But my point was that perhaps there is a difference in kind. — schopenhauer1

The claim that there is a difference in kind between an organism and a computer program is quite different that the claim that there is a difference in kind between organisms. Even so, I suspect that with the continued advances in AI just where those differences lie may become less and less clear.

Well, rather it was trying to point out that computer programs are so far, an example where adding degree to algorithms, functions, signals, and networks doesn’t get you any consciousness simply by increasing degree.

We can parse terms and say it does increase its intelligence, but no further for subjective experience.

Here we need to bear in mind that people who are born and raised into a religion have their sense of self shaped by the religion. They have no sense of identity apart or outside of their religion. — baker

I have several friends who were very religious as children and into their teens, who in their later teens firmly rejected their religion.

I agree with you that the psychology of selfhood vis a vis introjected beliefs is complex.

Of course we might throw up our hands and just say that God wants some people to be autistic, schizophrenic, bipolar, etc. I find considering scientifically informed speculation to be of vastly greater practical and humanistic value.

So do you thereby think applying the scientific method to an individual by a scientifically informed individual is superior to being psychoanalyzed by a psychiatrist? Would you prefer mental diagnosis made by an AI algorithm, as is currently being performed with some success, as opposed to another human? Which do you think will understand your condition of life better?

So do you thereby think applying the scientific method to an individual by a scientifically informed individual is superior to being seen and psychoanalyzed by a psychiatrist? — kudos

It's rather apples and oranges, and I don't see it as making much sense to compare the value of them. A combination of the two seems likely to be superior to either one alone. For that matter, one might hope the psychiatrist was well informed scientifically.

Would you prefer mental diagnosis made by an AI algorithm, as is currently being performed with some success, as opposed to another human? Which do you think will understand your condition of life better? — kudos

Things are too much in flux in the AI world for me to want to venture an opinion. I would think an AI and a human would understand an individual in different ways, and there is likely to be value to both in the near future, if not at present.

Imagine you were able to develop a scientific model of consciousness that was so effective, you would put all the world's psychiatrists out of business. So you were forced to choose one. What would you choose? Ignore the factor of putting them out of a job for now, and assume they would easily find other jobs.

I don't know.

The purpose of the question was to ask you, 'do you consider consciousness to be something explainable via the scientific method, or something also actual and not explainable.' From your offence to my earlier posts about lack of explainability I assumed you would immediately choose the AI program, but maybe I was wrong in that judgement.

So you agree in the claim an identity of consciousness=subjectivity, so we are back again to 1600's Descartes philosophy. — kudos

When was it ever not defined as some "interiority"? You can define whatever word you want it to be, but for the purposes I have been using it, it is subjective/experiential/what-it's-likeness. In other words primary consciousness, not necessarily self-consciousness (a kind of consciousness that human beings have).

I hold that there is no such thing as two words that mean the same thing.

I hold that there is no such thing as two words that mean the same thing. — kudos

What are you using as definition of "consciousness" if not some form of "awareness" or "experience" or "point of view"? For example, the insect's "experience" of the world. If that isn't a thing, try another animal with a more complex neural system (not ok with conscious crabs and snails? how about lampreys, fish, or frogs then?). You see that is the point, where to draw the line from merely behavioral inputs/outputs (reflexive like behavior) to an animal that has some sort of "experience". Where is the divide, and WHAT is that divide? I used the article to show how it is tricky as saying something like "information is encoded in the neurons" is a subtle but apparent homunculus fallacy. What is this "information encoded" then? The observer seems to be assumed by magically saying "information encoded".

You have already posited the subject as existing in the line 'the organism has to establish a boundary...' So the subject is then object, since all these boundaries begin to become established by objective means, as in fertilization from cells created through biological processes. It sounds like you are including the idea of Becoming as referenced by Gnomon if I am not correct. Care to elaborate? — kudos

As I’m not a materialist, what I’m seeking to articulate is the ontological distinction between living and non-living things (or between things and beings). Materialists will generally assume (or insist) that, as living beings are constituted by the same elements as the rest of the Universe, then they are just organised matter, that there is no essential difference between living and non-living. In fact they have to say that, because recognising such an ontological distinction would undermine materialism, which claims there is only one substance (in the philosophical sense of that word) and that living beings are wholly physical in nature. That is also tied to the concept of abiogenesis, the non-biological origin of life, in which it is presumed some specific unique combination of physical circumstances spontaneously gave rise to organic matter and ultimately to the first simple living organisms almost as a kind of complex chemical reaction.

I am trying to articulate an alternative to that which doesn’t rely on vitalism (‘animating spirits’) or theistic creation. That’s why I appealed to the text by Thomas Nagel, who is an analytic philosopher and not any kind of religious apologist. His point is that the nature of subjective experience is such that it eludes objective description (articulated in his famous paper What is it Like to be a Bat?) So drawing on that kind of analysis, I’m speculating that even the most basic life-forms are in some real sense the appearance of conscious agency - not that a conscious agent made organisms a la theistic creation, but that this is the beginning of the appearance of conscious agents, which then become more elaborate through the course of evolutionary development.

I do notice that in many discussions of evolution there is a tendency to attribute agency to evolution itself - that evolution ‘does’ this or ‘produces’ that or ‘isn’t evolution marvellous?’ And so on. But I think the only natural agents that can really be discerned just ARE organisms. They’re the ones ‘doing’ and ‘producing’ and ‘creating’ (and it involves immense struggle and sacrifice.) That’s why I am drawn to the paper I linked yesterday, From Physical Causes to Organisms of Meaning. That paper is also non-theistic and naturalist, but not materialist, because it recognises there is a fundamental sense in which biology cannot be reduced to physics, but without appealing to vitalism.

@Wayfarer@kudos@Janus@Fooloso4. It’s as if you add up enough behaviors you get a feeling.

I more or less agree, full scale materialism is a bit ridiculous. It sounds like what you are really concerned with is existence itself. When we consider everything from inside a rational structure, do we always have a blind spot?

It seems like your plan is to beat materialism in kind with a material notion of spirit, a consciousness that is essentially the antiquated form of spirit itself, as the divine inside a divine subject. It is the idea of Jesus Christ, the embodiment of the divine in human form. And this whole thing seems caught in this post-Christian paradigm. In it we are constantly avoiding a notion of spirit while still operating within it.

Or maybe this higher level consciousness rests in empty actuality.

When we consider everything from inside a rational structure, do we always have a blind spot? — kudos

The blind spot of science is the neglect of lived experience.

It seems like your plan is to beat materialism in kind with a material notion of spirit, a consciousness that is essentially the antiquated form of spirit itself, as the divine inside a divine subject. It is the idea of Jesus Christ, the embodiment of the divine in human form. And this whole thing seems caught in this post-Christian paradigm. In it we are constantly avoiding a notion of spirit while still operating within it.
Or maybe this higher level consciousness rests in empty actuality. — kudos

can speak for himself. In my opinion, he is the wisest poster on this forum, and with the fewest blind-spots.

I don't know where you found the notion of "a material notion of spirit" in his last post. That may be due to a "blind spot" of your own, which interprets everything in the world based on belief in an unproven axiom : PanMaterialism. Which seems caught in a post-Renaissance paradigm. Ironically, 20th century Quantum physics discovered a fundamental inter-connection between Mind and Matter*1. But the role (participation) of an observer's mind was quickly swept under the rug by the dominant class of classical (materialist) physicists.

Way did use the term "substance", but in the Aristotelian sense of Ousia (being ; existence)*2. FWIW, I interpret Wayfarer's use of "substance" as more closely related to Platonic Form (idea ; essence ; design ; concept)*2. Which is abhorrent to Materialists, who denigrate it as a spooky spirit or ghost : a la The Ghost in the Machine. Materialists seem to have a blind spot for the ancient philosophical concept of an immaterial general quality that makes an individual material thing (quanta) what it is.

Bergson's elan vital referred, not to a ghost, but to an organizing principle in nature. Since the Big Bang, Nature seems to have a self-organizing power that Materialists take for granted, but are loathe to give it a name*3. In the biological sciences it is recognized as essential to evolutionary development, but they label it as "spontaneous"*4 (a chain of accidents tending toward complexity & integration?) to imply that an "external stimulus" was not necessary. Similarly, astrophysicists assume, as an unproven axiom, that the Big Bang was a spontaneous or random event without precedence : pop goes the chaos, which evolves into a cosmos. And yet, some scientists --- bothered by the something-from-nothing implication --- have postulated an imaginary "external stimulus" in the form of an eternal material Multiverse. :smile:


*1. Is Scientific Materialism "Almost Certainly False"? :
According to the physicist John Wheeler, quantum mechanics implies that our observations of reality influence its unfolding. We live in a "participatory universe," Wheeler proposed, in which mind is as fundamental as matter.
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cross-check/is-scientific-materialism-almost-certainly-false/

*2. What is the difference between substance and essence in Aristotle? :
Essence is what makes a thing that particular thing. In other words, essence is what makes “that chair.” Substance is what makes a thing a general thing. In other words, substance is what makes “a chair.”
https://o-g-rose-writing.medium.com/essence-substance-and-form-81c2b707c0d8

*3. Self-organization, also called spontaneous order in the social sciences, is a process where some form of overall order arises from local interactions ..
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-organization
Note --- Quantum physics is characterized by non-locality. Not divine intervention, but holistic inter-action.

*4. Spontaneous : performed or occurring as a result of a sudden inner impulse or inclination and without premeditation or external stimulus.

:yikes:

"The contention that science reveals a perfectly objective ‘reality’ is more theological than scientific"

What these viewpoints have in common is a propensity to stop short at an end. To exist within an idea and to know it from within. I feel as though giving religion and science a name was a bad idea. They have become a red herring in philosophy.

What is PanMaterialism? I Googled it and found nothing.

The purpose of the question was to ask you, 'do you consider consciousness to be something explainable via the scientific method... — kudos

I don't know the limits of scientific investigation, but I certainly think it can be much better understood than it is now. It's a heavily interdisciplinary area of study.

No one cares about that last post? :D. I really meant it seriously. It seems like some people think that magically behavioral processes at some dividing line of species has some sort of "what it's likeness". Whence this divide without committing homuncular funkular?

Not sure what you’re getting at here. And the humunculus references are not helping.

Do you know what a homunculus fallacy is?

It seems like your plan is to beat materialism in kind with a material notion of spirit, a consciousness that is essentially the antiquated form of spirit itself, as the divine inside a divine subject. It is the idea of Jesus Christ, the embodiment of the divine in human form. And this whole thing seems caught in this post-Christian paradigm. In it we are constantly avoiding a notion of spirit while still operating within it. — kudos

Don’t know what to make of this, really. Mine is more to approach the subject through philosophy - to expose the hidden assumptions behind the taken-for-granted view. I frequently cite Thomas Nagel for that reason - he’s a mainstream philosopher, a tenured academic, who has had the guts to question the materialist consensus (and was heavily criticized for it). The other guy I cited, Stephen L. Talbott, is an independent scholar and philosopher of biology. I learned of his work through a great series of essays on The New Atlantis. Neither of them are specifically religious in orientation, but once you call the materialist consensus into question, alternative perspectives open up.

But you’re right in saying that my approach is existential. I’m only coming to realise that myself, after a lot of study.

↪Gnomon
What is PanMaterialism? I Googled it and found nothing. — kudos

All-matter-all-the time-every-where. I just made-up a name to serve as an analogy with PanPsychism (all mind) or PanTheism (all god). My tongue-in-cheek intention was not to propose a new religion, but to draw attention to the secular "religion of our times"*1. :joke:

Materialism is not a synonym for "science", but an unprovable assumption or belief system or worldview*2. It began as the ancient philosophy/science of Atomism, not as a substitute for pagan religions*3. Even after thousands of years of argumentation, Atomism still has no explanation for such "hard" questions as the emergence of Consciousness in a material world.

Darwin's evolutionary theory did not require any divine intervention, but it did not assert that matter-is-all-there-is, and left open the question of Causation*4. It did however posit a replacement for direct divine intervention with random (statistical) accidents & innate selection criteria (specifications). The all-powerful-matter interpretation was added by those who wanted a secular alternative to Christian Creationism*5. But Materialism has also been used to fill all open & abstract philosophical questions with objective concrete stuff. Unfortunately, it tends to be leaky in the joints around subjective ideas, opinions & feelings. :smile:


*1. Materialism as a Worldview :
John Searle, the eminent professor of philosophy at U.C. Berkeley, once said that "there is a sense in which materialism is the religion of our time." . . . . Perhaps we can see how relevant materialism is to Darwinian evolution. For if materialism is true then something very much like Darwinism must be true. . . . . The explicit materialism of the Darwinians is the mirror image of creationism.
https://evolutionnews.org/2013/09/what_is_the_wor/

*2. Definitions of "-ism" :
a belief (or system of beliefs) accepted as authoritative by some group or school. synonyms: doctrine, philosophical system, philosophy, school of thought.
https://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/ism

*3. Atomism is a metaphysical doctrine that asserts the existence of indivisible material unities that constitute all other material objects. This was suggested by several ancient philosophers and was revived by physicists when they discovered what we now call atoms (though they aren’t indivisible) . . . .
Materialism is a broad term in philosophy which posits that the subject at hand is ‘material’ or physically grounded. This usually takes the form of a metaphysical position on the nature of reality which contrasts with ‘immaterialism’ or ‘idealism’.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomism

*4. Darwin's First Cause :
On the Origin of Species reflects theological views. Though he thought of religion as a tribal survival strategy, Darwin still believed that God was the ultimate lawgiver, and later recollected that at the time he was convinced of the existence of God as a First Cause and deserved to be called a theist.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_views_of_Charles_Darwin

*5. Materialism in academia is a fundamentalist belief system :
Materialism is the worldview that the only thing that exists is matter. Everything is matter. Not just tea cups and horses, but feelings of love and joy, thoughts and emotions, the taste of an apple, the beauty of a sunset. They are all matter.
https://www.essentiafoundation.org/materialism-in-academia-is-a-fundamentalist-belief-system/reading/

OK, are you singling me out now for not getting homunculus funkulus? I think I should be forgiven for said transgression.

So I was asking the serious question:
How many behaviors makes a feeling? And no one cared about that, and it's crucial. Notice how the article I referenced tried to answer this kind of question by saying "information is encoded in the neurons", as if this then answers that hard problem question. But it doesn't. It is just a stand-in for how it is that at a sufficient amount of neurons, consciousness comes on the scene. It pushes the question back to "information" which itself has to be explained as to "what" that is as to its identity as conscious experience.

Earlier, @Fooloso4 thought it was simply about degree, and this was also addressing how much degree becomes what appears to be a difference in kind. Either you are proposing panpsychism or your are not.

I am not proposing it, everyone more or less already uses this category. It would be ridiculous to suggest your experience of reality was true and unfiltered projection of an exterior world. That green was in the leaf is sort of silly, no?

So I was asking the serious question:
How many behaviors makes a feeling? And no one cared about that, and it's crucial.

Having a behaviour implies an observational objective, but observation is also a competing objective in itself. And homunculus returns.

It would be ridiculous to suggest your experience of reality was true and unfiltered projection of an exterior world. That green was in the leaf is sort of silly, no? — kudos

Panpsychism means that there is some sort of experiential-ness to matter/energy at some level (where these "occasions of experience" inhere or at what level is a different story).

Having a behaviour implies an observational objective, but observation is also a competing objective in itself. And homunculus returns. — kudos

Can you elaborate? If a sponge reacts to its environment, this is a behavior. But most don't think it's conscious or has feeling associated with it. A snail might react to light perhaps this is purely behavior or perhaps there is a "feeling" associated. At what point is the divide? And hence the question "How many behaviors makes a feeling?".

Can you elaborate? If a sponge reacts to its environment, this is a behavior. But most don't think it's conscious or has feeling associated with it. A snail might react to light perhaps this is purely behavior or perhaps there is a "feeling" associated. At what point is the divide?

The problem here is we are utilizing and extending the word 'Consciousness' synchronically to mean more than it means diachronically. It is now an umbrella term that means the whole lot of subjectivity, spirit, existence, autonomy, intelligence, right, citizenship, etc. It's used as if to suggest that because something is conscious it deserves to be treated with essential rights. We respect the lives of humans more than animals and sponges, because of factors extending beyond the idea that they have consciousness. It is just for the very reason that one cannot tell what beings are conscious agents except by certain cues, and that's really all we mean when we use the word; it is a word for a phenomenological agent by definition.

Panpsychism means that there is some sort of experiential-ness to matter/energy at some level (where these "occasions of experience" inhere or at what level is a different story).

Which we now consider common sense. Unless you take the view that the activity of matter depends on or is directed by it, which is another story. To suggest otherwise would be as homunculus as you can possibly get. That there is a little man with the controls inside who is seeing existence unfiltered, and he decides whether or not to think or consider things independently, and is thus controlled by another homunculus ad infinitum as far as I understand the concept.