tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26951738.post8794019662598075464..comments2024-03-25T11:49:21.281-07:00Comments on The Splintered Mind: Why Are People So Confident About Their Stream of Experience?Eric Schwitzgebelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11541402189204286449noreply@blogger.comBlogger9125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26951738.post-19365776900206859902007-06-15T07:26:00.000-07:002007-06-15T07:26:00.000-07:00Okay, thanks!Okay, thanks!Eric Schwitzgebelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11541402189204286449noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26951738.post-30369359490182233702007-06-14T11:13:00.000-07:002007-06-14T11:13:00.000-07:00Eric:Thanks for the web site suggestion will ck it...Eric:<BR/><BR/>Thanks for the web site suggestion will ck it out. <BR/>One other comment on this indeterminism thing. It is certainly viable to assume that simply because we have a first-person experience of freedom does not mean that our actions are uncaused. My guess is that Searle may have been influenced by the writings of Henry Stapp of the Theoretical Physics Group at the Lawrence National Lab.<BR/><BR/>Stapp is coming at this issue from the physics side, not from the philosophy/psychology side. He has written many recent papers and a new book on this topic. One paper that is a fairly good summary of his position is called "Mental Causation" and is available, along with many of his other writings, on his web site.<BR/><BR/>Take CareAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26951738.post-40614476085759042792007-06-14T07:54:00.000-07:002007-06-14T07:54:00.000-07:00Sure thing! I wish I knew how it went -- but I do...Sure thing! I wish I knew how it went -- but I don't think that the fact (if it is a fact) that we have an experience as of freedom means that we really are uncaused in our behavior! -- but that's more the domain of my colleague John Fischer. Have you seen the group blog he has organized, The Garden of Forking Paths"?Eric Schwitzgebelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11541402189204286449noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26951738.post-83171419832257863532007-06-12T13:19:00.000-07:002007-06-12T13:19:00.000-07:00Eric:The possible casual role of the inner voice i...Eric:<BR/><BR/>The possible casual role of the inner voice is a good one. I like the way Searle indirectly frames this topic. He argues in "Freedom and Neurobiology" that "...we have the first person conscious experience of acting on reasons. We state these reasons for action in the form of explanation. To account for these actions we must see that they are not of the form A caused B. They are of the form a rational self S performed act A and in performing act A, S acted on reason R. This formulation requires the postulation of the self or ego."<BR/><BR/>My assumption is that, in some cases, reason R is internal speech.<BR/>and we often choose to follow the <BR/>dictates of such speech as it appears in our stream of consciousness. <BR/><BR/>Your comment that such internal speech simply expresses what may have been cooking anyway seems to deny the experience of free will in favor of a neurobiological system that is totally deterministic and also seems to support a form of epiphenomenalism which says that our experience of freedom plays no casual role or explanatory role in our behavior.<BR/><BR/>Searle, on the other hand, seems fascinated with an alternative hypothesis. He seems to be trying to place rational indeterminism into our account of how the brain functions. Near the end of his book he states "First, we know that our experiences of free action contain both indeterminism ad rationality and that consciousness is essential to the forms that these take. Second we know that quantum indeterminism is the only form of indeterminism that is indisputably established as a fact of nature. It is tempting, indeed irrestible, to think that the explanation of the conscious experience of free will must be a manifestation of quantum indeterminism."<BR/><BR/>I realize that what we end up with is a wild brew of inner speech, steam of consciousness, free will and quantum mechanics--enough to keep us speculating for many lifetimes!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26951738.post-37694314992767069612007-06-11T15:56:00.000-07:002007-06-11T15:56:00.000-07:00Thanks for the kind words, Jim! I wonder about th...Thanks for the kind words, Jim! I wonder about the extent the voice of inner speech has causal influence over our behavior vs. the extent to which it simply expresses what was already cooking anyway...?Eric Schwitzgebelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11541402189204286449noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26951738.post-46778189386307526172007-06-11T13:15:00.000-07:002007-06-11T13:15:00.000-07:00Eric:It may also be the case that, in many instanc...Eric:<BR/><BR/>It may also be the case that, in many instances, the confidence and power of inner speech tends to grow the more that it is followed by the observer of that speech.<BR/><BR/>The humbling process may not be primarily an external exercise (ie. a critique from outside) but rather the internal discipline of allowing moments of hesitation in following, what are often instructions on how to behave, from that interior monologue.<BR/><BR/>My inner voice is quite convinced that it knows what is best for me but I am increasingly skeptical and that is a humbling process.<BR/><BR/>Please keep up the discussion on this fascinating topic.Jimhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13366727428892924647noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26951738.post-76668499720268250252007-06-11T08:28:00.000-07:002007-06-11T08:28:00.000-07:00Thanks for the interesting, thoughtful comment, AD...Thanks for the interesting, thoughtful comment, ADHR! Your examples are nice -- although I wonder if any of them really has to be interpreted as involving a correction in a judgment about a stream of experience. The mother might be pointing out the lack of serious physical injury so there's nothing to be upset about, even if there's some pain. (Maybe.) Your wife might be willing to agree that you are bored, but be saying that the party doesn't justify that reaction. The skeptic might well think he's totally infallible about his *experience*, just unsure about the outside world.<BR/><BR/>Still, I accept that we may on some occasions be corrected in our statements about our stream of experience -- I'd just say it's rare.Eric Schwitzgebelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11541402189204286449noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26951738.post-76905318087779923292007-06-08T19:44:00.000-07:002007-06-08T19:44:00.000-07:00I'm not confident that people don't receive feedba...I'm not confident that people don't receive feedback, particularly from people close to them (parents, spouses and close friends, in particular). Let me throw out a couple of examples. <BR/><BR/>Suppose a child falls and cries out in pain. To make it sufficiently lurid, suppose the child is bleeding -- so, we have visible signs of genuine injury. Now, add in the child's mother, who quickly picks the child up and says: "Stop crying -- you're not really hurt." I distinctly remember my own mother doing this to me (and she has corroborated it), and it actually did work to stop my crying. This seems to suggest that my report of my inner experience was corrected, or at least responded to a critique.<BR/><BR/>Taking a later example, suppose that my wife and I attend a party and I happen to find it extremely boring. So boring, in fact, that I'm rolling my eyes, looking for the exits, etc. My wife notices this and, turning to me, says "You can't <I>really</I> be bored." I consider what she's saying and, attending more closely to the events of the party, find that I'm actually not as bored as I thought I was.<BR/><BR/>Finally, let's consider the case of the philosophy freshman recently exposed to Cartesian skepticism. I've noticed that many students seem to think the argument's simply stupid, but there's always been at least one who finds it oddly compelling. (Full disclosure: I <I>was</I> that student, back in the day.) Such a student, I think, is relentlessly self-correcting in terms of their inner experience, at least for some time: questioning whether they <I>really</I> see something, or if they just <I>think</I> they see it.<BR/><BR/>I think these at least suggest that my reports of my inner experiences can be corrected by observers, including myself.ADHRhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00854569640217600183noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26951738.post-977779053810031842007-06-08T15:09:00.000-07:002007-06-08T15:09:00.000-07:00This comment has been removed by the author.Samhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16452377708525378827noreply@blogger.com