The 'hard problem of consciousness'.
What we perceive, feel, and think is experienced from a unique internal perspective. According to the ‘hard problem of consciousness' some of these mental states are separate to and not reducible to physical systems in the human body.
This includes the inner aspect of thought and perception. The way things feel when we experience visual sensations, music, happiness or the mediative quality of a moment lost in thought. That seemingly undiscernible thing within ourselves that coalesces into a unique individual.
This is opposed to the ‘easy problem of consciousness’ where objective mechanisms of the cognitive system are reducible to physical processes. These include discriminating sensory stimuli, reacting to stimuli, speech, intellectual thought and integrating information to control behaviour.
For me it seems intuitive that the ‘easy stuff’ would be harder to explain than the ‘hard stuff’ that we all have a direct and personal relationship. But that’s me.
As far as the complex processes of the body that spark a consciousness go, I suspect that activated matrices of neurons and electromagnetic (EM) fields play a part in activating dispersed areas of the brain to form coherent qualitative conscious responses.
This would somewhat explain our preoccupation with consciousness being an ethereal non-physical thing, as EM fields are essentially invisible to human perception. It would also seem to explain the relative transience of consciousness that can sleep, be unconscious and ‘zone out’ without any great force being exerted upon it.
I think it is also interesting that consciousness combines two perspectives of ourselves; our inner view and external view. By combining these two perspectives we are able to identify our capabilities and competencies and the direction of how best to use these in order to meet the demands of our environment and gain a competitive advantage.
I believe that the concurrent experience of these two perspectives is what we experience as consciousness. Our internal quasi-perceptual awareness combined with what we are able to perceive directly.
As an example, you may feel the apprehension that someone has broken into your house on the basis of actually perceiving a broken window and an empty space where the TV used to be.
Another observation I will make is that newborn infants display features characteristic of what may be referred to as ‘basic consciousness’ but they still have to mature to reach the level of adult consciousness. This would seem to draw a correlation between physical growth and consciousness.
So, there would seem to be an evolutionary advantage in having both ‘hard’ and ‘easy’ consciousness, a correlation to physical development and an imperceivable reducible process that might explain how it manifests.
This includes the inner aspect of thought and perception. The way things feel when we experience visual sensations, music, happiness or the mediative quality of a moment lost in thought. That seemingly undiscernible thing within ourselves that coalesces into a unique individual.
This is opposed to the ‘easy problem of consciousness’ where objective mechanisms of the cognitive system are reducible to physical processes. These include discriminating sensory stimuli, reacting to stimuli, speech, intellectual thought and integrating information to control behaviour.
For me it seems intuitive that the ‘easy stuff’ would be harder to explain than the ‘hard stuff’ that we all have a direct and personal relationship. But that’s me.
As far as the complex processes of the body that spark a consciousness go, I suspect that activated matrices of neurons and electromagnetic (EM) fields play a part in activating dispersed areas of the brain to form coherent qualitative conscious responses.
This would somewhat explain our preoccupation with consciousness being an ethereal non-physical thing, as EM fields are essentially invisible to human perception. It would also seem to explain the relative transience of consciousness that can sleep, be unconscious and ‘zone out’ without any great force being exerted upon it.
I think it is also interesting that consciousness combines two perspectives of ourselves; our inner view and external view. By combining these two perspectives we are able to identify our capabilities and competencies and the direction of how best to use these in order to meet the demands of our environment and gain a competitive advantage.
I believe that the concurrent experience of these two perspectives is what we experience as consciousness. Our internal quasi-perceptual awareness combined with what we are able to perceive directly.
As an example, you may feel the apprehension that someone has broken into your house on the basis of actually perceiving a broken window and an empty space where the TV used to be.
Another observation I will make is that newborn infants display features characteristic of what may be referred to as ‘basic consciousness’ but they still have to mature to reach the level of adult consciousness. This would seem to draw a correlation between physical growth and consciousness.
So, there would seem to be an evolutionary advantage in having both ‘hard’ and ‘easy’ consciousness, a correlation to physical development and an imperceivable reducible process that might explain how it manifests.
Comments (69)
The easy problem of consciousness attempts to explain how the brain works as a complex mechanism by observing causes and effects, such as the activation of neurons or the presence of an EM field. It's called 'easy' because we already have scientific methods for measuring and explaining such processes. For example, we can track how light travels through the eyeballs, how it gets converted to electric signals, and how those signals travels through different regions of the brain.
Given enough time, we can build a comprehensive understanding of all processes that are carried out in the brain. But even if we have such an understanding, it's still unclear why these processes cannot be carried out in complete absence of an experience. I.e. how does individual experience manifest itself? We know that we experience our existence as human beings, but does a river experience its? Does a computer experience existence while it performs millions of complex computations? It doesn't seem like, but how could we know for sure? The hard problem is hard because the scientific method doesn't have good ways to approach this problem just yet.
MRI (magnetic resonance imagining) has given us major breakthroughs in this regard. We can extract all kinds of mental information with brain-reading already - from imagined visuals and sound, to the patterns and objects of our thought, our current focus and intention and even our emotional state. Everything that the hard problem of consciousness claims, that mental activity can not be reduced to physicality, has essentially be disproven.
According to whom? I just watched a quick interview with David Chalmers where he very clearly articulated that scientific methods (such as MRI) will definitely help us understand the activity of the brain. He called this the easy problem of consciousness because he did expect breakthroughs in this area. He even clarified that 'easy' should not be taken literally. The easy problem of consciousness is as hard as the hardest scientific problems that we're dealing with.
The MRI breakthrough only supports his distinction between the 'easy' and the 'hard' problems. It takes us closer to solving the 'easy' problem (what do activities in the brain look like?), but doesn't move the needle on the 'hard' problem (what is it like to be something?).
Perhaps your opinion is that we only need to solve the 'easy' problem of consciousness, and that we don't need to take the 'hard' problem seriously. I don't mind that. It sounds pragmatic.
can you give me an example of how any perception/feeling/thought could be reduced to a particular physical system?
Not quite. In my opinion, the hard problem of consciousness simply doesn't exist.
Chalmer does not present any reasonable arguments to the existence of such a hard problem. His entire theory appears to me based on a gut feeling. His main concern seems well summed up in this quote:
Do note, at no point ever does Chalmer elaborate in which way and why this would be "unreasonable" and how it is "objectively" so. Quite the contrary I believe this to be a deeply subjective insight. "I can not wrap my head around the idea that I, this sentient human being, became sentient from something that isn't sentient."
And once you simply refuse to accept this as a possibility, as Chalmer does, suddenly everything becomes an "easy problem" because no answer will ever suffice to a problem that doesn't exist.
Another quote from Chalmer:
Here in bold, we have the big conceptual mistake. Chalmer thinks these functions are accompanied by experience. The "easy problems" that Chalmer refutes essentially claim something different: These functions are experience in itself.
We can see this most readily in microorganisms. They possess no brain, no cognitive abilities, no central nervous system - and yet most of them are capable of receiving sensory stimuli in some forms and accordingly react to their environment. These are simple chemical and electrical mechanisms - but these simple mechanisms are enough to make a microorganism come to "life", starting to act and react in all kinds of ways - sustaining itself, avoiding threats, reproducing.
Now we jump a couple billion years in the future and realize we consist of trillions of these cells, some more sophisticated than others, working together to sustain the entire cluster of cells. In this regard, it's no surprise that Chalmer can't wrap his head around this process. Who of us can? It's been developing and refining itself for billions and billions of years, unparalleled in complexity.
This doesn't explain why I don't see the experience itself when looking at your brain. Instead I can only have the experience itself of looking at your brain. Your brain is not my experience of it (I hope, or else solipsism is the case and your brain doesn't exist when I don't think about it), nor is my brain my experience. My experience is a point of view.
How do non-colored neurons create the experience of color? How do neurons create the experience of visual depth?
Yes--at least as a philosophical problem.
I think this kind of pursuit has its basis in an obstinate rejection of the fact that all we are, and do, and think, takes place in the universe; i.e., that we're just another kind of organism, although a remarkable one from our perspective. The belief--the hope?--that we're more than that, and that there's something literally supernatural about us is hard for us to tolerate. I suspect dualism is the cause of this as it is of so much other speculation.
It may be that we'll discover much more about consciousness, but it's very unlikely philosophy will be the means of discovery.
What happens when we look?
Electromagnetic radiation (light) meets our photoreceptor cells within the eye, translating what are physical properties of this radiation (wavelength) into an electrical signal. This part is well understood because it is such a common occurance on the cellular level - you could consider it one of the most basic reactions that happens in organisms.
The electrical signal then moves on and is processed in the brain. This is where we have all of the complexity that leaves us so incredibly baffled - but as even Chalmer admits, these are merely "soft problems" which we may figure out as we broaden our knowledge of how these things work.
However, even if we don't know how the process works exactly, we now know fairly well what these singular experiences we experience are. They are electrical patterns in the brain and if you want to experience my experiences, it doesn't suffice to look, you have to have the exact same electrical pattern in your brain to experience the same thing I experience.
And that's where we have our evidence speaking for this argument and against "the hard problem of consciousness". Science has repeatedly demonstrated that experiences are reproducable through these electrical patterns. This is a major emerging field in tech and neurology.
Here is Michio Kaku, one of the most renown scientists in the world on the topic:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjcgT_oj3jQ
This video shows a reconstruction of the visual experience from brain patterns:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nsjDnYxJ0bo
Science article about mind-reading algorithm:
https://www.science.org/content/article/mind-reading-algorithm-can-decode-pictures-your-head
Mandatory wikipedia article:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brain-reading
In this experiment neuroscientists fitted photosensitive proteins to neurons in mice, so they could fire the neurons with light and produce false sensations in the mice:
https://news.berkeley.edu/2018/04/30/editing-brain-activity-with-holography/
And the last source I'll present to you is, what ironically comes from Chalmers University of Technology, a feeling prothesis:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ldCRjfTcQXA
I do not believe this is the hard problem. We know that all experiences of ourselves reduce to the brain. That's really not in question. The hard problem is understanding exactly what a person feels when a certain brain state triggers.
For example, I'm imagining a field of grass. We can see the brain states that trigger. But we can't see the image of me imagining the field of grass. I can tell you what I feel. I can tell you what I image. But there's no objective way to measure this, it is purely from my subjective communication. We can't say, "Brain state X for certain causes every person to objectively imagine a field of grass. We know there IS a brain state that is doing it. We know its a physical response. But because we don't have the "image" ourselves in front of us, we can't really objectively test or reproduce it. We have to rely on your personal communication, which might be wrong, biased, or not descriptive enough.
To help think this through further, imagine the color green. How do I know that the thing you call green is the same image in my head? Its basically that sort of problem. We need some objective measurement, like "light wavelength" to determine what "green" really is between you and I both. Until we discover some outside way of measuring thoughts besides personal subjective experience, we cannot duplicate the issue.
But it is not, at all, ever, a denial that our brain is what makes us think.
Thank you, that’s a well-articulated answer. I think it’s a valid standpoint, and it’s quite realistic that the problem will just fade away over time similar to other questions that were asked in the past, such as “How to obtain the philosopher’s store?”, “Why did God create us?”, “How to tell a witch from not a witch?”
In fact I think mental illness in general is a good example of how the quasi-perceptual cognitive process, including the hard problems of consciousness, can manifest itself. People suffering from these disorders can experience drastic changes in their subjective qualitative experience of themselves including the way they feel and experience visual and auditory sensations. These mental states can be transient or long lasting and are most definitely reducible to physical systems in the human body.
This is a very good question!
Just how elusive consciousness is unfolds in the debate of consciousness in animals. Our only own evidence for consciousness really is our self-experience, plus the accounts of others, communicated by means of a common language.
Many animals show obvious signs of consciousness and the physical process behind these signs is evidently much the same as in humans. But unfortunately they can not confirm their own consciousness to us themselves and so we are left in the dark.
I'm afraid to precisely determine what and what isn't conscious, we'd have to precisely know what consciousness is. But as even the topic of what the defining characteristics of consciousness are has no universally accepted answers, we'll have to be satisfied with not knowing for certain if anything other than humans is conscious.
According to my description of consciousness: "I believe that the concurrent experience of these two perspectives (inner/external) is what we experience as consciousness. Our internal quasi-perceptual awareness combined with what we are able to perceive directly" I guess that any thing that can do this is conscious.
Quoting Brock Harding
So, here you're claiming that the motivations for even considering the hard problem of consciousness, are in reality physical! What this amounts to is saying that the hard problem really is just another of the easy problems, and that's if it's difficult, it's only because electromagnetic fields are mysterious. But again you're not describing what the 'hard problem' is.
The key section from Chalmer's paper is, in my opinion, this one:
[quote=David Chalmers]The really hard problem of consciousness is the problem of experience. When we think and perceive, there is a whir of information-processing, but there is also a subjective aspect. As Nagel (What is it Like to be a Bat,1974) has put it, there is something it is like to be a conscious organism. This subjective aspect is experience. When we see, for example, we experience visual sensations: the felt quality of redness, the experience of dark and light, the quality of depth in a visual field. Other experiences go along with perception in different modalities: the sound of a clarinet, the smell of mothballs. Then there are bodily sensations, from pains to orgasms; mental images that are conjured up internally; the felt quality of emotion, and the experience of a stream of conscious thought. What unites all of these states is that there is something it is like to be in them. All of them are states of experience.
It is undeniable that some organisms are subjects of experience. But the question of how it is that these systems are subjects of experience is perplexing.[/quote]
In my analysis, the reason that this is intractable for objective analysis, is because it is a matter of subjective experience. That persons, and probably other animals, are subjects of experience, is what is at issue. But you can never get outside of, or 'objectify', the 'experience of being' that comprises the core of that state, because it is your very being. Because that can't be objectified, then it can't be dealt with by naturalism. That's what makes it a hard problem. So, at least try and describe it properly if you're wanting to explain it away.
Therein lies the rub. Not only do we not have a precise definition, we have no scientific definition. We have to go by folk definitions. Science is also unable to tell us if a 6-month old fetus is conscious, or if the latest Boston Dynamics robot is conscious (or even Stockfish). I don't see science answering these questions anytime soon, so I think the continued failure of science to say whether machine x is conscious or not is catastrophic to the question of whether science will ultimately explain how unconscious matter can produce conscious states.
That sounds very panpsychist.
In the aftermath of Descartes' division nature into mind and matter, idealists of all stripes gravitated towards the mental, and scientists and engineers towards the physical, for fairly obvious reasons. Descartes' model was interpreted as a literal hypothesis. By interpreting the 'res cogitans' as a sort-of object - literally that expression means 'a thinking thing' - then all of the problems arise as to how a mysterious 'thinking thing' could affect a concrete 'material thing' - the latter being something we can all see and measure. So ultimately res cogitans was dismissed as a ghost in the machine, while the machine was retained, because, after all, it is the 'age of the machine'.
What was missed in all of that is that mind (consciousness, being) is never an object of consciousness, because we're never outside of or apart from it. It is always only the subject of experience, but you can't 'objectify' it, for reasons which ought to be obvious on reflection. But that also means that it can't be accomodated by the 'objective sciences', due to their constitution being oriented exclusively around what is objectively the case (which is why the eliminative materialists wish to eliminate it, as there is literally no conceptual space on their map for it).
That is the background to many of those questions about how 'matter' can produce 'conscious states'. In those expressions, both 'matter' and 'conscious state' are abstractions, theoretical models which inherit all of these intractable problems - intractable, because of the way the model is set up. But that model dictates how sensible, scientific folk are supposed to think about the world. That is the deep contradiction inherent in the secular-scientific mindset. (For further refs read some of the essays on my profile page, particularly The Blind Spot.)
:up:
"Why is the performance of these functions accompanied by conscious experience?"
Another prior question is...what [s]do[/s] can we mean by 'conscious experience' ? Looking at the use of the word, it seems we always depend on 'material' or 'objective' criteria for ascribing 'consciousness.' All we can reason from must be more or less uncontroversially public. (This is not new. Consider key passages from Philosophical Investigations.)
In short, the 'hard problem' is 'defined' (paradoxically) into a kind of pseudo-existence. It's a mirage.
Is that posed rhetorically? Like, 'we can't mean anything by the phrase "conscious experience".' Because I think 'conscious experience' has a perfectly intelligible meaning - it's the quality of experience that we have in each waking moment of our lives.
The hard problem essay argues that this is a perfectly obvious fact about the nature of existence, but that it can't be fully described or explained from a third-person perspective.
So it is true that there really isn't a hard problem, as such, and that there's only a hard problem for the objective sciences. But from that perspective, it really is a hard problem, which is why Chalmer's opponents are obliged to deny that it is real.
Which means that, broadly speaking, they too are subject of experience, even if exceedingly primitive ones. And again, this means that there is something about them that eludes objective specification, because their experience is unique to them.
Chalmers mentions Nagel's essay, and Nagel enlarges on this point in his 2012 Mind and Cosmos. In the short version of it presented in the NY Times, he says:
[quote=Thomas Nagel, the Core of Mind and Cosmos;https://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/08/18/the-core-of-mind-and-cosmos/] The physical sciences as they have developed since [the 17th c] 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.[/quote]
Well put! What if we give matter a mental load, like is done by materialists without even knowing it: the description of the interaction of two particles by means of a charge they possess. What if this charge, be it electrical or colored, is in fact the core base of consciousness? In the food we eat are loads of it, which means that somehow this dead stuff becomes transformed into living mind, leading to the logical conclusion that mind is ssociated with that what's inside. Charge.
If qualia are understood to be "intuited, given, and...not the subject of any possible error because...purely subjective" (as defined by C. S. Peirce), then any answer for us (any evidence-and-reason-supported rational answer) is impossible from the beginning.
The idea seems to be that science 'can't get at' or can't explain some mysterious stuff that we all have in common. What's missed is that our words for this 'conscious experience' can only get their public significance through our worldly interactions, through the kinds of stuff that science can and does get at.
'By definition' , only the 'experiencer' could describe their 'subjective' experiences.' It's just not physical scientists who have no means to chase such a ghost. It's every kind of serious, critical inquiry.
To be sure, anyone can make a public statement about their 'pain' or 'undying love,' and these tokens can be recorded and counted and correlated with other tokens and heart rates and shoe sizes.
The odd thing is asserting there's something 'logically' hidden (so no yet-to-be-invented machine will find it either) and yet insisting that the existence of such an entity is beyond question. (If philosophers do question it, they are monsters who can't be serious.)
If you - or anybody else - as an occurring first-person point of view want to question the reality of your own occurrence as a first-person point of view, I say knock yourself out.
It's when the conclusion is made by an occurring first-person point of view that their own occurrence as a first-person point of view is a falsity (an illusion or whatnot: basically, not real) that the "cannot be taken seriously" issue comes into play.
And where was it ever claimed that a first-person point of view (of which consciousness cannot be devoid) is "an entity"? Last I heard, it's addressed as a "be-ing": a verb, if not an outright process.
But we are talking about it right now. The concept is familiar and 'objectified.'
If we were truly 'never outside of or apart from it,' we'd have no word for it and no need for a word for it.
Quoting Wayfarer
'Objective sciences' sounds redundant to me. "Expressing or dealing with facts or conditions as perceived without distortion by personal feelings, prejudices, or interpretations." I can't speak for all critics of the qualia concept, but I suspect most of us know (in the usual problematic way) what the 'mysterions' are trying to say. We say it's a bug, not a feature. The hard problem is a hard problem for those want to give 'conscious experience' a metaphysical as opposed to an everyday-and-impure-and-unobjectionable meaning.
What machines miss and organisms possess is a straight connection to the big bang. Machines have a connection to human hands only, even if these hands have a connection to the big bang. What is hidden is physical charge. It exists, but it's hidden.
Facts are an interpretation.
Respectfully, from my POV, you 'mysterions' (I dub thee such playfully) are trapped in the grammar of a word.
Just because some philosopher invented (the strange idea of) an entity-process-mystery that you or I personally (but always only personally) can't be wrong about, doesn't mean that such a thing actually exists or makes sense, however habitual it's become since then.
To be sure, 'we' know what you are talking about. But it's a screwed-up paradoxical concept.
You sound as though to say that words can't, or at least don't, refer to real givens.
Consciousness is a word, yes. So is Earth, no?
On what experiential or rational ground do you grant the first word no referent when, I presume, you do the second?
Is that a fact? I suppose Nietzsche meant that our nervous systems are liars from the beginning, making unequal things equal, so that the raw material for thinking is already hyper-processed. I agree.
But in this context the point is whether one can be rational or scientific about this ghost of private conscious experience.
And, hey, Nietzsche still used the word 'facts.'
[quote=Nietzsche]
perhaps the time is at hand when it will be comprehended again...what actually was sufficient to furnish the cornerstone for such sublime and unconditional philosophers' edifices as the dogmatists have built so far—any old popular superstition from time immemorial (like the soul superstition which, in the form of the subject and ego superstition, has not even yet ceased to do mischief), some play on words perhaps, a seduction by grammar, or an audacious generalization of very narrow, very personal, very human, all too human facts.
[/quote]
As I said above, 'consciousness' has a family of meanings that are valid in ordinary life. If we thought the dead and buried were 'conscious,' we'd dig them up and offer them a better view. If we thought someone 'consciously' let a disaster happen when they could have easily prevented it, we'd treat them differently thereafter. The point is that any legitimate meaning of 'consciousness' is already so entangled in the world that the hard problem vanishes. It's only a hyper-rarefied paradoxical and parasitic notion of consciousness that helps the hard problem sound like a problem with science as opposed to its (the problem's) mischievous inventors.
I can't do much either way with that phrase out of all context. Note that I mentioned giving the dead a better 'view' in my post above. Am I implying they have 'qualia'? Our language is so riddled with perceptions and intentions that we are simply haunted with obscure entities for which familiar entities serve as signs. This makes sense, because we are obsessed (evolved to be obsessed) with predicting others and holding them accountable. So we constantly talk 'through' what is manifest and measurable 'toward' a realm of souls with 'qualia' and 'free will' and ...
I suggest that this vocabulary of the hidden 'spiritual' layer depends (for its institution and continuing intelligibility) utterly on the banal, practical layer where science can take its measurements.
One can. Every form of matter contains a pattern of charge, electric or color. It's this charge that lays at the base of consciousness.
'First person point of view' is potentially just as innocent as 'conscious experience,' such as a novel being written in the first person point of view.
Perhaps the subject is dull. It's been a long time since I was myself a mysterion, trying to build a world out of qualia.
Still, the hard problem is hyped as a profundity, and it seems to serve mostly as propaganda for irrationalism.
I see. Can you link me to some research? Some peer review? Or is this just a hunch?
It's a fact. If matter didn't contain charge, consciousness would not exist.
Oh. For that matter, evolution on this planet could have taken a different turn, so that no complicated nervous systems developed. Lots of things could be otherwise and plausibly make what we ever-so-vaguely call 'consciousness' impossible.
Matter can't evolve at all without electric or color charge. It would be a massless existence without interaction.
I imagine you imaging this world somehow transformed so that ceteris paribus (somehow) there is no more electric charge. So then brains as we know them don't work, etc. Fair enough.
But those who defend a radically immaterial 'private' I-know-not-what could suggest that charge-less mass could indeed be Conscious. The more the mysterions require an organic brain for and exclude calculators from 'conscious experience,' the more they demonstrate the parasitism of the sacred concept on our mental-and-physical-entangled ordinary life. In other words, saying that an organic brain is necessary for consciousness already 'defeats' or transgresses the hard problem and starts to explain-constrain-articulate consciousness, in terms of stuff we can all see. The true or consistent hardproblemer is or should be worried about stepping on cobblestones.
If they think that in a massless and chargeless matter world the conscious can exist... It would be an empty conscious(ness). Do they see the conscious as separate from matter? I mean, is it tied to it or can it escape, like the soul leaving the body when dead?
1. If consciousness is purely subjective, the word "consciousness" becomes meaningless as a referent (re Wittgenstein's private language argument)
Yet
2. We talk of consciousness as if there's a referent for the word "consciousness" and we know what that is, objectively speaking.
Perhaps what we mean by "consciousness" is actually physical correlates (walking, talking, etc.) - a set of such outward signs defining what consciousness is. In that case, p-zombies are impossible; anything that behaves the way I do (assuming I'm conscious) is conscious, and nonphysicalists are in trouble. Language is social (vide Wittgenstein). Turing?
Mysterians, with an A, aren't irrational. On the contrary, we're the only ones facing the fact that total global perspective is simply impossible. Here on Flat Earth everything seems steady. We seem solid. From a grander perspective, nothing is this tangible.
It isn't even a wooey problem if the brain does create consciousness, as that's still no explanation of what consciousness actually is. Which brings us full circle to Chalmers.
Neither are we fully aware of the parameters of the reality in which it exists; nor, most likely, will we ever be.
As a Mysterian, I can accept that the brain has a big correlate to consciousness, but not that it's comprehensive. Even if it "creates consciousness," that doesn't automatically entail any particular philosophy, if you accept the big picture.
We have to learn to embrace the mysterious and work backwards from there, elucidating with honesty that which is uncontrovertible fact from that which doubt (even the smallest inkling) can be cast upon. And that's most things.
If we're to be honest. Which I'm sure we're not.
But the fact is that experience precedes language, and experience is consciousness, and no matter how deep we dig, we remain on the surface. Bodies are not inside brains; people are not inside brains. Though the brain has a strong correlate in examining what we animals do and are like.
We're still "out here" though, not inside our heads. And really, if the brain NEEDS oxygen, then even trees produce our consciousness. And, of course, the rest of our vital organs, which do not exist "inside the brain." The true nature of consciousness is surface level. We're whole bodies, whole people, interacting with a completely mysterious environment.
I ain't seen no answers yet! Where are we?
Not really, what I am actually saying in my discussion post is that any organism that can construct a concurrent internal and external viewpoint is able to identify capabilities and the direction of how best to use these in order to meet the demands of their environment and gain a competitive advantage. I also say that this likely creates an evolutionary priority effect.
Any organism that can construct a concurrent internal and external viewpoint is able to identify capabilities and the direction of how best to use these in order to meet the demands of their environment and gain a competitive advantage. This likely creates an evolutionary priority effect.
Having both an inner and outer appreciation of self and environment is essentially sentience.
Internal and External Environments
If there is anything that is steadfast and unchanging, it is change itself. Change is inevitable, and organisms that don't accept change and make adjustments to their behaviour to keep up with changes are doomed to fail. There are events or situations that occur that affect an organism in a positive or negative way. These events or situations can have either a positive or a negative impact on an organism and are called environmental factors.
There are two types of environmental factors: internal environmental factors and external environmental factors. Internal environmental factors are events that occur within an organism. Generally speaking, internal environmental factors are easier to control than external environmental factors. Some examples of internal environmental factors are:
• Shift in priorities
• Morale
• Evolutionary priority effects
• Other issues
External environmental factors are events that take place outside of the organism and are harder to predict and control. External environmental factors can be more dangerous for an organism given the fact they are unpredictable, hard to prepare for, and often bewildering. Some examples of external environmental factors are:
• Changes to economy (quid pro quo)
• Threats from competition
• Social factors
• Accepted normalities
• The organism’s species itself
Consciousness allows a strength, weakness, opportunity and threat analysis to take place that looks at internal and external factors that can affect an organism. Internal factors are your strengths and weaknesses. External factors are the threats and opportunities.
This is not a linear but a dynamic process.
Relative on human time line, the current level of scientific sophistication has been around for a second and has already produced compelling evidence and insights. Philosophy and religion on the other hand, have been revolving around this very topic for some time now - but to this day we're circling around the topic with no definitive answers.
The main issue shared between both science and philosophy is that objectively, we can not get past our subjectivity. We can't put our finger exactly on our subjectivity either though. The sciences are meticulous in trying to circumvent this by collecting quantifiable data. Sometimes successful, sometimes not. Ultimately, I don't think there's a way around employing smoke and mirror to see past the self. Philosophy in common dialogue form is not unlike this at all - but ultimately philosophy relies on personal insights rather than reproducable measurements.
Quoting Thomas Nagel, the Core of Mind and Cosmos
Indeed, there can not be a physical description of consciousness itself because it's not a thing with physical properties. But it can be described from the perspective of function. Now here we do have physical processes that can be described with physical properties.
But ultimately I think the reason that the "subjective essence of experience" can not be captured by descriptions is the same why you can't see my thoughts directly in the brain as I've elaborated to Harry Hindu - consciousness consists of experience and in order to know consciousness, you must experience it.
The argument then goes if we do learn everything that is to be physically known about mind, body and process, we can take these electrical and chemical signals, emulate them and have a second person experience the exact same thing as we. This goes beyond simple impression of senses as all the function of cognition takes place here. So not just can we tell the individual that he is looking at grass when he's not - we can artificially trigger all kinds of association, from the smell of grass to nostalgic childhood feelings of things that never happened - in the end re-constructing exactly what it's like to be someone else.
Would such reproduction, in the eyes of the advocates of a hard problem of consciousness, suffice to disprove this very problem? Or would there be any concerns left?
That is the task of functionalism. That is covered by what Chalmers describes as the easy problem.
Quoting Hermeticus
Correct!
Quoting Hermeticus
We manifestly do not have the ability to replicate living beings, so it's idle speculation.
Quoting Hermeticus
So can propositional statements be described in terms of physical processes?
There are the equations that govern electromagnetic interactions, which are well-understood as far as the behaviour of laboratory objects is concerned.
But the rules governing propositional statements are those of grammar and syntax, and they appear to operate quite independently of physical laws.
[quote=Howard Pattee, Physics and Metaphysics of Biosemiosis; https://www.academia.edu/234713/The_Physics_and_Metaphysics_of_Biosemiotics]All signs, symbols, and codes, all languages including formal mathematics are embodied as material physical structures and therefore must obey all the inexorable laws of physics. At the same time, the symbol vehicles like the bases in DNA, voltages representing bits in a computer, the text on this page, and the neuron firings in the brain do not appear to be limited by, or clearly related to, [those] very laws.... Even the mathematical symbols that express these inexorable physical laws seem to be entirely free of these same laws[/quote]
So I think by claiming a 'correspondence' between propositional knowledge and neural functions, there's a conflation of two different kinds of explanation, the physical with the symbolic, as if the latter can be reduced to the former, when they're of a different order. And in order to even begin to explain and understand physical order, one must first have recourse to logic and rational inference, so in that sense logic has epistemic priority over physics as such.
You’ve managed to spur my interests.
And how is a fictional first-person point of view an [s]innocent[/s] ignorant assemblage of words? That we can all understand what a novel, fiction, written in the first-person point of view entails directly contradicts your affirmation.
Besides, I was addressing an "occurring (i.e., actually happening) first person point of view". You were saying this assemblage of words has an unclear referent. Again, how?
How can consciousness combine two perspectives if it's contained in one of them? If the inner view sees consciousness isn't the view combining the inner and outer view (on the physical world) not needed anymore?
The interaction and map of the outer world into the inner world might help understand why we see things outside the body while the map on/into the target (the brain, the domain being the outer aspects of the physical world) and the perception is created there (in the brain). Is gaining competitive advantage demanding?
Quoting Wayfarer
Physics as such doesn't exist. It is an inseparable part of the mind, and logic and inference are just a minor part.
Consciousness is not one of the two perspectives. The two perspectives are fundamental to consciousness and the emergence of evolved sentience. Can you honestly not identify an internal and eternal view in yourself?
It is in my view. Only the internal world of the brain creates the consciousness we experience. Of course there is interaction with the physical world. But it's the internal world that brings it alive.
I think you misunderstand me. I said that the first-person-POV makes solid sense in a literary context. 'Innocent' is synonymous with acceptable in what I wrote above.
The main idea is that the questionable metaphysical extension (rarefied to absurdity) is parasitic upon the typical worldly use and context in which the hard problem vanishes. In fact, we make judgements about 'conscious experience' using the 'physical' all the time. Any meaning that 'conscious experience' can have for us depends precisely on the stuff that science can handle.
I said that it's a matter of context. But (necessarily roughly speaking) I can say 'from my point of view' or 'from your point of view' unproblematically. My point is more critical than constructive. It's 'thrusting against language' and ultimately absurd to talk about some X that is radically private in principle (grammatically).
A really radical dualism (or something like it) has (as I see it) nothing at all to say about the relationship between qualia and its substrate.
Think of it this way. No data is even possible, or not as long as a radical gulf is supposed to exist between I and thou (my private theatre and yours.) I might be a zombie. Your toilet might be a genius. External signs of consciousness are not signs at all, from this extreme POV, for there is and never has been any data.
In fact, of course, we attribute 'consciousness' to animals with sufficiently complex nervous systems, which suggests that the word gets its meaning not from some mysterious hidden stuff but according to publicly criteria, like number of neurons, successful learning, etc.
Well, in that case, never mind. I can only then presume you in fact agree that such a thing as fist-person points of view occur in the world, hence actually happen, this rather than being illusions. And that it’s absurd to conclude otherwise. This in contrast to some of us assuming that they occur due to being "trapped in the grammar of a word".
From my POV, respectfully, you have not demonstrated an understanding of my point. That may be my fault, for not finding the right words. My point is not about consciousness denial at all, but only about the phoniness of the hard problem. This point does involve a denial of the utility or intelligibility of a certain metaphysical use of 'consciousness' or 'qualia.' In short, I think folks often don't know that they don't know what they're talking about.
Then why oh why reply to me this way: I.e., What was it in my initial post to you that you disagree with?
But I guess like I previously said, never mind.
I'm not sure if I qualify as radical but I'm a dualist too. I think you agree that matter contains electric charge and color charge. What if these are the base of consciousness, which means that the problem is solved, or in any case reduced.
How can you be sure that charge is necessary for qualia? What data have you collected, even anecdotally, to show a relationship between brains and qualia ? I do not dispute the well known relationship between brains and reports of qualia.
How do you know the nearest toilet doesn't have a soul ?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_language_argument
Taking qualia seriously is like thinking a ten dollar bill is worth whatever you want it to be worth.
"...if we construe the grammar of the expression of sensation on the model of 'object and designation', the object drops out of consideration as irrelevant..."
How else can it be? Physicists put the basic stuff of consciousness unconsciously in matter when they introduced the concept of charge, without knowing exactly what it is. The two basic massless matter fields in nature are charged with electric and color-like charges, giving rise to mass by strongly interacting, thereby producing the quarks and leptons at the next level. No one actually knows what charge is, and thus it's a wonderful base for consciousness. Composites of charges in increasingly complex patterns give rise to increasingly complex forms of (un)consciousness. An atom is not conscious, of course not. Neither is a toilet. But they contain the raw matter. A materialist overlooks charge as the cause of consciousness. An electron and a proton have a kind of will, an unconscious will, to get together. When together, the result is neutral. If more complex structures of charge form, the consciousness develops. Molecules, proteins, cells, organisms, and even organisms with complex inner charged structures on neural networks, with the capability to resonate with virtual all physical structures in the universe (in the case of people. The human brain has the capacity to engrave 10exp(10exp10)-10exp(10exp35) pathways for parallel ion currents on the complex of neurons. The resonances can flow on their own. A bird that is seen can also be dreamt of or thought of. A pain in the foot is a different structure of charges in collective motion than a bird seen. A sound heard in the physical world is connected to charge currents in the auditory cortex. The brain forms the substrate for charge to form complex structures which take shape by interaction of the body with the physical world. The physical world projects itself on/into the brain. Physical structures are projected, and corresponding parallel brain currents run while strengthening synapse connections (by broadening them). This is memory engravement. Thus, the projected outside world corresponds to structured currents and the body runs or sits or goes to sleep. Like a massive charged particle has the will approach or move away from other charges, the body is full of delicately patterns of charges with a will and consciousness. There is a big difference though between a massive charge attracting another charge, and the massive, charged human body interacting with the physical world and other charged bodies. Charged particles influence each other directly. People have bodies in between to express.
The materialistic explanation leaves out the charge as an explanation. Consciousness becomes an illusion. Consider charge (color and electric) the basic feature and it becomes damned real. It can't be explained though as charge is unexplainable. What is it? We all know, cause we feel it. But at the same time it's a mystery. We should ask the muon.
So. Charge is a necessary for consciousness.
Consciousness
What we perceive, feel, and think is experienced from a unique internal perspective. Descartes was the first to envisage consciousness as being the experiential mental phenomena separated from the physical realm. In doing so, he invited beliefs in a metaphysical self that has confounded philosophical thinking and given those predisposed to this sort of concept a basis for which to justify beliefs in all sorts of ethereal things. What is needed is a fundamental explanation of consciousness that can be easily understood to demystify this concept and provide a platform for rational, logically minded contemplation.
1. The ‘hard problem of consciousness’
As proposed by Chalmers, this includes the inner aspect of thought and perception. The way things feel when we experience visual sensations, music, happiness or the mediative quality of a moment lost in thought. That seemingly undiscernible thing within ourselves that coalesces into a unique individual.
This is opposed to the ‘easy problem of consciousness’ where objective mechanisms of the cognitive system are reducible to physical processes. These include discriminating sensory stimuli, reacting to stimuli, speech, intellectual thought and integrating information to control behaviour.
For me it seems intuitive that the ‘easy stuff’ would be harder to explain than the ‘hard stuff’ that we all have a direct and personal relationship. But that’s me.
2. Dual perspectivism
Consciousness combines two perspectives of ourselves; our inner view and external view. By combining these two perspectives we are able to identify our capabilities and competencies and the direction of how best to use these in order to meet the demands of our environment and gain a competitive advantage. This likely creates an evolutionary priority effect.
I think that it is likely that the concurrent experience of these two perspectives is actually what we experience as consciousness. Our internal quasi-perceptual awareness combined with what we are able to perceive directly.
As an example, you may feel an internal apprehension that someone has broken into your house on the basis of externally perceiving a broken window and an empty space where the TV used to be.
3. Internal and External Environments
If there is anything that is steadfast and unchanging, it is change itself. Change is inevitable, and organisms that don't accept change and make adjustments to their behaviour to keep up with changes are doomed to fail. There are events or situations that occur that affect an organism in a positive or negative way. These events or situations can have either a positive or a negative impact on an organism and are called environmental factors.
There are two types of environmental factors: internal environmental factors and external environmental factors. Internal environmental factors are events that occur within an organism. Generally speaking, internal environmental factors are easier to control than external environmental factors. Some examples of internal environmental factors are:
• Shift in priorities
• Morale
• Evolutionary priority effects
• Other issues
External environmental factors are events that take place outside of the organism and are harder to predict and control. External environmental factors can be more dangerous for an organism given the fact they are unpredictable, hard to prepare for, and often bewildering. Some examples of external environmental factors are:
• Changes to economy (quid pro quo)
• Threats from competition
• Social factors
• Accepted normalities
• The organism’s species itself
Consciousness allows a strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats analysis to take place that looks at internal and external factors that can affect an organism. Internal factors are your strengths and weaknesses. External factors are the threats and opportunities.
This is not a linear but a dynamic, experiential and qualitative process. This process is a balance between internal subjective priorities, perceived external factors and the mental attitudes we ascribe to both of these factors. This enables an individual to appraise their positive and negative attributes regarding a particular goal or situation, the impact of external factors on the goal or situation, and guide them to make rational choices based on this analysis.
4. Observations
An observation I will make is that newborn infants display features characteristic of what may be referred to as ‘basic consciousness’ but they still have to mature to reach the level of adult consciousness. This would seem to draw a correlation between physical growth and consciousness.
Mental illness is also worthy of note in that a person may experience drastically altered mental states or qualitative experiences of both external and internal environments. This can be transitional or more permanent and is known to be the product of treatable physical processes in the brain.
Having both a healthy internal and external appreciation of self and environment would then seem to be integral to consciousness. I contend that consciousness itself is just an abstract word for this process.
5. Conclusions
So, there would seem to be an evolutionary advantage in having both ‘hard’ and ‘easy’ consciousness and a correlation to physical development and disease. Associated mental attitudes we use to conduct a strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats analysis are merely a part of our consideration of internal and external environments.
Furthermore, it is conceivable that any organism that can construct a concurrent internal and external viewpoint is able to identify capabilities and the direction of how best to use these in order to meet the demands of their environment and gain a competitive advantage; be conscious.
Given the above, I do not believe that it is reasonable to assume that consciousness is a metaphysical entity separate to the physical body. I hope the above goes some way to providing a fundamental way of thinking about consciousness that somewhat demystifies consideration of this topic.
6. Comments
In response to the below questions regarding the contemplation of who we are and consciousness I provided the below answers:
"What actually are we? Where are we?"
We are lucky, our bodies occupy the only region of space in the universe where we exist.
“How do you know that your experience of consciousness is the same as other people's experience of consciousness?”
That’s a complex question because, more importantly, people have varying views on what consciousness is. You could be talking with someone who believes that they have a metaphysical presence separate from their body whilst you might think your consciousness is a function of brain activity inseparable from the body. A fundamental mutual understanding of what consciousness is is required before this question can be sensibly answered.
Quoting Brock Harding
I question this. Recall that 'phenomena' is 'what appears' - that is its literal meaning. The question in this context is, 'appears to whom (or what)'? Descartes very thoroughly explores all of the implications of being mislead by appearances, as if he were being 'deceived by an evil daemon'. But, he says, regardless of the possibility of error about everything we perceive, the reality of one who is deceived is indubitable. Hence, cogito, ergo sum 'I think, therefore I am'.
Quoting Brock Harding
Why is demystifying consciousness necessarily a good thing? What if the nature of the observing mind really is a mystery? Why shouldn't it be, and what is to be gained by explaining it?
Daniel Dennett is Chalmer's natural adversary. His answer to that question is that science rules and he rejects the idea that the nature of consciousness is out-of-scope for science.
[quote=Dennett] What, then, is the relation between the standard ‘third-person’ objective methodologies for studying meteors or magnets (or human metabolism or bone density), and the methodologies for studying human consciousness? Can the standard methods be extended in such a way as to do justice to the phenomena of human consciousness? Or do we have to find some quite radical or revolutionary alternative science? I have defended the hypothesis that there is a straightforward, conservative extension of objective science that handsomely covers the ground — all the ground — of human consciousness, doing justice to all the data without ever having to abandon the rules and constraints of the experimental method that have worked so well in the rest of science.[/quote]
So, he says consciousness can be fully explained by science - indeed his first book was called 'Consciousness Explained'.
Quoting Brock Harding
So, here you segue effortlessly to the neo-darwinian paradigm which also governs Dennett's view. The remainder then explores the question along those lines. The question should be asked, however, whether evolutionary theory amounts to a comprehensive philosophy of mind - and there are many objections possible to that.
Quoting Brock Harding
Good to end with an open question!