On 5/27/2012 4:07 PM, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote:
On 27.05.2012 07:50 Stephen P. King said the following:
On 5/26/2012 11:57 AM, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote:
...
Velmans contrast his model with reductionism (physicalism) and
dualism and interestingly enough he finds many common features
between reductionism and dualism. For example, the image in the
mirror will be in the brain according to both reductionism and
dualism. This part could be interesting for Stephen.
Hi Evgenii,
I would be very interested if Velmans discussed how the model would
consider multiple observers of the image in the mirror and how the
images that are in the brains of the many are coordinated such that
there is always a single consistent world of mirrors and brains and
so forth.
A good extension. Velmans does not consider such a case but he says
that the perceptions are located exactly where one perceives them. In
this case, it seems that it should not pose an additional difficulty.
Hi Evgenii,
This does seem to imply an interesting situation where the
mind/consciousness of the observer is in a sense no longer confined to
being 'inside the skull" but ranging out to the farthest place where
something is percieved. It seems to me that imply a mapping between a
large hyper-volume (the out there) and the small volume of the brain
that cannot be in a one-to-one form. The reflexive idea looks a lot like
a Pullback in category theory and one can speculate if the dual, the
Pushout, is also involved. See
http://www.euclideanspace.com/maths/discrete/category/universal/index.htm for
more.
First I thought that perceptual projection could be interpreted
similar to Craig's senses but it is not the case. Velmans'
reflexive monism is based on a statement that first- and
third-person views cannot be combined (this is what Bruno says).
From a third-person view, one observes neural correlates of
consciousness but not the first-person view. Now I understand such
a position much better.
Is this third-person view (3p) one that is not ever the actual
first-person (1p) of some actual observer? I can only directly
experience my own content of consciousness, so the content of someone
else is always only known via some description. How is this idea
considered, if at all?
Yes, the third-person view belongs to another observer and Velmans
plays this fact out. He means that at his picture when a person looks
at the cat, the third-person view means another person who looks at
that cat and simultaneously look at the first person. This way, two
person can change their first-person view to third-person view.
However, it is still impossible to directly observe the first-person
view of another observer. Everything that is possible in this respect
are neural correlates of consciousness.
Does this ultimately imply that the 3-p (third person point of
view) is merely an abstraction and never actually occurring? WE make a
big deal about neural correlates but we still have no good
theory/explanation of how neural functions generate the internal model
that is one side of the relationship. The best research that I have seen
on this so far is the work of the mathematician Marius Buliga and
discussed in his blog here http://chorasimilarity.wordpress.com/
Anyway the the last chapter in the book is "Self-consciousness in a
reflexive universe".
I am interested in "communications between self-conscious entities in
a reflexive universe". ;-) Does Velmans discuss any abstract models
of reflexivity itself?
Not really. As usual, the positive construction of own philosophy is
weaker as the critique of other philosophies.
Yes, that is true. An already existing target makes for a sharper
attack.
--
Onward!
Stephen
"Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed."
~ Francis Bacon
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
"Everything List" group.
To post to this group, send email to [email protected].
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to
[email protected].
For more options, visit this group at
http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
