[Serious Phil] Challenge to SWM

[larry_tapper]

LT> I find David Lewis' "ability reply" more or less persuasive, and now Jackson does too.

PDJ> I think it is hopeless. It falls apart under the slightest examination. 

PDJ,

In that case, it is a bit of puzzle why Frank Jackson, the author of the Mary gedanken, finds it persuasive after 20 years of thinking about it and fielding objections.

This is not an argument from authority. Jackson's recantation is no more definitive than Putnam's rejection of functionalism is definitive. But what this story tells me is that something is up here and it may pay to inquire deeply into the reasons behind Jackson's change of mind.  

PDJ> What is this ability an ability to do? Nothing
that we would normally call doing, like riding a bike. It
is an ability to know what red is like by acquaintance. Which gets us back to square one: she acquires knowledge by acquaintance.

I don't look at it that way. I think of the acquired ability as learning how to use an instrument, except in this case the instrument is one's own perceptual apparatus. Infants do that too of course. Wouldn't you say it's a bit early to ascribe "knowledge by acquaintance" to a nearly newborn infant encountering the family dog for the first time? A certain amount of making-sense-of-the-world has to take place before we can speak of any kind of knowledge at all.

It's unusual telling a story in which an adult is having some kind of primary sensory experience for the first time, but even in that case, it seems to me that there will be some calibrating of the instrument to do.

By the way, it seems to me that the Russellian phrase "knowledge by acquaintance" has been somewhat overused in this context. Russell's original intent was to argue that kba has a kind of epistemic priority higher than that of knowledge by description (though some earlier writers such as James had floated the idea in a different way). But Russell's purpose entails looking at both kinds of knowledge propositionally, else we cannot compare the two. If you think of kba as ineffable, you're using it in a way that is far removed from Russell's.

LT

  


--- In Phil-Sci-Mind at yahoogroups.com, "Peter D" <Philscimind at ...> wrote:
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> --- In Phil-Sci-Mind at yahoogroups.com, "larry_tapper" <Philscimind@> wrote:
> >
> > 
> > 
> > --- In Phil-Sci-Mind at yahoogroups.com, "Peter D" <Philscimind@> wrote:
> > >
> > > 
> > > 
> > > --- In Phil-Sci-Mind at yahoogroups.com, "larry_tapper" <Philscimind@> wrote:
> > > >
> > > > 
> > > > 
> > > > --- In Phil-Sci-Mind at yahoogroups.com, "Peter D" <Philscimind@> wrote:
> > > > >
> > > > > 
> > > > > 
> > > > > --- In Phil-Sci-Mind at yahoogroups.com, "larry_tapper" <Philscimind@> wrote:
> > > > > >
> > > > > > EO>This varies from individual to individual so
> > > > > > > your red
> > > > > > > is very different from mine.
> > > > > > 
> > > > > > PDJ> So how does that tell me *what* Eray-red is like,
> > > > > > beyond the fact that it is not Peter-red?
> > > > > > 
> > > > > > On this issue I actually tend to agree with Eray.
> > > > > > 
> > > > > > I think much of the difficulty of the Hard Problem could stem from the possibility that a scientific description of Eray-red might entail a total theory of Eray. 
> > > > > 
> > > > PDJ> Eray seems to think Red supervenes only on his neural trains.
> > > > 
> > > > Peter,
> > > > 
> > > > Eray seems to think that *all* his mental states, including his sense of selfhood, supervene on his neural trains. He can elaborate on that.
> > > > 
> > > > > 
> > > > > >That is, it seems to me that what it is like for Eray to see red cannot be split off from what it is like to be Eray, with all his associative memories, cognitive quirks, etc.
> > > > > > 
> > > > > > A total theory of Eray (at a level of description that distinguishes Eray from Peter) may indeed be practically infeasible because of its computational complexity. That would make the Hard Problem unavoidably hard. But of course that's a very different tack from the notion that there is no known or even conceptually possible scientific model for what-it-is-like considerations. 
> > > > > 
> > > > PDJ> If there are conceptual problems, there are conceptual problems. For instance, your scheme leaves it unanswered why what is objectively a very complex brain state can appear subjectively as a simple Red or Middle C. 
> > > > 
> > > > But maybe "simple Red and Middle C" are not so simple, in the sense that the complexity of the brain state makes each person's experience slightly different. 
> > > 
> > > I'm  not assserting that everyone has the same Red or Middle C.
> > > The issues are  how this happens at all, how the complexity gets hidden; and why I should be said to have a difficulty in communicating
> > > complexity when I don't perceive any -- if I saw complex black-and-white patterns instead of colours, I'd have a chance of communicating them, it would just take time.
> > 
> > PDJ,
> > 
> > Maybe I've been missing something all along, but I've been puzzled by these arguments from the monolothic unanalyzable simplicity of color or pitch perceptions, because it does not seem to me that I actually experience them that way.
> 
> If you can analyse experience at all, you must end with the
> unanalysable.
> 
> > As humans we have a pretty good ability to tune out extraneous factors and focus on just one thing. In fact William James liked to say that that was what the brain was for --- he used the "reducing valve" analogy, describing sensory input without mediation by higher-level brain functions as "a blooming, buzzing confusion" (or something like that, I'm quoting from memory). 
> > 
> > Outside my window is a rosebush in full bloom. In my typical state of awareness, I look out the window and take in the redness of the roses along with myriad other things --- the quality of the sunlight, squirrels running around, whether the grass needs mowing, etc. At any given momemnt, what it is like to be me (or anyone else) is pretty complex.
> > 
> > I can always stare at the rosebush and try to focus exclusively on what it is like for me to see red, tuning everything else out, but there are limits to my ability to do that, because my internal states (associative memories, classificatory judgments, somatic awareness, etc.) cannot be turned off, at least not without the help of drugs or surgery.
> 
> You can arrange to have a ganzfeld not too drastically, so
> filtering ability doens't matter. Cognitive associations
> aren't sensory quyalities, so they don't matter either.
> 
> > I understand your point that phenomenal red can't be broken down into components and it is irreducibly simple in that sense. I also understand that we're not going to get an answer any time soon to the old conundrum, is your red the same as mine?
> > 
> > But I like Eray's answer, which is, it isn't the same, just close enough for social agreement. That seems to me better than the attitude that the two experiences are ineffable, hence beyond the reach of physical science.  
> 
> 
> Eray's answer has not the slightest impact on ineffability:
> to say that one unknown X is close to another Y, does nothing
> to resolve the value X.
> 
> 
> >    
> > LT> We succeed in communicating because of commonalities, but in doing so we may be ignoring scads of information we don't even have words for. 
> > > 
> > > 
> > PDJ> I am  not consciously ignoring what is not presented to me.
> > 
> > Point taken, but again, what is presented to you is never a pure exemplar of isolable phenomenal red. Or so I would argue.
> > 
> > > 
> > > > Besides, I wouldn't say that my experience of Middle C is all that simple, even forgetting the analysis and just trying to describe it by introspection. For starters, the experience always goes with timbre, sound context, distributions of overtones, all sorts of omnipresent factors that could affect my perception of pitch.
> > > 
> > > 
> > > Lets say its a sine wave then.
> > > 
> > > > You could persuade me otherwise, but my feeling has been that the "simplicity" of so-called raw feels like perceptions of color patches has always been a bit of a red herring. 
> > > > 
> > > > PDJ> The point of the Mary gedanken is to strip away feasability concerns by granting Mary superscientific powers so as to expose
> > > > the conceptual problems.
> > > > 
> > LT> Yes, and Frank Jackson himself no longer believes that Mary's stipulated powers are insufficient, in the sense he originally intended.
> > > > 
> > > 
> > PDJ> It would be interesting to hear what you believe.
> > 
> > We started a thread about this but still have a long way to go. At least I feel that I do.
> > 
> > I find David Lewis' "ability reply" more or less persuasive, and now Jackson does too. 
> 
> 
> I think it is hopeless. It falls apart under the slightest examination. What is this ability an ability to do? Nothing
> that we would normally call doing, like riding a bike. It
> is an ability to know what red is like by acquaintance. Which gets us back to
> square one: she acquires knowledge by acquaintance.
> 
> >Lewis says that what Mary acquires on leaving the room is a new ability, which is not the same thing as *either* physical knowledge or knowledge by acquaintance.
> > 
> > However, Jackson (in his Mind and Illusion paper) adds that he does not see how to make Lewis' criticism work without endorsing the representationalist theory of perception. At this point, I have a vague sense that this is consistent with the sorts of things I was writing above --- but I haven't read enough about representionalism pro and con to be sure of that. I'm afraid I have a tendency to be about 25 years behind in my reading, and this is no exception, though I've tried to do a certain amount of catch-up.
> > 
> > Larry
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > > 
> > > 
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