KARL JASPERS FORUM

TA63 (Leslie / Rees)

Commentary 7 (to R2, Leslie)

YOU CAN GET THERE FROM HERE
by Herbert FJ Müller
October 2003, posted 16 November 2003

I appreciate Prof. Leslie's proposal to agree to disagree, but take the liberty of raising two questions about it, and would appreciate knowing his opinion.

[A]
What you call my philosophical training is nothing of the sort. I am a psychiatrist, and have long been interested in the relation between mind and brain, which is at the center of my work, hoping for enlightenment from science and philosophy. This was not forthcoming, and finally I read - among others - a book by a very clever person, Francis Crick. He offered the solution that " "You", your joys and your sorrows, your memories and your ambitions … are in fact no more than the behavior of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules. … "

This was in 1994, when I was about 70 years old, and it led me - I am sure you know what I mean - to conclude that there is something wrong with the way objective scientists, and naturalists generally, think. Namely, if reality is defined as mind-independent, as per traditional ontology, the mind is automatically unreal, because the mind (and specifically subjective experience) cannot be mind-independent.

So I decided that the idea of mind-independent reality (MIR) is a mistake, except as a working-shortcut (where it can be quite valid in an as-if fashion), and that the brain is a concept-formation inside subjective awareness (and so is everything else). Thereafter I tried this out with regard to various questions, and it seems to work quite well - so far I have not seen any reason to change my opinion. Actually the mentioned difficulty has been acknowledged since antiquity, and a short while later I came across the writing of the radical constructivists, who say much the same as I (they are mostly not philosophers but scientists, engineers, teachers, therapists, etc.). My first question to you then is : what do you think about the radical constructivists ? (I can send you material about them in case you are not familiar with their writings.)

[B]
(a) In daily life, if there is a problem, one tries to find out what it is, and come up with a solution. The same in science. Opinions are tools, changed as needed when they don't work. Let us say you can't start your car. A group of sidewalk super-intendents may offer five different opinions about what is wrong. They are not compatible with each other, but one would not say "let us agree to disagree", but call someone who can sort this out and fix it.

(b) In religion, fundamentalist groups (for instance Christians and Moslems) may come up with statements that they agree to disagree, in case they want to avoid proving who is right by killing each other (the survivor is right). Opinions are the essence, more important than what happens.

Philosophy mostly seems to claim to be (a), rational and even practical, but often follows procedure (b). Philosophical schools are sometimes reminiscent of the theological ones from which they emerged.

Thus my second question : What do you think about the following proposal ? If MIR is not possible, and mental structures are formed in an originally unstructured experience, there should be no plausible reason to say that opinions are not compatible with each other. They all are tools for managing life (including even religious opinions) and it ought to be possible, in principle and also eventually in practice, to find their common origin, and build bridges.

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Herbert FJ Müller