A weedy florilegium

Now that Cartesian dualism is behind us (or so they say), we’re left with all kinds of property dualism (with identity theses) and wild reductionism. I’m reading “Strangers to Ourselves” and the author claims that our “… it [adaptive unconscious] feels.” But does he really claim this? First, it’s a popular psychology book (not in the pejorative sense). It seems that he’s aiming for something idiomatic, not aiming to ascribe conscious properties (of the whole human) to some one of its parts. He later claims “it generates those feelings.” Clearly, if taken literally, these two claims say very different things. The former is a philosophically ungrammatical misascription and the latter is a vacuous scientific statement.

But does the author even maintain such a thesis, that brains feel and one’s unconscious loves his daughter more than he? I think much of this debate springs out of authors want to sound punchy or idiomatic or to sell books. It’s alluring (to the science buffs) and captivating to think that your brain can do potentially all or most of what you do in your waking hours. Scientists take a grammatico-conceptual shorthand, which is likely the problem of the philosophy of mind.

In some ways, the concept of money requires ignorance between buyer and seller. However, with the way we complain about “accountability” and “consumer awareness,” that “division of labor” is becoming clearer and clearer. Thus, our ignorance is being slowly removed.

What is the power of money? We typically do not question the journey each dollar in our pocket book takes. But is this tendency to not question what really countenances the division of labor? Are we divided only because we are ignorant?

It would seem that this tendency for accountability presupposes that we understand each person’s role in society. In effect, demanding accountability demands that the people have power over the big car companies, banks, the market. Essentially, we want to be able to tell those divided that their planning, their models, etc are poor plans, poor models. We do not want to perform their labor; we want more; we want to ability to decide how their labor operates by constraining them to monetary accountability. So the division of labor becomes clear, but the division of power becomes less divided. Control becomes more unified.

How can I hold a banker accountable when that banker can simply say, “You do not understand the complexity of my work, the interest models, the loan models?” It seems that we are divided in our labor because we’ve had a proclivity to accept ignorance. What is the limit of my understanding the world of a banker? It would seem my limit here shows the limit of communism.

This “accountability” issue is in opposition to “accepting ignorance.”

It seems that “accountability” is a tenet closer to communist economics. “You might produce your information, but it belongs to us all so that we can each make rational decision, dictate the next whim of the market.” Accountability is deleterious to capitalist economics.

1 That we call it “artificial” seems to be a misnomer. What we mean is artefactual, but we apply this terminology so as to elevate our own status. That is was created. However, our true intention is to suggest that such an intelligence is derivative. We are dealing with derivative intelligence, in that such an intelligence, should it be considered intelligence at all, follows from our being fundamentally related to it in some way. That way consists of its intelligence depending on our own.

2 But we should not wish to call such an intelligence just that, namely intelligence, which is why we call it artificial, fake, etc. But what is the relation of derivative intelligence to rule following? Might a derived intelligence interpret a rule? Do we use “rule” in an equivocal way when we suggest that the derived intelligence is following rules? Do we in fact mean “following input”? Can a derived intelligence interpret a rule? What is an interpretation? Is it indeed “the expression of a rule”? Derived intelligence has no use for interpretation of a rule; it cannot see interpretation of a rule for it does not understand that its following a rule is an interpretation of it. Derived intelligence does not express the rule; it neither stands in accordance or in disagreement with it.

3 A derived intelligence does not compute. Does it make sense to say that a derived intelligence has symbols? Is a finite sequence of binary digits a symbol? Can this intelligence realize that “finite sequence” is indeed what it is processing? Are there “finite sequences” at the most basic level of this intelligence? Is such a concept, “finite sequence,” a criterion for intelligence? A criterion for “understanding a symbol”? Is a symbol a finite-object? In what ways might it be called one? A derived intelligence seems to satisfy a treatment criterion for symbolism. Binary sequences are treated as if they are symbols. At higher levels of operation, the derived intelligence processes not the binary sequence but the encapsulated variable. A higher level language may compute the binary sequence, but the symbol (encoded variable) means nothing to the processor or to the video memory or to the monitor screen. However, the principle still remains: higher level software is replaceable other softwares; this is not so for the human whole or human brain.

Common sense tells us that our pains are located in physical space within our bodies, that for example, a pain in the foot is literally inside the area of the foot. But we now know that is false. The brain forms a body image and pains, like all bodily sensations, are part of the body image. The pain-in-the-foot is literally in the physical space of the brain. [Searle, J., The Rediscovery of the Mind, 1992: p. 63.]

Are you kidding me?! I almost vomited-and-had-an-aneurysm-in-the-physical-space-of-my-mouth. I’m shaking uncontrollably, painfully…

How might “The pain I experience from reading analytic philosophy journal articles” given this line of thinking? Even if we accept such an philosophically ungrammatical premise, are we to, by extension, conclude that pain felt from reading analytic philosophy is thing located in space and time in the same way that my foot is located in space and time?

One grammar has got to give! And the other cannot be given bootstraps of any kind!

The strength of metaphor: its inability to countenance a literal attitude. The beauty of metaphor follows from that it absconds any set. The set is antithesis to the metaphor.

Is rationality possible because metaphor is possible? Does the persistence of the metaphor establish indefinitely our philosophical nemesis: dualism. But we call ourselves property dualists, anomalous monists!

Is the denial of the possibility metaphor a denial of rationality? Does the metaphor die with physicalism? Any form of monism?

I know that I am in pain.

What is a conception of knowledge? What is a popular conception of knowledge? What are the conditions that one must satisfy in order to be described as knowing that a proposition is true. Is “I am in pain” a proposition? Can it stand alone in the paper with no true subject?

I believe that I am in pain.
“I am in pain” is a true statement about the world.
I have adequate justification for believing that I am in pain.

What is a “justification”? To whom shall this justification be directed? Suppose that I interpret my pain. What might an interpretation presuppose? “Namely that alternative interpretations are available to you.”

Yes, but what is presupposed by “alternative interpretation”? Must alternative interpretation presuppose alternative agents to whom advance those interpretations? When I interpret this piece of art, I immediately show a part of myself in my offering. “But you will doubt yourself. You may doubt that your interpretation is correct.” So, we must conclude, that there is no “correct interpretation.” Am I correct in justifying that I am in pain if there are infinite interpretations? (I will follow the rule as a skeptic: That interpretation is doubtful, etc.)

Is an interpretation correct or is it an end? We say, “You are certainly right!” What does this mean? Is it that we have been convinced of our falsity? or is it that we have become too tired to argued but unaware of our fatigue. The limit of a mind may be reached before it enters that mind’s intentional space.

When I represent my subjective self as object, there is no picture of the self available. It is an object which matches the form of its Subject. Wherein lies the justification of pain? Am I in debate with my inner homunculus; is he convinced of that justification, that interpretation of the case?

Does “justification” presuppose the falsity of solipism? If every interpretation is beneath my own, then I must understand how interpretation is a possible. Why must I justify myself to empty skulls?

By what criteria might I judge the adequate from the inadequate?

If I must justify my moral appellation, I must configure the whole world to my liking to make that moral judgment true. The world confirms to every moral proposition. Seek to the world as such to show that the moral proposition has any truth condition whatsoever. (Avec le proposition morale vient le monde.)

I might know that A = A.
I might not know that A=A.
I might know that A =/= A.
I might not know that A =/= A.

I might know that 2+2=4.
I might not know that 2+2=4.
I might know that 2+2=5.
I might not know that 2+2=5.

I might know that the book is inside the box.
I might not know that the book is inside the box.
I might know that the book is not inside the box.
I might not know that the book is not inside the box.

I might know that I am in pain.
I might not know that I am in pain.
I might know that I am not in pain.
I might not know that I am not in pain.

Ethics (ethos) is a broader concept than morals. For the nonphilosopher, an “ethic” should refer to a set of moral principles. But in our contemporary vernacular, it has become an idiomatic mode of expression to use “ethics” and “morals” interchangeably. So perhaps it was not fitting to have the article title highlight a philosophical distinction whereas the article itself does not make that distinction.

For philosophers, ethics, of course, is distinctly contrasted with morals, as ethics is the study of ethical systems which are just comprised of moral principles. The ethical system itself provides the axioms and broad definitions, in most cases, which form the basis of each moral principle therein. The moral principles, in effect, get their “justification” from the broad ethical notions given in the system. The ethical axioms and definitions are not themselves “moral.” The behavior, actions, persons to which those ethical notions are used as justification for moral claims are rightly described as “moral,” “right,” “wrong,” etc.

I suppose in another way of speaking, an ethic is simple “the set of moral principles we commonly see manifest in a culture.” This way of referring to ethics, perhaps, may be used so as to not presuppose that a discussion of the definitions and axioms must be referred to as well. For instance, the Ten Commandments are a set of moral principles. “The Ten Commandments” is the name of the ethical system. All that which goes into those Ten Commandments as justification (God’s goodness, God’s spirit therein the authors, revelation of God, the notion of miracles) for the moral principles are the definitions and axioms. Again, for instance, we can see a miracle as either a morally righteous or morally depraved. Thus, a miracle itself is not a morale principle. The notion of it alone acts as a justification for certain moral principles. So, “honor thy father and thy mother” is justified by the “miracle of life” and the “divine chain from Father unto father.” Life in itself cannot be properly described as “good” because the semantic notion of “good” presupposes that a thing be “good for” something. This is why we’re constantly in search of purpose for ourselves. The divine chain cannot be described as “good” because we are unable to discern what the chain, in itself, is ultimately good for.

“Good” seems ultimately wrapped up in teleology. So it seems, then, that moral principles are involved with teleology. Ethical systems, though closely related to moral principles, do not necessarily involve teleology. In the end, it’s difficult to see their value and further their difference since ethical systems are usually judged by their moral principles (which we view as largely teleological in nature). So, we quickly infer from the concrete nature of moral principles, that the ethical systems which countenance them so too must be teleological. However, this is not necessarily so. Ethical systems are more abstract than concrete, less concerned with enabling us to say “what” is good and more concerned with enabling us to say “why” what we say is “good” is “in fact” good, justifying our appellations of goodness.