William writes: "While it is true that the science deals with material and events that are measurable, it is also true that your alternative essence of consciousness, presumably not material and therefore not measurable, cannot be demonmstrated at all, in any way whatsoever, except by means of subjective declaration."
I'm not sure what your notion of "demonstrated" is, but most of us would say conscious feelings can indeed be demonstrated. "Here -- taste this," says the chef. "Good, no?" "Smell this. Listen to this. Doesn't this back rub feel great?" One kid punches another in the upper arm, and says, "There -- you're always doing that to kids. How do YOU like the feeling?" If your notion of "demonstrable" is "capable of being shown to exist", of being "pointed at", I think most of us would agree that if I pinch your nose, and you pinch my nose back, you will have done a good job of "demonstrating", of "pointing at" the feeling I had just inflicted even though the result of the first pinch was your feeling, not mine. As for the "measurability" of material things, realize that only certain aspects of material things have fixed dimension and thus can be measured. The human consciousness occasioned by people's encounters with a material thing don't have fixed dimension. You may be able to measure the temperature, but what may be intolerably hot or cold to me may not be so to you. All that can be measured about a sonata is its notes. The old "scientific" notion that what cannot be seen or touched should be disregarded as non-existent is silliness. All that measurability proves is measurability. (And, in truth, all that we can ever measure is notion, not the material itself. The activity of measuring results in sense data. All measurements are OF sense data.) There is very little "sacred" at all about measurability. Let's see you measure your reaction to a Mozart concerto. Aw, shoot, William, please be a little slower to impute emotions to me, especially when the imputation is denigrating and it so exposes my pusillanimous true feelings. You write: "It should not be so scary to realize. . ." Damn. I didn't realize my fright was visible from so far away. And then: "To worry about Shakespeare's creative thoughts. . ." There again, I thought my pretending to celebrate Shakespeare would veil my real concern, but you saw right through me to my worry. You write: "It should not be so scary to realize that the brain is what gives rise to all that we think, feel, imagine, and that shared symbols enable us to communicate these conditions to others. Thought, after all, may not be so stupendous as we might wish." Here's a question for you, Michael, and probably some other listers. Fancy philosophers talk of "modalities of existence". Material things, they'd say, are one "kind" of entity. Notional or "conscious" things are another kind of entity. Some philosophers (e.g. Plato) will assert there's another modality of thing that's independent of both material and mental things -- "qualities", "categories", and even other "abstractions". And there are those who believe in entities of another modality still different from those first three: angels, God, grace, karma, the soul, and more. I'll keep my question narrow: Do you feel any inclination to agree conscious stuff is different from material stuff? I don't ask that merely rhetorically. I was, in a weak moment in college, pre-med. I have great respect for what scientists, biologists, neurologists do, and what their "subjects" are. And I am in general fairly "hard-headed". Still, I cannot escape the sense that a thought or feeling is something different from the material neurons that, let's accept for a moment, "give rise" to this "consciousness". If you agree with me on that, I hope you're also like me in observing from your reading about neurology that absolutely nothing you've read even BEGINS to explain that "giving rise to". Nor, for me at any rate, does any of what I read begin to say anything of utility or enlightenment about matters "aesthetic". I was born and brought up a Catholic. Eventually I became a heathen -- not because I wanted to, not because I knew I was a "sinner" and I was anxious to reject the "truth" of my status, not for any reason other than that I no longer could believe the assertions of my former faith. The articles of faith implied all sorts of absurdities and, to my mind, inconsistencies that simply could no longer win my belief. Similarly with neurology. People with the conviction that neurology does or will "explain" aesthetics or "consciousness" seen to me "of the faith". This is no great condemnation of neurology -- it has all sorts of other justifications. And certainly philosophy of mind, which has been with us for over two millennia, hasn't been able to "explain" any of these things either. If someone could give me persuasive reasons to believe neurology will do it, I would believe. I have found that belief -- contrary to many famous theist spokesmen (including Pascal in his silly "wager" -- is not a matter of an act of will. I have found that many things I didn't "want" to believe were irresistible credible. There is much more to say, including stuff about how come then "craft" is worth learning, but I'll stop here. ************** One site keeps you connected to all your email: AOL Mail, Gmail, and Yahoo Mail. Try it now. (http://www.aol.com/?optin=new-dp& icid=aolcom40vanity&ncid=emlcntaolcom00000025)
