Re: Whatever Consciousness is, it's Not Physical (or reducible to physical).
Posted: May 28th, 2018, 10:01 am
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Tamminen wrote: ↑May 28th, 2018, 4:54 am'Something' is a word, a concept, that denotes something, and for that something to be there it must be possible to refer to it. There cannot be "something" without someone or something for whom or for what that something is. Something in itself does not make sense. It escapes all thinking and imagination. There is always a subject for an object if there is any meaning in saying that the object is. Of course objects are there independent of any individual subject, but not independent of some subject somewhere sometime in the physical spacetime of our universe.There's a distinction between objects in the psychological sense—objects of thought (perception or imagination or cognition/knowledge)—and ones in the ontological sense—"objects of being" (things). The latter can but needn't be objects in the former sense, i.e. "objects for a subject/subjects".
Tamminen wrote: ↑May 28th, 2018, 4:54 amIn short: If I did not exist, there would be nothing, which is absurd, and if there were no subjects, there would be nothing, which is absurd.There's no absurdity because your conditional statements are false. Ontological objects don't depend for their being on the being of subjects (that think about, perceive or imagine them).
Tamminen wrote: ↑May 28th, 2018, 4:54 amWe cannot escape the ontological and methodological starting point of phenomenology: our immediate reality as it appears to us.Yes, we can. That is to say, the subject matter of ontology or cosmology is not reducible to the subject matter of phenomenology or psychology.
Tamminen wrote: ↑May 28th, 2018, 4:54 amTo seek an explanation for the being of consciousness in the objects of consciousness by means of consciousness is a Munchhausen's trick and does not lead anywhere.??? – There's nothing impossible or inconsistent about a physical realism which assumes that conscious states are brain states and hence physically explainable.
Consul wrote: ↑May 28th, 2018, 10:53 am There's a distinction between objects in the psychological sense—objects of thought (perception or imagination or cognition/knowledge)—and ones in the ontological sense—"objects of being" (things). The latter can but needn't be objects in the former sense, i.e. "objects for a subject/subjects".The being of the objects of thought is dependent on the being of an individual subject, but the being of the "objects of being" is not. However, the being of those objects is dependent on the the fact that there are subjects whose world they belong to. I understand that this is not obvious for everyone, but for me it is as clear as the sky in Helsinki today.
"Cognition [is] not a creation, production or bringing about of the object, as old-school and new-school idealism wants to indoctrinate us, but an apprehension of something that exists prior to all cognition and is independent of it."
There's nothing impossible or inconsistent about a physical realism which assumes that conscious states are brain states and hence physically explainable.I strongly disagree.
Tamminen wrote: ↑May 28th, 2018, 11:51 amThe being of the objects of thought is dependent on the being of an individual subject, but the being of the "objects of being" is not. However, the being of those objects is dependent on the the fact that there are subjects whose world they belong to. I understand that this is not obvious for everyone, but for me it is as clear as the sky in Helsinki today.Of course, nothing is an (actual) object of thought unless there is at least one subject thinking of it; but it doesn't follow that every object which is an (actual) object of thought depends for its being on being an object of thought. For (actually) being an object of thought doesn't entail necessarily or essentially being one. Of course, the concept of an unthought thought-object is self-contradictory, but the concept of a thought-independent thought-object is not.
Tamminen wrote: ↑May 28th, 2018, 11:51 amI agree, because my standpoint is not subjective idealism. I would say "...an apprehension of something that exists prior to all personal cognition and is independent of it".But yours is still an "intersubjective idealism", isn't it? For you believe that objects are at least generically existentially dependent on subjects, don't you?
Tamminen wrote: ↑May 28th, 2018, 11:51 amDo you have an argument against physical realism?Consul wrote: ↑May 28th, 2018, 10:53 amThere's nothing impossible or inconsistent about a physical realism which assumes that conscious states are brain states and hence physically explainable.I strongly disagree.
Consul wrote: ↑May 28th, 2018, 12:27 pmDo you have an argument against physical realism?Speaking of arguments against physical realism/for idealism, here's a new book (which I haven't read yet) that might interest you:
Consul wrote: ↑May 28th, 2018, 10:53 am There's nothing impossible or inconsistent about a physical realism which assumes that conscious states are brain states and hence physically explainable.Consul
Dachshund wrote: ↑May 28th, 2018, 12:40 pmRegarding Identity Theory, I think there is some strong support for this thesis in recent published research into the pharmacology (i.e. the pharmacodynamics and pharmacokinetics) of psychotomimetic drugs. I will use LSD-25 as an example.The theoretical, metaphysical problem with these empirically ascertained psychophysical correlations is that they are multiply interpretable; and the facts of your example aren't only compatible with reductive/equative materialism (= the materialistic identity theory) but also e.g. with emergentive/causative materialism, according to which mental/experiential states are brain states, but they are irreducibly different from those neurophysical brain states from which they emerge or which cause/produce them.
When doses of, (for example) ,200 mcg of LSD - 25 are given orally to groups of adult research volunteers and a plot of the blood plasma concentrations of LSD in the subjects versus time is then made, the resulting graph is very similar indeed in shape to that of the plot of changes in subjective experience (i.e. the magnitude of changes in phenomenal diurnal consciousness) the drug induces in the volunteers over time.
What I mean is that LSD-25 causes certain changes in phenomenal waking consciousness such as: the experience of unity; audio-visual synsthesiae; heightened levels insightfulness and spirituality; the experience of oceanic boundlessness, the state of blissfulness, feelings of derealisation and depersonalisation, awareness of alterations in the meaning of percepts, and so on. These so-called "psychedelic" effects are known to occur when LSD-25 molecules in the volunteers' plasma attach themselves to 5HT- 2A serotonin receptor sites in the brain. What is interesting is that when reports of the subjective experience of these kind of psychedelic changes in the consciousness of healthy research volunteers are quantified using validated psychometric scales, it has been found that they increase at precisely the same rate as the plasma concentration of the LSD increases after an initial oral dose ( of 200 mcg, for example) is ingested, peak at the time ( i.e. after about 2.5 hours) and then to diminish at very much the same rate that the plasma concentration of the drug does as it is subsequently eliminated from the blood by enzymatic degradation in the liver.
Consul wrote: ↑May 28th, 2018, 12:27 pm Do you have an argument against physical realism?The problem with physical realism is the claim for the ontological independence of the physical world. As I have said many times, the being of the world in itself, without the being of a subject for which the world exists, does not make sense to me. This nonsense appears in a simple phenomenological intuition - for me at least. Another intuition says to me that if I did not exist, there would be nothing. This may seem counterintuitive for someone like you, but I am sure it is because you have left your meditations half-way. I assure you that it becomes evident if you refuse to trust your first impression and take a reflective attitude. And this is the insight that logically leads to the metaphysics I have proposed in my posts on this forum: the theory of generic subjective continuity, or subjective interpersonal continuity, which I have found also others like Cycswan seem to support, with a couple of philosophers Cycswan refers to. And this insight with its consequences goes deep into our existential situation. It opens up new horizons for philosophy. But there is this big problem with it: when we understand what it really means, we also understand that we cannot speak of it. It is beyond language.
Dachshund wrote: ↑May 28th, 2018, 8:52 amSize matters. Quantum entities can be in more than one place at one time and tunnel through seemingly impermeable barriers. However, large things cannot.Consul wrote: ↑May 28th, 2018, 8:16 am Dachshund wrote: ↑Today, 7:37 amOK, still keeping things simple... Quantum mechanics has repeatedly demonstrated that there is no extant objective reality; that is, that there are LITERALLY no material objects pre-existing in any specific position in space; rather, the fact is that we (with our observing consciousness) each create in the act of observation, our own constantly changing NON-OBJECTIVE reality.
Consul,
Let's keep this very simple, OK.
I am in a room in my house and I can see that there is a wooden chair in this room. I now walk out of this room and I can no longer see the chair. Even though I can no longer see the chair, I really do believe it is still in that room. That means for this wooden chair to exist it does not need to be observed by any subject , right ?
Right.
Right?
Greta wrote: ↑May 28th, 2018, 5:28 pm Size matters. Quantum entities can be in more than one place at one time and tunnel through seemingly impermeable barriers. However, large things cannot.I don't know in relation to quantum tunneling, but we do not know the upper limit in relation to superposition - with implications about ontology I would not want to try to wrap my head around...
Do not believe that the nature of the quantum realm is relevant to most human scale activities; it's a common logical error. By the same token human sized entities operate differently to stars, so we can grow as large as we like but we will never reach hydrostatic equilibrium or generate nuclear fusion.
Karpel Tunnel wrote: ↑May 28th, 2018, 11:18 pmYes, that's why I qualified with "most human activities" (and ideally would have mentioned the situation with other species, as you mentioned).Greta wrote: ↑May 28th, 2018, 5:28 pm Size matters. Quantum entities can be in more than one place at one time and tunnel through seemingly impermeable barriers. However, large things cannot.I don't know in relation to quantum tunneling, but we do not know the upper limit in relation to superposition - with implications about ontology I would not want to try to wrap my head around...
Do not believe that the nature of the quantum realm is relevant to most human scale activities; it's a common logical error. By the same token human sized entities operate differently to stars, so we can grow as large as we like but we will never reach hydrostatic equilibrium or generate nuclear fusion.
https://physics.aps.org/articles/v8/6
further quantum effects from the small scale can effect the movements of birds, at the very least, since they affect/or kinda run their magnetic sensing.
It's early days in understanding how the qm stuff is relevant at other scales. Or what it means that the entire foundational make up of the universe functions at the qm level. Statistically in relation to our day to day it experience, it may not matter much. But as far as what is really going on, in contrast to our experience, I don't think we know.
Greta wrote: ↑May 28th, 2018, 5:28 pm Do not believe that the nature of the quantum realm is relevant to most human scale activities; it's a common logical error. By the same token human sized entities operate differently to stars, so we can grow as large as we like but we will never reach hydrostatic equilibrium or generate nuclear fusion.I have one nitpicking complaint about your characterization of QM. It is not really a "Logical Error" to apply it to the human scale, it is simply a "Pragmatic Error". As objects get bigger QM generally reduces to the classical view, except in the "ontological sense". QM's representation of an unobserved particle is a "wave" of probability distributions, where each point in the probability space is the likelihood that the particle will be found there. As objects get bigger that probability space changes so that there is little probability that the object will be found anywhere not predicted by classical physics. Thus it becomes more pragmatic to use classical physics. However, note that there is a big difference in the ontological implications of QM because it still portrays the large objects as having some teeny probabilities that it will not be where classical physics says it is.