[MD] Intellectual activity

[aesuszynski]

Alice to Ham

I just read "Dealing with Antagonists" on the Essentialist Forum. Did you 
write it? I really like the site and the ideas. The only problem is that the 
background obscures the foreground which makes some of the text illegible, 
at least on my monitor.

"The Essentialist believes in the sanctity of the individual.  We respect 
the dignity and freedom of our fellow man and expect the same in return."

I like that and your post certainly maintains that standard in that you show 
great respect.

"Another way to sidestep the problem is Colin McGinn's, who espouses
> 'mysterianism'.  This says that there is a rational/physical explanation 
> but
> we're not allowed to work it out because of our 'epistemic limits'"

I have just finished "The Illusion of Conscious Will" by Daniel Wegner. In 
it he says that the feeling of consciousness is created by the mind and the 
brain. Of course the first question would be "what is the mind?". We know 
what the brain is certainly.

He says:

"The experience of conscious will arises when a person infers an apparent 
causal path from thought to action. The actual causal paths are not present 
in the person's consciuosness. The thought is caused by unconscious mental 
events and the action is caused by unconscious mental events and these 
unconscious mental events may also be linked to each other directly or 
through yet another mental or brain process. The will is experienced as a 
result of what is apparent, not what is real."

So this would seem to support McGinn's idea of epistemic limits. We just 
aren't equipped to know some things. But I doubt that will keep us from 
trying. And that is a good thing.

Alice