[Wittrs] Re: Minds, Brains and What There Is

From: "swmaerske" <SWMirsky@xxxxxxx>
To: wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Date: Tue, 08 Sep 2009 02:32:46 -0000
--- In Wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, "blroadies" <blroadies@...> wrote:
>
>
> --- In Wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, "swmaerske" <SWMirsky@> wrote:
>
> > ... if all it means is that we cannot know if others have minds as we
> do,
> > Wittgenstein has already dealt effectively with this via his private
> language remarks
>
> BTW: Have you noticed that we are in agreement on this point?
>

Yes. We agree on a lot of points. But we just don't agree on the matter of 
speaking about brains as being causative of minds (Searle's sense). You think 
there's something wrong with this kind of talk (that it's "unintelligible") and 
you claim Wittgenstein's insights support your position. There we most 
emphatically disagree (on both counts).


> > It does for Chalmers since he is a self-acknowledged dualist.
> > His dualism rests on a claim that explaining consciousness is a "hard
> problem" in a sense of being empirically insurmountable.
>
> If it is a "hard problem", then it can only be relatively difficult. I
> don't think you have Chalmers quite right. Closer to, the empirical
> study of consciousness must be conducted along different lines than of
> the brain. Closer to my position.
>

Cayuse has given us some useful text from Chalmers' own claims and I think the 
text backs up my interpretation. Chalmers holds that explaining the experience 
aspect of what we mean by "consciousness" is a "hard problem" and means by 
"hard" here something more than your run of the mill difficulties with 
heretofore complex unsolved problems. Chalmers is also a self-avowed dualist. 
Whether dualism is right or wrong at least he is up front about that. Too many 
seem to prefer to hide behind various locutions designed to mask their implicit 
dualism (including Searle, by the way).

What other "empirical study of consciousness" can you conceive of that leaves 
out brains, by the way?

Recall, as well, Cayuse's point that it is unintelligible to speak of 
empirically studying consciousness if one means by "consciousness" having 
experiences, being a subject. So you are at odds with his view if you think one 
can empirically study consciousness while leaving out brains. And if you are in 
agreement with Chalmers, then you are on the side of dualism, something you 
have previously rejected emphatically.


> >  Get past the presumption of dualism and there is no special
> "hardness" at issue.
>
> Exactly! One way, is to hold to a monistic physicalism (your position?)


I don't know what underlies all that is. I don't know that anyone else does 
either or that there is much that can be said definitively about it, though 
there is no doubt that much gets said anyway. but as previously explained, I 
accept physicalism on a default basis, because that's how things seem. Until 
they seem otherwise, there's no sense arguing that they are otherwise. No such 
"isms" for me.


> and the other, mine, is to abandon any doctrine of substance. There are
> empirical laws of physics, chemistry, biology, psychology, economics,
> etc. which are testable with reference to the stuff of any of these
> disciplines
>

And science gives us a way of discovering what brains do, among which is 
producing what we call "consciousness". But THAT is just what you seem keen to 
deny.


> > But certainly MANY philosophers have veered into a religious qua
> metaphysical perspective.
>
> Yes, and physicalism is one of them. Religious in these senses: It
> posits what exists outside of anyone's experience. It attempts to
> explain all of experience in terms of one thing, matter, which is stand
> in for God. If the brain causes mind, then what we are is determined by
> the nature of matter (independent of what we think). This is what my
> religious friends tell me of God.
>
> bruce

Well first, I am no metaphysical physicalist. I accept physicalism tentatively 
and on a default basis. I make no pretense to be able to argue for or against 
it or to hold it for any reasons having to do with a logical argument. But 
second, your conclusion from claims about physicalism that people who think 
that brains are causative of minds are tantamount to religionists are spurious. 
We have to consider that something brings minds about in the universe and given 
what we know about things, brains are the obvious candidate. It's denying that 
candidacy on some odd claim about it being "unintelligible" that smacks of 
religious type thinking as far as I can see. Indeed, it's religionists who want 
to believe in souls and and afterlife, and the dualism these things entail that 
strike me as being most eager to deny a causal relation between brains, a 
physical organ, and minds.

SWM

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References:
- [Wittrs] Re: Minds, Brains and What There Is
  - From: blroadies
[Wittrs] Re: Minds, Brains and What There Is

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