How has physics challenged the traditional idea of materialism?

[GeorgCantor]

Matrialism has been hotly debated in philosophy for millenia. In physics, up until the 20th century, it seems materialism had gained the upper hand. The 20th century physics demolished the old mechanistic ideas of the universe and replaced the fixed objects in immutable space and time with relative ones. QM and QFT seem to alienate us even further from our everyday perceptions of the world. Some of the prominent physicists of our time have gone as far as to proclaim materialism is dead(Zeilinger, Wheeler, Davies, Gotswami,...), others are still on the fence.

Paul Davies and J.Gribbin state:

"Many people have rejected scientific values because they regard
materialism as a sterile and bleak philosophy, which reduces
human beings to automata and leaves no room for free will or
creativity. These people can take heart: materialism is dead."

'The Matter Myth', Davies & Gribbin, p.13

What evidence from GR, QM, QFT and candidates for a future TOE(string theory and LQG) supports Materialism? (You can also think of materialism as objects having definite properties in space and time)

 

[apeiron]

Materialism has also been incredibly successful. So some balance thinking required here.

My position is that the mistake is to frame this as a matter of either/or. That is, either materialism and everything else (not-materialism) is wrong/ or that materialism is wrong and something else better will take its place.

Instead, I think the correct approach would be complementary. For deep reasons, you will arrive at complementary descriptions of nature from two rival perspectives.

Broadly speaking, one perspective is looking up from the bottom. That is starting off with the small-scale, componential, atomistic, mechanical, additive, constructive view of causation and logic.

The other complementary view is to see the whole and so look down from the point of view of the system - of global scale constraints, of self-organisation and semiosis, of thermodynamic organisational principles, of hierarchy theory and dynamical systems theory.

There have always been these two camps within science and philosophy, though brute materialism has for a long time enjoyed the upper hand in anglo-saxon discourse. And perhaps rightly so because it is the more immediately effective brand of modelling if your primary social purpose is building machines (systems that are brutely material rather than alive or otherwise self-organising and truly systems-like).

Note this is also the most ancient of metaphysical dichotomies. The great set-piece debate in Plato/Aristotle's Athens was the search for the essence of reality. The question was whether it was substance or form that was the basic single "stuff" of reality.

The answer, if you read Aristotle with sufficient care, and picked up on Plato's later comments about the chora, is that reality is both. You need both substance and form to have a reality (and as diametrically opposed concepts, they completely divide and exhaust all other intermediate possibility).

For substance, read material. Or atoms, or components, or physical stuff...or in the modern era, information bits, the "atoms of form".

QM and relativity did not actually kill materialism. They are both "mechanics" after all and do not really deal with systems level causality - downwards causation, the self-organisation of constraints, etc.

Many leading physicists realize that some kind of systems or top-down causality would be needed for a more complete modelling of reality - Davies, for instance, has written well on this.

http://www.ctnsstars.org/conferences/papers/The%20physics%20of%20downward%20causation.pdf

Summary - Materialism = a substance-based notion of ontology and causality.

But there has always been substance and form as fundamental complementary categories.

The choices are:

1) monadism: take one or other to be true, the other wrong.

2) dualism: take both to be true but ontically unconnected and therefore mysterious.

3) dichotomy: take both to be true AND complementary. They are just two opposed poles of description. Standing nearer one pole (as does materialism) can be more effective for certain modelling purposes. But a complete description of reality would require a formalisation of both poles of description.

 

[Pythagorean]

I don't think qm killed materialism at all. Instead, it seems to show how limitless materialism can be.

 

[JoeDawg]

(You can also think of materialism as objects having definite properties in space and time)

The definition is really the problem. Ever since Einstein showed that matter and energy are interchangeable, what matter is, has been elusive. One can describe the universe as different types of energy, or different types of particles. Both are useful, but neither is entirely correct.

Materialism, in the classical sense is about particles. So its quite reasonable to say materialism is dead.
However, that doesn't mean that its still not descriptive of what we experience, at least to a certain degree.

 

[Erwins_mat]

Matrialism has been hotly debated in philosophy for millenia. In physics, up until the 20th century, it seems materialism had gained the upper hand. The 20th century physics demolished the old mechanistic ideas of the universe and replaced the fixed objects in immutable space and time with relative ones. QM and QFT seem to alienate us even further from our everyday perceptions of the world. Some of the prominent physicists of our time have gone as far as to proclaim materialism is dead(Zeilinger, Wheeler, Davies, Gotswami,...), others are still on the fence.

Paul Davies and J.Gribbin state:

"Many people have rejected scientific values because they regard
materialism as a sterile and bleak philosophy, which reduces
human beings to automata and leaves no room for free will or
creativity. These people can take heart: materialism is dead."

'The Matter Myth', Davies & Gribbin, p.13

What evidence from GR, QM, QFT and candidates for a future TOE(string theory and LQG) supports Materialism?

None. Materialism is dead, and the truth is that there never was anything that supported it. Even Newtonian mechanics didn't actually support materialism, but rather that the material half of Descartes dualism operated deterministically.

 

[Erwins_mat]

I don't think qm killed materialism at all.

That'll be because you can't kill things which are already dead. :)

http://affordablehousinginstitute.org/blogs/us/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/imagespython-dead-parrot-small.jpg

 

[madness]

I've always seen materialism as an assumption in science rather than a conclusion. We observe patterns in nature which we model mathematically. Whether these patterns are fundamentally mental or physical (or something else) is not addressed.

 

[disregardthat]

I've always seen materialism as an assumption in science rather than a conclusion. We observe patterns in nature which we model mathematically. Whether these patterns are fundamentally mental or physical (or something else) is not addressed.

I agree.

Science as a pragmatic process does not include any philosophical stance.

In my view, newever theories has only changed how "material" can be defined. However, this is not in support of materialism. Materialism is more similar to a religious stance than a purely philosophical one. Materialism is in no way "deduced".

 

[GeorgCantor]

175 hits and no evidence from modern physics supporting materialism? I am well aware that there are no particles as such in what we observe as matter, and the random nature of quantum phenomena. It appears there is a consensus and experimental evidence that anything can take place given enough time in a reality like ours. Here is a quote by Alvaro de Rujula of Cern, who was involved in writing a safety report:

"Besides, the random nature of quantum physics means that there is always a minuscule, but nonzero, chance of anything occurring, including that the new collider could spit out man-eating dragons."

Science is entirely rooted in materialsim, so is there and could there be a natural explanation for the human experience? And what is physics describing? A world of objects or...

 

[Erwins_mat]

Science is entirely rooted in materialsim, so is there and could there be a natural explanation for the human experience?

Depends what "natural" means.

 

[GeorgCantor]

Depends what "natural" means.

I don't know. It seems to me there is good consensus among physicists that the effect of quantum tunneling used in electron microscopes(and most of the other quantum effects), strongly suggest that electrons, quarks and atoms aren't material objects at all(the fact that that guy from CERN uses the same rhetoric appears to confirm my suspicions). Seems to me, it's no longer justified to use the multiverse as an escape route from supernatural origins, as the multiverse we propose is itself material(not mere potentials of observing material objects).

 

[Erwins_mat]

I don't know. It seems to me there is good consensus among physicists that the effect of quantum tunneling used in electron microscopes(and most of the other quantum effects), strongly suggest that electrons, quarks and atoms aren't material objects at all(the fact that that guy from CERN uses the same rhetoric appears to confirm my suspicions). Seems to me, it's no longer justified to use the multiverse as an escape route from supernatural origins, as the multiverse we propose is itself material(not mere potentials of observing material objects).

I still don't know what you mean by "natural" and "supernatural".

Is Paul Davies a supernaturalist?

Materialism is dead, but skeptical naturalism and atheism live on.

Were Nietzsche and Sartre supernaturalists?

 

[GeorgCantor]

I still don't know what you mean by "natural" and "supernatural".

I already said i have no idea. If the material world of objects in space and time, exists only in our brains(which are themselves not material in the traditional sense any more), this changes the paradigm completely. It seems, since the solid world of our perception has evaporated from the minds of physicsts, then we know nothing about origins any more. Let me answer in a philosophical way to your question above with another question - what is natural and what is supernatural in a non-materialistic universe?

Is Paul Davies a supernaturalist?

He is a deist, it seems to me he finds his idea of god, a natural one. That would depend entirely on what is meant by 'natural', as you have pointed out, but this is going offtopic.

Materialism is dead, but skeptical naturalism and atheism live on.

Were Nietzsche and Sartre supernaturalists?

No but i don't really understand Sartre's belief that the self is transcendental and doesn't require a creator, since its existence precedes essence. Sounds like the weak anthropic principle which i find to be a circular statement.

 

[Erwins_mat]

I already said i have no idea. If the material world of objects in space and time, exists only in our brains(which are themselves not material in the traditional sense any more), this changes the paradigm completely.

Agreed.

It seems, since the solid world of our perception has evaporated from the minds of physicsts, then we know nothing about origins any more.

Not agreed. Does Bell's theorem falsify evolution by natural selection?

Let me answer in a philosophical way to your question above with another question - what is natural and what is supernatural in a non-materialistic universe?

Let's say Quantum Berkeleyan Idealism is true. The "noumenal-material" world is replaced by ideas in the mind of God. In God's ideas, electrons can be in more than one place at the same time. However, in this version of QBI, the world behaves exactly as a materialist thinks it ought to - which is another way of saying that there is no way for human consciousness, free will, God or anything else to load the quantum dice, there is just a cosmic random number generator. This version of QBI is causally indistinguishable from deterministic-random materialism and therefore naturalistic.

Supernaturalism comes in two flavours. The first is all-out physical-law-busting madness, like young Earth creationism and David Icke's dimension-flipping shape-shifting reptilian aliens. This involves radical and unpredictable suspensions of the classical laws of physics. The second only "breaks" probabilistic laws which can't really be "broken" in the classical sense. It restricts the supernatural to the highly improbable, but not actually requiring blatant breaches of the laws of physics (e.g. free will, karma, synchronicity and some types of old-earth creationism.)

No but i don't really understand Sartre's belief that the self is transcendental and doesn't require a creator, since its existence precedes essence. Sounds like the weak anthropic principle which i find to be a circular statement.

I find Sartre pretty incomprehensible myself. The only point is that you don't have to be a materialist to be a skeptical atheist.

 

[GeorgCantor]

Not agreed. Does Bell's theorem falsify evolution by natural selection?

All by itself no, Bell's theorem doesn't attempt to answer what reality is(only what it is not). Let's see what might lie ahead - String Theory suggests the universe is a projection(a 2D hologram) and LQG hasn't made a clear statement beyond spacetime being a phenomenon caused by the interaction of tiny loops AFAIK. So, does a holographic universe not carry a significant load of philosophical ramifications for origins? I would argue that it does and that it has ramifications that reach far beyond natural selection.

Let's say Quantum Berkeleyan Idealism is true. The "noumenal-material" world is replaced by ideas in the mind of God. In God's ideas, electrons can be in more than one place at the same time. However, in this version of QBI, the world behaves exactly as a materialist thinks it ought to - which is another way of saying that there is no way for human consciousness, free will, God or anything else to load the quantum dice, there is just a cosmic random number generator. This version of QBI is causally indistinguishable from deterministic-random materialism and therefore naturalistic.

That would be a damn good quantum generator if it can create what we observe from mere quantum potentials.

Supernaturalism comes in two flavours. The first is all-out physical-law-busting madness, like young Earth creationism and David Icke's dimension-flipping shape-shifting reptilian aliens. This involves radical and unpredictable suspensions of the classical laws of physics. The second only "breaks" probabilistic laws which can't really be "broken" in the classical sense. It restricts the supernatural to the highly improbable, but not actually requiring blatant breaches of the laws of physics (e.g. free will, karma, synchronicity and some types of old-earth creationism.)

My point is that in a non-material universe(that has no objects existing in space and time), anything can take place(as seen in that quote by Alvaro de Rujula of CERN). How do we tell apart natural from supernatural? He seems to be saying that anything can take place, given enough time. And as far as i can see, experimental evidence(electron microscopes and such) prove his point that quantum 'particles' don't have a definite position. So what is natural and what is supernatural in such a..., well, reality?

 

[Erwins_mat]

So, does a holographic universe not carry a significant load of philosophical ramifications for origins? I would argue that it does and that it has ramifications that reach far beyond natural selection.

What ramifications?

All I am seeing is "materialism is false, therefore anything is possible!" I do not believe this is the case. Young-Earth creationism doesn't seem any more likely. Climate change hasn't stopped. What are these ramifications? I'm not saying they do not exist, just that you need to be clearer about what you are actually saying. I have no intention of allowing YEC to use the failure of materialism as an excuse to peddle its nonsense.

My point is that in a non-material universe(that has no objects existing in space and time), anything can take place(as seen in that quote by Alvaro de Rujula of CERN).

ANYTHING?

Anything at all? Flying pigs? I think you are taking his quote too literally.

How do we tell apart natural from supernatural? He seems to be saying that anything can take place, given enough time. And as far as i can see, experimental evidence(electron microscopes and such) prove his point that quantum 'particles' don't have a definite position. So what is natural and what is supernatural in such a..., well, reality?

THAT reality isn't the one we experience. We experience a classical world where there are limits on what happens. Those limits are described by the Newtonian-Einsteinian physical laws and I have no reason to believe they will ever be breached - at least not by any significant margin under "normal conditions" (not right next to a black hole).

 

[Pythagorean]

That'll be because you can't kill things which are already dead. :)

http://affordablehousinginstitute.org/blogs/us/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/imagespython-dead-parrot-small.jpg

bah! From a materialistic perspective, all that's really happened is that materials have been found to have cooler properties.

 

[Erwins_mat]

bah! From a materialistic perspective, all that's really happened is that materials have been found to have cooler properties.

I think the problem is worse than that. None of the interpretations of quantum mechanics actually works. By that I mean that although all of them are empirically equal, none of them take into account all of the things we want them to take into account without leading to paradoxes, absurdities, etc...

 

[GeorgCantor]

What ramifications?

Is there a natural explanation for a holographic universe?

All I am seeing is "materialism is false, therefore anything is possible!" I do not believe this is the case.

It seems really hard to say what is possible and what impossible. As far as i am aware, QM and QFT allow only a probability to be assigned, not certainty of events. There is very likely an underlying reality that affects those probability that we see(why else would the SE work at all, if that were not the case?).

Young-Earth creationism doesn't seem any more likely. Climate change hasn't stopped. What are these ramifications? I'm not saying they do not exist, just that you need to be clearer about what you are actually saying. I have no intention of allowing YEC to use the failure of materialism as an excuse to peddle its nonsense.

Well, certainly, some ideas seem so ridiculous. Yet, at the end of the day, we too don't know what we are talking about, do we?

ANYTHING?

Anything at all? Flying pigs? I think you are taking his quote too literally.

I am sure he means it literally(given enough time). I am sure an HIV virus can tunnel from within a condom and appear on the other side without actually going through the rubber barrier. The probability for this happening is probably 1:1 000 000 000 or less, but ask over in the quantum forum, it is actually possible. There is a vast difference between extremely unlikely and impossible.

THAT reality isn't the one we experience. We experience a classical world where there are limits on what happens. Those limits are described by the Newtonian-Einsteinian physical laws and I have no reason to believe they will ever be breached - at least not by any significant margin under "normal conditions" (not right next to a black hole).

But they can be breached. Ask about EPR, the possibility for a virus to tunnel, quantum teleportation, etc(relativity and qm are already united in QFT). If QM is right, which seems to be the case for every experiment ever performed, then the universe is crazy. Hence why all interpretations sound insane. Is a universe that splits at every quantum interaction natural? Or one that is purely relational? Seems like we need to first define what we mean by 'natural' in light of the new discoveries.
And as i said earlier in the thread, i have no idea how to separate events into natural and supernatural, because my brain doesn't really understand the reality that contemporary physics describes. And unless i somehow start to comprehend it(though probably nobody on the planet does), i'd rather leave this question open.

 

[Erwins_mat]

Is there a natural explanation for a holographic universe?

Is there a natural explanation for any sort of universe? What difference does it make what its made of? Something supernatural about holograms?

And as i said earlier in the thread, i have no idea how to separate events into natural and supernatural,

Then how can you ask questions like "is there a natural explanation for X?"...?

You have no meaning for the word "natural", therefore the question is meaningless. You are really asking "Is there any material explanation for a holographic universe?" Well...no. Should there be?

 

[disregardthat]

Is there a natural explanation for a holographic universe?


I am sure he means it literally(given enough time). I am sure an HIV virus can tunnel from within a condom and appear on the other side without actually going through the rubber barrier. The probability for this happening is probably 1:1 000 000 000 or less, but ask over in the quantum forum, it is actually possible. There is a vast difference between extremely unlikely and impossible.

Just because such extremities might be possible according to our models doesn't mean they can or will happen. Our models might as well be inaccurate, and thats what's likely. It is similar to arguing that the gauss curve predicts that some very tiny percentage of all human beings will have, or at some time there will be a human being with, negative height just because the integral over (- \infty,0] under the normal distribution probability curve of height is non-zero.

 

[apeiron]

The how can you ask questions like "is there a natural explanation for X?"...?
You have no meaning for the word "natural", therefore the question is meaningless.

As a philosopher, you would understand the meaning of the term "natural".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_philosophy

In the modern era, this would put you in the camp of systems scientists, hierarchy theorists and complexity theorists who believe in reality as self-organising development.

So super-natural is where the final or ultimate cause of things is argued to come from outside the system. Natural is where all causality lies within the system. Which is why it is a "system".

 

[GeorgCantor]

As a philosopher, you would understand the meaning of the term "natural".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_philosophy

In the modern era, this would put you in the camp of systems scientists, hierarchy theorists and complexity theorists who believe in reality as self-organising development.

So super-natural is where the final or ultimate cause of things is argued to come from outside the system. Natural is where all causality lies within the system. Which is why it is a "system".

Yes, that's what i meant. In a non-matierial universe of possibilities of something to occur(i.e. no objects with fixed properties in space and time), what EXCATLY do we mean by inside the universe and outside the universe(or inside and outside the system)? You can't use the model you've already rejected on the previous page(materialism), so now you are stuck. That's the reason for my confusion over the meaning of the terminology we are so used to applying in a material universe(e.g. inside and outside). In the relational interpretation, how would you propose we treat inside and outside the universe, without knowing the details and causes of the correlations that bring up the sensation of a material universe?

 

[apeiron]

In the relational interpretation, how would you propose we treat inside and outside the universe, without knowing the details and causes of the correlations that bring up the sensation of a material universe?

A further level of sophistication in the developmental, self-organising, ontology is the notion of vagueness (cf: Anaximander, Peirce).

So what lies "outside" the system is the realm of vagueness (vaguer being). And outside in terms of both space and time.

We can apply this thinking at any level of hierarchical analysis or systems complexity.

So the physico-chemical realm outside a cell is vaguer, less specified, than what is found within. All the potential chemistry found inside the cell "exists" also outside it. But in a vaguer fashion. Inside the cell, things become crisply (self)organised so that only certain kinds of chemistry prevail. And in a spatiotemporal persistent fashion.

The same approach can be taken to the cosmo scale of description. So for example, QM describes the "vague potential" that lies outside. And the universe is like a cell that then selects a natural system which is more specified and thus has the system qualities of persistence and coherence.

Dissipative structure theory offers a good level of description here. Which is why I see decoherence interpretations of QM as being the best available so far.

 

[Pythagorean]

I think the problem is worse than that. None of the interpretations of quantum mechanics actually works. By that I mean that although all of them are empirically equal, none of them take into account all of the things we want them to take into account without leading to paradoxes, absurdities, etc...

I think this problem arises more from anti-materialists having a narrow, classical view of materials. I'm a materialist according to the wiki definition, which doesn't distinguish "Newtonian materials" from the modern view of materials.

 

[Erwins_mat]

I think this problem arises more from anti-materialists having a narrow, classical view of materials. I'm a materialist according to the wiki definition, which doesn't distinguish "Newtonian materials" from the modern view of materials.

That doesn't fly. What you are essentially saying is this: there is no important difference between classical physics and quantum mechanics. This cannot possibly be the case, since classical physics had only two or three obvious metaphysical interpretations and quantum mechanics has something like twenty. All you are doing is using one word (material) to mean two different things - a false equivocation.

 

[Pythagorean]

That doesn't fly. What you are essentially saying is this: there is no important difference between classical physics and quantum mechanics. This cannot possibly be the case, since classical physics had only two or three obvious metaphysical interpretations and quantum mechanics has something like twenty. All you are doing is using one word (material) to mean two different things - a false equivocation.

But I'm not saying that at all. I was raised knowing about QM, I wasn't raised in Newtonian times. Newtonian physics is a special case of general physics (namely, it's the case of larger materials moving at slower speeds).

Also, don't leave out SR and GR. And remember that QM, CP, SR, and GR are all just theories about the material. The material has always been there and (in my view) has always been responsible for every phenomena we observe.

 

[Erwins_mat]

But I'm not saying that at all. I was raised knowing about QM, I wasn't raised in Newtonian times. Newtonian physics is a special case of general physics (namely, it's the case of larger materials moving at slower speeds).

Yes and no. Yes, mathematically Newtonian physics is a special case of quantum theory, but there is another difference. Newtonian physics leads us to think that the material world as it is independently of us is pretty much the same as the material world we directly experience.

And remember that QM, CP, SR, and GR are all jup[qst theories about the material.

I don't agree. I can only see quantum mechanics as a probabilistic tool. It is for predicting what we will observe at a future point. Now...you could say that that is all any science does, but the metaphysical problem still remains. Classical mechanics does not require any bizarre mental gymnastics to get from the theory to the material world we actually experience. Post-QM, "material" seems to refer only to the world we experience. It is when you try to apply the concept "material" to the entities referred to by QM that all the problems start. Material objects simply do not take every possible path at the same time. They have to be in just one place.

The material has always been there and (in my view) has always been responsible for every phenomena we observe.

You are in effect claiming that noumena are material. This is the specific metaphysical claim that quantum mechanics undermines.

What does Bell's theorem mean to you? To me, it means that any local, material, metaphysical theory must be wrong. It means that a local, material, metaphysical theory is either (a) impossible (reality is non-local) or (b) necessarily incomplete (materialism fails because something else is needed to "glue" reality together.)

 

[GeorgCantor]

What does Bell's theorem mean to you? To me, it means that any local, material, metaphysical theory must be wrong. It means that a local, material, metaphysical theory is either (a) impossible (reality is non-local) or (b) necessarily incomplete (materialism fails because something else is needed to "glue" reality together.)

What do you think of the theory that the zero-point energy of the ground state of the quantum field can allegedly account for the observable 'matter':

It is sometimes suggested that pair production can be used to explain the origin of matter in the universe. In models of the Big Bang, it is suggested that vacuum fluctuations, or virtual particles, briefly appear.[9] Then, due to effects such as CP-violation, an imbalance between the number of virtual particles and antiparticles is created, leaving a surfeit of particles, thus accounting for the visible matter in the universe."


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_particle


It still sounds too esoteric but i believe it shares the reasoning of David Bohm in his Wholeness and the Implicate Order and permits a classical understanding of quantum tunneling(particles traveling to classically forbidden states). Could the "glue" be the pair production from quantum vacuum fluctuations(i.e. could the zero-point energy field be the substrate of all being)? Is there research in this field and have atoms been observed to originate from vacuum fluctuations?

 

[Erwins_mat]

What do you think of the theory that the zero-point energy of the ground state of the quantum field can allegedly account for the observable 'matter':

It is sometimes suggested that pair production can be used to explain the origin of matter in the universe. In models of the Big Bang, it is suggested that vacuum fluctuations, or virtual particles, briefly appear.[9] Then, due to effects such as CP-violation, an imbalance between the number of virtual particles and antiparticles is created, leaving a surfeit of particles, thus accounting for the visible matter in the universe."


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_particle


It still sounds too esoteric

Sounds like logic-busting magic to me.

but i believe it shares the reasoning of David Bohm in his Wholeness and the Implicate Order and permits a classical understanding of quantum tunneling(particles traveling to classically forbidden states). Could the "glue" be the pair production from quantum vacuum fluctuations(i.e. could the zero-point energy field be the substrate of all being)? Is there research in this field and have atoms been observed to originate from vacuum fluctuations?

In Bohm's case, the "glue" is the pilot wave.

 

[Pythagorean]

Yes and no. Yes, mathematically Newtonian physics is a special case of quantum theory, but there is another difference. Newtonian physics leads us to think that the material world as it is independently of us is pretty much the same as the material world we directly experience.

Only if you pretend you're a 17th century naturalist, ignorant of the last couple centuries of scientific breakthroughs. I don't.

I don't agree. I can only see quantum mechanics as a probabilistic tool. It is for predicting what we will observe at a future point. Now...you could say that that is all any science does, but the metaphysical problem still remains. Classical mechanics does not require any bizarre mental gymnastics to get from the theory to the material world we actually experience. Post-QM, "material" seems to refer only to the world we experience. It is when you try to apply the concept "material" to the entities referred to by QM that all the problems start. Material objects simply do not take every possible path at the same time. They have to be in just one place.

It appears to me that you're confusing macro-materials with micro-materials. In QM, the materials are the particles and small ensembles of particles in a small range of states. Once you start modeling atoms, many approximations enter in and the system becomes too complex to model without giving up aspects of your model. Newtonian physics deals with large ensembles of particles where we study the dynamics of the group as a whole, more so than each little particle. It's a lot like people. It's much easier to make predictions about a larger group of people than it is to make predictions about one person.

You are in effect claiming that noumena are material. This is the specific metaphysical claim that quantum mechanics undermines.

How exactly does QM undermine it? I actually believe the Angular Gyrus has a lot to do with noumena.

What does Bell's theorem mean to you? To me, it means that any local, material, metaphysical theory must be wrong. It means that a local, material, metaphysical theory is either (a) impossible (reality is non-local) or (b) necessarily incomplete (materialism fails because something else is needed to "glue" reality together.)

I'm not very familiar with metaphysics, but I'm willing to work at it. Make an argument for why Bell's theorem implies that materialism must be wrong.

 

[apeiron]

What does Bell's theorem mean to you? To me, it means that any local, material, metaphysical theory must be wrong. It means that a local, material, metaphysical theory is either (a) impossible (reality is non-local) or (b) necessarily incomplete (materialism fails because something else is needed to "glue" reality together.)

Sigh. Or (c) - locality and non-locality are both complementary aspects of being, and thus of reality modelling, in the same way that substance and form are both aspects of being, and its models.

So yes indeedy, materialism is only half the story. The local/substantial half in fact. And it must be complemented by a global/formal model of causation. A systems approach in other words.

 

[Erwins_mat]

It appears to me that you're confusing macro-materials with micro-materials.

I don't believe there is a micro/macro split in physics any more than there is a valid distinction between micro-evolution and macro-evolution.

The following experiment, posted by Arjen in the thread on QM would appear to support this:

http://www.physorg.com/news78650511.html

The droplet, which is about 1mm (10 million times larger than an atom), is also one million times larger than the second largest object--a 2-nm molecule called a buckyball--whose wave-particle duality was observed in 2003.

“The interest of our result comes from the fact that we observe single particle diffraction and interference with a classical system,” Couder told PhysOrg.com. “This phenomenon was thought to be reserved to the quantum scale.”

How exactly does QM undermine it? I actually believe the Angular Gyrus has a lot to do with noumena.

The Angular Gyrus is just a part of a material brain. What does this have to do with the unobservable world-as-it-is-in-itself?

QM undermines the idea that noumena are material because it suggests that unobserved "objects" do not conform to our normal ideas about what "objects" are and what sort of properties they have.

I'm not very familiar with metaphysics, but I'm willing to work at it. Make an argument for why Bell's theorem implies that materialism must be wrong.

Bell's theorem demonstrates that reality is non-local or the local intepretations of QM are necessarily incomplete. If the first is true then materialism is wrong because the the universe is non-local (it is not really "there" at all, but "somewhere else" and not in material form. If it is incomplete then you have to start inventing additional entities on top of the material world in order to account for how various bits of the universe "know" what all of the other bits are doing.

"Material" is the concept science works with, and does so very well. It just isn't a big enough concept to work when we are doing metaphysics. It fails for at least two reasons. The first is that it cannot coherently explain consciousness and the second is that it has been undermined by QM. These twin failures are, according to various people, two aspects of the same problem. I am tempted to agree, but I am unaware of any proven scientific link.

 

[Pythagorean]

I don't believe there is a micro/macro split in physics any more than there is a valid distinction between micro-evolution and macro-evolution.

The following experiment, posted by Arjen in the thread on QM would appear to support this:

http://www.physorg.com/news78650511.html

That doesn't really support such a claim. The divide exists in many ways. Gravity vs. QED is another example in addition to what I provided already. A particle can be a QM particle, or we can also call a larger object a particle when we treat it classically, (and we really have no choice with things like planets or even golf-balls. Just try modeling them with QM, it's impossible.

The Angular Gyrus is just a part of a material brain. What does this have to do with the unobservable world-as-it-is-in-itself?

Note that there's no certainty that it's the angular gyrus alone, but the angular gyrus is involved in our world-model building. We interpolate and extrapolate from our sensory input to create a world model (for instance, we don't experience every pixel at once, our consciousness experiences a general idea of the ensemble of pixels and fills in the blanks. I can provide you examples of exercises that will lead your brain to do so when there's nothing really there.) This is a visual example, but the angular gyrus integrates many senses. It is involved in cross-sensory metaphors, as well ("her sweet face").

QM undermines the idea that noumena are material because it suggests that unobserved "objects" do not conform to our normal ideas about what "objects" are and what sort of properties they have.

This is very arbitrary though. You're basing your argument off of "Our normal ideas about what "objects" are". I don't have the same reservations about materials that you do. You're putting limits on materials and admitting that it's a false assumption in the first place.

Bell's theorem demonstrates that reality is non-local or the local intepretations of QM are necessarily incomplete. If the first is true then materialism is wrong because the the universe is non-local (it is not really "there" at all, but "somewhere else" and not in material form.

There's a lot of people that think QM is incomplete. Especially since it's incompatible with gravity. You follow from that with:

If it is incomplete then you have to start inventing additional entities on top of the material world in order to account for how various bits of the universe "know" what all of the other bits are doing.

This is simply not true. All I have to do is show how the materials give rise to the phenomena. After I can show that, it appears as magic and duality only to the willfully ignorant. This is the ground science has conquered over mysticism for centuries.

"Material" is the concept science works with, and does so very well. It just isn't a big enough concept to work when we are doing metaphysics. It fails for at least two reasons. The first is that it cannot coherently explain consciousness and the second is that it has been undermined by QM. These twin failures are, according to various people, two aspects of the same problem. I am tempted to agree, but I am unaware of any proven scientific link.

I fiercely disagree that QM undermines materialism. Materialism is "all phenomena arises from material interactions". QM, especially QFT, completely supports that. Look at the wiki on the Standard Model. That table of particles are the materials.

As for consciousness, the question is being tackled scientifically. See VS Ramachandran or Christoph Koch, for starters. Theoretical Neuroscience is making ground. If you watch Christoph Koch's lecture, he provides his experimental methodology and proposes that he has found a consciousness neuron.

The biggest problem though, explaining the concept of consciousness to laymen, is that you have a preconception of what consciousness is and it will be difficult for you to accept how simple it is. It's very possible that you've added some imagination and ideals to your idea of consciousness (as we all have) and you have to do a little mental exercise to escape such a pitfall.

 

[Erwins_mat]

The biggest problem though, explaining the concept of consciousness to laymen, is that you have a preconception of what consciousness is and it will be difficult for you to accept how simple it is. It's very possible that you've added some imagination and ideals to your idea of consciousness (as we all have) and you have to do a little mental exercise to escape such a pitfall.

The biggest problem is defining consciousness at all, be it to a layman or an expert. The bottom line is that the only way you can define it is subjectively, and that leads to it being incompatible with the concept of "material".

I do not have any preconceptions about "what consciousness is". I do have a-priori knowledge about what certain words or concepts refer to. There is no "consciousness" anywhere in the material world and this can be demonstrated very easily.

Materialists have three choices:

(1) Claim consciousness doesn't exist. (eliminative materialism).

(2) Claim "consciousness is [material object/process X]" where X generally refers to brain activity or information-processing or behaviour, etc... The problem with this option is that when you subsequently ask questions about "consciousness" you get answers about brain activity, information-processing or behaviour instead of what anybody (including the person offering the explanation), actually means by "consciousness."

When Richard Dawkins said that "consciousness is the biggest unknown in science" he did not mean that it is hard to define or explain the evolution of brain activity.

(3) Claim "consciousness is produced by [material object/process X]", at which point consciousness is being described as something that "comes from" brains like milk from a mammary gland. It ends up being dualism-by-accident, and this sort of epiphenomenal consciousness is inexplicable by evolutionary processes because it is held to be non-causal over matter.

The problem is not that the experts can't explain consciousness to laymen. The problem is that the experts (if they are materialists) don't even understand their own position on consciousness. (1) denies consciousness exists even though you know damned well it exists, (2) is an attempt to escape from a logical problem by using one word to mean different things at different times and (3) is logically incompatible with materialism, and therefore incoherent when uttered by a materialist.

 

[apeiron]

If you watch Christoph Koch's lecture, he provides his experimental methodology and proposes that he has found a consciousness neuron.

Which neuron is that? Can you supply the name or a reference please.

 

[Pythagorean]

Which neuron is that? Can you supply the name or a reference please.

His talk:

One of his papers:
http://www.klab.caltech.edu/refweb/paper/148.pdf

By name, you mean the neuron itself? I suppose you would call it a consciousness neuron. Different neural networks have different functionality, and generally, each neuron only has one function (i.e. we have pain neurons, mirror neurons, motor neurons, etc)

The biggest problem is defining consciousness at all, be it to a layman or an expert. The bottom line is that the only way you can define it is subjectively, and that leads to it being incompatible with the concept of "material".

You've assumed your conclusion by stating a bottom line. If you apply your bottom line to anything, it can't be very scientific, so you're not even allowing it to be scientific in the first place.

Koch doesn't differentiate consciousness from awareness. If your conscious of something, you're aware of it. This is important to understand, because their are processes that our brain undergoes (even cognitive processes) that we are not conscious of.

Others specify that consciousness is self-awareness, which is a subset of awareness itself. This is where world-model building becomes important. In creating a world model, we essentially create a boundary between us and the rest of the world. We define self by what is not the world model.

As an aside, and as Koch says in his talk, a most of science has actually progressed void of a definition. The definition is part of the discovery.

For an interactive definition of Koch's definition of consciousness, go here:
http://www.klab.caltech.edu/~koch/
click 'quest for consciousness', then click "consciousness" (it's the first word in the first paragraph, it's not in a menu)

 

[Erwins_mat]

You've assumed your conclusion by stating a bottom line.

I assumed nothing.

If you apply your bottom line to anything, it can't be very scientific, so you're not even allowing it to be scientific in the first place.

Eh?

Koch...

I don't care what Koch says.

Consciousness: At this point in the scientific exploration of this phenomena, it cannot be defined rigorously.

It cannot be defined at all, not now, not ever, by anything calling itself "science."

Here was my argument. What is wrong with it?

Materialists have three choices:

(1) Claim consciousness doesn't exist. (eliminative materialism).

(2) Claim "consciousness is [material object/process X]" where X generally refers to brain activity or information-processing or behaviour, etc... The problem with this option is that when you subsequently ask questions about "consciousness" you get answers about brain activity, information-processing or behaviour instead of what anybody (including the person offering the explanation), actually means by "consciousness."

When Richard Dawkins said that "consciousness is the biggest unknown in science" he did not mean that it is hard to define or explain the evolution of brain activity.

(3) Claim "consciousness is produced by [material object/process X]", at which point consciousness is being described as something that "comes from" brains like milk from a mammary gland. It ends up being dualism-by-accident, and this sort of epiphenomenal consciousness is inexplicable by evolutionary processes because it is held to be non-causal over matter.

 

[JoeDawg]

this sort of epiphenomenal consciousness is inexplicable by evolutionary processes because it is held to be non-causal over matter.

It wouldn't really matter, evolutionarily speaking, if consciousness was epiphenomenal, since its the process creating consciousness that would be selected for, and it might be selected, for a different reason. And most animals don't have our level of consciousness, so if its an aberration, its extremely rare, which would make sense if consciousness itself doesn't give a great advantage.

Which isn't to say I'm advocating that consciousness is epi, I just don't think the evolution argument holds water.

 

[apeiron]

By name, you mean the neuron itself? I suppose you would call it a consciousness neuron.

You of course picked up Kock's inconsistency in proposing feed-forward pyramidal cells in cortex layer 5 as putative "consciousness neurons", then citing the finding of single cell Jennifer Aniston and Bill Clinton recognition responses in the three layer archicortex structure of the hippocampus. And amygdala even.

So evidence has hardly been "found".

But again that's irrelevant as consciousness is best understood as a global function of a system, not a local property of a material.

 

[Erwins_mat]

It wouldn't really matter, evolutionarily speaking, if consciousness was epiphenomenal, since its the process creating consciousness that would be selected for, and it might be selected, for a different reason.

I don't understand. Why would the process for creating consciousness be selected for if consciousness does not improve reproductive fitness?

And most animals don't have our level of consciousness

I don't agree. My cat doesn't have our level of intelligence, but he is every bit as conscious as we are. Consciousness and intelligence are continually conflated by materialists. They are NOT the same thing.

Deep Blue: highly intelligent, not conscious.
Cats: Not particularly intelligent, totally conscious.
Humans: intelligent, conscious and self-conscious (which is what you get when you have both high levels of intelligence and consciousness).

This is a serious problem for scientists. Stephen Jay Gould has written that "the dinosaurs were not evolving towards any form of consciousness." I have a lot of respect for Gould, but this is a load of old nonsense. The dinosaurs were not evolving towards high levels of intelligence, but they were almost certainly as conscious as modern birds or turtles. They didn't need to be evolving towards any form of consciousness, because they were already conscious. I personally suspect that consciousness first appeared at the end of the ediacaran era and was the cause of the cambrian explosion, a very long time before evolution got around to producing dinosaurs.

 

[JoeDawg]

I don't understand. Why would the process for creating consciousness be selected for if consciousness does not improve reproductive fitness?

There is more to evolution than reproductive fitness. Take homosexuals for instance, they reproduce far less often given their inclinations, and yet their continued existence shows that its not so simple as reproductive fitness. The point is, you are characterizing it as 'the process for creating conscioussness', when that could just be a side effect of another more important process.

Malaria resistance, for instance, occurs genetically in certain populations, but it also carries with it the danger of sickle cell anemia. In populations close to the equator, where malaria is present, the malaria resistent genes survive quite well, even though they carry with them something that would otherwise be entirely detrimental.

Evolution is complex, and our brains are too. It may simply be that the way our brains process information begets an advantage, and the way our brains process information ALSO creates the epiphenomena of consciousness.

As far as your cat goes, I don't think anyone can lay claim to the level of distinction that you are claiming. We're only scratching the surface of neuroscience and artificial intelligence. Its an open question what consciousness is... and intelligence spawns just as many arguments.

 

[Pythagorean]

You of course picked up Kock's inconsistency in proposing feed-forward pyramidal cells in cortex layer 5 as putative "consciousness neurons", then citing the finding of single cell Jennifer Aniston and Bill Clinton recognition responses in the three layer archicortex structure of the hippocampus. And amygdala even.

So evidence has hardly been "found".

But again that's irrelevant as consciousness is best understood as a global function of a system, not a local property of a material.

What inconsistency? You seem to misunderstand. Koch is not claiming that consciousness takes place in one location in the brain. It actually seems to be a systems approach.

For instance, consider the motor neural network. A sub-network of this is mirror neurons (this is how newborns can mimic your facial expression right out of the womb, we're hardwired to connect visual percepts to muscle outputs.)

The Visual consciousness network would be a subset of the visual network (This is what Koch is working on). The way he tests it is pretty straight forward. If you do the test where the dot disappears from your visual consciousness, you may understand how the distinction can be made. Your brain is still totally aware of the dot, but you are not consciously aware of it. Koch measured neural activity during this experiment and found neurons that only fired when the person was aware of the dot. Of course, this is only one example of many similar tests. This is the important distinction of consciousness from awareness: our brain is aware of many different stimuli at once, it passes very few requests to the higher-level newtowrks where conscious decisions are made.

Koch proposes there are several kinds of consciousness. For instance, your language network would have a sub-network for when consciousness enters the signaling process pertaining to language computing (as Koch describes in his presentation, we have a vague idea of what we're going to say, we don't plan out noun-adverb-adjective-etc, we just think of the general idea and the words come out. At one time, this was a conscious process (when we were learning basic language) and we can still consciously reflect on it. The former would be a case of a conscious network utilizing the hippocampus to create an unconscious, more automated network, the latter would be a case of the sub-network, "language consciousness", for instance.

In the same way we have a pain network that consists of pain neurons. (We call them pain neurons because they're part of the network that sends the signal of pain to the brain, not because the pain neuron itself holds and special properties over the whole brain).

 

[Erwins_mat]

There is more to evolution than reproductive fitness. Take homosexuals for instance, they reproduce far less often given their inclinations, and yet their continued existence shows that its not so simple as reproductive fitness.

That is just a form of "malfunction" as far as evolution is concerned. I do not believe the same can be said of consciousness. What could consciousness be a malfunction of?

The point is, you are characterizing it as 'the process for creating conscioussness', when that could just be a side effect of another more important process.

What could be more important than actually being conscious? Can you imagine doing all the things you consciously do without being conscious?

Malaria resistance, for instance, occurs genetically in certain populations, but it also carries with it the danger of sickle cell anemia.

And that is a side-effect of having two copies of a gene which is useful when you only have one. Yes, evolution works in many wonderful ways, but you are trying to tell me that consciousness, which appears to us to be needed for almost everything we do, is an accident or a side-effect or a malfunction. I don't see why anyone should actually believe such an explanation. It doesn't make any sense.

Evolution is complex, and our brains are too. It may simply be that the way our brains process information begets an advantage, and the way our brains process information ALSO creates the epiphenomena of consciousness.

Consciousness is an accidental side effect of intelligence? Again, I simply don't buy it. I need both my consciousness and my intelligence. Both are indispendible for me as a conscious animal.

 

[Pythagorean]

That is just a form of "malfunction" as far as evolution is concerned. I do not believe the same can be said of consciousness. What could consciousness be a malfunction of?

Malfunction implies intention. Evolution doesn't think. It "rolls the dice". Here's an explanation on how our thinking processes could be "malfunctions":

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABfXj0-v8tc&feature=player_embedded

 

[Pythagorean]

(1) Claim consciousness doesn't exist. (eliminative materialism).

That depends on how you define consciousness. I don't have as much trouble defining it as you do.

The longer you avoid using a definition, the more wiggle room you have. Koch avoids this idea of all encompassing consciousness that you must be thinking of. He defines the visual consciousness he's working on and proposes that there's probably more than one kind of consciousness. It necessarily exists, it's just not what you thought it was.

(2) Claim "consciousness is [material object/process X]" where X generally refers to brain activity or information-processing or behaviour, etc... The problem with this option is that when you subsequently ask questions about "consciousness" you get answers about brain activity, information-processing or behaviour instead of what anybody (including the person offering the explanation), actually means by "consciousness."

Don't you think it's interesting that the response you get from the people actually studying it is dull in comparison to what you expected, so you think it's wrong? Maybe your reaction is emotional. Maybe your version of consciousness, 1) doesn't exist. Maybe you have a very active imagination (thanks to your angular gyrus "malfunctioning").

(3) Claim "consciousness is produced by [material object/process X]", at which point consciousness is being described as something that "comes from" brains like milk from a mammary gland. It ends up being dualism-by-accident, and this sort of epiphenomenal consciousness is inexplicable by evolutionary processes because it is held to be non-causal over matter.

I don't get it... so energy and velocity and acceleration... you think these are all dualist ideas just because they're events and not materials? The argument is that the events arise from interactions between materials, not that events don't exist... or even that events must be materials too (so, no milk).

 

[Erwins_mat]

That depends on how you define consciousness. I don't have as much trouble defining it as you do.

How do you define it?

The longer you avoid using a definition, the more wiggle room you have.

I haven't "avoided using a definition." I have explicitly stated that no non-subjective definition is possible in principle.

Don't you think it's interesting that the response you get from the people actually studying...

Are you suggesting I haven't done any research into scientific attempts to explain consciousness?

At this point I am considering walking away from the discussion on the grounds that, as usual, the materialists are arguing from authority, questioning my emotional stability and suggesting I am insufficiently educated on the subject.

I don't get it... so energy and velocity and acceleration... you think these are all dualist ideas just because they're events and not materials?

I have no idea what you are talking about. Those things are properties of material objects. No problem there... Consciousness is not a property of a material, regardless of how desperately the materialists try to bash the square peg into the round hole.

The argument is that the events arise from interactions between materials, not that events don't exist... or even that events must be materials too (so, no milk).

Consciousness is not "a material event." What you are saying only makes sense to materialists who have decided a priori that there must be some sort of materialistic explanation of consciousness. It's not unlike young Earth creationism, which makes perfect sense to the YECs but looks like unintelligible nonsense to anyone who is not a YEC.

Subjective experience belongs nowhere *IN* any concept of a material world. It is the whole of phenomenal-material reality. It is nowhere is any "noumenal material reality".

I am a scientific realist and a rationalist. I do not have any agenda to defend religion, paranormalism or anything related to it. I am, however, increasingly embarrassed by the nonsense spewed from my own side of the science/religion debate when it comes to trying to explain consciousness in terms of matter. Sometimes you just have to admit that you got it wrong, and when it comes to consciousness, the materialists have got it wrong. The longer they resist admitting so, the more embarrassing it gets and the more the credibility of genuine science and genuine skepticism are compromised.

 

[apeiron]

What inconsistency? You seem to misunderstand. Koch is not claiming that consciousness takes place in one location in the brain. It actually seems to be a systems approach.

Koch does talk about complex adaptive systems too, but that just adds to the inconsistency of his approach.

For instance, consider the motor neural network. A sub-network of this is mirror neurons (this is how newborns can mimic your facial expression right out of the womb, we're hardwired to connect visual percepts to muscle outputs.)

OK, now check your primer on baby brain development and tell me how those mirror neurons do their job when they are not functionally connected at birth.

It would be the superior colliculus that is the seat of this reflex in the newborn.

The whole mirror neuron saga is another sad example of lost in the woods people are.

The Visual consciousness network would be a subset of the visual network (This is what Koch is working on). The way he tests it is pretty straight forward. If you do the test where the dot disappears from your visual consciousness, you may understand how the distinction can be made. Your brain is still totally aware of the dot, but you are not consciously aware of it.

More idiot dualism. Retinal ganglion cells firing is not "the brain being still totally aware".

And you will also have noted that the story on the coloured dot example was different from the face recognition one.

Downward inhibition is a systems story of course. And neurally it is straightforward. Plenty of examples like the placebo pain story of how the anterior cingulate gates activity in the periaqueductal grey.

Koch proposes there are several kinds of consciousness. For instance, your language network would have a sub-network for when consciousness enters the signaling process pertaining to language computing (as Koch describes in his presentation, we have a vague idea of what we're going to say, we don't plan out noun-adverb-adjective-etc, we just think of the general idea and the words come out. At one time, this was a conscious process (when we were learning basic language) and we can still consciously reflect on it. The former would be a case of a conscious network utilizing the hippocampus to create an unconscious, more automated network, the latter would be a case of the sub-network, "language consciousness", for instance.

In the same way we have a pain network that consists of pain neurons. (We call them pain neurons because they're part of the network that sends the signal of pain to the brain, not because the pain neuron itself holds and special properties over the whole brain).

Koch calls habits and automaticisms his zombie mechanisms. This is a fundamental misunderstanding of the way things are. Consciousness is the combination of what is novel and what is learnt. Or more correctly, attentive processing and habitual processing make up the hierarchy of anticipatory awareness.

 

[Ferris_bg]

Materialists have three choices:

(1) Claim consciousness doesn't exist. (eliminative materialism).

(2) Claim "consciousness is [material object/process X]" where X generally refers to brain activity or information-processing or behaviour, etc... The problem with this option is that when you subsequently ask questions about "consciousness" you get answers about brain activity, information-processing or behaviour instead of what anybody (including the person offering the explanation), actually means by "consciousness."

When Richard Dawkins said that "consciousness is the biggest unknown in science" he did not mean that it is hard to define or explain the evolution of brain activity.

(3) Claim "consciousness is produced by [material object/process X]", at which point consciousness is being described as something that "comes from" brains like milk from a mammary gland. It ends up being dualism-by-accident, and this sort of epiphenomenal consciousness is inexplicable by evolutionary processes because it is held to be non-causal over matter.

The only possible scenario for the materialistic view for me is (2).

If you read http://books.google.com/books?id=XuVzeSTFq-0C&pg=PA39&lpg=PA39" or this:

Consciousness is a higher-level or emergent property of the brain in the utterly harmless sense of 'higher-level' or 'emergent' in which solidity is a higher-level emergent property of H2O molecules when they are in a lattice structure (ice), and liquidity is similarly a higher-level emergent property of H2O molecules when they are, roughly speaking, rolling around on each other (water). Consciousness is a mental, and therefore physical, property of the brain in the sense in which liquidity is a property of systems of molecules

and if we accept that emergence is a psychological property as shown here, (3) is not possible.

Because consciousness is a supervenient part of a human, it can initiate changes in him, as evidenced by studies of neural plasticity (processes of reorganization).

This eliminates (1).

So the only materialistic picture left (2) is to view conscious experience as integration of neural activities and information-processing. But again you must find a way to explain how information could originate in matter.

 

[apeiron]

So the only materialistic picture left (2) is to view conscious experience as integration of neural activities and information-processing. But again you must find a way to explain how information could originate in matter.

While you are thankfully taking the commonsense approach, where this breaks down is thinking that consciousness is "just" a higher level emergent property like liquidity.

What this fails to do is do justice to downwards causation. So in the systems approach, there is something else going on. What emerges is connected to what it emerged from in what Hoftstadler once popularised as a "strange loop". This is also sort of the thinking behind cybernetics and quite explicitly with anticipatory neural network models of guys like Grossberg.

Which is why earlier in the thread I said materialism - an ontology of substance - must be paired with a complementary ontology of form.

Which is where information theoretic approaches come in as information is the modern atomisation of what people mean by form, pattern, global organisation. Meaning even.

So materialism is not up to the task of modelling complex adaptive systems in general (and conscious brains are an example of a complex adaptive system). But materialism is still going to be part of the complexity story, as the source of bottom-up constructive action. However complexity also recognises top-down constraint. The ontology of form in other words.

To describe mind, or complexity of any kind, as properties that simply emerge leads to epiphenomenal conclusions. The revolution is to be able to see how the materials emerge as a result of the constraining forms (even as synergistically, the form emerges out of the free constructive action of the materials).

Self-organisation is also what they call it.