ERIC P. CHARLES wrote:
So... at what point does the reductionism end? Or, more
specifically, at
what point do we decide that the degree of reductionism is just getting
silly?
It used to be a mind-boggling claim that "I" was my brain (note:
mind-boggling, not brain-boggling). Recently, the "brain in a vat"
paradox has
more or less replaced Plato's cave, where the original clearly required
an
entire, bodily "I" for the story to work. Now we are dissatisfied
again,
apparently because we find "I = my brain" to be too holistic for our
tastes?
Now we try to determine the minimal specifiable number of brain parts
that need
to be in the vat? Then, apparently, we are surprised to find out that
it
is hard to specify? Who really thinks that one day we will find the
quarter-inch square in the brain where "I" resides? Is it really any
better to
look for a small cluster of dispersed neurons? Can it improve anything
to say
that it isn't the cluster, but a process that occurs within the
cluster?
Bah! A pox on both your... something... not houses... but something.
This is starting to sound <blink>Philosophical</blink>...
cut it out!
Seriously... this is precisely where Science needs Philosophy... the
problem isn't in how to answer the question "where am I?" but
rather to understand what the real question is (e.g. "what means
I?").
<anecdote> In my collaborations at UNM we have a fictitious
(defunct?) project called the Homunculous project (whose mascot is a
flute player in the head of a flute player in the head of ... named
Homuncupelli). </anecdote> Does the "brain in the Vat" reference
this as well?
A *pox* on your Homunculii and their infinite regress of
Philosophistical Arguementations!
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