[Wittrs] Re: Understanding Dualism
- From: "SWM" <SWMirsky@xxxxxxx>
- To: wittrsamr@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 26 Aug 2010 00:57:15 -0000
--- In Wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, "gabuddabout" <wittrsamr@...> wrote:
> --- 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.
>
Budd, it doesn't matter whose "perspective" Bruce may be coming from. I am
criticizing the position, not questioning the authority on which it is held! As
to my capacity to "read simple English", well these kinds of remarks are
getting increasingly tiresome.
> 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.
>
Irrelevant to what I said to Bruce.
> 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.
>
See my longstanding critique of the CRA and why it fails. The problem alluded
to here is explicated there.
>
> > 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.
What I am getting at is answering the question of how brains do it.
> 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.
>
Again totally irrelevant to the discussion here.
> 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.
>
>
Nope. I said I once found Searle's CRA convincing and then, after giving it
more thought, concluded it wasn't and then set out to discover why. I kicked a
few ideas about that around but finally settled on two problems with it:
1) It is structured equivocally because the critical third premise (or second,
depending on the iteration being considered) depends on an equivocation for the
conclusion to stand; and
2) The equivocation masks an implicit assumption in the interpretation Searle
wants us to make of the CR itself, an assumption which is in contradiction to
what Searle says elsewhere about brains AND which contradicts Searle's own
assertions about dualism.
Now that's all I want to say about this as it's an old argument here and
elsewhere by now and we have kicked it around many times. If you don't agree
with my points that's fine. I will simply say you are wrong, most likely
because you don't understand them. Enough said.
<snip>
> >
> > 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.
>
Be still my heart! (And to think, in my haste I almost snipped this!)
>
>
> > 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.
>
In the above I am not talking about Searle but about the implications of
something Bruce said! Everything in the universe is not about Searle, Budd.
There are other issues and thinkers, after all!
> >
> > 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.
>
Who cares if someone makes fun of it? This isn't about the about the authority
wielded by your latest philosophical infatuation!
> >
> > 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.
> >
You're scaring me, Budd! Are you all right?
> >
> > > 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."
Then he is not addressing the issue I am addressing and there is little point
of his going back and forth with me over the issue I have focused on -- and I
certainly don't challenge his desire to think about minds apart from brains.
More power to him! Just don't latch onto that as an answer to a question about
how brains relate to minds.
> 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.
> >
I am not deeply familiar with Hacker on this but to the extent I am I find
myself in disagreement with him. I have no problem with speaking about
conscious brains even if we usually reserve that kind of usage to persons a la
Bruce!
> >
> > > 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.
> >
> >
The reason this discussion goes nowhere is because some person or persons here
keep missing my point and, apparently, some think I am missing theirs. We could
all be right in which case we are none of us arguing with anyone else here
although we may be producing lots of marks on our various computer screens.
> > >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..
>
You mean Bruce isn't? I thought you said he wasn't interested in any theses
about how brains do minds? If so, he is simply outside that particular game in
which case what's the point of his arguing with others who are participating in
that game if he's really not?
> >
> > > 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?
You know or should know my view: By "replication" I mean to completely copy,
down to the small RELEVANT operating details whereas by "simulation" I mean
what Searle means, i.e., to model digitally using computational technology. Of
course, both words in ordinary language could do duty in both cases so here is
a case where, for clarity, we want to stipulate (i.e., indicate which of a set
of legitimate meanings of the term in question we are invoking). I have done
this in the past. Now I have reiterated. Perhaps you will commit it to the
memory banks now?
> Is PP conflated with BP such that a PP explanation is equivalent to some BP
> explanation?
This is fiddle-faddle. It's not about which explanation is better for what a
computer can do but what a computer can do.
> Then you are with Searle even though without understanding why he thinks
> functional explanation insufficient for a sound philosophy/science of mind.
>
See above.
<snip>
> > . . . 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.]
>
I distinctly hear him quacking at this very moment, through you!
> >
> > 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.
> >
Searle misses the point of the system reply.
> >
<snip>
> > > 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
> =========================================
Now you've really gone and done it, Budd. I am beginning to think the world is
turning topsy turvy after what now seems to be some seven long years. Are you
feeling okay?
SWM
=========================================
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