epiphenomenalism and dual aspect theory

[Wyman]

henry quirk wrote:

"Maybe consciousness is a competition among 'selves' wherein the winner appears to have been 'you' the whole time. In such case, the unity of consciousness could be said to be an illusion."


This is probably the preferred scientific interpretation.

Experimentation points to consciousness being dis unified. On this basis it is very difficult for us to identify any dis unified state of mind. In order to identify a dis unified state we would need to catch ourselves not attending- such a state can only be inferred, never actually observed. Consciousness is always presented to us as a unified state because of the role attention plays in this process.

Just on a brief note, parallel streams of consciousness and operating on "automatic pilot" requires a different explanation.


If we ask ourselves if we can isolate your walking from our legs then we are unifying two experiences into a single experience. We undertake unification just by pondering such questions.

That's actually a quote of mine which Henry disagrees with. I have been thinking about a response to Henry for awhile and haven't come up with one, other than quibbling over isolated statements, which doesn't do his position justice.

I am not sure if Henry believes that his 'I' or 'mind' or 'self' (I'll settle on 'self') is just a concept, or if he thinks it's a physical thing. It could be a general concept such as 'orchestra' describing a group of functions and an orchestra is a thing. Or it could be an abstract concept such as 'music' or 'harmony' which describes a thing - sound wave patterns - but is usually not meant to signify a physical thing. Or, the 'self' is a particular physical object, like a conductor of an orchestra. I am not clear on his usage.

Just on a brief note, parallel streams of consciousness and operating on "automatic pilot" requires a different explanation.


If we ask ourselves if we can isolate your walking from our legs then we are unifying two experiences into a single experience. We undertake unification just by pondering such questions.

Can you elaborate on these two statements?

[Ginkgo]

henry quirk wrote:

"Maybe consciousness is a competition among 'selves' wherein the winner appears to have been 'you' the whole time. In such case, the unity of consciousness could be said to be an illusion."


This is probably the preferred scientific interpretation.

Experimentation points to consciousness being dis unified. On this basis it is very difficult for us to identify any dis unified state of mind. In order to identify a dis unified state we would need to catch ourselves not attending- such a state can only be inferred, never actually observed. Consciousness is always presented to us as a unified state because of the role attention plays in this process.

Just on a brief note, parallel streams of consciousness and operating on "automatic pilot" requires a different explanation.


If we ask ourselves if we can isolate your walking from our legs then we are unifying two experiences into a single experience. We undertake unification just by pondering such questions.

That's actually a quote of mine which Henry disagrees with. I have been thinking about a response to Henry for awhile and haven't come up with one, other than quibbling over isolated statements, which doesn't do his position justice.

I am not sure if Henry believes that his 'I' or 'mind' or 'self' (I'll settle on 'self') is just a concept, or if he thinks it's a physical thing. It could be a general concept such as 'orchestra' describing a group of functions and an orchestra is a thing. Or it could be an abstract concept such as 'music' or 'harmony' which describes a thing - sound wave patterns - but is usually not meant to signify a physical thing. Or, the 'self' is a particular physical object, like a conductor of an orchestra. I am not clear on his usage.

Just on a brief note, parallel streams of consciousness and operating on "automatic pilot" requires a different explanation.


If we ask ourselves if we can isolate your walking from our legs then we are unifying two experiences into a single experience. We undertake unification just by pondering such questions.

Can you elaborate on these two statements?

Wyman,

Sorry I didn't realize the quote was yours.

I think we can regard self, "I", or the subjective perspective as a group of functions rather than a physical thing. Once we start attributing unity to a particular thing then we end up in the Cartesian theatre.

It goes without saying the subjective perspective must be unified into an "I",or a self that is doing all of this thinking.We get vibrations of air being picked up by our ears, we get light coming into our eyes and we get nerves being stimulated in our fingertips. All of this raw data travels though our nervous system via spike trains and ends up in the neural core of consciousness within the brain where it is turned into knowledge and information about the world. This neural core of consciousness results in the "I", or self. As intuitive as all of this is, it is actually INCORRECT-there is no neural core.

If the attention theory of consciousness is correct then it is possible to have parallel and multiple streams of consciousness. In other words, different streams of experiences. Imagine sitting in a picture theatre ( not the Cartesian theatre) watching a movie. We would have the experience of sight, sound and the smell of popcorn contributing to a single theatre experience.

If we are engrossed in the movie it is likely that our attention is directed to sight and sound- this becomes a unified experience. We can still smell the popcorn, it is just that we are not attending to the smell at that particular time so we don't notice it. At the end of the movie when the lights come back on we might say to ourselves, "Where did that smell of popcorn come from?". Actually, It didn't come from anywhere, it was always there all along we just weren't attending to it.

The next time we go to the theatre we might ask ourselves,"I wonder if sight, sound and smell are a unified experience, or can I experience these thing as separate streams of consciousness?" Now,this is a good question to ask ourselves, but impossible to answer. Once we have asked ourselves this question the next step is to examine all three stimuli together when watching the movie. By allocating attention to all three things we immediately unify them into a single experience.

So It is like a harmony or synchronicity. Another word for it is a bound experience.

[Greylorn Ell]

This is just off the top of my head. The ancient Greeks defined the soul negatively as that which leaves the body after it dies. If the soul, or your beon, is to be verified by science, would this be a good place to start? Measure what is different pre-death and post-death and look there for clues?

I think not. That kind of thing has been done. I don't mean the deathbed weight changes or similar experiments, but things like F.W.H. Myers cross-correspondence communications. Such experiments are only veridical, in that they demonstrate the existence of something. However they are of no value because they do not describe the properties of whatever they've demonstrated.

As Thomas Kuhn pointed out (I think that you will appreciate him), evidence in the absence of a theory into which it fits is pretty much useless. Its only value is to engage the interest of an occasional wayward mind who stumbles across the data at the right time (in the midst of a philosophical conversation, after a few glasses of wine) and comes up with a way to explain it.

Without a coherent theory into which it fits, data is ignored, or misinterpreted. This is the problem with quantum mechanics, a fundamentally stupid theory built around solid experimental evidence showing that energy transfers are digital (discontinuous), rather than analog (continuous).

Imagine, for example, that we developed rocket science and satellite technology in a world in which Big Al had never been born, and then got the notion of building a worldwide GPS system. It would not have worked. Engineers might have developed software kludges (baling-wire fixes) to compensate for the persistent data errors, and might have gotten the system to work, without ever knowing why they had to introduce fudge factors into their data.

Would they have figured out General Relativity from this data? No way!

However, since the GPS system was built after Einstein's work, its engineers knew to compensate for the fact that clocks keep time differently as a function of the gravitational field in which they operate. Thus, GPS worked from the get-go.

In physics, sometimes experiment precedes theory (e.g. QM)-- someone builds a theory around a discovery. But our best physics concepts appear when the theory comes first. Now and then you'll hear about the predictive value of good science. Maxwell's four equations of electrodynamics led Heinrich Hertz (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heinrich_Hertz) to the discovery of radio waves predicted by Maxwell's theory. Physicists discovered nuclear energy not by accident-- but because Big Al's simple theory of Special Relativity told them to look for it.

The same relationship between philosophy (Thomas Kuhn) and physics (Big Al) applies to the understanding of beon. Beon Theory describes what to look for. I have some notions about how to do the looking, but they are not in my book. That would be premature.

Offhand, I'll guess that Beon Theory will first be taken seriously when its explanation of Dark Energy is verified. Consequent credibility will then lead someone to the verification that beon does exist, with properties as predicted. By then I'll be outta here.

At any rate, even if there is something more to the materialist story than collections of particles and their functions, no materialist will ever accept it unless it is verifiable by observation. And those who accept things on less than that aren't looking - they've already found something that fits their emotional personality and makes them feel good - like religion, spirituality, meditation, etc.. And no amount of evidence (or perhaps to some, only overwhelming evidence) will convince them otherwise.

You are absolutely correct. You are echoing Thomas Kuhn's principles. Only the combination of theory plus evidence can be convincing. The theory part is pretty much my job, and except for the painfully difficult component (promotion, or marketing) that's done.
Greylorn

[henry quirk]

Wyman,

"I am not sure if Henry believes that his 'I' or 'mind' or 'self' (I'll settle on 'self') is just a concept, or if he thinks it's a physical thing."


Well, I thought I was clear with 'mind is what an animal with a particular and peculiar kind of complexity does' but it seems I just muddied the water.

Let me try again...

I don't have thoughts; I think.

I don't have feelings; I feel.

I don't have consciousness; I'm conscious.

As I point out up-thread: the language we use in conversations like this, on topics like this, colors things. Intended or not: talkin' about 'mind' and 'consciousness' and whatnot (no matter the perspective any of us take on those notions) is to treat the phenomena in question as 'object' that can be investigated unto itself.

I'm as guilty of this as any one (perhaps more so since I actively reject the idea of 'mind' or 'self' or 'consciousness' being anything other than 'action' [and, still I 'objectify' the phenomena]).

Again: it is absurd (to me) to talk about 'walking' as an entity when walking is what legs 'do'

Legs are comprised of a number of parts and -- certainly -- we can examine each of those parts in isolation from the others (we can dissect bone, splay open muscle, and analyze skin), but only as a unified whole can we talk about what legs can do (only in the observing of legs -- as units -- can we see legs in action and comprehend how all those pieces work together, how 'walking' happens).

'Consciousness' (self, 'I'), I assert, is the same.

We can divvy up the brain amongst researchers and have them examine the myriad of bits, and -- through those researchers' efforts -- perhaps glean out sufficient information on these parts to write nice, fat, books ('101 Uses for the Hypothalamus'), but nuthin' about those efforts will, I think, tell any one about the 'person', the 'I', that extended out from the coordinated operations of all those bits.

To 'see' the person, we have to consider 'the person' in his or her whole, fleshy, glory: or, a brain is comprised of a number of parts and -- certainly -- we can examine each of those parts in isolation from the others, but only as a unified whole can we talk about what a brain can do (only in the observing of the brain [in a body, in an environment] can we see a brain in action and comprehend how all those pieces work together, how 'I'ness happens).

[henry quirk]

Ginkgo,

"I wonder if sight, sound and smell are a unified experience, or can I experience these thing as separate streams of consciousness?"


Irrelevant, I think, since 'I' will unify them.

I may be comprised of pieces and parts, but none of those pieces and parts exist in isolation. Each piece and part has developed along side and in coordination with all the others. These pieces and parts work together to form a whole: 'me'.

Sure, the sound is disconnected from the light which is disconnected from the smell which is disconnected from the textures, but 'I' don't exist as multiple entities (one for sight, one for hearing, etc). 'I' exist as 'one', a locus for apprehending multiple streams of disconnected information and then merging those streams into one model of the world. I do this (in this way) because 'I' am a single organism with all means of apprehension (my senses) located and connected within a single discrete mass.

It's a system ('I' am a system) that works well for moving in the world and using the world as resource.

Multiple streams of 'consciousness' need not apply.

[henry quirk]

Someone, up-thread, mentioned Ryle.

Gilbert Ryle, yes?

I know next to nuthin' about the man and his work but he hits it square with this...

From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilbert_Ryle

"Ryle asserted that the workings of the mind are not distinct from the actions of the body. They are one and the same. Mental vocabulary is, he insists, merely a different manner of describing action."

[Wyman]

This post slipped in before I read Henry's latest posts.


Gingko:

I think we can regard self, "I", or the subjective perspective as a group of functions rather than a physical thing. Once we start attributing unity to a particular thing then we end up in the Cartesian theatre.

How can we not attribute unity to a particular thing? It is a necessary condition for logic, mathematics and language. For example, I said an orchestra is a general type of physical thing, as distinguished from an abstract universal, like harmony. Let's disregard those abstract general concepts (adjectives and adverbs).

General terms like orchestra, water, humans, trees, etc. are 'unified' terms - as in 'attributing unity to a particular thing.' A particular person is a general term describing a collection of parts, whether you are in a conceptual framework of speaking of organs, or cells, or atoms, or quarks. A 'physical object' such as an individual person or tree, therefore, is not so different, ontologically, from a collection of physical things, like an orchestra. In theory, this chain of reasoning goes all the way to the fundamental particles of physics.

So, you build up (in theory) your ontology to higher and higher levels, from 'this is what quarks do' to 'this is what neurons do' to 'this is what the cerebral cortex does,' until you get to 'this is what the brain does.' The question is, can experience - qualia, sensations, mental images, etc. - be explained as something the brain 'does?' In short, I think the 'hard problem' of consciousness arises as a result of this materialist, scientific view of the world, just as the problem of the 'mind' arises upon other assumptions. They are two sides of the same coin - get rid of 'mind' as a mysterious entity and you can't explain experience. Explain experience and you are left with a mysterious entity called 'mind.'

By the way, Quine demonstrates, I think validly, in Word and Object that the (theoretical) reduction of the scientific, materialist, description of the world to statements about the fundamental particles of physics also requires an ontology, not just of the objects of physics, but also of certain general concepts of logic and mathematics.

[Wyman]

Someone, up-thread, mentioned Ryle.

Gilbert Ryle, yes?

I know next to nuthin' about the man and his work but he hits it square with this...

From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilbert_Ryle

"Ryle asserted that the workings of the mind are not distinct from the actions of the body. They are one and the same. Mental vocabulary is, he insists, merely a different manner of describing action."

You'd love him. I referenced him as someone I agreed with. Then I proceeded to argue against yours and his functionalism/behaviorism. I do indeed flip flop on this issue - it's not just me trying to be the devil's advocate. As I concluded in my last post, the sticking point on this view is that it is difficult to think of experience as a 'verb' or 'what the brain does.' Experience seems to be an object of our attention, not a description of our activities.

I think the Chinese brain reductio ad absurdum argument is compelling. Since you claim that our mind is a collection of individual functions of a multitude of individual physical parts, then it is possible (in theory) that if you get every Chinese person (I guess because there are so many of them) to perform the requisite function, you could in theory get a big, collective, Chinese experience or consciousness up and running.

[Greylorn Ell]

I think we can regard self, "I", or the subjective perspective as a group of functions rather than a physical thing. Once we start attributing unity to a particular thing then we end up in the Cartesian theatre.

Ginkgo,
I propose that you are mistaken on these points, so please don't include me in your little agreement gang of "we." There is no more justification for your "functional group" proposal than for multiverse theory. All such theories are for the unimaginative masses of intellectuals who seem to think that they ought to incorporate everything that they know into their theories, instead of distilling the few really important tidbits of knowledge into a simple and effective theory.

Forget the "Cartesian theater." I never heard of such a thing, and Descartes' original ideas do not quite work. He could not have gotten them to work because his mathematics, analytic geometry, had yet to be applied by Newton to a functional description of classical physics. The combination of Descartes' dualism with classical physics and Special Relativity produces Beon Theory, a significantly modified form of dualism that works in the context of physics, and effectively explains the workings of the human brain.

This simple theory seems doomed to obscurity, because those who claim to be seeking understanding of the mind prefer to quibble about which of the faulty theories they've been taught in school offers the best non-explanation. It could also be because few philosophers can understand Beon Theory.

The other possibility is that if philosophers accepted the principles of any theory that is not cognitively dissonant, they'd put themselves out of jobs.

It goes without saying the subjective perspective must be unified into an "I",or a self that is doing all of this thinking.

Perhaps you meant, "It goes without thinking...?"

[Ginkgo]

Ginkgo,
I propose that you are mistaken on these points, so please don't include me in your little agreement gang of "we." There is no more justification for your "functional group" proposal than for multiverse theory. All such theories are for the unimaginative masses of intellectuals who seem to think that they ought to incorporate everything that they know into their theories, instead of distilling the few really important tidbits of knowledge into a simple and effective theory.

These are not my points, I am just relaying studies conducted by neurologists and similar people who are involved in this field. These ideas have an empirical basis.

Forget the "Cartesian theater." I never heard of such a thing, and Descartes' original ideas do not quite work. He could not have gotten them to work because his mathematics, analytic geometry, had yet to be applied by Newton to a functional description of classical physics. The combination of Descartes' dualism with classical physics and Special Relativity produces Beon Theory, a significantly modified form of dualism that works in the context of physics, and effectively explains the workings of the human brain.

Perhaps you should because the whole idea of the Cartesian theater is to show that Cartesian dualism doesn't work.

I have nothing against Beon theory, but in order to show Beon to be better than Prinz's A.I.R theory you would need to make public some experimental results of your theory.

This simple theory seems doomed to obscurity, because those who claim to be seeking understanding of the mind prefer to quibble about which of the faulty theories they've been taught in school offers the best non-explanation. It could also be because few philosophers can understand Beon Theory.

The reason for this is because you are competing against neurophilosophers who are using experimental data to supports their claims. As I said, unless you can provide experimental data to support your theory you are pitting yourself against some scientific heavy weights.

I know you are not interested in anything I say, but if it were me I would drop the scientific part of your theory and use dualism as a starting point. The reality is that science simply will not wear dualism in any shape or form. Fortunately philosophy will wear dualism in many different shapes and forms.

[Greylorn Ell]

I guess what this amounts is to claiming that being a philosopher doesn't make one a good physicist. In exactly the same way as being a physicist doesn't make one a good philosopher. If this is what you are saying then I would agree.

Not quite ready for agreement yet, and would love to find some.

Being a philosopher does not make one a physicist, at all. A philosopher who wants to become a physicist must accept the chore of actually studying calculus and physics. Few of them have the mind for that sort of thing. Which is okay. We do what we can with the minds we came into life with, and ideally, advancing them in the process.

Physics is the kind of thing that requires highly focused study and the logical discipline provided by mathematics, whereas anybody can be a philosopher. I proposed my first philosophical proposition in the 4th grade (and got in trouble for it) without knowing squat about physics. Therefore I say that any competent physicist (or electrical engineer, astronomer-- anyone who has learned physics and understands its concepts) can easily become a philosopher-- so long as he has the interest.

I'm as good an example of that as any. Chapters from my first book have been used in several philosophy courses, one in Singapore even. I took my only philosophy course (and aced it) while that book was at the printer's.

Thomas Nagel and Frank Jackson are the two philosophers I mentioned.

Thank you for their complete names. I did a quick wiki-check on Nagel and found this:

"As a philosophical rationalist, Nagel believes that a proper understanding of the place of mental properties in nature will involve a revolution in our understanding of both the physical and the mental, and that this is a reasonable prospect that people can anticipate in the near future."

I agree absolutely. Perhaps I should send a book copy to Mr. Nagel. Whatever, his position illustrates my meaning.

He realizes that a revolution in our understanding of both physical and mental processes is required, but that is as far as he can go because he does not know the physics that must be part of the physical component of that revolution. Mortimer Adler came to the same conclusion, 30 years ago, so Nagel is not offering any new insights here. But Adler did not look at even the preliminary versions of Beon Theory. If Nagel did, my guess is that even the teensie, tiny bit of classical thermodynamics that is well-explained in Digital Universe --- Analog Soul would make his mind go semi-conscious, and he would be unable to comprehend the subsequent concepts.

I think that the comprehension problem is a function of reading style. To learn physics/engineering/math one does not have to read many books. However the few books one reads must be carefully perused, multiple times, until their concepts are understood and end-of-chapter problems can be solved.

Philosophers, on the other hand, must read a shitload of books. I've never encountered a philosophy book that included questions at the end of each chapter. Moreover, I've noticed that the information density of a philosophy book is less than that of a newspaper/magazine story. One new idea every 20 pages-- if it's a good book. A basic freshman physics textbook will introduce a new idea-- something you've never thought of before-- every page. So philosophers learn to read books as if they were newspapers. Pop-sci magazines like Sci.American, Nature, Discover are designed for their style of study, with tidbits of information packaged amid a lot of chat and data. As best I can determine, the "philosophers" posting here do not even bother to read those dumbed-down magazines.

By way of example, the editor I hired for DUAS was a good writer who had no interest in metaphysics, physics, or math; she had not even taken a basic HS algebra class. I chose her because I wanted someone who did not know that stuff and so had no preconceptions about science opinion. I also wanted to make my ideas completely accessible to any intelligent reader. If she could understand them, I figured that anyone else with a good mind could do so.

In her job as editor, she was required to examine my ideas from a different sense than a normal reader. It did not matter if the liked the ideas or agreed with them; what mattered was how they were expressed. Did they make logical sense, and were they logically connected? Were they presented clearly? When she finished the editing job, her life changed. One change was an interest and curiosity in science. She now subscribes to a couple of pop-sci magazines, following ideas that would never have interested her before DUAS.

I think that what made the difference is reading style. Her job as editor required her to read deeply. She had never before applied her reading/editing skills to any material that challenged her mind like Digital Universe-- did.

Few individuals learn to read deeply, and because of the volumes of low-information density material that they are required to read, philosophers rarely learn to read deeply. I've noticed that even the best philosophers on this forum consistently misinterpret, or do not seem to understand much of what I write. Most reply after a single, quick read. Although the ideal forum would be a platform for new ideas, most of those who post here have no evident interest in new ideas, but are dedicated to the furtherance of whatever they've been programmed to believe.

That is what the brain is engineered to do-- to be right, and to propagate its beliefs whatever they are. A mind with little soul/beon input is run by its brain's programming, by default. Here I'm looking for a few who are willing to think beyond their brains.

Greylorn

P.S. I also wiki-checked Frank C. Jackson, but gave up after his "Mary's room" argument which demonstrates that he is an articulate nitwit. That must be what comes of spending a life teaching philosophy to Australians.

[Greylorn Ell]

Someone, up-thread, mentioned Ryle.

Gilbert Ryle, yes?

I know next to nuthin' about the man and his work but he hits it square with this...

From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilbert_Ryle

"Ryle asserted that the workings of the mind are not distinct from the actions of the body. They are one and the same. Mental vocabulary is, he insists, merely a different manner of describing action."

You'd love him. I referenced him as someone I agreed with. Then I proceeded to argue against yours and his functionalism/behaviorism. I do indeed flip flop on this issue - it's not just me trying to be the devil's advocate. As I concluded in my last post, the sticking point on this view is that it is difficult to think of experience as a 'verb' or 'what the brain does.' Experience seems to be an object of our attention, not a description of our activities.

I think the Chinese brain reductio ad absurdum argument is compelling. Since you claim that our mind is a collection of individual functions of a multitude of individual physical parts, then it is possible (in theory) that if you get every Chinese person (I guess because there are so many of them) to perform the requisite function, you could in theory get a big, collective, Chinese experience or consciousness up and running.

Wyman,
For the benefit of those who do not need to kill time by following every conversation on a complex thread (as dumb as trying to participate in every conversation at a large dinner party), why not observe the courtesy of referencing whom you are responding to? It just takes a quick copy and paste of their

, then, later, a

to close their part of the conversation.
Greylorn

[Greylorn Ell]

Ginkgo,
I propose that you are mistaken on these points, so please don't include me in your little agreement gang of "we." There is no more justification for your "functional group" proposal than for multiverse theory. All such theories are for the unimaginative masses of intellectuals who seem to think that they ought to incorporate everything that they know into their theories, instead of distilling the few really important tidbits of knowledge into a simple and effective theory.

These are not my points, I am just relaying studies conducted by neurologists and similar people who are involved in this field. These ideas have an empirical basis.

If you will not take responsibility for ideas you present, what good are you?

Had I congratulated you on the brilliance of these insights, I'm sure you'd have taken credit for them. Here, you don't show up with enough integrity to defend the ideas you personally presented, as if they were yours. Unless you are trying to be an Obama Clone, grow some balls.

Forget the "Cartesian theater." I never heard of such a thing, and Descartes' original ideas do not quite work. He could not have gotten them to work because his mathematics, analytic geometry, had yet to be applied by Newton to a functional description of classical physics. The combination of Descartes' dualism with classical physics and Special Relativity produces Beon Theory, a significantly modified form of dualism that works in the context of physics, and effectively explains the workings of the human brain.

Perhaps you should because the whole idea of the Cartesian theater is to show that Cartesian dualism doesn't work.

I have nothing against Beon theory, but in order to show Beon to be better than Prinz's A.I.R theory you would need to make public some experimental results of your theory.

You did not read a word of what I wrote. Had you done so you would know that I do not agree with Cartesian dualism either.

Perhaps you scanned the words without comprehension, mistaking that for reading. I cannot push a rope upstream or converse with a mentally flabby person. I suggest that you read posts at least three times and attempt to understand their content before replying. Else, our conversations will be brief.

This simple theory seems doomed to obscurity, because those who claim to be seeking understanding of the mind prefer to quibble about which of the faulty theories they've been taught in school offers the best non-explanation. It could also be because few philosophers can understand Beon Theory.

The reason for this is because you are competing against neurophilosophers who are using experimental data to supports their claims. As I said, unless you can provide experimental data to support your theory you are pitting yourself against some scientific heavy weights.

I know you are not interested in anything I say, but if it were me I would drop the scientific part of your theory and use dualism as a starting point. The reality is that science simply will not wear dualism in any shape or form. Fortunately philosophy will wear dualism in many different shapes and forms.

If I were not interested in what you say, I'd not consistently reply to you. Interest is not a synonym for agreement, so please do not confuse the terms.

Absent the physics-based components of Beon Theory, there is no theory worth proposing. I'm not interested in becoming another dumb-fuck who can make up whatever bullshit he can competently sell. I'm not good enough to sell bullshit. (Learned that one college summer after trying to sell encyclopedias to pinheads, and trading in that job for shoveling wet cement on a road construction crew. There is integrity in wet cement.)

Inasmuch as you do not know what the physics components of Beon Theory are, why do you think that I should drop them?

What the hell is a neurophilosopher? My guess is, some bullshit artist who proposes to explain the mind in the context of a physical brain---

but without bothering to explain where that brain came from, in the context of his theory. Without explaining the evolution of life contrary to mathematically absurd odds, and without coming up with an alternative to the idiotic Big Bang theory.

Competing with your small-bandwidth neurophilosophers is about as challenging as a fart-lighting contest.

[Greylorn Ell]

Wyman,

"I am not sure if Henry believes that his 'I' or 'mind' or 'self' (I'll settle on 'self') is just a concept, or if he thinks it's a physical thing."


Well, I thought I was clear with 'mind is what an animal with a particular and peculiar kind of complexity does' but it seems I just muddied the water.

Let me try again...

I don't have thoughts; I think.

I don't have feelings; I feel.

I don't have consciousness; I'm conscious.

As I point out up-thread: the language we use in conversations like this, on topics like this, colors things. Intended or not: talkin' about 'mind' and 'consciousness' and whatnot (no matter the perspective any of us take on those notions) is to treat the phenomena in question as 'object' that can be investigated unto itself.

I'm as guilty of this as any one (perhaps more so since I actively reject the idea of 'mind' or 'self' or 'consciousness' being anything other than 'action' [and, still I 'objectify' the phenomena]).

Again: it is absurd (to me) to talk about 'walking' as an entity when walking is what legs 'do'

Legs are comprised of a number of parts and -- certainly -- we can examine each of those parts in isolation from the others (we can dissect bone, splay open muscle, and analyze skin), but only as a unified whole can we talk about what legs can do (only in the observing of legs -- as units -- can we see legs in action and comprehend how all those pieces work together, how 'walking' happens).

'Consciousness' (self, 'I'), I assert, is the same.

We can divvy up the brain amongst researchers and have them examine the myriad of bits, and -- through those researchers' efforts -- perhaps glean out sufficient information on these parts to write nice, fat, books ('101 Uses for the Hypothalamus'), but nuthin' about those efforts will, I think, tell any one about the 'person', the 'I', that extended out from the coordinated operations of all those bits.

To 'see' the person, we have to consider 'the person' in his or her whole, fleshy, glory: or, a brain is comprised of a number of parts and -- certainly -- we can examine each of those parts in isolation from the others, but only as a unified whole can we talk about what a brain can do (only in the observing of the brain [in a body, in an environment] can we see a brain in action and comprehend how all those pieces work together, how 'I'ness happens).

I see that you are practicing your course work in Neurolinguistic Programming, writing in stupid slang to distract stupid readers from the fact that you have nothing to say. Writing tautologies disguised as different perspectives may come across as meaningful to a few pinheads, but it is an ancient ploy, designed to improvise meaningfulness in the absence of competence. You've been studying Obama.

The technique works well, and having used it to attract some stupid followers, I'd give you an A+ in your neurolinguistic programming course, and will support you if your teacher disagrees.

Greylorn

[Ginkgo]

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