Why Does Time Flow Forward?

[Tournesol]

Time is an abstraction we make from the motion of things.

This is a physics newsgroup, and in physics, motion is based on time, ntot he other way round.

Since there is no such thing as time itself, it is meaningless to consider time to have physical existence.

Your grounds for saying that there is no such thing
as "time itself" are that it doesn't exist separately
from specific instances. But you could say the same
about charge or mass, or anything else in physics
But we do grant them physical existence because
they have specific instances.

The notion of time running backwards implies that all motions would be reversed and that all history would retrace its steps backward. It’s not possible. There are too many things that prohibit the reversal of time. Water can’t change its direction through a check valve. Electrons cannot change their direction through a diode or transistor.

If you reverse all the laws of physics ,
you reverse all the laws of physics. The problems
you mention will "cancel through".

The Earth would have to change its direction of rotation in order to make sundials tell time backwards. If it changed its direction instantaneously there wouldn’t be a human-built structure left standing and there would be horrific flooding. Instead of people getting younger they would be killed; that wouldn’t be a backward replay of history. And if it changed direction slowly, there would be terrible destruction as equatorial oceans moved towards the poles during the reversal. That, too, would not be a backward replay of history. The notion of time reversal, of history running backward, is self-contradictory.

If you reverse the direction of the Earth and nothing else,
you will have that problem. because structures on its surface
will comntinue to have their old momentum.

If your reverse everything, you reverse everything, inlcuding the
momenta of structures on the Earth's surface.

 

[Tournesol]

Tournesol writes: "I know of no theory that explains the feeling of flow as an illusion. It is either illlusory and inexplicable or explicable
and non-illusory."

Try having a look at the theory of emptiness as expounded by Nagarjuna, or dhamma theory as expounded in the 'Abhidhamma' (one of the 'three baskets of teachings' in Buddhism). In this view spacetime is a psychological construct, as I think it was for Kant.

That would be illusory and inexplicable, then.

Nagarjuna's Fundamental Wisdom of the Middle Way is a proof that the notion of time as existent is inherently paradoxical. He makes a reductio argument similar to Zeno's. In this view, at the deepest level of analysis nothing really exists and nothing ever really happens (really!). Roughly speaking, he argues that the past does not exist, the future does not exist, and thus the notion of the present moment is incoherent (an argument related to the 'Dedekind Cut' in mathematics).

That kind of purely logical argument is just as applicable
to the mental as it is to the physical. If it shows that time
cannot exist outside the head, it equally shows that it
cannot exist inside, making it an inexplicable illusion,
it the conclusion that it is psyhcological is to be accepted.

The feeling of the flow of time is a quale. It is a characeteristic
of qualia that an "illusory" quale -- a hallucination of the colour
red, for instance, -- is every bit as real as a real one.

So saying that the flow-of-time is psychological
doesn't explain how it can exist psychologically,
if it can't exist physically. It is an inexplicable illusion,
if it is an illusion.

The Wheeler-Feynman 'absorber theory' of time is, I think, still well thought of by physicists. In this entities can move both backwards and forwards in time quite happily, quite as if the flow of time is an illusion.

AAAGh! That's the direction of time!

 

[Tournesol]

n, a deterministic universe, all moments in time are preset, and would seem to have some kind of existence.

In a block universe. Determinism is quite compatible with the
idea that the future doesn't exist yet.

 

[Tournesol]

Is the Flow of Time an Illusion?

The argument seems to be : Conscious agents perceive time as if the agent is “flowing in time” from the past into the future, and from this perception it is allegedly safe to infer that such agents are not simply under the illusion of “flowing in time”, but indeed (and objectively) they are “flowing in time” from the past to the future.

I shall show that this inference is invalid.

Experiments by Libet and Grey Walter on the differences in the objective and subjective (experienced) correlations between temporally separated events show that the mind can reconstruct or rearrange the actual temporal sequence of perceptual information coming from phenomenal events, such that the consciously perceived (the experienced) sequence is not the same as the objective sequence of events (see the paper by Dennett and Kinsbourne referenced below). Libet explains this in terms of “backwards referral” or “backwards projection” of certain consciously experienced events with respect to other consciously experienced events. Dennett describes this kind of mental manipulatioon of the objective sequence of events in terms of Orwellian and Stalinesque models of mental representation.

1) showing that we misinterpret temporal sequence doesn't show
there is no such thing (we misinterpret everything to some extent)...

2) ..Libet's setup assumes that there is an objective sequence of
events in the first place.

Thus if time really does “flow” (and we are to believe that this flow is not an illusion), then all but one of the above timelines (since they reflect different sequences of events) must be an illusion. Which of the above timelines would one think represents the real “flow of time” – the objective timeline or one of the the experienced timelines? It obviously cannot be one of the experienced timelines (because we each experience different timelines, and none of us is in a privileged position of being able to claim to have direct access to the “absolute flow of time”), therefore (if anyone timeline flows) it must be the objective timeline. But if this is the case, then it follows that we each sometimes perceive time as flowing in the opposite direction to the way it is objectively flowing! Thus, our subjective experience of the flow of time is indeed an illusion (whether the objective timeline really “flows” or not), and we thus cannot infer from our perceived or experienced flow of time that objective time is actually flowing at all.

You are confusing flow with sequence.

 

[Tournesol]

Given certain facts in the current state of physics research, I wonder if the concept of "current moment" has any sure physical support.

Global current moment or local current moment ?

1) GR has no global time evolution, as John Baez says,

Global, then.

 

[Tournesol]

2) In QM, time evolution is an observable. Not observed = not well defined? But always observed = no evolution (quantum Zeno effect).

http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/uncertainty.html

 

[Tournesol]

But since we only ever experience subjective flow, it may also be the case that the objective timeline is static (not flowing).
Thus, we cannot conclude from our subjective perception of time’s “flow” that time does indeed flow.

But we can't explain where the subjective flow comes from if it isn't
driven by objective flow. So it is Inexplicable Illusion.

OTOH , if flow is objective, that easily explains why there is subjective
flow too. There is subjective flow because consciousness is rooted in the
phsycal brain.

So while there is a "choice", your preferred option is much less explanatory
than mine.

(BTW, the Objective Flow model has no problem dealing with mistakes
in sequencing -- they are just caused by varying latencies , like out-of-order
packets in TCP/IP)

 

[Canute]

Tournesol - Thanks for your excellent comments.

That would be illusory and inexplicable, then.

Illusory yes, but not inexplicable per se. Time is explained as an epiphenomena of the beings that experience the passing of it.

That kind of purely logical argument is just as applicable
to the mental as it is to the physical. If it shows that time
cannot exist outside the head, it equally shows that it
cannot exist inside, making it an inexplicable illusion,
if the conclusion that it is psychological is to be accepted.

An illusion yes, but not entirely inexplicable. If all psychophysical phenomena are illusory in the same sense as time then there is no paradox, as long as there is something else more fundamental.

The feeling of the flow of time is a quale. It is a charachteristic of qualia that an "illusory" quale -- a hallucination of the colour red, for instance, -- is every bit as real as a real one.

Good point. I agree.

So saying that the flow-of-time is psychological
doesn't explain how it can exist psychologically,
if it can't exist physically.

I agree here also. It seems to me to be a crucial point. It is impossible to explain time or much else if we assume that the psychological and the physical features of the world are all that there is. We already know this from stagnation of metaphysics.

It is an inexplicable illusion, if it is an illusion.

As I say, I don't agree.

AAAGh! That's the direction of time!

Oh damn. Thanks for pointing that out. It wasn't quite as silly as it looks. My thought process was that if time can flow both ways, as per the theory mentioned, then the idea of a 'flow of time' is clearly logically incoherent. But I wrote the conclusion without the argument.

Cheers
Canute.

 

[Tournesol]

That would be illusory and inexplicable, then.

Illusory yes, but not inexplicable per se. Time is explained as an epiphenomena of the beings that experience the passing of it.

That doesn't seem very explanatory to me. It is difficult
to see how even the appearance of a flow of time can
arise from timelessness. Talking about ephiphenomena
doesn't help as far as I can see. Oh, and then there's the problem
of the epochs of time before any conscious being existed.

An illusion yes, but not entirely inexplicable. If all psychophysical phenomena are illusory in the same sense as time then there is no paradox, as long as there is something else more fundamental.

We need something more fundamental, we need to understand
how it generates illusions, and we need to know how
all-embracing illusoriness doesn't prevent us from understanding these
things.

Or we could go for the much simpler approach of Explicable Non-Illusion.

The feeling of the flow of time is a quale. It is a charachteristic of qualia that an "illusory" quale -- a hallucination of the colour red, for instance, -- is every bit as real as a real one.

Good point. I agree.

Well, that is why saying time is psychological doesn't resolve anything.
Explianing how a timeless brain produces the appearance of a flow
of time is just as difficult as explaining how a physical brain produces
cosncius experience.

Quote:

So saying that the flow-of-time is psychological
doesn't explain how it can exist psychologically,
if it can't exist physically.

I agree here also. It seems to me to be a crucial point. It is impossible to explain time or much else if we assume that the psychological and the physical features of the world are all that there is. We already know this from stagnation of metaphysics.

If we accept tha thte fllow-of-tiime, or becoming is
a fundamental aspect of the wrld, that explains
all the physical facts, and all the psychological
ones as well (without begging any questions about the
mental being separate fromt he physical).

(The Flow OF Time may not be found in physics, but that
does not make it incompatible with physyics. Determinsitic universes and
block universes are not the same thing.)

It wasn't quite as silly as it looks. My thought process was that if time can flow both ways, as per the theory mentioned, then the idea of a 'flow of time' is clearly logically incoherent.

Two-way flow is still flow.

 

[Canute]

That doesn't seem very explanatory to me. It is difficult to see how even the appearance of a flow of time can
arise from timelessness. Talking about ephiphenomena
doesn't help as far as I can see. Oh, and then there's the problem
of the epochs of time before any conscious being existed.

I wasn't suggesting that my one sentence was supposed to be the whole explanation, but it indicates the general idea. (Obviously I disagree with your assumption that there were epochs before consciousness existed).

We need something more fundamental, we need to understand
how it generates illusions, and we need to know how
all-embracing illusoriness doesn't prevent us from understanding these
things.

I agree. My sentence was not supposed to be an explanation, just an indication that there is an explanation in which time is not a fundamental phenomenon.

Or we could go for the much simpler approach of Explicable Non-Illusion.

Fine. If you can explain time in this way then there will be no reason to think there might be a better explanation. As it is, I doubt that you can. The flow of time is paradoxical once we assume time has an inherent existence. It raises questions of what happened 'prior' to the BB, the background-dependence problem etc. More philosophically, if change in the future hasn't happened yet and change in the past has ceased, then how can something change in the present? I'm sure you'll know this problem from mathematics, Dedekind, Zeno etc.

Well, that is why saying time is psychological doesn't resolve anything.

Well, it might at least explain why the notion of time is paradoxical when we assume it is not a psychological phenomenon.

Explianing how a timeless brain produces the appearance of a flow
of time is just as difficult as explaining how a physical brain produces
cosncius experience.

Yes. A timeless brain is to me an oxymoronic phrase. Brains process information, and processing implies the existence of time. Similarly, the idea that brains cause consciousness (in an ontological sense) is equally problematic.

If we accept tha thte fllow-of-tiime, or becoming is a fundamental aspect of the wrld, that explains all the physical facts, and all the psychological ones as well (without begging any questions about the
mental being separate fromt he physical).

Would that that universe gave up its secrets that easily. Physicists cannot make sense of time in this way, and there would be little point in doing so. Such a theory would be nonreductive. It does not explain time but takes it as theoretically fundamental. However, I agree that time is a fundamental aspect of out universe, that much is clear. Our universe would not exist without the passing of it. What is not clear is whether it is fundamental in the full sense of the word, and in what sense the universe exists.

(The Flow OF Time may not be found in physics, but that
does not make it incompatible with physics.

I half agree. It is incompatible with reason, not so much with physics. We can do physics, a lot of it anyway, without worrying about what time is. But when it comes to fundamental physical theories problems arise. This has been observed by countless people, some of them here, and by quantum cosmologists etc.

Two-way flow is still flow.

True. My suggestion was that the idea of a two-way flow of time reduces the idea that time is fundamental to absurdity. This may not be true, I haven't thought it through properly as a reductio proof, but it seems that way to me at the moment.

Regards
Canute

 

[Tournesol]

Canute is Offline:
Posts: 1,367

Talking about ephiphenomena
doesn't help as far as I can see. Oh, and then there's the problem
of the epochs of time before any conscious being existed.

I wasn't suggesting that my one sentence was supposed to be the whole explanation, but it indicates the general idea. (Obviously I disagree with your assumption that there were epochs before consciousness existed).

The facts, in conjunction with Occam's Razor, are on my side.

Or we could go for the much simpler approach of Explicable Non-Illusion.
Fine.

If you can explain time in this way then there will be no reason to think there might be a better explanation.

I am not arbitrarily assuming that other solutions are worse.

They are worse for the same reason that all bad explanantions
are bad; they require more hypotheses to do less explaining.

As it is, I doubt that you can. The flow of time is paradoxical once we assume time has an inherent existence. It raises questions of what happened 'prior' to the BB, the background-dependence problem etc.

Nope. Those problems don't arise from the flow assumption alone.
You have to make additional assumptions like "every event has a prior
cause".

More philosophically, if change in the future hasn't happened yet and change in the past has ceased, then how can something change in the present? I'm sure you'll know this problem from mathematics, Dedekind, Zeno etc.

The coming-into-being of new sates of the universe is
change.

http://www.geocities.com/peterdjones/met_time2.html

Well, that is why saying time is psychological doesn't resolve anything.

Well, it might at least explain why the notion of time is paradoxical when we assume it is not a psychological phenomenon.

If it is paradoxical, it is paradoxical. Logic applies to everything.
Moving i from the physical universe to the mind doesn't suspend
logic.

Explianing how a timeless brain produces the appearance of a flow
of time is just as difficult as explaining how a physical brain produces
cosncius experience.

Yes. A timeless brain is to me an oxymoronic phrase.

Then the physical universe is not timeless, since the brain
is part of it.

Brains process information, and processing implies the existence of time. Similarly, the idea that brains cause consciousness (in an ontological sense) is equally problematic.

That they do is not in the least. How they do is, somewhat.

Quote:
If we accept tha thte fllow-of-tiime, or becoming is a fundamental aspect of the wrld, that explains all the physical facts, and all the psychological ones as well (without begging any questions about the
mental being separate fromt he physical).

Would that that universe gave up its secrets that easily. Physicists cannot make sense of time in this way, and there would be little point in doing so.

It means that physics is not the whole story. But it is
hubristic to assume it is. And the fact that it is not the
whole story does not mean anything it says is false.
My htoery is designed to accord with accepted
scientific facts (such as the late arrival of consciouness
in the universe).

Such a theory would be nonreductive.

Yes. Theories should be as simple as possible,
but no simpler. A theory that is too reductive to explain Time
is too austere to be useful.

It does not explain time but takes it as theoretically fundamental. However, I agree that time is a fundamental aspect of out universe, that much is clear.

Weren't you just saying it is psychological ?

I half agree. It is incompatible with reason, not so much with physics.

if it is incomaptible with reason -- of course I don't think it is --
it cannot be psychological either.

 

[Canute]

The facts, in conjunction with Occam's Razor, are on my side.

You'd need to show this rather than simply state it.

I am not arbitrarily assuming that other solutions are worse.

Do you mean that your solution is no better than others? This seems a bit underconfident. I think mine is better than yours.

They are worse for the same reason that all bad explanantions
are bad; they require more hypotheses to do less explaining.

I agree that we should minimise hypotheses. That's exactly why I think my solution is better than yours.

Nope. Those problems don't arise from the flow assumption alone.
You have to make additional assumptions like "every event has a prior
cause".

True. You'd also have to assume that time is fundamental.

The coming-into-being of new sates of the universe is
change.

I agree.

If it is paradoxical, it is paradoxical. Logic applies to everything.
Moving i from the physical universe to the mind doesn't suspend
logic.

One writer calls paradoxes 'the apostles of sedition in the kingdom of the orthodox'. This is my view also. I do not believe there is anything paradoxical about the universe. Paradoxes occur because we make false assumptions about it.

Then the physical universe is not timeless, since the brain
is part of it.

Clearly the physical universe is not timeless.

If we accept tha thte fllow-of-tiime, or becoming is a fundamental aspect of the wrld, that explains all the physical facts, and all the psychological ones as well (without begging any questions about the
mental being separate fromt he physical).

In what way does the hypothesis that time is fundamental help explain anything?

It means that physics is not the whole story. But it is
hubristic to assume it is. And the fact that it is not the
whole story does not mean anything it says is false.

Quite so.

My theory is designed to accord with accepted
scientific facts (such as the late arrival of consciouness
in the universe).

That isn't science, it's guesswork, and your guess contradicts the views of many physicists. You might as well cast runes to form your view.

Yes. Theories should be as simple as possible,
but no simpler. A theory that is too reductive to explain Time
is too austere to be useful.

I think you need to check the meaning of 'nonreductive'.

if it is incomaptible with reason -- of course I don't think it is --
it cannot be psychological either.

All ideas are psychological. In my view, if our idea of time is paradoxical then it's the wrong idea. The alternative is to say that the universe is paradoxical. Some people do say this, but I see no justification for it.

Cheers
Canute

 

[Tournesol]

The facts, in conjunction with Occam's Razor, are on my side.

You'd need to show this rather than simply state it.

Easily done.

1 There is no evidence of consciousness except as a psychological
property of complex living organisms
2 Complex living organisms arrived late int he history
of the universe
3 Therefore, consiousness arrived late in the
history of the universe.

I am not arbitrarily assuming that other solutions are worse.

Do you mean that your solution is no better than others? This seems a bit underconfident. I think mine is better than yours.

I am not arbitrarily assuming that other solutions are worse.

I can show that other solutions are worse.

They are worse for the same reason that all bad explanantions
are bad; they require more hypotheses to do less explaining.

I agree that we should minimise hypotheses. That's exactly why I think my solution is better than yours.

I think you confuse ontology with explanation here.
Trying to explain things in terms of One Fundamental Principle does
not make for a simple explanation becasue you have
to make a long series of arbitrary functions about how
the One Fundamental Principle operats in order to accord
wit the complexity and messiness of the universe.
For instance, your counter to the argumetn
I have given above will no doubt involve hypothesising
without any evidence, that consciousness can
exist outside bodies abd always has done.

Nope. Those problems don't arise from the flow assumption alone.
You have to make additional assumptions like "every event has a prior
cause".

True. You'd also have to assume that time is fundamental.

If you make that assumption without making other assumtions
you can avoid the paradox.

If it is paradoxical, it is paradoxical. Logic applies to everything.
Moving it from the physical universe to the mind doesn't suspend
logic.

One writer calls paradoxes 'the apostles of sedition in the kingdom of the orthodox'. This is my view also. I do not believe there is anything paradoxical about the universe. Paradoxes occur because we make false assumptions about it.

You want to say that the false assumption is "time is physical"
and the true one "time is psychological". But you cannot show
that.

If we accept tha thte fllow-of-tiime, or becoming is a fundamental aspect of the wrld, that explains all the physical facts, and all the psychological ones as well (without begging any questions about the
mental being separate fromt he physical).

In what way does the hypothesis that time is fundamental help explain anything?

It explains the physical phenomena and the mental
phenomena with a single hypothesis.

My theory is designed to accord with accepted
scientific facts (such as the late arrival of consciouness
in the universe).

That isn't science, it's guesswork, and your guess contradicts the views of many physicists. You might as well cast runes to form your view.

Nonsense. You have got that completely back-to-front. All of a considerable
body of scientific evidence points to consciousness being generated
by the brain. it is not the case that "many" physicists hold
mystical views about consciousness. I am a physics graduate,
and I can state form experience tha tht e subject was never even
mentioned during my course. A thousand New-Age books will try
to tell you otherwise, but they are just repeating one another.

The Myth of Quantum Consciousness:

http://www.colorado.edu/philosophy/vstenger/Quantum/QuantumConsciousness.pdf

if it is incomaptible with reason -- of course I don't think it is --
it cannot be psychological either.

All ideas are psychological.

That doesn't mean their referents are.

In my view, if our idea of time is paradoxical then it's the wrong idea. The alternative is to say that the universe is paradoxical. Some people do say this, but I see no justification for it.

The paradoxes can be resolved with appropriate assumptions

http://www.geocities.com/peterdjones/met_time2.html

 

[Canute]

Easily done.

1 There is no evidence of consciousness except as a psychological
property of complex living organisms
2 Complex living organisms arrived late int he history
of the universe
3 Therefore, consiousness arrived late in the
history of the universe.

Assumption 1 is not true. This is why Wheeler and others speculate that consciousness must have been present in the early universe. McGinn even argues it may have originated 'prior' to the BB, and he is a paradigmatically non-mystical philosopher. Even if you don't accept their argument (from quantum mechanics and from the 'hard' problem) you have to accept that as far as the evidence goes your first assumption is an assumption. A necessary property of an assumption is that it may not be true.

I am not arbitrarily assuming that other solutions are worse. I can show that other solutions are worse.

If so then please demonstrate this. Firstly, you would have to demonstrate that your first assumption is true.

I think you confuse ontology with explanation here.
Trying to explain things in terms of One Fundamental Principle does
not make for a simple explanation becasue you have
to make a long series of arbitrary functions about how
the One Fundamental Principle operats in order to accord
wit the complexity and messiness of the universe.

I'm not sure I see the relevance of this point. I don't agree in any case. Nor, I suspect, would many physicists.

For instance, your counter to the argumetn
I have given above will no doubt involve hypothesising
without any evidence, that consciousness can
exist outside bodies abd always has done.

What makes you assume this?

If you make that assumption without making other assumtions
you can avoid the paradox.

Not in the experience of most philosophers and physicists. If the assumption that time is inherently existent were not paradoxical then nobody would question it and everybody would hold your view. As it is yours is a minority view even in physics.

You want to say that the false assumption is "time is physical"
and the true one "time is psychological". But you cannot show
that.

I'd rather say that time is psychophysical, and thus not fundamental.

It explains the physical phenomena and the mental
phenomena with a single hypothesis.

The assumption that time is fundamental is ad hoc and explains exactly nothing. If time is fundamental then it existed prior to the Big Bang and will continue to exist after the Big Crunch. I find this idea incoherent and unscientific. Qunatum cosmologists are still arguing about whether it is fundamental, so how do you know that it is?

Nonsense. You have got that completely back-to-front. All of a considerable body of scientific evidence points to consciousness being generated by the brain.

There is not one single piece of evidence that suggest this. The evidence suggests that as a general rule states of the brain correlate with states of consciousness. The origins of consciousness are a complete mystery to neurophysiologists, academic philosophers etc. If you read some of the literature this would soon become apparent to you. It is not secret, but widely acknowledged. This is the reason the problem of cosnciousness is aften referred to as the 'hard' problem.

it is not the case that "many" physicists hold
mystical views about consciousness.

I quite agree. Mind you. Erwin Schrodinger, Eddington, Jeans and others held such a view. Their ideas have yet to be falsified.

I am a physics graduate,
and I can state form experience tha tht e subject was never even
mentioned during my course.

That doesn't surprise me at all. This has been the way physicists have traditionally dealt with the problem. But there is plenty of literature available for extra-curricular study.

A thousand New-Age books will try
to tell you otherwise, but they are just repeating one another.

I'm not interested in New Age books.

That doesn't mean their referents are.

I agree.

The paradoxes can be resolved with appropriate assumptions

Of course they can. With the appropriate assumptions I can prove that the Earth is a perfect cube.

It's pointless approaching the problem of time or consciousness, or any other problem come to that, armed with a set of unshakable assumptions. An open mind and some disinterested reasoning is required. You might like to check out David Chalmers site, where there are a wide range of published papers on the topic available. I recomment Chalmers' 'Facing up to the Problem of Consciousness' as a starting point.

Cheers
Canute

 

[Tournesol]

1 There is no evidence of consciousness except as a psychological
property of complex living organisms
2 Complex living organisms arrived late int he history
of the universe
3 Therefore, consiousness arrived late in the
history of the universe.

Assumption 1 is not true.

Yes it is , bearing in mind the meaning of the word evidence

This is why Wheeler and others speculate that consciousness must have been present in the early universe.

Speculation is speculation, evidence is evidence.

If you can capture a ghost or an angle, you have evidence of
nonbillogical consicousness. Otherwise there isn't any
speculation doesn't count.

McGinn even argues it may have originated 'prior' to the BB, and he is a paradigmatically non-mystical philosopher.

That's still not evidence.

Even if you don't accept their argument (from quantum mechanics and from the 'hard' problem) you have to accept that as far as the evidence goes your first assumption is an assumption. A necessary property of an assumption is that it may not be true.

It is no more of an assumption than the claim that
unicorns don't exist. It's just about possible
that they do exist, despite never having been observed,
but to argue that htey actuall do is to
commit the fallacy of argmentum ad ignorantiam.

(and let's not forget Occam's razor)

I am not arbitrarily assuming that other solutions are worse. I can show that other solutions are worse.

If so then please demonstrate this. Firstly, you would have to demonstrate that your first assumption is true.

It's a fact, for heavens sake! There is no more
evidence of dismbodied cosnciousness than of dismbodied digestion
or respiration.

I'm not sure I see the relevance of this point. I don't agree in any case. Nor, I suspect, would many physicists.

This pysicsist is not persuaded by your comments about "many
physicists".

If you make that assumption without making other assumtions
you can avoid the paradox.

Not in the experience of most philosophers and physicists. If the assumption that time is inherently existent were not paradoxical then nobody would question it and everybody would hold your view. As it is yours is a minority view even in physics.

It is simply false that "most" philosopher and
phsyicists think time is paradoxical. McTaggart's argument, for instance,
is now regarded as having been decisevly refuted.

It explains the physical phenomena and the mental
phenomena with a single hypothesis.

The assumption that time is fundamental is ad hoc

True

and explains exactly nothing.

False

If time is fundamental then it existed prior to the Big Bang

No, that is a non-sequitur.

and will continue to exist after the Big Crunch. I find this idea incoherent and unscientific. Qunatum cosmologists are still arguing about whether it is fundamental, so how do you know that it is?

I have shown that the hypothesis that (the flow of) time is
objective is non-contradictory and parsimonious.

You could say that doens't add up to truth, but
that would only be drawing attention away fromt he problems
of your own poisitiion.

Nonsense. You have got that completely back-to-front. All of a considerable body of scientific evidence points to consciousness being generated by the brain.

There is not one single piece of evidence that suggest this.

Don't forget Occam's razor.

The evidence suggests that as a general rule states of the brain correlate with states of consciousness.

And the simplest explanation for correlation is identity. The
next simples is causation. Don't forget Occam's razor.

The origins of consciousness are a complete mystery to neurophysiologists, academic philosophers etc.

Nonsense. You are getting consciousness confused
with the Hard Problem. There is an easy problem too!

You are also "passing easily" from suppositions of irreducability
made by others to your favoured hypothesis that consciousness
is not in the head at all.

If you read some of the literature this would soon become apparent to you.

If you read the literature -- read it, don't just trawl through
it for out-of-context quotes to support your favoured dogma --
the converse will become apparent to you.

It is not secret, but widely acknowledged. This is the reason the problem of cosnciousness is aften referred to as the 'hard' problem.

Not there is a hard problem as opposed to an easy pronlem."The easy problems of consciousness include those of explaining the following phenomena:
# the ability to discriminate, categorize, and react to environmental stimuli;
# the integration of information by a cognitive system;
# the reportability of mental states;
# the ability of a system to access its own internal states;
# the focus of attention;
# the deliberate control of behavior;
# the difference between wakefulness and sleep.

All of these phenomena are associated with the notion of consciousness. For example, one sometimes says that a mental state is conscious when it is verbally reportable, or when it is internally accessible. Sometimes a system is said to be conscious of some information when it has the ability to react on the basis of that information, or, more strongly, when it attends to that information, or when it can integrate that information and exploit it in the sophisticated control of behavior. We sometimes say that an action is conscious precisely when it is deliberate. Often, we say that an organism is conscious as another way of saying that it is awake.

There is no real issue about whether these phenomena can be explained scientifically. All of them are straightforwardly vulnerable to explanation in terms of computational or neural mechanisms."http://consc.net/papers/facing.html

It is not difficult to see how carefully you have been
studying the literature.

it is not the case that "many" physicists hold
mystical views about consciousness.

I quite agree. Mind you. Erwin Schrodinger, Eddington, Jeans and others held such a view. Their ideas have yet to be falsified.

Argument from ignorance.

Quote:

I am a physics graduate,
and I can state form experience tha tht e subject was never even
mentioned during my course.

That doesn't surprise me at all. This has been the way physicists have traditionally dealt with the problem.

Yep. Physics also deal with economic, botanical
and aesthetic problems the same way.

For the same reason.

They are not part of physics and never have been!

But there is plenty of literature available for extra-curricular study.

Yes, I am familiar with Fritjof Capra, etc. I'm not impressed.

The paradoxes can be resolved with appropriate assumptions
Of course they can.

With the appropriate assumptions I can prove that the Earth is a perfect cube.

Appropriate assumptions means fewer assumptions.

It's pointless approaching the problem of time or consciousness, or any other problem come to that, armed with a set of unshakable assumptions.

Like the unshakable asumption that consiousness exists
outside the head ?

Or are you mischaracterising my use adherence to facts
as "assumptions" ?

An open mind and some disinterested reasoning is required. You might like to check out David Chalmers site, where there are a wide range of published papers on the topic available. I recomment Chalmers' 'Facing up to the Problem of Consciousness' as a starting point.

I have read it, along with most of
what he has written.

 

[moving finger]

To arrive at any attempted understanding or explanation of the world, we must make assumptions.

That's an assumption.

Yes, it is. The need for assumptions is assumed within the assumption itself – how else could such an explanation be self-consistent?
The alternative would be to assume that we could understand the world without making any assumptions – but such a position would be incoherent and inconsistent – and I’m not aware of anyone having achieved an understanding without making any assumptions – are you?

Still, although I could disagree let's assume it is true.

Do feel free to disagree. I would be happy to discuss any explanatory ideas you might have which you believe do not involve any assumptions.

The aim then would be to make as few assuptions as possible, and only those that are absolutely necessary in order to proceed.

Agreed; but we might not agree on what we consider to be “absolutely necessary” – how does one decide which assumptions are “necessary” and which not?

How can a concept exist outside of a mind? You could argue that the referent of the concept refers exists outside the mind, but not the concept itself.

Why not? Why should concepts exist only within conscious minds?
I agree that “conscious understanding” of a concept requires consciousness. But a concept, like an explanation, is simply a relationship between particular sets of information.

But according to Dennett the phenomenal states are a consequence of correlated brain-states. This idea would be called into question if phenomenal states can occur in a different order from the brain-states with which they are supposed to be correlated, or so it seems to me.

Once again, not all brain-states are correlated with phenomenal states. Dennett’s ideas would only be “called into question” if all brain states were correlated with phenomenal states - see once again the outline explanation below. You seem to be assuming that the “brain-states with which the phenomenal states are supposed to be correlated” are in fact the A-series brain states rather than the B-series brain states – there need be no directly linear sequential correlation between the A-series and phenomenal states.

Here is one way it could happen (I am not suggesting this is a rigorous explanation, just a sketch of a possible explanation) : The subjectvely perceived temporal sequence (the phenomenal sequence of events) would effectively be a mental reconstruction based on (a set A of objectively observable) causal brain-states; that reconstruction would entail the creation of (a set B of objectively observable) additional brain states. The set B of brain-states would be temporally (sequentially) connected with the phenomenal temporal sequence, but the set A of brain-states need not be so temporally connected.

If the set B are observable brain-states then the set A is irrelevant. It is the relationship between B and the experienced sequence that is the issue. To explain any lack of correlation between these you'd have to posit a set C of brain-states. Next you'd have to posit a set D, and so on.

Not irrelevant at all. The set A is the causal (objective) set of states – this set of states is the initial (objective) set of states which in turn results in the B-set of states, and it is the B-set of states which is directly linearly correlated with the phenomenal sequence. There is not necessarily a directly linear temporal sequential correlation between the A-set and B-set.

Alternatively, suppose A is the set of all observable brain-states. In this case the temporal sequence of A and the experienced sequence should be strictly correlated. If not, then would it not follow that something is happening in experience that is not correlated to brain-states?

Once again, not all brain states are correlates of phenomenal consciousness. A subset of brain states A1 can be correlated with the objective timeline TO but not correlated with the subjective timeline TS. This subset A1 is causally related to, but not (temporally) linearly correlated with, another subset of brain-states A2, which in turn is directly related to and correlated with the subjective timeline TS.

In summary :
A1 and A2 are subsets of the complete set A of brain-states
TO is the objective timeline
TS is the subjective timeline (the subjective timeline of phenomenal states)
A1 is temporally (sequentially) correlated with TO
States in A1 are causally antecedent to states in A2 (A2 supervenes on A1)
A1 is not necessarily temporally (sequentially) correlated with A2
A2 is temporally (sequentially) correlated with TO
Thus, A1 is not necessarily temporally (sequentially) correlated either with TO or with phenomenal states

The feeling of the flow of time is a quale. It is a characeteristic of qualia that an "illusory" quale -- a hallucination of the colour red, for instance, -- is every bit as real as a real one.

Which does not necessarily entail objective reality – imho qualia are virtual entities which have no objective meaning except as component parts of the information processing within conscious experience.

1) showing that we misinterpret temporal sequence doesn't show there is no such thing (we misinterpret everything to some extent)...

I am not claiming that there is necessarily no such thing as an objective flow of time – I am claiming (a) that the inference of an objective flow from our subjective experience of a flow is an invalid inference and (b) that it is not necessary to postulate the existence of an objective flow of time in order to explain the subjective impression of time flow. In absence of any other way of inferring an objective flow of time (apart from the subjective experience) we thus have no valid inference to go on.

2) ..Libet's setup assumes that there is an objective sequence of events in the first place.

If there is no objective sequence, how can there be an objective flow?

Thus if time really does “flow” (and we are to believe that this flow is not an illusion), then all but one of the above timelines (since they reflect different sequences of events) must be an illusion. Which of the above timelines would one think represents the real “flow of time” – the objective timeline or one of the the experienced timelines? It obviously cannot be one of the experienced timelines (because we each experience different timelines, and none of us is in a privileged position of being able to claim to have direct access to the “absolute flow of time”), therefore (if anyone timeline flows) it must be the objective timeline. But if this is the case, then it follows that we each sometimes perceive time as flowing in the opposite direction to the way it is objectively flowing! Thus, our subjective experience of the flow of time is indeed an illusion (whether the objective timeline really “flows” or not), and we thus cannot infer from our perceived or experienced flow of time that objective time is actually flowing at all.

You are confusing flow with sequence.

No confusion at all – I have not once referred to “sequence” in the above paragraph.
However, flow does indeed entail sequence. A flow is a sequential temporal progression. If you are perhaps claiming there is no objective sequence, it follows there also can be no objective flow.

But we can't explain where the subjective flow comes from if it isn't driven by objective flow. So it is Inexplicable Illusion.

But we can indeed explain where the subjective illusion of flow comes from – it comes from the psychological perception of the “arrow of time”. (and no, I am not confusing the “arrow” with the “flow” – see below).

Each subjective “instant” of experienced time contains information correlated with both antecedent and consequent “instants”. The background entropy gradient means that our inferences about antecedent “instants” are usually much more accurate than our inferences about consequent “instants” – this gives us the subjective “arrow of time”.

We need an analogy to see how this psychological “arrow of time” also encapsulates the subjective illusion of a “flow of time”. Allow me to use one.

Each conscious instant may be thought of as a “pigeon-hole” embedded within a long sequence of pigeon-holes. Each pigeon-hole thus contains all the information pertaining to one particular instant of conscious experience (including the memories of previous instants). We may (if we wish) arrange these pigeon-holes in the “correct” temporal sequence, since the “arrow” of time is identified with the entropic gradient. But this does not, at first sight, seem to generate any “flow” in time, and no particular instant is singled out as being “unique”. How then does the subjective experience of “flow” originate?

Imagine that we could “activate” any particular conscious instant by briefly shining a flashlight onto the relevant pigeon-hole. We may say that the flash of light on the pigeon-hole “causes” the conscious instant within that pigeon-hole to “be experienced”. Clearly, we could then activate a complete temporal sequence of conscious experience by shining our flashlight onto a sequence of pigeon-holes. If the pigeon-holes are in the correct temporal sequence, we (as external observers, within our own temporal frame) would then “see” the complete conscious experience being “replayed” as it were, in the correct temporal sequence, within our own temporal frame. What about the subjective temporal frame of the conscious experience itself? Clearly, by illuminating the pigeon-holes in the “correct” sequence, we have effectively aligned the subjective temporal sequence of the conscious experience with our own “observer” temporal sequence. But what would happen if we were to illuminate pigeon-holes, not in the “correct” temporal sequence, but in some random sequence?

The conscious experience within each pigeon-hole, within each instant of time, would be exactly the same as it was when we illuminated the pigeon-holes in the “correct” sequence. In other words, the subjective conscious experience within each instant is independent of the objective sequence of illumination of the pigeon-holes. The subjective consciously experienced instant in pigeon-hole 2341 is just the same, no matter whether the previously (in our objective timeframe) illuminated pigeon-hole was 2340 or 1654. We could objectively replay the pigeon-holes in any sequence, forward, random, reverse, and it would make no difference as far as the subjective conscious experience encapsulated within the instants in each pigeon-hole is concerned. Indeed, we could illuminate all of the pigeon-holes simultaneously (using a large floodlight instead of our small flashlight), and the subjective consciously experienced instants of time within each pigeon-hole would be just the same as if they had been illuminated individually in sequence. In other words – there need be no objective “flow of time” at all, since the subjective illusion of the “flow of time” is already encoded within the subjective “arrow of time” within each temporal instant.

One might ask “but why do I experience only one instant of time at a time, and why is it THIS particular instant of time?” Think about it. In fact, your conscious experience experiences EVERY instant of time at which your conscious experience exists. No particular instant is more special than any other, but at each and every one of those instants in time you could ask yourself the same question – “why am I experiencing this instant rather than any other?”. The question is meaningless – because by definition you do consciously experience every instant of time in which your consciousness exists, at that particular time.

OTOH , if flow is objective, that easily explains why there is subjective flow too. There is subjective flow because consciousness is rooted in the phsycal brain.

Because consciousness is located “in time” rather than outside of time is why we have the intuitive subjective feeling of the flow of time – interpreting this as a "real flow of time" is the “easy explanation”. But as we have seen, the inference of objective flow from subjective flow is invalid, and as we have seen above there is in fact no need to posit any flow at all in order to explain the subjective experience. What is the rational reason to posit something (an objective flow) which is not needed to explain any empirical data, especially when that something (the objective flow) is itself in need of further explanation (which is yet another problem)?

while there is a "choice", your preferred option is much less explanatory than mine.

On the contrary, my interpretation is complete whereas yours is not. Mine explains the subjective experience (illusion) of flow as a direct consequence of the psychological arrow of time, without requiring any objective “flow” at all, and without the need to postulate anything special about the subjective “now”. Your interpretation explains the subjective experience of flow at the cost of postulating something mysterious called the objective flow of time, for which you have no further explanation, and your interpretation presumably also entails something special and unique about “now” which also begs further explanation.

The problem of explaining the “feeling of the flow of time” is essentially similar to the problem of explaining the “feeling of free will” – the “easy and intuitive” explanation is that our feeling of free will is due to the objective existence of something called “free will” (but this “free will” seems itself to be beyond coherent explanation), whereas the rational explanation is that our feeling of free will is an illusion, caused simply by our lack of detailed knowledge about our own internal decision-making processes.

Best Regards

 

[Canute]

Tournesol

We'd better agree to differ. You seem to have access to information that the rest of us do not.

Regards
Canute

 

[Canute]

Yes, it is. The need for assumptions is assumed within the assumption itself

That seems true.

The alternative would be to assume that we could understand the world without making any assumptions – but such a position would be incoherent and inconsistent – and I’m not aware of anyone having achieved an understanding without making any assumptions – are you?

I'm suggesting making no assumptions, not even the assumption that the world can be understood without making assumptions. In other words, I'm arguing for empiricism. Of course, we need to make assumptions when we are theorising, but most of these can be eliminated later.

If I was theorising from scratch I'd start with the unfalsifiability of solipsism. It is not clear to me this is an assumption. I see it as a known fact, but I suppose it could be viewed as an assumption. Similarly I wouldn't call 'cogito' an assumption, although this would propbably depend on how it is interpreted.

I suppose what I mean is not so much that we should not make any assumption when we set out to explain the world, but rather that as we progress we should quickly eliminate them. If our final theory contains an assumption then clearly we do not understand the world.

For an explanation not based on assumptions see Lao Tsu, Nagarjuna, Brown and others who share their view. In this view an 'explanation of everything' can be known to contain no assumptions. In other words, my view is that knowledge is possible, not just theories.

More clearly, I'd say it is possible to understand the world and know this is a correct understanding, as contrasted with an understanding of what follows logically from some set of assumptions. Thus, understanding and explanations (theories etc) are not the same thing.

Agreed; but we might not agree on what we consider to be “absolutely necessary” – how does one decide which assumptions are “necessary” and which not?

I don't know. I have a feeling we might agree if we discussed it.

Why not? Why should concepts exist only within conscious minds?
I agree that “conscious understanding” of a concept requires consciousness. But a concept, like an explanation, is simply a relationship between particular sets of information.

For 'concept' my dictionary gives - an idea, a theoretical construct, a directly intuited object of thought, a act of imagination. A mind is required in each case. Think of the the word 'conceptual'. How can something be conceptual except in someone's mind?

Once again, not all brain-states are correlated with phenomenal states. Dennett’s ideas would only be “called into question” if all brain states were correlated with phenomenal states - see once again the outline explanation below.

As I said, I agree that not all brain correlate with phenomenal states. For example, the brain-state of a dead person does not.

You seem to be assuming that the “brain-states with which the phenomenal states are supposed to be correlated” are in fact the A-series brain states rather than the B-series brain states – there need be no directly linear sequential correlation between the A-series and phenomenal states.

That was my point. We can always posit a B-series between the A-series and phenomenal states. If there is still a lack of correlation we can posit a C-series. If this doesn't work we can posit a D-series and so on ad infintum.

The set A is the causal (objective) set of states – this set of states is the initial (objective) set of states which in turn results in the B-set of states, and it is the B-set of states which is directly linearly correlated with the phenomenal sequence. There is not necessarily a directly linear temporal sequential correlation between the A-set and B-set.

I still don't see how this solves the problem. If we can observe the B-states then we can forget about the A-states and examine the relationship between the B-states and p-consciousness. If these do not correllate we can just posit C-states and so on. Thus any lack of correllation between a brain-state and p-conciousness can be explained by positing an intervening brain-state. If one accepts this argument then it becomes impossible to show a lack of correlation between brain an p-consciousness even if there is one. The problem you're up against here is that nobody can show which brain-states (A,B,C,D,E...) immediately preceed the conscious experience. If a researcher finds a lack of correlation then he/she can just posit an intervening state to solve the problem.

On your point about 'instants' of time or conscious experience note that to many people the idea of an 'instant' is incoherent. Physicist Peter Lynds argues this in couple of recent papers. I don't think this affects your argument, but it adds a complication. (They're available on the Cern site)

The problem of explaining the “feeling of the flow of time” is essentially similar to the problem of explaining the “feeling of free will” – the “easy and intuitive” explanation is that our feeling of free will is due to the objective existence of something called “free will” (but this “free will” seems itself to be beyond coherent explanation), whereas the rational explanation is that our feeling of free will is an illusion, caused simply by our lack of detailed knowledge about our own internal decision-making processes.

Good point. It does not follow that freewill is an illusion, but it does follow that it is a tricky topic. Some commentators have taken Libet's results as showing that freewill consists in our freedom to choose not to act. This is quite similar to the esoteric view of freewill.

Cheers
Canute

 

[moving finger]

If I was theorising from scratch I'd start with the unfalsifiability of solipsism. It is not clear to me this is an assumption. I see it as a known fact, but I suppose it could be viewed as an assumption. Similarly I wouldn't call 'cogito' an assumption, although this would propbably depend on how it is interpreted.

I don’t understand what you are saying here. Are you saying that the “truth of solipsism” is a known fact? I disagree. I do not believe in the solipsist account of reality – I believe it is false. To me, solipsism involves a false assumption (viz that solipsism is true).

Solipsism maintains that the individual self of the solipsistic philosopher is the whole of reality and that the external world and other persons are representations of that self having no independent existence.

Can you show that the above is true, without making any assumptions (as opposed to assume it is true)?

I suppose what I mean is not so much that we should not make any assumption when we set out to explain the world, but rather that as we progress we should quickly eliminate them. If our final theory contains an assumption then clearly we do not understand the world.

Good luck. Let me know when you have eliminated all assumptions.

For an explanation not based on assumptions see Lao Tsu, Nagarjuna, Brown and others who share their view. In this view an 'explanation of everything' can be known to contain no assumptions. In other words, my view is that knowledge is possible, not just theories.

The Tao Te Ching makes lots of assumptions about the world – most of the text is one series of assumptions. I am not saying these assumptions are necessarily false – I am saying that they are assumptions.

Example :

The [Tao] that can be told of is not an Unvarying [Tao];
The names that can be named are not unvarying names.
It was from the Nameless that Heaven and Earth sprang;
The named is but the mother that rears the ten thousand creatures,
Each after its kind.

This is nothing more than a series of premises (assumptions). You may claim that they are true propositions, you may claim that they represent knowledge rather than assumptions, but I would then ask on what basis do you claim they represent knowledge? Can you show that they represent knowledge, or are you just assuming that they represent knowledge?

More clearly, I'd say it is possible to understand the world and know this is a correct understanding, as contrasted with an understanding of what follows logically from some set of assumptions.

You may believe such a thing is possible – but can you show that it is possible?

Agreed; but we might not agree on what we consider to be “absolutely necessary” – how does one decide which assumptions are “necessary” and which not?

I don't know. I have a feeling we might agree if we discussed it.

According to you, it seems that no assumptions are “absolutely necessary”. Can you show this to be the case?

For 'concept' my dictionary gives - an idea, a theoretical construct, a directly intuited object of thought, a act of imagination. A mind is required in each case. Think of the the word 'conceptual'. How can something be conceptual except in someone's mind?

Dictionary definitions often come up in philosophical discussion. The everyday dictionary definition of a word reflects the usage of that word in everyday language, and in common usage most people use the word “concept” in the context of mental concept – but it does not follow from this that this is the only meaning of concept. Look deeper, and you will find that there are other definitions of concept which do not entail mentality : I can find dictionary definitions of concept such as “a scheme, a plan”, “an abstract or general idea inferred or derived from specific instances” (and before you start claiming that an “idea” entails mentality – idea is also defined as “a plan, scheme or method”).

I still don't see how this solves the problem. If we can observe the B-states then we can forget about the A-states and examine the relationship between the B-states and p-consciousness.

You misunderstand. I am saying that the B-series DOES correlate with the phenomenal (subjective) timeline. But the A-series does not. And it is the A-series which is correlated with the objective timeline. Hence the fact that we might observe a series of brain-states which is not correlated with the subjective timeline is of no consequnece (and is not at odds with Dennett’s view of consciousness).

On your point about 'instants' of time or conscious experience note that to many people the idea of an 'instant' is incoherent. Physicist Peter Lynds argues this in couple of recent papers. I don't think this affects your argument, but it adds a complication. (They're available on the Cern site)

Indeed, our conscious experience may require a series of “instants” in order to be a conscious experience – but the same argument would apply (we would just be illuminating a finite number of pigeon-holes with each flashlight burst, instead of a single pigeon-hole). Each of the instants in this series of instants contains an inbuilt arrow of time, and it is this arrow which gives rise to the subjective illusion of the flow of time.

Best Regards

 

[Canute]

moving finger

I've confused the issues here and taken us off topic. Sorry about that. I'll work this back to time and if we don't agree about the other stuff it probably doesn't matter in this context.

What I was saying about solipsism is that it is unfalsifiable. It seems to me this may not be an assumption. What do you think? Is it an assumption? If you agree that it is unfalsifiable then are you assuming this or do you know it? To be honest I'm not sure. It may depend on how we look at it. Either way I certainly cannot show that it is unfalsifiable. I can't even show that there is anyone I could show it to.

Good luck. Let me know when you have eliminated all assumptions.

Are you suggesting that it's impossible to know anything without making an assumption? I don't think this is true.

The Tao Te Ching makes lots of assumptions about the world

Unless you know this is true you're making an assumption. Adherents of Lao Tsu say that he knew what he was talking about.

This is nothing more than a series of premises (assumptions). You may claim that they are true propositions, you may claim that they represent knowledge rather than assumptions, but I would then ask on what basis do you claim they represent knowledge? Can you show that they represent knowledge, or are you just assuming that they represent knowledge?

I cannot show that they represent knowledge, although I'd like to think I could make a reasonably good case. You're right to say that to some extent I'm asssuming they represent knowledge, but I'd rather say that I conclude that they do. I certainly can't claim to know that the words you quoted are true, but I would claim that it is possible to know that they are true, and this would follow from Lao Tsu's words.

You may believe such a thing is possible – but can you show that it is possible?

It is never possible to demonstrate that one knows something. This is the source of some of our problems here. (Btw I'm half agreeing with you on most of your points, but I just think there's a bit more to this issue than you're acknowledging).

According to you, it seems that no assumptions are “absolutely necessary”. Can you show this to be the case?

This is not quite what I'm suggesting. I've been unclear as usual. I'm suggesting that a theory based on an assumption is not knowledge. I'm suggesting that although we may make assumptions in order to explore their implications, whether they hold up against the evidence, whether they result in a reductio, or as scaffolding for a theory etc., sooner or later we have to get rid of these assumptions, otherwise our theory will be a guess. More mathematically, I'm suggecting that for a theory to become knowledge it has to be axiomatised.

Look deeper, and you will find that there are other definitions of concept which do not entail mentality : I can find dictionary definitions of concept such as “a scheme, a plan”, “an abstract or general idea inferred or derived from specific instances” (and before you start claiming that an “idea” entails mentality – idea is also defined as “a plan, scheme or method”).

But surely the whole point of a concept, used in this sense, is that the concept in question is the product of a mind. For example, manufacturers sometimes build concept cars, and these are physical objects. But the word concept means that someone has conceived of this car. Ditto for plan, scheme etc. These are concepts made real, and a real map, a real scheme ect. is not a concept. It originates as a concept. A concept has to be conceived to be a concept, and if it hasn't been conceived it is not a concept. That's how I see it anyway.

You misunderstand. I am saying that the B-series DOES correlate with the phenomenal (subjective) timeline. But the A-series does not. And it is the A-series which is correlated with the objective timeline. Hence the fact that we might observe a series of brain-states which is not correlated with the subjective timeline is of no consequnece (and is not at odds with Dennett’s view of consciousness).

You may be missing my point on this one. Suppose the B-series does not correlate. Then we could posit a C-series that does correlate. I'm suggesting that this allows us to deny any lack of correlation under all circumstances, which is dodgy tactics to me.

However, on reflection I see that to show a lack of correlation would be just as difficult to show as a correlation, since it would be impossible to show that there is not an intervening brain-state between a phenomenal state and a physical state. It seems that until we can pinpoint the final brain-state that gives rise to the p-state, if there is such a thing, then all bets are off. (Btw, I'm not arguing that there is a lack of correlation between brain and mind).

Indeed, our conscious experience may require a series of “instants” in order to be a conscious experience –

This is the idea I was questionning. To many people an 'instant' seems an incoherent idea in the same way that the idea of an infinitessimal point seems incoherent. Both are useful and apparently reasonable ideas in everyday life, and in mathematics etc, but when we start applying a bit of philosophical analysis problems arise. All the objections to the idea of infinitessimal points as real things apply to instants of time.

Take our idea of change. No change can take place in the future, no change can take place in the past. In this case, change takes place in the present instant. But, as Brian Greene puts it, applying the concept of change to an instant makes as much sense as subjecting a rock to psychoanalysis. There is a real paradox here, one that calls into question the reality of time, change etc.

regards
Canute

 

[Drachir]

Time

Canute in #23 wrote:

I strongly disagree here. You assume things of the mind are less real than something else called 'reality'. I doubt if you can justify this assumption, or even that you can show these are two different things.

I will try to dispel your doubt. Let us first tackle reality. The notion of reality and its attendant questions arise because we have the physiological capacity to be aware of, and to differentiate between things of the mind and things external to the mind. That capacity is called consciousness. When we are conscious we are aware of two distinct kinds of information: that presented by our sense organs and that presented by our sub-conscious. Sense information is essential for the survival of even the simplest animals. Simple animals have their ‘value codes’ ‘pre-wired.’ They cannot change their values.

Because one of the primary values for any organism is self-survival, animals that have the ability to change their value codes require the ability to monitor the processes used to make those changes. Self-consciousness is the mental function that provides that monitor. Self-consciousness is a self-referential reentrant mental function. One can be aware of ones thoughts, and can at the same time be aware of that awareness. One can even be aware of the awareness of the awareness.

Because of self-consciousness one can direct ones thought to ones own purposes. When one chooses to think of a man with thirty arms and hands, one does know the difference between having an idea of such a creature and seeing one. One definition of reality is ‘that which exists independently of ideas concerning it.’ A more terse definition is ‘reality is objective existence’. Our primary connection with reality is through the senses.

Although we can smell a distant fire or see the light of faint, very distant stars, we cannot sense the thoughts of other people, not even of those closest to us. Consequently, it was long thought that mind was not a part of the reality presented to us by the senses. That was the source of the mind-body dichotomy idea. Contemporary neurology has demolished the mind-body dichotomy by enabling us to sense specific parts of the brain that are active during specific mental activities. We should no longer think it impossible that a single thought might be externally sensed and identified.

But, there are two aspects to a thought: the neurological processes enabling the thought and the content of the thought. The processes are a part of reality. The content may or may not correspond with reality. As an extreme example, if the content is a self-contradiction it cannot represent anything real. Reality harbors no self-contradictions. Therefore, since the contents of thoughts are not intrinsically real, and since those contents are things of the mind, we should at least conclude that some “things of the mind are less real that something else called ‘reality’”, and even conclude that some things of the mind are unreal. Because thought contents can be unreal, and since reality cannot include the unreal, thought contents and reality are two different things.


Canute continuing in #23 wrote:

It is a widely-held view that we are wholly deceived by psychophysical phenomena if we consider them as inherently existent thus 'real'. Clearly they cannot be inherently existent if time is not, since they time-based phenomena. I think you have to bite the bullet. If time is not real then neither are psychophysical phenomena. This view is not scientifically contentious, as far as I know, and Erwin Schrodinger argued for it for the last forty years of life.

Widely held views have often been abandoned when their errors have been discovered. Time is not fundamental to psychophysical phenomena, but motion is. Without the motion of synaptic chemical mediators and without the motion of electric charge there could be no psychophysical phenomena. Those phenomena are not time-based, they are motion-based. Although time is a very useful abstraction, it is, nonetheless, an abstraction from the motions of things and does not have objective existence. Psychophysical phenomena are inherently existent because things and their motions are inherently existent. I’ll skip the bullet for now. Time is not real but psychophysical phenomena are.

Canute in #23 also wrote:

The problem is trying to disentagle 'deception' and 'reality'. Schrodinger, for example, considered psychophysical phenomena (thus time, change etc.) to be deceptions, and 'reality' to be a different kind of phenomenon entirely.

Our experiences with reality are psychophysical. Reality does not deceive us. Our senses do not deceive us. If our eyes receive the light of the moon we are not led to perceive that we taste salt, and vice versa. However, when we form concepts from our percepts, or form general concepts from specific concepts, we can err and so deceive ourselves. The greater the number of conceptual levels between a concept and its underlying percept(s), the more difficult it is to discover inadvertent, obscured errors.

We know only too well that our thought processes are not infallible. If we are deceived about reality, the deception is of our own making, a self-deception. I hope I have helped to disentagle ‘deception’ and ‘reality.’

moving finger in #24 wrote:

Quote:
Originally Posted by Drachir
An illusion is something that deceives by producing a false or misleading impression of reality. Barring neurological disorders, our minds do not deceive us.

Are you normally aware of your blind spot? No, one normally has to work hard to reveal the presence of the blind spot. Why? Because the mind has evolved to ignore the fact that information is missing from the blind spot, hence the fact that information is missing is not mentally flagged as a problem. It’s a classic illusion. There are many, many such illusions if one looks carefully enough.

Our minds have evolved to provide competitive advantage, they have not necessarily evolved to provide an accurate picture of reality (except insofar as that picture provides a competitive advantage).

If the mind did not process that information to remove the blind spot and we always saw the missing information, say as a tiny dark spot in the middle of our view, what reality would that dark spot represent? It would represent the reality of the sensor, not of the thing(s) being sensed. Partial or complete color blindness is a form of incomplete information but does produce an illusion. The fact that our eyes respond to only a narrow region of the electromagnetic spectrum that excludes IR and UV, for example, does not make our perceptions of the visible spectrum false or deceptive. Incomplete information about reality is not the same thing as illusion or deception. The bullfrog has a blind spot in front of its nostrils, but its brain is not powerful enough to eliminate the blind spot from its perception. Therefore, in order to see prey it must turn its head slightly to one side. Now, if our eyes and mind would make us perceive a cobra as a kitten, that would be a deadly deception.

Moving Finger in #24 also wrote:

Quote:
Originally Posted by Drachir

We know the difference between things of reality and things of the mind. Our memories of our past experiences with reality are not deceptive. The past is not illusory.

There are countless documented cases of people having false or deceptive memories of past events, and Libet’s experiments confirm just one small aspect of this – the fact that we deliberately reconstruct conscious timelines.

I can’t believe that we consciously falsify our memories. Why would we? Other that that I know exactly what you mean. I experience it often. Yesterday I couldn’t find my eyeglasses. I was absolutely certain that the last time I used them was at the breakfast table. When I found them they were on my night table, meaning that they never even made it to the breakfast table. I do not think that new memories based on sensory information are false or deceptive. However, if a memory was never made or is not retrieved when needed, the inventive subconscious will sometimes substitute a. similar suitable memory. I view false, deceptive, and lost memories as equipment failures. The occurrence of occasional equipment failures is no reason to discard information obtained in the absence of such failures. If Libet could think that a countdown to ignition occurs after liftoff, I would advise Libet not to apply for a job with NASA.

Tournesol wrote in #31:

Originally Posted by Drachir

Time is an abstraction we make from the motion of things.

This is a physics newsgroup, and in physics, motion is based on time, ntot he other way round.

When I studied undergraduate physics we did some experiments using a linear kymograph. That instrument consisted of two things: a long strip of paper to be pulled by a moving object and a pen or pencil at the end of a swinging pendulum to leave a trace on the strip of paper. If the trace was a straight line along the center of the strip, the pendulum was not moving. If the trace was a straight line, transverse to the length of the strip, the object was not moving. If the trace was a uniform sine curve, the object’s motion was uniform. If the lengths between the graph cycles increased the object’s motion accelerated. If the lengths decreased, the object’s motion decelerated. That experiment was a comparison of two motions: the motion of the moving object and the motion of the pendulum. If the motion of the pendulum was compared to that of the escapement of a stopwatch, the pendulum period could be expressed in the same units as that of the stopwatch.

When Galileo discovered the pendulum law he compared the motion of a swinging chandelier to the beating (motion) of his heart. Today the U.S. standard second of time is given by NIST-F1, the cesium fountain atomic clock. The uncertainty of NIST-F1 is so low that it would not gain or lose a second in more than sixty million years. NIST-F1 measures the natural resonance frequency of cesium atoms. In order for any kind of resonance to occur something must move. Motion is fundamental, but time is not.

Tournesol also wrote in #31 first quoting me:

Since there is no such thing as time itself, it is meaningless to consider time to have physical existence.

Your grounds for saying that there is no such thing
as "time itself" are that it doesn't exist separately
from specific instances. But you could say the same
about charge or mass, or anything else in physics
But we do grant them physical existence because
they have specific instances.

My ground for saying that there is no such thing as time itself is not that it doesn’t exist separately from specific instances. My grounds are 1) that we cannot even conceive of time without invoking a conception of something moving, and 2) that our notion of time is an abstraction from the motions of things. When we measure time we are comparing one motion with another. Motion can be sensed with several of our senses. Time cannot be sensed at all. At most all we can do is produce clocks that count 86,400 seconds in a day. There is nothing universal about a 24 hour day, a 60 minute hour, or a 60 second minute. If I remember correctly, those choices were made in ancient Mesopotamia.

Charge and mass are not abstractions from reality. They are known to exist because they can be sensed. Charge can be sensed and even measured by the force it produces, as in a gold foil electrometer. Charge was conceived of in ancient times when amber was rubbed and found to attract bits of lint. The Greek word for amber is ‘electron.’ Franklin discovered that an electrostatic charge and lightning were the same thing. The charge of the electron was measured by Townsend, J. J. Thompson, and Millikan before the mass of the electron was known. J. J. Thompson subsequently devised a way to determine the ratio of charge to mass of the electron, and hence could calculate the mass of an electron. (As an undergraduate I had the pleasure of performing Millikan’s oil-drop experiment to determine e and J. J. Thompson’s CRT experiment to determine e/m.)

We now know that a charge can have either of two polarities. Polarity is an abstraction we make from the charges or magnetism of things. Although we can say that the negative polarity of the electron and positive polarity of the proton exist, we cannot say that polarity itself exists.

Tournesol also wrote in #31, quoting me first:

Quote:
The notion of time running backwards implies that all motions would be reversed and that all history would retrace its steps backward. It’s not possible. There are too many things that prohibit the reversal of time. Water can’t change its direction through a check valve. Electrons cannot change their direction through a diode or transistor.

If you reverse all the laws of physics ,
you reverse all the laws of physics. The problems
you mention will "cancel through".

Did you mean to say that if you reverse time you reverse all the laws of physics?

What change to which laws(s) of physics would allow water to flow backwards through a check valve?

You err if you equate a reversal of time with a reversal of all the laws of physics. Some essential things in physics, such as the resolution of forces, are time invariant. The general gas law pV=MRT is time invariant. Even if the motions of molecules of gas in a container were to be reversed, that law would be unaltered. Notice, also, that Newton’s first law of motion law implies that the status of a body at rest with no unbalanced force acting on it is time invariant.

Here is Newton’s first law in modern language:A body at rest remains at rest, and a body in motion continues to move at a constant speed along a straight line, unless the body is acted upon in either case by an unbalanced force.

Here is Newton’s second law:An unbalanced force acting on a body causes the body to accelerate in the direction of the force, and the acceleration is directly proportional to the unbalanced force and inversely proportional to the mass of the body.

What reversals of Newton’s first two laws would “cancel through” the effects of a reversal of time? More importantly, what would Newton’s first and second laws look like if the physics were reversed?


Tournesol, thanks for pointing out the error in my description of the effect of time running backward on the spinning earth. Let me try anew. Newton’s apple fell from the tree and hit the ground. If time had then reversed, the apple would have risen up to the tree. The only way to explain that would be that gravity had become a repulsive force (reversing a law of nature). However, if gravity became repulsive, all parts of the Earth would be repelled from each other, and the Earth would begin to expand. But that would not correspond to a reversal of time and a playback of history since the Earth had not been contracting when the apple fell. In this last example a reversal of time requires the reversal of a physical law that contradicts the reversal of time. Can you give us an example of a reversal of time and a reversal of laws of physics that could result in a playback of history without contradiction?

 

[Canute]

Canute... The notion of reality and its attendant questions arise because we have the physiological capacity to be aware of, and to differentiate between things of the mind and things external to the mind.

I agree that we have the ability to make this distinction. I do not agree that this entails the distinction is ontologically meaningful.

When we are conscious we are aware of two distinct kinds of information: that presented by our sense organs and that presented by our sub-conscious.

I feel it's easier to lump these together as physical and mental (or psychophysical) phenomena. In other words, all the things that the unfalsifiability of solipsim prevents us from establishing as existent.

Simple animals have their ‘value codes’ ‘pre-wired.’ They cannot change their values.

I didn't know that. I assumed that the brains of other animals were as plastic as ours are. Are you sure you're not just assuming this?

Because one of the primary values for any organism is self-survival, animals that have the ability to change their value codes require the ability to monitor the processes used to make those changes.

Not in the game of 'LIFE' (well known computer simulation of the evolution of species), where the survival and evolution of entities takes place with no self-monitoring. Although now I come to think of it there is a kind of self-monitoring. I'll have to think this one through. It's an interesting question.

Self-consciousness is the mental function that provides that monitor. Self-consciousness is a self-referential reentrant mental function. One can be aware of ones thoughts, and can at the same time be aware of that awareness. One can even be aware of the awareness of the awareness.

There is a view that self-consciousness is not the same as consciousness. This is because these words can be defined in different ways. For example, Dennett argues that the self is a delusion (although he fails to make clear who is being deluded) and this would be my view also. Therefore 'self-consciousness' is an ambiguous phrase. For a start, it implies two separate entities. Calling it 're-entrant' doesn't really solve this paradox of self-reference.

One definition of reality is ‘that which exists independently of ideas concerning it.’ A more terse definition is ‘reality is objective existence’.

I'm fine with that, it's just a definition. However, it is a confusing one. It is how many people, for example the philosopher Francis Bradley, would define 'Appearances' as directly contrasted with 'Reality'.

Our primary connection with reality is through the senses.

It is easy to conclude this but it is not true. We have no idea whether anything exists apart from our consciousness, so to say that we know of reality primarily through our senses makes a mockery of the word' reality'. I don't think many philosophers argue that our senses put us in touch with reality and many physicists argue that they do not. I'd say the unfalsifiability of solipsism proves that they do not, but I'm not sure that argument is watertight.

Although we can smell a distant fire or see the light of faint, very distant stars, we cannot sense the thoughts of other people, not even of those closest to us. Consequently, it was long thought that mind was not a part of the reality presented to us by the senses. That was the source of the mind-body dichotomy idea. Contemporary neurology has demolished the mind-body dichotomy by enabling us to sense specific parts of the brain that are active during specific mental activities. We should no longer think it impossible that a single thought might be externally sensed and identified.

Unfortunately contemporary neuroscience has so far failed miserably to solve the mind-body problem. Some think it will succeed in the future, but it has not succeeded yet. The source of the mind-body dichotomy is the mind-body dichotomy, and when it is demolished scientifically someone will win great fame and fortune. It will be front page news across the globe.

As you say, it's not possible to know that a physical or mental phenomena exists unless one is conscious. As a result, it is not possible to know that physical and mental phenomena are real. This is not just my opinion. You can easily and quickly establish the unfalsifiability of solipsism for yourself. This doesn't mean we all have to agree that psychophysical phenomena are in some sense not real, and clearly we don't all agree, but it does mean there is no means of falsifying a theory in which they are not really real (unless it can be shown false for other reasons). Thus, there are theories in which what you call 'reality' does not really exist. The second-century philosopher Nagarjuna wrote a very famous proof of the unreality of mental and corporeal phenomena, Not everyone thinks it is successful, but many people do. At least there's no evidence yet that forces us to the opposite conclusion.

Time is not fundamental to psychophysical phenomena, but motion is.

This is similar to what the Buddha said about all this, which might surprise you. However, there is something a little paradoxical about the idea that motion can exist before time exists. Wouldn't they have to come into existence at the same, er, time? In this case they would have to be a) equally fundamental, or b) equally non-fundamental and arise from a common source.

Our senses do not deceive us.

Descartes ran into all sorts of trouble over this one. If I remember right he concluded that we can trust that God is benign and therefore assume that He wouldn't give us senses that deceive us. I don't find this argument very convincing. Have you considered that the plot of the film 'Matrix' would be utterly ridiculous if anybody had ever shown that your statement is true? All this stuff is very confusing and it's incredibly easy to mistake an assumption for a fact.

regards
Canute

 

[Drachir]

Thanks for your comments, Canute.
I will need some time to study them.

best wishes
Drachir

 

[moving finger]

What I was saying about solipsism is that it is unfalsifiable. It seems to me this may not be an assumption. What do you think? Is it an assumption? If you agree that it is unfalsifiable then are you assuming this or do you know it? To be honest I'm not sure. It may depend on how we look at it. Either way I certainly cannot show that it is unfalsifiable. I can't even show that there is anyone I could show it to.

Solipsism as a belief may indeed be an unfalsifiable belief – but this is not the issue here. The issue is whether we can explain anything about the world, or understand anything about the world, or know anything about the world, without making assumptions. Are you suggesting that solipsism is an explanation of the world, or that solipsism allows us an understanding of the world, or that we can know anything about the world via solipsism? If yes, then you are simply assuming solipsism is true.

Are you suggesting that it's impossible to know anything without making an assumption? I don't think this is true.

I do. Can you provide any example of an explanation, or understanding, or knowledge, of the world which makes no assumptions?

The Tao Te Ching makes lots of assumptions about the world

Unless you know this is true you're making an assumption.

That’s OK – I’m the one who is saying knowledge of the world entails assumptions, thus I am being entirely consistent, aren’t I?

Adherents of Lao Tsu say that he knew what he was talking about.

He may have known what he was talking about (I do not say he did not) – but how did he know that he knew, and how do we know that he knew?

I cannot show that they represent knowledge, although I'd like to think I could make a reasonably good case. You're right to say that to some extent I'm asssuming they represent knowledge, but I'd rather say that I conclude that they do.

How do you arrive at this conclusion? Can you provide a rational or logical argument which shows how you arrive at this conclusion?

I certainly can't claim to know that the words you quoted are true, but I would claim that it is possible to know that they are true, and this would follow from Lao Tsu's words.

Whether “the words are true” or not is one thing, whether the propositions formed by the words represent true propositions about the world is another. How is it possible to know that these propositions are true?

It is never possible to demonstrate that one knows something. This is the source of some of our problems here. (Btw I'm half agreeing with you on most of your points, but I just think there's a bit more to this issue than you're acknowledging).

If it is never possible to demonstrate that one knows something, then we must simply assume that you know it, yes?

Knowledge is justified true belief. If one cannot justify one’s beliefs, with a coherent and rational argument which shows why one believes what one believes, then the belief is hardly justified is it? Even if the belief is justified, for “I believe that X is true” to be transformed into “I know that X is true” also entails that “X is true”. How would you propose to demonstrate the truth of the things you believe you know?

I'm suggesting that a theory based on an assumption is not knowledge.

This is not strictly true. How do you define “knowledge”? The conventional definition is justified true belief. If I justifiably believe that X, and X is true, then it follows I know that X.

I'm suggesting that although we may make assumptions in order to explore their implications, whether they hold up against the evidence, whether they result in a reductio, or as scaffolding for a theory etc., sooner or later we have to get rid of these assumptions, otherwise our theory will be a guess. More mathematically, I'm suggecting that for a theory to become knowledge it has to be axiomatised.

An axiom is a mathematical name for an assumption (otherwise known as a premise in logic). But you are saying above that a theory based on assumptions (axioms) cannot be knowledge…..?

But surely the whole point of a concept, used in this sense, is that the concept in question is the product of a mind. For example, manufacturers sometimes build concept cars, and these are physical objects. But the word concept means that someone has conceived of this car. Ditto for plan, scheme etc. These are concepts made real, and a real map, a real scheme ect. is not a concept. It originates as a concept. A concept has to be conceived to be a concept, and if it hasn't been conceived it is not a concept. That's how I see it anyway.

I understand that is how you see it – as I said before, most people associate concepts with consciously formed concepts – but this is simply anthropocentrism in action. A “concept car” could be designed by a machine which has no conscious mind.

You may be missing my point on this one. Suppose the B-series does not correlate. Then we could posit a C-series that does correlate. I'm suggesting that this allows us to deny any lack of correlation under all circumstances, which is dodgy tactics to me.

You are also missing the point. I am not the one saying that we need deny lack of correlation. YOU are the one who originally said that the objective brain-states would not be correlated with the subjective phenomenal states (and questioned the coherency of Dennett’s explanations if this were the case) – and I am simply saying that not all brain-states need be correlated with phenomenal states even if Dennett is right – hence your objection to Dennett’s explanations are not relevant.

Indeed, our conscious experience may require a series of “instants” in order to be a conscious experience –

This is the idea I was questionning. To many people an 'instant' seems an incoherent idea in the same way that the idea of an infinitessimal point seems incoherent.

Perhaps so – but all the evidence of quantum mechanics suggests that the physical world is granular and not continuous. A granular world does not necessarily imply infinitesimal points in space or infinitesimal points in time – it may be that both space and time are quantised.

Take our idea of change. No change can take place in the future, no change can take place in the past. In this case, change takes place in the present instant.

No change “takes place within anyone instant”. In a quantised world, change is measured between instants.

But, as Brian Greene puts it, applying the concept of change to an instant makes as much sense as subjecting a rock to psychoanalysis. There is a real paradox here, one that calls into question the reality of time, change etc.

No paradox, as long as we view each instant of space and time in a quantum framework, rather than in a continuous framework. There is no change “within” a quantum of space or time, but there are differences between (changes between) these quanta.

If the mind did not process that information to remove the blind spot and we always saw the missing information, say as a tiny dark spot in the middle of our view, what reality would that dark spot represent? It would represent the reality of the sensor, not of the thing(s) being sensed.

The only “reality” you have direct access to is the reality (data) from your sensors – your mind makes non-conscious adjustments to these data in order to present a “picture” to the conscious mind which is more useful (from a competitive point of view) than the raw data from the sensors. Your non-conscious mind therefore chooses to ignore the blind spot, the fact that it is there is concealed from your conscious mind. You may choose to not call this an illusion, but what your mind is doing is just the same as if it was creating an illusion for you – it is creating the illusion that your field of view is complete, with no blind spot.

I can’t believe that we consciously falsify our memories.

I did not say that we consciously falsify memories – I said we deliberately reconstruct conscious timelines – that deliberate reconstruction need not be a consciously controlled reconstruction. In the same way that our brain deliberately reconstructs the visual field of view to eliminate the blind spot – this is not a conscious reconstruction (which is why we are not normally aware of the reconstruction), but it is deliberately carried out by the mind.

Best Regards

 

[Canute]

Solipsism as a belief may indeed be an unfalsifiable belief – but this is not the issue here. The issue is whether we can explain anything about the world, or understand anything about the world, or know anything about the world, without making assumptions. Are you suggesting that solipsism is an explanation of the world, or that solipsism allows us an understanding of the world, or that we can know anything about the world via solipsism? If yes, then you are simply assuming solipsism is true.

I am assuming that solipsism is unfalsifiable (if this is an assumption). I'm also assuming that solipsism is unfalsifiable for a reason. In my view an explanation of the world that does not explain its unfalsifiability is either not fundamental or not correct. Moreover, an explanation of the world predicated on its truth or falsity would be a metaphysical theory not a scientific one. This is because according to Popper a scientific theory should be falsifiable. If a theory assumes solipsism is false then in this respect the theory is unfalsifiable.

I do. Can you provide any example of an explanation, or understanding, or knowledge, of the world which makes no assumptions?

I can't give a straight yes or no answer to this one. I'm still trying to figure out whether 'solipsism is unfalsifiable' is an assumption or knowledge. However, clearly knowledge of the world cannot be based on an assumption for then it would not be knowledge.

It seems to me that either we can know things without making assumptions or we cannot know anything. When you feel pain do you assume you are feeling it or do you know you are? If you know you are then you can know things without making assumptions.

If an explanation or theory is to make no assumptions then it cannot begin by assuming that solipsism is true or false. The only explanation of everything I know of in which solipsism is not assumed to be true or false is the 'nondual' doctrine of Buddhism, Taoism etc. I'd say this explanation is not based on assumptions, but there would be some provisos.

That’s OK – I’m the one who is saying knowledge of the world entails assumptions, thus I am being entirely consistent, aren’t I?

Yep.

He may have known what he was talking about (I do not say he did not) – ut how did he know that he knew, and how do we know that he knew?

This is the heart of the issue for me. Taoism is an empirical discipline. Lao Tsu writes that 'Knowing the ancient beginnings is the essence of Tao'. This may be interpreted to mean that that knowing the origin of the universe is what Taoism is all about. This knowledge is not knowledge if it is based on assumptions rather than being known empirically. Of course, I cannot demonstrate that it is possible to gain this knowledge in direct experience, and nor can anyone else. However, this is the perennial claim of the mystics. Curiously, all the people who agree that this knowledge is possible give the same explanation of the world.

How do you arrive at this conclusion? Can you provide a rational or logical argument which shows how you arrive at this conclusion?

Well, it's a long story but I'll try to keep it short. I reached the conclusion some time ago that if the universe begins with something or nothing this would contradict reason, just as philosophers and physicists have always concluded. This led me to wonder if the distinction we make in metaphysics between something and nothing is a category error.

I mentioned this idea to someone who, unknown to me, was a Buddhist. He pointed me at the nondual explanation of everything, specifically Buddhist doctrine, in which the something/nothing distinction is a category error. At that time I assumed that mysticism was a form of lunacy. But I persevered, and after a bit of research realized that the only explanation of everything which does not say the universe began with something or nothing is that given by the Upanishads, the Tao Teh Ching, the Buddhist sutras etc. Having now spent a few years researching this explanation my conclusion is that it is the only one that does not contradict reason. I reached this conclusion by reason, not by practice and experience, or as a result of some revelation on the road to Damascus or whatever, although as time went by I found that experience lent support to my reasoning. What is more, I discovered that the nondual doctrine explains the undecidability of all metaphysical questions, including the solipsism question. These days I can't see how it can not be the correct explanation of everything. It is even capable of explaining nonlocality.

Whether “the words are true” or not is one thing, whether the propositions formed by the words represent true propositions about the world is another. How is it possible to know that these propositions are true?

By going and checking their truth empirically. Yes, I know that will sound ridiculous to you. However, it is not unreasonable to say that a theory in which experience is fundamental is experimentally testable in experience.

If it is never possible to demonstrate that one knows something, then we must simply assume that you know it, yes?

I'd say you shouldn't assume that I know anything at all, or anyone else.

Knowledge is justified true belief. ... The conventional definition is justified true belief. If I justifiably believe that X, and X is true, then it follows I know that X.

This is one definition of knowledge but I'm not sure it's right to call it conventional. I suppose it's conventional in some circles but it's not in mine. To me knowledge is what is known. I'd say that if I justifiably believe X, then X. But the only way to justify a belief is to know that it's the case, and then it's knowledge and not belief. (However, these words can be defined variously, so this topic tends to become very muddled very quickly. I use 'belief' to mean something we do not know is the case).

An axiom is a mathematical name for an assumption (otherwise known as a premise in logic). But you are saying above that a theory based on assumptions (axioms) cannot be knowledge…..?

Yes, with a few provisos. It is contingent knowledge of the form - If X then Y. A proposition with an 'if' in it can hardly be said to be knowledge.

I understand that is how you see it – as I said before, most people associate concepts with consciously formed concepts – but this is simply anthropocentrism in action. A “concept car” could be designed by a machine which has no conscious mind.

I'd say that is an incorrect use of 'concept'. But let's just agree to differ on this one.

On the Dennet issue I don't know what I can add to what I've said already. We'll have to differ on that as well.

Perhaps so – but all the evidence of quantum mechanics suggests that the physical world is granular and not continuous. A granular world does not necessarily imply infinitesimal points in space or infinitesimal points in time – it may be that both space and time are quantised.

Oh dear. Is there anything we agree on? C. S. Peirce saw the number line, and by implication spacetime, as a continuum, and the numbers, points and instants as potentia. This is my view also. It has certainly not been shown that spacetime is quantised. Indeed, the mathematician Thomas Dantzig, much admired by Einstein, argues that the idea of a quantised spacetime is technically irrational.

No change “takes place within anyone instant”. In a quantised world, change is measured between instants... There is no change “within” a quantum of space or time, but there are differences between (changes between) these quanta.

Are you proposing that change takes place in the time between successive instants of time? I can't make sense of that idea. Bear in mind that the measurement is not the issue here, it's the change itself.

The only “reality” you have direct access to is the reality (data) from your sensors –

If solipsism is unfalsifiable this cannot be true, since I am (and you are) aware of something that exists with greater certainty than the concepts we construct based on electro-chemical signals from our senses.

your mind makes non-conscious adjustments to these data in order to present a “picture” to the conscious mind which is more useful (from a competitive point of view) than the raw data from the sensors.

Note that the 'Cartesian theatre' model of consciousness has little support in consciousness studies, if any.

Regards
Canute

 

[loseyourname]

I am assuming that solipsism is unfalsifiable (if this is an assumption). I'm also assuming that solipsism is unfalsifiable for a reason. In my view an explanation of the world that does not explain its unfalsifiability is either not fundamental or not correct. Moreover, an explanation of the world predicated on its truth or falsity would be a metaphysical theory not a scientific one. This is because according to Popper a scientific theory should be falsifiable. If a theory assumes solipsism is false then in this respect the theory is unfalsifiable.

Something tells me you have to be making a mistake here. Evolutionary theory implicitly postulates the falsity of Omphalism, which is unfalsifiable, but that doesn't make evolutionary theory unfalsifiable or unscientific (regardless of how you feel about its truth). Or are you simply arguing against scientific realism and making a case for instrumentalism?

 

[moving finger]

I am assuming that solipsism is unfalsifiable (if this is an assumption).

Well, either it is an assumption or it is not. What do you think?

I'm also assuming that solipsism is unfalsifiable for a reason. In my view an explanation of the world that does not explain its unfalsifiability is either not fundamental or not correct. Moreover, an explanation of the world predicated on its truth or falsity would be a metaphysical theory not a scientific one. This is because according to Popper a scientific theory should be falsifiable. If a theory assumes solipsism is false then in this respect the theory is unfalsifiable.

And? I’m not sure just what point you are trying to make here. You brought up the subject of solipsism for a reason presumably – but for the life of me I can’t see what that reason is.

On Popper – I have a great deal of respect for him and his work. However it may turn out that the fundamental theories of the world are indeed unfalsifiable. If that makes them “unscientific” according to Popper then that’s just too bad. If the ultimate theories are unfalsifiable this would not make the theories false, it would just make them “unscientific”. So what?

I can't give a straight yes or no answer to this one. I'm still trying to figure out whether 'solipsism is unfalsifiable' is an assumption or knowledge.

I don’t see that the proposition “solipsism is unfalsifiable” is either (a) an explanation of or (b) an understanding of the world. If the proposition is true, then it seems like an analytic truth to me (ie it is true by definition – independent of the world). I could claim that the statement “all bachelors are unmarried” is “knowledge which makes no assumptions” – but does it explain anything about the world, or does it allow us to understand the world? No, because it is an analytic truth (it is true by definition).

Thus to claim that the statement “solipsism is unfalsifiable” qualifies as knowledge about the world is in the same category as claiming that “blue is a colour” qualifies as knowledge about the world.

However, clearly knowledge of the world cannot be based on an assumption for then it would not be knowledge.

Please define what you mean by “knowledge” – I think we may have a different understanding of the word.

It seems to me that either we can know things without making assumptions or we cannot know anything. When you feel pain do you assume you are feeling it or do you know you are? If you know you are then you can know things without making assumptions.

Where is this pain that you think you are feeling? When you think you feel that pain, are you sure that you are feeling the pain, or are you perhaps a brain in a vat being manipulated by an evil scientist who is making you think that you are feeling a pain?

If an explanation or theory is to make no assumptions then it cannot begin by assuming that solipsism is true or false. The only explanation of everything I know of in which solipsism is not assumed to be true or false is the 'nondual' doctrine of Buddhism, Taoism etc. I'd say this explanation is not based on assumptions, but there would be some provisos.

Could you explain this alleged explanation?

This is the heart of the issue for me. Taoism is an empirical discipline. Lao Tsu writes that 'Knowing the ancient beginnings is the essence of Tao'. This may be interpreted to mean that that knowing the origin of the universe is what Taoism is all about. This knowledge is not knowledge if it is based on assumptions rather than being known empirically. Of course, I cannot demonstrate that it is possible to gain this knowledge in direct experience, and nor can anyone else.

If you cannot demonstrate it, then by what means do you know it is true?

However, this is the perennial claim of the mystics. Curiously, all the people who agree that this knowledge is possible give the same explanation of the world.

Do they? I doubt that. What explanation do they all give?

Well, it's a long story but I'll try to keep it short. I reached the conclusion some time ago that if the universe begins with something or nothing this would contradict reason, just as philosophers and physicists have always concluded. This led me to wonder if the distinction we make in metaphysics between something and nothing is a category error.

I mentioned this idea to someone who, unknown to me, was a Buddhist. He pointed me at the nondual explanation of everything, specifically Buddhist doctrine, in which the something/nothing distinction is a category error. At that time I assumed that mysticism was a form of lunacy. But I persevered, and after a bit of research realized that the only explanation of everything which does not say the universe began with something or nothing is that given by the Upanishads, the Tao Teh Ching, the Buddhist sutras etc. Having now spent a few years researching this explanation my conclusion is that it is the only one that does not contradict reason. I reached this conclusion by reason, not by practice and experience, or as a result of some revelation on the road to Damascus or whatever, although as time went by I found that experience lent support to my reasoning. What is more, I discovered that the nondual doctrine explains the undecidability of all metaphysical questions, including the solipsism question. These days I can't see how it can not be the correct explanation of everything. It is even capable of explaining nonlocality.

You have said what this explanation of yours is “not” – can you tell us what this explanation “is”?

By going and checking their truth empirically. Yes, I know that will sound ridiculous to you. However, it is not unreasonable to say that a theory in which experience is fundamental is experimentally testable in experience.

And exactly what knowledge does this “experience” provide to you about the world?

I'd say you shouldn't assume that I know anything at all, or anyone else.

Ahh I see – word games. Then I guess we better start at the beginning - Do you believe that you know anything at all? If so, what?

This is one definition of knowledge but I'm not sure it's right to call it conventional. I suppose it's conventional in some circles but it's not in mine. To me knowledge is what is known.

Forgive me for rejecting this definition as a tautology.

I'd say that if I justifiably believe X, then X.

You do not believe that your justified beliefs could ever be mistaken? You are infallible?

But the only way to justify a belief is to know that it's the case, and then it's knowledge and not belief.

Then it would seem that your definition of knowledge is indeed tautological. Do you think that defining “knowledge as something that is known” is a very useful definition? Does it help us to understand what knowledge is, and how we can come to acquire knowledge?

Yes, with a few provisos. It is contingent knowledge of the form - If X then Y. A proposition with an 'if' in it can hardly be said to be knowledge.

Earlier you claimed “mathematically, for a theory to become knowledge it has to be axiomatised”……. And now you are saying that once axiomatised it is not in fact knowledge?

Oh dear. Is there anything we agree on? C. S. Peirce saw the number line, and by implication spacetime, as a continuum, and the numbers, points and instants as potentia. This is my view also. It has certainly not been shown that spacetime is quantised. Indeed, the mathematician Thomas Dantzig, much admired by Einstein, argues that the idea of a quantised spacetime is technically irrational.

I did not claim that “it has been shown that spacetime is quantised”. But perhaps you could explain why you think the idea is irrational?

Are you proposing that change takes place in the time between successive instants of time? I can't make sense of that idea. Bear in mind that the measurement is not the issue here, it's the change itself.

No. Imho change is measured as the difference between successive instants.

If solipsism is unfalsifiable this cannot be true, since I am (and you are) aware of something that exists with greater certainty than the concepts we construct based on electro-chemical signals from our senses.

I have no idea what you mean here, you’ll need to explain.

Note that the 'Cartesian theatre' model of consciousness has little support in consciousness studies, if any.

Note that this is why I put the word “picture” in scare-quotes. I’m well aware of the invalidity of the simplistic Cartesian theatre model – I did not intend the idea of “picture” to be taken literally (hence the reason for the scare-quotes). (If anybody did take it literally then I apologise for misleading you).

Best Regards

 

[Canute]

Something tells me you have to be making a mistake here. Evolutionary theory implicitly postulates the falsity of Omphalism, which is unfalsifiable, but that doesn't make evolutionary theory unfalsifiable or unscientific (regardless of how you feel about its truth). Or are you simply arguing against scientific realism and making a case for instrumentalism?

I see your point, but I'm not sure omphalism/evolutionary theory is an equivalent problem. I'll think about it some more. Interestingly, some physicists now conclude that it would not be unscientific to conjecture that we create the past in hindsight, as it were, that our stories of the past become real as we come to believe them. I haven't got a reference but I think I picked this up from Michio Kaku's book.

This doesn't answer your question though. It seems to me that omphalism would render most scientific theories unfalsifiable. But omphalism is predicted on the notion of a creator God able to create the entire modern universe and everything in it from scratch from nothing in an instant. I feel this idea can be shown to be logically incoherent for reasons atheists have given over the ages. By contrast, solipsism makes no wild claims about Gods and ex nihilo creation. This isn't a very satisfactory answer but it's a first attempt.

Instrumentalism seems a sensible view to me but not scientific realism, although the latter may mean slightly different things to different people so it would depend. For everyday purposes scientific realism seems a practical and probably necessary approach, but problems arise with it when it is extended into the realms of ontology imo.

Regards
Canute

PS I found the passage in question. I thought it interesting enough to quote.

"While the ‘classical’ world we observe, in which particles have definite positions, may be one of the consistent worlds described by a solution to the theory, Dowker and Kent’s results showed that there had to be an infinite number of other worlds too. Moreover, there were an infinite number of consistent worlds that have been classical up to this point but will not be anything like our world in five minutes’ time. Even more disturbing, there were worlds that were classical now that were arbitrarily mixed up superpositions of classical at any point in the past. Dowker concluded that, if the consistent-histories interpretation is correct, we have no right to deduce from the existence of fossils now that dinosaurs roamed the planet a hundred million years ago."

Lee Smolin
Three Roads to Quantum Gravity
Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2000 (44)

 

[Canute]

MF

I'd like to simplify all this but can't see how at the moment. For now I'll go through the questions you raise. If you can see a way to narrow the discussion down to a couple of key issues then I'd be all for doing so. How come you and me end up arguing in so many threads?

Well, either it is an assumption or it is not. What do you think?

I don't know. I'm thinking of posting it as a question. It may be that there are two ways of looking at it. I can see two points of view.

And? I’m not sure just what point you are trying to make here. You brought up the subject of solipsism for a reason presumably – but for the life of me I can’t see what that reason is.

I've forgotten as well. Would it have been something to do with the logical incoherence of the idea that time exists inherently?

On Popper – I have a great deal of respect for him and his work. However it may turn out that the fundamental theories of the world are indeed unfalsifiable. If that makes them “unscientific” according to Popper then that’s just too bad. If the ultimate theories are unfalsifiable this would not make the theories false, it would just make them “unscientific”. So what?

I agree. A theory is a theory whether or not it is scientific. But someone mentioned Popper's ideas so I objected to the idea that scientific theories were truly falsifiable.

I don’t see that the proposition “solipsism is unfalsifiable” is either (a) an explanation of or (b) an understanding of the world. If the proposition is true, then it seems like an analytic truth to me (ie it is true by definition – independent of the world). I could claim that the statement “all bachelors are unmarried” is “knowledge which makes no assumptions” – but does it explain anything about the world, or does it allow us to understand the world? No, because it is an analytic truth (it is true by definition).

To me the unfalsifiability of solipsism cannot be an analytic truth since its truth cannot be derived from the definitions of the terms. But I agree that the proposition 'solipsism is unfasifiable' is not an explantion of anything. Rather, as I was proposing, it is a fact that needs an explanation. In my view a genuine 'theory of everything' should explain it.

Thus to claim that the statement “solipsism is unfalsifiable” qualifies as knowledge about the world is in the same category as claiming that “blue is a colour” qualifies as knowledge about the world.

Someone who has never seen 'blue' could nevertheless look up in a dictionary the fact that it is a colour. However, the unfalsifiability of solipsism is not a matter of definitions.

Please define what you mean by “knowledge” – I think we may have a different understanding of the word.

Yes, the trouble is that 'knowledge' it has at least two significantly different meanings. In an everyday sense of the word 'knowledge' generally means contingent, provisional or relative knowledge of the form 'if this then that'. (E.g. if my speedgun is working properly then that car doing 90 mph; if this supernova is this bright then that supernova must be x light years way etc.). But true knowledge, in Aristotle's sense, would be what is known for certain with no ifs or buts.

Where is this pain that you think you are feeling? When you think you feel that pain, are you sure that you are feeling the pain, or are you perhaps a brain in a vat being manipulated by an evil scientist who is making you think that you are feeling a pain?

It doesn't make any difference. If I'm feeling pain I'm feeling pain.

Could you explain this alleged explanation?

I'd be more than happy to try. But it ought to be done in a dedicated thread I think. If you post a question I'll have a go.

If you cannot demonstrate it, then by what means do you know it is true?

This is the million dollar question. You seem to agree that solipsism is unfalsifiable, yet you cannot demonstrate it. How then do you know? You know by virtue of being conscious. This is connected with Aristotle's remark that true knowledge is the identity of knower and known, one of the most important observations that a philosopher can make imho.

Do they? I doubt that. What explanation do they all give?

Let's start another thread to discuss this. The answer is a longish one.

And exactly what knowledge does this “experience” provide to you about the world?

Well, for a start, that solipsism is unfalsifiable.

Ahh I see – word games. Then I guess we better start at the beginning - Do you believe that you know anything at all? If so, what?

Ditto.

Forgive me for rejecting this definition as a tautology.

Yes it's a tautology. I don't have a non-tautological definition of certain knowledge. I suppose I would be happy with Aristotle's definition, that true knowledge is identical with its object.

You do not believe that your justified beliefs could ever be mistaken? You are infallible?

The answer to the first question would depend on what you mean by 'justified'. Generally I would define 'belief' as the opposite of 'knowledge', but I know many people define them differently.

Then it would seem that your definition of knowledge is indeed tautological. Do you think that defining “knowledge as something that is known” is a very useful definition? Does it help us to understand what knowledge is, and how we can come to acquire knowledge?

Strangely I do think this is a useful definition. Once it is understood then it helps in distinguishing between relative and absolute knowledge. The point is that only you can know whether you know something and how you do it.

Earlier you claimed “mathematically, for a theory to become knowledge it has to be axiomatised”……. And now you are saying that once axiomatised it is not in fact knowledge?

What I was getting at is that a theory founded on a axiomatic proposition whose truth or falsity is not known takes the form 'if A then B then C...'. Any theorems derived from the proposition would be contingent on a guess. The derived theorem would count as knowledge in the sense that it is knowledge of what follows from the truth of the proposition by a certain logical procedure, but it would not be knowledge in an absolute sense. In the mystical literature the two kinds of knowledge are usually distinguished by using a upper-case 'K' for the absolute kind ('Knowledge' as opposed to 'knowledge'). Perhaps we could adopt this convention to save some confusion.

I did not claim that “it has been shown that spacetime is quantised”. But perhaps you could explain why you think the idea is irrational?

Well, Zeno of Alea gives a few reductio arguments for its irrationality, as has physicist Peter Lynds more recently. Here is mathematician Tobias Dantzig from Number - The Langauge of Science (1930). This steers us back onto the topic.

"The axiom of Dedekind - "if all points of a straight line fall into two classes, such that every point of the first class lies to the left of any point of the second class, then there exists one and only one point which produces this division of all points into two classes, this severing of the straight line into two portions" - this axiom is just a skillful paraphrase of the fundamental property we attribute to time. Our intuition permits us, by an act of the mind, to sever all time into the two clasess, the past and the future, which are mutually exclusive and yet together comprise all of time, eternity: The now is the partition which separates all the past from all the future; any instant of the past was once a now, any instant of the future will be a now anon, and so any instant may itself act as such a partition. To be sure, of the past we know only disparate instants, yet, by an act of the mind we fill out the gaps; we conceive that between any two instants - no matter how closely these may be associated in our memory - there were other instants, and we postulate the same compactness for the future. This is what we mean by the flow of time.

Furthermore, paradoxical though this may seem, the present is truly irrational in the Dedekind sense of the word, for while it acts as partition it is neither a part of the past nor a part of the future. Indeed, in an arithmetic based on pure time, if such an arithmetic was at all possible, it is the irrational which would be taken as a matter of course, while all the painstaking efforts of our logic would be directed toward establishing the existence of rational numbers.

No. Imho change is measured as the difference between successive instants.

Are you suggesting that change happens between instants, and thus outside time altogether?

I have no idea what you mean here, you’ll need to explain.

I was suggesting that for a person who concludes that solipsism is unfalsifiable there is something of whose existence they are more certain than the conceptual constructs they create from the evidence of their senses.

Note that this is why I put the word “picture” in scare-quotes. I’m well aware of the invalidity of the simplistic Cartesian theatre model – I did not intend the idea of “picture” to be taken literally (hence the reason for the scare-quotes). (If anybody did take it literally then I apologise for misleading you).

Ah. Pardon me, I misssed the quote marks.

regards
Canute

 

[Drachir]

Solipsism?

Canute in #52] wrote:

Originally Posted by Drachir
The notion of reality and its attendant questions arise because we have the physiological capacity to be aware of, and to differentiate between things of the mind and things external to the mind.

I agree that we have the ability to make this distinction. I do not agree that this entails the distinction is ontologically meaningful.

To know that a thing exists, that thing must somehow stand out from all other things, else it could not be differentiated from anything and we could not even be aware of it. To know that one exists one must first differentiate between oneself and something else. Since a consciousness conscious only of itself is a contradiction in terms, the distinction between things of the mind and things external to the mind is most meaningfully at the heart of ontology.

Canute in #52] wrote, first quoting me:

Quote:
When we are conscious we are aware of two distinct kinds of information: that presented by our sense organs and that presented by our sub-conscious.

I feel it's easier to lump these together as physical and mental (or psychophysical) phenomena. In other words, all the things that the unfalsifiability of solipsim prevents us from establishing as existent.

You have agreed that we have the capacity to differentiate between things of the mind and things external to it. Haven’t you just contradicted the solipsist position? As for solipsism, because of it’s incoherence it is neither falsifiable nor unfalsifiable and prevents us from nothing.

There are other simpler problems for the solipsist. The solipsist cannot know of his own existence because for him there is nothing else from which he can stand out. As the sole existent, the solipsist would be the generator and possessor of all knowledge. Since he would know about every thing except his own existence the only thing he could doubt would be his own existence. But then he could not be sure who is doing the doubting.



Canute in #52]next wrote, first quoting me:

Quote:
Simple animals have their ‘value codes’ ‘pre-wired.’ They cannot change their values.

I didn't know that. I assumed that the brains of other animals were as plastic as ours are. Are you sure you're not just assuming this?

It’s not a matter of plasticity; it’s a matter of resources.

The sea snail Aplysia californica’s brain contains only about 20,000 neurons. It can learn from experience (via its sensory systems). However, it cannot choose not to learn and it cannot choose what to learn; it is “pre-wired” to learn a few things to enhance its chances of survival. Like all animals, it has consciousness; it is aware of its surroundings. It can distinguish between food and a predator. It even has one kind of self-consciousness, the awareness of its own body. However, it does not have the wherewithal to be conscious of any of its mental processes. That kind of self-consciousness requires the capacity for language and grammar. When we are conscious of our own thinking, we present those self-conscious ideas to ourselves in language. We can do that because a human brain contains about 100 billion neurons.

Whether for bees, birds, dogs or humans, language arises only in a social context. Solipsists use language, a product of society, to claim that there is no society. In so doing they have figuratively cut off their legs and cannot stand. Descartes’ ontology (which spawned modern solipsism) was as flawed as his physiology (e.g., ‘the function of the lungs is to warm the blood’}. He was, however, a brilliant mathematician and we are forever in his debt for wedding algebra to geometry with his Cartesian coordinates.
.
Canute in #52] wrote, first quoting me:

Quote:
Self-consciousness is the mental function that provides that monitor. Self-consciousness is a self-referential reentrant mental function. One can be aware of ones thoughts, and can at the same time be aware of that awareness. One can even be aware of the awareness of the awareness.

This is where these issues become very complicated. There is a view that self-consciousness is not the same as consciousness. This is because these words can be defined in different ways. Dennett argues that the self is a delusion (although he fails to make clear who is being deluded) and this would be my view also. Therefore 'self-consciousness' is an ambiguous phrase. For a start, it implies two separate entities. Calling it 're-entrant' doesn't really solve this paradox of self-reference.

I find no complication in these issues. We should first recognize that that the word ‘self’ has two distinct usages. If, after having carelessly hit my thumb with a hammer, I say “I hurt myself,” ‘self’ means body or a part of it. However, if I convince myself that I can tell in advance how a tossed coin will land, and then find that I cannot and say “I have deluded myself,” self means thought content, not body or body part.

Consciousness is nothing else than being aware of sense information. That sense information includes information about ones own body as I mentioned above.
Thus the self-consciousness where ‘self’ means ‘body’ is one of the functions of consciousness.

Being aware of ones own thinking is not the same as being aware of ones body. In that second kind of self-consciousness, one is aware not of the body, brain, or the physical process of thought; one is then aware of the content or meaning of the thought and how that content was formed. The mapping of each body part, or kind of sensor, is highly localized in the brain. The mapping of ‘thought self-consciousness’ is widely diffused in the brain. The two kinds of self-consciousness are indeed different things. If Dennett believes that the body self is a delusion I will lend him my hammer and he can discover whose thumb it is that hurts when he strikes his thumb. If Dennett thinks the thought content awareness self is a delusion and is not sure whose ideas he is espousing, he better be careful about what he copyrights.

Here is an analogy that may aid comprehension of the difference between the process of thought and the content or meaning of a thought. Computer memory stores information in binary format (0 or 1). A byte of information consists of 8 binary bits. The content or meaning of the byte 01000001 can represent different things depending on the context. Converted to a decimal number it means 65. Converted to an alphanumeric character it means capital A. It can represent a location in computer memory, and other things as well. The state of the bits (flip-flop state, magnetic polarity, etc) is physical; but their meaning is not inherent in the physical states representing the byte. The meaning depends on how the information is to be used.

Canute in #52] also wrote, first quoting me:

Quote:
One definition of reality is ‘that which exists independently of ideas concerning it.’ A more terse definition is ‘reality is objective existence’.

I'm fine with that, it's just a definition. However, it is a confusing one. It is how many people, for example the philosopher Francis Bradley, would define 'Appearances' as directly contrasted with 'Reality'.

It’s just a definition? A definition specifies the meaning of a word or term. If we are not clear about the meanings of the words with which we think, we cannot know what we are thinking about.

I thought that Bradley believed that every appearance, even if misleading, is a constituent of reality. Appearance is a matter of how one interprets the information from the senses. The unconscious climber of Mt. Everest appeared to be dead when in fact he wasn’t. That appearance was not a part of reality; it was the content of a thought. I described above how the content of a thought cannot be a part of reality.

Canute in #52] also wrote, first quoting me:

Quote:
Our primary connection with reality is through the senses.

It is easy to conclude this but it is not true. We have no idea whether anything exists apart from our consciousness, so to say that we know of reality through our senses makes a mockery of the word' reality'. I don't think many philosophers argue that our senses put us in touch with reality, and many physicists argue that they do not. I'd say the unfalsifiability of solipsism proves that they do not, but I'm not sure that argument is watertight.

I have presented above a view on this topic based on Wittgenstien’s Philosophical Investigations. It effectively disposes of the notions of private experience and private language that are basic presumptions in Cartesian dualism and solipsism.

Canute in #52] also wrote, first quoting me:

Quote:
Although we can smell a distant fire or see the light of faint, very distant stars, we cannot sense the thoughts of other people, not even of those closest to us. Consequently, it was long thought that mind was not a part of the reality presented to us by the senses. That was the source of the mind-body dichotomy idea. Contemporary neurology has demolished the mind-body dichotomy by enabling us to sense specific parts of the brain that are active during specific mental activities. We should no longer think it impossible that a single thought might be externally sensed and identified.

Unfortunately contemporary neuroscience has so far failed miserably to solve the mind-body problem. Some think it will succeed in the future, but it has not succeeded yet. The source of the mind-body dichotomy is the mind-body dichotomy, and when it is demolished scientifically someone will win great fame and fortune. It will be front page news across the globe.

How can something be its own source?

I remember some work done in the 60’s on planaria worms. Some of them were taught to curl up on receipt of an electric shock. Their offspring had that knowledge. But what was more striking was that untrained worms fed a puree of trained worms acquired the knowledge without training. Those studies also indicated that learning and memory are chemical processes.

One of the people who did win great fame while demolishing the mind-body dichotomy is Eric Kandel. Kandel searched for and found the chemical bases of learning, of short-term memory, and of long-term memory. The neuron and its ‘wiring’ are not modified, but synaptic sensitivity is chemically modified. Thus mind (e.g., learning, memory) is body (chemical). He won the Nobel Prize for that work in 2000. I would imagine it was front-page news across the globe.

[]Canute[/b] in #52] continued:

It's not possible to know that a physical or mental phenomena exists unless one is conscious, as you say. As a result, it is not possible to know that physical and mental phenomena are real. This is not my opinion. You can easily and quickly establish the unfalsifiability of solipsism for yourself. This doesn't mean we all have to agree that psychophysical pehnomena are in some sense not real, and clearly we don't all agree, but it does mean there is no means of falsifying a theory in which they are not really real (unless it can be shown false for other reasons). Thus, there are theories in which what you call 'reality' does not really exist. The second-century philosopher Nagarjuna wrote a very famous proof of the unreality of mental and corporeal phenomena, Not everyone thinks it is successful, but many people do. At least there's no evidence yet that forces us to the opposite conclusion.

Solipsism denies itself by its use of language as I have noted above. All self-denials are without meaning and, hence, are neither true nor false, neither falsifiable or unfalsifiable. The statement “This statement is false” is a self-denial, hence meaningless and neither true nor false.

Your statement “Thus, there are theories in which what you call 'reality' does not really exist” seems an inadvertent bad choice of words. What meaning can the term ‘really’ have if there is no reality?

Canute in #52] also wrote, first quoting me:

Quote:
Time is not fundamental to psychophysical phenomena, but motion is.

This is similar to what the Buddha said about all this, which might surprise you. However, there is something a little paradoxical about the idea that motion can exist before time exists. Wouldn't they have to come into existence at the same, er, time? In this case they would have to be a) equally fundamental, or b) equally non-fundamental and arise from a common source.

Motions exist in the real world. Time never comes into existence in the real world. Time is a mental abstraction, a content of thought that allows one to correlate different motions. That abstraction can only be made after one observes the motions of things.

Canute in #52] also wrote, first quoting me:

Quote:
Our senses do not deceive us.

Descartes ran into all sorts of trouble over this one. If I remember right he concluded that we can trust that God is benign and therefore assume that He wouldn't give us senses that deceive us. I don't find this argument very convincing. Have you considered that the plot of the film 'Matrix' would be utterly ridiculous if anybody had ever shown that your statement is true? All this stuff is very confusing and it's incredibly easy to mistake an assumption for a fact.

Descartes introduced the benign God idea to avoid falling into the solipsism ready to jump out from his dualism. Solipsism would lead to questions about the existence of God. Descartes was a devout Catholic and did all he could to avoid becoming a subject of the Inquisition or to be censured by the Church in any way.

I still maintain that our senses do not deceive us, but inadvertent misinterpretation of sense information is a form of unwitting self-deception. Magicians count on it to make a living.

I never saw Matrix.

Best wishes
Drachir