Re: [xmca] Consciousness

[Haydi Zulfei <haydizulfei@yahoo.com>]

Martin
 
My English will not help .
 
As I see it , some might say * consciousness is material * and this might not be so much futile a thing , at least to this argument : 
 
* The red thing cannot exist without its redness * . 
 
Opponents say : * Redness is not a thing palpable , corporeal , substantial * . 
 
This goes on .
 
But there is a time you say : * Cs is matter * , which you said . 
 
This is nowadays novelty , innovation . 
 
First from Dubrovsky * The Nature of the Ideal * -- I unfortunately don't hate at least some Soviet era books -- : * Unlike the philosophical problem of matter , the mind-brain problem is of a general scientific character ; the close relationship of these problems , however , gives no reason for their confusion . * I suppose Andy is up to this , too . 
 
I admit understanding your debates is very hard for me . But this much I suppose I could figure out : The way you argue takes me to this point where I could accept general science has reached a proven point where it's possible for you to just think of the fission of the atom and see / assert that the nuclear plant has begun to work , lights are tangibly on . 
 
You seem to have a problem with the word * exist * and the word * reality * philosophichally speaking . The main question is *what* exists . The corporeal thing fallen there outside of independent of the consciousness or an idea whatever however reflected emanating from that fallen thing there in some mysterious box within you -- no place to go deeper -- with which you can make a new world , the former exterminable to a blink/an isntant , the latter persistent to your extension of your healthy livingness . Both real/existant , too . 
 
Now to the present post : my hopefully mistaken corrections : What makes the dollar bill *real* is *two* things : one the corporeal , the other external representation of the ideal , the ideal is psychic -- difference between Ilyenko/Dubrovsky -- . 
 
As of the President , there's no problem with what you have referred to ; the problem manifests itself when you take the Statue of the President as well . 
 
To my understanding , even the external representations of the internal ideas are ideal even to the definition of Lenin . for they are outside but not *independent* of the mind/consciousness as the paper money brought into a country where ... . Then no contradiction with Marx either . 
 
With language in each aspect of it , too , you cannot take it with the things it articulates on the same ground ; we can always ask the meaning of the word/text/ for *what* . Language itself is ideal as Cs is . The internal idea of Obama as being there is usually *one* but put into language you know you reach polysemy referring to one referrent . No , they are not equally material or equally imaginary !? How can President Obama imagine of a well-planned health care Bill and all other things be solved/taken for granted . The problem you are long discussing is really that easy to think of this way !
 
[[ “'Real talers have the same existence that the imagined gods have." ]] Yes and Yes ! Because the existence of both depend on the existence of a thinking body . You take *real* for *corporeal* . Put paper as something just corporeal in place of *real talers* and see what then happens with your formula . 
 
[[ Has a real taler
any existence except in the imagination, if only in the general or rather common imagination of man? ]] No , no !! Because even real talers are ideal tied with the Cs of man ; Here Marx ignores the corporeality part ; just thinks of the ideality part . 
 
Best
Haydi
 
 

--- On Thu, 9/24/09, Martin Packer <packer@duq.edu> wrote:


From: Martin Packer <packer@duq.edu>
Subject: Re: [xmca] Consciousness
To: ablunden@mira.net, "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
Date: Thursday, September 24, 2009, 5:44 PM


Andy,

There certainly is a distinction between the President and your thought of the President, and between the taler in your pocket and your thought of this taler. But again you are siding with Kant, and against Marx.  The difference is not that one is mental and the other is material. What makes the dollar bill real is not its material character, but the practices, customs, laws of a community. Your thought of the dollar is different, but not because it is in your consciousness. You could write on a piece of paper the statement: "There is a dollar in my pocket," and we would have a material object (writing on paper), but the same conundrum: does it correspond to the reality? The same *impossible* conundrum, because how can a linguistic statement ever be said to correspond, or not correspond, to a material object? Only (again) because of the practices, customs, of a community. They are both equally material - or equally imaginary.

Ilyenkov cited Marx making the same point. Ilyenkov writes:

"[Marx] went on: “'Real talers have the same existence that the imagined gods have. Has a real taler
any existence except in the imagination, if only in the general or rather common imagination of man? Bring paper money into a country where this use of paper is unknown, and everyone will laugh at your subjective imagination.'"

Martin


On Sep 23, 2009, at 8:35 PM, Andy Blunden wrote:

> But Vera, all the complexity and nuances of the idea of consciousness and its relation to the material world (both its substratum in the body and in culture and in its relation to its objects) do not obliterate the categorical difference between the President and my thought of the President. And reflecting on this overnight, I am now convinced that this is an *important* as well as a "bleeding obvious" difference.
> 
> 

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