[Wittrs] Re: Current Brain Research: Causal Model?
- From: "SWM" <SWMirsky@xxxxxxx>
- To: wittrsamr@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Fri, 30 Apr 2010 01:55:59 -0000
--- In Wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, "BruceD" <blroadies@...> wrote:
> --- In Wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, "SWM" <SWMirsky@> wrote:
>
> > The question is how do we get intentional reporting?
>
> I assume you are asking: What must be in place for a being to be
> intentional? And I agree, a brain, or something comparable. The
> questions:
>
> 1. How do we decide that an entity should be treated as an intentional
> being or not (who or whatever we meet in our future travels through the
> universe, or, for that matter, when a mutant is born)?
>
> Ans: We have our behavioral criteria. We don't crack open the skull.
>
No kidding!
> 2. Do we shift from a causal to an intentional account when we decide
> this being is intentional?
>
> Ans: I say "Yes", and you say...
>
> > Something causes what we call intentionality in us.
>
> Which leaves me in the position you describe as...
>
> > Here we are tied up in knots by our desire to express things
> > in language in a certain way when that way doesn't quite work.
>
> Namely, on the one hand, the person is freely acting in terms of future
> plans, on a psycho-social level and yet every thought and act is caused
> by a brain event. You see this also. That's why you are continuously
> shifting your terms.
>
Huh?
> > ...a brain at the source of that person.
>
> And how we have "source."
I did it for you, Bruce, to try to find some terminology which will not rankle
or rile you, some word we can agree on. But I see trying to do that only makes
you decide I am being shifty with my terms. Ah well, I should have just stuck
with "cause" and to hell with it, eh?
> It matters not whether we speak of causes,
> conditions, source or what have you.
Sure it does. Subtract the brain and there goes the person!
> What matters is whether you can
> effectively read current brain research as "bottom up", i.e., the brain
> causes us to experience joy, or "top-down", i.e., who use our brain to
> enjoy life.
>
No, no, no! We don't use our brain to enjoy life, we just enjoy it and
sometimes we act more intelligently in doing so than at other times and then we
typically say he is using his brain or using his head! But when someone is just
living or thinking or imagining or falling in love or feeling a pain and so
forth we don't say he's using his brain to do those things! Is the brain a
hammer? Do I use my heart to pump blood? If so, do I do it sometimes and not at
other times -- when my most distant appendages are feeling rather short of the
life giving fluid and what it brings?
> Bruce wrote:
> > > 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.
>
> > Nope.
>
> What are you negating? a- We are programmed computers b- Our brains run
> on causal chains, c- The mind isn't part of the chain.
>
> bruce
That we are programmed computers (in the sense of being automatons).
That this is best described as a causal chain.
SWM
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