I just think I'm not understanding you. It seems like you're saying we have tables made out of wood and nails, but we can't make tables out of wood and nails. — Patterner

I’ll start off with my clever response before I come back with my more straightforward one

Clever response—It’s not making the table out of wood and nails, it’s making the wood out of atoms and molecules.

Straightforward response—As I said, I can’t think of anything else to say that might convince you or at least help you understand what I’m trying to say. I don’t think my own understanding is good enough to come up with something better.

Sorry, I'm not trying to be difficult. There has to be a misunderstanding. Anything that exists and is the product of the laws of physics was constructed on the laws of physics. But you're saying they cannot be constructed on the laws of physics. — Patterner

I think most physicists probably agree with you. I've given convincing you my best shot, so we should probably leave it at that. It's been a good conversation for me.

Are you saying that thermodynamics is not reductionist — SolarWind

I left my response to this out of my previous post. Yes, you can construct the principles of thermodynamics from the laws of physics, but you can't for the other elements listed.

No one needs to explain all this in detail. Are you saying that thermodynamics is not reductionist because you can't predict the weather exactly one year in advance?

Reductionism is actually correct in principle. Suppose a pile of 271,828 atoms reacts differently than expected. Then you simply define a new rule for 271,828 atoms, and everything is reductionist again. — SolarWind

The essence of emergence is that, while you can reduce all phenomena into pieces explainable by lower level laws, e.g. physics, in many cases you can not construct higher level phenomena based on those same laws even in theory. Tell me how you would determine the principles of biology I described in my previous post from the principles of physics?

Chemical interactions are physical events. A biological entity is made up of a huge number of interacting physical events. It's all explainable by the lower-level principles of physics and chemistry. — Patterner

Do you think, or do you think it’s possible, to explain and predict the principles of biology from the principles of physics. Here’s a list of some of those principles— evolutionary theory, physiology, genetics, thermodynamics, and ecology. Once you’ve done that, you need to explain and predict how those principles will interact and integrate to produce biological organisms and how they historically evolve and develop as energy-processing, self-regulating systems.

The ability to start from those laws and reconstruct the universe is a given, because it's what actually happened. — Patterner

Everything that happens, happens consistent with the laws of lower levels of organization, i.e. physics. That doesn’t necessarily mean you can predict in advance how a complex system will evolve based on those laws, even in theory.

Keeping in mind this is a controversial idea.

what you were saying seems impossible. I can understand that it's possible that, if there were non-biological beings who had intelligence equal to or greater than human intelligence, they may well never postulate the principles of biology. I would imagine there are so many ways the principles of chemistry and physics can combine and interact that it's possible no one would ever stumble upon the ideas that we know as the principles of biology. But that's not the same as it being impossible in theory to come up with those principles. — Patterner

Here's what Anderson says:

...the reductionist hypothesis does not by any means imply a “constructionist” one: The ability to reduce everything to simple fundamental laws does not imply the ability to start from those laws and reconstruct the universe...

...The constructionist hypothesis breaks down when confronted with the twin difficulties of scale and complexity. The behavior of large and complex aggregates of elementary particles, it turns out, is not to be understood in terms of a simple extrapolation of the properties of a few particles. Instead, at each level of complexity entirely new properties appear, and the understanding of the new behaviors requires research which I think is as fundamental in its nature as any other... — P.W. Anderson - More is Different

I already quoted from and linked Philip Anderson. — Srap Tasmaner

I didn't see your earlier reference.

Andersen does not talk about strong emergence, or indeed any emergence - these terms gained traction later. — SophistiCat

It's true he does not use the terms "emerge," "emergent," or "emergence," but that's what he was writing about. As for the provenance of the terms in this context, this is from E.A. Burtt's "The Metaphysical Foundations of Modern Science," written in 1924.

These developments strongly suggest that reality can only be consistently regarded as a more complex affair, that the primary qualities simply characterize nature so far as she is subject to mathematical handling, while she just as really harbors the secondary and tertiary ones so far as she is a medley of orderly but irreducible qualities. How to construe a rational structure out of these various aspects of nature is the great difficulty of contemporary cosmology; that we have not yet satisfactorily solved it is evident if one considers the logical inadequacies in the theory of emergent evolution, which appears at present the most popular scheme for dealing with this problem. In this theory we either have to suppose fundamental discontinuities in nature such as permit no inference from qualities earlier existing to those later appearing, or else we have to regard the more complex qualities as somehow existing even before they would have been empirically observable, and co-operating in bringing about their material embodiment. — E.A. Burtt - The Metaphysics of Modern Science

As I understand it, Burtt uses the term "evolution" here to mean developmental change in general, not Darwinian evolution. I don't know if he was the first to use the "emergent" in this context or whether it was used by others. As far as I know, Burtt did not have any influence on Anderson.

I doubt that. I can roughly imagine how chemical interactions give rise to life, and much of this (DNA, RNA, neurotransmitters) has already been researched. — SolarWind

Whether or not you can “roughly imagine” how something works is not the standard by which strong emergence is determined. When we say a level of organization is strongly emergent, that means it’s rules and principles cannot be determined, constructed, in advance from the rules and principles of a lower level, even in theory. You cannot determine the principles of biology in advance from the principles of chemistry and physics.

If you’re interested, here’s a link to one of the founding documents of the study of emergence.

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.177.4047.393

Oh, and I won't be responding to you again btw. You are on the 'not worth it' list. — Clarendon

Alas. And since you’re making up definitions for words that already have well established meanings, I assume you’re using “not worth it,” to mean “points out when I am wrong.”

This just ignores what I explicitly said I mean by weak emergence. — Clarendon

@Patterner is right about what weak emergence means. A good example is the emergence of macroscopic ideal gas behavior out of the microscopic behavior of molecules. An example of strong emergence is the development of biological life out of chemical interactions.

I don't know how you define life. It seems to me it's a bunch of physical processes. Metabolism. Respiration. Circulation. Immune systems. Reproduction. Growth. What aspect of life is not physical? What aspect can't be observed, measured, followed step-by-step? — Patterner

My analogy between life and consciousness mostly has to do with the inability of people on one side of the argument to conceive that a particular phenomenon might be a manifestation of a physical process. There must be something else. For life it was "elan vital," a spark of life coming from outside. The need for that explanatory factor no longer seems to be an issue for most people. What is the spark for consciousness?

And what aspect of consciousness is physical, and can be observed, measured, followed step-by-step? How can we know that everything needed for the existence of consciousness is purely physical if no aspect of consciousness is? — Patterner

How do we know that someone or something other than ourselves is conscious? By observing their behavior. The most obvious way is by listening to what another person says--how they describe their own first-person experience. Obviously that's not enough. Not all conscious entities have language to self-report. What I need to do to make this a better argument is to identify non-verbal patterns of behavior that demonstrate consciousness. I'm not prepared to have that discussion right now.

And when I do that, will that be enough? Is consciousness more than just patterns of behavior? I know you'll say yes. What do I say? I'm not sure. This is why I was trying to avoid a discussion of the "hard problem” until I have a better answer.

Wait – I think it might be a good idea to pick up a book about fishing or the behaviour of mussels next time. — javi2541997

Lament for Ignacio Sánchez Mejías and The Tamarit Divan by Federico García Lorca. — javi2541997

I've told you before, Javi. You need to stop reading so much. You should take up knitting.

Do you think you can make something non-physical with only physical building materials? — Patterner

To be clear, arguments about your question were not what I was calling "pseudo-science."

Now to answer. Let me think...well...I guess the answer is "yes." The example I always come back to is biological life. Is life physical? I'd say no in the same sense we'd say consciousness isn't. Chemicals behave in certain ways. Life is just one of the ways chemicals behave. Historically, people have asked the same kinds of questions about life you're asking about consciousness. To them, there must be something else, something added beyond the chemistry.

I think consciousness is more difficult to get a grasp on because it's so personal. It feels different from the other things we interact with. And, of course, that's the problem. Subjective experience is, in our subjective experience, different from those things we call "physical."

Hey!!! You tricked me into talking about the hard problem of consciousness.

I don't quite think this is going to go anywhere. Take care. — AmadeusD

This is all pitiful pseudoscience—“you can't get out what you don't put in”— baloney.

You and I don’t seem to be getting anywhere. As I noted previously, I think it’s a good time to end the conversation.

There is no problem in revisiting already discussed topic in the past, — Corvus

In general, that’s true, but I’m not interested in taking it up right now.

The point you must remember is that awareness is NOT the same thing as matter or brain itself.

Awareness and consciousness is the word describing aspects, operations, states and functions of mind, not the physical matter. — Corvus

I never claimed otherwise. When one level of organization emerges from another, they aren’t the same thing. Living organisms are not the same thing as the chemicals that make them up.

physical matter input cannot come out in any other form than physical matter. — Corvus

Yes, that’s what @Clarendon has been saying. I’ve already told him I disagree with him. Now it appears I disagree with you too.

Because there is no explanation, from any side of the hundred-sided fence, that is more than speculation. — Patterner

Seems to me, from a scientific point of view you’re dismissing even the possibility of speculation.

You can study consciousness by science. But the problem is, you will not see or observe actual consciousness itself, no matter what you dissect and look into. It is not in the form of matter. — Corvus

I don't think being able to scientifically study various aspects of consciousness means we "understand how consciousness can be realized in physical neuronal activity." — Patterner

I have not heard how a part of the brain, or the physical activity taking place in it, has a felt experience if itself. Which I guess explains why I've never heard them called the "neural causes of consciousness." — Patterner

We are fully in the realm of "the hard problem of consciousness." We've discussed it here on the forum many times. Some people think it's a big deal. Others, including me, just don't get why it's considered a problem at all. Never the twain shall meet. I'm not particularly interested in taking it up now.

Just as studying the motion of galaxies might suggest the existence of what we call dark matter, it is not a study of dark matter. — Patterner

Of course it is. It may not tell us all we need to know, but there is not just one way of studying.

Matter cannot give birth to consciousness. — Corvus

Sez you.

Could you give some examples of consciousness emerged from matter? — Corvus

The only one I know of is the one we are discussing.

My point was consciousness is function and ability of the living biological agents, not something emerges from matter. Do you still disagree on the point? — Corvus

There’s no reason it can’t be a function of living biological agents and also emerge from matter.

Which questions have been answered? Do you have any reading suggestions on this? — Patterner

Here’s a link to a David Chalmers paper. He’s the guy who came up with the idea of the hard problem of consciousness, which I reject. Still, at the beginning of this paper, he lays out a pretty good summary of the problems he thinks can be effectively addressed by scientific inquiry. In the course of doing that, he also gives a pretty good summary of the different ways of thinking about consciousness.

https://consc.net/papers/facing.pdf

For a cognitive science approach to consciousness, I like Antonio Damasio “Feeling and Knowing.”

"We do not understand how consciousness can be realized in physical neuronal activity" is an important thing. — Patterner

This isn’t entirely true. Certainly there’s a lot that needs to be explained, but that’s true of many scientific inquiries. I don’t think it’s true that any aspect of consciousness or the mind in general cannot be studied effectively by science.

Are you saying intelligence and consciousness are the same thing? — Patterner

No. You’re right. I used the wrong word, although what I said applies to consciousness as well.

If energy truly had no mass-relevant properties, then E = mc2 would be false.
So your example presupposes the very principle you think it refutes. — Clarendon

You're doing it again--Misrepresenting what you originally said and acting as if that addresses my comment.

I'm all done with this conversation.

In my original response I wrote:

the term was well defined — T Clark

This was a mistake. I should have written "was not well defined."

I don't believe that consciousness is something which can be defined clearly. — Corvus

I strongly disagree. The problem isn't that it can't be defined, it's that it hasn't been in this discussion.

Clarendon wrote:

'problems' of consciousness only arise if you assume that physical things are what ultimately exist, such that consciousness has to be found a home in that picture — Clarendon

When they say "problems of consciousness," I assume that includes the so-called hard problem, an idea originated by David Chalmers. He wrote "The 'Hard Problem of Consciousness' is the problem of how physical processes in the brain give rise to the subjective experience of the mind and of the world." That's a pretty clear definition and it is not the same as:

Consciousness means that you are awake, and able to see things around you, and respond to others in rational linguistic manner in interpersonal communication. You are also able to do things for you in order to keep your well being eating drinking good food, and sleeping at right times caring for your own health, your family folks and friends. — Corvus

It's not that your definition is wrong, it just seems to be something different than what Clarendon is talking about. It's certainly different from what Chalmers was saying.

You wrote:

But you can't get weight from that which has none. — Clarendon

I responded:

Matter, which has mass, is created out of energy, which has no mass, — T Clark

Now you respond:

E = mc2 is not a case of something coming from nothing. Energy has mass equivalence. Mass is not conjured out of an absence of all relevant properties. — Clarendon

You didn't say "something coming from nothing." You said "You can't get weight from that which has none." Energy has no mass and thus no weight. You can get mass, and thus weight, from energy. Instead of responding to my criticism, you're misrepresenting the issue you originally raised. You're not playing fair.

Criminy — Srap Tasmaner

Agreed.

Sure. But if you think where the meaning of consciousness comes from, it is just a word describing awareness of biological being. It has little to do with subatomic particles. Stretching the meaning of the word that far sounds like seeing a rainbow and saying - there must be a divine being up there somewhere doing some painting. — Corvus

I wasn’t finding fault with anything you said. I was pointing out that the term was [not] well defined in the OP. That is a common problem with discussions about consciousness.

Bracketed text was added to correct the original statement.

Consciousness means that you are awake, and able to see things around you, and respond to others in rational linguistic manner in interpersonal communication. You are also able to do things for you in order to keep your well being eating drinking good food, and sleeping at right times caring for your own health, your family folks and friends. — Corvus

This is not typically what people who believe in the hard problem of consciousness mean when they say “consciousness.” For them, it means an awareness of subjective experience. That type of consciousness is not limited to humans or other animals with near-human intelligence. This discussion has a problem which is common to this type of discussion— they fail to define what they mean by “consciousness.”

you cannot generate a property of a given kind from ingredients that wholly lack that kind. — Clarendon

Benzene, which has a sweet gasoline-like smell, is made up of hydrogen and carbon, neither of which have odors.

The person who thinks consciousness can strongly emerge from physical entities that do not already possess it is insisting that consciousness just pops into being out of nothing - that really does seem like magic and we would not accept such a proposal in other contexts. — Clarendon

Again, this is clearly not true. You should read some cognitive science and cognitive psychology.

But you can't get weight from that which has none. — Clarendon

Not to be pedantic, but E = mc^2. Matter, which has mass, is created out of energy, which has no mass, everywhere and always.

In other words, one cannot get a 'kind' from that which does not possess it - for that would be to get out what was in no sense there in the originals — Clarendon

This is clearly wrong. Living organisms developed out of nonliving matter. If you don’t think that’s true, let’s not get sidetracked by discussing it here.

Similarly then, you aren't going to be able to make a conscious object out of objects that are not already conscious (or at least disposed to be). For that would be alchemy. Call it 'strong emergence' if one wants - but that's just a label for what is in fact something coming from nothing. Thus, as our brains are made out of atoms, then either atoms have consciousness (or are disposed to) or brains simply can't have consciousness. — Clarendon

Have you read any cognitive science or evolutionary psychology related to the origin of intelligence? This is a well studied subject, although there are lots of questions that remain unanswered. Your explanation comes across as more “seems to me” science without any particular evidence backing it up. Seems to me it’s wrong.

There are (I guess) a nearly infinite number of configurations a universe could take on. Each one would be (I guess) just as likely as any other. We just happen to live in a Royal straight flush of a universe, i.e. one where human life could evolve. If it hadn’t worked out that way, there’d be nobody around to wonder, or at least nobody like us.

As for the article you linked, my understanding of what it said is that, although the universe is fine tuned, it was not tuned by something from the outside. It was tuned by itself.

Yet if one constant in the universe was off by the tiniest margin then the universe would be unstable. — kindred

By unstable I mean the universe would simply collapse after only existing for a brief amount of time. — kindred

Can you explain how you know this is true. It certainly doesn’t seem that way to me.

Yet if one constant in the universe was off by the tiniest margin then the universe would be unstable. — kindred

What does that mean—unstable? A universe with different properties would be a different universe, not an unstable one. I don’t know how the underlying principles of our universe get established, but they had to be something, right? If I deal from a deck of cards, some hand has to come up. A royal straight flush in spades is exactly as likely as a two of clubs, seven of diamonds, queen of diamonds, five of hearts, and nine of spades. Neither is anything special unless we decide that they are for our own reasons. Those reasons are not the universe’s reasons.

The way I see it there are two explanations, the naturalistic one and the divine one. And the fact that life emerged into this lifeless universe enforces my view of the latter. — kindred

As I see it, this is a complete non-sequitur.

It does not represent order but a rule. And it there’s rules there gotta be a rule maker right ? — kindred

A rule says how things have to behave. A pattern says how things do behave. The world doesn’t have to behave in any particular way, but it does behave in a particular way. I don’t see why you need a god for that.