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

[Justintruth]

The notion that complexity makes a difference is wrong because the equivocation is between a pattern - any pattern - no matter how complex and no matter it's type - and awareness. "An extremely complex pattern" is not equivocal with an "awareness" of any type - if you say they are the same you equivocate and that is a problem in your logic.

There is no problem with the notion that consciousness emerges, or that it can then be predicated on matterial patterns. Indeed that is what we have been doing for centuries. To me the clearest way to see it is to look at the laws of Newtonian gravity. You cannot derive that there will be a force of gravity between bodies. You can posit that there is and then predicate gravity onto the same particle that has inertia. Then you can derive that the gravitational force exists given the state of the system and the law of gravity. Likewise you cannot derive that material systems will become conscious (nor derive what they will be conscious of) from the pattern or behavior of the system. You can posit that they do and investigate the evidence to support the posit. Once you collect that evidence you can form the laws and then you can derive what consciousness will occur (and what it is conscious of) by the law.

What's strange is that this is simple. There seems to be some kind of bias in certain people. There is a kind of culture war and they view the notion that there is more than matter as extremely prejudicial. In fact it is. The alternative opens Pandora's box and all kinds of things come out of it that affect the foundations of our values. In fact, the cultural sickness we have is more related to this issue that it seems at first. Fundamentalism is inherently conservative and enlightenment is inherently liberal. That is not an expected result.

The flow you speak of has to do with memory and time. Memory is a critical part of the story for the symetries are between different times. I am sorry I cannot provide a reference but I do believe that there are different memory processes. Short term memory is not long term. I believe that formation of a short term memoriy has been shown to be correlated with a change in the synapse chemistry where long term memory has been shown to be change of the ganglia and growth of connections.

My own reflections show that proper nouns don't seem to be remembered in the same way as other nouns. Also, there is more than "it is remembered or not". Sometimes, I can know that I do have a memory of some fact even when I cannot recall it. I will tell my collegues to give me a minute and it will come and sure enough I suddenly remember. There is a way that "trying to remember" when in that state prevents remembering and I need to forget about the question a moment to access it.

Either Dryfuss or Searle has a theory of mind in which they posit the "unity" of consciousness. This unity to me is based on memory. In any case our consciousnesses are differentiated. You can posit the existence of a conscious experience in the same way you posit the existence of a baseball, but as of now, you cannot become conscious of anothers experiencing in the sense of having it be yours. Now that is not quite right. We do have exquisite facial interpretation instincts that allow us to read in others, including animals, a state of mind. This is almost certainly just an interpretation of their behaviour but we have profound inherited abilities to do that interpretation. It is interspecial. A wolf can snarl or whimper and you will instinctively experience how they are feeling.

Be careful with the word "flow" as someone will think you mean "flow of something". I don't think that is what you mean but you have to make the distinction between a flow of something and the temporal nature of consciousness. Read Being and TIme by Heiddeger if you are interested in it.

[Karpel Tunnel]

IIT would posit that the difference is simply complexity, that a sense of being emerges when certain (currently unknown) patterning criteria are met.

Though we have no measure for conscious, not directly, and have the bias of assuming it is connected to complexity, since we are complex. We long denied it to other species- even other races. Functions what happen within awareness certainly can be complex, and htere is a spectrum from simple to complex. But we don't know, for example, if awareness is simply a facet of matter, all of it. Memory arising at a certain level, and other functions within awarenss arising at levels. Dead and unaware has had the presumption, but this is connected to the metaphyics of the Abrahamic religions, which had powerful effects on science. I know i repeat myself, but in science animals were considered non-aware mechanisms, and talk of them being otherwise was systematicly pushed out of journals in science until really quite recently. Indigenous groups surely thought the scientists were insane. I know my parents did.

[Sy Borg]

IIT would posit that the difference is simply complexity, that a sense of being emerges when certain (currently unknown) patterning criteria are met.

Though we have no measure for conscious, not directly, and have the bias of assuming it is connected to complexity, since we are complex. We long denied it to other species- even other races.

Whom are all also incredibly complex, of course.

It does make sense that humans have this extra layer of control are are thus more complex. Let's face it, on most measure other species thrash humans so we must have at least something going for us - and that's smarts. Big, complicated brains. I don't know enough to claim the IIT people to be right, but at this stage it makes sense to me.

Our extra "dimension" or sense of being appears to be an emergence due to extra complexity but you are right to point out that we are far from the only organisms that experience a sense of being. The hard part is actually working out which, if any, organisms lack a sense of being - or how we can even find out. Basically the problems described by Nagle and Chalmers.

Still, if I have understood your post correctly, I'm definitely open to your thoughts here. Neuroscience will certainly help when it comes to better understanding brained animals, but the belief that neurons are required to feel may indeed be a perceptual bias. If we didn't have a nervous system, we would not feel as we do, but maybe it would still feel something? Maybe in simpler animals, or even plants and microbes, other mechanisms perform equivalent functions to nervous systems? From what I've understood in studies I've perused (not much) that appears to be the case.

That's why I suggested early in the thread that qualia may not be generated by the brain. The latter may just simply be shaping qualia that's generated by the metabolism (or interactions with other body systems and environment). So qualia might be just generated by the digestive system, or perhaps be a synergistic effect of digestion, respiration and circulation? Or, more radically, maybe qualia is to some extent inherent to the processing of energy per se? That would open up the possibility of ... um, pansensorialism? That would make for a feeling universe, if not a sympathetic one :)

[anonymous66]

I've been listening to and reading Daniel Dennett, Patricia Churchland, David Chalmers, John Searle and Thomas Nagel the last couple of years, and have been thinking a lot about consciousness.
There was a time when I was convinced that the physical is all there is, but after looking into consciousness for a while, I've had to give up that assumption.

My reasoning goes like this: If it is assumed that the physical is all there is, then consciousness must reduce to the physical and then mental states don't actually exist (they're just chemical reactions). If physicalism, then eliminative materialism but eliminative materialism is false (because if I know anything, I know I have mental states). (I've also looked into behaviorism, identity theory and functionalism).

I also reject substance dualism ( I don't believe in souls). I can't make any sense of idealism. I do have some affinity for property dualism- the concept that consciousness itself is a basic property of the universe, but I acknowledge that it has issues as well.

What about you? What do you make of consciousness? Do you have a favorite theory? Who has influenced your thinking?

This is a very complicated question. It is complicated because science has not yet been able to understand consciousness. But what can give us a simple understanding of this dialectic. Is that certain diseases, such as obsessive-compulsive disorder, are considered an imbalance in consciousness. However, a chemical drug can cause awareness of its stability. This means that the relationship between the brain and consciousness, such as the relationship between guitar strings and melody. The brain receives the data, translates it, puts it into a matrix. Thus consciousness arises.

No one doubts that the mental and the physical interact with each other. It's just that if physicalism is true (everything reduces to the physical world), then it follows that mental states ( beliefs, desires, intentions, emotions, the "what it is like-ness", the private inner goings on in our brains that I assume we all have as conscious humans) are illusions. I know mental states are not illusions, therefore there must be a problem with physicalism.

[Consul]

No one doubts that the mental and the physical interact with each other.

The epiphenomenalists do so, according to whom there is only physical-to-mental causation; and the parallelists do so too, according to whom there is neither physical-to-mental causation nor mental-to-physical causation.

[anonymous66]

No one doubts that the mental and the physical interact with each other.

The epiphenomenalists do so, according to whom there is only physical-to-mental causation; and the parallelists do so too, according to whom there is neither physical-to-mental causation nor mental-to-physical causation.

That is true. I should have said, "I don't doubt that the mental and physical interact with each other."

[Sy Borg]

Sorry JIT, I responded to KT's post before reading yours. I have spent the day having a pretty painful treatment for arthritis so I plead impairment :)

Likewise you cannot derive that material systems will become conscious (nor derive what they will be conscious of) from the pattern or behavior of the system. You can posit that they do and investigate the evidence to support the posit. Once you collect that evidence you can form the laws and then you can derive what consciousness will occur (and what it is conscious of) by the law.

It depends how deeply the patterns of behaviour are analysed, doesn't it? At a very basic level, nervous system activity is a kind of behaviour. Dare I say it, it could be a quantum thing LOL

What's strange is that this is simple. There seems to be some kind of bias in certain people. There is a kind of culture war and they view the notion that there is more than matter as extremely prejudicial. In fact it is. The alternative opens Pandora's box and all kinds of things come out of it that affect the foundations of our values. In fact, the cultural sickness we have is more related to this issue that it seems at first. Fundamentalism is inherently conservative and enlightenment is inherently liberal. That is not an expected result.

I think that comes down to people preferring to speak about that which they have some confidence in, something that's verifiable. If I'm to throw off the shackles of the verifiable - as if writing a sci fi story or creating a myth - then I might speak about the possibility of pantheism or panentheism. I did allow myself some speculation in that regard in my reply to Karpel.

The flow you speak of has to do with memory and time. Memory is a critical part of the story for the symmetries are between different times. I am sorry I cannot provide a reference but I do believe that there are different memory processes. Short term memory is not long term. I believe that formation of a short term memory has been shown to be correlated with a change in the synapse chemistry where long term memory has been shown to be change of the ganglia and growth of connections.

That makes sense to me, thanks for the info. To relate back to the river analogy, long term memory would be the river channel - the groove caused by long term erosion - while short term memory would be more akin to the slight, constant eroding of the outer surfaces of the river's channel.

My own reflections show that proper nouns don't seem to be remembered in the same way as other nouns. Also, there is more than "it is remembered or not". Sometimes, I can know that I do have a memory of some fact even when I cannot recall it. I will tell my collegues to give me a minute and it will come and sure enough I suddenly remember. There is a way that "trying to remember" when in that state prevents remembering and I need to forget about the question a moment to access it.

One of the finest of all minds had the same issue: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lFIYKmos3-s

As Feynman says, names matter when you are trying to communicate, but the names in themselves don't constitute knowledge.

Either Dryfuss or Searle has a theory of mind in which they posit the "unity" of consciousness. This unity to me is based on memory.

Fair enough. Take away memory and the idea of "you" is utterly different - more akin to being an amoeboid human!

In any case our consciousnesses are differentiated. You can posit the existence of a conscious experience in the same way you posit the existence of a baseball, but as of now, you cannot become conscious of anothers experiencing in the sense of having it be yours. Now that is not quite right. We do have exquisite facial interpretation instincts that allow us to read in others, including animals, a state of mind. This is almost certainly just an interpretation of their behaviour but we have profound inherited abilities to do that interpretation. It is interspecial. A wolf can snarl or whimper and you will instinctively experience how they are feeling.

Yes, any keen parent or dog owner becomes acutely aware of the rich content of what I think of as incidental or accidental communication. That's basically having a theory of mind - knowing that another animal is trying to "read" you.

Be careful with the word "flow" as someone will think you mean "flow of something". I don't think that is what you mean but you have to make the distinction between a flow of something and the temporal nature of consciousness. Read Being and TIme by Heiddeger if you are interested in it.

Actually, in these thought experiments I envisage a flow of atoms and/or quanta.

For instance, if I picture a green equilateral triangle on a white backing that completes the "field of mental vision" then a neuroscientist could readily identify the neuronal patterning resulting in that visualisation. If I ask you to visualise that triangle, one might expect significant similarities between the neuron patterning.

What has happened to transfer that pattern from here to there? How do we trace "A" - the pattern in my neurons - with "B", that similar pattern in yours? The figure in my mind is transferred into English words, a pattern of finger movements, electric flow along the tracks of a keyboard, a digital pattern of electricity that travels along the cable to the PC, the black and white squiggles on a screen that we somehow understand, etc.

[Gertie]

James

So experiential states become possible because mutations in genetic copying lead to natural selection, which can be seen as 'purposeful' in terms of fitness.

And somehow, at some point, the first experiential states emerge.

First, we need to be very clear with certain terminology.

Sorry I thought I'd been clear, when I refer to 'experiential states' I'm refering to the first person 'what it's like' experience of seeing a red ball, or feeling hungry, cold, sad, or remembering a song, or thinking how to answer your post, etc. All types of 'what it's like' experiential states, which we're all directly familiar with and know first hand, so there is no reason for any confusion on that, at least.

I am saying an “experience” is a process (input —> output). So any mechanistic process could be an experience, but only if you’re a panpsychist, which I am not and you are not.

I'm a 'Don't Know And Neither Does Anyone Else-ist'.

What we do know is that there is evidence that experiential states correlate with some (neural) material processes. The ongoing experiential state of 'seeing a red ball' will correlate with certain ongoing specific patterns of neural interactions, 'seeing a blue ball' a slightly different pattern, 'hearing a song' a more different pattern, and some patterns of neural interactions don't result in any experiential states - for Meta-Subject-Me at least.

That's the info we have to work with, noting certain correlations between some specific patterns of neural interactions and certain specific types of experiential states (reported by humans).

We don't know if neurons have their own experiential states which aren't available to Meta-Subject-Me, or if electrons do, or rocks, etc. And we don't know if material processes are merely correlated with some other experiential 'substance' rather than 'generating', or 'being', experienctial states themselves. Or if something else entirely is going on which we haven't thought of, perhaps aren't even capable of conceptualising. And some people like Chalmers talk about the Hard Problem, because we don't even know How We Could Know.

An “experiential state”, by my understanding, can only refer to a dynamic state of a given experience process (input —> output) happening over and over. Alternatively, an “experiential state” can refer to a defined mechanism and all of the experience processes that the mechanism could possibly perform. I’m fairly certain when you say “experiential state”, you are referring to the former.

Observations suggest that there is correlation between certain ongoing neural interactions (processes) and certain ongoing experiential states for Meta-Subject Me or You. So we don't think an inert/dead brain correlates with experiential states.

Which become more complex and useful in terms of fitness (like eyeballs inter-connected to motor neurons) via ongoing natural selection, and brings Subjects' own interests into the universe (meaning, value, purpose).

When you say “meaning, value, purpose” here, I’m assuming you mean teleologic meaning, value, and purpose, as opposed to teleonomic. That’s fine, and it simply indicates your requirements for an experiential process. Specifically, you would require, at least, the involvement of a particular kind of abstract concept, namely, abstract goals.

I mean the the qualiative 'meaning, value and purpose' of individual Subjects. I'm saying that experiencing Subjects bring meaning, value and purpose into a meaningless universe. This is because experiential states have the special qualiative nature ('feeling like something'), which purely material processes don't necessarily. So I have the purposeful goal of eating because I feel hungry, and feeling hungry feels bad, all of which has meaning, value and purpose to Subject-Me.


Hence I draw a hard line between non-experiential material processes and experiential states when it comes to meaning, value and purpose. If a rock has no experiential states, it doesn't matter if I smash it with a hammer. If a dog has experiential states, it does matter if I smash it. Because I'm causing it suffering, or if I kill it, I'm depriving it of the ability to experience anything. It's the qualiative nature of experiential states which makes the difference.

You can call evolution 'teleonomic', but that doesn't explain anything. We understand how natural selection works through genetic mutations in copying resulting in variability of fitness throughout generations. But nothing about that suggests that experiential states will evolve through some unknown necessary and sufficient conditions arising that way. No scientist using our current model or methodologies would predict, or can explain it.

All that is fine as a description, which assumes conscious emergence via evolution, under some unknown necessary and sufficient conditions.

I disagree that I am assuming conscious emergence. The hierarchy I describe is an empirical/objective description of processes observable in the world.

OK

What you're adding is this notion of innate/natural purpose as a way of describing evolution, as if it's an extra explanatory causal ingredient. But I'm not sure what you're implying by that in terms of explanation for emergent experiential states?

I’m trying to imply that any property of what you call an experiential state can be explained by reference to a particular Mechanical process described by the Framework. I.e., reference to an “experiential state” is a reference to a dynamic state involving a mechanistic process, and all properties of said state can be explained by reference to properties of said process.

Where's the explanation then? You're just saying there's correlation between mechanical processes and experiential states, which we all can agree. As far as I can see you're dismissing substance dualism at the outset, then saying experiential states happen at a certain 'level' of material interaction in your heirarchy, but not which level, or why a certain level, or how. It's not an explanatory hypothesis.

*

[Gertie]

Gertie: So experiential states become possible because mutations in genetic copying lead to natural selection, which can be seen as 'purposeful' in terms of fitness.

Yes, the claim is that awareness is an accident brought about by the pressure of natural selection, which is the premise I said requires a giant leap of faith: blind forces pressuring dumb matter into sentience. It should be noted that Darwin himself did not accept this idea.

The other problem, which I mentioned earlier, was that the first primal organisms in the evolutionary chain would have had no genes for natural selection to act upon. Which leaves you with a blind programmer (Natural Selection) with no software to program. This blind programmer possesses neither the will, aptitude, or means to create a software program, only to reprogram one that already exists. We are to believe that this program also came about by accident. Just too much conjecture to take seriously....

There's also then the problem of over-determinism. If a physical eyeball linked to physical motor neurons linked to leg muscles can do all the causal work of me running away when I encounter a tiger, then what's the evolutionary advantage of the experiential states of 'seeing' it, 'feeling fear', having my Subjective states of meaning purpose and value? Where's the evolutionary pressure for this additional experiencing coming from, if the material systems can account for all my survival behaviour, every behaviour, without them?

[ThomasHobbes]

There's also then the problem of over-determinism. If a physical eyeball linked to physical motor neurons linked to leg muscles can do all the causal work of me running away when I encounter a tiger, then what's the evolutionary advantage of the experiential states of 'seeing' it, 'feeling fear', having my Subjective states of meaning purpose and value? Where's the evolutionary pressure for this additional experiencing coming from, if the material systems can account for all my survival behaviour, every behaviour, without them?

You are just misconceiving determinism. The things you dismiss are as much a part of the process as nay of the others.

[ThomasHobbes]

nay - any

[SimpleGuy]

James


So experiential states become possible because mutations in genetic copying lead to natural selection, which can be seen as 'purposeful' in terms of fitness.


And somehow, at some point, the first experiential states emerge. Which become more complex and useful in terms of fitness (like eyeballs inter-connected to motor neurons) via ongoing natural selection, and brings Subjects' own interests into the universe (meaning, value, purpose).


All that is fine as a description, which assumes conscious emergence via evolution, under some unknown necessary and sufficient conditions. (Altho it raises lots of problems once you get into any critique).

What you're adding is this notion of innate/natural purpose as a way of describing evolution, as if it's an extra explanatory causal ingredient. But I'm not sure what you're implying by that in terms of explanation for emergent experiential states?

The point of evolution is simply inapplicable for human beengs, the natural selection of a public official state system is not survival of the fittest.
The natural evolution has mostly nothing to do with this. There a no predators for public officals etc. The evolution of our brain can just partially be explained by natural selection due to illnesses. It's simply unlikely to assume that the evolution of our brain wasn't formed by the social system, that humans had. Every biologist would say that intelligence of natural evolved beeings (apes , mouses etc.) has something to do with their social system and their communication.

[JamesOfSeattle]

Where's the explanation then?

The explanation requires identification of the minimal set of characteristics required for conscious experience. My minimal set (semantic information as input) would have a different explanation from a panpsychist’s set, or a functionalist’s set, or your set. So let’s figure out your set.
Would a conscious being need to be able to remember an experience?
Would a conscious being need to be able to suffer?
Would a conscious being need to be able to experience concepts, like “prey”?

That’s a start.

*
[and yes, I’m dismissing substance dualism at the outset. I have no need for that hypothesis.]

[JamesOfSeattle]

It's just that if physicalism is true (everything reduces to the physical world), then it follows that mental states ( beliefs, desires, intentions, emotions, the "what it is like-ness", the private inner goings on in our brains that I assume we all have as conscious humans) are illusions..

I don’t think that follows. I think a “mental state” is a particular kind of physical process happening over and over. Why do you think it follows from physicalism that mental states are illusions?

*

[Wayne92587]

Present awareness wrote: ↑Getting back to the OP, everyone knows what consciousness IS, because we all experience it directly!

Not so! Many times the lights are on but no-one is home.

The conscious thoughts of our Reality may be of an Illusion.