[Wittrs] Re: Current Brain Research: Causal Model?
- From: "SWM" <SWMirsky@xxxxxxx>
- To: wittrsamr@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Fri, 23 Apr 2010 12:30:54 -0000
--- In Wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, "iro3isdx" <xznwrjnk-evca@...> wrote:
>
> --- In Wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, "SWM" <SWMirsky@> wrote:
>
>
> > I don't know what everyone on the list believes. I do know that there
> > are some ways of thinking that some of us have about consciousness
> > that imply or reflect the idea that consciousness is irreducible
> > and THAT, on my view, is dualism.
>
> I am never sure what people mean by "irreducible."
>
> The earlier Wittgenstein (of Tractatus) used a theory of language which
> I would be inclined to say makes language reducible to logic.
>
Yes, I would agree.
> The later Wittgenstein rejected that view, and instead looked at
> language as a social practice, but a practice not reducible to logic.
>
I would agree with that, too. Reducibility is a context word, like most others
so it depends on the context. In the one I am applying I don't mean reducible
as in eliminating but, rather, as in providing an explanation for how something
comes about.
> Was the later Wittgenstein saying that language is irreducible? And if
> so, does that make Wittgenstein a dualist in your terminology?
>
> Regards,
> Neil
>
> =========================================
No because the context is different. I am only speaking here in terms of the
notion that, to account for the presence of consciousness in the universe, we
don't need to posit anything more than what physics already tells us is there
(makes up everything else in the universe). This has nothing to do with whether
there are levels of operation which demand certain ways of speaking while
excluding or disregarding others.
Dualism presumes that to explain the occurrence of minds we have to come up
with something (some principle or force or factor) beyond what is needed for
explaining the occurrence of everything else.
SWM
=========================================
Need Something? Check here: http://ludwig.squarespace.com/wittrslinks/
Other related posts:
