[Wittrs] Re: When is "brain talk" really dualism?
- From: "swmaerske" <SWMirsky@xxxxxxx>
- To: Wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 20 Aug 2009 15:42:51 -0000
--- In Wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, "Cayuse" <z.z7@...> wrote:
>
> > Stuart wrote:
> >> Cayuse wrote:
> >> This is nothing to do with the nature of the content but
> >> about the existence of that content whatever its nature.
> >> No content, no consciousness.
> >
> > One of the ways the "content" can be affected is that it can be shut off.
> > Many a drunk has been known to pass out in his cups. Voila, no content!
>
>
> I think most of the confusion in this arena arises because the word
> consciousness is used in several different language games, and
> it is assumed by some to remain invariant when changing from one
> language game to another. Defining consciousness in terms of
> behavior and then transfering that context to the use that Nagel
> makes of the word is just such a case.
>
I'm not making THAT assumption. Indeed, I am going out of my way to specify
what I mean. I certainly don't mean "the microcosm" which I take to be a term
without any real referent and thus nothing to talk about. But every time
someone weighs in here to say we can't talk about consciousness or that it is
unintelligible to suppose that consciousness exists in an existentially
dependent way to brains, THAT is precisely what they are doing. The
"consciousness" I am talking about IS the array of mental phenomena (subjective
experiences) we talk about when speaking of what is in our minds. How this
array can be described and categorized is subject to debate, of course. But
THAT debate should NOT be confused with the idea of some transcendenal subject
or some ALL.
>
> >> My claim that the correlation is conceived rests on the fact that
> >> another person's consciousness is not a phenomenon in the world,
> >> makes no appearance in the world, but rather it's a concept we harbor.
> >
> > And my point is that everything we think is thought of by being a
> > "concept we harbor." What we mean in most uses re: others'
> > consciousness is their behavior but, as Chalmers correctly notes I think,
> > not in all cases. Sometimes we mean the kind of subjectness we have.
> > The "concept we harbor" Chalmers points out involves these two different
> > kinds of referent. But, of course, one is a better referent for linguistic
> > tagging since one is public, as language is, while the other is private
> > where language lose its usual anchors, lines and landmarks.
>
>
> This is a good platform for moving forward. The use that is "a better
> referent for linguistic tagging" is not the one in which Chalmers takes
> an interest, and he wants to talk about the other. He proceeds on the
> assumption that Nagel's definition is understood to allude to that other
> use. Those that have no such understanding will find his arguments
> incomprehensible, but that shouldn't stop him writing for those that
> do understand what Nagel is alluding to.
>
And my point is that we CAN talk about the private stuff, albeit in a different
way than we speak of the public, and that we CAN associate the private stuff
with what brains do rather than, as Chalmers proposes, supposing it is some
kind of inexplicable basic in the universe akin to gravity or electromagnetism
or strong and weak nuclear attraction.
>
> >> So we correlate another person with the consciousness that we
> >> conceive to be associated with them, in which case the correlation
> >> itself is nothing more than a conception.
> >
> > Every idea is "nothing more than a conception." That doesn't
> > mean conceptions never arise out of, reflect, and refer to real things.
> > Just because we cannot see the other's mental life doesn't mean
> > we are only supposing they have it when we interact with them in the
> > course of our own activities. Indeed, we start with the observables,
> > the interactions and build from there. So the idea of another having a
> > mind is grounded in the idea of others acting in certain ways based
> > on our long ago learned responses to such actions.
>
>
> Most concepts arise out of phenomena in the world. Consciousness,
> on Nagel's use of the word, has no such provenance. It doesn't arise out
> of phenomena in the world but out of a recognition of that ("first-person")
> world (i.e. the idea of that world arises as part of the content of that
> world).
What we recognize as the "first person" IS phenomenal as Hume pointed out or,
if we go with Kant, it is a transparent unperceived perceiver. You equate it
with the ALL.
My point is that the last notion has no real meaning whereas we can speak of
the first while the second is rather more transcendental, conceivable but only
in a highly specialized way.
I would further dispute that Nagel's use is as you suggest. "What it is like to
be a bat" is understandable if we consider what experiencing the world as the
bat does would entail. Of course, we don't really have access to those
experiences so we are always obliged to imagine instead. I think the filmmakers
of the remade horror flick, The Fly, with Jeff Goldblum as the title character,
did a wonderful job of suggesting what such an experience of becoming something
else and seeing the world in that way, would be like.
As Goldblum's character eventually says to his girlfriend as the metamorphosis
takes hold (paraphrasing only), it seems like I only dreamed I was a man.
> Since that world is not a phenomenon in that world, the idea of that world
> has no empirical content, and so any correlation between that world and an
> object within it (i.e. the physical body assumed to be hosting that world)
> is not amenable to scientific investigation.
>
This just continues to confuse the different uses. Your use is really
unintelligible by your own admission since there is no referent and no grammar
to it. At best it's a placeholder for mystery. But, of course, it is NOT what I
am referring to when I speak of "consciousness."
>
> > I really don't see what is gained by suggesting that the consciousness
> > of others cannot be studied scientifically since we obviously can do
> > just that (think of using fMRIs to study brain activity, of collecting and
> > analyizing data re: behavior, of examining those with brain impairments
> > to see how their perceptions and responses are affected, etc.).
>
>
> MRI scans detect brain activity, not consciousness (unless one insists
> on playing a different language game to that of Nagel).
I don't think Nagel's doing quite what you say though I agree he may be keeping
a foot on both sides of this particular metaphysical border.
> If you're looking
> for utility in the world then you will find none in this use of the word,
But it is YOUR use of the word, not mine.
> because it isn't a phenomenon in the world.
If it has no referent and no grammar, as you yourself have said, then it also
isn't anything we can speak about. So why do you insist that when I am speaking
about "consciousness" I am speaking about THAT "use" (which, on this view, is
no real use in a language at all)?
> Anybody wanting practical
> application must stick to language games in which consciousness is
> defined in neurological and behavioral terms.
No, because it is characterized by experience and experience can be described
in terms of its contents. It's a mistake to suppose that the various things
I've referred to as its contents (our thoughts, memories, feelings,
perceptions, ideas, understanding, awareness, inentionality, etc.) are all
equivalent to the ALL or "microcosm" which you equate with "consciousness" and
which, per your own statements, have no grammar and thus no meaning!
> Chalmers is interested
> in the philosophical problem,
So am I. But I define that problem differently, i.e., it is one of conceptual
clarification, getting clear on what we have in mind when we use certain words
in order to properly place the relevant referents in the larger schema we have
of the world. Developing and arguing for metaphysical theories about
consciousness do not strike me as pertinent because metaphysical excursions are
by definition unresolvable and, in this case, you have already told us there is
nothing to talk about! If there isn't, you can't develop metaphysical theories
about it either!
> and I'm convinced that this particular
> philosophical problem can't be explained away as a grammatical error
> like so many other philosophical problems can.
>
Yes, I know you are. I think that's a mistake but as Sean doesn't like when we
tell others they are mistaken I shall try to avoid insisting on this as we go
forward.
>
> > Neither is "one's own" consciousness a phenomenon in the
> > world, rather it is the very existence of that ("first-person")
> > world (and does not have an owner).
> >
> > The state of being conscious is, in a certain sense, the source
> > of our world, insofar as by "world" what's meant is the full gamut
> > of our perceptions, reflections, conceptions, and so forth.
> > But that doesn't mean that our own consciousness is thereby
> > excluded from being thought about as an object of consideration.
>
>
> Again, a good platform of moving forward. The idea of that world
> arises as part of the contents of that world. The error, I think,
> is to "thingalize it" as Anna so aptly put it.
>
>
What do you think I am "thingalizing"? Isn't this just to confuse your use with
mine again?
> > The "world" is not just our subjective condition but also the shared
> > environment in which we find ourselves. So our "world" means at
> > least two things and the point is to keep clear on what we mean
> > by such a term each time we utter it.
>
> We have the same problem again. "The world" as the term is used
> in this context alludes to what Nagel alludes to on his use of the
> term consciousness, and it is (as you put it) not a good referent
> for linguistic tagging.
>
Which is why that is not what I am doing!
>
> > There is a subjective sense to our existence, to be sure, one that
> > we all recognize as uniquely our own. But we also recognize we
> > are in a shared world everytime we step off the curb and look around
> > for an onrushing vehicle before trying to get across the street.
> > It's this latter sense in which we recognize that the phenomenon
> > of our own consciousness is a fit subject for scientific inquiry.
>
>
> The "subjective sense to our existence", as you put it, consists in
> the fact that the contents of consciousness manifest as a "view"
> (though more than just visual) from the perspective of a organism
> embedded in its habitat.
When you make THAT point you already affirm my point since you cannot speak of
an organism being embedded in its habitat without recognizing a concept of an
objective world.
> All useful conceptual models arising
> (as part of that view!) are consistent with that fact. It makes no sense
> to ask why this perspective should manifest in this manner, or why
> it is conceptually consistent, since any answer must assume taking
> up a position outside that view, and this is not possible. This is where
> explanation ends, rendering this situation unfit for scientific enquiry.
> Science deals with phenomena in the world, and the world is not a
> phenomenon in the world.
>
>
But I am not asking any questions about "the world as a phenomenon in the
world". That is your continued confusion re: my point. I am asking questions
about particular phenomena in the world including 1) the occurrence of
behaviors associated with being conscious in an array of entities we encounter
and 2) the occurrence of a mental life in myself and, by evidence, in others.
This is NOT about the ALL, the microcosm, or Being!
> > The other sense is certainly a-scientific as you suggest, but it is
> > also irrelevant to the question of whether we can recognize a causal
> > relationship between brains and minds and whether this can be
> > studied scientifically. In Wittgensteinian terms they are just different
> > games and mixing them by suggesting that playing one vitiates
> > playing the other is mistaken.
>
>
> I think we have reached an agreement.
>
>
Yes, but only if you also cease supposing that I am talking about what you have
called "the microcosm" when I use the term "consciousness".
> >>> Who is to say whether or not consciousness persists after brains die,
> >>> when consciousness is not a phenomenon in the world?
> >>
> >> This kind of talk is precisely what LW rejected as "nonsense" in the TLP.
> >
> > If it's not a phenomenon in the world then it cannot persist in the world
> > but the consciousness I am interested in IS a phenomenon in the
> > world as I've explained above. Therefore its persistence in the world
> > is certainly an issue.
>
> I'm not sure what the first line of the above means (re: it cannot persist)
> but the rest is consistent with our having reached an agreement.
>
>
I'm good with that.
> > Wittgenstein rejected the TLP in his later work, not only explicitly
> > but also in the actual approach he took to philosophy and the issues
> > he had under scrutiny. We've been over this already. I suggested you
> > might want to make the case that he didn't really reject his earlier work
> > but merely went on to a new and different stage but you said that wasn't
> > what you were interested. Okay, I accept that. But then why come back
> > to the same claim if you're not willing to make the case for it?
>
>
> I've already made that case. I submit that what LW called the
> microcosm in the TLP is what he later alludes to with his example
> of the "visual room" in the PI (and that would be consistent with the
> "visual room" having no owner).
>
>
What is your evidence that he meant the same thing? But assuming he did, why do
you think his new way of speaking about it doesn't represent an improved way of
thinking about it, too? A way he adopted when he realized he had gone astay in
the earlier book?
> > Look, I understand the strength of your affinity for this way of
> > seeing things. There is a great beauty and even satisfaction to be
> > contemplating an ultimate mystery, to be mystified. Everything
> > seems to flow to a stop, all questions crumble because no answers
> > are possible any longer. All that remains is to assert, again and
> > again, the mystery, it's the ALL, it's the "microcosm", and so on.
> >
> > But I suggest that you are allowing this MYSTERY to mesemerize
> > you. The later Wittgenstein, I submit, realized this which is why he
> > pulled away from his earlier Tractarian way of thinking and told us that
> > everything is before us, that the philosopher has nothing new to say,
> > that all we have to do is look and then we will see things more clearly.
>
> And I submit that this particular philosophical problem can't be explained
> away as a grammatical error like so many other philosophical problems can.
>
Then why do you think Wittgenstein didn't say THAT rather than simply changing
his approach to dealing with philosophical issues (explicitly saying that there
are NO philosophical problems, only puzzles) and announcing that he had been
wrong in the Tractatus? After all, if you can say it explicitly and
intelligibly, he could have as well. But he never said anything of the kind (or
do you have some citation that indicates otherwise? -- if so, I'd be most
interested in seeing it).
SWM
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