Philosophy of mind is more important than the philosophy of language and epistemology
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From: huge on 31 May 2010 18:30 RayLopez99 : > On May 31, 4:12 am, huge <h...(a)nomailaddress.com> wrote: >> Immortalist : >> >> Searle's reputation itself has fallen because of the failures >> intuition pumps like 'philosophical zombies' and 'Chinese symbols' have >> been largely destroyed, IMNSHO, by the likes of Minsky, Dennett, and >> Hofstadter. If he thinks philosophy of mind is important, he should >> do it better! >> >> > Destroyed? I doubt it. If I say I've programmed a machine to be just > like you, would you volunteer to commit suicide? The machine would > "live on" on your behalf, so why not? Can you be specific about the argument against Searle that would fail because of this? Until then I can't know what I'm responding to. > > Ditto with the thought experiment where a teleporter can transport a > copy of you anywhere in the universe, so there are two "yous" now. Does > the first copy (the 'original') volunteer to commit suicide? And ditto as to the specific argument being responded to here. > > Clearly not, at least for most people. Ergo, we have a disconnect. Well, yes we do. I'll try to guess what you're objecting to until I get your answers to specific arguments. I'm guessing that you believe there could not be two instantiations of a specific person, and therefore there is something outside the natural world that constitutes that person. I really have no problem (at least in principle!) that two copies could exist, each instantiation wishing to continue its life, each valuable to a community. I don't know how this would have any influence whatever on the fact that each instantiation was, indeed, just a physical process. That we want things to be different than they are is not argument that they are indeed different than they are. -- huge: Not on my time you don't.
From: Immortalist on 31 May 2010 20:29 On May 30, 8:01 pm, "bigflet...(a)gmail.com" <bigflet...(a)gmail.com> wrote: > On May 31, 8:25 am, Immortalist <reanimater_2...(a)yahoo.com> wrote: > > > ...For a number of important historical reasons, the philosophy of > > mind has become the central topic in contemporary philosophy. > > So what did it used to be, the philosophy of mountaineering? > Well if you learned to read properly you would see that he was comparing three branches of philosophy and which have declined somewhat and which have come to dominate; all the while determined by the direction of empirical science and its recent findings. > Philosophy has always been 'of the mind, about the mind'. > > To go 'beyond language' , use telepathy. > > "Rescue the truth?"...I can see why he has dilemma. > > "He May As Well Try To Cath The Wind" Donovan Leach. > The Straw Man fallacy is committed when a person simply ignores a person's actual position and substitutes a distorted, exaggerated or misrepresented version of that position. This sort of "reasoning" is fallacious because attacking a distorted version of a position simply does not constitute an attack on the position itself. One might as well expect an attack on a poor drawing of a person to hurt the person. http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/straw-man.html > BOfL
From: Immortalist on 31 May 2010 20:36 On May 30, 8:34 pm, Olrik <olrik...(a)yahoo.com> wrote: > Le 2010-05-30 20:25, Immortalist a écrit : > > > > > ...For a number of important historical reasons, the philosophy of > > mind has become the central topic in contemporary philosophy. For most > > of the twentieth century the philosophy of language was "first > > philosophy." Other branches of philosophy were seen as derived from > > the philosophy of language and dependent on results in the philosophy > > of language for their solution. > > > The center of attention has now moved from language to mind. > > > Why? Well, first, I think many of us working in the philosophy of > > language see many of the questions of language as special cases of > > questions about the mind. Our use of language is an expression of our > > more biologically fundamental mental capacities, and we will not fully > > understand the functioning of language until we see how it is grounded > > in our mental abilities. > > > A second reason is that with the growth of knowledge we have seen a > > movement away from treating the theory of knowledge, epistemology, as > > central in philosophy and we are now prepared to do a more > > substantive, theoretical, constructive philosophy, rather than just > > dealing piecemeal with specific traditional problems. The ideal place > > to begin that constructive philosophy is to start by examining the > > nature of the human mind. > > > A third reason for the centrality of the mind is that, for many of us, > > myself included, the central question in philosophy at the beginning > > of the twenty-first century is how to give an account of ourselves as > > apparently conscious, mindful, free, rational, speaking, social, and > > political agents in a world that science tells us consists entirely of > > mindless, meaningless, physical particles. Who are we, and how do we > > fit into the rest of the world? How does the human reality relate to > > the rest of reality? One special form of this question is, What does > > it mean to be human? The answers to these questions have to begin with > > a discussion of the mind, > > > because mental phenomena form > > the bridge by which we connect > > with the rest of the world. > > > A fourth reason for the preeminence of the philosophy of mind has been > > the invention of "cognitive science," a new discipline that attempts > > to go deeper into the nature of the mind than was customary in > > traditional empirical psychology. Cognitive science requires a > > foundation in the philosophy of mind. > > > Finally, more controversially, I think the philosophy of language has > > reached a period of relative stagnation because of certain common > > mistakes that surround the doctrine of so-called externalism, the idea > > that the meanings of words, and by extension the contents of our > > minds, are not inside our heads, but are matters of causal relations > > between what is in our heads and the external world. ...the failures > > to give an account of language on an externalist premise have led to a > > fallow period in the philosophy of language; and the philosophy of > > mind has taken up the slack. > > > Let us suppose then that the mind is now the central topic in > > philosophy and that other questions, such as the nature of language > > and meaning, the nature of society, and the nature of knowledge are > > all in one way or another special cases of the more general > > characteristics of the human mind, How should we proceed to examine > > the mind? > > > "The philosophy of mind is unique among contemporary philosophical > > subjects, in that all of the most famous and influential theories are > > false - [We need] to rescue the truth from the overwhelming urge to > > falsehood. > > Indeed. > Then you agree that Searle's version of Monist token/token theory is not false or explains best empirical science's finding on the brain, or were you trying to say that absolutely all and any theory of the mind is false? ----------------------------------- here is the review from another approach; Philosophical Problems and Arguments: An Introduction by James W. Cornman, Keith Lehrer, George Sotiros Pappas http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0872201244/ ....the token-token identity theory. The latter holds that each instance or token of a mental entity (e.g., the particular twinge of pain that a person feels at a certain moment) is identical with an instance or token of a material entity (e.g., a particular neural event in the person's brain). The differences between these two identity theories will emerge later when functionalism is discussed. For now we need only note that the type-type theory implies the token- token theory, but that the converse implication does not hold. The token-token theory is compatible with the falsity of reductive materialism. The type-type identity theory, however, has often been supposed to imply reductive materialism. 2) Back To Dualism? Now we do seem forced to retreat to dualistic interactionism, because all of the major alternative theories of the mind have fallen victim to one objection or another. In a sense, we shall conclude that dualism is correct after all; however, the dualistic theory we finally adopt will differ in important ways from the interactionist version discussed earlier. We have already noted a distinction between the type-type identity theory and the token-token identity theory. We found that the species chauvinism objection refutes the type-type theory, but has no effect on the token-token theory. The token identity theory can be stated in two ways, wide and narrow. Wide Token Identity = The thesis that each mental state token is identical to some physical state token or other. Narrow Token Identity = The thesis that each mental state token is identical to some neural state token or other. The difference between these two theses should be clear: wide token identity requires only that each mental state token be the same as some physical state token, which need not be a neural state. So wide token identity is quite compatible with the thesis that some complex robots have mental states. Narrow token identity, by contrast, rules this out: robots have no neural states and so have no mental states. Of course, the narrow thesis implies the wide one, since neural states are physical states. It is the converse implication that fails. Different animals have quite different neural systems. The neural system of a human, for instance, is quite different from that of a frog or a cat in many respects, and still more different from that of a lobster. So the narrow token identity theory should not be understood to assert that a specific neural configuration is pain, say, in all entities that have neural systems. The neural state token that is a token of pain in a human can be quite different from the neural state token which is a token of pain in a lobster. The narrow token identity theory implies only that each pain token is some kind of neural state token or other. The narrow token identity does not say that each mental state is only a physical neural state, nor that a mental state is the same type of state as a purely material neural state. On the contrary, the narrow token identity theory can allow that mental states have some purely mental properties, such as (in the case of pain) those of being sharp, throbbing, and aching. In that case, some neural state tokens-namely, those that are identical with mental state tokens-would have both some purely mental properties and some purely material, neural properties. Not all neural state tokens would have mental properties, of course, only those that are identical with mental state tokens. We shall think of the narrow token identity theory as accepting the claim that mental states have both some purely mental properties and some purely material neural properties. In this way the theory escapes the mam problem facing eliminative materialism, which implausibly denies that anything has mental properties, and also avoids the main problem facing reductive materialism, which claims that mental states have only purely material and some topic-neutral properties. So construed, the narrow token identity theory is a form of dualism, namely property dualism. It differs from an interactionist form of dualism, because the latter holds that each mental entity is wholly distinct and different in kind from a material entity such as a neural event. For the interactionist, no mental state would have any material properties. By contrast, property dualism endorses the idea that mental states have both purely mental and purely material (neural) properties. For all we now know, the narrow token identity theory is quite plausible. First, the thesis that mental states, and especially sensations, have some purely mental properties is supported by the introspective and observational evidence which we noted in our discussion of eliminative materialism. That is, it is supported by the fact that people certainly seem to be immediately aware of such properties of their own sensations. Next, consider how everything we regard as mental is dependent upon the neural. People who have strokes and lose certain brain functions also lose various mental functions as well. They may become aphasic, for example, and lose not only speech but thought and some memory in addition. Or consider how various drugs or alcohol produce changes in one's sensations, not to mention how they affect one's thoughts, emotions, and even beliefs. This sort of systematic dependence of the mental on the neural is just what one would expect if the narrow token identity theory were correct. Or, put another way, the theory nicely explains why we find the sort of dependence described above. Note, too, that this dependence argument works for animals other than humans. If a dog or horse is anesthetized, for example, then it can have surgery performed upon it safely, just as a human can. We think that the anesthesia prevents the dog or horse from feeling pain from the surgeon's knife, just as humans feel no pain during surgery. The same would hold for any other creature with a nervous system; mental states in such creatures as lobsters and squid are also dependent upon the neural states of those creatures. These facts about neural dependence make up a good piece of evidence for the narrow token identity theory. It might be objected, however, that this same sort of dependence is evidence in favor of dualistic interactionism. For suppose that theory is correct; then the mental and the material causally interact all the time, and do so via causal interaction between events in the mind and events in the brain. Given such a theory, we would expect that a dysfunction at the neural level will produce significant changes in one's mental life. So why should we say that the dependence argument favors the narrow token identity theory? The answer is that the latter theory faces considerably fewer problems than does dualistic interactionism. Let us see why this is so. The problem of deciding where interaction takes place plagues the dualist interactionist, as we saw earlier. But this is no problem for the narrow token identity theory. On the latter theory, the problem is solved by finding where those brain processes that are identical to mental states occur. This poses no insurmountable problem. Neither is there any mystery about where mental events occur, given the narrow token identity theory, nor about how the mental and neural can causally interact. If it is granted that brain events are spatially located and interact with other bodily events-something we all concede- then there should be no worry about mental events, because they are identical with brain processes. The same point, furthermore, dispels the mystery of how the mental affects the body without violating any scientific principles. Each mental event affects bodily events in just the way any physiological event affects others. On all three points, then, the narrow token identity theory is superior to dualistic interactionism. Further, the objections we found against parallelism are no threat to the narrow token identity theory. The crushing objection to parallelism is that it requires a deus ex machina to explain mind-body regularities. Also, by denying mind-body interaction, it denies what seems plainly true. The narrow token identity theory easily avoids both of these objections. Because mental events are identical with brain events and because brain events causally interact with other parts of the body, it follows that mental events causally interact with other parts of the body. And obviously no deus ex machina is needed to explain mind-body regularities, because they are completely explained by pointing out that underlying the regularities are identities. The most important problem facing epiphenomenalism is that it denies what seems most certainly to be true, namely, mind and body interact. We have already seen above, in the discussion of parallelism, that the narrow token identity theory does not endorse such a denial. So the narrow token identity theory is certainly superior to epiphenomenalism. However, before we conclude that the narrow token identity theory is the most plausible of those we have considered, we should ask whether this theory faces problems of its own, problems that may be quite distinct from those confronting alternative theories. 3) Objection: The Narrow Identity Theory Makes No Clear Sense Many philosophers have argued that any identity theory of mind, and thus by implication the narrow token identity theory, must be incorrect because there are things which we can quite meaningfully say about mental states that we cannot meaningfully say about neural states, and conversely. We ascribe mental properties to mental states. To a pain we might ascribe properties such as being intense, sharp, aching, and unbearable. We also ascribe material properties to neural states, properties such as being located in the brain, conducting neural impulses, being publicly observable, and being constituted of molecules. Consequently, if each mental state token is identical to a neural state token, then sensations such as pains are located in the brain, are constituted of molecules, conduct nerve impulses, and are publicly observable. Also, we could conclude that some neural states are intense, throbbing, sharp, aching and unbearable. The objection is that these attributions of properties are meaningless. The sentences, "My pain conducts nerve impulses" and "My nerve fibers are aching unbearably" seem to be like the sentence "Saturday is asleep in bed." This third sentence seems to be clearly meaningless, and therefore neither true nor false, because it makes no sense to say such a thing about Saturday. Hence, the first two sentences are also without meaning. But if the narrow token identity theory is correct, these sentences ought to be quite meaningful. So, the objection goes, we should reject this and any other identity theory of mind. The best reply to this objection is to compare a sentence such as "My nerve fibers are aching unbearably" to a sentence such as "Would you please pass me the sodium chloride? I want to put some on my French fries." There was a time when a sentence such as this would have been considered quite odd and unusual; doubtless it would have been branded as meaningless. Nevertheless, we have by now become used to sentences of this type, and we now know that they are not at all meaningless. The point is that when a theory is in the initial stages of its development, many of its sentences will seem odd at first, and one will be tempted to suppose that they lack meaning. The passage of time, however, often shows that this would be mistaken. The analogy with the narrow token identity theory should be clear. These sentences concerned with pains and nerve fibers seem unusual to us now, when the theory has only recently been proposed. But it is reasonable to think that they will seem less odd as time passes. Indeed, to many people who have thought about such sentences, they do not seem at all odd or unusual, even now. 4) Conclusion about the Mind-Body Problem With the rejection of the one objection we found to the narrow token identity theory, it is easy to see that it is the most plausible of the many proposed solutions to the mind-body problem. It avoids the problems unique to each of the alternative theories and faces none uniquely its own. We have, then, reason to reject the theory that our description of a person at the beginning of the chapter seemed to support, namely, dualistic interactionism. Nevertheless, that theory is correct about there being interaction, although it is wrong about the entities which interact. It is also correct about theie being a dualism, although it is wrong about the two sorts of entities involved. There are no purely mental entities, because each mental entity token is identical to a neural state token. It is these neural state tokens that interact with bodily processes. Human beings, then, are different from purely material bodies, but not because they have minds or spirits in addition to their bodies. They are different because some of their material (neural) states have some nonreducible mental properties. Philosophical Problems and Arguments: An Introduction by James W. Cornman, Keith Lehrer, George Sotiros Pappas http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0872201244/ > > Mind: A Brief Introduction - John R. Searle > >http://www.amazon.com/Mind-Brief-Introduction-Fundamentals-Philosophy...
From: huge on 31 May 2010 20:36 Immortalist : > On May 30, 8:01 pm, "bigflet...(a)gmail.com" <bigflet...(a)gmail.com> wrote: >> On May 31, 8:25 am, Immortalist <reanimater_2...(a)yahoo.com> wrote: >> >> > ...For a number of important historical reasons, the philosophy of >> > mind has become the central topic in contemporary philosophy. >> >> So what did it used to be, the philosophy of mountaineering? >> >> > Well if you learned to read properly you would see that he was comparing > three branches of philosophy and which have declined somewhat What, exactly, would you accept as signs of decline? > and which > have come to dominate; all the while determined by the direction of > empirical science and its recent findings. > >> Philosophy has always been 'of the mind, about the mind'. >> >> To go 'beyond language' , use telepathy. >> >> "Rescue the truth?"...I can see why he has dilemma. >> >> "He May As Well Try To Cath The Wind" Donovan Leach. >> >> > The Straw Man fallacy is committed when a person simply ignores a > person's actual position and substitutes a distorted, exaggerated or > misrepresented version of that position. This sort of "reasoning" is > fallacious because attacking a distorted version of a position simply > does not constitute an attack on the position itself. One might as well > expect an attack on a poor drawing of a person to hurt the person. > > http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/straw-man.html > > >> BOfL -- huge: Not on my time you don't.
From: Immortalist on 31 May 2010 20:43
On May 31, 5:10 am, "Tim Golden BandTech.com" <tttppp...(a)yahoo.com> wrote: > On May 31, 6:48 am, Spade <javed47ras...(a)gmail.com> wrote: > > > > > On May 31, 5:25 am, Immortalist <reanimater_2...(a)yahoo.com> wrote: > > > > ...For a number of important historical reasons, the philosophy of > <-> > Whatever communication we attempt on the mind will have to be in > language. This restriction is unconditional, except for what one > attempts within one's own mind. Straw man argument. Searle never made such a claim. He just proposes that areas of philosophy will become more or less important as knowledge of the world increases. Of course language philosophy will always be needed as grammar will always be needed to use any kind of predicate logic or common language. Again Searle merely claims that philosophers of mind will be in a better position that other philosophers since their system is already designed to deal with the metaphysics of whatever brain researchers discover; namely when time goes on and these researchers discover how the activities of the brain are completely enough to explain even the most complex human experiences. > It would be hoped that such a > discovery could be translated out into a language, though this could > require a new word, and perhaps many pages of dialog to even attempt a > clean translation. I'm not clear on whether internal thought can > transcend language completely, but it must to some degree, otherwise > there would be no language development. The trouble runs into a big > slowdown when one attempts to communicate in a language that others do > not understand. Until adopters of the language communicate back and > forth there is no actual verification that the translation is clean. > There can be alot of miscommunication going on. There can be > fraudulent language. There can be false belief systems. We are stuck > with this. In some ways better off than when there were just maybe > five unique words uttered by hominids, but worse off for all of the > conflicts. > > Is what I just wrote what you will read? Taking your mind awareness as > fundamental then my thoughts were first translated into a language, > transferred, and then reverse translated by your mind. There are two > option for miscommunication on a potentially flawed basis. I don't > wish to be completely discouraging and prefer to simply state that the > problem is open. As to which is the basis; the language or the mind; > we have to grant the mind as more fundamental, but as to the freedoms > of the mind, well, they are hampered by the language, presuming that > communication to another is desired. Even communication to ones self > may be possible, as a man might draw something on paper without ever > sharing it. Especially mistaken thoughts not fully developed are a > fine instance, but here if we presume the mistake is of the mind, then > we will never expose the mistakes of the language. > > - Tim |