Clutch

And even at that, VZ is as usual constitutionally incapable of understanding the sources he quotes as if supporting his case.
...VZ's boldfacing.

Notice that this passage is pointing out an unfairness in the inclination to deny Theory of Mind ascriptions to apes! Vandilliterate thinks he's giving evidence against ape minds; the passage actually argues that some people may be setting the bar improperly high due to a contingent association of ToM with human infants.

I suppose it was hoping too much that Vanderjoke would crib from a BA thesis that actually supported his view...

Happy Wonderer

I think maybe it is time for Vanderzyden to confess the joke. I think it is along the lines of look at how much time those stupid adults have spent arguing with a 14-year-old kid from Santa Monica Middle School. The internet is the world's greatest boon to the B.S. artist. It is easy to appear to be more mature than you are by quoting from others.

The fact that he is unfamiliar with basic principles taught in high school physics is one give away. No one with the interest that he displays in physical properties would have excaped physics classes with that little knowledge. His reading comprehension skills and debating style are indicative of a fairly young person.


The destroyer picture is another one. The fact that he is coy about his background, yet claims to be an expert in any field of discussion that comes up is another.

I'm not trying to be insulting to John here, and I really do apologize if I'm wrong, but that is the conclusion that I come to.


HW

Edited to add: the real tipoff is that he just hasn't learned when to back off, so he keeps digging deeper and deeper holes for himself.

[ November 11, 2002: Message edited by: Happy Wonderer ]</p>

fwh

Hi Sci Girl. You said:
"So we don't know for sure how 'mind evolved from non-mind.' Yet. But we are working on it."

Me:
FWIW It seems to me (how's that for an empirical statement) that we have three choices in regard to the mind and non-mind.

1)Monism of matter wherein conciousness is an epiphenomenon of matter. I would assume scientific researchers use this assumption in their experimental approaches. As an aside, this experimental approach achieves freedom from theism in science, and from theistic morality. Both, I believe, are desirable ends.

2)Divine design within the context of a Cartesian dualism.

3)Monism of mind or thought stemming from the scientific work of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. The foundation of Goethe's scientific work was an attempt to use imagination systematically.

Now, this is not a purely empirical method and could be judged to be unscientific for that reason. However, it could be argued his method was attempting to overturn a scientific mindset or idolatry. Owen Barfield has stated: " we have seen that the major part of any perceived phenomenon consists of our own 'figuration'.Therefore, as imagination reaches the point of enhancing figuration itself, hitherto unperceived parts of the whole field of the phenomenon necessarily become perceptible. Moreover, this concious participation enhances perception not only of present phenomenon but also of the memory images derived from them. All this Goethe could not prevail on his contemporaries to admit. Idolatry was all too powerful and there were no premonitory signs, as there are today, of its collapse." For Barfield's signs of collapse see "Saving the Appearances" by Owen Barfield.

Let me define a few terms used in the above.

Imagination- the first part of a long and sober process of cognition that may end in man's actually overcoming the dichotomy between mind/matter and self/world.

figuration- is the construction by the "percipient mind" of the recognizable and nameable objects we call things. It allows us to convert sensations of particles into things. It is assumed that sense organs must be related to the particles in such a way as to give rise to sensations. "The innocent eye sees nothing". (E.H. Gombrich) Without this "figuration" we would not be able to make sense of the world.

participation- extra-sensory relation between man and phenomena (things).

Monism of mind(thought) offers a view of the world which states that thought possesses a higher reality than matter. Quantum physics may affirm this. A view in which causal logic works from mind to matter rather than the other way around.

Clutch

fwh, the first thing you need is an argument for this tri-partition of the possibilities.

Why, to choose just one example, would you think that materialism (whatever you mean by that) is somehow linked with epiphenomenalism? (Which obviously seems -- and was -- a much greater worry for interactionist substance dualism).

Ab_Normal

fwh, Clutch - can I get subtitles for these last two posts?

Clutch

Ab, just in case you're serious...

Epiphenomenalism: consciousness plays no causal role.

Substance dualism: mind and matter are entirely distinct kinds of substance.

Interactionism: a species of substance dualism; the two substances causally interact.

So, for example, once you have SD, why on earth should the two substances interact? There does not seem to be any explanatory difference between interactionism and, say, parallelism -- the view that the mind just percolates along quite insulated from anything physical, with our experiences matching up to the physical facts about our bodies because that's how God sets it up.

By contrast, conceiving conscious states as brain states makes the idea that conscious states are causal as controversial as the idea that brain states are causal. So the association of epiphenomenalism with materialism (while not unprecedented) is very strained.

Ab_Normal

Thanks! I'm slightly less confused now.

fwh

Thanks for responding Clutch.

I assume from your post you would like to add interactionism to my threesome? I didn't mean to be emphatic that there are only three categories in this whole mind/non-mind debate.

I would define materialism as an assumed monism of matter wherein conciousness is merely an epiphenomenon; the primacy of matter.

Clutch

Add interactionism? It's already in there, isn't it?

I want to see an argument --premises, conclusion, sound -- that materialism entails epiphenomenalism on any standard construal. (Ie, any construal short of your own rather byzantine one.)

In other words, I want to know why materialism minus epiphenomenalism is not one of the three.

lpetrich

One curious solution for the mind-body interaction problem is that of Arnold Geulincx, a follower of Descartes:

That mind and body do not interact, but instead, parallel each other like perfectly-synchronized clocks.