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

[Atla]

Although I'm not really blaming you guys, when over a decade ago I learned the solution to the Hard problem, I didn't foresee either that the rabbit hole could go waaay deeper than my wildest predictions. I don't think anyone is really prepared for that, the nature of the solution is so unexpected that we don't know what to prepare for.

[Consul]

Again, you can't explain without strong emergence how some dynamic patterns of neural activity are experienced subjectively and others aren't.
(And we can't use the trick of changing the topic from p-consciousness to some kind of local sense of subjectivity of an organism or artificial entity.)

I'm not using any such trick!
Any attempt at a reductive explanation of experience presupposes that experiences are not strongly emergent. For it they were, any such attempt would be doomed to failure in principle, since you cannot reductively explain the irreducible. The reductive explanations I'm talking about from my materialistic perspective are anti-emergentistic compositional/constitutional/constructional explanations trying to answer questions of the form "How do these things compose or constitute that thing?" or "How is this thing constructed out of those things?".

[Atla]

Again, you can't explain without strong emergence how some dynamic patterns of neural activity are experienced subjectively and others aren't.
(And we can't use the trick of changing the topic from p-consciousness to some kind of local sense of subjectivity of an organism or artificial entity.)

I'm not using any such trick!
Any attempt at a reductive explanation of experience presupposes that experiences are not strongly emergent. For it they were, any such attempt would be doomed to failure in principle, since you cannot reductively explain the irreducible. The reductive explanations I'm talking about from my materialistic perspective are anti-emergentistic compositional/constitutional/constructional explanations trying to answer questions of the form "How do these things compose or constitute that thing?" or "How is this thing constructed out of those things?".

Again (you can replace "soft emergence" with "compositional/constitutional/constructional explanation"):

It's a quite dishonest tactic of some philosophers and scientists to pretend that now that we are talking about complex physical systems with "soft emergent" properties, which as a whole may indeed be identical to the qualia in question, the Hard problem has been solved.
No, as usual, it has only been evaded again. The Hard problem is, why doesn't that complex physical property just happen "in the dark"? Again they had to smuggle in some hard emergence of mental happening, and then had to forget that they did so.

[Consul]

Can you explain this more? Because my understanding (could be wrong) is that if something is reducible, then it's emerged from something more fundamental.
I'm not sure if this is just us using language differently, so if you could explain your position in clear simple terms that would help.

The ontological concept of emergence presupposes that an emergent thing and the (lower-level) things it emerges from are different from one another, such that the former is not ontologically reducible to, i.e. identifiable with, the latter. The reason is that an emergent thing is a basic higher-level thing which isn't composed of or constituted by the lower-level things from which it emerges. An emergent thing is ontologically something over and above, and in addition to its emergence base; and that's why it's ontologically reducible. Ontological emergence and ontological reduction are mutually exclusive!

[Consul]

…An emergent thing is ontologically something over and above, and in addition to its emergence base; and that's why it's ontologically reducible.

Damnit! Should certainly read: "…and that's why it's ontologically non-reducible."

[Consul]

The ontological concept of emergence presupposes that an emergent thing and the (lower-level) things it emerges from are different from one another, such that the former is not ontologically reducible to, i.e. identifiable with, the latter. The reason is that an emergent thing is a basic higher-level thing which isn't composed of or constituted by the lower-level things from which it emerges.

If emergence isn't composition, constitution, or construction, what kind of relation is it then?
Well, it seems it's simply causation or production. This would easily explain why emergents and their emergent bases are irreducibly different from one another, since self-causation or self-production is impossible: if x causes/produces y, then x ≠ y.

Causal emergentism about mind/consciousness is the view that all mental attributes or occurrences (facts/states/events/processes) emerge from lower-level neurophysical ones in the sense of being caused/produced by them (and thus being dependent on them without being identical to them).

[Consul]

…This would easily explain why emergents and their emergent bases…

Damnit again! Should read: "their emergence bases…"

[Consul]

Again (you can replace "soft emergence" with "compositional/constitutional/constructional explanation"):

It's a quite dishonest tactic of some philosophers and scientists to pretend that now that we are talking about complex physical systems with "soft emergent" properties, which as a whole may indeed be identical to the qualia in question, the Hard problem has been solved.
No, as usual, it has only been evaded again. The Hard problem is, why doesn't that complex physical property just happen "in the dark"? Again they had to smuggle in some hard emergence of mental happening, and then had to forget that they did so.

You're wrong, there's no "smuggling in" of "some hard emergence"!
Of course, there must be something about those types of complex neural processes which are experiences in virtue of which they are different from those ones which aren't; and, again, it's up to the neuroscientists to identify and describe the special neural features or parameters responsible for that difference. Whether they will succeed is another question.

[Consul]

Although I'm not really blaming you guys, when over a decade ago I learned the solution to the Hard problem,

What was your solution again?

[Atla]

Again (you can replace "soft emergence" with "compositional/constitutional/constructional explanation"):

It's a quite dishonest tactic of some philosophers and scientists to pretend that now that we are talking about complex physical systems with "soft emergent" properties, which as a whole may indeed be identical to the qualia in question, the Hard problem has been solved.
No, as usual, it has only been evaded again. The Hard problem is, why doesn't that complex physical property just happen "in the dark"? Again they had to smuggle in some hard emergence of mental happening, and then had to forget that they did so.

You're wrong, there's no "smuggling in" of "some hard emergence"!
Of course, there must be something about those types of complex neural processes which are experiences in virtue of which they are different from those ones which aren't; and, again, it's up to the neuroscientists to identify and describe the special neural features or parameters responsible for that difference. Whether they will succeed is another question.

It's a fact that I'm right according to current science, and you're wrong. As long there is no scientific basis to explain why one physicial structure is experience/P-consciousness while another isn't, people need to smuggle in some hard-emergence to fix it.

[Atla]

Although I'm not really blaming you guys, when over a decade ago I learned the solution to the Hard problem,

What was your solution again?

Not my solution, the easterners came up with nondualism thousands of years ago, it's the correct philosophical paradigm.

[Consul]

Not my solution, the easterners came up with nondualism thousands of years ago, it's the correct philosophical paradigm.

Reductive materialism is nondualistic too!

Tell me, what exactly is the Eastern nondualistic solution to the hard problem?

There are several formulations of the hard problem, but the neuroscience of consciousness (which is still in its infancy!) must answer these two central questions:

"* Generic Consciousness: How might neural properties explain when a state is conscious rather than not?
* Specific Consciousness: How might neural properties explain what the content of a conscious state is?"

The Neuroscience of Consciousness: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/cons ... roscience/

[Atla]

Reductive materialism is nondualistic too!

Nope, all Western philosophy is dualistic. (Reductionism and materialism are also more or less wrong philosophies, so reductive materialism is wrong at least three times over. Your reductive materialism-based complex properties view, where we actually forget to solve the Hard problem, is wrong like five times over.)

Tell me, what exactly is the Eastern nondualistic solution to the hard problem?

There are several formulations of the hard problem, but the neuroscience of consciousness (which is still in its infancy!) must answer these two central questions:

"* Generic Consciousness: How might neural properties explain when a state is conscious rather than not?
* Specific Consciousness: How might neural properties explain what the content of a conscious state is?"

The Neuroscience of Consciousness: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/cons ... roscience/

In nondualism, neuroscience has nothing to do with the Hard problem. These two "central" questions are not even wrong, they fail to correctly draw the line between Hard problem and Easy problems.

[NickGaspar]

Fortunately not all scientists are content with simply describing what is observed, they want to explain it too, and by doing so our understanding of how the world works progresses, giving us the Standard Model and now tackling what QM might mean beyond abstract maths and symbols.

-You are confusing the metaphysical process of science with the Descriptive part (Theoretical Frameworks).....

-"That is what you're ignoring when you say anything but describing processes isn't science, but 'magic'."
-As I just said you are confusing the metaphysical part (hypothesis) with the theoretical (descriptive frameworks). All hypotheses in order to become scientific theories they need to become Descriptive. This is why the string theory still remains a hypothesis. This is why all Quantum Interpretations still remain interpretations......

-" Bicycles being able to travel from A to B aren't ''magic'', we have scientific theories which explain it. "
-Irrelevant ephyologia. We can observe bicycles and we can observe what causes them to realize that ride....

-""We don't have any such theory to explain why certain organic processes result in conscious experience.'
-We have.... its not in its final form but it is descriptive and detailed. And even if we didn't have one...you could only say "we don't know"...not magical dimensions and substances do the job. Argument from Ignorance fallacy...

-"And there seem to be specific relevant reasons for that, which Solms' attempt at using Functionalism as a stand in for a scientific explanation don't adequately address imo."
-factionalism is a made up pseudo philosophical accusation. You need to revisit the theory of Evolution....

-"Btw did you watch the video you linked. Solms is the one using Functionalism as a Why response to the Hard Problem. Either misunderstanding or deliberately fudging the nature of Chalmers' point.'
- There isn't such a thing as a "Hard Problem" at least in the for of Chalmer's why questions. "Why" questions are not serious questions.
Why an previously excited electron emits light......for you to be able to see....those are not serious questions. Some properties of matter are able to manifest in this world without whys.... The hard problem is a poisoning the well/begging the question fallacy.
The real problem: It looks like scientists and philosophers might have made consciousness far more mysterious than it needs to be
https://aeon.co/essays/the-hard-problem ... e-real-one

-"As for whether he's on the right track, it seems to me that studying the earliest and rawest types of conscious experience is a good way to go, hopefully reducing the wood for the trees in a super complex neural forest."
-I will inform him you said that....we will be thrilled ...and Damasio too!

-"Whether affective mood the first type of conscious experience to evolve strikes me personally as unlikely. "
-I will tell him to be cautious at that one then....since members of the Philosophy Discussion Forums say so!

-"I'd look to much simpler creatures than humans closer to the most ancient sentient acencestors for that, and those with fewer subsystems should make it easier to study too."
-I will send his this tip...since in science we don't have any data outside our species...

-"But I'm no expert."
-Really!!!? oh boy...who knew!

-"Another approach is to try to replicate conscious experience via AI."
-that sounds easy and not enough challenging.....

-" If we can do that (and can confidently test our success) then that will offer major clues towards an explanation."
- true!!!!!! and simple.

-" It would be a big step towards isolating the necessary and sufficient conditions and what key processes are involved, rather than simply noting they must exist in brains."
-that was exactly my thought.

[Sy Borg]

All this time I have been considering the difference between:

1. a state that is on the brink of p-consciousness but, in fact, completely lacks internality

2. the weakest possible p-consciousness.

Studying a human brain to determine the above subtleties logically cannot work. Studying any brain will billions, or even millions, or neurons is ignoring potentially simpler consciousness. However, studying the human brain attracts far more research dollars than studies of the neuronally-challenged tunicate larvae, hydras and rotifers.

More likely, studies about the boundaries of consciousness will relate to AI, determining how complexification over time creates subjective experience. So the chance that p-consciousness may exist in very simple organisms appears likely to remain unexplored, left to speculation and airy dismissal.

What exactly does it mean to say that consciousness C1 is "simpler" or "weaker" than consciousness C2? In what respects is C1 simpler or weaker than C2?

There are three main dimensions of (phenomenal) consciousness:
1. its experiential/phenomenal content
2. its level (or "global state"): the degree of wakefulness (alertness, arousal)
3. its form or structure: the spatiotemporal order and unity of the items which are part of the content

I'd add:
4. its metalevel—mental self-consciousness: cognitive (introspective/reflective) awareness of 1,2, or 3.

1*. C1 can be said to be simpler/weaker than C2 in the sense that the number of (kinds of) experiences it contains or can contain (simultaneously) is lower than the one C2 contains or can contain (simultaneously).

2*. C1 can be said to be simpler/weaker than C2 in the sense that the degree of wakefulness/alertness of C1's subject is lower than the one of C2's subject.

3*. C1 can be said to be simpler/weaker than C2 in the sense that C1's contents are less ordered, less connected, less united than C2's contents.

4*. C1 can be said to be simpler/weaker than C2 in the sense that C1's subject is less cognitively aware of C1's content, level, or structure than C2's subject.

I imagine that the smallest, weakest fragment of consciousness is what we think of as reflexive. Most reflexes feel like nothing mammals, whose reflexes and numerous and constant.

Consider the first sensation to appear in nature. Maybe it arrived a worm, or a microbe, or a molecule or atom. There's many opinions about that, whatever their quality, but we can still consider the first ever sensation, and for the purposes of this chat I'll assume it arrived in an organism.

In #1, the simplest C1 would be a single type of experience. Maybe a pulse or twitch.

#2 would be the weakest possible sensation, the faintest possible pulse. Just enough to be retained through selection.

#3 will not apply to individual sensations. However, the first sensations would have probably been chaotic, in that the first sensation was probably different to the first and so on.

#4 is obviously already high level consciousness, awareness of self and other minds. The sensation of being logically precedes mentality, which is an interpretation of the sensation of being.

Such is my guess, which is necessarily wrong because we famously don't even know what it's like to be a bat, let alone a microbe. Still, until a device is created that allows researchers to know what it feels like to be another entity, there's only theory and supposition.

For me, this topic is simply interesting, but the ability to perceive the contents of another's consciousness will be a critical issue in future AI research, with possible ethical ramifications.