Philosophy Discussion Forums

Leo wrote:Nagel is hardly a dispassionate commentator on matters of science but your language is your own.

Clearly you make a distinction between consciousness and self-awareness, as do I, so it might be wise for us to make sure we're both talking about the same thing. Does the hard problem refer to both or simply to self-awareness, in your opinion? I've seen this argument so many times that there appears to be no consensus.

If you're saying that Nagel has an axe to grind, I beg to differ. I was referring to (or, I suppose, lampooning) your earlier remark that he was an 'anti-science ideologue'. He is a philosopher who criticises what he sees as the manifold weakenesses of what he describes as 'Darwinian materialism'. I think his criticisms are valid and well-grounded, and he is very brave to have made them, in an environment that overwhelmingly endorses the very thing he criticizes.

As regards what 'the hard problem' really is about, Chalmer's original paper on it is here. But it can be stated in one brief sentence:

David Chalmers wrote:The really hard problem of consciousness is the problem of experience

.

He goes on to elaborate (citing Nagel, by the way.) But the problem is really very simple. 'Experience' is inherently subjective. It is an attribute of being, which are the subjects of experience. And the scientific method, no matter how carefully elaborated, doesn't deal with subjects, but with objects. Certainly quantification and other scientific techniques can be applied to various aspects of subjective experience, but the key point remains. Nagel also addresses this in another of his books, The View from Nowhere.

The 'hard problem' is simply that the reality of subjective experience is not something that scientific, third-person, quantitative accounts can explain, even in principle. And I think that is well and good: science is splendid for very many things, but 'explaining human nature' is not among them.

Belinda wrote:St. Augustine said that the human is a bottomless pit

I would be interested in the citation for that.

I think you may have misunderstood me. I pick and choose from Nagel as I do from anybody and as far as his criticism of Darwinism or neo-Darwinism is concerned we are in lockstep. I deny Darwinism in all of its manifestations, a point I felt I had made clear. I reject all forms of reductionism, a position which I haven't been very secretive about. Modern evolution theory is emphatically not Darwinian. However that Nagel has no axe to grind would be a difficult argument to sustain. However this is not a red herring I'm interested in pursuing.

Quotidian wrote: The 'hard problem' is simply that the reality of subjective experience is not something that scientific, third-person, quantitative accounts can explain, even in principle. And I think that is well and good: science is splendid for very many things, but 'explaining human nature' is not among them.

Exactly what I've been saying from the outset. If a question can't be answered, even in principle, as I've repeatedly said, it's a meaningless question and farting around with a meaningless question is a complete waste of time and an insult to both science and philosophy.

Regards Leo

Obvious Leo wrote:Modern evolution theory is emphatically not Darwinian

Make that one stand up, with reference to citations.

Leo wrote:it (i.e. 'the hard problem') is a meaningless question.

And I'm saying that you're saying that, because you don't grasp it.

-- Updated August 10th, 2014, 10:21 pm to add the following --

Leo wrote:If a question can't be answered, even in principle, as I've repeatedly said, it's a meaningless question and farting around with a meaningless question is a complete waste of time and an insult to both science and philosophy.

Here's the reason why I say that: in our current culture, 'science' is given massive authority to tell us about who we are. And we, according to science, are the outcome of chance and necessity, or simply another species, or a kind of computer - or many things, just the kinds of things that science is good at explaining.

So when I say that science ought not to be invoked to explain human nature, in fact I am saying something highly controversial. It is a hand-grenade, the kind of thing that often provokes very strong reactions on Philosophy forms. (I speak from experience. ) And, it is one of the inferences that can be taken from Nagel's book, Mind and Cosmos, although he didn't use that particular expression.

So 'the hard problem' is not simply a non-problem, or a waste of time, or like watching grass grow. It is actually central to the entire 'culture war' about the place of science in human life, and what kind of questions science can - and can't! - be expected to address. If you think it is just a meaningless question, a waste of breath, then you're not getting it.

Quotidian wrote:And I'm saying that you're saying that, because you don't grasp it.

Quite so. I don't expect science or philosophy to be able to explain my own mind to me. I made the bloody thing so I'm going to have to figure it out for myself. This is a work in progress which will stop when they chuck me in the compost bin.

Linear dynamic systems theory is the main paradigm for modern biology. There is ample literature around on the subject, but perhaps the best recent publication for lay readers is "The Systems View of Life", a combined effort by Fritjof Capra and Pier Luigi Luisi. It contains a comprehensive bibliography of over 200 titles for those interested in further research and it is dedicated to your inspiration and mine, Francisco Varela. I recommend this excellent work to your interest.

Regards Leo

-- Updated August 10th, 2014, 10:36 pm to add the following --

I will not be instructed on matters of science and philosophy by any person whose views are informed by a belief in the supernatural.

"Belief is the antithesis of knowledge"..... Bertrand Russell.

Obvious Leo wrote:Exactly what I've been saying from the outset. If a question can't be answered, even in principle, as I've repeatedly said, it's a meaningless question and farting around with a meaningless question is a complete waste of time and an insult to both science and philosophy.

But philosophy deals with many questions that may be, in principle, unanswerable. That is the nature of the field. That is the reason why some/many scientists view philosophy as a waste of time. Once a particular question is somewhat understood/clarified and is open to experimentation, science takes over. No, doubt, the science of consciousness/mind is still in it's infancy but the question/topic seems like an reasonable one:

In external terms: how can purely physical processes give rise to the raw feel of experience? Or in internal terms: why must the information processing aspects of consciousness be accompanied with a characteristic phenomenal feel?

A solution to the hard problem seeks to explain how some particular subjective impression (e.g. the “redness” of some object) can arise from the activity of our neuronal assemblies/matter. In its simplest form, the hard problem may be summarized as follows: why does the activity of my brain make me feel something rather than nothing? For example, the sensation of the colour red cannot be accounted for by the physicist's picture of light-waves, etc. or by the neurophysiologist's understanding of the retina/nervous system.

That is why in the 125th anniversary of the journal Science, this question was ranked among the top 10 unanswered scientific questions. Whether it can answered by science (many questions can't be) in the future, is debatable. My own view is that it is very unlikely for reasons argued previously. Nevertheless, I find this topic very interesting and I'm not sure why.

The discrepency I see in Leo's theory is that he's saying that both the material universe and consciousness are emergent, i.e., the universe emerges ("Big Bang") and then consciousness emerges from it later. But two emergences create a logical emergency. T'would be more logical to say that, contrary to appearance, matter/mind are two sides of one coin that emerge together simultaneously.

Felix, I consider that to be a major question: Did matter and mind emerge simultaneously, or separately and in order? We may never know and some people may consider it a waste of time to try to find out, but the question arose nevertheless...

Felix wrote:The discrepency I see in Leo's theory is that he's saying that both the material universe and consciousness are emergent, i.e., the universe emerges ("Big Bang") and then consciousness emerges from it later. But two emergences create a logical emergency.

I don't follow this.

Logic_ill wrote:Felix, I consider that to be a major question: Did matter and mind emerge simultaneously, or separately and in order?

Since during the evolution of our universe, in the early stages, there weren't even atoms, never mind life forms and mind, isn't the answer obvious?

It should be obvious, Bohm. If I were to agree with the Big Bang theory, there was no living matter, therefore no mind. However, I have to admit I do speculate about mind or some form of consciousness outside of the living. The problem is that a person such as myself could not possibly know that. Not only because I cannot have come up with the Big Bang theory myself, due to my very limited experience and knowledge of such fields as astronomy, physics,and other sciences, but because I don´t think I would have the tools or knowhow to test or prove any of it. This is why many might consider such ponderings a waste of time, although I don´t entirely agree.

Another important field is evolutionary biology, especially when it pertains to humans. I also speculate, whether any of our primate ancestors actually had mind (in the form we have it today) or whether it was a slow gradual process? I´m not sure even those we consider homo sapiens sapiens had the same kind of mind we have today. All I could do is speculate...

Leo wrote:I will not be instructed on matters of science and philosophy by any person whose views are informed by a belief in the supernatural.

Well, that's basically a prejudice on your part. Furthermore, it's an artificial boundary. But this is why, when you ask me if I accept 'the universe is all there is', you're really asking 'do you reject anything "supernatural". Well, I don't. We do not know enough about nature to know what is 'super' to it. Besides, the definition - or notion - of 'the supernatural' is based on the 19th and 20th Century conception of conflict between science and religion, which I regard as largely historical.

Your theory that complexity must always emerge is, as you say it is, a statement of the bleeding obvious. But philosophers actually do ask the question 'why does it? Why is the universe constitutes in just such a way that organic life arises'? That involves consideration of the nature of causation in a way that science, which generally 'assumes nature', doesn't consider; but as soon as that is suggested, you immediately either switch off, become sarcastic, or go on the offensive. I think you need to understand the conditioning which produces that reaction.

-- Updated August 11th, 2014, 8:37 am to add the following --

Maybe it's the fear of religion:

Thomas Nagel wrote:IN SPEAKING OF THE FEAR OF RELIGION, I don't mean to refer to the entirely reasonable hostility toward certain established religions and religious institutions, in virtue of their objectionable moral doctrines, social policies, and political influence. Nor am I referring to the association of many religious beliefs with superstition and the acceptance of evident empirical falsehoods. I am talking about something much deeper—namely, the fear of religion itself. I speak from experience, being strongly subject to this fear myself: I want atheism to be true and am made uneasy by the fact that some of the most intelligent and well-informed people I know are religious believers. It isn't just that I don't believe in God and, naturally, hope that I'm right in my belief. It's that I hope there is no God! I don't want there to be a God; I don't want the universe to be like that.

My guess is that this cosmic authority problem is not a rare condition and that it is responsible for much of the scientism and reductionism of our time. One of the tendencies it supports is the ludicrous overuse of evolutionary biology to explain everything about life, including everything about the human mind. Darwin enabled modern secular culture to heave a great collective sigh of relief, by apparently providing a way to eliminate purpose, meaning, and design as fundamental features of the world. Instead they become epiphenomena, generated incidentally by a process that can be entirely explained by the operation of the nonteleological laws of physics on the material of which we and our environments are all composed.

Evolutionary Naturalism and the Fear of Religion; from The Last Word, 2002.

-- Updated August 11th, 2014, 9:06 am to add the following --

Besides, it is not a matter of 'instructing' anyone. This is a debate.

Logic III wrote:If I were to agree with the Big Bang theory, there was no living matter, therefore no mind.

Assumes that mind is the result or consequence of material processes. Assumes that the physical theory of the Universe is complete in principle. Certainly scientific cosmology is founded on data and empirical evidence, but the belief that this accounts for everything we see, in principle, may not be warranted. In this sense, the 'big bang' has become 'the creation myth of the scientific age'.

Question: should there be a 'scientific worldview'? I can understand the benefits of 'a scientific attitude': look for evidence, identify underlying patterns, test hypotheses, and so on. But 'a worldview' is not the same as 'an hypothesis'. In some ways 'a worldview' is logically prior to hypotheses, because it might determine what kinds of hypotheses ought or ought not be entertained. I think it is when science becomes 'a worldview' that it begins to act as a kind of substitute for religion.

Obvious Leo wrote:

Belinda wrote:we invent ourselves because we have to.

Leo Replied

This is so self-evident a statement that bloody obvious springs to mind. Who else could invent our own minds?

A lot of people think that individuals' minds are given as the oak tree is given within the potential of an acorn, although most people fail to manifest their( perhaps God-given perhaps nature-given) potentials.Others think that an fully functioning individual's mind is his to invent as he chooses, freedom within the facts specific to his circumstances for instance being a newborn, or being frustrated by brain lesion would diminish self-invention. I don't know whether Leo 's comment was because he thinks it ought to be obvious or because he has not until now thought of the alternative.


Quotidian requested:

Belinda wrote:St. Augustine said that the human is a bottomless pit


I would be interested in the citation for that.

I should have said "abyss" not "pit". Anyway it's from An Augustine Synthesis ed E. Przyvara , New York. 1958, p421. Quoted by Macquarrie in his book Existentialism in which he contrasts the Thomist tradition with the Augustinian, and observes that the Augustinian tradition is the basic thought of Christian existentialists.

I said: "The discrepency I see in Leo's theory is that he's saying that both the material universe and consciousness are emergent, i.e., the universe emerges ("Big Bang") and then consciousness emerges from it later."

Bohm2 replied: "I don't follow this."

Obvious Leo has stated that the Universe itself is emergent, e.g., in a recent post he said: "We can therefore think of the subatomic particles as simply being emergent from the behaviour of yet more fundamental energy units, all of which do their thing at the speed of light."

So he is saying that consciousness emerged from matter, which emerged from a more primal substance - energy or some other state of matter. That is, both matter and consciousness emerged from this primal substance in a particular order. This is really no different from the metaphysical idea that consciousness and matter emerged from a Supreme Creative Principle, Divine Mind - whatever one happens to call it.

Thanks, Belinda. Superb passage - I found the full reference on line. Herewith the passage from Augustine with the directly comparable passage from the Upanisad:

St Augustine wrote: If by 'abyss' we understand a great depth, is not man's heart an abyss? For what is there more profound than that abyss? Men may speak, may be seen by the operation of their members, may be heard speaking; but whose thought is penetrated, whose heart is seen into? … Don't you believe that there is in man a deep so profound as to be hidden even to him whom it is'?

Yājñavalkya wrote:An object outside the seer can be beheld by the seer. How can the seer see himself? How is it possible? You cannot see the seer of seeing. You cannot hear the hearer of hearing. You cannot think the Thinker of thinking. You cannot understand the Understander of understanding.

There's your 'hard problem' in a nutshell.

Bohm2. I'm just as puzzled as you are as to how some people can regard this as an important question while so many do not. When I see the colour red am I seeing the same colour as you are when you see the colour red? How can this question possibly be answered? What does it matter? We don't see with our eyes, we see with our minds, and no two minds are the same. On the basis of the latter point I guess I'd have to say no, we don't see the same colour. As long as we call it the same colour it doesn't matter. My brother and I have always argued over blue and green since childhood because there is no defined boundary. I read recently that the human mind is able to distinguish over a million distinctly different colours, all on the basis of information received from only 3 primary colour receptors in the retina. The retina is an interesting piece of kit, as you know. It receives extremely fragmentary light information in only three primary colours and only two dimensions. It then presents this absurdly grainy 2D image to the brain upside down with a bloody great hole in it. From two such presentations we are then able to construct an image of our visual field in exquisitely precise detail, in 3 dimensions, the right way up, and in glorious technicolour. Do I find this awe-inspiring and remarkable? Yes. Do I find it miraculous? No

For centuries it was believed that human infants, and in fact all mammalian infants, were born blind. This has now been shown to be false. They are not born blind but they are born without the ability to see. Seeing must be learned.

You seem to have dealt with Felix's and Logic's questions much as I would have.

Logic_ill wrote: Another important field is evolutionary biology, especially when it pertains to humans. I also speculate, whether any of our primate ancestors actually had mind (in the form we have it today) or whether it was a slow gradual process? I´m not sure even those we consider homo sapiens sapiens had the same kind of mind we have today. All I could do is speculate...

I hope you'll understand that in biology the notion of "the same mind as" is an oxymoron, whether we are talking about two organisms of the same species or two of different species. It is fair to say that two organisms of the same species have the same kind of brain structure, but they can't possibly construct the same kind of mind out of it. I brief tour around this forum should suffice as proof.

Quotidian wrote: Well, that's basically a prejudice on your part. Furthermore, it's an artificial boundary. But this is why, when you ask me if I accept 'the universe is all there is', you're really asking 'do you reject anything "supernatural". Well, I don't. We do not know enough about nature to know what is 'super' to it. Besides, the definition - or notion - of 'the supernatural' is based on the 19th and 20th Century conception of conflict between science and religion, which I regard as largely historical.

It is not a prejudice,Q. It is an important thing for me to know so that I can understand you. The supernatural is not accessible to the tools I use, which are those of science and philosophy, which means that I need to give due weight to your overall world-view when considering both your opinions and your arguments. My own world-view is something I've made no secret of but I'm not judging you and I deny my authority to so so.

Quotidian wrote: Your theory that complexity must always emerge is, as you say it is, a statement of the bleeding obvious

In the light of this perhaps you'd do me the courtesy of not calling it "my" theory. It is the position of orthodox, mainstream science with which I concur. Naturally you are free to question any conclusions which I draw from it, which I will weigh in accordance with the considerations given above.

I have no interest in discussing Nagel's philosophy, as I feel sure I've made abundantly clear. He and I think in different magisteria, as you very well know.

Quotidian wrote: Besides, it is not a matter of 'instructing' anyone. This is a debate.

Let's keep it that way, then. You don't tell me how to do philosophy and I won't tell you that leprechauns are a myth.

Belinda wrote:I don't know whether Leo 's comment was because he thinks it ought to be obvious or because he has not until now thought of the alternative.

A disingenuous comment I think, Belinda, but I think I see your tongue bulging in your cheek.

Regards Leo

Obvious Leo wrote:

A disingenuous comment I think, Belinda, but I think I see your tongue bulging in your cheek.

I'm sorry if I was impolite but my comment was sincere. I was not trying to be funny.

It matters to me that you see that independent individuals do and should make themselves as free as factual circumstances allow. It seems from all you that have written that I have read that you do agree with this. However I truly do hope but am not sure that you do see the ( undesirable ) alternative that determinism implies that the human mind is not infinitely deep. I don't mean deep as in devious I mean deep as in ontically unfathomable.