There are those concepts “just” and “central” again. Is a car “just” a system of separate modules? Is there a “single, central, car”? To me these questions are as otiose as the elementary conundrum about whether a tree falling unheard makes a sound.
The car consists of the right components arranged in the right way. When they are, a mode of operation is created that cannot be found in any part. There is the car, as real as anything. “The car” is not a separate animating principle that makes the components perform. Knowing how the car works does not dissolve the car, but does enable one to use it more effectively, and to repair it when it goes wrong.
So also with the mind.
A complication present with the mind but not the car is that (with present technology) the car is not the person operating it, whereas the mind and its operator are one and the same. We must discover and mend our flaws with the very instrument that is flawed. That is what makes it difficult, but there are ways. Some of which I have experienced, although not along the lines of recent posts about enlightenment experiences.
I haven’t read Kurzban’s book*, but I agree that there’s a lot of dualist talk from supposed materialists, when they talk about how “you” don’t do things, “your brain” does them, and the like. Also the anti-pattern “X is the mechanism of Y, therefore Y does not exist”, X and Y being physical and mental phenomena respectively.
\* (The free extract on Amazon suggests to me that the book will argue for the nonexistence of the mind.)
There are those concepts “just” and “central” again. Is a car “just” a system of separate modules? Is there a “single, central, car”? To me these questions are as otiose as the elementary conundrum about whether a tree falling unheard makes a sound.
The car consists of the right components arranged in the right way. When they are, a mode of operation is created that cannot be found in any part. There is the car, as real as anything. “The car” is not a separate animating principle that makes the components perform. Knowing how the car works does not dissolve the car, but does enable one to use it more effectively, and to repair it when it goes wrong.
So also with the mind.
A complication present with the mind but not the car is that (with present technology) the car is not the person operating it, whereas the mind and its operator are one and the same. We must discover and mend our flaws with the very instrument that is flawed. That is what makes it difficult, but there are ways. Some of which I have experienced, although not along the lines of recent posts about enlightenment experiences.
I haven’t read Kurzban’s book*, but I agree that there’s a lot of dualist talk from supposed materialists, when they talk about how “you” don’t do things, “your brain” does them, and the like. Also the anti-pattern “X is the mechanism of Y, therefore Y does not exist”, X and Y being physical and mental phenomena respectively.
\* (The free extract on Amazon suggests to me that the book will argue for the nonexistence of the mind.)