[Wittrs] Re: How mind works
- From: brendan downs <downs_brendan@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 18 Sep 2009 14:47:50 +1200
A THOUGHT EXPERIMENT.
Possibly we are no more then a complex AI machine, with a cpu, camera lense,
recording device and hologram device reflecting into a secondary inner camera?:)
Brendan
> Date: Fri, 18 Sep 2009 02:32:16 +0000
> From: blroadies@xxxxxxxxx
> To: wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: [Wittrs] Re: How mind works
>
>
> --- In Wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, "SWM" <SWMirsky@...> wrote:
> > I am not asserting that we can look into your brain and see what you
> see
> > and nothing I am saying about consciousness depends on that.
>
> I thought you were asserting a total physical dependence on mind which
> would mean an account of mind in physical terms...but if you are simply
> asserting..
>
> > On the other hand, if we are accounting for how you see anything at
> all
> > we will want to know how those various instrumentalities work,
>
> then I see nothing a bit controversial. Your answers are in a perceptual
> psychology text. Then again, you do have a philosophical position.. to
> wit..
>
> > Once more we see that you are invoking a dualist model,
>
> Yes. I speak of brain and of mind. I know of no language game that
> allows me to intergrate them. You hold to physicalism and characterize
> me as
>
> > supposing that to speak about mind we must be speaking of something
> > that is entirely different and forever set apart from the physical.
>
> Different but not set apart. No brain, no mind, remember. Our difference
> lies in my reluctance to use the concept of "substance" and make a
> so-called ontological move. Time and again you said, "one must." I don't
> accept that imperative.
>
> > consciousness can be explained in functional terms vis a vis brains
>
> just what is being explained? How is memory, desire, greed explained by
> saying it is a function of the brain?
>
> > If you agree with my point about existential dependence
> > then the only question remaining is why you think it is unintelligible
> > to speak about brains as the source of minds!
>
> "Source". You keep on coming up with new words. Does "source" mean
> basis, in other words, no brain, no mind? If so, no one on this List
> diagrees, I trust.
>
> > Of course not! We are our brains in one sense and not our brains in
> another.
>
> Sounds like Dualism. There is a sense in which we aren't material.
>
> > You absolutely don't want to acknowledge anything like a causal role
> > for what is physical vis a vis minds and yet you say you
> > don't deny that minds are existentially dependent on brains.
>
> Not all dependence is causal. Your smile (your example) is dependent up
> your facial muscles. But your muscles don't cause the smile.
>
> Question: In your philosophy, how do you distinguish (if in fact you do)
> between a Tourette's patient's foul language and a actor playing the
> part of a T patient?
>
> > This, my friend, is a difference without a difference.
> > Having thus agreed to the existential dependence formulation
> > there really isn't a lot left to argue about except some turns of
> phrase.
>
> My friend you fail to see the critical difference which work I with
> every day concerning the causal possibility of pain. If you treat a pain
> patient as suffering from something caused by his brain, rather than
> something he is living, then you cripple him and significantly decrease
> his change for recovery
>
>
>
>
>
>
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