--- Chris Doss <lookoverhere1 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> I would provisionally define having a first person
> POV
> as experiencing the world from a particular, though
> usually moving, vantage point in space and time.
> What
> some people call Geworfenheit. :)
I don't think this is enough. Everything that has any kind of intentionality, taking that to mean "aboutness" without any implication of consciousness, so a thermometer that registered the local temperature has intentionality in this sense -- anyway, everything like that occupies a particular and generally moving spatiotemporal vantage point.
I don't even think it is enough for a first person POV if you add in the requirement that the intentionality be experience, whatever more that requires. Say you it requires what Kant thought experience requires, perceptions of spatially differentiated causally interacted substances that continued over time. (I think dinosaurs had this, at least some of them.) The fact that the perceptions are located somewhere in time and space, that they do not involve a view from nowhere, doesn't seem to me to get at the difference between "I" and "S/he."
That's because nothing about the perceptions having the vantage point requires any self-awareness that there is an I that is having these perceptions, that the perceptions and the vantage point are mine. I don't think I am assimilating the 1st person POV to self consciousness, which is consciousness of myself as a self (among other selves who are likewise consciousness of me and me of them). Here I just mean a sense that there isn't just a bundle of perceptions from a particular view, but that they are someone's -- mine, in particular. I think your account allows first personhood to adhere to a Humean bundle of perceptions even if there is no one there.
Which would be
> everything that experiences anything, except maybe
> God. But I don't think neurons "experience"
> anything,
> no matter how many of them you lump together and no
> matter how cleverly you connect them.
Some people, like John Searle, have this deeply held belief, but I think there is no basis for it. In one sense what you and Searle say has to be wrong. We think and experience in virtue of the activities of out central nervous system (bundles of neurons) and unless you believe in magic there is in a way nothing more to experiencing than the biochemical interactions of our neurons with each other and the world. As I've said, that may not be the most perspicuous way to describe experience for lots of purposes, but it has to be true, given what we know about the way the world works, that experience can be so described. That's so in as sense even if you believe in emergent properties. They are nonetheless properties of neurons.
>
> I think part of the muddle surrounding these issues
> may be an ambiguity in what is meant by
> "self-conscious." There is a difference between
> reacting to the world (something robots can do),
> being conscious, being conscious of your selfhood
Big jump. I follow Hegel here, distinguishing between being conscious, having experience (of other things) and being self-conscious, conscious that I am a who and who I am. At the same time, I am not sure that there is any difference in kind beyond complexity, flexibility, ability to adapt to novel situations, etc., between us and thermometers. I think that is consistent: we distinguish between grades of intentionality, defined as I did above, some of which is too low level to be conscious, some of which is merely conscious, and some of which (who) is self-conscious.
> (Geworfenheit again), being conscious that there is
> stuff besides you (that is, splitting the "I" up
> from
> the other stuff), being conscious that there are
> other
> selves, and having a thematic awareness of all of
> the
> above.
>
> --- andie nachgeborenen
> <andie_nachgeborenen at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> >
> > Well, as Hegel emphasizes, consciousness isn't
> > self-consciousness. I am not sure that just having
> > experiences without any sense of self is enough
> for
> > a
> > first person POV, but if it is, certainly
> > consciousness, in the sense of having experiences
> of
> > other things, is a lot older than 30,000 years.
> > Hundreds of millions of years is more like it;
> > dinosaurs certainly had experiences. Did they have
> a
> > first person pov?
> >
> > --- Chris Doss <lookoverhere1 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> >
> > >
> > > I suspect the first-person POV goes back a lot
> > > longer
> > > than 30,000 years ago. As in, tens of millions.
> > > Consciousness isn't the thematic knowledge that
> > one
> > > os
> > > having experiences, or even that there is a
> > > difference
> > > between oneself and other stuff (a problematic
> > > matter
> > > for a Heideggerian in itself), but the simple
> fact
> > > that you have experiences at all.
> > >
> > > Time to go to work!
> > >
> > > --- andie nachgeborenen
> > > <andie_nachgeborenen at yahoo.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > > Seems like it was about 30,000 years ago.
> That's
> > > > about
> > > > the date that people started to bury their
> dead
> > > and
> > > > do
> > > > cave art. But what you regally want to know is
> > HOW
> > > > they acquired the first person POV. Hey, I
> > thought
> > > > you
> > > > were the Heideggerian. Me, the best story I
> know
> > > > about
> > > > this, although it doesn't mention
> > > neurotransmitters,
> > > > is Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit. We know
> > > > ourselves
> > > > through knowing others who know themselves
> > through
> > > > knowing us. That's a paraphrase of a famous
> > > sentence
> > > > in the chapter on Self-Consciousness.
> > > >
> > > > In some ways it doesn't matter that it's
> > > > neurotransmitters that acquired them as long
> as
> > > > whatever has them has enough complexity and
> > > carrying
> > > > capacity, but also sufficiently similar
> physical
> > > > characteristics to create thre kind of social
> > and
> > > > psychological relations that ultimately create
> > > > self-consciousness. I'm that much of a
> > > functionalist
> > > > (in the philosophy of mind, not the sociology
> > > > sense):
> > > > we could be made of something else and still
> > have
> > > > self-consciousness.
> > > >
> > > > I don't go all the way with the functionalists
> > who
> > > > say
> > > > that it is totally irrelevant what we are made
> > of.
> > > > The
> > > > specific physical incarnation that we have
> > matters
> > > > in
> > > > a deep sense: we are, in virtue of the kind of
> > > > biological beings we are, social, sexual,
> > mortal,
> > > > mutually dependent, with tendencies towards
> > > > hierarchy,
> > > > aggression, and both solidarity and
> xenophobia.
> > If
> > > > we
> > > > were immortal (or practically so, lived
> > thousands
> > > of
> > > > years, say), or asexual, or born with the
> > physical
> > > > and
> > > > mental equipment in place to manage with years
> > of
> > > > dependence, we'd be very different kinds of
> > > > critters.
> > > > And the fact that we have neurotransmitters is
> > > > actually probably relevant to all this.
> > > >
> > > > But here I go, starting to fulfill my threat
> to
> > > not
> > > > stop talking when I start on this. Bed now.
> This
> > > > little 1st person POV needs a night's sleep.
> > > >
> > >
> > > Lyubo, bratsy, lyubo, lyubo, bratsy, zhit!
> > >
> > > ËÞÁÎ, ÁÐÀÒÖÛ, ËÞÁÎ, ËÞÁÎ, ÁÐÀÒÖÛ, ÆÈÒÜ!
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> >
>
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