The Flaw in the Definition of Consciousness

[hypnagogue]

I love your style Zero. I knew I shouldn't have bothered with your attitude, but I won't make that mistake again. *plonk*

 

[Zero]

Originally posted by hypnagogue
I love your style Zero. I knew I shouldn't have bothered with your attitude, but I won't make that mistake again. *plonk*

Nice...you don't have a leg to stand on, and you blame ME?!?

 

[Visitor]

Regarding the indivisible self, I can tell you for a fact that the self IS divisible. We on europa have a science that is far ahead of earth's. Medical experiments were done many years ago to not only separate the 2 halves of a brain, but transplant them into separate people. Yes, we did this to abducted humans but Earth science will soon be able to perform the same experiment and I am sure someone will somwhere as soon as nerve regeneration technology and a few small problems like rejection are solved. When half a brain is removed from someone and transplanted to another body where the original brain has been removed, two distinct and unique individuals are created. Experiments have also shown that there is no psychic link between them so the only conclusion that can be made is that the self is divisible. Earth science should be advanced enough to perform this experiment within the next 50 years or so.

 

[Jeebus]

Originally posted by Jeebus
My question is … doesn't behavior, in a broad sense, of the neurophysical system of materialistic functions approach -- directly compatible or parallel to cognitive experience on the physical level without the reductive explanation?[/b]

Originally posted by hypnagogue
Can you rephrase this? I'm not sure from your wording exactly what you are getting at.

All right let me try this again. Thanks for the info by the way.

Do you think that behaviour, itself, is congruent to materialistic functions of physical compatability? And do you think that materialistic functions, in turn are directly compatible with the opinion of experience? I think the two: behavior and experience are directly parallel to one another. Meaning, if you are experiencing one, then the other must follow.

 

[Mentat]

Originally posted by Zero
I'd say the "extra part" is either a flaw in reasoning or recollection. The reasoning flaw is in assuming the existence of something that is so far unproven, and unneeded to explain things. The other flaw is one of perception, in assuming that small bits cannot make up a bigger "whole"(although calling consciousness a "whole" is iffy at best). I'd describe it as similar to the way our brains interpret optical illusions, where we seek to fill in "gaps", even when there is no logical reason to do so.

I think Daniel Dennett used a similar illustration, and it's a good one (IMO). Our brain is trying to make sense of all this data, while compactifying (I know there's a better word than that, used with regard to computers...compressing?) it all (and "filling in the blanks", as you put it) in order to make recall easier.

 

[Zero]

Originally posted by Mentat
I think Daniel Dennett used a similar illustration, and it's a good one (IMO). Our brain is trying to make sense of all this data, while compactifying (I know there's a better word than that, used with regard to computers...compressing?) it all (and "filling in the blanks", as you put it) in order to make recall easier.

I think the best word would probably be "integrating"...we integrate partial data into "whole bits" for easier processing, including the "internal data" we call consciousness. It is conceptual shorthand, and useful most of the time.

I'm looking over at my BEAUTIFUL guitar, not 10 feet from me. Intellectually, I know it is made out of wood, metal, paint, etc. However, I never ever think of it as the sum of its components, I always think of it as being of a whole. "Consciousness" is really the same thing, except it is a collection of processes as well as physical parts.

 

[Mentat]

Originally posted by hypnagogue
What does it mean to perceive that you are alive?

I don't know really; I just know, at any given time, that I am alive.

Quite right. But subjective experience obviously exists. I am experiencing the color black right now as I look at my keyboard; my experience of blackness exists self-evidently, and no amount of semantic obfuscation can force me to deny this. My metaphysical ideas of what accounts for this blackness may or may not be false, but it is not false that my experience of blackness exists.

Your experience of the color black does exist, but as a convenient computational tool of the brain, to contrast one wavelength of light from another. My point is that the concept of a complete picture of a black keyboard (to stick to your example) must clearly be an illusion of compactification (and "filling in the blanks") as the part of the brain that processes "black" is not the same that processes the shape and texture of the keys, and that is not the same as the part that recalls previous such images, and these separate parts never meet up...meaning that there are separate computations occurring, and yet you are fooled into believing that there is one coherent image in your "mind's eye".

Chalmers does not postulate that something like a complete, indivisible experience exists. He only makes plain the observation that subjective experience of some sort exists, and proceeds from there.

Then define "subjective experience", in Chalmer's terms.

Ah, so saccades of the eyes are subjective experience as well? Come on, that's nonsense. The fact to be explained is not so much that you do not notice the saccades of your eyes as it is that you notice your eyes from a 1st person perspective to begin with.

Information does not get processed at the same time-- so what? The fact remains that I have subjective experience...

Is that fact - which you are defending - that you have subjective experience, or that you had a subjective experience. Because of processing outside information in terms of previously-processed information (which is part of Chalmers' "easy problem") is what you call "subjective experience", then we have nothing to debate.

...and the fact remains that a good theory of consciousness should make it intelligible how that is so. By this criterion, the neural reductionist theory of consciousness, taken on its own without any further fundamental assumptions, is not a good one.

It should make it intelligible how what is so? How a computer (organic or otherwise) relates new stimulus to previous stimuli?

Perhaps consciousness was necessary to help our ancestors survive, but this approach only begs the question. Evolution can only endow us with consciousness if consciousness is an ontological possibility in the first place. How is subjective experience ontologically possible? The reductionist approach makes it evident how cognitive functions are possible in the same sense that it makes evident how the functions of a pocket calculator are possible, but it so far has said nothing meaningful about subjective experience.

I ask again, what is subjective experience, in Chalmers' terms or in your own.

Explain what sub-experience is and how it is entailed by physics. If you define sub-experience as so many cognitive functions, however, you would be better served to simply call it sub-functions or functions. Experience implies feeling, and it is not clear how objective functions can account for feeling even in principle.

Unless feelings are physical functions, instead of being "accounted for" by them. Again, you're going on the assumption that (for example) an excitation of cells in my finger - due to being poked by a needle - "gives rise" to pain; whereas scientists seem pretty well content to say that the excitation of cells is pain, and thus one needn't account for pain "in terms of excited cells"...this would be a non-sequiter.

These are not experiences. These are functions. You can explain the functional workings of human memory, but in no richer sense than you can explain computer memory.

Why is that distinction so imporant?

The difference is that a human experiences memory while a computer (as we plausibly assume) does not. And precisely what you have not explained is eg the experience of memory.

The "experience" of memory, or the experience of a memory?

Agreed. But you do not have a workable framework for the processes by which the brain experiences the world around it.

What if "processing" = "experiencing"? What if all things that process must also "experience", since the two terms are synonymous? That is what Dennett would call the equivalence of content and consciousness (I think).

Simply saying "how does the brain convince itself that it is conscious?" begs the question. In order for the brain to convince itself of anything there must be a 1st person perspective for which the convincing is done. (This does not assume an indivisible self, only a certain perspective.) You have assumed the existence of the 1st person perspective when in reality the task is to show how it exists in the first place. You might as well try convincing a rock that it is conscious.

The brain has a 1st person view because of the evolved ability for self-recognition. An ape can show this by recognizing itself in the mirror. There is nothing special about this. It's a matter of degree that separates a dog's licking itself from a human's pondering about himself.

Still haven't explained how computations can account for consciousness. For that you need an extra assertion such as "computation so and so is conscious in such and such a way as a simple fact of nature." That is an explanation, but not a reductive explanation.

Unless I say "computation = consciousness, since consciousness is just another term for the complex computation of external stimuli that our mind does all the time".

 

[Mentat]

Originally posted by Zero
I think the best word would probably be "integrating"...we integrate partial data into "whole bits" for easier processing, including the "internal data" we call consciousness. It is conceptual shorthand, and useful most of the time.

I'm looking over at my BEAUTIFUL guitar, not 10 feet from me. Intellectually, I know it is made out of wood, metal, paint, etc. However, I never ever think of it as the sum of its components, I always think of it as being of a whole. "Consciousness" is really the same thing, except it is a collection of processes as well as physical parts.

Also a good analogy. Indeed, Broad would probably say that "guitar" is an "emergent" phenomenon from those materials that you mention - whereas a Dennett-like philosopher of guitars would simply say that "guitar" = "such-and-such material" and so it would be foolish to try and figure out how a guitar can "arise" from those materials, since it is those materials.

Now, I think hypnagogue would point out that a guitar is a bad analogy to subjective experience, since, when you take it from a microscopic perspective and build toward more and more complexity, the logical outcome is a guitar; whereas, when you build up from the cellular structure to the structure and function of neurons, the logical outcome is a brain...not subjective experience.

Then, I would say something like: "Subjective experience" is a vague term that is clouding the issue. You can build up from cellular functions into a machine that has an extension (the neocortex) which has no other purpose but to process/experience (synonymous terms, AFAICT) the world around it, and thus the logical outcome is a "subjective experiencer".

 

[Zero]

Originally posted by Mentat
Also a good analogy. Indeed, Broad would probably say that "guitar" is an "emergent" phenomenon from those materials that you mention - whereas a Dennett-like philosopher of guitars would simply say that "guitar" = "such-and-such material" and so it would be foolish to try and figure out how a guitar can "arise" from those materials, since it is those materials.

Now, I think hypnagogue would point out that a guitar is a bad analogy to subjective experience, since, when you take it from a microscopic perspective and build toward more and more complexity, the logical outcome is a guitar; whereas, when you build up from the cellular structure to the structure and function of neurons, the logical outcome is a brain...not subjective experience.

Then, I would say something like: "Subjective experience" is a vague term that is clouding the issue. You can build up from cellular functions into a machine that has an extension (the neocortex) which has no other purpose but to process/experience (synonymous terms, AFAICT) the world around it, and thus the logical outcome is a "subjective experiencer".

Maybe, to extend the analogy, you describe the brain as a guitar, and "consciousness" as the music which emerges from it? We know there is nothing metaphysical about a G chord, but it an apt description, since there is a similar(if false) "non-physical" dimension to music and consciousness

 

[Mentat]

Originally posted by Zero
Maybe, to extend the analogy, you describe the brain as a guitar, and "consciousness" as the music which emerges from it? We know there is nothing metaphysical about a G chord, but it an apt description, since there is a similar(if false) "non-physical" dimension to music and consciousness

This is much like the old analogy of the steam engine vs. the steam that arises therefrom. Of course, the music is qualitatively different from the guitar itself, but can be reductively explained in terms of the vibration of the strings on the guitar...the problem would be with people who assume that the music itself has some separate existence, and must thus be explained completely separate from the functions which "give rise" to it.

 

[Zero]

Originally posted by Mentat
This is much like the old analogy of the steam engine vs. the steam that arises therefrom. Of course, the music is qualitatively different from the guitar itself, but can be reductively explained in terms of the vibration of the strings on the guitar...the problem would be with people who assume that the music itself has some separate existence, and must thus be explained completely separate from the functions which "give rise" to it.

There's one in every crowd, isn't there? Of course, we both know that "music" is a purely physical phenomenon...

 

[Mentat]

Originally posted by Zero
There's one in every crowd, isn't there? Of course, we both know that "music" is a purely physical phenomenon...

As is every other one, IMO...which is why I have a problem with people saying that a physical explanation isn't good enough, but not providing a clear-cut alternative...of course, everyone is entitled to their opinion, and I could just as easily be wrong as anyone else (in fact, being 15 years old, and having spent my whole life reading books instead "experiencing" life, there are some who'd say I have a much lesser chance of being right about this (think about it, how could I understand subjective experience as well as someone who's been "experiencing" so much more for so much longer?)), but I like my idea better, so I'm promoting it and seeing how well it holds up.

 

[Zero]

Originally posted by Mentat
As is every other one, IMO...which is why I have a problem with people saying that a physical explanation isn't good enough, but not providing a clear-cut alternative...of course, everyone is entitled to their opinion, and I could just as easily be wrong as anyone else (in fact, being 15 years old, and having spent my whole life reading books instead "experiencing" life, there are some who'd say I have a much lesser chance of being right about this (think about it, how could I understand subjective experience as well as someone who's been "experiencing" so much more for so much longer?)), but I like my idea better, so I'm promoting it and seeing how well it holds up.

Uh huh...the odd thing is that I am twice as old as you are, have had a lot of the experiences that would lead people to believe in pseudorational ideas, and yet I remain firmly grounded in materialism. I've done the OBE, estatic meditative states, the whole gamut of "mystical" experiences.

 

[hypnagogue]

Originally posted by Mentat
Your experience of the color black does exist, but as a convenient computational tool of the brain, to contrast one wavelength of light from another.

You have not illustrated any connection between computation and experience here. How can experience be derived from the axioms of materialism?

My point is that the concept of a complete picture of a black keyboard (to stick to your example) must clearly be an illusion of compactification (and "filling in the blanks") as the part of the brain that processes "black" is not the same that processes the shape and texture of the keys, and that is not the same as the part that recalls previous such images, and these separate parts never meet up...meaning that there are separate computations occurring, and yet you are fooled into believing that there is one coherent image in your "mind's eye".

This is really irrelevant to the central problem. Suppose I cut a red ping pong ball in half and place both sides over my eyes. What I see is a uniform red field with no other discernable visual properties. Now, what you need to explain is how it is that I experience this redness. If you tell a story about computation in my brain, it remains as mysterious to me as ever why these computations entail my subjective experience of redness.

This is the point where you say "subjective experience IS the computation." But from the purely physical definition of 'computation,' this does not follow. Such a relation cannot be logically derived from talk of physical functions; you need a fundamental assumption to the effect that it is just a brute fact of nature that computation has an experiential aspect to it. That's fine, and indeed it appears to be the route we must take; but such a route necessarily departs from materialism's viewpoint of focusing on only structures and functions.

Then define "subjective experience", in Chalmer's terms.

Feeling, in the general sense that any subjective experience is 'felt.' Or, 'what it is like to be,' although I know you don't like that one.

If I did not have subjective experience, I would not see 'redness' in the ganzfeld scenario above, even though my brain might still perform rich and meaningful computations on my visual input (as is illustrated in the case of blindsight).

At bottom, this is such a difficult issue because one cannot really define subjective experience without an appeal to it. It cannot be defined in terms of other things because it is fundamentally intrinsic and not extrinsic. ('Redness' for example is defined with respect to itself, whereas something like 'mass' is defined with respect to other distinct entities such as force and acceleration.) For all I know, you do not really have subjective experience and this is why you have no problem reducing it entirely to extrinsic properties. I doubt this, though.

Is that fact - which you are defending - that you have subjective experience, or that you had a subjective experience. Because of processing outside information in terms of previously-processed information (which is part of Chalmers' "easy problem") is what you call "subjective experience", then we have nothing to debate.

When I say I have subjective experience, what I mean is that while I am awake I continuously experience qualities such as 'redness' and 'softness.'

It should make it intelligible how what is so? How a computer (organic or otherwise) relates new stimulus to previous stimuli?

Makes it intelligible how it is that, eg, I experience 'redness' in the ganzfeld scenario rather than having no visual experience at all despite still being able to interact coherently with my environment on the basis of visual information, like a person with blindsight.

Unless feelings are physical functions, instead of being "accounted for" by them. Again, you're going on the assumption that (for example) an excitation of cells in my finger - due to being poked by a needle - "gives rise" to pain; whereas scientists seem pretty well content to say that the excitation of cells is pain, and thus one needn't account for pain "in terms of excited cells"...this would be a non-sequiter.

No, put away the 'gives rise' complaint, because I have already explained how it does not characterize my position. "Accounting for" as I am using it is not synonymous with "giving rise to." I accept that water IS a clump of H2O molecules, and yet I still can say that it is intelligible how the properties of H2O molecules can account for the properties of water (whereas it would not be coherent in this situation to say 'give rise to').

Why is that distinction so imporant?

The distinction between experience and function is not just important, it is critical. A function is defined in purely extrinsic terms, whereas subjective experience is defined in purely intrinsic terms. There are fundamental differences between the natures of these two things that cannot be ignored. Our task is to traverse those differences, not ignore them from the start.

The brain has a 1st person view because of the evolved ability for self-recognition. An ape can show this by recognizing itself in the mirror. There is nothing special about this. It's a matter of degree that separates a dog's licking itself from a human's pondering about himself.

By 1st person perspective I mean a perspective anchored in / defined by subjective experience. It does not automatically follow that a system computing information about itself has a 1st person perspective in this sense.

 

[hypnagogue]

Originally posted by Mentat
Also a good analogy. Indeed, Broad would probably say that "guitar" is an "emergent" phenomenon from those materials that you mention - whereas a Dennett-like philosopher of guitars would simply say that "guitar" = "such-and-such material" and so it would be foolish to try and figure out how a guitar can "arise" from those materials, since it is those materials.

Come on Mentat. Did you read the paper carefully? Or are you just inserting your own notions of what you think Broad must be saying based on the fact that he even mentions 'emergence' in the first place? By the definitions stated at the outset, a guitar is obviously what Broad would call 'mechanistically explainable' thing. Go check up on it.

I would also like to say that music from a guitar is a terrible analogy for what I am saying. Music in the objective sense is just pressure waves moving through air, and it is emminently clear that there is no problem in explaining pressure waves moving through the air using an entirely physical, reductionist explanation. Music in the subjective sense-- the music that we consciously hear-- is an entirely different story. But clearly the subjective experience of music is a problem of consciousness, not a problem of guitars.

Then, I would say something like: "Subjective experience" is a vague term that is clouding the issue. You can build up from cellular functions into a machine that has an extension (the neocortex) which has no other purpose but to process/experience (synonymous terms, AFAICT) the world around it, and thus the logical outcome is a "subjective experiencer".

If processing and experiencing mean the same thing to you, why is it that numerous brain processes do not reveal themselves in subjective awareness? You should say something like "certain kinds of processes are certain kinds of experiences."

Again-- I am not begrudging you this metaphysical assertion, but I am asking you to realize the consequences. Materialism describes a closed system of extrinsically related entities. The properties of subjective experience are intrinsic. Materialism cannot say anything about intrinsic properties by definition, and so what you wind up with is an ontological framework that is no longer materialism. Nor does this new framework contradict materialism-- it just adds to it.

 

[Mentat]

Originally posted by hypnagogue
You have not illustrated any connection between computation and experience here. How can experience be derived from the axioms of materialism?

The real question may be (in David Hume's terms), "What else is there to establish? If one wavelength has one effect on the visual cortex, then what's the point of establishing 'why' it has that effect? It just does."

This is really irrelevant to the central problem. Suppose I cut a red ping pong ball in half and place both sides over my eyes. What I see is a uniform red field with no other discernable visual properties. Now, what you need to explain is how it is that I experience this redness. If you tell a story about computation in my brain, it remains as mysterious to me as ever why these computations entail my subjective experience of redness.

This is the point where you say "subjective experience IS the computation." But from the purely physical definition of 'computation,' this does not follow. Such a relation cannot be logically derived from talk of physical functions; you need a fundamental assumption to the effect that it is just a brute fact of nature that computation has an experiential aspect to it. That's fine, and indeed it appears to be the route we must take; but such a route necessarily departs from materialism's viewpoint of focusing on only structures and functions.

Not necessarily. A materialistic paradigm could easily hold to the idea that all of computation is a form (however primitive) of "experience"; and that "experience" is nothing more than an irritating term that gets thrown around when one isn't satisfied with the idea that our brains our computational machines.

Feeling, in the general sense that any subjective experience is 'felt.' Or, 'what it is like to be,' although I know you don't like that one.

All subjective experience is "felt"...what is the meaning of "felt"?

If I did not have subjective experience, I would not see 'redness' in the ganzfeld scenario above, even though my brain might still perform rich and meaningful computations on my visual input (as is illustrated in the case of blindsight).

Sure enough, but that's the simple difference between an "impression" and an "idea" (in Hume's terms), and is dealt with in almost every theory that I've mentioned to you - in the end, the point is really just how much attention is payed to the stimulus by which parts of the brain.

At bottom, this is such a difficult issue because one cannot really define subjective experience without an appeal to it. It cannot be defined in terms of other things because it is fundamentally intrinsic and not extrinsic. ('Redness' for example is defined with respect to itself, whereas something like 'mass' is defined with respect to other distinct entities such as force and acceleration.)

And what is "force", and what is "acceleration"? If we really want to reduce to the most fundamental realm, we will fail, no matter what we are working at. However, I see no point in reducing "redness" (for example), since "red" is the way that that wavelength of light "impressed" itself (again, in Hume's terms...I have a new thread on this that you might enjoy Check it out.) on you in the first instance, and so it is how you remember it. I really wonder what a Chalmerean expects will happen to an advanced computational machine who's primary goal is interpreting/processing visual data (I'm speaking of the visual cortex, of course).

For all I know, you do not really have subjective experience and this is why you have no problem reducing it entirely to extrinsic properties. I doubt this, though.

When I say I have subjective experience, what I mean is that while I am awake I continuously experience qualities such as 'redness' and 'softness.'

When you say you have experience you mean that you experience? And you said Dennett was circular? (just joking, though I would like a bit of clarification).

Makes it intelligible how it is that, eg, I experience 'redness' in the ganzfeld scenario rather than having no visual experience at all despite still being able to interact coherently with my environment on the basis of visual information, like a person with blindsight.

"Interact coherently on the basis of visual information"...what exactly is "visual information" if not the "redness" you percieve?

No, put away the 'gives rise' complaint, because I have already explained how it does not characterize my position. "Accounting for" as I am using it is not synonymous with "giving rise to." I accept that water IS a clump of H2O molecules, and yet I still can say that it is intelligible how the properties of H2O molecules can account for the properties of water (whereas it would not be coherent in this situation to say 'give rise to').

I want to put away this complaint, but your reasoning here seems to depend on redundancy...if you say that P1 = water is a clump of H2O molecules, then P2 = properties of H2O molecules can account for the properties of water = properties of A equal properties of A = redundancy.

The distinction between experience and function is not just important, it is critical. A function is defined in purely extrinsic terms, whereas subjective experience is defined in purely intrinsic terms.

Maybe that's the problem. As I asked before, what does subjective experience look like from the 3rd person perspective? It must look like something from both perspectives, otherwise I (as the completely objective philosopher) have no reason to believe it exists at all (at least not as you define it).

By 1st person perspective I mean a perspective anchored in / defined by subjective experience. It does not automatically follow that a system computing information about itself has a 1st person perspective in this sense.

You use the term "subjective experience" too much without having properly defined it, IMO. Anyway, if a system is conscious, then it will be conscious in the 1st person - practically axiomatic - right?

 

[Zero]

I feel like the non-materialist view of subjectivity is completely circular, in that non-materialists start with the premise that subjective experience cannot be due to purely physical phenomenon. However it is described, it always comes down to unfounded assertions in the premise, so the conclusion is logically unfounded.

Materialism describes a closed system of extrinsically related entities. The properties of subjective experience are intrinsic. Materialism cannot say anything about intrinsic properties by definition, and so what you wind up with is an ontological framework that is no longer materialism.

This, for instance, begins by assuming that subjective experience is outside the realm of materialism...based on what, exactly?

 

[Mentat]

Originally posted by hypnagogue
Come on Mentat. Did you read the paper carefully? Or are you just inserting your own notions of what you think Broad must be saying based on the fact that he even mentions 'emergence' in the first place? By the definitions stated at the outset, a guitar is obviously what Broad would call 'mechanistically explainable' thing. Go check up on it.

As I recall, Broad talked about composites (things that couldn't be explained without taking into account all of the active factors at once...as opposed to those things which could be explained by explaining one aspect at a time), and these seemed synonymous to "emergent properties" when I read it.

I would also like to say that music from a guitar is a terrible analogy for what I am saying. Music in the objective sense is just pressure waves moving through air, and it is emminently clear that there is no problem in explaining pressure waves moving through the air using an entirely physical, reductionist explanation. Music in the subjective sense-- the music that we consciously hear-- is an entirely different story. But clearly the subjective experience of music is a problem of consciousness, not a problem of guitars.

The point of the analogy was not to explain the music, or to explain the guitar, but to explain the music as a function of something done to the guitar (thus connecting a material function with an energetic one, but having no difficulty with it since sound is also physical, and is clearly produced by vibration which is what the guitar is doing...of course, if "consciousness" were clearly produced by discreet units of computation, firing synchronously, then we'd have no problem here either...as it is, the guitar may have been a bad analogy, but not completely "off-the-wall" either, since it would be nice (and may be possible) for consciousness to be thus explanable).

If processing and experiencing mean the same thing to you, why is it that numerous brain processes do not reveal themselves in subjective awareness? You should say something like "certain kinds of processes are certain kinds of experiences."

Ok, visual kinds of processing are visual experience (for one example). Does that help the "redness" question at all?

Again-- I am not begrudging you this metaphysical assertion, but I am asking you to realize the consequences. Materialism describes a closed system of extrinsically related entities. The properties of subjective experience are intrinsic. Materialism cannot say anything about intrinsic properties by definition, and so what you wind up with is an ontological framework that is no longer materialism. Nor does this new framework contradict materialism-- it just adds to it.

Materialism, at its core, simply states that all things are physical, and there is nothing else but the physical. In truth, consciousness must be a physical process (regardless of whether it has anything to do with the brain, or the neocortex, or anything else that Materialists like to think it's connected to), otherwise it would not be able to interact with physical beings, as the connection between them could neither be physical nor non-physical (this, btw, is not dealt with in the "Matrix"-type analogy, as this still requires a conscious brain, somewhere down the line of infinite regress...it's logically useless at explaining consciousness as it reduces ad infinitum).

 

[Zero]

Actually, I have decided that the guitar analogy is better than I thought it was, since the way chords are put together is similar to the materialistic viewpoint of thought. A chord is a process as much as it is something with physical properties expressed as sound waves. A chord is made up of individual notes all played together simultaneously. If you break it down into individual notes, it is no longer a chord. In the same way, what we would consider to be a thought is a process of neurological functioning of the brain, but we cannot point to a single neuron's activity and say "aha! that's where the thought is!" Thinking is created by the synchronous activities of individual parts, acting in concert(slight pun intended), in the same way that a chord is the combination of string vibrations.

 

[hypnagogue]

Originally posted by Zero
Actually, I have decided that the guitar analogy is better than I thought it was, since the way chords are put together is similar to the materialistic viewpoint of thought. A chord is a process as much as it is something with physical properties expressed as sound waves. A chord is made up of individual notes all played together simultaneously. If you break it down into individual notes, it is no longer a chord. In the same way, what we would consider to be a thought is a process of neurological functioning of the brain, but we cannot point to a single neuron's activity and say "aha! that's where the thought is!" Thinking is created by the synchronous activities of individual parts, acting in concert(slight pun intended), in the same way that a chord is the combination of string vibrations.

But it is still logically coherent how the notes combine to make a chord, but not logically coherent how neural/computational processes combine to form an experience. Sorry, no analogy.

 

[Zero]

Originally posted by hypnagogue
But it is still logically coherent how the notes combine to make a chord, but not logically coherent how neural/computational processes combine to form an experience. Sorry, no analogy.

Sure it is logically coherent...where's the flaw in it?

 

[Fliption]

Hypnagogue,

I see this thread treading dangerously into the useless areas of debate about what "materialism" means and what it means to be "physical". This is all a huge waste of time as many past threads have shown. Isn't the real question asking about the ability to reductively explain consciousness? And if this isn't possible then we need to consider adding consciouness as a fundamental property of reality? If this is the main point of discussion then what does it matter whether the resulting fundamental property is physical or not?

Even if your opponents here eventually agreed that consciousness is a fundamental element of nature(which is seems they are by simply asserting it is the process), they would still say it is physical. So the point about being physical or not doesn't seem relevant and just bogs down the real issue. I think your opponents here are getting sidetracked because of your use of the word "materialism". I had interpreted your use of that word merely as a way to describe the current view. Not that you were necessarily claiming a distinction between something physical or nonphysical.

Is my interpretation correct? If not then I fear we will have to revisit the whole physical/non-physical debate again. And if you think this discussion is difficult, wait until you have to explain what a non-physical thing is to someone who thinks physical means "everything that truly exists".

 

[hypnagogue]

Fliption, I would have to agree with your concerns. As far as the 'physical' thing goes, I have tried to make it explicit that physical processes cannot explain consciousness insofar as they are defined extrinsically whereas consciousness is defined intrinsically. I have also made arguments for why we cannot simply recast consciousness in an extrinsic perspective simply for the purposes of making it superficially transparent to reasoning based on extrinsic phenomena. For these reasons, I would contend that any phenomenon that could reasonably be called physical (extrinsic) could not be a suitable basis for a complete explanation of consciousness, even in principle.

In any case, I'm a bit worn out from rehashing the same arguments over and over-- it seems we're at a point where each side has said what they wanted to say, and no real progress is made in discussion because we hold different fundamental viewpoints on what subjective experience is. I hold that what is plainly apparent about subjective experience must be explained, whereas the reductionist tries to bypass this immense difficulty by paradoxically holding that what is apparent does not exist or is an illusion-- as if calling it an illusion frees us from any obligation to then coherently and completely explain that illusion. At this point it seems clear to me that we're just talking past each other, so the whole discussion might as well be shelved for now.

 

[Mentat]

Hypnagogue, I don't want to get side-tracked into analogies, or into that physical/non-physical debate, any more than you do. Perhaps you could just respond to my previous post (as there are a lot more questions than assertions in that one, and these questions need answering if I'm ever going to agree with you), please, and I'll try my best to see your side of it...

P.S., not the post above Zero's, the one that's two posts before it.

 

[Fliption]

Originally posted by hypnagogue
As far as the 'physical' thing goes, I have tried to make it explicit that physical processes cannot explain consciousness insofar as they are defined extrinsically whereas consciousness is defined intrinsically.

Seems I could have used you in those physical/non-physical defining sessions.

At this point it seems clear to me that we're just talking past each other, so the whole discussion might as well be shelved for now. [/B]

Well I can certainly understand where you are. The really depressing thing about it is that in a few weeks you'll see threads that will present the opposing view with almost complete certainty as if none of these issues were ever discussed and unresolved. I've seen it happen alot. But the good news is that I think you've raised the bar in the philosophy forum especially in this area. This topic wasn't getting anywhere near this kind of quality discussion before. Your patience is incredible and I've learned quite a bit from you, these dicussions and the various sources provided. That's what I try to keep in mind many times when I am engaged in what I know to be a useless attempt to get someone to see a certain view. That many people that don't feel so competent to particpate might be reading and learning. And perhaps even offer a unique perspective 20 pages later!

 

[Mentat]

At this point, I'd like to take the opportunity to thank hypnagogue, Canute, and Fliption for your patience with me. I can tell I'm probably rather irritating to you guys, but you've put up with me, and I am very grateful for that.

Of course, I hope you will listen seriously to my newer posts, as you have to the previous ones, but I can't blame you if you don't - you must be sick of this topic by now.

 

[hypnagogue]

OK Mentat, since you requested it here's my response to your post.

Originally posted by Mentat
The real question may be (in David Hume's terms), "What else is there to establish? If one wavelength has one effect on the visual cortex, then what's the point of establishing 'why' it has that effect? It just does."

I think the spirit of science is not just to catalogue a lists of causes and effects, but to capture a deep understanding of why things are the way they are. We cannot ask this question ad infinitum, since there are certain epistemic limits on how far we can go, but still we should not stifle our attempts to understand-- to answer the 'why' question. For instance, had certain questions not been posed in the 19th/20th century, we might be content to say that the regularities observed in the periodic table are just a brute fact of nature, and that there would be no point to trying to establish any deeper understanding of them-- when in fact, we can now explain these regularities using quantum mechanics, and thereby attain a deeper understanding.

This is a basic issue of how we go about understanding reality. I'm surprised you would so easily shrug off the question. By your reasoning, it would seem we could answer a child's question of "Why is the sky blue?" by saying "Well, whenever the sun is out, the sky is blue-- what's the point of establishing 'why' it has that effect? It just does."

Not necessarily. A materialistic paradigm could easily hold to the idea that all of computation is a form (however primitive) of "experience"; and that "experience" is nothing more than an irritating term that gets thrown around when one isn't satisfied with the idea that our brains our computational machines.

I don't think you are using the term 'experience' as it is normally used in philosophy of mind.

All subjective experience is "felt"...what is the meaning of "felt"?

At bottom, it can only be properly defined with an appeal to your own subjective experience, your own feeling. When you are awake and going about your day, those things of which you are directly aware are those things that you 'feel.' You are in a state of ongoing subjective experience. When you are in a dreamless sleep, you are not feeling anything-- you have no subjective experience. The difference should be quite obvious.

But I can't define subjective experience in such a way as to make it clear what it is even to someone who does not have subjective experience himself (aka a philosophical zombie), somewhat like I can't explain what 'red' is to a colorblind person. The definition of subjective experience is essentially just an appeal to what you know and see from your own 1st person perspective. This should not be regarded as dubious footing for my stance-- certainly it makes subjective experience harder to talk and reason about, but it should not give us humans who subjectively experience all the time reason to doubt its existence.

Sure enough, but that's the simple difference between an "impression" and an "idea" (in Hume's terms), and is dealt with in almost every theory that I've mentioned to you - in the end, the point is really just how much attention is payed to the stimulus by which parts of the brain.

But there is no logical connection between greater expenditure of computational resources and subjective awareness, as there is between, say, freedom of motion of microscopic molecules and freedom of motion of a macroscopic liquid. In order to establish such logical connections you need extra assumptions, and (as I have argued) for these assumptions to work, they must be such that they cannot be neatly fit into a materialist paradigm.

And what is "force", and what is "acceleration"? If we really want to reduce to the most fundamental realm, we will fail, no matter what we are working at.

Agreed.

However, I see no point in reducing "redness" (for example), since "red" is the way that that wavelength of light "impressed" itself (again, in Hume's terms...I have a new thread on this that you might enjoy Check it out.) on you in the first instance, and so it is how you remember it.

Then why is it that people with certain brain lesions can be sensitive to wavelength information from the environment without having visual awareness of color? Why is it that you yourself could be shown to be sensitive to such information without being aware of it, eg through a psychology experiment involving unconscious primes?

I really wonder what a Chalmerean expects will happen to an advanced computational machine who's primary goal is interpreting/processing visual data (I'm speaking of the visual cortex, of course).

Let's call your machine V. If V exists in a world that works precisely as materialism dictates it should, then V should compute complex input/output functions, but there should not be any experience. Why should there be? What logical reasoning starting from the axioms of materialism should lead one to suspect a priori the existence of subjective experience?

We don't have to imagine hypothetical worlds to get this result either. People with blindsight have advanced computational machines whose primary goal is interpreting/processing visual data, and on the basis of those computations on visual inputs they can even interact in coherent and complex ways with their environment, yet they do not have corresponding visual awareness in some (or in some cases, all) of their visual field.

When you say you have experience you mean that you experience? And you said Dennett was circular? (just joking, though I would like a bit of clarification).

Well, all definitions must be circular at bottom by necessity (as you seem to agree). But logical arguments that draw inferences from such definitions/axioms needn't, indeed shouldn't, be circular.

"Interact coherently on the basis of visual information"...what exactly is "visual information" if not the "redness" you percieve?

It is information encoded in patterns of neural activity. Again, blindsighted people display the ability to process visual information without any attendent subjective experience of it.

Maybe that's the problem. As I asked before, what does subjective experience look like from the 3rd person perspective? It must look like something from both perspectives, otherwise I (as the completely objective philosopher) have no reason to believe it exists at all (at least not as you define it).

Yes, I would agree that the completely objective philosopher should have no reason to believe in subjective experience at all. But in fact, such a philosopher is only denying the manifest, since he (you) knows in a very direct sense that subjective experience exists from his own 1st person experience of it. This is a philosophical conundrum to be sure, but still we must live with it-- there is no progress in denying what you know to exist. If anything I think it shows the completely objective stance to be an incomplete one. The objective model of reality does not cover all that there is to cover.

You use the term "subjective experience" too much without having properly defined it, IMO. Anyway, if a system is conscious, then it will be conscious in the 1st person - practically axiomatic - right?

Yes. The way I have been using these terms, they are basically equivalent.

 

[hypnagogue]

I'd like to add one more thing that bears mentioning. You have claimed that consciousness may be an illusion analogous to the illusion that the sun rotates around the earth. Scientific knowledge shows us that, in fact, the Earth rotates around the sun, and you propose that science may show us analogously that consciousness does not really exist as it appears to.

But we are not trying to establish in the case of consciousness if things are the way they appear to be; rather, we are trying to make it intelligible how things could appear the way they do in the first place. Given the heliocentric model, the illusion that the sun rotates around the Earth is debunked, but more importantly, it remains entirely intelligible why it appears as if the sun rotates around the earth. We do not flatly deny that it appears as if the sun rotates around the Earth to make our case here (as Dennett seems to flatly deny that we subjectively experience); indeed, it still appears this way, even given our superior knowledge. Rather, we show why this appearance nonetheless must logically follow from our apparently contradictory explanation. If our explanation had no recourse but to say the illusion did not exist (and the illusion obviously does exist), it would not be much of an explanation at all.

Analogously, any explanation of consciousness has to make it intelligible how it is that consciousness appears to be the way it appears to be, and I'm afraid any physically reductive explanation of consciousness will never make it intelligible why consciousness should have its apparent properties. Synchronous neural firings in IT account for 'redness'-- ok, but why should I be so compelled by this argument so as to have no recourse but to accept it? How is it that those neural firings logically necessitates consciousness the same way the heliocentric model logically necessitates the appearance of the sun rotating around the earth? You cannot answer this question without recourse to metaphysics. That is the explanitory gap. That is the hard problem.

 

[Jeebus]

I was thinking about the flaw of consciousness and how subjectivity is one of the main goals for equipoise on both sides of the debate. And what I concluded through reading this thread over and over again was that it drifted off to—what was mostly the inference that we are confusing epistemic objectivity of scientific investigation with the ontological objectivity of each system. Are these two compatible? Maybe.

I think we might be on the right track if we can get this debate back on focus. Hypnagogue is stating the why of the argument or the computational methods that hone each mechanism of consciousness to its own patter of involvement in the subjective system. I believe this is the right track.

Although I'm a big fan of Dennett and I like some of Chalmers's work too, I think the main problem is that we can't just say: "it just does—that is how that system works." That, in itself is an invalid argument and a fallacy of choplogic. We need to focus on the neuropsychological standpoint of the argument and why this system works the way it does.

I think we should find a medium on the differing sides of what consciousness means, and once we find a somewhat agreeable base we should start this debate over; on a clean slate.

 

[Mentat]

Originally posted by hypnagogue
OK Mentat, since you requested it here's my response to your post.

Many thanks .

I think the spirit of science is not just to catalogue a lists of causes and effects, but to capture a deep understanding of why things are the way they are.

I hate to have to object so early in the post (I know you don't believe me, but I actually would like to agree with you), but my readings into the philosophy of science have led to quite a different conclusion. Of course, science is for more than just cataloguing causes and effects, but not much more. The scientific method allows for the questions: "What" are we dealing with? "How" does it work? "Where" is it found? "When" is it found? "How" can we reproduce it?

All of these can (in principle) be grouped into a system that simply catalogues cause and effect. To ask "why" is a non-sequiter in science, though it is welcomed with open arms in most other branches of Philosophy.

btw, I talked a lot about this point in a different thread (called something like "the difference between 'What cause' and 'What Purpose' questions").

We cannot ask this question ad infinitum, since there are certain epistemic limits on how far we can go, but still we should not stifle our attempts to understand-- to answer the 'why' question. For instance, had certain questions not been posed in the 19th/20th century, we might be content to say that the regularities observed in the periodic table are just a brute fact of nature, and that there would be no point to trying to establish any deeper understanding of them-- when in fact, we can now explain these regularities using quantum mechanics, and thereby attain a deeper understanding.

And yet, this is simply a "cause" of the afore mentioned "effect". There is still no knowledge as to "why" sub-atomic objects should behave as they do, because "why" (in this context) implies that someone/something purposed for things to be as they are and science cannot assume this.

This is a basic issue of how we go about understanding reality. I'm surprised you would so easily shrug off the question. By your reasoning, it would seem we could answer a child's question of "Why is the sky blue?" by saying "Well, whenever the sun is out, the sky is blue-- what's the point of establishing 'why' it has that effect? It just does."

Unfortunately, unsatisfying as it may be, that is science's answer to those kind of questions. Dawkins was quoted on another thread (I've no idea where) as stating much the same thing, and Stephen Jay Gould was very explicit about that in the video/documentary series "A Glorious Accident".

I don't think you are using the term 'experience' as it is normally used in philosophy of mind.

And how is it usually used? In my experience (which, I admit, isn't much), philosophers like to throw the word "experience" around without ever properly defining it.

At bottom, it can only be properly defined with an appeal to your own subjective experience, your own feeling. When you are awake and going about your day, those things of which you are directly aware are those things that you 'feel.' You are in a state of ongoing subjective experience. When you are in a dreamless sleep, you are not feeling anything-- you have no subjective experience. The difference should be quite obvious.

But I can't define subjective experience in such a way as to make it clear what it is even to someone who does not have subjective experience himself (aka a philosophical zombie), somewhat like I can't explain what 'red' is to a colorblind person. The definition of subjective experience is essentially just an appeal to what you know and see from your own 1st person perspective. This should not be regarded as dubious footing for my stance-- certainly it makes subjective experience harder to talk and reason about, but it should not give us humans who subjectively experience all the time reason to doubt its existence.

Some people constantly experience the "grace of God" in their lives, constantly helping them. Some people constantly experience the "energy fields" of other people. You cannot have a logical discussion with these people because they will always say something like "you can't understand it with your head, you have to just 'feel' it"...this is, to my mind, the death of logical reasoning.

But there is no logical connection between greater expenditure of computational resources and subjective awareness, as there is between, say, freedom of motion of microscopic molecules and freedom of motion of a macroscopic liquid. In order to establish such logical connections you need extra assumptions, and (as I have argued) for these assumptions to work, they must be such that they cannot be neatly fit into a materialist paradigm.

Greater expenditure of computational resources translates to more frequent re-stimulation of the areas that were stimulated when the thing was processed ITFP, which translates to re-experiencing. I don't see the gap.

Then why is it that people with certain brain lesions can be sensitive to wavelength information from the environment without having visual awareness of color? Why is it that you yourself could be shown to be sensitive to such information without being aware of it, eg through a psychology experiment involving unconscious primes?

Because the right parts of my brain (the ones that run "searches", perhaps) aren't being stimulated...besides, wavelength information is color, if I can tell you what color it was later then all that is lacking is speed on my part.

Let's call your machine V. If V exists in a world that works precisely as materialism dictates it should, then V should compute complex input/output functions, but there should not be any experience. Why should there be? What logical reasoning starting from the axioms of materialism should lead one to suspect a priori the existence of subjective experience?

I'll tell you: From materialistic assumptions, it can be allowed that V is an organic machine, born to other organic machines, who have evolved in a social environment. The constant socialization has given rise, over time, to more and more complex thinking ability. At its heart, the "thinking ability" is the ability to process input without the use of mathematics, but (instead) with the use of specialist sub-systems of its CPU. One sub-system is a specialist at processing audio input. It is logical, from a materialistic standpoint, that V would record and process the exact (or as close to exact as possible) sound that it hears ("that it hears" = "that enters its audio sub-system through a sensory organ/reciever), and that this "processing" is smeared out over smaller sub-systems that are subordinates of the full audio sub-system. (Still with me?)

I can now say that, since "experience" is undefined by the opposition (you), I can define it as I wish, and call the processing of this external sound, and the ability to repeat it (along with the melding, in retrospect, of the individual sounds into one noise) "conscious experience", and there should be no counter since you haven't defined "conscious experience" yet...I, at least, have something to explain.

We don't have to imagine hypothetical worlds to get this result either. People with blindsight have advanced computational machines whose primary goal is interpreting/processing visual data, and on the basis of those computations on visual inputs they can even interact in coherent and complex ways with their environment, yet they do not have corresponding visual awareness in some (or in some cases, all) of their visual field.

I know nothing about "blind-sight", so I can't rebut or accept.

Well, all definitions must be circular at bottom by necessity (as you seem to agree). But logical arguments that draw inferences from such definitions/axioms needn't, indeed shouldn't, be circular.

But you haven't even given a reasonable starting-point toward defining "experience", and yet you keep using the word...that's bad philosophy, AFAIC.

It is information encoded in patterns of neural activity. Again, blindsighted people display the ability to process visual information without any attendent subjective experience of it.

How do we know that they have no subjective experience of it? What is "subjective experience"?

This is not a moot point...we might as well subsitute "subjective experience" for "uxpjscciie reeentvebe", and kill off all explanations on the basis that they don't explain "uxpjscciie reeentvebe".

Yes, I would agree that the completely objective philosopher should have no reason to believe in subjective experience at all. But in fact, such a philosopher is only denying the manifest, since he (you) knows in a very direct sense that subjective experience exists from his own 1st person experience of it.

How do you know? Can you ever really prove to me that either of us have this uxpjscciie reeentvebe if it is undefined?

btw, to make sure it was appreciated, "uxpjscciie reeentvebe" only uses the letters present in "subjective experience"...so, it's the same letters, with the same amount of meaning .