On 2 July 2014 05:44, meekerdb <[email protected]> wrote: > On 7/1/2014 1:09 AM, LizR wrote: > > On 1 July 2014 17:38, meekerdb <[email protected]> wrote: > >> On 6/30/2014 9:03 PM, LizR wrote: >> >> Well, that's quite straightforward. Brent is assuming the (so called) >> Aristotelean paradigm, and hence that his mother *is* her brain. >> >> I'm assuming (on some evidence) that she, her stream of consciousness, >> is what her brain does. For example, she remembers her childhood very >> clearly, better than the recent past (like whether or not she's told you >> about her childhood in the last two days). I don't see how this jibes with >> Kim's idea of "poor reception". >> > > It *doesn't* jibe with it, that was his point. > > As far as I can see, Kim is suggesting that "poor reception" - the > workings of memory, perception and so on - cause a consciousness which is > basically unchanged to appear different to the outside world. As he (?) > says, one doesn't feel that one's mind changes as one gets older, > > I don't think that's true. I think differently than I did as a child. > As a child one experiences many more things as new, fresh, surprising. >
OK, so you disagree with Kim (or my reading of Kim) on that. You're on different sides in the "what is consciousness vs what are the contents of consciousness?" debate. Or indeed the materialist vs comp debate, which come to the same conclusion (physicalism = we are "nothing but" our memories, predispositions etc - consciousness is not anything fundamental, it is just a "user illusion," to quote Dan Dennett, a sort of glorified desktop created by the brain, with no user except itself. Comp = consciousness exists and is (more or less) fundamental.) > one feels that external things have changed - e.g. my memory may fail > me more, but (on this view) that is an external thing, a piece of wetware, > going wrong, rather than something about me that has changed. > > But I see this as denial of the simple fact that there is no sense to > saying one is the same person without one's memories. My father died of > Alzheimer's and he was definitely not the same person, in the sense of > personality, when he had lost his memory. Of course he was the same person > in the physical and legal sense of continuity. I think it's mere wishful > thinking to suppose there is a "you" a "soul" that is independent of all > your memories (including the unconscious ones). > This may well be true, but it isn't a simple fact. Or rather if it is, we can't know that it is, at least assuming the scientific method is correct. Bruno can probably fill in the details of whether comp posits a "you" separate from your memories etc better than I can. I suspect that it does, but I may be wrong. Needless to say I can see that either of these views may be correct - there is evidence for both, imho - or perhaps the answer is something completely different. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
