Still, it's pretty sloppy for Dennet to use the very psychological term "intuition" — Olivier5

I think it sloppy for anyone to use intuition as a psychological term; intuition remains philosophical, as far as my use of it will ever extend. But you know what is said about opinions.......
—————-

Even if somebody perfectly described to you the taste of his dinner.....does that description give you taste? No, it does not, which immediately suffices to prove experience by means of second-hand sensibility is impossible, and subsequent attempts to shore up empirical impossibilities, with mere a priori abstractions such as imagination and its offspring, is absurd. In other words, a priori qualitative analysis is non-transferable, from which follows necessarily, both, I have no sufficient cause to tell myself “what it is like”**, and, I don’t even possess a rational method to tell you “what it is like”.

**self-correction subsequent to erroneous judgement aside.....

I think it sloppy for anyone to do that; — Mww

Nah. Intuition is as good a philosophical concept as any... But when a self-described p-zombie makes an appeal to intuition, he is contradicting himself.

I can see a contradiction. — Olivier5

Gotta be careful here, though. The theoretical construction of p-zombies makes explicit they must be indistinguishable from humans, but it is just as theoretical that humans appeal to intuitions. If it should become established that humans, metaphysically speaking, via some Kantian-like paradigm shift, don’t necessarily appeal to intuitions, or physically speaking, from proof of empirical brain mechanisms in which intuition is irrelevant, then the contradiction disappears.

Until either of those comes about....I see the same contradiction.
————-

Addendum:
Speaking of Kantian paradigm shifts....it is the case therefrom, that intuition is not used in pure thought, which is accomplished from conceptions alone. Therefore, if a p-zombie doesn’t exhibit any a posteriori affects, that is, if he only thinks, or when he only thinks, which he is permitted to do because he is indistinguishable from a human which does think without the use of intuition, a human could never recognize its zombie-ness, at least from the appeal to intuition.

A bird is a bird. Tautology. Nothing is being said in fact. — TheMadFool

I didn't suggest it wasn't tautologous. What is missing, was the question. What fact are you expecting Dennet to be able to communicate?

Popper's 'World 3' 'contains the products of thought. This includes abstract objects such as scientific theories, stories, myths, tools, social institutions, and works of art.[2] World 3 is not to be conceived as a Platonic realm, because it is created by humans.') — Wayfarer

Thanks for bringing that up. This is one of many excellent contributions of Popper to philosophy. World 3 is akin somewhat to what researchers call 'the literature'.

I see the same contradiction. — Mww

'nough said.

Addendum. I seem to be running amok with them today.

Ask it 'how are you?' If it can answer, it's not a zombie. — Wayfarer

How about we ask it to enclose a space? If it cannot, it is a zombie.

If it should become established that humans, ... don’t necessarily appeal to intuitions,... physically speaking, from proof of empirical brain mechanisms in which intuition is irrelevant, — Mww

Just curious how you see it possible for this to ever happen if...

...it [is] sloppy for anyone to use intuition as a psychological term; intuition remains philosophical — Mww

How could proof from empirical brain science say anything about intuition if it cannot use the term?

How could proof from empirical brain science say anything about intuition if it cannot use the term? — Isaac

Proof that the grass is shorter now then it was before implies no necessity for the term “lawnmower”.

Your

intuition remains philosophical — Mww

........is out of context.

Proof that the grass is shorter now then it was before implies no necessity for the term “lawnmower”.

Your

intuition remains philosophical — Mww


........is out of context. — Mww

Okaaay...Can't make head nor tail of that, but I suppose you don't have to be a Martian to wear lederhosen.

It is now known that neuroplasticity enables the brain to regain from a lot of damage by re-purposing. In those cases, the mind changes the brain - it's top-down causation. If physicalism were the case, this ought not to happen. — Wayfarer

Neuroplasticity has been known for decades. It is a physical process. If the "mind" repaired itself with no change to the brain, then you would have evidence of something apart from the brain. This "repairing" is also a remapping of neuron signals, not the growth of new brain cells. The plasticity of cells, and their ability to regulate in a community are well known. Why do you think your skin doesn't just continue growing and taking over? When you get a cut, its not your brain that tells your skin cells to divide. Its the activity of the cells themselves. You say "mind" as if it is something apart from the brain. That doesn't make any sense based on cellular biology. What evidence do you have that there is something separate from the brain?

There have been experiments where subjects have shown changes in brain matter simply by conducting thought experiments, such as imagining they're learning to play the piano (with no actual piano). So in those cases, and there are many, the mind shapes the brain. They are an example of top-down causation, which physicalism can't accomodate — Wayfarer

This example actually disproves physicalism. If a person was able to learn or do something WITHOUT a change in brain matter, then you would have something. The change in the brain means its obviously a physical change. Drawing any other conclusion is pulling something in we have no evidence of. Don't even include learning. When you do something, the brain fires away. We know we need it to actually do things. We know we have nerves that send information to the brain. The brain reacts and physically responds to outside stimulous. But there is no "mind" apart from the brains functioning here.

Ever heard of Wilder Penfield? — Wayfarer

No, I looked him up. First his conclusions are 60+ years old. That is a terrible reference when we've discovered so much today. Second, this was his opinion with clear falsification that was not tested. I found his reasons explored here: https://mindmatters.ai/2020/02/why-pioneer-neurosurgeon-wilder-penfield-said-the-mind-is-more-than-the-brain/

So this post doesn't blow apart, the commonality between all three reasons is that he was unable to simulate rational thinking or agency. Which of course he wasn't. Rational thinking and agency are formed by several neurons being simulated and communicating with one another. A light electric shock on the surface of the brain is not accessing the entire complexity of the brain. His conclusion makes sense with the knowledge of the 50's, but does not make sense today.

Eccles is another person who proposed opinions in the 60's that he could also not confirm. Neuroscience from the 60's is an entire generation ago. To to examine him:

https://dana.org/article/neuroscience-and-the-soul/#:~:text=Eccles%20hypothesized%20that%20the%20liaison,was%20a%20kind%20of%20consciousness.
"To justify his hypotheses, it was necessary for Eccles to assume that contemporary physics could not detect, measure, or predict the supposed mental forces. In his Nature essay, he suggested that, while waiting for physics to improve, we should take note of “well-controlled experiments that give evidence that there is a two-way traffic between mind and the matter-energy system,” and went on to assert that “psychokinetic experiments leave little doubt that very slight changes can be produced by some minds on moving physical objects such as dice.” To support his hypothesis of nonphysical causation, Eccles also added the claims of extrasensory perception (ESP).3 In retrospect, these arguments seem weak; well-controlled experiments with ESP have repeatedly failed to support the claims of its exponents."

Finally,

What about, for instance, meaning. You can't get from 'the laws which govern molecules and energy' (i.e. physics, organic chemistry, etc) to 'the laws which govern semantics'. — Wayfarer

Yes you can. We know that there are certain parts of the brain that allow a person to grasp language. Animals and insects which lack these aspects of the brain are unable to communicate using language.
https://www.headway.org.uk/about-brain-injury/individuals/effects-of-brain-injury/communication-problems/language-impairment-aphasia/

Aphasia is the term for when a person has brain damage that limits their ability to communicate.

Whew! Long post. I can address the point about the hard problem later, but this is enough for now. I find the points you provided do not rationally lead to the idea of a mind existing outside of the brain. Feel free to cite more if you have it.

Ask it 'how are you?' If it can answer, it's not a zombie.
— Wayfarer

How about we ask it to enclose a space? If it cannot, it is a zombie. — Mww

I'm not sure what you mean by that. How would you or I 'enclose a space'?

The point about my rhetorical question - asking it 'how it is' - is that it can't answer, because it doesn't have any condition to report on. It makes sounds, but it is not a being, so it has no inner condition.

You say "mind" as if it is something apart from the brain. That doesn't make any sense based on cellular biology. What evidence do you have that there is something separate from the brain? — Philosophim

Because, if it were a purely physical process, then intentionality would have no impact on it. In those experiments where a conscious mental activity causes changes to the brain structure, then the changes are brought about by a conscious act, not by a physical cause. If I tell you something that has physical consequences, that is different to my hitting you or giving you a physical substance. Intentionality is not a physical thing.

This is the whole basis of psychosomatic medicine and the placebo effect. According to physicalism, the placebo effect ought not to work.

Broadly speaking the ability of the brain to heal itself is an example of biological homeostasis. So the question for physicalism is: is homeostasis a physical process? You will answer, 'of course it is', but the fact remains it is only ever observed in living organisms. It is never observed in non-living matter. Has science explained that? Physicalism assumes that everything reduces to physical laws, but at least some biologists believe that the laws governing homeostasis and so on cannot be so reduced.

Rational thinking and agency are formed by several neurons being simulated and communicating with one another. A light electric shock on the surface of the brain is not accessing the entire complexity of the brain. His conclusion makes sense with the knowledge of the 50's, but does not make sense today. — Philosophim

Really I'm not buying that. I certainly agree a lot of people won't accept what Penfield said, but I don't think you can say they've been superseded. And I also know a lot of people reject Eccles and Popper's dualism (or 'trialism'), but the point I'm making is that in both cases, you have celebrated neuroscientists who reject physicalism. Physicalism is not unanimously held.

"To justify his [Eccles] hypotheses, it was necessary for Eccles to assume that contemporary physics could not detect, measure, or predict the supposed mental forces. — Philosophim

Go back to this post about the 'neural binding problem'. This problem revolves around the attempt to analyse which neural mechanism can be said to account for the subjective unity of conscious experience. The paper cited says that 'There is now overwhelming biological and behavioral evidence that the brain contains no stable, high-resolution, full field representation of a visual scene, even though that is what we subjectively experience.'

We know that there are certain parts of the brain that allow a person to grasp language. — Philosophim

Except for the fact that, as discussed above, if the brain is damaged, then it will re-purpose itself so that other areas take over. Neuroplasticity again. And again, how is this a 'physical process'? There's nothing in physics which mirrors that. We simply assume it's physical because it can be observed.

I don't doubt the facts of evolution, but evolution is a biological theory, and I don't think it accounts for the laws of logic, for example. H. sapiens evolve to the point of being able to grasp those laws, but those laws are not a product of that process of evolution. They don't come into existence as a result of evolution. What evolves is the capacity for reason, but the furniture of reason pre-exists that ability.

And about 'mental forces': where does 'the force of reason' originate? If I tell you that 2 is greater than 3, you will understandably recoil, or tell me I'm speaking nonsense, quite rightly. But how are such facts 'physical'? What is the physical basis for the facts of reason? Do you see the point?

Because, if it were a purely physical process, then intentionality would have no impact on it. In those experiments where a conscious mental activity causes changes to the brain structure, then the changes are brought about by a conscous act, not by a physical cause. If I tell you something that has physical consequences, that is different to my hitting you or giving you a physical substance. Intentionality is not a physical thing. — Wayfarer

I don't see your conclusion being rational. You're assuming that consciousness is not a physical process, therefore consciousness cannot be a physical process. The brain can communicate amongst its cells, and produce different outcomes through a physical process. You have shown nowhere where this is not the case.

I think what you might be missing is the idea of input and output, versus the processing in the brain itself. The brain changes based on internal processing, input, and output. Your sensory receivers of sight and sound are inputs. Your brain takes those inputs and molds them into something it can interpret. But sight and sound don't affect the brain directly, its the interpretation of that light and sound. The brain needs that physical light and sound to touch its physical nerves, which travel up the physical pathways to touch the physical neurons. A person can lose an input like sight or sound, but still the brain processes up there.

I'm sensing your view of neuroscience is outdated considering who you are citing. The philosophy of mind is an aside to modern day neuroscience. The idea of something apart from the physical brain is based on ignorance or superstition at this point. I'm also sensing you're focusing too much on humans. Think of a dog sitting around and scheming how to get the food off the table. A spider constructing a complex web. These are all physical beings that we attribute no extra essence to. It is the reality we live in.

I think you also misunderstand the placebo affect. https://www.health.harvard.edu/mental-health/the-power-of-the-placebo-effect

"Placebos won't lower your cholesterol or shrink a tumor. Instead, placebos work on symptoms modulated by the brain, like the perception of pain. "Placebos may make you feel better, but they will not cure you," says Kaptchuk. "They have been shown to be most effective for conditions like pain management, stress-related insomnia, and cancer treatment side effects like fatigue and nausea."

This is often attributed to the idea that pain and fatigue are indicators that you need to rest or take care of yourself. If you can fool the brain into thinking its being taken care of, its wasteful to keep sending these signals out. But it doesn't actually cure you. This is still a physical process. "How placebos work is still not quite understood, but it involves a complex neurobiological reaction that includes everything from increases in feel-good neurotransmitters, like endorphins and dopamine, to greater activity in certain brain regions linked to moods, emotional reactions, and self-awareness."

It (Self-repair) is never observed in non-living matter. — Wayfarer

Ah, this is a simple misunderstanding between life and non-life. We're both made up of matter and energy. Life is a serious of complex chemical reactions that seeks to sustain its chemical reactions. A sun does not seek more hydrogen as it burns out. Therefore it is non-life. Anything which seeks to sustain its own reaction by seeking out a replacement for what it is burned, is called life. But its all the same matter underneath.

Go back to this post about the 'neural binding problem'. — Wayfarer

There is a paragraph in the first Chalmer's paper you linked me. "A nonreductive theory of consciousness will consist in a number of psychophysical principles, principles connecting the properties of physical processes to the properties of experience. We can think of these principles as encapsulating the way in which experience arises from the physical. Ultimately, these principles should tell us what sort of physical systems will have associated experiences, and for the systems that do, they should tell us what sort of physical properties are relevant to the emergence of experience, and just what sort of experience we should expect any given physical system to yield. This is a tall order, but there is no reason why we should not get started."

Even Chalmers is not claiming that consciousness is not separate from the physical. He understands that consciousness rises out of physical processes.

The Neural binding problem is only mentioning that we have not found the process by which the brain takes all of the visual information for example, and processes it into what we "see". It is merely noting that it is difficult to do so, and is in its infancy. The neural binding problem is not a claim there was an alternative to consciousness coming from the brain. It is merely identifying the difficulties of figuring out the exact process, and the challenges that it entails.

Everything points to consciousness being the physical process of the brain. We're trying to figure out exactly how that works right now, but there are no theories in science which are studying the consciousness as if it is somehow separate and not formed from the brain. Feel free to show me some if you know of them.

The rest of your statements are just a lack of understanding. Neuroplasticity is a very physical action that has limits on what it can do. Laws are a recognition of reality, and logic is a fundamental understanding of reality. 3 is greater than 2 because my brain can process the language of the numbers, represent the objects, and understands how to compare. Even a dog can observe the concept of greater and lesser.

Just because you don't understand neuronal activity, does not mean that it does not produce the things we all experience in reality. I do not understand your viewpoint. Concepts are physical results of your brain, within the brain itself. Maybe a comparison can help. Basic computer code is 1's and 0's. We can limit the expression of these 1's and 0's to 8 bits, and read the order of those 8 bits to represent different things. The computer represents its internal processing reality to these bits. It takes a TV to display those bits into something we understand. Will we ever understand the personal experience of a computer that is programmed to monitor itself? No, that experience can only be done with 1's and 0's, which we don't process in. But we do know those 1's and 0's build the computer program we are using and seeing. There is nothing magical or fantastical going on, its all just a physical process.

You're assuming that consciousness is not a physical process, therefore consciousness cannot be a physical process — Philosophim

And you're simply assuming the opposite. And, what is 'physical', anyway? What does it mean?

Your brain takes those inputs and molds them into something it can interpret. — Philosophim

This is the mereological fallacy. This is the fallacy of ascribing psychological attributes to parts of the being that can only intelligibly be ascribed to the being as a whole.

The brain doesn't do anything by itself. It is embodied in the organism, which is situated in an environment and culture. It acts within that matrix.

Hence the requirement for 'top-down' causation. Top-down causation refers to effects on lower-level components of organized systems that cannot be fully analyzed in terms of component-level behavior but instead requires reference to the higher-level system. Materialism is generally bottom-up, i.e. action can be reduced to the activities of molecules and then acts 'upwards' to affect the mind. Dennett's philosophy is strictly bottom-up. But the hackneyed phrase 'mind over matter' suggests top-down causation, and it operates on every level as well.

Life is a serious of complex chemical reactions that seeks to sustain its chemical reactions. ...Anything which seeks to sustain its own reaction by seeking out a replacement for what it is burned, is called life. But its all the same matter underneath — Philosophim

A materialist will say that, but his opponent will insist that whatever it is that 'seeks to sustain its reactions' is not in itself chemical nor is disclosed in the rules of chemistry.

There has been a search for extraterrestrial biology going on for decades, and it has not found anything yet. So life is apparently extremely rare in the cosmos, and it's quite reasonable to argue that it is not continuous with non-living matter, but is ontologically distinct. This is not to suggest some kind of elan vital or secret sauce, but to point out that it's organised on a level that can't be reduced to physical laws. 'What is life' and 'what is mind' are still open questions; science knows a huge amount more about those questions than it did 200 years ago, but it's still an open question.

How placebos work is still not quite understood. — Philosophim

My point, exactly. Can't be fit into the bottom-up scenario.

Even Chalmers is not claiming that consciousness is not separate from the physical. He understands that consciousness rises out of physical processes. — Philosophim

Chalmers characterizes his view as "naturalistic dualism": naturalistic because he believes mental states supervenes "naturally" on physical systems (such as brains); dualist because he believes mental states are ontologically distinct from and not reducible to physical systems. — Wikipedia

Do you appreciated what 'ontologically distinct from' means?

It is merely noting that it [maintaining unity of perception] is difficult to do so, and is in its infancy. — Philosophim

Have you ever heard Karl Popper's expresssion 'the promissory notes of materialism'? This refers to the tendency to say in just such cases, 'hey, science hasn't figured it out yet, but we will! It's just a matter of time!'

If you think it through, it's a very subtle problem, because in this case, what you're trying to explain, and what is doing the explaining, are the same.

I do not understand your viewpoint. — Philosophim

Clearly.

Consider this passage from a paper on biosemiotics (which is the emerging discipline of the application of semiotics to biological processes, which I learned about on this forum):

The concept of Biosemiotics requires making a distinction between two categories, the material or physical world and the symbolic or semantic world. The problem is that there is no obvious way to connect the two categories. This is a classical philosophical problem on which there is no consensus even today. Biosemiotics recognizes that the philosophical matter-mind problem extends downward to the pattern recognition and control processes of the simplest living organisms where it can more easily be addressed as a scientific problem. In fact, how material structures serve as signals, instructions, and controls is inseparable from the problem of the origin and evolution of life. Biosemiotics was established as a necessary complement to the physical-chemical reductionist approach to life that cannot make this crucial categorical distinction necessary for describing semantic information. Matter as described by physics and chemistry has no intrinsic function or semantics. By contrast, biosemiotics recognizes that life begins with function and semantics.

Biosemiotics recognizes this matter-symbol problem at all levels of life from natural languages down to the DNA. Cartesian dualism was one classical attempt to address this problem, but while this ontological dualism makes a clear distinction between mind and matter, it consigns the relation between them to metaphysical obscurity. Largely because of our knowledge of the physical details of genetic control, symbol manipulation, and brain function these two categories today appear only as an epistemological necessity, but a necessity that still needs a coherent explanation. Even in the most detailed physical description of matter there is no hint of any function or meaning.

The problem also poses an apparent paradox: All signs, symbols, and codes, all languages including formal mathematics are embodied as material physical structures and therefore must obey all the inexorable laws of physics. At the same time, the symbol vehicles like the bases in DNA, voltages representing bits in a computer, the text on this page, and the neuron firings in the brain do not appear to be limited by, or clearly related to, the very laws they must obey. Even the mathematical symbols that express these inexorable physical laws seem to be entirely free of these same laws. — Howard Pattee

This is well on its way towards becoming accepted as mainstream science. And why? Because, as Pattee says, it is 'a necessary complement to the physical-chemical reductionist approach to life that cannot make this crucial categorical distinction necessary for describing semantic information'. In other words, because semantic and semiotic laws can't be derived from physical laws.

You expect, and Daniel Dennett will agrre, that evolution provides the conceptual link between the physical and the symbolic domains. But this is what is being questioned by biosemiotics and by Dennett's critics. But that is enough for now.

But, nevertheless, there is a valid distinction to be made between the first- and third-person perspective. In other words, me seeing Alice kick the ball is completely different to me kicking it. Of course, to you, then both me and Alice are third parties, but the point remains. — Wayfarer

Yes, seeing someone do something is different to doing it yourself. However yours and my view is not 'a view from nowhere', and neither is Alice's experience radically private or subjective. As human beings, we can use the same language to describe Alice's activity as she can.

↪Andrew M
"So if that philosophical distinction is rejected, both in whole and in part, then what are we left with? I think ordinary language serves us just fine here."

Perhaps the point, the whole point of this world is to be a vehicle for experience. — Punshhh

Maybe! Certainly that is what our ordinary language is grounded in.

Best post I ever read here so far, so I gave you the palm. :-)

Matter as described by physics and chemistry has no intrinsic function or semantics. By contrast, biosemiotics recognizes that life begins with function and semantics. — Howard Pattee

Hence the mistake of pan-psychism is one of extension: it's not all matter that is infused with some amount of 'consciousness'; but all life. Biology should be taken seriously by philosophers.

But there just is no fact of the matter whether a word or picture is pointed at one thing or another. No physical bolt of energy flows from pointer to pointee(s). So the whole social game is one of pretence.
— bongo fury

Unless you're a biosemiotician? :chin: — bongo fury

Today, no biologist would dream of supposing that it was quite all right to appeal to some innocent concept of lan vital. — QQ

it's not all matter that is infused with some amount of 'consciousness'; but all life. — Olivier5

And you're simply assuming the opposite. And, what is 'physical', anyway? What does it mean? — Wayfarer

No, I'm not assuming anything. I'm taking what we know, which is that the physical brain produces consciousness. One thing you have not done is shown any evidence that it can be anything other than this. I'm not talking about theories, but facts. I have asked you a few times now, "If the mind is not physical, what is it?" I have already said what physical is, but I'll say it again. Matter and energy. Einstein confirmed that they are the same thing, just expressed in different forms.

My point, exactly. Can't be fit into the bottom-up scenario. — Wayfarer

You conveniently ignored the parts about placebo's we do know. I'm not talking about a bottom/top scenario. I'm talking about the brain processing and parts of that being consciousness. Consciousness works within the brain. It is not above it, or below it. Its like molecules of water reacting to the wind. Waves form. Molecules are part of the water. They explain the fundamentals of why the water reacts at a molecular level, but they are not below or above the water itself.

Have you ever heard Karl Popper's expresssion 'the promissory notes of materialism'? This refers to the tendency to say in just such cases, 'hey, science hasn't figured it out yet, but we will! It's just a matter of time!' — Wayfarer

The science of brain and consciousness is not binary. Its not, "We understand it all, or we understand none". We understand plenty of parts that show the mind is produced by the brain. When you alter the brain, you alter the mind. We're still figuring out to the science what exactly that entails. We have flashes of light here and there, but designing THE scientific process for how consciousness and the brain works is still in progress. I have asked you a few times now, and you still have not answered this vital question to your ideology. If consciousness is not the brains inner workings, what is it? Give me facts, evidence, a viable theory. If you can't, saying, "Well I just doubt it," is not a rational argument. We can express doubt about anything. What I am looking for is viable and rational alternatives.

— Wikipedia (For Chalmers) — Wayfarer

When people debate the meaning of philosophers even as old as Descartes, I don't think Wikipedia is a good source of summing up his philosophy. I'm going to post the first sentence of the Chalmer's paragraph again.

A nonreductive theory of consciousness will consist in a number of psychophysical principles, principles connecting the properties of physical processes to the properties of experience. We can think of these principles as encapsulating the way in which experience arises from the physical. — Philosophim

These are not ontologically distinct. These are descriptors that ultimately connect to the physical process. Water is molecules of H20, but we don't refer to water as H20. We say it has waves, flows, etc. But all of these terms are reducible to the molecular make up and laws of H20. That is all Chalmers is saying. He is NOT saying "Water" is different from "Molecules of H20". It is a different way of describing the mass of H20 molecules, basically a different measurement scale. Inches instead of millimeters. Even though one is feet, and the other is meters, they are different descriptors of "length" that describe the same thing. Perhaps in this we could call inches ontologically distinct from millimeters, but not the thing they are both measuring.

— Howard Pattee — Wayfarer

In other words, because semantic and semiotic laws can't be derived from physical laws. — Wayfarer

You have drawn the wrong conclusions from biosemiotics. They are talking about a conceptual model, not that the conceptual model does is not separated from physical laws. They're just saying the current conceptual model of physics is not adequate to describe the physical process of life.

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12304-009-9042-8
"The solution proposed by Pattee, in short, is that signs and codes do not require new laws of physics, because they are a special type of constraints and constraints are an integral part of normal physical theory. The whole argument is developed in three logical steps: (1) life requires evolvable self-replication (a biological principle), (2) evolvability requires symbolic control of self-replication (von Neumann), and (3) physics requires that symbols and codes are special types of constraints (Pattee).

This proposal is undoubtedly a form of biosemiotics, because it states that semiosis exists in every living cell, and since it is based on the idea that signs and codes are physical constraints, it can be referred to as physical-constraint biosemiotics, or, more simply, as physical biosemiotics (Pattee himself, in a private correspondence with the author, has accepted that this is an adequate name for his approach)."

Models to describe systems are constantly being proposed and used. Again, the molecular model of water versus the flow model of water are two different ways of identifying and communicating the underlying physical reality. No where is Pattee claiming that the model of biosemetics supercedes or replaces the underlying physics.

So again, I sense a lack of understanding of what all of these conceptual models and word choices are about. All evidence points to consciousness being a function of the brain. No evidence points otherwise. Current physical models have a difficulty in marrying our generic concept of consciousness with the mechanics of the brain. Many models are proposed that can marry these two in such a way that it is easier to conceive of what is happening. BUT, they do not supercede the underlying physics, and should ultimately reduce to physical reality.

I appreciate the citations and information you've put forward. It has been a good conversation. But I can show you exactly what I would need to doubt the idea that consciousness does not result from the brain.

1. Provide an evidence based model that shows consciousness as necessarily existing apart from the brain. One that does not, and cannot, reduce down to the physical reality of the brain.

Because everything I know of reduces down to an evidence based model that shows consciousness as necessarily originating from the brain. If you can provide one, and it withstands an examination, I will concede that consciousness may be separate from the brain. If not, then I have no rational choice but to accept that consciousness is a function of the brain.

Moved from another thread as off-topic; more relevant here. @Isaac, no obligation to respond if you're not interested in this thread.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Thanks Isaac. If this ends up being pointless, I apologise except I don't as it's always good to hear an expert expunge. As a heads up, my understanding of qualia is that they pertain to conscious experience only: they are objects of consciousness, not, say, intermediary data in some pattern-recognition process of the ventral stream. This is just for clarity when talking of response, which may be completely unconscious.

At some point, several models in, the ventral stream reaches a region which models objects and it will feed forward to areas associated with the object 'car'. Meanwhile, the dorsal stream has been merrily progressing away on the question of how to interact with this hidden state, without the blindest idea what it is. — Isaac

And these both still precede my conscious experience, right? For instance, I never open my eyes and see this:



and not see two cars(ventral), nor do I not see that one is further away than the other (dorsal). Sometimes we're presented with something and we can't make it out, but most of the time we know what we're perceiving as we perceive it, rather than consciously seeing a vision and having to work out what it's of.

The fact that I perceive a car and can discern a different car, without necessarily being conscious of any of the details of either (making them tokens, not a type), suggests to me that we do have objects of our subjective conscious experiences, that these objects are presented to our consciousness as objects, and that this is the sort of thing we should mean when we speak of qualia.

Point 1 the recognition that it's a car is part of your conscious experience of the hidden state. — Isaac

I'm not sure whether you're saying that the recognition of the car is part of the experience I am conscious of, which is also what I'm saying, or whether we consciously recognise the car, which flies in the face of my experience, and also seems to contradict the idea that the brain is adept at filtering out irrelevant sensory data that we are, consequently, unaware of (e.g. the sound of a car engine at night after living a month in Manhatten, versus the sound of a gunshot).

There can be no quale of a car because modelling it as 'car' is part of the response, quite some way in, in fact. — Isaac

Yes, but that is pre-conscious response, and the result of that modelling is an input to conscious experience, the purported objects of which are the qualia. So it's absolutely fine for my experience to contain a car quale (is it qual or quale?) that has been introduced by pre-conscious processing by the ventral stream. (I hope I'm not talking total shit here.)

The dorsal signal doesn't even know it's a car before it's deciding what to do with it — Isaac

It's not obvious to me why it should. Why do I need to know how far away the left-hand car is in order to recognise it as a car? I don't think a car quale has to have a property-by-property map to the actual car.

Point 2 the models which determine the suppression of forward acting neural signals are themselves informed and updated by signals from other areas of the brain. So no more than a few steps in and whatever hidden states we might like to think started the whole 'car' cascade of signals have been utterly swamped with signals unrelated to that event trying to push them toward the most expected model. — Isaac

Which ends up being 'car', which is something I am then conscious of without having to figure out what's in the image consciously.

Either way, the private, accessible to introspection, but inaccessible to third party, qualia of 'red' is an absolute non-starter neurologically. — Isaac

But presumably there is an analogue to the above. The left car is blue. I am conscious of it being blue. I am not conscious of figuring out that it's blue: it's blueness is presented to my consciousness. There is nothing of this in the thing itself, which is a bunch of atoms emitting photons, some of which strike my retina. So in between there is some process, at the end of which this particular blueness is presented to me coincident with this particular car-ness. Whether or not this is a consistent thing doesn't strike me as particularly relevant.

We always 'experience' events post hoc, never in real time. The experience is a constructed story told later (sometimes much later). — Isaac

I like the storytelling analogy. By this I assume you mean that the timescales involved in consciously working stuff out is much slower than the timescales of photons-hitting-retina to conscious-of-image. It can't be too much later. I have present experience for a reason: present problems require present solutions.

Yes, seeing someone do something is different to doing it yourself. However yours and my view is not 'a view from nowhere', and neither is Alice's experience radically private or subjective. As human beings, we can use the same language to describe Alice's activity as she can. — Andrew M

Sorry, but I think you’re missing the point. The basis of the whole debate is whether there is an essential difference, something that can’t be captured objectively, about the first-person perspective. Obviously we can ‘use the same language’ and if you say ‘Alice kicks the ball’ of course I will know what you mean. But that misses the point of the argument.

The really hard problem of consciousness is the problem of experience. When we think and perceive, there is a whir of information-processing, but there is also a subjective aspect. As Nagel (1974) has put it, there is something it is like to be a conscious organism. This subjective aspect is experience. When we see, for example, we experience visual sensations: the felt quality of redness, the experience of dark and light, the quality of depth in a visual field. Other experiences go along with perception in different modalities: the sound of a clarinet, the smell of mothballs. Then there are bodily sensations, from pains to orgasms; mental images that are conjured up internally; the felt quality of emotion, and the experience of a stream of conscious thought. What unites all of these states is that there is something it is like to be in them. All of them are states of experience. — David Chalmers

I'm taking what we know, which is that the physical brain produces consciousness. — Philosophim

Do 'we' know that? What does 'produce' mean, here? What is it that is being produced? And how is it being produced? And, is the brain 'a physical thing?' Extract a brain from a human, and it is still the same matter, but it's now an inert object, even though it's stil a physical thing. When situated in a living being, the brain has more neural connections than stars in the sky. It is no longer simply an object, but a central part of cognition and is central to any possible theory, including any theory about 'what is physical'. So in what sense is it a 'physical thing' in that context?

I'll further suggest the heuristic that 'a physical thing' or 'a body' is something that can be fully accounted for in terms of physical attributes, such as mass, velocity, and so on - in other words, the atttibutes measured by the physical sciences (which is why 'physics' is paradigmatic for it.)

But the notion of what is 'physical' itself keeps changing. It used to be the indivisible particles of Democritus, but then particles were found to be 'excitations of fields'. And what are 'fields'? Are there types of fields - like biological fields - that are unknown to science at this time? If there were - and some say there are - how would they be discovered? Nowadays we're told that 96% of the Universe exists in a form that is as yet completely unknown to science. Is that 'physical' too?

There is no longer any definite conception of "body". Rather, 'the material world' is whatever we discover it to be, with whatever properties it must be assumed to have for the purposes of explanatory theory. Any intelligible theory that offers genuine explanations and that can be assimilated to the core notions of physics becomes part of the theory of the material world, part of our account of body. If we have such a theory in some domain, we seek to assimilate it to the core notions of physics, perhaps modifying these notions as we carry out this enterprise. — Noam Chomsky

Language and Problems of Knowledge p 144.

But then, if the definition of 'a body' or 'the physical' can be changed to accomodate anything that is later discovered by physics you fall into the jaws of Hempel's Dilemma:

On the one hand, we may define "the physical" as whatever is currently explained by our best physical theories, e.g., quantum mechanics, general relativity. Though many would find this definition unsatisfactory, some would accept that we have at least a general understanding of the physical based on these theories, and can use them to assess what is physical and what is not. And therein lies the rub, as a worked-out explanation of mentality currently lies outside the scope of such theories.

On the other hand, if we say that some future, "ideal" physics is what is meant, then the claim is rather empty, for we have no idea of what this means. The "ideal" physics may even come to define what we think of as mental as part of the physical world. In effect, physicalism by this second account becomes the circular claim that all phenomena are explicable in terms of physics because physics properly defined is whatever explains all phenomena. — Wikipedia, Hempel's Dilemma

As you say:

They're [biosemioticianas] are just saying the current conceptual model of physics is not adequate to describe the physical process of life. — Philosophim

Right! That's exactly what they're saying. Now, I know that Pattee and others in that school are at pains to remain within the bounds of naturalism, showing due obeisance to the 'inviolable laws of physics' and so on. But the fact of the existence of this school shows that the ground is already shifting towards a more 'mind-like' and top-down causal model of life and mind. (Incidentally there's also a split within biosemiotics between the 'C. S. Pierce' school, and another school which is attempting to maintain a greater continuity with mainstream science and views the influence of C S Pierce with some wariness. See: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/259637344)

When you alter the brain, you alter the mind. We're still figuring out to the science what exactly that entails. — Philosophim

But as I've said - the contrary also works, and that is demonstrable by observation and experiment. Humans can perform mental acts which alter the physical configuration of the brain. A physical change to a brain is through injury or a medicine or substance which literally alters the material structure. But if the structure is altered through a volitional act, then that is mental in origin. (People have been known to alter their brain function, and so their perception of reality, through meditation, for millenia. This is the subject of much research nowadays.)

Furthermore, if the human mind demonstrates this capacity, then the same principle might be shown to apply to life at other levels. Hence, again, the interest in signs and symbols as intrinsic to organic processes generally. And that is an 'interpretive' dynamic, if you like, which is different in essence to the physical transmission of properties.

'm talking about the brain processing and parts of that being consciousness. Consciousness works within the brain. It is not above it, or below it. Its like molecules of water reacting to the wind. Waves form. Molecules are part of the water. — Philosophim

That is 'brain-mind identity theory'. But 'wetness' does not stand in the relationship to hydrogen and oxygen that consciousness does in relation to matter. Besides, consciousness does not only work within the brain, it is present at some level in the operation of all living organisms. Perhaps it is a facet of life itself, which reaches a unique plateau of expression in the sophisticated forebrain of h. sapiens.

I have asked you a few times now, "If the mind is not physical, what is it?" I have already said what physical is, but I'll say it again. Matter and energy. Einstein confirmed that they are the same thing, just expressed in different forms. — Philosophim

If consciousness is not the brains inner workings, what is it? Give me facts, evidence, a viable theory. If you can't, saying, "Well I just doubt it," is not a rational argument. — Philosophim

That is a good question, and I have an answer to it, but it takes a lot of explanation. Most thinking nowadays on this is question is 'post-Cartesian'. Descartes' particular rendering of the mind-body problem as res cogitans and res extensia is deeply implicated in all of our thinking about it, not least because Descartes was one of the principle figures in the development of modern scientific method. Descartes algebraic geometry is one of the foundations of modern science. (I regard Descartes as a genius, by the way.)

After Descartes, the two major trends in philosophy tended towards idealism, which took Descartes' model of 'res cogitans' to be fundamentally real, and materialism, which claimed to eliminate it altogether. In the English-speaking world, one contemporary expression of the latter approach is Gilbert Ryle's depiction of the mind as 'a ghost in a machine'. This comes from the basic fact that Descartes model was just that - a model, an abstraction, in which 'the body' was nothing but a machine, and the mind was nothing but ideas. And that lead to the idea that they can be concieved separately.

The term "Idealism" came into vogue roughly during the time of Kant (though it was used earlier by others, such as Leibniz) to label one of two trends that had emerged in reaction to Cartesian philosophy. Descartes had argued that there were two basic yet separate substances in the universe: Extension (the material world of things in space) and Thought (the world of mind and ideas).

Subsequently opposing camps took one or the other substance as their metaphysical foundation, treating it as the primary substance while reducing the remaining substance to derivative status. Materialists argued that only matter was ultimately real, so that thought and consciousness derived from physical entities (chemistry, brain states, etc.). — Dan Lusthaus

So, you're operating within the latter explanatory framework. So any 'theory of consciousness' that I would try and submit, would have to fit within that explanatory framework. But there's a fundamental problem with that, because to do so requires treating 'res cogitans' as an object - which it never is. There is no object anywhere called 'mind'. You can only deal with the question if you can conceive of the subject of the question in objective terms. That defines the attitude of post-Cartesian materialism: it has defined the subject in such a way that the notion of 'mind' is itself incomprensible, leading to:

Cartesian anxiety referring to the notion that, since René Descartes posited his influential form of body-mind dualism, Western civilization has suffered from a longing for ontological certainty, or feeling that scientific methods, and especially the study of the world as a thing separate from ourselves, should be able to lead us to a firm and unchanging knowledge of ourselves and the world around us. The term is named after Descartes because of his well-known emphasis on "mind" as different from "body", "self" as different from "other".

Richard J. Bernstein coined the term in his 1983 book Beyond Objectivism and Relativism: Science, Hermeneutics, and Praxis.

1. Provide an evidence-based model that shows consciousness as necessarily existing apart from the brain. One that does not, and cannot, reduce down to the physical reality of the brain. — Philosophim

There are scientists involved in that research, but as you know, it will always be regarded as 'fringe science'. You saw above that when I referred to Wilder Penfield, it was immediately referred to as a 'crackpot idea'. (Incidentally the link you looked up about him was sympathetic to him, but then, it was published on a site associated with Intelligent Design.)

Physicalism, such as the kind you naturally assume, is the default philosophy of the culture we live in; 'presumptive materialism', I call it - question it at your peril! I think I've gone some way to laying out the reasons why it can be questioned, but if you want a book that provides evidence for immaterial mind, you could do worse that looking at Irreducible Mind, E. Kelly et al.

"...Any intelligible theory that offers genuine explanations and that can be assimilated to the core notions of physics becomes part of the theory of the material world, part of our account of body. If we have such a theory in some domain, we seek to assimilate it to the core notions of physics, perhaps modifying these notions as we carry out this enterprise."
[~Noam Chomsky)

Physicalism, such as the kind you naturally assume, is the default philosophy of the culture we live in; 'presumptive materialism', — Wayfarer

Interesting point. The dominant trend does not appear to consider itself as an ideology (despite that is exactly what it is), somehow it regards itself as incontrovertible and self evident. It is very dogmatic, bordering on what I consider religious belief. Of course most advocates for the physicalist ideology do not seem willing to go all the way, rather holding onto metaphysical ideas without properly assimilating them into the materialist framework. When, with genuine philosophical vigor, one honestly examines physicalism for what it is, it definitely loses its luster.

Interesting point. The dominant trend does not appear to consider itself as an ideology (despite that is exactly what it is), somehow it regards itself as incontrovertible and self evident. It is very dogmatic, bordering on what I consider religious belief. Of course most advocates for the physicalist ideology do not seem willing to go all the way, rather holding onto metaphysical ideas without properly assimilating them into the materialist framework. When, with genuine philosophical vigor, one honestly examines physicalism for what it is, it definitely loses its luster. — Merkwurdichliebe

But isnt Chomskys point that physicalism, due to its history of subsuming whatever we came to accept as real (in a bodily sense), has lost its original meaning? It's the few flat earthers among us that feel the need to get dogmatic about anything.

Irreducible Mind, E. Kelly et al. — Wayfarer

I’ve appreciated methodological parallelism since James, 1890b, v1, and this book since I downloaded it 8 years ago.

Good read, interesting information, despite its psychological leaning.

But isnt Chomskys point that physicalism, due to its history of subsuming whatever we came to accept as real (in a bodily sense), has lost its original meaning? It's the few flat earthers among us that feel the need to get dogmatic about anything. — frank

First of all, I love dogmatism. Sadly, it is a dying art as the world becomes increasingly wishy-washy, yet it will always be practiced because there will always be people dumb enough or crazy enough to try.

I don't think he was saying that it has lost its original meaning, but that it is an all consuming paradigm. It assimilates or eliminates though it's own methodology, there is no dialectical compromise, everything is to be made physical, first and last, and anything that we can reasonably fit in between is fair game.

don't think he was saying that it has lost its original meaning, — Merkwurdichliebe

He has said that, though, that Physicalism 1.0 died with the acceptance of electromagnetism.

It assimilates or eliminates though it's own methodology, there is no dialectical compromise, everything is to be made physical, first and last, and anything that we can reasonably fit in between is fair game. — Merkwurdichliebe

It's not the Red Army, its just a useful category.

due to its [physicalism's] history of subsuming whatever we came to accept as real (in a bodily sense), has lost its original meaning? — frank

Also, it didn't hit me at first, but think you should give yourself credit. That is an interesting and novel idea. Could you explain more what you mean?

It's not the Red Army, its just a useful category. — frank

Lol. It is from the materialists I've dealt with. But it is a useful category, I give you that

He has said that, though, that Physicalism 1.0 died with the acceptance of electromagnetism. — frank

You are saying, that he said, in so many words: physicalism, in proving itself, ate itself alive.

But I don't see materialists backing down, what gives?

You are saying, that he said, in so many words: physicalism, in proving itself, ate itself alive. But I don't see materialist backing down, what gives? — Merkwurdichliebe

I think he meant that physicalism morphed into something its earlier adherents would have rejected. Remember Newton's cohorts wanted to reject gravity on the basis that it was mystical. Newton gave up and retired to his basement in the face of the dogma.

Materialism is waning. But the pendulum just keeps swinging.

It's not the Red Army, its just a useful category.
— frank

Lol. It is from the materialists I've dealt with. But it is a useful category, I give you that — Merkwurdichliebe

On further consideration, I must point out the distinction between physics and the physical sciences as a category of knowledge, and physicalism as a philosophical ideology. With that in mind, physicalism is no more useful than zoroastrianism.