Re: Friam Digest, Vol 19, Issue 19

[Robert Lancaster-2]

Sorry all, I forgot to hit the "reply" button, thus forcing Nick to  
copy my post.  I'm well aware that the new realism is a materialism,  
Nick.  That, I admit, is one of my problems with it.  But the idea that  
"the things the searchlight reveals are there whether (or not) the  
light is turned on them" is exactly the problem.  We believe they are  
there because WE have seen something that WE think has been revealed by  
the light, or in some other way.  The point is, WE have seen them.  
Going back to the searchlight, it is true that none of the things the  
searchlight has revealed are in the searchlight, but the essence of all  
I  know about the things I have experienced is certainly in me. A  
hallucination has the same status in the consciousness of the  
hallucinator as the perception  of an external world has in the  
consciousness of the normal mind.  The new realists appear to say that  
the essence of the hallucination is in the mind of the subject, but the  
essence of the perception is somehow somewhere else.  I hasten to say  
that I'm not a Berkeleian, and I certainly make the same day to day  
assumptions most of us make.  But, like radical idealism, radical  
materialism is an act of faith, and I don't make any of those without  
recognizing what I'm doing--especially that one.  We're wandering far  
from technology here, though, into the murky shadows of ontology.  Kind  
of fascinating, but a little goes a long way.

Bob



On Jan 13, 2005, at 8:00 AM, [hidden email] wrote:

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> Today's Topics:
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>    1. New Realism and consciousness (Robert Lancaster)
>    2. more nonsense.  (Nicholas Thompson)
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> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
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> Message: 1
> Date: Wed, 12 Jan 2005 21:30:39 -0800
> From: Robert Lancaster <[hidden email]>
> Subject: [FRIAM] New Realism and consciousness
> To: [hidden email]
> Message-ID: <[hidden email]>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed
>
> Hi Nick. I have to say that the New Realism's definition of
> consciousness appears to me to be nonsense.  Few psychologists and/or
> philosophers in recent times have adopted the radical idealism of
> Bishop Berkeley, although it is, of course, not susceptible of
> disproof, and Dr. Johnson's supposed refutation demonstrates nothing at
> all.  But in fact, the peculiar example of the searchlight and its
> surroundings comes much closer to validating this idealism than to
> supporting any variety of realism, since the objects  revealed by the
> searchlight would not have been revealed except for the searchlight,
> and hence may be argued to exist in their peculiar configuration only
> because of the searchlight.  Without belaboring this point,
> consciousness is essentially a  condition of awareness.  To suggest
> that this awareness is ontologically contained in that of which one is
> aware implies that the awareness would still be there even if the
> conscious being (the awarerer??) were gone.  It is questionable if
> consciousness even requires an awareness of any specific existent
> outside the conscious being.  Some meditative states cast doubt on such
> a necessity.
>
> Best wishes
>
> Bob
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 2
> Date: Thu, 13 Jan 2005 00:15:13 -0700
> From: "Nicholas Thompson" <[hidden email]>
> Subject: [FRIAM] more nonsense.
> To: [hidden email]
> Message-ID: <[hidden email]>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
>
> Dear Bob Lancaster,
>
> For some reason, The Friam Server has lost the ability to pass email  
> to my Email Program, so I am copying your message in below.  Also, I  
> am having my problem of endless lines, again.
> So, if the message is unintelligible, please get back to me.
>
> "Hi Nick. I have to say that the New Realism's definition of
> consciousness appears to me to be nonsense.  Few psychologists and/or
> philosophers in recent times have adopted the radical idealism of
> Bishop Berkeley, although it is, of course, not susceptible of
> disproof, and Dr. Johnson's supposed refutation demonstrates nothing at
> all.  But in fact, the peculiar example of the searchlight and its
> surroundings comes much closer to validating this idealism than to
> supporting any variety of realism, since the objects  revealed by the
> searchlight would not have been revealed except for the searchlight,
> and hence may be argued to exist in their peculiar configuration only
> because of the searchlight.  Without belaboring this point,
> consciousness is essentially a  condition of awareness.  To suggest
> that this awareness is ontologically contained in that of which one is
> aware implies that the awareness would still be there even if the
> conscious being (the awarerer??) were gone.  It is questionable if
> consciousness even requires an awareness of any specific existent
> outside the conscious being.  Some meditative states cast doubt on such
> a necessity."
>
> Thanks for this interesting and throughtful comment.  Derivatives of  
> the
> New Realism have proven too useful for it to be simply to non-
> sense.  So, I must have failed to explain it well.  In idealism, I  
> gather, since everything
> around is our creation, it disappears when we cease to have awareness  
> of
> it.  In realism, it is there whether or not we are aware of it.  
> Clearly the
> searchling metaphor accomplishes that, since the things picked out by  
> the
> search light are there whether the light is turned on them.  What is  
> not there
> when the searchlike pans away from X is the relation, searchlight  
> illuminates X.
> That relation is consciousness.  The analogue of to the searchlight in  
> the metaphor
> is not  some mysterious beams of the mind but the patterning in my  
> behavior that
> highlights some features of the environment and not others.  Since you  
> can see
> that relation, you can be conscious of my consciousness, i.e.,  
> patterns in your
> behavior can highlilght  the relation between my behavior and features  
> of the
> enviornment that constitute consciousness, in this system of thought.  
>  By the way,
> the new realism is a form of materialism, since materialism consists  
> of the
> proposition that everthing real consists of matter and its relations  
> and
> consciousness, on the above account, is a relation between material  
> things.
>
> Nick
>
> Nicholas S. Thompson
> Professor of Psychology and Ethology
> Clark University
> [hidden email]
> http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/
> [hidden email]
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> End of Friam Digest, Vol 19, Issue 19
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Best regards

Robert Lancaster
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