Up is Down

The claim is this: Up is down. But, mildly surprisingly, down is not up.

Anyone who disagrees with me on this matter is probably a child-molester or crypto-Nazi.

Cheers,
-Idris

Self-Knowledge as Practical Knowledge

So one way in which our self-knowledge is going to be wacky is that it is going to involve self-luminous mental states.

I'd like to continue by focusing on wacky mode of self-knowledge #2: Practical Knowledge. By way of connection to the prior topic: could practical knowledge explain self-luminosity?

Richard Moran suggests that some of our non-inferential knowledge of our own belief is what might be called practical knowledge.

I (normally) know what I am about to do, in virtue of deciding to do it. This is a matter of several things. First, my decision makes it true that what I will do is intentional in some respect rather than others. So, that I have decided to serve my guests fish makes my action intentional with respect to being a fish serving. If my action should also be a guest poisoning, since (unbeknownst to me) the fish is off, it won't be intentional in that respect. Since certain features of my action are constitutively determined by my decision, I can, simply in virtue of having decided as I did know about those features. Second, a la Velleman, since I will normally do whatever I decide to do, my decision to act can constitute knowledge. Decisions have a belief-like face. Suppose, then that to decide is to represent my future being one way or other. This belief-like state is warranted because, since I will do whatever I decide, I have a license to represent my future in whatever way it is I do represent it in deciding to act. That my belief-like state is so licensed implies that it is knowledge. [By the way, this is my understanding of the take-home message of Velleman's account of the feeling of free-will.]

Moran thinks that occurrent belief is like action. I know what I occurrently believe, because my occurrent believing is agential... at least in normal cases. I am not very sure what this means. I suspect it means something along these lines: we decide what to believe, just as we decide how to act, and so if decisions to act constitute a special kind of knowledge, then so must decisions to believe.

Short Digression:

Note #1: It is often remarked that one cannot decide to believe with quite the same freedom as one can decide to act. Some have denied that there is any doxastic freedom. Obviously, reasons for belief govern believing in a way that differs markedly from reasons for action. But it is an open question in my mind whether these considerations will defeat a Moran-like account.

Note #2: Practical knowledge is confined to the Good Case. It might be that I find myself alienated from my own beliefs. Maybe some forms of madness involve this. Note that in the alienated state one's knowledge of one's own beliefs is more like one's knowledge of others' beliefs. Ah, this is what I must believe! ...or that is what the therapist tells me, anyway. Anyway, in such a non-Good Case, I won't have practical knowledge of my own beliefs.

End Digression.

Obviously, Moran's cannot be the whole story (even if it is correct). I clearly have a kind of non-inferential knowledge of my own decisions. But it ain't clear to me that our knowledge of our own decisions could itself be constituted by a decision to decide in such-and-such a way. If the model of practical knowledge is to be applied to our awareness of our own decisions, it requires that our decisions be known in virtue of being decided. While I am pretty sure I consciously decide to do things, I am not so sure that I ever decide to decide. If not, then we need non-practical explanation for the self-knowledge we have of our own decisions.

(There is probably also a regress problem here.)

Thus, even if deciding grants a kind of non-inferential knowledge, we still have a kind of non-inferential knowledge left over.

At the very least, self-luminosity cannot be explained as practical knowledge. If our decisions are self-luminous, they aren't so in virtue of being 2nd order decided.

Secondly, there are states that are plausible candidates for self-luminosity, but that are not decision-governed. Take being in pain. I can't choose to feel pain. [OK: I can, but the way in which I choose pain is rather different from the way in which I might choose to act... hands are waived.] Yet it seems that pain is especially inapt for treatment on a quasi-perceptual model. So pain is plausibly self-luminous. Yet its luminosity cannot consist in having been decided upon... since it was not decided upon. QED

Self-Luminous Mental States

It is commonly enough remarked that our knowledge of our own beliefs and deliberations is unlike our knowledge of the beliefs and deliberations of others. The case of occurrent stream-of-thought believing and deliberating exemplifies these asymmetries. (On the other hand, your knowledge of your own non-conscious beliefs and deliberations is qualitatively similar to your knowledge of others'.)

How do we know about our own conscious beliefs and deliberations? Begin with the thought that our knowledge of our own conscious belief and deliberation is non-inferential. This is mainly a negative thought: however it happens, we have an access to our own mind that is non-theoretical. For example, I do not usually realize that I believe that P (where this is a conscious belief) by concluding, based on some evidence, that a belief that P would best explain my own behavior or some such.

(I normally do this in the case of my own non-conscious beliefs, assuming there are such. But note that this is what I also do in the case of others' beliefs.)

Wacky Form of Self-Knowledge #1) Quasi-Perceptual Access:

One can imagine that our knowledge of our own minds is quasi-perceptual, since it ain't inferential and perception is a paradigm for non-inferential access to the facts. But there are regress worries here.

Paraphrasing Ryle from memory: I might say "it came to me in a flash that I believed that P". I knew that I believed that P in virtue of this flash. But now, one might wonder, what was the character of this flash? It seems that, in the moment it occurred, I knew I had such a flash without the benefit of inference. How did I know I was subject to it (the flash of insight into my beliefs)? It had better not be that we must postulate another flash -- one in virtue of which I knew of my flash. End paraphrase.

Suppose that quasi-perceptual access to the facts requires that I have an experience of them. Thus, if I have quasi-perceptual access to the facts of my own mind, then I must have an experience of those facts. You might worry that unless this experience is something to which we have conscious access, then it could not deliver the requisite self-access. But then, we must postulate another experience... and so on.

At a certain point, it seems, some mental state must simply constitute my non-inferential awareness of my own mind, not itself requiring another mental state to bring it into awareness. It constitutes my being aware.

Such states are self-luminous. That is supposed to be intentionally provocative, b'zatch!

This is the same kind of regress worry we get about the role of rules in deliberation. I might infer that P based on some considerations. (I begin by thinking to myself: "Ah yes, X, Y, and Z".).

I also use a rule that tells me that given those considerations, P follows. (I think to myself: "Well, given X, Y, and Z and the rule that things of this sort license the conclusion that P... P.)

I take it that this sometimes happens. However, it cannot be the case that every rule that governs my inferences is explicitly represented as a premise. In the end, I'll need some rule that gets my premises together and spits out a conclusion. So suppose I have drawn an inference. In what lies my confidence that my conclusion follows? I can point to my premises, and any rules explicitly represented therein. But at a certain point, my account will have to stop listing rules. [OK: this needs some serious precisification. But something along these lines is clearly right. See: Achilles and Tortoise.]

Deliberation must have a self-luminous nature.

Also note how wacky a quasi-perceptual account of our knowledge of our own deliberation would be. In what does my license to believe that P consist? Well: I observed a process in my mind, which involved, first, thinking X, Y, and Z. And next thinking P, which was accompanied by a feeling of conclusive-ness. So something that happened in my mind licenses the belief that P. So P. This is crazy.

The Horror

Some things have to be seen to be believed.

This is one of those wonderful things.

*Don't worry. Watching it in a public place is OK.

Music Blog: Graksong

So Grak gave me another song to listen to. It is called "Dance of the Grak-Maidens". Does it sound Spanish to you Rob?

I'll admit: the drums sound quite a bit like the ones from "All Praise the Hypno-Toad". Maybe it is the traditional rhythm of Grak's homeland. And then there is the terrifying blare of... well, whatever that instrument is -- just as in the other song.

Anyway, here it is. I hope you enjoy it, dear reader.

My Housemate, Grak

So I've been getting questions about my housemate, Grak... I don't know him very well. Our schedules are rather different. To be honest, I am not sure I want to know what he's up to. So, for example, I haven't actually gotten around to checking out his blog.

I can't put my finger on it, but there is something rather strange about him.

I am pretty sure he's a foreigner of some sort (maybe Spanish?). I caught him looking at my head in a funny way the other day. (I'd swear there was a special gleam in his eye.) Do Spaniards do this?

But as to his favorite books and such, I have no idea. Oh! He does seem to like TV quite a bit. If I see him at all, it is normally in the TV room. He seems awfully fond of the soaps... and Friends.

He is a little strange (but who isn't?), but he is a fine housemate. He always remembers to clean up the Kitchen after he uses it. Also, just the other day he brought me some tea-tree oil from work. Grak works at an Aveda salon. He said the oil would help calm the stress he expected I would feel. Pretty considerate, eh? Also he's always suggesting that I eat more fresh fish. Evidently, fish is full of Omega-3 fatty acids, which are good for your brain.

Music Blogging: Hypno-Toad

Here is a tune I like to call "All Praise the Hypno-Toad"... well, actually, my housemate Grak told me to call it that. He says his mom used to hum it to him to help put him to sleep.

Grak is a pretty weird dude, if you ask me... but that is another matter for another day. Check out the song. You won't regret it... mwah-hah-ha...

A Little Cool Science

Perhaps you read the Kim Stanley Robinson series of novels: Red Mars, Green Mars, and Blue Mars. If so, you'll find this bit of science news especially amusing:

Greenhouse gases could breathe life into Mars

Those novels, by the way, are a great read; though you have to wade through a certain amount of hippie-silliness. That aside, I definitely recommend you read them, if you enjoy thinking about multinational corporations, political revolution, God-like technological powers, sustainable development, and planetary colonization.

My New (Notional) Girlfriend

Oh Yulia Tymoshenko! You have been an oligarch, and an advocate for people power. Now you are the new Prime Minister of the Ukraine. But you can also be the Prime Minister of my heart!

Would you consider running for office here in the states? ...perhaps ditching your family for a love-struck graduate student? I can be very charming and I have long opposed the Russo-phile policies of Leonid Kuchma.

Maybe a letter-writing campaign is called for, comrades. Check out her personal website.

A boy has to dream a little.

Grand Distinction #2

Frankfurt claims that the mere fact that one cares about a thing endows it with value. In The Contours of Agency he constantly harps on his critics for supposing that value must be constituted by subject-external facts. Presumably, however, he shouldn't deny that in some sense caring about a thing involves representing it as endowed with independent value. On the other hand, if caring is to create the values it (in some sense) represents then it needs to have intrinsic features which do not so represent. Otherwise, it would be opaque how such a state could create value. The theory that caring creates value really would be like the theory that true for me is a kind of truth. Since it seems that caring does create value, there must be more to caring than representing a thing as care-worthy.

Here we see another Grand Distinction in the philosophical tradition.

It is not contained to the case of value, of course. Consider response-dependence theories of color. On these theories to be colored C, is to be such as to provoke a kind of response in creatures like us (suitably idealized, under suitably idealized conditions). On such a theory it had better be the case that the response in terms of which the theory is given does not itself represent something as being colored C. On the other hand, presumably, it must be recognized that in some sense our visual system represents things as being colored C. At any rate, what we have here is a theory like Frankfurt's: a state which represents things as being some way (valuable, colored) gets its apt-ness by reference to some state of human responding which cannot -- on pain of circularity -- consist in representing things as bearing the property in question.

Skip the following paragraph if you're in a hurry.

OK, so there is some response to things that is supposed to endow those things with a property P. That response cannot simply consist in representing things as P. It is possible that the relevant response represents things as Q. In which case certain kinds of representational facts will ground the facts in light of which some representational contents are apt. So for example: maybe the color-fixing response of the ideal responder consists in representing things as visually similar (though in no specific way). That an ideal responder would respond in this way fixes the facts about color. Maybe my caring represents things as liked by me and it is in virtue of this fact that it creates facts about value.

But I'd like to set this aside for a moment. The alternative explanation is going to have to invoke something like qualia: intrinsic, non-intentional mental states.

So here is the Grand Distinction: Some theories postulate non-intentional states of people, which states, crucially, are partially constitutive of one's mental life -- and not in the way in which brain states are supposed to constitute one's mental life, but in a stronger way (like an occurrent belief partially constitutes one's mental life).

But there is a tradition of hostility to this kind of claim. I have to admit to being party to it. When possible see our mental lives as ways of taking things as being thus-and-so. When possible see our mental lives as basically content-driven.

Of course, there are bad reasons for allegiance to this tradition. For example: you might think that skeptical problems (or something like them) will be especially pressing if our mental lives are importantly constituted by non-intentional states. Intentional states launch our thinking at the world, non-intentional states would keep our thinking directed at itself. ...as if my thinking consisted in a stream of pretty pictures, none of which so much as purported to picture my local environment. This is all pretty silly. (Put the pieces together yourself.)

There are better reasons for allegiance, though. For example: try to isolate some feature of your conscious life that cannot be construed as a representation of the world one way or another. The sensations accompanying orgasm are sometimes supposed to be candidates for such states. But a literature exists suggesting (with some phenomenological plausibility, speaking for myself) that these sensations really represent various stirrings in the lower regions. A little good muscle tension here, a little better muscle tension there, etc. Have the qualia-freaks ever had an orgasm?!

Still... Frankfurt's position seems true. There does seem to be something right about the claim that caring about something makes it valuable in a way that it wasn't before. And if this claim can best be explained by reference to something qualia-like, then...

So a to do list:

1) Punch a certain Remy in the face -- thereby expressing only affection, of course.

2) See how the details of Frankfurt's position work out.

3) Consider theories that construe qualia-like features as really intentional.

4) Ask: what is the use of content such that one ought prefer accounts according to which the mark of the mental is intentionality?

5) Be sure there is a general split here. Do theories as diverse as Frankfurt's and the ideal response theory of color really fall into a philosophical kind?

6) Remember to eat and shower regularly.

Willing, Sensing, and The Boundaries of The Self

Who am I? What constitutes the core of my life? I don't mean this to be a question about identity across time, but rather a question about the boundaries of my core (that which is most truly me) at a particular time.

There are two (interesting) kinds of answers to this, or so it strikes me, in the philosophical tradition. First, I am most essentially my willing self. Second, I am most essentially my sentient self. The boundaries of me are defined by the scope of my consciousness. If you wanted to list the events that constitute the history of my life -- whatever relation binds these events together into a single history rather than a series of histories -- you could give pride of place to my will and the things consequent upon it or you could give pride of place to the events constituting what it had been like to be me. Or: you could be forgiven for doing so, given your exposure to the philosophical tradition.

Consider moral theory.

The Kantian suggests that properly respecting the kinds of creatures we are requires responding to our volitional nature -- in the Kantian tradition this is understood to be our reason. That we are choosers is what drives morality. The utilitarian seems to suppose that properly respecting the kinds of creatures we are requires responding to our capacities for being conscious in various ways (by experiencing suffering or pleasure). That we are sentient is what drives morality, on this kind of theory.

I'd guess that moral theory is just one place where this pops up. The literature on the peculiarities of self-knowledge is pretty hairy, but it represents a similar divide. You might think that we have a mode of access to our own beliefs that is like our mode of access to our own actions. We know what we are about to do because we have made up our minds to do it. Likewise, we know what we believe (when we are believing occurrently) because we have made up our minds regarding how things are. On the other hand, you might suppose that we know what we believe (when we are believing occurrently) because we have special introspective access to some of our beliefs. We see ourselves believing, as it were. So what is going on there?

On any reasonable view, of course, there will be Interesting Relations between our willing and our sensory lives. First, let me note that it is not clear to what extent we should take these two understandings of the core as competitors. Moreover, there will be Interesting Relations between our core (whatever that is) and our periphery (which is nonetheless part of us). I have beliefs that are non-conscious, presumably. In virtue of what similarities to beliefs that are part of my core do these count as beliefs?

Also, I have said nothing about what giving pride of place to our willing nature might consist in. I have relied instead on our having a pre-theoretical grasp on this. But what, after all, is the interest of describing some feature of myself as constitutive of what is truly me?

I think there are Very Interesting Questions here. For example: how does our practice of belief fit in with this stuff? It might seem as if I can will arbitrarily. But my beliefs are not so unconstrained. This is plausibly both a contingent feature of my believing and a constitutive feature of my believing. On the other hand, there is, as we say, room for judgment in our beliefs. And we are held responsible for our beliefs in ways that seem to presuppose that our believing is will-governed. So how does doxastic activity relate to the core on the assumption that the core is will-constituted?

Interesting Question #2 (and one that doesn't seem much represented in the literature): Why are people (laymen) always going on about the conscious will? Is the will not essentially conscious? And if so, how does being conscious (aware) of what might have been an unconscious thing help anyone? "I am responsible for punching Remy in the face because I was aware of myself choosing it." (!!)

A Connoisseur of Procrastination

Do you have 15 minutes to spare from your busy life? I thought so. This next particular 15 minutes is hardly the blink of an eye in what is, after all, a long week... on a cosmic scale: nothing at all.

Here, therefore, is something for you:

The universe is destined to end. Before it does, could an advanced civilisation escape via a "wormhole" into a parallel universe? The idea seems like science fiction, but it is consistent with the laws of physics and biology. Here's how to do it...

Cheers,
-Idris