That's not what I was saying there, though I do agree with something more-or-less similar to that. (To fully agree with that, all of the internal behavior, the functional goings-on in the robot's equivalent of a brain, has to be the same too. Not just something that can mimic the gross motor actions of a person.)

What I was saying there is roughly that "to do is to be" and "to be is to do" (a thing's existence consists entirely in what it does, all of its properties are dispositions to act upon observers in certain ways) and "to be is to be perceive[able]" (a thing's existence consists entirely of its its observable properties) are different ways of phrasing the same statement, because for a thing to be "perceived" (more technically observed or sensed; perception is something more than that in contemporary terminology) is for it to act upon the observer. What's actually going on is an interaction between two things, and that same interaction constitutes both the behavior of the one thing upon the other, and the experience the other thing has of the first thing.

I think there are only physical things, and that physical things consist only of their empirical properties, which are actually just functional dispositions to interact with observers (who are just other physical things) in particular ways. A subject's phenomenal experience of an object is the same event as that object's behavior upon the subject, and the web of such events is what reality is made out of, with the nodes in that web being the objects of reality, each defined by its function in that web of interactions, how it observably behaves in response to what it experiences, in other words what it does in response to what is done to it. — Pfhorrest

There's a deep definitional problem regarding the nature of physical things. This is of course the fundamental subject of physics, but physics has been unable to arrive at such a definition, despite having constructed the most complex, largest and expensive apparatus in history (namely, the large hadron collider).

There's a current article in Aeon magazine about whether what the Universe is 'made of' is atoms or fields. The conclusion is moot, but let's just note in passing that 'fields' are of a far more ethereal nature than the so-called 'indivisible particle' (which atoms were thought to have been, but which so far have never been observed.)

So we can't really even say what a physical thing is, other than in a common-sense way. But as we're dealing here with foundational definition of what constitutes the nature of being, then does declaring that there are 'only physical things' say anything beyond your adherence to physicalism?

. A subject's phenomenal experience of an object is the same event as that object's behavior upon the subject

However, surely you can't be saying that stones experience the hitting of a human subject. The fundamental point about beings, as distinct from inanimate objects, is that they are demonstrably subjects of experience, whereas there is no grounds for asserting that with respect to stones and other objects.

So we can't really even say what a physical thing is, other than in a common-sense way. But as we're dealing here with foundational definition of what constitutes the nature of being, then does declaring that there are 'only physical things' say anything beyond your adherence to physicalism? — Wayfarer

I gave my definition of what a physical thing is in the bit that you quoted. But yes, when it comes down to it, saying that something is or isn't physical really says very little at all, because on such a definition, being nonphysical is the same thing as being unreal: it's being somehow wholly disconnected from the web of interactions that constitutes reality (on my account). Being a philosophical zombie is likewise incoherent, for the exact same reason: to have no phenomenal experience would be to be completely disconnected from that web of interactions, just seen from the subjective side of those interactions rather than the objective side.

(As an aside, you know that "physical" is broader than "material", right? I'm actually against materialism, in a certain sense of the word, the sense that George Berkeley was against. But even as a subjective idealist, Berkeley still considered himself a physicalist).

However, surely you can't be saying that stones experience the hitting of a human subject. — Wayfarer

That wasn't what I was saying there, but I do say something like that. What I was saying was that the events that communicate the impact of the stone to the person it hits, the exchanges of photons between the electrons of the stone and the electrons of the person's body that transfer momentum and energy and so on between them, are the same events that constitute the raw phenomenal experience of the person of being hit by the stone.

Those interactions also have a flow of information and energy back the other direction too, so there is also a raw phenomenal experience the stone has of hitting the person. But beyond that most superficial level the experiences of course differ immensely. The person is a complicated system with lots of complex self-interaction happening all the time, so in addition to the brute impact of the stone, the person also experiences themselves reacting to the impact of the stone, and then other parts of themselves reacting to those reactions, in a complex cascade of biological and psychological events, all of which contribute to the overall experience the person has of being hit with a rock. The rock of course has no such complex self-interaction; it doesn't experience itself experiencing the impact, it just automatically, mechanically responds to the experience with a very simple behavior (it changes its velocity) and that's it. It's that difference in the complex internal self-interaction that makes human experience noteworthy; not just the brute having of any experience at all.

The fundamental point about beings, as distinct from inanimate objects, is that they are demonstrably subjects of experience, whereas there is no grounds for asserting that with respect to stones and other objects. — Wayfarer

I find this distinction you're making between "beings" and "inanimate objects" dubious. A being is just a thing, an object, an entity, a think that bes, or as we say in English, is.

OK, it seems you thought I mean that the fact that two names refer to the same individual is necessary, when of course it is not; it is contingent.

But if two names refer to the same individual then they necessarily have the same reference. The original point I made is that this seems to be a trivial fact; a mere tautology.

↪180 Proof What exactly was it you were applauding in this post that is different from anything I've said that you've been arguing against since? I've just been rephrasing the same thoughts since then and for some reason it seems you heartily agreed the first time and have disagreed ever since. — Pfhorrest

Yeah, I misread your "basic feature of existence" to mean something like an inherently potential emergent property rather than a fundamental property like charge or mass. Mostly, I agree with you that the so-called "hard problem of consciousness" is an illusion, but apparently for different reasons than yours.

There are three exhaustive possibilities when it comes to what things have any first-person experience at all, where that having of a first-person experience at all is what is meant by "phenomenal consciousness", which is the topic of the "hard problem of consciousness". Either:

-Nothing at all has it, not even humans; or

-Some things don't have it, but other things do (and if there is ultimately only one kind of stuff, which doesn't have it in its simplest form, then somehow that stuff can be built into things that somehow do have it); or

-Everything has it. — Pfhorrest

But baseline, or ordinary, "first person experience" occurs only in the absence of

• neurological disorders (like anosognosias, blindsight, cotard delusion, derealization order,  asomatognosia, etc)

• neuropathologies (like paranoid schizophrenia, etc)

• neuro-degenerative complexes (like Alzheimer's Syndrome, etc)

• psychoactive intoxication (like DMT, etc)

• neurotoxins used for anaesthesia ...

• etcetera.

which is evidence contrary to the claim that "first person experience" is a fundamental property like charge or mass (as I point out here re: 2.61). There is no "it" to have or not have, so the first possibilty "Nothing at all has it, not even humans" is less nonsensical - a more plausibly apt description - than the others.

The third option dissolves that big thorny problem of the second option, without falling into the absurdity of the first option. — Pfhorrest

Yeah, I've already pointed out that "panpsychism" (3rd option) is a solution to a pseudo-problem e.g. "supervenience" or "epiphenomenalism" or "p-zombies" (2nd option). There's nothing "absurd" about humans being mistaken about what seems like "first person experience" that's, in fact, merely an illusionary artifact (i.e. a verb mistaken as a noun) of an ecology-situated, strange looping, reflexive information processing system. Further elaboration I've referred to here.

It (1st option) only seems "absurd" with respect to a substantive (noun) rather than dynamic-processional (verb) conception of "first person experience" (i.e. consciousness) insofar as the latter is like 'legs not walking' whereas the former is like 'walking without legs'. There's nothing "absurd" about either an irreflexive information processing system or an offline (i.e. sleep-mode) reflexive information processing system; what's absurd is to reify online reflexive information processing into a hammer and thereby interpreting all other systems as reflexive information nails.

If I go back to your first post in the thread...

it seems to me you are writing about minds, not consciousness. Yes, we can look at what minds do, especially if they can talk and write.

Experiencing is another story.

What I was saying there is roughly that "to do is to be" and "to be is to do" (a thing's existence consists entirely in what it does, all of its properties are dispositions to act upon observers in certain ways) and "to be is to be perceive[able]" (a thing's existence consists entirely of its its observable properties) are different ways of phrasing the same statement, because for a thing to be "perceived" (more technically observed or sensed; perception is something more than that in contemporary terminology) is for it to act upon the observer. What's actually going on is an interaction between two things, and that same interaction constitutes both the behavior of the one thing upon the other, and the experience the other thing has of the first thing.

Things? There are people who lose the ability to see the whole visual categories like colors, motion, depth... Clearly visual qualia is composed from separate functional units or processes. This inner virtual world scene preparation surely requires some machinery or computation, which in turn requires the infrastructure to carry that function. But the very least those "things" should have some kind of sensors. No? Anyway, I don't see how your view helps with anything.

There's nothing "absurd" about humans being mistaken about what seems like "first person experience" that's, in fact, merely an illusionary artifact (i.e. a verb mistaken as a noun) of an ecology-situated, strange looping, reflexive information processing system. Further elaboration I've referred to here.

You wish to claim qualia is an illusion? Please sum it up first rather than elaborate.

I'm not saying that first-person experience is something like mass or charge, so if you think that's what I'm talking about when arguing against my position you're arguing against the wrong thing. I'm also 100% on board with the important thing about "mind" being the reflexive information-processing function you're talking about; but do you understand that that kind of reflexive functionality is, definitionally, "access consciousness", the topic of the "easy" problem of consciousness, and not at all what the "hard" problem of consciousness is talking about? I think you and I agree completely on that topic, and I'm not trying to talk about it at all here. I'm trying to talk about the thing philosophers call "phenomenal consciousness", which is a different thing. (See Ned Block, or Wikipedia on Types of Consciousness).

A philosophical zombie would be, by definition, something that has all of that reflexive information-processing functionality, but is missing "phenomenal consciousness". I'm saying that things like philosophical zombies can't exist, because you can't be missing that, because everything necesssarily has it; and saying that everything has it isn't imputing anything of any substance to the likes of rocks, but rather saying that this "phenomenal consciousness" is something so completely trivial that even rocks have it, and it doesn't usefully distinguish anything from anything else. To say, instead, that nothing has phenomenal consciousness, would be to say that we are all philosophical zombies. Obviously (to each of us) we are not (ourselves) philosophical zombies, which leaves either the possibility that there is something substantial to this "phenomenal consciousness" thing that distinguishes philosophical zombies from real humans, something that rocks don't have but humans do, which comes into being somewhere in the evolution from one to the other, but is (definitionally) not just a functional property like the reflexive information-processing stuff you're talking about (that's access consciousness, not phenomenal consciousness); or else that whatever it is that's supposed to distinguish humans from philosophical zombies is an absolutely trivial thing that doesn't distinguish anything from anything, so since humans (definitionally) have it, so does everything else.

ADDENDUM: Maybe this will be a more amendable way to phrase it. You take consciousness (I'm intentionally not specifying which kind here because you don't seem to be) to be all about this reflexive information-processing ability. I agree that the reflexivity and the more complex processing parts of that are the important parts of access consciousness, and that that complex functionality can weakly emerge from things that don't have it yet. But the "information-processing" part in general doesn't suddenly spring into being; everything all the way down is capable of processing information, at some level. The whole universe can be seen as informational signals passing around between things, and those things can be defined by their function in that network of signals, the way they output signals in response to the signals input into them. Information processing in general doesn't emerge from stuff with no information-processing ability; just more and more complex patterns of information processing emerge out of simpler forms of it. I take "phenomenal consciousness" to be equivalent to that fundamental information-processing ability that everything has, which in most cases is completely unremarkable; most signals are just passed along or rerouted or minimally transformed by the functions of the simplest of things, and it's only in the aggregate of a whole bunch of those simple particles interacting in really complicated ways that more complex functions emerge. But the basic role of taking information in ("experience") is as fundamental to everything in the universe as the role of sending information out ("behavior") is; they're two sides of the same coin.

Did you miss the link to the Berkeley lecture the first time you asked for a summary?

You wish to claim qualia is an illusion? Please sum it up first rather than elaborate. — Zelebg

Check out the link above for the clearest summary of what I'm trying to say. I'm not a neuroscientist and Metzinger is one as well as a philosopher. If what I've posted doesn't pique your interest enough for you to check out the lecture then I apologize for blue ballin' ya with a tease. :smirk:

I explained in the opening post why the problem is hard... — Zelebg

You claim something existed called "subjective experience of consciousness, or qualia".

I'm saying that "subjective experience of consciousness" points to nothing that exists in it's entirety prior to naming and descriptive practices, and yet consciousness does. So...

A philosophical zombie would be, by definition, something that has all of that reflexive information-processing functionality, but is missing "phenomenal consciousness". I'm saying that things like philosophical zombies can't exist, because you can't be missing that, because everything necesssarily has it ... — Pfhorrest

"P-zombie" is an incoherent construct because it violates Leibniz's Indentity of Indiscernibles without grounds to do so. To wit: an embodied cognition that's physically indiscernible from an ordinary human being cannot not have "phenomenal consciousness" since that is a property of human embodiment (or output of human embodied cognition). A "p-zombie", in other words, is just a five-sided triangle ...

What evidence - fundamental physical law - shows that every physical thing cogitates (i.e. reflexively processes information, or adaptively behaves/moves/transforms itself)?

What evidence is there that "phenomenal consciousness" is anything other than (the) output, or function, of a nonlinear dynamic process?

:meh:

"P-zombie" is an incoherent construct because it violates Leibniz's Indentity of Indiscernibles without grounds to do so. To wit: an embodied cognition that's physically indiscernible from an ordinary human being cannot not have "phenomenal consciousness" since that is a property of human embodiment (or output of human embodied cognition). A "p-zombie", in other words, is just a five-sided triangle ... — 180 Proof

And yet it is still true that no geometric figure is a five-sided triangle, and so that all geometric figures have the property (consistency of sides or however you want to formulate it) that five-sided triangles would lack. That's just a completely trivial property that, because everything has it, doesn't meaningfully distinguish between anything.

What evidence - fundamental physical law - shows that every physical thing cognitates (i.e. reflexively processes information, or adaptively behaves/moves/transforms itself)? — 180 Proof

I keep saying that I'm not claiming that, I'm not talking about that sense of "consciousness" at all (although I agree that that is the important sense of "consciousness", it's just not the topic of this thread). If you're going to keep thinking I'm saying something I'm not, despite repeatedly saying that that's not what I'm talking about, I'm going to stop trying to say it.

Did you read the last paragraph (the addendum) of my last post?

What evidence is there that "phenomenal consciousness" is anything other than (the) output, or function, of a nonlinear dynamic process? — 180 Proof

It is defined that way, as independent of any particular functionality. I didn't make that definition. I don't think the thing that is defined that way is important. I think it's trivial. But philosophers talk about it, and this thread is explicitly about it, and my take on it is that it's a trivial thing that everything has and doesn't distinguish between anything, and so not worth saying anything more about it. Instead, we should talk about access consciousness for all the interesting philosophical discussion. You seem to want to say that only access-conscious things are phenomenally conscious, and I think that that gives too much importance to phenomenal consciousness, makes it something that does actually distinguish between things, except that it just so happens to correlate with access consciousness somehow, so that distinction becomes entirely redundant.

Instead of just saying "phenomenal consciousness is trivial, what matters is access consciousness" like I do, what you're saying would imply that, in addition to (something along the evolutionary chain between rocks and) humans gaining access consciousness that distinguishes us from rocks, also at that same moment something became metaphysically different about (that important step along the evolutionary chain between rocks and) humans. I'm saying nothing metaphysically changed along the way; all that changed was the functionality of the systems in question. Whatever is metaphysically necessary for that (ordinary physical) functionality to produce human consciousness, that was already present in the components that humans are made of. And it is consequentially a trivial thing that's not worth talking about, and I'm getting tired of talking about it.

I'm saying that "subjective experience of consciousness" points to nothing that exists in it's entirety prior to naming and descriptive practices, and yet consciousness does. So...

You are making incoherent, vague assertions. My reply to you is : No, you are wrong, just saying.

You mean the link to one hour long YouTube video? I think you should summarize it here in words if you want people to respond to it.

Not interested enough to watch the video for the summary you've asked for - that's cool. No worries. Others have. And you can't get the gist from what I've written - my bad. Another thread topic, another time, Z (unless you change your mind).

P-zombie" is an incoherent construct because it violates Leibniz's Indentity of Indiscernibles without grounds to do so. To wit: an embodied cognition that's physically indiscernible from an ordinary human being cannot not have "phenomenal consciousness" since that is a property of human embodiment (or output of human embodied cognition). A "p-zombie", in other words, is just a five-sided triangle ... — 180 Proof

Why would an entity that has the appearance of a regular human necessarily have phenomenal consciousness?

That's a strong claim. It would require strong evidence.

But the "information-processing" part in general doesn't suddenly spring into being; everything all the way down is capable of processing information, at some level. — Pfhorrest

Two accounts:

(A)

So - phenomenal consciousness is defined as independent of access consciousness. These are conceptual distinctions.

But:

Observations:
Phenomenal consciousness and access consciousness track each other.
Access consciousness comes in degrees.

Conclusions:
Therefore, phenomenal consciousness comes in degrees.
Therefore, panpsychism + no explanatory gap + no p-zombies.

The counter argument (@180 Proof) seems to be:

(B)

Observations:

Consciousness (Phenomenal consciousness and/or access consciousness) tracks reflexive information processing.
Reflexive information processing comes in degrees.

Conclusions:

Therefore, a conceptual distinction between phenomenal consciousness and access consciousness is useless. There's only one aspect of consciousness, which when present in a large degree, seems to yield phenomenal consciousness ("what is it like" states). Therefore no p-zombies, no explanatory gap, but also no panpsychism (maybe).

It looks to me like the difference between (A) and (B) arises solely through propagating the conceptual distinction between phenomenal and access consciousness through the same evidence; the argument is really over whether the distinction makes sense in light of what we know about consciousness. Is there one construct (functionality alone, account B) or two (functionality and phenomenality, account A)?

t seems to me you are writing about minds, not consciousness. Yes, we can look at what minds do, especially if they can talk and write. — Coben

There wouldn't be a distinction between minds and consciousness. That is just continuing to use the false-dichotomy from the material-mind paradigm. The systems paradigm doesn't reduce to either, but allows for each simultaneously to be true. Everything that emerges establishes functional systems at its own level. Consciousness qua consciousness is perfectly explicable and can be studied to the extent that its activities exhibit systematicity. Which the activities of consciousness certainly do.

If you do choose to arbitrarily sever some of those activities at a lower level (say brainstem) and say that those are "physical" that's fine too. I just finished "Chaos and Complexity in Psychology" and there is one essay on experiments studying the patterns of neural firings during specific types of thought. And indeed, there are patterns that model in non-linear terms. In fact, there are people designing neural nets now that don't solve a problem directly (the problem is coded at the level of the hidden neurons) but solve it by having the neurons link in a way that mimics neurons in the brain. So the physically-faithful neural net can solve the same problems as the concept-driven neural net, but the physical model is much larger and less efficient.

Phenomenal consciousness and access consciousness track each other. — fdrake

I don't think that's right. Could you give an example?

Therefore, phenomenal consciousness comes in degrees. — fdrake

This doesn't seem right tome either, and a number of other philosophers also think that consciousness does not admit of degrees. It's important to distinguish consciousness from content, and consciousness from identity. One argument for panpsychism springs from the idea that consciousness does not admit of degree.

Explaining consciousness is like trying to explain vision to a blind person, sound to a deaf person and life to a dead person.

Topic of this thread is far more specific than 'consciousness '. It's _subjectivity_ of the experience. That is what makes the problem hard.

There wouldn't be a distinction between minds and consciousness. That is just continuing to use the false-dichotomy from the material-mind paradigm. — Pantagruel

Actually it's not. I am not assuming that minds and consciousness are different things. I am simply pointing out that epistemologically we can track minds and what they do, but we cannot track consciousness. Perhaps these are indeed facets of the same thing. But we can measure one and not the other. Just as we can track behavior - which is how we track minds - or we can track glucose uptake, but we can't track consciousness because we do not know what is conscious and what is not. And perhaps that means we do not also know what has mind or not. Current research into plant intelligence - a phrase that is no longer fringe - is finding many of the behaviors of animal minds. But then we can't communicate and the chemisty is different. So we can neither rule out consciousness nor can we confirm it. Perhaps plants and some computers now can do many things that minds can do without being aware, without experiencing. Perhaps the functions always correlate with being aware. We don't know. I am not asserting dual substances. I am saying we don't know where consciousness begins and ends. Perhaps yes mind, where there is mind, is always the same as the consciousness that is there, but perhaps there is a rudimentary consciousness in all matter. I am blackboxing the monism vs. dualism debate and also being cautious.

And given the history of science's rather late getting it that animals had both minds and consciousness I am wary of leaping in an assuming we know what experiencing must be coupled to. Perhaps it need no be coupled to what we call minds. Which does not mean that our consciousness is a separate substrance from our minds (or brains).

Everything that emerges establishes functional systems at its own level. Consciousness qua consciousness is perfectly explicable and can be studied to the extent that its activities exhibit systematicity. Which the activities of consciousness certainly do. — Pantagruel

You are talking about activities. We do not know that all consciousnes is active.

You also use the term 'emergent', but we do not know at what point consciousness emerges or why it does there.

We used to think it emerged only in humans, and not that long ago, in fact in my lifetime.

In fact, there are people designing neural nets now that don't solve a problem directly (the problem is coded at the level of the hidden neurons) but solve it by having the neurons link in a way that mimics neurons in the brain. So the physically-faithful neural net can solve the same problems as the concept-driven neural net, but the physical model is much larger and less efficient. — Pantagruel

But none of this lets us know if they have designed a non-conscious problem solver or something that is conscious. We don't know.

Perhaps it's only present in carbon based complicated systems...for some reason.

We don't have this yet.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self_model

Thomas Metzinger is not saying that anything is illusion. He is also not explaining anything.

Subjective experience is the result of the phenomenal model of intentionality relationship (PMIR).

That means as much as if I said that subjective experience is the result of the phenomenal model of the wholy spirit (PMWS).

Actually it's not. I am not assuming that minds and consciousness are different things. I am simply pointing out that epistemologically we can track minds and what they do, but we cannot track consciousness. — Coben

As far as I can tell, your assertions about consciousness relegate it permanently to the status of a nescio quid. You affirm that there is a consciousness but aver that it cannot be measured or known in any way. I don't know what this mystery thing is, but the consciousness that is under investigation, which does include any and all qualia typically associated with conscious experience, is what I myself am speaking of when I use the term consciousness.

Explaining consciousness is like trying to explain vision to a blind person, sound to a deaf person and life to a dead person.

Yes, plus it's worse. So instead of explanation at this time I'm looking for good analogies, and instead of trying to answer the question I'd rather talk about what kinds of answers are even worth pursuing and which ones ultimately lead to no answer that could ever satisfy our curiosity.

Consciousness is that what keeps you awake.

Maybe not everyone is conscious in the same way. This would explain why some people so steadfastly refuse to abide by others' attempts to encapsulate the meaning of consciousness.

Hmm.

The consciousness for me that seeks the optimal outcome, balance, the sense of well-being that comes from having helped another, perhaps that consciousness is just a whining conscience that keeps someone else from sleeping after a day of self-centered behaviours....I might not want to know more about that kind of consciousness either, if that were me.