[Wittrs] Re: Understanding Dualism
- From: "gabuddabout" <gabuddabout@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: wittrsamr@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 26 Aug 2010 00:14:18 -0000
--- In WittrsAMR@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, "SWM" <wittrsamr@...> wrote:
>
> I think, Bruce, that you are stuck in the same kind of picture of mind as
> dualists whether you espouse dualism or not. It's easy, after all, to deny it
> (Searle does regularly) but if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck .
> . .
I believe Stuart's response here is just misinformed. He's demonstrated over
the years that he can't read simple English when it comes to Searle and Stuart
doesn't really get that Bruce is coming from Hacker's perspective such that
consciousness has to do with persons who are more than their brains, yada, yada.
Bruce simply, along with Hacker (and Neil and probably the whole populations of
Germany and France), thinks that the thesis that the brain causes consciousness
is somehow problematic whereas Searle thinks such a view simply retarded.
On other occasions, Stuart tried to distinguish Searle's position as
consciousness arising/caused "full-blown" from the brain, as opposed to some
functional account of system processes which he conflated with BP while yet
wanting the account in functional terms PP.
> On the other hand, as I have long said, it is not, on my view, a pejorative
> claim to say someone is "dualist" in his/her thinking.
What Bruce is getting at is simply his notion of having power to do and think
things regardless of a story as to how the brain causes consciousness. But
this isn't an argument/can't be an argument against the thesis that the brain
causes/realizes cons. in some synchronically causal way that we have no choice
but to look into by first looking for NCCs. On Searle's view you can enjoy
your phenomenology without thinking that it rules out his brand of brain
research when it comes to a good scientific account of mind--the philosophical
account is indeed a sort of identity theory without ontological reduction.
Stuart would say that the above quacks like a dualist duck. But he's fond of
hearing things he's already settled on six years ago and probably before. He
says he once was fine with Searle until he found him equivocating, arguing
circularly, contradicting himself--but note that nonreductive materialism
combined with causal reduction is not a contradiction.
>
> Anyway, a few remarks in response below:
>
> --- In Wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, "BruceD" <blroadies@> wrote:
> >
> >
> > --- In Wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, "SWM" <SWMirsky@> wrote:
> >
> > copied:
> > Whether or not computation is physical is of no importance here. The
> > point it that it is separated from the physical input (what I called
> > "process A".
> >
>
> > It seems to me that this whole debate turns on whether one holds, as
> > does Stuart does, in the next paragraph
> >
> > "Of course there are different kinds of information and information
> > delivery: an apparatus might simply capture signals about an object
> > which allow construction of a visual image of the object which some
> > other part of the processor is equipped to read (as in interpret)"
> >
>
> I was suggesting here that it seemed to me that Neil's assertion of dualism
> was being somewhat idiosyncratically used, given the standard usage in
> classical philosophy. If that is so, then his argument against dualism really
> addresses something else.
"Standard usage in classical philosophy"--
> > namely, that what goes on the physical brain is the whole story (and
> > nothing but the story) and hence computation MUST be physical or one
> > holds, as I do, that "what goes on in the physical brain" only makes
> > sense when one views the brain as an instrument of a person, with the
> > implication that computation and interpretation is not physical (nor is
> > it the movement of a mental substance.)
> >
>
> How can "one view the brain as the instrument of a person" when, in fact, the
> brain is a part of what constitutes the person (the rest being the physical
> organism that houses it with all its accouterments)? Your continued reliance
> on this locution is just odd in this context of discussing how minds happen
> in the world, Bruce.
I emphatically agree with Stuart here.
> Nor does it resolve the question of whether, for minds to be when brains are
> doing certain things, something more than what the brains are doing is
> required?
Quite correct and consistent, contra your misinterpretation of Searle, with
Searle's position.
>
> Aside from the operations of the body to sustain life and feed the brain its
> complement of blood supply, what else could be required? Inputs from the
> physical world Neil might say, I suppose.
This is the hilarious thesis made fun of by Fodor in his review appended below
for fun for all.
>
> Well sure, but that is not the key component because a brain can be conscious
> even if deprived of sensory inputs as some scientific experiments have shown.
That's a good point.
>
>
> > My position is not Dualistic.
>
> Sorry Bruce, but I think it is -- not that there's anything wrong with that!
> (Except, of course, there is good reason to think it is not the way things
> really are.)
Here's how it is not dualistic, Stuart. All Bruce needs to do is say he's
uninterested in how the brain causes consciousness when it comes to his "being
in the world." Not that there's anything wrong with that. But it is not the
whole story, as Searle points out that Hacker's Wittgensteinian view tends to
make his innocent thesis that the brain causes consciousness look (somehow)
suspect. That wouldn't necessarily be dualism either.
>
>
> > Nor is it Monistic. It doesn't employ the
> > notion of substance.
>
>
> And yet you talk about "substance" an awful, awful lot! If you don't use the
> concept in your thesis why do you constantly need to refer to it, deny it,
> explain why it isn't your concern, etc.?
He might be making fun of this whole discussion which tends to go nowhere,
including our debate on how to read Searle's simple English.
>
>
> >Physics is no more the analysis of a physical
> > substance than psychology is an analysis of a mental substance. Hence, I
> > agree...
> >
> > > Dualism is the supposition that there must be something other
> > > than purely physical processes underlying mental occurrences.
> >
>
> Glad you do. Let's see where you take it though.
Round back to not being interested in Searle's thesis..
>
> > If one drops the notion of purely physical, then Dualism (or should I
> > say "substance-ism") goes away. But if you are intent on conceiving of
> > mind in brain terms, "substance-ism" will continue trouble your account.
> >
>
> Well if the question is how do minds happen in the world, there's an awful
> lot of evidence that brains ARE the cause of them (Searle's sense of "cause",
> etc., etc.) and very little evidence that anything else is. So the issue is
> how do brains do what they do and can what they do be replicated on some
> other kind of platform (e.g., computers)?
Is replication simulation or pound for pound emulation? Is PP conflated with
BP such that a PP explanation is equivalent to some BP explanation? Then you
are with Searle even though without understanding why he thinks functional
explanation insufficient for a sound philosophy/science of mind.
>
> > > If computations are physical processes then what is dualistic
> > > about supposing them to be the operations that...have consciousness
> >
> > Because it is a person who is conscious, not the circuitry. You have
> > agreed in the past that the brain isn't conscious.
>
>
> I have agreed that we don't typically talk that way and that's because we
> don't have direct encounters with brains but with individuals we know as
> persons with brains. But all the evidence so far is that brains are the
> causative agent of consciousness within the body (Searle's sense of "cause").
> Moreover, I have noted that in cases where we are actually monitoring the
> brain of a person we might say there's evidence of consciousness in that
> brain, and so forth. I suppose if our world consisted of free floating brains
> and we had direct contact with them there would be no need of the distinction
> you want us to draw. But of course, the world isn't like that.
I'll bet that someday you'll come to appreciate Fodor too, along with coming
back home to Searle after understanding he's not quacking in the way you seem
to mishear him.]
>
> Now if a computer were built that had consciousness, would we mean the whole
> darned machine was conscious or some key components which, like our brains,
> could, in principle be extracted?
Interesting question. Searle's response to the systems reply goes something
like that if you understand it.
>
>
> > But it is consistent
> > with reductionism to attribute C to brain matter. This is what I find
> > troubling. Then again, my account...
> >
>
> ?
I don't find it troubling at all. Hacker does, because he's constantly
attributing to Searle a mereological fallacy.
> > >...doesn't tell us (what is occurring in their key organs, like their
> > brains)
> > > that is, in effect, making the instances of consciousness happen.
> >
>
> > But Dehaene's does. He has found the area that "is responsible", his
> > phrase.
>
> In that material we linked to, Dehaene was specifically limiting his
> reference to what he called access consciousness, i.e., the part of brain
> activity we are aware is occurring when it's occurring. Moreover he didn't
> say he had found "the area", he said he had found indications that
> consciousness in the brain is a global phenomenon, meaning that it involves
> the occurrence of many different things in a linked fashion simultaneously.
> This certainly involved a claim of finding implicated areas but his was NOT a
> claim that instannces of consciousness occurred in particular brain sections
> rather than others.
>
> > But "responsible" isn't a process A or physical theory term. So,
> > at the critical junction between brain and mind, the language shifts.
> > Can we do better?
> >
>
>
> > Actually, you wrote..
> >
> > > what is being done by the conscious organisms that is,
> > > in effect, making the instances of consciousness happen
> >
> > Which is another example of the shift from a physical to a to a
> > psychological account, "what the conscious organism does", as in the way
> > I play the piano,
>
>
> No, my reference to the "organism" was deliberately made so as not to invoke
> the idea of "person" as you would have it. I was speaking of the organism as
> a particular system in the way Neil describes living things, as
> self-contained, self-sustaining, self-propagating homeostatic systems whose
> "purpose" is to maintain internal equilibrium for as long as it can. This
> occurs at a much deeper level of the entity's operations than playing the
> piano.
>
>
> > which I think imputes too much control over our
> > consciousness.
> >
> > bruce
> > >
>
> This is a mistake Bruce. You are conflating claims about the organisms with
> claims about the persons that we consider SOME organisms to be! And then you
> are confusing the usage of the term "consciousness". This discussion is not
> aimed at discussing the conscious vs. the sub-conscious of some person or
> other. It's about the occurrence of "being a subject" in the physical world,
> what we more loosely and more typically call the occurrence of minds.
>
> And that's a biological and neurobiological issue and an issue for so-called
> cognitive science which aims to unite disciplines in order to determine what
> exactly minds are (besides being the outputs of some brains). However, it is
> not, generally speaking, a subject for the clinical psychologist practicing
> his or her profession (though such individuals are certainly not barred from
> taking an interest in the question, too).
>
> SWM
I'm glad to here some of those responses, Stuart. Nice job on them.
Cheers,
Budd
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