From: Matt the Enraged Endorphin (mpkundert@students.wisc.edu)
Date: Tue Feb 25 2003 - 19:31:36 GMT
Matt,
Matt S said:
But if a thought could be analysed as being the
movement of chemicals within one's brain (I know it's
not that simple) couldn't you apply the MoQ to human
tissue in the same way as you would to slate molecules
or magnets and filings, thus casting the intellecutual
level in the mould of the material.
Matt:
Sure. If you are saying that we can just as easily say that mental states
are neural states and that neural states are just as easily framed as
mental states, then yes. Pace Scott R, who argues that Rorty (my favored
post-modern) is a materialist, I don't think there is a problem with saying
that you can go back and forth between talking about neural states and
mental states, depending on what you are talking about. I think Scott
reads the mind-brain identity that Rorty uses in Philosophy and the Mirror
of Nature as _reducing_ the mind to brain, but that's not the case. I
think Rorty wants to simply say that some of the quandaries we find
ourselves in in philosophy can be dodged by moving from talk about minds to
talk about something else (e.g. neural states, language). It is about
moving from an obsolete vocabulary, with all of its incumbent problems, to
a newer vocabulary, which will naturally raise new problems.
I think Pirsig's fundamental move is to redescribe reality, not in terms of
material or ideas, but in terms of value. Technically, there is no
material in the MoQ. There are only inorganic patterns of value. We
formally thought of these things as material objects, but the redescription
does away with that. Pirsig would redescribe neural states and mental
states into valuing states. But I don't read Pirsig as _reducing_ us to
valuing states. I read him as saying that some old problems disappear when
you do this (though new ones will certainly arise).
Matt
MOQ.ORG - http://www.moq.org
Mail Archives:
Aug '98 - Oct '02 - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/
Nov '02 Onward - http://www.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/summary.html
MD Queries - horse@darkstar.uk.net
To unsubscribe from moq_discuss follow the instructions at:
http://www.moq.org/md/subscribe.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Tue Feb 25 2003 - 19:33:19 GMT