Why is the Hard Problem of Consciousness so hard?
In a nutshell: because correlation doesnt explain consciousness.
Consider a simple mouse trap. When the trap is set, the spring has more potential energy; after the trap is triggered, the spring has less potential energy.Suppose we knew the mouse trap was consciousness. Suppose we knew when set, the mouse trap experiences feelings of excitement and anticipation. And suppose after being triggered, the mouse trap experiences feelings of release and relaxation. The physical correlates are obvious: higher potential energy corresponds with feelings of excitement and anticipation; lower potential energy corresponds with feelings of release and relaxation. But correspondences utterly fail to explain how a mouse trap could be consciousness and experience feelings of any sort.
The situation is much the same with us. Rather than the simple potential energy of a spring, we have about 1.4 kg of grey brain tissue in a body which has all sorts of biological, chemical, and electrical properties. We can add quantum properties if anyone insists. But just as the wood and spring of the mouse trap in no way explain how a mouse trap could be consciousness, the laws of biology, chemistry, electricity, and quantum mechanics in no way explain consciousnessor even hint that consciousness is possible.
Imagine Im walking on a garden path and see a branch lying across the path. I pick up the branch and place it to the side. Suppose we have complete knowledge of all the physical activitiesall the biological, chemical, electrical, and quantum eventsthat occurred in my body. That knowledge does not explain my consciousness, no more than if a conscious robot moved the branch and we had complete knowledge of all the physical activities that occurred in the robot. Nothing in the four fundamental forces (gravity, electromagnetism, the strong and weak nuclear forces) explain consciousness, or even hint that consciousness exists. If consciousness somehow emerges from the fundamental forces, we have yet to understand how.
Theres a great Far Side comic where Elroy and wife are driving on the moon. Says the wife, For heavens sake, Elroy! . . . NOW look where the earth is! . . . Move over and let me drive! No amount of driving on the moon will take you to Earth. We seem to be in a similar situation: no understanding of physical processes, however complete, explains consciousness.
Consider a simple mouse trap. When the trap is set, the spring has more potential energy; after the trap is triggered, the spring has less potential energy.Suppose we knew the mouse trap was consciousness. Suppose we knew when set, the mouse trap experiences feelings of excitement and anticipation. And suppose after being triggered, the mouse trap experiences feelings of release and relaxation. The physical correlates are obvious: higher potential energy corresponds with feelings of excitement and anticipation; lower potential energy corresponds with feelings of release and relaxation. But correspondences utterly fail to explain how a mouse trap could be consciousness and experience feelings of any sort.
The situation is much the same with us. Rather than the simple potential energy of a spring, we have about 1.4 kg of grey brain tissue in a body which has all sorts of biological, chemical, and electrical properties. We can add quantum properties if anyone insists. But just as the wood and spring of the mouse trap in no way explain how a mouse trap could be consciousness, the laws of biology, chemistry, electricity, and quantum mechanics in no way explain consciousnessor even hint that consciousness is possible.
Imagine Im walking on a garden path and see a branch lying across the path. I pick up the branch and place it to the side. Suppose we have complete knowledge of all the physical activitiesall the biological, chemical, electrical, and quantum eventsthat occurred in my body. That knowledge does not explain my consciousness, no more than if a conscious robot moved the branch and we had complete knowledge of all the physical activities that occurred in the robot. Nothing in the four fundamental forces (gravity, electromagnetism, the strong and weak nuclear forces) explain consciousness, or even hint that consciousness exists. If consciousness somehow emerges from the fundamental forces, we have yet to understand how.
Theres a great Far Side comic where Elroy and wife are driving on the moon. Says the wife, For heavens sake, Elroy! . . . NOW look where the earth is! . . . Move over and let me drive! No amount of driving on the moon will take you to Earth. We seem to be in a similar situation: no understanding of physical processes, however complete, explains consciousness.
Comments (1674)
Another in a tiresome series of posts confusing the poster's personal inability to understand neuroscience with there being no facts of neuroscience to understand.
But confusion might.
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/433444
I'm always eager to correct my beliefs so if consciousness has been explained, please post some links to relevant papers and/or tell me who has succeeded in explaining it in terms of physical processes.
That would be much appreciated.
Your claim was not merely that it has not been, but that it could not be, explained (likened to trying to reach the earth from the moon by car).
We have not yet explained irritable bowel syndrome either. I don't hear much talk about the workings of the gut being ineffable.
Do you ever question why gravity exists? Or why pi is 3.14 and not some other number? Questions like "How can consciousness exist" seem to be in a similar vein to those.
And even if we answer it, what practical difference does it make? Or is it just pure curiousity?
Also, the Hard problem of consciousness presumes a dualist standpoint which comes loaded with plenty of problems (this being one). Perhaps then the issue is in dualism.
Yea, I see how that could mislead. My bad.
I am NOT saying that consciousness positively cannot be explained in terms of physical processes. (I don't think anyone can say that with certainty.)
In my defense, in addition to the moon comic, I do write If consciousness somehow emerges from the fundamental forces, we have yet to understand how and We SEEM to be in a similar situation: no understanding of physical processes, however complete, explains consciousness.
This is exactly what I disagree with. Look at the mouse trap thought experiment. The spring has 2 physical states which perfectly correspond to 2 mental states (1. excitement/anticipation and 2. release/relaxation). But such correspondence in no way explains how a mouse trap could be conscious.I'd say there are important questions unanswered.
That's the target of my criticism. We are closer to understanding consciousness, it's just very complicated. Consciousness is no more special an issue in neuroscience than gut motility is in gastroentorology. It's just one of the investigations people are working on where we know some things but questions remain about others. Just like virtually every other field in science.
OK, but doesn't neuroscience presume a physical explanation is possible? Before the Michelson-Morley experiment, it was presumed light traveled in the luminiferous aether. Physics texts of the time discussed the luminiferous aether as if it were a real thing and presumed the physics of the day could eventually explain its properties. The closest I've seen to a physical explanation is the quantum microtuble explanation but that explanation is still hypothesis and not universally accepted.
Come to think of it, we also don't know what mass or electrical charge is. We just know that it is something that behaves in a certain way, for example it is attracted to other things with mass or attracted to or repelled from other things with electrical charge. So there is a correlation (or association) between mass or electrical charge and a certain kind of attracting/repelling behavior. The problem with consciousness seems similar but more complicated: a conscious brain behaves in a certain way that is different than how an unconscious brain behaves but the behavior is more complex and sometimes so subtle that there seems to be no difference between the behavior of a conscious brain and the behavior of an unconscious brain. Also, consciousness doesn't seem localized on the level of elementary particles but on the level of very complex wholes. But in all these cases we can see that if there is a behavior then there must also be something that behaves. I think this is a special case of a more general truth: if there are relations then there must also be something (a non-relation) that stands in those relations.
I said that all the important questions are answered.
Quoting Art48
Such as?
Also do you consider "Why is pi 3.14 and not another number" an important question?
However, take a look at a fact that's analogous but doesn't elicit a similar woo-woo like response. According to Hubble the universe is expanding in such a way that the farthest objects (galaxies) from us are receding away the fastest. Scientists say that at some particular distance/time, the light from far, far away galaxies won't be able to reach us because space is expanding at a tremendous rate. These galaxies too, like the first-person, subjective facet of consciousness, are forever beyond science. This, however, doesn't imply these galaxies are nonphysical.
What justification is there then to conclude nonphysicalism from the hard problem of consciousness? I see none at all.
There is no causal explanation. (There is also no agreed upon definition of consciousness)
Also physical explanations are ruled out because mind or the mental are defined against the physical.
Pointing out which brain regions activate when I am seeing red does tell us anything about the colour nor do the light/EM wavelengths. Knut Nordby an achromatic colour scientist who learnt a lot about the physiology and psychology of colour vision but never experienced the colour red or anything beyond achromaticism.
All this is heavily discussed in the philosophy of mind and to some extent in neuro science.
"Knut was called the most famous rod monochromat in the world, but he was also a scientist. Having this condition gave him great understanding of both sides of achromatopsia, the scientific and the personal experience. When Francis Futterman connected Knut Nordby with Oliver Sacks, neuroscientist and writer, the result was the amazing trip to the Island of the Color Blind and the book that not only chronicled their trip but brought an understanding of achromatopsia to the world.
My first clear memories seem all to be connected with nights and evenings, or they occur indoors in subdued lighting. As far back as I can remember, I have always avoided bright light and direct sunlight as much as possible. Photographs taken of me, and my siblings, during our childhood normally show us with nearly shut eyes, usually looking away from the sun, except when photographers demanded that we look towards the sun for the pictures. As a child I preferred playing indoors with the curtains drawn, in cellars, attics and barns or outdoors when it was overcast, in the evenings, or at night.
Knut Nordby Vision of a Complete Achromat, A personal Account, Night Vision R.F. Hess, L.T. & K. Nordby
Knut Nordby passed away April 19, 2005 from Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, ALS. Knut continued to work to the very end when he lost his courageous battle with ALS. He faced his situation with great courage."
http://www.achromatopsia.info/knut-nordby-achromatopsia-p/
Without some basic philosophy of consciousness they are just wasting everyone's time and putting others in life or death situations.
Here in Minnesota the prime example is the Dan Markingson case, who they assumed was suffering from a biological condition and enrolled him in a drug study. A few months later Mr Markingson was dead.
Because of the many ethical issues involved in Markingson's story, it is now used as a case study in many university bioethics courses.[14]"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Dan_Markingson
You have provided no justification for this statement, because there isn't any beyond "Seems to me."
As Isaac wrote:
Quoting Isaac
Quoting Art48
As others have pointed out, it may be the particular organizational terms ( reductive causality) in which the sciences of physics and chemistry are rendered that has limited an empirical description of consciousness. Neuroscience believes it is beginning to make headway, and this is due in large part to an enrichment of the language of empirical causality. As dynamical, reciprocal forms of causation are adopted consciousness becomes amenable to modelling. So it seems that it is not an unbridgeable divide between subjective experience and the physical world that has been responsible for sciences difficulties in explaining consciousness. Rather, it is the restrictive ways we have chosen to render physical processes that is the culprit.
I would be fascinated to read about this.
Antonio Damasio is a neuroscientist who studies the biological foundations of mental processes, including consciousness. The book I have is "The Feeling of What Happens."
There is one question that this will not answer. What does is the experience of being conscious as that person? Its not really even necessarily consciousness depending on your definition. Its being. An apple is a group of living cells. What is it like to be an apple? To exist and realize you are an apple? Or a dog? Another human being?
To my understanding it is answering what it is like to experience being something that is the hard problem of consciousness. It is an impossible question to answer with our current understanding of the world. Does that mean that consciousness isn't biological or cannot be measured accurately by science? Not at all.
Thanks! Got it just now on Kindle. I'll give it a good read, but the prospects are dim for this kind of thing. As i see it, if one goes by a physicalist model, there can be nothing but brain awareness of brain awareness, and, of course, all of this is NOT brain awareness at all, because the very idea of brain awareness is itself lost in the reductive process to the "impossible". Rorty thought like this. To break with this requires an entirely different paradigm of knowledge relations; radically different. Can't imagine a neurological approach finding this. Talk about brain cells, axonal fibers and so on, begs a question that, not only has not been addressed, but cannot be addressed in any concept I can imagine in the closed systems neurological functions.
It still amazes me that almost anyone, almost anywhere can get almost any book, movie, or music just by pushing a couple of buttons.
Quoting Constance
I disagree with this. Scientists don't generally say that biology is nothing but chemistry. In the same way, mental processes, including consciousness, are not nothing but biology. But they are bound by biology in the same way that recorded music is bound by a CD or MP3 reader or radio. Music is not nothing but electronic equipment and electrical processes.
What does green sound like? How much does love weigh?
Just being able to string words together in question format doesn't imply an answer is wanting.
Anyone, here of all places, that cannot grasp this reality will miss the core feature of consciousness and our mental existence.
If it can't be known by science, how can it be known. How do you know it?... You don't.
In these cases, yes, they are nonsense questions. And in my case, using an apple as feeling was nonsense as well. I hope you didn't ignore the point to focus on one loose example. Can you know what it will feel like to be a bat without being a bat yourself? No.
The difficulty is not that we lack a theory (we have theories, but none are widely accepted or even compelling, afaik), but that we lack a theory of a theory: not only do we not know how material processes lead to consciousness, but we don't even know what a theory which explains it would look like. In other words, we cannot conceive it.
Quoting Isaac
The comparison is not apt. Even if it is not explained, we understand what a theory of IBS would look like: a cascade of biological processes, in one form or another, lead to and explain the observed symptoms. This is readily conceivable.
But we cannot conceive how a cascade of biological processes can lead to the observed symptoms of consciousness, because we cannot conceive how any physical process can lead to consciousness. There is an explanatory gap.
The difference here is that compact disk's relation to musical sounds is clearly explained by the science. Here, it is precisely this relation that science cannot explain.
:fire:
Quoting T Clark
:100:
You seem certain of this. Is this an article of faith? Or do you have evidence for this? Is that evidence conclusive?
Maybe. But not for this reason:
Quoting Mark Nyquist
Presumably there is a lot more you could say to substantiate this. By itself this is not enough.
Intuitively I agree. The answer to the question "Why can't all that happen without consciousness?" is rarely forthcoming. Yet that is what is needed for a plausible theory of consciousness in terms of physical processes.
As far as I can see, there's no reason to think that consciousness can't be understood in terms of principles we already are aware of. I don't see any hard problem.
That science has not explained. I see no reason to believe it can't.
Not faith, confidence. Could I be wrong? Of course. But the fact that many people cannot conceive that consciousness might have a physical basis is not evidence that it doesn't.
In order for science to do this, there must be in place at least some working concept of epistemic relations that is grounded in observational discovery. I can't imagine.
:up:
:100:
Quoting T Clark
:fire:
Integrated information theory is a stab at creating a theory grounded in direct experience. It's a beginning.
Okay, I'll look into it, but it would have to be something like an alternative to causality. The only way this can work would be two very radical ideas: S knows P is the issue. One cannot disentangle P from justification, and it really looks like P and the justification are the same thing, that is, the nexus of the epistemic connection is not to be separated from P itself. Causality (perhaps you've read some of the proffered solutions/failures to those Gettier problems, the severed head, the barn facsimile, e.g.s) does not, of course, carry P to S, to put it plainly. P is lost instantly in the causal sequence describing the knowledge connection. One radical solution is to say S and P are bound in identity: In some describable way, P is part of S's identity, and the brain/object separation has to be dismissed. Another way is come up with the magical connectivity that allows S and P to be altogether independent entities, yet epistemically joined.
The former is in the bounds of what a phenomenologist might defend. All things I witness are witnessed in sphere of my personal totality. I suppose we are in Kant's world here, or some derivation. Husserl had to address the issue of solipsism. For clearly when I know P, P cannot be foreign to my powers of apprehension; it has to be IN this somehow. For objects to be MY objects justifying my knowledge claims, there must be a "belonging" that intimates P AS P, and not P as something that is not P. If P belongs to my own epistemic constitution, then the intimation is possible.
Then, working with a physical model seems hopeless. I actually suspect that the brain does not produce conscious experience, but rather conditions it. Experience exceeds the physical delimitations of the physical object, the brain. Call it spirit??
The beginning of a theory of consciousness would just start with guessing at what kind of system could produce the experience of gazing straight ahead, being aware of sights and sounds in a seamless unity.
I think you're focusing more on the philosophy of propositions?
Quoting Constance
You're basically describing the hard problem, the point of which is that science needs to grow conceptually in order to have the tools to create a theory of consciousness.
The trouble is that on a physicalist model, and talk about nervous systems and axonally connected systems, neurochemistry, and the like, one is supposed to first get beyond a universal physical reduction. Of course, you can say, well, we just have to live with this and empirical science is the only heel that rolls, but I would disagree: A scientific idea has to have something to observe, and here, this would be self's interiority. This is not objective and empirical and science can't touch it.
Now Husserl called what he did a science because he was flowing the scientific method: observing descriptive features of thoughts, relations, phenomenal intuitions and so forth. Perhaps on the cutting edge of discovery is this century ago phenomenologist.
I certainly agree. I am coming to believe phenomenology holds the key.
"I can't imagine" is a pretty pitiful argument.
And worse, simply not true. I can imagine it. It is just far away from empirical science.
It's not complicated. Science (or at least a lot of it) begins with the presumption of objectivity, that it is studying something that really so, independently of your or my opinions. It assumes the separation of subject and object, and attempts to arrive at objective descriptions of measurable entities. And the mind is not among those entities. The hardline eliminative materialists will insist that the mind nevertheless can be described completely in third-person terms without omission. That is the target of David Chalmer's original formulation of 'the hard problem', for instance, when he says:
Quoting David Chalmers, Facing Up to the Hard Problem
My paraphrase of this is simply that experience is first-person. It cannot be fully described in third-person terms, as there must always be a subject to whom the experience occurs. What I think Chalmers is awkwardly trying to describe is actually just being, as in human being. And what I think the 'eliminativists' exemplify is what is criticized by philosophers as 'the forgetfulness of being'.
Husserl, as @Constance points out, anticipated this in his criticism of naturalism.
I don't want to get into a long discussion about how science has to proceed. I will say that there is no reason the mind would not be among entities amenable for study by science. You and @Constance are just waving your arms and promoting a ghost in the machine with no basis except that you can't imagine anything else.
From where I sit, there's no need to take this discussion any further. We clearly aren't going to get anywhere. I'll give you the last word if you want it.
Well, pack it and send it, and I'll check it out.
It's an interesting one, isn't it? I think at this point in history there are a few key issues left to people who wish to find support for higher consciousness/idealism/theism worldviews - the nature of consciousness, and the mysteries of QM, being the most commonly referenced. I don't know if consciousness is a hard problem or not. It seems to depend on what presuppositions one brings to it. Nothing new there. But I do know that it has become a 'god of the gaps' style argument, a kind of prophylactic against naturalism and a putative limitation on science and rationalism and their questionable role generating Weberian disenchantment in our world. I'm suspicious of the arguments and I'm not sure the matter will be resolved in my lifetime.
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/699384 :smirk:
The question simply makes no sense. What could an answer possibly be? "It feels like...?" What words could possibly fill the blank?
Quoting hypericin
Again, the fact that you don't personally understand the neuroscience of consciousness is not an indication that there's nothing there to be understood. Dozens of researchers in consciousness think they know exactly what a good theory would look like and they've constructed their experiments closely around those models. The fact that you don't grasp them is not a flaw in the model.
Quoting hypericin
I can. It's simple. Some collection of biological processes leads to the observed symptoms of consciousness. Why wouldn't they? What's in the way? What compelling physical law prevents biological processes from causing whatever symptoms they so happen to cause?
It really is not possible to prove what consciousness is, not free from assumptions, anyway.
Quoting Isaac
You were the one arguing that perceptions were effable. So you would eff whatever their perceptions are like to them.
Quoting Isaac
Cite one you think is satisfactory.
Quoting Isaac
"Why wouldn't they?" possesses exactly zero explanatory power. The question is rather "why would they?". Why would some neurological processes engender consciousness, and not others? What are the relevant mechanisms?
The Hard problem should not be regarded as a deficiency or bug of the natural sciences, but as a positive feature of the natural sciences; the semantics of the natural sciences should be understood as being deliberately restricted to the a-perspectival Lockean primary qualities of objects and events (for example, as demonstrated by the naturalised concept of optical redness) so as to leave the correlated experiential or 'private' concepts undefined (e.g phenomenal redness). This semantic incompleteness of the natural sciences means that the definitions of natural kinds can be used and communicated in an observer-independent and situation-independent fashion, analogously to how computer source-code is distributed and used in a machine independent fashion.
If instead the semantics of scientific concepts were perspectival and grounded in the phenomenology and cognition of first-person experience, for example in the way in which each of us informally uses our common natural language, then inter-communication of the structure of scientific discoveries would be impossible, because everyone's concepts would refer only to the Lockean secondary qualities constituting their personal private experiences, which would lead to the appearance of inconsistent communication and the serious problem of inter-translation. In which case, we would have substituted the "hard problem" of consciousness" that is associated with the semantics of realism , for a hard problem of inter-personal communication that can be associated with solipsism and idealism.
Then the last word would be this: It's not my last word. All analytic philosophers know this. The distance between objects in the world and our knowledge claims about them given a physicalist model simply cannot be bridged through empirical science unless there is a dramatic change of thinking here. The first move will have to be an abandonment of an ontology of physical substance, for this pulls all things toward Dewey/Quine's (and obviously others I haven't read) and science's naturalism, and this simply does not work. Just ask Quine:
[i]"When . . . I begin to think about my own verbal behavior in theoretical or semantical terms, I am
forced to admit that, here too, indeterminacy reigns. Philosophical reflection upon my own
verbal behavior, concerned with hunting out semantical rules and ontological commitments,
requires me to make use of translational notions. I then recognize that the intentional content of
my own psychological states is subject to indeterminacy: semantical and intentional phenomena
cannot be incorporated within the science of nature as I would wish.[/i]
From Quine (though he does remain true to his naturalism throughout, I have read) and others I am led to believe that an ontology of physical substance has to be replaced by one of radical indeterminacy. This frees our doxastic affairs dramatically, for at every turn we are not led to those absurd physicalist delimitations, as if "semantical phenomena" has its final vocabulary, as Rorty put it, in this primitive idea. At the most basic level everything is indeterminate, so we are left with what is given, and givenness is basis of Husserl's phenomenological ontology. The distance is bridged by concepts like 'proximity' and 'intuition' as there is no epistemic distance between me and this cup simply because the cup's being there appears without distance. Being IS what appears.
Of course, there is interpretative "distance" and this is a big issue. But then, distance, in the way it is talked about here, implies a distance from something, and one would have to posit that something to make sense of it. So, this implies our knowledge claims, the sound ones, intimate something of whatever-it-is that is there, undisclosed. THIS is where very interesting philosophy begins, in my thoughts: how to enunciate the appearances of the world to see if "Truth" possibilities of our propositions have any purport beyond their explicit propositional content.
I think there is a case to be made for a theistic worldview. I actually have an OP on the subject half-written. I'll finish it eventually.
But phenomenology is not about first person experience. This is a notion that issues from the very scientific perspective in question: here is a perceiving agent, there is a stone, and if phenomenology rules our thinking in this, the perceiving agent never leaves her private phenomenal space. Phenomenology does not think like this. It takes appearance as Being. I am there and stones are there and their existence is fully acknowledged as other than myself. My scientific conceptual relations with them do not change at all. All that has changed is now we are freed from the absurd ontology of physical materialism that makes it, not hard, but impossible to describe epistemic relations, which are THE biggest embarrassment of analytic's naturalism. What is left for philosophy is clearer analysis of what makes appearance possible.
Chalmers proposes that things like neutral monism or the extended mind would help us get closer to a theory of consciousness. He's flexible. But strictly speaking, he's part of the analytical tradition, so the physicalism you're speaking of is not essential to analytical philosophy.
Thanks for that. Then I will have to read Chalmers on the extended mind. But the more one speaks of such things, the more one leans phenomenology. After all, what is it that is "extended"?
That's what we want to know. Chalmers is a good start if you're interested in the philosophy behind developing a scientific theory of consciousness. He explains the difference between functional consciousness (the easy problem) and phenomenal consciousness (the hard problem.). He's very well versed in theory of mind and the amazing success science has had so far in explaining functionality.
How does this differ to idealism?
What does it mean for a perception to be 'like' something?
Quoting hypericin
I really don't think this is the format for discussion of neuroscience in detail (I've been there, without positive outcome). If you're interested, my preferred approach starts from Tulving's concepts on autonoesis, which were first identified in neurological terms by Emrah Duzel back at the turn of century (love saying that, it sounds ages ago), and Fergus Craik in an unrelated PET study.
You can look them all up, but without a basic understanding of the principles they're working from it's unlikely it'll make much sense.
Quoting hypericin
Why?
Is there a question as to why glutamate exists, why bones have the structure they do, why atoms are small, why stars are far away, why the sea is wet...
The correct view is that information exists as our neurons containing and manipulating mental content. This two part form is the physical reality of how information can exist.
Don't fool yourself into believing that the first thing about the environment of consciousness is understood.
Can you link a paper or article?
Quoting Isaac
Are you really suggesting that "why not? What's stopping them?" is an adequate answer to any of these?
I'm not a nihilist. I'm just a realist. The facts of humanity just aren't that optimistic.
We are so, so dumb. It's always the final paradigm.
If we are so stupid, how do you know this? With what mechanism can you establish the clever things we do not know but should? Does this imply you are smarter than most? Or is this more of a Socratic position?
Yes, no shortage of dumb at every human level. How do we avoid it? We are tiny specks in an endless ocean of matter that is oblivious to us. Maybe I'm a nihilist in some ways.
I have seen many things. Things "smart" people have never seen. So, just trust me? Haha. That'd be a first.
The blind lead the blind. We trust the blind because they're like us, blind. It'll probably take centuries, but the more the proliferation of truth, the more bizarre we will become. That's nature, not cowardly conformity
I find your statements unconvincing.
Our pride should come from our ability to persevere. Not our success, because we haven't succeeded. As it is, the cart is way out in front of the horse.
We think paradigms have shifted towards ultimate wisdom, but, just like our ancestors, human beings will eventually look back and call us fools.
Oh, really? Because I had my hopes on you being convinced.
Let's face it: The only things you find convincing are mundanities.
Isn't this what they call the hard problem - How does manipulating information turn into our experience of the world? The touch, taste, sight, sound, smell?
Isn't being aware of our ignorance the beginnings of wisdom (Socrates) and isn't ignorance quite different to being 'so, so dumb'? That latter seems a celebration of hopelessness.
No.
Idealism affirms that everything in the we encounter is idea. Phenomenology affirms it as reality.
Phenomenal consciousness and metacognition constitute the hard problem. There is something it is like to be you (or me) what is this? (And no, I'm not looking for an answer.)
Phenomenology affirms that idealism is accurate? So phenomenology is a monist view which dissolves the dualistic fallacy of mind and body?
How does phenomenology affirm the above?
Oh, are we highly aware or our ignorance? Or do we have so much pride we can't believe we're asinine?
I feel it's the latter. We are so satisfied with our progress -- we think so ridiculously highly of it -- that every fool is a wise man by virtue of possessing the human form.
We can't get to truth due to pride that denies reality.
This from "Facing Up to the Problem of Consciousness."
Quoting David Chalmers
I'm not sure how that is different from what I wrote. And no, I'm not looking for an answer either.
He's not suggesting that information processing gives rise to subjectivity. He's point out that it's two different things. There's functional consciousness such as seeing, and there's the experience of seeing.
Computers can see and process visual information. There's no accompanying awareness, though. Providing a scientific explanation for the experience that accompanies function: that's the hard problem.
I just don't see what the big deal is. I think it's just one more case, perhaps the only one left, where people can scratch and claw to hold onto the idea that people are somehow exceptional.
Since Chalmers imagines that once we have a working theory of consciousness, we'll be able to predict what it's like to be a bee, this clearly has nothing to do with human exceptionalism.
Chalmers is one of the most influential philosophers of our time. Seems like you'd be more interested to discover what his views actually are.
:100:
There's been very little discussion of the actual issue.
True. It's good to see you. Hope you're doing well!
Sounds like you are running some kind of back story with those cryptic references of pride. Why pride? Do you have some citations, or is this just some opinion?
There is no there there. Nothing about gray matter that is ever going to seem like consciousness.
And that's right.
Even though you've quoted the salient passage, you're not demonstrating insight into what the issue purports to be. The argument is about the first-person nature of experience - 'what it is like' is an awkward way of describing simply the nature of 'being'. Chalmers is pointing out that 'experience' or 'state of being' must always elude third-person description, because it's third person.
Whereas Daniel Dennett, who is Chalmer's antagonist in such debates, says straight out:
Quoting Daniel Dennett, The Fantasy of First-Person Science
So, Dennett is claiming that science can arrive at a complete, objective understanding of the human from a scientific point of view. There are many philosophers who have claimed this is preposterous - (Galen Strawson has said that he ought to be sued under Trade Practices for false advertising.) Among other things, this leads to Dennett's insistence that humans really are no different to robots, and that what we perceive as intelligence is really the consequence of the 'mindless' activities of billions of cellular connections that generate the illusion of intelligence (never mind that even an illusion requires a subject capable of suffering illusion).
Dennett's book Consciousness Explained was parodied as 'Consciousness Explained Away' or 'Consciousness Ignored' by many of his peers - not by your proverbial man-in-the-street but other philosophers, one of whom said that Dennett's claims were so preposterous as to verge on the deranged.
Nagel's review of Dennett's last book says:
Dennett is situated squarely in the middle of 'the blind spot of science' - there is something fundamental to philosophy that he is incapable of comprehending. So while I don't agree with Galen Strawson's solution, I certainly agree with his assessment of Daniel Dennett.
Quoting frank
Well, thanks! (although one of the reasons I had stopped posting for six months was because of this debate, I am continually mystified as to why people can't see through Dennett.)
Ok. He's popular so he must be right.
I do understand that. I even understand why it's hard to imagine that that experience could be explainable in terms of biology and neurology. It's just so immediate and intimate. I can feel that, but I just don't get why people think that is any different from how all the other phenomena whirling around us come to be.
The dilemma resides I'm humanity's pride
And people on the other side think the same about Chalmers. It's not an argument, it's name calling. I know you are, but what am I?
Quoting Wayfarer
I'm really glad you're back, but but I know you don't think things have changed in the past 6 months.
Dennett has a minority viewpoint. Don't sweat it. :grin:
So we vote to determine the truth now? Majority wins?
You only need an excuse for being wrong.
Oh, wait. I have a better one:
You have fallen prey to the Who gives a shit logical fallacy.
:lol: You said a mouthful, Cuz!
Your points remains opaque - the sentences are incomplete, seem to be constructed around some unstated presuppositions and do not argue a case with evidence or references.
What, for instance does this mean? "If you're not speaking as an aside to the ineffable, you're confused and wrong.' What do you mean by speaking? What is an aside to the ineffable? What do you mean by ineffable? What is confused? What is wrong?
Maybe I'm wrong, but it sounds like you are just saying: "Reality's a mystery, man."
Oh, and how are things 'ultimately their own finest definitions?'
You might as well have never lived as suffer the indignity of being you.
Not seeing the point of an argument is not a rebuttal, but flogging dead horses is also not productive.
I think it might be because many of the issues are conceptual and not empirical.
As I see it, all it takes is the removal of the word representation and using presentation or givenness instead. Michel Henry puts it like this:
Let us begin with indeterminacy. The first principle [i](of phenomenology) establishes a decisive correlation between appearance and being. This correlation impresses itself upon us with the strongest force because it is wholly immediate: when something appears, it happens to exist at the same time. This correlation is so powerful that it seems to be reduced [ramener] to an identity: to appear is thereby identically to be. When the principle says so much appearing, so much being, it intends neither the extension, nor in any fashion the intensity of phenomenological and ontological determinations that it brings together, but rather the common identity of their essence. It is to the extent that appearing appears that being thereby is.[/i]
There is no privileging of something unseen that is that which appears through the appearance, or that the appearance is a representation of. I observe the cup on the table and there before me in the appearance is the reality.
As to the dualistic fallacy, body, as opposed to mind, is nothing beyond what the appearance yields. All ontologies are reduced to the one status of what is simply there, before one's witnessing, analytic gaze. It is not "of" anything; but this does not mean the world is complete to the gaze. Taking the world up as it appears takes on a whole new set of analytical priorities. There is this indeterminacy and time is at the center of this: we are always on the cusp of an unmade future that calls for constant renewal, and seeing this is the what freedom is about. There are moods and fears and caring and all that is left out of science's paradigms are here given priority, for Being is not measured by quantifications on a space-time grid, but is measured phenomenologically, and here I follow Kierkegaard: qualitatively.
Science has never addressed the most salient feature of our existence, value. Phenomenology, I would argue, has this front and center.
Anyway, phenomenologists do say different things, but I think the above is a rough generalization.
I think it's because many of the issues are so personal. Our experiences are what is most who we are.
Whatever you're going on about, it has nothing to do with the hard problem.
In relation to the mind body problem it seems to be a problem for idealists but not naturalists. A problem in as much as 'physicalism' seems to be its target. The ontology held seems to generate the type of argument and its resolution. Which may partly be your point.
Quoting Constance
But you are only able to say this from the perspective you have chosen. For many philosophers there remains a Kantian distinction between appearance and reality as it is in itself. Can we just make this go away simply by using different words or concepts? How is this different to saying that we can solve the problem of the origin of life just by saying God created it? It's only solved if God is 1) real and 2) God created life.
If I say from now on I am a monist, that very act does not do away with the hard question even if it satisfies me, right?
But maybe I've missed something in your response?
There is one fundamental premise that really should preside over the entire inquiry: all one has ever experienced, every can experience, and hence ever know, is phenomena. It reminds me of an issue I came across regarding Freud and the unconscious: The unconscious was considered to be a metaphysical concept entirely, and I thought, no, for there is an evidential basis for it. But the response was quick, pointing out that it was not that the unconscious had never been directly experienced, but rather that it was impossible for it to every be experienced, encountered, and this is why it belonged to metaphysics. Not just unknown but impossible to know. Why? Because the moment it comes to mind to consider at all, it is conscious, and references to the unconscious are only references to conscious events, which in turn were the same. The unconscious cannot be even conceived as a concept. It is nonsense.
Here, anything that can ever be conceived, even in the most compelling argument imaginable, simply cannot be anything but a phenomenological event, for to conceive at all is inherently phenomenological. Nonsense to think otherwise. Consciousness is inherently phenomenological.
There is no way out of this, for the moment the effort is made, one is already IN the problem; unless, that is, Husserl was right, and that it is possible to achieve an awareness of the intuited landscape of all things that is pure and absolute. This, then, is not a matter for science as we know it. It lies with the "science" of phenomenology. Which leads me to reaffirm that philosophy is going to end up one place, and it is here, in phenomenology. There is quite literally no where else to go.
I can put something out there, but you won't like it. One has to understand that there is a whole other philosophical world that continues in Germany and France that is not popular in Anglo-American philosophy. I read this, often enough with genuine understanding I would say, but it is an acquired ability. Joshs seems pretty solid on this.
It is not a matter of just rearranging words. One has to argue. What is that Kantian distinction really about? Always one must go to the things that are given to see what there is that can provide justification. Kant had to talk about noumena; why? Either it is nonsense, or there is something in the witnessable, phenomenological (empirical) world that insists. This is where we have to look: what is it in the world we know that intimates noumena? What is there in the presence of things that is the threshold for metaphysics? How does one talk about such a threshold? One cannot say it, for it is an absence, and yet it is an absence that is in the presence of the world.
Of course, this sounds confusing, but metaphysics is not just nothing at all, like an empty set. This absence is intimated in the world, so it is part of the structure of our existence, and so, it is not outside of our identifiable existence as Kant would have it, but in it, saturating it, if you will, and it is staring you right in the face in everything you encounter. In the analysis of what it is to experience the world, it is clear that the language used to "say" what the world is is radically distinct from the existence that is being talked about. The cup is smooth to the touch, and warm, and resists being lifted, and so on, but all this language I use to describe the cup takes the actual givenness of sensation up IN a language setting. I call it a cup, but the calling does not, if you will, totalize what is there in the language possibilities because there is something that is not language in the "there" of it. It is an impossible other-than-language, and because language and propositional knowledge is what knowing is about, the understanding encounters in the familiar day to dayness of our lives something utterly transcendental. The cup is both clearly defined as long as I can keep it contained within familiar language, and, utterly impossible, because it is there, radically unknowable, for to know is to be able to say. Wittgenstein put it simply: It is not how things are that is mystical; but THAT is exists.
This is a hard idea to simply throw out there and expect to be well received. Nor do phenomenologists all agree with this. Heidegger held that language and existence were of a piece, and our existence is language, and I think this is right; but I argue (have read it argued, too) that IN this matrix of language-in-the-world, a transcendental affirmation is possible, and this affirmation occurs in-the-midst-of everyday affairs.
But the effort is worth it, reading phenomenology, that is. In this issue, the hard problem of consciousness, phenomenology is not just an alternative view; it is necessary and inevitable.
God is another issue, a metaethical issue. I hold that the impossible, the mystical Wittgenstein mentioned, is, as Witt agrees, is really about value, or meta-value.
This is something I've struggled with a bit. I know you can't talk about noumena. As Lao Tzu says, the Tao that can be spoken is not the eternal Tao. But I'm not sure you can't experience it.
Quoting Constance
This surprises me. Did Freud consider the unconscious to be a metaphysical concept? Seems unlikely. Not everything I am not aware of is metaphysical.
Quoting Constance
As I noted, I suspect this isn't true, but I'm not sure.
Quoting Constance
I've read a little about phenomenology and I don't get it. Wikipedia says
Quoting Wikipedia
But when I go to read about it, it is just a bunch of jargon and convoluted language. As if I need someone to tell me how to understand something I am intimately familiar with.
This lays out the question pretty well, although in different language than I would use. One thing I disagree with is equating the world of experience with the empirical world. As I noted in my previous post, I think it's possible to directly experience noumena, the Tao. It's just not possible to speak about it. When I start talking, then it becomes phenomena. Then I can measure it, name it, and conceptualize it.
Quoting Constance
This sounds as if you're agreeing with at least some of what I'm saying.
Quoting Constance
You already know I disagree with this.
Perhaps. Again, thank you.
Quoting Constance
I'm aware of the work of Husserl, Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, Dan Zahavi and the alleged split in traditions. Good thing is, I am from neither.
Quoting Constance
I wouldn't presume to disagree with Kant and I have no commitments to naive realism - other than that's the world we 'appear' to play in.
Quoting Constance
I'm not sure I can say much of anything about the potentiality of such a threshold myself. They say talk is cheap.
Quoting Constance
This is unclear. Are you saying, as I do, that any philosophical worldview we can hold rests upon some metaphysical presuppositions? The 'saturating' part sounds a bit dramatic.
Quoting Constance
Yes - many philosophers have said that (which is ironic). This is a point which is debated endlessly of course and we arrive back at the nature of the ineffable and probably soon talk of beetles in boxes. I have no firm commitments in this space. I really don't know what langauge does or doesn't do. But I do accept language is not the real world, that it helps 'create' it and I have read enough Richard Rorty to be sympathetic to some of his ideas here (the decadent scoundrel!)
Quoting Constance
I used to hold pretty much this view when I was a boy. I was always struck by the multiplicity of possibilities present in ordinary objects - both familiar and strange simultaneously. Not sure what this brings us. Humans are meaning making creatures. We see faces in clouds too.
Quoting Constance
Sounds like we would need an entire thread on how transcendental affirmation may be possible in such cases. Perhaps, but it is not a given (if you'll forgive my use of that word).
I was stuck by this from Rorty:
We need to make a distinction between the claim that the world is out there and the claim that truth is out there. To say that the world is out there, that is not our creation, is to say, with common sense, that most things in space and time are the effects of causes which do not include human mental states. To say that truth is not out there is simply to say that where there are no sentences there is no truth, that sentences are elements of human languages, and that human languages are human creations.
Truth cannot be out therecannot exist independently of the human mindbecause sentences cannot so exist, or be out there. The world is out there, but descriptions of the world are not. Only descriptions of the world can be true or false.
Quoting Constance
I'm not sure I can see the connection, or how it would assist us with mind/body. Unless you are saying that all there is is experience - a monist ontology - and that phenomenology is our only pathway out of the badlands of Cartesianism.
Quoting Constance
Turns out I didn't dislike it. :wink:
Well, Tulving's paper is here https://psycnet.apa.org/doiLanding?doi=10.1037%2F0003-066X.40.4.385 but it won't give you much of an insight into how it's used in theories of consciousness without seeing also https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1111/1467-9280.00102 and https://www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1073/pnas.94.11.5973
Quoting hypericin
I don't think the question makes any sense at all. We don't ask why the speed of light is 299,792,458 metres per second, we don't ask why protein channels block certain molecules, we don't ask why water boils at 100C. Why would we expect an answer to the question of why these neurological functions result in consciousness. They just do.
We could give an evolutionary account, some natural advantage to consciousness. Random changes in neurological activity one time resulted in proto-consciousness which gave an evolutionary advantage to the creature and so it passed on that genetic mutation. There...is that satisfactory, and if not, why not?
Mainly because functional consciousness would serve all those purposes adequately. What evolutionary advantage is there to having the experience of hunger when all that's needed is some adrenaline here, some dopamine there, and voila.
"Some adrenaline here, some dopamine there" is the experience of hunger. there's not the mechanisms and then something else. The car isn't an additional thing on top of the engine, the wheels, the chassis, etc..
I approach the "first-person nature of experience" from the perspective of the difference between "inner and outer". If we allow the fundamental empirical principle that some things are experienced to come from inside oneself, and others from outside oneself, we can understand that the third-person perspective cannot give us any observation of the inside.
So in the sciences for example, we are always breaking physical objects down into parts, analyzing, and using instruments like microscopes, Xray, CT-scans, MRI, and spectrometers, in an attempt to get a glimpse at the inside of physical objects. However, no matter how far we break down these objects in analysis, and whatever we do with these instruments we are always looking from the outside inward. That is unavoidable, as the nature of what is called scientific 'objective' observation.
Now the first-person 'subjective experience' gives us the capacity for a true glimpse at the inside of an object, thereby providing us with true observations of the inside of an object (human being in this case). Therefore, when it comes to observing the inside of an object, first-person observations, rather than third-person observations must be considered as the true observations, therefore the basis for any real science of the inside of objects.
Why is the inside/outside differentiation important? The importance is demonstrated to us by developments in modern cosmology which reveal a process called spatial expansion. The cosmological evidence is very strong, such that spatial expansion cannot be ignored in any credible ontology. The reality of spatial expansion demonstrates to us that there is necessarily a real difference between the inside and outside of space itself, which manifests as time passes.
Therefore it is very important to differentiate between the inside perspective, and the outside perspective, and work with true observations from each of these, comparing the two, if we intend to get a true understanding of the active nature of space itself.
How do you know that?
Whenever our sciences leave us with an arbitrary starting point , this should be an impetus to start asking why questions. Asking why a physical constant happens to be what it is is part of what led to the hypothesis that our universe with its constants may not be the only one , that perhaps an evolutionary development of universes produced a series of constants linked to each other via a genesis. Thus, dont ask why was transformed into this may be why.
Quoting Isaac
To be fair to hypericin, the recent ambitions to explain consciousness were only possible as a result of innovations in thinking about biological processes which
removed the basis of those processes from traditional
accounts of physical causality. One cannot derive consciousness from a conceptually impoverished physicalist account.
Scientific explanations are grounded in empirical evidence, so it is nonsensical to demand of science an explanatory account of what empirical evidence is, which is what asking for a scientific explanation of consciousness amounts to.
If you're saying that the eye can't see itself, yes, that's a concern.
This makes a lot of sense to me, by which I mean I agree. This is why the hard problem may be hard, but it's not really a problem, just a question.
I'm with @Isaac on this one. There doesn't have to be a why. The speed of light has to be something. Why does there have to be a reason? Sometimes "just because" is a good answer to a question.
As for the multiverse, well, let's not get started on that.
I agree with this, but I don't see why it is a problem. Science is looking in from the outside. That's how it works. If we can look at every other phenomenon in the universe with science, why would we not be able to look at consciousness that way? Apples taste good, but we can learn most of what we need to know about apples without considering that.
Agree with this.
Quoting sime
Don't agree with this.
Rorty did understand this. you will find in a footnote in this book an emphatic denial of non prepositional knowledge, and I take this as simply the same thing I am saying here: once you put something out there in a statement, a thesis, you have, and this is really what Wittgenstein was on about in the Tractatus, you commit it to the finitude of language. I take issue where it is flatly denied that we can, through the understanding's conceptual pragmatic architectonics acknowledge the world as meaningful. Rorty decided to teach literature instead of philosophy for just this reason, for literature "shows" us the world rather than explaining it. But on the other hand, phenomenology is descriptive/analytic, and what I talked about is an actual part of our existence. After all, language never could exhaust the the world's presentative content.
That's a novel interpretation of Witt, isn't it? I think he was pointing out that when we propose to know transcendent facts, we're positing a vantage point that we don't have.
Why questions have to do with the fact that explanations in science aren't just about what works, they are about coming up with different ways of construing how things might work. The why questions the frame within which the how works A reductive stimulus -response account of human behavior works, but only when we ask why it works can we begin to see alternative ways of modeling behavior that also work, but according to a different why. It is via a why that we can turn an arbitrary mechanistic explanation into one that transforms the arbitrary and seemingly random into a patterned regularity.
Just because ignores the fact that facts are what they are because of their role within paradigms( the how) , and paradigms are upended ( the why) on a regular basis.
Science fiction has been calling for a theory of consciousness since Capek's RUR. Those who aren't interested, don't know why anyone would ask, and are irritated because philosophical texts aren't dumbed down enough for them, should leave those who are interested in peace.
Oh Frankie, Frankie, Frankie. Here, let me make some cocoa for you. I put in a marshmallow the way you like it. Now come over here and sit in your nice chair, drink you nice warm cocoa, and shut the fuck up.
Go back to the shoutbox where you belong, bub.
But to say it's arbitrary is to already frame it as requiring a reason (but lacking one). 'Arbitrary' doesn't make any sense in the context of things not even requiring a reason.
Quoting Joshs
I don't see how. In a multi-verse theory (which I make no claims to understand I should point out), we would have one speed and other universes would have another speed. That doesn't in the slightest answer the question why we have the speed we have, it only says that others don't.
Quoting Joshs
I don't see why not. I mean, I don't personally favour the reductionist accounts, but I don't see anything in them that somehow fails to account for consciousness. There's no fixed reason why consciousness can't be a direct physical result of chemical interactions. We only need allow such a narrative. Personally, it's not the narrative I find most appealing, but it's not ruled out in any way.
Quoting Joshs
Again, I think you're really forcing the question 'why?' into a paradigm-shifting role which is it only very tangentially involved in. alternative mechanisms don't require even a question of 'why?' let alone an answer. One can simply say 'it needn't be that way'. All it takes to shift paradigm is an understanding that things need not be looked at the way they are, that grounding assumptions can be questioned. none of those questions need be 'why?' they could be 'is it?'
Quoting Isaac
What circumstances do you think require a reason via those that do not? Some are perfectly happy with the current status of quantum theory , and others think it is lacking a deeper reason , or as Lee Smolen says, a deeper why, and so is incomplete.
What would we be saying about the nature of an event or fact such that it would be exempted from requiring a reason? Put differently, what kind of reality is it that cannot be potentially construed in an alternate way, so that we come to see its role within an order that did not exist to us previously?
Quoting Isaac
Im not saying that placing the constants of our universe on an evolutionary spectrum removes all traces of arbitrariness in their numeric values. What it does is diminish the arbitrariness by placing these values within a larger order. This is analogous to the origin of species before and after Darwin. Pre-Darwin, the answer to the question Why are there different species was , because God made them arbitrarily unique in themselves. Beyond this, no deeper inquiry was attempted. After Darwin, the deeper why question could be answered because each is the product of an overarching process that allows us to relate one to the other via temporal genesis. Are there still arbitrary differences from one species to another? Of course, but the concept of species in itself is , since Darwin , much less arbitrary than prior to Darwin.
Quoting Isaac
What youre describing doesnt sound like paradigm change so much as minor adjustments with an ongoing theory, which deals with questions of how rather than why.
Is it suggests to me invalidation or disproof. We ask is it true and answer yes or no. But for Kuhn , there need be no invalidation in order to investigate new orientations. The question isnt is it right or does it work but how does it work ? Dont we choose one paradigm over other because changing the way we look at things solves more puzzles, as Kuhn put it? It seems to be that choosing the way that works by solving more puzzles, albeit differently, amounts to finding a why where there was none before. One cannot solve more puzzles without making correlations, connections and unities where they did not exist before. This is what a why question does, it is a meta -how question .
That's what Bernardo Kastrup says. I think it's right, although I hadn't considered it from the perspective you suggest regarding the expansion of space. :chin:
It baffles me that you think any of these questions are unaskable, that they "just are". What a strange, pre-scientific mindset, like answering a question with "because god willed it". A few simple google searches will disabuse you. Sure, the physical constants may well be beyond our ken, but that doesn't stop us from asking.
Quoting Isaac
It is not satisfactory, because it answers the wrong question. The question is not, "why did consciousness arise in evolutionary history?" Rather, "by what mechanism does specific neurological activity give rise to consciousness?". Similar to how you can ask "By what mechanism does an engine, carburetor, wheels, etc, assembled as a car, drive?" "It just does", "God wills it", does not answer either.
True.
That's one way to get rid of a "hard" problem.
What exactly do you think the so-called "hard problem" is asking for?
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
You mean inside and outside the body, no? My experience of anything internal to the body is not accessible to others. to be sure, so there is no possibility of identifying common objects of "inner" experience, as we would do with "external" objects. Is that what you mean?
That said, my experience of "external" objects is not accessible to others either; there is just the possibility of identifying, via reportage, common features between the experiences of different people.
The "easy problem" refers to explaining functions of consciousness like how memory is laid down, how the visual cortex works, stuff like that.
The "hard problem" refers to explaining the experiences that accompany function. Why is there an experience that accompanies sight? Why aren't we like computers that see, process visual data, and respond per protocols, but without any accompanying experience?
Science has the conceptual framework to address the easy problem. It lacks that framework to address the hard problem. To make progress, the realm of the physical will have to expand to include subjectivity. At first, the addition will be along the lines of what gravity originally was: just a name for something we know about. Adding gravity as a thing to be explained by science was the first step in creating theories about it. At the time, some people objected to including gravity because it was thought that this was an injection of mysticism into science. Fortunately, flexible minds prevailed and progress began. Same thing here (one hopes).
Right, I've read Chalmers (although years ago when at University) and I understand the basic distinction between functional and experiential consciousness, but that's not what I'm asking.
I'm asking what proponents of the "hard problem' think an explanation of why, for example, "there (is) an experience that accompanies sight", could possibly look like.
The problem as I see it, is that consciousness is (primordially) non-dual, and it is only our models and explanations of it that are inevitably dualistic, given as they are in language which is necessarily dualistic (i.e. couched in terms of subject and object).
So, I am yet to be convinced there is a coherent question there.
Doesn't sound like you're likely to be.
Are you? Do you believe a question should be considered to be coherent if we have no idea what an answer might look like?
That's what we did with gravity.
Alternately, we could say that to make progress, the realm of the physical will have to be rethought such that we recognize that the subjective was always baked into the very structure of physical science, but in such a thoroughgoing manner that it was never noticed. We artificially split it off it and now are trying to append it back on like a new object.
:rofl:
Nice. I've been pondering lately the notion that there's some quantum shenanigans at the heart of consciousness.
What do you think about the "eye can't see itself" issue? Is it ultimately futile to look for a theory of consciousness?
:clap:
Do you see any relationship with this and Heidegger's 'forgetfulness of being'?
Quoting frank
See The Blind Spot of Science:
Yes, exactly. Do you agree with that?
What I gathered from Chalmer's argument is that no amount of science can approach why consciousness is possible as whatever it is. The assumption that such a possibility can be directly associated with our experience assumes that they must be connected. And that assumption is what Chalmers is directly challenging.
:100: It's what I've been trying to argue for all along. The problem is one of perspective. Naturalism starts from the presumption of the separation of subject and object. From a methodological point of view, that is perfectly sound - when you are indeed studying objects. But humans are not objects - they're subjects of experience. That is precisely the distinction which the 'eliminativists' seek to get rid of - hence the attempt to describe human subjects as 'robots' or as 'aggregatations of biomolecular structures', and not as beings per se.
Yes, but that's not what the hard problem is about. It's about identifying phenomenal consciousness as a thing to be explained. Does the blind spot extend to that as well?
When Chalmers said 'Facing Up to the Hard Problem', what he's saying is that science can't describe 'being' (or 'what it is like to be' something) because it only deals with objects that can be understood in third-person terms. His paper is explicitly about what can't be described in those terms, namely, subjective experience. Whereas, as I said before, the eliminative materialists argue as follows:
Quoting Daniel Dennett, The Fantasy of First-Person Science
So, from Chalmers' perspective, there is something that the eliminativists are not seeing. And I'm saying, what it is that they are not seeing corresponds with 'the blind spot of science'. It's another aspect of the same basic issue.
(Incidentally, this also means that 'the hard problem' is not a problem at all outside that particular context. It's simply a kind of rhetorical device.)
I see.
It's a problem because we can never truly see the inside of an object. So sense observations of an object are always observations of the outside of things. No matter how we divide the object into parts, or peer at those parts through Xray or MIR, we are always looking at the parts as objects themselves, and we are looking at them from the outside. However, with subjective first-person experience, we actually get real observations of the inside of an object, oneself. Therefore, unlike the usual scientific observations which cannot observe the inside of an object, first-person conscious experience gives us real observational information from the inside of an object.
So, sure we can look at any phenomenon in the universe with the scientific method, but we cannot see the inside of any object that we look at with the scientific method. However, we can directly experience the inside of an object through subjective first-person experience, so this is the route we need to take toward understanding the inside of things. And, as I mentioned, with the discovery of phenomena like spatial expansion it becomes very clear that we need to understand the inside in order to get a grip on reality.
Quoting Wayfarer
The expansion of space is a difficult issue to wrap one's head around. I think it calls for a two dimensional time. But consider that if space expands, it must expand from every point outward. This means that there must be a multitude of such points with an expansion around each. And since the structures we know exist in the expanded space, the points must be connected somehow through the inside, in order to support coherent structures in the outwardly expanded space.
Quoting Janus
The point was that the only way to observe the inside of an object is through the first-person conscious experience. The methods of science cannot observe the inside of objects. Then I gave the reason why I think it is important to develop an understanding of the inside of objects, in our quest for understanding reality
Yes. Perhaps one's head would need to expand correspondingly.
It's not clear how what you say here relates to what was being discussed. We can't see the inside of objects unless we break them open, then we can. We can observe the cellular and/ or molecular structures of wood, stone or steel and so on, and it is science that has given us the instruments that enable us to do that more comprehensively than the unassisted eye will allow.
Quoting Wayfarer
Language itself is based on this presumption. All our discursive understandings of the world, and even of ourselves, are dualistic. "Subject and object", "cause and effect", "substance and attribute", "mind and matter" and so on.
[quote=Franklin Merrell Wolff (quoted in 'Nature Loves to Hide', Shimon Malin)] The function of insight gives a transcendental content that, when reduced to an interpretive system, becomes subject ot the relativity of subject-object consciousness. Therefore, there can be no such thing as an infallible interpretation. Thus we must distinguish between insight and its formulation. [/quote]
This is true of many things science studies. We don't see electrons, protons, quarks. We look at them by smashing them together and watching the parts spin off. We can't see the inside the sun, but we look at neutrinos and the results of spectroscopic analysis. We can't see inside black hole and neutron star collisions, but we can look at gravity waves. We can't see much more than a couple of miles into the Earth, but we can look at seismic and gravimetric data. We learn about things by looking inside them all the time - x-rays, cat scans, mri. There's no reason our minds should be any different.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
I'm not sure if this is what you're getting at, but it is my understanding that the expansion of the universe leads to galaxies moving apart, but features within galaxies, e.g. stars, do not. The Earth is not moving away from the sun.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
As I've noted, this is clearly not true.
No, that's the problem, breaking an object in two allows us to see the outsides of two objects, not the inside of one. Every time we take something apart, we remove the parts from their proper place as a part of a whole, such that they are no longer parts of a whole, but are each a separate object, a whole.
Therefore we have two distinct perspectives. A part receives its function, and its being, its very nature as a "part" by existing as a part of a unity. Therefore there is a relation of necessity between the part and the whole, the part has no being without the whole. But a whole is not necessarily a part of anything. So the necessity is a one way street. Because of this, every time we take apart an object to look inside it, and look at a part of it as if it is an object itself, a whole itself, we do not see the relation of necessity which the part had with the whole, prior to being dismantled, because the newly formed object (whole), now has no necessary relation as part of a larger unity. So we don't see it properly as a part, we see it as a whole. And something is missing from what we see, that is what makes the whole greater than the sum of the parts. This inclines us to misunderstand the order of necessity, and the nature of causation in general. On the other hand, when we look inward at the first-person experience we see the causation more correctly, by the cause of our own actions as an outward process towards an external necessity.
Quoting T Clark
But what you describe is not "looking inside" things. It is looking at the outside of things and making inferences about what is happening on the inside through theories and logical inference. We see effects on the outside and make inferences about the internal causes. So you claim that we look inside objects, and you give examples, but your examples obviously do not support your claim.
Quoting T Clark
This is how spatial expansion is commonly modeled, but it's very problematic. How could we create a boundary, even in principle, between the space which is inside a galaxy and not expanding, and the space which is between galaxies and is expanding. There would have to be two different types of space, the space with massive objects in it, which doesn't expand, and the space without massive objects in it which does expand, along with an obvious boundary between the two. But that's really just a poor representation, and what is really the case is that physicists do not at all understand the relationship between space and massive objects. I think that's what the famous Michelson-Morley experiments demonstrated to us.
Problematic or not, astronomers have measured the red and blue shifts of stars and even planets within the Milky Way, our galaxy. They are not moving toward or away from each other. According to what I've read, gravity between parts of an individual galaxy is strong enough to overcome any local expansion.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
The Michelson-Morley experiments measured the speed of light in different directions. They didn't have anything to do with gravity or the expansion of the universe.
No. I take a picture of with an x-ray that I can look at and see what is inside the person. How is that different from taking a picture of that person and seeing what their outside looks like. They can insert a thin camera attached to a fiber-optic cable and take pictures of what is inside me either by making a small hole or going in through one of my natural orifices. I'm scheduled to have one of them stuck up my butt in a few months.
You are making an artificial, unsupportable distinction in an effort to hold your argument together.
I think some philosophy has been concerned with that. Heidegger tried to achieve an understanding of being with discursive analysis in his earlier philosophy, but after the "Kehre" (turning) he saw the only possibility as being in allusive poetic language as I understand it.
I think philosophy can realize its limitations, but I can't see how discursive knowledge or understanding of non-dual reality, being, consciousness, is possible.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
I think you're being pedantic. If I want to see the structure of the inside of a stone or a piece of wood I can break it open to reveal it. I could also use xray or some other imaging technology to "see inside" the object if it isn't practical to break it open.
It's compelling that thinkers like Chomsky are mysterians on the basis that we don't have a coherent theory of materialism in the first place. Metacognition suddenly seems more readily explicable than the existence of a material 'reality'. What's Chomsky's marvelous quote? "Newton exorcised the machine, leaving the ghost intact..."
Do you hold a view that science in its conventional mode will resolve this matter, or will this one need a paradigm shift?
that is the inside of their body, not the inside of their experience.
I gather your question is about the latter, and my standpoint is that consciousness, being non-dual. cannot be explained or understood in dualistic terms, and that via meditation it may be understood, but not in discursive terms.
Phenomenology, insofar as it understands consciousness to be intentional, is still working in dualistic terms, and I see it as helping to understand how things seem to us in our everyday dualistic mindset; I don't see how it it can offer anything beyond that.
This is exactly what eliminative materialism does. It literally forgets or neglects its own role in the construction or construal of 'the world', instead trying to eliminate the very faculty by which the world is construed or 'realised' in the first place. (This is why critics of Daniel Dennett's first book parodied the title as 'Consciousness Ignored'.)
Also see this blog post on Husserl's concept of 'the natural attitude':
*In the idiom of Zen Buddhism. this is the stage of 'first there is a mountain' i.e. unreflective realism. Heidegger would go on to enlarge on all of his themes in his later work but even though he differed with Husserl, they have some elements in common. (I'm only just starting to study Being and Time but you can see how that 'everyday attitude' is reflected in Heidegger's comments on 'das man'.)
:up:
Reasons are human-related (when distinguished from mechanics). If ask "why did you smash that vase?" I'm not expecting "because my arm raised, my hand released it and that caused it to smash". I'm asking about your motives.
In Physics, chemistry, neurosciences...etc, the distinction doesn't make any sense. There are no motives, to 'why?' and 'how?' are the same question. As I alluded to earlier, about the closest we could get to a distinction is in evolutionary sciences where 'why?' refers to the evolutionary advantage, and 'how?' refers to the genetics, but even there it's just convention. we could ask 'how?' of evolution too and get a good set of theoretical answers.
Equally, if I asked a physicist 'why did the vase smash?', he might say 'because gravity pulls objects toward the earth and brittle things like vases smash on impact'. That's considered an answer. I could ask why both those laws are the case, but all I'd get is further, more fundamental, rules. At the end of my questioning there'd always be 'it just is'.
What the proponents of the 'hard' problem' seem to want is to forever maintain a type of answer which, by definition, will not be satisfied by mechanics or 'it just is', but since we have no such answer in any other field of human inquiry I cannot think of a reason why it's odd that we don't have one in neuroscience. I can't think what such an answer would even look like and neither, it seems, can any proponent of the problem.
Quoting Joshs
Roles within previously hidden orders are just more mechanics though (unless you're implying teleology). Say we found an entirely new function of the brain, something we didn't even know it did (let's say it taps into morphological fields) and we discover that consciousness plays an essential role in that. Does that answer the 'hard problem'? Apparently not, because if I theorise it plays an important role in survival (evolutionary advantage) that's not an answer apparently. So why would another role in another system be any more of an answer?
Quoting Joshs
Exactly. Darwin found a mechanism for producing multiple species. The answer to the question 'why are there so many species?' was 'species evolve by natural selection and this process produces many species as a consequence of its mechanisms'. The answer to the question 'why doe we have consciousness?' is 'our experiences are produced by the brain activity and the mechanisms of the brain are such that experience is a consequence'... only apparently that isn't an answer either.
Quoting Joshs
Yes, I agree, but you can't have your cake an eat it. Kuhn shows us how paradigms are discontinuous, they are not answers to the questions left by the previous one (that would merely be a continuation of the investigation within the previous paradigm) they a new ways of framing the problem such that those question become meaningless. So the mere possibility of a new paradigm doesn't mean the questions in the prior paradigm are unanswered, just that they might, in future become obsolete, or meaningless.
We don't go around saying that physics hasn't answered the question of acceleration due to gravity simply because a new paradigm might one day make that question obsolete. It has answered it (9.8 m/s/s) and a new paradigm might one day make that answer obsolete.
You're asking for the cause of a description, not an event or state. 'Experience' is the description we give to the neuronal activity, it's not another thing on top of the neuronal activity which needs further causal explanation. Neuronal activity doesn't cause experience, it is experience. 'Experience' is a word we use to describe it. Only there's a disconnect because of the anomalous monism inherent in our linguistic practices relating to the world that language brings into being.
It's like asking how all the individual horses cause the category {horse} to exist. They don't. horses are things, the category {horse} is a human linguistic convention.
Likewise neuronal activity is within neuroscience, 'experience' is within human linguistic conventions. the one doesn't cause the other in any way other than the way in which we choose to relate the two (or conceptual models). 'Experience' simply isn't in the same conceptual model as 'neurons' so we can't derive one from the other without some act of translation and that act will just be made up, it's not a fact we discover.
Quoting hypericin
A car driving is a physical act, it's within the same conceptual framework as the levers and gears that work the car. 'Experience' is a description, not a thing. It's not in the same conceptual framework.
An x-ray does not allow you to see the inside of a person. It allows you to see the outside of specific internal parts. The fact that the x-ray goes right through some parts and not others indicates that it is not really showing us the inside of a person. It simply makes some parts appear transparent. Seeing through some parts for the purpose of looking at other parts is not a matter seeing the inside of anything, because some parts are unseen and other parts are seen from the outside.
You are clearly not understanding what I am saying. Do you think that when you see a fish in a body of water, you are seeing the inside of the water? And it is the same thing for the fiber-camera, it as well, shows the outside of some internal parts, by passing around others.
Quoting Janus
Making oneself appear as a pedant is what is required if one is trying to understand the intricacies of nature. Have you read how Plato portrays Socrates? Being pedantic is a requirement of good logical process. As they say, "the devil is in the details". When our theories fail in accounting for the details, the theories are flawed. That's plain, simple, and obvious. Why deny the existence of flaws, just because they appear to be minor?
The fact is very clear, that these methods you propose do not adequately show us the inside of any physical objects. And this is because we have no proper theory which distinguishes the inside of an object from the outside, therefore any proposed definition is ambiguous or arbitrary. This is the biggest problem with systems theory, it assumes objects called "systems", but employs arbitrary principles to distinguish inside the system from outside the system. Until we have real ontological principles whereby we can make a justified distinction between inside and outside, knowledge produced by such theories will be fraught with unreliability.
Quoting T Clark
Actually, I am just stating what is very obvious, the obvious deficiencies of the modern scientific method. Scientists proceed as if there is no real difference between the inside and the outside of physical objects, so if such boundaries are employed they can be placed wherever they want. (This is what the examples of you and Janus show, an arbitrary "inside".) Yet conscious experience gives clear evidence that there is a very substantial difference between the inside and the outside. You, being a proponent of scientism, simply deny that reality, and dismiss the evidence with the prejudiced claim of "unsupportable", implying that you already presume that there cannot be any evidence. Or, in the case of Janus, there is a dismissal of people who try to point such details out, as being pedantic.
Quoting Wayfarer
Absolutely, and Husserls natural attitude.
When this started, that is what I thought we were talking about, but @Metaphysician Undercover didn't seem to be making that distinction.
I think I understand, but I disagree. As far as I'm concerned, we can leave it at that unless you have more to say.
I think that is an interesting way to put it because it identifies this historical ontological distinction as hermeneutical, merely. And I think this is close to right. Wrong thinking is interpretative error, and it can construct imposing towers of meaning that become internalized in a culture and its history, and when you are in it, it is second nature, so to speak. Phenomena, by this thinking, is a term that is part of a construct created by philosophizing subsets in our cultural. Heidegger thought like this: We make truth, and the importance of things along with the "measuring, naming ,conceptualizing" rests with historical possibilities. I think I am aligned with you in that I think these historical possibilities cover up "something" that is revealed in a reduction that removes implicit knowledge claims from the "moment" of encounter. This something is inherently, what could you call it, value-cognitive, where the cognitive part refers to the fact that the understanding is engaged.
But you know there are problems with this: Is the self's phenomenality really so removable from "noumenality"?; if language's categories are responsible for this division only, and to think at all is to think categorically (in a finite totality of meanings), then it is thought that holds us captive to this illusory separation and the method chosen to remedy and redeem has to be one that ultimately removes us from the bounds of thought. But what of the self? Hasn't the self been reduced to a Jamesian infantile "blooming and buzzing"? And what of experience as a self-belonging set of affairs? What happens when the strictures of thought are removed and the self is truly decentered; is it not thereby dissolved altogether?
When I think of the meditative "method", the allowing of thought content to fall away from consciousness, while sitting quietly, I am struck by its annihilative nature. It really is the most radical thing a person can do, one could argue, this annihilation of the world. But if language falls away, so does understanding and knowledge, and agency is lost, and one is no longer "there" to witness anything. Perhaps the "direct experience of noumena" should not be so radically conceived. This term 'noumena' I am not that comfortable with because of its Kantian association. I prefer "pure phenomenon" for the act of reducing what is there, in our midst to what is strikingly "other" than the language that conceives it, but the what-is-there doesn't go anywhere. As I apperceive a rock, the "noumenal" rises to awareness as the language falls away, but that singular event is still your event. The purity of the perception occurs IN the historically embodied apperceiving, and it was there all along (like the Buddhists say when they claim the "Buddha nature" is never absent).
Or better, one that cannot be had at all, which makes the difference.
Analytic philosophers like to say that that which must be passed over in silence is really nothing at all, and the entire mistake lies with language going where it has no business, because there is no business to be had. The Tractatus does not agree. I don't want to labor the point, because I am well aware this book does not exhaust his thinking, but then, if the question is about the "hard problem of consciousness" one has to go where the issue is met, and what makes consciousness a hard problem is its encounter with, call it, the "other side" of language. I talk about my cat, but the talk about cats, their size, dispositions, and all of that ignores something that underlies all of this: its existence. Witt calls this mystical, not nothing. And he holds the same regard for ethics and aesthetics and their "value" dimension. Russell called him a mystic not because he was just disagreeing, but because Wittgenstein actually called himself this, implicitly.
I agree with all of that. I think the quest for a theory of consciousness will be a grand adventure. It's fed by a lust to know. Maybe it will generate technologies that allow some aspect of subjectivity to be recorded and that could be used for medicinal or artistic purposes.
Every step of the way, someone will be pointing out that we're fooling ourselves and the truth we're finding is relative to a particular culture? That's ok. That's always how it is, right?
I'm a bit lost with this kind of language. In a previous post, I wrote that I didn't hold much with phenomenology. Since then, I've decided to put some effort into learning at least the basics so I can participate in these types of discussions more productively. What would recommend as Phenomenology for Dummies?
Quoting Constance
I am not a meditator, at least not in any formal way, but I think this misrepresents the meditative process, although I've heard this type of criticism before. Awareness without words is possible without any kind of annihilation. I come to this from my interest in the Tao Te Ching. Lao Tzu talks about "wu wei", which means "inaction," acting without intention. Actions come directly from our true selves, our hearts I guess you'd say. Lao Tzu might say our "te," our virtue. Without words or concepts. I have experienced this. It's no kind of exotic mystical state. It's just everyday, meat and potatoes, although it can sometimes be hard to accomplish.
Quoting Constance
I use the Kantian "noumena" instead of the Taoist "Tao" just because it is more familiar to western philosophers with the hope it might make my way of seeing things seem less foreign and mystical.
Quoting Isaac
Arent we talking about different epistemological accounts of causation? For conscious actions we use an intentional motivational account , and for physical processes we use an objective causative account ( or a variety of them). We might even talk of an intermediate epistemic account pertaining to living systems that we could call biosemiological. You seems to suggest earlier that we could reduce consciousness to a physical account , but it would seem that biosemiotic thinkers like Howard Pattee would disagree. all of our models are based on epistemological assumptions and limited by our modes of thought . if biosemiotics is not primarily the study of symbolic matter but the study of symbolic meaning, then as I have emphasized (Pattee 2008), this requires a different epistemological principle than does the study of physics and biology.
So it seems your approach , reducing biological and psychological phenomena to the epistemological domain of physics and chemistry, is one of a number of positions that have been put forth(Btw, I would argue that free energy approaches in neuroscience, even though they borrow from physics, depend on a novel epistemic account. Without this , their model consciousness would look like Penorses). Another , which I believe Searle endorses, is to acknowledge that psychological and physical phenomena belong to separate accounts , but that these cannot and need not be reducible one to the other. They coexist for the different purposes they serve. Hermeneutisticts like Wilhelm Dilthey advocated something similar He divided the human sciences from the natural sciences based on their different epistemic organizing principles.
Another approach argues that we can and must reduce one of these accounts to the other , not by reducing psychological to physical but the other way around.
According to Husserl and Heidegger, objectively causal accounts as in physics are naive forms of naturalism. Put differently, objective physical causation is derived from intersubjective intentional processes. This does not mean that conscious subjectivity precedes the world, only that there are fundamental organizing principles uniting the physical, biological and psychological domains. As Piaget argued , physics is far from complete , having been unable to integrate biology and the behavioral sciences within itself.
Quoting Isaac
If all mechanisms are alike in their fundamental condition of possibility, then I agree that they cannot not answer why questions, because they simply replace one arbitrary ordering scheme with another. We can only say so it was not this way, it was that way. It is only if we see changes in mechanism in a dialectical sense, as in some sense subsuming previous modes of representation, that they answer why questions.
There are mechanisms like clocks or car engines , and there are mechanisms like evolutionary, organic and ecological processes. In the broadest sense, yes, we can call all of these mechanisms. But dont you see a difference in the nature of the ordering system involved in these two domains? What about the difference between a hardware and a software description of a computer? What I am suggesting is that if we study the history of the empirical understanding of mechanism and causation , we find a parallel to its evolving philosophical understanding. Mechanical causation was understood differently by Newton than by Leibnitz and later thinkers. Causes were certain and absolute for Newton , but after Hume the history of a cause could not guarantee its future. More recently, dynamical , reciprocal and gestalt causation are further transformations of the concept of mechanism that in some respect encompass and subsume the earlier models.
Quoting Isaac
The prior questions dont become completely meaningless. If that were the case, Kuhn would not be able to claim that there are reasons to choose one paradigm over another , that one solves more puzzles
than another. One can be perfectly satisfied that , even though the specific meanings of concepts used in one paradigm change in the alternative paradigm, enough remains stable in the general domain of relevance pursued by the competing paradigms that it can appear almost as if the new paradigm were being appended to the old.
The proof of this is that this is exactly how many sciences still think of the relation between Newton and Einstein, and progress of science in general. If it were so obvious that new paradigms are not answers to the questions left by the previous one. and that the previous questions become meaningless , Kuhn wouldnt have needed to write his book.
It should be kept in mind that concepts are elastic: the meaning of a scientific term can gradually morph via paradigm shift without scientists being aware of it.
Of course consciousness is a state. At any time you may be either conscious or unconscious. The point of general anesthesia is to change your state of consciousness to off. An anesthetic works if it changes your conscious state, and doesn't work if it does not. If consciousness is somehow merely a description, how does an anesthetic have causal efficacy?
Quoting T Clark
Try this:
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/self-consciousness-phenomenological/
That's simply not true. With the naked eye, I cannot see inside a human body, but with X-ray, MRI, Ultrasound and other imaging technologies I can see different parts of the body.
I can also cut a body open and see the heart, the lungs and other organs and parts. I can dissect muscle and bone and see inside them. I can use a microscope to see the cellular strucure of body tissues and even inside the cells themselves.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Again, not true. Inside and outside are relative. The surface of the heart is inside the body but is the outside of the heart. What is "adequately" supposed to mean there?
In any case, this is a distraction from the actual topic of the thread, so it is pointless pursuing it further here.
Quoting T Clark
Although only on one aspect, try this. (Amended link.)
@Joshs - I read in the above blog post 'Hence, any individual object necessarily belongs to multiple essential species, or essential structures of consciousness, and everything belonging to the essence of the individuum another individuum can have too
Do I not detect the echo of hylomorphism in these kinds of sentiments from Husserl? Where 'forms' or 'ideas' are now transposed as 'essential structures of consciousness'?
I don't agree with that article regarding pre-reflective self-awareness. I think pre-reflective awareness is prior to self and other; prior to subject and object.
Quoting Janus
Interesting. How would that work? Kind of like meditative awareness?
I think the aim of meditation is to consciously be in the way we primordially are. I wouldn't even call it being-in-the world, which is still a dualistic notion, but rather simply being with no distinction. The awareness of self arises 'later' as a thought.
Quoting Janus
You refer to the being of a we. In what sense is it a being if there is no distinction? Isnt pure absence of differentiation non-being?
Strictly there is no differentiation between being and non-being, but of course as soon as a distinction is made we have being, since non-being cannot be anything, much less a distinction. Whatever we say we will fall into dualism, as Derrida points out, but it does not follow that all is text. Experience is prior to what is said, to any text, but once we have said that, well...you get the picture...
Quoting Wayfarer
I took a look at both of these sources. I finished Wayfarer's and about halfway through Josh's. I will read the rest. They were exactly what I was looking for. Thanks. Probably the most interesting aspect of the readings for me is how the views presented are closely parallel my own which I've presented here often. This from the blog post Wayfarer linked to:
Quoting Marc Applebaum
As the text indicates, we don't find our everyday world waiting for us, we create it, i.e. the idea of objective reality is not necessary to account for the world we find ourselves in. From Verse 1 of Stephen Mitchell's translation of the Tao Te Ching:
[i]The unnamable is the eternally real.
Naming is the origin
of all particular things.[/i]
This from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy article Joshs linked to:
Quoting SEP - Phenomenological Approaches to Self-Consciousness
The idea of pre-reflective self-consciousness is one I've thought a lot about, although not in those terms. It's one of the primary questions I have about Lao Tzu's way of seeing the world - is it possible to experience the Tao directly without words. My intuition tells me it is, but I've struggling with it. A lot of the issues raised in the SEP article echo ones I've been working on and I got some new ways of looking at the questions from the article. I'm not as sour on phenomenology as I was before I read this stuff.
Which brings us to the bottom line, as the cliche goes - I don't see how anything I've read here is inconsistent with the idea that the experience of consciousness is a manifestation of biological and neurological processes.
The distinction is that biology and neurology are conducted at arms length, to to speak. Theyre objective disciplines, as distinct from immediate awareness of first-person experience. I think its a pretty easy distinction to draw. That quote I provided before from Dennett is from a post of his called The Fantasy of First-Person Science so clearly its a distinction that he (one of the protagonists in the debate) recognizes.
I wasn't questioning that people, including well-known philosophers, have made the distinction. But I think the important line of distinction is located elsewhere. Not between inside and outside science, but between a science that recognizes that reality is inextricably tangled with human cognition and one that doesn't.
The authors of the Stanford Encyclopedia article would agree with you. They are among those who believe that a mutual enlightenment between cognitive science and phenomenology is desirable and attainable. Husserl himself believed that trying to ground phenomenology in empirical science was putting the cart before the horse. I believe that it can eventually be possible to naturalize phenomenology , but this will require innovations in thinking within the psychological sciences that haven't taken place yet. Using current models within biology, neuroscience and cognitive psychology to underpin Husserls transcendental phenomenology would completely misrepresent the subject matter.
Any examples come to mind of sciences or scientists that do?
You seem to be understanding dualism in an odd sort of way. When phenomenologists claim to be transcending dualism what they mean is the splitting of the subjective aspect of experience from the objective. Their solution is to be make the subjective and the objective indissociable poles of all experience
This is what intentionality means. It does not mean a subject aiming at an object. There is no pre-constituted, or inner subject for Husserl. There is only the interaction, which precedes both subject and object. Your solution to dualism , by contrast, seems to assume an inner feeling or experience of some sort that just subsists in itself, outside of time and interaction. This sounds like something like Michel Henrys view of self-awareness. Dualism depends on the idea of a pure in-itself outside of relation to something else. Both the subject and the object have their own in-itself, interiority, intrinsicality, from out of which they encounter each other . Thats what your non-dualistic awareness seems to consist in.
I dont fully agree with the way that blogpost characterizes how Husserl conceived of the constitution of spatial objects. Im not denying that for Husserl form or morphe is an essential aspect of intentional constitution of objects , along with the hyle or stuffs.
But an individual object is general for Husserl not because a particular car belongs to a general category of cats, but because the unity of an object is an intentional achievement produced by a synthetic act uniting memory , anticipation and actual presence. The self-same object is an objectivating idealization concocted out of a changing flow of senses , and thus a generalization.
There is no light switch. No "on" and "off". Consciousness - as we know it - emerges via biological mutations and time. It begins with avoiding danger and gathering resources and grows in it's complexity over enough time and mutation. We know that consciousness - as we know it - is existentially dependent upon certain brain structures as well as all sorts of other biological machinery.
There is no "aha there it is!" moment. The "hard problem" is all in the name and the purported criterion of consciousness that is being taken into consideration.
This gets at something I've been thinking about as I read the SEP article. Phenomenology isn't really philosophy at all. It's psychology. So much of it makes definitive statements about phenomena and processes that can be verified or falsified using empirical methods. It's making scientific statements without providing evidence. Maybe I just haven't read enough to find it.
This is something I've thought a lot about, with much frustration. I'll try to come up with a response tomorrow.
I agree that the subjectivr and objective are "indissociable poles of all experience" as experience is modeled. I think experience itself is prior to this conception of it.
I don't disagree with much of what you say here, but you've switched from opposing frames to alternate frames, which is why I don't find much to disagree with.
It's true that one way of looking at this is dualist. Or is in some ways more constructivist than perhaps I would prefer. Or that there are some useful and valid paradigms which provide a neat frame for many of the discussions around consciousness. But none of them are necessary, and that's the position I originally argued against. The notion that neuroscience and its approaches fail in some way to answer a question. I'm not arguing that alternative answers are not out there, nor am I arguing that they are less useful, or less accurate. I'm arguing that the answers given in the reductionist framework (which I don't even subscribe to by the way) are no less valid within their paradigm than phenomenological answers are within theirs.
Quoting hypericin
Anaesthetics work on neurological signals. They work entirely because we directly identify consciousness with certain neurological activity. If consciousness were something in addition to that activity then anaesthetics would not work since they only act on chemical activity, not 'the realm of consciousness'. 'conscious' is, in this frame, our name for certain neurological activity. We don't need to further explain why we named it thus.
As I said earlier, the component parts of a car are the same as 'the car'. There's not an additional thing on top of the components. The sort of consciousness dealt with by anaesthetics just is a particular set of neurons acting in a particular way. the answer to the question "why do they do that" is that they are stimulated to do so by preceding neurological activity. The answer to "why do they do that" in teleological terms is "because there's some evolutionary advantage to doing so and we're evolved creates". there's no sense to any other 'why?' question.
Just because you aren't a dualist about consciousness doesn't mean the question just disappears.
Consider a DVD. Is the movie "on" the DVD something in addition to the physical layout of the DVD platter? No, the movie is that layout. Nonetheless, one has to ask, how is it that, when some DVDs are inserted into the proper device, video plays. Whereas if other DVDs, blanks say, are inserted, there is no video.
Imagine a technologically naive culture, cut off from the rest of the world, or maybe part of a multi-generational dystopian experiment, where DVDs and DVD players are a given. There would eventually arise a hard problem of DVDs. You can't answer that problem by saying "movies are just a name we give to certain DVD microstructures". You have to explain how it is that the material DVD "contains" audio and video.
We are in a culture where consciousness are a given, and the hard problem of consciousness has arisen. We have to explain how it is that neural activity "contains", "instantiates", "embodies", "is", whatever you prefer, the features of consciousness.
This works with the inside/outside relation, if we take process ontology, and make all of reality activity. Then we have no real boundaries between inside and outside, just two directions of activity or causation, inward directional and outward directional. There must be interaction between the two, reversal of direction, which could be represented with circles, or biofeedback loops, etc..
The problem with this type of metaphysics is that it really has nothing solid, no substance to account for the reality of homoeostasis, balanced activity, being. Then the speculators get a hold of this process ontology and make proposals like symmetries to account for balance, but these are just ideals produced from the mathematical axioms, which are not supported by real evidence.
So this perspective really does nothing to bridge the gap between the two incompatible descriptive formats of "being" and "becoming". The scientific (empirical) approach leads us toward the conclusion that all is "becoming", while philosophy and logic require a substantial "being". Plato and Aristotle demonstrated that the two are fundamentally incompatible. So when science describes everything as processes, becoming, and it cannot account for the reality of "being", mathematicians simply produce the required axioms and being appears, in the form of mathematical equilibriums.
Quoting Joshs
This is exactly what happens with such an ontology, there is no such thing as an object, therefore no such thing as being, or beings. However, in practise the existence of objects is very real, so the appearance of them (though it's only an appearance from this ontology) needs to be accounted for. This requires positing principles of balance, homoeostasis, symmetry. So a mathematics of equilibrium is produced. But the reality, and cause of such balance cannot really be accounted for, it's just represented by this math.
Simply put, the result here is that the classical boundaries of an object (separating the supposed internal from external of the empirical object) are replaced with a balance of activity, and this balance becomes the new representation of the object. The problem though is that this balance of activity is commonly represented by systems theory which requires boundaries distinguishing the inside from the outside of the system. So the science minded people who take hold of this philosophy and speculate, bring us right back to the old standard, boundaries between inside and outside. Therefore this philosophy has not really gotten us away from internal/external boundaries. it just allows more freedom to arbitrarily place such boundaries, and employ vague or undefined boundaries which are simply assumed to be somewhere. This renders objects, beings, and being in general, as unintelligible.
The result of making the subjective and objective into two extremes of one scale, rather than keeping them separate by dualist principles, is that the subjective principles are now allowed to corrupt the objective science. This is due to the one-way directional nature of time, causation, and necessity. If we look from the inside outward, the way of philosophy, we look from the realm of possibility, potential, so there is no necessary boundaries. Boundaries are something to be created for one's purposes. But if we look from the outside inward, we only see parts, and these have necessary boundaries. Without the boundaries the parts would not be seen.
So when the science of observation, looking from the outside inward, takes principles from the philosophical observations of looking from the inside outward, it is corrupted by those principles. From the inside looking outward it appears like there are no real boundaries, just potential boundaries to be produced at will. But looking from the outside inward, in the way of science, the boundaries are very real and necessary, because if they were not there, the internal parts could not be seen. To allow the scientist looking inward to place the boundaries arbitrarily, in the way that the philosopher does looking outward, allows the scientist to disregard the empirical data, therefore corrupting the scientific enterprise.
I am suspect that, like @Art48 and some others in this discussion, you are not clear on what the Hard Problem of Consciousness is supposed to be. It is not about describing in detail how consciousness works - that is supposed to be the Easy problem (hah!) The Hard problem is explaining "qualia" - first-person experience, what-it-is-likeness - in an objective, third-person scientific framework. So the framing already assumes a certain kind of dualism in the world: objective vs subjective, first-person vs third-person.
To compound the problem, those engaged in this discussion often aren't clear on just what they are looking for in an explanation. The complaint from the consciousness-can't-be-explained camp often comes down to nothing more specific than "consciousness can't be explained to my satisfaction." But what would satisfy them?
Great. So given that we know the answer to this one, in your own words, what type of answer would this yield? What's the answer to "how does a DVD contain audio and video?"
How does a DVD player work?
Philosophers have talked themselves into believing experience isn't "really happening" by framing the claim that something is happening in metaphysics. Of course, this is a very loose way to speak, but I am not trying build an argument. One has to "close in" on the existential foundation of existence by, in the long run, ignoring language and culture (see Kierkegaard on this, his Concept of Anxiety) and allowing the disentangled gravitas if just being here to announce itself. Then one realizes that terms like being, existence, and reality are just abstractions of what is there, and shouldn't be discussed like this (and Wittgenstein would agree). Being is always already some impossible "value-being" and the primordial self is a value entity first and foremost. I see the cup on the table, and the question for epistemological interest is not about S knows P. It is about S values P and knowing is value-knowing. It is the interest in P, the fascination, the adoration, the loathing, the desire, and so on. Language is inherently analytical, that is, it takes the world apart, dividing what is, again, some impossible primordial unity; but it is always an interested analysis, curious, seeking consummation, affirmation, and it is this desire dimension that seeks fulfillment that rules here. The purely cognitive end of this is like Wittgenstein's "states of affairs", entirely absent of "the good" as he called it.
I think following Husserl's reductive method closes in on something genuinely revelatory. Ask Siddhartha Gautama, the master of the reduction. This grand enterprise called philosophy is not looking for, heh, heh, "propositional knowledge". It has to realize this. The proposition is almost incidental. Language is tool, says Quine.
Cool.
How does the brain work?
Job done then. Thread closed.
Fine. Have a good day. :razz:
What trips people up is conflating an understanding of consciousness with understanding the NCCs (neural correlates of consciousness). You can imagine in the future that we might have a complete accounting of the NCCs, a complete description of all the relevant brain structures and how they interact with one another. But nonetheless, we still can't conceptually make the leap from this description to the first person features of consciousness: qualia, what-is-it-like, etc. On the one side, in the third person, is the objective description of neural structure and activity. On the other side, in the first person, is the consciousness stuff. Unifying this dualism is the task of the hard problem.
I think we are in basic agreement here?
My understanding:
The audio and video of a movie is encoded as a set of 0s and 1s, which is one enormous base-2 number. This binary number is encoded on the DVD platter as tiny unreflective pits on a thin mirror, in a spiral pattern, which most of the material of the DVD simply protects. The laser of the DVD player shines on the spinning mirror, and a sensor interprets interruptions of the laser's reflected light as 0s, and their absence as 1s (or the reverse). These 0s and 1s are then translated on the player into a format amenable to the display device, which produces audio and video.
This is a very rough and broad account, but there are no mysteries here, every one of these steps can be explained in arbitrary, excruciating detail. This is a story which unifies two seemingly irreconcilable domains: the gross matter of the dvd, and the ethereal images and sounds coming from the TV. The hard problem asks for a similar account, unifying the seemingly irreconcilable domains of third person neural activity and first person consciousness.
Consciousness is encoded as a set of neural signals, which is one enormous dynamic network of continual signals. This flow of data is encoded on the brain as axon potentials and neurotransmitter concentrations, which most of the brain is not involved in most of the time. The working memory of the brain receives some of these signals, and the network of logic gates created by forward and backward acting signal propagation interprets signals as something to pass on. These signals are then translated by our language cortices and conceptual recognition neural clusters as suiting the term 'consciousness'.
I would include here all scientific and scientifically informed studies of consciousness, including psychology and some philosophy of mind.
Quoting hypericin
Well, this gets me back to what I said about explanations. We have a good idea of what a scientific explanation is (neuroscience, psychology, etc.) But you say: No, that's not it, that's just such-and-such "correlates" of consciousness. OK, but do you have an idea of what it is that you are looking for in an explanation of "the first person features of consciousness"? How would it differ from the other kind? How would you recognize a successful explanation?
And I don't mean to say that scientific explanations are the only explanations that deserve the name. But to even have a discussion about this, we should understand what it is that we are looking for. And that seems to be the one thing that is conspicuously missing in most such discussions.
Is brain conditioning of conscious experience similar to modulation as, for example, a parallel to frequency modulation of radio waves?
Quoting Constance
Does this hypothesis assume a duality of physical delimitations/that which exceeds physical delimitations?
Is the latter what you suggest might be called spirit, thereby attributing to you belief in a physical/spirit duality?
This sentence appears to my understanding as a confusion of declaration and question.
(Please forgive the following apparent non sequitur) consider that S and P are bound by action-at-a- distance. Can we assume that such binding of identity nonetheless preserves much of the autonomy and self-determination of each correspondent?
Can we hypothesize the brain/object junction is a complex surface with some topology of invariance?
This is revolutionary!
Machine consciousness has long been a holy grail of AI research. Nobody realized how simple it has been all along! All you have to do is arrange a bunch of signals, filter some of them, then have other modules categorize some of these signals as 'consciousness'. When this happens, we can even have a speaker box pronounce, "I AM CONSCIOUS!" Voila!
Are you seeing the problem here?
Are you not evading an essential problem science (unwittingly) created for itself vis-a-vis study of first person experience when it defined itself as objective examination of entities, phenomena and facts, thus cordoning off itself from the personal mind, a something inherently subjective?
Quoting T Clark
Is this declaration not made possible only by the previous evasion?
Quoting Tom Storm
With your statements above, it's my impression you're assuming the role of historian, declaring that non-physicalist world views have entered their "last hurrah" (or echo of "last hurrah") phase.
If, as my per my perception, you see science crowding non-physicalist world views off the legitimate stage of public opinion, then I better understand why Joshs sometimes inveighs against scientism, which one should be careful not to confuse with science.
Subjective mind might not be out of bounds of effective scientific examination, but it shows promise as a good axis for pivoting into examination of scientific boundaries.
No evasion. I don't see it as relevant.
Quoting ucarr
I have no problem with this view at the present time and it can generate an interesting discussion.
If I can suppose my personal point of view is modulated by the collective of attributes of my brain-mind, then I have a practical explanation of my personal point of view.
If, moreover, I can simulate the collective of attributes of an individual bat's brain-mind, and if I can immerse myself within that modulating collective, then I can walk a mile in the shoes of that individual bat's brain-mind experience and thus I can know what it feels like to be a particular, individual bat.
I make no commentary upon the accuracy of your reflection.
I think your reflection invokes the historian, in spite of your self-perception as non-historian.
You're claiming the objectivism of science does not handicap its examination of subjective mind?
OK. I'm nor sure what this gives us.
Truly, I am not trying to be confusing. This is the way thinkers I read talk. There is a good reason why these authors are ignored: it takes a solid education in continental philosophy to even begin understanding them. The foundation for analytic philosophy, on the other hand, is already there, in the basic education we all receive growing up. Reading someone like Galen Strawson is like reading an rigorous extension of "common sense" that doesn't rely on the historical contexts of philosophy). If you really want to start somewhere, and you don't want to read Kant, then try Husserl's Cartesian Meditations. Then his Ideas I.
Quoting T Clark
It is not for me to pry into and argue about what people experience. Wu wei is as exotic or mysterious as the person already is. Some are born off the charts. To me, this aligns with the world, which is, when subjected to a close inspection of what is going on in common perception, utterly foreign to understanding. Meditation is like a recovery of something lost, a metaphysical nostalgia.
We should do a reading of Heidegger's [I]What is Metaphysics?[/I] It's so good.
How is it a question of meaning? It's about a theory of consciousness.
Better to stay away from analogies. Any attempt to describe epistemic connectivity would encounter the same problem it attempts to solve, for whatever the metaphor might be put in play, one would still have to explain how epistemic transmission is possible. I mean, in a straight causal description, we might begin with the way portions of the electromagnetic spectrum are reflected or absorbed, and the former enter the eye, where they are received by cones and rods, etc. But the object "itself" (whatever that means) is already left far behind. Causality of any medium cannot be conceived as knowledge bearing. The only thing I can imagine that would bridge the distance is identity, that is, one's knowing-self itself receives direct intimation of the presence of an object.
Husserl thought something like this, but he wasn't thinking about physical objects that way science does. the object was phenomenologically conceived, and the direct intimation was intuition. Of course, this is a big issue, but I think his Cartesian approach has merit, after all, pulling back from the technical issues, when I see my cat, it is impossible that nothing at all is happening. This impossibility is interesting and should be taken seriously when thinking about grounding knowledge claims.
Quoting ucarr
I think a term like physical substance is just an extension of the way science thinks about the world, into metaphysics. No one has ever witnessed it, nor can they. All one witnesses is phenomena. My couch is a phenomenal event and its "out thereness" is clearly evident, but how does its existence get into mine? Perhaps perceptual fields are more inclusive than imagined. "Spirit" is not a term taken seriously. I wonder.
As I noted, I've thought about this a lot and I'm not at all satisfied with what I've come up with. I'll just throw out some ideas.
Kant says time and space are pure intuition.
Quoting Kant - Critique of Pure Reason
Project Hail Mary is a good book by Andy Weir, who wrote The Martian. In it, an Earth man travels to another star system and meets and befriends an alien who is also a space traveler from a different star system. The non-carbon based alien evolved on a planet with an atmosphere so dense no light can penetrate it. Organisms there never developed sight. The alien was perplexed because its trip took much less time than had been predicted. The Earth man had to explain to him about the speed of light and special relativity.
Our brains and minds have evolved for a special purpose - to figure out what actions we should take to stay alive and have offspring even when we have limited data. Thats where our tendency to analyze events by cutting them up, allowing us to simplify them. This works really well when were dealing with situations where we can isolate events from outside interaction, e.g. the large hadron collider or the James Webb telescope. When we get closer to human scale, especially in situations that actually involve people, it becomes much harder to separate events from their environment. We can no longer treat conditions as systems of regular geometric shapes and points. This is something I have experience with as a civil engineer. This is why the idea of studying biological systems as interconnected organisms interacting in symbiosis, ecology, was so revolutionary.
This is Ellen Marie Chens translation of Verse 1 of the Tao Te Ching:
Quoting Lao Tzu
As Lao Tzu sees it, or at least as I see Lao Tzu seeing it, when something is nameless, unspoken, it doesnt really exist. It is a formless, nameless unity - the Tao. When it is named, it is brought into existence as the multiplicity of the world as we experience it - the ten thousand things. I think this is similar to Kants idea of noumena and phenomena. Ive always thought that it would be possible to experience the unspoken unity without words, although I have never been certain. In the article from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy on the phenomenology of self-consciousness that Joshs linked for me, the author identifies a similar kind of wordless experience as pre-reflective self-consciousness.
As I noted, Im not really satisfied with any of these. I do like the Kant quote. At least I can say Because Kant says so to my detractors.
Your tone in your role as historian of (certain) ideas has importance because in my view you're sounding the imminent death knell of non-physicalist ideologies.
Quoting Tom Storm
I understand from the above you're saying consciousness studies and QM provide defenders of discredited ideologies with grasping, eleventh-hour attempts at redemption of their beliefs.
Is your appraisal of the science-guided zeitgeist correct?
Science is one way of looking at the world. It's a good way, but not the only way. Subjective experience is not something magical or exotic. We all sit here in the whirling swirl of it all day every day. Why would something so common and familiar be different from all the other aspects of the world? I just don't see what the big deal is.
I think I am dealing more in reason than history. Is it not the case that the focus of current discussions about the viability of physicalism is focused on the nature of consciousness- esp the hard question? QM is playing a similar role. If this is incorrect please show me. Happy to change my view.
The sources that @Joshs and @Wayfarer linked me to, which were written in mostly plain English, were interesting and helpful. As I noted in a previous post, they seem like psychology to me more than they do philosophy.
Quoting Constance
I just don't get this. There is a lot that is not understood, but I can't see why it would be "foreign to understanding."
Husserl devoted considerable energy to rejecting charges of psychologism i.e. that phenomenology was a form of psychology or could be reduced to it. Too great a task to try and explain, besides Im not expert in it.
Quoting frank
Its about whether consciousness has any intrinsic meaning, what is the meaning of being. The mechanistic analysis never noticed that.
Given the limits of my understanding of phenomenology, it would be silly to take my statements as anything more than a first impression.
Again, how does this span the epistemic distance?
Ah, the nothing. It is such a great, disturbing read. What thoughts have you here?
Have you perhaps made epistemic transmission problematical by conceiving of consciousness and its learning process as being predicated upon a discrete self/other bifurcation? Have you contemplated a self/other complex surface semi-symmetrical in its continuity?
Quoting Constance
Quoting Constance
Here again I see instances of an assumption of self/other bifurcation. If you're committed to bifurcation, why?
Can the action-at-a-distance of the gravitational field elevate our conjecture (re:epistemic connectivity) above the simple self/other bifurcation?
I too am a newbie in this area but for whatever reason, I find that Husserl really resonates with me. Incidentally theres another good online resource here
https://iep.utm.edu/phenom/
Your statement implies the belief commonplace subjective experiences should be easily accessible to the objectivist methodologies of science. It also implies the subjective/objective distinction is a trivial matter and should therefore be no problem for science. Scientists examining "the hard problem" indicate how, regarding this question, the division between subjective/objective is deep and treacherous. Why do you disagree with them?
Quoting ucarr
Your above observations do not answer my question. Are you unwilling to answer it?
My conjecture about a complex surface with some topology of invariance assumes a unity of subjective self and observed world (of material objects) so, what epistemic distance?
Neither of these statements is true.
Quoting ucarr
You haven't provided any evidence that "Scientists examining "the hard problem" indicate how, regarding this question, the division between subjective/objective is deep and treacherous."
Quoting ucarr
You're kind of a dick.
May I then offer you something that I found very helpful? It is here:
Hope I linked this properly. Derrida is saying language's relation to the world is indeterminate. References to dogs and cats and whatever really issue from a kind of associative field of meanings formed by regions of related ideas. Bennington is wonderful in this.
Also, an essay very accessible is Structure, Sign and Play.
So when I say foreign to understanding, I am saying that the idea that a tree is referred to, has some singularity in the thought of the tree (implicitly there in the familiarity I feel when I encounter tree) and that there is some directness of apprehension of what is before me as I witness the tree--all of this is wrong, because my direct encounter is really a diffuse meaning created out of the aggregate of many meanings. Ever since Kierkegaard argued that the world of actualities is qualitatively different from the language and the logic that the understanding clings to, I have tried to deal with this impossible relationship between me and the tree. This world is an astounding imposition on us, filled with powerful intuitions and dimensions of affectivity. I am reminded of Wittgenstein who wanted, and petitioned until was allowed, to face death in WWI. You may think he was out of his mind for wanting to go the the front, but this is what strikes me: He wanted true intimacy with a world that transcended the complacencies of thought and its categories. Sure, he was suicidal, but it was the passion of engagement I admire. He felt the world's impossible gravitas; why impossible? Because language brings the world to heel! And in doing so, we lose something profound about being here (qua being here).
I am a bit on the outside of philosophy, quite frankly. I am far less interested in understanding Husserl or Heidegger than I am interested in understanding the world. That is one way to put it. They are useful to my attempt to understand what is means to be thrown into a world that is utterly foreign to the formal structures of thought's attempts to address actuality.
Eckhart wrote, I pray to God to be rid of God. He understood that the self-in-language thereby rises up in thought, but finds itself bound and limited by it once it reaches a terminal point of indeterminacy in which meanings simply "run out" as Hillary Putnam once put it.
Keep in mind that even if Derrida is right, it changes nothing regarding the quality of what the world in its givenness yields. It does help us see that language does not speak the world.
The things you are saying are very alien to my understanding of the world. I will watch the video.
No, I've never thought of it. Tell me briefly how a "surface semi-symmetrical in its continuity" would do what needs to be done here.
Quoting ucarr
Because the assumption of a non-bifurcated world simply needs explaining. That is all. I am not saying such a bifurcation is indeed the way the world is. You are invited to tell me why it isn't, of you can do so plainly.
Quoting ucarr
You suggest gravity is inherently epistemic?
Quoting ucarr
You assume a unity. Is this a mathematical/geometrical unity?
I think the following list of your statements within this conversation support my interpretation above. In my opinion, they intend to show objectivist science is well on its way to explaining the subjective mind.
Quoting T Clark
Quoting T Clark
Quoting T Clark
Quoting T Clark
Quoting T Clark
Quoting T Clark
Wayfarer has already done this on our behalf.
Quoting Wayfarer
Quoting T Clark
Was the above ad hominem incited by,
Quoting ucarr
I think your answer to this question is the essence of our debate. Why does the issue of this question enrage you? If I've enraged you by some other means, cite an example. If you're not enraged, why the hate speech?
I don't think I'd say "well on its way," but I think cognitive scientists and psychologists have made significant progress. Either way, that's not what you said I said. You said:
Quoting ucarr
I didn't say or imply either of those things.
Quoting ucarr
It was not an ad hominem argument, it was an insult. The fact you don't recognize the difference tells me everything I need to know about whether or not to take you seriously.
I often wonder just how much of what we believe is arrived at through such personal processes - some ideas seem to neatly complement our existing aesthetics and values. I find Husserl, such as I have read, engaging too.
Nicely put. I suspect this inadvertently summarises my position of not needing to disagree with those grand skeptics of grand narratives in philosophy, whilst simultaneously accepting that none of this makes a skerrick of difference to my actual life.
Quoting Constance
This sounds quite old fashioned and perhaps seven quasi religious. I'm not sure I have ever thought the world could be understood. The more time I spend on this site, the more this seems reasonable. :wink:
Let me call it Scientific Logos.
Consider the following parallel,
As a crystal chandelier is a workup (constructive metabolism) from a handful of sand, so a conversation between two humans is a workup (constructive metabolism) from a moon orbiting its planet (earth_moon).
Under the implications of the above parallel, consciousness is an emergent property of two (or more) interacting gravitational fields. Thus a conversation, such as the one we're having, is the deluxe version
(replete with all of the bells and whistles) of the moon orbiting the earth and causing the tides and global air currents that shape earth's weather.
Language, being the collective of the systemic boundary permutations of a context or medium, cognitively parallels the phenomena animating the material universe.
That we humans have language suggests in our being we are integral to a complex surface of animate phenomena via intersection of gravitational fields. Action-at-a-distance elevates the self/other, subject/object bifurcation to a living history with unified, internally consistent and stable points-of-view better known as the selves of human (and animal) society.
Under constraint of brevity, a good thing, let me close with a short excerpt from my short essay on the great triumvirate of gravity-consciousness-language.
There is a direct connection between human consciousness and the gravitational field.
Gravitation is the medium of consciousness.
One can say that the gravitational attraction between two material bodies is physical evidence that those material bodies are aware of each other.
Under this construction, consciousness is an emergent phenomenon arising from the gravitational field.
This tells us that the study of consciousness (and especially the hard problem of consciousness) begins with the work of the physicist.
Gravity waves, the existence of which has been established, can also be called waves of consciousness.
Since matter is the substrate of consciousness, one can infer that the material universe is fundamentally configured to support and sustain consciousness.
Just as there can be geometrization of gravitation through relativity, there can be geometrization of consciousness through gravitation. This is a claim held by astrologers dating back to antiquity.
The (material) universe itself is a conscious being.
Don't confuse "easily accessible to the objectivist methodologies of science." with "easily solvable with the objectivist methodologies of science." I know you know neuroscience is hard work.
Quoting T Clark
By my account, you trivialize the subjective/objective distinction when, firstly you declare the (objectivist) "principles we already are aware of" are good enough to cover both the objective and the subjective and secondly when you deny without argument the hard problem.
ad ho·mi·nem | ?ad ?häm?n?m |
adjective
(of an argument or reaction) directed against a person rather than the position they are maintaining: vicious ad hominem attacks.
Your insult, as I said, was directed against me, not against my argument. Your confirm the truth of this with your following statement,
Quoting T Clark
Well, an insult is a personal attack having nothing to do with a debate about ideas.
Quoting T Clark
You make a lot of declarations unsupported by arguments. In this conversation you refuse to answer a central question about your assumptions. I always support my declarations with arguments. Usually I answer honestly tough questions that threaten my argument with implosion. By these standards, I'm much more serious than your are.
:up:
Quoting Tom Storm
In my case, the affinity I discovered with Husserl had a lot to do with the convergences between phenomenology and Buddhist abhidharma (philosophical psychology) which I learned about through Buddhist studies. That seminal book "The Embodied Mind: Cognitive Science and Human Experience" by Varela, Thompson and Rosch, draws many parallels between them.
One is that both place a strong emphasis on the role of perception in our experience of the world. In Abhidharma, perception is seen as an active process of constructing meaning out of sensory data, and it is understood as being a fundamental aspect of the way that we make sense of experience. Likewise in phenomenology, perception is seen as foundational to experience, and the meaning that we attribute to the things that we perceive is central to our understanding. This ties in with the phenomenological idea of the 'lebenswelt' (life-world) and 'umwelt' (meaning-world), which is very different to the idea of the objective domain completely separate from the observer. It recognises the sense in which we 'construct', rather than simply observe, the world (which is also the understanding behind constructivism in philosophy.)
There's also a subtle convergence between the Buddhist principle of ??nyat? (emptiness) and the Husserlian epoché (suspension of judgement):
Quoting Thanissaro Bhikkhu, What is Emptiness
Epoché, or "suspension of judgment" likewise involves setting aside one's preconceptions and assumptions, and simply observing and describing phenomena as they present themselves to consciousness, without attempting to interpret or rationalise.
There are some similarities between these: both involve a type of detachment or non-attachment, and a willingness to suspend judgment and simply observe without trying to interpret or explain with the caveat that the two practices have developed within different philosophical traditions and have very different connotations and implications. (And it actually goes even further back, to the legendary origins of Pyrrhonian scepticism and it's purportedly Buddhist origins in Pyrrho of Elis' voyage to India).
Similar notions have long resonated with me too.
There is something here. but the language has to change. First, remove the science-speak, for you have stepped beyond this, for keep in mind that when consciousness and its epistemic reach is achieved by identifying object relations as gravitational in nature, and then placing the epistemic agency in this, as you call it, logos, you are redefining gravity as a universal, not law of attraction, but connectivity and identity, and I do remember thinking something like this was a way to account for knowledge relationships: identity. The distance is closed because there is no distance between objects that are not separated. And I mentioned that Husserl did hold something like this, but the "logos" was not scientific, it was a phenomenological nexus of intentionality. And since gravity is at this level of inquiry a strictly naturalistic term (to talk like Husserl), the description of what this unity is about has to go to a more fundamental order of thought, phenomenology. Gravity is now a phenomenon, an appearing presence. Ask a phenomenologist what a force is, what the curviture of space is, and you will first have see that these are conceived in theory and they are terms of contingency. One doesn't witness space or forces, but only effects from which forces are inferred and the names only serve to ground such things in a scientific vocabulary.
Not gravity, with its connotative baggage, but phenomena, for this is all that is ever witnessed, ever can be witnessed. If it is going to be a universal connectivity of all things, I do think you are right to note that there is this term gravity that abides in everything and binds everything. I would remove the term and realize this connectivity does not belong to a scientific logos. It must be a term that is inclusive of the consciousness in which the whole affair is conceived and the epistemic properties are intended to explain. And this consciousness is inherently affective, ethical, aesthetic, and so on. For the nexus that connects me to my lamp and intimates knowing-in-identity is always already one that cares, in interested, fascinated, repulsed, and so on. A connection of epistemology not only cannot be conceived apart from these, it must have then as their principle feature, because these are the most salient things in all of existence.
Of course, gravity sounds a lot like God, then. For God is, sans the troublesome history and narratives, a metaethical, meta aesthetic metavalue grounding of the world.
You may not agree with the above, but for me, I think you are on to something. Gravity, I will repeat, never really was "gravity", for this is a term of contingency, See Rorty's Contingency, Irony and Solidarity for a nice account of this. When the matter goes to some grand foundation of connectivity, are we not in metaphysics? Or on its threshold?
Curious. Did you really think philosophy was just talking about itself? What is responsible for this is analytic philosophy, which has gotten lost, endlessly trying to squeeze new meanings out of familiar mundane thinking. They have, as Kierkegaard put is, forgotten they exist. Philosophy should begin with encounter, not some entangled string of thought. This comes afterward.
Quoting Constance
I'm very grateful to you, Constance. Thank-you for you time, attention, knowledge and wisdom as applied to my thoughts about the mode of the phenomenon of consciousness.
I can see, in an early state of understanding, not yet in sharp focus, some of the truth of your claim consciousness is more at metaphysics than at physics. I therefore see value in developing my thinking towards effecting the transition suggested.
I'm supposing, tentatively, that physically grounded consciousness as metaphysics has for one of its essentials the phenomenon/noumenon relationship. This directs my research towards Husserl and, before him, Kant.
Encouragement such as you've given me motivates my presence here.
When you add up the masses of all elementary particles that make up a neuron, their total mass is the mass of the "neuron"; there is no additional mass provided by the "neuron" as a collection, as a whole. The absence of an additional mass provided by the "neuron" is the result of the fact that the locus of the gravitational force is only at the level of elementary particles, not at the level of their collections.
The locus of all known physical forces is at the level of elementary particles, and when you add up the forces of all elementary particles that make up a neuron, their total force is the force of the "neuron"; there is no additional force provided by the "neuron" as a collection, as a whole.
So it seems that a neuron doesn't really exist. And the same applies to collections of neurons. Consciousness seems to be somehow "generated" by collections of neurons, or seems to "emerge" somehow from collections of neurons. But what if consciousness actually is collections of neurons? What if qualia are collections of neurons? That would rid the metaphysical picture of mysterious "generation" or "emergence". But the fact remains that qualia as collections of neurons (or perhaps even as neurons themselves, which are collections of elementary particles) don't contribute their own mass and forces in addition to the masses and forces of their constituent elementary particles, and so qualia seem to be causally inert, epiphenomenal. Yet, if qualia are collections of elementary particles then qualia can exert causal influence indirectly, via their constituent elementary particles.
My point is that collections of elementary particles are not just useful fictions but real things, different from and additional to the elementary particles, even though the collections don't have a direct causal influence, only an indirect one via their parts. That may explain how qualia are seemingly nonexistent although we all know them to exist as contents of our own consciousness or parts of our own brain.
And by the way, elementary particles themselves may actually be collections of even more fundamental parts, which we have not discovered yet, or which cannot be physically probed even in principle. If collections are not real things and elementary particles are collections then even elementary particles are not real things. Then, are there any real things at all or is everything a fiction? Are only empty collections (non-composite things) real things - or would that be an arbitrary assumption?
I've been rethinking this. Strikes me that if what I say here is true, Taoism as presented in the Tao Te Ching is also psychology. Which it is, of course, but that doesn't stop it from being philosophy too.
It's not just the question of meaning, nor just how it works. It's the question of how these two domains could ever be bridged. "How does it work, so that it gives rise to meaning?" But, I think this asks too much at once. You only need to answer, "How does it work, so that it gives rise to audio and video." And from there, you can answer "How does audio and video give rise to meaning?".
Similarly, "How does the brain give rise to qualia?" And "How do qualia give rise to the full features of the mind?"
No. It seems you're saying that mechanisms cannot possibly bring about consciousness, but without giving any reason why not.
I've been reading up on biosemiotics and noticed this paragraph about intentionality at a cellular level:
Quoting Marcello Barbieri, A Short History of Biosemiosis
It makes the point that living beings are intrinsically interpretive, even on the most basic level, long before language and rationality have entered the picture. Whereas the strict mechanist/materialist view is that living beings can be understood simply as the sum of cellular transactions on a physical or biochemical level. This also seems to be the gist of your disagreement with Isaac.
Quoting litewave
Isn't it just lumpen materialism? You still haven't allowed for intentionality other than as a byproduct or epiphenomenon of these essentially unintentional relations.
Intentionality? That seems like an easy problem, not the hard one: a machine following a goal. For example a self-driving car is "intending" to get to a destination (without running over pedestrians). Or a killer robot is "intending" to kill someone.
It's not analytic philosophy that's responsible for my view. It's the net product of reading all contributions. :wink:
For organisms evolved by random mutations and natural selection, many goals seem to be derived from the primary goal of survival and replication. This primary goal originated when some purely unintentional (goalless) entities happened to have (by random strokes of luck) properties that sustained them in their environment, which resulted in the unsurprising fact that... they kept surviving and thus became more prevalent in the environment. And so it started to seem like they were following a "goal" of survival. Later some of these entities happened to replicate and thus kept on "surviving" in their offspring. After some time the environment was filled with entities that seemed to have the "goal" of not only surviving but also replicating. And as time went by and the surviving and replicating entities happened to acquire additional properties that made them do various things, the entities seemed to acquire additional goals, many of them supporting the primary goal of survival and replication while goals that hindered survival or replication tended to cause their unlucky carriers to die out. Sure enough, some of the new goals were more or less neutral with respect to survival or replication, and such goals were carried forward in the entities that survived and replicated.
You do see how the assertion that 'something just happened' does not actually amount to any kind of rationale?
But things do happen, and this particular thing (survival) then tended to repeat itself and become more prevalent, simply because that is what surviving entities do.
I've absorbed quite a bit of his work in the last few months but from experience this forum is generally hostile to his orientation.
Kudos for that! I only encountered them tangentially in Comparative Religion, Jung was anathema in the psych department. (Im listening to the audio book of Kastrups Idea of the World whilst working out. Its pretty dry but all grist to the mill.)
You were talking about being. It's a twin of the nothing.
You asked me a question and I spent significant time and effort providing a respectful response. You did not respond to that.
Quoting T Clark
The argument I was making was specifically about the assumptions behind modern scientific method, and how it tends to construe the world in certain terms - namely as something mind-independent and inherently existent (sorry for the jargon). The hard problem then arises because despite the astonishing reach of modern science, it can't really find, or account for, the nature of mind. And then, that 'eliminativism', typified by Daniel Dennett and his colleagues, tries to explain this away by positing the mind as an illusion (regardless that illusions themselves can only occur in minds.)
Now, if scientists generally were more aware of Kant, then the whole situation might be different. But I think awareness of Kant's philosophy is pretty minimal amongst mainstream scientists. On the whole they tend to favour cognitive realism.
As for the Tao Te Ching, it is a statement from that particular source of the perennial philosophy - you could find comparable aphorisms in Christian mystical theology, but again, for those who understand the world that way, there is no hard problem (or any problem :-) )
[quote=ChatGPT]Scientism is the belief that the scientific method is the best or only way to understand the world and solve problems. It is often associated with the belief that science can or should be applied to all areas of knowledge, including those that are traditionally outside the scope of science, such as morality and the meaning of life. Some people view scientism as a positive approach that can lead to new discoveries and insights, while others see it as a narrow-minded or reductionist way of thinking that oversimplifies complex issues.[/quote]
Daniel Dennett is 'Professor Scientism'. His book Darwin's Dangerous Idea lays it all out. He says that Darwinian evolution is a 'universal acid' that eats through everything it touches. And the very first thing it touches is philosophy!
This is the topic of my two first (and possibly only) essays on Medium.
I have every confidence you will be better at this than I am.
Consider, if you will, the one abiding thought that dominates my thinking: The world is phenomena. Once this is simply acknowledged, axiomatically so, then things fall into place. The brain is no longer the birth of phenomena, phenomena issue forth from phenomena, and what phenomena are is an open concept. Conscious open brain surgery shows a connection between brain and experiences, thoughts, emotions, memories, but does not show generative causality. Indeed, and this is an extraordinary point: If the brain were the generative source of experience, every occasion of witnessing a brain would be itself brain generated. This is the paradox of physicalism. What is being considered here, in your claim about gravity and its phenomenal universality (keeping in mind that gravity is not, of course, used in phenomenology's lexicon. But the attempt to bridge phenomenology with knowledge claims about the world of objects that are "out there" and "not me" is permitted {is it not?} to lend and borrow vocabularies with science. An interesting point to consider) is a "third perspective". Recall how Wittgenstein argued that we cannot discuss what logic is, for logic would be presupposed in the discussing. You would need some third perspective that would be removed from that which is being analyzed; but then, this itself would need the same, and so forth. This is the paradox of metaphysics, I guess you could call it, the endless positing of a knowledge perspective that itself, to be known, would require the same accounting as that which is being explained. An infinite regression.
But if you follow, in a qualified way, Husserl's basic claim that what we call appearances are really an ontology of intuition (though I don't recall he ever put it like this), whereby the givenness of the world IS the foundation we seek, the "third perspective" which is a stand alone, unassailable reality, then, while the "what is it?" remains indeterminate, for language just cannot "speak" this (see above), we can allow the scientific term "gravity" to be science's counterpart to the apparent need for an accounting of a transcendental ego in order to close the epistemic distance between objects and knowledge.
Just a thought.
Are you referring to Wilder Penfield's research here?
But how is this to be taken? I remember reading Hegel once, and he, as I recall, placed the nothing in dialectical opposition to being, thereby producing becoming, which God works out through our historical progress. That is pretty out there, but I have to look again to see how he spells it out.
I guess calling it the "twin" of being lies here: For Heidegger, being is not just entangled with language; rather, language is being, part and parcel of human dasein, so when we talk about what we are, our existence, we face language constructions, open to interpretative historical conditions, and there is no finality to interpretation. I like the way he puts it in The Origin of the Work of Art as he acknowledges that art can only be defined by the artwork, but the art work needs a definition to do the defining: He writes:
[i]Thus we are compelled to follow the circle. This is neither a makeshift nor a defect.
To enter upon this path is the strength of thought, to continue on it is the feast of
thought, assuming that thinking is a craft. Not only is the main step from work to art a
circle like the step from art to work, but every separate step that we attempt circles in
this circle.[/i]
the strength of thought and a feast of thought, this is where the nothing comes in, for there is this impossible "outside" of the "unhiddenness" of what we deal with that we face when we encounter a creative moment: the nothing of an unmade future possibility. Our freedom is the nothing.
Your question was "Any examples come to mind of sciences or scientists that do?" I can see I didn't answer that question very well, although I think my answers were relevant to how science might examine consciousness effectively. As I said in a previous post:
Quoting T Clark
I wouldn't be surprised if psychologists have completed studies that are relevant to those questions, but I can't name any. I have set a new task for myself. On the other hand, if I'm right that the phenomena phenomenologists describe are subject to empirical verification or falsification, phenomenologists have made factual statements without evidence. I've been wondering whether the insights they describe are based on introspection, but I haven't seen acknowledgement that that is the case. I consider introspection a valid form of evidence, at least potentially.
Quoting Wayfarer
I think the Tao Te Ching, as well as Kant and Heidegger, make statements that are, at least potentially, empirically verifiable.
I think he is fascinating. And one must, I think, though this is something philosophers would find insulting to their dignity, consider near death experiences. Now, I am a committed skeptic, and it is hard for me to be impressed by personal narratives that tend to be careless and wandering and ridiculous. But I have taken the time to listen to these nde accounts and I must say they are not liars. Nor are they mistaken in the intuitive encounters they talk about. Some are simply astounding.
Of course, I'm looking for trouble bringing something like this up here.
Not with me, you're not. :wink:
Quoting T Clark
I think you're stretching the definition of empiricism. [s]Heidegger[/s] Heisenberg is an especially interesting case, though, because he was an atomic physicist, not just a philosopher, but, you know, his philosophical stance was very much influence by Plato. But then you're getting into the whole 'philosophical interpretations of quantum mechanics', which is a whole other rabbit hole. That book I often mention, Quantum, by Manjit Kumar, is an excellent source, though, with a lot about Heidegger.
But anyway, I think if you judge the original Chalmer's essay on its merits, it makes a pretty clear-cut case. It's about something very specific - without having to refer to Taoism or Kant or quantum physics.
//amended to reflect misreading in my first response.//
I've read it, but I'll read it again. You say "without having to refer to Taoism or Kant or quantum physics." I don't have to refer to Taoism or Kant. I refer to them because I think they are relevant. As for quantum mechanics, I have often said the so called "weirdness" of QM has nothing to do with consciousness.
BTW the mention of the Dao De Ching reminded me of a book I'm currently reading, which I've found to be the closest thing to my own preoccupations and ways of thinking I think I've ever come across. It deals primarily with different aspects of non-dualism in Advaita Vedanta, Daoism and Buddhism and also gives some consideration to Heidegger and Derrida in that context..
You've probably heard of it or even read it (if not, I highly recommend it, it brings together strands of thought I've been pondering for years): it's titled Non-Dualism by David Loy.
Yes silly me. I was just reading something about him. :yikes:
I don't see any paradox here. Can you explain?
Quoting Wayfarer
Then your challenge is self-immunised. If you define a 'machine' as human-made and then declare that anything human-made, by definition, has in it the intention of the human manufacturer, you couldn't possibly identify such a machine.
If I built a machine which genuinely had intention, there'd be no way to tell since, by your definition, it would always have my intention too.
Do I have my parent's intention? Or does the 'building' have to take place in a workshop?
"Machine: an apparatus using mechanical power and having several parts, each with a definite function and together performing a particular task."
Are there machines that are not made by humans?
You yourself, and humans generally, are not machines, but organisms, and also intentional agents, I would have thought.
You can define 'machine' however you like. The point was that you can't, in the same breath, say that machines have no intention empirically (we haven't found any which do yet) and say that machines can't have their own intention by definition.
If you're defining 'machine' such that it cannot, by definition, have its own intention, then the failure to find any such machine in the real world carries no epistemic weight. Of course there aren't any, you just defined 'machine' as being those things without intention of their own.
Its like me saying that Jabberwockies are monsters with red fangs and then saying "if you think I'm wrong, find me a Jabberwocky without red fangs" whatever you find, I'll just say "that's not a Jabberwocky, I said Jabberwockies were monsters with red fangs"
No I can't. A machine is not bucket of water, or a fruit-bearing plant, or an animal. I'm not going to engage in pointless arguments.
I meant within reason, obviously. The definition (using the one you provided) does not specify whether such an object has intentions, must be created by humans, must be non-organic,... All these nuances are what's meant by the colloquial expression 'you can define X however you want', as well you know.
When was the last time you responded to someone who says "you can be whatever you want" with "no I can't, I can't be a zebra"?
Deliberately uncharitable readings are a poor substitute for actual argument.
So, within the range of possible definitions of 'machine' (if that's clearer) it remains the case that you've chosen to define it in such a way as to self-immunise any response against your argument.
If you define 'machine' as something made by humans and as such containing human intention, then every example given meeting your definition will, by definition, contain human intention. It's therefore not evidence that we haven't yet found any 'machines' with intents of their own. By your own definition, any such object would automatically cease to qualify as a 'machine'.
We prepare to point appropriate symbols at the stimulus: pictures of just the right shade, words selecting the right pictures. And we prepare to point other symbols at the biological activity that we infer effects the process of preparation. We find it useful, and generally harmless, to equivocate (in talk and in thought) between word, picture, stimulus, associated stimuli, and neural process. Unsurprisingly we often have to unpick an apparently reliable (because habitual) account alleging that a picture glows, somewhere inside our head.
Quoting Nagel/Chalmers
The need to prepare to select pictures having the right luminosity when illuminated, so as to associate the stimulus with an appropriate range of stimuli, and of words and of objects.
Quoting Nagel/Chalmers
Pictures satisfying learnt pictorial conventions of perspective.
Quoting Nagel/Chalmers
Not another experience in the sense of another wonderful ghostly correlate of neural activity, but another (wonderful) physical process of readying to select among sounds to associate with the presented sound, thereby contributing to an ongoing classification and ordering of the world of sound events. A process soaked in the same multiple confusion of use with mention: reference to stimulus with reference to symbol; symbol with neural readying for use of symbol; stimulus with neural readying for use of symbol.
Quoting Nagel/Chalmers
Where the associations may be especially deep and cross-modally disruptive.
Quoting Nagel/Chalmers
There is physiological trauma and convulsions, and there is interpretation of these through language and other symbol systems. And with the interpretation, endemic intellectual confusion, and habitual implication of an internal observer.
Quoting Nagel/Chalmers
In a manner of speaking, which benefits from translation into literal analysis, in terms of preparation to manipulate and interpret diagrams and visual talk.
Quoting Nagel/Chalmers
The physiological turbulence, and then the interpreting it through language and other symbol systems, especially (and usefully and often truly) with respect to social and physical threats and opportunities.
Quoting Nagel/Chalmers
The tendency to confuse the continuity of actual scenery with the continuity of an internal picture show.
Quoting Nagel/Chalmers
There is a topography of more and less appropriate linguistic (and otherwise symbolic) interpretations and reactions to the situation in which the organism finds itself.
Quoting Nagel/Chalmers
But not of a ghost in the machine.
Do you think that's what Chalmers and Nagel are suggesting? That a picture glows in the head?
I'm not saying that mechanisms can't bring about consciousness. I'm saying that the mere classification of signals is, obviously, not consciousness.
Maybe so. But the first awareness of the concept of being accompanies recognition of nothingness. Nothingness is the background that allows being to appear to the intellect.
Quoting Constance
I thought Hagel said becoming is primal and being and nothing emerge from it on analysis.
In your DVD example you ended...
Quoting hypericin
It doesn't. It produces changes in the state and momentum of fundamental particles. We just 'classify' those particular states and momentums as 'audio' and 'video'.
Pretty much. Do I slander them?
Quoting Nagel/Chalmers
Like those, but delivered from outside.
How would you paraphrase
Quoting Nagel/Chalmers
?
They're talking about experience. Remember that pan-psychism is on the table as a possible explanation. I've never heard of the glowing picture theory.
Quoting bongo fury
I wouldn't. I'd say that if you aren't willing to read an essay or book by Chalmers, you probably aren't really interested in the issue.
Rather than saying "the world is phenomena", I say "the world is noumena" and phenomena, via the agency of the brain, is a higher-order feedback loop i.e., a two-tiered construction.
The world as noumena entails the axiom plane, a parallel to the critical line of Riemann's zeta function.
Later for these things. Let me return to some basics of gravity_consciousness_language.
Note - cons = consciousness
The trick of cons might be that it's permanently inter-relational. I can't be fully reified.
Subjective mind with its sustainable personal POV is higher order feedback looping with vertical stacking. Let me elaborate.
Consider the world of the story in a printed novel. As we travel about with the book, does the world of the story travel about with us?
The world of the book examples insuperable context. Where is that world?
Its not in the black ink marking the letters, nor in the words imaging the letters, nor in the white spaces of the pages contrasting the words-sentences-paragraphs-chapters of the novel, nor in the neural networks of the memory circuits and other cognitive circuits of the readers brain-mind, nor in the interplay of the readers life amidst the circumambient material universe, but rather in the vast micro-synchro-mesh of all of these things.
Where is the world of our conscious experience?
Just as a material object perceived through the lens of relativity presses down upon the stretchy fabric of spacetime, creating a gravity well of curved space, likewise a sentient being presses down upon the stretchy fabric of physically real inter-relatedness.
Inter-relatedness perceived through the lens of gravity-based cons becomes the curved space around the presence of a sentient being. In everyday language we call this personality and the influence of personality. Picture the super-fine linen of inter-relatedness of the everyday world of material things and human society, for example.
A person like you, Constance, or a person like me, or any person, exhibits being (to use some language of Heidegger) as a gravity well pressing down upon the micro-synchro-mesh of (physically real) inter-relatedness, thus making your presence felt as a warpage of the physical inter-relatedness. This is a kind of fluid dynamics, but the flowing is of physical-gravitational cons, instead of water.
The trick to understanding how sentience connects to its physical substrate, in this case, gravity, might be understanding that sentience is permanently interstitial. An interstice is a gap of empty space separating two material things. As an example, superfine linen is a mesh of cotton fibers separated by empty spaces. Well, the linen is no less empty space than it is cotton fibers. Where is the empty space of the linen? Its defined by the cotton fibers as the interstices. Importantly, the interstices only exist inter-relationally. Remove the cotton fibers, arranged precisely, and the interstices cease to exist.
In parallel, remove the gravity-based micro-synchro-mesh of sentience grounded in the physical, and POV, the self of sentience, vanishes.
This is why the radiant presence of sentience is wholly missed by reductive materialism.
This is what David Chalmers, in different words, refers to in his exposition of the hard problem. The hard problem is all about the extreme softness, or subtlety of the physical presence of sentience.
Lets take a look at the soft physicality of sentience.
The feedback looping of a memory circuit contains subjective-mind, POV-of-the-self content. Its presence, however, is not simply in the electro-magnetic current flow of the feedback loop, the gravitationally-modulated physical medium of cons. Its a feedback loop precisely because the first pass of the cognitive circuit is the noumenal part, the thing-in-itself of physical cons. Noumenal cons is the collective cons of the sentient universe. Once noumenal cons feeds back upon itself as a memory loop, the phenomenal part of physical cons propagates. Memory resides in the echo or interstices separating noumenal cons from phenomenal cons. The feedback process is the second pass wherein a sampling rate via comparison captures some (not all) of the noumenal part of cons as memory.
Phenomenal cons is rooted in memory, or the sampling rate of the second pass. Intuition = low sampling rate (gut reaction). Full cognition = high sampling rate (reflection).
The trick of understanding cons is that it is an echo of what has already happened in the noumenal part. Our cons experience of our existence is a memory.
Where is the world of existence? We must ask ourselves Where is memory?
Memory resides in the interstices of the modulations of higher-order cognition i.e., first pass_second pass EM current. Its the ghostly memory within the mesh of inter-relatedness. Its a cloud-like distribution of the modulations of interwoven empty spaces.
Its the ghost misting within the feedback looping of memory.
So am I.
Quoting frank
So experience has to mean a ghostly extra layer, in the first place? Seems presumptuous.
Quoting frank
Really? Dennett's Cartesian picture show?
Quoting frank
I imagine they would be disappointed. Negotiating paraphrases is an obvious tool of constructive debate.
Quoting frank
Oh, you.
Chalmers is pretty rigorous. Check him out.
There's a big difference between saying that introspection is potentially a valid form of evidence, and having actually accepted any incidences of introspection as valid evidence. The former is a statement meant to imply an open mind, the latter provides proof as to whether the person's mind really is open.
If you actually read his stuff and you're still this confused about what he's talking about, I don't know what to tell you. You may have something akin to aphantasia so that you have no frame of reference for understanding qualia.
I've heard some pretty sycophantic stuff on this thread, but this one takes the biscuit.
"If you disagree with Chalmers you must have brain damage"
We can't get to the question of whether Chalmers' view is true or false because there's no agreement about what his view is.
See, I told you that without resorting to insults, so I'm the better man. Obviously.
....is not the same as...
Quoting frank
Although I'd say that if you're still confused about the difference the only explanation I can think of is that you have some damage to your posterior medial frontal cortex, which has been shown to regulate the degree to which we take opposing viewpoints seriously.
It's either agree with me, or pop off to your nearest quack, I'm afraid.
Go Somalia! :rofl:
If you accept the brain as the generative source of consciousness and its phenomena, you are also a brain doing the accepting, so the question goes to where the authority of the accepting lies, for one simply can't get beyond the brain-itself-as-phenomenon, for to affirm a brain as not a phenomenon, one would have to stand apart from a phenomena. Or: How can consciousness position itself to "see" consciousness in order to discuss what it is? It's like explaining logic: explanations are inherently logical. This is a complaint waged toward Kant: "pure reason" is itself constructed of, if you will, the impurities of conceiving and naming it. Also against Husserl: there can be no reasonable talk about "pure phenomena" unless you can escape the language used to talk about it, which is no more pure than anything else.
I am not following your argument. I am stuck at "one simply can't get beyond the brain-itself-as-phenomenon, for to affirm a brain as not a phenomenon, one would have to stand apart from a phenomena." Can you expand on this?
Is it that you are committed to the idea that "everything is a phenomenon," and therefore there is no such "thing" as a brain? If so, then you are merely denying the premise. The only contradiction here is between the premise "the brain is the generative source of consciousness" and your commitment to phenomenology.
I don't see a problem here. Is it self-reference that is giving you difficulty? Self-reference is not necessarily paradoxical.
Much of what I know about how the mind works is based on paying attention to how my mind works. I think introspection is the source of a lot of psychology and probably most of philosophy of mind.
I have a friend who has, as she puts it, no minds eye. That doesn't mean she doesn't have visual experience, i.e. qualia. She sees things the way we do but can't create visual images in her memory or imagination.
I said "kin to." That means similar to, but not the same as.
By the way, people with aphantasia have a statistically significant higher IQ. Weird, huh?
She is one of the smartest people I know.
Sounds right. Ask her about how she found out she has aphantasia and her surprise at discovering that anybody has a "mind's eye."
This is an obstacle to creating a theory of consciousness: we're not all the same. Cognition can vary radically from one human to the next.
I think it's a real possibility that people who favor Dennett's view really are different somehow.
Quoting Isaac
Your brain classifies all sorts of things. But you are only aware of a few. That is proof that awareness involves something more, or other, than just classification.
You can build a simple neural network that classifies images of glyphs into the symbols they represent. Is such a system aware of the symbols?
This is an excellent point. Not only is it different, but everyone presumes that their own cognitive makeup is universal. Which leads to some incredibly frustrating discussions on consciousness.
I think it is important to see that he is called a rational realist for a good reason: What is determinative as to being is the semantic embeddedness of conflict in concepts. I think of Hegel, then I think of Derrida, argued that there is no singularity of a concept as in some direct reference to a thing. Rather, terms are inherently other that what they "are", meaning a cup on the table is, as a cup, deeply contextual, such that one thinks of the cup and there is, always, already there, what is not a cup. Husserl referred to regions of ideas that gather when something is brought up, like when you observe a man on the street, implicit to this singularity is latent, associated thoughts about people, streets, and so on. There is a lot that implicitly "attends" seeing the man on the street, and this is part of the structure of the seeing.
Being and nothingness have to understood like this, is my understanding. On the one hand look at the world as palpable existence that is present, and you really get none of this, says Kierkegaard. But look at it as a rational real, like Hegel, and concepts are now real, and meaning is real, and meanings are, like the cup above, not singular, but possess inherent "self sublations" that are divergent, agreeing, contradicting, preserving, and so on. Becoming is this inner dialectic of self sublating meaning.
I did have to look this up for the details. I see how becoming can be primal in that we are in our current historical setting, all we can conceive of is "of" becoming because we are, after all, in the middle of this dialectical sublation. Becoming, being and nothing are a unity, the "beginning" of which is not historical, but real/conceptual (though, of course, historical processes are the dialectical becoming, crudely put, I guess). Slavog Zizek is a Hegelian, and he puts it sort of like this, defending Hegel as one who cannot be held accountable for all he says because he is saying it IN a cultural historical frame, which is becoming, and therefore indeterminate. One can see from this where Heidegger gets his concept of historicity. Then Derrida comes along and says these contexts of historical constructs, they never really leave the "text". Derrida takes the stuffing out of metaphysics, but in doing so, makes the whole damn thing metaphysics, I think.
Still, as ever, working on this. Derrida is a very interesting way to consummate this Hegel-Heidegger evolvement of thought.
The meaning of "noumena" is complex, especially because it is now generally associated with Kant's usage, which was very much his own. Schopenhauer accused Kant of appopriating the term for his purposes without proper regard to its prior meaning for Greek and Scholastic philosophy (ref, and a criticism which I think is justified). The original meaning of "noumenal" was derived from the root "nous" (intellect) - hence "the noumenal" was an "object of intellect" - something directly grasped by reason, as distinct from by sensory apprehension. It ultimately goes back to the supposed "higher" reality of the intelligible Forms in Platonism.
In traditional philosophy, this manifested as the distinction between "how things truly are", which was discernable by the intellect, and "how they appear". This was the major subject of idealist philosophy (e.g. F. H. Bradley's famous Appearance and Reality). In this context, "appearance" was invariably deprecated as "the shadows on the wall of Plato's cave".
The emphasis on "phenomena" in phenomenology begins with the focus on the lived experience of the subject as distinct from the conceptual abstractions and emphasis on the object which was typical of scientific analysis and positivism. "Phenomenology is...a particular approach which was adopted and subsequently modified by writers, beginning with Husserl, who wanted to reaffirm and describe their being in the world as an alternative way to human knowledge, rather than objectification of so-called positivist science. Paul Ricoeur referred to phenomenological research as the descriptive study of the essential features of experience taken as a whole and a little later, stated that it has always been an investigation into the structures of experience which precede connected expression in language. (ref)
This emphasis on the subject (not on "subjectivity"!) eventually gives rise to Heidegger's 'dasein' and to the school of embodied cognition and enactivism which is still very prominent. You could paraphrase it as "naturalism is the study of what you see looking out the window. Phenomenology is a study of you looking out the window."
@Constance - in respect of the 'reflexive paradox' you might have a look at It Is Never Known but it is the Knower (.pdf) by Michel Bitbol. He is also French but his work is much more relevant to 'the hard problem of consciousness' than Jacques Derrida in my opinion. ;-)
I thought the analogy of logic clear. Tell me, what is logic? Note that whatever you say is going to have its meaning framed in logic. It would be question begging: if your conclusion is a logical entity, then you have simply assumed to be true, statements about the nature of logic, the very thing your are inquiring about. Of course, there is the alternative that you are simply accepting logic as what it is, and see, as, say, Rorty did, that there is no "outside" of this matrix of logic that can be conceived, and therefore one has to pass over this in silence, and I qualifiedly agree. But one would have to get by Heidegger: logic is a term, a taking up the world "as", and as such it faces foundational indeterminacy, which is what I defend. This is metaphysics.
[/quote] Is it that you are committed to the idea that "everything is a phenomenon," and therefore there is no such "thing" as a brain? If so, then you are merely denying the premise. The only contradiction here is between the premise "the brain is the generative source of consciousness" and your commitment to phenomenology.[/quote]
I don't see how, at the level of basic questions, anything can be posited that is not phenomena. How does one step out of, in a broad sense of the term, experience? Tell me this, and perhaps I will change my mind.
[/quote]Or: How can consciousness position itself to "see" consciousness in order to discuss what it is?
I don't see a problem here. Is it self-reference that is giving you difficulty? Self-reference is not necessarily paradoxical.[/quote]
Not self referencing, but a brain setting of self referencing. Phenomenology simply notes that all there is to refer to is phenomena, that referring, believing, anticipating, wondering, and the rest are all phenomenologically encountered. That encountering is phenomenological. What isn't? And don't get me wrong, I really want to know how this works.
I did rather ?!@#$ up the quotes. Thought it would work, but it didn't.
Quoting Constance
Simple arithmetic would do. That doesn't belong in the phenomenal domain.
That a concept is a package of opposites goes back to Plato. It shows up in a lot of philosophy including Schopenhauer and Kant. Good stuff.
Exactly. People flat out won't believe it until they see proof. Note that some of the posters in this thread thought they were being insulted.
Doesn't it? Not clear. Why not?
Because it doesn't belong to the domain of appearance. When you perform an arithmetical calculation, you're not utilising the senses through which you grasp appearances. Again, the phenomenal domain is 'what appears' as per this post.
I believe that the principal difference between Kant and Plato on this matter is that Plato believed that the human mind could have direct unmediated access to these independent intelligible objects (what Kant calls noumena), but Kant denied that the human mind could have any direct knowledge of the noumena. So for Kant all knowledge of the independent Forms is necessarily mediated through the sense appearances, phenomena, while Plato thought that the human mind could know the independent Forms directly.
Philosophical naturalism is the study of the window.
:cool:
No, that would be philosophy of science.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
The point I was labouring to make was simply that 'phenomenal' was one term in a pair, the other term being 'noumenal', similar to the pair of 'immanent-transcendent' and other such pairs of complementarities, and that Kant appropriated the term for his own uses in his philosophy.
As a philodophical naturalist myself, I'm sure you're wrong about thst, sir
Non sequitur. Physicalism is a paradigm for generating conjectures or models and not a theoretical explanation of phenomena. Also, non-physicalism (e.g. panpsychism, mind-body dualism, idealism) accounts for "consciousness" (or anything) even less so than physicalism.
Some people have suggested that the recent machine learning models exhibit conscious behavior. I have serious doubts, and most researchers would probably disagree. But at some point it's likely we will create a machine that's convincing enough where we can't tell. The movies Ex Machina and Her would be good examples of this.
Chalmers espoused a property dualism in one of his books where any informationally rich system would be conscious. He's more predisposed to finding a universal law connecting consciousness to the physical than just identifying it with certain biological creatures.
Yes, and my point is that with physicalism, the question of whether x is conscious will always be open-ended. That suggests the physicalism framework is a dead-end.
We certainly have problems drawing the line on which life forms are conscious. And we can't say what sort of sensations animals with different sensory abilities from us would have. In the far future, there could be Boltzmann brains fluctuating into existence with bizarre mental states that we can't even imagine.
I and many Kant scholars think Schopenhauer was wrong about that. At the very least his reading is unfair and simplistic.
Quoting Wayfarer
This is also how Kant used the term. The noumenon for Kant is an object of intellectual intuition (non-sensible representation of reality).
The difference is that Kant argued that such intuition is a faculty we do not have.
(Perhaps this ought to be a separate thread, but I'm more than happy to participate in one.)
Remember that intuition for Kant means very roughly perception, the representation of things in the world. Mathematical concepts, in contrast, are pure a priori products of human faculties (reason) that dont depend on experience.
Noumena are purported objects of a non-sensible grasping of the world, possible examples being Platonic forms. Thus noumena are the elements of the metaphysics that Kant is critiquing.
So mathematical concepts are objects of reason, but not objects of intuition, meaning perception. Under this scheme, which is not so far from the pre-Kantian, theyre not noumenal.
Yes. If it classifies them, it has to be aware of them at some level. How else would it classify them.
You're right. I hadn't considered the possibility that people who believe in this phenomena are just mentally different in some way. Something akin to schizophrenic delusion could be a possibility, where you become convinced of the presence of something which isn't there.
Quoting RogueAI
So, let me get this straight. The phenomena you're proposing we investigate is one which is undetectable and has no impact on anything (objects with it are indistinguishable in their action from objects without it). Why exactly would we investigate that?
Is Kant saying we reason that the real world responsible for our senses is beyond our perceptions and reason? There is a real world responsible for us reasoning and perceiving, but it's unknowable and we can't say anything meaningful about it, only the one of appearances our minds shape from our sensory manifold?
I wonder what Kant would make of the modern consciousness debate. I suspect he would think it's beside the point with both sides making a fundamental error of mistaking the phenomenal physical for the noumenal. There's no point in arguing whether there's a hard problem if it's all phenomenal anyway.
My own answer is no, not quite, but this is a big topic that doesnt belong in this discussion. I poked my head in to challenge Wayfarers scurrilous accusation. When youve read Kant, doing so is irresistible.
His idea of transcendental apperception could be the key. There is consciousness of oneself as a phenomenal object, and there is a consciousness of oneself as the subject of experience. Off the top of my head I can speculate that the what its like emerges here as a consequence (although this is hand-waving).
But Id have to think about it, and you could be right.
I would rather address the original question directly.
No, I don't find the analogy with logic any more clear. Anything can be the subject of a discourse, including logic. At the same time, as you note, logic structures discourse. But I don't see a vicious circularity here, if that is what you are leading to. You cannot ground or justify logic with more logic - that much is clear. But you are talking about the very possibility of discoursing (logically) about logic, and I don't see a problem with that.
Quoting Constance
Well, then you do deny the premise, and that's that. You cannot make an argument against a contrary position without first taking it on its own terms. If you deny the position outright, or, as you admit, don't even understand it, then there is no argument to be made.
Quoting Constance
Indeed, especially if you understand "phenomena" and "encountering" as one and the same, or one being a species of the other. But I don't see where that gets us.
Quoting Wayfarer
Quoting Wayfarer
I'd be interested to read what people think and ask a question or two.
Ahem, SCHOPENHAUER'S criticism of Kant's use of the term 'noumenal', to wit...
If Kant is interpreted to be an identity phenomenalist, meaning that he considered the concept of noumena to ultimately be ontologically reducible to "appearances" when appearances are taken in the holistic sense of the entirety of one's experiences, then he would, like other empirically minded philosophers such as Berkeley , Hume and Wittgenstein, have regarded the metaphysical Hard problem as a misconceived pseudo-problem that results from mistakenly reifying the concept of "mental representations" as being a literal bridge between two qualitatively different worlds. But this would say nothing of Kant's views regarding the semantically 'hard problem' of translating noumena into appearances.
In Kantian terminology, the natural sciences do not make a distinction between noumena and appearances; for any physical entity describable in any SI units can be treated as either a hidden variable or as an observation term at the discretion of the scientist in relation to his experimental context. This doesn't imply that the sciences are committed to one world (whether phenomenal or physical) or both; it only implies the practical usefulness of ignoring the semantic relationship between theory and phenomena, which has been the case so far for the majority of scientific purposes that fall outside of epistemology.
If Kant was astute, he would in my opinion have regarded his phenomena/noumena distinction as being a practical distinction made for the purposes of epistemology, as opposed to a metaphysical distinction, for obvious reasons pertaining to the creation of philosophical pseudo-problems.
I don't think that materialist folks are wired much differently than idealistic types. Dennetists are not p-zombies -- in fact they keep wondering why they are NOT p-zombies.
I suspect we are all pretty much the same soul, the same thing, the same mental structure, with better or worse abilities here or there. Like two diesel cars are essentially the same thing, even if one can drive faster than the other.
I agree that this is an assumption, a belief. It cannot be proven empirically, at least not yet.
I didn't suggest that idealists and materialists experience the world differently. Idealism vs materialism is a mischaracterization of the issue.
How would you describe the issue, then?
The idea of the "hard problem" is that in order to make a thorough theory of consciousness, we need to explain phenomenal consciousness, otherwise known as experience.
In answer to the assertion that explaining functions of consciousness also explains experience, Chalmers is the source of several well known thought experiments that show that phenomenal consciousness and functionality are not identical, so proponents of aforementioned "function equals phenomenal" carry a burden of justifying that.
Chalmers doesn't believe that's possible and asserts that science needs to expand it's conceptual framework to include experience. His focus is on inviting creativity. He doesn't propose to offer a final answer
But...
Dennett is the source of several well known thought experiments that show that phenomenal consciousness and functionality are identical, so proponents of aforementioned "function doesn't equal phenomenal" carry a burden of justifying that.
Have you got anything more to offer than Burden-of-proof tennis?
Really? Care to justify that statement?
Why? You didn't bother.
Uh huh.
Don't let me disrupt your flow, you're on a roll.
So far we've got "anything Chalmers says is true by default unless it can be proven otherwise", and "anyone who disagrees with Chalmers probably has some form of brain damage".
Some suggestions...
"people who disagree with Chalmers are more likely to be fascists"
"Chalmers has nice hair"
"Chalmers is an anagram for 'les charm' which is French for 'The Charms' an American garage rock band who produced a song called 'I believe', which is instructive"
"Chalmers.com pay me £50 each time I promote his stuff"
I find this surprising, because generally in biology, function determines form. So I would think that conscious experience exists for a reason, that it has a function, such as putting in one space various sources of data (visual, audio, but also goals, fears etc.) for coherent decision making, or something like that.
I'm also not a fan of labeling "hard" or "easy" problems that are yet unresolved. For all we know, the solution might be very simple. Remember the story of Christopher Columbus' egg: it was a very easy solution, all what one needed to do is to think of it, yet nobody did...
It should be noted though that Chalmers has proposed property dualism on information systems, so he's fine with functionalism as long as there's something additional that connects it to consciousness.
I have sympathy for Chalmers pushing back against the reductionists and simplistic materialists like Dennet, but I tend to be puzzled by his arguments. Maybe one day the state of our science will allow us to read the minds of bats, for instance.
I would then expect us to find out that bats aren't that different from humans, that all animal mental worlds are variations on a common theme, just like all animals use the same genetic code, and tend to share vast amounts of DNA. Your hemoglobin is quite similar to bats'. We're all cousins.
Well, yes and no. Everything belongs there because that is all that is given, but this doesn't mean all that is given is interpretatively clear. Givenness has a transcendental horizon, an "openness", and its interpretative values are not governed by an extraneous idea, a metaphysics like material substance.
When one does arithmetic, and stops to observe what is there, not referring to neuronal activity, evolutionary modeling of adaptive functions, and the rest, one is being a phenomenological "scientist". Kant was the grandfather of phenomenology, they say.
And there is none. What you talk about is the very reason why we have the discipline called logic. the point I am making is that this field is question begging in the same way physics is question begging when it talks about, say, force. They talk about and use this term freely and make perfect sense, usually, but ask what a force is, and you will get blank stares; well, at first you will get explanatory attempts that contextualize the meaning, by when you get to "where the ideas run out" as Putnam put it, it has to be acknowledged that physics hasn't a clue as to the "true nature" of force. Go to something like Plato's Timaeus and you find some intriguing inroads, but mostly pretty useless.
Anyway, logic is what it is, and if you don't ask pesky foundational questions, then you will not encounter the issue. But regarding the hard problem of consciousness, this IS the hard part. Perhaps not the way Chalmers puts it, but so what. Explaining conscious philosophically takes you all the way down the rabbit hole, right to the language embeddedness of the term, and if you can't ground language, you can't ground logic in a non question begging way. Derrida argues that the whole lot of it is question begging, at the level of foundational discussion. Philosophy "ends" here, at language and its existential counterpart, existence.
Quoting SophistiCat
The contrary position here appears at the most basic level of analysis, and this would be the interpretative foundation provided by a phenomenological pov. All things are in play, but one has to find the context of play. Wittgenstein very seriously (he was pathologically serious) said that ethics, being, aesthetics, logic are mystical., but he refused to elaborate because as he saw, language has no business doing this. He was wrong and right: Wrong because there is a LOT one can say, and right because obviously, one cannot speak what lies outside the totality of language possibilities. He, by inference, believed what I believe, that the world IS metaphysics. My cat and my morning coffee.
There is nothing in this post that suggests arithmetic is outside phenomenology's purview, that i can find. And Bitboll is not entirely right in his thinking. Michel Henry is much more rigorous:
Phenomenology rests on four principles which it explicitly claims as its foundations. The firstso much appearance, so much beingis borrowed from the Marburg School. Over against this ambiguous proposition, owing to the double signification of the term appearance, we prefer this strict wording: so much appearing, so much being.1 The second is the principle of principles. Formulated by Husserl himself in §24 of Ideen I, it sets forth intuition or, more precisely, that every originary presentive intuition is a legitimizing source of cognition2 and thus for any particularly rational statement. In the third principle, the claim is so vehement that it clothes itself in the allure of an exhortation, even a cry: zu den Sachen selbst! The fourth principle was defined considerably later by Jean-Luc Marion in his work Reduction and Givenness, but its importance hits upon the entirety of phenomenological development as a hidden presupposition that is always already at work. It is formulated thus: so much reduction, so much givenness.
Notice how phenomenology is a method of discovery and analysis. It provides a foundational position for doing philosophy: the givenness of the world, vis a vis being.
But that doesn't mean bats or other animals have the exact same set of sensations. We know that can't be true because many birds can see more than three primary colors, and presumably bats have a sonar sensation. Maybe it's a kind of color or sound, but it could be something altogether different as well. And what would it be like as an octopus, where the nervous system is as much distributed in the tentacles, which act semi-independently, as it is in the head?
I have heard of experiments using MRIs to correlate specific brain patterns with specific words. The claim is that this may someday allow reading minds. Here's a link to a 60 Minutes program discussing this. I have not watched this since it was originally on the air.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/60-minutes-rewind-mind-reading-2020-09-04/
Plus they don't have hemoglobin. They have hemocyanin.
Computationally.
Agreed. There would be variations. A new sense such as bats' sonar would theoretically imply a whole new set of qualia specific to that sense, of if you prefer, a typology of sensations specific to that sense. I agree that as of now, there's no way for us to even imagine what these theoretical sonar qualia would feel like. But this doesn't prove that we will never be able to do so. We obviously cannot tell in advance what discoveries science will make in the future, otherwise we would make them now... (Popper)
Another huge difference between humans and other animals is in the use of and dependency on symbolic language. We cannot think without language (though a human baby supposedly can).
The case of octopuses is interesting because bats are mammals, and hence very close to us humans in the darwinian tree. Cephalopods (squids, octopuses etc.) are invertebrate and thus very far from us. And their nervous system, as you say, is much more scattered than ours.
Nevertheless, invertebrate nervous systems use the same basic element than ours: neurons that appear similar to mammals' except that the cephalopod ones are larger in size. Octopuses have bigger neurons than we do, for some yet unknown reason.
An interesting consequence is that for a long time, we knew more about octopuses neurons that we did about our own, because it is far easier to stick electrodes into a big cell than into a small one. Studying cephalopod neurons was just easier. Of course the assumption was that we would learn something about neurons in general, including our own, by studying squids'. Just like we study genetics in mice or drosophilia because it's easier than on humans, but the results are supposedly applicable to humans.
So the assumption was, and still is, that at neuronal level at least, what happens in a squid is comparable to what happens in you and me.
Now, my argument here is that, if indeed the neurons of squids and ours function in a similar way, then we should expect their mental world and ours to not be so very different. It might be less of this or more of that; some variations would apply, but all using a common basic material.
Computing what? If it's not aware of any data, then how can it process it?
You are misusing the word "aware". A camera receives light, but it is not aware of it. A camera taking a picture is not an instance of "awareness".
Ah, I see. So what exactly is it to be 'aware' of some data? How do we measure awareness?
Quoting Constance
An argument or a justification can beg the question, but logic* as a field does not present an argument or a justification of itself. I already acknowledged that logic cannot be grounded in more logic, but that is in no way controversial, nor does it present a challenge for its study.
* Or rather, rationality, which includes informal logic, as well as other standards of reasoning and decision-making.
(I don't want to derail this conversation further, but if you are interested, Feynman (who rather disparaged philosophy as a discipline) has a good philosophical discussion of the nature of force and its treatment in physics in his Lectures: Characteristics of Force. (I dare say, this is more useful than Timaeus.) He sort of agrees with you.)
Anyway, I still don't see how this addresses the thesis that started this conversation:
Quoting Constance
What paradox?
Your suspicion is understandable but wrong, though the subject has not received nearly the attention it deserves. Here is one blog post by a guy with aphantasia.
https://www.facebook.com/notes/2862324277332876/
There was a better post, that I also read from here, that I can't find right now. It is not just can/can't visualize. There are people who have no inner monologue at all, and think by entirely other means. They were astounded to learn people think like this, and found the idea kind of psychotic. I for one cannot "visualize" tastes and smells, others have no problem with this.
Yes, my experience is the same as yours. I read other posts from people with aphantasia and they make the same mistake. They think we are walking around with HD movies in our heads. some people do, but I guess they are at least as rare as people with aphantasia.
This would be true if logic were, magically, its own interpretative base, as if the intuitive apociticity of modus ponens or De Morgan's theorum were what it is AS it is presented to us in language. But language is not, itself, apodictic. Like causality: there is an intuition that is absolute regarding objects moving spontaneously which says, no. But then, the language and its terms is a historical construct. One would have to show how terms themselves are absolutes.
Quoting SophistiCat
Perhaps I will look it up. But the argument I am pressing here comes from general thinking inspired by Husserl, Heidegger, Derrida and others.
Quoting SophistiCat
I first put this out there to show how physicalism as a naive thesis, lacks epistemic essence. That is, there is nothing in it that allows for anyone to know anything at all. I see my cat and I am thereby forced to admit I am reductively seeing brain states only. Only brains states are no longer brains states, for language itself, including expressions like 'brain states' is "something else" which is unnamable, and this is not all wrong, of course, because, physicalist model aside, all analytic avenues lead to this radical indeterminacy (as with Wittgenstein). It is just that here, there can be no "out there" IN the model. Phenomenology takes the "out there" of objects (or the "otherness" of what is outside of myself) and leaves this openness as a feature of our existence. Where Kant thought noumena as an impossible "other" and simply a postulatory necessity, phenomenology can see this as In the presence of the being of the world.
Ideas about physical brains are fine in contexts of the everydayness and sciences where they meaningfully are found. But take this to basic philosophical questions, and there is no way to reconcile knowledge claims about the world with foundational physicalist descriptions. One ends up with the paradox of having an encounter with things out there, like trees and fence posts, and having no way to epistemically reach them: the tree is out, not me; and yet, it isn't, for all out thereness is confined to physicality. Rorty put it like this: One no more has knowledge of an outside world (in the context of basic assumptions discussed here) than a dented car fender has knowledge of the offending guard rail.
Phenomenology remedies this matter, I argue.
Imagine a blue circle next to yellow circle.
Move the two circles closer an closer until they overlap.
What colour is the overlapping region?
...
You've no idea have you? Because you're not really seeing a blue circle and a yellow circle, so their combined colour does not occur. In fact you could make their combined colour anything you like. I'm currently imagining a blue circle and a yellow circle combining to make a deep burgundy, which is impossible.
I doubt it very much. There's no such thing as "mental furniture", ie some stable, solid mental representation of anything. Our minds are always in flux, like a torrent, or a calmer river. But there isn't any furniture in that river. It's all 'constructed', cheaply but aptly so in a way. That is to say, the system cannot do everything. The system is geared to do certain things and not others, specifically it is focused on tasks that have survival values. For instance, recognition of sensations, ie their interpretation, as fast as possible. When you see a tiger, you can classify it as such really fast, faster than you can imagine a tiger, perhaps because spotting a real tiger nearby is an ability that is more useful to survival than imagining one.
To the degree that it might be useful to imagine a tiger (or anything else), this value is exhausted when I just put some place holder somewhere saying "big striped cat - who will kill you if given a chance". I don't really need the mental canvas, with the tiger painted on it. What would I do with that? Nor even a mental movie would serve any purpose, because if you ask me to imagine a tiger, it's probably because you will then tell me a story about it, or some further detail, so I need my imagining to remain open and fluid.
Speak for yourself. In everyday thinking concerned with what do do, what I have to do, where to go, how to get there and so on, I think in images, not words. Obviously abstract or complex discursive thought is couched in symbolic language.
Quoting Isaac
Obviously there is no way of objectively measuring awareness, but its intensity can be felt, so we have a sense of its "measure".
Quoting Constance
That's why I introduced the distinction between 'phenomena' and 'noumena', and pointing out that there's a fundamental distinction made in philosophy between the sensory and rational faculties, which I understand still exists in Husserl, although I'm not conversant with the details. But your statement basically seems to state that the world is as it appears, on face value, which I'm sure is not what you mean.
Quoting T Clark
You want to be careful, many of those studies have been called into question. See Do you believe in God, or is that a Software Glitch?
Husserls distinction is not between phenomenon and noumenon , but between the subjective ( noetic) and objective (noematic) poles of an intentional act. When we see a chair , the object wee see simply as an enduring self-same thing is the noema , and the synthesizing of memory, presentation and anticipation that allows us to produce this idealization we call chair ( or any natural empiricalobject) is the noetic contribution to the intentional experience. There is no noumenon behind phenomena, there is nothing but appearances.
Quoting Constance
The reason I mentioned Bitbol, and this paper in particular, is because this analysis is specifically relevant to the question of the 'hard problem', and also because it directly addresses this point you raised earlier about the paradox of the brain knowing itself.
I was thinking of something more radical, like some science-induced telepathy, which would then allow us to feel what it is to be a bat. There's no telling if we will ever reach that point but I can't see why it would be technically or logically impossible.
The sensory is never treated as having a component absolutely independent of rational processes.
But does each thing (or, what is equivalent here: does any thing at all) have such an essence of its own in the first place? Or is the thing, as it were, always underway, not at all graspable therefore in pure Objectivity, but rather, in virtue of its relation to subjectivity, in principle only a relatively identical something, which does not have its essence in advance or graspable once and for all, but instead has an open essence, one that can always take on new properties according to the constitutive circumstances of givenness?
Certainly the world that is in being for me, the world about which I have always had ideas and spoken about meaningfully, has meaning and is accepted as valid by me because of my own apperceptive performances because of these experiences that run their course and are combined precisely in those performancesas well as other functions of consciousness, such as thinking. But is it not a piece of foolishness to suppose that world has being because of some performance of mine? Clearly, I must make my formulation more precise. In my Ego there is formed, from out of the proper sources of transcendental passivity and activity, my representation of the world, my picture of the world, whereas outside of me, naturally enough, there is the world itself. But is this really a good way of putting it? Does this talk about outer and inner, if it makes any sense at all, receive its meaning from anywhere else than from my formation and my preservation of meaning? Should I forget that the totality of everything that I can ever think of as in being resides within the universal realm of consciousness, within my realm, that of the Ego, and indeed within what is for me real or possible? (Phenomenology and Anthropology)
Who is claiming you "really" seeing in your mind? Brain activity will be similar whether you are seeing or imagining. But this doesn't mean the logic of color combination will be implemented faithfully by the brain.
To have a first-person experience of it.
Quoting Isaac
By report, or by measuring at the neural correlates.
What about when you dream? I would put it more in terms of a VR headset kind of experience, particularly for lucid dreaming.
Some people are really good visualizers. Others can compose music in my head. I have a regular stream of inner dialog. I wonder what you make of Temple Grandin's claims that for autists like herself, their imagination is like the Star Trek Holodeck.
Of course in all this I'm reminded of the certain scientific and philosophical skeptics who mistake their lack of visualization or lucid dreaming for those abilities not existing in other people. That's a kind of logical error whose name escapes me.
Makes perfect sense. Thanks again.
I don't know if that would be a logical error. I'm guessing the strong bias towards believing that we're all the same has to do with communication.
Aphantasiacs report that they always thought that when people talked about visualizing things, they didn't mean it literally. It's that charity thing?
To some extent, was not part of Kant's project to meet Hume's challenge regarding the pursuit of causes? The idea being that we could pursue them as significant agents worth the effort rather than dismissing them as stories we tell ourselves that accidentally get confirmed by experiences.
I don't doubt this at all, nor any of the neurodiversity you point out. I just don't think it is the norm. From what I have read of people who cannot visualize, they believe it is an all or nothing ability that they lack, they don't seem to conceive of in-between states.
It's obviously not the case if you've aware of savants or various neurological abnormalities, which you would hope educated people like philosophers and scientists would be aware of when making claims about the mind.
Well, yes.
That'd be a neat trick. :wink:
Seriously? You've never cited a study that's been 'called into question'? Sheldrake's work, for example... ever 'called into question'?
Then how do we know the machine isn't?
Then in what sense are we 'aware' of a yellow disk and a blue disk? We clearly are not experiencing their actual properties.
Quoting hypericin
What neural correlates? And how do we know they are the neural correlates? If "by report" then how do we know the camera's circuits aren't 'aware' of the light?
We don't, but we also have no reason to think it is. We think others are aware because they insist that they are, and become offended when it is suggested that they might be deluded. This doesn't happen with machines.
So. I look at my tea cup, and the claim is that in addition to the circuits processing the sensations I get from it, I also have this other thing called 'being aware' of it, which isn't simply the word we give to those circuits doing their job, but something else (which correlates with them). We assume bats have it (what 'it's like' to be a bat) even though they don't insist they do, but cameras don't have it (there's nothing it's like to be a camera)...because bats would be... offended?
When you dream, the world 'around' has that dreamlike quality: people are not who they seem, objects and folks evolve into other things. It's usually quite foggy and unstable.
We are a very good public for our own visualizations. We forgive a lot, we convince ourselves of their beauty, even if in truth they are barely there at all.
I believe there is actually an empiric proof of that, of the fact that we cannot visualize very well, even though we convince ourselves that we do visualize really well. I discovered it in primary school. There was this girl I was very found of. She liked my drawings and asked me for one. I decided that instead of drawing Mickey Mouse or Lucky Luke as usual, for her I would draw something nicer, more original: a horse. I thought I knew exactly how it would be, for I had this picture in my mind of a splendid horse. Then I started to draw.
Try as I may, I could not replicate on paper the splendid image I thought I had in my head. I had to find a photo of a horse and draw from it. The result was somewhat ok but I wondered: how come I needed an external picture to copy? Why couldn't I simply copy my mental image?
Introspectingly, I realized that this image was not actually 'there' in my mind.
What was there was an idea of a picture, a dream of it, a mere shadow of a sketch, but I had easily convinced myself that it was the real deal, the full canvas.
If you don't believe me, do your own experiment: chose a person you know well and can recognize easily, then imagine her face, then try and draw it. You might find that you are better at imagining that you can imagine her face, than at producing an actual stable image of her face.
If our dreams were giving us the same rich, full experience that we get from reality, then we would spend all our lives in dreams...
Dennett has very interesting lines of thought on that... well worth watching. The gulf between the purported complex complete picture of something people believe they have in their mind('visual thinkers' and all that) with what they can describe when asked a few questions about it.
The awareness is prior to any understanding of "circuits", the "circuits" which may or may not be objective correlates to subjective awareness.
We assume animals are aware because we see them spontaneously responding to things as we would. We see them, some of them at least, playing and seeming to enjoy and desire certain activities, if their body language is any indication, which it plausibly is since it is not so different from ours.
We don't observe anything close to that in machines. If they never manifest body language, similar enough to be recognizable and readable by us, then how would we ever know they were aware? That said, personally I wouldn't care if machines turned out to be conscious entities, I have nothing to protect that such a revelation would threaten.
That's generally true of me as well. In my teens i realized that, although I was very good at drawing and painting, I could not evoke an image of even familiar things, such that I could look at it like I would a photograph and note all the fine details.But back then I asked friends about their experience and some claimed they could visualize like that.
Also I've many times experienced the ability to do it, when under the influence of psychedelics, so I believe the capacity is there. Also I can draw a likeness of the face of someone I know well, even if I can't "see" a stable mental picture of it. Same with the human figure; I can draw a very accurate, proportionally and muscularly speaking, image of the human body, male or female.
I'm just trying to pin down what this thing 'awareness' is that neuroscience has apparently failed to explain.
People seem absolutely concrete about what it isn't (neurons firing), but somewhat evasive about what it is.
You seem to be suggesting here some kind of temporal identity (comes before neural activity), but then suggest it has something to do with spontenity, and then pleasure? I'm not following I'm afraid.
It isn't anything objective, and we should not expect it to be, but it is, by all reports something we all (or most of us at least) experience. Neuroscience cannot directly examine experience, but it doesn't follow from that that experience is an illusion, a "folk" delusion or is nothing. It might be, but again, how would we ever know, since such a thing cannot be empirically confirmed. What could it even mean for something that seems so obvious to most people to be a delusion?
Quoting Constance
That's the opposite of what I said.
Quoting Constance
What do you think the thesis of physicalism is? I don't think there is a single generally recognized physicalist doctrine. It is more of a family resemblance among philosophical treatments of certain subjects.
Quoting Constance
That's hardly even a caricature of physicalism. No one would say that you are "seeing brain states" when you look at something.
Quoting Constance
Well, I was hoping to find out more about "this matter" (not so much about phenomenology), but I am making no progress in teasing it out.
I'm not seeing the problem you're seeing here. History is littered with understandings and entities which seemed 'so obvious' to people at the time, but later societies consider them nothing but misunderstandings or superstition. I can't see how "everyone thinks it's obvious" presents any major barrier to neurological theories.
For example, my perceptual judgement that this apple in front of me is "green" isn't part of any public neurological theory of colour perception. Rather, my perceptual judgements constitute my personal semantic foundation for interpreting public neurological theories of colour perception.
A scientist who fails to acknowledge that a-perspectivalized naturalised science has a 'hard problem' conflates their private interpretations of science with the public theories of science. These aren't the same thing. For instance, Einstein's understanding of General Relativity isn't part of the theory of General relativity; The theory of relativity isn't defined in terms of Einstein's thoughts and observations and the theory doesn't even define observation terms. So Einstein would not be at liberty to use the public definition of Relativity to explain the existence of his frame of reference. Rather, he is at liberty to apply the public definition of relativity to his frame of reference as he sees fit.
Yes, because you've already done it again and again based on a real human body. But if at age 6 or 7, someone had asked you to draw a human body from memory alone, you might have drawn something less accurate... in spite of being perfectly capable already of recognizing a human being when you saw one.
Read somewhere:
Breaking news: Philosophers give up on hard problem of consciousness -- "it's just too hard!"
It's equivalent to the concept of consciousness.
That's of no help because 'consciousness' is an equally vague and slippery notion defined, it seems, by exactly the same list of things it definitely isn't, but nothing it actually is.
If so, then the 'hard problem' seems to be defing what the problem is.
So far, it seems there's this 'feeling' people have that there's something there that isn't just neuronal activity, but it's not actually detectable in any way (other than this 'feeling' that it's there), and that neuroscience's failure to match its empirical models with this vague feeling is somehow a problem for neuroscience.
Why don't you give it a try then? Make the concept less slippery, if you can.
Me, I consider it perfectly normal to lack a precise definition for a philosophical concept. You probably could not define the word "definition" in a way that isn't vague and slippery.... and yet you keep asking for definitions. :-)
There are several definitions of consciousness I'm happy with. None of them result in a 'hard problem'. It's those definitions I'm trying to pin down.
Quoting Olivier5
Indeed, but its not simultaneously considered a failing of some empirical science to not then account for this vague philosophical concept in its models. We don't consider physics to have failed because it can't capture the sense of 'nearby'. There's no 'hard problem' of maths because it can't do 'quite a bit' multiplied by 'loads'.
I think it is possible to precisely define, but not using words that don't already contain the concept. The definition is ostensive. Ostensive definitions typically point to some public object. But with consciousness the 'pointing' is reflexive and 'internal'. It's turning awareness in on itself. Some people can do it, I think you can. Oddly some people seem to struggle with it, almost as if they are zombies. I hesitate to say that as it seems so insulting - people lacking a basic concept of what, in part, they are. Even people like 180 Proof and Banno, who are well educated and sophistacated thinkers in many ways, genuinely don't seem to have the concept. I don't really understand it though, I don't know how people can not have it. Some people seem to have it and then say it's a 'folk concept' like elan vital or something, which seems to show that they don't have it after all. I can list people on this forum who do and don't seem to have the concept.
EDIT: I'm acutely aware this sounds like the tailors in the emperor's new clothes. It's most dissatisfactory. I hate that there is, in philopsophy, a divide between those who have a concept and those who don't. We should all share the same concepts, and then proceed to argue about what they tell us about the world and consciousness, and have genuinely competing theories. But if we don't share concepts, it's hard to even get a conversation started in which people are not missing each others points.
You mind mentioning a few of them?
Why assume the those who don't 'have it' are flawed and those that 'have it' not?
Would you also assume those who hear voices to be possessed of an insight others lack?
Would you say of those who just feel strongly in their gut that they can see the future, they really can see the future?
I don't see why this 'feeling' that there's something there is treated any differently to any other folk-notion. People feel strongly about all sorts of things that have later turned out to be nothing.
I don't think it will progress the discussion, but...
The Grady Coma Scale is instrumental.
The Glasgow Coma Scale contains more nuanced data.
Simple pupillary patterns if you want to go really super-defined.
Lets take the hearing voices example. The analogy is not apt, because with hearing voices, there is content to the experience, and the theory that the voices are spirits possessing the body admits of being false. What doesn't admit of being false is that the person is experiencing something-or-other, in other words, they are having an experience. And a fortiori, if they are having an experience of something, they are aware, or conscious.
These are perfectly good definitions of one sense of consciousness. but not the sense involved in the hard problem. They are two different concepts. Your clarity is helpful.
You mean "Even people like @180 Proof and @Banno, who are well educated and sophistacated thinkers in many ways, genuinely don't seem to have the concept."
Nothing about me without me (@Banno's done me this courtesy a few times, so I thought I'd return it)
Thank you for being more conscientious than I can be bothered to be. :)
I've had lengthy conversations with both of them on this.
Why not? I don't see any prima facie reason why someone ought be 'having an experience' just because they say they are.
Some people say they don't use foundational concept X, for instance the concept of "truth", and they truly believe that they do not use the concept, while actually using it just like anybody else. They just use it while remaining unaware that they do. IOW, they simply lie to themselves.
Quoting bert1
Yes, and in fact, isn't it exactly what we are seeing here, on this and all the other threads on the same subject?
Understood.@Olivier5 asked so I gave them. I don't think it helps much, it is, as you say, this other sense I'm trying to pin down.
OK, of course, they could theoretically be a zombie, reporting an experience that they're not having because they don't have experiences. We can only properly talk about this is the first person, because that is what the concept entails. So I will talk about me. If I hear voices in my head and I think they are spirits possessing me, I could be wrong. What I can't be wrong about is that I'm having an experience.
Why not?
Yes, I think you may well be right about that.
Quoting Olivier5
Broadly, yes, I agree
Neither of those scales are particularly vague or slippery, they're used to good effect clinically.
Because I'm not specifying any particular content. There nothing to be wrong about.
Your claim (as I understand it) is that something is going on in (or around) you, called 'an experience' which is not just neural activity. Something else. It's possible you're wrong. That no such thing is going on.
That's not what I intend to claim. My claim is (I allege) theory-neutral. It may be that experiences just are neuronal activity, or whatever. But for the person, the subject, (whatever that turns out to be physically or metaphysically), the fact of their subjectivity is a given, otherwise we don't even have an example to talk about. As soon as we speak about consciousness, in this phenomonlogical sense, we have a subject of an experience. We can argue about what they are experiencing is, but not about the presence of the subject.
Take you, right now. You are talking to bert1 on a philosophy forum. But are you though? I could be a bot pretending to be bert1. I might be Banno, who has killed me and is using my computer because he's insane. You might be dreaming. So all of that content you think you are experiencing might be wrong. But the fact that something is happening, you are aware of something happening, whatever it turns out to be, can't be wrong, can it? Is it possible, from your point of view, that you are not really having an experience of any sort at all at the moment? Even if you are experiencing an illusion, you are still experiencing that, no?
It's been like pulling a teeth.
I conclude that such a definition simply does not exist. Which is perfectly normal for a foundational concept. You cannot define "time", "space", or even "life" in a way that everyone will agree. And yet we rely on these concepts every single day.
I think it can be. It could be that I receive data, respond to it, then later rationalise that whole event chain as 'an experience' which could be nothing more than a post hoc story about what happened, not an accurate account of what really happened.
This is really interesting. Could you flesh out what this 'post hoc' rationalisation is entailed by the word 'experience'? You clearly think that saying something has an experience is theory-laden. What am I committed to do you think? What would show that someone who thought they had an experience, didn't really?
Consciousness - The property of scoring 4:5:6 on the Glasgow coma scale.
That's consistent with not having an experience. Is that right?
Alright. Would you happen to know if some computers are able to achieve a scoring of 4:5:6 on the Glasgow coma scale, as of today?
So, take the concept of a P-zombie. It's identified as being indistinguishable externally from a person with 'experiences', right?
Now, when you reflect on your own mental events, you're not doing so real time, you're doing so milliseconds (sometimes more) after they happened. So you, in reflection, are just like the third party looking at a P-zombie. You don't know for sure what just happened and could be wrong about it. You tell a story.
Other way round 4:5:6 is good (if memory serves - not a clinician!)
Quoting Olivier5
Possibly. They'd need to have eyes, but I don't see any reason they couldn't.
Ok, so if 'experience' is the word we're using to describe the post hoc storytelling, then neuroscience has a few quite good models for that. There doesn't seem to be a hard problem there.
OK, so this clearly separates two concepts of consciousness. One in which experience is not part of the concept. One in which it is.
One way to solve the hard problem of consciousness is simply to say experiences are illusions, ad-hoc rationalisations, not real, don't exist. That's a genuine solution.
That's great! So what is it about the neuronal models that explain how it is that I feel like I'm having an experience, when I'm not? Why can't all the neuronal stuff happen without me thinking I'm having an experience?
Because some of the neuronal stuff is you thinking you're having an experience. 'Having an experience' is the term we use to describe that particular set of neuronal stuff*.
*more like a family resemblance of neuronal happenings, there's no one-to-one correspondence.
I think the correct term for...
Quoting Isaac
...is Anomalous Monism. @Banno taught me the term, so will kindly correct me if I'm wrong.
'Experience' is a word we use to describe a set of happenings we learn through our culture belong to that word. Because our culture is embedded in a real world which science studies, there'll be some overlap with the objects of science (neurons in this case), but the overlap isn't necessarily direct because the concept 'experience' is constrained by the world science studies, it's not defined by it.
By the same token, there's no proper one-to-one causal relationship because 'experience' is just a word we have, used in a variety of social contexts. It doesn't necessarily describe any object of science, nor is the fact that there's no direct causal link surprising or 'a problem' (hard or not). We simply wouldn't expect there to be.
None of the computers I know have eyes. Can I conclude that they are definitely not self-aware?
What about people without eyes? Can we classify them as unconscious zombies based on your definition?
Probably because there is some survival or reproductive value in you having an experience. Our consciousness exists for a reason. That reason may be God, or it may be the Devil, but my guess is that it was shaped by natural selection like the rest of us, and that the reason why we have experiences must be that it gave our distant ancestors some Darwinian advantage over animals lacking it.
You're pretty well versed on the topic, what would you say is the best argument against the hard problem?
Yes, we are very good at lying to ourselves.
You asked about consciousness (my definition of), not self-awareness.
Quoting Olivier5
The pupillary reaction score is just left off in blind people, and those with potential eye damage.
Face value begs the question, what is there on its "face"?
Husserl's "Ideas" is all about, of course, ideas. Eidetic seeing is his first order of business. Do universals exist? I am reminded of Hegel: when I say, the boat is over there! "there" is a universal, and the over-there-ness is literally IN the reference. But is this "seen" empirically? Obviously no; but the object/affairs before you are not merely empirical. What is there Husserl calls "essences". He implicitly invites one to stare at an object, and pay attention to what is there that is in the structure of being there, and claims a kind of "seeing" is possible regarding essences. If you think this is hard to do, you're not alone. But this is the only way to responsibly approach what is before you. One has to look "away' from the physical presence, and toward the inwardness where the understanding is engaged, and this is an important part of this thinking: Essences are "intuitively objective", says Husserl, and they can be "seen" as intuitive presences. Two difference colors cannot occupy the same space and you know this through intuition of what is intimated in "space," "the same," and so forth. Clearly, Husserl is following through on Hegel's "rational realism" as is Heidegger: rationality, concepts, cognition, understanding, and the like, simply cannot be conceived independently of the actualities of the world. To do so makes for an ontology of abstraction. But, just to make a point, concepts are "open", determinative in their being part of the structure of what is there, but open to possibilities. The question then is, what is it that is THERE. Can one really "see" thought? One can only address this by going to the only place one can go, to the presence of thought, and this is a phenomenological move.
And noumena is there, baldly stated. Where else could the term be grounded? It is, and the Buddhist or Hindu would put it, always, already in the "there"; "palpable" metaphysics is the palpable indeterminacy of our existence that is made clear "through" the pragmatic discursivity of thought and phenomenology in its commitment to a being-appearance identity. This is where, I argue, Husserl's (and his progeny's) epoche takes inquiry.
This is the way I ground all philosophical questions. What is God? Reduce the term to its material grounding. What is there, in the world, that makes this term at all meaningful? The indeterminacy of ethics. What is ethics? This goes to a phenomenological analysis of the essence of ethics-in-the-world.
So you have a special definition of consciousness for blind folks. Good for them I guess...
Apologies for that.
Quoting SophistiCat
I think of Quine's naturalism, and then this simple notion: where is the epistemic connectivity? The more a theory moves to make this happen, the more one moves into things that compromise the essential idea. I am open to the way this might work, but I can't imagine any defensible physicalist epistemology that hasn't redefined what the physical is. It would have to be a compromise toward phenomenology, and then, such a compromise must lean, with emphasis, toward the phenomenon: after all, all one ever witnesses, and all that is possible to witness, is phenomena.
Quoting SophistiCat
Then I am gratified you are here to disabuse me. I won't ask for a thesis, just the essential idea you have in mind.
Quoting SophistiCat
I referred to that quote of Rorty's. The "matter" is getting over the problem of epistemic distance between an agency with knowledge claims and the world that these knowledge claims are about. Phenomenology closes this distance by makes the object an intuitive presence, leaving the matter of the nature of intuition in play, that is, debatable. To go further than this would require a great deal of writing, but it suffices here to say, what I call the bottom line of all philosophical inquiry is what is given in the world. To move beyond this closes in on bad metaphysics.
Same definition - maximum score on the Glasgow coma scale. The scale already takes blindness into account. If you tested pupillary response in a fully blind person you'd be doing it wrong. You'd be doing some other test.
But regardless, you're speaking as if you don't understand the concept of family resemblance. Perhaps a little reading might help. https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/wittgenstein/wittgenstein-on-family-resemblance/831CEAF5C3B78D4CA94927F367979B0C
Depends on what kind of blindness they have. The GCS is a quick way to communicate clinical signs. It's not a definition of anything. There might be recommendations, like intubate if the GCS is 8 or lower, but that's not a hard rule.
In a Neuro ICU, you'll see cool attempts to rouse people. There's lots of screaming and physical assaults. For instance, I do sternal rubs to see if I can rouse people, but neuro intensivists cause bruising. They dig their thumbs into pinky nail beds and all sorts of other things in order to assess if there's withdrawal to pain.
But after that, they still don't know if the patient is conscious or not because they could be locked in.
Agreed. I did not intend to imply that it was an established fact.
It is a fairly common science fiction storyline. If such a technology were ever to be developed, I imagine it would start very simply with something like what has been studied with the MRI.
On the other hand, I think the potential for a mind reading device is pretty radical all by itself.
I would tend to disagree. MRI monitors the intensity of the biological effort made in various places of the brain, but it won't tell you what the result of this biological effort is.
It's a bit like trying to reconstruct a symphony by monitoring the bodily heat of individual orchestra members while they play it. The more effort they put into playing, the more heat their body ooses out. So bodily heat is a good indicator of the level of effort, but not a good indicator of the output of the effort: the actual music.
My money is on listening to brain waves. I believe they are the stuff our consciousness is made of.
Chalmers has said that if there is a dissolution of the hard problem, the meta-problem of explaining why we think there's a hard problem has to first be addressed. Frankish attempts to do that. I just don't know whether it seems like I'm phenomenally conscious is different than actually being conscious in the hard sense.
Seeming to be conscious is equivalent to being conscious, no? Just as a matter of definition.
So he's saying there is a magic show or illusion, but it's missing something that would make it qualify as phenomenal consciousness.
I think Dennett does something similar, where he says there is experience, but it doesn't meet certain criteria often assigned to experience.
I'll check out Frankish, thanks.
Yep.
You may well be right.
We are aware of an imaginary yellow and blue disks, which is just an awkward way of saying we are imagining them. Why should imaginary and real things share all their properties?
Quoting Isaac
We can measure neural activity that correlates with reported states of awareness, and which are absent when the subject is not aware.
We don't definitely know that the camera is not aware, just as we don't know the camera is not inhabited by a malignant spirit. We just have no evidence pointing to either case.
Just to conclude on the orchestra metaphor, if one trained an infrared camera tied to a computer on an symphonic orchestra, and asked the orchestra to play its repertoire of say, 10 pieces of classical music a number of times, soon enough the computer would be able to tell pieces apart based on the bodily temperature patterns of each player. Like in Vivaldi, the cymbals and the brass stay silent so the respective players are at rest, cool, while the violin players go all heated up. The temperature signature of Bethoven pieces are all ups and downs, while Bach is much more regular and stable in its temperature patterns... But at no time would the computer hear the actual music.
Similarly, an MRI experiment monitoring the energy consumption of various places in the brain of a patient can recognize A from B, or blue from red, when the patient's mind focuses on A or B or blue or red, if it has been trained previously to do so on the patient. But the MRI is not accessing the real thoughts themselves, of an A or a B. It just can tell that the energy consumption signature of an A is different from that of a B in that patient.
So if we want to read people's minds one day, we need a way to listen qualitatively to their music -- the thoughts themselves in whatever materiality they take, be it brainwaves or something else. Not just measure quantitatively the level of effort spent in producing thoughts.
All this to say it's high time neuroscience takes thinking as seriously as musicologists take music. No musicologist worth the name would use orchestra heat scans to explore Mozart.
That makes sense.
Quoting Constance
We started this discussion with the thesis "The brain is the generative source of experience," which was presented as an essential physicalist commitment. I won't dispute that, though I personally think that physicalism is not so much about specific scientific commitments. With that in mind, a physicalist should be committed to the idea that what we call "seeing" is generated (in some sense) by the activity of the brain.
In what sense is seeing "generated" by the brain? I would say that the weakest physicalist commitment would be the supervenience relationship between seeing and brain activity (that is to say, no difference in what we see without a corresponding difference in brain activity). Some would go further than that, asserting a stronger reductive relationship between the folk-psychological concept of "seeing" and its physical realization.
This is not just "some theory" this is central to human experience and self-understanding, and it's not a question of that understanding being right or wrong. Humans generally experience themselves as being aware, and they are not at all aware of purported neural correlates, which are thus entirely irrelevant to their experience and self-understanding.
If you are not able to be conscious of your own awareness, then that says something about you, not about others or humans in general.
Quoting Olivier5
Practice only enables, and thus explains being able to, acquire the motor skills involved in getting proportions right which of course comes from training. Likeness, recognizability, is something else. Even if I can't visualize a familiar face I know if even small details of a familiar face have been changed.
Anyway, my own experience has shown me that even though I usually cannot hold a stable image in mind, that I do have the ability to do it in some altered states.
And again I would pick you up on assuming that everyone is the same. What you find yourself able to do is not necessarily representative of human capacities in general.
As Descartes pointed out, who would be doing the "you" part, then? The doubter cannot doubt his own existence.
:up: Although I'm a bit more modest than Descartes; I would say we know that thinking (and feeling and awareness) are going on; the self is a more problematic proposition. But the devil is in the details (of definition) as to what the self is thought to be.
Thanks for the heads up
I gather from
Quoting bert1
that the issue is about the self? I haven't been following this discussion.
Quoting bert1
With the self in the place of the fine garment of nothing. Pretty much.
Quoting Isaac
Sounds about right, and for want of a better term.
What is generally disagreeable hereabouts is the thinking that begins with subject or introspection or private sensations.
Yes, the machine men do seem to find that disagreeable, and that should not be surprising.
That seems like a good analogy.
Some of us "don't have the concept" of what?Quoting Isaac
:fire: :up:
:up: (i.e. metacognitive confabulists!)
All discourse is just stories; so what? You have your story and I mine, correctness doesn't enter into it; it's a matter of presuppositions, preferences and prejudices, not correctness.
Edit: this is meant for @Isaac
It's about David Chalmer's 1996 essay, Facing Up to the Hard Problem of Consciousness (which, by the way, made him a famous philosopher with academic tenure, no mean feat) - although you'd never know that from reading most of the contributions (with notable exceptions.) Actually rather a good collection of Chalmer's essays including this one here https://consc.net/consciousness/
:chin: :smirk:
No, phenomenal consciousness. The subject of the thread.
Quoting bert1
What's that , then? Responding to phenomena? A thermostat can do that.
Is this the concept you say I don't have? But here I am, responding to your phenomenal post.
At a quick glance, I'd say involving phenomenology with consciousness was a step up the garden path. But what would I know.
https://personal.lse.ac.uk/ROBERT49/teaching/ph103/pdf/chalmers1995.pdf
Should we examine it in detail?
What would you need in order to see justification for an idea like qualia or an idea there there is something to experience consciousness/metacognition? What is missing in the discussion?
And of course being conscious is different to being unconscious.
I've been both and I can attest to this.
See
While conscious, yes, but curiously, not while you are unconscious. Doubtless there are those hereabouts who will claim that this inability renders your corroboration valueless.
You obviously have no idea what you are talking about, but blather on regardless...
Ive been attempting that, but the thread keeps being diverted into various tangents (including by me I will admit).
The article might need its own thread, to keep it on topic.
The plain text version of the original paper is here.
Why this topic still generates so much discussion is beyond me. The long and short is that David Chalmers has made a career out of stating, and Daniel Dennett denying, the obvious fact that first-person consciousness cannot be captured by third-person science. I think you can argue for a general resemblance between Chalmer's argument and the earlier Cogito arguments of both Descartes and Augustine.
... which is only a "problem" for philosophers and not for neuroscientists.
Thanks for mentioning dual aspect theory. I've never run across the term before. I looked it up and am trying to understand it. I'm okay with it up until the part that the underlying reality is neither mental or physical. That just leaves me hanging...so what is it? Can anyone familiar with it give a little insight?
It's looks like a theory that's been around since 1902 but I missed it and haven't seen it before on this forum.
There's the odd phrasing that there is "a direct isomorphism between certain physically embodied information spaces and certain phenomenal (or experiential) information spaces... we can find the same abstract information space embedded in physical processing and in conscious experience." (in the article in 7.3)
What ever is going on here is more than 's difference between first and third person.
Then it's unclear what 'aware of' could possibly mean here. We know nothing of their properties, but are 'aware of' them?
Quoting hypericin
Can we?
Quoting hypericin
Then why did you say that the camera wasn't aware. We're trying to pin down the meaning of 'aware' here. So if a camera might be aware, is there anything which definitely isn't? Or is 'awareness' a property literally anything might have, or might not have?
Quoting Janus
So? Again, I'm not seeing how that prevents us from being mistaken about it. Deities (of various sorts) were equally central at one point, we're clearly wrong about (at least some of) them.
Quoting Janus
I don't even know what that means. What kind of experience is 'experiencing myself as being aware'. What would experiencing myself as being unaware consist of?
Quoting Janus
Ah. Back to the "If you disagree with Chalmers you must have a brain defect" argument. I appreciate your concern, rest assured I will get the possibility checked out forthwith.
Quoting Banno
Yes. The same people who consider their qualia to be private and ineffable seem to be no less adamant that neuroscience's failure to 'eff' them in a public unitary theory is a mortal blow to the field.
Quoting Janus
It's not about discourse. The 'story-telling' is a mental event prior to rendering it into any discourse. The point I'm making is that your own understanding of what's happening in your mental world is...
a) constructed after the event and so no less prone to error than any other third party trying to reconstruct it.
b) constructed from socially mediated concepts, a joint effort between you and the rest of your language community, not private, not fixed.
c) therefore not something which one would ever expect any physical science to show a one-to-one causal correspondence with the objects of that field. Neuronal activity and 'objects of conversation' are in two different worlds. The latter is constrained by the former, but not dictated by it.
Thanks for bringing us back to the original point.
We could both be right, because in life, great diversity can emerge from a very severe economy of means.
There is amazing diversity in life. Millions of species and plenty of genetic variability within species. However when biologists study the anatomy and biochemistry of different species, they find astonishing sameness: the same DNA code, the same fundamental proteins and processes eg respiration and the cycle of Kreps, etc.
All the bright and shinny feathers of all the birds in the world are composed of the same material as your hair and your nails: keratin.
So life produces an explosion of diversity out of a very severe economy of means. Life recycles constantly. This is one of its fundamental characteristics.
It's probably similar in the biological process of thinking: we all use the same basic elements of thoughts. My "I" and your "I" cannot be very different. What you do with it, where you invest your neuronal power, is up to you though.
Just because our language is a certain way, doesn't provide cause to believe the world must conform to it. The fact that we use words like "I" and "we" means that we have these concepts as foundational parts of our communication. It doesn't tell us anything about the way things 'must be', only how things are.
You've no grounds to say "It can't be an independent doubt, free-floating in the universe", just because we don't use words that way. We could. We just don't.
I don't mind how things must be, I care for how they are.
That's the essence of the cogito as I understand it.
Husserl's version goes a bit like this:
There's no view without a viewer and something being viewed. No knowledge without a knower and something being known. No doubt free floating in the universe, without a doubter and something being doubted.
We are persons, selves, agencies and we are at the world. In the world, busy working on it. That's the given, the fundamental intuition defining our being, our existence, and the point of departure of any philosophy of life. Anything else is escapism.
Who said we know nothing of their properties? Their properties just do not match their physical counterparts. In fact, we know everything of their properties, since unlike physical objects their properties exactly match what is subjectively disclosed. They are yellow and blue, they are round, their shape and size do not hold steady in my case. That is all. You cannot peer behind an imaginary object to examine additional properties you were not aware of initially; this is confabulation, not examination.
Quoting Isaac
Can't we?
Quoting Isaac
Not according to the theory that awareness is a property of brains, a consequence of a certain kind of information processing that is definitely absent in a camera. Of course that is just a theory, panpsychism in principle might be true. Awareness is only "observed" directly by an aware subject of itself, all other observations of it are inferred. Since there is no observation that can conclusively disprove awareness, anything in principle might be aware. But, lacking any compelling evidence that they are aware, these claims can be discarded, just like I can discard the claim that there is a bearded giant living on a planet orbiting alpha centauri.
Quoting Banno
If you don't understand that qualia are private and ineffable, then you don't understand qualia.
Yes
Quoting hypericin
I quite agree. I don't understand qualia.
Quoting Banno
If qualia are private and ineffable, then how can they have a place in the discussion?
I'm not sure. I don't really know why some people have the concept and some don't.
Awareness
Equivalently:
- sentience
- the capacity to feel
- the capacity to know
- that in X whereby there is 'something it is like' to be X
These are all abiguous though, they can be construed in a way that avoids the concept. And sure enough, that's what you have done many times. I don't think that's you being deliberately obtuse, I think you genuinely don't get it.
The issue is that consciousness can only be defined by appeal to someone's consciousness of their own consciousness.
But I am aware of your post; so that's not right.
What is it that you think I am missing?
Quoting bert1
Are you saying @180 proof and I lack awareness, or lack the concept of awareness, or what? And how do you know this? What basis do you have for your claim?
Because it doesn't seem right.
Well, knowing and feeling and sentience are not each equivalent to the others.
That last one... what is it?
I'm saying, reluctantly, that you lack the concept of awareness. But I don't know this for sure. I think you are aware. You both seem to avoid the concept. One explanation for this is that you don't have it. You don't avoid the word, but you seem to construe it in its non-phenomenal senses, at least when going into detail.
My old tutor at university, Stephen Priest, once said to me "Some of my colleagues haven't noticed they are conscious." I didn't take him seriously at the time. I thought it was absurd, these guys were smart guys. But I'm reluctantly coming to the view that he was right. It seems like the only realistic explanation for what is happening. There has been some papers on this. Off the top of my head, I think it's Max Velmans who wrote "How not to define consciousness", if I remember correctly. It might be interesting to do a thread on one of these papers about definition.
Probably an unhelpful addition, it causes a lot of confusion
They can be equivalent, in this sense I'm trying to talk about.
You said...
Quoting Olivier5
That's a claim about how things must be (or this this case, must not be). It uses the term 'can't'.
If all you're interested in is how things are then the the claim is "A doubt implies a person having it, a "mind" rejecting a belief. It isn't an independent doubt, free-floating in the universe.
Disclosed to whom, from where? This terminology is obtuse. If we are making up the properties, then in what way can they possibly be 'disclosed'. They were never 'closed' in the first place.
Quoting hypericin
They aren't. If they were yellow and blue they would make either green or black when passed over one another (depending on additive or subtractive mixing). Since they don't, they aren't blue and yellow.
Quoting hypericin
The article is about neural correlates of consciousness. You were referring to awareness.
Quoting hypericin
What? So we're aware of being aware? Are we aware of being aware of being aware?
If there are, as you say, neural correlates of awareness, then what system is involved in being aware of our being aware?
Quoting hypericin
But the compelling evidence that you're aware is only that you think you are. So if I think the camera is aware, that's exactly the same quality of evidence.
Fair enough.
You're misrtaken, bert. I don't avoid the concept when it's relevant to clarifying or examining another concept. Unlike you, bert, folk psychological terms like "awareness" or "consciousness" are neither fundamental nor a priori in my understand of myself, others or nature; such concepts refer to emergent properties or processes. An example from an old post that just popped-up in a TPF search. A definitional sketch to somewhat disambiguate these fuzzy folk concepts:
Quoting 180 Proof
We are embodied phenomenal-selves (i.e. metacognitive agents), riders on the storm :fire:
What do you think I mean by the word 'consciousness'?
If so, then in what sense is the concept necessarily so?
You seem quite adamant that the concept is there, but some are 'missing' it, yet you don't seem to be able to provide the necessity that would set it apart from, say, ether, or humours, or phlem...loads of concepts which we made use of at one time, but turned out just not to refer to anything at all.
If that's what you mean, bert, I admitted that I don't. in the preface to that old post where I disuss my understanding of awareness. So what I or @Banno don't "have the same" conceotion of awareness as you probably because we find "your concept" unsatisfactory for one reason or another. If that's all you're saying, it's a fairly trivial, unphilosophical statement. I'm prepared to make the most reasonable case I can for my concept of awareness. Are you prepared to do tthe same? It doesn't seem to me you are, bert. :chin:
Quoting bert1
I'm not a mind reader. Spell it out, sir.
I'm not a mind reader. Spell it out, sir.
yea, didn't think you knew.
I'd say that's exactly why it's a problem, because they don't see it as a problem. If a person notices one's own deficiencies and incapability's, the person will have a healthy respect for those weaknesses, and work around them, knowing that they are weaknesses (blind spots). But when a person does not recognize one's own weaknesses, that person will forge ahead in blind confidence toward inevitable mishap.
Of course there is no appearance of a problem for the person forging ahead in blindness, at that time of forging ahead in blindness, the problem is only apprehended by the observer who understands what's going on.
I explained in the last post. The problem is when the incapacities (blind-spots, to use the term introduced by Wayfarer) of the science are not recognized by the scientist. So for instance, a neuroscientist who believes that neuroscience is giving a representation of consciousness, such that the neurological activity being studied is equivalent (or something like that) to consciousness, would be a problem. Look back to this analogy:
Can you give me an example of a neuroscientist you think is committing this error?
What we have is different theories. I'm a panpsychist. You, at various times have been a functionalist, enactivist, probably one or two other things I forget. The question is, do our theories compete? Are they theories of the same thing? That's what I'm trying to get at.
I'll put the question another way that doesn't involve you reading my mind, or even reading any of my posts (I gave my definitions a few posts ago in reply to Banno).
Please state, in your own words, what the hard problem is. I know you think it's nonsense, but that doesn't stop you stating it. I think that the flat-earth theory is wrong, but I can still state what it is.
That's a good question. Ether was proposed to solve a problem, namely a medium to carry electromagnetic radiation, or something. Humours were a way of explaining illness. These were crappy scientific theories, but scientific and somewhat testable, so were eventually abandoned for better theories. Consciousness isn't like that. It's just a name for something we know exists, namely whatever it is in us by virtue of which we can have experiences. And this definitely exists, unless you want to deny that we have experiences, which you might. The concept of consciousness in this sense is non-committal. It might turn out to be a ghostly ectoplasm. Or it might turn out to be a brain state. It might turn out to be a brain function. It might turn out to be integrated information. It might turn out to be a soul. It might turn out to be space. It might turn out to be a property of the quantum field. It might be an illusion caused by how we use language. Whatever. The point is, before we can start disagreeing about these theories, we have to agree on what it is these theories are theories of. That's the definition part. That's what, as usual, we are stuck on.
Concepts, unhelpfully, often contain a mixture of theory and definition, which makes things harder. It's helps if we ca separate them out.
Ahem...
This is my theory: we have a worldview that says individual humans possess qualities like creativity, initiative, depression, joy, etc. This developed out of an ancient worldview which populated the universe with living, conscious beings who expressed themselves through human action, as in the Homeric myths. It was like the psyche turned inside out
Some people have a double dose of our present worldview in which all the elements of the psyche are squashed into individual humans heads.
The fact that this worldview doesn't work in the extreme version of hyperindividualism, was pointed out by various philosophers including Wittgenstein.
Yet some people, like Dennett and Frankish, think that everyone looks at the world this way. I'm guessing that's because they look at themselves that way. They don't realize that some people don't really understand what it means to say that phenomenal consciousness is internal. It's not an object that has a location, so how could it be internal to something?
See what I mean?
Do we know there's something by virtue of which we have experiences? Can't we just have them, does some additional factor need to 'allow' it?
Quoting bert1
I wouldn't want to deny we have experiences, but this doesn't touch on the 'hard problem'. The hard problem has, as a foundational axiom, the notion that the things we talk about - experiences, awareness,... - ought to be causally connected to the objects of empirical sciences. That it's in some way odd that there's no direct connection. I reject that premise. It seems to me that we can talk of all sorts of things from consciousness, to god, to pixie dust... We all know what each other is talking about to some extent in each case (enough to get by) but it doesn't require any of those objects to correlate with something empirical science might reify.
Like 'Orange'. It's definitely a colour, and it's constrained in some ways by the actions of photons (objects of empirical science), but nothing in empirical science could ever say where orange ends and red begins, not because of some deficiency on empirical science, but because 'orange' just isn't that kind of a thing.
No particularly, I was just trying to relate the words 'consciousness' and 'experience' in a sentence such that they are linked in meaning, which I think they clearly are.
Quoting Isaac
Yes, I think that's sort of right. Of course, people who like to go on about the hard problem (me for instance) tend to use this a sort of reductio:
1) Assume that consciousness is caused/realised/instantiated/whatever by some physical processes
2) Figuring out exactly how seems impossibly hard
therefore 3) It's probably not the case that consciousness is caused/realised/instantiated/whatever by some physical processes
But this only has any force if we have a particular definition of 'consciousness'. If we define consciousness as a physical function, for example, the hard problem disappears. That's why definitions are absolutely crucial.
Sure, that';s true with things except consciousness. To put it in Cartesian terms, it is coherent to doubt the existence of pixies, God and phlogiston, but it is incoherent to doubt consciousness. Because doubting itself (arguably, I guess) entails consciousness. To doubt is the act of a conscious thing. So there is certainty attached to consciousness in a way that doesn't attach to invisible unicorns.
Yeah, which we can, of course. Hence my invoking the Glasgow coma scale earlier. We can (and do) use the term sometimes in a perfectly 'physical function' kind of way. There's no one thing 'consciousness' is. It's just a word. Like most words, it's used in all sorts of ways with all sorts of degrees of success.
Indeed. Banno insists the Glagow coma scale is the only definition. Or at least all definitions are really aspects of one sense of consciusness, and that is a public, functional one.
This only works if you define consciousness circularly as 'that without which its impossible to do things like doubt'.
The thing is, consciousness, in this sense, is not an empirical object which means we're not 'discovering' facts about it, were determining them. We don't 'find out' consciousness is required for doubting, we declare it to be so.
Does he? What a twit. :roll:
I was just saying this same thing. Worldview comes into play in the assumptions people make about it.
Quoting Banno
It's sounding and playing out a bit like a discussion about religious faith from where I am sitting.
Which renders the 'hard problem' meaningless. Why would empirical objects like neurons match some use of a word embedded in a certain culture? If we're not describing some.empirical object (or event) then it would be weird if some empirical objects matched up with it exactly. The 'hard problem' would emerge if there was a one-to-one correspondence. Then we'd have something odd to explain. That it doesn't is exactly what we'd expect. It's not even an easy problem, its not a problem at all.
has yet to provide us with anything like a definition of consciousness. But he says he is a panpsyhist, (), so if he thinks rocks are conscious then it would be best for him not to provide such a definition.
This is a futile thread, flopping around all over the place.
I've offered synonyms. That qualifies as a definition. I have invited you to be aware of your awareness, which you haven't yet done. If you had, that would be a kind of ostensive definition. Unfortunately I don't think it is possible to provide a definition in terms of things other than the thing defined. That's just how it is with foundational concepts.
Note that people who already have the concept have no trouble at all knowing what I'm talking about.
EDIT: can you make sens of my claim: "Rocks have experiences". Does that sentence have any intelligible meaning for you (regardless of whether you think it is true or false)?
Does it? Remember that when gravity was first introduced into physics as a thing to be explained, no one imagined that it's a matter of curved space. The worldview of the time wouldn't allow that.
So as we go to explain phenomenal consciousness, couldn't the same problem exist? That we don't have a worldview that allows the explanation to appear yet? Why not?
But gravity was a word for the effect of empirical observations. We'd expect it to have an empirical explanation. Objects we measure seem to be drawn by some force (which we can also measure) so we need an empirical theory for what's going on. There's a gap there to fill.
With 'consciousness' (in the non-coma sense), there's no empirical objects being effected by a measurable force. They just don't share the same worlds at all, there's no gap to fill, no problem to solve.
Some people use 'consciousness' to talk about a possibly loosely connected set of vague feelings they've got. Why would we even want a neurological theory as to why, let alone expect one?
There's no direct neural correlate of angry either, nor fear, nor memory, nor 'idea'... These are all terms which do a job in human cultural interaction. It would be a miracle if they all happen to describe exact brain activities.
What things don't share the same world? I don't know what you mean.
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/771417
These?
Quoting bert1
Then:
Quoting bert1
Presumably sentience, knowledge and feeling are synonymous for rocks. Quoting bert1
What utter rubbish:
Quoting Banno
I'm also aware that I am aware of your posts... that's how I can post about them.
Your account is appallingly poor.
Edit: You have a notion that you want to put into words, but when you try, you trip over the expression. Perhaps it's because the notion cannot be made coherent.
That a person needs to hold a doubt for there to be a doubt, is implicit in the definition of doubt: "a feeling of not being certain about something, especially about how good or true it is."
Because folk bring their baggage with them.
Rather, because it's about the very baggage they bring into the analysis: their capacity of analysis is the object of the analysis. The reflexiveness of the problem is what makes it so wicked.
Consciousness is the capacity to feel.
What is the hard problem, in your own words?
Firstly, how do you know "we" (was it us?) were "clearly wrong about (at least some of) them? Anyway the story at issue here is the human notion of self-awareness, of being aware. What does it mean to be aware? Why is it said that we are aware? One answer is that we have ideas about ourselves and can spontaneously come up with stories about ourselves. I haven't heard of any machines that do that, have you?
Quoting Isaac
I know what experiencing myself as being aware is, it is simply being aware of being aware. If you don't know that experience I can't help you beyond what I've just said. I'll warrant that if you asked almost anyone in the street if they have ever been aware of being aware, they'll say of course they have. It's not something you could be mistaken about. What could it even mean to be mistaken about it? Perhaps you should try some meditation or mind-altering drugs to free up your thinking.
Quoting Isaac
Don't put words in my mouth. I said nothing about Chalmers. I said that if you don't have a certain kind of experience that says something about you, not about others who do have that kind of experience.
Quoting Isaac
We agree on that much at least, and that's the very reason I say that neuroscientist findings are not relevant to phenomenological understandings of human experience; they are two very different and incommensurate domains of discourse.
Quoting Olivier5
If all we needed to demonstrate the existence of some substantial self in the Cartesian sense was the fact that we speak of "I" and "we" and so on, then it would have been proven long ago and no longer controversial.
Quoting Olivier5
Sure, I haven't said there are not structural physical commonalities to be found everywhere in nature; that is obviously well known. But the human body/brain/mind is the most complex system known and the potential for diversity is enormous. That said, of course the commonalities are enormous too.
These days I'm not as confident as I once was in such claims, but not because of the problem or how its stated but more general concerns.
I think I have a coherent notion of Chalmer's description of the hard problem. I'd say the inverted spectrum argument is probably my favorite because it demonstrates how while it's surely advantageous in a functional sense to be able to "feel" the world around you, it doesn't really matter that my red is your red -- the old "my red could be your blue" line of thought. As long as we are able to distinguish the world similarly enough to use language together that's all that's functionally needed. Yet I have a fairly clear idea about what it would mean for my red to be your blue. So, whatever that is -- why my red is my red -- that's what the hard problem of consciousness is about. It's the feeliness of the world. And the thought, so my memory of what I was lead to believe at least, is that there is as yet no scientific explanation for why my red is my red (or, perhaps another way to put it, there's no scientific way to tell what my red is -- whether it is your blue or not -- yet I certainly see red)
If consciousness is the capacity to analyse, this thread is somnolent.
Analysis requires detailed, close work. It's not going to happen on a free-for-all such as this.
It's oddly specific to sight.
Imagine applying it to other sense. As if your smooth could be my rough, your sour, my sweet, your loud, my quiet.
The swap would soon be seen as incoherent.
Much the same thing happens with an inverted spectrum; it could not be consistently maintained. But that this is so is not as obvious with sight as with the other senses. It's a classic case of philosophers considering only a limited example so that it supports their invalid observation.
The analogy with the other, simpler senses, doesn't tell us much, if anything. For example the rough/ smooth example is silly simply because a rough surface can do actual work that a smooth surface cannot. Likewise with the loud/soft example; a loud enough sound can cause objects to vibrate and even break. A better sight analog would be 'dark/light'.
It's that sense which is under attack in Chalmer's set up, at least as I remember understanding it.
When I imagine applying the notion to the other sense, I'll admit the loud-quiet one doesn't seem to fit (except in a mundane sense). The others I could see, though that probably says more about what I'm willing to entertain than reality.
Either way, though, I hope the above makes sense: the attack is on the set up of a functionalist, physicalist account of all reality, or whatever, and noting how here's a phenomena -- the feeliness of the world -- that doesn't really seem to fit into that picture.
Or would you say that this still falls to the philosopher's habit of overgeneralizing?
The inversion thought experiment seeks to show that they are private. It doesn't work with the other sense, (as @Janus agrees) and it doesn't work with colours, although some philosophers have more difficulty seeing this.
They are public distinctions, of course. But I'm not sure that the inverted spectrum argument attempts to argue they are private.
Different between people, perhaps. But we both understand this, so it's not private.
... and to observe, and to know, and to doubt. To be confused, to argue, to imagine. And we are doing all of that here.
The tool we bring to the discussion are the subject being discussed. It's like using a wrench to work on a wrench. Hence the bloody mess.
It never was controversial, and it was proven by Descartes a long time ago.
The point I was making is that folk are bringing their views on god, society, spirituality, ontology, and even politics into the discussion. That's what messes it up.
So while the thread is amusing, it is not going to achieve anything like a consensus. It might be more productive to break it into multiple threads on the seperate topics - sense, cognition, neuroscience and so on.
Am I right in thinking that there's also a modal angle to Chalmer's argument? I vaguely recall there being a link from the inverted spectrum to conceivability of the difference, to the metaphysical possibility of the difference, which negates the metaphysical necessity of their identity. So the motive force in the argument is largely establishing entailments between modality concepts (conceivability=metaphysical possibility), then using the inverted spectrum as a conceivability premise? Is my limited recollection anyway.
Again - the point of Chalmer's essay was the audience he has in mind, namely, those who claim that the whole question is basically one for science. It's a 'hard problem' for those who think the nature of consciousness (or being) can be given in purely objective terms. But as per your usual practice, you're seeking to steer the debate in a way that allows you to dismiss it, but without actually ever having indicated that you're addressing it.
So again, for the sake of the debate, the key paragraph from Chalmer's original paper:
Quoting David Chalmers, Facing Up to the Hard Problem of Consciousness
States of experience inhere in subjects of experience, and the subject of experience is never found amongst the objects of scientific analysis - hence, according to the 'eliminative materialists', cannot be considered real. (If I missed anything, let me know.)
But, in terms of being more specific than "yes, there's a modal angle" -- I'd have to actually commit to something. :D
I just noticed the conversation kinda got into a lull and was still thinking about the hard problem so I thought I'd throw my 2 cents in.
I don't think it's an ontological argument. It's just that functionalists will have to prove that there's nothing more to phenomenal consciousness than function. We can't just assume that.
There's a reason for that, also. And the reason is, it's difficult to accomodate the basic fact of Chalmer's argument in the context of today's culture. Here's a snippet from an encylopedia article on Adorno's diagnosis of moral philosophy in capitalist culture:
[quote=Morality and Nihilism; https://iep.utm.edu/adorno/#H4][Adorno] argues that social life in modern societies no longer coheres around a set of widely espoused moral truths and that modern societies lack a moral basis. What has replaced morality as the integrating cement of social life are instrumental reasoning and the exposure of everyone to the capitalist market. According to Adorno, modern, capitalist societies are fundamentally nihilistic in character; opportunities for leading a morally good life and even philosophically identifying and defending the requisite conditions of a morally good life have been abandoned to instrumental reasoning and capitalism. Within a nihilistic world, moral beliefs and moral reasoning are held to have no ultimately rational authority: moral claims are conceived of as, at best, inherently subjective statements, expressing not an objective property of the world, but the individuals own prejudices. Morality is presented as thereby lacking any objective, public basis. [/quote]
For 'instrumental reasoning', read 'scientific analysis'. So the dichotomy is, that if you question the ability of science to properly examine and explain the individual subject, then you're relegating the matter to 'the subjective realm' - because the culture no longer has any sense of shared moral values or principles, beyond those dictated by secular prudence and liberal political philosophy. So bringing this in is not 'messing it up', it is making clear the implications of the whole argument.
I think there are important differences between Chalmer's approach and these two philosophers. The experience of being oneself is given as a necessity that must be accepted before attending to what else exists in the Cartesian mode. Chalmers starts from a different direction:
The explanatory gap Chalmers discusses is not an impassable barrier by definition. This is not a polemic against attempts to use reduction to find causes for events. The need to introduce complexity is a stepping back from assuming the 'first person' is synonymous with 'consciousness':
Works for me. As we've talked about previously, we agree that there is some sort of duality here, that you have characterised as first/third person (something I've also done previously), I've described as intentional vs causal, and Chalmers describes in terms of information.
But that doesn't render Chalmers argument here cogent. He might reach the right conclusion for the wrong reason.
I'm happy to have talk of sensations and perceptions and so on, but I'll continue to point out that claims that such things are ineffable, private or spiritual; are hokum.
So an interesting discussion here might involve working out where we agree, rather than where we disagree.
I think that this is an odd tactic.
You can state what the hard problem is. And others find it unsatisfying. What are you hoping to get out of these repeated questions?
Chalmers is not Adorno. That's an example of baggage from outside the discussion.
So while unconscious one "lacks the capacity to feel"?
Btw, is it even possible for a panpsychist to be unconscious?
My charitable reading of Chalmer's notion is, in my own words, 'the difficulty of scientifically demonstrating that human beings are n o t zombies'.
It's not a game. This is a thread about the hard problem. Banno and 180 think it's bollocks. But I'm not sure if they even know what it is.
OK, thank you.
"How are my perceptual and cognitive judgements that i express using my mother tongue, correlated with the public conventions that define my language"?
Once these two concepts are distinguished, the hard problem ought to evaporate, regardless of whether the two concepts can be put into correspondence. For there isn't a meaningful public answer as to whether or not Mary 'learns' new information about the concept of colour when leaving her black and white world; for none of Mary's perceptual judgements bear any analytic relation to public physical theories about colour .
Of course, Mary is likely to decide to associate her perceptual judgements with said physical theories as part of a private-dialect we might call "Mary's personal physical colour theory"
It's called 'reframing'. You should try it!
Just a rhetorical ploy.
Now 's thrown Mary into the cauldron as well.
I think I'll try to bow out of this thread. It might be worth starting a thread on the specifics of Charmers article, or on some of the other topics covered, but i can't see this thread achieving anything.
Agree. I only said there is a general resemblance.
Yes. But this never obtains.
No. It's not possible for anything to be unconscious in my view.
Would you believe me in saying @Banno and @180 Proof understand the problem?
At least, such is my belief. I think their contentions come from another philosophical perspective, is all. Both worth considering in thinking about consciousness philosophically.
Might as well note that Marxism can lazily take care of this problem through the dialectic. But the solution might be considered worse than the original problem. (still makes me giggle though, even though I shouldn't)
Where's the metaphysics of humor angle. :D
Maybe they do. 180 seems to having asked him.
I see the resemblance. Part of my bringing it up was to separate the issue from a 'ghost in the machine' matter that you have been charged with introducing.
In the sense of asleep or under anaesthetic, yes. What's happening there is that bert1 as a coherent subject ceases to exist. It's not that bert1 remains a constant that gains and loses consciousness, although that is how we ordinarily speak. It's that bert1 as a coherent functional identity, with memories, desires, beliefs etc ceases to exist. what is lost is identity, not consciousness.
How did you feel when you were unconscious?
This is also the case with @Banno or anyone -- just start typing the person's name in the field, and eventually you'll have an option to click on them.
So, would you believe me? I'm certain @Banno understands.
From what you've said so far, I don't think you do. It's just a call a theory of consciousness that includes an explanation for phenomenal consciousness. Is that your understanding?
Of course I believe that you think that @Banno understands the problem. It's just not evident to me that he, nor even @180 Proof does most of the time. However @180 Proof's recent gloss on it seems apt, so maybe I'm wrong.
'Unconsciousness' is a deceptively named concept, given that its conditions of assertibility are identical to the empirical concept of amnesia.
E.g, " I know I was unconscious last night" ,means something like "When contemplating what happened last night, I associate my experiences with the present, as opposed to the previous night."
So if you aren't sure what the hard problem is, why would you vouch for someone else's understanding? I don't understand.
The "identity" of what is "lost"? And if this is the case, then what function does "consciousness" serve? What does it do (or what do we do with it)?
I do not remember.
In my terms of consciousness being 'awareness of self-awareness', being unconscious is not to be aware of being self-aware or not to be self-aware.
I just didn't know how to answer your question.
I thought I set out my best understanding of the hard problem in my opening post. But you're saying you're not convinced I understand. And your rephrasing of my position was just confusing to me -- that's what I meant.
This was your understanding:
Quoting Moliere
I see where these speculations are coming from, but the hard problem is more basic. It's: why do you experience orgasms? Why doesn't that neural activity happen without any associated experience of it?
It's not about why your orgasms are your own and not someone else's. See the difference?
Quoting Isaac
Gods and pixie dust don't exist, so no account is necessary. But you agree that we have experiences, and therefore some scientific accounting for them is necessary, to have a complete understanding of the world. If a pixie were to materialize in front of you, you would have to account for it somehow, either as a supernatural manifestation, a hologram, etc. But you can't close your eyes and pretend it's not there, or just say "well, that happened.", and still fully understand the world.
What you're saying is experience causes neural activity.
The inverted spectrum argument is meant to show how experience can be different between persons, and so it's a legitimate reference. When talking about "my blue", I am making a public distinction. "blue" after all, and "my" for that matter, are public meanings. And I'm noting how our experience of the world could be somewhat different, from a functional perspective. Would it really matter that my orgasm is the same as your orgasm, from the Darwinian perspective? No, it'd just have to be good enough to keep the species alive. And some people's orgasms might be somewhat sub-par, and hence that might be why they aren't as motivated by them.
There's no doubt that experience and neural activity go hand in hand. It could be that neural and other CNS materials give rise to experience. We don't know that, though, and we can't assume it.
The inverted spectrum argument is one of the many reasons we can't assume it.
That argument doesn't require two people. It goes:
One day you wake up and your spectrum is inverted, but no physical changes happened to your brain. Is that conceivable? Sure.
Therefore, brain function and experience are not logically identical. In order to claim that one explains the other, we'll need evidence of that.
Assuming you reject dualism then I don't see how that is conceivable.
How so?
I described the conditions which would qualify as an error. I have not intent to judge any particular individual unless you bring the person here to take part in the discussion so we could make that judgement. Sorry if this disappoints you.
Quoting 180 Proof
No not really, because the specific problem I stated is not explicitly "the hard problem". To tell you the truth, I still don't really understand the supposed "hard problem". I'm dualist so I don't see "the hard problem", it appears to be the consequence of unreasonable premises and poor ontology. I see a lot of hard headed people though.
Every event must have a cause. If consciousness isn't supernatural, and the physical state of the brain remains constant, then the inversion would be left without any possible cause.
Yes. This is metaphysical possibility. We can have a god do whatever we want as long as it's not a contradiction. The test is for conceivability, that's all.
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/771468
and actually that it is only a "hard problem" for idealist (or subjectivist) philosophers '. I agree.
You seem to misunderstand. Neuroscience has a blind spot, I think that's obvious, as described by the analogy of @Olivier5. Having a blind spot, what I described as having a weakness, is not necessarily a problem though. So long as we all recognize our own weaknesses and we work around them, the weakness is not a problem.
When someone does not recognize one's own weakness, that will be a problem because the weakness will manifest in a mistake when unexpected. This is not "the hard problem" explicitly. The hard problem is something more like the difficulty of recognizing the weakness, seeing the blind spot.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
then your point about a "blindspot" is merely a tendentious non sequitur, MU.
Actually it's your conclusion which is non-sequitur. The scientist, just like everyone else in the world is confronted with problems which are not scientific problems. I.e., many problems we face cannot be solved with the scientific method. So, that the problem is not a scientific problem does not mean that scientists are not confronted with it.
I guess I don't think whether you phrase it with one or two people it matters too much. But that probably goes some way to explain why I don't believe experience is private, ala the private language argument.
Is it intrinsic to this particular blind spot that its enactors are often blind to it being a blind spot? Is this when a blind spot bites? When it is not recognized as a limitation?
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
That's true and unless you're unremittingly scientistic, that would be well understood. Not many actual scientists seem to be members here, but there are a number of folk who consider science to be a more reliable pathway to understanding 'reality' than many other approaches. Where is the line drawn? Seems to be about where you think reality begins and ends.
When it comes to the hard problem of consciousness it seems to me difficult to determine who's territory this really is. And whether it is an actual thing. I am somewhat ambivalent and I recognize that like most I have no specialized knowledge with which to enhance my intuitive understanding of the matter.
It does seem to me that this problem either clicks with people or does not click. What exactly is the difference? Is it world view or experience or an actual blind spot?
This is among the reasons why enactivism makes more sense to me than any other account of 'experience'. :up:
LOL. God forbid!
I fail to see how experience itself is not private, even thought or the telling or acting out of it obviously is not, and the experience itself is mediated by socially acquired conceptions.
:up: Ergo my enactivist outlook.
Flowery vague ambiguities all packaged up nicely into a name. It's all in the name. It's all about the name. What's the name picking out to the exclusion of all else?
There is nothing it is like to be me.
"Felt" quality of redness??? The redness of the apple feels...
Gibberish.
It's qualia because the felt quality of the redness is private and unique to each individual...
,,,colors are not the sort of thing that we feel.
What unites each of these is that some folk call them "states of experience" not that there is something it is like to be a conscious organism.
As if all conscious organisms who been burnt were/are conscious to the same degree about the same things in all the same ways? Gibberish. As if all people share one and only one set of characteristics or features of and/or within experience such that it makes sense to say that there is something it is like to be a person or a bat or a cat or whatever?
The hard problem of consciousness is nothing more than self-imposed bewitchment.
:smirk: :up:
"Share the same world", It's a colloquial expression - thought it was more universal, but apparently not. It means to be involved in the same activities. The use of the word 'consciousness' as it's used here and the study of neurons are not 'in the same world' they don't overlap in their activities. There's no need for one to explain the other, it wouldn't even make sense it'd be like expecting physics to explain what a googly is in cricket.
Quoting Olivier5
Exactly. And unless you want to argue that the dictionary was given to us by God or created by an act of nature, then nothing in it is 'discovered'. We declare definitions to be what they are, we could have declared otherwise.
So your idea of a discussion forum is that someone posts a claim and everyone who disagrees with it should refrain from posting in that thread.
That explains a lot about your approach to this forum.
No. That's exactly the notion I'm disagreeing with. Us being able to use a word in conversation is not an indicator that that word picks out some empirical object or event in need of a scientific explanation. I gave the example of 'orange'. A perfectly useful word. There's no scientific explanation for the boundaries of the colour, nor is there any need for one. We just find 'orange' a useful level of distinction, not too fine to be cumbersome, not too broad to be useless. Nothing in the physics of photons explains 'orange' as a category, nor should it.
The OP...
Quoting Art48
If the OP wanted a within-paradigm discussion, then drawing in biology, chemistry, electricity, and quantum mechanics mightn't be the best way to go about that.
As usual, a claim is made against science, then when a scientific paradigm is invoked in the defense of that claim, the argument shifts to a non-overlapping magesteria one.
Well, if a scientific paradigm has no place in discussions about consciousness, then will everyone please stop going on about neuroscience (the failings thereof) in relation to it.
Im in agreement with a lot of what youve said in this discussion, but I think its worth pointing out why people do this. I think its an understandable reaction to the claims in popular science to the effect that consciousness has been, or will soon be, explained away by neuroscience. That is, a scientism that thereby devalues our stories. Do you recognise that this is a thing?
You are welcome to produce an alternative definition of "doubt" if you think it useful, but the meaning of the word "doubt" in standard English is a sort of feeling, felt by a human being. It's not about something free-floating in the universe, somewhere between Saturn and Neptune.
Defined conventionally, a doubt without a person holding it is simply a logical impossibility. It makes no sense whatsoever, like "colorless green ideas sleeping furiously".
Yes.
I think there's two separate questions here. The first is whether neuroscience explains this 'phenomenological' use of the term consciousness. I think the answer to that is no (mainly because I can't see how it possibly could).
The second is the question of whether the 'phenomenological' use of the term consciousness makes coherent sense, is a useful term. I also happen to think the answer to that question is no. But it's a different question and the fact that the answer is 'no' doesn't, in my view, justify a claim that neuroscience has 'explained' it.
Why would I do that? Pointing out that the definition is an arbitrary cultural artifact is not the same as saying I want it replaced with another one. It's simply pointing out that we didn't 'discover' doubting needed a doubter. It's how we defined the word 'doubt'. It's not a fact of nature, it's a fact about how we speak.
That's good, because I am not speaking about nature. I am speaking about a sentence that I find illogical, the sentence: "I doubt that I exist as a sentient, self-conscious entity". That sentence is logically absurd because a doubt implies some sentient, self-conscious entity holding it.
How does doubt logically imply a sentient, self-conscious entity holding it? What logical steps form that implication? Perhaps you could render it in classical notation, that might help.
I think you're broadly in agreement with Chalmers here.
Gibberish.
But don't stop there, you've left us hanging.
I would say that blind spots are intrinsic to the nature of theoretical knowledge. Theoretical knowledge has limitations, and when the knowledge is put into practise the limitations may become a problem. The issue with being blind to the blind spot is that often the limitations cannot be known in advance, they only become evident as a result of practise.
So scientists use the scientific method to experiment and observe, and this helps to determine the strengths and weaknesses of the various theories, as a sort of practise. But experimentation occurs in a very controlled environment which doesn't properly represent the natural environment where free practise occurs.
Quoting Tom Storm
This points to the issue I mentioned near the beginning of the thread, the difference between the inside of an object and the outside of an object. Science is always looking from the outside in. That is the scientific way, to observe through the senses, and this is to put oneself outside the thing being observed, thereby producing objective observations. On the other hand, the subjective "introspection" gives one a look at what is going on inside an object. So we can come to understand that these two ways of looking at an object give us very distinct and different understandings of what an object is.
Now, what I must insist on, and what is so difficult to get across to the hard headed scientistic people who claim "science to be a more reliable pathway to understanding 'reality'", is that this is 'reality'. So it is completely incorrect to assume that science is the more reliable path towards understanding reality because it only has a method toward understanding a part of reality. The true reality is that there is such a difference between inside and outside, and that is why dualism has been the principal ontology for thousands of years.
Scientism tells us that science has brought us beyond dualism, and that there is no longer a need for dualist ontology because science is the only method required for understanding reality, as you imply with that statement. But the true reality is that science alone, by its current method, cannot deliver to us adequate principles for drawing a line between where the outside ends and the inside begins. It looks at everything from the one direction, and cannot give us the principles required to designate properties of "the inside". And without adequate principles for what constitutes the inside, science cannot make an accurate differentiation between inside and outside.
On the other hand, dualism starts with a much more accurate description of reality, the fundamental difference between inside and outside, thereby providing us with the basic premise required for the differentiation, and a true understanding of reality. That's why dualism has been the standard ontology for thousands of years, and has only recently gone on the decline due to the increase of scientism.
Quoting Tom Storm
So I would say that the difference is a difference of "world view". Science takes from the inside (theory), and applies what is taken from the inside, to the outside (practise). The application effectively proves and disproves what has been given by the inside, and this is the scientific method. Scientism denies the importance of the inside, insisting that the scientific method is all that is required for the existence of knowledge, thereby creating a blind spot for itself, its reliance on the inside. So science does not create the blind spot, nor does science reject dualism, it's the scientistic philosophy which rejects dualism, dissolving the difference between inside and outside, thereby producing a philosophical (not a scientific) blind spot.
I don't see how. Chalmers famously labelled it the 'hard problem', didn't he? I'm suggesting it isn't a problem at all. I can't think of any way we could be much farther apart than that.
Regardless, your view is similar to his.
Your argument is interesting but I'm not sure I properly understand it - perhaps because it doesn't entirely mesh with my innate skeptical pragmatism. But differences of opinion don't phase me too much.
Science has limitations - as do most approaches. I wouldn't recommend prayer to manage diabetes or science to mend a broken heart - although there might be evidence based therapeutic modalities that can assist. :wink:
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
I agree to some extent, but most of the folk I know who privilege science would say it allows us to understand the aspects of reality humans have capability to understand, (or access to) not 'ultimate reality' - which is a different speculative metaphysical postulate. And science is an approach which develops and morphs.
What do you propose to be kinds of knowledge about reality we can attain without science? How would this apply to the hard question proposed here? Can you provide any examples? I'm assuming (from your description of inside derived knowledge) you are referring to higher awareness type directions.
Quoting hypericin
Understanding of the world, not word. Experiences are events, whether or not they are somehow illusory. As such they require an explanation.
The boundary between two words that designate regions of a continuous phenomenon is very clearly not a event or property of the world. But our capacity to use such words as 'orange' to conceptually discretize continuities is subject to scientific explanation.
Quoting Isaac
Suppose you lost your ability to experience sight (assuming you have it), even though you can still clearly respond to visual events. In what "world" would you look for an explanation of your plight?
Quoting Isaac
For once I agree with @Isaac. For Chalmers there is an explanatory gap, for Isaac there is no gap, since consciousness is somehow a purely human construct, requiring no explanation.
I'm not looking to do a deep dive on what Isaac thinks because I'd probably bump my head on the bottom of the pool. But he said:
Quoting Isaac
The last sentence is not too far from Chalmers' view.
Quoting Isaac
There is absolutely a need for one to explain the other, if there was no need there would be no hard problem.
Chalmers doesn't think that science, in it's present state, is capable of addressing the hard problem. He thinks it will probably take some sort of paradigm shift.
It's best to untangle the language first, at least to figure out what we're trying to talk about.
The word is an obvious nominalization, as evident by the suffix "-ness". Nominalizing adjectives and verbs is a natural and sometimes perilous part of language. So we'll have to look at the root word to gain any understanding here.
The word conscious (or "unconscious") has typically been applied to describe organisms, the body, the "physical correlates". In fact, there is little else on Earth the word can be applied to without raising serious absurdities. But, for whatever reason, the word has been nominalized along the way.
Knowing that "conscious-ness" is a nominalization, and "conscious" invariably describes conscious things, it follows that what we're speaking about is any number of conscious things considered in abstracto, that is, removed of every other physical properties for the purposes of analysis.
Unfortunately, having mentally excised the physical properties we're left with nothing to think about or even to apply the term. When the language turns a description of an object into its own "quality" or "essence", it makes it its own object, worthy of its own descriptions and so on. The problem is, the moment we look around, there isn't any extant object or substance or event or place upon which we can pin the word. So the "hard problem" is so difficult because you're trying to explain essentially nothing.
Yes, but Chalmers hasn't opined on what science should do, has he? Just on what it would have to do to address the hard problem.
There are. Its easy to describe someone as happy simply by looking at them. But how does one describe happiness, when we are no longer describing anything else?
The biological reality and the first person reality are one and the same thing. All we need do is answer the easy problems in order to answer the hard problem.
This may be, but you'd need to provide evidence for it. It's not a logical truth.
There is a difference between thinking that findings within science have absolutely no bearing on our phenomenological self-understandings, which, if you were familiar with the phenomenological tradition, you would know is certainly not true, and thinking that findings within science trump our self-understandings when there appears to be a conflict between them.
So, ideas such as "non-overlapping magisteria", "forms of life", "fields of sense" and so on, are themselves subject to interpretation ranging from the idea that each "magisteria", "form" or "field" is hermetically sealed from the others, to recognizing that there is cross-fertilization, but that the imagined priority of any magisteria over any others is a matter of personal presupposition, preference and oftentimes, prejudice.
So, no claim is being made (by me at least) against science, against neuroscientific findings, I just question the notion that those findings trump our everyday self-understandings. And that notion itself is not something that could ever be established or refuted by empirical evidence. In that sense this discussion is already outside the magisteria we call science.
Take a look. That which is giving its first-person account is the exact same being to which we give a biological account.
The problem is that science consistently employs speculative metaphysical propositions, in the form of the hypotheses which it tests. The scientific method is to test hypotheses, but it dictates nothing about where these hypotheses are derived from. So, science plays a role in helping us to understand the aspects of reality which we are capable of understanding, but it does not provide that understanding by itself.
Now, consider your claim that science develops and morphs. Isn't it true that the directions which science goes in are greatly formed by the metaphysical hypotheses which are presented to it, to be tested. Your proclaimed "skeptical pragmatism" ought to help you to understand this. There is always reasons why the hypotheses which are drawn up, are drawn up, and this is what gives direction to the morphing and development of science. But what happens if science starts to get its direction from bad ontology, and bad metaphysics?
Quoting Tom Storm
I'm dualist, and I believe that all human knowledge requires both aspects, theory and practise. Science, as a method is a form of practise which validates theories. Theory without practise is not knowledge, nor is practise without theory. There is however a special type of knowledge described in Aristotle's Nichomachean Ethics, which is called intuitive knowledge, and I believe it involves the relationship between practise and theory. I would not say that this type of knowledge is necessarily "about reality" but it is necessarily prior to science, and it is necessary in order to have any understanding of reality.
And you take this to show that phenomenal consciousness is equivalent to biological states? Could you explain how? Because I'm not seeing it.
I get that. I don't think truth outside of human experience (in the Greek or Christian sense) is accessible so for me everything boils down to presuppositions you prefer to hold, which are usually based upon a worldview (theism/idealism/skepticism). For me science makes attempts at building testable knowledge and for the most part it delivers in was prayer or mediation can only dream of. I am comfortable with it's limitations which I think are the limitations of the human perspective.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
This is an example of one such presupposition I mentioned. Not one I personally subscribe to.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
This is interesting to me. Even though don't think I can incorporate it into my worldview.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Interesting. I think I'm a monist - I just do things and rarely reflect (no doubt I am the unremarkable product of enculturation). :razz: The advantage I have found is that I am almost always content and in positive relationship with others. :wink:
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
I may explore this idea with you more later if that's ok. I tend to be more sympathetic to Feyerabendian views on science (what little I understand of his project) and do not consider myself in the scientific method worship business. Personally I think metaphysics and ontology mostly come down to personal preferences (again those presuppositions you hold) and some of these are more useful in certain contexts than others. I really only care what people believe if they want to execute gay people, chop down our last trees or stack the supreme court with Methodists.
For the simple reason that phenomenal consciousness is not equivalent to anything else. There is no other entity in the universe onto which we can affix the label "phenomenal consciousness" but the biology. The biology is speaking about itself, as we can observe and by its own admission. "I'm hurt", "I feel pain", "I'm hungry" says the biology. So we mend the biological state, console the biological state, feed the biological state. At no point need we concern with anything else.
So what would you take to show that they are not equivalent?
How do you know that?
Quoting NOS4A2
Chalmers has a couple of thought experiments that show that the two are logically distinct. One is the p-zombie. This shows that we don't know apriori that the two are equivalent. We need evidence to show that.
The physical brain and consciousness aren't parallels. There's no way in which matter ever will "seem" like a sufficient explanation. It just can't happen.
I think that the vast majority of knowledge is not "about reality". Knowledge mostly consists of how to do things. You being pragmatist must recognize this. But this gives moral philosophy a supreme position on the epistemic hierarchy, because it deals with what we should and should not do. But then we must go even higher than this, to ground our moral principles, so we turn toward understanding reality, and this is metaphysics.
Quoting Tom Storm
Contentment is not always good. We ought not be content in a bad situation. And one cannot judge the situation by one's contentment, saying if I am content, then the situation is good, because we need to base goodness in a view toward the future. Understanding what "the future" is, is a subject of metaphysics, and this is why we need accurate metaphysics for a good moral philosophy.
Quoting Tom Storm
I perceive a little inconsistency between this (metaphysics and ontology are just personal preferences), and your earlier statement, that you are the "product of enculturation". How do you suppose that one's metaphysics and ontology could escape one's enculturation, to acquire the status of personal preference? See "personal preference" points to taste, but "metaphysics" points to an understanding of reality. So how could one's understanding of reality be more like the product of taste than the product of enculturation?
I've always assumed that one's personal preferences are derived by enculturation. But I should have also said that there are likely to biological factors. I'm not really trying to nail down a totalizing explanation for all things.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Nicely argued. There's a lot unpack there. First take: I generally hold that my morality is based on preferences - derived from upbringing, culture, society, biology and aesthetics. I don't like the aesthetics of violence, abuse or 'will' being forced upon others. It's terribly ugly and unpleasant. For me morality is in the doing not in the theory. I generally hold to human flourishing as a key guide. Does it harm or help? This is not a science and should be an open, ongoing conversation.
I think the common standard is to attribute personal preferences to genetic predisposition. This predisposition may get amplified through practise and enculturation.
Quoting Tom Storm
Well, we surely need some theory to be able to judge the doing as good or bad. Whether or not "human flourishing" makes an acceptable principle is debatable. I suppose we'd need to start with a good definition of "flourishing".
Quoting Tom Storm
I agree with this.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Suffering bad. I can take each case as it comes, I don't need to write a paper on it. :wink:
Weve looked.
Do you find p-zombies convincing? I dont even find them conceivable. I cant even think about how such a being could be possible.
Among the many accounts of gravity on the table is that our gravity is bleeding into our universe from another bigger one. Some scientists noticed that the big bang has some of the characteristics of black hole, leading them to wonder if we're actually in one.
This is the way science works. We don't settle on a conclusion because it seems like the last resort, exclaiming, "We looked."
Quoting NOS4A2
This is metaphysical possibility, not physical possibility. An evil demon or a god could have done it. It's just a test for conceivability. Santa Claus is conceivable, though we would all struggle to explain how reindeer could act as an engine.
I am willing to change my mind upon further evidence, but there isnt any. I can only observe and conceive of what it is that you are talking about, and all I can see and all I can conceive of is the biology. I try to find anything else upon which I can pin the phrase phenomenological consciousness and come up empty. If you can only pin it on nothing than nothing is what you are talking about. If p-zombies are missing nothing then they are not p-zombies.
No 'Experience' is a word it's felicitous use in conversation is not empirical evidence, Scientists perfectly cogently used to use the word 'ether' too. turned it it referred to noting whatsoever.
Quoting hypericin
It is, yes. It has nothing whatsoever to do with photons, It has to do with culture, that's why colour words are different in different languages, use different breaks and continuities - because it's just a word, and words don't magically identify empirical objects with scientific accuracy.
Quoting hypericin
There already is a very good explanation for Blindsight. What is it you think the explanation is lacking?
I'm thinking you saw Pinocchio as a child and said, "This is inconceivable!"
But this is what leads to misunderstanding and confusion. That's what Plato showed in his dialogues. Different people all 'know how to use' the same word. But when you ask each of them what they mean when they use that word, they come up with different answers. This is clear evidence that there is misunderstanding when that word is being used, and knowledge of the subject is elusive.
Quoting Tom Storm
"Suffering is bad" is theory. It doesn't require a long statement to be a theory. In fact, it appears like the theories which people hold as being the most important (like 'God exists' for example), are the simplest, short and sweet.
Who exactly is arguing from its felicitous use as a word? Only you, for me.
Quoting Isaac
I think it is just fine. It is a biological explanation for a change (loss) of phenomenal experience. The explanation is not floating off in some other world, as you would have it. .
I think you dont have any evidence and are holding out for some odd reason.
I don't play dirty. I'm telling it straight. If you follow Chalmers' and Dennett's works, you'll find that both are pretty heavily preoccupied with who has the burden of proof.
The point of the p-zombie and other thought experiments is not about proving a difference between experience and biological function. They only prove that we can't assume they're the same. It's a subtle, but ultimately slam dunk point regarding the hard problem.
You have to face the fact that we don't know what causes phenomenal consciousness. You can insist that it's equivalent to biological function, but you'll need to provide evidence, ideally of a type that would be published in Nature. You can't just assume it. Do you see why?
You are. Your only evidence Dir the existence of an entity/event in need of explanation is that we use the word 'experience'. Other than that, you can't point to it, you can't specify it, you can't identify it in any way other than saying the word.
Quoting hypericin
Then you have your answer. The cause of phenomenological consciousness is the striate cortex, since you find lesions there to be an adequate explanation for blindsight.
I dont see itthats the problem. Im aware of the arguments. Ive just never found them in any way convincing. But Im hindered from the get-go. I have yet to understand what phenomenal consciousness is, Im afraid, so I draw a blank upon hearing it. Nothing is caused, nothing arises, nothing emerges, that is worthy of the term. And that we can have two distinct accounts of one phenomenon does not suggest to me that there are two distinct phenomenon occurring in there.
Gotcha. Maybe someday down the road you'll return to it and it will all click into place, but not now. :up:
But wait, I thought:
Quoting Isaac
Have you reverted back to p-zombiehood? How exactly does your conscious mind (if it is) receive information about the world, if it doesn't experience? If there is no experience, what exactly are sufferers of blindsight complaining about?
Quoting Isaac
Again, the question is not what is responsible for consciousness. It's the brain, everyone knows it. The question is how the brain is responsible for consciousness.
Yes. I wouldn't want to deny a Bishop moves diagonally in chess either. Doesn't mean there's a scientific explanation lacking for why. Human cultures create facon de parler. It doesn't magically bring into being some entity. We're not gods.
Quoting hypericin
Through dendrites.
Quoting hypericin
Neuronal activity. But that doesn't seem to satisfy because you switch definition of 'consciousness'. People with blind sight are 'unaware' of the message from their retinas. They're unaware because to be aware we need the message to reach the working memory and the lesions in the striate cortex prevent that. Awareness just is messages in the working memory, nothing more. It's this form of awareness people with blind sight lack. There's a pretty full explanation of how.
Why waste our time demanding evidence for something you wouldn't deny?
Bishops move diagonally for historical reasons. History and science are both necessary for understanding the world. Bishops don't move diagonally "just because". If someone claimed that I would require a better explanation for that as well.
Quoting Isaac
Exactly, unlike chess experience does not strike me as something we can whisk into being from nothingness. If we can, I want to know how.
Quoting Isaac
How is your conscious brain interface with something it is unconscious of? "The ball is red" is information, when confronted by a red ball does this proposition pop into your head unbidden?
Quoting Isaac
Where have I done so?
I am puzzled by your puzzlement. Your life is different from mine. That comes from you being stuck with your set of experiences instead of mine. It does not take the invention of a 'ghost in the machine' to notice that is an inescapable fact.
It is also surprising to see you object to this quality of privacy after arguing in so many other places that all restrictions upon persons are a violation of their rights. I am not sure if you have thought this all through.
Something odd I've recently noticed is that I don't really understand why people say phenomenal consciousness is private, internal, and ineffable. I really believed Dennett was being disingenuous when he assigned those properties to it.
Now I'm starting to realize that many people actually do experience things that way. I think now that Dennett was being honest, so it's easier for me to believe now that NOS is being honest.
I think maybe all the people who say they don't know what phenomenal consciousness are telling the truth. They really don't.
I understand the folk psychology of experiences, but I dont actually imagine I carry a set of experiences with me wherever I go, so I never need to appeal to them. All I have is my body. You have one too, I wager.
I object only to postulating something within us that isnt there. I bestow rights upon what is there, not on what isnt.
How do you experience it? I don't ask that as a trick question. I am not accusing anybody of misrepresenting their experiences.
The element of Chalmers' challenge that I don't see well represented in this thread is that he focused upon how the conflict of methods developed to establish facts beyond personal experience came to be used to explain that phenomena itself. Something deliberately built to avoid a problem was turned upon the potato deemed too hot to pass around. Observing that problem is different than insisting upon the existence of a being beyond what 'science' can establish.
You probably remember what you did and what has happened to you in the past. That 'set of experiences' is probably the closest you will get to what your body can report.
I just meant that I don't grasp what it means to call experience internal. I'm not trying to be a pain in the ass when I say that. I just really don't.
Quoting Paine
Could you expand on that?
Most of it I do not remember. Memories are fleeting.
I will give it a shot.
Science, as a practice, developed through a lot of discussion about separating causality from coincidence. Given that we are creatures who base much of our knowledge upon lining up what happened at the same time as evidence of a cause, it was only through suppressing this tendency that we became aware of systems that were not simply extensions of our assumptions. Establishing what is happening and building models for why it did was the beginning of looking for functions rather than accepting we have been shown what there is to know.
After some time of doing this, the method starts to consider what it dismissed at the beginning of its enterprise; The inclusion of observations made isolated from other people.
Memories are fleeting, as mortal as we are.
So do you experience them as public, external, effable?
Im confused how much all these disagreements are due to conceptual differences and how much are due to differences in ways of experiencing.
I believe experience is all three, for reasons that are more conceptual than experiential:
Private and internal: experiences are not public, a third party will never be able to access them, they are available to you and you alone, because experience cannot be experienced in the third person, only lived in the first person. Experience is your first person interface to the world. It is what it is like to be you, and no one else.
Ineffable: Experiences are incommunicable. The best you can do to describe them is to use other experience words. Red is like orange, feels hot, and so on. But ultimately any description must be circular. If my experience words map to your experience words in totally different ways, we will never find out. We can never know if humanity all experiences in the same way, if is it is divided into experiential groups, or if we all experience uniquely. This follows from the privacy of experience, which is absolute, there is no way out of it.
I doubt this will convince you. But this is my view, and it is quite hard for me to think outside of it. Especially the denialists, they are incomprehensible to me.
I'm not. Not once have I 'demanded evidence' for phenomenal consciousness' If you can't follow a simple argument there's little point continuing. try reading what I've written rather than arguing against what you think I probably wrote. I'm sure you've got a nice stack of stock arguments against your imaginary standard reductionist scientism acolyte, but I'm not him, so if you want to argue against me you'll have to first try to understand what I'm saying.
Have you read the stuff on Anomalous Monism I posted earlier? Does the concept make any sense to you?
It's as if we started creating a documentary film, then forgot about the guy behind the camera. We wanted to remove personal bias from the account, and we ended up removing the person altogether.
Now we want to put the cameraman in the documentary?
Are you familiar with Meno's paradox? It basically concludes that communication is always a matter of pointing to facets of your audience's experience. You can't really communicate something that's outside their available data because communication is a matter of pointing. Explanation is a matter of channelling focus.
In short, communication requires a common experiential ground. There could be cases where experience varies significantly, as with people with aphantasia, but knowledge of that implies some commonality in order to communicate it.
So if experience is truly private, there's no way we could know that. See what I mean?
As for "internal". I just don't understand what it's supposed to be internal to. My skull?
Quoting hypericin
And that's what's interesting to me. When we scrub the conversation of animosity and distrust, we come up on the ways that we differ in terms of conception.
Weird how those most dogmatic about the unquestionable 'truth' of sciences known full well to be biased are the same ones adamant about the bias in sciences not particularly known for such.
Those posting in this thread against the 'truth' capturing capabilities of neuroscience, arguing for 'bias' and 'blindspots' there, are the same cohort of people who argued with Covid and Ukraine that the medical establishment and intelligence establishment respectively represent unimpeachable truths without bias or blind spots. That to question them was conspiracy.
Replication rates in the woefully corrupt pharmaceutical industry are half what they are in neuroscience. Yet you'd want us to believe their grasp on 'truth' is unquestionable, yet that of neuroscience is riddled with bias and blindspots.
So does science have biases and blindspots or not? Are scientists biased by their fundamental metaphysical ideologies but miraculously unaffected by any other ideology (political, social, etc).
Your picture of the dogmatic, biased, blinded scientists when it comes to consciousness seems at odds with your faith in the unbiased, detached scientist of public health, or the dedicated non-political, intelligence officer.
Is it just neuroscientists who are so weak?
Science is ok. :up:
That is an interesting analogy. I read Chalmers as breaking from the Cartesian theater where the duality of a first person being separated from the rest of the movie is the explanation itself.:
The question is not whether we are only physical beings but whether the methods to establish what is only physical will explain experience. Chalmers is introducing a duality that is recognized through the exclusion of a phenomena instead of accepting the necessity for an agency beyond phenomena.
To that point, we don't know enough to say what consciousness does to understand how it may relate to the specific event of being a 'first' person. Compare this circumspection to the boldness of Identity Theory where that aspect of the 'physical' self is the first order of business.
Quoting Paine
I like Zahavis critique of Chalmers position:
Chalmers's discussion of the hard problem has identified and labeled an aspect of consciousness that cannot be ignored. However, his way of defining and distinguishing the hard problem from the easy problems seems in many ways indebted to the very reductionism that he is out to oppose. If one thinks that cognition and intentionality is basically a matter of information processing and causal co-variation that could in principle just as well go on in a mindless computeror to use Chalmers' own favored example, in an experienceless zombiethen one is left with the impression that all that is really distinctive about consciousness is its qualitative or phenomenal aspect. But this seems to suggest that with the exception of some evanescent qualia everything about consciousness including intentionality can be explained in reductive (computational or neural) terms; and in this case, epiphenomenalism threatens.
To put it differently, Chalmers's distinction between the hard and the easy problems of consciousness shares a common feature with many other recent analytical attempts to defend consciousness against the onslaught of reductionism: They all grant far too much to the other side. Reductionism has typically proceeded with a classical divide and rule strategy. There are basically two sides to consciousness: Intentionality and phenomenality. We don't currently know how to reduce the latter aspect, so let us separate the two sides, and concentrate on the first. If we then succeed in explaining intentionality reductively, the aspect of phenomenality cannot be all that significant. Many non-reductive materialists have uncritically adopted the very same strategy. They have marginalized subjectivity by identifying it with epiphenomenal qualia and have then claimed that it is this aspect which eludes reductionism.
But is this partition really acceptable, are we really dealing with two separate problems, or is experience and intentionality on the contrary intimately connected? Is it really possible to investigate intentionality properly without taking experience, the first-person perspective, semantics, etc., into account? And vice versa, is it possible to understand the nature of subjectivity and experience if we ignore intentionality. Or do we not then run the risk of reinstating a Cartesian subject-world dualism that ignores everything captured by the phrase being-in-the-world?
I'm a hard determinist, so I don't share that concern.
Quoting frank
Hard determinism has worked well for the natural sciences , but it isnt such a great fit for elucidating psychological processes such as intentionality, mental illness, motivation, affectivity, empathy and learning.
If I'm not understanding you correctly, maybe it would help if your "argument" was the least bit coherent.
On the one hand, we "have" experiences, yet whatever they are, they are a pale, ghostly thing, a not "an entity/event in need of explanation", it is a mere "felicitous word", that exists somewhere in it's "own world".
At times you have likened experience to fictional entities (gods, pixie dust, the ether), at other times human convention (the boundary between red and orange, the movement of chess pieces), at other times you declared the simple identity of experience and neural activity. Which is it? And all this without, as far as I can tell, the slightest shred of evidence or argument that experience is any of these, or even that it is possible for experience to be any of these. You just baldly insist on it.
Are you just waving around your (no doubt flawed) interpretation of the results of the Anomalous Monism argument as if they were self evident truths?
If there is an argument somewhere, it seems to be this "killer".
Quoting Isaac
Which is garbage. If memory does not have a one-to-one correspondence with neural activity (as you have asserted), does that imply that there is no neural basis for memory? That memory too has no need for explanation, existing in its own shadowy world? No, it just means that the relationship between memory and neural activity is irreducibly complex. Do I need to waste time providing evidence of the neural basis of memory?
No, forgive me if I'm not willing to spend another iota of my precious time picking over your opinions on this matter. They are just not that interesting. As a far wiser man than me said,
Quoting frank
PS no one is attacking your precious neuroscience, so quit whining about it as if they were.
So what if Quoting Joshs? Are we supposed to reason towards what elevates our self esteem and makes us feel good? Rather than towards the truth?
Quoting Joshs
I think I agree with this, but in the sense that explaining cognition without experience is hopeless, in the same way that explaining biology without cells is hopeless. Sure, all biology is ultimately reducible to molecules bouncing around, but you won't get anywhere trying to describe it in those terms. It is the wrong level of description. Similarly, neural activity is the wrong level of description to explain "higher" (that is, conscious) cognition. It (we) treats phenomenal experience as if it were elemental, and thinks in terms of them, even if they are ultimately reducible to neural activity (in ways yet to be elucidated).
Doubt necessarily implies a sentient, self-conscious entity holding it. Doubt is a thinking process. If you do not agree with this, then what is doubt to you?
Thinking is not just a convention or an agreement that humans hold on to. I, for example, do not need your approval or some other form of acknowledgment in order for me to claim that I am thinking or doubting. And if you tell me that you are doubting the validity of my claim, then you prove my point.
If communication requires common experiential ground, this seems to rather imply the privacy of experience. If experience were communicable, then the relevant experiential background could be communicated.
Quoting frank
Aphantasia is kind of a special case. Our experience of our inner world echoes our experience of the outer world. Our inner monologue echoes the sound of us (or someone) talking, and our inner visualization echo (faintly,to be sure, for most) the experience of seeing. And so it is possible to understand one in terms of the other. Since those with aphantasia can still see, they can imagine visualization as a movie playing inside the head. But if they lacked both inner and outer sight, then it is impossible to communicate vision to that person.
Quoting frank
Internality to me is close to privacy: from the external, third-person perspective, the organism's experience is not evident. Experience is only revealed from the internal, first-person perspective. That is, to the organism.
Well they set it out. Set out the logical implication in one of the standard forms of logical notation so we can check its validity.
The scientific method of natural sciences may be said to go "beyond personal experience" but not "beyond experience". Indeed, "experience" is key in empirical research (including any empirical research about "experience"!) as much as the notions of "spacetime", "mass", "charge" are key in physics.
It makes no sense for me to interpret science as analyzing a first-person subject, therefore it makes no sense for me to interpret science as saying anything either for or against phenomenality.
Well... it's that we couldn't communicate all without any preceding common ground. There may be little nuances about your experience of say, seeing the stars at night, that I don't and possibly couldn't know about, but I must largely know what that experience is like in order to talk to you about it, right?
Quoting hypericin
I see what you mean. I think Chalmers is including all of that as phenomenal consciousness, of the outer world and the realm of imagination.
Quoting hypericin
Would you agree that the third person view is a construction?
What part of the psyche doesn't fit with epiphenomenalism? I mean, when does freedom of the will become necessary to understanding?
I agree. The emphasis has been on what can be confirmed by shared and repeatable experiences. The point Chalmers is making about the use of reductive means to discover functions is echoed by the early cheerleader of modern science, Francis Bacon:
Quoting hypericin
Epiphenomenalism asserts that mental events are caused by physical events in the brain, which they have no effect on. It can also apply to a distinction between conscious subjective awareness and subpersonal, computational cognition. The former has been assumed as epiphenomenal with respect to the latter by computational approaches in cognitive psychology.
As Evan Thompson explains, The mind was divided into two radically different regions, with an unbridgeable chasm between themthe subjective mental states of the person and the subpersonal cognitive routines implemented in the brain. The radically nonconscious, subpersonal region, the so-called cognitive un-conscious, is where the action of thought really happens; personal awareness has access merely to a few results or epiphenomenal mani-festations of subpersonal processing.
This radical separation of cognitive processes from consciousness created a peculiar "explanatory gap" in scientific theorizing about the mind. Cartesian dualism had long ago created an explanatory gap between mind and matter, consciousness and nature. Cognitivism, far from closing this gap, perpetuated it in a materialist form by opening a new gap between subpersonal, computational cognition and subjective mental phenomena. Simply put, cognitivism offered no account whatsoever of mentality in the sense of subjective experience. Some theorists even went so far as to claim that subjectivity and consciousness do not fall within the province of cognitive science.
Enactivist approaches to cognition informed by phenomenological philosophy reject this mind-mind
split.
The theory of autopoiesis and developmental systems theory to-gether provide a different view of the organism. Autopoietic systems (and autonomous systems generally) are unified networks of many in-terdependent processes. Organisms are accordingly not the sort of sys-tems that have atomistic traits as their proper parts; such traits are the products of theoretical abstraction.
Awareness, according to this model, far from being epiphenomenal, plays an important causal role. Its role is not as an internal agent or ho-munculus that issues commands, but as an order parameter that or-ganizes and regulates dynamic activity. Freeman and Varela thus agree that consciousness is neurally embodied as a global dynamic activity pattern that organizes activity throughout the brain.
I agree with this, big time. Even reducing intentionality or consciousness to brain activity is a step too far. In every single case, Intentionality and consciousness is the activity of the organism as a whole. Physicalism has done itself a disservice by looking for some amorphous locus inside the head.
I don't need to. Go ahead if you could do so. I'm asking if you had any doubts as to what I just said, then you were already demonstrating what you purported to deny. Simple. It's not hard to understand this.
Epiphenomenonalism appeared in the 19th Century before we clearly understood that physics is unfinished. I don't think it violates the spirit of epiphenomenonalism to allow the explanation for consciousness to stray from the little spot between our ears. We can still call that cause, whatever it may be, physical, if that's important to someone. The point is that we end up with property dualism. The only question is whether an individual human has the power to alter the course of the universe, or if the universe is an unchanging block. I think I know your view on that.
Quoting Joshs
That's their prerogative, but I don't think their view is the only workable one. Do you?
What? If I have doubts that proves that having doubt implies a thinking being? How? What is the process of logical implication?
This, I think, is "I(I) have a doubt (D)" in Russell's notation.
[math]\exists x(Ix \wedge \forall y(Iy \to y = x) \wedge Dx)[/math]
I see the existence of 'I' being declared, not logically implied.
How do you render it such that it is logically implied?
The fact that we share a common experiential ground stems from the fact that we share a common world, as well as a common neurology. Nonetheless I cannot look through your eyes, as you cannot mine. We can never know what it would actually be like, if we could.
Quoting frank
Yup
Quoting frank
In what sense? When we observe anything in the world, we are observing it from a third person perspective. That is a component of our first person perspective, what it is like to be us.
There isn't any phenomenal aspect to the third person account. It's the God's eye view. If you read a novel that's in third person, it's from a POV that no individual could have. Like:
They all knew that sooner or later the aliens would come back. What none of them realized was that the aliens were already among them, having shed their exoskeletons and invaded the local chickens.
That's third person.
In the literary sense it doesn't have to be free of phenomenal content. It just means that the point of view is not tied to any one character:
[Quote]Tommy squirmed in the hard plastic chair, suffocating in the reek of recent flatulence which pervaded the office. The principal's voice was a drone, a distant second to the large red birthmark on the principal's forehead in the competition for Tommy's attention. [/quote]
Philosophers don't generally use the 1st/3rd person distinction in the strict literary sense however, the usage is more by analogy. The third person perspective is that of the detached observer, while the first is the perspective of the conscious individual. In this sense everybody takes on both perspectives, and when looking in the mirror, simultaneously, on the same object.
We have very different views of that issue. :chin:
To some extent (currently in dispute), the desire to find out how Nature works is the desire to learn something beyond the aim of accounts given merely to tell a story.
When you say: "There isn't any phenomenal aspect to the third person account, that is to ignore the role of paying attention to phenomena has in moving toward that prize of objectivity. One can recognize the difference without pitting them against each other in a zero-sum game.
I wasn't pitting them against one another. Hyperion was saying that when you look out at the world, this is third person data. It's not. It's first person.
Third person data has no POV per se. It's usually thought of as a construct.
What role does science play from that perspective?
I don't understand the question.
"Implies" as in strongly suggest the truth of.
This should not be hard to understand.
You are trying to challenge that doubting implies that that there is a human being thinking or doubting. Why? Where do you think doubt comes from? Let's talk normal language.
Quoting Isaac
Sorry, I don't do Russell's notation. Please try again.
Or please expound on the Aristotelian account of thinking or Descartes's cogito.
You seem to be confusing empirical and absolute truth. Since thinking is only known to be practiced by (some) entities it is a plausible conclusion that wherever thinking is occuring there will be an entity doing it.
But this is a truth of dualistic thinking. Since entities are formal collective representations of dualistic thinking and since we can say that reality is not beholden to suvh thinking, from the 'perspective ' of non-duality there is no thinking and there are no entities.
That's clever.
I find myself less engaged in this matter as the pages pile up. The options seem to be:
1) There is a hard question. Insert explanation - generally something about metacognition and qualia.
2) There is not a hard question. Insert explanation - generally something about a category mistake or eliminativism.
Why does it matter? Is it mainly down to the role each perspective plays in supporting a contested ontology? Either 1) a physicalist monism (therefore keeping atheism safe from woo OR 2) an ontological dualism allowing for more traditional forms of Western theism OR 3) a non-physicalist monism (idealism), mysticism and the East? 4)?
Is this ever just about consciousness?
I'm afraid incredulity isn't an argument.
Quoting Caldwell
Doubt is quite a complex state of mind, I think, but it usually seems to come from a having less data about a future prediction, or assessment than you feel you ought to have. I don't know how that's relevant to the discussion though.
Quoting Caldwell
I am. Normal language is made up. We invented it. We didn't discover it. When we use a word 'doubt' in conversation, it work because the other language users all know how to respond to its use. so if the word 'doubt' is used to refer to the mental state of a thinking being, it has not 'implied' one exists. We have not 'discovered' that one must exist simply by using the word. we've declared that one exists by using the word.
The plain English of Russell's notation for "I am doubting" is (something like) "there exists a thing "I" such that it has the property of "doubting"". It declares that "I" exists. It doesn't 'discover' or 'imply' it.
'Thinking' is not only known to be practised by these certain entities. we didn't discover 'thinking' and then look around for anything which had it. we made up the word 'thinking' as being 'that thing which these entities do'.
So we haven't discovered a truth of any sort. we just use a word a certain way and people know what to do with it when we do.
Se my response above. We declare there to be an "I" by using the term in the sentence "I doubt". We don't discover the truth therein.
4) Anomalous Monism
I don't see the point you're making. Wittgenstein here seems to be supporting anomalous monism if anything. He's pointing out what it "makes sense" to say - the internal coherence of the language. Still nothing has been discovered. We did not possess two facts and thereby deduce a third.
He's saying that if one looks at the way 'doubt' is used, it would not make sense to say "I doubt I'm in pain".
He's not saying if one looks at the way 'doubt' is used one can thereby deduce the necessary existence of the subject of that doubt.
This suggests that the origin of the explanatory gap is theoretical, if only the wrong theory wasn't chosen there wouldn't be one.. I can't see how this is so. One of these two propositions must be shown to be false to resolve the hard problem:
1. The existence of mental events is conditional on the right kinds of physical events taking place. (note that this does not imply epiphenomenalism).
2. We can't conceive how physical events can engender mental events, as an exhaustive inventory of physical events does not seem to imply mental events.
Does the choice of theory as described here impact either?
Quoting Joshs
Does this mean something?
I don't see that he's only talking about "the internal coherence of the language". It does not seem to be by definition that it makes no sense for me to doubt whether I am in pain.
Consciousness demystified: A Wittgensteinian critique of Dennett's project
Thats a great article. Thanks for sharing! :up:
In what way? I'm trying to get how a fact about reality is supposed to be implied by a fact about language. The word 'doubt' is used in such a way as makes "I doubt I'm in pain" nonsensical, makes "I doubt I'm thinking" garbage... But these are facts about the use of the word 'doubt', they're not about logical necessity.
If, for example, I declare that 'whatsits' have 5 arms and 'thingamabobs' have 2 it is logically implied that 'whatsits' have more arms. But this says nothing about the necessary existence of either.
If I use a word 'doubt' and it's sensible use requires also an 'I' to do the doubting, this likewise says nothing about the necessary existence of either.
I think this would be a good topic for a thread. Don't have time to start one.
In my view, it's the essence of the confusion here. We use words 'consciousness', 'I', 'thinking', 'redness', 'experience'... And there's an expectation that the objects of science have to match up causally with those words.
I cannot see, nor have been yet presented with, any reason at all why they should. Human language can contain any word at all and those words can be used successfully without any necessity for there to be a scientific object or event matching that word.
As I gave the example of earlier, early scientists used to refer to 'ether' and each would know what the other meant. Their use of the word didn't create a necessity for science to explain what 'ether' was. It doesn't exist, there's no such thing.
Why is "I doubt I'm in pain" nonsensical?
Quoting Isaac
If "the internal coherence of language" is about logic or logical necessity, then so is the use of the word "doubt".
Quoting Isaac
Right, it's logically implied.
Quoting Isaac
I agree that the use of a word does not necessarily imply the existence of something. But do you deny that people have pains, doubts, thoughts, etc?
Because the word 'doubt' has no meaning in that context. Doubt is used when the data is lacking, but the data can't be lacking about pain because we treat the data as being already given. It's part of the definition.
Again, all this might not actually be the case (where by 'actually the case' I mean scientifically demonstrated in some way). It's just the way we declare things to be when we use the words that way.
Quoting Luke
It isn't. Necessity is a modal concept. That which must exist. The only way I can see it entering into logic is modally - if X then Y. So we could say "if the word doubt refers to a scientific object/event, then it implies there's a thinking subject also as a scientific object", but simply using the word doesn't cash out that modality.
Quoting Luke
Indeed, as above. If there are 'whatsits' with 5 arms and 'thingamabobs' with 2 then it is logically implied that 'whatsits' have more arms. But since there might not be either, the existence of either and the truth of the statement "'whatsits' have more arms than 'thingamabobs'" is undecidable.
Quoting Luke
No. Hence anomalous monism. I'm denying that our calling these entities into being with our language creates a necessity for science to explain them.
Consider the 'path of the stars through the heavens'. Such a folk notion is well understood and very few people would be confused by it. A thousand years ago, it would have been the only understanding of the night sky. But science cannot explain the path of stars through the heavens. There's no scientific explanation for their trajectory and momentum. The don't move. We do. Science showed that our folk notion was just wrong. It didn't explain the movement, it showed there was no such movement. Someone, nowadays asking "but how do the stars move across the sky, what propels them?" would never get an answer from science, which satisfied them.
I see no reason why our folk notions of our psychology should exist as scientific objects in need of explanation any more that the apparent propulsion of the stars stands in need of explanation.
It's like asking for a scientific explanation of "2", or of "horses (the category)". There isn't one, they're part of folk psychology, they don't necessarily need to be part of scientific ontology.
From the article...
Exactly the same as the challenge I'm using.
I agree with you that if the only options were 1 though 3 this topic would not be very interesting to me. A 4th option , on the other hand, offers an empirically articulated model of brain, mind , body and environment and their interaction that allows is to understand many aspects of psychological functioning in a more satisfying way than option 1, 2 or 3.
I dont care so much about whether we end up with a monistic or dualistic, a physicalist or idealist explanation. What interests me is how we can most effectively and harmoniously makes sense of phenomena such as memory, emotion, mood, perception, empathy, depression, ptsd, autism, language and social interaction.
For my money enactivist approaches in cognitive psychology do a better job of this than the alternatives, via a monism that avoids the kind of idealism championed by Wayfarer, Kastrup,, Hoffman, Kant and others.
To be fair, there are important differences between say, Kant, Hoffman and Kastrup. Sure, they could be called "idealists", but that's a bit like saying that Strawson and Dennett are both materialists, which they are, but vastly different in what the word entails.
These are perhaps heuristics, but they need not signal agreement in terms of entailment.
I know it was aimed at me at all, but I cannot resist making but some comments, as your post is quite useful.
1) I think there are many hard questions, we just happen to live in a time in which one problem appears to be the central focus of attention, and not others, which were "hard problems" that were never solved, but accepted: the nature of motion, for instance.
2) Yes - a category error. Eliminitavism like Dennett or Churchland is cute, but fruitless.
What's the difference between a physicalist monism and a non-physical one? Is consciousness not physical? Or alternatively, if consciousness is not physical, why isn't the rest of the universe non-physical? There seems to be a lot of "empty space" - very far removed from any ordinary notions of physical stuff we have in everyday life.
Not to mention "dark matter" and "dark energy", which constitute a combined 95% of the universe - the vast majority. Is that physical or not? What consequences follow from proclaiming one term instead of another one?
The substantial issue here, I think, is that of mind independence or no mind-independence...
We need to add a third option.
3. The existence of mental events is conditional on the right kinds of natural events taking place, but to understand how this naturalist account unites the mental and the non-mental, we have to jettison physicalism.
Evan Thompson argues:
One way of formulating the hard problem is to ask: if we had a complete, canonical, objective, physicalist account of the natural world, including all the physical facts of the brain and the organism, would it conceptually or logically entail the subjective facts of consciousness? If this account would not entail these facts, then consciousness must be an additional, non-natural property of the world.
One problem with this whole way of setting up the issue, however, is that it presupposes we can make sense of the very notion of a single, canonical, physicalist description of the world, which is highly doubtful, and that in arriving (or at any rate approaching) such a description, we are attaining a viewpoint that does not in any way presuppose our own cognition and lived experience. In other words, the hard problem seems to depend for its very formulation on the philosophical position known as transcendental or metaphysical realism. From the phenomenological perspective explored here, however but also from the perspective of pragmatism à la Charles Saunders Peirce, William James, and John Dewey, as well as its contemporary inheritors such as Hilary Putnam (1999) this transcendental or metaphysical realist position is the paradigm of a nonsensical or incoherent metaphysical viewpoint, for (among other problems) it fails to acknowledge its own reflexive dependence on the intersubjectivity and reciprocal empathy of the human life-world.
we can see historically how the concept of nature as physical being got constructed in an objectivist way, while at the same time we can begin to conceive of the possibility of a different kind of construction that would be post-physicalist and post-dualistthat is, beyond the divide between the mental (understood as not conceptually involving the physical) and the physical (understood as not conceptually involving the mental).
Quoting hypericin
Yes, and to understand this you might start by googling Enactivism. Then I recommend The Embodied Mind by Varela, Thompson and Rosch and Mind in Life: Biology, Phenomenology and the Sciences of Mind, by Evan Thompson.
I agree that Kastrup and Hoffman have points of disagreement with Kantian Idealism. Kastrup, as I read him, is closer to Hegel , and even more so to Schelling. This is still a fair distance from the phenomenological form of idealism that motivates much enactivist thinking.
In so far as you believe than enactivism is the correct approach to these issues, can it be said that it is "a fair distance" from it.
But if one takes a kind of idealism to be true - say a variety of innatist idealism -then one could argue that enactivism is a fair distance away from it.
But that in turn depends on the strand of enactivism being elaborated, I would assume. And then there would remain only a difference in emphasis between one view and another.
You can only say that because you have the advantage of the 20th century knowledge that the ether doesn't exist..
In the 19th century there were very good reasons for believing in the ether, we would have too if we lived then (if we were lucky enough to be educated). You didn't get to just say, "hey guys, ether is just a felicitous word, that doesn't imply it exists." That's because no one was arguing from it's use in language. You had to actually demonstrate the ether doesn't exist, that the good reasons were not good enough, which is not a trivial thing.
It's nothing but a reflection of intelligence, as much intelligence is there that much consciousness can be seen, for example a plant, a dog they both are conscious, and the human being (homo sapiens) are the highest tool of that intelligence who gain that much intelligence during the course of evolution that their consciousness reflects onto itself and say "Who Am I", Intelligence is everywhere, from the RNA to Human, from a carbon atom, nucleus to a mountain or in the nuclear fusion of hydrogen atoms in sun, that's why we say, our planet is concious itself and we are the highest state of consciousness for now, we can access higher stages of consciousness through self reflection and can be vertically evolved, or we can wait for another 1000+ years so that human intelligence increases and so is the level of their consciousness, but witnessing the contemporary reality, I personally feel homo sapiens would try to evolve horizontally as cyborgs, increasing their capabilities through AI, that would take them away from the actual gateway of knowing the reality and they would be more entangled in material world, they can only realise true consciousness when their bodies and they themselves remain pure to access true consciousness, but are they ready for that?
Cool. Thanks.
I think from the perspective of non-duality the activity (thinking) and the entity (the thinker) are one in the same. There is no difference between a backflip and the one that performs it, for instance. The entity is the backflip. It's entity all the way down and any action is just the movements and contortions of that entity. So it is with consciousness.
Indeed. I guess idealists Like Kastrup would say that physicalism is itself a kind illusion and the universe is entirely mentation - material objects are what mental processes look like when seen from a particular perspective. Sometimes this strikes me as just the opposite of Dennett - instead of consciousness being a type of illusory phenomenon, the body is the illusion.
Quoting Manuel
Good question - in the scientific realm of quantum fields what does physical even mean? The consequences of idealism vs materialism make little difference in practice to how one lives it would seem to me, except that idealism makes room for a reboot of the idea of the supernatural.
That's a fascinating point.
Ahh, Dennett. I'm not a fan of his views at all and in fact, seem to rather distort very elementary experience, so let's use someone else, if you don't mind.
Let's take, say, Rovelli, who says calls himself a physicalist, and he tends to allow for physicalism to encompass quite a lot.
Quoting Tom Storm
I think you are on to something here. Though I don't see why one couldn't be a physicalist and allow for God to be physical and be agnostic about things like real intuitions (if they exist) and similar phenomena. Though they may be less likely to argue for this.
Now, if you include talk about ghosts and astrology, then I don't think that neither idealist nor physicalists (in as much as one can form a coherent distinction) would defend such view that much.
Quoting Tom Storm
I think youre a natural-born Pragmatist.
Thankyou for my inclusion in such exalted company :up:
Quoting Wayfarer
And youre first on the list.
So what? The same could be said for running, or in fact for any aspect of our common knowledge. That all our knowledge is relative to the collective representation we call "the world" does nothing to diminish its significance as a shared understanding which is obviously reflected in linguistic usages. So, from the perspective of dualistic thinking (our collective representation of a world of objects, entities, processes and so on) it is indeed true to say that where thinking is found a thinker will also be found.
Since I've acknowledged that none of our dualistic thinking has any absolute ontological significance, or at least cannot be shown to have such, I'm unclear as to what you think you are disagreeing with.
Quoting NOS4A2
Yes, I think that's kind of right, except I wouldn't say "it's entity all the way down" since that would be to privilege substance over mode, process, attribute; in other words to favour just one side of the duaiistic equation. So, I would say that from a nondual perspective there is no entity and no activity (in this case "thinking" or consciousness).
In other words, the activity of that entity.
Then it is not only about the use of words; it is also about actually having pain and being unable to doubt it. Whether or not this implies a "thinking being", it at least implies a being that has the capacity for having pains, certainties and doubts.
Also, I strongly doubt that you could produce a dictionary definition of "pain" that includes any mention of certainty or "data".
Quoting Isaac
As I said earlier, I'm not arguing that using a word necessarily implies the existence of anything. However, I would say that if you agree with Wittgenstein's statement that it makes no sense for one to doubt they are in pain, then it follows that there are things/people which exist that can have pains and doubts (among other things).
Moreover, if to have a doubt is to have a lack of certainty with regards to some proposition, then there must be someone to doubt it. And it seems reasonable that in order to doubt it, one must have given it some thought.
Quoting Isaac
Also from the article:
It seems to me that you also equate "consciousness" with talk of the outer behaviour of bodies.
However we're not a cup when we see a cup, nor a mountain when we see a mountain.
A footnote on Aristotlean-Thomist epistemology.
[quote=Aquinas on Sensible and Intelligible Forms; https://thomasofaquino.blogspot.com/2013/12/sensible-form-and-intelligible-form.html]Now, the process of knowledge is immediately concerned with the separation of form from matter, since a thing is known precisely because its Form is received in the Knower. But, whatever is received is in the recipient according to the mode of being that the recipient possesses.
If, then, the senses are material powers, they receive the forms of objects in a material manner; and if the intellect is an immaterial power, it receives the Forms of objects in an immaterial manner. This means that in the case of sense knowledge, the form is still encompassed with the concrete characters which make it particular; and that, in the case of intellectual knowledge, the form is disengaged from all such characters. To understand is to free form completely from matter.
Moreover, if the proper knowledge of the senses is of accidents, through forms that are individualized, the proper knowledge of intellect is of essences, through forms that are universalized. Intellectual knowledge is analogous to sense knowledge inasmuch as it demands the reception of the form of the thing which is known. But it differs from sense knowledge so far forth as it consists in the apprehension of things, not in their individuality, but in their universality.[/quote]
My interpretation - the senses receive the material form - color, dimensions, texture, and so on - while the intellect "receives" the intelligible species which is the type, which allows us to know what it is. "Knowing what [x] is" is the point.
(this is a footnote, not intended to divert the thread.)
One method of observation is agreed on by everyone because it can be replicated and is consistent.
The other method of observation by its very nature is not replicable (individualism/personhood/"selfness").
Trying to uncover what consciousness arises out of is like trying to "precisely measure (objectify) what makes the measuring device imprecise (subjective)".
At some point the precision definition for conscious experience/awareness fails, and the vague, generalised and more intuitive intricacies of feelings, emotions, beliefs etc takeover (the subject).
Part of the difficulty with the problem is an inability of subjects to unanimously defined what their collective subjectivity fundamentally is.
This is why human understanding of sense objects is always deficient. The intellect understands a form which is distinct from the form of the sense object, it understands a universal form, while the sense object is a particular form. This leaves a gap between the understanding of the intellect, by means of universal forms, and what is present to the senses, particular forms. And it appears like the gap cannot be closed, hence a duality of forms is called for.
To relate this to the topic of the thread, through the internal process, introspection, the intellect can be seen to have direct access to the form of a particular, the individual human person. In this way we can break down the gap. If the intellect grasps "forms", then it might grasp a particular form if it is present to it, despite its habitual process of employing universals toward what is present to the senses. But the gap can only be broken if we allow for the reality that the intellect can actually grasp the form of a particular in this way, and allow that this is a valid procedure of understanding. Otherwise we are stuck with the gap that cannot be closed, and we can never properly understand the particular.
In my interpretation the intellect doesnt receive it so much as it generates it, like a caricature, by including some properties and excluding others. It isnt able to grasp the entirety nor the particularity of any one thing so it makes do with what little resources it can offer.
'Pain' is a word.
Quoting Luke
Yet...
Quoting Luke
...is a direct claim about existence resulting from the use of a word.Quoting Luke
Exactly. "If..." The existence is not given by the use.
Quoting Luke
Does it? From which particular comments?
Yes, a word that is often defined as a feeling or sensation.
Quoting Isaac
The full quote may help:
Quoting Luke
You have agreed that it makes no sense for one to doubt that they are in pain. Therefore, are you arguing that people don't exist? Or that they don't have pains and doubts? Or that people are only words?
Quoting Isaac
You seem to be accusing me of talking people and/or doubts into existence. But you've already agreed that people have doubts and pains, and you've already agreed with Wittgenstein's statement that it makes no sense for a person to doubt they are in pain. So I don't see what your point is. Are you arguing that only words exist?
Quoting Isaac
From everything I've read of yours on this site. You claim either that consciousness is nothing more than a human fiction, or else it's not a fiction but there's no need to explain it. In short, that human experiences are make believe and there's nothing more to consciousness but language use and other behaviour. On the other hand, you've recently told me you do not deny that people have pains, doubts, thoughts, etc, so it's unclear.
A word can't be defined as a thing. That's the whole point of Wittgenstein's argument against reference. We use the word pain, it does a job, it's not pointing at a thing.
Quoting Luke
None. I'm a competent user of English, so I can agree that people have pains and doubts since I know how to use both of those words. Nothing in my use of the words commits me to the existence of some scientifically relevant entity to which they point. Words don't point at things.
Quoting Luke
That none of that agreement brings an entity into existence to which those words must refer. Knowing how words are used is clearly not the same as knowing what sensible entities exist
Quoting Luke
I'm not claiming to be an expert on the matter, but if there's something you don't understand about anomalous monism it might be more profitable to explore that first rather than assume I'm being unclear in my use of it. If you have a clear understanding of the notion, but my position remains unclear, then there'd be some matter to resolve, but as it stands I'm not seeing where your issue is with my holding those two positions. One is a matter of psychology, the other a matter of neuroscience. Anomalous monism clearly sets out how the two are not sharing the same ontology, so there'd be no reason to see any lack of clarity in those two positions.
Exactly. Depending on how one conceives of God, God could be physical. For example, God as the self-perceiving, omniscient universe experiencing itself, something that comes into effect immanently (e.g. a hive brain organism that encompasses all the mass energy in the universe into itself after having started as one of many intelligent species), is totally conceivable in physical terms.
The other thing to consider is that the "conservative" position in modern physics has generally been to embrace eternal, timeless laws of physics that exist outside of reality and are unchanged by anything physical. This conception itself comes from Newton and Liebnitz' religious intuitions, but is now perhaps more associated with militant atheism than religion. The thing is, this supposes the existent of eternal Platonic laws, something that seems at odds with physicalism.
I'm also not sure that idealism necessarily opens the door to the supernatural anymore than physicalism. There are plenty of naturalist flavors of idealism. Idealism simply entails that mentation is fundemental. The natural sciences can still be said to describe all that can be known about that mentation.
It's tricky. I mean we can say that Newton and Leibniz were wrong in terms of specifics, though oddly now physics may be giving Leibniz the edge in terms of considering what constitutes the universe, Leibniz did not think atoms exist or if they did, were fundamental.
The ontology of mathematics. Can it be said that 2+2=4 was true prior to the universe and after its predicted collapse? That's difficult, but, the truth of this claim appears to be independent of the universe.
But I agree generally, that such views are at odds with mainstream physicalism.
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
You said it: "naturalist flavors" of idealism, but in general, idealism can also be used by Deepak Chopra, or some current guru-of-the-moment in India, where they seem to appear with frequency. In that respect, these idealists are liable to say incoherent things.
I don't know of any spiritualist or mystic who would call themselves a materialist.
But if you stick to naturalistic idealism, then yes, claims made would be much more sober.
Quoting Joshs
I am a mathematician, and have worked in machine learning and (the maths of) evolutionary biology. From a distance, an enactivist approach seems attractive to me and has a lot in common with the branch of machine learning known as reinforcement learning. But I have looked at the first 3 chapters of Mind in Life available on Amazon, and close up, I do not like it. Also, I don't think it helps with the hard problem.
It is disappointing that Evan Thompson does not mention reinforcement learning. Surely he would have mentioned it alongside connectionism if he knew about it, so I guess he didn't know about it. Yikes.
It seem to me that humans are fundamentally similar to reinforcement learning systems in what they are trying to achieve. In human terms you might say reinforcement learning is about learning how you should make decisions so as to maximise the amount of pleasure you experience in the long-term. (Could you choose to make decisions on some other basis?)
I found nothing to suggest that Thompson's model separates the reward (=negative or positive reinforcement) that an agent receives from the environment, from other sensations which provide information about the state of the environment. I consider this separation vital. In order to make good decisions, the agent must learn the map from states to rewards, and learn to predict the environment, that is, learn the map from (states and actions) to new states. Instead Thompson has (figure 3.2) a set of vague concepts - 'perturbations' from the environment go to a 'sensorimotor coupling' which 'modulate the dynamics of' the nervous system. This looks like an incompetent stab at reinforcement learning.
The hard problem for me is that negative and positive reinforcement perform the function of pain and pleasure, but negative and positive reinforcement are just numbers, and we have no clue about how a number can become a feeling. In stating the hard problem this way, have I unwittingly signed up for transcendental or metaphysical realism?
Pleasure isnt such a simple concept from an enactivist perspective. What constitutes a reinforcement is not determinable independently of the normative sense-making goals of the organism.
I am confident that Thompson is familiar with concepts of reinforcement learning, but it is too far removed from
the enactivist model he champions for him to bother with it. If you are interested in a comparison of reinforcement learning approaches with enactivist ones, heres one link you can check out.
https://arxiv.org/pdf/1810.04535.pdf
Do you mean, that hedonism is the only basis you see for an ethical philosophy? That there are no ends beyond pleasure?
Quoting GrahamJ
Based on what you've said, I think 'metaphysical realism' with a strong side-order of Skinnerian behaviourism.
If someone says they are in pain they are, if they are not lying, referring to a pain that they feel.
Quoting Manuel
It's true in virtue of the meaning of the words "two", "plus", "equals" and "four". It can be empirically tested: select any two pairs of objects, put them together and count to see if the result is four. It always seems to come out that way. Perhaps when the laws of nature change and objects start spontaneously disappearing, then it will no longer hold. Then we will say two plus two would have equaled four if one or more of the objects had not disappeared. :wink:
i.e. 'true in all possible worlds'.
It's hard to imagine a possible world in which this wouldn't be the case, we can change the symbol "2" to "II" or something else, but it's still a mathematical fact.
Not that I take you to be saying the opposite, but, the ontology of math is pretty crazy.
Absolutely. And that it doesn't seem to depend on the universe, somehow. Utterly baffling.
But math doesn't depend on objects.
You agreed that people have pains. Did you mean only that people have words?
Quoting Isaac
Your "agreement" that people have pains seems to be no more than that people know how to use the word "pain"; that there is never any feeling of pain involved.
Quoting Isaac
Ah, "scientifically relevant". Is it not scientifically relevant to investigate mental events?
Quoting Isaac
Only fingers point at things?
Quoting Isaac
As far as I know, anomalous monism does not deny that there are mental events.
"Davidson restricts the class of mental events with which Anomalous Monism is concerned to that of the propositional attitudesstates and events with psychological verbs such as believes, desires, intends and others that subtend that- clauses, which relate subjects to propositional contents such as it is raining outside. Anomalous Monism thus does not address the status of mental events such as pains, tickles and the likeconscious or sentient mental events. It is concerned exclusively with sapient mental eventsthoughts with propositional content that appear to lack any distinctive feel."
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/anomalous-monism/
The "conscious events" that AM doesn't address are those that correspond with our private use of language as indexicals, as in the cry " owww toothache!!" - an occasion that constitutes a bespoke use of language, that in spite of appearances isn't justified by, nor needs to be justified by, a priori established linguistic conventions regarding the public meaning of "toothache"in the referential or functional sense of a noun or verb.
If I cry "owww toothache!!" , although the noun "toothache" has (many) public definitions that a dentist might use to assess the physical state of my mouth, my cry of "toothache!" bears no semantic relation to the dental definition of toothache, for I am privately using "toothache" as an indexical, rather than publicly using it in the dental sense of a noun. So regardless of whether or not I 'actually' have "toothache" in the sense of a dysfunctional dental property, my cry of "toothache!!" still stands as a fact, even if outsiders are puzzled as to what it could relate to from their perspective.
Although indexicals are excluded as objects of Davidson's analysis, given that indexicals a) serve to ground public definitions in the minds of each and every individual and b) that people use the nouns and verbs of their public language as indexicals in an unpredictable bespoke fashion, indexicals contribute to the indeterminancy of translation and reference that Davidson appeals to in the context of the propositional attitudes he analyses.
I don't think here is a sensible place to rehash Wittgenstein's arguments. Suffice to say a bland assertion that words do refer doesn't suffice as a counterargument to the claim that they don't.
Quoting Luke
That's how we use the word. I'm separating out how we use a word from that which needs scientific explanation. I don't see any argument that us using a word somehow automatically means there's an object/event there in need of explanation. How are we always right? Are you claiming we have some kind of deep intuitive insight into the workings of the universe? I'm just not seeing the link.
I use the word 'pain' same as everyone else because I've been taught how to use it. One of the ways to use it is to say (of someone saying "ouch!") "he's in pain". Nothing in that use reifies 'pain'.
Quoting Luke
That's right.
Quoting Luke
Investigate, yes. But it's not a problem for the science that it can't find anything which correlates to the folk notion. It's not its job to match everything up. Some things won't match. To suggest that everything will match up is to imply we already know all the fundamental objects of the universe somehow.
Quoting Luke
Nor am I.
Sure, one use it to say that he - someone else - is in pain. And Wittgenstein says you can doubt that. But you can't doubt it when you're in pain. Therefore:
Quoting Isaac
If you agree with Wittgenstein's statement that when you have pain you cannot doubt that you have pain, then it doesn't make any sense to be wrong (or right) about it.
Quoting Isaac
If there is never any feeling of pain involved with people's expressions of pain, then in what sense do they have pain(s)? What is the difference between pain-behaviour with pain and pain-behaviour without pain? Or can there be no pretence of pain?
Quoting Isaac
I don't know what you mean by "match up" or why we would need to "know all the fundamental objects of the universe" in order to do so.
Even if it isn't a scientific problem, it is a philosophical one.
Quoting Isaac
Yet you admit there is never any feeling of pain involved with the use of the word "pain". That sounds like logical behaviourism to me. What feelings or mental events do you allow for then?
Of course it does, because the thing it makes no sense to doubt is that I'm in pain. The word. I couldn't possibly know I'm in pain unless someone had taught me the word.
Quoting Luke
You keep using the word 'pain' in your discussion of pain. Obviously that whole discussion is going to be internally consistent. We're talking here about the extent to which it ought to match up to the objects of physical science (in this case brains). If you ask "do people have a pain when they say (truthfully) 'I have a pain?" then obviously the answer is yes. That's the definition of 'pain', it's felicitous use.
The question here is whether that use refers to an object of science (here neuroscience) and whether it's odd, in need of explanation, if it doesn't. Is it odd that we can't find a consistent brain function associated with our folk notion 'pain'?
So pressing the issue solely within our folk notions doesn't get us anywhere. Yes, they're pretty consistent internally. They've been around for thousands of years, it would indeed be odd if we found out they weren't.
Quoting Luke
There is always a feeling of pain associated with the (felicitous use of the) word pain. It's the definition of the word. It has no bearing at all on whether there's an object of scientific enquiry that matches up with it. There need not be any physical manifestation associated with using the term.
The word 'pain' might be associated with some amorphous, family-resemblance collection of physical stimuli - ever-changing with cultural mores and linguistic convention. It might be hanging in space like the word 'ether'. It might be associated one-to-one with some brain state. There's nothing about its use that implies any of these options over any other.
In your previous post you said the opposite:
Quoting Isaac
Therefore, it's difficult to get clear on your position.
Did I, or did I not use the word 'pain' in the sentence "There is always a feeling of pain associated with the (felicitous use of the) word pain"?
You did. And in your previous post you indicated that there is never any feeling of pain involved with the use of the word 'pain', as I quoted.
Is there always a feeling of pain involved or never a feeling of pain involved?
Ah! My apologies. I missed the last bit. I was answering affirmatively to...
Quoting Isaac
...the last bit ("that there is never any feeling of pain involved") doesn't make sense. There cannot not be a feeling 'pain' associated with the felicitous use of the word 'pain'. It's what the word means. The question here is not about whether people are using the folk notion felicitously. Of course they are. It's whether the folk notion refers to any object of science (or should).
You keep asking the equivalent of "when people say 'pain' do they mean pain?" That has no bearing on the question of the hard problem.
We're asking rather "is it odd that our use of the concept 'pain' doesn't have a physical referent. Is it a 'problem' for neuroscience?"
I don't follow why there cannot be a feeling of pain associated. What is "what the word means"?
If I tell someone that I'm in pain, there's no feeling involved?
The quote was "... cannot not be a feeling of pain associated."
We're not doing well are we?
I'll try and clarify...
All we have is that the word (sound) came out of my mouth (or was formed in my Broca's area, if not actually verbalised). Nothing else.
There's then two options...
1) there's some state of my brain or body which consistently is associated with that word, which is present every time I felicitously use it. We can call this state 'pain' too.
2) I use the word 'pain' for a variety of reasons which might change from day to day, depending on how I'm feeling, what is going on around me. My reasons might differ from yours. Some interocepted signal from my nociception circuits might be involved, but might not. There's no one-to-one correspondence with any state of my body or brain, there's no physical manifestation of the word 'pain'.
I'm arguing something like (2) for both 'pain' and 'consciousness'.
Quoting sime
Except that Davidsons anomalous monism is a non-reductive physicalism, leaving open an explanatory gap between mental events and the physical properties they depend on.
a non-reductionist physicalist like Davidson does not claim that everything is physical; rather she claims that everything depends on the physical. She allows that there are mental properties at a higher level of complexity but mental properties supervene on physical properties at a micro-structural level. Hence, any alterations at the level of mental can be physically explained by some alterations at the level of micro structures.
The difference between a Davidsonian non-reductive physicalist and a Rortyan naturalistic pragmatist is that the former does not deny that there really are physical properties at the micro-structural level, because the efficiency of a physical vocabulary is a sufficient reason to extend its claims to ontology. In contrast, the latter thinks that Davidsonian "physical properties" and "the micro-structural level" are just theoretical suppositions that are meaningful only within a description or vocabulary. They think that it is sufficient for a denial of the existence of physical properties at the level of ontology, precisely because they are still description-dependent. (ELIMINATIVE MATERIALISM ELIMINATED:
RORTY AND DAVIDSON ON THE MIND-WORLD RELATION, Istvan Danka)
My mistake. However, you've been saying for a few pages that the use of the word cannot give us any reified object, but now you say that there is always a feeling of pain associated with the felicitous use of the word?
Incidentally, I don't agree that there is always a feeling of pain associated with felicitous use of the word; perhaps only with felicitous expressions of pain that include the use of the word "pain". Hopefully neither of us are in too much pain while felicitously using the word in this discussion.
Quoting Isaac
Then how could we ever learn to use the word?
Quoting Isaac
Yes, and I view your 1) and 2) as basically designating what may sometimes be referred to as "internal" (feeling) and "external" (behavioural) notions of pain, respectively. According to Wittgenstein, linguistic meaning is all 2), while 1) is his beetle in the box: not a something, but not a nothing either.
This is probably why you find 1) scientifically uninteresting, but I find it philosophically interesting.
Yes, that's right. The 'feeling of pain' is not a reified object. It's a folk notion. It exists in that sense (like the category 'horses' exists), but there's no physical manifestation of it.
Quoting Luke
By trying it out and it's having a useful and predictable effect.
Quoting Luke
Yes. I find it philosophically interesting too. What I'm arguing against here is there being any kind of 'problem' with the fact that neuroscience (dealing with physically instantiated entities) cannot give a one-to-one correspondence account connecting these entities to the folk notions 'pain' and 'consciousness' (as well as 'feeling', 'it's like...', 'aware', etc).
It's not a problem because it's neither the task, nor expected of science to explain all such folk notions in terms of physically instantiated objects and their interactions.
Basically, because (2) is at least possible, there's no 'hard problem' of consciousness because neuroscience's failure to account for it in terms of one-to-one correspondence with physically instantiated objects may be simply because there is no such correspondence to be found.
Quoting Isaac
Nice cop-out!
Quoting Manuel
It starts with objects, but once you have an abstract symbolic system it, like language, no longer does.
I'm not getting notifications for your posts. Weird.
I mean, you are speaking about objects, things in the world. Mathematics is rather different, I wouldn't say it's an object in any sense of that word. I mean, where are the numbers? Nobody can point them out in the sense an ordinary object could be pointed out, or maybe even a particle or atom.
2+2 and much, much more difficult formulations are still true, absent anything else. Though of course, to make this explicit, you need a conscious agent.
Number is perceived as multiplicity. We also perceive similarity and difference, although none of these are concrete objects, obviously.
Sure - to the extent you describe it, I think that's on track.
But I think we should be cautious in thinking that because they share these similarities, that they are more or less the same thing. Like a mathematician, who doesn't speak Japanese, will perfectly well understand the formula of another mathematician who is Japanese.
What math describes - to the extremely limited sense I understand this - is related to structures of rather simple things. The structure can become quite complex, but easy compared to the complexity of virtually any object in the perceived human world.
Language on the other hand, is used for all sorts of things, "communication" being one among the many things it is used for.
Then there's also the issue of representation. We represent the objects in the world in a human way, knowing of no other way to represent things.
It's not at all clear that mathematics is a representation which would significantly vary from species to species. It could, but I'd be quite skeptical.
That said at least the basic operations can be expressed in ordinary language. For example "two time two equals four".
I'm not too sure about your point that languages are human-based whereas math is not. I think the logic of existence, identity, difference, similarity, multiplicity, form, matter and object, just to give a few examples, would be just as universal as the logic of mathematics for any symbolic language competent species
Let's take a few examples. Take a dog for instance, most of the time, they don't pass the "mirror test" of self-awareness, which implies (but does not prove) that they either lack a distinct sense of identity, or the identity they have, is rather different than ours.
Or take the example of the mantis shrimp, they have 16 light cones, as opposed to our three. This suggests they see many, many more colours than what we could even imagine. And it's hard to attribute to them, say, the same capacity of multiplicity we have. Whereas we take a tree to be one object, a mantis shrimp, lacking concepts (most likely), might see several objects.
The point is not so much that math isn't human based, it's that it attaches itself to the universe, in a way language does not - the words we use are arbitrary, the numbers we use, though we can change the symbol 3 to "III", give us the same answer.
And we don't even need to apply numbers to the universe, we can use them "by themselves" to solve a problem internal to math.
The biggest issue is, where are the numbers? And why do they work so well in physics?
This is because the other animals we are familiar with are not symbolic language users.
Quoting Manuel
Why should we think that numbers must be somewhere? As to why they work so well in physics, who knows? How could we ever know the answer to a question like that? We do know that nature appears to possess quantity and multiplicity, but does that say anything about nature beyond how it appears to us?
Thank you for the reference to the article. They manage to describe in a few pages what Thompson fails to decribe in many. The enactive approach still looks like a more or less incompetent attempt at RL, but of course the decision-making of biological organisms might be just that. We will not, however, find the solution to the hard problem in our inefficiencies.
I do not understand "normative sense-making goals", but I'm not very interested in what it might mean.
You should be if you want to understand feelings and the dissolution of the hard problem.
With a sample of one, it's hard to say. Some things may be the same, others not. The identity we ascribe say, to bodies of water, or trees, could be quite different - they may conceptualize such things to encompass far more (or less) than we do. It's a reasonable possibility.
I mean, having an intelligent symbolic creature like us, possessing exactly the same cognitive framework would be pretty wild. Which doesn't imply that it would be impossible.
Quoting Janus
Are they nowhere? Language is in us, that's true. Numbers too, otherwise, we wouldn't know about them. The difference here being that math applies to the nature of things - physics, chemistry and so forth - which suggests strong elements of mind independence. We can't say the same thing about language use, I don't think.
Multiplicity and numbers are different, though they have some elements in common.
As to nature, agreed: nothing beyond what it appear to us, of course. Attaching to mind independent aspects of the world, does not imply something being beyond us, it implies mind independence.
Apart from anthropology showing that intra-species diversity even regarding ontology is going strong, sociology shows this intra-nation. -religion, -etc. Just think of the ontology of gender/sex
Between human beings? Maybe, but the differences are superficial. Like some tribes may believe in an extreme form of animism, while another tribe believes in one true God. But the general themes are not too different: the good, evil, the bountiful, the beautiful and so on, with different specifications.
Between species, the differences are quite pronounced. They likely have very different ontologies, although lacking language, it would be impossible to say what form such an ontology may look like.
You have quite different versions of time, identity, afterlife, objects. In the Maori what we might call a gift includes both some thing and part of the giver's soul. The gift is both a subject and an object. Even the range of deities is enormous, I mean in terms of kind. You have people ridden by gods. You have cultures where assemblages and networks replace out subjects and objects and they are not the same kinds of 'things'. You mention animism which is radically different from both the secular West and the religious West. You have very different ideas about causation. You have cultures where dreams are considered more real than waking life.
It would be pretty wild and I agree it may not be impossible. The thing is that I was suggesting that any intelligent symbolic creature would think in terms of identity, materiality, multiplicity, diversity, number, form, pattern, similarity, difference and so on, not that they would see, for example, the same entities we do, or describe them as having exactly the same boundaries. (We are not that definite if we are asked to define the exact boundaries of things, in any case).
Quoting Manuel
We think in and of numbers, just as we think in and of words, but both numbers and words are collective phenomena. As you seem to suggest the difference is that numbers enjoy a rule-based relationship with phenomena, whereas words do no obviously do so. On the other hand nouns, for example, denote entities of various kinds, and I think that grammar reflects the logic of experience. The obvious ostensible difference is that numbers can be used to calculate, but language can also be used to deduce. Things may not be as straightforward as they seem and there's maybe a huge subject there to inquire into.
Multiplicity and numbers are different, but is multiplicity and number different? We can say the world consists in a multiplicity of things or in a number of things; is there a difference in the two statements? We can talk about specific numbers. I guess.
Quoting Manuel
I'm not quite sure what you mean here.
What the god(s) command may be quite different, say requiring sacrifice of some kind, maybe even murder in certain cults or we can metaphorically speak of Westen culture under the guise of the god of money.
Although the commands and rules may be different, the resultant actions and moral intuitions will be shared by all human beings. Any person can understand what it means to be exploited, even if they don't work in a factory setting.
Quoting Bylaw
I'm not denying there are differences between cultures, and to us as a species, they do look radically different. It's kind of like when we look at a whole range of dogs, we tend to notice they are different in terms of skill, sociability, loyalty and so forth. At the end of the day though, they are dogs - one species.
A theoretically "smarter" - in terms of having more powerful cognitive capacities than we do, would look at people at consider us as we consider other creatures, we are by and large the same, but the differences we see between us, look considerable.
So the fact that some cultures take dreams to be more real than a culture which doesn't focus on dreams isn't as drastic as it looks, in my opinion.
I don't know. I think that identity makes sense as does similarity and of course, number, but materiality or form are a bit more dubious. I don't see why a thinking being must have these specific terms: some are more plausible than others.
Quoting Janus
I'm not clear on that. You can say that we use nouns to loosely denote what, say, a city or a house is, or who is a teacher or a plumber - but I don't see a necessity. I don't see why, say, a city would have to be a part of the cognitive architecture of another creature. A house? Maybe - at least territory, based on examples we see here on Earth.
Quoting Janus
Take a look out your window, or next time you're out in a park, with plenty of trees and bushes around. Ask yourself, "how many objects are there here?" It soon becomes evident that we have a problem, we have a multiplicity of objects, but do we know how many?
Is a tree necessarily the root along with the trunk up to the stem and then the leaves? Do we count the leaves as one object or one by one? What about the branches, how many are there? I don't think you'll get a clear cut answer.
Quoting Janus
The universe is 13.7 billion years old. Even when we all die, that fact will remain. That's the age of the universe, before we arose (maybe new theories will change this estimate or render it obsolete).
The Sun is 93 million miles away from Earth, the distance remains a fact, irrespective of us.
Now the colour of the sun, us seeing it rising in the East and setting in the West, the warmth we feel form it, and so on, these things will not hold up, absent us.
I've been fluent in my wife's language for 21 years. I live in her country. The languages are quite close. The cultures are quite close. I've worked with communciation in a diverse set of roles and have been used professionally for crosscultural communication roles also, and not just between her culture and mine, but there also.
And still we discover differences and confusions, some having to do with identity and and perception, to this day. Not the man woman stuff (though with that also), but cultural models. Throw me in with an Amazonian tribe with a still living shamanic tradition...and we'd be having to come back again and again to basic ontological investigations to undertand each other.
I think form or shape is an inevitable category of understanding. Materiality refers to constitution, which also seems to be an inevitable concept if different materials are encountered.
Quoting Manuel
Perhaps not, unless it was a creature that builds cities, I guess. Again though, I'm not claiming that the same entities we conceive would be conceived by all symbolic species.
Quoting Manuel
Yes, I agree, we have a multiplicity or number of objects, but we don't know how many. Apart from the practical problem of actually counting them what do we count as an object or entity? (Note the word 'count' here as also meaning 'to qualify').
With the example of the tree, we understand it to be a wholistic self-organizing organism, so I think roots, truck, branches and leaves all count as parts of the tree. But what about the Mycorrhiza (fungi) that attach to the roots symbiotically? They are generally not counted as part of the tree, even though they might die along with the rest of the tree if you poisoned the tree.
I have to go out now, so I'll try to respond to the rest of your post later, Manuel.
Realism assumes that the world is just so, irrespective of whether or not it is observed. It may be a sound methodological assumption but it doesn't take into account the role of the observing mind in the establishment of scale, duration, perspective, and so on.
So, I question the notion that there are facts that stand 'irrespective of us'. We can establish distances, durations, and so on, across a huge range of scales, from the microscopic to the cosmic, which we can be confident will remain just so even in the absence of an observer. But even that imagined absence is a mental construct. There is an implied viewpoint in all such calculations. This is thrown into relief in quantum physics, but it's true across the scale. We're used to thinking of what is real as 'out there', independent of us, separate from us, but in saying that, we don't acknowledge the fact that reality comprises the assimilation of perceptions with judgements synthesised into the experience-of-the-world.
When you say "the feeling of pain is not a reified object", it sounds like you're denying that people really have pains. The feeling of pain is not merely a learned concept, because pain hurts. Animals without linguistic concepts can be in pain, and we can sympathise with those in pain. Pains exist in the world, are real and are therefore 'reified', as much as horses are. The physical manifestations of pain are found in the behaviours of people and other animals.
Quoting Isaac
That might be the case if you had to learn language without anybody's help. A more common scenario is that, when first learning the language, others see you in pain (i.e. see your physical manifestations of pain) and teach you the meaning of the word when you experience it. "Oh did you hurt yourself?" "Where does it hurt?" "Do you have a tummy ache?" "Is your knee sore?" "Is it painful?"
As Wittgenstein suggests: [i]"How does a human being learn the meaning of names of sensations? For example, of the word pain. Here is one possibility: words are connected with the primitive, natural, expressions of sensation and used in their place. A child has hurt himself and he cries; then adults talk to him and teach him exclamations and, later, sentences. They teach the child new pain-behaviour.
So you are saying that the word pain really means crying? On the contrary: the verbal expression of pain replaces crying, it does not describe it."[/i] (PI 244)
Quoting Isaac
Assuming there isn't a one-to-one correspondence - and it seems likely there isn't - I don't see that the problem of subjective experience therefore disappears. Neither do I consider subjective experience to be merely a "folk notion" - again, pain hurts. Therefore, it seems to me that the lack of one-to-one correspondence only makes neuroscience's task of explaining subjective experience more difficult (assuming that it is a task for neuroscience, rather than some other branch of science).
I mean, there are many, many versions of realism. The realism I think holds up is something akin to Russell's "epistemic structural realism": the notion that science captures only the structures of things in the universe, without telling us about its "internal constitution", to borrow Locke's phrase. It's a view which wouldn't deviate much from Kantianism.
Quoting Wayfarer
I can't deny that, because it's true. It is a mental construct, but something about mathematics, mediated by mind, when applied to certain aspects of the universe, tells us something that is not mental "only". If it were mental only, we would not be able to do Astronomy or tell how old the Earth is and so forth.
This is all mediated by mind, but there are glimmers that we are seeing something extra-mental. Having a degree of confidence is the best we can do, given the circumstances.
Quoting Wayfarer
No disagreement. By saying that math tells us something about the world absent us, I'm only echoing what Russell says, which you often quote. It's because we know so little about the world that we turn to math, it's not because we know a lot about it.
No rush at all Janus, it's all a fun exercise for the sake of thinking about how you view these things, which often helps me think more clearly too. I'll reply when you finish, which needn't be today, nor tomorrow, that way we don't break up the conversation. :up:
Quoting Bylaw
That's the thing, I think you are describing epistemic differences, not ontological ones. Differences in the way we approach our views of the world, it's not a difference in the world itself. To put is simply, take a baby from anywhere in the world - your pick: place it in the most "far removed" culture you can think of in terms of beliefs and practices from the babies original culture, and that baby will grow up with the beliefs
of the "far removed" culture.
Let the baby grow, bring it back to it's birthplace - let it stay there a few months, maybe longer, they will be able to understand the differences quite well. It may initially seem like that person is experiencing "two different worlds", but it's not literally true. If it were, we wouldn't be able to do translation, or talk to each other in different languages, for instance.
Quoting Bylaw
I'm not denying these things - they are big differences in terms of how we view the world, that doesn't take away from my original claim: it's all within the human species.
Since we can't know anything "above" our species, so to speak, these differences will look (and feel) like substantial differences to us, we can't help feeling that way. But a more intelligent being would look at us as if we are the same species, with minor variations in behavior.
So I think our only point of potential disagreement is one of ontology vs epistemology. I think you're claims aim to be ontological, I think they are epistemological.
After what, 100 posts on this topic? You demonstrate you have no clue what the hard problem is.
At least read this: https://iep.utm.edu/hard-problem-of-conciousness/#:~:text=The%20hard%20problem%20of%20consciousness%20is%20the%20problem%20of%20explaining,directly%20appear%20to%20the%20subject.
Well, that's by definition, regardless of the closeness or vastness of the differences. I am not arguing that the differences between beliefs between human groups arenot []within the human species. That would be foolish. I was responding to
We are dealing with vague evaluations like 'superficial' but since the beliefs lead to such a vast range of behavior, I don't know how this can be claimed. You then went on, in the original post I responded to saying that other species must have a greater difference in ontology. This too seems beyond our know precisely as you mention we do not have language, but since the behaviors of these animals tend to fall into categories of behavior that humans also exhibit, but humans engage in categories of behavior and in a great range of diverse way, precisely to do language, inherited culture, opposable thumbs, etc., we can have, at least possibly or even probably a greater range of ontologies.
You mentioned diversity amongst deities...
We don't have any reason to believe animals, say, think there are deities., let alone that sacrificing to them or abstaining from sex or letting the deity take over their bodies or eating their deity or wearing certain clothes when one is being sacred as opposed to profane and so on are good things to do.
My sense of the cognitve abilities and varitation within other species is probably on the fringe end that assumes we have long radically underestimated this, especially in the scientific community, but I still think that human ontologies include and go beyond the ontological categories animals have. Not because we are so great, but because we have the need, given the goals we have set up (based on some of our abilities).
If we are thinking of extra terrestrial life forms, perhaps one of the core attributes of advanced sentient primates is imagination and play. So we generate more diversity than this or that specific species or even sentient species in general. Perhaps it's mostly insect like hive group intelligences out there, with diversity seen as only a problem or not even quite conceivable. I don't know. I don't know how we could know.
Quoting ManuelAgain, I don't know how you can know this. Two, they might be much more monocultural than us and find the diversity striking, obscene, confusing. I see no reason to rule that out. Also, there might be tendencies within sentient species and that sentient species might recognize a similar vast diversity to the one that they have in their own species.
One of the current trends in anthropology is called the ontological turn. They have realized that categories have been projected onto other cultures and that anthropogists actually need to work on their own categories much more completely because they are not able to conceptualize what they are encountering. Their categories fail, but don't seem to. There are seeds of the change in older anthropology but this issue has become central. For example the descriptions of animism have been presented in categories that match the Western models, even if they deviate from them. Anthropologists have realized that they need to, often, create new categories, more or less black box ontology to even describe the other culture's beliefs and categories. And the focus is on ontology. Not just epistemological issues of how to understand what they mean.
But if your point is that all the variations of ontology, say, we find in humans is within the human species, well, I agree.Quoting ManuelI am not sure what this would mean.
I think various groups have quite different ontologies and these lead to a wide range of behavioral differences. I don't see these differences as superficial. Yes, there is also a diversity of epistemologies.
I guess the question here for me is how meaningful is the idea that facts, which are given in anthropomorphic terms, will remain when we are gone. Where will they remain? This is a little like your question about where numbers are, except I think I'm coming from the opposite angle, so to speak. Your question seemed to assume that numbers must "be somewhere", since they don't seem to be mind-dependent.
I want to question the idea that they really are mind-independent, or even that time, change, diversity, identity and so on, are mind-independent. But the flip-side would be also to question the idea that the mind and mental phenomena are matter-independent, and further, to question the idea that there is any distinction between matter and mind apart from our human dualistic mode of thinking.
So, in short, I want to question the idea that anything "holds up, absent us". This would be to say that there is no-thing absent the conception of thing, but that what remains would not be nothing at all. This is in line with the idea that the real is neither something nor nothing, that those categories pertain only to our thinking, not to human-independent "reality". That's about as clear as I can make it, I'm afraid. I agree with Kant in that I'm not confident that it can be made any clearer.
I don't think the glimmer of the extra-mental is seen anywhere. It's part of the structure of our worldview that we look out at a non-mental world. A few thousand years ago that would have sounded absurd. So the ground of your claim is cultural, right?
:clap: This is very much the point I've been labouring (subject of my Medium essays.)
I will also re-iterate that I think the 'hard problem of consciousness' is not about consciousness, per se, but about the nature of being. Recall that David Chalmer's example in the 1996 paper that launched this whole debate talked about 'what it is like to be' something. And I think he's rather awkwardly actually asking: what does it mean, 'to be'?
(I've finally started reading some of Heidegger, and whilst I have not yet acquired a lot of knowledge about him, I do now know that his over-arching theme throughout his writings was 'the investigation of the meaning of being', and that he thinks this is something that we, as a culture, have generally forgotten, even though every person-in-the-street thinks it obvious. )
Anyway, Chalmer's selection of title is perhaps unfortunate, because it is quite possible to study consciousness scientifically, through the perspectives of cognitive science, experimental psychology, biology, neurology and other disciplines. But we can't study the nature of being that way, because it's never something we're apart from or outside of (another insight from existentialism.) In the case of the actual 'experience of consciousness', we are at once the subject and the object of investigation, and so, not tractable to the powerful methods of the objective sciences that have been developed since the 17th century.
I read Chalmers to be saying that consciousness could be investigated as a scientific phenomenon if the 'powerful methods' stopped insisting upon reducing it into a mechanism that excludes the need for a 'subject.'. Chalmers says the only way to avoid the problem is to include consciousness.as a fundamental property like mass, space, time, etcetera. To that extent, he is arguing against a 'scientism' that accepts the Descartes/Kant divisions as a final word on what can be investigated.
I understand the viewpoints stated by many in this thread that dismiss his framework as philosophically suspect. I just don't want to lose sight of what he thought he was doing as a point of departure.
But I agree - that's a different way of making the same point. What is the name for the human subject? Why, that is 'a being'. And the failure to grasp this fundamental fact is an aspect of what Heidegger describes as 'the forgetting of being'. I've had many a debate on this forum, some of them very bitter and acrimonious, because I claim that beings are fundamentally different from objects.
Elsewhere, Chalmers advocates, and Dennett dismisses as fantasy, the idea of a 'first-person science'. But, as has been pointed out, phenomenology was originally conceived by Husserl as a first-person science of consciousness.
So I disagree that my post 'looses sight' of Chalmer's point of departure. I'm simply saying that what he describes as 'the hard problem of consciousness' could be better depicted as the problem of the meaning of being.
I don't mean to accuse you of losing sight of something but to suggest there is a gap between Husserl, for example, and Chalmers in regard to how the 'first person' is understood as the source of phenomena.
Chalmers is fighting for accepting methods of the first person as evidence in the face of the thinking/practice that has excluded them. Husserl is taking those experiences as given to him without qualification.
Heidegger is a voice of opposition to the 'scientism' he sees in society. Chalmers is militating against that view when he does not accept that science has nothing more to do with the matter of subjectivity.
From here https://consc.net/pics/tucson2014.html)
I completely agree.
I don't understand. What is extra mental, when we look at the world?
No, culture has nothing to do with my view.
The alternative would be to say that the only intelligent species that could develop, must be like us in almost all respects - that seems to me quite unlikely.
I think the issue here is the scope of what you take ontology to be. I take ontology to be about the world - what's in the world. It's not what we take there to be in the world. Different forms of animism, or ways of thinking about time or relationships or ways to think about the identity of objects and community, are not things about the world, these are things we postulate on the world, hence epistemic. Epistemology is not limited to questions of, how do we know what we do? It also includes what we believe there is in the world, and in this respect, most of us have been quite wrong (literally wrong - not applicable to the world, but still valuable) for thousands of years.
So I take epistemology to be quite broader than issues concerning justification. And I try to make ontology about the world - this includes physics, for instance aspects of chemistry and perhaps biology. Anything beyond that would be closer to a "folk psychology" - a term I deeply dislike, because it makes it sound not serious, when it is very serious and important. Nevertheless, that's how the issue looks like to me.
I just meant "not mental stuff."
I think your worldview is the basis for your belief that the world existed before there was anything mental.
Sure, I do think something existed prior to us. We know a few facts about it - not too too much, but not trivial information either.
Ok, so we have the same meaning of terms. So what's extra mental, like, if you look outside your window or go woods or something - what's extra mental in this environment?
"Extra mental" would be anything that's beyond mental. It's an idea, not something you witness with your eyeballs.
So you think the stuff physics describes wouldn't exist if we were absent? That is, there would be no such thing as an age of the universe, nor would there be things we call planets (after we arise and call them this) and events that led us to our evolving?
How do we account for these facts?
Notice that in your previous comment, you added the caveat that our theories may have to be revised. Physics is in such a state that we really don't know how far from reality our intuitions are.
That means your claim pretty much reduces to: there is non-mental stuff that preceded us. That's not a conclusion drawn from any facts. It's an interpretation that's rooted in our present worldview.
I have in mind post-Newtonian physics. They weren't proved wrong, they were shown to be inadequate to explain certain phenomena: the orbit of Neptune and a few other oddities.
So far as we know, spacetime has not been shown to be wrong, but it has not been able to be combined with quantum theory, which has also not been shown wrong.
When I say revisions, I have more in mind what kind of stuff may lie beneath quantum theory, or what is it that combines General Relativity with Quantum Mechanics.
I don't think these theories will be shown to be wrong (as was the case with Newton's theories), but obviously incomplete.
All I'm saying is that I don't think the universe depended on us for it to happen, it just is, and we manage to capture a little bit about it.
The alternative is that we created everything, including the world and that all we know are our ideas and nothing else. That's an extreme form of Berkelyianism.
We might be in a black hole. Physics isn't slightly incomplete. It's very incomplete. Physics doesn't indicate any particular ontology.
Quoting Manuel
Plato would say we forget most of the Soul's wisdom when we're born. There are all sorts of alternatives. There's nothing wrong with our present worldview. It works well for us. But there's no telling what people will believe in a thousand years.
That's true, we don't know what 95% of the universe is made of, "only" 5% of it - which, given the species we are, is still a tremendous achievement.
Since the birth of modern science, with Galileo, Copernicus, Descartes and Newton we have been on a path of ever more precise identification of the structures of the universe: planets, asteroids, starts and so on.
Since Newton at least, physics has not been wrong, it has been improved. How far will that go? We don't know. Maybe we will stay stuck where we are, given practical limitations of technology and the vast distances involved between galaxies.
But if we are in black hole, then black holes exist, absent us. Planets do too. That doesn't depend on mind, though it was discovered by it. So planets and stars, are part of the ontology of Astronomy, subject to refinement, such as the case with Pluto.
Quoting frank
If we get that far. Yes, we don't know. But we are not too far from reaching the practical limitations I mentioned.
But that we create the manifest properties, when say, we look at images of James Webb, can only leave one in utter awe, at the power of our minds and the beauty they reveal (to us) about how the universe looks to us. So yes, we know very, very little. But not nothing, I wouldn't argue.
The ontologies on earth have a greater range than those supported here on this forum and the other two philosophy forums I participate in. IOW the range of -isms is more diverse than the members have, and the struggles in defense and critique of these -isms is not taken as superficial by most of the participants. Many are considered foolish and dangerous or societally problematic and so the discussion is important to the members. The only players involved in these discussions tend not to think the differences are superficial and they're not enountering the diversity out there in the world. The only player to have subjective reactions like the sense these are profound or superficial differences.
Superficial is a subjective term, but it more or less entails a comparative assertion. The world's range of ontologies is superficial, despite the fact that experts in the field of discovering what this range is have decided that too often they have placed the ontologies they encountered in boxes that were not suitable for them. Projecting their own culture's ontology on those they encountered and already the diversity was enormous.
So, what is the comparison to. What isn't superficial? The ontologies of an alien race that we have not encountered. The vast range of that group's ontologies makes our range superficial or the differences are superficial. Maybe. Maybe not. I don't make an assumption about that. I don't know if sentient species, if they are separated into subgroups and also if some subgroups allow for those sentient beings to come up with their own ontologies and allow for very diverse lifestyles and experiences, will tend to come up with ranges of similar magnitude to other sentient species. I don't know if one of the characteristics of our minds makes us more likely to create and imagine a wide range of ontologies (and other stuff) whereas other species, tend to be more conservative with such things. I don't know. Which I've said a few times.
You seem to know. You found your assessment that the differences are superficial on something you don't know. It's not an unreasonable speculation on your part. But it's using as evidence something that you also don't know.
I notice myself repeating points that haven't been responded to, and also being told I am assuming things I'm not, so, I think we've probably reached an impasse. It's also a tangent from the main theme of the thread, so I'll leave the issue here.
:up: The only issue I see with Chalmers proposal regarding a "new kind of science"; and that the subjective nature of consciousness might be understood and explained scientifically is that there doesn't seem to be the remotest idea of what such a science could look like.
I mean since scientific observations are publicly available whereas consciousness is not publicly observable it's hard to see how it could work. And you seem to be making pretty much the same point. So, I see the whole notion of pursuing a scientific investigation of first person experience as being a fool's errand. I think it should be renamed "the impossible problem" because the idea that it is a problem is a category error. We shouldn't expect science to be able to investigate and understand everything about human life, so it's not a failing of science so much as a failure to understand the limitations of science.
The more serious issue is that of explanatory frameworks. You and I have often discussed that, and I seem to recall you often saying that science is really the only credible public framework for such discussion, with other perspectives being designated 'poetic' - noble and edifying but essentially personal. But then, I guess that's part of the cultural dilemma of modernity, of which Chalmers and Dennett are two protagonists.
I've just been perusing the book from which the oft-quoted expression of 'Cartesian anxiety' is drawn. It is a 1986 book 'Beyond Objectivism and Relativism: Science, Hermeneutics and Praxis', by Richard J Bernstein (only died July last, see this touching obituary). It's a hell of a slog, but I think I'll persist with it, as it addresses just these themes from a cosmopolitan point of view - his main foils include Gadamer, Habermas and Hannah Arendt so he's not solely focussed on the Anglosphere (which is by and large a philosophical wasteland in my view.)
Yes. My point was just that since it's incomplete, the claim you're making isn't really about science. It's a philosophical bias that's common during the time in which you live.
There's weight to scientific findings. You can't really borrow that weight to say there's a mind independent world.
To some extent it's a hinge proposition that there are mind independent things, but I don't know how much of your behavior really revolves around that hinge. I don't know how differently people behaved 5000 years ago.
What? We can use the James Webb, land on the moon, calculate the age of the universe and the distance of galaxies all on the basis of the little we do know. Is this not real knowledge of the universe even if the science is incomplete?
Quoting frank
So is there mind-independence in your view, or no? Like, do you believe all these is to the world and the universe are our thoughts about it? That's perfectly fine if it is your view.
I'm saying these are epistemological differences, not ontological ones.
I'll even grant the point about the alien.
Telescopes and moon landings are engineering feats and it's a pet peeve of mine to assign their victories entirely to scientific knowledge. It's doesn't actually work that way, but that's beside the point. :smile:
There's no scientific findings published by Nature that address mind independence. This is an assumption arising from your worldview. I've said this several times now. I'm not sure why it's unclear.
Quoting Manuel
I have the same worldview you do. I'm just clearer on the arbitrariness of it than I think you might be.
I'm mostly talking about physics and aspects of astronomy. Not biology or stuff that's even more complex than that. I'd say that there are parts of astronomy that are arbitrary, sure. With physics, much less so.
From what I can see, most physicist take themselves to be talking about the world irrespective of our beliefs, desires, everyday concepts and so on.
Everything else becomes much muddier and more difficult very quickly. Which doesn't render it less valuable or interesting, but arbitrariness and our ways of thinking about them do enter much more clearly, imo.
Quoting frank
That's quite possible. :)
The question that comes up for me is whether "explanatory frameworks" can be true or false or merely "edifying". Even in the case of science where what would count as an "explanatory framework" would be theories and disciplines like Darwinian Evolution, Relativity, Quantum Mechanics, Organic and inorganic Chemistry, Microbiology. Biology, Geology and so on, the intelligent claim seems to be, not that they are necessarily or proven true, but they are workable and provide the best explanations for observed phenomena to date.
Then you have "soft sciences" like Psychology, Economics, Political Science, Sociology, Anthropology, Ethnology and so on. These too can be more or less workable, so it's not just a matter of them being "poetic". And the epithet 'poetic' in my view is not at all deprecatory, because I think poetry and the arts in general, at their best are profound expressions of the human imagination, and are much truer to subjective experience than science could ever be. Remember the etymological genesis of 'poetry' is poesis, which means 'making'.
So, for me poetry and the arts, which would include the writings of mystics and sages, are the most important expressions of human thought and imagination, while science, although it also has a creative, poetic side, is largely driven by instrumental concerns.
Nice obituary; I haven't explored Richard Bernstein's work at all, but it sounds interesting.
There is no basic problem here. All that is required is good honest observations, and this is fundamental to science anyway. So, in the same way that a person copies another person's scientific procedures to verify the honesty of the reported observations, we can verify another person's internal observations by making our own in a similar way.
The issue is not that internal observations of consciousness are fundamentally unscientific, the issue is that the scientific community has been mostly disinterested in internal observations. So these forms of science are pushed to the fringes. The scientists are motivated to produce more and more creature comforts into higher and higher levels of luxury, because that's where the money is. There is no money in learning about the true internal nature of consciousness and the intellect so view scientists will work on these observations.
It seems to me that if consciousness wasn't publicly observable, then what in the world would it mean to say that someone is conscious? You seem to imply that consciousness is only that which I alone can access. It would have to be at the very least both private and public. The public part being that which allows us to access the concepts and ideas associated with what's happening to us privately. Without the public part there would be no talking about consciousness, period. Even the idea of what it's like to experience the color red, or to experience the bitterness of dark chocolate, is both private and public. It's the public part of consciousness that allows us to say that rocks aren't conscious.
If you mean there is no scientific avenue of investigation into these private experiences, that too, seems false to me. We investigate these private experiences all the time in science. To investigate the person (their private experiences) is to investigate consciousness. We can easily collect data on such an investigation, and have collected data.
There is no invisible thing associated with consciousness. There is no soul, as some envision, that is the essence of consciousness. There are only the outward signs associated with being you or me, and that is what is meant by consciousness, as I see it. Even in my investigation into NDEs, it's still the same thing, i.e., you can ask the same questions, and the answers would still be the same.
It is when we move from the question of what is consciousness, to the question of why is there consciousness, i.e. ask for the cause, that we are incline to conclude that there must be something like a soul. And, seeking causes is a scientific endeavour.
The problem is that observations alone can only take us so far and we want to know about things outside the range of direct sense contact. So we take a collection of observations, apply inductive reasoning to make general principles, and we employ those principles as premises for deductive logic.
In this way we proceed toward understanding things outside the range of immediate sensation.
There appears to be two principle ways that things can be "outside" the range of sense contact, spatially and temporally. But already we can apprehend a fault in this premise. Spatially, we can see a need to allow for things which are out of range of sense contact by being spatially "inside". So the use of "outside" is prone to misleading us. And when we relate space to time, and we look for the cause of change, we look to the outside of the thing which is changing (in the Newtonian way of being acted on by a force). This inclination renders our minds blind to causation from inside.
We can see this problem quite clearly in the application of systems theory. There is stipulated a within the system, and an outside the system, therefore a proposed boundary between the system and other, its environment.. The system itself (within the system), will continue its existence according to Newtonian laws, unless acted on by something outside the system. But this provides no principle for distinction or separation, between an external boundary and an internal boundary. So all causes of change to the system are from external sources. This is due to our conventional conceptions of space which only allow for space which is external to a point, and do not allow for space which is internal to a point. We have no principle to allow for changes to the system which come across the internal boundary. So these are commonly represented as unknowns coming across the external boundary.
The difference between "good honest observations" of subjective experience and scienitifc observation of the external world is that the latter can be checked and corroborated, while the former cannot. How could I know your observations of your own experience are "good and honest"? That would involve a leap of faith. How can I know that even my own introspection is accurate? What could it be accurate in relation to? Accuracy is an inter-subjective idea. A similar issue arises for empirical observations when attempts are made to render them absolute.
Quoting Sam26
The behaviors we associate with being conscious are of course public, no argument there. On the other hand, only I know what I am conscious of at any time, unless I tell others. But then they have no way of knowing whether I am being honest.
Of course, since we all privately experience being conscious, talk about being conscious is manifest publicly. I'm also not denying that there is scientific investigation of consciousness in terms of brain imaging to find out what parts of the brain are active when people are asleep, eating chocolate, viewing various kinds of images, or what people report when certain areas of the brain are electrically stimulated, and so on. But none of that captures the subjective qualities of experience; they are private. cannot be adequately described and are perhaps unique to each of us in their living particularity.
So, I disagree with you when you say there are only the outward signs of being consciousness, which by implication suggests that there is not inner experience. You might know that in your own case, but how could you possibly know that in the case of others? And I'm here to tell you that my own experience says you are wrong about that. Of course, for you to believe me will be a leap of faith: I could be lying to you.
I think it may be useful to separate the private from the public: on the one hand, an individual's private experience(s) - "what's happening to us privately" - and on the other hand, our public behaviour, including our public language/concepts about consciousness. I agree that "without the public part there would be no talking about consciousness", but I think it is questionable whether our public language/concepts can ever exhaust/capture every nuance of every person's private experience.
Quoting Sam26
Again, I agree. However, scientific investigations depend on our public language/concepts which, again, may not exhaust/capture every nuance of every person's private experience.
Quoting Sam26
Given that consciousness has both public and private aspects, I disagree. There is only no invisible thing associated with our public behaviour, including our talk about consciousness.
This is incorrect. You tell me your observations of your internal self, and I compare them with mine. There is nothing more problematic then scientific observations here. The idea that scientific observations can be corroborated by a number of people, presupposes consistency between your observational capacities and mine. So, by that same presupposed consistency, we may corroborate our internal observations just as well.
Quoting Janus
How is this different from sense observations. How can you know that your senses are accurate? Description is simply a matter of putting words to what is noticed. We commonly make mistakes, regardless of whether the described things are internal or external.
It's simply the case that words have been used far more for the purpose of referring to external things than internal, for pragmatic purposes. So language has developed further that way. All we need to do is properly develop our use of words for referring to internal things, to give us a similar degree of knowledge of the inside. Look, you think that we can corroborate between us concerning descriptions of external things, assuming consistency between us. So you assume that we sense external things in a similar way as each other. Sensing is carried out by organs and the nervous system, which also provide internal feelings. So, why wouldn't there be similar consistency between internal things, such that we can corroborate internal observations?
Problem is your and my "internal self" are different "objects", whereas our observations of say an apple can be confirmed down to the minutest details.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
As I said earlier accuracy is only measurable within a context where all observations can be compared in detail.
I don't say that the fact that we can see whether our "internal" observations match up in kind is trivial: that is what enables phenomenology, and I have respect for that discipline. But there is a difference between phenomenology and the empirical sciences because in the case of the latter the objects of observation are publicly available,
Yes, so the fact that our observations of external things can be confirmed down to the "minutest details" only proves that your and my internal self are the same down to the minutest details. That we are actually distinct is not very relevant to this purpose, because we are the same down to the minutest details. And when we produce general principles through inductive reasoning, as is the practise of science, differences in the minutest details are not relevant.
Quoting Janus
Again, you are incorrect here. When a scientist performs an experiment, only those present have access to observe the "objects" which are observed. Scientific experiments are not publicly available. Yet the scientists establish conclusions and principles which can be applied publicly, to many other objects, and other experiments, which may be different, by way of minute details. These minute differences are deemed by us to be irrelevant when applying these principles. And so the minute differences between your and my internal self ought to be deemed irrelevant in a similar way.
Phenomenology is an empirical science, as "empirical" means from observation, or experience. It is just a different field of science, distinct from most other fields, and not nearly as far developed. It is not as developed because the pragmatic forces which motivate the human being's inclination to study, have not inclined vast numbers of people toward studying this field.
Not at all; it speaks to the fact that our perceptual organizations are similar enough, and that the minutest details of external objects do not depend on who is observing them.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Some observations may be available only to those who are trained to know what to look for and what they are looking at, but all scientific observations are publicly available in principle.
I think you argue just for the sake of it or for the sake of winning; you don't seem to be interested in what is the case..
So what's your argument then? A bit of rock in the ground here is "similar enough" to a bit of rock in the ground on the other side of the world, that we can make conclusions and state "scientific" principles which apply to both. And, our "perceptual organizations" must be "similar enough" in order that a multitude of us can agree on these details. On what basis do you conclude that we can make valid scientific conclusions about the similarity in the rocks but not about the similarity in the internal perceptual organizations?
Quoting Janus
You are missing the point. The observations are only made by those participating in the performance of the experiment. Therefore the observations are not publicly available. You can read someone else's observations, but to assume that the other person's observations are the same as yours would be in that situation, is to presuppose the principle you stated above, that "our perceptual organizations are similar enough". And if that presupposition is true then there is no problem for me to make scientific conclusions about your internal perceptual organizations based on an analysis of my own internal disposition.
The other possible way that observations are available to the public is if we follow the stated method to replicate, and do our own experimentation. If you've ever done this though, you likely have found out that we commonly do not really notice the same "minutest details". That's a faulty assumption on your part, and correcting it is what leads to the hard problem.
The similarities in objects of the sense can be pointed to as can the observable structural similarities in perceptual organizations: the structure of eyes, of optic nerves, of brains.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Empirical observations in general, any observation concerning the characteristics of objects of the senses are publicly available. These observations are definitely confirmable. If I am with ten people, looking at a red apple with a yellow stripe, I can ask all those people what unusual feature they see on that apple and predictably they will most likely all agree it is the yellow stripe.
If I am entertaining a particular thought and I ask you what I am thinking you cannot tell me. That's the difference between private thoughts, feelings and sensations and publicly available objects of the senses. I shouldn't have to point this out to you since it is obviously the case, as attested by everyday experience.
I think we agree on these points.
Quoting Luke
I'm not so sure we disagree here. There are private experiences going on all the time, but in order to talk about these private experiences there has to be the public component. I'm referring to the use of the word soul. The religious idea that there is some private thing that represents the soul, i.e., that gives meaning to the concept, is problematic. The use of the word apart from the religious use, is associated with that which animates the body, or the actions of the body. There are obviously unseen things going on.
I disagreed with what you said earlier: "There is no invisible thing associated with consciousness." However, now you say "There are obviously unseen things going on"...?
As I said earlier, we need to distinguish public behaviour - including language use - from an individual's private experience. Both aspects are involved in consciousness.
What the human mind does - uniquely well, as far as we can ascertain - is grasp abstract ideas and see causal relations (among other things) which are foundational for the ability to speak and reason. Consider for example the imperfection argument from the Phaedo - that there is no physical or empirically existent instance of what is denoted by =. No two things are exactly the same (other than numbers, which are not things). And yet we rely on the concept of equals (and other like concepts) for all manner of rational thought. Rational thinking relies on such abilities, which have no physical equivalent, but without which there would be no science or mathematics. That is an attribute of the faculty of reason. That is a far cry from an invisible thing yet it is a unique characteristic of the rational mind. Nor is it an ability for which there could feasibly be a scientific explanation, as any scientific explanation will of necessity rely on the very faculty which it would be here seeking to explain.
Shaming. Pride.
The examples are far too plentiful to enumerate.
So, there's that...
Carry on folks. Just running through.
:wink:
This is a category mistake. Characteristics of objects "in general" are not publicly available. What is publicly available is particular instances or circumstances. And, we each observe these from a different contextual perspective. The generalizations which you refer to are produced from inductive reasoning. There is a problem with inductive reasoning, known as "the problem of induction". This means that your claim that these "observations in general .. are definitely confirmable" is definitely false.
Quoting Janus
All that you are showing me is a good example of a category mistake. I really don't think you properly grasp your own proposed division between publicly available objects of the private sensations, thoughts, and feelings.
You portray "observations" as publicly available, when they need to be classed as "private thoughts, feelings, and sensations". If you would take the time to classify things correctly, according to your own proposed categories, you would see that "observations" ought to be classed as private. Therefore "observations" are only confirmable in the same way that any other private sensations, thoughts, or feelings are confirmable, (i.e. without certainty). And your proposed division between science of the external and knowledge of the internal cannot be supported in the way that you propose.
If you propose a separation between external objects which are public, and internal feelings, thoughts and sensations which are private, then all observations, (which are thoughts), must be classed as internal, regardless of whether they are observations of external features or of internal features. And, all we have as the means for confirming or validating observations is other internal, private things. Reference to "external objects" does absolutely nothing for validation or confirmation of these observations (which are internal) because all we have to work with is an internal representation of what an "external object" is.
So a person might produce an internal, private idea as to what an external public object is, and proceed to use this idea in an effort to validate or confirm observations (as other internal private ideas), but this is just an idea of an external object. Therefore the assumed real, external, public objects, if they really exist, do nothing for the validation or confirmation of the ideas. And the idea which you hold, that somehow the real existence of real external, public objects, is making the science of external features somehow more reliable than the science of internal features, is actually the opposite of what is really the case. This idea, this internal feature of you, is actually misleading you. So your assumption about how these real external things serve to confirm your internal thoughts and feelings, as science of the external, is a false premise, which produces within your internal thoughts and feelings a false confidence. And false confidence produces unreliable actions and unreliable science.
Furthermore, there are numerous other internal dispositions and inflictions which will taint and influence the science of the assumed external public objects, in many other ways. This is why the science of the external is only as reliable or dependable as the science of the internal. If we do not analyze and isolate the way that different internal attitudes affect the science of the external, we will not apprehend the resulting deficiencies of the external science. So it ought to be clear to you, that any science of the external, public objects, can only obtain to a level of reliability provided for, or allowed by, the science of the internal, private thoughts and feelings.
Quoting creativesoul
Exactly, in reality, the public is dependent on the private, and we could exchange public and private for external and internal here as well.. That is what Janus denies and refuses to acknowledge. As much as we like to model the private as emergent from the public, thereby making the public prior to the private, "the public" is nothing more than an idea and is therefore fundamentally dependent on the private. In other words, our minds have no way to get out of one's own mind, to take the perspective of the public as prior to the private, despite evidence which indicates that the public ought to be modeled as prior. That is a basic defect of the human mind, we intuitively apprehend that the public must be prior, yet the mind cannot get outside itself to make this intuitive perspective a true perspective. Therefore any such model is defective, because the private produces a model whereby the public is prior to the private which creates it.
Since it is impossible for the human mind to get outside itself, our only recourse for a true understanding of the nature of reality, is to adopt the perspective that the private is prior to the public, as the true perspective, even though it is counterintuitive. So any proposal which puts the public as prior to the private, must be apprehended as a base falsity, a counterfactual premise, proposed for some purpose other than understanding the true nature of reality.
I disagree with both of your approaches for different reasons. I agree with your critique of Janus' position, as it has been stated in this thread.
You are distorting what I've said. Of course each observation of an object of sense is particular, and the details of those observations in general are publicly confirmable. If I say "This car is made of steel" this assertion can be publicly checked and confirmed or disconfirmed. If I say " This thought I'm having is about a car made of steel" this assertion is not publicly checkable and cannot be confirmed or disconfirmed. That, in a nutshell, is all I'm saying.
If you disagree with what I've just written then say why; I'm prepared to listen. If you don't disagree then we have nothing further to discuss it seems.
Quoting creativesoul
Same goes for you: if you disagree with what I wrote above, then explain why.
We'd better get this clear, an observation may be of a particular, if that is what is observed, a particular. But I do not think we should jump to the conclusion that an observation is itself a particular. Observations, I think are better described as relations, and relations require more that one particular. And an observation is more like a relation than a particular. Therefore I really don't think it's correct to call an observation a particular.
Quoting Janus
You are making my argument easy for me Janus, by demonstrating the faults of your position. Look, to confirm your proposition "this car is made of steel", I need to know what you mean by these words. And of course your thoughts are not publicly available to me, except through your words. I could point out to you that the car might be partially made of steel so we ought not either confirm or deny your proposition. Therefore, in reality, despite what you say, your proposition is not easily confirmed or disconfirmed. But of course, you could proceed to employ a Banno style trick of sophistry and insist that what you meant is that the parts made of steel are made of steel. But then the external public thing would play no role at all in the confirmation. We'd base the confirmation on logic alone.
On the other hand, your proposition "This thought I'm having is about a car made of steel", is very easy to confirm. This is because it is an undeniable truth that we think about the words we are saying. Even talking in one's sleep involves a strange sort of thinking which occurs when we are sleeping, dreaming. Therefore you cannot say "a car made of steel" without thinking about a car made of steel, and it is confirmed that the thought you were having when you said "a car made of steel" was about a car made of steel.
From this, it ought to start becoming clear to you that statements about internal things are much easier to confirm, to a far higher degree of certainty than statements about external things. This is why valid deductive logic provides us with a very high degree of certainty. And when our conclusions tend to faulter its because of weakness in the premises, unsoundness in premises which are often inductive conclusions made from observations of external things. So a proposition like "the parts which are made of steel are made of steel" produces a very high degree of certainty, and is easily confirmable, because it does not rely on any external observations, only an internal process of thinking logically.
I agreed with a particular critique that Meta offered against your position. Well, to be more precise, I generally agreed with Meta about a problem with your position, as you stated it. That said, the last post you offered had nothing to do with that issue.
It seems to me that both of you are using unnecessarily complex language coupled with inherently inadequate dichotomies to discuss the subject matter. The last post you offered shows the former nicely. For example, let's look closer at this:
Quoting Janus
The quote directly above serves as prima facie evidence supporting the charge that you're using unnecessarily complex language. Furthermore, such usage serves only to add unnecessary confusion. This could be demonstrated a number of different ways. I'll stick with one, for brevity's sake.
I'm assuming that a tree counts as "an object of sense". So, an observation of a tree would count as an observation of 'an object of sense'. But what sense does that make?
I mean, when we talk about one thing being "of" another, there is some sort of relation between the two. When we talk about an object of steel, there are no meaningful issues regarding the sensibility of our language use. We all know what counts as an object of steel. Steel cars, for example. Steel knives. Steel wheels. The same easily understood sensibility holds good for objects of brass, paper, plastic, etc. An object of steel is a something consisting of steel. An object of brass is something consisting of brass. An object of paper is something consisting of paper. But what sense does it make to talk about "objects of sense"?
A tree does not consist of sense.
So, in summary, I find such linguistic frameworks to be entirely unhelpful. Meta follows along because he grants too much to start with. Therefore, I disagree with both approaches regarding all that and more. I'll leave it at that though, for what I've said is plenty enough.
If that's all you meant, it's much more helpful - to me anyway - to understand you by saying that rather than the other stuff you said leading up to it. The above is easily understood.
That's one reason why I disagree with the position you're arguing for.
If "Steel" is accepted as denoting a purely physical concept, then by definition "steel" cannot be semantically reduced to any individual's private thoughts, experiences or understanding of "steel".
To account for this, if a speaker says "I am thinking about steel", interpret them as saying
"I am thinking about p-steel" - where 'p-steel' is understood to an indexicial. This implies
- "p-steel" has direct and immediate referential content for that particular speaker, and for that particular speaker only. This referential content includes both the speaker's perceptions of their external world and their subjectivity. From the perspective of an external onlooker who tries to understand the speaker, this referential content can be identified with the immediate situational causes of the speaker's utterance of "steel" (and hence nothing to do with any mythical 'public' understanding of "Steel").
- P-steel has no public referential content, except in the sense previously considered.
- "Steel" has no a priori referential content; Every empirical identification of "steel" is an instance of "p-steel" with respect to a particular observer.
I have been trying to adhere to the dichotomy proposed by Janus in an effort to show that the application of this dichotomy is not useful toward a true understanding of reality. Janus proposed a separation between knowledge of external, public things, like material objects, and knowledge of internal, private things, like thoughts, sensations and feelings. The knowledge of external is called "science" and the knowledge of internal was given a lessor value, like subjective opinion.
Then Janus proposed that one's knowledge of external things would be more reliable than one's knowledge of internal things, because it is in some way "confirmable". I've argued that Janus has this backward. All knowledge of external things is dependent on principles derived from internal knowledge, and is therefore only as reliable as the knowledge of internal things which supports it. This is commonly expressed in terms of a priori/a posteriori.
Since I can't see how any of you have addressed anything I've actually said, I have no response to make.
That's not true. You can see it. You may or may not understand or agree with it, but you can definitely see that I addressed something you said. I quoted it verbatim.
In fact, I quoted you twice and complimented the clarity of the second quote.
:smile:
Here's the "compliment:
Quoting creativesoul
You haven't identified what "other stuff" I said and precisely what parts you disagree with. And then in this I've quoted above you say "it's much more helpful" and then go on to say "that's one reason why I disagree with the position you're arguing for" but it's not clear what you disagree with or what your reason for disagreement is. Murky!
Quoting creativesoul
This is the one clear disagreement, and it's not with anything I said. I referred to objects of sense, meaning publicly available objects which may be seen, examined and their characteristics described by anyone. A tree is an example of such an object, but I nowhere said or implied that such objects "consist of sense".
If you do not grasp that a priori truths, and universal rules of logic like the law of identity, non-contradiction, and excluded middle, make statements about internal thoughts rather than particular external objects, and that these universal principles are much more accurately confirmed, and certain, than statements made about particular external objects, then we'll just have to leave it at that.
Quoting Janus
That's not true either. See above.
The irony here is that what you said afterwards is what I complimented. You've said all sorts of things, and then said completely different things after issues with the original things were pointed out, and then claimed that the completely different things were all you meant when you said the first things. Then you claim that what I wrote in the quote at the top of this post was 'murky'???
All good from my vantage point. I know better. The casual reader can decide for themselves. I'm done here. I've got far more important, meaningful, and rewarding things to do than to play pin the tail on the bullshit artist.
.
Why can human understanding not understand human understanding?
... it becomes rather easy to see that the mind is not big enough to encompass the mind, and if it were big enough, it would be too big to be encompassed by the mind.
One cannot stand under oneself.
Is this broadening of what is deemed conscious a reflection of a broader trend towards greater inclusivity? Is the perception of something as an insentient thing a necessary step towards abusing, exploiting, and killing it?
"We have the ideas of matter and thinking, but possibly shall never be able to know whether any mere material being thinks or no; it being impossible for us, by the contemplation of our own ideas, without revelation, to discover whether Omnipotency has not given to some systems of matter, fitly disposed, a power to perceive and think, or else joined and fixed to matter, so disposed, a thinking immaterial substance: it being, in respect of our notions, not much more remote from our comprehension to conceive that GOD can, if he pleases, superadd to matter a faculty of thinking, than that he should superadd to it another substance with a faculty of thinking; since we know not wherein thinking consists, nor to what sort of substances the Almighty has been pleased to give that power...
Whether Matter may not be made by God to think is more than man can know. For I see no contradiction in it, that the first Eternal thinking Being, or Omnipotent Spirit, should, if he pleased, give to certain systems of created senseless matter, put together as he thinks fit, some degrees of sense, perception, and thought..."
Today we would of course change "God" for "nature", and the argument still stands remarkably well.
From the aspect that you have Lock considering a problem close to the one about consciousness --because Lock doesn't speak about consciousness per se-- I believe a lot of philosophers can be included in the pool. However, the "Hard Problem of Consciousness" is a scientific, not a philosophical one. That is, it starts and ends in the world of science:
"An explanation of consciousness will have to go beyond the usual methods of science. Consciousness therefore presents a hard problem for science, or perhaps it marks the limits of what science can explain."
-- "The Hard Problem of Consciousness" (https://iep.utm.edu/hard-con/)
Actually, Locke was one of the first philosophers (one of them, not the first one) to speak about consciousness, and he does so, several times in the essay, with quite interesting results.
As for the rest of your argument, this is terminological. The whole idea of the "hard problem" was introduced by David Chalmers, a philosopher, not a scientist. Yet scientists seem to find the idea useful, so they borrowed it. That's perfectly fine and healthy.
That quote I gave from Locke barely needs modification, it pretty much considers the hard problem, and says we can't understand how this is possible (how matter could think), but if nature ("God"), chooses so, then so be it, we must concede to matter the property of thought (consciousness), but it remains inconceivable to us.
I cannot disagree with the things you say, well, except the main point I made! :smile:
The passage I quoted shows clearly that the problem is scientific. Besides, why is it called a "problem" and for whom does it constitute a problem? Who stumbles on that problem and in fact it presents for them an "impasse"?
As I usually say, consciousness is not science material. The subject of consiousness is out of Science jurisdiction. Philosophy on the other hand has no problem studying and talking about consiousness. Consciousness does not present a problem for it. It is one of the subjects it studies, like all the other: existence, reason, knowledge, values, ethics etc. Moreover, everyone is welcome to participate in and present their views about it.
I brought up this subject because a lot of people in here and elsewhere consider and talk about the "Hard Problem of Consciousness" as if it is a philosophical one. Quite strangely so.
It appears that there's no scientific principle, hypothesis, or theory that we can turn to to explain consciousness. As an example of a theory that explains stuff take the germ theory - it provides an explanatory framework for infectious diseases. When it comes to consciousness, even neuroscience fails to provide a theoretical model that could be used to explain consciousness.
[quote=Metamorphosis]When you look at things from an evolutionary perspective and understand biology and biochemistry there doesn't seem to be any hard problem.
Yeah living systems are really complicated... and yeah the chemistry and evolution that can happen over 4 billion years is really complicated.. but I don't think by making up fuzzy words like qualia and weird thought experiments like zombies you actually highlight any real problem or illuminate any gap in our knowledge!
Yes humans have complex subjective experience and presumably all living systems even a mosquito have some sort of internal subjective experience...
But it seems like neurology and biochemistry and evolutionary biology do a pretty good job of explaining what's going on and I don't see how any of that mumbo jumbo is creating any better science?
In other words it seems like the science we have and the understanding we have does a pretty good job explaining things, and unless you're creating something better, it seems like you're just praying on the gullible and naive religious impulses by creating these weird philosophical niches!!! [/quote]
Is it because 'conscious' has a job on the weekdays in practical life ? Along with familiar, thisworldly criteria for its application ?
Quite so. I wonder why anyone is surprised. Why would anyone think matter gives rise to consciousness?
Chalmers defines the hard problem as a problem for materialism, not for everybody. . ,
Because the person took a serious look at the evidence, perhaps?
Brian Green wrote:and
So serious scientific minds that are dedicated to the idea that it is explainable in physical terms say we cannot do so. While that is not evidence that it is not explainable in physical terms, it is certainly not evidence that it is. The Hard Problem is hard, according to the experts on opposite sides of the fence.
Or is because they did not take a serious look?. This would my view.
What evidence is there that consciousness arises from matter?
A pretty simple piece of evidence is how frequently we observe that changes in matter produce changes in consciousness. Drugs are an example. The changed conscious experience of people who have experienced brain damage is another.
These examples of course don't prove definitively that all of consciousness must arise from matter, but they're undoubtedly painting a picture of a strong causal relationship between matter and consciousness. It's sufficient to convince me that at the very least, conscious experience has significant physical components.
The effect of general anesthesia in suppressing consciousness.
The effect of mind altering drugs.
The fact that human intuition 'looks like' the result of the way information processing occurs in neural networks.
All sorts of ways minds can be impacted by brain damage.
I doubt anyone disputes that the only types and examples of consciousness we are aware of cannot exist without their physical components. But that only tells us where is happens. But that only tells us where it takes place. The way we might say walking takes place in the legs, or flight takes place in the sky. We would not accept such statements as explanations of how walking and flight are accomplished.
As I said in my previous post, a leading expert in neurology and the study of consciousness, and a leading expert in the properties of particles, forces, and the laws of physics, say we do not know how consciousness is produced by neurons, properties of particles, forces, and the laws of physics. It is a mystery how physical things and processes are accompanied by subjective experience, and the awareness of themselves. Impulses travel along nerves, causing a hand to pull away from a hot surface. But something else is also taking place. The physical things and processes define and describe the physical events. Why do, and how would, they [I]also[/I] define and describe the mental events? Leading experts in physics, neurology, and consciousness are stumped.
I think the hard problem of consciousness IS a hard problem. I don't disagree with you that it's a hard problem.
All good examples. They're all about the information processing aspect of cognition, however, and leave open the possibility that this functional level of consciousness is superficial. I was being sloppy suggesting there is no evidence,and should have said no overwhelming evidence.
There is no physical experiment that could prove consciousness has a physical basis, and while this does not prove it doesn't it might be argued that it's an unscientific claim. What would be your view on this?
I want to emphasize aspects of what Brian Greene wrote:
We don't know nearly as much as we would like. However, I've been watching progress in neuroscience for the past 36 years, and that progress has been huge. Don't mistake, "There is a huge amount left to learn.", for, "We don't know anything about it."
Sure, we can't yet explain it with matter. It's not like we can explain it with something else either. It's not like there's some other more complete alternative that sufficiently gives an account of consciousness.
:up:
Quoting FrancisRay
Strictly speaking, science doesn't prove anything. On the other hand, science has provided us with some of the most reliable beliefs we have. That human consciousness is the result of evolution of brains within a social primate lineage seems an enormously well supported and reliable belief to me. Arguably, of more scientific interest is whether you can present evidence falsifying physicalism.
From a scientific perspective, I'd say physicalism should be seen as a working hypothesis for which there is a lot of supporting evidence and a dearth of reliable falsifying evidence.
That is all consistent with idealism. Why should we suppose there exists a physical brain made of non-mental stuff? Also, do you think all instances of information processing give rise to subjective experience? Or only some? Are you a proponent of IIT?
Perhaps I'm misunderstanding the question, but my impulse is to answer that we've seen physical brains by opening up skulls. That's why I suppose they exist. Do you suppose physical brains don't exist?
I suppose that physical matter doesn't exist, let alone physical brains. It's all mental stuff. The hard problem vanishes.
Inasmuch as idealism is unfalsifiable, it is rather uninteresting that you find the evidence I presented doesn't falsify idealism.
Quoting RogueAI
I don't see "should" as having all that much to do with what we suppose. However, in the case a loved one of yours having a stroke in your presence, I hope it will occur to you that your loved one has a physical brain, and getting your loved one to a doctor who knows about brains is important.
That too is consistent with a dream. What's your next move, kick a rock? :razz:
You talk about information a lot. What theory of consciousness is your favorite?
I dont think the solution to hard problem is figuring out how the physical produces the mental. I think the solution is figuring out what else is there with the physical.
Fair enough. But I want to emphasize things, as well.[Quote]And within that mathematical description, affirmed by decades of data from particle colliders and powerful telescopes, there is nothing that even hints at the inner experiences those particles somehow generate. How can a collection of mindless, thoughtless, emotionless particles come together and yield inner sensations of color or sound, of elation or wonder, of confusion or surprise? Particles can have mass, electric charge, and a handful of other similar features (nuclear charges, which are more exotic versions of electric charge), but all these qualities seem completely disconnected from anything remotely like subjective experience. How then does a whirl of particles inside a headwhich is all that a brain iscreate impressions, sensations, and feelings?[/quote]Yes, we know a ton about the physical processes of the brain. But nothing the world's leading experts know "remotely" explains consciousness. Plenty of correlation. Plenty of location. But no explanation. Greene doesn't give a [I]non-robust[/I] scientific explanation. There is no partial explanation. There is only [I]It happens here[/I], and [I]It just happens.[/I]. The fact that it doesn't seem to exist without the physical means, obviously, the physical is involved. But that's not a robust explanation. It's only an assertion that physical is involved.
Quoting flannel jesusMaybe there [I]is[/I] something else we can explain it with. Maybe something non-physical is also present. We have no problem accepting that space and time are one, or that matter warps it. And wet have no problem accepting the impossible, contradictory nature of quantum mechanics. I don't think the idea that there is something non-physical involved with consciousness is any more outlandish, considering none of the people who know the most about physics and neurons can find an explanation that only involves the physical.
Greene is a physicist, not a neuroscientist. Try Damasio's The Feeling of What Happens: Body and Emotion in the Making of Consciousness.
You can of course disagree with those things, but the supposition isn't like some outlandish idea. We're supposing it because it's right in front of us to suppose. If I see a duck swimming in a pond, I'm going to suppose that that pond has a duck swimming in it.
When I said it's not like we can explain it with something else, that wasn't an ontological statement - that wasn't me saying, ontologically, i KNOW nothing else exists that can explain it. I'm saying we, as human beings, and specifically the scientific community, doesn't have to hand some other thing, some other promising realm of non-physics that gives us some clear unambiguous explanation of consciousness. There might BE some non physical thing that explains it in the end, but that explanation doesn't exist right now, for us to study.
So when someone says "materialism can't explain consciousness", that's true, right now - right now materialism can't explain consciousness - but that's not some unique failing of materialism. Right now, NO ONE can explain consciousness - not with matter, and not with anything else either. Materialism can't explain it right now, non-materialism can't explain it right now, it's entirely (or just mostly?) unexplained right now. The explanation is yet to be found.
To me, that shouldn't really count as a point against materialism - it's often presented like it is.
I would disagree strongly and suspect you just haven't examined the counter evidence.
But leaving that aside, how can an untestable theory be scientific? Physicalism is an ideological position or guess, not a scientific theory. Even if we discount the fact that it fails in metaphysics and explains nothing there is no scientific reason for endorsing it. For physics it makes no difference whether it is true or false.
Yes. I found some of what he wrote really convincing.
Thanks! I am LOATHE, (LOATHE I tell you), to buy physical books. But this is not available as an e. It should be delivered Tuesday.
I'll point out, however, that Koch is a neuroscientist, and he also says they can't explain it.
I agree with this, although I think there is a scientific reason of sorts - without an assumption of physicalism, science can't be done. Scientific = measurable (or at least observable) = physical.
That doesn't mean I don't think consciousness experience can be studied scientifically.
:100: :up:
The dogma "not yet means never will" (i.e. unknown = unknowable :roll:) has always been mysterian / idealist pseudo-philosophical (i.e. religious / magical thinking) nonsense.
Sure. To me it seems quite explainable that we can't totally explain it. Humanity is still developing the conceptual and techological tools that would be required to do so in any comprehensive way. (Making the big assumption that human minds are capable of grasping an explanation that would necessarily have extraordinary complexity.)
Like many matters of scientific understanding, understanding of the mind's relationship to the brain is a matter of looking at many scientific findings relevant to piecing together an enormous jigsaw puzzle. There is a lot to learn, to have a well informed opinion of what the picture looks like. (And facing that picture is something a lot of people have a negative emotional reaction to, at least for a time.)
Quoting wonderer1What picture are you saying is already drawn that people have a negative emotional reaction to?
Agreed. I wasn't suggesting it can't be done.
I;d say it has been explained. The point is that it can't be explained within a materialist framework, and can't be studied by poking around in the brain. This is not a religious position or conjecture about the future but a result of analysis and a kosher philosophical view. . .
How is this explanation tested? Do any unique predicttions follow from this explanation? Please elaborate. Thanks.
I broadly agree, with caveats. There's still a bunch of questions left over with my view. I'm interested though, what explanation do you favour?
It may be tested in experience and logic. The problem for me is that this is a big topic and deserves a thread of its own.
Perhaps the most obvious test is that the explanation I have in mind predicts that all metaphysical questions are undecidable, and they are. No other fundamental theory can explain this.
In physics the proofs tend to be negative, but it seems telling that the explanation allows a workable interpretation of quantum mechanics. This is explained by Ulrich Mohrhoff.in his book The World according to Quantum Mechanics: Why the world Makes Sense After All.
I feel this is too big a topic to deal with here and also I have other things to do right now, but it's a great question and if you were to start a thread asking it I'd participate. . .
The Perennial philosophy, aka mysticism, nondualism, advaita. This states that consciousness and realty are the same phenomenon. It is endorsed by all those who study consciousness deeply and first-hand rather than speculate. What questions do you have left over? I could perhaps give the answers this philosophy would have for them. . .
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A conscious-centric framework will not even be able to explain consciousness because it is possibly the most trivial concept we have since it is the primitive base of all knowledge. There is absolutely no constraint on what can be considered to be an experience. It seems plausible to me that there are an infinite multitude of experiences that we could never even imagine for different possible kinds of sentient agents. Once you think like that, can you even point out what it means not to be conscious or be an experience? I am not even sure anymore, especially if someone like a panpsychist thinka that even the simplest possible micro-thing can have some form of experience that is just extremely, unfathomably basic.
There's no possible characterization of consciousness. It is utterly primitive to us as information-processing creatures. All we can do is fit it in as best we can with the rest of science. Since consucousness has no actual characterization, the only thing we can do is juxtapose with useful physical concepts like people already do in neuroscience. Physical concepts are doing all the hard work and science hasn't found any evidence of dualism. Sure, panpsychism could be true but again since consciousness lacks any decent characterization, which of our concepts do the heavy lifting in relating experience to the rest of reality? The physical concepts.
Again, explanations are inherently functional. Experiences are not. There will never be a good explanation of consciousness and anything useful to our knowledge will be functional and so inherently at odds with describing or explaining experiences. Maybe physical concepts don't explain consciousness like we want them to but physical concepts are central to any kind of useful explanations about fundamental reality. I think fundamental ontology is likely impossible to comprehend and the next step is a computational or informational explanation of why that is and for how that hard problem arises in intelligent machines like us in the first place.
Quoting Apustimelogist
Very much agree. So did Kant. He placed the origin of the both the world and the intellect prior to the categories of thought. If you assume it is primitive then you have solved the hard problem. There are still plenty of difficulties to overcome but none that are intractable.
I found your post above perceptive and a good summary of the situation, but unnecessarily pessimistic/ .
This would be a hopeless approach for for the reasons you give. A fundamental theory must look beyond computation and intellection.
But if you think human beings are are intelligent machines or one of Chalmers' zombies then I'm afraid you're stuck with the hard problem for all eternity. This assumption renders the problem impossible. .
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. .
If you assume anything is primitive, you can answer the same "how" question. How does consciousness arise? It's primitive. How does life work? It's primitive (see Vital Force, an idea which lost favour when scientists were able to build up a picture of life working via electro chemical processes).
Some things are primitive, of course, and it may be that consciousness is, but it feels more like a non answer to me than an answer. It feels like giving up. "I can't think of how it could come about via any physical or non physical processes, so it must be fundamental". That's exactly how Vital Force explained the processes of life, up until we had the means to explain it electro-chemically.
Maybe it's fundamental, but probably, I think, we just don't have the answer yet, and the idea that it's primitive will start disappearing when we have a picture of the mechanisms involved, like life itself.
If it is primitive consciousness doesn't arise. What would arise is intentional 'subject/object consciousness,
Life is a different issue.
Why do you think this? It allows us to construct a fundamental theory. This is the answer given by Perennial philosophy, for which no hard problems arise. Rather than giving up this is the only way forward.
This the dream of the materialists, but you've just argued it's a pipe-dream.
The idea that consciousness is primitive will never disappear. The 'Perennial' philosophy will never go away since it is not conjectural and it works. The problem is only that few people take any notice of it. Then they cannot make sense of metaphysics or consciousness and conclude that nobody ever will. It's an odd and rather surreal situation. .
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In what way? I don't see it as pessimistic at all or that anything is lost. What does a solution to the hard problem look like? I don't think there is a good one I can think of which doesn't imply some sort of dualism which I fundamentally disagree with.
Quoting FrancisRay
I am not suggesting looking for a fundamental ontology based on computation but an explanation for why knowing about fundamental ontologies are out of reach.
I think the explanation is actually already there, it just has to be articulated and demonstrated. Like you said, experiences are primitive. We know experiences are related to the functional architecture of our brains. We can transfer or demonstrate the concept of this kind of primitiveness into the architectures and functional repertoires of A.I. We use A.I. to demonstrate the limits of what kinds of information is transferable from the environment, what kinds of concepts are created and what information they don't or can't include, and then see what kind of metacognitive consequences this has. Does a. A.I. come up with primitive phenomenal concepts on a purely functional basis that it cannot explain, similarly to our hard problem? This is a totally plausible research program even if it may not be possible right at this moment.
Quoting FrancisRay
Not sure what you mean here but functionally, yes we are just intelligent machines. We are just brains.
Take the simplest of computational networks - two states going through a logic gate, producing a new state. According to the research that I am aware of, examples of which I write in the next paragraphs, this simple network, by itself, can be regarded as a fundamental level of consciousness, or a single block of logic if you will. If, for example, you want it to contain memory, in order to process that memory and produce a new state, two NOR gates will suffice. Connect them with another gate and a binary sensor and you essentially have stored information processing which also depends on the environment.
There is already an amount of research around programming microorganism behavior with a combination of logic gates - which is the fundamental computational mechanism in electronics. Example nice reads:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S030326472200003X
https://arstechnica.com/science/2010/12/building-logic-gates-with-bacterial-colonies/
Beyond that, we are just describing different complexity levels of "logic". From what I understand molecular neurotransmitter function (that mostly work as emotional regulators in humans), can be boiled down to logic gates as well. For one, they seem to work similarly to AI neural network learning algorithm techniques to encourage or discourage decisions by altering neuron firing frequency, and even if one could argue that neurotransmitter effect on neurons is not binary, unlike logic gates, their analog behavior can be replicated with binary behavior. Again, by looking at something we can actually map, neurotransmitters in earthworms for example, work in their nervous system as a decision regulator.
By taking a look at the animal kingdom to comprehend our "seemingly inexplicable phenomenon" of consciousness, we can see that the more complex this network of logic is, the more behaviors emerge from it. In vastly more complex social organisms like bees, research has shown that they share more "traditionally human" behaviors than was thought before. Some name that level of complexity "sentience" - but what does this sentience describe, if not something that just describes a greater level of similarity to our own "special" experience, and not something unique or a separate phenomenon.
In essence a decently complex lifeform, is self-powered, has sensors that constantly gather information from the environment, can store an amount of memory, and contains a mindbogglingly complex neural network regulated by neurotransmitters that makes decisions.
Moving on to more complex lifeforms, their similarities to our species increase. There are important differences, for example, like the capacity to store long-term memory, or the evolution of a dedicated neurotransmitter network (Amygdala) and many more, but at the end of the day, it boils down to the aggregation of complex computational systems.
As "the hard problem of the consciousness" in the sense of how "gives rise to subjective experience", I don't see how it's not just simply a subsequent symptom of the complexity of our systems and the randomization of information. Randomization of information exists in every aspect of our conscious being. From our imperfect sensory inputs, to the wiring of our neural networks and the unique set of experiences and DNA that helps it form.
Beyond information randomization, in theory, the quantum mind hypothesis could further explain and bridge the probabilistic nature of cognition that gives rise to subjectivity, but again, this is well within the realm of soon-to-be conventional computation. Anyhow, I think that speculating or even philosophizing around this kind of a black box is counter-productive to the discussion, so I won't touch it further.
If there is information that dispels this, please, go forth and explain.
Chinese Room, right?
I wouldn't be surprised if the answer really was just computation of some sort in the end, but I don't think you're giving the Hard Problem enough credit in your post.
The article is about replicating logic gates with microorganisms, not vice versa as you suggest.
Even if I could do all that, the only way a solution would be complete, would be for science to map and understand every single node and function of our brains. We already have for less complex organisms though. So in general, it just seems like it is the most fitting solution with the available information we have at this time.
I think the Chinese Room is fallacious and there are pretty convincing counterarguments against it. My own take is:
- For starters, if a person that doesn't understand Chinese, manually runs the program that can answer in Chinese, they will inevitably have used the knowledge that is contained in that program.
- What is "understanding what characters mean" if not just data? If the only knowledge that was contained in the program, was how to form an answer without knowledge about what each character means, be it a computer or human, they would just lack that knowledge that is absent from the program.
Even if someone would need that knowledge to write the program, that doesn't mean it would be included in the program.
- Can the actual meaning of characters be embedded in the program? Sure. The information we store and recall - ideas, pictures, sounds, smells, feelings, touch impressions can all be represented by data. It's just that, should they come in the form of data, the latter three require molecules or direct brain signals to be communicated to us.
By extension, the so-called Qualia (these subjective experiences) can be represented by data. Perhaps even then, there would be no way to communicate Qualia accurately, unless one shared the same brain, since each person has a differently formed network that process them in different ways.
Yes, my bad, should have wrote programming instead of replicating. I'll edit it and include an extra link.
As, uh, Flannel Jesus (lol) said, we still have the question of subjective experience. Everything you wrote is regarding physical processes. And those physical processes explain behavior nicely. Never having seen a red-hot piece of metal, my brain sends signals to my muscles, and I pick it up. My nerves send signals of extreme damage to my brain. My brain sends signals to my muscles to drop it.
Various signals also get stored in my brain. The next time my retinas are hit with patterns of photons that are a close enough match to those stored signals that are linked with the damage my hand received, my brain does [I]not[/I] send signals to my muscles to pick it up.
Obviously, it's extraordinarily more complex than that. But it's all just physical things and processes, bringing about physical behavior. How do those physical things and processes bring about [I]another[/I] phenomenon at the same time? A phenomenon that, as I said in a previous post, a leading expert in neurology and the study of consciousness, and a leading expert in the properties of particles, forces, and the laws of physics, do not know how to account for with neurons, properties of particles, forces, and the laws of physics. They don't know how those things account for subjective experience.
There's also the question of why. Behavior is explained by the physical. Why have the subjective experience that only observes after the fact? Why would evolution have selected for something that has no function?
Is it though? I do things because of the way I feel, it seems to me. So we have the problem of overdetermination. A topic for another thread I think. I still have to catch up on a paper @fdrake wants me to read though, so I'll do that first.
The reason why it cant be explained is because consciousness could be the divine spark manifesting its creator in human form or it could even be a soul but thats unscientific.
The mind is not the brain.
(I sent you a message the other day. Dont know if you were aware. Pardon the pun.)
This is the gist of subjective experience, correct?
As far as I know, when it comes to e.g. images (same with sound), the process can be explained to a sufficient degree computations-wise. The visual cortex is the one which allows us to "see", via translating eye photon receptors, since incoming photon particles form patterns (in the same way, sound is specific particle vibrations on a medium). These patterns are specific pieces of data. For mental images various parts of the brain cooperate in order to recall the data - or even build it from scratch - and create a mental image. This process hasn't been fully deciphered yet, but it seems plausible to me from what I've read, that a subjective experience of a mental image can be regarded as "seeing via memory/imagination" in the same way we decode sensory information when seeing via the eyes, since it's the brain who does the actual seeing after all.
When it comes to emotions, we know that they are contingent with neural functions and the process from which they stem from, e.g. elation:
- We receive or recall data.
- Depending on its nature certain neurotransmitters, which are hormones and biochemical substances are released. In the case of elation, it should be dopamine, endorphins, oxytocin etc.
- We know these neurotransmitters bind to neuron receptors, opening ion channels and affecting their firing rate. In the case of elation the neurons fire more frequently in the reward centers of the brain.
You are right though, this one seems still far from deciphered. Could it be a bespoke form of information meant to shape behaviors for lifeforms to survive and evolve? Much like the cells that translate photon patterns to vision or vibrations to sound? There doesn't seem to be any more information that connects it with the subjective experience of emotion.
The reason why the experience is private and unique, I think is explained by our neurodivergence as I wrote in the other post. After all each person's sensors differ so they don't get the exact same information, and most importantly they process it in vastly different neural networks. Subsequently, since the processed data differs, will the Qualia that come from it.
I do disagree on the why - I think all forms of subjective experience have an important evolutionary value, for example recalling or imagining information has practical value and emotions work as a reward/punishment mechanism that promotes certain behaviors, much like a reward function in AI reinforcement learning.
Oh I see, that makes sense. Sorry I haven't been following closely.
Not your fault. I didnt explain.
You're right., Dualism is hopeless. The solution would be nondualism.
I'm suggesting such knowledge is not out of reach. To show that it is out of reach would require ignoring all the people who claim to have such knowledge, or proving they do not. . .
Ah. I didn't say this and would argue against it. You're conflating consciousness and experience, but I;m suggesting that the former is prior to the latter. Bear in mind that experience-experiencer is a duality that must be reduced in order to overcome dualism. . .
There are no primitive concepts or experiences. This was shown by Kant. For a solution one would have to assume a state or level of consciousness free of all concepts and prior to information. Don't forget that and information theory requires an information space, and the space comes before the information. .
If you believe this you will never have a fundamental theory and will will have to live with the 'hard' problem. forever. I wonder what leads you to believe this when it is just a speculation. If you believe this then much of what I'm saying will make no sense to you. I would advise against making such assumptions, or indeed any assumptions at all. , .
Who actually has a suggestion though? I don't think a fundamental ontology can be characterized because all explanations are functional and rely on our stream of experience. What does anything actually mean independently of the dynamics of experiences? What is the utility of any factual statement except in how that statement predicts further experiences? We might then want to characterize experience as the fundamental ontology but I resist that because I don't think there is a coherent account of what experience is or means and it seems impossible to characterize publicly or in scientific paradigms due to the nature of the hard problem.
Quoting FrancisRay
Well this is confusing; you seemed to say it since you replied to the quote that you agreed. I have only been referring to experience the whole time. I am not sure what you mean by consciousness here. When I say experience is primitive, I just mean in a kind of epistemic sense - experiences are immediately apparent and intuitive to us and they don't have an explicit characterization... I just see blue, I cannot tell you what it is.
My whole experience (tentatively I would say consciousness) is just a stream of these things. They cannot be reduced further... they are the bottom and foundation for everything I know and perceive. That is to say nothing about reality but just that experiences are the primitive, irreducible foundation of what I know and perceive.
Quoting FrancisRay
Not sure what you mean by experience-experiencer duality beyond conventional dualism. I am not sure what "experiencer" means.
Quoting FrancisRay
Again, my notion of primitiveness just relates to the immediate, irreducible apprehension of experiences after which there is nothing more basic epistemically.
Quoting FrancisRay
I don't think you can have consciousness free of information nor do I understand wht you think this is required for a solution.
Quoting FrancisRay
I don't think there is priority here. If there is information, it exists on an information space; n information space is defined by the information in it. One doesnt come before the other.
Quoting FrancisRay
I don't see what your alternative suggestion could possibly be if you don't believe dualism is true. Regardless of what you think the fundamental reality is, the evidence is overwhelming about how consciousness relates to or can be characterized in terms of brains in a functional sense (I hope you understand what I mean when I say functionally). What is your alternative characterization?
I am starting to think you haven't understood anything I have said at all. Its hard to believe now that you could have said my previous post was perceptive and a good summary if you really understood it. Neither have I been trying to think about some fundamental theory that resolves the hard problem. My initial post said that I didn't think the so called hard problem could be solved at all.
Have you examined the suggestions of the Buddha, Lao Tzu and the Upanishads? Afaik there is no other explanation for consciousness that works. .
Okay. But I''m speaking ontologically. I'm suggesting that consciousness in its original state is prior to experience and is known simply as what it is. . .
If you explore your consciousness I predict that you'll eventually discover that consciousness is not a stream of things. These 'things; are the contents of consciousness, not the phenomenon itself. Meditation is the practice of seeing beyond these things to their underlying basis. This basis is beyond time and space, and knowing this is what 'enlightenment' means in Buddhism. . .
An experience requires an experiencer. I;m suggesting that if you explore your consciousness you are capable of transcending this duality for the final truth about consciousness. The task would be to 'Know thyself', as advised by the Delphic oracle. When Lao Tzu is asked how he knows the origin of the universe he answers, 'I look inside myself and see'. . .
This is a very bold assumption. I wonder whether you realise that what you're proposing is that the nondual doctrine of the Perennial philosophy is false,. .
An information theory without an information space is not fundamental or even coherent. You may believe that consciousness cannot be free of information, but it is telling that having made this assumption you cannot explain metaphysics, consciousness, or the hard problem. Have you considered that your problems may be caused by your own assumptions? .
In order to draw a Venn diagram one must first have a blank sheet of paper. .
My suggestion is that consciousness is prior to number and form and that its function is simply knowing. All the rest is cogitation, intellection and conceptualisation. If you cannot imagine my alternative suggestion then this can only be because you've not studied philosophy beyond the walls off the Academy. You'll find the same suggestion in every book you ever read on mysticism. Those who investigate consciousness rather than speculate come back to report that at its root consciousness is prior to number and form and free of concepts and ideas. . ,
Yes. So I chipped in to say it was solved long ago and is easy to solve. The solution would be to abandon dualism and pay attention to what those who study consciousness have to say about it. It is astonishing how few people bother to do this, and so not at all surprising that so many people struggle with the hard problem. . . .
I am sorry, I don't feel there is much fruitful to be gained in continuing this specific conversation. I find it very difficult to engage with your way of writing, it all seems very vague
Idealism.
Is an abacus falling through the air, beads moving back and forth from the wind, doing any computations?
What about when you clear your mind? When I meditate, I can clear my mind for at least a short time so there is no stream of anything, yet I'm still conscious.
Large part of consciousness is memory. Suppose that you lost your memory totally, so you are unable to recall even 1 second of perception in your mind. Then everything you perceive would be just a piece of photographic images just like a cell phone camera taken so many photos that you saw with no meaning and no thoughts or logic or memories.
Memory in perception is a significant process and it is always a large topic in psychology, but strangely the topic is not discussed a lot in cognitive science and especially epistemology.
Memory chips are the most important part of function in the computer systems along with the computer processors, and without it computing would be simply limited to abacus level in terms of its practicality.
How computer memories work and are manufactured can easily be found in electronics and computer engineering studies.
Anyhow, consciousness is largely made of memory function of the brain, and the way the brain's memory works could be analogised from the computer memory.
I am not an AI expert, but I am guessing this would be how the AI brains work too. AI brains would have large RAM (random access memory) and also hard disks of huge capacity. These would be stored with mega tons of information, how they must respond to the input signals.
High power central microprocessor would monitor the input signals and analyse what response or action to take in the output forms. It would then process the preprogrammed relevant set of data from the memory (either from RAM or the hard disk), and then output the instructions to the installed hardware in the form of facial expressions, movement of hands or legs, even fingers ordering these devices with the instructed jobs.
Of course, the memory function of the human brain itself alone cannot be reduced to the human consciousness, but it cannot be denied that it is a large part of it, if not the base of consciousness. This is what I believe.
Well I think I have somewhat of a reply to that in my initial post.
Yes, its computing solutions for equations of motion in physics.
Yes, I still think even in these cases its still just a stream of experience and this kind of thing can be accounted for in terms of attention and access conscious.
https://iai.tv/articles/no-theory-of-consciousness-is-scientific-auid-2610?_auid=2020
Conscious crystals can't be too far behind. I hope Shirley MacLaine lives long enough.
What do you think of this, by Searle? "The wall behind my back is right now implementing the WordStar program, because there is some pattern of molecule movements that is isomorphic with the formal structure of WordStar. But if the wall is implementing WordStar, if it is a big enough wall it is implementing any program, including any program implemented in the brain."
https://philosophynow.org/issues/124/Is_Everything_A_Computer
If no one is looking at a computer simulation of a tornado, is it still a computer simulation of a tornado? Or is just a bunch of pixels turning off and on?
I don't know, I would have to think about it, I am neithere here or there.
Sorry about this. It isn't at all vague but perhaps it looks that way. My basic point is that your idea of consciousness is bound to lead to problems. Rogue AI makes the point is a different way.
See, evrn in this reply you don't make a constructive point which makes it difficult for me to have an answer or even know what I am supposed to be defending.
Quoting FrancisRay
How does making consciousness prior to experience eliminate the hard problem, which results from separating body and mind, subject and object? It seems to me that your approach reifies dualism by hardening the separation between these aspects of being. Dont we need to find a way to think subject and object, mind and world, inside and outside, feeling and thinking, experiencer and experience together, rather than giving one side priority over the other?
Yes! This is exactly what we need to do. The only way to do it is to assume consciousness is fundamental and prior to all the distinctions that give rise to dualism.
This requires assuming that intentional or 'subject/object' consciousness reduces to the the 'Being, Consciousness, Bliss' of the Upanishads. This is nondualism, the rejection of all the distinctions that you say we should reject.
We seem to agree but maybe use the words differently.
Quoting FrancisRay
Phenomenology offers this kind of approach, and a number of writers embracing phenomenology ( Evan Thompson, Francisco Varela) have tried to meld this philosophy with meditative traditions. But I have a problem with the notion of pure self-reflexive awareness, precisely in its claim to being devoid of intentional content.
The phenomenologist Edmund Husserl reduced everything to consciousness, but this inwardness consisted of self and object poles in inseparable interaction via intentional directness. The nature of the self is continually being transformed by the world.
This theory states that nothing really exists or ever really happens, so it is quite easy to distinguish from the ideas you mention. For the mystic the explanation of one phenomenon is the the explanation for all of them, so phenomenology is a doddle. At present, however, phenomenology is unable to explain even one phenomenon, since to do so would require a systematic metaphysical theory.
As there is only one reality and only one way that it works there is only one fundamental theory.that works.
. .
To say that consciousness is fundamental is to propose an answer to a metaphysical question. I had thought you agreed with me that metaphysical questions are undecidable, which I take to mean they cannot be definitively answered.
'Consciousness' is just a word. What do we mean when we say consciousness is fundamental? Our notion of consciousness finds its genesis in understanding consciousness as intentional consciousness wherein there is always something that consciousness is of.
If this is right, the idea of consciousness is necessarily dualistic, and thus would have no place in non-dualism.
It is also worth noting that in the context of Buddhism the Yog?c?ra or "mind-only" school is only one among many schools. And the salient question is whether it was meant to be an ontological position rather than a phenomenological explanation of experience and a conceptual aid to practice.
We could equally say that being is fundamental, but 'being' is also just a word, and also misses the non-dual mark.
To me 'being' is just empty enough to work. But it is indeed just a word. The nondual stuff doesn't even need a name. We might also agree with James that monism is just as easily conceived as a radical pluralism. There are all kinds of things as many as we care to come up with. But those things are, so 'being' is not so bad, seems to me. The 'world' is also good, if it's understood to include everything.
Such a theory is so obviously false that it only make sense if understood as ironic or metaphorical. It's like 'all is vanity.' Or there's a line in Kafka's journal to the effect that 'nothing has yet happened.' Poetic, maybe profound, but hard to see as something one argues about. Along these lines, I would never argue that 'all is vanity.'
I'm down with that although I would say it depends on what we mean by "world"; do we mean "human world' or simply 'world' as in 'everything that is' including what may be unknowable to the human?
That gets us into metaphysical details. Is there a difference in the first place ? I will of course grant that humans always have more to learn, that we are always surrounded or fringed by darkness.
Given the Kantian background, I'm slower to commit, because metaphysical types can come up with some strange phrases (I don't mean you, but just the context of this forum.) But the world (as I understand it) includes all sorts of possibilities, including 'unknown unknowns,' but this kind of speech is at the limit of intelligibility. Consider how many paradoxes there are in naive set theory. It's very easy for humans to snap together words into phrases that do not compute.
Doesn't compute to who, though? The distinction is perfectly clear to me; perhaps you cannot understand how that could be, but conversely it is hard for me to understand why it is not clear to you. This is just down to the fact that we all think differently, accept different foundational presuppositions and so on. This is exactly why metaphysical questions are undecidable; and that doesn't mean that you or I cannot decide one way or the other what to believe, but that there can be no definitive demonstration of truth regarding metaphysical propositions.
Quoting Janus
That sounds like an analytic proposition, with metaphysical propositions thereby implicitly defined. Which is fine, if endlessly debatable. I like the word ontology better myself.
It's a synthetic phenomenological proposition in that it reflects the actual and historical situation, as experienced and reflected upon by me. Have you encountered and can you present one metaphysical question which can be shown to be decidable?
Metaphysics can be understood to be reducible to ontology, but it can also be understood that ontology is subsumed by metaphysics. It depends on how you want to define the terms.
:up:
Sure. And that's the essence of my response.
Right, so it all comes down to personal preference.
More here.
My take: theories of consciousness cant conform with modern scientific practice, which begins with the assumption of the separation of knower and known. Phenomenology, of course, sees through this, but then, it was never the target of the hard problem of consciousness argument.
Do you think those "100 notable scientific researchers" would agree?
I don't know what criterion of objectivity you are referring to.
Have you read the letter referred to? It seems mostly concerned with the way the media and IIT proponents have been interacting. I don't see any reason, based on the letter, to think that the signatories would agree with your take.
You make a good point. I spoke sloppily. They are undecidable if one assumes that their extreme answers are an instance of A/not-A. For a neutral theory they are not. Both the extreme answers would be be incorrect and there is a third answer. So they are undecidable but answerable. It's like asking whether two plus two equals three or five. This question is undecidable as asked, but not an intractable problem. , .
Oh yes, another good point. Intentional consciousness is clearly not fundamental. The words are difficult. I'm speaking of the 'Being, Consciousness, Bliss' of the Upanishads. .
Another good point. An inability to see beyond intentional consciousness might be the most ubiquitous problem in modern consciousness studies. . . .
I'm endorsing Middle Wat Buddhism, which is an ontology and epistemology.(since 'knowing' would be fundamental) as described by Nagarjuna, who attempted to normalize the sangha on a specific metaphysical position.
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All the words are hopeless. Words are inherently dualistic. Really we should say 'Being/non-Being' Hence Lao Tzu states 'True words seem paradoxical'. Sri Aurobindo explains this point clearly in his 'Life Divine'. But we have to use words, and the usual words are 'Being, Consciousness, Bliss'. . . . .
I can;t fight against this sort approach. Okay, so you think you know know the Perennial philosophy.is false. Lots of people think the same. I feel you'd be better off trying to understand it before dismissing it, but it's your choice.
Quite so. Although even phenomenologists seem to sometimes forget this.
I've enjoyed our chat but feel we're at loggerheads. No problem, but if it's okay I'll drop out here. We'll cross paths again no doubt. Cheers.
I am not getting your drift hereI see the question as decidable two plus two does not equal either three or five. If the question is whether reality is foundationally matter or mind, or something else, we cannot answer; and that is what I mean by undecidable. The closest we might get to a decision there would be to say the question is inapt, that no answer we give can state the actuality.
Quoting FrancisRay
I think the same goes for this answer. We don't know, discursively, what "being. consciousness, bliss" is, so discursively speaking it is a non-answer. One might enjoy an altered state of consciousness wherein one feels and thinks intuitively "Oh, this must be the satchitananda the sages speak of", but this remains an experience, open to different interpretations. Another person might say "I saw God". These kinds of experiences are ineffable and discursive interpretation necessarily distorts them because thought and language are inherently dualistic, and such experiences, in fact I would say all experiences, are inherently non-dual.
Quoting FrancisRay
I agree, though I'm not convinced we should expect any discursive or analytic investigation to be able to see beyond intentional consciousness. One might have an experience that convinces one that one sees beyond intentional consciousness, but the belief that one sees beyond intentional consciousness is itself a dualistic interpretation of a non-dual experience.
Quoting FrancisRay
Yes, I think this is analogous to what Hadot says about some ancient philosophies: that they were systems of ideas designed to be aids to spiritual transformations and realization, not discursive propositions to be debated.
Quoting FrancisRay
:up: I agree; those words do seem to be the most appropriate in the context of spirituality.
Quoting FrancisRay
Yes, they are merely fallible humans like the rest of us, and it is very human to want to overstep one's bounds.
Any operational-scientific definition of consciousness will work just fine. We can agree to attribute 'consciousness' to this human body or that moon-sized computer, given this or that set of observations. But (here's where I go nondualist and weird and controversial) what people are trying to say (if they could wriggle out of the net?) is that consciousness is being itself. But, for just that reason, there is no consciousness. Rashomon. Or As I Lay Dying. The unreliable narrator is inextricably tangled with the narrated. Ontological cubism. 'But tell us what really happened, apart from all telling...' There's just the world-from-perspectives, an utter fusion of the subject and object. Though these categories remain practically relevant. The empirical-normative subject is not going anywhere. It's a basic technology like language (and both are part of the same system, really?)
The world from perspectives is not the fusion of subject and object, but the separation of them. Of course, as you must know by now, I agree that we can only talk about the world from some perspective or other, but we are also able to think that the world is, in itself, beyond all and any perspective. Our experience is itself, prior to the attempt to discursively describe and explain it, pre-perspectival.
As far as I can make out, you still don't get it, though it I admit that it's hard to find the right words. And it's hard to let go of indirect realism. [ If you think I'm an indirect realist, then you just don't understand me. ]
You seem to think (?) of everyone getting their own representation of the world. As if everyone lived in their own bubble of 'appearance.' In other words, the world is X and every person's experience is only f(X), where f is that person's cognition, which never gives X in its purity. So there's Real World out there but we only get the mediated version.
But that's not what I'm saying at all. There is no [hidden] X. X just is only perspectively. Not mediated. The structure of X itself (in each of its streamings) is ego-like, but consciousness does not exist. No witness is needed. There is only world.
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To be a little more careful, there are fundamentally only 'neutral' (nondual, no-category-needed-really) 'beingstreams' or 'becomings.' The 'same' 'worldly objects' and characters appear in different streams. All of the items of the world appear only in such streams. The being involved is the deepest meaning of 'first person consciousness,' but being in its purity can't be operationalized. Is existence in the deepest sense a predicate ? I don't think so. The merely practical appearance / reality distinction is a red herring, for that's about sorting daydreams from dandruff. There is only reality, though different entities exist differently, and empirical egos very much care about whether it's 'real' money or the [still real] idea of money.
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X in its aperspectival 'purity' is a maybe the official Round Square of metaphysics. It's like a story told in no language at all. But indirect realism of the softer Hobbes/Locke variety does make sense when applied only to the worldly or psychological ego. These are just the typical functional relationships discussed here.
So you claim, but one can also make the phrase 'round square.' I continue to claim that beyond all and any perspective is nonsense. Kant sometimes seemed to want to 'cure' people of such talk, but his cure was more of the poison, because he didn't have the nerve to go all the way. But Mach, who studied Kant closely, finally broke through.
In case it's helpful, here's another example of an innocent phrase that turns out to have no meaning (or only a kind of 'failed' or unstable meaning.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berry_paradox
Ah, the old 'if you don't agree then you must not understand' gambit; a tried-and-true deflection.
Quoting plaque flag
I understand what you're saying but I just don't agree. We each have our own unique experiences, interpretations, understanding and beliefs; there are as many as there are people. We each assess ideas as to their seeming plausibility, which is measured against what we know and what we take ourselves to know. We all experience the same world of phenomena, and I see every reason to believe that no individual experience nor the totality of individual experiences exhausts the real. I see no reason to believe that the unknowable does not exist, or that our inability to know it logically entails its non-existence.
Quoting plaque flag
That's a poor analogy: 'round square' is incoherent in that it is a contradiction. The idea of things existing which we cannot, even in principle, know about is not a contradiction. It might seem to be nonsense to you but that says more about your attitude than it does about the idea.
The first question is undecidable because the correct answer is not included in the question. I'm saying that the same problem arises for the mind-matter question. The correct answer in both cases is no.
Yes, the question is inapt. It asks us to decide between two wrong answers. This is my point. There's no need to decide these undecidable questions and they really are undecidable. But they are answerable. . . . .
It's a non-answer when stated blankly with no argument or explanation. When justified it's an answer that works. .
This is why a different argument is required, one that makes no appeal to experience..Such an argument is possible in metaphysics, as is shown by Nagarjuna. ,
Experiences require an experience and an experiencer so are inherently dualistic. . .
There is such an argument and it's not difficult to make. But few people investigate these issues.or seem interested in doing so.
I'm not sure why you would think this. You seem to be saying that Buddhism and more generally the Perennial philosophy is nonsense. . .
This is simply wrong. This is not just an ancient philosophy but also bang up to date. Do you not know the role of debating in Buddhist practice? Do you not read the proofs of Shankara, Nagarjuna, Bradley, Spencer Brown et al? Do you suppose non-dualism is woolly nonsense with no philosophical basis? Why would you take any notice of the historian Hadot, who appears to have known nothing of this topic? His low view is common but does not withstand a bit of study.
I don't know how to make progress in these discussions. I'm going to withdraw from the forum at least for now. as Its too time-consuming and generally opinions seem to trump analysis. I'll happily respond here if you want to continue this current chat, but once we're done I'll depart.
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Our human world is wrapped in darkness. Of course. The only impossibility is logical possibility. This (pseudo-)proposition, which I embrace, manifests a radical openmindedness. But 'aperspectival reality' or a 'story in no language' has no [ stable, achieved ] sense.
The issue is approximately what we [can ] mean by 'exists.' An aperspectival object is like a round square. It's a good analogy if you focus on the issue and don't fall back on the same undisputed platitude that we might find ourselves surprised.
The emptiness consists only in the fact that we don't know the nature of that existence, since it is inaccessible to the senses it cannot become concrete for us. On the other hand, our experience naturally convinces us of that extra-experiential existence, of which we can know and say nothing other than that it must be. So no, not empty in any way except sensorially.
,Quoting plaque flag
So, are you suggesting that your assertion that saying things may have an existence apart from any possible relation to us is an empty phrase is true semantically, but not epistemologically? If so, I have no idea what that could mean.
It no more seems to me that you understand what I'm saying than it apparently seems to you that I understand what you are saying. So, it seems we cannot but talk past one another. There is no fact of the matter in this, as to whether it is empty or incoherent to say that we cannot even in principle know everything about things, that their existence apart from our possible experience of them is beyond our possible ken, so it is just a case of disagreement pure and simple, so best leave it here I think, since repetition of empty assertions quickly becomes tiresome.
Well I say this for several reasons:
1. You say information is about sending and receiving, about behaviour of systems. I agree with this. Moreso, neuronal transmission and brains satisfy this: so we can call them information processing systems. We know brains support experience.
2. I think information in the way we normally use it boils down to distinctions - the ability to learn or make distinctions. I think that is a very primitive concept and you cannot really boil it down to anything more basic than that.
3. What are experiences? At its most primitive, isnt this concept just about immediate distinctions we can make as observers - experiences are or have information in the sense that we distinguish or recognize or can differentiate them. When I see something, experience something, it is a subjective distinction I have made.
4. So what is the relationship between distinctions brains make and distinctions of my subjective experiences? Well they are inextricable. I experience red because of the distinctions my brain can make with regard to its sensory inputs. Its hard to say that I am not in some sense my brain.
Aren't experiences just the what its like to be the information in my brain? If thats the case, isn't it plausible that other information processing structures have experiences of that information which are completely different to our experiences? Where exactly is the limit on this? What exactly doesn't count as an experience?
Seems hard for me to rule out that there could be a mapping between experiences and all possible forms of information.
The capacity for experience is not itself an experience. The capacity for experience is an attribute of sentient beings. In addition to that basic capacity, rational sentient beings, such as ourselves, can reflect on experience and ask what is the meaning of this or that experience, or what experience means, generally. But anything that has the capacity to experience is in some sense a subject of experience. At its most primitive, that is the description of a very simple organism.
Any attempt to account for the qualitative dimension of experience that does not take into account that attribute will fall foul of the hard problem argument in my view. Its pointing to an inherent limitation of objective analysis. (Have a read of the beginning of this column as an illustration.)
Is an abacus falling through the air, the beads moving this way and that, processing information? Does it have experiences?
I wasn't trying to imply anything to do with capacity in the definition I said. I am just making the point that experiences are clearly information for us in a very trivial way. I see something, I am distinguishing something: that is information.
And I am not trying to make an account of experience because information is about as difficult to describe and account for as experience, so saying that experience is information doesn't really explain anything.
So this is not an attempt to explain away, but making a plausible equivalence between two concepts which are equally difficult, or at least primitive, in their characterization.
Again, I think the experiences we have seem to map to information in the brain. You don't need to say that brains explain information in any deep metaphysical way to say this is the case I think. I would be interested to hear why you would think this mapping does not hold up, if you did believe that it did not.
The remaining question is then: where do you draw the line on what information can and cannot be mapped to experiences.
If I cannot draw the line, who's to say that experience is not just what it is like to be information?
Quoting RogueAI
Arguably, it could be. I mean, obviously it is a complicated system that we cannot predict easily, but presumably it is actually behaving according to the kinds of regularities that underlie the laws of physics where particular inputs have outputs which are computable. Doesn't seem an inherent difference from what neurons do. Could a system of chaotically behaving abacuses not self-organize into a brain under the right circumstances? Where is the dividing line?
That's a good question. Consciousness as information processing would seem to lead to some variation of panpsychism. I personally think there is no information processing without a mind to interpret it as such. A computer running a simulation of something with no one looking at it isn't running a simulation; it's sounds and pixels on a screen lighting up. There needs to be a mind observing the result to make it a simulation.
Right. I moved your comment from that other thread to here because we're touching on the debate about qualia, which is generally associated with the hard problem.
Of course it is true that when we see something we 'distinguish information' but in the case of perception, there is much more to it, because there are factors such as judgement, context, interpretation, and so on. The same information can mean something quite different to two subjects.
Quoting Apustimelogist
I'm not sure why that's significant. Anecdotally, I recall reading that studies indicating that the brain can and does re-organise its operations dynamically, so any kind of mapping is hardly a simple 1:1 operation, and again, the human mind deals with many other factors than information.
Quoting Apustimelogist
Speaking of mapping, that doesn't map! The expressions 'what it is like to be a bat' or 'to experience music' or 'see the deep blue of the sea' draw attention to the fact that states of experience are qualities of being. Information, as such, is an abstract term, as we've already suggested, so I don't see how that maps.
Quoting RogueAI
:up: That is connected to the topic I explore in The Mind Created World.
Yes, sure: what is more information in the mind.
Quoting Wayfarer
Well so is the phrase 'what its like to be information' and in fact. When we hear music, that is information transmitted into our heads. Distinctions we make about sound regarding things like pitch or timbre etc etc. The question is what information cannot be experienced and what experiences are not information? I think its quite hard to give examples for any of those things.
No, that's an analogy for 'hearing music'. Another example: what you're reading right now may be described in terms of 'pixels on a screen' but what it means is something else again.
Quoting Wayfarer
But is there ever a way to describe it in which it is not information?
I'll give this a shot.
Information that goes past a black hole's threshold toward the singularity within the black hole cannot be experienced - at least not when at the singularity itself.
The experience one holds of oneself (as the observer of information) being certain about what is observed ... is not itself information; it, instead, is a mere direct awareness of one's own being as that which observes information (though it can become information when later on remembered and possibly contemplated as a remembered former state of personal being, this by oneself as observer of the remembrance).
If you disagree with these examples, I'd like to understand why.
Why is that?
Quoting javra
To me, this is having information. Though I think we are getting into the territory where we will have disagreements about the contents of experience or philosophy of mind generally, which would hinder agreement.
Space, time, and matter no longer make any mathematical sense within a black hole's singularity, are often enough said to "break down" at such juncture, and with some affirming that information itself becomes erased therein.
Again, why would information be assumed to survive at such juncture?
Quoting Apustimelogist
Most likely, yes. How do you define information? For me, quintessentially, information is to be defined by that which informs, or else "gives form to" ("form" in the Aristotelian sense). In so holding, I then take awareness to be informed by its percepts but to not of itself be information.
I can provide information which describes it, but remember the point at issue was your claim that
Quoting Apustimelogist
I am making the point, there is something other than 'information transmission' at work when you hear music, although I guess it's the kind of point which I feel shouldn't have to be made.
It would be possible to describe everything scientifically, but it would make no sense; it would be without meaning, as if you described a Beethoven symphony as a variation of wave pressure.
? Albert Einstein
So you don't think the act or event of distinction itself is information? That just hearing something and knowing it is not information? As far as I am concerned, what I am reading, what I am experiencing right in front of me is information. Because I am distinguishing, recognizing, having immediate awareness of something. Sure, I can describe it in terms of something like pixels and that is information.
Quoting Wayfarer
Well I think its just question begging here either side because I am just making the claim that information could be simply what its like to be information. And you just disagree.
It makes sense for me that experiences are what its like to make distinctions because effectively thats what brains are doing... making distinctions. We can talk about it in a formal sense of information theoretic descriptions of neuronal activity, or just in simple sense of organisms perceiving distinctions in their environment, but it all boils down to making distinctions. Nothing technical about that concept... just the primitive concept of a distinction... a difference... any symonym you like that is sufficiently general. That seems to be what our perceptions do and so if our perceptions are experiences, then it seems to me that they are experiences of those distinctions brains make... what it is like to be those distinctions being made. Its almost tautological to me because experiences themselves are obviously distinctions so ofcourse, experiences are what its like to make those experiential distinctions. The question is then: are experiences just what it is like to make any distinction at all? And given that my intuition wants me to think there is no limit on the possible experiences that could exist, then couldn't they encompass all possible distinctions that could possibly be made, and so would be what it was like to make those distinctions?
Note: I have not been stating an identity between experiences = distinctions or experiences = information per se (though as I have said, I do think experiences trivially are information [e.g. like saying Mary has learned or even sees some new information when she experiences green for yhe first time]).
Rather I have been making an identity between experience and what it is like to be information. There should be no hard problem issue here because I am not making an equivalence between experiences and some technical definition, but experiences and what it is like to be a kind of thing. If experiences can be defined as what it is like then I am clearly equating experiences with experiences. Just like saying that my experiences are what it is like to be a brain is slightly different to saying experiences are brains, or experiences are atoms.
Quoting javra
Well, possibly. I don't know. I don't know enough to make a judgement about this or what I think it even means in order to disagree.Quoting javra
I will be lazy and quote myself from my most recent post:
"but it all boils down to making distinctions. Nothing technical about that concept... just the primitive concept of a distinction... a difference... any symonym you like that is sufficiently general."
I think here we have different fundamental understandings of mind because I don't really take awareness to be like a thing independent of percepts. For instance, some have said they believe in something like pure awareness. I don't believe in something like that.
No, I don't. Information is part of it, but it is not only that, as I've said already.
Quoting Apustimelogist
I don't just disagree, I gave an argument, which you haven't responded to, or don't recognise.
Whether you believe in it is beside the point. It has been documented extensively in books on meditative awareness and trance states.
The problem with your argument is that it is essentially reductionist. While it aligns well with information theory and cognitive neuroscience, which view experiences in terms of the brain processing and distinguishing environmental stimuli, explaining how physical processes (like neuronal activity and the making of distinctions) amount to subjective experiences is a different matter. While your argument deals with the functional aspect of cognition (i.e., the brain making distinctions), it doesn't address the explanatory gap between descriptions of physical processes and the subjective quality of experienceshow they occur to, or feel to, a subject of experience. For another example, while it's true that one can develop a deep understanding of the physiology of pain - say for example if you were studying pharmacology or anasthesia - the actual experience of pain is a very different thing to a theoretical understanding of the causes of pain. Until you address that issue you're not actually addressing the problem.
Argument that there is more to perception than information? All thrme factors you mentioned I would say come under the banner of information in the same way as perception, at least under my philosophy of mind.
Quoting Wayfarer
Yes, sure it has been documented; I just wouldn't interpret it in the way that those people would i.e. that there is some kind of thing called oure awareness independent of our percepts.
Quoting Wayfarer
It isn't reductionist.
I haven't said experiences are the same as brains or information in information theory, and if anything you could argue that all of those concepts are constructs we have created rather than the things in themselves.
Information is about distinguishing things.
I have said that experience is what it is like to be information.
That corresponds to saying experience is what it is like to distinguish something.
In a panpsychist universe, that is very obviously trivially tautological.
In a dualist universe where there were experiences AND something else where you could define distinctions or perhaps correlations then I think a mapping between experiences and those distinctions is sufficient. And I think neuroscience tells us that mapping exists. In the panpsychist case, you could argue that you were simply mapping something to itself vicariously through a constructed representation of scientific objects or information.
I don't need to make a reductive explanation to assert a mapping. I haven't tried to explain anything about experiences. Just seems trivial to me that when I experience something, I am making a distinction, which is what my notion of information is all about. Almost trivially, anything is in some sense a distinction, so to say the relationship between experience and distinctions doesn't really make sense.
Quoting Apustimelogist
Sorry, but that is what reductionism is.
In my view, you've developed an idiosyncratic synthesis of reductionist or 'eliminativist' philosophies of mind. I don't know if you've presented it elsewhere, or had your ideas subjected to criticism by others, for example by writing term papers about it, but here you're essentially repeating the same claims such as 'experience is what it is like to be information'. I've tried to explain why I don't think idea holds up, but as my criticism has obviously not struck home, then I'm not going to pursue it any further. Perhaps someone else will chime in at this point, and so long.
Sorry to butt-in here, but it seems to me that this "disagreement" is not about "question begging" but about Question Defining. I think I understand what you are aiming-at with the equation of a "bit" of incoming Information, and the "what it's like experience" of meaning in the mind. But, saying that "Information is what it's like to be information" comes dangerously close to a tautology. And strays near the Cartesian Theater's observing homunculus, that has baffled better minds than mine. Because "information" is inherently ambiguous.
Unfortunately, the term "information" has been defined in various ways. For example, as both a physical Quantum out there, and a metaphysical Qualia in here. To be Informed is to experience a "Difference (A) that makes a Difference (B)". The A> Distinction may be a "bit" of incoming physically embodied information, but the B> Distinction is an internal metaphysical idea or image that makes a difference (meaning) to the Observer. Our difficulty with defining such subjective distinctions objectively may be due to the fact that Information is both Objective and Subjective. There's an inherent ambiguity. So, don't give-up on your definition, just try to grasp the other (complementary) meaning of "information". :smile:
Both/And Principle :
My coinage for the holistic principle of Complementarity, as illustrated in the Yin/Yang symbol. Opposing or contrasting concepts are always part of a greater whole. Conflicts between parts can be reconciled or harmonized by putting them into the context of a whole system.
https://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page10.html
I dont know if youre aware of the information philosopher site but he says something similar. See
https://www.informationphilosopher.com/mind/
You misread me there because that statement about boiling down was referring to what brains do.
But anyway, I don't think it is reductionism or eliminativist because I am not trying to explain experiences or suggest any kind of breaking down or explaining away of experiences into components of something else like that. In principle I don't think that kind of thing is possible.
Quoting Gnomon
Well my notion of information here is even more basic than what you are talking about. Its just about distinctions. Experience and information are both primitive concepts in the sense that they cannot be further defined. So this tautology doesn't really add any danger that wasn't already there.
Yes, those 3 numbered sections outlining the theory pretty much outline the kind of central relationships I have about information, the brain and experience. The definition of information in 3. is also more or less the same kind of notion.
This part:
"An obvious question is whether all information has a phenomenal aspect. One possibility is that we need a further constraint on the fundamental theory, indicating just what sort of information has a phenomenal aspect. The other possibility is that there is no such constraint. If not, then
experience is much more widespread than we might have believed, as information is
everywhere."
was also a fundamental concern of mine where basically I was leaning toward the latter part on the basis of lack of reason to rule out other functional systems having experiences of some kind.
The biggest qualifier I would say is that the double-aspect part (whereby there is two different information ontologies - physical and phenomenal) is only a characteristic of our models and concepts (concepts and models which are embedded in, enacted in, function within our phenomena), and cannot be characteristic of reality itself inherently.
Ultimately though, I still have a skepticism that we can have some complete, exhaustive description or understanding of what reality is like... or that reality can describe itself effectively. There is inherent limitation in doing this and fundamentally you cannot explain experiential phenomena.
Sometimes a tautology is philosophically fundamental. Shannon defined Information physically, in terms of Energy/Entropy relationships. You seem to be defining Information metaphysically or essentially, in terms of meaningful experience, conscious awareness, or sentient knowing. Are you equating Sentience and Experience with the capability for being affected mentally by sensory impressions from the environment? Can you expand on that notion relative to The Hard Problem? :smile:
I think - in absence of any further possible way of explaining what phenomena exactly is or why - I am just saying that it is plausible to construe experiences as information. All I really know about my own experiences is that I am making or perceiving distinctions which are immediate to me.. which seems close to describing it in terms of information. Information seems to be one of the only property I can really ascribe to my experiences in a way that is articulable.
At the same time, the fact there seems to be a mapping or isomorphism to brain behavior suggests that if we can describe those brain interactions in terms of information or distinctions that brains can make about inputs, then phenomena seem to be what it is like to be those distinctions internally as it were. I do think though that the brains as we talk about them are still scientific constructs in our minds so I am not necessarily saying that there is an actual duality here between brains and phenomena. The duality is only in our models. This (lack of duality) can be naturally interpreted as panpsychism if one wants but personally this doesn't help me understand the world any further.
One thing I am dropping from my view is that reality - in whatever way you want to metaphysically theorize about it - is not like a set of objects that just permanently exist at one scale and can be arranged in different ways like marbles in a box.
Theoretical physics, from what I have read, seems to characterize particles and forces at the most fundamental level in terms of symmetries and invariances that possibly emerge and dissolve depending on the situation (maybe a good example in physics is that it is thought that during the development of the universe you had symmetry breaking where new forces, particles and even mass emerged where they did not exist before).
So maybe symmetries / invariances are fundamental.
However, symmetries are actually very generic concepts which can be applied to anything at all.
Symmetries can therefore be applied to any scale from small things in physics to brains and beyond; they would essentially emerge out of each other.
Interesting example here of someone applying it to perception:
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fncom.2021.681162/full
(Some examples of use in biology: https://www.mdpi.com/journal/symmetry/special_issues/Making_Breaking_Symmetries_Mind_Life)
Another interesting example suggesting invariances as a way of unifying many different types of theories. (Note, he has chosen to express this in terms of the price equation from evolution, but the choice is more or less preference afaik)
https://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/20/12/978
https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10.1098/rstb.2019.0351
And what is said in these articles applies to information in terms of relative entropy and fisher information, interestingly. A quote from second article:
"All of the information results in the prior section arose directly from the canonical Price equations description of conserved total probability. No notion or interpretation of information is necessary. In many disciplines, information expressions arise in the analysis of the specific disciplinary problems. This sometimes leads to the idea that information must be a primary general concept that gives form to and explains the particular results. Here, the Price equation explains why those information expressions arise so often. Those expressions are simply the fundamental descriptions of force and change within the context of a conserved total quantity. In this case, the conserved total quantity is total probability."
So maybe what I am getting at here is that, if theoretical physics symmetries are fundamental, maybe all types of symmetries that exist within the universe are fundamental entities of the universe, at whatever scale. Those kinds of symmetries or invariances might also be a good way of characterizing what we mean when we say brains can distinguish things (or have information), because these distinctions are clearly on scales above elementary particles and instead at the level of organization of these systems as wholes in terms of neuronal activity. Brain perception therefore involves higher order symmetries (perhaps like in the article on perception above) which are themselves superimposed on lower symmetries such as those at the microscopic physics scale. But clearly, the emergence of these symmetries on top of each other is something that can naturally pulled out of the mathematical descriptions of these things (in principle) and isn't somehow unexpected or strange.
Our perceptions, our phenomena are then just what its like to be these various higher order symmetries which are coalescing together I guess.
Now, I am not trying to solve the hard problem. I think experiences are irreducible. I don't think we can know anything about the world beyond our experiences (even if we were to say that everything in the universe is experiential - that doesn't give me any extra useful knowledge). When I am talking about symmetries, invariances, information, these are just tools for organizing my knowledge and conceptual schemes, knowledge which is enacted within my own experiences. So I am not trying to say that experiences are the math that is being used to describe symmetries and invariances or anything like that. Those are observer-dependent constructs we use to predict things. I don't think I can in principle even imagine whats going on in the actual outside world, but talk of symmetries and fundamental entities is just helping me create a coherent model of reality. Experience is irreducible and metaphysical ontology is deeply inaccessible imo.
But by saying experiences are what it's like internally to be some kind of symmetries, invariances, structure, information, distinction... whatever... I am just giving it a coherent connection to the rest of our physical models. I think this particular way makes the combination problem easier by making it easier for macro-experiences to just emerge. But again, I am not trying to give an explanation for particular phenomenal experiences. But if they are the internal what it's like of symmetries or information in reality as I just described, then I kind of lean toward the view that there is just a brute fact that experiences have this kind of vivid discernibility to them as a reflection of the distinguishable degrees of freedom of systems as a whole - I would actually just call that vivid discernibility information - even if some immediate, subjective kind.
Now part of the whole rollercoaster of all this is I am trying to give an account of the objective world which I believe is absolutely fundamentally inaccessible, but also explicitly acknowledging that I am using descriptions that are fundamentally observer dependent.
So I think paradoxes and natural limits to what I am trying to describe are a given.
I cannot explain experiences but I think I can still coherently map it to information. Experiences are all I have access to but also, scientific models in physics, biology, computer science, etc. give me by far the best way of giving a good explanation of my reality in so far that I am capable of doing so under my own limits as an organism.
Again, what I have said is completely compatible with panpsychism imo or even idealism in the sense of saying everything is just experiences but seems there are still many open questions if you do that under this perspective.
Note: My perspective on symmetries as fundamental is not dissimilar from structural realists like James Ladyman (https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/structural-realism/) but I am not explicitly realist. Without realism, I think the need to explain phenomena with mathematical models becomes less acute; but at the same time, by not having a preferred scale for symmetries or invariances, then there is less combination problem issues. Symmetries and invariance may not be the only structural concepts but probably there is importance there. Structuralism seems to be just the latest generation of naturalist ideas and I'd say its probably not unfair to say it arose from the need to have looser conceptualizations of the natural world than physics, just as physicalism arose from the need for a looser conceptualization of the world than materials (thus superseding materialism). I'd say structural things in is about as poorly defined as physicalist ontology is. The vagueness of structure also makes me think that that notion has significant overlap with my notion of information which is just about distinctions. I also think the idea of invariances maybe overlaps with that too since invariance seems to entail the notion of regularity, patterns and perhaps how they are separable from other things and noise.
Information used to be defined in terms of knowledge / meaning contained in a mind, especially connotation or denotation that is personally relevant to the receiver. Hence, knowing is experiencing/feeling, either first hand, or from communication. But what is a sentient "person" : the body/brain or soul/mind, or both, in a symbiotic relationship? My money is on the Both/And answer.
On this forum, we always come back to the Either/Or, Physical vs Metaphysical, question. But, perhaps, as you suggest, the distinction merely reflects the difference-of-purpose for Science vs Philosophy. So, it depends on who's asking. Is the Brain or the Soul the experiencer of incoming Information? It seems that the brain processes the data, but the mind interprets its significance relative to the Self. Yet, one without the other is insentient. It takes two to know, to know that you know, and to know that you are two.
How could a scientist know what the brain knows, except by asking the knower --- who will respond with spoken or written tokens of meaning : words.*1 Yet, apart from an informed experiencing mind, those tokens are nonsensical. Does a parrot understand the meaning of the sounds it echoes? Obviously, the parrot perceives the sounds a human makes, but whether it conceives the encoded meaning is debatable.
When scientists began looking into how we communicate Information from one mind to another, they of course began to look for atoms of meaning (bits). But those bits are intangible and invisible. So Shannon defined a new kind of token that could be encoded into electric pulses, transported over wires, and then decoded back into meaning in a personal mind. But, in the process of exporting from one mind to another, the codes are encapsulated into mathematical abstractions that have no inherent personal meaning. But only conventional abstract significance : a logical state with only two possible values : yes/no, or true/false, or 1/0.
Since, information is so important to us, we have many different words to describe various facets of the process of enforming or encoding or experiencing meaning into a mind. So, your equation of "experience" with "information" agrees with common sense : I experience, and I know what I experience, and I imagine that a record of that experience is encoded physically in my brain. Yet, when we look at the tangles of neurons, we don't see anything identifiable as Information or Meaning. Mind-reading requires two minds and two brains. Therefore, I conclude that information/meaning is a holistic phenomenon of an integrated system of sensors and coders.
Is Consciousness purely a physical or metaphysical phenomenon, or a function of both Mind and Matter? I guess that depends on how you define "phenomenon". Does a camera knowlingly "observe" phenomena or just blankly record photons? The great philosopher Yogi Berra once noted : " you can observe a lot just by watching". :smile:
Denotation : the literal or primary meaning of a word, in contrast to the feelings or ideas that the word suggests.
Connotation : an idea or feeling that a word invokes in addition to its literal or primary meaning.
*1. See Mind-blowing mind-reading technology thread for pros & cons of the question.
Quoting Apustimelogist
Totally with you on that - I think that is an insight that is coming through a number of different people. But don't loose sight of the role which the mind plays in establishing relationships - by identifying them, by seeing how this relates to that in ways that would never be otherwise perceptible.
Quoting Gnomon
Recall that in Vedanta, consciousness (citta) is never a 'that'. It is never an object, or for that matter a phenomenon. The phenomenon is 'that which appears'; consciousness is 'to whom it appears'.
Quoting Gnomon
Well, the way I view it, all concepts are ultimately constructs. Information to me is a very general and flexible one that can be applied to almost anything. For instance, in that 'Facing up to the Problem of Consciousness' article by Chalmers, that was posted a little earlier in the thread, he has the double aspect idea of both physical information space and phenomenal information space.
Now for me, double-aspect is a only in our models and not existing in reality beyond us. Also, when I try to break down what the notions of physical and phenomenal mean, they lead to dead ends. The phenomenal is fundamentally ineffable, indescribable and the physical is equally poorly defined, as many anti-physicalists attest to. Only concepts I have left to give tangibility are vague notions like 'structure' and 'information'. And as someone who is not necessarily a scientific realist, the fact that these notions are quite thin is not so bothersome since I believe we fundamentally cannot have access to lots of aspects of reality.
So, to answer 'Is the Brain or the Soul the experiencer of incoming Information?': for me, such a distinction is an artifact of our models of the world and limitations in knowing what the world is like. For me, the double-aspect (brain and soul) is in some sense illusory. Brains are in some sense constructed models enacted within our subjective states to explain empirical findings. We see them as representing something out there we cannot directly access as a third-person observer. Our own minds actually reflect part of that inaccessible stuff, but not all of it, and our own minds don't even have access fundamentally to everything about reality, what reality is like or about as a whole.
Yes. Unfortunately, some on this forum seem to think that the job of Philosophy is simply to criticize our use of language. Perhaps the noun "being" and the verb "to be" are the most difficult concepts to "grapple with", since we directly experience Being, but can only imagine Non-Being. Likewise, we experience Consciousness, but unconsciousness is the lack of experience. Our language can express "what it's like to see", but fumbles with "what it's like to be".
What is it like to be unconscious? Do we continue to Be when unconscious, or asleep, hence not experiencing? Those are rhetorical questions, for another lifetime . . . another Beingness. :smile:
Quoting Wayfarer
I'm not very familiar with Vedanta, but that's similar to what I meant by distinguishing between Brain & Soul, or Body & Person. Materialists typically deny the existence of a Soul, probably because it is not a perceivable phenomenon. Yet, Soul and Person are conceivable noumena; even though their mode-of-being is debatable. I'm also not familiar with Materialist literature on the topic of Noumena*1. Is it a legitimate topic of philosophical "grappling"? Or best left to the religious myth-makers? :cool:
*1. Noumena : The Self-concept we call "Soul" is definitely a metaphysical idea, not a physical thing. But is it a ding-an-sich? Who knows?
In a philosophical sense, I think of "Symmetries" as logical relationships, which are the essence of Information. Existentially, those inter-relationships may well be fundamental to Reality in it's multiplicity. For example, when a Singularity divides into a Diversity, symmetries are born, and can later be broken : e.g. matter/anti-matter. The immensity of this cosmic notion is astronomically over my head, but I'll put it on the docket for further exploration. :nerd:
Symmetry and Symmetry Breaking :
The term symmetry derives from the Greek words sun (meaning with or together) and metron (measure), yielding summetria, and originally indicated a relation of commensurability
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/symmetry-breaking/
We can assert something like 'here is a point'. We go ahead and define it 'has no parts' just to establish the simplest possible object. IOW we assert things, but we can't derive anything, and if it doesn't tell us something, it ain't information.
If we say there are two points, one relates to the other and vice versa. Then we have information.
Because each point is unitary and has no information in themselves, the minimum possible information is what they can tell us about each other.
In basic info theory the minimum is a bit. The query is, On or off? The answer is, If on then not off. Common logic: If p then not q
Using symmetry the query is, what information is fundamental to the (2 part) system? The answer is: A is to B as B is to A
Anyway, a bit nerdy, nothing to do with consciousness, off topic, but that's why I thought you make philosophical sense.
I will assume that your philosophical "reality beyond" is something like Plato's Ideality, or Kant's mysterious realm of the ding-an-sich ; not a religious other-world populated with meddling gods & avenging angels. The comments here only skim the surface of my information-based BothAnd Monism. One holistic uber-reality with dual aspects.
Dualism is a philosophical issue only because our mental models can include referents to both perceived objects, and "things" that we know only by imagination. To wit : Ancient people inferred that there must be something invisible about humans that explains how they are different from animals (Reason), and how a living body is different from a dead body (Animation). Early labels for that unseen something (e.g. Greek psuche) seemed to equate Life & Mind as dual aspects of a universal Elan Vital.
So, eventually the Soul (Ghost) was imagined as a separate being, temporarily merged with a material body. But, Descartes' dualism focused mainly on the essential difference between a 3-dimensional physical body (res extensa) and a zero-dimensional metaphysical mind (res cogitans). And, Kant postulated that there must be a noumenal "reality" (or Ideality) beyond the scope of our phenomenal senses. He admitted that we can't actually know anything about that Platonic realm. Yet, he concluded that we can use reason & imagination to infer some logically necessary properties of such an immaterial sphere of unformed potential.
But, another perspective on the Platonic world of archetypal forms says that it is the True Reality --- a sort of heaven --- and our physical senses can detect only vague hints of what's really real. Even so, faced with a big-bang beginning, we can conjecture that our space-time world is not absolute, but merely a passing shadow (a model) of a more all-encompassing timeless realm of Potential. It's that extra-sensory speculation, though, that Materialism denies, and for good practical reasons. So, only impractical philosophers concern themselves with things they can't see or touch, but only imagine. Moreover, for Materialists, anything imaginary is immaterial, possibly illusory, and can't be proven to exist in any sensible manner.
So, there are at least two alternatives to traditional Body/Soul dualism : A> Matter-only monism, or B> Mind-only monism. Yet the latter is literally unrealistic, and the former is essentially mindless. So, I prefer a philosophical model, based on Information, that makes sense, both physically and metaphysically. For example, the Brain is a biological processor of Information, and the Mind is merely its operational Function, which is only a name for an abstract input-output process of Living & Thinking. The process is not the thing, and we infer functions only by meta-physical inference, not by physical sensation. Yet, viewed as a whole system, that mind/matter duality is a singular Person : You. :blush:
Is the information stored on a computer metaphysical or physical? :
Great question. All information is metaphysical - necessarily so, in fact. Information exists as differences, and a difference is the one thing you definitely cannot prove exists in physics . . . . The physical structure is the material organisation. . . . . For this reason all information can be considered as sets of co-ordinates, but the actualisation of the information (the manner in which it becomes intelligible) involves the solution of the differences.
https://www.quora.com/Is-the-information-stored-on-a-computer-metaphysical-or-physical
Note --- Well-informed people have argued for both sides of the physical/metaphysical question. So, I conclude that Generic Information must take on both forms. If not physical, computers would not be able to process it. If not metaphysical, humans could not make sense of it. So, the Information of which our world, and our world models, are constructed is Both-And, not Either-Or. BothAnd is a Monism.
Your post reminded me of the old idiom : "that's my two bits worth" ; typically referring to an unsolicited opinion. The monetary reference was to a quarter dollar : $.25. But where did the term "two bits" come from? The explanation I found said it referred to a "spanish dollar" worth eight reales (pieces of eight?). Hence : two pieces = a quarter dollar. But my source says, there was no "one bit" coin.
Is that a cosmic coincidence, that one bit has no inherent value (meaning), except in relation to another bit? :joke:
ORIGIN OF 2 BITS :
https://sunfarm.com/images/2bits.htm
What makes you say this, out of interest?
Quoting Gnomon
I am not too familiar with those, but the parts of reality we cannot directly access independently of our perception.
Quoting Gnomon
Does that include qualia?
Isn't 'qualia' just a bit of philosophical jargon for 'quality of experience'? And the difficulties it causes merely due to the fact that the physical sciences are wholly quantitative? After all the point of physics is that its objects can be represented precisely in terms of mathematical quantities, but there's no provision for qualities of experience in that model. Which is the source of the whole argument. Secondly because the physical sciences are concerned with what exists independently of any mind, so they 'exclude the subject' as a matter of principle; but then wish to account for the subject as an epiphenomenal or emergent illusion generated by the objects of scientific analysis.
The adjective "unrealistic" was intended only as definitive, not derogatory. Matter is "realistic" in the sense of hands-on practical or pragmatic utility, while Mind is "unrealistic" in the sense of literally intangible & immaterial, hence not something you can directly manipulate for real-world purposes.
Mind-world Ideals, such as Utopias. are considered to be literally unrealistic & out-of-reach. But . . . . and this is a big Butt . . . . "mere" Ideas, when coupled with Will & Intention, can have real-world consequences*1. So, although I am Materialistic & Realistic relative to practical or scientific questions, I am Mentalistic & Idealistic regarding philosophical (open-ended) or potential questions. Does that answer your question? :cool:
Quote from post above :
"A> Matter-only monism, or B> Mind-only monism. Yet the latter is literally unrealistic, and the former is essentially mindless."
*1. Elon Musk's "unrealistic" video-game goal of saving humanity by emigrating to Mars, has driven him to develop many practical stepping stones on the path to that "impossible dream" : electric cars, re-usable rockets, low-orbit communication satellites, etc.
Quoting Apustimelogist
Yes. The physical brain is a quantitative bio-machine, which processes countable units of matter & energy, in order to produce the qualitative products that we know as Ideas, Imagination, Experience, Consciousness, etc.
Similarly, the function of your Cell Phone is not to spit-out physical objects, such as a paper-tape of calculations. Instead, it processes Information and produces "Communication", which is not a quantifiable thing, but a process with a qualitative value to sender & receiver. "Communication" (share + action) is a noun that refers not to a particular Thing, but to a purposeful act or procedure, that can be imagined as-if a particular thing. Likewise, a Function is a rationally-inferred goal-directed on-going process that is sometimes treated, abstractly, as-if an observed static object. But the purposeful Quality is a mental noumenon, not a physical phenomenon. :smile:
PS___ Wayfarer's reply above may be more to your point.
Qualia are often referred to as the phenomenal properties of experience, and experiences that have qualia are referred to as being phenomenally conscious. Phenomenal consciousness is often contrasted with intentionality (that is, the representational aspects of mental states).
https://iep.utm.edu/qualia/
Sounds like something, that someone who didn't want his attempts to manipulate people's minds to be recognized as such, might say.
What makes you think that minds can't be manipulated for real world purposes? Do you actually believe that?
Anesthesia seems fairly direct.
Yea, I think I agree with this; I just use terms like 'qualia' and 'phenomrna' etc interchamgeably.
ah alright, fair enough
Perhaps, as an Epistemologist, you are using "information", in an Ontological sense, as a synonym for "experience" or "knowing"*1. Anyway, your what-it's-like formulation of Information may be getting at the essence of what it's like to be human : the experience (feeling ; knowledge ; consciousness) of being an information creator as well as consumer.
All physical objects intake & export Information in the form of Energy*2. Some animated objects also exchange Information in the form of meaningful Communication. And humans process both physical Energy and metaphysical Information into Culture. So, just as Matter is the essence of objects & animals, Mind is the essence of Man. And Mind is the faculty of processing & storing & communicating Information in all its various forms.
I just read an article in The Information Philosopher*3 that reminded me of your notion of "what it's like" : "To the extent that the information in the mind is isomorphic with the information in the object, we can say that the subject has knowledge of the external world. Information philosophy is a correspondence theory*4. To the extent that information in other minds is isomorphic to that in our minds, we have intersubjective shared knowledge, something impossible to show with words or logic alone." Does that formulation of Information-Consciousness make sense to you? :smile:
*1. Information (knowing ; experience) is what it's like to be
*2. Energy :
Scientists define energy as the ability to do work, but don't know what energy is. They assume it's an eternal causative force that existed prior to the Big Bang, along with mathematical laws. Energy is a positive or negative relationship between things, and physical Laws are limitations on the push & pull of those forces. So, all they know is what Energy does, which is to transform material objects in various ways. Energy itself is amorphous & immaterial. So if you reduce energy to its essence of information, it seems more akin to mind than matter.
https://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page8.html
*3. The Information Philosopher :
Mind as actionable information
https://www.informationphilosopher.com/mind/
*4. Correspondence : isomorphic similarity of forms
a. a logical connection between things:
b. a mathematical relationship between things
c. a mental observation of similarity
The hard problem of consciousness seems to hard, because we have forgotten about the hard problem of motion, which we do not understand, but can study quite successfully.
And, then, I think if we clearly look at the situation, we have many hard problems, the problem of morality, the problem of will, the problem of identity, the problem meaning, the problem of mind, the problem of magnetism, the problem of first origins and on and on and on.
For whatever curios reason, consciousness is taken to be specifically more problematic than any of these. I don't see a reason to believe it.
I was surprised to see this side-topic dialog still going-on, and even jumping from Evolution to Consciousness forums. Your original formulation --- "information is what it is like to be information" --- sounded odd to me at first. But I eventually came to see more-or-less what you were aiming at*1. The difficulty here may stem from the many Specific forms of Generic Information. Another hurdle may be that you are approaching the Information/Consciousness equation from a different background (technical vs philosophical) from & myself.
Here's a technical Neuroscience article on the topic of how Information is related to Qualia*2. It's over my head, but you may be better able to follow the argument. In my thesis, I refer to Information as a shapeshifter. For example : Generic Information (relationships, connections, associations, patterns) Information as physical Energy (hot/cold proportions) ; Information as material Structure (brain tissue organization) ; information as abstract Data (mathematical-statistical correlations) ; Information as Qualia (subjective experience or feeling) ; Information as Knowledge (personal meaning). In my own thesis, the "direct mechanism" is metaphysical instead of physical. I'd be interested to know if you are proposing another "shape" of Generic Information. :smile:
*1. Information (subjective experience) is what it's like (experience or feeling) to be information (knowledge). Please correct me, If I missed your intention. There are several possible ways to interpret the original phrase.
*2. Information and the Origin of Qualia :
[i]This article argues that qualia are a likely outcome of the processing of information in local cortical networks. It uses an information-based approach and makes a distinction between information structures (the physical embodiment of information in the brain, primarily patterns of action potentials), and information messages (the meaning of those structures to the brain, and the basis of qualia). . . .
The really challenging problem in consciousness studies is to find an answer to the question of the origin of subjective experience itself. . . .
There have been some attempts to explore the origin of phenomenal experience. . . .
However, there is no theoretical account that shows a direct mechanism whereby certain neural activities should lead to a phenomenal outcome. This article is one attempt to link the purely physical with the phenomenal, and it builds on a previous article on the topic[/i]
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnsys.2017.00022/full
I like seeing information/consciousness being placed side by side. Do you think, in a technical sense, they are closely related or even have the same physical basis? Words are defined by their common usage so if we use common definitions we may be building in confusion to the problem of consciousness.
Something else that may help in the problem of consciousness is to consider order of operations.
For example in mathematics the convention is parentheses, exponents, multiplication, division, addition and subtraction. In philosophy, we can also set for ourselves a sensible order of operations. I like starting with physical matter as the primary consideration first and stating that outright so if someone has an objection they can suggest an alternative. Then you could move on to information-consciousness being derived from physical matter and stating how that is physically supported. This eventually leads to the mental worlds that we inhabit. Someone like Wayfarer may object to this as reductionism and I'm sympathetic to that view, however the benefit is that by following an order of operations we might eliminate some physically unsupported mental content that we seem to be prone to.
An example of physical constraints in our mental content would be time perseption. We time travel in our minds in a way physical matter does not permit and there is a need for philosophy to address this.
So the problem of not having an order of operations is that you'll get stuck defending mental constructs without considering physical limits. Say like believing time travel is possible.
Could this be prone to just having various orders of operations being discussed with no real road to resolution?
I know what you mean. It's hard to get any consensus here. It's worth considering as opposed to not. I think it's a good mental habit to be aware of it.
Agreed
Yes. I see Information & Consciousness as elements of the same cosmic continuum. But Information (power to enform ; to create meaningful & useful forms/patterns) is divergent, and often takes on physical forms, while Consciousness is emergent, and strictly meta-physical. Unfortunately, human languages are inherently based on sensory knowledge, hence "common usage" is fundamentally materialistic. That's why philosophical language was developed, in order to deal with concepts that go beyond the physical limitations of the senses, such as Potential vs Actual.
Creative Evolution is both divergent --- producing new species from old forms --- and emergent --- producing new wholes from old parts. I imagine the process of evolution as a computer Program. It begins as a meta-physical Idea in the mind of the Programmer, then is converted into a mathematical code (Singularity???), that is implemented in a physical system consisting of matter & energy (Big Bang). But all of those phases are sub-forms of Generic Information (GI), the generator of all forms, that Plato called the "World of Forms"*1.
One way to picture GI is as Aristotle's Potentiality Principle*2. He distinguished Potential from Actual in terms of Ontology, but platonic Epistemology might be "Real vs Ideal". Real/Actual things are physical & observable phenomena (appearances) via the human senses. But Ideal concepts are meta-physical and abstract noumena (concepts), hence knowable only via the sixth sense of Reason (Inference ; Imagination). Conceptually, GI is pure Potential, and exists only in a metaphysical sense as the Possibility of Actuality.
If the notion is not too repugnant to you, you could think of GI as the design for a Cosmos in the mind of G*D. Alternatively, and materialistically, you could imagine the GI as an eternally evolving Multiverse, which has experimented with an infinite number of novel forms, to serve as input to the Big Bang computation, for no apparent reason.
Again, yes, the "order of operations" in the evolution of our world, is similar to that of a computer calculating a> input data (facts) & b> mission statement into c> desired output (function or purpose). So, just as the order of mathematical or language-elements makes a difference in meaning or solution, the order of evolutionary operations will affect the end-state of the whole process. "Order" (vs disorder) is just another word for "Information". :smile:
*1. Platos Theory of Forms :
a foundational metaphysical concept suggesting that true reality is comprised of abstract, ideal entities (Forms) which differ from how things appear.
https://www.thecollector.com/what-is-plato-theory-of-forms/
*2. Potential vs Actual :
Aristotle describes potentiality and actuality, or potency and action, as one of several distinctions between things that exist or do not exist. In a sense, a thing that exists potentially does not exist; but, the potential does exist.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potentiality_and_actuality
Note --- Potential exists only metaphysically as statistical possibility, until it is Actualized by some creative power. We could debate the source of that "power", but we have no empirical evidence, so it currently remains a hypothesis, similar to the imaginary Dark Energy of physics.
I asked someone here a few weeks ago if they thought being aware of their own consciousness and thinking about specific information had anything in common. They said no and that surprised me but maybe I shouldn't be surprised. The words in use have very different meanings so we are conditioned to think they are very different things. All I can do is give the rest of you a heads up that the physical basis for both is the same. That would be your physical brain supporting both things.
I think you guessed I would have a problem with GI, genetic information, and I do. I see it as a mental projection only. It exists physically in your brain state and does not exist physically in genetic material.
So information and consciousness physically exists as:
Information = a physical brain;(specific mental content)
And
Consciousness = a physical brain;(the experience of consciousness)
Neither can be technically defined without including the physical brain as a necessary component.
My post spelled the term "Generic", not "Genetic, Information*1. In my thesis, I use GI as a modern version of Plato's "World of Forms" to suggest a singular ideal origin, and shared heritage, for all of the various forms (configurations of matter, energy & mind) in the world. Genetic information, in the form of chemical genes, is one of those manifold offspring of the pre-Bang Progenitor Form. Another philosophical term for that concept is First Cause. It's merely a logical necessity to hypothetically account for Darwin's "forms most beautiful"*2.
I agree that Genetic Information "does not exist physically" in DNA . . . . except in the material form of bio-chemical interlinkage, which is meaningless until interpreted (template translation) by the fertilized cell. The functional metaphysical Information of Nucleic Acids takes the geometric form of a double helix. But even that is an over-simplification of the essential inter-relations that characterize fundamental Information. Bare-bones Information is mathematical Ratios (note the root of Rational). But a mind-boggling form of Information is the Life that emerges from holistic complexes of cells.
In my concept of Generic Information, everything in the world is a form --- chip off the old block --- of the creative Power to Enform. A physical form of that power is Energy, and a metaphysical form is human Intention or Will. As a meta-physical philosophical concept, EnFormAction*3 is difficult to explain in our conventional materialistic language, without giving the impression of religious motives. So, I am forced to use common -- sometimes religious -- metaphors to illustrate my meaning. :smile:
PS___ I have no religious beliefs, but I do share some philosophical concepts, such as Holism, that have been adopted by world religions to justify their own meta-physical beliefs. For those opposed to metaphysics-in-general it's all the same non-sense.
*1. Generic : relating to or shared by a whole group of similar things; not specific to any particular thing: .
Genetic : relating to origin, or arising from a common origin.
*2. There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.
? Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species
*3. EnFormAction :
*** [i]Metaphorically, it's the Will-power of G*D, which is the First Cause of everything in creation. Aquinas called the Omnipotence of God the "Primary Cause", so EFA is the general cause of everything in the world. Energy, Matter, Gravity, Life, Mind are secondary creative causes, each with limited application.
*** All are also forms of Information, the "difference that makes a difference". It works by directing causation from negative to positive, cold to hot, ignorance to knowledge. That's the basis of mathematical ratios (Greek "Logos", Latin "Ratio" = reason). A : B :: C : D. By interpreting those ratios we get meaning and reasons.[/i]
https://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page8.html
Well I would say I am more of an anti-realist generally so I think the shapeshifter thing might be apt.
I think you "information is what its like to be information" is probably taking what I am saying a little too literally. i mean, i think given the original statement was:
"subjective experience is what its like to be information"
then surely, the substitution should be
"what its like to be information is what its like to be information"
The world is full of structure, clearly what I experience is what it is like to be that structure if I am indeed part of the world. Specifically, information transmission. My experiences are also trivially information.
Interesting article, will have to take a look.
Theres one article I havent actually given more than a glance but the idea has stuck in my mind:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9689906/
its not actually *that* novel of an idea and I think they even themselves note the similarity to IIT at least superficially. But the notion of non-separability seems quite thought provoking for me in the context of the hard problem.
Sorry, bad eyes and doing this on a smart phone.
I'll try to read more carefully.
Could you elaborate that further? You seem to be saying that consciouness one day will be fully explained by science. Is that correct?
... is not my statement.
Also: Because Physicalism can't stop trying to engorge everything.
For example, take the colour scientist Mary from the knowledge argument, who "learns" about redness for the first time when leaving her black and white room. Suppose that upon leaving her black-and-white room and seeing red for the first time, the language of physics is augmented with a new term that specifically denotes Mary's red perceptual judgements. Call this new term maryred. There is one simple rule for this new term ; whenever Mary perceives an object to be "red" then by definition the object is said to be maryred. So if another scientist is performing an optical experiment, say on a distant planet, and wants to know whether the result is maryred or not, then according to the definition of maryredness, there is nothing he can do other than to ask Mary after she has inspected the result for herself.
Mary cannot explain the relation between optical redness and maryredness, and the augmented physical language doesn't specify theoretical rules for inter-translating the two, not even when additional context is provided. But why should this absence of translation rules be considered a problem for physics? Isn't it in fact a blessing that we might call "The Hard Feature of Physics"?
For suppose that maryredness was theoretically correlated to optical redness (plus context). Then doesn't this imply that Mary needs to be present at every optical experiment performed anywhere in the world, including the ordinary optical experiments that aren't measuring maryredness? For how can it be argued that maryredness is theoretically reducible to optical redness + context, but not vice-versa? Theoretical translation must surely work in both directions. So wouldn't the meaning of optical redness become contingent upon the meaning of maryredness such that Mary's perceptual judgements became part of the theoretical foundation of optics? Clearly this isn't desirable, because we want physics to be a universally applicable language with a semantics that is independent of the perceptual judgements of particular observers. So it makes good sense for physics to decree optical redness and maryredness to be incommensurable by fiat.
Hence in my opinion, those who believe in a "Hard Problem of Consciousness" misunderstand the purpose of science, and that this hard problem is better understood as being a "Hard Feature of applicable Physics"
But what if the object of translation was not optical redness but brain states?
It seems then that the context problem doesn't apply because Mary's perceptions are always present alongside her brainstates and correlate so much that many suspdct that they are identical.
This quote from Chalmer's essay on the "hard problem of consciousness" touches on a key issue of our philosophical debates. He asks whether Information is both phenomenal and noumenal. And my general answer is Yes. But, the phenomenal aspects are "easy", because our physical senses can detect them. So, it's the noumenal aspects that we argue about. My position is that Information is both Physical and Mental. But discussing mental stuff is like nailing jello to the wall, it's inherently squishy and hard to pin down.
Perhaps the most contentious feature of Consciousness is its experiential quality. He implies that "experience" --- as a form of generic information --- "is everywhere". And that sounds like Panpsychism, with the implication that even an atom has awareness of its environment. Hence, All-Mind-Everywhere-All-The-Time would be true. However, that notion implies that the world is not hierarchical, and that we cannot or should-not discriminate between one form of information and another.
So, if you define "experience" as a "feeling" in the human sense, I would have to disagree with Panpsychism, but not on materialistic grounds. That's because human interactions are infinitely more complex & multi-valent than atomic exchanges of positive/negative electron valences. So, although similar in one way, meaningful-feelings & energy-sharing are different in so many other ways. Electron bonding of atoms is phenomenal, hence observable by empirical methods. But sharing feelings is noumenal, and knowable only by the emotional inference that we call Empathy or Sympathy. Therefore, I would say that atoms are not sentient beings, and that Panpsychism is an over-generalization.
Our brain specific information has complete access to our consciousness and vice versa.
So if you don't understand this of course understanding consciousness is going to be hard.
How can you propose information is everywhere when it's just a projection of your mind. Of course it's going to be a hard problem because you have set up the problem wrong.
I think of it as every particle having a mental property, proto-consciousness, in addition to the physical properties we're familiar with. Mass, charge, spin... [I]Proto[/I]-consciousness. Not consciousness. Perhaps every particle in a rock is experiencing. Not aware of anything, simply experiencing whatever happens to the rock. But there's not much going on within a rock. There aren't even different physical activities taking place inn a rock, much less exchanges of information. So all particles experience pretty much the same, basic, physical things. That's not sufficient for actual consciousness to come about.
I don't know how many people would argue with the belief that rocks are not conscious because they are too homogenous (I don't know if there's a better way to say that), and that humans have the degree of consciousness we have because there are so many things going on within us. Many different physical systems; different [I]kinds[/I] of physical systems; many different systems of information sharing. I assume physicals agree with that. I just don't think our consciousness is explainable by physical properties and laws of physics. I think something more is needed, and proto-consciousness seems worth considering.
In the Enformationism thesis, Consciousness is viewed as an emergent form of basic mathematical Information. If you don't understand, or agree with, that essential relationship, the Hard Problem will remain an apples & oranges conundrum.
I'm not sure how to interpret the assertion that "information has complete access to consciousness". But if bits of Information and holistic Consciousness are interrelated, like bricks and houses, then they are not just "accessible", but also intertwined, perhaps inseparable. And it's the part/whole relationship that will soften the "hard" problem, which is due to the assumption of fundamental difference.
Again, I'm not sure what you mean by "information . . . is just a projection of your mind". But, the thesis is based on the assumption that Information is much more than just an imaginary something. Just as Einstein equated Energy with Matter (E=MC^2), the thesis equates Information with Energy, Matter & Mind (I=EMM). If so, it is everywhere and everything.
Enformationism is a philosophical worldview or belief system grounded on the 20th century discovery that Information, rather than Matter, is the fundamental substance*1 of everything in the universe. I know that sounds absurd from the perspective of Materialism, but quite a few scientists are beginning to find evidence of that equivalence*2. :smile:
PS___ Your assertion that Information has "complete access" to consciousness is coincidental, because I just read an article on The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind. Which postulates that, due to the divided brain, humans had to learn how to communicate between the verbal/rational brain and the intuitive/emotional brain. Julian Jaynes proposed that until the "EGO" (self) gained conscious control over the "ID" (non-self), people thought their subconscious urges were messages from gods. I don't know if it's literally true that before 3000BC humans were all schizophrenic, but metaphorically it makes sense. The rational linguistic part of the Mind is what we usually think of as Consciousness (Dr. Jekyll). But the emotional non-verbal half is what we call Sub-Conscious (Mr. Hyde). And, due to incomplete access, that inner beast is what we are always struggling to control.
*1. What did Aristotle mean by substance? ;
substance, in the history of Western philosophy, a thing whose existence is independent of that of all other things, or a thing from which or out of which other things are made or in which other things inhere.
https://www.britannica.com/topic/substance-philosophy
*2. Is information the fifth state of matter? :
In 2019, physicist Melvin Vopson of the University of Portsmouth proposed that information is equivalent to mass and energy, existing as a separate state of matter, a conjecture known as the mass-energy-information equivalence principle.
https://www.zmescience.com/science/news-science/information-energy-mass-equivalence/
Note --- Vopson's "conjecture" is a physical hypothesis, while my thesis is meta-physical. Hence, my Information is not just a "state of matter", but also a "state of mind".
Chalmers seems to think that "everything is conscious" in some sense of "thing" and "consciousness". But I doubt that he believes that atoms are little beings chatting amongst themselves about their feelings. It's that "some sense" that needs to be explained. In my own thesis, I use abstract "Information" instead of personal "Psyche", partly in order to avoid the absurdity of atomic awareness. :smile:
David Chalmers, Panpsychism and Panprotopsychism :
I present an argument for panpsychism: the thesis that everything is conscious, or at least that fundamental physical entities are conscious.
https://philpapers.org/rec/CHAPAP-17
Note --- I haven't read the article, so I don't know how he defines "fundamental physical entities". If you have time, please investigate and let me know.
In this Ted Talk, Chalmers says:
Edit: This is his third paragraph:
Quoting Chalmers
Ok, so your statement amounted to claiming that the issue of how consciousness arises is a hard problem is semantic nonsense. Your use of parentheses makes a direct quote both unwieldy, and open to the type of sidestep above by explaining the parenthesized element.
So, that's what it amounts to - on paper. If you meant something else, so be it. But given what was actually put across in your post - that absolutely entails philosophers of mind who treat that as a serious metaphysical problem as either misguided or confused. Can you, perhaps, not be obtuse, but address that question?
I believe i have seen Chalmers reference (perhaps in that 2022 Yale talk?) IIT as a framework for how you could have different 'levels' of consciousness essentially mirroring the functionality of the 'being'. Vague, but a hint at a direction.
I'm not sure what neuropsychology means by 'brainstates' exactly - but then isn't that the point - that the types and tokens referred to by neuropsychology are sufficiently vague and flexible so as to both accommodate the ad-hoc and informal judgements of it's practitioners on a case-by-case basis, whilst conveying enough of the practically essential information?
I'm also reminded of software-engineering, where the concepts of types, tokens and type/token identity are normative notions that only concern and describe the programming language being used, rather than being descriptive of the implemented application (that could be implemented in any number of languages that use different and incompatible type-systems).
In my view, Physicalism takes types, tokens and identity relations too seriously, due to mistaking these normative linguistic concepts for propositions.
I'm not sure that I = EMM is an equation.
The relation between E, M and M isn't given.
For me:
I = brain state is an equation as I, information, is the equivalent of brain state.
An expansion gives I = physical brain; (mental content), still an equation as the mental content exists as the brains physical configuration. The parentheses mean specific mental content is supported by the physical brain state.
Also working on information and consciousness as one problem is reasonable as both are supported by brain state. Not separate at all.
My only problem with Chalmer's philosophy of Panpsychism is in his word choice. He uses "consciousness" to label his fundamental element. But I prefer to give that prime role to a "primitive precursor to consciousness". I reserve "Consciousness" for the rare feature of the universe that only emerged from zillions of physical interactions (computations) after billions of Earth-year cycles. The big "C" is a recent innovation of evolution.
So, I propose that ubiquitous Generic Information (Platonic Form) was the essential element of everything at the inception of our universe. Atoms are indeed physical forms of Information, but Mind is a late-emerging meta-physical form of the universal Power to Enform (to create novel structures & patterns). In my thesis, physical Energy is a form of causal Information. But this is an unconventional & philosophical use of the term, that Shannon defined more narrowly, for a specific engineering problem. :smile:
Information :
Knowledge and the ability to know. Technically, it's the ratio of order to disorder, of positive to negative, of knowledge to ignorance. It's measured in degrees of uncertainty. Those ratios are also called "differences". So Gregory Bateson* defined Information as "the difference that makes a difference". The latter distinction refers to "value" or "meaning". Babbage called his prototype computer a "difference engine". Difference is the cause or agent of Change. In Physics its called "Thermodynamics" or "Energy". In Sociology its called "Conflict".
https://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page11.html
Yes. There seems to be a hierarchy of consciousness among living beings, from single-cell organisms to cetaceans. But personally, I would prefer to restrict the term "Consciousness" to living organisms, for which the notion of awareness seems appropriate. The general direction of the universe appears to begin with non-being stuff that evolves toward that which we now call Beings instead of Things. :smile:
Sorry, that was tongue-in-cheek. I didn't mean for it to be taken literally.
It's a verbal equation, not a mathematical equation. :smile:
However, since you asked : How about phi (?) for Information and psi (?) for Mind?
{ ? = E x M x ? } information is composed of Energy, Matter, and Mind.
All are non-dimensional values, hence metaphysical/mathematical concepts. So what do they add up to?
I would also prefer he use "Consciousness" the way you describe. He says, "This thesis is sometimes called panexperientialism, to distinguish it from other varieties of panpsychism (varieties on which the relevant entities are required to think or reason, for example), but I will simply call it panpsychism here." How about don't simply call it panopticism here? Let's make things as consistent in all discussions as possible.
"Primitive precursor to consciousness" is fine, but a bit of a mouthful. I like "proto-consciousness."
:up:
Mainly that.
Materialists like to belittle the "Hard Problem" by implying that philosophers deny the "obvious" fact that Consciousness is nothing-but a body-control function of material brains. Hence they --- the "un-grounded" thinkers --- complicate a simple situation by insisting on the contribution of immaterial metaphysical things or processes. Perhaps there's some truth to that assessment, but the OP implies that "C" is more-than "physical processes". If so, what is that "more-than"?
I can't deny that "C" seems to be a function of brain operations, just as program solutions are a function of computer operations. But then what is a Function? Is it a> a lump of matter, or b> a series of actions, or c> a mathematical relationship between variables? A Function is not a thing, or a sequence of events, it's an effective (purposeful) correlation of Input & Output. Therefore, I think Consciousness is a goal-oriented function of complex information-processing systems. Moreover, shape-shifting Information can take-on all of those function-facilitating forms --- matter, energy, ratios, etc. So philosophically, "C" is ultimately a function of cosmic operations from Big Bang initiation to the current continually complexifying situation.
For those interested in the relationship between Consciousness and Information, here's a research report from the Santa Fe Institute for the study of complexity. Among other things, it proposes A> that Mind emerges from Integrated Information systems. Also B> that Consciousness seems to be necessary for individuals in multilevel complex societies (e.g. herd & pack animals, not amoeba). Hence, it serves primarily a social function, not just coordination of body parts. One surprising postulation, though, is C> that it links the emergence of Consciousness to the unification of a dual-hemisphere brain. That's similar to the radical proposal of Julian Jaynes in The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind, as I referenced in a post above.
This technical paper seems to agree with the OP, that Consciousness is more-than a simple physical process. For a self-aware being it's infinitely more. As neuroscientist Christof Koch put it : "it's the feeling of life itself". :smile:
Information Theory and Consciousness :
[i]We are not conscious simply because we have a large brain, but rather humans have evolved to become conscious when exposed to other conscious humans during a critical phase of their development. That is, first, consciousness is partly a social phenomenon, even though it seems that a main aspect of consciousness is to distinguish a self from others,and second, there were evolutionary reasons for the emergence of consciousness. . . . .
the two halves of the brain are separately conscious, even though only the left hemisphere can express itself verbally.[/i]
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fams.2021.641239/full#h2
Note --- Frontiers is a peer-reviewed research publisher
Do you understand that "materialist" is not a distinct category from "philosopher"?
Your writing frequently suggests that you don't understand this.
Nice. I rarily see people connecting consciousness with experience. (In the sense of human feeling, as you say.)
For me, consciousness is basically experience. In fact, consciousness can be only experienced.
And human experience as not accepted in general as evidence for anything --esp. by Science-- because it is totally subjective, of course.
This, and generally the subjective and non-physical nature of consiousness, are the main reasons why we have got into such a thing as the "hard problem of consciounsess". But the inability of Science to deal with consciousness is so obvious, so much expected, that it makes the "hard problem of consciounsess" too overrated. In fact, it shouldn't exist as a problem at all. Why should it? The subject of "consciousness" is out of the jurisdiction of Science.
I dont understand the problem.
A plumber can have opinions about other plumbers that don't comport with those plumber's attitudes.
A materialist philosopher can have opinions/views on philosophers in general. Am i missing something here? I mean, analytic/continental philosophers are at loggerheads often in this way..
That's ok. My question was directed @Gnomon.
That's nice dear.
For me, it is. I view Philosophy as the study of the meta-physical (immaterial) aspects of nature, such as Consciousness. However, I do understand that Materialism is a metaphysical philosophical position ( a belief system), in that it is a non-empirical generalization from limited evidence.
For all practical purposes, I am a materialist. But for philosophical endeavors, I am not limited to the evidence of the 5 senses. And I don't deny such immaterial entities as "consciousness, mind, & psychic states". Besides, when scientists make theoretical postulations, they are doing Philosophy, not Science, as distinct categories --- distinguished by their range of evidence. :smile:
PS___ Philosophically, I don't categorize forum arguments into the traditional opposing dual divisions of Materialism vs Spiritualism. Instead, I propose a new, more comprehensive & inclusive category, that I call "Enformationism".
Materialism :
In general, the metaphysical theory of materialism entails the denial of the reality of spiritual beings, consciousness and mental or psychic states or processes, as ontologically distinct from, or independent of, material changes or processes.
https://www.rep.routledge.com/articles/thematic/materialism/v-1
Yes. I quoted Christof Koch in my post above : "consciousness is the feeling of life". :smile:
I confess, I think you've lost me here.
Well, the word "feeling" has millions of meanings, and such a definition of conciousness is quite vague. Yet, it could be acceptable, if neurophysiologists (like Koch) did not correlate consciousness with the brain --see neuronal correlates of consciousness (NCC)-- in a way that everything, even subjective experiences, ends up in the brain. Which brain BTW is almost identified with the mind (!). But this is expected, since this is their field of specialization. However, I know about known scientists --not neurophysists/neurobiologists, but I have read about some them too-- who are examining consciousness outside the the traditional scientific and in a totally new frame of mind. Maybe Koch is among them. I have to read more from him than just "Consciousness is everything you experience", which I just read, and which I liked it. :smile:
Thanks from bringing up this ref.
I doubt that Koch was trying to provide a technical or dictionary definition of "Consciousness". But "feeling" encompasses how each of us experiences a unique interpretation of the world : a worldview. Likewise, Nagel's "what it's like" notion is vague, but comprehensive, in summarizing how sentient beings experience their world.
Both "feeling" and "what it's like" are referring to the essential characteristic of consciousness : a personal subjective perspective on the world. Presumably, each individual brain & sensory apparatus delivers a unique mind-picture of the world, constructed from processing various inputs of energy/information from the material environment. So, IMHO "consciousness" can't be specified ; it can only be generalized, as something that is not universal, but extraordinary in the near-infinity of the physical universe. :smile:
I doubt that Chalmers was talking about Physics when he coined the phrase "hard problem". Consciousness is not "hard" in a physical sense, but in the holistic philosophical sense of : not subject to simplistic reductionism. :smile:
Given he also identifies a few easy problems of consciousness I think youre safe here :)
You are right. The word "definition" was not a good choice of mine. But I certainly didn't mean a technical definition. I meant rather a description.
Now the difference with Nagel's famous description of "what it is like" --which I like very much-- is that it des not include any term, even as simple as "feeling". "What it's like to be ..." is independent of any concept or connotation. It is the closest to "experience" that we are talking about.
Now, if we want to describe consciousness in more concrete terms, we have to think about its central element. Something with which it is always connected. Something that without it, it doesn't exist (as feeling, as experience, etc.) In other words, the presence of that element makes consciousness possible. And the opposite, its absence indicates also absence of consciousness. And this element is perception.
Yes, it is that simple. :smile:
And from this central, basic element we can now define consciousness as the state and ability to perceive. It also covers the physical aspect of "consciousness" as considered by neurobiologists and science in general, about which I talked in an earlier message.
I usually expand a little the above definition, to make it more plain and refer to humans, as follows: the state and ability to perceive our outside world (surroundings) as well as our inside world (thoughts, emotions, etc.)
I think you have the right idea, but I have one quibble : physical Perception is sub-conscious until metaphysical Conception. We only become consciously aware of sensory inputs when they are converted into meaningful mental images. Is there a word that combines the two aspects into a single central philosophical element of Consciousness? Perhaps "Apprehension" (concrete metaphor : to grasp) or "Comprehension (to seize & surround) or maybe even "to Grok" ? :smile:
"To perceive is to become aware of something directly through the senses. To conceive is to form something in the mind or to develop an understanding. So perceiving is merely seeing, and conceiving is deeper."
To Grok : [i]understand (something) intuitively or by empathy.
When you grok something, you just get it in other words, you totally grasp its meaning. [/i]
Having the experience of consciousness, i.e. being aware, does not necessary involve meaningful mental images, or even mental images (i.e. thinking) at all. I can be aware that I am alive, that I exist, that I'm looking to an object, etc. I don't have to interpret or undestand what these things mean. In the case of the obkect, its image is of course created in my mind, but it can be just that, an image. If I start to think about the meaining of this image, etc. I'm using mental faculties, which have nothong to do with consciousness, except that I can be aware that I am doing so! :smile:
Quoting Gnomon
Good question! I don't know! :grin:
Anyway, I wouldn't try to combine the physical with the non-physical in any way. There's an interaction between them. That's all. And if we try to investigate this interaction, we get into the mechanics of consciousness, which maybe we'll never undestand. If we could, we would have done it after all this time that we are exploring the sanctuary of consciousness. Maybe we have created a conceptual trap and fell in it.
Quoting Gnomon
Exactly.
***
I have to add something here about how I use the term "perception": It normally means to become aware of something by means of our senses. And our senses are meant to be physical, of course. So I have to expand the term to also include being aware of our inner world --thoughts, emotions, etc.-- for which we are not using our senses. Unfortunately I don't have any other word.
Butt when Godzilla starts in 20 minutes, I won't be thinking about the fact that I am alive. I don't see how I could be considered aware of it at such times.
Quoting Alkis PiskasDo we not, with our senses, perceive things that exist; that can be perceived? I think our thoughts and emotions are created within us. Even if prompted by something external, such as you reading "4+2=", which you perceive, you create the thought "6" on your own. You didn't turn your head and perceive "6" written somewhere.
Never thought about this before...
Perhaps, but I was thinking in terms of Blindsight*1, in which the physical senses seem to "Perceive" things in the world without forming conscious Concepts : sensing without knowing. Also, in the Vegetative State*2 a person processes sensory inputs (percepts ; data) but show no signs of conscious (concepts ; memory) awareness. For example, a Mimosa leaf will reflexively respond to a "perceived touch", by physically contracting the leaf, but presumably without forming any verbalizable concept, such as "something touched me". Ironically, some people "like" to think that Jade plants, Aloe, and Peace Lilies conceptually "like" to be touched (anthropomorphism?).
The vocabulary problem here is that our functionally materialistic language --- based on sensory impressions --- typically uses Perception & Conception interchangeably, without making the philosophical distinction that is important to distinguish Mind from Brain, as different concepts. Hence, in my dialogs with Physicalist/Materialists, who deny the metaphysical ideality of an immaterial Mind, I often make the distinction between personal Concepts and abstract Percepts. But it usually falls on deaf ears : that perceive, but do not conceive. :grin:
PS___ I found this definition on Quora, that seems pertinent to this discussion :
Conceive to form a mental representation of involves an internal process of thinking that produces a new result.
Hence, Conception adds some personal meaning to the physical sensations of Perception. That's because they may include emotional or poetic affects, in addition to factual or prosaic data, Concepts are more likely to be remembered, due to their Self-interest. :blush:
*1. Blindsight :
the ability to respond to visual stimuli without consciously perceiving them. This condition can occur after certain types of brain damage.
___Oxford dictionary
*2. Vegetative State of living person :
A vegetative state is when a person is awake but is showing no signs of awareness. A person in a vegetative state may: open their eyes. wake up and fall asleep at regular intervals. have basic reflexes (such as blinking when they're startled by a loud noise or withdrawing their hand when it's squeezed hard)
https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/disorders-of-consciousness/#:~:text=A%20vegetative%20state%20is%20when,hand%20when%20it%27s%20squeezed%20hard)
Blindsight. Never heard of that before. Just looked it up. Wow, this looks quite interesting. I will have to learn more about it. So, at the moment I cannot comment on this phenomenon. Maybe ony that I didn't like seeing the words/terms "concepts" and "knowing" related again to consciouness. :smile:
Look it this way: Does perception alone, i.e. just using our senses, involve concepts and knowledge or are these created or do they appear later?
Quoting Gnomon
Gnomon, I think you are giving me too much homework! :smile:
But again, I see concepts and memory connected to consciousness. These things are products of the mind, stemming from mental processes, like thinking. Esp. concepts, which involve undestanding a much higher mental faculty. They all follow perception.
Quoting Gnomon
Mimosa, leaf, ... these are concepts. "Perceived touch" on the other hand can be assigned to consciousness, since touch is one of our senses and it is one of the means we gat aware of objects.
BTW, since we are talking about "senses", it is very interesting to know that we almost always think of just our 5 common senses, although there are many more of them: senses of movement, balance, orientation, gravity, pain, and so on. All these are perceivable.
Quoting Gnomon
No. Plants are conscious. They have the ability to perceive. How else could they turn their leaves towards the sun?
(Check "Plant Consciousness: The Fascinating Evidence Showing Plants Have Human Level Intelligence, Feelings, Pain and More ( [url]http://www.esalq.usp.br/lepse/imgs/conteudo_thumb/Plant-Consciousness---The-Fascinating-Evidence-Showing-Plants-Have-Human-Level-Intelligence--Feelings--Pain-and-More.pdf[url]).)
Quoting Gnomon
Good remark. :up:
Quoting Gnomon
I'm afraid you are among the unfortunate, like myself, who belong to the minority and have to deal with that. Or are we fortunate? :smile:
Quoting Gnomon
Certainly. That's why I'm a Quora fan! :grin: (Well, not so much for reading but rather for writing. :smile:)
Quoting Gnomon
Exactly.
***
Thanks for the references (re: Blindsight and Vegetative State). They will help me in my homework. :smile:
Certainly, you are not usually "aware" that you are alive. It would be quite annoying and useless, wouldn't it? But you can be id you want, right?
To paraphrase our friend Descartes, "I am aware, therefore I exist."
(Which could be what he actually meant, since thinking is not part of consiousness/awareness. It follows it. But this is all he could think and use as a concept, since at that time, the terms and concepts of "consciousness" and "awareness" had not been developed yet.)
Quoting Patterner
I don't think you can even if you want to. And fortunately enough, it's not of any use. But it is of great use when you are in a highly emotional state, feeling lost, etc. If you are able to get aware of yourself and the situation you are involved in, you can get rid of that state faster and get your marbles back. Don't you?
Quoting Patterner
Well, if you start interpreting the object --shape or form-- of a number that you observe --i.e. as a symbol-- you start thinking about it, and this is beyond perception. Imagine how much involved in thinking --even if you are not aware of it-- if you start interpeting a whole arithmetic operation.
Consciousness/awareness stops at the perception level. The perceived, observed object.
Perception does not involve thinking.
In fact, one of the things you can do to get rid of your (useless) thoughts, is just to observe your surroundings.
Perhaps you have a broader definition of "Consciousness" and "Perception" than I do. The "C" word literally means "to know with/together", implying shared or shareable knowledge. For that reason, I tend to limit Consciousness to organisms that can share information verbally, symbolically, or by intentional physical interactions.
Perception is the intake of information, but Conception is the processing of raw data into shareable packages such as Ideas & Words, which can be exported to other conscious beings. So, I typically reserve "perception" to data inputs, and "conception" to the processing of information into knowledge (personally relevant meaning), then use "consciousness" for the highest level of information processing into inter-personal packages of Communication (words), as evidenced in human culture.
For general informal purposes, these terms are often loosely used interchangeably. But for philosophical analysis of the debatable term "consciousness", I try to make finer distinctions, to avoid the fuzzy boundaries that lead to confusion and acrimony. Materialist "don't like" to see Consciousness related to such immaterial things as Ideas & Imagination.
To answer your question : I think "perception alone" does not "involve concepts and knowledge", but merely the reception of raw data. "Conception" accepts the data inputs, and converts them into concepts, ideas, images, symbols, beliefs, etc. that are inter-related with other ideas into self-related significance (symbols). For my restrictive usage, Consciousness requires a sense of Self. From my post above : "Hence, Conception adds some personal meaning to the physical sensations of Perception". :smile:
Quoting Alkis Piskas
Again, I'll quibble with your terminology. Plants are "Sentient", in that they can sense the environment. But they are not "Conscious" in my meaning, of converting the sensory data into meaningful symbols. Admittedly, some plants can "communicate information". But, as far as I can tell, the plants don't "know" what they are doing, because the chemical processes are automatic & genetically controlled, with no need for "awareness" in the human sense of "cognition" (knowing that you know). :nerd:
Plant communication :
Plant communication encompasses communication using volatile organic compounds, electrical signaling, and common mycorrhizal networks between plants and a host of other organisms
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plant_communication
How Can We Distinguish Perception from Cognition? :
The purpose of perception is to convey correct information about our immediate surroundings. Cognition, on the other hand, involves forming beliefs, making decisions and solving problems, on the basis of already existing information. The role of cognition is therefore much more general than that of perception.
https://www.duo.uio.no/bitstream/handle/10852/58422/Sydhagen.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y
I believe you are referring to the etymology of C. Indeed, it's from Latin "con", which means "with", and scientia, which means "knowledge", i.e. "knowledge shared with others". However, this is far from what today we undestand as "consciousness". So, I don't think that is much of help.
And, since I'm talking about etymologies and references to ancient languages, let's see what my big dictionary of the ancient Greek language says about "consciousness, which is "??????????" (syneidisis) in Greek. Like in Latin, the word is formed by "syn-" (= with) and "eidisis" (= knowdlege). However, the definition that it offers has nothing to do with "with" (sharing). It means "internal knowledge, awareness of one's own thoughts". The second part is quite interesting, because it is what I have already described in my "expanded" definition of consciousness reffering to our interior world!
Yet, I wouldn't take that either as something useful, since I have never read any ancient Greek philosopher talking about "conscousness". The concept of conciousness has been developed much later, in the 18th century.
Quoting Gnomon
OK.
Quoting Gnomon
Do you mean that "perception" and "conception" are actually --or even loosely considered as-- the same thing? That is, just seeing an object is the same with thinking about that object, what is its nature, what it means, etc.?
Quoting Gnomon
Certainly.
Quoting Gnomon
I think we have already agreed on this.
Quoting Gnomon
Certainly, conciousness is connected to the Self. When we observe things we can be aware that it is us who are observing things, but we usually don't. The "switch" to self awareness at any moment is instant, almost automatic.
Quoting Gnomon
Yes, we can say that. :smile:
Quoting Gnomon
Of course they are not "conscious" based on your meaning of conciousness, since you add to it "thinking". So, you can see that by adding elements to the meaning of pure consciousness, makes it fail in its application to all cases. By adding sugar to straight coffee, makes the it not usable for diabetics. :smile:
Quoting Gnomon
I have absolutely no problem with that. :smile:
Do you think there is something it's like to be a Venus Fly Trap?
I do not believe this to be a very widely view of what sentience consists in. My understanding is there must be feeling in the sense of "what it is like to be.." involved for sentience to be observed. So, @RogueAI has a very apt question for you there..
The etymology was merely intended to indicate the primitive origins of the concept of "Consciousness", in the evolved or learned ability to distinguish Self from Other*1. "C" then evolved from un-knowing disorder into more inclusive & discriminating forms of organized interactions. FWIW, here's a quick tabulation of how I imagine the evolution of un-Consciousness into the modern sophisticated human sense of "Knowing"*2. :smile:
*1. The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind
Julian Jaynes
At the heart of this book is the revolutionary idea that human consciousness did not begin far back in animal evolution but is a learned process brought into being out of an earlier hallucinatory mentality by cataclysm and catastrophe only 3,000 years ago and still developing. The implications of this new scientific paradigm extend into virtually every aspect of our psychology, our history and culture, our religion and indeed, our future. In the words of one reviewer
https://www.julianjaynes.org/resources/books/ooc/
Note --- I don't take his theory literally, or as authoritative . . . just suggestive of possibilities
*2. Evolution of Consciousness : based on the Enformationism thesis
[i]0 --- Pre-Bang Singularity : Pure Potential = Power to Enform (create patterns & structures)
1 --- Big Bang : EnFormAction = Energy + Laws = power to evolve novel patterns from raw Potential
2 --- Plasma : boiling soup of quantum particles with little or no order (chaos)
3 --- Billions of years : Matter = Evolution of macro physical substance (stars) from quantum elements
4 --- Emergence of Earth : Habitat suitable for living organisms (warm pools of protoplasm)
5 --- Emergence of Life : Animation of Matter (single-cell food-seeking amoeba)
6 --- Emergence of Perception (Sentience) : Physical nerves & sensory organs, necessary for motion, foraging & evasion of predators (includes some plants)
7 --- Emergence of Consciousness : Brains capable of organizing sensory information, necessary for living in social groups (vision & sonar for extension of touch, and formation of concepts)
8 --- Emergence of Concepts : Brains capable of imagining unreal ideas (self concept)
9 --- Emergence of Language : Brains capable of communication (externalized concepts)
10 --- Emergence of Culture : Societies capable of organizing large groups for future goals (man on moon)[/i]
Note --- Don't take this table literally or as authoritative . . . . just suggestive of possibilities
Quoting Alkis Piskas
Yes, but. That loose interpretation is not my meaning, for philosophical purposes. It's just common popular usage for general purposes. Philosophers have to make much finer discriminations of meaning. The simple Perception of an object --- forming an image on the retina, then storing in brain --- provides little knowledge of its nature or meaning. Such comprehension requires complex processing of raw data, in more comprehensive multi-channel brains.
"Loose [s]lips[/s] terminology sinks [s]ships[/s] inter-relationships"
3. Concepts of Consciousness
[i]a> Creature Consciousness
b> State consciousness
c> Consciousness as an entity
Despite the lack of any agreed upon theory of consciousness, there is a widespread, if less than universal, consensus that an adequate account of mind requires a clear understanding of it and its place in nature.[/i]
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/consciousness/
Note --- I don't think of "Consciousness" as an entity (soul or ghost) but as a State or Process or Function of forming mental images in an imaginary Cartesian Theatre, not located in space or time, but in Erewhon.
Quoting Gnomon
After reading the above, I went to this link: https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/408645
Quoting Gnomon
From there I went to: https://enformationism.info/enformationism.info/page2%20Welcome.html
Is this your website?
Your quote from Gregory Bateson: Quoting Gnomon
leads me to ask you: have you examined Bateson's quote as taken up by Terrence W. Deacon?
If so, what do you think of Deacon's hierarchy of higher-order theromdynamic processes as the environment housing both information and consciousness?
No, but sure glad not to be the fly :lol:
I can't even know what it is like to be another person! :smile:
Now, this is not serious. And I wonder how come you are asking me this, why have you chosen something unimportant, just a comment I said about Nagel's description of "what it is like", as if it was the main point of my message to @Gnomon ...
So, what about arguing about my main point, which is the definition of conssiousness?
It was my reply to @Gnome, who wondered whether plants can perceive or not. And it was not based on my comment on Nagel's "what it is like", which was quite unimportant, but rather on the definition of consciousness.
Godssake. What'is with you guys? Just FORGET ABOUT MY REFERENCE TO NAGEL. I don't embrace his views. Nor am I willing to defend them. My undestanding of consiousness has nothing to do with his views. If you have read my whole message to @Gnomon, you would have understood that.
Certainly. I just took it up and expanded it, because of my linguistic tendencies (I'm overplaying sometimes! :smile:)
Quoting Gnomon
Well, the very common expression "I'm aware of", carrying the meaning of "I know", is an unfortunate case, a bad selection of the word "aware". And because it is so common in our everyday language, it is responsible for the misconception or even no conception people have about "awareness" and "being aware".
About your "tabulation": Wow! You keep sending me material to study! I hope I won't have to give exams on all that! :grin:
But I admit it is quite interesting. Dates are missing but it's OK, time is relative. :smile:
I liked of course esp. No. 7 "Emergence of Consciousness : Brains capable of organizing sensory information, necessary for living in social groups (vision & sonar for extension of touch, and formation of concepts)"
About No. 8 "Emergence of Concepts : Brains capable of imagining unreal ideas (self concept)": I have a different idea about the term "brain" in relation to "mind", as I think I already pointed out,
Quoting Gnomon
Of course.
Quoting Gnomon
Sure. I know well that "common" often means "misconcetion" or "ignorance", as I mentioned earlier on.
Quoting Gnomon
Well, not my cup of tea. Too many concepts involved.
Quoting Gnomon
I will chack this, in time.
Quoting Gnomon
Glad to hear that! :smile:
Quoting Gnomon
Just a question: When you are sitting confortably, with your thoughts reduced to minimum --ideally, totally absent-- can you just be aware of yourself, without thinking about it? If so, then you will have a proof for yourself that consciouness/awareness is indepenpent of thinking and thoughts, i.e. the creation of mental images.
This might take some time. I don't know you in person or enough from our exchanges in TPF. But I'm sure you can have this experience! :smile:
I'm not sure which quote you are referring to. But if it's the "patterns that connect", I use the notion of Information as Pattern frequently in my exploration of Information in the world. Did you have something specific in mind?
I'm not familiar with "Deacon's hierarchy of higher-order theromdynamic processes". But my blog has several articles that discuss some of Deacon's ideas, as they relate to the Enformationism thesis. :smile:
What Is The Power of Absence? :
Enformation (see EnFormAction), in its physical form, is the workhorse of the universe. It begins as the law of Thermo-dynamics, which is the universal tendency for energy to flow downhill from high to low or from hot to cold. Morphodynamics adds constraints on the free flow of energy. Teleodynamics adds side-channels to perform self-directed & end-directed Work. Zoe-dynamics (Life) adds work to reproduce the memory (DNA), structure & constraints of the organism into seeds of potential for future living organisms.
https://bothandblog3.enformationism.info/page33.html
The patterns which connect :
[i]Gregory Bateson and Terrence Deacon as healers of the great divide between natural and human
science[/i]
https://www.sv.uio.no/sai/english/research/projects/anthropos-and-the-material/Intranet/sinding-larsen-the-patterns-which-connect.pdf
You might get a better answer from , since he practices meditation. I tried it years ago, but my introverted mind is too ADhD for me to completely stop the flow of thought. When I'm on the verge of unconsciousness (e.g. sleep), and not focused on something external or specific internal ideas, I suppose I'm aware of Self, without thinking, in the sense of Proprioception. Does that qualify as "awareness independent of thinking" for you? How is it different from aVegetative State? :smile:
Proprioception, or kinesthesia, is the sense that lets us perceive the location, movement, and action of parts of the body.
Note --- Perception without Conception?
A vegetative state is absence of responsiveness and awareness due to overwhelming dysfunction of the cerebral hemispheres, . . .
Note --- Is a sentient-but-brainless Fly Trap aware of its unconventional eating habits? Does it think : "this fly is yummy?" Rhetorical question.
We're talking about sentience though, which is why i directly referenced sentience and it's constitution. I need not have used the Nagel line, it's just a great encapsulation. I'm really not understanding your frustration here... LOL
In the Chalmers/IIT type of sense?
Enformation (see EnFormAction), in its physical form, is the workhorse of the universe. It begins as the law of Thermo-dynamics, which is the universal tendency for energy to flow downhill from high to low or from hot to cold. Morphodynamics adds constraints on the free flow of energy. Teleodynamics adds side-channels to perform self-directed & end-directed Work. Zoe-dynamics (Life) adds work to reproduce the memory (DNA), structure & constraints of the organism into seeds of potential for future living organisms.
https://bothandblog3.enformationism.info/page33.html
You say:
Quoting Gnomon
Did you not write Post 68 that appears on your Enformationism blog?
Regarding your quote from Gregory Bateson:
Quoting Gnomon
Do you not recognize your above quote of Bateson as his definition of information?
I'm perplexed by your apparent ignorance of what's posted on your own blog.
Thanks for the paper below:
The patterns which connect :
Gregory Bateson and Terrence Deacon as healers of the great divide between natural and human
science
https://www.sv.uio.no/sai/english/research/projects/anthropos-and-the-material/Intranet/sinding-larsen-the-patterns-which-connect.pdf
Otoh, if proto-consciousness gives anything like consciousness in the presence of only stimulus and response, without too much in the way of information, like if there is something its like to be a Venus Flytrap . Well, whatever. Maybe more information systems within one entity give the proto-consciousness more to experience, and, therefore, greater consciousness. Like ours.
So, i'm not entirely sure I'm grasping what you mean, but taking a stab:
Yes, i would think if there are multiple systems interacting that would constitute a network, right? So that's just a more complex system which, to my mind, comports with the theory in the sense it would give rise to higher levels of consciousness.
Does consciousness have a sliding scale of lesser and greater? I think it's like an on/off switch. One is either conscious or not, although the things one is conscious of can be said to be "richer" or "fuller" than the things a bat is conscious of, although that might be wrong too. Who's to say the conscious experience of a vft catching a fly is less than my conscious experience of seeing a sunrise?
I think thats what's at stake
(mind and world, perception and the perceived, etc)
For one, introspective (self-referential) versus extrospective (extra-self, other).
When mind tries to understand itself, wouldn't we expect some sort of cognitive horizon or limit?
That which is tractable to objective measurement vs qualities of being ("qualia"), which are not.
Your hardcore scientific materialists say on account of this that said qualities of being must be somehow illusory or non-existent.
Check out this paper. Lends some scientific support.
I see. I know. That's why I said that it might take some time. But you don't need to do it perfectly.
Anyway, I brought up this little "experiment" to show that besides having a clear idea that consciousness is perception and experiencing --without any "additives" --like thinking and conceiving-- one can actually experience it. Indeed, I can't see a better way than this.
Quoting Gnomon
No. It isn't good for me. :smile: When you are on the verge of unconsciousness, it means you are semi-conscious. So we cannot speak of pure or full consciousness anymore. Othewise, semi-consciousness and even unconsiousness are still states of consciounsess, only that they are disordered, dysfunctional. It's like when a leg is broken: it is still a leg, only that it is dysfunctional.
Quoting Gnomon
It isn't! :grin:
But in a VS, if you are lucky, you can still hear and respond to some level! (As scientists say)
Quoting Gnomon
Brain scans reveal which 'vegetative' patients are alert, trapped in bodies
Quoting Gnomon
Right. Kinesthesia is a good example. No conception.
Quoting Gnomon
I can't tell. If I were a Fly Trap I would. :grin:
Oherwise, this is a good example too. In fact, not only plants are brainless: a lot of creatures or, better, organisms are too. Which can make one ask --but not me-- why does science negclet this fact and stiil tries to maintain that consciousness --an basic feature of all life-- is created and resides in the brain? Well, one answer is because they think of "consciousness" and "awareness" as something different than what they actually are. Another one is because they can't accept their ignorance on the subject. Still another one is that can't accept "experience" as a hard evidence. Still another ...
Thanks for bringing this up, anyway.
Well, you did use Nagel line. In fact, your whole message was based on it. Not only that, you referred me to @RogueAI 's question "Do you think there is something it's like to be a Venus Fly Trap?" on the same subject. As if my whole message was based on or built around it.
I presented a good definition of "consciousness" and supported it quite well, I believe. I expected that at least it would be argued about. But not overshadowed by irrelevant and unimportant things.
I think we have a problem just with defining how knowledge works... which in my view comes to the OP's point of no matter how much drive around the moon, you won't get to Earth.
I think we have still a lot to understand in the basics as our understanding of things like causality is still quite mechanistic. This comes in a lot of examples where our models end up with a 'black box' where the issue consciousness happens.
OK, but I also said that the term was not used in the meaning is used meaning today. Which is what we are trying to define.
Quoting ssu
Certainly. Describing the mechanics of this kind of concepts is very hard and in some cases, like with consciousness, even impossible.
Quoting ssu
Interesting example-metaphor, but where are you referring to exactly? :smile:
Quoting ssu
I guess so. Interesting thought too. Causes can be often hidden or hard to trace or multiple.
Quoting ssu
It's true. A "black box": I liked that too. I think you are very successful with your similes! :up:
Ha! I remember my blog posts in general, but give me a break, I'm old and I don't have a photographic memory. So, if I need to recall some technical details, I have to search through over a hundred articles over seven years. For example, I didn't recognize your reference to "Deacon's hierarchy of higher-order theromdynamic processes" as something I had blogged about. If you want to know more about The Power of Absence, you can read Deacon's book, or ask me a specific question, and I'll look back at my blogs to see what my opinion was several years ago. :smile:
Quoting AmadeusDQuoting RogueAII dont know if I can separate my responses to you two. I think Im addressing both. (And my apologies. I seem to have gone to some length.)
Let's just say, for the sake of argument, that there is a property of matter called proto-consciousness. A mental property, rather than a physical. Here are some thoughts from that starting point.
1) Every particle has what Skrbina called a stream of instantaneous memory-less moments of experience. It amounts to nothing at the level of individual particles. A particle with proto-consciousness (if there is such a thing) would be indistinguishable from one without it (if there is such a thing). Its just a building block.
2) A rock has... quite a few particles. All of which are experiencing their instantaneous memory-less moments. They are all experiencing the same thing, which isn't anything to write home about. There's nothing going on. Particles on the surface might experience more light, warmth, physical contact with things that are not part of the rock, and other things than particles in the interior are experiencing. But they aren't doing anything. There is no information processing. No processes of any kind. Not even any movement relative to each other. I suppose erosion is a process that the exterior experiences but the interior does not. But all in all, there's not enough going on to raise "instantaneous memory-less moments" up to something more.
3) This is from [I]Journey of the Mind: How Thinking Emerged from Chaos[/I], by Ogi Ogas and Sai Gaddam:
The simplest hypothetical mind would have one sensor and one doer. That's it. But I guess such a mind doesn't exist. (At least they can't find one.) The simplest existing mind is that of the archaea. It has two sensors (molecules of sensory rhodopsin) and two doers (flagella).
Archaea "is an example of a molecule mind, the first stage of thinking on our journey. All the thinking elements in molecule minds consist of individually identifiable molecules."
Archeae moves toward light. Compared to a rock, that's a significant thing. Different parts of the critter are doing different things. I'm not knowledgeable enough of definitions to know if this is considered information. The rhodospin changes its shape in different degrees of light, "which triggers a cascade of molecular activity that activates the" flagella. It isn't "trying" to move toward the light. It doesn't "know" it is doing so. There is no intent. Still, there is a good deal of stuff going on. Many particles are experiencing many different things. A big step up from a rock.
Is it all that different from a thermostat? Or a tiny machine that we might make that acts exactly like the archaea?
4) Journey of the Mind is a very cool book. It moves up several stages of mind-complexity. It compares things like the history of cities with consciousness. It speaks about Stephen Grossberg, who I had never heard of, but seems to be an amazing person. I would like to know more about the steps between the stages of complexity that are discussed, but I can understand the need to keep the book at a manageable size. The problem is, without those between steps, I'm not able to follow it. It seems pretty important to discuss, for example, the stages of development of neurons.
Regardless, I don't know at what point actual consciousness is present. Where is the point at which different kinds of activity being experienced within an entity in a proto-consciousness sense become a "what it's like" kind of consciousness? Nagel chose the bat because we literally cannot imagine what it's like to be a bat, experiencing the world through echolocation, flying and catching bugs while flying to eat. OTOH, it's a mammal like us, with a neo-cortex like us, so we might reasonably think it has subjective experience; that there is something it is like to be a bat. But when did that happen? How many different processes, and how many processes containing information, were needed for consciousness to exist? (I would say this question applies whether or not something like proto-consciousness exists.)
But I think information is essential. Proto-consciousness might experience any number of purely physical things without leading to consciousness. But information is not physical. It's not a physical property, like mass or charge. It's not a physical process, like movement or flight, which we can see depend on the physical properties like mass and charge. So proto-consciousness experiences something entirely different when it experiences systems built on information. And that non-physical property experiencing non-physical processes is consciousness.
That's my story, vague though it is, and I'm sticking with it.
Not quite. I delineated sentience from consciousness (or that was my intention). Because your definition to my mind (and maybe RogueAIs) doesnt rise to sentience and therefore there would be nothing its like to be a vft on that account. I cant see the problem. The Nagel line was a useful way of outlining why I see a disconnect between conscious experience viz. sentience and consciousness per se. It was about what youd said.
Panpsychism*1 & Panexperientialism typically postulate that Conscious Experience is a fundamental element of nature, implying that it existed prior to the emergence of Brains. It also suggests that the Cosmos as a whole may be conscious of its own internal events. Such notions are similar to my own thesis of Enformationism, except that I replace anthro-morphic (personal) "Consciousness" with natural (abstract) "Information". As indicated in my Evolution of Consciousness tabulation in a previous post, I have come to think of Generic Information (causal Energy + limiting Law) as the fundamental force in nature. Also, I make no assumptions about a god-like sentient universe, which is way above my pay-grade.
Shannon took a word originally associated with human ideas (information), and applied it to physical processes characterized by Uncertainty (ignorance) & Entropy (dissipation). As a pragmatic engineer, he omitted the idealistic mental/metaphysical aspect of Information, which is more like Certainty (knowledge) & Negentropy*2 (organization). His definition works well for non-conscious machines, but not for humans with ideas & feelings of their own.
In my thesis, I coined the term "Enformationism" to serve as an alternative to older philosophical concepts of Panpsychism, Spiritualism & Materialism. The made-up word "Enformy"*3, was imagined as a philosophical opposite of scientific Entropy : Negentropy. Enformy is a positive & constructive force in the world, while Entropy is negative & destructive. It's based on the notion that EnFormAction (energy + order) is a causal force, and one of its effects was to construct (via gradual evolution) computer-like meat-brains capable of Conscious functions and Self-Awareness. Those neologisms are not scientific or religious terms, but hypothetical philosophical postulations.
The human brain provides command & control functions for the human body. And "experience" (history + memory) is necessary for precise control in the self-interest of the holistic human system in an impersonal world . But, I wouldn't call that necessity "hard evidence" for a super-personal function, such as Cosmic Mind. :smile:
*1. Panpsychism is the idea that consciousness did not evolve to meet some survival need, nor did it emerge when brains became sufficiently complex. Instead it is inherent in matter all matter. In other words, everything has consciousness.
https://www.discovermagazine.com/mind/panpsychism-the-trippy-theory-that-everything-from-bananas-to-bicycles-are
Note --- my thesis is based on the notion that Consciousness did evolve from some a priori undeveloped Potential (seed) like mathematical Information (e.g. abstract geometrical relationships & ratios). Consciousness is the ability to interpret such abstract proportions into personal meaning. The unresolved question remains : who or what planted that seed?
*2. Negentropy is used to explain the presence of order within living beings and their tendency to oppose the chaos and disorganization that governs physical systems.
https://www.scirp.org/journal/paperinformation?paperid=99336
*3. Enformy :
[i]In the Enformationism theory, Enformy is a hypothetical, holistic, metaphysical, natural trend or causal force, that counteracts Entropy & Randomness to produce complexity & progress. [see post 63 for graph]
1. I'm not aware of any "supernatural force" in the world. But my Enformationism theory postulates that there is a meta-physical force behind Time's Arrow and the positive progress of evolution. Just as Entropy is sometimes referred to as a "force" causing energy to dissipate (negative effect), Enformy is the antithesis, which causes energy to agglomerate (additive effect).
2. Of course, neither of those phenomena is a physical Force, or a direct Cause, in the usual sense. But the term "force" is applied to such holistic causes as a metaphor drawn from our experience with physics.
3. "Entropy" and "Enformy" are scientific/technical terms that are equivalent to the religious/moralistic terms "Evil" and "Good". So, while those forces are completely natural, the ultimate source of the power behind them may be preternatural, in the sense that the First Cause logically existed before the Big Bang.[/i]
https://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page8.html
Note --- I call Enformy "preternatural" because the Energy & Laws of Nature logically must have preceded the Big Bang, in order to allow for complexifying Evolution instead of dissipative Devolution. I postulate no religious doctrines from that philosophical conjecture into the void of ignorance before the beginning of space-time.
That's much better! Why didn't you talk about that in the first place?
Anyway, thanks for coming back with something that can be discussed about. :smile:
Now, I don't know what does sentience mean to you. You can tell me next time.
Until then, let's see how Dictionary.com defines "sentient" (since "sentience" refers to it) as: "having the power of perception by the senses; conscious[/i]. Oxford Language Dictionary (used by Google) defines it as "able to perceive or feel things". And so on,
So, basically "sentience" is perception and, by extension, consiousness. And it applies fully to my expanded definition and my overall description of consciousness. In fact, I often use the word "sentient" myself, when I say e.g. "consiousness is a characteristic of sentient beings".
Does all this satisfy your query about "sentience?
You make a good point and I apologize for being unreasonable.
Quoting Gnomon
Quoting Post 68
Did you write the section of Post 68 quoted above?
I plead the fifth! What if I did? Do you have philosophical issues with these fanastic & unproven ideas? For the record, I am not now, nor ever have been a member of any science-subversive New Age conspiracy. :joke:
I may-or-may-not-have also written a post on the strange notion of Morphogenesis, as postulated by rogue biologist Rupert Sheldrake, "to support his idea that biological evolution is not just a mechanism of particles in motion, but also a product of organizing fields". Personally, I don't find that idea any weirder than spooky Quantum Field physics, which postulates a universal "field" (cosmic set) of abstract (metaphysical) mathematical information. :cool:
Form Fields :
[i]Sheldrakes theory of morphogenetic fields has been enthusiastically accepted by New Agers, who believe in Chakras and Etheric Bodies. But staid old scientists are not impressed by imagery and fantasy. They patiently and stubbornly wait for empirical data.
Without hard evidence, its just a theory. Actually, its a hypothesis, which will remain unproven until a mathematical formulation is found to integrate it into the accepted canon of scientific facts, such as the standard model of physics.
Likewise, Enformationism is just a theory, with a possible why explanation for how observations. So it will remain in limbo until a formal logical and physical formulation is developed.[/i]
https://bothandblog2.enformationism.info/page55.html
Note --- The language of Quantum Fields and Morphic Fields sound like New Age nonsense, until you look deeper into the reasoning underlying it. But, what does all this gobbledygook have to do with Consciousness?
"The Morphic Resonance that actually causes new things to emerge from the evolutionary chain of cause & effect can be envisioned as a pattern of vibrations (energy) that carry information like radio waves." https://bothandblog2.enformationism.info/page55.html
"Quantum fields are made up of quantum oscillators, an infinity-of-infinities of them" https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/658788/what-are-quantum-fields-made-up-of
"In quantum field theory, the universe's truly elementary entities are fields that fill all space. Particles are localized,resonant excitations of these fields,vibrating like springs in an infinite mattress." https://www.quantamagazine.org/how-the-physics-of-resonance-shapes-reality-20220126/
That we are looking for a certain mechanism in how knowledge works. Just like driving on the surface of a planet can get you anywhere on the surface of the planet, but not to another planet. Earlier it lead people to think in a mechanically deterministic World, the Clockwork Universe and people simply to think that if we know all the laws of nature and all the revelant information, then we can extrapolate everything and make a correct model of the future. Basic idea of the deterministic World where we can like Leibniz said, simply calculate everything!
The problem is of course that we are part of that universe and so is our model, that also has an impact on reality. Thus we cannot make an objective, computable model of that reality.
The problem that we use the models that we have, which obviously aren't so good. After all, if they would be, there wouldn't be any discussion even in this Forum. If there would be a clear answer, someone would just remind the questioner to read 1.0 logic or math or even a book about philosophy!
I think the reason is that our logic that we use assumes clear, yet consciousness (just as learning) is all about subjectivity. The subjective and subjectivity cannot be put into a objective, computational model or algorithm. That's why we end using the metaphor of a 'black box'.
I don't think there's any controversy here. I don't have any philosophical issues with the quoted section of Post 68. I asked if you wrote the quotation because thermo-dynamics, morpho-dynamics and teleo-dynamics are, by my understanding, cornerstones of Terrence W. Deacon's important book, "Incomplete Nature."
Deacon, being a neuro-anthropologist with a history of professorships at Harvard U, Boston U and UC Berkeley, makes me dis-inclined to jump to the conclusion he propounds controversial, fringe science.
I just thought you might be able to elaborate enformationism within the context of Deacon's three-stage hierarchy. From Deacon I understand, in the simple manner of a layperson, that both information and sentience are situated within the hierarchy as emergent-yet-dependent properties.
Even though you quote his three components, I can't tell for sure if you accept them as real and essential to information and sentience.
Also, I'd like to know if enformationism has major differences from Deacon's model.
Why, is there an "Unconscious Experience"? :smile:
Yes, I know about panpsychism. And I'm totally against it. Simply, I cannot imagine how a stone can have a "mind". Of course, it depends how one defines "mind". Some even define it in QM terms. I have heard a lot of such a stuff and they are just unreal for me. I 'm, closer to Science view that the mind is a product of the brain or even is identified with the brain --something that is already unreal to me-- than matter having a mind.
Quoting Gnomon
Besides that I don't know what does P conceive the terms "conscious" and "consiousness", things tlike "it may be conscious" are not good for me. Let's go on ...
Quoting Gnomon
Unfortunately, I'm not knowledgable on the subject. But I'm willing to know about your thesis.
Also, I'm not good in Physics, not knowledgeable enough to examine things like Entropy, etc. In fact, I was never really interested about them in my life. The evidence of this is that I have never read a book of Physics just for fun or by interest. Well, except Capra's "The Tao of Physics". :smile:
Quoting Gnomon
Why, are there "conscious machines"?
How can someone evaliuate such propositions when one cannot accept that matter is conscious in the first place? It's a "lost case", isn't it?
***
Gnomon, I have an idea: Tell me about or give me a link to your thesis. I will be glad to read it, on the condition that there are no references to external sources in it that I will have to read in order to undestand or confirm your points.
Well, I undestood that in the first place. But what that has to do with the current topic, "Why is the Hard Problem of Consciousness so hard?" Do you mean that the problem is about or has to do with going in circles or some kind of a vicious circle? Or maybe that scientists look at the subject of consciousness only from its surface, without being able to look "inside" it? The second one alludes also to the "black box" you are talking about.
Well, that can be the case too, but my undestanding of the problem is much simpler: they just look in the wrong place. Which is the brain. Because consciousness is not to be found in it. That's why I say that the HPoC does not actually exist. It's an illusory problem.
Quoting ssu
Nicely put.
Quoting ssu
There's an arguable point here: that "we are part of the universe". And it is were "dualists" and "non-dualists" separate themselves. (The quotation marks on the latter two terms mean that I use them very rarely and loosely, only for description purposes.)
Quoting ssu
I agree.
Quoting ssu
:smile: No, it's certainly not textbook material. :smile:
Quoting ssu
Certainly. Tell that to [s][/s]scientists, esp. the neurophysicists and the neurobiologists.
Quoting ssu
:up:
In this article, Goff writes:
In this Ted Talk, Chalmers says:
In [I]Panpsychism in the West[/I], Skrbina writes:
I was thinking of the problem is the most simple way in mathematics. Usually our models are mathematical, so the simple model would be y=f(x) where the function, the algorithm, here is the thing that explains the change, right?
So basically what is said earlier that "all the laws of nature and all the revelant information, then we can extrapolate everything and make a correct model of the future", would be as a mathematical model y=f(x) where the future is y, all the revelant information (of the past) is x and the all the laws of nature are f.
But then here the function also in the "world" and has an effect. Yet as Wittgenstein said in his Tractatus 3.333 "The reason why a function cannot be its own argument is that the sign for a function already contains the prototype of its argument, and it cannot contain itself."
Quoting Alkis Piskas
Or even economists! Because even in economics this has reared it's ugly head. The problem is that when the aggregate of economics decisions of all players in the economy make is affected by the model itself that tries to explain there actions, where then is objectivity? You cannot have an economic model that says that people behaved this way because they believed this model itself. Why? Because...
You might argue that somewhat controllable feedback loop would erase this, but it actually doesn't. Only in some situations you can find a solution. But if the feedback loop is self-referrential and negative, there is no answer.
It just like try writing a sentence that you never will write. Are there such sentences? Definetly. Can you write them? Obviously not yourself. That's the power of negative self reference.
And lastly, I think it's obvious that self-reference plays a crucial part in consciousness.
Other than reading his book, Incomplete Nature, I have not gotten deeply into Deacon's scientific & philosophical system. So, anything I might say may be based on a superficial understanding. My main takeaway from the book was the notion that the "absent" feature of nature is Potential : that which is not yet, but has the power to be. A secondary concept is that of "constraints", which I interpret as natural Laws --- begging the question of a Lawmaker.
I haven't made any systematic attempt to describe Enformationism in terms of his "three stage hierarchy", but I do occasionally refer to those aspects of Nature in other contexts. The excerpt below, from post 68, briefly summarizes how I viewed those "stages" at the time (2019). Each of the stages is a particular form of Causation (dynamics) with specific applications to Evolution. Enformationism is coming from a different direction, but seeking answers to similar questions.
For example, Thermodynamics is what we typically call Energy, which usually flows downhill, from Hot to Cold, and from Potential to Entropy. Morphodynamics focuses on the physical form (superficial shape or topology) of things that have been transformed from one configuration to another, or one species to another. The process of metamorphosis is guided by the constraints of natural Laws. On top of those low-level physical procedures, Teleodynamics focuses on the general & universal changes wrought by the advancement of Causation in the world --- including the Purposes of late-blooming humans.
The "teleo" prefix implies that an apparently purposeful process is aimed at some future state, as-if it is a computer program seeking an answer to Douglas Adam's computer-stumping riddle : "what is God, the Universe, and Everything?" That's a philosophical question, not suitable for digital computers, or even AI-chatbots.
The Big Bang theory didn't answer The Ultimate Question, but it did give us a model of how the physical world evolves, with novel "emergent-yet-dependent" properties that did not exist in previous stages. That's why Emergence is an essential concept for us to think about how Generic Information (EnFormAction ; directed Energy) could eventually produce such non-physical non-things as organic Life & sentient Mind.
Regarding the long-delayed evolution of Self-Conscious beings, an associate of Deacon's, Jeremy Sherman wrote Neither Ghost Nor Machine : The emergence and nature of Selves. He expands on Deacon's hypothetical "AutoGens", as the missing link between physical and biological evolution. "Deacon suggests the autogen as a minimal Kantian Whole where the parts exist for and by means of the whole". So, you might add Holism (metaphysical system-building) to the list of dynamic powers of a maturing universe. :smile:
Enformation (see EnFormAction), in its physical form, is the workhorse of the universe. It begins as the law of Thermo-dynamics, which is the universal tendency for energy to flow downhill from high to low or from hot to cold. Morphodynamics adds constraints on the free flow of energy. Teleodynamics adds side-channels to perform self-directed & end-directed Work. Life adds work to reproduce the memory (DNA), structure & constraints of the organism into seeds of potential for future living organisms. The Life force is not a physical substance though ? as some envision Spirit, Soul, Chi, Prana, or elan vital, but merely the process of recycling successful patterns of organization. So, what is the ultimate attractor4 toward which all change is directed?
https://bothandblog3.enformationism.info/page33.html
What about a ball? Or a pencil? :smile:
"Stone" was just an example, Patterner. Any object would do. And surely you must have heard about matter having consciousness in a panpsychist context.
"Panpsychism is the view that all things have a mind or a mind-like quality."(https://iep.utm.edu/panpsych/)
Isn't "stone" an object, a thing?
But the problem with this is not whether objects can be considered as having a mind or consciousness, but, as (I think) I said, that P does not describe what it considers mind and consciousness to be, what do these things actually mean to it, at least not in my knowledge.
[i]"Panpsychism does not necessarily attempt to define mind (although many panpsychists do this), nor
does it necessarily explain how mind relates to the objects that possess it."[/i] (Same source.)
So, we actually cannot make any kind of valid judgement about the panpsychist views, can we?
Quoting Patterner
No one speaks about thoughts. Even in humans, this is another process, outside consciousness. If we speak about consciousness in objects, we have to ask simple: "Do objects perceive?" If we can prove they do, then all its fine and I will personally support Panpsychism. :simle:
Quoting Patterner
Again, we don't speak about the quality or level of consciousness between humans and objects or even the differences between human and object consciousness. That would have a meaning if first, as I said above, it is proven that objects percieve, i.e. can be conscious, have any consiousness at all.
Maybe I miss some basic in all this. Which I don't think I do.
On the other hand, maybe there's an aspect of matter --e.g. at the level of quantum particles or fields-- that justifies the panpsychist vews that can be considered as "perception". Although I can't see how even this could change anything ...
Quoting Patterner
I know he does. I also believe that he is responsible for the widely spread HPofC, which I have called eadlier in the discussion of this topic as an "illusionary" problem, since it doesn't really exist in terms of its description.
***
You have brought in the discussion quite a few experts. Good. But I would like better to hear about your own ideas and position on the subject.
Well srighty then. The common sense view as sun revolves around the Earth. There are only 3 dimensions. Stars are just points of light in the sky. Direct realism is true. Right right. Carry on!
Well, I can't tell. It's too general. Even after your elaboration of it, it's too theoretical for me. I love Math but not so muach on a theoretical level.
Quoting ssu
Right. I have taken a two-semester course of Economics in college and I loved it. Everything was very clear to me. Everything made sense. A few years later, I couldn't explain anything regarding economic situations, like relationships between unemployment and inflation, inflation and bank interest rates, the effects os stock markets and all that stuff. Nothing made sense to me anymore! :smile:
Quoting ssu
Of course.
Quoting ssu
If you mean self-consciousness, or better self-awareness, I believe yes, it plays a crucial role. Esp. in distiguishing humans from other beings.
Quoting Alkis PiskasYou can get a pretty good idea of my own ideas and position on the subject in the last post I made before that one, looks like eleven posts before it.
Quoting Gnomon
In the above quote do you express a binary view of physical/non-physical, which is to ask, do you see them as discrete polarities?
Quoting Gnomon
Above I asked about you possibly owning a binary physical/non-physical view because I suspect Deacon is propounding a view that might be characterized as absential-materialism, or absential-existentialism. As such, his theory is, in my understanding, non-binary materialism.
Quoting Gnomon
Your overview of Incomplete Nature is instructive and useful. Can you contrast Incomplete Nature and Enformationism?
"Conscious Experience" is a form of repetition of a concept in different words, for emphasis.
I'm not emotionally "against" Panpsychism ; it serves a purpose. I just consider it a primitive way of understanding how immaterial Life/ Consciousness*1 could exist in a material world. The other ancient worldview, Materialism (Atomism), had no answer for that metaphysical question. Panpsychism (all sentient) is similar to Spiritualism (all divine), in that it assumes that matter emerged from a mind-like or life-like progenitor, instead of the other way around. Enformationism updates all of those pre-scientific postulations, with inputs from Quantum & Information Theories.The material world is still built upon an immaterial foundation of novelty-creating (surprise) power-to-enform, which is no more Spiritual than Mathematics ; except that some kind of Great Mathematician may be implicit in Wheeler's "It from Bit" conjecture*2. :smile:
*1. Both are "functions" of material organisms, but functions themselves are mental/mathematical.
*2. It from Bit :
Wheeler categorised his long and productive life in physics into three periods: "Everything is Particles", "Everything is Fields", and "Everything is Information".
https://plus.maths.org/content/it-bit
Quoting Alkis Piskas
Sorry. I can't satisfy your request for "no references". If you want a bare bones summary of the Enformationism, look at Wheeler's scientific thesis*3.
But, if you are willing to slog through an amateur philosophical thesis, which is intended to broaden the application of Wheeler's quantum physics inference to a more general approach toward understanding "God, the Universe, and Everything", have a go at my own plodding exploration of the topic*4. It has lots of footnotes & references, but only for those who are genuinely interested in the immaterial subject matter. :nerd:
*3. John Archibald Wheeler :
In 1990, Wheeler suggested that information is fundamental to the physics of the universe. According to this "it from bit" doctrine, all things physical are information-theoretic in origin:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Archibald_Wheeler
*4. Enformationism :
A worldview or belief system grounded on the assumption that Information, rather than Matter, is the basic substance of everything in the universe. It is intended to be an update to the 17th century paradigm of Materialism, and to the ancient ideologies of Spiritualism. It's a "substance" in the sense of Aristotle's definition as Essence.
https://enformationism.info/enformationism.info/
Yes, my thesis accepts that our world appears to be Dualistic in that Mind & Matter are polar opposites : like something & nothing. Yet, we only know about Matter by use of the Mind. Hence, the thesis is ultimately Monistic, in the sense of Spinoza's "Single Substance". :smile:
Substance Monism. The most distinctive aspect of Spinoza's system is his substance monism; that is, his claim that one infinite substanceGod or Natureis the only substance that exists. His argument for this monism is his first argument in Part I of the Ethics.
https://iep.utm.edu/spinoz-m/
Quoting ucarr
I can't speak for Deacon, but I'd interpret his Mind/Matter ; Presence/Absence ; Potential/Actual ; Real/Ideal duality as merely the appearance to our physical senses and pondering minds. Yet philosophically, I suspect that he would accept a "non-binary" fundamentally Monistic view, but I can't see it as a form of Materialism in any sense. :cool:
Incomplete Nature :
Starting with substance monism, we see that as a result of the three levels of dynamics, namely thermodynamics, morphodynamics, and teleodynamics that ...
https://www.jstor.org/stable/24761945
Quoting ucarr
I have already compared & contrasted bits & pieces of his Incompleteness theorem in my blog, as noted in posts above. But, while similar, they are not really parallel concepts. His is professional & scientific and mine is amateur & philosophical. I have merely adopted some of his evocative terminology --- Absence & Aboutness --- for my own purposes. :nerd:
Deacon outlines an ambitious goal: understanding the emergence of consciousness from insensate matter https://axispraxis.wordpress.com/2020/08/25/intrinsic-incompleteness-deacon-on-ententional-processes/
I think that's the case. And the natural solution is better than the contrived solution of a formal definition.
Do you consider Philosophy --- "contrived solutions" --- a waste of time? Should we all just accept our personal intuition, without making any attempt to resolve differences of opinion on such questions? Should we all just play video games instead of posting on opinion-swapping forums? :smile:
How do I know what I think until I see what I say?
? E.M. Forster
If someone comes across a set of marks in the most fortuitous way and intuits that these marks contain a message or information, they cannot validate that intuition a priori. And a posteriori the information that he has obtained has only emerged from translation processes. That is to say, the information that appears is not contained in the marks, but is born from the relationship between a system of signs (the language of the receiver) and another system of signs (the language of an issuer).
If the information is born from the a posteriori relationship, it must always be assumed a priori that there is a moment of uninformed reality (in the sense that there is no message hidden or stored somewhere). This would be a kind of refutation of information Platonism, according to which information is something fundamental and the essence of everything that exists.
____________________________
On the other hand, I don't quite understand the reasoning that leads to saying that an inanimate object, like a rock, can have consciousness or some degree of it. Unless you work with an ad-hoc and invented definition of what consciousness is. Consciousness, however, in the most general way, implies an immediate act of reflection in perception, intentionality and expressivity thus self-consciousness is involved in every act of consciousness. How do you discover an act of reflection, intentionality and expressiveness in a rock? And someone will ask: Why intentionality, expressiveness and immediate reflection of perception? Well, we have no other evidence than what we ourselves verify in our self-consciousness. That is why an ad-hoc definition of consciousness contrary to the evidence cannot be adapted to fit, say, the physical processes that make up a rock. Therefore, what some people call "panpsychism" can only be a belief based on an ad-hoc definition of consciousness, but one that contradicts the only evidence we have for consciousness.
I'm a bit confused by this. I've often made the point that one can take an item of information - say a recipe, formula, or even an anecdote - and translate it between (1) different languages; (2) different media (e.g. magnetic media, pencil and paper, engraving on metal) and (3) different symbolic systems (i.e. language, binary code, morse code). But in each case if the information is received and interpreted correctly, the result will be a correct representation of the original information in a different form.
So my question is, what is different, and what stays the same?
Quoting JuanZu
I quite agree with that. I've always believed that the crude panpsychist approach to the mind-body problem attempts to solve the dilemma by declaring that physical objects have mental attributes (see this post.
Of course I like to know what you say. I keep coming back. Things turn up here that I wouldn't think up on my own.
I would suggest that information works the way it does because brain state is the common denominator. If you remove brains from the relevant environment information doesn't exist.
Can you refute that?
Well, information archicture first manifests in extremely simple organisms, without brains. But leaving that aside, (1) the nature of meaning is not a question for brain science at all. And (2) the same general observation can be made concerning the multiple realizability of information in brain states. This means that the same meaning (1+1=2) can be replicated across an enormous variety of brain states. Only the meaning remain constant, whilst the states themselves change all the time. Furthermore, whatever the brain state is, it always must culminate in the semantic fact of 1 + 1 equalling 2, any other output is false. So it can't really be understood in respect of 'brain states', which is just a hand-waving way of referring everything back to physical science.
That's completely off base. Without brains any meaning would not even exist. Just physical matter existing as physical matter. Why should I take you seriously?
Living organisms without brains exist, but they embody information in the form of DNA, which is what differentiates organism from inorganic matter.
Your brain is projecting "information" on DNA.
It's not real.
Review what the chemistry of DNA is.
You can blame it on public education if you like. They promote every lame version of information there is. Step up to the information booth...you know...mindless.
Not being too critical of the people in public education, but they don't have the guidance to do it right and the population has the idea that information is something that it isn't. It's an issue.
Alright, if that is your position..
Mine is that a carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, phosphorus atom, etc is just that and nothing more as it exists in DNA. To call them genetic instructions is just an educational tool. Again, not real.
Focus, these are physical forces at play in controlled sequence. Not the information of our brains.
I reviewed DNA theory and it's more complex than I remember. Maybe I got the easy version in school. Some of the current graphics are much better than I had years ago. It looks like just atoms and geometry to me.
That is not 'my position'. It is a fact. There is nothing like the ability of DNA to store and transmit in information outside the realm of organic life, and for that reason, it is a matter of dispute whether and in what sense organic life is only or wholly physical, or whether biology really can be reduced to physics. Put it this way - if you were presented with everything known about physics, there would be no way to infer from that the complex relationships that govern organic interactions.
This is one of the motivations behind biosemiotics (something I've learned a bit about from this forum.) Biosemiotics 'is a field of semiotics and biology that studies the prelinguistic meaning-making, biological interpretation processes, production of signs and codes and communication processes in the biological realm.
Biosemiotics integrates the findings of biology and semiotics and proposes a paradigmatic shift in the scientific view of life, in which semiosis (sign process, including meaning and interpretation) is one of its immanent and intrinsic features. (Wiki)'
A key point about biosemiotics is the shift from the metaphor of 'mechanism' to that of 'language' or 'signs'.
You're simply advocating what is called 'brain-mind identity theory'. This is the philosophy of mind that the mind and the brain are one and the same, and that knowledge, reason, affective states, and so on, are 'brain states'. I know some of the philosophers that argue for that view, but I also know that it has generally fallen out of favour as being too simplistic. Even those who still propose such a view argue for a form of 'non-reductive physicalism' which accepts that while mental states are physical in nature, they cannot be fully reduced to brain states, due to the conceptual issues of trying to equate brain-states with affective states or propostional knowledge. This allows for a physicalist view of the mind without the strict identity claims of the earlier theory, but at the cost of having a very open definition of 'physical' (like, 'whatever it is, it must be physical'.)
I would say, following Deleuze a bit: If the same meaning endures through different incarnations it is because there is a common and potential (but not determined) upon which they gravitate. That is, if we take translation between different languages as an example, it can be said that the output language internalizes the input language and vice versa. There is a communication, but what is communicated (insofar as it is something that transcends all its incarnations) seems more like a potential that cannot be reduced to the identical. That is, when we say that one language internalizes another, we are saying that the identity of one language extends to corrupt the identity of another language. This means that meaning is an external relationship where each term of the relationship is idealized, or virtualized, losing its particular identity. In this sense it must be said that both languages communicate through potential otherness. But the point is that the meaning that appears does not precede the relationship that actualizes it.
Starting with physical properties, we can build up and up until we have things like perceptions; signals of damage to the skin traveling to the brain, and signals traveling from the brain to the muscles, moving the part of the body being damaged away from the cause; patterns stored in the brain; on and on. But we don't arrive at the subjective experience of those things. And we can't go in the other direction, either.
Subjective experience of things and events is not the same thing as those things and events. So we don't get to say we are breaking consciousness down to impulses traveling along nerves when we break muscle movement down to impulses traveling along nerves. They are different things, so one explanation doesn't satisfy both.
The problem is we do not have an explanation for consciousness. To repeat a lot of a post I made a few months ago, neurophysiologist Christopher Koch, the president and chief scientist of the Allen Institute for Brain Science, and someone's who believes consciousness can be explained in physical terms, paid off his bet to Chalmers, because, if it is, they haven't figured out how.
Brian Greene wrote:and
So serious scientific minds that are dedicated to the idea that it is explainable in physical terms say we cannot do so. While that is not evidence that it is not explainable in physical terms, it is certainly not evidence that it is. The Hard Problem is hard, and unsolved, according to the experts on opposite sides of the fence.
In addition, what's going on physically doesn't suggest consciousness. As Chalmers says:and
Totally agree with what youre saying, but it seems to miss the point that it was intended to address, i.e. whether it makes any sense to say that rocks have consciousness. I for one think it doesnt.
(If the public disagrees as to whether a chatbot is conscious, are they really disagreeing over facts about the chatbot?
That would cause me to change my mind about many things, including my sanity.
Chatbots are a different matter, though. I asked a chatbot.
Oddly enough, I believe it's correct.
But I just gave you a reference about that, the definition of "Panpsychism". Do you reject it, as well as all references with a similar description, on the ground that you have not heard any panpsychist say that any inanimate object has a mind? Or do you have another definition of P according to which objects are not conscious or do not have consciousness?
Quoting Patterner
Yes, we already talked about that.
Quoting Patterner
You make my life difficult, Patterner. :smile: Couldn't you give me just the link of that post?
Anyway, I guess is https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/859760, in which you responded to @AmadeusD, right? But you are bringing up extrenal referenses there too (Skrbina, Ogi Ogas and Sai Gaddam, "Journey of the Mind" book).
Anyway #2, I have "filtered" that post, keeping only what you youself are stating.
So, let's see ...
Re "Let's just say, for the sake of argument, that there is a property of matter called proto-consciousness. A mental property, rather than a physical.":
OK, but how can something physical have a property that is not physical, call it "mind" or whatever else?
I believe you start with a hypothesis that cannot stand, it's not grounded. You are trying to build a theory on the air or from air. Anyway.
Re "A particle with proto-consciousness (if there is such a thing) would be indistinguishable from one without it (if there is such a thing). Its just a building block.":
Now, you doubt about your basic assumption, i.e. the existence of something you have initially postulated as existing. And what do you mean by a "building block"? Is that something physical or non-physical? Is the particle with proto-consciousness such "building block"?
Re "A rock has... quite a few particles. All of which are experiencing their instantaneous memory-less moments.":
What do you mean by "memory-less moments"? I suppose you are implicitly, silently adding another hypothesis or postulate, which is the existence of something called "memory-less moments" and which is experienced by particles. That is, you postulate that particles have a memory but there are moments that this is absent. Like a person who suffers from amnesia after a hard blow on the head. Right?
Re "all in all, there's not enough going on to raise "instantaneous memory-less moments" up to something more.":
How is "instantaneous memory-less moments" raised?
I believe, the whole scheme lacks something very basic: A definition or description of "memory" in the context or level of a particle. That is, what does memotry mean for a particle? What kind of "memory" do particles have? Do you see what I mean?
I have to discontinue my reading of your theory here. I can't follow it. Too many links are missing from the chain.
A final question: Is all this an attempt of solving the HPofC, which is the subject of this topic?
Thanks anyway for responding to my request of your own position on the subject.
But presumably human cognition, emotion, awareness, and behavior are equally describable in terms of adaptive algorithms , data, environmental feed-back and pattern-matching.
In which case, how can disagreements over the sentience of chatbots, robots , non-human animals, and even disagreements regarding the sentience of other human beings, be regarded as disagreements over matters-of-fact?
A description is not the thing described.
But we fools rush in...
Quoting Wayfarer
[quote=The Incredible String Band]I asked the ice, it would not say
But only cracked or moved away,
I thought I knew me yesterday
Whoever sings this song.[/quote]
Ducks on a Pond.
But this fool will declare, if anyone cares to attend, that just as marriage is not to be found in a man or a woman, but in a relationship, which is an ongoing process of dance, back and forth, so consciousness is a relation between an organism and an environment. ChatGPT is a materialist's teddy; a comfort-blanket/imaginary friend.
Quoting JuanZu
Footprints mean feet, dinosaur footprints mean dinosaur feet. The Earth holds memory of the past as much as any brain. the information is there just as this post is here, but it is first in the writing, and later across the world in the reading that it becomes conscious. Or rather, a post is firstly a product of consciousness, and secondly an object of consciousness, or a content of consciousness. And to the extent that something of this is understood by another, we are 'of one mind'. This is called communication. There is a sameness produced when you see what I mean or I see what you mean. And, "where is this sameness or when is it?" are misleading, foolish questions.
I thought I knew me yesterday, because all knowledge is memory, but whoever writes this post is conscious, and that is not knowable, because it is presence, not the past.
True, but the distinction is easily lost in communication.
To see a robot as a mind is not to infer that the robot has a mind. By contrast, to see that the robot has sensors relaying information to Machine Learning algorithms is not to see the robot as having sensors and ML algorithms.
The word "other" in "other-minds" is where the confusion lies, for insinuating indirect-realism with respect to the mental qualities that we directly project onto others.
Why being "not emotionally" against it? Isn't just "not against" it enough? :smile
The question I think is whether we can make a solid, well-grounded hypothesis about the matter being conscious. Be it in QM terms, as I said, or any other theory of Physics. Or even in terms of the structure of the brain. I wouldn't care what. Anything that could indicate that matter is conscious. Otherwise what does it serve as a way of undertanding how consciousness could exist in the material world?
Wel already have cartoons in which objects are not only conscious but also quite alive and even behave much like humans. :grin:
Quoting Gnomon
Most probably not. I hate Materialism. (Ooops! Here's myself feeling emotional about a philosophical system! :grin:)
Well, what could one expect from Materialism to tell us regarding consciousness? It's what its main supporters, scientists, esp. neuroscientists, say about it: that it is a product of and resides in the brain.
So, we can skip that too.
Quoting Gnomon
This is true. Only I wouldn't reduce Spiritualism to "divine". It holds that spirit exists separately from the body and that it is the only reality. But this is not new and it is not only Spiritualism that believes it, but a lot of philosophers, who hold, e.g. that consciousness is the only reality and that everything exists in it. And no one of them uses the term "Spiritualism" or even use the very common word "spirit". Most probably because they are both regarded with contempt. Yet, the word "spirit" refers actually to the "non-physical" part of a human, and "spiritual" to a "non-physical" nature, attributes, elements, etc. Things about which a lot of philosophers talk. See, that's why I avoid using "isms". They are connected with misconceptions and biases.
Quoting Gnomon
This is an interesting concept and worldview. I only know a little about it.
And see, QM keep coming in my away all too often. Yet, I have never indulged in this subject either. But I have a feeling about it.
Quoting Gnomon
Not glad about it, but I can accept it.
See, the reason why I'm often asking about more personal views and less external references, is because 1) I believe that if someone's reality on a subject is well established, independently of where one has built it from or how, one does not need to refer to external sources in a discussion. Otherwise, it may be considered even "appeal to authority", which used to persuade the intended others of one's statements or views. 2) In the majority of the cases in which I do read external references proposed by someone in a discusstion, the result is wasted time.
Quoting Gnomon
I see here some invalidation of personal views. Because in here we are all amateurs and it seems that our personal views are not good or enough. And why a professional or expert vew is necessarily better? Do you agree with all the philosophers or known personalities about what they say? Of course not. Most probably with only few of them. Isn't it true?
To argue that consciousness exceeds all possible physical description is not to argue in favor of an extrapolation of consciousness over the rest of what exists. That is, what I am asking for is a type of inference or deduction according to which an inanimate being would have any kind of consciousness.
Let's assume that you discover in a footprint on the beach that it was a person who made it. Now you have the information in your head, so to speak, of "a person made this footprint on the beach." How can something in your head be the cause of the footprint on the beach? It can't . For this reason, information cannot be confused with the cause of what we mistakenly say has information. In this case you cannot confuse the information "a person made this footprint on the beach" with the "objective" person who once made such a footprint. The information was born from your relation with the foot print, the relation of interpreter-interpreted.
I'm afraid I flatly disagree. The information is there in the sand, literally imprinted as a record of the shape of the foot that trod there. And this is the case whether I or another, or no one has a relation to it of seeing, interpreting, or knowing. The information is born of the relation of foot and sand, and only introjected by the interpretation of an observer.
Well, the only evidence of information you have is not the footprint, but something that you represent to yourself and assign more or less a truth value to. That is, information is the content that you have in your head (so to speak) and which you could transmit to another person. It is a representation (if that makes it clearer to you). But representation and what is represented are different things. So what you say is that there is representation before someone represents. Which makes no sense and proceeds according to a causal reversal. This is what happens with meaning: It is so ideal and quasi-universalized, making us believe that it extends into the past retroactively.
I'm stating the opposite. Most of the contents of consciousness cannot be described in physicalist terms. But it doesn't follow from this that inanimate objects possess consciousness (whether to a greater or lesser degree). It's a non-sequitur.
Yes you express very clearly what I disagree with. Information is not all in my head, but all in Google. Well not actually all in Google either, because I have faith that tomorrow another fossil will be dug up and some of the information it contains of a time before humans will be seen, interpreted and disseminated to interested parties, information that is new to humanity but millions of years old in reference. I have evidence that this has happened before, but no evidence, obviously, that it will happen again in the future.
Information that is in my head I tend to call knowledge, or habit, or superstition, or some such; not identical with all information, that can be found in books and timetables and DNA, and rock strata. I don't think this is a particularly obscure or idiosyncratic usage. Even the information that comes out of my head is not entirely in my head. I cannot remember exactly, even my last post in this thread, never mind the thousands of posts prior to that.
I believe it follows because macro-characteristics come about due to the specific micro-properties. The micro combine, and the result is the macro. That's true whether it's a simple matter of amount, like something getting taller as more is added; or an emergent physical property, like liquidity; or a physical process, like flight.
I do not see how physical micro-properties can combine to give something a non-physical macro characteristic. I think non-physical consciousness needs a non-physical micro-property as its ground.
The footprint can only become information if there is a mind that analyzes the footprint and interprets it a certain way, draws conclusions from it, attaches meaning to it. Without the mind, how can the footprint be anything other than a footprint?
Imagine an abacus falling through the air, the beads going this way and that. Is the abacus processing information? What about a computer running a simulation of a tornado with no one observing it? Is it still a simulation, or is it just pixels turning on and off?
Actually, you just have evidence of someone else interpreting something. That is to say, whenever we talk about information an interpreter will be necessary and you will not find any case of information exempt from an interpretation process. For example, a book is nothing more than an agglomeration of shapes and ink. For there to be reading and something to be read, you need a transcriber (interpreter, reader) who already has a language or a system of signs that can be related to the book. And what we say about a book, can be said about DNA, a hard drive, a USB memory, ETC.
Outside the scope of interpretation (or transcription) they are nothing more than marks, more or less ordered physical arrangements, like DNA sequences. Can we say that the color of a person's eyes is in the DNA sequence? No. that is imagining the future contained in the present in some mysterious way. What happens is that there is a whole network of systems that are transcribed and come into contact, where the DNA sequences acquire a function that produces specific effects on other systems, such as those of proteins; thus "eye color" is not found in the DNA sequences, but is given as an external relationship at the time of transcription.
That is, information can be understood as epigenetics. The same thing is said in spoken language: They are just structured sounds uttered by someone A, but if there is no relation with the sign system of a B, there is no communication or transmission (although we already know that nothing is actually transmitted). Information emerges through transcription from the outside in, or rather, as something never inherent/internal to the sign systems placed in relationship and contact.
Actually, not. We disagree. Can you accept that in your ontology?
Have you noticed that my posts usually have two or more parts? The first part is my abbreviated "personal view", and the second part is other people's views (often experts & professionals). If you're not interested in the views of those who are more qualified than yours truly, no one forces you to click on the links. The third part is to provide a path to deeper discussions and technical data. If you are not interested in that expanded view of the topic, you are free to pass over the links without clicking.
Some people would consider all posts on this forum "wasted time", because they have little or no interest in Philosophy or Science. Yet, they have no qualms about "spending valuable time" playing adolescent-fantasy video games. Others collect stamps or cabbage-patch dolls in their quest to "waste time" with little or no remuneration. To each his own.
Personally, the Enformationism thesis is not a save-the-world mission, or a save-my-soul religion ; It's more like a hobby that exercises my aging brain, and "wastes time" with ideas that pique my curiosity. The science & technical stuff is not my primary interest, but it serves as support structures for the worldview that I am building in my brain. If you are content with superficially sampling philosophical gossip, perhaps Twitter (X) is more your style. :cool:
Literally not so.There are footprints millions of years old, from dinosaurs that predate humans. The print of the foot is literally preserved in what becomes rock and informs minds millions of years later. The mindless rock preserves the information until the curious ape evolves to think about it. The necessity of the curious ape so long after the event is patently absurd.
The mindless rock preserves the footprint. To go from footprint to information requires a mind.
How about my questions? Does a falling abacus process information? Do unobserved computers run simulations?
I'm glad that my posts challenge you to consider ideas that may not have occurred to you independently. That's the basic purpose of this forum. :smile:
Quoting Mark Nyquist
Speaking of challenges : You would be smart to consider what says about Information & Consciousness. He's one of the wisest & best-informed posters on this forum. Since his background in Philosophy is different from mine, I am often challenged to see the world from a different perspective. :nerd:
PS___ The genetic information in DNA chemistry is not real & physical, it's ideal & metaphysical. But its processing has real physical consequences, such as little hybrid clones of oneself and one's partner, with a life & mind of its own.
Quoting Alkis PiskasI'm making your life difficult?? :D
Quoting Alkis PiskasIndeed. I often quote others when they say something I agree with. I believe the more ways a thought is expressed, the more likely it is someone else will understand it. Something I think I've worded well doesn't always make it clear to someone else. Different wordings are often helpful.
Quoting Alkis PiskasMy apologies, but I don't know which post of yours provides a specific definition. (Feel free to tell me how many posts upstream it can be found. :D) But, regardless, I have never seen a definition of panpsychism, or even consciousness, that I think is absolute. I may or may not agree with someone else's definition. If someone else's definition says all things, animate or inanimate, have a mind, I disagree. I do not consider what I am calling proto-consciousness to be a mind. I think a mind must have characteristics/abilities that proto-consciousness does not.
Quoting Alkis PiskasA couple possibilities come to mind. First, a solid building may contain running, or a pool of, water. So just because it's solid doesn't mean every aspect of it is solid. Likewise, physical things may have non-physical aspects.
Second, calling particles "physical" is problematic. When we call a particle "physical," we are only referring to its physical properties. We are not referring to the particle itself. I don't even know if it is known whether or not there is a difference. Is an electron a thing that has a negative charge. Or is an electron the negative charge itself? Either way. we don't know what those properties actually are. In [I]Until the End of Time: Mind, Matter, and Our Search for Meaning in an Evolving Universe[/I], Brian Greene writes:Greene emphasizes the words "I don't know" in the two sentences.
I do not think we are nearly certain enough of things to say, "This is physical, and it can only have physical properties."
Quoting Alkis PiskasNo, it's not doubt. I'm saying that, either way, we couldn't tell the difference. If there is no proto-consciousness, then particles do not have any degree of subjective experience. If one somehow did, it would be indistinguishable from the rest. And vice-versa. At the level of one particle, there's no outward measure that could tell us which is which.
Quoting Alkis PiskasIt's an expression. A Lego is a building block. An atom is a building block. A single singer is a building block of a chorus. a tree is a building block of a forest. Proto-consciousness is the building block of consciousness.
Yes, a particle with proto-consciousness is a building block. In at least two possible ways. One way is that their physical properties combine to form solids, liquids, and gasses. And, if I'm right, their property of proto-consciousness combines to give some of those solid objects (us, for example) consciousness.
Quoting Alkis PiskasNot Right. That's one of the quotes you removed. In this case, Skrbina's. That's why I had it in quotes. It is part of the whole hypothesis of proto-consciousness. Particles do not have memory. Their subjective experience is of "instantaneous memory-less moments."
Quoting Alkis PiskasThe idea is that the proto-consciousness of all the particles of an entity in which enough different things are happening, particularly (according to my hypothesis) processes involving information, actual consciousness comes about. The potential of what I might call the "raw material" is realized.
Quoting Alkis PiskasHopefully, I have made clear that I am not positing any sort of memory in regards to particles. Their subjective experiences are memory-less. I believe Skrbina used, and I am definitely using, that wording so people won't think there is any memory at the level of particles.
So you have evidence of the existence of information that precedes interpretation (the relationship between sign systems)?
Show me any. You will see that there is always a process of translation, interpretation, transcription, etc. that generates it.
I don't think you calling my view 'brain-mind identity theory' is actually my position. I just like to start with physicalism/materialism because it keeps us /me personally from believing things that just aren't true. Physical brains give us the abilities we have, but given this capability, what we entertain as mental content really has few limits.
As for information in DNA, that is your burden to defend. I think it's just your mental projection. It might be an abstraction but not physically fundamental as brain state is.
My position on DNA is that it used to work just fine even before that woman discovered it and some blokes stole her idea and got the Nobel prize for it.
I'll look into that...what you can learn here.
And you know they're 'not true' because.....
https://www.nature.com/scitable/topicpage/rosalind-franklin-a-crucial-contribution-6538012/
Shortly after our dialog in this thread, on the distinction between "Perception" & "Conception", I came across the Quora article linked below*1. The author takes an "enactivist approach" to such contentious questions. I was not previously aware of that particular philosophy of Consciousness, but it may agree with my thesis in principle, if not in detail. Enactivism seems to be an attempt to bypass the implicit Dualism of the notion that they are two incompatible entities, as in Brain/Mind and Body/Soul or Oil & Water doctrines, while avoiding the implication problems of Panpsychism.
Enformationism is monistic, but in a different sense. It says that physical Perception and mental (metaphysical) Conception are merely different forms of the same universal substance/essence : Generic Information (power to enform ; programmed causation/energy). The Quora article doesn't mention Holism specifically, but that is how I unify two apparently isolated things, that are integral parts of the same system.
If you are not inclined to click on an external reference, stay tuned. As I become more familiar with Enactivism*2, I may eventually offer my personal opinion on the notion that Perception and Conception are merely two phases of the same thing, that we know via different channels : a> neural senses or b> sixth sense of Reason/Inference. For now, all I can say is that I agree with the monistic conclusion. :smile:
*1. What is the difference between conception & perception? :
The question is essentially dualistic, that is, it implies the two are implicitly divided, are different; a case of body and mind dualistic reductionism.
www.quora.com/What-is-the-difference-between-conception-perception/answer/Geoff-Lawson-4
Note --- The author seems to dismiss the traditional dualism as a linguistic quirk. But I think our common languages may reflect important philosophical discriminations made over the years by important thinkers.
*2. Enactivism rejects mainstream conceptions of mind that strongly demarcate minds from bodies and environments. It holds that such conceptions are not justified and should be rethought. Enactivism aims to eradicate misleading dualisms that continue to dominate analytic philosophy of mind and much cognitive science. It aims to dissolve the mind-body problem by asking us to abandon our attachment to traditional dichotomies and to come to see that minds are not ultimately separate from bodies, environments, or others.
https://iep.utm.edu/enactivism/
It was my intention (as noted, right there) - I'm just not yet that good at writing what I think. This has, and i imagine, will lead to many weird disagreements that don't actually exist between myself an other posters so i apologise in advance for anything points in future this happens between us again. I think it'll be an issue for some time, given my wet-behind-the-earsness.
Quoting Alkis Piskas
My understanding of sentience is that it is held universally apart from consciousness in that it requires the further fact of 'feeling'. Subjective experience+feeling (hedonic).
In this way, I have no problem talking about the two separately. A VFT would have no sentience, but would have consciousness.
Certainly. But my comment was certainly not meant to invalidate your references. I never said or hold in general that references are useless. That would be totally silly. And I often consult them. Only that in some subjects, e.g. related to consciousness and mind, about which I have read and listened to tons of descriptions and views, and which I know very well --I have worked with and on mind for years-- I only need to hear and discuss about another member's own opinion and views. See, I don't care about nor do I have the time to read what other persons think about the subject, even if these persons are considered "experts". (Notice the quotation marks, they mean something.) I can read about them, in my own time, if needed. So, I prefer spend my time in fruitful exchanges with other people. Besides, I believe this is the main purpose of TPF. Reading and discussing books, references and articles is also included of course, but I consider it of secondary importance. I may be wrong, I don't know. Maybe it's only what I expect from it ...
BTW, since you are talking about "experts" -- on the field, have you ever considered to know about what philosophers of the East have to say about consiousness and the mind? We are living in the Western culture, being fed with Western philosophical values in all our life, and we forget that there are other views about crucial philosophical issues in the other part of the world. I have escaped from that trap a lot lot time ago, by studying Eastern philosophy in parallel with the Western one. Only in this way one can have an "expanded view of the topic" that you say. Otherwise, one;s view is restricted.
How expanding can my view be if I'm looking with one eye only?
Quoting Gnomon
You are right. Esp. because it certainly applies to me. "smile:
But think about this: When a TPF member launches a discussion, is it usually with a purpose in mind to know what other, the "experts" have to say about te topic, the subject? If the one needed that, one could simply "ask" the Web or read books. But you cannot discuss with the Web or books, can you?
So, the OP obviously asks for the opinion from others, something which the OP often expresses explicitly at the end of their message. And this is more evident when the OPs describe their own position on the subject. And in the majority of the cases, without any reference to external sources.
quote="Gnomon;860132"]The science & technical stuff is not my primary interest, but it serves as support structures for the worldview that I am building in my brain.[/quote]
I know. But if you want to build a comprehensive worldview, don't you think it's a good idea to leave for a while the "West" space within which your philosophical quest is usually confined, as large as that space may be, and look also to the "East"? If not for anything else, but just for things to pique your curiosity? Although, I'm certain that doing that, you will read and hear things that will not only satisfy your curiosity, but will open for you new doors in the world of philosophy.
Note: My views on mind and consciousness, as on a lot of other subjects discussed in this place and elsewhere, are not based on Eastern philosophy, but they are certainlly infuenced by it. They are products of my "expanded" worldview, which will continue to expand, as long as I am able to think effectively and evolve as a human being.
"grin" It may sound difficult but my "filtering" is an automatic process: it means just ignoring external refs, thus actually simplifying things. "smile:
Quoting Patterner
I'm not sure about that. If the external source talks about concepts and theories and has no practical value, it might even be worse as far as undersnading is concerned. As I see it, if one wants to make one's points clear and well understood, one must off practical values for them, how they are applied to reality and life, things with which one can identify, recognize as actually existing or happening or functioning, etc. And this can be achieved mainly through practical examples.
Quoting Patterner
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/859927
"Panpsychism is the view that all things have a mind or a mind-like quality."(https://iep.utm.edu/panpsych/)
Quoting Patterner
Of course, there are no absolute definitions for anything. One has to look in the various definitions what is the central element, point or characteristic. In the case of Panpsychism, this is that "matter posseses a mind" . In some others, it's that "matter is conscious", and so on.
Quoting Patterner
OK. So, you have your own definition of P, connected to the idea of "proto-consciousness". But you must realize that it is not what traditional P and panpsychists believe. (I just googled "proto-consciousness" and I found seome special references about it. I might.)
Otherwise, I fully accept and welcome your views on the subject. In fact, I thank you for bringing up a totally new subject for me! (I'll learn more about it in time.)
Quoting Patterner
Most probably, but I can't really tell, since I don't know enough about proto-consciousness.
What I can tell though, is that mind and consciousness are totally different and separate things.
Quoting Patterner
I really appreciate your endeavor in describing your theory. However, I can't follow it, since you are walking on hill and I my lungs and feet don't help me any more to accompany you. :smile:
a ground that I a terra incognita for me! :smile:
I'm really sorry about this, because how she a very strong willingnes and tenacity on this trip.
I hope at least that someone else in here will take advantage of your messages to me and discuss the subject with you in a much better way than myself.
I am not discussing a certain ideality of information, which is the same ideality of meaning. I'm discussing the ontological status of information, in the sense of "how something like information is mysteriously contained in a footprint, and jumps from there into our thinking." Stating that it is "contained" is invalid from the moment the process of its production in the relation is evident. The information is not contained, but is produced in the correlation [interpreter/interpreted], [representant/represented], [translator/translated], [transcriber/ transcribed]. I.E in the relation between sign systems.
No problem, AmadeusD. You don't have to apologize. Esp., not in advance! :smile:
Quoting AmadeusD
I agree. S and C are two totally diffetent things; of a totally different nature. S is physical, whereas C is non-physical. But C depends on S to exist. C is a state and ability to perceive, which is done through our senses. That's why only sentient things can have C. That is, all living things.
As for "feelings", this word is loaded with so many meanings, that we better leave it out. Let's stick to "senses" and "sensing". They are enough for our purposes, I think.
Quoting AmadeusD
Well, how can it perceive flies?
If you drug it --I don't know, with an injection and some special substance a botanist woul know-- would it be able to perceive the fily? Wouln't it be become "unconscious" in some way? Isn't this what happens with humans and animals too?
Can you visualize for us a model of the structure of the something_nothing interweave; It might be in the mode of a blueprint drawn by an architect who visualizes a plan for construction of a building. For example, if you were to say "The something_nothing interweave is like a möbius strip, then elaborate the structural mathematics of the something_nothing interweave. If it's not a known configuration, your blueprint would be something for mathematicians to chew on. Of course, the lotus in the garden would be a geometric for "appears to be Dualistic."
Do you not agree that signal transmission involves the process of reduction of the improbability of the reiteration of the same signal again and again, and that the information conveyed by the signal is not only the intended communication conveyed by the signs, but also what's conveyed by the aforementioned reduction of improbability. This reduced improbability of randomization of a signal transmission (noise) creates an absence (of infinite other possible transmission content) that constrains signal transmission to a specific set of signs that therefore possesses meaning.
This multiplex configuration of signal transmission in terms of an absence coupled with a presence examples absential materialism.
In defense of your thesis (quoted at top) can you argue that the first-born sentient did not dream itself into an organized reality of signal transmission via absential constraint with attached meaning?
Quoting JuanZu
As I read your above quote, I'm thinking maybe you're positing a rather pure form of idealism of the George Berkeley variety. My rationale for this interpretation: if reality has no inherent meaning apart from a perceiving sentient, then said reality, necessarily fabulist, must be dreamed into existence by said sentient.
One weakness of idealism might be its silence on the question of the informationalizability of reality, even at thermodynamic equilibrium.
What I am claiming is that a signal like that has no information, no matter how organized that signal is. I consider that Information and order are not the same thing. The information would arise when that signal is received and enters into relation with any environment that is constituted by a system of signs.
Quoting ucarr
I think you have misunderstood me. I never said that the physical elements, whether ordered or not, that precede the generation of information, can be something generated by the human imagination.
Quoting ucarr
I'm not saying that. I have said that information only exists to the extent that there are at least two sign systems in relation (and therefore when we believe we are in the presence of information, we are actually generating it from the relation between our sign system, [language, our memories, etc] and other sign system). They do not necessarily have to be sentient beings. It may even be the relation between the signal you mention above and a machine that transcribes that signal.
I was surprised by the comparison with Berkeley's philosophy. Since I believe that my position could not be further from Berkeley. Berkeley needed God's perception for the existence of things outside my mind (Can we say existence as information? I'm not quite sure). I, on the other hand, can maintain the "objectivity" of information without the need for God, I only need two systems of signs.
Sorry to butt-in here. But, the term "proto-consciousness" caught my eye. I assume you are defending Panpsychism from a Materialistic challenge. And I happen to agree with the general trend of what you're saying. Except that I express the concept of "proto-consciousness" in terms of Information theory, which I trace back to Plato's Theory of Forms*1. And I update the ancient notion of Panpsychism in terms of modern Quantum & Information theories. Both of which have added new terminology into the old controversies about the nature of Consciousness.
I can't encapsulate the complexities of my thesis in a single post. But I find a lot of parallels with your parry & thrust in my own defense of Enformationism. For example, I make a philosophical distinction between Real & Ideal ; Potential & Actual ; Mind & Matter ; and Perception & Conception in which all are aspects of our common world, but viewed from different perspectives : the physical eye, and the eye of the mind. For example, we can see Actual things with our perceptual (neural) systems, but we only imagine Potential possibilities with our conceptual (rational) systems. Causal & structural EnFormAction*2 (power to enform & power to know) underlies all of those aspects, including material and metaphysical. :smile:
*1. Protoconsciousness is a theory suggested by quantum physicist J.A. Wheeler, whose "it from bit" postulation inspired my own Enformationism thesis. However, I typically substitute the more general & abstract term "Information" in order to indicate that I'm talking about the essence of everything, not just human sentience. Panpsychism is most often criticized for implying that rocks are conscious. But Protoconsciousness could be used in an evolutionary sense to mean "not yet conscious".
*2. EnFormAction :
Ententional Energy or Directional Causation. A proposed metaphysical law of the universe that causes random interactions between forces and particles to produce novel & stable arrangements of matter & energy. The creative power of Evolution; the power to enform; Logos; Change. Just as Einstein equated Energy with Matter, this causal principle equates Energy with Mind, by analogy with the [i]Energy, Matter, Information Equivalence Principle. [/i]
https://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page8.html
https://pubs.aip.org/aip/sci/article/2022/9/091111/2849001/A-proposed-experimental-test-for-the-mass-energy
DON'T STEP ON THAT SENTIENT STONE!
Of course. This is basically an opinion-sharing forum. But it's different from a gossip forum like Twitter (X) in that opinionated people are expected to support their personal beliefs with public facts or plausible reasons. So, I provide both : a> my own ideas on a topic ; plus b> supporting information that you can read at your leisure. I typically provide a brief excerpt so you can decide if you want to waste time on that particular link. :smile:
Quoting Alkis Piskas
If you had looked at my thesis, you would know that it is intended to be "comprehensive", and inclusive of a variety of philosophical views. For example, Holism is an essential element of my worldview, and Taoism is very similar to my own Weltanschauung. But those non-reductive notions are often dismissed on this forum as New Age nonsense, or Eastern mysticism. I'm not a hippie or a mystic, but I give props to the ancient philosophies of the East, and non-Western societies. :nerd:
Even what is alive and what isn't is difficult to answer when you take (biological) viruses into question.
Again it's our own desire to make things to be what we want that is the main problem here.
Yes. I am a retired Architect. So I am familiar with imagining things that are not yet real. I use geometry to translate my idea of the future thing into the graphic language of a "blueprint". If you will suggest a specific topic-of-interest (a possibility), I will attempt to construct a mental model to represent the "something-nothing interweave". Perhaps, what Terrence Deacon calls an "Interface". However, I think Deacon has already done a better job --- than I could ever do --- of modeling the something-nothing tapestry, in his Incomplete Nature book. :smile:
INTENTIONAL ACTION TRANSFORMS NOTHING INTO SOMETHING
Yes. Since the universe itself is still evolving, it and everything-in-it is an open-ended continuum. So, I doubt that Consciousness has reached its final form. The early stages of universal evolution were full of Potential, but little Actual. Protoconsciousness is simply another name for the Potential to evolve future states of Information Computation with enhanced Awareness. Besides, Consciousness is a process, not a thing ; emergent, not static. :smile:
Thank you; I appreciate that. At risk of sounding preening, it's actually pretty neat to come across good-faith disagreement and helpful responses when i make mistakes!
Quoting Alkis Piskas
I doin't think all living things are sentient. All living things could be considered conscious, but i would say sentience is reserved for some benchmark higher up the organisational ladder that I don't know specifically.
Quoting Alkis Piskas
Well, i don't know. That's an interesting proposition, but you'd have to work out whether the effect was 'mental' or physical. We can take anesthetics which alter our conscious experience, but act on some physical element of the body (i.e C-fibres no longer firing or some such). I guess you'd need to establish that the perceived the fly in the first place, as opposed to perceiving merely air pressure changes triggering non-choice-drive reactions in the body of the plant that result in the 'snapping out' at the fly (which is actually snapping at a non-consciously-recognised area of statistically significant difference in air pressure vs the 'background' air pressure)
For the VFT, if their behaviour is adjusted because, for argument sake, there are cilia on their surface which are now depressed by hte drug, and so not sensitive to changes in air pressure, that may change the behaviour of a VFT but does is have any cognitive effect? As i say, I don't know, but my guess would be not. I don't think a VFT has any sensation of 'hunting' and 'being unable to hunt' the way a human would, under similar experiment.
The Venus Fly Trap is a brainless living organism, so it seems to "sense" the intrusive fly via a mechanism similar in principle to a Mouse Trap. I'm not aware of any evidence that it forms a mental image of a potential juicy meal prior to springing the trap. It doesn't seem to be able to distinguish a nutritious fly from a dry leaf.
However, a fly is a sentient creature with a simple brain and constrained lifestyle, so its behavior is mostly automatic, with little need to imagine alternative scenarios. But a mouse, with a much more complex brain & behavior, does seem to be able to think & plan to some degree, and to learn from experience.
Yet, where do you draw the line between mechanical Sentience and imaginative Consciousness? My answer is that human-like Consciousness is a late-blooming emergence from 14B years of gradual evolution. It's an upward-trending continuum of information processing. :smile:
Fly Brain :
We therefore mapped the synaptic-resolution connectome of an entire insect brain (Drosophila larva) with rich behavior, including learning, value computation, and action selection, comprising 3016 neurons and 548,000 synapses
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.add9330
I think that the terms "sentient" and "sentience" is misconceived by many here from what I could gather from this and other discussions (topics).
"Sentient" from Dictionary.com:
[i]1. having the power of perception by the senses; conscious.
2. Characterized by sensation and consciousness.[/i]
Similar definitions are found in other dictionaries too.
So, we see C related directly to sentience, which is almost a synonym of "perception", since percetion is based on our senses.
As I have have postulated quite a few times in the past --and explained why-- that every living organism, even bacteria, receives stimuli from the environment and reacts to them. How could viruses travel in the organism and expand, if they didn't have an ability to perceive (be aware of) and respond to their surroundings?
Even plants --since they are our main subject here-- can perceive and thus are aware of their surroundings. Here's a good reference for more details:
"Plants possess a highly developed, conscious root brain that works much as ours does to analyze incoming data and generate sophisticated responses." (Plant Consciousness: The Fascinating Evidence Showing Plants Have Human Level Intelligence, Feelings, Pain and More - http://www.esalq.usp.br/lepse/imgs/conteudo_thumb/Plant-Consciousness---The-Fascinating-Evidence-Showing-Plants-Have-Human-Level-Intelligence--Feelings--Pain-and-More.pdf)
Quoting AmadeusD
Good question. Now, if by "mental" we imply the existence of a mind, we canmot attribute such a thing to plants or even to bacteria. In fact, we have to make a lot of changes to the meaning of the term if we are to apply it even to animals, since the human mind is so complex and so rich in features and faculties, that as such it can't be applied to anything else but humans. Even reactions stemming from human instict can hardly be attributed to the human mind or consciousnes.
(On the other hand, and as a reminder, my basic definition of consiousness --the state and ability to perceive-- needs not to be changed in order to be applied to bacteria or plants, since it does not include or require the existence of a "mind".)
So to your question, my reply is that the effect would be only physical.
Quoting AmadeusD
Good remark. Plants certainly do not have eyes that be used to perceive their surroundings. And I don't know what kind of sense(s) plants have, whether they can feel the water in their roots (when they are watered) or on their leaves (when they are sprayed on), whether the can feel the wind blowing on their leaves, etc. But certainly they must have a certain kind of sense, i.e. they must feel something, othersise they coulnd't perceive, be aware of the flies flying near them or insects landing in their open mouths:
Above: Venus flytrap leaves, with their mouths and teeth!
And here, you can watch them in action: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O7eQKSf0LmY
Quoting AmadeusD
I see that you took the VFT proposed experiment seriously! :grin:
Well, a appreciate a lot a fruitful imagination like yours! :smile:
As for the possibility of a "cognitive effet", please allow me to say --well, it's too late for that!-- that cognition goes beyond perception; it refers to mental processes like memory, judgment, reasoning etc. So, I believe we can safely take this element out of the equation.
Quoting AmadeusD
I don't think, either! :smile:
Quite interesting. This contributes a lot to the lack of knowledge I have about the kind of senses plants have and how do they work, which I was talking about to @AmadeusD a little while ago.
I assume, of course, that these "senses" differ a lot among plants.
Quoting Gnomon
Certainly. As for "thinking", I guess you used the word in a figurative way or you referred to it as a very raw, primitive kind of "thinking". Because at the level of a mouse, even for Pavlov's dog, such a "thinking" is quite a mechanistic and rather physical process.
Quoting Gnomon
Not bad an idea. But I don't think you have to go that far back and examing 14B years to examine how C has been evolved. You can just examine how C evolves in a person, from his birth through to his death.
And if you want to be more precise, consciousness does not emerge or evolve. It doesn't change. It exists. It is just there. Or it is partially there (if one becomes semi-conscious). Or it isn't there (if one becomes unconscious). One's ability to perceive is attenuated. That's all.
So, it is perception and mind that evolve.
The difference between primitive with civilized people, as far as evolution is concerned, has been based mainly on learning as they were interacting with their environment. Very similar to what happens with a baby. Only that the stimuli, the elements that a person could interact with at that period of time were almost nothing compared to those existing today, in number and variety.
Quoting Gnomon
Thanks for the information and the reference.
Quoting Gnomon
Quoting ucarr
I suggest we try to illustrate a kind of flow chart of the interweave of matter_mind through use of Deacon's triumvirate: thermodynamics, morphodynamics, teleodynamics. Each of the transition phases needs to show an emergent property dependent yet functionally autonomous from its antecedant. Visualizing connection coupled with autonomy is what I expect to be the hard part.
I guess we're trying to visualize an evolutionary transition linking an antecedent dynamical species with a descendent dynamical species emergent from its predecessor.
How Mind Emerged From Matter, Deacons subtitle, suggests to me his belief matter is the ground of mind.
Quoting Gnomon
From you I get the suggestion mind is the ground of matter.
The main point of our flow chart, as I see it, is to answer visually_structurally which component is ground and which is emergent property, or whether, as a third possibility, the interweave of the two components is essentially ambiguous.
I'm attempting to examine whether or not your statements thus far imply what you deny in the above quote.
Quoting JuanZu
Your two statements highlighted above, taken together, as I understand them, assert that order and information are separate categories that have no intersection.
From this it follows that information is only passed from one sign-field to another sign-field.
Since order has no intersection (common ground) with information, there's the question whether organized nature, prior to the signing of sentient humans, entails dynamical processes that support signing before the advent of the human species. In short, the question asks whether organized nature sans humanity is a potentially language-bearing environment. Does pre-human nature possess language-bearing properties, albeit in latent form?
Also, there's the question whether pre-human nature includes dynamical information processes. Does it sound right to think that apes, for example, had no available information useful for their adaptation to the environment?
If pre-human nature possessed neither information nor language, then human, upon experiencing nature, could see only a jumbled confusion of chaotic, sensory signals from the senses to the brain.
The jumbled confusion of sensory signals would be perceived even if nature is organized if, as you say, an organized signal has no information. It is information that empowers a human observer to make sense of the abundance of sensory signals inputting to the brain every moment. We perceive signal input without information as noise.
The linguistic human brain, acting in tandem with information-bearing signals, assigns meaning to the inputting information via reiterative reduction of the improbability of reception of a specific set of inputting stimuli.
If pre-human, organized nature contains no information_language-bearing dynamical processes, then human, holding possession of such within itself, must generate an information_language-bearing dynamical process within its own brain in independence from the objective natural world. This is a process of daydreaming reality into existence as an information_language-bearing dynamical reality. This is an instance as mind as the ground of matter. This is Plato's transcendent realm of ideal things. This is Berkeley's Idealism.
If you want to make a generalization of the idea of language to apply it to physical processes [beyond human existence] I have no problem. In fact I'm doing the same thing, kinda, with the idea of meaning and sign system (because the nature of language and field-signs seems to exceed the field of subjectivity and, in fact, is an important component of its constitution). The difference is that we both have different ideas of how something called "information" takes place for a language, or for a sign system.
I claim that information is a relational property. To take an analogical example: if we have two people with a given height, and we compare them, we find that someone is taller and someone is shorter. "Taller" and "shorter" are properties that do not take place before the relation, in this case a comparison relation. I claim that information takes place or appears in a similar way between at least two sign systems.
So, for example, a footprint on the beach (a sign). In itself it does not have information; The information takes place once the human enters the scene. But not for being human with a mind, but for being a field-signs, just as you said. The information is then not an internal property of the foot print, nor internal to the human-sign-field. Information is produced, therefore, in the relation.
Quoting ucarr
Now we can eliminate the term "itself" or "intrinsic" (which refers to the Platonic essence), and replace it with "extrinsic." Furthermore, it is not correct to say "possesses" either. Instead it is necessary to say "produces in relation to".
Quoting ucarr
Well, once we both can generalize the ideas of language and sign-field beyond human subjectivity, I don't see how Berkeley can have any place in the discussion. Plato, on the other hand, does have a lot to do with this topic. Since, although we can no longer speak of information as essence, or as something inherent that thing possess in itself, information still seems to be another plane or to be another dimension (as it ideally persists through different systems of signs or languages); A dimension that I think belongs to the topic of the virtual of external relations. But that's another topic. The important thing for me is to remove the Platonism of information as something intrinsic and essential.
I have a blog post that presents a sort of Mind/Matter evolution "flow chart" in the form of an emergent phase ladder*1. But it was not specifically based on Deacon's terminology. However, my multiple phases could conceivably be translated into Deacon's three powers : Thermodynamics (Causation), Morphodynamics (Change), and Teleodynamics (Control)*2. Each step in the ladder is associated with a few "emergent properties" or systems.
My single universal Dynamic (power of transformation) is EnFormAction, which combines Energy, Form-change, and Design (intention, purpose, constraint) into a single natural Force. Deacon's 3-in-1 nested chart is displayed below. :smile:
*1. Teleological Evolution :
So it seems that our world got to where it is now via a series of identifiable stages due to "quantum fluctuations", "phase changes", "emergences" and "speciations" that collectively we call Evolution. But only the human-scale (macro) transitions seem to follow the classical physics rules of billiard-ball cause & effect, instead of quantum-level "spooky action at a distance". On larger & smaller scales those transformations seem to be much less random and more directional, even intentional. We can classify those various emergent phases into three domains : Quantum, Classical, and Cosmic.
https://bothandblog3.enformationism.info/page23.html
*2. A teleodynamic system consists of coupling two morphodynamic systems such that the self undermining quality of each is constrained by the other. Each system prevents the other from dissipating all of the energy available, and so long term organizational stability is obtained.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incomplete_Nature
Quoting ucarr
I'm not sure what you mean by "ground" in this context. Something like "ground of being" (G*D)? Or maybe fundamental cause (Prime Mover). Or perhaps, essential Substance, such as Spinoza's deus sive natura. One way to express the Mind/Matter relationship is to say that "Cosmic Mind is the ground of Matter", along with everything else. That is to say that the Potential-for-Mind must have existed prior to the Big Bang that sparked physical, biological, and mental evolution.
From a cosmological perspective, Matter emerged near the beginning of the universe's expansion, then eventually, Mind emerged from a "ground" of animated matter (Life) only after eons of matter/energy cycles*1. In my thesis though, the ultimate "ground" (fundamental substance) is what I call EnFormAction, which is conceptually an amalgam of Energy+Matter+Mind : causation + instantiation + control. All of which are programmed into the algorithm of Creative Evolution
Therefore, my most general term for all phases of Mind emergence is "Information" (EnFormAction). However, one phase of the evolutionary process could be called "Protoconsciousness", as discussed in a previous post. :nerd:
Fundamentally. plant "senses" work the same way as human senses : electrical & chemical data are routed to & from the exterior and interior. Each "message" stimulates some functional response. However, human neurology is far more complex, so the "meaning" of those messages is more subtle & personal, yet generalizable to other contexts. :cool:
Quoting Alkis Piskas
Yes, but even human thinking is basically mechanical & emotional. It's the ability to form dispassionate immaterial concepts (images, representations) and self-reference that makes human thought more meaningful, with more leverage over self and environment. And it's the ability to compare & contrast unreal abstract ideas, that makes Rational thought possible. :nerd:
On my side, brain state, as it supports consciouness and information does follow the laws of physical matter.
I was thinking about this because some of you...maybe ucarr and Gnomon... touched on mathematical equations a few days back maybe.
I think I may have used an equal sign a bit loosely a few times but should correct that to meaning physically equivalent but not mathematically equivalent.
The issue is brain state can be modeled as the physical equivalent of consciousness or information (as it exists physically) but not fully mathematically. Mental content is an either or proposition in that mental content could be one specific form or another and the physical brain, from a mass, energy perspective would not know the difference.
Also, if you would like to model the physical state mathematically, you should recognize that it's not a static state but dynamic. And you would need to use an iteration from moment to moment to moment to model energy expenditure, as an example.
Anyway, if you are new here, my advice is to completely ignore the Claude Shannon malarkey because it's a field that applies to electronic signals and not the mental worlds we are familiar with.
(the following applies to the remainder of that section of your post too).
That's fair. I guess I would stipulate the difference I outlined previously for two reason:
1. That seems to be what most philosophers of mind take to be the difference between the two; and
2. It makes it much easier to talk about awareness over consciousness (or, as a higher level of it).
So, in with your definitions in place it would be very hard to see how a fruitful conversation about hte difference between a human and plant viz. what type of perception constitutes whatever we want to call the 'human' level of consciousness vs a lower, plant-like level. I think sentience, as used to enumerate an actual rather than speculative self-awareness (something i really don't think a plant has) solves what would have been a linguistic problem.
Regarding the related link you gave to the Plant-Consciousness essay - I can't say much about it. It's not referenced, seems to make some pretty wild leaps:
"A bean plant, being fed upon by a spider mite, can
analyze from its saliva just what type of spider mite is feeding on it. It then will craft a specific
pheromone, releasing it from its leaf stomata as a volatile chemical into the air. That pheromone
will call to the plant the exact predator that feeds on that particular spider mite"
these appears to be inventions of hte author - we have no reason to think this isn't a mechanistic process the same way many of our autonomic processes occur. There's clearly no 'thought' in it. So, the contention isn't supported by the article itself. We also get sections like this:
"Depth analysis of plant consciousness since the turn of the (new) millennium is finding that their
brain capacity is much larger than previously supposed, that their neural systems are highly
developedin many instances as much as that of humans, and that they make and
utilize neurotransmitters identical to our own."
These are almost all demonstrably untrue claims. Plants do not have brains, as a start point.
Quoting Alkis Piskas
I don't think this is the case. I think because of your broad use of 'sentient' you're importing a necessity that isn't present. A plant need not be 'aware' for it to mechanistically react to stimuli. If it could, in fact, choose how to react, then we get some infernce of analysis whcih would require some debate around feeling. I don't quite think the current explications can allow for that inference. I would also note that VFT do not know whether it's a fly. They also snap at fingers, large dust, small rocks etc.. etc.. It seems to be a triggering event, not a perception-driven event.
Quoting Alkis Piskas
Heh, that's definitely going to be my schtick until I'm a graduate student LOL.
Quoting Alkis Piskas
Fair, and I agree. I suppose here, we're leaning toward that cognition isn't involved, so feeling can't follow. Unsure if that was your intention with this though!
Quoting Alkis Piskas
As above. I think this is nearly a fatal flaw in the theory that a VFT is sentient. But again, with your defintions in place, nothing we've discussed would lean one way or the other!! I just prefer the definitions i've used as they make a fairly good, albeit imprecise, heuristic for judging the mental faculties or one or other being.
Don't reinvent the wheel. Just read what has been written.
Have you not considered that, perhaps, some approach published on this topic covers what you mention, since these approaches are, kinda, ontological approaches?
What do you mean by "from the exterior and interior"? Example?
Quoting Gnomon
I have studied and worked a lot and for quite long with mind, and of course thinking as part of it, both in theory and practice.
It can be "mechanical" as you say, but certainly not "basically", except in special mental cases.
It cannot be said to be "emotional". It itself can produce emotion, both "positive" (e.g. joy, pleasure) and "negative" (e.g. anger, grief).
Quoting Gnomon
Meybe you are contradicting yourself by saying now "dispassionate", whereas previously you said "emotional" ... Anyway, it is true that thinking produces mental images. In fact, thoughts themselves are mental images.
But images are not "concepts". And concepts are always immaterial. (There are no immaterial abtract ideas.)
Mind, and thinking as part of it, is a subject one has to study a lot in order to have a good idea about its nature and functioning. And, if one wants to have a solid reality about it, one has to see how it works in practice, esp. work with it oneself.
(I'm not speaking about the "philosophy of the mind". I'm speaking about the mind itself, it's anatomy.)
I guess you have a different definition of the term "sentient" than the ones I presented and what is commonly meant by them. Indeed, I don't know what does "self-awareness" have to do with it, even at a speculative way. It something way far from "sentience". It is not even sure even that there are animals that have this ability or can be in that state. And I believe no one can, since we cannot communicate with animals on a concept level to inform us on the subject and what themselves feel. There are even pople, from what I know, even in this place, that do not believe that such a state really exists or cannot identify it in themselves.
Quoting AmadeusD
OK, it was a ref that I found handy. You can chose youserf from among 150 million Google results for < perception of plants > (w/o quotes) or the 2.5 million results on < "perception of plants" > (w/ quotes). :smile:
Quoting AmadeusD
(BTW, my saying "they must feel something" is very general and the wor "feel" in it has the meaning of "perceive" or "sense", not any emotional state.)
Now, you assert that a plant needs not to be aware of -- i.e. perceive-- anything n order to react to stimuli. How else can this work? Stimuli are always perceived. Even the totally mechanistic brain receives signals as stimuli. Which means that it can identify them, distinguish one from another. You can changes "perceive" with "receive" if you like, but this wouldn't change anything. And the brain reacts to those stimuli, since it works on a stimulus-response mechanism, So it is with the case of a plant. Only that plants do not have a brain. They have som other sensing mechanism, which, as I already said in this thread, is something I don't know. @Gnomon and youself know more about this subject.
Quoting AmadeusD
It cannot "choose" how to react. Choosing involves free will or at least the existence of a mind, which are both absent in a plant. Besides, we have already that it reacts mechanically ...
Quoting AmadeusD
:grin:
Quoting AmadeusD
No, it wasn't. I have said quite a few times in this thread :gasp: that cognition has nothing to do with consiousness, and thus with perception. And, I guess that by "feeling" here you refer to an emotional reaction, which is not our subject. Because "feeling" as a sense belongs to perception, which is our subject and can certainly not follow cognition. Right?
Quoting AmadeusD
Be my guest! :smile:
I only would like to say that my definition of consiousness --esp. in its basic form-- has not been disproved by anyone until now.
It has been argued on, but mainly based on the concept of "perception", which I have also described and expleind in detail, and supported with examples. Or, it has been contrasted with other definitions, which however cannot be applied to all cases where the term "consciousness" is used.
The difference why it cannot be "overthrown" is very simple: It is based on an essential element of consciousess: perception. No one can deny this, at least not on sound grounds.
Here's once more my basic definition of consciousness: "The state and ability to perceive".
The challenge is still on! :smile:
For me something that takes the same form as consciouness is our 5 senses. They are all connected to the brain and the brain has full access. I think you will find a good consensuses on how these senses work. But if I move on to consciouness there is less consensus. And if I move on to information I get a lot of disagreement on the brain being the basis for information. Or there might be an acknowledging that brains process information but some would like information to exist in other places too.
As to the first part of your quote, regarding language applied to physical processes, as to that, I say, "language is physical."
How language is physical and what structure supports the physicality of language are two questions that have been under consideration and attacked in debate for at least the last two millennia.
Ill venture an intuitive conjecture that we, too, have really been considering the physicality of language.
With The Structure of the Physicality of Language specified as our rubric, I think we have two important questions before us: 1) Whats the physical structure connecting signification with intelligibility and 2) Whats the physical relationship between information and meaning?
Aristotle has weighed in on the first question with his Agent Intellect concept. Per Aristotle, Agent Intellect is internal to human. Its the necessary cognitive mechanism that detects the intelligibility of a sign. The physical structure, then, is the interface positioning Agent Intellect before sign, with intelligibility and its decoding as meaning an emergent property of Agent Intellect.
This configuration generates the interesting situation wherein subject/object are interwoven into a multi-part whole. The ambiguity of subject/object as discrete poles within this configuration accounts for much of the undecidability of the matter/mind debate.
It could be that the only resolution possible is the bias of individual character, as with the question whether the glass is half full or half empty.
Quoting JuanZu
Quoting JuanZu
Quoting JuanZu
Your three above quotes, taken together, raise, by implication, the question: Where is the physical location of the relation?
Whether this relation is a physical phenomenon lies at the center of my purpose in my conduct of this inquiry.
Another critically important question asks: How is the physical relation produced?
I claim that a sign, as a discrete physical entity, possesses some type of information in the form of intelligibility. Moreover, I claim that this intelligibility is physical.
This claim seems to bog down in the quagmire attached to the following question: Are numbers invented or discovered? I argue that numbers, like other types of signs, are physical and therefore discovered rather than invented. If this were not the case, how could the animal kingdom, before advent of humans, have practiced adaptation to their various environments?
Since their successful adaptations prior to humans cannot be disputed per the evolutionary claim positing some of them as our direct forebears, if follows logically that successful species made intelligent use of various physical significations about their environments towards survival and reproduction.
For these reasons, I claim that information is ambiguously internal-and-external to both the physical signification and the physical Agent Intellect who decodes the information and meaning of the former.
The curious situation that we have in nature is one with physical language as an operator positioned between sign and Agent Intellect, with intelligibility and cognition interweaving an interface that is some kind of non-local physicality, a close relative of absential materialism.
Quoting Gnomon
Let me start by asking a question pertaining to each of the fragments highlighted in bold italics.
Fragment 1: Cosmic Mind is an uncreated eternal?
Fragment 2: If matter emerged from Cosmic Mind, what is the bridge linking the non-physical with the physical?
Fragment 3: If EnFormAction makes three posits: energy = causation; form = instantiation; action = control, then these three phenomena appear to be coequal, uncreated eternals. If that's the case, how is it that Cosmic Mind is the ground of Matter, since matter_energy is coequal with Mind, per EnFormAction?
I mean, from the perspective of the sensing organism : interior = self ; exterior = other or environment. :smile:
Quoting Alkis Piskas
The evolution of conscious thinking seems to be built upon a foundation of sub-conscious feeling. :love:
Does thinking or emotion come first?
In the primary case, in the standard situation, feelings come first. Thoughts are ways of dealing with feelings ways of, as it were, thinking our way out of feelings ways of finding solutions that meets the needs that lie behind the feelings. The feelings come first in both a hierarchical and a chronological sense
https://www.futurelearn.com/info/blog/thinking-and-feeling-whats-the-difference
Quoting Alkis Piskas
Human thought seems to be an evolutionary extension of animal "passions", but in it's ultimate form as Reason, is able to rise above base passions. As the ancient Stoics taught, the ability to think dispassionately is the primary advantage of humans over animals. We are simply animals who have "learned" to control & focus our inner motivations.
Most pre-verbal human concepts are imaginary & holistic, so must be analyzed into conventional expressions before exported in spoken or written words. The mental images are abstract in the sense of lacking material substance ; not in the sense of . :nerd:
The Dispassionate Life :
Epicurus can respond that on his understanding of dispassionate, the natural sensitivity of the human being is still fully operational. Its just that the Epicurean has a correct understanding of the world and realizes that there is no reason be disturbed by it.
https://modernstoicism.com/the-dispassionate-life-by-margaret-graver/
the partial and holistic effects in mental imagery generation :
Mental imagery generation is essential in the retrieval and storage of knowledge. Previous studies have indicated that the holistic properties of mental imagery generation can be evaluated more easily than the partial properties.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2997403/
What does being abstract mean?
Abstract is from a Latin word meaning "pulled away, detached," and the basic idea is of something detached from physical, or concrete, reality. It is frequently used of ideas, meaning that they don't have a clear applicability to real life,
https://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/abstract
Yes. I used the term metaphorically to indicate what Plato called Logos. I'm not referring to the Bible-god. It's an abstract concept, that we rationally infer from the teleonomy of evolution, but have no way of verifying empirically. :smile:
Logos :
The Greek philosopher Heraclitus appears to be the first to have used the word logos to refer to a rational divine intelligence, which today is sometimes referred to in scientific discourse as the "mind of God."
https://www.pbs.org/faithandreason/theogloss/logos-body.html
Quoting ucarr
In my personal amateur thesis, the "bridge" is Generic Information (EnFormAction) : the power to create novel configurations of actualized Potential. Quantum physicist John A. Wheeler expressed the notion as "It from Bit", where It = material object, and Bit = immaterial Information (EFA). This is similar to Einstein's E=MC^2, where C (cosmic constant) is an irrational number that is now identified with Dark Energy : the expansive "force" inflating the universe. :nerd:
Cosmological constant The simplest explanation for dark energy is that it is an intrinsic, fundamental energy of space.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_energy
Quoting ucarr
Ha! The way you expressed that tripartite definition of EFA, sounds like the Christian Trinity : three different roles of eternal unitary deity, working in the multiform space-time world . But my notion of EFA is more like a computer program with three sub-routines that work together toward a final solution to the Programmer's question. Unfortunately, I don't know what that question was, but it seems to require the emergence of Intelligence and Self-Consciousness. Yet I suppose you could say that EFA (cosmic mind in action) is the "Ground" of Being, including both Mind & Matter.
I wouldn't say that "matter_energy is coequal with {Cosmic} Mind" though. In the space-time world, matter & energy & mind are different forms of Generic Information, but subordinate to the eternal un-manifest Form/Logos. Since the existence & characteristics of an eternal entity (not deity) are beyond the scope of space-time reasoning, my metaphors should be taken with a grain of skeptical salt. :cool:
PS___ For those more inclined toward Materialism/Physicalism, the Cosmic Potential/Mind could be expressed metaphorically as an Eternal Multiverse, wherein Energy & Entropy are eternally recycling. To be clear, in my metaphor, EFA works only within the physical constraints of the only entropy-increasing world that we know via our senses, but understand via our reasoning & imagination.
The physical dimension of language cannot be ignored. Just as you cannot ignore the sounds uttered by speakers and interlocutors in a communication. But you can't ignore the sound-perception, nor the symbolic, nor the meaning either. Some of those, however, cannot be spoken of in physical terms, and some in subjective terms either. That is why it seems necessary to understand language as a multidimensional phenomenon that encompasses different genres, or categories if you will.
Consequently, the generalization of the concept of sign is very useful here. Since it refers to the relation, to being-in-place-of, and to a teleological process that jumps from one system to another. We cannot however, given specific limitations, assign a substance to language. That is, reduce it to a substance called "physical", "subjective", "ideal", etc. A theory of the sign (such as the one required) seems that it must be formal, in the sense that it must respect the differences and relative autonomies of the indicated dimensions. Some will say: Genres of plural materiality.
Quoting ucarr
This baffles me a little. Doesn't the term "Intelligibility" refer to an "intellect" or a "mind"? Isn't that giving mental properties to the sign? But a sign may never be addressed by a human; and for this reason the essential intelligibility of a sign cannot be implied except for some type of mentalism, or an anthropic principle (even the idea of intelligent design). I can't agree with that. I claim that a sign does not possess intelligibility prior to its relation with a human intellect.
Quoting ucarr
I think it can be said that the information is internal to a whole that encompasses different moments: sound, symbolic subjectivity, and meaning. That is, it is internal at all moments as a whole, but it is external for each moment. Information is produced when these moments come into relation. It must be an insubstantial relation (due to the limits of reductionism mentioned above).
I do not believe this is the case. Remember, in philosophy, words generally have field-specific meaning:
https://philosophy.stackexchange.com/questions/4682/what-are-the-differences-between-sentience-consciousness-and-awareness
https://www.animal-ethics.org/problem-consciousness/#:~:text=The%20difference%20in%20meaning%20between,experiences%20of%20her%20own%20thoughts.
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/FhjwbQ3RfYeC6ZJWe/sentience-sapience-consciousness-and-self-awareness-defining
https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-31011-0_2
So, consciousness is actually very well understood to be the basis for sentience, but not the same, and while there are fuzzy edges the major difference between them (value-informed experience) seems universally accepted.
Quoting Alkis Piskas
I'll just note that I would expect references which would support the points being made, from the person making them :)
Quoting Alkis Piskas
In discussions of sentience 'feeling' indicates a subjective, value-informed state of mind, viz. emotional responses to stimuli.
Quoting Alkis Piskas
I didn't. I indicated self-awareness is not required for mechanistic reactions to stimuli without analysis. Gnomon sort of went over this too - a VFT doesn't actually know a fly is there in the way a human or dog does. You actually replied to my replacement for that theory - they are able to sense air pressure differentials (possibly). They note some underlying change in their environment and mechanical reactions are triggered. There's no mental image or deliberation. No sentience.
Quoting Alkis Piskas
It does not. Recognition is a matter for sentience.
Quoting Alkis Piskas
This runs counter to some of your comments above. If they 'recognize' flies, then they are choosing to snap out at them. But we know that isn't the case.
Quoting Alkis Piskas
This seems extremely confused. Cognition is almost correlate of sentience and feeling. It is the ability to recognize and deliberate to gain knowledge and understanding. Feeling is a result of perception, but it's not a 'part' of it.
Quoting Alkis Piskas
No idea where this is coming from? No one has tried to do that - though, i should point out it has be very adequately pointed out that consciousness doesn't entail feeling. Quoting Alkis Piskas
Again, i think you're having a different conversation then. No one has an issue with that conception of consciousness, i wouldn't think. But sentience requires much more.
OK. Just checking ... :smile:
Quoting Gnomon
Well, I find this somewhat twisted, but anyway, it's besides what we are looking for, i.e. the word "feeling" and how it is related to perception (as "touch") and unrelated to it (as "emotion").
Besides, I think I have talked a lot about how thinking is not involved in perception, and hence in consciousness.
Quoting Gnomon
Well, at risk of perpetuating a subject that is besides our main point (perception and consciousness), I have to let you know that it is the other way around: It is thinking (the mind) that produces feelings (emotions). This can be easily understood: You think (consciously) about an accident you had and this produces you fear, disgust or other emotion. Try it if you don't believe me.:smile: (But better think about something pleasant, not unpleasant!)
Now, if this emotion is produced without you thinking about the event, it means that the thought comes from the subconscious (mind). That is, emotion is always producred by thought, whether this is conscious or unconsious.
These things are well-established, Gnomon. They are "textbook" material.
But again, they are besides what we are looking for ...
And I have a share in this, because I have picked these things up from your message and perpetuated them in a way.
Quoting Gnomon
Not true, but whatever they are, they are thoughts, i.e. irrelevant with perception and, by extension, consciousness. Lower organisms can't think and yet they can pereive and are considered conscious. Only this observation explaina and can establish the direct relation of perception to consciousness, and the absence of any kind of thinking, concepts, feelings/emotions etc. in the equation.
OK about the rest. I read it and I thank you for your indeed rich and fruitful information.
Certainly.
Quoting AmadeusD
Maybe the other way around ... In order to be aware of something you must first perceive it, don't you?
Quoting AmadeusD
Does this mean that you just don't believe or trust what a person says or you can't debate what that person says or you don't trust your own reasoning, knowledge and jugment?
And that you can accept what the person says only if it is supported by some authority?
But then, what if that authority is wrong? How can you judge that if you can't judge what the person says in the first place? Or are you going to believe that authority unquestionably because it is a famous personality? Or are you going to start doubting or arguing about what that authority says or even about the authority iself? Wouldn't that end up in a vicious cycle?
It all loses its meaning, doesn't it?
See, from whatever point you are looking at it, the bottom line, the final acceptance or rejection of a proposition will always depend on your own jugment.
Quoting AmadeusD
I know that. And this is exactly what I objected to! :smile:
Quoting AmadeusD
OK about the 1st, but not the 2nd: I never said that there is no sentience. In fact, I explained that "sentience" and "perception" are very close. I alo talked about what I often like to say: Consciousness is a characteristic of life; of sentient beings.
Quoting AmadeusD
Well, I said that "sentient" by definition is "Having the power of perception by the senses; conscious."
"Recognition" goes a step further. It involes comparison, classification, identification, etc. That is, thinking.
Quoting AmadeusD
I see that we go in circles. You just reject the definitions, descriptions and examples I'm bringing up.
Why don't you look up for yourself and clear the meaning of all these words/terms in a dictionary? Do you hate dictionaries as a lot of people in here do?
Dictionary definitions seem like a really bad idea.
You seem to be focusing on small peculiarities.
Here is a list of the brain biology words that have shown up in the last few days:
Consciousness, cognition, sentience, thinking, perception, senses, mental images, deliberation, knowledge, judgment, thoughts, information, emotion, understanding, mind, language, imagination. More if you go back further.
From a materialist perspective they all involve the same brain biology, have some energy draw from the body's metabolism, are location and time specific and operate always as a whole.
An over reliance of definitions in this discussion will just cause problems. There is a connectedness to these words not a separateness.
I know it's a philosophy forum, but you said yourself that things are going in circles.
The upshot of our dialogue so far, as I see it, involves two cruxes: 1) We have a disjunction to evaluate: We know matter via mind, or we know mind via matter; 2) Mind/Matter are not two parallel categories, but rather two positions on a continuum within one category.
Regarding the first crux, is it just one or the other? If so, we have a conditional: x ? y or y ? x, with x = mind and y = matter. If x = True, which is to say if mind as a distinct category exists, and if y = True, which is to say matter as a distinct category exists, then x ? y = True and y ? x = True. In this case science and religion have no argument.
Even if x = False, x ? y = True. In this case, the existence of mind as a distinct category is false, but its implication of matter, while logically valid, is not existentially real.
If y = False , meaning the existence of matter as a distinct category is false, then x ? y = False, even if x = True. Thus, mind as a distinct category, while logically valid, in this situation does not imply matter is independently real.
Given these complications, I surmise that the second crux is the better choice regarding the search for a clear path forward to the truth rooted within common sense.
Now we can evaluate a bi-conditional representing two positions within one category: Mind_Matter are two states positioned along one continuum.
Given x ? y, with x = True and y = True, we have a bi-directional implication of two states being one value in variant forms along one continuum. Whether this equivalence refers to an independently real phenomenon is a moot question with respect to logic.
Given x ? y, with x = False and y = False, we have a bi-directional implication of two non-existent states. This equivalence, being non-existent and therefore meaningless, has nothing to say.
Since we're here and dialoguing about the nature of the states of things, we have evidence of Mind_Matter, and thus x ? y, with x = True and y = True, looks like our best choice.
My conclusion allows me to claim that when you say:
Quoting Gnomon
You're referring to a realm of mind_matter monism. The mind/body problem is a problem due to a category error in physics_philosophy (mind_matter are two parallel categories).
"Intelligible" simply means "able to be understood," as with the example of a book. Do you think something devoid of information can be understood?
Regarding the interface linking object with observer, we have the question: What does each correspondent contribute to the interface?
If the observed object, in this case the sign, contributes no information to the interface, then were back to claiming the human mind dreams the details of the sign internally. This explanation must then further explain how, or if, any mind makes contact with an objective reality beyond itself.
We should bear in mind that pattern recognition (reading of signs) involves both information and information processing. How can the latter be performed without input from the former?
Of the two options here: 1) The mind is an idealistic producer of dreamworlds populated by Platos ideal forms, or 2) Intelligible object and Agent Intellect are two objects that interact to form an interface interior & exterior to both, I expect most thinkers will find it easier to embrace the second option.
Interface represents an entangled objectivity that possesses both interior and exterior surfaces. Following this claim, we can say that the sign reads the Agent Intellect just as the Agent Intellect reads the sign. In the case of the former, the sign exerts the shaping influence of a gravitational field curving the mind with its intelligibility. This is a mirror of what the Agent Intellect does to the sign. In this situation, information is physical.
Do you propose to throw all dictionaries and encyclopedias to the garbage can and with them more than 4,000 years of knowledge? (The first recorded dictionaries date back to Sumerian times around 2300 BCE.)
Then each one start using one's own meaning of words and terms according to one's undestanding, whith no aggreement to be ever established on these words and terms?
And you think that philosophy, science and any other field of knowledge will still survive?
Just rhetorical questions. I'm not interested in talking more about this subject. It's totally useless.
I think you are picking up on the perplexing problem, with online philosophical dialogs, of using common conventional language, which is inherently materialistic/quantitative, to discuss immaterial/qualitative concepts, such as Consciousness.
In my thesis, Mind & Matter are "parallel" in the sense that they are both descendant forms of Generic Information (EFA) that exist side-by-side in the real/ideal world. But they are separate categories, in that Mind is an an emergent quality separated from the Matter-only state by billions of years of evolution. So, qualitatively Mind & Matter are completely different kinds of thing/entity : metaphysical vs physical. Likewise, Ideas exist in the "Real" world, but are qualitatively different. Ironically, Materialists define "Ideal" as un-real ; denying the reality of their own immaterial concepts.
It's hard to make such philosophical distinctions, due to the basic materialism of the language : e.g. "thing" typically designates a material object, whereas "entity" is a more philosophical term. The materialism embedded in our common language only becomes a problem when we try to convey ideas that are not objective things : e.g. Consciousness. :smile:
Thing vs Entity :
An entity is something that exists as itself. It does not need to be of material existence. In particular, abstractions and legal fictions are usually regarded as entities. In general, there is also no presumption that an entity is animate, or present.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entity
Mind/Body Problem :
Philosophers and scientists have long debated the relationship between a physical body and its non-physical properties, such as Life & Mind. Cartesian Dualism resolved the problem temporarily by separating the religious implications of metaphysics (Soul) from the scientific study of physics (Body). But now scientists are beginning to study the mind with their precise instruments, and have found no line of demarcation. So, they see no need for the hypothesis of a spiritual Soul added to the body by God. However, Enformationism resolves the problem by a return to Monism, except that the fundamental substance is meta-physical (causation) Information instead of physical (consequence) Matter.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind%E2%80%93body_problem
https://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page15.html
'Cause and Effect' : Hume''s view that the relation of cause and effect supplies the basis for our factual beliefs. Observation leads us to believe in connections between physical objects and events. The power and force of these connections are not observable, only the changes in spatio-temporal relations.
https://academic.oup.com/book/400/chapter-abstract/135206122?redirectedFrom=fulltext
Note --- EnFormAction is a power or force that has both physical/material & metaphysical/immaterial effects/consequences.
I claim that the sign by itself does not "contribute" information at all. But, equally, the subject does not contribute information either. The information would not be something that passes or transits from one system to another (between a book and a reader), but rather it is generated. That is, it is not cause but effect.
In Our everyday, when we talk about information, we say that a book has information, we also say that among all the ink marks there is something that, however, those ink marks are not. How is that possible? It is not possible to think such a thing unless we fall into a kind of Platonism, which, according to, the history of the book, or knowledge, is inside like an ideal and fantastic form in the middle of the ink mark; and somehow jumps from the ink marks to our head.
To avoid this type of Platonism, it is necessary to say that the information is not found there, neither in the book nor in the reader, but is produced as both systems of signs enter into some type of relation.
Quoting ucarr
I understand. However, I believe that a sign can become unintelligible. In the sense that a sign can always not enter into a relation with human understanding; or can be erased, like a footprint in the beach. That's why I find it difficult to say that there is such a thing as an intelligible sign. It may be, but also may not be. I prefer to say that a sign is always ready to enter into a sign-ificative relation.
You talk of mind emergent from matter. How does a non-physical entity emerge? Is not emergence, like all actions, a matter_energy, dynamical process (of geometrical transformation with attendant momentum)?
What does a non-physical entity emerge from? When you say mind emerges from matter, you imply mind is a component of matter and thus mind, like matter, is material. (See example directly below)
Note --- EnFormAction is a power or force that has both physical/material & metaphysical/immaterial effects/consequences.
Name some metaphysical effects of physical force.
EnFormAction ? energy = causation; form = matter; action = control. Energy_form_matter are physical things. Where is the immaterial component of EnFormAction?
Quoting Gnomon
Since thought, the supposed immaterial medium of your metaphysical abstractions, manifests and functions as a physical activity of our physical brains, and spacetime, the medium through which empirical experience funds our thoughts, likewise is physical, you must, as many others before you have not, explain how things immaterial shape and control things material.
Isn't it clear we can't even conceptualize immaterial things except as negations of material things, with these said negations also being material things in obverse mode?
Might it be possible that the claims for certain attributes of the immaterial world made by religionists and spiritualists can all be expressed through material phenomena? Under this configuration, a monist physical universe is no less soulful or spiritual or eternal than a dualist matter/spirit universe. One possible difference might be deletion of mysticism from the monist_physical universe.
Note how I haven't made declarations about the immaterial universe being fictional. Instead, I've presented arguments you must demolish en route to establishing its reality.
This effect is generated by what cause? What is the location of this effect? (If you're theorizing an effect without a cause, elaborate essential details of this phenomenon).
Quoting JuanZu
Picture yourself reading a printed-on-paper book. The common-sense view says the conjugated signs in the book diminish the possible meanings of the employed sign system to some specific meanings that the reader cognizes within the brain as a narrative of visuals, dialogues, actions and events, all of which conjoin to express a hero's journey of discovery and change.
Now, imagine all of the signs on the pages of the book being deleted, leaving behind blank pages. What is the additional component or dynamical process, beyond the signs, that communicates the narrative to the reader?
Also, imagine that nothing transits from the blank pages to the reader's brain. How does the reader glean a narrative from the book?
Quoting JuanZu
Finally, imagine that the reader, with respect to the book, brings a mind that is a blank slate devoid of information pertinent to the book's contents. How does the reader decode and understand a narrative totally foreign to everything the reader knows?
I just received my copy of Bernardo (BK) Kastrup's 2020 book, Science Ideated. He doesn't discuss the "Hard Problem" directly, but the subject matter seems to be pertinent to this thread. So, I'll mention a few first-glance quotes & comments here.
A. BK approaches the Science vs Philosophy controversy from a position of Analytic Idealism*1. "AI" (pardon the unintentional sentient-computer implication) sounds like a succinct description of Modern (post-17th century) philosophy : forced --- by the successes of physical science --- to focus primarily on the metaphysical aspects of Nature : e.g. Ideas ; Self-Consciousness. It accepts the material facts provided by modern physics, but interprets (analyzes) the data as it applies to the immaterial functions (conceptualization ; semiotics) of the human brain.
B. BK says that modern Science "began attributing fundamental reality only to quantities". Then, "we began cluelessly replacing reality with its description, the territory with the map." And notes that "we now face the so-called "hard problem of consciousness" : the impossibility of explaining qualities in terms of quantities." So, he concludes that we "managed to lose touch with reality altogether".
Note --- "Reality" as a whole system, including both Mind & Matter.
C> He defines Analytic Idealism as "the notion that reality . . . . is fundamentally qualitative." Thus denying the basic principle of Materialism. Idealism views the world through the lens of subjective Consciousness, while Materialism views it through the lens of objective Technology.
Note --- Qualia :the internal and subjective component of sense perceptions, arising from stimulation of the senses by phenomena. Hence, Reality converted to Ideality via physical senses, and metaphysical symbol synthesis.
D> BK says that "Panpsychism ultimately implies universal consciousness". But then he dismisses that theory as "a halfway compromise between materialism and idealism". Instead, BK seems to favor full-on Idealism, devoid of the contamination of Physicalism. Paradoxically, it's difficult to even talk about metaphysical topics without getting entangled with the physicality embedded in common languages.
Note --- Kastrup wrote "Why Panpsychism is Baloney", perhaps to complement his book Why Materialism is Baloney. https://iai.tv/articles/bernardo-kastrup-why-panpsychism-is-baloney-auid-2214
Comments :
We humans are only able to communicate the Qualia of our sensory Experience by asking : "do you see what I see?". The response must be translated from private Ideas into public Words, by following the rules of conventional language. Yet, that's where the Hard Problem begins. Our public language is necessarily built upon the material foundation of our common human sensory apparatus, that we share with apes. Even apes, such as Koko, seem to be able to communicate feelings/ideas in sign language, which can only express abstract concepts in concrete gestures. Yet, the implication that ape sentience is comparable to human consciousness has been criticized as anthropomorphic interpretation*2.
The Science-based metaphysics of Materialism is supposed to be dealing directly with physical Reality. But, since the subject "matter" is immaterial, BK says their arguments are based on hypothetical conjectures (maps), not empirical (territory) observations. So, their boo-hiss criticism of Consciousness queries on this forum, is a case of the pot calling the kettle a "woo-monger". Consciousness is inherently subjective, hence not objectifiable under a microscope.
My own theory of Consciousness has a "defect" similar to Panpsychism : jumbling Matter together with Mind. That's because the fundamental element of our real world is neither a physical thing, nor a metaphysical entity, but the not-yet-real Potential for both. Terrence Deacon calls it "constitutive absence", but I call it "causal information" (EnFormAction). Materialism & Spiritualism typically view Mind & Brain as incompatible opposites. But the BothAnd principle*3 allows us to see both sides of reality, where Mind & Matter are parts of a greater whole system : the enminded universe.
I may have more to say about Science Ideated later, after I finish the book. This is just a taste, to give us some ideas to argue about in a thread on Consciousness in a material world. :smile:
*1. Analytic Idealism in a Nutshell :
While being a realist, naturalist, rationalist, and even reductionist view, Analytic Idealism flips our culture-bound intuitions on their head, revealing that only through understanding our own inner nature can we understand the nature of the world.
https://www.collectiveinkbooks.com/iff-books/our-books/analytic-idealism-nutshell
*2. Koko the Impostor :
The apes taught sign language didn't understand what they were doing. They were merely "aping" their caretakers.
https://bigthink.com/life/ape-sign-language/
*3. Both/And Principle :
My coinage for the holistic principle of Complementarity, as illustrated in the Yin/Yang symbol. . . . Conceptually, the BothAnd principle is similar to Einstein's theory of Relativity, in that what you see ? whats true for you ? depends on your perspective, and your frame of reference; for example, subjective or objective, religious or scientific, reductive or holistic, pragmatic or romantic, conservative or liberal, earthbound or cosmic. Ultimate or absolute reality (ideality) doesn't change, but your conception of reality does, as you re-frame the question.
https://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page10.html
The cause is the relation between sign systems and the encounter between those. The effect is something that happens inside each sign system. For example, if we talk about a book, ink marks have an effect on human language, something like a story appears in subjectivity, or what we call knowledge appears, depending on the context of the book, it's a different relation each case. It even has effects on our imagination, we create images as we read, we listen to the inner narrative as we read, etc. They are effects on sign systems from other sign systems.
If we imagine that something happens to the book: it is scratched, it is burned, or any misfortune, then the book, as writing, no longer has effects on subjectivity. What's left? Something remains in memory, but memory is a different system of signs already configured at the moment we had read the absent book ( This said, in the event that there is no longer writing). What happens in the case of a blank book? In that case the book becomes a different sign; It could mean different things: That someone left it there for a reader to construct his own story; or it can be a postmodern book which expresses silence as a theme and as a blank page, etc.
Quoting ucarr
In fact, it doesn't transfer anything. A resonance happens, so to speak. One thing produces effects on another. For Example by analogy: The physical light of a book, the photons (as wave), does not transit to the brain, but makes contact with the eyes, and then the eyes with the brain, etc. Nothing is transferred, there are simply translations, transcriptions, interpretations, etc
A blank mind cannot enter into a especific meaningful relation, to the extent that there is no especific resonance, or not resonance at all. Resonance is a process of differentiation in which a relation becomes specific and differentiates itself from other relation. But the lack of specific relation does not imply the absence of any relation. This is the case when we read a book wrote in an unknown language: It does not resonate in a way it usually does if the reader speak same language, there is no determined contact (translation relation), but not the absence of any contact or any relation: since in any case if we see a book we assume that "it means something" or it is something with which we could enter into a meaningful relation.
The relationship between Book_Reader, as described by you above is Book ¬? Reader: no info passes between them.
Also, as described by you above:
Quoting JuanZu
In the picture you give us, there is no info transit, in either direction, between book and reader.
Even so, the info is generated.
Quoting JuanZu
Quoting JuanZu
Give us a picture of: both systems of signs entering into some type of relation; also, give us a picture of the environment in which both systems of signs are entering into some type of relation.
This request does NOT seek after language that is a vague, abstract description such as:
Quoting JuanZu
No. This request seeks after a description (of both systems of signs entering into some type of relation producing the info) within the everyday world of human experience. An example of a successful response to the request is a narration of a movie that shows both systems of signs entering into some type of relation producing the info as an event unfolding within the everyday world of human experience.
Mind/body questions are at the root of the Enformationism thesis. If you accept quantum physicist J. A. Wheeler's "It from Bit" conjecture, then Mental Information (Ideas) can in theory exert control over Material things. I could get into the Mind over Matter question deeply, but that would require a separate thread. Yet I doubt that it would be persuasive to a hard-core materialist. And to be clear, I am not talking about Magic.
Some scientists regard Mind-stuff (what I call "information") as more fundamental than Matter-stuff. For now, here's a quote from a neuroscientist*1, who seems to lean toward Panpsychism, which is not my personal position. Meanwhile, I'll look through my extensive body of work to see if I have directly addressed your question in past philosophical musings, as a side topic. However, I doubt that there is any slam-dunk science on the question*2. :smile:
PS___See my next post for a philosophical postulation.
*1. Mind over Matter :
[i]"Now the materialists say that conscious experience has no effect on matter. Therefore it cant influence behavior. Therefore it cant increase survival or thrival of the organism. Therefore conscious experience confers no evolutionary advantage, according to narrow materialists!
Which means what? Consciousness cant have evolved. Conscious experience must have come into being by the most extraordinary accident ever!!! But this miraculous accident explanation is a complete contradiction to the whole methodological thrust of materialism!"[/i]
___Nicholas Rosseinsky, Neuroscientist
https://bothandblog.enformationism.info/page27.html
*2. A quantum case of mind over matter?
New research proposes a way to test whether quantum entanglement is affected by consciousness.
https://insidetheperimeter.ca/a-quantum-case-of-mind-over-matter/
It is relatively easy to give examples on the matter. I have already given several, as in the case of two people who speak the same language. The sounds uttered by each individual are nothing more than sound waves with a certain structure (this includes syntax). But in themselves, these waves do not contain information: if we assume that we have supertechnology with which we can isolate some sound wave and analyze it, we will not find anything other than sound -because is in abstent of relation.
Returning to our case, the sound uttered by one individual reaches the ears of another individual; This individual makes an acoustic image (just as Saussure understands it) of what he has heard; but now what appears is the language that the listener individual possesses. It means something to him: the sound uttered (one system of signs) has effects on another system of signs (the language sedimented in the listener's memory). The information in this case is nothing other than the specific configuration that the listener's language has acquired: "hello, how are you" our listening friend understands. They are specific effects in the listener's language due to the more or less ordered structure of the sound waves uttered by the speaker.
But in a communication between two persons we cannot think of this specific configuration ("hello, how are you") without a cause, and equally we cannot think of this specific configuration as something mysteriously contained in sound while it flies through the air. Given these two impossibilities, the conclusion, evidently, is that the effect suffered by the listener's is produced and not transferred.
Are you expecting a Scientific, or Philosophical, explanation on this forum? In addition to "spooky action at a distance", Quantum Physics raised unsettling metaphysical Mind over Matter questions with its observation that a scientific Measurement seems to reduce the Uncertainty of an entangled system, somehow causing it to "collapse", or manifest, from an undifferentiated non-local holistic state into a single physical particle of matter*1. Scientific "explanations" for phenomena that don't conform to Classical Physics are typically of the metaphysical philosophical type.
Of course, that Copenhagen Interpretation is still debatable, but the before/after states are about as empirical as it gets on the quantum scale of physics. It's the in-between state (the causal factor) that remains a philosophical conjecture after all these years. But then, mundane-but-instantaneous Phase Transitions, such as water-to-ice, are not yet explicable in terms of step-by-step physical processes. The lack of a slam-dunk physical explanation does not stop us from intentionally manipulating the mysterious Phase Change phenomenon in our technology*3.
One example of Mind over Matter that I have used in the past is to point-out a common feature of modern civilization : abstract ideas implemented in the concrete world. For example, in the early oughties, Elon Musk had some far-out concepts : a> provide transportation to Mars, and b> transform automobiles from gas-guzzlers to electron-zappers. They said it couldn't be done, but only a few decades later we have both Space-X and Tesla. Without his immaterial Ideas and non-thermodynamic Will-power, those things would not have happened naturally. So, there must have been some other kind of Causal Force, working behind the scenes to make it happen. In my thesis, I call it "Causal Information".
Admittedly, this is not a scientific explanation. But then, materialistic Science has no better way to describe how physical rocket ships and electric cars could become manifestations of something as aethereal as a felt need, that Terrence Deacon called "Absential Causality" or "Constitutive Absence"*4. Do you agree that such "ententional phenomena" would never evolve in the absence of human minds? :smile:
*1. Does Consciousness Cause Quantum Collapse?
What causal effects does consciousness have on physical matter?
https://philosophynow.org/issues/121/Does_Consciousness_Cause_Quantum_Collapse
*2. The Copenhagen interpretation postulates the spontaneous reduction of only one final observer. The experiment should be described from this observer's perspective. The reduction, like the velocity of the system, depends on the choice of the final observation system.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/mathematics/copenhagen-interpretation
Note --- Is it the Observer's mental measure or the instrument's physical intervention that "causes" the change of state?
*3. Air Conditioning :
Phase Change Technology utilizes the Latent Heat of Vaporization of a working fluid to absorb thermal energy during the evaporator cycle and release this energy during the condenser cycle.
https://norenthermal.com/resources/phase-change-technology/?lang=en
Note --- Latent ?: existing in hidden or dormant form.
*4.a Absential : The paradoxical intrinsic property of existing with respect to something missing, separate, and possibly nonexistent. Although this property is irrelevant when it comes to inanimate things,it is a defining property of life and mind; elsewhere (Deacon 2005) described as a constitutive absence.
*4.b Constitutive absence :A particular and precise missing something that is a critical defining attribute of 'ententional' phenomena, such as functions, thoughts, adaptations, purposes, and subjective experiences.
https://absence.github.io/3-explanations/absential/absential.html
Note --- Deacon spells his neologism for purposeful behavior, ententional with an "E"
The only non-physical entities I'm aware of are Mental Phenomena (e.g. ideas), which I place into the philosophical category of Meta-physical. My use of that term is based on Aristotle's discussion of Nature*1 --- as a whole system of matter & mind. He describes metaphysics in terms of Causes. And in my thesis, EnFormAction (EFA) is the Causal agency of the universe (energy + laws), with the ability to transform one Form (relationship pattern) into another. So it is the origin of both Matter and Mind. But I did not intend to imply that Mind is a "component" of Matter.
From our perspective, looking backward at Evolution, from Bang to Now, Mind does appear to be emergent from Matter. But, if you look closely at the beginning, as described by Big Bang theory, there was no Matter in the modern sense, but something more akin to a Quantum state. Moreover, the initial Singularity, preceding the physical Bang*2, is a hypothetical mathematical concept, which is undefined due to infinities. For my thesis, I interpret that not-yet-real state (infinite Potential) as functioning like a computer program, with an evolutionary algorithm (instructions for development), and with the information processing power (creative Energy) to compute a universe from raw data. But first, the Singularity has to create a physical computer to run the evolutionary program. You can think of it in terms of instantaneous Inflation*2 (something from nothing-but-potential), if you prefer that to a magical Voila! ("here it is").
Since I imagine Evolution as-if a computer is processing Information (encoded data) according to natural (mathematical) laws*3, it creates "candidate solutions" to partial problems in sequence, for selection conforming to functional criteria. The early (hot & dense) universe was the raw (quantum) material for further development into Atoms & Molecules ; the first real matter. Each subsequent phase of emergence produces novel forms, never before seen in the world : e.g. stars create new forms of matter. such as iron. After further processing, a non-physical Function emerges : Life -- animated matter ; single cells. Next, those organisms develop another novelty : Brains -- material central processors of information ; control systems. And eventually, those Brains produced a new function : Mind -- with awareness of relationship of Self to Environment.
So, that's an abbreviated summary of how I see Mind emerging from Matter, which emerged from Math (abstract information). As I get time, I may address some of your other mis-understandings. :smile:
*1. What did Aristotle argue in his metaphysics?
He argues that the study of being qua being, or First Philosophy, is superior to all the other theoretical sciences because it is concerned with the ultimate causes of all reality, not just the secondary causes of a part of reality.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metaphysics_(Aristotle)
*2. Cosmic Inflation :
The Big Bang wasn't the beginning, after all. Instead, that honor goes to cosmic inflation, and everyone should understand why.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2019/10/22/what-came-first-inflation-or-the-big-bang/?sh=3b5c4c044153
*3. Evolutionary computation :
In evolutionary computation, an initial set of candidate solutions is generated and iteratively updated
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolutionary_computation
Our brains use 20 percent of our bodies total energy. In terms of power it's about as much as a 10 watt light bulb. So we should suspect consciousness is energy driven. I don't think that's the end of it though. Once we have functioning consciousness the subject matter can drive physical matter.
In my thesis, there is indeed a close relationship between Energy and Consciousness. Both are emergent forms of a cosmic predecessor that I call EnFormAction. But each sub-form has its own characteristic properties. Energy is physical causation, but no material properties. Instead, in my hypothesis, tangible Matter --- mathematically defined in terms of Mass --- is what happens to Energy when the speed of Light slows down enough for a phase change (to Mass) to occur (E=MC^2). So, Light & Matter & Mind are different phases of the same Universal Substance (essence), to which I apply the modern term "Information", but translate into EnFormAction : the creative act of enforming (i.e. transformation or causation).
If you can accept that far-out philosophical posit, then yes : "Consciousness is energy driven". Yet again, in my thesis --- not in standard physics --- both C & E are forms of Generic Information : the universal metaphysical power (potential) for form change. Pre-Big Bang, the unknown "nothing" from which our "something" physical universe suddenly popped into existence was simply Eternal Potential. That's equivalent to Plato's Logos/Form, and to Aristotle's Prime Mover.
But the heat given-off by a hard-thinking brain is more closely related to the work of pushing electrons & calcium around in the neural net, than to processing massless immaterial thoughts. Conscious Awareness doesn't radiate like a light bulb . . . . except perhaps as a graphic metaphor. :smile:
No, Roger Penrose, We See No Evidence Of A Universe Before The Big Bang
https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2020/10/08/no-roger-penrose-we-see-no-evidence-of-a-universe-before-the-big-bang/?sh=16ddef047a0f
Does the human brain get hotter when thinking?
https://www.quora.com/Does-the-human-brain-get-hotter-when-thinking
The hotter when thinking link is interesting.
I think I used to notice brain warming when playing Tetris at a high level. A little worrying.
Good graphic.
I was making the point that since consciousness is mass and energy dependant then thoughts are not immaterial.
If thoughts are physical (and located somewhere in the brain presumably), and you imagine an orange, did a part of your brain turn orange?
https://iep.utm.edu/identity/#H2
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/mind-identity/#Lat
Hi Alkis :) Thanks for your thorough response.
I\ve started with the above as i believe it, in some senses, makes some of your other responses redundant or contradictory.. though i do not think this is on purpose, a result of stupidity or anything.
Quoting Alkis Piskas
Consciousness entails perception. Sentience entails feeling about perception. It seems counter to both the definitions used by philosophers, and the basic notion of these two concepts, that Sentience could precede consciousness. That seems exactly backwards to me and i can't grasp how you're seeing it another way.
To my understanding, consciousness is more basic than sentience. Sentience is in addition to consciousness. This someone goes to my first response above - you seem to be not really using the correct distinction that philosophers use when discussing this - but that is based on my understanding just there, so i may be wrong. But it doesn't seem in any way a philosophical problem in the sense of 'debate'. One of us is using hte wrong term.
Quoting Alkis Piskas
No. It means i expect someone presenting sources for their arguments to actually have verified sources, rather internet articles for which there are no references, no credible citation and no clear author or institutional source. And to note, I did, in fact, critique it via my own 'judgement' anyway.
Quoting Alkis Piskas
Give both aspects of what i've said about, i think this entire passage is misconceived and potentially a way of trying to deflect from a lack of support for the initial assertion. I don't know that to be true, but its a huge protest that doesn't make any sense given i addressed the article and the lack of credibility. I would also note that being directed to Google for sources supporting your own argument is bizarre, and Twitter-level interlocution to my mind. I left Twitter to avoid that type of "Do you own research" kind of thing. To be a little more direct, If i can't find a good reason to take your assertion on board, or consider it seriously due to it failing at xyz hurdle, your sources are the way to convince someone you have something. Your sources are used to ensure you're not making stuff up - in this case, as your source fell well short of being credible, thorough or even clear in its origin and thesis, i can't understand why you're being dismissive of wanting sources. Seems counter to what we do here.
Quoting Alkis Piskas
That's true. But unless you're suggesting we jettison understanding, reason, veracity and debate - i can't see how this is relevant. Quoting Alkis Piskas
If this was your intention, it was not clear and doesn't seem to be relevant to what we're actually talking about.
If we both agree sentience isn't required for the above, we are left with consciousness (which was my assertion all along). That means you've somewhat shot your objection in it's own foot.
Quoting Alkis Piskas
This, again, doesn't seem relevant. They aren't particularly close in the context we're discussing, but further, even if they are 'close' its their distinction that matters to us here - not their similarity. And in any case, we seem to both have established (albeit, you've done it by accident) that sentience is further up the chain from consciousness, as consciousness is not required for thought (mental images) where sentience is. This ...almost... feels like you're pulling my leg.
Quoting Alkis Piskas
No. That is not the case, at all. I have pointed out to you that the definitions you are using are both non-philosophical, and fail us in making a distinction (which clearly exists).
The fact that your utterances aren't taken as wrote is not any indication of some kind of resistance or dishonesty on the part of your interlocutor. As i've found out, it's difficult but extremely helpful to accept where you are wrong, or where your thinking isn't clear. More below...
Quoting Alkis Piskas
If you are not apt to use philosophical definitions and usages of words, this may not be the best place to discuss these things. I also note three instances of ad hominem in this response ( most recently, in the quote immediately above this section of my comment.
Quoting Alkis Piskas
Are you suggesting you have no further interest in establishing communal philosophical usages of words, that you have no further interest in discussing consciousness, or that you have no further interest in philosophy?
IN all three cases, i return to my earlier suggestion - this may not be the place for you to discuss these issues. Given that you've been here three years and amassed more than 2000 posts, this strikes as quite odd. Has this been a long time coming, or have you long-had a distaste for the nitty-gritty as it were?.
I'm saying we need to be rigorous in how we approach the problem of the immaterial or non-physical.
Non-physical means it does not exist.
But the physical brain has the capability to handle the immaterial. For example zero, the past and future. So the immaterial, stand alone, does not exist but the paired brain-immaterial does exist and that is exactly the form of immaterial we experience.
I would admit in your example of the orange that that too is immaterial so maybe all mental content is immaterial...I'm okay with that as long as it's paired with a physical brain.
Maybe we get lazy and want to deal with the immaterial as an abstraction because it's generally understood that way. Maybe subconsciously we know better.
See the little graphic next to my name. So x would be the orange and Y(o) the brain-immaterial pair.
Mental phenomena inhabit the natural world as material realities.
Quoting Gnomon
Your language implies mind is a component of matter because in your thinking about its emergence, your language invokes the concept of emergence, an action that, in context here, manifests physically. Your usage is evidence your thinking alternates between two realms, one material, the other immaterial. When you argue that immaterial things emerge from material things, you imply that the material and the immaterial have common ground. This means the two modes have an intersection wherein their supposed parallelism collapses. The necessity of common ground for interaction means the spirit world cannot interact with the material world and remain wholly spiritual. Familiar evidence of this is the manifestation of Jesus as flesh and blood.
Quoting Gnomon
There's no metaphysics here. This is physics within the framework of thermodynamics. This framework includes the higher-orders of thermodynamics: morphodynamics and teleodynamics. This broadly inclusive framework includes mind, but there's no mind-over-matter in the sense of Cartesian Dualism. This is to say there's no metaphysical entity inhabiting an immaterial universe and spiritually controlling material objects within the natural world.
The theme behind my arguments thus far is the premise that much (if not all) of what spiritual parallelism to date claims for itself is actually higher-order materialism. My premise is not, however, an expression of reductive materialism. It is, instead, a mandate to seek the release of spirituality from Cartesian Dualism.
The disjunction: science or philosophy, with respect to consciousness studies, runs parallel to the disjunction: physics or math, with respect to Relativity. Anyone operating within either of these two disciplines who aligns with either of these disjunctions assumes position to play the part of the fool.
You can hover in the vicinity of philosophy without a grounding in science, and you can hover in the vicinity of physics without math, but the immersion-in-depth requisite for proficient, authoritative understanding of either necessitates these groundings.
Quoting Gnomon
To me this sounds like a description of stored energy and, therefore, I say in response: Where there's energy there's material and thus your attempt to occupy ambiguous position between material/immaterial is false. Your Enformaction, like Deacon's constitutive absence, stands squarely within the material world.
Quoting Gnomon
Quoting Gnomon
I surmise from your above two quotes that you wish to escape the mind/body conflict by pairing the two positions such that you transcend the impasse while at the same time carving out a niche for your own postulations. Speaking structurally, with Enformaction, you're going non-binary.
So, the Both/And Principle is the lynchpin of Enformation.
Both/And translates to: disjunction operator (or)/conjunction operator (and).
Lets examine your Both/And principle logically with X = Material and Y = Immaterial.
If Material = True and Immaterial = True, then
(X or Y) / (X and Y) translates to (True or True) or (True and True). This evaluates to (True or True). This evaluates to True as the final state. If both material world and immaterial world exist, then the Both/And Principle contains truth content.
Lets assume the reality of the material world is not in dispute (Solipsists speak now or forever hold your peace).
What about the reality of the immaterial world? Its in dispute.
Does Gnomons claim for the ambiguity of Enformaction hold true? I dispute Gnomons defense by arguing his Enformaction, as defined, equals potential energy and that, being energetic (although non-kinetic), is material, not ambiguous.
So now we can evaluate the truth content of the Both/And Principle in application to Enformaction as defined: the fundamental element of our real world is neither a physical thing, nor a metaphysical entity, but the not-yet-real Potential for both[/i].
If Material = True and Immaterial = False, then
(X or Y) / (X and Y) translates to (True or False) or (True and False). This evaluates to (True or False). This evaluates to True as the final state. This means that within the disjunction operator, theres truth content even if only one of the terms is true because theyre not connected. The Both/And Principle contains truth content within one of its chambers.
An example of the disjunction operator containing truth value for (X or Y) which evaluates to (True or False) which evaluates to True is: " the fundamental element of our real world is neither a physical thing, nor a metaphysical entity, but the not-yet-real Potential for both."
If, as I argue, this is a claim for a transcendent ambiguity that is really a description of stored energy, a material reality, then were looking at a (True or False) disjunction that evaluates to a final state that has truth content.
The conventional interpretation of my argument expresses as the claim the material world is true whereas the immaterial world (and evasive ambiguity) is false and yet, claims about the immaterial world can nevertheless make statements true in the material world.
One possible further interpretation is that spiritual claims about existence draw some of their truth from claims that ultimately pertain to attributes of human nature as it expresses itself within the natural world. This indicates in turn that spirituality is sometimes in fact a sub-division of human psychology.
Finally, this leads us to speculate about spiritualist-human-psychology occupying a position on the continuum of material things inhabiting the natural world.
My thesis of EnFormAction does exist "within the material world", because the observer lives in the world of tangible material objects and invisible physical forces. But I think your interpretation of the thesis is influenced by the materialistic nature of the English language*1. That's why our dialogs on the Philosophy Forum are so often fraught with harsh put-downs, when we fail to communicate on both levels. Some posters attempt to express philosophical concepts in concrete scientific language, while others use more abstract expressions when discussing topics like "Consciousness". That inherent ambiguity limits our ability to communicate, unless we understand that both Concretions and Abstractions exist side-by-side in the Real/Ideal world.
Perhaps you still haven't grasped the meaning of the BothAnd Principle. It acknowledges that our objective world is Matter-based, and that our subjective realm is Mind-based. So, I can agree with you, that the technical term EnFormAction is a brain-state in the material world. But it is also a concept in & about the ideal realm of Mind. :smile:
*1. Language is too material!
language is infused with materiality and should not therefore be considered as an abstract system that is isolated from socio-material reality.
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11097-017-9540-0
*2. The BothAnd Principle :
Conceptually, the BothAnd principle is similar to Einstein's theory of Relativity, in that what you see ? whats true for you ? depends on your perspective, and your frame of reference; for example, subjective or objective, religious or scientific, reductive or holistic, pragmatic or romantic, conservative or liberal, earthbound or cosmic. Ultimate or absolute reality (ideality) doesn't change, but your conception of reality does. Opposing views are not right or wrong, but more or less accurate for a particular purpose.
https://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page10.html
Today, while perusing Deacon's book Incomplete Nature, I came across a philosophical term that I hadn't noticed in previous readings : Neutral Monism*3. Serendipitously, it happens to be pertinent to both this Consciousness thread, and to the BothAnd concept. It assumes that both Mind & Matter emerge from a single more fundamental root or cause. Both Particulars (material objects) and Relations (ideas about associations between things) exist in our Material/Immaterial world. So, William James coined the term Radical Empiricism*4 to include both empirical Things and theoretical Ideas under the purview of Philosophy.
In 500BC, Plato called that original Source or Essence : Form & First Cause. In the 17th century, Spinoza called that Single Substance deus sive natura. But in the 21st century, my thesis calls it EnFormAction, a contraction of Energy (causation) & Information (organization). EFA is neither Matter nor Mind, but it creates both of those sub-forms as distinctive aspects of the Real world. Moreover, the philosophical perspective of Radical Empiricism seems to be a BothAnd acknowledgement of the apparent Duality of reality, even as it postulates a Monistic origin of all things & ideas in our diverse multiform world. :nerd:
*3. Neutral monism [i]is an umbrella term for a class of metaphysical theories in the philosophy of mind, concerning the relation of mind to matter. These theories take the fundamental nature of reality to be neither mental nor physical; in other words it is "neutral".
Neutral monism has gained prominence as a potential solution to theoretical issues within the philosophy of mind, specifically the mindbody problem and the hard problem of consciousness.[/i]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neutral_monism
*4. Radical Empiricism is a philosophical doctrine put forth by William James. It asserts that experience includes both particulars and relations between those particulars, and that therefore both deserve a place in our explanations.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radical_empiricism
Quoting ucarr
The point of my thesis is to provide a conjunction (BothAnd) that weaves together the disjunctions of Science and Philosophy. For example, Physics is empirical, but Math is theoretical; yet both exist in the same world as different forms of the same universal substance. So, I can agree that those who "align with either", to the exclusion of the other, is playing the fool. Watch your step! :joke:
Quoting JuanZu
It looks like you're trying to have it both ways: you acknowledge that spoken dialogue is both inflected grammatically (tense, mood, number, case and gender) and modulated vocally (pauses, volume changes, accents, rate-of-delivery changes, diction). You end by claiming sound waves convey no meaning because they are absent of relation.
In the first part of your statement, you make it clear (by implication) that individual words and their vocal utterances have relationships between themselves as expressed by each speaker individually. That everyday dialogues involve no exchanges of information is a curious claim extremely counter-intuitive if true.
Quoting JuanZu
If I understand correctly what you've written (which may not be what you intend to communicate), then "acoustic image" equals the listener's language database actively interrelating to some utterances of the speaker. In my common sense understanding, I have no question about this being an instance wherein an interweaving relationship is unfolding through the process of information exchange between two speakers having a conversation.
If the utterances of the speaker mean something to the listener, again, my common sense tells me the listener's accessed portion of his language database is being reconfigured by the information exchange process to the effect of him cognizing the speaker's meaning. In short, the listener now knows what the speaker is thinking, whereas before, he didn't. I see no room for doubting, via common sense, that an information exchange from one sentient to another has occurred.
Your point throughout our dialogue, as I understand it, claims that utterance involves no exchange of information because information exchange can only occur between to sign-systems databases, i.e., two language databases held in memory by sentients.
But in your above quote, you acknowledge that utterances in dialogues are both logically inflected and aurally modulated. Strip away the inflection and the modulation and the two signs-systems databases have nothing to work with but a signifier-absent, droning hum. You say as much in your words below:
"hello, how are you" our listening friend understands. They are specific effects in the listener's language due to the more or less ordered structure of the sound waves uttered by the speaker.[/quote]
Quoting JuanZu
Your above quote is the crux of your argument, and it's what I've been struggling to understand in the terms of the language you've been using.
The cause is the thinking of the two sentients who inflect and modulate their utterances. That this thinking and communicating is a physical, objective exchange of information through spacetime is evidenced by the generations of newborn humans who acquire language skills. There can be no doubt that at least a portion of these language skills originate externally before the learning child becomes able to internalize them. Noam Chomsky, a linguist, theorizes existence of an innate, human aptitude for language; that's the internal portion.
The mind (i.e. mental activity) may be matter-based. Are you denying that possibility? It's not clear, but by stating this dichotomy, it seems that way.
Quoting Gnomon
Physicalist metaphysics joins the two. Earlier, you said:
Quoting Gnomon
This is why I refer to "mental activities" rather then "the mind". We should be able to agree that mental activities occur. Mental activities are...activities, like running (actions are not "entities"), so I disagree with imposing an inherent reification.
Quoting Gnomon
I have a question about it.
Both = referring to two things regarded and identified together; used before the first of two alternatives to emphasize that the statement being made applies to each; having it both ways (in your case, having it both ways in spite of seeming incompatibility).
And = used to connect things that are to be taken jointly.
It seems to me that "both" and "and" are virtually the same thing. Perhaps they're not identical, but I think they're very close to being so. Therefore, regarding the Both/And Principle, my first thought is that this is a redundancy. If that's the case, then your use of the forward slash (/), which conventionally indicates an opposition between polarities, expresses something incorrect.
On another point, you suggest with your language that, regarding the Both/And Principle, "Both" equals the disjunction operator which, properly speaking is "or" not "both." Here's the evidence supporting this:
Quoting Gnomon
Perhaps, as you say, I'm looking at the surface of the principle and missing its true meaning. So, why is the Both/And Principle not a redundancy? (Note - I do see that if the principle intentionally joins redundancy and opposition to express paradox, then its logical absurdity is intended.)
Quoting Relativist
I join Relativist in posing this question to you. Also, I will attempt to reenforce his supposition about mind being matter-based by claiming that any phenomenon with time duration is physical because spacetime is a physical medium. Thoughts, possessing time duration, are therefore physical.
Quoting Gnomon
If, by concretions and abstractions, you mean to say concrete things and abstract things exist side-by-side within the natural world, I agree. I don't agree, however, that the concrete/abstract debate parallels the mind/body debate. The former is non-controversial, the latter anything but. Since, in my opinion, language is unambiguously physical, it's not enough to acknowledge language as being materialistic. This ascription suggests that language has domain over things both material and immaterial. Embedded within this premise is the additional premise that thoughts are immaterial, another premise I dispute.
With the advent of the concept of spacetime as a physical phenomenon, the spiritualist faces a deep puzzle in the attempt to postulate existing things that have no duration in time.
I don't know where you got "reification", but I refer to the Mind as the Function of the Brain. Both are aspects of heterogeneous (diverse) Reality, but only the brain is a material object. Mind is an abstract immaterial process, closer to Energy than Matter. I make that distinction because Mind is not an empirical thing to be analyzed by Science, but an immaterial activity to be studied holistically by Philosophy . . . or by Psychology, which is mostly philosophical. :smile:
Why psychology isnt science
Because psychology often does not meet the five basic requirements for a field to be considered scientifically rigorous
https://www.latimes.com/opinion/la-xpm-2012-jul-13-la-ol-blowback-pscyhology-science-20120713-story.html
In physics, energy is an abstract, non-material quantity associated with the state of a system.
file:///C:/Users/johne/Downloads/PERC02_Loverude.pdf
Yes, both "Both" and "And" are conjunctions, so the redundancy is intentional for emphasis. But BothAnd joins the two into a single holistic concept, which is in opposition to the common Either/Or presumptions of Reductionism. :smile:
PS___ I appreciate your constructive skepticism. Too much criticism on this forum is couched in destructive cynicism.
Quoting ucarr
No, I don't think that the brain-function we call "Mind", or the body-function "Life", exist outside space-time. Both are simply concepts that exist in the unreal realm of Ideas. You can't put them under a microscope, but you can analyze them philosophically. Also, I don't deny that both of those immaterial functions evolved from material predecessors. They are references to "absences"*1 in Terrence Deacon's notion of "aboutness". And, like most philosophical speculations, they can't be understood from a space-time Materialist/Physicalist perspective.
I define "Mind & Life" in meta-physical*2 terms for two reasons : a> to distinguish my Information-based holistic worldview from matter-based Materialism and reductive Science. And b> to force us to trace the evolution of Matter & Mind back to the beginning of the space-time world, which (per BB theory) suddenly appeared from no-where & no-thing & no-time. A century after the Big Bang hypothesis, cosmologists still debate what existed "before" the physical bang. My proposal is metaphysical Causation (EnFormAction ; primordial Energy ; creative Power) and Entention*3 (goal-directed program for evolution)*4. All current cosmologies presume that Energy (cause) & Law (order) pre-existed the Bang.
In my information-based thesis, the source of our Reality was something like Plato's timeless Ideality, consisting of Infinite Potential (FORM) which is not-yet-real and not-yet-existing. What you call "mind being matter-based" is a banal truism. What I call "Mind" (capital M) is a philosophical postulation, based on physicist Wheeler's "It from Bit" conjecture. Both posits go beyond the space-time boundaries of Science, into the unbounded possibilities of Philosophical speculation. Enformationism is a modern update of ancient Panpsychism, similar to Radical Empiricism & Neutral Monism. They build-upon, but go beyond, the facts of physical Science. :nerd:
*1. Absential : The paradoxical intrinsic property of existing with respect to something missing, separate, and possibly nonexistent. Although this property is irrelevant when it comes to inanimate things, it is a defining property of life and mind; elsewhere (Deacon 2005) described as a constitutive absence
Constitutive absence :A particular and precise missing something that is a critical defining attribute of 'ententional' phenomena, such as functions, thoughts, adaptations, purposes, and subjective experiences.
https://absence.github.io/3-explanations/absential/absential.html
*2. Meta-physics :
The branch of philosophy that examines the nature of reality, including the relationship between mind and matter, substance and attribute, fact and value.
*3. Entention : Deacon Incomplete Nature
[i]Special spelling of "intention" : purpose ; direction
Aboutness : aiming toward some external or future state[/i]
*4. Do you think evolution from chaotic plasma to intelligent ucarr happened by accident? Accidents are destructive of order. Design is constructive of organization. Do you think Evolution could work like a computer program, to compute something unknown (the missing answer) from something known (the initial state)? Design and Entention are no-nos for empirical Science, but not for theoretical Philosophy. What we are talking about on this thread is not rocket science, but the Intelligence that leads toward rockets to Mars.
Quoting ucarr
I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree. The "parallels" are philosophical analogies, and have no basis in materialistic Science. Do you consider yourself to be a devout Materialist? If so, why are you posting on a free-thinking Philosophy Forum? :cool:
I compared mental activity to running. The word "running" is an abstraction, but ontologically grounded in a material process. Mental activity may be the same. We describe the mental processes abstractly, but that doesn't preclude it being grounded in material processes.
[Quote]I don't know where you got "reification", but I refer to the Mind as the Function of the Brain. Both are aspects of heterogeneous (diverse) Reality, but only the brain is a material object.[/quote]
If you're claiming mental activity entails the existence of immaterial objects I'd regard that as a reification- treating an abstraction as something ontic.
Would you acknowledge that arithmetical proofs and logical relations are real, even if not material? It doesnt mean treating them as things - which is what reification means - but acknowledging that they are the same for all who are capable of understanding them.
Reification means to treat as a thing. It is from the root re- (from which reality is also derived), and which Descartes employed in his res cogitans, and by virtue of which he has been accused of reifying mind (justly, in my view). But as per my question above, I say that one may regard numbers and logical conventions as real without reifying them as things.
I do not acknowledge that these abstractions (or any other) are part of the ontological structure of the world. Abstraction is a mental exercise, and logic is semantics.
For the record, I'm not claiming that mental activity is a real thing (ontic), but an ideal concept (noumena). Brain processes are real & physical, but mental activities are ideal & metaphysical. Science deals with Reality and Objects, but Philosophy deals with Ideality and Subjects. The ontological being of Mind is essential, not material. You can't examine Intellect under a microscope, but you can study Reason with reasoning.
However, if you don't pay close attention, the materialistic presumptions of our common language may give you the impression that metaphysical noumena are physical phenonomena. :smile:
Aristotle describes Mind (nous, often also rendered as intellect or reason) as the part of the soul by which it knows and understands
Yes. Apparently is reading Reification into what I call Ideality (the state or quality of being ideal). Ironically the "res" in res cogitans is usually translated as "thing". Although non-specific, "thing" seems to imply physical object or sensory phenomenon. So I struggle to find language that doesn't sound like Reification. How do you deal with the problem of communicating immaterial-but-non-spiritual philosophical concepts in a materialist language? :smile:
You beg off from the arduous path of scientific rigor by drawing a hard boundary around your philosophical postulations, and yet all of them seem to be funded by the theories and experimental verifications of materialistic science. If your philosophy were authentically divested from rational materialism, I think it would be almost barren. Given this situation, it's clear to me you'd benefit greatly by investing more time in study of science with rigor, whether reductive or not.
Regarding your currency with the fashionable isms of the populist publications for the science-adjacent, you cover the whole waterfront. Enformaction has popular titbits for just about everyone as it unfolds its wings and, like a game of three-card Molly, deftly shifts its positions. There's materialism for those conversant in QM and its imponderables; there's Spirituality for votaries questing for understanding of the metaphysical grounds of existence; there's mysticism taking up an intermediary ambiguity between matter and spirit. Enformaction is a clever dynamo. "Can't catch me!" He exclaims. "Now I'm here, galavanting with the scientists. Whoa! Now I'm hanging out with the pious crowd. Look out. I'm deep in the mists of the misty moors of the unknowable. Can't catch me!"
Riffing behind researchers and practitioners with jazzy renditions of their hard-won themes that you comprehend with noteworthy proficiency is nonetheless science_philosophy lite.
I know these comments, being harsh, will be tough to swallow, but they're intentionally so. I've walked a mile down the road you're still walking. As we dialog, I feel like I'm talking to myself. I'm referring to myself of the recent past. I've spun around with the centrifugal excitement of a whirlygigging carousel whose name is Vanity. Suddenly jumping off, the radical change in momentum puts an aching into my knees. That's what happens when you emerge from the giddy flights of fancy sponsored by self-importance.
Now that I'm walking on solid ground, inching along slowly, experiencing substantial things, I look back on my days as an airman borne aloft without an airplane and laugh at myself.
I don't think abstractions are ontic. I reject platonism, which treats ideal forms as ontic. It's still fine to talk about them figuratively as things, but it's unclear to me if you're talking figuratively or literally. Please clarify, because this thread is about the "hard problem" -which is only a problem for materialism. If your solution is to assume the existence of the immaterial, please state this.
You seem to deal with a lot of perspectives that you reply to and something came to mind about materialism. A person's life experience might have an influence on what philosophy they adopt regarding consciousness. In my case, my occupation deals with a lot of material objects such as moving a mass from point A to point B, machine operation, operating in dangerous environments, bad weather, physical environments that are not controlled,...that sort of thing. Since my personal approach to consciousness and the material environment affects my safety I might naturally have a more materialist view than someone coming from a historical or academic view. Things like eye to hand coordination or safely operating a machine for example.
So that's a consideration as to why I comment or criticize the way I do.
I'm not sure how the non-physical things would/should be divided. Mental things, like thoughts. Does every non-physical thing come down to that? Is mathematics a mental thing? Like any thought, mathematics doesn't exist if nobody is thinking about it. If nobody is reading the book about mathematics, it's just physical paper with physical ink. It doesn't have any mental content on its own.
I suppose it depends how you're defining it. If you mean the anthropocentric system of allocating symbols to facts about the world and abstracting them to come to proofs, then yes. That's true.
But if you take mathematics as merely a naming of those aspects of the world that necessarily are attending by the former description, i'm unsure this can be said.
Well, you will have an issue accounting for the 'unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics in the natural sciences' (Eugene Wigner).
Quoting Patterner
The point about numbers and arithmetical principles is that they are not the product of thought, but can only be grasped by thought. This is the general area of Platonism in philosophy of mathematics, which is a big and contested question.
Quoting Gnomon
It's very difficult. Numbers and the like are often referred to as 'intelligible objects', but here I think the term 'object' is being used metaphorically. Nevertheless mathematical platonists (which include Godel and Penrose) believe that mathematics is describing something real (again, using 'thing' metaphorically).
Not really. There are mathematical relations between the things that exist. These relations don't exist independently of the things that exhibit them. Simple example: two-ness is a property that groups of 2 have, but groups of 3 of 4 lack. This fact doesn't depend on "2" existing in a 3rd realm.
Quoting JuanZu
Quoting JuanZu
Hence, as your statements may suggest (emphasis in bold mine), only an active mind can generate and then process information? Signs themselves are gathered pools of thermodynamic potential available for processing towards information by active minds that supply constraints that occupy in the negative, a core function of the generative processes of cognition?
I'm drawing my concept words from Terrence W. Deacon, who wrote: Incomplete Mind.
Have you been attempting to convey to my understanding something akin to the following quote from Deacon: REPRESENTATION
We can conclude that a representational relationship cannot be vested in any
object or structure or sign vehicle. It is not reducible to any specific physical
distinction, nor is it fully constituted by a correspondence relationship. But
neither is it a primitive unanalyzable property of minds. Instead, even simple
functional and representational relationships emerge from a nested
interdependence of generative processes that are distinctive only insofar as they embody specific absences in their dynamics and their relationships to one
another. These absences embody, in the negative, the constraints imposed on the
physical substrates of signals, thoughts, and communications which can be
transferred from one substrate to another, and which thereby play efficacious
roles in the world as inherited constraints on what tends to occur, rather than
acting as pushes or pulls forcing events in one direction or another. Constraints
dont do work, but they are the scaffolding upon which the capacity to do work
depends.
This is only the barest outline of an information theory that is sufficient to
account for some of the most basic features of functional and representational
relationships, so it cannot be expected to span the entire gap from biological
function to conscious agency. But considering that even very elementary
accounts of biological function and representation are currently little more than
analogies to man-made machines and human communications, even a general
schema that offers a constructive rather than a merely descriptive analogical
approach is an important advance.
In this exploration of the relationship between information theory,
thermodynamics, and natural selection, we have unpacked some of the
unrecognized complexity hidden within the concept of information. By
generalizing the insight captured by Claude Shannons equation of information
with entropy reduction and constraint propagation, and tracing its linkage to
analogues in thermodynamic and evolutionary domains, we have been able to
address some of the most vexing issues of representation, reference, and
normativity (i.e., usefulness). By removing these inadequacies in current
definitions of information, we may at last overcome the seemingly
insurmountable obstacles to formulating a theory of representation that is
sufficiently rich to serve as the basis for biology and the cognitive neurosciences,
and sufficiently grounded in physics to explain representational fallibility, error
checking, information creation, and the relationship between informational and
energetic processes.
The universe operated just fine during the billions of years it existed before there were any minds around to grasp, reason,or understand anything about it. Those physical relations among objects and phenomena were present in them, despite the absence of them being described as formulae.
It appears to have, yes. There is a much deeper issue here than the hard problem of consciousness, although it is related. But if you do have time, have a look at my OP The Mind Created World, which presents an alternative view to the one you're proposing. Comments would be welcome.
I do take exemption from the empirical requirements of scientific rigor, when I'm discussing a topic that has no objective empirical evidence. I would like to assume that the different methodologies*1 would go without saying on The Philosophy Forum ; but Materialism/Physicalism seems to be the default metaphysics for many posters.
If the topic of this thread was Neurology, I would indeed feel the need to justify my arguments with empirical data. However, the kernel of my thesis was a scientist's interpretation of quirky Quantum Physics, and computerized Information science : "it from bit" : material things are derived from immaterial information*2. So, yes, my thesis is fundamentally "funded" by Science, yet not the "materialistic" type, but the theoretical philosophical type. That's because Consciousness is subjective, not objective*3.
The Enformationism thesis is not entirely "divested" from materialism, anymore than Quantum Physics is completely separate from Macro Physics. But quantum-scale matter is more mathematical (wave function) than material (particle). And the "evidence" for quantum behavior is much more open to philosophical interpretation than for full-scale chemistry. So, the math adds some "rigor" to the science of invisible & intangible "things"*5. But, a century later, quantum physics remains more philosophical than empirical. And some physicists interpret the Copenhagen Interpretation to imply that Consciousness might be related to quantum phenomena.
If you are really interested in the Science underlying the Enformationism thesis, invest some time in reviewing the website and the blogs. But remember that the thesis is not scientific, and I am not a scientist. Also, the professional scientists I quote, feel free to depart from the rigors of materialistic science, when they are extrapolating from hard evidence to philosophical speculation. Besides Wheeler*3, I follow several other physicists*4 who venture off the reservation in search of philosophical understanding of subjective concepts, such as Consciousness. :smile:
*1. The Difference Between Philosophy and Science :
The difference lies in the method of explanation. While philosophy uses philosophical arguments and philosophical principles, science makes use of empirical data and objective evidence. Science uses empirical data to validate its theories. It takes the answers of experiment and proves them to be right or wrong.
https://www.ponderingphilosopher.com/the-difference-between-philosophy-and-science/
*2. John Archibald Wheeler's "It from Bit" theory is a philosophical idea that suggests that all physical reality, including spacetime itself, is ultimately derived from information. According to this concept, fundamental reality is not composed of particles or fields, but rather information. In this theory, Wheeler suggests that information is primary, and the material world emerges from the interactions and processing of information.
https://www.quora.com/According-to-John-Wheelers-it-from-bit-theory-can-information-exist-outside-of-spacetime-Can-information-cause-something-without-completely-no-energy-in-it-from-bit-theory
Note --- Information processing is energetic in the sense of causing physical transformations.
*3. Information Theory and Consciousness :
Consciousness is a subjectively experienced phenomenon that cannot be doubted, as Descartes famously observed.
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fams.2021.641239/full#h2
Note --- The Santa Fe Institute for the Study of Complexity is a scientific endeavor, but its subject-non-matter, Complexity, is not a material object ; it is instead a generalized concept referring to the holistic interrelationships of many things. Randomness and Non-linearity tend to water-down the rigor of a science studying res cogitans.
"Complexity characterises the behaviour of a system or model whose components interact in multiple ways and follow local rules, leading to non-linearity, randomness, collective dynamics, hierarchy, and emergence". ___Wikipedia
*4. Physicist Paul Davies :
Paul Davies begins with the claim that our ability to understand nature through the scientific method is a fact which demands an explanation. He proposes that our mind and the cosmos are linked, that consciousness is a fundamental and integral part of the outworking of the laws of nature. . . . . Still the ultimate explanation of the origin of the laws lies outside the scope of science and should be pursued by metaphysics and theology.
https://counterbalance.org/ctns-vo/davie1-body.html
*5. THIS IS THE EVIDENCE FOR SUB-ATOMIC PARTICLES
not a photograph, but an artist's interpretation of paths followed by unseen particles
Note --- the path provides mathematical information for a conscious observer to interpret
Yes. What you are labeling "reification", I would call an Abstract Noun. I assume that the referent of the term Consciousness is not an observable material object, but a rational inference. It does not point to a physical thing, but to a holistic behavior that we call Thinking & Reasoning. The word is an Abstract Noun, "denoting an idea, quality, or state rather than a concrete object". Would you classify Consciousness as "immaterial"? Is the denotation "figurative" or "literal"? You tell me. :smile:
As an Architect, my occupation involves interpreting the client's ideas & dreams into a mathematical & graphic design language that can be erected into material structures, which not only ward-off environmental dangers (tornadoes, earthquakes), but provide sentimental satisfaction of those expressed needs & desires. So, you can see why I might be more open to immaterial concepts than a manual laborer. :smile:
Note --- As I have frequently clarified : for practical matters, I am a materialist, dealing with things. But for theoretical topics, I am a philosopher, dealing with ideas.
FWIW, I think of Mathematics, and "mathematical relations" as mental abstractions from observation of the arrangment and dynamics of the world. For me, Math is the logical (immaterial) structure of reality. Mental Relations do exist apart from Material Objects, in the sense that Ideas are categorically distinct from the things they portray.
For example, a structural engineer is able to "see" (imagine) the invisible logical relations, and to convert them into a freebody diagram, where the arrows represent invisible forces, and the lines represent not-yet-real material beams capable of supporting those forces. It's a diagram of "things that exist" ideally, but the relationships diagrammed (represented) are mental noumena, which exist only in a conscious rational mind. In the real world you don't see those imaginary lines & arrows, because relations are metaphysical, not physical. Representations are not real, they are Ideal. Do you "see" what I mean? :smile:
Is the Mathematical World Real?
Philosophers cannot agree on whether mathematical objects exist or are pure fictions
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/is-the-mathematical-world-real/
A mental representation can be caused by something it does not represent, and can represent something that has not caused it,
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/mental-representation/
I'm extremely focused on physical risks around me and focus on the moment. However I see people do crazy things they shouldn't because they are distracted. In some cases people will take extreme risks because their mind set is that it's all up to fate anyway. It's possible a personal philosophy could be dangerous.
But I think we get safer on the risk side as we get older.
Also, architecture is an extremely physical undertaking so no doubt you deal with physical issues.
And I will argue that our new ways are the best of it. A sunset; the rings of Saturn; a supernova; so many indescribably beautiful things everywhere. But they are not beautiful without us to recognize their beauty. They are simply particles and clumps, doing what the laws of physics determine. It all had beauty only because of us. Because we noticed the physical relationships, and found beauty simply in them. Then we developed it far beyond what we found. And developed so many other things, like painting, music, and literature, with and because of the real things that are not physical. The things that are absent from the physical, but present in our consciousness.
All off this is the HPoC. It is not the physical. The physical doesn't do what we have done. What we have done is because of what is not seen in, or defined by, the physical. Deacon's [I]absential features[/I].
Quoting AmadeusDQuoting Wayfarer I believe what I just said to Relativist is also largely a response to both of you. I believe we have produced a few mathematical things that were not merely names for, or grasped from, the things we are able to observe.
For the very simple reason that if numbers are real, but not material, then there are real things that are not material. The intellectual contortions that modern philosophers perform to avoid this conclusion are striking. That SciAm article you linked - very good article - says:
I would have thought the answer was 'through reason'. By dint of reason we are able to discern mathematical regularities which characterise many underlying aspects of nature - 'the book of nature is written in mathematics' - but which don't exist empirically. The difficulties posed by this are mainly due to the cultural impact of empiricism which must insist that what is real must be 'out there somewhere'. But mathematics is not 'out there' anywhere, even though mathematical reasoning is fundamental to the invention of the JWT which has had such stellar success in exploring what is 'out there somewhere'.
Quoting Patterner
:100: That feeds into the meme you will sometimes encounter that conscious sentient beings are the Universe become self-aware.
Not a criticism or poke in any way, but is there any reason you can posit for why the universe would need to become self-aware? What does 'self-awareness' mean when it comes to the universe? This formulation seems like a human projection: the Delphic injunction, 'know thyself' applied at a cosmic scale.
Yes and no.
One the one hand, we are part of the physical world: we were caused by the physical world, and operate within it.
On the other hand, you're right that our abstract reasoning skills, and other mental capacities, have resulted in some awesome things existing that otherwise would not. Thank you for reminding me of this.
"Would you classify Consciousness as "immaterial"? Is the denotation "figurative" or "literal"? You tell me"
I'm willing to call it immaterial, in the narrow sense that it doesn't refer to a material object. But I usually refrain from using the term that way, because it's easily misinterpreted as an assent to the existence of immaterial objects. When discussing philosophy of mind, it's important to be clear on this, since dualists assume there to exist an immaterial component that contributes to (or governs) the mental processes. That's why I questioned you, to see if you were defending something like dualism.
Professionals the likes of Max Planck, Niels Bohr, John Wheeler and Terrence Deacon have trudged long hours through the trenches of empirical discovery en route to their various ruminations in maturity. Some of them perhaps have been esoteric.
Quoting Gnomon
I'm digressing into becoming defensive by attacking both your methodology and your execution; not my original purpose.
The main thing I want to do herein is confess to the fact all of the above criticisms have, until very recently, been perfectly applicable to my own methodology and execution.
If I'm projecting my faults onto you erroneously, I apologize.
The best of what I've shared with you is this accurate picture of my character as a pretentious, full-of-himself, science_philosophy flirt now starting to get real.
Quoting Wayfarer
So, you are you convinced that when you look at a pair of diamonds encased in the platinum ring encircling your beloved's finger, no part of that crushed carbon attaches to the number two floating around immaterially within your brain?
That really is a nonsensical question.
Quoting Wayfarer
If you're willing to elaborate, please do so.
Yes. What I'm claiming is extremely counterintuitive. But I hope that counterintuitiveness doesn't mean something bad or delegitimize what I'm saying.
Quoting ucarr
Well, I wouldn't say that two people are exchanging information. I say that there is actually an act of informing the other (another person). In the sense that you are in-forming-other. You are forming something in the other person, making them interpret you, translate you, transcribe you.
How am I ever going to know what someone else is thinking? I will never know. My claim also affects what we call "representation", "knowledge", "truth" (adequation). Instead of knowing, what we do is interpret, produce something in us (even if it is related to something else); That relationship, however, is not one of similarity, it is not original-copy, etc. It's something else, I already call it in general terms "transcription".
Quoting ucarr
Yeah. The sounds uttered by a speaker may be ordered, spaced in time, accented, etc., but they do not imply any information until a system of signs interprets it. If sounds are the cause of information (what another person informs me) then we must differentiate the cause from the effect.
Quoting ucarr
I think you're talking about tradition. However, tradition can no longer be understood based on people transmitting something to each other; It must be understood based on the permanence of relationships and the sedimentation of signs. That is, a person puts his thoughts into a book: If another person who has the same language reads the book, it is most likely that it will have effects "in his head" similar to what a third person would have if he also read the book and has same language . If something is maintained is due to repetition and isomorphism. If there is isomorphism, there is resonance, then the three people (the writer of the book, and the two readers) understand each other.
Quoting ucarr
Not at all. I have already said before that the concept of sign can be generalized to the non-living as long as we talk about informative relations. The relation between sign systems can be entirely physical; In each case we must deal with at least one relation between two or more sign systems which are affected by each other (without prejudice to the direction or dominance of the relation) and determine their specific relations. But above all, if we fall into the illusion of representation, we must determine what it is what we believe is transferred and elucidate the specific causality.
Is language something innate? I wouldn't go that far. But I would say that there is an aptitude in humans for language. And this is verified in the vocal apparatus and the ability to articulate, vocalize, modulate, accentuate, etc. sounds which actually are innate. Seems that once we utter the sound, this utterance creates pathways through the psyche's person, building what will ultimately be the mother tongue (sedimented language) through which the sound (or electrical signals) can pass with or without resistance and this would determine the difference between understanding a person with our same language and not understanding a person with a different language.
Quoting WayfarerExactly right.
-We are a part of the universe.
-We are aware of the universe and ourselves.
-Through parts of itself, the universe is becoming aware of itself in a way the immensely vast majority of itself is not.
I don't think Wayfarer thinks numbers exist in his brain. Maybe in an immaterial platonic realm?
Quoting Wayfarer
In the above statement, Wayfarer didn't have numbers in his brain, but rather had them nested in Plato's Realm of Ideals, which his brain had nested in itself as an image having Plato's Realm of Ideals...
The above series, like Borges' map of the landscape that keeps elaborating itself until the elaboration merges with the referent, elaborates, eventually, its simulations back to the thing itself?
Does anybody have some ground rules for things real but not material? Why is the stuff of a number, as when you gaze at two equisitely cut diamonds, less material in its dazzlement of your eyes than that sweet smile from your bestie upon seeing you at the train station?
I do, but I'm a little pressed for time. But in short, the problem is that our culture is deeply committed to the notion that what is real exists in time and space - out there, somewhere, potentially experienceable as an object in relation with other objects. Empiricism, in short. But numbers, plainly, are not like that, as has already been noted in some of the comments in this thread, which makes them very difficult to account for in empirical terms. Even to conceive of them as being in a 'Platonic realm' is to try and locate them in some sense. But consider for example the domain of natural numbers - there are things 'inside' it (natural numbers) and outside it (imaginary numbers). That doesn't mean the domain exists in an empirical sense, but it's nevertheless real. (I've written an essay on Medium about my musings on the nature of number, although it's scarcely been read as yet.)
And perhaps you're saying things exist that are experienceable not in the conventionally empirical sense, but rather in the cognizable sense.
As constituents of reason, is how I put it. That applies to a very wide range - arithmetical objects, rules of logic, conventions, scientific laws. All of these are arguably real, but not existent as phenomena - they're only perceptible to a rational intellect.
To sleep in late one morning, then saunter down to the corner store for a lemon gelato.
Well that would be one reason, anyway.
Numbers are one of those questions in philosophy that reduces to state A or state B.
I think you are right and they don't have a special existence. We might have arrived at that point from different paths. I think anything more than mental function (ability) would be the burden of the other view to prove.
Actually things exist in a singular state so the choice is between the correct answer and all the other wrong answers....which are generally a lot.
The practice of reasoning by humans, being phenomenal, accommodates direct observation via the senses. Call to mind Rodin's Thinker. A child stands before the statue observing it. Probably the child doesn't know specifically what they're observing, but nonetheless they're observing it.
The products of reason are, ultimately, material. At issue is the phenomenon of comprehension. Comprehension of the products of reason: arithmetical objects, rules of logic, conventions, scientific laws et al, requires navigation of a multi-part, empirical journey of discovery.
Consider a priori discovery:
Our human presumption is that a dog, first seeing the busload of green blazers on one street and then seeing a solitary blazer on the adjacent street, can't reason through transitive logic: all nearby golfing tourists heading for links at St. Andrews Old Course wear green blazers ? lost man wears green blazer? lost man a golfing tourist heading for links at St. Andrews Old Course.
When we look at the conclusions of reason through the abstractions of head trips, they seem to be intangibles lying beyond the senses, but really, they're multi-part empirical experiences stretched across a positive time interval.
Using our memory, we join together the multiple parts of our empirical experiences upon the scaffold of transitive logic. Consequently, the products of reason arise from empirical experiences articulated.
Coincidentally, I was just this morning skimming Terrence Deacon's book Incomplete Nature, which discusses the causal "Absences" (possibilities ; potentials) in the world. The term "Platonic Realism" caught my roving eye, because I had always associated Mr. P with Idealism. So, I looked it up. Apparently, it's a middle position between Subjective Idealism and Objective Realism.
Cosmology & anthropology tell us that the physical/material Universe existed for billions of Earth-years before subjective/reflective minds emerged, to "see" what can't be seen. So, matter/energy existed objectively before anyone was capable of abstracting physical stuff into mental ideas. Hence, Subjective Idealism would only make sense if "god is always around in the quad" to be the subjective observer/imaginer sustaining the world-idea.
Of course, that notion will not fly for Atheist/Materialists. But from the agnostic position of the Enformationism thesis, the hypothetical Enformer/Programmer/Creator fills the role of sustainer, by creating an evolutionary algorithm, which encodes the programmer's intentions into the Laws/Norms of Nature. One set of those natural "laws" would be the Logic of Physics, which we abstracting creatures interpret as Mathematics. Those mathematical "laws" are ideal/mental, but independent of late-emerging human observers.
Deacon's "Absences" may be construed as the Programmer's intentions, that those of us inside the program infer as invisible "Causes" & Potentials" in the real world. Which are also the invisible logical "Structure" of the physical world, that scientists & mathematicians infer, but cannot see. Of course, these speculations are just philosophical metaphors for thinking about the immaterial aspects of Reality that we call Ideas, Laws, Logic, Cause & such. Such notions are real only in the sense of Platonic Realism : "real but not material". :smile:
Platonic Realism :
In other words, reality exists independent of anyone's perception or reasoning. Objects are in existence regardless of someone's observations of that object. In contrast to realism,subjective idealism argues that only minds exist because everything depends on the mind (the subjective perceiver).
https://study.com/academy/lesson/platonic-idealism-plato-and-his-influence.html
Platonic realism is the philosophical position that there are abstract objects, such as numbers, ideas, and mathematical objects, that exist independently of the physical world.
https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-difference-between-platonic-idealism-and-platonic-realism
I'm fine with that.
Historically, modern Science emerged from the traditions of ancient Philosophy. But in the interim, Religion claimed authority over both. When the Enlightenment gave birth to Empirical Science, it threw-out the philosophical baby with the bath-water. The Materialism and Scientism found on this forum are the off-spring of that "disjunction" between Ideal & Real worldviews. EFA is, in part, an attempt to heal the rift between the science of Matter, and the science of Mind. :smile:
Philosophy and Its Contrast with Science
Science is about contingent facts or truths; philosophy is often about that but is also about necessary truths (if they exist)
Quoting ucarr
Both Math and Language are theoretical in conception (principles), but practical in application (details). :nerd:
Theoretical Philosophy is the study of the principles for human knowledge, the development of the sciences and the basis for scientific knowledge, the principles of thought, argumentation and communication, metaphysics and the history of the subject itself.
https://www.fil.lu.se/en/department/subjects-at-the-department/theoretical-philosophy/
Quoting ucarr
The "substance" I was referring to is essential, not material. In my thesis, that "substance" is identified with Generic Information, as implied by physicist John A. Wheeler's philosophically influential "it from bit" postulation, which has been refined & expanded in recent years by physicist Paul Davies, and the Santa Fe Institute. From that perspective, existence is "grounded" in dynamic Potential, not inert Dirt. :chin:
Substance Monism. The most distinctive aspect of Spinoza's system is his substance monism; that is, his claim that one infinite substanceGod or Natureis the only substance that exists.
https://iep.utm.edu/spinoz-m/
Quoting ucarr
A bird in hand is an actuality ; birds in a bush are merely possibilities. Science studies actuality ; Philosophy studies possibilities. My BothAnd philosophy combines dual aspects of the world : the here & now materiality, and the future & past ideality : not yet real or no longer real. The point being that Either/Or is reductive & eliminative, while BothAnd is holistic & constructive. :wink:
Quoting ucarr
Is that your disdainful view of philosophical speculation? :cool:
.
Nothing is ultimately material. No material ultimate has been discovered, despite the construction of the most complex apparatus in the history of science. The standard model of physics is itself a mathematical construction.
Why specifically the formulation of growing self-awareness? Is this Vedanta? Of all the cosmologies and philosophies available, why that particular account or focus?
I have no idea. But this doesn't sound like a good argument in favor of something. Isn't this close to an appeal to ignorance?
If we are throwing around metaphysical potentialities, why couldn't the universe be entirely self-aware? Could it not be that it's humans alone who are in the dark? I don't understand how we get to arrive at something so specific as the universe is gaining self-awareness. What exactly does self-awareness consist of when it comes to a universe (I am assuming by universe you mean something more like cosmic consciousness)? Is there an end result - all meaning is assimilated and converges and 'bang' a new stage in consciousness commences?
The question of 'meaning' is an interesting one. My intuition is that meaning is something pertaining to human beings and sense making. How does the notion of meaning apply outside of contingent beings?
I sense a fresh thread on this.
Quoting Tom StormSpeculation. Sure, maybe, anything is possible I suppose. But we only know what we know. And that is, we are self-aware, and not much else is.
Quoting Tom StormI like it!
Quoting Tom StormI hope so! I don't know much about meaning, from any formal, educated pov.
I don't think so. Look at the history of ideas, at how philosophy started, the dialogues of Plato. There are very many examples of consideration of this very question. Likewise the Indian philosophical traditions. Some of the accounts are mythical, some rationalist. If you consider the various meanings of 'logos' in Greek philosophy, for example, you will find it is something very like a principle or guiding intelligence. Hence the proliferation of words ending -logy (psychology, anthropology, theology, etc).
I think the idea of a meaningless universe into which humans are an accidental byproduct is very specific to modernity. It co-incides with a new type of awareness, and the discovery of the vastness of the cosmos (although that said, it seems Indian cosmologists entertained realistic ideas of the age of the cosmos.)
Quoting Tom Storm
The idea is explored in Mind and Cosmos:
[quote='The Universe is Waking Up' Review of Mind and Cosmos, Thomas Nagel] Nagels basic argument is this. If materialism cannot explain consciousness, then materialism cannot be a complete explanation of the natural order. This argument is more interesting than it looks. It is perhaps easy to suppose that we could fully explain the beginning of the universe in terms of matter and forces and so on. But if the arising of life and subsequently consciousness cannot be explained in terms of matter and forces that is, that life and consciousness are not susceptible to reductionist explanations then materialism has not explained the natural order. Life and consciousness must always have been possibilities within the natural order, even before the conditions for their actual arising were not fully present. Therefore materialism is not a complete theory. Nagel does not stop there. In a chapter on Cognition, he goes on to argue that the faculty of reason, by which he means the capacity (for a few of us) to intuit truths that are independent of the mind, such as mathematical or logical truths, cannot be explained by evolutionary theory alone. Neo-Darwinian theory must explain the appearance of faculties such as reason as somehow adaptive, but we cannot explain the capacity for insight into the truth in terms of adaptation for survival. And in a chapter on Value Nagel argues that our capacity to make correct moral judgements is based on the objectivity of good and bad, it being an objective matter that certain actions are good and certain bad, which is similarly inexplicable in terms of materialism alone. For each of these broad areas consciousness, cognition and value Nagel sketches what might count as more satisfactory explanatory theories. One such sort of theory would be intentional that God has set up the natural order is such a way that there is consciousness, that we can intuit the truth and know good and bad. But Nagel does not explore intentional theories as he does not believe in God. He plays with panpsychism the theory that mind is somehow in everything but does not find this kind of metaphysical theory very useful. His preferred tentative solution is what he calls teleological naturalism, meaning the theory that the natural order is biased in some way towards the emergence of life and consciousness, as more-than-likely directions or potentials of development. He does not develop this theory but merely indicates that it might at least be along the right lines.[/quote]
I think the case can be made that at least esoteric spirituality presents this kind of understanding in symbolic or mythological terms. Why symbolic or mythological? Because it is a very difficult thing to discern!
I suspect that --- for fear of straying into the seductive mindset of spooky Spirituality --- those who espouse the metaphysical doctrine of Materialism dare not use their imaginative faculty (Reason) to infer intangible invisible subjective abstractions, that exist only in the matterless, and unverifiable, realm of Ideas, Concepts, Thoughts & Fantasies.
However, as an amateur philosopher, with no job or tenure to project, I feel free to follow the evidence of inference wherever it leads ; yea, unto the shadow of Religion, that enthralls the "weak" minds of millions around the world. Gods & ghosts are indeed "immaterial objects". But so are Logic & Math & Reason itself ; "reified" as Abstract Nouns : "a noun denoting an idea, quality, or state rather than a concrete object". Such as Love, Beauty, Honesty, Democracy, and yes Consciousness.
All of those immaterial concepts are held dearly by some people, despite their immateriality, and the implication of some kind of parallel existence in a Platonic realm. So, I ask myself : am I one of those gullible "anti-realists", who can't discern the difference between an abstraction and an actuality? Are you "fine" with that kind of subjective imagination? Some on this forum are appalled at the conceit that immaterial abstractions could exist in a material world. :wink:
If the material universe popped into existence with a "bang", can we imagine that, like a planted seed, it came pre-set with un-realized Potentials that took eons to mature (actualize) into the complex cosmos we humans are now scanning with our far-seeing technological eye-extensions? The Webb space-scope is said to be looking back to the beginning of the universe, even as it reflects our insignificance to the near-infinite bubble of being that was born in a Planck-scale bit of possibility.
Was "awareness" a property or quality of the nascent cosmos? If not, how did sentience & consciousness emerge from an explosion of space & time & matter & energy? Is it not reasonable to say that there is a "growing awareness" or that the "cosmos has, eventually become aware of itself", only in the last few millennia of evolution? Is it possible that Awareness evolved, along with Life and Mind, from an insentient & lifeless state of fecund oblivion?
Of course, such poetic imagery is forbidden for pragmatic science, but is a bit of creative license allowed on a philosophy forum? :smile:
Oblivion : the state of being unaware or unconscious of what is happening.
Indeed. I have no specific confidence in any metaphysical models. I don't subscribe to philosophical naturalism or accounts of higher awareness. The best we can say is that humans generate opinions and some seem to 'check out' and other's can't be assessed.
Quoting Wayfarer
Which doesn't mean it is wrong. But I wouldn't make the claim it is meaningless - how would we know? I would however say that meaning is hard to discern and in the eye of the beholder and given that we are meaning making creatures, it never takes long for humans to create a narrative (generally based on the zeitgeist) to account for our interactions with and place in reality.
I can see how following certain inferences would lead some people into this space. I am more cautious. I can't explain why some people enjoy folk dancing... how can I account for anything to do with intrinsic purpose in the universe?
Quoting Wayfarer
I think this is a useful insight.
No idea. But all I can say is that any judgments about this are human and therefore limited and subject to a myriad of biases and presuppositions. My own speculative tendencies wouldn't consider human life to be significant enough to be rated as a 'growing awareness'. Perhaps a growing malignancy if we consider pollution and climate change. We know so little about anything that I don't think we even have the capacity to gauge just what is remarkable or important, except by quotidian human standards.
Quoting Gnomon
Not my area of expertise or interest, I'm afraid.
In whose eyes are we a mere speck, other than our own? In the absence of any perspective there's no scale against which to make the comparison against which our physical size may be judged. It's true that in our age the Universe has been revealed to be of absolutely unthinkably vast dimensions but again, by whom has this been discovered?
That's a rhetorical way of pointing out the sense in which the Universe knows itself through human eyes. As far as we're aware, they're the only one of such a kind that exist.
[quote=Letter of condolence sent to Robert J. Marcus of the World Jewish Congress (12 February 1950) ]A human being is a part of the whole, called by us "Universe", a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. The striving to free oneself from this delusion is the one issue of true religion. Not to nourish the delusion but to try to overcome it is the way to reach the attainable measure of peace of mind.[/quote]
Likewise, in Spinoza's Ethics (and 'Spinoza's religion' was the only kind Einstein would ever acknowledge acceptance of):
Spinoza finds lasting happiness only in the intellectual love of God, which is the noetic vision of the single Substance (I prefer 'subject') underlying everything and everyone. The nature of this vision is clearly announced by Spinoza when he says that [t]he minds intellectual love of God is the very love of God by which God loves himself (Ethics, Part 5, Prop. 36). Since, for Spinoza, God is the Whole that includes everything, it also includes your love for God, and thus God can be said to love Itself through you.'
However, as human judgement is the only kind of judgement there is, judging ourselves to be significant does, indeed, make us so. We are causing things to come into being that would not come into being anywhere in the universe if not for us.
I'm just talking about physical size. An unmeasurably small part of the universe contains billions of points of self-awareness. IMO, that immeasurably small part is, hands down, the most interesting part. Not simply because of its uniqueness. Rather, because of the way in which it is unique.
OK. But then why does it matter? What's your demonstration of 'growing'?
Indeed. On this we can agree.
Sorry to hear that gloomy outlook. It seems to focus on the small percentage of bad stuff that the media calls "news" : "if it bleeds, it leads". I would hope that philosophers could ignore the gory headlines to see the 98% of good stuff that goes un-reported. Ironically, some people seem to think that cynicism makes you appear smarter than the happy-go-lucky sheep.
Like the horizon, Utopia is always somewhere off in the future, and recedes as fast as we approach. But the confidence that we can get closer is what drives the change-agents in the world. For example, catalytic entrepreneur Elon Musk is afraid of a Matrix-like takeover by AI machines, and possible eradication of meat people. But he retains a positive outlook, that humans will survive, and perhaps prevail, by adapting, even by emigrating to Mars. That dynamic of bad now vs good future seems to be what drives him to be such a technological innovator.
Throughout the centuries, philosophers have been acutely aware of the bad stuff, but stoically focused on making it better, incrementally, bit by bit. Biological evolution takes eons to make significant improvements in the status quo. And social improvement does not advance nearly as fast as technological progression. But that's only because society consists of conflict-of-interest people, not cog & wheel machines. A philosophy of Optimism may not be justified, but Pragmatism works. :smile:
Why do so many people believe that cynicism is a sign of intelligence?
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/trust-games/202111/the-myth-the-cynical-genius
Evolutionary Progress?
How could anyone who accepts an evolutionary view of life deny that progress has occurred?
https://watermark.silverchair.com/50-5-451.pdf
Quoting Gnomon
No. Im sufficiently repentant to know I've got no cause for being disdainful about anything.
Quoting Gnomon
Holism is one of your main themes?
What are some specific ways materialism reasons erroneously when arriving at its reductionism?
Quoting Gnomon
Quoting Gnomon
Since you cite this quote from Lund University, I assume it speaks for you. Is it your understanding principles, by definition, are theoretical and therefore subject to revision?
I'm not sure I buy your distinction between theoretical philosophy on the one hand and math and language on the other because, to my understanding, the latter are no less subject to revision than the former. As a matter of fact, language is an obvious example of applied principles subject to frequent updating as evidenced by the topicality of the vernacular. Take for example, ending sentences with a preposition. That used to be a no-no. Nowadays it's the speaker's decision.
Quoting Gnomon
Since scientific theory, by definition - and also by methodological principle - always expresses itself tentatively, its tentativeness, being necessary (albeit somewhat paradoxically), is not contingent.
Obversely, since theoretical philosophy, by definition and also by methodological principle always expresses itself universally, its universality, being theoretical (albeit somewhat paradoxically), is not necessary.
So, scientific theory and theoretical philosophy have common ground in their management of the contingent/necessary disjunction operator; their approaches to it from opposite poles is therefore a trivial difference.
Employing the above symmetry, I proceed to claiming the conceptual distinctions between science and philosophy are trivial with one exception: the phenomenal.
Im now inclined to think the crux of the mind/body problem is the question of the scope of perception_cognition by the senses or through immediate experience.
I suspect the possible mistake of reductive materialism is its belief material/immaterial are necessarily parallel categories.
My materialist mode of inquiry, theory and hypothesis impel me towards a bold speculation: as science progresses, it subsumes more and more of the claims traditionally ascribed to immaterial spirit. Talking fancy, the ne plus ultra for this line of reasoning is to claim God, the supposed immaterial spirit, exists as an existentially real, physical being. To be sure, Gods physicality effects a cosmic scale perturbation of the human scale of empirical experience. The job of science, being physicalist, therefore entails reconciling the human scale of empirical experience with Gods cosmic scale of empirical experience along the continuum of the phenomenal universe.
Whats important for Enformaction is that it not distort the degree to which its multi-mode holism differs from my unary physical holism. The difference is small, not large. The former parallels material/undefined/immaterial whereas the latter subsumes these three categories.
I don't think this is correct. Climate change is not a 'small percentage of bad stuff' it's a significant ontological concern. Who is talking about 'news'? And thats a fairly cynical view of media.
I am neither pessimistic or optimistic - neither approach seems apropos to me. I am simply aware.
Quoting Gnomon
I'm not sure about that, but I do know that people use philosophy in this way. I wonder why you have introduced cynicism when nothing I have written is cynical.
Quoting Gnomon
Why did you drop this question into your response? When did evolution come up? When did progress come up? Are you on a kind of automatic pilot of pedagogical didacticism? :wink:
I'm assuming this is intended as a joke and it is kind of funny.
Quoting Wayfarer
Im thinking math began when cave people looking at their fingers started seeing repeatable patterns.
Since matter is neither created nor destroyed, why do folks think tangible stuff is perishable? Why should not the label instead be reconfigurable?
I suspect youll blow off the above as anecdotal fluff, so let me follow with my best attempt to ask probing questions.
Do you hold a metaphysical commitment to the claim the phenomenal world is undergirded by an immaterially extant realm ultimately real albeit undetectable to the senses?
If so, can you elaborate some essential attributes of this immaterially extant ground of existence?
How would you manage your commitment if it turns out that the intellect and its perceptions are another sensory faculty? The argument here is that if consciousness is physical, then its perceptions must likewise be physical. For example: we know spacetime is physical. It follows then that anything existing in time, as in the case of thought, holds possession of time duration. Finally, therefore, thoughts, being always time-positive, are physical.
Conversely, if consciousness and its perceptions are immaterial, then how explain the intersection of the material and the immaterial? Is there a bizarre, transitional realm, neither material nor immaterial? How might the boundaries between these realms be measured? Does impossibility of measurement raise doubts about their existence?
Since matter_energy is neither created nor destroyed, it follows that they, like immaterial reality, having no origin, have no beginning. This makes them co-eternals. If so, how is it that immateriality logically priority to materiality?
My hypothesis claims that If spirituality is higher-order thermodynamics (teleodynamics), then matter/energy are two positions on one continuum. I call spirit absential materialism.
In your article in Medium, you say,
How do humans access knowledge of real things not located anywhere? This question is important because it implies that cognition, no less than sensory perception, must have a spacetime location. Try to think about anything without spatial and temporal extension and youll soon discover language cannot proceed meaningfully without them. Try to do anything cognitive without special and temporal extension and youll soon discover you cannot.
In closing, I ask, is it reasonable to label your metaphysical commitment as Existence Dualism (physical objects extant as real material things; ideas extant as abstract immaterial things)?
But likely never a noticable percentage. Even if we came to occupy the entire galaxy, what percentage of the universe is that?
More arguable is the idea of the awareness, itself, growing. Our awareness is currently greater than that of our ancestors who lived at any point in the past, or any other awareness on the planet. But is it still growing? Can't really say. I don't even know what that would mean.
Quoting Patterner
I'm reasonably certain a lot of people will find this problematic. Is the modern mind an improvement on the pre-modern? How would you measure improvement? More reason, more science, less superstition, less religion? The die hard secular humanists will agree to this.
Quoting Tom StormI didn't say it's an improvement. Just that it's more aware. We are certainly more aware than our cave-dwelling ancestors were. Even if our brains are identical to theirs, we have learned much since then. Greater body of knowledge. We are aware of more things. And more kinds of things. Odds that improvement?
There may be things we are not aware of that other creatures are. How does the Monarch butterfly migrate from Canada to the exact same trees in Mexico that it's great great grandparents left in the spring? They're aware of stuff I'm not. But I'll bet they aren't aware of themselves, or their own awareness. With my awareness and intelligence, I can do what they do. And quite a few other things. But their awareness and intelligence do not give them many of the things I have. Not even the ability to not make that migration. So I'll consider my awareness greater than theirs.
This seems very much the reasonable view.
If you read the OP Mind-Created World you will see that I deny that. From my perspective your criticisms are a product of the Cartesian tendency to objectify the mind as 'thinking substance', something which can be thought of as an existing object, a denizen of an 'extant realm undetectable to the senses'. I'm explicitly not saying that. My argument is that the mind is never an object of perception, it is 'the unknown knower' to draw on a phrase expressed in Indian philosophy. It is never appears to us as object, but as us, as the subject. And 'the hand can only grasp what is other to it', to quote the Upani?ad again.
Quoting ucarr
Nowhere do I say that - that is your interpretive paradigm. At the end Mind Created World, I quote the phenomenologist Dan Zahavi:
The distinction between self and world is a mental division, a division of the totality of experience into subject and object. Whereas we are not outside of, apart from, or other to reality. That is a key insight of non-dualism, albeit a difficult perspective to realise.
Quoting ucarr
Quite. Concepts without percepts are empty, percepts without concepts are blind, said Kant.
i think it is indisputable that science sees the world through mathematical hypotheses - the mathematization of physics and other sciences was the cardinal achievement of the scientific revolution. And yet there is still controversy as to why this can be so, and the related question of whether mathematics is discovered or invented. This is motivated by what has been described as 'the unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics in the natural sciences'. Mathematical logic has become internal and fundamental to the scientific apprehension of the world, through the process of conjecture, hypotheses, observation and experiment. But the nature of number itself is not a scientific, but a metaphysical, question. The controversy revolves precisely around the question of in what sense mathematics can be considered real as distinct from products of the mind. The realist view is that mathematical regularities are implicit in nature itself or at any rate are not simply useful fictions or constructions. The question then becomes, what kind of existence do they have? Mathematical platonists say that numbers are real independently of whether anyone perceives them or not, 'in the same sense', said Frege, 'just as a planet, even before anyone saw it, was in interaction with other planets'. But although they're independent of any particular mind, they can only be grasped by a mind. So they are 'intelligible objects', bearing in mind that 'object' is used in a metaphorical sense of 'the object of thought'. That is the sense in which there is an 'intelligible realm' that doesn't exist on the level of sensory perception (per Plato's analogy of the divided line) but is real in a noetic or intellectual sense.
Quoting ucarr
Einstein showed that matter and energy are interchangeable through his famous equation e=mc[sup]2[/sup]. It has nothing to do with spirituality per se.
As for 'existence dualism', the philosophy I'm trying to articulate is nearer to objective idealism.
If that's the case 'more awareness' would seem to have no (or little) significance.
Quoting Patterner
We have been using awareness in different ways. When people talk of a 'higher awareness' in consciousness they tend to mean something loftier (e.g., wisdom and understanding the true nature of reality), what you're referring to here as 'awareness' is more like different frame of reference.
I'm not on sure footing in a lot of this. I don't know if intelligence must increase before awareness does. At least in the sense of the "loftier" kinds of awareness, as opposed to what I said about us having a greater body of knowledge than our cave dwelling ancestors. At what point did our ancestors not have the capacity for wisdom and understanding the true nature of reality? At what point did they have the capacity, but simply hadn't yet thought of it?
Whose awareness is greater: the monarch butterfly's, whose innate wisdom let's it live perfectly in its niche, and migrate 3,000 miles to a place it's never been; or ours, which allows us to have these thoughts and conversations, create art (as opposed to making something fictional that pretty beings perceive as art, and build all manner of things that would not exist in the universe if not for such awareness? I wouldn't trade mine for theirs, but that doesn't mean I think they got the short end of the stick.
The assumption would be that ours is. If by awareness we mean metacognition - which is generally the starting point from these sorts of discussions.
Quoting Patterner
My view is that humans do not have the capacity to access a true nature of reality. I think this is a remnant of Greek philosophy. We seem to generate stories that describe our experince as we see it and some of these narratives are more useful for certain purposes than others. But people differ on this. I see human knowledge as an evolving conversation which is contingent and subject to change over time, not necessarily leading to progress.
Quoting Patterner
What you claim has the strong fragrance of the welcome familiar and the commonplace good, both backed by seeming rigorous logic. Let's say out in the field I come upon a gathering of stones (perhaps another Stonehenge in the making) and set about counting them, just for heck sake. So, I'm counting stones. Counting things is doing math. Seeing the stones does more than facilitate their counting; it affords it. The stones, therefore, participate in the counting action. Stones herein cannot be reasonably considered mathematical with regards to number?
As for counting things unseen, what trenchman can unsee the missing fingers of his dead comrade?
Firstly, your piece on the onticity of numbers has been very helpful to me. Thanks for doing the work and then offering it up to me on a silver platter.
Quoting Wayfarer
Is not "mind" the overarching subject of our HPoC discussion?
Quoting Wayfarer
This to me sounds like Aristotle.
Quoting Wayfarer
Are you perhaps getting your bearings twisted within the hall of mirrors? If the mind appears to us, then it's the object of our perception, is it not? One of the tricks of the mind is that it is, subjectively, the object of its self-perception. WRT the subject/object pairing, the disjunction operator is a semi-permeable membrane in both directions.
Quoting Wayfarer
I offer my public apology for anything I've attributed to you erroneously. Misquoting someone is a serious violation of that person's rights. I always try to be correct with my quotations. I do claim, however, that these words appear in your Medium article, The Nature of Number. Are they in there because you're quoting someone else?
Furthermore, no. It's not my interpretive paradigm. In fact, I'm on the other side of the aisle. My foundational premise says material and immaterial are two positions along the physicalist continuum.
This is the theoretical zeitgeist post quantum mechanics.
Quoting ucarr
I see you make no comment on this statement. Is it because commentary would necessitate your acknowledgement doing cognition is not physical, which acknowledgement lands you squarely within mind/body dualism?
And by the way, doesn't
Quoting Wayfarer
land you in the same location? If the mind is only subject, then clearly it's categorically isolated from a phenomenal world filled with objects.
Quoting Wayfarer
My ascription to you of mind body dualism I further propound by reference to the above quote as evidence. Firstly, it's funny that you make a case for mind as an isolate and pure subject by explaining how the mind "grasps" something, a physical action of the hand.
We can't get out of the physicality of verbal language, and numerical language (math) possesses unreasonable effectiveness in the natural sciences because it too is physical.
Is it not the case the main reason you claim non-binary ideation for yourself is because you do, in fact, believe the phenomenal universe is a derivation and sub-set of immaterial mind?
Quoting ucarr
But the mind does not appear to us! Sitting here in my study, all manner of things appear to me - obviously, a computer monitor and keyboard which I use to compose this reply, speakers, a piano keyboard, bookshelves and other iterms. Mind is nowhere apparent amongst this array of objects, rather it is that to which or to whom these objects appear. We can speak of the mind as object in a metaphorical sense, i.e. 'as an object of enquiry', but it is not an object of perception in the sense that objects are. There is no thing called 'mind'. I can think about my thinking, but the act of thought is not itself an object, for the stated reason, that a hand cannot grasp itself. And 'grasping' here is a pretty exact analogy - the mind 'grasps' ideas in an analogously similar way a hand grasps an object but ideas are not physical.
Quoting ucarr
I do acknowledge it. Pinter says:
[quote=Pinter, Charles. Mind and the Cosmic Order: How the Mind Creates the Features & Structure of All Things, and Why this Insight Transforms Physics (p. 6). Springer International Publishing. Kindle Edition] In fact, what we regard as the physical world is physical to us precisely in the sense that it acts in opposition to our will and constrains our actions. The aspect of the universe that resists our push and demands muscular effort on our part is what we consider to be physical. On the other hand, since sensation and thought dont require overcoming any physical resistance, we consider them to be outside of material reality. It is shown in the final chapter that this is an illusory dichotomy, and any complete account of the universe must allow for the existence of a nonmaterial component which accounts for its unity and complexity.[/quote]
I sense in your analysis the inability to conceive of an 'immaterial thing or substance'. But note here I'm not claiming there is any such thing. The 'nonmaterial component' Pinter refers to is not something that exists objectively, rather it is in the operation of observing mind - which we ourselves can never be outside of, or apart from.
Notice that the realist objection to this argument is invariably along the lines that 'the world must exist anyway, regardless of any observing mind'. But say that this statement always includes an implicit perspective even while conceiving of a world in the absence of an observer. Without a perspective or scale, nothing meaningful can be said or thought about what exists.
Quoting ucarr
So, following on from the above, in a sense this may be true, but the mind is not to be conceived of as any kind of substance or thing (or reified) - which is the irresistible tendency as soon as it becomes the object of debate!
It's kind of a Zen thing.
Yes, but it has nothing to do with New Age or Eastern religions. As a scientific concept, Holism is now called Systems Theory. Reductionism is appropriate (not erroneous) for scientific applications, such as chemistry, which depends on knowing how single elements affect combinations. For example, carbon typically contributes energetic bonds to compounds, such as coal and carbohydrates. But flammable hydrogen & oxygen combine to produce fire-quenching water H2O. Hence, its holistic properties are different from those of the elements.
Holism though, is more appropriate for philosophical applications that study complex combinations of elements. The Santa Fe Institute, near Los Alamos, New Mexico studies complex systems, both natural and artificial, to discover their properties & potentialities. The human Mind is an example of an extremely complex biological system that mysteriously gives rise to the non-physical topic of this thread : Consciousness. If you dissect a brain down to sub-atomic particles, you will not find any consciousness, because it is a holistic quality, that emerges only when all the parts are integrated into a multi-level functional system. :smile:
Systems Theory/Holism :
A holistic view of a system encompasses the complete, entire view of that system. Holism emphasizes that the state of a system must be assessed in its entirety and cannot be assessed through its independent member parts.
https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Systems_Theory/Holism
Holism and Reductionism :
Holism emphasizes the interconnectedness and interdependence of different aspects of behavior, whereas reductionism breaks down behavior into simpler components. Holism considers the context and complexity of human behavior, while reductionism seeks to isolate and study individual components in isolation.
https://studymind.co.uk/notes/holism-and-reductionism/
What is an example of Complexity Science?
For example, the Internet can be represented as a network composed of nodes (computers) and links (direct connections between computers). Other examples of complex networks include social networks, financial institution interdependencies, airline networks, and biological networks.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complex_system
Quoting ucarr
No. I know nothing about Lund, beyond the words of the quote. I found that definition on Google, to provide you with an "expert" opinion on "theoretical philosophy", since you seemed to be unaware of the concept. My "distinction" between "theoretical" math and "practical" science is that math deals with abstract (mental) concepts, while science works on concrete (material) objects. For that reason, Math is more like philosophy than chemistry. :nerd:
Can pure mathematics be considered a branch of philosophy? :
Pure mathematics can be considered a branch of philosophy in the sense that it deals with fundamental questions about the nature of reality
https://www.quora.com/Can-pure-mathematics-be-considered-a-branch-of-philosophy
Quoting ucarr
I don't understand your characterization of "multi-mode" vs "unitary". I call EnFormAction a "shapeshifter", because like physical energy, it can transform into a variety of manifestations. The most famous example is Einstein's E=MC^2 equation of invisible Energy and tangible Matter and a non-dimensional number. They are different expressions of the same essential substance.
But my thesis goes even further to postulate that several "modes" or phases of unitary EFA are : Energy, Matter, and Mind. I also apply that notion of transformation to the common-but-mysterious physical Phase Transitions, such as plasma-water-steam-ice. In terms of Deacon's triad, EFA serves the causal functions of Thermodynamic, Morpheodynamic, and Teleonomic. Are you familiar with the Holistic concept of Emergence? Will you explain how your "unitary physical holism" works? :smile:
EnFormAction :
For technical treatments, I had to make-up a new word to summarize the multilevel and multiform roles of generic Information in the ongoing creative act of Evolution. I call it EnFormAction. . . . As a supplement to the mainstream materialistic (scientific) theory of Causation, EnFormAction is intended to be an evocative label for a well-known, but somewhat mysterious, feature of physics : the Emergent process of Phase Change (or state transitions) from one kind (stable form) of matter to another. These sequential emanations take the structural pattern of a logical hierarchy : from solids, to liquids, to gases, and thence to plasma, or vice-versa. But they don't follow the usual rules of direct contact causation.
https://bothandblog3.enformationism.info/page23.html
Holism, reductionism and emergence :
[i]Emergence is the opposite of reduction. Holism is the opposite of separability.
The difference is subtle, but emergence and reduction are concerned with concepts, properties, types of phenomena, being deducible from other (lower level) ones, while holism is concerned with the behaviour of parts [in relation] to a whole [system].[/i]
https://philosophy.stackexchange.com/questions/21419/holism-reductionism-and-emergence
I've been saying math started when humans caught onto patterns based on numbers of physical things. Fingers, being a permanent and handy instance of countable things, launched human understanding of number. Two fingers look different from five fingers. Hah! Now we've started the process. Why do two fingers look different from five fingers? Is it not because fingers, and the like, possess an inherent attribute that can be labeled "number?" Different numbers of the same things look different because things possess the attribute called "number." When their number differs, they, as a group, differ. Indeed, if your piggy bank suddenly becomes possessed of fewer gold coins than yesterday, you become emotionally charged up by the numerical attribute of things.
Aside from your discussion with Wayfarer, I think the idea of grasping is at least worth going over.
So if non-physicals exist one possibility is the only place and way for them to exist, at all, is in this biological grasping. It seems to be a physical circumstance were non-physicals can exist in an identifiable physical form. If non-physicals are showing up you should observe they always can be mapped to a physical brain in location and time.
Well said. This conveys, in a nutshell, something akin to the essence of what I been arguing regarding the scope of physicality and its extension into phenomena that some, in my opinion, erroneously label categorical immateriality.
Yes. If we map the so-called immaterial ideas back to the empirical navigations of humans through our phenomenal world, en route to their ideas, we find that linkage only seems to disappear because the interval of time extends cognitive discovery across different positions upon the landscape that are not all simple, line-of-sight configurations. Knowing a green-shirt clad golfing tourist lost on Street A and, remembering a throng of green-shirt clad golfing tourists on Street B, fuels the mind, thus allowing it to make the inference the solitary tourist is a member of the throng but now separated from them and lost.
We call this abstract thinking but, as you say, it can be mapped back to empirical experience remembered and thus, abstract thinking is still an empirical thing, albeit a multi-part thing.
Not so. That is where the 'multiple realisability' argument comes into play. This concept, which emerged in the philosophy of mind, argues that a particular mental state, like pain, can be realized by many different kinds of physical states across varied organisms. In other words, different physical configurations can all give rise to the same mental experience.
The significance of this theory lies in its challenge to reductionist views, particularly those in the realm of mind-brain identity theory. This theory posited that each mental state is identical to a specific physical state of the brain. However, the multiple realizability argument suggests that this one-to-one correspondence is overly simplistic. Since different organisms with different physical makeups can all experience something like pain, it implies that a mental state cannot be directly and exclusively equated with a specific physical state.
But it can also be extended to the idea that propositional content can be correlated against brain states. The argument of brain-mind identity theorists, who posit that every thought or mental state is identical to a brain state, faces major difficulties when dealing with semantic content. The core challenge is this: while neuroscience can identify and map various brain activities and states, it struggles to find a direct and consistent correspondence with the semantic content of thoughts or propositions. This issue arises partly because thoughts and propositions are abstract, involving meaning, context, and interpretation, while brain states are physical, observable phenomena.
There are several reasons why mapping semantic content to brain states is challenging:
Variability Across Individuals: Different individuals may have different neural activations for the same thought or proposition. This variability makes it hard to pinpoint a universal brain state corresponding to a specific thought.
Context and Interpretation: The meaning of a proposition can change based on context, individual understanding, and interpretation. This subjective aspect of semantic content is difficult to capture in the objective framework of brain states. (This is the subject of the discipline of semiotics.)
Complexity of Language and Thought: Language and thought are highly complex and dynamic. The same proposition might involve different cognitive processes depending on factors like language proficiency, attention, or prior knowledge.
The Problem of Qualia: There's also the issue of subjective experience or qualia. How a person experiences understanding a proposition might not be directly translatable to a measurable brain state.
And to top it all off, it is recognised that the subjective unity of consciousness - the fact that we're aware of ourselves as unified subjects of experience - is not something that neuroscience has been able to account for. This is called the neural binding problem.
Which brings us back to the problem of consciousness.
Okay, you agree and added something.
Wayfarer disagrees.
Anyway, I'm done for the day.
I apologize. I was merely looking for an alternative to "Pessimistic". And the colloquial usage of Cynical seemed to imply a generally gloomy outlook. The ancient Cynics were merely dispassionate. I didn't mean to label you as a fault-finding person. Merely one who can't smell the flowers among the thorns. :joke:
What is it called when someone is cynical?
The words misanthropic and pessimistic are common synonyms of cynical. While all three words mean "deeply distrustful,"
Quoting Tom Storm
Your post seemed to imply that the world was going to hell in a handbasket. So, I thought I'd cheer you up with some more positive news --- on an evolutionary scale --- not breaking news of the latest broken bones & spirits. I don't classify myself as either Pessimistic or Optimistic, but more like a Peptomist. I see the bad stuff peripherally, but I prefer to focus on the good stuff. And I "see" evidence of long-term progress in the world on a cosmic scale, that gives me hope that there is light at the end of the tunnel. :wink:
Didactic pedagogy means the procedure of teaching that follows guiding principles in a scientific approach. In other words, is a strategy of presenting knowledge, information, and ideas to students in a structurally organized way.
Immaterial (abstract) entities (essences), such as Consciousness, only "show-up" when a rational Mind infers*1 an invisible immaterial Function associated with a complex material object (brain). You can't "see" the function with your eyes, only with your rational faculty. The mind-function of a brain exists only as a mental representation of an invisible immaterial process of transforming incoming data (grist for the mill) into meaningful outputs (baked bread).
So, to equate Mind with Brain is to commit the Map/Territory semantic fallacy*2. A Function*3 is not a material object, but a mathematical & semantic relationship. For example, "computation" is a function of a mechanical computer. But it's also a function of a human "computer"*4. In such cases, the relevant input & output are mathematical concepts, such as numbers. And the physical materials (copper, steel, plastic, proteins, neurons) are irrelevant to the causal calculation*5, they are merely carriers of information, not the content. Mind is what the brain does, not what it is. Matter is merely the vessel (cup), Mind is the wine. :smile:
*1. An inference is the process of reasoning from what we think is true to what else is true.
*2. Mapterritory relation :
Mistaking the map for the territory is a logical fallacy that occurs when someone confuses the semantics of a term with what it represents.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Map%E2%80%93territory_relation
*3. What is function and example?
In particular, a function maps each input to exactly one output.
https://study.com/academy/lesson/what-is-a-function-in-math-definition-examples.html
*4. What did it mean to be a human computer?
Before there were actual computers, they were people. At NASA, women had to do all the math and science calculations for aircraft and space missions. From 1935 to 1942 more women began to work at NACA because many men volunteered to be in the war. The women that worked for NASA were often called "Human Computers".
https://digitalcommons.macalester.edu/amst_humancomp/
*5. Aboutness and function, says Deacon, is not something added on top of things, but something that emerges from constraints on matter and process. Deacon sees constraint as a form of causality which can be generated intrinsically, simply by processes interacting with each other.
https://somatosphere.com/2014/terrence-deacons-incomplete-nature.html/
Your language paints a picture of a man who knows himself. Since, as you say,
Quoting Wayfarer
and also as you say,
Quoting Wayfarer
the reader knows, from your two statements, that, in your understanding, your mind is your self. So, if you know yourself, because you perceive yourself, then you both perceive and know your mind. I don't expect to find we disagree on what I've claimed so far. We disagree whether the situation of you knowing yourself as mind involves your mind in the position of object. Your mind knows objectivity, so it also knows conceptually the objects that populate categorical objectivity. Since the mind is, by definition, a processor that deals in concept processing, and metaphor is a concept, then we know that mind dealing in metaphor is not metaphorical but literal if, as you claim, mind is only conceptual.
I want you to respond to the specifics of my argument: a concept processor processing concepts (such as metaphor) is not a figurative action; it is a literal action. In light of this, the mind examining itself is not an action done in a metaphorical sense. If it were the case that the latter holds, that would be higher-order metaphor, i.e. metaphor of metaphor.
Quoting Wayfarer
You're attempting to use "metaphor" as an escape clause liberating you from the self-contradiction inundating your denial. Your bigger problem is that you're caught in a rook's forking attack - to use a chess metaphor - if you avoid acknowledging the mind can be an object, in so doing, you lose the war because you position yourself as a Binary Existence Idealist: there is the phenomenal world of objects and, in a parallel world, there is the pure subjectivity of mind. This scheme doesn't even work in terms of the realm of Platonic ideals because its parallelism precludes the intersection of ideal model and imperfect copy central to Platonism.
Quoting ucarr
In this statement, I made an error. I have corrected the error, a negation, by lining it through.
Quoting Wayfarer
You raise and important point here. The distinction you point out is helpful to my understanding and I appreciate your sharing of it. This configuration of cognitive operations is complicated and interesting. I think an exhaustive examination is beyond my ability. Let me attempt making some claims.
If observing mind holds a concept of objects and, moreover, holds capacity to perceive particular objects conceptually, and if, as you imply, there are no extant immaterial objects that can be perceived conceptually, then you negate, by implication, the objective world of immaterial objects as perceived by observing mind. This categorical negation carries two competing implications: 1) conceptual mind exists in isolation, perceiving nothing or 2) conceptual mind fabricates imaginary conceptual objects perceived via solipsistic dreaming.
If observing mind does perceive conceptual objects not fabricated as imaginary objects perceived via solipsistic dreaming, then observing mind literally perceives conceptual objects via physical processing within the brain. This must be true because we know the conceptual contents of observing mind are funded by the physical processing of the brain.
I want you to respond to the specifics of my argument: cognition by the observing mind, which is tied to the physical processing of the brain, is both literal and physical.
You claim we can never be outside of our subject-only mind. An essential attribute of observing mind is self-awareness. Sentient beings survive threats to life via feedback looping memory circuits monitoring their body's interactions with the environment. This is self-awareness. Self-awareness cannot exist without the observing mind being subjectively aware of itself as object. Likewise, sentient being cannot be aware of another sentient being without observing mind being subjectively aware of its objective self in society with the other. If it were not subjectively aware of its objective self, it would not be able to differentiate itself from the world. This subjective awareness of the objective self is literal, not figurative. When another being strikes you in the face with its fist, the pain you experience is literal, not figurative.
The pink elephant in the room of this discussion is the complex surface. It is a cognitive processor that links self and world via mind. It is cognitive processing rooted in the physical, as consciousness is physical.
Quoting ucarr
This is a complex issue of epistemology, and there are various models that I consider and draw from. As I've said, I hope that my philosophy is compatible with Kant's 'copernican revolution', which is that 'things conform to thoughts, thoughts don't conform to things'. It is the representation that makes the object possible rather than the object that makes the representation possible. This introduces the human mind as an agent, an active originator of experience rather than just a passive recipient of perception. The world is the experience-of-the-world.
Where 'immaterial objects' come into the picture, is as cognitive and intellectual formations which comprise the basis on which judgements are made (similar to what @Gnomonsays in the post above). When I say that they don't exist as an object, I mean they don't exist as a sensible object, as phenomena ('what appears'). But formative ideas such as number are real nonetheless as constituents of reason. They are not the product of thought, but can only be apprehended by thought, and they are constitutive of the judgements we make about the objective world. That is made abundantly clear in science, is it not, which is grounded in quantitative analysis.
Quoting ucarr
Well, again, consider number. Are numbers objects? You can point to a number, 7, but that is a symbol. The same number can be written in different languages and symbolic form, VII, seven, sieben, etc. What is denoted by the symbol is an intellectual act, the apprehension of a quantity. But they're not actually 'objects' so much as 'intellectual acts', but we use the term 'object' to facilitate discussion.
Quoting ucarr
It is precisely that conception of the world as separate from the self that I am calling into question. The subjective and objective are, as it were, co-arising and mutually conditioning - there is no self without world, and no world without self. Again I feel that is basically conformable with the Kantian model.
.Quoting ucarr
What I mean by saying that, is that when you try and adopt the view of the world as if from no perspective - the world as it exists in itself, absent any perceiver, then you're trying to get outside your perceptual framework and see the world 'as it is in itself', as it would be with no observer. But we can't stand outside ourselves in that way. In scientific terms, we understand the cosmos is vast in space and time and that, as phenomena, h. sapiens are a mere blip or flash in space and time. But there is still an implicit perspective in that supposition, which is in the sense in which the mind provides the framework within which that judgement is meaningful. That is the limitation of naturalism - naturalism assumes a 'view from nowhere', as if its method of quantitative analysis shows us reality as it is with no observer. But the mistake is to interpret this stances as conveying some absolute truth, which it does not. See The Blind Spot .
Quoting ucarr
Plainly not. Mathematics, semiotics, many other elements of the mind, are not physical in nature. Cognition draws on all manner of influences and inputs, literal, symbolic, mythological, and many other factors. I think you're grasping at straws, because the denial of the primacy of the physical opens up too many difficult metaphysical questions, in a culture which has proclaimed that metaphysics is dead. We want it to be dead.
As for the mind's inability to grasp itself, the text I referred to is from Indian philosophy, the Upani?ads, which are the central texts of Advaita Vedanta. The specific passage can be found here.
Thanks again for your comments and feedback but as mentioned Christmas is upon us and I'll be logging out for a few days. And, compliments of the season!
Quoting Gnomon
Question - Are not both mass and the speed of light invisible?
Quoting Gnomon
If I remember correctly, you deem both mind and consciousness as being immaterial.
My notion of unary physicalism, like your EnFormAction, encompasses the four phase states you name and furthermore, I currently speculate it also encompasses mind and consciousness via absential materialism, a label that I use to name Deacon's hierarchy of dynamisms: thermo, morpho and teleo.
You take the position material and immaterial entities are encompassed by one essential substance; I think causal information is how you name it. In distinction from you, I speculate about all entities being material, even highly-ordered, emergent properties such as sentience and consciousness.
My single-axis notion, inspired by Deacon, centers on a continuum of upwardly evolving dynamisms.
Might it be correct to say your theory encompasses a system that, going forward from antiquity, encompasses both scientific method and ontic grammar.
Maybe we can say of the two narratives that one is unary and the other holistic.
With no background in academic philosophy, I have little depth in the Dualism debate, so I'm just reaching here, not "grasping". My self-acquired quantum physics & information-based worldview seems to require an Idealist foundation ; yet my mundane activities require a Realist belief system. As I have expressed it before : "for all practical (scientific) purposes, I am a Materialist, but for theoretical (philosophical) considerations I am a Mentalist". So, I'm a hybrid animal : an innocent mind in a cartesian demon's lair, so to speak.
My justification for a Mind-first ontology is based --- not on subtle philosophical deduction --- but on the scientific ubiquity of multiform Information, which includes mathematical Ratios, mental Reasoning, and physical inter-relationships, that include so-called "forces"*1 (gravity, sub-atomic bonds) that we observe as "spooky action at a distance"*2. Causal/Absential Information is common to both matter and mind. Therefore, for completely different reasons I came to the same conclusion as Spinoza : that the essence of the world is not a material substance, but a labelled-yet-undefinable abstract concept : God or Nature . . . or demon?.
The Realist worldview seems to assume that Matter is the primary onticity*3, and the only kind of thing that exists. This is understandable, because our 5 senses are tuned for detection of non-self objects outside the Mind. But the Idealist presumption is that Mind-itself is the primary kind of being, hence Body/Matter must be dependent upon or emergent from Mind-stuff. So, the Idealist belief requires a Universal Other Mind (God or what?) to provide the "implicit perspective" that somehow creates the "substance/essence" of a real world, for our senses to sense.
Since several millennia of dualistic debate have not resolved the tension between opposing "implicit" perspectives, why can't we take a lesson from Einstein's Relativity, and conclude that both views may be ultimately true, but the local framing is contingently true? If your frame requires worship, so be it. But my hybrid frame only invites curiosity. :smile:
*1. Physical Forces : that by which we measure changes in matter
Consciousness : that by which we know changes in the world
*2. Do forces actually exist or are they merely mathematical constructions that explain real phenomena?
Forces are real phenomena that exist in the physical world. In physics, forces are described and understood through mathematical models, but they are not merely mathematical constructions. Forces can be observed and measured, and they have real effects on the motion and interactions of objects in the universe.
https://www.quora.com/Do-forces-actually-exist-or-are-they-merely-mathematical-constructions-that-explain-real-phenomena
Note --- Forces are not "observed" by the senses, but inferred by the rational faculty of Mind. The physical effects are real, but the mental knowledge is ideal.
*3. Onticity : essence of being
Quoting Wayfarer
Kant's maxim is one of your foundational premises.
In the middle of the night, en route to the loo, you stub your toe on the bedpost. This is an instance of you directing the world to crush your flesh and you directing yourself to scream appropriately?
Quoting Wayfarer
Question - How does the self as subject-only have presence within a phenomenal world populated by objects?
Question - How does your project to promote the merger of self and world proceed simultaneous with asserting the subject-only mind?
Quoting Wayfarer
Your two quotes in bold comprise in tandem a position antagonistic to your subject-only mind. By your own values, you tilt towards a complex surface in spacetime converging the subject/object duet.
You then, however, shoot yourself in the foot with your immaterial, subject-only mind. Is it not the epitome of anti-philosophy? Consider the maxim that the examined life is the central aim of philosophy. Well, what does the examining and, most important, what object is central to its examination? If you and your subject-only life are one and the same, how can you practice philosophy?
Yes, both are numbers quantifying qualities (properties). Properties (attributes) are rationally inferrable, but not sensibly visible. Why do you ask? :nerd:
Quoting ucarr
I was not familiar with the term "unary", and I still don't how it is different from "Unitary" or "Holism". Unitary may describe a unique system of parts that together can be considered a single Form (morpho). Holism is similar, but focused more on the internal interrelationships that allow the parts to function together as a unit (teleo).
For my personal philosophical purposes, I make a distinction between "physical" and "material". Material (morpho) typically includes the stuff our senses perceive (what is seems to be), while Physical (thermo) includes the invisible forces & properties that cause a thing to act & react as it does. Please give me a brief definition of "unary physicalism" and "absential materialism". :smile:
Quoting ucarr
Please remember that I have no formal training in academic Philosophy. So please tell me how you distinguish between "scientific method" and "ontic grammar". Is the latter unscientific speculation? If so, how does it differ from philosophical speculation or scientific hypothesis? :wink:
Quoting ucarr
Quoting Gnomon
Quoting Gnomon
You have described Einstein's equation as an expression of three states of being: a) invisible; b) tangible; c) non-dimensional. On one side of the equation you have the invisible state; on the other side of the equation you have mass and the speed of light as tangible matter. You agree that mass and the speed of light, contrary to your description of [math]e=mc^2[/math], possess invisibility.
Quoting Gnomon
With "unary" I'm trying to express my take on physicalism in a math context wherein one continuum, the real number line, expresses one mode of existence, physical. The real number continuum is, by my language, equated with a unary math operation such as [math]?X[/math]. So, the real numbers measure along one mode, the continuum of the physical. Let me add that, in my view, numbers, like the environment in which they have meaning, are physical.
If numbers are not precisely physical, then they're a good candidate for the bridge between the material and immaterial worlds. Such a bridge function, in my opinion, doesn't refute my unary physicalism notion because two worlds that can be bridged are situated within Deacon's hierarchy of higher-order dynamisms: thermo, morpho, teleo. The debate between material/immaterial, as clarified by Deacon, comes to a crux at the notion of emergent properties of matter, such that the emergent properties, while dependent upon the lower substrates, operate under different parameters. This radical difference, as in the cases of numbers and mind, gives the appearance of an immaterial world, but its really the cause of emergent components of the physical world.
Absential materialism, as taken directly from the work of Deacon, names dynamic, physical processes that function on the basis of what's not contained in spacetime. The big picture starting to emerge from the hierarchy of physical dynamisms is how constraints compel dynamisms to do work ordering the necessary absences that teleodynamically organize toward the end-directed dynamisms essential to life, sentience and consciousness. Teleodynamically organized, end-directed work tilts the mind away from immediately tangible cause/effect relationships via a dynamism of emergent functions that operate within empirical experience as if they're invisible agents from another, non-sensory realm.
Quoting Gnomon
No need to cop a plea. Your understanding of the science is equal (if not superior) to mine. I, like you, and most people, have a checkered academic grounding.
Scientific method = experiment/verification methodology: measurable, repeatable, public.
Ontic grammar = the ground rules governing the content, nature and scope of existence (metaphysics).
Question : Does your commitment to immaterial reality contain a moral component?
If you will, let your responses marinate in the following sallies:
The universe is consistent. Laws of physics, mathematics, and whatever else, are the same everywhere. (Maybe not in a black hole.) If they were not, we would have chaos, and I doubt life would have arisen at all. (Although I suppose there are any number of sci-fi scenarios ) We evolved, and exist, in this universe, with its consistent principles. Meaning they are within us. I think counting is our recognition of these attributes, these consistent principles, of the universe. It makes sense that we recognize the principles of our own existence when we see them outside of ourselves. It wouldn't make sense if we were surprised every time we added 2 and 2, and came up with 4.
:up:
Quoting Patterner
You argue that our phenomenal universe of forces and material objects has an innate order founded upon principles likewise innate. You go on to declare that life wouldn't be possible without the designed and pervasive order of the universe as its ground. You present a picture of naturally ordered life arising from pre-existing order.
Quoting Patterner
You acknowledge designed order is imbibed into human genome from the forces and materials from which it has arisen. This is your description of cosmic mind meeting human mind. The human mind, once attaining to the requisite cognitive prowess, recognizes essential attributes of order of the surrounding creation. So, order, and number, the peerless marker of position and therefore of order, are discovered within the natural world. You don't believe numbers are a human invention:
Quoting ucarr
Quoting Patterner
You make it clear human mind and the innate order of the natural world are an interface, a complex surface interwoven from the coming-together of the two conversationalists. You answer the question: Why do two fingers look different from five fingers? It is because Aristotle was right and Descartes was wrong: human learns from natural world as part of an Aristotelian Duet wherein Agent Intellect meets intelligibility.
Quoting ucarrYes. The order pre-existed the life that arose within it.
Quoting ucarrAgain, I did not, and do not, acknowledge design.
Quoting ucarrNo, I did not, and do not, describe cosmic mind.
Quoting ucarrI think humans noticed an attribute of the universe's order. This attribute existed before any being able to notice did so. So no, we didn't invent it. We noticed it, and named it. Then we worked to understand it better. Then we expanded the field of study in ways that we never noticed - indeed, could not possibly notice - by observing objects.
But it seems, from my limited musings on the topic, that the attribute we named is of the universe's order, not of objects. But, serious question, does it ever make a differences? It we treat it as an attribute of things, do we run into trouble somewhere down the line? Same question if we treat it as an attribute of the universe's order.
Well you have a computer to record that idea. That is a consequence of noticing attributes and making minute distinctions which were discoveries i.e. disclosing aspects of nature that were previously hidden.
What I mean is, will thinking that objects 'possess an inherent attribute that can be labeled "number"' lead to a dead end? Will thinking it is not an attribute of objects, but of the universe's order, that we are recognizing lead to a dead end? After all, we might approach things differently, depending on which we take as our starting point.
Quoting Patterner
Quoting Patterner
Quoting Patterner
Quoting Patterner
Quoting Patterner
You have raised the central question: Where is the starting point of order? If we can accept, within the confines of our discussion here, that number is the peerless marker of position and therefore of order, then we can acknowledge that there's presently toleration of the notion number and order are discovered not invented.
A second, central question: How did number and order pre-dating humans get internalized within the human understanding? This form of the question evaluates down to: Where is the starting point for order and design for humans? Is it the human hand suggesting to the inquisitive mind of its possessor that two fingers not looking like five fingers is both meaningful and useful? Is it, instead, the abstract mind of humans navigating the environment via notions of number relations abstracted from counting fingers? Is number an attribute of material objects, or is it an incorporeal abstraction confined to the realm of cognition?
A third, central question: does the biconditional operator in logic link number with order? If N = number and O = order finds true expression as n ? o, then finding the start of one entails finding the start of the other.
Ive already given my answer: both claims about number are true. Counting fingers is no less essentially mathematical than perceiving the obscurities of pure math. This is so because the foundation of math cognition is its necessary antecedent: counting fingers. As justification, I cite Aristotles Agent Intellect (human) meets intelligibility (material object first, then both material and cognitive objects).
Patterner, by implication, agrees with the equivalence of the two modes of discovery with his response to my question:
Quoting ucarr
Quoting Patterner
Now we come to the hotly controversial topic of design and its location within the cosmic history.
If its possible to pinpoint the advent of design within the phenomenal universe, where in the timeline of events does it lie?
Firstly, lets consider a fourth central question: If O = order and D = design finds true expression as o ? d, then finding one entails finding the other.
If theres a hierarchy, it might be number, order, design.
Most importantly, if the two biconditionals are true, then we have a triad.
Can we make a theoretical placement of the triad of number_order_design within the infinitesimal interval of time following the Big Bang?
If we answer is yes, all were doing is tracking the start of the triad as natural phenomena.
If super-hot plasma is the first form of the material universe during inflation post-Big Bang, then we can infer its ontic status as pre-cursor to the formation of elemental atoms. With atoms clearly, we have number and order, whether as independent, unobserved entities, or as entities contingent upon observation. You ask what agent could act as observer in the micro-seconds following inflation? The question must be raised during the early expansion of the universe because the reflexivity of end-oriented consciousness, per our discovery-rather-than-invention thesis, requires a pre-cursor no less than does the triad. Remember, when I claim the early universe knew itself, even if only pre-cursively, Im claiming nothing in scope beyond the phenomenal universe.
To summarize, we have a defensible argument to the effect that the triad of number_order_design was extant from the start of the universe because the highly ordered status of the atom and its sub-atomics must be assumed as prior to all assemblages thereof.
Quoting ucarrWe grew within the universe, which has consistent principles, and are made of the universe's materials, which are subject to those principles. Is there a reason to think an intelligence that developed in such a way would not be able to recognize these principles?
Quoting ucarrWhat is the relationship between numbers and order? To what degree can you have one without three other? To what degree are they not the same thing?
Quoting ucarrYou're on your own with the topic of design.
I agree with your first sentence and I believe it to be a sufficient explanation of our recognition of order within the matter_energy realm.
Quoting Patterner
I believe the number line is sine qua non to both math and order. The positions along the number line and their relationships are why math is the language of the ordering of spacetime phenomena. A number is a number line. A position along the number line is just an idealization about the ultimate compactness of a dimensionless point.
Is a random number sequence an instance of numbers separated from order? Even in this instance, the numbers still map to the number line. Furthermore, this question dovetails into the difficult question whether we can rationalize outside of order. A requisite for postulating about numbers, a rational entity, depends on numbers being coupled with order. Rationalizing outside of order also raises a difficult question about whether intelligibility can exist separate from order. You explanation for how humans internalized the consistent principles of the universe places heavy reliance upon intelligibility. How could humans recognize scientific truths without being engulfed within an environment essentially ordered?
I want you to give more thought to your decision to sign off from all discussions of design. Principles, being organizing, foundational truths, have an intimate relationship with design. If I'm not mistaken, you embrace them as essential components of metaphysics. How could organizing principles, acting in the role of designers, not be involved in the high ordering of atoms? As you say, the universe's materials are subject to the universal principles.
I'd say some of both.
Assuming it is even possible to record the full detail of the physical activity occurring in human brains without killing a person, we aren't near to having the technology to do so. So the lack of knowledge is a significant issue.
If we did have such knowledge, what would we be able to do with it? A physical system can't simulate a physical system as complex as itself. On physicalism there is no reason to think that we could consciously grasp the full details of what occurs in our brains.
Not to say that there isn't (or won't be) progress being made in improving our understanding, but that there will inevitably be limits.
With or without neuroscience we have the Chinese Room to thank for explaining that a proper semantics (skill in pointing words and other symbols at things in the world, as opposed to merely co-ordinating them with each other) is what makes the difference between a neural network having or not having consciousness. (I.e. between it tending or not tending to think it has a theatre in the head.)
That just leaves unsolved those other, truly hard problems of philosophy that you allude to. Time and so on.
The truly hard problem of consciousness is that we can never objectively test what it is like to be conscious from the subjects view point. Think of it like this, "What is it like to be a rock?" We understand the atomic make up and composition of the rock. But what it is it like to BE the rock AS the rock?
This is unknowable. Same as it is for anyone else but you to know what it is like to be you. We could reproduce your atomic makeup down to the T, but we could never objectively monitor what it is like for the subject itself to feel what it is feeling. We can measure your brain states and after testing say, "When the subject's brain state is X, we have learned this is when the subject feels happy." But we don't know what its like for that subject to be happy. We could learn the mechanics of your brain and body and predict everything you were going to think and say seconds before you thought or said it. But we can never know what its like to be the person with that brain, thinking or saying those thoughts.
As such, its unsolvable. Its simply a limitation of our ability to know. Only if we could erase our self-consciousness, place our self into another consciousness, then retain the memories of that consciousness when we reverted to our own, could we claim to know what its like to be another consciousness. So far, that's impossible.
I am 100% sure, there is absolutely no way that neuroscience can solve the hard problem of consciousness in a way where our descriptions in neuroscience fully explain our experience in the sense that there is some kind of necessary entailment between some neuroscientific description and some experience. This is impossible I think. Your wave example doesn't help. It wouldn't explain why the wave is associated with some particular experie ces in the same way that current descriptions of vidual cortex activity cannot tell us what experiences we are having. I think consciousness is a place where the natural limits of self-explanation really becoming prominent... the thing is, there is no reason we should be able to explain everything, especially the self (i.e. experience). I think its almost analogous to how self-reference always results in paradoxes in logic. We can never know just as a dog will never know somethings because its brain is designed in a way that is limiting to it.
Critical lack of knowledge. The easy problems of consciousness are the ones our present scientific "toolbox" are equipped to handle, such as how sight works functionally. Not that this kind of research is easy, but just that it's within the concepts we're used to. The hard problem is explaining phenomenal consciousness, so going beyond the function of sight to why there is an experience associated with it. It's supposedly "hard" because we don't yet have a place in the physical sciences for the idea of phenomenal consciousness.
I see growing scientific evidence, that learning more about phase relationships between brainwaves and neuron firings will enhance our understanding of the nature of our perceptual experience at the least.
Lots of relevant stuff here. (And pointers to more relevant stuff.)
I've never heard anyone say that, who wasn't rather naive about what is going on in the physical sciences. See the link I posted above. It is certainly informative about ways my phenomenal consciousness differs from that of others.
Advocates for consciousness have built a theory from the top down and then wonder why it is without grounding. Conscious experience, mind, the soul its just there. But what is actually there, the physiology, cannot serve to explain it.
Sure. It's called first person data. It's there in the physical sciences. What we're looking for is an explanation for it. Why does it exist?
You're welcome to explain it to us. :strong:
Start from what is there and see where it leads you.
There is phenomenal consciousness. Where does it lead me?
Well, we've looked and there is nothing of the sort. Where does that lead you?
To wonder how you find life worth living.
You can start by valuing the things that are there instead of the things that aren't.
What do you value?
Pretty much everything and for its own sake. For example, I dont need to posit spirits in a thing in order to find value in it.
Me neither.
I think this demonstrates a failure to grasp the point at issue. In David Chalmers original paper, 'Facing Up to the Problem of Consciousness', nothing whatsover is said about what it is like to be an inanimate object such as a rock, as the paper is about the nature of experience. I take it that neither Chalmers nor anyone here will claim that rocks are subjects of experience.
The salient passage in the Chalmer's paper is this:
All the physicalist needs to do is point to the physiology and say: thats why. The answer covers every question from why is it alive to why is it hungry. The answers are inherently and necessarily physical because the adjective conscious describes the physical system itself and nothing besides.
It appears to me that the problem for the dualist is much more fundamental: distinguishing between consciousness on the one hand, and biology on the other. What is the difference?
In the section on The Subjective Unity of Perception, the author mentions Chalmer's paper. The gist of that section is that although neuroscience has a pretty good grasp of all the individual systems that account for the perception of motion and the other elements of visual perception, the actual system that produces the unified subjective experience can't be identified: 'that there is no place in the brain where there could be a direct neural encoding of the illusory detailed scene . That is, enough is known about the structure and function of the visual system to rule out any detailed neural representation that embodies the subjective experience.
I appreciate the citation to get the point home, but I think the rock analogy is also useful as well. We know about consciousness through our own behavior and then others mimicking that behavior. But we cannot know what it is like to actually be that other. A rock does not show any behavior of being conscious, and we do not believe a rock can have the experience of a rock, but we cannot know that either.
I would have thought that the distinction between sentient beings and insentient objects is a fundamental not only in philosophy. I can't see any sense in the claim that rocks are subjects of experience. I suppose some forms of panpsychism might make such claims, but they're not credible as far as I'm concerned.
Besides, the problem is not only about not knowing what it is like to be another kind of being (the reference to Nagel is to his well-known article What is it Like to be a Bat). It's also about the fact that no objective description of brain-states can convey or capture the first-person nature of experience. The kind of detailed physiological understanding of pain that a pharmacologist or anaestheologist has, is not in itself pain. Knowing about pain is not the same as being in pain. It is also known as the 'explanatory gap'. Pain is something that is undergone by subjects of experience, not just a configuration of matter. It's that subjective dimension that is absent in any third-person description. That is the salient point.
So I say, "how does physicalism account for consciousness?" And you say, "look, you have a brain and brain's are conscious! Therefore you are conscious NotAristotle! That's how we determine what things are conscious, by whether they have brains or not."
But then surely my reply is: "perfect, Nosferatu, now why is the brain conscious?" And how would you answer that in physical terms?
I wouldn't say research like this would be helping with the Hard Problem of consciousness though. Ofcourse, the more we learn, the more we might precisely we will be able to relate experiences to neural activity but that isnt necessarily the same as explaining why specific phenomenal experiences are related to certain mechanisms.
And I don't think there an explanation to that is even possible as I think such a duality is illusory.
Personally, I dont think brains are conscious. But I do think organisms are. Organisms are conscious (or unconscious) because thats what their physiology entails. The reason we cannot know what its like to be a bat is because were not bats. Closer than that, I believe consciousness and the organism are one-and-the-same. It is the object under observation in both cases, after all.
The point of the hard problem is to demonstrate the limits of what we can know about consciousness and sentience in others besides their behavior. Like you said, there is no brain correlate to what a person subjectively feels as pain, only what a person expresses or is observed to be in pain. Logically, this means we cannot state what a person feels like or does not feel like. Meaning, we cannot know the subjective feeling beyond their behavior. This also means we cannot know the subjective feeling despite their behavior.
This leads to the P-zombie. The creature that acts conscious, but we do not know if it subjectively feels conscious. But a P-zombie can sometimes confuse the issue as well, as people get stuck on the behavior. You know the debates. A rock is a more simple way of getting to the heart of the problem by removing the idea of behavior entirely. A rock does not act conscious, but we do not know if it subjectively feels conscious. For if we did know that it does or does not subjectively feel conscious apart from its behavior, then we would have an objective way of telling if something does or does not subjectively feel conscious. That is something we can never know be it rock, bug, animal, plant, or human.
That's an interesting issue, but it's not the hard problem.
[N]o objective description of brain-states can convey or capture the first-person nature of experience. The kind of detailed physiological understanding of pain that a pharmacologist or anaestheologist has, is not in itself pain. Knowing about pain is not the same as being in pain.
Its really the difference between explanation and experience.
When we see a red apple and ask, Why and how can this red apple be seen? and we want an explanation then we can expound on all manner of material stuff (physics and neuroscience). That is, red is a certain wave length of light, and to see it requires retinal cone photoreceptors, a visual cortex, etc.
But if we ask the same question, Why and how can this apple be seen? and we want an experience then we must look at the apple and, assuming there is sufficient light and our eyes and brain are functioning normally, then we have a perception of a red apple. And the only way others can have this experience is for them to look at the apple too where light is sufficient for them, and their eyes and brains are functioning normally.
Most notably: these conscious experiences the perception of red apples are private. No amount of explaining them physically and/or neuroscientifically can do them justice. The fact is, explanations of phenomena no matter how accurate are not the same as the experiences of these same phenomena. Someone else, although able to have their own visual perceptions, are unable to have mine. Similarly, only they can actually feel their own physical pain, while I can only feel mine. Again, we can explain how these perceptions and feelings occur via physics, neurochemistry and neurophysiology, but knowing about these explanations are not the same thing as having them (to paraphrase Wayfarer above).
And by the way, this is not to imply that there is something mystical going on here, or that consciousness is necessarily some sort of spiritual or immaterial substance. Maybe it's just a fact of biological existence that experience (consciousness) is private, whereas explanations of experience are (or can be) public. (?)
In any event: explanation is not experience.
Welcome to the Forum, Thales, and thanks for the mention!
I might add, another theme I explore in many threads, is the way in which Descartes' 'res cogitans' has been so often seen as a kind of 'spiritual or immaterial substance'. After all, 'res' in 'res cogitans' means 'thing', and so it is easily interpreted (or misinterpreted) as a kind of ghostly essence. Indeed, I think Gilbert Ryle's depiction of the 'ghost in the machine' is based on this interpretation of Descartes. It's very much embedded in modern culture.
(An alternative way of depicting it is to understand mind as the ability to perceive meaning or to see reason. That is nearer in meaning to the Aristotelian 'nous', although exploration of that topic would take us a long way from the OP.)
However, the fact of my own consciousness is apodictic (beyond doubt) for each of us, is it not? That is the sense that Descartes' cogito is right on the mark, is it not?
Yes, definitely. The hard problem does not exist for our own selves. For we are the experiencers of that particular locus of matter called the brain. I would be able to measure my brain waves and find out exactly what brain state made me feel what I feel. The problem is, I could never communicate that exact subjective feeling to others in an objective way. The hard problem is not in objectively measuring our own subjective experience with our brains, its in communicating our own subjective experience to another subjective being with an objective means of verification.
Its really really another variation of, "Is the green I see the green you see?" We both have the wavelength of light enter our eyes and processed by our brain a particular way. We both call it green. We could see the process of the brain and wait for each of us to say when we see green. But do we subjectively experience what we each call green exactly the same way? That's something beyond our capability to objectively know.
We dont have hungry, sad, or sleepy atoms either. These adjectives describe the organism as a whole. Thats what the word conscious does. Were just describing the organism, the mode of his biology, what hes doing, etc. It wouldnt make sense if these adjectives, or any other derivative quality, can be applied to any other object like an atom.
You are not describing the HPoC. It's true that nobody/thing can experiences my subjective experiences. But the HP is not that we can't communicate subjective experience; it is how a clump of matter can have them at all. In [I]The Conscious Mind[/I], David Chalmers writes:[quote=Chalmers] Why should there be conscious experience at all? It is central to a subjective viewpoint, but from an objective viewpoint it is utterly unexpected. Taking the objective view, we can tell a story about how fields, waves, and particles in the spatiotemporal manifold interact in subtle ways, leading to the development of complex systems such as brains. In principle, there is no deep philosophical mystery in the fact that these systems can process information in complex ways, react to stimuli with sophisticated behavior, and even exhibit such complex capacities as learning, memory, and language. All this is impressive, but it is not metaphysically baffling. In contrast, the existence of conscious experience seems to be a new feature from this viewpoint. It is not something that one would have predicted from the other features alone.
That is, consciousness is surprising. If all we knew about were the facts of physics, and even the facts about dynamics and information processing in complex systems, there would be no compelling reason to postulate the existence of conscious experience. If it were not for our direct evidence in the first-person case, the hypothesis would seem unwarranted; almost mystical, perhaps.[/quote]That's a good explanation of the problem.
The solution? In [I]Until the End of Time[/I], Brian Greene wrote:[Quote=Greene] And within that mathematical description, affirmed by decades of data from particle colliders and powerful telescopes, there is nothing that even hints at the inner experiences those particles somehow generate. How can a collection of mindless, thoughtless, emotionless particles come together and yield inner sensations of color or sound, of elation or wonder, of confusion or surprise? Particles can have mass, electric charge, and a handful of other similar features (nuclear charges, which are more exotic versions of electric charge), but all these qualities seem completely disconnected from anything remotely like subjective experience. How then does a whirl of particles inside a headwhich is all that a brain iscreate impressions, sensations, and feelings?[/quote]
And Christof Koch, a neurophysiologist who is the president and chief scientist of the Allen Institute for Brain Science, who has been trying to solve the mystery for decades, made a bet with Chalmers 25 years ago, because he's thought we would know how neurons explain it by now. He just paid off the bet, because the answer has not been found. While that's not proof that neurons don't explain it, it's certainly not proof that they do.
So someone who knows a ton more about the properties of particles, laws of physics, and the forces, than the vast majority of people, and has put a good deal of thought into consciousness, says those things don't offer an explanation for it. And a guy who knows a ton more about neurons, the brain, and nervous systems, than the vast majority of people, has put far more thought into consciousness than the vast majority of people, and has done more experimentation and testing into how the neurons, brain, and nervous system produce consciousness, than the vast majority of people, says we don't know how it happens. With those two people in mind, I don't think we have the answer.
Consciousness certainly seems inextricably bound to brain activity. But that's not the same as explaining how it happens. How do the same physical properties and processes that explain the abilities to: perceive photons, differentiate different patterns and frequencies within a certain range of the electromagnetic spectrum, initiate action potentials that lead to bodily movements in response to the perceptions, store perceived patterns, and incorporate the stored information into the initiation of future action potentials also explain how those abilities have awareness of themselves, or awareness of their own awareness. If anyone can answer that, they are keeping it from Koch and Greene.
I often cannot follow what you're saying. I'm always trying to read various books on all this stuff, but it doesn't come easily to me. I'm always looking up words, the definitions of which often lead me to other words I have to look up, and onto others, and then back to the original. If you can explain more about what you mean by design. When I think of design, it comes with a designer. If that is not what you mean, then maybe I can participate. we might say, snowflakes, in general, have a design, and each one has its own unique design. But I would use the word *cough* pattern, instead of design. is that the kind of thing youre talking about?
What does Greene follow that up with?
I don't get the impression, based on the following Greene interview, that he would agree much with the way you are using that quote.
At 1:24, he says:And in my quote, he says nothing we know from our sciences even hints at it. I think he would agree with me that we don't have the answer.
You may have misunderstood that point within the full context of what I was communicating, or I was unclear. It is not that we cannot communicate our subjective experience. Its that we cannot experience another's subjective experience. Meaning that there is no objective way to measure another's subjective experience.
We can very clearly identify and even medically manipulate consciousness. We use anesthesa to put people unconscious. You can drink alcohol, get drunk, and alter your consciousness. Consciousness is clearly physical. How we define consciousness through behavior, and test to understand it at a mechanistic level is the easy problem. Have we fully solved the easy problem? Not at all. Science will likely take centuries to uncover how the brain works at a complete physical level.
The bet you referred to, as I understood it, was about the Easy problem. You can read it here.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-02120-8 I'm careful to make a full claim on this because this is one article from a news reporter who may not have understood the full subject. But from my understanding, the neuroscientist believed they would have a neuronal explanation of what causes consciousness. This is the easy problem. Even if this is answered, the hard problem of what it is like to experience consciousness for any particular subject will still exist.
" Explaining why consciousness occurs at all can be contrasted with so-called easy problems of consciousness: the problems of explaining the function, dynamics, and structure of consciousness. These features can be explained using the usual methods of science. But that leaves the question of why there is something it is like for the subject when these functions, dynamics, and structures are present. This is the hard problem.
In more detail, the challenge arises because it does not seem that the qualitative and subjective aspects of conscious experiencehow consciousness feels and the fact that it is directly for mefit into a physicalist ontology, one consisting of just the basic elements of physics plus structural, dynamical, and functional combinations of those basic elements. It appears that even a complete specification of a creature in physical terms leaves unanswered the question of whether or not the creature is conscious. And it seems that we can easily conceive of creatures just like us physically and functionally that nonetheless lack consciousness. This indicates that a physical explanation of consciousness is fundamentally incomplete: it leaves out what it is like to be the subject, for the subject. There seems to be an unbridgeable explanatory gap between the physical world and consciousness. All these factors make the hard problem hard."
https://iep.utm.edu/hard-problem-of-conciousness/#:~:text=The%20hard%20problem%20of%20consciousness%20is%20the%20problem%20of%20explaining,directly%20appear%20to%20the%20subject.
No objective description of trees, mountains or rivers can capture the nature of trees, mountains or rivers. The physical understanding of a tree, a mountain or a river is not itself a tree, mountain or river.
Not so. The byline of the article you cite says 'Christof Koch wagered David Chalmers 25 years ago that researchers would learn how the brain achieves consciousness by now.' The bet was lost.
Quoting Philosophim
No, it's not. That is just the problem that hasn't been solved. Again, look at the reference I provided upthread on the neural binding problem. The section of the article in question is only a few hundred words, but it spells out what it is about the subjective unity of experience for which neuroscience cannot find a physical cause, and even cites Chalmers' original essay.
I don't think that there is as strong a correlation as you're claiming. Certainly all of those influences affect the brain, and the state of the brain then affects the nature of conscious experience. But that doesn't amount to proving that consciousness is physical, as it's still not clear what consciousness actually is, other than it is something that, for organisms such as ourselves, requires a functioning brain in order to interact with the sensory domain.
There are also many hugely anomalous cases of subjects with grossly abnormal brains who seem to be able to function (see Man with tiny brain shocks doctors).
There is the case of psycho-somatic medicine and the placebo effect, wherein subjects beliefs and emotional states have physical consequences. They can be regarded as being 'top-down causation', in that the effects of beliefs and mental states operate 'downward' on the physical brain. (There was a classic experiment years ago where subjects who were trained to imagine they were doing piano exercises showed very similar neural changes to subjects who trained with actual pianos. And that opens up the whole area of neuro-plasticity, which also has vast implications for the effect of intentional actions on neural structures.)
And finally the claim that 'consciousness is physical' is the very subject of the entire argument, and your claims in this regard still suggest, to me at least, that you're not seeing the point of the argument.
Physicalism is paradigmatic for modern philosophy and culture because the generalised method of the application of precise measurement to the quantifiable attributes of physical bodies has been extraordinarily successful across an enormous range of phenomena, from subatomic to the cosmic scales. This method relies on reduction to those attributes which can be represented and measured numerically, pioneered by Newton, Galileo and Descartes. The whole ethos of Enlightenment science is that this method is truly universal in range and scope and that there is nothing that could fall outside it (or at least, nothing worthy of consideration.) This is where the problem of consciousness originates - because by definition consciousness is excluded from this paradigm.
[quote= Thomas Nagel, Mind and Cosmos, Pp 35-36]The modern mind-body problem arose out of the scientific revolution of the seventeenth century, as a direct result of the concept of objective physical reality that drove that revolution. Galileo and Descartes made the crucial conceptual division by proposing that physical science should provide a mathematically precise quantitative description of an external reality extended in space and time, a description limited to spatiotemporal primary qualities such as shape, size, and motion, and to laws governing the relations among them.
Subjective appearances, on the other hand -- how this physical world appears to human perception -- were assigned to the mind, and the secondary qualities like color, sound, and smell were to be analyzed relationally, in terms of the power of physical things, acting on the senses, to produce those appearances in the minds of observers. It was essential to leave out or subtract subjective appearances and the human mind -- as well as human intentions and purposes -- from the physical world in order to permit this powerful but austere spatiotemporal conception of objective physical reality to develop.[/quote]
Thomas Nagel, quoted above, was also referenced in Chalmers original essay and is a leading critic of philosophical reductionism. He adds:
[quote=The Core of Mind and Cosmos; https://archive.nytimes.com/opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/08/18/the-core-of-mind-and-cosmos/] The scientific revolution of the 17th century, which has given rise to such extraordinary progress in the understanding of nature, depended on a crucial limiting step at the start: It depended on subtracting from the physical world as an object of study everything mental consciousness, meaning, intention or purpose. The physical sciences as they have developed since then describe, with the aid of mathematics, the elements of which the material universe is composed, and the laws governing their behavior in space and time.
We ourselves, as physical organisms, are part of that universe, composed of the same basic elements as everything else, and recent advances in molecular biology have greatly increased our understanding of the physical and chemical basis of life. Since our mental lives evidently depend on our existence as physical organisms, especially on the functioning of our central nervous systems, it seems natural to think that the physical sciences can in principle provide the basis for an explanation of the mental aspects of reality as well that physics can aspire finally to be a theory of everything.
However, I believe this possibility is ruled out by the conditions that have defined the physical sciences from the beginning. The physical sciences can describe organisms like ourselves as parts of the objective spatio-temporal order our structure and behavior in space and time but they cannot describe the subjective experiences of such organisms or how the world appears to their different particular points of view. There can be a purely physical description of the neurophysiological processes that give rise to an experience, and also of the physical behavior that is typically associated with it, but such a description, however complete, will leave out the subjective essence of the experience how it is from the point of view of its subject without which it would not be a conscious experience at all.
So the physical sciences, in spite of their extraordinary success in their own domain, necessarily leave an important aspect of nature unexplained. Further, since the mental arises through the development of animal organisms, the nature of those organisms cannot be fully understood through the physical sciences alone. Finally, since the long process of biological evolution is responsible for the existence of conscious organisms, and since a purely physical process cannot explain their existence, it follows that biological evolution must be more than just a physical process, and the theory of evolution, if it is to explain the existence of conscious life, must become more than just a physical theory.[/quote]
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/768274
Not this tired old 'idealist/antirealist' caricature again ... :roll:
Quoting Wayfarer
"The problem originates" with semantically reifying the abstraction, or concept, of "consciousness" and thereby reducing a self-reflexive activity to a discrete thing (i.e. reduce what human brains intermittenly do to the contents (outputs) themselves).
Physicalism only excludes non-physical concepts from modeling (i.e. explaining) how observable states-of-affairs transform into one another. In this way "the paradigm" is epistemologically modest, or deflationary, limiting its inquiries to only that which can be publicly observed accounted for in order to minimize as much as possible the distorting biases (e.g. wishful / magical thinking, superstitions, prejudices, authority, etc) of folk psychology/semantics. We physicalists do not "exclude consciousness" (i.e. first-person experience) but rather conceive of it as a metacognitive function e.g. phenomenal self-modeling of organisms continuously interacting with and adapting to each other and their common environment.
As far as I can discern it, Wayfarer, 'first-person subjectivity' is like one-dimensional information processing for which the higher dimensions (e.g. third-person objectivity) it is imbedded in are completely transparent to the one-dimension (like the circle in Flatland (E. Abbot, 1884)) sustaining the illusion of 'first-person subjectivity' as either (A) all-there-is, (B) the ontological basis of all-there-is or (C) a separate substance from whatever-else-there-is. Physicalism helps to philosophically dispel this (folk) illusion much in the way prescription lenses correct for acute myopia.
Quoting Wayfarer
Again, unwarranted Cartesian-Heideggerian dualism. The fact is, Wayf, a very very tiny fraction of all "insentient objects" ever on Earth have also been "sentient beings", and we know this by observing that the latter are subject without exception to all of the same objective conditions and forces to which the former are subject. At most, functionally, "sentient" only predicates is a way of describing (some very rare) "objects" but is not itself a "fundamental distinction" any more than wings on butterflies are "fundamental distinctions" from wingless larvae or caterpillars.
:up:
:100: Yes, maps =/= the terrority.
As I noted, I was a bit uncertain as to my claim. Thank you for the correction.
Quoting Wayfarer
Fantastic article, thank you for the reference! They noted there was nothing in the visual part of the brain that could map to a very specific subjective experience of consciousness, namely why we see things in high resolution. This is not the same as not finding neuronal mapping to all subjective experiences.
"There is now overwhelming biological and behavioral evidence that the brain contains no stable, high-resolution, full field representation of a visual scene, even though that is what we subjectively experience (Martinez-Conde et al. 2008). The structure of the primate visual system has been mapped in detail (Kaas and Collins 2003) and there is no area that could encode this detailed information. "
Reading this carefully, there are a few things to note. First, he can say that there is currently no area in the visual system that has been found to encode this detailed information from a book written in 2003. That is true, but not the hard problem. I also did not find a valid reference to his second claim from Martinez-Conde. I looked at his article and found this in the available abstract (I could not find the full article):
"Because all of our visual experience occurs in conjunction with eye movements, understanding their perceptual and physiological effects is critical to understanding vision in general. Moreover, the neural mechanisms underlying perceptual suppression during eye movements may be very important towards narrowing down the neural bases of visual awareness."
"Recent developments have led to new insights through a combination of behavioral, psychophysical, computational and neurophysiological research carried out under conditions that increasingly approach the complex conditions of the natural retinal environment. Among these, fixational eye movement studies comprise a promising and fast-moving field of research. This special issue of Journal of Vision offers a broad compilation of recent discoveries concerning the perceptual consequences of eye movements in vision, as well as the mechanisms responsible for producing stable perception from unstable oculomotor behavior. "
So I'm having a difficult time finding out how the author of the primary article can validly claim his conclusions. I still see the idea of mapping neuronal states to consciousness as the easy problem while being able to scientifically objectify the subjective state of consciousness as the easy problem.
Quoting Wayfarer
You and I have touched on this a bit in the past, and I'll refrain from going over them again. To sum, its a difference in approach towards knowledge that you and I take. I'm actually very open to there being alternative reasons for consciousness besides the brain. The thing is, I need evidence. Currently I have found no evidence that provides any indication of consciousness, in humans, without the brain. What would consciousness be if not matter and energy from a neuronal system? Without something concrete to examine, we have an unfalsifiable God of the Gaps consciousness, which I am not interested in. Do we need people like yourself who keep looking for some other evidence of consciousness besides the brain while science grapples with its problems? Absolutely. But until the day something is found, what we can safely claim knowledge to is that consciousness is caused by the brain.
Quoting Wayfarer
He functions with an IQ of 84. That's the 'normal range' but hardly normal or Einstein. There are brains besides animals that are much smaller than ours, but still conscious. Show me a man without a brain who is conscious and you'll have something.
Quoting Wayfarer
Right, but where do beliefs and emotional states come from? The brain. The brain affecting the brain is a well known event. Show me something entirely outside of the physical realm that affects consciousness, and that will be something.
Quoting Wayfarer
No, the point of the argument is the hard problem. The hard problem has never claimed that consciousness is not physical, if we are regarding physical as matter and energy. Matter and energy has the capability to be conscious if organized right, just like water and hydrogen has the capability to be water if organized right. That's the point of the easy problem, to show that yes, they understand that consciousness is a physical manifestation of the brain. But will we ever be able to map consciousness objectively to what it is like to subjectively be conscious? That seems impossible.
Actually, I didn't comment on the visibility of Mass & C. But, for the record, all of the equation's elements are imaginary & invisible abstractions. And none of them is tangible Matter, although Mass is a numerical measurement (mentalization) of Matter, a concept, not an object. So, I don't know how you decided that the invisibility of of numerical concepts contradicts my description of Einstein's equation, in which I referred to Matter, not Mass, as "tangible". Does any of that "matter" to you? :joke:
PS___ One inference from the equation is that invisible Energy can transform into visible & tangible Matter. But we only know Matter (actual) by measuring the "gravity energy weight" of Mass (potential) with our senses. Energy & Mass are both forms of causal EnFormAction, hence Potential Mental (subjective cause) not Actual Material (objective effect). That's a key distinction in the EFA thesis : the mental map is not the material terrain.
Quoting ucarr
Sorry, I don't follow your definition of "unary". I assumed it was a reference to Unity or Holism. Personally, I would distinguish metaphysical (mental) "numbers" from the physical (material) objects they enumerate. But, as forms of Information, I can agree that numbers could be construed as a "bridge" (link) between the material (real) world, and the immaterial (ideal) world. The link between mental (nominal) number and material (actual) object is symbolic (pointing). :nerd:
Physical :
[i]a> relating to the body as opposed to the mind.
b> relating to things perceived through the senses as opposed to the mind; tangible or concrete.[/i]
Quoting ucarr
Ironically, our intangible mental images are all we know of the tangible world. Our physical senses translate warm-blooded matter into cold (rational) concepts. Brrr! :smile:
Can We Know Objective Reality?
The subjective is characterized primarily by perceiving mind. The objective is characterized primarily by physical extension in space and time. The simplest sort of discrepancy between subjective judgment and objective reality is well illustrated by John Lockes example of holding one hand in ice water and the other hand in hot water for a few moments. When one places both hands into a bucket of tepid water, one experiences competing subjective experiences of one and the same objective reality. One hand feels it as cold, the other feels it as hot. Thus, one perceiving mind can hold side-by-side clearly differing impressions of a single object.
https://iep.utm.edu/objectiv/
Consciousness...
describes the organism as a whole. sure
is a mode of biology. sure
is what he is doing. sure
I'm happy to concede all of those points and moreover to add that consciousness as we know it would not exist if not for the physical system that it is constituted by.
The problem though, the hard problem, is that when we consider the entire organism, or when we consider it at the physiological level, or at the neuronal level. or at the atomic level, or whatever level, we can't give an account of why that matter is conscious. It's obvious that there are conscious people, but why are they conscious? What, in physical terms, accounts for their consciousness. Again, we can't just point to the physiology. In fact, we can't point to anything physical. Why? Because as you said that will only amount to a description of the system in physiological or physical terms; it will not answer the question of why the matter considered is conscious.
I think the hard problem is not answering why consciousness is a physical manifestation, but why a physical manifestation should result in consciousness. And, it is quite unclear why any physical matter/energy arrangement should result in anything like consciousness. The consciousness cannot be accounted for in physical terms because consciousness is not a physical thing.
If physicalism is just an epistemological paradigm and not an ontological commitment, that takes a lot of the wind out of its sails, don't you think so?
:up:
Written this way, I can accept that as well. For example, why does oxygen and hydrogen make water? Why is there existence at all? These are hard problems that may not have an answer besides, "It just does."
Quoting NotAristotle
Your former point does not lead to the later. That would be like me saying that water is not a physical thing because I don't understand why the combination of hydrogen and oxygen make it happen. That's ridiculous. Consciousness is clearly a physical thing. Please show me an example of consciousness that can arise without any matter or energy involved. Here are some examples that could work.
1. Consciousness able to exist despite a lack of physical capability to do so.
For example, move your consciousness apart from your head where it sits into the next room that you cannot currently see. I am unable to do so.
2. Demonstrate a conscious entity that has no physical or energetic correlation.
For example, prove that a completely brain dead body is conscious. Or Inebriate someone to a high blood alcohol level and demonstrate that their consciousness is completely unaffected.
3. If consciousness is not matter and/or energy, please demonstrate evidence of its existence without using a God of the Gaps approach.
An inability to pinpoint the exact physical workings of consciousness does not negate that it is physical. We understand that a car needs an engine to run like a body needs a brain to be conscious. I don't have to understand electromagnetism to understand that a car needs an engine to run, and I don't need to understand the full mechanics of how the brain works to understand you need a brain to be conscious (in humans at least).
Our inability to understand how an engine works or how a brain works does not give us justification to claim, "A car or a brain running is not physical".
I just want to point out that I think this is not exactly the hard problem, rather it is what Ned Block has articulated to be the "harder" problem of consciousness. I could be mistaken about that.
Not so with consciousness.
Why?
Because, again, consciousness is not a physical thing. I am happy to grant that, physically speaking, there are entire organisms, there are atoms, there are neurons and brains, etc. But where in the physical world is consciousness? Answer: it's not there, it is nowhere to be found in the physical world. So how does something physical (brains neurons etc.) cause/result in/produce something non-physical (and in a very limited circumstance)?
Of course its a physical thing. You're conscious right? Are you a physical thing? I honestly find it bizarre that people think otherwise, and I don't quite understand it. The water analogy is EXACTLY the same thing. You not wanting to believe it does not deny the three points I wrote. Answer at least one of those and you have a point. Otherwise, its just a wish or desire, not a fact.
Not to speak for @Philosophim, but I treat it as a working hypothesis, and wonder whether you can present any falsifying evidence (while not expecting you to be able to do so).
Spend enough time with such a perspective and it becomes like waiting for people to present evidence that the Earth is flat.
What of your own question begging?
Quoting NotAristotle
Again, I don't think this applies to consciousness. I just want to be careful about assuming physicalist truisms.
*From Popper: products or objects of thought, as separated from any given instance of that thought.
Agreed, I was thinking as I wrote that previous post, that if the discussion were to get serious, I'd have to do a fair bit of clarification. For example, I don't consider consciousness to be a thing but rather a process.
Still, in light of the scientific evidence on the side of physicalists it seemed worth bringing up the question of why it is physicalists that are supposed to have the burden of proof.
In my view, the impulse behind physicalism in respect of consciousness, is mainly cultural in origin, in that our culture has undermined or disposed of the alternatives to physicalism, mainly as a consequence of Descartes' construal of res cogitans as 'thinking thing', an oxymoronic term. Whereas a thinking being is something else altogether. Which is why various forms of Aristotelian hylomorphism are making a comeback.
Maybe I'm missing the boat, but when we say "physical" I think we mean things like atoms, brains, neurons, entire organisms, and so on. If consciousness is physical in the same way as the things I've just listed, then SH must be entirely physical, mustn't he? Because Sherlock Holmes would just be his brain, arms, consciousness etc.
In classical rhetoric and logic, begging the question or assuming the conclusion (Latin: pet?ti? principi?) is an informal fallacy that occurs when an argument's premises assume the truth of the conclusion. -https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Begging_the_question
I have presented clear evidence and asked you to address one of three points that would bring some evidence for your claim that consciousness is not a physical thing. I am not begging the question, you are. If you believe it is true that consciousness is not physical, please demonstrate it.
Quoting J
Fantastic point. The definition of "What is physical" is paramount for any discussion, and can lead to disagreements of context instead of intent" I consider the physical universe to be matter and energy. Thoughts are physical, and this is backed by studies of the brain. Remove the neurons and the chemical communication; you can't have thought.
"What is Sherlock Holmes?" is a question loaded with implicit details. So we make it simple and state, "What is Sherlock Holmes as an idea?" Its a physical thought that describes a fictional brilliant detective who has some drug and anti-social issues. We have the capability as intelligent beings to create a imagined scenario within the world. Its very similar to your computer code processing things, then ultimately displaying a process on your monitor. The code can process things that could not be displayed on the TV (reality), but when it wants to display on the TV it has to follow the physical limitations of the monitor. All of it is physical.
I think my argument is something like this:
If consciousness is physical then consciousness can be accounted for in physical terms.
But consciousness cannot be accounted for in physical terms.
Therefore, consciousness is not physical.
What about that argument is question-begging?
However, physical studies of the brain invariably fail to capture the subjective dimension of existence. In other words, this claim entirely overlooks the original point of this thread. Likewise, thought-contents, such as the meaning of propositions, can be represented in many different languages, systems, configurations of ideas, all the while retaining their meaning, demonstrating that their meaning is independent of the physical forms they take (a form of the 'multiple realisability' argument - see this ChatGPT dialogue).
No, I'm not contrasting what I stated earlier. I agree. It is impossible to objectively capture subjective experience.
Quoting Wayfarer
And all of these are physical things. "Hi" and "Olah" both mean a greeting with the physical difference of intonation and spelling. They do not exists as some platonic form out there in a sub-space. I can translate base ten into base 2, and it exists in base 2 with its own set of particular laws. It is equivalent in many ways, but different in the physical implementation of the system.
If the subjective beliefs and emotional states that produce the placebo effect are neural (physical) states, why would they not be expected to have physical consequences? Physicalist presuppositions make such things easier, not more difficult, to understand. Presuming that such beliefs and emotional states are somehow non-physical existents makes it impossible to understand how they would have physical consequences.
But they're not. A sentence or a proposition is not a physical thing which is not meaningfully explicable in terms of physical laws. Language, for instance, is the subject of semiotics, linguistics, and other disciplines, but nothing within physics addresses any of that. Within those disciplines, some will be more inclined to a physicalist worldview, others less so. Noam Chomsky, for instance, says that physicalism is untenable because there is no coherent account of what constitutes a physical body.
When you read these words, you will interpret their meaning and compose a reaction (or not). That reaction has some physical elements - like the keys you depress to type, the appearance of letters on the screen - but the core is negotiating meanings, and that is not a physical process. But it can have physical effects - if I say something that others find deeply confronting or offensive, their pulse rate and blood pressure might increase, but that is not because I've physically influenced them via a medicine or substance, but because of their intepretation of what I'm saying.
With respect to the reality of fictional characters such as Sherlock Holmes, they are plainly cultural constructs, real by virtue of a common set of references in works of literature. To that extent they're real but fictional. But the elements of formal logic and mathematics are in a different category to that. They too are only perceptible by rational thought, so not physical as such, but real nonetheless. They exist in what Frege and Popper call a 'third realm'.
What we want to understand is how "a physical thought" could "describe a fictional brilliant detective." Referring to Popper again, he would say that any World 2 event -- that is, a particular thought-event that is the product of a particular brain at a particular time -- is merely a thought of Sherlock Holmes. It isn't SH himself. In order to have SH, we have to move to World 3, where objects of thought are named. Even if we allow that "a physical thought" isn't question-begging (it seems so to me), we still have to explain how an idea that depends on no particular brain for its instantiation can be called physical.
There may be a difference in definition between what we're intending. "Physics" is one aspect of the physical world. Language is another. It is the complex interplay using vibrations through the air to communicate an idea within a brain to another brain in such a way as both brains can share a context. This can further be expressed as physical scribbles on a piece of paper, or electronic pixels on a monitor.
Quoting Wayfarer
Of course its a physical process. You are physically typing, the physical transfer of binary information across the internet to my TV hooked up to my computer. I will read it with my physical eyes, my physical brain will process the information, and I'll type a physical reply. If I'm wrong, where am I wrong? What is the non-physical part? A sub-space where my consciousness resides? You don't blink at the idea of a computer physically processing ideas, why do you blink at a physical human brain doing that?
Quoting J
First, the default from all the evidence we have is that thoughts are physical. There is zero evidence that they are something different from matter and energy. You only feel that way. Second, are computers not physical then? I can send a file from my computer to another. Does that mean the file isn't a set of physical 1's and zeros on my hard drive? Of course it is. Its obvious.
Even if we accept the impossibility of recognition of the value of the law of the excluded middle as a result of biological evolution, despite you simply asserting it, here is a paper suggesting it was a matter of cultural evolution. Lucky thing that we are social primates.
It's physical in some respects, but the salient point, our understanding of what is being said, the expression of intentional meaning - that is not a physical process.
Quoting Philosophim
The interpretation of meaning. The constant, underlying, subliminal processes of 'this means that', 'this is that', 'this word has that meaning' - otherwise known as judgement. That is not a physical process. It can be instantiated in the computer, even more so now with AI (which I myself use constantly and refer to frequently) - but those are human artefacts, manufactured and programmed by humans to amplify human abilities.
I will acknowledge that I am positing a form of dualism, but it has to be spelled out very carefully. As I've said already a number of times in this thread, the Cartesian idea of there being a 'thinking thing' (res cogitans) or 'spiritual substance' is extremely misleading. There is no such thing, in any objective sense - there's nothing 'out there' which corresponds to that. The thinking subject is not an objective reality (which is another way of expressing the hard problem). But such judgements as 'is', 'is not', 'is the same as', and so on, are intrinsic to the operation of reason, which is internal to thought, and thus not objective in the sense implied in cartesian dualism. I'm more impressed with the approach of A-T (Aristotelian Thomist) dualism, generally described with that ugly word 'hylomorphism'. But what it means is that reason (nous) grasps meaning, which is the building block of rational thought. And that is not a physical process. That is why Thomist philosophy (and Christianity generally) sees the human as a compound of body and soul (or psyche). Not that the soul exists objectively, but as the animating intelligence which makes the grasp of meaning possible.
Quoting wonderer1
And that is where Nagel's critique of evolutionary reductionism is salient. To seek to provide an account of reason, on some grounds other than the rational, is to call into question the sovereignty of reason.
[quote=Thomas Nagel, op cit]Unless it is coupled with an independent basis for confidence in reason, the evolutionary hypothesis is threatening rather than reassuring. It is consistent with continued confidence only if it amounts to the hypothesis that evolution has led to the existence of creatures, namely us, with a capacity for reasoning in whose validity we can have much stronger confidence than would be warranted merely from its having come into existence in that way. I have to be able to believe that the evolutionary explanation is consistent with the proposition that I follow the rules of logic because they are correct--not merely because I am biologically programmed to do so. But to believe that, I have to be justified independently in believing that they are correct. And this cannot be merely on the basis of my contingent psychological disposition, together with the hypothesis that it is the product of natural selection. I can have no justification for trusting a reasoning capacity I have as a consequence of natural selection, unless I am justified in trusting it simply in itself -- that is, believing what it tells me, in virtue of the content of the arguments it delivers.
If reason is in this way self-justifying, then it is open to us also to speculate that natural selection played a role in the evolution and survival of a species that is capable of understanding and engaging in it. But the recognition of logical arguments as independently valid is a precondition of the acceptability of an evolutionary story about the source of that recognition. This means that the evolutionary hypothesis is acceptable only if reason does not need its support. At most it may show why the existence of reason need not be biologically mysterious.
The only form that genuine reasoning can take consists in seeing the validity of the arguments, in virtue of what they say. As soon as one tries to step outside of such thoughts, one loses contact with their true content. And one cannot be outside and inside them at the same time: If one thinks in logic, one cannot simultaneously regard those thoughts as mere psychological dispositions, however caused or however biologically grounded. [/quote]
Nagel has failed to recognize the poor thinking in things like Plantinga's Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism and Intelligent Design. So your appeal to authority is particularly unpersuasive in this case.
FWIW, that article on cultural evolution of our ability to apply logic is just the kind of thing that Plantinga's EAAN grossly fails to address. To the best of my knowledge Plantinga never recognizes the significance of our evolutionary ancestors being members of a social species to the EAAN.
But where is the evidence that its not? I don't mind the declaration, but there has to be evidence. If my brain bleeds do I not have a stroke? If I'm the part of my brain that processes sight is damage, my eyes work, but I cannot see anymore. If I drink alcohol, won't my words start slurring and I start thinking that the jerk to my left is really "A schtand up guy?"
Quoting Wayfarer
But we can take things that impair our judgement, and this is because these substances affect the brain. If judgement was not a physical process, then nothing physical should be able to affect the process correct? Now I could grant that perhaps there is a third non-physical component that could act with the physical brain. I can get behind the idea. But do we have any evidence of this third non-physical component? If it interacts with the physical, then we can get evidence of it.
Quoting Wayfarer
Again, this is a wonderful idea. But it has no evidence. I don't mind someone stating, "Its possible this idea is true, and we may find evidence for it in the future." But until evidence is found, it can make no factual declarations of its own, only suppositions.
Then Nagel misunderstands natural selection. Natural selection is merely a note that species which survive in the world to the point of procreation continue on their genes. Rationality is a capturing and understanding of the world that allows planning and use of that reality accurately. Those that are not rational do not accurately capture reality, and if this inaccuracy is too high they would not be able to handle the dangers reality throws at them.
Again, he's missing the point. If we evolved to survive in reality, then logic necessarily reflects reality in the most accurate way we know. It all starts with, "Assume A" Can A be not A at the same time? No. And reality matches that. Logic is not an innate thing floating around existence. Its a well proven tool to accurately evaluate our ideas in a way that intends to match reality.
It's not an empirical question, but a philosophical one. Although, there's the famous TED talk, My Stroke of Insight, Jill Bolte Taylor. She was a neuroscientist involved in brain-mapping who suffered a major stroke, which resulted in her attaining an insight into what she descibed as 'Nirv??a' (her 'stroke of insight') due to the left hemisphere of the brain shutting down. But note that this was a first-person experience - there would have been no way for her to tell, as a neuroscientist, what that experience might be in another subject, without having undergone it.
Quoting Philosophim
No, that is described in critical philosophy as the instrumentalisation of reason, although I'm guessing that won't of interest to those here.
Quoting Philosophim
I'm questioning what you regard as obvious. What imparts that order? If you zero out the HD it is physically the same matter, it weighs the same, has all the same physical constituents, but it contains no information. The information is conveyed by the arrangement of matter. What arranges it? I mean, computers don't emerge spontaneously from the sky, they're the product of human intelligence.
Incidentally, what would constitute evidence of this claim? What would you be looking for?
And that is the key difference between a computer and a human. For a computer, there's nothing more the file could be. It isn't "like anything" to be a computer. But we have a different experience, which gives rise to all of the problems discussed on this thread.
This may be one of those fundamental philosophical problems that simply call up different basic intuitions. I certainly don't think that physicalists are less intelligent than I am, or wrong in some obvious, silly way. I hope they feel the same way about me! It just seems like a brute fact (to me) that what I do when I interpret a story about Sherlock Holmes is completely different from what a computer does when it realizes a program. And functionalism has had a very hard time since its heyday in the late 20th century.
It's not an 'appeal to authority', but an appeal to a rational argument by a recognised philosopher. But, of course, philosophy itself is useless, right? Unless it can be put to use in some practical way. Makes you wonder why we're all wasting our time here.
Of course philosophy isn't useless, but when someone's philosophy is dismissive of natural philosophy the results don't tend to be very good.
I've seen more than enough evidence of your cherry-picking scientific views for their consistency with the beliefs you prefer to have. It's a common characteristic in humans. I've done it myself, and had my life gone differently, I might be as inclined to do so as you are.
However, aspects of the way my life has gone have resulted in my gaining expertise in a number of areas where reality will smack you upside the head if you aren't willing to put aside what you want to believe, in order to develop a better understanding of the way things are in reality. I don't think I deserve any more credit or blame for having my view, than you do for yours. It's just a matter of the way things have gone.
I do however, have a lot more confidence that my view will stand up to testing, than that your view will. For example, I expect that as you read this your are dealing with aspects of your social primate nature. Do you think I am wrong?
Quoting Patterner
Quoting Patterner
Quoting Patterner
A pattern, when it's catchy, presents itself a thing worth keeping. I delight in sweet melodies arising from ingenious tunes. Might your experience of music resemble this?
A world without patterns is not something I wish to experience, too much like trudging Dresden after the Allied bombing.
I suppose we can say ideas are a type of pattern; they're the type favored by the mind.
I'm guessing now and then you marvel at the creativity of a clever idea. A familiar example is a good joke. When a good joke is current and passing word-of-mouth like wildfire, we catch glimpse of many minds joining together like kindling.
How about a choice piece of hot 'n juicy gossip? That brings us together like a gaggle of squawking busybodies, right?
Yes. We're all immersed in a world of patterns.
Does that explanation imply that the "Hard Problem" is scientifically inscrutable, because the scientific method studies physical sensations from environment (other), not metaphysical experiences from the interior milieu (self)? Feelings are communications from-Self-to-Self, in a secret language. Even so, Philosophers are not deterred by open-ended questions --- we can debate them interminably.
Animals & Humans & Scientists can send & receive subjective feelings only by translating them into mnemonic gestures & conventional symbols. So, to learn what it feels like to be a sonar-experiencing bat, you would have to trade bodies with the bat, not just words & signs. Objective information is always second-person. But first-person feelings are what distinguish Self from Other.
According to Shannon, Information communication is always surprising (foreign), but feeling is familar. The barren bits of information in a computer, stripped of meaning, can nevertheless convey normalized significance to a mind, by use of symbols, analogies, & metaphors. But they can't convey the experience of a feeling via such indirect means : you had to be-here-now. :smile:
Mnemonic : an action that reminds us of something we already know from past experience.
Note --- For example, mammals display emotions in actions similar to those of humans. So, we can understand, by analogy, what they are feeling, even though we can't directly feel what they are feeling.
And I agree with this. We can objectively map physical processes to behavior, and even map physical processes to someone's claimed subjective experience, but we will never know what its like to be the subject experiencing. Its very similar to the thought experiment where someone reads all about an apple, but has never seen one. We can describe the apple in excruciating detail, but you won't know the experience of seeing, feeling, or tasting an apple until you actually see, feel, and taste it.
That being said, she had a physical stroke and a physical reaction to it. The inability to know what it is like to be a physical entity having an experience does not negate the fact that certain physical entities can have experiences.
Quoting Wayfarer
Yeah, sounds like we're getting off topic here. Maybe something to explore in another thread.
Quoting Wayfarer
True. And modern day computers were built up over over a century of work at this point. Basic computers start out as a switch board, which is just a bunch of electrical gates that you turn off and on to set up results based on the combination of those on and off gates. Who would have guessed from such a simple premise we would build the modern world of information, movies, and games?
Now of course a computer did not spontaneously create itself. But we've created computers to the point that when you hook electricity to them and turn them on, they run themselves. In fact, there are whole computers that take very little, if any human input and run whole systems. In general when you send a message to the computer, you're not sending it to the hardware, but the software. That software converts and organizes your input to interface with the hardware, manipulating the gates to open and close as needed. These signals are then converted back into instructions that are passed up to display a result that is understandable to people. Its really quite magical and awe inspiring when you realize what is produced from the machine.
However, the question of who created the computer and its software does not deny that it is purely physical. AI has learning models now that garner new information and come up with new results based purely on its own failures. Here's a summary of AI and machine learning if you're interested. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4RixMPF4xis
Quoting J
Are you sure? That's a VERY important part of the hard problem. You can't claim to know what the subjective experience is of something. We can claim that something does not have consciousness only by its behavior. We cannot make any claims to its subjective experience. With AI we already have programs that have limited types of consciousness. We have autonomous drones that automate reactions based on information. Yes, it is not human consciousness, but it is at the very least beyond the consciousness of a bug like a roach.
You have to understand, if you accept the hard problem as true, you can NEVER state, "Computers do not have a subjective experience." You don't know. Can you be a computer processing AI algorithms? Nope. So if we create a machine and program that exhibits all the basic behaviors of consciousness, you have no idea if it has a subjective experience or not.
Quoting Wayfarer
Outstanding question. I did a summary of three points for someone else who asked the same question earlier in this thread. Of course, its not limited to that. Let me find and repaste them here.
1. Consciousness is able to exist despite a lack of physical capability to do so.
For example, move your consciousness apart from your head where it sits into the next room that you cannot currently see.
2. Demonstrate a conscious entity that has no physical or energetic correlation.
For example, prove that a completely brain dead body is conscious. Or Inebriate someone to a high blood alcohol level and demonstrate that their consciousness is completely unaffected.
3. If consciousness is not matter and/or energy, please demonstrate evidence of its existence without using a God of the Gaps approach.
An inability to pinpoint the exact physical workings of consciousness does not negate that it is physical. We understand that a car needs an engine to run like a body needs a brain to be conscious. I don't have to understand electromagnetism to understand that a car needs an engine to run, and I don't need to understand the full mechanics of how the brain works to understand you need a brain to be conscious (in humans at least).
Quoting Gnomon
Quoting Gnomon
Here's why I read your examination of Einstein's equation as commentary on the invisibility of m and [math]c^2[/math]:
Einstein's E=MC^2 equation of invisible Energy; this is your description of the left side of the equal sign: (one term) E = energy (characterized by you as invisible).
and tangible Matter and a non-dimensional number.; this is your description of the right side of the equal sign: ( two terms) M = mass (characterized by you as tangible matter) and [math]c^2[/math] = the velocity-of-light[math]^2[/math] (characterized by you as a non-dimensional number).
Tangible = perceptible by touch, so tangible matter is stuff that can be picked up and handled. Your mistake: M = matter; no, M = mass.
You say:
Quoting Gnomon
The signs denoting measurements of mass are abstractions, and the meaning of these measurements are concepts, but the referent for this signification and conceptualization of its meaning is physical reality. The material reality of mass is experienced whenever a weightlifter attempts to lift a three-hundred pound barbell. The barbell's disinclination to move is not visible.
Regarding C = velocity-of-light[math]^2[/math], light, being a physical phenomenon, has a constant velocity, another physical phenomenon. C = velocity-of-light[math]^2[/math], being a sign, arguably has no expanded spatial dimensions. However, the subject of importance here is the referent of the sign, the velocity of light squared. Being physical, it is spatially three-dimensional, not non-dimensional.
You talk about the abstractions that populate [math]e=mc^2[/math]. Yes, they're abstractions not simply tangible, but questions about the ontic status of signs and their relationship to their physcial_phenomenal antecedents lies within the domain of linguistics. The framing context for your description of [math]e=mc^2[/math] is Enformaction, a proposition within your theoretical philosophy as based upon physics. Herein you're talking physics, not linguistics. Argumentation about the immateriality of signs is irrelevant within your context.
Quoting Gnomon
This is where you're heading with your examination of [math]e=mc^2[/math]. You seem to be claiming Enformaction is a substance that is the material platform for energy, mass and the velocity of light.
You bite off a big challenge. The ontic status of energy not being well understood, its conceptualization remains largely undefined.
Its evident, to me at least, that a person is conscious for biological reasons. For instance a strike to the head can render someone unconscious. The reason why he is conscious one moment, unconscious the next, is purely physiological. The anatomy involved, the action of the brain, the damage, the loss of functions, etc. are all physiological. You can literally point to all of it. There is no thing nor process involved that isnt physiological.
So though an anatomical description of an organism may be unable to describe the activity of an organism (its full range of motions, for example), the anatomy is nonetheless the reason why it can and does engage in such activities. The anatomy of a rock is the reason a rock isnt conscious.
That a person is conscious for biological reasons isnt necessarily that consciousness is physiological. Consciousness may be a non-physical product of certain physical processes. Disrupting those physical processes will disrupt consciousness, but they can nonetheless be distinct things.
Quite right, and were miles (and decades) away from being sure about any of this. While I cant know what the subjective experience of a given something is, it seems probable that most things dont have any. I assume you agree with this. So were just trying to draw the most likely line as to consciousness. You say with some assurance that AI programs already have limited consciousness. Is there any evidence for this beyond their behaviors? A purely functionalist argument cant resolve this, since it begs the question.
Not quite sure why the hard problem rules out denying consciousness to computers at some future date, or why you describe the hard problem as true. Its certainly true that its a problem, and that its hard, but I dont think Chalmers or anyone else (except maybe McGinn and company) means to say that its by definition irresolvable.
Do I think that any non-living thing can be conscious? No, Im strongly inclined, on the evidence, to believe that consciousness is exclusively a biological property. How surprised would I be if this turned out to be wrong? Fairly surprised (and fascinated), but again, we have almost literally no idea what were talking about. Lets check back in 2123!
The adjective conscious describes the organism, which is physiological. So why would we even approach anything non-physical with the word?
I believe turning the adjective into a noun-phrase does the heavy lifting for the dualist. But appending the suffix -ness to the word conscious doesnt make a description of the thing a thing itself. Though an abstract noun, which gives it the air of extension and substance, allowing us to treat it as if it was a thing, the word still just denotes a quality of the organism, namely, that it is conscious. Given that there is no indication of any non-physical products, nor even the possibility of them, one neednt even need to consider anything of the sort.
Well said. But I suspect both materialism and dualism require "thing-ness". The "I" is subsumed by the "thing-ness" of the former while the "I" is ever more isolated by the "thing-ness" of the latter.
FWIW, the "shapeshifter" analogy was not intended to be a technical analysis of Einstein's equation, but merely borrowing his three elements to represent some of the forms that my hypothetical Generic EFA can transform into. For convenience, I used "Matter" instead of "Mass" to, metaphorically, represent the second element. Please accept that as a figure of speech, not a technical description. Besides, I was not commenting on the "invisibility of m and c2", but characterizing their immateriality. Do you disagree with that portrayal of Energy, Mass & Constant as abstract mathematical concepts, not visible to the physical senses? :cool:
Quoting ucarr
I think you missed the point of my attempt to convey the multi-potent nature of EFA metaphorically. It was an "example", not an "examination". But note that I use the term "substance" as Aristotle & Spinoza did : in reference to the immaterial essence (form ; logical structure) of the object in question. EnFormAction is imagined as a precursor of Energy, not literally the same thing. And it's not a "material platform", but an immaterial essence (potential ; qualia). "Essence" is an ontological idiom, not a scientific term. :nerd:
Aristotles Metaphysics :
Aristotle turns in ?.4 to a consideration of the next candidate for substance : essence. ('Essence' is the standard English translation of Aristotles curious phrase to ti ên einai, literally the what it was to be for a thing.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aristotle-metaphysics/
What's the meaning of Essence?
essence. noun. es·?sence ?es-?n(t)s. 1. : the basic nature of a thing : the quality or qualities that make a thing what it is.
It all boils down to understanding how we know about consciousness today. Its not through the subjective experience of something. Its through its behavior. There is a thought experiment called a philosophical zombie that has the behavior of consciousness, yet lacks the subjective experience that we would associate with consciousness. The hard problem shows that its irrelevant. Since we cannot know the subjective experience of anything, we can only go by behavior. The subjective experience of something that behaves consciously is currently outside of our reach.
Quoting J
Mostly because I don't give weight to what 'may' happen. Ask someone 30 years ago what they thought 2024 would be like and they wouldn't even be close. So all we have to go on is today. Today, we do not have the scientific means to experience another consciously behaving entities' subjective experience. Meaning that if we have an AI that ticks all the behaviors of consciousness, we cannot claim that it does, or does not have a subjective experience. Its impossible for us to know. Since we cannot objectively evaluate a subjective experience, all we can do to measure consciousness is through another being's behavior.
Quoting J
How about we reword this a bit? Can a non-biological entity have the subjective experience of a biological entity? No. They are two different physical mediums. I can play a song on a harp or a keyboard, and the fundamental experience will have an inseparable difference in physical expression. So if an AI is conscious, its subjective experience is that of a non-biological being, not a biological being.
I like that.
Personally I think the hard problem occurs only when we speak about the abstract. For instance, the hard problem asks how physiology (the concrete) gives rise to "conscious experience" (the abstract). Here the description "conscious" is lifted from the concrete and placed upon some abstract entity or substance, which we are then forced to think about. But how can "experience" be conscious? How can any abstraction be conscious? Further thinking proves this adjective is inapplicable and inexplicable to that noun, yet I'm supposed to wonder how such a phenomenon can be explained.
Chalmers often says that "conscious experience" "arises", as if it was the morning sun. He asks why these concrete things and concrete functions are "accompanied by experience", as if one walked in the door holding hands with the other. But concrete entities are never accompanied by, nor give rise to, abstract entites. So once the dualist switch occurs thinking is naturally muddled.
I don't quite understand this. When I describe myself as English the word "English" is an adjective, being used to describe me, but "Englishness" isn't some physiological thing.
The fact that we use the word "conscious" to describe a physiological organism doesn't mean that consciousness is physiological. That a physiological organism is conscious is that (according to the dualist) the physiological organism has/produces non-physical consciousness.
What you are talking about helps demonstrate why the Problem is Hard. Why can't we experience another's subjective experience? Using our senses, and all the scientific methods and devices we've discovered and invented, we can perceive, detect, and study matter and energy. We can measure things with incredible precision, and all get exactly the same measurements. And not only physical objects, we can do this with physical processes. We can measure aspects of flight, like altitude, speed, and direction. We can also see how things necessary for flight, like lift and aerodynamics, ultimately come from the micro-properties of particles.
None of that can be said about consciousness. We can't even detect it to the slightest degree in any way, much less measure any aspect of it. We can now detect brain activity, but that's physical processes. Understanding all of that to any degree doesn't touch on any subjective experiences taking place. We know certain conscious experiences are associated with certain brain activity. But having total knowledge of every aspect of that brain activity, if such was possible - which neurons are involved; which fire in which order; where all the signals each receives comes from, and where each signal each sends goes; etc. - tells us nothing about the subjective experience taking place. Total knowledge of all that doesn't even tell us subjective experience is taking place. How the physical activity produces consciousness is a mystery. As I said a post or two ago, a couple of the world's leading experts in relevant fields, Koch in brains and consciousness, and Greene in the properties of matter and laws of physics, do not know how it happens. It's a Hard Problem.
Thats exactly what it means. The adjective describes the thing, which in the case of an organism is wholly physiological. It does not nor cannot describe anything else.
Adding the suffix -ness only serves to abstract the description away from the thing it describes, for whatever reason. At any rate, it cannot be shown that any such thing called consciousness, physical or non-physical, is produced or possessed by the organism.
Quoting 180 Proof
In my post to Gnomon, I'm continuing our debate about his interpretation of [math]e=mc^2[/math]and, additionally, his application of his interpretation to his arguments supporting his EnFormAction proposition. I think it's fundamentally wrong because he has m = matter instead of m = mass, the correct equivalence.
I was interested in your post because it lays down some foundational definitions of physicalism as you see it. (In another minute, I'm going to ask you some questions in reaction to your postulations. This is for clarification of my understanding.)
I'm thinking what you have to say is germane to our debate. He has EnFormAction covering a wide terrain including: material, spiritual and undefined. Much of what he's claiming as metaphysical_spiritual I'm claiming as physical.
Also, I've been criticizing him from the standpoint of execution of his argumentation. I've characterized it as being slapdash and error-laden. Your execution of argumentation, meticulous, precise and funded by in-depth research, stands at the opposite end of the spectrum from his and, for that matter, from mine as well until very recently.
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Quoting 180 Proof
If firstly we picture Einstein sitting at his desk writing out the equations for special relativity, and then secondly we read his paper published in 1905, can we next conjoin these two events via memory to the effect that we can claim them public and therefore physical?
Quoting Unknown
This is a claim made by Wayfarer?
Quoting 180 Proof
You're saying physicalism is rooted in the scientific method's demand that scientifically measurable things be public?
Quoting 180 Proof
Is metacognitive, within your context, higher-order cognition, i.e., cognition of cognition?
Might selfhood entail a three-tiered hierarchy of cognition: empirical cognition (seeing the world directly); analytical cognition (elaborating the grammar and syntax of the seen world); hyper-cognition (seeing your seeing of your seeing of the world).
Its the reason why such an organism can jog, and the reason why other organisms, like invertebrates, cannot. The anatomy determines the full range of motions and activities any given organism can do in any given environment.
When I describe John as being the winner of the race I'm describing John, but being a winner is not the same thing as being John. In fact, nothing about John's base biology has anything to do with him being the winner of the race. Of course, his base biology obviously plays an explanatory role in how he won, but having his biology and being the winner of the race are independent things.
When I describe John as being conscious I'm describing John, but being conscious is not the same thing as being John. And, like above, it may be that nothing about John's base biology has anything to do with him being conscious. Of course, his base biology seems to play an explanatory role in how he's conscious, but having his biology and being conscious may be independent things.
Lets break it down carefully. When you say, "How subjective experience exists at all", its important to clarify what this means. The "at all" seems to imply its more of a "Why?" then "How?" Because how subjective experience exists in a broad sense is through our physical brains. This is without question. All we're worried about is the details in how the brain generates it.
If you mean, "Why?", no one knows. Just like no one knows why anything exists. Its an unanswerable question.
I can see the why part being part of the hard problem, but not the how part. Its just like answering how water and hydrogen combine to create water. The how isn't hard. Why does water exist at all? That's hard.
Winner is a noun. I was talking about the switch from adjectives to nouns, for instance happy becomes happiness. Try describing happy without referencing an object. Its difficult. Luckily language permits us to make of the adjective a noun, treating it as if it was concrete and its own thing, where we can start to apply more adjectives to it. It becomes a quality, state, or condition. This raises the question: a quality, state, or condition of what thing? In the case of human consciousness, the answer is the human, which is physiological. If we cannot answer that question, we just start compounding adjectives, describing really nothing.
Then "wet" or "well-dressed".
Of course, the other issue is that in saying "the answer is the human, which is physiological" you're begging the questioning. If there is something like a non-physical consciousness that humans have then humans aren't just physiological; we're physiological and conscious, and when we describe ourselves as being conscious we're describing that non-physiological aspect of ourselves.
What non-physiological aspects are you speaking of?
Consciousness.
What non-physical aspect of ourselves does the word "conscious" describe?
Consciousness.
I honestly don't know what other kind of answer you're expecting.
Quoting PatternerQuoting Philosophim
I don't think those details are forthcoming Philosophim, and the reason why is that a physical account fails to include consciousness. I think you are right that the brain is necessary for consciousness. But I still have trouble seeing what it is, in physical terms, that is special about the brain and I think that we will never answer that question.
As Patterner pointed out, consciousness is not empirically observable. Water is empirically observable; so is hydrogen and oxygen. We can directly see and measure water as the product of hydrogen and oxygen. We cannot see consciousness as the product of neuronal activity in the same way.
You might say, "well we can observe consciousness viz. the reports of people." That's certainly true but I think it misses the mark.
The question, to my eyes, is really this: why is the brain conscious at all? Or perhaps to put the question more precisely: How is the brain different from non-conscious physical stuff? My answer is that it's not different and that's the mystery.
Do you see where I'm coming from?
I was hoping the term could be used to describe an aspect of ourselves. The term "conscious" cannot describe "consciousness", I'm afraid.
You cannot argue that such a thing doesn't exist by arguing that we describe ourselves as being conscious and that our being is exhausted by our physiology, because in arguing that our being is exhausted by our physiology you are begging the question.
Im only arguing that if consciousness does not apply to the physiology, there is no other object to which it can apply. The circularity begins when you promise that when we describe ourselves as being conscious we're describing that non-physiological aspect of ourselves, and when asked which non-physical aspect of ourselves were describing, you answer consciousness.
The reason I would say no such aspects exist is because there is no indication such aspects exist.
I don't think it's circular. If you asked me what "physiology" describes, the answer is physiology.
Quoting NOS4A2
What does physiology apply to? The question doesn't make sense. Physiology is just its own thing. Similarly, if dualism is correct then consciousness is just its own thing.
Quoting NOS4A2
There's certainly something peculiar about consciousness given that a "hard" problem of consciousness is even considered. We don't consider a "hard" problem of electricity or water after all. Of course, that might just be because consciousness is significantly more complicated than every other natural phenomenon in the universe. Or it might be because consciousness really is non-natural and that there really is a "hard" problem.
But the existence of 'an immaterial entity' was not the point at issue. The claim being considered was this:
Quoting Wayfarer
This does not posit the existence of an immaterial entity separate from or outside of the physical. It is a philosophical argument: that the act of rational judgement is not reducible to the physical or explainable in physical terms.
Consider what is involved in judgement - every time you make an argument, you're inferring causal relations and equivalences, saying that 'this means that....' or 'because of this, then....'. These processes inhere entirely in the relations of ideas. And evidence for that claim has already been given, which is that the same ideas can be expressed in an endless variety of physical forms whilst still retaining their meaning.
Whereas you will always take the argument as requiring to establish the existence of an immaterial entity or thing. That is what I claim is the deleterious consequence of Cartesian philosophy with its fallacious conception of 'res cogitans', a thinking thing. It is called reification', literally 'making into a thing'. The 'matter-form' dualism associated with Aristotelian philosophy does not fall into that trap.
Humans are metaphysical beings because they can see meaning above and beyond the sensory. They seek to understand principles and causes. That is the origin of the idea of the 'rational soul' which is quite different to 'the ghost in the machine' allegory of Cartesian philosophy. (Although it is also true that much of modern and post-modern philosophy is irrational in its denial of there being an underlying universal logos, although that is a very different issue.)
As far as the effects of drugs and inebriants on the brain, it is obvious that this is so. But it does not establish that consciousness is a product of the brain. It is still quite feasible that the brain as a central organ behaves in the sense of a receiver. You wouldn't say that the television produces the characters of a television drama. It's still an open question, so the influence of drugs is immaterial in that sense.
"Physiology" isn't an adjective. "Physical" is an adjective, and physical physicalness is circular.
Physiology applies to an organism and the way it functions. Consciousness applies to what?
There is no hard problem if the term "conscious" describes the concrete. It brings us back to the easy problems. But lifting the term from the concrete and applying it to the abstract leads the dualist directly into hard problems, probably because there is nothing to examine under under its own premise.
I have no idea what you're asking here.
Dualists claim that humans are a collection of physical and non-physical (mental) stuff. The term "biology" is used to refer to the physical stuff and the term "consciousness" is used to refer to the non-physical (mental) stuff. To say that a human is conscious is to say that it has this non-physical (mental) stuff.
Whereas materialists claim that humans are a collection of physical stuff alone and that the term "consciousness" refers to some subsection of that physical stuff. To say that a human is conscious is to say that it has this subsection of that physical stuff.
Quoting NOS4A2
Yes, if. But either way, there undoubtedly seems to me a hard problem, hence the existence of substantial contemporary philosophical literature on the nature of consciousness and of substance and property dualism. So either it is the case that consciousness is a physical thing, but significantly more complex than every other physical thing in the universe, or it isn't a physical thing.
Quoting wonderer1I agree.
Quoting wonderer1The burden of proof is on anyone who claims to have the answer. Nobody has the answer at the moment. Its all guesswork on everybodys part. Somebody thinks its physical? Prove it. Somebody thinks its proto-consciousness? Prove it. Someone thinks its fields? Prove it.
Im just asking what the word consciousness refers to. I have to Imagine a string going from the word to what it is in the world the word refers to. The dualist would have nowhere to put it because it would either attach to some biology, or nothing. Non-physical stuff is just a roundabout way of saying nothing, in my view, because nothing indicates such stuff exists.
Or it isnt a thing at all. Maybe its an abstract term denoting abstract qualities of physical things, particularity conscious organisms.
Holds a cloth soaked in chloroform over your mouth and nose...
Would not "Englishness", if it exists, be some manifest quality or qualities?
I don't know of anyone who doesn't think the brain is necessary for human consciousness. But that doesn't tell us how the material brain produces consciousness. If my refrigerator started showing signs of consciousness, and I said, "How the hell is my refrigerator conscious?", would you say "Unplugs refrigerator"?
If it is you're not going to find it by putting my body under a microscope. At best you can check my birth certificate or passport. Even though it's me that's English, not those pieces of paper.
So it's really strange that NOS thinks that dualism can be refuted by looking at the grammatical use of the adjective "conscious".
Because no true Scotsman puts sugar on his porridge?
But that aside, I'm questioning NOS's assertion that because the adjective "conscious" is used to describe biological organisms then consciousness must be biological. I don't think that at all follows. "English", "wet", and "stylish" are adjectives that are used to describe biological organisms, but it doesn't follow that Englishness, wetness, and style must be biological.
Consciousness may very well be physical, but this cannot be proved simply by looking at how adjectives are used.
And, of course, the assertion that humans are just biological organism begs the question.
So this is just begging the question.
Quoting NOS4A2
Are abstract qualities physical? If not, are they real?
I did say "if Englishness exists".
Quoting Michael
We know humans are biological organisms; do we have any evidence that they are more than that?
Well, there is such a thing as being English, but it's not a biological or behavioural feature of people; it's a legal status.
Quoting Janus
If humans are conscious and if consciousness is non-biological then consciousness is evidence that humans are more than biological organisms.
Of course whether or not consciousness is biological is the very thing being questioned, which is why it begs the question to argue that humans are just biological organisms.
We don't know whether or not consciousness is biological and so we don't know whether or not humans are just biological organisms.
Subjective consciousness is not empirically observable. Behavioral consciousness is. That is the only objective way any of us will, or likely ever, know consciousness within another being.
Quoting NotAristotle
The brain and neurons are very different. That, so far is where we've encountered all kinds of natural bug, animal, and human consciousness. Its not like we've ever gone up to a rock and had it behave consciously. The only reason its a mystery is you think that its impossible for consciousness to come out of physical matter and energy. Why? It clearly does. Is it some necessary desire that we want ourselves to be above physical reality? Because if you eliminate that desire, its clear as day that consciousness is physical by even a cursory glance into medicine and brain research. I just don't get the mystery or the resistance.
Obviously you are correct.
You're being generous, ucarr. @Gnomon spouts his own warlock's brew of woo-woo nonsense which he rationalizes with pseudo-scientific sophistry. Have you read any of his personal blog on "EnFormationism"? A good laugh that quickly becomes a tedious slog ... yet insightful as to what he's really up to: substituting a deistic prime mover (i.e. universal programmer aka "The EnFormer") for "the creator god of Abraham". If you search my posts using "Gnomon" as a keyword you'll find that since 2020 I've challenged him hundreds of times to be more rigorously clear and accurate with the science and the philosophy he espouses, but to no avail. Maybe you will have better luck than I've had, ucarr ...
If I understand you correctly, "memory" in the brain is physical but without corroborating evidence its content is not public.
No. I'm saying that, IMO, physicalism excludes non-physical concepts (e.g. X-of-the-gaps supernaturalia) from explanations of aspects of (i.e. transformations in) the physical world ... such that, reversing your terms, "the scientific method is rooted in" (a) physicalist paradigm.
More or less. Read the article I linked in the post you're referring to for an elaboration on the context within which I use the adjective "metacognitive".
Yes, but being English in the sense you've described is a matter of fact, not a quality of "Englishness" manifested in behavior.
Quoting Michael
Right, but there is no evidence that consciousness is non-biologicalall the evidence points to it being a biological phenomenon.
Quoting Michael
If by "we don't know" you mean that it hasn't been proven, then I agree; nothing in science has been proven.
.
Yes, judgement is a physical process by your brain. Rocks don't do that right? Brains do. Just a cursory examination of chemistry and physics demonstrates impossibilities right before our eyes. To an ignorant mind, none of these wonders should happen. Fire is a thing of magic. Water is two gases at room temperature, yet becomes liquid when they join. Why then is it suddenly odd that brains have consciousness? There is nothing in matter and energy that notes that this cannot be. Further, there is nothing outside of matter and energy that shows this to be. The only logical conclusion is that matter and energy in the right form can create consciousness. This shouldn't be shocking or a revelation either. Its just one more magical piece of physics and chemistry.
Quoting Wayfarer
That is not a philosophical argument. That is a claim of fact or science. If you state, "I believe that one day we will find that consciousness exists outside of the physical", that's philosophy. Philosophy is 'maybe', science and facts assert. And science and facts clearly assert that consciousness, as measured by behavior, is physical. If you want to claim that's false, it must be a scientific assertion, not a philosophical supposition. We can suppose the facts are wrong or incomplete, but we cannot philosophically assert that it is proven that this incompleteness indicates consciousness is not physical.
Quoting Wayfarer
I can play a song on a piano, and then play it on a harp. Does that make the song immaterial? No. The song, as played, is physical. The song as notes, are a physical record. The song as thought of, is retained through the physical brain. The expression of that song is unique in each way. It is NOT the same thing to play a song through a harp as it is through a piano. It is a different and unique physical expression which evokes similarities within one another. We construct a notation that represents sound wave frequencies, which are then played through different physical mediums for a different color of that sound wave.
Remove the physical air, and the sound does not exist. Remove the physical page and it ceases to be a record. Remove the brain that remembers it, and the music is gone forever. It does not go to a special place or is remembered in the either. Its simply gone. Can you show me where judgements go without brains? Or where judgements are made apart from brains? No. Thus the idea that our judgements and ideas are somehow not physical is merely an idea, not a confirmed reality.
Quoting Wayfarer
That's not metaphysical, that's just another aspect of the physical. Your senses are not the same physical part of your body that processes those senses. You can have brain blindness for example. Your eyes see fine, but your brain cannot process the information. This is all physical. Many animals can take meaning above and beyond the sensory to plan. Crows for example can solve basic puzzles. Do we look at them and find anything more than neurons? No. We're simply a more advanced neuronal system that's built upon the other basic brain systems that we need to function. Do you think the lower brain which regulates your breathing and digestion is something other than physical? Your autonomous nervous system? The veins which help regulate and coax blood throughout your body? Life is full of amazing physical reactions and adaptations to different stimuli. Again, why balk at consciousness as a building upon that?
Quoting Wayfarer
Taken alone, no drugs and inebrient alone determine consciousness is a product of the brain. But taken together withe years of neuroscience and study, there comes a point where its the only thing that makes sense at this time. Its not 'feasible' that the brain is simply a receiver, its 'pluasible'. Just like its plausible that all of our actions are controlled by some evil demon entity out there. 'plausiblity' is just an imaginative idea that seems like it could work in reality, yet has never been demonstrated to be true in reality. We have no evidence of the brain being a receiver to something outside of matter and energy. So its a fun idea, but fun ideas are beyond counting. An idea without anything to demonstrate it has legs in reality, is a unicorn. The idea that consciousness does not come from brains is a unicorn. It is nothing but a hope and a wish based on there being some gaps in our complete understanding of how the brain functions.
Sure, but its not the hard problem. Its just a problem. We learn more every day how the brain works in both medicine and science. All of this was done going with the knowledge that consciousness comes from the brain, and waiting to be proven wrong. So far, its not wrong. Its a problem to map our behaviors of consciousness to the brain for sure. But that's easy and we set out with confidence that it will be solved one day. The hard problem, the problem that in all likelihood will never be solved, is an objective science that can determine the subjective experience of a consciousness.
But I think we're repeating at this point. I've noted my stance, and you've noted yours. If we disagree still at this point, I think we can both agree that's just going to be the way it is.
What we do know is that there is no evidence of consciousness existing anywhere apart from biological organisms, so we really have zero reason to think that consciousness can exist apart from biological organisms, and every reason to think it cannot.
Of course, this does not prove consciousness cannot exist apart from biological organisms, but as I already said, nothing in science is ever proven; proof is only possible in rule-based formal systems such as logic or mathematics.
:100:
Quoting Janus
:up: :up:
No, its an intellectual process. 2+2=4 is an intellectual operation. There is no such thing as = in the physical world, it is an abstraction. The mind relies on such abstractions to reason, and theyre not physical in nature. (Hence the interminable arguments about platonic realism.)
The puzzle is based on a concept of matter that makes the problem the equivalent of explain how a rock could be conscious.
It does exist in the physical world. It exists in our physical brains. Right? If it doesn't exist there, where does it exist?
@Fooloso4 will recognise the provenance of this argument, although he may not agree with it ;-)
Quoting PhilosophimIt's a mystery because nobody can explain it. Christof Koch can't, try though he does. You are not even offering speculations. You only say it happens in the brain. That's obviously where my consciousness is. But what is the mechanism?
Quoting PhilosophimNot for me. I don't care what the answer is. I just want to know what it is.
Quoting PhilosophimIf it was not a mystery, we would have the answer. We don't. The resistance, in my case, is that the answer of "It just does" to the question of "How does the physical brain produce consciousness?" is no answer at all. Just as we wouldn't accept that answer to "How does eating food give us energy?", we shouldn't accept it here.
Quoting PhilosophimYes it is. That's what is meant when people refer to the Hard Problem of Consciousness.
From Chalmers' [I]The Conscious Mind[/I]:
From wiki:[Quote]In philosophy of mind, the hard problem of consciousness is to explain why and how humans and other organisms have qualia, phenomenal consciousness, or subjective experiences. It is contrasted with the "easy problems" of explaining why and how physical systems give a (healthy) human being the ability to discriminate, to integrate information, and to perform behavioral functions such as watching, listening, speaking (including generating an utterance that appears to refer to personal behaviour or belief), and so forth. The easy problems are amenable to functional explanation: that is, explanations that are mechanistic or behavioral, as each physical system can be explained (at least in principle) purely by reference to the "structure and dynamics" that underpin the phenomenon.[/Quote]
From Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy:
From Scholarpedia:
I dont think thats right. We also place a lot of emphasis on what kind of thing it is. If you ask a non-philosophical friend what the major difference is between an AI program (or even the most sophisticated robot) and a human, the friend is likely to reply, Humans are alive and hardware isnt. Being alive is not a behavior, its a state or condition. This allows us to say things like, I dont care how ?lifelike the behavior of X is, the fact remains that its not alive. Im suggesting that we may wind up saying something similar about consciousness.
Quoting Philosophim
The first two sentences are fine: We can guess, but we cant know for sure, whether an AI is conscious or not. But the third sentence is a non sequitur. How does it follow that behavior would be a measure of consciousness under these circumstances? Its just the old functionalist argument, which assumes the conclusion by stating that consciousness is measured by behavior.
Quoting Philosophim
No doubt. But the question is whether this is even possible.
What I'm trying to note is that abstract concepts do not exist apart from brains. If there are no brains in the universe, there is no math. Your brain stores memories. https://www.livescience.com/how-the-brain-stores-memories#:~:text=The%20most%20important%20is%20the,storage%20to%20long%2Dterm%20storage.
We know that people who have brain damage in the hypocampus can no longer make new memories. Anteriograde Amnesia. https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/23221-anterograde-amnesia
Your brain stores the memory of math. Your brain can plan, judge, and create abstractions. All of this is a physical process. We can create communication and transfer this information to other brains. Tell the sky and it does nothing. Tell a rock and it does not care. Tell a brain and you have the continuation of math.
Something which has no location, no place, it is nothing. Concepts and ideas are physical things that we think about and can communicate to each other over physical mediums. Is there some science that demonstrates that I'm wrong?
Quoting J
Something being life-like means that it fulfills some of the behaviors of a life, but not all of the behaviors of a life. Think of it this way. Do you know what any other person's subjective experience is like? No, you don't. You have behaviors. We have never objectively defined consciousness through subjective experiences, because its impossible to know what anyone else's subjective experience is but our own.
So no, the only way we do identify consciousness is through behavior. You can't define it based on someone's subjective experience, because its impossible to know what someone's else's subjective experience is right?
The Oxford Living Dictionary defines consciousness as "The state of being aware of and responsive to one's surroundings.", "A person's awareness or perception of something." and "The fact of awareness by the mind of itself and the world." This "awareness" can be tested by behavior. For example, we are not aware of our 500th's cell in our left leg. We are not conscious of it.
You can do tests to see if a person is aware and responsive to their surroundings. What you cannot test is their subjective experience while they do so. We never have been able to. Consciousness has never been objectively defined by it. So its always been irrelevant what the subject experiences in identifying consciousness from an objective standpoint.
When I reflect on consciousness I try to think of it in physical terms to see your point of view. I put on my science helm (yes, it's a science helm and not a helmet), and I reduce all of reality to the level of atoms bouncing around in the void. Thanks Epicurus or Lucretius or Hobbes or whoever's idea that was. "Here are some atoms in this rock. But these atoms in my brain produce consciousness," I think to myself. And I wonder, "why are these brain atoms producing consciousness? What is special about them?" "Well maybe when you arrange atoms in that way they are conscious?" "But Not Aristotle," I say to myself, "that is entirely an ad hoc explanation and besides, why would the arrangement of the atoms matter?" And I am unable to answer. And that's the hard problem as I understand it. If you have an answer to that problem, I would be happy to hear it.
And I actually do think consciousness as we know it, whether it is itself physical or nonphysical, arises out of physical matter/energy.
Sure, on the question of how brains create consciousness, we're still trying to figure it out. That brains create consciousness? We've figured that out. Why do brains create consciousness? Its the same as asking why do two gases at room temperature combine together to form a liquid that we need to drink to live. Existence is magical and fascinating. What matter and energy can do is astonishing. Why can it do that? Why isn't everything just a bunch of rocks? The fact that there exists anything instead of just 'nothing' amazes me. Why does it? A question for humanity that may never be answered.
Yes, it is! :100:
:up:
Well no, I havent assumed any conclusion in any premise. I merely observe what is there and derive my conclusion from those grounds. What I cannot observe are the non-physical aspects of any object Ive ever come into contact with, in direct contradiction to the claims of those who do.
Abstract terms are certainly real. But it cannot be shown they refer to anything real, physical, or unreal and non-physical.
Not the same at all. The question about gases can be answered in a satisfactory way. The question about conscious cannot.
There is a long history of the maths is discovered, not invented school of thought which says numbers are not produced by the brain but discerned by rational insight. But this is nowadays considered controversial because it appears to undercut materialism.
The brain produces or is involved in producing neurochemicals, endocrines and so on, but it doesnt produce numbers or words. Physicalist ontology is simply that because matter is fundamental, the brain is material, then it must be the case that the brain produces numbers.
Quoting Philosophim
Concepts are not physical things. Find me one reputable philosopher who says otherwise.
Quoting Philosophim
This again demonstrates that you're not 'facing up to the problem of consciousness'. But I do know a brick wall when I see one, and also when to refrain from beating my head against it, so I'll bow out.
Suppose it occurred to you, that you could look into answers to your questions rather than just remain ignorant of the answers?
Suppose you were equally ignorant of why the arrangement of atoms in your computer results in different behavior on the part of your computer than the behavior of a boulder. Would you say it is totally an ad hoc explanation to say that it is the difference in arrangement of atoms in your computer that makes the difference? Or would you realize that you could study computer engineering and understand the details of why differences in arrangements of atoms makes a difference?
Now admittedly, one can't very well remain in her armchair and become well educated about such things. Trips to libraries and labs might be needed. However, why take such a fatalistic position as, "And I am unable to answer." Why not have more faith, in the ability of that gray stuff between your ears, to learn the answers to questions that you are unable to answer at present?
Did we figure it out in the sense of figuring out the truth of a proposition, or did we merely define "consciousness" as referring to what brains do?
I think the problem is something like this: You want to say that Consciousness can only be identified through behaviors and also Therefore, anything with certain specified behaviors is conscious. Im not persuaded by the idea that being alive consists of behaviors, but lets grant it. The argument is still shaky. The fact that (at the moment) we can only identify consciousness through behaviors doesnt mean that all things that exhibit those behaviors must be conscious. Compare: Some Xs are Y; a is an X; therefore a is Y. This doesnt follow.
Heres another way to think about it. Youve said you dont like speculating about the future, but if consciousness is truly a scientific problem, as we both believe it is, then at some future point were going to know a lot more about it. Lets imagine that someday well be able to say the following: Consciousness (C) is caused by (X + Y + Z), and only by (X + Y + Z), and is necessarily so caused. So, in determining a particular case, we could say, C iff (X + Y + Z); ~(X + Y + Z); therefore, ~C. This would give us objective criteria to ascertain consciousness for any given entity. It wouldnt rely on either behavior or subjective reports.
Now, lest you think Im deliberately practicing sleight of hand, let me point out that this happy state of affairs is only true if it turns out that X and Y and Z are both objective and unproblematically causal. This may not be the case; we are currently clueless about what gives rise to consciousness. But if it is true, then the hard problem will have been solved. We will know what causes consciousness, and why this is necessarily so. Wouldnt it be prudent, then, to assume that our current reliance on behavioral markers to identify consciousness is an unfortunate crutch, and that there is no important connection between the two? After all, we know that behaviors dont cause consciousness, but something does. When we learn what that something is, we may be able to abandon functional explanations entirely.
A final thought: Perhaps all youre saying is that AIs and robots and other artifacts might be conscious, for all we know. To me, thats unobjectionable, though unlikely. Its only when we start saying things like Joe AI is conscious, which we know because of its behaviors, that anti-functionalists like me get aroused.
1. There is no dualism; this is demonstrated by the incoherence of the p-zombie concept.
2. The question then becomes about epistemological reasons why we cannot reduce the experiential to the physical.
There is a logical argument, A: If experiences are information about the outside world then it is inconsistent that information about the brain should be derivable. However, this does not mean there is no information about how brains divide up the information in the world - e.g. see that opponent processing and trichromacy in our retinal neuronal architectures were all but predicted by observations about the phenomenal structure of colour - at the same time, what was inferred was not the actual physiology of brain processing but just the way that the brain divides up sensory input that enters the retina by frequencies. It didn't tell us that a brain as we know it was doing the dividing, just that a division or organizing was being made.
There is a skeptical/indeterminacy argument, B: The way brains are structured simply does not give them access to information about the micro-physical causes of input (whether externally or internally) - such causes are inherently indeterminate (and much of the information lost anyway at larger scales).
Conceptual primitives argument, C: A description or explanation is just outlining/modeling relations in a conceptual space. Descriptions or explanations cannot go outside of the space / framework they sit in. If our conceptual space is founded on primitives that are experiential qualities then there is no way of explaining or describing those experiences in a satisfactory way since they are the primitive foundations of the entire explanatory space. They cannot be decomposed or reduced further so they seem ineffable, but this ineffability is unavoidable in any inferential system like our brain that can make explanations.
3. It also must be acknowledged that our scientific theories don't say anything about ontology, they are part of the same explanatory framework as C above. Scientific theories are like predictive tools and there can be a plurality of descriptions. There is therefore no inherent contradiction between physics and experiences if we say that physics doesn't tell us about inherent ontology. Equally we might say that the notion of experience doesn't tell us much about ontology other than the fact it is informative about the external world. If anything, coherently non-trivial fundamental ontologies are inherently unattainable.
Next part is more speculative:
4. If my experiences are what its like to be a brain then we might want to try vaguely conceptualize the world in a way that accomodates their existence. We might look to a kind of structuralist but minimalist metaphysics where all structure is on ontologically equal ground. What we may deem most fundamental in the world may be things like symmetries, invariances, regardless of the scale they occur. Experiences are what its like to be some structure, invariances, information (difference that makes a difference). Specifically my experiences reflect particular macroscopic invariances in the vicinity of the brain among many others that exist and are described in physics, chemistry, biology at various scales.
Oh, who considers it controversial? You? I consider your idea that consciousness does not come from the brain as controversial, as do many other philosophers. But that's not a very good argument isn't it? In fact, that's not an argument at all.
Quoting Wayfarer
I've been asking for some time now, if the brain doesn't produce them, where are they? What material are they made out of? I've clearly pointed out that the brain, which is physical, can retain information, make judgements, etc. This includes numbers.
Quoting Wayfarer
Yes, and I've asked you to give me an example where science demonstrates that its wrong, or give me philosophical examples that would give evidential weight to consciousness not coming from the brain. You have failed to do so, and are instead doing me a favor by not calling me a name. How noble and strong you are!
Quoting Wayfarer
Appeal to authority now? I laid out clear points with clear falsifiability and asked you to provide examples of it being false. You cannot. That is why you retreat to this.
Quoting Wayfarer
I'm not the one running away here. Your inability to actually show why I'm not facing up to the problem of consciousness is your problem, then magically declaring it as such, is your problem.
Quoting Wayfarer
You know, you could have avoided embarrassing yourself and getting a tongue lashing from me if you had just done this at the start. "Well Philosophim, we've been going back and forth for a while now, and I think we'll have to agree to disagree. Appreciate the conversation, I'll catch you another time."
Because it was a nice conversation up until now and I had a lot of respect for your engagements and attempt to defend your position. Next time you feel like a conversation is going nowhere, just politely end it.
That's fair and kind. My question really is, "If consciousness cannot be measured by the subjects experience, how else have we measured it over the years?" To my mind, we have to observe that a being is aware of their environment and can adapt to it. This applies to beings such as animals as well. Sometimes consciousness bounces around back only to people, so just clarifying from my end.
Quoting J
Let me clarify what I think works here. If our definition of objective consciousness is measured through behaviors, that doesn't mean something that would fit the criteria of objective consciousness has subjective consciousness. And I agree. In fact, I believe it is currently impossible to know another's subjective consciousness, so we can't use it as an objective measurement.
Quoting J
Its an unfortunate limitation in objectivity. We cannot objectively know what a subjective consciousness is beyond our own experiences. Did you know that there are people who have no inner monologue? They cannot imagine speaking to themselves. Same with visual. There are some people who cannot visualize things. I can do both. How can I relate to and understand that at a subjective level? Its as impossible for me as it is impossible for them to have any notion of what it is like to have an inner monologue or envision something when they close their eyes. Its like if I claimed, "Yeah, I have psychic powers and can read minds." None of us would ever understand that subjective experience. We would prove it through tests and behavior.
Quoting J
If AIs meet the behavioral definition of consciousness, then they are objectively conscious. Remember, even a dog can show consciousness. It doesn't mean they have a human subjective conscious experience. Its beyond our knowing. The point I'm ultimately making is that we never have been able to objectively judge consciousness through knowing the beings subjective experience. Further, logically with the technology we have, we will not be able to in the near future, if ever.
According to modern day science, it has been concluded that the brain that causes consciousness. Just like an engine runs a car. The question is figuring out how the engine runs.
As I said in a post above, it's your interpretation of my analogy that is "wrong". Believe it or not, I do know the difference between measurable Matter & its measurement : Mass. But, for metaphorical purposes, I may use the terms interchangeably, since they refer to the same "stuff".
Appealing to for an authoritative opinion won't help, because he & I don't speak the same language, so we are not talking about the same things. Besides, his confident credence, and incredulity toward immaterial concepts, are based on his own secular religion of Scientism. And his infallible scriptures are those of Materialism and various other Atheistic alternatives to theistic religions. If you subscribe to those anti-philosophy sources of "facts", you can high-five 180. But, due to a matter-biased (matter over mind) worldview, his assessments of Gnomon's thesis & intentions are completely erroneous.
For the record, my own worldview is Deistic, which has no scriptures or prescribed practices, just an acknowledgment of the implicit Teleonomy of Evolution, to which Terrence Deacon devoted several chapters in his Incomplete Nature. My own thesis does not claim to be scientific, but it is derived from disruptive discoveries of Quantum & Information theories, that undermine the Materialism & Determinism of 17th century science.
180 seems to think that philosophy began in the 17th century, and anything prior to that is "woo woo religion". But my philosophical vocabulary goes back to Plato & Aristotle, who did not practice the Greek religions of their time, but whose ideas did influence the theology of the Roman Christian religion. Yet, their rudimentary terminology is still used by philosophers 2500 years later. If you reject the terminology of P & A, you will also misunderstand the words that I use to describe EnFormAction. And, in my thesis, EFA is the hypothetical precursor of Energy and of Life, and of Consciousness, for which materialistic Science has no answer. :smile:
Deism :
An Enlightenment era response to the Roman Catholic version of Theism, in which the supernatural deity interacts and intervenes with humans via visions & miracles, and rules his people through a human dictator. Deists rejected most of the supernatural stuff, but retained an essential role for a First Cause creator, who must be respected as the quintessence of our world, but not worshipped like a tyrant. The point of Deism is not to seek salvation, but merely understanding.
https://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page12.html
Teleonomy :
[i]What does Deacon add into his teleodynamic that goes beyond teleonomic? He defines his
teleodynamic as"exhibiting end-directedness" and then adds the highly specific and technical criteria "consequence-organized features constituted by the co-creation, complementary constraint, and reciprocal synergy of two or more strongly coupled morphodynamic processes."[/i]
https://www.informationphilosopher.com/solutions/scientists/deacon/
Note --- IMHO, Deacon's teleonomy is essentially the same as that of 19th century Deism.
:lol: hey, that boulder's misbehaving, im gonna give it a piece of my mind!
Yeah, good conversation J! I'll catch you around in another thread.
I've answered on a number of occasions, the subject is philosophy of mathematics, and you haven't responded, other than repeating your point. I've said that numbers and other mathematical concepts are abstractions, to which your reply has been 'what are they made from'? But it is absurd to claim that mathematical concepts are physical. They solely comprise relations of ideas. It's certainly true that the h. sapien brain is uniquely equipped to discern these relations, but that no way proves that they are the product of hominid neurophysiology. At best it shows that the brain has evolved in such a way that it has attained the ability to understand such things. We can grasp them through the faculty of reason (which is not, incidentally, simply a better way of making stuff :brow: )
I acknowledge this a contested subject. There is no settled answer, but one of the schools of thought is mathematical or platonic realism which says that 'there are abstract mathematical objects whose existence is independent of us and our language, thought, and practices'. From that article:
So, a platonist answer is that numbers are not to empirical objects, but are objects of reason. In other words, they don't exist as temporal objects, but they are real for anyone who can count. That is the source of the expression that such things as basic arithmetic are 'true in all possible worlds'. So the argument 'they only exist in brains', and 'were there nobody to recognise these facts, they would not be real', doesn't cut it. Number and logical principles are the constituents of reason, they are what we rely on to even start any kind of science, including brain science. We don't see them in the neural data, instead, we call on them to analyse and understand the data that we see. They are internal to thought.
The demand to prove 'what numbers are made of' and 'where they exist' only illustrates the failure to understand this point, not an argument against it.
Quoting Philosophim
You will notice that I edited out that remark a long time before your reply appeared, but as you've brought it up, the description I had in mind was 'scientism'. And I'm not the least concerned with your 'tongue lashing', only the tedium of having to deal with it. Your entire ouvre rests of just one claim: science proves consciousness is the product of the brain and that all that is unknown is how. But that was just the subject of the bet:
//ps - you quoted the IEP article on the hard problem, perhaps you could give an indication of where you map in the 'responses' section. I think it might be here.
The point being you haven't indicated where they exist if not in the brain.
Quoting Wayfarer
Why is it absurd? If the brain is physical, and it can relate ideas, math is a physical result of this relation. I've noted before a rock can't create math. Nor can I fish through the air and math appears. Its not located on any other plane of existence, and it surely don't come from 'nothing'. If you can't tell me where its located apart from the physical realm of brains, which clearly makes sense to me, the absurdity is your claim, not mine.
Quoting Wayfarer
I much prefer this discussion then passive aggressive insults when there's disagreement. I view math as a construction of the brain to represent its ability to create discrete experiences, or what might also be called 'identities'. 'An' identity, is one. Take another one and put them in what we call a 'group', and its two. Math is the language and logic of our ability to identify. It does not exist in the universe separate from ourselves. It only exists and makes sense to that which can identify and reason though the logical results of having that capability.
Quoting Wayfarer
Which is fine. Admitting that my approach had some validity, but you believe because its unproven you would rather view it the other way has my respect.
Quoting Wayfarer
As I've noted, reason is a physical process that brains do. Reason again does not exist in a separate dimension. This is why I keep coming back to this. I'm trying to point out that stating something comes from reason isn't an argument that its not physical, if reason itself is physical. Our ability to imagine that reason is not physical, does not make it so. I understand the ideas behind Platonism, but I personally do not find it carries any evidential weight. I see it as a unicorn argument. A very clear and distinct identity, but ultimately fiction.
Quoting Wayfarer
The point I'm making is that all of human reason is physical as it comes from the brain, and the brain is physical. I have science backing me up on this. There is evidence that points to this conclusion. I am very open to seeing evidence that this is not the case. But stating, "Reason dictates its not physical" misses my point. If reason is physical, anything concluded by reason is physical as well. If reason is not physical, what is it? Where is it? Can we point some evidence of reason existing apart from the creation of a human brain?
Quoting Wayfarer
If you edited that out, thank you. I much prefer polite conversation with you. If you don't want to deal with the tedium of my tongue lashing, keep personal insults out of it. We'll be fine then.
Quoting Wayfarer
The bet was that we would find the direct mechanical brain correlation to consciousness in 25 years. The bet was not that consciousness does not come from the brain.
No, it's not a physical result. That is the flaw in your reasoning. You think you see a causal connection there, or an ontological relationship, but it's not there. There are many arguments that can be presented against it, but let's just concentrate on that point. The qualitative dimension of experience is one of them, but there are others.
Quoting Philosophim
Plenty! The entire 'order of creation'. Eugene Wigner's Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences. Did 'the law of the excluded middle' - a basic logical principle - come into existence as a result of evolution? Or rather, did we evolve to the point of being able to grasp something that was always already so?
The law of the excluded middle is just a formulation of the fact that two things cannot occupy the same space and time (for us at least). In other words, it is entailed by Leibniz' Identity of Indiscernibles. Any thing is either this thing or some other thing; there is no middle position.
If something is a creation of something physical, it would seem to follow that it is physical. What is the problem with saying that the physical has both a potential and actual affective, semantic or semiotic dimension?
If the first scenario, then: Before the evolution of life came around, there was no requisite identity to anything at the same time and in the same respect, so there was no such thing as logical contradictions not being possiblerocks all over the universe were at times both rocks and not rocks in the same respect simultaneously (to not start addressing atoms and fields, etc.)and, so there were intermediate states of being between being either X or not-X (this at the same time and in the same respect) all over the cosmos. BUT: ever since the evolution of life came around, we literally can only conceive of the past as being accordant to the principle of identity, the principle of noncontradiction, and the principle of the excluded middle (for the first principle entails the other two)thereby gravely misinterpreting all aspects of what the real ontic world was like before life came around (and possibly of what it continues to be with life present to it). Ergo, one then can only rationally conclude that, in this first scenario, what we contemplate as being the past is, and can only be, an idealization of what in fact wasnecessitating that the world we know of is one of idealism in all respects. Thereby making physicalism an impossible stance to justify in any other means than via the idealizations of an idealistic, epistemically held onto reality an idealism strictly concocted from the way life happened to evolve in its psychology.
On the other hand, if the second, then all I can presently affirm is that physicalism must be false.
Conclusion: regardless of scenario, physicalism is unjustifiable when logically appraised.
-------
Maybe I should say my bad: had a good private chuckle at this and I wanted to share. :razz:
Happy New Years irrespective of ontological stance all the same!
Not having a linguistic monolog going on in consciousness is not the same as not having a stream of consciousness. In fact, from my perspective it would seem rather impoverished, to be dependent on language for a stream of consciousness. I don't much experience a monolog these days. I used to in the past, and once (over a period of days) I experienced a knock down drag out dialog going on in my head. (Which is a long weird story.)
I'd guess "visual" might be the best succinct way of trying to convey the nature of my typical stream of consciousness, but it seems far from sufficient as a description.
:party: :sparkle: :flower:
This would make a fascinating thread -- invite people to describe, as best they can, what their personal "stream" is actually like.
Yeah, forget bats. It's challenge enough to understand what it is like to be other people.
The movie Temple Grandin makes an attempt to convey Temple Grandin's "thinking in pictures", which I guess Grandin herself found to be a worthwhile attempt at a depiction.
Numbers, and other mental concepts, do indeed seem to be a product of brain activities. Yet the relevant question is not what are they made of, but "How Mind Emerged From Matter", which is the subtitle of Terrence Deacon's masterwork : Incomplete Nature. Another way to express the Hard Problem is : "how does physical activity (neural & endocrinological) result in the meta-physical (mental) functions that we label "Ideas" and "Awareness"? Scientific investigations have explained how physical actions in an internal combustion engine can result in the function we call "Motion" or "Transportation". It's all push & shove of atoms on atoms. Yet, neurons are not spark plugs and hormones are not gasoline. So, what's-pushing-on-what to allow the brain to produce Mental Activity?
There are other kinds of physical activity (processes) that defy the simple mechanical laws of Newton. Even that genius was baffled by the "function"*1 of Gravity to move atoms without touching them. Einstein later, in a quantum context, called such mysterious activity : "spooky action at a distance". What's spooky about Potential*2 is that it's not mechanical, but geometric ("warped space"). Ironically, saying that mathematical relations can change the shape of the immaterial "fabric" of emptiness (the container of matter) sounds like magic. Yet, modern physicists accept that bizarre notion, because they have no better explanation.
I'm no Einstein, but I have learned from physicists, such as Paul Davies, and neuroscientist Terrence Deacon, that the Absence of matter can have real-world effects. What these nothings have in common is something similar to mathematical relationships (ratios) that we now know as various forms of In-form-ation. For my thesis, I call the progenitor of all emergent sub-forms in the world : EnFormAction --- the power to transform. When matter changes form, we attribute the cause to Energy. But, like Gravity, we only know what it does physically, not what it is essentially. For scientific purposes, we just label the observation with a noun name, like "Energy", and define it with a verb name, like "Causation". But the essence or quality of the Change Agent is left undefined ; perhaps because to explain it might seem to attribute magical powers to nothingness, contrary to the belief system of determinstic Materialism.
FWIW, my answer to your question (about the substance of the mind machine), is that mental Functions (Mind/Consciousness/Awareness) are not made of massive Matter, but consists of causal Information (power to transform). Recent scientific investigations have found that Information is much more than the empty entropic vessels of Shannon's definition. Information also is found in material & energetic forms. So, we can infer that all Causation in the world is "made", not of Matter, but of Power/Potency. And the effects of that causal ability on matter is what we call Change. The bottom line of my own approach to Consciousness questions is to propose something more philosophical and less scientific as the fundamental "substance"*3 of the world : cosmic Potential, that Deacon called Teleodynamics*4, or what I call EnFormAction. :smile:
*1. Function : an activity or purpose natural to or intended for a person or thing.
Note --- Mind functions are not material objects, but mental subjective processes working toward a future state or purpose.
*2. Potential :
[i]a> having or showing the capacity to become or develop into something in the future.
b> latent qualities or abilities that may be developed and lead to future success or usefulness.
c> existing in possibility : capable of development into actuality.[/i]
*3. Substance :
Essence ; in the history of Western philosophy, an entity whose existence is independent of that of all other things, or a potentiality from which or out of which other things are made or in which other things inhere.
*3. How does Aristotle define substance?
Contrary to what was said in the Categories and the Physics, Aristotle seems to say that the term substance applies most properly not to a compound of matter and form such as an elephant or a vase, but to the Form {logical pattern] that makes that compound the kind of thing it is.
*4. Teleodynamics :
Teleodynamics emerges when multiple self-organizing phenomena generate forms (constraints) that serve as the boundary conditions that make the other self-organizing processes possible, resulting in a spontaneous tendency for the self-generation and self-maintenance of the whole.
https://teleodynamics.org/
Quoting Gnomon
Again, the word 'substance' came from the Latin translation of the Greek 'ousia', which is a form of the verb 'to be'. It was translated as 'substantia', 'that which stands under' but its further translation of 'substance' in English carries the unfortunate equivocation with the English word 'substance', 'a material with uniform properties', which has a completely different meaning to Aristotle's intent. (Not that I'm a scholar of either ancient Greek or Aristotle, but this is a cardinal issue in understanding philosophy. See this entry.)
Deacon is great. As far as I was able to understand it.
I listen to Incomplete Nature, among others, during my commute.
Quoting Philosophim
We determine that computers-do-not-experience-subjectively in the same way we "know" that other humans do experience the world in a manner similar to our own : by rational inference from behavior. So, the Hard Problem is not about the behavioral evidence of Consciousness, but about its lack of material properties. :smile:
Quoting Philosophim
For my thesis, Consciousness (C) is an immaterial state of awareness, that arises from a physical process, not an entity that exists as an independent thing. I compare it to the mysterious emergence of physical Phase Transitions, such as water to ice*1. Some ancient thinkers, lacking a notion of physical energy, imagined the living & thinking & purposeful Soul, as human-like agent, or as something like the invisible breath or wind that you can feel, and can see it move matter around. Modern Materialism seems to criticize attempts to explain C, based on the assumption that the explainer is referring to a Soul, that can walk around as a ghost.
However, if you think of C as a noumenal form of Energy, or EnFormAction as I call it, then its existence is physical only in its causal consequences, not as a material object. We can't see or touch Energy, so we infer its immaterial existence from its effects on matter : changes of form or state. Those transformations are noumenal inferences instead of phenomenal sensations. Consequently, C doesn't function like a machine, but more like magic; hence the difficulty of explaining it in terms of mechanisms.
The "physical capability" of Energy to exist is taken for granted, because we can detect its effects by sensory observation, even though we can't see or touch Energy with our physical senses*2. Mechanical causation works by direct contact between material objects. But Mental Causation works more like "spooky action at a distance". So, Consciousness doesn't work like a physical machine, but like spooky gravity, or metaphysical intention. :smile:
*1. New research details water's mysterious phase transitions :
https://phys.org/news/2018-03-mysterious-phase-transitions.html
*2. Evidence of Energy :
Therefore, although energy itself isn't visible, you can detect evidence of energy.
https://www3.uwsp.edu/cnr-ap/KEEP/Documents/Activities/EvidenceofEnergy.pdf
Quoting Philosophim
Again, in my thesis, Consciousness is defined as a process or function of physical entities. We have no knowledge of consciousness apart from material substrates. But since its activities are so different from material Physics, philosophers place it in a separate category of Meta-Physics. And religious thinkers persist in thinking of Consciousness in terms of a Cartesian Soul (res cogitans), existing in a parallel realm.
Despite Life After Death interpretations, there is no verifiable evidence of C manifesting apart from an animated physical body*3. But my thesis postulates that both Physical Energy and Malleable Matter are emergent from a more fundamental element of Nature : Causal EnFormAction*4 (EFA). The Big Bang origin state was completely different from the current state, in that there was no solid matter as we know it. Instead, physicists imagine that the primordial state was a sort of quark-gluon Plasma, neither matter nor energy, but with the potential (EFA) for both to emerge later. And ultimately for the emergence of Integrated Information as Consciousness. :smile:
*3. Consciousness after death :
From a strictly scientific viewpoint, we don't know. There is certainly no verifiable, repeatable evidence that the consciousness continues to exist. Nor is there any particular scientific reason to believe it does.
https://www.quora.com/What-happens-to-our-consciousness-after-we-die-Does-it-simply-cease-to-exist-or-does-it-continue-on-in-some-form
*4. Mass & Energy are forms of Information :
the mass-energy-information equivalence principle, stating that information transcends into mass or energy depending on its physical state;.
https://www.sci.news/physics/information-fifth-state-matter-10638.html
Quoting Philosophim
The existence of Matter & Energy is taken for granted, due to evidence of the senses, but the origin of the material world remains a mystery : is it self-existent, or contingent? The Big Bang theory is based on physical evidence observed 14 billion years after the hypothetical event. We now grudgingly accept that our world is temporary, only because the math sputters-out at at T=0/?. Is that more like 12am or 12pm on the clock? The evidential Gap, beyond the evidence, can be filled with speculation of Creation, or a Tower-of-Turtles hypothesis.
Unlike the material world, we require no math or theories to provide evidence of Self-Consciousness. It's self-evident ; mental ideas are all we know about anything. But Consciousness in other beings is not so obvious. Neurologists look for sensory signs of Awareness, such as verbal behavior, arousal, brain activity and purposeful movement. So, it's obvious that Consciousness does not exist in isolation, but is dependent on a> material body, b> neural complexity, and c> animation of body. But what is Life, and how do we know it exists? Schrodinger postulated that Life could be defined as 'negative entropy' something not falling into chaos and approaching 'the dangerous state of maximum entropy, which is death'. Negentropy is positive Energy (or EFA), animating the material world.
Similarly, Tononi's Integrated Information Theory quantifies Consciousness in terms of Complexity and Wholeness of living systems. Thereby, he hopes to provide quantitative evidence of its existence, and perhaps of its relative quality. My own thesis, defines Consciousness in terms of Energy (EnFormAction), and of Holistic Integration of sub-systems. Yet, our sensory evidence still requires physical inputs, just as any other form of Information reception. That's why, for behavioral observations, we require rational inferences.
Therefore, Philosophical questions about Mind & Consciousness depend on personal reasoning; logical deduction from the meta-physical evidence of intentional activities. If you can't make that computation from available evidence, then you live in a matterful but mindless & meaningless world. And the mystery of Consciousness is dispelled, as a ghost, with a wave of dismissal. :smile:
I still see that as the easy problem, as its a very clear approach. Eventually after research, we find that X leads to Y. Its a problem, and I'm not saying its 'easy', its easy in contrast to the hard problem. Its called a hard problem because there's no discernable path or approach towards finding the answer. If you shape a question about consciousness that has a clear path forward to attempt to solve the problem, that is an easy problem.
The word 'how' can easily allow the implicit 'why' to slip in where it shouldn't. "Why do we have subjective experience?" is a hard problem. We know how to influence and access consciousness in the brain though subjects such as in brain surgery. You can poke certain areas of the brain and ask the patient what they experience, and it will cause changes in their subjective experience. That's the how.
'Why' is an entirely different question. Why does matter if organized a particular way create consciousness? My point is that this is no harder a problem then asking why matter behaves in any way at all. Why does hydrogen and oxygen make water? Not how. We know that. But why does it do that at all? Its simply a narrower question to the big question of "Why does anything exists at all?". People seem to mix up the "how" and "why" portion of consciousness completely into the "how" point, which causes confusion. That's why philosophers and scientists are very pointed in showing what the easy problem entails. The easy is the 'how', the hard is the 'why'.
Quoting Gnomon
True. Part of human reasoning is limiting the types of questions to chase with the resources and understand we have. There are plenty of times when we reach a limit in how to proceed with further understanding of a particular nature. So we take what we understand as it is, and use it going forward. What we do understand is that gravity comes from mass. What we don't do is assume because we cannot answer the details, that there is some unidentified third property that must be responsible for it. That's a "God of the gaps" argument.
It is not that I have an issue with people speculating that consciousness is caused by something besides the brain. By all means, speculate away! It is when people assert that because we can speculate, that speculation has validity in overriding the only reasonable conclusions we can make at this time. If someone said, "Well it just doesn't make sense to me why mass creates gravity, therefore it must be the case that 'massicalism' is inadequate to express what's really going on, and that gravity is somehow separate from mass and energy. That's ridiculous.
The scientific fact as of today, is that consciousness is caused by the brain. There is zero evidence otherwise. The idea that consciousness is not caused by the brain is pure speculation, and speculation has no weight to assert anything besides the fact that it is merely speculation.
Quoting Gnomon
Of course. If the brain is physical, this is the only reasonable conclusion. Further, computers have clearly shown that information can be stored and manipulated with matter and energy.
Quoting Gnomon
The only disagreement I have with you is that I believe we act exactly like physical machines, only more advanced. I do not see anything about humanity that is separate from the universe, but is one of the many expressions of the universe.
Quoting Gnomon
Fantastic breakdown! The only addendum I would make is "But since its activities are not fully understood in terms of material physics".
Quoting Gnomon
I also have no problem with constructing other language terms to describe consciousness. The only problem is when someone believes that a change in language undermines the fact of its underlying physical reality. Also, my understanding is that this primordial state is also matter and energy. It is a 'thing', and until we can find the state of a thing that exhibits itself differently from matter and/or energy, it fits in one of those two categories.
Quoting Gnomon
This is true. As long that speculation does not forget it is speculation and asserts that it must be so.
Quoting Gnomon
Again, fantastic contribution. Agreed.
Deacon's Incomplete Nature has become my "bible" for getting a scientist's understanding of certain mysteries of science, that we debate on this forum. My second volume is full of yellow marks and marginal annotations. His scientific credentials are in Anthropology (study of humanity), Evolutionary Biology, and Neuroscience. His associate, Jeremy Sherman, wrote a book expanding on the evolution of self-conscious animals : Neither Ghost Nor Machine, the Emergence and Nature of Selves.
A key innovation of Deacon's book is the concept of Absential Aboutness (Potential), a novel feature of human awareness. Other topics are Holism, Emergence, Teleonomy/Teleology, Autogenesis, and Constraint (natural laws). It's a naturalistic account for Life, Mind, Soul/Self, Sentience, and Consciousness. :smile:
An anecdote - one of the textbooks on Buddhism I read around that time there was an account of the Prajñ?p?ramit? literature of Mah?y?na Buddhism. Many of those texts a very long, one of them is 108,000 verses (that being a symbolically significant number in Buddhism.) But there's also a very short Prajñ?p?ramit? Sutra, which is the 'sutra of one letter' - that letter being the sanskrit letter a, ?, which is the negative particle (equivalent to English 'un-', as in 'unmanifest, unmade, uncreated). Whereas our empirical age is totally focussed on what is manifest, made, created, hence there is no escape from suffering (in Buddhist dialectic.) All of those discoveries had a major impact on me around that time (about 40 years ago now).
I asked ChatGPT for an example of an absential and it responded:
I then asked:
Amen (or aum) to that! This also came up in a dialogue I was listening to yesterday between the marvellous John Vervaeke, Greg Henriques, and Matt Segal, in relation to the idea that what is real overflows the bounds of what simply exists, because it also contains the domain of unactualised possibility.
My amateur philosophical thesis Enformationism, is not expressed in mathematical equations, or in logical syllogisms, but I hope it's more accessible to those without special training in those areas. I provide links & references & glossaries for those looking for more technical information. The website was a proto-essay, that is now sadly out of date, and full of evidence of ignorance. Lacking formal training in Philosophy, this forum has been my teacher for how to, and not to, argue for/against philosophical topics.
I also coined a neologism, EnFormAction --- to represent proto-Energy, "proto-Consciousness", and proto-Life --- as the predecessor of all emergent features of the expanding, complexifying, and maturing universe. EFA is basically multipurpose Causation (Energy) for a multi-form world. :smile:
Where is said thesis?
I am entirely lacking in formal education in all things philosophical. Reading what I can on consciousness. Plenty of available, of course. Less is readily comprehensible.
I'll get back to you about your "easy" solution to the Consciousness problem. In my blog, I compare the emergence of Sentience to the emergence of Phase Transitions in physics. Due to complexity, the before & after are easy ("X leads to Y"), but tracking the steps in between is hard, in both cases. So, although we are making progress, both emergences remain somewhat mysterious, and emergence itself is scientifically controversial.
BTW, I had to post the opinions you are responding to without editing --- ran out of time. I have now added to and revised the post, in hopes of making more sense, and conveying clearer ideas. :smile:
The website was the beginning of a long journey, and there are still mountains & swamps ahead. :
Enformationism
https://enformationism.info/enformationism.info/
The blog entries are ongoing, but the latest post, on Enformationism vs Panpsychism, is at http://bothandblog8.enformationism.info/page7.html
Deacon's Causal Absence is also similar to the notion of Emptiness in Taoism :
[i]Thirty spokes share a central hub;
It is the hole that makes the wheel useful.
Mix water and clay into a vessel;
Its emptiness is what makes it useful.
Cut doors and windows for a room;
Their emptiness is what makes them useful.
Therefore consider: advantage comes from having things
And usefulness from having nothing.[/i]
PS___Perhaps empty minds are also useful in some way. Meditation? :joke:
PPS___ Modernism seems to focus on advantage over others in the race to acquire things. Maybe having less can be useful? My penurious financial status seems to indicate an experiment to find the economic usefulness of nothingness.
In my case, I fell into an accidental career in information technology when I went back to University to finish my Honours in Comparative Religion, a completely impractical degree for making a living. There was a casual job advertised for a sales assistant at the campus computer store which turned into a full-time job which I managed to convert into a career as a technical writer over about 25 years. 'Life is what happens to you when you're busy making other plans' became one of my favourite sayings (the other being 'my life has been a whole series of crises, most of which never occured'.)
Deacon talks about the importance of zero, and how it twisted to to his thinking.
Ba DUM bum
I guess autocorrect visited me again. I'm leaving it. :lol:
Is it possible that the intention of subjecting consciousness to the rigors of scientific explanation though noble and understandable is misplaced? Are we trying to do something that, in fact, cannot be done?
Consider measurement a most heralded and essential aspect of science:
How much mass does that planetary body have? What is the wavelength of this color? Does the subatomic particle under investigation have a positive, negative or neutral electric charge? How many milliliters of reagent is in that Griffin beaker?
All these questions make (scientific) sense and can be answered by objective, reproduceable measurement. But Im wondering if we can meaningfully ascribe measurement to consciousness. It seems odd to say, There are 2.5 milliliters of consciousness here, or This consciousness weighs 71 grams, or That consciousness is negatively charged.
Isnt consciousness different (in kind) from what science investigates? Planets, colors, particles, reagents these are discrete, objective areas of scientific investigation, whereas consciousness is the underlying, subjective medium through which we access all of these areas.
More to the point: consciousness is, by its nature, entirely subjective and therefore can not be observed and measured like brains can be. Each person uniquely experiences the world (subjectively) through his or her own consciousness.
For example, I am unable to project my (conscious) feeling of pain onto a screen for you to experience even though I am able to project an MRI scan of my brain onto a screen, showing you certain neurological biomarkers that correspond to my feeling of pain. Although I can (scientifically) describe and explain my pain, I am unable to provide you with the experience of my pain.
It is this subjectivity that differentiates consciousness from scientific investigation. In short, neurophysiology is not consciousness because explanation is not experience.
Note that what you describe as science doesn't seem to include the study of processes, including processes underlying human consciousness. Study of processes might be worth considering.
Of course. That's the point. Your post sums up the whole issue in a nutshell. Most of the debate that has occurred in this thread consists of people not seeing that.
Lets take vision as an example. Heres the very beginning of the process, as described by Michael Behe in [I]Darwins Black Box[/I]. (Anybody can say what they want about Behes conclusions, but he knows the science.)That, combined with a ridiculous number of other steps, each made up of an equally ridiculous number of events, describes how we perceive a certain range of frequencies of the electromagnetic spectrum. We can add other events and steps, and get a description of how we differentiate different frequencies within that range.
Add more, and we will see physical reactions to all of that - the description of events that leads to the process of our responding to what we perceive. Still more describes how patterns of what we perceive are stored in our brains. THEN, we can see how those patterns that are stored become part of the chain of events that lead to future reactions to new perceptions.
All of that is physical events and processes, and, overall, that describes our behavior.
The Hard Problem exists because none of that suggests that there is subjective experience present. We don't see physical events and processes in our brains in addition to the physical events and processes that explain our perceptions/responses/behavior that might explain consciousness. So what explains it? Something extra is going on, so it seems reasonable to expect something extra is causing it. We have made machines that can do quite a bit that we can do, including distinguishing colors. But we don't suspect they have the subjective experience of red and blue on top of the ability to distinguish the frequencies we call red from those we call blue. Why don't they? Their physical events and processes are not the same as ours, but they are still just physical. Why does purely physical and nothing extra cause subjective experience in one case, but not the other?
-Is the medium the key? What is it about biological that explains it that doesn't work with electronic?
-Is it the number of feedback loops, or types of feedback loops? How many, and how does the specific number cause the jump to subjectivity?
-Something else? What?
I'd modestly suggest that some of us have more of a clue than others, and given that it is a hard problem, it makes sense to look at it in terms shades of gray or degrees of cluelessness. :wink:
Please clue me in! :grin: What do we see taking place that is on top of what I'm talking about, and how does it cause consciousness? The crux of the Hard Problem is that the physical events all add up to describe our behavior, which is a physical process. There doesn't seem to be anything extra going on. If there were physical events going on among all that that do not contribute to the behavior, we might hypothesize that they cause subjective experience. It might be difficult to explain how the physical events cause a non-physical process, but at least we might have a starting point.
I pointed you towards Peter Tse's book awhile back. Tse is definitely one of the less clueless writers on the subject that I have encountered. Did you read the book?
Quoting Philosophim
How does Physics (matter/energy) produce Metaphysical phenomena (mind/intention)? Nobody knows for sure, but there is a name for it. Emergence is a philosophical term for mysterious appearances with "no discernible path". Typically, the novel form is a whole system (with new properties & functions) derived from a previous system with different properties : e.g. solid an-isotropic crystalline Ice emerges from liquid isotropic water. In my thesis, I compare Mind-from-Matter emergence to physical Phase Transitions, not to occult Magic. :smile:
Emergentism is the belief in emergence, particularly as it involves consciousness and the philosophy of mind. A property of a system is said to be emergent if it is a new outcome of some other properties of the system and their interaction, while it is itself different from them.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergentism
Note --- Emergence is typically associated with Holism and Systems Theory. Information is the "difference that makes a difference".
Teleological Evolution
So it seems that our world got to where it is now via a series of identifiable stages due to "quantum fluctuations", "phase changes", "emergences" and "speciations" that collectively we call Evolution. But only the human-scale (macro) transitions seem to follow the normal macro level rules of billiard-ball cause & effect, instead of "spooky action at a distance". On larger & smaller scales those transformations seem to be much less random and more directional, even ententional. We can classify those various emergent phases into three domains : Quantum, Classical, and Cosmic.
https://bothandblog3.enformationism.info/page25.html
Quoting Philosophim
How is a scientific question, in search of intermediate physical steps. Why is a philosophical question, in search of meaning or purpose. How Mental functions emerged from Material brains is subject to empirical evidence. Hence, relatively easy compared to the Why question. The evolutionary purpose of C is fairly obvious, in that knowing-that-you-know gives you the advantage of flexibility of approaches to a problem. But the Cosmic purpose of C is less obvious, in that mechanical operations, sans awareness, were able to function for 14B years. Why now, does the cosmos manifest a new property : Self-Conscious? We sentient beings appear driven to know where we came from, and where we are going ; on a cosmic scale. The final or ultimate answer to such holistic questions seems to require information about origins & destiny, which has been offered by religions for millennia. For those of us lacking direct access to a Cosmic Mind, mundane philosophy will have to do the best it can. :wink:
The mind has three basic functions: thinking, feeling, and wanting. The three functions of the mind thoughts, feelings and desires can be guided or directed either by one's native egocentrism or by one's potential rational capacities. Egocentric tendencies function automatically and unconsciously.
https://www.criticalthinking.org/files/SAM-TheHumanMind.pdf
Quoting Philosophim
Not necessarily. The Enformationism thesis builds upon what we now know, by means of Scientific & Philosophical exploration, and to postulate a rational third property : EnFormAction, that has hitherto been called by another name, "Energy". EFA is envisioned as a kind of Proto-Energy (a seed) that can explain, not just material evolution, but the emergence of Mental properties, only after billions of years of preparing the ground for planting. The thesis acknowledges the logical question of where did the Energy & Laws --- that propelled & guided evolution --- come from? Materialists typically take such immaterial necessities for granted. But philosophers tend to question everything, and to speculate beyond current knowledge. Do you think Science has all the answers that we need to know? Are you not curious about Why questions? A famous architect, an atheist, when questioned about his meticulous work, once said : God is in the details. :halo:
Quoting Philosophim
I'll grant you that notion of progression in natural evolution. But you seem to think I'm proposing something supernatural, or otherworldly. Supposedly-scientific postulations such as Many Worlds & Multiverses, do indeed go beyond the only world we know anything about. But EFA is merely a new name for a natural function that is well-known, but not well understood : the emergence of novelty from evolutionary mechanisms.
Do you think Darwinian Evolutionary Theory was the final word on how such things as eyes & minds came to exist in a material mechanical world? In recent years, scientists & philosophers have added such notions as Plasticity, Rapid Development, Epigenetics, and Cultural Evolution to Darwin's basic model. The article below illustrates the gaps in current biological science. The Modern Synthesis added genetic information to the crude notion of Random Mutation. The Extended Evolutionary Synthesis added such concepts as multilevel selection, transgenerational epigenetic inheritance, niche construction, evolvability, to Darwin's simple-but-powerful notion that biological novelty occurs without divine intervention. However, his evolutionary mechanism did assume that nature is capable of making informed choices (Selection) based on some logical criteria for fitness.
So, my thesis is just carrying-on the tradition of questioning supposedly "settled science". EnFormAction is merely a fresh look at an old scientific term for the physical Change Agency. EFA is not just brute force, but Directional Motivation (energy + information) . Evolution, like a guided-missile, seems to be moving, not randomly, but persistently toward more complexity & integration of sub-systems, with the human mind as the current apex. That direction is provided by the Information encoded in the program of evolution ; similar to what we now know is the key function of biological Genes, that Darwin had no mechanism for. :nerd:
Do we need a new theory of evolution?
Strange as it sounds, scientists still do not know the answers to some of the most basic questions about how life on Earth evolved.
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2022/jun/28/do-we-need-a-new-theory-of-evolution
Quoting Philosophim
The Primordial State I referred to is not a scientific fact, but an informed guess. And the current best guess is that the universe started-out with no actual Matter, as we now know it. For example, both quarks & gluons are unobservable hypothetical entities, that are basically definitions without referent. So, I would prefer to call it an Idea, not a Thing. The postulated plasma had none of the structure* that we identify with Matter. So, cosmologists have proposed semi-magical mechanisms (e.g. instantaneous Inflation) to explain how the current clumpy configurations could have formed from such an unorganized state. My third category is merely a combination of Energy and Logic (the missing element of Darwinism). Anway, I figure that my informed guess is as valid as their speculation into the unknown. :cool:
Quarks appear to be true elementary particles; that is, they have no apparent structure and cannot be resolved into something smaller.
https://www.britannica.com/science/quark
Note --- No structure = no matter
In physical cosmology, structure formation is the formation of galaxies, galaxy clusters and larger structures from small early density fluctuations . . . . . In this stage, some mechanism, such as cosmic inflation, was responsible for establishing the initial conditions of the universe: homogeneity, isotropy, and flatness
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Structure_formation
Note --- Cosmic Inflation is essentially mathematical magic: "Voila! an instant universe!" Is EFA any less plausible?
Ah. Ok. No, I am still working my way through others. Slow process for me. I started it. But I don't expect him to have the answer to the question of how consciousness can come from the physical when he begins the book by saying we don't know how:
I'm sure he has much great information about the physical. Which is fascinating in its own right, as in the Behe quote above. But all the physical detail doesn't answer the question, even in principle. Still, I do feel like a change of POV, so maybe I'll give this another go. Thanks.
As before, substantia is the translation of ?????????, ????? is translated to essentia, those are separate terms (and separate pairs).
The meaning of substantia when translated back to Greek can be either ????????? or ?????, while essentia only ????? as far as I know.
But is what emerged something other than matter and/or energy? To my knowledge, no. If you think it is something other than matter and energy, do we have evidence of it existing apart from our imagination?
Quoting Gnomon
Right, but there is no evidence that this originates apart from matter and energy. We can call our thoughts and ideas whatever terminology we want. Do we have evidence of something existing apart from matter and energy?
Quoting Gnomon
No. My issue is not with speculation. Its with assertion. Maybe we'll find out in the future that consciousness isn't physical. But today? It is. A speculation that it might not be in the future does not invalidate what we know today. The problem is some people get so lost in the excitement of their speculation, that they forget they've failed to demonstrate its truth. Its very easy to construct a speculative argument that has air tight logic and solves all of our problems. Its another to demonstrate it can be applied to reality without contradiction.
Quoting Gnomon
Keep at it! I find it very important that we poke and prod at science. My issue again is the assertion that because we can think of a possibility, that this somehow invalidates what we know today. That is never true. I can think of a magical unicorn as the reason for electromagnitism, and construct an valid set of premises and conclusions based on this being true. What has been forgotten is that you must first prove the unicorn exists.
Quoting Gnomon
This isn't quite correct.
"Although the theory (quarks) was clever, it didn't immediately catch on because there was no experimental evidence for quarks. This came four years later in 1968 at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC) in California. Experimenters fired electrons, and then later muons, at protons, and found evidence that the electrons and muons were scattering off three smaller particles contained within the protons, each of these smaller particles having their own electric charge. These particles are the quarks.
...Each one has its own set of quantum numbers, and their masses are very different, with the up and down quarks being the least massive, and the top quark being the heaviest with a mass over 61,000 times more massive than the up quark.
https://www.space.com/quarks-explained#:~:text=Quarks%20in%20quantum%20physics,-The%20Large%20Hadron&text=Experimenters%20fired%20electrons%2C%20and%20then,These%20particles%20are%20the%20quarks.
So we can see that quarks have mass and have been conclusively measured. So as you can see, there's still no evidence of something in the universe that cannot be confirmed to be matter or energy yet.
The Hard Problem is all about that familiar-yet-mysterious "something other". If you prefer to think that your Mind is a material object, what are its tangible properties : entangled neurons? Can you examine an Idea under a magnifying glass? How much does a Feeling weigh? If your Mind is instead an energetic force, what are its causal effects? Can you move an object with mind-force? If you can't produce those evidences, maybe Consciousness is indeed something other.
However, I'm not introducing something supernatural into the real world. My thesis postulates that the universe began with prototypes of Matter, Energy, and Mind in place. Of course, I can't prove that's true, any more than scientists can prove that a cosmic Bang created a universe from nothing-nowhere. Scientists do have names for some of those hypothetical proto-elements of modern reality : Quarks are unproven theoretical (imaginary) bits of matter with no discernible properties, but strange antithetical attributes : up/down ; top/bottom ; charm/strange. Is your consciousness one or more of those materials? Gluons are also theoretical binding forces with a metaphorical name. But, unlike real forces, Gluons cannot be measured by instruments. Are your Ideas & Feelings constructed of charming Quarks glued together by sticky Gluons? Do you have "evidence" of those elements of matter & energy, apart from the imagination of Quantum theorists studying the squishy quantum foundations of the physical world. Some accept those theories as descriptions of reality, even though the evidence is "locked away"*1 from the prying eyes of Materialists. Have you ever seen or touched a Mind Quark?
My thesis merely proposes a new name for a phenomenon/noumenon that has puzzled scientists and philosophers for ages. It seems obvious that mental qualities supervene (follow ; depend) on material properties, but how? I just flip the script to view Matter & Energy as dependent from a singular aboriginal predecessor, with the Potential for both Matter & Energy. Plato used a variety of labels for his First Cause : Logos, Form, etc. So, you can think of EFA metaphorically as a "seed" with the power to produce both the Logical Structure and the Material Form of Darwin's manifold "forms most beautiful". Is that close enough to philosophical Materialism for you? Or is it too close to philosophical Idealism? I could argue from that other direction, if I had time for such nonsense. :cool:
*1. By the mid-1970s, however, 10 years after quarks were first proposed, scientists had compiled a mass of evidence that showed that quarks do exist but are locked within the individual hadrons in such a way that they can never escape as single entities.
https://www.britannica.com/science/subatomic-particle/The-development-of-quark-theory
Quoting Philosophim
Sounds like you do have an issue with philosophical and scientific Postulation*2. In Darwin's day, the explanation for the variety of plants & animals was based on the Genesis myth. Do you think he was out of line to "assert" that there was another way to make sense of biology? Do you think Gnomon is asserting falsehoods on a philosophical discussion forum, or is he merely postulating alternative views for discussion? Is Physics the source of all Truth for you? :wink:
*2. Postulate : to suggest or accept that a theory or idea is true as a starting point for reasoning or discussion.
Quoting Philosophim
Just as Catholics believe in angels based on infallible scripture, modern physicists definitely believe in Quarks based on infallible math. So it doesn't take much indirect evidence*3*4 to confirm their faith. But which are you going to believe : proponents or doubters? Personally, I don't know or care if they are real ; they serve a function for imagining the quantum realm as tiny particles of stuff, like the holy grail of ancient philosophical Atoms. :joke:
*3. "Quark masses are fundamental quantities in particle physics, but they cannot be accessed and measured directly in experiments because, with the exception of the top quark, quarks are confined inside composite particles," said Andrea Dainese, who is the ALICE physics coordinator.
https://www.space.com/large-hadron-collider-quark-mass-measurement
Note --- If you can't measure it, mathematize it.
*4. Are quarks hypothetical particles?
[i]We will never know for sure.
Thats because quarks, by the nature of their interactions with each other through gluons, can never get far enough apart to be observed directly.
For many years most physicists thought quarks were just a Reductionist gimmick for remembering the rules of SU(3) a symmetry of elementary particles also known (equally fancifully) as the eightfold way. But today the consensus is that they are real particles.[/i]
https://www.quora.com/Are-quarks-hypothetical-particles-Why
Note --- Consensus opinion, not empirical fact.
But then Tse demonstrates, in the body of the book, that he has looked into the sort of things that need to be looked at in order to develop that understanding. Shades of gray. Perhaps, if it is possible, for humanity to develop the scientific understanding to satisfy philosophers, it will be next century or the one after. Although, at the pace of AI development, it becomes very hard to predict.
You can examine a lit object under a magnifying glass, but you can't examine a sound under a magnifying glass. We're using the wrong tool and looking for the wrong thing. We measure consciousness by behavior. We experience our own consciousness, but no one else's. As such, we cannot measure our own subjective consciousness, nor any other. But we have determined that the brain affects consciousness over multiple scientific discoveries over decades now. Its incontrovertible.
Quoting Gnomon
True, but scientists at least have math to back their reasoning. That's the difference. There is 'something' behind the prediction besides imagination. This is the same thing with quarks. We don't have a complete understanding of them yet, but the understanding we have so far is based on testable evidence. This is how progress is made. We theorize, but then we must test. The problem with the theories that consciousness is separate from matter and energy, is that there is no evidence from tests. Its why I state repeatedly that consciousness is really not in the realm of philosophy any longer, but neuroscience. We can use philosophy off of what we know in science, but if we speculate without taking in what we know, its likely going to be a cast off idea in history.
Quoting Gnomon
No, because Genesis was not known and provable with evidence, it was myth. Beliefs are not the same as what is known at the time.
Quoting Gnomon
The difference here is that its an opinion that scripture is infallible, and fails several applied tests. Quarks do not purport to be infallible ideas, they are what continue to stand in test after test.
Quoting Gnomon
And this is not a problem. This is the limit of what we can measure today, and we take what is most reasonable from that analysis.
Again, you take my metaphors literally. The point of the question is that immaterial functions cannot be studied by empirical methods. There is no empirical evidence for Ideas ; only behavioral inferences, as you said. In other words, the tool for examining the Mind is the Mind itself. Materialists see the world through the (metaphorical) lens of the Mind, but can't see the Mind itself.
Again, you erroneously imply that I deny the role of Brain in Mind functions. Not so. Mind is merely what the Brain does : its function, its action. The engine (a physical object) of an automobile directly affects the quality of Transportation, its immaterial action. What we call "mind" is the immaterial function of a physical brain. But a brain in a vat, with no connection to the outside world, would have no mental functions. We'll never know if the isolated brain has a self-concept, but I doubt it, because it would have no non-self to contrast with. A primary evolutionary function of Mind is to relate Self to Other (environment). :smile:
Note --- I like to use the Aristotelian concept of Metaphysics in place of "immaterial". But that term is now mainly associated with Catholic theology. Yet, five centuries BC, Ari added an appendix to his work on Physics (nature) for a discussion of philosophical Ideas --- over & above physical Things --- immaterial Concepts*1 about nature (Ontology). For Ari, those ideas are not super-natural, but merely immaterial Forms, or in modern terms : Information (EnFormAction). For example, Properties are not material things, but mental attributions.
*1. Aristotle About Ideas :
The Peri ide^on (On Ideas) is the only work in which Aristotle systematically sets out and criticizes arguments for the existence of Platonic forms. . . . . , and why and with what justification he favors an alternative metaphysical scheme. She examines the significance of the Peri ide^on for some central questions about Plato's theory of forms--whether, for example, there are forms corresponding to every property or only to some, and if only to some, then to which ones; whether forms are universals, particulars or both; and whether they are meanings, properties or both.
https://www.amazon.com/Ideas-Aristotles-Criticism-Platos-Theory/dp/0198235496
Note --- Contra Plato's monistic universal Forms, Aristotle proposed the dualistic notion of HyloMorphism : a combination of Matter and Essence : car engine + transportation as a team. Different ways of looking at the same thing. The embodied causal force that enforms material objects is the Essence (property, qualia) of the Thing.
Quoting Philosophim
That's the problem with Materialism, it looks for empirical evidence of something that is immaterial. The only evidence of Mental Functions is philosophical inference. If a pile of rocks suddenly formed a tower of stones, we would have to infer Mental Intention behind the balancing act*2. :joke:
Quoting Philosophim
You may not think Darwin was asserting something unbelievable, but most of his contemporaries did, because they were convinced of a different belief system. You think Gnomon is proposing something unbelievable because it does not align with your materialistic beliefs. Scientific paradigms change, not only due to empirical evidence, but to philosophical perspective. "To biologists, it is puzzling that Kuhn failed to mention the two greatest paradigm shifts in the biological sciences Darwinism and Mendelism." https://laskerfoundation.org/paradigm-shifts-in-science-insights-from-the-arts/ :nerd:
Quoting Philosophim
I agree. Yet Reasoning is not empirical, but philosophical. A Paradigm Shift is a change of perspective on the evidence. :cool:
PS___ I appreciate your respectful skepticism. It forces me to tighten-up my own reasoning. And to find new ways to describe an emerging new paradigm of Philosophy and Science.
*2. We infer that a carefully balanced stone stack is not natural, but intentional
Sorry, that was not intended to target you in general, more the general idea some have in this thread.
Quoting Gnomon
I have no problem with the metaphysics description and the use of words that do not lean on the physical. My concern is that it should not be forgotten that it is all physical at its core.
Quoting Gnomon
I agree. I've noted several times that it is currently impossible to objectively evaluate someone else's subjective experience. But do note that this problem does not go away even if we remove science. Any attempt, be that metaphysical, idealist, etc., falls prey to the same criticism. Such language is fine to describe our emotions and feelings, but it will never be objective.
Quoting Gnomon
My point is not whether a person agrees with beliefs or not. My point is whether they are open to looking at the facts, even those that challenge their beliefs, and determine whether their beliefs hold true in the face of the evidence. Trust me, I challenge belief systems all the time, including my own. I'm sure some members despise me for it. :) Often times I don't communicate in the 'meta' of philosophy, and that really bothers some people. I have read and formally studied many different philosophies, and I have found that to think freely, you need to not be unduly constrained by communities or habits.
A person being constrained by their beliefs is not the same as a person proposing new, undeniable facts that invalidate that belief. If you can show me undeniable facts that demonstrate something which exists apart form matter and energy, I'm very open to it.
Quoting Gnomon
I agree that it is both. Empirical evidence without logic or reason leads to nothing new. We must have a strong sense of skepticism in any claim, and require logic and evidence. New perspectives should always be brought forward, but they must be tested against the hard rock of existence.
Quoting Gnomon
I really appreciate your viewpoints as well Gnomon! I'm glad you're not taking my points the wrong way. I greatly enjoy chatting with thinkers like yourself, and I think you're setting up your language and approach to science and consciousness that is palatable to someone like myself.
That's where you and I agree & disagree. Many years ago, after becoming disillusioned by the fundamentalist religion of my youth, I may have tended toward the opposite worldview. But as I learned more about Reductive science --- took basic courses in all the major divisions of science in college --- I saw the "real" world differently. But I also began to appreciate the philosophical underpinnings of most world religions, especially their Integrated Holistic approach .
My emerging new worldview was influenced mainly by Quantum Physics and Information Theory, which I did not learn in college. Prominent physicist John A. Wheeler's "It from Bit" concept gave me a new way to understand the substance of the world, wherein the core is indeed "physical", but with tangible Matter animated & motivated by causal Energy, and organized by logical Information*1. More recently, quantum physicists began to equate Energy with both Matter and Information. There you have have a combination of Space (corporality) , Time (change), and Form (organization)*2. In Terrence Deacon's triad : Material Morphodynamics (form change) + Energetic Teleodynamics (directional change ; purpose) + Causal Homeodynamics (evolution). So. Enformationism is about all of the above, but not about Religion. Instead, its a novel philosophical & scientific understanding of the immaterial (quarks & qualia) foundations of Reality. :nerd:
*1.
a> In classical physics and general chemistry, matter is any substance that has mass and takes up space by having volume. ____Wikipedia
b> In physics, energy is a property intrinsic to anything that is able to interact in the universe. ___Wiki
c> Information is an abstract concept that refers to that which has the power to inform. ___Wiki
Note --- You could say that I am a Physicalist (matter + energy), but not a Materialist (matter is all). However, it now seems that shape-shifting Information (EnFormAction) is all.
*2. Experimental test for the mass-energy-information equivalence principle :
A recent conjecture, called the mass-energy-information equivalence principle, proposed that information is equivalent to mass and energy and exists as a separate state of matter.
https://pubs.aip.org/aip/sci/article/2022/9/091111/2849001/A-proposed-experimental-test-for-the-mass-energy
Quoting Philosophim
Objective or empirical evaluation of subjective experience may be an oxymoron. But Subjective theoretical evaluation of subjective Ideas is what Philosophy*2 is all about. No need to "remove" the reasoning of Science, just the requirement for empirical evidence. :smile:
*2. Purpose of Philosophy :
The study of philosophy enhances a person's problem-solving capacities. It helps us to analyze concepts, definitions, arguments, and problems. It contributes to our capacity to organize ideas and issues, to deal with questions of value, and to extract what is essential from large quantities of information.
https://www.jmu.edu/philrel/why-study-philosophy/why-study-philosophy.shtml
Quoting Philosophim
Rock on! New philosophical perspectives on specific material subjects (hard rocks) are indeed tested for empirical evidence. But new paradigms of universal concepts (worldviews) can only be tested for rational consistency, and conformance with ontological coherence. :cool:
Quoting Philosophim
Anthropologist Terrence Deacon's predecessor in the study of humanity, Polymath Gregory Bateson, unlike Shannon, defined "Information" as the Difference (distinction) that makes a Difference (meaning) to the observer*3. Since groundbreaking holistic scientists like Deacon & Bateson are not well known by professionals in the "hard" sciences, their vocabulary, and mine, may not be "palatable" to their Reductive way of thinking. But it should be acceptable to those of us in the "soft" science of Philosophy. The study of Minds does not lend itself to the knife-wielding dissection methods of Material science. :wink:
*3. In his 1972 book, Steps to an Ecology of Mind, Bateson developed his idea of a "difference that makes a difference" in his talk to Alfred Korzybski's Institute of General Semantics. The talk was entitled "Form, Substance, and Difference." Form and substance referred to the famous Korzybski maxim "the map is not the territory."
https://www.informationphilosopher.com/solutions/scientists/bateson/
PS___Speaking of "vive la Difference"*4; one way to discuss the difference between philosophical evidence and scientific evidence is to think about the "hard" question of sexual attraction. For example, some men are crass materialists who view females as a loose aggregation of parts : t*ts, *ss, p*ssy, etc. But that analytical approach misses the intangibles of femininity that are so irresistible to those who appreciate the finer non-things of life. :joke:
*4. Who first said Vive la difference?
Anatole France is attributed with first declaring the wonderful refrain, Vive la difference! with particular reference to the differences between women and men.
Which is fine by the way! I respect your views.
Quoting Gnomon
Now this? This I love. This is an attempt to put a theory to the test. I would love to see it happen.
Quoting Gnomon
True that we would remove empirical evidence, but then what objective evidence do we have? As you noted, it may very well be an oxymoron. And I'm inclined to agree. Subjective experience can only be discussed subjectively, not objectively. The problem that I see is if there is no objectivity, then there is no scientific standard. Subjective analysis falls much more easily to bias, difficulty in replicating results, and consensus. Its not that objective analysis cannot have these problems as well, but the frequency is far less and these problems can easily be identified, nullifying the research without much debate.
I feel subjective experiences are honestly best left to psychology. There they at least have some methodologies to account for this, though it still has its problems. I am aware I speak from ignorance however, my knowledge of psychology is limited.
Again, great post Gnomon!
That's why I get most of my information about the multiple roles of Information from professional scientists --- Paul Davies, Terrence Deacon, Santa Fe Institute --- and not from Twitter or Tik Tok gurus & influencers. Their work is on the periphery of current science, but it reveals signs of an emerging new Paradigm of Science, that I, not they, call Enformationism --- to distinguish from older -isms, such as Materialism, Idealism, or Spiritualism.
My own investigations into Causal Information are not "objective", in the sense that I am not held accountable by specially-trained & narrowly-focused colleagues. Which is why I depend on amateur generalists on TPF to vett my amateur musings. Their philosophical skepticism should help to keep me honest. But it's possible that some of us merely share a bias toward Materialism or Idealism. So, it's up to me to question my own motives. :nerd:
Quoting Philosophim
Unfortunately, most modern Psychological research is still working from a Materialistic worldview*1. So, they may be blind to the evidence of immaterial "forces", such as those that Deacon describes in his books : Morphodynamics, etc. For example, Pavlov's salivating dogs were influenced by mental imagery to respond to the sound of a bell as-if it was the sight or smell of tasty food. But he didn't focus on how one form of Information (alarm sound) could transform in the mind into a representation of a different form of Meaning (smell or taste).
Besides, most current experiments on Information Theory focus on quantification, storage, and communication, not on meaning & significance & semiology. So, what little work is being done on Holistic Information is left to Philosophy. By that, I mean scientists & scholars who are not afraid to speculate beyond the current paradigm. :smile:
*1.Eliminative materialism :
is a materialist position in the philosophy of mind. . . . . Eliminativism about a class of entities is the view that the class of entities does not exist . . . . Since eliminative materialism arguably claims that future research will fail to find a neuronal basis for various mental phenomena, it may need to wait for science to progress further.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eliminative_materialism
PS___ I just received my copy of Steven Pinker's Rationality. He is a renowned professor of Psychology. But he describes his focus as "cognition", not "consciousness". And I suspect that most psychologists prefer to avoid becoming mired in unanswerable questions about imaginary minds. They leave such open-ended arguments to Philosophers, with nothing better to do than to look for the homunculus inside their own heads --- to study the mind with mental tools.
Coincidentally, the same day you posted that skeptical warning of the perils of un-grounded speculation beyond current evidence, I read in Skeptical Inquirer magazine (vol 48, issue 1) an article by philosopher Massimo Pigliucci on Pseudoscience. He includes a list of criteria*1 to "demarcate sense from nonsense". The items on that list were written down in Roman orator Cicero's On Divination circa 44BCE, in which he compared Astrology negatively to scientific Astronomy.
In my own speculative thesis, the logical consistency*1a, will have to be judged by others, because we have difficulty seeing the errors in our own reasoning. Since Enformationism is a philosophical conjecture, about a topic with little or no empirical evidence*1b to date, confirmation of the postulation will have to wait for hard Science to catch up with soft Philosophy. The causal mechanisms*1c underlying Consciousness remain mysterious, but the thesis specifically postulates a primordial prototype of modern Energy as the First Cause. The evolutionary process that produced Mind from Matter is not arbitrary*1d, but its intermediate steps are currently unknown, just as material Phase Transitions (states of matter) remain opaque after centuries of study. Moreover, the thesis does rely on a community of experts*1e (e.g. Santa Fe Institute)*2, who are investigating the emergence of Consciousness and Complexity from Holistic physical mechanisms.
Regardless of compliance with Cicero's Criteria, and with Skeptical caution, the Enformationism thesis remains a philosophical conjecture, not a scientific fact. So, those more interested in Confirmation Bias may be able to point to my own concept of how Mind emerged from Matter, as confirmation of their personal pseudoscience inclinations. For example, the article mentions Deepak Chopra, who follows similar reasoning to the conclusion of what he calls "Quantum Mysticism"*3. Which Pigliucci thinks is pseudoscience : "there is no such thing". Although, Chopra did not intend to "invalidate what we know today" about Mental phenomena, but to explain such "hard problems" in meaningful modern and traditional philosophical terms. Although his views are Holistic, I don't follow Chopra as an "expert", because he too often goes beyond the metaphorical/mystical point that I am comfortable with.
also classifies my thesis as "mystical woo", even though I make no "spiritual" claims or magical assertions, only philosophical interpretations of physical observations. He seems to think Philosophy began in the 17th century, after the Enlightenment, and trails behind Science picking up crumbs. I repectfully disagree. :smile:
*1. Cicero's Criteria for making sense
[i]a. Internal logical consistency
b. Empirical confirmation
c. Specificity of proposed causal mechanisms
d. Degree of arbitrariness
e. Existence of a qualified community of experts[/i]
*2. What does the Santa Fe Institute actually research/study? :
The Santa Fe Institute was founded in 1984 by a man named George Cowan, with the help of Murray Gell-Mann who is a Nobel-prize physicist, Phil Anderson, another Nobel-prize physicist, Ken Arrow who won a Nobel prize in economics, and others. These guys all got together and decided to help found this thing, and this thing was a new way of doing science [they] said lets start looking at ways we can study the whole thing, instead of reducing things. And this came right at a moment when personal computers were coming into their own.
https://www.reddit.com/r/cormacmccarthy/comments/t5shni/what_does_the_santa_fe_institute_actually/
Note --- 180 associates Holism with New Age woo
*3. Quantum mysticism
Quantum mysticism, sometimes referred pejoratively to as quantum quackery or quantum woo,[1] is a set of metaphysical beliefs and associated practices that seek to relate consciousness, intelligence, spirituality, or mystical worldviews to the ideas of quantum mechanics and its interpretations.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_mysticism
Quoting 180 Proof
https://www.skeptic.com/insight/the-fifth-horseman-the-insights-of-victor-stenger-1935-2014/ ¹
Which is fine. Philosophy which refers to itself as something to look into and test is sound philosophy. We always need people poking and prodding at what we know to ensure that we really know it. You may be interested in a paper I wrote a while back about knowledge. There's a summary from a poster immediately after mine that nails it if you want to take a look. https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/14044/knowledge-and-induction-within-your-self-context/p1
The first sentence of the abstract has a distinctly Cartesian ring. But I think hes obliged to keep re-affirming the physicality aspect on pain of alienating the scientific community. (I watched part of a dialogue between him and Kastrup recently.)
I googled and got this:
[Url=https://www.wired.com/2013/11/christof-koch-panpsychism-consciousness]A Neuroscientist's Radical Theory of How Networks Become Conscious[/url]
Surprised to see him "proposing panpsychism" in 2013.
The conception of panpsychism I can get on board with is not the Galen Strawson or Philip Goff model of consciousness as an attribute of matter. Its more the idea that its latent and then becomes manifest when the conditions are suitable. What was latent becomes patent.
Partial to the attribute of matter idea, myself. But can you explain the "latent beefiness patent" thinking?
'Beefiness' :roll: ?
That quote 'what is latent becomes patent' was from lectures I attended in Indian Philosophy by a distinguished scholar. It was in the context of explaining the Advaita doctrine of manifestation or emanation, by which Brahman manifests as the sensible world. I had previously encountered that idea in the teachings of Swami Vivekananda, who you may know became the original emissary of Vedanta to American society, when he spoke at the World Parliament of Religions in 1888:
Quoting Swami Vivekananda
I read that much earlier in life, and I don't know if it now withstands critical scrutiny, but it makes intuitive sense.
Anyway, thanks.
"All new things come from prophecy." Not exactly the same idea but similar.