Discussion of Dennett's "Consciousness Explained": Philosophy Forums

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Discussion of Dennett's "Consciousness Explained"

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Discussion of Dennett's "Consciousness Explained"

Avery Burke
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Posted 02/07/04 - 01:12 PM:	#251
probeman wrote: There have been numerous neuroscientific studies that clearly infer a direct connection between mental states and chemical (or electro-chemical) reactions Just to make certain I've been clear. You can only make this claim if you believe that mental state and chemical reactions are one in the same. You and I believe this. TecnoTut does not. So I agree with you but only because my metaphysics agrees with your metaphysics. TecnoTut does not agree with you but says he does. He is mistaken. And he has deep problems with his metaphorical system.

Avery Burke
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Posted 02/07/04 - 01:14 PM:	#252
oops metaphysical system not metaphorical system... That would be my dyslexia creeping in.

Avery Burke
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Posted 02/07/04 - 01:24 PM:	#253
probeman wrote: besides drugs[,] there are many documented cases of electrical stimulation of the brain causing "experiences." Again just to be painfully clear. The electrical stimulation to the brain causes a chemical reaction. You and I (I think) are in agreement that that chemical reaction is "an experience". TecnoTut claims otherwise. He says that that chemical reaction causes "an experience". So he must make the extra jump and say how this second cause happens. But he necessarily cannot do this. I have outlined why this is the case in my above post that details my position.

Faustus
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Posted 02/07/04 - 01:26 PM:	#254
In other words, Avery, Probeman may have misinterpreted you in this way: You don’t think that neurological events cause distinctly antecedent, different events called mental events, because the two are actually one and the same. You were not denying the relationship between the physical and the mental, only warning that the phrase “the neurology causes the mentality” subtly sneaks in the assumption of some kind of property dualism? Whereas probeman seemed to think you were denying some of the basic tenets of brain science itself. Right?

Avery Burke
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Posted 02/07/04 - 01:31 PM:	#255
probeman wrote: the stimuli can cause all sorts of mental states that will be below the level of consciousness Thanks for pointing that out to me. You absolutely correct. It is an important distinction to say not all chemical reactions in the brain are "conscious experiences" and additionally not chemical reactions in the brain are "experiences" at all. Thanks again.

Avery Burke
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Posted 02/07/04 - 01:47 PM:	#256
Faustus wrote: You don’t think that neurological events cause distinctly antecedent, different events called mental events, because the two are actually one and the same. You were not denying the relationship between the physical and the mental, only warning that the phrase “the neurology causes the mentality” subtly sneaks in the assumption of some kind of property dualism? Whereas probeman seemed to think you were denying some of the basic tenets of brain science itself. Right? Yes, absolutely correct. This accounts for half of my argument against Property Dualism. The other half is that the distinction in question effects the epistemology of the Property Dualist such that he cannot logical infer the causality he refers to in the first place. I out line why this is in post # 243. I have placed my argument there in full form so anyone who agrees or disagrees can respond to points instead of in a tit-for-tat argument that spans several posts and to often degrees. Do you think the post # 243 is clear enough?

probeman
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Posted 02/07/04 - 02:09 PM:	#257
Faustus wrote: In other words, Avery, Probeman may have misinterpreted you in this way: You don’t think that neurological events cause distinctly antecedent, different events called mental events, because the two are actually one and the same. You were not denying the relationship between the physical and the mental, only warning that the phrase “the neurology causes the mentality” subtly sneaks in the assumption of some kind of property dualism? Whereas probeman seemed to think you were denying some of the basic tenets of brain science itself. Right? Ah, thanks Faustus. That does help make it clearer. Let's wrap up chapters 3 and 4 soon and get to the interesting stuff. Hopefully I've answered Other-wise's objections to heterophenomenology (normal 3rd person science) as being an appropriate way to investigate consciousness. Faustus: can you help sort out this last issue for Other-wise? Technotut, are you still convinced by property dualism and the intrinsic difficulty (impossibility?) of using 3rd person science (heterophenomenology) to investigate consciousness? We'd like you to stay in the discussion if at all possible.
Certainty is not a gift to humanity- it is a curse.

Faustus
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Posted 02/07/04 - 02:45 PM:	#258
Chapter Three: A Visit to the Phenomenological Garden Briefly, Dennett performs two tasks in this chapter: he begins to prepare us for the more radical, deflationary moves to come, and takes a casual look at the phenomenology of our various sensory modalities. What are we supposed to think of someone who has a theory of animals which so radically changes our views of their nature that we might no longer want to go on calling them animals? It is certainly conceivable that zoologists, confronted with the fact that this crazy someone was correct, might say, “It turns out that animals—you know: those familiar things we all have seen at the zoo—are not what we once thought they were. They’re so different, in fact, that we really shouldn’t call them animals. So you see, there really aren’t any animals in the ordinary understanding of that term.”(p.44) Dennett has a radical re-interpretation of the things we have in our own phenomenological zoos: “I wanted to say, ‘It turns out that the things that swim by in the stream of consciousness—you know: the pains and aromas and daydreams and mental images and flashes of anger and lust, the standard denizens of the phenom—those things are not what we once thought they were. They are really so different, in fact, that we have to find some new words for them.’”(p. 45) And it is claims of this sort which get distorted by others as “Dennett doesn’t think there are any pains or aromas or daydreams!”(p.45). In the pages that follow, Dennett alerts us to important facts about our beliefs concerning phenomenology, and makes a point about what counts as a robust explanation. We do not have phenomenology in the sense that we have zoology—an agreed upon body of work about what pains and aromas and lusts are like. Instead, there seem to be as many phenomenologies as there are people. And this is, in part, because our natural intuitions about what things are like “from the inside” are often just wrong. This is brought out in the playing card experiment, which I really encourage everyone to try. (As an aside, let me tentatively suggest that the metaphor of the Cartesian Theater may have snuck into probeman’s language in the passage where he describes the experiment: “So, you've just proved to yourself (I hope) that almost all of our field of vision is a gray blur- yet instead we intuitively believe that the entire field is uniformly detailed and colorful.” The part I emphasized in italics is where the Theater metaphor crops up, but it isn’t obvious why I’d think this, and maybe I could be persuaded that I’m guilty of judicial excess. I would take Dennett’s points about “epistemic hunger” in chapter one, combined with his arguments against “filling in”—chapter five—and wonder why we have to think the brain goes to the bother of drawing “grey” for us instead of another color. Where there are no color detectors in those regions, there is nothing to report or draw. Despite appearances to the contrary, our visual field really isn’t like a movie screen or picture at all—as Dennett is taking pains to point out when he observes that in order to draw an image, we must struggle to make our visual field operate more like a picture than it normally does (p. 53)) The other point Dennett makes was something my philosophy of mind professors brought up constantly, years before Consciousness Explained came out. It’s related to the utility and dangers of using progressively more stupid homunculi in your model, and is brought out in the footnote about Moliere’s La Malade Imaginaire. Just as it’s no explanation to say that opium causes drowsiness because of it’s “virtus dormitiva (sleep causing power), “any account of pain that left in the awfulness would be circular—it would have an undischarged virtus dormitiva on its hands.”(p. 64). This must be the reply to those who claim that an entirely biomechanical account of consciousness would leave out the very subjective experiences it was supposed to explain, but how that works in practice will come out later. The point here is that just as an explanation of liquidity must contain elements that have no such property, a scientific account of experience must model experience on things that are entirely un-mindful. A neutral method for getting phenomenological entities into the theory is discussed in chapter four, which I’ll summarize tomorrow.

TecnoTut
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Posted 02/07/04 - 08:18 PM:	#259
dm Kripke's argument may very well be a sophisticated argument, but it is a sophisticated argument against a position I do not hold. That is why it is irrelevant. Wrong again. Kirpke’s argument is that mental properties necessarily are mental. You have not addressed his argument at all. That depends on what you mean by "distinct". I do not claim that mental properties are non-physical. That is why I am not a property dualist. Then your position is even more dubious than before. You do not identify mental properties as physical (remember? you deny they are the physical brain processes) nor do you identify them as non-physical (mental). In other words, they’re not physical nor are the mental. So what do you identify them with? Nothing? Or are they just some mysterious tertium quid? OK. But I do not see how this implies that mental properties are non-physical. Leibniz Law does. If physical states do not have the same properties as mental states, then mental states are not physical states. We’ve been over this a million times. One more point. Property dualism claims that physical brain processes have non-physical mental properties. If you also believe that everything (including mental properties) functions according to natural laws, then this is self-contradictory. Think about it. Mental states arise, it seems, only out of certain configurations and processes of certain types of matter. And here's the kicker, that component cannot possibly have any effects on the physical component. If it did, then the physical component would not be completely explainable scientifically. Has this been proven? A substance dualist will tell you that we in fact observe mental and physical interaction every second from the first person perspective. In other words, we have the problem of epiphenomenalism. Anything non-physical cannot effect things which are physical, without rendering them also non-physical. But we know for a fact that mental properties do have effects on physical things. We do? I am not aware of many proof that epiphenomenalism is false. In any event, all three of these forms of dualism (substance dualism, property dualism, and epiphenomenalism) are incompatible with the claim that brain processes are physical processes. They’re all compatible, even substance dualism. Substance dualism, property dualism, and epiphenomenalism do not say brain processes are not physical processes. They just say mental properties are distinct from physical processes they arise from: the effect is different from the cause. Substance dualism makes the additional claim that mental states may exist without physical processes (which property dualism denies) and have causal efficacy over physical events (which epiphenomenalism denies). Either mental properties are physical properties of brain processes, or there is some thing or process which is interacting with the brain in such a way that those interactions can never be scientifically explained. Just because mental properties are properties of the brain it does not follow that they are physical properties of the brain. There are three main sense of the words 'is' and ‘are’ The ‘is’ (and ‘are’) of existence (There is a unicorn in the garden: Ex (Ux ^ Gx)) uses the existential quantifier. The ‘is’ (and ‘are’) of identity (Hesperus is Phosphorus:j = k) employs the predicate of identity. The ‘is’ (and ‘are’) of predication (Samson is strong:Sj) merely juxtaposes predicate symbol and proper name. I am using the third sense (which allows mental properties to not be physical), not the second sense. PS – I do not know how double-blind experiments or Thor proves mental properties are physical. probeman What else can they be? I thought you were a materialist but now it looks like you positing that mental states are not produced by brain processes. Are you trying to say that experiences are not mental states? They are produced by the brain but they are not physical. Do not confuse the ontological status of the effect for the ontological status of the cause. Just because I caused your death it does not follow I am death. I only understand your first part here. Aren't they also observable as verbal reports? Can you give me an example of a mental experience that can't be reported? If you can't give a verbal report of the experience, then simply report that you can't give a verbal report of it. Dennett wants to know what you are thinking. If if turns out that there are ineffable experiences (your belief is true) then Dennett has the obligation to explain what these beliefs are and why they are ineffable. If however, this belief (report by subject) is false, then Dennett still has to explain why you think that you have these ineffable experiences. Careful here. I said mental states can be talked about, but not observed. I can tell you I am seeing an LSD illusion, but you cannot see the LSD illusion. You're begging the question- what else? I did also include the senses already. How am I question-begging? I was just answering your question. I said “yes” implicitly. Avery Burke Just to make certain I've been clear. You can only make this claim if you believe that mental state and chemical reactions are one in the same. You and I believe this. TecnoTut does not. So I agree with you but only because my metaphysics agrees with your metaphysics. TecnoTut does not agree with you but says he does. He is mistaken. And he has deep problems with his metaphorical system. Noy my metaphorical system. Your metaphorical system. A metaphor is a figure of speech (or a trope) in which a word or phrase that literally denotes one thing is used to denote another, thereby implicitly comparing the two things. You’re doing that, not me. oops metaphysical system not metaphorical system... That would be my dyslexia creeping in. Whoops. Sorry.
He that dies pays all debts - Shakespeare's Stephano from The Tempest Truth is its own measure - Spinoza, Ethics IIp43s Those who deny [Aristotle's] first principle should be flogged or burned until they admit that it is not the same thing to be burned and not burned, or whipped and not whipped. - Ibn Sina (Avicenna)

probeman
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Posted 02/07/04 - 10:11 PM:	#260
TecnoTut wrote: Leibniz Law does. If physical states do not have the same properties as mental states, then mental states are not physical states. We’ve been over this a million times. I don't know about DM, but since non-physical states have been constantly invoked and subsequently refuted throughout the history of science (e.g, vitalism) it doesn't seem reasonable to invoke them yet again on the last "mystery" that science hasn't fully explained yet. Besides, invoking non-physical states is ad hoc and even worse it can't be directly refuted because it can't be tested. One can always find an ad hoc "explanation" that doesn't explain anything. At best, as was the case with "vitalism", we can only find an explanation for consciousness that does not require non-physicality. Then after the last dualist is dead, then maybe we can lay the non-explanation of non-physical states to rest- I hope. I'm going to work on the premise that mental states are exactly physical states of the neuro-chemistry of the brain, because that's the only premise that can be scientifically investigated. Saying non-physical is just wrapping oneself in mystery and giving up.
Certainty is not a gift to humanity- it is a curse.

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