Lee Corbin writes:
> > There are some things that can be known by examination of an object, and
> > there are other things that can only be known by being the object.
>
>Okay; but some examples are probably necessary. (1) Only Mozart can
>know what it's like for the Mozart auditory system to hear C-sharp
>on a harpsichord. (2) only a human being can know the feeling that
>a human has at the loss of a family member.
>
>Note that my first example had this same peculiar linguistic structure
>of "what-it-is-like-to-be". Not necessarily an indictment; but
>something to notice. As for my second example: are feelings knowledge?
That is the sort of thing I had in mind: any first person experience. I
would say that feelings are a kind of raw knowledge, as it doesn't add much
to say that they are not knowledge but what-it-is-like-to-have-a-feeling is.
> > When the object is a human brain, this latter class of things
> > is consciousness. (When the object is something else, this
> > latter class of thing is... well, how would I know?)
>
> > I think that the distinction between these two types of knowledge
> > is surprising, and I would never have noticed it had I not been
> > conscious myself.
>
>As you write (below), it's possibly debatable whether this
>really is *knowledge*. Certainly it does not resemble the
>usual kind of knowledge that is communicated from one person
>to another. But here is my analysis of what knowledge is:
>
>Knowledge is an internal map of something usually outside
>of the skin. But then, a gunshot patient may also obtain
>knowledge provided by his doctors of the exact location of
>a bullet in his brain. Still, this is *knowledge* of what
>conditions obtain in the physical world, encoded into a
>yet different area of the patient's brain.
>
>Are there other examples of knowledge? This is important
>because, of course, one may be pressed to make the case
>for consciousness *itself* to provide special knowledge
>(of the non-communicable variety).
This last sentence gets to the crux of the matter. I would say that
consciousness is a type of knowledge "of the non-communicable variety", and
it is *this* which makes it special. I say it is knowledge because if I
reflect, "I am now typing on a keyboard", it takes up RAM and hard disk
space in my brain. But I'd be happy enough if you decided it was *not*
knowledge, because that then makes it even *more* special.
> > The response of those who think that consciousness is nothing special to
>the
> > above is that it is not surprising that there is a difference between a
> > description of an object and the object itself, and that what I have
>called
> > "knowledge" in reference to conscious experiences is not really
>knowledge,
> > but part of the package that comes with being a thing. I can't really
>argue
> > against this; as I said, it is just a different way of looking at the
>same
> > facts.
>
>Good. You anticipated my question. But your answer is oddly
>interesting in a certain way: I would never have conflated this
>question about "what is knowledge" with the difference between
>"the description of an object" and "the object itself". Yet, it's
>true: they are both examples of "the map" versus "the territory".
>Interesting.
>
>I wonder if this knower/known distinction can help even further.
>After all, I might claim that in all the cases of this suspicious
>different kind of "knowledge", it's as if those who see "the problem"
>are trying to establish this difference between the knower and
>the known in a case in which there isn't any actual difference.
>
>In fact, the whole erection of the notion of *qualia* seems now
>to me to be an effort to impose the knower/known dichotomy where
>it doesn't apply. Hence the peculiar English language construction
>of "what it is like to be a...".
>
>(A good test to apply to doubtful cases where there may simply
>be a semantic problem is to demand restatement using other terms.
>For example, I am highly critical of the word "rights" used in
>the abstract, such as "what gives X the right to do A?". So I
>challenge people to try to say the same thing without using
>the word "right". As near as I recall, they don't succeed without
>greatly reducing the impact of what they want to say. So perhaps
>a good challenge is this: we could try to articulate Nagel's
>question without the construction "what it is like to be...".)
>
> > Much has been written about particular formulations of the mind/body
>problem
> > (or, if you prefer, "problem"). For example, Douglas Hofstadter's
>commentary
> > on Thomas Nagel's famous essay, "What Is It Like to Be a Bat?" (which I
> > looked up at your suggestion) makes the point that the logic of the
>titular
> > question itself is muddled: if Nagel were a bat, he would not be Nagel,
>and
> > he would therefore not be Nagel asking the question. If Nagel were
>actually
> > asking what it would be like for him to stay Nagel and experience being
>a
> > bat, perhaps by having his brain stimulated in a batty way, then that is
>(a)
> > a different question, and (b) in theory possible, and not the
>intractable
> > problem originally advertised. This is fair enough, so I shall try to
>avoid
> > talking about qualia in the way Nagel does. However, I can't get rid of
>the
> > idea that there is something special and fundamental about first person
> > experience.
>
>Yeah! I know the feeling! :-) I myself can't shake the feeling
>that there *isn't* anything special about first person experience.
Well, in that case I would have to repeat my reply to Jonathan Colvin, which
is that we basically agree on the facts of the matter but choose to
appraise/ interpret/ describe them in a different way.
--Stathis Papaioannou
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Received on Tue May 24 2005 - 01:52:19 PDT