions in ways that fit into these categories. But where does
the notion of cause come from? Well, can we imagine a world without it? That
doesn't mean, of course, that it is some special kind of entity IN the world.
It just means that its part of the set of categories governing our thinking.
How it gets there is a different question. Perhaps it is encoded in our brains.
Or perhaps it is simply a result of the complex way in which we interrelate
with the world around us, inevitable given the nature of the world and of our
mode of interacting with it.
> It a sense they
> are saying "When an apple falls we call it caused by gravity." The
> "action" of the earth on the apple is definitional. It could have been
> said simply that when and earth and an apple approach they accelerate
> toward each other.
>
There are different ways of speaking, of course. On lists like this it's best
to speak ordinary language unless by special caveat and explanation, to
accomplish something ordinary language cannot do for us.
> There is a very long post that should be inserted here on the nature
> of being and its relation to causality but I can't pursue it simply
> for lack of time. Cop out.. cop out?yea I know. Can't avoid it.
>
> I recently had an experience in which I was standing alone by a river
> in the middle of winter. Thousands of big chunks of ice in intricate
> shapes and sizes were flowing by me in highly specific motion. No one
> was around. It was very cold and I was dressed warm and comfortable. I
> remember looking at the chunks as they passed by me and observing them
> enter my field of view in all their specific bobbing and floating with
> very specific motions each motion a fact that had occurred that I
> witnessed in aspect at least. I began to look straight ahead and not
> move my head to look upstream or down but just to let the ice flow
> into and then out of my vision.
>
> I began to consider the ice just before and just after it entered my
> field of view. I could see very clearly the notion of material being.
> My mind recoiled at the thought of positing that these chunks of ice
> came into being only as they came into my field of view and then
> disappeared from existence as they left it. These chunks had formed in
> incredible detail unobserved way upstream and had floated down in
> front of me and then they left and continued out of sight down the
> river. And all that detail existed upstream and down.
>
> And there "I" was. I too had floated down in a sense, my body having
> had a history not unlike the history of the floating ice. Conception,
> birth and the history of the particles entering into my body and
> leaving it, while I grew and learned all "flowed" behind me in time. I
> had a trajectory ? a physical one that brought me here and that
> trajectory could very truly be described in terms of the trajectories
> of the arrangement of the particles in my body.
Yes, I think that is an interesting perspective, an interesting experience. I
suspect many of us have had it though it is often hard to put fully into words.
> If I were the ice I
> would have seen my body pass by and wondered about its existence
> before and after it passed by me.
>
> I realize that most people believe that this idea is what
> "ontological" means. That this ice unobserved and all of its
> properties "were" even before they had entered my vision and continued
> on after.
Actually it seems like there are multiple meanings for "ontological" as there
are with most words.
> That they "caused" me to observe them or participated as
> the physical situation as a whole did. I do not agree actually.
>
With which point?
> I also theorize that the ice was upstream and down. But my
> understanding of that fact is very different than the usual one. It
> has the idea of the "ice upstream (and down) unobserved" in it and it
> has the notion of the relations between me and my body. You would call
> it a causal relationship and I would agree to a very large extent.
> However, ultimately, we would disagree on the meaning of the word
> cause in this case I suspect.
Possibly. There are multiple meanings of "cause". When I speak of minds and
brains, of course, I have a very particular meaning in mind nor am I wedded to
the word "cause". If it causes you anguish, as it does Bruce, I am good with
other terms as long as the basic relationship of existential dependence of the
one on the other is captured in the term. Thus I am good with saying brains
cause or produce or make or engender or bring about minds or that the brain is
the seat of the mind, the source, etc. Lots of different connotations and
associations may be kicked up with the different choices which is why it's so
important to be explicit as to meaning. In the end, though, I want to say that
it makes perfect sense to ask how brains cause/do/make/produce minds, etc.
> Something about ex nihilo. I do not
> believe that physical cause either of the objective world or of the
> subjective is possible to infer.
>
> I believe that the idea of "force" and "mass" in classical physics are
> the roots of a kind of bias that mistakes motion for causality.
>
That is perfectly possible though at a certain point it gains nothing to
speculate about such ultimate realities. If they are really ultimate they are
beyond our grasp so let's just go back to what we can grasp, i.e., to studying
and working throught the things we can do and say and how we do and say them.
> If as you say the issue is: "..not to describe it but to account for
> it causally" then we are in agreement to a large extent but
> unfortunately I believe that our understanding of what "account for it
> causally" would mean would be very different.
>
> Basically, I believe that the idea of causality in the physical sense,
> the material cause, is descriptive and dependent on (is a description
> of) a kind of stability in the appearance of the essent.
I don't see the point of talking about "essents". Why make up (or use made up)
terms when ordinary language already has a rich and robust inventory of terms
that we can use? Supposing there are "essents" is like supposing there is some
underlying substance to all things. Well there may be but we gain nothing by
speculating about them though, admittedly, some scientific theories may be
aided by adding such abstract suppositions -- but then the theories in question
will only be helped in the sense that they can be shown to do a better job of
predicting what is in the real world, what will happen if X happens, etc., if
one presumes the extra speculative something.
I think the same can be said of consciousness. If we could not account for
consciousness in physical terms then we would, of necessity, have to presume
something else is at work. Some kind of dualism might then be needed. But if we
already can account for consciousness in physical terms (which, of course, is
what I have been arguing) then there's no reason to invoke extra stuff as in
dualism.
> That is why
> all physical laws are confirmed in experiment. It is powerless to
> describe "why things happen" in any way. Material causality is merely
> descriptive.
>
What is described is done within contexts, conceptual boundaries, and we
discover these by exploring our words, how we speak about the things we think
about, etc. So we can speak of causation on multiple levels. The cause of the
visual image in physical terms but also in terms of the description of how
things are arrayed before us, what capacities we have, etc. There are causes to
be found, looking at things in both ways but the choices we make of the ways we
address this are driven by the contextual need, not by some basic really,
really deep knowledge. Everything is deep in some sense. Everything is on the
surface in another.
> So I do not share with you the possibility that physics could account
> for the subject causally in a way that is beyond the term
> "descriptive". Material cause is a description.
>
See my point about the different ways we can speak of "cause".
> But my disagreement is not limited to that. We have a more narrow
> disagreement. If you will humor me and assume that material cause is
> descriptive then I think that there is still a disagreement between us
> over whether the principle of material causality in the objective
> physical sense as conceived of in classical physics (neglecting for a
> moment quantum mechanics and the relativity of time) could, ***without
> modification*** "account for" the existence of consciousness. Why?
>
The fact is there is consciousness in the world and it is associated with
brains (or at least some equivalent physical platform) and never separate from
them. Therefore it makes sense to look for the cause in the platform somewhere.
Do you want to say it is just floating nearby or in some other dimension of
reality peeking through? What would be the point of that? What does such a
picture gain for you other than the sense of satisfaction that we conscious
beings are a special sort of thing in the universe? But why should we presume
that such a feeling ought to drive our explanations of this phenomenon? Can the
mind persist when the brain shuts down? Even a mind that has felt the
satisfying sense of being special in the universe because of the kind of
explanation that denies that minds are physically derived?
> Basically it is because my belief is that the current physics as I
> have studied it does not describe any mechanism, no matter how complex
> its function, as being conscious.
Yes, you have said that before. But if physics tells us how chemistry works and
chemistry tells us how organic chemistry (biological organisms) works and if
biology tells us how neurology works, then what's the problem? Why would we
doubt that we have an explanation of the occurrence of consciousness?
Of course, this is yet to be fully developed but the issue here isn't whether
such an explanation currently exists but whether it's possible.
> I realize that the mechanism of the
> brain is not completely understood yet and so we are at a little
> disadvantage but let me stipulate the following as a kind of thought
> experiment.
>
> First assume a classical physical world in which the positions and
> velocities of all of the particles in a brain are completely known at
> a given time.
Completely known by whom? By a classical knower, a godlike being?
> The sum total of what physical law would do would be to
> allow one to express the future positions and velocities of that
> assembly of particles. That is what I understand to be the extent of
> its possibilities.
>
> Now, there is a problem with this limitation. It does not predict any
> experience at all!
>
It might if, in fact, experience is just so much physical phenomena working
itself out in particular physical media. And that, of course, is the view at
issue here. Now I will be the first to say that this isn't feasible and may
never be. But it's your thought experiment and if you want to posit the
possibility of knowing all such events down to the minutist detail, then I will
add to that the posit that consciousness is just some of these events in
operation.
> Yet from it scientists can predict the outcome of an experiment and
> confirm or deny the theory. How can a theory which does not predict
> experience be subject to experiment?!
>
Because you need a very, very, very, very, very, etc., etc. deep picture of the
complexity going on. But it is certainly possible in principle if not in fact
if, indeed, brain operations ARE the underlying events of instances of
consciousness.
> The answer is much like the "ice". The current physical theory models
> the objects of experience. It contains an objective model of the ice
> and let us say that I went upstream took really good notes on the
> position of some ice and drove downstream so many miles exactly and
> stared outward. Ignoring the obvious scientific problems associated
> with chaotic behavior etc I could in theory predict that I would
> experience a particular piece of ice entering my field of view
> simultaneously with the watch hands on my watch being at certain
> locations. I drive down and sure enough it does. That helps confirm
> the theory in the sense that Popper made clear.
>
Except you can't do it in fact and, as Dennett points out with Searle's CRA, we
can very easily fool ourselves with these kinds of thought experiments! But if
you can posit that you could do all this, then why not posit that one can do
all this with brains and subjective experiences of the entity in question, too?
> Now here is the point. Note that I said two things that are apparently
> contradictory: I said: "?let us say that I went upstream took really
> good notes on the position of some ice and drove downstream so many
> miles exactly and stared outward?" I also said: "The sum total of what
> physical law would do would be to allow one to express the future
> positions and velocities of that assembly of particles". So how, if a
> physical theory only expresses the objective state of things was I
> able to predict the sighting?
>
> The answer is that inside of current physics there are a host of
> assumptions that play no part in the theoretical model.
There are a host of assumptions inside of ordinary language, too. Indeed, we
are embedded in a world, a form of life, that is larded with assumptions. One
of the points of philosophy is to tease these out so that we can recognize them
and their implications for the things we are trying to understand.
Now this is getting long but you are offering a serious effort here and I don't
wish to discount it. Accordingly, I will stop here and offer further thoughts
about what follows below in a second post. I hope you're okay with that.
SWM
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