Philosophy Discussion Forums | A Humans-Only Club for Open-Minded Discussion & Debate

[Sy Borg]

The epistemically best-justified—because scientifically best-confirmed—assumption/belief is the one that (certain kinds of) electrochemical processes in animal brains are both necessary and sufficient for experiential states. So we can justifiedly exclude nonanimals from the class of conscious beings.

There are three basic classes of natural beings/things in the world:

1. nonconscious nonliving ones
2. nonconscious living ones
3. conscious living ones

Of course, panpsychists think this list is incomplete, adding

4. conscious nonliving ones.

And if the prefix "pan-" (= "all") is taken literally, then panpsychists even claim that the classes 1&2 are empty, thinking that all living or nonliving beings are conscious.

The usual model for panpsychism is where simple, automatic reactions are treated as a form of proto-consciousness, eg. Michio Kaku's consciousness hypothesis.

I rather like panvitalism - the idea that biology is not the only living system, just the most informationally dense. Thus, everything can be thought is either a living system, a part of one, in the process of becoming one or in the process of dying.

It can reasonably be posited that a planet needs to be geologically alive in order to create the conditions for abiogenesis. Star systems (including their satellites and possible biology) also logically vary in activity and growth of complex systems. Galaxies too. Seemingly superclusters as well, in which case the entire cosmic web could be thought of as a cosmic "ecosystem" (plasma and gravity system?) - a world of worlds of worlds etc.

All of these things share a tempestuous early existence, then a period of systematisation leading to a longer, relatively stable stage, and then over time those structures start to degrade until the system breaks down and is absorbed by the outside environment.

[Sy Borg]

I have used an analogy of our problem with "animation" before. It stated that there were aliens orbiting the earth and their scanners could see vehicles, like cars and trucks running around but their resolution wasn't strong enough to see the people getting in and out of them. So they had big arguments like us that were attempts to explain why the vehicles were alive and whether or not the vehicles themselves were conscious. They obviously exhibited purposeful behavior, collecting in groups and seeking food stations, etc.. Fractus from the planet Fracto asserted that there were vehicles in the vehicles that were alive and conscious and steering the vehicles from inside the vehicles. However he was chastised for not having read Wittgus writings from the galaxy Tractco in which he clearly showed that the car inside steering the car outside was just as hard to explain. He said that was like a Humunculous. Quantum Mechanicus was no help since all he could discover was energy waves or vehicles but not both. They did see collisions of vehicles and saw the tires coming off which seemed to kill the vehicles. That led to the theory that the tires were alive and the vehicles wouldn't have "Phenomenal Experiential" states without them.

Surely before microbes were discovered under microscopic vision they were theorized about and those researchers were laughed at, while ridiculous theories of the spreading of disease flourished.

We are at that stage folks. Quit laughing at me.

As a sci-fi fan, my response is closer to awe than laughter. You seem to me to be just an organised short story and the right exposure / agent away from being picked up for a movie blockbuster :)

There is no reason to assume that our universe was the first, and thus it may be that some highly advanced post-life forms continued their existence after a new universe commenced. We have no way of anticipating the nature of technological advances in the far future other than it would be fair to assume that survival would be a major motivator.

I think we can assume a collapsing world is an old world. How old? Maybe 100 billion years or so.

The Stelliferous Era, the era of stars, is expected to continue for another trillion years or so, so there will be even more time for intelligent life to get its act together. There will be a long period where long-lived red dwarfs will be the only stars so, if life is continue, it will probably need to evolve around main sequence stars, conquer interstellar travel, and find a way of living on tidally locked planets near ageing red dwarf stars.

TBH, I can't see biology feasibly moving out into the stars, only their intelligent machines. The recording of consciousness could mean that we ourselves would effectively become intelligent machines - or rather, change from being biological to technological.

Hopefully we will stop expanding and will also face a Big Crunch. To escape that crunch we will need TECHNOLOGY.

The Big Freeze is considered the most likely end point, just some quadrillion years away or so.

In a sense, the information of the universe will "crunch" into one thing - chaos - but the actual energy will seemingly continue if Guth is right, but the last remaining photons will be disparate enough to be essentially the state posited to precede the big bang, and I think this is where Penrose brings in his CCC.

The way I imagine it, which is almost certainly wrong, is that if you have one degraded photon essentially alone in, say, some quintillions of years, then who is to say it's just a little photon? In a sense it is everything, being too far from other "everythings" to exist. Relativity at that point is gone and the rules are only known to mathematicians, maybe :)

[Karpel Tunnel]

The epistemically best-justified—because scientifically best-confirmed—assumption/belief is the one that (certain kinds of) electrochemical processes in animal brains are both necessary and sufficient for experiential states. So we can justifiedly exclude nonanimals from the class of conscious beings.

There is a lot of research showing that animals including us have consciousness. There is no research showing that our specific make up is necessary for it. None.

[Sy Borg]

(9) Christ is the centre of the universe whose centre is everywhere but circumference nowhere. Christ is the Superconscious, Informatioin and infinite intelligence.

Holy Christ! I'm sorry, but that's gibberish.

It's a very common theist claim:

The definition of God as 'an infinite sphere, whose centre is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere' has its roots in the Liber XXIV philosophorum, a Latin booklet by an anonymous author, which consists of 24 commented definitions of what God is. It has been ascribed to the fourth-century grammarian and philosopher Marius Victorinus, but the earliest extant manuscript dates back to the beginning of the thirteenth century.

https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/cross_fac/iat ... ddivinola/

A Google search for an infinite sphere whose centre is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere will show how popular the idea is. One either takes the metaphor as it's intended or it will indeed read as gibberish.

If the universe turns out to be a closed curve, then that description is not such a bad way of expressing its nature, since it has no centre and shifting, undefined boundaries. While the observable universe is apparently flat, if the universe is very much larger than we know then we may be guilty of "flat universe theory" :)

[anonymous66]

@Consul
Let me see if I can sum up what you're been saying...
You reject that idea that consciousness is an illusion. You believe that consciousness is just as real as the physical and that consciousness is reducible to the physical. And you believe that your views are consistent with physicalism.

You also believe that although there aren't currently any physicalist theories of mind (TOM) that can explain consciousness, you also believe that only a physicalist TOM will ever be able to explain consciousness.

Is my summation correct?

* Yes, I believe that consciousness/experience (as we all know it from our first-person perspective) is real—physically real and really physical. So I am a physicalist about it. Is my physicalism reductionistic or emergentistic? Well, it is (ontologically) reductionistic about all mental properties which aren't experiential/phenomenal ones (= dispositional mental properties [e.g. propositional attitudes] or mental abilities), and it is (ontologically) emergentistic (in a noncausal sense of "emergence") about experiential/phenomenal properties (qualia)—in the sense that qualia are emergent and hence irreducible physical qualities sui generis. However, my physicalistic property dualism is unorthodox, because I think that qualia or "secondary qualities" are second-order physical qualities of primary physical qualities of the brain. Phenomenal qualities (which constitute the subjective qualitative content of experiences) are subjective "gestalt qualities" of (complexes or structures of) objective physical (or chemical) properties instantiated by central nervous systems.

As for the problem of mental causation emergentists are faced with, I think phenomenal properties qua properties of (non-phenomenal and causally non-epiphenomenal) physical properties are intrinsically epiphenomenal. However, they may be said to be extrinsically non-epiphenomenal by "piggybacking" on powerful physical properties (whose properties they are).

* Yes, I'm convinced that if the hard problem of consciousness will be solved at all, and the explanatory gap will be closed at all, it will be solved/closed physicalistically by neuroscience.

I believe this post will also answer Count Lucanor's question.

I think Consul and I agree on more than we disagree. I'm a substance monist, and I believe if there were nothing physical, then there would be nothing conscious. We disagree in that I believe it's very possible that consciousness itself is a basic property of our universe, while Consul rejects that possibility. I just don't see how one can reject the idea that consciousness is a basic property and also claim that mental states are real.

I start with the certainty that I do have mental state. I know I have beliefs and desires and emotions. I just can't get from the certainty of mental states to the concept that all mental states are actually just brain chemistry. It seems to me that if I think, "I know I feel like I believe X, but that's actually just my brain chemicals doing their stuff", then those mental states lose their reality. I could be wrong, but I don't see how it could be the case that everything reduces to the physical, and mental states are real. I see that as a serious problem for physicalism.

But, it seems to me that we both believe that mental states are real. However, because of my conviction, I believe that property dualism is a more likely explanation than physicalism. Or perhaps it could just be said that I think the position that mental states are real, is property dualism.

I look forward to reading Galen Strawson. It looks to me like he is arguing for property dualism while calling himself a physicalist. And it looks to me like other people who read his views believe his position is position of property dualism, despite the fact Strawson himself labels himself a physicalist.

If we can agree that mental states are real, then what difference does a label make? It's even more interesting that Strawson rejects emergence. I'm still convinced that mental states are not physical states, and they're not reducible to the physical- and it appears that Strawson agrees.

[anonymous66]

Fiona McPherson in this paper argues that Strawson's position entails property dualism, despite the fact that he calls himself a physicalist.
Abstract:

This paper is divided into two main sections. The first articulates what I believe Strawson's position to be. I contrast Strawson's usage of 'physicalism' with the mainstream use. I then explain why I think that Strawson's position is one of property dualism and substance monism. In doing this, I outline his view and Locke's view on the nature of substance. I argue that they are similar in many respects and thus it is no surprise that Strawson actually holds a view on the mind much like one plausible interpretation of Locke's position. Strawson's use of terminology cloaks this fact and he does not himself explicitly recognize it in his paper. In the second section, I outline some of Strawson's assumptions that he uses in arguing for his position. I comment on the plausibility of his position concerning the relation of the mind to the body compared with mainstream physicalism and various forms of dualism. Before embarking on the two main sections, in the remainder of this introduction, I very briefly sketch Strawson's view.

[Consul]

The epistemically best-justified—because scientifically best-confirmed—assumption/belief is the one that (certain kinds of) electrochemical processes in animal brains are both necessary and sufficient for experiential states. So we can justifiedly exclude nonanimals from the class of conscious beings.

There is a lot of research showing that animals including us have consciousness. There is no research showing that our specific make up is necessary for it. None.

I didn't say that human brains are necessary for consciousness. I said that animal brains are. I think most nonhuman animals are conscious.

[Consul]

I think most nonhuman animals are conscious.

I do not think that most nonhuman animals have higher-order or self-consciousness. Consciousness started evolutionarily with primitive sensations, so being conscious/conscient requires nothing more than being sentient, having subjective sensations.

[anonymous66]

@Consul
The problem is to determine just what physical structures are required for consciousness. Do we even have reason to believe that a physical organic brain is necessary for consciousness?

Have you heard this thought experiment? (I believe it's Searle's): Imagine a man goes to the doctor because he's having some problem with his eyesight. The doctor looks at the scans and determines that there is some degenerative problem with some of his brain cells. But, this is the in the future, and they have the ability to replace the damaged tissue with microchips. The problem is solved. But then, the disease progresses, and they have to replace more and more tissue with microchips until one day, all the patient has is microchips inside his skull. Seems plausible, doesn't it?

And would you automatically reject the idea that we will one day have conscious machines of some kind? On what grounds?

[Consul]

It's a very common theist claim:

https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/cross_fac/iat ... ddivinola/

A Google search for an infinite sphere whose centre is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere will show how popular the idea is. One either takes the metaphor as it's intended or it will indeed read as gibberish.

I've always known that "-logy" in "theology" has nothing to do with logic. Let's assume that space has an infinite volume. An infinite volume of space has no boundary and so no shape either, which means that it is nonsensical to call it a sphere (or a cube). An infinitely extended 3D object doesn't have any geometric form. It can be neither ball-shaped nor sugar-cube-shaped, nor x-shaped.

[Gertie]

Consul

Gertie wrote: ↑
Yesterday, 12:28 pm
But there's no established reason not to expect plant or rock experiential states either.

Yes, there is an "established reason" not to do so, namely that consciousness/experience depends on (central) nervous systems.

"Then there is the question of the need for a brain.We normally suppose that one of these is pretty useful when it comes to having a mind, indeed a sine qua non (even if it’s made of silicon); we suppose that, at a minimum, a physical object has to exhibit the right degree of complexity before it can make a mind. But the panpsychist is having none of it: you get to have a mind well before even organic cells come on the market, before molecules indeed. Actually, you get mentality—experience—at the point of the Big Bang, fifteen billion years before brains are minted. So brains are a kind of contingency, a kind of pointless luxury when it comes to possessing mental states. It becomes puzzling why we have them at all, and why they are so big and fragile; atoms don’t need them, so why do we? And this puzzle only becomes more severe when we remind ourselves that the panpsychist has to believe in full-throttle pre-cerebral mentality— genuine experiences of red and pangs of hunger and spasms of lust. As Eddington puts it, the mental world that we are acquainted with in introspection is a window onto the world of the physical universe, and the two are qualitatively alike: introspection tells us what matter is like from the inside, whether it is in our brain or not. But then the brain isn’t necessary for the kind of experiential property it reveals to us; it is only necessary for the revealing to occur. What is revealed by introspection is spread over the entire physical universe. In fact, it would not be stretching a point to say that all bits of matter—from strings, to quarks, to atoms, to molecules, to cells, to organs, to animals—are themselves brains. There can be brains without brains! But if so, why bother with brains?"

McGinn is making the argument for experiential states as novel emergent properties of complex physical processes (not necessarily organic brains) as more credible than panpsychism. He could be right, but an argument isn't a established reason. Anyway, if there's one thing Philosophy of Mind isn't short of, it's arguments . But there are problems with all the potential fundamental explanatory theories, which is one of the reasons we don't have an established Theory (including necessary and sufficient conditions) to enable us to decide issues like plant or rock consciousness.


You might find one argument more satisfactory in terms of evidence and reasonable inferences than another, but there are reasons to believe we don't have the full picture, and our usual scientific method of understanding how the material world works isn't the right toolkit for the job (the explanatory gap), so it's premature to make assertions based on current intuitions.

Me, I assume/act as if plants and rocks don't have experiential states in my daily life. It would be a huge personal inconvenience if I had to start taking their 'feelings' into account. But I might be wrong.


By-the-way I can't help but read stuff by McGinn 'in his voice' lol, what's that about! Hmmm he would likely say it's about existing associated patterns of neural interactions being 'fired' from when I've heard his distinctive voice, and that level of complex correlation bears out extremely well.

Neural correlation is a massive clue as regards the Hard Problem, there's no question, but it's not the explanation. And it's a reasonable basis to invite other species into the Conscious Club based on Similarity (similar neural substrate and associated observed behaviour - the things which are accessible to our public/objective/quantifiable scientific method). But... we haven't established the underlying explanation which would allow us to close the door on other entities like plants and rocks.

And because there is reason to think our usual scientific toolkit isn't fit for purpose when dealing with private/subjective/qualiative experience, Philosophy of Mind tries to come up with other approaches, to try to at least get a conceptual handle on the Hard Problem, such as types of monism, dualism or panpsychism. All of which are problematic, and there doesn't seem to be a way of referring them back to the scientific method for testing which is right, if any - the answer could be something we haven't thought of, aren't even perceptually or cognitively equipped to come up with. That's why imo we should keep an open mind to the possible explanation, but be rigorously sceptical about specific answers. (Meanwhile, as you say, keep following the evidence as neuroscience advances).

So when you claim -

The epistemically best-justified—because scientifically best-confirmed—assumption/belief is the one that (certain kinds of) electrochemical processes in animal brains are both necessary and sufficient for experiential states. So we can justifiedly exclude nonanimals from the class of conscious beings.

The second sentence simply doesn't follow the first.


The nifty list of the pros and cons of panpsychism could, and probably has, been done for emergence too - some of the objections would be the same, some would refer to specific features of each.

As regards the Combination Problem, I agree it looks like a particularly tricky issue for panpsychism (tho maybe approaches like IIT can address it), but the Similarity issue could be a red herring - because as I've said we only rely on Similarity because we don't know the underlying explanation - which could be Panpsychism. So you can see Similarity as a potentially helpful way of looking at the problem and formulating hypotheses, but you can't justifiably use it to rule out panpsychism, or a daffodil having some experiential craving for sunlight or whatever daff-experience might entail.

[Consul]

The usual model for panpsychism is where simple, automatic reactions are treated as a form of proto-consciousness, eg. Michio Kaku's consciousness hypothesis.

I hadn't heard of it before, so I did some googling and found the following definition of "consciousness" in Kaku's book The Future of the Mind (2014):

"Consciousness is the process of creating a model of the world using multiple feedback loops in various parameters (e.g., in temperature, space, time, and in relation to others), in order to accomplish a goal (e.g., find mates, food, shelter)."

He also introduces four different levels of consciousness, writing that "for example, the simplest level of consciousness [0] is a thermostat. It automatically turns on an air conditioner or heater to adjust the temperature in a room, without any help. The key is a feedback loop that turns on a switch if the temperature gets too hot or cold."
He attributes level-0 consciousness to plants too.

It is obvious that what Kaku calls consciousness is a functional-informational consciousness that is different from and independent of experiential/phenomenal consciousness. The "level-0 consciousness" of thermostats and plants is not to be confused with subjective experience. Mere physical or electronical feedback mechanisms don't constitute any form of consciousness/experience. So "level-0 consciousness" is a misleading misnomer.

As for panprotopsychism, it's eyewash, because there's no possible alternative to panpsychism and non-panpsychism. "Protomental" or "protoexperiential" properties or states are either mental/experiential ones or non-mental/non-experiential ones. Protomentality is like protopregnancy.

I rather like panvitalism - the idea that biology is not the only living system, just the most informationally dense. Thus, everything can be thought is either a living system, a part of one, in the process of becoming one or in the process of dying.

It can reasonably be posited that a planet needs to be geologically alive in order to create the conditions for abiogenesis. Star systems (including their satellites and possible biology) also logically vary in activity and growth of complex systems. Galaxies too. Seemingly superclusters as well, in which case the entire cosmic web could be thought of as a cosmic "ecosystem" (plasma and gravity system?) - a world of worlds of worlds etc.

All of these things share a tempestuous early existence, then a period of systematisation leading to a longer, relatively stable stage, and then over time those structures start to degrade until the system breaks down and is absorbed by the outside environment.

Taken literally, "non-biological life" is a contradiction in terms. Of course, you can use the language of biology metaphorically (and speak e.g. of "the life and death of stars"); but a merely metaphorical panvitalism is no serious position in metaphysics. And a literal panvitalism is simply false.

[Consul]

But, it seems to me that we both believe that mental states are real. However, because of my conviction, I believe that property dualism is a more likely explanation than physicalism. Or perhaps it could just be said that I think the position that mental states are real, is property dualism.

A consistent adherent of fundamentalist property dualism must seriously claim that "you get mentality—experience—at the point of the Big Bang, fifteen billion years before brains are minted." (C. McGinn) – I ask you: how credible is that?

Note that wherever and whenever there are items of mentality/experientiality (mental/experiential attributes), there are also subjects of mentality/experientiality. This means that consistent fundamentalist property dualists must seriously claim that experiencing (sensing or feeling) beings have always existed since the first post-big-bang instant of time (when there weren't even any particles yet). If this claim isn't blatantly absurd, I don't know what is.

[anonymous66]

@Consul
I understand you to be saying that because property dualism entails that "you get mentality—experience—at the point of the Big Bang, fifteen billion years before brains are minted", then you reject property dualism.

Essentially, you reject property dualism because you believe a brain is necessary for consciousness.

Is that correct?

[Consul]

McGinn is making the argument for experiential states as novel emergent properties of complex physical processes (not necessarily organic brains) as more credible than panpsychism. He could be right, but an argument isn't a established reason. Anyway, if there's one thing Philosophy of Mind isn't short of, it's arguments . But there are problems with all the potential fundamental explanatory theories, which is one of the reasons we don't have an established Theory (including necessary and sufficient conditions) to enable us to decide issues like plant or rock consciousness.

You might find one argument more satisfactory in terms of evidence and reasonable inferences than another, but there are reasons to believe we don't have the full picture, and our usual scientific method of understanding how the material world works isn't the right toolkit for the job (the explanatory gap), so it's premature to make assertions based on current intuitions.

What do you think is "the right toolkit for the job" if not the one of natural science? The pseudo- or unscientific one of a so-called "supernatural science" or "spiritual science" perhaps?

The mere logical possibility of nonanimal consciousness provides no reason at all not to disbelieve in its actuality, because the question is how probable or rationally plausible it is in the light of our (admittedly incomplete) scientific knowledge? And the answer is that the occurrence of nonanimal consciousness is extremely improbable and implausible.

If it's mysterious how neurophysiological mechanisms can actualize consciousness, it is much more mysterious how any physical systems lacking neurophysiological or even all biophysiological structures and processes can possibly do so. And as soon as we leave the biological sphere, the (alleged) actualization of consciousness by non-biological systems becomes sheer magic. What is more and worse, systems are by definition complex objects; but fundamentalist/panpsychist property dualists even assert (absurdly) that noncomplex, structureless, i.e. simple, physical objects such as elementary particles can actualize consciousness as well.

Footnote:
This is what makes substance dualism and theism (which includes the former) so blantantly absurd: Immaterial/spiritual substances (such as the theistic God) are 0-dimensional "soul-points", i.e. absolutely simple substances lacking any form or structure, and any inner space where processes could take place. (A mathematical point has no inside or interior.) At the same time, simple soul-points are said to have nonsimple, complex minds. God is a simple substance with the most complex mind possible. He is even said to have an "infinite mind"; but to postulate the generation of complex (conscious) minds by and "in" simple immaterial substances is to postulate illogical and incomprehensible supernatural magic.

Neural correlation is a massive clue as regards the Hard Problem, there's no question, but it's not the explanation. And it's a reasonable basis to invite other species into the Conscious Club based on Similarity (similar neural substrate and associated observed behaviour - the things which are accessible to our public/objective/quantifiable scientific method). But... we haven't established the underlying explanation which would allow us to close the door on other entities like plants and rocks.

The number of conscious animal species is unknown, and scientists cannot eliminate the possibility that all animals (with a brain) are conscious creatures. For example, insect consciousness seems to be a real possibility, and there's nothing inherently implausible about assuming e.g. that when a bee sees a flower, it has subjective color-impressions. But insects do have a (central) nervous system, whereas plants don't; and it is simply false that there are no good scientific reasons to disbelieve in the brain-independence of conscious states.

And because there is reason to think our usual scientific toolkit isn't fit for purpose when dealing with private/subjective/qualiative experience, Philosophy of Mind tries to come up with other approaches, to try to at least get a conceptual handle on the Hard Problem, such as types of monism, dualism or panpsychism. All of which are problematic, and there doesn't seem to be a way of referring them back to the scientific method for testing which is right, if any - the answer could be something we haven't thought of, aren't even perceptually or cognitively equipped to come up with. That's why imo we should keep an open mind to the possible explanation, but be rigorously sceptical about specific answers. (Meanwhile, as you say, keep following the evidence as neuroscience advances) .

There's no science-based reason to be skeptical about the assumption that animal brains are the (only) physical organs of consciousness, that consciousness is physicochemically realized by and in animal brains (only) as a higher-level or system feature of them or the organisms of which they are part.

The nifty list of the pros and cons of panpsychism could, and probably has, been done for emergence too - some of the objections would be the same, some would refer to specific features of each.

As regards the Combination Problem, I agree it looks like a particularly tricky issue for panpsychism (tho maybe approaches like IIT can address it), but the Similarity issue could be a red herring - because as I've said we only rely on Similarity because we don't know the underlying explanation - which could be Panpsychism. So you can see Similarity as a potentially helpful way of looking at the problem and formulating hypotheses, but you can't justifiably use it to rule out panpsychism, or a daffodil having some experiential craving for sunlight or whatever daff-experience might entail.

There is compelling scientific evidence for the brain-dependence of human consciousness, and it's utterly implausible to claim that it is the only brain-dependent animal consciousness or even the only brain-dependent consciousness in nature, or that there are both brain-dependent human and nonhuman forms of consciousness and brain-independent forms of consciousness in nature. For where there is consciousness there must be a physical organ of consciousness; but what (material structure) could possibly and plausibly function as an organ of consciousness in a plant, a rock, a single molecule, atom, or particle? (As far as structureless, simple particles are concerned, it is obvious that the answer must be "nothing".)

Panpsychists are totally incapable of providing any scientifically plausible explanation of how brainless organisms or even non-biological natural objects—or even simple elementary particles—could possibly become and be subjects of consciousness. As I already said above, the mere logical possibility of nonanimal consciousness provides no good reason at all to believe in its actuality, as panpsychists do.