I assume the response (like they said in the video) would be that using the term "your" in the question is misguided. It is similar to asking the question "who created the universe?" Instead, the question should be concerned with "what" (i.e. a nervous system) rather than "who" (which implicitly assumes the existence of a metaphysical subject).
Then again, if the question "who" is understood as referring only to a nervous system, then I guess the physicalist would concede that the question does gain some referential character.
"Conceptualizing a problem so we can ask the right questions and design revealing experiments is crucial to discovering a satisfactory solution to the problem. Asking where animal spirits are concocted, for example, turns out not to be the right question to ask about the heart. When Harvey asked instead, 'how much blood does the heart pump in an hour?', he conceptualized the problem of heart function very differently. The reconceptualization was pivotal in coming to understand that the heart is really a pump for circulating blood; there are no animal spirits to concoct."
- From "The Hornswoggle Problem" by Patricia Smith Churchland
Sounds reasonable to me. I guess the next question would be whether or not this first-person "subjective account" illuminates any additional facts about the world or is merely coming to know the same third-person facts in a new light under a new conceptualization.
In other words, whether or not the existence of subjective experiences forces us to make an ontological distinction between "objective and subjective facts" or merely an epistemic distinction between "knowledge by description and knowledge by acquaintance." I personally favor the latter.
Click to view
Then again, if the question "who" is understood as referring only to a nervous system, then I guess the physicalist would concede that the question does gain some referential character.
"Conceptualizing a problem so we can ask the right questions and design revealing experiments is crucial to discovering a satisfactory solution to the problem. Asking where animal spirits are concocted, for example, turns out not to be the right question to ask about the heart. When Harvey asked instead, 'how much blood does the heart pump in an hour?', he conceptualized the problem of heart function very differently. The reconceptualization was pivotal in coming to understand that the heart is really a pump for circulating blood; there are no animal spirits to concoct."
- From "The Hornswoggle Problem" by Patricia Smith Churchland
Reply
(The comment has been removed)
In other words, whether or not the existence of subjective experiences forces us to make an ontological distinction between "objective and subjective facts" or merely an epistemic distinction between "knowledge by description and knowledge by acquaintance." I personally favor the latter.
Reply
Leave a comment