[Wittrs] Re: When is "brain talk" really dualism?
- From: "swmaerske" <SWMirsky@xxxxxxx>
- To: Wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 19 Aug 2009 22:52:22 -0000
--- In Wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, "blroadies" <blroadies@...> wrote:
>
>
> --- In Wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, "Stuart W. Mirsky" <SWMirsky@> wrote:
>
> > We NEVER see inside anyone else's subjectivity
>
> Not because it is hidden away but because there is no inside.
>
It's a way of speaking, not to be confused with physically "inside" of course.
But, given the issue already alluded to about language and mental referents, it
should be clear enough that "inside" in this case means something different.
Still, there is no way of talking about it without using some such term.
I know, I know, you want to say that that's why we can't talk about it, why
it's "unintelligible". But I disagree vehemently and the evidence for my
position is in the fact that scientists can study and talk about brains and
experience both and do so all the time. Moreover, our ordinary discourse
recognizes the now common bit of knowledge that brains cause minds and not vice
versa (or, if you prefer, produce them or engender them or give rise to them or
make them or "are" minds when they are working in a certain way -- that we have
lots of ways of talking is okay, as long as we can reach a point where we are
not confusing others and ourselves by fixating on particular terms).
> > > But why assume that the explanation must take the form of the brain
> generating it?
>
> > Your own example of driving under the influence answers that one.
>
> It does? Driving under the influence is like driving with one hand, it
> presents difficulty for a person, not for a brain. One only makes sense
> out of this by starting with a person and bringing in the brain as a
> limiting factor.
You mean the brain limits what the person can do here? If so, remove the brain
and you remove the limits, no?
> That is not what you mean by "cause."
I've already said what I mean by "cause". Brains (what they do) cause minds as
molecules of H2O behaving a certain way (what they do) cause the wetness we
discern in water. That's all. I'm not talking about billiard balls here or
about striking a match to start a fire!
> Causes are
> mediated by other causes. But you have causes mediated by a Person which
> itself is not an object that can stand in a causal relationship
>
See above.
> > First off, I start with people
>
> and then you look for where your brain has caused you? Where do you
> look? And is th elooking caused? Your brain causes your mind to look for
> your brain and then concludes the brain caused you the looker?
>
> bruce
>
>
>
> ,
>
You cause me much ajita every time we go down this all too well worn path. Sean
causes me to be nice when he yells at me on-line to remember my manners and not
say "oy" en passant as PB on Analytics was wont to do and which I ended up
adopting. When I had those coughing spasms they caused me to black out.
Hurricane Katrina caused a major catastrophe in New Orleans. Certain poor
decisions by the Bush administration caused it to lose credibility with the
American people. My genes cause me to age in a certain way. Everytime I hit a
key on my keyboard I cause a symbol (letter or number or other notation) to
appear on my computer screen. When I click send, I cause the message to show up
on this list. The pull of gravity causes the earth to remain in an orbital
relation to the sun in this solar system. The orbital relation of this planet
to the sun causes certain atmospheric phenomena here which is related to the
weather including hurricanes like Katrina.
The wetness of water is caused by the way in which its molecular constituents
on the atomic level behave under certain ambient conditions.
The processes in my brain cause the condition I recognize as having a mental
life, being a subject, in me and we use the term "consciousness" for that in
CERTAIN contexts (but not in all contexts).
Oops, there's that "in" word again! Where in me can I possibly mean? After all
it's not like there's a little place somewhere in which my consciousness is
secreted. What can I possibly mean by "in me"? Well my brain IS in my head and
I consider my head part of me so anything in my head is also in me. And if my
thoughts happen there, in my brain (they certainly don't happen outside of my
brain and, especially, not outside of my body) then my thoughts must be in me,
too!
But thoughts have no extension in space. They have no mass, no weight, no
shape, no color, no texture, no extension, so how can they possibly be in any
part of space? And yet, if they happen in my brain which does have all these
characteristics then they have to be in me, too! But how can we say they happen
in my brain at all then? Thoughts are nothing right? But aren't they something?
Wittgenstein: They're not a something, but not a nothing either.
Well, okay, so it's back to a claim of "unintelligibility" right? But if
science can manipulate brains and change thoughts and talk about doing that,
HOW can it be unintelligible? What could a claim of "unintelligibility"
possibly mean in this case?
Does Wittgenstein help us here or have we simply reached a dead end for
discourse so that we must tell all those neuroscientists and people like
Hawkins to shut up? Can THAT possibly be right? Or shouldn't we be able to come
to some agreements re: our uses in cases like this (talking about mental
phenomena) such that we can go on?
Does Wittgenstein aim to bring all apparently intelligible discourse to a
grinding halt merely because there are different uses in play here, different
kinds of referents and referring, different language games?
When the doctor asked me where it hurt, should I just have mumbled there's
nothing we can talk about?
When do claims of "unintelligibility" themselves become unintelligible?
SWM
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