Oh. Monads. Well I'm glad we didn't leave the explanation in terms of something poorly
understood like 'agency'.
Brent
On 8/14/2012 10:34 AM, Roger wrote:
Hi meekerdb
Excellent point. My only answer is that the self or agent has to be a monad.
because only monads can perceive (although indirectly).
Roger , [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>
8/14/2012
----- Receiving the following content -----
*From:* meekerdb <mailto:[email protected]>
*Receiver:* everything-list <mailto:[email protected]>
*Time:* 2012-08-11, 18:22:55
*Subject:* Re: Where's the agent ? Who or what does stuff and is aware of
stuff ?
On 8/11/2012 6:00 AM, Roger wrote:
Hi meekerdb
No, the agent is not part of the material world, it is nonmaterial.
It has no extension and so is outside of spacetime.
Mind itself is such (as Descartes observed).
Maybe. But wherever 'the agent' is, it is a non-explanation of agency. If
you're
going to explain something you have to explain it in terms of something
else that is
better understood. So to 'explain' mind as being an immaterial agent is
vacuous.
Brent
Roger , [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>
8/11/2012
----- Receiving the following content -----
*From:* meekerdb <mailto:[email protected]>
*Receiver:* everything-list <mailto:[email protected]>
*Time:* 2012-08-10, 15:16:55
*Subject:* Re: Where's the agent ? Who or what does stuff and is aware
of stuff ?
On 8/10/2012 5:53 AM, Roger wrote:
Hi Russell Standish
But Dennet has no agent to react to all of those signals.
To perceive. To judge. To cause action.
If he had an agent he would have failed to explain anything - he would
have
just pushed the problem off into the "agent".
To do those, an agent has to be unified and singular -- a point of
focus--
and there's no propect for such in current neuroscience/neurophilosophy.
But that's Dennett's point. Humans aren't that way. They may do
something
because of X and yet think they did it because of Y. This is blatant
in split
brain experiments where the subjects brain on one side makes a
reasonable
decision based on the information available to it; while the other
side, which
doesn't have that information, confabulates a completely different
story about
the decision. This is most obvious in split brain patients, but it
happens to
the rest of us too. There is only one action because a physical body
can't do
two different things at the same time; but that doesn't mean the person
is not
of two minds.
Brent
Hence I follow Leibniz, even though he's difficult and some say
contradictory. That agent or soul or self you have is your
monad, the only (alhough indirectly) perceiving/acting/feeling
agent in all of us, but currently missing in neuroscience and
neurophilosophy.
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