[lit-ideas] Re: Popper's Trialism and Spatio-Temporal Continuancy
- From: Omar Kusturica <omarkusto@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 27 Jan 2015 14:55:50 +0100
Since knowledge changes over time - new knowledge is acquired, parts of old
knowledge are discarded - it can hardly help having a temporal dimension as
well. The question arises if it is spatial. If it is something storable in
libraries and databases then it is spatial and seemingly indistinguishable
from W1. If it exists only in the minds, then it is seemingly
indistinguishable from W2.
O.K.
On Tue, Jan 27, 2015 at 2:27 PM, Omar Kusturica <omarkusto@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Actually the mind is permitted (since it cannot help it) to have a
> temporal dimension; the thoughts I am having are now are different from the
> thoughts I had an hour ago, and different from the ones I will have in
> another hour, etc. The mind obviously exists in time, it is space that is a
> big no-no for it if one wishes to maintain that it is separate from the
> physical.
>
> About knowledge (Popper's W3), does geographical knowledge have anything
> to with space ? Or does historical or musical knowledge have anything to do
> with time ? Just askin'.
>
> O.K.
>
> On Tue, Jan 27, 2015 at 1:48 PM, Redacted sender Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx for
> DMARC <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
>> 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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