In responding to Joe in one of these threads, I gave short shrift to one of his points which, I think on reconsideration warranted a lot heavier shrift: > --- In Wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, Joseph Polanik <jPolanik@> wrote: > >I said some causally reductive explanations ARE also ontological > >descriptions and that Searle simply misses that when he makes the > >distinction between causal explanations and ontological descriptions. > > Searle says that consciousness is causally reducible to the brain. what, > is that an ontological description of? > > Joe My Reply: It is if the point is to track back the phenomenon to what it consists of, in total. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I should have offered something more, along these lines: One of Searle's problems is that he isn't very clear as to what he is saying consciousness causally reduces to in brains, i.e., brains or brain events and, if the latter, what they consist of. Needless to say, a genuinely causal reduction to brains will reduce what we mean by "consciousness" to something along the lines of brain processes though Searle's failure to give an account of what he thinks these consist of, besides being a function of biological activity in brain cells, etc., leaves the question of the reduction open. In fact, Searle seems to rely on this vagueness to avoid coming to grips with the fact that he asserts of consciousness that whatever it is computers do can never conceivably be sufficient. He does try to draw a distinction between the abstractness of computation and the concreteness of brains but, of course, computers are just as concrete in their implementation of programs (just as brains are in their implementation of DNA "programs"). The problem in Searle's account is it fails to be specific enough to get at the possibility that what he means by "intentionality" or "understanding", or any of the other features we commonly associate with consciousness, are a special class of "properties" that attach to certain physical events and not others (as Walter put it on the other list). The question then is are these "properties" like what we mean by "system properties" (a function of a complex interplay of multiple processes in an overarching orchestration of events), since it is perfectly conceivable that every process is, itself, a system, too? Or does he have in mind that these properties are simply irreducible to anything more basic than themselves in some mysterian like way (Walter at one point stated that that was his position). If one holds this latter view of these so-called "process properties" then one is back to a dualist scenario since we are saying there are two classes of physical phenomena, physical properties and these other things which we may or may not want to call "mental properties" (but which it would be fair to say is what they would have to be). My view is that Searle never comes to grips with the implications of his overly vague account of consciousness being causally reduced to brains. If he did, he would, I think, have been forced to see the inherent contradiction inherent in an account of consciousness as being a system property in brains (about which he is vague, perhaps intentionally so) but not in computers (to which, though failing to articulate it precisely, he seems firmly committed as shown in the CRA). SWM ========================================= Need Something? Check here: http://ludwig.squarespace.com/wittrslinks/