Philosophy Discussion Forums

anonymous66 wrote: ↑May 29th, 2018, 12:03 pmMy thinking goes like this: We agree that the physical is a requirement for a mind. There are many different forms of physical structures that result in mental states (think of all the different animal brains there are). We don't know what kind of brain hardware is required for consciousness (or even pain- Octopuses have a very different neurology but do experience pain). There is no logical reason to assume that a wet organic brain is required for consciousness- and you didn't point out any logical difficulties with the microchip thought experiment above.
If we encountered a form of intelligent sentient alien life that was made out of previously unknown materials, I see no logical reason to assume it didn't have a mind.

Logical possibility doesn't entail physical possibility. If organic nervous systems are functionally radically unlike inorganic computers, then it is doubtful that artificial experience is physically possible. (Note that artificial intelligence is not sufficient for artificial experience.) Moreover, "until we know how the brain does it we are in a poor position to try to do it artificially." (J. Searle)

What is a real physical possibility is neuroprosthetics, but this doesn't mean that organic central nervous systems (CNSs) can be completely and equivalently replaced by inorganic information-processing systems (IPSs).

Organic chemistry is defined as "the branch of chemistry concerned with compounds of carbon" (Oxford Dictionary of Chemistry), and chemists cannot rule out the possibility of non-carbon-based forms of life. So there is a distinction between inorganic but biological IPSs and inorganic and non-biological IPSs; and the question as to whether some of the former can generate consciousness is different from the question as to whether some of the latter can. That is, whether there can be conscious non-organic (non-carbonic) life is one question, and whether there can be conscious non-organic non-life is another.

Consul wrote: ↑May 29th, 2018, 1:23 pm Organic chemistry is defined as "the branch of chemistry concerned with compounds of carbon" (Oxford Dictionary of Chemistry), and chemists cannot rule out the possibility of non-carbon-based forms of life. So there is a distinction between inorganic but biological IPSs and inorganic and non-biological IPSs; and the question as to whether some of the former can generate consciousness is different from the question as to whether some of the latter can. That is, whether there can be conscious non-organic (non-carbonic) life is one question, and whether there can be conscious non-organic non-life is another.

See: Hypothetical types of biochemistry

Tamminen wrote: ↑May 29th, 2018, 11:25 amConsciousness is fundamental, its being cannot be explained and need not be explained. It is the starting point of philosophy, and the point where we must always return if we get lost.

From the point of view of empiricism, subjective experience is epistemologically fundamental; but it doesn't follow that it is also ontologically fundamental, i.e. that Existence/Reality depends on or consists of subjective experiences.

Consul wrote: ↑May 29th, 2018, 10:25 am What is it about the physical world that makes it dependent on the mental states of subjects?

What is it about consciousness that makes it dependent on matter? What does it mean that there is matter? The being of consciousness seems to be a problem for modern science, but not the being of matter. Why?

The emanations of consciousness produced by the body is not the result of inert elements. It is obvious that photons are responsible for the increment of the energy signature. Photons are (in the standard version) a primary development of the pre-Big Bang conditions. Inert elements might have existed but surely cool off after the Big Bang. That which I call the soul has the drive to evolve. Therefore, it is of the quality of thought equivalent to a will.… it existed before the observer as a drive to evolve and to survive. We are it pulling up; down; sideways all at once. A gigantic photon.

Tamminen wrote: ↑May 29th, 2018, 1:39 pm

Consul wrote: ↑May 29th, 2018, 10:25 am What is it about the physical world that makes it dependent on the mental states of subjects?

What is it about consciousness that makes it dependent on matter?

Its being a state of matter.

"Matter/energy is thus conceived as indefinitely plastic and versatile, as witness physics as we have it, and among its many manifestations is consciousness. Consciousness is one of the modes that matter can appear in—one mode of its being. Call the basic stuff of the world X and suppose X to be uniform (knowably or not): then consciousness is a mode of X, like every other natural phenomenon. Putting it this way we can avoid the heavy historical connotation of the word 'matter', with all its biases and baggage: 'X' is just a name for what composes everything natural. The important point is that consciousness is a form of the same thing that everything else is a form of: electrons, protons, fields, neurons, elephants, stars—whether we call this thing 'matter' or not. That, at any rate, is a hypothesis that reflection on the progress of physics suggests for consideration. It is a hypothesis that arises from the liberalization of the concept of matter from Cartesian restrictions. We must now ask if there is any reason to favor it and any reason to reject it.

Three (nonapodictic) reasons might be offered in support of the hypothesis. First, it is hard to see what else consciousness could be. Consciousness exists in a world of matter/energy, not outside of that world (as God and his angels might be supposed to exist), and depends essentially on (other) forms of matter, causally and otherwise. Given that Cartesian dualism has daunting problems, and is not even clearly intelligible, there doesn't seem much of an alternative to supposing mind to be in some way a modification of matter; the question is, in what way. What we really want to know, in thinking about the mind-body problem, is how it is possible for consciousness to be what we know that it must be. What kind of materialism (if we must use the term) is defensible? Put differently, consciousness must be an aspect of the same world that (other) forms of matter are also aspects of, notably the brain. Organisms are modes of matter, with some distinctive properties, and consciousness is a biological property of organisms; so it is only natural to assume that consciousness too is a form of matter. To say that it is a form of an 'immaterial' substance is to fly in the face of the obvious truth that consciousness is part of the world of embodied organisms—not a separate parallel world, with strange causal connections to the regular corporeal world. There is really nothing else for consciousness to be a mode of than the very stuff that everything else is a mode of.

Secondly, conservation laws in physics preclude the idea of a radically new kind of stuff, energy or matter, coming into existence. So when consciousness came to exist, no new substance was added to the world: old stuff simply took on a new form. Descartes' dualism violates conservation, since extra causal powers—extra energy—are introduced by the injection of mind into the world. His immaterial substance is an independent source of energy and hence motion, so that conservation is bluntly violated. A better view is that pre-existing matter takes new forms in cosmic history—from galaxies to organisms—and consciousness must itself be a form of what existed earlier. But there must be a fundamental constancy in the underlying substance of the world, whatever that may be: so consciousness must be a variant on this substance, not a new type of substance."

(McGinn, Colin. "Consciousness as a Form of Matter." In Basic Structures of Reality: Essays in Meta-Physics, 175-191. New York: Oxford University Press, 2011. pp. 179-81)

Tamminen wrote: ↑May 29th, 2018, 1:39 pmWhat does it mean that there is matter? The being of consciousness seems to be a problem for modern science, but not the being of matter. Why?

The ultimate nature and structure of matter or material reality (MEST = the matter-energy-space-time system) is a big problem for natural/physical science, as the interpretational kerfuffle in quantum physics demonstrates.

By the way, there's a narrow concept of matter which refers to the totality of massy particles or "corpuscles"; and there's also a broad concept of it which refers to the physical substance or substratum of reality in general that needn't be a zoo of discrete corpuscles but can be like an aether, a stuff that fills the whole universe (of course not in the obsolete mechanistic sense).

Consul wrote: ↑May 29th, 2018, 1:34 pm

Tamminen wrote: ↑May 29th, 2018, 11:25 amConsciousness is fundamental, its being cannot be explained and need not be explained. It is the starting point of philosophy, and the point where we must always return if we get lost.

From the point of view of empiricism, subjective experience is epistemologically fundamental; but it doesn't follow that it is also ontologically fundamental, i.e. that Existence/Reality depends on or consists of subjective experiences.

I think you interpret 'ontologically fundamental' in a too straightforward way. Reality depends on the being of subjective experiences on the global scale, not on a particular experience, not even the experiences of a particular subject. Experiences are the essence of the world, its telos and reason for being. And the real cause of the Big Bang. Without them there would not be even the singularity from which all began, let alone its expanding to this marvellous home for us. Being a home is its essence. The universe wanted inhabitants for its being, and we wanted the universe for our being. And both are satisfied, because our needs were fulfilled. But not by some transcendent Other. Everything happened naturally, according to the inner logic of being. Perhaps some day we will understand that logic so that our existence becomes transparent and the telos of the universe gets realized. But now I am getting a bit sentimental.

Tamminen wrote: ↑May 29th, 2018, 2:27 pmI think you interpret 'ontologically fundamental' in a too straightforward way. Reality depends on the being of subjective experiences on the global scale, not on a particular experience, not even the experiences of a particular subject.

What's your reply to Dachshund's simple science-based argument for the subject-independence of physical reality?

Tamminen wrote: ↑May 29th, 2018, 2:27 pmExperiences are the essence of the world, its telos and reason for being. And the real cause of the Big Bang. Without them there would not be even the singularity from which all began, let alone its expanding to this marvellous home for us. Being a home is its essence. The universe wanted inhabitants for its being, and we wanted the universe for our being. And both are satisfied, because our needs were fulfilled. But not by some transcendent Other. Everything happened naturally, according to the inner logic of being. Perhaps some day we will understand that logic so that our existence becomes transparent and the telos of the universe gets realized. But now I am getting a bit sentimental.

It doesn't make any sense to ascribe a psychological teleology (in terms of wants, desires, intentions, or purposes) to the universe (as a whole).

By the way, Samuel Alexander is a naturalistic emergentist who included a teleological factor in his worldview:

"There is a nisus in Space-Time which, as it has borne its creatures forward through matter and life to mind, will bear them forward to some higher level of existence."

(Alexander, Samuel. Space, Time, and Deity: The Gifford Lectures at Glasgow 1916-1918. Vol. 2. London: Macmillan & Co., 1920. p. 346)

Consul wrote: ↑May 29th, 2018, 2:07 pm "Matter/energy is thus conceived as indefinitely plastic and versatile, as witness physics as we have it, and among its many manifestations is consciousness.

This is a very strange thought, and I have always wondered its popularity in modern science. How can one take as the starting point and basis for philosophy something which is so far away from our immediate reality, and try to explain by it something as close to us as consciousness, which is there all the time, as a precondition of all our doings. How can it be that the objects of science are the ontological basis for the being of science? We cannot raise ouselves from our own hair. For me this is so obvious that I think there must be some kind of misunderstanding somewhere that I have not noticed. Maybe it is the question of what is functionally fundamental and what is ontologically fundamental.

Consul wrote: ↑May 29th, 2018, 2:46 pm What's your reply to Dachshund's simple science-based argument for the subject-independence of physical reality?

As you probably know by now, those thoughts are not valid counterarguments to my views, and I have replied to Dachshund in an earlier post.

It doesn't make any sense to ascribe a psychological teleology (in terms of wants, desires, intentions, or purposes) to the universe (as a whole).

I wrote metaphorically. I like poetry.

I said: If you can explain how "brain states" (whatever they are) produce consciousness then please stop beating around the bush and do so!

Consul replied: I wish I could present a reductive neuroscientific explanation of the HOW, but I can't—and no one else can in 2018; but this doesn't mean that it isn't most plausible to assume in the light of what is already scientifically known about the mind-brain relationship THAT conscious states are in fact brain states.

I was being facetious when I asked that question, sorry if it didn't show. My point was that it's speculation to assert that consciousness is purely the result of physiological states. Of course they complement each other, it is to be expected that sensory awareness will have neurochemical correlates, we could have no medical science if they did not. But that does not mean consciousness is purely the result of physical processes, only that from our limited perspective that conclusion makes the most sense (literally) to us.

Scientists study physical processes and their mechanisms. They can describe physical laws but not explain them: the how is not the why, the map is not the territory. A musical score will tell me next to nothing about the mind of the composer.

Consul wrote: ↑May 29th, 2018, 2:07 pm
Three (nonapodictic) reasons might be offered in support of the hypothesis. First, it is hard to see what else consciousness could be. Consciousness exists in a world of matter/energy, not outside of that world (as God and his angels might be supposed to exist), and depends essentially on (other) forms of matter, causally and otherwise. Given that Cartesian dualism has daunting problems, and is not even clearly intelligible, there doesn't seem much of an alternative to supposing mind to be in some way a modification of matter; the question is, in what way. What we really want to know, in thinking about the mind-body problem, is how it is possible for consciousness to be what we know that it must be. What kind of materialism (if we must use the term) is defensible? Put differently, consciousness must be an aspect of the same world that (other) forms of matter are also aspects of, notably the brain. Organisms are modes of matter, with some distinctive properties, and consciousness is a biological property of organisms; so it is only natural to assume that consciousness too is a form of matter. To say that it is a form of an 'immaterial' substance is to fly in the face of the obvious truth that consciousness is part of the world of embodied organisms—not a separate parallel world, with strange causal connections to the regular corporeal world. There is really nothing else for consciousness to be a mode of than the very stuff that everything else is a mode of.

Secondly, conservation laws in physics preclude the idea of a radically new kind of stuff, energy or matter, coming into existence. So when consciousness came to exist, no new substance was added to the world: old stuff simply took on a new form. Descartes' dualism violates conservation, since extra causal powers—extra energy—are introduced by the injection of mind into the world. His immaterial substance is an independent source of energy and hence motion, so that conservation is bluntly violated. A better view is that pre-existing matter takes new forms in cosmic history—from galaxies to organisms—and consciousness must itself be a form of what existed earlier. But there must be a fundamental constancy in the underlying substance of the world, whatever that may be: so consciousness must be a variant on this substance, not a new type of substance."[/i]

First of all, you have to stop thinking that you know our physical world. Our familiar physical world did not just happen as a quantum fluctuation of "nothing". The very idea that it came from nothing appeals to many weak thinkers because iit gives them the sense of completion. Gee, they can say, at least all the evidence of what our physical world consists of is right before our telescopes. Just look far enough away in space, and we can see the beginning of everything. And doesn't that fit in nicely with the physicalist's theories. How could it be as Consul quotes McGinn "... conservation laws in physics preclude the idea of a radically new kind of stuff, energy or matter, coming into existence (dah! A complete violation of the law of 2nd law of thermodynamics, ed). So when consciousness came to exist, no new substance was added to the world". All I can say is, it was about time for physical theory to catch up with itself. One wonders though why not just one more quantum burp to complete our cast of characters.

Anyway, our familiar telescoped world is chock full of evidence of what the world was like before it imploded. First off, why assume it was very different from what is now familiar. There were galaxies that were collapsing to a central point(The Big Crunch, Penrose). Just look at our neutrons and protons. The quarks in them, that generate the strong force, must have been the black hole centers of collapsing galaxies. Three galaxies from before the Big Crunch/BB became, eventually, our neutrons and protons. If that were true then our familiar world is not the "Whole of Our World". We are living amongst the remnants of the world before the Big Bang.

My thesis simply assumes that many of the ancient civilizations of that pre world (100 or so billion years old) survived the Big Crunch/BB., with the aid of technology that was also developed over billions of years. Each of our protons/neutrons may have fostered up to thousands of civilizations per quark. To us, each of those civilizations would be a tiny fraction of the size of a neutron. You might think of them as per your mention of corpuscles, with the added feature that they posses very advanced technology. This theory is consistent with what the ancients before the Egyptians wrote about when the they described creation as a separation of the Gods. (Paul A. LaViolette Ph.D., Genesis of the Cosmos).

Consul wrote: ↑May 29th, 2018, 2:07 pm The ultimate nature and structure of matter or material reality (MEST = the matter-energy-space-time system) is a big problem for natural/physical science, as the interpretational kerfuffle in quantum physics demonstrates.

I did not mean the problem of matter as such. I meant: We ask how can there be consciousness given the being of matter, but we do not ask how can there be matter given the being of consciousness. Perhaps Berkeley did ask this, but I do not think his answer was satisfactory. But I think the second question is less absurd than the first one, because it is asked from the natural standpoint: our immediate reality that we cannot escape, consciousness itself. Consciousness can ask questions about its relation to things that it is conscious of, asking if their being is necessary for its own being, and if it is, why must they be such as they are. But it cannot ask such questions on behalf of the things that it is conscious of, trying to explain its own being by the facts of the world. It is already there, before any questions are asked. Therefore no explanations for its being are needed.

Yes Tamminen that is very concise and intuitively true. I like it a lot. However, let us not assume that it puts an end to our discovery of the journey of consciousness through time, space and its relation to the purely physical. You have yet to explicate its travails. You have yet to show how its history leads to its emergence in our familiar world of physical things.

Tamminen wrote: ↑May 29th, 2018, 5:32 pm

Consul wrote: ↑May 29th, 2018, 2:07 pm The ultimate nature and structure of matter or material reality (MEST = the matter-energy-space-time system) is a big problem for natural/physical science, as the interpretational kerfuffle in quantum physics demonstrates.

I did not mean the problem of matter as such. I meant: We ask how can there be consciousness given the being of matter, but we do not ask how can there be matter given the being of consciousness. Perhaps Berkeley did ask this, but I do not think his answer was satisfactory. But I think the second question is less absurd than the first one, because it is asked from the natural standpoint: our immediate reality that we cannot escape, consciousness itself. Consciousness can ask questions about its relation to things that it is conscious of, asking if their being is necessary for its own being, and if it is, why must they be such as they are. But it cannot ask such questions on behalf of the things that it is conscious of, trying to explain its own being by the facts of the world. It is already there, before any questions are asked. Therefore no explanations for its being are needed.

My issue with the subjectivist view comes when I consider my own "consciousness" as a zygote or in a deep sleep. Our human consciousness is a brand new emergence in our part of the cosmos, superseding dinosaur and, in turn, trilobite consciousness, which succeeded the reflexive sensing of microbes. At this point we are back with the zygote and sleeping person we have all been, that preceded the awake adult hominids in this conversation.

Our perception of deep sleep or microbial senses is basically blackness - nothing going on. At least nothing that we much value in context of human capability. One might say that "blackness" preceded the "light" of consciousness. I love rocks and believe they are vastly underestimated as emergences, conduits, substrates and energy sources - but they don't notice much :)