[lit-ideas] Re: Popper's Trialism and Spatio-Temporal Continuancy
- From: Omar Kusturica <omarkusto@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 27 Jan 2015 18:02:24 +0100
I picked it up from Schopenhauer, could well be in Ibn Sina. I only read
from Ibn Sina his tract on religion and philosophy, haven't studied his
magnum opus.
O.K.
On Tue, Jan 27, 2015 at 5:55 PM, Adriano Palma <Palma@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> The temporal asymmetry (minds are/can be) not in space they’re in time
> in Ibn SIna already
>
>
>
> *From:* lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:
> lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] *On Behalf Of *Omar Kusturica
> *Sent:* 27 January 2015 15:27
> *To:* lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> *Subject:* [lit-ideas] Re: Popper's Trialism and Spatio-Temporal
> Continuancy
>
>
>
> 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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