Now you have lost me completely. What is the substrate of a substance?It is simply that that substrate of substance is that substrate and not another. — schopenhauer1
I find that a rather surprising claim. Don't babies experience things from the moment they are born, if not before?No, at birth one is just that which has the potential to experience, the arrival has no memories which constitute identity. — boagie
Now you have lost me completely. What is the substrate of a substance? — Ludwig V
But a symbol is always a symbol of something and a representation is always a representation of something. But in the case of mental states, we have no access to the "something" in either case — Ludwig V
But equally, it's obvious that organisms can learn to differentiate signals by the "sensori-motor loop". — Ludwig V
But what's that like? — Ludwig V
What do you mean by "syllopsistic"? — Ludwig V
Maybe we can say that it works on the reward principle, not on some reality principle. (But reward has to be interpreted generously - I mean that avoidance of pain is a reward, as well as the gaining of pleasure - in a generous sense of pleasure.nor does the brain ever have access to that to know if it is right or not and it cannot know in principle — Apustimelogist
One would need to construct a criterion of efficiency that was "internal" to the way that coding works - i.e. with as little wasted effort as possible. No doubt it would have to link to the reward cycle.I guess I just mean talking about things like efficient coding without needing to explicitly refer to objects outside the head — Apustimelogist
That's what many people seem to do. But (and perhaps I should have mentioned this before) that seems to me to be a reason for saying that the question is malformed; it suggests something to us which turns out to be impossible. In other words, it is mystery-mongering - an illusion.I just fall on the position that that kind of thing is just outside the realm of explanation, description, anything — Apustimelogist
OK. Forget the business about DNA. There are many people in my life who I meet only sporadically. I don't know what happens to them when I'm not there; I may or may not have sporadic second-hand information about what has happened to them. When I meet them, how do I know they are the same person? (You can stipulate, if you like, that I assume that there is, in fact, a continuous causal history covering the time when I was not there. I will stipulate that I don't know what that history is.) — Ludwig V
Wouldn't that be a metaphysical or ontological identity? It's no help when I bump into a long-lost friend. My point is that how I know is also an important question. I have a feeling that I usually assume that there is a causal thread, but very rarely know what it is. Perhaps it's not really relevant to my life.Surely if there has been a causal history, then there has been a causal history and that fact is not dependent on your knowing it, knowing its details, or on you assuming it . — Janus
You are assuming that the individual who grows from the DNA will be the same individual no matter what happens. But, in the first place, it doesn't follow that any individual will grow from that specific DNA, and it certainly doesn't follow that any particular individual will grow from that DNA. If my mother had suffered a deficiency of folic acid while that DNA was growing inside her, the resulting baby would have been born with spina bifida. I cannot imagine that. Therefore that person would not have been me. My family were middle class. If they had been working class, their children would have developed differently. Would they have been the same people? No clear answer.In causo-historical terms, there was this set of gametes that are the terminus when looking back at how far back one may go before any actualized version of you would have changed if prior circumstances had changed. — schopenhauer1
You are assuming that the individual who grows from the DNA will be the same individual no matter what happens. But, in the first place, it doesn't follow that any individual will grow from that specific DNA, and it certainly doesn't follow that any particular individual will grow from that DNA. If my mother had suffered a deficiency of folic acid while that DNA was growing inside her, the resulting baby would have been born with spina bifida. I cannot imagine that. Therefore that person would not have been me. My family were middle class. If they had been working class, their children would have developed differently. Would they have been the same people? No clear answer. — Ludwig V
I think the interesting feature of my argument is that all that has to matter is the case that you actually have a causal-history (which we all do), and that actualized causal-history represents your life currently. — schopenhauer1
I agree that does matter. But it does not mean that my life began my DNA was formed. I've tried endlessly to make a discussion with you, but you endlessly repeat the same doctrine, as you did in the message you sent to me on the Ryle thread. So I don't know what to say to you. But I do know that this non-discussion is getting boring. I don't have anything more to say about this, so we'll have to agree to disagree.
Very few philosophical discussions achieve agreement, so that shouldn't be surprising. But it is disappointing. Thank you for your time and attention. — Ludwig V
But it does not mean that my life began my DNA was formed. — Ludwig V
I'm making sure to clarify what the position is. — schopenhauer1
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