Saturday, October 17, 2009

The Threshold Problem and the True Miami Dolphins: A Further Response to BDK

Do we need to indicate the threshold? When do we start asking "What is it like to be a....." As I said in an interview once, maybe there is a colony of dolphins off the coast of Miami who have a rich, civilized mental life similar to our own (the true Miami Dolphins). We know we have the kinds of states that cause problems for materialism. Other creature haven't communicated with us in ways that really do show that they have the kind of mental life that we do, so far as I can tell. So humans could be unique in this way. But nothing happens to my argument if chimp studies show that the kinds of states that I think cause problems for naturalists also exist in animals. To me, that makes it worse for naturalists, not better.




What makes people think that a contemporary dualist is a Cartesian about animals? Ed always acts as if he can refute the AFR by citing chimp studies. But human uniqueness is a red herring in this discussion. If the mental properties we have are problematic naturalistically, then they are problematic naturalistically if we find them in other animals.

3 comments:

Blue Devil Knight said...

I think we are talking past each other in a big way. I'm not using it as an argument (directly anyway) against dualism. I'm just pointing out there is an odd clasification that dualists are saddled with, clustering animals into two groups like this (one group neural is sufficient, the other it isn't). It's just another way of pointing out how far from the biology the dualists lie, for instance the fact that you seem to have little interest in this phylogenetic question.

Of course naturalists are saddled with a question too: how did consciousness emerge in a lineage in which there was no consciousness? But this is a more straightforward classification for us, like asking how organisms with light-sensitive patches emerged. Consciousness is just another phenotype (albeit very interesting to us, given our rather parochial and egotistical concerns).

Blue Devil Knight said...

The more interesting point I was indirectly trying to raise was about how the neuronal dynamics which we already know represent the sensory world, control behavior (and lots in between) are affected by this evolutionary novelty, this nonneuronal nonnatural dualistic stuff that is supposed to explain certain things that neurons can't. Clearly neurons control the musclular system, they pull in the information from the world that forms the contents of our experiences. So the new substance must play some role in between, but also (if it is to influence behavior) must have an influence on the neuronal level.

If dualists are right, there should be lots of specific details about the interaction, predictions, real neuroscience. Aside from Eccles largely ignored work, there is basically nothing. Why is that? I think perhaps near death experiences are one line of research some dualists latch onto. Would you agree with that? What kinds of phenomena will help us understand, will further the science of the interaction of mind and brain?

For instance, what do dualists think happens when we are unconscious, as when deeply asleep or given anesthesia? Why is it that we don't remember what happened during such times if the mind exists independently of such substrates? If we don't have any experiences during such times, does that suggest anything about the utility of this nonphysical mind?

I know philosophers like to make their "transcendental" arguments and avoid getting into the messy details, to make grand metaphysical arguments that shouldn't depend on any of the science. That worked out really well for Kant and his theory of space.

Unless there are more empirically minded dualists who really struggle with details (like Eccles did), they will slowly wither on the vine at any good academic institution where people are being taught real science. This is a sociological claim, not a claim about the merits or lack thereof of dualism. So, while you don't technically have to be worried about when in phylogeny the neural becomes insufficient, perhaps you should be.

Steven Carr said...

' But nothing happens to my argument if chimp studies show that the kinds of states that I think cause problems for naturalists also exist in animals.'

And if we programmed a computer that had the kinds of states that exist in chimps?

Or if God programmed a computer that had the kinds of states that exist in chimps?


BDK
For instance, what do dualists think happens when we are unconscious, as when deeply asleep or given anesthesia?

CARR
I have asked this question many times, and it has never been answered.

How does an unconsious piece of matter get consciousness? How does consciousness return to the unconscious person?

Such questions will never be answered as dualists are stumped by the most obvious aspects of reality.

Dualists operate a strict 'Don't ask, don't tell' policy when it comes to the questions of BDK