Reading Notes: March 24th, 2023

“Some reductionistic biologists adopt a different position. They hold that consciousness is identical to, that is, the same as, the physiological and physio-chemical actions of the brain. They believe that the reduction of consciousness to the laws of physics will be achieved when every different or unique conscious state or experience is correlated with a particular or unique physio-chemical state of the brain. This position is referred to as a “psycho-neural identity theory.” There are two implications of all psycho-neural identity theories which contradict the principle of reduction. In the first place, it is a blatant contradiction to argue that mental states are identical with physio-chemical states and at the same time to maintain that the two can be correlated. To correlate is to compare the occurrence of, or the association between, two different existents, the causal relationship being unknown or unstated. One cannot, in logic, argue that mental states are identical with physico-chemical states and at the same time claim that one can correlate the two. For example, a particular frequency of discharge of neurons in the optic nerve may be correlated with a particular experience of “brightness.” The frequency of discharge and the experience of brightness are not, however, identical. If they were identical, there would be nothing to correlate! The psycho-neural identity theorist thus faces an insurmountable contradiction: The moment he attempts to establish a correlation he has implicitly acknowledged that the two phenomena are different.” (The Objectivist, 1968, Vol. 7, Issue 62, pg. 12-13) 

“The development of human cognition starts with the ability to perceive things, i.e., entities. Of man’s five cognitive senses, only two provide him with a direct awareness of entities: sight and touch. The other three senses—hearing, taste and smell—give him an awareness of some of an entity’s attributes (or of the consequences produced by an entity): they tell him that something makes sounds, or something tastes sweet, or something smells fresh; but in order to perceive this something, he needs sight and/or touch. The concept of “entity” is (implicitly) the start of man’s conceptual development and the building-block of his entire conceptual structure. It is by perceiving entities that man perceives the universe. And in order to concretize his view of existence, it is by means of concepts (language) or by means of his entity-perceiving senses (sight and touch) that he has to do it.” (The Objectivist, 1971, Vol. 10, Issue 4, pg. 2) 

“Cognitively, the sensation of color qua color is of no significance because color serves an incomparably more important function: the sensation of color is the central element of the faculty of sight, it is one of the fundamental means of perceiving entities. Color as such (and its physical causes) is not an entity, but an attribute of entities and cannot exist by itself. (The Objectivist, 1971, Vol. 10, Issue 6, pg. 5) 

“What about a square inch of ground? Is that an entity or not? You can, from an epistemological viewpoint, regard any part of an entity as a separate entity in that context. And a square inch of ground  would be just that. The entity would be the whole ground; you delimit it and examine one square inch of it. In the context of your examination, it’s a specific entity, that particular inch, even though metaphysically, in reality, it’s part of many, many other inches like it. The concept of “entity” is an issue of the context in which you define your terms. So that an entity has to be a material object, but what you regard as an entity in any given statement or inquiry depends on your definitions. You can regard part of an entity as a separate entity. And in that sense all the vital organs are entities, and you have a separate science for the brain or the heart or the stomach. And in the context of that science, you study them as separate entities, never dropping the context that they are vital organs of a total entity which is a human being….You distinguish the epistemological aspect from the metaphysical in this sense: you are saying, “I am considering this inch of ground or I am studying this human organ, but I know that metaphysically it’s part of a wider space of ground or of a living human being”.” (ITOE, 269-270)