[Wittrs] Re: Current Brain Research: Causal Model?
- From: "BruceD" <blroadies@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: wittrsamr@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 28 Apr 2010 20:06:20 -0000
--- In Wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, "SWM" <SWMirsky@...> wrote:
> Is the color red ... caused by the events...
including light waves, nerve transmission, brain activity...
YES. I t can be shown that a certain object with a certain property can
set up a causal chain that terminates in a certain brain activity that
is very likely to be correlated with the person saying, if asked,
"That's red."
And, there is one more step, as you cogently point out...
> But 'seeing the redness' also refers to the occurrence
> of something in the perceiver...
> in response to the physical events already described.
well, I wouldn't say "in the perceiver", there is no inside here. But
you are correct, without a perceive, a reporting person, who wouldn't
know the meaning of the brain event.
> The question is whether, when we get to the seeing part,
> we now have to depart from the physical descriptions to something
else.
EXACTLY! My words, can we place the "perceiving part" at the end of the
causal chain. You say "Yes." I say "No." Sounds like the Beatles.
Your argument is...
"If the brain is essential to the occurrence of the mind, of the
perceiving, if it is what's needed for the conversion (or whatever we
want to call it) of the physical phenomena to sensation in a perceiver
to occur, the question is whether the physicality of the brain matters
in the same way the physicality of the events being perceived matters."
Convincing for brain being necessary condition for the "perceiving
part." You can try but you can't show that it is sufficient (I argue)
and hence you haven't made the case for a causal account.
Please note, a non-causal account can be just as naturalistic and
scientific. Causal accounts are not universal, even in physics, and very
rare in the human scientific disciplines.
> The wetness of the water is not different from those constituent parts
> and their behavior, it is just a different level of observation
Please. Above, you made an excellent case for why the "perceiver part"
is an entirely different sort of observation and not part of the causal
chain. Don't take it back. Stick with your account and say how we can
transition from brain to mind and stay with a scientific notion of
causality.
> Yet we can quite readily see how giving an answer about
> the molecular behavior of water's constituents IS to give a causal
account.
of brain activity but not intentional reporting. To attempt to do so, is
to confuse causes with intentions, something LW took Freud to task for.
> idea that since consciousness isn't some physical thing,
> therefore no physical cause can be invoked.
That is not my argument. As I've said time and again, C is not only not
something physical, it isn't anything. As you point iout above, it is
higher level abstraction. It is very difficult to place abstractions
into causal chains. This is a problem in explanation. It is not about
what substances exist.
> what is the cause of water's wetness?
Can be said to be the molecular action, if the effect we have in mind is
the brain activity associated with the wetness report. Where we are
stuck is stating the relationship between the brain activity and the
report. In what sense can ANY report be caused?
Now, you will say, "Bruce, I don't mean that sense of cause." OK. What
sense. Cause typically means "no mediation by an intermediate
interpreting being."
Is there or is there not a person who experiences sensations and then
makes the judgment, "it's red"? If so, the person isn't caused by his
brain to say "red", the person intentionally says "red."
Or do you hold that we are programmed computers that utter sounds "its
red" when the brain part is stimulated. And hence the word uttering is
the last step in he causal chain.
bruce
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