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2 ideas
5798 | Consciousness has a first-person ontology, so it cannot be reduced without omitting something [Searle] |
Full Idea: Consciousness has a first-person or subjective ontology and so cannot be reduced to anything that has third-person or objective ontology. If you try to reduce or eliminate one in favour of the other you leave something out. | |
From: John Searle (The Mystery of Consciousness [1997], Concl 2.10) | |
A reaction: Misconceived. There is no such thing as 'first-person' ontology, though there are subjective viewpoints, but then a camera has a viewpoint which is lost if you eliminate it. If consciousness is physical events, that leaves viewpoints untouched. |
5787 | There is non-event causation between mind and brain, as between a table and its solidity [Searle] |
Full Idea: The solidity of a table is explained causally by the behaviour of the molecules of which it is composed, but the solidity is not an extra event, it is just a feature of the table. This non-event causation models the relationship of mind and brain. | |
From: John Searle (The Mystery of Consciousness [1997], Ch.1) | |
A reaction: He calls it 'non-event' causation, while referring to the 'behaviour of molecules'. Ask a physicist what a 'feature' is. Better to think of it as one process 'emerging' as another process at the macro-level. |