What is philosophy?

[Mark1031]

There are 3 possibilities here. 1) I am dense (purposely or not) 2) You are obtuse in your explanation (purposely or not) of something that is significant. 3) I understand what you are saying but do not find it significant.

I do not know which it is but if the argument is not fully encompassed in “mind is to brain as regulator is to carburetor” then please say so and say what aspect is not encompassed in that statement as clearly and concisely as possible.

I can give brief, lay accessible statements, of what my scientific work has shown, some of which you may find in the ask a neuroscience professor thread-if you want more I will do it there. In no case did it require 5 pages to communicate basic points on a variety of complex topics. In fact usually a single post sufficed.

As far as philosophy in general I enjoyed the social political classics- state of nature and natural rights-I got as an undergrad. The one area I am in a specialized position to judge is philosophy of mind and I have not found it to be useful or insightful in anyway. And as I pointed out, I have found glaring biological mistakes in some of the very limited discussions I have read.

 

[Fifty]

There are 3 possibilities here. 1) I am dense (purposely or not) 2) You are obtuse in your explanation (purposely or not) of something that is significant. 3) I understand what you are saying but do not find it significant.

I do not know which it is but if the argument is not fully encompassed in “mind is to brain as regulator is to carburetor” then please say so and say what aspect is not encompassed in that statement as clearly and concisely as possible.

I can give brief, lay accessible statements, of what my scientific work has shown, some of which you may find in the ask a neuroscience professor thread-if you want more I will do it there. In no case did it require 5 pages to communicate basic points on a variety of complex topics. In fact usually a single post sufficed.

As far as philosophy in general I enjoyed the social political classics- state of nature and natural rights-I got as an undergrad. The one area I am in a specialized position to judge is philosophy of mind and I have not found it to be useful or insightful in anyway. And as I pointed out, I have found glaring biological mistakes in some of the very limited discussions I have read.

I can give the argument extremely simply, but then you'll just insist on its being "language games". Again, perhaps the problem is that you just don't know what it means to call something language games.

Point to prove: Mental states are not physical states of the brain.

Proof:

Lets take a particular instance of a mental state and the physical state is supposedly shares an identity relation with (again, whether this is true empirically is not important for the proof to go through): pain = c-fibers firing

1) If pain = c-fibers firing, then necessarily pain = c-fibers firing.
2) It is false that necessarily pain = c-fibers firing.
3) So, pain is not c-fibers firing.

Two premises and a conclusion. Thats hardly 5 pages. What takes 5 pages is the explanation of modal logic, the logic of identity, the necessity of identity, and other technical concepts that are necessary to really *get* the proof.

Its like if I asked what your research was on, you could give a succinct explanation. But if I wanted to really *understand* what you were doing, I'd have to do a ton of research. Otherwise any idiot could walk into a neuroscience lab, and do original work after a brief explanation.

 

[Mark1031]

I am going to go with 3 and say I understand this proof and that it is not significant in relation to biology. Perhaps it is in logic or linguistics. I think our problem is that the mind and brain are biological and I would only consider something significant in this context.

This is about the 6th time you have said this:

Again, perhaps the problem is that you just don't know what it means to call something language games.

In general I would suggest that when you feel someone is misusing a word/phrase that rather than repeating over and over that they are wrong that you state why and what your definition is.

Do you think it cannot be a game if it can be put into a symbolic logical formalism? Perhaps not but IMO you are proving something about the words and not the brain/mind which is why I do not find it significant.

But in any case, if I am still missing something relevant to mammalian biology in this proof I would be interested in that.

 

[Agent327]

Point to prove: Mental states are not physical states of the brain.

Proof:

Lets take a particular instance of a mental state and the physical state is supposedly shares an identity relation with (again, whether this is true empirically is not important for the proof to go through): pain = c-fibers firing

1) If pain = c-fibers firing, then necessarily pain = c-fibers firing.
2) It is false that necessarily pain = c-fibers firing.
3) So, pain is not c-fibers firing.

Two premises and a conclusion. Thats hardly 5 pages. What takes 5 pages is the explanation of modal logic, the logic of identity, the necessity of identity, and other technical concepts that are necessary to really *get* the proof.

IMO that's a pretty clear proof. But if you estimate it would take 5 pages to explain modal logic, the logic of identity, the necessity of identity, etc. why not simply provide reference to such explanations. (That would seem more productive.)

 

[Agent327]

I've added a link to a critical assessment of Kolakowski and especially his Main currents of Marxism at the bottom of post #136. (I'm not posting the content as it's 6 pages long - excluding comments).

 

[Fifty]

I am going to go with 3 and say I understand this proof and that it is not significant in relation to biology. Perhaps it is in logic or linguistics. I think our problem is that the mind and brain are biological and I would only consider something significant in this context.

When (in the last thread in which we discussed this) I said that you can use philosophy to show that mental states (to put things more exactly, mental state types) are not physical states of the brain. You said that if this were true it would be a significant contribution. You have not objected to any premise, and the argument is formally valid. So what exactly is the deal? There is just some a priori truth that nothing about the mind is interesting unless its grounded in the methodology of biology and neuroscience?

In general I would suggest that when you feel someone is misusing a word/phrase that rather than repeating over and over that they are wrong that you state why and what your definition is.

I can't really offer my own definition because it isn't clear what you are trying to convey when you accuse something of being language games. You seem to think its about stuff boiling down to semantics in some pejorative sense. An argument boiling down to semantics in a pejorative sense would be something like this:

A: "A chair usually has 4 legs"
B: "No, a chair usually has 2 legs. The chair of my department and every department I know has 2 legs"
A: "WRONG! Every chair in my house has 4 legs, from the dining room chairs to the chairs on our deck"
B: "You're not making any sense. Why would chairs have a diferent number of legs from any other person, and what on earth do you mean that your house is filled with chairs?"

A and B's argument is just a trivial question of semantics... they are each equivocating past the other because each is using a different (though equally valid) meaning of the word chair.

So is that the sense in which you are using "language games"? If not, in what sense are you using it, and in what sense is the argument against the identity theory I posted an example of a language game in your sense?

Do you think it cannot be a game if it can be put into a symbolic logical formalism? Perhaps not but IMO you are proving something about the words and not the brain/mind which is why I do not find it significant.

Proving something about the words? I am honestly at a loss as to how merely putting something into a formally valid argument makes it about words and not about the things referred to by those words. Here's a formally valid argument:

1) If Mark1031 is a professor at a prestigious biology institute, then Mark1031 knows a lot about biology.
2) Mark1031 is a professor at a prestigious biology institute
3) So, Mark1031 knows a lot about biology.

This is as much in logical formalism as the argument against the identity, but surely it isn't about the name "Mark1031" as it is about the person referred to by the name "Mark1031".

But in any case, if I am still missing something relevant to mammalian biology in this proof I would be interested in that.

Premise 2 is an empirical premise, but it doesn't refer to a particularly deep empirical fact.

If I may ask, why is it the case that nothing interesting can be said about the mind unless its done by biologists? I mean philosphers aren't out to contradict scientists on the mind. In fact they take it as an extremely strict contraint on philosophical theorizing that it does not contradict science (I suspect some of the glaring contradictions you think you've seen are no contradictions at all but just difficulties in translating the professional language of one discipline to that of another).

 

[Mark1031]

When (in the last thread in which we discussed this) I said that you can use philosophy to show that mental states (to put things more exactly, mental state types) are not physical states of the brain. You said that if this were true it would be a significant contribution. You have not objected to any premise, and the argument is formally valid. So what exactly is the deal? There is just some a priori truth that nothing about the mind is interesting unless its grounded in the methodology of biology and neuroscience?

In short- Yes

Premise 2 is an empirical premise, but it doesn't refer to a particularly deep empirical fact.

If I may ask, why is it the case that nothing interesting can be said about the mind unless its done by biologists? I mean philosphers aren't out to contradict scientists on the mind. In fact they take it as an extremely strict contraint on philosophical theorizing that it does not contradict science (I suspect some of the glaring contradictions you think you've seen are no contradictions at all but just difficulties in translating the professional language of one discipline to that of another).

I believe I understand as well as I'm going to or as well as you can explain given my limited knowledge of the various techniques being applied what is being said in your proof. I still consider it to be something related to linguistics rather than biology and you have failed/not attempted to convince me otherwise. The reason that we have a problem I believe is encompassed in premise 2 which I do not accept, or at least not as a premise that is valid for my professional thinking about the mind which must by definition, barring some fundamental new biology, arise from the brain. As far as I can tell premise 2 is just saying that what we generally mean in the definition of mind could be imagined to arise in some other way. Anyone who's seen the Terminator series of movies knows this concept.

This has really grown quite tedious so I think I'm going to stop here. In general the value ascribed to academic work is largely a matter of taste. There are plenty of people who think what I do is of little value.

 

[Agent327]

I apologize for not posting anything here in a while. While I've finished reading part I of The Presocratics by J. Mansfeld, which I've been using as a template, and started in part II, covering Zeno through Democritus, I've felt completely uninspired to write anything down about it. (You may call it a writer's block...)

 

[Agent327]

Since we appear to have landed in modern philosophy (I'll come back to that later), I'd be interested to know if anybody has anything to say on Wittgenstein's Tractatus logico-philosophicus.

 

[Bestbank Tiger]

It's the top of a cereal box.

(probably already been said but I'm not reading 10 pages to look for it.)