Recherche du Temps Perdu
Joseph Polanik
>jPolanik wrote:
>[Joe]: a brain-injured person might retain the ability to
>self-reference without retaining the ability to recall the biographical
>details of his life; but, it does not follow that the brain-injured
>person is a model of the philosopher pursuing an inquiry to which the
>biographical details of life are irrelevant.
>[Jud]: ... when I speak of a person's experiential biography or
>humanness - I am not referring to the ability to remember any
>particular episodes in that life-time of events - ... I refer instead
>to the retrospective course of existing as an individual; from babyhood
>to one's present age - a remembering of the GENERALITY of our
>existence, actions and events that occur in living as the selves we are
>HOWEVER HAZY those memories may be
Jud,
you persist in your colorful speculations concerning the spectrum of
injuries that brain-injured patients may have; but, you still haven't
provided any support for the crucial assumption --- that the condition
of a brain-injured person is a valid model for the work of philosophers
generally or of Descartes in particular.
indeed, assuming that your brain-injury 'model' of philosophical inquiry
is valid in some way, one might still wonder whether it models the
philosophical inquiry of Jud Evans more closely than it models the
philosophical inquiry of Rene Descartes.
as long as you've shifted our focus from the recall of specific events
to the remembrance of the generalities of existence, let's speak about
qualia.
Descartes was a big fan of qualia; although, of course, he didn't use
that particular term; and, instead, spoke of that which did not exist
outside the mind. he even considers whether the entire universe might be
qualia; but, eventually, he rejects that idea.
how about you? I seem to recall that you once claimed that people don't
experience qualia --- the redness of a ripe apple or the greenness of an
afterimage.
would you summarize you current position concerning whether there are
qualia so that we might decide whether the plight of the brain-injured
person is a better model for you than it is for Descartes.
Joe
--
Nothing Unreal is Self-Aware
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http://what-am-i.net
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