Posted by alexandra_k on September 13, 2005, at 18:48:38
In reply to Alexandra and Damos, posted by zeugma on September 13, 2005, at 5:23:42
> thanks to you both for being there :-)
And thanks to you :-)
>I read an abstract which said that the main advantage of newer ADHD drugs is that they are not called RitalinLOL!
> Depersonalization is eerie, when younger this caused a continual state of panic, but the panic attacks are not frequent anymore because the feeling of being isolated from my own body is one I am habituated to by now.Hmm. I get depersonalization too - but I think mine is a bit different. It feels like I am an observer of my own body. I can watch it moving around and having thoughts and perceptions and sometimes emotions and behaving in various ways. But none of it feels like it follows from me, from a conscious decision I have made. I am therefore interested in the notion of free will and especially the notion that we don't really have any. I quite like epiphenomenalism, the idea that we just experience our brains processes and we have no say whatsoever as to what brain processes will occur in us.
>Philosophically, this makes it very hard for me to cope with philosophers who put a great deal of stress on phenomenology, such as Daniel Dennett or (in a Continental vein) Husserl. I find that Dennett's work makes my head spin because he is always talking about phenomenology, and I can't follow any of it.
Ah. Have you tried "Consciousness Explained"? I'm wondering about Dennett... See, Dennett says he is going to take phenomenology seriously. He then proceeds to pay tribute to the richness of phenomenological experience (which sounds like the bit you are having trouble with). He then proceeds... To change the subject. To deny the phenomenology. I wonder... Whether in the end he may well get to a position that you could have sympathy for.
>The same with theories of mental representation.
Though... Representations don't have to be conscious. In fact... If you think of representations as (consciously experienced) Lockean ideas then that results in a number of problems... You can think of representations as a mechanism that underlies our behavioural abilities to respond differentially to different stimuli.
> Depersonalization has been correlated with a defect in the ability to generate imagery.
Oh dear :-(
Is that why I'm so useless at navigating in halo??>It is easier for me to think of properties that two predicates might have in common (for example, that red and blue both share a property with green, but not with cold) than to think of 'how it feels' to see green as opposed to red. That's why I find problems such as Dennett's 'zombies' who are the same as us but lack consciousness difficult to assess. If their behavior is identical, including, presdumably,verbal behavior, then how do the zombies differ from us?
ONLY with respect to phenomenology.
(Chalmers says this is an important difference... Dennett ultimately concludes that if phenomenology is the ONLY difference then there is no difference. You might have sympathy with his position).>They would say there is nothing it' feels' like to be them.
No. They are exact physical duplicates... So they say all the things you would say. They would say 'wow look at the redness in the sunset' even though they don't have conscious experiences.
>But would they nonetheless be able to use predicates such as 'aware of', as in, they are aware that the patch is green?
Absolutely. You have to imagine a world that is an exact physical duplicate of this world down to the last sub-atomic particle. On that world you have a counter-part. Your counterpart has had an exact duplicate life to you. Your counterpart exhibited exact duplicate behaviours. Including verbal behaviours. But... There is nothing it is like to be your counterpart. But in your case... The notion is that there is something it is like to be you except when you are in a dreamless sleep or knocked unconscious.
>Maybe I am drastically off here, but I am inclined to take a behaviorist line in these matters. (typing in great haste so just throwing out ideas.)(suppose I'm trying to say that ability to use mentalistic predicates is a property of a limited calss of organisms, and that whether there is real 'mind' behind it is revealed by the pattern of use.)
So if we could artificially construct a robot that could behave comperably to a person then not only would it have comperable mental states such as belief and desire but it would also have comperable conscious states?
Is there a fact of the matter (whether it is conscious or not) and is the truth maker different from mere behaviours?
> yes Alexandra I tend to be depressed, not dysthymic. Things are fairly level now though. :-)I hope you get to be a two place predicate soon :-)
poster:alexandra_k
thread:541758
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/write/20050910/msgs/554771.html