[Wittrs] Re: When is "brain talk" really dualism?
- From: "Cayuse" <z.z7@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 4 Sep 2009 14:13:20 +0100
Stuart wrote:
> Cayuse wrote:
>> Stuart wrote:
>>> Cayuse wrote:
>>>> There is no experiencer of "subjective experience":
>>>>
>>>> PI 398: "But when I imagine something, or even actually see objects,
>>>> I have got something which my neighbour has not." - I understand you.
>>>> You want to look about you and say: "At any rate only I have got THIS."
>>>> - What are these words for? They serve no purpose. -
>>>
>>> This is a reference to the use of ownership terms, ownership concepts.
>>> One cannot reference an experience as if it were a possession.
>>
>> An experience cannot be referenced at all, since there is no "referencer".
>
> That is a declaration, not an argument.
Referencer and referent are conceptually distinct and arise in mutual
relationship and inter-dependence within it. Any talk of a domain beyond
"subjective experience" is nonsensical. (The "visual room" cannot be pointed
to.)
> We are speaking here and in the preceding threads and Wittgenstein was
> speaking (writing, actually) in the citations you offer. Words don't speak
> themselves,
> nor write themselves, except in a Zen sense which is completely different
> than any ordinary use to which Wittgenstein repeatedly called us back!
Language helps us negotiate the world, and has no application when addressing
"subjective experience".
>>> But think about it: What grammar exists that reflects or enables us to
>>> speak of experience without an experiencer?
>>
>> By giving it by a name, experience, we make a 'thing' of it, and
>> consequently also call into existence whatever is not that 'thing' -- the
>> conceived "experiencer"
>> and the relationsip between them, "experiencing". Experience, experiencer,
>> and experiencing arise in mutual relationship and interdependence within
>> "it".
>> Once again we are beguiled by language into squeezing "it" into a category
>> of itself. To name it is to lose it.
>
> It is a "thing" in language though not to be confused with what we mean by a
> physical thing (though "physical thing" is often the model we have in mind,
> the picture that seems to dominate, when we use the term "thing" -- but there
> is no reason it should, if we actually examine the myriad of linguistic uses
> -- think of the common phrase "that thing you do").
That is how we become misled by our ability to speak of it as though it were a
thing, but it is not. Any talk of it, or what it is not, has no sense.
>>> A corpse is not said to have experience because it has ceased to be
>>> animated.
>>> It has lost the capacity of being a subject, the capacity to have
>>> experience.
>>
>> Such claims are nonsensical, since "subjective experience" (ugh!) is
>> non-empirical.
>
> Again that is a declaration, not an argument, dependent on your insistence on
> substituting one notion of
> "subjective experience" (the one you are interested in and which nothing can
> be said about) with another (the one
> I have said again and again that I am interested in, about which we both
> agree there are things that can be said).
Since you agree with me that nothing can be said about "subjective experience"
on Nagel's use of the term, it should be clear to you that my declaration is
valid.
> This way will never get us to any kind of mutual understanding. We have
> already agreed to go our separate ways vis a vis these uses so applying
> your usage to my claim simply misses that point all over again.
As long as your use of the word "consciousness" encompasses my use of the term
"subjective experience", you will not be free of this problem.
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