On 13 October 2014 16:05, Bruno Marchal <marc...@ulb.ac.be> wrote: That is the difference between []p and []p & p. The difference is null, > extensionally, from the point of view or the arithmetical truth. But the > difference is huge from both the body and soul points of view. Neither []p > nor []p & p will ever justify or know that []p and []p & p define the same > set of beliefs or knowledge. True, but unjustifiable. >
Graziano writes: "But the argument here is that there is no subjective impression; there is only information in a data-processing device. When we look at a red apple, the brain computes information about color. It also computes information about the self and about a (physically incoherent) property of subjective experience. The brain’s cognitive machinery accesses that interlinked information and derives several conclusions: There is a self, a me; there is a red thing nearby; there is such a thing as subjective experience; and I have an experience of that red thing. Cognition is captive to those internal models. Such a brain would inescapably conclude it has subjective experience." If I understand you correctly, what he is describing above is []p. What is missing from his account is []p & p, presumably because he has concluded that a belief in p is sufficient in the absence of p! Note that he states (correctly) that p is "physically incoherent", which gives a clue to his prior ontological commitments. Of course []p is a necessary component of the account, but it is not sufficient. Indeed the fact that it is necessary is often incompletely grasped (e.g. in Craig's theory) but it's insufficiency can also be elusive, especially for those in the grip of a dogma. If it were indeed sufficient, then neither matter nor arithmetic could entail more than a wilderness of zombies. What bamboozles this kind of reductionism is that p cannot be propositionally justified. It is not another proposition but rather the truth of the propositions that correctly refer to it. Hence its absence would force rejection of the veracity of all claims to its possession. It would force not only the conclusion that the propositionally-correct claims of others are false, but that our own are equally in error. In other words, that both they and we are zombies. This is, in effect, what Graziano is claiming, however absurdly, in the above passage. I don't agree with Stathis that he is really making a claim of epiphenomenalism; he is clear enough that "the argument here is that there is no subjective impression". He really is claiming that there are only zombies despite all propositional claims to the contrary. One might think that, stated as baldly as this, such a conclusion would be as effective a reductio as one could wish. After all, "When one has eliminated the impossible......etc." However, when one has a prior commitment to third-person absolutism (to cite Professor Dennett's personal epithet) it may only be acceptable to believe that "whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth". Such a position might seem to be unsustainable in practice without resorting to what one might call metaphysical and conceptual grand larceny. In other words, it's pretty much impossible for discussion of such a schema to proceed without constant reference to first-personal phenomena and concepts (beginning with "we" and "our") that can have no ultimate validity in its own terms. I've been re-reading Patricia Churchland recently in a sincere attempt to understand this kind of position in a more nuanced way, and her view is that, in terms of some ultimate neuroscience, all such first-person concepts will be completely eliminable. That is, she believes that a future neuroscience will be capable of fully characterising a mechanism that "computes" the existence of first-person phenomena when "in reality" they are entirely fictitious. The theory of such a mechanism, in her view, will simply eliminate our current "folk theory" of the first-person much as the modern theory of combustion has replaced that of phlogiston. This seems pretty close to what Graziano is saying in this piece. It's at least a mercy that Churchland thinks that such a goal lies beyond any current conceptual horizon and hence a long way in the future, so we may get to linger here a little longer before the grin disappears with the rest of the cat. Frankly, I conclude that there's no arguing with some people. David -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
