[lit-ideas] Popper's Trialism and Spatio-Temporal Continuancy
- From: "" <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> (Redacted sender "Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx" for DMARC)
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 27 Jan 2015 07:48:33 -0500
In a message dated 1/26/2015 2:08:03 P.M. Eastern Standard Time,
donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx writes:
"I agree it would appear contradictory to argue (1) pain belongs to W2 but
(2) that pain also is located within the W1 brain and (3) W2 is located in
a way distinct to anything located in W1 [i.e. W2 events, like conscious
pain, do not share the identical spatio-temporal location of any W1 events].
I also agree that there is a large and unresolved problem as to the
'location' of consciousness, and thus of W2. I would also agree there is a
large
and unresolved problem as to the 'location' of W3 or W3 contents. But these
admittedly large and unresolved problems are far from conclusive arguments
against the independence of W2 and of W3 from W1. I don't intend to suggest
a solution to these large problems but here clarify that Popper's position
is that W3 "exists but exists nowhere" and that W2 is located not within
W1 but somehow adjacent to the W1 brain. It seems that we have no obvious
model for locating anything in space and time except in the way we seek to
locate W1 objects within W1: and this creates an admitted problem, for there
is a lack of any clear model for how we 'locate' W2 or W3 in these terms.
Despite this, it seems overwhelmingly the case that consciousness exists;
and though it is less overwhelming, the strong case is that consciousness is
distinct from being a mere W1 process - for there is no analogue of
consciousness in any W1 processes as these are conceived by science. So we
quickly
reach one of the immense and weird imponderables of the mind-body problem,
that have given rise to very different reactions - including that radical
materialism, a la Quine, that takes consciousness to be merely an illusion.
But if consciousness is not simply an illusion, the mind-body dichotomy
surfaces in all its presently unsolvable strangeness. There is no present
possible position without strangeness - the radical materialist, in denying
consciousness, is one of the strangest. Against the strangeness of these
alternative positions [e.g. panpsychism] it might seem less strange to accept
the admitted strangeness of accepting a W3 and a W2 that cannot readily be
'located', and certainly not 'located' in W1 terms."
Another possible way out, as it were, would be to attest that
spatio-temporal continuancy (a criterion for individuality, according to
Strawson and
H. P. G. in "Individuals: an essay in descriptive metaphysics") applies only
to what Popper calls w1 -- never w2 and least of all w3.
A popular song seems to provide evidence for this
The bells are ringing for me and my gal,
The birds are singing for me and my gal.
Everybody's been knowing
To a wedding they're going
And for weeks they've been sewing,
Every Susie and Sal.
They're congregating for me and my gal,
The Parson's waiting for me and my gal.
And sometime
I'm goin' to build a little home for two,
For three or four or more,
In Love-land for me and my gal.
Consider the line:
i. Everybody's been knowing to a wedding they're going.
Since a later line mentions Susie we can simplify this to read:
ii. Susie has been knowing that to a wedding she is going.
Now, this is part of Susie's knowledge.
But while the counterpart in w1 -- the physical world of spatio-temporal
continuancy -- it may be that some neurons in Susie's brain have to do or
correlate with this 'justified true' belief (granted multiple realisability,
of course), in general, 'know' is not used in the continuous present tense.
We utter things like
iii. Susie knows that she's going to a wedding.
Surely, this 'knowledge' may be co-related to a spatio-temporal dimension,
but the issue is a tricky one. Consider:
iv. Susie first KNEW that she was going to a wedding when Sal told her.
And so on.
Bergson's claim to fame was to add _time_ as a main criterion for _memory_,
and 'know' does not quite behave like its minor counterpart, 'believe'.
v. Susie started BELIEVING that she was going to a wedding on Tuesday, at 5
p.m., when she learned it from Sal.
It may do to use symbolic logic for this. If we use "psi"
ψ
for any item in Popper's w2, we may need, an ascription to a
spatio-temporal continuant (say, a person, like Susie or Sal) to which we
ascribe that
psychological attitude or state.
We add this as a subscript.
ψₐ
On top of that, we may need to specify the content (phrastic plus radical).
For surely, we don't go around saying, "Sue believes". We are more
interested in the focus, that comes later, _what_ she believes. Since she can
believe, but she can also desire (and desire is another psychological state)
we
add the radix (corresponding to the mode of the psychological state: a
belief or a desire) followed by the content itself. Susie may desire to go to
a wedding, rather than merely believe that she will.
ψₐ√p
Now, in
ψₐ√p
spatio-temporal continuancy is mainly, first and foremost, applied to the
individual "a" (Sue). A psychologist may want to individualise the belief
and ascribe temporality to it (and correlate it, via multiple realisability,
to some adjacent state in Sue's brain).
Finally, w3 comes in as the abstract, as it were, proposition "p" -- best
represented as what Austin called a 'that'-clause, "that she is going to a
wedding".
This may solve a few problems, while raise others.
Cheers
Speranza
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