Noam Chomsky on the Hard Problem of Consciousness

I don't really agree, but it's an interesting view as it is

Category:

Education

Tags:

• noam chomsky
• philosophy of mind
• mind
• mysterian
• new mysterianism
• brain
• control
• consciousness
• hard problem
• naturalism
• physicalism

[BlackSabotage100]

Who would be a greater grandfather Noam Chomsky or John Searle?

[niriop]

@BlackSabotage100 Chomsky obviously; Searle is and appears to be a closet authoritarian (despite being a social constructionist).

As to philosophy of mind, despite being a Dennettian physicalist myself, having a grandfather who promotes NM is better than the vague "materialism without materialism" that is biological naturalism.

[workingTchr]

I couldn't find anything on the "hard problem of motion." What does Chomsky mean we cannot comprehend motion? In a pre-Einstein world especially, motion seems pretty easy to understand. Chomsky lost me here.

[niriop]

@workingTchr He means we do not understand why motion occurs at all, so we abandoned trying to solve the problem, as he thinks we should abandon trying to explain the generation of consciousness, and just try to describe it and its functions/architecture. This is termed "New Mysterianism".

[rabbifilms]

@niriop Do you have the entire video of which this clip came from? And where is it from I might add? Thank you...

[niriop]

@rabbifilms This is the fullest version I can find: watch?v=QSQwBEL4mfQ

[torymorton]

finally a man w/ a brain that says what needs to be said, we dont know SHIT !

[jotatsu]

The problem of thinking that descriptions of the world stack like cards in a deck is the same that happens when kids ask 'why?' until the adult get tired. One can always suppose there is a card that supports the next one, but that isnt necessary true.

Maybe there are brute facts, not in the virtue that we are stupid apes, but in virtue of things that simply are. However unlike Chalmers i dont think the thing that happen above your neck are by any extent any of the above.

[fungusmundi]

@BlackSabotage100 Intellectually and emotionally Chomsky would better their chances of life, but John (Wayne) Searle if you want you sons to grow up to be cowboys. I.e., definitely Searle the way this 'hard problem' of total spectrum ass-kicking is coming into Uncle Sam's line of sight.

[version191]

@workingTchr He is a linguist and philosopher, him desiring non-explicable things is like a plumber who desires clogged toilets. What he meant was that we cannot explain why these things occur in any fundamental sense, we just take it as given that they do and create systems to predict the behavior based on visible patterns. The best hope we have for consciousness seems to be "Look at these brain waves, uh.. thats what causes consciousness"

[workingTchr]

@ThisOneIsTaken For some intellectual reason, Chomsky WANTS there to be irreducible mysteries. Maybe consciousness .. or motion .. or causality .. are such mysteries, but the fact that one of the above may be does not imply that one of the others is as well. And also, who's to say that what's a mystery now might not be explained later. Personally, I think when consciousness is explained, the whole human game is going to change. Do we celebrate or blow everything up?

[ThisOneIsTaken]

@workingTchr

i'm not sure, but I think he's referring to the axiomatic nature of certain things we intuitively know to be correct: for example, it is impossible to prove causality. You can only prove an effect follows another.

[zarkoff45]

@workingTchr "I couldn't find anything on the "hard problem of motion.""

Google: "RENE DESCARTES, ON MOTION"

It wasn't really called "the hard problem of motion." Chomsky has taken some license in that description. It's not quite a fair comparison.

[Vincentaneous]

"Humans can't understand it." =/= "It is a mystery beyond the material world." .... "Humans can't understand it." = "We are too stupid to understand it because our brains have limited capabilities."