what specially was your alternative to matter? — JerseyFlight

That's a nonsense question, although 'alternatives to materialism', is not - but I don't want to derail the very interesting conversation that is developing here about biosemiotics, about which I am keen to learn more.

That's a nonsense question — Wayfarer

It is indeed a strange event when the agent's imagination tries to negate its being.

Modern science has tended to want to see 'everything in the universe' as physical, because physical objects are amenable to the precise objectification and quantification that is central to its method. That was part of the conceptual revolution introduced by Galileo, Newton, and Descartes, among others, at the advent of modern science. — Wayfarer

I see only two rational possibilities:
1. everything is physical
2. everything is metaphysical

Modern science takes #1 as assumed and tries to slowly eat away at the unknown, finding physical explanations, under the assumption that eventually (at the point of infinity) all previously unknown will be explained through the physical.

Alternatively, given the inherent difficulty with the unknown, many assume that there must be some additional non-physical aspect that is necessary to explain everything. But I find this dualistic (or is it trialistic?) theory irrational -- though I'll find it hard to verbalise why.

Rather, I think the more rational alternative is that everything is metaphysical, and that the physical world is just 'imagined'. For example, as one interpretation of Descartes ideas: the only thing that exists is the subjective "I", and I'm merely imagining the rest of you. Though I'm not presupposing a particular outcome of whether we all exist as our own subjective meta-physical beings vs. there's only just me.

But I tend to fall back into a position of preferring #1 because the physical world is just better defined than the metaphysical one - at least according to society's current understanding.

3) and the two are intrinsically linked because, as it happens in all dynamic living systems that we are aware of, you cannot have one without the other and still produce the kinds of behaviours that we expect of a dynamic living system.

But what's most useful from that is that it provides a framework for measuring the effectiveness of a system to produce self-referential conscious-like processing capabilities, and its efficiency. — Malcolm Lett

The way I see it, this all speaks to the same finality: the environments through which human systems pass are essential to the realization of their quality. What is missing from this awareness is that all of the qualities contained in the premises are actually references to social products.

Superb job on expressing your ideas friend.

Superb job on expressing your ideas friend. — JerseyFlight

Cheers. Appreciated.

There's a gap — Malcolm Lett

Summary of the book
'The Feeling of Life Itself'

Physics describes but extrinsic causes,
While consciousness exists just for itself,
As intrinsic, compositional,
Informational, whole, and exclusive,

Providing distinctions toward survival,
But causing nothing except in itself,
As in ne’er doing but only as being,
Leaving intelligence for the doing.

The posterior cortex holds the correlates,
For this is the only brain region that
Can’t be removed for one to still retain
Consciousness, it having feedback in it;

Thus, it forms an irreducible Whole,
And this Whole forms consciousness directly,
Which process is fundamental in nature,
(Or the brain’s private symbolic language).

I see only two rational possibilities:
1. everything is physical
2. everything is metaphysical

Modern science takes #1 as assumed and tries to slowly eat away at the unknown, finding physical explanations, under the assumption that eventually (at the point of infinity) all previously unknown will be explained through the physical. — Malcolm Lett

I understand what you're saying. But allow me to suggest this is a 'post-cartesian' analysis. When you divide things up that way, I think it's because you're basically echoing the Cartesian division of the world into res cogitans and res extensia. The material, the physical, that which can be made an object of scientific analysis, seems tangible, real, undeniable, whereas res cogitans seems to us now like 'the ghost in the machine' which was Gilbert Ryle's famous dismissal of Cartesian dualism.

Alternatively, given the inherent difficulty with the unknown, many assume that there must be some additional non-physical aspect that is necessary to explain everything. But I find this dualistic (or is it trialistic?) theory irrational -- though I'll find it hard to verbalise why. — Malcolm Lett

As I suggested, there is an intrinsic difficulty with attempting to treat the subject - the thinker, the agent who is writing and speaking - as an object of scientific analysis. This is why 'eliminative materialism' - Dennett, Churchlands, Rosenberg, et al - insist that the mind cannot be regarded as real at all, and must be eliminated from the reckoning as a matter of principle. Everything that exists, they say, must be ultimately intelligible in terms of the objective sciences.

This is what Michel Bitbol is saying is 'the blind spot' of science. It's inherent within scientific method. But notice the subtle sleight of hand here. The very kinds of criticism that are suggested by Michel Bitbol or David Chalmers are dismissed by eliminativism as not being scientific! As indeed they're not. But then, neither is eliminative materialism itself, as it is the attempted application of scientific method to a subject matter outside its jurisdiction. Whereas you're suggesting that nothing is outside its jurisdiction.

As I suggested, there is an intrinsic difficulty with attempting to treat the subject - the thinker, the agent who is writing and speaking - as an object of scientific analysis. — Wayfarer

We simply must know, how then should the subject be "treated?" I think the problem may be the use of the term, "scientific analysis." It's possible to use this concept in such a rigid way that one essentially creates a kind of straw-man, which is to say, one refutes a kind of fundamentalism in science, fallaciously believing it to cover thought in general. All of this seems to me as so much sophistry, it is clear that you are trying to leverage the conversation in the direction of some kind of mysticism, and you are trying very hard indeed.

There's a gap - something that we aren't measuring in our computational analysis.

I'm wondering what theories there are that specifically address the question of measuring this gap. — Malcolm Lett

How to measure what remains of the hard problem. Maybe by using the upper left side of a measuring stick that is fit for the task but has yet to be discovered?

The framing, after all, presupposes that consciousness is something measurable and therefore quantifiable. For if it isn’t quantifiable than it can’t be measured. And if it can’t be measured than it can’t be properly termed scientific – most vexing for those who equate that which is real strictly to that which is physical and thereby amiable to quantification by the sciences.

As to the magnitude (as in lesser or greater) of, for example, a particular conscious desire - wherein the difference between slightly wanting and desperately wanting some given X ought to be measurable to the minds of many - there of course is the option of decrying “desire” to be a false concept upheld by the stupidity of folk-psychology (often interpreted by the masses as plain commonsense) that must thereby be fully eliminated from the equation of what is real (equations being quantitatively computable, as is any materialist reality) or, alternatively, there’s always the search for that elusive, magical measuring device, previously alluded to, by whose use all aspects of consciousness can at last be scientifically quantified through and through.

Intensities of happiness and suffering, of beauty and the grotesque, of our sense of justice or injustice, even of our awareness of good and bad, these are all mathematically computable states of conscious being after all, right? No more and no less. We just need to find the correct means of measuring their quantitative, and therefore computational, nature, that’s all. But when we do, the gap will at long last be resolved.

And all this would be upheld by principles other than that of a blind metaphysical faith in what is – one that is on par to that maintained by any opposing party, even that of (heavens forbid) anything one can deride as mysticism.

For one can in practice prove that everything, including consciousness, is quantitative.

----

If anyone’s reading, don’t mind me too much in all this. Tis a post intended for no one in particular. And if I’ve unintentionally made a strawman of anyone’s position, please feel free to elaborate on how. Was just passing through as someone who’s a stickler for the notion that not all aspects of what is real are measurable in principle, much less in practice. And yes, to me consciousness, as in "that which is conscious of", serves as one example of something immeasurable - despite admitting to different magnitudes.

Whereas you're suggesting that nothing is outside its jurisdiction. — Wayfarer

Precisely.

If science was truly restricted to what we understand then we never would have got to where we are today. The reality is that people aren't restricted to the particular definition of a word on the day. All words are a post-hoc approximation of the reality or concept that we intuitively perceive. It helps to agree on meanings so why have a common language, but it's a problem when those agreements of definition hamper the ability to think further.

Sorry. I feel that's a rant off topic.

No apologies necessary. It's not a matter of placing 'restrictions' on science, but questioning its presuppositions. The issue that I'm outlining, of the relationship of objective method and subjective understanding, is a fundamental topic in philosophy of science. Modern scientific method starts from certain axioms and presuppositions, which may be perfectly suitable within its scope, but science is not all-knowing.

As I suggested, there is an intrinsic difficulty with attempting to treat the subject - the thinker, the agent who is writing and speaking - as an object of scientific analysis. — Wayfarer

However, in this case, the object of analysis is also the subject doing the examining. It's precisely because you can't stand outside or, or 'objectify', the object of analysis that is the cause of both the 'hard problem' and 'the explanatory gap'. This is why it is in principle outside the scope of empirical analysis — Wayfarer

There is indeed some difficulty associated with the subject trying to objectively analyse themselves, or a researcher attempting to analyse the subjective experience of another. There are definitely sizable barriers there - otherwise we would have known a long time ago what kind of conscious experience animals have.

But it isn't insurmountable, and it can be done, so long as one is aware of the limitations. This is obvious due to the amount we have learned about the brain and our subjective from fRMI and the like.

There's an important but not so obvious other path of investigation. I'm quite sure that the content of our conscious experience is a representational model. A 'summary', if you like, of a certain subset of data flowing through the brain. One can argue that this means we cannot introspect anything about the mechanisms behind our subjective experience, because we are confined to this representational model, and we must inherently distrust the accuracy of this model.

But software development uses models too, usually referred to as an abstraction. And every software engineer knows that abstractions leak details of the underlying implementation.

The representational model leaks too. For example, what we are /are not conscious of is very informative. The fact that, on close inspection, we don't actually experience our senses directly, but that they are always preprocessed with meaning attached. Eg: the parsing of words heard in audible speech.

There's a lot more to that than fits in a comment, but my point is that the subject can learn a lot about their internal workings from their own subjective experience.

The problem is the assumption that 'understanding' is binary.

A calculator understands maths in much the same way as the room in the Chinese Room analogy understands chinese. It has some non-negligible understanding of the maths that it's programmed to work with. If it had no understanding, then it wouldn't suffice as a culculator.

We take say that humans "understand" a concept because we build detailed models around that concept. We model not just the end result of how to apply a concept, but also layered theories and explanations. We attach all sorts of context to the concept: how we "feel" about that concept, when/when not to apply it.

All of that can be explained using the same underlying computational processes that the calculator uses.

Is there something 'special' about the human understanding vs the calculator understanding that isn't just a matter of degree? Well, I personally think not, but I'll leave that as an open question for now.

What I will suggest though, is that the word "understand" is socially understood to mean a certain thing only because that's our human-centro definition of it. — Malcolm Lett

So, you're running with the hare and hunting with the hounds. Acceptable, given that the jury is still out on the issue.

What I'd like to know is what you mean by: the problem is the assumption that 'understanding' is binary?

To be honest, I've heard people say "I half-understand what you mean" but to the extent that I'm aware, in such incidents, the person means s/he understands only parts of what is being said and not the whole. As an example, take Theism. Someone can understand why god is so important but not understand the proofs that are supposed to demonstrate god's existence. This someone has warrant to say "I half-understand Theism" because s/he understood only parts of it. However, notice that this someone actually understands or doesn't understand - in binary fashion - the component ideas of Theism. It appears then that the notion of degrees of understanding is flawed or completely erroneous.

So this thought experiment proved to you that the room understands rather than that the person outside the room had a false understanding that the room understands.

Go for it! — apokrisis

Something must give. Would you rather believe that X, the native Chinese speark, doesn't understand Chinese? Where does that lead to?

Like Bitbol's thesis on the importance of taking subjectivity seriously, any theory on the mechanics behind a subjective conscious experience is incomplete until it explains how the objective mechanics produces the subjective. — Malcolm Lett

The way I understand subjectivity as it relates to consciousness is that it's a private i.e. inaccessible by anyone else. In my humble opinion, those who maintain there's a subjective component to consciousness are guilty of trying to have it both ways. First, they hold the view that consciousness is objective and then they claim that there's something subjective about it.

Perhaps you can expand on it a bit for my benefit. Thanks

Why are you still trying so hard to avoid justifying your claim that consciousness is just the brain doing data processing? :chin:

It's not a matter of placing 'restrictions' on science, but questioning its presuppositions. — Wayfarer

This is precisely the vocation of thought.

Modern scientific method starts from certain axioms and presuppositions, which may be perfectly suitable within its scope, but science is not all-knowing. — Wayfarer

This is exceedingly suspect, further, you did not answer my last valid question for which you bear the burden of proof. What I mean about this being suspect is that it's exceedingly clear to me that you are trying to create a gap that you can fill with mysticism. The statement "not all-knowing," reminds me of God-of-the-Gaps reasoning. You are searching for a hole, why? Be transparent. It's hard to see that you are simply trying to follow noble thought where it leads in this sense. For my part, I would never argue that science is all-knowing, is this really a valid premise of science or a straw-man?

Why are you still trying so hard to avoid justifying your claim that consciousness is just the brain doing data processing? — apokrisis

You haven't proved that consciousness isn't just data processing. Of course I haven't proved that it is but that's the point isn't it? We don't know what consciousness is.

I'm quite sure that the content of our conscious experience is a representational model. A 'summary', if you like, of a certain subset of data flowing through the brain. One can argue that this means we cannot introspect anything about the mechanisms behind our subjective experience, because we are confined to this representational model, and we must inherently distrust the accuracy of this model. — Malcolm Lett

As I understand it, action comes before perception. If this is the case consciousness is not merely an image but an inter-working and synthesis of environment... it also means more than this, I cannot draw it all out. But think of this for a moment, there is no such thing as a computer without a long historical material process, the fact that one wants to separate the quality of the computer from this process, gathering of raw materials, creation, assembly, etc., only serves to manifest the limitations and distortions (obliviousness) of the one who artificiates the divisions. We are not talking about the fully developed being of a thing that miraculously popped into existence, we are, whether one likes it or not, talking about a historical process, social activity. Therefore, the mechanisms that account for this process are both historical and material. To say we are confined to representations seems to overlook the very real material process. I am not dogmatic here, but this seems like a gigantic, ignorant gap in the thinking.

We don't know what consciousness is. — TheMadFool

That’s easy for you to say. :wink:

@apokrisis do you know what term would apply semiotics to cognitive computation, irrespective of the physical substrate? I like the idea behind Pattee's biosemiotics, but it sounds like it applies specifically to biological organisms. There's cognitive semiotics, but it seems to be very broad and high-level, encompassing all sorts of social aspects, eg: body language.

I'm thinking of the sort of low-level detail that Pattee goes into with his analysis of the DNA/RNA mechanisms behind cell replication, but applied to a neural network (of undefined physical nature) that computes. I'm also thinking that the idea of a semiotic closure could apply to a system that is aware of itself.

As I understand it, action comes before perception. If this is the case consciousness is not merely an image but an inter-working and synthesis of environment... it also means more than this, I cannot draw it all out. But think of this for a moment, there is no such thing as a computer without a long historical material process, the fact that one wants to separate the quality of the computer from this process, gathering of raw materials, creation, assembly, etc., only serves to manifest the limitations and distortions (obliviousness) of the one who artificiates the divisions. We are not talking about the fully developed being of a thing that miraculously popped into existence, we are, whether one likes it or not, talking about a historical process, social activity. Therefore, the mechanisms that account for this process are both historical and material. To say we are confined to representations seems to overlook the very real material process. I am not dogmatic here, but this seems like a gigantic, ignorant gap in the thinking. — JerseyFlight

I'm not ignoring all the history of how humans came to be. I was focusing on a particular behaviour to highlight that we can introspect ourselves - ie: the subject making objective measures about itself.

I was responding to comments by @Wayfarer, which I took to be a reference to the suggestion that we cannot learn anything about the mechanisms behind our own consciousness because we can't use that consciousness to examine itself (like how an eye cannot see itself). I'm aware of that viewpoint but I want to free any beholders of that view from their shackles, because we can achieve so much more than that.

(Edited, because I originally mistakenly attributed some comments to MadFool instead of Wayfarer)

I'm aware of that viewpoint but I want to free any beholders of that view from their shackles, because we can achieve so much more than that. — Malcolm Lett

You have my full attention. I have truly enjoyed reading your posts, and I don't think I'm the only one.

I originally mistakenly attributed some comments to MadFool instead of Wayfarer — Malcolm Lett

:vomit:

But it isn't insurmountable, and it can be done, so long as one is aware of the limitations. This is obvious due to the amount we have learned about the brain and our subjective from fRMI and the like. — Malcolm Lett

I'm sorry, but I see this as inhumane. Scientific methodology deliberately brackets out or relegates the qualitative aspects of being (hence the jargon about 'qualia' in journals about this issue.)

But what David Chalmers somewhat awkwardly refers to as 'what-it-is-like-ness' is nevertheless fundamental to identity, to one's sense of being. And that is exactly what is left out of the picture by quantitative methodology. So, how could the meaning of a state of being be something that is ever going to be revealed in an fMRI scan? It’s not objective, by definition. ‘Oh, never mind, the Doctor knows.’

I do realise this might strike you as annoying, obscurantist, and even 'mystical' as has already been suggested. But I feel strongly that what is at stake here is of fundamental philosophical importance. fMRI scanners are perfectly sound as therapeutic and medical devices, which is there intended use, but this is issue of a different kind. ( See Do you believe in God, or is that a software glitch? )

the subject can learn a lot about their internal workings from their own subjective experience. — Malcolm Lett

Of course. But that is not the point at issue.

What I'd like to know is what you mean by: the problem is the assumption that 'understanding' is binary? — TheMadFool

I'm simply referring to the fact that different systems/individuals can have differing degrees of understanding. eg: my calculator has zero of understanding of chinese; I understand about enough to sometimes recognise chinese characters vs not chinese characters; which is significantly less understanding than someone who can read chinese characters.

I do realise this might strike you as annoying, obscurantist, and even 'mystical' as has already been suggested. But I feel strongly that what is at stake here is of fundamental philosophical importance. — Wayfarer

It is indeed becoming more clear, this is not simply your attempt at noble thought. You really should be transparent, do tell us what is at stake and is of fundamental importance? If your answer is God then we have a problem, but if it's something about human rights or human dignity, this is a different matter. I am curious, but I suspect you're probably a Christian steeped in Norte Dame idealism. They have been pumping out tons of analytical mystics into society through their abstract propaganda. I honestly hope your answer is something better than monotheism.

But I feel strongly that what is at stake here is of fundamental philosophical importance. — Wayfarer

Likewise. I'm equally annoyed by those who claim conscious experience isn't something of importance, just because they can't measure it or account for it in their theories. Hell, I can't account for it in my own theory, but I still think it's important - if for nothing else than the fact that it's the single biggest reason why my theory may be completely bonkers.

But regardless, I suspect we may fall on different sides of a proverbial line.

So, how could the meaning of a state of being be something that is ever going to be revealed in an fMRI scan? — Wayfarer

Hmm. Yes, I was being a little vague. There's just too much to try to put into text. But let me circle round this topic for a minute.

Could fRMI reveal the meaning of a state? Maybe. Quite probably, after sufficient technological advances. If it is correct that all conscious state is a result of neuronal firings.

Is that inhumane? Forgive me if I'm reading too much into your statement, but I felt like you were coming from a perspective of hoping/assuming that there is something more to our existence than just the physical/material structures of brain/bones/blood/neurons/etc. As inhumane as it feels to many, and to myself, I've slowly come to think that there isn't any inherent meaning to life beyond the physical. So, yes, I suppose it is inhumane. But no more so than anything else.

At this stage, fRMI doesn't reveal much about the inner workings of the mind. But I do think that all of our conscious experience will ultimately be explained through the processes of electrical firings of neurons.

Instead of talking about a gap of what remains, why don't we just call it an explanatory gap?
Because, after all, how we measure what we know / don't know, about anything, is explanatory power.

If we have a model of consciousness, what questions can be unambiguously answered by reference only to the model?

There are hundreds of questions we can ask about consciousness. To give a simple example, let's talk about physical pain.

Doctors would like to know exactly what pain is, and how to quantify it. Quantifying pain numerically may never be possible, but we can at least agree some pains are worse than others...what determines this? And do we experience pain as soon as we have a nervous system, or is it something that requires development in the brain? Can you be a pain p-zombie?
Less usefully, but still interesting: what's the worst pain a human brain could experience? Note: this does not mean what pain the human nervous system can relay, or the most pain a human has experienced; it means what is the limitation of the brain itself?

Right now it's pretty clear the explanatory gap is still big.

A calculator understands maths in much the same way as the room in the Chinese Room analogy understands chinese. — Malcolm Lett

Yep.

It has some non-negligible understanding of the maths that it's programmed to work with. — Malcolm Lett

Surely not.

If it had no understanding, then it wouldn't suffice as a calculator. — Malcolm Lett

Why ever not?

The explanatory gap is what a mechanical conception of nature creates. — apokrisis

Couldn't it just be what a wrong conception of consciousness creates?

Hence why biologists and neuroscientists are arriving at semiotics as an alternative conception of nature. — apokrisis

Great, but have they seen the difference between syntax (automatable) and what Searle (somewhere) calls a "proper" semantics: the ability to follow and predict the entirely pretended and conventional connections between words and actual things?

Or are they (or you) mistaking an efficient, automatic, syntactic correspondence (e.g. of proteins with DNA sequences) for the other, far more sophisticated social game?

Neuroscience hasn’t cottoned on to the term. But I highlighted the Bayesian Brain work. Or you could look up enactivism as the psychological level version.

A way to think about is is that semiosis is a series of levels based on coding mechanisms. So life is semiosis based on DNA. Then neurosemiosis would be based on neural encoding. And humans then of course add linguistic encoding on top of that. We have a socially constructed level of “mindfulness” because of language and cultural semiosis.

The key thing to understand here is that semiosis - as I am using the term - is all about information regulating physics. So that is why it is not something you would implement on a computer. A computer, by design, has no clue about its hardware. Life and mind are all about managing the world in a way so as to sustain the physical flows that create their hardware.

Chalk and cheese. But neural network inspired computer architectures are at least trying to create machines that can learn about their worlds to the degree they can predict their “sensory” inputs and so simulate the behavioural habits of organisms with nervous systems. And the Friston article gives a good summary of that (although he skips Stephen Grossberg’s adaptive resonance approach).

Another thing to watch out for is that in linguistics and continental philosophy, semiotics is usually understood to mean Ferdinand de Saussure’s semiotics - a dyadic model. I am talking of the triadic semiotics of CS Peirce. That is the cognitively relevant one as a “science of meaning”.