[Wittrs] Re: What is Analysis?
- From: "iro3isdx" <xznwrjnk-evca@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: wittrsamr@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Mon, 02 Nov 2009 20:50:58 -0000
--- In Wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, "SWM" <SWMirsky@...> wrote:
I took a break from this discussion, partly because I was busy with
other matters, and partly because of frustration over the level of
miscommunication. This post is to tie up loose ends, and might be my
last post to the thread. I do plan to start another thread on some of
the outstanding issues.
> My point had to do with your denial of a claim that the world is
> ordered and known to be so because we have survived in it.
Yet you have failed to make a convincing case that our survival depends
on there being a human independent ordering of the world.
> I have had the good fortune to have a number of grandchildren born to
> my children over the past few years, reacquainting me with infants
> again. While the very youngest, a newborn, has limited sensory
> awareness, it's clear that at a very early age the capacity to
> sense the surrounding world grows dramatically. Yet there is no
> evidence of conceptual growth in the earliest days.
Of course there is no language ability at that early age. If your idea
of concepts is closely tied to their use in language, then you would
not notice the development of concepts.
> They soon develop is the capacity to share the same world we have,
> though. Now you want to say that that is because they develop a
> conceptual capacity (based on your willingness to expand the notion
> of "concept" which I'm not sure I can share) ...
I don't think I am expanding the idea of "concept", but I'll agree that
we have different ideas as to what concepts are. Fodor argues (in his
innateness argument), that it is impossible for us to have
representations or thoughts about the world without having concepts.
And if that is correct, then either concepts are innate (as Fodor
argues), or develop early in children as they develop that capacity to
share the world.
> ... while I propose, instead, that the conceptual capacity in
> them, that we recognize as such, grows with the increasing sensing
> capacities of their bodily equipment.
I'm not sure where the "instead" comes from, for that's quite
consistent with my view.
>> That's pretty much what we mean by "reflex". Whether there is
>> some associated sensation, I do not know. But sensation is not a
>> requirement of reflex action.
> How do you know?
Suppose you were given an anesthetic that numbed your brain, but did
not affect the neurons in your spinal column. Now suppose that a
doctor use his mallet on your knee to illicit a knee jerk reflex. Do
you think the knee jerk would occur? (I do). Do you think you would
have any sensation while unconscious with that numbed brain? (I don't).
>> I was just giving a comment on why the example of a snail is not
>> obviously relevant. But I don't claim to know much about snails.
> Nor I. Still it's hard to suppose they get no sensations at all in
> doing what they do. Possible, yes, but unlikely given what we know
> of their behavior as well of organisms in general.
I'm pretty sure that an amoeba does not have sensations, though it is
responsive to its environment. Somewhere between the amoeba and the
human, sensations appear. I don't know where the break point is. The
kind of argument you were using seemed to not recognize that there are
such differences.
>> You haven't actually explained anything. You are just repeating
>> the same assertions. Suppose I were to seek evidence of order in
>> the world that is not human dependent. What would I be looking for?
> That's a theoretical question since, as you point out, you, being
> human, could never find such evidence without tainting it, nor
> am I claiming otherwise. So asking me to demonstrate otherwise is
> a non-starter.
It's interesting that you are so strongly convinced that there must be
a human independent order, but you cannot tell me where to look for
evidence. I could give you more convincing evidence than that, for the
existence of a tooth fairy.
If you want to find evidence of such an order, I suggest that you look
in the cultural myths of the Western traditions.
> The issue is how we understand the world around us.
Indeed it is. That's pretty much the question of intentionality that
you raised when starting the thread. But it seems that you you don't
want hear how I address that issue.
> We have certain understandings already, of course, ...
Indeed. Those "certain understandings" are from the cultural myths I
just referred to. It seems that you don't like challenges to those
"certain understandings".
> In the present case, the issue is whether there is evidence for
> evolution (there is) and then what that theory entails.
No, that is not it at all. I have not in any way challenged the
evidence for evolution. The "certain understandings" that you find so
compelling actually date back to an era when creationism was dominant
in Western thought.
> My claim is only that Hawkins makes a good point when he proposes
> that brains work by patterning the environments in which they find
> themselves and that those patterns accurately capture (to varying
> degrees of course) what is really going on in those environments
> because, if they didn't, the organisms with the brains would not
> have survived and prospered in the world as they have.
I don't disagree with that at all. However, that does not require that
there be a human independent order in the world.
Regards,
Neil
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