tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2564160362079542584.post576054737059489209..comments2023-10-17T08:36:53.560-04:00Comments on The Peirce Blog: Out of Our MindsBen Udellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18361083931729525642noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2564160362079542584.post-32678390747441559942009-03-29T02:13:00.000-04:002009-03-29T02:13:00.000-04:00You got it! (Damn... now I have to finish the thin...You got it! (Damn... now I have to finish the thing...)Jeff Gracehttp://www.rjgrace.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2564160362079542584.post-78517907836810698532009-03-28T15:54:00.000-04:002009-03-28T15:54:00.000-04:00Regular updates, please!Regular updates, please!Ben Udellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18361083931729525642noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2564160362079542584.post-70631308199197832402009-03-28T03:10:00.000-04:002009-03-28T03:10:00.000-04:00Well, thank you gentlemen, for your responses and ...Well, thank you gentlemen, for your responses and comments. I am intrigued by the little bit we hear from Noë in that interview, so I am diving into his book which has arrived today...Jeff Gracehttp://www.rjgrace.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2564160362079542584.post-67023303578169677082009-03-27T21:55:00.000-04:002009-03-27T21:55:00.000-04:00I remember when at age 19 I took a course on Merle...I remember when at age 19 I took a course on Merleau-Ponty, it made a big impression on me. I read him over and over. But something else which I noticed was that, for instance, in arguments about the influence of nature versus that of nurture, nobody seemed to talk about the influence of logic -- logic, in the sense of reasoning, seemed like a third force to me. One can talk about reasoning's dependences on culture, but still some things depend on logic. And if somebody is producing proofs in number theory, then you won't be able to predict what he or she will do unless you know number theory, even better than that person knows it, because proofs in number theory are part what is determining the outcomes. (Sometimes in physical questions one finds mathematical explanations, mathematicaal "causes," e.g., of thermodynamic irreversibility, but that doesn't seem quite the samee thing.) Now take the example of logic and multiply it by a million, becase considerations of the strong, the fitting, the good, the true, in myriad degrees of generality and abstraction, influence a person. I came to like Peirce quite a lot because such thinking seems very compatible with his. If you take everything non-singular and call it a "useful fiction," then it's a cheap trick to call many human concerns mere constructs or illusions.<BR/><BR/>Almost instinctively I've taken to turning the tables and suggesting that materialist talk about the mind involves taking too seriously the handy lingo of neural and psycholoical research and that such talk is a research artefact, almost an epiphenomenon.<BR/><BR/>Alva Noë says:<BR/><BR/>"What makes a certain pattern of brain activity a conscious perceptual experience has nothing to do with the cells themselves, or with the way they are firing, but rather with the way the cells' activity is responsive to and helps us regulate our engagement with the world around us."<BR/><BR/>I think that that's an exaggeration, If what makes a certain pattern of brain activity a conscious perceptual experience has to do with the way the cells' activity is responsive to and helps us regulate our engagement with the world around us, then contary to what he says, cells themselves, or with the way they are firing, has <EM>something</EM> to do with it too.<BR/><BR/>I think that Noë is quite right that the appeal of materialist explanations is often that they would mean that things are not what they seem. Like a person sneering at his or her own experience, ha, I see through you, you <EM>phony!</EM>Ben Udellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18361083931729525642noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2564160362079542584.post-82747118712439453472009-03-27T07:01:00.000-04:002009-03-27T07:01:00.000-04:00You could say it's in the Peircean ballpark, but t...You could say it's in the Peircean ballpark, but then you'd also have to say it's a very large ballpark, including Hilary Putnam, Lakoff and Johnson, Andy Clark, Merleau-Ponty, Francisco Varela and bog knows who else.<BR/><BR/>I'm inclined to think that most everyone who takes up the "all in the brain" question is looking at it from the wrong end. The fact is, we are <B>interested</B> in what happens in the brain mainly because we are primed to see its activation patterns as correlated with experience, and this abduction is constantly reinforced by correlation between observations of brain activity and the experience reported by its owner (or with his observable behavior). But for the observer, the brain is part of the external world. The methods we use to explore the workings of the external world can never "explain" why you or anybody has a world to explore in the first place; that's a metaphysical question rarely recognized as such. Peirce simply said that consciousness is the view from within of what appears from without as matter. I don't think that way of looking at it has been much improved since; all the brain research going on is based on it, but tacitly so.gnoxhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15331512427658877043noreply@blogger.com