Path: rwcrnsc51.ops.asp.att.net!attbi_slave51!attbi_master52!attbi_feed3!attbi.com!204.127.161.1!wn1feed!wn14eed!worldnet.att.net!207.172.3.44!feed2.news.rcn.net!rcn!newsfeed1.earthlink.net!newsfeed.earthlink.net!newsmaster1.prod.itd.earthlink.net!newsread1.prod.itd.earthlink.net.POSTED!not-for-mail From: enigl@aol.com (Davin C. Enigl) Newsgroups: talk.philosophy.misc Subject: Re: Ten Remarks on the Nature of Consciousness Message-ID: <3c848a3c.10673578@news.earthlink.net> References: <3c82619e.13472633@news.earthlink.net> X-Newsreader: Forte Free Agent 1.21/32.243 Lines: 49 Date: Sat, 09 Mar 2002 18:33:09 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 216.224.149.236 X-Complaints-To: abuse@earthlink.net X-Trace: newsread1.prod.itd.earthlink.net 1015698789 216.224.149.236 (Sat, 09 Mar 2002 10:33:09 PST) NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 09 Mar 2002 10:33:09 PST Organization: EarthLink Inc. -- http://www.EarthLink.net Xref: attbi_master52 talk.philosophy.misc:1551 X-Received-Date: Sat, 09 Mar 2002 18:33:12 GMT (rwcrnsc51.ops.asp.att.net) On 9 Mar 2002 06:26:13 -0800, gilworth_54@hotmail.com (Michael Greer) wrote: >enigl@aol.com (Davin C. Enigl) wrote in message news:<3c82619e.13472633@news.earthlink.net>... >> On 24 Feb 2002 07:09:56 -0800, gilworth_54@hotmail.com (Michael Greer) >> wrote: >**************************** In response: >> >9. It is better to refer to any position on consciousness as a >> >biological naturalism and neither a mentalism nor a materialism. >> >> I am not sure I understand this. . . . > >Yes, the reference is John Searle's Rediscovering the Mind. He wants >to avoid the dualism and monisms implicit in almost all materialist or >idealist accounts. He sees these disputes as counterproductive and >useless. > >Michael Greer Ok. Sure, that makes sense. I also think they are counter productive, not because they are right or wrong, but because they tend to be authoritarian and "talk-past" each other, almost like true-believer religions do. That results in no progress. Sometimes I think different research programs have too much criticism of each other at the early stages of investigation. It's almost like they don't want the other program to be successful even if the other program turns out to be closer to the truth. That's dogmatism at its worse. I do however think we should not trash either point of view since they may someday end up looking (historically) like the old Schro:dinger vs. Heisenberg arguments. They argued and argued and ended up in the same place, i.e., with equivalent formulations. Of course, I am not a materialist, or a dualist, but I hold rather a "Pluralist" view of mind, with the metaphysics of Super-Realism (contrary to Idealism). I hold my own reformulation (as outlined in the last post) of Karl Popper and John Eccles' pluralism, cf. (1977/ 1983 edition) _The Self and Its Brain_. This integrates materialism with dualism, while rejecting some of the most extreme views of both opposing sides. -- Davin -----------