Somehow I had missed Nick's long discussion of morality and behaviorism when I wrote the message below. It still seems to me that there are a few issues.
Nick said that I think people would be better off if they believed in an inner life. That's not my position. My position is that the existence of an inner life seems to me to the only viable foundation for ethics, which I take to be the study of morality. Is it important to have a study of morality? That's another question. I agree with Nick that nature has designed us to behave reasonably--for the most part. But I also believe that the most significant aspect of that design is the existence of an inner life, which combined with mirror neurons, allow us to have empathy and compassion. I wonder Nick, how you think the design works. Nick also spoke of behaviorism as denying the existence of an inner life. Nick, you are the psychologist, and I'm not. But I thought that behaviorism was simply the denial of the ability of a third person to be sure about another person's inner life. Not a denial of its existence.. For me the fundamental question comes back to my experiencing the world. I'm not arguing Descartes' position that I think therefore I am. The problem with that is that it takes a brute fact (my experiencing the world) and turns it into a concept (I think) and then uses that concept to derive another concept (I am). But I am asserting that (the brute fact of) my first person experiencing of the world is so basic that I see no reason to deny it. My claiming to have an inner life is not the same thing as having that inner life. But that's true about anything we say: it only refers; it isn't the thing itself. Now one could reply that it may have seemed similarly obvious that the sun circled the earth and that we now understand that there is a better way to perceive how things are. If there were a similar substitute for my experiencing the world, if there were third person descriptions that did as good a job as my first person description of expressing what it's like to be alive, I'd consider adopting them. But simply to say that one should agree that pain and pleasure are conceptual constructs and that one would be better off not to believe in them does nothing for me. Yet that seems to be your advice. Besides believing something is a first person experience.So simply talking about believing presupposes that there are first person experiences. Even though we've been around that bush already I still don't know what Nick's response to it is. I didn't understand the business of if we're both right we're both right--or wrong or however it went. -- Russ On Fri, Jun 19, 2009 at 12:01 PM, Russ Abbott <[email protected]> wrote: > But recently there's been a Russell3. > > No, I don't disagree with what you said. But what do you say to the ethical > issue? > > Religious fundamentalists argue that if it weren't for a belief in God and > his commandments we would all behave in what we would all agree is > unacceptable ways. Therefore we must preserve God and his commandments; and > more fundamentally that morality derives from God. > > My position is that morality derives from subjective experience. "Don't do > to others what you would not have them do to you" is based primarily on a > desire not to suffer (subjectively) and not on a rule that we follow that > favors survival. It's a weaker stand than that of the religious > fundamentalists because I have to rely in each person individually and take > the position that if we were all sufficiently self-aware, we would all be > moral beings--or really that the behavior we would engage in from this state > of complete self-awareness would be the sort of thing that we would all > consider moral. So my ethical theory is that morality derives from an > awareness of subjective experience. > > What sort of ethical theory can you construct without the notion of > subjective experience? (Or don't you think it's worthwhile to construct an > ethical theory?) I realize that there are Kantian and Utilitarian ethical > theories. But they don't really seem to work. They are too mechanical. But > what alternative to you have if you give up self-awareness of subjective > experience? > > Simply being aware that a certain action will cause you harm (for example) > doesn't lead to the imperative not to perform that action on another. After > all, what's so bad about harm? As the saying goes, *is *doesn't imply * > ought*. The *ought *it seems to me comes either from external commands > (which I don't think is a good way to proceed) or from subjective > experience. Compassion, empathy, etc., (and not just noticing parallels > between things) all derive from subjective experience, typically of > suffering. And suffering is more than just noticing a mal-function. > > -- Russ > > > > -- Russ Abbott > _____________________________________________ > Professor, Computer Science > California State University, Los Angeles > Cell phone: 310-621-3805 > o Check out my blog at http://bluecatblog.wordpress.com/ > > > On Fri, Jun 19, 2009 at 11:37 AM, Nicholas Thompson < > [email protected]> wrote: > >> Dear Russell 1 >> >> Russell 2 has always been with us. In fact, he is in Australia, where you >> are about to go! >> >> The People are going to be Really Angry with us: I can't find anything >> to disagree with about what you said. So I, too, have been worrying about >> the homunculus.... or the mindunculus. >> >> If we have been agreeing all along, they will KILL us. We better find >> something to disagree about quick. >> >> Surely you disagree with this: *I see the world; part of what falls >> within my field of view is my own body and its actions. From what I see, I >> construct (in childhood, with the help of my hypocritical parents) the >> distinction between an inner and an outer world, a world in which I can "be" >> good, while "doing" ill. This subdivision is enormously convenient to my >> body's survival in a society, so it endures, and may even have evolved. . >> * >> ** >> *Nick * >> >> Nicholas S. Thompson >> Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, >> Clark University ([email protected]) >> http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/<http://home.earthlink.net/%7Enickthompson/naturaldesigns/> >> >> >> >> >> >> ----- Original Message ----- >> *From:* Russ Abbott <[email protected]> >> *To: *The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group<[email protected]> >> *Sent:* 6/19/2009 12:08:48 PM >> *Subject:* [FRIAM] Fwd: (Subjective) experience >> >> I'll admit that I'm now getting lost in all the words. (It's also >> distressing that yet another Russell has shown up.) >> >> Here's a bit of an exchange Nick and I had privately. He suggested (and I >> fully agree) that we should continue it on the list. Nick asked me to >> respond to his earlier comment about Unicorns. So I said, >> >> Regarding unicorns, you raise an interesting issue. You said, *I >> understand what you mean when you talk of unicorns; that doesn't make me >> a sneaky believer in unicorns, does it?* >> >> I'm not so sure that works with first person statements (subjective >> experience, qualia). How could anyone know what qualia are without >> experiencing them? It's like saying I know what you mean by the taste of >> chocolate even though I've never tasted it and don't even believe that there >> is taste such as what you call chocolate. In that case, how could you >> possibly claim to understand what I mean by the taste of chocolate. >> >> You've probably heard the famous thought experiment of Mary the >> color-blind scientist.She knew all there is to know about color; she could >> predict what anyone would say about color by examining the patterns of >> photons that entered their eyes (and perhaps the firings in their brains as >> those photon hits were processed). But she herself saw the world in black >> and white. Then miraculously, she gained color vision. She has (let's >> assume) no new knowledge as a result of her new color vision -- since she >> knew all there was to know about color and color vision already. All she has >> are new experiences of color -- subjective experiences of color. Has >> anything changed for her? My answer is "yes." Is yours "no"? >> >> Nick responded. >> >> She doesn't have a new experience Of COLOR. She sees a colored world. >> The world is now from her point of view a colored world. My mary is seeing >> the colored world directly; your mary is seeing a color experience. It's >> the intrusion of the cartesian theatre that I find distressing. At least. >> CF Wittgenstein. >> >> My response. >> >> I'm not promoting a Cartesian Theater perspective since I take a Cartesian >> Theater to imply a homunculus, i.e., an internal being (construct) that is >> standing back from the "performance/exhibit" ongoing in the Cartesian >> Theater and observing it. That clearly leads to an infinite regress: How >> does the homunculus itself work? Does it have it's own Cartesian Theater? >> Etc. >> >> I would also say that it's MY Mary that is seeing the world directly, that >> she has an immediate subjective experience of the world, which is what I >> mean by subjective experience. If there were a homunculus, it would be >> seeing a color presentation being presented in the Cartesian Theater. >> >> Perhaps this has just been a big misunderstanding. When my Mary sees a >> colored world, I feel perfectly comfortable saying that she is having an >> experience of color and that (tautologically) she didn't have that >> experience prior to being able to experience color. You seem to want to >> reject putting it in those terms. I don't understand your objection to that >> way of speaking. >> >> Also, to get back to my question about Mary. I say that something has >> changed *for her* (and I would refer to what has changed as (part of) her >> subjective experience). I gather that you agree that something has changed. >> How would you characterize the change that's occurred. And recall, we are >> stipulating that there is no behavioral difference between Mary before and >> after she gained the ability to see a colored world. >> >> I'm now answering my own question and thinking that you will ask whether >> there is a neuronal difference. I'll agree that there is and that her way of >> processing color has changed. If we took brain scans her brain would be >> functioning differently. So from that perspective you could argue (and I >> would agree) that there is an externally observable difference. This brings >> us to the notion of supervenience. We both agree that there are neuronal >> differences. I claim that subjective experience supervenes over neuronal >> phenomena. You say that neuronal phenomena are all there are(?). If that's >> your position (and perhaps it isn't since I seem to be putting words in your >> mouth by trying to answer the question from what I take to be your >> position), it's very much a reductionist perspective. You are denying the >> reality of higher level constructs because you can reduce them to lower >> level phenomena. I say (and that's what my "Reductionist blind spot" was >> about) that the ability to reduce things to lower level phenomena doesn't >> eliminate the reality of the higher level phenomena. In a word processor, >> words as entities are real even though there is nothing in the computer >> except bits. >> >> But I want to bring this back to ethics. We would agree that pain has >> neurologically observable features. But it seems to me that such >> observations cannot lead to ethical imperatives unless one associates them >> with the (subjective) experience of pain. But I've probably put too much >> into this post already. >> >> -- Russ >> >> >> ============================================================ >> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv >> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College >> lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org >> > >
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