Intentionality 1

You can of course always question your reality. So does this then mean that you have to base everything on belief? Can one ever have a common “reality” with another person? Or is everything subjective?

Your Mr.Churchland supposes that “Each of us understands others, as well as we do, because we share a *tacit command* of an integrated body of lore concerning the law-like relations holding among external circumstances, internal states, and overt behaviour.”

But does this hold true when you suppose that any person’s given reality is merely the reality they create for themselves in their own mind? What I’m asking is, where do we set the marker between supposed shared reality and personal reality?

Just thought I’d ask.

Churchland is (or was, when he wrote this paper) an eliminative materialist; he doesn’t think that intentional states exist at all.

Regardless, I wasn’t really trying to discuss objectivity and subjectivity; questions like yours are certainly worth asking, but attempting to answer them doesn’t really help us with regards to a discussion of intentionality.

A brief answer might be “No, of course not.” The idea that “any person’s given reality is merely the reality they create for themselves in their own mind” seems pretty ludicrous to me; if I created my reality for myself, it’d be a hell of a lot better than the one I have. Personal reality is consciousness, and of course everything is mediated by that, but that doesn’t mean that objective reality doesn’t exist.

Yes, in a sense everything is based on belief, but nobody actually believes the kind of extreme scepticism necessary for our entire physical existence to be some kind of elaborate charade (such as the brain-in-a-vat scenario so beloved of epistemologists, or Descartes’ evil demon), and the ontology of such scenarios tend towards excessive.

I’m not sure why you conflate belief with subjectivity. I believe that the sun will rise tomorrow; presumably, so do you. What about those beliefs make them subjective? If the sun rises, we are right; if it doesn’t, we’re wrong. Those truth conditions seem to me to be based entirely on objective physical facts: on the way the world is. Hardly mind-dependent.

Are our beliefs really under the control of our conscious mind?
Perhaps we only think we are choosing to believe something although we really are under the control of our subconscious mind which is in turn under the control of external stimulus (the environment) and internal stimulus (the interaction of mental associations to form new ones).
I’m assuming that the conscious mind is unaware of the workings of the subconscious mind (and is only a recipient of suggestions given to it). Perhaps we (conscious mind) are only a buffer between the subconscious and the central nervous system. Since we are unaware of the workings of the subconscious most of the time (unless you are Buddha), we wouldn’t be controlling ourselves.
Movies like A Clockwork Orange and Fight Club have used this perspective.

When I say that a belief is a state of mind, please don’t mistake that for the claim that it is always a state of the conscious mind. For the moment, I’m just trying to sketch an account of intentionality, not consider all of the possible ramifications and questions we can ask of that account.

A couple of remarks, however, do come to mind. Firstly, let’s take a belief I have, that I was born in Hammersmith Hospital. I believe this now, consciously. Do I still believe it when I’m asleep? Would I believe it if I were unconscious or in a coma, with my memories and general neurobiological structures intact?

If we’re committed to the view that psychological (mental) states are causally reducible to neurobiological states, then the answer must be that I do—that unconscious belief is possible.

Of course, that such beliefs are beliefs may be conditional on, for example, their potential to become conscious beliefs (Searle argues for a condition like this in his recent book Mind: A Brief Introduction).

The question of whether actions arising from unconscious intentional states can be free, of course, is something else entirely and would depend on the position adopted on the question of free will more generally. I might touch on this at a later juncture, but right now I don’t really have much to say beyond directing you to Hume’s compatibilist account (Dennett has, I believe, an updated version of this argument in Freedom Evolves).

I now understand what you meant by beliefs in the context of intentionality. Thanks for clearing that up.

What I intended to find out by comparing neurobiological and mental states can be simplified with a question -
If someone is in a coma, do you think they are thinking? (Do they have consciousness?

Some beliefs might perhaps be consciousness dependent (such as space-time of birth), but temporarily forgetting one’s identity (during sleep, shock or such like), one might still be able to dream (utilizing beliefs). I’m not really asking a question here - I’m just confused over what control we have over our beliefs and our desires (since they both are tied together so much).

The link helped me understand some perspectives on that.

What are your views on objective and personal realities? I’ve just finished ‘One’ by Richard Bach and I’m reading ‘Illusions’ by him and I’m pretty confused about his (and my) views on personal and objective reality.

Well, I wouldn’t worry too much about your confusion on this subject; I’d go so far as to say it’s shared by many eminent thinkers!

Descartes was pretty clear on this: for him, the mind (res cogitans, or thinking being) simply was consciousness. However, not too many people think that now. We know, from scientific work in the area, that doing stuff to the brain alters people’s conscious states. The general consensus for at least the last century, and probably longer, is that the brain is the seat of the mind. With this premise under our belts it’s a small step to measuring brain activity during sleep or unconsciousness and concluding that the person is still thinking, even if they’re not conscious. So in answer to your question, I think that the question of whether someone is thinking and whether they are conscious are separate matters, although obviously still closely related.

As far as our control over our beliefs and desires is concerned, I’d judge that the degree of control we have over a given belief or desire mostly depends on the degree to which other beliefs or desires support or contradict it. For example, if I want to eat a bar of chocolate, but I also want to keep my weight down, it might make it easier to not satisfy that desire (assuming, of course, that I believe that eating chocolate will increase my weight). Again, though, at some point it’s necessary to address the question of free will and determinism.

I cannot understand free will.

Happiness comes from the fulfilment of desires (or the power to fulfil those desires, Nietzsche says), does it not?

We have desires, and we fulfill them to make ourselves happy. The problem arises with conflicting desires.

But eventually, the stronger desire (or coalition of desires) always wins. Why then are we not happy?

Ex - We want to do something. We want to do nothing about it because that is easier. So we are fulfilling the stronger desire. Why do we remain unhappy then?

I have selfish motives, if wanting to understand to fit a specific circumstance is selfishness. I’ve been depressed for too long, and far from remaining in the netherworld of ‘not-happy but not-sad’, but I also know that everything that is in my world exists there because I created it. I am unhappy because I want to be?
If being unhappy makes me happy, then shouldn’t I be happy instead of wanting to end consciousness?
I wonder what Richard Bach would say to that.