Corey Hammer

Yup. I meant it. Most cognition (if you broadly label all information processing from sensation to perception as such) occurs below conscious threshold. In order to function with nearly all of "faculties," we don't necessarily need to be conscious.

John Galt, Jr.

Corey,

Sorry it has taken so long for me to respond, but as we move into the semester, it becomes harder and harder to find time, as I am sure you know.

You said,

No offense meant, Corey, but maybe you should read the ‘Meditations’ (again?) Your understanding of the ‘mind/body’ problem (If I unnderstand your view of it) is not the problem as it has been posed by Descartes’s ‘Meditations’.


In response to my remarks,
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It has been a while since I have looked at the ‘Meditations’ but as I recall the sorts of ‘brain injuries-mind impacts’ that Corey refers to were, at least, implicitly acknolwedged by Descartes in Med 6-- my memory may be off here, so if I get a chance I’ll check...
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you said, First just a comment on the last two sentences-- The claim that there is ‘no way to tell a difference between a universe that is really old and one specifically created to look old’ is indefensible. To respond a la Hammer, read Wittgenstein’s On Certainty. This is perhaps subject matter for another thread.

On the face of things, this post and others by you (and others) make it look as though you understand Descartes to be postulating the existence of mental phenomena, and then wondering about how interaction can occur between the ‘postulated’ workings of res cogitans and the ‘non-postulated’ movements of res extensa. But this is not Descartes at all. Before continuing, let me add a bit more of what has previously been posted.

In response to my remarks,
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...perhaps Corey could explain more clearly the (case for the) solution of the mind-body problem. I might say, that it would be helpful to have the explanation presented here...
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You said, Herein you load up the problem in such a way as to make ‘the mind/body problem’ as it is presented by Descartes so different from Descartes that it is difficult to know where to begin. But let us try this.

Playing the role of a 21st Century Descartes-

Obvious facts- You believethat the mind/body problem has been resolved by (some) psychologist. It is my belief belief that you are mistaken in your belief. You have a desire to show me and others that what you say is so. I want to show you that this is so.

Additional obvious facts- The various beliefs, wants, desires, mention above play a causal role in the actions that, while we are posting here, engage you and I and others. ‘You are spending time posting here because you think that the mind/body problem has been resolved and you want to show others that this is so’. Such descriptions of human activities, descriptions that include appeal to peoples’ ambitions, pains, loves, hates, hopes, fears, and so on, and so on, are common, generally unproblematic, and as epistemically accessible as the truth of ‘Hammer believes that the mind/body’ problem has been resolved’. hence, testability is not an issue. As far as Descartes himself was concerned, this is a fortiori so with respect to first-person case-- his ‘direct perception’ of the contents of his own mind stands up to the doubt that he takes himself to have generated in the first Meditation.
More facts that are what I shall describe as ‘pre-theoretically’ obvious- the mental phenomena that have been mentioned above have properties that show them not to be physical phenomena: beliefs are not extended in space, nor are they locatable in space. They are not divisible-- my belief that Paris is the capital of France is not divisible. My desire is not a process- one cannot stop a desire midway through it. Neither are these mental phenomena measurable in the ways that various forms of energy are measurable. In other words, mental states/phenomena have dimensions that are only nonsensically applied to the physical characteristics/aspects/features of human beings. These pre-theoretical differences, and others, are elaborations by contemporary philosophers of the basic argument that is offered by Descartes in the sixth Meditation. The conclusion is that the kinds of properties that define the things (not necessarily limited to objects-- physical processes, for example, fit here) in the material realm are not applicable to the things in the mental realm. This shows, as far as Descartes is concerned that physical things and mental things are of different kinds.

This difference in kind between things in the physical realm and things in the mental realm is what prompts the question of how the interaction between them can take place. For example, it prompts the question of how a belief and or a desire can cause a hand to be raised to a keyboard to key out a response to a post. That it/they does/do this, in some way, was not doubted by Descartes. Hence, when you say as you have, You make no point against Descartes. That such things occur is acknowledged by Descartes. Certain drugs muddle my thoughts. That this happens is clear; how it can happen, given the nature of thoughts, has not been explained. When you say the move from the example to the ‘conclusion’ (if that is what is intended here) is an egregious non-sequitur.

To address, briefly, some other comments, you say, drawing a conclusion, from fact that brain damage impairs our ability to process information, It is hard to let this go by without remarking that, as it stands, it seems obvioulsy false. If learning that a seventh victim has fallen before the sniper(s) in the Washington D. C. area, is an instance of cognition of some sort, then the source of this cognition in my case was the CNN Broadcast on TV.

Given the nature of the ‘mind/body’ problem as it has been posed by Descartes, whatever empirical data one collects about the effects of brain damage, brain stimulation by probe, whatever physical stimuli you to subject a person to, the most that you can conclude is that ‘whenever this (fill it in with whatever stimuli/causes you like), that mental phenomenon occurs. ‘ This sort of data cannot show, in a non-question-begging way, that mind and body are one. Philosophers have known this for as long as the problem has been before them.

To be sure, one can just assume that mental phenomena are physical phenomena (‘beliefs are brain-states’, for example), but this doesn’t resolve the problem-- it merely defines it out of existence. It is sort of like resolving the problem of the existence of God by saying God is (merely) everything.


In response to my remarks
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Neither the texts that I have looked at, nor any of these professors share your view that the ‘mind-body’ problem has been resolved by psychology. Moreover, Hammer’s statement, ‘Mind is a colloqiual (sic) term that had no real meaning in any of the cognitive sciences. It's a shorthand that still used because of its convenience. A more proper term is covert behavior’, is not the view of major figures in psychology/cognitive science at MIT, Yale, Penn, Rutgers, and a in number of other top-rated Ph.D. Psychology programs in the Northeast United States.
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You said, The request for an operational defintion of mind is further indication that you are not addressing the mind/body problem that Descartes has described.

When you say/ask ‘So?’, my comments about the psychologists in Ph. D. programs in the Notheast was merely to place alongside your earlier pronouncements, ex cathedraas a doctoral candidate in psychology, on various points. I am just curious-- is it your view that those psychologists in the Ph. D. programs that I mentioned (as well as those in many other programs at major research institutions across the country) who think something other than that mind is covert behavior are still in the thrall of elements of ‘folk science’.

John Galt, Jr.

[ October 12, 2002: Message edited by: John Galt, Jr. ]</p>

Corey Hammer

That could be a problem then, if we're talking past each other. However, I lack time to read it. My free time is taken up by my dissertation and a full time job, plus relationship stuff. Could you post a paragraph on the specific Cartesian problem?

Really? How would you test it for differences in a universe that really is old and one that was specifically constructed to appear old? I suggest you pick any book or articles from the last 20 years on the Philosophy of Science. Testability is the primary hallmark of science. If it ain't testable, it ain't science.

Then perhaps, you could point out what his argument was? I really am interested.

Commentary: Many mental processes are counterintuitive.

You're making the mistake of putting this onto one personage. The biological and cognitive sciences as a whole have shown this through over a century of work.

Excuse me, what? This is science not philosophy. Testability is a primary concern.

Um...no. Tell me something. What is the default valence, disbelief, belief, or neutrality, of statements that we hear or are told?

Really? Do you believe that putting your foot on the accelerator of your car will make it go faster? Do you believe that drinking milk is good for your bones? Do you believe that guy down the hall is an idiot? Do you believe that your significant other is beautiful?

Your beliefs do extend into space because they affect how you behave.

Neither can an atom of iron and it still be iron. What's your point?

Please explain what you mean. I desire to smack the idiot who rubbernecks in front of me, but I don't ('cause I'm in my car and that would be wrong). Are you referring to goals or actions taken to further a goal?

Funny, I have lots and lots of references to peer-reviewed articles that show you to be completely and utterly wrong. We can measure mental behavior based on its results. I refer you for example to the the relatively recent work by John Bargh in the December 2001 issue of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology:

Bargh, J.A., Gollwitzer, P.M., Lee-Chai, A., Barndollar, K., & Troschel, R. (2001). The automated will: Nonconscious activation and pursuit of behavioral goals. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 81, 1014-1027.

Again, so what? Why should I care what philosophers say when I know people who actually do experiments about it?

Then I will pass this by and provisionally concede that I may arguing against a straw man position of Descartes. Please show me his arguments.

Why? Brain damage may cause impairments in functioning. Assuming a material source for cognition, the brain is the seat of cognition. Science, by defintion, assumes material causes for all natural processes. Material is defined as whatever is or potentially measurable in some way, shape, or form.

Your statement is a Fallacy of Four Terms (IIRC, no time to check). Everything in the environment is defined as a stimulus. Your behavior, covert and otherwise, is a response.

John, have you studied the philosophy of science at all? Scientific methods are based on the assumption of material causes. Science, by definition, excludeds non-material causal factors, and by material, I mean testable. The one criterion that a hypothesis must have is that it is testable. Otherwise, it is no more scientific than a religious belief.

ex cathedras implies I'm making statements of dogma. Quite the contrary, I encourage everyone to follow the advice of a certain 19th century philosopher-writer and experience it for yourselves. Go read some basic stuff on biological psychology and cognitive neuroscience.

galiel

I would just like to emphasize two core principles of scientific inquiry, one of which Corey points out above, the other not raised thus far in this thread, but noted in others and integral to this debate.

The first is that any and all scientific inquiry depends upon testability. As Corey correctly noted, any assertion that is not testable is, by definition, not scientific.

The second, to which the first is a subset (but a critical one since it provides us with empirical tools) is that any theory is only scientifically relevant if it has a potentially measurable effect on reality (as defined earlier by Corey as the set of all events). This is similar to, but not equivalent to the requirement of testability. For example, one can assert the existence of an intangible, noninteractive God (for example, the pantheistic god-in-all-things), yet such a God-concept is not only untestable, it is supefluous.

That is, for example, if one were to insist on the existence of a soul but say that this soul was intangible, had no effect on events or things, acted only through a living brain, and, upon death, migrated to some other plane of existence with which we have no intersection or interaction and for which there is no evidence, that is eqiuvalent, from a scientific standpoint to concluding that the soul does not exist. One may proceed with scientific inquiry without belief in a soul thus defined as effectively as with such belief. At this point Occam's Razor comes into play and one arrives at the scientific theory that a soul thusly defined does not exist independently from the body. (Since science has repeatedly tested and disproved claimed physical evidence of an interactive soul, that is not considered a credible assertion for the purposes of this discussion)

This is the same argument against Deism, by the way. (although I have no political beef with Deism or weak Atheism, I have concluded that both are incorrect and that accepting their asssertions on faith or Pascal's Wager, against reason, is a dangerous precedent for the adoption of critical thinking as the standard tool for understanding reality).