Has anyone seen my neutral pointer?
September 17, 2016 at 12:15 am
(This post was last modified: September 17, 2016 at 12:18 am by Bunburryist.)
I got into a little – ahem - “trouble” over in the Atheists forum, so I’ll tip-toe into here and try to start again with something new – what, for me, is an essential philosophical idea – a conceptual tool, of sorts. I find it especially useful when it comes to thinking about and understanding what I call “the sense story.” "The sense story" is what I call that very familiar combination of a physical description and belief - the combination of -
--- physically describable processes in WHAT WE BELIEVE TO BE a material world with -
--- the materialist belief that everything we experience happens in material brains.
That is, these physically describable things happen (part one of the story) and then – ta-da – I see and feel a world (part two).
The concept, or perhaps it really is better to call it a conceptual tool, is what I call the “neutral pointer.” A neutral pointer is a way of referring to something while saying as absolutely little of what you believe about it as possible.
For example, I could say – talking about an apple I see – “that apple there that is made of matter existing in material world in which I am a material organism whose experiences happen in material brains” – or I could just point (and, using my neutral pointer) and say “that.”
For me, the most fundamental, and most important way of using the neutral pointer is to refer to this experience we learn to call “the world.” My neutral pointer for what we, as children, learn to call “the world” is “THIS EXPERIENCE.” The colors I experience, the sensations I experience, the spatial aspect of those experiences, etc. – that’s “this experience.”
If I want to understand my nature as a being, I need a way to refer to this experience without a lot of ontological baggage – such as this is a material world, that I am made of matter, that my experience happens in a brain, etc., etc. Once I have established my neutral pointer for what we learn to call “the material world” as “this experience,” I can now ask – and with my new tool think clearly about – questions such as “is this experience a material world?” “Does this experience happen in a material brain?” “Are the things I experience seeing made of atoms?” “Does physical science describe events/happenings in this experience, or an underlying reality.” "If there is an underlying reality, is it a material world or something else?"
I can also use it to refer to aspects of this experience. “This body.” “This space.” “This brain.” I can ask questions such as, “is this experience something happening in a material brain?” If so – “if such a brain actually exists – does it exist in this body?” “Is there light going into these eyes?” “Does my experience of thinking happen in this head?”
For me, "physical world" is also a neutral pointer. I use it to “point” to whatever reality physical models ACTUALLY DESCRIBE. (I do not know what reality physical models describe.) Maybe this experience is the physical world. Maybe, if materialists are right, the physical world is a material world in which there exists a material brain in which this experience happens. Maybe the physical world is something happening in “the mind of God” or in a “cosmic computer.”
Perhaps the most important role of the neutral pointer is that it doesn't carry the "I know what this world is" assumption that phrases like "the universe," "the material world," "the physical world" do. These phrases carry ALL KINDS of ontological baggage. There is, for me, an implicit "and what is this really" aspect to it. It really helps me break out of the habitual materialist thinking we can't help but grow up with.
Anyway – and maybe I should have just asked this up front – is there already such a concept in the world of philosophy? Does anyone have a similar concept?
--- physically describable processes in WHAT WE BELIEVE TO BE a material world with -
--- the materialist belief that everything we experience happens in material brains.
That is, these physically describable things happen (part one of the story) and then – ta-da – I see and feel a world (part two).
The concept, or perhaps it really is better to call it a conceptual tool, is what I call the “neutral pointer.” A neutral pointer is a way of referring to something while saying as absolutely little of what you believe about it as possible.
For example, I could say – talking about an apple I see – “that apple there that is made of matter existing in material world in which I am a material organism whose experiences happen in material brains” – or I could just point (and, using my neutral pointer) and say “that.”
For me, the most fundamental, and most important way of using the neutral pointer is to refer to this experience we learn to call “the world.” My neutral pointer for what we, as children, learn to call “the world” is “THIS EXPERIENCE.” The colors I experience, the sensations I experience, the spatial aspect of those experiences, etc. – that’s “this experience.”
If I want to understand my nature as a being, I need a way to refer to this experience without a lot of ontological baggage – such as this is a material world, that I am made of matter, that my experience happens in a brain, etc., etc. Once I have established my neutral pointer for what we learn to call “the material world” as “this experience,” I can now ask – and with my new tool think clearly about – questions such as “is this experience a material world?” “Does this experience happen in a material brain?” “Are the things I experience seeing made of atoms?” “Does physical science describe events/happenings in this experience, or an underlying reality.” "If there is an underlying reality, is it a material world or something else?"
I can also use it to refer to aspects of this experience. “This body.” “This space.” “This brain.” I can ask questions such as, “is this experience something happening in a material brain?” If so – “if such a brain actually exists – does it exist in this body?” “Is there light going into these eyes?” “Does my experience of thinking happen in this head?”
For me, "physical world" is also a neutral pointer. I use it to “point” to whatever reality physical models ACTUALLY DESCRIBE. (I do not know what reality physical models describe.) Maybe this experience is the physical world. Maybe, if materialists are right, the physical world is a material world in which there exists a material brain in which this experience happens. Maybe the physical world is something happening in “the mind of God” or in a “cosmic computer.”
Perhaps the most important role of the neutral pointer is that it doesn't carry the "I know what this world is" assumption that phrases like "the universe," "the material world," "the physical world" do. These phrases carry ALL KINDS of ontological baggage. There is, for me, an implicit "and what is this really" aspect to it. It really helps me break out of the habitual materialist thinking we can't help but grow up with.
Anyway – and maybe I should have just asked this up front – is there already such a concept in the world of philosophy? Does anyone have a similar concept?
![[Image: uh2pTCQ.jpg]](https://images.weserv.nl/?url=i.imgur.com%2Fuh2pTCQ.jpg)
