What kind of dualist am I?

[TheERK]

After some serious thinking, I have gone from being a materialist to some sort of dualist. Although I have much respect for thinkers like Dennett, and their noble efforts to explain consciousness, I have come to believe that there truly is a huge problem of consciousness.

However, I don't know what to call myself because I don't understand all of the fine distinctions between different types of dualists. I figured this was the best place to get an opinion. So, here are some things I believe to be true:

- The brain is responsible for consciousness. When your physical body dies, so do your memories and identity. However, I don't know whether or not any type of 'agent of experience' continues.

-Consciousness affects the physical world, too. Mind is not just an observer watching the physical. I believe this because I think there's no way we'd be talking about 'the problem of consciousness' if consciousness itself wasn't interacting.

-Consciousness is not identical to brain processes. I don't know how to back this up, so I don't really want to argue about it. All I can say is that I think mental phenomena are real things, and that they can't be explained in terms of physical patterns.

-Cthulhu is lord.

-Two people with identical brain states will have identical mental states. Probably. :)

So, there's my description of how I feel. What kind of dualist am I?

[Win]

You're a Lovecraftian interactionist dualist.

[scribble]

Originally posted by TheERK
... However, I don't know whether or not any type of 'agent of experience' continues.

... I don't know how to back this up ... All I can say is that I think ...

... Probably. :)

So, there's my description of how I feel. What kind of dualist am I? [/B]

The honest kind?

All too rare.

[c4ts]

I swear, there must be some sort of confusion between qualities and things today. Consciousness is a quality of the brain and its processes, something dependent upon the state of the thing itself, not another thing entirely. The reason it does not correspond directly to brain functions is because sustaining the property of consciousness is the activity of the brain itself, and brain functions make up this process as a coherent whole. The quality of the constant processing of input and output is awareness in the most elementary sense. Add memory, which is sensory input that is stored and reintroduced, you have experience. Allow the ability to reorganize experience, and you have imagination. If the experience or memory is reorganized selectively, so that one part follows another based on different experience, you have intelligence. And when you have an intelligent perception of this awareness itself, you have consciousness. The mental state is the part of how the extremely complex organization of input and output works, so it is a quality of that process. The fundamental difficulty is that consciousness is a quality of the way things work, rather than a physical quality itself, or an outward manefestation of direct physical relationships, when they are indirect and too complicated to predict, as nothing can enter the mental process without affecting the process itself. Now, since the mental state is part of a process carried out by a firing of synapses in the brain, two brains whose initial states are physically identical will have the same starting point for a mental state, but it would be impossible to duplicate the outcome because of all the circumstances involved in the process. I think that the minds would not share the same thoughts.






Cthulhu is indeed thy god.

[TheERK]

Cats,

The first line of your post basically asserts that I am confused, and the rest of the post demonstrates how you are not. Either way, note the part where I said "I don't know how to back this up, so I don't really want to argue about it."

Make your time.

Eric

[c4ts]

Originally posted by TheERK
Cats,

The first line of your post basically asserts that I am confused, and the rest of the post demonstrates how you are not. Either way, note the part where I said "I don't know how to back this up, so I don't really want to argue about it."

Make your time.

Eric

Ooops. My post was more or less a rant against dualism that had very little to do with anybody other than UCE, so I apologize if that's the sort of message you got. Looking back on it, I'm pretty sure I'm confused too.

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by TheERK
[B]After some serious thinking, I have gone from being a materialist to some sort of dualist. Although I have much respect for thinkers like Dennett, and their noble efforts to explain consciousness, I have come to believe that there truly is a huge problem of consciousness.

However, I don't know what to call myself because I don't understand all of the fine distinctions between different types of dualists. I figured this was the best place to get an opinion. So, here are some things I believe to be true:

- The brain is responsible for consciousness. When your physical body dies, so do your memories and identity. However, I don't know whether or not any type of 'agent of experience' continues.



But what could there be once you have taken away memories and identity? :confused:

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by TheERK
After some serious thinking, I have gone from being a materialist to some sort of dualist. Although I have much respect for thinkers like Dennett, and their noble efforts to explain consciousness, I have come to believe that there truly is a huge problem of consciousness.

However, I don't know what to call myself because I don't understand all of the fine distinctions between different types of dualists. I figured this was the best place to get an opinion. So, here are some things I believe to be true:

- The brain is responsible for consciousness. When your physical body dies, so do your memories and identity. However, I don't know whether or not any type of 'agent of experience' continues.

-Consciousness affects the physical world, too. Mind is not just an observer watching the physical. I believe this because I think there's no way we'd be talking about 'the problem of consciousness' if consciousness itself wasn't interacting.

-Consciousness is not identical to brain processes. I don't know how to back this up, so I don't really want to argue about it. All I can say is that I think mental phenomena are real things, and that they can't be explained in terms of physical patterns.

-Cthulhu is lord.

-Two people with identical brain states will have identical mental states. Probably. :)

So, there's my description of how I feel. What kind of dualist am I?

Anyway, you'd be an interactive dualist who believes we cease to exist when we die? Or does any materialist position allow for libertarian free will? Hmmm . . wouldn't think so but I'm not sure.

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Oh, I thought this thread was about being a duelist.

Win said:You're a Lovecraftian interactionist dualist.
By Jove, I think he's got it!

ERK said:Two people with identical brain states will have identical mental states.
So the mental phenomena are separate, yet are a strict function of the brain state? Ooh, that just doesn't feel right.

~~ Paul

[TheERK]

Originally posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos

So the mental phenomena are separate, yet are a strict function of the brain state? Ooh, that just doesn't feel right.

~~ Paul

Doesn't 'feel' right? :)

Basically, I tend to think of it this way. Think of the brain as a computer program, and certain brain states call certain functions. For example,

If (this is the particular configuration of neurons)
{
Subject.InvokeMysteriousRedness();
}

Although neuroscience shows that the brain and consciousness is much more complicated than this, hopefully you get my idea. Although we can explain exactly which experiences will be invoked by examining the brain, we can't really understand anything past that function call. That is, we can't explain the function InvokeMysteriousRedness() or MyBladderisGoingtoExplode().

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Ah, but we can understand part of the inside of the function. If not, we wouldn't even have the concept that "the quale red" is anything more than the configuration of neurons.

Why not this:

If (this is the particular configuration of neurons)
{
Brain.InvokeMysteriousRedness();
}


~~ Paul

[TheERK]

Paul,

I suppose this is where we differ in philosophy. You think the experience is something mechanistic, I think it is something....well, weird. Hey, if you read this, meet me in the chat room. I see we're both browsing the forum right now.

Eric