(ii) Reading and Listening to Music at the Same Time
(iii) Reading Kant Seriously
(iv) What Is a “Pseudo-Intellectual”?
Judith Butler’s Peculiar Prose Style
This is a serious question: Why does Judith Butler write in a very peculiar way?
The English philosopher Julian Baggini once argued that JacquesDerrida’s philosophy was somehow embedded in his “complex and difficult” prose style. This doesn’t mean that Derrida’s philosophy couldn’t help but be written in complex and difficult prose simply because the philosophy itself is difficult and complex. It means that the (supposedly) complex and difficult prose is actually part of the philosophy.
So is the prose style somehow part of the philosophy in Judith Butler’s case too?
An alternative way of looking at this is to say that Butler’s prose style is pretentious.
It’s mainly because it’s a prose style which was adopted by certain (largely American) academics, in certain (largely American) university departments, at a certain point in history. And they’ve adopted this prose style primarily to hide and obscure their bad arguments (or total lack of arguments), banal ideas, and their truisms.
Reading and Listening to Music at the Same Time
I wonder how reading and simultaneously listening to music fits into Bernard J Baars’ post above. Sure, you can’t concentrate as much on the music as you could do if you solely listened to the music. However, surely these two things do occur together. In fact, listening to music and reading is a common phenomenon. (Personally, I don’t do this anymore. However, I once did.)
One wonders — as a non-specialist — what’s going on in both the brain and mind to make this possible.
I don’t believe it’s a case of “switching” either.
That is, it’s not a case of switching between the reading and the music. (Bernard J. Baars writes: “Conscious involvement with one flow of information will always interrupt another.”)
All this reminds me of an example from the philosopher Ned Block of someone reading and all along there’s the noise of heavy wind outside. The reader hears the wind at all times. However, only at a certain time does he actually note (a loose word, admittedly) that it’s the wind he can hear. And he also notes that it’s a heavy wind.
And how seriously must someone have read a philosopher before he or she can quote — or even mention — that philosopher?
Take Wittgenstein and the Wittgenstein Interpretation Industry, which publishes around 1000 articles, books, papers, etc. on the Austrian philosopher every year. (This is a figure I once read for a single year at least. Although it can’t be correct… Surely?!)
Do I need to heavily invest in this industry before I can quote — or even mention — Wittgenstein?
What Is a “Pseudo-Intellectual”?
Most of the time I come across the sneering term “pseudo-intellectual” all it means is that the person who uses it doesn’t like (or agree with) the person he’s criticising.
It also often means “non-academic” or “non-expert”.
Yet that too ties in with the first point.
Another related way the term “pseudo-intellectual” is used is to refer to those intellectuals who express political views that the critic doesn’t like or agree with. Thus, the very fact that the intellectual holds and expresses political views the critic doesn’t like (or agree with) renders him pseudo…
Intellectuals with the correct political views, on the other hand, are Real Intellectuals.
That said, there is so much sneering jargon in the following passage that I don’t really know what to make of it. Here goes:
“Nolan is a pseudointellectual who makes middlebrow blockbusters, but he happens to work in a period in which popular discourse (especially online) is dominated by pseudointellectuals who love middlebrow blockbusters (youtubers, video essayists, podcasters, etc).”
[The following was an additional post on X.]
Sure. Many of Nolan’s films include scientific issues and references. So are you simply accusing Nolan of not being a… scientist? I think he’d hold up his hands to that charge. However, Nolan does have scientists helping him on the screenplays he writes, including Kip Thorne.
Instead of relying so heavily on words like “pseudointellectual”, “BuzzFeed pop science, “dumb”, etc., why not provide an argument? It seems that you rely too much on rhetoric.
Apart from posting on X, what are your own credentials? What gives you the right to speak so loudly on this subject?
Shorter
It couldn’t be a “starting point”.
Solipsism is (or was) the end product of a train of philosophical reasonings (epistemological or otherwise). More simply, it’s a philosophical position. So how could solipsism be an “obvious starting point” for epistemology — or for anything else?
Note that this isn’t to say that solipsism is either a valid or an invalid position.
Shorter
I’m not sure how Justin D’Ambrosio could know that these classic philosophical works would be rejected today…
Actually, if someone sent in a work of transcendental idealism, written in the dense style of of a 18th century German academic, then I suppose that it would be rejected. Yes, it would be a very odd submission. However, this may well apply to all works written before, say, the year 2000. Or even before the year 2020!
… But I don’t believe that’s what D’Ambrosio meant.
The Critique of Pure Reason was written in a very academic style. So it would have that going for it. Still, an 18th century academic style won’t be like the academic styles of 2024.
“For Churchland, this isn’t a matter of mind-brain correlation: to have an experience of taste simply is to have one’s brain visit a particular point in that abstractly defined sensory space.”
This means that Churchland doesn’t offer us those “mere correlations”which anti-physicalists and others sniff at.
Indeed, if you only stress correlations, then (arguably) you’ll always need to deal with David Chalmers’ “hard problem”. After all, if brain state X is (always?) correlated with the bitter taste of a lemon, then Chalmers and others can always ask the following question:
Why does brain state X give rise to the bitter taste of lemon (even if that taste is correlated with that brain state)?
To clarify. Churchland, as a materialist, isn’t out to eliminate qualia: he’s out to identity qualia with (to use Boden’s words) “particular point[s] in that abstractly defined sensory space”.
So Churchland doesn’t deny (or reject) qualia: he simply offers us his own account of them. [See note 1 on Dennett’s own account of consciousness.]
“[Paul Churchland] offers a scientific theory — part computational (connectionist), part neurological — defining a four-dimensional ‘taste-space,’ which systematically maps subjective discrimination (qualia) of taste onto specific neural structures. The four dimensions reflect the four types of taste receptor on the tongue.”
Of course, some anti-physicalists, all dualists and others believe that qualia cannotpossibly be (specific or otherwise) “neural structures”. That’s simply because they don’t deem qualia to be physical in nature at all. Indeed, even some physicalists don’t believe that a token or type neural structure and a token or type quale can be one and the same thing.
Identity theorists (old and new), on the other hand, do believe that they are one and the same thing.
More clearly. To some anti-physicalists, and to all dualists, the idea that
“all phenomenal consciousness is simply the brain’s being at a particular location in some empirically discoverable hyperspace”
is actually to eliminate qualia completely — if only according to their own definition. So perhaps such people could state the following:
Brain states are brain states. Qualia are qualia.
Or in Boden’s own terminology:
Particular locations in some empirically discoverable hyperspace are particular locations in some empirically discoverable hyperspace. Qualia are qualia in no particular location.
… But it’s not just mere correlations which physicalists need to deal with.
Colin McGinn and David Chalmers on Qualia
Colin McGinn
Margaret Boden also mentions (if only in passing) the British philosopherColin McGinn and his own stance on the “causal link” between qualia and “the brain”. According to Boden, McGinn
“argued that humans are constitutionally incapable of understanding”
that link.
Yet perhaps this too is just another variation on the mere-correlations theme.
After all, and like most of the critics of physicalism, McGinn accepts that the correlations exist, and even that they’re relevant and important. However, how can we (philosophically) understand those correlations? How can we understand — or explain — the causal (or otherwise) link between a bit of the brain (or even the brain taken in toto) and, say, the quale we experience when drinking bitter lemon juice?
Boden covers this precise issue again in another place in her AI: Its Nature and Future. (This time when discussing the position of John Searle.) In line with McGinn, Boden states that
“qualia being caused by neuroprotein is no less counter-intuitive, no less philosophically problematic”
than stating that
“computers could really experience blueness or pain, or really understand language” .
Now what about the Australian philosopherDavid Chalmers?
Even though Chalmers (like McGinn) will be happy to accept that qualia are mapped onto specific neural structures, then that still leaves his “hard problem of consciousness” untouched. In other words:
Why does neural structure X lead to, say, the specific bitter taste of a lemon?
Moreover: Why don’t lemons taste like dog shit or like nothing at all?
But Hang on!
All this depends on what we take qualia to be in the first place. (See later section.)
Now for the philosopher and researcher Aaron Sloman on his (as it were) AI accountof qualia.
Aaron Sloman on Qualia
Like Paul Churchland earlier,Aaron Sloman(whom Boden refers to many times in her book) doesn’t eliminate qualia either. Far from it.
Basically, Sloman sees qualia as being “hosted” by the brain. Thus, there’s clearly no elimination of qualia here.
Indeed, according to Sloman (if via Boden), qualia don’t even require a biological brain!
It seems, them, that Sloman’s way of looking at things could also be adopted by idealists, dualists, and even by Platonists…
Platonists?
Take what the physicist and mathematician Roger Penrose argued on this subject.
Penrose discussed what he called a “qualium” (i.e., the singular of ‘qualia’), and its relation to the brain.
“Such an implementation [of an algorithm] would, according to the proponents of such a suggestion, have to evoke the actual experience of the intended qualium.”
If the precise hardware doesn’t at all matter, then only the given algorithm (or the virtual machine) matters. Of course, the algorithm (or virtual machine) would need to be implemented… in something.
Yet this may not at all be the case if we follow this AI position to its logical conclusion.
Are Qualia are Ineffable, Private, and Causally Salient?
Yet, despite all that, qualia still have “causal effects”.
So Sloman’s account of qualia (if accurately presented by Boden) is odd in that, on the surface at least, it perfectly squares with the (as it were) traditional account of qualia. Yet, at the same time, it’s also bang up-to-date in terms of its scientific references.
Why use the words “traditional account of qualia” here?
Sloman believes that qualia are ineffable and private, yet also of causal relevance when it comes to human subjects.
In terms of Sloman’s position on ineffable qualia, Boden writes:
“Moreover, they cannot always be described — by higher, self-monitoring, levels of the mind — in verbal terms. (Hence their ineffability.)”
“They can be accessed only by some other pars of the particular virtual machine concerned, and don’t necessarily have any behavioural expression. (Hence their privacy.)”
Finally, in terms of causality, Boden finishes off with the following words:
“They can have causal effects on behavior (e.g. involuntary facial expression) and/or on other aspects of the mind’s information processing.”
Most (if not all) of the above seems to go against Daniel Dennett’s case against qualia. What’s more, the addition of up-to-date scientific jargon (such as “computational states”, “information processing”, “virtual machines”, etc.) doesn’t seem to make much difference to that.
Privacy
In terms of privacy again.
In broad terms, mental privacy has always been problematic in philosophy. However, perhaps Sloman’s way around this is to bring on board (as Boden puts it) “other parts of the particular virtual machine”.
“can be accessed only by some other parts of the particular virtual machine concerned, and don’t necessarily have any behavioural expression”.
Specifically, qualia
“can be accessed only by some other pars of the particular virtual machine concerned”.
Thus, it may seem that we don’t have the old-style privacy here in which a human subject is the sole (as it were) owner of whatever it is that’s going on inside his mind and brain. Instead, we have different “parts” of a “machine”.
Yet it’s still the same (or singular) virtual machine that’s doing the accessing — even if it does have parts.
So does privacy still rule okay?
Sloman (at least as presented by Boden) has the same position on privacy as the philosopher Owen Flanagan. That is, Flanagan accepts that (mental) privacy exists. However, he doesn’t see it as being such a big deal for naturalism. (At least it’s not a big deal to Flanagan himself, as well as to other naturalists.)
In this passage we have an account of qualia’s causal effects, as well as a hint that they can also be epiphenomenal…
However!
A particular quale may not be behaviourally expressed, and still not be epiphenomenal. After all, this reference to “behavioural expression” is usually a reference to the subject verbally reporting his quale — or even just physically reacting to it. However, the quale may still be causally relevant even without such (as it were) outward signs.
Despite the seemingly Cartesian account of qualia’s privacy, ineffability, and non-necessary link to behaviour, Sloman still believes that qualia
“can have causal effects on behavior (e.g. involuntary facial expression) and/or on other aspects of the mind’s information processing”.
This seems obviously true.
If someone tastes a bitter lemon and grimaces, then clearly the bitter quale of a lemon has had a “causal effect[] on behavior”…
But is it a philosophically-conceived quale that we’re talking about here?
It depends.
However, let’s return to the statement that qualia “don’t necessarily have any behavioural expression”. This possibility would definitely go against Daniel Dennett’s stance on this matter.
Dennett on the Verbal Reports of Qualia
If qualia don’t “have any behavioural expression”, then they constitute (to quote Wittgenstein) “a wheel that can be turned though nothing else moves with”. (This position also goes against Dennett’s heterophenomenological stance on all qualia-talk.)
So can we also ask the following question here? —
If qualia aren’t behaviourally expressed, then how do we know that they exist at all?
Sure, a human subject may verbally report that his qualia exist. However, how would other human subjects know that his qualia exist? Or, less strongly, how would other subjects know that they his qualia have the qualities and characteristics which he says they have?
All this leads on to a fairly extensive section of Boden’s book in which she tackles Daniel Dennett’s position on this issue.
Boden actually quotes one of Dennett’s own dialogues between himself and someone called Otto. The following is part of Boden’s own extract from that dialogue:
[Otto] Look. I don’t just mean it. I don’t just think there seems to be a pinkish glowing ring; there really seems to be a pinkish glowing ring!
[Dennett] Now you’ve done it. You’ve fallen in a trap, along with a lot of others. You seem to think there’s a difference between thinking (judging, being of the firm opinion that) something seems pink to you and something really seeming pink to you. But there is no difference. There is no such phenomenon as really seeming — over and above the phenomenon of judging in one way or another that something is the case.”
This is essentially a position both against the ineffability of qualia, and in support of Dennett’s heterophenomenology.
Basically, Otto can’t rely on his own experience of qualia to defend their reality or existence.
So all we have are Otto’s “judgements” about, in this particular case, a particular quale.
Firstly, Otto claims to experience a “pinkish glowing ring”. To Dennett, this is fair enough. That is, he doesn’t reject that claim out of hand (or as it stands).
However, what of the quale itself?
Is it real?
Does it exist?
What qualities and characteristics does it have?
Well, Otto says that this quale is real because he experiences it. More specifically, Otto states that it “seems to be a pinkish glow”.
This means that Otto has moved on from this quale’s existence (or reality), to referring to his own personal (as it were) seemings.
So these seemings are surely real?
Dennett questions this too.
In response, Otto ups the ante by stating that he doesn’t don’t “just mean it” about the seeming. Hecontinues:
“I don’t just think there seems to be a pinkish glowing ring; there really seems to be a pinkish glowing ring!”
So, again, we’ve moved from an implicit claim that the quale is real or exists, to the seeming-of-a-pinkish-glow being real or existing.
Again, forget the quale itself, what about the seeming-to-have-a-pinkish-glow?
Dennett’s main point is that all he has to go on (all we have to go on) are (at first) Otto’s judgments about the pinkish glow, and then, secondly, his judgments about the seemings-of-a-pinkish-glow.
Thus, we never get to either the quale or the seeming itself — only to the “verbal reports” about both.
However, is that a reason to deny reality or existence to (as it were) what’s behind the verbal reports?…
But what’s behind the verbal reports?
Are we in a loop of judgments here?
Note:
(1) This is parallel to Daniel Dennett’s position on consciousness. It’s not that he believes that “consciousness should be explained away”. It’s that his account of consciousness is at odds with at least some mainstream, as well as also philosophical, accounts of it.
(iii) Carlos Fernandes Shouts About Sam Harris and Free Will
(iv) The infinite… what!?
(v) Marijuana and Alcohol…
Should We Trust Physicists?
There’s an element of truth to the meme above. Personally, I feel like I’m encroaching on sacred territory when I comment on physics — especially on string theory. Put simply, I don’t know the maths. Thus, I must rely on what philosophers call testimony…
Not that any single testimony — even large scale — could ever be decisive when its comes to a layperson accepting a scientific idea or theory. After all, the Set of Physicists that is relied upon has members who often disagree with each other.
The other thing about this meme is that particle physicists themselves say that other “particle physicists are wrong”. And some physicists say that “string theorists are wrong”. Indeed, some string theorists say that other string theorists are wrong — at least on details.
Apart from all that, I don’t believe “physics influencers” influence physicists.
Analytic Philosophy Is…
Is analytic philosophy a Platonic Form?
Do all analytic philosophers do whatJohn Gregg says that (other people?) say that they do?
As it is, analytic philosophers tend to take many different positions on many different subjects.
That said, I’m not even sure if I even understand John Gregg’s words. Are they an expression of his literary skills?
So if you take away John Gregg’s literary flamboyance, is there any actual argument left underneath?
Shorter
“computationalism is really popular among science-oriented people who don’t care much for philosophy”
— frances kafka
Well, since the 1960s, many philosophers have embraced “computationalism”. It also became a major part of the philosophy of mind. (Check out what the American philosopher John Searle has had to say on this subject.)
“and think metaphysics is a waste of time, but computationalism itself’s a type of Hegelian idealism”
What?!
Carlos Fernandes Shouts About Sam Harris and Free Will
The notion of “free will” isn’t really a part of neuroscience. It’s a philosophical notion. Citations of neuroscience may help advance a philosophical argument. However, talk of “free will” itself isn’t really a part of neuroscience…
Do people become pseudo the moment they articulate views Fernandes doesn’t agree with?
By the way, I don’t usually defend or attack the notion of free will. That’s because it entirely depends on how the words “free will” are being used in the specific debate, and by specific disputants. Also, I don’t spend much time on this ancient subject anyway…
But what I do know is that Fernandes’s rhetoric is best suited to the mindless political “debates” one often finds on X. In other words, the debate won’t move in any direction if all the people involved in it shout and display their emotions, just as Fernandes does.
Shorter
Should readers on X comment on tweets without actually reading the essays/papers/articles linked in those tweets?
I was tempted to respond to this one. But it just seems pointless without reading the paper.
So this must solely be an advert for her paper — if in the form of a tweet/post on X. Perhaps this academic wouldn’t deny that. I do the same thing.
The infinite… what!?
It may seem rhetorical, but I must be honest… I have absolutely no idea what any of that post/tweet means. Perhaps this is simply the problem we all face when we come across philosophical prose from a subsection of philosophy we’re unfamiliar with.
So we need to be careful not to be dismissive in a kneejerk manner. That said, I’m familiar with Kant, etc., and I still don’t understand it.
The passage/tweet comes across as some kind of “spiritual” set of pronouncements delivered in the prose style of a French poststructuralist… on six acid tabs.
Can anyone help me out here?
Perhaps I’m simply dumb.
Either that, or not spiritual enough to get it.
(*) Are the words “The infinite ‘I am’” from David Bowie’s song ‘Blackstar’?
Marijuana and Alcohol…
I’m not sure that the single sentence “Why should marijuana be illegal if alcohol is legal?” is meant to be a full self-sustained argument. At least, I don’t know many people who’d stick to a single statement on this controversial issue.
Various long and short arguments have been given for this position. Some of these arguments include data, analysis, interviews, studies, etc.
I also doubt that all the positions are “abstract” and “utilitarian” when it comes to what was stated in this tweet . Actually, I can imagine all sorts of takes on this — utilitarianism being just one of them.
“Political feasibility”?
Is that a hint at the simple fact that alcohol is now legal, whereas marijuana isn’t? Thus, it wouldn’t be politically feasible to make another (dangerous?) drug legal?
Why should people who smoke cannabis accept that?
So why not make alcohol illegal, and cannabis legal?…
That’s a joke. Well, it’s partly a joke.
And, of course, it may not be politically feasible…
A lot of good and bad things are deemed not to be politically feasible…
Shorter
So the human brain is a “quantum brain”. (This is an actual phrase which has been used many times.) There are also quantum cups, quantum trees, quantum genitals, quantum books on “quantum weirdness”, etc. etc. etc.
Of course, an object being constructed and run by human beings according to quantum logic and principles, is very different to inanimate and animate objects being simply… quantum (i.e., regardless of human beings).
