If you had no intentionality or "aboutness", there would be nothing to produce the effects, or being more accurate, there would be too many factors coming in to distinguish anything from anything else. — Manuel
I'm speaking of the mental, what you are seeing right now, as you read these letters and whatever examples come to mind as you think of a reply. You are saying that this is caused by neurons — Manuel
there's much more to speech than what can be accounted for by looking at Broca's area — Manuel
There is much more complexity in manifest reality than what can be said by appealing to causes in the brain... There seems to be a massive gap in our knowledge when we go from the brain to our picture of the world... Also "knowing a tree", "speaking of trees", "classifying trees" aren't explained by anything in current brain science. — Manuel
Agreed, but there's perfectly adequate models of intention in neuroscience. — Isaac
No (although it is). Right now I'm asking you to explain why you think it isn't. You seem to have offered nothing but your incredulity at moment. I mean, it seems completely implausible to me that electron go through both slits at once (or whatever it is they do, I'm no physicist), but I don't refute the physicist with that argument. — Isaac
This just seems like a bare assertion. Can I ask what your expertise or understanding is in neuroscience against which you're measuring the complexity of manifest reality to reach such a conclusion? — Isaac
My ontology is pluralist, I suppose (but also a cop-out of sorts). There is a vast variety of individual things and substances. I think metaphysical pluralism can account for differences in time and space as well as differences in kind, which monism and other taxonomical accounts rarely offer. This also entails nominalism and individualism. — NOS4A2
Damn man, that's actually a very nice quote, not gonna lie. — Manuel
I prefer the not so easy question: what is necessarily not there? — 180 Proof
What do you mean by individualism in this account?
One ought beware that one's ontology is not a boojum. A system, a taxonomy of being, a pluralism of individuals; in each case, what will never be met with again? When one treats ontology as a list, some stuff is necessarily not there.'But oh, beamish nephew, beware of the day,
If your Snark be a Boojum! For then
You will softly and suddenly vanish away,
And never be met with again!'
One makes bread by sifting flour and mixing it with yeast and heating the result. A cook who doubts the existence of flour and yeast will get nowhere.
But ontology encourages just such doubt. Hence, ontology is antithetical to cooking. — Banno
See how the evil vampire who is actually a nerd living in his mother's basement reins in ontology to the needs of his individualistic worldview. — Banno
A cook who doubts the existence of flour and yeast will get nowhere. — Banno
See how the evil vampire who is actually a nerd living in his mother's basement reins in ontology to the needs of his individualistic worldview.
We have to stipulate what the brain is, what parts of the body are directly relevant to the brain and so on. — Manuel
It is crucial to remember that we also have another structure that resembles the brain, but is not conscious:the gut brain — Manuel
If you think that seeing a tree and all that goes into such an act, such as belief, perception, categorization, psychic continuity and so forth is explained by saying, it's because of actions in the brain, you've said almost nothing. — Manuel
how a brain state produces a qualitative state, such as seeing the sky or a tree. — Manuel
If you think that by studying the brain, we will understand not only seeing trees, which includes all of what I mentioned (categorization, psychic continuity, etc.) then I think you're mistaking different aspects of reality. — Manuel
I think it is an evident mistake to think that you need to do neuroscience to do philosophy of mind at all. If what you say is true, then Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Locke, Hume, Kant, Russell, Strawson, etc. haven't done anything. — Manuel
That manifest reality is explained by processes in the brain is another assertion — Manuel
I'll focus on manifest reality. There need be no clash, I don't think. — Manuel
If you think that by studying the brain, we will understand not only seeing trees, which includes all of what I mentioned — Manuel
What on earth would give you the impression that I think studying the brain can yield an understanding of all that? What, in fact, makes you think that any sane person would think that? — Isaac
What happens when you look at an fMRI scan then? When your 'manifest reality' includes neural scans, psychological experimental data, EEG and microprobe readouts, saccade diagrams, the actions of lesion patients... What then? You talk as if cognitive scientists are non-human, that the stuff we look at is somehow apart from this 'manifest reality' and we have to, what, invent our own language so as to not pollute yours with what we've seen? — Isaac
Personally, I don’t find that anything “breaks” when you say that mental states are physical states. Example: “She slapped him because she was angry”, “She slapped him because <insert causal chain leading to slap here>”. Same thing. — khaled
So I prefer Isaac’s view. It doesn’t have to deal with the problems of dualism. Such as: if “seeing a tree” is an experience independent from the physical state, how does it influence it and seem influenced by it? Same with “anger”. How did the emotion move the arm (I would simply say that the emotion is precisely the neural event that moved the arm)? I also prefer minimalist ontologies so that probably plays a role. — khaled
You'd eventually describe everything we do in neurophysiological language. — Manuel
When we speak of mind, we are simply stressing the mental aspects of physical reality. — Manuel
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