[Wittrs] Re: When is "brain talk" really dualism?
- From: "Stuart W. Mirsky" <SWMirsky@xxxxxxx>
- To: Wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 19 Aug 2009 22:26:17 -0000
--- In Wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, "blroadies" <blroadies@...> wrote:
>
>
> --- In Wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, "Cayuse" <z.z7@> wrote:
>
> > You can always stipulate a use of the word that identifies as
> > some objective phenomenon in the world, and then its scientific
> > investigation would be legitimate, but to do so is to overlook a
> > significant idea for which the word "consciousness"
>
> While I agree with your nice distinction between the "physical world" --
> out there so to speak -- that anyone can enter and "my visual room" --
> which is no room at all and hence no one, including me can enter, I
> think you give away too much by suggesting -- if in fact you are
> suggesting -- that "my visual room" can't be studied scientifically,
> i.e., objectively.
>
> There is a vast scientific literature on 1st person perception. It is
> every bit as objective as the behavioral research. This mistake, not
> sure it is yours, is to think of perception as some inner event only
> present to the person. A person's reports about his world is piece of
> data no different from what he did that day.
>
> What concerns me is in the effort to defend a non-physicalistic concept
> of consciousness (which I share), one imagines a private realm apart
> from the physical.
>
> Consciousness is neither a private place or a special substance. It is
> an attribution made to others and ourself under certain circumstances.
>
> bruce
>
>
Whoa, even I can agree with that way of putting it Bruce! But I suspect the
devil, as always, will be in the details. -- SWM
>
>
> has been
> > recruited. Since you dislike LW's use of the term "microcosm"
> > in the TLP, let's jump to his use of the "visual room" example
> > in PI 398:
> >
> > "[...] I think we can say: you are talking (if, for example, you are
> > sitting in a room) of the 'visual room'. The 'visual room' is the one
> > that has no owner. I can as little own it as I can walk about it, or
> > look at it, or point to it. Inasmuch as it cannot be any one else's
> > it is not mine either. In other words, it does not belong to me
> > because I want to use the same form of expression about it as
> > about the material room in which I sit. The description of the latter
> > need not mention an owner, in fact it need not have any owner.
> > But then the visual room cannot have any owner. "For" - one might
> > say - "it has no master, outside or in. [...]"
> >
> > I think this similarly captures the use of the word "consciousness"
> > to which I refer (whatever LW might have had to say about my use
> > of the word for this application).
> >
> >
> >
> > <snip>
> > > Obviously speaking of "the microcosm" as you've used it (...)
> > > does not lend itself to a scientific inquiry. But then I would say
> > > that is irrelevant to the description of consciousness that is at
> issue.
> >
> > This IS the description of consciousness that is at issue. Whatever
> > other uses of the word may be stipulated, this use is of particular
> > interesting to many people. It's one thing to count yourself out of
> > that group, but quite another to deny use of the word to those
> > that are interested in that particular issue.
> >
> >
> > >> It is that idea that Chalmers is addressing, and it stands in
> > >> need of a preliminary philosophical investigation before any
> > >> decision can be made as to whether it is suitable for scientific
> > >> investigation.
> > >
> > > I'm not proposing to investigate a dualist notion absent evidence
> > > of dualism and there is none that I am aware of. Given that,
> > > all claims of dualism can be nothing but metaphysical speculation
> > > and that isn't science.
> >
> >
> > Are you thereby discarding the distinction that LW makes
> > between the "visual room" and the "material room in which I sit"?
> >
> >
> > >> It would be a mistake to have so much faith in science
> > >> as to deem that preliminary investigation unnecessary (scientism).
> > >
> > > Why?
> >
> > Because science can't address every kind of question that can be
> posed.
> >
> >
> > >> This overlooks the use of the world that Chalmers is addressing.
> > >
> > > No it doesn't. Chalmer's use, whatever else it addresses,
> > > is directed at the idea of being a subject in the world and
> > > that is an observable phenomenon.
> >
> > Then here we have a difference of interpretation. Chalmers recruits
> > Nagel's term "what it's like [to be me]", and on my reading this
> > implicates precisely what LW calls in his example "the visual room".
> >
> >
> > > As Galen Strawson notes, there is no emergence ex nihilo.
> >
> > I don't know whether that's the case or not. All I can say
> > is that I have no use for any such hypothesis.
> >
> >
> > > He concludes from this that consciousness is ubiquitous,
> > > found everywhere and at every level in the physical universe.
> >
> > I'm not sure that this is what he concludes. I rather suspect he's
> > saying that we have no grounds for rejecting that possibility
> > since the nature of matter is insufficiently understood.
> >
> >
> > > But there is a much simpler explanation (one that doesn't
> > > require that we revise how we think about the universe).
> >
> > Strawson's proposal doesn't require that we revise how we think
> > about the universe, except inasmuch as it draws our attention
> > to an unwarranted prejudice.
> >
> >
> > > It's that consciousness is just a function (or set of functions)
> > > of certain arrangements of physical things. If consciousness is
> > > explainable that way, there's no need to look for a metaphysical
> > > explanation. I think it is and that people like Dennett have made
> > > the case quite satisfactorily.
> >
> > You can always stipulate a use of the word that identifies as
> > some objective phenomenon in the world, and then its scientific
> > investigation would be legitimate, but to do so is to overlook a
> > significant idea for which the word "consciousness" has been
> > recruited.
> >
>
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