The New Dualism
Materialism has come to dominate philosophy and science since the mid-twentieth century, and this has been a horrible mistake. Materialism is entirely unjustified and irrational. There is no real evidence that actually supports it. Many have claimed that conscious experience is some kind of illusion, but this is absurd. Of course, we have conscious experiences such as internal feelings, thoughts, memories, imaginations, and intentions, and those who deny this are the ones being delusional.
The truth has been hiding in plain sight, as the saying goes. Although dualism has been very much maligned and marginalized, a new type of dualism appears to actually be right. According to the old Cartesian dualism, mind and brain are two completely independent substances, and yet this is wrong because the mind obviously depends on the brain. (We know that damage to be brain can effect the mind.) According to the new dualism, mind and brain are not completely independent substances, and yet they are still quite different and distinct. We have physical neurons and electrochemical activity as well as conscious mental experiences going on within our brains. These are two very different things, and thus, a new kind of dualism is the only rational explanation.
Materialists are not rational. They have accepted an irrational, unrealistic, absurd, and poisonous ideology that simply does not correspond to reality. They typically claim to be scientific, but they are anything but. Science is supposed to be based on evidence and reason, not delusional and deranged ideology. There has been tremendous bias against the mind, and this has led to the false rejection of dualism and an unwarranted acceptance of materialism. Some have claimed that brain and mind are really identical, but this is an ad hoc explanation unsupported by any real evidence.
Mind and brain are clearly very different. The only realistic and rational explanation, given the totality of the facts as we know them, is that the physical brain must somehow cause and produce conscious experience even though we don't know just how it does this. Exactly how this happens is the question that needs to be asked. Prending that internal minds and conscious experiences do not really exist is clealry not the right answer. This kind of delusional thinking will not make them go away. Internal conscious experinece is here to stay because, like it or not, it really does exist.
Hopefully in the next few decades, the tide will turn, and philosophers and scientists will come to their senses and accept the fact that we have internal conscious experineces that are different and distinct from neurologica activity. This will be a great win-win for both science and humanity. Our philosophy and science will be far more rational, balanced, and, above all, true to the actual reality.
Comments (334)
I really think the brain will never know the mind because the brain relies on knowledge, and the mind will always escape any such brain-inspired confinements. Brains make categories. Brains compare. Knowledge is a process of comparisons and contrasts.
Well, an opinion of this brain anyway.
Nothing in this statement is inherently in contradiction with materialism, or at least certain versions of materialism. In fact, I agree with George here, even though I am very much a materialist. How can that be? Because a macroscopic physical state can indeed be extremely different from the microscopic units of matter that underlie its existence and behavior. This is one of the central results of condensed matter physics, encapsulated in principles like emergence and renormalization. A superfluid state can be very different from the helium atoms that collectively interact to produce the state, but we don't then conclude that superfluids are not real or physical. A conscious mental state can be completely different from the neurons and neuroglia that sustain it, and yet it is still physical.
I think with regard to:
Existence of Mind
1) Inductive evidence in the form of physiological correlates, and criterial evidence in the form of observed behaviour, establish the existence of mental conditions and functions.
Mind-Body Dependence
1) Corporeal and mental conditions and functions are mutually dependent, but incommensurable because:
a) Correlation does not imply causation.
b) Corporeal and mental data are accessed at different levels of abstraction.
2) The fact of neuroplasticity is sufficient reason to reject epiphenomenalism.
So, with regard to substance, I currently hold to a dual aspect (i.e., physical and/or mental) neutral monism (cheers, Javra).
The difference is that we have a model that explains how the properties of a superfluid state arise from the dynamics of the underlying substrate, but I don't believe we have such a model in the case of mental states. To my knowledge, we have no model that explains why experience should be one way rather than another given the dynamics of the underlying substrate.
First to Dalia: It's not my senses that are important. There is an objective truth that goes beyond the individual. Philosophers and scientists need to understand the objective truth. Also, you are confusing brain and mind. It's the mind that makes categories, not the brain.
It is really easy to defend materialism because it can explain any phenomenon as a scientific (purely mechanical) proces that has already been examined or is going to be soon.
I would attack from a different angle:
1. The world is filled with objects that interact.
2. We have no proof of the existance of things that do not interact.
3. Therefore, objects are their interactions and have no other body.
4. Their material aspect is the one we are interacting with but it is largely dependent on the observer and cannot possibly show all of the information and therefore it is only a part of an object at any time and not its only face.
5. We are left with information as the fundamental building block of reality and it is hardly material but not really spiritual either.
How do we arbitrate upon the question and arrive at the best possible answer.
First we must recognize the inherent bias on either side of the argument and before one makes a decision one should try to relieve oneself of ones own bias.
Dualists hold that there is a mind body distinction. that minds are independent of bodies and in this sense they suggest that consciousness can exist independent of the body. Dualists have a more agreeable relationship with the notions of God, and supreme consciousness, or life after death etc
Materialists hold that minds are predicated upon bodies, that minds, thought etc is a product of material interactions as per the example above in respect of helium atoms and super fluidity etc) PF Strawson put the materialist position quite clearly when he said that minds are to bodies as scores are to football matches or surfaces are to tables vis one cannot exist without the other. materialists have a more agreeable time with the notion of atheism, 'when you're dead you're dead' and so on and so forth.
It is not surprising that the materialist position is in the ascendancy at the present time. We (westerners) live in a material world in the sense that one can derive more pleasure from more material things than during the period when Dualism was perhaps more in the ascendancy (prior to the industrial revolution) Indeed this was a period when Religion was in the ascendancy as it was the opium of the poor masses, because they could not afford the real stuff. Now that the masses can have their material opium, and all the 'wisdom' that Google affords... the currency or potency of religious opium and of Gods in general have become more of a private self serving affair. There is no God, or we are Gods or we have our own notion of what god is... etc, all this evolution has effectively diluted the Dualist 'cause' and arguably we might describe this century as the 'Century of the Self' (See BBC docu on youtube of same title).
Man has lately become a God unto himself and as such, for many the baby of dualism has been ejected with the bath water of Cartesian Dualism. One must be careful of fashion and trend, they generally show themselves to be ephemeral at best.
If bias is left behind we must ask upon whom does the burden of proof lie... the Materialist or the Dualist.
In any court of law the burden is placed upon the accuser and not the defendant.
Who is the accuser here. I would agruge that it is clearly the materialist, as the materialist is presenting (or attempting to present) material evidence to prove that consciousness is entirely dependent upon the material.
Thought on the other hand does not need material evidence to confirm its existence. This much has been effectively proven by Descartes.
The question now remains, have materialists provided enough or substantial evidence to prove that thought is dependent upon material processes... well, the answer here is clearly NO, and if someone wishes to contract this assertion they must cite the material evidence. Evidence that may well be immediately swallowed up by the preeminence of thought itself.
Therefore on balanced judgement, Descartes has shown that thought exists, and materialists have 'proven' little more than the evident fact that material things are contained or perceived by a process of thought. Thought has not been shown to be a product of some brain locus, or brain totality, or superfluid brain state, Descartes himself suggested that it is manufactured in the pineal gland?!? have we yet to move on from this quackery, or must we persist in the worship of the material because anything else just stinks too much of a divinity?
Thought remains supreme and the notion of its endogenous manufacture is no different to that of religious apriori that the earth is the center of the Universe or that 'man is the measure of all things'. He is a determined trousered ape... at least until proven otherwise.
M
On the subject inspired by the words "do you think?', is it not the brain that thinks?
After all, thinking is also categorizing.
Please explain how this may not be the case.
I should have included your quote.
You didn't write many words, but there's a lot packed in there. I just want to make a few points. It's true that correlation does not prove causation, but I believe that, given the evidence, the most likely explanation by far is that the brain causes conscious experience. Yes, there are different levels of abstraction (that appears to be the point that Uber was making) but the difference between brain and mind is certainly more than this. Also, I don't believe that the mind is an epiphenomenon. The brain would not produce experience for no reason, so it must be doing something. Conscious experience must have some effect back on the physical brain.
Dual aspect and neutral monism are two different theories. All forms of monism are wrong because brain and mind differ, hence dualism is right. Dual aspect theory is self-contradictory, holding that brain and mind are different and yet still the same somehow. Thus, it cannot be right.
What you said points out one of the main problems with materialism. Materialists generally assume that someday we will be able to understand the mind within the context of materialism. They take this to be a matter of quasi-religious faith that, dare I say, is irrational. To truly understand how the brain produces conscious experience, it will take a whole new theory and paradigm shift on the order of Copernicus, Newton, Darwin, or Einstein.
I think you are wrong about information being the fundamental building block, but your argument would take too much time to get into. Also, you appear to confuse the mental with the spiritual. I don't think that the mind is spiritual. I believe that mental aspects and conscious experiences are a natural result of evolution. They evolved along and in conjunction with the physical brain.
I'm not quite sure what point you're making here. That because we don't have a model for something physical, then it's not physical? Then take high-temperature superconductivity, of the kind found in cuprates and other exotic materials. This is a notoriously difficult problem in condensed matter theory and still has no general solution. This project in many ways mirrors the difficulties involved with the mind-body problem. Should physicists believe that high-temp superconductors are not physical because they don't yet have a 'model' for explaining such phenomena? Sounds like an absurd conclusion.
We don't yet have the physical mechanisms by which collective interactions among neural networks generate conscious states, but it's not a requirement to identify those mechanisms to simply know that conscious mental states do indeed emerge from collective interactions, just like high-temperature superconductivity (and every condensed matter system) requires collective interactions. The basis for this general knowledge is empirical, rooted in the results of modern neuroscience and modern physics. So the details still need to be finished, but the general idea is already there: consciousness is an emergent physical state.
This is an interesting topic and I thank your for your thoughts but I feel one of your criticisms for materialism is a little off. While I won't argue that materialism is free from blame in our current world, I wouldn't necessarily call dualism a healthier alternative. Within the materialist mindset the world of science was formed. So while both seem to be somewhat correct, in my opinion, they are both off, but on the right track. So to me Dualism has been harmful as well, and for most people the results of materialistic thought are available all around you. For Dualism it is not so evident.
Also, I would like to hear your thoughts on why you think Dual aspect theory is self-defeating. Thank you.
Every single one of your examples happened within the context of naturalism, and in many ways helped produce the intellectual dominance of naturalism that you are now decrying. You keep arguing against yourself.
Materialism...bad...but mind and brain still connected somehow...paradigm shift to explain consciousness...but it's cool if that shift happens within materialism.
The humor of it all.
While I'm not opposed in principle to the notion that mind "is an emergent physical state", I'm not aware of any research which comes to this conclusion. Could you provide a citation to such?
Perhaps he is decrying the fact that the future developments in the understanding of the mind is ASSUMED to fit within a materialist structure. There may in fact be a third 3rd substance that helps explains things or dualism may have something to say about it. The danger may lie in the forceful completion of this "puzzle". It's like having a puzzle and you're on the last piece. You're trying to figure out why it won't fit and are incessant on it fitting in that specific puzzle. When in fact it may fit better in another puzzle/paradigm.
With that said I agree with what you've said so far. Especially with regard to consciousness as a emergent state. There are several hypothesis that back up that claim. I would just caution anyone from taking such a hard line approach to this topic. That goes also to @George Cobau. Just because materialism doesn't solve everything now, does not mean that dualism is the complete answer. It is just another possibility.
One of the greatest neuroscientists of our time, Antonio Damasio, holds the view that consciousness is an emergent state. The following article from MIT gives a quick rundown of his theories.
The Importance of Feelings
I think variations of these views are now widely accepted in neuroscience. In another debate on this forum I cited several books by prominent neuroscientists saying that it's basically impossible to maintain dualism while pretending to care about reality. Materialism has already won. Now it's matter of filling in some (very important) details.
God,
Materialism/self-god/no-God
Free will
A combination (house special) theory inclusive of, Dualism plus Bell's super-Determinism plus an exogenous existence of 'thought' (akin to Spinozism) within a functionally a-temporal Universe, would seem to explain things and accommodate almost all rational thought on the matter?
M
Hahaha! You have won this thread!
What I am saying is that according to the new dualism, which is my view, the mind is not independent of the brain. It is caused by the brain and yet is still distinct from it. Also, there are many different forms of materialism, which is a clue to the weakness of the materialist position. They cannot come up with any form of materialism that actually works and makes realistic sense.
There are many reasons materialism became ascendant (although none of them are any good) and as you point out, one of them is that dualism became associated with religion and spiritualism. You are right to say that the baby of dualism has been ejected with the bathwater of the Cartesian view. You are also right that the burden of proof is on the materialist. Still, I believe that thought does depend on a material process, but this is different than saying that thought itself is a material process. Immaterial thought depends on a material brain.
You make some additional interesting points, but I'll let those go for now.
Please cite such evidence. Also, doesn't this statement contradict your dualist position?
Beyond occupying different levels of abstraction, what other differences exist between brain and mind?
What do you believe mind is, if not an epiphenomenon or spiritual (beyond being a natural result of evolution)?
Yeah, well, that's what I figured: no empirical research to support the claim, just theory.
Actually, I think brain and mind work together. They are intimately linked and connected. So if you say that my brain disagreed with you, that would really be no different than saying my mind disagreed with you. Still, thought and feeling are technically contained in the mind. I believe that the brain creates and then interprets internal conscious experience.
1) The book Neuropsychiatry and Behavioral Neuroscience (2003) by Jeffrey Cummings and Michael Mega. On page 4:
2) The book Psychology of Science (2012) by Robert Proctor and E. J. Capaldi. On page 462 they quote a long list of major thinkers and neuroscientists that reject dualism, including Antonio Damasio:
3) The book Explaining Abnormal Behavior (2014) by Bruce Pennington. On page 176:
4) The cognitive scientist Benjamin Bergen also explains this issue very elegantly. In his book Louder Than Words: The New Science of How the Mind Makes Meaning (2012), he writes in the Foreword:
No, I was undermining your analogy between the mind/body problem and the problem of super-fluid states.
Quoting Uber
No, but in the case of high-temp superconductors, there are no a priori reasons for thinking otherwise. It's not hard to intuitively accept that the properties of high-temp superconductors will fall out of the dynamical behavior of the substrate. Things are not so clear in the case of consciousness.
Quoting Uber
I think that you are underestimating how counter-intuitive the materialist thesis is. It's not simply a question of dependency, but a question of identity. The form of materialism being criticized in the OP doesn't merely claim that the mind depends on the operations of the nervous system - even a dualist can accept that - but, that the mind is identical with said operations. You may believe that, but as the OP points out, it amounts to little more than faith at this point.
The linked article states:
1) "Damasio’s essential insight is that feelings are “mental experiences of body states,” which arise as the brain interprets emotions, themselves physical states arising from the body’s responses to external stimuli."
2) "His insight, dating back to the early 1990s, stemmed from the clinical study of brain lesions in patients unable to make good decisions because their emotions were impaired, but whose reason was otherwise unaffected—research made possible by the neuroanatomical studies of his wife and frequent coauthor, Hanna Damasio."
So:
1) Affect produces moods and emotions.
2) Brain damage affects emotions and decision-making.
And this is the empirical research you think establishes that mind is an emergent physical state? Right. We're done here.
2,400 years of Platonist propaganda is not a good a priori reason to believe in dualism, any more than 2,000 years of Christian propaganda is reason to believe in deities and fairies.
How does my belief in the existance of a thing make its existance more probable?
How does the nonmaterial interact with the material without being material itself?
Bingo. This is the central problem with all philosophical doctrines that reject materialism. They posit one set of causal principles that exist and work in material reality and another set of causal principles that borrow from material reality but don't exist in material reality. It's just pure nonsense.
This is partly what the epistemological problem by Benacerraf was about, which to me constitutes a successful refutation of Platonic realism (and of dualism by extension). Quentin Smith also talked about this same problem in the context of theistic claims about causation.
Mind and matter are of the same "substance" because they interact. What is presumptuous is to label the primary "substance" as either mental or physical. It is neither. Mental and physical are simply different kinds of processes, which is why they are modeled differently, and appear different. We model our own mental process as consciousness, and other mental processes as brains, or neural activity.
This is similar to your last post. First I want to point out that there are many different kinds of materialism, some not as rational as yours. You say that consciousness emerges from interactions among neural networks. Even assuming this is true, it does not mean that consciousness is physical. In fact, it appears that something non-physical has emerged from physical brains. This is really no stranger than life emerging from nonlife, something that appears to have actually happened.
Why do I think that the mind is non-physical? Well, for one thing, you cannot see any mental aspects or conscious experience when you examine a physical brain. This is one reason why many have thought these things to be mysterious, and they are mysterious in a sense, but it is an obvious fact that we really do have them. We sense mental aspects, such as feelings, thoughts, memories, and imaginings internally, while the physical world is external. What I am saying is that mental and physical are different and that nonphysical minds exist, but they are not so mysterious. They somehow emerged from the physical brain during the course of evolution. Consciousness itself is not so mysterious. What is mysterious is just how the brain creates it.
It's physics all the way up and all the way down. But the physical systems that emerge in reality, from life to nuclear fusion inside stars, can have very different collective interactions and arrangements of matter. Some systems are strongly interacting, others not so much. Some form under very extreme or unique physical conditions, others are less picky. Hence the reasons for the major apparent differences between them.
yatagarasu,
Thank you for being polite. Still, I think your view of history is a little off. I don't believe that science was formed within a materialistic mindset as you claim. It appears to me that modern science began with Copernicus, Bacon, Galileo, Descartes, and others of that time, which was well before materialism became ascendant in the twentieth century. Some have thought of Newtonian mechanics as being materialistic but this appears to be a overreach. (At least it is an overreach to think that it can be applied to absolutely everything, although admittedly many did.) Nonetheless, in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, idealism was the dominant philosophy. It was only in the twentieth century that materialism became ascendant and got to be associated with science. Perhaps this somewhat oversimplifies, but it is certainly more correct than your assertion. It appears to me that science has recently gotten away from the scientific method where evidence and reason are important. Scientists have accepted some ideas, such as materialism, that are unsupported by the scientific method.
As for dual aspect theory, this is a theory that mental and physical are fundamentally the same, but still somehow different, so there is a sense that 2=1, which is obviously contradictory. At one time, I tried to make a kind of dual aspect theory work by holding that mind and brain are epistemically different and yet fundamentally the same. This appears to get around the contradiction, but it still does not work. For one thing, there is no real evidence that mind and brain are fundamentally the same. If they were, what would this fundamental unity look like? This appears to be even more mysterious than the brain causing conscious mental experience, and so it is even more mysterious than dualism. One of the main reasons dualism was widely rejected was because it was considered to be mysterious, and so it makes no sense to accept something even more mysterious. (By the way our ignorance of just how the brain causes conscious experience is not a good argument against dualism. It would be like saying that because you don't know why the sun is hot, it must not really be hot.)
You are seriously confusing materialism and naturalism. I believe in naturalism. I believe that the internal mind and conscious experience evolved along with the brain through the process of natural selection, and thus the mind is natural although nonphysical. It appears that the joke is on you.
It appears to me that the mind did emerge from the physical brain. However, there is no real evidence that the mind is somehow physical. This is just something that some have assumed.
I will take this as some measure of agreement on the issue. I don't think our positions on the issue are very far apart at all. We may even have more in common than we let on during this debate.
Your puzzle analogy appears to be a good one. The mind is like a piece that won't fit into the materialistic puzzle. I think you're wise to caution us not to take a hard line approach. After all, no one knows just how the brain causes conscious experience. Still, I believe that those who dismiss the mind as an illusion or irrelevant are clearly wrong. It appears that a new kind of dualism is the best answer, but it will be interesting to see what happens from here.
I also believe that consciousness is an emergent state, but that does not make it physical. There is tremendous bias against dualism among neuroscientists. One might think that it is just a semantic difference, and perhaps there is some truth to this, and yet it really does appear to be more than that. A new kind of dualism is far more logical and likely.
You could not be more wrong in saying that materialism has won. In fact, it is on much shakier ground than it appeared to be in the 1950's. It's actually lost a lot of ground since then. See Nagel, Chalmers, Lanier, and McGinn to name a few. If we're still alive when they figure out how the brain causes conscious experience, then the joke will really be on you big time.
You want evidence? How dare you? Just kidding. First, although many neuroscientists are biased against the mind, the idea that the mind emerged from the brain implies causation. Perhaps even Uber would agree with this. It appears that my main dispute with Uber is that he believes the mind to be really physical, which is actually contradictory. Mental and physical are in fact opposites. The mind is internal while the physical world is external. Thus, it makes no sense for the mind to be physical. This is why so many materialists have wanted to dismiss or eliminate the mind altogether. If the mind were really physical, then we wouldn't even be having this problem.
To clarify:
The mind consists of internal feeling, thought, perception, memory, imagination, and consciousness.
The physical brain consists of neurons, synapses, electrochemical activity and regions such as the hippocampus, frontal cortex, etc.
I'm done with this debate. The rest of you have fun.
"Contemporary neuroscience has established a fundamental correlation between brain function and mental activity; the data support the basic monistic premise that human emotional and intellectual life is dependent on neuronal operations. This monistic perspective is associated with a philosophy of materialism."
The above quote demonstrates the basic problem, and some of the bias against dualism. Yes, there is a correlation between brain function and mental activity, but this actually supports dualism because these are two different things. To say that this supports monism is clearly biased. It assumes that because the mind depends on the physical brain, then it must itself be physical, but as I have already argued, that is not the case.
The thing I admire the most about you George is that you are perfectly happy to live with glaring and untenable contradictions. You are not a materialist, but you support naturalism (because of course there's a huge difference!). You cite people who disagree with you, and claim that they agree with you!
The finest example of what philosophers may call, "bullcrap." Enjoy your day.
Does this mean that the same mechanism which caused life to emerge from non-life (how did it actually happen?) also caused mind to emerge from life?
If so, is this a new dualism, triplism, or quadruplism?
Thanks for being the only person on here to actually support me. I like what you said here.
"I think that you [Uber] are underestimating how counter-intuitive the materialist thesis is. It's not simply a question of dependency, but a question of identity. The form of materialism being criticized in the OP doesn't merely claim that the mind depends on the operations of the nervous system - even a dualist can accept that - but, that the mind is identical with said operations. You may believe that, but as the OP points out, it amounts to little more than faith at this point."
For Uber and his ilk to be consistent, they would have to think of the mind as being identical to the physical operations of the nervous system on some level, but that does not appear to be the case at all. Of course, conscious experience is caused by the physical brain, and yet it does not appear to be identical to the physical activity of neurons. Uber and others want to say that because the brain causes mental activity or mental activity emerges from the brain (which is really saying the same thing) then it must be physical, but that is not necessarily the case. In fact, it appears that internal minds and conscious experience are not physical, and that's why most materialists of the past have tried to either eliminate the mind outright or claimed that it is identical to the physical brain. When these strategies did not work, many have resorted to nonreductive physicalism, and yet this does not appear to work either.
The only theory that actually appears to work is a new kind of dualism where conscious experience is caused by neurological activity and yet is not identical to it. Because people hate the concept of the mental so much, perhaps it would be better to call this experience something else, but whatever you want to call it, there are clearly two very different and distinct things going on in the brain. Thus, the new dualism is the only theory that actually works and makes sense.
Wow, Uber, it appears that I got under your skin and you've gotten a little personal. I find that kind of amusing, both because I'm not used to these kind of online debates, and also, when I was younger, my cousin would make me mad, but now it seems that I'm on the other side.
First, let me assure you that my philosophy is extremely consistent, and if you don't see that, then it's you who do not understand. Second, there really is a significant difference between materialism and naturalism. I believe in evolution, and not in the supernatural. Of course, the mind has traditionally been conflated with the soul, but that is not necessarily the case. As I already pointed out, I believe that the mind evolved naturally even though it is nonphysical. I believe that it is extremely unlikely if not impossible that the mind (or soul) could survive brain death, given that mind and brain are intimately linked and connected. Third, I wasn't claiming that the person in the quote agreed with me. I was actually pointing out that he is wrong.
Yes, my philosophy is a little different. (That's why I call it the new dualism.) Still, I would recommend that you take it seriously and pay attention because what I say is probably right, and materialism is certainly wrong despite widespread acceptance. How do I know this? I've taken a long hard look at the history of this issue along with the logic and evidence of the mind. Much of the acceptance of materialism is based on faulty ideology and groupthink going back to the logical positivists and even before. In a way, it could hardly be more obvious once you really get it. You need to open your mind and realize that there is a real possibility that you could be wrong. The truth is not based on what so called experts think. It's ultimately based on logic, reason, and empirical evidence. Experts have been wrong before, and they are certainly wrong in this case.
I doubt that I will change your mind, and you probably think that I also have a closed mind, and yet that is not true. It is because I generally have an open mind that I was able to find what I believe to be the truth. One thing that we could probably both agree on is that your view is more mainstream, but in twenty or thirty years that may not be the case. GSC
You've reduced naturalism to belief in evolution. That's nonsense. Naturalism is a broad worldview that states only natural entities, interactions, and causes exist. Naturalism is entirely consistent with materialism. You can't really claim to reject materialism and support naturalism.
Furthermore, your dualism does not escape the epistemological problem. I pointed this out. You totally ignored it. Sounds about right. Do let us know when you move from the new dualism to the old trinity.
But the general scientific position would be that the mind part of the equation is broadly some kind informational process. So for a long time, there has been a standard physicalist dualism which treats the mind as software running on hardware.
Now a lot more can be said about how to understand that. But the rival naturalistic metaphysics you have to argue against is the one that divides nature into matter and symbol. Folk feel pretty certain that the brain is some kind of information processing device.
This does make more sense than dividing the world into two disconnected kinds of substance - one that is inert matter, the other which is some kind of perceiving "soul stuff" ... that has no conceivable natural structure or laws, only the usual supernatural kind of existence.
Neuroscience knows for sure the brain does some kind of information processing. The structure of that has been mapped in laborious detail. That is what neuroscience does.
So on what grounds do you challenge a naturalism, a physicalism, which already recognises the further "surprise" of the possibility of information processing as part of what is nature?
Identity is typically expressed in terms of properties - X and Y are identical just in case they have all of the same properties. From this perspective, it seems perfectly reasonable to speak about some particular quantity of high-temp super conductor being identical with a particular quantity of suitably manufactured oxides and carbonates. We might not understand how exactly how those preparations result in a material with superconductive properties, but there's not really any question of the plausibility of superconductive properties belonging to a suitably prepared material substrate.
Compare this to the case of the mind and the nervous system where there does not seem to be any overlap of properties whatsoever. The terms used to describe the nature and structure of subjective conscious experience seem to be completely disjoint from those used to describe even the most globally emergent properties of the nervous system. It's very difficult to see how the mind, with its apparent indivisibility, intentional orientation toward the formal and final objects of thought, privacy of perspective, capacity for conceptual abstraction and self-reflection, and other curious features, could ever fall out of a purely material analysis of any physical system. I would suggest that to pretend otherwise is simply to bury one's proverbial head in the sand.
I feel like my criticism was off and not worded properly. I meant to say that the current world is housed within the materialism of the 20th century. Which was influenced by the idealism you mentioned and those aforementioned philosophers in the 18/19th centuries. Mainly I was just try to say that while Materialism has been harmful in some ways, so has dualism. Thank you for correcting me about the history though. I should have been clearer. : ) An entire field, namely quantum mechanics, has started to venture into the realm of speculation in order to put together the parts and rectify some of the inconsistencies currently preventing a grand unifying theory from being formed. I have looked at that skeptically as well and wonder if it, similarly to topic we are discussing, has been slowed because the same people are looking at the same issues whilst trying to fit it into their pre-ordered templates. We need to challenge our conceptions to make headway. I think that's true of both questions of the mind and quantum mechanics.
That theory definitely seems to be violating any form of Occam's razor at the very least. I wouldn't throw it in the recycling bin but it's even harder to rationalize than any of the ideas we've discussed (as you mentioned). Thank you for answering. I know it can be tough to put together responses for all of these comments. XD But I appreciate it!
Your interpretation of superconductivity as an identical feature of some quantity of oxides is total nonsense that no physicist would endorse. Superconductivity is the absence of electrical resistance; it is an emergent property of certain materials under special conditions. The superconductivity of the material cannot exist apart from the material, but it is wrong to conclude from this that the superconducting state is equal to the material itself. Likewise, consciousness is an emergent subsystem of the body under certain conditions.
The terms used to describe qnything is just arguing over semantics. The point is that conscious mental states can be physically distinct, and still physical (ie. subject to energetic constraints in one way or another).
Why must the Brain create consciousness?
This is homocentric, neurocentric and egocentric. There is absolutely not one shred of evidence for this commonly held and entirely self serving belief. It is a rather weak attempt at preserving the notion of self against the realities of will and determinism. It is a delusion of modernity and yet is medieval in its origins. Why must Galileo continually be compelled to recant; the Universe is outside our heads not inside!
Let it go, let it go... can't hold it back anymore! (Queen Elsa:Frozen)
The Brain (it appears to me at least) merely participates in 'thought' and its participation in or engagement with exogenous thought, gives rise to this thing we refer to as consciousness, and we subsequently or simultaneously manifest as' being'.... or that which Heidegger referred to as 'Dasein'
M
You have no idea what you are talking about. You don't seem to want to learn anything new. You are a waste of my time. Don't reply to me as I will no longer reply to you.
Agree, George, and also welcome. As one of the resident anti-materialists it's great to see your posts. However, I probably would go further than yourself, in that I think even naturalism is bound to be problematical. And this is because naturalism is ultimately claiming that any genuine knowledge or even insight is ultimately scientific or 'left-brain rational' in orientation. One effect of this, is that the human scientist is really the only perceptible rational intelligence in the universe. 'The world' is still essentially matter-energy, simply unfolding as a consequence of what happened to occur at the time of the big bang, but other than the intelligence of us human observers, it is, as far as we can empirically discern, all simply dumb stuff.
Now, I hasten to add, I'm not about to pitch any form of ID here. My argument against materialism is traditionalist: that the nature of meaning, and therefore reason, inference, mathematics and so even science itself, cannot be understood as a consequence of the kinds of forces and empirically observable entities that naturalism studies, because reason, meaning, intentionality, and so forth, are required and assumed, before science itself can even be established. This is the sense in which reason (and so on) transcends the naturalist description, as reason is essentially prior to the empirical sciences as such. Reason dictates what to consider, what to study, and so on, prior to any actual observation being made.
So in the current cultural idiom, 'the mind' is simply an evolved product, arrived on the scene in the blink of an eye, in geological and evolutionary terms, and is the product of the same forces which produced flatworms and cockroaches, albeit elaborated over vastly longer periods of time. But my argument is, that once h. sapiens evolves to the point of being a language-using, story-making being, then she is no longer simply a biological specimen, but a being. (This is why our designation as 'beings' has overlooked significance.)
This view is often accused of being anthropomorphic, but materialism is much more so. Why? Because it attributes to the human faculties, a universal significance, which it then immediately denies by reducing such faculties to being of the same order as peacock's tails. (Richard Dawkins has gone in to bat for the exact argument.) By viewing reason in terms of evolutionary biology, 'naturalism' reduces everything to the level of what the theory of evolution explains, which is 'why species survive and propagate'. This is then mistaken for a philosophy - which it is not.
And you can make that argument without any reference to ID whatever.
Incidentally, if you haven't discovered it, there's quite a useful resources website with the same name as your thread - http://www.newdualism.org/
I think you misunderstand my position. I don't see mind and brain as being different independent substances with the mind being supernatural. That's the old dualism. Clearly, mind and brain are different, and yet the mind depends on the brain in a naturalistic way. I believe in naturalism but not materialism. I don't get how Uber cannot understand this, but that's his problem.
You say the brain does information processing. How could it do that without a mind?
You seem to be conflating reason and sentience here.
The Hard Problem is that thinking should feel like something (when allegedly it could feel like nothing). How humans can develop the linguistic habits involved in reasoning would be one of those "easy problems" already answered by neurobiology, social science and philosophy of science.
So you want to focus on the mystery of "creative insight". But what part of that is not explained by neurobiological habits of induction and generalisation? Where is the evidence that there is something else going on beyond some kind of materially-grounded information process?
You appear to be a beacon of light in a sea of ignorance. You make some good points about the difference between the mental and physical. One point I would quibble with is when you say the mind is apparently indivisible. To me it appears that the mind can be divided into feeling, thought, memory, imagination, consciousness, etc. Still your other points appear to ring true. Of course, it is unknow just how brain and mind interact, but it appears to be beyond all reasonable doubt that they do in fact interact. To think that they could not possibly interact because they are so different is reading too much into our ignorance. It would be like saying that because you don't know why the sun is hot, it could not possibly be hot.
Maybe you haven't presented a position that is understandable as yet.
You said your naturalism is dualistic in terms of believing in two kinds of substance - material substance and ... immaterial substance???
You also said you have ruled out some kind of panpsychism or dual aspect monism.
So I struggle to see what is "new" about your new dualism. It seems the regular kind so far.
Quoting George Cobau
Are you claiming that the brain doesn't do information processing? On what grounds? Why did neuroscience look and find this going on?
Sure, you can be an old school dualist and say this ain't enough for you. But you can't question that information processing happens, and so mainstream science is already "dualistic" in accepting that physicalism includes more than just materialism. It now includes information as a second kind of thing.
I think you are right that we have pre-ordered templates that should be challenged. It appears to be human nature to overreach, and I believe that is what materialists have done. What theory do you believe is violating Occam's razor, and why? That appears unclear to me from your post.
Emphatically not. Animals are sentient, but not rational - they are not capable of philosophy or science because they don't possess the faculty of reason, the ability to abstract, compare - in short, to reason.
I agree that there are coherent evolutionary accounts of how linguistic capacity and reason evolved, but that doesn't explain the horizons that these faculties open up - which include the ability to devise such explanations! The attempt to explain reason in those terms is precisely where it becomes reductionist.
[quote=Maritain]what the empiricist speaks of and describes as sense-knowledge is not exactly sense-knowledge, but sense-knowledge plus unconsciously-introduced intellective ingredients, - sense-knowledge in which he has made room for reason without recognizing it. A confusion which comes about all the more easily as, on the one hand, the senses are, in actual fact, more or less permeated with reason in man, and, on the other, the merely sensory psychology of animals, especially of the higher vertebrates, goes very far in its own realm and imitates intellectual knowledge to a considerable extent.[sup]1[/sup]
Yeah. And isn't the physicalist problem allegedly to do with that sentience rather than that rationality?
Quoting Wayfarer
So you are saying that consciousness isn't an issue. What is causally surprising is that reality has an intelligible structure?
Can't you see that you are mixing up two questions in your haste to make this about Platonic form?
Wow, you've really changed. I thought you're earlier post was interesting, but now you appear to have totally lost it. Are you drunk, or do you have another explanation?
However, you did ask why I think that the brain creates consciousness. First, a correlation between mind and brain has been established by the effects of brain injuries as well as by brain scanners. For example, when someone imagines playing tennis, this corresponds to certain activity in a particular part of the brain. Given this reality, it appears that either mind and brain must be identical or the brain causes conscious experience. I have already argued against identity--not as much as I could, but that would take too long. Suffice it to say, causation is far more likely than identity. It is the only realistic option. Thus, in all likelihood, the brain causes, creates, produces, and generates conscious mental experience.
Which is basically what materialism says.
I'm going to reply here and then get back to Wayfarer.
Much like Uber, you don't appreciate what is new about my new dualism, and so I'll try to spell it out here. The point is that it is very different from the traditional dualism of Descartes for at least four reasons. (Of course, it is possible that someone could have proposed something similar recently, but I am not aware of this, and it certainly does not appear to be well known. Although intuitively obvious, I think that not many people have wanted to believe in it because dualism has such a bad reputation, but this reputation is unfair.)
Reason 1. Descartes believed that mind and brain were totally independent substances. I believe that the mind depends on the brain, and thus it is not independent. Also, I don't really like the term, substance, which appears to be vague and not well defined.
Reason 2. Descartes held that the mind had no location in space. I believe that the mind must be located within the brain. Where else could it be?
Reason 3. Descartes believed that mind and brain interact through the pineal gland. This is clearly wrong. Mind and brain appear to interact somehow although we don't really know how.
Reason 4. Descartes believe that the soul could outlive the body. This appears extremely unlikely. In all likelihood, consciousness dies when the brain dies.
I hope I have made myself more clear.
You seem to equate information with the mind, but I am not really sure what to make of that. (I wouldn't rely on neuroscientists. To me, they appear to be very biased and confused.) It appears like the mind consists of internal experience. Are you really claiming that internal experiences such as feelings do not exist?
How is this not a general physicalist presumption? The only real dualism here is a certain semantic slipperiness that arises in the gap between some notion of the nature of the cause and some notion of the nature of the effect.
Quoting Wayfarer
Yep. George, your problem is that you are speaking dualistically of two kinds of substances - Descartes res cogitans and res extensa. Or mental substance and corporeal substance. And yet then accepting some type of material connection between the two - the corporeal substance of brain "somehow" creating the mental substance of experience.
So you are giving a confused presentation of the familiar explanatory issues. This is not a new dualism but a mash-up.
As I say, the reasonable working hypothesis of neuroscience is then that it is the structure of the brain - its information processing structure - that is going to be the cause of minds with experiential states. And this hypothesis stands against some actually materialist account, such as would see the mind as some kind of emergent macro-property - like liquidity or superconductivity. Or even - another popular one - that the brain is a complex antenna for tuning into a universal mind field.
So if you accept that brains create minds, that is not dualism, except to the extent that it tries to make some explanatory separation in terms of causes and their effects.
It is the next step of "how" brains could create minds that is the usual problem for a naturalistic and physicalist account. And information processing seems a reasonable starting point for most physicalists.
Materialism - as more strictly defined by emergentists - would be the other naturalistic-seeming alternative. But there is no good evidence for it. Whereas there is a ton of evidence for some form of information processing paradigm.
LOL. Aristotle did a decent job surely?
Quoting George Cobau
OK George. It's great that you might be interested in these issues. But it is really lame that you seem to think you have something new to tell everyone when you have next to no background in everything that has already been said.
The replies here should have given you some quick pointers as to what you need to explore. It's over to you now to get up to speed.
Descartes' dualism is definitely not traditional. My first undergraduate philosophy unit was Descartes: The First Modern.
Indeed, it was the combination of Descartes' 'substance dualism' with the other foundations of modern scientific method, that gave rise to the very problem that needs to be solved:
Thomas Nagel, Mind and Cosmos: Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature is Almost Certainly False pp. 35-36
Whereas, I'm now more persuaded by the hylomorphic dualism of the Aristotelian-Thomistic variety.
~From Thomistic Psychology: A Philosophical Analysis of the Nature of Man by Robert E. Brennan, O.P.; Macmillan Co., 1941.
Quoting George Cobau
But this is a category error. Where is 'the number 7'? Where is 'the law of the excluded middle'? Where, for that matter, is the drama you watched last night on television? Is it 'in the television'? Abstractions don't exist in a spatio-temporal location - that's precisely the sense in which they're 'transcendent'. And if the rational intelligence is anything, it is precisely 'the ability to grasp abstractions'. That is what I am arguing precedes even the definition of 'the physical'.
Quoting apokrisis
That's because of the obvious comparison with computation. But this overlooks the fact that computers are, in fact, extensions of the human faculties, and would not exist without them. For the same reason, many are prepared to entertain the possibility that the Universe could be a computer simulation because it sounds like a scientifically reasonable thing to believe - except for the fact that all the computers that are known to us, are manufactured artefacts and don't occur naturally.
I think you are reading too much into the term "naturalism". By naturalism, I simply mean that I do not believe in the supernatural or spiritual. I do believe that there is a lot that science has not explained yet, and whether it can ever explain everything even in principle is still an open question.
You, like Uber, appear to be conflating naturalism with materialism. The things you mention are incompatible with materialism, but not naturalism when you realize that the mind is actually natural.
I agree with you that the evolution of language had a huge effect. Also, I wouldn't put too much stock in anything Richard Dawkins has to say. (For one thing, his concept of a "meme" is clearly wrong.) Although I believe that minds evolved in conjunction with the brain, the evolution of our current culture cannot be reduced simply to survival and reproduction. it is much too complex for that. By the way, I'm going to check out that website you mentioned. It will be interesting to see how the ideas there compare to mine.
I think you make a good point about substance.
I disagree with you that how humans developed "linguistic habits involved in reasoning" is an easy problem that has already been answered. I think that this shows the problematic nature of the distinction between hard and easy problems developed by Chalmers. He may have considered this an easy problem, but I do not. I think you are overly optimistic about what science has already achieved.
So are you now switching into anti-Platonism mode and saying that mathematical theorems, like Turing Universal Computation, are just arbitrary stories humans made up for fun? Or did we instead actually discover some kind of universal truth there?
If computers, or information processing in some semiotically general sense, were merely human constructs, then yes, they might not carry much metaphysical impact. However, plenty of folk seem to agree there is something Platonically real about computation.
Quoting Wayfarer
You mean that all computation has to exist within the material constraints of the laws of thermodynamics?
Yep. That more naturalistic view is coming to the fore in the physics of information.
We're indeed getting pretty good at physicalism these days.
And is your own pessimism based on any actual familiarity with the subject? Have you studied the issues enough to have a right to an opinion?
Sorry to be harsh. But if you are going to disagree, you need to supply the argument that would go with that.
Of course, you can reply that I need to defend my own statement with an argument. But the fact you don't even recognise it as a standard position is then a problem here.
Did you realise that Chalmers did explore this question with his good mate, Andy Clark? So he said it was one of the easy questions having actually given the matter some consideration.
https://www.ida.liu.se/~729G12/mtrl/clark_chalmers_extended_mind.pdf
I have simply pointed out that 'computation' (and software for that matter) are strained analogies for what the mind is and does, because whereas the mind precedes any kind of explanation or model - like, we have to be able to reason before even coming up with a scientific theory - computing is itself a process and a technology which the human mind has devised. So, sure, the mind is like a computer in some respects, but what does that prove, beyond the fact that humans are clever enough to invent such devices. It really says nothing about the nature of mind per se.
(I remember discussing this Aeon article on just this topic on the other forum at the time it was published.)
Quoting apokrisis
The manufactured process by which computers are made, for sure. Not so 'the furniture of reason' - number, logic, and the like.
What I'm arguing is indeed broadly Platonist - that when the human evolves to a certain point, then it is able to grasp transcendent truths which are by their very nature not of the same order as the domain of cause and effect which are described by the natural sciences (which is the basic understanding behind the tradition of philosophical rationalism). Whereas, in your narrative, because everything 'must be immanent', then there can be no such domain as everything by definition must be subordinate to what empiricism understands to even be considered.
And this has become so much part of the intellectual framework of modernity, that we do this without seeing that we're doing it. Peirce might have seen it, but you methodically exclude all of those aspects of his work which suggest that.
"Yeah. And isn't the physicalist problem allegedly to do with that sentience rather than that rationality?"
Actually, it appears that the physicalist has a problem with rationality, feeling, perception, thought, memory, imagination, and really everything that is in the mind because these things are mental rather than physical. This is where I disagree with Chalmers, as I noted above. He actually makes it too easy on the physicalist. Everything going on in the mind is problematic for the materialist or physicalist, not just subjective experience.
"By "indivisibility" I simply meant that you couldn't take someone's consciousness and split it into pieces. At least, I am not aware of any phenomenological descriptions of such a thing. I'd consider things like thought, feeling and imagination to be more akin to categories or features of consciousness."
It might be possible to split consciousness in two if, leaving aside the ethical implications, you could split someone's brain in two and put one hemisphere in a different body. Of course, this is very theoretical and hypothetical.
Huh? It says that information processing or computation is metaphysically general as a form of "mind-like" organisation.
Now you can say the initial analogy is a weak one. And I would agree. Especially if we are talking about Turing Machines or other complicated abacuses.
That is why I take a semiotic position on the issue. Syntax alone - rule-based symbol shuffling - can't cut it. You have to have a model that is semantically embedded in the world it is hoping to regulate in pursuance of some autonomously evolved goal.
If we are talking computer architecture, that is now some kind of neural network story. Funny that. A computer that looks more like an actual living brain.
So that is why I was careful to talk about "information processing" in a loose sense. I've already said often enough that we have to move quickly from the notion of a calculating machine to an autonomous organic system doing meaningful sign processing.
So we can have a naturalism that is a sophisticated naturalism. That is perfectly possible here.
These are not arguments. They barely qualify as assertions.
Perhaps a materialism might say that the brain causes conscious experience, and therefore this must be physical. What I am saying is that the brain can create something nonphysical, namely the internal mind and conscious experiences. Of course, this is quite different from materialism.
I don't know who you think you are, but you're the one who is confused and deluded. But only time will tell. Don't bother replying. You're just wasting my time. I won't reply to you any more.
Good luck with your book.
You should buy my book. You might learn something.
I can't agree with that. Was it my brain that disagreed, do you think?
On the subject inspired by the words "do you think?', is it not the brain that thinks?
After all, thinking is also categorizing.
Please explain how this may not be the case.
(merely attempting to get some answer again as I presume my post got lost among all the other posters)
I actually did reply to this earlier. I'm really tired now, but basically what I said was that brain and mind work together so if your mind disagrees, your brain will disagree also. Even though they are different, they are intimately linked and connected.
By the way, there are some really nasty people on here. I guess the hide behind anonymity. Perhaps I made a mistake to give my real name. I really didn't know better when I signed up.
So yeah, they do get around.
True, but the internet can bring out the worst in people it seems. Yes, most people on here were ok, but there were two jerks, materialists who were very arrogant and condescending, like they could not possibly be wrong.
Yeah. I should of quoted the section and it would have been clearer. I was referring to dual aspect theory. It is even more convoluted than the dualism and materialism.
If you're going to post on public forums, you have to learn to roll with the punches. (And it is also a good idea to use a 'handle' - I *think* this forum software allows you to change your Username once, although I could be mistaken.)
Quoting George Cobau
I am trying to help by being more specific about what it is that might be non-physical. After all, expressions such as 'the internal mind' are vague generalisations. Any materialist worth his salt will argue that what you are saying is 'non-physical' is actually physical, but it appears to you otherwise, due to the clever way in which the brain generates the illusion of subjectivity (for example). And you're going to have to do a lot more spadework to deal with those objections. I sympathise with your overall project but you need to develop a better understanding of the territory.
Actually, I understand the territory pretty darn well. Don't be fooled by those stupid jerks. I have defined the mind as internal thought, feeling, memory, perception, imagination, and consciousness....I read somewhere that nonreductive physicalism has become popular, and this appears to be the case. I guess this makes sense because other forms of materialism so obviously don't work, and it probably appeals to neuroscientists who don't understand philosophy very well....And yet it still seems strange to think that the things I listed above are really physical. They are clearly not physical in any normal sense of the word. Materialists appear to be extremely delusional and have huge blind spots. They worship science and do not realize its limitations. I doubt that there is any argument that could ever convince them to change their minds. They have assumed physicalism as a guiding principle and nothing can shake their belief. They are convinced that they are on the right side of history, and that kind of arrogance will be their downfall....
Anyway, who is on here? Graduate students? Retired professors? There's probably a variety, I suppose. It doesn't really matter, but I am kind of curious. Do you spar with those jerks regularly? That's not something I would enjoy. Anyway, thanks for being on my side. It was you and one other, Aaron R. He appears to also understand the issues pretty well.
I've not caught up with the arguments, but it seems to me that the distinction between identity and causation might be a distinction without a difference. Either way, there will be some new physics that needs to be discovered, and that is an extremely tall order.
There is a third option, which may not have occurred to you, which I think you should consider. The major advantage it has over identity and causation theories, is that it requires no new physics. We already have the necessary physics, and even the necessary technology. We just have not made the necessary philosophical advance yet in order to implement and empirically test this third option, which, for want of a better title, I'll call abstraction theory.
The argument goes like this:
The brain is a computationally universal object. (Which you would need to argue)
All computationally universal objects are equivalent. (This is known physics)
Therefore a mind can be implemented on a computer. (A word about this in a moment*)
This leads us inexorably to conclude, that consciousness cannot be identical with the brain, or caused by the physics of the brain, but can only be caused by an ALGORITHM running on a computationally universal object. Consciousness is a software feature!
So, we no longer need to consider how matter and consciousness can be identical (they are not) or how matter can cause consciousness (it can't). What we need is to understand ABSTRACTIONS better, what sort of abstractions can exist and their properties. One property of abstractions that we now know, is that they can be conscious.
(*This might be the assumption of physicalism?)
Hey it’s ‘the internet’. Anyone can join, and anyone can post, provided they don’t break the Terms of Service - and these kinds of pejoratives come close. You do have to learn to let a of things go by, and learning that is part of the game. Yes, it can be exasperating at times but it pays to reflect on this internet meme that was floating around a couple of years back:
Indeed there are some academics on this forum, and also some who have published [and not just self-published] books on the very subjects you’re interested in. And plenty who join because they simply like the subject, and a regular contingent who just turn up and post whatever they think. But as far as forums go, this is one of the least uncivil, at least in my experience.
Not drunk, but its not a bad idea. You write:
First, a correlation between mind and brain has been established by the effects of brain injuries as well as by brain scanners. For example, when someone imagines playing tennis, this corresponds to certain activity in a particular part of the brain. Given this reality, it appears that either mind and brain must be identical or the brain causes conscious experience.
You are operating upon the basis of an assumption here, and this is the point where our philosophical positions begin to diverge. Vis your notion of cause and effect. This notion is in keeping with the current scientific paradigm (effects are caused) However philosophy has dispensed with this assumption a long time ago. It does indeed serve a purpose upon a practical level however it is one of the endearing assumptions that makes science possible and life easier to comprehend. Not surprisingly it is adhered to with great tenacity and indeed many new theories have been built upon it, such as your own particular variant of dualism 'new dualism'.
If we consider Hume's thesis on the relations between cause and effect as having some valid input into this matter, we must pause before assumptions like the relations between brain trauma and the 'effects' on thought process. It is merely the repeated basis of the result, that tenders the dubious association of 'effect': (thought/mind change) being the putative effect that is "caused" by physical trauma. There is no evidence to suggest that effects are caused, there is merely repetition, possible temporal relation in that one appears to precede the other, and nothing more. To build an entire philosophy upon this assumption is a noble pursuit but it negates Hume's crucial input, and I would only do that if I were indeed quite drunk. Science would not ignore Darwin and neither should Philosophy assume that Hume was a fool.
I am not so much interested in a philosophy that is constructed upon assumptions, but rather one that seeks to reconcile the facts. And in this instance you have begun with an enormous assumption and launched yourself into the stratosphere.
M
But, according to the Scientific Method, there is no such thing as evidence for any theory. All evidence can achieve is to render a theory problematic, or in rare cases, allow us to prefer one theory over another.
For example, we have a theory about what causes the radiation from the sun. This theory rests on a great deal of knowledge, involving particles, antimatter, mass to energy conversion, and many other discoveries. Now, just because we cannot gain direct evidence for cause, does not mean we do not know and understand the cause, just as we can't gain direct evidence for a scientific theory.
Tom
I don't wish to sound pedantic but have you read Hume, on the subject of cause and effect?
M
Why do you want to know if I have read Hume? Have you?
If you have, then perhaps you could point out anything in my post that contradicts, or disagrees with Hume in any way.
An acceptance of Humes assertion that effects are not necessarily or even reasonably 'caused' precludes a subsequent reliance upon the 'scientific method' as a methodology towards 'preference.' It merely encourages particular types of preferences and subsequent hypothesis.
You write:
"For example, we have a theory about what causes the radiation from the sun. This theory rests on a great deal of knowledge"
The basis for this knowledge is the scientific method, which if flawed (as it is) would mean that your use of the word knowledge might be revised to that of 'hypothesis'?
What would appear to be important therefore is to establish a model of dualism that avoids a reliance upon the scientific method and its various fashionable preferences.
This is not impossible, but it is avoided in preference for the SM of the Scientific Method.
Why must Philosophy bow to Science?
M
Computer memory is opposite. It is designed to be at low potential. This is needed to make the memory stable in long term storage and during use. If computer memory was designed to be like neural memory; full of free energy, it would spontaneously change in storage, attempting to lower potential. While simply using the memory, would trigger a secondary chain reaction affect as the bits and bytes reorganize to lower potential.
This could be a path toward intelligent computers. You would also need to develop a way to remember the initial state; use regular computer memory. You would need to develop a way to filter for useful changes stemming from spontaneous change, and then you would need to cyclically restore the initial state plus useful change, for another spontaneous change cycle, etc., etc.
This spontaneous change cycle of neural memory is where the mind lies. Mind is connected to the free energy flow, that has the capacity to follow the hardware and also go where the hardware has not yet been; institute new change.
An analogy is like a water fountain where water is pumped against gravity to create a potential. The water then lowers potential as it cascades downward working its way down the fountain to the pool below, only to be pumped upward again. This continuous action is always similar and defined by the shape of the fountain. But it is also always slightly different each time. Although, over time well worn paths for the bulk of the free energy flow will also appear in the hardware.
The liquid state, as expressed by the brain's water, has features that are not seen in solids and gases. The liquid state can create paradoxes in terms of physics.
For example, a glass of water open to the atmosphere is under atmospheric pressure, while also displaying surface tension. Gases can only be under pressure, but not tension; partial pressure. Solids can be under tension or pressure, but not both at the same time, and reach steady state. Liquids can exhibit pressure and tension at steady state.
If the free energy potential of the brain is being moved through the water, the liquid state adds a wild card in terms of standard physics which is usually modeled on gases or solids. Liquid water is also not hardware in the sense it is fluid and not solid like neurons.
Very interesting. A cognitive psychology based on memory? Could very well be do-able. Cheers.
An acceptance of an assertion?
I don't mean to be pedantic, but have you really read Hume?
To repeat myself: "There is no such thing as evidence for a scientific theory."
"We cannot gain direct evidence for [a] cause."
I'm not quite sure why you think this contradicts Hume in any way. It is also standard fare in the Scientific Method.
Quoting Marcus de Brun
I don't wish to be pedantic, but are you in any way familiar with Popper?
And, yes, we actually do know what causes the sun to shine.
One makes an assertion, and another accepts or rejects an assertion?
Quoting tom
No Tom, I know nothing of him or her but will rectify same and revert.
Quoting tom
I have only the vaguest notion of what unites the effect sun-'shine' with its cause, or if there is such a cause. I agree that there are events that precede the event 'shine' but I do not think anyone has proven which event if any is the cause.
I am happy that you have some personal or shared certainty here, and I presume you are not including 'me' in the 'we'.
And Tom.... sincere apologies if I have come across as being offensive or some such. I am not great with words.
Your thought and (hopefully not my own thought) on the matter is not the enemy.
I will respond when I have looked at Popper and thank you for the reference.
M
Far better that one offers an argument, and the other offers criticism, don't you think?
Anyway, the important thing is that Popper solves Hume's "Problem of Induction" with his Scientific Method, and that knowledge of causes is indeed possible, and always fallible.
I wanted to bring to your attention the following Youtube video by the British neuroscientist Anil Seth:
The Neuroscience of Consciousness
It's a great video because he does some really eye-popping live demonstrations and reviews our current state of experimental knowledge on the issue. Seth considers the "hard problem" too metaphysical, so he says he's more interested in finding and categorizing the neural correlates of conscious states. He has a theory of consciousness in which conscious experience is essentially a predictive process resulting from the body's dynamical interaction with the world.
I am recommending this video to you and everyone else not because I hope to convert you to my cause, but because I hope that seeing this video will get you to think about new issues that you may not have considered before.
Dr. Seth ends the video with two quotes that parody Descartes:
A bit like trying to figure out what program is running on a computer by imaging the CPU.
Have you read Karl Friston? He touches on similar themes to what you are describing.
The free energy principle: a unified brain theory?
This push to characterize the global state of the brain through free energy borrows heavily from thermodynamics and also condensed matter theory, where free energies are often used as order parameters that define the macrostates of different phases of matter and energy.
If that is the case, then why image the brain?
Also, why ignore the fact that tells us there is nothing particular about the brain. Any computationally universal device will do?
I would recommend that you watch his video. You are starting a pathetic war over nothing. I don't have the answer to every question you can pose while flaming the Internet. I posted a video so people could watch it and maybe learn something.
Quoting tom
Tom
From what I have read of Karl Popper thus far in respect of his "solving" Hume's Problem, I remain entirely unconvinced. Please might you reference the Popper article or paper where you feel he has best achieved this solution? So that we might have an agreed 'Popper- position'.
M
Computer memory is solid state and is designed differently from neural memory. Neural memory is designed by nature to be at high potential, while computer memory is designed to be at low potential. The higher potential neural memory makes it an accident waiting to happen. This is its charm. Evolution was about inducing; sensory systems, harnessing, and structuring these accidents.
An analogy is having two rooms. The first room or computer room has the floor covered in mouse traps that are arranged in a fancy design, but none of the traps are set; low potential computer memory. The neutral room of arranged with mouse traps in another fancy design, but these traps are all set; under potential. If we move one trap in the computer room, we have a slightly new arrangement, If we do the same in the neural room, we can have a chain reaction, with the designed altered all by itself. If we add some inert structural elements, to the original neural design, we can structure the chain reaction.
After many years of contemplation, consciousness appears to be more connected to the brain's water, than to the organic hardware of the brain. Water is critical to the workings of all aspects of life down to individual proteins and including neural memory. The water is fluid but it will align, in part, with the organics. However, unlike the organics, the extended water is not structurally dedicated; solid state. It is more fluid, and therefore can take advantage of the many unique properties of the liquid state when moving neural potential along the organic-water interface.
In water, the hydrogen protons can quantum tunnel, and often do so in pairs, which is very unique. This is an expression of free energy potential, with quantum tunneling having the property of skipping steps in the normal hardware path. The water can sends signal beyond the fixed hardware; induce organic changes. This aspect of the physics borders on the metaphysical.
The main problem is the biological sciences do not give water enough credit in terms of its contribution to life. If we took any aspect of life and removed the water and added any other solvent, nothing works properly and there is no life. If we add water, everything works and life appear. Water has ti finger in every pie. The result of not stressing water enough is the life science tends to fixate on the brain using the assumptions of the solid state; organic structures. The water adds liquid state parameters which adds features not found in solid state models like computers.
The theory of entropy, for example, was originally developed for modeling steam engines. In the early days, when doing an energy balance around a steam engine, there was unaccounted for energy. Entropy was a term to define this unaccountable energy, that was measurable but not part of known theory. This original use of entropy was connected to some of the liquid state paradoxes.
For example, a glass of water open to the air sees air pressure as well as surface tension. The water is under pressure while being in tension. If this was a sold, and you added pressure and tension; push and pull, the net affect is obtained by adding the force vectors.
In the case of the glass of water, tension and pressure are not connected the same way as the solid. They are not exactly force vectors that add. The result is a different math result. If you use solid state assumptions; organic centric, something is missing. The metaphysical explanation senses the missing link, which is connected to liquid state water.
Hence, neuroplasticity?
Quoting wellwisher
How so?
Where can I read more about this idea, or related ideas?
Details like this ,,, Given:
1) Neural Activity for the Color Red happens
2) A Conscious Red Experience happens
What is the explanation for 1 causing 2?
This is the Hard Problem of Consciousness that has never been answered by the Materialists. It is also the Explanatory Gap. We are no closer to understanding Consciousness now than we were a hundred years ago. The Materialists have won nothing.
Most of my ideas are grounded on established water science. I have extrapolated this well research science of water, to the questions of life, based on my working knowledge of organic and water chemistry. A good summary of water science can be found at the link below.
http://www1.lsbu.ac.uk/water/water_structure_science.html
Water is the most studied material in all of science. Nothing even comes close. Water has been found to be the king of all wild card materials, with over 70 known anomalies. Water breaks a lot of the rules that apply to other materials. Water, in life, has the capacity to add unique variables to the blend, that are not expected, based on the common trends in organic materials which are less anomalous. An organic centric biology does not take these water wild cards into account. It blurs them with statistics. The metaphysical is an attempt to add clarity to this classical materialism blur.
For example, a key water variable, which is critical to life and consciousness, is connected to a fifth force of nature, that can be generated by water at certain water-organic interfaces. This force has traditionally been called the life force. I prefer call it the entropic force, since it is a force that is generated by entropy. This force is not part of four forces of nature of classical physics. However, it can be easily measured, and is evident in osmosis.
Osmosis occurs when you partition water with a semipermeable membrane, such as life does with its many membranes. If we dissolve a solute, on one side of the membrane, that cannot diffuse through the semi permeable membrane, the water will diffusion through the membrane, toward the higher concentration solute side. The action of the water, driven by entropy, will build a pressure head. Pressure is force/area or entropic force/area.
Osmosis is a colligative property, meaning it is only dependent on the concentration of the solute, but is not dependent on the character of the solute. The character of the solute; ion, polar, non polar is connected to the EM force; electromagnetic force. This colligative property is not EM dependent. It is driven exclusively, by entropy, regardless of the local EM forces.
The metaphysical intuition that materialism can't explain consciousness, is correct, if we use only conventional thinking, based on the tradition of the four forces of nature. The entropic force is not part of that tradition, yet it has an impact on water, which then impacts the organics.
In the fountain analogy of consciousness, via neurons, the entropic force is at work as ions shift between the two sides of the membrane; neurotransmitters induce variable permeability, transmitting entropic signals through the water; inside and outside the neuron.
To know how this works and impacts the organics, you need to understand the nature of hydrogen bonding. This takes time to develop, so I will do this another time.
If you agree that the Hard Problem is not solved then you must agree that we are no closer to understanding Consciousness now than 100 years ago. The Hard Problem was not a coined phrase back then but they had the basic idea that Neural Activity leads to Conscious experience. Today we know a vast amount more about the Neural Activity (Neural Correlates of Consciousness) but in spite of that we know zero about how this Neural Activity causes Conscious experiences. We don't even know what any Conscious experience really is. We only know we experience it.
But at least we now know there is nothing particular about the neural nature of the activity that causes consciousness. It can be other types of activity. I think that is much more progress than it appears to be, and is almost completely ignored.
Thanks very much for the link and further explanations.
Hopefully you are committing your insights to writing, and I look forward to reading your exchanges with others on this forum who are more knowledgable in biology than myself (including the metaphysical implications).
Today we know that conscious experience cannot exist separately from brain activity. That is a realization of fundamental importance. What we don't know is what brain states produce or affect what conscious states and vice versa.
Since we have no idea what Conscious experience actually is you cannot say anything definitive about Consciousness. We know nothing about whether Conscious experience can exist separately from Brain Activity. This is simply the state of our understanding at this point in time.
In fact we are getting to know quite well what Brain states produce what Conscious states. Just saying that a Brain state produces a Conscious state does not explain How the Brain state produces the Conscious state. This is completely and utterly unknown. There is absolutely zero Scientific progress on this. It is almost an embarrassment of Science that it has no clue how this happens after such a long time of trying.
Philosophical problems also have a way of changing, being redefined, or dying out. Two centuries from now, most people in these fields may not even think there is a hard problem to solve. The best analogy, which Seth made himself, is about how people centuries ago thought that life required an 'animating' force that moved our muscles around. No one believes that anymore because now we know about proton pumps and electrochemical gradients and ATP and all that jazz.
But just because the hard problem has not been solved does not mean we have not made progress in understanding conscious experience, as I suggested above.
It depends on how the particular universal computer is constructed. There are many ways to do that.
Sorry, but that sounds like a long winded way of saying that we gain knowledge about emergence by assuming there is emergence.
At some point the explanation has to move from "look, all these patterns (everso complicated to produce) are correlated with conscious experience" to "look, all these patterns produce conscious experience" (or if you prefer, "look,consciousness emerges from all these patterns"). It's the move from the one to the other that that seems to require that the hard problem already be solved.
A slight later edit: I understand that you think we are a long way from solving the hard problem (to be honest, I think even the idea that there is a hard problem already requires accepting a lot of questionable metaphysics, but that's a different topic). My point is just that what that Seth and co are actually doing is showing us that such and such neural patterns are regularly correlated (although far from perfectly - the important results he talks about in the video you linked to are statistical it seems to me) with such and such consicous experiences. Correlation is not causation, but it seems to me at least that the idea of emergence has a causal dimension.
In my opinion, brain is the biological mechanism (neuronal system) that permits individuals to have a mind. The relationship between them looks like instrumental. Brain is that with we think. "Causes" of the mind states are related with the conditions in which they are produced, modulated, etc. For example, an emotion can be caused by other mental state (e.g. a thought) and by physical one (e.g. a drug).
Links to the research on this supposed fifth force would be useful please. Entropy in physics, as I understand it anyway, isn't a thing itself that can generate anything, it is just a measure of how much thermal energy in a given system is not available for conversion into work.
There is a contradiction between your equation of life force and entropy. Entropy is a tendency towards disorder. The singular mystery of life is that it contradicts entropy and is defined as a contrary tendency towards molecular cellular tissue organ system species and ecological order.
I like to take one particular aspect of Conscious experience and stick with it. I like to study the experience of the color Red. We know that there is specific Neural Activity happening when there is a Conscious Red experience. All I ever ask is, given the knowledge we have about the Red Neural Activity, how on Earth do we have that Conscious Red experience? The Red Neural Activity is the Easy Problem. How we have a Red Conscious experience is the Hard Problem.
If you think about the Red experience itself you will get closer to understanding the Hard Problem. The Redness of the Red exists only as a Conscious experience. The Redness is a Property of a Conscious experience. Imagine that, a Conscious experience has a Property. This means that the Redness is a thing in itself that exists somehow in our Conscious Minds. There is no Redness in the Physical world. What is Redness made out of? Is it made out of Matter? Is it made out of Energy? is it some aspect of Space? It is some aspect of the Conscious Mind. Science can not explain the Red experience that we have. There is zero progress toward understanding it. The Hard Problem in this case can be stated as a question: What is the Conscious Red experience? Get away from the Neurons and think about Conscious experience itself.
There is a huge misunderstanding, when it comes to entropy. Entropy is a variable, in chemistry, that can be measured in the lab. Decades of measurements have shown that entropy is a state variable. What that means is that for a given state of matter, there is constant amount of measured entropy. For example, liquid water at 25C and 1 atmosphere pressure has an entropy of 6.6177 J ? mol-1 ? K-1. This number is not random, but is a constant, that is measured the same by all labs. This is a standard in science.
Descriptions of the atomic and molecular details behind entropy get very nebulous and are often assisted with random assumptions. However, when measured, it is a constant for that state. It is very similar to the concept of dark energy, which is more than likely connected to entropy. We have never seen dark energy in the lab, to know exactly what it is. We infer dark energy indirectly from observations and measurements. Entropy is the original dark energy.
I am not claiming I can explain the nuts of bolts of entropy. However, I am claiming that since it is a state variable; constant for any given state of matter, changes of state; temperature, pressure, concentration, etc., will release or absorb a fixed amount of measurable entropy. The amount released or absorbed will be the difference between the two states.
When you talk about osmosis, the spontaneous movement of the water toward the solute side of the membrane is altering the state of the solute side; concentration is getting lower. The pressure is decreasing on one side of the membrane and increasing on the other side; two new states appear. The entropy values on both sides are changing with the states, making internal energy available for pressure; entropic force. The pressure, in turn, is part of the new states for the entropy.
There is another form of entropy, connected to information entropy, such as when transmitting data signals over long distances. This type of entropy is random, because information is not a state variable. We can't heat up a beaker of data and have the data rearrange itself consistently for that temperature; new repeatable fixed state of data measured by all labs. Language and information does not work like matter.The exception is the brain and life, where states of matter imply chemical information. This is another key to consciousness.
The entropic force is a liquid state affect. The movement of the water is not something that can occur in the solid state. In the solid state, all motion is frozen; except some electrons. The entropic force in the liquid state is also contingent on segregation, in terms of what can move in the liquid, so we can regulate the entropic force vector. This allows repeatable precision by life.
Evolution in terms of the second law and the entropic force implies movement to states of higher and higher entropy. This is not random, but has a sense of direction, in terms of the new states. The trick is knowing how to define the states, so entropy in each state is constant. The problem with the modern life sciences, is they can't define the proper states without water, so entropy appears random and the entropic force vector seems to cancel to nothing. Water is the moving force.
You can be certain that life contradicts entropy.
Entropy -> Chaos
Life -> Order
There is no equivocation here.
M
Google 'negentropy'.
I think physicists could state the fundamental idea of life more elegantly: life is a dissipative thermodynamic system that aims to avoid equilibrium with the rest of the world (since equilibrium represents death for us). It takes in energy from outside, uses some of it to maintain internal order, then dissipates the vast majority of the absorbed energy back to the environment. At the end of this process, the total entropy of the organism and the environment has actually increased. Of course our internal order doesn't last forever and eventually we die. Second law still stands.
Come on now Marcus, you can do better than this.
Now it's more obvious that life does not violate the 2nd law. Most of the energy consumed by living things ends up as waste and heat (dissipation). Only a small fraction of it actually gets converted into work, like the motion of our muscles. The efficiency of muscles themselves is about 20%, roughly meaning that around 20% of the chemical energy stored in ATP molecules actually becomes the motion of the muscle. The rest is lost as heat.
The entropic force is not everywhere, but is restricted to the liquid state. The standard four forces are connected to gas, solid and liquid. The entropic force is not. Physics is not equipped to deal with liquid properties like the entropic force, using on a theoretical framework designed for gas and solid analogies. But it is real and easy to show in the lab. Life is 20% solid state and 80% liquid state allowing the life force. The solid is needed to help direct the force vector.
Say we wanted to modeled the universe as a huge liquid, dark energy would be connected to the entropic force. In this model, the universe would need a semi permeable membrane analogy; solid, that allows selective movement, to generate an entropy force that expands the universe.
A liquid allows surface tension and pressure to exist side by side; glass of water open to the air. The surface tension is connected to the entropic force; dark energy, while the pressure is connected to gravity and matter.
Get thought and belief right, and the 'problem' between conscious experience and physiological sensory perception(brain) is solved(dissolved) as an unintended consequence.
Explain to us what we have to do with our Thoughts and Beliefs to solve the Problem (I'm assuming the Hard Problem).
I'm just nudging you in the right direction.
It's not a matter of monism vs. dualism. It's a matter of neither being adequate. It's a matter of how it's been talked about. Change the path and you'll end up in a different place.
Start by geting thought and belief right... ontologically, I mean. All thought and belief consists entirely of correlations drawn between 'objects' of physiological sensory perception and/or the creature itself(it's state of 'mind'; mental state).
"Consciousness" is nothing more than a namesake given to various forms of complex thought and belief and/or it's effects/affects.
Let's take our heads from the cracks and return to the water. The entropy of contained or uncontained processes is equally contingent upon mind. It (entropy) is equally contingent upon temporality. Therefore the interacting a priori are time and mind. When Descartes proved the existence of thought he equally proved the existence of time. These are the universal building blocks. An appropriate understanding of the relations here, must be completed before one applies ones head to the dam and speculates upon the dirty stuff that is matter and the ephemeral 'laws' that night pertain to its interactions.
When you say this you imply that you have some deep insight into Consciousness. You very well might be right. But you have to provide us with better explanations than that we have to get our Thinking Right. A Thesis is not necessary but a Paragraph would be helpful.
Not certain which argument you are referring to. My original and current point is that mind or consciousness has not been shown to arise from material interactions and the inverse is most likely the case. Objects that interact at an atomic and even sub atomic level must be conceived or perceived to do so. The interactions between matter and its relations to entropy involve a quantum leap out of the subject that is consciousness and into the realm where a material self has been assumed.
I believe the relations between mind and matter are difficult to comprehend because an appropriate theory of mind has yet to be formulated. Such a theory would be dependent NOT upon mind matter interaction nor matter matter interactions, such speculations are based upon the presumptive notion of an 'I' or material self and thenceforth upon an assumed objective material reality. I am not saying that material reality does not exist, I am merely saying that we have only the uncorroborated testimony of mind to vouch for this and at best we are not getting the full truth. Mind or thought exists, we can be certain of this much. However to jump from mind to matter without a sound theory of mind is to begin with an enormous assumption that leads to a Universe of material assumption.
We can be certain the mind exists, and when this was proven to be such, Descartes has also inadvertently proven that there must equally be conditionalities for the existence of mind. These conditions have hitherto been believed to be material, but they are clearly not, and they (material conditions) have not been uncovered. I believe this is because we are continually looking in the wrong place (matter) As such it is inconsequential if entropy is positive or negative and if it is contradicted by material life processes.
It is likely that the sole conditionality that must contain mind is a temporal one and not a material one. Again I am not saying that material existence is not real, I am saying that it is merely a byproduct of the mind and mind conditionalities. The conditions that contain thought or mind are at least temporal and if this is true then we have something definite to work with vis the relations between thought and time. A million philosophers have spent an ocean of ink upon the relations between thought and matter, and this approach is futility incarnate.
I have a suspicion that material reality is produced as a consequence of the relationship between thought and time. I have written an paper on the subject and if permitted to do so I will publish it here under the article's section. I don't pretend that it has all the answers but I think it begins to ask some of the right questions, and I would be grateful for some Philosophical input.
I don't know about you but I am bored senseless with the never-ending debate about mind-matter and would love to see the question take a new direction without material assumptions. Let the physicists have their entropy it may well be just another entertaining delusion.
There is no such thing as some deep insight into consciousness. It's nothing more than a bunch of different notions throughout human history based upon the idea that humans, and thus human minds were somehow different than animal minds in some special kind of way. There's nothing special about it. It's a matter of complexity, and that's it.
All thought. All belief. All statements. All meaning. All of these things consist entirely of mental correlations drawn between 'objects' of physiological sensory perception and/or the agent(creature) itself. The only difference is in the complexity of the correlations.
I think most people recognize that animals probably have some kind of Conscious existence and experience similar to what humans have. So how would you explain the Conscious Red experience using your Correlations drawn between 'Objects' of physiological sensory perception ... proposition?
That is just an example of the typical anthropomorphizing that people do. There is no evidence that animals possess qualia, and let's hope robots don't either.
If animals can create "what-it-is-like" knowledge, then what stops them creating any other kind of knowledge?
I wouldn't. That notion is utterly meaningless to me personally. That said...
If you would like, you can explain to me what you mean by "Conscious Red experience", and perhaps I could translate into my framework afterwards. As it stands, I'm sure that whatever you say will consist of the aforementioned correlations.
We don't even need to consider Correlations. I'm talking about the Red experience itself. How does the Red experience happen in the Conscious Mind? What is it? What experiences it?
Yes that is the question. If Red is something that exists in Physical Space then it has to be made out of Matter or Energy or some aspect of Space itself. But Red probably does not exist in Physical Space. We might say it exists in Mind Space or Conscious Space. But Red has a Property of Redness. Redness doesn't exist in Physical Space but only in Conscious Space. How do we explain that?
However, honoring the framework and therefore attempting to stay within it, 'we' might say that Conscious Space exists within Physical Space.
It is worth noting that you've yet to have answered it. Odd. You talk about something as if it is a problem for my framework. I ask you what you're talking about, and you confirm the importance of the question and yet neglect to answer.
Here's what you have said:
Quoting creativesoul
Quoting creativesoul
I thought the discussion was about the Hard Problem being solved by your framework. The question is the Hard Problem. You think it's solved. I say nobody knows the answer yet. Of course I don't have an answer to the Hard Problem. You have to recognize that there at least is a Hard Problem.
I thought is standard practice to deny the thing you can't explain, at least amon a sizeable minority of philosophers?
Anyway, it is also standard practice to deny scientific results, like the Church-Turing-Deutsch Principle (not to be confused with the Church-Turing Thesis) which tells us that consciousness is a software feature.
"I thought" he had drifted from the topic.
Anyway, it is also standard practice to deny scientific results, like the Church-Turing-Deutsch Principle (not to be confused with the Church-Turing Thesis) which tells us that consciousness is a software feature[/quote]
This Principle does not explain how or show that Consciousness is a Software feature. It just says it is so, and assumes it for the rest of the analysis. The original intention of the Thesis was just to say that Physical Systems can be simulated by software. The Principle included some Speculation that presupposed that Consciousness was just a Physical Process. No Explanation just Speculation. Could be true but any kind of proof is missing.
The problem is the way it's been talked about...
Folk are saying "consciousness" but have no clue what it is. What other words do we use like that? The problem is dissolved by better language use.
The Principle does not "just say it is so". The CTD Principle does not mention consciousness at all.
Science talks about Dark Energy and Dark Matter like that, You do not get closer to understanding these things if you just use different language. Dark Energy, Dark Matter, and Consciousness are true unsolved mysteries of Science.
Ok. So if the Principle itself doesn't say anything about Consciousness how can it tell us that Consciousness is a Software feature? I guess I am missing your point.
The Church-Turing-Deutsch Principle tells us (proves based on known physics) that all computationally universal devices are equivalent.
Now, there is no proof that the human brain is computationally universal, but there are extremely strong arguments to support this. The human brain not only instantiates a mind, but is capable of language, knowledge creation etc. Just visit a university library, then formulate an argument that the brain is not universal, that it is restricted somehow. i.e. that it is less than a laptop computer.
Since the brain, and computers are universal, then what one can do, the others also can. This is entirely independent of the particular physics that underlies the design or evolution of the device.
The clear implication of this, is that any abstraction instantiated on a universal computer cannot be a consequence of the particular physics. By extension, features of such abstractions, such as self-awareness, cannot be properties of the physics, they must be properties of the abstraction.
Thus the "Hard Problem" is solved. We now only need to solve the "Hard Problem 2.0".
Equivalent in what way, they are all computational universal devices?
I don't think you understand. Have fun.
Ignoring the fact that Turing machines don't exist - they are a mathematical abstraction - and assuming by "subjects of experience" you mean something like ""possess qualia", then the answer, as I explained above, is No. The same argument also applies to real brains.
There is no such thing as a universal computer that can do something that other universal computers cannot.
There is no such thing as a physical system that can undergo any dynamics that cannot be exactly simulated on a universal computer.
Well, real brains do exist, but only in people, who are indeed subjects of experience.
The fact that the Human Mind created the Laptop would indicate that the Human Mind is greater than the Laptop.
First of all a Brain is nothing like a Computer. A Brain has Trillions of simultaneous Neural Firings at any instant of time. A 4 core Computer can only do 4 things at any instant of time. So a 4 core Computer in effect only has 4 Neurons. At each instant any of the cores can be executing: Add, Sub, Mult, Div, Shift Left, Shift Right, AND, OR, XOR, Move Data , and etc. Which one of these operations would create Consciousness in a Computer? Or even which 4 operations executing simultaneously in the 4 cores would create Consciousness. To somehow try to say that a Brain and a Computer are computationally equivalent (both Universal) seems kind of ridiculous. They are Apples and Oranges. I would go so far as to say a Brain isn't even really a Computational Machine. It is something different. Brains create Computational Machines because Brains are not Computational Machines.
What do you mean by Hard Problem 2.0?
I truly don't understand what you are saying. If you don't want to continue the discussion then maybe you should not be on discussion Forums.
That's like saying Microsoft Word is greater than your laptop. Comparisons don't work unless you are comparing things of the same type.
Quoting SteveKlinko
It is proved, that under currently known laws of physics, there is no such thing as a physical system that can undergo any dynamics that cannot be exactly emulated on a universal computer. This means that nothing can exist in nature which can out-compute a universal computer in any fundamental way.
So, either the brain is a universal computer, or it is less than one.
This link takes me to David Deutsch's talk which begins at ~2:50:00 into the Dirac Medal Ceremony. Very interesting talk about the discovery of his principle.
Quoting SteveKlinko
Let's get computational universality under our belts first.
I don't get your point here. Microsoft Word didn't create a Laptop.
Quoting tom
Good video. Gave me new insight into Universal Computing. I thought it was about Computers, but I see a Brain and a piece of writing paper could serve the same purpose but slower. How does any of this solve the Hard Problem and leave a Hard Problem 2.0 to be solved? Now can you tell me what the Hard Problem 2.0 is?
Universal Computing is about physics, the way reality is structured, how information flows, and also about computers.
If we accept for the sake of argument, that the brain is a computationally universal physical structure, like Babbage's Analytic Engine, or a PC, then anything the brain can do, so can these other objects. The implication of this is that consciousness cannot be a material property, or be associated with any particular physics.
The Hard Problem of Consciousness refers to the problem of explaining how conscious phenomena, qualia, relate to physical phenomena. Well, the implication from computational universality is that qualia cannot relate to any particular physical structure, and thus the Hard Problem is dismissed.
The Other Hard Problem (Hard Problem 2.0) is how do abstract entities obtain qualia. Qualia are a software feature rather than a hardware emergence.
So a "universal computer" is a fictional thing, defined as a computational device which can simulate the dynamics of any possible physical system? Since it's fictional, how do we even know that such a devise is possible? And if we do not know whether such a device is even possible, of what use is the assumption of such a thing?
The whole point is that Universal Computers are real devices, which can exist according to known physics.
We are painfully aware of the classical restriction of the Universal Computer - they are everywhere. Classical and quantum computers have the same computational repertoire, it is just that certain tasks may be performed exponentially quicker on a q-machine than a c-machine. Emulating the human brain is not one of those tasks - the human brain is a c-machine.
It should be noted that massive academic and engineering industries have resulted from the "Deutsch Principle" paper of the 1980s.
Universal computers are real. I am typing on one.
If you are saying that Consciousness is something outside of known Scientific knowledge, then I agree.
Quoting tom
Seems like there is a relationship between Neural Activity in certain Brain structures that is Correlated with Qualia. So could you say a little more about what you mean by this?
Quoting tom
This just sounds like the original Hard Problem. When you say it's a Software feature I am lost. What Software are you talking about?
I thought you said that a universal computer could emulate any possible physical system, and that it's impossible that one universal computer could do something that another could not. Are you claiming that you're using a computer that can emulate any physical system?
There is an assumption of functionalism here, that consciousness is something a brain (or whatever) does. We're not all functionalists, and functionalism hasn't been shown.
Yes, but it would need more memory and a lot of time.
"Consciousness" has no such origen.
The problem is the language use. Some frameworks are ill suited for taking proper account of that which exists in it's entirety prior to our discovery of it. Pre and/or non-linguistic mental ongoings are one such thing. Consciousness consists, in part at least, of precisely such things. Since consciousness requires(is existentially dependent upon) pre and/or no linguistic mental ongoings, if we get those wrong we have no choice but to get consciousness wrong as well.
That' part of what I'm getting at here. Here's a bit more...
It is the user of "consciousness" who bears the burden of clear definition lest the resulting conception is muddled. There is nothing in conversation about consciousness that cannot be adequately accounted for and subsequently elaborated upon by a better framework. All of which is sure to sharpen one's understanding. This is all the product of better language use.
That is to say that all conceptions of consciousness point to that which can be better taken account of in when we talk in terms of thought and belief(pre and/or non-linguistic mental ongoings). Not all thought and belief are pre and/or non-linguistic, but that's an aside.
All consciousness consists of thought and belief. Not all thought and belief requires consciousness. Thus, consciousness is existentially dependent upon thought and belief, but not necessarily the other way around, although some complex thought and belief are virtually indistinguishable from consciousness. Thought and belief begin simply and grow in complexity.
Get thought and belief right, and our conception of consciousness will be better as an inevitable result.
I agree with you about language up to a point. I try not to talk about Consciousness in general but instead I like to use language that talks about particular aspects of Consciousness. Specifically I am interested in how we See. I believe Science has shown us what happens inside the Brain when we See. Science can point to the exact areas in the Brain where Neural Activity happens when we See. But I like to narrow this down even more to recognizing the particular Neural Activity that happens when we have an Experience of the color Red. Science may know what Neural Activity happens when we See the color Red but Science knows nothing about how the Conscious experience of Red happens. This is the Hard Problem of Consciousness. I like to encapsulate the Hard Problem in a question. I post this question all the time on the forums but it is a central question that needs to be asked over and over ... Given:
1) Neural Activity for Red happens
2) A Conscious Red experience happens
How does 2 happen when 1 happens? The answer to this question must include an understanding of what 2 is in the first place.
Would you say there is something wrong with the language used to describe the problem? What language would you use to describe the problem?
Consciousness requires a different type of hardware or else computer would be naturally conscious based on any hardware. I have explained how neuron design; memory, is based on the rest state of a neuron being at highest potential due to ion pumping and exchange. Computer memory is designed to be at lower potential. This makes a big difference, since a high potential starting point can meander in new ways driven by the lowering of free energy, apart from programming logic. It follows energy and matter logic as well as computer logic. The meandering path of the river, is not based on any program in the river. This is connected to something larger; laws of physics that are same in all references.
Another key element to consciousness is the hydrogen bond, such as occurs between water molecules, protein, RNA and the DNA and all combinations thereof.
The hydrogen bond is an odd duck, since it shows both polar and covalent bonding character. In essence, the hydrogen bond it is a natural binary switch. Observations in water show that water exists in both high and low density clusters. The difference in density is connected to whether the hydrogen bonding switches are more to the polar; higher density, or covalent side; lower density, of the switch. The polar side is also slanted more heavily to the electrostatic force, while the covalent side is more slanted toward the magnetic force. The hydrogen bond can break the unified electromagnetic force, into its two separated components, based on the switch setting. This adds new things.
The hydrogen bonding switch is way more advanced, than any semi-conductor switch. The main reason is the two extreme switch settings are different in terms of physical properties, allowing the switch setting to impact the matter around itself, differently for each setting.
The polar side has higher enthalpy, higher enthalpy but less volume (more density).The covalent side has lower entropy and lower enthalpy but occupies more volume. Chemical changes near the switch can flip the switch, so there is equilibrium. Whereas, a pure information transfer via the switches can impact the physical environment.
When we think, the information transfer through hydrogen bonding switches, muscles the molecules causing physical changes that create memory. The line between information and matter gets blurred. If we add to this, the high energy rest neurons, that meander potential energy, as this energy moves, hydrogen bonding translates that to natural and spontaneous information based on material logic.
Yes. The same I've been using. Normal parlance does just fine. The problem is the language use itself.
The very notion of "A Conscious Red experience" is problematic. It's a chimera. There is no such thing.
I think I understand now. You are saying that there is no such thing as the Conscious Red experience. Do you not See the color Red? If you do then it is real. It exists in what I like to call Conscious Space. It does not exist in Physical Space. The Redness of the Red is a Property that only exists in Conscious Space. There is no Redness in Physical Space. Red Physical Light has Wavelength as a Property but does not in fact have Redness as a Property. The Conscious Red that you See has Redness as a Property but does not have Wavelength as a Property. The Conscious Red Light is a Surrogate for the Physical Red Light. In general our Conscious Light is how we Detect Physical Light. Physical Light does not Look like anything. We only know our Conscious Light. So the Conscious Red experience is not a Chimera, but rather it is just something outside of normal Scientific knowledge. But it could become part of Normal Scientific knowledge if we could understand it a whole lot more.
When memory is formed, sensory input is combined with an emotional tag, by aspects of the limbic system, and then written to the cerebral matter. If we see red, this input data is stored as visual data with an emotional tag. If we see red again, this will trigger previous memories, which will also trigger the emotional tag, that had been added.
Since memory has both sensory content and emotions, we can trigger memory from either side. We can think of a feeling and images will appear in our mind. If we feel hungry, we will start to imagine food we would like to eat. Or one can think of an event; wedding, and emotions will appear.
In the case of the color red, this triggers previous visual memories, which triggers emotions. The emotions can then trigger other memories; red sports car, with some of these memories triggering related emotions; desire, etc., It is this chain reaction reverberation in memory that creates the dynamics in awareness we call conscious. The stimulus becomes alive to us.
In tradition, red is a warm color due to how fire is red. This is the same sensory color input and will get a very similar tag. Fire is one of those dramatic primal memories which will reverberate when we see red. This can bring us to other places, separate in space and time; old memories, from which two references appear so consciousness can isolate itself.
I think you might be assuming too much here. When a robot sees red, the seeing-red is definitely occurring in physical space
Quoting SteveKlinko
Again, in a robot, when it sees red, certain physical changes happen in its circuitry that correspond to red. You could point to the circuits and say, "Look, the robot is seeing red!" but there would be no consciousness there.
Quoting SteveKlinko
Maybe, but is not the quale of red more in the nature of what-it-is-like to see red, rather than a surrogate for photons of a certain energy?
All this may be true. But the question remains: How do we See Red? A Memory of Red is just chemical modifications among the Neurons associated with the Memory. There is never any Red actually stored. So when the Memory is accessed there are only chemical changes that are detected. How do the chemical changes and all the Neural Activity get converted into the experience of Red? That is the Hard Problem of Consciousness. Also remember that when there is an Experience of Red then there is an Experiencer that has the Experience. This is also part of the Hard Problem.
Do you seriously think a Robot has a Conscious Red experience? I think you must know that a Robot is just a Computer that is processing numbers. The Human Brain processes signals but there is an extra processing stage that a Computer does not have. it is the stage where the Red experience is generated. We don't sense what our Neurons are doing but rather we interface through the Conscious stage of the Visual process.
Quoting tom
Ok I agree with this. But it sounds like you are saying something different in the comment above.
Quoting tomThe Quale is the Surrogate. I think saying Conscious Red Light is more descriptive than saying the Red Light Qualia. Sorry, it's my fault for using non standard Philosophical terminology.
Do you seriously think I claimed robots are conscious?
Quoting SteveKlinko
How many processing stages are required to create qualia? 2, 3, 4? How does the last one create the qualia? Why can't a robot have that "extra processing stage"?
You say things like this :
Quoting tom
I think when you say the Robot Sees Red you mean that the Robot only Detects Red. It does not have a Conscious experience of Red. Ok I get it.
Quoting tom
Nobody knows how that final stage works. But it is clear that there is a Consciousness stage in our chain of Visual Processing stages. And your question: How does the last stage create the Qualia? is the Question that Science cannot answer yet. This is the Hard Problem of Consciousness.
I think a Robot with the right hardware could very well have Consciousness. Only after we understand our own Consciousness will we be able to design Robots with Consciousness. I think the hardware will be a lot different than we have today.
This doesn't square with everyday common knowledge.
Conscious Space(whatever that is supposed to refer to) is in the universe, right? Everything in the universe is in 'physical' space. Everything that exists does so by virtue of being in physical space.
Quoting SteveKlinko
What on earth is 'the redness of the red' supposed to be talking about? What's wrong with just plain 'red'? As above, red exists in physical space.
Quoting SteveKlinko
Red is a range of wavelength. See that last claim above? Do you understand that you've defined this notion of 'Physical Light' along with this notion of 'Conscious Light' in such a way that you've admitted that you do not know, cannot know perhaps, about what you're talking about?
As before, I'm reminded of Kant's Noumena.
Quoting SteveKlinko
That does not follow from anything you've written.
If the Conscious Red experience is a thing that exists in Physical Space then what is it? Is it made out of Matter, Energy, or is it some aspect of Physical Space? Can you describe what Red is using any words of any language? Red and I mean the Redness itself is not describable. Red is a Conscious experience that exists in the Conscious Mind. The Conscious Red experience is how we Detect Physical Red Light. We have never Seen Physical Red Light, but only our internal Conscious Red Light. Physical Red Light does not Look like anything. Conscious Red Light is a Surrogate for the Physical Red Light. Most people are so used to Seeing their own Conscious Red Light that they think it is the way Physical Red Light actually Looks.
It makes little sense to insist that the Red experience is some Physical Space Phenomenon. It makes more sense to propose that the Red experience and all Conscious experience takes place in some new Conscious Space. Conscious Space is not like a Physical Space. It is just a conceptual place to put Conscious experiences. Although it might someday be discovered to be an actual Scientific principle.
Quoting creativesoul
I say things like the Redness of the Red to Emphasize the Conscious experience of Red. I think that when you think about the Redness itself without the context of anything else you will discover the absolute Mystery of the Phenomenon. You will understand that it is not really something that is even in the Physical Universe. If it is in the Physical Universe then what is it and where is it?
Quoting creativesoul
We all know what Physical Red Light is from Science. We all know what Conscious Red Light (Red Light Qualia if you like) is from our Conscious experience of it. We know both of these things but they are separate things. The thing that Science does not know is how the Physical Red Light gets converted into the Conscious Red Light that we actually See. We have never Seen Physical Red Light but rather we have only ever Seen our own internal Conscious Red Light. So the Conscious Red Light Phenomenon is a purely Conscious Mind Phenomenon. And nobody knows what they are talking about when they talk about Consciousness. We must however speculate on new ways of approaching the Problem of Consciousness if we are ever going to solve it.
Quoting creativesoul
Conscious experience is discussed in many different ways by many different writers.
Quoting creativesoul
Seems perfectly reasonable that when Science discovers new things about how Consciousness works that those things will become part of normal Scientific knowledge regardless of anything I have written.
Visit http://TheInterMind.com to see a more in depth development of Conscious Space and Conscious Light.
Really? Sherlock Holmes or Harry Potter? Ignoring the trivial matter of their 'existing' in physical books, they have no existence in 'physical' space, do they? And how about science (the discipline, not its subject matter)? It also has no 'physical' existence. And so forth.... :chin:
Really. Think about it.
I am neither a dualist, nor a monist. Consciousness is emergent. It is a matter of emerging in varying layers.
I reject almost all dichotomies on grounds of inherent inadequacy. Some things consist of both and thus are neither.
The origen of the universe is and always will remain a complete mystery. I could not care less about it.
if you are serious about the language problem, then ask yourself:
what is the difference between:
1. a conscious experience of Red; and
2. an experience of red.
Unnecessary words cause confusion.
I think that for some people 2 opens up the possibility that the Red is out there in the Physical World. Whereas 1 emphasizes the fact that the Red it is in your Conscious Mind. Extra words can further specify and define things.
Makes sense to me. :up: :grin: I was only confused because most people mean something less when they write universe.
You raised the issue of language.
Who is your audience? I find it confusing.
Calling it a "conscious" experience of red tells me nothing about where the red is.
Certainly the materialists consider their experience of red to be "conscious."
There is no un"conscious" experience of red.
Calling it a "conscious" experience of red only raises the forgoing issues, it does not resolve them.
Just saying.
In your mind, where your consciousness lives? :wink:
That is begging the issue.
Everyone agrees their experience of red is conscious.
Not everyone agrees the red is in their mind (where their consciousness lives?).
Some believe the red is in the world.
Nobody has non-conscious experiences of red.
Calling it a "conscious" experience of red raises the foregoing issues; it does not resolve them.
Red is a human concept; electromagnetic radiation with a wavelength around 700 nm is something that occurs and can be measured.
He solicited advice on language.
I gave it too him.
And now you are proving me correct.
Thank you.
:smile:
I didn't raise any language issue. A bunch of posts back somebody made the claim that if we could just "Get the Language Right" then the Hard Problem would go away. Anything I said about language was probably referring to that. My audience is anyone that is interested. So it bothers you that I say Conscious Red Experience? Is it your opinion that saying Conscious Red Experience is redundant and I should just say Red Experience? This is confusing to you? It maybe slightly redundant but confusing, I don't think so. Sorry, I actually don't understand your complaint.
So I am mistaken about who raised the issue.
Why would that matter?
My comments were about the language.
I took no position regarding the location of the color red.
I am sure will find it.
I do not know.
Perhaps the great mystery of the location of red will some day be resolved and we can stop losing sleep over it.
It is simply not an issue I find intriguing at this point in time.
Good luck finding the location of red and if you do find it, could you take a look around for blue? Blue is my favorite color.
:smile:
2) I consciously see the redness of the snooker ball.
In what kind of circumstances could the truth of these two statements come apart?
If they are always true or false in the same circumstances, then what is added by talk of consciously seeing anything.
In both cases, it looks like what is being seen is an instances of a visible property and that instance, wherever it is, is no more inside my skull than the snooker ball itself is.
Robots and animals can do 1).
Only humans can do 2).
Robots will also do 2) when we figure out how to build a General Purpose AI.
I think 1 can imply the sense that the Visual Image of the snooker ball is Out There in the external world and you are really Seeing it as it is. But 2 more precisely specifies that the Visual Image is an Internal Conscious phenomenon where you are not Directly Seeing the snooker ball but are actually Seeing a Surrogate, created by your Mind, of the snooker ball. There are still many people (including the Direct Realists) that believe 1 is true. To understand 2 you have to understand that you have never Seen a snooker ball but you have only Seen your Internal Conscious Visual experience of the snooker ball. Item 2 might be redundant to you but it is important to always emphasize the Consciousness aspect when talking about these things to a more general audience. You never know who is viewing these forums. Lot's of people view but never post.
We know that the Redness of the snooker ball will ultimately produce particular Neural Activity in the Brain. The Neural Activity is what leads to the Conscious Red experience. We know this because, if these particular Neurons are stimulated in the right way by probing, then the same Conscious Red experience can be attained. Maybe not of a snooker ball but the experience will be of Redness. So it would seem that the experience of Redness is a Neural Activity based phenomenon. But yet the experience of Redness cannot be found in the Neurons. The Conscious Red experience is only in the Mind. Physical Red Light has a particular Wavelength but does not have any Property of Redness. Conscious Red Light has Redness as a Property but has no Property of Wavelength. Redness does not even exist in the Physical World. It is purely a Conscious Property of a Conscious thing. So naturally the question arises ... Given:
A) Neural Activity for Red happens
B) A Conscious experience of Red happens
How does A lead to or produce B? This is just the Hard Problem of Consciousness stated as a question. It is the Explanatory Gap. Finding the link between A and B is what I'm looking for. See http://TheInterMind.com for more information on this.
Robots and (some) animals can detect electromagnetic radiation whose wavelength is around 700 nm; only humans can see the redness of the snooker ball.
The snooker ball does not have Redness as a Property. The snooker ball reflects Light at a Wavelength of 680 nm. But the Red Light has no Redness Property. The Red Light actually does not Look like anything. The Brain converts the Red Light into the Conscious experience of Redness. Redness is a Property of a Conscious Phenomenon. Redness does not exist in the Physical Universe. Redness only exists in the Conscious Universe. It's a subtle distinction but it has vast consequences for the ultimate understanding of Consciousness. I'm not saying that you don't, but many people do not understand this.
I think it was the last sentence that got me off on the track I went on. It seemed like you were saying that the snooker ball actually had the Redness property itself.
First, the research on visual cortical stimulation that I am aware of doesn't warrant such a claim to knowledge. For ethical reasons, the evidence base is exceedingly small, for one thing. Also, the reports of the actual subjects at most show that stimulation of the visual cortex is statistically correlated with reports of phosphenes, but even some of those reports involve the curious idea that these phosphenes - whatever they are - are colourless. If you have more recent and definitive research to back up your claim, I'd be interested if you could provide a link to it.
Secondly, you mention yourself the redness of the snooker ball as the start of a supposedly causal story in vision - the end of that causal story is that I see the redness of the snooker ball. Nothing so far said requires the existence of any other instance of redness to enter the picture. The supposed neural activity you are talking about could simply be part of what goes on in opening us up to an actual feature of the environment.
The ball is red. The redness of the ball begins a causal chain by which certain neurones fire in a human or certain circuits fire in a robot.
Quoting SteveKlinko
So, your claim is that a physical object can convert light into conscious experience.
Quoting SteveKlinko
So, your claim is that a physical object can convert light into something that does not exist in the physical universe? That seems pretty outlandish, if not impossible.
Oh yes. :yikes: I see now. No, IMO the redness is in the eye of the (human) beholder. :up: [I.e. in the mind, not the literal/physical eye. :) ]
I like your Conscious Universe/Physical Universe split. It's just subject and object by other names, but that's OK. I have been looking at very similar things via the hive (all humans, taken together, but in a specifically socio-cultural context) and particularly the hive-mind. The hive-mind is both author and keeper of human culture (using "culture" in its broadest possible interpretation).
The conscious experience of Redness is at the bottom of the abstract chain for the hive-mind. Higher up, we have art, science (the discipline, not its subject matter), religion, crafts, philosophy, politics; in short: all human creations and accomplishments. I think perhaps your Conscious Universe is a helpful perspective in this, so thanks for it! :wink:
This confuses two things. The ball is not red; the ball reflects electromagnetic radiation with a wavelength around 700 nm. "Red" is a label that humans give to that radiation when they see it. The human eye and the robot's circuits detect electromagnetic radiation with a wavelength around 700 nm. But, later in the chain, and only in the human, this simple act of detection becomes a perception, and that somehow leads to the conscious experience of Redness. The robot does not experience the latter.
Perhaps you need to rephrase this, as we do not see radiation, we see coloured snooker balls and the like. "Red" is a label we give to a visible features of the things we see. We were labelling things "red" long before we even had a theory that predicted electromagnetic radiation.
So, red objects reflect or emit photons of predominately red energy. Humans label photons of this energy (or the black-body spectrum centred on red) as "red".
Robots can be programmed to do that too. They can even detect red, perceive it, and take action on that, including saying, "I perceive red" or driving off if it is a Tesla.
What robots and even human brains (as bare physical objects) cannot do, is create "what-it-is-like" knowledge to see red - i.e. the red quale.
If what we know about Reality is correct, robots could create the red quale, and humans do create the red quale. Both have sufficient hardware, so what is missing? Hint: it's not a soul.
As a diversion, consider these remarkable facts about qualia: they cannot be predicted; they cannot be described.
I happen to think the above observations are a profound hint as to their nature.
Yes, and they go on to experience Redness, which I should've emphasised. :blush: Robots can't do that. Even if, one day, they become conscious - the robot version of consciousness - they won't experience Redness as humans do. Redness is a uniquely human experience.
According to known physics, robots can experience everything a human can, and since their hardware is more flexible, they are quaranteed to possess the qualia of ultraviolet, and infrared.
But of course, you claim that certain objects in the physical universe, create the conscious universe, but have no clue how or why.
Physics, however, has good arguments how and why.
Please state the good arguments physics has to offer concerning the Conscious Universe?
That has got to be the dumbest non-sequitur I have seen on this forum for several days!
Now, you claim physical objects can create a separate conscious universe. Back it up or retract it.
You stated that physics has good arguments to offer concerning these matters. It is not unreasonable to ask you to reveal them. It is a stupid question, but only because physics cannot address the Conscious Universe any more than carpentry can address gravity.
As for the rest, I believe that physical objects (human beings) create the Conscious Universe. And I have no more idea how than I have how the mind emerges from the brain. This is the mind-brain discussion, in different clothes, after all. Or maybe it's subject/object? These things all interlock. :wink:
Now please state those arguments from physics, or retract your claim that they exist, to use your (somewhat abrupt) phraseology.
All you have to do is rub your eyes and you can see Lights. So we know that even that very external mechanical stimulation of the Visual system can create a Visual effect. Stands to reason that more direct probing inside the Brain will produce all kinds of Auditory, Visual, and Memory experiences. I thought this was realized by Science decades ago and is pretty much common knowledge by now.
The snooker ball reflects Physical Light at a Wavelength of 680nm. This Physical Light has no Redness as a Property. It only has Wavelength. This Physical Light doesn't Look like anything. The Physical Light hits the Retina and is processed by the Brain to produce the Conscious Red Light (Qualia) that we actually See. The Conscious Red Light is what has the Property of Redness. We don't see Physical Light we only See the Surrogate that the Brain creates. When we dream about Red things we are Seeing our internal Conscious Red Light. No Physical Light exists when we See Red in a Dream. This is because the Red has always only been inside your Mind
I tend to agree.
Scientific knowledge is primitive. It is concerned with how atoms are joined together, how energy flows through physical systems, how spacetime is shaped, how biological creatures function, etc. Consequently, the rationale that arises from science is primitive.
The world of the person is concerned with consciousness, being, life, creativity, art, beauty and value. These higher things cannot be encompassed by the primitivism of science. To argue that they can is like arguing that literature should be understood in terms of the primitive logic of chess.
You seem to be thinking of space as something "out there", and because science tells you that redness is not out there is the world you are denying that it exists in "physical space". But this is dualistic thinking. 'Out there" and "in here" are relative to the boundaries of the body, and in that sense, because seeing red is an interaction between physical process external to the body and physical processes internal to the body the seeing of red is both out there and in here.
But the internal processes of the body are also in physical space, there is no reason to believe there is anything that is really, as opposed to merely from a certain viewpoint seeming to be, 'outside of space". The very idea is absurd and incoherent, when you think about it.
But I am saying that the Red is not something that we can categorize as Matter, Energy, or Space. It is something different. It is a Conscious thing. So in that sense what can you say about where the Red is? I know that if I say that the Red is outside of normal Physics you could interpret that as a positional thing. But when I say outside I just mean it is something different than normal Physics. Of course I am a Dualist. Who wouldn't be?
I would say that redness is information; and information is an inherent aspect of matter, energy and space, not something substantially different such as to warrant a belief in fundamental dualism.
Robots are not beings, they're not subjects of experience. Once you admit this obvious truth, then much of what you are on about disintegrates.
Do you think that equating 'information' with everything rather dilutes the concept of 'information'? I mean, if you pointed your radio-telescope at a distant star, you can infer certain facts about it - how far it is away, what its composition is, and so on. I suppose such facts comprise 'information'. But if, on the other hand, you detected a signal from the vicinity of that star - then that would be 'information' in a different sense, i.e. a signal, something that conveys information, other than simply meta-data about the star.
Sure, there is a difference between information which is intentionally produced and information which is just an inherent aspect of the natural order. Whitehead suggests that information consists in the ways in which energies, or forces or influences are "prehended". This prehension constitutes the degree of creative freedom that entities can exercise, and it culminates in human comprehension. I see an analogy between this idea and Peirce's notion of interpretance.
For Whitehead prehension is experience, and experience is meaningless, it is empty nothingness, without information. So, for example, due to its nature, its form and constitution, the rocky outcrop prehends the forces of wind and rain, and it responds accordingly by eroding in particular ways. The wind and rain, their direction and intensity, for example, are forms of information, as are the size, configuration and constitution of the rocky outcrop. You can also understand this as an example of interpretance. The erosion is a kind of "interpretation" of the signs which are the wind and rain. But conversely, the erosion can also be a sign, to a suitable interpretant, of the action of the wind and rain.
So, the idea of information (or prehension) is not "diluted" as long as distinctions between the kinds and complexities of information (or prehension) are maintained; in fact information or prehension are conceptions that unify the whole of nature, including the human, and thereby avoid the mistake that it was the central focus of Whitehead's whole project to circumvent: namely the "bifurcation of nature".
Well said.
The reason I dislike Bateson's definition of information so much is because it only pertains to information created by a mind.
Quoting Hoffmeyer & Emmeche. (1991). Code Duality and the Semiotics of Nature.
Types of information correspond to types of data (form) which correspond to types of ideas and objects.
Thanks
I should get around to reading Towards an Ecology of Mind I've had it on the shelves for years. And thanks for the reference to that article, it looks interesting.
Quoting Galuchat
I've been thinking about whether it's possible to describe an object or entity without speaking about its relations. There seem to be three kinds of relations: physical, spatio-temporal and aesthetical. An object is directly related to its environment in a physical sense through its interactions, is related spatially to other objects and entities in terms of position, proximity, and orientation (whether fixed or moving), and related aesthetically in terms of similarity and difference. Of course, the three kinds of relations are not separate; they interpenetrate and involve one another.
Since nobody knows what the Redness is, it could be as you say or as I say. But it seems to me that because Science has not been able to figure out what it is after a hundred years of trying, that it is more sensible at this time to say that it must be something other than Matter, Energy, or Space.
The whole problem is more complicated than just understanding what the Redness is. Science must understand what the Observer of the Redness is. Maybe when Science understands the Observer the Redness will become obvious.
It seems to me that you are manufacturing false problems. You say no one "knows what the redness is"; which seems to be a question as to what it "ultimately is". Then I would say no one knows what anything is in this kind of demanding sense. We do know that redness is information. The question as to the location of that information seems to be a malformed one, so why should we worry about it?
When you say why should we worry I guess you are saying that you just don't care about the problem of the Conscious perception of Red. That's ok for you, because there are many different things to think about with Consciousness. I choose to study the Human Visual system. The input is Physical Light and the output is Conscious Light in your Conscious Mind. I am fascinated by the Conscious Visual Image that is embedded in the front of our faces showing us what is in the scene we are looking at. Red is one component of that Image. I think it is best to pick an aspect of Consciousness and stick with it. I think that when someone finally figures out what Red actually is then they will have solved the larger Consciousness Problem.
I think that asking Where the Red is might just get people to think about Red in a deeper way. People generally think the Red is out there in the world of things. That apple is Red and so the Red is out there. But as we think more deeply about the Red we see that it isn't out there after all but it is somehow only in our Conscious Minds. It is sensible to ask: Where is the Conscious Mind that is having the Red experience? It is therefore sensible to ask: Where is the Red itself? So I don't agree that it is a Malformed question.
OK, fine, keep worrying about it then. :razz:
I don't think it is common knowledge, more like common jumping to conclusions. The picture you go on to paint in the subsequent part of your response seems like it might be based on the kind of conceptual confusion that this blog article hints at and that @Janus also seem to have had in mind in his earlier remarks. Take visible features like colour and shape out of the world in which objects like brains and retinas and snooker balls exist and it becomes impossible to say anything coherent about that world at all.
There are no Fermions or Bosons involved with the scene you might See while dreaming. In this case the scene you See is not correlated with any Fermion and Boson configurations in the real world. So half of the premise of the article is not even true. The contradiction does not even exist.
To take the experience of seeing colour out of the world, and into the viewer's mind (where it belongs) is not the same as taking colour out of the world. Reflectivity of certain frequencies of electromagnetic radiation is part of the world. A human viewer's reaction to them is inside the viewer's mind. The parts that belong in our minds are just labels and explanations that we create for our own convenience and use. Note: they are labels for external features, and for our internal experiences of them. Labels are just vocabulary, when it comes down to it, aren't they? :chin:
Agreed, but it is not the experience of seeing colour that the kind of account of vision SteveKlinko sketches threatens to remove from the world, but colour itself. Help yourself to whatever surface feature of objects you want to identify with colour - in your post you identify it as a certain kind of reflectiveness - if I insist that experiencing an instance of the colour red and experiencing an instance of that kind of reflectiveness are one and the same thing, any argument that removes instances of the colour red from the world removes instances of that kind of reflectiveness from the world as well, and the blog post I linked to argues - at least as I understand it - that that would be an incoherent idea.
You are missing a distinction. A human can experience seeing the colour red. A machine or a robot can measure the presence or absence of electromagnetic radiation of a particular frequency, but it cannot experience redness as a human can.
You could argue, if you wanted to, that a robot or machine has its own experience of redness as a result of taking measurements and detecting the appropriate frequency radiation to be present. But the robot/machine experience and the human experience are two different things. Both experiences are based on the presence of electromagnetic radiation, but that's all they have in common.
So the human experience of redness is unique. Part of that experience is something we call "colour". And in that sense, colour is not part of the Physical World, nor has it ever been. Colour is something humans experience that machines and robots cannot. So colour is correctly considered not to be part of the Physical Universe. It's part of the Conscious Universe, and is a human creation.
N.B. that which gives rise to colour is very definitely part of the Physical Universe. Colour itself is part of the Conscious Universe, and can only be perceived or experienced by humans.
Agreed. :up:
Quoting jkg20
I hope I didn't. I was trying to emphasise the difference between those two things.
Quoting jkg20
Redness is being used to describe the human experience of seeing something that is red. That experience has no existence - none at all - outside of your own head. The thing that reflects light whose frequency is around 700nm is part of the real world; your experience of seeing it is not.
This is not an assumption, or even an inference. It is a simple deduction based on observation of the real world. The thing that emits or reflects red light is physically real. Your experience of seeing it is not. Your experience takes place in your mind; it exists in your mind; it has no existence outside of your mind. If it does exist in the real, physical, world, point to it! :razz:
Colour is not an illusion or an hallucination. It is real, but not in the sense that it exists in the real, physical, world. It is a real part of the Conscious Universe. It is not existent in the Physical Universe. We can prove this is so by observing that colour does not exist in the Physical Universe. We can measure all we want; we will not and cannot detect colour. We can detect electromagnetic radiation of the form we call light, but we cannot detect colour. We can label particular frequencies of light with the names of colours, but we simply refer to our own experience of seeing when we do, and we do it for our own convenience. Why wouldn't we? :wink:
Our mental creations are so intimate that we overlay them onto the world, where we find them meaningful. They attach (in our minds), if you like, to things out there. But they remain our creations. If all humans disappeared today, colour, and the experience of seeing something red, will be gone forever.
In this statement lies the crux of the issue: At one and the same time you imply that "something is red" (i.e. the something I might see in the world around me) and on the other that the experience (of seeing something that is red) is red. Presumably you are using "red" in two distinct senses here: let "red1" apply to snookerballs and other things in the world, "red2" apply to these things you are calling "experiences". The opposing view is that there are not two such meanings, that there is only one meaning for "red" and it is the one we use when we say that snooker balls are red. If these things you are calling experiences were also capabely of being red in that unitary sense, then one ought to be able to put one of these experiences next to a snooker ball and say something like "look, they are both the same colour". But clearly, whatever these things you are calling experiences are, that is not something one can do with them. So, you seem to be forced to reject the unitary view of what "red" means, and are left with "red1" applying to things in the world like snooker balls, and "red2" applying to whatever these things called experiences are. Maybe when you earlier tied "red" to a surface-reflectance property, you meant red1. (Note that the relative metaphysical/epistemological/logical priority of red1 and red2 is not yet in question, the use of numerals is there just to indicate a supposed difference, not a supposed priority of any kind).
What you have to do now, though, is convince your opponent that these things you are calling experiences actually exist at all. Your opponent is happy to accept that snookerballs and all sorts of other visible things exist and can be red1. Let's be very clear about this: your opponent here is specifically NOT denying that people see red1 snookerballs and that they can be perfectly wellaware of the fact that they are seeing red1 snookerballs when they do so. They are instead challenging the assumption that when people do see red1 snookerballs that there are any entities (in any world whatever) called experiences that need to be appealed to and that can be red2. How are you going to convince your opponent to the contrary? You cannot just say that it is obvious that there are such things and that they are red2, since the only obvious thing for your opponents is that there are people, red1 objects, and that the former can sometimes see the latter.
Typically philosophers that would be sympathetic to your kind of view have attemtped to show that in giving an account of what it is for a person to see a red1 snookerball, one just has to appeal to things of the kind you are calling "experiences" and that these things must be red2. However, establishing that kind of position requires argument and should not simply be assumed. Typically the arguments that are used to so establish it are arguments from perceptual error, but those arguments are very definitely not watertight. So far in this thread there has been no argument given that there must be such things.
To prove that Mental Imagery and Dreams exist would be to solve the problem of Consciousness itself. You are asking for the Answer before you even start thinking about the Problem. For now we have to assume these things exist or we will get nowhere. We only have our own inner experiences to work with. I have Conscious Visual Imagery experiences when I am awake and also when I Dream. Nobody can prove to you that those experiences exist. What are those experiences?
If the only way to motivate a problem is to make unargued assumptions that lead to that problem, then there is good reason to be suspicious of the unargued assumptions.
Let me have one last stab at explaining myself, although I thought my last reply to @Pattern-chaser put it as clearly as possible. Consider the following three phenomena:
1) Having a mental image of a red snooker ball.
2) Having a dream of a red snooker ball.
3) Seeing a red snooker ball.
I am in no way shape or form denying that such phenomena as these exist: people engage in mental imagery, people dream and people see. The specific assumption (and an assumption is all that it is at the moment) I am bringing into the spotlight and challenging is that those three phenomena share a common factor over and above the bare fact that they are about a red snooker ball. You and Pattern-chaser appear to believe that there is such a common factor, but have provided no arguments for agreeing with you. Furthermore, you both also appear to be suggesting (again, suggesting and not arguing) that redness is really only a feature of this supposed common factor. Why should anyone join you in so assuming if doing so at best just leads to problems that can be otherwise avoided, and at worst involves the kind of incoherence that the blog page I linked to indicates?
4) Visually mistaking a red snooker ball for a yellow snooker ball (e.g. because of light conditions, or perhaps an unusually virulent attack of jaundice).
In a case like that there is some pressure to think both that there is actually something that is yellow but that it is not the snooker ball, and in that case what is it that is yellow?
Since the Red we experience with all 3 of these things is the same or at least similar, it is completely sensible to think that there has to be something common in the production of all three. Why would you not first investigate the common properties (Redness)? If investigation shows that there is no connection then that is ok. If you assume different causes at the front end of the study then what do you have to work with? It's the commonness of the Red that gives us something to ponder.
You are kind of missing jkg20's point I think. You seem to imply that in all three cases that there is an instance of redness that we are aware of. That might be the case for (3), but is it for (2) and (1)? What are you going to say to someone like jkg20 who denies (or at least appears to be denying) that any instance of redness is involved in cases of (1) and (2), and that it is only in case (3) that we have a genuine instance of redness, and it is the redness of the snooker ball?
I'm fairly sure this is not the case. And it's nothing to do with mistaking the label for the thing it describes either. The experience of seeing something red is not itself "red"; I don't think anyone has said or implied this.
I've been trying to understand this sub-thread by adopting the (scientific) perspective of an objectivist philosopher. [This is new to me, but I'm sure you will correct my misapprehensions, if any.] To a scientist, "red" has only a single, simple, meaning. It refers to light of wavelength around 700 nm. "Red" is a convenient synonym for the (slightly) longer scientific description. So there is no reason not to use it, and every reason to see that "red" demonstrably exists in the Physical Universe. After all, electromagnetic radiation of wavelength around 700 nm does exist there, so red exists out there in the real physical world, and so (by extension) does "colour".
Furthermore, science places humans in the role of 'impartial observer'. An impartial observer adds nothing to - and subtracts nothing from - their observations; they simply report what they have seen, without bias or interpretation. They report the facts - the empirical data - with nothing added, and nothing taken away. Seen this way, the human experience of redness (seeing something that is red) is not qualitatively different from that of a measuring machine, or a robot. Any 'mystical' aspects of redness simply are not there. ... From the scientific/objective perspective.
A more broadly-focused perspective sees things differently. "Red" remains a synonym for "electromagnetic radiation of wavelength ~700 nm", but it has other meanings too, as most of our words do. Red means embarrassment or danger, it is an alarm, and it represents anger. It refers to a negative financial balance, and quite a few other things too. When we see something, and recognise it as being red, we draw all of these meanings from our memories. All of the things associated with "red" are drawn into our act of perception, even those that may not be relevant to the particular observation we have made. These are the differences between an impartial observer and an active participant. For the latter, redness (seeing something that is red) is quite different from the experience of the former. It is broader and deeper, and generally more nuanced. There is (even) more to it than I have described, but I have said enough to illustrate my point, I think. :chin:
According to this more nuanced description of redness, the human experience of seeing something that is red is much more than reporting the observed data. As part of the human perceptual experience, this data is observed, then understood (as best we can), considered, and interpreted, in our uniquely human way. This redness, and the above (multi-faceted) description of "red", do not exist in the Physical Universe. They exist only in the minds of humans.
It's remarkable how much difference perspective - and context, etc - can make. :wink: :up:
For me the Redness of the Red is just as Red in 2 and 3. With 1 the sensation of Redness is more vague but the Redness is there nevertheless. It's impossible for me to show anyone else what my own internal Conscious experiences are. If someone truly cannot have a Red Mental Imagery experience then I would have to believe them. But for the purpose of advancing the study we can only assume that our Conscious experiences are more similar than they are different.
That is the source of your confusion I think - the scientific perspective you are trying to adopt is incoherent. It requires on the one hand that red actually be a visible surface property of objects in the world that provide the basis for all empirical evidence (how would a world of colourless objects provide us with any visual evidence for any scientific hypothesis?) and on the other that red is only a feature of electromagnetic radiation (and thus something that is not a visible feature of surfaces of objects).
The points you make about human beings having a metaphorical use for the word "red" may well be true, but when I make a purely visual observation that a snooker ball is red, I'm not being metaphorical, and I am not talking about the frequency of electromagnetic radiation either.
So now red itself can be red? Can it also be yellow or blue?
I use the redundant Redness of the Red to make people stop and think about the sensation or experience of the Red itself for a moment. What is that Redness? Electromagnetic Waves at 680nm do not have the Property of Redness. There is only oscillating Electric and Magnetic fields. When you think about what an Electromagnetic Wave is, it is clear that the Red that we See does not have anything to do with the Wave itself. Do you get the sensation of oscillating Electric and Magnetic fields when you See the Red snooker ball? The Red we See is created in a further processing stage of our Visual system. The Red that we see is a Surrogate for the 680nm Electromagnetic Wave.
From this kind of perspective you are just inventing pseudo problems.
But does case (3) involve a representation of a red snooker ball as well? If so, what's the vehicle for the representation in that case, is it the same kind of vehicle as for (1) and (2)?
No! I'm pretty sure the words you're replying to say this quite clearly. I remarked that the term "redness" is being used to label/represent the human experience of seeing something red. So I did not say that "the experience (of seeing something that is red) is red", I explicitly said that "Redness is being used to describe the human experience of seeing something that is red".
Quoting jkg20
The common factor the three share is the one you mention: they all concern a red snooker ball. But they also share the involvement of a human mind, that is (for one of three different reasons) thinking about something coloured red. In this case, only option 3 involves the human experience of seeing something that is red. The other two rely on human memory (1) or imagination (2).
Quoting jkg20
Ah.
Quoting jkg20
I know that you aren't being metaphorical. I wasn't either. I was commenting on the ambiguity of the word "red". This is not metaphor. Metaphor is something quite different.
But when you observe that something is red, you are talking about the frequency of electromagnetic radiation. That is the one and only thing that registers to human eyes as being red. Nothing else can give rise to that visual observation. [Ignoring iridescence and the like.]
I think @jkg20's point is that whilst you might disagree with it, neither you nor Steve Klinko have given an argument that he/she is wrong about this. We might be able to get an argument on the basis of @jkg20's reply to my last question about whether he thinks there is representation going on in the case of veridical vision, but we'll have to wait and see. Just saying that it is wrong and that physics proves it won't cut the mustard because as far as I understand it, @jkg20's position is that modern physics is contaminated by conceptual confusion about what colour is and so proves nothing.
This seems wrong for all sorts of reasons. First, just from the ordinary language perspective there are plenty of people who talk about things being red who have not the faintest idea of what electromagnetic radiation is, so in the ordinary sense of "talking about something" they are certainly not talking about electromagnetic radiation. Also, prior to the century or so of science that culminated in Maxwell's equations, nobody had the faintest idea that electromagnetic radiation even existed, so it cannot be sensibly supposed that everyone was talking about electromagnetic radiation when they made observations about red things in the 16th century (for instance) You might want to say that what makes an observational statement like "the snooker ball is red" true involves and always did involve some story about electromagnetic radiation, but that is an entirely different claim from claiming that the person making the statement is talking about electromagnetic radiation. The difference to be sensitive to here is that between the meaning of a statement and the facts that make the statement true. Consider from the Steve Klinko perspective (with which you seem to be in sympathy) the following two statements:
1) I saw a red snooker ball
2) I dreamt about a red snooker ball
For Klinko and yourself "red" has more or less the same meaning in both statements. So, if you are claiming that in (1) the meaning of the term "red" unpacks in to some kind of talk about electromagnetic radiation, then it must also do so in (2). But in (1) that unpacking is (presumably) justified on the basis that electromagnetic radiation plays a causal role in making the statement true. So, either you have to deny that in (2) what is being talked about is electromagnetic radiation, and in which case you undermine your position that "red" in 1 and 2 have the same meaning, or you have to stick to your guns and say that electromagnetic radiation plays a causal role in making (2) true, but that is just empirically false. You cannot eat your cake and have it too.
Regarding whether or not seeing a red snooker ball involves representation, my inclination is to say no. The red snooker ball is just there before me, no need for any representation. Dreaming or imagining or having a mental image of a red snooker ball do involve representation. So, for me, there is a significant difference between dreaming/imagining/remembering on the one hand and seeing on the other.
@Pattern-chaser You tallk about the "world out there" - how do you think you arrived at that concept other than seeing things "out there", and how would you see things out there if they did not have colour? A colourless world cannot be compared to a blank screen.
Quoting MetaphysicsNow
OK, that seems fair enough. ... But ... I'm still not quite sure what the (sub-)topic of conversation is. :chin: So,
What is the (sub-)topic you wish to discuss? Is it whether colour exists out there in the Physical Universe, or is it the distinction between red and redness (i.e. the human experience of perceiving something red), or something else? :chin:
Let's begin by saying that my answer is given as a human. I.e. I am not considering how another sentient but non-human being might 'see' the world.
Of course I have seen things, and heard from other humans of things they have seen, and so on. And in this way, I learned of the world and its contents. I see those things as having colour, because "colour" is the label we use to refer to that range of electromagnetic radiation we also label as "visible light". And most of the things I see either reflect or emit visible light, which my eyes can detect. Which is why I can 'see' them, of course. But is 'colour' an attribute of the things I see, or is it an artefact of human sight/perception? (Just to be clear, I do not refer to the presence of the human label "colour" in the Physical Universe. I refer to that which the label "colour" refers to, which I think is your intention.)
Am I on the track you wish to consider, or have I deviated without knowing it?
(And yes, you are right to observe I have not yet offered any justification for my belief that colour is a human creation, and has no (human-independent) existence in the world. I will attempt that if/when you confirm that this is the (sub-)topic you wish to discuss.)
Pattern-chaser
"Who cares, wins"
Furthermore, as a non-human person, my concept of "the world out there" is grounded precisely on the basis of seeing only (what you call) X-rays and gamma rays. Where in the world is 'red', human? :chin:
An instantiation is created dynamically, which would seem to support the notion of 'red' being a human thing, existing only in human minds. If it is out there in the world, 'red' would not be instantiated, because it would already be there, as a property/attribute of the thing that you see as being red.
Quoting jkg20
Yes, because red derives from humans and the way we see and perceive things.
And if I say, "Yes, red would remain in the absence of human beings" what is your argument to prove me wrong?
Also let us get something clear, insofar as so-called visible light is electromagnetic radiation, nobody sees light. The so-called visible range of the electromagnetic spectrum is based on the idea that when we see colour on the surface of an object, it is because that surface is reflecting electromagnetic radiation with a wavelength falling within a certain band. Even if we became sensitive in some way to electromagnetic radiation that falls outside of this range (e.g. to x-rays) we would never see x-rays. What we see are things located in space. Electromagnetic radiation - if it exists as anything other than a theoretical device - exists only in the spaces between us and the things we see.
What I mean by "instantiation of red" is just "instance of red" i.e. a datable locatable occurence of a property. In that sense, mass is instantiated wherever there is a physical object, and since I presume that for you mass is not a human-dependent property, then you would still owe me an argument to show that red nevertheless is a human-dependent property.
We use "red" to describe em radiation within a certain range of wavelengths because in standard cases where objects are taken to be reflecting radiation in that range we usually see that they have red surfaces. But it is, nevertheless, the object's redness - existing independent of us - that we see in those cases. At least, once again I underline this point, nothing that anybody has so far argued requires me to think of things in any other way than that.
So you do not accept that photons impinging on a human retina give rise to seeing things? :chin:
Quoting jkg20
Yes, well the problem with that is that you have been much cleverer than I first thought. You have crafted an alternative definition for "red" that defines it as an intrinsic property of objects out there in the real world. With this definition in place, you are correct to assert that red is a property of the world, not exclusively that of humans. And there is no way that I know of to demonstrate that what you have done is incorrect. Words are invented and changed by people, and you are people. You have changed the word to suit your needs. Unless I change it back to suit mine, we have reached an impasse.
It depends what you mean by that question. Are you asking me whether I am a metaphysical realist about photons? If that is the question then the answer is "no". However, even if I were a metaphysical realist about photons and I accepted that they played a causal role in seeing things in the world, it would not be relevant to the issue since the things that one ends up seeing under that causal account could still be instances of redness out there on the surface of objects - nothing other than those surfaces need be red.
Not really - right from the beginning my use of the word "red" corresponds precisely to the way it is used by the position known as direct realism in the philosophy of perception, and direct realism is supposed to be the default position of common sense - nothing particularly sophisticated or clever about that.
Quoting jkg20
OK, so direct realists did this, not you. My point stands. The definition you use for "red" is unusual, and does not include many or most of the shades of meaning used by humans when they say "red". As I said,Quoting Pattern-chaser
Edited to add: this page gives an idea of some of the different meanings conventionally used for "red". It is a dictionary, so it's not authoritative (nothing is!), but it gives the basic idea. In China, "red" also stands for prosperity. There's a lot your different-and-constrained redefinition misses out.
" Red does not exist in the Physical Universe. That which gives rise to red being seen by a human definitely does exist in the real world. "
Humans are part of the physical universe, so this suggests redness (that thing we perceive and contemplate) is part of the physical world.
There are two general elements that give rise to red being seen by humans:
1) the physical characteristics of the surfaces that result in certain wavelengths of light being reflected
2) the human physical capacity to see, and remember, this aspect of physical objects
I assume you're claiming there to be something about #2 that is non-physical. Is that correct? If so, then what makes you think this can't be physical? I realize that the quale "redness" is not something that can be fully described with propositions, but that just suggests it is a sort of non-propositional knowledge. It is not epiphenomenal, because it contributes to the way we interact with the world. Conscious awareness of redness is just a memory of the past perception, and memory seems reducible to the physical.
My experience of a Red snooker ball, or any Red object, in a Dream is that it is just as Red as my experience of Red in awake Consciousness. You might be someone that does not Dream in color in which case the Redness of things in your Dreams might seem less than in awake Consciousness. If I try to remember what the Red looked like after Dreaming I can not produce in my Mind a photographic reconstruction of the Dream experience. But it is also true that if I try to remember any Red experiences that I might have had while awake I can not produce a photographic reconstruction of the awake experience.The vividness of the Redness is just as intense whether Dreaming or Awake, for me. So it seems clear that the process that produces the Red in the two different cases must be the same.
This isn't a surprise; it isn't incompatible with my beliefs either. But that wasn't the point. I'm sure I said that.
Quoting Pattern-chaser
Oh yes, I did. :up: :wink: [Underline added.]
Assuming we have reached the core of this sub-thread, and the topic you wish to discuss is direct realism, I think we are down to definitions, and to the meaning and the context, intended by both of us. My view is broader, and tries to embrace all of the meanings that humans conventionally use "red" for. Yours is more focussed, and considers only the direct realism perspective. I'm afraid I still don't see any room here for manoeuvre, or for further discussion. I think you see little use or point in a more inclusive definition of "red". :meh:
This is like saying that Harry Potter and Sherlock Holmes exist in the real world, because the books and films that represent their adventures exist in the real world. I don't think this argument holds water. :chin:Quoting Relativist
Not really, no. [Not that I deny the above; it's just not exactly what I'm saying. :wink:] I'm getting at something along these lines:
Quoting Pattern-chaser
Quoting Pattern-chaser
The Big Bang happens and a new Universe is created. This Universe consists of Matter, Energy, and Space. After billions of years of complicated interactions and processes the Matter, Energy, and Space produce a planet with Conscious Life Forms (CLFs). In the course of their evolution the CLFs will need to See each other in order to live and interact with each other. But what does it really mean to See? A CLF is first of all a Physical Thing. There is no magic power that just lets a CLF See another CLF. A CLF can only Detect another CLF through some sensing mechanism which must be made out of Physical material and which uses Physical processes. There never is any kind of Seeing in the sense that we think we understand it. There is always only Detection.
So a CLF might understand that it does not ever really See another CLF, but it will still insist that it Sees the reflected Light. The CLF would be mistaken if it thinks it Sees even the reflected Light. All it can do is Detect the reflected Light. Its sensing mechanism can only produce Physical reactions, like Neural Activity, that are correlated with the reflected Light. If the reflected Light is Red the sensing mechanism will fire Neurons that only fire for Red inputs. The CLF might be able to sense that the Red Neurons are firing. So every time these Neurons fire it can report that it is seeing Red. This CLF is only sensing particular Neurons firing and is not experiencing Red like we do.
A CLF like us Sees Red as a Conscious experience and is not aware of any Neural Activity. This Conscious Red Experience is how we Detect Red Light from the external Physical World. The Red that we see is a Surrogate for the 680nm Wavelength Light that is impinging on our Retinas. The two things we know are:
1) Neural Activity for Red happens
2) A Conscious experience of Red happens
The question we should all be considering is, how does 1 happening result in 2 happening? This is the Hard Problem of Consciousness and the answer to the question would explain the Explanatory Gap of Consciousness.
The people that are still talking about Wavelengths of Light don't understand the basic Hard Problem of Consciousness or the Explanatory Gap.
But this is precisely the claim that needs arguing for, not assuming. You are telling a story about vision that may or may not lead to a hard problem, but you have provided no argument that your account of vision that leads to that problem is correct - including, by the way, the pretty brute realism that underlies it.
Again, just assumptions. What if I insist that in the one case what is produced is the seeing of something red and in the other the mere representation of something red? In that case the processes are different.
Here is an argument for the general perception of Light of any Wavelength. This argument is based on an engineering analysis approach where we trace the path of the perception of Light. The first thing that happens is that Physical Light enters the Eye and is focused onto the Retina. The instant the Physical Light hits the Retina it activates the Rods and Cones. Various wavelengths of Physical Light will preferentially activate various different Rods and Cones. The Physical Light is absorbed by the Rods and Cones and the Physical Light is no longer Physical Light. What is left is an avalanche of chemical reactions that eventually fires a Neuron that sends a signal away from the Retina and to the Visual Areas (VAs) of the Cerebral Cortex, and this happens for millions of Neurons at the same time and these signals are all bundled into the Optic Nerve. It’s a long journey from the Retina through the Lateral Geniculate Nucleus (LGN) of the Thalamus and to the Visual Areas which are located in the back of the head. One of the known functions of the LGN is to block Visual information from the Eye during sleep. During this whole trip from Eye to the VAs we are not dealing with Physical Light anymore but rather this is of course Neural Activity. The Neural Activity eventually progresses to the first Visual Area (V1) to get processed and is then sent to the second Visual Area (V2) and on to other Visual Areas V3, V4, V5, and more. All the areas also send signals back to previous Areas to create a giant mish mash of parallel processing that is difficult to completely quantify. All the processing and feedback is also Neural Activity since it is correlated with the Physical Light. But the Physical Light is long gone, all you have is Neural Activity. So all we can really say is that we experience Neural Activity not Physical Light. But the Neural Activity as described is not Conscious Light (the Conscious experience od Light) yet. It’s just Neural Activity. Where is the experience of Conscious Light? We know when this Neural Activity happens that Conscious Light happens. But the Conscious Light cannot be found in the Brain. Ok, it’s not found YET, and maybe someday it will be found in the Brain. One thing for sure is that we don't experience the actual Physical Light but rather we experience the Neural Activity that was correlated with the Physical Light.
The Conscious experience of the Light that we are so familiar with is the result of Neural Activity. In fact anything that can stimulate Neural Activity will produce the Conscious Light effect. You can rub your eyes and See Lights. This is because rubbing your eyes stimulates Neural Activity. There is much Neural Activity while Dreaming at night and you can See Light while Dreaming. This is Conscious Light and is certainly not any kind of Physical Light. Dream Light is a perfect example showing that Conscious Light is something different than Physical Light. We have never Seen Physical Light but only our own internal Conscious Light. One final example is After Images. These are images of the scene you were looking at after you close your eyes. The Retina and Cortex Activity takes a while to shutdown after your eyes are closed. The Retina and Cortex activity quickly extinguishes but you still See Light for a number of seconds after you close your eyes where there is no longer Light hitting the Retina. This is again the Conscious Light. So it is the Neural Activity that we See as Light. The question is how does this Neural Activity get converted into the Conscious Light that we experience?
Choose any Color that you want to study. People with colorblindness can think about the shade of White. Pick a Sound to study. Take the Standard A Tone.
What is the Redness of the Red?
What is the Orange-ness of the Orange?
What is the A-ness of the Standard A?
These are all Conscious experiences.
My interest is in the fundamental metaphysics of the theory of vision that Klinko is outlining and whether it reveals any such thing as the "hard problem" that he is talking about, and indeed whether it is even a coherent theory. All the other uses of "red" that you are talking about are metaphorical/otherwise derived from the use of "red" to describe a visible property of the surface of objects (which is far from being an unusual use of the word) so I ignore those other uses on the grounds that for my concerns, they are irrelevant.
Then your constrained researches will return constrained results. :up:
Consider the fact that there's nothing unnatural about the fact that there exist fictional narratives with fictional characters - so yes, these DO exist in the real world (as fictions). Fictions exist in our minds, just as redness exists in our minds.
Quoting Pattern-chaser
OK, but this is because of the nature of "redness." I'll relate a philosophical thought-experiment.
Mary is a woman who has lived her entire life in a single room, a room in which there is nothing in it that is colored red (any shade of it), so she's never actually seen anything red. However, she has devoted her life to learning everything there is to know about redness. She understands the physics of light reflection, and even understands the concept of color, by virtue of her perception of other colors. She becomes the world's foremost expert on redness, understanding all the many "shades of meaning" you reference. Can she truly understand red fully and completely, without ever actually seeing it? No - because she would never have had the experience of redness.
The moral of the story is that we can talk around "redness" and no words will be able to convey the understanding of redness that is associated with the experience. I also suggest that the "shades of meaning" aren't essential to a complete understanding of what the quale "red" is - those shades of meaning are anologies, and cannot convey what red actually is.
No, I don't think so. As you say, she has never experienced the seeing of something that is red.
And as for Harry and Sherlock, I have many times (not on this forum) suggested that they are real, and even alive, in a way. But not quite the same way you and I are. And my point in using this example was to point out the weakness of your argument. Existing in the minds of humans is not really existing in the real physical world, although pedantically, of course, you are correct. And existing in the minds of humans is a correct and valid form of existence. But let's not confuse it with other things? :up: :smile:
Why say that we experience either? The story you are telling (and incidently it is just a story, not an argument) is a familiar one to me, it's just a more detailed account of the story that the blog page I linked to in an earlier post claims is ultimately incoherent.
There is Physical Red Light out there in the Physical World and there is Conscious Red Light that we actually experience in our Conscious Minds. The Conscious Red Light is a different thing than the Physical Red Light. The Conscious Red light is created by the Brain to be a Surrogate for the Physical Red Light. You have only ever Seen the Conscious Red Light. You have never Seen the Physical Red Light. The Redness that you have always known is not a Property of the Physical Red Light. The Physical Red Light has Wavelength as a Property. The Redness is only in the Conscious Red Light. We are so used to Seeing the Surrogate that we think the Physical Red Light looks like the Surrogate. The Physical Red Light does not and cannot look like anything. That's why the Brain creates the Surrogate. So you can move around in the Physical World and not crash into things.
But digging deeper into this we understand that there is a chain of processing that happens. As we trace the chain from the Physical Red Light hitting the Retina it is understood that there is no longer any Physical Red Light. It has been converted into Neural Impulses that ultimately travel to the Visual Cortex. It is known that when certain Neurons fire in the Cortex that we can experience the Redness. It seems that it is the Neurons firing that somehow leads to the experience of Red. With open Brain surgery the Visual Neurons can be probed and stimulated into creating a Red Conscious experience as well as all kinds of other Visual effects.. It sure seems like you have to have Neural Stimulation before Red is experienced. I simply say that there must be a further Processing stage that is monitoring the Neurons that produces the ultimate experience of Red. I call the missing Processing stage The Inter Mind. The Inter Mind is an undiscovered part of the Mind that connects the Physical Mind (the Brain) to the Conscious Mind. But the key to all of this is first recognizing that the Redness is a more amazing thing than we have thought. It is a Conscious thing that exists only in our Conscious Minds. The Property of Redness is a Property that does not exist in the Physical World that we think we know. We can make statements that because we can See it that it must ultimately exist in the Physical World. But then what is it? If it exists in the Physical it must be made out of something. Is it made out of Matter? Is it made out of Energy? Is it some aspect of Space? If you think these questions are idiotic then you do not understand the problem. You will be a Dualist when you understand the problem,