That's true. I suppose physics is seemingly gradually moving away from "building block" models to more continuum models (eg quantum field theory). This is something I need to think more on — tom111

Yes, a new, popular way of looking at things is of seeing the universe as a sort of (quantum) computer. A veritable whose who list of eminent physicists have embraced this view to some degree, Tegmark, Davies, Vedral, Landauer, Lloyd, Wheeler, etc. However, what exactly this means can vary considerably, because there are a great deal of open questions in the philosophy of information. Some still say information is a sort of subjective illusion projected over mere mechanism (more popular in biology), others say it is "emergent" from matter and energy, and still others say that matter and energy are emergent from information. The last also breaks down in different ways, from "It From Bit" participatory universes (Wheeler) to ontic structural realism where the universe just is a mathematical object (Tegmark).

This opens up new pathways. In a certain sense, while computation can be decomposed into simpler Turing Machines, it is not reducible into building blocks. Different is different. This sort of goes along with arguments in process metaphysics that a process metaphysics does not require any sort of emergence at all (instead, we just have the nesting of processes).

IMO though, Bickard's appeal to process metaphysics is a bit too sanguine. It isn't a silver bullet. Process metaphysics tends towards a sort of universal monoprocess, and so it just ends up sliding towards another pole of the Problem of the One and the Many if we aren't careful, but more to the point, it still leaves mind fairly mysterious, just not contradictory perhaps. Terrance Deacon has some interesting stuff to say on this too (quoted here). His open-source paper on biosemiotics is pretty good on this topic and its relation to information theory (so big in physics) now too.

The problem is that, while these new views open up new paths that the old "building block" metaphysics foreclosed on, they lead in a vast plurality of directions. What it means for a physical system to be "computing" any particular computation is an extremely fraught question, and arguably any system of enough complexity can be said to be computing any program below a certain Kolmogov complexity. Add on to this the "subjective" element of information (or something like Jaynes' argument that entropy is itself in a sense subjective) and there are loads of possible interpretations here.

For me, I think this brings me back to the most obvious source of unity and multiplicity. We are ourselves and no one else. We are a unity, although as Plato's psychology suggests, we can be more or less unified. So, we need to explain how there are beings (plural). I think this might be possible in a process context by speaking in terms of systems that are more or less self-determining, unity and multiplicity being contrary opposites (of degree; like dark and light) not contradictory opposites. I am particularly fond of how Aristotle takes Plato's spot on psychological insights and broadens them into a full on metaphysical and physical principle. The problem is that, while many people in contemporary analytic thought are drawn to Aristotle on this issue, ethics, etc., they almost always use a deflated Aristotle who is penned in by the aesthetic commitments of our era. This is a shame, because I think a promising way to approach the Hard Problem is to flip the picture, and look at things from the top down, such that "matter" emerges from form, which is inherently intelligible (and here, Neoplatonic extensions of Aristotle, or even Hegel are more helpful than "Aristotle the naturalist").

On that point, I like David Bentley Hart's All Things Are Full of Gods quite a bit, or C.S. Peirce's Agapism. But I think that, in general, "naturalism" is a sort of theology stemming from the older natura pura, and by that I mean just that it is more of a "world view," both aesthetic and epistemic; sort of what Charles Taylor means by a "closed world system." It's a sort of built in preference for the mechanistic, which I think you can see in the way people will find Max Tegmark's ontology, where the universe is just a mathematical object, and that all such objects (and so pretty much all imaginable timelines) truly exist, to be plausible, but will find a much less expansive ontology where mind (intentionality and intelligibility) are fundemental to be totally implausible, because it is "anthropomorphic" or even "mystical" (used pejoratively). You can also see this in how people want to "escape mechanism" but then are only willing to stray as far as a reductionist formalism that ends up being very similar.

I don't think "empirical facts" help to decide this sort of issue much. It's closer to a religion. People generally stick to what they were raised with, or they "convert." The issue is as much aesthetic as anything else. And unfortunately, the Hard Problem and psychophysical harmony are the sorts of issues where such a starting "frame" become essential to even framing the problem, making everything very hazy.

We do not need to know the fundamental source or nature of a phenomenon before we can conclude that it "exists" — VagabondSpectre

So how does one know whether hallucinations are real or not? Or real life for that matter?

"Cogito ergo sum" does not give us any useful information about the nature of existence, all it does is confirm that something is there, for certain (purportedly), to begin with. — VagabondSpectre

I never said it gave us info about the nature of existence. I am saying that it does NOT confirm that something is there.

Maybe we're just images flowing from a projector, if so, the images still exist... Cogito ergo sum does not help in solving the hard mind body problem, nor does the hard body-mind problem invalidate "cogito ergo sum". If it did, then the argument would look like "We do not understand how this thinking experience thing works or is created, therefore we/it might not exist at all", which seems to contradict itself. — VagabondSpectre

When you construct an argument, you normally follow through with reasons supporting your claims. So far you have the opening statements but nothing to back it up.

All you have said is that it would seem to contradict itself with no reasoning behind why you feel that way. "We do not understand how this thinking experience thing works or is created, therefore we/it might not exist at all", which seems to contradict itself." It seems totally valid to me, but I am listening to you if you want to continue...

"A picture cannot picture itself, or something along those lines Wittgenstein would say. I think that would be apt in reference to saying anything about that which cannot be said will lead to non-sense." - Question

"Green" in its ordinary public sense is not a qualitative state, it's a property of certain objects that human beings can point to (trees, grass, etc.) There's a qualitative/experiential aspect in the pointing, but not in the objects. — Andrew M

This is muddled. WHAT is the "qualitative state" then? That is the hard question. Qualitative states exist, you are proposing. I agree. Also, physical occurrences that correspond with the qualitative state exist, as you said:

The scientific usage of "green", while related, has a different referent (i.e., we're pointing at something else, namely a range of light wavelengths). — Andrew M

By saying they have a different referent, you are just restating that it appears to be a different phenomena. How is it that these two things are related, or are one in the same though? Hence the hard question. If they are not related, then you still have the question, "What are the qualitative states"? What is quale, as compared with the scientific explanation that causes or corresponds with quale?

As I see it, problems are solved by differentiating our experiences, developing a public language around them, and generating testable hypotheses. That is what scientists (and to some extent all of us in our everyday lives) do. The philosophers' role is to resolve/dissolve the conceptual problems that arise. — Andrew M

Conceptual problems arise sometimes, when there is legitimately no good explanation how two phenomena that seem different are the same. That is the hard problem.

If there is no hard problem, we should be able to reach scientific or philosophical consensus on those types of questions. — Marchesk

I think we will, more or less. As artificial intelligence develops and machine behavior becomes more and more convincing, most people's intuitions about mind and mechanism will shift and the vast majority of the human populace will have little/no qualms with ascribing phenomenal consciousness to their robot friends, much as they have no problem ascribing it to their human friends. Sure, there will be luddite communities that cling to metaphysical arguments "demonstrating" the irreducibility of mind to matter, much as small numbers of people today still promulgate arguments and theories supporting astrology, alchemy, flat-earthism, geocentrism, creationism, vitalism, the luminiferous ether, etc. The hard problem will technically go unsolved, but practically no one will care. For most it will become categorized as a pesudo-problem that, while nominally interesting, is not worth seriously worrying about, similar to how the problem of solipsism is treated today by practically everyone who is not suffering from schizophrenia, despite the inability of anyone to solve it.

Because the hard problem potentially alters what we think about the world and ourselves. But again, you can ignore that if you want. — Marchesk

It's not that I want to ignore it. It just seems to me there should be implications of this line of reasoning that go beyond circumventing this specific problem.

Nope, because an illusion of qualia does not present a fundamental conceptual problem That's what the illusionists think. — Marchesk

Isn't the conceptual problem at the heart of the "hard problem" that no algorithm can translate wavelengths into the feeling of redness? In Illusionism, something still has to provide the qualia. They don't need to be generated by the specific input, but they do need to be generated somehow. But since we can't seem to come up with a physical process for generating qualia, they remain non-physical.

So, it still comes back to qualia though doesn't it? P-Zombies are used to make this distinction about qualia-laden systems, but presuming we actually could have a P-Zombie, would we be inclined to posit anything about the P-Zombie that needs to be explained by panpsychism that cannot already be explained by existing theory?

When you familiarize yourself with the theory and the vocabulary, then you can begin to see how material things can participate in what we call consciousness, to the extent that they likewise instantiate these properties or tendencies. — Pantagruel

OK, but isn't that just saying what we already know and why there is a problem? Brains are material things that engage in complex processes, so this statement boils down to saying that consciousness is the same as complex system properties. Is anyone convinced by that? Isn't this just claiming that Chalmers' easy problems explain the hard problem?

Ordinary functionalism explains what is different between human brains and your socks. All that’s left after that “easy problem” is some mysterious metaphysical having of a first person perspective at all, beyond just the third person behavioral differences. Panpsychism simply says that that is not a special thing that mysteriously arises only in human brains somehow; instead it’s a trivial thing that’s everywhere always, and only those functional differences actually make any difference. — Pfhorrest

I think there is something different between the claims of panpsychism and functionalism, though? OK, so "consciousness" is a common feature of the universe which attends appropriate systems/objects and that could be so (functionalism), but that's different from saying that all systems/objects can be conscious (panpsychism). Consider computations. These are genuine processes that have some kind of causal efficacy, Chalmers would say that a system undertakes a computation when the causal structure of the system mirrors the formal structure of the computation. Whether this is strictly true or not, it does note that a computation has to map to certain physical attributes that are not present in all systems or objects. So computations are a feature of the universe that are always available but only some systems/objects can perform them. We aren't then tempted to say that all objects, eg socks, can undertake computations.

It still seems to me that panpsychism aims to eliminate the hard problem by substituting for that state of affairs which gave rise to that problem a state of affairs an order of magnitude more resistant to explanation. I think maybe sime puts it best:

From this perpsective, the main difference between panspsychism and eliminative materialism is optimism. — sime

No. Why would he conclude that?

What does "if the hard problem is true" even mean? A solution to a problem is "true" but not the problem itself. Btw, there is no "hard problem" just as there is no mind-body/interaction problem. All you've been going on about amounts to saying "if creationism, then dinosaur fossils are fake". :sweat:

I've assumed that naturalism had replaced the term materialism — Tom Storm

This is an interesting point. But then, naturalism is contrasted with supernaturalism --or, in a simpler way, natural is contrasted with supernatural-- which is not want we actually need, is it? And this rises questions like whether e.g. consciousness is natural or supernatural. If yes, it belongs to the realm of scientific methods, which I don't think have been much applied to it until today. From what I know, there are very few scientists who have been involved in the subkect of consciousness, like Menas Kafatos, Bernardo Kastrup, et al. (They do have some interesting, even exciting, ideas on the subject.) On the other hand, if we consider consciousness as something "supernatural", we enter in the field of religion --which is a very vast area, with a lot of truths but also plenty of misconceptions and other traps. Or we get into the world of angels, demons, spirits and other creepy entities! :scream:

No, I prefer the term "physicalism". It's much more clear and it draws a line --not always clear-- between physical and non-physical. The first one is open and offered for scientific study; the second one, for philosophical study.

The six things you listed above are really one thing - the subjective experience of consciousness - and this may well be the by product of our physical brain. — Tom Storm

Even as a subjective experience, how can a physical thing like the brain produce something non-physical? And even if that were possible, wouldn't that then consist an acceptance that non-physical things exist too? Which, of course, is something the scientists, materialists, physicalists, naturalists, etc. don't believe exist. Doesn't this consist a self-contradition?

The subject of human conscicouness is open for too long a time for scientists, materialists, physicalists, naturalists to come up with tangible, persuasive and workable scientific results. I'm afraid they have lost their chance! :smile: The subject is offered only philosophical study.

"An explanation of consciousness will have to go beyond the usual methods of science. Consciousness therefore presents a hard problem for science, or perhaps it marks the limits of what science can explain."
-- "The Hard Problem of Consciousness" (https://iep.utm.edu/hard-con/)

When it comes to prejudice, it resides as comfortably in the land of woo woo as it does on the continent of scientism. — Tom Storm

True.

However, if the meaning isn't physical, it seems hard to explain how it could refer to physical things so well, or how physical things like other people or dogs can meaningfully and consistently respond to language and find physical referents based on it. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I also want to call out how the statement 'physical things like other people' begs the question. What is at issue is, among other things, whether people - human beings - are only physical, yet here you're starting from the premise that they are. Humans are physical in some respects - a parachutist will fall at the same rate as a bag of concrete (as Galileo discovered), although the consequence of a parachute malfunction is considered serious in the case of humans, not so much for objects. And why? Because humans are subjects of experience, not simply objects, like bags of concrete are. And it is the nature of the subject which materialism cannot account for, other than by claiming that it is something that must be eliminated..

Before enlightenment, chop wood carry water, after enlightenment, know that you necissarily must chop wood and carry water. — Count Timothy von Icarus

That koan is singularly innappropriate, given the context.

if the eliminativist vis-á-vis abstractions (or qualia) is correct, we shouldn't expect them to be able to overcome this illusion. So if they continue to say they feel tired, or advocate against racism, etc. it is only because the illusion is so powerful, which is exactly what their theory predicts. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Human beings, Mr. Dennett said, quoting a favorite pop philosopher, Dilbert, are “moist robots.”

“I’m a robot, and you’re a robot, but that doesn’t make us any less dignified or wonderful or lovable or responsible for our actions,” he said. “Why does our dignity depend on our being scientifically inexplicable?” — NY Times

There's a clear answer to this: that science deals wholly and solely with the properties of objects. And humans are not (only) objects, but subjects of experience - which is the whole point of the hard problem of consciousness. Consciousness is a hard problem for objective science, specifically because it is the property of a subject, and the subject by definition is not something that has been taken into account by the objective sciences - up until the point, that is, that quantum physics reached through the glass of the observatory and punched the observing scientists on the nose.

That koan is singularly innappropriate, given the context.

I know, that's why I like it so much. It's a perfect inversion.:grin: Being a moist robot IS the real enlightenment for the eliminativist.

begs the question

I wasn't trying to. I mentioned people in the context of other objects because I meant "people insomuch as they are objects," but phrases like that give precision at the cost of bloat. The point wasn't that people are necissarily physical, moreso that if a dad tells their kid, "go ask mom," the child's prephilosophical command on language gives them no trouble looking for the physical room in which their mom is located.

...none of that negates the kinds of philosophical problems that, for instance, Immanuel Kant set out to solve. In fact there's voluminous literature on Kant's contribution to cognitive science, and Bishop Berkeley wrote a treatise on optics. Schopenhauer also was keenly interested in the science of his day, and saw no conflict between it and his idealist metaphysics.

Such as? I think I agree though. There are practicing dualist neuroscientists, physicists who appear to embrace some flavor of idealism, etc. I don't think your ontological leanings result in any necissary barrier to contributing to science or philosophy, especially if you're willing to consider evidence for opposing views in stride. This is why I said I haven't seen versions of "epistemological physicalism," that appear necissarily "physicalist."

Rather, coherence demands a good reason for accepting ideas that overturn fundemental scientific findings, so what we might call "non-physical causes" tend to have a higher bar to pass, but only insomuch as they violate coherence and result in scrapping tested laws. Physicalism itself is protean, and every researcher who dreams of being a paradigm shifter is essentially hoping to redefine physicalism, perhaps in ways such that it is no longer recognizable.

This gets at the other problem I mentioned, physicalism becoming vacuous. Because if something we considered dualism now turned out to be observable, replicable, and predictable, it seems that it would be incorporated into physicalism.

not just the fortuitous byproducts of a blind watchmaker

I think this is an unfortunate holdover of old school physics. It's distinctly Newtonian. The "clockwork universe," is why physics abandoned classical scale problems for most of a century, and could stick its head in the sand vis-á-vis problems like the inability to do simple things like predict a pendulum's swing, or meaningfully predict the weather. The "chaos revolution," hit academia hard, but left popular notions fairly unchallenged. QM was taken as simply replacing a deterministic clockwork with a stochastic one.

The clockwork model also seems to blind people to the possibilities of top down causality through various levels of emergence. However, when the forces that drove the emergence of human minds result in humans building giant particle accelerators, and bringing forth esoteric particles that do not appear to have existed since the very earliest moments of the universe, it certainly seems to me like top down causality is a thing.

First, the term 'intentionality' as I was intending it, and as it is used in phenomenology, refers to the fact that language, at least a good part of it, is about things. I was not intending to use the term in it's "normal" usage as referring to having intentions.

Second, given the sense of 'intentionality' I was using, whether or not the speaker or author has any intentions regarding what the language they are using is about, the language use is, in itself, about whatever it is about (although of course a recipient competent enough in the given language to be able to understand what it is about is required).

And third, even if computers are able to fool us, that is only on account of the fact that we have created and programmed them well enough to be able to achieve that feat of deceit

Seems I misunderstood. However, I think the same sort of objections would apply on the physicalists' side. You seem to be saying that the Hard Problem has to be solved to account for language, because language use is somehow not fully realized if it isn't being used by conciousness. It can't just have a referent (e.g., a bot selecting specific rows of a SQL database based on a natural language question), it needs some sort of sentient "aboutness" attached to it. I think plenty of people will disagree with that premise.

If you have an ideal Chinese Room, and its behavior, the use of language, is always undistinguishable for any observer, regardless of if the Room has intentionality about the objects of language or not (is a sentient AI versus a bot), what then is the difference? Even from an idealist perspective, I'm not sure there is one that it is possible for us to demonstrate.

Because if all observers see the same thing, regardless of intentionality, then two phenomena share all their traits, and if the Chinese Room is perfect at mimicking language behavior, then the traits of X (the Room) necissarily are the observable traits of Y (the intentional speaker), but then these share an identity and are actually the same thing.

Now I suppose that the argument is that the difference is that in one, our intentional speaker is themselves an observer, whereas in the other there is no observation point. However, the two seem indistinguishable for all other observers, so it is an unsolveable problem. To my mind, this is more indictive of idealism's problems with solipsism than it is a problem for physicalism. Unless idealists have a good method for explaining how to distinguish sentences with intentionality from those without it, they appear in a bind.

Although I suppose idealists could just claim that a Chinese Room can't actually perfectly mimick language behavior. But this counter argument has to rely on claiming that perfect language behavior as seen by other observers is impossible (an increasingly harder bar to meet as AI gets better), because if the claim is that the two aren't the same because one has intentionality and the other doesn't, then their argument is reduced to a tautology and doesn't seem as strong.

Not to mention, many physicalists, particularly non-reductive ones, accept predicate dualism. They fully accept that the physical sciences cannot describe subjective experience qua subjectivity. So what they are really concerned in with when defending physicalism is how non-physical forces can account for things like physical brain damage destroying language capabilities. I have generally not seen good dualist responses to these issues. That people who have recovered from large strokes also describe their subjective experiences being totally dislocated by a physical injury, is also a blow against claims that conciousness only requires the body for physical action. Brain injures and the effects of psychoactive drugs seem to tell us that physical changes in our bodies can absolutely effect our subjective experiences.

Edit: On second thought, I don't even think my own language has intentionality in many cases. When I get stuck on a philosophical question and then my wife starts talking to me about home decor, which is really not my thing, I definitely say words and agree to things like spending a whole day trying to recenter shelves on a wall in plaster, instead of using the studs, without realizing it. If my language had intention, I wouldn't have said that, because putting heavy stuff up in old New England plaster suuuucks, unless you enjoy ripping holes in your wall, and I would have know I was agreeing to do something like that.

The problem is 'hard' because of correspondence. The success of scientific methods is that models fit the objects being pursued by restricting what is counted as an event. Our given experience of being conscious beings is an event. Can it be understood in the way other phenomena are understood? Or attempted to be understood? — Paine

This may be why it is hard, but it is a problem in the first place not because the model is restricted to physical objects and excludes subjective events, but because the model understands the physical object in a limited manner which prevents it from unifiying the objective and the subjective.

.. which is only a "problem" for philosophers and not for neuroscientists. — 180 Proof

I'd say that's exactly why it's a problem, because they don't see it as a problem. If a person notices one's own deficiencies and incapability's, the person will have a healthy respect for those weaknesses, and work around them, knowing that they are weaknesses (blind spots). But when a person does not recognize one's own weaknesses, that person will forge ahead in blind confidence toward inevitable mishap.

Of course there is no appearance of a problem for the person forging ahead in blindness, at that time of forging ahead in blindness, the problem is only apprehended by the observer who understands what's going on.

Is it intrinsic to this particular blind spot that its enactors are often blind to it being a blind spot? Is this when a blind spot bites? When it is not recognized as a limitation? — Tom Storm

I would say that blind spots are intrinsic to the nature of theoretical knowledge. Theoretical knowledge has limitations, and when the knowledge is put into practise the limitations may become a problem. The issue with being blind to the blind spot is that often the limitations cannot be known in advance, they only become evident as a result of practise.

So scientists use the scientific method to experiment and observe, and this helps to determine the strengths and weaknesses of the various theories, as a sort of practise. But experimentation occurs in a very controlled environment which doesn't properly represent the natural environment where free practise occurs.

That's true and unless you're unremittingly scientistic, that would be well understood. Not many actual scientists seem to be members here, but there are a number of folk who consider science to be a more reliable pathway to understanding 'reality' than many other approaches. Where is the line drawn? Seems to be about where you think reality begins and ends. — Tom Storm

This points to the issue I mentioned near the beginning of the thread, the difference between the inside of an object and the outside of an object. Science is always looking from the outside in. That is the scientific way, to observe through the senses, and this is to put oneself outside the thing being observed, thereby producing objective observations. On the other hand, the subjective "introspection" gives one a look at what is going on inside an object. So we can come to understand that these two ways of looking at an object give us very distinct and different understandings of what an object is.

Now, what I must insist on, and what is so difficult to get across to the hard headed scientistic people who claim "science to be a more reliable pathway to understanding 'reality'", is that this is 'reality'. So it is completely incorrect to assume that science is the more reliable path towards understanding reality because it only has a method toward understanding a part of reality. The true reality is that there is such a difference between inside and outside, and that is why dualism has been the principal ontology for thousands of years.

Scientism tells us that science has brought us beyond dualism, and that there is no longer a need for dualist ontology because science is the only method required for understanding reality, as you imply with that statement. But the true reality is that science alone, by its current method, cannot deliver to us adequate principles for drawing a line between where the outside ends and the inside begins. It looks at everything from the one direction, and cannot give us the principles required to designate properties of "the inside". And without adequate principles for what constitutes the inside, science cannot make an accurate differentiation between inside and outside.

On the other hand, dualism starts with a much more accurate description of reality, the fundamental difference between inside and outside, thereby providing us with the basic premise required for the differentiation, and a true understanding of reality. That's why dualism has been the standard ontology for thousands of years, and has only recently gone on the decline due to the increase of scientism.

It does seem to me that this problem either clicks with people or does not click. What exactly is the difference? Is it world view or experience or an actual blind spot? — Tom Storm

So I would say that the difference is a difference of "world view". Science takes from the inside (theory), and applies what is taken from the inside, to the outside (practise). The application effectively proves and disproves what has been given by the inside, and this is the scientific method. Scientism denies the importance of the inside, insisting that the scientific method is all that is required for the existence of knowledge, thereby creating a blind spot for itself, its reliance on the inside. So science does not create the blind spot, nor does science reject dualism, it's the scientistic philosophy which rejects dualism, dissolving the difference between inside and outside, thereby producing a philosophical (not a scientific) blind spot.

You defined well from where consciousness comes from — ssu

OK, but I also said that the term was not used in the meaning is used meaning today. Which is what we are trying to define.

I think we have a problem just with defining how knowledge works — ssu

Certainly. Describing the mechanics of this kind of concepts is very hard and in some cases, like with consciousness, even impossible.

which in my view comes to the OP's point of no matter how much drive around the moon, you won't get to Earth. — ssu

Interesting example-metaphor, but where are you referring to exactly? :smile:

I think we have still a lot to understand in the basics as our understanding of things like causality is still quite mechanistic. — ssu

I guess so. Interesting thought too. Causes can be often hidden or hard to trace or multiple.

This comes in a lot of examples where our models end up with a 'black box' where the issue consciousness happens. — ssu

It's true. A "black box": I liked that too. I think you are very successful with your similes! :up:

This is ingenious, but I see two problems. First, computer scientists are not authorities at all in the fields of linguistics or philosophy -- indeed, in my experience, they often have no interest in these fields. Their use of mentalistic terms about machines is as likely to be loose talk as anyone else's. Second, computation has if anything intensified the mystifying aspects of mentalistic terms. Hard enough to understand how to talk sensibly about human beliefs, desires, thoughts, and perceptions! but now we're also supposed to attribute physical or information-based versions of these states to a computer? Now that's mystifying. — J

Are you saying that philosophers should be telling the computer scientist how the computer works? Who do you call when your computer does not work - a linguist, philosopher or a computer tech?
Does this apply to all fields, where linguists and philosophers should be telling evolutionary psychologists, neurologists, quantum physicists, etc. how they should talk about their own fields?

From my experience philosophers are the ones that engage in lose talk. They use these terms without having defined them. What does it mean to know, believe, understand or to try? What does one mean by subjective and objective, direct and indirect, etc.? From my experience many philosophical problems are the result of a misuse of language.

With all respect, surely this is what "internal" is meant to refer to. Why deny that it's different from "external," i.e., not somewhere in the brain? — J

Then why can't you open the brain and point out where the mind is? I also said that it is possible that the mind is what the entire brain does, not just some internal part of it. What do you mean by "internal" and "external" in this respect? Do you mean the same thing as your birthday present being internal to the box with the wrapping paper and bow? If so, then why can't we open the brain to see the mind like we can open the box and see your present? It seems to me that using terms like "internal", "external", "subjective" and "objective" is evidence of your dualistic thinking making it more difficult to solve the problem.

This is reasonable, but if we succeed in doing this, what is the second step? What do you imagine could come next, scientifically? This is a serious question -- in fact, the question of the HPoC. We have to picture some way of explaining the mental with relation to the physical; finding the place in the brain that hosts or constructs the "model" merely sets the stage for this explanation by restating the problem. — J

This is why I said that we need to reconcile the contradictory aspects of quantum mechanics and classical physics. In doing so we would solve the observer and measurement problems and those solutions would pave the way to solving the HPoC.

I believe that part of the problem is continuing to look at this problem from a dualistic standpoint. It is dualism that creates the distinction between mind and world as being internal/external, non-physical/physical, etc. The very first step would be to abandon this mindset and the terms that stem from it. We also need to clearly define the words we are using.

So the point of all this disagreement is the hard(er) problem. If we learn about our consciousness the same way we do other people, then it might not be a problem. — Marchesk

I've never gotten all this talk about the hard problem. Now that I've heard about the harder problem, I don't get it either. Nothing here seems particularly difficult to me.

But I think our own case is special, because we experience our conscious states, and can only infer them about other people. — Marchesk

And that's the heart of the matter. The point I've been making is that I don't believe it is true, at least I don't think I do. I'll leave myself some room for additional thought. I understand why people think that way. As I said earlier, consciousness is very personal. Just about everyone who considers themselves consciousness has a strong opinion.

The bet you referred to, as I understood it, was about the Easy problem. — Philosophim

Not so. The byline of the article you cite says 'Christof Koch wagered David Chalmers 25 years ago that researchers would learn how the brain achieves consciousness by now.' The bet was lost.

the neuroscientist believed they would have a neuronal explanation of what causes consciousness. This is the easy problem. — Philosophim

No, it's not. That is just the problem that hasn't been solved. Again, look at the reference I provided upthread on the neural binding problem. The section of the article in question is only a few hundred words, but it spells out what it is about the subjective unity of experience for which neuroscience cannot find a physical cause, and even cites Chalmers' original essay.

If there are no brains in the universe, there is no math
— Philosophim

There is a long history of the ‘maths is discovered, not invented’ school of thought which says numbers are not produced by the brain but discerned by rational insight. But this is nowadays considered controversial because it appears to undercut materialism. — Wayfarer

Oh, who considers it controversial? You? I consider your idea that consciousness does not come from the brain as controversial, as do many other philosophers. But that's not a very good argument isn't it? In fact, that's not an argument at all.

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.

IN fact most of what you write comprises what you think must obviously be true, because 'science shows it'. There's rather derogatory term in philosophy for that attitude but I'll refrain from using it. — Wayfarer

Yes, and I've asked you to give me an example where science demonstrates that its wrong, or give me philosophical examples that would give evidential weight to consciousness not coming from the brain. You have failed to do so, and are instead doing me a favor by not calling me a name. How noble and strong you are!

Concepts are not physical things. Find me one reputable philosopher who says otherwise. — Wayfarer

Appeal to authority now? I laid out clear points with clear falsifiability and asked you to provide examples of it being false. You cannot. That is why you retreat to this.

That brains create consciousness? We've figured that out.
— Philosophim

This again demonstrates that you're not 'facing up to the problem of consciousness'. — Wayfarer

I'm not the one running away here. Your inability to actually show why I'm not facing up to the problem of consciousness is your problem, then magically declaring it as such, is your problem.

I'll bow out — Wayfarer

You know, you could have avoided embarrassing yourself and getting a tongue lashing from me if you had just done this at the start. "Well Philosophim, we've been going back and forth for a while now, and I think we'll have to agree to disagree. Appreciate the conversation, I'll catch you another time."

Because it was a nice conversation up until now and I had a lot of respect for your engagements and attempt to defend your position. Next time you feel like a conversation is going nowhere, just politely end it.

I have no problem with the metaphysics description and the use of words that do not lean on the physical. My concern is that it should not be forgotten that it is all physical at its core.
— Philosophim
That's where you and I agree & disagree. — Gnomon

Which is fine by the way! I respect your views.

*2. Experimental test for the mass-energy-information equivalence principle :
A recent conjecture, called the mass-energy-information equivalence principle, proposed that information is equivalent to mass and energy and exists as a separate state of matter.
https://pubs.aip.org/aip/sci/article/2022/9/091111/2849001/A-proposed-experimental-test-for-the-mass-energy — Gnomon

Now this? This I love. This is an attempt to put a theory to the test. I would love to see it happen.

I agree. I've noted several times that it is currently impossible to objectively evaluate someone else's subjective experience. But do note that this problem does not go away even if we remove science.
— Philosophim

Objective or empirical evaluation of subjective experience may be an oxymoron. But Subjective theoretical evaluation of subjective Ideas is what Philosophy*2 is all about. No need to "remove" the reasoning of Science, just the requirement for empirical evidence. — Gnomon

True that we would remove empirical evidence, but then what objective evidence do we have? As you noted, it may very well be an oxymoron. And I'm inclined to agree. Subjective experience can only be discussed subjectively, not objectively. The problem that I see is if there is no objectivity, then there is no scientific standard. Subjective analysis falls much more easily to bias, difficulty in replicating results, and consensus. Its not that objective analysis cannot have these problems as well, but the frequency is far less and these problems can easily be identified, nullifying the research without much debate.

I feel subjective experiences are honestly best left to psychology. There they at least have some methodologies to account for this, though it still has its problems. I am aware I speak from ignorance however, my knowledge of psychology is limited.

Again, great post Gnomon!

No, the brain doesn't drop out of the explanation. And it doesn't need to be a natural object outside, so that criticism is based on a false premise that was never part of my argument. — Sapientia

I think we're miscommunicating a bit here. To be fair, your argument was a google search. What I mean by 'drops out of the explanation' is that all that is said is we have reality on one side, and appearance on the other, and two claims about both. When asked how reality becomes appearance, the answer is 'the brain did it, just like it does with other objects to keep the color constant under different light conditions' where the main example was a blue sky.

My question is -- what does the brain do to reality to make the appearance? But the answer is "it makes the appearance appear like the appearance appears, different from reality" -- which just masks the mechanism I'm asking after.

And I'm not the one misinterpreting the grey strawberries as red, that's what you're doing. That's the common misinterpretation that is shown to be erroneous, and to which you're clinging, despite the scientific evidence to the contrary.

With science. What you describe above determines appearance. You can conflate that with something else, but that would be erroneous/misleading.

I'm grouping these just as a side note, because it will take us pretty far astray.

A basic view of science:

Science is little more than a collection of arguments about certain topics. There are established procedures in place for certain sorts of questions, there are established beliefs due to said process, but in the end it's a collection of arguments about certain topics on what is true with respect to those topics.

At least, as I see it. We don't science it -- we make an argument. An argument, in this context, can of course include experimental evidence. But said evidence must, itself, be interpreted to make sense.

So really I'm just asking after the arguments in play. What does the scientist say to make his case convincing to yourself? What convinced you?

I've already addressed those first two sentences. They are irrelevant, since that don't support your conclusion. I accept both of them, yet reach a different conclusion. — Sapientia

I think this is addressed later in your posts.

And I doubt your last sentence. What do you mean by that? — Sapientia

I mean that when Newton placed prisms to diffract light from the sun into a spectrum that the red part of the spectrum which came out of the prism was called 'red' not because it was had a larger wavelength and such was proven, but rather because the light was red.

If all of the parts are made of wood, then the chair is made of wood. Do you disagree? — Sapientia

No, that makes sense to me.

Though if all the parts are made of wood, and some parts are painted green while others are painted yellow, then it wouldn't make sense to say that the chair is green. :D

In fact, what if the chair had a sticky reprint of the pixel-image we're discussing? Just to make it closer. Then, what color would the chair be?

Although if you're confused about appearance and reality, you might think otherwise. — Sapientia

I'm thinking this is probably where we diverge the most, then. We seem to be in agreement on both the fallacy of composition and whether or not it has merit depends on the circumstances. If, in fact, the image is gray and appears red then certainly I am wrong.

So really it seems we're more in disagreement on determining which color is the real color, and which color is the apparent color.

Okay. But if we're saying that wavelengths or whatever are real - which is the assumption that I'm working under, and which will be agreeable to many - and if we're talking about colour in terms of wavelength or some related scientific description, then it makes sense to say that what we're talking about in such cases is reality. And similarly, with regards to any appearance which seemingly conflicts with this reality, if we're categorising that in contrary terms, then it'd make sense to say that this is not real. Furthermore, if we're attributing properties, and we accept the aforementioned, then we should do so accordingly in the right way, by attributing appearance to the subjective and property to the objective, rather than attributing appearance to the objective, as some people in this discussion seem to be doing by making certain kinds of statements which lack clarity and precision. — Sapientia

Cool. This is much closer to what I'm asking after.

I think this condition: " if we're talking about colour in terms of wavelength or some related scientific description,"

is likely the culprit of disagreement. Electromagnetic waves are real, as far as anything in science goes. But photons, nor atoms, have any color whatsoever. This is not an attribute of the individual parts of what we are saying causes the perception of color. Certain (regular, obviously, as you note about gray not being a regular wave) wavelengths of light correspond with our color-perceptions. But the color is not the electromagnetic radiation.


Color is -- to use your terminology -- subjective. I'd prefer to call it a first-person attribute not attributable to our physics of light, which is a third-person description of the phenomena of light rather than objective/subjective, myself.

Okay, I don't have a problem with that epistemic approach, but it does seem naive to end up with that common means of determination which has been demonstrated to be erroneous in at least some cases, as with the strawberries. — Sapientia

Cool. Then I think we're more or less on the same page in terms of the terms, at least :D

Whether such and such a demonstration is erroneous seems to be the major point of disagreement.

I don't think we need to get caught up in the so-called hard problem here, if that's what you're getting at.

Responding to this in reverse order because I think the latter point is more important:


I don't think we need to get caught up in the hard problem either. I wasn't really trying to go there, but it does seem related to the topic at hand. But it seems like we've managed to pair down our disagreement to one of "how to determine such and such", so there's no need to get into it.

We become conscious of certain things as a result of our respective brains. We see the grey strawberries as red, and, typically, our initial reaction is to think that they are in fact red. — Sapientia

Honestly, while brains are certainly a part of the picture of human consciousness -- I wouldn't dispute this -- we just don't know how we become conscious. Either there is no such thing in the first place, in which case there is nothing to explain, or if there is such a thing then we don't know how or why it's there.

We are, but that's the point. It emphasises the fallibility in what we normally do. — Sapientia

I think this is covered at this point. Let me know if you disagree.

I've never felt I've really understood the 'Hard Problem' of consciousness. Although not a new problem, David Chalmers seems to be the contemporary go-to source. — Kym

I like to concentrate on one aspect of Conscious sensory perception and stick with it. I like to think about how we Experience the color Red. I like to ask the following question ... Given:

1) Neural Activity for Red happens.
2) A Red Conscious Experience happens.

How does 1 produce 2?

That is the Hard Problem of Consciousness. The Physicalists will say that the question is irrelevant because 2 is just an Illusion. I disagree with the Illusion argument. Even if we could settle on what an Illusion is, the Physicalists will still have to explain how we Experience the Red in the Illusion. The key is in thinking about the Redness of the Red. What is that? It's something. But what is it? It's in our Minds.

I like to call the Red Experience in our Mind, Conscious Red Light. We think that Redness is a Property of Physical Red Light. But Physical Red Light does not have Redness as a Property. Conscious Red Light in the Mind has the Redness Property. Physical Red Light has wavelength as a Property. Conscious Red Light has Redness as a Property but does not have Wavelength as a Property. I view Physical Red Light and Conscious Red Light as two different things that both exist as a reality. One is in the Physical World and the other is in some kind of Conscious World.

Hello

I think there is not just one "hard problem" but four...
2. This may be the most "hard problem". How are the different sense modalities bound together into a single conscious entity. — lorenzo sleakes

I think this idea of a single conscious entity has been misleading assumption in the debate since Descartes (at least).

How are the different sense modalities bound together into a single conscious entity. I think that Chalmers and most philosophers make a critical error here by assuming that problem number one comes first and number two second so that qualia are first created and then bound together into a unity — lorenzo sleakes

Me, I see it as a two-way causal flow. On one hand the other outside world is certainly a cause of internal experiences - via perception etc. On the other hand this is doubtless effected by the equipment we have available - including neurological wiring of a-priori concepts .. like causation for instance (ow... my head hurts).

. What is called indexicality. Why I am I me and not you. Even if we concede that points of view or perspectives exist in the world, why am I this one particular point of view. Nagel pointed out that even in a world where everything is understood objectively this one very important fact would be missing. see: https://philpapers.org/rec/SLETLO-2 — lorenzo sleakes

I haven't read this yet but should. I the meantime I'd posit as a place-holder a notion that the distinction between me and you is just a temporary anomaly. For most of the time we are just universe stuff. Right now there are two patterns in the stuff (at least) that has some consciousness of universe stuff in general. Don't worry though, things will return to normal shortly!

* End application file run *

I don't think the zombie argument has ever been expressed to my satisfaction so I'll put how I understand the hard problem in explicit terms.

The hard problem is reconciling mechanism with the idea that consciousness is a unified phenomenal experience.
The best explanation in cognitive neuroscience is the global workspace model which identifies consciousness as a collapse of neuronal coalitions in order for the brain to focus on a single decision. So granting consciousness the necessary identity as a functional (attention) description may solve the problem. You have a scientific description for it as well as a first person description.
However within the materialist/physicalist/mechanist paradigm this model is just a useful fiction that describes the higher level property of attentional spotlight/ consciousness. The real (efficient) work is being done by electrons and quarks and yet there is a phenomenal experience for the higher level attentional description. Either everything is mechanistic or there is ontological dualism (mental and physical) or pluralism .

I shouldn't just comment on this a bit at a time, I suppose, but that's what I'm doing as I go through the Block paper first:

"The Hard Problem is one of explaining why the neural basis of a phenomenal quality is the neural basis of that phenomenal quality rather than another phenomenal quality or no phenomenal quality at all. In other terms, there is an explanatory gap between the neural basis of a phenomenal quality and the phenomenal quality itself. "

Re what I said about explanations above, we could just as well say:

"A hard problem is explaining, for any explanation of any property, why the (observationally-)claimed basis of a property is the basis of that property rather than another property or no property (at least of x-type) at all. In other terms, there is an explanatory gap between the observational basis of a property and the property itself."

==========================================================================

"The claim that Q is identical to corticothalamic oscillation is just as puzzling—maybe more puzzling—than the claim that the physical basis of Q is corticothalamic oscillation."

The distinction he's making there isn't clear to me.

"How could one property be both subjective and objective?"

It's not, actually, since mental phenomena are subjective period. If corticothalamic oscillation is mental phenomena--which it is if it's identical to Q, then it's subjective.

But what he's asking is at the heart of the "explanatory gap": he's asking about corticothalamic oscillation not "seeming like" Q when one is observing another's corticothalamic oscillation, whereas it "seems like" Q when it's one's own corticothalamic oscillation. That's because our mentality is simply the properties of things like corticothalamic oscillation from the perspective of being the corticothalamic oscillation in question.

There's a similar problem in all explanations, since they're always from some perspective, some "point of reference," and there are no perspectiveless perspectives or point of reference-free points of reference. Any phenomena or property/set of properties p is different from different perspectives/reference points, including that they're be different from the perspective/reference point of being the substances/dynamic relations in question than they are from various removed-from-identity observational perspectives/points of reference (which are all different from each other).

Actually it's your conclusion which is non-sequitur. The scientist, just like everyone else in the world is confronted with problems which are not scientific problems. I.e., many problems we face cannot be solved with the scientific method. So, that the problem is not a scientific problem does not mean that scientists are not confronted with it.

The folks who think that there no problem at all are welcome to do something more productive with their time than write here that "there is no problem at all", again and again. You could write about a topic you care for, on a problem you actually face in your p-zombitudiness.

Explanations of why "you can't get there from here" are common and occur before it becomes clear how to get there from here. — Fooloso4

Yep. It's too early to claim that the "Standard Model" fails.

In addition, going back to Aristotle doesn't look much like a way forward.

Consider forming a judgement, one of Churchland’s propositional attitudes. If we are aware of feeling a stone, we can abstract the concept <hard>. Then, being aware that the identical object elicits both <the stone> and <hard>, we link these concepts to judge <the stone is hard>, giving propositional knowledge. The copula, <is>, betokens identity – not between subject and predicate, but of their common source. Indeed, ‘a is b’ is unjustified if a is not identically an object which elicits <b>. This judgement requires the power to actualize intelligibility – first in becoming aware of the stone in an inchoate way (tode ti = this something), and then in abstracting a physically inseparable property. Thus, abandoning the Fundamental Abstraction allows us to explain phenomena beyond the scope of the SM

"The rock is hard" is not an identity. It's not "Rock = hard". Nor "Rock ≡ Hard". Both are malformed. This is made very clear in parsing such sentences in first order logic. Aristotelian logic is not up to the task. Reverting to an inadequate logic is not a step forward.

If I've understood the article aright, the mooted failure of the "Standard Model" supposedly can only be remedied by a return to Aristotelian concepts of the mind.

While the "Cartesian conceptual space" may be inadequate, there are alternatives to a reversion to an "Aristotelian" conceptual space.

The source of the concepts <This rock> and <hard>. — Dfpolis

So you want to say something like that the source of the concept "the rock is hard" is not a predication but an identity?

That seems to me to be just the sort of thing that too great a reliance on Aristotelian logic would involve.

You want to claim that the source of the concepts "hard" and "this rock" are identical. But being a rock and being hard are not the very same things, not like 1+1 is the very same thing as 2, or like Tully is the very same thing as Cicero.

Nor is it at all clear what the source of a concept might be. Concepts are sometimes erroneously conceived of as mental furniture, as things inside the mind to be pushed around, repositioned in different arrangements. Concepts are sometimes better understood as abilities than as abstract objects. There then need be no discreet concept of "hard" situated somewhere in the mind, or in the brain, but instead a propensity to certain outputs from a neural net, which includes the construction of certain sentences such as "this rock is hard" - along connectionist lines.

Indeed, I'll offer connectionist models of representation as far superior to a regression to Aristotelian models.

Then how do you know that the answers given so far are unsatisfactory. If I went into a room searching for something and you asked what it was I was looking for, if I said "I don't know", you might reasonable ask "then how do you know you haven't found it yet? — Isaac

The problem with Bert's and the hard problem approach in general, is that they don't even attempt to enter the room because finding anything appears to be impossible.
Chalmers's hard problem is based on what people find reasonable or possible. T Clark's statement verifies this position , I quote:"It doesn't seem objectively unreasonable to me that physical processing should give rise to a rich inner life.

I don't know what you mean by "logical sloppiness" — Janus

It's the motte/bailey point I made earlier. Ordinary mentalistic talk is fine, but something weird happens as it's made absolute. An 'impossible' semantics gets taken for granted, all the way back to Aristotle, who just took it as obvious (like the flatness of the earth) and therefore gave no justification. This is what my 'being of meaning' thread is about. But it's also what some of Witt's work is about. Did you ever look into the lesser known blue and brown books ? I think they are great. But for you or anyone, here's a link (it used to be hard to find online):
https://www.wittgensteinproject.org/w/index.php?title=Blue_Book

Can you give some more detail about how you think a Cartesian bias could transform the problem of the meaning of being into the Hard Problem? — Janus

Sure. What does it mean to say 'something is here' or 'something is there.' What is it to posit indeterminately ? If I take something like the unity of the ego for granted (as Descartes seemed to), then I might call the 'thereness' of the candle in my field of vision 'absolute.' Maybe it's an hallucination, but seeming is being in this case. Something is given. Es gibt. The 'feeling' of its warmth is there beneath or above the public concept of warmth. The orangeness of its flame is not just a token in a system of differences. This pure orangeness, that which exceeds the sign, overflows conceptuality altogether. It is there. But I cannot refer to it except negatively as that to which I cannot refer.

So this looks like the problem of consciousness. But the Cartesian ego is taken for granted. Methodological solipsism and its endlessly dubious seems-to-me is taken for granted, because the nature of that 'me' is taken for granted. The unity of the voice that doubts and hears itself doubting at the same time is taken for granted. If you think of existence as being-in-a-world ('prior' to subject and object), then you can talk about (or try to talk about, without speaking nonsense) the same transconceptual or subconceptual thereness without subjectivistic bias, without the sediment or plaque of the Cartesian tradition. Back to Parmenides ?