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[Neopolitan]

... viewed from a naturalistic perspective, 'consciousness' does indeed appear only ever as 'an attribute of conscious beings' such as animals and people; furthermore, understanding how such beings evolve provides the naturalistic account of the way consciousness developed. And I think that is what you're appealing to.

But the problem that Strawson has identified with invoking 'emergence' is that 'there isn’t anything about matter in virtue of which conscious experience could arise from it; or that if there is, we have literally no idea what it could be'. That is, perhaps, a restatement of the hard problem of consciousness - that no amount of information about third-person, objective entities reveals 'what it is like to be alive' - that is, consciousness is irreducibly first-person, or has a quality or qualities which are irreducibly different to anything revealed by solely objective analysis. So even though consciousness is an attribute of organisms, accounting for its particular qualities (such as intentionality, its first-person nature, and so forth) on the basis of what is known about matter and even about evolutionary theory, presents insuperable problems.

Strawson is just appealing to ignorance. I find it interesting that his name, galen, means insane in Swedish. Now you probably had "literally no idea" what the word galen means, but the fact that you didn't know what it means in Swedish doesn't make it impossible that it is actually means something, does it?

I think that you are implying that I am fixed on seeking a naturalistic explanation for consciousness (or perhaps just rejecting any explanation that is not naturalistic). That's not really the case. I'd be happy with any form of explanation for consciousness so long as it is concordant with reality. If reality isn't naturalistic, then I'd be happy if that were made clear.

What I won't accept is the assertion that because we can't currently explain this one thing by means of the process that has comprehensively explained pretty much everything we have put our minds to explaining, that that means we need to throw up our hands, right now, and imagine that we are ghosts in our biological machines.

I do agree, as I have pointed out before, that trying to explain consciousness by reduction isn't likely to work. But I think it is cheating to posit mind-stuff and say that consciousness is due to mind-stuff - because this is just another form of reductionism (and I suspect that Strawson is arguing to open the doors to mind-stuff).

So the idea that consciousness is explained by a 'natural mechanism' also begs the question because it simply assumes that 'consciousness is the product of natural or material processes', without giving any real account of what it is or why it developed in the first place (except for as a function of biological adaption, which is hardly a sufficient reason.)

More appeals to ignorance really and, as I said above, it's not so much that people are single-mindedly seeking a "natural mechanism" to the exclusion of any "real mechanism", if the real mechanism isn't natural. There is, though, the problem of introducing some other sort of process simply to explain consciousness, given that everything else can be explained by natural and material processes. History has shown that these unexplained areas tend to shrink over time and while we may not currently have a real account for what consciousness is and how it developed, this does not mean that we never will. (Note that I changed a "why" for a "how" - the "why" used like that tends to beg a question itself.)

For such thinkers humanity is an emergent property of (or inherent in) mammal DNA, which is an emergent property of reptile DNA, which naturally arise in turn from amphibian, fish, and ultimately protozoan DNA; the formation of DNA in general is an emergent property of complex protein molecules, and then of simple molecules and atoms, which inevitably arise in solar systems and are an emergent property of the cosmic conditions created by the Big Bang.

So wrong. And such a questionable quote. Where does it come from? In what context was the tract written? And who is Robert Zimmer? I'm guessing they mean the German philosopher who has written about Popper and not the American mathematician.

But getting back to it being wrong. The implication is that "such thinkers" refers to Richard Dawkins and Charles Darwin although this isn't really terribly clear. But I don't think that it is true that either of them see "humanity" in the way being suggested - perhaps sort of emergent, but certainly not "inherent in". What is "humanity" in this context anyway? It is simply the state of being of the species homo sapiens, or is it something more (and thus something that Richard Dawkins would probably argue doesn't exist)? To suggest that mammalian DNA is "an emergent property of reptile DNA" is simply bonkers, Dawkins is an evolutionary biologist so we wouldn't say that. And in any event, it's an fundamental misrepresentation of what "emergent" means.

If this is what you think "emergent" means, then we are talking at cross purposes (and I suspect that you are talking at cross purposes with Fooloso5 as well).

[Fooloso4]

Quotidian:

So the idea that consciousness is explained

To say that consciousness emerged is not an explanation. In itself it explains nothing.

For such thinkers humanity is an emergent property

A really bad argument. It treats emergence as a property of an organism. It assumes that whatever properties we find in human beings must be found encoded in everything starting from the Big Bang.

Science deals with what you see out the window; philosophy reflects on you looking out the window.

That depends on what kind of questions you are asking when you reflect on yourself looking out the window. If you ask: “how is it that I am conscious of anything outside the window, or the window, or me looking out the window?”, then I do not see why these are questions that cannot be answered by understanding biological function (I do not mean functionalism). You start at the wrong end. Rather than reflect on yourself looking out the window, scientists look at less complex organisms, neural pathways, the bio-chemistry of the brain, etc. How any of this gives rise to consciousness remains an unknown, but the only reason to assume that only consciousness can give rise to consciousness is because you have already made the division, because you have already decided there must be a prior existing consciousness.

Newton's law of acceleration' exists

The law exists as a description. It does not prescribe how things must act, it describes how they do act.

the structure of thinking, of language, and so on, plays a foundational role in the formation of knowledge

But I am saying that the structure is not a permanent or invariant structure, it is culturally constructed, shaped, and determined.

What I am saying is that such things are internal to the process of thought, they are not givens in the world of phenomena or of nature. And I think that amounts to 'an ontological distinction'.

And this is why the Wittgenstein of the Tractatus comes to your aid but not the Wittgenstein who came to reject the Tractatus. The Tractatus intends to uncover the logical structure shared by thought and the world. For the latter Wittgenstein, however, the logic or grammar of language is arbitrary and determined by our form(s) of life. In the latter work he says very little about the world and nothing about metaphysics except to unravel the confusion that gives rise to metaphysical questions.

[The Beast]

Manipulations in the laboratory have created new life forms,. However replicating the original forces that created life as we know it may prove more difficult. How long does a chemical compound last without decaying? Millions of years of slow change are necessary. That is a property of living tissue: decay…age… Time. Do we have millions of years to reproduce the process? Perhaps a computer algorism could help but what about all the unknown possible variables. A reversal of equilibrium forces and compounds open to particle interactions due to decay. The forces are unknown and the interactions are unknown. It is energy seeking for sure much like the body we are born with. In my beginning there is the blob. In the “blob” the chemical composition is of a large percentage of water to allow the movement of particles mostly high energetic photons. This movement could follow the energy conservation ; Newtonian physics and positive; negative or zero. Much like cosmology but, with known parameters of matter. Within the energy flux, free particles of decay flow with different amplitudes and frequencies. Beginning, expansion, decay. Cognition follows potential; expansion; decay. Is there a preservation of features? I believe that evolution is conformal. But why not logically say that if the brain produces waves, this wave (the sum) is also conformal to the Universal origin. The Universal origin is a mechanism of seeking Energy conformal to thought.

[Neznac]

But history is not teleological. Perhaps following Nietzsche’s lead Margolis looks back behind Plato and the world that we still in many ways see according to the image he created, to Parmenides and Heraclitus.

I've been thinking about the concept of evolution in and of itself and come to the conclusion that it is both Parmenidian and Heraclitian. We usually think of evolution as the historical account of change, so in that sense it would seem to embody the philosophy of Heraclitus, however, just as essentially evolution is about the unchanging. The genetic history of life is really about preserving that which is eternal and true to its original manifestation, of course over time there will be structural and functional changes to that primordial living tissue but whatever remains must conform to certain aspects which will preserve its eternal nature.

Is there anything Platonic in the theory of evolution? Yes, it seems that both structurally and functionally something eternal is preserved. Can this preserved nature be reduced to the physical, as the term 'Biological Materialism' would seem to suggest? Obviously it cannot be preserved if one examines it from a spatial or a temporal perspective, but it does appear preservable when recalibrated from a spacetime domain. What am I talking about? Life itself.

The notion examined earlier with some extremely wonderful thoughts from all posters was concerned with whether we could somehow erase/reject the influence of culture on our conceptions and experience the stark purity of nature itself. This same project was the main undertaking of Husserl when he described the potential experience of the "phenomenological reduction" - but as his student Eugen Fink pointed out many years later there is no language in which to describe or in any way to direct one to accomplish such an experience. Merleau-Ponty gave us directions of a sort but after all the pages of text have been read can that deeper understanding really be attained? Even if one was able to purely experience nature with all the cultural baggage completely bracketed out, how would one even begin to relate such an experience to anyone else? All I can think of is that when two such creatures would meet, they would alternatively stick their tongues into each others ears! Now that would be saying something! (Have Dawkins and Strawson ever really met?)

[Radar]

It treats emergence as a property of an organism.

That's precisely what the universe is -- an organism. There is actual life pulsating throughout the mechanism.

[Fooloso4]

Neznac:

The genetic history of life is really about preserving that which is eternal and true to its original manifestation, of course over time there will be structural and functional changes to that primordial living tissue but whatever remains must conform to certain aspects which will preserve its eternal nature.

What is this that is eternal and true that manifests itself in the first primitive life forms? Do you mean things like reoccurring patterns that we find in nature such as Fibonacci numbers, golden means, etc.?

As I understand the solution to the problem of intelligibility within the Heraclitian flux is not to posit something eternal that does not change but, rather, to see things in terms of temporal duration, the rate at which things change relative to other things. That one can step into a river at all means that there is temporal duration. The river continues to change but it does so slowly and thus remains relatively stable.

From an evolutionary perspective there are biological features that endure over time that remain relatively stable, and may from the human scale appear to remain unchanged, we should not conclude that they are eternal.

Is there anything Platonic in the theory of evolution? Yes … Life itself.

Life as a Form in distinction from forms of life? From a Platonic perspective it would have to be subsumed under the Good, which is said to be the cause of both the Forms and their intelligibility. So now you would have life itself as eternal and unchanging and either drop the Platonic scheme at that point or there would have to be something beyond life which is the cause of life.

The notion examined earlier … whether we could somehow erase/reject the influence of culture on our conceptions and experience the stark purity of nature itself … "phenomenological reduction" … no language in which to describe or in any way to direct one to accomplish such an experience … Even if one was able to purely experience nature with all the cultural baggage completely bracketed out, how would one even begin to relate such an experience to anyone else?

Good point. For the Buddhist the problem of communication between those who live within such experience is solved because they are one mind. The problem of directing someone to accomplish such an experience is a given. Plato addresses this too. There is no method. For Husserl, however, this is a real problem because he was not interested in pure contemplation or nirvana. A science of mind without the ability to talk about it is a problem. As to ontology, Husserl was a transcendental idealist. He maintained that consciousness constitutes the object of the mind but brackets (that is, does not address) questions regarding the object itself. He believed, however, that we do not constitute objects via cultural determination but in accord with invariant features of consciousness.

-- Updated October 3rd, 2014, 3:32 pm to add the following --

Neo:

And in any event, it's an fundamental misrepresentation of what "emergent" means.

Right. There is are two senses of emergent, and based on what Zimmer says he appears to be confused about the difference. And perhaps some on this board are as well? If so, then Neo is right that we may be talking at cross purposes. An emergent property in one sense means that the property is already present but concealed and at some point appears. That is what Zimmer seems to have in mind. But there is another sense of emergence in which the property is not already there lying concealed. The property emerges out, is the result of, the interaction of two or more things or processes. It is not additive but dynamic. That is, we do not find one part in one thing and the other in something else. Green is not an emergent property of combining blue and yellow, since green is reducible to blue and yellow. An emergent property is irreducible to its parts.

[Neopolitan]

Re emergent, since this is philosophy of science, I thought we should be using the definition that dominates in philosophy and science:

In philosophy, systems theory, science, and art, emergence is conceived as a process whereby larger entities, patterns, and regularities arise through interactions among smaller or simpler entities that themselves do not exhibit such properties. In philosophy, almost all accounts of emergence include a form of irreducibility (either epistemic or ontological) to the lower levels.

I do note, however, that the last sentence implies that there are a small number of philosophers for whom philosophical emergence is not irreducible. That does make things confusing, doesn't it?

Perhaps Zimmer belongs to that group. If so, he should have been clear in his writing that he was using "emergent" in a quite different way to pretty much everyone else - but like many he may have been remiss in his duties to make such things clear. Either way, the quote was misleading (irrespective of whether the misleading was performed by Zimmer or Quotidian).

[Fooloso4]

Neo:

I do note, however, that the last sentence implies that there are a small number of philosophers for whom philosophical emergence is not irreducible. That does make things confusing, doesn't it?

It does. I am not sure what a reducible emergence would mean since as I understand it, the whole idea of emergence is that it produces something that it not in the thinks that make it up.

I misread Zimmer. Too many different ideas being tossed around. I should read more careful before saying anything. That’s the downside of having everything you say on the record. I have also said that it is the upside when it works in my favor. If I understand him correctly he is talking about a series of emergent properties traced back to the Big Bang. I am probably out of my depth here, but I don’t see what the objection would be.

[Quotidian]

I acknowledge that quote from Zimmer (who is not a known academic, but more a counter-cultural critic, from what I can discern) was on face value, pretty insubstantial. I just picked it to make a point in regard to the Karl Popper quote that it was juxtaposed with. The Popper quote, if you read it again, refers to Dawkin's 'Selfish Gene', which is one of the canonical texts of biological materialism. That kind of thinking does insist that there is 'one basic kind of stuff in the universe, and that it is matter~energy, and that everything about mind and life can be understood as a form of that stuff'. That is what 'physicalism' or 'materialism' means. The idea is elaborated elsewhere by Dennett especially in his 'Darwin's Dangerous Idea', a book that was eviscerated by a number of influential critics, such as Stephen J Gould and H Allen Orr, but represents the type of 'biological materialism' that is the subject of this thread.

I believe in a single substance, the mother of all forces, which engenders the life and consciousness of everything, visible and invisible. I believe in a single Lord, biology, the unique son of the substance of the world, born from the mother substance after centuries of random shuffling of material: the encapsulated reflection of the great material sea, the epiphenomenal light of primordial darkness, the false reflection of the real world, consubstantial with the mother-substance. It is he who has descended from the shadows of the mother-substance, he who has taken on flesh from matter, he who plays at the illusion of thought from flesh, he who has become the Human Brain. I acknowledge a single method for the elimination of error, thus ultimately eliminating myself and returning to the mother substance. Amen.

Anonymous.

I am doing bit more research on 'emergence' and will have more on it later.

[Neopolitan]

I do note, however, that the last sentence implies that there are a small number of philosophers for whom philosophical emergence is not irreducible. That does make things confusing, doesn't it?

It does. I am not sure what a reducible emergence would mean since as I understand it, the whole idea of emergence is that it produces something that it not in the thinks that make it up.

I misread Zimmer. Too many different ideas being tossed around. I should read more careful before saying anything. That’s the downside of having everything you say on the record. I have also said that it is the upside when it works in my favor. If I understand him correctly he is talking about a series of emergent properties traced back to the Big Bang. I am probably out of my depth here, but I don’t see what the objection would be.

If we read Zimmer as generously as possible, he could be saying that the conditions necessary for each hugely simplified stage in his progression are emergent from the bits and pieces of the previous stage. This would not, of course, say that there is a necessary upwards progression from:

• physics to
• chemistry to
• organic chemistry to
• pre-biotic organisation and replication to
• single celled organisms to
• colonies of single celled organisms to
• multicellular organisms and then through
• invertebrates and then through
• ancient fish and then through
• ancient amphibians and then through
• ancient reptiles and then through
• ancient mammals and then through
• early proto-simians and then through
• early apes to finally arrive at
• the ape we call homo sapiens

All we would be saying is that the conditions that were necessary for homo sapiens to evolve out of early apes were (partially) emergent in those early ape. I say (partially) because there were of course conditions that had nothing to do with those early apes, such as changes to the Earth's environment and evolutionary pressures on other species (including plant species) that led to a retreat of the forests and the expansion of grasslands (and species that eat grass) that made endurance hunting of early hominids both necessary and successful.

This does not imply, in any way, that the condition of "being human" (note that this is a different meaning of "condition" here) somehow resides untapped in sponges.

Would you agree?

---

<snip>The Popper quote, if you read it again, refers to Dawkin's 'Selfish Gene', which is one of the canonical texts of biological materialism.<snip>

No, no, no, no, no, no. No.

Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong!

Imagine, if you like, me waving my little fists in the air and stamping around in incoherent rage. Then imagine me calming down in order to address someone who clearly has things hopelessly muddled, despite claiming to be a successful senior technical writer.

The simple facts are that 1) there is no movement that refers to itself as "biological materialism" and 2) there is, within the grouping that you might well label as representing "biological materialism", no canonical text whatsoever, not even one. Nothing, absolutely nothing, is regarded as untouchable or sacred within the endeavour of science. If something Dawkins says or Darwin wrote is found to be wrong, then it will be discarded, and much of what they have said and written is incorrect in the details and/or been overtaken by later findings.

The only reason anything said by anyone within science is retained is because it is repeatedly shown to be consistent with reality. The big prizes, in case you haven't noticed, don't tend to go to people who come along and merely confirm the prevailing view, they go to those who tear at the complacency of current assumptions and reveal that we were wrong about some key element of our world view. There is always someone clawing at Newton, or Darwin, or Maxwell, or Lorentz, or Einstein, or Hawking, and if what they had (and have) to say endures despite constant attack, then they will continue to be accorded an appropriate level of respect - but never, ever will they be accorded the infallibility that is implied by referring to things canonical.

If someone can come along and convincingly show that modern science has it all wrong, despite having tremendously advanced technology with which to probe reality, and that some ancient chaps who only recently upgraded from goat-herding had it all correct after all, then there will be prizes all round and much scratching of heads. But I won't be putting my money, nor my life-style on those rather long odds.

[Quotidian]

In fact there is such a phenomenon as 'the culture war', within which figures such as Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennett play a not inconsiderable part. And in fact, neither of them are scientists, nor do they publish scientific papers nor provide scientific hypotheses. They are popular writers, and Dennett is a professor of philosophy, and from that position, advocates a materialist theory of mind which I think it a perfectly fair target of criticism.

Bearing that that in mind:

If something Dawkins says or Darwin wrote is found to be wrong, then it will be discarded, and much of what they have said and written is incorrect in the details and/or been overtaken by later findings.

Would that this were so! But in fact, there are very many people who insist that what they say is wrong, and many, like myself, who believe their ideas really ought to be discarded,[correction, I was referring to Dawkins and Dennett, here, not Darwin] but as it happens, they sell very many books, and Richard Dawkins was named in the 2013 Propect Magazine poll, which is apparently quite influential, as 'the world's most influential public intellectual'.

Now as it happens, one of their philosophical adversaries is a British scientist by the name of Rupert Sheldrake, who is, unlike both of then, a published scientist, whose original work was on crop science, but who then went on to publish an influential but much maligned book called 'The Science Delusion' which aims to show that precisely the kind of philosophical materialism espoused by both Dawkins and Dennett is deeply flawed. But that book is not a scientific work, either, but a philosophical one, and Sheldrake is routinely derided for being a pseudo-scientist; not because of any of his scientific work, but because of the kinds of ideas he has.

So your idealised picture of 'science' as a pure intellectual methodology that advances through destroying its own sacred cows is exactly that - an idealised picture. Mainstream science and scientists do have vested interests and worldviews and beliefs and many of the other things that non-scientists have, which even influence the kinds of directions they take their research in, and the kinds of things that are considered legitimate subjects for science. Furthermore science has immense prestige and influence in many fields other than science, and in many ways beyond what is published via peer-reviewed scientific papers.

Strawson is just appealing to ignorance. I find it interesting that his name, galen, means insane in Swedish. Now you probably had "literally no idea" what the word galen means, but the fact that you didn't know what it means in Swedish doesn't make it impossible that it is actually means something, does it?

I think that you are implying that I am fixed on seeking a naturalistic explanation for consciousness (or perhaps just rejecting any explanation that is not naturalistic). That's not really the case. I'd be happy with any form of explanation for consciousness so long as it is concordant with reality. If reality isn't naturalistic, then I'd be happy if that were made clear.

What I won't accept is the assertion that because we can't currently explain this one thing by means of the process that has comprehensively explained pretty much everything we have put our minds to explaining, that that means we need to throw up our hands, right now, and imagine that we are ghosts in our biological machines.

I do agree, as I have pointed out before, that trying to explain consciousness by reduction isn't likely to work. But I think it is cheating to posit mind-stuff and say that consciousness is due to mind-stuff - because this is just another form of reductionism (and I suspect that Strawson is arguing to open the doors to mind-stuff).

Strawson is not appealing to ignorance, though. It is more a matter that, no matter how much we know about chemistry or physics, or for that matter biochemistry or neurophysiology, nothing within those domains of knowledge accounts for the primary attributes of consciousness in the sense that we won't arrive at an account of 'what it is to be a being' by the addition of more information of that kind; it is mistaken in principle and not as a matter of degree.

Panpsychism was discussed with many references in the thread Panpsychism: Credible or Not?. Whilst I don't wish to propose the panpsychist solution I think the point that its advocates make about the 'explanatory gap' regarding nature of mind are valid.

There is, though, the problem of introducing some other sort of process simply to explain consciousness, given that everything else can be explained by natural and material processes.

The point I am making is that the kinds of things that are explicable in principle by natural and material processes can be analysed in objective terms; they appear as phenomena and are thus amenable to investigation by the natural sciences according to the criteria of objectivity. And the nature of consciousness is different in principle, because it is first-person, it is both the subject and the object of knowledge in this case, which has profound implications.

The reason why physics is paradigmatic for the natural sciences is precisely because it applies to objects which can be described wholly and precisely in quantitative terms. The applicability of the 'laws of motion' (and regardless of the fact that they don't hold in the sub-atomic domain) entails universal effectiveness. This is why, even now, physicalism wishes to consider only those things which are amenable to the kind of quantitative methodology apparently offered by the 'hard sciences', and why those who regard science as the ideal form of knowledge, do so on account of the degree of universal accuracy, success, and predictability that science has achieved with regards to the kinds of things that are amenable to its methods. And it is impossible to deny that many if not all of the most spectacular achievement of modern technology are due in part or whole to the success of physics, and the remainder very largely due to the success of disciplined quantitative analysis.

But when you appeal to the 'success of the natural sciences', whilst they are indubitably impressive in their domain of application, to say that they ought to applicable to any kind of question whatever - such as the one we're considering here regarding the nature of consciousness - is analogous to saying that 'metal detectors have had far greater success in finding coins and other metallic objects in more places than any other method has. Therefore as the kind of things that you're seeking can't be detected by metal detectors, we have no reason to believe that there is anything of significance to be found'; or that, 'when whatever you're referring to is found, it will of course be some form of metal.'

But, note that science as a methodology, proceeds by excluding the kinds of things which are not amenable to quantitative analysis. Such things include, for example, consideration of value, purpose, aesthetics, and meaning - which are of fundamental interest to humans. The more cavalier materialists will generally insist that all such things are inessential, epiphenomenal, 'emergent', even; while what is real are precisely those things which 'the natural sciences' insist can be measured with great accuracy, as has been demonstrated by physics in particular, and the scientific method, in general.

So I am far from claiming that 'modern science has it all wrong'. All I am saying is that not everything is within its scope, and some of the things that are not, are of fundamental significance. The 'naturalist project' which is championed by the likes of Dawkins, Dennett, Steve Pinker, et al, doesn't or can't recognize the limits to science, in that sense; as far as they are concerned, philosophy, religion, psychology, and so on, are all essentially subsumed under the heading of science; as Pinker says ' the worldview that guides the moral and spiritual values of an educated person today is the worldview given to us by science'. I disagree: I think insofar as science is 'a worldview', then it is no longer science, but a substitute for religion and philosophy. Our views can and must be informed by science, but they are not given by it.

I am very astonished that the scientific picture of the real world around me is deficient. It gives a lot of factual information, puts all our experience in a magnificently consistent order, but it is ghastly silent about all and sundry that is really near to our heart, that really matters to us. It cannot tell us a word about red and blue, bitter and sweet, physical pain and physical delight; it knows nothing of beautiful and ugly, good or bad, God and eternity. Science sometimes pretends to answer questions in these domains, but the answers are very often so silly that we are not inclined to take them seriously.

-- Updated October 4th, 2014, 3:51 pm to add the following --

The notion examined earlier with some extremely wonderful thoughts from all posters was concerned with whether we could somehow erase/reject the influence of culture on our conceptions and experience the stark purity of nature itself…

Bear in mind the importance of 'renunciation' in Buddhist philosophy; Buddhism is originally a renunciate philosophy, that is, espouses and is practiced by monks who have by definition rejected social life and live in seclusion. Obviously as time has passed, that original ideal has been adapted to social realities and indeed in Japan and elsewhere there are married monks and hereditary priests. But the original point remains; in Indian culture, generally, there is the idea of 'going forth', of living in the wilderness and beyond the confines of cultural and social mores. So the original form of Buddhist philosophical psychology, the abhidharma, is quite adept at identifying mental structures and the like, and at understanding how social conditioning influences mental processes (even if they didn't use that terminology.)

Is there anything Platonic in the theory of evolution?

That depends a lot on what you mean by 'Platonic'. In the early modern conception of biology, I think you would find that there was some influence of Platonism on the whole notion of 'taxonomy' and sorting animals and plants into classifications; I would have to research it to be certain, but I'm pretty sure you could argue for some Platonist elements in the work of Carl Linneaus. There's also a modern biologist called Michael Denton who argues for some type of Platonic archetypes in relation to the forms that animals take due to evolution, but you I think he has become generally associated with 'intelligent design' nowadays (as anyone who dares question the orthodoxy generally is.)

How any of this gives rise to consciousness remains an unknown, but the only reason to assume that only consciousness can give rise to consciousness is because you have already made the division, because you have already decided there must be a prior existing consciousness.

And I say it is a legitimate distinction to make. You will notice how controversial the idea is, that 'mind' is *not* something that can be explained in Darwinian terms as an epiphenomenon of the material brain; it upsets the conventional world-picture, which is why Thomas Nagel's book on the subject generated such hostility.

Secondly, regardless of the fact that physical laws are descriptive, not proscriptive, my point is that the nature of the existence of laws, is of a different order to the nature of the existence of things that are subject to laws; but that when the law of the acceleration of matter was discovered, it was a discovery about something that was real. So my argument is that there is 'a domain of law' which is ontologically distinct from 'the domain of phenomena'. I will pursue that elsewhere.

[Neznac]

What is this that is eternal and true that manifests itself in the first primitive life forms? Do you mean things like reoccurring patterns that we find in nature such as Fibonacci numbers, golden means, etc.?

I was making reference to the chemistry at the foundations of life up to the structure of complex proteins and the function of replication. Perhaps the word 'eternal' is loaded, but replication does contain the potential of eternal existence.

I understand the solution to the problem of intelligibility within the Heraclitian flux is not to posit something eternal that does not change but, rather, to see things in terms of temporal duration, the rate at which things change relative to other things. That one can step into a river at all means that there is temporal duration. The river continues to change but it does so slowly and thus remains relatively stable.

From an evolutionary perspective there are biological features that endure over time that remain relatively stable, and may from the human scale appear to remain unchanged, we should not conclude that they are eternal.

I was simply thinking of the Heraclitian formula "the only eternal thing is change itself." This is a reference to what is eternal as opposed to the Parmenidean posit that only numbers are eternal.

Life as a Form in distinction from forms of life? From a Platonic perspective it would have to be subsumed under the Good, which is said to be the cause of both the Forms and their intelligibility. So now you would have life itself as eternal and unchanging and either drop the Platonic scheme at that point or there would have to be something beyond life which is the cause of life.

Well, I should not have brought in Plato but stayed with Parmenides

Good point. For the Buddhist the problem of communication between those who live within such experience is solved because they are one mind. The problem of directing someone to accomplish such an experience is a given. Plato addresses this too. There is no method. For Husserl, however, this is a real problem because he was not interested in pure contemplation or nirvana. A science of mind without the ability to talk about it is a problem. As to ontology, Husserl was a transcendental idealist. He maintained that consciousness constitutes the object of the mind but brackets (that is, does not address) questions regarding the object itself. He believed, however, that we do not constitute objects via cultural determination but in accord with invariant features of consciousness.

Perhaps it was because Husserl believed in the existence of a transcendental ego in line with Descartes and Kant that he felt it unnecessary to describe the actual experience of the phenomenological reduction?

[Neopolitan]

I am not the one having tantrums here.

I didn't intend to imply that you were. I was trying to indicate, in a humorous way, how irritated I was about your misrepresentation.

In fact there is such a phenomenon as 'the culture war', within which figures such as Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennett play a not inconsiderble part. And in fact, neither of them are scientists, nor do they publish scientific papers, nor provide scientific hypotheses. They are popular writers, and Dennett is a professor of philosophy, and from that position, advocates a materialist theory of mind which I think it a perfectly fair target of criticism.

What? Do you not know what Dawkins is? He's a Doctor of Science in Evolutionary Biology and served as an assistant professor and professor in teaching roles from 1967 to 1995, at which time he pretty much switched to full-time promotion of science:

In 1995, he was appointed Simonyi Professor for the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford, a position that had been endowed by Charles Simonyi with the express intention that the holder "be expected to make important contributions to the public understanding of some scientific field" and that its first holder should be Richard Dawkins.

Dennett actually has more research credentials than Dawkins:

Daniel Clement Dennett III (born March 28, 1942) is an American philosopher, writer, and cognitive scientist whose research centers on the philosophy of mind, philosophy of science and philosophy of biology, particularly as those fields relate to evolutionary biology and cognitive science.

He is currently the Co-director of the Center for Cognitive Studies, the Austin B. Fletcher Professor of Philosophy, and a University Professor at Tufts University.

Noting that Tufts is a private research university.

Your claims here are staggering. Simply staggering. So much so that I have given up trying to be nice and gone back to calling you "Kettle".

Bearing that that in mind:

If something Dawkins says or Darwin wrote is found to be wrong, then it will be discarded, and much of what they have said and written is incorrect in the details and/or been overtaken by later findings.

Would that this were so! But in fact, there are very many people who insist that what they say is wrong, and many, like myself, who believe their ideas really ought to be discarded, but as it happens, they sell very many books, and Richard Dawkins was named in the 2013 Propect Magazine poll, which is apparently quite influential, as 'the world's most influential public intellectual'.

Your beliefs, no matter how strongly and earnestly you hold them do not constitute proof that Dawkins or Darwin are wrong. Science is not a popularity poll, no matter how many ignorant people you enlist to your cause, the only way you are going to convince any scientists that Dawkins and Darwin are wrong on matters of fact is to provide evidence. The same sort of evidence that has been provided to show them wrong on certain details already - I tried to google some examples of Dawkins being wrong but the search is cluttered with Dawkins being wrong on matters of opinion. We're all wrong on matters of opinion all the time, according to someone or another. (Even that statement <--- is probably wrong according to someone, which goes some way to proving my point.)

Now as it happens, one of their philosophical adversaries is a British scientist by the name of Rupert Sheldrake, who is, unlike both of then, a published scientist, whose original work was on crop science, but who then went on to publish an influential but much maligned book called 'The Science Delusion' which aims to show that precisely the kind of philosophical materialism espoused by both Dawkins and Dennett is deeply flawed. But that book is not a scientific work, either, but a philosophical one, and Sheldrake is routinely derided for being a pseudo-scientist; not because of any of his scientific work, but because of the kinds of ideas he has.

Let's ignore for the moment your ridiculous claim that Dawkins and Dennett (who let Dennett in anwyay?) are not scientists. Sheldrake is a scientist, but in the wrong field. You can't just grab the first guy in a white lab jacket who agrees with you and pretend that you have science behind you. Sheldrake has gone from "crop science" to "parapsychology":

Since leaving research biology, he has devoted his time primarily to morphic resonance, in books, articles, and public appearances.

Not exactly looking good for your hero there, Kettle.

So your idealised picture of 'science' as a pure intellectual methodology that advances through destroying its own sacred cows is exactly that - an idealised picture. Mainstream science and scientists do have vested interests and worldviews and beliefs and many of the other things that non-scientists have, which even influence the kinds of directions they take their research in, and the kinds of things that are considered legitimate subjects for science. Furthermore science has immense prestige and influence in many fields other than science, and in many ways beyond what is published via peer-reviewed scientific papers.

There is no doubt that scientists have vested interests and will, at times, stymie those who try to drag them down. Newton was a particularly nasty character that way ... although, we could just attribute that to his being a scientist, couldn't we, and just conveniently ignore that he was also a theist/magical thinker who was hugely into the occult?

Strawson is just appealing to ignorance. I find it interesting that his name, galen, means insane in Swedish. Now you probably had "literally no idea" what the word galen means, but the fact that you didn't know what it means in Swedish doesn't make it impossible that it is actually means something, does it?

I think that you are implying that I am fixed on seeking a naturalistic explanation for consciousness (or perhaps just rejecting any explanation that is not naturalistic). That's not really the case. I'd be happy with any form of explanation for consciousness so long as it is concordant with reality. If reality isn't naturalistic, then I'd be happy if that were made clear.

What I won't accept is the assertion that because we can't currently explain this one thing by means of the process that has comprehensively explained pretty much everything we have put our minds to explaining, that that means we need to throw up our hands, right now, and imagine that we are ghosts in our biological machines.

I do agree, as I have pointed out before, that trying to explain consciousness by reduction isn't likely to work. But I think it is cheating to posit mind-stuff and say that consciousness is due to mind-stuff - because this is just another form of reductionism (and I suspect that Strawson is arguing to open the doors to mind-stuff).

Strawson is not appealing to ignorance, though. It is more a matter that, no matter how much we know about chemistry or physics, or for that matter biochemistry or neurophysics, nothing within those domains of knowledge accounts for the primary attributes of consciousness; we won't arrive at an account of 'what it is to be a being' by the addition of more information of that kind; it is mistaken in principle and not as a matter of degree.

You still seem confused about what emergent means. No-one is claiming that first-person experience is somehow buried in chemistry or physics.

Panpsychism was discussed with many references in the thread Panpsychism: Credible or Not?. Whilst I don't wish to propose the panpsychist solution I think the point that its advocates make about the 'explanatory gap' regarding nature of mind are valid.

Oh well, if you want to run a "magical thinking of the gaps" argument rather than a "god of the gaps" argument, then all power to you. It might help you shore up your world view, but it isn't going to be convincing to anyone who isn't already predisposed to think like you.

There is, though, the problem of introducing some other sort of process simply to explain consciousness, given that everything else can be explained by natural and material processes.

The point I am making is that the kinds of things that are explicable in principle by natural and material processes can be analysed in objective terms; they appear as phenomena and are thus amenable to investigation by the natural sciences according to the criteria of objectivity. And the nature of consciousness is different in principle, because it is first-person, it is both the subject and the object of knowledge in this case, which has profound implications.

Hm? And those are? Profound, yes, maybe, but actually useful in some way other than a method of identifying the quantity of fluff in your navel?

The reason why physics is paradigmatic for the natural sciences is precisely because it applies to the objects which can be described wholly and precisely in quantitative terms. (After all, calculus was largely invented so as to better aim artillery fire.) The applicability of the 'laws of motion' (and regardless of the fact that they don't hold in the sub-atomic domain) entails universal effectiveness. This is why, even now, physicalism wishes to consider only those things which are amenable to the kind of quantitative methodology apparently offered by the 'hard sciences', and why those who regard science as the ideal form of knowledge, do so on account of the degree of universal accuracy, success, and predictability that science has achieved with regards to the kinds of things that are amenable to its methods. And it is impossible to deny that many if not all of the most spectacular achievement of modern technology are due in part or whole to the success of physics, and the remainder very largely due to the success of disciplined qualitative analysis.

But when you appeal to the 'success of the natural sciences', whilst they are indubitably impressive in their domain of application, to say that they ought to applicable to any kind of question whatever - such as the one we're considering here regarding the nature of consciousness - is analogous to saying that 'metal detectors have had far greater success in finding coins and other metallic objects in more places than any other method has. Therefore as the kind of things that you're seeking can't be detected by metal detectors, we have no reason to believe that there is anything of significance to be found'.

You're blurring "physics" and "physicalism". They aren't necessarily the same. You're not making a rational point here due to your confusion, so I'm not going to address it further other to say that no-one is saying that physics explains first-person experience/consciousness and that you appear to be in a mighty battle with a straw man.

But, note that science as a methodology, proceeds by excluding the kinds of things which are not amenable to quantitative analysis. Such things include, for example, consideration of value, purpose, aesthetics, and meaning - which are of fundamental interest to humans. The more cavalier materialists will generally insist that all such things are inessential, epiphenomenal, 'emergent', even; while what is real are precisely those things which 'the natural sciences' insist can be measured with great accuracy, as has been demonstrated by physics in particular, and the scientific method, in general.

Fundamental interest, huh? Are you using the word "fundamental" in a creative way? How about you climb down from your ivory tower and ask this person whether the aesthetic value of her child's next meal is of fundamental interest.
(Note that this is a relatively mild photo of a starving child.)

So I am far from claiming that 'modern science has it all wrong'. All I am saying is that not everything is within its scope, and some of the things that are not, are of fundamental significance. The 'naturalist project' which is championed by the likes of Dawkins, Dennett, Steve Pinker, et al, doesn't or can't recognize the limits to science, in that sense; as far as they are concerned, philosophy, religion, psychology, and so on, are all essentially subsumed under the heading of science; as Pinker says ' the worldview that guides the moral and spiritual values of an educated person today is the worldview given to us by science'. I disagree: I think insofar as science is 'a worldview', then it is no longer science, but a substitute for religion and philosophy. Our views can and must be informed by science, but they are not given by it.

Sure some things are not within the scope of modern science. Existent things are though and phenomena are as well (even emergent phenomenon).

The extent to which religion falls under science is constrained to the psychology and neurology that leads to people to believe in the claims of religion. The actual claims of religion are not science, I agree, and I accept that people who believe those claims also believe that the content of those claims is important.

Would you agree with Pinker's statement if it were slightly less shrill and reworded as "the worldview that guides the moral and spiritual values of an educated person today is a worldview that is informed by science"? I agree that science isn't in the business of handing out worldviews, but more in the providing the information and understanding that assists in the development of worldviews by individuals.

I am very astonished that the scientific picture of the real world around me is deficient. It gives a lot of factual information, puts all our experience in a magnificently consistent order, but it is ghastly silent about all and sundry that is really near to our heart, that really matters to us. It cannot tell us a word about red and blue, bitter and sweet, physical pain and physical delight; it knows nothing of beautiful and ugly, good or bad, God and eternity. Science sometimes pretends to answer questions in these domains, but the answers are very often so silly that we are not inclined to take them seriously.

And? It's a bit out of date, there are studies into why we perceive certain things (particularly faces) as attractive or not. Did you want me to attack Schroedinger? No need to do that, he had a cat and he must have been attacked by it on a daily basis as he stuck it back into the box.

[Fooloso4]

Neo:

This does not imply, in any way, that the condition of "being human" (note that this is a different meaning of "condition" here) somehow resides untapped in sponges.

Would you agree?

I'm trying to work out what Zimmer is saying again and I am no longer sure what he is saying. There seems to be an equivocation between the terms emergent and inherited. The emergent property that gave rise to human consciousness would be inherited in our DNA, but this is not inherited from reptile DNA (if that is what he is saying). We may inherit something from reptiles, but it is not the emergent property that gives rise to human beings. In addition, I do not know that we have to posit an emergent step that gives rise to reptiles out of amphibians or amphibians out of fish.

Quotidian:

Mainstream science and scientists do have vested interests and worldviews and beliefs and many of the other things that non-scientists have, which even influence the kinds of directions they take their research in, and the kinds of things that are considered legitimate subjects for science.

There is probably some truth in that, although I do not know how much. The larger problem, as I see it, is not with regard to theoretical differences but disregard and distrust of science. If you look at the U.S. Congress House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology it is clear that they are shocking scientifically illiterate. They are not influenced by Dawkins and Dennett unless there are big dollar donors named Dawkins and Dennett. University funding in the U.S. has fallen off precipitously. I don’t know where the bulk of research funding is coming from today, but I am not sure that the like of Dawkins and Dennett really have that much influence on the direction of scientific research.

Pinker says ' the worldview that guides the moral and spiritual values of an educated person today is the worldview given to us by science'.

I am not so sure that Pinker has correctly identified the world view of educated people, but he and I run in different circles. I would agree that educated people are for the most part not science deniers and think that if the questions of the origins of life and consciousness are to be answered they will be answered by science, but I do know to what extent their moral and spiritual values are influenced by science.

[Quotidian]

The extent to which religion falls under science is constrained to the psychology and neurology that leads to people to believe in the claims of religion...

So 'claims of religion' are necessarily the result of some neuro-pathology, right? Which the good doctors in the white coats will save us from.

Science is not a popularity poll...

This thread is not about science. It is about philosophy. I did mention the qualifications of Dawkins and Dennett and said they hadn't published papers in scientific journals - Dawkins has, of course, so I in that was incorrect. I don't believe that Dennett has. In any case, this is not about science, it is about the application of science to questions which are not matters for science; they are neither 'matters of fact' but I think they are more than simply 'matters of opinion'. They are important philosophical matters which are beyond the scope of science.

You're not making a rational point here due to your confusion, so I'm not going to address it further other to say that no-one is saying that physics explains first-person experience/consciousness and that you appear to be in a mighty battle with a straw man.

The confusion is all yours. You said earlier

There is, though, the problem of introducing some other sort of process simply to explain consciousness, given that everything else can be explained by natural and material processes...

The implication is clearly that 'the scientific method' explains 'everything else', and so will eventually 'explain the nature of consciousness'. I responded by saying that physics is paradigmatic to the scientifc method, because it deals with precisely measurable entities subject to quantification; however, that in the case of 'consciousness' we are dealing with a type of problem which is of a different order altogether from the kinds of issues that the objective sciences consider.

That is not 'confused'. You simply haven't understood the argument and you still don't. If you can put aside your sense of righteous umbrage long enough, you will realize there is a basic idea in philosophy that you haven't addressed at all.

Would you agree with Pinker's statement if it were slightly less shrill and reworded as "the worldview that guides the moral and spiritual values of an educated person today is a worldview that is informed by science"? I agree that science isn't in the business of handing out worldviews, but more in the providing the information and understanding that assists in the development of worldviews by individuals.

Of course I would agree! That's part of the point. There is a difference between 'science' and 'scientific materialism' - it's a really important difference, and one that is especially important in light of the arguments about religion, culture, science and philosophy. (Actually there's a lot about Steve Pinker's books I like, *except* for anything he says about religion.)

One of the reasons I don't like anything to do with 'intelligent design' is because I have found that those who promote it are invariably 'climate change deniers', which I seriously think ought to be made subject to criminal sanction. I think climate science (and the application of science in medicine, energy, food supply, and innummerable other areas) is absolutely indispensable and of utmost importance. I would never want to disparage science as a method or even as an attitude to solving problems of that kind.

But the unfortunate fact is that Pinker, Dennett, Dawkins, and others, do in fact present 'evolutionary science' as an argument against religious faith. You can't deny that or sweep it under the carpet or say that is not what they're doing. And I say that this is because there is a deep, deep misunderstanding about some very fundamental philosophical questions, the deepest of which is 'what is mind'?