[MD] TiTs and the Illusion of SOM

[Krimel]

[dmb]
It is culture and language that allows us to think in the first place, the
point being that mind is not just a matter of perceptual processes and
cycling neurons. 

[Krimel]
As I said: "I am saying that experience is the a synthesis of an enormous
number of infinitely complex processes that as far as we can tell now begin
in subatomic physics and end in "Inception" and "Avatar"."

[dmb]
You literally cannot think without language. 

[Krimel]
Philosophical position or not, I think that statement is factually false in
empirically testable ways. I think the onus is on you to support such a
claim.

[dmb]
It's the vital missing link between brains and minds, see? That's what
you're overlooking and this is causing a lot of the confusion. 

[Krimel]
I definitely see language and conceptualization as vital to healthy humans.
I see them as evolutionary developments whose origins can be traced
phylogenetically and ontogenetically. I agree that language is perhaps the
defining characteristic of the "consciousness." But I think you are
dramatically overstating its role. It plays a very small part in your daily
life but the part it plays is magnified by your consciousness because it is
the one telling the story.

[dmb]
SEe, this is the thing that really killed old-school empiricism, like the
positivist project for example. In philosophy they call this the linguistic
turn. Rorty is real big on this and wrote a book by that title. That why
contextualism is so widely accepted now, because language and culture has
everything to do with our conceptualizations. Let me explain in terms you
can relate to.

[Krimel]
Language is how culture is transmitted. Language is a social feature with
social functions. Culture isn't just suspended in language. It is language.
It is something that we do with our thoughts. You gave an example of an
experiment to demonstrate your point which was nice but if you could name
the researchers or provide something to locate the study that would be
helpful. Don't get me wrong it was a good effort but hardly conclusive. And
I could give you dozens of experiments where preverbal children and
nonhumans solved all kinds of problems without the aid of language.

In fact the experiment you detailed sounded a bit more like evidence of a
point I made somewhere recently, that what seems to set humans apart is the
number of things we can consider at once; the size and speed of that seven
plus or minus two window of awareness and conscious focus. The argument
there seems to me to be that language is a byproduct of this capacity and
not the other way around.

[dmb]
Language is what creates concepts, it adds something more to the otherwise
incoherent jumble of perceptions such that conceptualization becomes
possible. See, so the mind is not just what the brain does and its not just
the result of complex perceptual processes. It's cultural. The brain and the
sense organs simply are not capable of thought without also adding language.


[Krimel]
Humans develop through interactions with their environments. Culture is as
much a part of the human environment as earth, air, fire and water. But I
don't think you will find much support for the idea that perception is ever
an incoherent jumble. Babies are born into a social world as social agents.
They are tuned to their environment from the very moment of birth. They are
most assuredly not, as James would have it, surround by a blooming buzzing
confusion. 

Much of what you say about language acquisition is true as far as it goes
but it hardly makes the point that thought is impossible without language.
In making the point that consciousness is what the mind does I was not
claiming that it or any of its incarnation is THEE answer to the problem.
But I would say that good cases can be made for that line of thinking. The
matter is hardly settled one way or the other but for purposes of our
ongoing feud, I think the real point is that it is not a problem that will
ultimate yield to rationalist speculative argument but to empirical testing
and observation.

It seems to me the problem for you is that you are hanging a lot of
metaphysical weight on an empirical problem. 

[dmb]
Quality or pure experience or the undifferentiated aesthetic continuum seems
quite comparable to the qualitative phenomenal experience that Chalmers says
cannot be explained by materialistic conceptions of functions and
mechanisms. He is also saying that minds are not just what brains do. He is
going to be opposed to eliminative materialists like Rorty, the latter
probably being a better match for your intellectual tastes. 

[Krimel]
Actually I think "Quality or pure experience or the undifferentiated
aesthetic continuum" as you want to use them have almost nothing to do with
"consciousness" but rather the unconscious or the non-conscious or the
non-verbal aspects of what the brain does. Which I keep saying is darn near
all of what the brain does.