No it doesn’t. Astronomy was nothing but measurements, to which various theories were applied. Likewise nutrition science and much of early psychology.
I haven’t found my copy of CE yet but I’m reading a similar book, sometime later on I’ll read over this thread and make some comments.
I’m afraid that it actually does.
The Scientific Method requires repeatable demonstrations and thus prestated hypotheses. If not the first time, at least every time after that.
Astronomy was nothing but measurements, to which various theories were applied. Scientifically discrediting the phlogiston theory required no new measurements to be taken, it simply explained the existing measurements better. Et cetera, et cetera.
The scientific method explains/predicts measurements using falsifiable theories. There’s no stipulation on the dynamic. As Kuhn points out, most work is post-theory - ascertaining repeatability, improving accuracy, calculating consequences and bounding cases and so on; that’s the nature of working within a paradigm. But paradigms can be overturned by fitting new theories to existing data, and as Kuhn pretty convincingly showed, that’s the principal motor of scientific revolution.
First of all, thanks for participating, Lizbeth.
That said, I think your interpretation is pretty much dead on as far as what Dennett is trying to get across.
However, from my own critical stance (to the extent that I still insist on the possibility of a participating self), what I’m seeing is still a Cartesian theater, only the actors (the homunculus) are the only audience. It would be like an improv that they got together purely for their own pleasure. However, as Dennett reasonably explains as he goes on, we have to qualify the metaphor in that the actors (the homunculus) in this particular theater are dumb in a binary sort of way. There is a clear connectionism in his thought in that he tends to think of the individual components of the brain, therefore consciousness, as like bits in a computer. And we can easily see the cells of the brain acting in this capacity. The homunculus Dennett describes are so dumb that the only lines they can recite are either yea or nay.
At the same time, we could approach it in a Deluez and Guattarrian sense of the given phenomenon embedded within the same phenomenon while having its self embedded within itself. For instance, we could actually consider the actors (the homunculus) as being a cumulative effect of the individual the individual dumber binary homunculus that are a little smarter and that have formed to attend to atomistic functions of the brain. They might, for instance, deal with the quality of red. And that said, we can now see that particular homunculus as a subsystem (among other homunculus) of another system that recognizes a red apple –a homunculus in itself. Overriding it all, of course, would be the super-homunculus of our experience of consciousness: the emergent property. This is not to say that it is at the top of hierarchy; it is as dependent on its subsystems as they are on it.
The cool thing about it (as I am discovering as I tap this out on my keyboard) is that our new model deals with the homunculus problem that our hard-core materialists keep throwing at us. We now have a model that recognizes that there is a regress. However, that regress is not infinite. The buck always stops with that dumb binary homunculus: the brain cell.
Yet: here we are.
It’s been an interesting project, Lizbeth, in that, contrary to Volchok’s hopes, most of what I’m finding in the book is Dennett describing the building blocks of consciousness, building blocks that could as easily support my own view of the participating self as an emergent property engaged in a non-linear feedback loop with its physiological infrastructure and environment. In fact, given what I’ve gotten from it, I’m not sure Dennett would disagree with me. We should note here that he has also written an article or book (I’m not sure which) and did a Philosophy Bites podcast called Free Will Worth Wanting .
First of all, I feel like the host of a party: taking pleasure from who happens to show up.
Especially you, Humean. Thanks for showing up, brother.
That said, I would argue that the scientific method must start with basic human experience and curiosity about why it is so. As Daktoria points out, it has to start with a theory formed in advance of measurement. It just seems like a logical process to me. Now that basic experience may be influenced by the the high level memes the individual has accumulated up to that point. But that would be their basic human experience at a more sophisticated level. It’s how we advance as the intellectually and creatively curious and a result of our brain plasticity.
And doesn’t brain plasticity explain how we maintain a consistent personality while being in a constant state of change?
That concrete dynamic may well be the physical foundation of our being a particular point in space and time.
Actually, Stuart, I would implore you to just follow your flow.
Once again: thanks for showing up, brother! But while astronomy is based on measurements, it started with looking up at stars. Nutrition and early psychology pretty much started with having a body and a mind.
This is why I argue that all important endeavors (at least to people like us) must start in play and return to it frequently. In other words, it must begin in an activity that any child can do. The primary difference between us and most people is that we choose to push it further. While most people go to bars to engage in the play of conversation, we choose to go to the bar to engage in the play of intelligent conversation or (as is my case) to just continue our studies. And as I have learned: philosophy is not the kind of thing you want to try to impress chicks with.
I mean there’s a reason people like us are so socially fucked up. And given that, is it any wonder we have trolls and (your much better term) flamers?
See now, you’ll need to explain this one to me like I’m a 7 year old. It may actually make everything I said in the above post pointless.
Okay, Humean, never mind what I said before.
I happen to believe that the soul itself has a brain also. The soul is simply our most advanced deepest energy system. It is material itself, but a subtle material outside of our senses.
Thanks for showing up, Dan.
I have no problem with the notion that our experience of self is material. But I would argue that it is material in an abstract kind of way: much like energy.
How surprising. You’re welcome.
Look Dan, we fight. But it is only a accelerated form of play.
But once its it’s over, we’re done.
I mean: fuck it!
It’s gone when it’s gone.
Things don’t need to be scientific before they can be true. Also even if something is scientific, it can be expanded upon. That means science alone is not complete. We use the whole useful aspects of our consciousness instead of only a specific part. Even if some parts of our mind aren’t always right, we still need them and should use them. Rationalism isn’t evil, it’s just been misused. Science also isn’t evil, even though it can be misunderstood or misapplied.
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does anyone here feel as socially fucked up as I do
