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

  • From: "Cayuse" <z.z7@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: <wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Thu, 10 Sep 2009 20:29:09 +0100

swmaerske wrote:

"Cayuse" wrote:

You are arguing that since we are talking about it,
it must have an application. I maintain that we can talk
about it, but that doesn't mean it has an application.


Then there's nothing to be talking about.


It's not a nothing.



I don't see how we gain by now arguing about whether you are really
talking about something when you insist on discussing a term that, as
you, yourself keep saying, has no application. If it lacks that, then
what's to be said?


Most of what passes for metaphysics is said without application, so
demonstrating that lots can be said without application. What is to
be gained here is a recognition of the limit of what has application
-- i.e. any speculation going beyond the brute fact that "it is".



My view entails no ontological commitment, since the whole
and its parts arise in mutual relationship and interdependence.
I don't think I'm saying anything that isn't perfectly obvious,
and if you class that as 'mysticism' then I guess it must be
appropriate on your use of that word.


I think supposing that we can speak of a word that "has no
application" as if it did, by describing/asserting the absence of an
application, is mysticism. It is to suppose there's something to be
said about what we've already agreed cannot be said. What is the
point of talking about what cannot be talked about (for the reason
that there is no referent, no grammar, etc.)?


Metaphysics is widely discussed regardless of its lack of
appliction. That includes idealism, materialism, and dualism.
By your definition then materialism is mysticism.



We're not speaking of Nagel's argument here but yours and you claim
that we cannot talk about what you insist on talking about.


Wrong on both counts. I AM speaking of Nagel's use of the word,


But I am not. I am referring to YOUR use.


I follow Nagel in his use.



and we clearly CAN talk about it (since we are doing so).
My claim is that any such talk has no application.


If we can do so intelligibly, then it must have an application.


That doesn't follow. Most of what passes for metaphysics
is not unintelligible, but it has no application none the less.



To be a "hard problem" in any but the most ordinary sense of "hard"
requires a pre-existing commitment to a dualist concept of mind and
matter. It's circular.


I haven't mentioned 'mind',


I have and have been quite clear from the get-go that I use
"consciousness" and "mind" largely interchangeably and that I count
experience or "subjective experience" as a key feature of what I mean
by these two terms. If you want to debate about "subjective
experience" then you have to address my use of the term not your use
because I don't subscribe to your use which I take to be a
contradiction in terms. Otherwise, what's to debate here? If you
insist on using the same words I use to mean something different than
I mean, i.e., something that "has no application", lacks a grammar
and has no referent, then we're clearly not talking about the same
thing. In which case, how can we discuss this at all?


and I will continue to refrain from
doing so except inasmuch as it is used to denote mental processes
in contrast to physical processes (cf. "mental arithemtic").


Then we aren't talking about the same thing, are we?


Not if you keep replacing Chalmers' word 'consciousness' with your word
'mind'. There is no "hard problem" of mental processes, and to think that
this is what Chalmers is referring to is to completely miss his point.



Chalmers wants to explain the existence of "experience", and
resorts to metaphysics in order to do so (his "pan-proto-psychism",
though I don't really know how that would differ from panpsychism).
I think that Chalmers is wrong on this count, since the question of
how to explain the existence of "experience" is specious. Any attempt
to explain "experience" within a physicalist account is equally
misguided.


This amounts to a doctrinal declaration, not an argument of any sort.
You are certainly free to make it but it can hardly be compelling in
that case.


I'm arguing that there's a grammatical error here that leads to nonsensical
metaphysical speculation.

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