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

  • From: "Stuart W. Mirsky" <SWMirsky@xxxxxxx>
  • To: Wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Tue, 11 Aug 2009 01:26:46 -0000

--- In Wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, "Cayuse" <z.z7@...> wrote:
>
> Stuart wrote:
> > Cayuse wrote:
> >> Stuart wrote:
> >>>>> And what has microcosm as a concept (if it can even be one?) to do with 
> >>>>> understanding how brains make minds? 
> >>>>
> >>>> That all depends on how you're using the word "mind". If you're using it 
> >>>> in a behaviorist sense then the concept of the microcosm has nothing to 
> >>>> do with it at all. If you're taking it to be synonymous with the 
> >>>> microcosm, then you are trying to understand how brains make microcosms.
> >>> 
> >>> But I never mentioned microcosms and, in fact, specifically reject that 
> >>> usage. So what has my claim about brains and minds to do with that? 
> >> 
> >> If you're using the word mind in a behaviorist sense then the concept of 
> >> the microcosm has nothing to do with it at all. But in that case neither 
> >> has it anything to do with the use that Nagel makes of the word 
> >> consciousness. 
> > 
> > I'm using "mind" as we normally do: "When I think of X, I have X in mind"; 
> > "My mind is all confused"; "I have a certain image in my mind"; "A person 
> > who is brain dead no longer gives evidence of having a mind"; etc. 
> 
> 
> Perhaps, then, you should start a thread entitled "Defining Mind -- Can we, 
> and if so what is it?" and then you can go on to discuss how brains make 
> minds. My interest is in consciousness, particularly as Nagel describes his 
> use of the word, which I considered pertinent to this thread as described in 
> the subject line.
>

I'm back now (as you can see). Will try to be relatively quick.

I use "mind" and "consciousness" in a linked way. A mind is sometimes conscious 
(meaning aware) and sometimes not (meaning unaware). However what it always is 
is determined by it's having certain features which we call, in the aggregate, 
"consciousness" (and which are not necessarily coterminous with being 
conscious, meaning being aware, since there are many aspects of our mind of 
which we are not always aware).

So when I speak of "consciousness" I mean those features that minds have which 
distinguish them from other things in the world, i.e., the features which 
constitute what it means to be a subject to have what has elsewhere been dubbed 
subjective experience.

How you got out of any of this "the microcosm", even granting Wittgenstein's 
somewhat unarticulated use of THAT term in the TLP, still eludes me. But I'm 
certainly prepared to entertain this variation. The problem is you aren't 
willing to explain it except to say 1) Wittgenstein used it that time in the 
TLP (and agree there's no record he ever did thereafter and 2) that it can have 
no meaning because it has no grammar.

All well and good but then what's the point, in a discussion about 
consciousness and mind in invoking the term and arguing for its equivalence 
with, say, "consciousness"?       
 
> 
> >>>> Thoughts (etc.) take their place in the microcosm, but I don't know what 
> >>>> it means to speak of an observer of thoughts (etc.)
> >>> 
> >>> We observe them, albeit not with our sensory apparatus but by attending 
> >>> to them (which may include attending to our sensory inputs). 
> >> 
> >> What is this "me" that putatively "observes thoughts"?
> > 
> > The "I" who is speaking about it.
> 
> What is this "I" that is putatively "speaking about it"?
> 
> 

Each of us who is capable of subjectness in the typically human way knows 
insofar as he or she can use language to speak about having experiences. What 
you want to do, apparently, is have language justify itself but nothing could 
be farther from the later Wittgenstein, another reason to conclude that he 
recognized his use of a term like "microcosm" in that citation from the TLP was 
part of his earlier error.

But let's unpack this a bit more. By "I" we usually mean the locus of 
experiencing whatever is experienced. We have our experiences within a context 
that includes various relations to the things around us (that we're 
experiencing or conceptualizing, both in contemporary time and in a remembered 
past and a projected future). The mind is certainly a very complex phenomenon 
and the brain must be equally so to cause it. We can define that locus in 
physical terms ("this body") or in mental terms ("this self"). We generally 
agree that body and self are united though the self appears to mainly be a 
sense of that which occurs within some mental framework, etc.

But you don't need me to say all this because all of this is to use language 
for phenomena it was not really built up for and so there are lots of ways to 
readjust the senses and uses and come up with paradoxes and confusions. But the 
later Wittgenstein was focused on clearing up such confusions and so avoided 
answering these kinds of questions and, instead, stuck to redirecting our 
attention to language usage. And this is still another reason to conclude that 
he abandoned terms like "the microcosm" not because he had touched some holy 
grail and no longer needed to say more but because he came to realize that he 
had touched a third rail of language and inadvertently perpetuated or amplified 
the nonsense he was seeking to be rid of.    


> >>>>> How can it be nonsensical if we can shut down a brain and end 
> >>>>> consciousness 
> >>>>
> >>>> I don't know how you can make any such claim about consciousness when 
> >>>> the idea has not been derived from empirical data (unless you're 
> >>>> stipulating it to be a behavioral trait).
> >>>
> >>> Do you think consciousness happens without brains (or some equivalent)? 
> >> 
> >> It would be nonsensical to make any such claim.
> > 
> > Yes because it goes against every bit of evidence we currently have. 
> 
> Since consciousness admits of no empirical evidence, there is nothing to go 
> against.
>

Evertime we meet another person and interact with them and treat them as being 
like us (rather than a rock or a cleverly bilt automaton) we have had empirical 
evidence. No, it's not the sighting of some kind of mental object, some spirit, 
some soul. But it is what our lnguage recognizes as consciousness in others. 
And there is no reason to expect to sight a soul anywhere, a ghost in the 
machine, mearly because we have a name to put on it. The fact that language is 
constructed mainly to work in the public domain obliges us to make certain 
allowances in these uses even if we often confuse ourselves by expecting to see 
something entity-like when we speak of there being a consciousness or a mind.   

 
> 
> > Is it "nonsensical" in the same way to to say that brains produce or cause 
> > minds?
> 
> That all depends on how you're using the word "mind".
>

I've told you how I am. I am certainly NOT using it as a synonym for an 
undefined and self-declared undefinable term like "the microcosm."

SWM

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