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

[Gertie]

James

Today, 7:11 am
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.

Yes there are lots of different opinions and hypotheses - So what tho? It's the fact of the matter which we should be interested in. How do you know, how can you go about finding out?
.

One of the issues is testing. Science relies on objective, public, measurable data. Experiential states are subjective, private and not quantifiable in that way (a thought doesn't weigh six grams, isn't red or ball shaped). Now if we had a way of testing, an experience-o-meter, we could test entities/processes at various levels in your mechanististic heirarchy, but we don't. Therefore we can't locate the point at which some shift in mechanical complexity or whatever, may or may not register the presence of experiential states.

So... how does listing the different levels help us go about finding out?

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.

James the issue of philosophical interest, the mystery, is 'experiential states' - the 'what it's like' of having experiences, any and all of them. How/why do they exist, what's the explanation, what's their relationship to material processes?

If a moth can only feel 'what it's like' to experience a change in light, that's the mystery. If an amoeba can only sense vibration, or a subatomic particle its spin. Not how experiential states become more complex under evolutionary pressure - rather how and why they exist at all.

That's the key issue because current science doesn't seem to offer an explanation, or a way of finding out. . Hence philosophers have a go at suggesting different ways to address the issue. Like you're doing, and fair play to you. But I don't see how you're addressing that central mystery with anything explanatory. We know correlation with at least some material processes exists, the question is what's the explanation for that correlation?



So I don't know at what point in your heirarchy experiential states 'emerge', or if they're fundamental, because we can't test and we don't have an explanatory Theory.

[Gertie]

James

Gertie wrote: ↑
Yesterday, 12:21 pm
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 twiger, 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?

The evolutionary pressure comes from being able to remember things and tell stories about them, because it’s impossible to encode in the genes every pattern you need to know. Some patterns, like faces, and probably fanged faces, are gene encoded. But other things that are worth knowing, like the meaning of fresh tiger droppings, or bear claw marks on trees. So it’s worth having a system for remembering that soon after you saw those droppings, you saw the tiger that made them and so you ran away. It’s even better to have a system where you can communicate that those particular droppings mean “be super alert for tigers!” without ever actually having to see the tiger. The “seeing it” and the “feeling fear” are the same. The difference is being able to remember these events and to combine them into patterns that can be remembered either for planning or for more sophisticated responses.

If experiential states have a causal role in our behaviour, then sure.

But as I say, that creates its own problems. If all of that behaviour you describe can be described in material terms (eyeballs causally linked to legs, earholes reacting to patterns of air vibrations, being causally linked to tongues which respond creating patterns of air vibrations (talking) - if all that is causally reduced to physical processes, then why do we need the accompanying experiential states? Where's the evolutionary pressure for this parallel (redundant) causal system to evolve?

That's a puzzle. If experiential states ARE the material processes, then what are they usefully adding, where's the evolutionary pressure if they're effectively causally redundant?

So the apparent evolutionary causal utility of experiential states (seeing, remembering, understanding communication, etc) doesn't seem to support the idea that they're identical to physical processes - because they would be unnecessary/redundant if they weren't bringing something extra.

[anonymous66]

From my point of view, I have a physical body that includes my brain. And I have a mind that perceives and dreams and imagines and plans and reasons. The 2 interact.

This last sentence is the exact point where the age old dualism blinds us to what is the case.
The 2 do not 'interact'
The mind is what the brain does.
The mind is the activity of the brain.
Saying that it 'interacts' forces us to conceive of the the mind and brain as two separate things. And that is exactly where the problem starts; imagining an incorporeal force or spirit which is infused in the matter.

I can't get from "the mind is what the brain does" to "mental states are real". The way I look at it, if mental states are brain states, then mental states are an illusion.

By the way, I reject substance dualism. Here's how I think about it: I know I am conscious- hence mental properties are real. If mental properties are real, then there are physical properties and mental properties. So, property dualism- panpsychism.

[Gertie]

This last sentence is the exact point where the age old dualism blinds us to what is the case.
The 2 do not 'interact'
The mind is what the brain does.
The mind is the activity of the brain.
Saying that it 'interacts' forces us to conceive of the the mind and brain as two separate things. And that is exactly where the problem starts; imagining an incorporeal force or spirit which is infused in the matter.

I can't get from "the mind is what the brain does" to "mental states are real". The way I look at it, if mental states are brain states, then mental states are an illusion.

By the way, I reject substance dualism. Here's how I think about it: I know I am conscious- hence mental properties are real. If mental properties are real, then there are physical properties and mental properties. So, property dualism- panpsychism.

So you think every 'unit of universe-stuff' , even the most fundamental, has both (irreducible) physical and (irreducible) mental properties?

And these properties can causally interact upon each other?

[anonymous66]

I can't get from "the mind is what the brain does" to "mental states are real". The way I look at it, if mental states are brain states, then mental states are an illusion.

By the way, I reject substance dualism. Here's how I think about it: I know I am conscious- hence mental properties are real. If mental properties are real, then there are physical properties and mental properties. So, property dualism- panpsychism.

So you think every 'unit of universe-stuff' , even the most fundamental, has both (irreducible) physical and (irreducible) mental properties?

Correct.

And these properties can causally interact upon each other?

I'm not sure I would put it that way. It seems to me that the nature of our world is such that physical material in the right arrangements gives rise to conscious beings. Conscious beings with both a mind and a body.

[Gertie]

So you think every 'unit of universe-stuff' , even the most fundamental, has both (irreducible) physical and (irreducible) mental properties?

Correct.

And these properties can causally interact upon each other?

I'm not sure I would put it that way. It seems to me that the nature of our world is such that physical material in the right arrangements gives rise to conscious beings. Conscious beings with both a mind and a body.

So Macro-Subject-Me (with a unified sense of being a singular self), would be constiituted from/reducible to innumerable individual micro- 'units of stuff' , each with both physical and mental properties.


Do you have thoughts on the problems associated with this idea -- the combination problem, the unity and boundary problem?

[JamesOfSeattle]

Gertie,

It's the fact of the matter which we should be interested in. How do you know, how can you go about finding out? .

One of the issues is testing. Science relies on objective, public, measurable data. Experiential states are subjective, private and not quantifiable in that way (a thought doesn't weigh six grams, isn't red or ball shaped). Now if we had a way of testing, an experience-o-meter, we could test entities/processes at various levels in your mechanististic heirarchy, but we don't. Therefore we can't locate the point at which some shift in mechanical complexity or whatever, may or may not register the presence of experiential states.

So... how does listing the different levels help us go about finding out?

Before you can measure something, or look for signs of something, you have do decide what you are looking for, i.e., what you will accept as evidence one way or the other. Each level in my hierarchy adds an additional thing to look for. If you specify what things you are looking for, you will specify a level in the hierarchy.

And we do have ways of testing, because people can report experiences. This does not mean that all experiences are reportable. It simply means that some experiences are reportable, and that’s where to start looking.

James the issue of philosophical interest, the mystery, is 'experiential states' - the 'what it's like' of having experiences, any and all of them.

By this very statement I can tell you can see the forest, but not the trees. What I have been saying is that an experience is a single process. An experiential state is that process happening repeatedly. To be able to say “what it’s like” is to be able compare it to something else, and say it is either the same or different. In order to make this comparison, you have to have memories of previous experiences. So it’s one thing to be able to have an experience (low in the hierarchy). It’s another thing to be able to remember an experience (higher in the hierarchy). But it’s possible that you will say that there is no experience if you cannot remember it. That’s fine, but that simply means what I call an experience, you would call a prerequisite to experience. But ultimately my point is, whatever point in the hierarchy you choose, all the lower levels in the hierarchy are there in the physical process that explains the experience.

If a moth can only feel 'what it's like' to experience a change in light, that's the mystery.

In order to “feel what’s it like’, it would have to be able to compare new experiences with old experiences. Don’t know if moths can do that, but it would be an empirical question.

If an amoeba can only sense vibration, or a subatomic particle its spin.

Presumably an amoeba can sense a vibration, but I don’t see in what sense an electron can sense its spin. By (my) definition, to sense is to discern a particular state outside of itself and respond to that state appropriately.

[The question is] Not how experiential states become more complex under evolutionary pressure - rather how and why they exist at all.

Answering the why (how come), I would say experiential states come into existence because experiences are useful, an experience being the discernment of an input and responding with a valuable output. An experiential state is useful because it helps in generating long term memories.

*

[ThomasHobbes]

This last sentence is the exact point where the age old dualism blinds us to what is the case.
The 2 do not 'interact'
The mind is what the brain does.
The mind is the activity of the brain.
Saying that it 'interacts' forces us to conceive of the the mind and brain as two separate things. And that is exactly where the problem starts; imagining an incorporeal force or spirit which is infused in the matter.

I can't get from "the mind is what the brain does" to "mental states are real". The way I look at it, if mental states are brain states, then mental states are an illusion.

If the mind is what the brain does, then mental states are real - as real as the journey a car takes. The journey is not the same as the car, but the car does not "interact" with the journey, the journey is the physical expression of the materiality of the car.

I do not see how you conclude, how you could possibly conclude that this leads to "an illusion". Unless you mean the word in a non pejorative way. I have no doubt that the world we construct to understand reality is additive and constructive, built upon underlying cognitive structures (literally), that narrativise our lives.

Witness analysis demonstrates that we are in a continual state of construction. If it is that, by which you use the word illusion then I agree.

[anonymous66]

I can't get from "the mind is what the brain does" to "mental states are real". The way I look at it, if mental states are brain states, then mental states are an illusion.

If the mind is what the brain does, then mental states are real - as real as the journey a car takes. The journey is not the same as the car, but the car does not "interact" with the journey, the journey is the physical expression of the materiality of the car.

I do not see how you conclude, how you could possibly conclude that this leads to "an illusion". Unless you mean the word in a non pejorative way. I have no doubt that the world we construct to understand reality is additive and constructive, built upon underlying cognitive structures (literally), that narrativise our lives.

Witness analysis demonstrates that we are in a continual state of construction. If it is that, by which you use the word illusion then I agree.

Your example suggests that you believe that mental states cannot affect physical states. Is that correct? It's a one-way street- mental states are only physical states?

[anonymous66]

Correct.


I'm not sure I would put it that way. It seems to me that the nature of our world is such that physical material in the right arrangements gives rise to conscious beings. Conscious beings with both a mind and a body.

So Macro-Subject-Me (with a unified sense of being a singular self), would be constiituted from/reducible to innumerable individual micro- 'units of stuff' , each with both physical and mental properties.


Do you have thoughts on the problems associated with this idea -- the combination problem, the unity and boundary problem?

Regarding the combination problem: If panpsychism, we don't understand the process by which a group of conscious things results in a human feeling that he has a single locus of consciousness. I can imagine that my liver has a basic form of consciousness- and "wants" to process the bile it accumulates (or whatever it is a liver does). There is no logical reason that it couldn't be the case. I can imagine that just as it is the case that physical material in the right arrangements gives rise to conscious organisms- and these being have the ability to move certain physical appendages- it could also be the case that other arrangements of physical material have a basic form of consciousness, but have no appendages it could move (a table could be conscious but unable to move, for example). But, I'm obviously just speculating. It's pretty easy for me to imagine, because consciousness has that private quality.

Regarding the combination problem: Don't we have the same issue with life in general? There are a bunch of living things in a group that make up a larger single life form. Isn't calling these collections of living things an "organism" just a matter of convention?

I haven't heard of the unity problem or the boundary problem before.

I've been reading Thomas Nagel's Mind and Cosmos, and he suggests that if panpsychism, we will have to basically start over and try to understand the evolution of life and consciousness while taking into account that biological material has both mental and physical properties.
Here is a quote:

...panpsychism does not provide a new, more basic resting place in the search for intelligibility- a set of basic principles from which more complex results can be seen to follow. It offers only the form of an explanation without any content, and therefore doesn't seem to be much of an advance on the emergence alternative.
Yet the proposal is not empty. In its schematic, pre-Socratic way, this sort of monism attempts to recognize the mental as a physically irreducible part of reality while still clinging to the basic form of understanding that has proved so successful in physical theory.

[Felix]

JamesOfSeattle: Answering the why (how come), I would say experiential states come into existence because experiences are useful...

Since when is usefulness a requirement for existence? If you mean useful for survival, organisms that do not have experiential states (presumably) have survived for billions of years on earth and have a far greater rate of survival than those that do have them.

anonymous66: Regarding the combination problem: If panpsychism, we don't understand the process by which a group of conscious things results in a human feeling that he has a single locus of consciousness. I can imagine that my liver has a basic form of consciousness- and "wants" to process the bile it accumulates (or whatever it is a liver does). There is no logical reason that it couldn't be the case.

A primary function of the nervous system and the brain is to enable communication between cells, each of which may be sentient, as you suggested. And the brain may be a processor of both sensory and extrasensory information, as it is of cellular and extracellular information, so to speak. The evolution of consciousness primal to more advanced levels via the means of communication is more credible than an arbitrary trial and error genetic process, and physical form would follow mental function rather than vice versa.

I can imagine that just as it is the case that physical material in the right arrangements gives rise to conscious organisms - and these being have the ability to move certain physical appendages - it could also be the case that other arrangements of physical material have a basic form of consciousness, but have no appendages it could move (a table could be conscious but unable to move, for example).

Right, well if it's a wooden table, the death of it's body (i.e., the tree from which it came) would probably lead to a loss of it's consciousness and voice, which is of course why it's more socially acceptable to talk to plants than to tables and chairs. However, if we look at cellular amalgamations closer to us, e.g., dolphins, there is no appreciable difference between their brains and ours, and they can communicate with one another quite well, but they lack the opposable thumbs required to cause the sort of havoc that humans are so very good at.

[Wayne92587]

The Duality of Substance is a fact, the Duality of Singularity, the dual quality of the Individual Man, he and she, mind and body, spirit and flesh.

New thought, a flash of insight; not really, just a different arrangement of thought.

You can not define consciousness by concentrating on Consciousness.

You must show what Consciousness is not

The First Problem is definition of Words.

Knowledge of Reality exists as a thought, knowledge of Reality not being Reality itself.

A Reality must be proven to exist, if not being proven to exist then said Realty is proven not to exist.

A Reality is required to have substance, mass, must be readily apparent, must be measurable as to location and momentum in Space-Time; otherwise said Reality is proven not to exist.

Man is able to prove his existence, at least to himself, simply by saying I am.

Man knows that he exists simply because he is readily apparent, is measurable as to location and momentum in Space-Time.

I think, say to myself that I am, therefore I am.

If the state of Reality was such that the Reality of Everything existed as a Singularity.

There is the first problem with Language, the word Existence.

Is it possible for the existence of something that has no substance, no mass.

No! for a substance exist it must have relative, numerical value of at least
One-1, a singularity of One-1 having a dual quality, two qualities.

In order for a Singularity to have a numerical value of One-1 it must exist as the first in a series of Events, must exist as the beginning of continuum such as Space-Time, must exist as the beginning of a process such as the Evolutionary Process, must have relative, numerical value, but most importantly the motion of a Singularity must have angular momentum, velocity of Speed and direction.

A Singularity cannot exist simply because it is not readily apparent, has no velocity of speed and direction, is not measurable as to location and momentum in Space-Time.

The Motion of a Singularity alone in the Emptiness of Time and Space is
meaningless exists as the insignificant innate inner motion, vibration, as an oscillation, a Singularity alone in the Emptiness making a humming sound, OHM!

In order for an entity to exist, it must be readily apparent, must relative, must be measurable as to location and momentum in Space-Time.

The whole of Reality is born of Singularity, is born of a State, a Field of Singularity.

Singularity consisting of an untold number, quantity, of Infinitely Finite Indivisible Singularities having no relative, numerical value, has a numerical value of Zero-0.

This means that within a State, Field, of Singularities nothing is relative, nothing has numerical value, nothing is readily apparent, nothing is measurable as to location and momentum in Space-Time.

Having no relative numerical value, Time as we know it to be, begins at the Zero-0 Hour.
+
A point in Space is anywhere, is everywhere, is nowhere, at the same Time, is Fully Random at the Zero-0 Hour before the Beginning of Creation.

Creation is the Key to the existence of the Heavens and the Earth, the Universe, the Reality of Everything that exists in the Material sense of the word.

Creation beginning with the First Singularity of Zero-0 to be made relative to be given the numerical value of One-1, Creation beginning with the Creation of the Reality of First Cause, beginning with the transfiguration, the conversion, the rebirth of a Singularity of zero-0.

The Reality of First Cause being the First Singularity to have a dual quality, to exist having relative, numerical, value of One-1; 0/1.

The Reality of First Cause being Transcendental, able to transcend the Darkness.
The Reality of First Cause being the First Singularity of Zero-0 to become relative, to have a numerical value of One-1, to have a Dual Quality.

Before the creation of a substance 0/1 having a dual quality Singularity was none existent, nor was the Heaven and the Earth, the Universe, nor the Reality of Everything that now exists in the Material sense of the word.

[anonymous66]

JamesOfSeattle: Answering the why (how come), I would say experiential states come into existence because experiences are useful...

I can imagine that just as it is the case that physical material in the right arrangements gives rise to conscious organisms - and these being have the ability to move certain physical appendages - it could also be the case that other arrangements of physical material have a basic form of consciousness, but have no appendages it could move (a table could be conscious but unable to move, for example).

Right, well if it's a wooden table, the death of it's body (i.e., the tree from which it came) would probably lead to a loss of it's consciousness and voice, which is of course why it's more socially acceptable to talk to plants than to tables and chairs. However, if we look at cellular amalgamations closer to us, e.g., dolphins, there is no appreciable difference between their brains and ours, and they can communicate with one another quite well, but they lack the opposable thumbs required to cause the sort of havoc that humans are so very good at.

If panpsychism, then literally everything is conscious. There is no "death" that would cause a material thing to loose consciousness.

[anonymous66]

Right, well if it's a wooden table, the death of it's body (i.e., the tree from which it came) would probably lead to a loss of it's consciousness and voice, which is of course why it's more socially acceptable to talk to plants than to tables and chairs. However, if we look at cellular amalgamations closer to us, e.g., dolphins, there is no appreciable difference between their brains and ours, and they can communicate with one another quite well, but they lack the opposable thumbs required to cause the sort of havoc that humans are so very good at.

If panpsychism, then literally everything is conscious. There is no "death" that would cause a material thing to loose consciousness.

Although it stands to reason that a hunk of wood that was cut down would have a change in its consciousness. And obviously a dead human doesn't have the same form of consciousness that a live one does- I can even imagine that a non-living human doesn't have a locus of consciousness. If panpsychism, then consciousness is related to the arrangement of and state of (in this case, living cells vs dead cells) physical matter. There is a lot we don't know, because of the private, inaccessible nature of consciousness.

[RJG]

There seems to be lots of confusion about what consciousness is. Many seemingly want to make consciousness out to be something mystical or spooky. I think it is much simpler than that.

Virtually every entity in this universe can experience bodily reactions (including billiard balls!), but not many can “know” they experience these bodily reactions. The ones that “know”, are the ones that are considered “conscious"; and therefore are the ones that possess consciousness. In short, consciousness is 'knowing' or 'recognizing' our bodily experiences/reactions.

Consciousness is therefore the singular experience of 'recognition', which is only possible in those entities that possess memory.

Those of us with eyes, are capable of seeing. Those of us with memory, are capable of consciousness (knowing/recognizing).