What does a solution to the hard problem look like? — Apustimelogist

Idealism.

You're conflating consciousness and experience, but I;m suggesting that the former is prior to the latter. Bear in mind that experience-experiencer is a duality that must be reduced in order to overcome dualism — FrancisRay

How does making consciousness prior to experience eliminate the hard problem, which results from separating body and mind, subject and object? It seems to me that your approach reifies dualism by hardening the separation between these aspects of being. Dont we need to find a way to think subject and object, mind and world, inside and outside, feeling and thinking, experiencer and experience together, rather than giving one side priority over the other?

How does making consciousness prior to experience eliminate the hard problem, which results from separating body and mind, subject and object? It seems to me that your approach reifies dualism by hardening the separation between these aspects of being. Dont we need to find a way to think subject and object, mind and world, inside and outside, feeling and thinking, experiencer and experience together, rather than giving one side priority over the other? — Joshs

Yes! This is exactly what we need to do. The only way to do it is to assume consciousness is fundamental and prior to all the distinctions that give rise to dualism.

This requires assuming that intentional or 'subject/object' consciousness reduces to the the 'Being, Consciousness, Bliss' of the Upanishads. This is nondualism, the rejection of all the distinctions that you say we should reject.

We seem to agree but maybe use the words differently.

What are experiences? At its most primitive, isnt this concept just about immediate distinctions we can make as observers - experiences are or have information in thesense that we distinguish or recognize or can differentiate them. When I see something, experience something, it is a subjective distinction I have made. — Apustimelogist

The capacity for experience is not itself an experience. The capacity for experience is an attribute of sentient beings. In addition to that basic capacity, rational sentient beings, such as ourselves, can reflect on experience and ask what is the meaning of this or that experience, or what experience means, generally. But anything that has the capacity to experience is in some sense a subject of experience. At its most primitive, that is the description of a very simple organism.

Any attempt to account for the qualitative dimension of experience that does not take into account that attribute will fall foul of the hard problem argument in my view. It’s pointing to an inherent limitation of objective analysis. (Have a read of the beginning of this column as an illustration.)

I can provide information which describes it, but remember the point at issue was your claim that — Wayfarer

So you don't think the act or event of distinction itself is information? That just hearing something and knowing it is not information? As far as I am concerned, what I am reading, what I am experiencing right in front of me is information. Because I am distinguishing, recognizing, having immediate awareness of something. Sure, I can describe it in terms of something like pixels and that is information.

I am making the point, there is something other than 'information transmission' at work when you hear music, — Wayfarer

Well I think its just question begging here either side because I am just making the claim that information could be simply what its like to be information. And you just disagree.

It makes sense for me that experiences are what its like to make distinctions because effectively thats what brains are doing... making distinctions. We can talk about it in a formal sense of information theoretic descriptions of neuronal activity, or just in simple sense of organisms perceiving distinctions in their environment, but it all boils down to making distinctions. Nothing technical about that concept... just the primitive concept of a distinction... a difference... any symonym you like that is sufficiently general. That seems to be what our perceptions do and so if our perceptions are experiences, then it seems to me that they are experiences of those distinctions brains make... what it is like to be those distinctions being made. Its almost tautological to me because experiences themselves are obviously distinctions so ofcourse, experiences are what its like to make those experiential distinctions. The question is then: are experiences just what it is like to make any distinction at all? And given that my intuition wants me to think there is no limit on the possible experiences that could exist, then couldn't they encompass all possible distinctions that could possibly be made, and so would be what it was like to make those distinctions?

Note: I have not been stating an identity between experiences = distinctions or experiences = information per se (though as I have said, I do think experiences trivially are information [e.g. like saying Mary has learned or even sees some new information when she experiences green for yhe first time]).


Rather I have been making an identity between experience and what it is like to be information. There should be no hard problem issue here because I am not making an equivalence between experiences and some technical definition, but experiences and what it is like to be a kind of thing. If experiences can be defined as what it is like then I am clearly equating experiences with experiences. Just like saying that my experiences are what it is like to be a brain is slightly different to saying experiences are brains, or experiences are atoms.

But, saying that "Information is what it's like to be information" comes dangerously close to a tautology. — Gnomon
Well my notion of information here is even more basic than what you are talking about. Its just about distinctions. Experience and information are both primitive concepts in the sense that they cannot be further defined. So this tautology doesn't really add any danger that wasn't already there. — Apustimelogist

Sometimes a tautology is philosophically fundamental. Shannon defined Information physically, in terms of Energy/Entropy relationships. You seem to be defining Information metaphysically or essentially, in terms of meaningful experience, conscious awareness, or sentient knowing. Are you equating Sentience and Experience with the capability for being affected mentally by sensory impressions from the environment? Can you expand on that notion relative to The Hard Problem? :smile:

Well I would say I am more of an anti-realist generally so I think the shapeshifter thing might be apt.

I think you "information is what its like to be information" is probably taking what I am saying a little too literally. i mean, i think given the original statement was:

"subjective experience is what its like to be information"

then surely, the substitution should be

"what its like to be information is what its like to be information"

The world is full of structure, clearly what I experience is what it is like to be that structure if I am indeed part of the world. Specifically, information transmission. My experiences are also trivially information.

Interesting article, will have to take a look.

Theres one article I havent actually given more than a glance but the idea has stuck in my mind:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9689906/

its not actually *that* novel of an idea and I think they even themselves note the similarity to IIT at least superficially. But the notion of non-separability seems quite thought provoking for me in the context of the hard problem.

We seem to be in a similar situation: no understanding of physical processes, however complete, explains consciousness. — Art48

Materialists like to belittle the "Hard Problem" by implying that philosophers deny the "obvious" fact that Consciousness is nothing-but a body-control function of material brains. Hence they --- the "un-grounded" thinkers --- complicate a simple situation by insisting on the contribution of immaterial metaphysical things or processes. Perhaps there's some truth to that assessment, but the OP implies that "C" is more-than "physical processes". If so, what is that "more-than"?

I can't deny that "C" seems to be a function of brain operations, just as program solutions are a function of computer operations. But then what is a Function? Is it a> a lump of matter, or b> a series of actions, or c> a mathematical relationship between variables? A Function is not a thing, or a sequence of events, it's an effective (purposeful) correlation of Input & Output. Therefore, I think Consciousness is a goal-oriented function of complex information-processing systems. Moreover, shape-shifting Information can take-on all of those function-facilitating forms --- matter, energy, ratios, etc. So philosophically, "C" is ultimately a function of cosmic operations from Big Bang initiation to the current continually complexifying situation.

For those interested in the relationship between Consciousness and Information, here's a research report from the Santa Fe Institute for the study of complexity. Among other things, it proposes A> that Mind emerges from Integrated Information systems. Also B> that Consciousness seems to be necessary for individuals in multilevel complex societies (e.g. herd & pack animals, not amoeba). Hence, it serves primarily a social function, not just coordination of body parts. One surprising postulation, though, is C> that it links the emergence of Consciousness to the unification of a dual-hemisphere brain. That's similar to the radical proposal of Julian Jaynes in The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind, as I referenced in a post above.

This technical paper seems to agree with the OP, that Consciousness is more-than a simple physical process. For a self-aware being it's infinitely more. As neuroscientist Christof Koch put it : "it's the feeling of life itself". :smile:


Information Theory and Consciousness :
We are not conscious simply because we have a large brain, but rather humans have evolved to become conscious when exposed to other conscious humans during a critical phase of their development. That is, first, consciousness is partly a social phenomenon, even though it seems that a main aspect of consciousness is to distinguish a self from others,and second, there were evolutionary reasons for the emergence of consciousness. . . . .
the two halves of the brain are separately conscious, even though only the left hemisphere can express itself verbally.
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fams.2021.641239/full#h2
Note --- Frontiers is a peer-reviewed research publisher

Materialists like to belittle the "Hard Problem" by implying that philosophers... — Gnomon

Do you understand that "materialist" is not a distinct category from "philosopher"?

Your writing frequently suggests that you don't understand this.

The universe operated just fine during the billions of years it existed before there were any minds around to grasp, reason,or understand anything about it. — Relativist

It appears to have, yes. There is a much deeper issue here than the hard problem of consciousness, although it is related. But if you do have time, have a look at my OP The Mind Created World, which presents an alternative view to the one you're proposing. Comments would be welcome.

I am 100% sure, there is absolutely no way that neuroscience can solve the hard problem of consciousness in a way where our descriptions in neuroscience fully explain our experience in the sense that there is some kind of necessary entailment between some neuroscientific description and some experience. This is impossible I think. Your wave example doesn't help. It wouldn't explain why the wave is associated with some particular experie ces in the same way that current descriptions of vidual cortex activity cannot tell us what experiences we are having. I think consciousness is a place where the natural limits of self-explanation really becoming prominent... the thing is, there is no reason we should be able to explain everything, especially the self (i.e. experience). I think its almost analogous to how self-reference always results in paradoxes in logic. We can never know just as a dog will never know somethings because its brain is designed in a way that is limiting to it.

This question was merged into Why is the Hard Problem of Consciousness so hard?

MODERATOR NOTE: the thread 'what would solve the hard problem of consciousness' was merged with this existing thread on the same topic.

I wouldn't say research like this would be helping with the Hard Problem of consciousness though. Ofcourse, the more we learn, the more we might precisely we will be able to relate experiences to neural activity but that isnt necessarily the same as explaining why specific phenomenal experiences are related to certain mechanisms.
And I don't think there an explanation to that is even possible as I think such a duality is illusory.

Of course its a physical process. You are physically typing, the physical transfer of binary information across the internet to my TV hooked up to my computer. I will read it with my physical eyes, my physical brain will process the information, and I'll type a physical reply. If I'm wrong, where am I wrong? — Philosophim

It's physical in some respects, but the salient point, our understanding of what is being said, the expression of intentional meaning - that is not a physical process.

What is the non-physical part? A sub-space where my consciousness resides? — Philosophim

The interpretation of meaning. The constant, underlying, subliminal processes of 'this means that', 'this is that', 'this word has that meaning' - otherwise known as judgement. That is not a physical process. It can be instantiated in the computer, even more so now with AI (which I myself use constantly and refer to frequently) - but those are human artefacts, manufactured and programmed by humans to amplify human abilities.

I will acknowledge that I am positing a form of dualism, but it has to be spelled out very carefully. As I've said already a number of times in this thread, the Cartesian idea of there being a 'thinking thing' (res cogitans) or 'spiritual substance' is extremely misleading. There is no such thing, in any objective sense - there's nothing 'out there' which corresponds to that. The thinking subject is not an objective reality (which is another way of expressing the hard problem). But such judgements as 'is', 'is not', 'is the same as', and so on, are intrinsic to the operation of reason, which is internal to thought, and thus not objective in the sense implied in cartesian dualism. I'm more impressed with the approach of A-T (Aristotelian Thomist) dualism, generally described with that ugly word 'hylomorphism'. But what it means is that reason (nous) grasps meaning, which is the building block of rational thought. And that is not a physical process. That is why Thomist philosophy (and Christianity generally) sees the human as a compound of body and soul (or psyche). Not that the soul exists objectively, but as the animating intelligence which makes the grasp of meaning possible.

Even if we accept the impossibility of recognition of the value of the law of the excluded middle as a result of biological evolution, despite you simply asserting it, here is a paper suggesting it was a matter of cultural evolution. — wonderer1

And that is where Nagel's critique of evolutionary reductionism is salient. To seek to provide an account of reason, on some grounds other than the rational, is to call into question the sovereignty of reason.

Unless it is coupled with an independent basis for confidence in reason, the evolutionary hypothesis is threatening rather than reassuring. It is consistent with continued confidence only if it amounts to the hypothesis that evolution has led to the existence of creatures, namely us, with a capacity for reasoning in whose validity we can have much stronger confidence than would be warranted merely from its having come into existence in that way. I have to be able to believe that the evolutionary explanation is consistent with the proposition that I follow the rules of logic because they are correct--not merely because I am biologically programmed to do so. But to believe that, I have to be justified independently in believing that they are correct. And this cannot be merely on the basis of my contingent psychological disposition, together with the hypothesis that it is the product of natural selection. I can have no justification for trusting a reasoning capacity I have as a consequence of natural selection, unless I am justified in trusting it simply in itself -- that is, believing what it tells me, in virtue of the content of the arguments it delivers.

If reason is in this way self-justifying, then it is open to us also to speculate that natural selection played a role in the evolution and survival of a species that is capable of understanding and engaging in it. But the recognition of logical arguments as independently valid is a precondition of the acceptability of an evolutionary story about the source of that recognition. This means that the evolutionary hypothesis is acceptable only if reason does not need its support. At most it may show why the existence of reason need not be biologically mysterious.

The only form that genuine reasoning can take consists in seeing the validity of the arguments, in virtue of what they say. As soon as one tries to step outside of such thoughts, one loses contact with their true content. And one cannot be outside and inside them at the same time: If one thinks in logic, one cannot simultaneously regard those thoughts as mere psychological dispositions, however caused or however biologically grounded. — Thomas Nagel, op cit

All we're worried about is the details in how the brain generates it. — Philosophim

That is the Hard Problem. "Through our physical brain" is a where, not a how. "In the sky" does not tell us how flight is accomplished. "In our legs" does not tell us how walking is accomplished. "In our brain" does not tell us how consciousness is accomplished. The details are not insignificant. They are remarkably important. And they are unknown.

I have no idea what you're asking here.

Dualists claim that humans are a collection of physical and non-physical (mental) stuff. The term "biology" is used to refer to the physical stuff and the term "consciousness" is used to refer to the non-physical (mental) stuff. To say that a human is conscious is to say that it has this non-physical (mental) stuff.

Whereas materialists claim that humans are a collection of physical stuff alone and that the term "consciousness" refers to some subsection of that physical stuff. To say that a human is conscious is to say that it has this subsection of that physical stuff.

I’m just asking what the word “consciousness” refers to. I have to Imagine a string going from the word to what it is in the world the word refers to. The dualist would have nowhere to put it because it would either attach to some biology, or nothing. Non-physical stuff is just a roundabout way of saying “nothing”, in my view, because nothing indicates such stuff exists.

Yes, if. But either way, there undoubtedly seems to me a hard problem, hence the existence of substantial contemporary philosophical literature on the nature of consciousness and of substance and property dualism. So either it is the case that consciousness is a physical thing, but significantly more complex than every other physical thing in the universe, or it isn't a physical thing.

Or it isn’t a thing at all. Maybe it’s an abstract term denoting abstract qualities of physical things, particularity conscious organisms.

The brain produces or is involved in producing neurochemicals, endocrines and so on, but it doesn’t produce numbers or words. Your ontology is simply that because matter is fundamental, the brain is material then it must be the case. — Wayfarer
I've been asking for some time now, if the brain doesn't produce them, where are they? What material are they made out of? I've clearly pointed out that the brain, which is physical, can retain information, make judgements, etc. This includes numbers. — Philosophim

Numbers, and other mental concepts, do indeed seem to be a product of brain activities. Yet the relevant question is not what are they made of, but "How Mind Emerged From Matter", which is the subtitle of Terrence Deacon's masterwork : Incomplete Nature. Another way to express the Hard Problem is : "how does physical activity (neural & endocrinological) result in the meta-physical (mental) functions that we label "Ideas" and "Awareness"? Scientific investigations have explained how physical actions in an internal combustion engine can result in the function we call "Motion" or "Transportation". It's all push & shove of atoms on atoms. Yet, neurons are not spark plugs and hormones are not gasoline. So, what's-pushing-on-what to allow the brain to produce Mental Activity?

There are other kinds of physical activity (processes) that defy the simple mechanical laws of Newton. Even that genius was baffled by the "function"*1 of Gravity to move atoms without touching them. Einstein later, in a quantum context, called such mysterious activity : "spooky action at a distance". What's spooky about Potential*2 is that it's not mechanical, but geometric ("warped space"). Ironically, saying that mathematical relations can change the shape of the immaterial "fabric" of emptiness (the container of matter) sounds like magic. Yet, modern physicists accept that bizarre notion, because they have no better explanation.

I'm no Einstein, but I have learned from physicists, such as Paul Davies, and neuroscientist Terrence Deacon, that the Absence of matter can have real-world effects. What these nothings have in common is something similar to mathematical relationships (ratios) that we now know as various forms of In-form-ation. For my thesis, I call the progenitor of all emergent sub-forms in the world : EnFormAction --- the power to transform. When matter changes form, we attribute the cause to Energy. But, like Gravity, we only know what it does physically, not what it is essentially. For scientific purposes, we just label the observation with a noun name, like "Energy", and define it with a verb name, like "Causation". But the essence or quality of the Change Agent is left undefined ; perhaps because to explain it might seem to attribute magical powers to nothingness, contrary to the belief system of determinstic Materialism.

FWIW, my answer to your question (about the substance of the mind machine), is that mental Functions (Mind/Consciousness/Awareness) are not made of massive Matter, but consists of causal Information (power to transform). Recent scientific investigations have found that Information is much more than the empty entropic vessels of Shannon's definition. Information also is found in material & energetic forms. So, we can infer that all Causation in the world is "made", not of Matter, but of Power/Potency. And the effects of that causal ability on matter is what we call Change. The bottom line of my own approach to Consciousness questions is to propose something more philosophical and less scientific as the fundamental "substance"*3 of the world : cosmic Potential, that Deacon called Teleodynamics*4, or what I call EnFormAction. :smile:


*1. Function : an activity or purpose natural to or intended for a person or thing.
Note --- Mind functions are not material objects, but mental subjective processes working toward a future state or purpose.

*2. Potential :
a> having or showing the capacity to become or develop into something in the future.
b> latent qualities or abilities that may be developed and lead to future success or usefulness.
c> existing in possibility : capable of development into actuality.

*3. Substance :
Essence ; in the history of Western philosophy, an entity whose existence is independent of that of all other things, or a potentiality from which or out of which other things are made or in which other things inhere.

*3. How does Aristotle define substance?
Contrary to what was said in the Categories and the Physics, Aristotle seems to say that the term “substance” applies most properly not to a compound of matter and form such as an elephant or a vase, but to the Form {logical pattern] that makes that compound the kind of thing it is.

*4. Teleodynamics :
Teleodynamics emerges when multiple self-organizing phenomena generate forms (constraints) that serve as the boundary conditions that make the other self-organizing processes possible, resulting in a spontaneous tendency for the self-generation and self-maintenance of the whole.
https://teleodynamics.org/

Please clue me in! :grin: What do we see taking place that is on top of what I'm talking about, and how does it cause consciousness? The crux of the Hard Problem is that the physical events all add up to describe our behavior, which is a physical process. There doesn't seem to be anything extra going on. If there were physical events going on among all that that do not contribute to the behavior, we might hypothesize that they cause subjective experience. It might be difficult to explain how the physical events cause a non-physical process, but at least we might have a starting point.

But is what emerged something other than matter and/or energy? To my knowledge, no. If you think it is something other than matter and energy, do we have evidence of it existing apart from our imagination? — Philosophim

The Hard Problem is all about that familiar-yet-mysterious "something other". If you prefer to think that your Mind is a material object, what are its tangible properties : entangled neurons? Can you examine an Idea under a magnifying glass? How much does a Feeling weigh? If your Mind is instead an energetic force, what are its causal effects? Can you move an object with mind-force? If you can't produce those evidences, maybe Consciousness is indeed something other.

However, I'm not introducing something supernatural into the real world. My thesis postulates that the universe began with prototypes of Matter, Energy, and Mind in place. Of course, I can't prove that's true, any more than scientists can prove that a cosmic Bang created a universe from nothing-nowhere. Scientists do have names for some of those hypothetical proto-elements of modern reality : Quarks are unproven theoretical (imaginary) bits of matter with no discernible properties, but strange antithetical attributes : up/down ; top/bottom ; charm/strange. Is your consciousness one or more of those materials? Gluons are also theoretical binding forces with a metaphorical name. But, unlike real forces, Gluons cannot be measured by instruments. Are your Ideas & Feelings constructed of charming Quarks glued together by sticky Gluons? Do you have "evidence" of those elements of matter & energy, apart from the imagination of Quantum theorists studying the squishy quantum foundations of the physical world. Some accept those theories as descriptions of reality, even though the evidence is "locked away"*1 from the prying eyes of Materialists. Have you ever seen or touched a Mind Quark?

My thesis merely proposes a new name for a phenomenon/noumenon that has puzzled scientists and philosophers for ages. It seems obvious that mental qualities supervene (follow ; depend) on material properties, but how? I just flip the script to view Matter & Energy as dependent from a singular aboriginal predecessor, with the Potential for both Matter & Energy. Plato used a variety of labels for his First Cause : Logos, Form, etc. So, you can think of EFA metaphorically as a "seed" with the power to produce both the Logical Structure and the Material Form of Darwin's manifold "forms most beautiful". Is that close enough to philosophical Materialism for you? Or is it too close to philosophical Idealism? I could argue from that other direction, if I had time for such nonsense. :cool:


*1. By the mid-1970s, however, 10 years after quarks were first proposed, scientists had compiled a mass of evidence that showed that quarks do exist but are locked within the individual hadrons in such a way that they can never escape as single entities.
https://www.britannica.com/science/subatomic-particle/The-development-of-quark-theory

No. My issue is not with speculation. Its with assertion. Maybe we'll find out in the future that consciousness isn't physical. But today? It is. — Philosophim

Sounds like you do have an issue with philosophical and scientific Postulation*2. In Darwin's day, the explanation for the variety of plants & animals was based on the Genesis myth. Do you think he was out of line to "assert" that there was another way to make sense of biology? Do you think Gnomon is asserting falsehoods on a philosophical discussion forum, or is he merely postulating alternative views for discussion? Is Physics the source of all Truth for you? :wink:

*2. Postulate : to suggest or accept that a theory or idea is true as a starting point for reasoning or discussion.

So we can see that quarks have mass and have been conclusively measured. So as you can see, there's still no evidence of something in the universe that cannot be confirmed to be matter or energy yet. — Philosophim

Just as Catholics believe in angels based on infallible scripture, modern physicists definitely believe in Quarks based on infallible math. So it doesn't take much indirect evidence*3*4 to confirm their faith. But which are you going to believe : proponents or doubters? Personally, I don't know or care if they are real ; they serve a function for imagining the quantum realm as tiny particles of stuff, like the holy grail of ancient philosophical Atoms. :joke:

*3. "Quark masses are fundamental quantities in particle physics, but they cannot be accessed and measured directly in experiments because, with the exception of the top quark, quarks are confined inside composite particles," said Andrea Dainese, who is the ALICE physics coordinator.
https://www.space.com/large-hadron-collider-quark-mass-measurement
Note --- If you can't measure it, mathematize it.

*4. Are quarks hypothetical particles?
We will never know for sure.
That’s because quarks, by the nature of their interactions with each other through “gluons”, can never get far enough apart to be “observed” directly.
For many years most physicists thought quarks were just a Reductionist gimmick for remembering the rules of SU(3) — a symmetry of elementary particles also known (equally fancifully) as “the eightfold way”. But today the consensus is that they are real particles.
https://www.quora.com/Are-quarks-hypothetical-particles-Why
Note --- Consensus opinion, not empirical fact.

My issue again is the assertion that because we can think of a possibility, that this somehow invalidates what we know today. — Philosophim

Coincidentally, the same day you posted that skeptical warning of the perils of un-grounded speculation beyond current evidence, I read in Skeptical Inquirer magazine (vol 48, issue 1) an article by philosopher Massimo Pigliucci on Pseudoscience. He includes a list of criteria*1 to "demarcate sense from nonsense". The items on that list were written down in Roman orator Cicero's On Divination circa 44BCE, in which he compared Astrology negatively to scientific Astronomy.

In my own speculative thesis, the logical consistency*1a, will have to be judged by others, because we have difficulty seeing the errors in our own reasoning. Since Enformationism is a philosophical conjecture, about a topic with little or no empirical evidence*1b to date, confirmation of the postulation will have to wait for hard Science to catch up with soft Philosophy. The causal mechanisms*1c underlying Consciousness remain mysterious, but the thesis specifically postulates a primordial prototype of modern Energy as the First Cause. The evolutionary process that produced Mind from Matter is not arbitrary*1d, but its intermediate steps are currently unknown, just as material Phase Transitions (states of matter) remain opaque after centuries of study. Moreover, the thesis does rely on a community of experts*1e (e.g. Santa Fe Institute)*2, who are investigating the emergence of Consciousness and Complexity from Holistic physical mechanisms.

Regardless of compliance with Cicero's Criteria, and with Skeptical caution, the Enformationism thesis remains a philosophical conjecture, not a scientific fact. So, those more interested in Confirmation Bias may be able to point to my own concept of how Mind emerged from Matter, as confirmation of their personal pseudoscience inclinations. For example, the article mentions Deepak Chopra, who follows similar reasoning to the conclusion of what he calls "Quantum Mysticism"*3. Which Pigliucci thinks is pseudoscience : "there is no such thing". Although, Chopra did not intend to "invalidate what we know today" about Mental phenomena, but to explain such "hard problems" in meaningful modern and traditional philosophical terms. Although his views are Holistic, I don't follow Chopra as an "expert", because he too often goes beyond the metaphorical/mystical point that I am comfortable with.

also classifies my thesis as "mystical woo", even though I make no "spiritual" claims or magical assertions, only philosophical interpretations of physical observations. He seems to think Philosophy began in the 17th century, after the Enlightenment, and trails behind Science picking up crumbs. I repectfully disagree. :smile:


*1. Cicero's Criteria for making sense
a. Internal logical consistency
b. Empirical confirmation
c. Specificity of proposed causal mechanisms
d. Degree of arbitrariness
e. Existence of a qualified community of experts

*2. What does the Santa Fe Institute actually research/study? :
The Santa Fe Institute was founded in 1984 by a man named George Cowan, with the help of Murray Gell-Mann who is a Nobel-prize physicist, Phil Anderson, another Nobel-prize physicist, Ken Arrow who won a Nobel prize in economics, and others. These guys all got together and decided to help found this thing, and ‘this thing’ was a new way of doing science… [they] said ‘let’s start looking at ways we can study the whole thing, instead of reducing things.’ And this came right at a moment when personal computers were coming into their own.
https://www.reddit.com/r/cormacmccarthy/comments/t5shni/what_does_the_santa_fe_institute_actually/
Note --- 180 associates Holism with New Age woo


*3. Quantum mysticism
Quantum mysticism, sometimes referred pejoratively to as quantum quackery or quantum woo,[1] is a set of metaphysical beliefs and associated practices that seek to relate consciousness, intelligence, spirituality, or mystical worldviews to the ideas of quantum mechanics and its interpretations.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_mysticism

I just came across this thread. Nicholas Humphrey's article is interesting, but he makes assumptions that, on the one hand, harken back to the bad old days of analogous introspection, and on the other hand, confuse the mind with one subsystem, the brain. (See my "The Hard Problem of Consciousness & the Fundamental Abstraction")

Sensation, let’s be clear, has a different function from perception. Both are forms of mental representation: ideas generated by the brain. But they represent – they are about – very different kinds of things. Perception – which is still partly intact in blindsight – is about ‘what’s happening out there in the external world’: the apple is red; the rock is hard; the bird is singing. By contrast, sensation is more personal, it’s about ‘what’s happening to me and how I as a subject evaluate it’: the pain is in my toe and horrible; the sweet taste is on my tongue and sickly; the red light is before my eyes and stirs me up. — Nicholas Humphrey

We have no reason to believe that non-human life does more than process data. So, the application of the sensation-perception distinction to non-human life is gratuitous. AI shows representations generating appropriate responses can be fully explained with no appeal to subjectivity, qualia, or concepts properly so-called (signs that do not need to have their physical structure recognized in order to signify).

In perception, the world is not just "doing its own thing." We only sense it because it is acting on us. So, in perception, "what is happening in the world" and "what is happening to me" are inseparably bound. What is happening is the world is acting on me. Of course, we can distinguish the cause (the world is acting) from the effect (modifing my neural state) mentally, but they are, in fact, inseparable. The world modifying my neural state is identically my neural state being modified by the world. Evaluating is a second movement, and one that occurs much less often.

What the observations of the blindsighted monkey (Helen) show is that is that visual data processed by the optic tectum is not connected to the same response subsystems as data processed by the visual cortex. The observations of blindsighted humans show that the production of visual qualia is not essential to the production of visual knowledge.

Since to know x is to be conscious of x, consciousness does not depend on qualia in an essential way. Qualia are merely the contingent forms of some kinds of perception. Of course, if you were normally sighted, being deprived of normal visual qualia will make you unsure that you are really seeing what you are in fact seeing using the optic tectum. Still, the information is in the mind and can be used, so with experience one can know that she knows -- to be conscious of the data lacking qualia.

Let me emphasise: sensations are ideas. They are the way our brains represent what’s happening at our sense organs and how we feel about it. Their properties are to be explained, therefore, not literally as the properties of brain-states, but rather as the properties of mind-states dreamed up by the brain. — Nicholas Humphrey

Clearly, sensations, what is happening to me, are not the same as ideas. My leg has been in one position to long. Without thinking, I move it. I have too much CO2 in my blood. Without thinking, I yawn. In both cases there is an evaluation, but it is automatic, and no idea is generated. Similarly, innumerable brain processes proceed without consciousness. So, consciousness and ideas are not an automatic side-effect of neural processing. Something more than neural processing is required and, as I showed in my paper, what that is cannot be deduced using physical science.

Saying they are "dreamed up by the brain" is vacuous. What is the mechanism of this dreaming and how does it produce the requisite properties? How do physical or mathematical operations produce intentional effects, when physics and mathematics do not even describe intentionality?

I believe the upshot – in the line of animals that led to humans and others that experience things as we do – has been the creation of a very special kind of attractor, which the subject reads as a sensation with the unaccountable feel of phenomenal qualia. — Humphrey

Here is the transition from the description of an organism acting in a purely physical way, to a "subject" which can enter into subject-object relations -- in other words, a conscious being. Up to this point increasingly complex forms of data processing have been described, but without subjectivity. Now, as a deus ex machina, we have subjectivity. We are entitled to an account of how an organism evolves into a subject, but none is given. Yet, to be conscious is to be a subject able to enter into the subject-object relation of knowing.

The hard problem is more about trying to explain how color "arises" from non-colored things, like neurons and wavelengths. — Harry Hindu

I agree. I took that to be part of asking how a "sense" of stimuli could take place.

I don't read "arises" as a type of causation. We need a verb to describe what happens when two phenomena occur at the same time, and yet one appears to ground the other. That's what I think "arises" is supposed to mean here. Causation should be reserved for things that occur sequentially in time. @Wolfgang's two levels of description are a good example. Does the presence of 22 people on a soccer field, following certain rules, "cause" a soccer game? This would be a very awkward and counter-intuitive way of putting it. Rather, we'd say that the soccer game simply is the 22 people following the rules, under a different description.

(Note, BTW, that speaking of "two phenomena" somewhat begs the question, but it's hard to find a non-question-begging way of putting it.)

Our understandings of the world aren’t ideas in the head, they are activities of engagement.All other corners of the world untouched by our participation also are agentially perspectival with respect to themselves via their interaffecting within configurative patterns of interaction. Hoffman and Chalmers still think of consciousness as an Ideal substance. — Joshs

That's so interesting, but it's also a notion that's hard to adjust to given the way things are habitually described and understood.

I'm not clear how the subjective experience of eating chocolate, say, is a product of, shall we say, patterns of interaction within a network, shaped by how beings engage with their environment. I'm trying to understand what this frame contributes to a 'deflation' of the hard problem. Can you tease this out a little more for a layperson?

The whole 'hard problem' arises from regarding consciousness as an object, which it is not, while science itself is based on objective facts. It's not complicated, but it's hard to see.

This sounds like nominalism, is that correct? — aporiap

It is Moderate Realism, which sees universal concepts grounded in the objective character of their actual and potential instances rather than in Platonic Ideas or Neoplatonic Exemplars. Nominalism and conceptualism see universals as categories arbitrarily imposed by individual fiat or social convention.

1.

Why would the program not be conscious when running the first 5 steps of the algorithm? — aporiap

If we assume that consciousness is the result of the mere presence of all the steps, then it will not be conscious for 1-5 because the minimum complexity is absent. On the other hand, if we think consciousness is a consequence of running the instructions, it can't be either. Why? Because if running only a few steps elicited consciousness, then the program we started with would not be the shortest possible, since the few steps (1-5) we ran to elicit consciousness would be shorter.

Why not it simply loose consciousness when the program has reached the missing instruction in the same way a computer program freezes if there is an error in a line of the code and simply resume running once the code is fixed? — aporiap

The program does not run into the missing instruction. It is halted and the instruction removed, then later replaced before it is executed.

The way this scenario is construed makes an issue for any kind of binary descriptor of a continually running algorithm [e.g. any sort of game, any sort of artificial sensor, any sort of continually looping program] not just specifically for ascribing consciousness to an algorithm. Eg. Say you call this algorithm an 'atmospheric sampler'. Say you take one instruction out now it is no longer an atmospheric sampler algorithm because it cannot sample, let it run until after the instructional code, now repair the instruction and it has become an atmospheric sampler seemingly a-causally. — aporiap

No. Notice that we run all the original instructions. Any program that simply runs an algorithm runs it completely. So, your 'atmospheric sampler' program does everything needed to complete its computation.

The problem is, we have no reason to assume that the generation of consciousness is algorithmic. Algorithms solve mathematical problems -- ones that can be presented by measured values or numerically encoded relations. We have no such representation of consciousness. Also, data processing operates on representations of reality, it does not operate on the reality represented. So, even if we had a representation of consciousness, we would not have consciousness.

In the computational theory of mind, consciousness is supposed to be an emergent phenomenon resulting from sufficiently complex data processing of the right sort. This emergence could be a result of actually running the program, or it could be the result of the mere presence of the code. If it is a result of running the program, it can't be the result of running only a part of the program, for if the part we ran caused consciousness, then it would be a shorter program, contradicting our assumption. So, consciousness can only occur once the program has completed -- but then it is not running, which means that an inoperative program is causes consciousness.

We are left with the far less likely scenario in which the mere presence of the code, running or not, causes consciousness. First, the presence of inoperative code is not data processing, but the specification of data processing. Second, because the code can be embodied in any number of ways, the means by which it effects consciousness cannot be physical. But, if it can't be physical, and it's not data processing, what is is the supposed cause?

The implicit assumption is that the complexity of an algorithm is what generates consciousness and that complexity is reduced by reducing the number of instructions. — aporiap

The general assumption among supporters of the computational theory is that complexity is required. I never found that assumption cogent, and do not make it myself. The argument does not relate program length to complexity. It only notes that if there is a Turing programs able to generate consciousness, one or more of them must be of minimal length. Whether is tis complex or simple is irrelevant to the argument.

This assumes data processing can only happen in a turing machine like manner — aporiap

No, not at all. It only depends on the theorem that all finite state machines can be represented by Turing machines. If we are dealing with data processing per se, the Turing model is an adequate representation. If we need more than the Turing machine model, we are not dealing with data processing alone, but with some physical property of the machine.

I agree that the brain uses parallel processing, and might not be representable as a finite state machine. Since it is continually "rewiring" itself, its number of states may change over time, and since its processing is not digital, its states may be more continuous than discrete. So, I am not arguing that the brain is a finite state machine. I am arguing against those who so model it in the computational theory of mind.

Perhaps this is why say, a neuron, which is a single processing unit is not capable of consciousness whereas a conglomerate of neurons is. — aporiap

This assumes facts not in evidence. David Chalmers calls this the "Hard Problem" because not only do we have no model in which a conglomerate of neurons operate to produce consciousness, but we have no progress toward such a model. Daniel Dennett argues at length in Consciousness Explained that no naturalistic model of consciousness is possible.

It is also clear that a single physical state can be the basis for more than one intentional state at the same time. For example, the same neural representation encodes both my seeing the cat and the cat modifying my retinal state.

Why make the dichotomy between "natural" and "psychological" objects? — aporiap

"Dichotomy" implies a clean cut, an either-or. I am not doing that. I see the mind, and the psychology that describes it, as involving two interacting subsystems: a neurophysical data processing subsystem (the brain) and an intentional subsystem which is informed by, and exerts a degree of control over, it (intellect and will). Both subsystems are fully natural.

There is, however, a polarity between objects and the subjects that are aware of them.

even in the physical sciences we don't have access to 'things in themselves' anyway, — aporiap

Please rethink this. Kant was bullheaded in his opposition to Hume's thesis that there is no intrinsic necessity to time ordered causality. As a result he sent philosophy off on a tangent from which it is yet to fully recover.

The object being known by the subject is identically the subject knowing the object. As a result of this identity there is no room for any "epistic gap." Phenomena are not separate from noumena. They are the means by which noumena reveal themselves to us.

We have access to reality. If we did not, nothing could affect us. It is just that our access is limited. All human knowledge consists in projections (dimensionally diminished mappings) of reality. We know that the object can do what it is doing to us. We do not know all the other things it can do.

We observe everything by its effects. It is just that some observations are more mediated than others.

The point is that these fall within the range of natural objects albeit of a lesser degree as opposed to something wholly different so as to involve a completely different way of knowing or learning about them. — aporiap

This is very confused. People have learn about themselves by experiencing their own subjectivity from time immemorial. How doe we know we are conscious? Surely not by observations of our physical effects. Rather we know our subjective powers because we experience ourselves knowing, willing, hoping, believing and so on.

In my posts above I'm arguing against the property dualism that is implied in the so called hard problem of consciousness. The problem reappears also in epistemological forms of dualism, such as in indirect realism, or in any philosophy in which it is assumed that consciousness is inaccessible to our knowledge.

Those are not my problems. I'm a direct realist, and a monist, so there's no need for you to give me a lecture on the monist nature of the world. Likewise, when I'm talking of subjective and objective in their ontological and epistemological senses, I'm not trying to split the world in two. In a monist world, things can have different modes of existing, and some things are observer-dependent (e.g. money) while other things (e.g. mountains) exist regardless of observers. But thanks anyway :up:

The hard problem of consciousness can be defined as the problem of explaining why and how we have qualia. Qualia are typically defined as individual instances of subjective, conscious experience.

But is it necessary for us to know why and how the brain gives rise to qualia in order to know *that* it does? In other words, wouldn’t it be sufficient to confirm physicalism as the correct metaphysics simply by knowing *that* the brain gives rise to qualia without needing to go all the way in explaining why and how it does so?

What I’m saying is that I think there’s a difference between knowing why and how the brain gives rise to qualia and knowing *that* it does so.

And to me at least, it seems as though we already know that the brain does give rise to qualia. For example, if you were to drink a large amount of alcohol, it would temporarily impact the functioning of your brain which would have drastic effects on your qualia. And people who have brain damage often have marked changes in their qualia.

I recently published an article with the above title (https://jcer.com/index.php/jcj/article/view/1042/1035). Here is the abstract:

The assumption that all behavior is ultimately neurophysical may be called the Standard Model (SM) of neurophilosophy. Yet, in the years since David Chalmers distinguished the Hard Problem of Consciousness from the easy problems of neuroscience, no progress has been made toward a physical reduction of consciousness. This, together with collateral shortcomings Chalmers missed, show that the SM is inadequate to experience. I outline the logical prerequisites for reduction and show that they are missing from the SM. Their absence is traced to representational problems implicit in: (1) The Fundamental Abstraction of natural science (attending to the object to the exclusion of the subject); and (2) The limits of a Cartesian conceptual space. Adding pre-Cartesian concepts allows us to construct an integrated representation bridging the dualistic gap. In particular, Aristotle’s projection of mind provides a paradigm integrating intentional and physical operations. — D. F. Polis

The article rejects dualism as a framework, qualia as essential to consciousness, actual information in computers, and the reduction of biology to physics. It also clarifies the concept of emergence.

I invite comments pro and con.

When you look at things from an evolutionary perspective and understand biology and biochemistry there doesn't seem to be any hard problem.

Yeah living systems are really complicated... and yeah the chemistry and evolution that can happen over 4 billion years is really complicated.. but I don't think by making up fuzzy words like qualia and weird thought experiments like zombies you actually highlight any real problem or illuminate any gap in our knowledge!

Yes humans have complex subjective experience and presumably all living systems even a mosquito have some sort of internal subjective experience...

But it seems like neurology and biochemistry and evolutionary biology do a pretty good job of explaining what's going on and I don't see how any of that mumbo jumbo is creating any better science?

In other words it seems like the science we have and the understanding we have does a pretty good job explaining things, and unless you're creating something better, it seems like you're just praying on the gullible and naive religious impulses by creating these weird philosophical niches!!!