Were Historical Shifts in Philosophy Right or Wrong Turns?

[Mentat]

I want to take a look at the history of philosophy. I would say it's a look at the history of "philosophy of mind", but it covers more than that.

I want to look at the points throughout history where a shift was made, to the using of terms and concepts that had never been used before. I want to do this because I want to see if any of them were wrong turns, that have changed philosophy for the worse. If it's true that some of these "turns" were bad ones, I don't want it to appear as though the philosopher(s) did something wrong, or as if it shouldn't have happened. After all, how can we learn from a mistake we never make? How, in turn, can we call something a mistake, if it is what arose necessarily from the questions being asked at the time?

 

[Mentat]

First turn.

The first "turn" I'm going to consider, is going to be the most recent in my consideration. All subsequent turns will be further and further in the past, relative to the previous.

The first "turn" I want to consider is that made by Immanuel Kant.

Would we have questions of p-consciousness and a-consciousness, if it weren't for the distinction he made between what is perceived by the senses and what is reflected in our (biased) minds? Would philosophers be trying to come up with a theory of knowledge that is absolute, if it hadn't been for this new distinction, that Kant made, which allowed for the idea that a clearer mirror would produce a more accurate representation of the physical Universe?

His turn, however, was the logical one, since he was preceded by Hume, and wished to refine Hume's concept. So, the next turn I want to consider is that of Hume...

 

[Mentat]

Ideas versus Impressions.

There were a lot of new concepts introduced by David Hume, but the two most important (to this discussion) will be "ideas" and "impressions".

According to Hume, "impressions" appeared to come from without and were impressed on the mind, whereas "ideas" are reflections thereof within the mind. Since we can never experience anything outside of our own experience, Hume's philosophy ended in Solipsism. After all, if the only things we ever experienced were our impressions and the ideas that were based on them, how could we be sure of the existence of anything outside the mind? IOW, impressions and ideas are both mental phenomena, and are thus not proof, or even indications, of anything that isn't a mental phenomenon.

But, Hume would never have been able to speak intelligently of such terms, had it not been for Locke. We wouldn't have known what the heck he was talking about. So, my next "turn" to consider is that of Locke...

 

[Mentat]

Meaning, tablets, and inward-facing eyes...

Locke introduced to philosophy the concept of an inner representation of external phenomenon. Perhaps "introduced" isn't the right word (maybe "refined the already existent concept" is better).

In any case, without Locke's belief that "meaning" was something extra, not intrinsic to any objective phenomenon, Hume's concept of "impressions" and "ideas" would have made no sense.

Locke basically showed the philosophical world that, since meaning was not something intrinsic to bits of ink on parchment, or sounds traveling through the air, they must instead have something to do with the mind's perception of them. A sound entered the ear, and was, at some point inscribed on the "tablet" of the mind, which was then read by the mind's eye. NOTE: This is not how he actually worded things, and (as with every other philosophy that I have and will discuss(ed)) it is but a fraction of the contribution made by the philosopher. However, this is my way of referring to the "wrong turn" the evolved from his insight.

I will continue this tomorrow, as I have to leave now...

 

[Mentat]

Last few turns: Descartes to Plato

Well, inspite of the fact that I've been paraphrasing gortequely, I will have to make the rest of my posts even more paraphrased, as I may have to get off-line at any moment. Let's see if I can make my point by then.

The very concept of mind and body (as separate entities, or as ontologically distinct), on which Locke's own philosophy was based, goes back to the great Descartes himself. Descartes, in his "First Philosophy" gives us the reason for this distinction (a distinction which was (IMSO) the first in a series of "wrong turns"), by describing how he arrived at that which is indubitable. At the end of his dubito, the only things left are those describable as aspects of the cogito.

This need for incorrigibility, in turn, can be followed back to Plato and Aristotle. Before them, the Pyrroneans (probably spelled wrong) and Sophists (and pretty much everybody else, for that matter) were content to deal with "relative truth" and the winning of the argument at hand, instead of dissolving every possible future argument. After Aristotle, however, the concept of an absolute truth, and the role of philosophy as finding those absolute truths, became deeply ingrained, and is the first (from a historical PoV, now) of the "wrong turns", that I want to put into question.

 

[Mentat]

Discussion or correction of any of the above paraphrasings is welcome, but the main point of the thread is incorrigibility, the way it lead philosophy into where it currently finds itself, and whether that very first step (made by Plato and Aristotle) should ever have been made. If so, should the steps that followed have been made? If so, why all the philosophical problems?

If, instead, we were to avoid taking any of those turns for granted, we may arrive at something very much like Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations.

Wittgenstein's earlier work, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, was an excellent work, but it was along the same path that leads off from Kant's "turn". But, in the Philosophical Investigations, Wittgenstein takes none of those "turns" for granted, and goes back to the essential concept of winning in debate.

He gets rid of the concept of ultimate truth, and instead talks about relativity. He gets rid of mind-body distinction/dualities, because they are reflections (indeed, exist only for the purpose of) the need to find incorrigible truth.

 

[Mentat]

Thank you for your posts, mapper. Perhaps you should start a separate thread on the wrong turns that you wish to discuss. This thread is more about the history of philosophical thought, and the mistakes (IMO) that philosophers have been making, due to their desire for ultimate truth.

 

[mapper]

Yeah my posts were deleted. Wasnt really on your topic so sorry about that.

 

[Mentat]

Now that I've got a little more time.

Let me explain more clearly what the point of the thread is. Basically, I want to understand why (if there even is a good reason) we made the turns described above. Why did we start searching for a vantage point for absolute truths? Why did we think that we could do so by introspection? Why did we begin separating primary and secondary ideas, and ideas and impressions, and concepts and intuitions, thus making the concept of "mind" that much more complex and intractable?

This path has only lead us to philosophical problem on top of philosophical problem, and shouldn't that at least hint at the possibility that we've been going about it the wrong way?

Why doesn't mainstream philosophy take seriously the potential for Wittgensteinian thought to remove such problems?

 

[Canute]

I agree that philosophy (the western kind) has taken some wrong turns, imo often due to its close links with Christian theology and the wrong turns taken by the Church. But I don't see this quite the way you do. To me all those philosophers you mention were arriving at the same conclusion because it's the only conclusion to arrive at, not because they were building on each others work (although of course they were doing that as well).

It is simply a fact that certain knowledge is identical with its object (Aristotle), that the knowledge gained via our senses is not certain (Kant), and that the knowledge gained by our reason is not certain (Kant? Hume? Goedel anyway).

On the Wittgenstein thing I don't agree with the interpretation of the Tractatus that led to logical positivism, and get the impression that not too many people do these days. It's very difficult to show that metaphysical questions are not real questions (if that's what you meant).

On the whole though I agree with what you say. There is something amiss with western philosophy. It should have moved on by now instead of being stuck where Plato and Aristotle left it.

 

[Mentat]

Thanks for the response, Canute.

I hadn't considered Christianity's role in influencing modern philosophy...but it's something to ponder.

As to Wittgenstein, basically, whenever I refer to his philosophy I'm usually referring to his post-Tractatus stuff (the reasoning you'd find in the Philosophical Investigations). Combined with the historical approach of Heidegger and Dewey (among others), Rorty has formulated a philosophy completely independent of the post-Descartes notions of Duality. I'm just wondering if he may not be on the right track. Have you ever read any of Rorty's philosophy?

 

[Mentat]

From "Questions on Ontology"

This is from my thread, "Questions on Ontology". I think it's worth pasting here, as it is slightly more on-topic here, and may fuel some debate (if I'm lucky)...

Originally Posted by Fliption
Perhaps it would be better if you laid out how that works. As you may recall, we've had a few of those "Wittgenstein" folks participate in some discussions claiming grand things about how language causes all philosophy problems but then they never have the patience or competence to explain their position.

My Reply...
That's because Kantian, Aristotelian, Cartesian, and Lockean biases are so deeply ingrained in the reasoning of most people. I'll give it a try:

Through a Wittgensteinian approach we can first see language as not a singular process or ability, but as many. He calls each individual process/ability a "language-game", and the "family resemblances" between such "games" are many, but there is no singular quality that exists in all of them.

Now, games all have their own pieces and their own rules. Taking the "language-game" concept into history, Rorty thinks we will start to see (for an example) "ontological dichotomies" of mind and body or of universals and particulars as merely social conventions of language. IOW, whereas the mind-body distinction was originally designed (and later refined) specifically to establish a framework of things that could not be doubted -- from which we could extrapolate other "truths" and against which we could rigorously test conjectures, theories, even whole paradigms -- Wittgenstein does away with "absolute grounding" for truth (Rorty refers to "absolute grounding" as "polishing our Mirror of Nature, so that our inner representations are as accurate as possible"), and adopts a more relativistic viewpoint. Then, all that is left is to solve the puzzles that our language-games can create.

As an example, let's look at the concept of "a-consciousness" and "p-consciousness". These stand for "action-consciousness" and "phenomenal-consciousness" in the philosophical language-game. No other language game uses a distinction even remotely like this, because no other game needs it. Thus, it is only a puzzle brought on by an aspect of this particular game. Now, let's dissect the "pieces" and their roles.

"Phenomenal" is a term that has reference to events occurring in the mind, or otherwise being of a mental nature. Specifically, phenomenal-consciousness is that consciousness that is more than just neural processing of information or the uttering of responses. It is, to put it yet another way, the perception of "redness" beyond the simple electro-chemical processing of photonic information.

Now, why do we even have this concept (this "piece" in our "game")? Well, our philosophical language-game has allowed for such a distinction for some time (ever since Descartes). But why did Descartes come up with it? Well, if one looks at the time in which he was living, one can easily see how it would become necessary for him to try to establish which things could and could not be doubted. And, since you have first-hand priveleged access to what you are perceiving, that must be undoubtable. IOW, it's the one thing about which you could be allowed (by society? by other philosophers?) to be incorrigible, and nobody would mind; nobody could contest it, since it was your experience.

But, now, if "redness" was just a reflection of how something seemed to you, and had nothing to do with anything real...and if neuroscience could establish a well-grounded understanding of how we process every different kind of phenomenon, then you might not be allowed to be so incorrigible. After all, you could tell us how it seemed to you, but the neurologist could tell us how it actually was. And this is not so strange as it may seem, since people have always talked about how things seemed to them (for example, there are those who percieve an order and intelligence in the Universe...perfect clock-work) until science came in and showed them that their views needed correction (quantum mechanics, for example, does away with the clock-work Universe concept fairly well).

All I'm basically saying (for those of you who skipped ahead to the end ) is that our ability to be incorrigible about how something seems to us was blown way out of proportion (eventually becoming considered an ontological dichotomy (of all things!)), and has become the basis for a large slew of words (p- and a- consciousness among them) that would have had no meaning whatsoever without that misconception.

The usual objection is that our conscious experience ("experience" here being used in a way quite different than in any other language-game) cannot be doubted. How something seems to us cannot be overruled by someone else, and pain, "redness", love, etc, have no more existence other than how they seem to us. But, pace Rorty, I ask if that is really so. Is it really even comprehensible to speak of a "pain" without speaking of a being that is in pain? Much like beauty or valor, which cannot be spoken of intelligently (at all, really) without referencing the context (how can you speak of beauty without speaking something that "is beautiful"). What has happened, which has infected our philosophical language-game, is that words we use to describe these states have indeed been used to refer to particulars, our of context.

That is why it is nothing more than a language puzzle: it has no substance outside of one specific language game, and only has substance therein because of a misconstruition of a state for a particular.

There's obviously more to this (much more), but I'll stop here for now.

 

[selfAdjoint]

And when someone comes to another group's game, as a Briton viewing baseball or an American viewing cricket, it seems ridiculous. Why do they have those funny pieces, and those stupid rules that don't allow an honest alien to express himself clearly?

 

[Mentat]

And when someone comes to another group's game, as a Briton viewing baseball or an American viewing cricket, it seems ridiculous. Why do they have those funny pieces, and those stupid rules that don't allow an honest alien to express himself clearly?

Thus, Rorty's illustration of the Antipodeans. Do you know it?

The basic concept is that humans finally encounter another (seemingly) intelligent race. They go to visit their world, and they see grand examples of culture and intelligence. However, when they ask the people questions that involve the concepts of "raw feels" or "qualia", they are not only left without response, the Antipodeans can't even begin to make sense of what these things are, or why they should be so important. The evolution of the Antipodean race/culture has been different from our own only in that they had early exposure to the concepts of neurophysiology and such. With this knowledge, they have always expressed (for example) what happens when one is smacked across the face in terms of "stimulated C-fibers".

Now, the closest thing the philosophers of Earth can make to "progress" with these poor creatures is to get them to admit (quite freely, actually) that it is possible to believe that your C-fibers have been stimulated (because of the concomitant T-fiber stimulation, which can be stimulated without the corresponding C-fiber's also being stimulated) and be wrong.

But when it comes to "raw feels" and "incorrigibility about mental states" or "qualia", the Antipodeans are at a complete loss, because they don't even have words for such things...they don't mean anything to them.

And, for all of you who think that we know such things because they are "obvious" to us, or because they are "primary" in our "experience": the ancient Greek philosophers (pre-Plato) didn't have words for any of that stuff either. They got along with their philosophy (some of it quite deeply concerned with what can and cannot be known, what can and cannot be doubted, and how we know anything at all...viz, Pyrronean skepticism) just fine, without ever invoking any of these terms or anything like them.

 

[Canute]

If Rorty had flown on just a few more parsecs he'd have discovered the planet of the AntiAntipodeans. These people believe that mind is fundamental and have never bothered doing neuroscience. When you speak to them of qualia, of how things appear and of states of being, they seem just like us. However when you speak of c-fibres in the brain they look back blankly.

Hmm. Not sure that works, but it could probably be made to work.

Why not just say that the reason we have words for raw experiences is that we have raw experiences, and that they are clearly something different to c-fibres firing. Even if brain does cause mind this is true. After all, we have a word for 'cake', not just words for flour, butter, eggs and fruit.

The idea that sentient beings could have intelligence and a well-developed and shared language but have no word for sentience seems unlikely to me. The clincher is that we (and the Antipodeans) know when we have been hit across the face. If we could only know this by studying our c-fibres then we'd have to go to the doctor to find out whether someone had hit us or not. When we got there he'd ask why we thought we'd been hit, and wouldn't have the words to explain why, for we'd have no word for pain.

The only reason that a neuroscientist is interested in c-fibres is that they are useful in explaining the state of being in which one feels as if one has been hit across the face, and other such states. If we did not have such feelings then we'd be like Rorty's Antipodeans, uninterested in c-fibres and unable to make first person reports. Also, when we talk about c-fibres we are talking about our inner perceptions and conceptions of them, for this is all we know about c-fibres. If we can't talk about mental states then we can't talk about how c-fibres appear to be to us.

But when it comes to "raw feels" and "incorrigibility about mental states" or "qualia", the Antipodeans are at a complete loss, because they don't even have words for such things...they don't mean anything to them.

Surely they are zombies then, not just linguistically challenged?

And, for all of you who think that we know such things because they are "obvious" to us, or because they are "primary" in our "experience": the ancient Greek philosophers (pre-Plato) didn't have words for any of that stuff either.

Erm, are you sure? What's all that stuff Animaximander and Parmeneides go on about then, 'Being', appearance and reality and so forth.

They got along with their philosophy (some of it quite deeply concerned with what can and cannot be known, what can and cannot be doubted, and how we know anything at all...viz, Pyrronean skepticism) just fine, without ever invoking any of these terms or anything like them.

But they did invoke these terms. They said that 'knowing' is inextricably tied up with 'Being'.

To go back to theology and philosophy - What Christian theology did was to objectify God, against the advice of all Christian mystics and against the (reported) advice of Jesus. This allowed the development of the institution, and of a priestly class standing as gatekeepers between Man and God. It seems to me that this led to the objectification of everything and thus to analytical theology, analytical philosophy, and the scientific method. Could it be that science has flourished best in Christian countries for this reason?

 

[Canute]

I was thinking about what you said about language. It seems to me that we give names to things for which we have concepts. Wouldn't it be better then to say that our problems are caused by misconceptions of what things really are, rather than the misnaming of things or the misuse of language?

Hmm, or is it the misnaming of things which causes us to misconceptualise them? I suppose it works both ways.

 

[Mentat]

If Rorty had flown on just a few more parsecs he'd have discovered the planet of the AntiAntipodeans. These people believe that mind is fundamental and have never bothered doing neuroscience. When you speak to them of qualia, of how things appear and of states of being, they seem just like us. However when you speak of c-fibres in the brain they look back blankly.

Hmm. Not sure that works, but it could probably be made to work.

Nope. Sorry, but it doesn't change the situation in the slightest. Indeed, the anti-antipodeans would be just like us (or, at least, where we currently find ourselves), and so wouldn't be any help in ascertaining how consciousness could exist completely independent of anything like "raw feels", if such things even exist (which is what it called into question by this case, since they were invoked to help explain consciousness).

Why not just say that the reason we have words for raw experiences is that we have raw experiences, and that they are clearly something different to c-fibres firing.

We don't necessarily have "words for raw experiences", as you put it. The very phrasing of that is indicative of your still being stuck in a post-Cartesian framework. We have terms like "raw feels" or "qualia", but that doesn't mean that they refer to anything physically identifiable. They could, quite simply, be useless words in every language-game other than post-Kantian philosophy (as I think I've already shown them to be), and the only purpose they've served there is to further complicate matters and create philosophical "problems".

Even if brain does cause mind this is true.

What is this "mind" you keep talking about? I never said that the brain "caused" anything.

The idea that sentient beings could have intelligence and a well-developed and shared language but have no word for sentience seems unlikely to me.

I didn't say that they had no word for "sentience". Sentience is self-consciousness and awareness. They clearly are capable of such processes, otherwise they would not have been able to say that it was "I" who had "my" C-fibers stimulated.

The clincher is that we (and the Antipodeans) know when we have been hit across the face. If we could only know this by studying our c-fibres then we'd have to go to the doctor to find out whether someone had hit us or not.

You missed the point. They have privileged access to what's going on inside them (it doesn't matter how, it's part of the story). We, OTOH, claim to have some privileged access, and yet the words we are using don't describe anything that's going on inside us (as your "doctor" could quickly tell you).

The only reason that a neuroscientist is interested in c-fibres is that they are useful in explaining the state of being in which one feels as if one has been hit across the face, and other such states.

That's only true of our neuroscientist is a post-Kantian philosopher on the side. Real neuroscientists are interested in c-fibers for the same reason molecular-biologists are interested in mitochondria: it's their field.

If we did not have such feelings then we'd be like Rorty's Antipodeans, uninterested in c-fibres...

But they are interested in their c-fibers. They're just not interested in discussing terms that have no meaning to them (of which "c-fiber" is not one, but of which "qualia" and "raw feel" are indeed).

...and unable to make first person reports.

The antipodeans do indeed make first-person reports. Why should it be otherwise? How can one refer to "my" c-fiber, or the fact that it the stimulation of concomittant t-fibers is strongly indicative thereof, and still not be making a first-person report?

Also, when we talk about c-fibres we are talking about our inner perceptions and conceptions of them, for this is all we know about c-fibres. If we can't talk about mental states then we can't talk about how c-fibres appear to be to us.

C-fibers appear to us exactly as they always have. A stimulated C-fiber is one phenomenon that is different from other phenomena. We (Antipodeans) can tell the difference, and speak intelligently about it, but we cannot speak intelligently about "mental states" since this concept is completely foreign to us.

Surely they are zombies then, not just linguistically challenged?

"Zombies" is also a foreign word to us. Could you perhaps define it in terms we might understand?

Erm, are you sure? What's all that stuff Animaximander and Parmeneides go on about then, 'Being', appearance and reality and so forth.

Yes, there were distinctions between how something appeared (or something about which you could be fairly confident) and how something actually was. This requires the concepts of skepticism and criticalness, but not the concept of a "veil of mind" which conceals the true nature of things from a central mind. I have studied the ancient Greek language for a while now. I can assure you to a high degree of certainty that there is no term for such things (I'm as sure of that as I can be, but not absolutely so; this does not indicate anything wrong with my "mental apparatus", merely that I may not have all the facts).

But they did invoke these terms. They said that 'knowing' is inextricably tied up with 'Being'.

And it is. What has that to do with mind-body duality?

To go back to theology and philosophy - What Christian theology did was to objectify God, against the advice of all Christian mystics and against the (reported) advice of Jesus. This allowed the development of the institution, and of a priestly class standing as gatekeepers between Man and God. It seems to me that this led to the objectification of everything and thus to analytical theology, analytical philosophy, and the scientific method. Could it be that science has flourished best in Christian countries for this reason?

Possibly. However, all throughout the Holy Scriptures, God Himself commands that no physical representations be made of Him. This was not because He Himself was not physical (or, at least, He never said that this was why), it was because He was not like anything that we could possibly find here on Earth. Thus, to make a representation of Him that was like something that He had created (since, according to Scripture, He created all things) was an insult.

 

[Mentat]

I was thinking about what you said about language. It seems to me that we give names to things for which we have concepts.

Of course it seems that way to you. No offense, but this is purely Lockean thinking. Wittgenstein himself fell into the same trap, when he wrote his Tractatus. However, he didn't fall prey to the same bias in his Philosophical Investigations, which is why, when I refer to Wittgenstein's philosophy, I almost invariably mean the latter.

What I'm saying is that this is a very tempting belief, but not a necessary one. To even refer to "concepts" as something distinct that can be assigned to words (or that can have words assigned to them) is to speak Locke-ish. It's a fine language-game, but I think it's out-lived its usefulness.

Wouldn't it be better then to say that our problems are caused by misconceptions of what things really are, rather than the misnaming of things or the misuse of language?

Hmm, or is it the misnaming of things which causes us to misconceptualise them? I suppose it works both ways.

Canute, examine what you are saying. Can you not see the inability to think/speak without some reference to the indubitable (that which is "actual", relative to those things which are not). If so, can it not be that this concept of finding a "solid grounding" is the first in a series of "wrong turns" which will lead you right back to where mainstream philosophy is right now? Right back to the "problems"?

If, instead, we were to abandon the concept of an "absolute/indubitable grounding", we'd never have to worry about "hard problems of consciousness", "representations", "behaviorism", "materialism", "idealism", etc.

 

[Canute]

We don't necessarily have "words for raw experiences", as you put it. The very phrasing of that is indicative of your still being stuck in a post-Cartesian framework. We have terms like "raw feels" or "qualia", but that doesn't mean that they refer to anything physically identifiable. They could, quite simply, be useless words in every language-game other than post-Kantian philosophy (as I think I've already shown them to be), and the only purpose they've served there is to further complicate matters and create philosophical "problems".

Wouldn't it be simpler to say that we have a word for pain because pain is a raw experience, and we have terms like 'raw feel' and 'qualia' because we have raw feel and qualia? Just as we have words for c-fibres because we have c-fibres. Raw experiences exist, as you say, so what does it matter whether raw experiences are physically identifiable? They still need a name so that we can talk about them.

What is this "mind" you keep talking about? I never said that the brain "caused" anything.

Are you saying that you don't know what I mean by the word 'mind'?

I didn't say that they had no word for "sentience". Sentience is self-consciousness and awareness. They clearly are capable of such processes, otherwise they would not have been able to say that it was "I" who had "my" C-fibers stimulated.

So, they know that they have sentience, but have no words for the experiences by which they know they are sentient. This seems a very unlikely scenario to me. Are you denying the existence of conscious experience?

You missed the point. They have privileged access to what's going on inside them (it doesn't matter how, it's part of the story). We, OTOH, claim to have some privileged access, and yet the words we are using don't describe anything that's going on inside us (as your "doctor" could quickly tell you).

When I tell my doctor I'm in pain he knows what I mean. Of course my doctor cannot observe this pain, we all know that pain is not a physical thing. Are you suggesting that 'pain' is a word with no referant?

But they are interested in their c-fibers. They're just not interested in discussing terms that have no meaning to them (of which "c-fiber" is not one, but of which "qualia" and "raw feel" are indeed).

If they have no raw experiences then they are not sentient, and your thought experiment fails. If they do have raw experiences then it seems likely that they'll give them names.

The antipodeans do indeed make first-person reports. Why should it be otherwise? How can one refer to "my" c-fiber, or the fact that it the stimulation of concomittant t-fibers is strongly indicative thereof, and still not be making a first-person report?

Reporting the state of ones c-fibres is a third-person report, not first-person. We have no first-person access to the state of our c-fibres.

C-fibers appear to us exactly as they always have. A stimulated C-fiber is one phenomenon that is different from other phenomena. We (Antipodeans) can tell the difference, and speak intelligently about it, but we cannot speak intelligently about "mental states" since this concept is completely foreign to us.

This suggests that the Antipodeans did not know that they were having experiences, or had mental states, until their science had developed to the point where they could observe the behaviour of c-fibres in their brains. Presumably one day one of them looked through a microscope at their own c-fibres and deduced that they were conscious. It would mean that an Antipodean would have to go and see a neuroscientist to find out whether they were happy or not.

"Zombies" is also a foreign word to us. Could you perhaps define it in terms we might understand?

A creature who is not sentient but behaves just like an Antipodean.

Yes, there were distinctions between how something appeared (or something about which you could be fairly confident) and how something actually was. This requires the concepts of skepticism and criticalness, but not the concept of a "veil of mind" which conceals the true nature of things from a central mind. I have studied the ancient Greek language for a while now. I can assure you to a high degree of certainty that there is no term for such things (I'm as sure of that as I can be, but not absolutely so; this does not indicate anything wrong with my "mental apparatus", merely that I may not have all the facts).

Do you not think that Plato's cave allegory, and his talk of Ideas and Forms, was about this very issue?

And it is. What has that to do with mind-body duality?

My point was just that the Greeks knew the difference between Being and physical phenomena.

Possibly. However, all throughout the Holy Scriptures, God Himself commands that no physical representations be made of Him. This was not because He Himself was not physical (or, at least, He never said that this was why), it was because He was not like anything that we could possibly find here on Earth. Thus, to make a representation of Him that was like something that He had created (since, according to Scripture, He created all things) was an insult.

Not an insult but a mischaracterisation, one which leads to serious misunderstanding and wrong turns. For Christian mystics, Sufis, Taoists etc. it is not just physical representations which are to be avoided, but all representations. They say that what is fundamental is Being, not a being.

I don't mean to be difficult but I really cannot understand your second post. Are you suggesting that the only reason we think we have experience is that we have a word for experience, and that if we stop using the word we will no longer think we need to explain what experiences are? That's how it seems.

 

[Mentat]

Wouldn't it be simpler to say that we have a word for pain because pain is a raw experience, and we have terms like 'raw feel' and 'qualia' because we have raw feel and qualia? Just as we have words for c-fibres because we have c-fibres. Raw experiences exist, as you say, so what does it matter whether raw experiences are physically identifiable? They still need a name so that we can talk about them.

I never said that "raw experiences" exist. I said that our terms (such as "raw experiences" or "qualia") exist. These terms don't need to refer to anything real in order to exist as terms.

No, it's not simpler to say that we have a word for pain because it is a "raw experience". We could just as simply say that we have a word for "pain" because we didn't start off with more specific/physiologically-oriented ways of referring to stimulated c-fibers (or whatever fibers are stimulated when something potentially harmful occurs on your sensitive tissues). It's a "short-cut" word; nothing more.

Are you saying that you don't know what I mean by the word 'mind'?

No, but...for the purpose of the discussion, what do you mean by that word?

So, they know that they have sentience, but have no words for the experiences by which they know they are sentient. This seems a very unlikely scenario to me.

The experiences? You mean like getting one's c-fibers stimulated and recognizing that it was their own c-fibers that were stimulated rather than someone else's? They do indeed have words for these things.

Are you denying the existence of conscious experience?

Another bit of philosophical jargon: "conscious experience". "Experience" in every other field (besides philosophy of mind) has to do with how long you've been doing something, or how adept you've become at it (whatever the activity may be). "Consciousness" in every field besides PoM is a reference to whether you are "awake", and capable of interacting normally with your environment. I'm positive that these are not what you mean by "conscious experience", since it would then be the same as saying "adeptness, due to prior attempts, at being awake".

So, please define "conscious experience" in, at least, basic terms.

When I tell my doctor I'm in pain he knows what I mean. Of course my doctor cannot observe this pain, we all know that pain is not a physical thing. Are you suggesting that 'pain' is a word with no referant?

I'm suggesting that it's a short-cut way of referring to some stimulus that is (at least potentially) harmful. Being "in pain" is being stimulated in that manner. But when you refer to "pain" as though "a pain" were a quantum entity (which makes no sense to me whatsoever), then you create the possibility of detecting such an entity within you, and the doctor will never find it. Therefore, the word "pain" cannot have reference to a quantum entity, as there is no such entity.

If they have no raw experiences then they are not sentient, and your thought experiment fails. If they do have raw experiences then it seems likely that they'll give them names.

That's exactly what the philosophers that met them said. To that, of course, the Antipodeans said, "fine, we don't see why 'sentience' is so important to you anyway, if we've gotten on just as well as you have without it". You see, our telling them that they don't have "sentience", by virtue of not having "raw feels" hasn't changed anything. Their culture is still every bit as advanced and complex as ours. Their literature is still every bit as beautiful or poignant. Their art is still every bit as captivating. If "raw feels" exist, and if you have determined that they don't have them, so what?

Reporting the state of ones c-fibres is a third-person report, not first-person.

It is first-person since it refers to the state of one's own c-fibers.

We have no first-person access to the state of our c-fibres.

We don't, that's very true (which is why I think it very odd that we (philosophers) think of ourselves as having anything like priveleged access to our inner workings), but the Antipodeans do. And, if we had had that access throughout our history, it is very likely (IMHO) that words such as "qualia" wouldn't have ever even been invented.

This suggests that the Antipodeans did not know that they were having experiences, or had mental states, until their science had developed to the point where they could observe the behaviour of c-fibres in their brains. Presumably one day one of them looked through a microscope at their own c-fibres and deduced that they were conscious. It would mean that an Antipodean would have to go and see a neuroscientist to find out whether they were happy or not.

No, no, no, you missed the point. The Antipodeans, as a part of my thought-experiment, have always been able to see what's going on inside of them. I don't care how, this is just the case for the purpose of the thought-experiment.

A creature who is not sentient but behaves just like an Antipodean.

But what is "sentience" to you? A philosopher once tried to explain it to an Antipodean. The conversation went something like this:

P. "Sentience" refers to having knowledge of oneself from a first-person perspective, and the ability to have intelligence, creativity, etc.

A. But I (note his use of the word "I") do know about myself; better than you do about yourself, I might add, since you cannot behold your inner workings. And it would affect my i-fibers greatly if you were to imply that I'm not intelligent or creative. I have mastered complex maths, and have painted pictures that have won me great acclaim.

P. But you don't have "raw sensations" or "feels", by your own confession.

A. I confessed only that I didn't know what those terms meant, nor could I find any room for them in any good explanation of my inner workings (of which I am infinitely more knowledgeable than any human). If I have them, then they must be quite useless, since I've never observed them, and I have complete access to what goes on inside me.

Do you not think that Plato's cave allegory, and his talk of Ideas and Forms, was about this very issue?

Do you mean "cage" allegory?

Whereas I've been brushing up on my Greek language skills, I have not recently looked into Plato. Could you perhaps provide some quotes (in context is best) that have to do with Ideas and Forms in Platonic philosophy?

I do remember that Plato helped pioneer the dichotomy (ontological or otherwise) between universals and particulars. He (like Pythagoras, now that I come to think of it) believed that all forms were a manifestation of a much more universal idea. Is that what you are referring to?

My point was just that the Greeks knew the difference between Being and physical phenomena.

Only insomuch as they also knew the difference between the gods and the physical; or between the spirit that can live on after the death of the body, and that body itself.

What I'm saying is that they had no concept of a mirror of nature, from which certainty could be gathered. They had skepticism, but not with reference to the indubitable mind and the veil that covers the "actual objective realm" from our "mind's eye". Their skepticism was simply to do with "what can be known with any degree of certainty?", "what is certainty?", "how is it attained?", "does it have practical use?".

They also did not have words for concepts like "qualia" or "phenomenology". They had "nous" which was their term for "knowledge" or "mind", and "logos" which meant "reasoning" or "logic". The philosophy of Heraclitus (at least, I think it was Heraclitus...like I've said, it's been a while) even went so far as to make "nous" something like a Universal force, which could decide between "becomings" (since he didn't think there were any "beings").

But they never had a word that defined "mind" a priori as something distinct from the brain's processes of reasoning and data-input.

Not an insult but a mischaracterisation, one which leads to serious misunderstanding and wrong turns. For Christian mystics, Sufis, Taoists etc. it is not just physical representations which are to be avoided, but all representations. They say that what is fundamental is Being, not a being.

Deuteronomy 4 (NIV)
(16) so that you do not become corrupt and make for yourselves an idol, an image of any shape, whether formed like a man or a woman, (17) or like any animal on Earth or any bird that flies in the air, (18) or like any creature that moves along the ground or any fish in the waters below. (19) And when you look up to the sky and see the sun, the moon and the stars-all the heavenly array-do not be enticed into bowing down to them and worshiping things the LORD your God has apportioned to all the nations under heaven.

Romans 1 (NIV)
(21)For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. (22)Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools (23)and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles.

(24)Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. (25)They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator–who is forever praised. Amen.

That's what I was trying to say: The God of the Bible is indeed insulted by attempted representations of Him that are, instead, representations of things He created.

I don't mean to be difficult but I really cannot understand your second post. Are you suggesting that the only reason we think we have experience is that we have a word for experience, and that if we stop using the word we will no longer think we need to explain what experiences are? That's how it seems.

"Experiences"...this is the beginning of your problems, in two ways. First, it suggests a use of the word "experience" completely different from its usual use (in every occupation other than PoM). Secondly, it refers to "experience" in terms of a plenum of quantum "experions" (or however you want to refer to your quantum "experiences"). It gives each "experience" an individual nature, and makes them into entities, whereas every other use of "experience" has it as a continual accumulation of facility.

No, I'm not saying that "mental/conscious experience" can be reduced to words, I'm saying that "mental/conscious experience" are words (which is obvious), and that they are no more than that, until somebody finally proves otherwise. I, personally, don't know what to make of them. They are not very "good" words, because I can't use them...I guess I'm an Antipodean...or a zombie, or whatever.

 

[Canute]

I think I'll back out of this one if that's ok. If you don't know that you have experiences despite the fact that you have no idea what's going in your brain then there's nothing I can say to change your mind.

The 'God' question is interesting though. Your extracts say that God should not idolised, but not why we should not do this. In all 'mystical' traditions, including the Christian and Islamic ones, it is because to objectify God is to misunderstand the word 'God', and so to obscure the truth from oneself. In these traditions of self-exploration the words 'God' and 'Allah' play the same role as 'Tao' in Taoism or 'emptiness' in Buddhism. To objectify these things is to mischaracterise them and to place them apart from oneself. For instance in Sufism 'Allah' is very definitely not a God external to ourselves, but a unique state of Being.

 

[Tournesol]

Hi

According to Hume, "impressions" appeared to come from without and were impressed on the mind, whereas "ideas" are reflections thereof within the mind. Since we can never experience anything outside of our own experience, Hume's philosophy ended in Solipsism. After all, if the only things we ever experienced were our impressions and the ideas that were based on them, how could we be sure of the existence of anything outside the mind? IOW, impressions and ideas are both mental phenomena, and are thus not proof, or even indications, of anything that isn't a mental phenomenon.

It is certainly a wrong turn to say that we experience internal impressions
instead of external objects. But one does not have to throw out
the baby with the bath water. The scientific understanding of perception --
that is the departure from naive realism -- indicates that the way things seem to us, the impression they create in us -- is not what they are, is not
a mere duplication. Of course it would be impossible to say that without
a measure of realism about what things actually are, which is a strong
hint that the solpistic conclusion is the wrong one. Having admitted
the internal/impression external/object distinction, we can say that
we have direct access to internal impressions as part of the process
of indirectly perceiving internal objects -- and thereby avoid the confusion of saying that we "see" impressions
instead of objects.

"Phenomenal" is a term that has reference to events occurring in the mind, or otherwise being of a mental nature. Specifically, phenomenal-consciousness is that consciousness that is more than just neural processing of information or the uttering of responses. It is, to put it yet another way, the perception of "redness" beyond the simple electro-chemical processing of photonic information.

Now, why do we even have this concept (this "piece" in our "game")? Well, our philosophical language-game has allowed for such a distinction for some time (ever since Descartes). But why did Descartes come up with it? Well, if one looks at the time in which he was living, one can easily see how it would become necessary for him to try to establish which things could and could not be doubted. And, since you have first-hand priveleged access to what you are perceiving, that must be undoubtable. IOW, it's the one thing about which you could be allowed (by society? by other philosophers?) to be incorrigible, and nobody would mind; nobody could contest it, since it was your experience.

OTOH, we don't need to found the phenomenon/noumenon (impression/thing)
contrast on incorrigibility or any other epistemological criterion. Non-naive
realism requires, as a matter of fact, that things are not the way they are percieved, and "phenomenon" and "impression" are just two of the labels
we have so far collected for the-way-they-are -ercieved.

But, now, if "redness" was just a reflection of how something seemed to you, and had nothing to do with anything real...and if neuroscience could establish a well-grounded understanding of how we process every different kind of phenomenon, then you might not be allowed to be so incorrigible.

Indeed, but if the "phenomena" aren't founded on incorrigibility, in the first place, that doesn't matter.

But when it comes to "raw feels" and "incorrigibility about mental states" or "qualia", the Antipodeans are at a complete loss, because they don't even have words for such things...they don't mean anything to them.

And if we had a solution to the Hard Problem, we could examine their brains
and see whether or not they did in fact have qualia/pehnomenal consciousness (in our vocabulary). Their ability to report on their
own neural activity as such might indicate that their brains are wired up differently -- perhaps in a way that doesn't gerneate qualia in the first place.
At the end of the day, the fact that people different from us don't talk
about qualia doesn't tell us whether or not people like us have qualia.

And, for all of you who think that we know such things because they are "obvious" to us, or because they are "primary" in our "experience": the ancient Greek philosophers (pre-Plato) didn't have words for any of that stuff either. They got along with their philosophy (some of it quite deeply concerned with what can and cannot be known, what can and cannot be doubted, and how we know anything at all...viz, Pyrronean skepticism) just fine, without ever invoking any of these terms or anything like them.

Sure. The idea that a rainbow is a mere phenomeon is no more
or less obvious than the corresponding idea that it is all to do with sunlight being refracted through raindrops. But if you are going to explain one half of the story, and introduce some jargon ("refracted") while you do so,
don't you need to explain the other half, also with its own jargon ?

We, OTOH, claim to have some privileged access, and yet the words we are using don't describe anything that's going on inside us (as your "doctor" could quickly tell you).

Says who ? You seem to be assuming that someone looking at
a scan of my brain knows everything that is going on, and my
own reports don't add anything -- and moreover my own reports
are not simply another way of saying what is going on (that could
be translated if we solve the Hard Problem). Your assumption that
the 3rd-person stance and physicalese trump everything else is
rather question-begging, I think.

 

[Mentat]

I think I'll back out of this one if that's ok. If you don't know that you have experiences despite the fact that you have no idea what's going in your brain then there's nothing I can say to change your mind.

But you haven't defined the term, Canute. Can you? Do you even know what they mean? If not, then I would suggest dropping them altogether (they are not as necessary as you think). If so, then why can you not describe them in anything like a coherent way (please don't take offense to this; no one else has been able to either, IMHO)?

The 'God' question is interesting though. Your extracts say that God should not idolised, but not why we should not do this. In all 'mystical' traditions, including the Christian and Islamic ones, it is because to objectify God is to misunderstand the word 'God', and so to obscure the truth from oneself. In these traditions of self-exploration the words 'God' and 'Allah' play the same role as 'Tao' in Taoism or 'emptiness' in Buddhism. To objectify these things is to mischaracterise them and to place them apart from oneself. For instance in Sufism 'Allah' is very definitely not a God external to ourselves, but a unique state of Being.

But you have misunderstood the Christian teaching on this point (though I am not sufficiently knowledgeable to contradict you on the other religious PoVs). According to those extracts, as well as many others -- that I could find for you if you so wished --, there can be no idols made of God because: 1) We have no idea what he looks like (there are scriptures wherein God asks, rhetorically, "to which of these things can you liken me?"); 2) He has created all things, and thus to idolize anything that looks like one of His creations is to worship, not Him, but something lower than Him (which is what is implied in both of the quotes in my previous post).

 

[Mentat]

Hi

How do you do?

It is certainly a wrong turn to say that we experience internal impressions
instead of external objects. But one does not have to throw out
the baby with the bath water. The scientific understanding of perception --
that is the departure from naive realism -- indicates that the way things seem to us, the impression they create in us -- is not what they are, is not
a mere duplication.

What do you mean? The scientific understanding of perception has led us to the understanding that we don't have "impressions" at all, but that we instead perceive actual, objective phenomena, by way of cortical stimulation and preservation of such stimulations by the synchronous re-stimulation of arrays of neurons.

IOW, science has helped us understand that the whole concept of "impressions" on the mind was mis-guided, since we don't need a "mirror of nature" in order to experience. We are, ourselves, a part of nature; and, no matter how complex, our interactions therewith are just that, interactions.

Of course it would be impossible to say that without
a measure of realism about what things actually are, which is a strong
hint that the solpistic conclusion is the wrong one. Having admitted
the internal/impression external/object distinction, we can say that
we have direct access to internal impressions as part of the process
of indirectly perceiving internal objects -- and thereby avoid the confusion of saying that we "see" impressions
instead of objects.

But to say that we have "direct access" to one, but only indirect access to the other lends itself entirely to the distinction between things about which we are allowed to be incorrigible and which things can be brought into doubt. After all, if one thing is directly visible to us, and the other is merely indirectly so, does it not stand to reason that we can be much more certain of the one than of the latter?

OTOH, we don't need to found the phenomenon/noumenon (impression/thing)
contrast on incorrigibility or any other epistemological criterion.

That is how it has been founded throughout history. It was, indeed, the whole purpose of invoking the distinction in the first place.

Non-naive
realism requires, as a matter of fact, that things are not the way they are percieved, and "phenomenon" and "impression" are just two of the labels
we have so far collected for the-way-they-are -ercieved.

To say that something "that things actually are not the way they are percieved" is to fall into the post-Kantian trap of trying to "polish our Mirrors of Nature" (Rorty's terms) so that we can perceive objective phenomena to the greatest level of accuracy possible.

This reasoning, once again, leads you to the distinction between the dubitable and the indubitable.

And if we had a solution to the Hard Problem...

Same trap. The "hard problem" is as intractable as it is, IMHO, specifically because of its being based on so many wrong turns. The hard problem uses the distinction between phenomenological and objective realities as though it were an obvious and indubitable fact, whereas philosophy was conducted without such a distinction for millenia. Only when Descartes wished to root "absolute truth" in something indubitable did we ever begin to need such metaphorical (and they really are nothing more than bad metaphors, IMO) concepts as "tabula" and "mirrors of nature" and "qualia".

Their ability to report on their
own neural activity as such might indicate that their brains are wired up differently -- perhaps in a way that doesn't gerneate qualia in the first place.

And the fact that their society is every bit as complex and intricate as ours, regardless of whether or not they "have qualia" doesn't create a problem for those of you who think that "qualia" are necessary for consciousness?

At the end of the day, the fact that people different from us don't talk
about qualia doesn't tell us whether or not people like us have qualia.

And the fact that people like me do talk about having "qualia" (if you are indeed a person like me) is in no way indicative to me (or, at least, not in any conclusive way) that you have them either.

Sure. The idea that a rainbow is a mere phenomeon is no more
or less obvious than the corresponding idea that it is all to do with sunlight being refracted through raindrops. But if you are going to explain one half of the story, and introduce some jargon ("refracted") while you do so,
don't you need to explain the other half, also with its own jargon ?

I don't think there are two "halves" of the issue at all. There is refracted sunlight, and there is a convenient term for referring to a large band thereof.

Says who ? You seem to be assuming that someone looking at
a scan of my brain knows everything that is going on, and my
own reports don't add anything

That's not really true. Your assumptions, as per the heterophenomenological approach of Dennett, should indeed bear great weight, but only with regard to how it seems to you. You do not have privileged access to what's going on inside you because you don't have any way of accessing such information. If you did, medical science would be far advanced by simply asking you what's wrong with you, instead of all this ridiculous sample-testing, X-ray taking, diagnosis-making foolishness that physicians carry on now.

-- and moreover my own reports
are not simply another way of saying what is going on (that could
be translated if we solve the Hard Problem). Your assumption that
the 3rd-person stance and physicalese trump everything else is
rather question-begging, I think.

And I think that continuing to use terms that have no definition or meaning outside of "pure philosophy" (post-Kant, post-Locke, post-Descartes, post-Plato) is quite "question-begging" also, as you are no closer to answering the single-most important question: Do you really need these terms/concepts, in the first place?

 

[Tournesol]

What do you mean? The scientific understanding of perception has led us to the understanding that we don't have "impressions" at all, but that we instead perceive actual, objective phenomena, by way of cortical stimulation and preservation of such stimulations by the synchronous re-stimulation of arrays of neurons.

Firstly, I am talking about the 'scientific' understanding that developed
over the early modern perdiod, well before such a thing as a neuron
was known of. Secondly the only criterion of an "impression"
is that it is different in some way from the object. Whether it
should be thought of as quale, nerual activity, both or neither,
is another question. Note that the Rortian project seeks to avoid
answering the second question by disposing of Mind tout court.
If Rorty is wrong that Mind can be dispensed with by dispensiing with incorrigibility, and if I am right that some sort of physical/mental
distinction is needed to avoid naive realism, then the second
question needs to be answered in separate, non-Rortian terms.

But to say that we have "direct access" to one, but only indirect access to the other lends itself entirely to the distinction between things about which we are allowed to be incorrigible and which things can be brought into doubt.

You can derive a mind/body distinction from indirect/direct access, and you
may be able to derive an incorrigible/corrigible distinction from it, but that doesn't mean the MB distinction is derived from the incorrigible/corrigible. As it happens,
I don't think qualia deliver a useful or interesting kind of incorrigibility.
I want to know whether there is a red ball in front of me, not whether
I have the sensation of a red patch. ("intuitions wihtout concepts are blind").

That is how it has been founded throughout history. It was, indeed, the whole purpose of invoking the distinction in the first place.

That is the contentious theory of Prof. Rorty, and it is what I am arguing against here, so I am certainly not going to take it as fact.

To say that something "that things actually are not the way they are percieved" is to fall into the post-Kantian trap of trying to "polish our Mirrors of Nature" (Rorty's terms) so that we can perceive objective phenomena to the greatest level of accuracy possible.

Firstly, to say the opposite is to lapse into naive realism.
Secondly it is not about accuracy; even if my mental imprssions
are mere proxies or symbols, that doesn't mean they are inaccruate.
I only misperceive when I receive the wrong impression (generate
the worng neural activity if you like -- this point is entirely neutral
about whether impressions are qualia or not). This tendency
to confuse the map-territory distinction with systematic
misperception is, IMO, one of the real wrong turns here.
I find the "Mirror" jargon just as dispensible as some find the "qualia" jargon

Same trap. The "hard problem" is as intractable as it is, IMHO, specifically because of its being based on so many wrong turns. The hard problem uses the distinction between phenomenological and objective realities as though it were an obvious and indubitable fact, whereas philosophy was conducted without such a distinction for millenia.

Quite. It arrived with the collpase of naive realism. Do youwant to reverse that ?

Only when Descartes wished to root "absolute truth" in something indubitable did we ever begin to need such metaphorical (and they really are nothing more than bad metaphors, IMO) concepts as "tabula" and "mirrors of nature" and "qualia".

I am mounting an agument against that claim.

And the fact that their society is every bit as complex and intricate as ours, regardless of whether or not they "have qualia" doesn't create a problem for those of you who think that "qualia" are necessary for consciousness?

What fact ? There are no antipodeans. However, there is a way things seem to me.

And the fact that people like me do talk about having "qualia" (if you are indeed a person like me) is in no way indicative to me (or, at least, not in any conclusive way) that you have them either.

I am not saying I have them because I talk about them, I am
saying I talk about them because I have them!

I don't think there are two "halves" of the issue at all. There is refracted sunlight, and there is a convenient term for referring to a large band thereof.

But the band isn't 'out there'. It is a virtual image.

That's not really true. Your assumptions, as per the heterophenomenological approach of Dennett, should indeed bear great weight, but only with regard to how it seems to you. You do not have privileged access to what's going on inside you because you don't have any way of accessing such information.

I do have some access and some way of accessing such information.
But then I am no basing my claims in incorrigibility.

And I think that continuing to use terms that have no definition or meaning outside of "pure philosophy" (post-Kant, post-Locke, post-Descartes, post-Plato) is quite "question-begging" also, as you are no closer to answering the single-most important question: Do you really need these terms/concepts, in the first place?

Yes, I need them to avoid the confusions that go with naive realism.
People who aren't familiar with philosophy (and are therefore, by default, naive realists) do fall into confusion. People get confused about the "if a tree falls in the forest ..?" question. With my vocabulary, I can answer it: it causes
sound -waves in the air, but no sound-impression to any onlooker.

 

[Mentat]

Secondly the only criterion of an "impression"
is that it is different in some way from the object.

In some way different from what object?

Note that the Rortian project seeks to avoid
answering the second question by disposing of Mind tout court.

Well, he's not alone in this. Quine and Sellars were quite eliminativist. Indeed, Wittgenstein's later philosophy is very much in favor of this approach.

If Rorty is wrong that Mind can be dispensed with by dispensiing with incorrigibility, and if I am right that some sort of physical/mental
distinction is needed to avoid naive realism, then the second
question needs to be answered in separate, non-Rortian terms.

But you are making an ad hoc (or ad hominem) assumption, whereas he is merely negating one (a dangerous and mis-guiding one, at that, in his opinion). The burden of proof thus rests on you, as I've been trying to explain to AKG.

You can derive a mind/body distinction from indirect/direct access, and you
may be able to derive an incorrigible/corrigible distinction from it, but that doesn't mean the MB distinction is derived from the incorrigible/corrigible.

But it is, historically speaking. Besides, you can derive the mind-body distinction from direct/indirect access, and the only use for a concept such as direct access vs. indirect access is to establish which things can be assumed a priori and which things only a posteriori.

As it happens,
I don't think qualia deliver a useful or interesting kind of incorrigibility.
I want to know whether there is a red ball in front of me, not whether
I have the sensation of a red patch. ("intuitions wihtout concepts are blind").

Because you can obviously take the latter for granted, a priori, can't you?

That is the contentious theory of Prof. Rorty, and it is what I am arguing against here, so I am certainly not going to take it as fact.

Heidegger and Dewey, in their historical approaches to philosophy, have borne this out as well. He is building from their approaches. Besides, as I've said, there is no other known or conceivable (AFAIK) use for the distinction between direct/indirect access (or concept/intuition, or idea/impression, or mind/body) except to establish the indubitable (or the "assumable", if that's a word). I examined these philosophies to great length before ever reading Rorty.

Firstly, to say the opposite is to lapse into naive realism.

Why "naive"? How about "unbiased by the typical thinking of philosophers"?

Secondly it is not about accuracy; even if my mental imprssions
are mere proxies or symbols, that doesn't mean they are inaccruate.

The very distinction between "objective phenomenon" and "subjective experience thereof" allows for "inaccuracy" ("inaccuracy" here simply means that "subjective experience thereof" doesn't equal "objective phenomenon").

If, OTOH, we remove the distinction (and you have yet to give a good reason to invoke such a concept ITFP), and start from scratch, we can avoid the whole "mirror of nature" problem (and, in turn, the "hard" problem).

We only come to the "problems" of philosophy of mind because of building off these "wrong turns" (or, at least, that's the position I'm defending here).

I only misperceive when I receive the wrong impression (generate
the worng neural activity if you like -- this point is entirely neutral
about whether impressions are qualia or not).

That's because you are still talking about "impressions", as if we could assume a priori that they even exist. "Neural activity" is not some scientific way of explaining what an "impression" is (contrary to popular belief among Chalmereans), it is an explanation of that which actually goes on in the brain of a conscious entity (instead of all the "writing on tablets" and "observing with our mind's eye").

Quite. It arrived with the collpase of naive realism. Do youwant to reverse that ?

If "naive realism" is the ability to do philosophy without invoking meaningless distinctions (and they are meaningless until you (or someone who agrees with you) can assign them some coherent meaning), then I don't see the problem.

Just because we have made "progress" in a particular direction, doesn't mean that we're on the right track (it just means we're on a track). That's why I entitled my thread "Wrong Turns".

I am mounting an agument against that claim.

You can't change history. Have you read Descarte's First Philosophy? It all starts with the dubito.

What fact ? There are no antipodeans.

There are in the thought-experiment at hand.

However, there is a way things seem to me.

I'm not disputing that. I'm just asking you to consider the possibility that we treat your report about how things "seem to you" as a raw piece of information very much akin to a Doyle's "report" about the living habits of Holmes.

I am not saying I have them because I talk about them, I am
saying I talk about them because I have them!

And that is yet another verbal (or, rather, scribal) report, nothing more (at least, to me). And I don't really know what else it could be. It might hold up in argument, because people don't like to dispute someone's own reports about how things seem to them, but that doesn't mean that it's true in any "absolute" sense (whatever that means).

Therefore, you can talk about how things seem to you all you like, and I will take note of it in heterophenomenological manner. But that doesn't change the fact that the raw information is the report. After all, if there were anything more to it than that which you report then either you are purposely leaving something out, or you think/believe there is something more to what you are reporting about than that which you are able to report, and then that would be taken as yet another report of belief...nothing more.

But the band isn't 'out there'. It is a virtual image.

You mis-read me. There is a term for a large band of such refracted light waves. A "large band" just means a collection of such refractions over a large space, which really is there, and the term we use to describe it -- while short-cutting deep physical explanation of it -- is "rainbow.

I do have some access and some way of accessing such information.
But then I am no basing my claims in incorrigibility.

What the heck are you talking about. You don't base a claim on incorrigibility, you make a claim and decide whether or not to be incorrigible about that claim.

And I maintain that you do not have a way of accessing it, until you can tell me what that "way" is.

Yes, I need them to avoid the confusions that go with naive realism.
People who aren't familiar with philosophy (and are therefore, by default, naive realists) do fall into confusion. People get confused about the "if a tree falls in the forest ..?" question. With my vocabulary, I can answer it: it causes
sound -waves in the air, but no sound-impression to any onlooker.

That is one answer. But the question is only a "problem" in the first place because of its philosophical nature. Instead, the Wittgensteinian would simply say that "sound" is a term that applies to its being received and processed by an entity capable of such, and that the question was merely a word-puzzle.

In fact, your answer just raises more problems, like: Does "onlooker" allow for a deaf onlooker? Does it allow for a machine that records sounds, but doesn't have "sense-impressions" (like a tape-recorder)? Etc.

 

[Canute]

But you haven't defined the term, Canute. Can you? Do you even know what they mean? If not, then I would suggest dropping them altogether (they are not as necessary as you think). If so, then why can you not describe them in anything like a coherent way (please don't take offense to this; no one else has been able to either, IMHO)?

You must be unique amongst human beings for not knowing what an experience or a mind is. I'm afraid I can't be bothered to follow you down that route.

But you have misunderstood the Christian teaching on this point (though I am not sufficiently knowledgeable to contradict you on the other religious PoVs). According to those extracts, as well as many others -- that I could find for you if you so wished --, there can be no idols made of God because: 1) We have no idea what he looks like (there are scriptures wherein God asks, rhetorically, "to which of these things can you liken me?"); 2) He has created all things, and thus to idolize anything that looks like one of His creations is to worship, not Him, but something lower than Him (which is what is implied in both of the quotes in my previous post).

It's no good quoting from the Bible to counter my assertion that the Bible misrepresents the teachings of Jesus. It's clearly pointless. Can I suggest that you read the Gospel of the Holy Twelve, The Gospels of Thomas or Mary, the writings of the Essenes or Nazirenes, the writings of twenty centuries of masters of the orthodox Christian tradition, and so on, rather than the Bible, written long after the events and carefully written/compiled to an agenda. A lot of it is online. His teachings are perfectly clear on the issue of objectifying God and why one shouldn't do it. He gives the same reasons as does the prophet Mohammed, the Buddha and Lao-Tsu. Imho it's best to research these issues as a historian, not as a institutionalised Christian believing all that garbled stuff about designer/creator Gods who get offended if one doesn't worship them. If you look into this I think you'll find that the view I'm putting forward is the view of most scholars working outside of the Church hierarchy.

How you can claim to understand his teachings while saying that you don't understand consciousness, which is largely what he is talking about, I don't know. Jesus taught that the Kingdom of Heaven is within, as is 'God', yet you say that there is nothing within except illusory epiphenomena.

 

[loseyourname]

Jesus taught that the Kingdom of Heaven is within, as is 'God', yet you say that there is nothing within except illusory epiphenomena.

The Stone Roses taught that same thing.

Anyway, if I'm reading Mentat here correctly (is that an Egyptian god or something - Mentat?), he thinks that we have no need of the word "experience" in the sense you are using it because we can use other words that refer only to the dispositional states of neuronal arrays during what we now call a "conscious moment." Better to use one term to refer to one concept rather than two. You think you actually are referring to two concepts, that the dispositional states of neuronal arrays is not the same thing as "experience." Perhaps there is an identity in the sense that one cannot exist without the other, but they are nonetheless distinct phenomena. Neither of you is alone in your view. Personally, I don't really see any way to rule out the possibility of Mentat's proposition. If there existed a species of beings capable of identifying and labelling through introspection alone exactly the dispositional state of every physical process occurring in the brain that correlated with what we refer to as a "conscious experience," then perhaps they would never develop such a phrase as ours, indeed, the very concept would seem incoherent to them.

 

[Canute]

. Personally, I don't really see any way to rule out the possibility of Mentat's proposition. If there existed a species of beings capable of identifying and labelling through introspection alone exactly the dispositional state of every physical process occurring in the brain that correlated with what we refer to as a "conscious experience," then perhaps they would never develop such a phrase as ours, indeed, the very concept would seem incoherent to them.

Very true. And if there existed a species who had consciouss experiences and talked about them but who had no idea of the dispositional state of their brains at any time then obviously this would prove that brains don't exist. I suppose we'll just have to wait until we've invented interplanetary travel before we can settle the issue.

 

[loseyourname]

Very true. And if there existed a species who had consciouss experiences and talked about them but who had no idea of the dispositional state of their brains at any time then obviously this would prove that brains don't exist. I suppose we'll just have to wait until we've invented interplanetary travel before we can settle the issue.

You mean if there were creatures who had conscious experiences but didn't have brains. Humans had conscious experiences well before they ever realized they had brains and that certainly didn't prove that brains don't exist. I know you are attempting a reductio, but hey, just give a little creedence to what is being said. How can you expect to be taken seriously when you won't take anyone else seriously?

This thought experiment is only designed to point out that our sensual abilities as a race have a lot to do with how we develop concepts. Aristotle developed the concept of a "nutritive soul" because he couldn't sense the mechanisms of metabolism going on within plants. I know that you give special creedence to the concept of "conscious experience" because, well, you can directly experience it. But consider the example given here. Forget these mythical Antipodeans. If "experience" within you really was only the dispositional propensity of one part of your brain to simultaneously store information gained from the senses or from direct thought processes and send it to reporting centers, would you know the difference? In fact, your brain does this quite a bit without you "experiencing" it. What exactly do you think the difference is? Mentat has given his hypothesis. He believes the difference to be simply that in what we term "conscious" processing, the results are sent in a manner such that they are also reported to what we conceive of as a "self." There are hypotheses for what this manner may be, but I highly doubt he subscribes to any of them, as they are all problematic at this point.

But what about you? What do you think is different about the processes in your brain that are made accessible to your experience? Why some and not others? Under the right circumstances, they seem to have equal hold over your behavioral tendencies, so the idea of a Cartesian theater where the self beholds these facts of experience and makes decisions based on them is pretty much conclusively illusory.

 

[Canute]

You mean if there were creatures who had conscious experiences but didn't have brains. Humans had conscious experiences well before they ever realized they had brains and that certainly didn't prove that brains don't exist. I know you are attempting a reductio, but hey, just give a little creedence to what is being said. How can you expect to be taken seriously when you won't take anyone else seriously?

That's a fair point. However I must admit that I find the argument that experiences are brain-states quite impossible, as yet, to take seriously. Perhaps this is lack of imagination, although I'm not clear what 'imagination' might mean if it is just a disposition of neurons. Can Antipodeans imagine things?

At the moment I can't understand how would one could know what state ones brain was in except by experiencing looking at it? What would 'knowing' mean if one cannot experience knowing? And if experiences are brain-states what on Earth is this 'consciousness' thing that so many scientists are trying explain?

This thought experiment is only designed to point out that our sensual abilities as a race have a lot to do with how we develop concepts.

It's not designed to point it out, it's designed to test the plausibility of the idea that brain-states are experiences. It asks the question - could Antipodeans as defined exist? I would say no, because their definition is self-contradictory. How can one know one has brain-state but not have the experience of knowing?

If "experience" within you really was only the dispositional propensity of one part of your brain to simultaneously store information gained from the senses or from direct thought processes and send it to reporting centers, would you know the difference?

I not only would, I do. I know nothing about my brain-states, but I know about my experiences. Ergo, they are not identical. Even if my brain-states are entirely responsible for my experiences they are not identical.

In fact, your brain does this quite a bit without you "experiencing" it. What exactly do you think the difference is? Mentat has given his hypothesis. He believes the difference to be simply that in what we term "conscious" processing, the results are sent in a manner such that they are also reported to what we conceive of as a "self."

This illustrates the problem with the idea you're defending. Who is this 'we' and what is this 'self'? And what do you mean by 'conceive?

But what about you? What do you think is different about the processes in your brain that are made accessible to your experience? Why some and not others? Under the right circumstances, they seem to have equal hold over your behavioral tendencies, so the idea of a Cartesian theater where the self beholds these facts of experience and makes decisions based on them is pretty much conclusively illusory.

Hang on, who mentioned Cartesian theatres? Not me. I'll happily agree that self is an illusion, a mere collection of memes. But it does not follow from this that consciousness is identical with brain, or that consciousness is no more than brain. As to why I am conscious of some of the results of my brain processes and not others I have no idea. Perhaps it's evolutionary, with functions that can be automated becoming unconscious over time.

I can quite understand why someone might conclude that conscious experiences are entirely caused by brain states. However I really cannot make any sense of the idea that conscious experience are brain states. It seems about equivalent to saying that the picture on a computer screen is identical with the state of the processor. If it were then there would be no point in having screens, we could just observe the states of the processor instead.

 

[Mentat]

You must be unique amongst human beings for not knowing what an experience or a mind is. I'm afraid I can't be bothered to follow you down that route.

As you wish. However, I should find it most distrubing of everyone responds as you do. After all, if there really is something more to the great philosophies that depend on such distinctions as you take for granted, then I should like to know what it is (I have studied them all, and have found nothing so intuitive or obvious as you imply).

It's no good quoting from the Bible to counter my assertion that the Bible misrepresents the teachings of Jesus. It's clearly pointless. Can I suggest that you read the Gospel of the Holy Twelve, The Gospels of Thomas or Mary, the writings of the Essenes or Nazirenes, the writings of twenty centuries of masters of the orthodox Christian tradition, and so on, rather than the Bible, written long after the events and carefully written/compiled to an agenda.

Not really. You see, the teachings of Jesus (and his apostles) are based on that which was written before him (in the so-called "Old Testament"), by the confession of himself and those apostles. And, the last apostle to die, John, proclaimed that any addition to those things which had been written (ending in his "scroll") would be a sin deserving of all the plagues and curses therein.

If there is more to Christianity than that which the Bible contains, Jesus was not a Christian, nor were his apostles.

A lot of it is online. His teachings are perfectly clear on the issue of objectifying God and why one shouldn't do it. He gives the same reasons as does the prophet Mohammed, the Buddha and Lao-Tsu. Imho it's best to research these issues as a historian, not as a institutionalised Christian believing all that garbled stuff about designer/creator Gods who get offended if one doesn't worship them.

Well, that is, after all, the opinion that Jesus himself held. Jesus quoted freely from "the prophets", who describe God in just such a way as you seem to hold in disdain. Jesus also spoke of "God" (probably using the Hebrew name, "Yahweh"/"Yehowah") as being his "Father" and the "one sending me forth", indicating a singular entity. Jesus called himself the perfect reflection of his Father, which would also indicate a person (since Jesus was himself a person).

This is not about religion or worship. I'm just stating the facts as an in-depth study of the Scriptures has revealed them to me. Regardless of whether the God of the Bible exists or not, He (again, a reference to a singular personage, as made frequently in the Bible, and by Jesus) is described a certain way, and these "Orthodox Christians" seem way off-base when compared to that description (again, a description subscribed to by Jesus himself).

How you can claim to understand his teachings while saying that you don't understand consciousness, which is largely what he is talking about, I don't know. Jesus taught that the Kingdom of Heaven is within, as is 'God', yet you say that there is nothing within except illusory epiphenomena.

Actually, Jesus taught that the Kingdom of Heaven was "among" them. It is a gross mis-translation to construe it as being "within" (my study of Greek (and more nascent study of Biblical Hebrew-Aramaic) was fueled by an interest in just such mis-translations).

Jesus' teachings about the Kingdom of Heaven are perfectly reminiscent of the prophecies of Daniel (with regard to a 'kingdom that would crush and put an end to all these kingdoms (he had ennumerated some major world powers, and then described the mixed state of nations and governments at the "time of the end", prior to this verse), which would stand to time indefinite'. They don't refer to some inner-state, but to an actual kingdom.

Even if you don't think Jesus was the "Christ" or "Messiah", you must admit that most of his claim to such titles relied on the accuracy of "the prophets". These self-same prophets spoke of God as just the singular, personal, and (when necessary) vengeful God that you claim to be completely distinct from Jesus' own teaching.

 

[Mentat]

(is that an Egyptian god or something - Mentat?)

Actually, it comes from two different science-fiction books (or, rather, series of books): Bruce Coville's "Aliens ate my homework", and Frank Herbert's "Dune".

Anyway, if I'm reading Mentat here correctly, he thinks that we have no need of the word "experience" in the sense you are using it because we can use other words that refer only to the dispositional states of neuronal arrays during what we now call a "conscious moment." Better to use one term to refer to one concept rather than two. You think you actually are referring to two concepts, that the dispositional states of neuronal arrays is not the same thing as "experience." Perhaps there is an identity in the sense that one cannot exist without the other, but they are nonetheless distinct phenomena. Neither of you is alone in your view. Personally, I don't really see any way to rule out the possibility of Mentat's proposition. If there existed a species of beings capable of identifying and labelling through introspection alone exactly the dispositional state of every physical process occurring in the brain that correlated with what we refer to as a "conscious experience," then perhaps they would never develop such a phrase as ours, indeed, the very concept would seem incoherent to them.

I would say that you are quite close to my meaning, but then you are also quite far (if I'm reading you correctly, that is).

I don't think that brain states influence mental states, nor that there is a causal relationship between cortical dispositions and "conscious experience".

I, instead, deny the very existence of "experience" as anything other than an empty word (at least, when used in the context of philosophy of mind (clearly, "experience" has many good uses in other fields of study, but the way it's used in philosophy is completely useless, IMHO)). I don't think that brain states are related to mental states, simply because I don't believe that there are any "mental states".

 

[Canute]

Mentat - You're way off with the Christian stuff. You seem to have missed the fact that the earlier texts on which the Biblical Gospels were largely based are now well known, many of them having been rediscovered. Still, no matter. I think we might as well just agree to differ on all these things.

 

[Mentat]

Mentat - You're way off with the Christian stuff. You seem to have missed the fact that the earlier texts on which the Biblical Gospels were largely based are now well known, many of them having been rediscovered. Still, no matter. I think we might as well just agree to differ on all these things.

That doesn't seem very reasonable...but I guess I don't want to argue either. If you choose not substantiate either position, then I guess I will have to stop countering you altogether.

I would really like to understand your position, and why you hold it. But I can't force you to instruct me (I am, after all, a very irritating student...or so I've been told).