[Wittrs] Re: Defining Consciousness -- Can we, and if so what is it?

  • From: "Stuart W. Mirsky" <SWMirsky@xxxxxxx>
  • To: Wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Sun, 09 Aug 2009 04:12:56 -0000

--- In Wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, "Cayuse" <z.z7@...> wrote:
>
> Stuart wrote:
> > Cayuse wrote:
> >> This misses my point that correlation and causation differ. If they were 
> >> synonymous then it would make no difference whether we say that brain 
> >> activity causes consciousness or that consciousness causes brain activity, 
> >> just as it makes no difference whether we say that brain activity is 
> >> correlated with consciousness or that consciousness is correlated with 
> >> brain activity. And this brings me back full circle: there is no 
> >> justification for any claim the brain activity causes consciousness; only 
> >> a claim for correlation.
> > 
> > Of course they differ. In the real world, as part of how we interact with 
> > it, that difference is important since it enables us to take instances of 
> > correlation, in certain contexts, as evidence of causation. 
> 
> I'm at a loss to know how correlation can be considered "evidence" for 
> causation.
> 

Why? It's always treated as evidence of something. Correlation either shows a 
strong or a weak relation and under certain circumstances it is causation. When 
we do a regression analysis we are looking for the factors that exert the 
strongest influences on the effects we are measuring. The strongest influences 
of course are ultimately the causative ones.

We can see correlation because it's a statistical factor. No, we don't see it 
like we see a rock or tree but we see it in the results of things, the 
outcomes. But we don't see causation. THAT is a concept we apply under certain 
circumstances. The occurrence of correlations beyond a certain degree or 
strength level indicates when we are to apply "casuation" as the relevant 
explanation.   


> 
> > Thus we look for what fits. Brain causes mind fits better with the world as 
> > we experience it than the other way around. 
> 
> To presume that brain activity is the cause of consciousness amounts to 
> nothing more than the adoption of a prejudice (as it would to presume that 
> consciousness is the cause of brain activity).
> 
>

It isn't a "presumption" in isolation but a judgment that fits with the picture 
of the world around us. Our picture of the world is conditioned by that world, 
of course (the laws of physics -- whether those we know or some others we have 
yet to discover) and by what we are and are capable of experiencing. We have 
two basic intuitions about mind and the world. One relates to the way the world 
appears to us. (Minds always depend on sound working brains and not vice 
versa.) The other to the way mind appears to us. (Mind is not a physical 
something and appears to include everything we can know or say about the world.)

It is possible to go with either intuition and there is no knock-down, drag-out 
argument for one over the other. Wittgenstein saw that that doesn't matter in 
the end. The world is as we find it. When you're acting in the world (as 
opposed to dreaming or introspecting) you don't act as though you think the 
world isn't real and that for a very good reason. If you did you would have 
lots of problems (like getting hit by very real cars if you aren't treating 
them as real when you cross the street). If you're doing science, you don't 
gain much by taking an idealist stand on things. Wishing don't make things so. 
So you play by the rules of the world, as you do most of the time (except, 
perhaps, in some religious or metaphysical contexts when it doesn't much matter 
physically).

Well should we take an idealist or dualist stance anyway? Nothing prevents it 
because both are perfectly consistent with the way the world works (that is 
their point, to explain everything as it is). But what is gained if it doesn't 
help you in the world (except maybe in some psychological way)? 

 
> > If they were just the same then the one could not be evidence for the other.
> 
> If they were just the same then we wouldn't even be talking about a 
> correlation.
>

A a correlation is a description of a kind of relation we expect to see if a 
causative agent is in the mix. When we get correlations of a certain level, 
they are evidence of causation. What else could causation be? How else would 
you expect to know it? 

 
> 
> >> The possibility is not conditional upon disregarding his statement in the 
> >> preface to the PI.
> >
> > No, but it all serves as strong evidence against such an interpretation. I 
> > wonder how many others here, with some background in Wittgenstein, take it 
> > as you do? It might be interesting to hear from some other quarters as it 
> > wouldn't be the first time I had something of Wittgenstein's wrong. But I 
> > have to say that it does seem rather perverse to me to insist on 
> > disregarding the radical turn he seems to have taken (and which is 
> > generally held by Wittgenstein readers and commentators) and to hang onto a 
> > way of philosophizing and to claims he made that he seems to have obviously 
> > cast aside.
> 
> 
> There's plenty of evidence that the later W cast aside some of the views he 
> held at the time of writing the TLP, but I'm not yet aware of any evidence 
> that his views on the microcosm fall into that category. 
> 


His whole later work was directed at restoring clarity, at calling us back to 
ordinary language. We have already seen that he stopped referring to "the 
microcosm" or equating it with what it means to be a subject and that is 
evidence. But you have said that that omission is because he just knew there 
was nothing more to be said about it (though he had said something about it 
before). On your view, having written the TLP he thereafter tossed away that 
ladder and no longer had any reason to speak of it. Yet, his later work is 
aimed at avoiding just such attenuated usages, i.e., replacing ordinary terms 
with high-falutin sounding words to elevate them to some special status as 
philosophical terms for the purpose of making erudite references. So I am 
suggesting that the whole idea of speaking of "the microcosm" in lieu of terms 
like "subject" or "self" was contrary to his whole later project.

Indeed, he doesn't even speak much about subjects or selves in his later work 
because he stops addressing these somewhat rarified concepts in favor of 
sticking with the ordinary things we do and say. He does that to constantly 
break the spell of philosophizing and dissolve the problems into the linguistic 
puzzles he takes them mostly to be. The evidence you seek lies in a 
consideration of the entire tenor and approach of his later work. 

> 
> > It might make for an interesting paper though. Have you thought of making 
> > the case for this in detail, i.e., the idea that he did not, in fact, leave 
> > the TLP behind but merely supplemented it with some later work (as most 
> > philosophers do)? In essence this would be to argue that there were not at 
> > least two distinct Wittgensteinian philosophies but just one. 
> 
> 
> This is not my primary interest but merely a peripheral issue.
>

Well, frankly, I think you are mistaken to believe that this was not part of 
the difference between the earlier and later work and that the later work did 
not supercede and replace the earlier for him in terms of this business about 
"the microcosm". But I have the feeling I will not convince you so I guess I 
shall pass on any further efforts to do so.

What is your primary interest then?

SWM

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