From: Platt Holden (pholden@sc.rr.com)
Date: Thu Oct 13 2005 - 20:05:46 BST
Ian:
> Firstly, I'm a fan of Nagel too. I think
> (and it's only my opinion)that you give away a prejudice, a blind spot,
> when you use the word"reduce" in the sentence "consciousness cannot be
> reduced to brainactivity".
In what way do I give away a prejudice, a blind spot?
> Secondly, with your Sheldrake reference - I
> think you fall into thebinary trap - you imply in that since consciousness
> is something(independent) that can be tapped into by a brain, then the
> brain isexcluded from any causal connection with consciousness.
Well, I know you are binarily opposed to binary logic, but even at that I
don't see any necessary "causal connection" between the brain and
consciousness any more than there's a causal connection between water and
a well that taps into it.
>You
> excludethe middle - it really can be both. It's my old explanation argument
> again (which remains incompletelyexplained, I'll grant you). Reductionism
> is only one kind of explanation - there are betterquality ones to be had. I
> wouldn't want to "reduce" consciousness toanything - it's far too wonderful
> for that.
Binary logic doesn't necessarily equate to reductionism. Reductionism
says that physics and chemistry can explain everything. Nagel says
consciousness can't be explained that way.
> But the way it works andarises in human brains, can be (and is)
> explained by the workings ofhuman brains. But not exclusively -
> consciousness can also beexplained arising in other complex systems - like
> bats' brains,walrus' brains, ant-colony's, populations of large large
> communistrepublics (or capitalist economies) - choose your preferred system
> ofsufficient complexity and requisite variety. No reason why
> twoconsciousnesses thus arising in different systems can't interact
> and"tap-into" each other either - communication it's called.
Your explanation that somehow consciousness arises from entities of
sufficient complexity with requisite variety is dubious to say the least.
You might want to explain how that happens when you get a moment or two.
And when you communicate with a walrus, please ask him what he thinks
about the MOQ. I'm sure all of us would like to know. :-)
> Some things
> have to be believed to be seen.If you keep excluding the middle Platt, you
> will never see the explanation.
I'll see your explanation about communicating with walruses when you
report on what he had to say. Until then, I'll straddle the middle,
keeping an open mind about consciousnesses from different systems tapping
into each other.
Platt
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