So here are some reflections on “The Blind Spot”:

Frank focuses on two “intractable problems,” scientific objectivism and physicalism. He’s very good on physicalism, giving us (as many others have) the philosophical reasons we should not be physicalists. What’s interesting is that one of his main arguments against physicalism ought to give him pause when he talks about objectivism and experience. He say, “If ‛physical reality’ means reality according to some future and complete physics, then the claim that there is nothing but physical reality is empty, because we have no idea what such a future physics will look like . . .”

I think much the same thing can be said concerning Frank’s conception of “experience” -- that it is an empty claim, because on his usage we have no idea what “non-experience” would be.

We need to look carefully at what Frank means when he talks about “experience.” He never quite gives a precise definition, but consider this: “Scientific investigations . . . occur only in the field of our experience. . . Experience is present at every step,” including the abstract: We experience models and theories and ideas just as we experience sense perceptions.

This seems tendentious to me. Generally speaking, that is not how we use the word. I don’t say, “I experienced a theory last night.” We usually divide our conscious life into what we personally experience, and what we might know or theorize that is beyond that experience. To understand is, in a trivial sense, to have an experience, but the tension lies in the fact that the very concept of “understand” is supposed to transcend that experience. If it doesn’t, then we haven’t actually understood. Are there perspectives on the Pythagorean theorem, in the same way there are perspectives on sunlight?

So we need to be able to say that we can understand things we can’t experience, that understanding is not a form of experience except by fiat. Now it is possible to stipulate that “experience” needs to cover absolutely everything, but then Frank’s point becomes merely a linguistic one. Yes, if experience means everything we know, then we can’t know anything we don’t experience. But we want a metaphysical conclusion, not a linguistic one. Is it in fact the case that we can’t know anything that isn’t experienced? Is knowledge itself an experience? My having such knowledge, perhaps, but the knowledge itself? Is “objective knowledge” really the same thing as “knowledge I don’t experience”?

Now I have no real argument with what Frank says about the God’s-eye view and “unvarnished reality.” I only point out that this isn’t what we mean when we talk about objectivity. Trivially, we can’t know what things look like when there’s no one to look at them except God (and even God can be left out, so no one at all is looking). But that is not because our experience somehow changes them. It’s because the concept is empty, since it lacks any intuitions. At least since Kant, we’ve had to acknowledge that “how things really are” in that sense is unknowable and/or meaningless. But when a chemist shows me the molecular structure of water, I don’t for a moment believe she is talking about that kind of objectivity. I suppose we could add a footnote to every single statement of objective fact which said something like, “But this of course depends on whether there are really atoms and fields and . . .” but again, this strikes me as way beside the scientific point.

Frank’s position leads him to say, “‛Objective’ simply means something that’s true to the observations agreed upon by a community of investigators using certain tools.” Why? Because “science is essentially a highly refined form of human experience.” But that can’t be the whole story. Even leaving aside my objections to Frank’s totalizing use of “experience,” we’re asked to accept that, were the observations and tools of our community of investigators different, we would have a different set of objective facts. This is surely wrong. The scientific project is a two-way, up-and-down street. Scientists begin with their tools and observations, yes, but then compare their experimental results and theoretical postulates, and revise accordingly. Something is not “objective” because everyone currently agrees about it. Pushing back hard on this is central to what science does.

I’d like to quote Thomas Nagel here, because as usual I find his take on this problem to be closer to how I understand it. This is from The View from Nowhere:

Only a dogmatic verificationist would deny the possibility of forming objective concepts that reach beyond our current capacity to apply them. The aim of reaching a conception of the world which does not put us at the center in any way requires the formation of such concepts. We are supported in such an aim by a kind of intellectual optimism: the belief that we possess an open-ended capacity for understanding what we have not yet conceived, and that it can be called into operation by detaching from our present understanding and trying to reach a higher-order view which explains it as part of the world. . . .

It is the same with the mind. To accept the general idea of a perspective without limiting it to the forms with which one is familiar, subjectively or otherwise, is the precondition of seeking ways to conceive of particular types of experience that do not depend on the ability either to have those experiences or to imagine them subjectively. It should be possible to investigate in this way the quality-structure of some sense we do not have, for example, by observing creatures who do have it – even though the understanding we can reach is only partial.

But if we could do that, we should also be able to apply the same general idea to ourselves, and thus to analyze our experiences in ways that can be understood without having had such experiences. That would constitute a kind of objective standpoint toward our own minds. — The View from Nowhere, 24-5

We should note that Nagel qualifies this in an important way. “Something will inevitably be lost,” he says – namely, what it is like to have the subjective experience. “No objective conception of the mental world can include it all.” But do we ask the objective viewpoint to include everything, or only (only!) to understand everything? This is where I think Frank goes wrong. He conceives of “experience” in such a way that there is no differentiation between these two modes of grasping reality.

Lastly, I think Frank is biasing the case when he speaks about science as if it’s a finished project. He says things like “Science has no answer to this question” and “Science is silent on this question” as if we should then conclude than ignorance and silence are the end of the story. Why? Why would anyone think we were anywhere near the end of scientific inquiry? We’ve all noticed this tendency in loose talk about Modern Science and its supposed pinnacles, but I’m surprised Frank indulges in it.

Well, that’s a lot, but I wanted you to know that I read the piece carefully, and I appreciate your pointing it out to me.

The question in the first sentence presupposes that there is some way we can know how the world really is. But there isn't. Or rather, how the world really is depends on your point of view. — Ludwig V

I think the question presupposes not so much that there is some way, but that the question can be meaningfully asked, and is important. We want to know whether any point of view can be said to describe the way the world really is. You may be right that there is not. But we both know there's a lot more to say than just "depends on your point of view." If my point of view is such that aliens have secretly replaced my family, that is not how the world really is.

If you say "There are no fundamental notions," you have nonetheless made an important statement about what is and isn't fundamental.
— J
I haven't said that there are no fundamental notions. In some cases, there clearly are. In other, there don't seem to me. Much turns on what you mean by fundamental. — Ludwig V

Sorry, I didn't mean "you" but rather the British "one." There are those who argue against the idea of fundamental notions.

Yes, the meaning of "fundamental" is in play here. For Sider, what's fundamental is structure, grounding. Maybe we should have a new thread focusing on his ideas.

that our usual construals of how the world is are useful because they're true, not vice versa -- but the problem is, truth isn't enough.
— J
No, truth isn't enough. But the truths we recognize reflect our interests and our way of life. That's the something more you are looking for. — Ludwig V

Perhaps. That's the standard quasi-pragmatic or perspectival response. If we compare a "bizarre truth" such as the grue-and-bleen people say, with "The sum of the angles of a triangle is 180 degrees", we're supposed to conclude that the only reason the latter truth is more important than the former is because it reflects our interests and our way of life. Sider would disagree. So would I, in many but not all cases.

Hypothetically, I could play a frequency on another instrument that would be experienced as a change in timbre on the first. — Pneumenon

Yes, and that's different from actually changing the characteristic overtones. As you perhaps know, both pitch and timbre have objective and subjective (listener-dependent) aspects. If I'm recording a track and want to change an instrument's pitch, I can do that by "pressing buttons" (that is, digital manipulation) and be confident that the pitch will have changed, without needing to hear it. (One can do the same thing by de-tuning a guitar.) Similarly, if I want to change the timbre of a tone, I know which buttons to press that will accentuate or de-emphasize the relevant overtones. All these manipulations are objective, though in the case of timbre, since there are infinite degrees of timbre, as contrasted with only 12 pitches in the well-tempered scale, I'm going to have to use my ears at some point to see whether I've got what I wanted. (This actually applies to pitch as well, sometimes, but that's another story, involving the relative inaccuracy of conventional pitch-measurement software.)

What a note sounds like, to me, is a different matter. You're pointing out that simultaneous sounding of other tones will affect how the target tone sounds to me. That's right; it will affect timbre for sure, and also loudness (which is subjective, as opposed to dBs), and even pitch, somewhat. But when we say "affect timbre," we don't mean the objectively analyzable group of fundamental-plus-overtones that makes an oboe sound oboe-ish. We mean whether, and how much of, that group is audible to me at a given moment.

But, certainly, as you say, the accounting is not the same as physical accounting. It's not the same as the way micro properties account for liquids and solids. — Patterner

Yes, glad you agree that this is crucial.

Should we expand the way we think of "accounts for"? Should we use a different phrase, since it's a different kind of accounting? "Conscious accounting"? "Variable accounting"? — Patterner

Good questions. I think it's partially a matter of terminology, as is often the case when we're dealing with philosophical usages that are either shopworn or unclear. It may go deeper than that, though. I'm not convinced we even have the right concepts yet, to which we could then seek to apply helpful terminology. This is the "way we think of 'accounts for'" that you reference.

It's easier to point out what's wrong with the physical-accounting analogies than to replace them. My only possibly useful suggestion is to stick with simple analogies, such as the baseball game, where we're pretty sure some "conscious accounting" is going on, and try to carefully tease out what happens and why. Are we sure this will reveal anything about consciousness itself? No, but in the absence of a traditional scientific apparatus of inquiry, we need to be open-minded and optimistic about what we can learn.

Meanwhile, I would add (though you probably don't agree) that the scientists should go full steam ahead in their efforts to explain consciousness from a biological perspective. If it keeps failing, that will be informative.

I still recommend The Blind Spot. — Wayfarer

Thanks. I'm reading it now. So far, there are a number of important insights offered, and I can see why you value it. I also see a number of weak arguments and unquestioned assumptions. I'll say more after I finish and reflect.

Timbre, then, just is a subjective quality that arises from multiple frequencies being heard as a single pitch. — Pneumenon

Right, but are you saying that the overtones themselves are affected by other frequencies being sounded by other instruments at the same time? Could you point to me to the evidence for this? I'm wondering whether it's the overtones themselves that change, or my ability to perceive them. (Perhaps that's what you mean, since you define "timbre" as subjective. It isn't, entirely.) In other words, are the particular overtones that give a clarinet its characteristic timbre literally changed if an oboe sounds the same pitch at the same time? This would be objectively measurable, not a matter of perception by the human ear.

"I think the rest of your questions will self-resolve once you give this some careful consideration. :-)"

Not quite. :smile:

Water still boils at 100c at sea level. COVID vaccination is effective. — Wayfarer

Yes, and this is why we still need a term to use that can refer to such facts, and differentiate them from opinions and mistakes. But how does "objective" square with this?

the idea of universal objectivity had been undermined by physics itself. The problem that quantum physics threw up was precisely that it threw into question the clear separstion of observer from observed. — Wayfarer

The catch, presumably, lies in "universal". Some things remain objective, according to this account, but others are undermined because there is an observer/observed problem. OK -- how does one draw the line? At what point does the involvement of the observer undermine objectivity? And when that line is crossed, what is the "proper description" for truth?

BTW, I substantially agree with the thrust of this, but we need to be really clear on what we're committing to.

Yes, good precis. So what do you think -- can we speak about "objective facts" in the post-Heisenberg world?

I'm fine with all of this, except I'm not sure that consciousness "accounts for" the higher level properties in the same way that micro properties and chemical properties do. Those seem like genuine bottom-up structures. Or maybe it's just that we're used to this kind of metaphorical image, so it appears clear to us. But consciousness doesn't seem to "account for" rules and math in the sense that these higher-level structures somehow are supported by consciousness. This, perhaps, is where consciousness really reveals itself as unique, and uniquely unlike any physical structures. You just can't draw a 3D map of the structures and say, This is how they connect. If consciousness does support, or account for, higher-level structures, we don't yet know how, or in what mode we ought to think about a term like "support".

What I see in your response, and also in @Janus's, is what I was hoping to see, namely an agreement that consciousness is not by definition something utterly apart from the rest of the world we inhabit. How we get a common perspective on it is a matter of differences in degree. So when you say:

We are outside of or apart from the subjects of the natural sciences. As Frank says, 'billiard balls' - and a whole bunch more, up to and including space telescopes - all of these are matters of objective fact. Less so for the social sciences and psychology. — Wayfarer

. . . you (or Frank) are pointing to this continuum, as it moves from hard science to social science to, perhaps, philosophy through phenomenology. The provocative question is, Can you justify drawing a line where you do, at "matters of objective fact"? I'm pretty sure I understand why you want to do this, since scientific realism does seem to have earned the title of "being objective" in some important sense. And yet . . . doesn't this whole discussion remind us that the line may not be that clear? Maybe we need a terminology tweak, some other way to talk about this crucial difference that doesn't invoke "objective fact."

we're thinking about something that can't be treated in an objective manner, because we're not outside or apart from what we're thinking about. — Wayfarer

Yes and no. As I suggested to Janus, we are in one sense outside of consciousness, in that we are self-reflective, and can observe our own minds and subjectivity, and seek agreement from others. Is that "outside enough"? You would say no. This is the infinite regress problem. If I am observing my consciousness, I must be leaving something out, namely the observer's stance. Very well; I take a step back and include the observer; I observe myself observing my consciousness, and I also continue to observe my consciousness. But that leaves out the observer who's observing the observer who's . . . etc. ad infinitum.

I don't find that persuasive. I would need to know what is being left out of an account that stops at the first step. One of the features of consciousness is self-consciousness, and self-consciousness is iterative. End of story. Do we deepen our understanding of this feature by trying to push further and further into it?

Now of course, if you define "objective manner" as "not from my subjective point of view," then it's true that we can never observe consciousness objectively. But why do this? Every single thing a scientist observes is from their subjective point of view. The goal of science is to find ways of negating the idiosyncratic or incorrect observations that may occur, and finding intersubjective agreement. I don't see how observing consciousness is any different. If it's different, it's because of what is observed, not the nature of the observation. The phenomenon of consciousness is subjective, in that it only appears from a point of view. There wouldn't be any consciousnesses if their weren't any conscious beings. That is not true of trees or stars, presumably. But how significant is this difference, in terms of problems or methodology?

whether or not it is conceivable that there could be a completely satisfying explanation as to how the brain produces consciousness (if it does). — Janus

Right, we don't have such a thing, and no one can say for certain whether we ever will. As you know, I'm a cautious optimist in that regard, though I'm pretty sure that "produces" will turn out to be the wrong term.

we say we know how consciousness seems, and give accounts of that, but how can we tell whether language itself is somehow distorting the picture via reification? How would consciousness seem to us if we were prelinguistic beings? That's obviously a rhetorical question. — Janus

A fair point. Maybe this is a good place to remind ourselves that there are other ways of "observing consciousness" than doing phenomenology. Deep meditation is also a type of experience that pares down subjectivity to some sort of essence that is surely prelinguistic. So I don't think your question is merely rhetorical. It's very hard to answer, though! My cat knows the answer, but is unable to tell me.

The reason is that if we are standing in front of a tree we can point to its features and we will necessarily agree. — Janus

I understand what you're saying . . . but is it really so different? We are both "standing in front of" consciousness. We can point to its features. We may not necessarily agree, but I think that's too strong anyway, when it comes to trees. We're likely to agree that the bark is smooth, but maybe not. We're much more likely to agree about something measurable, such as the tree's diameter. But again, compare with consciousness: We'll probably agree that each of us conscious at the moment. I'll describe what happens when I imagine something; you'll compare and contrast. I describe how I tell the difference between a memory and a fiction, and you may well agree. We may find that perceptual experiences are necessarily the same. Etc. Is it really so unlike talking about a tree? We seek a common perspective.

Ah, but surely the big difference is that it's the same tree for you and me, but not the same consciousness. Hmm. Are we sure about that? Or to put it another way: If I have a sample of substance X before me, and describe its features, and you have a sample that may well be substance X as well, and you describe its features, and the descriptions match up -- are we going to end the discussion by saying, "But of course we can't be sure we're both really talking about the same thing"? I don't think so. Surely the burden of argument would go the other way: If my subjectivity is indeed not the same thing as yours (other than numerically), explain why not. What might cause such an odd circumstance to arise, given that we're both human beings who understand each other quite well, when it comes to consciousness-talk?

The difficulty will be to explain why mind or consciousness seems intuitively to be the way it seems, and how could we ever demonstrate whether or not that "seeming" is veridical or not? — Janus

Yes, this is important. A genuine explanation of consciousness has to do more than explain how it coincides with brain activity, and why such activity is required -- thought that's a hard enough task. It also needs to explain why subjectivity is the way it is, or (as you prefer) the way it seems to us. And yes, the fact that we can put the question either way leads to your puzzle of whether, in this case, it makes any sense to even separate what seems from what is veridical.

But . . . couldn't we raise all the same questions about any phenomenon? The trees seem a certain way to us; but are they really that way? It's not clear what sense to make of such a question. Similarly, conscious experience tout court seems a certain way to us; but is subjectivity really that way? I don't know where to take that. All I know is that the question appears, to me, the same one we could ask about any of our experiences. The fact that it's about consciousness itself doesn't change that -- or at least I don't see how.

Fair enough. Perhaps it's possible. I think synesthesia refers to experiencing a sensation in two different sensory modes, rather than two versions of the same mode, like red and green. But maybe simultaneous red/green perception can happen, which would be relevant to the OP's question.

Physicists are in love with the idea of objective reality. I like to say that we physicists have a mania for ontology. We want to know what the furniture of the world is, independent of us. — Adam Frank, Astrophysicist and Zen Practitioner

This is a good point. But doesn't it apply to any attempt at an objective viewpoint, not to viewing consciousness especially? If I understand the point that @Janus and yourself and others are making, there's supposed to be something different and special about the problem when it comes to consciousness. Frank seems to be saying that all objective reality is "kind of a meaningless concept" -- that we delude ourselves about attaining God's perspective. That may be. But I want to understand why there's a special problem about subjectivity, viewed as a phenomenon we all know to be as real as anything else, and therefore want to understand.

But people can talk about their minds―we do it all the time. But we do so from the perspective of how things seem to us. And how all things in that context seem to me may not be how they seem to you―even though there will likely be commonalities due to the fact that we are both human. — Janus

My response here is similar: Yes, there is a problem about perspective, and whether how things seem to me will be the same as how things seem to you. But why isn't this just as much of a problem for understanding trees as it is for understanding consciousness? We'll always struggle to find commonality of perspective. The result may be called objective, or intersubjective, or merely agreed-upon, but we recognize that it is very different from "J's opinion" about something. Don't we want something similar, in the end, as we inquire into consciousness?

It seems, again, to come down to a difference between experience and explanation. I can never experience your subjectivity, but why would that mean I can't explain how it comes about?

Not pitch, per se, because two pitches can sound at the same time. But the timbre, the quality of a note, is made up of overtones. As soon as you change those overtones, you change the timbre. — Pneumenon

Interesting. If two pitches can sound at the same time, that would be the aural equivalent of two colors appearing in the same space. What the colors can't do is appear in exactly the same space, as you point out. Now, can the pitches sound at exactly the same time? You say yes (and I agree), so that seems to make audition different from vision, but you also say that two timbres can't. Are you suggesting, then, that the timbre of a pitch is affected by what happens when another pitch is sounded simultaneously? There will be a variety of masking and distorting effects, but will the overtones actually be changed?

I remark that sounding another tone on top of the first does not change its timbre if they are still heard as distinct tones. — Pneumenon

So, if I understand you, we have an issue about whether and to what extent two instruments sounding the same pitch will be heard as two distinct tones, given the different timbres of the instruments. Isn't that a subjective response? It seems different from whether I can see something as both red and green, which clearly I cannot. But maybe I haven't quite got your thought yet.

(PS -- It may be relevant that, in recording, you can't double a part by simply duplicating it, and then placing it in two different places in the stereo pan. That will be heard as a single tone, in the center. In order to get two distinct tones, you have to do something to the duplicate -- maybe change the Eq or, as you say, run it through a different software to change the timbre, in which case a "new" tone will magically appear. Better yet, record two different performances!)

The problem with trying to model consciousness itself is that it is the thing doing the modeling, and we cannot "get outside of it", so we seem to be stuck with making inferences about what it might be from studying the brain being the best we can do, or going with what our intuitions "from inside" tell us about its nature. — Janus

I always feel somewhat dimwitted when I read this objection. It's clearly cogent and important for many who think about consciousness. Yet I can't see the force of it. Why can't a conscious mind model consciousness? Why would it be necessary to "get outside of" our own mind in order to do it? Perhaps even more significantly, why is "modeling" even necessary? Why do we need "intuitions from the inside"? Why can't we just explain it, without worrying about whether we can somehow experience our explanation at the same time? We explain many things that are inaccessible to us. We don't need the experience of being a planet in motion in order to explain planetary motion. Why is consciousness different?

To summarize my questions: Why can't subjectivity be explained objectively? Why conflate explanation with experience? You can't experience your subjectivity objectively, true, but why would that be necessary in order to explain subjectivity in general?

As I say, there must be something obvious here I'm not seeing.

Really interesting OP. All the questions you raise are good ones.

Let me push back on one point:

A wheelchair user is not incapacitated by ramps, but by stairs. — Banno

This is true, if the capacity in question is to ascend or descend from level to level. But that's a convenient choice of capacity, because it can be ameliorated. The wheelchair user is also incapacitated by being unable to dance, and that can not be ameliorated. I'm doubtful whether wheelchair dancing could be said to overcome the incapacity. It resembles dancing with the body, certainly, but is far from the same thing, whereas "going up a level" is literally the same, no matter how you accomplish it. So, is there a way of thinking of this incapacity as also social in nature? I don't see it, at first glance, but what do you think?

I'm not sure what you mean by "scientific realism", but the study of consciousness seems to be irrelevant to most of the hard sciences — Janus

By "scientific realism," I meant to denote the common-or-garden-variety conception of science. It may be flawed or dead wrong at the quantum level, but we all know it works at most other levels. And by "works," I only mean that it generates predictions that prove remarkably accurate, and at the same time provides us with a powerful measure for what it means to be right or wrong about the physical world.

So, could there be such a practice that, taken all in all, didn't include a theory of consciousness? I don't see how. You're right that, in any given hard science, we may not need that theory; we can assume the fact of consciousness. But if our goal is to give a complete account of what there is, then to leave consciousness out would be laughable. This tells me that we're still in early days of forming such an account. You say that we have cognitive science and psychology to deal with consciousness, and in a way we do, but neither field provides a grounding theory of what consciousness is, or why it occurs. Like the hard sciences, consciousness is accepted as a given (or, for some, deflated or reduced or denied).

So, one of the most extraordinary and omnipresent facts about the world -- that many of its denizens have an "inside," a subjectivity -- still awaits a unified theory. I know many on TPF doubt that science can provide this. I'm agnostic; let's wait and see.

Football's lower level is consciousness, — Patterner

Kind of. Since there are players, and the players are conscious, then yes. But I meant to include that in saying that the lower levels include players and the field. There's still something missing from the description: What makes it a game? What makes it something with rules that we can articulate no matter who the individual players are, and which field they're playing on? I agree that it's human consciousness which does this, but not by virtue of what the players may be thinking about. That would be true bottom-up emergence, but we know that's not how it happens. Rather, something seems to be added to all this activity (and thinking) which comes from a different category; it's not the same as putting enough molecules together in the right way so as to get liquidity.

. . . an actual feature of the world. ("natural" just makes additional complexity). — Ludwig V

It's the familiar problem of trying to find terminology that isn't hopelessly vague and/or controversial. "Actual feature" is fine with me, though "actual" has some of the same issues as "natural." But short of coining new terms and defining them precisely, what's to be done?

My first stab at identifying what is missing is that this notion of truth is very thin. It is neither use nor ornament. It consequently doesn't have a future in our everyday language. — Ludwig V

I agree, we can mount a pragmatic case for why certain uses of "truth" are to be preferred. Sider is coming at it slightly differently; he wants to say that our usual construals of how the world is are useful because they're true, not vice versa -- but the problem is, truth isn't enough. What the grue and bleen people say is also true. Your idea about "thin truth" is on this wavelength too, I think. Sider brings in the idea of fundamental truths, truths that are about "objective structure" -- the latter phrase I find problematic, but surely he's right that there are orders of truth, some more fundamental than others to understanding. It's not enough just to say something true -- we want the true things we say to create a picture we can also understand.

I'm a bit doubtful whether "how the world really is" is a useful or usable criterion for what we are trying to talk about. — Ludwig V

Sure, same point as above. What the hell do we call it? An approximation would be "the world without perspectives or observers" but that description is starting to sound almost quaint. But are we ready to abandon the difference between "making a mistake" and "getting it right"? If these two possibilities still make sense, then whatever marks the difference is what we mean by "how the world really is" -- not much help, is it.

the choice of what notions are fundamental remains. There’s no detour around the entirety of fundamental metaphysics. — 'Ontological Realism' - Theodore Sider

This seems particularly important to me. If you say "There are no fundamental notions," you have nonetheless made an important statement about what is and isn't fundamental.

What it destabilises is the very framework in which “mind” and “matter” appear as separable ontological kinds in the first place. — Wayfarer

Yes. If we can find a way to re-stabilize this so that "mind" and "matter" still refer, but not to irreconcilable ontological kinds in the ways that now seem unavoidable, we'll have come far.

Just to be sure I'm understanding you: When, for instance, I have an ordinary conversation, and find myself using a sentence to reply to something that was said perhaps half a second ago, is the idea that I had a brain event that preceded this sentence, something in mentalese that contained the thought I then express out loud in English? Is this what is "so highly compressed it would not appear as language at all"? Certainly there hasn't been time to form the words prior to saying them, if "forming words" indeed takes time.

(I do think something like this happens, but I'm not sure how to describe it.)

They are all about truth, but not about the same truth. — Ludwig V

Yes. This invites a couple of responses:

First, are some truths more "natural" or "about the world" than others? It is true, for instance, that several stars, when grouped together, make a constellation. But that is so because of something we humans do. It is not actually a feature of the natural world (using a common sense of what is natural).

Second, how far can this be pushed? See Ted Sider's ideas about "objective structure." His "grue" and "bleen" people divide up the visual world in a bizarre way, yet everything they say about it is true. Sider argues, and I agree, that nonetheless they are missing something important about how the world really is.

The irony enters when those, who generally take science to have only epistemic or epistemological, and not ontological, significance, nonetheless seek to use the results of quantum physics to support ontological claims — Janus

Interesting point. In general, I think scientific realism had better include some truths about the role of consciousness -- it would be drastically incomplete otherwise. But what are these truths? Stay tuned . . .

I don't see a problem here. — Ludwig V

The problem, I think, comes when we ask which of these points of view (if any) reflect how the world really is. Is there any way to make the case that some points of view are ontologically privileged? -- that is, that they describe the world more accurately than their competitors?

The reason is more that it doesn't make sense to think that consciousness can emerge, or arise, or be caused by something physical, so we need another explanation. — Patterner

OK. We're saying similar things: Faced with what seems (to you) a nonsensical demand for an explanation of how consciousness could arise from the physical, we have to postulate its permanent existence. My slant is more like: The demand may or not make sense; all we can say is that, as of now, we don't know how to think about it; our conceptual scheme creates a roadblock that might prove decisive, but we can't say.

I'm underlining the reasons for positing this kind of consciousness (call it Ur-consciousness) because I want to see if there are any other, independent reasons for thinking the thesis might be true. I myself don't see any, but tell me what you think: Is there any evidence for Ur-con? Is there a physical theory that can include it? What would be our research program, to find out if Ur-con did or did not exist? Is it, in short, the result of a transcendental argument alone? Something like the cosmological constant used to be? (And there's a lesson there, because the CC now has new conceptual arguments to back it up, so the transcendental arguers were right all along!)

If we understand the causes of the emergence of consciousness very well, can it be possible that it will not involve the properties of the lower levels? — Patterner

Right, that's the argument. Consciousness can't simply "emerge" like a rabbit out of a hat. So we have to ask what it is about the lower levels of physical reality that might be responsible. Your idea is that proto-consciousness was there all along, and it is this property of all matter that allows what we call mental realities to emerge. (I'm not persuaded that this "mental emergence" is any easier to explain than would be the emergence of consciousness itself, but let that go for now.)

The question I'd want to reflect on is, Are we being too parsimonious in our description of the "lower levels"? Must it be a matter of properties, exclusively? On the analogy with liquidity, then yes, it must be. But what about the analogy of the football game? What is the "property" which, added to the properties of the players and the field, creates the game? Two answers spring to mind: It's the intentions of the players; or, It's the rules that humans have put in place. I'm not sure which of these is right, but they both have the feature of bringing in something from an entirely different category of being, something that really can't be considered a lower-level property. Food for thought, perhaps.

I think consciousness is always present, always giving the entity in question, whether a particle, person, or whatever else, subjective experience of itself. — Patterner

But consciousness does not create those things [such as physical sensory input]. Rather, it is the property by which we subjectively experience them. — Patterner

I think I understand the distinction you're making better than I did before. Am I right that the major reason for proposing this ontology is to avoid needing to have consciousness emerge, or arise, or be caused by something physical?

If there is a reason for the emergence of consciousness, then wouldn't that mean it was intended? — Patterner

Not sure I follow that. Intended by whom? I'm using "reason" here in the sense of "What's the reason the seasons change?" But if that's confusing, we could, if you like, reserve the term "reason" for situations involving rationality and intention, and instead speak here of causes. So: "If this picture of consciousness as emergent turns out to be the case, we will understand the causes of its emergence very well." Is that less objectionable? (And mind you, neither of us is necessarily buying the "if" part. We're looking into what the hypothesis would entail.)

I claim consciousness is an objective fact. — Patterner

Yes, we both start from there. I was noting that your "proto-consciousness" might also be an objective fact, though you're clear that we can't find any physical property with which to identify it.

The subjective experience of a photon is extremely different from the subjective experience of a human. — Patterner

It is a difficult thing to try to imagine what part [of the concept of "experience"] is being "carried over" such that it can be said that a particle has it. However, I think it's what is needed. It has to be there from the beginning. — Patterner

We may have an aporia, then. If it's genuinely needed, and yet nothing can be said to give it content, that suggests to me that the path is closed to further inquiry, at least for now. I can't even posit the idea of a photon's subjective experience -- my mind is blank and the words seem empty. But of course, whenever someone says, "I just can't imagine how . . . " the right response is "Try harder!" So maybe you can!

I don't think anything results in consciousness. It's always there. We just subjectively experience "scaled up" mental abilities. — Patterner

This is perhaps important. Consistent with your idea that consciousness is a sort of irreducible natural kind, or property, we can view it as creating mental abilities of various sorts. What's "created" is not consciousness (it's there all along) but the mental ability. My concern about this picture is that it sounds like a shell game. We've substituted "mental ability" for "consciousness" in its traditional usages, and are now asserting the same mysterious things about mental abilities that were formally asserted about consciousness. How are they created? What are they? How do we know what has them? etc.

yet one day, for no reason whatsoever . . . — Patterner

Well, that couldn't be true. If this picture of consciousness as emergent turns out to be the case, we will understand the reasons for its emergence very well. I don't think anyone is suggesting that consciousness is random or fluky.

Regarding "the same thing", is it possible to think of consciousness as another sense? — Patterner

Hmm. Maybe, at least by analogy. Worth pondering.

Yes, that would be a physicalist causal explanation. To be generous, we could say that the making-sense part is more than coincidental -- that it is what happens, from our 1st person perspective, when the described brain events take place, accounting for the utility of the whole process.

As I think I said somewhere in the OP, if one believes that's the only way in which the idea of causality can be used, then there's really nothing in the OP questions that are worth considering.

this is the closest I've come here.
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/15877/property-dualism/p1 — Patterner

Thanks. I didn't go on to read all 7 pages of the thread, so this may have been said already (and maybe by me!) but I'll say it anyway, since this is a different thread.

Property dualism, or something very like it, is what supervenience proposes, it seems to me. If brain and mind are to be understood as "the same thing" (and I'll come back to that troublesome terminology), we need to be able to say how they nonetheless (appear to) differ so dramatically. Property dualism says that "the same thing" can have different properties, depending upon the perspective of the perceiver. A brain, viewed from the outside, has physical properties. A brain, viewed or experienced from the inside, has mental properties. Some versions of property dualism (I think including yours) go on to say that these are actual objective properties which can be discovered using 3rd person inquiry.

I like this perspective because it cuts the knot of what-causes-what, and it doesn’t claim that consciousness is forever a mystery, inaccessible to objective investigation. Yes, it requires the postulate of consciousness, and a 1st person perspective, in order to get off the ground, but that’s a postulate I’m happy to accept.

The idea that proto-consciousness may turn out to be a property of matter, supporting a modest version of panpsychism, seems quite possible. It’s sheer speculation at this point. But it’s no more unwarranted than vague references to “emergent properties.”

My objections begin with the attempt to widen the terms “consciousness” and “experience” to include, say, photons. I think Chalmers is way off track when he says that a proton has “a degree” of consciousness. Might it be proto-conscious, in your sense of having a property that, when scaled up, can result in consciousness? Sure. But that just isn’t “a degree of consciousness,” any more than five or ten atoms have “a degree of liquidity.”

Likewise with “experiences.” We can insist on a reform of how to use that word, so that all material entities can now have them, but that’s arbitrary. If the word is used at all, it refers to events that can be perceived “from the inside,” and the constituents of your rock can’t do this. There are indeed “instantaneous, memory-less moments” involving the rock-particles, but the particles aren’t experiencing them. Or putting it differently: If you want to reform “experience” to include what particles can do, you need to explain what part of the concept of “experience” is being carried over, such that it can justify continuing to use the term.

Lastly . . . we should definitely come up with something better than “the same thing.” It’s a tempting, often useful locution, which I frequently fall back on, but I worry that too often it paints the wrong picture. In one sense, as we’ve already noted, it’s ludicrous to say my mental image of a purple cow and a particular set of neurons firing in my brain are the same thing. That can’t be what we mean when we claim some sort of identity between the two phenomena. What is the same here is what supervenience (and perhaps property dualism) is trying to capture.

We need the concept of “perspective” or “point of view” in order to understand it. From your perspective, having been kept in the dark for two days, a flaring match looks painfully bright. From mine, standing in the sunlight and looking in a window at your match, it’s so dim it’s hard to see. So, does the match have the property of brightness? Obviously, that depends. With 1st and 3rd person, the perspective shift is much more radical. A match, at least, “translates” in visual images and metaphors, but there’s no translation language (yet) between brain and mind. Still, this can help us understand how there might be a “same thing” underlying these two points of view. Or we can use my football-game analogy.

Maybe instead of “the same thing” we should say “the same essent”. I’m not fond of Heideggerian terminology, but this one (I think invented by Mannheim to translate seiend in the lectures on metaphysics) is close to what we want. We could stipulate that an essent is an item that exists, but stripped of perspective. Heidegger might be outraged at putting it this way, but I want a word we can use that acknowledges that there is a level of being beneath or beyond perspective. So brain and mind share the same essent.

Exactly. It's easy to tell a causal story about what happens in the brain. But is that all we're talking about when we say that certain thoughts imply certain conclusions? Going back to the OP -- am I wrong in thinking that the content of my thought about Ann caused the next thought?

Or, the position that I am espousing: that they are one and the same thing. — Mijin

If by "same thing" we mean two phenomena in a supervenience relationship, then yes, though "same thing" probably isn't nuanced enough, given how weirdly different they appear. I was trying to show that the chicken-and-egg questions get us nowhere. To re-quote myself:

if "based in" is supposed to prioritize one level over the other in this way, it doesn't really hold up. But see my previous post. If "based in" merely means that the brain is necessary for subjective experiences to exist, but subjective experiences are not necessary for the brain to exist, then yes, "based in", in that sense, is fine. — J

I feel you are poisoning your own well by beginning with the premise that one must cause the other. — Mijin

Again, I began with that premise (which many people do believe) in order to show what's wrong with it. Sorry if that wasn't clear. The relation of brain and mind is not a cause/effect relation. But the relation of one thought to another may be, and the OP asks, broadly, if there's such a thing as causation in the realm of ideas or propositions -- that sort of mental-to-mental causation, as opposed to brain events.

I suspect consciousness is something very different than what you think it is, — Patterner

Is there a post on TPF where you sketch out your view of consciousness? I'm curious . . .

Sure: both support the position that thoughts, and subjective experience, are based in neurochemistry. — Mijin

I understand what you mean, but "based in" is tricky. If I have a thought of someone I love, and the brain fires up in all the ways we can now observe, was my thought caused by a yet previous piece of neurochemistry? Couldn't we equally say that the chicken of neurochemistry was preceded by the egg of subjective thought? In other words, if "based in" is supposed to prioritize one level over the other in this way, it doesn't really hold up. But see my previous post. If "based in" merely means that the brain is necessary for subjective experiences to exist, but subjective experiences are not necessary for the brain to exist, then yes, "based in", in that sense, is fine.

Of course it's the brain. Nobody's questioning that. — Patterner

Much pithier than my version! Though in fact there are those who question whether brains are necessary for subjective experience; on this forum many people suggest that a nonbiological entity may achieve consciousness. I find this conceivable but unlikely.

But that's where, not how. — Patterner

Right, simply saying "Subjectivity is neurochemical" is like saying "Consciousness is an emergent property" or "The brain is the seat of the mind." It gives the illusion of understanding something but no actual content.

We can reliably, and precisely, induce subjective experiences with chemical, electrical or mechanical effects on the brain. — Mijin

Yes, but the opposite is also the case: We can reliably induce chemical and electrical effects on the brain by subjective experiences.

if mind and brain supervene, no given brain event should be said to cause the subjective event. — J

Thinking more about this, I realize that it's important to emphasize the difference between a single, given brain event -- a firing of neurons that occurs at a particular time -- and the entire physical system we call the brain (and nervous system). I believe it's true that, without my brain, I would not be conscious. And the opposite is, trivially, false: "Without my consciousness, I wouldn't have a brain." This demonstrates a grounding or priority that we don't need to contest because we fear it leads to physicalism.

What happens at time T1 is different. Neurons fire = I picture a purple cow. Why? There is no necessarily correct temporal order. We could say, "The neurons fire and so I picture the cow." Or we could say, "I decide to picture the cow and so the neurons fire." Which causes which? To me, the answer is clearly "Neither one," hence supervenience.

I recommend you check out De Anima. It's totally worth it given your interest/question. — Sirius

Yes, it's been a while, probably time for a reread. But if I may: To say "one thought does follow another thought" is only to restate the observation we began with. The OP question is about explanation: Why does one thought follow another thought? It's what you're calling the "qualified sense" that interests me (and my passive, destructible and limited mind!).

This answers your question. — Sirius

Thank you, but I don't quite see how. Would Aristotle say that a thought does, or does not, cause another thought?

when trying to find an analogy for anything dealing with consciousness the differences are hard to get past. — Patterner

Yes. The football-game analogy captures one point of similarity -- that a mere physical description must be incomplete -- and perhaps hints at another -- that different levels of description can apply to the same set of phenomena. But here we are with "same set" again. With football, we can more or less see how the game requires a first-level description of "the same" set of events, but with consciousness, all we can do is assert that it's somehow the case, without being able to understand it in the least.

Yes we don't have a good understanding yet of how the brain makes subjective experiences.
--------------------
We don't yet understand how the brain creates subjective experiences like "redness".
— Mijin
We don't have a hint of understanding how the brain makes subjective experiences. — Patterner

The problem goes the other way too: We don't know how subjective experiences, such as thoughts, create changes in the brain (and then the nervous system, and then the body). In any case, if mind and brain supervene, no given brain event should be said to cause the subjective event.

The closest analogy I can think of for brain/mind would be to ask: Do the players and the field cause the football game? Not really. Are they identical with the football game? Sort of, but not really. Can the football game be described only in terms of what the players do, physically? No. Can the game be played without the players and the field? No. Etc. Like subjectivity, it's obvious there's a football game going on, but it's extremely difficult to explain its ontology. But even this analogy falls short, since subjectivity is way more different from the brain than a football game is from its constituent physical parts.

I can't help, but I hope you get some answers. It's an interesting point you're inquiring into.

While we're waiting, here's another question: Can you think of an aural example that would be the equivalent of colors and shapes in regard to "mutual exclusivity at a point"? Trying to home in on whether this is a phenomenology of vision alone.

I think I get the point. Our imaginations are giving us different pictures of what might result from non-standard speech, that's all.

There really is no "stern consequences" for common misuse of language. — Metaphysician Undercover

To me, they look stern. Not to you. That's OK. We're both just speculating.

If you can summarize one or two of the main points of controversy I would appreciate it, as my understanding is there is no issue with that description (though no-one would say it is complete either). — Mijin

Neuronal events are nothing like thoughts, so the question is, how can they be the same thing? And if they are co-dependent in some way, does one cause the other? How does that happen? Why should physical experiences such as neurons firing give rise to conscious experience? Are thoughts "really" just brain events?

If you look into the so-called "hard problem of consciousness" as described by Chalmers and others, it will give you a good sense of what the controversy is.

If I'm actually looking at the TV, it's not a belief that there's a TV there. If I hear it from the other room, it's not a belief that the TV is on. — Patterner

Yet, in ordinary language, if someone asks you, "Do you believe the TV is on?" you'll answer yes. You might also point out that it's a rather strange question: "Why would I not believe it? It's on; see for yourself!" This highlights one of the uses of "believe". We tend to emphasize believing something when there could be doubt.

So what about the phenomenology? I'm actually looking at the TV; do I simultaneously believe that it's on? If belief is reduced to linguistic belief, then clearly not. No such sentence enters my mind. But we've been considering the other, non-linguistic senses of "belief". Is there some mental event that occurs while I watch TV, that's the equivalent of giving credence to the existence of the TV? This seems far-fetched. More likely is the opposite case, when we're watching, say, a pack of elves. The mental event "I don't believe this" is probably present, wouldn't you say? Or least "I don't know whether to believe this or not."

With the TV, we're thrown back on belief understood as analytical philosophy usually does: an attitude, a disposition, not a mental event and not linguistic. To say "I believe the TV is on" is to claim that my experience is factual, and that I am the one having it. It is all but the same as "I assert."