[Wittrs] Dualism Cooties: Ontologically Basic Ambiguity: Causality
- From: Joseph Polanik <jpolanik@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: wittrsamr@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 23 Mar 2010 07:51:39 -0400
SWM wrote:
>Joseph Polanik wrote:
>>SWM wrote:
>>>And, indeed, when it comes to claims of causality, even he agrees
>>>that one can causally reduce the features of consciousness to
>>>whatever it is brains do. However, he stumbles when he makes a
>>>distinction by confusing causal reduction (which possibility he
>>>affirms) with what he calls ontology when, in fact, the very issue
>>>at hand, causal reduction, IS one of ontological reduction.
>>this claim asserts an identity between 'causal reduction' and
>>'ontological reduction'; and, that's questionable. Searle denies it.
>It's questionable that there is an ontological causal reduction because
>Searle denies it ...
I have no idea what you mean by 'ontological causal reduction'. would
you care to explain this newly introduced phrase?
>... or it's questionable that consciousness reduces to brains and
>Searle denies it?
your claim (that the causal reduction of consciousness to brain (which
Searle accepts) is necessarily an ontological reduction of consciousness
to brain (which Searle rejects)) is questionable because you've not
supported it.
>>what makes you assume that a causal reduction is necessarily an
>>ontological reduction?
>It involves reducing one thing to another thing (saying X is just Y);
does it involve saying that "X is whatever causes X"?
do you tell your wife that your love for her is causally reduced to the
functionality of hormones and brain chemicals?
>it's ontological when you reach a point "below" which you can find no
>more "things" to reduce it to, i.e., when you're scraping the
>explanatory bottom and your down to whatever "things" exist without
>anywhere further to reduce.
a causal explanation of first-person phenomenology (the experiencing I
and its experiences) will link experienceable phenomena to the
properties of some metaphenomenal object(s); and, Searle generously
stipulates that you may call such an explanation a causal 'reduction' of
consciousness to brain.
nevertheless, on the day that scientists discover the true causal
explanation of consciousness, what we get from that causal reduction is
an explanation of how consciousness emerges from insensate matter.
in the case of consciousness and brain, causal reducibility explains
ontological emergence.
Joe
--
Nothing Unreal is Self-Aware
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http://what-am-i.net
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