Is Chomsky's View on the Mind-Body Problem Redefining Materialism?

[bohm2]

One of the most interesting and compelling criticisms on "dualism", "materialisn", "monism" and any “ism” is the following argument by Chomsky:

The mind-body problem can be posed sensibly only insofar as we have a definite conception of body. If we have no such definite and fixed conception, we cannot ask whether some phenomena fall beyond its range. The Cartesians offered a fairly definite conception of body in terms of their contact mechanics, which in many respects reflects commonsense understanding...[However] the Cartesian concept of body was refuted by seventeenth-century physics, particularly in the work of Isaac Newton, which laid the foundations for modern science. Newton demonstrated that the motions of the heavenly bodies could not be explained by the principles of Descartes’s contact mechanics, so that the Cartesian concept of body must be abandoned.

In other words, when we think of causation in the natural world as Descartes did – that is, as involving literal contact between two extended substances – then the way in which a thought or a sensation relate to a material object becomes mysterious. Certainly it cannot be right to think of a thought or sensation as making literal physical contact with the surface of the brain, or in any other way communicating motion in a “push-pull” way. But when we give up this crude model of causation, as Newton did, the source of the mystery disappears. At the same time, no systematic positive account of what matter as such is has ever really been put forward to replace Descartes’ conception.

There is no longer any definite conception of body. Rather, the material world is whatever we discover it to be, with whatever properties it must be assumed to have for the purposes of explanatory theory. Any intelligible theory that offers genuine explanations and that can be assimilated to the core notions of physics becomes part of the theory of the material world, part of our account of body. If we have such a theory in some domain, we seek to assimilate it to the core notions of physics, perhaps modifying these notions as we carry out this enterprise.

That is to say, we have in Chomsky’s view various worked-out, successful theories of different parts of the natural world, and we try to integrate these by assimilating them to “the core notions of physics,” but may end up altering those core notions if we need to in order to make the assimilation work. As a result, as Chomsky once put it to John Searle, “as soon as we come to understand anything, we call it ‘physical’” (quoted by Searle in The Rediscovery of the Mind). But we have no conception of what is “physical” or “material” prior to and independently of this enterprise. And since the enterprise is not complete, “physical” and “material” have no fixed and determinate content; we simply apply them to whatever it is we happen at the moment to think we know how assimilate into the body of existing scientific theory. As a consequence:

The mind-body problem can therefore not even be formulated. The problem cannot be solved, because there is no clear way to state it. Unless someone proposes a definite concept of body, we cannot ask whether some phenomena exceed its bounds.There seems to be no coherent doctrine of materialism and metaphysical naturalism, no issue of eliminativism, no mind-body problem” (New Horizons in the Study of Langauge and Mind).

In short, if the problem has no clear content, neither do any of the solutions to it. Chomsky’s preferred approach, it seems, is just to carry on the task of developing and evaluating theories of various aspects of the mind and integrating them as one can into the existing body of scientific knowledge, letting the chips fall where they may vis-à-vis the definition of “physical” or “material.”

[The terms] 'body' and 'the physical world' refer to whatever there is, all of which we try to understand as best we can and to integrate into a coherent theoretical system that we call the natural sciences . . . If it were shown that the properties of the world fall into two disconnected domains, then we would, I suppose, say that that is the nature of the physical world, nothing more, just as if the world of matter and anti-matter were to prove unrelated.

http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2010/06/chomsky-on-mind-body-problem.html

http://www.chomsky.info/onchomsky/20030401.pdf

There are some (Nagel) who question this view because even with future revision of physics it is argued that the problem will remain:

I have heard at least one respected physicist avert that "physics is finished," meaning that even microphysics is already empirically adequate and its physical ontology, its ontology of substances, is reasonably well understood; the remaining projects of microphysics – positing superstrings, constructing a unified field theory and the like – are only matters of interpreting and mathematizing the physical ontology. If that is so, then there is no reason to think that physics will expand its ontology in so fundamental a way as to afford a reduction of the mental that was not already available.

Even, if our idea of the physical ever expands to include mental phenomena, it will have to assign them an objective character-whether or not this is done by analyzing them in terms of other phenomena already regarded as physical.

Any thoughts?

 

[PhizzicsPhan]

I think Chomsky gets it right and Nagel not. Nagel, as much as I usually like his work, seems (from what I can tell from your short quote) to be okay with assigning the term "objective" to mental states. But this is, in any reasonable use of the term, the exact opposite of what mental states are. They are not objective, they are subjective. Obviously terms mean what we want them to mean but I don't think it's productive to use a term in the opposite sense of what it usually means.

Now, I do believe we can call mental states "physical," in the sense that they have a causal effect. The usual intuition about what is physical is that it must be solid, but this is revealed quickly to be a bad definition. Rather, I agree with the physicist Lande's definition of physical: it is kickable (and can be kicked). In other words, what is physical has the ability to effect other parts of our universe. In that sense, mental events are physical unless we are epiphenomenalists and assert that mental events supervene impotently upon the physical (a position I find untenable).

We may also make some progress on the mind/body problem that Chomsky finds inscrutable if we re-frame the mind/body problem as the subject/object problem. How do objects and subjects differ, how do they interact?

I'm a panpsychist, in that I find a satisfying solution to the M/B problem in the notion that all matter has both subjective and objective aspects, which oscillate and what is a subject in one moment becomes an object for other subjects in the next moment (Whitehead's "perpetual perishing").

I agree with Chomsky that modern physics does not have a good handle on the "body problem," let alone the mind/body problem. But we can easily accept that there is a key difference between subject and object and an obvious problem in explaining how subjects relate to objects and vice versa. The panpsychist solution suggests that I, as a subject, experience all other subjects as objects, and vice versa. Similarly, what is my mind, to me, is my brain (roughly), to you and all other subjects.

 

[bohm2]

I think Nagel is actually agreeing with you that no matter how far a future science/physics changes, qualia will forever remain subjective. Chomsky, on the other hand, in one paper-“Linguistics and Cognitive Science: Problems and Mysteries” (p. 39) questions Nagel's premise arguing that:

“this argument presupposes some fixed notion of the ‘objective world’ which excludes subjective experience, but it is hard to see why we should pay any more attention to that notion, whatever it may be, than to one that excludes action at a distance or other exotic ideas that were regarded as unintelligible or ridiculous at earlier periods, even by outstanding scientists.”

Elsewhere on that page he argues that there is nothing unique about the mind-body problem:

But from this we do not conclude that there was then (or now) a body-body problem, or a color-body problem, or a life-body problem, or a gas-body problem. Rather, there were just problems, arising from the limits of our understanding

I’m not sure what to make of this? I think Nagel’s position is clear. Nagel is simply arguing that the mind-body problem is different than all these other problems because unlike the others, subjectivity/qualia cannot be reduced to any “material” entity regardless of future revisions of our “physical” theories. Whether Chomsky is arguing that some type of “micropsychism”, is possible I’m not sure but I doubt it? Maybe Chomsky means that we should treat the mental just as "real" as other stuff in science even though unification may be beyond our cognitive limits (I'm thinking McGinn's cognitive closure stuff here)?

Panpsychism is a very interesting position even though it's not taken seriously by many. I really find the "intrinsic" argument as set ou by Russel, Eddington and now Strawson very interesting. One difficulty with panpsychism is that it also "faces a severe problem of understanding how more complex mental states emerge from the mental features of the fundamental features." An interesting paper on this topic is this one by Seager:

http://www.scar.utoronto.ca/~seager/panagg.pdf

One panpsychist physicist is Bohm. In his papers, he argues that his interpretation suggests a proto-mental aspect of matter. He has been called a panprotopsychist. When you look at the guiding wave properties and how it affects the "particle" (trajectory) in Bohm's ontological interpretation of QM, you can't help but notice the analogy between pilot wave/particle and mind/brain. In fact, Bohm argues just that (see quote below). Some interesting properties of Bohm's guiding wave:

1. The quantum potential energy does not behave like an additional energy of classical type. It has no external source, but is some form of internal energy, split off from the kinetic energy. Furthermore, if we look at traditional quantum mechanical problems and examine the quantum potential energy in mathematical detail, we find that it contains information about the experimental environment in which the particle finds itself, hence its possible role as an information potential.

2. In the case of the quantum wave, the amplitude also appears in the denominator. Therefore, increasing the magnitude of the amplitude does not necessarily increase the quantum potential energy. A small amplitude can produce a large quantum effect. The key to the quantum potential energy lies in the second spatial derivative, indicating that the shape or form of the wave is more important than its magnitude.

3. For this reason, a small change in the form of the wave function can produce large effects in the development of the system. The quantum potential produces a law of force that does not necessarily fall off with distance. Therefore, the quantum potential can produce large effects between systems that are separated by large distances. This feature removes one of the difficulties in understanding the non-locality that arises between particles in entangled states, such as those in the EPR-paradox

4. In Bohmian mechanics the wave function acts upon the positions of the particles but, evolving as it does autonomously via Schrödinger's equation, it is not acted upon by the particles...The guiding wave, in the general case, propagates not in ordinary three-space but in a multidimensional-configuration space and is the origin of the notorious ‘nonlocality’ of quantum mechanics.

5. Unlike ordinary force fields such as gravity, which affects all particles within its range, the pilot wave must act only one particle: each particle has a private pilot wave all its own that “senses” the location of every other particle of the universe. Although it extends everywhere and is itself affected by every particle in the universe, the pilot wave affects no other particle bit its own.

Bohm and Hiley have coined the expression “active information” for this sort of influence and suggest that the quantum potential is a source of this kind of information.

"There are many analogies to the notion of active information in our general experience. Thus, consider a ship on automatic pilot guided by radar waves. The ship is not pushed and pulled mechanically by these waves. Rather, the form of the waves is picked up, and with the aid of the whole system, this gives a corresponding shape and form to the movement of the ship under its own power. Similarly, the form of radio waves as broadcast from a station can carry the form of music or speech. The energy of the sound that we hear comes from the relatively unformed energy in the power plug, but its form comes from the activity of the form of the radio wave; a similar process occurs with a computer which is guiding machinery. The 'information' is in the program, but its activity gives shape and form to the movement of the machinery. Likewise, in a living cell, current theories say that the form of the DNA molecule acts to give shape and form to the synthesis of proteins (by being transferred to molecules of RNA).

Our proposal is then to extend this notion of active information to matter at the quantum level. The information in the quantum level is potentially active everywhere, but actually active only where the particle is (as, for example, the radio wave is active where the receiver is). Such a notion suggests, however, that the electron may be much more complex than we thought (having a structure of a complexity that is perhaps comparable, for example, to that of a simple guidance mechanism such as an automatic pilot). This suggestion goes against the whole tradition of physics over the past few centuries which is committed to the assumption that as we analyze matter into smaller and smaller parts, their behaviour grows simpler and simpler. Yet, assumptions of this kind need not always be correct. Thus, for example, large crowds of human beings can often exhibit a much simpler behaviour than that of the individuals who make it up."

http://www.tcm.phy.cam.ac.uk/~mdt26/local_papers/bohm_hiley_kaloyerou_1986.pdf
http://www.geestkunde.net/uittreksels/db-relationmindmatter.html
http://www.mindmatter.de/resources/pdf/hileywww.pdf
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qm-bohm/

 

[apeiron]

In short, if the problem has no clear content, neither do any of the solutions to it. Chomsky’s preferred approach, it seems, is just to carry on the task of developing and evaluating theories of various aspects of the mind and integrating them as one can into the existing body of scientific knowledge, letting the chips fall where they may vis-à-vis the definition of “physical” or “material.”

I don't think Chomsky was ever so neutral. He was clear that "regular issue materialism" (that combination of atomism, mechanicalism, locality, monadism and determinism that equals standard micro-physical causal reductionism) was not up to accounting for mind. But that left him open to more radical Platonic and dualist arguments. So in fact he could be read as making a wedge argument for panpsychism.

I would also say it is wrong to argue that (micro)physics lacks a definite view of the material. It deeply believes a number of things - such as locality, monadism, determinism, atomism, etc.

This may be an adequate ontology for modelling simple things, an inadequate ontology for modelling complex ones, but it is certainly a clearly defined set of beliefs. And we can see that in Bohmian attempts to preserve locality in the face of the quantum evidence to the contrary. Or the relief when GR and virtual particles fixed the various species of "action at a distance".

My own argument is that of course microphysics can't cut it, but "macro-physics" can - the larger systems view of reality taken principally by biologists, thermodynamicists and semioticians.

Chomsky is an odd figure in all this because he is famous mainly for taking a computational view of linguistics so again repeats the reductionist error of insisting that realities are constructed from the bottom up and hence it is a "surprise" that generalised constraints can "spontaneously self-organise" from a "poverty of input", when in fact nothing could be more natural in the systems view.

Because Chomsky saw the organisation of nature as difficult to produce, he had to believe that its causes might be (near) supernatural. And hence his noises of sympathy for Platonism and dualism.

 

[bohm2]

I would also say it is wrong to argue that (micro)physics lacks a definite view of the material. It deeply believes a number of things - such as locality, monadism, determinism, atomism, etc.

My own argument is that of course microphysics can't cut it, but "macro-physics" can - the larger systems view of reality taken principally by biologists, thermodynamicists and semioticians.

I find some arguments about synergistic 2-way causation between the macroscopic and the microscopic interesting, but I doubt it will have any impact on explaining how one gets qualia from "matter"? I found this author's argument where he talks about the possibility of "real systemic or emergent properties" when discussing the results of the Bell test (Aspect) experiments pretty interesting. The argument put forward, as I understand it, is that if such microphysical systems themselves can have properties not possessed by individual parts (existence of holistic relations), so might any system composed of such parts. So you can have a type of top-down causation. Read page 133-134 of this pdf paper:

"The classical picture offered a compelling presumption in favour of the claim that causation is strictly bottom up-that the causal powers of whole systems reside entirely in the causal powers of parts. This thesis is central to most arguments for reductionism. It contends that all physically significant processes are due to causal powers of the smallest parts acting individually on one another. If this were right, then any emergent or systemic properties must either be powerless epiphenomena or else violate basic microphysical laws. But the way in which the classical picture breaks down undermines this connection and the reductionist argument that employs it. If microphysical systems can have properties not possessed by individual parts, then so might any system composed of such parts...

Were the physical world completely governed by local processes, the reductionist might well argue that each biological system is made up of the microphysical parts that interact, perhaps stochastically, but with things that exist in microscopic local regions; so the biological can only be epiphenomena of local microphysical processes occurring in tiny regions. Biology reduces to molecular biology, which reduces in turn to microphysics. But the Bell arguments completely overturn this conception."

http://faculty-staff.ou.edu/H/James.A.Hawthorne-1/Hawthorne--For_Whom_the_Bell_Arguments_Toll.pdf

 

[apeiron]

I find some arguments about synergistic 2-way causation between the macroscopic and the microscopic interesting, but I doubt it will have any impact on explaining how one gets qualia from "matter"?

The problem here is that "qualia" already presumes a materialistic, microphysical, paradigm. It treats awareness as atomistic, substantial, monadic, etc, shards of pure experience. A further kind of material stuff. Glue together enough such atoms of raw sensation and you would have "a state of conscious being".

So people who believe in the truth of the construct "qualia" are already trapped in a reductionist mindset. They are imagining consciousness as a species of material being - and having to then deal with the fact that it seems pretty immaterial!

I found this author's argument where he talks about the possibility of "real systemic or emergent properties" when discussing the results of the Bell test (Aspect) experiments pretty interesting.

That's a good reference for a systems view. It argues for holism at the fundamental level of reality.

The only caveat is that we shouldn't then think that quantum holism underpins biological holism in any direct - ie: material! - way. The form of the causality is the same, but biological systems are not constructed of quantum properties.

Clearly, quantum effects - local, substantial, material effects - are very apparent when the physical scale is either very hot or very small. But biological systems exist in an effectively classical world.

So what we would say is that a holistic causality is demanded by quantum theory. And the same kind of causality is demanded by complex classical systems too. But complexity does not depend on quantum weirdness as any sort of building material. In fact, complexity cannot exist on scales that are very hot or very small. Complexity needs the existence of definite local material (actual particles, actual gradients) so that it can organise into equally definite global forms (actual dissipative structures).

 

[bohm2]

Clearly, quantum effects - local, substantial, material effects - are very apparent when the physical scale is either very hot or very small. But biological systems exist in an effectively classical world.

I don't understand this and it doesn't make sense to me. Where is this divide between the quantum and classical world? I mean, where does one draw this "cut" between the micro-world where QM applies and the classical macro domain?

 

[apeiron]

I don't understand this and it doesn't make sense to me. Where is this divide between the quantum and classical world? I mean, where does one draw this "cut" between the micro-world where QM applies and the classical macro domain?

There is no absolute cut, just an effective one. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_decoherence

 

[bohm2]

There is no absolute cut, just an effective one. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_decoherence

That article writes:

"So decoherence does not provide a mechanism for the actual wave function collapse; rather it provides a mechanism for the appearance of wavefunction collapse. The quantum nature of the system is simply "leaked" into the environment so that a total superposition of the wavefunction still exists, but exists — at least for all practical purposes— beyond the realm of measurement."

So, I'm still lost? I'm kind of interested in Bohm's metaphysics. Assume no such thing as collapse occurs as in Bohm's model. What I don't understand is this. For argument's sake, assume Bohm's model is closer to the "truth". So if one takes his metaphysics at face level, you have a "particle-like" entity guided by a non-local wave that propagates not in ordinary space but in a multidimensional-configuration space. What happens to this non-local wave in a system composed of objects like us?

I mean one can't help but notice the analogy between quantum potential/particle vs mind/body? Is that what Bohm's metaphysics is arguing for? For instance:

1. The guiding wave has no external source
2. It's not spatially located in any sense of the word (it's non-local)
3. It contains information about the environment in which the particle finds itself, hence its possible role as an information potential.
4. The wave is not acted upon by the particles.
5. The guiding wave propagates not in ordinary space but in a multidimensional-configuration space.
6. Unlike ordinary force fields such as gravity, which affects all particles within its range, the pilot wave must act only one particle: each particle has a private pilot wave all its own that “senses” the location of every other particle of the universe. Although it extends everywhere and is itself affected by every particle in the universe, the pilot wave affects no other particle bit its own.
7. The guiding wave can't be directly measured except via it's effect on its particle

The analogy to mind/body seems evident. The mind isn't spatial in any sense of the term. It only acts on it's "own" system of particles, etc. It can't be directly measured except via it's effect on it's body, etc.

Is Bohm's metaphysics implying that a proto-mental, non-local guiding wave and associated particle can sometimes form a macroscopic mind/body entity like us? Or is this not possible because of Tegmark's argument (brain is too hot)? Would Bohm's metaphysics also be prone to Tegmark's criticism. I mean, it might exist "beyond the realm of measurement" but isn't that what the mental (e.g. phenomenal) is? I can infer the mental via behaviour but I can't directly "measure" it in any sense of the word.

 

[apeiron]

So, I'm still lost? I'm kind of interested in Bohm's metaphysics.

OK, if QM/consciousness is your real interest in this thread, then it was rather confusing that you started out with Chomsky whose concern was computationalism and functionalism.

Or is this not possible because of Tegmark's argument (brain is too hot)?

Correct. And also too large.

 

[bohm2]

OK, if QM/consciousness is your real interest in this thread, then it was rather confusing that you started out with Chomsky whose concern was computationalism and functionalism.

I quoted Chomsky because I got the impression from his writings that he thinks this explanatory gap (at present) lies within a future physics. He writes:

To learn more about mental aspects of the world-or chemical or electrical or other aspects-we should try to discover 'manifest principles' that partially explain them, though their causes remain disconnected from what we take to be the more fundamental aspects of science. The gap might have many reasons, among them, as has repeatedly been discovered, that the presumed reduction base was misconceived, including core physics." (The mysteries of Nature: How deeply hidden?)

Another possibility he writes about is our own innate cognitive limitations:

The human mind is a biologically given system with certain powers and limits...The fact that “admissible hypotheses” are available to this specific biological system accounts for its ability to construct rich and complex explanatory theories. But the same properties of mind that provide admissible hypotheses may well exclude other successful theories as unintelligible to humans. Some theories might simply not be among the admissible hypotheses determined by the specific properties of mind that adapt us “to imagining correct theories of some kinds,” though these theories might be accessible to a differently organized intelligence.

The naturalistic temper...takes for granted that humans are part of the natural world, not angels, and will therefore have capacities with specific scope and limits, determined by their special structure. For a rat, some questions are problems that it can solve, others are mysteries that lie beyond its cognitive reach; the same should be true of humans, and to first approximation, that seems a fair conclusion. What we call “natural science” is a kind of chance convergence between aspects of the world and properties of the human mind/brain, which has allowed some rays of light to penetrate the general obscurity, excluding, it seems, central domains of the “mental.”

I don't take him to being a dualist as you wrote above. I don't think he's willing to commit on such issues. Assuming that consciousness is one of those "problems we can solve" (it might not be, according to some of his writings), he seems to favour some kind of emergentism although he doesn't believe that's possible given our current "core" sciences; that is, our notions of "matter" may require revision to allow unification. But others question this view as they can't see what alteration in the notion of "matter" by a future physics/science can possibly explicate the emergence of consciousness except the panpsychist hypothesis:

http://faculty.unlv.edu/beiseckd/Courses/PHIL-352/Dave%20-%20Consciousness%20PDFs/Strawson%20-%20Realistic%20Monism%20and%20Replies/Strawson%20-%20Realistic%20Monism%20Why%20Physicalism%20Entails%20Panpsychism.pdf

http://www.scar.utoronto.ca/~seager/whitehead.htm

http://www.scar.utoronto.ca/~seager/intnat.pdf

 

[apeiron]

I quoted Chomsky because I got the impression from his writings that he thinks this explanatory gap (at present) lies within a future physics.

Ahh, I see from this recent paper that Chomsky is indeed endorsing pan-psychism these days and here is arguing that because we really do not know the truth about physical reality, then how can we be so sure that it does not have an inherently experiential aspect?

Assuming that consciousness is one of those "problems we can solve" (it might not be, according to some of his writings), he seems to favour some kind of emergentism

It seems to be a panpsychic kind, and so not really emergence at all.

The paper is devoted to arguing against a reductionist view of the world and concludes that given reductionism fails, the only option left standing is then panpsychism.

I would say he ignores the systems view of causality and so has not really made his case at all.

But anyway, his arguments are not that QM might create some kind of special material basis for mind, but in fact the opposite - that QM suggests, a la Wheeler, that reality is observer-created.

So mind comes first and conjures up its reality. This would seem at the other end of the spectrum to Bohmian mechanics.

 

[Willowz]

But anyway, his arguments are not that QM might create some kind of special material basis for mind, but in fact the opposite - that QM suggests, a la Wheeler, that reality is observer-created.

So mind comes first and conjures up its reality. This would seem at the other end of the spectrum to Bohmian mechanics.

Heh, then who or what is observing us?

 

[wuliheron]

Heh, then who or what is observing us?

There ain't nobody here but us chickens. Allan Watts expressed it as "God playing peek-a-boo", but you can think of it as everyone agreeing at least subconsciously on what reality should be like.

 

[bohm2]

Ahh, I see from this recent paper that Chomsky is indeed endorsing pan-psychism these days and here is arguing that because we really do not know the truth about physical reality, then how can we be so sure that it does not have an inherently experiential aspect?

Yes, but he falls short of endorsing Strawson’s panpsychism. About Strawson’s “micropsychism”, he writes:

This is Strawson’s No–Radical Emergence Thesis, from which he draws the panpsychic conclusion that ‘experiential reality cannot possibly emerge from wholly and utterly non-experiential reality’. The basic claim which he (Strawson) high-lights, is that ‘If it really is true that Y is emergent from X then it must be the case that Y is in some sense wholly dependent on X and X alone, so that all features of Y trace intelligibly back to X.

So here, Chomsky is pointing out Strawson’s inconceivability of “brute emergence” hypothesis. But he’s not convinced about it for he writes,

What seemed ‘brute emergence' was assimilated into science as ordinary emergence...relying on conceivability. I see no strong reason why matters should necessarily be different in the case of experiential and nonexperiential reality, particularly given our ignorance of the latter, stressed from Newton and Locke to Priestly, developed by Russell, and arising again in recent discussion...Priestly rejects the conclusion that consciousness ‘cannot be annexed to the whole brain as a system, while the individual particles of which it consists are separately unconscious'.

It seems to be a panpsychic kind, and so not really emergence at all. The paper is devoted to arguing against a reductionist view of the world and concludes that given reductionism fails, the only option left standing is then panpsychism.

No, he doesn’t seem to draw Strawson’s conclusions although he doesn’t rule it out as a possibility. He seems to make no commitment as he quotes Russell approvingly:

Experiential truths are not known to have any intrinscic character which physical events cannot have, since we do not know of any intrinsic character which could be incompatible with the logical properties that physics assigns to physical events.

But anyway, his arguments are not that QM might create some kind of special material basis for mind, but in fact the opposite - that QM suggests, a la Wheeler, that reality is observer-created.

Yes, I think so. He writes,

The physicist John Wheeler argued that the 'ultimates' may be just 'bits of information', responses to queries posed by the investigator. The actual events of quantum theory are experienced increments in knowledge.

So mind comes first and conjures up its reality. This would seem at the other end of the spectrum to Bohmian mechanics.

Yes. I think he recognizes the difficulty of unifying consciousness/the mental with present physics but thinks that as physics/science progresses it will all make sense(assuming it lies within our intelectual ability). As I read Chomsky I don’t think his position on this issue has changed all that much from the 1960s. In a 1968 article he writes:

There is one final issue that deserves a word of comment. I have been using mentalistic terminology quite freely, but entirely without prejudice as to the question of what may be the physical realisation of the abstract mechanisms postulated to account for the phenomena of behaviour or the acquisition of knowledge. We are not constrained, as was Descartes, to postulate a second substance when we deal with phenomena that are not expressible in terms of matter in motion, in his sense. Nor is there much point in pursuing the question of psychophysical parallelism, in this connection. It is an interesting question whether the functioning and evolution of human mentality can be accommodated within the framework of physical explanation, as presently conceived, or whether there are new principles, now unknown, that must be invoked, perhaps principles that emerge only at higher levels of organisation than can now be submitted to physical investigation. We can, however, be fairly sure that there will be a physical explanation for the phenomena in question, if they can be explained at all, for an uninteresting terminological reason, namely that the concept of “physical explanation” will no doubt be extended to incorporate whatever is discovered in this domain, exactly as it was extended to accommodate gravitational and electromagnetic force, massless particles, and numerous other entities and processes that would have offended the common sense of earlier generations. But it seems clear that this issue need not delay the study of the topics that are now open to investigation, and it seems futile to speculate about matters so remote from present understanding. (Langauge and mind, 1968)

 

[apeiron]

No, he doesn’t seem to draw Strawson’s conclusions although he doesn’t rule it out as a possibility. He seems to make no commitment as he quotes Russell approvingly:

What he makes is a commitment to is the general case that we don't know the material basis of reality well enough to rule out such stories as panpsychism. He doesn't then say what he actually believes to be a more likely story, but he has argued opaquely for Platonic type scenarios often enough in the past.

Chomsky is an interesting character because he always seems to introduce unnecessary difficulties into the subject of language and mind. He seems to find it impossible to imagine a natural evolutionary story for the emergence of words and rules, semantics and syntax. So he jests about a language faculty arising via a blast of cosmic rays that mutated some apeman brain in a way that just happened to be in the shape of the Platonically perfect Universal Grammar.

So what is the question here?

I think most would agree that we don't know material reality well enough to rule out anything "experiential" at the microphysical level. But on the other hand, we know enough to constrain our speculations very strongly. So for example, QM explanations get ruled out by thermal jostle at a scale far below the apparently relevant neural processes.

And then we do also know that holism, emergence and systems causality argue that reality is as much founded on the macro-physical - on hierarchy, cohesion, dissipation, downward causation and semiosis. So the "special sauce" that makes reality experiential could come from the other direction - from the top-down. Or more accurately, from the synergistic interaction between upward atomistic construction and downwards contextual constraint.

As I say, Chomsky does not address the standard systems science analysis in any depth, although sometimes his Platonism sounds a little conducive to it. But he seems such a contrarian, I suspect he would not actually like to agree clearly with anyone.

 

[wuliheron]

But he seems such a contrarian, I suspect he would not actually like to agree clearly with anyone.

LOL, the kind of person who would argue with themselves if were possible.

 

[bohm2]

Assuming micropsychism is not the answer, it is interesting reading some suggestions discussing what is required for unification to occur. Leaving aside the issue of whether "before the big bang" makes sense, consider McGinn's argument:

"We might be reminded at this point of the big bang. That notable occurrence can be regarded as presenting an inverse space problem. For, on received views, it was at the moment of the big bang that space itself came into existence, there being nothing spatial antecedently to that. But how does space come from non-space? What kind of 'explosion' could create space ab initio? And this problem offers an even closer structural parallel to the consciousness problem if we assume, as I would argue is plausible, that the big bang was not the beginning (temporally or explanatorily) of all existence. Some prior independent state of things must have led to that early cataclysm, and this sequence of events itself must have some intelligible explanation - just as there must be an explanation for the sequence that led from matter-in-space to consciousness.

The brain puts into reverse, as it were, what the big bang initiated: it erases spatial dimensions rather than creating them. It undoes the work of creating space, swallowing down matter and spitting out consciousness. So, taking the very long view, the universe has gone through phases of space generation and (local) space annihilation; or at least, with respect to the latter, there have been operations on space that have generated a non-spatial being. This suggests the following heady speculation: that the origin of consciousness somehow draws upon those properties of the universe that antedate and explain the occurrence of the big bang. If we need a pre-spatial level of reality in order to account for the big bang, then it may be this very level that is exploited in the generation of consciousness. That is, assuming that remnants of the pre-big bang universe have persisted, it may be that these features of the universe are somehow involved in engineering the non-spatial phenomenon of consciousness. If so, consciousness turns out to be older than matter in space, at least as to its raw materials."

http://www.nyu.edu/gsas/dept/philo/courses/consciousness97/papers/ConsciousnessSpace.html

 

[Maui]

I think most would agree that we don't know material reality well enough to rule out anything "experiential" at the microphysical level.

I would add that what matter is is very hard to define at the microphysical level. So while it's somewhat plausible to imagine consciousness arising out of matter(whatever matter is) in some extreme situation similar to emergence in a given level of complexity, imo its inconceivable to think of consciousness as being present in an ellusive, continuous, wave-like "substance". How would that work? We might as well abolish attempts to establish a physical basis to mental experience.

But on the other hand, we know enough to constrain our speculations very strongly. So for example, QM explanations get ruled out by thermal jostle at a scale far below the apparently relevant neural processes.

it's quantumness that jostles, it's quantumness that's supposed to bring forth the emergence of consciouness, it's quantumness that is everything in existence in reality.
I don't think any scientist these days takes seriously the outdated idea of absolute space, absolute time or solid matter.

 

[apeiron]

Assuming micropsychism is not the answer, it is interesting reading some suggestions discussing what is required for unification to occur. Leaving aside the issue of whether "before the big bang" makes sense, consider McGinn's argument:

What's this? A competition to find the nuttiest professor?

McGinn's argument depends on you buying consciousness to be res cogitans, non-extensive, to even get started.

Simple neuroscience tells you it is a spatial thing. Poke the brain in different places and you get different disturbances of the mind (in ways now easily understood in terms of the brain's architecture).

And even arguing from "what consciousness feels like", it is quite inaccurate to say it feels non-spatial. My consciousness at least is full of spatial awareness.

My consciousness also feels highly located - but that is not non-spatial, just highly located. It exists at a certain point of space and time, and not at any other, where I can imagine it might have been located.

Of course, consciousness is really about being oriented in a world of meaning. The spatiotemporal structure of our perceived world is just a part of that meaningfulness. There is more to awareness than what you can measure with a ruler or clock.

Our notion of physical spacetime is created precisely by removing all these other usual dimensions of meaning from what exists to leave only a bare backdrop. We learn to imagine a world which is a void without entities, properties or causes (because that can be a useful modelling construct). Yet physics also knows that this is a fiction. You cannot have a space without a temperature.

And for this reason, the most universal measure of reality is probably entropy, rather than distance or duration. It is certainly a better measure of the presence of material complexity - as in a structure like a conscious brain.

So the old Cartesean divide describes neither the phenomenology, nor the neuroscience, nor even the current physics. And McGinn has no basis on which to get his argument started.

 

[bohm2]

McGinn's argument depends on you buying consciousness to be res cogitans, non-extensive, to even get started.

Simple neuroscience tells you it is a spatial thing. Poke the brain in different places and you get different disturbances of the mind (in ways now easily understood in terms of the brain's architecture).

There's a difference between identifying the neural correlates of consciousness which are spatial and part of the Easy Problem versus explaining how these events actually cause consciousness in the sense of inner experience--the Hard Problem, as you mention. If this inner experience is spatial, where is it? Personally, I think Russell and Eddington had it right with respect to our ignorance of the categorical or intrinsic properties of matter. Russell wrote:

Physics is mathematical, not because we know so much about the 'physical world’—and here he means the non-mental, non-experiential world—but because we know so little: it is only its mathematical properties that we can discover. For the rest, our knowledge is negative...The physical world is only known as regards certain abstract features of its space-time structure — features which, because of their abstractness, do not suffice to show whether the physical world is, or is not, different in intrinsic character from the world of mind.

Eddington argues similarly:

Our knowledge of the nature of the objects treated in physics consists solely of readings of pointers (on instrument dials) and other indicators.’ This being so, he asks, ‘what knowledge have we of the nature of atoms that renders it at all incongruous that they should constitute a thinking object?’ Absolutely none, he rightly replies: ‘science has nothing to say as to the intrinsic nature of the atom’. The atom, so far as physics tells us anything about it, is, like everything else in physics, a schedule of pointer readings (on instrument dials). The schedule is, we agree, attached to some unknown background. Why not then attach it to something of a spiritual (i.e.mental) nature of which a prominent characteristic is thought (=experience, consciousness). It seems rather silly to prefer to attach it to something of a so-called ‘concrete’ nature inconsistent with thought, and then to wonder where the thought comes from. We have dismissed all preconception as to the background of our pointer readings, and for the most part can discover nothing as to its nature.

But in one case—namely, for the pointer readings of my own brain—I have an insight which is not limited to the evidence of the pointer readings. That insight shows that they are attached to a background of consciousness in which case I may expect that the background of other pointer readings in physics is of a nature continuous with that revealed to me in this way, even while I do not suppose that it always has the more specialized attributes of consciousness. What is certain is that in regard to my one piece of insight into the background no problem of irreconcilability arises; I have no other knowledge of the background with which to reconcile it...There is nothing to prevent the assemblage of atoms constituting a brain from being of itself a thinking (conscious, experiencing) object in virtue of that nature which physics leaves undetermined and undeterminable. If we must embed our schedule of indicator readings in some kind of background, at least let us accept the only hint we have received as to the significance of the background—namely, that it has a nature capable of manifesting itself as mental activity.

Maybe the problem of consciousness has its source as some special feature of consciousness, itself. By having this special access (inner experience) to it that we have to nothing else (and nothing else to us), this may not allow us to see the connection? I'm not sure?

http://faculty.unlv.edu/beiseckd/Courses/PHIL-352/Dave%20-%20Consciousness%20PDFs/Strawson%20-%20Realistic%20Monism%20and%20Replies/Strawson%20-%20Realistic%20Monism%20Why%20Physicalism%20Entails%20Panpsychism.pdf

 

[apeiron]

There's a difference between identifying the neural correlates of consciousness which are spatial and part of the Easy Problem versus explaining how these events actually cause consciousness in the sense of inner experience--the Hard Problem, as you mention. If this inner experience is spatial, where is it?

But this is a simple demonstration of how the easy stuff is connected to the hard stuff in a way that constrains McGinn's scope for speculation. He claims awareness is non-spatial. Yet neuroscience shows that it is causally connected to something with spatial extension. Prod the brain and you get a predictable disturbance explainable in terms of known brain architecture.

So people can keep saying there is still a hard problem concerning the nature of this causal connection. Brain architecture does not seem sufficient to them as an explanation, or even the beginnings of an explanation. But that is usually because they don't actually have much knowledge of brain architecture.

So consciousness can quite easily be linked to a material structure in causal fashion - res extensa.

And then I said that even subjectively, the prime qualitative feature of awareness is that it feels highly located.

Of course, there are times when people can lose a sense of embeddedness, of body image, of personalisation, of orientation. But these too are accountable in terms of brain architecture.

So in what way is mind non-spatial? Yes, it is highly characterised by knowing all the places we are not, but a strong locatedness in terms of current spatial relations is a major part of our general locatedness in a subjective realm of meaningful experience.

 

[Maui]

Whether mind is spatial or non-spatial is a difficult question that rests on a few assumptions. As my mind is all that i know for sure to exist with high degree of certainty, it's the only world i can know to exist. If mind is emergent and reality is in no way observer-dependent and is absolute in the sense required for materialsm to be valid(local realistic and sitting in absolute spacetime), then we can maintain that consciousness is spatial and spatially constrained. But if the existence of mental events are in some way fundamental, the spatial requirement for mind will have to be dropped.

Nevertheless, it seems to me physics findings call for a revision of the assumptions and preconceptions. We are in the unenviable postion of knowing little about matter and even less about consciousness in the 21th century. Whether this is a coincidence is a matter of personal interpretation.

Brain architecture does not seem sufficient to them as an explanation, or even the beginnings of an explanation. But that is usually because they don't actually have much knowledge of brain architecture.

I think people are taking a wider picture of the problem(and justly so). That surely includes understanding the controversies surrounding causality, determinism, materialism, realism, freewill, time, etc. It's highly unlikely a solution to the problem of reality and the hard problem of consciousness will be found in the confines of just biology and/or physics.

 

[apeiron]

If mind is emergent and reality is in no way observer-dependent and is absolute in the sense required for materialsm to be valid(local realistic and sitting in absolute spacetime), then we can maintain that consciousness is spatial and spatially constrained. But if the existence of mental events are in some way fundamental, the spatial requirement for mind will have to be dropped.

You are talking about one version of materialism - a heavily reductionist one. And therefore your idea of consciousness likewise is trapped by the same logic.

A systems approach to material reality invokes top-down causation - the global constraints that shape local events - without requiring that this "observation" be "conscious".

So your dilemma does not arise in fully emergent models of causality.

I think people are taking a wider picture of the problem(and justly so). That surely includes understanding the controversies surrounding causality, determinism, materialism, realism, freewill, time, etc. It's highly unlikely a solution to the problem of reality and the hard problem of consciousness will be found in the confines of just biology and/or physics.

The most sophisticated thinking on systems causality is to be found now within theoretical biology. And that is no surprise as biology has had to deal with the similar cultural belief that "life" was some inexplicable and immaterial presence inhabiting matter. Once you understand the cohesive complexity of a living system, then this "soul stuff" approach seems frankly ridiculous.

And likewise the hard problem always sounds more a religious debate than a scientific one to me.

If you can talk about how the thalamus, caudate nucleus and orbitofrontal cortex are connected as a system, and why that is insufficient to account for the qualitative aspects of compulsive behaviour, well then you are at least dealing with what we do know about the brain/mind.

You can't just stand outside the science and prove it wanting.

 

[Maui]

If you can talk about how the thalamus, caudate nucleus and orbitofrontal cortex are connected as a system, and why that is insufficient to account for the qualitative aspects of compulsive behaviour, well then you are at least dealing with what we do know about the brain/mind.

I am sure it is so about the compulsive behavior. I never had doubts that determinism and causality play an important role in reality and human behavior. However, I do have trouble believing that all of human behavior and self-awareness can and will ever be attributed to causal relations. There is nothing compulsive about the thalamus, caudate nucleus and orbitofrontal cortex that required that you perceive, contemplate, understand and relay your acquired knowledge and deep insights to other perceiving systems in this particular thread.

You can't just stand outside the science and prove it wanting.

I don't. I try to keep up(this is of high interest to me). Yet, as time goes by, we seem to fall deeper and deeper into the trap of ignorance on these issues.

 

[apeiron]

I am sure it is so about the compulsive behavior. I never had doubts that determinism and causality play an important role in reality and human behavior. However, I do have trouble believing that all of human behavior and self-awareness can and will ever be attributed to causal relations. There is nothing compulsive about the thalamus, caudate nucleus and orbitofrontal cortex that required that you perceive, contemplate, understand and relay your acquired knowledge and deep insights to other systems in this particular thread.

But what is the basis of this doubt? How can all the known facts of biology, neuroscience and social science be dismissed as entirely inadequate, not even touching the sides of the hard problem, without an examination of those facts?

You talk as if a glass that is not yet completely full is therefore "completely empty".

Now I happily accept that there is likely to be always some final residue that feels impossible to explain (lacking an adequate model) when it comes to the mind. So for example, the redness of red. We can know all the facts of visual processing but in the end, why red is experience as that hue and not some other hue (gred, rud, etc) becomes inexplicable.

But this is due to a lack of counterfactuals. And that is a problem for any theory. It is a limit on explanations of material reality also - existence itself becomes an irreducible fact because no "other" can be imagined. Facts need other facts to relate to. There must be an explanatory context to have some sense of why (and why not).

So the hard problem only has bite if you can argue a very large part, or some completely critical part, is not explained by known facts, existing theory.

When people say a large part is still missing - the glass is almost completely empty - well that usually means they personally have not filled their glass with the available knowledge. They are misrepresenting how much is actually known by those who study these things.

And if they say a large amount is known, but a critical part is missing, then that is where they need to provide the specifics. What exactly is missing? More than would be missing in any theory once you zoom down to the level where there are no longer any counterfactuals?

Yes, there is clearly something missing in reductionist models of causality because it seems to be a fact of consciousness that it is in control of the body. But reductionism does not believe in downward causation. It provides no model of formal and final cause, just material and efficient cause. That was exactly how Bacon defined it, and how it has been applied.

But what does that mean apart from that we need to consider expanded models of causality again? Models that fix that critical part.

Which is what they do in theoretical biology, and have started to do in neuroscience (though neuroscience, being a branch of medicine for so long, is still very attached to reductionist, and therefore computationalist, causal models).

 

[bohm2]

But what is the basis of this doubt? How can all the known facts of biology, neuroscience and social science be dismissed as entirely inadequate, not even touching the sides of the hard problem, without an examination of those facts?

Those facts are mostly descriptive. There's nothing there that one can call deep understanding or scientific explanation as in physics. Also, there's no hint of how one can get subjectivity out a complex network of neural connections, etc. The gap between mind and matter seems immense. They just don't seem to mesh. Consciousness seems to “provide us with a kind of ‘window’ on to our brain, making possible a transparent grasp of a tiny corner of a materiality that is in general opaque to us" but we haven't the slightest clue of how to mesh it together with what we presently call "matter". I found this Lockwood passage interesting:

Do we therefore have no genuine knowledge of the intrinsic character of the physical world? So it might seem. But, according to the line of thought I am now pursuing, we do, in a very limited way, have access to content in the material world as opposed merely to abstract casual structure, since there is a corner of the physical world that we know, not merely by inference from the deliverances of our five sense, but because we are that corner. It is the bit within our skulls, which we know by introspection. In being aware, for example, of the qualia that seemed so troublesome for the materialist, we glimpse the intrinsic nature of what, concretely, realizes the formal structure that a correct physics would attribute to the matter of our brains. In awareness, we are, so to speak, getting an insider's look at our own brain activity.


http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/neutral-monism/#7.2

 

[apeiron]

Those facts are mostly descriptive. There's nothing there that one can call deep understanding or scientific explanation as in physics.

Sure, it is easy to claim this. But now let's see you demonstrate it.

So for example, what about this mainstream hypothesis is just descriptive and not a deep explanation founded on physical (and systems) principles?

http://www.fil.ion.ucl.ac.uk/~karl/The free-energy principle A unified brain theory.pdf

I found this Lockwood passage interesting:

But Lockwood - a quantum mysterian - goes wrong straight away in presuming introspective awareness to be an automatic part the basic natural process. And we know from science that human introspection is a socially constructed, language based, habit of thought.

So this passage makes no sense from a scientific perspective. There is no direct awareness of awareness, only a mediated awareness of awareness.

 

[Maui]

But what is the basis of this doubt? How can all the known facts of biology, neuroscience and social science be dismissed as entirely inadequate, not even touching the sides of the hard problem, without an examination of those facts?

What facts in particular are you referring to here? There are no facts AFAIK explaining conscious behavior like choice, intelligence, thought, reason, meaning and all that subjective mental part of life.

You talk as if a glass that is not yet completely full is therefore "completely empty".

I think you are getting a bit dellusional about progress on consciousness. There is absolutely ZERO progress on self-awareness and i really mean 0. And of course, you know this quite well! The claim you made earlier that introspection(self-awareness) is a kind of habit is rediculous.

Now I happily accept that there is likely to be always some final residue that feels impossible to explain (lacking an adequate model) when it comes to the mind. So for example, the redness of red. We can know all the facts of visual processing but in the end, why red is experience as that hue and not some other hue (gred, rud, etc) becomes inexplicable.

Deterministic, causal scientific explanations are ridden with paradoxes. There is hardly anything to be known from science as it concerns the philosophical questions.

But this is due to a lack of counterfactuals. And that is a problem for any theory. It is a limit on explanations of material reality also - existence itself becomes an irreducible fact because no "other" can be imagined. Facts need other facts to relate to. There must be an explanatory context to have some sense of why (and why not).

Yes, i agree with your frequent reference to dichotomies. This has to be a fundamental trait of the architecture of the brain.

So the hard problem only has bite if you can argue a very large part, or some completely critical part, is not explained by known facts, existing theory.

When people say a large part is still missing - the glass is almost completely empty - well that usually means they personally have not filled their glass with the available knowledge. They are misrepresenting how much is actually known by those who study these things.

So what is self aware? You are touching on a rather profound issue, namely that of existence with a very primitive instrumenarium and the wrong attitude. You are misrepresenting how much is actually known by those who study these things.

And if they say a large amount is known, but a critical part is missing, then that is where they need to provide the specifics. What exactly is missing? More than would be missing in any theory once you zoom down to the level where there are no longer any counterfactuals?

Yes, there is clearly something missing in reductionist models of causality because it seems to be a fact of consciousness that it is in control of the body. But reductionism does not believe in downward causation. It provides no model of formal and final cause, just material and efficient cause. That was exactly how Bacon defined it, and how it has been applied.

But what does that mean apart from that we need to consider expanded models of causality again? Models that fix that critical part.

Which is what they do in theoretical biology, and have started to do in neuroscience (though neuroscience, being a branch of medicine for so long, is still very attached to reductionist, and therefore computationalist, causal models).

This is a wonderful narrative, but it appears you have been trying to kill an influenza virus with an ever more elaborate knife. You are almost there, but not just yet.

 

[apeiron]

There is absolutely ZERO progress on self-awareness and i really mean 0.

You claim this on what authority? Are you qualified to make such sweeping statements?

You are misrepresenting how much is actually known by those who study these things.

Who are these people you are thinking of? Please name a few.

And are you making the ad hominen that I have not studied these things?

 

[PhizzicsPhan]

Apeiron, I'd love to dive into this pool more deeply but alas don't have time. I'll simply note, going back to our in-depth conversation a few months ago, that a systems theory cannot in principle explain consciousness at all if its constituents are wholly lacking in consciousness. That is, if your systems theory is a system of physical things without an iota of consciousness, it is no explanation at all to suggest that the RIGHT kind of system produces consciousness. That's sheer magic, as Sewall Wright observed in 1977. Panpsychism is not incompatible with a systems theory - it seems that any theory that tries to explain complex phenomena is deserving of the name systems theory - but a systems theory that hopes to explain consciousness must explain how mind relates to non-mind. And unless you are fine positing the miracle of emergence from your preferred systems you haven't really explained anything.

 

[Maui]

You claim this on what authority? Are you qualified to make such sweeping statements?

Appeals to authority are a known fallacy. I have yet to see a model of what consciousness might be, proposed by neuroscientists that is not based on inferences from mentally ill people with severe disorders. Those "models" say nothing why a certain neural circuitry works to produce deep self-analysis/analysis of the world or why it's able to mentally penetrate the big secrets of this vast universe. Thoese model say nothing on how the self comes about, except that the self might be a particular happenstance, based on how schizophrenics behave.
Your over-confidence appears to blind you to the fact that what neuroscience does, like with all other sciences, is opeing new Pandora's boxes. While those models might have a good number of practical applications in medicine, they are just models, and like everything we have seen so far, they will remain such. I don't see the explanation gap as narrowing, many more questions are arising with every new discovery and the good questions are pushed futher away from our reach.

And are you making the ad hominen that I have not studied these things?

On the contrary, it's obvious you have studied/read a lot on this topic. We disagree on the global conclusions you are drawing.

 

[MarcoD]

I agree with Maui. The fact that we know 'more' of the physical world has largely no effect on fundamental philosophical discussions. There has been no progress.

For example, the medieval question whether God build the world as a clockwork, and has abandoned us, and whether that clockwork is deterministic, and whether we have free will is essentially the same discussion as to whether QM allows for free will.

Nothing changed, except for that we know a 'little bit more' and don't go for mystic explanations, and prefer to leave religion out of it. Some people will argue that the latter is even a step back, instead of a step forward.

 

[bohm2]

The "ignorance" hypothesis above though argues that we are in fact, so ignorant of the nature of the the "physical" that we have no basis to formulate the mind-body problem. So this is considered progress, in some sense. As Strawson puts it:

It may be added, with Russell and others, that although physics appears to tell us a great deal about certain of the general structural or mathematical characteristics of the physical, it fails to give us any real insight into the nature of whatever it is that has these characteristics-apart from making it plain that it is utterly bizarre relative to our ordinary conception of it. It is unclear exactly what this last remark amounts to (is it being suggested that physics is failing to do something it could do?) But it already amounts to something very important when it comes to what is known as the "mind-body problem." For many take this to be the problem of how mental phenomena can be physical phenomena given what we already know about the nature of the physical. And this is the great mistake of our time. The truth is that we have no good reason to think that we know anything about the physical that gives us any reason to find any problem in the idea that mental or experiential phenomena are physical phenomena. ...

How can consciousness be physical, given what we know about what matter is like?" If one thinks this then one is, in Russell's words, "guilty, unconsciously and in spite of explicit disavowals, of a confusion in one's imaginative picture of matter". One thinks one knows more about the nature of matter-of the non-experiential-than one does. This is the fundamental error.


http://cognet.mit.edu/posters/TUCSON3/Strawson.html

 

[Q_Goest]

What do we mean when we say something is physical?

1) We conceive of physical things as having mass, velocity, momentum, energy, and forces between them that cause one physical thing to act or react in some way relative to another physical thing. So physical generally indicates something that is objectively measurable or causes something to occur that is measurable. And we know in principal at least how the matter out of which our brains are made, interacts. We may not have a complete description of all the ways molecules interact (such as a complete description of how all proteins fold for instance) but we understand that any complete description will simply tell us more about those objectively measurable interactions.

2) Generally we would say that mental properties and events are supervenient on the physical so from that aspect, mental properties and events such as qualia are physical. We might liken mental properties to a higher level physical description just as weather patterns or some other higher level description can also be described by observing the lower level interactions. The lower level interactions are closer to the ultimate cause of what occurs and we call this reductionism. That’s why we test individual neurons the way we do for example.

3) Unfortunately, mental properties and events such as qualia are not objectively measurable and generally aren’t believed to “cause” anything objectively measurable. Rather, physical interactions at the molecular level and neuronal level are believed to be the cause of all physical interactions in the brain. We understand the basics of molecular interactions and we believe these phenomena are sufficient to describe everything that occurs within a conscious brain. Thus, we often conclude that mental phenomena are caused by the supervenient physical base but that these phenomena are epiphenomenal on the physical.

There are numerous logical dilemmas that arise when we try to explain what consciousness is and what physical things are. Perhaps part of the problem is in how we define what is physical. If a phenomena is not described by describing the physical basis on which the phenomena supervenes and further, that phenomena is not objectively measurable, I would humbly submit that we have a very serious problem with our concept of the physical.

To give an example of what the problem with our concept of physical seems to be, let’s say we have a phenomena that occurs such as weather. We can define weather in all sorts of ways by measuring the objectively measurable phenomena such as barometric pressure, frontal boundaries, temperature, wind velocities, etc… These are all measurable phenomena that are supervenient on the underlying air and water molecules and the various other bits of ‘stuff’ in the air such as aerosols, pollen, dust and so on, and also the various fields that stuff is subjected to such as gravity and the EM spectrum that warms and cools the air. But if we suggested there was some other phenomena created within the weather system that wasn’t objectively measurable, something let’s call the gookiness, we might ask why we should even concern ourselves with any such property. And the answer would be that the weather was having this subjective experience, and that it was telling us about this experience through the wind and rain, the hot and cold, etc… Just because we don’t speak the language that the weather does, shouldn’t automatically exclude it from having a subjective experience, should it?

I think we use the term physical as if everyone knows what we’re talking about. If we accept that subjective phenomena are physical because they supervene on physical things, that shouldn’t raise any issues. But if we mean that physical things are those things that are objectively measurable then we seem to have a problem already. I think that’s where you’re getting to regarding the “http://sussex.academia.edu/TomMcCle...sis_A_Hybrid_Account_of_Phenomenal_Qualities"”, that this new physical description of nature must somehow describe the properties of our mental experiences. I’ve heard that suggested before but don’t see any way that could be done given how much we know about physical interactions today. Seems to me we’ve already painted ourselves into the proverbial corner by the way we’ve conceived of what is physical.