Yes this is another version of the “billions of tiny spooks” problem. As usual no one has done a good explanation of this for a general audience, although it’s well-understood in philosophy of mind. Why do I always have to do all the translational work?https://meaningness.com/representational-theory-of-mind …
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Curious about why you people think the homonculus is still there.
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(Awake briefly at 2:30am, will follow up later) (Speaking only for myself): It’s not there; it’s that cognitivist explanations of subjectivity, and of intentionality, can’t work without it.
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Replying to @Meaningness @xuenay and
So, the question is, how do you get mental things in a materialist metaphysics, i.e. one without spooks (such as a homunculus). Dennett is unusual in seemingly taking an “eliminationist” approach, i.e. simply denying that the mental phenomena (qualia, intentionality) exist.
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Replying to @Meaningness @xuenay and
(“Seemingly” because when I last read his stuff, which was like 30 years ago, he waffled a bit. He may have clarified or changed his position since, but I haven’t heard so.)
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Replying to @Meaningness @xuenay and
Been awhile since I read Dennett but I don't think he's really an eliminationist. He has a "useful fictions" approach to mental realism that I find pretty tolerable: https://ruccs.rutgers.edu/images/personal-zenon-pylyshyn/class-info/FP2012/FP2012_readings/Dennett_RealPatterns.pdf …
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Mmm, well, maybe what I called “waffle” is better described as “motte and bailey.” Is this paper worth reading for specific insight? Or mostly an example of his retreating to the reasonable bailey temporarily when attacked?
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Replying to @Meaningness @xuenay and
I just skimmed it so can't really say. Impression: charitably, he's trying to find alternate interpretations for mental concepts that make sense (rather than throwing them out as eliminativists do). Uncharitably, it's waffling, and YMMV.
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I kind of remember thinking he wants to have his cake and eat it too. Eliminativism is logically tidy, but seems obviously false, so it’s tempting to try to get the satisfying solution without the absurdity.
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Replying to @Meaningness @mtraven and
The “intentional stance” version (which is not fully eliminativist) seems importantly correct in a sense, but winds up not explaining anything. “There aren’t really any beliefs, but it’s helpful to pretend there are.” OK, I can agree, but why does that work?
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Maybe the ethnomethodological story would be “we all pretend to have beliefs because it’s a useful API for collaboration”
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Replying to @Meaningness @mtraven and
I don’t know anyone in ethno taking a line like that though. There’s a huge war atm between John Heritage and Mike Lynch about whether ethno is allowed to talk about “knowledge” at all, or actually even about people talking about knowledge
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Replying to @Meaningness @mtraven and
“it’s a social norm to act as if you had beliefs” is not the sort of explanation I’d expect anyone in philosophy of mind (including Dennett) to consider though
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End of conversation
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