[lit-ideas] Re: The location of location
- From: Omar Kusturica <omarkusto@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2015 17:34:44 +0100
If something changes over time - as both mind and knowledge do - then it
exists in time. It shouldn't even be necessary to make such an obvious
point.
Descartes' mind is obviously burdened with left-overs from Christian soul,
which is supposed to be eternal.
O.K.
On Thu, Jan 29, 2015 at 1:27 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.
>
> It seems simpler to postulate that space-time belongs in w1 only?
>
> There's the physical world, and space and time are physical 'concepts' or
> entities or items.
>
> w2 is the world of thinking.
>
> Palma:
>
> "Note that, if Descartes were right, thought can’t have extension
> properties, such as temporal properties."
>
> The implicature is that Descartes ain't right?
>
> If an item in the world of 'psychology' has spatio-temporal
> qualifications, it seems to me because it 'corresponds' in some way to
> some item in the
> physical world, which necessarily does.
>
> w3, the world of concepts and stuff surely does not require on the other
> hand any sort of Cartesian spatio-temporal coordinate. But surely the
> CONTENT of a book on space and time (such as Einstein's) belongs in this
> 'third
> reich', as Popper's predecessor also called it.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Speranza
>
>
>
>
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