Anyone familiar with Joscha Bach's computational theory? I need urgent help!
From what I understand, his computational functionalism claims that the primordial reality is matter. Then the brain, through its various functions, creates a story for this reality it is in, a simulation of reality. That simulation is consciousness or it represents consciousness itself (I didn't understand exactly).
Other statements that Bach often makes:
"We don't exist in the physical world. We exist in the story that the brain tells itself."
"Consciousness is fundamental to the simulation, not to reality."
I'm confused, so my questions are:
1. Did I understand Bach's theory correctly? If not, what did I miss?
2. Is this simulation matter or is it a different substance created from matter?
Thank you!
Other statements that Bach often makes:
"We don't exist in the physical world. We exist in the story that the brain tells itself."
"Consciousness is fundamental to the simulation, not to reality."
I'm confused, so my questions are:
1. Did I understand Bach's theory correctly? If not, what did I miss?
2. Is this simulation matter or is it a different substance created from matter?
Thank you!
Comments (11)
Sorry, can't help. But the subject seems interesting, so I'll pay attention.
Hello, friend ! I've watched those interviews with pleasure. In my opinion, you understand the gist. Bach is great, but I do not think he has quite slain the ancient metaphysical dragon. The brain that supposedly tells the story, presumably really existing as matter, must itself be part of that story. So the brain is the product of the brain and the sense organs are the products of the sense organs? The story falls apart. I still think Bach is a genius. Metaphysics is just hard. A less metaphysical and more frankly fuzzy version seems feasible though.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tyrPMVMb-Uw
Quoting green flag
So would you be able to avoid emergence (weak or strong) with your fuzzy version?
I don't see how to avoid some kind of emergence in a plausible story.
Have you seen Stuart Kauffman ? Does complexity tend to beget complexity ? Is emergence even to be expected ?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GVL2Y5z2jLU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EWo7-azGHic&t=2737s
So his metaphysics does not avoid emergence, thus avoiding weak and strong emergence problems, he assumes emergence happens (weak or strong, I still don't understand Joscha's position), and after that, he comes up with a narrative about what happens after emergence, i.e. brain creates a simulation. Is that right?
You are welcome.
I don't know if Bach discusses emergence explicitly. On a philosophical level, he seems to be doing something similar to Kant or Hegel, though informed by contemporary science. The way I can make sense of Bach (a more feasible version in my opinion) is to stress that experience is the self's and not just the brain's interpretation rather than creation of reality. In this view, we all interpret the same reality more or less differently, with some of us explicitly working together toward a less foolish interpretation than yesterday's best guess. Bach might use 'matter' to represent some theoretical 'thing-in-itself' stuff that tends not to work very well upon discussion. I stressed not-just-the-brain because the accumulation of insight requires the externalization of experience (ink on paper in libraries, for instance, but even an oral tradition, leaping from mortal body to mortal body, will suffice). This sedimented/historical 'cultural' or 'spiritual' layer of the human being seems to me as important as the hardware, and I think Bach would agree.
As I understood Bach, consciousness is nonmaterial...a 'dream' created by the brain (or somehow thrown up by a non-dream deeper-than-dream stuff-in-common called 'matter.')
I think that's what someone might mean by it. But I don't think dualism stands up very well to criticism.
My own concern is along these lines:
The hard problem of consciousness 'should' be the hard problems [plural] of consciousnesses [plural].
The confusion is right there in the framing, assuming a contradiction...that something is fundamentally private and yet certainly iterated. The successful public use of signs is not the result of such internal synchronization but throws up the logical illusion in the first place (a certain informal proto-dualism is ethically convenient, because 'intentions' matter, presumably as tendencies.)