What is Dennett’s point against Strawson?
“Strawson”: One of the strangest things the Deniers say is that although it seems that there is conscious experience, there isn’t really any conscious experience: the seeming is, in fact, an illusion. The trouble with this is that any such illusion is already and necessarily an actual instance of the thing said to be an illusion.
Dennet:No, we Deniers do not say this. We say that there isn’t any conscious experience in the sense that Strawson insists upon. We say consciousness seems (to many who reflect upon the point) to involve being “directly acquainted,” as Strawson puts it, with some fundamental properties (“qualia”), but this is an illusion, a philosopher’s illusion.
‘Magic, Illusions, and Zombies’: An Exchange
By Daniel C. Dennett, reply by Galen Strawson
https://www.nybooks.com/daily/2018/04/03/magic-illusions-and-zombies-an-exchange/
Comments (337)
I read the article. All Dennet is saying is that consciousness cannot be fundamentally understood by our own perception of it. In other words, the act of experiencing one's own qualia is not a fundamental or mechanical explanation as to what is going on.
This is further backed by the quote Strawson gives on Dennet from his 1993 expert, "“The idea that there is something like a ‘phenomenal field’ of ‘phenomenal properties’ in addition to the informational/functional properties accommodated by my theory” of consciousness “is shown to be a multi-faceted illusion, an artifact of bad theorizing,”"
Basically Dennet is shooting down the idea that you can have consciousness apart from the mechanical processes of the brain. Dennet believes consciousness is a result of informational and functional properties. There is no "consciousness" that is independent of this. It is not that Dennet doesn't think we call things pain, pleasure, etc,. What he's saying is these are the results of functional processes.
The way I view it is like a fire. A fire is the result of chemical processes combining with the wood and oxygen. There is no independent "fire" without these processes. Dennet is not denying fire exists, he's just saying that fire alone does not explain the fundamental cause of the flame, or the underlying process that we look at as a whole and abstractly call, "fire".
Now to examine both statements and provide commentary on each including the individual perspective of both is another matter. Which I will attempt to do shortly. First we have to define what each concept (concepts that have been debated for millennia) "means" or rather what each party determines them to mean, respectively.
Strawson's view, as Dennett points out as inconsistent with his own, determines perceiving everything perceived or able to be perceived is consciousness. Which generally makes sense. You're reading this post from myself, and I've read and am now replying to a post from the OP. Hard to argue with that.
However, Dennett, from my interpretation, seems to hint that all that glitters is not gold, in a sense. Rather, we breathe depth and life into things that inherently don't have either. My best understanding of being "directly acquainted" with "fundamental properties" works out to a sort of "innate intelligence" which in my attempts to avoid the spiritual or metaphysical would be something along the lines of something inherently inside us all that differentiates our interactions with one another from the interactions of natural forces or elements ie. magnets, gravity, combustibility, cellular functions, etc. Which is technically by all available information just as plausible.
We interact positively with someone who we like or makes us feel good or at least doesn't possess any of the opposite traits or qualities, we interact poorly with those who do. So do animals. And beyond that so do the cells in both humans and animals with other cells. Where does one draw the line? Sure, we can create fancy machines and eloquent conversation with those we get along with or understand, but translating all that to a scenario where each of us are just tiny one-celled organisms or cells in a larger structure, are the things and actions they're responsible for not as remarkable as our own?
Dennett's point is that Strawson has a mistaken model of conscious experience. Strawson then takes Dennett's denial of his model as being an instance of his model. But Strawson, and others who accept that model, are themselves subject to an illusion, since their model is mistaken.
Strawson, to which Dennett replied:
https://web.ics.purdue.edu/%7Edrkelly/StrawsonDennettNYRBExchangeConsciousness2018.pdf
Then he is wrong, since an illusion of pain is indeed a pain.
But is it? You've never had a dream where you felt extreme shock or pain essentially? Being asleep, how could you know there was a real physical pain responsible?
What I’d like to know is how, in Dennett’s model, there can be ‘an illlusion’ as an illusion is ‘ an instance of a wrong or misinterpreted perception of a sensory experience.’ What is it that is ‘wrong’ or ‘mistaken’, if not consciousness? What error does Dennett want to set straight in all his writings?
Your use of "know" is curious. Do you require a justified true belief in order to "know" you are in pain? What is going on there?
Sure, and pleasure or satisfaction from a dream is still as it seems. But it wasn't real. Was it?
...a signpost pointing up the philosophical garden path.
Real as opposed to what?
It's a real painting or coin as opposed to a forgery.
It's a real pool as opposed to a mirage,
It's a real flower as opposed to an artificial one.
It's a real pain as opposed to...?
The error is the "ghost in the machine" model of consciousness, with its presumptions of qualia, sense data, zombies and what not. To reject that model is not the same as rejecting consciousness, which has an ordinary usage independent of that model.
I don't think Dennett is defending something rather like "we think we're thinking but we're not". It would appear to be the philosophical theory that's at issue.
heh, crossposted with @Andrew M
Dennett actually studied under Ryle, IIRC, but he updated the "ghost in the machine" to the "Cartesian theater"
(from Strawson's reply...)
Strawson has surely made his point here; much as I dislike use of the term qualia, there is a difference between having a pain and not having a pain... And in so far as Dennett concludes that this difference is an illusion, his view is dissonant with something very apparent to each of us.
What?
Quoting Gregory
Do you mean that he reifies qualia? Treats them as if they were more concrete than theyare?
Less concrete. He sounds like a Zen Buddhist to me
Qualia is a jargon term that is only ever encountered in this context. The only place in the English speaking world where you will hear the term is in relation to discussions by our about Dennett and his philosophical confreres. And I think this is because it’s a contrived way of denying the undeniable, which is the qualitative nature of experience. Because Dennett beliefs that the entire domain of philosophy and science can be described in quantitative terms, which can’t accomodate the qualitative dimension of experience. So the tactic is, define in it terms which only other academics will respond to, and then argue it in those terms.
As for ‘sense data, zombies and what not’, this again is simply repetition of the standard arguments that Dennett, Chalmers, Churchlands, etc, have been hashing out for 50 years or so.
The reason Chalmers called his essay Facing up to the hard problem of consciousness is because he’s saying that there is something that has to be acknowledged - faced up to - about consciousness, that is, its irreducibly first-person nature. If anything at all can be shown to be irreducibly first person, then Dennett’s project fails. Predictably, Dennett then asserts that there is no hard problem - in other words, refuses to acknowledge anything to face up to. Dennett’s entire argument is that everything we know about human nature can be known objectively, i.e. in the third person.
https://ase.tufts.edu/cogstud/dennett/papers/JCSarticle.pdf
Thomas Nagel says in review of Dennett’s most recent book:
Dennett has done a great service by showing the obvious self-contradiction at the basis of materialism, although he of course won’t see it that way.
Thanks for that link.
:smile:
I agree. This idea that consciousness and qualia are illusions is simply absurd.
Rather, materialism is an illusion.
That's exactly what he is saying, though. It's an attempt to deny the cogito.
He writes well for a philosopher. I like for instance the argument that "consciousness is not only pizza".
Context is important, so fortunate to find a workaround for the subscription requirement.
I doubt that this is what Dennett is saying. If consciousness cannot be understood by our perception of it, then what does that say about our other perceptions of the world? Dennett ends up pulling out the rug from under centuries of observable science.
"I don’t deny the existence of consciousness; of course, consciousness exists; it just isn’t what most people think it is, as I have said many times."
It appears to me that Dennett is actually saying that consciousness exists, and then goes on about explaining that our interpretation of it is wrong, and that is what an illusion is.
A mirage is an illusion only when it is misinterpreted. It doesn't make the mirage not real. Eventually we are able to work out what the mirage really is, and then it becomes what you expect to perceive as a product of refracted light interacting with your visual system.
So I agree with Dennett in that science has barely begun to scratch the surface of what consciousness really is to the point where you can predict it's emergence based on prior conditions, like you can do with predicting that you will see a mirage given the proper environmental conditions.
The illusion lies more in how we interpret how the world actually is compared to how we observe it. Naive realism is the illusion - believing that how you perceive the world is how the world actually is, rather than how your consciousness is when observing the world.
The ultimate question that needs to be answered is how is it that evidence for my consciousness from my perspective is different than evidence for my consciousness from your perspective. I don't need to observe my brain or my behavior to know that I am conscious, but you do. Who has better evidence of me being conscious? If we cannot understand it by our own perception, which perception is he talking about - my perception of my consciousness, or your perception of my consciousness?
To clarify, he is not saying we cannot understand consciousness from observation. Its there, it exists. We observe it, and we have our own opinions on it. But it doesn't explain what it is FUNDAMENTALLY.
Check my fire example for one. Another example is the screen you are observing right now. Does the light of this forum post explain the fundamental mechanical process that is letting you observe it right now? No. That is all Dennet is saying. Underlying the screen is a series of small pixels that are being turned into RBGY colors based on 1's and 0's on your machine. We don't see that. We see, "the illusion" of the entire process constructed into something more manageable and meaningful for us.
Perhaps Dennet's word of "illusion" is a poor choice. He doesn't mean the screen you're seeing isn't real. He's just saying that the underlying fundamentals are not the screen you "see". Without those underlying fundamentals, you would not be able to "see" the screen. But the "seeing" of the screen is not what's actually creating the screen.
And that's all I believe Dennet is saying about consciousness. The thing that we "see" is the result of the mechanical processes of the brain. But the end construction itself is NOT a fundamental, it is the result of the entire process. But I think we both understand this, we're just having a symantix disagreement.
Quoting Harry Hindu
I don't think that's what Dennet is trying to address here.
Dennett is saying that the dualist conception of consciousness is an illusion. Basically Strawson holds that consciousness is this magical thing that directly reveals reality to us, contrary to all knowledge about how we become conscious of things (e.g. how the human eye works). Dennett says that this direct awareness is an illusion, and he is right. We are unconscious of the mediators between reality and perception, therefore we perceive that we perceive things directly.
The main point Dennett is making is that rejecting the dualist consciousness is not the same as saying consciousness itself is an illusion. Consciousness is very real, it just isn't what Strawson thinks it is. Strawson's fallacy is that disagreeing with him about what consciousness is means that it doesn't exist. It's basically the same argument that Christians often use about morality.
Okay so if Dennet doesn't understand something, it cannot exist. Therefore Dennet's ignorance is magical: if he ignores a phenomenon, the phenomenon disappears by magic.
That's basically Strawson's argument, yes.
But how did you come to understand the underlying "mechanical" processes if not by some kind of observation? It sounds to me that you are simply talking about different views of the same thing. A view from the micro is no more "fundamental" than a view from the macro. To label one as "fundamental" and the other as "illusory" is simply projecting value on a particular view of the same thing. You are ascribing to another form of dualism - the fundamental vs the illusory. You haven't rejected dualism. You ended up embracing it.
The "illusion" of the entire process has causal power. It isn't the underlying mechanical processes of pixels displaying colors based on 1's and 0's that then drives my behavior to respond. It is the words that I read that drives my behavior. I don't point to the alternating state of 1's and 0's as the reason I am responding. I point to the meaning of your words as the reason.
Quoting Harry Hindu
In other words, who has "fundamental" evidence of me being conscious?
It may well be that consciousness itself is a functional process. Ever thought of that?
You, as always, misunderstand what you are being told. Dennett does not think consciousness is magic. Consciousness as described by Strawson is magic. There is nothing to understand because it isn't real.
You have a quote that proves that, or is it just something you made up?
If you can't suspend the impulse toward metaphysical speculation affirming the existence of consciousness upon seeing "something red", then you're simply not currently in the right frame of mind to learn anything from that kind of discussion. Whether mental states have the content "we feel"/"we expect" them to is roughly what's at stake - whether there is such a thing as mental content which is essentially distinguished from physical states is a separate but related issue.
How anyone could expect to justify a position one way or the other on both issues with a gotcha game is beyond me.
Your quote of Dennett's suffices.
I think you're misrepresenting Strawson's position a number of ways here. For one, Strawson is a self-described monist and a physicalist, just of a panpsychist bent. He also doesn't hold that consciousness is a magical thing, though he may consider it to be fundamental and irreducible. So much as Strawson does use the term "magic" it's used to describe strong emergence, which is something he explicitly rejects (and also part of the reason why he believes in panpsychism in the first place).
You also seem to be suggesting that the dispute between Dennett and Strawson is over naive realism vs. something like indirect realism, but I don't think that was what Dennett was referring to. Instead, his disagreements come over the existence of qualia or the subjective aspects of what we call experience.
I didn't say Strawson was a dualist, just that he has a dualist's idea of consciousness. That said, any physicalist panpsychist is also a dualist, since panpsychism is not a description of physical nature, i.e. it is unfussed about observation. Or sense, for that matter.
Quoting Mr Bee
Two bits of magic in a supposedly unmagical thing ;)
Quoting Mr Bee
Strong emergence is magic, agreed. But so is irreducible consciousness. It is something one cannot question, derive the origins of, or study: one simply has to take it on faith that exists, like God or UFOs.
Quoting Mr Bee
I don't think that's how I characterised it. Rather I said that Strawson's argument is that if you don't believe in his magical consciousness, you don't believe in consciousness full stop. Dennett's counter is that this is wrong. One can believe consciousness exists without having to adopt Strawson's idea of it.
Of course, even this straw man is obvious. Dennett himself does not reject the notion of qualia.
So nor does Dennett deny qualia, rather he disagrees with Strawson about what they are, what their status is.
Mental states cannot be explored by any other mean than introspection. The way they appear to us through introspection is pretty much the only data we have about them. No bona fide analysis of their "content" can start from a dogmatic position that the data is not true.
Of course Strawson would take issue with you about that, but I'll leave that for you two to work out.
Quoting Kenosha Kid
I don't think that Strawson is saying that consciousness is not something that can be questioned, or explained. That's the New Mysterianist view. He's merely saying that it is not a thing that can be reduced into anything more fundamental but that doesn't prevent one from looking into it's origins or anything like that. For instance, a strong Emergentist would say that consciousness is an irreducible byproduct of certain configurations of matter, emphasis on the word "byproduct".
Personally I don't see anything "magical" about irreducibility in itself because inevitably one has to arrive at something basic in their ontology. When Strawson says that consciousness is irreducible he's suggesting that it's like the concepts of mass, space, or time, which we take to be basic for the most part unless proven otherwise.
Quoting Kenosha Kid
What is Strawson's idea of consciousness, in your mind? I'm not sure I'm clear on what that is.
Quoting Kenosha Kid
I'm not sure about that, but I've never really been sure about what Dennett says to be honest. Depending on who you ask, either his views are extremist or sensible, but he is widely seen as a critic of qualia.
While I would readily agree that consciousness does not reduce to dispositions to behaviour, the Pizza Theory analogy below does not work as an argument against all other reductionist approaches to consciousness/minds.
Consciousness consists entirely of thought and belief. It is nothing less, and nothing more.
Saying that consciousness is thought and belief does not deny the existence of consciousness, any more than saying that water is H20 denies the existence of water. There are issues here with the language use of Strawson.
When someone states "we know what consciousness is like" they are most certainly presupposing a.)there is such a thing(one and only one thing that counts) as consciousness, that b.)there is something else that consciousness is like. Neither is true.
Consciousness is self-contained in the individual creature capable of forming, having, and/or holding thought and belief about the world and/or itself. Individual experience is as plentiful as the sheer quantity of individuals capable of experiencing. So, I've no issue with saying that each and every individual experience consists of meaningful events particular to that individual. We experience being ourselves, but simple, basic, and raw experience alone is utterly inadequate for knowledge about how consciousness emerges onto the world stage, what it consists of, and/or how it evolves along an evolutionary timeline.
We know that we see, smell, hear, feel(touch), and taste all sorts of things, and we sit and talk about it using all sorts of different linguistic frameworks. But what on earth could anyone be asking about if they were to query "What's it like to see?" It's not like anything else at all. The same holds good of queries about what it's like to smell, hear, feel(touch), taste, etc. Because physiological sensory perception is one necessary elemental constituent of consciousness, the same holds good of what consciousness is like.
No one knows what consciousness "is like", for consciousness is not like anything.
Can you give an example of something that is irreducible but can have a natural origin?
But, to quote Strawson:
Like I said, you're not supposed to ask about it, you just have to accept it.
Quoting Mr Bee
Yes, but it doesn't follow that, because there are elementary things, and because there are cars, there can be elementary cars. Our actual studies on elements of reality show they are basic, simple, dumb, and not in the least homocentric.
Quoting Mr Bee
Essentially the above, that it's something irreducible that has to be taken at face value and accepted on faith. His idea is manifest in his reaction and straw-man--building in the face of people who do question what it is, how it's made, how it works. He's a stop sign on the road to knowledge.
Not great, is it.
I read "Quining Qualia" this morning, to try and work out what Dennett was saying and make some contribution to this discussion, but then realized that it had nothing to do with what people are talking about here. I suggest a reading group.
Thanks for that link.
:smile:
Elementary particles, the fundamental forces of nature, space, time, etc. Anything that we take to be basic in our models is by definition irreducible. None of these things are "magical", it's just that they are what they are as far as we know.
Quoting Kenosha Kid
Um, I don't think that that was how the quote was meant to be understood. I think the point of what Strawson was saying there was that the very idea of conscious experience itself is, like I said elsewhere, basic and fundamental.
The thing about basic concepts is that it is impossible to explain them without merely pointing to examples of them that people already understand (that's why they're basic). If you ask me "what is red?" for instance, there's no way of explaining it without being circular. I can try to say that it's what you see when you look at an apple, but that's just referring to examples of red things. If you happen to be blind from birth, and have no idea what it even is like to look at one, there's absolutely nothing I can do to explain it to you. As stated in your quote: “If you got to ask, you ain’t never gonna get to know.”
Quoting Kenosha Kid
Well cars are reducible to smaller elements since we can break them down to their subatomic composition. As for conscious experience, that is a whole other question.
Also if you're implying that panpsychism is homocentric, I'd say it's quite the opposite. Panpsychist views aren't claiming that humanity is somehow special, or even that consciousness is. It's a pretty naturalistic view, which is why some have found it appealing.
Quoting Kenosha Kid
What is to be taken at face value here? Experience itself? If that is the case, I don't think that that's really a controversial view. There's very little that we can be certain of in the world, but one thing that most of us can know without a doubt is the fact of our existence, our thoughts, and more generally our experience (you can ask Descartes that).
In addition, I would take issue with calling that "faith" as well since it seems like one of the few things we can know with certainty, which is the opposite of faith. To believe in an external world that isn't an illusion fabricated by some demon manipulating my experiences requires more faith than believing in the experiences themselves.
Let's assume that's true:
(1) It still might be that exploring our phenomenal/experiential states rigorously leads us to doubt the folk theoretic notions we have regarding their elements. Accounts of phenomenal character arising from introspection can be revised.
(2) It might be that how we categorise experience reflectively/introspectively is different from but related to the categorisation processes in experience (eg: how I feel now is pain, "I feel pain"), the introspective mapping of the experience to the description might be a different procedure from an awareness the state one is in belongs in an experiential category. There are introspective biases.
(3) "What if I had a brain lesion right there?" Introspection alone cannot answer that, and it is relevant. There are relevant data streams introspection alone cannot access absent experiment.
(4) There are altered states of experience (phantom limbs, ganzfeld type experiments, perceptual illusions, meditative states, mental illnesses and disabilities, brain lesion patients, effects of priming on perception, cognitive load and change blindness...) which are not available to everyone at all times. In order to discover variations in phenomenal character over bodies and what they do, one has to use a scientific approach in tandem with the careful analysis of self reports. Introspection alone gives you the biased data of one person's self reports analysing themselves.
The premises which are provisionally accepted by any account of experience or consciousness deriving from introspection alone, then, might be part of the first word of any such analysis, but it's simply laziness to assume it must be the last because they have been accepted at the start.
To me the word qualia simply means that sense data appears to us as in part qualitative. For instance, the quantitatively different wavelengths of visible lights are presented to our consciousness (to mine anyway) in the form of qualitatively different colors. However there is also some quantitative differences in perceptions, eg different intensities of pain, pleasure, light, sound etc. So I guess it could be called qualquantia. Maybe Dennet will like that better?
In any case, if Dennet does not deny our capacity to perceive sense data, and if he doesn't deny that green seem qualitatively different from red, his beef with "qualia" seems to me purely a question of personal dislike for some philosophers who like the concept and use it.
There's a very long discussion here which might help a bit. About qualia, not specifically about Dennett. If you refuse to bracket what is self evident to you, I can't help you, though.
If that were the case then language wouldn't be visual in nature. "The grey matter between your ears" is a visual description, pointing to how things like other minds appear within consciousness. I don't see how such a description could ever be used if qualia didn't exist. When talking about neurons, Dennett can't seem to keep from talking in visual terms, as it appears from his own perspective. To then go and say that qualia don't exist just undermines anything else he asserts. Only a p-zombie could say such a thing and mean it.
Dennet isn't saying that we can't use observation. We have to observe the underlying mechanical process after all. What he means by "fundamental" is "its small component parts that make up the whole." Its like H2O are elementary (fundamental) parts of water. You can't do science with "water", but you can do science with H20. Water is the "illusion" (Dennet's poor word choice that I personally wouldn't use) and H20 are the fundamental building blocks. Same with your brain and consciousness. I think everyone can accept that.
Quoting Harry Hindu
Sure, Dennet isn't denying this either. I swim in water, I don't swim in H20. The idea of H20 for my day to day purposes isn't going to matter. But if I'm a scientist, the fundamentals of why I'm able to swim in water deal with the molecular chemistry and forces involved. Dennet is trying to understand how consciousness, "the illusion" functions on a molecular chemistry level so he can understand it at a scientific level. And thank goodness. Can you imagine if we had people denying the idea of chemistry for water? We would never figure it out!
Now does that mean that the "illusion" is useless to study? Not at all. For my purposes, water is great to drink. Its just useless for Dennet's purposes, which is to discover the underlying fundamentals that produce the result.
You might not understand what a functional process is. Think of water. Water is made up of H20. It is the combination of these atoms and molecules that we see in mass as "water". If you get down to the fundamentals, you see that "water" doesn't exist, only molecules of H20. It is the emergent of functional process of all of those molecules gathered together that our brain processes as "water".
Consciousness is just like water according to Dennet. Our brain is the underlying mechanical process that functioning as a whole, produces consciousness. So when you talk of consciousness as a functional process, do you mean it is the result of the functioning of the brain, or something else?
'Folks' have no theories. Individuals have theories. And nobody I know spends much time trying to theorize colors or sounds... In this domain, the classic (banal even, and often quite wrong-footed) approach which consists in criticizing the prevalent "common sense" is not doable because there is not much to criticize in terms of "common sense of colors".
Quoting fdrake
It is even quite probable. Memory is always imperfect, we are not fully transparent to ourselves, and any observation of a thing (eg a reflexive observation of how it feels to experience the qualia of a scarlet red) is by nature different from the thing itself (in this case, the qualia themselves). But since introspection is the only tool we have, we cannot but hope that it's by and large correct. There is no alternative, better tool we can use to study mental phenomena. Your hypothesis, if true, provides only a word of caution when using introspection.
Quoting fdrake
A careful analysis of self reporting is just as scientific as the careful analysis of any other data. Scientific articles are full of self reporting.
Quoting fdrake
Who said it should be the last? It must be the empirical basis on which we work; it's the data we have; explaining the data is what's needed, not denying its utility or existence.
The main point that Dennett is making is that consciousness can be fully understood in the third person. What he is saying is that science can, in principle, arrive at a complete objective understanding of the nature of consciousness, that there is nothing privileged or special about the first-person perspective. That is the nub of the entire issue, and the reason it's significant, is that if consciousness eludes third-person elucidation, then it's not in scope for science.
Chalmers challenge to that is:
http://consc.net/papers/facing.html
I claim that the subject of discussion in the debate is simply 'being' and that 'What it is like to be...' is just an awkward attempt to express that. The 'subject of experience' is customarily designated 'a being', as in the expression 'human being' - and this is what is out-of-scope for the objective sciences, as a matter of principle. Which is why I side with Chalmers in this debate.
There is also scientific recognition of 'the hard problem':
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3538094/#Sec3title
This is another facet of a long-standing issue in philosophy, namely, the subjective unity of perception.
Quoting Kenosha Kid
You're still clinging to the myth of the atom. The 'standard model' itself is a fantastically complex intellectual and mathematical construct.
That would be molecules of water, which therefore would supposedly exist...
Quoting Philosophim
I just mean that consciousness is a functional process. It does something useful, otherwise it probably wouldn't exist.
I think it is a process of putting in the same 'space' a series of perceptions, ideas, memories, etc. for the purpose of comparing and analysing them, and ultimately take a coherent decision. So it's a data fusion process.
@Pfhorrest's points in it were good for a broadly sympathetic construal of the qualia concept in a (reasonably) theory neutral way. I tried to write some of my suspicions about it here. [hide=*](The chat I had with @Isaac at the end of the thread is one of my favourite I've had on the forum, though it was tangential to qualia (tangent being qualia -> individuation of perceptual features -> realism of perceptual features)[/hide].
Would be cool.
It does exist as an experience, but yes nothing doesn't exist. This is why an afterlife is possible
Where's your evidence?
Hrmmmm. That doesn't seem like a particularly good analogy here. I mean, almost everyone seems to think they have something like a direct experience of, ahem, what they're experiencing. And we have resources for explaining away, if we are so inclined and put in the work, mystical experiences characterized as experiences of divinity, or visual experiences characterized as seeing a UFO or even the weird-ass memories people have of being abducted (I remember Michael Shermer describes having one of these).
Anyway a lot of the usual strategies don't seem to apply, and the conviction strikes me as much more wide spread, for whatever reason. It seems to me that ought to be explained right up front, that the almost universal misconstrual of consciousness, if that's what it is, ought to come from the theory itself.
Does that make sense? I haven't read any Dennett in forever.
Quoting fdrake
Do you know anything about relevant research? I assume besides building competing models there are psychologists in labs doing fMRIs and such. I would have guessed that self-reports and introspection aren't so much tied to consciousness or even awareness but to attention, and I for one would expect to be able to make some progress seeing what's going on when attention is engaged and when attention is engaged introspectively, etc.
E.g., possibly: our thinking in symbols.
Right. Or close enough. Basic, simple, not homocentric elements.
Quoting Mr Bee
Are you saying that if you didn't know how a car was put together, you might suspect that it was irreducible? Or, put it this way, if you knew vaguely but not exactly how a car worked, and someone told you that actually carness is irreducible, that it is not the sum of its parts but actually a manifestation of a ubiquitous, elementary carness, would you accept that this was valid on grounds of your own ignorance or would it still sound absolutely absurd?
Consciousness is a whole other question solely because certain people don't like applying that sort of answer to subjective human experience.
Quoting Mr Bee
That's saying the same thing. Strawson's view is that the only way to grasp it is to accept it en tout without question. If you try to look at its moving parts, you lose visibility of the thing itself.
Quoting Mr Bee
It has to yield human consciousness without being reducible to simpler parts, e.g. the response of an electric charge to an electric field. That makes the whole universe homocentric from the bottom up. After all, no one becomes a panpsychist after really looking hard at rocks.
Quoting Mr Bee
It's a pro-ignorance view. So yeah not controversial per se. :D
Quoting Mr Bee
Irreducible consciousness is not something we "know with certainty". It is something we believe through faith, and protect with anti-scientific argumentation.
No, the point he is making in the quote in the OP is that disagreeing with Strawson's conception of what consciousness is is not the same as disagreeing that consciousness exists.
What you've touched on instead is the reason Strawson names him as a Denier: Dennett believes in a scientific, reductionist explanation for consciousness that, to Strawson, is equivalent to saying consciousness doesn't exist.
Quoting Wayfarer
How we arrived at it is not a measure of its intrinsic complexity.
Not really cause even if I didn't know how a car works, I can conceive of it being broken down into elements that I don't know about right now. The thing about consciousness is I can't conceive of how that can be the case. It's not like consciousness is a thing that we can measure and cut with a knife or anything. Experience is, well, experience. There is a reason why it's called the Hard Problem after all.
Quoting Kenosha Kid
Strawson's point is that the only way to grasp experience as a concept is to have it. None of that has anything to do with whether you can question it's nature. The way you seem to represent him he sounds like a closed minded bigot which I don't see at all.
Quoting Kenosha Kid
Not human consciousness. Just consciousness. Animals can be conscious, aliens can be conscious, and robots can be too. At least I don't think Strawson would disagree with that. And being "centric" means that the universe is somehow tailored around consciousness on some metaphysical pedestal which is another thing I think panpsychists would disagree with.
Quoting Kenosha Kid
Consciousness itself though is something we can know with certainty and you'll find few people who will say that it doesn't exist.
Whether or not consciousness is irreducible on the other hand is debatable so I agree with you there. Strawson believes that it is, but people like Dennett would disagree.
Consciousness isn't in doubt though; irreducible consciousness is. We don't experience the mediators of our experience, but we don't experience the irreducibility of consciousness either, it's just an inference. We can study conscious beings to learn how consciousness works, what it's moving parts are, etc. Irreducible consciousness requires a termination of enquiry and a leap of faith.
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
Sure. But the likes of Strawson just respond that whatever studies elucidate, it isn't the thing being studied. And that's the conversation the OP is about.
Exactly. Same goes for anything.
Quoting Mr Bee
Neither can a computer program.
Quoting Mr Bee
I think that's the way he represents himself. I hadn't thought of it in terms of intellectual bigotry, but yes that does seem accurate to me. He has no interest in describing a thing, but builds straw men to misrepresent others who do if it doesn't give the kind of answer he wants.
Quoting Mr Bee
But the reason why people like Strawson need consciousness to be something other than a bunch of more elementary things is precisely that human consciousness is fundamental to subjective experience. They are not in the tizz they are in because of guinea pigs or ravens.
Quoting Mr Bee
Right. The question asked in the OP was: what does Dennett mean by his response to Strawson? Strawson argues that Dennett is a consciousness Denier in the grounds that the latter does not believe in an irreducible consciousness. Dennett's response is merely the obvious: that one can believe in consciousness without subscribing to Strawson's conception of it.
There's an awful lot of unclarity about what Dennett does and doesn't say, what he does and doesn't deny. That is why I included a lengthy quotation from him, as follows:
I presume we all agree on that. Then Dennett goes to his main point:
https://ase.tufts.edu/cogstud/dennett/papers/JCSarticle.pdf
To me, this is the entire problem in a nutshell. This is the reason that Daniel Dennett is 'Professor Scientism' - in his view, scientific method must be truly universal in scope, whatever can't be included in it, is either not worth knowing about, or foverer un-knowable
And to put the objection to his attitude even more succinctly than David Chalmers, the fundamental reason that 'consciousness' is different to the other subjects of science is that all the objects of scientific analysis - even human cognition - can be studied as objects. We have a relationship of 'otherness' to them, we study those phenomena (phenomena being 'what appears'.)
But the first person is never in that relationship. That's why the subject (in both senses) eludes objective analysis.
A computer program is a set of logical operations as far as our understanding goes. It's easy to see how those operations can be conducted by a medium operating based on more fundamental laws, whether it be artificial or biological.
Again as far as conscious experience goes, it's just experience as far as we are concerned. How we go from there to more basic elements is what philosophers have been banging their heads on for centuries.
Quoting Kenosha Kid
Human consciousness=regular consciousness=subjective experience. They're all synonyms referring to the same thing and they are all irreducible, according to people like Strawson.
I can't say I really understood your suggestion, maybe because this mostly isn't my thing. I could understand what the confusion you describe would mean for self reports; I think I can see what it might mean for introspection; I'm not sure I understand how it could actually be the phenomenon of consciousness, though the idea of that being a sort of flickering between different functions or different layers is strangely appealing. Like I said, not something I've been devoting time to so not sure I'm the best sounding board.
The evidence lies in the fact that most forms of materialism are self-contradictory. The theory is a construct of the human mind, and yet it denies that this very same mind exists as an effective process doing actual stuff...
Thanks. Though @Olivier5 has already been participating extensively in a more recent thread where I expound on that far more greatly, and generally seems to disagree with me, though I'm not completely clear on in what direction.
An afterlife? Which would come after what life, exactly? The life of nothing? Is the afterlife going to be an eternity of Nothingness, too? I can't wait...
I disagree with pan-psychism. I thinks it's like trying to use a sledgehammer to kill a fly. But I will look at the argument that Drake pointed at.
I don't agree that that is where we start. That is the philosophical subject-object division that is often an unchallenged assumption in these discussions. Do you prefer ghosts (idealism), machines (eliminativism) or both (dualism)? Pick your poison.
Quoting Andrew M
I agree that it is an 'unchallenged assumption', if you read what said above, and whenever I comment on this subject, then you will see this is what I keep referring to. Dennett and his advocates seem never to understand this, or at any rate, they never respond to it. The article you linked to is relevant, but rather cursory. However I will say that this sentence:
'The sharp distinction between subject and object corresponds to the distinction, in the philosophy of René Descartes, between thought and extension'
is useful in throwing into relief what Cartesian dualism says.
Quoting Andrew M
Following on from the point I made above about the resemblance between the hard problem of consciousness and the neural binding problem, I see the issue in terms of the subjective unity of perception. Kant's analysis of it revolved around what he designated 'transcendental apperception'.
I question (4), as I don't see 'the unity of self' as an object of experience, but as an attribute of consciousness.
I think (5) is central to defeating the eliminativist (Dennett's) argument. The 'acts of synthesis' that are referred to, is the synthesis of perception, sensation, and reason that comprises every act of judgement, or of thought, proper. And I say that is not an object of scientific analysis, in the sense that many other subjects are, because it is internal to the act of knowing, and so is not characterised by the subject-object relation that characterises objective knowledge generally (per Husserl's critique below). There is no 'I-it' division in this relationship. This is why 'eliminative materialism' can't admit it, as it simply doesn't fit into the subject-object model which is assumed by naturalism. It can't see what is actually seeing. This is the 'blind spot of science'.
I think Husserl's criticism of naturalism is still cogent.
He criticizes Descartes and also Kant for treating consciousness as a part of the world:
[Routledge intro to phenomenology p144]
And this is the Strawson argument. That because we have experience, somehow we can't study it and understand it more scientifically, as if not having experience of being a computer program is somehow an advantage to understanding computer programs. It's a pitiful argument, a great example of human preciousness.
Meanwhile, science ploughs on, understanding more and more about consciousness, how it works, what constitutes it, and all that the likes of Strawson can do is insist that, while they cannot describe consciousness beyond 'if you got it, you know it', whatever it is that scientists are studying definitely can't be it (begging the question). If this impresses you, okay.
The "small component parts" would still be part of the "illusion", so Dennett can't ever escape his own visual illusion - even when talking about "fundamental" parts of a whole. His and your explanation sound visual to me. You can only hypothesize about the components by observing the "illusion".
And calling them elementary parts of water while in the same breath calling water an illusion just makes those elementary parts part of the illusion. It makes no sense whatsoever to call them elementary parts when the whole that they are part of is an illusion. That means that the parts aren't parts or components of anything at all, if what they compose is an illusion.
Quoting Philosophim
That's fine. What word would you choose to use?
Quoting Philosophim
But what if consciousness doesn't operate at the molecular level? Does studying the solar system give you complete knowledge into how the Milky Way galaxy works?
You seem to think that there are no such things as macro-sized objects, or processes - only microscopic ones, and that these things can't look different depending on which size scale, or distance, we are observing them from.
Observing a process from far away vs close up changes the way the process appears, but it is still the same process. The difference is not based the observed process being different from different vantage points, but our sensory systems' relationship with the process being different from different vantage points.
In other words, people here keep making category errors about what it is that they are talking about. We can only ever talk about anything in the world AFTER it has interacted with our body. In essence what we talk about is this interaction - never some process prior to its interaction with our body or some other measuring device. We can only talk about our measurements of the world, of which consciousness is a type of measurement. This means that brains and their neurons would be our conscious description and measurement of other minds. It's not other brains out there (naive realism), it's other minds, and brains are how some consciousness measures other minds (indirect realism).
I agree 100%. I am merely trying to break down what Dennet is saying. It doesn't mean I agree with him. I would define things as "Identities for particular purposes". Dennet isn't interested in studying the identity of consciousness as a personal experience, because he's not a psychologist. He's trying to get to the mechanical underpinnings that lead directly to consciousness. Of course, the mechanical underpinnings of the mind have further underpinnings like chemistry and physics. Even the atoms break down into quarks and electrons. Now Dennet may need fundamental chemistry to understand the mechanical processes, but he generally doesn't need that to observe how the mechanical processes work.
Of course, a psychologist or sociologist might be more interested in how consciousnesses work together. At that point, you don't necessarily need to understand the underlying physical workings of consciousness, just its expression. The identification becomes important depending on what you're trying to find out. In Dennets case, he's trying to find the underpinnings behind the personal consciousness we experience. So of course the result is not his concern, but the cause.
In Quoting Harry Hindu
That would need to be proven. So far, all every bit of scientific evidence points to consciousness being a physical process of the mind. You can zap a brain with electricity and change what a person is sensing and feeling. Check out videos and records when people have to have open brain surgery. Look up Phineus Gage https://www.verywellmind.com/phineas-gage-2795244
You are your brain. There is zero evidence that there is something separate from molecules and energy. Beyond Dennet, there is no, "what if" about this. Now if you wish to believe there is a soul or something separate, that's fine. Personally believe what you want to get you through your day and be a good person. But that is a personal belief, and has no basis in fact or reality. This is indisputable at this point in our scientific understanding. Any objection to this has no grounds in reality.
Quoting Harry Hindu
Quoting Harry Hindu
Do you see the contradiction you made? You made the same mistake you just warned me about. There is no separation between mind and brain. When we observe it at a particular level, we see a brain. When we measure our personal experience, we observe a mind. But they're really just the same thing, looked at in a different way.
Of course to get TECHNICAL, we could say that the mind is merely one part of the brain. After all, there's a lot going on there that we don't really have any say or control over. So far I haven't been able to control my digestion or fat storage production. That's all regulated by the brain, but not the mind part of my brain.
But the mind part of the brain is a physical real thing. If we understand the mechanics behind it, we could understand how we work a lot better.
:up:
Relevant to what?
You're better off asking @Isaac about neurology things.
Attention reference: I'm sure you've seen this experiment regarding attention and experience before. How much you pay attention to stuff constrains what you see - of all the possible perceptual features formable during a given interaction, the ones that end up having phenomenal character (presence in subjective awareness) vary with how a person's situated and the task they're doing.
Brain damage reference: people with agnosia are interesting, like those who can describe faces in terms of shape, colour, geometry, features... But not recognise who they're looking at. Highlighting that categorisation; seeing x as y; can decouple from experiences of x and being aware that it is y
When referencing the idea that categorisation was a component part of experience, what I had in mind was the theory of constructed emotion.
That "self evident upon introspection" and "correct and informative about the introspected event" are very much distinguished has a long history. Introspection about who we are, what we think, what we feel and explanations thereof are more post-hoc conjecture and revisionary history than the Cartesian immediacy we intuitively feel. "I know how I feel and why I feel it!", yeah, no we don't.
If a quale is a note and experience is a cohesive symphony, is it that there is something artificial and partially false about breaking experience apart in that way? As opposed to a rejection of experience altogether?
There's something here. The concept of qualia may idealize sensations, literally. That is to say, it maps sets of sensations (confused, intermingled, fleeting, complex, diverse) into simple and perhaps simplistic idealized primary sensations, similar to Plato's ideals: "the color red", which is in fact a set of many distinguisable colors and nuances, influenced by other colors near it; "the taste of cabbage", which in fact depends on how you cook it and zillions other factors including the drink (beer is recommended); or the "E note", which covers conceptually an infinity of different sounds.
In this sense, the concept of "qualia" is perhaps a useful simplification to bridge the gap between sensations and concepts. It's an illusion (because idealizations are in the final analysis always too simple to be true) but one that helps us describe our sensations. "His face suddenly turned red". "She ended on a high C."
Or maybe qualia is the source of both. Honestly, I think grappling with the meaning of that word takes us away from what Dennett wants to say. He's denying that we have experiences of any kind in the way most people think of it.
So when a person says that we know about conscious experience by direct introspection, that's really not saying anything startling.
Chalmers suggested that there might really be something odd about Dennett's brain such that he doesn't have experiences like other humans.
So how does he account for experience? Does he try to account for it at all?
I think that fits with my use of the term, "measurement". Colors, shapes, sounds, tastes, smells and tactile sensations and feelings are all measurements for a particular purpose. I think Outlander was using "sensory data", which I also like. In essence, consciousness is working memory that contains sensory information (measurements) for achieving a particular goal (purpose).
The "personal experience", or the subjective nature of the identities has to do with how the identities present themselves as including information about location relative to the body, or sensory/measuring device.
Quoting Philosophim
But that's the problem - explaining how "mechanical" processes causally influence, or interacts with, "personal experiences". How can you even get started with providing a good theory if you're just going to deny the existence, or at least the importance, of the very thing that you are trying to explain by observing its underpinnings (underpinnings of what, and for what purpose?)?
How can one even say that they are the causal underpinnings of consciousness when they can't even explain how the cause is causally related with the effect?
You seem to be saying that the "mechanical" processes have further underpinnings what I would assume that you would refer to as "physical". These terms are sensory terms. They could actually mean that what we are talking about are measurements. Everything that is "mechanical" or "physical" is a measurement, or an amalgam of measurements. Coffee is its taste, smell, temperature, visual (black liquid) and sound of being poured or sipped. You might point to coffee's chemistry and atomic structure, as a means of innovating the production of coffee, but it is all ultimately for the "personal experience" of the taste and smell of coffee for which the underpinnings are investigated.
The "parts" and "wholes" are comparisons of views, or a comparison of measuring scales, like comparing millimeters to light-years and nano-seconds to centuries. Each of these measurements "make up" the larger scales, but those smaller measurements just aren't useful on such large scales, and vice versa. So I would reject your use of "fundamental" and instead say that there are certain scales that are useful, depending on what purpose we are trying to achieve.
Quoting Harry Hindu
Quoting Philosophim
I think you misunderstood. Brains are not molecular-sized objects. Neurons are. And neurons are made up of atoms, which are made up of quarks. A brain is a part of an organism. Organisms are part of a social group or species, etc. Between which layer does consciousness lie, and how do you explain the causal relationship between the upper and lower (underpinning) layers?
Quoting Philosophim
Unfortunately, I don't see the contradiction. I need a better explanation. But it does seem that you contradicted yourself. You said before that I am my brain, but now you say that I am merely one part of my brain. Some would argue that they are their body, as a brain isn't very useful without a body.
If your part of the brain doesn't regulate digestion then are you saying that you don't make conscious choices about what and when to eat and then dump the waste? Do you regularly piss and shit your pants with no control? Are choices "physical"? How does a choice causally influence what the stomach digests?
He allows that humans see and hear and so forth, but denies that there is any conscious experience associated with those functions. What is taken for conscious experience is the result of something like verbal streams.
That's very generous of him. But how can he speak for other people than himself, though? These things are eminently personal. How does he know that others think the same way as he does?
He may be unconscious of his own sensations out of some sort of personal mental deficiency. At least that's theoretically possible. So how does the first person proposition "I Dennet feel no consciousness" translate into the bold generality that "Nobody can feel consciousness." ???
Machines made of ghosts made of machines made of ghosts.
We may be in agreement here, and differ only in semantics. Atomic theory is fundamental to the understanding of molecules. Quantum theory is fundamental to the study of atoms. What is fundamental is what is the directly prior set of rules and causality that arise to the current focus of study. What is fundamental to consciousness is the functioning of the brain.
Quoting Harry Hindu
I hope the prior explanation answers this as well. Consciousness arises from the brain. No where else. You do not need to be around other people to be conscious. The causal explanation is also the same as you mentioned. Atoms cause molecules by their interaction. Molecules cause neuronal cells by their interaction. Neuronal cells cause a brain. And certain parts of the brain cause consciousness. This is straight forward science.
Quoting Harry Hindu
Yes, so prior I was speaking in general terms. As in, mind/brain. The brain is composed of several different functioning sections that serve the body in different way. Sight is located in a different area then sound for example. Higher level thought is in the Neo Cortex, while the most primitive of bodily functions are handled by the brain stem. That is why a person can still breath even though they are in a coma.
Technically, consciousness would be the same. Certain areas of the brain create consciousness, while others do not.
https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/5/2/eaat7603
Here is a study on human consciousness in which we are mapping the locations of the brain.
Quoting Harry Hindu
You seem to be equating a mind as something different from the physical brain. It is not. No mind can exist without a brain. I was pointing out that you noted whether we examine something from a distance or close, its functionally the same thing. Thus brain and mind are the same.
Quoting Harry Hindu
Absolutely. Everything is physical Harry. What is there that is not physical? Do you think that when an ant makes a choice, it is not physical? When a cell chooses to eat another that there is some extra universal essence at play? A dog has a consciousness right? Mice, lizards, etc. We are made up of cells, which are molecules, and atoms. So is every living creature. Its all matter and energy.
Finally, your consciousness is physical. You can prove it right now. Stand up and walk somewhere. Look back. Is your consciousness where you just were? Or is it where you are now? It resides up there with you. You have to feed it and take care of it, or it grows weak, becomes confused, and dies. Make sure to use it well before its expiration date.
I don't think his conclusions follow from his own introspection. I think he works backward from certain ontological commitments.
But if you notice from the OP, it's not clear whether he understands what Strawson said or not, as if maybe he has something like color-blindness but it's more generalized.
I'd like to think that most everyone here would agree that conscious experience existed in it's entirety prior to our ever having coined the terms. An idea of something that already existed in it's entirety prior to our awareness of it is not rightly called "basic" or "fundamental". There is more than one idea of conscious experience, and some of them are mutually exclusive and/or negations of one another; they are incommensurate with one another. They cannot all be basic and fundamental. So we find ourselves at a point where we need to be able to perform a comparative analysis between the different notions/ideas of consciousness/conscious experience.
If conscious experience exists in it's entirety prior to our becoming aware of it, then our ideas of it can be wrong about it. That is particularly the case regarding our ideas about what such things consist of. Some people claim that conscious experience consists entirely, or in large part at least, of subjective, personal, and qualitative properties: Qualia are the ineffable, intrinsic, private, directly apprehensible properties of experience; the way things seem to us.
As Dennett says in the beginning of "Quining Qualia"...
Dennett argues fairly convincingly against the claims of the ineffability, intrinsicality, privacy, and direct apprehensibility of the properties of conscious experience and in doing so effectively grounds his rejecting the conception of qualia. It's worth noting that he does all this by offering physicalist explanations of actual counterexamples that are germane to historical notions of qualia/quale. In doing so, he shows that the properties of personal experience that make personal experience what it is, are not special in the sort of way that proponents of qualia claim.
That's the impression I'm left with after studying that paper for the last day.
Dennett's aim(I'm guessing) was to use a physicalist framework to effectively explain all that quale and qualia are claimed to be the only explanations for, and in doing so show that there is nothing ineffable, intrinsic, private, or directly apprehensible about the properties of conscious experience.
Why is that? Are you suggesting that everything in the distant past was reducible just because they predated conscious beings like us? I'm not sure I understand the connection here.
Quoting creativesoul
Sure there can be multiple ideas of what the term "experience" is, but I take it that most people have a common understanding of what first-person subjectivity refers to. Same with the concept of "red".
Are all ideas/notions/conceptions of conscious experience basic and fundamental?
Given the many different ways one can define "experience", no. The question is whether the things our ideas are referring to can't be irreducible if they pre-exist humanity and I see no reason why that should be the case.
Quoting Mr Bee
Good.
I'm saying that if there is anything basic and fundamental about conscious experience it would be what it consisted of long before we began talking about it; the basic elemental constituency of language less conscious experience.
Quoting Mr Bee
I'm not even sure that I understand what you're asking me here...
I'm not fond of the notion of reducibility. If we're talking about amending our accounting practices in a manner that results in adequately explaining something or another, then the simplest version is the best on my view, so long as there is no loss of explanatory power.
However, when we're talking about what things consist of, it's another matter altogether...
All things that exist in their entirety prior to our awareness of them are irreducible in terms of their basic elemental constituency, even those that consist of a combination of more basic elemental constituents and/or emerge as a result thereof. Conscious experiences are exactly such things, on my view. There are basic elemental constituents thereof, all of which are necessary in order for any and all conscious experiences to happen and/or take place. The trick, it seems to me(pardon the pun), is figuring out the minimum that each particular conscious experience requires, for they are not all equal.
For example, while some conscious experience requires language use, not all does. So, given that much... we can confidently say that any and all conscious experience, say, of learning how to use the term "tree", consists - in part at least - of common language use. Language is an elemental constituent of such experience. That experience cannot be further reduced in our imaginings by removing the language use, for what's left is insufficient, clearly. It would be a different experience altogether. Such an experience consists of - in part at least - but, is completely existentially dependent upon, common language use. However, it does not follow that common language use is required for all conscious experience.
Make sense thus far?
For me it does.
'Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away.' ~ Philip K. Dick.
Is that what you have in mind?
It seems to me to be something like the Kantian dictate, that if the unconditioned is given, so too must every possible condition also be given. To that which exists In its entirety (the unconditioned) belongs all conditions of its reality (basic elementary constituency), hence, no further reduction to even more basic constituency is possible. Or, which is the same thing, any further reduction admits no new knowledge, or may even invoke contradictions, and is thus either superfluous, or just meaningless.
But I could be mistaken.
Right, I don't agree with Dennett in that respect. I think there is only one world (or dimension) but thinking of it in Cartesian terms, whether as 'first-person' or as 'third-person', is a mistake. The latter can be characterized as a 'view from nowhere', which I think is untenable. Whereas the former fails to connect with the world at all, being radically private and subjective.
So if that philosophical distinction is rejected, both in whole and in part, then what are we left with? I think ordinary language serves us just fine here.
Grammatically, "Alice kicks the ball" and "The ball is kicked by Alice" both describe the same event, despite the subject and object being different in each sentence.
Similarly, Alice saying "My tooth hurts" and Bob saying, "Alice's tooth hurts" both describe Alice's toothache, despite them being first-person and third-person expressions.
Note how these grammatical distinctions don't divide up the world like the Cartesian distinctions do. Instead each statement above presupposes both a world being described (which includes toothaches) and a reference point in the world from which it is being described (Alice, or Bob, say). So the seemingly opposite (but actually interconnected) issues I raised above about "a view from nowhere" and "radical privacy and subjectivity" don't even arise.
See this as something akin to Bennett and Hacker's language criticisms in their "Philosophical Foundations of Neuroscience". If the assumptions that define a research program are flawed, then it's going to be difficult to solve some of the problems.
But, nevertheless, there is a valid distinction to be made between the first- and third-person perspective. In other words, me seeing Alice kick the ball is completely different to me kicking it. Of course, to you, then both me and Alice are third parties, but the point remains.
I’ve been delving in to P M S Hacker, I’ve discovered a tranche of his papers attached to his Wikipedia page. I’m gratified to learn that he’s a staunch critic of ‘scientism’.
The theory already accounts for that. Wayfarer kicks the ball, Andrew M kicks the ball and Alice kicks the ball are all different events. The distinction is already made without invoking first and third party distinctions.
That is all described from the third-person perspective. You won't really know what it is like to kick the ball unless you do it yourself.
Why not?
That's just a repetition of what you said. I'm asking why. What are the things you know from having an experience which are not knowable without having it?
Those are events. I was asking what the knowledge consists of. After drinking vodka, what us it that I know that cannot be known without drinking vodka. And don't answer 'what it's like to drink vodka' because that's not a thing (there is no single fact of 'what it's like to drink vodka').
Firstly, yes, I've read both, and secondly why are you referring me to literature? I just asked what the nature of this knowledge was. Has that suddenly become impossible for you to say anything at all about without full recourse to literature. It's going to somewhat undermine the purpose of a philosophy forum if philosophy can't be discussed in shorter than book-length format.
I will elaborate an objection to Dennett along Kantian lines. It begins with the claim that ‘experienced reality is a construct or a synthesis’. In Schopenhauer's terminology, it is 'vorstellung', translated as 'representation' or 'idea'. The brain is the most sophisticated object known to science, and this act of synthesis is what its power is deployed in generating. But we can't get outside of that act of synthesis, as it is how the mind works; as Kant says, 'experience, both of the self and its objects, rests on acts of synthesis that, because they are the conditions of any experience, are not themselves experienced.' That is the meaning of 'transcendental' in Kant - 'that which constitutes experience but is not itself given in experience.' An example would be the eye, which is the condition for seeing even though the eye does not see itself. I see this as a fundamental principle.
This doesn't mean experienced reality is only subjective or solipsistic, because we are members of a species, and a linguistic and cultural order, and we can make use of common measures, ideas and models. Our experiences are in that sense aligned (although between divergent cultures and periods of history, this alignement can easily slip.) In any case, experienced reality is known 'inter-subjectively' - a term that also owes its origin to Husserl. In this sense, 'mind' is not your or my individual mind but a collective reality of which our individual minds are instances. (On the level of conscious individuals we are, of course, unique, but our individuality is underpinned by a common core of functionality which operate sub- and unconsciously, both through cultural archetypes and also through the parasympathetic nervous system.)
But I'm not saying that 'the world is all in the mind' (i.e. subjective idealism). That statement attempts to assume a perspective that is outside of both the world and the mind, and to figure out how one relates to the other. But again, we can't actually assume such a perspective, because we can't get 'out of our heads'. As conscious beings, knowledge and speech arises from our situatedness in the world, from a perspective or point of view, without which nothing can be said. That is the sense in which 'mind and world arise together' (a principle in both Buddhism and phenomenology which has been adapted by the 'embodied cognition' approach 1).
What I'm arguing is that the subjective element is intrinsic to any judgement, statement, or thought about the world, even the so-called objective world, or, put another way, the objective world has only an apparent reality as part of this cognitive process (as per Kant).
So my objection to Dennett is that his 'privileging of the objective' cannot provide an account of the faculty of judgement that is at the basis of experience and even of objective judgement. You will notice in Dennett's 'Intentional Stance' and all his talk about 'qualia', he invariably tries to shift the subject of the debate to observing what other beings do; he always has to depict the matter in third-person terms. He doesn't want to reflect on what the subject does because of its intrinsic unknowability - which is why he says it's 'ineffable' and 'vague'. Modern scientific method starts with 'bracketing out the subjective'. Which is perfectly fine as far as it goes - but it doesn't go here.
In other words, Dennett's philosophy contains an innate contradiction, which is that it can't account for the very faculty which enables him to make philosophical judgements in the first place. And why? It is because reason, as such, is internal to the act of judgement. In Dennett's philosophy, 'reason' in the sense of a necessarily implication between ideas, has no innate warrant; our thinking is everywhere and always the product of causes which are largely unconscious and unknown to us, being the product of Darwinian selection in the service of survival. For instance in his Darwin's Dangerous Idea, Dennett uses a series of thought experiments to persuade the reader that meaning is the product of meaningless, algorithmic processes. This is part of what he calls the 'acid' of the 'dangerous idea'.
So the question is, how is Dennett's 'philosophy' exempt from this? Why, if he is correct, is what he writes not a series of meaningless symbols that are the product of the unconscious competence of his neurobiology? If he wants to dissolve everything that has been understood in the name of philosophy in 'acid', how come his is exempt? Or is he, as his philosophy suggests, simply another noisy chimp?
But of course, a lot of people have been saying this about Dennett all of his career - one of his first books was parodied as 'Consciousness Ignored' or 'Consciousness Explained Away'. But as there's nothing which Dennett could consider as 'empirical evidence' for this criticism he will no doubt just keep making the same noises.
This leads to an infinite regress. You never end up getting at any fundamental understanding if it is always a step lower than your present understanding. Fundamental understanding would be fleeting and unattainable. This leaves us with simply understanding, and some understanding is only useful in a particular domain. Any distinction between fundamental and non-fundamental understanding is incoherent.
Quoting Philosophim
What exactly do you mean by "arises from the brain"?
What exactly do you mean by "caused by their interaction?
Is it a temporal or spatial change that you are talking about? In other words, does the change occur over time, or over space? For instance, a thrown ball causes the window to break. The broken window was caused by something else interacting with it. In one moment it wasn't broken and in the next it was only after interacting with a ball, which isn't part of the window, but a separate entity. So if this is a temporal change, where is the mind in relation to the brain like the window is in relation to the ball? If this were the type of causation you are talking about then the mind is a separate entity from the brain, like the ball and the window. Temporal change is a relationship between two or more different things interacting to create a new thing that is not the same thing as the things by themselves.
Is it a spatial change, which really is just another change in views (conscious sensory models). There is no such distinction between different spatial-scales outside of our minds. Our minds are what make the distinctions between macro and micro, just as they do about present and past, but they have no ontological reality outside of our minds.
So in essence, spatial causation is really just different conscious sensory models of the same thing used for different purposes. There would be no separate entity of mind and brain. They are one and the same, just from different views. One might say an apple is red, but on the inside it is white. A view is from somewhere, so some view will contain information about the local environment relative to that spatial-temporal point within that environment. My view of your mind includes the visual of a brain. Your view of your mind does not. Why? And what does it mean to say that "you" have a view of "your" mind? Where is the you? You say that you are your brain, or part of it. So does this mean that somewhere in the brain is a view of a mind? Why don't we ever find such a thing when looking deep inside the brain?
Quoting Philosophim
Sight and sound are part of consciousness, not part of brains. Neurons are part of brains. Brains and their neurons are what are seen, so what would it mean for the sight of a brain to be in the brain?
Scientists even tell us that color has no ontological reality outside of our minds, yet they exist in minds. How does something that is colorless cause color? And how did camouflage evolve?
And if different aspects of consciousness are in different parts of the brain, then consciousness would entail multiple parts of the brain. There must be somewhere where sound and sight come together into a collective whole because I can both see and hear you at the same conscious instant and in the same conscious space.
Quoting Philosophim
Then I need an explanation of what you mean by "the brain causes the mind", or "the mind arises from the brain". Some causal events create new entities that are not the same as what caused them. Your mother and father caused you, but you are a separate entity from them both. This is what I was talking about the distinction between temporal causation and spatial causation.
Quoting Philosophim
Then what does it mean to be "physical"? If everything were "physical" then "physical" seems like a useless term.
When looking at another person's brain, how much of the information, and what part of the information, in your consciousness is only about the brain you are viewing and not about your brain too? How can you separate the information about the observed brain from the information about your brain when looking at another brain?
Think of the sights and sounds that you see and hear on your TV. The image depends not just on what is being viewed, but the quality and settings on the camera obtaining the view and the quality and settings on the TV. Both the camera and the TV together make measurements and then display them. What is displayed is wholly dependent upon what type of measuring device you are using and what device you're using to display the information.
Raw information has no form. It only takes form when needing to be used and how it is used is dependent upon the medium used to represent the raw information (TV sets or minds). Using different senses to observe the same event gives you different forms of the same information. Thunder and lightning are just different forms of the same event - an electrostatic discharge in the atmosphere. Electrostatic discharges have existed well before there were any eyes and ears to measure them. Once eyes and ears evolved, lightning and thunder existed.
Lightning and thunder are even thought of as separate events because based on our location, they can occur at different times, even though it is the same electrostatic charge that caused them both.
I don't know why anyone would say that qualia aren't useful as they contain such useful information about the body's relationships with the world.
Quoting Wayfarer
......experience itself, is altogether impossible, in fact has no meaning at all, without a cognitive subject to which it belongs. Thus, while reality in general is not subjective, the particular experienced reality, is;
Quoting Wayfarer
......the objective world is reality, re: “...the schema of reality is existence in a determined time...”, schema here being the manifold of extant objects in the world. I don’t think the fact we cannot prove with certainty the nature of the objective world, is sufficient to say the reality of the objective world is itself merely apparent to us. So saying, we must admit the existence of objects in a determined time is itself merely apparent, from which follows necessarily knowledge of such objects becomes immediately impossible because we have no means to distinguish whether it is the object or the determined time of that object, that is apparent.
Nevertheless, I would welcome an textual extract supporting your proposition. Or maybe just a clarification, to bring me back from way out in left field where I have this tendency to go sometimes.....
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Quoting Wayfarer
I read “Consciousness Explained” when it first came out, and I thought.....hmmmm, hasn’t it already been explained? It has to my satisfaction, satisfaction being merely a euphemism for intellectual prejudice, so because of it....yep, noisy chimp. But then, I’m stuck in the Enlightenment, for which I offer not the least apology, perfectly exemplified by your “the subjective element is intrinsic to any judgement, statement, or thought about the world”, so even if he turns out to be a noisy chimp who happens to be correct with his “we should explore the default possibilities first. This is the pragmatic policy of naturalism”, I’m not affected.
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Quoting Wayfarer
I know what you mean, but I would expand the notion: from 1995, “....Sometimes philosophers clutch an insupportable hypothesis to their bosoms and run headlong over the cliff edge...”, we are then presented with 2013’s “Intuition Pumps”. C’mon, man......intuition isn’t something that can be PUMPED!!!
Anyway....thanks for the good talk.
Yep, we're just talking semantics. In trying to craft systems you oftentimes limit how far you go. Think of meter stick only recording millimeters. Millimeters are all you need for your purposes, so the fundamental measurement of a meterstick is millimeters. Same thing when we're talking about consciousness versus the brains function that creates consciousness. We can see consciousness as the meter stick, and the brains functions as the fundamental measurement of that consciousness.
Don't overcomplicate it. Water is a group of H20 molecules. The fundamentals of water when speaking on the atomic level are the interactions of atoms. Or whatever particular base you wish to speak about. Fundamental is a word that we used based on our context, nothing more.
Quoting Harry Hindu
All changes are over space, and space is temporal. You cannot have a change without space or time. An meaningful interaction is when one or more states interact to create a new state. So if a group of neurons fire to produce the conscious experience of feeling happy using dopamine and other technical brain processes, your consciousness feels happy.
Quoting Harry Hindu
How you see sight in your brain, is how you see sight in your brain. When the neurons fire as a group passing messages to one another, that entire process within you is what is letting you be conscious. This is internal to the system.
So I code for a living, so let me give you an example from here. Everything in your computer is 1 and 0. If I open up the hard drive, I don't see the game I've saved to my desktop. When I attack an enemy on screen, I can look at the internals of the computer and just see a lot of 1's and zero's all going through logic gates. This then emits into other parts of the system which is interpreted to create new things like the controller input, or the visual on your TV.
The only reason we see a visual representation is because we interpreted the 1's and 0's with something that emits a visual picture. Your brain is not emitting a visual picture. There is no light that emerges for us to "see". Your brain processes and creates your existence within the medium of the brain. Your "picture" is internal to this system.
Now, if we want to see a visual of what we are thinking, we would have to learn what the internal mechanism is doing, then translate it into a medium of sight. Researchers have already begun to do this with reading people's minds when they think of objects. Here is an example. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/functional-magnetic-resonance-imaging-computer-analysis-read-thoughts-60-minutes-2019-11-24/
Above, they were able to locate the place in the brain that lit up when people thought the word, "Screwdriver". This is reading the 1's and 0's. There is a further experiment that found out what numbers people were thinking by reading the brain, then hooked those results up to an audio device that "spoke" the number.
But 1's and 0's are not light emittance. I can't see the visual of what's going on. I can look at the process and see what results in the system. Your "sight" in your brain is not "light". Its not emitting a picture. There's no sound in your brain either. Its the interpretation of sound into a meaningful experience within your brain. If you want it expressed as sound, it has to be emitted as a particular vibration of air.
So, the brain does not emit light or sound. It processes external stimulous like light and vibrating air waves to construct a meaningful picture within itself, or consciousness. From my background, this is readily easy to understand, but if you are not familiar with processes like this, perhaps it is not easy to comprehend. This is not a slight on yourself, I'm just hoping this is a meaningful way of communicating what is going on.
Quoting Harry Hindu
Space is not physical. Where there is no matter or energy, we have "emptiness". So the term physical is very useful. If you wish to introduce a different term, feel free, as long as there is evidence for it.
Damned if I know; theoretically, I wouldn’t be able to distinguish one as such, even if he was standing right in front of me. Still, I imagine I would treat the definition as if it came from a rational agency like me, especially if there was no possibility of ever discovering it didn’t. It doesn’t matter the source of definitions given to me anyway; they must all be met with my judgement as the only permissible criterion for their validity.
Ask it 'how are you?' If it can answer, it's not a zombie.
— René Descartes
Discourse on Method in Discourse on Method and Related Writings (1637!), trans. Desmond M. Clarke, Penguin
True enough, with the proviso that a human object of the query wasn’t ignoring me, or just didn’t hear me.
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On 1637!!!.....just goes to show: all the good stuff has already been done.
You really should read this review.
While I agree with that, under a certain set of conditions for the metaphysical conceivability of zombies in the first place, it is at the same time contradictory to say p-zombies are indistinguishable from humans. If a zombie has no capacity for intuition, which is in essence the faculty of representation a posteriori, then it must be distinguishable from an entity that does, which includes humans. At least includes humans pursuant to one particular speculative epistemology.
The entire zombie thesis hinges on the modality of the human cognitive system. If it is not representational, intuitions have so much less the import, hence may not even be necessary, which means the absence of it in zombies won’t serve as a legitimate means to distinguish one from a human counterpart.
Ridiculous, aye!! Concur, and I would add, it is preposterous to conceive of a thing missing the very attribute (e.g., conscious experience, Kirk, 2005) necessarily belonging to the thing from which it is meant to be indistinguishable.
The adjectives describing those of us holding with the “disease of what passes for philosophy these days” is legion, and precious few of them are complimentary.
The article I referenced was from 2019 and from 60 minutes, which is not a slouch in its reporting. I did read the published article that cast doubt on fmri studies, and its follow up corrections which pulled back much of its accusations.
But if fmri's aren't enough for you, here's another.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cerebral_achromatopsia#:~:text=Cerebral%20achromatopsia%20is%20a%20type,the%20disorders%20are%20completely%20distinct.
Basically this is color blindness caused through brain damage. There's an interesting note about an artist who gained this later in life.
"Mr. I. could hardly bear the changed appearances of people ("like animated gray statues") any more than he could bear his own changed appearance in the mirror: he shunned social intercourse and found sexual intercourse impossible. He saw people's flesh, his wife's flesh, his own flesh, as an abhorrent gray; "flesh-colored" now appeared "rat-colored" to him.This was so even when he closed his eyes, for his preternaturally vivid ("eidetic") visual imagery was preserved but now without color, and forced on him images, forced him to "see" but see internally with the wrongness of his achromatopsia. He found foods disgusting in their grayish, dead appearance and had to close his eyes to eat. But this did not help very much, for the mental image of a tomato was as black as its appearance."
There's also the famous case of Gineus Phage, who's entire personality changed after having a rod blow through his brain and actually living through it.
Not to mention the countless medical studies in fixing mental illnesses like depression and others. Your brain is what shapes you. Just like a dogs brain shapes it. A monkeys brain shapes it. There is no underlying non-physical process causing dogs, monkeys, and humans to think. Damage the brain, you damage the mind. Feel free to post alternatives.
Quoting Philosophim
Ever heard of Wilder Penfield? He was a famous Canadian neuro-surgeon, who late in life wrote a book called Mystery of the Mind. This was based on decades of experience with patients who had undergone brain surgery by him, whilst still conscious (because the brain itself is impervious to pain). He found that if he stimulated parts of the brain, he could indeed elicit memories and sensations from these subjects. However he also found that almost invariably, the subjects knew that this was something that was being done to them, not something they were doing. This forced him to acknowledge that the mind is somehow different to the brain.
Another case was Sir John Eccles, a distinguished Australian neuroscientist, who likewise formed a view he called 'trialism' (as distinct from 'dualism') with philosopher Karl Popper, described in their book https://www.amazon.com/Self-Its-Brain-Argument-Interactionism/dp/0415058988.
Quoting Philosophim
What about, for instance, meaning. You can't get from 'the laws which govern molecules and energy' (i.e. physics, organic chemistry, etc) to 'the laws which govern semantics'. Each set of laws belong to different explanatory levels, and there's no way to bridge them known to physics or chemistry.
Another example: if an internet post like this one annoys you, that will result in hormonal changes in your body; pulse might increase, knot in stomach, flushing etc. They are physical changes for which no physical cause can be assigned, they originate purely from the perception of meaning.
These are all different facets of the explanatory gap that is another facet of Chalmer's 'hard problem of consciousness'.
None of that is to deny that physical injury to the brain is not a cause of cognitive, behavioural and other changes - no question of that. But you don’t need be a physicalist to accept that.
Unbelievable! Anyone even dare to have an opinion on consciousness and you leap to "have you read the literature", "you don't understand the issues" and here you are invoking fucking neuroscience in your crackpot opinions. Are you a neuroscientist? No. Have your read 'the literature' about neuroscience? No. Do you have the faintest idea how neuroplasticity actually works at a cellular level? No. are you qualified to even understand Penfield or Eccles, or the various counter-arguments? No
The depths of duplicity you'll stoop to to push your agenda astound me. Implying that the philosophy around consciousness is so complicated that people can't even talk about it without immersing themselves in the literature, but neuroscience? Oh that's easy, apparently we can all a crack at that on the basis of a couple of newspaper articles. Ridiculous.
In America and the UK, you mean? At this point in time, the rest of the world seems rather immune to the siren songs of naïve materialism and its view of humans as mechanical puppets. It's more a problem in Anglo-saxon philosophy. I never heard of p-zombies in a French or Italian context.
Agree. I am not a neuroscientist. The sign on the door says 'philosophy forum'. If being a neuroscientist were a qualification, it would be another forum altogether.
Quoting Isaac
I've read the books I mentioned, and I feel qualified to comment on them, as they're written for general audiences and they don't rely on having knowledge of neuroscience.
Your outburst just illustrates the fact that questioning materialism irritates materialists - as I suggested in the post you're commenting on. There are many 'opinions on consciousness' in this thread, but I am simply addressing one of them.
Quoting Olivier5
Agree.
Then stop invoking issues within it that you do not understand in your 'philosophical' musings.
Quoting Wayfarer
Well you're clearly not because neither of them are saying what you claim they're saying.
The Eccles/Popper book abstract says 'The relation between body and mind is one of the oldest riddles that has puzzled mankind. That material and mental events may interact is accepted even by the law: our mental capacity to concentrate on the task can be seriously reduced by drugs. Physical and chemical processes may act upon the mind; and when we are writing a difficult letter, our mind acts upon our body and, through a chain of physical events, upon the mind of the recipient of the letter. This is what the authors of this book call the 'interaction of mental and physical events'. We know very little about this interaction; and according to recent philosophical fashions this is explained by the alleged fact that we have brains but no thoughts. The authors of this book stress that they cannot solve the body mind problem; but they hope that they have been able to shed new light on it. Eccles especially with his theory that the brain is a detector and amplifier; a theory that has given rise to important new developments, including new and exciting experiments; and Popper with his highly controversial theory of 'World 3'. They show that certain fashionable solutions [by which they mean 'scientific materialism] which have been offered fail to understand the seriousness of the problems of the emergence of life, or consciousness and of the creativity of our minds.'
(Popper's 'World 3' 'contains the products of thought. This includes abstract objects such as scientific theories, stories, myths, tools, social institutions, and works of art.[2] World 3 is not to be conceived as a Platonic realm, because it is created by humans.')
Both books are controversial, many don't agree with them, and a lot of people would say they've been debunked or were mistaken to begin with. But the reason I refered to them, is because they both have input from distinguished neuroscientists. Again, this is a philosophical issue, not a neuroscientific issue, because materialism itself is a philosophical issue. You don't have to know anything about philosophy to practice neuroscience (or vice versa) but these were drawn as counter-examples to the claim 'You can zap a brain with electricity and change what a person is sensing and feeling', and other materialist claims.
I know this is controversial. Why is it controversial? Because sensible people are materialists. They don't believe in 'spooky mind-stuff' and like ideas. If you believe something anything that, then you have
Quoting Isaac
Exactly. You absolutely can zap a brain with electricity and change what a person's sensing and feeling. There is zero doubt about this in neuroscience. You've presented fifty year out-of-date science which isn't even about 'sensing and feeling' without understanding the wide and complex issues because it ticked a few boxes in your pre-conceived ideas. Trawling through the pop-science books until you find one which sounds a bit like the thing you're trying to prove is not 'understanding the issues'.
makes a good point when he speaks of brain plasticity. This is a proven fact, that one's efforts to learn something can plastically change one's brain. And I think he is right that this scientific fact contradicts naïve materialism.
Ah well, if you think he's right then that settles it. We were all just waiting to hear what you reckoned about it. I should publish immediately before someone scoops your research.
If instead of a zombie, Dennett was a culinary critic with a gift for wordsmithing, he could make an attempt at it.
But would he succeed? I'm not even asking for there to be some kind of judging committee or panel. Can he describe the taste of his meal and wine to a level that will satisfy him?
Probably not. But he would be able to faintly evoke it, enough to wet the appetite of his readers. So I agree that 'qualia' (sensations as we perceive them subjectively) cannot be adequately described in words, but they can be evoked, which is better than nothing. The same applies to the meaning of words, words that roll out our tongue nevertheless. So this is not something unusual.
The taste of blackberries is not described in the above poem but it manages to evoke the explosion of the blackberry juice in one's mouth through words like squeeze, squinch and splurge.
This seems to be a contradiction to me. There are two things to consider. The description of a qualia and the evocation of that qualia. These are two different things. If we fail at the former we come face to face with the ineffable. The latter is, from personal experience, child's play.
Yes, I agree.
The wine tasted like wine and the supper tasted like fish and chips. What's missing that can't be put into words?
Isn't that the definition of a qualia? That there's something like the taste of wine. It's a bit simplistic of course, as wine can taste like crap or paradise depending on the bottle. It's not exactly as predictable as Coca Cola.
A bird is a bird. Tautology. Nothing is being said in fact.
I think it sloppy for anyone to use intuition as a psychological term; intuition remains philosophical, as far as my use of it will ever extend. But you know what is said about opinions.......
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Even if somebody perfectly described to you the taste of his dinner.....does that description give you taste? No, it does not, which immediately suffices to prove experience by means of second-hand sensibility is impossible, and subsequent attempts to shore up empirical impossibilities, with mere a priori abstractions such as imagination and its offspring, is absurd. In other words, a priori qualitative analysis is non-transferable, from which follows necessarily, both, I have no sufficient cause to tell myself “what it is like”**, and, I don’t even possess a rational method to tell you “what it is like”.
**self-correction subsequent to erroneous judgement aside.....
Nah. Intuition is as good a philosophical concept as any... But when a self-described p-zombie makes an appeal to intuition, he is contradicting himself.
Gotta be careful here, though. The theoretical construction of p-zombies makes explicit they must be indistinguishable from humans, but it is just as theoretical that humans appeal to intuitions. If it should become established that humans, metaphysically speaking, via some Kantian-like paradigm shift, don’t necessarily appeal to intuitions, or physically speaking, from proof of empirical brain mechanisms in which intuition is irrelevant, then the contradiction disappears.
Until either of those comes about....I see the same contradiction.
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Addendum:
Speaking of Kantian paradigm shifts....it is the case therefrom, that intuition is not used in pure thought, which is accomplished from conceptions alone. Therefore, if a p-zombie doesn’t exhibit any a posteriori affects, that is, if he only thinks, or when he only thinks, which he is permitted to do because he is indistinguishable from a human which does think without the use of intuition, a human could never recognize its zombie-ness, at least from the appeal to intuition.
I didn't suggest it wasn't tautologous. What is missing, was the question. What fact are you expecting Dennet to be able to communicate?
Thanks for bringing that up. This is one of many excellent contributions of Popper to philosophy. World 3 is akin somewhat to what researchers call 'the literature'.
'nough said.
Quoting Wayfarer
How about we ask it to enclose a space? If it cannot, it is a zombie.
Just curious how you see it possible for this to ever happen if...
Quoting Mww
How could proof from empirical brain science say anything about intuition if it cannot use the term?
Proof that the grass is shorter now then it was before implies no necessity for the term “lawnmower”.
Your Quoting Mww
........is out of context.
Okaaay...Can't make head nor tail of that, but I suppose you don't have to be a Martian to wear lederhosen.
Neuroplasticity has been known for decades. It is a physical process. If the "mind" repaired itself with no change to the brain, then you would have evidence of something apart from the brain. This "repairing" is also a remapping of neuron signals, not the growth of new brain cells. The plasticity of cells, and their ability to regulate in a community are well known. Why do you think your skin doesn't just continue growing and taking over? When you get a cut, its not your brain that tells your skin cells to divide. Its the activity of the cells themselves. You say "mind" as if it is something apart from the brain. That doesn't make any sense based on cellular biology. What evidence do you have that there is something separate from the brain?
Quoting Wayfarer
This example actually disproves physicalism. If a person was able to learn or do something WITHOUT a change in brain matter, then you would have something. The change in the brain means its obviously a physical change. Drawing any other conclusion is pulling something in we have no evidence of. Don't even include learning. When you do something, the brain fires away. We know we need it to actually do things. We know we have nerves that send information to the brain. The brain reacts and physically responds to outside stimulous. But there is no "mind" apart from the brains functioning here.
Quoting Wayfarer
No, I looked him up. First his conclusions are 60+ years old. That is a terrible reference when we've discovered so much today. Second, this was his opinion with clear falsification that was not tested. I found his reasons explored here: https://mindmatters.ai/2020/02/why-pioneer-neurosurgeon-wilder-penfield-said-the-mind-is-more-than-the-brain/
So this post doesn't blow apart, the commonality between all three reasons is that he was unable to simulate rational thinking or agency. Which of course he wasn't. Rational thinking and agency are formed by several neurons being simulated and communicating with one another. A light electric shock on the surface of the brain is not accessing the entire complexity of the brain. His conclusion makes sense with the knowledge of the 50's, but does not make sense today.
Eccles is another person who proposed opinions in the 60's that he could also not confirm. Neuroscience from the 60's is an entire generation ago. To to examine him:
https://dana.org/article/neuroscience-and-the-soul/#:~:text=Eccles%20hypothesized%20that%20the%20liaison,was%20a%20kind%20of%20consciousness.
"To justify his hypotheses, it was necessary for Eccles to assume that contemporary physics could not detect, measure, or predict the supposed mental forces. In his Nature essay, he suggested that, while waiting for physics to improve, we should take note of “well-controlled experiments that give evidence that there is a two-way traf?c between mind and the matter-energy system,” and went on to assert that “psychokinetic experiments leave little doubt that very slight changes can be produced by some minds on moving physical objects such as dice.” To support his hypothesis of nonphysical causation, Eccles also added the claims of extrasensory perception (ESP).3 In retrospect, these arguments seem weak; well-controlled experiments with ESP have repeatedly failed to support the claims of its exponents."
Finally,
Quoting Wayfarer
Yes you can. We know that there are certain parts of the brain that allow a person to grasp language. Animals and insects which lack these aspects of the brain are unable to communicate using language.
https://www.headway.org.uk/about-brain-injury/individuals/effects-of-brain-injury/communication-problems/language-impairment-aphasia/
Aphasia is the term for when a person has brain damage that limits their ability to communicate.
Whew! Long post. I can address the point about the hard problem later, but this is enough for now. I find the points you provided do not rationally lead to the idea of a mind existing outside of the brain. Feel free to cite more if you have it.
I'm not sure what you mean by that. How would you or I 'enclose a space'?
The point about my rhetorical question - asking it 'how it is' - is that it can't answer, because it doesn't have any condition to report on. It makes sounds, but it is not a being, so it has no inner condition.
Quoting Philosophim
Because, if it were a purely physical process, then intentionality would have no impact on it. In those experiments where a conscious mental activity causes changes to the brain structure, then the changes are brought about by a conscious act, not by a physical cause. If I tell you something that has physical consequences, that is different to my hitting you or giving you a physical substance. Intentionality is not a physical thing.
This is the whole basis of psychosomatic medicine and the placebo effect. According to physicalism, the placebo effect ought not to work.
Broadly speaking the ability of the brain to heal itself is an example of biological homeostasis. So the question for physicalism is: is homeostasis a physical process? You will answer, 'of course it is', but the fact remains it is only ever observed in living organisms. It is never observed in non-living matter. Has science explained that? Physicalism assumes that everything reduces to physical laws, but at least some biologists believe that the laws governing homeostasis and so on cannot be so reduced.
Quoting Philosophim
Really I'm not buying that. I certainly agree a lot of people won't accept what Penfield said, but I don't think you can say they've been superseded. And I also know a lot of people reject Eccles and Popper's dualism (or 'trialism'), but the point I'm making is that in both cases, you have celebrated neuroscientists who reject physicalism. Physicalism is not unanimously held.
Quoting Philosophim
Go back to this post about the 'neural binding problem'. This problem revolves around the attempt to analyse which neural mechanism can be said to account for the subjective unity of conscious experience. The paper cited says that 'There is now overwhelming biological and behavioral evidence that the brain contains no stable, high-resolution, full field representation of a visual scene, even though that is what we subjectively experience.'
Quoting Philosophim
Except for the fact that, as discussed above, if the brain is damaged, then it will re-purpose itself so that other areas take over. Neuroplasticity again. And again, how is this a 'physical process'? There's nothing in physics which mirrors that. We simply assume it's physical because it can be observed.
I don't doubt the facts of evolution, but evolution is a biological theory, and I don't think it accounts for the laws of logic, for example. H. sapiens evolve to the point of being able to grasp those laws, but those laws are not a product of that process of evolution. They don't come into existence as a result of evolution. What evolves is the capacity for reason, but the furniture of reason pre-exists that ability.
And about 'mental forces': where does 'the force of reason' originate? If I tell you that 2 is greater than 3, you will understandably recoil, or tell me I'm speaking nonsense, quite rightly. But how are such facts 'physical'? What is the physical basis for the facts of reason? Do you see the point?
I don't see your conclusion being rational. You're assuming that consciousness is not a physical process, therefore consciousness cannot be a physical process. The brain can communicate amongst its cells, and produce different outcomes through a physical process. You have shown nowhere where this is not the case.
I think what you might be missing is the idea of input and output, versus the processing in the brain itself. The brain changes based on internal processing, input, and output. Your sensory receivers of sight and sound are inputs. Your brain takes those inputs and molds them into something it can interpret. But sight and sound don't affect the brain directly, its the interpretation of that light and sound. The brain needs that physical light and sound to touch its physical nerves, which travel up the physical pathways to touch the physical neurons. A person can lose an input like sight or sound, but still the brain processes up there.
I'm sensing your view of neuroscience is outdated considering who you are citing. The philosophy of mind is an aside to modern day neuroscience. The idea of something apart from the physical brain is based on ignorance or superstition at this point. I'm also sensing you're focusing too much on humans. Think of a dog sitting around and scheming how to get the food off the table. A spider constructing a complex web. These are all physical beings that we attribute no extra essence to. It is the reality we live in.
I think you also misunderstand the placebo affect. https://www.health.harvard.edu/mental-health/the-power-of-the-placebo-effect
"Placebos won't lower your cholesterol or shrink a tumor. Instead, placebos work on symptoms modulated by the brain, like the perception of pain. "Placebos may make you feel better, but they will not cure you," says Kaptchuk. "They have been shown to be most effective for conditions like pain management, stress-related insomnia, and cancer treatment side effects like fatigue and nausea."
This is often attributed to the idea that pain and fatigue are indicators that you need to rest or take care of yourself. If you can fool the brain into thinking its being taken care of, its wasteful to keep sending these signals out. But it doesn't actually cure you. This is still a physical process. "How placebos work is still not quite understood, but it involves a complex neurobiological reaction that includes everything from increases in feel-good neurotransmitters, like endorphins and dopamine, to greater activity in certain brain regions linked to moods, emotional reactions, and self-awareness."
Quoting Wayfarer
Ah, this is a simple misunderstanding between life and non-life. We're both made up of matter and energy. Life is a serious of complex chemical reactions that seeks to sustain its chemical reactions. A sun does not seek more hydrogen as it burns out. Therefore it is non-life. Anything which seeks to sustain its own reaction by seeking out a replacement for what it is burned, is called life. But its all the same matter underneath.
Quoting Wayfarer
There is a paragraph in the first Chalmer's paper you linked me. "A nonreductive theory of consciousness will consist in a number of psychophysical principles, principles connecting the properties of physical processes to the properties of experience. We can think of these principles as encapsulating the way in which experience arises from the physical. Ultimately, these principles should tell us what sort of physical systems will have associated experiences, and for the systems that do, they should tell us what sort of physical properties are relevant to the emergence of experience, and just what sort of experience we should expect any given physical system to yield. This is a tall order, but there is no reason why we should not get started."
Even Chalmers is not claiming that consciousness is not separate from the physical. He understands that consciousness rises out of physical processes.
The Neural binding problem is only mentioning that we have not found the process by which the brain takes all of the visual information for example, and processes it into what we "see". It is merely noting that it is difficult to do so, and is in its infancy. The neural binding problem is not a claim there was an alternative to consciousness coming from the brain. It is merely identifying the difficulties of figuring out the exact process, and the challenges that it entails.
Everything points to consciousness being the physical process of the brain. We're trying to figure out exactly how that works right now, but there are no theories in science which are studying the consciousness as if it is somehow separate and not formed from the brain. Feel free to show me some if you know of them.
The rest of your statements are just a lack of understanding. Neuroplasticity is a very physical action that has limits on what it can do. Laws are a recognition of reality, and logic is a fundamental understanding of reality. 3 is greater than 2 because my brain can process the language of the numbers, represent the objects, and understands how to compare. Even a dog can observe the concept of greater and lesser.
Just because you don't understand neuronal activity, does not mean that it does not produce the things we all experience in reality. I do not understand your viewpoint. Concepts are physical results of your brain, within the brain itself. Maybe a comparison can help. Basic computer code is 1's and 0's. We can limit the expression of these 1's and 0's to 8 bits, and read the order of those 8 bits to represent different things. The computer represents its internal processing reality to these bits. It takes a TV to display those bits into something we understand. Will we ever understand the personal experience of a computer that is programmed to monitor itself? No, that experience can only be done with 1's and 0's, which we don't process in. But we do know those 1's and 0's build the computer program we are using and seeing. There is nothing magical or fantastical going on, its all just a physical process.
And you're simply assuming the opposite. And, what is 'physical', anyway? What does it mean?
Quoting Philosophim
This is the mereological fallacy. This is the fallacy of ascribing psychological attributes to parts of the being that can only intelligibly be ascribed to the being as a whole.
The brain doesn't do anything by itself. It is embodied in the organism, which is situated in an environment and culture. It acts within that matrix.
Hence the requirement for 'top-down' causation. Top-down causation refers to effects on lower-level components of organized systems that cannot be fully analyzed in terms of component-level behavior but instead requires reference to the higher-level system. Materialism is generally bottom-up, i.e. action can be reduced to the activities of molecules and then acts 'upwards' to affect the mind. Dennett's philosophy is strictly bottom-up. But the hackneyed phrase 'mind over matter' suggests top-down causation, and it operates on every level as well.
Quoting Philosophim
A materialist will say that, but his opponent will insist that whatever it is that 'seeks to sustain its reactions' is not in itself chemical nor is disclosed in the rules of chemistry.
There has been a search for extraterrestrial biology going on for decades, and it has not found anything yet. So life is apparently extremely rare in the cosmos, and it's quite reasonable to argue that it is not continuous with non-living matter, but is ontologically distinct. This is not to suggest some kind of elan vital or secret sauce, but to point out that it's organised on a level that can't be reduced to physical laws. 'What is life' and 'what is mind' are still open questions; science knows a huge amount more about those questions than it did 200 years ago, but it's still an open question.
Quoting Philosophim
My point, exactly. Can't be fit into the bottom-up scenario.
Quoting Philosophim
Do you appreciated what 'ontologically distinct from' means?
Quoting Philosophim
Have you ever heard Karl Popper's expresssion 'the promissory notes of materialism'? This refers to the tendency to say in just such cases, 'hey, science hasn't figured it out yet, but we will! It's just a matter of time!'
If you think it through, it's a very subtle problem, because in this case, what you're trying to explain, and what is doing the explaining, are the same.
Quoting Philosophim
Clearly.
Consider this passage from a paper on biosemiotics (which is the emerging discipline of the application of semiotics to biological processes, which I learned about on this forum):
This is well on its way towards becoming accepted as mainstream science. And why? Because, as Pattee says, it is 'a necessary complement to the physical-chemical reductionist approach to life that cannot make this crucial categorical distinction necessary for describing semantic information'. In other words, because semantic and semiotic laws can't be derived from physical laws.
You expect, and Daniel Dennett will agrre, that evolution provides the conceptual link between the physical and the symbolic domains. But this is what is being questioned by biosemiotics and by Dennett's critics. But that is enough for now.
Yes, seeing someone do something is different to doing it yourself. However yours and my view is not 'a view from nowhere', and neither is Alice's experience radically private or subjective. As human beings, we can use the same language to describe Alice's activity as she can.
Quoting Punshhh
Maybe! Certainly that is what our ordinary language is grounded in.
Hence the mistake of pan-psychism is one of extension: it's not all matter that is infused with some amount of 'consciousness'; but all life. Biology should be taken seriously by philosophers.
Quoting Olivier5
No, I'm not assuming anything. I'm taking what we know, which is that the physical brain produces consciousness. One thing you have not done is shown any evidence that it can be anything other than this. I'm not talking about theories, but facts. I have asked you a few times now, "If the mind is not physical, what is it?" I have already said what physical is, but I'll say it again. Matter and energy. Einstein confirmed that they are the same thing, just expressed in different forms.
Quoting Wayfarer
You conveniently ignored the parts about placebo's we do know. I'm not talking about a bottom/top scenario. I'm talking about the brain processing and parts of that being consciousness. Consciousness works within the brain. It is not above it, or below it. Its like molecules of water reacting to the wind. Waves form. Molecules are part of the water. They explain the fundamentals of why the water reacts at a molecular level, but they are not below or above the water itself.
Quoting Wayfarer
The science of brain and consciousness is not binary. Its not, "We understand it all, or we understand none". We understand plenty of parts that show the mind is produced by the brain. When you alter the brain, you alter the mind. We're still figuring out to the science what exactly that entails. We have flashes of light here and there, but designing THE scientific process for how consciousness and the brain works is still in progress. I have asked you a few times now, and you still have not answered this vital question to your ideology. If consciousness is not the brains inner workings, what is it? Give me facts, evidence, a viable theory. If you can't, saying, "Well I just doubt it," is not a rational argument. We can express doubt about anything. What I am looking for is viable and rational alternatives.
Quoting Wayfarer
When people debate the meaning of philosophers even as old as Descartes, I don't think Wikipedia is a good source of summing up his philosophy. I'm going to post the first sentence of the Chalmer's paragraph again.
Quoting Philosophim
These are not ontologically distinct. These are descriptors that ultimately connect to the physical process. Water is molecules of H20, but we don't refer to water as H20. We say it has waves, flows, etc. But all of these terms are reducible to the molecular make up and laws of H20. That is all Chalmers is saying. He is NOT saying "Water" is different from "Molecules of H20". It is a different way of describing the mass of H20 molecules, basically a different measurement scale. Inches instead of millimeters. Even though one is feet, and the other is meters, they are different descriptors of "length" that describe the same thing. Perhaps in this we could call inches ontologically distinct from millimeters, but not the thing they are both measuring.
Quoting Wayfarer Quoting Wayfarer
You have drawn the wrong conclusions from biosemiotics. They are talking about a conceptual model, not that the conceptual model does is not separated from physical laws. They're just saying the current conceptual model of physics is not adequate to describe the physical process of life.
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12304-009-9042-8
"The solution proposed by Pattee, in short, is that signs and codes do not require new laws of physics, because they are a special type of constraints and constraints are an integral part of normal physical theory. The whole argument is developed in three logical steps: (1) life requires evolvable self-replication (a biological principle), (2) evolvability requires symbolic control of self-replication (von Neumann), and (3) physics requires that symbols and codes are special types of constraints (Pattee).
This proposal is undoubtedly a form of biosemiotics, because it states that semiosis exists in every living cell, and since it is based on the idea that signs and codes are physical constraints, it can be referred to as physical-constraint biosemiotics, or, more simply, as physical biosemiotics (Pattee himself, in a private correspondence with the author, has accepted that this is an adequate name for his approach)."
Models to describe systems are constantly being proposed and used. Again, the molecular model of water versus the flow model of water are two different ways of identifying and communicating the underlying physical reality. No where is Pattee claiming that the model of biosemetics supercedes or replaces the underlying physics.
So again, I sense a lack of understanding of what all of these conceptual models and word choices are about. All evidence points to consciousness being a function of the brain. No evidence points otherwise. Current physical models have a difficulty in marrying our generic concept of consciousness with the mechanics of the brain. Many models are proposed that can marry these two in such a way that it is easier to conceive of what is happening. BUT, they do not supercede the underlying physics, and should ultimately reduce to physical reality.
I appreciate the citations and information you've put forward. It has been a good conversation. But I can show you exactly what I would need to doubt the idea that consciousness does not result from the brain.
1. Provide an evidence based model that shows consciousness as necessarily existing apart from the brain. One that does not, and cannot, reduce down to the physical reality of the brain.
Because everything I know of reduces down to an evidence based model that shows consciousness as necessarily originating from the brain. If you can provide one, and it withstands an examination, I will concede that consciousness may be separate from the brain. If not, then I have no rational choice but to accept that consciousness is a function of the brain.
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Thanks Isaac. If this ends up being pointless, I apologise except I don't as it's always good to hear an expert expunge. As a heads up, my understanding of qualia is that they pertain to conscious experience only: they are objects of consciousness, not, say, intermediary data in some pattern-recognition process of the ventral stream. This is just for clarity when talking of response, which may be completely unconscious.
Quoting Isaac
And these both still precede my conscious experience, right? For instance, I never open my eyes and see this:
and not see two cars(ventral), nor do I not see that one is further away than the other (dorsal). Sometimes we're presented with something and we can't make it out, but most of the time we know what we're perceiving as we perceive it, rather than consciously seeing a vision and having to work out what it's of.
The fact that I perceive a car and can discern a different car, without necessarily being conscious of any of the details of either (making them tokens, not a type), suggests to me that we do have objects of our subjective conscious experiences, that these objects are presented to our consciousness as objects, and that this is the sort of thing we should mean when we speak of qualia.
Quoting Isaac
I'm not sure whether you're saying that the recognition of the car is part of the experience I am conscious of, which is also what I'm saying, or whether we consciously recognise the car, which flies in the face of my experience, and also seems to contradict the idea that the brain is adept at filtering out irrelevant sensory data that we are, consequently, unaware of (e.g. the sound of a car engine at night after living a month in Manhatten, versus the sound of a gunshot).
Quoting Isaac
Yes, but that is pre-conscious response, and the result of that modelling is an input to conscious experience, the purported objects of which are the qualia. So it's absolutely fine for my experience to contain a car quale (is it qual or quale?) that has been introduced by pre-conscious processing by the ventral stream. (I hope I'm not talking total shit here.)
Quoting Isaac
It's not obvious to me why it should. Why do I need to know how far away the left-hand car is in order to recognise it as a car? I don't think a car quale has to have a property-by-property map to the actual car.
Quoting Isaac
Which ends up being 'car', which is something I am then conscious of without having to figure out what's in the image consciously.
Quoting Isaac
But presumably there is an analogue to the above. The left car is blue. I am conscious of it being blue. I am not conscious of figuring out that it's blue: it's blueness is presented to my consciousness. There is nothing of this in the thing itself, which is a bunch of atoms emitting photons, some of which strike my retina. So in between there is some process, at the end of which this particular blueness is presented to me coincident with this particular car-ness. Whether or not this is a consistent thing doesn't strike me as particularly relevant.
Quoting Isaac
I like the storytelling analogy. By this I assume you mean that the timescales involved in consciously working stuff out is much slower than the timescales of photons-hitting-retina to conscious-of-image. It can't be too much later. I have present experience for a reason: present problems require present solutions.
Sorry, but I think you’re missing the point. The basis of the whole debate is whether there is an essential difference, something that can’t be captured objectively, about the first-person perspective. Obviously we can ‘use the same language’ and if you say ‘Alice kicks the ball’ of course I will know what you mean. But that misses the point of the argument.
Quoting Philosophim
Do 'we' know that? What does 'produce' mean, here? What is it that is being produced? And how is it being produced? And, is the brain 'a physical thing?' Extract a brain from a human, and it is still the same matter, but it's now an inert object, even though it's stil a physical thing. When situated in a living being, the brain has more neural connections than stars in the sky. It is no longer simply an object, but a central part of cognition and is central to any possible theory, including any theory about 'what is physical'. So in what sense is it a 'physical thing' in that context?
I'll further suggest the heuristic that 'a physical thing' or 'a body' is something that can be fully accounted for in terms of physical attributes, such as mass, velocity, and so on - in other words, the atttibutes measured by the physical sciences (which is why 'physics' is paradigmatic for it.)
But the notion of what is 'physical' itself keeps changing. It used to be the indivisible particles of Democritus, but then particles were found to be 'excitations of fields'. And what are 'fields'? Are there types of fields - like biological fields - that are unknown to science at this time? If there were - and some say there are - how would they be discovered? Nowadays we're told that 96% of the Universe exists in a form that is as yet completely unknown to science. Is that 'physical' too?
Language and Problems of Knowledge p 144.
But then, if the definition of 'a body' or 'the physical' can be changed to accomodate anything that is later discovered by physics you fall into the jaws of Hempel's Dilemma:
As you say:
Quoting Philosophim
Right! That's exactly what they're saying. Now, I know that Pattee and others in that school are at pains to remain within the bounds of naturalism, showing due obeisance to the 'inviolable laws of physics' and so on. But the fact of the existence of this school shows that the ground is already shifting towards a more 'mind-like' and top-down causal model of life and mind. (Incidentally there's also a split within biosemiotics between the 'C. S. Pierce' school, and another school which is attempting to maintain a greater continuity with mainstream science and views the influence of C S Pierce with some wariness. See: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/259637344)
Quoting Philosophim
But as I've said - the contrary also works, and that is demonstrable by observation and experiment. Humans can perform mental acts which alter the physical configuration of the brain. A physical change to a brain is through injury or a medicine or substance which literally alters the material structure. But if the structure is altered through a volitional act, then that is mental in origin. (People have been known to alter their brain function, and so their perception of reality, through meditation, for millenia. This is the subject of much research nowadays.)
Furthermore, if the human mind demonstrates this capacity, then the same principle might be shown to apply to life at other levels. Hence, again, the interest in signs and symbols as intrinsic to organic processes generally. And that is an 'interpretive' dynamic, if you like, which is different in essence to the physical transmission of properties.
Quoting Philosophim
That is 'brain-mind identity theory'. But 'wetness' does not stand in the relationship to hydrogen and oxygen that consciousness does in relation to matter. Besides, consciousness does not only work within the brain, it is present at some level in the operation of all living organisms. Perhaps it is a facet of life itself, which reaches a unique plateau of expression in the sophisticated forebrain of h. sapiens.
Quoting Philosophim
Quoting Philosophim
That is a good question, and I have an answer to it, but it takes a lot of explanation. Most thinking nowadays on this is question is 'post-Cartesian'. Descartes' particular rendering of the mind-body problem as res cogitans and res extensia is deeply implicated in all of our thinking about it, not least because Descartes was one of the principle figures in the development of modern scientific method. Descartes algebraic geometry is one of the foundations of modern science. (I regard Descartes as a genius, by the way.)
After Descartes, the two major trends in philosophy tended towards idealism, which took Descartes' model of 'res cogitans' to be fundamentally real, and materialism, which claimed to eliminate it altogether. In the English-speaking world, one contemporary expression of the latter approach is Gilbert Ryle's depiction of the mind as 'a ghost in a machine'. This comes from the basic fact that Descartes model was just that - a model, an abstraction, in which 'the body' was nothing but a machine, and the mind was nothing but ideas. And that lead to the idea that they can be concieved separately.
So, you're operating within the latter explanatory framework. So any 'theory of consciousness' that I would try and submit, would have to fit within that explanatory framework. But there's a fundamental problem with that, because to do so requires treating 'res cogitans' as an object - which it never is. There is no object anywhere called 'mind'. You can only deal with the question if you can conceive of the subject of the question in objective terms. That defines the attitude of post-Cartesian materialism: it has defined the subject in such a way that the notion of 'mind' is itself incomprensible, leading to:
Richard J. Bernstein coined the term in his 1983 book Beyond Objectivism and Relativism: Science, Hermeneutics, and Praxis.
Quoting Philosophim
There are scientists involved in that research, but as you know, it will always be regarded as 'fringe science'. You saw above that when I referred to Wilder Penfield, it was immediately referred to as a 'crackpot idea'. (Incidentally the link you looked up about him was sympathetic to him, but then, it was published on a site associated with Intelligent Design.)
Physicalism, such as the kind you naturally assume, is the default philosophy of the culture we live in; 'presumptive materialism', I call it - question it at your peril! I think I've gone some way to laying out the reasons why it can be questioned, but if you want a book that provides evidence for immaterial mind, you could do worse that looking at Irreducible Mind, E. Kelly et al.
Interesting point. The dominant trend does not appear to consider itself as an ideology (despite that is exactly what it is), somehow it regards itself as incontrovertible and self evident. It is very dogmatic, bordering on what I consider religious belief. Of course most advocates for the physicalist ideology do not seem willing to go all the way, rather holding onto metaphysical ideas without properly assimilating them into the materialist framework. When, with genuine philosophical vigor, one honestly examines physicalism for what it is, it definitely loses its luster.
But isnt Chomskys point that physicalism, due to its history of subsuming whatever we came to accept as real (in a bodily sense), has lost its original meaning? It's the few flat earthers among us that feel the need to get dogmatic about anything.
I’ve appreciated methodological parallelism since James, 1890b, v1, and this book since I downloaded it 8 years ago.
Good read, interesting information, despite its psychological leaning.
First of all, I love dogmatism. Sadly, it is a dying art as the world becomes increasingly wishy-washy, yet it will always be practiced because there will always be people dumb enough or crazy enough to try.
I don't think he was saying that it has lost its original meaning, but that it is an all consuming paradigm. It assimilates or eliminates though it's own methodology, there is no dialectical compromise, everything is to be made physical, first and last, and anything that we can reasonably fit in between is fair game.
He has said that, though, that Physicalism 1.0 died with the acceptance of electromagnetism.
Quoting Merkwurdichliebe
It's not the Red Army, its just a useful category.
Also, it didn't hit me at first, but think you should give yourself credit. That is an interesting and novel idea. Could you explain more what you mean?
Lol. It is from the materialists I've dealt with. But it is a useful category, I give you that
You are saying, that he said, in so many words: physicalism, in proving itself, ate itself alive.
But I don't see materialists backing down, what gives?
I think he meant that physicalism morphed into something its earlier adherents would have rejected. Remember Newton's cohorts wanted to reject gravity on the basis that it was mystical. Newton gave up and retired to his basement in the face of the dogma.
Materialism is waning. But the pendulum just keeps swinging.
On further consideration, I must point out the distinction between physics and the physical sciences as a category of knowledge, and physicalism as a philosophical ideology. With that in mind, physicalism is no more useful than zoroastrianism.
True. Same for idealism though.
Lol.
Quoting frank
To be fair, I am always talking about all forms of physicalism simultaneously. But to your point, you are correct, physicalism, like all ideologies ages with time, and given it's close relation to scientific advancement, it has aged faster than most.
I've provided all the answers to this a few times already.
What is physical is matter and energy.
There are living brains, which are chemically self-sustainable, active, and produce neuronal activity, and dead brains, which don't.
You're starting to postulate and throw, "but what if..."s out here without anything to back them up. A viable argument needs something to back those "what if"'s up. I can say, "What if unicorns are just really good at hiding?" You need some evidence, or its not a point of discussion.
Quoting Wayfarer
Unless you show me that their models are divorced from the physical world, then no. And if you have evidence that their models are divorced from the physical world, then provide me such evidence. But as you mention later, that cannot be provided.
Quoting Wayfarer
You are repeating an old point again. I feel we're the conversation is starting to swirl, so its probably a good time to close it. I already addressed that by noting that consciousness is a physical act, so it is the physical acting on the physical.
Quoting Wayfarer
Why not? You need more than just an assertion. The entire point has been whether consciousness is a physical function of the brain. The models were are speaking about for consciousness do not deny this.
Quoting Wayfarer
I've already mentioned animals and insects. And the origination of their consciousness is through neuronal activity. Again, these are all physical based consciousnesses. You don't see a bee postulating whether consciousness is physical right? That's because it doesn't have the physical brain to actually do it.
Quoting Wayfarer
And that is why Idealism is not used in science. I was wondering if you knew of some evidence based model I was unaware of, but it appears not. With that, the entire conversation has lead me to conclude the following from our discussion:
You are arguing with outdated philosophy. Philosophy is only useful if it is rational, and based upon our current understanding of the world. Your current philosophy, which is based on outdated and disproven models, is not rational. When certain philosophies have been disproved, they are fun to study for history, but are useless for practice. Philosophies become outdated all the time, and people can fall prey too them if they are unaware of their flaws.
Phlogiston theory is a good example of a failed philosophy. Phlogiston theory was a competing theory about how things caught on fire with the oxygen theory of chemistry. Lots of fun rationals were made with Phlogiston theory, but in the end, its lack of consistent evidential framework failed, and oxygen theory remained.
Further, you seem to be confusing models of understanding consciousness with the idea that these models are claiming consciousness is somehow separate from the mind, and is not physical in origin. All of modern science has concluded that consciousness coming from the mind is the most rational theory that we have. There is no viable model out there that states consciousness is separate from the brain's function. Any that try to are phlogiston theories at this point.
Now if you want to stick with phlogiston philosophy for fun, that's fine. People will believe what they want to believe at the end of the day. I've enjoyed the conversation to see if you had anything new or viable. I did learn a couple of new ideas and models from you, and thank you for your citations. Unfortunately, nothing you've presented counters the evidence based models that science has provided in modern day. So for me? I will stick with the evidence based models of the modern day.
Absolutely. But there is a disproportionate amount of physicalists to idealists out there. Especially on TPF. Given that, I have no problem sounding like an idealist when conversing with a physicalist, but I certainly do not want to sound physicalistic when dealing with a hard line idealist.
But dead brains are made up of matter and energy too. Shouldn't we be capable of a fairly easy brain transplant if such is the case?
As a proponent of the existence of unicorns, you would be tasked with finding and showing where they actually hide.
Idealism permeates every relevant scientific discovery. In fact, all scientific speculation (what is know in the scientific method as "hypothesis") would be impossible without appeal to idealism.
But the whole point is that intentionality and interpretation can't be accounted for in neuronal terms, if you've been following the argument. That needs nothing to 'back it up' beyond reason itself. Comparing that to argung for unicorns simply shows that you don't grasp the argument, which is logical - it's not based on empirical evidence, but on judgement about the meaning of empirical evidence. It's a philosophical argument, not a scientific one, but the distinction is a philosophical one, so it may not mean anything to you.
Quoting Philosophim
I provided a reference to a text book. It has more by way of evidence than I could ever assemble.
Quoting Philosophim
Thank you, I shall return the compliment.
We can remove every superstition from our belief, but the only superstition that matters is the belief that there is a "way the world really is" ("for everybody" I might add)
I should then perhaps clarify my expertise is actually in belief, decision-making, uncertainty etc, this stuff about perception is something of a sideline I got into when working with a colleague in cognitive psychology so it's a) second hand, and b) all one preferred interpretation, I'm sure there are others. That said, it'll be interesting to try and flesh out some of the issues.
Quoting Kenosha Kid
The former. Although it is important to note the cases you alluded to where we're conscious of our processing ("is that a car over there?") because in these cases we're still having an experience - so what is it an experience of? We haven't identified the object yet. Are we experiencing the quale of {some vague grey shape in the distance that we can't quite make out}? Possibly, but 1) that rather detaches quale form the object of experience, and 2) deciding what the thing is is definitely part of the experience, so what happens when we realise it's a car?
Neurologically (according to hierarchy theory) we have a single neuron which will eventually light up (and start it's chain of responses) to the recognition of a particular object. You have a neuron for me (which is delightful) and it initiates a chain of responses every time it recognises me (whether by name, or prose style, or the blue square that is my avatar). Proof of this is quite surprising (summary here). Anyway. The point is that this neuron is triggered after a long chain of neurons all of which have in turn triggered a number of other neurons. (Imagine each neuron in the chain has, say, five exit pathways, only one of which goes on toward the 'car' neuron). The cascade of effects triggered by your interaction with that picture (and the environment you're in at the time, and any other neural processes which were half-way complete when they were interrupted by seeing that picture) will have, by now, had consequences, other than the triggering of your 'car' neuron many of which you could be consciously aware of.
This process is only noticeable when you're not sure if it's a car or not (hence the introduction of cases where you're conscious of that uncertainty), but it's happening, lightening fast, even in cases where your post hoc story is "I saw the car then all these other responses followed". That, provably, is not what really happened.
Now I agree you could say "All of this goings on were associated with what I finally decided was a car", but they weren't really. As I said earlier, some of them were associated with other sensory inputs, but some of then (and I think this is the most important bit) were associated with neurological processes which hadn't yet finished which had nothing to do with the 'scene' at all. It just seems unreflective of what's really going on to say anything about your subjective experience 'of the car'.
Quoting Kenosha Kid
Basically, as far as we can tell from the studies that have been done on various forms of achromatopsia, it never is. At no point in time can we trace anything like the 'blueness' of the car being presented as an property to your conscious awareness. In fact all the evidence seems to point to there being nothing but a series of responses to the final object, of which it's colour is only one aspect. So, for example one type of achromatopsia might present with an inability to name colours, another with an inability to distinguish them, another with an inability to respond to them, (Dennet goes through some of these in the Qualia article, but not in much depth) all separate and functioning in other aspects. someone has even been reported to have difficulty with yellow objects of certain shape, but not yellow 2d images. Basically, what seems like a recognition of 'blueness' is actually an object specific tendency to respond. If someone asks, what colour is that car, you'll have a tendency to seek the word 'blue', if someone asks you to pick the blue car, you'll arrange the necessary spatio-motor response, but these are separate systems and can (in lesion studies) be switched off separately. There's no 'awareness of blueness' - at least as far as neuroscience can tell.
Quoting Kenosha Kid
That's tight, but the timescales change all the time. When you first see the car you might have one post hoc story which is almost coincident with the process of the retinal signal to the object recognition and sensori-motor responses. But seconds later you'll have a slightly different post hoc story, minutes later another one, until (as will be familiar to us all) years later you have a totally different story of how you felt), again, we could call these stories qualia, but since they are in a constant state of flux, it seems incredibly difficult to get any useful function from doing so - "Which qualia ar you referring to? The one just now...or now...or now..."
I hope I haven't missed the point you're getting at completely here!
And yet we all can agree than certain cars are blue, and others not.
Indeed. So we have a choice. Discard all neurological evidence and pretend things are the way the seem at first blush to be...or...dive in with curiosity to find out how things might actually be, even if the prevalent theories are counter-intuitive.
What seems to happen with consciousness, perception, free-will..basically anywhere where neuroscience might have some input, is that the response is to vehemently assume our first blush reckoning about it must be right and then filter all the data through that. Can't see much point in that approach myself, but each to their own I suppose.
The problem is the implicit dualism in the claim. There are no 'first-person' versus 'third-person' perspectives. There is just your perspective, my perspective, and Alice's perspective. Each is a distinctive perspective of the world, but it is a world that we all participate in, and use common language to describe.
Experience, in its ordinary sense, is one's practical contact with the world. But note that Chalmers' definition decouples experience from the world, which is dualism, and that is what produces 'the hard problem'. As Peter Hacker puts it, "The philosophical [hard] problem, like all philosophical problems, is a confusion in the conceptual scheme."
These categories are from neuroscience. Should scientists not use them?
Plus it's "data", not "perspective."
You touched on this before, so I'll ask you: why do those who disapprove of the idea of qualia quickly become angry and personally insulting? Where the rest are fairly calm?
There's no problem where there is an operational meaning in terms of people's reports (patient and scientist, say). My argument is with dualism.
Substance dualism? Chalmers is famous for suggesting property dualism at least methodologically. But beyond that, he just invites speculation about how to bring phenomenal consciousness into the realm of science. The universe appears to contain elements that possess subjectivity. Let's head toward a theory of consciousness that includes that.
I'm just trying to keep us grounded in empirical data here. Kids can learn to name colours, predictably so, and these colours they name seem to correspond well to some objectively measurable wavelengths of electromagnetic waves. There is therefore something objective and operational about colours as we perceive them.
I'm arguing against the philosophical subject/object distinction which is the underlying premise of both Descartes' and Chalmers' dualism. My main argument can be found earlier in the thread here.
There is plainly a distinction between the first- and third-person perspectives, as is implied by grammar itself! And furthermore, it is also undeniable that people have different perspective, for the obvious reason that if we did not, then there would no individuation. Persons are subjects of experience, and that dimension of existence is not something that can be fully captured from a third-person perspective. I don't agree at all with Hacker's dismissal of it. I agree with Bennett and Hacker's notion of the mereological fallacy, but I don't think it comes to terms with the problem that Chalmers is articulating. Accordingly, I don't think your response deals with the issue, it just glosses over it.
Likewise with patterns in language. You are conscious of what I am saying. Are we to argue that the content of this post is purely an invention of your own brain? If it is, communication is impossible, which is clearly not the case.
*But just because some conscious experiences are subjective does not mean all conscious experiences are equally subjective. The degree of subjectivity varies greatly.
The more general a term is, the harder it is of definition. It is used in different contexts in different ways which also contributes to the difficulties. But in the case of this debate, the cardinal difficulty is that it is not objectively real - that we are what we're seeking to understand.
In the WIKI article you provided the link to, we read:
Questions: why is it important for Dennett to prove that 'consciousness is not a fundamental feature of the Universe'?
What currently prevents it from being fully explained by natural phenomena?
Quoting frank
Thomas Nagel The Core of Mind and Cosmos
Suppose you go to the doctor and tell him you have a pain in your foot. He might decide to enlighten you and tell you that the pain is not "really" in your foot. It is really a sensation in your brain.
"But" you object "how can I feel it in my foot if it is in my brain?" whereupon he might expound: "You see, the body is so constructed that it locates the pain in your foot. That is, it contextualizes the pain in the foot area. This is because the body is a physical context in which we have experiences. But the pain is really in your brain, you see, son?"
Whereupon you could answer "If the body is a physical context, then can't we extend this reasoning further and argue that the pain is not really in the brain either, but in the mind? And when professionals like you contend that the pain is really in the brain all you are doing is examining a physical context that is not really pain at all. The pain is beyond the brain. Because if the body is merely a physical context and the brain is part of the body can't the brain be part of the contextualization too?"
If we are locating things in the body can't it also be argued that neuroscience is locating/contextualizing experience in a physical context in the brain but the real conscious experience is outside the physical context altogether? Why stop at the brain? Indeed, can physical matter, no matter how complex, have experiences? Because that is what body is really, a physical context in which experiences are framed.
I pointed out the grammatical distinctions earlier. "Wayfarer observes the world" versus "The world is observed by Wayfarer". Grammatically, the subject and object are interchangeable.
Distinct from that, there is no "third-person perspective", understood as "a view from nowhere". And there is no "first-person perspective", understood as "radically private and subjective". There are just human beings with their individual human views of the world.
Quoting Wayfarer
Yes, that has been just my point, as I say above. But ...
Quoting Wayfarer
... see how you now move to the "view from nowhere", which can't capture "radical privacy and subjectivity"? That is the dualism I'm rejecting. Those philosophical usages are implicitly assumed without argument.
Quoting Wayfarer
Presumably Dennett is arguing for what he thinks is true - I don't know his motivations beyond that. However, I do agree with Hacker (as noted here) that what requires explaining is how sentience emerges from the evolution of living organisms, not how consciousness can emerge from matter. Without the dualism, the landscape and the nature of the problems look very different, and not impossible in principle.
Quoting Wayfarer
The alternatives are not simply materialism and dualism. As you may know, my own position is hylomorphism.
Especially if you gloss over the principle!
Quoting Andrew M
I'm very open to hylomorphism, but the Aristotelian 'hyle' is nothing like the modern conception of matter.
Secondly, hylomorphic dualism still implies a duality, insofar as 'the rational soul' is the principle within the human which is in principle immortal. That is highly developed in various forms of Thomistic philosophy, and so is still largely accepted by many Catholics, however for very obvious reasons is completely incompatible with Dennett's Darwinian materialism. And it's still dualism!
It just re-states the problem in other terms, it doesn't solve it.
"Physical" does not really work here. The body and brain are biological. Life is already far more than just "physical". It's about information. Your body is made of information, and that's why it can die.
I think this conversation is on the wrong thread, but briefly - there's a substantial difference between "something objective and operational about colours as we perceive them" and claiming there's such a thing as the subjective experience of 'blueness'.
As the thread creator, I grant you the freedom to talk about whatever you'd like to talk about here. But for me, what is interesting is NOT to shoot down concepts like clay pigeons... I see no point in that. I am more interested in talking about reality, e.g. the objectivity and effectiveness of colours, as well as their beauty. You or Dennett can tell me till atheist kingdom come that I'm using improper concepts, it means nothing to me until you are able to provide better concepts, i.e. an alternative. Concepts are tools, not gods. Unless you can give me a better set of tools, I'm going to use the ones I have.
It comes to much the same thing. The body is a context in which experience is framed. But Dennett needs to be more detailed in his analysis. There are different kinds of experience; internal, such as pain, pleasure, thought etc. and experiences that are dependent on external stimulation. These are two different classes of experiences. It is not a good idea to use internal experience to draw general conclusions about consciousness that also involves consciousness of external stimuli.
Ii don't think so. Life is much more than physics.
True, but to the materialist it is all essentially physical. If I say 'I am experiencing red' what do I mean by "I"? It seems to me that a good definition of the 'I' would help things a lot. It is not possible to reconstruct the I from physical systems, information, and experiences so what is it that is having these experiences?
To the naïve, self-denying materialists, yes. Which is why they fail.
I am reading Phenomenology of Perception by Merleau-Ponty and liking his perspective on this question. What I am temporarily left with is that our perception of our own perception (what he calls transcendental or reflexive perception) will always remain imperfect, partial, because when we reflect on our own perception, when we are theorizing our perception, we are not the one who is perceiving anymore, we take a step back from him. This creates a distance, an alienation with our "being at the world", our "being perceiving".
It looks a bit similar to Gödel's incompleteness theorems.
This effort to perceive perception is nevertheless at the core of his project. He says that in doing so we create the theoretical possibility for another self, that could be looking at us... And thus he turns the cogito onto itself:
Cogito power 1 (Descartes): I perceive, therefore I exist, therefore the world exists (at least as something I perceive). The status of "alter egos" (other minds) is unclear, assumed but not proven.
Cogito power 2 (Husserl and Merleau-Ponty): I perceive myself perceiving, therefore I am a "being at the world*time". This means that I am in the world and bound to perceive it, a historical living being produced by and for the world, essentially a relational, intentional being, and finally, I am a perceiver who can be perceived by other perceivers, just like I can perceive myself perceiving.
No, because the mind is the processing brain. Further, the pain signal is transmitted to the nerve as well, so its not merely localized in the brain. You are viewing the brain from a philosophical standpoint, when there is a much clearer scientific standpoint. The old ideas of philosophy of mind are outdated and dead.
Quoting EnPassant
No. The articles I've linked and the arguments I've been given clearly show that consciousness happens within the physical context of the brain.
Quoting EnPassant
Yes. You are physical matter. You are experiencing contexts. What you are having a difficult time believing is that physical matter is capable of this. You are the evidence it is. Physical existence is amazing. It all depends on the correct combination of interactions. Oxygen can be breathed, but combine it with hydrogen and one more part, and you drown.
The physical reality around us is spectacular. Even magical. But it is real, tangible, and physical. Same with your mind. The only evidence against this is an emotional framework. You don't want to accept it, because you fear you'll lose the wonder, the specialness, and the mystery. What you don't understand is its even MORE wonderful, special, and mysterious because it is real, and not a fantasy. After all, what other reason is there to continue to believe the idea that consciousness is somehow separate from the brain? When facts fail, only emotion will prevail.
Emotions are not a bad thing. They are just another way to think, in fact.
Quoting Olivier5
Absolutely. There is a time and place for emotional thinking. It is part of our intelligence, and shouldn't be dismissed. But when we are trying to come to rational conclusions, emotions can guide as a backseat driver but rationality needs to be ultimately controlling the wheel.
Care needs to be taken here because perception and reflection on perception are very different things. If I perceive a piece of music and then reflect on that perception the former is perception proper but the latter is a different kind of 'perception' altogether; it is the mind looking at itself. But I don't see this act of self knowledge as another self. It is just the self looking at itself. Self awareness.
Quoting Philosophim
That has yet to be established.
Quoting Philosophim
The whole body is one entity. It is the means by which the mind experiences the world. But this entity makes experience subjective and this subjectivity is partially determined by the fact that the body contextualizes its experiences. When the mind experiences via the senses, its experiences are in the context of the body because the body is the context. If the mind could experience reality without the context of the body reality might look different but not by a lot. For example, mathematical deduction is not influenced by the body. Math is what it is and is not altered by the body. Eating food is different. It is very much a bodily experience.
The question is; how closely does subjective experience resemble the objective reality that is the source of that experience? It is likely to closely resemble the reality otherwise we must argue that the mind is in an almost constant state of fantasy or delusion or in a dream world. This is unlikely because we are able to coherently respond to the world that we perceive.
Quoting Philosophim
But that does not mean the physical context is consciousness. Correlation is not necessarily causation. Just because neurons and brain signals are correlated with thought does not mean they cause thought. The argument that the mind is the brain relies heavily on ignoring the dictum: Correlation Is Not Necessarily Causation and assuming that because two things are found together one must be causing the other. This is not always true, as explained here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correlation_does_not_imply_causation
Yes, the mind can only engage in the physical world on the same level as brain development. If a person had the brain of an earthworm it would not be possible to write poetry. An analogy is the development of computers. In the beginning they were relatively simple. They could not show graphics or images or do word processing. But as more capabilities were added they became more adept. But from this one does not conclude that computers are conscious or intelligent. It is the computer operator's mind that is intelligent and conscious. The physical systems of the brain are only the tools that enable the mind to consciously engage in the world, they are not the mind, no more than ever more sophisticated computer systems are the mind. The mind can only engage in the physical world on the same level as brain complexity.
Rationality is a means to an end, though, and the end, the goal, is always emotional. Even the love of wisdom is a form of love.
No, it has clearly been established. What has not been established, is that consciousness is not part of the brain. I asked Wayfarer, and he was unable to provide any evidence of consciousness existing apart from the brain. The citations I've linked have clearly shown that damage to the brain can affect the consciousness of people's ability to see color, their core personality, and ability to comprehend language. There is not one person proposing that consciousness exists as separate from the brain that has any evidence to back their claims. That being said, feel free to be the first.
Quoting EnPassant
None. The brain constructs a way of interpreting the world. Successful brains are able to interpret the world in such a way, that the actual contradict this interpretation as little as possible. Brains that aren't so good interpret reality in such a way that actual reality keeps contradicting their interpretation of reality. Its like a meter stick. A meterstick is a notched tool that helps us divide physical space. Physical space does not have an underlying grid of meters that we can't see or exist in some other dimension. But we can mark it that way if we like. And it is a useful construct that is rarely contradicted by reality.
Quoting EnPassant
No, it does. I think you misunderstand the difference between correlation and causation. Don't make the opposite mistake and think, "Well just because something has causation, doesn't mean it might not be correlation." If every time I leave the house it rains, there is correlation. Causation only happens after we demonstrate that something necessarily needs to happen or the correlates can never happen. Since it also rains when I don't leave the house, my leaving the house is not causing it to rain.
Consciousness necessarily comes from the brain, because there is no alternative. I mean, feel free to show any evidence that consciousness comes from something else. But all of the articles I've linked combine to show that there is no alternative to consciousness coming from the brain.
I can give you a few examples of evidence that would cast doubt on the idea of consciousness being caused by the mind.
1. Evidence of consciousness existing in a human being with a completely dead brain.
2. Consciousness existing apart from the localized part of your head. For example, having your body walk away while your consciousness stays right here.
3. Evidence of serious brain damage/chemical changes/proper functionality without the slightest change in personality or character.
Philosophy of mind can only be about what we have knowledge of. We can make philosophy about the current science of the brain. Philosophy of mind as questioning whether the brain causes consciousness is dead and done. Science has long proved consciousness is produced by the brain. The only question at this point is, "But maybe we're wrong", which can be said about anything, and is a useless critique in any rational argument.
I referred to a book, Irreducible Mind: Toward a Psychology for the 21st Century, Ed. Kelly & Kelly.
There are hundreds of pages of studies in that book.
And besides, I also pointed out the fact that it has been experimentally shown that volitional actions can have an effect on the brain. This is top-down causation, which undermines physicalism - physicalism can only deal with bottom-up effects, i.e. molecular or cellular structure affecting cognition. If volitional acts affect the brain, then that is top-down causation, and has no physicalist explanation.
Of course but that is because the interface/brain has been damaged. If a camera is damaged you can not see through it but that does not mean the camera sees. The body is an interface between the mind and the world. If the interface is damaged then of course information cannot reach the mind. But the mind is also conscious independently of the body. For example, it can think and it can say 'I think therefore I am'. The mind's knowledge is not restricted to the five senses.
Quoting Philosophim
What has been established is that there is a physical analogue of the mind's interaction with the world via the brain. But this analogue would have to exist if the mind is to engage with the world. Brain activity is an analogue of this engagement. It is not conscious. When you type into a computer there is a physical analogue of what you are thinking in the form of electrical signals that are translated into type. The existence of this analogue does not mean the computer is thinking.
Quoting Philosophim
If you replace the meter stick with geometry you'll get very close. Geo-metry means 'earth measuring'.
Quoting Philosophim
https://flatrock.org.nz/topics/science/is_the_brain_really_necessary.htm
There is no evidence that the brain is conscious. What does exist is a materialistic dogma that insists there is no difference between the brain analogue and the mind. It is simply dogma.
Actually, the human mind is capable of far outstripping the requirements for 'successfully interpreting the world'. Any animal must do that if it is to survive. But h. sapiens has gone far beyond what can be rationalised solely in terms of the requirements for survival. You don't need to be able to weigh and measure the Universe just to get by.
I've covered many of these points in this long post, which I don't think you've taken in.
I should have been clearer. The brain damaged individual can no longer consciously envision color. His eyes work fine. The person can no longer process language internally, their ears are fine. Phineus Gage's entire core personality changed. We are talking about the part of the camera that processes the light from the lenses. That is physical, and when that is broken, the light will not be processed any longer.
Quoting EnPassant
This makes no sense. An analogue only works if you have something that you know between the two. For example, a foot is analogue to a paw. Both have a similar function, but are still different in structure. The problem is, you've given no structure for what the "mind" is, apart from the brain. The question that I will keep asking, and no one has offerred anything is, "If the mind is not produced from the brain, what is it?" Without evidence, all your saying is, "It could be something else". You can't make an analogue to something that "could" be. What "mind" is needs to be given some meaningful term to be used this way. Otherwise there is no analogue.
Quoting EnPassant
Would you mind clarifying what you meant by this?
https://flatrock.org.nz/topics/science/is_the_brain_really_necessary.htm
I looked through your articles. None of these provided any of the evidence that you would need.
1. The "IQ" measurement tests for people with lower brain mass do not measure the entire picture of the person. For example, there are "idiot savaants" who can have high IQ in things like math or art, but are unable to understand emotions, read faces, etc.
2. The key is to show if a change in brain health, size, etc, affects a person. None of these experiments show this. They only show the person in one unchanging brain state. A good experiment would be to examine a person in their 20's who has brain fluid build up, then check in ten years to see if major alterations to personality or capability have occurred.
3. A few of these sources are from the 80's and 90's, using some fairly old computer tech. One of the big studies in which people were questioning the accuracy of his scans was done before Microsoft invented Windows. A few findings within the last decade would be better. These old one's seem like "Bigfoots", if you know what I mean.
4. Many of the links to where these sources can be checked are broken and not working.
Quoting EnPassant
I'm sorry, but you are incorrect. Dogma is a claim that the mind exists apart from the brain, when there is no evidence of that being the case. If you had something, anything that would show consciousness existing apart from the brain, then we could have a debate. Your second need to insist it is "Simply dogma" without such evidence is the way dogma actually works. You have not earned the right to use that word yet. Provide some evidence of a mind existing apart from the brain, and you can earn it.
This has nothing to do with the idea that the consciousness does/does not come from the brain.
That being said, if you're implying there's something special going on, you're misinterpreting this. Life does not just, "Get by". It struggles daily against disease, predators, and in our social case, other human beings. Life is always seeking a way to one up things that would destroy it or cause it harm. It turns out, the most successful creature on this planet that is able to combat almost anything else, is the human being. Higher intelligence has incredible benefits to a person, and the tribe that person belongs to. This is not beyond what can be rationalized in the slightest.
There is always a distance between the observer and the observed, even when you observe yourself. That would be why being self-conscious is a problem while acting, speaking publicly, or driving. The part of you observing yourself is not doing the deed, it's observing it, and thus your self is not entirely committed to doing the deed, not 100% in action. The more accurately you try to observe yourself doing something, the less resource you allocate to doing the thing. So observing yourself can be detrimental to the efficacy of your public speaking, or car driving, or whatever action you are trying to observe yourself doing. While acting, one has to be in the act, fully, in order to get optimal results.
The observer cannot be the observed. This would be impossible, even when you observe yourself.
Therefore, self-awareness is never direct and never perfect.
I can put the same question to you; what evidence is there that the brain is conscious? All scientists are doing is looking at a physical analogue. Suppose a scientist looks at the workings of a television and discovers many analogues of what is happening in terms of sound and vision and then concludes that the television is creating the film on screen and therefore must be conscious. But none of these physical analogues mean that the television wrote the script for the film or wrote the music score or created the actors on screen or any of that. If the scientist insists that correlation is causation you can see where he went wrong. The television processes information, it does not create it. Information is broadcast to the television from a remote source. Science does not show that the brain is conscious (how could you show something is conscious?) it only interprets the evidence according to a materialistic dogma that does not allow for the existence of mind separate from matter. The instance that correlation is causation is dogma. All scientists can say is 'The only evidence we can find is that the brain is the mind' but they cannot insist that it is. It is only a theory, not an established fact. So why can't someone offer an alternative theory?
Quoting Philosophim
It doesn't work like that. Besides evidence there is the interpretation of the evidence. These are not the same thing. Scientists interpret physical analogues to argue that brain = mind. Others choose to interpret different things to argue that mind is non material. They are both interpretations of the facts we have. Nothing has been rigorously established. I ask again, how do you show that a physical object is conscious, over and above a theory that it is?
Quoting Philosophim
The Greeks invented geometry to measure the physical world. Their calculations are congruent with the actual world which is why they were able to create their famous architectural pieces. This means that geometry and deduction about the world is very similar, if not identical, to the objective world. So, to a large extent, we are conscious of what is actually there.
I already answered this several times. I told you very clearly that you cannot use an "analogue" on something you haven't already proven exists. You are either ignoring this, or do not understand. Go back and read those answers, then feel free to try to counter them. But if you are not going to address the words I've already spoken, I'm not going to repeat them.
Quoting EnPassant
Again, showing you either did not read, or understand what I've already written. You absolutely may offer an alternative theory, but it must have evidence to compete with another theory that has evidence. You have zero evidence of how consciousness can exist apart from the mind. Quoting EnPassant
You are right. Because there is none. It works like that for evidence that consciousness comes from the brain. It is on you to demonstrate A. Why this is false, which so far, you have not. Or B. Provide evidence that consciousness does not come from the brain, which you have not.
Quoting EnPassant
Ok, so you agree with my meter stick analogy and point then. Please go back and read my replies to you carefully about evidence for consciousness coming from the brain, and why the use of "analogue" does not work. If you address them, then we can continue the conversation.
What I am saying is that the theory that brain = mind is a default position, a theory, not a proven fact.
You ask for evidence but the problem here is with the word 'evidence'. Evidence can be data, physical facts or convincing argument. But in your world view - if I understand you correctly - only physical facts are admissible as evidence. Argument is not acceptable to you without physical facts. So you get to define what is and what is not evidence and the dice are loaded in your favour.
But reducing everything to physical facts is a philosophy known as Logical Positivism which is a failed philosophy. You may read up on why this philosophy has failed. Do a search for 'Why did logical positivism fail?' It is a complex question but here is a start https://tribune.com.pk/story/967286/the-rise-and-fall-of-logical-positivism
So you are relying on a dead philosophy - as people like Richard Dawkins and many others are - to make assertions about 'proof' and what science has shown and you are confusing theory with fact. Given the failure of this philosophy it cannot be asserted that brain = mind is established science, it is only a default position and defaults can be challenged, especially if they are built on a failed philosophy.
Correct.
Quoting Wayfarer
The phrase "hylomorphic dualism" is a label coined for the Thomist version of hylomorphism:
Quoting Edward Feser
Whereas, to the contrary, Aristotle's hylomorphism is not dualist. Matter and form (of which the soul is an example) are not separable from particulars except as abstractions:
Quoting Hylomorphic Soul-Body Relations: Materialism, Dualism, Sui Generis? - Aristotle’s Psychology - SEP
Quoting Wayfarer
It fixes the conceptual problem at issue. Hacker makes a concrete proposal that doesn't assume dualism.
No, that's not a theory. That's a hypothesis, a postulate, a proposal. Not a theory when speaking in terms of science.
"a hypothesis is an idea that hasn't been proven yet. If enough evidence accumulates to support a hypothesis, it moves to the next step — known as a theory — in the scientific method and becomes accepted as a valid explanation of a phenomenon.
Tanner further explained that a scientific theory is the framework for observations and facts. Theories may change, or the way that they are interpreted may change, but the facts themselves don't change. Tanner likens theories to a basket in which scientists keep facts and observations that they find. "
https://www.livescience.com/21491-what-is-a-scientific-theory-definition-of-theory.html
Quoting EnPassant
Lets clarify then. First, a "convincing argument" means a rational argument concluded with deduction. Deductions must then be applied and tested against reality to ensure we had the entire picture, and that the deduction holds when faced with other people, or use in reality.
For example, we could deduce in physics that if X object is applied Y force in a vector, it will accelerate at Z speed. So we go outside, we do that, but it doesn't work. We think about it for a moment and we realize we didn't take into account the wind. So we go indoors without any wind, and it turns out our deduction works. We just forgot to take wind as a factor.
If you make a claim about reality, you must test it against reality. It is not that everything MUST reduce to physical reality, it is that we have discovered no reality that is not physical (matter and energy). Same with consciousness. We have not discovered any application of "deduction or rational argument" that consciousness exists apart from the brain. It does not exist. I'm sorry. You seem very passionate about this, which implies there must be some emotional reason why you keep wanting this. I am not saying you don't have to give up on your desire that consciousness exists separate from the mind, but you have to demonstrate in some way, that your theory about consciousness actually exists in some way that can be demonstrated.
Finally, I am not a logical positivist. I am not accusing you of holding any particular philosophy, I am asking you to think rationally for yourself. Please do the same for me.
It is already. Biology cannot be reduced to physics.
Strawson is responding to Dennett, not vice versa.
But what is Dennett's response to the hard problem, if not to retreat to easier ones?
What is your point here? That anyone who researches anything to do with mind must answer one question and nothing else? That's not how research works. You cannot dismiss the work of, say, all physicists who do not have a Theory of Everything.
No, Dennett is fine doing what he is doing. As long as we can say that he doesn't have an answer for the hard problem, cool. But what I don't think is right is to say that his project necessarily explains what is being debated in circles that do believe there is the hard problem of consciousness.
But you know that is a stance he (you) are taking on this, not necessarily the case, right? I mean it isn't a forgone conclusion that there is not a hard problem. But my main point further, is certainly Dennett isn't even coming close to answering it by criticizing certain theories on the physical mechanisms and their subjective equivalent "illusionary" aspects, as they are reported by individuals.
So as long as we agree on at least that much- that Dennett is not even approaching the hard problem, then fine. In other words, in order to discount it, you have to actually grapple with it. He has not.
That's true of any stance, including the stance that the hard problem is distinct.
Quoting schopenhauer1
If there's no question to answer, it would be odd to answer it.
So, we can debate all day about the hard problem. The smaller claim I am making here is regarding the methodology of what is going on in this "debate". People like Strawson seem to be saying, "Look! There is this hard problem!". People like Dennett seem to be saying, "Yes, let me explain this by moving to things like qualia being subjectively illusionary as to their "realness" the person experiencing them". That's two different conversations. I would like to know Dennett's straight-ahead answer to it. It's like if we were talking about one subject and you went on a tangent in the same field but not really answering the question at hand. If I remember, all I can see is just some condescending string of sentences, some getting worked up for being asked the question and going back to qualia and the like. I'd like to see his direct views on the hard problem, even if it is just to dismantle it. But yet, when I read him trying to do this, he does the same SLEIGHT OF HAND. He keeps drowning out the problem with things that are not really the problem. Here is a perfect example:
His straight ahead answer is that it's not a distinct question, i.e. that consciousness arises from simpler processes described by answers to easier questions. The hard/easy distinction relies on there remaining a hard problem after the easy problems are solved. His answer is that this isn't the case: understand the easy problems, none of which yield what we mean by the consciousness of the hard problem individually, and you will have the answer to the hard problem.
This seems akin to building a house. Someone comes along and says, 'Hey, nice foundations but when are you going to build a house?', then later, 'Hey, nice walls, but when are you going to build a house?' Then up goes the roof and voila a house.
At the moment, we don't fully understand how the brain works... our understanding has no roof, maybe some missing walls so to speak, and that's used by mystics as an excuse to separate out the hard problem and insist it's not being answered. Dennett's answer is that we are already in the process of answering it by building up knowledge about how the brain works.
For instance, seeing a car as a car rather than some generic smudge of colour in a background of smudges of colour is an important aspect of the disputed qualia of 'this car'. As Isaac described, we already know much about how the brain recognises objects, so the hard aspect of this is pushed back to purely the subjective appraisal of the quale and not the derivation of any of its properties: a hard problem of the gaps. Likewise other shapes, colour, orientation, distance, name, and everything else that makes up the contents of our subjective experiences. What we're left with is a question of how a particular part of the brain does one particular thing, out of all the almost countless other things the brain is doing to construct our subjective experience that are becoming clear.
Non-reductive physicalism is pretty standard in philosophy of mind. Is that what you're describing here?
That's how I'm describing Dennett's position, which is also mine. I'm not arguing against irreducibility here myself, rather pointing out that it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to observe that Dennett believes that no separable hard problem exists and still ask what his answer to it is. He believes, rightly imo, that the hard problem of consciousness is nothing more than a bunch of easier problems.
The premise is patently not coming close to answering the hard problem at hand. The claim is that by describing the easier problems, the hard problem will little if nothing left. However, the easier questions aren't even approaching the answer, so how can it "close off" the hard problem when it never ventured the realm of answering it? Let me deconstruct what I mean based on one of your examples:
Quoting Kenosha Kid
Here we are describing processes that have some "what it feels like" aspect to it. Yet, instead of getting to the "what it feels like" aspect WHY this is in the first place, we go back to cognitive processes and the correlates. Now YOU have to be charitable enough to realize that hard questioners AREN'T denying the science of the findings of cognitive neuroscience. Rather, they are asking why it is that the processes even have a "What it's like" aspect. Just pointing back to the processes isn't an answer to that particular question. So it isn't a hard problem of the gaps. It's all gaps because the divide is not even being recognized. It's like someone asking you a clear question and then you rambling on about a bunch of findings that don't answer it. It's ignoring it and then pointing to some other line of thought. It's having a one way conversation with someone who does not recognize there is a conversation.
You need to stop doing that. Dennett is a reductionist.
Quoting Kenosha Kid
This is dead on. @Wayfarer posted a link to a collection of perhaps quite serious academic work on psi phenomena (William James would be thrilled!). I can't possibly judge how good the work is, but what leapt out at me was the title: Irreducible Consciousness. That word, "irreducible", has a very particular connotation for a lot of us, and it's not a nice one.
A lot of this goes down to whether you want there to be a dualism in your scheme. Anytime you have "rises out of" "emerges from" and it is some subjective state that adds the very "feeling" of the world that you are using to analyze it, you are in trouble. Now you are a (hidden) dualist.. That's not going to jive well if you wanted to be a materialist/physicalist of some kind.
But that again is merely your insistence that the hard problem is separable and distinct. You're not demonstrating that Dennett isn't answering the question; you're disputing the grounds on which he answers it, just as he disputes the grounds on which you ask it.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Now, yes. But the answers that cognitive neuroscience yields were once thought to be inseparable aspects of that hard problem. Now they're not, hence: hard problem of the gaps.
Quoting schopenhauer1
It's not a distinct question, so it's not some unrelated line of thought either. It's what people who are actually interested in the phenomenon are doing while people who are interested in their own belief systems wet themselves.
No I'm not. Human beings are made of the same stuff as other animals and the medium-sized dry goods in our environment; we are the sort of animals we are because of exactly the same processes of evolution that result in other animals being the way they are. And when we're not unconscious, we're conscious. That fact doesn't trouble me in the least. Why on earth should it? It's exactly as interesting as the rest of natural science, but it's not shocking or troubling in some way. I honestly have no idea why people think it is.
Whatever it is called you still can't say that it is established science that brain = mind.
Quoting Philosophim
Firstly, 'rational' is much more than primitive scientific/mathematical facts. Science and math. deal with basic, material, primitive things. Rationality is much more than this. Sound arguments that don't prove the point are rational. A deduction may hold but some deductions, for want of a better word, are untestable. How would you test if the brain is conscious? Yet, some people deduce that it is. Any such test would have to ignore the warning that correlation may not be causation.
Quoting Philosophim
True but neuroscience is far from being in possession of all the factors. That's the problem. It is not easy to reduce it to primitive relationships like in physics.
Quoting Philosophim
This sounds like Logical Positivism to me. You are saying everything must be testable in terms of measurable facts. That looks like L.P.
Quoting Philosophim
I disagree. I think there are plenty of rational arguments that hold up.
Quoting Philosophim
I'm not saying you are. I am saying that your way of reasoning with this particular issue seems to be an attempt to define what is rational and what is real within L.P. parameters.
You ask for an argument for non material mind. Here is a reasonable argument that neuroscientists are looking at analogues rather than real thought. Analogues, metaphors and images arise naturally in the physical world. Take for example the function [math]x^2[/math]. This is a concept involving real numbers. But it is possible to make a graph of [math]x^2[/math] on a sheet of paper. The graph is an analogue or image of the idea of [math]x^2[/math]. In fact all graphs involving statistics etc, are images or analogues of the real thing.
Another analogue is a hydrogen atom. There is no material substance per se, in the way our senses naively convince us. The substance of the atom is energy and there is no 'physical' substance to it; it is only a physical image of an energy field. The whole physical universe is an analogue of something else. People are now saying that the universe is really information/mathematics and the physical universe is an analogue of 'mathematical' truth. (I'm putting the word in inverted commas because mathematics, in its entirety, is way beyond anything we currently understand mathematics to be.)
Another image is body language. We speak, subconsciously, about our emotional state by way of body language. In this way body language is an image of something beyond what is visible in terms of physical perception. All languages are images or analogues of something deeper.
If the physical world is really just an analogue of other things then it would be no surprise that physical systems, including the brain, are images of the real thing. We live in a world of images. Philosophers should be careful to distinguish between the image and the reality.
Yep. That does seem to be more the divide here. Not recognizing the legitimacy of the other side.
Quoting Kenosha Kid
I would not say that the are really. I would give you neuroscience has answered questions about processes that would not be known if we didn't know about the behavior of neurons or experimentation. Again, you have to at least recognize that "hard problmers" are recognizing this too. They are just not recognizing that it is answering the hard problem. It is tangential and near it, but not the question. No one is disputing that processes correlate with certain phenomenal experiences. No problems there.
Quoting Kenosha Kid
Again, as I explain. I don't think hard problmers have any problems with scientific research into cognitive neuroscience. It is the attachment that this is answering the question that they have a problem with. You again, do not recognize this. This is exactly why I said several posts ago that you have to at least be charitable that they recognize cognitive neuroscience findings.
Who said we weren't? Not me.
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
Agreed there in terms of underlying evolutionary mechanisms, though I will add that each animal has contingently a unique combination of those underlying mechanisms that can result in novelty and then usually reuse later. So its a combination of novelty and exaptations perhaps. But this doesn't mean I disagree that the basic underlying mechanisms are the same.
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
Ok.
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
The troubling thing is that there is a "What it feels like" component going on (read as mental states). How mental states exist, what it is as compared to the physical mechanisms that are correlated with it, is why it is such a perplexing question. We can also add in the odd understanding of how is it something can "emerge" in the first place. Emergence implies some sort of epistemic leap from one stage into another. I'll just leave it at that.
Well, I'm not suggesting you must recognise the legitimacy of Dennett's view; I'm pointing out that it makes no sense to observe on the one hand that Dennett believes that no distinct hard problem exists and on the other to expect him to give an answer to the distinct hard problem. I'm not trying to convert you, although I guess Dennett is.
Quoting schopenhauer1
I disagree. Being a 'hard problemer' is not a discipline for acquiring knowledge and answering questions; rather, it is a statement of intent; no matter what neuroscience or any other physical science explains, we will always claim there is a bit left over unaccounted for, hence the god-of-the-gaps analogy. So I'd say no, having that particular belief system renders science an irrelevancy, much as believing the Earth is 6,000 years old irrespective of what geology tells us renders science an irrelevancy.
Dennett's view might be summed up like this: if and when we know all there is to know about the brain, one could point to these processes and structures over here and say this is identically having experience. e.g. the neuron firing in recognition of Halle Berry's face is part of the experience of seeing Halle Berry's face.
The sort of viewpoint I gather you're espousing is that, no, these will always be interpreted as merely correlates of the thing, but never the thing itself, god forbid. So while all of the content of an experience might be accounted for neurological correlates, and the start of an experience might be preceded by neurological correlates, these correlates cannot constitute the having an experience itself, they can only be little helpers.
As Susan Blackmore put it when discussing the futility of searching for neural correlates of consciousness:
In other words, hard problemers have it back to front. Dennett agrees with the above: there's no separable hard problem to answer. NCCs aren't correlates but the thing itself, not individually but as a messy whole. The likes of Strawson misrepresent this as a claim that 'consciousness does not exist', but in fact it's an affirmative claim that consciousness is real, not an added sprinkle of magic on top of real stuff.
Quoting Kenosha Kid
So this is as I thought, again, talking past each other. Hard problemers wouldn't even discount that the neurological correlate is the thing itself. Rather, it would be why this metaphysical case exists that the neurological underpinnings is experiential. Yep it "causes" experience. Not debated. How is it metaphysically the same as experience is the question.
That's not a definition of the hard problem I have heard of before. The formulation I've always come across is the one that might admit correlates of consciousness in neurology, but never consciousness itself.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Well, "causes" experience is not as specific as "is identically experience", which you were open to two sentences ago, so you need to be clearer about what limits you're placing on scientific explanatory power.
Neurology is a physical discipline. It is not its job to satisfy metaphysicists any more than it's its job to satisfy creationists or dualists. If you're in principle satisfied that the science can isolate what consciousness is, not just correlates (including causal) of consciousness, but want a deeper understanding of why a thing that is something is that thing, which is not a question specific to consciousness at all, you ought to look to other metaphysicists, surely? Is there a specific aspect to consciousness that makes this special?
I believe something like panpsychism would be perfectly okay with neurological phenomena equating with experience. However, they jettison the dualism of only neurons doing in their arrangements and composition being equated with experience. However, whether pansychists are correct, you can have hard problemers who see the physical phenomena as the thing itself, but they try to solve it by saying it is there from the beginning rather than something from nothing. However, if we start debating this, then we are actually debating the hard problem, and no longer waving it away. I am fine with that, but I didn't want to shift the conversation to panpsychism, rather that the question at hand is how it is certain physical phenomena can be equivalent to experience, or rather why experience in the first place, not what mechanisms are responsible for what experience.
Quoting Kenosha Kid
True but Dennett is a philosopher to be fair, and not a strict neuroscientist. It would not be out of the realm of possibility for other philosophers to engage him in these kind of (philosophical) questions. And I recognize this might be a legitimate neuroscience question, it is a legitimate philosophical question.
Quoting Kenosha Kid
I am not sure what you are asking. I think we are agreeing that the hard problem question is probably not a strict neuroscience answer. But philosophers never expected it to be. It's when a philosopher handwaves it and then narrowly focuses on the correlates when clearly the question is not about the mechanisms of how the correlates integrate, but how it is that this correlation exists in the first place, that's when there is the continual ignoring of question or talking past each other.
However, Christian doctrine must allow for the immortality of the soul, must it not?
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
'Irreducible Mind'. There were many hostile reviews of it at the time of release, but, asked to 'cite evidence' of the non-material nature of mind, it's as good a source as any. Not that it recieved any acknowledgement from the poster I cited it to.
Quoting Kenosha Kid
Here's a question. When you grasp a mathematical concept, even a simple one, like the sum of two numbers - you're seeing something of an intelligible (as distinct from physical) nature, right? I mean, a number is not actually the symbol but an idea. And that concept - say the number 7 - can be represented in any number of ways, by different symbols, in different media and so on. So how could the idea itself be identified with anything physical, when the physical representation is arbitary? You could invent a whole arbitrary system of symbols, but if it followed the rules, it would be valid even if noboby else understood it. And those rules are real, but I can't see how they're physical in nature.
That's the one, my bad. If it got reviewed at all I guess that's something. Mainstream folks also seem to think it's worthwhile attacking Sheldrake but not, say, Zecharia Sitchin, so again that's something. I say more power to 'em, even though I think it's all bullshit.
It is a question in philosophy; I wouldn't go as far as to say it was legitimate. Dennett's philosophy is science-based; he is not obliged to consider other metaphysics, e.g. to explain the soul as a separate, immortal quantity.
Quoting schopenhauer1
In three sentences you've gone from being open to the neurological phenomena being identically consciousness, to being merely the cause of consciousness, to being merely a correlate of consciousness again. All I can say is to repeat: if you are aware that, in Dennett's view, they are not merely correlates but the thing itself, it doesn't make any sense to expect him to answer a question on the separate question of the thing itself that is not meaningful in that view, or to pretend he hasn't addressed the question because he doesn't treat it as a separable problem.
I’ll try to reframe what is at issue in the hard problem of consciousness. I’m thinking maybe it might be of help. (Then again, it might not.)
A brain is tangible (to a consciousness); a consciousness is not tangible (to any consciousness).
Therein lies a, or maybe the, pivotal ontological difference—even when eschewing the issue of whether a consciousness can hold non-epiphenomenal, hence top-down, effects upon its own substratum of brain.
Tangentially, I’ll add that this thread's persistent reference to brains is overlooking the fact that even amebas hold an awareness of other: such as in an ameba’s capacity to discern what is relative to itself a predator from what is a prey. And that coupled with this awareness of other is a forethought of how to best act towards that which is apprehended as other by it (again, as example, a predator or a prey) so as to maximize its own stability of being. To evade, an ameba needs to foresee how to best evade the moment by moment activities of its predator; likewise to consume pray, it needs to foresee how to best sabotage the moment by moment activities of its prey (which can be smaller amebas). In cases such as that of the unicellular ameba, there is no nervous system involved in the awareness that takes place. And how the single-celled corpus of an ameba brings about a concordant (intangible) amebic-awareness replete with degrees of forethought is anybody’s guess. Point being, first-person awareness is not strictly contingent on living brains.
That mentioned, there’s no doubt that the processes of a central nervous system correlate with those of its respective consciousness—in addition to correlating to the occurrence of a consciousness’s subconscious or unconscious mind. (Despite their awareness of givens such as environmental factors, the latter two aspects of a total mind are not commonly addressed as being of themselves conscious: consciousness being instead reserved for the first-person awareness held by each of us—rather than for our sub- or unconscious mind’s awareness of givens.)
Again, though, we can empirically study the workings of the brain all we want. And, in so doing, we will undoubtably gain greater insights into the bottom-up processes in which the workings of a living brain can result in a respective consciousness (not all living brains do, with coma as an easily addressed example). Nonetheless, the physical brain and all it does will forever be tangible percepts which we perceive as other relative to us as the consciously aware observers. Whereas our living brain and its processes are tangible percepts, the consciousness aware of them is not tangible even to itself. And all our empirical knowledge—including of brains—stems from, and is ontologically dependent on, the occurrence of (always intangible) consciousness.
If, simplistically put, a living brain is identical to a consciousness, they then should both be either tangible or, else, intangible. But they hold different ontological properties in this respect; they are not identical.
Explaining how that which is perceived and is thereby tangible accounts for that which perceives and is intangible will, then, be one vantage to what the hard problem of consciousness is about.
I had a dream about sky jellyfish on the moon once. They're not real either. I hope...
I don't think this is explicit, but yeah it's basically the claim... there must be something of consciousness that is elementary and non-physical, otherwise we're just stuff physical doing physical things and that hurts our feelings.
Quoting javra
Well, you could see this thread for an example of taking the idea further: even electrons have awareness of each other. As an intermediary point: even trees are aware of one another. The point befits the fact that human consciousness is a sophisticated kind of mammalian consciousness, which is a sophisticated kind of animal consciousness, which is a sophisticated kind of biological reactivity, which is a sophisticated set of chemical reactions, which are sophisticated sets of electromagnetic particle interactions.
But I think by awareness, we mean sentient awareness.
Quoting javra
If I'm reading you right, you're talking about the third-person/first-person barrier. That is true. If you want to know what consciousness is, that is a third-person question. If you want to know what it feels like, that is a first-person question. The former can explain the later, i.e. can say: "this set of processes is identically that" but understanding an experience won't be the same as having it, anymore than me understanding why you're crying at Bambi will be the same as me crying at Bambi, or understanding why the apple fell from the tree will be the same as an apple falling from the tree.
But that's not a justification for saying that it isn't then a complete explanation. A complete explanation for why the apple falls from the tree is just that; it doesn't also have to be an apple falling from a tree. Likewise an explanation for consciousness doesn't need to feel like consciousness.
Quoting javra
There's a difference between substance and function. There is a difference, for instance, in an electron and the movement of an electron. There is a difference between a computer and an executing program. You can't just look at the object, you have to look at what it does if you want to explain e.g. electric current, a machine learning algorithm, or consciousness.
Well, it was analogous, so I thought that would nail it. More explicitly, the contents of consciousness correlate immediately to mental processes, not to physical, objective referents.
We're in accord here. Though I'm still trying to wrap my mind around it, so to speak, do you see how all this meshes with the notion of panpsychism?.
Quoting Kenosha Kid
I prefer "fourth-person" as the idealized objective view - rather than "third-person", which to me implies "he, she, it (in the case of lesser animals) they, or them" ... all of which are deemed endowed with their own first-person awareness.
Still, maybe this presumption - that consciousness must and can only be understood via what I'll term fourth-person means - is at the crux of the issue. For a physicalist, this must be the case. For many a non-physicalist (I'll give C.S. Peirce like objective idealism as one example), despite the correlation between a human's CNS and a respective consciousness, this cannot ever be the case. Yes, in part because that which is first-person awareness is other relative to all it apprehends.
Of note, in so upholding, the physicalist by implication will then also uphold the stance of epiphenomenalism, right?. Here, top-down effects upon brain are an impossibility given the dictums which hold the worldview of physicalism together. Do you find this statement to be accurate?
Quoting Kenosha Kid
No, of course not. But it would need to give reasons for why tangible X, Y, and Z results in what it feels like to be conscious--rather than taking the latter occurrence for granted.
Quoting Kenosha Kid
With that, now we're getting into metaphysical underpinnings - which could be disputed in multiple ways, depending on the vantage taken.
I was/am here only trying to differently present what the hubbub is about when it comes to the hard problem ... basically just aiming at the issue being better understood by supporters of Dennett et al.
The problem with this is that the world is more than individual perspectives. Science describes a world independent of that. We can't sense most of what science tells us, and what we do sense is based on our particular biology, which science has to work to abstract from to arrive at mathematical models that are predictive and explain the world as it appears to us.
Another problem is that people do have private thoughts, dreams, feelings. We can't always know that Alice's tooth is aching, or whether she's faking. But she knows, because she's the one feeling or faking the pain. We also don't know what it's like if her brain works in an idiosyncratic way from our own. Thus people who have no inner dialog, people who think in images, people with odd neurological conditions and so on.
Right. But that isn’t that a problem for physicalism, which says that conscious acts are reducible to objective referents? Isn’t that the nub of the issue? It you’re claiming that the mind is ‘a product of’ neurological processes, then you have to show how a physical process is the same in principle as a conscious act, such a counting or reasoning.
Incidentally, there are many ‘products’ of the brain - all of the millions of enzymes and neurotransmitters and other families of neurochemicals. I don’t doubt that at all. What I’m trying to argue is that concepts can’t be treated the same way as substances because they belong in a different explanatory framework, namely, that of language, logic, maths and so on. Philosophim, for instances, simply assumes that there’s no difference between enzymes and concepts - that ‘he brain secretes thought like the liver secrets bile’, as said by one of the French philosophes, which is reductive materialism in a nutshell.
You might be misunderstanding my view. Reality is what occurs. Concepts match to reality. If a concept cannot match to reality, it is worthless. Concepts like thoughts and consciousness are fantastic, as long as at their core they represent reality. I am not a "physicalist", I am a "realist". So far, the only thing we have discovered in the universe is matter and energy. If a concept draws on "something else" without providing some reality of it, its just not any good.
What does it mean for an idea to 'match' or 'correspond' with reality? How can you stand outside of your conceptions and see if they correspond?
Ewing, A.C.; The Fundamental Questions of Philosophy, pp54-55.
Quoting Philosophim
Thereby 'affirming the consequent.' You frame the question in a certain way, and it means there's only a certain type of answer that will be accepted. The argument of 'facing up the hard problem' is that the objective sciences can't in principle provide complete description of the first-person point-of-view, as it is excluded from what third-person will consider in the first place. And it is true, there's no way of overturning this that is satisfactory to the third-person perspective, for the reason that it has already declared the argument out-of-bounds.
A claim about reality that is applied without contradiction.
For example, lets say I proposed that all sentience was non-physical, but consisted of a substance called sentisia. I could write a complex paper that details exactly how it works, and it would be incredibly logical and work within the framework. But if I can't find sentisia in reality, if I can't demonstrate its existence and use, all I made was a fantasy world framework.
Quoting Wayfarer
That's not affirming the consequent at all. "All tigers are cats, therefore all cats must be tigers" is an example of affirming the consequent. I am stating that the only thing we have discovered in the universe is matter and energy, so those are the only things we can realistically analyze. Is it possible something else exists besides these? Sure, why not? What we know today could be contradicted tomorrow. But we can't talk realistically, and rationally, about things which we have no knowledge of being real.
Everything that we know points to consciousness forming from the brain. So that is the only thing we can rationally discuss. You can propose that consciousness is some magical entity, but unless you can show some evidence of this magical entity being real, it is a fantasy, and not a rational argument.
Quoting Wayfarer
As of yet, no. And they may never be able to. But that just tells us there are either A. Things outside of our knowledge, or B. That we must work logically within these limitations.
Neither A nor B lead to the idea that all of the evidence that points to consciousness coming from the brain is somehow null or void. In the future if we find evidence in reality of consciousness existing apart from the brain, then we have something new that we can rationally consider. Until then, its just a fantasy, a "what if". "What ifs" that do not end ultimately leading back to some application in reality are just fun fantasy, not rational arguments.
It's actually orthodox Christian doctrine that believers undergo bodily resurrection. So dualism isn't required even there.
Here's Hacker's proposal again: that sentience emerges from the evolution of living organisms.
Do you think that's a valid problem for science to investigate?
Are you by this claiming that we do not know whether consciousness - via which we discover things such as matter and energy - is real? If not, please explain why we don't. If, however, you agree that we know consciousness is real, then we at minimum can claim to have discovered three things being real: matter, energy, and the consciousness via which these are known.
Quoting Philosophim
Excuse the limitations of the English language via which this is expressed, but not everything will be a thing, i.e. an entity. Processes are for example known to occur, and a process - though being something - is not a thing/entity. The issue of whether processes are primary to existence or, else, entities are primary to existence - though open-ended - does not bode well for the primacy of entities.
By what logical argument would one pigeonhole consciousness into being an entity? This sounds very much like the type of reification that perspectives such as those of Buddhism oppose - and, needless to add, these perspectives are not physicalist.
Quoting Philosophim
Is this not the hard problem in a nutshell?
@Wayfarer, hope you don't mind me contributing for a little while.
It is. But note that describing that world requires a perspective whether in day-to-day life, or as a scientist performing specialized experiments. The latter is just a natural extension of the former, it's not "a view from nowhere".
Quoting Marchesk
Yes, however those abstractions are not Platonic, they are a function of our perspective on the world.
Quoting Marchesk
Yes. But what I'm arguing against is the idea that one's thoughts, dreams and feelings are radically, or intrinsically, private. That is, there is always a physical (and so, in principle, detectable) difference between a person in pain and a person faking pain, or between a person thinking about an apple and a person not thinking about an apple.
Quoting Marchesk
Yes. But that again is a manifestation of some physical difference. In principle, it is possible is to modify a person's physical state such that they experience things in different ways. Maybe Mary in her room discovers how to modify her own brain or eyes to perceive color.
'At death the soul is separated from the body and exists in a conscious or unconscious disembodied state. But on the future Day of Judgment souls will be re-embodied (whether in their former but now transfigured earthly bodies or in new resurrection bodies) and will live eternally in the heavenly kingdom.' ~ Encyc. Brittanica
Not saying I believe it, but it's clearly incompatible with Dennett's neo-darwinian materialism, which is not surprising, given that he's a militant atheist.
Quoting Andrew M
Yes of course - evolutionary biology, cognitive science, and so on. Does not, however, vitiate the fundamental issue.
Quoting Philosophim
That's not what I proposed, but it's not surprising that it is how you read it. You show no sign of having actually grasped the argument that I proposed, so I'll give up.
Quoting Philosophim
There's a lot written about dark matter.
Quoting javra
Not at all, your posts are generally a model of clarity.
My view is that it is a category error, that it is a sophisticated example of more generic phenomena, the category error being that if A is some kind of B, then B must be some kind of A.
Quoting javra
Well, not really. That there's stuff and then what stuff can do sums up physics.
Quoting javra
That's a third-person/first-person crossover. Any explanation of what consciousness is is going to be third person.
No, because those mental processes are physical. Hence my experience of red lunar sky jellyfish must be describable as physical processes of the brain, not physical red jellyfish floating above the moon.
Yeah, those were my exact words.
If it was panpsychist, it certainly could be the phenomena is identical with mental states. The same goes for causation. How is it the thing itself has a subjective what it's like aspect is not explained, so that is still the question at hand that is being ignored. If it's not a separable problem, he still didn't answer the question. It's okay if he doesn't want to. Stick to the easier problems. It is safe. You can say that your philosophy is more empirical therefore clearly more legitimate and all that. It looks like @javra, @Marchesk and @Wayfarer are also explaining similar ideas. But, you open yourself up if you are writing books like Consciousness Explained and you aren't even approaching that question. It should be something more like.. "Rehash of cognitive neuroscience with some thought experiments for why the term qualia is not quite right".
What would an explanation of this be like? You've talked a lot about how Dennet's philosophy isnt one, so you must have an idea of what is one to compare it to, so what's that?
We open a philosophy journal tomorrow with the headline 'Hard problem solved - we have an explanation of why we seem to have first person experiences'. What might the abstract read? 'We seem to have first person experiences because...'
My entry:
... because of the mise en abyme allowed by our two brains talking to one another.
How the brain creates experiences of colors, smells, feels, etc. So far, there are only correlations, but not an actual explanation. Such and such neural activity does some sort of discrimination of incoming electrical impulses from eyes and is integrated with other brain activity to create a conscious awareness of a red cup. But it would have to show how that happens, and not just claim it does (which would be a correlation with observed brain activity).
It's kind of unfair to ask what the explanation would look like since nobody knows yet. Assuming neuroscience can provide one. But if it did, then the entry in the journal of philosophy could then go on to say how we could use this to understand bat sonar consciousness and create consciousness in robots.
One reason to be skeptical of this is that neuroscience is like all science in that it's an abstraction from various first person experiences to arrive at an objective understanding of the world. But that objective understanding has no sensations of color, etc.
The bolded doesn't follow. Just because you can't find something in reality doesn't mean you conclude it doesn't exist, or you conclude that everything you thought about it was a "fantasy world framework". It depends on how well you search and how competent you are at searching. That's the mistake you're making.
For example, there is no evidence that aliens exist. We haven't "found any aliens in reality". Are all the papers on exobiology a "fantasy world framework"? Are all the proposed solutions to the Fermi Paradox mental masturbation? Is SETI a big waste of time? Maybe. Maybe not. We're not justified in declaring the non-existence of X just because we can't find X in reality. String theorists would certainly agree with me on that one.
...and that's an answer. Where '...because of the connectedness of many neurons' isn't, because...
Quoting Marchesk
This just repeats the question. If, say, I explain the neuroscience of colour recognition, I'm trying to get at the sense in which that's not answering 'how?' for you. It's exactly answering 'how' for me.
If I asked 'how does a car work?' an account of its components and their effect on each other is exactly what I'm after. If I ask 'how come that cup is on the table?' an account of the events leading up to its being there suffices. If I ask 'why do humans have noses?' an account of the evolutionary or developmental process is fine. When we ask 'how does the brain create experiences?' an account of neither the mechanisms, nor the components, nor their interactions, nor their development suffices for you. Something is missing which doesn't seem required in any other question about 'how'. I'm trying to understand what that missing thing is.
Quoting Marchesk
I don't think so. If one is going to dismiss Dennet's hard work as missing the target, I think it's fair to ask for an account of what the target is.
Quoting Marchesk
But this is circular. Maybe we have created consciousness in robots "no, they're just p-zombies", how do we know what they've got isn't consciousness?
Quoting Marchesk
How could an understanding of the world have sensations? If this is your target then its not the 'hard' problem its the downright ridiculous problem.
Isn't this admitting to the hard problem, or at least Block's harder problem? If we had a science of consciousness, we would would be able to know what was conscious.
Quoting Isaac
The hard problem is aimed at the ontological conclusions derived from our understanding of the world, which would be physicalism. It's part of the ongoing mind/body debate between materialists and dualists.
Quoting Isaac
Dennett isn't a neuroscience, and his multiple drafts doesn't explain sensations. It just suggests how various activity in the brain becomes the center of attention.
Quoting Isaac
It doesn't tell me how there is a color sensation. Instead, it explains how my brain performs certain functions related to discriminating color. But as you admitted, we don't know if the same functions in a computer would also result in a color sensation.
No, my point was that if I claim we do already have a science of consciousness, and as such we already do know what's conscious, you'll still claim we don't. This just seems circular to me. A thing is conscious if it can report in some way (even if only internally) on its own processing. If a robot can do that, then it's conscious. Hard problem solved? If not, why not?
Quoting Marchesk
Again, how is that not an explanation? It's really unfair to keep dismissing everyone's efforts without specifying what it is you want from them.
Quoting Marchesk
That is 'how'. As I showed with my examples of other 'how' questions, that's exactly the sort of thing which counts as an answer to 'how'. Even so, you're still just repeating the dismissal without specifying a reason. If "explain[ing] how my brain performs certain functions related to discriminating color" isn't an answer for you to "how there is a color sensation", then it seems entirely reasonable to ask you for an account of what's missing.
Because there is no consensus in any related field for an explanation of consciousness. Of course there is much ink spilled on the topic with many different approaches, but Dennett's work is controversial and not accepted by many professional philosophers.
Quoting Isaac
No it isn't. That's just an assertion that consciousness is somehow identical to certain functions. If we knew that to be true, then there would be no mystery as to what else is conscious. If it performed those functions, whether it was a bat nervous system, a simulation, a robot or a Chinese Brain, it would all be conscious, end of story.
Quoting Isaac
Because it doesn't explain how it is that we're conscious. Why do functions result in an experience at all? They're just functions.
Empiricism.
I do agree that consciousness is real, but consciousness is a word that represents an identity we observe, but does not assert it is its own composed entity. We don't say, "matter, energy, and water" exist right? Water is made up of matter and energy. Consciousness is made up of matter and energy. Consciousness is not another form of existence separate from matter and energy. If someone claims this to be, they must provide evidence to counter the evidence that shows consciousness comes from the brain, which is made out of matter and energy.
Quoting javra
Processes are actions, and interactions with other entities. When an electron travels across a wire, we get the process of electricity. When that electron travels to your computer, and allows a signal to alter a logic gate, that is the process of computing. Processes are not separate from the matter and energy, they are the result of their interactions. These interchanges are matter and energy.
'Quoting javra
Yes. The hard problem states it is difficult with our current models to evaluate what it is like to "feel" red. It is not stating that consciousness is not physical, nor that consciousness cannot be evaluated in terms of the physical. The easy problem notes that tieing the laws of nature to brain states is not the issue. But will science ever be able to produce the state of being a bat, and then have us feel exactly what it is like to be a bat? Maybe not. That is not relevant to stating that consciousness is separate from the brain.
Quoting Wayfarer
No, I grasp your arguments well enough. You do not see the consequences of your argument. If you cannot show what consciousness is in reality, yet you declare t is something separate from the brain, then you are necessarily proposing a magical entity. You are saying consciousness exists as something, but you have no evidence or explanation for what that something is. That's a magical entity.
Quoting Wayfarer
Dark matter is not a descriptor of known entities. It is a placeholder that describes logical conclusions within observed limitations. Here is a good read.
https://www.space.com/20930-dark-matter.html
"If scientists can't see dark matter, how do they know it exists?
Scientists calculate the mass of large objects in space by studying their motion. Astronomers examining spiral galaxies in the 1970s expected to see material in the center moving faster than on the outer edges. Instead, they found the stars in both locations traveled at the same velocity, indicating the galaxies contained more mass than could be seen. Studies of the gas within elliptical galaxies also indicated a need for more mass than found in visible objects. Clusters of galaxies would fly apart if the only mass they contained were visible to conventional astronomical measurements.
Albert Einstein showed that massive objects in the universe bend and distort light, allowing them to be used as lenses. By studying how light is distorted by galaxy clusters, astronomers have been able to create a map of dark matter in the universe.
All of these methods provide a strong indication that most of the matter in the universe is something yet unseen."
What we can rationally discuss about dark matter is based on the data we have. While speculation also happens, as to what Dark Matter could be, it does not assert that the speculation is true, or that the existence of such speculation asserts that the regular physical laws of the universe or necessarily invalid.
I have shown several examples of the brain being the source of consciousness. For a proposition that consciousness is separate from the brain, it needs some evidence that it IS separate from the brain. Saying, "It might be," without any evidence as to how or why is nothing we can rationalize about.
Right, there is no evidence that aliens exist. So we cannot rationally discuss aliens as if they do exist.
This is different from saying, "Maybe aliens exist," and then looking for evidence that they exist. The people I've been chatting with aren't saying, "It could be that all of physics is wrong and consciousness could exist as something separate from the brain,". I would have no disagreement with that. Having an idea of what could be and looking for it are great. We would never advance our understanding of the world otherwise.
The posters that I have been discussing with are claiming that consciousness IS separate from the brain. Not a maybe, but that it just can't be from the brain. I have asked for evidence that would show this to be true, and none has been provided but speculation. Asserting the existence of one thing, and the refutation of another thing without any evidence that can be shown in the real world is a fantasy world framework.
Nonsense. The statement: "aliens, if they exist, aren't made of chocolate and don't have candy cane brains" is not irrational. It's true.
No, i'm not arguing that it's a 'magical entity'. That's how you must see it, but it's not what I've said.
The main arguments I have advocated are: first, to re-state the argument from facing up to the hard problem of consciousness by David Chalmers. I don't think he proposes that consciousness is a 'magical entity' either. What he says is, the mind possesses attributes that cannot be satisfactorily accounted for from a third-person perspective. http://consc.net/papers/facing.html
And in any case, the 'explanatory gap' is well known and acknowledged in both science and philosophy as an outstanding problem. You write as though all this has been solved, all the answers are in, when it's simply not the case.
I've referred to a number of facets of what is generally known as psychosomatic medicine, which according to materialism ought not to occur.
The third argument is that semantic, logical, and mathematical order, which are fundamental to the ordering of reason and the nature of thought, can't be accounted for in physicalist terms, as they act independently of physical causality.
And I said the reason you see my arguments in terms of a 'magic entity' is 'as a consequence of Cartesian dualism which depicts the mind as the 'ghost in the machine'.
Well, first you need a definition of consciousness that is distinct from unconscious, otherwise you're not making a meaningful claim. Then you study the object of doubted consciousness for whether its behaviours, which correlate to its properties, are consistent with it being conscious or unconscious. If you cannot distinguish then, again, it's a meaningless claim.
I have no idea what you said here.
I'll elaborate a bit on the stance I favor for the sake of clarity:
But first off, stop it with the "conscious is entity" strawman. I won't reply if you don't. For some, such as myself, the belief upheld is that - while consciousness is likely primary to matter (the latter being physical energy, and vice versa ... this per the e = mc2 dictum on which our modern physics by in large rests) - a) consciousness is NOT an entity and b) matter/physical energy nevertheless holds blatant reality on account of its causal interactions with all first-person sources of awareness. The objective idealism of C. S. Peirce should suffice as an example of this ontological outlook. It's not something that can be cogently presented within the sound-bite format of a debate forum, so I'm not inclined to here make a cogent case for it upon request. All the same, neither I - nor those who uphold Buddhist (or Buddhist-like) views, such as I interpret @Wayfarer to - in any way, shape, or form maintain consciousness to be an entity. Quite the contrary.
Approrops, as to the evolution of life from non-life within such an ontological system, one leading inference is that of panpsychism.
Nevertheless, within such a framework, there is no denial nor doubt that for the individual consciousnesses of individual organisms there is a bottom-up causal process between the substratum of living organic matter and what we experience as our personal awareness. So this "separateness from matter or energy" doesn't hold in the day to day reality we experience. It only holds when addressing the utterly existential issue of what is metaphysically primary to existence as a whole.
One possible question might be: "but where does this (non-entity) consciousness come from existentially?" This, however, is just as mysterious - as of yet unknown and possibly unknowable in principle - as is the parallel question that can be placed to physicalists: "but where does physical energy come from existentially?".
So we're implicitly coming from two different schemas that attempt to cogently explain the same commonly shared reality: Yours affirms physical energy/matter to be primary but cannot explain either why physical energy/matter is in the first place nor why consciousness occurs. The one I currently hold affirms that physical reality - replete with is many intricate causalities and the like - is a complex byproduct of awareness dispersed among innumerable coexistent first-person loci of awareness. Which - as our impartial, shared, physical reality - then causally limits, binds, and goads (including via births and deaths) these sources of awareness in manners that are not fully predetermined but, instead, are causally compatibiliistic. Thereby allowing for progressive top-down causation upon the physical reality which is our brains. Here, there is no hard problem of consciousness, this being a physicalist problem. The only quintessential issue is that of what awareness in general actually is and where it comes from - but this is just as unresolved as the same questions applied to a physicalist's energy. Explaining that energy is energy is just as in/valid as stating that awareness is awareness.
In short, when addressing myself at the very least, consciousness is not an entity and it is not causally untethered from the physical reality which, nevertheless, is a product of awareness's global occurrence - as is the case in a system of panphychism, for one example. As to the magicality of its being, it is no more and no less an instance of pure and unadulturated magic as is the occurence of energy within any system of physicalism. One takes one pick of magical component of reality. I tend to pick the former over the latter - for, if nothing else, it at least accounts for the reality of that by which everything else is cognized.
So, I've presented a rough outline of where I, personally, am presently coming from ontologically. I'm not here interested, however, in debating metaphysical systems - with physicalism most certainly being one such.
That said, staying on track with the thread's topic of the hard problem:
Quoting Philosophim
We do not, cannot, observe our own identity as a conscious being. Consciousness is that which observes; and is never that which can be directly observed. If you disagree with this, what then does your consciousness look like, sound like, or smell like, etc., to you? (And if you jokingly tell me something along the lines of "like ice-cream", who could seriously take this to define what consciousness in general is?)
Again, the hard problem can be phrased as a problem in explaining how the observable can account for that which is unobservable but observes - and is thereby known to be real.
Quoting Philosophim
OK, but a photon is more basic than an electron, and a photon has no mass last I've heard, thereby not being matter, thereby not being an entity.
Then you get into Zero-Point Energy:
This so as to back up what I've previously said: Though the issue is open-ended, it very much seems to be the case that entities emerge from non-entity processes, of which we still know very little about. Thereby, to make this explicit, resulting in a process theory view of reality.
Quoting Philosophim
While I know that I didn't provide an in-depth account, given what I first mentioned in this post, maybe you might understand how claiming that I affirm "consciousness is separate from the brain" isa misinterpretation of my views. No, a human consciousness is causally tethered to the workings of its respective living brain; its just that, in the worldview I endorse, this relation is not epiphenomenal, and so can result in top-down causality upon the physical brain.
Now, when addressing "awareness" just as abstractly as when we address "physical energy/matter", then, and only then, the primacy of awareness comes into play - this, again, as far as the stance I currently uphold goes. But this existential generality of primacy should by not means be mistaken for a consciousness that is causally untethered from its respective central nervous system's workings.
Maybe so, but matter and energy are physical concepts created to explain a wide range of phenomena. It's possible that these concepts are lacking when it comes to consciousness, because they are abstracted categories based on careful investigation of what our senses tell us about the world.
Things have properties. These properties a) dictate their behaviours and therefore b) distinguish them. For instance, we can distinguish a hot potato from a cold potato by their different behaviours, which correspond to their respective properties of hot and cold.
If your definition of consciousness is distinct from non-consciousness, as it ought to be to be meaningful, then conscious things will have different properties from non-conscious things, thus are distinct. Therefore they should also behave differently in certain circumstances. (If they behave the same under all circumstances, then they have the same properties, are indistinct, and therefore your definition of consciousness is meaningless.)
Empiricism is a way of examining how distinguishable things behave differently. Put a thermometer on a hot potato, it will read one temperature. Put it on a cold potato, it will measure a different temperature.
If it is meaningful to say that a rock is conscious, as opposed to unconscious, one should be able to discern that difference empirically due to their different behaviours corresponding to their different properties.
You may misunderstand. I don't believe consciousness is an independent entity with its own substance separate from matter and energy. Wayfarer does. He believes consciousness is independent from the brain. For yourself, you seem to think a bit differently, and I am much more inclined to agree with your approach.
I have nothing against panpsychism as a theory, as long as it reduces down to reality. I don't think we have enough information to confirm or deny panpsychism. First, there's quantum entanglement. Second, there is the reality that we are physical beings composed of the matter around us. It may very well be our concept of "intelligence" is simply one degree higher of a low expression of matter all around us.
Quoting javra
I do disagree with this. I know what my own consciousness is from my self-subjective view point. The problem is you seem to be describing consciousness in terms of senses. Consciousness is not light hitting my eyes or soundwaves hitting my ears. That's why its a hard problem. It likely requires its own language to communicate exactly what it is. Which is perfectly fine. As long as the models are in line with reality, postulating and inventing new models to describe consciousness is perfectly fine.
Quoting javra
You might misunderstand this. Energy and mass are interchangeable mathmatically. The reason why we say light has no mass is due to the mathmatical conclusion that light travels at the maximum speed allowed. https://wtamu.edu/~cbaird/sq/2014/04/01/light-has-no-mass-so-it-also-has-no-energy-according-to-einstein-but-how-can-sunlight-warm-the-earth-without-energy/#:~:text=Since%20photons%20(particles%20of%20light,their%20energy%20from%20their%20momentum.&text=If%20a%20particle%20has%20no,mass%20is%20nothing%20at%20all.
Energy, mass, and waves are all identifiers that allow certain mathamatical states to exist. These mathamatical states have been proven to be sound, so we continue to use them. The models of energy, mass, and waves are simply ways of expressing this math in a way relatable to our common understanding of reality around us. At extremes, these models break down in relatability. The key is that the math underlying it is solid. Now could we come up with a better model that relates the math to us? Quite possibly. The requirement however is that it must be mathamatically sound when applied to reality as well. This is the attempt by unified field theories.
Quoting javra
Yes, I understand what you mean now, and have no disagreement with this.
Certainly. This can be said about anything, not just consciousness. Alone, that is not an argument to deny what is known today. To deny what one knows today, they must propose evidence that incontrovertibly contradicts a knowledge claim. Again, I have nothing about saying, "Maybe its something else" about anything. But when a person says, "It IS something else" without evidence, its not a rational discussion.
A comedy of misunderstandings. I assumed you thought this to be my stance. As to Wayfarer, I greatly doubt this, seeing how he is greatly inclined toward Buddhist thought.
Quoting Philosophim
Hear, hear! As I previously mentioned somewhere in the thread, I'm still trying to grapple with the notion of panpsychism philosophically. @Kenosha Kid's last post speaks to some of the problematic issues with it. But it is so far a position I infer as being readily likely.
Quoting Philosophim
Hmm. So, earlier today I finally uploaded my culminating chapter on consciousness's demarcation. And, as you state, it makes use of novel terms to express either what I take to be novel concepts or, else, to make cumbersome phrases (like, "a first-person point of view") more easily communicable in ordinary speech. One will likely also need to read, or skim, through the chapters leading up to it to get a better grasp of what is expressed. Extremely understandable if you're not inclined, but, if it tickles your fancy, I'd would welcome your feedback on the demarcations of consciousness I've offered. (I known. I'm now shamelessly self-promoting a work I've barely begun. But seeing how doing so is moderately acceptable on this forum, why not, right?)
So, if interested, here's the link: https://www.anenquiry.info/index.php/Chapter_7:_Demarcating_Consciousness
Quoting Philosophim
Although physics isn't my strong point (much prefer the biological sciences) what I was alluding to is that we nevertheless conceptualize a photon as being a thing, an entity, when it scientifically doesn't quite fit the bill. As to its particle/wave duality, I've read papers expressing that enzymes can exhibit the same duality. Just now quickly found this reference online: https://www.technologyreview.com/2019/11/09/238365/a-natural-biomolecule-has-been-measured-acting-in-a-quantum-wave-for-the-first-time/
That said, I like process theory, so I'm biased toward this outlook. So maybe that explains the stance I've taken.
Quoting Philosophim
Yes, of course.
I’m not a Greek scholar, nor do I know much about Aristotle. But one discipline I have had some experience in is ‘history of ideas’ and I think there’s a point that needs to be brought out here.
The use of the word ‘substance’ in philosophy is different to the normal usage. It was originally translated from Aristotle’s ‘ousia’ and could feasibly be translated as either ‘subject’ and ‘kind of being’. The original idea was the Socrates was of the substance, ‘Man’, where the ‘substance’ is ‘that of which attributes can be predicated. If you translated this as ‘the kind of being, Man’ then it would be in some ways nearer the mark of the original meaning of ‘ouisia’. But it’s invariably taken to mean ‘substance’ in the sense of being ‘protoplasm’ or ‘living substance’ or ‘ghostly stuff’, using the word ‘substance’ in the modern sense of a particular kind of stuff or thing. ‘Res’, in Descartes Res Cogitans, is straightforwardly ‘a thing’ (actually, the word is the root of ‘reality’. This is why I keep pointing out the ‘post-Cartesian’ attitude which underlies the debate.)
The last couple of days, I’ve watched an excellent three-part PBS documentary series called ‘Mystery of Matter’ which revolves around Mendelev’s discovery of the periodic table - which he basically did in one weekend! - and also the discovery of radioactivity, and plutonium. (Recommended, free on You Tube. All the people covered were giants of science, not least Harry Moseley, who lost his life at Gallipoli at 27).
The point is, scientific method will want to deal with ‘substance’ on that level. It wants to identify the attibutes of an object of analysis, be that plutonium or neural data. Both those advocating this approach are treating the problem in that way - which is no slight. It is natural in scientific culture to approach problems through that paradigm. But what David Chalmers is saying is there is something fundamental to the nature of consciousness (I prefer to say ‘the experiencing being’) which can’t be fit into this frame.
Dennett and the hard-core materialists all continue to insist that there is no other way to know anything worthwhile, and that it’s ‘just a matter of time’ until consciousness/being yields its [s]secretes[/s] secrets. But I think they can fairly accused not of argument, but of denial - as if by refusing to recognise the challenge, it magically goes away - like Trump’s attitude to COVID-19. This is why Dennett’s first magnum opus was described by no lesser luminaries than John Searle and Thomas Nagel as ‘Consciousniess Ignored’ or ‘Consciousness Explained away’. At best, he’s a foil for his adversaries - maybe he’s an ‘intuition pump’! - but he needs to listen to the old saw, ‘Denial is not a river in Egypt’ :-)
There's no consensus on the vast majority of open questions in psychology. Why is the definition of consciousness special here. Notwithstanding, we're not here talking about a lack of consensus about a solution, we're talking about claims that whole fields of enquiry are not even addressing the question.
Quoting Marchesk
Yes. You're using the fact that people hold consciousness to be something deeply mysterious as an argument that consciousness is deeply mysterious. It's circular. How can you demonstrate consciousness is not identical to certain functions (and so we can indeed tell what's conscious and what isn't) without calling on the fact that people don't believe it to be so?
Quoting Marchesk
Again, it does for me and it matches the criteria for a satisfactory explaination of 'how' in all other cases I can think of. You keep just saying it doesn't explain how without addressing my examples of cases where such types of explanation are considered to have exactly answered the question 'how'.
Quoting Marchesk
Now you're changing the question to 'why'. Again, ask why we have noses and developmental or evolutionary answers are considered completely satisfactory, so the answer to your question is...we benefit from a narrative form of combining sensory information which identifies our body as the subject of such sensation because we can plan and respond better to changing opportunities in our environment which gives us a competetive advantage in our niche.
I'm not asking if you agree with that answer (I'm not even sure I do) I'm asking why it isn't even addressing the question, as @schopenhauer1 claims.
Because schopenhauer1 is not a zombie, in the sense that he has got something called subjective experience. He maintains a difference between subjects and objects.
Because I just don't see how one gets color, sound, taste out of number, shape, extension. It's that simple. Dennett is wanting to say the world is just explainable in terms of Locke's primary qualities. Which in modern language is function and structure. But the secondary qualities, or the sensations of consciousness, aren't derived from the primary ones.
So we're left with explanations that explain the underlying mechanisms, as best we've figured out so far, but not the resulting sensations. The best people on Dennett's side can do is dismiss the senasations as an illusion, leaving nothing but the cognitive trick to be explained.
The implication of Dennett's arguments is that we are p-zombies, fooled into thinking we have conscious experiences which can't be explained by the physical mechanisms, or at least, we haven't figured out how to do so. But it's all just a magic show. There's no real mystery, no cognitive closure, no dualism. Physicalism is adequate.
Yes, adequate, with respect to empirical knowledge. Would you agree with me, that human reason is often not satisfied with the merely adequate?
Certainly in the case of consciousness. There may be a few other exceptions. I was just stating the implication of Dennett's arguments.
Agreed, on consciousness, and understood on Dennett.
Thanks.
As Melkor stole Elves and corrupted them into Orcs, so biologists took the concept of life and removed all subjectivity from it. Can't bear the buggers. They don't take philosophy seriously. All of them, no exceptions. The worst of the scientists.
Why yes, one possible answer among many.
By the way, the fact that we have two interconnected brains (left, right) rather than one can be used to solve the "Cartesian theater" paradox. Instead of an infinite regress of theater viewers, you can conceive of just two viewers sharing notes and impressions.
Yes, you could conceive that...
then you could test it (say with severe epilepsy patients who've had the connection between their right and left hemispheres severed)...
if only there were some discipline where literally hundreds of well-trained researchers were looking into this exact type of conjecture and then reporting the results on some kind of global information sharing system...
then we wouldn't have to just sit around making uninformed speculations...
if only...
All of this can be summed up as, "Some people feel we need a new model to talk about consciousness," which I have said several times I do not object to. But NO one is saying that consciousness does not come from the brain.
That's the only real issue we have. I think you've misinterpreted the idea that a different model alters reality, or that needing a new model overrides what we already know. It does not.
Indeed, which is far more than you can say for anything in 'Quining Qualia'... :-)
Quoting Isaac
You asked for speculations in this post, remember? If you didn't want then, you shouldn't have asked for them....
Let me say it, then: we don't know for a fact that consciousness comes only from the brain. It could emerge from the entire nervous system, or even from the entire body.
Actually, that is within acceptable science. The nervous system can be seen as an extension of the brain. Losing an arm means the consciousness of having an arm is altered. I did not say consciousness only comes from the brain. But to deny consciousness comes from the brain at all? That's clearly wrong.
One of the famous aphorisms of the French enlightenment was that 'the brain secretes thought as the liver secretes bile'. Of course that is a vulgar statement and one which msny sophisticated materialists would reject. But it does capture something fundamental about materialism, which is the claim that 'only matter exists' - so that, whatever thought or the mind must be, it must be continuous with matter, it must arise as the doings of matter. Matter is the fundamental explanatory sub-strate, and the 'laws of physics' the only ultimately real laws. That is materialism 101.
So - I broadly accept the outlines of modern scientific cosmology - the hot big bang, evolution by natural selectoin over aeons. I'm not arguing for special creation or a separate 'mind-stuff'. The argumet I'm putting is that no matter how much is known of the laws of physics - and for that matter, there are many enormous gaps at this point! - the laws of logic, mathematica, and the like, belong to a different explanatory level altogether. They're real in their own right, not because they evolved. They're not 'the product of evolutiion' - which is, after all, a biological theory, not an episemology. H. Sapiens evolved to the point where the massive forebrain - one of the most stupendous evolutionary bursts known to science - is able to grasp ideas. I mean, 'the law of the excluded middle' didn't come into existence on account of evolution. What evolved was the capacity to understand. Sapience, in fact.
You will note that Dennett, in addition to his full-time job as professor of scientism, has a side gig as one of the world's most vocal atheists. So it's natural he has to deny the reality of mind. Mind doesn't exist anywhere 'in nature' - we see other beings with minds, specifically other people and the higher animals. But the nature of mind eludes objectification, for the reasons I have been discussion. So, what to do, other than deny it. Which is basically all there is to it. What is that saying? ' For every problem there is a solution that is simple, neat—and wrong.' This is one such case.
Review of Thomas Nagel, Mind and Cosmos. Nagel is an acedemic philosopher and secular critic of materialism.
No, I clearly didn't. I asked for examples of an answer to the question which were different from Dennett's in such a way as to offer an explanation of why people think Dennett isn't even addressing the question. all you've done is given me the first half (an example answer), you've left off the second half (why is this an example answer, but Dennett's not).
Say we have an unknown quantity - how many red coins there are in a jar. You say 30, others say 35, Dennett comes along and say 0 and everybody tries to claim he's not even addressing the question. 0 is a perfectly reasonable answer to the question. You may not agree with it, but it's a dishonest move to try and avoid counter arguments by claiming it's not even an answer to the question.
I'm not accusing you of doing the above, by the way, my original question was addressed to @schopenhauer1, I'm explaining what I was looking for in an answer (see how easy it is!).
A separate soul implies dualism. But there is no definite Christian position on a separate soul, as IEP notes:
Quoting Immortality - IEP
Quoting Marchesk
Yes though, as the above IEP quote suggests, human soul/body dualism may have more to do with the influence of Platonism than with monotheistic religion itself.
It seems to me that the emergence of sentience is the fundamental issue. Now note how Nagel frames the issue:
Quoting Wayfarer
The inclusion of objective and subjective only appears in Nagel's proposal, not Hacker's. The description of the "objective spatio-temporal order" is Nagel's "view from nowhere". "Subjective experiences" translates as "radically private experiences" (that can't be described "objectively"). Thus a hard problem arises by definition, due to the subject/object dualism.
No such hard problem arises in Hacker's proposal since it doesn't assume subject/object dualism. In ordinary language, we experience the world, and therefore that is what we naturally investigate and describe (from our particular points of view).
And how is "7894785327954" not an equally "reasonable" answer, in the absence of any empirical fact? You lost yourself in a sea of empty speculations now...
I don’t accept Hackers elision of the duality of subject and object. I did a bit of reading arounf on Hacker on Wittgenstein. As is well known W was a strong critic of 'scientism' - something which I obviously agree with. But we read:
https://ndpr.nd.edu/news/wittgenstein-and-scientism/
Wojldn't 'eliminative materialism' be considered, by these criteria, a complete abrogation of the 'sense of wonder'? That the mind itself, reason itself, is simply the expression of the unconscious doings of billions of celliular automata? That it is in fact the most virulent expresssion of 'scientism' in contemprary literatre? I would be hard pressed to find a sharper example.
I'm puzzled by the way you're trying to accomodate Dennett's materialism and reconclise it with philosophies and principles with which it so celarly at odds.
So I'm pointing out that it's a purely philosophical distinction that has no use in ordinary life or scientific practice.
Arguing against systematically misleading terminology is entirely consistent with Hacker's, Wittgenstein's and Aristotle's approaches. And to argue against dualism doesn't imply agreement with Dennett's materialism. As I noted to you earlier, I reject both materialism and dualism.
Materialism fails because it still accepts half of the dualist's premise, namely Nagel's "view from nowhere". That barren landscape may well abrogate one's sense of wonder, but the solution is not to tack on ghosts. The solution is to reject dualism in its entirety, and understand the human being as a natural and inseparable unity.
the distinction between objective and subjective is clear in plain languge.
1. Object: a material thing that can be seen and touched.
"he was dragging a large object"
2. a person or thing to which a specified action or feeling is directed.
"he became the object of a criminal investigation"
(I'll omit the verb 'to object'.)
The meaning of subject and subjecitve are various, but suffice to note that, in ordinary language, human subjects not referred to by the impersonal pronouns it or that but by he, she or they. Humans have a subjective history, perspectives,and inclinations which cannot at all be ascribed to objects (unless you're panpsychist, which I'm not.)
Incidentally I am reading Nagel's View from Nowhere, which is a slog, but I don't think it says anything like what you appear to think it says. It looks at the way science presumes to arrive at a view from nowhere, that is, one that is not at all under the influence of subjective factors. It goes through a number of paradigmantic philosophical positions in the light ot the contrast between the impersonal, scientific view, and the perspective of living beings - subject!
Quoting Andrew M
The word 'natural' already containes carries baggage! You're still narrowing the scope of what the human might be, to a definitioin that is satisfactory to naturalism, when that is one of the points at issue. The Greeks, for instance, tried to trace the origin of reason in the mind and in universe through reasoned argument and introspection.
The ordinary usages are fine. I'm arguing against the specifically philosophical subject/object distinction which is also stated in that source:
For reference, see also subject (philosophy) and object (philosophy).
Quoting Wayfarer
That's the philosophical subject/object dualism that I'm arguing against. Scientific models are abstractions of human experience, they are not independent of human experience.
Quoting Wayfarer
Human nature (which includes human rationality) is a part of nature. Yours and my disagreement here reflects the disagreement between Plato and Aristotle. Aristotle considered form to be immanent in nature (hence hylomorphism), whereas Plato considered form to transcend nature (hence Plato's Forms).
I think you're right. I read a remark by an Oxford don that every philosopher is one or the other, and I'm definitely the former. At least it gives an amicable ground for disagreement!
:up: