[Wittrs] Re: SWM's sense physical
- From: "SWM" <SWMirsky@xxxxxxx>
- To: wittrsamr@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 26 Nov 2009 15:36:44 -0000
--- In Wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, "BruceD" <blroadies@...> wrote:
>
> --- In Wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, "SWM" <SWMirsky@> wrote:
>
> > The point is it's not "another phenomenon", it's an expression (one of
> many) of the physical world as all phenomena in the world are.
>
> So, there are only one kind of phenomena (monism) and it is physical in
> nature. Correct?
What is "physical in nature"? How do you mean the term? I, of course, have
spoken here about "physical in derivation" which is all this is about as far as
I can see, i.e., do brains produce minds or are they just somehow co-existent
with minds? You seem to have something else in mind with your locution about
"in nature".
> And those who limited physicality to objective,
> material entities, who refuse to call wishes and dreams physical just
> because they are immaterial, are being short-sighted.
>
Again, this seems to be something to do with your notion of being "physical in
nature". Note that I have not said minds are "physical in nature", only that
they are derived from, produced by, existentially dependent on fully
functioning brains of a certain type under the right conditions. That really
seems plain enough I should think. This is not about their "nature" except
insofar their "nature" includes being physically based. That is, I am not
addressing everything we can possibly say or think about minds and what they
are BUT ONLY HOW THEY COME TO BE AND CONTINUE IN THE WORLD. That is, I am
talking about their cause.
> Well, if one takes that position the Body/Mind problem disappears simply
> because there is no mind, as some have thought.
The reason the mind-body problem dissolves is because mind is not ontologically
separate from the physical but a part of the physical universe on this view.
Once this is seen, there isn't a mind-body problem because there is no longer
any reason to wonder how minds and bodies could possibly interact!
The two phenomena are no longer seen to be separate things in the world.
Different, yes, (as color is different from taste or sound, or as objects are
different from activities) but their existential relationship is shown to be
one of existential dependence of one on the other, not of the co-existence of
two fundamentally different existents.
> Not as an ontological
> posit but as a phenomena that doesn't yield to causal accounts.
> Scientific accounts, yes, but not causal.
>
Depends what we mean by causal. Charlie recently put up a very interesting link
here of an EDGE conference with Stanislas Dehaene presenting some findings re:
his brain research in Paris. I actually wrote a response to it but, for some
reason, the post was removed, and my response with it! Fortunately Charlie had
shown it to me before he posted it (I suggested he post it here for all to see)
so, while I no longer have my response, I did save the link. Here it is, should
you want to look at some of the science here:
http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/dehaene09/dehaene09_index.html
The presenter, Stanislas Dehaene, makes these points in the course of the
discussion:
"For the past twelve years", says Dehaene, "my research team has been using
every available brain research tool, from functional MRI to electro- and
magneto-encephalography and even electrodes inserted deep in the human brain,
to shed light on the brain mechanisms of consciousness. I am now happy to
report that we have acquired a good working hypothesis. In experiment after
experiment, we have seen the same signatures of consciousness: physiological
markers that all, simultaneously, show a massive change when a person reports
becoming aware of a piece of information (say a word, a digit or a sound).
"Furthermore, when we render the same information non-conscious or
'subliminal', all the signatures disappear. We have a theory about why these
signatures occur, called the global neuronal workspace theory. Realistic
computer simulations of neurons reproduce our main experimental findings: when
the information processed exceeds a threshold for large-scale communication
across many brain areas, the network ignites into a large-scale synchronous
state, and all our signatures suddenly appear.
"But this is already more than a theory. We are now applying our ideas to
non-communicating patients in coma, vegetative state, or locked-in syndromes.
The test that we have designed with Tristan Bekinschtein, Lionel Naccache, and
Laurent Cohen, based on our past experiments and theory, seems to reliably sort
out which patients retain some residual conscious life and which do not.
"My laboratory is now pursuing this research intensively on patients, animals,
human adults and young children, with the hope of turning our brain-imaging
measurements into a real-time monitor of conscious experience. The time thus
seems ripe to share this work with a broader audience of readers interested in
cutting-edge science and technology, but also those concerned with the
philosophical, personal and ethical implications of these findings."
> > the point of dualism is to assert the existence of two DIFFERENT
> ontological basics
> > such that one is not existentially dependent on the other.
>
> The world is basically physical but then yields something else that is
> mental but comes the physical and hence is not basic. That's what I
> meant by secondary dualism. And secondary dualism must face the problem
> of how this material stuff yielded something seemingly so different from
> itself. This is the struggle. Causation? But in what sense?
>
That's the point, Bruce! It's not "something so different"! It's just another
expression, among many expressions, of the physical universe. It is your
insistence on it being "something so different" that counts as dualism. Merely
asserting, as I do, that of course we have minds and they are not physical
objects is NOT dualism. It becomes dualism for you when you interpret this as
an assertion that having minds is to have "something so different". So this
isn't an argument about whether we have minds or not but about whether minds
are "something so different"!
> But then you avoid this question by identifying mind with the physical
> brain.
Explaining the nuances of identity is not "avoidance", except, I suppose, if
you are fixated on one notion of identity only and on applying the implications
of THAT single notion to this debate.
>So, your secondary dualism is only apparent. You need not
> causally link brain and mind since mind is just special brain parts.
No, no, no! See Dehaene's presentation!
> The
> relationship between brain and special brain parts is causal, just like
> the relationship between all physical things.
>
There are different senses of "causal" as we have seen. I am not speaking of
billiard ball causation but of wetness of water causation!
> > Now if I had been observing my brain via an fMRI there would have been
> an instance of observation
> > where what I saw corresponded to something happening in my mind.
>
> But what is the relationship between the two observations, one of the
> fMRI and one of reflection (happening in your mind). Are they identical?
What is the relationship between seeing the head and tail of a coin as we turn
it over? Do we decide that, because each sighting is of something different,
that we are not seeing the same thing?
> In what way? Are they causal? Which caused which and how?
I've already gone over this. How many times do I need to repeat the same point?
Read Dehaene's presentation. Maybe that will help.
> These
> questions would haunt secondary dualism.
The only "dualism" is in your mistaken insistence on thinking that minds and
brains are fundamentally distinct and co-existent with one another. So long as
you cannot shake this picture, every mention of "mind" will always prompt a
dualist picture in your own mind, causing you to interpret what you hear (or
read here) dualistically. The problem is in the picture you are fixated on.
> But there only seems to be
> dualism here. There really is no mind as one conventionally understands
> it.
>
The point is to determine the best way of understanding mind. If the
"conventional" way is via a dualist picture, requiring either a positing of
extra things in the universe or a disallowance of the discussion (and the
science) entirely on the grounds that it is incoherent (as you have claimed),
then the conventional way may not be the best way for the reasons I have
previously given: 1) presuming dualism violates Occam's Razor when there is no
need to do that and 2) the science is obviously already available to us via our
otherwise ordinary understanding of how the world works (minds require brains
in order for them to occur).
> > The brain qua platform is like a hurricane or a table. It is a
> physical thing in the world.
> > It does physical things. One or more of those physical things that the
> brain does, under certain conditions,
> > have the further characteristic of being subjective and aware, i.e.,
> of being what we mean by conscious.
>
> > Every thought occurs physically somewhere in the brain
>
> Occurs to whom? Does that question make sense in your philosophy?
>
A thought occurring "to" someone is not the same locution as a thought
occurring in some location, i.e., where the thinking entity is. That a thought
occurs TO person X says nothing about whether it occurs IN person X's brain or
his fingernail!
> Now it seems that the brain is aware. You've bypassed the body/mind
> problem by attributing mind to the brain. Great.
Well this is a start though from past experience I'm sure you are about to draw
some wrong implication from this!
> Now physical events are
> tied together causally. The brain is aware of the causal events causing
> it to experience this and that. The brain is an observer. Can it act
> intentionally?
>
> bruce
>
Ah, so you manage it by mixing up the language games again! And by introducing
peculiar notions like "the brain is aware of the causal events causing it to
experience"!
Look, nowhere have I said the brain is itself a conscious entity. The brain's
operations, what it does, are the cause or source of the consciousness which,
combined with the physical constituents of the entity prompts us to call it a
conscious entity! We don't speak of brains as operating apart from the larger
entity of which they are part. Why would we? But when we ask about certain
aspects of that larger entity, e.g., its consciousness, we ask about the role
different parts of the entity have in that. Thus the brain is seen to be the
seat of the mind, the cause, the source, etc. We don't ascribe that to
fingernails or kidneys.
Of course this is just an empirical fact. In principle there is no reason, I
suppose, why we should not have done so other than that the facts have just
been discovered by us to be otherwise.
SWM
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