Facing Up to the Problems of Facing Up to the Problems of Consciousness

[honestrosewater]

Facing Up to the Problems of "Facing Up to the Problems of Consciousness"

These are actually just problems I have which may be resolved with some clarification- I just couldn't resist that title. (Yes, I know, I'm SO original. ) BTW I ended up asking more questions than I intended to, I really want to understand this, I greatly appreciate everyone's help, and I certainly don't mind working for the answers.

Quotes in indigo are from Chalmers' "http://jamaica.u.arizona.edu/~chalmers/papers/facing.html ."

I'm rather new to the easy v. hard distinction, but, from what I gather, the hard question is answered by 1) settling on some system of "methodological and philosophical rules and assumptions"- or defining what qualifies as an acceptable answer- then 2) stating the necessary and sufficient conditions from which experience follows or which give rise to consciousness.
The first step may need some explaining, but presumably the hard question is only hard under certain combinations of rules and assumptions, since they define and are used to evaluate the second step, the "necessary and sufficient conditions from which experience follows". No? Have I made that more difficult than necessary? I need a statement in the form, "The hard question is answered by...".

"I suggest that a theory of consciousness should take experience as fundamental. We know that a theory of consciousness requires the addition of something fundamental to our ontology, as everything in physical theory is compatible with the absence of consciousness."

(I guess I should say that I'm not yet convinced that experience cannot be explained as an emergent property so you know where I'm coming from.) Though it may follow from his assumptions- and I'm not sure it does- my main problem is that this seems like such a cop-out, as he seems to admit and excuse:

"Of course, by taking experience as fundamental, there is a sense in which this approach does not tell us why there is experience in the first place. But this is the same for any fundamental theory. Nothing in physics tells us why there is matter in the first place, but we do not count this against theories of matter. Certain features of the world need to be taken as fundamental by any scientific theory. A theory of matter can still explain all sorts of facts about matter, by showing how they are consequences of the basic laws. The same goes for a theory of experience."

Since when was the hard question asking "why there is experience in the first place"? Hasn't he changed the question? Granted, it may end up being swallowed by the "creation of the universe" question, but isn't that a different question? That is, is his "naturalistic dualism" a possible answer to the hard question, or is it a claim that the hard question cannot be answered? It seems that defining experience as fundamental makes it an easy problem: "The easy problems are easy precisely because they concern the explanation of cognitive abilities and functions." Isn't the problem hard only when experience is assumed to not be fundamental?
(I'm new to the following also but indulge me.) Is he doing something analogous to completing an incomplete system by adding G to its axiom set? If this process is acceptable, (when) does it ever end? And how does he know this very process is not the mechanism which gives rise to experience? He has argued in another http://jamaica.u.arizona.edu/~chalmers/papers/penrose.html , published the same year as "Facing Up...", that "the assumption that we know we are sound leads to a contradiction." Now, I'm on very thin ice here for several reasons, but it seems like he is assuming his combination of rules and assumptions (CRA) are true, he knows he experiences, yet he knows he cannot demonstrate that he can experience from his current set of rules and assumptions. He says, "Experience may arise from the physical, but it is not entailed by the physical." So he takes experience as fundamental- that is, he adds it to his CRA. Ugh, I don't know enough to make an argument with this, and I'm tempted to delete this part, but I really want to know what is going on here, and I suspect it is relevant to his argument.
(Please go easy on me- those are all honest questions. )

"For any physical process we specify there will be an unanswered question: Why should this process give rise to experience? Given any such process, it is conceptually coherent that it could be instantiated in the absence of experience. It follows that no mere account of the physical process will tell us why experience arises. The emergence of experience goes beyond what can be derived from physical theory."

I don't understand what he means by "conceptually coherent". Does he mean "it is possible that..."? Is he evaluating it from inside or outside of his CRA?
He does seem to admit that his CRA, or "physical theory", is incomplete. But I don't know if physical theory- in itself- meets the requirements for Gödel's incompleteness theorems to apply.
I also don't understand the difference between entailment and implication though I have tried to find consistent definitions (I understand implication). I also don't understand the difference between proof and demonstration. Mathworld defines "proof" as "a rigorous mathematical argument which unequivocally demonstrates the truth of a given proposition." It has no definition for "demonstration" and begins the definition of "rigorous" with "A proof or demonstration is said to be rigorous..."
My main problem arises because I don't understand how he concludes that experience is not entailed by the physical. Is the problem with forming or deciding the statement? Or something else?

Finally, I started this thread mainly to clarify the meanings of intrinsic, extrinsic, and emergent properties as they are used in the context of consciousness. And I'd like to understand the implications of defining these three terms in different ways, as they relate to each other.
For even a little help with a single part of this, thank you.

 

[loseyourname]

His student Rosenberg defines entailment as "B is entailed by A if it cannot be the case that A is true and B is false." Chalmers, and Rosenberg, claim that the non-existence of experience is not inconsistent with physicalism, and so experience is not entailed by physicalism. The biggest problem I can see with this argument is that there is just no way for us to know whether or not the non-existence of experience is consistent with physicalism. Chalmers uses a rather simple thought experiment, envisioning a universe in which experience does not exist. He envisions the existence of zombies, which behave exactly like humans, but have no subjective experience. The issue here is that we do not know whether or not a zombie is really possible, even though we can imagine them to be. The simple fact is, we don't know enough about a human to know that a being consistent with all the physical aspects of humanity would be possible without experience. Assuming that it is possible is begging the question, as he is already assuming that the physical facts of being human do not entail experience, which just happens to be exactly what he is attempting to prove with his zombie argument!

I think Rosenberg's argument is a little stronger, because as he says, he doesn't rely on an argument from lack of knowledge or conceivability, both of which are hopelessly flawed. But I'll leave discussion of Rosenberg to the discussion threads for his book.

One of the big issues here is brought up by Steve Esser in the "Is the Hard Problem Silly?" thread. He points out that Chalmers' argument do not resonate with people that have Dennett-like intuitions. That is simply because Chalmers' argument rely on just that, intuition. He says that he can or cannot imagine a certain set of facts, and so what he can or cannot imagine must be true. Any argument from intuition such as that is bound to not convince a good number of people, because not everybody is going to have the same intuition. Some of us can imagine what Chalmers cannot.

 

[Fliption]

The biggest problem I can see with this argument is that there is just no way for us to know whether or not the non-existence of experience is consistent with physicalism.

I think the zombie illustration is making more a point of epistomology than it is ontology. "Entailment" is obviously dependent on our knowledge of the relationships between A and B. So if we don't have the knowledge then our conclusion on entailment with A and B could be wrong. No one doubts this. This illustration just makes the point very clearly that currently there is no entailment. We have no basis for making the claim that consciousness is entailed by brains. Other arguments are then made to show that this entailment cannot happen. But I don't believe that is the sole purpose of the zombie illustration. Of course one can then begin to try to imagine how one could ever determine whether a person was a zombie or not but that's not the sole purpose of the illustration.

Any argument from intuition such as that is bound to not convince a good number of people, because not everybody is going to have the same intuition. Some of us can imagine what Chalmers cannot.

The interesting thing is that no one else has imagined anything either. Dennetts views amount to simply re-defining consciousness so that there's nothing to explain.

 

[loseyourname]

The interesting thing is that no one else has imagined anything either. Dennetts views amount to simply re-defining consciousness so that there's nothing to explain.

I kind of have the same feeling that Dennett just cops out in the third part of Consciousness Explained, but that doesn't make him wrong. As far as what has or has not been imagined, I pointed out elsewhere that there still exists no theoretical framework of the neuronal basis of cognition. Without that, there is no paradigm within which to imagine anything. Expecting an explanation without a framework in which to make an explanation is like expecting an alchemist to explain acid neutralization. Because of this fact, I'll hold off making any judgements until such a paradigm exists.

Note: Dennett does try to establish such a theoretical framework, his "multiple drafts" model, in which subjective experience amounts to an emergent property of recursive parallel processes. I'll admit that the explanation feels hollow, but I've never seen anyone address his explanation on its own terms. Every argument against it that I've seen argues from pre-existing, intuitive paradigms. No one has ever argued against the internal consistency of the explanation within his framework.

Addendum: An analogy would be arguing that time must be absolute because Newtonian mechanics (which is the system more easily derived from intuition) dictates that this be the case. In fact, many of the old posters in the TD forum did just that, without realizing it. I suspect that many of the arguments against Dennett-like explanations are much the same.

 

[Fliption]

but I've never seen anyone address his explanation on its own terms. Every argument against it that I've seen argues from pre-existing, intuitive paradigms. No one has ever argued against the internal consistency of the explanation within his framework.
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I'm sure there are some arguments against it somewhere but I don't know how good they are. Personally, I just assumed that since the framework didn't address the problem to begin with then why bother debating it?

 

[honestrosewater]

His student Rosenberg defines entailment as "B is entailed by A if it cannot be the case that A is true and B is false."

So there's no difference between entailment and implication?

 

[hypnagogue]

I'm rather new to the easy v. hard distinction, but, from what I gather, the hard question is answered by 1) settling on some system of "methodological and philosophical rules and assumptions"- or defining what qualifies as an acceptable answer- then 2) stating the necessary and sufficient conditions from which experience follows or which give rise to consciousness.

Listing the necessary and sufficient conditions for consciousness is not enough to answer the hard problem. If it were, we wouldn't have a hard problem to begin with, because the argument is certainly not that science (in principle) will not be able to provide us with those necessary and sufficient conditions.

An answer to the hard problem would not just list the conditions under which subjective experience occurs. It would allow us to understand how it is that, when those conditions occur, subjective experience also occurs. It would unify our understanding of nature with what we know of our immediate experience, such that the existence of the latter would no longer appear mysterious or contingent, but would rather find a natural, logical fit in our theoretical understanding of the world. (NB: This does not necessarily imply that such an answer would appeal to intuition.)

As we do not have an answer to the hard problem, we are perplexed by questions like, "How is it that when the brain does such-and-such, I end up experiencing this? Going one step further, why is that when my brain does such-and-such, I experience this instead of this? In fact, how is it that all that stuff going on in my brain has anything to do with experience at all?" If we had a complete answer to the hard problem, we would be able to answer these questions. Our answers would not have the flavor of brute correlation, but rather would have the flavor of logical consequence. We would say, "Well, you see, we believe the world is such-and-such a way, and if this is right, then it logically follows that those facts about experience obtain in these conditions. Because the world is the way it is, it [edit: the facts about experience] could not have been any other way."

From the paper:

It is undeniable that some organisms are subjects of experience. But the question of how it is that these systems are subjects of experience is perplexing. Why is it that when our cognitive systems engage in visual and auditory information-processing, we have visual or auditory experience: the quality of deep blue, the sensation of middle C? How can we explain why there is something it is like to entertain a mental image, or to experience an emotion? It is widely agreed that experience arises from a physical basis, but we have no good explanation of why and how it so arises. Why should physical processing give rise to a rich inner life at all? It seems objectively unreasonable that it should, and yet it does.

For a satisfactory theory, we need to know more than which processes give rise to experience; we need an account of why and how. A full theory of consciousness must build an explanatory bridge.

That is, is his "naturalistic dualism" a possible answer to the hard question, or is it a claim that the hard question cannot be answered?

It is a proposal for a possible answer. Verifying such a metaphysical assumption is another question altogether; it would be difficult, if not impossible, to do. The best support for such a framework, at least initially, would not come from empirical verification, but rather from its ability to coherently answer the question.

It seems that defining experience as fundamental makes it an easy problem: "The easy problems are easy precisely because they concern the explanation of cognitive abilities and functions." Isn't the problem hard only when experience is assumed to not be fundamental?

Assuming experience to be fundamental would only make the hard problem 'easy' insofar as it might be a way to make it solvable in the first place. It would not, however, amount to reducing the hard problem to one of the 'easy problems,' as Chalmers uses the term. The easy problems, by definition, are those that are solvable in principle using only structural and functional concepts. The whole point of assuming experience to be fundamental is to find a way to place it in a theoretical framework without trying to derive it from structure and function alone.

(I'm new to the following also but indulge me.) Is he doing something analogous to completing an incomplete system by adding G to its axiom set? If this process is acceptable, (when) does it ever end?

By proposing that we take experience to be fundamental, Chalmers is indeed doing something like completing an incomplete system by adding an axiom. The justification for this is that a certain phenomenon cannot be logically derived from an old axiom set, so the only route available to accommodate the phenomenon in the theoretical framework is to add some new axioms.

This process is acceptable, and has been done before in standard physical theory (see Chalmers' example of Maxwell and electromagnetic charge). Presumably the process of adding axioms ends when some axiom set is arrived upon which is sufficiently powerful to accommodate all known natural phenomena.

And how does he know this very process is not the mechanism which gives rise to experience?

I'm not clear on what you mean here.

I don't understand what he means by "conceptually coherent". Does he mean "it is possible that..."? Is he evaluating it from inside or outside of his CRA?

"Conceptually coherent" means the same thing as "logically consistent." If two propositions are logically consistent, then there is no contradiction in assuming that they are both true; that is, it is logically possible that they could both be true.

In the text you cited here, Chalmers is evaluating the CRA of standard physicalism/materialism and seeing what its implications are. He is essentially stating that, given the axioms and rules of physicalism, it is logically possible that we could have a normally functioning human brain but no subjective experience. There is nothing in the CRA of physicalism that, when given a human brain as 'input,' forces us to conclude that subjective experience exists as a consequence of the brain's activity.

It is important to realize that this is a claim about a theoretical framework and what it can entail, not a claim about actual reality and what really occurs. Chalmers is not claiming that a human brain could function normally but have no subjective experience; he is claiming that a human brain, as described by the CRA of physicalism, could function normally but have no subjective experience. If this is right, the implication is that something is wrong with physicalism, because it does not account for everything that actually occurs in nature. If a universe Z existed that followed the CRA of physicalism perfectly, then such a universe could have normally functioning brains without attendant subjective experience (thus, we would say that 'zombies' are metaphysically possible); but Chalmers does not suppose that our universe is identical with Z, and thus in this universe, it is impossible to have a normally functioning brain that does not experience (thus, we would say that zombies are nomologically impossible).

I also don't understand the difference between entailment and implication though I have tried to find consistent definitions (I understand implication). I also don't understand the difference between proof and demonstration.

Entailment and implication mean the same thing. I don't know what instance of the word 'demonstration' you're referring to, but it's probably safe to assume that proof and demonstration mean the same thing as well.

My main problem arises because I don't understand how he concludes that experience is not entailed by the physical. Is the problem with forming or deciding the statement? Or something else?

The general form of the argument is:

1. Facts about structure and function can only entail further facts about structure and function.
2. Physicalism only deals with structural and functional facts.
3. Therefore, physicalism can only entail facts about structure and function. (1 & 2)
4. Not all the facts about p-consciousness are facts about structure and function.
5. Therefore, physicalism cannot entail all the facts about p-consciousness. (3 & 4)

I have gone into more depth about this in the thread Is the "Hard Problem" Just Silly?.

Finally, I started this thread mainly to clarify the meanings of intrinsic, extrinsic, and emergent properties as they are used in the context of consciousness. And I'd like to understand the implications of defining these three terms in different ways, as they relate to each other.

I've seen various uses of the terms 'intrinsic' and 'extrinsic,' but as it concerns consciousness, these terms relate to the dichotomy between properties that can be understood as relationships (roughly 'extrinsic') and those that cannot (roughly 'intrinsic'). Structural and functional facts fall under the 'relational' category, as structural and functional facts are just elaborations on types of relationships.

If a property is not relational, then it cannot be understood entirely in terms of 'what it does,' but rather has some aspect above and beyond 'what it does,' which we might call 'what it is, in-and-of itself.' Certain aspects of experience, such as phenomenal redness, appear to be intrinsic. One can think about redness entirely in the absence of structure and function (e.g. a uniform, unchanging visual field of redness) and still have something to think about. In contrast, if one thinks about a cognitive process in the absence of structure and function, one is not left with anything to think about at all, since all cognitive processes are defined in terms of structure and function.

As for emergence, please see this paper: http://jamaica.u.arizona.edu/~chalmers/papers/granada.html .

 

[hypnagogue]

Addendum: An analogy would be arguing that time must be absolute because Newtonian mechanics (which is the system more easily derived from intuition) dictates that this be the case.

I don't think this analogy flies. Here we would say, "The way we subjectively experience time is not indicative of the true nature of time." Regardless of concerns about intuition, this claim must be taken to at least be plausible. But in the case of consciousness, this becomes "The way we subjectively experience is not indicative of the true nature of subjective experience." Regardless of concerns about intuition, it is not clear that this claim is even logically plausible.

 

[honestrosewater]

Thanks for the clarifications.

I'm not clear on what you mean here.

Nevermind, I don't know.

Why not take "zombies are nomologically impossible" as an axiom?

The general form of the argument is:

1. Facts about structure and function can only entail further facts about structure and function.
2. Physicalism only deals with structural and functional facts.
3. Therefore, physicalism can only entail facts about structure and function. (1 & 2)
4. Not all the facts about p-consciousness are facts about structure and function.
5. Therefore, physicalism cannot entail all the facts about p-consciousness. (3 & 4)

I have gone into more depth about this in the thread Is the "Hard Problem" Just Silly?.

Yes, I've been following, or trying to follow, that thread. I wish I could respond to his and your ideas, but I don't yet see how p-consciousness, or experience or whatever, is determined to be non-functional. I'll keep searching and reading.

 

[loseyourname]

I don't think this analogy flies. Here we would say, "The way we subjectively experience time is not indicative of the true nature of time." Regardless of concerns about intuition, this claim must be taken to at least be plausible. But in the case of consciousness, this becomes "The way we subjectively experience is not indicative of the true nature of subjective experience." Regardless of concerns about intuition, it is not clear that this claim is even logically plausible.

I'm beginning to think I should start a thread in the logic forum on what constitutes a proper analogy. I think my analogies have been mostly sound, because I haven't been using metaphorical analogies, but rather formal analogies. If the argument form is retained judiciously and the amended argument is either inconclusive or gives a conclusion known to be false, then any argument of that form is either inconclusive or invalid.

But to defend this specific analogy, all you can say against it is that you don't think it flies, because it is not clear that your counteranalogy is logically plausible. Well, I think it is logically plausible for what we think about subjective experience to not be indicative of the true nature of subjective experience. This is exactly my qualm with such plausibility arguments. What two people find to be plausible is not always the same.

So there's no difference between entailment and implication?

There is no difference formally between entailment and material implication.

The general form of the argument is:
1. Facts about structure and function can only entail further facts about structure and function.
2. Physicalism only deals with structural and functional facts.
3. Therefore, physicalism can only entail facts about structure and function. (1 & 2)
4. Not all the facts about p-consciousness are facts about structure and function.
5. Therefore, physicalism cannot entail all the facts about p-consciousness. (3 & 4)

There's the rub right there. You can essentially replace "facts about structure and function" in 4 with "physical facts" due to the formulation and end up with this:

1. Not all the facts about p-consciousness are physical facts.
2. Therefore, physicalism cannot entail all the facts about p-consciousness.

We're left with an argument that looks awfully circular.

Anyway, I finally got around to reading the entire paper earlier this morning, and I'm currently working on the follow-up paper linked to from this paper. I'll get into a more detailed analysis when I've finished. I'll point out this one little bit here:

• The facts about experience cannot be an automatic consequence of any physical account, as it is conceptually coherent that any given process could exist without experience.
• Given the extremely plausible assumption that changes in experience correspond to changes in processing, we are led to the conclusion that the original hypothesis is impossible, and that any two functionally isomorphic systems must have the same sort of experience. To put it in technical terms, the philosophical hypotheses of "absent qualia" and "inverted qualia", while logically possible, are empirically and nomologically impossible.

How this little hiccup could go unnoticed I don't know. He doesn't technically contradict himself, as in both cases, he says that physical functions without qualia are logically coherent. But there is a conflict here nonetheless. He first says that a physical account cannot be complete because of the logical coherence of function without experience, but later says that function without experience, while logically possible, it impossible in reality.

This again highlights my qualm with arguments of this type. You cannot falsify an empirical hypothesis by appealing to logical possibility. You falsify an empirical hypothesis by appealing to empirical facts, and he explicitly states that the evidence he uses to falsify the physicalist hypothesis is empirically impossible. By analogy (I know, another analogy), one can say that evolution is falsified because Last Thursdayism is logically coherent, even though no empirical facts exist that either contradict evolution or suggest Last Thursdayism.

 

[Fliption]

This again highlights my qualm with arguments of this type. You cannot falsify an empirical hypothesis by appealing to logical possibility. You falsify an empirical hypothesis by appealing to empirical facts, and he explicitly states that the evidence he uses to falsify the physicalist hypothesis is empirically impossible. By analogy (I know, another analogy), one can say that evolution is falsified because Last Thursdayism is logically coherent, even though no empirical facts exist that either contradict evolution or suggest Last Thursdayism.

This statement:

"You cannot falsify an empirical hypothesis by appealing to logical possibility. You falsify an empirical hypothesis by appealing to empirical facts"

... is where I have a problem with your argument. To me, it seems you are doing here exactly what you are claiming Chalmers and friends and doing. You have a built in assumption that puts an empircal hypothesis at the top of the food chain even though that's the metaphysical position in question. With this view, it would be impossible to disprove an empirical hypothesis, even if empiricism(using the physicalists definition) is not the most accurate model of reality(which is exactly what Chalmers is saying). This is the exact same issue I was pointing out in the other thread about this particular situation being trickier than any other issue.

I could have misunderstood your position but this view looks like it's ok to allow a judge to sentence himself. It's similar to the question I've asked before. Should an argument against materialism be held to materialists standards? Not to me.

 

[hypnagogue]

I'm beginning to think I should start a thread in the logic forum on what constitutes a proper analogy. I think my analogies have been mostly sound, because I haven't been using metaphorical analogies, but rather formal analogies. If the argument form is retained judiciously and the amended argument is either inconclusive or gives a conclusion known to be false, then any argument of that form is either inconclusive or invalid.

Your analogy treats phenomena-as-representations and phenomena-as-themselves as equivalent, which is where it falters. Although the outer structure of the argument about time is identical, the facts about the our epistemic access to the terms involved are not. We know about time in an indirect way; we know about experience directly.

Even if you are uncomfortable with accepting qualia as straightforward intrinsic properties, we should we be able to agree that we still have a case of beliefs about external phenomena vs. beliefs about internal (mental) phenomena. The separate issues of epistemic access involved here are still enough to make direct analogies between the two dangerous.

For instance, if I note that my intuitions about the subjective pain of another can easily be mistaken (e.g. in the case where a person is only acting as if he is in pain), it does not follow that my intuitions about my own pains can be mistaken. Sure, I can be mistaken about what the experiential pain represents (I may take a pain in my foot to be indicative of broken bones when in fact there is no damage to the bones); but can I really be mistaken about the sensation of pain itself?

Even if you decide that one can be mistaken about one's own subjective experiences, you must admit it is a much murkier issue than being mistaken about external, physical circumstances like the nature of time or the state of the body. There are significant issues of epistemic access here that should be acknowledged in a way that your analogy about time does not address.

There's the rub right there. You can essentially replace "facts about structure and function" in 4 with "physical facts" due to the formulation and end up with this:

1. Not all the facts about p-consciousness are physical facts.
2. Therefore, physicalism cannot entail all the facts about p-consciousness.

We're left with an argument that looks awfully circular.

That's not a circular argument, that's just straightforward logic. Any logical deduction from a set of premises could be made to look trivial in the way you are making this argument appear trivial. For instance,

1. A is an X.
2. All Xs are Bs.
3. Therefore, A is a B.

We can replace X in 1 with B, and wind up with

1. A is a B.
2. Therefore, A is a B.

There is, of course, a sense in which the conclusion "A is a B" is already 'assumed,' in that we assume the premises are true, and if the premises are true then the conclusion must be true. But that's just what logical deduction is; if it were not the case that the truth of the conclusion is already 'contained' in the premises, we could not derive a logical deduction in the first place. The reason this argument is not circular is because it requires us to make a logical connection between two distinct premises: A is an X, and All Xs are Bs. The conclusion stands on more than one leg; knock any of those legs down, and the conclusion falls with it. In a circular argument, the conclusion can only be felled by denying the singular premise which happens to already assume the conclusion; circular arguments only stand on one leg.

The argument about subjective experience is not circular, for the same reason the toy example above is not circular. It assumes the truth of a set of distinct premises, none of which is identical to the conclusion, and from these premises, it derives the conclusion.

I know your main grievance is with the premise, "Not all the facts about p-consciousness are facts about structure and function." We can certainly question the veracity of this premise, and I will grant that there is some sense in which the only support for this premise is something like intuition (although I don't think 'intuition' is necessarily the best word, and as I alluded to above, 'intuition' about subjective experience is not as flimsy as intuition about the external world). But while this premise may be controversial, it certainly does not make for a circular argument. Let's list the argument form again:

1. Facts about structure and function can only entail further facts about structure and function.
2. Physicalism only deals with structural and functional facts.
3. Therefore, physicalism can only entail facts about structure and function. (1 & 2)
4. Not all the facts about p-consciousness are facts about structure and function.
5. Therefore, physicalism cannot entail all the facts about p-consciousness. (3 & 4)

Suppose proposition 2 and 4 are true, but that proposition 1 is false. Then it straightforwardly follows that 3 and 5 are false as well. If this argument were circular because the truth of the conclusion is already assumed in propsition 4, then it should be logically impossible for 4 and 5 to have different truth values. But I have just demonstrated a logically consistent case where they do have different truth values, because the truth of 5 critically depends upon the truth of propositions 1 and 2, in addition to 4. Therefore, this argument is not circular.

• The facts about experience cannot be an automatic consequence of any physical account, as it is conceptually coherent that any given process could exist without experience.
• Given the extremely plausible assumption that changes in experience correspond to changes in processing, we are led to the conclusion that the original hypothesis is impossible, and that any two functionally isomorphic systems must have the same sort of experience. To put it in technical terms, the philosophical hypotheses of "absent qualia" and "inverted qualia", while logically possible, are empirically and nomologically impossible.

How this little hiccup could go unnoticed I don't know. He doesn't technically contradict himself, as in both cases, he says that physical functions without qualia are logically coherent. But there is a conflict here nonetheless. He first says that a physical account cannot be complete because of the logical coherence of function without experience, but later says that function without experience, while logically possible, it impossible in reality.

This isn't a conflict. He is merely saying that the theory (physicalism) cannot be true, because the theory allows kinds of events that cannot happen in reality. If there were some physical theory that allowed massive bodies to travel up to speeds of 2c, then although this theory might be logically (mathematically) coherent, it would be false, because it is impossible in practice for massive bodies to travel at speeds exceeding c. Likewise, Chalmers' argument is that the theory of physicalism is false because it allows for theoretical events (normal human brain function without qualia) that cannot occur in nature.

This again highlights my qualm with arguments of this type. You cannot falsify an empirical hypothesis by appealing to logical possibility. You falsify an empirical hypothesis by appealing to empirical facts, and he explicitly states that the evidence he uses to falsify the physicalist hypothesis is empirically impossible. By analogy (I know, another analogy), one can say that evolution is falsified because Last Thursdayism is logically coherent, even though no empirical facts exist that either contradict evolution or suggest Last Thursdayism.

Physicalism is falsified because the set of all possible worlds consistent with physicalism contains worlds that are inconsistent with the way our world actually works. For example, physicalism is consistent with zombie worlds, where qualia do not exist. As such, physicalism does not give an adequate account of qualia (otherwise it would not be consistent with zombie worlds). Therefore, physicalism does not give an adequate account of all the existent phenomena in nature. Therefore, physicalism is false.

Your analogy of Last Thursdayism is disanalogous because both the theory of evolution and Last Thursdayism account for all the phenomena (in this case, just limited to the existence of the various life forms on Earth) in need of explanation. At best, Last Thursdayism casts some measure of doubt that evolution is true, but it does not falsify it. Physicalism is said to be falsified not because there are competing theories that explain the same phenomena as it does. It is falsified because it is supposed to be a theory that accounts for all the phenomena that actually exist in nature, and it ultimately fails to do so in the case of subjective experience.

 

[loseyourname]

This statement:

"You cannot falsify an empirical hypothesis by appealing to logical possibility. You falsify an empirical hypothesis by appealing to empirical facts"

... is where I have a problem with your argument. To me, it seems you are doing here exactly what you are claiming Chalmers and friends and doing. You have a built in assumption that puts an empircal hypothesis at the top of the food chain even though that's the metaphysical position in question. With this view, it would be impossible to disprove an empirical hypothesis, even if empiricism(using the physicalists definition) is not the most accurate model of reality(which is exactly what Chalmers is saying). This is the exact same issue I was pointing out in the other thread about this particular situation being trickier than any other issue.

But you can disprove empirical hypotheses. The hypothesis that all corporeal objects behave according to Newtonian mechanics was disproven by finding instances in which there were corporeal objects that did not.

I could have misunderstood your position but this view looks like it's ok to allow a judge to sentence himself. It's similar to the question I've asked before. Should an argument against materialism be held to materialists standards? Not to me.

I really no idea about an argument against materialism, but that isn't what this is. This is an argument against the general hypothesis that consciousness has a physical explanation. This hypothesis itself is very difficult to disprove, maybe even impossible, simply because I don't see any way to exhaustively test every possible physical explanation. That's why researchers don't work to invalidate wide encompassing theoryesque hypotheses such as those. They seek to falsify specific hypotheses that postulate one physical explanation.

I will add here that I didn't mean to imply that empirical hypotheses are impossible to rule out without testing. Hypotheses that actually are logically impossible can be. What you cannot do is claim that a hypothesis is logically impossible because a competing hypothesis is logically possible. Otherwise, you run into arguments such as the argument against evolution that I presented:

It is logically coherent that all of the facts about life can be without evolution.
Therefore, evolution is logically impossible.

That is essentially the form of the specific argument of Chalmer's that I was criticizing, and is clearly not a valid argument form.

 

[loseyourname]

Suppose proposition 2 and 4 are true, but that proposition 1 is false. Then it straightforwardly follows that 3 and 5 are false as well. If this argument were circular because the truth of the conclusion is already assumed in propsition 4, then it should be logically impossible for 4 and 5 to have different truth values. But I have just demonstrated a logically consistent case where they do have different truth values, because the truth of 5 critically depends upon the truth of propositions 1 and 2, in addition to 4. Therefore, this argument is not circular.

You know what? I suppose you're right about that. But you still just admitted that the argument does not prove anything. In order to be sound, the argument requires that we assume facts about structure and function can only entail further facts about structure and function, and that facts about consciousness are not facts about structure and function. Both assumptions are key, because they are really what it seems to me that people like Chalmers are attempting to prove, which, of course, they do not.

Physicalism is said to be falsified not because there are competing theories that explain the same phenomena as it does. It is falsified because it is supposed to be a theory that accounts for all the phenomena that actually exist in nature, and it ultimately fails to do so in the case of subjective experience.

There you go. That's where the argument fails. Physicalism does not allow a possible world where all of the functional and structural facts of human nervous systems obtain without consciousness. I'm not even sure why anyone would think that. In fact, physicalist theories of consciousness specifically state that consciousness is the product of exactly these structural and functional qualities and that any time we have these qualities, we have consciousness. Beings with all of the nervous qualities of humans that are not conscious are inconsistent with physicalism.

 

[honestrosewater]

Okay, I'm trying to understand. I think you guys are arguing about two problems I'm just reading about in Daniel Stoljar's "Physicalism": "The epiphenomenal ectoplasm problem" and "The modal status problem". I can't really sum them up so here they are:

"The epiphenomenal ectoplasm problem

(Cf. Horgan 1983, Lewis 1983.) Imagine a possible world W that is exactly like our world in respect of the distribution of physical and mental properties, but for one difference: it contains some pure experience which does not interact causally with anything else in the world -- epiphenomenal ectoplasm, to give it a name. The problem this possibility presents for (1) [Physicalism is true at a possible world w iff any world which is a physical duplicate of w is a duplicate of w simpliciter.] is that, if (1) provides the correct definition of physicalism, and if physicalism is true at the actual world, then there is no possible world of the kind we just described, i.e., W does not exist. The reason is that W is by assumption a physical duplicate of our world; but then, if physicalism is true at our world, W should be a duplicate simpliciter of our world. But W is patently not a duplicate of our world: it contains some epiphenomenal ectoplasm that our world lacks. On the other hand, it seems quite wrong to say that W is an impossibility -- at any rate, physicalism should not entail that it is impossible.

In order to solve the epiphenomenal ectoplasm problem, we need to adjust (1) so that it does not have the truth of physicalism ruling out W as a possible world. While there are a number of different proposals about how to do this, the simplest is due to Frank Jackson (cf. Jackson 1993. For earlier proposals and further discussion, see Horgan 1983 and Lewis 1983.) He proposes replacing (1) with:

(2) Physicalism is true at a possible world w iff any world which is a minimal physical duplicate of w is a duplicate of w simpliciter

By ‘minimal physical duplicate’, Jackson means a possible world that is identical in all physical respects to the actual world, but which does not contain anything else; in particular, it does not contain any epiphenomenal ectoplasm. Unlike (1), (2) does not have physicalism ruling out W, and so (2) is preferable to (1), as a statement of physicalism, and it is (2) with which we shall work in this entry."

...

"The modal status problem

Some philosophers (e.g. Davidson 1970) have thought of physicalism as a conceptual or necessary truth, if it is true at all. But most have thought of it as contingent, a truth about our world which might have been otherwise. The statement of physicalism encoded in (2) allows a way in which this might be so. (2) tells us that physicalism is true at a world just in case the world in question conforms to certain conditions. But it leaves it open whether or not the actual world conforms to those conditions as a matter of fact. Perhaps it is not true of our world that a physical duplicate of it would be a psychological duplicate. If so, physicalism would not be true at our world.

But for some it is puzzling that physicalism is stated using modal notions (i.e. notions such as possible worlds) and nonetheless is contingent. To see the problem, notice first that, supervenience physicalism tells us that the minimal physical truths of the world entail all the truths; hence

(3) The minimal physical truths entail all the truths.

Now suppose that S is a statement which specifies the minimal physical nature of the actual world and S* is a statement which specifies the total nature of the world. (It might be that neither S nor S* are expressible in languages we can understand, but let us set this aside.) If supervenience physicalism is true, it will then be true that:

(4) S entails S*

On the other hand, (4) is clearly a necessary truth. However, if (4) is a necessary truth, how can physicalism be contingent? After all, (4) seems equivalent to physicalism. But if the two are equivalent, how can one be necessary and the other contingent?

But the response to this problem is straightforward. (4) is necessary, but it is not equivalent to physicalism. Rather, (4) follows from physicalism given various contingent assumptions, in particular the assumptions that S and S [sic] are the statements we say they are -- it is contingent fact, for example that S* summarizes the total nature of the world. On other hand, (3) is equivalent to physicalism but it is not necessary. (It is important to bear in mind here that not all entailment claims are necessary. Consider ‘my aunt's favorite statement entails my uncle's favorite’ -- that statement is contingent even though it is most naturally thought of as an entailment claim.)"

 

[loseyourname]

"The epiphenomenal ectoplasm problem

(Cf. Horgan 1983, Lewis 1983.) Imagine a possible world W that is exactly like our world in respect of the distribution of physical and mental properties, but for one difference: it contains some pure experience which does not interact causally with anything else in the world -- epiphenomenal ectoplasm, to give it a name. The problem this possibility presents for (1) [Physicalism is true at a possible world w iff any world which is a physical duplicate of w is a duplicate of w simpliciter.] is that, if (1) provides the correct definition of physicalism, and if physicalism is true at the actual world, then there is no possible world of the kind we just described, i.e., W does not exist. The reason is that W is by assumption a physical duplicate of our world; but then, if physicalism is true at our world, W should be a duplicate simpliciter of our world. But W is patently not a duplicate of our world: it contains some epiphenomenal ectoplasm that our world lacks. On the other hand, it seems quite wrong to say that W is an impossibility -- at any rate, physicalism should not entail that it is impossible.

In order to solve the epiphenomenal ectoplasm problem, we need to adjust (1) so that it does not have the truth of physicalism ruling out W as a possible world. While there are a number of different proposals about how to do this, the simplest is due to Frank Jackson (cf. Jackson 1993. For earlier proposals and further discussion, see Horgan 1983 and Lewis 1983.) He proposes replacing (1) with:

(2) Physicalism is true at a possible world w iff any world which is a minimal physical duplicate of w is a duplicate of w simpliciter
By ‘minimal physical duplicate’, Jackson means a possible world that is identical in all physical respects to the actual world, but which does not contain anything else; in particular, it does not contain any epiphenomenal ectoplasm. Unlike (1), (2) does not have physicalism ruling out W, and so (2) is preferable to (1), as a statement of physicalism, and it is (2) with which we shall work in this entry."

...

I like this, but don't even think it's pertinent to this discussion. I'm not personally a physicalist because I hold out the possibility that some phenomenon, such as epiphenomenal ectoplasm or anything else that is not physically explainable, does exist (simply because there is really no way to ever know - you cannot prove that something doesn't exist). I just think that any argument I've seen attempting to prove that consciousness is such a phenomenon fails. Any argument that holds as a premise that physicalism is somehow consistent with worlds in which properly functioning human nervous systems exist without consciousness is patently absurd.

 

[Iacchus32]

Quotes in indigo are from Chalmers' "http://jamaica.u.arizona.edu/~chalmers/papers/facing.html ."

What is there to face up to, when the answer is to be had within consciousness itself? Certainly there would be no means by which to comtemplate any of this if we weren't conscious were we? So why do we attempt to look outside of the fact that we're conscious to find the answer? If consciousness tells us everything about the world we know (which it does), why don't we just learn to listen to ourselves?

 

[ghrosenb@hotmail.com]

In order to be sound, the argument requires that we assume facts about structure and function can only entail further facts about structure and function, and that facts about consciousness are not facts about structure and function. Both assumptions are key, because they are really what it seems to me that people like Chalmers are attempting to prove, which, of course, they do not.

In the history of things, I think have to take some responsibility for Chalmers' sometimes stating his argument in these terms. When we were in grad school together I was pretty relentless in forcing this on him as the fundamental problem (something he acknowledges in an endnote in his 1996 book). So I feel an obligation to say that at one point long ago I had the same qualm you state here, and I set out to settle it.

Taking the two premises one at a time: It turns out that if you take some simplified model like the Life world, it is pretty easy to prove something essentially like the first premise using mathematical induction. The base case is trivial. The inductive case isn't much harder: Assume that a Life world with n number of cells only exhibits properties of structure and function (and a few other related properties that are easy to identify, like historical properties and location based properties), then what properties can a world of n+1 cells exhibit?

Anyway, I didn't reproduce the proof in my book because it is tedious reading and I imagine Dave feels the same way. Most people can see the intuitive point without needing a formal mathematical proof. But it is reassuring to walk through the proof for oneself, and I encourage you to try it out yourself.

As for the claim that there are facts about consciousness that are not facts about structure and function, that's pretty explicitly an empirical belief based on observational evidence. I argue as much in my book. Perhaps the observations are wrong? It is possible, but the observation seems highly replicable across people, cultures and time. Even people who disagree with the premise (including Dennett himself!) often say that their own observation of their own consciousness seems to deliver similar observational evidence, but they choose to be skeptical of their own observations on theoretical grounds: it conflicts with what they think they know about the brain and they also think there is no other reasonable theoretical position.

This is a basic choice point and people can and do go either way. Dennett and some others choose to disregard the first-person observational evidence as delusion ("a user illusion"). I choose to respect the observational evidence, given its high degree of replicability. Given the empirical evidence, I am skeptical of the theory. Given my skepticism of the theory, I have tried my best to produce an alternative framework that is well-motivated and does a better job of aligning with all the observational evidence.

--Gregg

 

[selfAdjoint]

This has certainly raised the discussion to higher level, and I certainly hope we can maintain it. Since I pretty much adopt the Dennett position, I note the massive experimental psychology evidence he adduces in Consciousness Explained directed at undermining our naive assumptions about the reliabilty of our intuitions based on casual questions of people in various cultures.

There is no doubt at all that we are all, !Kung or Swede, in the same boat regarding our relation to our consciousness, so multiplying evidence of that kind doesn't add anything solid to the discussion. Or so a believe; I am prepared to be convinced otherwise.

On another note, I am skeptical of mathematical induction arguments on simple cellular automata. I suspect they miss the autocatalytic properties of complex systems which can produce emergent phenomena (in the weak sense).

 

[ghrosenb@hotmail.com]

This has certainly raised the discussion to higher level, and I certainly hope we can maintain it. Since I pretty much adopt the Dennett position, I note the massive experimental psychology evidence he adduces in Consciousness Explained directed at undermining our naive assumptions about the reliabilty of our intuitions based on casual questions of people in various cultures.

Dennett is very explicit in his writings that his heterophenomenology is a kind of 3rd-person absolutism, and the clinical phenomena he discusses are interpreted from that point of view. Given his starting point, his arguments are actually for a conditional, "If 3rd-person absolutism is true, our first person observations should be rejected." I agree with that conditional. I would even go further and suggest that there are a whole host of more fundamental ways that what seems to be true of consciousness seems inconsistent with our physical image of the world.

From Dennett's starting point, what needs explanation primarily are not facts about consciousness itself (from the heterophenomenological starting point, we're not sure consciousness exists). Our primary targets of explanation are instead facts about why we make the reports that we do about consciousness. If those reports are explained, then our primary explanatory target is explained, and it may just turn out that many of the reports themselves are delusions (i.e., Dennett's 'user illusions'). This is exactly what Dennett argues.

Stepping back, it is clear that Dennett's work is actually a two step argument. In step one, he delivers a detailed demonstration that there really is a problem of other minds, where "mind" is understood in its traditional reference to subjectivity. It's fun to see it done in such detail, but it is not startling work. In step two, he generalizes from this to the conclusion that no one has a mind in its traditional sense.

Dennett never directly argues for step two, and instead makes the choice inevitable by the way he constructs his methodology. It's built into his starting point.

There is a more neutral starting point that tries to give more equal weight to the first person observations. It is this: The first-person observations present consciousness itself as an explanatory target. The third-person observations present the associated cognition as an explanatory target. From this starting point his arguments lose their force, and it leads to a quite different project from Dennett's, one that tries to respect both sets of observations as presenting explanatory targets.

Given a choice of starting points, I choose the more neutral starting point partly because I find Dennett's starting point to be question begging, and partly because when I try to accept Dennett's suggestion that the apparent intrinsic quality to my subjective existence is a kind of user illusion, the cognitive dissonance is overwhelming. I find myself immediately swimming in a thick sea of contrary evidence that I have to continuously reject as delusionary. Essentially, every aspect of my experienced world contradicts the theoretical conclusion, and the only life raft the theory gives me is its own internally generated prediction that I will feel that way. 3rd-person absolutism begins to seem too ideological ("Who are you going to believe, me or your own eyes?") For me, rejecting Dennett's methodological stance becomes a question of intellectual integrity.

--Gregg

 

[loseyourname]

Taking the two premises one at a time: It turns out that if you take some simplified model like the Life world, it is pretty easy to prove something essentially like the first premise using mathematical induction. The base case is trivial. The inductive case isn't much harder: Assume that a Life world with n number of cells only exhibits properties of structure and function (and a few other related properties that are easy to identify, like historical properties and location based properties), then what properties can a world of n+1 cells exhibit?

Nothing but mathematical properties, I would guess. The thing is that, from a third-person perspective, all that we see in our own world is mathematical properties. Because we cannot jump into this life world from a first-person perspective, we cannot say whether or not it could exhibit the same characteristics from that perspective that our world does.

Anyway, I didn't reproduce the proof in my book because it is tedious reading and I imagine Dave feels the same way. Most people can see the intuitive point without needing a formal mathematical proof. But it is reassuring to walk through the proof for oneself, and I encourage you to try it out yourself.

Something gives me the feeling I'd need to know a little more about the mathematics of cellular automata in order to have the ability to do that. I've read that chapter of your book a couple of times, but I've tried to keep from discussing any of your arguments specifically since we will be having the group discussion of it. So I'll hold out for now. Thanks for dropping in on us, by the way.

As for the claim that there are facts about consciousness that are not facts about structure and function, that's pretty explicitly an empirical belief based on observational evidence. I argue as much in my book. Perhaps the observations are wrong?

That's one possibility, but I'm not going to argue that. I'm not even sure that's what the empirical observation is anyway. How do we know that what we observe isn't simply what it would look from the inside of any functional process similarly structured? Perhaps if we had access to first-person observation of a process that is uncontentiously physical (take, for instance, the electron-transport chain in mitochondria), it would look from that perspective as if we weren't observing a physical process.

 

[RingoKid]

I would even go further and suggest that there are a whole host of more fundamental ways that what seems to be true of consciousness seems inconsistent with our physical image of the world.

mathematical proofs would have us existing in a minimum 11 dimensional reality of which our senses can only detect 4...

...so any discussions on consciousness will always be incomplete if we can't "see" the total picture ie the actual physical image of the universe and beyond. Essentially all we are capable of at present is guessing at just over a third of what is dimensionally transcedently possible. In which case your guess is as good as mine and in my experience I will always go with my own until proven otherwise and as it stands no one can do that yet

It's the classic snug as a bug in a rug that can't see the pattern of the rug but emphatically insists that there is no pattern except for it's own subjective perspective.

 

[Iacchus32]

So, why couldn't consciousness be classified as "the experience" of knowing itself? Of course that would also suggest that the Universe has been kind enough to reveal itself to us on a personal level, through our minds, in which case it shouldn't have that much more trouble revealing why we are here ... if we learn how to "tune in" that is.

 

[hypnagogue]

There you go. That's where the argument fails. Physicalism does not allow a possible world where all of the functional and structural facts of human nervous systems obtain without consciousness. I'm not even sure why anyone would think that. In fact, physicalist theories of consciousness specifically state that consciousness is the product of exactly these structural and functional qualities and that any time we have these qualities, we have consciousness. Beings with all of the nervous qualities of humans that are not conscious are inconsistent with physicalism.

Any physicalist account of consciousness will be logically consistent with a zombie world, regardless of ad hoc plug ins.

By way of comparison, a physicalist explanation of the macroscopic properties of water need not baldly state that when H2O molecules coalesce under the proper conditions, properties like fluidity arise. Rather, properties like fluidity are shown to be a direct logical consequence of the properties of the constituent molecules. If we suppose that we have a large collection of H2O molecules in a container at standard pressure and room temperature, and we further suppose that this collection of molecules does not have the property of fluidity at a macroscopic level, we will invariably arrive at a logical contradiction. It is logically impossible for both conditions to hold at once.

A physicalist account of consciousness may state that when the proper conditions in the brain obtain, consciousness arises as a consequence. But there is no logical contradiction in assuming the contrary view; we can just as well suppose that such-and-such brain conditions hold, and that there is no consciousness. There is nothing in the physicalist account of the brain that forces us to accept the existence of consciousness analagous to the way the physicalist account of H2O molecules forces us to accept macroscopic fluidity as a consequence.

If you wish to press the case and insist that an ad hoc statement about consciousness prevents physicalism from being consistent with zombie worlds, then we're still left with a big problem. Physicalism depicts consciousness as an emergent property of brain function, but cannot come up with any theoretical reason why this should be the case. That makes for a nice http://iserver.asa.edu.py/physicsweb/miracle.gif , but it doesn't make for much of a serious paradigm. Dropping the view that consciousness is an emergent property of physical brain function circumvents this problem, but once we make this move we're no longer in the realm of physicalism.

 

[selfAdjoint]

Logical consistency is a weak criterion. Many things which are logically consistent are not true of the universe we experience. Taxicab topology for example. The fact that the zombie world is consistent with physicalism is of no force whatever against physicalism unless you can show that zombies actually exist.

 

[hypnagogue]

Logical consistency is a weak criterion. Many things which are logically consistent are not true of the universe we experience. Taxicab topology for example. The fact that the zombie world is consistent with physicalism is of no force whatever against physicalism unless you can show that zombies actually exist.

Of course, no one supposes that zombies exist. But the actual existence of zombies has nothing to do with it. This is a point about a theory about reality and its adequacy to account for that reality, not reality itself.

In the case of topology, we have a pretty good model of what physical conditions make for what type of topologies. We can say, "because conditions such-and-such obtain under the influence of known physical laws, the topology of universe X is so-and-so." We have a well-behaved function that maps each set of unique physical conditions onto its own topology. You put in conditions A, and topology B pops out like clockwork; if you get topology C, it's because you've done the math incorrectly. The fact that the physical laws allow topologies not observed in our universe is not problematic, because we can explain

1) why these topologies are not observed. They are not observed because they follow directly from conditions that do not obtain in our universe.
2) why the topology that we do observe is observed. It is observed because it follows directly from conditions that obtain in our universe.

In the case of consciousness, we do not have a similar scenario. If you start from just a physical description of the brain, you have no a priori reason to believe that anything like subjective experience should directly follow. You input the physical description, and what you get back is a zombie. Sure, you can ad hoc it and say "whenever these conditions obtain, subjective experience results." But this is hardly a satisfactory account.

If we were working with topologies, this would be like having the equations tell us that conditions A should lead to topology B, but oops, actually it's empirically known that they create topology C-- worse, we have have no idea why this is the case, and worse still, no rearranging of the equations consistent with the current theory can get us from A to C. But rather than try to radically revise our theories to account for this mystery satisfactorily, we content ourselves to maintain our current set of equations, with a discontinuous, ugly, and unexplained exception for the anomalous set of conditions. Worse, we insist that our set of equations is entirely correct, even though it produces the wrong answer for the anomalous case without the ad hoc patch up.

 

[Fliption]

But you can disprove empirical hypotheses. The hypothesis that all corporeal objects behave according to Newtonian mechanics was disproven by finding instances in which there were corporeal objects that did not.

I understand your comment but I don't understand why it's a relevant response to my comment.

I This hypothesis itself is very difficult to disprove, maybe even impossible, simply because I don't see any way to exhaustively test every possible physical explanation.

If we agree that this argument is valid, then we will never be able to prove the emergent theories wrong. We can always say "We just haven't come up with it yet".

What you cannot do is claim that a hypothesis is logically impossible because a competing hypothesis is logically possible.

That is essentially the form of the specific argument of Chalmer's that I was criticizing, and is clearly not a valid argument form.

I don't see this being the case at all. You may be able to question an assumption, but I don't see anyone claiming that consciousness cannot be reductively explained simply because we have a consistent theory suggesting consciousness as fundamental. Seems like a strawman.

 

[loseyourname]

Any physicalist account of consciousness will be logically consistent with a zombie world, regardless of ad hoc plug ins.

No, it won't be. In fact, I have no idea how you could even contend such a thing, given that you have never seen a physical account of consciousness. None has ever been given. People have asserted and made arguments that such an account exists, but they have never actually said what it is.

By way of comparison, a physicalist explanation of the macroscopic properties of water need not baldly state that when H2O molecules coalesce under the proper conditions, properties like fluidity arise. Rather, properties like fluidity are shown to be a direct logical consequence of the properties of the constituent molecules.

I know this. A physical account of consciousness would do the same thing. It would show that consciousness is a direct logical consequence of lower-level physical properties.

A physicalist account of consciousness may state that when the proper conditions in the brain obtain, consciousness arises as a consequence. But there is no logical contradiction in assuming the contrary view; we can just as well suppose that such-and-such brain conditions hold, and that there is no consciousness.

Sure, if they just state that it is so. But that isn't an explanation, is it? Once an actual explanation is given, it will be demonstrated that consciousness is a direct logical consequence of physical conditions and at that point there will be a logical inconsistency in assuming these conditions can exist without consciousness.

There is nothing in the physicalist account of the brain that forces us to accept the existence of consciousness analagous to the way the physicalist account of H2O molecules forces us to accept macroscopic fluidity as a consequence.

Sure, but that is only because we don't know a whole lot about how conditions in the brain create certain experiences. By the same token, if we had no theory of electrochemistry, we could easily say that it is logically consistent to postulate that the molecular structure of water molecules could be present without wetness.

If you wish to press the case and insist that an ad hoc statement about consciousness prevents physicalism from being consistent with zombie worlds, then we're still left with a big problem. Physicalism depicts consciousness as an emergent property of brain function, but cannot come up with any theoretical reason why this should be the case. That makes for a nice http://iserver.asa.edu.py/physicsweb/miracle.gif , but it doesn't make for much of a serious paradigm.

So what? Should we not have guessed that wetness was a property of the structural organization of water molecules before we had a theory of electrochemistry? An early anti-physicalist chemist could have made exactly the same argument you are making and he would have been wrong. Not to say that you are wrong, but you seem so convinced that you are not.

There are many phenomena thought to be physical and emergent without a comprehensive theory of how the emergence takes place. Most animal behavior falls under this category. We cannot simply lay out the molecular conditions within a given organism at a given time and say "here, this behavior will emerge." This isn't a good reason to think that animal behavior is not an emergent property of a physical system.

Dropping the view that consciousness is an emergent property of physical brain function circumvents this problem, but once we make this move we're no longer in the realm of physicalism.

It doesn't circumvent the problem. We're still left with the same problem. You have no explanation. Postulating something to be fundamental is no more of an explanation than postulating it to be emergent. Which hypothesis you prefer is simply a function of what makes more sense to you. There is no good reason to logically prefer one position over the other.

 

[hypnagogue]

No, it won't be. In fact, I have no idea how you could even contend such a thing, given that you have never seen a physical account of consciousness. None has ever been given. People have asserted and made arguments that such an account exists, but they have never actually said what it is.

I've never seen a mathematical proof that tried to demonstrate how to derive an imaginary number from the reals, but I'm fairly certain none will ever be forthcoming. If one is, I'm fairly certain it will be wrong. There are just principled reasons to believe this to be the case, and no amount of time, effort, or ingenuity will change that.

I know this. A physical account of consciousness would do the same thing. It would show that consciousness is a direct logical consequence of lower-level physical properties.

A successful physical account would do that, anyway. Anyone can try to make a physical account of p-consciousness that delivers the goods, but I don't expect any of them to be successful, on the basis of principled arguments to this effect. I do expect a number of physical theories that might appear compelling on the surface but ultimately don't deliver.

Sure, if they just state that it is so. But that isn't an explanation, is it? Once an actual explanation is given, it will be demonstrated that consciousness is a direct logical consequence of physical conditions and at that point there will be a logical inconsistency in assuming these conditions can exist without consciousness.

No, it's not an explanation, but you seemed to have characterized the physicalist view as merely stating the case rather than explaining when you said:

"In fact, physicalist theories of consciousness specifically state that consciousness is the product of exactly these structural and functional qualities and that any time we have these qualities, we have consciousness."

I'm sure that many physical explanations of p-consciousness will be on offer in the coming years, but I'm not convinced that they'll show anything about p-consciousness to be the direct logical consequence of brain activity.

if we had no theory of electrochemistry, we could easily say that it is logically consistent to postulate that the molecular structure of water molecules could be present without wetness.

That is true, but by choosing to focus on this you miss the real force of the argument (see below).

So what? Should we not have guessed that wetness was a property of the structural organization of water molecules before we had a theory of electrochemistry? An early anti-physicalist chemist could have made exactly the same argument you are making and he would have been wrong.

An anti-physicalist could not have made the same argument. To begin with, there is nothing more to wetness than structure and function. To explain wetness, we just need to explain tendency to drip, slickness of surface, etc. These are just dispositional properties. The anti-physicalist argument is about explaining intrinsic properties, so this is a clear disanalogy.

The anti-physicalist chemist might just suppose that wetness has intrinsic properties that need explaining, but this is no different than the vitalist who supposes an elan vital. In both cases, the intrinsic entity has been artificially introduced into the discussion, and is just as easily dismissed. Subjective experience is not introduced into the discussion in this way; rather, it forces itself into the discussion as an observable phenomenon in nature. We can still dismiss it in a sense if we wish, and some people choose to do precisely this, but unlike the elan vital, it will not go away so easily.

Not to say that you are wrong, but you seem so convinced that you are not.

I admit that I could be wrong. It just doesn't seem very likely. The logic of the anti-physicalist argument is compelling, and I haven't seen any effective counter-arguments (most don't even address the argument on its own terms, like the vitalism strawman). It seems about as obvious to me as it is obvious that you just can't derive an imaginary number from the reals, no matter how hard you try, even though I must admit that there is probably still a lot to be learned about the reals.

There are many phenomena thought to be physical and emergent without a comprehensive theory of how the emergence takes place. Most animal behavior falls under this category. We cannot simply lay out the molecular conditions within a given organism at a given time and say "here, this behavior will emerge." This isn't a good reason to think that animal behavior is not an emergent property of a physical system.

Sure, but here you have a tentative explanatory bridge between microscopic structure and function, and macroscopic structure and function. No problems there in principle, even if there are lots of details to work out. Even if our current ideas turn out to be wrong somehow, there's no reason to think a complete explanation won't be forthcoming someday. Building an explanatory bridge from structure and function to intrinsic properties is another story.

It doesn't circumvent the problem. We're still left with the same problem. You have no explanation. Postulating something to be fundamental is no more of an explanation than postulating it to be emergent. Which hypothesis you prefer is simply a function of what makes more sense to you. There is no good reason to logically prefer one position over the other.

You're right that postulating something to be fundamental is not an explanation. But I have to disagree that choosing between fundamental and emergent for a theoretical model is merely a matter of taste. If the general structure/function argument is right (I believe it is, of course), then the emergent view is logically impossible, and the fundamental view becomes the only coherent choice.

 

[loseyourname]

You're right that postulating something to be fundamental is not an explanation. But I have to disagree that choosing between fundamental and emergent for a theoretical model is merely a matter of taste. If the general structure/function argument is right (I believe it is, of course), then the emergent view is logically impossible, and the fundamental view becomes the only coherent choice.

Okay, we're running in circles again, so I'm just going to respond to this last bit. We're left with the same old argument again:

Physical facts are facts about structure and function.
Facts about consciousness are not facts about structure and function.
Therefore, facts about consciousness are not physical facts.

You've already admitted that this argument rests on the assumption that facts about consciousness are not facts about structure and function. Since physicalism states that all facts are facts about structure and function, the physicalist could simply counter:

Physical facts are facts about structure and function.
Facts about consciousness are facts about structure and function.
Therefore, facts about consciousness are physical facts.

You seem to believe that the former argument is to be preferred because it is self-evident from empirical observation that facts about consciousness are not facts about structure and function. Well, evident to you does not equal self-evident. In fact, it is not at all evident to me or to many other people. There are plenty of people out there who find it equally self-evident that facts about consciousness are facts about structure and function. In fact, to anyone that is a physicalist, this is self-evident. Personally, I'd rather leave the matter up in the air for now as I haven't seen a particularly compelling argument from either side.

The only fact here is that the truth of the second premises in the above syllogisms are not self-evident in either case. Both are assumptions upon which their respective metaphysical theory rests and nothing more.

 

[Canute]

For me, rejecting Dennett's methodological stance becomes a question of intellectual integrity. --Gregg

Hooray. Enough beating around the bush. Dennett's book is intellectually dishonest and his arguments are easy to dismiss. His book is founded on unsupported assumptions, is full of patronising, offensive and feeble sideswipes at those who disagree with him, and is chock a block with the sort of 'sleights of hand' that Chalmer's complains are common in the literature on consciousness. It does not explain anything, but merely illustrates that hetero-phenomenology is not the way to explain consciousness.

" ince heterophenomenology is a way of interpreting behaviour (including the internal behaviour of brains, etc.), it will arrive at exactly the same heterophenomenological world for Zoe and for Zombie-Zoe, her unconscious twin." (95)

Here we have a clear statement asserting that hetero-phenomenology is not an explanation of consciousness, but rather of behaviour, and that it is therefore just as useful for explaining zombie behaviour as it is for explaining human behaviour. Thus is it made clear that heterophenomenology is not a theory of consciousness and does not acknowledge the existence of subjective experience. Retro-phrenomenology is what I'd rather call it.

Congratulations Gregg on writing a book that's very definitely in a different class to Dennett's.

 

[Philocrat]

The only significant 'Theoretical Framework' worthy of pursuing is that consciousness serves a Contributory Purpose to whatever system that it is installed in, otherwise it would be completely useless to that system. What role does consciousnes play in the human system than to contribute to the onverall 'KNOWLEDGE BASE' of the beholder? Consciousness has to be looked at in terms of its Purpose. What is it for? How much information does it contribute into the 'SURVIVAL BANK'?

The KNOWLEDGE BASE is all there is to life and the potential survival of such a life. The most important issue at stake here is:

HOW MUCH DOES CONSCIOUSNESS CONTRIBUTE INTO THE KNOWLDGE BASE?

Worst still, we don't even know whether the MEMORY in the human body is 'FIXED' or 'POOLED', let alone how much of it is enough. It would be very interesting to know how much 'LIFE-CRITICAL INFORMATION' consciousness puts in such a memory cumulatively. We need to quantify it. The wild horse called consciousness that we have let loose is heading in the wrong direction and is dangerously diverting all our intellectual resources away from the real issues:

1) How is the memory configured in the human material body? Is it a FIXED LOCATION MEMORY' or is it a POOLED MEMORY?

2) The Environment that every human being is physically installed is dynamic and danger-prone such that the only way to survive in such an environment is to be continuously aware of it and monitoring it. If this is true, how much memory do we need to gather and store life-critical information cumulatively towards knwoing in full all there is to know in order to permanently survive in such an environment?

3) What role does consciousness play in reliably mapping life-critical information onto the memory for the survival benefit of the beholder?

These are issues that are far more important than this self-serving talking shop about 'hard problem' of consciousness nonesense. Sooner or later we would have to turn our attention to these issues, the most important being how to re-engineer the entire human system to work better!

 

[Canute]

What you say is that consciousness is causal. You're going to have a hard job convincing a physicalist of that. You have missed the fact that neo-Darwinism gives consciousness no role at all in the evolution of species.

You say that C is critical to survival in a threatening environment. Perhaps. But if so then presumably nematodes are conscious, and you'll also have a job persuading many people of that. But you are right that consciousness is important to knowledge. Without it there wouldn't be any such thing as knowledge.

If you think we could re-engineer human beings to "work better" than many millions of years of happy accidents could manage then you're a optimist big time, and have seriously misunderstood the hard problem.

 

[Philocrat]

What you say is that consciousness is causal. You're going to have a hard job convincing a physicalist of that. You have missed the fact that neo-Darwinism gives consciousness no role at all in the evolution of species.

You say that C is critical to survival in a threatening environment. Perhaps. But if so then presumably nematodes are conscious, and you'll also have a job persuading many people of that. But you are right that consciousness is important to knowledge. Without it there wouldn't be any such thing as knowledge.

If you think we could re-engineer human beings to "work better" than many millions of years of happy accidents could manage then you're a optimist big time, and have seriously misunderstood the hard problem.

Yes, let Nature or Creator fix it! so they always say. Well, let us all cross our legs and wait then. At least this is also an option, and as I have consistently argued elsewhere, no one has any right to deny us this option.

 

[Canute]

Fix what? Wait for what?