Causally Closed Physics & Rosenberg's Argument for Dualism

[hypnagogue]

Well, then that definition is incoherent. You mean, zombies couldn't possibly talk about "the hard problem"? They could talk about cosmology, astrology, angels, extra-sensorial perception, out-of-body experiences, but they could not talk about "the hard problem of consciousness"?

Zombies can talk about the hard problem, but ex hypothesi, there is no hard problem about zombie ontology that needs solving.

As to this talk about zombies and hard problems, I don't know what it has to do with this. Just because we are not zombies are we required to ultimately resort to some sort of pan-psychism to explain the world?

No, of course we're not required to resort to panpsychism just from the observation that we are not zombies. (I think panexperientialism is a compelling route, but only as a result of further considerations.)

What is the exact reason why consciousness can't possibly be left out of the picture?

Well, we cannot leave p-consciousness out of the picture entirely, due to the plain fact that we are p-conscious. But I presume you mean to ask here why we can't leave p-consciousness out of the picture for basic physical systems that are not usually taken to be subjects of experience. Under physicalism, there is no reason to suppose the existence of consciousness in anything but certain classes of cognitive systems. But if we reject physicalism on the grounds that it cannot account for p-consciousness, there is good reason to accept panexperientialism (see Chapters 5 & 6 of the "A Place for Consciousness" discussion).

After re-reading some of what you've wrote, it seems that perhaps you were trying to argue against something like interactionist dualism. If that's the case, then I'm with you. I see no compelling reason to invoke consciousness as some sort of "mover" that participates in the world's flux of efficient causation by interfering with, or 'filling in the gaps of,' physical laws.

 

[Tournesol]

What is the exact reason why consciousness can't possibly be left out of the picture?

Do you think it can be left out of our picture of the brain ?

 

[Pensador]

What is the exact reason why consciousness can't possibly be left out of the picture?

Do you think it can be left out of our picture of the brain ?

Consciousness has already been left out of the picture of our body except for something like 1% of its volume. According to the scientific picture, everything that we feel happens in the brain, and the strong subjective sense that feelings come from parts of our body is essentially an illusion (more specifically, a projection - same thing)

I believe that is a major error of categorization. It's not long before that remaining 1% is found to be as devoid of consciousness as our left feet. We used to have the problem of explaining how the body was conscious, and scientists naively believe the problem can be solved by hiding the source of consciousness behind something they don't currently understand (the brain). Such a view is bound to give rise to paradoxes as soon as we start to understand the brain.

Many people can see those paradoxes already. Some people can sense them and express them as hard problems or artificial divisions of consciousness into different categories, but they are not clearly seeing the problems for what they are. And of course some people are completely oblivious since they don't worry about those issues anyway.

I have been trying to point out that the current scientific picture of our senses does not rule out solipsism. Some people think I'm a solipsist, some people think I'm wrong. So far no one except Canute has really understood what I'm talking about.

 

[Tournesol]

It's not long before that remaining 1% is found to be as devoid of consciousness as our left feet.

So now you are saying consc. doesn't exist at all?! ALthough elsewhere you
agree with Canute that it is ubiquitous?!

I'm going for a lie down.

 

[Pensador]

So now you are saying consc. doesn't exist at all?! ALthough elsewhere you agree with Canute that it is ubiquitous?!

I can't speak for Canute, but I didn't say consciousness is ubiquitous. I don't think a stone is conscious.

Read my reply to "Implications of a single consciousness". Science is concerned about what is true and what is false, not about meaning. When you study meaning, then you find consciousness, but that is something science does not do.

 

[Tournesol]

I can't speak for Canute, but I didn't say consciousness is ubiquitous. I don't think a stone is conscious.

You have claimed that matter cannot exist without mind. That means the clouds of gas that constituted the early universe were conscious.

 

[Pensador]

You have claimed that matter cannot exist without mind. That means the clouds of gas that constituted the early universe were conscious.

No, it doesn't mean that at all.

 

[Tournesol]

Well, maybe you will tell us what it does mean. Maybe.

 

[Pensador]

Well, maybe you will tell us what it does mean.

I can try, but by now I doubt you'll understand it:

You have claimed that matter cannot exist without mind. That means the clouds of gas that constituted the early universe were conscious

If I claim languages could not exist without mind, would you rush to the conclusion that sentences in English are conscious?

Ah, but clouds of gas are not languages. I know that. What are clouds of gas then?

 

[Tournesol]

Ah, but clouds of gas are not languages. I know that. What are clouds of gas then?

1. THings that cannot be described (thought) without language(mind).

2. THings that can exist perfectly well wihtout thought and language.

Presumably you are playing the idealists' game of conflating 1 and 2.

 

[Doctordick]

Symbols about purely physical entities do not "contain meaning in themselves"so that is a red herring. And anything that can be communicated must have *something* to do with symbols, or no form of communication would be possible.

That association only reflects massive assumptions about related "symbols" and the belief that they are accurately attached to your personal qualia.

Think about it; please -- Dick

 

[Tournesol]

That association only reflects massive assumptions about related "symbols" and the belief that they are accurately attached to your personal qualia.

Think about it; please -- Dick

No it doesn't.

 

[Doctordick]

No it doesn't.

That appears to be a sufficiently authoritative response to stop this discussion.

Have fun -- Dick

 

[Paul Martin]

Symbols about purely physical entities do not "contain meaning in themselves"so that is a red herring.

I agree that "Symbols about purely physical entities do not 'contain meaning in themselves'".

The reason I agree is that the definition of 'symbol' is a recognizable artifact assigned to "something" which it is agreed to represent. (I just made up this definition, so if you disagree with it, we should start our discussion there.) It is assumed by whomever set forth the artifact and proposed the assignment, that the artifact would be persistent enough, and recognizable enough, so that at some future time, another consciousness (I assume that "whomever" was conscious.) would likely be able to recognize the artifact and make the association with the "something" to which the assignment was made. Thus, there is no meaning in the artifact, or symbol, in itself. There is also no meaning inherent in the assignment either. Any meaning would be in some conscious activity in which this particular symbol and/or the "something" which it represents was part of the context of the conscious activity.

I have no comment on whether or not that statement is a red herring.

And anything that can be communicated must have *something* to do with symbols, or no form of communication would be possible.

To agree with this, I would have to stretch the definition either of 'communication' or of 'symbol'. If we narrow the definition of 'communication' to what we normally think of as symbolic communication, such as languages, then I would agree that languages are expressed only in symbols so any such communication would necessarily involve symbols. But limiting 'communication' in this way, we would have to modify Tournesol's conclusion to say that "no form of [symbolic] communication would be possible [without symbols]. This adds nothing.

On the other hand, if we were to consider all possible forms of communication, I don't think we can necessarily rule out non-symbolic communication. For example, we can somehow communicate fear to dogs without using any acknowledged symbols. The dog undoubtedly picks up information of our fear somehow, but we have not produced that information using assigned symbols.

But beyond that, when we consider all possible forms of communication, we have no justification to rule out telepathic communication in which information might be communicated directly without intermediate symbols or languages.

That association only reflects massive assumptions about related "symbols"

I'm not sure whether what I wrote are all of the "massive assumptions" you are referring to, but at least they are some of the assumptions.

and the belief that they are accurately attached to your personal qualia.

Here I will grant you "massive assumptions", Dick. I think this is the essence of the issue.

Working backward, we start with "qualia". These mysterious things are at the heart of the discussions in this entire subject of consciousness and the "Hard Problem".

Next, to call them "personal qualia" makes what I think is a huge assumption that there are multiple "persons", each of whom experiences some of these qualia. I am aware that most people make this assumption and actually believe that there are multiple, distinct, conscious individuals, but I am not one of them (i.e. I am not one of the people making the assumption). Yet, I am aware that there are distinct human beings, each of whom reports experiencing qualia. I think it is a naïve assumption that there is a one-one correspondence between human beings and experiencers of qualia.

Next, to say "your" personal qualia, you assume your interlocutor is an experiencer of qualia. Are you sure you aren't talking to a zombie? Or that solipsism is true and you are talking to a figment of your imagination?

Next, is the question of whether the symbolic attachment is accurate. I don't think this is much of a problem because I don't think the assignment of symbols can be inaccurate. When Samuel F.B. Morse assigned the symbol '-.-.' to the letter 'C', was he "accurate"? Assignments might be made inconsistently, or non-sensically, but I don't think they can be made inaccurately.

And finally, you mention "belief". Not only is this a vaguely understood term, but I think there is a typically unacknowledged assumption as to exactly who or what qualifies as a "believer". I think the question of who or what can have beliefs is every bit as mysterious as the question of exactly who or what can have experiences.

I agree with you, Dick, that there is a lot of complexity lurking behind our notions of communication.

Paul