On Nov 4, 2012, at 11:21 AM, William Conger wrote: > I don't think it's easy to dismiss people like Ramachandran, especially by > reading Amazon-style reviews on line.
I agree with you on this, and I confess again I haven't read enough by and about Ramachandran to qualify as much of an expert, but I erred if I conveyed that all I've read is a bunch of reviews. > He and other cutting-edge neurologists > are careful about claiming too much in a field that's still in its infancy > with > respect to being based on new imaging technology. That's in part why I claim the jury is still out on Ramachandran. Perhaps the more important part is my inability (off what I've read) to see how R. would "resolve" the sorts of questions Kate brings up. There is a vexing vagueness to all his "it may" and "it might" and theorizing and hypothesizing. When Kate first used 'information' to label parts of what a painting "has" as opposed to the alleged "meaning" found in words, my first (dismissive) reaction was to say she was simply substituting one label for another with no difference in the basic notion. I figured paintings no more "contain information" than words "have meaning". But as I typed away at my would-be refutation, I gradually came to realize Kate was on to something that had escaped me. Goya's "8th of May" is "informative" in a way words never are. (By "informative" I don't mean all depicted elements in the Goya are "factual".) This led my mind to think of listened-to music. Then I could imagine a musicologist discussing in plain English a musical passage and its orchestration in such a way that a learned conductor could "hear" it in his mind's ear. I remember reading Lucas Foss marveling at Beethoven's orchestration in the Ninth, with Foss saying something like "Anyone can imagine a cornet going from C-major to A-minor..." I said to myself that Foss was wrong: I for one can't imagine that cornet. This in turn led to the confounding thought that perhaps even words can in some way be said to be "informative" without having "meaning". Maybe. Granted, the word 'rifle' will occasion in English-speakers' minds a variety of similar images -- but only because those minds have memories associated with the sound of (spoken or written) 'rifle'. But a shepherd in the Andes who "knows no English" will conjure no such image. But both New Yorker and the Andean will conjure the "picture" if they're shown a painting of a rifle even if neither has ever seen a "real" rifle. Some thinking of this kind lies behind Kate's (under-articulated) notion that elements in a painting are basically different communication devices from words. > Ramachandran didn't > invent > the mirror neuron (not 'neutron' as you say). (You got me there. I hate being sloppy like that. It always causes me a pang, no doubt much like the pang you feel when someone points out how you spelled Ramachandran's name the first time you wrote it on this forum: "It's resolved by mirror neurons. see Ramchandran and others.") > > He notes that it is > indicated by > brain imaging I'd have to read a lot more to get any sense of what R. has in mind when he says "indicated". It reminds me of physicalists who point at a quivering neuron and say, "That activity in the neuron indicates that the neuron IS your pain." Not to me and Chalmers and countless other dualists: We feel our pain is a notional entity, not physical. > > As for that 'splash of yellow' you already give > away the fact that you liken it > to something else (splash) when in fact the > splashiness is a metaphorical > interpretation. What it gives away is the paucity in my vocabulary. At first I considered saying "patch" of yellow. But I judged "patch" has too many associations with things other than just an instance of pure yellow. So I stumbled on "splash", and settled. > I don't see how a past culture > lacking an equivalent of an > English word (like blue) can be said to not 'see' > blue and think of it in some > terms when the culture in question is packed > with 'blue' color images. I didn't say Kate claimed the Greeks couldn't "see" blue -- only that they didn't have a word for it. I'm reminded of the tribesmen whom I read about. The writer said their primitive language contained only "one", "two", "three" and "many". I'll bet they still "recognized" four. > > There can't be meaning situated inherently in > anything since meaning is a human > construct (maybe all animals and other life > forms have ways to construct > 'meaning' for themselves). We project meaning > because we have the capability > to do so in our brains. That capability is > provided by mirror neurons. I "hear" that last line but I'm not ashamed to say I don't begin to understand it. My lack of shame is supported by a dark suspicion no clear-minded person would accept a neurologist's speech on the subject to be an "explanation". Just as no neurologists pointing at the pulsating neuron has ever been persuasive when he says that IS your pain. > > I lament your old-fashioned anti-science > approach. I think it's very anti-scientific of you, William, to say I am anti-scientific. I'm happy about and embrace the products of science all day. I can be anti a given scientist. The rest of this is too unclear in my mind when I read it, so forgive me if I don't comment on it. > I also wonder why you think > resemblance must be limited to the > relation between a thing and what is > occasioned in the interpreting brain. > No resemblance is needed to trigger some > flood of mental images or word > associations. Anything can be the occasion of > any thought of any resemblance > whatsoever. Cultural habits and mental agility > -- to say nothing of taboos > and self-preservation and subconscious inhibitions, > limit what associations > might make it into consciousness. Mirror neurons may be > another form of > limitation, aiding what we call sane thinking. > > wc
