How did the Brain Come into Existence?

[selfAdjoint]

Iacchus32, the Zombies, or beings who are conscious but don't experience or "feel" it, are constructs used by philosophers to raise and discuss problems with theories of consciousness. The question I raised is a well known one tending to deny that they are valid constructs.

If we are going to stick with evolution, which I greatly favor, then all this and other philosophical baggage goes by the board.

 

[hypnagogue]

There are all kinds of more or less persuasive arguments that Zombies (as these conscious but not experiential beings are called) could practiclally exist, particularly when, is in most discussions, they are expected to exactly simulate the behavior of experiential beings.

To be as clear as possible, we should be mindful of the words we use. 'Consciousness' is really a mongrel concept, insofar as it picks out a relatively large range of phenomena. To call a zombie 'conscious but not experiential' obfuscates things a bit, as experience is one of the phenomena generally included in the lumped-together package of concepts we call 'consciousness.'

It would be clearer if we divided consciousness broadly into its functional aspects, which we can call 'awareness,' and its phenomenal/experiential aspects, which we can call 'subjective experience' or just 'experience.' So for clarity's sake, let's say a zombie is 'aware' in the sense that it can act rationally on the basis of sensory input and so on, but not 'experiential' in the sense that there is nothing it is like to be a zombie.

Why would a zombie spend hours listening to late Beethoven quartets if he wasn't aware of enjoying them? Why fix himself a fancy meal or fuss about her clothes?

The answers to these questions are quite simply the ones that any physicalist description will give us. For example, a zombie would spend hours listening to Beethoven because the kind of auditory inputs it so receives will tend to release neurotransmitters such as dopamine (or serotonin, or whatever) which tend to reinforce the given behavior, because of the function dopamine plays in the neural dynamics of the brain.

This explanation is sufficient, in principle, to account for the given behavior in question. So, the only way your question poses a dilemma for the viability of zombies is if we can establish that the kind of functional/physicalist explanation given above must automatically entail the kind of subjective experience that a person would normally attribute to be the cause of this behavior. If this could be shown to be the case, then it would indeed be impossible to have a creature that behaves like a human but does not experience like a human. There is really no known way to settle this issue empirically, but there are persuasive arguments that suggest that experience cannot be explained purely in terms of mechanics. One's stance on zombies will really come down to whether one accepts these arguments or not.

 

[Iacchus32]

Iacchus32, the Zombies, or beings who are conscious but don't experience or "feel" it, are constructs used by philosophers to raise and discuss problems with theories of consciousness. The question I raised is a well known one tending to deny that they are valid constructs.

If we are going to stick with evolution, which I greatly favor, then all this and other philosophical baggage goes by the board.

So, in what would be more in tune with Canute's reply, how did philosophy evolve then? Certainly it must be due in part to the fact that we have enlarged brains, correct?

I'm not so sure about this. Wasn't it Chalmer's who pointed out that a system without experiential consciousness is very unlikely to spend its time writing about consciousness, or undertaking research in order to explain it.

 

[hypnagogue]

If we are going to stick with evolution, which I greatly favor, then all this and other philosophical baggage goes by the board.

Buried in Iacchus's original questions and conjectures is the pertinent issue of what role subjective experience has played in the evolution of the brain. I raised the point of the 'seperability' of subjective exerience and physical brain dynamics precisely to strengthen the purely physicalist, evolutionary answer to the question 'how did the brain come into existence?'

In a nutshell, if a physicalist account of brain dynamics is a complete account of brain dynamics, then we can put forth the standard evolutionary (and ultimately, entirely mechanistic) explanation rather straightforwardly without having to worry about how experience factors in.

If one accepts that subjective experience is a consequence of purely physical laws, then the above explanation is already sufficient to answer the question of the brain's existence, for surely experience is already buried somewhere in the physicalist evolutionary account.

If one believes that subjective experience is not a consequence of physical laws alone, as do Iacchus and I, one must motivate the further point that the physicalist account tells us everything there is to know about the brain's causal dynamics if one is to accept the physicalist evolutionary account as an entirely sufficient explanation. To motivate this further point, one must support the metaphysical possibility of zombies.

 

[hypnagogue]

Greetings, Canute. Good to hear from you again.

"... physicalism's ability to separate our causal propensities from our experiential consciousness implies that it is at least logically possible that some system have the causal propensities of a human without having experiential consciousness."

I'm not so sure about this. Wasn't it Chalmer's who pointed out that a system without experiential consciousness is very unlikely to spend its time writing about consciousness, or undertaking research in order to explain it.

It wouldn't be unlikely if such a system mistakenly believed it had subjective experience. (Attributing belief to a zombie is largely unproblematic, since belief can plausibly be characterized purely in functional or dispositional terms. There is no 'hard problem' of belief.)

In fact, this is more or less precisely Dan Dennett's position. Dennett is a hard-line physicalist, but rather than denounce the metaphysical possibility of zombies as one might expect, he essentially holds that we are zombies who mistakenly believe that we have subjective experience.

 

[Iacchus32]

In fact, this is more or less precisely Dan Dennett's position. Dennett is a hard-line physicalist, but rather than denounce the metaphysical possibility of zombies as one might expect, he essentially holds that we are zombies who mistakenly believe that we have subjective experience.

So you have that which is purely analytical versus the actual experience itself. What else can you expect coming from someone like Dennett? Which would you choose, if you truly wanted to know about something? If this is what it boils down to, I can assure you I would choose the experience over the analysis any day of the week.

 

[hypnagogue]

So you have that which is purely analytical versus the actual experience itself. What else can you expect coming from someone like Dennett? Which would you choose, if you truly wanted to know about something? If this is what it boils down to, I can assure you I would choose the experience over the analysis any day of the week.

Well, to be fair, Dennett considers his view to explain the actual experience (or as he might say, the appearance of the 'actual experience'). So he's not so much flat out denying experience as he is saying that he has good reasons for thinking of it in certain deflationary terms. Whether we consider his position to satisfactorily account for subjective experience is another question. And of course, we must note that taking the lessons of science seriously does not commit us to a deflationary view of experience such as Dennett's.

As for your question, if we reduce ourselves to 'choosing' just one of either pure physicalism or considerations from experience, we'll surely have an impoverished view of reality. The trick is not to accept one and ignore the other; it's to figure out how we can bring them together into one overarching picture of nature.

 

[Iacchus32]

Well, to be fair, Dennett considers his view to explain the actual experience (or as he might say, the appearance of the 'actual experience'). So he's not so much flat out denying experience as he is saying that he has good reasons for thinking of it in certain deflationary terms. Whether we consider his position to satisfactorily account for subjective experience is another question. And of course, we must note that taking the lessons of science seriously does not commit us to a deflationary view of experience such as Dennett's.

Yes, but what in effect it's saying, is that we're deluding ourselves into thinking we exist. I mean is this the best we can do?

As for your question, if we reduce ourselves to 'choosing' just one of either pure physicalism or considerations from experience, we'll surely have an impoverished view of reality. The trick is not to accept one and ignore the other; it's to figure out how we can bring them together into one overarching picture of nature.

The thing is, the only way we have of acknowledging anything is through our subjective experience. Even in our empirical observations, it's our subjectivity that is making the observation.

 

[magus niche]

deterministic evolution is all very well, but mutations occur, chaos also exists. let's say consciousness is a mutation, and we are all x-men/women. i assume the physical determinist would deny he/she is conscious... a deluded continuum. that would grant them 'fitter' for survival too, no?

subjective is all we can be until we agree on something. until then I'm going to go exist for a while...

 

[hypnagogue]

deterministic evolution is all very well, but mutations occur, chaos also exists.

If mutations did not occur, evolution wouldn't be possible. And besides, there is nothing in a completely determinist view that rules out mutations.

Anyway, I never said the word deterministic. The closest I came to saying something like that was using the word 'mechanistic,' which was perhaps misleading. What I meant by that is just the standard physical account of the causal processes by which evolution occurs, which of course includes mutation, and by no means precludes chaos, or indeterminism, or whatever other physical process one cares to think of.

lets say consciousness is a mutation, and we are all x-men/women. i assume the physical determinist would deny he/she is conscious... a deluded continuum. that would grant them 'fitter' for survival too, no?

Please read some books or papers about evolution.

 

[Canute]

It wouldn't be unlikely if such a system mistakenly believed it had subjective experience. (Attributing belief to a zombie is largely unproblematic, since belief can plausibly be characterized purely in functional or dispositional terms. There is no 'hard problem' of belief.)

Thanks for the friendly welcome back. I see you're being as even-handed as ever. But (as ever) I want to disagree. Does it really make sense to say that a zombie can 'believe' something?

Human beings (this one anyway) believe that they are conscious. How can a zombie believe that it is conscious, but not be? I can't get my head around that idea. For a zombie 'consciousness' would be a term without a referent, what could they mean by using it in conversation? They may as well mistakenly believe that they are woigjeigjpjo. The question here is - is it possible to believe that one is not conscious? If not, then zombies cannot be reified, for then every entity that believes it is conscious must be conscious.

If we stretch our imaginations to the limit then I can see - on the grounds that human beings other than ourselves cannot be shown to be conscious - that we might consider other people to be zombies, and perhaps in this way zombies seem vaguely plausible entities. However I know for certain that a zombie would not feel like me, since they wouldn't feel like anything. There is therefore at least one human being that a zombie could not fully imitate. I would argue that this one exception is enough to show that zombies are an impossibility. (Mind you, I do tend to get a little lost in all the various zombie arguments).

In fact, this is more or less precisely Dan Dennett's position. Dennett is a hard-line physicalist, but rather than denounce the metaphysical possibility of zombies as one might expect, he essentially holds that we are zombies who mistakenly believe that we have subjective experience.

Is it possible to mistakenly believe that we have subjective experiences? Surely believing that we have subjective experiences is itself a subjective experience. We can be fooled by a 'trompe d'oeil' because we can see. If we couldn't see we couldn't be fooled.

Dennett is a brilliant writer, better able than most to pull the wool over his reader's eyes, but I'm afraid I find his arguments to be no more than the products of unsupported assumptions, usually made very obviously right at the start. (What Chalmer's would call 'sleights of hand'). We may note, as they say, that the publication of 'Consciousness Explained' did nothing to reduce the number of scientists still trying to explain it.

 

[magus niche]

i admit evolution is complex and i do not know its full spectrum (who does?).

but, i understand this:

evolution theory says all living organisms are changing due to environmental affects.

we are constructing our environment and have been for a long time, no? so we are constructing ourselves.

the very crux of this argument is about the heirarchical judgments many people lay upon consciousness.

who is conscious? what is conscious? if conscious is a word scientists do not like then think of another one. it is the fact that something is AWARE of itself and its surroundings. and this comes in many levels, none of which are 'better' than any other.

'progression' implies we are more 'advanced' than we were many thousands of years ago. i would suggest we are advanced in certain fields, but i would certainly not say we are 'fitter' as a species. i think this is egotistic and ignorant of everything other than ourselves.

i am also aware there are alternative theories other than survival of the fittest, so don't think I'm silly.

humanist egotism forgets about the scale of the world, and the infinite complexity of the universe.

 

[Iacchus32]

So, why is it that consciousness and the will to live seem to coincide?

 

[selfAdjoint]

So, why is it that consciousness and the will to live seem to coincide?

That's contingent only. Some conscious people DO commit suicide.

 

[Iacchus32]

That's contingent only. Some conscious people DO commit suicide.

Well, perhaps you can explain this? How does sentience arise out of non-sentience? Is sentience the final effect? Or, is it the intitial cause? Or, could it be both, just like anything else which is predisposed to replicating itself?

 

[magus niche]

alright think about this:

consider thesis + antithesis = synthesis. (philosophy, Hegel?)

*consciousness is a construct of survival (ie. thesis), and survival is a construct of consciousness (ie. antithesis).

*subjective life (consciousness?) is the complex interrelationship between surviving subjects.

*objective life (survival?) is the complex interrelationship between conscious objects.

so life as we know could be the synthesis of both objects and subjects.

hope this offers insight

 

[Iacchus32]

What is external reality but internal reality which is drawn to its conclusion? So is it not possible that everything springs forth from within?

 

[magus niche]

What is external reality but internal reality which is drawn to its conclusion? So is it not possible that everything springs forth from within?

if this is true then the exterior world is an illusion, which i believe to a certain degree, but i do not accept that the illusion is not real. ie. there are infinite consciousness's all 'springing forth' many things, and these things seem to interact independently to the consciousness that produced them. this in turn makes a world that seems chaotic but may be better described as infinitely complex. but sometimes i walk around grinning at flowers and the beauty doesn't seems complex, it seems infinitely simple.

consciousness gives rise to stuff
stuff gives rise to consciousness.

 

[Iacchus32]

Why should it be an illusion? Form is merely the outcropping and/or the extension of essence. The good is evidenced by truth in other words. Also, with every external reaction, there's an internal experience that coincides with it as well, consciously or not. In other words there's something continuously operating behind the scenes, call it immaterial if you will, from which we derive motive and intent ... which, ultimately gives rise to form.

 

[Royce]

Roger Pemrose in his "THE EMPEROR'S NEW MIND" argued, IMO successfully, that the physicalist can not in principle account for consciousness.
If this is true then something in principle can and does does exist that is outside or beyond physics, metaphysics and outside or beyond physicalist philosophy or theory. (Can we then call ourselves meta-physicalist?)

This of course shows that in principle physicalist theory is not complete.
That consciousness is not physical, which supports Iacchus32's position.

And by extension, Canute, that Idealism is not only unfalsifiable but in principle possible which supports my position that Materialism is not complete which is why metaphysical questions are unanswerable within Physicalism or Materialism. It is not reasonable to expect an incomplete theory or philosophy to be able to completely answer questions outside of its theory, philosophy or realm.

 

[Canute]

Unfortunately idealism contradicts reason just as materialism does. But perhaps before getting into that we need to define idealism. There are a number of variations.

One problem with idealism, it we take Berkeley's idealism as typical, is that it makes no sense to say that to be is to be perceived and that to perceive is to be. There's no way for the circle of perceiver/perceived to come into being, since neither can exist before the other. In the end it's a 'bootstrap' theory of origins.

Btw idealism is unfalsifiable, you don't need to add 'in materialism or physicalism'. Even idealists cannot falsify it.

 

[Royce]

One problem with idealism, it we take Berkeley's idealism as typical, is that it makes no sense to say that to be is to be perceived and that to perceive is to be. There's no way for the circle of perceiver/perceived to come into being, since neither can exist before the other. In the end it's a 'bootstrap' theory of origins.

I agree that this is not a viable answer. It is still begging the questions.

Btw idealism is unfalsifiable, you don't need to add 'in materialism or physicalism'. Even idealists cannot falsify it.

Finally, I realize this now. Well after what 3-4 days and many false starts I do think that I am finally beginning to understand. I can be so dense (or hard headed) sometimes; but, it comes from a set of firm beliefs of which I am convinced are true.

Idealism is unfalsifiable. This statement is true meaning that while it cannot be proved to be the case, it also cannot be proved to not be the case.

This normally indicates to me that idealism in all of its forms is also incomplete as is Materialism and so many scientific theories.

I see 3 possibilities; it/they are unknowable.; it/they are not the case;
or all of this is an illusion and truth has no bearing or meaning.

Like you I don't think that logic or reason are at fault. I don't belief that it is unknowable now or forever. I do belief that while not complete they are in principle and essence true and real as far as they go. While this may all be an illusion, I believe in a rational reasonable God that would not pose these problems if there was no answer or Truth. It is up to us to find the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth; but it is findable, knowable.

The contraditions and indeterminate answers are telling us that we are close but no cigar. Keep looking.
OK, I can accept that; but, what are we looking for and where do we start looking.

 

[Canute]

Finally, I realize this now. Well after what 3-4 days and many false starts I do think that I am finally beginning to understand. I can be so dense (or hard headed) sometimes; but, it comes from a set of firm beliefs of which I am convinced are true.

For what it's worth I'm seriously impressed. IMHO if you have this attitude you can't possibly be dense.

Idealism is unfalsifiable. This statement is true meaning that while it cannot be proved to be the case, it also cannot be proved to not be the case.

I think this is the case according to philosophers. (But it would depend on the precise definition of 'idealism' being used.)

I see 3 possibilities; it/they are unknowable.; it/they are not the case;
or all of this is an illusion and truth has no bearing or meaning. Like you I don't think that logic or reason are at fault. I don't belief that it is unknowable now or forever.

No, it's definitely not unknowable, its just logically undemonstrable.

While this may all be an illusion, I believe in a rational reasonable God that would not pose these problems if there was no answer or Truth. It is up to us to find the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth; but it is findable, knowable.

The question is, is discovering this truth an intellectual pursuit, a question of creating and arranging and re-arranging our concepts by the use of formal reasoning, (which lands us right back with all those undecidable metaphysical questions), or does it have to be discovered non-conceptually?

I didn't know you were a theist. Evagrios the Solitary (3rd century) wrote:

"If the intellect has not risen above the contemplation of the created world, it has not yet beheld the realm of God perfectly."

In other other words what is absolute must be approached non-conceptually.

(My eternal thanks to Les Sleeth for putting me onto the 'Philokalia', from whence this comes).

*Emergency moderator note: This is intended as a comment on metaphysics, cosmology and the nature of true knowledge, not theism.

OK, I can accept that; but, what are we looking for and where do we start looking.

Perhaps the reason that Plato's prisoners cannot see beyond their cave is that the exit is inside themselves, not 'Lo here, or Lo there'.

 

[Royce]

To be brief, it has been argued that consciousness, the mind, cannot, even in principle, be wholly explained by physicical theory, or physicalist alone.
This, to me, means that in principle and fact there is that which is not material or of material origin. It is real and we have all experienced it. Our reality is made up of the non-material or physical as well as the physical.
Our usuall view point or mind set that only the material can be concidered fall short of concidering all of our reality. I think thast in order to better understand reality we have to take the non-physical into concideration as well. We know little about it but it is knowable but not through the normal scientific physical means.
Yes, we have to look inward, into ourselves, our minds and souls to learn and know. There are those who have been doing this for thousands of years. Maybe it is time we start taking their findings and wisdom seriously.

 

[0TheSwerve0]

It's too late to read all 6 pages. I just finished Dawkin's The Ancestor's Tale and would like to keep the information by applying it. Might not be a good fit in this approach to consciousness, but I'm mainly responding to just the first post.

So why should it be any different with the brain which, is just a means by which to capture/contain consciousness?

Necessity
Our nervous system is urbanized into a brain to help us interpret sensory information. Seasquirts "eat their own brain" (rather break it down and absorb the nutritious parts) after attaching to a rock for life. I think you mean a specific part of the brain, the equipment that has allowed us to ponder outside of ourselves for the sake of pondering.

A platypus' bill has thousands of electrical sensors (modified mucus pores in this case) that create a 3D model of it's surroundings in order to capture prey (which emit weak electric fields by their movement). In our case, we call the state consciousness, the practice of creating a grid of our world.