[Wittrs] Re: Our 4 ways, SWM and Bruce
- From: "SWM" <SWMirsky@xxxxxxx>
- To: wittrsamr@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Mon, 09 Nov 2009 15:28:03 -0000
--- In Wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, "BruceD" <blroadies@...> wrote:
>
> Note: My first draft was inadvertently Posted. I'll repeat.
>
> The ways:
>
> 1. Physicalism: Matter is prior and causes everything that follows,
> everything is derivative from matter
>
A metaphysical claim! BUT I AM NOT MAKING A METAPHYSICAL CLAIM. I am only
arguing for a way of understanding mind as a function of physical phenomena.
Period. I am saying NOTHING about what ultimately underlies or constitutes the
world.
> 2. Mentalism: Mind is prior and so forth...same essentialism
>
Also metaphysical however something like it is reasonable to infer if it turns
out that mind cannot be accounted for in purely physical terms.
If, on the other hand, it can, then there is no reason to look past a kind of
default physicalism (contra Occam) EVEN IF THAT IS NOT THE TRUE EXPLANATION OF
THE WAY THE WORLD IS and this is so because what is a true explanation and what
is the best explanation we can achieve are not necessarily the same thing.
> 3. " there is no way to speak intelligibly about a relation between
> brains and minds."
>
> I never meant to write that, if I did. I've argued that #1 & # 2 border
> on the unintelligible. Some on this list though have called the
> relationship a mystery. Guess that qualifies for #3. But it ain't my
> position.
>
Then WHAT IS?
Your #1 and #2 presume a debate that I am not engaged in because I am not
interested in the metaphysical dimension (arguing for the ultimate reality of
things as being characterized best by either #1 or #2). My argument is about
the conceptual possibilities, i.e., the BEST way to view and talk about what we
mean by "mind" and/or "consciousness" -- NOT about the nature of reality. So,
insofar as you are arguing about #1 vs. #2 you are not addressing the issue I
have raised, which is what do we mean by words like "mind" and "consciousness".
> 4. We are in no position to know the essence of what we call matter or
> mind, so we cannot know whether they are, in some way, essentially the
> same or different.
THEN WHY DO YOU KEEP SHIFTING THE ARGUMENT TO THAT?
> No Monism. No Dualism. No basic substance.
And yet you are the one who keeps recasting it in such terms, presumably
because you are unable to break out of this way of thinking. You seem incapable
of discussing what we mean by "mind" without lapsing into a metaphysical debate
over the nature of things! Note that to explain mind in physically causal terms
is NOT to argue for physicalism! They are entirely different issues. IF mind
could not be so explained that would be an indication we should look further,
perhaps even reexamining our metaphysical presumptions about the universe. But
it would NOT be an argument FOR a different set of presumptions. It would ONLY
be evidence that more needed to be discovered and/or determined.
> By the
> same token, no basic mode of explanation. Not causation, not function,
> not production.
This is an assertion. And yet we routinely recognize that brains are the source
of minds and not just as a conduit because THAT notion implies an
extra-physical metaphysics (as we currently underestand the physical). While an
"extra-physical" metaphysics is not demonstrated to be false by the ability to
explain minds physically, a physical metaphysics is also not demonstrated to be
true. This is NOT about the metaphysics.
> In each explanatory instance we have to come up with the
> the language that best grasp what we are trying to say.
>
> To make my point, let's try to explain the memory loss associated with
> aging. You write...
>
> > mind can be conceived as a function of the physical
>
> How does that explain that sometimes I forget my wife's name and avoid
> using it because I'm embarrassed? How does the brain cause forgetting?
> Or is it the brain that is forgetting? Confusing?
>
Do you think you can do any remembering without a functioning brain? Do you
think that physical alterations to the brain have no impact on what the person
with that brain's mental capacities are? Think of my stepfather and his
Alzheimers!
> Now take my viewpoint. The brain is what I use, the way I use my hands
> and eyes.
You can say you use your eyes to see, your hands to touch and your brain to
think. But can you say you use your brain to be what you are? If you had no
brain (or some theoretical equivalent) what would you use instead? Would you
even be you to use anything at all? Would you be here (or wherever you
currently are)? Speaking of what is "unintelligible" isn't THAT sort of claim
what is truly THAT?
> My hands, eyes, and brain fail me at times.
Obviously we use "brain" in different ways, just as we use "hand" ('go give him
a hand, Bruce') and eyes (the "mind's eye'). That we can use words in a variety
of ways isn't evidence of much about the referents themselves.
> I compensate. No
> causation in my account.
Yes but you presume "causation" is a single kind of thing while I make it clear
that I see multiple uses, multiple kinds of relations that we characterize as
being "causal". Your insistence on a rigid use misses the broad variety of our
actual uses and creates an artificially constrained picture of minds and
brains, leading you to conclude that the talk of science which relates brains
to minds cannot be intelligible, even if it is used and understood by people in
and outside the field all the time. Nor is your claim not to understand
evidence that it is not understandable. It is only evidence that, if you are
being honest, you don't understand.
> It is a purposive one. But if asked, what
> causes my brain to fail? I'd answer, the build up of certain proteins,
> i,.e., a causal account.
>
Now look at the failure of memory in the Alzheimer patient and draw the
appropriate connection to the mental phenomena and the brain events. Since I
have no reason to think you don't grasp this, I can only conclude that your
insistence on the "unintellibility" of such a relationship is a willful effort
to deny what you don't wish to acknowledge.
On a prior list you let that cat out of the bag when you shifted from an
argument against the idea that brains cause minds to an argument that it would
be bad for us as human beings if we came to believe that. Thus I suspect it
isn't that you don't get this but that you don't want to because its contrary
to your agenda. Of course that's no argument against whether the claim about
brains and minds is true or not.
> > THEN THERE IS NO REASON TO LOOK FOR ANYTHING MORE THAN WHAT IS
> PHYSICAL
>
> when it comes to brain proteins but not when it comes to Bruce living
> his life.
>
Take away Bruce's brain and where is Bruce? Where is his life?
> > what causes minds?
>
> We do. When we make contact with a being that behaves in certain way we
> attribute to it a mind.
So Robinson Crusoe on a desert island has no mind because there is no one
present to ascribe it to him?
> And, of course, we attribute a mind to our self.
Does a rock attribute a mind to itself? Taking a leaf from Joe's book, don't
you think it takes a mind to ascribe one?
> Now you can, if you want, say your brain caused you to attribute a mind
> to me and you. Guess that minimizes your responsibility.
>
Why would I say that? If I am my brain in a certain sense, it doesn't cause me
to act, it is the cause of my acting (and everything else about my subjective
life). When my grandson says he knew something because his brain told him, he
is getting the linguistic usage wrong because brains are not separate entities
from ourselves and so cannot do to us or cause us to do anything different than
what we do. But "cause" has more than one sense which you absolutely refuse to
see!
> > The issue is what does it mean to deny that a causal relation can be
> ascribed to brains and minds?
> > My point is that such a denial implies a presumption of dualism
> because that is the only other way
> > to explain the occurrence of minds in the universe.
>
> By your lights. Given your commitment to basic substances.
As I said, you really don't get this (or don't want to). Think of the wheel and
its turning. Are they things on the same order of existence? Is a wheel a
substance? Well, IF you want to say that (though I wouldn't) you certainly
couldn't say the turning is another! Yet that is precisely what you
continuously and obdurately accuse me of doing with no basis other than your
own misunderstanding of what I am saying. And then you argue against my doing
what you impute, wrongly, to me!
> First comes
> matter. Then comes mind. Same or different substance? In contrast, I
> find that matter and mind are concepts,
We have a concept of horses and we have horses. Being a concept does not mean
there is nothing the concept is of.
> both similar and different, by
> which we sort out our world. You want to explain the occurrence of mind
> from matter.
I want to explain the mind as physically derived, yes. And I believe that is
successfully done by people like Dennett.
> How about first explaining the occurrence of matter.
That is a metaphysical question and beyond the paygrade of philosophy (though
many in philosophy have often failed to realize that).
> You
> can't.
Nor do I want or need to. I am not making metaphysical claims!
>You can't start before the beginning. In the beginning, you were
> you, a mind, and you encountered objects. There is no getting before
> that.
>
I am not arguing metaphysics and when you make this about metaphysics you are
arguing with someone else, not with me.
> > The argument that minds can be conceived as physically based simply
> removes one reason for us to think
> > there must be more to the universe than what is physical.
>
> That sentence strikes me as self-contradictory. You conceive, with your
> mind, that your mind is really physical, so there is only the physical,
> and nothing really called mind.
>
You have to grasp the distinction between conceptual and metaphysical
questions. So far you haven't. Again, I AM NOT ARGUING ABOUT THE ULTIMATE
REALITY OF THINGS. I am only arguing for a physical explanation of minds. But
being able to explain minds physically says NOTHING about what the universe
ultimately consists of, nor could it.
> > It's about the best way of understanding what we mean by "mind".
>
> Yes. Go back to my example. How does it help to call my struggles with
> memory a physical event?
>
>
It helps the researchers trying to combat Alzheimers for instance.
> > You are dualist precisely because you cannot conceive of a way of
> understanding mind as a physical phenomenon.
>
> I'm not a dualist or a monist because I don't conceive the phenomena of
> my experience as either physical or mental. The way I see it, there is
> no such thing as "physical phenomena", aside from ascribing "physical"
> to some of my experiences.
That is idealism. So are you choosing idealism over dualism (at least
explicitlyt)? Either way, you are engaged in metaphysical theorizing which is
NOT what I am doing when I consider how consciousness is best conceived.
> I find that useful. But I don't find it
> useful to call my joy "physical."
It doesn't matter if your joy is physically grounded and derived. Since this
isn't about the way you talk about your experience of joy but about whether
whatever joy is can be traced to some physical events, what you find useful
isn't highly relevant.
> It's not about substance. It's about
> what works best.
>
Yes, but not in only a narrow range of uses. A scientist struggling to
understand joy or memory will want to study brains and what they do and what
happens to them under certain circumstances. Just knowing that joy feels a
certain way to him or hearing from you that it feels another way to you will
not get at the core of his or her concern.
> > Then how can you argue that brains can't be causative of minds BeCAUSE
> you can't "see" the mind coming from the brain.
>
> Not a matter of "can't be causative". It is neither true nor false that
> X causes Y if we can't make sense of how the causation works.
>
You begin by presuming we can't make sense of it. But that isn't an argument
for the claim. It's just the claim. And a claim doesn't support itself.
> > Think of the neurobiologists and others in the scientific community
> actively studying how brains cause minds.
>
> Do they study how the brain causes mind or do they study how I use my
> brain. Is their model causative or purposive?
>
Well you can use your brain to pick a hot stock or to choose a path in the road
but that doesn't mean you are literally using your brain in the way you use a
rock to pick off an apple on a nearby tree by throwing it. The brain is part of
you. In certain ways it is you. You cannot use it to be you because where is
the you who uses it then?
> > iff we can explain minds in physical terms there is no reason to
> suppose an added factor is needed to explain their existence.
>
> In contrast, I don't know what it means to explain "the existence" of
> the stuff and experiences around me.
We explain how an entity has the things we recognize as experience (e.g.,
seeing, smelling, tasting, touching, hearing, thinking, remembering, feeling,
fearing, etc.). That's the point of the physical research into brains and how
they do minds.
> Nor do I see the physical as a
> factor, something basic, which may or may not require other basic
> factors. But if you start with matter as basic, then sure as shooting
> you either have to posit another factor, or insist that matter just
> transformed itself, when it occurs to you that you have a mind.
>
Again, again, again . . . don't you see what you are doing here, repeatedly?
"Posit another factor", "matter just transformed itself"! These formulations
are the problem! WE DON'T HAVE TO DO ANY OF THAT TO ACCOUNT FOR MINDS VIA
BRAINS. Does the wheel transform itself to achieve turning? Does the mouth
transform itself into something more than a mouth to smile??????
> > You are fighting a rearguard action against the possibility of
> scientific explanation of mind
> > which cannot succeed based on the manner with which you have gone
> about it (and certainly hasn't so far).
>
> On the contrary, my point of view is what the neurologists who I work
> with find helpful and your insistence on causation is basically
> anti-scientific since you want to impose an account on a phenomena
> rather than to look how it actually works.
>
>
Well on that we shall have to disagree of course, as on much else. I cannot
gainsay your claim that there are neurologists you work with who think like
you. Perhaps there are. Or perhaps you misunderstand them as you misunderstand
the things I've said here. If you like please feel free to post some testimony
from these
"neurologists" in support of your assertion that it is "unintelligible" to
suppose that brains cause/produce/engender/do (take your pick!) minds. If your
neurologist colleagues agree with you that there is no existentially dependent
relation of minds on brains, I would certainly love to hear directly from them.
Perhaps they see something I have not here.
Authority is, of course, not usually the best way to make one's case, but
sometimes it is valid, if your neurologist colleagues are genuine experts in
their fields and do, in fact, support your claims here. I am interested in
hearing from them.
SWM
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