Hi Kirby

Let me address a couple of issues you and others have raised. The first is whether the Tractatus contradicts or invalidates itself. Whether it is a kind of nonsense. I think this point is probably the most misunderstood point about the Tractatus. I see this mistake made over and over again, so I want to be careful to lay it out. We begin, as we always should, with the Word ....

6.53 The right method in philosophy would be this. To say nothing except what can be said, i.e., the propositions of natural science, i.e., something that has nothing to do with philosophy: and then always, when someone else wished to say something metaphysical, to demonstrate to him that he had given no meaning to certain signs in his propositions. This method would be unsatisfying to the other -- he would not have the feeling that we were teaching him philosophy -- but it would be the only strictly correct method. 

6.54  My propositions are elucidatory in this way: he who understands me finally recognizes them as senseless, when he has climbed out through them, on them, over them. (He must so to speak throw away the ladder, after he has climbed up on it). He must surmount these propositions; then he sees the world rightly.

What this says is that, to understand the Tractatus, one must have "an awakening" -- a moment of clarity. The realm is more similar to prophesy than debating norms. Let me put it to you very clearly: The Tractatus only invalidates itself IF THE MACHINERY IS TRUE. This is the point that is never understood. For the Tractatus to invalid itself, the PERSPECTIVE MUST CHANGE. Imagine a philosopher and a monk. The monk says "only the true of heart can see." He then says, "I am not yet true of heart." And philosopher says, "Then how do you know who can see?" It would seem the philosopher had made a logical point. Yet, there is the problem that if it is true that only the true of heart can see, that, all of a sudden, what the monk says is quite meaningful. He says, in effect, "I am cleaning myself," or, "soon I shall see." If true, this completely rearranges the world and the perspective.

It would be like saying, "never say never" -- is that a contradiction? Only to one who deploys a certain modus operandi. Same with a bumpersticker that said "Don't use bumberstickers!" 

So I would say that those who use debater's rules are saying something like this. Arguments are like games. They are like Parliamentary procedure. To score points, you have to assert premises that cannot knock each other down. If you approach the Tractatus (or anything Wittgenstein wrote) with this mindset, you might as well just read Karl Popper. I've said many times: Wittgenstein was far too smart to have offered considerate views that are understood by the reader's using either his own frame of reference or a debate score card. Wittgenstein must be understood. He's a lot like Jesus in this regard.

The central point here is this: the seeing of the Tractatus as a kind of aesthetic (as you put it) requires that you have climbed the mountain (understood) and have thrown away the crutches that kept you from seeing it that way. After you have relegated it to the realm of the aesthetic, you have NO CHOICE but to relegate all else, except the propositions of natural science and analytic props in their service. You can be comforted, however, in knowing, however, that the problems of life and things which transcend this world are only deficient IN THIS WORLD (in this state of life).

There is no contradiction here; there is only the arrangement of the perspective that is required to see the view.  One wants to say: you need to be a monk of sorts.

The reason why the Tractatus is an ethical work is because it shows us how to see the world rightly. (Keep in mind I am not a Tractarian; I'm only appreciating it from the standpoint of being a Wittgenstein connoisseur).  

Regards.

Dr. Sean Wilson, Esq.
Assistant Professor
Wright State University
Personal Website: http://seanwilson.org
SSRN papers: http://ssrn.com/author=596860
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On Sat, Jan 16, 2010 at 9:05 AM, Sean Wilson <whoooo26505@yahoo.com> wrote:
> Hi Kirby
>
> Let me address a couple of issues you and others have raised. The first is whether the Tractatus contradicts or invalidates itself. Whether it is a kind of nonsense. I think this point is probably the most misunderstood point about the Tractatus. I see this mistake made over and over again, so I want to be careful to lay it out. We begin, as we always should, with the Word ....

Hi Sean --

It's not entirely clear to me what you mean by "this mistake" that's
made over and over again.

We have two main dichotomies at work:

(a) "sense versus nonsense" and
(b) "true versus false"

with the latter dichotomy (b) constitutive of "sense" in the first
dichotomy (a).

Sense
True
False
Nonsense
Ethical
Unethical

I would not agree that the Tractatus "invalidates itself" as that
would imply flipping from true to false. A falsehood is a former
truth that falls from grace, gets invalidated.

If it wasn't sense to begin with though...

> 6.53 The right method in philosophy would be this. To say nothing except what can be said, i.e., the propositions of natural science, i.e., something that has nothing to do with philosophy: and then always, when someone else wished to say something metaphysical, to demonstrate to him that he had given no meaning to certain signs in his propositions. This method would be unsatisfying to the other -- he would not have the feeling that we were teaching him philosophy -- but it would be the only strictly correct method.
>

This is reminds me of the angel in the Garden of Eden, turning Adam
and Eve away, now that they've fallen into the original sin of
speaking nonsense (philosophy).

I'm also reminded that angels have an historic jealousy of humans,
complained bitterly when God appeared to shift his allegiance from
them to us.

6.53 seems to carve out the sphere of empirically verifiable
utterances from the inside, pressing philosophy to the outside (into
the cold).

But then 6.53, in prescribing this approach, is not in that moment following it.

> 6.54  My propositions are elucidatory in this way: he who understands me finally recognizes them as senseless, when he has climbed out through them, on them, over them. (He must so to speak throw away the ladder, after he has climbed up on it). He must surmount these propositions; then he sees the world rightly.
>
> What this says is that, to understand the Tractatus, one must have "an awakening" -- a moment of clarity. The realm is more similar to prophesy than debating norms. Let me put it to you very clearly: The Tractatus only invalidates itself IF THE MACHINERY IS TRUE. This is the point that is never understood. For the Tractatus to invalid itself, the PERSPECTIVE MUST CHANGE. Imagine a philosopher and a monk. The monk says "only the true of heart can see." He then says, "I am not yet true of heart." And philosopher says, "Then how do you know who can see?" It would seem the philosopher had made a logical point. Yet, there is the problem that if it is true that only the true of heart can see, that, all of a sudden, what the monk says is quite meaningful. He says, in effect, "I am cleaning myself," or, "soon I shall see." If true, this completely rearranges the world and the perspective.

Lets assume the machinery is not true, nor is it false. It's outside
the realm of natural science and is what we call logic. Pure logic
defines the limits of sense, is that fence between sense and nonsense
(not between true and false).

What happens in the Tractatus is much as you say: you need gestalt
shifts to get Wittgenstein's meanings (in the PI just as much). The
move is from disguised to patent nonsense.

This might seem "self invalidating" from within the sensible sphere.
But in a philosophical sense it's more a move to self-purify, to
become empty in a somewhat Buddhist sense (so I'm agreeing with your
monk analogy).

At first the propositions of the Tractatus appear to be oh so true, as
we climb up the ladder. The steps feel secure and authoritative.

Then we find out, not that these steps were false (and therefore
self-invalidating) but that we weren't inside the true/false sphere to
begin with.

The vantage point shifts as logic goes over the line to become both
crystal pure and nonsensical at the same time.

We've got something ethical (and beautiful). We've got a gem, a philosophy.

> It would be like saying, "never say never" -- is that a contradiction? Only to one who deploys a certain modus operandi. Same with a bumpersticker that said "Don't use bumberstickers!"
>
> So I would say that those who use debater's rules are saying something like this. Arguments are like games. They are like Parliamentary procedure. To score points, you have to assert premises that cannot knock each other down. If you approach the Tractatus (or anything Wittgenstein wrote) with this mindset, you might as well just read Karl Popper. I've said many times: Wittgenstein was far too smart to have offered considerate views that are understood by the reader's using either his own frame of reference or a debate score card. Wittgenstein must be understood. He's a lot like Jesus in this regard.
>

I see him somewhat as you do I think, as a "liberation philosopher" in
the sense that he's hoping to trigger (spark, catalyze) a kind of
enlightenment in his readers.

He's offering philosophy as a kind of curative experience, in both
versions (TLP = 1.0, PI = 2.0, roughly speaking).

> The central point here is this: the seeing of the Tractatus as a kind of aesthetic (as you put it) requires that you have climbed the mountain (understood) and have thrown away the crutches that kept you from seeing it that way. After you have relegated it to the realm of the aesthetic, you have NO CHOICE but to relegate all else, except the propositions of natural science and analytic props in their service. You can be comforted, however, in knowing, however, that the problems of life and things which transcend this world are only deficient IN THIS WORLD (in this state of life).
>
> There is no contradiction here; there is only the arrangement of the perspective that is required to see the view.  One wants to say: you need to be a monk of sorts.
>

I'm not disagreeing if what you're saying is the Tractatus is designed
to induce a variety of religious experience.

> The reason why the Tractatus is an ethical work is because it shows us how to see the world rightly. (Keep in mind I am not a Tractarian; I'm only appreciating it from the standpoint of being a Wittgenstein connoisseur).
>

Yes, understood. And then there's this whole other wine bottle, the
later vintage, when you're tired of keeping silent about everything.

Unlike the TLP, which has a "book closing" punch line (we're done now,
philosophers may go home), the PI has a more indefinite "book opening"
kind of flavor (always more to investigate, more deep confusions to
resolve).

Kirby

> Regards.
>
> Dr. Sean Wilson, Esq.
> Assistant Professor
> Wright State University
> Personal Website: http://seanwilson.org
> SSRN papers: http://ssrn.com/author=596860
> Discussion Group: http://seanwilson.org/wittgenstein.discussion.html
>
>
>
>
> Need Something? Check here: http://ludwig.squarespace.com/wittrslinks/
>
>
>
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(J)

... I just don't find you convincing here at all. The biggest problem is that your views don't require the Tractatus to have the critical props 6. Imagine that Wittgenstein had not had deep religious experiences during the war and had not written about the transcendental. Imagine he had not said that, after the props of natural science answer all the questions it possibly could (6.52), that the problems of life would not be touched. And that the problems of life were NOT problems precisely because they come from outside the world, and the seeing of this vanishes them. And that they show themselves to you, but are extrawordly and beyond your ability to language about, because language is only to pin what is in the world. Imagine he had not said, "Is not this the reason why men to whom after long doubting the sense of life became clear, could not then say wherein this sense consisted?" (6.521)

If Wittgenstein had not invented the idea of the transcendental being both extrawordly and showing itself to us, there would be no need for you and I to wonder about whether THIS STUFF is different from the stuff he talks about in the book that fail as props but are NOT TRANSCENDENTAL. Clearly you cannot dispute that he creates two buckets. (He may create 3 -- see below). And by "buckets" I don't mean that you or I -- or him -- could not produce more senses of the idea "nonsense" (more buckets) or that we could speak in a bucketless way too. What I mean is that the SYSTEM he speaks of seems to prescribe two basic things.  He sets this structure up. To see it your way, therefore, requires that many of props 6 vanish. Of course, you could erase many of props 6 -- that's the way the Tractatus existed before his religious experience. (It already had the requirement of silence and saying versus showing). Really, the religious experience was the
retrofitting of the transcendental into a SPECIAL PLACE. That is the final thing that he does. I don't see how that can be denied.     

Here is what the problem reduces to: (a) something is senseless because the symbols and signs have no meaning; and (b) something is shown to us which cannot be an utterable truth. This distinction is as clear as anything in the Tractatus. The only question is what belongs to each. The historical information and the props themselves seem to suggest that problems of life, aesthetics and ethics are of type (b) and that other metaphysics and philosophical views of all sorts are of type (a). This is consistent with the objective of the Tractatus -- to silence certain kinds of philosophy and metaphysics, yet to set aside a certain status or realm for the transcendental.

A good example here is skepticism (6.51). It is senseless and confused and cannot be said. It's a kind of gibberish. There is no meaning to the claims. That people deeply feel religious spirituality is a matter that is an unutterable truth. Something unsayable by virtue of the form of life. If you try to utter it, you spoil it. You don't get it right. This, too, results in "nonsense," but of a different kind. Wittgenstein is quoted by Monk as saying:

"There are, indeed, things that cannot be put into words. They MAKE THEMSELVES MANIFEST. They are what is mystical." [Wittgenstein quote in Monk, p.143 -- allcaps substituted for italics]

Furthermore, spurred on by a poem he was discussing with Engleman, Wittgenstein writes:

"If only you do not try to utter what is unutterable then NOTHING gets lost. But the unutterable will be -- unutterably -- CONTAINED in what has been uttered!" [151, allcaps for italics] 
 
Now, it is true that Wittgenstein had developed the concept of showing over saying before his (temporary) religious conversion. And it is true that he applied this idea to non-transcendental stuff. He regularly used it against Russell's theory of types and for statements such as "there are 3 things in the world," which Wittgenstein insisted could not be said. So we might think of three possible categories here:

1. something that shows itself and is extrawordly (ethics, aesthetics, spirituality -- presumably devout)
2. something that shows itself and is not extraworldly (apparently, this is what logic does; logical symbols, if I understand this right) 
3. something that does not show itself, is senseless, and has no meaning to its signs (all else??)

Yours thinking we won't have any agreement here ...

Dr. Sean Wilson, Esq.
Assistant Professor
Wright State University
Personal Website: http://seanwilson.org
SSRN papers: http://ssrn.com/author=596860
Discussion Group: http://seanwilson.org/wittgenstein.discussion.html

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... I have to make one correction here. I'm not exactly sure if the showing/saying distinction did emerge before the religious experiences or not. There is an elementary form of it when he is in Cambridge before the war, but this really cannot count in good faith (too crude). And I don't want to look the matter up further because I have work to do today. So let's leave the point when it appeared as somewhat uncertain.

Regards.   
 
SW

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SW,

It might be helpful if I restate my interpretation of the Tractatus on these issues in a brief and orderly manner.

1. From a logical standpoint, nonsense is nonsense. It lacks a truth-value and so lacks meaning.

2. From an interpretive standpoint, we can speak loosely about what nonsense is "about", though this is clearly misleading. What it amounts to: we can recognize certain words from other contexts and so get a sense of what the utterer of nonsense might be trying to say. From this standpoint, nonsense is not all the same.

3. From a position that might be called "psychological" or "anthropological", we can get a sense of what the speaker of nonsense is "on about". We can sometimes understand what motivates him to say utter such words, what role those utterances play in his life.

4. For the early Wittgenstein, these psychological or anthropological considerations don't save the speaker from uttering nonsense. For the later Wittgenstein, things are more complicated.

5. Even for the early Wittgenstein, the psychological and anthropological considerations do make a difference in how we ought to treat nonsense. We should not use "nonsense!" as a rebuke if that means failing to understand something about the person uttering nonsense and the experiences that motivate them to make those utterances. Some nonsense is more serious than other nonsense.

6. Whether nonsense is serious is not a matter of the interpretive point (2, above) that we recognize some words as, e.g. religious in nature. Understanding someone is a lot more subtle and complex than that. Someone talking about "God" or "meaning" may be "gassing" and someone talking about "objects" and "logical concepts" may be expressing something of deep importance, even though both may be talking nonsense.

Someone saying things that sound Cartesian or Platonist or Berkeleyan may be talking idling nonsense or nonsense of great importance. Consider affinities between the things some Buddhists have written and things Berkeley and Hume wrote. There are all sorts of reasons to distinguish between these utterances even though comparative philosophy can find many similarities. And I mentioned before the significance of neo-Platonism in Augustine's thought and life.

Now, having said all of that, I really don't see how this could be taken as denying the importance of Wittgenstein's religious experiences or of the role that section 6 plays in the Tractatus. But what I am saying also accommodates his claim that the whole work has an ethical significance!

> Here is what the problem reduces to: (a) something is
> senseless because the symbols and signs have no meaning; and
> (b) something is shown to us which cannot be an utterable
> truth.

But this distinction is not mutually exclusive. Rather, some things that can be shown (b) still cannot be said because attempts to say them result in sentences (a) some of whose signs have no meaning (or rather, following the context principle, none of the signs have meaning in that context). There are not two "buckets" here. At least not logically. But see above for how different "buckets" would function on my reading.

(Note, "meaningless symbol" is an oxymoron in Tractarian terms. It is signs that do or do not have meaning and when they do not, they are not symbols.)

I don't know whether we could come to an agreement here but I wanted to clarify matters in hopes that you would at least recognize that my reading in no way denies the importance of Wittgenstein's religious experiences to the text.

JPDeMouy

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Sean writes:

"...the objective of the Tractatus --to silence certain kinds of philosophy and metaphysics, yet to set aside a
certain status or realm for the transcendental."

Wittgenstein gets this main view directly from Schopenhauer. It's just that Schop. was much more chatty and makes it clear that physics and physiology are "honest" when working from material principles while metaphysics/philosophy is dishonest if working only from material principles in what is today called an eliminatively materialistic way. Functionalism has been found to be eliminative as well as insufficient for the mental, many words to the contrary notwithstanding..

Schop. describes materialistic philosophy as a philosophy which simply forgets to account for the subject--without going dualist though.. Schop. continually suggests that the forms of our intellect aren't designed for metaphysical knowledge while suggesting that "immanent metaphysics" simply allows for pointing this out, i.e., the limitations of science/philosophical materialism of the eliminative variety, even though he allows honest physics and physiology their proper place purely on materialistic principles--important to keep that in mind.

So it seems that Wittgenstein wants to draw a similar distinction without giving up what is important (Schop. constantly criticized Spinoza and materialism proper as having a weak ethical side). Wittgenstein would say stuff like "pain is neither a something nor a nothing."

Searle, like Schop., was more chatty too. I think Searle is the Roger Federer of philosophy as Wittgenstein, arguably, with poker in hand, is more akin to a John McEnroe. He could get hot while remaining relatively silent! Was he a lefty or what?

One imagines Wittgenstein remarking McEnroe-esquely on almost any philosophical text, having gotten a whiff of some of its nonsense thanks to Schop., (see Schop.'s dissertation on the Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason): "You can't be serious!"

No one will know this until they actually read Schop.'s _The World as Will and Representation_, especially the preface to the first edition since one is warned that Schop.'s goal is to impart just one thought.

That thought, he tells us, couldn't be shared by him in less words than the whole of his book (really the whole of his writings since he assumes the reader ought to have read all his writings throughout WWR).

Geez, what an egoist!! :-)

Anyway, one should have a better appreciation of Wittgenstein if sufficiently familiar with Schopenhauer. He gets his "nonsense" sense directly from Schop.

It is to be remarked that Schop. was fond of arguing against materialism by invoking various lice--generatio equivocal, or some such Latin for spontaneous generation. He sounds as if he's hip to evolution, on the other hand, even though he died just as Darwin was about to publish.

The will is somehow something one can know independently of the principle of sufficient reason.

These days it goes by the name of practical reason such that one can talk a lot about it (Cf. Searle's _Rationality in Action_), including Putnam, as if it goes untouched by all eliminativism as well as functionalism--such philosophies simply cannot account for a part of the real world which seemed to matter not only to Schop., but to Wittgenstein, Searle and Putnam respectively.

But I suppose even eliminativists like Armstrong, Susan Blackmore, the Churchlands, Dennett, and the rest of the alphabet assume that practical reasoning takes place in the real world. It's just that it is sometimes impossible to conceive how if one's philosophy can't account for it.

Cheers,
Budd

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iro3isdx wrote:

>Joseph Polanik wrote:

>>according to von Neumann's notation, 'III' represents the 'actual
>>observer'; and, according to his analysis, III, the actual observer,
>>the abstract I, is non-physical.

>Abstract implies non-physical. I'm not sure why you are making a big
>deal over that.

because 'non-physical' is ambiguous as between the other two reality
types, phenomenological (as in an abstract noun such as 'transportation'
which has a conceptual reality only) and ontological (something that has
metaphenomenal reality but is not physical such as a Cartesian style
mind).

>>hence, the von Neumann Interpretation is dualistic.

the claim that the von Neumann Interpretation is dualistic is a claim
that it is dualistic in the ontological sense.

Joe

--

Nothing Unreal is Self-Aware

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SWM wrote:

>Joseph Polanik wrote:

>>SWM wrote:

>>according to von Neumann's notation, 'III' represents the 'actual
>>observer'; and, according to his analysis, III, the actual observer,
>>the abstract I, is non-physical. if you want to suggest that the
>>abstract I can be physically derived and yet non-physical, then kindly
>>tell us how that is or might be possible.

>To be a subject, an observer, is to occupy a position within a
>perspective. How one achieves that can be physical on the Dennettian
>model. I don't know what von Neumann necessarily had in mind vis a vis
>the derivation of observers, but I am noting that one can have a
>subject with a perspective via physical derivation on a model like
>Dennett's in which case one can fill category III without assuming an
>unperceived perceiver as the core of a subject.

the observing subject is a phenomenological reality; and, I agree that
Dennett-consistent philosophies theorize that the observing subject (the
I-2) is physically derived even if not physical itself.

however, to occupy von Neumann's division III it is not enough to be
non-physical. the abstract 'I' must be causally effective as well.

that is why Dennett's epiphenomenalism is so damaging to your case.

>>the abstract I is non-physical;

>That doesn't necessarily mean it isn't physically derived in which case
>it is not non-physical in every sense.

you've yet to show that something other than a phenomenological reality
could be non-physical and yet physically derived.

>>hence, the von Neumann Interpretation is dualistic.

>That is apparently your conclusion but I don't read it that way for the
>reasons already given, whatever von Neumann's reading of it which
>seems, still, to be an open question.

this seems to be a classic example of an argument from ignorance. you
admit you don't know what von Neumann may or may not have written; you
say that I may be mistaken in the way that I've presented von Neumann's
conclusion; and, you decide that it is an open question.

I can only suggest that you do some actual research on this point.

you might read for yourself the sections I've quoted. they're in plain
english, well within the grasp of any reasonably well-educated person
such as yourself.

you could also check out the work of those other physicists who've
constructed their own versions of the von Neumann interpretation.

>It remains for you to show what feature of consciousness is essential
>for having consciousness isn't accounted for by a Dennettian like model
>if you want to show that Dennett's model is undermined by the
>collapse-the-wave-function thesis. Claiming the "abstract I" is not
>effective because Dennett's model proposes a different understanding of
>the condition of being an observing subject.

I agree that Dennett has a theory explaining the origin of the
experiencing I; but, what's relevant at this point is that the
experiencing I (an I-2, whatever its origin) is not identical to the
abstract I (IMO, an I-3).

von Neumann would not deny that there is an experiencing I. he writes:
"Indeed, experience only makes statements of this type: an observer has
made a certain (subjective) observation; and, never any like this: a
physical quantity has a certain value". [Foundations. p. 420]

again, the question of whether the abstract I is or could be an I-2
instead of an I-3 turns on whether the I-2 is causally effective or
purely epiphenomenal.

Joe

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--- In Wittrs@yahoogroups.com, Joseph Polanik <jPolanik@...> wrote:
>
> SWM wrote:

> <snip>

> >To be a subject, an observer, is to occupy a position within a
> >perspective. How one achieves that can be physical on the Dennettian
> >model. I don't know what von Neumann necessarily had in mind vis a vis
> >the derivation of observers, but I am noting that one can have a
> >subject with a perspective via physical derivation on a model like
> >Dennett's in which case one can fill category III without assuming an
> >unperceived perceiver as the core of a subject.
>

> the observing subject is a phenomenological reality;
> and, I agree that
> Dennett-consistent philosophies theorize that the observing subject (the
> I-2) is physically derived even if not physical itself.
>
> however, to occupy von Neumann's division III it is not enough to be
> non-physical. the abstract 'I' must be causally effective as well.
>
> that is why Dennett's epiphenomenalism is so damaging to your case.
>

What you think of as "epiphenomenalism" doesn't strike me as that at all. Are you saying that Dennett asserts this concept? If so, I don't recall him doing it (though I have certainly not read everything he ever wrote). As already noted, my view is mine, not derived from Dennett, but, since I think Dennett's model is consistent with (and more comprehensively stated than) mine, if he does assert that his claim implies epiphenomenalism, I would at least have to take a look and consider the implications. If you have some text of his to cite that sustains your view that he is taking an epiphenomenalist position re: mind, I will take a look.

But as of now, I see no necessary connection between a model like his and the idea of epiphenomenalism (that the conscious self has no causal effect on the world) on the grounds I have previously presented, i.e., that the idea of a self, on this model, is a complex one and that there is no reason to presume, on this model, that the speaking self, the thinking self, is not also part of the acting self, the causal self, etc.

> >>the abstract I is non-physical;
>
> >That doesn't necessarily mean it isn't physically derived in which case
> >it is not non-physical in every sense.
>
> you've yet to show that something other than a phenomenological reality
> could be non-physical and yet physically derived.
>

What's to "show"? This is about competing ways of conceiving the phenomenon under consideration, i.e., the presence of conscious subjects, in the universe, that have causal relations with the things of the universe beyond themselves.

Subjects are indisputably present in the world (if you doubt that we cannot even discuss this) so the only thing left to show then is how to explain this presence.

There are a four ways on the table that I can think of offhand here:

1) The self or subject is seen as a separate existent from the things it apprehends. (This is dualism though it may have more than one form or way of being described: It could be a transcendental subject a la Kant or a monad a la Leibniz or it could be a parallel dimension of existence, co-existing with the physical phenomena of the world and of which it is aware -- a Cartesian kind of dualism.)

2) The self or subject is one or more (an amalgam) of properties that some physical phenomena (brains or parts of brains or activities of brains) have/produce but which are irreducible to anything else (this is also dualism but a more confused picture on my view -- it supposes that brains somehow summon/bring/introduce some fundamentally new existent into the world).

3) The self or subject is one or more (an amalgam) of properties (features) that some physical phenomena (brains or parts of brains or activities of brains) have/produce and which ARE reducible to those phenomena (which are not, themselves, subject-like, i.e., they lack the qualities we associate with being a subject, etc.).

4) The self or subject is not explicable in any way, it just happens to be present in the universe and we can't say how or understand why, etc., etc. It's just an unresolvable mystery of being.

As you know, I hold that #3 offers the best explanation for the presence of subjects in the universe. But I don't pretend to "show" why #3 is true because I don't claim it is true! It's a way of explaining, of understanding, the phenomenon.

In the final analysis it's truth or falsity is an empirical question (based on what can be discovered to work in the world). One doesn't resolve this by logical debate alone. However one can pick and choose between competing conceptions based on the way they fit in with the other things we know about the world and that is what this is about.

On this view, it strikes me that #3 is the best choice because it doesn't require that we posit extra existents in the universe (the dualism of 1 and 2), nor that we simply agree to stop thinking about it (the mysterianism or unintelligibility of #4).

Now you can continue insisting that a "phenomenological reality" cannot be "physically derived" unless someone can show you that it can but all you are doing by this is insisting on a dualist picture (as seen in either #1 or #2 or, perhaps, some variant I haven't accounted for above). But it is no argument against a Dennettian model to say that it is wrong because it doesn't explain things dualistically. You can't say it's wrong because it doesn't account for dualism (of course it doesn't!) or insist that it prove itself in a way that dualism cannot prove itself either.


> >>hence, the von Neumann Interpretation is dualistic.
>
> >That is apparently your conclusion but I don't read it that way for the
> >reasons already given, whatever von Neumann's reading of it which
> >seems, still, to be an open question.
>
> this seems to be a classic example of an argument from ignorance. you
> admit you don't know what von Neumann may or may not have written;

You keep jumping from saying that this is about your interpretation to saying this is about von Neumann's interpretation and then back again. You should make up your mind.

Look, all that matters here is what YOU are saying. I don't address von Neumann because it is YOUR interpretation of his interpretation that's on the table. YOU say if von Neumann's interpretation of the issue of wave function-collapse is true then Dennett's thesis is false and pin this on the claim that Dennett's thesis implies epiphenomenalism, meaning consciousness can cause nothing while the wave collapse function implies that consciousness does cause something.

But I have explained to you why I don't think epiphenomenalism is implied by a Dennettian thesis, i.e., brains are causal and consciousness is a function of brains, hence aspects of consciousness are causal insofar as they are aspects of brain operations, etc., etc. That is, I do not embrace a dualism that insists that minds and brains are divided ontologically as you seem to. On the view I am espousing, they are a single phenomenon even if we can treat them, in certain contexts, as distinct phenomena (speaking about this or that feature of mind, etc.).

Now you argue that the Polanik interpretation of von Neumann implies dualism, but my point is that if you explain consciousness non-dualistically you can get the same causal relations with the world with less extra stuff added in and, if you can, there is no need to assume dualism either to explain consciousness or to explain a collapse in the wave function a la von Neumann.

> you
> say that I may be mistaken in the way that I've presented von Neumann's
> conclusion; and, you decide that it is an open question.
>
> I can only suggest that you do some actual research on this point.
>

I'm not interested at this point. I am addressing what you say here, not what von Neumann says elsewhere. That is, I am addressing what YOU claim for von Neumann, whether or not he said what you say he said, held the view you impute to him, etc.

> you might read for yourself the sections I've quoted. they're in plain
> english, well within the grasp of any reasonably well-educated person
> such as yourself.
>

I've read some of what you've cited and I see no reason to assume dualism from any of it, even if you do. And I've given my reasons here numerous times.

> you could also check out the work of those other physicists who've
> constructed their own versions of the von Neumann interpretation.
>

What makes you think they matter in this discussion? You are making a particular case. If you can demonstrate that dualism is implied by this, then I'm sure you'd have done it by now. On my view you haven't (though I suppose you believe you have). Just referring me elsewhere isn't going to make your argument any stronger unless you have somehow failed to adequately make your case. Are you saying that? If so, please provide a link to whatever text by whomever you think makes it better and I will look at that. I am not going to spend my life reading endless off-line citations re: every marginal issue raised here, but I will certainly read something specific that you have in mind if you think it does a better job of making the case you have been trying to make here (if only to bring this to some semblance of closure).

> >It remains for you to show what feature of consciousness is essential
> >for having consciousness isn't accounted for by a Dennettian like model
> >if you want to show that Dennett's model is undermined by the
> >collapse-the-wave-function thesis. Claiming the "abstract I" is not
> >effective because Dennett's model proposes a different understanding of
> >the condition of being an observing subject.
>

> I agree that Dennett has a theory explaining the origin of the
> experiencing I; but, what's relevant at this point is that the
> experiencing I (an I-2, whatever its origin) is not identical to the
> abstract I (IMO, an I-3).
>

What is an "abstract I" and if it is abstract, why should we take this to be anything more than a general concept rather than the name of some particular thing, in which case why are you asserting that there is something that is an "abstract I"? If there is something that is an "abstract I" can you say what THAT is?

> von Neumann would not deny that there is an experiencing I. he writes:
> "Indeed, experience only makes statements of this type: an observer has
> made a certain (subjective) observation; and, never any like this: a
> physical quantity has a certain value". [Foundations. p. 420]
>

I don't deny there is an experiencing "I" either. The issue is what constitutes it? What is it? What causes it? How is it to be understood? To be in the I relation with other things does not imply anything about the "I" except that it is aware, has intentionality with regard to the other things. The question then is what constitutes this intentionality? Dennett, of course, and others give a physical account of intentionality. The only way to show that can't work is either 1) to demonstrate there is sommething in intentionality that isn't accounted for by this description or 2) that using this approach does not finally result in the expected real world outcomes. The latter, of course, is an empirical question, not resolvable in discussions like this. But the first might be addressable and even, conceivably, resolvable here if you're prepared to take it on.

Elsewhere you've asserted that the unaccounted for aspect of consciousness is free will and, more recently, you've claimed it's causality. I've answered both (though I haven't gone into much detail on the free will side as yet). If you want to proceed with either of these they might be a fruitful avenue of pursuit.

But cycling back to von Neumann and wave collapse doesn't seem highly fruitful to me because the relation envisioned in any claim about wave collapse can be as easily fulfilled with a physically derived "I" as a dualistic one. Therefore, wave-collapse does not imply dualism though you can assume it of course. But assuming something is not proving it.

> again, the question of whether the abstract I is or could be an I-2
> instead of an I-3 turns on whether the I-2 is causally effective or
> purely epiphenomenal.
>
> Joe
>

See above for my comments on that issue. If you think Dennett claims epiphenomenalism I'll be glad to consider the implications of that (if you can cite the text). I don't recall him doing so but I haven't read everything he's written and it's a while now since I read Consciousness Explained. If he does embrace epiphenomenalism in the way it is usually meant (as opposed to some of his more polemical claims such as that we are all zombies which he doesn't mean literally!) it would have some implication for my defense of Dennett though not necessarily for my defense of my own view which I generally take to be consistent with Dennett's. (To the extent that you can demonstrate he is arguing for epiphenomenalism, or agrees that it is an implication of his explanation of consciousness, I would have to separate my view from his. Let's see what you've got on that score.)

I refer you again to the picture I have given of consciousness on this view: It is a complex of features including different dimensions of what it means to be a self, all interrelated. There is no stand-alone, pure self on this view, just an array of different self concepts which do different jobs and occupy different roles in the larger system.

SWM

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A note: Life only allows me to drop in once a while. I try to catch up
but obviously I miss Posts. Sorry, if I screw up the continuity.

--- In Wittrs@yahoogroups.com, Joseph Polanik <jPolanik@...> wrote:

> according to the article at SEP, predicate dualism is the belief that
> there are two vocabularies (mental predicates and physical predicates)
> because neither set is reducible to the other.

> you get to choose your own theory to explain the fact that there are
two vocabularies.

My "theory" doesn't amount to much. Simply, there are a multitude of
language games, games which are overlapping. e.g., "the little man
syndrome, in which a physical attribute has mental connotations.

BTW: What is your theory?

bruce

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