"andy-k" wrote in
news:Av7hk.17783$%%F3.12924@newsfe27.ams2:
>> The "we" resides in the CR. All of our concepts reside there (but not
>> our primary subjective states). One element of this edifice added
>> early on is the posit that other minds exist, more-or-less similar to
>> oneself, with whom one can compare notes.
> As a member of CR (i.e. a construct), has this 'we' constructed
> itself?
No. You have constructed it. The others comprising the "we", along with
yourself, are early elements of that construct. You create an external
world and place yourself within it. Then you, along with the others you
have constructed, add more storeys to the edifice.
>> What we will be trying to explain will be patterns or relationships
>> appearing among our primary subjective states which we have not
>> observed previously. What we take to be the origin of that new data
>> will depend upon the CR we have (tentatively) adopted, e.g., whether
>> its origins are due to some phenomenon in the "external world" (as
>> posited by the CR), or to our own subconscious imagination (as also
>> posited by the CR). It will have been discovered in either case
>> ("discovery" meaning only that it has come to our attention for the
>> first time).
> So we aren't inventing the new evidence. But now the question arises
> as to whether the cosmos is 'creating' new evidence *as we discover
> it*, or whether that evidence was there all the time just waiting to
> be discovered. Unless you're proposing the former, I still don't see
> how we can claim to know all there is to know about the atom.
I'm not sure I can explain that any differently than I already have. We
know all about the atom because it is a defined entity, and (presumably) we
know how we have defined it. We don't find atoms among our primary
subjective states (we find colors, odors, shapes, etc.) We may discover new
such states or combinations of them, but we will not find any new kinds of
atom there. We have conjured up this entity, the atom, to explain some of
the combinations of qualia we experience. We may see fit to "remodel"
(redefine) that defined entity if it proves unable, as-is, to account for
some of the new qualia combos we have discovered, and tweaking its
properties will enable it to account for them.
I suppose you could say that since the atom is subject to future re-
definition, and we cannot foretell the indefinite future, that we don't
know "all there is to know about the atom" (because we don't now know how
we may decide to revise it in the future). That would be true, of course,
but not very instructive. That would be like saying we do not know all
there is to know about the rules of chess, because they might be revised in
the future, which revisions we cannot foresee.
>> But defined entities such as triangles, numbers, atoms, EM fields,
>> bits, etc. (and also such things as the pieces in chess, the rules
>> and concepts of baseball, the elements of music, etc.), either have
>> no observable properties (qualia in ER associated with them in our
>> model), or specific, constant properties (such as the tone defining a
>> musical note). The properties defined into them are the only
>> properties they have. (We will not be "discovering" new properties of
>> bits or middle-C).
> We abstract the general idea 'triangle' (or 'number') by observing
> specific cases and eliminating differences, but in the case of the
> atom we are postulating an unobserved entity in order to account for
> observed activity. The rules of games are our inventions and not our
> discoveries.
All of those things I mentioned are our inventions (not our discoveries).
> Musical notes are qualitative primaries and not compound
> concepts like the atom.
Sure they are. A note has a pitch and a duration.
> I don't think the atom belongs in this list --
> it seems more like it belongs to an extension of your "tangible
> physical objects" list (extrapolated into the intangible domain).
Well, that would be a metaphorical extension. Atoms have no tangible
properties whatsoever (none of their properties are qualia). They are
abstract entities assigned a handful of non-tangible properties, of the
same order as a sphere, but with a more complex structure. If we have
extrapolated a tangible entity to the point where it has lost all of its
tangible properties, and at the same time acquired a number of nontangible
properties (spin, charge, strong and weak forces, etc.) then it seems
gratuitous to classify it as "tangible."
Atoms are not an extrapolation to a smaller scale of tangible entities
(like dividing a grain of sand into quarters indefinitely). They are
assigned structures and properties bearing no resemblance to those of the
tangible entities they are presumed to constitute.
>> Well, as we discussed before, unless some component of CR generates
>> testable predictions, then it is at best an EF
>> (explanation-formation). If it is incapable of making testable
>> predictions in principle, then we leave it out of CR, for reasons of
>> parsimony. It would add a complexity and cause distraction without
>> accomplishing anything useful.
> You seem to be implying that your EF is a kind of pseudo-explanation,
> whereas I regard it as a *category* of explanation.
>> (I need to know more about your concept of "explanation". You seem to
>> find some value in at least some non-predictive EFs. I'd like to know
>> where that value lies).
> I'm suggesting that we don't throw out hypotheses for no other reason
> than that we can't immediately see a means of testing them. Firstly,
> we never know what developments the future may bring, and secondly the
> simple act of playing around with ideas may lead to some interesting
> insights. If we can find no immediate empirical grounds for
> eliminating an idea then we should run with it a while and see where
> it might take us. Only prejudice can prevent us from taking that
> route, and possibly deprive us of those interesting insights.
Well, I wouldn't argue with that. But that is something different than what
you said earlier (or that I took you to be saying earlier). I took you to
be saying that an EF might be worth keeping even if it was untestable *in
principle*, e.g., it was was framed in such a way as to rule out all
possibility of testing. Not being able to "immediately see a way of
testing" an EF is a not necessarily a fatal flaw for that EF. That is an EF
we may wish to set aside as "pending."
>> EF's may not be eliminated on grounds of parsimony?
>
> Parsimony may end up throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
Parsimony advises us to throw out those EFs which have no baby in the
bathwater, because they permit no possibility of testing. If an EF does not
offer, for logical reasons, any prospect of predicting future experience,
then there is no baby (nothing worth keeping).
>> Well, I don't think we're eliminating, or trying to eliminate, any
>> enigma. What we are eliminating are EF's which fail to explain the
>> enigma.
> You can only claim that an EF doesn't explain an enigma by re-defining
> the word 'explanation' in such a way as to exclude untestable
> explanations. This is just word-play.
That gets back to the question I asked earlier --- what do you count as an
explanation? Or, in light of our earlier discussion of E's v. EFs, what do
you take to be a credible or cogent explanation?
I don't think I have re-defined "explanation" (I accept the D-N model of
Hempel, Popper, et al).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deductive-nomological
This seems to be a key issue here. An elucidation of "explanation," as you
take it, would be helpful.
>> I think everyone accepts that. What we disagree about is whether
>> consciousness falls within its purview. I claim it does, and that it
>> can be explained with physical theory, to the extent that it can be
>> explained at all. There are aspects to it, however, such as the
>> nature of subjective states, which cannot be explained at all. For
>> those, if we can explain why they cannot be explained, then we have
>> done all that is possible.
> I say that more may be possible, but whether or not more is possible
> will never be known if an idea is dismissed out of hand.
What more do you suppose may be possible? (I take it that if you think more
*may* be possible, that you have some inkling of what those possible
"mores" might include).
>> We have explained consciousness when we can describe how to assemble
>> a system which begins to behave in the ways which subjective states
>> would help explain and predict, just as we have explained photons
>> when we can cobble together a device that can generate light and
>> predict its properties. We are mystified because we ourselves are
>> devices of the type which can have subjective states, and because we
>> directly experience those states. But that is just what our theory
>> predicts: that a system having subjective states will experience
>> them.
>
> You're still evading the enigma of the existence of a first-person
> subjective perspective upon a world.
The engima being, "Why does anything exist?," or, "Why do I (this first-
person subjective perspective upon a world) exist"?
If physics, or any other CR we might construct, is to be considered
"incomplete" because it is unable to answer those questions, then I'd go
along. Completely modeling a system requires a host system larger than the
target system. Unless you assume our minds are larger than the universe
then we'll never be able to completely model it (even if we are solipsists
we'll have to be larger than ourselves to completely model ourselves).
I suspect I just don't find consciousness as mysterious as you do. It is a
common phenomena which seems rather less mysterious to me than magnetism,
gravity, quantum superposition, and other fundamental properties of the
universe. They're all ultimately inexplicable. In fact, consciousness is
rather less mysterious, since we seem to be getting a handle on the kinds
of system which will exhibit it
--- a system able to dynamically model
itself and its environment will be conscious. And we can outline a
plausible account of how we ourselves, being one succh type of system,
evolved.
That's not too bad.
