Re: [Wittrs] When is "brain talk" really dualism?
- From: "Stuart W. Mirsky" <SWMirsky@xxxxxxx>
- To: Wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 19 Aug 2009 00:05:53 -0000
--- In Wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, "blroadies" <blroadies@...> wrote:
>
>
> --- In Wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, "Stuart W. Mirsky" <SWMirsky@> wrote:
>
> > I see no explanatory gap that isn't closeable by science at some
> point.
>
> To make that case, suggest something, a process, a material, anything we
> can test, so that we can do the study that might close the gap. Remember
> this "something" has to be connected on one end to brain process and at
> the other end to "how I feel" or "what I'm thinking."
>
No, it doesn't have to be a first person test. we recognize consciousness in
others all the time. What we look for is behavior that is indicative of a
mental life, e.g., autonomous behavior, evidence of understanding, reports or
behavior that indicate a thinking process going on. We NEVER see inside anyone
else's subjectivity and yet we have no trouble imputing consciousness to
others. Whay presume it has to be different with entities that are inorganic
machines in construction?
> Can a feeling or a thinking be connected to anything, except in the
> loosest metaphorical sense?
>
Meaning????
> > But that is the point, isn't it, to explain consciousness in terms of
> something,
>
> Yes. 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. What else
generates it? Our pinkie toes? A deity? A mad scientist?
> Do the clouds make the weather? Rain falls from the clouds and we
> conceive of this as weather. People act in a certain way we conceive of
> them as thinking and feeling. But there is a critical difference here.
>
> We don't view the clouds as expressing the weather but we view the
> person as expressing himself. to express himself, he uses his brain.
We view it this way because the person has a subjective aspect while the clouds
presumably don't. That there are different features manifested by each doesn't
mean that we don't rely on observational information to form an opinion re:
whether the cloud or the person is conscious. As Wittgenstein notes with the
private language argument, even our words about the subjective aspect of others
rely on observational criteria.
> But
> the clouds don't use the rain to make us weather.
>
The clouds give no evidence of being subjective in any way. But if some cloud
suddenly started talking to us and moving about with apparent intention, we
might have to revise our opinion, if not of all clouds then certainly of that
one! If a cloud could speak AND we could understand it, we'd have a subject, at
least prima facie until we could determine there was some other explanation
(say it was ventriloquism or some kind of schizophrenic imbalance in the
observer).
> Where we differ. You start with an object, the brain, and try to derive
> mind. I start with people and try to grasp what is going on with them.
> Note, we both wind up with brain and mind. I prefer my starting point
> because I can explain how a person can conceive of both other minds and
> other brains. Whereas you have the problem of saying how your mind makes
> a mind and, in doing so, where you are in relationship between your
> brain and the mind it has made.
>
> bruce
>
First off, I start with people, just like you. Before I knew anything about
brains I knew about people. But there's enough information available to us
today to let us know that it is brains that are the relevant organs in giving
us subjectness. So yes, at that point, I want to know how brains do it. That we
mean something different by "brain" and "mind" most of the time isn't a good
reason to think there is no way to understand the causal role (if there is one)
played by one side of this particular equation.
Second, I don't have any problem saying how my "mind makes a mind"! My mind
doesn't make minds and I have no expectation that it will do so. My brain
makes/produces/gives rise to the condition of being a subject which includes an
array of features I find in myself including, but not necessarily limited do,
intentionality, intelligence, awareness, understanding, thinking, remembering,
feeling, believing, etc. I am interested in what the physical processes are
that produces the features we associate with being a subject, having a mind.
The reason is I'm interested in seeing how minds fit into the picture of a
universe with all this other stuff that otherwise appears so unmindlike.
SWM
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