[Wittrs] Re: SWM on causation
- From: "SWM" <SWMirsky@xxxxxxx>
- To: wittrsamr@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Fri, 12 Feb 2010 02:22:44 -0000
--- In Wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, "BruceD" <blroadies@...> wrote:
> --- In Wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, "SWM" <SWMirsky@> wrote:
>
> > If "physical forces" it's physical. Every physical thing is not an
> object!
>
> or a "physical force" has no material reference because "force" is an
> abstraction like work and love, just as mind is an abstraction without
> material reference. But you don't see it that way because, I think, you
> are obsessed with entities. So when I say "change" isn't physical (but
> an abstraction), you suggest that the only alternative is that...
>
It may be that our real difference is just one of language (though I am
inclined to think it's more based on many past discussions).
"Physical force" is still physical. It involves causes and effects observable
in a physical way in the physical world. It is part of what we mean by the
physical world when we endeavor to provide a full description of it. Gravity is
part of physical reality, too. As are light and velocity and mass, etc.
What does it mean to say they are "abstractions"? An abstraction is non-entity
like by definition though we can name and reference abstractions in the same
way we name and reference entities and so we are often led into the Platonic
error of thinking that what can be named and referenced must be real, like
entities are real, albeit on some other, perhaps more ethereal, plain.
THAT is what it means to be "obsessed with entities". But I would suggest to
you that denying the physicality of such aspects of the universe (itself the
ground of all physical things) on the basis that, being an abstraction it must
not really be real like these things we call entities, is the real mistake, the
real example of being obsessed by this kind of picture.
> > It's certainly not a matter of spirits!
>
> which, of course, I agree since "spirits" are just another entity made
> out of something else. So what is consciousness?
>
Think of the turning of a wheel.
> > Certainly consciousness isn't an entity, isn't like a physical object.
>
> Then you agree that is is a concept we apply in certain contexts, I
> presume. So let's examine this concept.
>
I can agree to that, of course. I have often defined "consciousness" as the
aggregate of those features we find in our own subjectiveness, our subjective
experience, and which we typically reference as being parts of our mental
lives. Such features would include things like: awareness, understanding,
intentionality, intelligence, perceiving, feeling, thinking, etc. Nor do I
maintain that they are all necessarily distinct and apart from one another
though I think we often tend to think and talk of them as though they are.
> > the mistake is in presuming that it makes sense to carry the feature
> > we see at our level down to levels that underpin it.
>
> Are you saying "it is a mistake to attribute intention to the underlying
> brain?
Yes, in most ordinary cases.
> If so, it is equally inappropriate to attribute causation to
> mind.
No, when "cause" is understood in terms of how I am using it (see Searle's use
and the model of molecules of water behaving under certain conditions in a way
that causes water's wetness). But I will reiterate for the nth time that I am
not wedded to the term. I will readily stipulate to any of a number of
alternatives including produce, make, render, engender, bring about, etc. My
only caveat is that it be understood that what I mean to denote by the term we
agree on is an existential dependence of what we call "mind" on what we call
"brains".
But we have been around this block too many times for me to suppose THIS will
solve this problem for you which is why I think our dispute is about more than
words here. I think you are wedded to a particular picture and will not accept
any language that suggests a different one.
> That leaves us with a substance monism -- it's all physical
I am not arguing for a metaphysical position and never have been. Again, my
point is only that the Dennettian model is consistent with what you want to
call physicalism though it is neither a proof or disproof of, or an argument
for, such a position.
-- but
> no way of relating physical x (brain) with physical y (mind) unless you
> want to say "C is caused but then everything else is intentional." Makes
> any sense?
>
Destroy the brain and the mind goes away. That's it, the whole enchilada
concerning this particular point. All the rest that you keep trying to say
about x's and y's and C's is just sophistry at this point.
How we account for the obvious dependence of the mind on its physical platform
is the question at hand. We can either say it is physically derived and thus
another part of the physical universe or it is not a part of the physical
universe in which case it must have some other non-physical derivation.
Your own solution, to declare it all unintelligible, is just a move to halt the
debate without considering which alternative is the better one. Since, however,
there is nothing unintelligible about saying that minds are dependent for their
existence on the brains we associate with them, your move to proclaim
"unintelligibility" is forced, to say the least.
> > Consciousness ...appears on our level of operation
> > though this is to say nothing of how it comes about.
>
> Is that necessarily the case? Love appears on our level and we explain
> its origin.
Do we? Aren't there different levels of explanation for the occurrence of love?
(Valentine's Day being in the offing, I presume you mean romantic love here, of
course.)
> If C is a concept, and concepts only appear on our level,
> then it makes sense to explain how it comes about. And that is how its
> done. The physiological correlates show the conditions of what must be
> in place for mind but there is no way of explaining how physiology makes
> psychology because psychology doesn't appear physiologically.
>
That is nothing more than a bit of dogma at this point. There is no reason to
believe that there is "no way" of explaining psychology in terms of physiology
merely because we have yet to do it completely at this stage in human history.
> > There is no sense in arguing that consciousness works
> > at our level according to the laws of physics even if it
> > is the outcome of undergirding physical phenomena that work
> > "according to the laws of physics".
>
> There is no sense in arguing that consciousness works according to
> physics because it is obvious that physics concepts don't apply. The
> problem is relating to where they apply -- the brain -- to where they
> don't. Undergrirding is a nice word but itself tells us nothing.
>
Consciousness at our level involves particular subjective experiences which,
for us, relate to various stimuli. And so that is what we talk about. But if we
want to talk about how particular stimuli produce particular subjective
experiences qua experience itself, then we certainly can hope to do so by
referencing physical explanations.
> One alternative: The "physical" is no less a concept than the "mental"
> and what we need to relate are two concepts, not two entities, and
> conceptual relations are logical, not causal.
>
> bruce
>
Not a good one though because the issue is what those terms represent for us.
Let's say the concept is the form of the representation (how the dimensions of
a term's associations relate to other such terms, etc.) If so, then what the
term represents in cases where we are talking about things in the world are not
the concepts but actual objects of reference. Human behavior, evidencing a
mind, is just such an object of reference and so how we use a term like "mind"
refers to that. But it also refers to our own subjective experiences which we
relate to behaviors in ourselves and others.
It's too facile to try to reduce this to just being about concepts (and here is
an example where Josh would be right and that we cannot get away with
simplicity alone since to try for that is really to be simplistic which means
overly simple for the case at hand).
SWM
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