Philosophy Discussion Forums

anonymous66 wrote: ↑May 27th, 2018, 10:41 amThe problem is to determine just what physical structures are required for consciousness. Do we even have reason to believe that a physical organic brain is necessary for consciousness?

Have you heard this thought experiment? (I believe it's Searle's): Imagine a man goes to the doctor because he's having some problem with his eyesight. The doctor looks at the scans and determines that there is some degenerative problem with some of his brain cells. But, this is the in the future, and they have the ability to replace the damaged tissue with microchips. The problem is solved. But then, the disease progresses, and they have to replace more and more tissue with microchips until one day, all the patient has is microchips inside his skull. Seems plausible, doesn't it?

And would you automatically reject the idea that we will one day have conscious machines of some kind? On what grounds?

I don't think the physical possibility of artificial inorganic, non-biological organs of consciousness can be eliminated a priori. What I reject is the belief in the physical possibility of natural, non-artificial consciousness that isn't realized by and in organic wetware (cerebral wetware, to be more precise).

However, there are a posteriori (empirical) reasons to doubt the physical possibility of non-biological artificial consciousness. For example, one of the leading cognitive neuroscientists writes the following in his new book:

"The most surprising discovery for me is that I now think we humans will never build a machine that mimics our personal consciousness. Inanimate silicon-based machines work one way, and living carbon-based systems work another. One works with a deterministic set of instructions, and the other through symbols that inherently carry some degree of uncertainty. This perspective leads to the view that the human attempt to mimic intelligence and consciousness in machines, a continuing goal of the field of AI, is doomed."

(Gazzaniga, Michael S. The Consciousness Instinct: Unraveling the Mystery of How the Brain Makes the Mind. New York: Farrar, Straus, & Giroux, 2018. p. 236)

And the neurobiologist Gerald Edelman (a Nobel Prize awardee) writes:

"The brain is not a computer, and the world is not a piece of tape."

(Edelman, Gerald M. Wider than the Sky: The Phenomenal Gift of Consciousness. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004. p. 39)

"In many scientific circles, there remains a widespread belief that the brain is a computer. This belief is mistaken for a number of reasons. First, the computer works by using logic and arithmetic in very short intervals regulated by a clock. As we shall see, the brain does not operate by logical rules. To function, a computer must receive unambiguous input signals. But signals to various sensory receptors of the brain are not so organized; the world (which is not carved beforehand into prescribed categories) is not a piece of coded tape. Second, the brain order that I have briefly described is enormously variable at its finest levels. As neural currents develop, variant individual experiences leave imprints such that no two brains are identical, even those of identical twins. This is so in large measure because, during the development and establishment of neuroanatomy, neurons that fire together wire together. Furthermore, there is no evidence for a computer program consisting of effective procedures that would control a brain’s input, output, and behavior. Artificial intelligence doesn’t work in real brains. There is no logic and no precise clock governing the outputs of our brains no matter how regular they may appear. Last, it should be stressed that we are not born with enough genes to specify the synaptic complexity of higher brains like ours. Of course, the fact that we have human brains and not chimpanzee brains does depend on our gene networks. But these gene networks, like those in the brain themselves, are enormously variable since their various expression patterns depend on environmental context and individual experience."

(Edelman, Gerald M. Second Nature: Brain Science and Human Knowledge. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006. pp. 20-1)

It all depends on what you mean.

So what is the relation between consciousness and matter?

Being means being conscious, experiencing something in the world. All other forms of being are somehow connected with the subject's being in the world. 'I am' is the ontological basis for everything. I am there with others in the material universe. I am a manifestation of subjectivity as an individual subject in the world of other individual subjects that are also manifestations of subjectivity. So I am in a symmetric relation with others: we share the same subjectivity, only our locations in physical space-time and subjective time differ.

Because others must be outside of myself, having a concrete existence, they must be material, and because of the symmetric relation between us I must also be material: we have bodies. Our bodies and the material universe between us are instruments for our being in the world as a community. Matter also makes it possible for us to exist at all, because existence is essentially being with others. The conclusion of all this is that matter is the instrument for subjectivity to exist concretely in the world, conscious of the world and others.

So matter is the functional basis of consciousness, but subjectivity is the ontological basis of the material world. Matter is my relation to others.

Tamminen wrote: ↑May 27th, 2018, 3:33 pmBeing means being conscious, experiencing something in the world.

No, it doesn't.

Tamminen wrote: ↑May 27th, 2018, 3:33 pmAll other forms of being are somehow connected with the subject's being in the world. 'I am' is the ontological basis for everything.

No, it isn't—that something is is.

Consul wrote: ↑May 27th, 2018, 12:05 pmIt is obvious that what Kaku calls consciousness is a functional-informational consciousness that is different from and independent of experiential/phenomenal consciousness.

That is what proponents of panpsychism (and Kaku, from memory) refer to as proto-consciousness, the modular blocks of consciousness, analogous to the cells of multicellular entities. While you referred to "proto-pregnancy" as a reductio ad absurdum device, one could look at pregnancy that way because the actual development from prokaryote to eukaryote, from microbe to chordate during the first trimester is profoundly different to the much more subtle growth and development later in pregnancy.

What is the difference between "proto-" and "exponentially smaller" in context?

Consul wrote:

Greta wrote: ↑May 27th, 2018, 12:25 amI rather like panvitalism - the idea that biology is not the only living system, just the most informationally dense. Thus, everything can be thought is either a living system, a part of one, in the process of becoming one or in the process of dying.

It can reasonably be posited that a planet needs to be geologically alive in order to create the conditions for abiogenesis. Star systems (including their satellites and possible biology) also logically vary in activity and growth of complex systems. Galaxies too. Seemingly superclusters as well, in which case the entire cosmic web could be thought of as a cosmic "ecosystem" (plasma and gravity system?) - a world of worlds of worlds etc.

All of these things share a tempestuous early existence, then a period of systematisation leading to a longer, relatively stable stage, and then over time those structures start to degrade until the system breaks down and is absorbed by the outside environment.

Taken literally, "non-biological life" is a contradiction in terms. Of course, you can use the language of biology metaphorically (and speak e.g. of "the life and death of stars"); but a merely metaphorical panvitalism is no serious position in metaphysics. And a literal panvitalism is simply false.

Taking some of the most ambiguous words in the language such as "life", "love" and "god" literally is a recipe for misunderstandings, so I suggest we leave literalism behind and consider the phenomena without the baggage of arbitrary human-drawn definitions.

Any definition of life that fails to include viruses is clearly as mechanistic as the viruses themselves. Why would there be such resistance to the observation that there are different kinds of life - that entities can be alive in different ways, not just particular qualities imbued via biological systematisation?

We are, are composed of, and are components of countless connected living systems that undergo the same cycles - emergence/birth, tempestuous infancy with rapid change, steadier growth and development that leads to a longer period of relative stability before gradual desystematisation, breakdown and re-use.

If one ignores the misleadingly mystical or "special" semantics around "life", then panvitalism is a rational stance that is based only on what is observed. Then it can be seen that there are different kinds of life, not just the biological variety, just that the quirks of language don't reflect that. Whether stability is maintained by hydrostatic or homeostatic equilibrium would seem a moot point, stability is being maintained and, barring catastrophe, the life stages mentioned above will play out.

Consul wrote: ↑May 27th, 2018, 4:30 pm

Tamminen wrote: ↑May 27th, 2018, 3:33 pmBeing means being conscious, experiencing something in the world.

No, it doesn't.

Tamminen wrote: ↑May 27th, 2018, 3:33 pmAll other forms of being are somehow connected with the subject's being in the world. 'I am' is the ontological basis for everything.

No, it isn't—that something is is.

'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.

In 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. So what explains the fact that everything is not absurd? The fundamental nature of the subject-object relation. Matter is not fundamental, because the being of matter in itself makes no sense phenomenologically. We cannot escape the ontological and methodological starting point of phenomenology: our immediate reality as it appears to us. To 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. Besides, we need no explanation, because consciousness is the subject's natural way of existing concretely in the world by being conscious of the world and doing things in the world. So the situation is much simpler than what it seems if we look at it from the materialistic point of view. That point of view leads to a dead end.

This is how I see the situation. We all have our own horizons of thinking, and it is difficult to change the horizon, especially when we speak of these kinds of deep questions. But I am always ready to try. I regard myself open to criticism if it is valid. However, I have thought about these things for a long time very intensively, and the basic insights that come from about 40 years ago have not changed, although they have of course got some concreteness and lead to new questions. But as I said, it is very difficult to try to understand another's horizon of thinking, and I think I have not succeeded to make myself understandable on these forums. But I think I am not the only one.

Tamminen wrote: ↑May 28th, 2018, 4:54 am

Consul wrote: ↑May 27th, 2018, 4:30 pm

No, it doesn't.



No, it isn't—that something is is.

'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.

Perfect answer.

Tamminen wrote:In 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. So what explains the fact that everything is not absurd? The fundamental nature of the subject-object relation. Matter is not fundamental, because the being of matter in itself makes no sense phenomenologically. We cannot escape the ontological and methodological starting point of phenomenology: our immediate reality as it appears to us. To 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. Besides, we need no explanation, because consciousness is the subject's natural way of existing concretely in the world by being conscious of the world and doing things in the world. So the situation is much simpler than what it seems if we look at it from the materialistic point of view. That point of view leads to a dead end.

Very well stated.

Tamminen wrote:This is how I see the situation. We all have our own horizons of thinking, and it is difficult to change the horizon, especially when we speak of these kinds of deep questions. But I am always ready to try. I regard myself open to criticism if it is valid. However, I have thought about these things for a long time very intensively, and the basic insights that come from about 40 years ago have not changed, although they have of course got some concreteness and lead to new questions. But as I said, it is very difficult to try to understand another's horizon of thinking, and I think I have not succeeded to make myself understandable on these forums. But I think I am not the only one.

Well I cannot fault this post. I agree.

Tamminen,

Suppose you (the observing subject) are standing in a room in your house that has a wooden chair (the object) in it, and you can see this chair ( i.e. Tamminen, the subject observes the chair in the room, the object). Now suppose you walk out of the room and shut the door behind you. I sincerely think that the wooden chair is still in that room even though you can not now see it. Do you agree?

Regards

Dachshund

Dachshund wrote: ↑May 28th, 2018, 6:52 am Tamminen,
Suppose you (the observing subject) are standing in a room in your house that has a wooden chair (the object) in it, and you can see this chair ( i.e. Tamminen, the subject observes the chair in the room, the object). Now suppose you walk out of the room and shut the door behind you. I sincerely think that the wooden chair is still in that room even though you can not now see it. Do you agree?

You can prove that the chair is still there while no one is seeing or otherwise perceiving it by filming it with a camera, which is not a subject.

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 ?

Regards

Dachshund

Dachshund wrote: ↑May 28th, 2018, 7:37 am 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.

Dachshund wrote: ↑May 28th, 2018, 6:52 am Tamminen,

Suppose you (the observing subject) are standing in a room in your house that has a wooden chair (the object) in it, and you can see this chair ( i.e. Tamminen, the subject observes the chair in the room, the object). Now suppose you walk out of the room and shut the door behind you. I sincerely think that the wooden chair is still in that room even though you can not now see it. Do you agree?

Regards

Dachshund

This is a very common misunderstanding of the subject-object interdependence. I need not see the object in order for it to be dependent on my being, or the being of any subject. There only has to be a subject somewhere at some spatiotemporal location and the object somewhere in the same universe. And there is only this universe. It can be seen as a totality of objects some of which are also subjects. It is true that no one was there to witness the Big Bang, but the Big Bang has nevertheless happened in the universe where we observe things, and in the same universe where the dinosaurs lived their lives. The universe is our universe and the universe of the dinosaurs. There is no universe in itself.

Another remark: There are various ontological interpretations of empirical facts, but those interpretations are not arbitrary, so that we could say "anything goes". My interpretation solves the paradoxes of death and foreign minds, the mind-body problem and the hard problem of consciousness in a very simple and satisfactory way, without conflicting with science, but the materialistic interpretation does not solve any of these problems. The picture must be turned upside down, like Kant tried to do with his Copernican revolution. We must go beyond Kant.

Consul wrote: ↑May 28th, 2018, 8:16 am Dachshund wrote: ↑Today, 7:37 am
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.

OK, 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.

Right?

Tamminen wrote: ↑May 28th, 2018, 8:30 am It is true that no one was there to witness the Big Bang, but the Big Bang has nevertheless happened

Tamminen, you need to give me some kind of explanation for how the "Big Bang" happened if there were no subjects to witness it; I mean the "Big Bang" was a pretty major event, right?

Regards

Dachshund

Dachshund wrote: ↑May 28th, 2018, 9:02 am

Tamminen wrote: ↑May 28th, 2018, 8:30 am It is true that no one was there to witness the Big Bang, but the Big Bang has nevertheless happened

Tamminen, you need to give me some kind of explanation for how the "Big Bang" happened if there were no subjects to witness it; I mean the "Big Bang" was a pretty major event, right?

Regards

Dachshund

I think the universe is, metaphorically speaking, a huge organism with consciousness as its essence and primus motor. It is the subject's project for evolving towards clarity of consciousness and transparency of being. Much like I am conscious now although I was not conscioius when I was an embryo. The subject and the object need not be simultaneously present.