tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6701420428167031490.post1326072270249538606..comments2024-03-28T14:10:11.988+00:00Comments on Philosophical Investigations: Understanding: Discussion SummaryPhilip Cartwrighthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11458571502536123264noreply@blogger.comBlogger72125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6701420428167031490.post-12663316223886442882013-12-29T23:57:22.055+00:002013-12-29T23:57:22.055+00:00Point taken, Charles, but I still think Wittgenste...Point taken, Charles, but I still think Wittgenstein would see considerable problems with the line you are proposing. Although he talks a lot about the importance of "behaviour" I don't think he means the same as you by that term.Philip Cartwrighthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11458571502536123264noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6701420428167031490.post-46773183385851103162013-12-29T17:19:27.485+00:002013-12-29T17:19:27.485+00:00Fair enough. But keep in mind that my comment was ...Fair enough. But keep in mind that my comment was explicitly limited to "understanding" in the sense of acquiring an ability, viz, "knowing how to go on". But as you have noted, "understanding" in general has multiple uses. Perhaps other uses either can't be explained in terms of behavioral dispositions or in some contexts are more usefully explained in the psychological vocabulary. Charles T. Wolvertonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12309746685166449683noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6701420428167031490.post-29695812256097206972013-12-29T08:45:39.650+00:002013-12-29T08:45:39.650+00:00Charles,
As I mentioned to Frank (above), I'm...Charles,<br /><br />As I mentioned to Frank (above), I'm going to say more on circumstances and the role they play in W's remarks about understanding. That might make things clearer. Then again, it might not. :)<br /><br />First, however, I'm going to write something on dispositions, brain-states and all that. For, as far as I can see W is pretty clear on this: the concept of understanding does not and cannot rest upon theories about either brain-states or mechanistic accounts of behaviour.Philip Cartwrighthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11458571502536123264noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6701420428167031490.post-4518248918642620122013-12-29T08:30:50.000+00:002013-12-29T08:30:50.000+00:00Frank/Paul
W's treatment of circumstances is ...Frank/Paul<br /><br />W's treatment of circumstances is certainly something I want to say more about - or, to put it more honestly, get clearer in my mind. <br /><br />Reading the text, I was struck by how W sets up circumstances as the "answer" (note scare quotes!) in 154-155. But the conclusion of the discussion of reading (which is specifically introduced to highlight the importance of circumstances) is more elusive and less emphatic than you might expect given what he says earlier. My summary of the argument probably forces things a bit in this regard. I make it sound like he reaches a "ta-da!" conclusion when he doesn't really do that at all.<br /><br />In one sense it's natural enough that he doesn't - W hasn't actually finished the analysis of understanding at 184 and the standard division between understanding and rule-following (which I've followed) is somewhat artificial. So we might have to wait a bit until we're in a position to fully appreciate what he's getting at.<br /><br />All the same, a few thoughts. <br /><br />First, I think W doesn't reach a "ta-da!" conclusion because his point about circumstances doesn't answer the question in the way that we might assume. It's not the missing "something extra" in that sense. It seems to me there's a connection here with the discussion of meaning and use. Use is not to be thought of as a kind of temporally extended <i>object</i> which is the meaning of the word. It is not an alternative candidate <i>in that sense</i>. Rather, it represents a fundamentally different way of considering meaning - one that places it within the broader flow of our lives. So too with circumstances. He's not so much answering the question "what's the extra thing?" as completely reorienting our approach to the issue. Moreover, this reorientation is of a piece with what has gone before regarding meaning and use. It is about bringing us to see how these concepts are necessarily bedded in our form of life. I don't want to jump ahead, but I think this becomes clearer in the discussion of rule-following (and private language as well).<br /><br />Secondly, I think it's not so much that it's difficult to say which circumstances are important as that you cannot set out in advance which ones are relevant. That depends (as usual) on the question at hand. There is no set list of circumstances that will transform mere behaviour into understanding. That would be treating circumstances as the "extra thing" in exactly the way W warns us against in 179.Philip Cartwrighthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11458571502536123264noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6701420428167031490.post-21734700791578806352013-12-27T18:36:13.757+00:002013-12-27T18:36:13.757+00:00I find the emphasis on "circumstances" s...I find the emphasis on "circumstances" somewhat confusing as well. <br /><br />Implicit in §151 is the distinction between "knowing that" and "knowing how" - the ability to continue the series being clearly an example of the latter. So it seems that "understanding" as related to that example essentially means "acquiring the ability to go on". Several ways a subject might do that are suggested: finding a formula or a rule, recognizing the beginning of a series with which the subject is already familiar. Each of these is clearly a <b>process</b> that is a precursor to understanding but isn't itself an understanding. And that's what I take to be the point of the last paragraph of §154 (not including the parenthetical remark - which seems to echo the boxed note between §149 and §150 in again distinguishing "mental processes" from what I would call "brain processes").<br /><br />But what is the nature of the relevant brain processes? Well, the ability to do something - a "knowing how" - seems clearly a behavioral disposition (implemented as a neural structure as described in <a href="http://lwpi.blogspot.com/2013/12/understanding-discussion-summary.html?showComment=1387551699930#c810440948685670085" rel="nofollow">this</a> previous comment), and such a disposition is acquired via a learning process. Consider the process of acquiring the ability to continue the series by searching for a formula or a rule. That presumably amounts to trial-and-error application of previously learned candidates. Once one that works is found, the subject's brain has the material necessary to construct what we might call a "working" behavioral disposition (to emphasize it's possibly short-term persistence). At that point the subject might be disposed to say "Now I understand how [ie, have the ability to] go on". <br /><br />In general, behavioral dispositions are a function of the subject's history and current circumstances (ie, they are context-dependent). And as Philip notes, in order to have any luck at finding either, the subject has to have a wealth of <i>a priori</i> knowledge - ie, the circumstances have to be right. Whether this is the same sense in which "circumstances" is being used in these sections of PI isn't clear to me.<br /><br />Another possible interpretation of "circumstances" is suggested in §155, which discusses the experience attendant to "being able to go on" - ie, having the requisite behavioral disposition. Which raises the question: can subjects be aware of their own dispositions in the absence of overt execution of them? Any such awareness must result from a private experience, perhaps the type I call a "rehearsal" of a behavioral disposition - the silent inner monolog/dialog that sometimes precedes overt execution of a disposition. Such a rehearsal if successful might result in the subject's then being disposed to utter "Now I understand how to go on". One could describe this by saying the "circumstances warrant the utterance", but I'd be inclined not to do so since "warrant" suggests (at least to me) epistemic justification, which seems inapplicable to the example.Charles T. Wolvertonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12309746685166449683noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6701420428167031490.post-7558956125216512382013-12-26T12:57:09.819+00:002013-12-26T12:57:09.819+00:00Hi, Philip, interesting post with a lot to digest....Hi, Philip, interesting post with a lot to digest. I was thinking about your emphasis on "circumstances" and was a bit unsure what to think - it is easy to start thinking: so we only use these words in very specific circumstances, but what exactly are those circumstances and how is it that I can use the words (hopefully correctly!) and yet have such difficulty specifying the circumstances? The slogan "inner states stand in need of outward criteria" approaches the issue in terms of when and what sense it makes to talk of a specific inner experience, but another way of putting the same point is to say that if the inner did not connect up with the outer, we would lose our interest in it. The issue with the statement "He understands X" is not whether this is an accurate depiction of the state of his soul (or his brain) but what makes us say this about him and what follows from this. So the concept picks out a pattern in our lives and that pattern consists of things that happen (outer things) but links them together in terms of the concept of the inner. So circumstances certainly are important :-)Paul Johnstonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08676164388115825863noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6701420428167031490.post-13945343730062259092013-12-22T21:33:31.897+00:002013-12-22T21:33:31.897+00:00Close enough for now, so I'll sign off til Phi...Close enough for now, so I'll sign off til Philip rejoins the fray.Charles T. Wolvertonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12309746685166449683noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6701420428167031490.post-33096848926471655312013-12-22T19:00:16.535+00:002013-12-22T19:00:16.535+00:00I take your #1 to be the case, but not doctrinally...I take your #1 to be the case, but not doctrinally. It's how things look to us as of now. I disagree with the rush to dualism that many, like David Chalmers take, but wouldn't rule dualism out a priori given certain circumstances (e.g., evidence for the mental as non-physical -- though, on my view, we currently have no such evidence; or a failure of ANY physical explanation to cover what's needed in explaining consciousness -- though I think a model like Dennett's does cover what's needed, so, barring some argument that shows such a model to be deficient, the second criterion for considering dualism isn't met).<br /><br />Hence, I my starting point with #1 is the same as yours.<br /><br />I agree with your #2 because I agree with #1. I would add one caveat, however, and that is the description of the processes must include not just events but functionality.<br /><br />I agree with your #3 (though I think we can ONLY talk about our experiences as that using the language of motives, belief, in short of our mental lives. I don't believe we can substitute descriptions of physical behaviors at the brain level for mental talk and I don't believe talk which excludes our mental lives can fully cover what's going on with us, even though I agree with what I take to be the Wittgensteinian view that language is public, not private, at bottom and so hits usages are best and primarily fitted to public usages (though, unlike some Wittgensteinians, I grant legitimacy to referential usages regarding private -- subjective -- phenomena; it's just that these uses are generally derivative and can be misleading if not carefully attended to).<br /><br />I don't agree with your #4 which seems to make experience epiphenomenal which, I think, is a misleading picture.<br /><br />I would describe experience (which is more than aha moments, on my view, but certainly includes them) as an aspect of the physical system that is realized functionally (what the operations of the system do). On this view, being conscious ("consciousness") is an activity of some brains sometimes (what they are doing under certain circumstances). It's not a thing in the sense of being some kind of entity parallel with physical entities but it's a thing in the sense of being something we can refer to (just as we refer to institutions, traditions and states and so forth). In this case it's operations, implemented functionalities, that we refer to.<br /><br />But what is implemented is more than just publicly observable physical events. We can't observe the functions themselves (an abstraction after all) but only the physical manifestations of them (which we are sometimes tempted to equate with the functions in their entirety).<br /><br />But we do experience the functions to the extent that we ARE the particular system being implemented. That's why I think it's important to preserve the notion of subjectivity and the mental in our explanation.<br /><br />Whatever the physical events going on in brains are doing, they are not JUST making physical movements of the organism in which the brain is situated. They are also producing experiences, the subjective, the many features of our mental lives which we call, in the aggregate, "consciousness."Stuart W. Mirskyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12247784373895331173noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6701420428167031490.post-57446416701811032622013-12-22T18:11:00.838+00:002013-12-22T18:11:00.838+00:00That's great - it appears we now have a common...That's great - it appears we now have a common base for further discussion. <br /><br /><i>we have to be able to speak both of brain operations and experiences had. We cannot substitute one mode of discourse for the other where our aim is to describe cause and effect both. </i><br /><br />The problem here is the explain/talk-about distinction. (I previously made a distinction between explain and describe, but explain/talk-about is better since there are problems with "describing" a private experience.) We seem to agree that with respect to a mental event - eg, understanding - we can, at least in principle, describe the brain's publicly accessible operation in the vocabulary of neurology. But it appears that there may be a disconnect when we move to a possible attendant private experience. So, here are some claims I'd make about that experience:<br /><br />1. Although we may not currently be able to explain the process that produces the experience, the process must be physiological (possibly only neurological).<br /><br />2. Therefore, any explanations of the process must be in the vocabulary of physiology (possibly, of neurology).<br /><br />3. The person having the experience can talk about it, and will usually do so in the day-to-day vocabulary.<br /><br />4. An "experience" as the word is being used here - eg, an "Aha!" moment when something is first understood - is causally inert. Ie, no physical action results from the experience.<br /><br />I'm not sure number 4 is presently relevant, but since you emphasized cause and effect in your comment, it seemed that I had to throw it in. It's presumably controversial, but I'm convinced it's probably so.Charles T. Wolvertonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12309746685166449683noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6701420428167031490.post-77746122532016472972013-12-21T21:53:51.898+00:002013-12-21T21:53:51.898+00:00Yeah, we are not particularly far apart here. The ...Yeah, we are not particularly far apart here. The only thing is that I wouldn't use neurological language except to explain what brains do (which presumably correlates with experiences had). To achieve correlation, of course, we have to be able to speak both of brain operations and experiences had. We cannot substitute one mode of discourse for the other where our aim is to describe cause and effect both. My main point is that the effect must be sought as much in the subjective realm of experiences as in the objective of publicly occurring, and so observable, behaviors of the organism (at brain and organism levels). Since both talk of brain operations and the organism's behaviors involve referring to public phenomena, we have to deal with the fact that talk of experiences, to some very significant degree does not. Do we therefore abandon talk of experiences, the subjective, our "mental" lives then? My view is that we don't do that at cocktail parties so we can't when formulating an explanation of the elements which matter in cocktail party discourse either. It is the occurrence of THOSE latter elements we have to account for in explaining what brains do.Stuart W. Mirskyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12247784373895331173noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6701420428167031490.post-11374538774630304082013-12-21T21:12:55.672+00:002013-12-21T21:12:55.672+00:00Stuart -
Describing the vocabularies as "com...Stuart -<br /><br />Describing the vocabularies as "competing" isn't consistent with my point, so we're still talking past one another. In order to have further dialogs on these topics, I think some level of mutual understanding - even if not agreement - on this recurring issue is necessary. So, please bear with me in a last ditch attempt focused on that narrow objective.<br /><br />If in cocktail party conversation one recounts having "recognized" an old friend on the street, "remembered" the friend's name, "understood" a point the friend was trying to make, etc, that's what I mean by "talking about" mental events using the nontechnical day-to-day vocabulary. Any literate English speaker will know what you mean. Ie, that vocabulary is appropriate for, and serves well, the purpose of such conversation.<br /><br />But if one wants to hypothesize technical explanations of how those "mental" events might be implemented in the brain, a different vocabulary is required. A mental event like remembering may involve both a neurological process and an experience (subjective, if you insist) that manifests that process. Presumably we agree that a proposed explanation of the neurological process must use the neurological vocabulary. I additionally contend that for an explanation of the whole mental event (eg, remembering) to be technical, the experience - also a mental event - must be explained in the neurological vocabulary as well. One may, of course, describe an experience using a non-technical vocabulary, but a description isn't an explanation.<br /><br />So, I see the day-to-day vocabulary (including "mental" words) and a technical vocabulary as complementary rather than competing, each appropriate to a different purpose. Obviously, there has to be some mixing - introducing an explanation of mental event X in neurological terms has to involve saying something like "I propose the following neurological explanation of mental event X". But my main point is that I think considerable care should be exercised in doing so.<br /><br />Does that narrow the gap any? Charles T. Wolvertonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12309746685166449683noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6701420428167031490.post-67610285046709694482013-12-21T01:29:58.101+00:002013-12-21T01:29:58.101+00:00I don't see how we can avoid the mental label ...I don't see how we can avoid the mental label once we grant "phenomenal experience", which you do above. This isn't about competing vocabularies, or at least not ONLY about that. It's about the experiential dimension, including phenomenality, whatever we settle in on calling it. I think the approach you want to take leaves that out, even though you can't avoid referencing it, as you do above. I just think it's better to bite the bullet than talk around it.Stuart W. Mirskyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12247784373895331173noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6701420428167031490.post-63636572738846195582013-12-20T23:05:54.648+00:002013-12-20T23:05:54.648+00:00You seem to be missing my point about vocabularies...You seem to be missing my point about vocabularies. If you want to discover how activities like recognizing, remembering, understanding, believing, emoting, etc (what I assume you mean by the "mental life") work, you can't go looking at the physiological level for the objects of those activities: recognized objects, memories, (mis)understood sentences, beliefs, emotions, etc. As Philip has argued, those entities are linguistic objects, not physical ones. However, you can try to explain those activities in physiological terms, and the explanations often involve behavior. Defining "behaviorism" as making any reference at all to behavior makes anyone who attempts such explanations a behaviorist. <br /><br /><i>we cannot truly maintain the distinction you want to make in any real effort to address these kinds of questions because something is lost. </i><br /><br />I'm merely suggesting the use of different vocabularies for different purposes, and in hypothesizing about how activities we describe as "mental" might work I find no need for the psychological vocabulary. If you think something is missing from my physiological description, it's incumbent on you to explain in what that something is. Saying we have a "mental life" or a "subjective" aspect isn't an explanation, it's just using words which then must be explained.<br /><br /><i>we DO recognize various features we call "mental" (or subjective, a term I know you feel uncomfortable with)</i><br /><br />My discomfort is not so much with the particular words, rather it's with the implicit assumption that your assertion is indisputable as worded. It isn't. In any event, I don't see why you think it's a relevant response to my comment. Even supposing it were true, does that mean that in hypothesizing about how understanding might work physiologically either "mental" or "subjective" must appear in the explanation? If so, why?<br /><br /><i>But you can't get all of the latter [internal "behavior"?] right only by studying all of the former [observable behavior]. You have to also look inside.</i><br /><br />I thought that's precisely what I had done in hypothesizing the neural underpinnings. If you mean "inside" something other than the body, what is that something?<br /><br /><i>The system may be nothing more than physical parts doing physical things but what's being done has a subjective side </i><br /><br />My impression is that you're addressing the possibility that some internal activities may be manifest in experiences, which are "subjective" (private?) in that they belong to the experiencer and can't be had by anyone else. If so, I agree, but again don't see how that's relevant to my comment.<br /><br /><i>The point is what do these patterns [of neurological activity] produce?</i><br /><br />They produce numerous things including behavior and phenomenal experience. But when trying to explain how the production process might work, I see nothing gained by labeling any of them "mental". <br /><br />And a Merry Christmas to all!Charles T. Wolvertonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12309746685166449683noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6701420428167031490.post-75681675739461286062013-12-20T16:14:03.008+00:002013-12-20T16:14:03.008+00:00I can't speak for Philip but it seems to me th...I can't speak for Philip but it seems to me that we cannot truly maintain the distinction you want to make in any real effort to address these kinds of questions because something is lost. The recommended way of speaking you want to follow strikes me as turning us into behaviorists. Wittgenstein rejected that characterization of his thinking. He recognized mental features (whatever we want to call them and, admittedly, it's hard to come up with a nomenclature satisfactory to all parties) as Philip has rightly pointed out. Radical behaviorism seems to want to reject taIk of anything else but behaviors.<br /><br />Is behaviorism correct? I think it has much to recommend it methodologically. But I always find myself coming back to the AI question. If someone wants to implement an artificial intelligence he or she could not do it just by setting up the right correspondence between inputs and outputs. It's not that we couldn't do a convincing simulation of this type within definite contexts. I think such a project could succeed. But if we want to create the kind of synthetic brain that can motivate human-like behaviors in an open-ended context, I expect this could only be done by giving the artificial brain the same capacities we recognize in ourselves.<br /><br />This is why Searle's Chinese Room fails. It explicitly excludes an account of whatever understanding amounts to within the system and so fails to spec it in. It's not surprising, then, when a device that hasn't been specked to do more than mechanistically match symbols to symbols does nothing more than that -- which, of course, is much less than what we mean by "understanding" in ourselves. As Dennett notes, Searle leaves out the requisite complexity.<br /><br />Now, while we certainly don't recognize the brain operations going on in our brains when we operate consciously, we DO recognize various features we call "mental" (or subjective, a term I know you feel uncomfortable with). We have a mental life and failure to account for that in any effort at AI implementation misses a critical piece.<br /><br />So we have the behaviors of the entity and the behaviors, on a finer level, of the entity's constituent parts and elements (brains at the neuronal and electric discharge levels). If you get all of the latter right you presumably get the former right. But you can't get all of the latter right only by studying all of the former. You have to also look inside -- at what's going on within the system itself. Hence the need for reference to, and analysis of, the "mental."<br /><br />The system may be nothing more than physical parts doing physical things but what's being done has a subjective side which, if left out, leaves us unable to complete the picture. It's not enough to know that the neurons are forming this or that pattern of electrical activity in the brain. You have to know what the electrical activity DOES within the system it's part of. It doesn't just trigger the next follow-up pattern although it does that, of course. The point is what do these patterns produce?<br /><br />At the grossest level they produce the kinds of behaviors the behaviorist is looking at and measuring. But there is still an intermediate level, the level of the functioning system. To get the behaviors the behaviorist wants to measure, you have to have constituents doing the right things within the system they make up.<br /><br />Anyway, echoing Philip, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to you and him both. This discussion has been helpful and enjoyable and I hope we can continue it, going forward. (The best part is the absence of rancor which I have too often found accompanies discussions of this subject.) <br /> Stuart W. Mirskyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12247784373895331173noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6701420428167031490.post-8104409486856700852013-12-20T15:01:39.930+00:002013-12-20T15:01:39.930+00:00Rereading the sections leading up to §150, especia...Rereading the sections leading up to §150, especially §149 and the boxed insert between it and §150 leads me to wonder if part of the confusion that "mental" seems to be causing in our discussion stems from the distinction made in that insert between "mental states" ala §149 - behavioral dispositions (what I unfortunately earlier called "latent behaviors") - and those listed in the insert which, with perhaps the exception of pain, we often call "emotions". (Note: I'm using the Anscombe, Hacker, Schulte translation.)<br /><br />I think of behavioral dispositions just as described in §149 except that I would call them what they presumably are - brain states instead of mental states. Then a behavioral disposition is a neural structure - an "apparatus" - that includes motor neurons that implement learned behavior in response to stimulation. The other criterion mentioned - its effect - is then the responsive behavior. To "know one's ABCs" is to have developed a neural structure that implements the behavioral disposition to recite/write them in response to learned stimuli (ie, recognizable neural activity) that results from verbal requests to do so. Similarly, the answer to "when can you (ie, have the ability to) play chess" is "once a neural structure that implements the minimum required behavioral dispositions has been developed". <br /><br />Emotions involve other organs (I think it's called interoception), and they can ebb and wane. Behavioral dispositions are more static; once developed, they persist for a long time (but can deteriorate over time). On the other hand, their effects are typically short lived. In the boxed insert, Wittgenstein mixes these two aspects of behavioral dispositions, perhaps intentionally. <br /><br />I also think of "understanding" a simple sentence as being able to respond to verbal stimulation in a way consistent with the intent of the person doing the verbalizing. So, I would alter the question re understanding to be "when did you develop the ability to understand that sentence", the answer would be: once the required neural structure had been developed. When the behavioral disposition is stimulated and the responsive behavior is immediate and public, one could say that the sentence was understood - ie, the ability was exercised - at roughly the onset of the behavior. <br /><br />In a more complex case of "understanding" like Stuart's awkwardly worded sign, the behavioral disposition may have to be, in a sense, "constructed" - ie, there may be what amounts to a learning step. And that might explain the delay before the "eureka" moment. How this moment becomes manifest - if it does - is a separate question.<br /><br />This seems a good example of Rorty's distinction mentioned earlier. It's fine to <i>talk about</i> the mental in casual conversation, but in serious discourse <i>referring to</i> it causes confusion. It appears to me that Stuart is ignoring this distinction in his use of the vocabulary of the mental as is Philip in criticizing that mixed use.Charles T. Wolvertonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12309746685166449683noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6701420428167031490.post-63984914331311480272013-12-20T11:01:06.925+00:002013-12-20T11:01:06.925+00:00Stuart and Charles
Might not get the chance to re...Stuart and Charles<br /><br />Might not get the chance to reply to your latest posts before the holidays descend. In case I don't, have a good Christmas and see you on the other side!Philip Cartwrighthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11458571502536123264noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6701420428167031490.post-82673737216531450952013-12-19T19:43:30.227+00:002013-12-19T19:43:30.227+00:00Philip - Although Stuart is using a vocabulary tha...Philip - Although Stuart is using a vocabulary that I eschew, I have little or no trouble understanding his points. Some I agree with, some I disagree with, some I have no opinion on, and I really wish he would take my advice and drop "subjective" which I consider adds nothing but unnecessary confusion. But while you seem to be objecting to something more fundamental than his choice of vocabulary, you attack individual uses of the vocabulary rather than expressing some overarching objection. <br /><br />You say "We won't give science any useful ideas to work on by mistaking figures of speech for literal descriptions", perhaps suggesting that the vocabulary may mislead them. But I doubt that many scientists are going to be misled in their research by some loose talk from philosophers (although other philosophers may be). Indeed, most of the things on Stuart's list of "features of consciousness" are the subject of on-going research, and many comprise activities that are indeed "going on in the head". So, I remain confused as to what you find so objectionable.Charles T. Wolvertonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12309746685166449683noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6701420428167031490.post-91748027466276471522013-12-19T18:14:21.629+00:002013-12-19T18:14:21.629+00:00"Private sensations as opposed to what? Non-p..."Private sensations as opposed to what? Non-private sensations? What are they? You are confusing a grammatical rule 'sensations are private' with a description of a fact."<br /><br />Like chest pain or toothache. If my dentist asks if I have a pain, like the cardiologist, he wants to know where it is and what it feels like to me. He wants a report, not just an exclamation akin to "ouch". Of course references to pains can play that role, too, but it's a mistake to suppose there is no interest on the part of an interlocutor in the nature of some private experience (which just means the private side of our experiences).<br /><br />". . . you should have no problem giving me a less figurative definition of consciousness then."<br /><br />I have: In the present case, and for this analysis, it's just the array of features we recognize as happening on the subjective side of our experience, i.e., what is private to us and thus inaccessible to others, including but not limited to, perceiving, having ideas, memories, mental pictures, beliefs, feelings, recognizing, etc., etc. That many if not all these terms have a public dimension (e.g., we ascribe them to others based on observed criteria of behavior) or that language, being public in genesis and main venue, may be most useful in the public domain, should not preclude us from recognizing occasions when private reference is meaningful, e.g., 'it hurts me right here and it feels like . . . ."<br /><br />". . . what I don't understand is how you differentiate between your perceptions as they occur 'within' your consciousness (which is what you claim happens) and the public world that you perceive."<br /><br />Easy. My reference to "within" relates to the aspect of my experiences that have no public presence, cannot be experienced (perceived) by anyone else but me. They are within or in me in the same way that a proposition is in a theory, a meaning is in the use, a particular is in a class, moves are in a game and so forth. <br /><br />". . . in a way it doesn't matter where my arguments or views come from, does it?"<br /><br />No, of course not! We would only differ over interpretation of those citations in any case (since it's clear by now that we don't interpret Wittgenstein the same way). Such a debate could only be about whose interpreting the passage correctly. Should you find a passage in Wittgenstein which EXPLICITLY denies the possibility of reference to elements found in the private domain of our lives which cannot be interpreted as I would tend to do, i.e., refer in the way in which I believe we can refer to such things, then I would be moved to reply that you've got Wittgenstein right -- but that then he was wrong.<br /><br />I don't know that that would help in this discussion unless it's just about what Wittgenstein actually believed. But for now at least that isn't what we're on about, but only about whether one interpretation of his overall view is better than another.<br /><br /> Stuart W. Mirskyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12247784373895331173noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6701420428167031490.post-90214384434949472502013-12-19T17:27:37.295+00:002013-12-19T17:27:37.295+00:00Would you deny that you have memories, ideas, feel...<i>Would you deny that you have memories, ideas, feelings, beliefs going on in your experience?</i><br /><br />Yes. But lose the last five words of that question and I'd answer no.<br /><br /><i>are we to take Wittgenstein as denying ANY possibility of referring to the subjective side of our lives or only denying referring in a way that implies a parallel with the physical entities and their combinations?</i><br /><br />The latter, though it depends what you mean by "referring to". Wittgenstein certainly thinks we have thoughts, feelings, memories, emotions and perceptions. How could he deny it? And he certainly thinks we can talk about them to - we do it all the time. HE does it all the time. But that doesn't make the grammar of the word "pain" any more like the grammar of the word "pebble" - or the grammar of the word "thought" for that matter.<br /><br /><i>So we CAN refer to private sensations</i> <br /><br />This makes no sense. Private sensations as opposed to what? Non-private sensations? What are they? You are confusing a grammatical rule "sensations are private" with a description of a fact.<br /><br /><i>that can be overcome quite easily by a little analysis and comparison with other divergent but entirely acceptable uses.</i><br /><br />Good. Then you should have no problem giving me a less figurative definition of consciousness then.<br /><br /><i>there IS the public side of our lives, where things we refer to can be picked out by others using their sensory faculties, and the private where things we think about, such as chest pain, cannot.</i><br /><br />I agree. But what I don't understand is how you differentiate between your perceptions as they occur "within" your consciousness (which is what you claim happens) and the public world that you perceive.<br /><br /><i>You seem to want to invoke an exceedingly narrow interpretation of his remarks about private language because of the nature of the subject matter whereas I've concluded that a looser interpretation makes more sense.</i><br /><br />I'm prepared to back up my reading of Wittgenstein with detailed reference to what he actually wrote. But in a way it doesn't matter where my arguments or views come from, does it?Philip Cartwrighthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11458571502536123264noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6701420428167031490.post-7866624171938408202013-12-19T16:46:09.043+00:002013-12-19T16:46:09.043+00:00Would you deny that you have memories, ideas, feel...Would you deny that you have memories, ideas, feelings, beliefs going on in your experience?<br /><br />I suppose you might if you want to take the position that these aren't things in any sense of that term and so there's nothing to find. And yet we DO use "things" in this way (for referents) and we DO have subjective states which are "private" in the sense Wittgenstein alluded to.<br /><br />This brings us back to the old divide: are we to take Wittgenstein as denying ANY possibility of referring to the subjective side of our lives or only denying referring in a way that implies a parallel with the physical entities and their combinations?<br /><br />A while back I was taken to the emergency room with a heart attack. The doctors and nurses clustered around as they were wheeling me in and asked if I was feeling pain (pointing to a place on my chest). I was not, nothing that I would have called pain anyway. I tried to explain what I was feeling and then realized that was silly and just said yes. The right answer! They promptly kicked into gear.<br /><br />So we CAN refer to private sensations even if it's hard to be certain both sides in the conversation have the same notion of what's being said. Referring to the subjective sides of our lives is not excluded from our practices. This suggests that we just have to be more careful in our word choices in such cases. However, in a case like talking about the array of subjective features in our lives (avoiding "mental" for now) this becomes hard if both sides aren't going to play. For my explanations to have traction, you have to recognize and use the same rules I'm applying. To the extent you won't do that we have the same sort of problem when speaking of the subjective as we would in playing any other language game by different rules.<br /><br />As to "qualia," I reject the need to posit anything more than the experiences, in all their variety, in order to explain having them!<br /><br />Can your thoughts be "literally inside" you? Of course not. And my use of that locution doesn't require that. We speak of things being in other things in more cases than just jars and their contents! We talk about ideas IN a book, propositions IN a theory, rules IN a game, examples IN more cases, a word IN a different sense and so forth. Just using a word like "in" doesn't imply physical containment.<br /><br />Is it just a "figure of speech" as you suggest? Why would we need to think so? Why, in principle, must we assume that the water-in-a-jar paradigm is the controlling one? Sometimes it may dominate our thinking, but that can be overcome quite easily by a little analysis and comparison with other divergent but entirely acceptable uses.<br /><br />Nor can I agree that this is the same as speaking of 'jumping out of one's skin.' This is clearly a verbal picture to make us recognize an extreme feeling by invoking an outrageous image, not at all like the other cases.<br /><br />Is everything we find, hidden from us first? Perhaps it's just to notice what we hadn't noticed earlier. Or perhaps, as in the scientific case, it's just to elaborate an entirely new and previously unimagined picture which simply never occurred to anyone.<br /><br />As to "sides," there IS the public side of our lives, where things we refer to can be picked out by others using their sensory faculties, and the private where things we think about, such as chest pain, cannot. Now this brings us back to what I've come to see as a fundamental divergence in how we take Wittgenstein. You seem to want to invoke an exceedingly narrow interpretation of his remarks about private language because of the nature of the subject matter whereas I've concluded that a looser interpretation makes more sense. We DO have a private side (the part of our experiences which are inaccessible in principle to anyone but ourselves) only it's not well suited to linguistic usage so we develop specialized usages and sometimes have to work very hard to share those usages with others.Stuart W. Mirskyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12247784373895331173noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6701420428167031490.post-7393883272357109332013-12-19T15:42:47.582+00:002013-12-19T15:42:47.582+00:00Stuart,
by "consciousness" I mean the a...Stuart,<br /><br /><i>by "consciousness" I mean the array of mental features (including those listed above) that we find in ourselves when we pay attention to that side of our lives.</i><br /><br />Once again we part company at the very first step! The above definition reflects precisely the sort of notion that leads directly to qualia, the “hard problem” and all the rest of it. For example, what do you mean when you say “find in ourselves”? My thoughts, for example, cannot literally be said to be “inside” me. Where inside me? Do they take place in my head? My stomach? How do I establish it? Might I be wrong about where my thoughts are and subsequently revise my initial claim?<br /><br />Of course, we often talk about what's going on inside ourselves – meaning our thoughts, emotions and so on. But this is clearly a figure of speech, like jumping out of your skin or knowing in your heart. We won't give science any useful ideas to work on by mistaking figures of speech for literal descriptions.<br /><br />Likewise, what is it to <i>find</i> a thought (or a sensation or an emotion)? Was it hidden from me? Behind what? Might I think I've found it but it turns out not to be the one I'm looking for? Might I be able to count all the thoughts I have once I've uncovered their hiding places? No. Again, this is a figurative use of language – one that we find apt in various situations but (as the rest of our grammar relating to thoughts, sensations etc makes clear) we are in no way committed to taking literally.<br /><br />Finally when you say “that side of our lives” what exactly do you mean? Since according to you “that side” includes all our thoughts, emotions and perceptions what <i>other</i> side is there?Philip Cartwrighthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11458571502536123264noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6701420428167031490.post-60627002228274983222013-12-19T14:51:20.855+00:002013-12-19T14:51:20.855+00:00Philip (I don't know why I keep typing an &quo...Philip (I don't know why I keep typing an "s" after your name -- I don't notice it when I'm doing it but only after the fact -- must be some cognitive anomaly), here is, I think, a quicker and more direct response to your denial of my argument above:<br /><br />You say it falls apart in the first premise because my use of "consciousness" assumes what it is intended to explain. But in a previous post I suggested that, by "consciousness," all I mean are those mental features we discover in ourselves on thoughtful examination. Thus my use of that term should not be taken as a tacit endorsement or affirmation of the existence of some unitary feature in the universe called "consciousness" but only as a placeholder for the array of mental features that we find in ourselves. Assuming that consciousness is anything more, at the start, would indeed be circular as you suggest. But I haven't done that, even if I allowed a single word to substitute for the more complex formulation which might have avoided your criticism.<br /><br />Here is a re-write of my first premise then which hopefully addresses your concern: "Brains produce the array of features we recognize in ourselves upon thoughtful examination which we call, in the aggregate, "consciousness" in ordinary usage.<br /><br />Hope this makes it clearer. Thanks for bearing with me. Stuart W. Mirskyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12247784373895331173noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6701420428167031490.post-17779500503700012092013-12-19T14:24:55.572+00:002013-12-19T14:24:55.572+00:00Philips, by "consciousness" I mean the a...Philips, by "consciousness" I mean the array of mental features (including those listed above) that we find in ourselves when we pay attention to that side of our lives. And that's what Dennett means (though I'm not sure what Nagle means given his "what it is like" scenario and his supposition that THAT consists of some kind of special feature). On the view I see Dennett taking, consciousness just is a bunch of things going on in the brain which look like information processing activities. Indeed, that's why he is so often accused of not explaining consciousness, as the title of his book proclaims, but of explaining it away.<br /><br />As he has said in response to that kind of criticism, the only way you explain something is by doing it in other terms. If you insist on the irreducibility of consciousness (as Searle does in some cases), i.e., that it cannot be explained except AS it appears to be, then you not only get dualism, you can't explain it at all. Dualism doesn't explain it, it asserts its ultimate separateness from everything else.<br /><br />I don't take you to be denying the work of neuroscientists, Philip, but I take you to be denying the possibility of theorizing about these issues and that is simply not the case, especially because neuroscientists do theorize (see V. S. Ramachandran or Stanislas Dehaene for starters). Dennett sees a role for philosophy in reconciling work of this sort with philosophical issues and, in doing so, sees room to assist in that work, at least theoretically. Of course that puts him at odds with Wittgenstein's later rejection of theorizing in philosophy but that, in itself, can't be evidence Dennett is mistaken since, to the extent there is a clash here (and frankly I don't see much of one), Wittgenstein could have been the one who is wrong, overreaching by denying the possibility of any theorizing in philosophy at all.<br /><br />As to the "hard problem" I would just point out that Dennett's approach to it is to deny that there is any such thing. It's folks like Chalmers and even Searle who affirm it. Since Dennett's attempted solution involves denying the "ghost" just as you do, I don't see why you should find his work in this area problematic, even allowing for your differences with him over the role of theorizing in philosophy.<br /><br />To the extent that we take Dennett to be a member of the class of cognitive science commentators (he counts himself a researcher at times, too, but let's leave that out), his thinking does not fit the mold you've presented of seeking to explain how a mental "substance" affects a physical one or vice versa. He is quite explicitly non-dualist in his approach (which is more than can be said for Searle who, while disavowing dualism, bases his core argument on a dualist presumption).<br /><br />Anyway, despite your lumping Dennett with Nagle and, earlier, with some other cognitively inclined philosophers you disagree with, your case here turns out to be, in fact, pretty much in keeping with Dennett's approach. His Wittgensteinian bona fides (or lack thereof) aside for the moment, you and he are in the same camp vis a vis the untenability of dualism, the nonsensicality of a ghost in the machine and the idea that consciousness is some special sort of non-physical thing-a-ma-jig. Stuart W. Mirskyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12247784373895331173noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6701420428167031490.post-60462083166326314742013-12-19T11:08:09.928+00:002013-12-19T11:08:09.928+00:00Stuart
Your argument falls at premise 1 if by &qu...Stuart<br /><br />Your argument falls at premise 1 if by "consciousness" you mean what either Nagel or Dennett mean by it, because that is the very thing that's under question here.<br /><br />Of course science can legitimately investigate all sorts of aspects of our cognitive faculties. Indeed, it is already doing so and, for the most part, with complete disregard for the theoretical fantasies peddled by cognitive science. If you take me to be saying that neuroscientists can't (eg) study what happens in our brains when we track an object in our visual field then you have seriously misunderstood my position.<br /><br />Let me make it clear: the so-called "hard problem" in philosophy is a direct descendant of the Cartesian ghost in the machine. And attempts to "solve" it revolve around theories that show how this ghost can be produced by physical processes. And this is akin to asking how a non-material substance can interact with a material one. But the whole problem is based on a misunderstanding - and therefore any attempt to answer it is doomed to failure also. You cannot show <i>how</i> a non-material substance can interact with a material one because there is <i>no such thing</i> as interaction between material and non-material substances. Indeed, there's no such thing as a non-material <i>substance</i>. Inflation, as a concept, is not material yet it exists. But it is not therefor a non-material substance that mysteriously interacts with the price of commodities. To put it like that would be to misdescribe the concept of "inflation" and make it look thoroughly mysterious. And that's <i>exactly</i> what cognitive science does with consciousness. <br /><br />This is not an empirical statement, it's a logical one. For the misunderstanding is ultimately not about the facts of the matter but about the logic of our language. A logical sleight of hand tempts us to think something mysterious is going on here and leads us into nonsense.<br /><br />It should be remembered that the problem of dualism came about through Descartes' attempt to support science. He was worried that it wouldn't get off the ground unless it had firm (quasi-mathematical) foundations. That's why he wanted to find a bedrock of certainty on which it could rest. Science got off the ground alright, but not by solving the problem of dualism. It did it by ignoring it. Hopefully neuroscience will have the good sense to do the same with cognitive science.Philip Cartwrighthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11458571502536123264noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6701420428167031490.post-83249381254656883092013-12-19T10:39:59.743+00:002013-12-19T10:39:59.743+00:00This comment has been removed by the author.Philip Cartwrighthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11458571502536123264noreply@blogger.com