MONISM VS DUALISM & PSYCHIATRY 2/4 DENNET & SEARLE

[HecklerBoy7]

Mr. Mclaren, are you familiar with hylemorphic dualism? It seems to me to be the best approach in explaining mental states like intentionality.

[jockmclaren47]

@HecklerBoy7 I am but it doesn't interest me much as it has been used to justify magic spirits. There are interesting elements in it and it would justify a critical review in line with modern concepts of information processing. Are you busy...?

[HecklerBoy7]

@jockmclaren47 Hi sir. Actually, I don't know how hylemorphic dualism can justify magic spirits --that will seem to be more in line with cartesian notions of dualism. I invite you to delve into aristotelian thomistic philosophy. Only then will you be able to better understand hylemorphic dualism. It's a notion of body and mind that has been consistently misunderstood by even the philosophers of mind who should know better. A deeper understanding of aristotelian metaphysics is needed,

[jockmclaren47]

@HecklerBoy7 See this: Oderberg, David: Hylemorphic dualism From: “PERSONAL IDENTITY”

Edited by Ellen Frankel Paul, Fred D. Miller, Jr., and Jeffrey Paul, cambridge UNIVERSITY PRESS esp. Pt 7.

[markovitch57]

Unless - possibly - you are already familiar with that relationship and are claiming that computer programs and virtual machines belong in another world along with numbers and triangles - and Plato!?

[markovitch57]

The task of understanding is very much easier for us now than it was 100 years ago. All you need to do is a beginners course in programming - on your very own computer - and maybe read a bit about hardware to make it more real - so you understand - or can at least imagine- the whole chain of events when you - for instance - write your blog - or lose at chess to a computer.

[markovitch57]

Unless you do - at least make an effort to understand such a basic term as virtual machine - I, for one, will continue to assume that you are much more interested in looking away from uncomfortable newly revealed truths and probably even making a living at aiding others to do so also? I can believe there is a market!

[markovitch57]

One thing that you will need to do (if interested?) to start understanding Dennett - is to become familiar with the surprising relationship between computer program and computer hardware. I say surprising - because it genuinely was/is. Only 100 years ago it was the domain of a very few esoteric mathematicians - and who of them imagined where that would lead to - and it's only just started!

[markovitch57]

I know that - to our western judeo-christian psyche - the discovery of DNA and the mechanistic nature of the body - including the brain - is fundamentally disturbing in many ways and can easily feel like just another horrendous blow after believing that we were designed in the image of God and only very recently discovering that we are descended from apes!

[dashpowers22]

You don't understand Dennett's position.

[jockmclaren47]

@dashpowers22 You would need to look at my published work before making that claim. He freely admits he can't explain consciousness: "All I have done," he says, "is swap one set of metaphors for another." The reason he failed was the error I pointed out: of believing that dualism implies magic, when its potential error is actually an infinite regress. Natural dualism avoids the regress, so it succeeds where his "multiple drafts" model fails.

[dashpowers22]

@jockmclaren47 No. He never "admits" that he has not explained consciousness, he says that his explanation is far from complete. You are quote mining. Dualism of any stripe forgoes giving an *explanation* by taking consciousness as basic. True fact: You haven't given an explanation of X if you've taken X as basic. Settling for dualism (naturalistic or otherwise) is giving up on the project of explaining consciousness.

[jockmclaren47]

@dashpowers22 Why do you say I take consciousness as basic? That is absolutely untrue (I actively avoid using the term because it is so misused). I explain human mental life in informational terms, based in the principles elaborated at enormous length by Turing, Shannon and so many others. It is not a metaphor to say that human mental life arises in an informational space generated by the brain's data processing capacities. Mentality is NOT basic, it derives from information.

[dashpowers22]

@jockmclaren47 Honestly, I didn't take the time to finish your series because of how poorly I think you characterized Dennett's position. Consequently, I was going off of the standard meaning of the term "naturalistic dualism," namely, Chalmers'. From your last comment (pending an examination of the details), it seems to me that you are espousing a position that is very near to Dennett's own (that is, his actual position as he presented it).

[TheApollo81]

@dashpowers22 And who cares if you take consciousness as basic? All you've done is ignore consciousness as basic, with no reason to back it up for not being basic. In fact, even if you ignore as consciousness as basic, you're taking something else as basic, which itself has no explanation. This means not giving any explanation.

[dashpowers22]

@TheApollo81 If you want to explain consciousness, you can't take it as basic. Simple. If you don't want to explain consciousness, then take it as basic. I don't care. What is the point of your comment?

[6Untitled9]

How can you assert that the mind is immortal when you can't even say what it is or how it works?

If the mind causes the brain to fire off its motor instructions to the bodies muscles for action. What is the causal chain within the mind that allows it to arrive at a decision as to what instructions to give?

This non-physical mind concept is otiose, it just pushes back a problem that still has to be explained. How does the brain tell itself what to do?

[jockmclaren47]

@6Untitled9 I have most definitely never said that mind is immortal. I have said that disembodied minds are impossible. Listen to it again. For the rest, you will need to see the books for the detail of mind-body interaction.

[metaldude82]

@6Untitled9 The mind can do such things. Have you ever heard of self-directed neuroplasticity?

[Vincentaneous]

Based on this approach, there is dualism also in computers: The virtual button on my iPhone screen is clearly of a different substance than the rest of the phone: The button appears on the glass and represents a choice - but we all know that a "choice" cannot be made of glass. Also, the button has no location, since we can crack open the iPhone and the button will not be there. So, a purely physical understanding of an iPhone is impossible. There is another ineffable substance to consider.

[jockmclaren47]

@Vincentaneous Agreed, except it is not a substance. A function is not a substance. 

[Vincentaneous]

@jockmclaren47 I think the author of this video confuses the two.

[dfpolis]

"Supernatural" is derisive and unfounded. Physics' ontology has both material and immaterial elements: quantum states exhaust ever material property of reality, and laws of nature not constituted of matter, but still integral to nature. The laws of nature are not our approximate descriptions (the laws of physics) but work in nature to control its time development. Similarly, our intentions are laws controlling behavior. There is nothing spooky here. Just an alternate model. Peace, DP

[nspeert]

Your mischaracterizing Dennett. His view is that the mind is to the brain as the computer's software is to its hardware. The software of a computer is just the way that the hardware is configured, so in the same way the software is identical to the hardware, the mind is identical to the brain. Therefore, the mind is indeed extended and located simply because the brain is both of these things.

[jockmclaren47]

@nspeert I don't think you are being fair to Dennett. He does not endorse mind-body identity theory. He does support the hardware-software analogy, but the question is: what is the nature of the software? Is it of the same nature as the hardware, i.e. it can be weighed and put in a bottle? He doesn't agree, he says it is virtual, but virtual just means "not of the same nature." I claim that means he is a closet dualist, he disagrees vehemently. There it rests for the time being.

[nspeert]

@jockmclaren47 By the mind being virtual Dennett means the mind is an illusion by the brain, for the brain. The mind then may not exist in the way that the brain leads us to believe that it does, nonetheless the mechanisms that produce the illusion do. So if you treat the mind as identical to the processes in the brain that give rise to the illusion, then the mind is located and extended.

[jockmclaren47]

@nspeert We agree: mind is to brain as software is to hardware, but there is more to software than hardware configuration because the software can itself determine the configuration. That is the critical point: the mind controls the brain, otherwise there would be chaos (called delirium in medicine). Mind is not identical to brain as it has properties the brain does not. if you equate mind to instantaneous brain state, then there is a mind for every brain state. Bit chaotic!

[nspeert]

2) If mind is not equated with the brain's physical states, but rather its functional states, you wouldn't have chaos because while the physical state changes the functional state stays the same. (just as the function of the heart for example DEPENDS on its physical state changing.)

[nspeert]

@jockmclaren47 1) it's my understanding that while the language used to describe software is different from that used to describe hardware, this is merely for the ease of the programmer, its the same kind of logic for why biological organisms aren't described in physical terms. Delerium may be described in mental terms, but this is only a shorthand for describing the neurology underlying it, which has not yet been elucidated.

[jockmclaren47]

@nspeert There is a discontinuity between the physical machine and the software running on it. Software performs operations which the machine doesn't: I think of a pink elephant, yet what does that mean in machine terms? Mental properties are not physical properties, otherwise we could not think of the future. Skinner tried to remove mentalism from our science (and our language) and failed; see Chomsky's review of Skinner's Verbal Behavior, from about 1959.

[johnnyd99998]

@jockmclaren47

I think that you don't give Dennett enough credit, much as I actually disagree with him. I don't think Dennett has ever said that mental concepts are solely biological - it's the processes that create thoughts that are solely biological. To assume that Dennett thinks that a thought about 'tomorrow' is biological is to assume he's a bit of an idiot, which is wrong. It's the processes that create the thought of tomorrow that are biological. I think the category error is yours.

[jockmclaren47]

@johnnyd99998 My case is that Dennett's approach is actually incoherent. He says mind is as biological as spiders waving webs, and many other examples, then that the mind is a virtual machine running the brain, but it is a monist system. It is all based on his mistaken distaste for dualism: he genuinely believes dualism means magical, but it doesn't: it means "of two apparently incompatible natures which must be reconciled in a rational system.

[johnnyd99998]

@jockmclaren47 A large part of this video seems to link to the fact that 'tomorrow', 'the mental health act' etc are mental concepts and not biological, and this undermines Dennett's position. Dennet claims that the mind is a program is a biological fact but he doesn't then go on to claim that all thoughts are biological, or reducible to biochemical statements. I think he's wrong about the mind being a program - he must be, given e.g the nature of colours. But he's not daft.

[jockmclaren47]

@johnnyd99998 Dennett D, "Consciousness Explained" p416: "This 'web of discourses' ... is as much a biological product as any of the other constructions to be found in the animal world." That seems pretty explicit to me. But he then clouds the issue by saying: "...human consciousness might then be the activity of some sort of serial virtual machine..." (p258-9). My case is that his position lacks coherence and depends on illicit moves. Is he daft? I doubt it. Is he wrong? Yes.

[johnnyd99998]

@jockmclaren47 I also don't see what problem you have with John Searle's position given what you've said. It seems to me that if you think the mind is naturally caused by the brain then, but that the mental is not reducible to the physical, then you are occupying the same space.

[nspeert]

@jockmclaren47 You seem to be asserting some kind of software/hardware dualism. Software can't be discontinuous from hardware though without being separate from it, but software is implemented on the hardware so it can't be. The software consist of functional states of the hardware, so just as the blood pumpingness of the heart is inseparable from the heart, so to is the mind from the brain.

[jockmclaren47]

@nspeert I am definitely asserting a software/hardware dualism, as software has properties that hardware does not and vv. Blood pumping can be implemented on many different physical machines, it is contingently related to the heart, and so the mind is contingently related to the brain. There cannot be a mind without a brain of some sort, but they are ontologically separate, hence dualities. Mind cannot be reduced to brain, and brain does not guarantee mind.

[nspeert]

@jockmclaren47 Ok, but that's just property dualism, what I should have said is that you're asserting a software/hardware 'substance' dualism. The fact that something can exhibit different properties at a higher level of explanation is no puzzle (look at any emergent system). (cont.)..

[nspeert]

.(cont.) The fact that a heart can consist of different kinds of materials and hence be subserved by different physical systems doesn't mean that its function exists as some kind of non-material substance. The mind may be contingently related to the brain, nonetheless it is necessarily related to the function of the brain that it is identical with.

[jockmclaren47]

@nspeert I am asserting dual entities, where one if physical and the other is an informational state realised by the physical entity. That does not imply substances. Mind is not a substance, it is an informational state with 2-way interaction with the physical body. Mind is more than just a property of brain as it acts back to control the brain. Wetness of water does not act back on the water itself. Mind is a series of events; no events, no action and no mind. That's death or coma.

[nspeert]

Ok, but if the informational state is realized by the physical brain/body, I don't see how it could possibly be separate from it.

[jockmclaren47]

@nspeert You'll get a prize for determination, just keep questioning, that is your first duty as an intellectual. Mind and body are not separate in the sense that one can exist without the other (I think the structure of the brain implies a mind) but they are ontologically separate or distinct, i.e. entities of a different nature. Mental capacities (machine or biological) cannot exist without a physical basis; ghosts are impossible. I say nothing about religion, though.

[nspeert]

p.s. I plan to apply for grad school in philosophy of mind, so i really appreciate the opportunity to discuss these issues with you, I think its much more productive to talk philosophy with people that one disagrees with.

[jockmclaren47]

@nspeert Very good, but you will find that stating your own position is a very much more difficult exercise than criticising somebody else's. As an exercise, try to specify precisely what you believe to be the correct model of mind. Feel free to put it on my blog and see what other people think. Best wishes for your career.

[nspeert]

@jockmclaren47 I'll agree with you on that, its much harder to defend a positive position than a negative one. As a matter of fact I've had some ideas percolating as to what the function of consciousness is as well as how it might come about. incidentally, I've just started to try and formulate them into something that is approaching coherent. As of yet its been entirely locked up in my mind, so I'd love to get some feedback on it . I'll posit it right now.

[nspeert]

@jockmclaren47 You might not have noticed, but after posting on your blog, I removed my post. I hope you didn't take this as an indication that I was backing down from your offer. In fact, I noticed several typos as well as places where I could have been clearer. So, after a lot of careful editing, I have reposted it. If you get a chance to read it, feel free to let me know what you think.

[nspeert]

@jockmclaren47 I recognize that your position has strong intuitive motivation, but I think that the seeming insurmountability of the mind-matter gap can be accounted for in the sense that from an evolutionarily perspective, the brain simply doesn't need to understand the former in terms of the latter.

[jockmclaren47]

Sorry, virtual machines are most definitely NOT supernatural. My MacBook is proof of that. They are metaphysically of a different nature from a physical machine, such as a concrete mixer, but they are still firmly within the natural universe, not the supernatural (if one exists). True, a molecule of water isn't wet, wetness is an assessment made by a being with mental properties, so mentalism becomes a sine qua non of wetness, you could say.

[hymnofashes]

Also, you say virtual machines are supernatural/metaphysical, but DOSbox is a virtual machine and obviously isn't supernatural.

[hymnofashes]

A molecule of water isn't wet, so does the wetness of water require dualism?