Re: on the matter of mind

Chris,

No you don't have to confess or anything -- but if you want to, I
hold confessional hours at.... (just kidding, of course).

I'm sorry if I sounded like I was dredging up several week old
posts and using them against you.  But I do think the direction of
the more recent posts is following on from them -- the initial
issue being what it meant to 'privilege language and consciousness
over matter', and whether the non-privileging of language meant
explaining language as simply an effect of matter/energy.  It was
from there that questions about incorporeal transformations arose.

What do I mean by physicalism?  I would say it has something to do
with putting stock solely in 'empirical research' of the sort that
Melissa was criticizing -- D&G present a transcendental empiricism
which doesn't have all that much to do with 'fieldwork'.  But both
she and I could be wrongly attributing that to you.  It's been
quite a while since I looked at Quine, but as I remember it,
physicalism had to do with putting 'physical facts' as the basis of
all evidence in theory.  The reason Quine opposes the idea that
language 'conveys meaning' is because it cannot be drawn from
empirical observation.  All we know, for example, if we observe a
native saying 'gavagai' when he sees a rabbit is that the stimulus
of seeing the rabbit seems to cause this stimulus-response.  Now I
realize that you are not saying this (well, you're not saying this,
are you?), but I do remember Quine saying this, which is why I
didn't think it was really proper to align D&G with him.  And your
talk of sense organs, scientific research, etc., as well as your
mention of Quine, all sounded pretty physicalist.

Maybe the thing to ask you is this -- do you really think its
necessary, in order not to privilege language over matter, to treat
the performative forces of language solely in terms of virtual
electrons and actual extensive substances?  Are linguistic force of
the same order as physical virtual and actual forces?  This seems
to be what you are saying when you treat language and consciousness
as simply effects of physical processes.  But I think it comes into
problems when describing how linguistic forces act upon themselves,
which is not to say that physical forces and bodies are not
required for language.  And I think it still faces the problem of
the performativity of this description of language and
consciousness as well.

You said a long time ago (sorry if it sounds like I'm dredging
things up again) that scientific research was the only activity
that didn't privilege consciousness over matter.  I think that is
a highly debatable point, and this may ultimately be where are
difference lies.  Not something you need to confess and recant,
just a difference we have.  Each of us can respect the other's
differences.

Later,
Nathan

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