[Wittrs] Re: SWM's sense physical
- From: "SWM" <SWMirsky@xxxxxxx>
- To: wittrsamr@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Fri, 27 Nov 2009 04:24:28 -0000
--- In Wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, "BruceD" <blroadies@...> wrote:
> --- In Wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, "SWM" <SWMirsky@> wrote:
>
> > Note that I have not said minds are "physical in nature", only that
> they are derived from,
>
> the physical. So, does that mean that this derivative -- we call mental
> -- is another type of substance?
Omigod! How many different ways do I need to say this? YOU PUT THIS IN TERMS OF
SUBSTANCE, I DON'T. Your failure to see past the "substance" picture is perhaps
why you cannot get my point. NOT SUBSTANCE. NOT SUBSTANCE. NOT SUBSTANCE. Can I
be clearer?
Mind is the expression of certain kinds of physical things doing certain
physical things. PERIOD. No one is saying ANYTHING about substances! Indeed, I
don't even know what YOU mean by "substance" here. I have told you what I mean:
I use the term to refer to material which I cannot put a more precise name to
or which I don't desire to put a more precise name to. That gooey stuff I
stepped in when I put my foot down in the pile of leaves the other day might be
called a "susbstance" by me . . . until I smelled it and concluded it was some
animal's manure.
The other use of "susbstance", the philosophical use, is not of interest to me
because I don't think it is helpful in describing the world or anything about
the world as we find it more clearly. THAT'S WHY WHEN I SPEAK OF DUALISM I
PREFER TO USE A TERM LIKE "ONTOLOGICAL BASIC" SINCE THAT DOES NOT CARRY WITH IT
THE ARCHAIC ASSOCIATIONS THE TRADITIONAL PHILOSOPHICAL USE OF THE TERM HAS.
So are we clear yet? I am not talking about mind as a substance but if you do
then you are falling into a dualist mindset, supposing there is something basic
about mind which cannot be reduced to something physical that is more basic
than it is.
> If so, we differ strongly.
For some reason you are unable to shake this picture of "substance" when you
speak of mind and insist on imputing it to others (in this case to me) in order
to challenge others' (my) views. But THAT isn't my view! You've heard of the
"strawman" fallacy? I don't like to talk in terms of these simplistic logical
fallacies generally but it seems that nothing else is going to bring this home
to you. You cannot invent my view from your perception of it and argue against
it with me if it isn't mine in the first place!
Worse, the mere fact that you keep coming back to it demonstrates that it is
your picture, not mine. You, yourself, want to deny it but your method of
denying it is akin to a cop out, i.e., you want to stipulate that it's
unintelligible and shut down the discourse. It's rather like Cayuse' technique
of declaring something "without application" and simply dogmatically repeating
it at every opportunity.
> Also, I
> believe you hold that mind is best described in an intentional language
> game. If so, how do you reconcile the causality of matter with the
> purposive nature of this derivative substance?
>
I don't know what "derivative substance" you are talking about! That is just
the wrong picture. I am not arguing for it and insofar as you think I am you
are arguing against a strawman.
As to your challenge re: reconciling causal talk with purposive natures what do
you think the problem is? There is no reason physical phenomena could not
function in a conscious way and if that is all consciousness is, as I have
repeatedly said, then there's nothing to reconcile.
> > 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.
>
> True for you, perhaps, but not for everyone
If it's true for me because it is, in fact, true, then it's true for everyone.
But, of course, you are referring here not to truth per se but to what we
believe to be true and it's true that I or anyone can have wrong beliefs about
what is true and that there may be some beliefs we have that are neither true
nor false though we may think they are one or the other.
If I am right about the dissolution of the mind-body problem (which I think is
consistent with Wittgenstein, Dennett and even Searle, when he's thinking
clearly) then the fact that you think I'm wrong is irrelevant to whether I am
right and it is, in fact, true that there is no such problem when this is
looked at correctly.
Still, I grant that you are still troubled by what you think is a problem in
this case. Here you would do well to discover the Wittgensteinian techniques
for dissolving this particular befuddlement.
> because there is still the
> problem of causal matter and intentional mind and the terrible problem
> of specifying the particulars of causality.
I suggest you read Dehaene's talk at that EDGE conference as supplied us by
Charlie. It might help.
> I don't have that problem
> since I don't see why we should expect a causal relationship between two
> such radically different language games.
>
This isn't about causal relationships between language games (where did you get
THAT one???) nor about turning one language game into the other. Each has its
place. This is about applying one language game, that of scientific discourse
about brains, to the problem of explaining the phenomenon of minds.
> > 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).
>
> I'm familiar with the work. Very interesting. Note "simultaneously",
> i.e., correlation not necessarily causation. More importantly, the work
> depends upon a "person reporting."
The reference to "simultaneously" is a claim that this is a measurable marker
of the presence of consciousness. It is NOT a reference to a cause. On this
reading, the cause is when the processes connect up. The simultaneous 'lighting
up' on a massive basis across the brain is taken as evidence that the processes
are connecting and thus causing the instance of consciousness.
I think you need to read the whole talk. He addresses the "person reporting"
question head on, noting that reporting is behavior, too. I'm glad you assert
familiarity with this but your comments here do not suggest you are as familiar
with it as you claim, or that you have grasped their points. Perhaps we would
make better progress if we would focus in on some of Dehaene's precise claims
and examine their implications one by one to see how these impact our points of
dispute?
I have posted a number of excerpts on the list from that talk though the full
talk is available at the linked URL both as a video download and in written
form. We can start either with the excerpts or by going directly to the full
text.
> Where is the person in the causal
> chain.
Why is that a relevant question? The point, of course, is that the person is
the result of the occurrence of a certain level of consciousness, though
"person" has a number of other meanings in our usages which can lead to
confusion if we don't keep them straight in addressing this. That is why
Dehaene is not speaking of persons but of consciousness here, which is also why
it makes no sense to ask about the person in this case.
> I read this work as showing us how we use our brains.
You mean like we use our feet? Or a hammer? Do we use our brains to become
conscious? We can use our brains when we think hard about a question. But that
doesn't mean we are using our brains to be what we are which, of course, is
what THIS is all about, i.e., how is it that we have consciousness and what is
it that consciousness is?
Round and round and round and round. I don't think there is ever going to be a
way to get closure or even common understanding here. But as a psychologist,
Bruce, I think it behooves you to give some attention to the implications of
the specific claims being made by Dehaene and his group.
> No
> different from how we use our fingers.
You're kidding, right? You are seriously making this analogy? We use our brains
to be what we are the way we use our fingers to type onto a keyboard? Well what
would it be to use something else to be what we are, say to use our kidneys?
Could we use a screwdriver?
> In any event, the person is not
> part of the physical account.
>
We are talking about consciousness which is part of the account of what it is
to be a person. And consciousness, of course, is being explained physically.
> >It is your insistence on it being "something so different" that counts
> as dualism.
>
> Well, would you use the same concepts to describe a brain firing as you
> do to describe a person making a report. Just how non-dualistic are you
> and your researcher.
>
Dehaene? He isn't my researcher. But you did once demand that I give you an
example of scientific researchers looking at brains as causative of
consciousness and I was too lazy to put in time ferreting anyone specific out
and contented myself with some general statements. But now Charlie has resolved
this by giving us the link to this conference.
Now where is the dualism do you see in Dehaene? Frankly, Bruce, I don't think
you have a handle on what dualism actually is!
Would I use the same concepts to describe a brain firing as to describe a
person making a report? I don't know what you have in mind but, absent
something more specific from you, I would say no. Why would you think I might?
> > The only "dualism" is in your mistaken insistence on thinking that
> minds and brains are fundamentally distinct and co-existent
>
> Again, for me minds don't exist in the same sense that brains exist.
Then why do you insist that they are mental stuff which cannot affect or be
affected by physical stuff? (THAT is the mind-body problem in a nutshell!)
> So
> "co-exist" makes no sense.
Do you think there are minds in the world? Do you think there are brains in the
world? Do you think minds are dependent on brains to exist or vice versa or
neither (i.e., that they are independent)?
If both minds and brains are, then they exist in some sense and the question is
what is the existential relation between brains and minds?
I know you want to say that is an unintelligible question to ask or answer but
1) you have failed to demonstrate why this should be so and 2) you have failed
to take into account the obvious fact that brain researchers ARE doing and
talking about precisely what you claim is unintelligible.
If they are (and they are) and they are making real progress (as Dehaene's talk
suggests) then you are either in denial or are simply holding out for a
stipulative outcome more in keeping with your personal preferences about how
YOU want us to think about minds. But that is unscientific and, frankly, it is
bad philosophy.
> Minds and brain are fundamentally distinct
> the way an dream of a turkey differs from the one dying to get to my
> table. That is, they are conceptually distinct.
>
Cities and people are conceptually distinct, too, yet both are derived from and
grounded in physical reality. This is not about conceptual differences and
never was.
>
> > The point is to determine the best way of understanding mind.
> Agreed!
>
> > If the "conventional" way is via a dualist picture, requiring either a
> positing of extra things in the universe
>
> But the conventional way need not posit any extra thing,
>
As I mentioned a while back, we have two basic intuitions about this, each
leading us in a different direction. Sometimes one intuition holds us and
sometimes the other. Our ordinary language partakes of both intuitions but very
often one dominates and when it does, if it is misleading, it may prompt us to
expect something different than the world. Looking at a person we may think
there is a soul in there, something I cannot see except through the person's
behavior at all levels (from voluntary to involuntary). If the soul is what is
in there animating the person, causing the behavior, then when the person dies,
what happens to that soul? Then we can come up with all sorts of explanations.
It all starts with the intuition about a mind being entity-like and inserted
somehow in the envelope of the flesh.
One job of philosophy in this context is to unpack such notions and come up
with a way of thinking about mind that fits with the best picture of the world
that we have. The way to do that, given what we think we know about the world
today, is to get shed of the notion that a mind is entity-like, a special kind
of thing that just exists on another plane, in another dimension, on another
level than the physical, etc.
> > or a disallowance of the discussion (and the science)
>
> A rejection of causal accounts is not a rejection of science that
> includes much more than causality.
>
First you are not clear on what kind of "causal accounts" you are rejecting
here. Are you rejecting the claim that water is wet because of the behavior of
its constituent molecules on an atomic level under certain ambient conditions?
That IS clearly a scientific account and causal in the way I have applied
"cause" to the brain-mind relation.
Second you have not told us how you would deal with Dehaene's account of brains
and consciousness which is certainly an example of a scientific account. Note
that his account contravenes a great deal of what you have been saying about
this on this list. For starters what he is doing is not unintelligible and it
takes a certain kind of high handedness to even imply that it is, given the
obvious credibility the man's presentation manifests.
> > presuming dualism violates Occam's Razor
>
> your derivative sense of mind as substance violates OR. I add no
> substances.
>
But you see substances everywhere including in anything I say when they are
manifestly not there. Thus you are unable to shake the substance picture,
suggesting it is you who think in these terms, not me!
NOWHERE HAVE I EVER EVER EVER LIKENED MIND TO SUBSTANCE (OR TO A SUBSTANCE) IN
MY ANALYSES EXCEPT TO SHOW THAT SOME, LIKE SEARLE (AND YOU), DO THAT EVEN WHILE
THINKING THEY DON'T.
To describe mind as an expression of the physical in the same way other
features of physical things are expressions of the physical is NOT to imply
mind is a substance distinct from the physical! Look, are size, shape,
extension, mass, weight, color, wetness, etc., different substances? Do you
imagine that I am claiming they are? Well of course I'm not. But I am saying
that subjectness (being a subject, an experiencer) is ALSO a feature of the
physical like wetness, hardness, coldness, color, etc. But, like all these
other features, it is not ontologically separate from what underlies it, i.e.,
the physical universe. It's just an expression of one aspect of that universe.
NO SUBSTANCE IS BEING CLAIMED. How many different ways do I need to make this
point?
> > Look, nowhere have I said the brain is itself a conscious entity.
>
> I stand corrected. If I think I'm reading that in your Post, I'll
> immediately say so. OK. Are people conscious entities?
>
Yes. Sometimes.
> > The brain's operations, what it does, are the cause or source of the
> consciousness
>
> My brain causes me to be conscious.
No your brain causes your consciousness and you, as the person you are, consist
of a certain physical form and certain experiences which are what make up your
consciousness -- which your brain, when it is working properly, causes.
> When I become conscious, do I have
> control over my thoughts or is everything I think and feel simply a
> causal end-product of brain activity?
>
You are what your brain does however there is certainly input and output, give
and take, with the world around you via your sensory equipment and the
operations of your neurological system (including your brain).
> Again and again, no one here doubts that the brain, not the toe, is the
> means by which we become self-aware.
Then what, pray tell, is the problem???
> The problem is making sense of the
> connection between brain events and mind. The way you describe the
> relationship, we are passive.
Huh? The way I describe the connection we are a product. We aren't (don't exist
as aware beings) until we are produced by the behavior of our brains, etc. So
we cannot be passive because we aren't even a factor! We, as aware entities,
don't exist except insofar as our brains do certain things. If they stop, it's
bye-bye! This isn't to be "passive" which implies we must exist but not act but
be acted upon. In fact, on this view, there is nothing to act upon until the
brain does its thing and then it is the doing of that thing that is us.
> Remember. Water molecules cause us to
> feel wet. They start a chain reaction from skin to brain and we
> experience wetness. Under this description our relationship to our brain
> is the same as our relationship to the environment. Everything simply
> happens to us.
There is no us until the brain is up and running so nothing is happening to us
until we are happening.
> And indeed it is true, in many cases. A stroke victim, of
> a burst brain blood vessel or of prolonged exposure to heat, is a victim
> of what has happened to him.
>
That's a different phenomenon, just as a drunk is a victim of the liquor he has
downed.
> But not all stroke victims (of any kind) react the same. That is why
> your researcher needs a person to report.
If you read the full text you will see that they are aiming to and have already
experimented with persons who are incapable of reporting.
> Any useful account of brain
> and mind must begin with a person who is neither brain nor mind.
Of course you need persons for accounts! But we don't explain brains by first
explaining what we mean by "persons" or what a person is!
> And
> don't be telling me that I've introduced a new substance. A person isn't
> a substance. Not all nouns are substances.
>
> bruce
It's nice that you want to deny introducing "substance" here but it's
unnecessary because the thought that you meant that a person is a substance
never crossed my mind. It's odd, though, that it crossed yours!
Go read the full Dehaene paper and then let's talk specifics if you like.
SWM
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