Prime Time Replay:
Fred Dretske
author of Naturalizing the Mind
MsgId: *brain_storm(1)
Date: Sun Dec 14 22:04:57 PST 1997
From: Rob_Killheffer At: 205.198.117.131
Good evening and welcome to another edition of Brainstorms. I'm your host, Rob Killheffer, and with me tonight is Fred Dretske, professor of philosophy at Stanford University and author of a deceptively thin volume entitled "NATURALIZING THE MIND." It's less than two hundred pages long, but it makes a fascinating and dense argument for a view of the mind that would help make consciousness and other subtle interior experiences more accessible to scientific inquiry. Welcome, Professor Dretske!
MsgId: *brain_storm(3)
Date: Sun Dec 14 22:10:42 PST 1997
From: Fred_Dretske At: 205.138.225.41
I'm happy to be here.
MsgId: *brain_storm(5)
Date: Sun Dec 14 22:13:29 PST 1997
From: Rob_Killheffer At: 205.198.117.131
Ahh, you're here! Great. Fred, I think our most difficult task tonight will be to capture the essence of your arguments in terms that are accessible to viewers who might not be steeped in the terminology of the philosophy of mind -- the particular meaning of terms such as "representational" and "qualia" as they are used in your book.Perhaps we could begin with a brief explication of your "Representational Thesis" and how it renovates our concept of the mind?
MsgId: *brain_storm(7)
Date: Sun Dec 14 22:15:47 PST 1997
From: Fred_Dretske At: 205.138.225.41
Well, qualia is a philosopher's term of art, but by representtion I think I mean what we all mean when we talk about one thing representing another. And my view is that the mind is basicallly the brain in its representational mode. The representational thesis is that the qualities of your experience, how things seem to you (a bright red thing moving on your left) is what the brain represents about the world. The qualities you experience are, in this sense, representational qualities.
MsgId: *brain_storm(9)
Date: Sun Dec 14 22:17:38 PST 1997
From: Rob_Killheffer At: 205.198.117.131
Right. But you recognize right away that the proposition that the experiential facet of the mind is as representational as the rest might be controversial. How can our subjective experience -- how things seem to us, how we feel about them -- be seen as representational?(It seems your responses are anticipating my questions.) Let me rephrase that: most people can see that the mind is representing objects and phenomena of the outside world -- representing a chair we're seeing, for instance, or the football game we're watching. But it's less easy to see how our secondary experiences -- how we feel about the things we're seeing or hearing -- can be seen as representational. Could you explain?
MsgId: *brain_storm(11)
Date: Sun Dec 14 22:21:44 PST 1997
From: Fred_Dretske At: 205.138.225.41
We know that the qualities we experience (colors, shapes, etc.) are not to be found in the brain. Nothing in the brain is orange and pumpkin shaped when I perceive (or hallucinate) an orange pumpkin. Where, then, are the qualities I experience. The representational thesis says that they are essentially nowhere. They are the qualities your brain reprsents the world to have and a representational device can represent the world to be F without anything being F (think about a measusring device that represents the temperature as 70 when nothing, in fact, is 70.How feelings can be representational is a good question -- a hard question for a representationalist like myself. But my basic answer is that feelings (pain in the foot, hunger, itches, etc.) are representations of bodily states (the condition of the foot, the stomach, etc.).
MsgId: *brain_storm(12)
Date: Sun Dec 14 22:25:56 PST 1997
From: Rob_Killheffer At: 205.198.117.131
But even that measuring device only represents something as being 70 to someone looking at it -- which would seem to imply the "mind's eye" that you're trying to avoid implicating. How is it that we experience these representations so acutely if there's no viewer in there interpreting the representations?
MsgId: *brain_storm(15)
Date: Sun Dec 14 22:28:55 PST 1997
From: Fred_Dretske At: 205.138.225.41
You are quite right. It would be no good to have the brain representing the world in a certain way if we then had to postulate an internal homunculus that observed (was aware) of the representations (the way we are aware of the thermometer or the speedometer). But a representational view of the mind says that no has to be aware of these representations. What we are aware of when these representations occur in us are the qualities being represented. So if a representation (probably grey) of red occurs in me, I'm aware of red. If anyone was actually aware of the representation, they would be aware of grey.
MsgId: *brain_storm(16)
Date: Sun Dec 14 22:29:58 PST 1997
From: Rob_Killheffer At: 205.198.117.131
In other words, we "are" the representations, so we don't need to observe and interpret them?
MsgId: *brain_storm(17)
Date: Sun Dec 14 22:32:07 PST 1997
From: Fred_Dretske At: 205.138.225.41
That's right. We aren't quite identical to the representations, but their occurrence in us makes us aware of whta they reprsent. A third person (looking in our brain) could be aware of our representations, but that person would not be aware of what we are aware of. He would be aware of the representations. We (the person in whom the representation occurs) is aware of what is represented.
MsgId: *brain_storm(18)
Date: Sun Dec 14 22:33:56 PST 1997
From: Rob_Killheffer At: 205.198.117.131
Seems to me that this representational view retains the firm division between objective and subjective that has plagued the study of the mind by science -- if an outside observer can only observe the grey reprentation, not your experience of red, how does this get us any closer to imagining what it might be like to be a bat?
MsgId: *brain_storm(19)
Date: Sun Dec 14 22:37:54 PST 1997
From: Fred_Dretske At: 205.138.225.41
Well, let's suppose a bat experiences & (where that is some strange quality we don't expperience). If we looked into the bat's brain, what we would find is a representation of & but, since that would not itself be &, we couldn't tell, just by looking at the bat's internal representations (experiences of &) what its experiences were like. We would have to find out what that mass of grey matter was representing, and this would (according to me) be a job about what the brain evolved to carry information about.
MsgId: *brain_storm(20)
Date: Sun Dec 14 22:39:27 PST 1997
From: Rob_Killheffer At: 205.198.117.131
In other words, we can match up the representations of & which we observe in the bat's brain with entities in the outside world of the bat's experience, and thereby gain an insight into the bat's experience?
MsgId: *brain_storm(21)
Date: Sun Dec 14 22:42:48 PST 1997
From: Fred_Dretske At: 205.138.225.41
That is the idea. We look into the brain of a creature and we want to know what it is experiencing. We can't tell by looking at the brain (anymore than we can tell, just by looking at the dials on a console, what those instruments are representing). What we have to do is investigate what those activites and structures are representing or "saying" about the world. To do this (according to my version of representationalism) we have to find out what the informational functions of those brain mechanbisms are, what they are supposed to be telling the person (animal). That is a qustions about the evolutionary development of those mechanisms.
MsgId: *brain_storm(22)
Date: Sun Dec 14 22:45:20 PST 1997
From: Rob_Killheffer At: 205.198.117.131
And that brings me to one of the most interesting aspects of your ideas, which is the interface they suggest between philosophy and experimental science. Clearly an understanding of the evolution of the brain requires a lot of that hard science. But your point turns both ways: the science can be led or directed by philosophical arguments like your own. It's an interesting -- and uncommon -- vision of synergy between the two fields.
MsgId: *brain_storm(23)
Date: Sun Dec 14 22:48:47 PST 1997
From: Fred_Dretske At: 205.138.225.41
I think so too. In a way, though, one would expect that this is the way it must turn out. Science must surely tell us what it is like to be a bat -- but only after science (scientists) are clear about what CONSTITUTES the experience of a creature (what determines the qualities it experiences). And this, it seems to me, is (at least partly) a job for philosophers. Maybe everyone should help.
MsgId: *brain_storm(24)
Date: Sun Dec 14 22:51:40 PST 1997
From: Rob_Killheffer At: 205.198.117.131
It's an uncommon view, though. Many scientists I've spoken with over the years tend to think they can operate without the theoretical input of philosophers (and even without the input of other scientific disciplines). It's like you say about the camera, though: it's of no use the study in greater and greater detail the parts of the camera without a solid sense of what the camera is for. Do you yourself keep close contact with scientists, at Stanford or elsewhere? And what difference have such contacts made in your ideas?
MsgId: *brain_storm(25)
Date: Sun Dec 14 22:55:35 PST 1997
From: Fred_Dretske At: 205.138.225.41
I've tried to keep in pretty close contact with scientists -- especially psychologists and biologists. Mostly I've depended on reading in these areas to be sure I wasn't too far out in left field. But it is very hard (VERY HARD) to get a decent dialogue going between scientists and philosophers. I think the scientists mistrust the philosohers (they don't have any hard facts). But things may be changing. At least the push toward cognitive science (at least if it is interpreted to include philosophy) is a healthy development. I have been a member of the society for philsophy and psychology for 20 years and its meeting are always fruitful.
MsgId: *brain_storm(26)
Date: Sun Dec 14 22:59:22 PST 1997
From: Rob_Killheffer At: 205.198.117.131
I think it is changing -- at least, some of the most ambitious minds in the debates about consciousness draw on any and all fields with relevant information. And, in any case, it seems to me that even those scientists who think philosophy irrelevant are nevertheless constructing their experiments based on the essentially philosophical hypotheses they hold about the nature and function of the brain. It's a necessary collaboration.At any rate, we're just about out of time. Thanks so much for joining me here tonight, Fred, for a fascinating conversation.
MsgId: *brain_storm(28)
Date: Sun Dec 14 23:02:13 PST 1997
From: Fred_Dretske At: 205.138.225.41
I'm glad to hear you say (and think) it. These problems are hard enough to require the help of everyone -- scientists and philosophers. But, that said, there sure is a lot of BS that passes as philosophical thinking about the mind these days. That is my own opinion, of course.
MsgId: *brain_storm(29)
Date: Sun Dec 14 23:02:58 PST 1997
From: Rob_Killheffer At: 205.198.117.131
And that's the stuff that makes the scientists so leery of philosophy.
MsgId: *brain_storm(30)
Date: Sun Dec 14 23:04:07 PST 1997
From: Fred_Dretske At: 205.138.225.41
Rob,
Thanks for having me on. I enjoyed it. And sorry we started out so slowly. I was having a hell of a time transmitting my messages. The only thing that finally worked is hitting the ADDIT button twice every time. Does everyone have this problem? By the way, are you a philosopher (or have you had philosophical training)? It sounds as though you do. Fred
MsgId: *brain_storm(31)
Date: Sun Dec 14 23:05:24 PST 1997
From: Rob_Killheffer At: 205.198.117.131
I enjoyed it too. And I've enjoyed your book. There are often problems with this clunky chat interface -- we're going to switch to a new system in the middle of next month that we hope will be better.And, no, I'm not a philosopher -- not trained -- but I've always been interested and have tried to follow the philosophical discussions of the mind as well as the scientific work for some years. Thanks again for coming on, and have a good night!
MsgId: *brain_storm(33)
Date: Sun Dec 14 23:07:47 PST 1997
From: Fred_Dretske At: 205.138.225.41
Ciao! Time for dinner. Fred
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