Like, why add on an extra layer of mystery above and beyond the observable?
― popular 60s shite, random blues dude bollocks (Noodle Vague), Friday, 5 November 2010 10:07 (thirteen years ago) link
my experience is an observable!
― xtc ep, etc (xp) (ledge), Friday, 5 November 2010 10:11 (thirteen years ago) link
What is it that's doing the observing?
― popular 60s shite, random blues dude bollocks (Noodle Vague), Friday, 5 November 2010 10:13 (thirteen years ago) link
Just argues that everything can be explained by biological process iirc. Agree.
Explain to who, though? To language using creatures who ineliminably see a world in intentional terms, or to unimaginable creatures who *know* it's biological process all the way down?
― sonofstan, Friday, 5 November 2010 10:17 (thirteen years ago) link
I mean how do they *know*?
― sonofstan, Friday, 5 November 2010 10:18 (thirteen years ago) link
Explain to human beings thinking about being human beings. Intentionality really has nothing to do with it, this feels like basic Occam's Razor stuff to me.
― popular 60s shite, random blues dude bollocks (Noodle Vague), Friday, 5 November 2010 10:20 (thirteen years ago) link
Dualism is such a busted flush.
Lucky you, so...
To say that *I think* my experience can be explained in terms of biological process - by which i take you to mean law- governed, predictable? - seems a performative contradiction to me. There can be no 'I' thinking this, if what the 'I' thinks is the case.
xp
― sonofstan, Friday, 5 November 2010 10:26 (thirteen years ago) link
I don't think there is an I in the sense you mean. A theoretically predictable law also leaves room for tremendous difficulty of prediction, maybe up to the point where prediction is only a theoretical possibility rather than a practical one.
― "joeks bruv" defence (Noodle Vague), Friday, 5 November 2010 10:28 (thirteen years ago) link
There can be no 'I' thinking this, if what the 'I' thinks is the case.
― quique da snique (bernard snowy), Friday, 5 November 2010 10:31 (thirteen years ago) link
Explain to human beings thinking about being human beings
Any human beings? Could you 'explain' vision, in terms of biological processess, to a blind person?
― xtc ep, etc (xp) (ledge), Friday, 5 November 2010 10:32 (thirteen years ago) link
... yes?
― quique da snique (bernard snowy), Friday, 5 November 2010 10:35 (thirteen years ago) link
I mean no obviously I couldn't give a blind person the experience of vision through any kind of explanation. I also couldn't give a paraplegic the experience of playing Dance Dance Revolution, but I could still tell him how the game works.
― quique da snique (bernard snowy), Friday, 5 November 2010 10:36 (thirteen years ago) link
GCSE Biology iirc
― "joeks bruv" defence (Noodle Vague), Friday, 5 November 2010 10:37 (thirteen years ago) link
I'm down with Davidson here - monism, but dual-aspect, or some such. Perhaps engaging in philosophical thought when I have to leave the house in one minute is not a good idea.
― Antoine Bugleboy (Merdeyeux), Friday, 5 November 2010 10:39 (thirteen years ago) link
Why can't it be thinking this as part of a biological process?
May it can be, maybe it is in some ultimately real way, but it can't 'think' this, if 'thinking' means what it thinks it means.
― sonofstan, Friday, 5 November 2010 10:39 (thirteen years ago) link
'Maybe it can be'
― sonofstan, Friday, 5 November 2010 10:40 (thirteen years ago) link
I mean no obviously I couldn't give a blind person the experience of vision through any kind of explanation
well y'know to me that seems like a pretty big explanatory failure.
I begin to feel like this is almost a religious position - in the sense that those on one side just *feel*, intuitively and strongly, that there is something that the scientific picture leaves out, and those who seem to feel that there is nothing in need of explanation.
― xtc ep, etc (xp) (ledge), Friday, 5 November 2010 10:40 (thirteen years ago) link
No there is plenty in need of explanation, it's more a case of believing that it's explicable vs believing in magic.
― "joeks bruv" defence (Noodle Vague), Friday, 5 November 2010 10:42 (thirteen years ago) link
Obligatory douchey dichotomy there, soz.
― quique da snique (bernard snowy), Friday, 5 November 2010 10:47 (thirteen years ago) link
I'm very skeptical about the capacity of language to explain any phenomenology, let alone a phenomenology of vision
― Mordy, Friday, 5 November 2010 10:51 (thirteen years ago) link
i'm kind of being facetious
― quique da snique (bernard snowy), Friday, 5 November 2010 10:52 (thirteen years ago) link
Expressibility thru language feels like a red herring here tho, since nobody's claiming that language = the totality of brain function I don't think.
― "joeks bruv" defence (Noodle Vague), Friday, 5 November 2010 10:53 (thirteen years ago) link
I think phenomenology is basically outwith the capacity of explanation, it is something that can only be understood through experience. This may or may not be controversial.
Actually i think bernard's DDR paraplegic was interesting. Is that a simple and mundane example of something non-phenomenological that cannot be 'explained'? Or is it phenomenological at its core?
― xtc ep, etc (xp) (ledge), Friday, 5 November 2010 10:54 (thirteen years ago) link
I think it's telling that all of us who can see "understand" the experience of sight phenomenologically (even if we aren't conscious of it) and very few of us could explain scientifically the processes of light and the biological basis of seeing. Even a complete full case of the latter doesn't give the former (and, obv, vice-versa too).
― Mordy, Friday, 5 November 2010 11:00 (thirteen years ago) link
Telling what? How do you go from the uniqueness of phenomena to separating them from an aspect of brain function?
― "joeks bruv" defence (Noodle Vague), Friday, 5 November 2010 11:02 (thirteen years ago) link
I guess I also don't see what the basis is for putting such extreme burdens of explanation on a biological theory of consciousness that, as far as I know, would posit the inseparability of mental 'experience' and (for lack of a better word right now) behavior. Like, it is one thing to aggregate a number of empirical behaviors into one common phenomenon called 'sight'; it is another thing to posit that there is some 'experience' of sight which is shared by all people who have engaged in those behaviors; and it is still a third thing to insist that any explanation for the phenomenon of sight must also be able to make the 'experience' of sight accessible to people who have never engaged in any of the behaviors.
― quique da snique (bernard snowy), Friday, 5 November 2010 11:14 (thirteen years ago) link
also I would maybe want to dispute thisall of us who can see "understand" the experience of sight phenomenologically (even if we aren't conscious of it)on the basis of optical illusions, that internet video with the basketball-passing people, etc -- what we "understand" is how to utilize our eyes in many of the most common situations to achieve a desired end result, like reading a word or tracking an object.
― quique da snique (bernard snowy), Friday, 5 November 2010 11:18 (thirteen years ago) link
I guess I'm not really sure what we're arguing about anymore (or are we arguing at all?). It seems to me like a mechanistic explanation of various phenomena will never fully account for the full phenomena. For instance, I'm not sure that science* (*I don't really know what this word means here either, but I imagine we're using some loose Enlightenment distinction) can explain why when I look at something sad its affect is transmitted and I experience sadness too. It can maybe point out the spike in a particular chemical in my brain, but it can't locate the genesis of that chemical outside my internal processes. When someone says something mean to me and my feelings get hurt, science can't trace that affectual spike through the air. To bernard snowy, tho, I'd definitely agree with his second option (that there is some 'experience' of sight which is shared by all people who have engaged in those behaviors) and I'm more skeptical about language's ability to transmit that experience whatsoever. I just worry tho that giving everything a mechanistic explanation is a way of ignoring parts of the phenomena that we know are real but that can't necessarily be measured.
― Mordy, Friday, 5 November 2010 12:17 (thirteen years ago) link
never fully account for the full phenomenon*
― Mordy, Friday, 5 November 2010 12:21 (thirteen years ago) link
"y sad things make u sad" seems like a unproblematic candidate for scientific explanation to me. mirror neurons, intention as representation, something evolution something, blah de blah. For me at least, I think it's purely the non-material, phenomenological quality of experience, which is not captured by current scientific thinking.
― xtc ep, etc (xp) (ledge), Friday, 5 November 2010 12:23 (thirteen years ago) link
Here's where we reach the problem of what 'science' is. If it's just accurately predicting various phenomena, then yes, it can probably be used to explain something like transmission of affect. But if it's more determining mechanistic functionality (particularly rooted in physics/biology) then I think transmission of affect will always be a challenge to explain. But you could also say that we understand some non-material quality specifically through a (also Enlightenment) study of things like sociology, social psychology, and even continental philosophy that deals with phenomenology -- like what puts Husserl outside the science discussion (esp since science's pedigree runs through philosophy).
― Mordy, Friday, 5 November 2010 12:30 (thirteen years ago) link
really the problem we're all dancing around here is internal time-consciousness
guess I need to read Sein und Zeit after all...
― quique da snique (bernard snowy), Friday, 5 November 2010 12:59 (thirteen years ago) link
this guy hacker is oddly enough not ending up too far from deleuze and guattari in his definition of philosophy
― max, Friday, 5 November 2010 15:25 (thirteen years ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6yi7m9IqsAU
― max, Friday, 3 December 2010 04:55 (thirteen years ago) link
video mustve literally just got removed b/c I watched it a few minutes ago and now its gone
― markers, Friday, 3 December 2010 05:37 (thirteen years ago) link
yeah, that is weird
― karl...arlk...rlka...lkar..., Friday, 3 December 2010 05:49 (thirteen years ago) link
it was the excerpt from the crying game
― markers, Friday, 3 December 2010 05:51 (thirteen years ago) link
oh yeah, forgot that part
― karl...arlk...rlka...lkar..., Friday, 3 December 2010 05:53 (thirteen years ago) link
my eternal love to the term 'hypokeimenon'.
what y'all reading at the moment? i just started iain hamilton grant's on an artificial earth: philosophies of nature after schelling, although i haven't read enough to say more than 'seems pretty cool'. i don't know shit about german idealism, so this is step one (or maybe like one point five) in my movement towards being hip to the current academic trends.
dunno about anyone else but i'd still be interested in an ilxor philosophy reading group. hm? although my interest in doing after finitude has waned, in large part because of reading what i think is his most recent (or most recently translated) article, on immanence, and wondering why he's such a crazyman. albeit a provocative one.
― Antoine Bugleboy (Merdeyeux), Thursday, 9 December 2010 19:28 (thirteen years ago) link
Anyone have thoughts about Alasdair MacIntyre and whether After Virture is worth reading? I loved Short History of Morality.
― just woke up (lukas), Thursday, 9 December 2010 19:32 (thirteen years ago) link
(braces)
mdx — I've seen that book before, although it was just called Philosophies of Nature After Schelling (assuming they're the same one — continuum press?) — couldn't make much of what I glanced at tho.
I'm not really reading any 'pure philosophy' at the moment (Derrida maybe the closest thing?) — mostly history-of-philosophy type stuff (just started on Martin Jay's book abt the Frankfurt School, which looks to be grebt, and I'm not sure why I put it off for long), + uh, various forms of 'theory'
― unemployed aerosmith fans I have shoved (bernard snowy), Thursday, 9 December 2010 19:44 (thirteen years ago) link
ya, same book. not entirely sure what it's 'about' yet myself, but i've heard grant big-upped many times and he'll be speaking at a conference here next year, so i'm putting my faith in it.
― Antoine Bugleboy (Merdeyeux), Thursday, 9 December 2010 19:49 (thirteen years ago) link
Cool cool.
What's the, uh... occasion? context? something like that. of your reading him? Like, the philosophical background from which you are approaching him... or something.
― unemployed aerosmith fans I have shoved (bernard snowy), Thursday, 9 December 2010 19:56 (thirteen years ago) link
xp,
Re MacIntyre - I have to teach AV at the moment to a bunch of trainee teachers who are being forced against their will to learn a bit of philosophy: they hate it, I hate it.
His basic argument is 'back to Aristotle' slightly via Hegel: What's Wrong With Modernity is individualism and the turning of us into atomised rule followers rather virtue- laden and valuing members of 'deep' communities, with high levels of commitment to defined and explicit ideas of the good. A bit dated in its attack on existentialism, and profoundly pessimistic in its prognosis for our future. Pompous with it.
― sonofstan, Thursday, 9 December 2010 20:05 (thirteen years ago) link
my eternal love to the term 'hypokeimenon'
Gotta catch 'em all!
― absinthe of malithe (Noodle Vague), Thursday, 9 December 2010 20:07 (thirteen years ago) link
EXACKLY.
xps to Bernard - I mostly work on Deleuze and Grant himself is a Deleuze scholar (and he admits that the book views everything through a bit of a Deleuze-Guattari lens), so it seems like a good route into engaging with German Idealism beyond just passive interest. Also I've been nepotistically offered an open invitation to speak at the conference Grant will be at ( http://www.humanitiescentral.com/21st-century-idealism/ ), which I probably won't take up because I doubt I'll develop the appropriate confidence with the idealism in the time available, but I'll benefit from working towards it anyway.
― Antoine Bugleboy (Merdeyeux), Thursday, 9 December 2010 20:11 (thirteen years ago) link
I'm a big fan of MacIntyre fwiw. I know him also, fwiw.
― Euler, Thursday, 9 December 2010 22:38 (thirteen years ago) link