SWM wrote: >Searle, of course, peels off subjectness from the rest of the universe >by asserting that it has a "first person ontology" which cannot be >dealt with in a third person way. But what does that mean, finally? it means that first person phenomenology has an experiencer dependent mode of existence; whereas, third person phenomenology has an experiencer independent mode of existence. >Searle, after all, agrees that the universe is physical but then he >diverges from this when he invokes "first person ontology" claims >(suggesting either that there is something in the universe that isn't >physical -- or that there is something brought into existence by some >physical things in the universe that isn't). yes. Searle 'diverges' from zombie physicalism by claiming that something that has a third person ontology (a brain) can create something that has a first person ontology --- for example, an afterimage. >Insofar as ontology is about reductive description it is about what >causes what (as in what is responsible for what). ontology is about what there is. >But Searle, while asserting his claim about consciousness being a >matter of first person ontology, agrees that brains, perfectly physical >things, cause consciousness! Thus his notion of ontology appears rather >idiosyncratic because he separates causal descriptions from what we may >want to characterize for want of a better term, as observational >descriptions. ontology *always* makes the distinction between appearances and what causes or otherwise accounts for the appearances. Joe -- Nothing Unreal is Self-Aware @^@~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~@^@ http://what-am-i.net @^@~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~@^@ ========================================== Need Something? Check here: http://ludwig.squarespace.com/wittrslinks/