21 ideas
| 5791 | Reduction is either by elimination, or by explanation [Searle] |
| Full Idea: One sense of 'reduction' is eliminative, in getting rid of a phenomenon by showing that it is really something else (as the earth's rotation eliminates 'sunsets'), but another sense does not get rid of it (as in the explanation of solidity by molecules). | |
| From: John Searle (The Mystery of Consciousness [1997], Ch.2) | |
| A reaction: These are bad analogies. You can't 'eliminate' a sunset - you just accept that the event is relative to a viewpoint. If we are discussing ontology, we will not admit the existence of sunsets, but we won't have an ontological category of 'solidity' either. |
| 5799 | Eliminative reduction needs a gap between appearance and reality, as in sunsets [Searle] |
| Full Idea: Eliminative reductions require a distinction between reality and appearance; for example, the sun appears to set but the reality is that the earth rotates. | |
| From: John Searle (The Mystery of Consciousness [1997], Concl 2.10) | |
| A reaction: A bad analogy. You don't 'eliminate' sunsets. It is just 'Galilean' relativity - you thought it was your train moving, then you discover it was the other one. You don't eliminate hallucinations when you show that they don't correspond to reality. |
| 5790 | A property is 'emergent' if it is caused by elements of a system, when the elements lack the property [Searle] |
| Full Idea: An emergent property of a system is causally explained by elements of the system, but it is not a property of the elements, and cannot be explained by a summation of their properties. The behaviour of H2O explains liquidity, but molecules aren't liquid. | |
| From: John Searle (The Mystery of Consciousness [1997], Ch.1) | |
| A reaction: The genie is 'emergent' from the lamp, and so (in Searle's meaning) is the lamp's solidity. I agree that the mind is 'emergent' in Searle's very weak sense, if that only means that one neuron can't be conscious, but lots together can. |
| 18431 | Internal relations combine some tropes into a nucleus, which bears the non-essential tropes [Simons, by Edwards] |
| Full Idea: Simons's 'nuclear' option blends features of the substratum and bundle theories. First we have tropes collected by virtue of their internal relations, forming the essential kernel or nucleus. This nucleus then bears the non-essential tropes. | |
| From: report of Peter Simons (Particulars in Particular Clothing [1994], p.567) by Douglas Edwards - Properties 3.5 | |
| A reaction: [compression of Edwards's summary] This strikes me as being a remarkably good theory. I am not sure of the ontological status of properties, such that they can (unaided) combine to make part of an object. What binds the non-essentials? |
| 5792 | Explanation of how we unify our mental stimuli into a single experience is the 'binding problem' [Searle] |
| Full Idea: The 'binding problem' is how to explain how the brain binds all our different stimuli into a single unified experience of an object. | |
| From: John Searle (The Mystery of Consciousness [1997], Ch.2) | |
| A reaction: This may be the best way of expressing what philosophers call (after Chalmers) the 'Hard Question'. Large objects are held together by gravity, and small objects by electro-magnetism. We don't see a 'binding problem' in the function of a leaf. |
| 5786 | A system is either conscious or it isn't, though the intensity varies a lot [Searle] |
| Full Idea: A system is either conscious or it isn't, but within the field of consciousness there are states of intensity ranging from drowsiness to full awareness. | |
| From: John Searle (The Mystery of Consciousness [1997], Ch.1) | |
| A reaction: I think this all-or-nothing view is the last vestiges of Cartesian dualism, and is quite wrong. Heaps of neuroscience (about blindsight, subliminal awareness, neurosis etc.) says we will never understand the mind if we think it is only the conscious part. |
| 5794 | Consciousness has a first-person ontology, which only exists from a subjective viewpoint [Searle] |
| Full Idea: Consciousness has a first-person or subjective ontology, by which I mean that conscious states only exist when experienced by a subject and they exist only from the first-person point of view of that subject. | |
| From: John Searle (The Mystery of Consciousness [1997], Ch.5 App) | |
| A reaction: I think this is nonsense, and I don't think Searle believes it. He ruthlessly attacks so-called 'eliminativists', but the definition he gives here would make him an eliminativist about other minds. There is no such thing as 'first-person' ontology. |
| 5795 | There isn't one consciousness (information-processing) which can be investigated, and another (phenomenal) which can't [Searle] |
| Full Idea: There are not two kinds of consciousness, an information-processing consciousness that is amenable to scientific investigation and a phenomenal, what-it-subjectively-feels-like form of consciousness that will forever remain mysterious. | |
| From: John Searle (The Mystery of Consciousness [1997], Concl.1) | |
| A reaction: Fodor appears to be the main target of this remark. The view that we can explain intentionality but not qualia is currently very fashionable. I am sympathetic to Searle here. Consciousness isn't an epiphenomenon, it is essential to all thought. |
| 5788 | The use of 'qualia' seems to imply that consciousness and qualia are separate [Searle] |
| Full Idea: I am hesitant to use the word 'quale/qualia', because it gives the impression that there are two separate phenomena, consciousness and qualia. | |
| From: John Searle (The Mystery of Consciousness [1997], Ch.1) | |
| A reaction: He is trying to resist going back to 'sense-data', sitting uneasily between reality and our experience of it. Personally I am quite happy with qualia as an aspect of consciousness - just as I am happy with consciousness as an 'aspect' of brain. |
| 5789 | I now think syntax is not in the physics, but in the eye of the beholder [Searle] |
| Full Idea: It seems to me now that syntax is not intrinsic to the physics of the system, but is in the eye of the beholder. | |
| From: John Searle (The Mystery of Consciousness [1997], Ch.1) | |
| A reaction: This seems right, in that whether strung beads are a toy or an abacus depends on the user. It doesn't follow that the 'beholder' stands outside the physics. A beholder is another physical system, of a particular type of high complexity. |
| 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. |
| 5797 | The pattern of molecules in the sea is much more complex than the complexity of brain neurons [Searle] |
| Full Idea: The pattern of molecules in the ocean is vastly more complex than any pattern of neurons in my brain. | |
| From: John Searle (The Mystery of Consciousness [1997], Concl 2.6) | |
| A reaction: A nice warning for anyone foolish enough to pin their explanatory hopes simply on 'complexity', but we would not be so foolish. A subtler account of complexity (e.g. by Edelman and Tononi) might make brains much more complex than oceans. |
| 5796 | If tree rings contain information about age, then age contains information about rings [Searle] |
| Full Idea: You could say that tree-rings contain information about the age of a tree, but you could as well say that the age of a tree in years contains information about the number of rings in a tree stump. ..'Information' is not a real causal feature of the world. | |
| From: John Searle (The Mystery of Consciousness [1997], Concl 2.5) | |
| A reaction: A nice point for fans of 'information' to ponder. However, you cannot deny the causal connection between the age and the rings. Information has a subjective aspect, but you cannot, for example, eliminate the role of DNA in making organisms. |
| 6237 | Fear of God is not conscience, which is a natural feeling of offence at bad behaviour [Shaftesbury] |
| Full Idea: Conscience is to find horribly offensive the reflection of any unjust action or behaviour; to have awe and terror of the Deity, does not, of itself, imply conscience; …thus religious conscience supposes moral or natural conscience. | |
| From: 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury (Inquiry Concerning Virtue or Merit [1699], II.II.I) | |
| A reaction: The reply from religion would be that the Deity has implanted natural conscience in each creature, though this seems to deny our freedom of moral judgment. Personally I am inclined to think that values are just observations of the world - such as health. |
| 6234 | If an irrational creature with kind feelings was suddenly given reason, its reason would approve of kind feelings [Shaftesbury] |
| Full Idea: If a creature wanting reason has many good qualities and affections, it is certain that if you give this creature a reflecting faculty, it will at the same instant approve of gratitude, kindness and pity. | |
| From: 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury (Inquiry Concerning Virtue or Merit [1699], I.III.III) | |
| A reaction: A wonderful denunciation of the authority of reason, which must have influenced David Hume. I think, though, that the inverse of this case must be considered (if suddenly given feelings, they would fall in line with reasoning). We reason about feelings. |
| 6233 | A person isn't good if only tying their hands prevents their mischief, so the affections decide a person's morality [Shaftesbury] |
| Full Idea: We do not say that he is a good man when, having his hands tied up, he is hindered from doing the mischief he designs; …hence it is by affection merely that a creature is esteemed good or ill, natural or unnatural. | |
| From: 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury (Inquiry Concerning Virtue or Merit [1699], I.II.I) | |
| A reaction: Note that he more or less equates being morally 'ill' with being 'unnatural'. We tend to reserve 'unnatural' for extreme or perverse crimes. Personally I would place more emphasis on evil judgements, and less on evil feelings. |
| 6236 | People more obviously enjoy social pleasures than they do eating and drinking [Shaftesbury] |
| Full Idea: How much the social pleasures are superior to any other may be known by visible tokens and effects; the marks and signs which attend this sort of joy are more intense and clear than those which attend the satisfaction of thirst and hunger. | |
| From: 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury (Inquiry Concerning Virtue or Merit [1699], II.II.I) | |
| A reaction: He presumably refers to smiles and laughter, but they could be misleading as they are partly a means of social communication. You should ask people whether they would prefer a nice conversation or a good pork chop. Nice point, though. |
| 6235 | Self-interest is not intrinsically good, but its absence is evil, as public good needs it [Shaftesbury] |
| Full Idea: Though no creature can be called good merely for possessing the self-preserving affections, it is impossible that public good can be preserved without them; so that a creature wanting in them is wanting in natural rectitude, and may be esteemed vicious. | |
| From: 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury (Inquiry Concerning Virtue or Merit [1699], II.I.III) | |
| A reaction: Aristotle held a similar view (Idea 92). I think maybe Shaftesbury was the last call of the Aristotelians, before being engulfed by utilitarians and Kantians. This idea is at the core of capitalism. |
| 6232 | Every creature has a right and a wrong state which guide its actions, so there must be a natural end [Shaftesbury] |
| Full Idea: We know there is a right and a wrong state of every creature; and that his right one is by nature forwarded, and by himself affectionately sought. There being therefore in every creature a certain interest or good; there must also be a natural end. | |
| From: 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury (Inquiry Concerning Virtue or Merit [1699], I.II.I) | |
| A reaction: This is an early modern statement of Aristotelian teleology, just at the point where it was falling out of fashion. The underlying concept is that of right function. I agree with Shaftesbury, but you can't stop someone damaging their health. |
| 5642 | For Shaftesbury, we must already have a conscience to be motivated to religious obedience [Shaftesbury, by Scruton] |
| Full Idea: Shaftesbury argued that no morality could be founded in religious obedience, or piety. On the contrary, a man is motivated to such obedience only because conscience tells him that the divine being is worthy of it. | |
| From: report of 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury (Inquiry Concerning Virtue or Merit [1699]) by Roger Scruton - Short History of Modern Philosophy Ch.8 | |
| A reaction: This seems to me a good argument. The only alternative is that we are brought to God by a conscience which was planted in us by God, but then how would you know you were being obedient to the right hypnotist? |