On Jun 14, 7:19 pm, David Nyman <david.ny....domain.name.hidden> wrote:
> Kant saw
> this clearly in terms of his 'windowless monads', but these, separated
> by the 'void', indeed had to be correlated by divine intervention,
> since (unaware of each other) they could not interact.
Er, no he didn't. Leibniz did, however.
> On Jun 14, 4:46 am, "Stathis Papaioannou" <stath....domain.name.hidden> wrote:
>
> > Of course all that is true, but it doesn't explain why neurons in the cortex
> > are the ones giving rise to qualia rather than other neurons or indeed
> > peripheral sense organs.
>
> Well, you might as well ask why the engine drives the car and not the
> brakes. Presumably (insert research programme here) the different
> neural (or other relevant) organisation of the cortex is the
> difference that makes the difference. My account would run like this:
> the various emergent organs of the brain and sensory apparatus (like
> everything else) supervene on an infrastructure capable of 'sense-
> action'. I'm (somewhat) agnostic about the nature of this
> infrastructure: conceive it as strings, particles, or even Bruno's
> numbers. But however we conceptualise it, it must (logically) be
> capable of 'sense-action' in order for activity and cognition to
> supervene on it. Then what makes the difference in the cortex must be
> a supremely complex 'mirroring' mode of organisation (a 'remembered
> present') lacked by other organs. To demonstrate this will be a
> supremely difficult empirical programme, but IMO it presents no
> invincible philosophical problems if conceived in this way.
>
> A note here on 'sense-action': If we think, for example and for
> convenience, of particles 'reacting' to each other in terms of the
> exchange of 'forces', ISTM quite natural to intuit this as both
> 'awareness' or 'sensing', and also 'action'. After all, I can't react
> to you if I'm not aware of you. IOW, the 'forces' *are* the sense-
> action. And at this fundamental level, such motivation must emerge
> intrinsically (i.e. *something like* the way we experience it) to
> avoid a literal appeal to any extrinsic source ('laws'). Kant saw
> this clearly in terms of his 'windowless monads', but these, separated
> by the 'void', indeed had to be correlated by divine intervention,
> since (unaware of each other) they could not interact. Nowadays, no
> longer conceiving the 'void' as 'nothing', we substitute a modulated
> continuum, but the same semantic demands apply.
>
> David
>
> > On 14/06/07, Colin Hales <c.ha....domain.name.hidden> wrote:
>
> > > Colin
> > > This point is poised on the cliff edge of loaded word meanings and their
> > > use with the words 'sufficient' and 'necessary'. By technology I mean
> > > novel artifacts resulting from the trajectory of causality including human
> > > scientists. By that definition 'life', in the sense you infer, is not
> > > technology. The resulting logical loop can be thus avoided. There is a
> > > biosphere that arose naturally. It includes complexity of sufficient depth
> > > to have created observers within it. Those observers can produce
> > > technology. Douglas Adams (bless him) had the digital watch as a valid
> > > product of evolution - and I agree with him - it's just that humans are
> > > necessarily involved in its causal ancestry.
>
> > Your argument that only consciousness can give rise to technology loses
> > validity if you include "must be produced by a conscious being" as part of
> > the definition of technology.
>
> > > COLIN
> > > > That assumes that complexity itself (organisation of information) is
> > > the
> > > > origin of consciousness in some unspecified, unjustified way. This
> > > > position is completely unable to make any empirical predictions
> > > > about the
> > > > nature of human conscousness (eg why your cortex generates qualia
> > > > and your
> > > > spinal chord doesn't - a physiologically proven fact).
>
> > > STATHIS
> > > > Well, why does your eye generate visual qualia and not your big toe?
> > > It's because the big toe lacks the necessary machinery.
>
> > > Colin
> > > I am afraid you have your physiology mixed up. The eye does NOT generate
> > > visual qualia. Your visual cortex generates it based on measurements in
> > > the eye. The qualia are manufactured and simultaneously projected to
> > > appear to come from the eye (actually somewhere medial to them). It's how
> > > you have 90degrees++ peripheral vison. The same visual qualia can be
> > > generated without an eye (hallucination/dream). Some blind (no functioning
> > > retina) people have a visual field for numbers. Other cross-modal mixups
> > > can occur in synesthesia (you can hear colours, taste words). You can have
> > > a "phantom big toe" without having any big toe at all....just because the
> > > cortex is still there making the qualia. If you swapped the sensory nerves
> > > in two fingers the motor cortex would drive finger A and it would feel
> > > like finger B moved and you would see finger A move. The sensation is in
> > > your head, not the periphery. It's merely projected at the periphery.
>
> > Of course all that is true, but it doesn't explain why neurons in the cortex
> > are the ones giving rise to qualia rather than other neurons or indeed
> > peripheral sense organs.
>
> > --
> > Stathis Papaioannou
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Received on Mon Jun 18 2007 - 07:39:13 PDT