@11 on Wednesday, 17 May, 2000
in �The Mind-body problem�, edited by Richard Warner and Tadeusz Szubka
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perspective of assembly worker vs computer designer
is there any difference between them?
knowledge of underlying laws? predictive, understanding what the effect of altering physical conditions would be? alternative possibilities. levels
difference between knowing of a correlation and what gives rise to it
why is water H20?
cf identity relationship for consciousness
is understanding/intelligibility just a mass of brute correlations or something stronger
mcginn is looking for something higher than the computer designer � which is maybe something we never have in the natural kind, we can never supercede increasingly fine-grained
natural kind model � 2 completely different ways of arriving
meaning/understanding = knowing the conditions under which a sentence/problem is true, and untrue
vs a model which abstracts from the mass of brute correlations
homogeneity principle
can�t introduce psychological concepts to explain physical phenomena, and vice versa (though it�s generalisable)
concepts of unobservable to explain the observable � but they have to be within the same domain
how we can introduce concepts vs which we�re allowed to use
are all our concepts analogistic?
�which property subserves consciousness� is not a well-formed question
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what does it mean to talk about the plasticity and extent of our concept-forming abilities?
restrictions operating on our mentality:
breadth/number and depth of calculations = size of search tree
size of our memory
amount of associations we can form with every object �/span> power of analogies we can draw
pointless q: what might it be like for something to be
cognitively closed to us?
could we feed someone a live pet scan of their own brain for
their entire lifetime, and see if the brain's pattern association system is up
to the task of correlating phenomenology with activity? - no, it's too complex,
too many variables, too much info to process at once, not enough displayable
resolution
isn�t he taking it as given that consciousness is noumenal with respect to perception of the brain to prove that it is[G1]?
if we had the theory TH linking brain BH by property PH to consciousness, than consciousness would no longer be noumenal to perception of the brain
what is nuomenal?
why is unrestricted perceptual openness a dogma of empiricism?
difference between epiphenomenalism and supervenience?
2
������� Philos. & Psychol. A concomitant or by-product of something;
spec. consciousness or mental
phenomena regarded as by-products of the physical activity of the brain and
nervous system that do not influence behaviour. l19.
so a conscious computer, which does not rely on introspection or perception, would have no trouble with its own (or perhaps even our) mind-body problem (and would see it purely in a priori terms)?
are his assumptions as big as they seem?:
that we cannot even imagine a perception of the brain which would explain consciousness
that consequently, there is cognitive closure
no, that�s all wrong L((
spectrum inversion?