2009/8/24 Stathis Papaioannou <stath...@gmail.com>: I mentioned, in reply to you, that my own argument was essentially equivalent to a broadly 'eastern' metaphysics. I append below my own summary of this perspective, in a somewhat compressed and 'neutral' form that is, I think, agnostic to amplification in comp or non-comp terms. I daresay it will be somewhat less than transparent, but any request for clarification will be met by urgent head-scratching and at least the possibility of further elucidation.
"Monism analysed dualistically" The following is an analysis of the 'quasi-dualistic' interaction between 'mind' and 'matter' in terms of a notion of primitive, monistic self-encounter: 1) Such self-encounter is comprehensible as the self-relativisation of a continuum that is hypothesised as: unique, contingently-existing, self-accessible and ontologically-primitive. It is postulated as "all that exists", in that any other sense of 'existence' whatsoever - e.g. mental, material, mathematical - is deemed to parasitise on it in terms of one or other, characteristically differentiated, internal state of affairs. It is thus postulated as a maximally parsimonious sense of existence-for-self, any diminution of which would entail 'zombification': i.e. the exclusion of any possibility of knowledge. 2) Within this universal context, self-encounter is postulated to manifest as the mutual exchange, between reciprocally-relativised differentiables, of a) perception; b) intention; and c) action; the latter as the second-order derivative of a) and b) in the context of 'observation' (see below). 3) The relations of perception, intention and action are available immediately in context, with perception and intention functionally polarised to the 'subjective' pole, and action to the 'objective' pole. The relation of action thus consists in 'observed' second-order relations within a context now organised as relatively-differentiated 'content'. 'Functionally-polarised' should be understood in terms of the emergence of 'subject' and 'object' as 'roles' played in the overall gestalt of differentiated content-in-context. 4) Of the foregoing relational categories, the second-order action derivative is uniquely transferable between (purely horizonally-defined) contexts, and hence can function as information, pattern, or signal. In this abstracted form, it is context-free, and consequently undecipherable until reinstated in some context capable of rendering it available for re-interpretation in terms of immediate perception and intention. 5) The functionally-polarised 'play of attention' between subject and object poles constitutes the 'interaction' between the quasi-dualistic ontic and epistemic domains, or between 'mind' and 'matter'. Note the reversal of the usual western categorisation - one *subsists* in terms of mind (ontic) but one *observes* in terms of matter (epistemic). I think that the foregoing represents the essential elements of - for example - the Vedantic perspective, or that of Plotinus, the Greek philosopher perhaps most influenced by eastern thought. It is noteworthy, IMO, for taking seriously the mind-body distinction, planting it firmly in a monistic context, but one which is internally interpretable in quasi-dualistic terms. It presupposes a qualitative notion of instantiation which is locally accessible and yet intrinsically non-transferable out-of-context. Furthermore, it both reverses and collapses the western dichotomy of consciousness as epistemic and material as ontic, by grounding both as aspects of a single category. David > > 2009/8/24 David Nyman <david.ny...@gmail.com>: > >> Having said all this, it is interesting to reconsider your formulation >> "the brain did its thing without us understanding it, creating its own >> context". What is it about *being* the brain that causes this context >> to be self-referentially available, but hides it beyond possibility of >> recovery from 'observation'? > > Whether it can be hidden beyond the *possibility* of recovery is an > interesting question. Certainly it would be very difficult to figure > out what an alien brain is thinking about from observation, like > cracking a very difficult code, but could it be made so that it's > impossible to figure out? We would be able to figure out something > about an alien code, such as a written language, by observing various > regularities, but we would be unable to figure out the actual meaning > of words unless we had some extra-language information; that is, we > could figure out the syntax, but not the semantics. Similarly with the > brain, we might be able to figure out certain patterns and > regularities, but without further information obtained by connecting > I/O devices or perhaps by obtaining the instruction manuals, we would > have no idea what the brain activity means, let alone what it feels > like from the brain's point of view. But would it be possible for the > brain's activity to be deliberately obscured such that not even the > syntax can be guessed at, the equivalent of encryption using a > one-time pad? > > > -- > Stathis Papaioannou > > > > --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. 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