Yep, I saw the Simpsons movie. What were the critics TALKING about--claiming that the movie doesn't go any further than the tv show does? Bart does full frontal, and it's one of the funniest things I've ever seen in my life! The movie was really good. And I haven't seen a Simpson's episode in years. So go see it. You'll like it.
This weekend wraps up my summer college course. Still waitin' on grades. Hopin' for the best. It was a good class--it explored who we are as persons, what makes us persons, and the role that identity and ethics play in society. I ended the class feeling less sure what to think, but more empowered to think it, which I kind of expected.
Also read the finaly Harry Potter this week. I think it was the best of the series. VERY good. Read it. Or wait for the movie. I'm now reading the Ultimate Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy. I have a feeling I'm in for something good, since I was cracking up at the foreword before the book even began.
Just got off the phone from a nearly 4-hour conversation with my bro. Then a short one with my sis. They're doing good--thanks for asking.
Closing thought: from the Simpsons movie. "So. We meet at last, whoever you are."--Homer
Next week: THE BOURNE ULTIMATUM!!!!!!! And Rush Hour 3??? What the HELL are they thinking?
Reading: The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
Sunday, July 29, 2007
Thursday, July 19, 2007
Analytic Paper
I just finished and submitted my analytical paper that was due today. I would have posted it and asked for y'alls' feedback before I sent it, but there would've been no time to make corrections. Anyway, it's not as good as I hoped it would have, but I was assigned to compare to philosophical essays and raise my own questions about them. Here is the result--comments (good and bad) are always appreciated, and may help to prepare me for any criticisms my prof may levy against me...
What's It Like To Be A Physicalist?
The past several weeks have been a crash course for me in the various theories that seek to define and explain personal identity. Most recently, the focus of discussion has been the human experience and the problems it presents for the philosophers who attempt to explain and account for it. Thomas Nagel describes the problem of human experience in great detail in his paper entitled "What Is It Like To Be A Bat?". However, other philosophers refuse to even acknowledge that the human experience requires further explanation than that it is simply another physical function of the body. Gilbert Harman is an example of such a philosopher, as can be seen in his paper, "Explaining the Explanatory Gap". I intend to compare both of the above mentioned works and show why I disagree with both of their conclusions, though I agree with Nagel that the problem exists and that it has yet to be adequately answered.
I will begin by stating each of Harman's and Nagel's arguments, and I will follow with a comparison of the two. Harman's argument can be stated like this:
(1) There is an objective understanding of the world, which is studied by the physical sciences.
(1a) For example, pain may be studied objectively through biology, neuroscience, and psychology to determine how pain is caused and what pain causes.
(2) There is a general subjective understanding of the world, which is studied by the social and psychological sciences.
(3) There is a more specific subjective understanding of the world, referring to what it is like to actually experience the world 'from the inside', or 'Das Verstehen'. This is only understandable by sympathizing with, empathizing with or translation of another's experience into one's own experience.
(3a) This is the understanding of what it feels like to actually experience, for example, pain.
(4) There is an 'explanatory' or 'epistemic' gap between the objective understanding and the Das Verstehen understanding.
(5) There is a similar gap when translating a single concept from one language to another. Though there is usually something 'lost in the translation' because of the limits of the languages, general understanding is still possible. This is analogous to the problem of objective vs. Das Verstehen.
-----
(6) Though there is and will always be something of an explanatory gap between objective and subjective perspectives, they are merely different understandings of the same physical substance. There is no metaphysical gap. (Harman 2007)
Now for Nagel's view:
(1) The human experience involves the aspect of consciousness, or what it is like to be a particular human being.
(2) There are two perspectives to consider from the human experience.
(2a) The first-person perspective, what it is like to 'be' a particular human being. It is subjective in that it is only experienced by the person experiencing it, but is also objective in that anyone who enters the same perspective (who knows everything the person knows and sees everything the same way) may experience it as well. However, the objectivity is limited to how like in kind the individuals are (e.g., human to human, bats to bats, etc.).
(2b) The third-person perspective, which is a conglomeration of all of the objective facts in the world. This perspective is essentially objective, and is usually successful in revealing greater knowledge and insight into physical phenomena such as lightening, fire, etc. However, third-person observations fail to do so for the first-person experience.
(3) Physicalism is the attempt to explain the human experience in terms of physical structures and processes, and to 'close the gap' between the first- and third-person perspectives (i.e., subjective and objective, respectively).
(4) Currently, all physicalist attempts have either failed to adequately explain the first-person perspective of a being, or have failed to acknowledge it all together.
(5) This does not necessarily disqualify physicalism as a possibility, since it is possible for something to be true, though not yet properly explained or understood.
----
Nagel's proposition--Develop new concepts that could be called 'Objective Phenomenology', which would enable the communication of subjective experiences between beings who are completely unfamiliar with each other's perspectives. Since objective facts are physically reducible, objective phenomenology would support a physicalism that would explain the human experience without avoiding the first-person perspective. (Nagel 1974)
These arguments are, in essence, complimentary to each other. Harman seems to acknowledge and agree with Nagel's presentation of the problem: he does not deny the presence of experience in humans, and he acknowledges that there is a first-person perspective as well as a third-person perspective. Harman seems to conclude his argument with a full endorsement of physicalism (Harman 2007), while Nagel seems to favor it as a strong possibility (Nagel 1974).
However, their conclusions differ in important ways. Harman appears to render the gap between first- and third-person perspectives insignificant, stating that it is a simple case of 'lost in translation'. He accepts that the gap will never be fully closed, much in the way that language expressions are never fully translatable between different languages. Nevertheless, communication is possible to some degree and that is sufficient (Harman 2007). Nagel, on the other hand, is hopeful that physicalism will one day be able to adequately account for the first-person human experience (Nagel 1974).
Now that we have established an understanding of each of their arguments, I would like to address a couple of problems that I have with each one. I would then like to follow with an important point about experience that I feel both have failed to address.
Beginning with Harman, I fail to see how his analogy that, just as languages have limits in their ability to translate a single expression from one language to another, the third-person perspective is limited in its ability to translate into the first-person perspective (Harman 2007) works. The way I see it, language is used as the third-person description of the first-person perspective. If this is the case, Harman is basically comparing two third-person perspectives and saying that the gap that may exist between them justifies the gap between the first-person and third-person perspective, and that no further explanation is needed. He is trying to convince us he is comparing apples when he is comparing apples and oranges. It is logical in my opinion that two third-person representations such as two languages would find difficulty interacting with each other, since different languages are not intended to interact. Instead, they are intended to communicate the first-person perspective. If there were no difficulties translating between them, they would not be distinct, since they share general form and function.
To further illustrate my point, I would like to appeal to an analogy of my own. Take, for example, the case of two electrical plugs. They are both similar in form and function, and the purpose of each is to plug into an electrical outlet specifically designed to receive them--not another plug. In fact, they are NOT meant to plug into each other at all, and any attempt to do so will prove pointless (and maybe even a little humorous). Similarly with languages. They are designed to connect humans, not other languages. And while attempts to translate concepts between languages cannot be rendered as being as pointless as trying to connect two plugs, it is rather difficult, and problems do arise. In fact, the presence of so many different language yields plenty of reason for translation. However, it is only the plurality of languages that creates such a necessity; it is not a language's intended purpose.
Anyway, to return to my analogy, connecting a plug to an outlet not only satisfies both the plug's and the outlet's functions, it is an easy task to do, and it can be thoroughly accomplished. No loose ends remain. The two seem to be made for each other. On the other hand, translating experience between languages, or even between individuals of the same language, is not always so easy and is never as thoroughly accomplished as plugging a plug into a socket. That is the problem. The point I am trying to illustrate here is that the plug, to represent the language, does not quite fit into the outlet, to represent an individual. It fits well enough for the contraption to work, but everything we know tells us there is something missing--it does not quite convey EVERYTHING, and a better fitting plug would likely improve the situation. Therefore, I think that Harman's analogy fails. Because of that, a major premise for Harman's dismissal of the significance of the explanatory gap collapses.
Next, I would like to address Nagel's reasoning for maintaining a physicalist view in the face of physicalism's failure to fully account for the human experience. Nagel claims that it is a mistake to reject physicalism for its failures, in hopes that one day it will succeed (Nagel 1974). I take no issue with being open to the possibility that a particular school of thought will continue to progress and eventually succeed at its cause. Actually, I am very open to such a possibility for physicalism. However, Nagel does not just assert openness to the possibility of physicalism's eventual triumph over the problem, he endorses it as though the mere possibility of its success equals success. I feel that this is biased, and is essentially just an example of obstinately maintaining faith in a view that is far from being proven and, by his own admission, is thus far inadequate.
However, in order to substantiate his faith, Nagel refers to our current understanding of the 'truth' of physicalism to be the same as what it would be for a pre-Socratic philosopher trying to understand our scientific knowledge that matter is energy. He may be able to understand the words, and the fact that such is the case, but he would not understand the logical processes through which such a conclusion was made (Nagel 1974). But in actuality, the pre-Socratic world did not know this at all BECAUSE the observations and logical reasoning required to arrive at that conclusion had not yet been made. Arriving at a conclusion before all of the facts are in and a thorough logical process has been completed is putting the cart before the horse, and I cannot see that any good can come of it. It is the stuff of biases, and I fear it only impedes philosophical progress. One should not get carried way when speculating about possible future answers.
One of the main problems that I have with both Harman and Nagel is that a question like, "What is it like to be a (or an individual) bat?" is not specific enough. It only pushes the issue back a notch. The real question is, "What is it like to be a GIVEN, SPECIFIC bat?", or some other species. I think that this more specific question introduces two other considerations that have been nearly ignored by both philosophers: the temporal and spatial aspects of experience. With these two aspects, the questions that arise are, "What is it like to be you?", and, "Why are you you, and I me?". I found it very interesting the way Nagel defines the objective aspect of the subjective point of view when he says that it is conceivable that another person could share my experience if he saw and felt everything exactly from my perspective (Nagel 1974). However, a person could never do so at the exact same time, and in the exact same place as me, and so would be missing a significant part of my experience. That is why you will never be me, and I will never be you. I think that this limits the objectivity of first-person experience.
I regret to admit that I do not possess enough of the relevant scientific and philosophic knowledge required to expound on this question at length, but I do think that it is the real question at hand, and progress cannot be made until it is satisfactorily addressed. If all there was to explaining the human experience was simply to objectify experience, I think the implications would exceed just being able to experience what someone or something else experiences. I think that in theory I would be able to take on anyone else's identity at will, and anyone else could take on mine. All I would need is access to all the objective facts about their experience, and I would suddenly somehow be looking through their eyes--I would be them. But then, I would not know that I had only just become them because I would duplicate their memories, etc., and I would lose mine. After all, I cannot really know what it is like to be someone else if I continue to access my own memories, which the other person does not have.
I realize that this conclusion of mine seems rather extreme and convoluted, but I do not see how it is logically avoidable. If all I am is a makeup of physical processes and functions, and everything about me can be objectified, than anyone can duplicate my physically based mental experiences and become me, and I them.
In response, it may be objected on the basis that insane people commonly take on other identities, often as a result of an obsession with another person. They read, watch, and listen to everything they can to gain information on the object of their infatuation, and eventually convince themselves that they are the person, though they are not. However, this is another issue altogether. These people have taken objective facts about the person and used them to delude themselves. I am referring to the reality that, if an objective phenomenalism actually came to be, I would not just be able to convince myself that I was any given person, I would be them.
I also realize that Nagel anticipated that a concept such as objective phenomenalism would still have its limitations, which would prevent a situation like the one I have just described, but I feel that such an expectation about a concept that has yet to be developed is arbitrary and contradictory to its own purpose, which is to remove the limitations of current objective concepts that communicate subjective experience. The limits of the various physicalist views are what keep them in question now. How then would a NEW physicalist view with limitations succeed in establishing it as a solid answer? It could not.
As far as I am concerned, Harman's acceptance of an explanatory gap between the objective and the subjective as just 'the way it is', so to speak, and Nagel's faith that physicalism will one day develop a new solution to the problem that will be able to explain experience, albeit in a limited way (though it already does that), amount to avoidance of the real issue and reveal their conclusions to be just stubborn adherence to physicalist bias. One philosopher claims the answer does not exist, while the other simply believes it is yet to be found. Both assertions are just round-about ways of saying that physicalism has failed to answer the question. I think it is time to render physicalism for what it is--a possibility--and explore other options. Personally, I think I will start with exploring interactionism and neutral monism and see where I go from there.
References
Harman, Gilbert. 2007. "Explaining an Explanatory Gap," American Philosophical Association Newsletter on Philosophy and Computers 6.2 (Spring 2007), 2-3.
Nagel, Thomas. "What Is It Like To Be A Bat?" Philosophical Review 83 (1974), 435-50.
What's It Like To Be A Physicalist?
The past several weeks have been a crash course for me in the various theories that seek to define and explain personal identity. Most recently, the focus of discussion has been the human experience and the problems it presents for the philosophers who attempt to explain and account for it. Thomas Nagel describes the problem of human experience in great detail in his paper entitled "What Is It Like To Be A Bat?". However, other philosophers refuse to even acknowledge that the human experience requires further explanation than that it is simply another physical function of the body. Gilbert Harman is an example of such a philosopher, as can be seen in his paper, "Explaining the Explanatory Gap". I intend to compare both of the above mentioned works and show why I disagree with both of their conclusions, though I agree with Nagel that the problem exists and that it has yet to be adequately answered.
I will begin by stating each of Harman's and Nagel's arguments, and I will follow with a comparison of the two. Harman's argument can be stated like this:
(1) There is an objective understanding of the world, which is studied by the physical sciences.
(1a) For example, pain may be studied objectively through biology, neuroscience, and psychology to determine how pain is caused and what pain causes.
(2) There is a general subjective understanding of the world, which is studied by the social and psychological sciences.
(3) There is a more specific subjective understanding of the world, referring to what it is like to actually experience the world 'from the inside', or 'Das Verstehen'. This is only understandable by sympathizing with, empathizing with or translation of another's experience into one's own experience.
(3a) This is the understanding of what it feels like to actually experience, for example, pain.
(4) There is an 'explanatory' or 'epistemic' gap between the objective understanding and the Das Verstehen understanding.
(5) There is a similar gap when translating a single concept from one language to another. Though there is usually something 'lost in the translation' because of the limits of the languages, general understanding is still possible. This is analogous to the problem of objective vs. Das Verstehen.
-----
(6) Though there is and will always be something of an explanatory gap between objective and subjective perspectives, they are merely different understandings of the same physical substance. There is no metaphysical gap. (Harman 2007)
Now for Nagel's view:
(1) The human experience involves the aspect of consciousness, or what it is like to be a particular human being.
(2) There are two perspectives to consider from the human experience.
(2a) The first-person perspective, what it is like to 'be' a particular human being. It is subjective in that it is only experienced by the person experiencing it, but is also objective in that anyone who enters the same perspective (who knows everything the person knows and sees everything the same way) may experience it as well. However, the objectivity is limited to how like in kind the individuals are (e.g., human to human, bats to bats, etc.).
(2b) The third-person perspective, which is a conglomeration of all of the objective facts in the world. This perspective is essentially objective, and is usually successful in revealing greater knowledge and insight into physical phenomena such as lightening, fire, etc. However, third-person observations fail to do so for the first-person experience.
(3) Physicalism is the attempt to explain the human experience in terms of physical structures and processes, and to 'close the gap' between the first- and third-person perspectives (i.e., subjective and objective, respectively).
(4) Currently, all physicalist attempts have either failed to adequately explain the first-person perspective of a being, or have failed to acknowledge it all together.
(5) This does not necessarily disqualify physicalism as a possibility, since it is possible for something to be true, though not yet properly explained or understood.
----
Nagel's proposition--Develop new concepts that could be called 'Objective Phenomenology', which would enable the communication of subjective experiences between beings who are completely unfamiliar with each other's perspectives. Since objective facts are physically reducible, objective phenomenology would support a physicalism that would explain the human experience without avoiding the first-person perspective. (Nagel 1974)
These arguments are, in essence, complimentary to each other. Harman seems to acknowledge and agree with Nagel's presentation of the problem: he does not deny the presence of experience in humans, and he acknowledges that there is a first-person perspective as well as a third-person perspective. Harman seems to conclude his argument with a full endorsement of physicalism (Harman 2007), while Nagel seems to favor it as a strong possibility (Nagel 1974).
However, their conclusions differ in important ways. Harman appears to render the gap between first- and third-person perspectives insignificant, stating that it is a simple case of 'lost in translation'. He accepts that the gap will never be fully closed, much in the way that language expressions are never fully translatable between different languages. Nevertheless, communication is possible to some degree and that is sufficient (Harman 2007). Nagel, on the other hand, is hopeful that physicalism will one day be able to adequately account for the first-person human experience (Nagel 1974).
Now that we have established an understanding of each of their arguments, I would like to address a couple of problems that I have with each one. I would then like to follow with an important point about experience that I feel both have failed to address.
Beginning with Harman, I fail to see how his analogy that, just as languages have limits in their ability to translate a single expression from one language to another, the third-person perspective is limited in its ability to translate into the first-person perspective (Harman 2007) works. The way I see it, language is used as the third-person description of the first-person perspective. If this is the case, Harman is basically comparing two third-person perspectives and saying that the gap that may exist between them justifies the gap between the first-person and third-person perspective, and that no further explanation is needed. He is trying to convince us he is comparing apples when he is comparing apples and oranges. It is logical in my opinion that two third-person representations such as two languages would find difficulty interacting with each other, since different languages are not intended to interact. Instead, they are intended to communicate the first-person perspective. If there were no difficulties translating between them, they would not be distinct, since they share general form and function.
To further illustrate my point, I would like to appeal to an analogy of my own. Take, for example, the case of two electrical plugs. They are both similar in form and function, and the purpose of each is to plug into an electrical outlet specifically designed to receive them--not another plug. In fact, they are NOT meant to plug into each other at all, and any attempt to do so will prove pointless (and maybe even a little humorous). Similarly with languages. They are designed to connect humans, not other languages. And while attempts to translate concepts between languages cannot be rendered as being as pointless as trying to connect two plugs, it is rather difficult, and problems do arise. In fact, the presence of so many different language yields plenty of reason for translation. However, it is only the plurality of languages that creates such a necessity; it is not a language's intended purpose.
Anyway, to return to my analogy, connecting a plug to an outlet not only satisfies both the plug's and the outlet's functions, it is an easy task to do, and it can be thoroughly accomplished. No loose ends remain. The two seem to be made for each other. On the other hand, translating experience between languages, or even between individuals of the same language, is not always so easy and is never as thoroughly accomplished as plugging a plug into a socket. That is the problem. The point I am trying to illustrate here is that the plug, to represent the language, does not quite fit into the outlet, to represent an individual. It fits well enough for the contraption to work, but everything we know tells us there is something missing--it does not quite convey EVERYTHING, and a better fitting plug would likely improve the situation. Therefore, I think that Harman's analogy fails. Because of that, a major premise for Harman's dismissal of the significance of the explanatory gap collapses.
Next, I would like to address Nagel's reasoning for maintaining a physicalist view in the face of physicalism's failure to fully account for the human experience. Nagel claims that it is a mistake to reject physicalism for its failures, in hopes that one day it will succeed (Nagel 1974). I take no issue with being open to the possibility that a particular school of thought will continue to progress and eventually succeed at its cause. Actually, I am very open to such a possibility for physicalism. However, Nagel does not just assert openness to the possibility of physicalism's eventual triumph over the problem, he endorses it as though the mere possibility of its success equals success. I feel that this is biased, and is essentially just an example of obstinately maintaining faith in a view that is far from being proven and, by his own admission, is thus far inadequate.
However, in order to substantiate his faith, Nagel refers to our current understanding of the 'truth' of physicalism to be the same as what it would be for a pre-Socratic philosopher trying to understand our scientific knowledge that matter is energy. He may be able to understand the words, and the fact that such is the case, but he would not understand the logical processes through which such a conclusion was made (Nagel 1974). But in actuality, the pre-Socratic world did not know this at all BECAUSE the observations and logical reasoning required to arrive at that conclusion had not yet been made. Arriving at a conclusion before all of the facts are in and a thorough logical process has been completed is putting the cart before the horse, and I cannot see that any good can come of it. It is the stuff of biases, and I fear it only impedes philosophical progress. One should not get carried way when speculating about possible future answers.
One of the main problems that I have with both Harman and Nagel is that a question like, "What is it like to be a (or an individual) bat?" is not specific enough. It only pushes the issue back a notch. The real question is, "What is it like to be a GIVEN, SPECIFIC bat?", or some other species. I think that this more specific question introduces two other considerations that have been nearly ignored by both philosophers: the temporal and spatial aspects of experience. With these two aspects, the questions that arise are, "What is it like to be you?", and, "Why are you you, and I me?". I found it very interesting the way Nagel defines the objective aspect of the subjective point of view when he says that it is conceivable that another person could share my experience if he saw and felt everything exactly from my perspective (Nagel 1974). However, a person could never do so at the exact same time, and in the exact same place as me, and so would be missing a significant part of my experience. That is why you will never be me, and I will never be you. I think that this limits the objectivity of first-person experience.
I regret to admit that I do not possess enough of the relevant scientific and philosophic knowledge required to expound on this question at length, but I do think that it is the real question at hand, and progress cannot be made until it is satisfactorily addressed. If all there was to explaining the human experience was simply to objectify experience, I think the implications would exceed just being able to experience what someone or something else experiences. I think that in theory I would be able to take on anyone else's identity at will, and anyone else could take on mine. All I would need is access to all the objective facts about their experience, and I would suddenly somehow be looking through their eyes--I would be them. But then, I would not know that I had only just become them because I would duplicate their memories, etc., and I would lose mine. After all, I cannot really know what it is like to be someone else if I continue to access my own memories, which the other person does not have.
I realize that this conclusion of mine seems rather extreme and convoluted, but I do not see how it is logically avoidable. If all I am is a makeup of physical processes and functions, and everything about me can be objectified, than anyone can duplicate my physically based mental experiences and become me, and I them.
In response, it may be objected on the basis that insane people commonly take on other identities, often as a result of an obsession with another person. They read, watch, and listen to everything they can to gain information on the object of their infatuation, and eventually convince themselves that they are the person, though they are not. However, this is another issue altogether. These people have taken objective facts about the person and used them to delude themselves. I am referring to the reality that, if an objective phenomenalism actually came to be, I would not just be able to convince myself that I was any given person, I would be them.
I also realize that Nagel anticipated that a concept such as objective phenomenalism would still have its limitations, which would prevent a situation like the one I have just described, but I feel that such an expectation about a concept that has yet to be developed is arbitrary and contradictory to its own purpose, which is to remove the limitations of current objective concepts that communicate subjective experience. The limits of the various physicalist views are what keep them in question now. How then would a NEW physicalist view with limitations succeed in establishing it as a solid answer? It could not.
As far as I am concerned, Harman's acceptance of an explanatory gap between the objective and the subjective as just 'the way it is', so to speak, and Nagel's faith that physicalism will one day develop a new solution to the problem that will be able to explain experience, albeit in a limited way (though it already does that), amount to avoidance of the real issue and reveal their conclusions to be just stubborn adherence to physicalist bias. One philosopher claims the answer does not exist, while the other simply believes it is yet to be found. Both assertions are just round-about ways of saying that physicalism has failed to answer the question. I think it is time to render physicalism for what it is--a possibility--and explore other options. Personally, I think I will start with exploring interactionism and neutral monism and see where I go from there.
References
Harman, Gilbert. 2007. "Explaining an Explanatory Gap," American Philosophical Association Newsletter on Philosophy and Computers 6.2 (Spring 2007), 2-3.
Nagel, Thomas. "What Is It Like To Be A Bat?" Philosophical Review 83 (1974), 435-50.
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