1Z wrote:
> Why shouldn't they denote that ? And what has that to do with
> substances ?
> The inside/outside distinction can be asserted is a single-substance
> universe. The inside/outside distinction is enough to found the 1st/3rd
> person divide, what
> do you need a multiplicity of substances for.
I agree. I was setting it up to knock it down.
> It is not clear why they should be that fact. For one thing,
> qualia seem not be structures in themselves. For another
> the perceiver-perceptual-model is 3rd-personal comprehensible
> and therefore part of the Easy problem. So you are simply
> declaring that the HP rides on the back of the EP, for
> reasons that canoot be undeerstood within the EP -- just as
> Chalmers does.
I don't see why you're resistant to the idea that qualia could have a
structural aspect. For one thing, they seem to be systematically
correlated with physical phenomena (light, sound) which are structural/
relational. Also, they seem experientially (at least to me) to display
mutual distributive relations that are analogous to, say, the frequency
distribution of the colour spectrum. So I don't see the suggestion that
different qualia are different structural modulations of a substrate as
so counter-intuitive.
As to HP 'riding on the back of' EP, I'd rather put it that they are
correlated, but probably don't map in a simple, one-to-one, 'identity'
relation. If this is simply 'neutral monism', so be it. Insofar that
have been disagreeing over terminology, this is entirely fruitless, and
we should try not to dispute any more over words. Perhaps I could
replace the form of words 'global 1st person primitivity' with 'global
neutral (0-person if you like) primitivity', as long as this is
understood to be the backgound from which 1st-persons, under suitable
conditions, emerge.
> AFAIC that amounts to saying they supervene on the physical --
> on the 0-personal.
No, that's going too far, IMO. I'd rather have them both mapping onto a
neutral substrate that is basic. As I concede above, we could call this
0-personal, but this is surely not baldly equivalent to 'physical'.
Just as we schematise the physical into chemical, biological,
physiological levels etc, there may be analogous but different
'experiential layering' supporting the emergence of the conscious
modalities we in fact encounter.
> >and
> > different types of structure yield different types of qualia.
>
> How and why ?
How - by relational modulation of the 0-personal substrate. Why -
because of the infinite (or at least Vast) possibilities of modalities,
range, etc. inherent in this, on the analogy of the physical/
relational correlates (light, sound, taste, etc).
> That would be equally true of a 0-personal substance, ie matter.
But a 'neutral (0-personal?) substrate' is not a rigidly 'physical'
one, if that's what you intend by 'matter'.
David
> David Nyman wrote:
> > 1Z wrote:
> >
> > Not only is it not necessary to
> > > treat such a 1st person as ontologically primative, it is
> > > hardly even coherent , since such a 1st person is clearly complex.
> >
> > I think I see where the confusion lies. My definitions rely on there
> > being a unique ontologogical 'substance' because of my frustration that
> > there is a pervasive use (not necessarily yours) of 1st-person and
> > 3rd-person to denote, respectively, the 'inside' and 'outside' views of
> > persons.
>
> Why shouldn't they denote that ? And what has that to do with
> substances ?
> The inside/outside distinction can be asserted is a single-substance
> universe. The inside/outside distinction is enough to found the 1st/3rd
> person divide, what
> do you need a multiplicity of substances for.
>
> > This then leads to the idea that these derive from different
> > ontological substances (e.g. Chalmers in effect, dualism in general).
> > So my single substance is in that sense 'primitive'. Bruno would I
> > think say that this substance is Number.
>
> Hmmm. I don't think Bruno believes in any kind of substance.
>
> > I just say it's whatever it is
> > and it's the same for everything. Of course, it's the intersection of
> > this substance with structure that produces persons (and all other
> > phenomena), which are, as you rightly say, complex.
>
> >and
> > different types of structure yield different types of qualia.
>
> How and why ?
>
> > The problem
> > > is, that while a)-c) is not all that can be said
> > > about first personhood, it is pretty much all that *is* said
> > > in your various definitions [*].
> >
> > I quite agree, with the above proviso. I was merely trying to point out
> > different uses of the term that I thought important, but you may well
> > have found this superflous. The obvious is sometimes elusive.
>
> There is a still a mystery about what the role of primordial
> first-personness is.
>
> > > OK: now we seem to be getting to the nub of the problem. Consciousness
> > > and qualia. IOW, 1st-personhood divides into two problems: an
> > > Easy Problem of a)-c); and a Hard problem of d) qualia and e)
> > > incommunicable
> > > experiences.
> >
> > I would say that qualia are the fact of *being* structured substance
> > *behaving* in a certain kind of 'perceiver+perceptual model' way.
>
> It is not clear why they should be that fact. For one thing,
> qualia seem not be structures in themselves. For another
> the perceiver-perceptual-model is 3rd-personal comprehensible
> and therefore part of the Easy problem. So you are simply
> declaring that the HP rides on the back of the EP, for
> reasons that canoot be undeerstood within the EP -- just as
> Chalmers does.
>
> > As
> > such they are themselves incommunicable, although existing in
> > non-random mutual relations (e.g. that of red to blue, or middle C to
> > bottom A). The information they encode relationally is what is
> > communicable both to the 'self' and to others - epistemology from
> > ontology. Empirically my assumption is that they must also map in some
> > systematic way to material structure, which is not to say that
> > qualitative and material structural levels map one-to-one. However I
> > don't believe that qualia are 'substrate independent' (you may recall
> > that this is where we began in the dear, dim days of the FOR group).
>
>
> AFAIC that amounts to saying they supervene on the physical --
> on the 0-personal.
>
> > > Now: if qualia are the only aspect of 1st-personhood whose emergence
> > > form structured matter is "fishy", why not make qualia ontologically
> > > fundamental, and keep the Easy aspects of 1p-hood as high-level
> > > emergent features ? (It's not just that we don't *need* to
> > > treat the a)-c) as primitive, it is also that we can't! A structure
> > > that contains representations of other structures is inherently
> > > complex!)
> >
> > I think I agree, as I say above. I know I lost you with my previous
> > remarks about a primitive substance with primitive differentiation, but
> > the fundamental nature of 'qualia' was what I was trying to convey. The
> > substance on its own won't do, because it has no content, and
> > semantically to have differentiation one needs to start with a
> > substance. Hence qualia are to be found at the intersection,
>
> intersection of what and what ?
>
> >and
> > different types of structure yield different types of qualia.
>
> How and why ?
>
> > > ( I am taking it that qualia are basically non-structural [**] )
> >
> > 'Fraid not.
>
> You mean qualia are not non-structural. Can you argue for that ?
>
> > But now I can agree with you that 1p-hood in its Easy
> > aspect is indeed a high level emergent feature of this structured
> > ontology. Then the fact of *being* the structured substance is the
> > 'qualia', and the relational aspects (information) constitute our
> > knowledge of the structural entities so formed (i.e. 'the world').
> > I take the 'active principle' of information to be the relational aspects
> > expressed as behaviour. IOW, one structure treats another as
> > information when its behaviour is systematically changed by
> > incorporating it.
>
> > > Is that idea even coherent ? How can a universal Person contain
> > > representations
> > > of what is outside itself ?
> >
> > It can't of course. Only of what is inside itself. My intuition about
> > the 'Big Person' was simply to express the idea that the 'substance' is
> > universally available to be structured into persons.
>
> That would be equally true of a 0-personal substance, ie matter.
>
> > Persons are just
> > zones so structured. We needn't mention the BP ever again.
> >
> >
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Received on Fri Aug 11 2006 - 21:47:31 PDT