Archives - Philosophy: Page 15
Author: amparo enriquez (Tue Jun 27, 2006 2:08 pm)
Title: The Immaterial Mind
The reason why we think that the mind must be immaterial is because we know it differently from the way we know matter. The first we know privately while the second belongs to the realm of our public knowledge.
And why is that knowledge significant?
People talk among them about external objects and events that they share through their perceptual systems. The external world appear often as solid and reliable, something they can all corroborate it exist (the material world). However talking about their internal subjective experiences as for instances fantasies, feelings and desires is something they cannot share with someone else, that phenomenological world as it is label is only experienced by the individual and is not open to the perceptual scrutiny of others, that’s why it seems unreachable and immaterial.
The word significant is not applicable in either case since it has nothing to do with it.
The philosopher Daniel Dennett have suggested the word Heterophenomenology for a new field that according to him could document the verbal explanations subjects use to describe their subjective experiences. Dennett believe that in this way some sort of hermeneutic process could be applied to better understand individual phenomenology.
I meant why the distinction between the material and immaterial mind is significant enough to mention here. Your post didn't provide any real information or explanation. It was as though you were responding to a previous post that doesn’t exist.
I don't see phenomenology as philosophical or insightful in any way. Of course our reality is based on subjective human perceptions of everything. What's the alternative, an objective view of reality? Every thing we know, every word we speak, every atom we have ever catalogued is only our subjective definition of these things. Why do we need a new field to study common sense? That is collective phenomenology though. You mentioned individual phenomenology. What purpose is there to document the individual, subjective, verbal explanations of our experiences? These we know privately, and will never be known as public knowledge. This seems about as important as dissecting dreams for symbolism.
My post is related to a mind body problem that is well known to most philosophers or majors in philosophy that’s why I didn’t bother to enter any previous information.
The statement I posted reflected my point of view about the subject matter.
Phenomenology is one of the hottest topics of discussion now a days, not only among philosopher but also neuroscientist, experts in artificial intelligence, and ethologist among others. The topic of phenomenology is central to the study of consciousness and human existence. If you know of anyone who has a solid proof of how phenomenology or qualia states occur I will like to know.
We simply don’t know how even the most simple subjective experience occur or how physics, biochemistry or any other science could contribute to the explanation. For decades there have been those who argue in favor of dualism, materialistic dualism, substance dualism or those who argue in favor of materialistic reductionism, functionalism or eliminative materialism as an explanation to phenomenology.
Some of the most brilliant world scientist are working hard at present to find an answer to the problem of phenomenology.
Edmund Husserl was the founder of phenomenology; two books that I recommend are Being in the World by Hubert L Dreyfus MIT press 1991 and Phenomenologie de la perception by M. Merleau-Ponty Editions Gallimard 1975.
Why do we want to know how a subjective experience occurs?
We know the world through phenomenological experiences something that is reflected in our phrases “is cold outside” or “the coffee is too sweet for me” this is the way our organisms tell us about certain characteristics of the outside world; through feelings or experiences that communicate to us the value positive or negative for ourselves of those characteristics. For instances too cold outside could be harmful and even eventually create a state of hypothermia. If we want to understand how human knowledge occurs thru our sensations and perceptions we need to know the causes and process that are behind and produce phenomenological states.