[Wittrs] Re: Understanding Dualism
- From: "SWM" <SWMirsky@xxxxxxx>
- To: wittrsamr@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Fri, 27 Aug 2010 14:12:01 -0000
--- In Wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, "iro3isdx" <xznwrjnk-evca@...> wrote:
<snip>
>
> > http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Wittrs/message/6207
>
>
> > "The dualistic division leaves that part of the requirements of
> > intentionality absent from process B. And as long as thinking is
> > said to occur within process B, that leaves the thinking as
> > without some of the requirements of intentionality."
>
> I am wondering how you are reading that.
>
> I was assuming that intentionality is necessary for consciousness. As
> far as I know, that's not even controversial. The implication of what
> I wrote there was that if intentionality wasn't available, that would
> present a problem for consciousness. There was no claim that
> intentionality is sufficient to have consciousness.
>
> --------
As I explained, it seems to me that "intentionality" (qua aboutness) can either
be understood as a proxy for what we mean by "consciousness" or, at a minimum,
one of the key features of what we mean by "consciousness" (without whose
presence we could not say we have an instance of consciousness). Now whether
you agree with the first, at the least, the second matches your description:
". . . if intentionality wasn't available, that would present a problem for
consciousness."
That is, without its presence in the mix, "we could not say we have an instance
of consciousness".
If this is so, if our statements, although formulated a little differently, are
saying the same thing, then my point about the need to explicate what we mean
by "intentionality" would seem to be perfectly sensible and a reasonable
request to achieve better understanding, no?
>
>
> > SWM:
> > An important place to start is in making sure that we define what
> > we mean by key terms or answer questions, if ambiguities or variant
> > meanings are identified, as is clearly the case with a term like
> > "intentionality".
>
> If I have not been clear enough in the past, then let me clear it up
> right now. My way of understanding consciousness requires a major
> reconceptualization.
Mine, too, as I've said in the past, i.e., it requires reconceptualizng what we
call "consciousness" as an array of operations of the type even computers are
seen to be capable of, which perform a number of tasks in a certain way (as an
integrated, interactive system). Such tasks include representing raw
information (in the form of inputs received as uninterpreted signals),
constructing complex networks of such representations in a multivariate and
tiered way, and being able to link to and connect the different representations
at the different levels. That is, I think we can explain all the features of
consciousness (e.g., aboutness, awareness, understanding, picturing, etc.) as a
complex system of processes that perform these functions in the right way (as
brains do).
The older and more classical view of consciousness, of course, is that it is a
unified awareness, an observer of, and actor upon, events in its environment.
I have suggested that this latter view has several different variations but
that, at bottom, they all boil down to a supposition that consciousness is a
different "animal" than the physical world it encounters (hence, dualism).
On the reconceptualization I think best accounts for consciousness, it is just
another aspect of the physical world, i.e., it is what some physical processes
do in some cases under some conditions.
Some, like Walter, have suggested that this amounts to dualism, too, albeit a
so-called "property dualism" which is distinct from the Cartesian variety
(so-called "substance dualism"). I think, with Searle, that nothing is dualism
unless it is ontologically conceived, i.e., invoked in terms of what is most
basic to any given phenomenon. However, I don't think that invoking the term
"substance" really captures this.
Moreover, I have suggested that there is a confusion in this approach, not
least because the term "dualism" is doing apparent double (dual?) duty here,
i.e., it's being deployed to designate a belief in two distinct things while
failing to adequately capture the ontological divide that is at the heart of
any real claim of dualism vis a vis consciousness.
Finally, I think that supposing the account ends at the claim that some
physical things just happen to have a consciousness feature (intentionality,
say, on Walter's account) and some don't, leaves everything in confusion
because nothing is actually being specified in the account about the issue of
ontological dualism (which is why, I think, Searle makes the points he does in
that paper). After all, if we say that some features (properties) just happen
to attach to some physical things/events, what is the cause of their
occurrence? The color red is caused by light reflecting off a surface and
interacting with our sensory apparatus which, when processed in our brain
yields the experience of the red color. So it's easy to give an account of
redness as a property. But redness as an experience, if it is to be described
as being, itself, a property, cries out for a similar explanation.
But that is not available with the kind of account which says intentionality is
just a property of some physical things/events. The question is what is needed
to produce intentionality (and whatever else is associated with being a
subject) in the world? That is, what is it that brains do which result in the
occurrence of this feature we call "intentionality"?
> That implies that it requires concepts that I
> cannot precisely define in terms of the conventional conceptualization.
But that is what is needed -- a definition of the terms. If you only want to
hazard a definition in terms of the conceptualization that relies upon the
defined thing, then isn't it an exercise of circularity? If the point is to say
what "intentionality" designates, then one needs to clarify what one means by
the term.
> The best I can do is give examples, analogies, etc, to illustrate how I
> am using the terms, hoping that readers can catch onto the needed
> concepts.
>
> If you want to insist on an explanation of consciousness in terms of
> the conventional conceptualization, then no such explanation is
> possible.
>
> Regards,
> Neil
I don't think you can say that at all. If the cognitive science people like
Dehaene and the AI researchers can offer a definition then why have they not
demonstrated that your approach is mistaken? If Dennett's thesis essentially
defines consciousness as such and such an array of functionalities (tasks
performed by particular physical processes) and this covers all the bases,
accounts for all the claims we make about consciousness, then why assume that
it can't be done?
What is needed, therefore, is an analysis that determines if something critical
has been left out, not merely the pronouncement that it cannot be done.
Yes, I know you do not find the Dennettian account as intellectually satisfying
as I do but then the question is why don't you? I have given reasons for why I
do. Have you reasons for saying the Dennettian thesis is wrong? Aside from the
fact that you have suggested that what's missing from the account is the role
that being alive plays in the occurrence of consciousness, which you have not
yet told us enough about so we can see HOW its absence poses such a problem,
have you any other reasons to consider the Dennettian thesis inadequate?
On the other list PJ suggested that experience is missing because Dennett's
thesis hinges on a denial of "qualia" but I have argued that this is a
misreading of his argument (i.e., that denying "qualia" is not to deny
experience). Nevertheless, THAT claim about something missing is a significant
one because, if it can be shown to be the case, we would have to agree that
Dennett's thesis doesn't do the work he claims for it (fully account for
consciousness) because consciousness, finally, includes what we call
"experience".
My point is that there are certainly issues which we can hold a thesis like
Dennett's accountable for and which, if it fails to address them, would
undermine it as a claim. But this does not mean that an issue like leaving out
the role of life (your issue) is one, unless you can show why its omission
matters to the adequacy of the account.
What, after all, does life add to the mix that produces consciousness and
without which consciousness would not occur?
SWM
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