--- In
Wittrs@yahoogroups.com, "BruceD" <blroadies@.
..> wrote:
> "There's nothing in the process of perception which is ultimately
> mysterious or outside the normal causal system. When I stand in front of
> a display of apples, every last little scintilla of subtle redness is
> capable of influencing my choice of which one to pick up."
>
> This is a Dennett quote, I presume. Note, he says "influence", not
> cause. This difference may be trivial to you but it is the whole story
> for me. To explain.
>
Yep, it sounds like him. Note he says "normal causal system".
> A tale of two stances.
>
> Intentional Stance. I'm influenced, persuaded, guided by reasons (but
> not cause-determined) to see an entity (human or man made) as having an
> inner-life, purpose and decision maker based on reasons. Further
> experiences may influence me to shift my stance. Also, I may be
> undecided. This happen in the case of the woman we saw on TV who could
> have been smiling but medically was found to be brain dead.
>
This addresses the criteria of imputation. Dennett's view is there is no special entity called "intention", nothing to be found. It reflects a term we apply to certain cases before us which we link, as well, to our own experience. In difficult cases we may have to think a lot, make some judgments, some guesses. Okay. Still we rely on the standards that are inherent in us because of our genetic makeup and condition as physical organisms in the world.
> Causal Stance: I'm influenced, persuaded etc (not cause-determined) to
> see a physical process (an entity functioning) as absent any inner life,
> self-aware purpose or reason. Any change is directly caused by a prior
> condition with no mediation of an aware self.
>
What is an "aware self" in your lexicon? The Dennettian model is suggesting that it is just the interplay of certain functionalities in the brain. As a result of these a self is generated and, sometimes, such selves have self awareness (though perhaps all selves will not have it or at least not to the same degree). If this description is the way it is, then there is causation by physical phenomena in the sense I have been using the term "cause" and its relatives. But there is no dissonance between a claim that a conscious self is physically derived and a claim that intentionality, understood as part of a conscious self, is a matter of imputation that is made in certain cases.
> If I understand your position, you start with a world of physical things
> that you view ''causally" and then ask whether the sub-set of physical
> things to which you attribute intentionality are not, after all, just a
> variation of the old straight physical things, and hence can be
> described in causal terms. Your answer is "why not?"
>
Okay. Not how I would have put it but if I understand you correctly that is roughly what I am saying.
> My response: If you take a causal stance towards me, then, in effect, my
> inner-life is irrelevant. I may or may not be a Zombie. The question is
> for you to decide by considering the criteria.
>
In some sense your inner life IS irrelevant to me. After all, I don't know what you are experiencing beyond what the evidence I observe or your reports tell me. But I treat you as a creature with an inner life, a mental life, on a par with my own, based on the way you act and speak (which, as Wittgenstein noted, is really all the criteria we need to impute minds to others like ourselves because that's the basis for our use of such terms in a public context). There is no denial of your mental life in my admission that I have no access to it beyond what is available to me via the shared domain of our public environment. Nor do I meed to be telepathically linked to you to fully embrace the fact that you have a mental life.
> And now, to be fair, you ought to try to take a causal stance towards
> yourself. And by what criteria could you pull that off?
>
> bruce
Since I don't take a "causal stance" toward you or other creatures like us, why would I need to do that (whatever that might look like) in my own case? By the way, I have no problem accepting the idea that much of what happens in my mental life is not within my direct control, my conscious control, and that this is because I am a physical organism which has certain physical features (inside and out) and a certain history that has combined to shape it. Still I feel perfectly confident that I could change my mind this very instance in replying to you and decide not to reply after all (though I still don't do it -- no doubt because of my personality traits, like finishing what I started, always answering claims I think are misleading, etc. -- of course there have been times when things have come up while I have been typing and I've had to cut things short, etc. and then, too, it is a matter of making a choice, e.g., listening to my wife's insistence we have to go somewhere or deciding that that isn't as important as finishing what I've started).
Nothing about the model of mind I have been explaining here implies that I must, to be consistent, treat you or myself as automata, without real minds, without the ability to make choices, etc.
SWM
============
=========
=========
=========
==
Need Something? Check here:
http://ludwig.squarespace.com/wittrslinks/
