From: Scott R (jse885@spinn.net)
Date: Mon Sep 08 2003 - 01:26:00 BST
Sam,
> I've continued to mull over your 'consciousness' argument. So far as I can
tell it holds water,
> although it would be good to see it spelled out in a more rigorous form at
some point, if you ever
> had the time or inclination. (In particular, in the first paragraph of the
presentation below, I
> think there is a lot of argument condensed into "The materialist is forced
to conclude that all that
> nerve cell agitation is the seeing of a tree. But this is impossible, if
one assumes that space and
> time are the context in which all that is necessary to explain perception
occurs." It would be good
> to have an explicit breakdown of that argument.)
"The materialist is forced to conclude that all that nerve cell agitation is
the seeing of a tree.". This follows from the fact that for the materialist
there isn't anything else that can be involved. Otherwise there arises what
is known as the homunculus problem. There is all that nerve cell agitation.
If one says there is a "little man" watching it, then what is the little man
made of? It can only be more nerve cell agitation. By the way, I don't think
materialists, at least of Dennett's sort, would disagree with this.
"But this is impossible, if one assumes that space and time are the context
in which all that is necessary to explain perception occurs". Well, this is
what I am trying to get people to "get", and when they don't (which is most
always), can only restate the problem in other words. Let me put it another
way. Here is a quote from Rorty (from the introduction to Consequences of
Pragmatism):
"What really needs debate between the pragmatist and the intuitive realist
[non-pragmatist materialists like Nagel] is *not* whether we have intuitions
to the effect that "truth is more than assertability" or "there is more to
pain than brain-states".... *Of course* we have such intuitions. How could
we escape having them? We have been educated within an intellectual
tradition built around such claims -- just as we used to be educated within
an intellectual tradition built around such claims as "If God didn't exist,
everything is permitted"....But it begs the question between pragmatist and
realist to say that we must find a philosophical view which "captures" such
intuitions. The pragmatist is urging that we do our best to *stop having*
such intuitions, that we develop a *new* intellectual tradition."
Now I agree, more or less, with Rorty on the "truth is more than
assertability" intuition (since I don't hold with truth by correspondence
theory), but I think Rorty is not being accurate with the "there is more to
pain than brain-states" intuition, which is what I am dealing with in my
argument. He is saying that it is the pragmatist who wants to stop having
such intuitions, but I think he is wrong. It is the materialist who needs to
stop having such intuitions in order to continue being a materialist.
This is because it is only the materialist who has to think that "seeing the
tree" (or feeling pain) is all and only brain-states. The dualist or
idealist, or mystic, doesn't have any problem at all with the intuition. So
my argument is basically toward the materialist, which includes the
unacknowledged materialist in most people these days. (That is, most people,
who are not philosophically inclined, don't question the notion that the
brain is the source of consciousness). Hence my argument says:
1. Assume that a thorough explanation of experiencing pain relies only on
spatio-temporal mechanisms.
2. Then ask: how can there be any larger experience than that of the
smallest unit in one's spatio-temporal system (in current understanding,
that would be the interaction of a photon and electron), given that every
unit is separated in space and/or time with every other unit. For there to
be a larger experience, something has to *simultaneously* handle the
receiving of many signals from many units. This something cannot be one of
smallest units, since such a unit has only the "processing power" of
receiving the smallest signal at a time (it has no memory of earlier
receptions). So it has to be made out of a number of units. But where is
it's "memory"? Well, one bit goes in one unit, another in another, ... but
then the problem has just regressed.
3. So assumption 1 is wrong. Experiencing must involve the
non-spatio-temporal. (Where one goes from here is another matter entirely.
My choice is to treat space and time like color: we know that it is in the
experiencing that color is produced, so why not space and time as well?)
Item (2), then, is putting some definition on the intuition that Rorty wants
to just stop having.
> As you know I have sympathy with the mystical perspective from which you
write in any case, so
> perhaps that affects my judgement. What I find interesting is that, if
your argument does follow, it
> says very exciting things about the way consciousness relates to the
cosmos. Which won't be a
> surprise to you, but exploring the implications vis-a-vis the MoQ might be
fertile at some point.
Indeed. The original problem -- Rorty's troublesome intuition -- arises from
SOM. (The dualist and idealist solutions create their own problems). As I
said to Paul a couple of days ago, I had little problem accepting that
awareness is prior to subject and object because I was already familiar with
ZAMM saying the same thing about Quality. But in addition, assuming one
accepts my argument, there is also the implication that awareness (and so
Quality) must be prior to space and time.
- Scott
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