Emergence Seminar II, Searle and Wimsatt

[Nick Thompson]

All,

 

For those who are following the seminar, we will read Searle (Reductionism and the Irreducibility of Consciousness) and Wimsatt (Aggregativity: Reductive Heuristics for Finding Emergence).   I originally thought we would do only Searle, forgetting how short it was.  We need to do more than ten pages a week if are going to make any headway in the book in 13 weeks. 

 

Just by way of introduction, I hate the Searle (which I think is a pile of hopeless blather) and love the Wimsatt (which has become the foundation for all of my thinking about emergence).  My philosophical mentors tell me that they both are among the finest philosophers that we might read on any subject and any respect that I might earn with my mentors  from liking Wimsatt is countered by my disparagement of Searle.    The Searle article will grist in the mill of those of you who feel that consciousness is something special and the Wimsatt article grist in the mill of those of you who feel that emergence is commonplace. 

 

 I wish I could draw more of you on the list into an exploration  of these texts..  Here, for instance, is a snippet from the Searle article to tempt Russ Abbot:t

 

"I think ... that we ought to be amazed by the fact that evolutionary processes produced nervous systems capable of causing and sustaining subjective conscious states.  But ... once the existence of (subjective, qualitative) consciousness is granted (and no sane person can deny its existence, though many pretend to do so), then there is nothing strange, wonderful, or mysterious about its irreducibility.  "

 

All the best,

 

Nick    

 

 

 

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology,

Clark University ([hidden email])

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

 

 

============================================================
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Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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[Russ Abbott]

Well, you already know my position on reducibility, namely that it's a mistaken quest. Everything -- other than whatever turns out to be primitive, if indeed anything turns out to be primitive -- is explainable. That is, we will eventually figure out how it is implemented. But implementation is generally not what people think of as reducibility.

Of course that answer ignores the specific question of subjective experience -- which may be what Nick had in mind when he thought about me.

-- Russ-A

On Thu, Sep 17, 2009 at 9:42 PM, Nicholas Thompson <[hidden email]> wrote:

All,

 

For those who are following the seminar, we will read Searle (Reductionism and the Irreducibility of Consciousness) and Wimsatt (Aggregativity: Reductive Heuristics for Finding Emergence).   I originally thought we would do only Searle, forgetting how short it was.  We need to do more than ten pages a week if are going to make any headway in the book in 13 weeks. 

 

Just by way of introduction, I hate the Searle (which I think is a pile of hopeless blather) and love the Wimsatt (which has become the foundation for all of my thinking about emergence).  My philosophical mentors tell me that they both are among the finest philosophers that we might read on any subject and any respect that I might earn with my mentors  from liking Wimsatt is countered by my disparagement of Searle.    The Searle article will grist in the mill of those of you who feel that consciousness is something special and the Wimsatt article grist in the mill of those of you who feel that emergence is commonplace. 

 

 I wish I could draw more of you on the list into an exploration  of these texts..  Here, for instance, is a snippet from the Searle article to tempt Russ Abbot:t

 

"I think ... that we ought to be amazed by the fact that evolutionary processes produced nervous systems capable of causing and sustaining subjective conscious states.  But ... once the existence of (subjective, qualitative) consciousness is granted (and no sane person can deny its existence, though many pretend to do so), then there is nothing strange, wonderful, or mysterious about its irreducibility.  "

 

All the best,

 

Nick    

 

 

 

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology,

Clark University ([hidden email])

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

 

 

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org