KARL JASPERS FORUM
TAs 102-104 (Vimal) Commentary 5 (to R5 by Vimal) THE BRAIN IN 0-D EPISTEMOLOGY
by Herbert FJ Müller
4 February 2008, posted 9 February 2008 In
the following, I respond to some of the points of your R5.
Re
{0}: I agree, an exchange is useful, and
discussion is the purpose of the KJF. I
would like to know in particular how Indian theory of knowledge (epistemology)
deals with the question of mind-independent reality (MIR), which poses so much
difficulty for the mind-brain problem.
Re
{1}: The ‘context’ is important. Materialism is a form of MIR-belief, and that
is also true for the micro-materialism which you advocate. ‘How physical processes give rise to
subjective experience’ is indeed ‘a natural question’, but a traditional
naïve-metaphysical-ontological question, and metaphysics is fiction. When you postulate or imply that reality is
mind-independent, you lose the mind instantly (cf. Francis Crick and his
‘astonishing hypothesis’), since the mind cannot be mind-independent.
Re
{2}: The encompassing SE is not
structured except for the structures which we create in it, including qualia
like happiness or pain, gestalten, words, numbers,
etc. SE is not an ‘a priori system’
(systems are MIRs), but the matrix in which structures arise. SE is not reducible to or explainable by any
kind of MIR because MIRs can only be created within SE (topological
relation). The ‘explanatory gaps’
presuppose MIR-belief, which is out of place for the mind-brain question. Operational science needs no ontology (ISness; see {3} and {15}), it
includes the subject, and takes place within SE. It is impossible to ‘explain’ mind,
subjectivity, consciousness, etc., via objective studies, because the objective
studies take place inside the mind (despite the fact that some well known
writers have announced that they have already explained it -
while in contrast Chalmers at least recognizes that such a proposition
runs into a ‘hard’ conceptual road-block).
Re
{3}: ‘Neural correlates’ are MIR. They are quite valid in objective studies,
but cannot explain subjectivity. Either you do neurophysiology or you do phenomenology;
physiology is objective science within SE, usually with
MIR-metaphysics-ontology beliefs, but these can be converted to as-if-MIR
without interfering with operational science.
Re
{4}: SE cannot be ‘unpacked’, it is the
matrix of thinking. Let me quote from TA1 :
[8]
TABLE 1 :
THE UNSTRUCTURED MATRIX
as the origin of mental structures (various terms)
*The APEIRON is the source and
sink of all structures (Anaximander and others)
*CHAOS (originally = cleft, later
= disorder) in Greek thought since at least Hesiod
*TOHU WA BOHU in the Bible
*TABULA RASA as the start of
thinking (Locke and others)
*The ENCOMPASSING (das Umgreifende, Jaspers)
*FACING NOTHINGNESS (and doing
something with it: Existentialists)
*CONSTRUCTION and DE-CONSTRUCTION
as needed (i.e., ad-hoc; Postmoderns)
*VOID as background of thinking
(Murdoch)
*BACKGOUND (Searle)
*GLOBAL WORKSPACE (Baars)
A simple neutral term might be:
ZERO-REFERENCE METHOD
The practical problem is to use such a method on an ongoing basis, and indeed
the functional aspect is much more important than any static term which might
be employed.
--------------------------------------------------------------
THE UNSTRUCTURED MATRIX OF MENTAL STRUCTURES
Re {5}: Concerning the role of language, I quote from
my CF 3.1 paper :
“ 4 ... The conceptual mind–brain relation difficulty is
related to a chain of effects of the human invention and use of language as a
new instrument.
In comparison
with non-verbal animals, language use
1. enables a great increase of possibilities for individual and
collective thought and action, but this is accompanied by
2. uncertainty of what to think and do, and thus
3. a need for certainty-mechanisms. That is answered by
4. assumptions of mind-external certainties (reality, MIR, onta), which have long been used in the form of a
word-image-conceptual scaffolding to stabilize subject-inclusive operational
structures, which were felt to be unreliable, vague, or arbitrary. But this
procedure leads to a belief in a primary or ontic
subject–object split, and causes an inversion of thinking, where mental tools
are assigned a role of external, sometimes absolute, authority over thinking.
Then the word-image certainties can also become barriers that
5. restrict freedom of exploration, including in particular a
6. disappearance of subjectivity, which in turn
7. prevents the study of the mind–brain relation. ... ”
Language use enforces tendencies present at a pre-verbal level; if the language
area is destroyed these features, which have been built with the help of
language, are not necessarily abolished but they are impaired. ‘Car in parking lot’ : you defend the objective thinking method,
which is fine as a method; except it has nothing to do with the priority of SE,
where subject and object ‘are unified’, before the pragmatic subject-object
split.
Re
{6}: SE of objects is structure of
objects within SE. Theistic religions
tend to attempt to structure the non-structured SE completely, including its
center which cannot be structured because it is the active center of
structuring. That leads to paradoxes and
therefore requires the religious ‘ontological leap of faith’ with its
‘absurdities’ (Tertullian).
Re
{7}: Redness is a quale,
wavelengths are objects. The relation of
wavelength to redness is the one of physiological basis of experience to
experience, which poses no problems. Physiology
explains what is needed for the experience to occur, but not the experience
itself. A conceptual difficulty here is
that experience is at the same time our only possible start point, including
for science such as physiology.
Re
{9}: ‘Dualism’ :
Mind and matter cannot ‘be on equal
footing’, for the reasons discussed in {2} and {3}, etc., above. Matter cannot ‘carry SEs/PEs’, because ‘the
existence of matter’ is within SE, according to 0-D structuring.
Re
{10}: origin of metaphysics and the explanatory
gap, etc : this
does not work in terms of primary objectivity (Levine; cortical physiology;
Edelman; etc.). There is nothing wrong
with the physiology, but one can start working with its methods only from
within SE; see also {7} above.
Re
{11}, {12}, {13}: concerning dualism,
see {9} and other discussion above.
Re
{15}: Science usually implies
MIR-belief, but this can be replaced by as-if- (working, operational,
subject-inclusive) MIR, see {3} above.
Practical scientific work is not affected by this change, because
science does not need metaphysics, only working-hypotheses. Concepts are tools, like words, or numbers,
they are not, nor do they refer to, MIR onta. This converts metaphysical-ontological ISness fictions into (strategic, heuristic) working
instruments. The main difference for
science without MIR-belief (i.e., with as-if- or working-MIR) would be the
avoidance of erroneous questions, such as attempts to explain the mind
objectively (which has been a prominent feature in much of the work of the
Tucson conferences, and has resulted also in a large number of other
conferences, papers, and books, for instance).
Re
{17}: I have no writings of Jaspers in
electronic form. You might be able to
find some on the internet, or with the help of the KJ Society of North America,
or the Austrian KJ society. An important
book for our discussion is ‘Von der Wahrheit’, 1947, which you should be able to borrow in
Boston, but it may not have been translated to English.
Re
{18}: Matter is a structure that is
created within mind; working objective knowledge is created more or less as
needed within SE; this happens already to some extent (without language) in
animals.
Re
{19}: Your term ‘unpacking’ apparently
means ‘analysis’; and this points to a particular problem : the structures are implied to be
pre-structured (otherwise they could not be analyzed), which prevents their
recognition as human (and animal) creations.
This difficulty has prevented progress in epistemology, for instance for
the ‘analytical’ philosophers, but also classical Greek philosophers and even
phenomenological ones, who tried to uncover pre-structured and pre-existing
subjective structures instead of concentrating on the structuring aspect; only
in epistemological constructivism this is (by and large) recognized.
Re
{20}: Mind and Matter
: see above.
Re
{21}: The difference in views goes
beyond terminology, I would say, it is a difference in epistemology. The primacy of SE and subject-inclusion are
crucial for 0-D; they seem to be blurred or obliterated in dualism.
Re
{23}: ‘Where does the mind arise ?’ can be asked in an objective way, for instance in the
physiological or evolutionary context.
But this does not address questions like ‘what is the mind
?’, nor ‘how do we know ?’, ‘how does the mind relate to matter ?’, etc.
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Herbert FJ Müller
e-mail <herbert.muller
(at) mcgill.ca>