Re: What do you lose if you simply accept...

From: Stephen Paul King <stephenk1.domain.name.hidden>
Date: Thu, 19 May 2005 21:40:25 -0400

Dear Jonathan,

    Non-separateness and identity are not the same! Your argument against
dualism assumes that the duals are somehow separable and thus, lacking a
linking mechanism, fails as a viable theory. On the other hand, once we see
the flaw in the assumption that we are making, that Body and Mind - Physical
existence and Mathematical existence (or Information!) are not separable in
the sense that one can have meaning and "reason to be" without the other, we
can again consider how dualism can be viable as people such as Vaughan Pratt
have done.

    The hard part is in overcoming the prejudice that has built up since
Descartes flawed theory was proposed. His failure was in assuming that Body
and Mind are "substances" that have independent yet equal existence. The use
of the assumption of "substance" caries with it the necessitation of a
"causal connector". When we consider the duality in terms of process or
types and tokens or hardware and software, it makes a lot more sense.

    This is analogous to claiming that numbers can somehow exist without
there being any need for them to be representable in any way. Unless we can
somehow "read each other's minds", it is impossible for me to communicate
the difference between the number 1 and the number 2. Without some physical
structure to act as an interface between our Minds, minds can not interact
or even "know" anything; there is no "definiteness". Similarly, Bodies can
not ask questions or predictions or have anticipations or
self-representations without some Mind associated. Nature has given us
fingers with which to understand numbers...

    Consciousness seems to be more of a functional relationship between the
Physical and the Mental, the Outside and the Inside, as Chalmer's states.
When the two dual aspects are taken to the ultimate level of Existence
in-itself, the distinction between the two vanishes. Russell saw this long
ago, he denoted it as "neutral monism". It is too bad that he made the
mistake of excluding non-well founded sets from consideration.


Stephen

----- Original Message -----
From: "Jonathan Colvin" <jcolvin.domain.name.hidden>
To: <everything-list.domain.name.hidden>
Sent: Thursday, May 19, 2005 6:22 PM
Subject: RE: What do you lose if you simply accept...


snip
>> Stathis: Can the description of the apple, or bat, or whatever
>> meaningfully include what it is like to be that thing?
>
> My argument (which is Dennet's argument) is that "what it is like to be
> that
> thing" is identical to "being that thing". As Bruno points out, in 3rd
> person level (ie. the level where I am describing or simulating an apple),
> a
> description can not "be" a thing; but on the 1st person level (where a
> description *is* the thing, from the point of view of the thing, inside
> the
> simulation, as it were), then the description does "include" what it is
> like
> to be that thing. But "include" is not the correct word to use, since it
> subtly assumes a dualism (that the qualia exist somehow separate from the
> mere description of the thing); the description *just is* the thing.
>
> Jonathan
>
Received on Thu May 19 2005 - 21:48:02 PDT