Causally Closed Physics & Rosenberg's Argument for Dualism

[selfAdjoint]

It's not trivial at all, and it's not obvious that neural firings connect to a wider world. If your subjective experience of the moon is caused by neurons firing, and not by the moon itself, except indirectly, what reason do you have to believe the moon might not be an illusion? What is preventing your neurons from firing in the absence of a real moon?

I'm not saying the moon is an illusion, I'm convinced it is not, but I'm saying you have to explain consciousness in a way that makes it impossible for the moon to be an illusion. Saying "it's all neurons firing" doesn't seem to qualify, as exemplified by those brain-in-a-vat ideas so popular these days.

But what about all the experiments that connect brain states to events outside? They have even produced what a monkey sees on a computer monitor, by tapping into his visual neurons, and then to prove it was real they fed what they saw back into his neurons and the monkey was able to use that factored stimulus to guide his hand to a target.

Of course you could say that it's all just a dream and that's part of it, but once you accept that there is an outside world and that there are other people with minds in it, then you no longer have the freedom that Hume had, to imagine no link from the inside to the outside.

 

[Canute]

Pensador

You make some good points imo. However, I'm not sure the argument that - if consciousness is neurons firing then the moon might be an illusion - really works. This is not because what you said is wrong, in fact it seems to be right as far as it goes. But couldn't the moon be an illusion even if our experience of it is not caused by neurons firing? If so then it's possible illusoriness doesn't seem to be an argument for either side.

And if we persistently fail to find anything suitably physical to plug the gaps with we should just live with them, and not plug them with consciousness...even if that would help us understand consciousness.

I think Pensador's point was that we must make up our minds. If the currently most orthodox scientific model is correct then consciousness is not a scientific topic. But if consciousness is a scientific topic then the scientific model is not correct. To attempt to study something scientifically which is defined by science as non-causal but physically caused, non-physical but existent, not observable nor measurable except second-hand and on hearsay, not deducable or inferable from studying the brain yet epiphenomenal on it, not in any way the cause of our behaviour yet inferable from our behaviour, and so on, is absurd. To say that consciousness is not a scientific topic is fair enough, (and I'd agree), but to define it such a way that science cannot study it and then to argue that science can explain it is a very odd thing to do, and this is what is being done all the time.

Peansador argues that science cannot find consciousness because science, by its very definition and methodology, studies only what consciousness is not. Until this assertion can be shown to be false then consciousness remains beyond science, and unless it can be shown false then consciousness will be permanently beyond science. Sir Arthur Eddington, I think it was, who wrote "There is no phenomenal way out of the phenomenal world". This seems precisely equivalent to Pensador's point.

Descartes reached the same conclusion. "I could suppose that I had no body and that there was no world or place where I was, but I could not by the same token suppose that I did not exist . . . From this I knew that I was a substance the essence or nature of which simply was to think; and which, to exist, needs no place and has no dependence on any material thing. Consequently, I, that is to say my mind --- what makes me what I am --- am entirely distinct from the body; and, furthermore, the former is more easily known than the latter, while if the latter did not exist the former could be all that it is." (Rene Descartes - Discourse on the Method IV)

This may be an epistemilogical point only, I don't know Descartes well, and I wish he'd said "simply to be" instead of using "think" but as long as we do not know whether it is false it may as well be an ontological point also. If so then it is true to say that science cannot study consciousness.

I also agree with Pensador that QM makes no sense without an extra ingredient in the mix. At present we have to agree with Feynman, who started one of his famous lectures by saying "…as I explained in the first lecture, the way we have to describe Nature is generally incomprehensible to us."

Actually, you have quite a lot of insight into what your brain is doing (or it has insight inot itself) -- it's just that you don't have it in the format of nerual firings.

It is perfectly possible to be conscious and have no idea that one even has a brain. We have no insight whatsoever into what our brains are doing. In fact there is no scientific evidence that insight exists. We have some second-hand reports from neuroscientists and that is all. It might be argued that as brain causes consciousness we have some 'insight' into brains, but that's playing with words. In any case, perhaps consiousness is caused by brain and perhaps it isn't, or perhaps it not quite so simple as saying that it is or it isn't. The scientific evidence leaves the question open since, to parody the situation a little, according to science consciousness is a verbal report and not a scientific entity.

Well *you* can't because you refuse to contemplate any realtionship between consciousness and the physical, but there must be some sort of relationship. Others are not going to be convinced by your lack of enthusiasm for the issue.

I think you may have misunderstood Pensador's point, which seemed a quite thought-provoking one to me.

 

[hypnagogue]

If your subjective experience of the moon is caused by neurons firing, and not by the moon itself, except indirectly, what reason do you have to believe the moon might not be an illusion?

Our best science and philosophy certainly leads us to believe that our subjective experiences are directly related to neural firings in the brain and not events in the external world. Your proposal to the contrary here seems like an appeal to naive realism.

As to the question of illusions, what exactly do you mean by illusion? We can certainly intersubjectively agree that the moon is in the sky, if we simply both observe the night sky and compare our observations. And at bottom, there is not much more to the notion of objectivity than such intersubjective agreement.

What is preventing your neurons from firing in the absence of a real moon?

Nothing, of course. The proper stimulation of my brain, I believe, indeed very well could induce a subjective experience as of the moon hovering in the night sky (although it would need to be a quite sophisticated stimulation, well beyond our current means of inducing activity at the neural level directly). It's unlikely, but yes, perhaps such a pattern of activation in my brain might occur spontaneously. But it's extremely unlikely that the same thing would happen to another observor close by to me at the exact same time. So verification via intersubjective agreement seems to undercut your worries about radical skepticism here.

 

[hypnagogue]

It is perfectly possible to be conscious and have no idea that one even has a brain. We have no insight whatsoever into what our brains are doing.

I think you overstate the case here. Tournesol claimed, "Actually, you have quite a lot of insight into what your brain is doing (or it has insight inot itself) -- it's just that you don't have it in the format of nerual firings." Obviously, as I sit here and write this, I do not know what is going on in my brain in the sense that I could sketch out what an fMRI of it would look like, or in the sense that I know certain neural assemblies are firing and others are being suppressed, etc.

But in an indirect sense, I know a lot about what is going on in my brain. In particular, there is good reason to believe that every aspect of my phenomenal experience is systematically covarying with certain features of my brain activity. To the extent that I know anything about my phenomenal experience, and to the extent that my experience is isomorphic to some features of my brain activity, I do indeed know quite a bit about at least some parts of my brain. What is at issue, I think, is not that this link exists, but the nature of the link and the intimacy or 'directness' between experience and brain activity that it implies: e.g., whether it's closer to an identity relation (eg, the brain 'is' the p-consciousness in some sense), or two completely ontologically distinct systems that are just correlated by some unknown mechanism, etc.

 

[Pensador]

You make some good points imo. However, I'm not sure the argument that - if consciousness is neurons firing then the moon might be an illusion - really works. This is not because what you said is wrong, in fact it seems to be right as far as it goes. But couldn't the moon be an illusion even if our experience of it is not caused by neurons firing? If so then it's possible illusoriness doesn't seem to be an argument for either side.

From a purely logical perspective, I think you are right. I don't think anyone has conclusively shown that solipsism is false, which is not the same thing as saying it is true.

I think my arguments on this thread have been misunderstood by some people. I have not made any claims for solipsism or naive realism or any position on metaphysics. I started out by saying we don't have to postulate the existence of consciousness in the physical world of atomic particles, as that would violate the spirit of physics and turn it into a mishmash of mystic ideas.

I didn't foresee that the discussion would turn to neurons in the brain, because I don't see that as relevant to physics. Everything that happens in the brain can be explained either in terms of known forces or in terms of random behavior. What lies behind randomness can certainly be interesting, but it's definitely not science.

Pensador argues that science cannot find consciousness because science, by its very definition and methodology, studies only what consciousness is not.

That is exactly my argument. The laws of physics are already full of consciousness - the consciousness of the people who create and understand them. But to postulate the existence of consciousness as implied by the laws themselves seems silly to me, not unlike postulating that the characters in a story have a mind of their own, when the truth is that the only minds in a story are the minds of the writer and the readers.

What is physics anyway, other than the story of the physical world, in which the characters are given life by the ideas of the writers and readers?

 

[hypnagogue]

That is exactly my argument. The laws of physics are already full of consciousness - the consciousness of the people who create and understand them.

There is a finer grain to the problem of consciousness that you seem to overlook. If the laws of physics have the fingerprints of human consciousness on them, then it's only the fingerprints of access consciousness. There is no in principle reason that a physicalist account cannot give us a complete account of access consciousness-- hence, no need to propose a 'mishmash of mystic ideas,' as you say, in order for the theory to subserve the theory makers (at least, to give a complete account of how the theory makers come to make their theories through the faculties of access consciousness). So there does not appear to be a deep problem here along the lines of what you are proposing.

 

[Canute]

I think you overstate the case here. Tournesol claimed, "Actually, you have quite a lot of insight into what your brain is doing (or it has insight inot itself) -- it's just that you don't have it in the format of nerual firings." Obviously, as I sit here and write this, I do not know what is going on in my brain in the sense that I could sketch out what an fMRI of it would look like, or in the sense that I know certain neural assemblies are firing and others are being suppressed, etc.

But in an indirect sense, I know a lot about what is going on in my brain...etc.

I can't see anything in what you say that contradicts what I wrote originally. Sure we know from MRI scans and so on that brain states and conscious states correlate in some way. But this does not constitute insight into what is happening in ones own brain at any time, not if we are using 'insight' in the same way as we would when we say we have insight into out conscious states at any time. This is why I said that to use 'insight' in both these ways is playing with words, using 'insight' with two different meanings.

There is a finer grain to the problem of consciousness that you seem to overlook. If the laws of physics have the fingerprints of human consciousness on them, then it's only the fingerprints of access consciousness. There is no in principle reason that a physicalist account cannot give us a complete account of access consciousness-- hence, no need to propose a 'mishmash of mystic ideas,' as you say, in order for the theory to subserve the theory makers (at least, to give a complete account of how the theory makers come to make their theories through the faculties of access consciousness). So there does not appear to be a deep problem here along the lines of what you are proposing.

Again I cannot quite see your objection. Pensador is making a point that has been made by many physicists. Science cannot study the thing that is doing the studying, cannot include in the model the thing that is making the model. The task is too self-referential. Heisenberg stated the same, that we cannot explain the world scientifically and fully since we (the explainer) must of necessity sit outside of the explanation. Similarly Eddington wrote "The symbolic nature of physics is generally recognised, and the scheme of physics is now formulated in such a way as to make it almost self-evident that it is a partial aspect of something wider."

This seems an uncontentious idea to me. Surely there must be more to reality than scientific symbols, since symbols are concepts requiring consciousness for their conception. The question is who or what is doing the conceiving. Clearly this question cannot be answered by doing more and more conceiving and symbolising. At some point the buck has to stop and consciousness in its own right, as what it is, must be studied rather than some scientific symbol standing for it. To study a symbol or concept standing for consciousness is to study what consciousness is not. To study what can be observed and measured in the third-person is to study what consciousness is not. Hence science studies what consciousness is not. Of course it has to do this in order to see how consciousness relates to the rest of the scientific model, but this is is studying relationships and functions, not the thing itself.

 

[Tournesol]

I'm not trying to base solipsism on science, I'm trying to show that science alone does not exclude the possibility of solipsism, as those brain-in-a-vat ideas clearly demonstrate.

Earlier you were claiming that associating experienes with neural activity
would entail solip. There is a big difference between entailing and failing to exclude.

Your claim that "you can't base solipsisim on science" comes from the fact that scientists don't like solipsism, not because science has completely ruled it out.

No, it comes from the fact that science makes poists about a world beyond personal expeience.

I'm not a solipsist, but I'm convinced we need more than science to exclude solipsism as a logical possibility. We need science too, but it alone is not enough.

Occam's razor then.

I'm not "lapsing into subjectivism", just claiming there's more to reality than objective facts. Or do you think your subjective experiences are not real?

I don't think there is a metaphysical divide between opbjective and subjective
existence. What's subjecive for me is objective for you. Hence there is nothing too subjecive for science or physics

 

[Pensador]

Surely there must be more to reality than scientific symbols, since symbols are concepts requiring consciousness for their conception. The question is who or what is doing the conceiving. Clearly this question cannot be answered by doing more and more conceiving and symbolising.

Exactly. This question can only be answered by introspection, and the answer cannot be communicated, because doing so would require that the insight you gained through introspection be converted to... more conceiving and symbolizing.

Any attempt to study consciousness is self-defeating. Anything that can be communicated through symbols has nothing to do with the thing that gives meaning to those symbols, as the symbols cannot possibly contain meaning in themselves.

To study a symbol or concept standing for consciousness is to study what consciousness is not.

As a corollary, it can also be said that it's possible to have the illusion that you are studying consciuosness. All you have to do is come up with a lot of words which make some sense, and stick the word consciousness in the middle. Some people actually make a living out of it.

To study what can be observed and measured in the third-person is to study what consciousness is not. Hence science studies what consciousness is not.

In fact, it took civilization thousands of years to learn how to separate the subjective from the objective, so that our subjective knowledge could be shared with other people. Now there is this attempt to insert subjectivity back into science; that would be a giant leap to the past.

 

[Pensador]

Earlier you were claiming that associating experienes with neural activity would entail solip. There is a big difference between entailing and failing to exclude.

I don't recall using the word "entail". I do recall saying it "opens the door".

Your claim that "you can't base solipsisim on science" comes from the fact that scientists don't like solipsism, not because science has completely ruled it out

No, it comes from the fact that science makes poists about a world beyond personal expeience.

Now I find that very amusing. If science claims that personal experience happens in the physical world, how can there be a world beyond personal experience?

I'm not a solipsist, but I'm convinced we need more than science to exclude solipsism as a logical possibility. We need science too, but it alone is not enough.

Occam's razor then.

What does Occam's razor have to do with logical possibility?

If we are to choose an explanation for reality based on its simplicity, then solipsism is in fact our best choice: "it's all a dream". It doesn't get any simpler than that, and it's certainly far simpler than this whole thing about quarks and primordial soups and big bangs and spacetime curvatures and deoxyribonucleic acids and particle-wave duality and... yikes! Where did I leave my Occam's razor?

(as a point of humor, while solipsism can be expressed as "it's all a dream", science could simply be expressed as "it's all a nightmare" )

I don't think there is a metaphysical divide between opbjective and subjective existence. What's subjecive for me is objective for you. Hence there is nothing too subjecive for science or physics

So tell me, what am I thinking now?

 

[Tournesol]

Now I find that very amusing. If science claims that personal experience happens in the physical world, how can there be a world beyond personal experience?

I find that very puzzling. It looks like a non-sequitur to me.
If personal experience is "in" the rest of the world,
the rest of the world is "outside" or "beyond" experience.

What does Occam's razor have to do with logical possibility?

It has a lot to do with plausability. Is you beef with solip. only that it
is logically possible ?

If we are to choose an explanation for reality based on its simplicity, then solipsism is in fact our best choice: "it's all a dream".

if we are to reject an explanation because of its complexity, we should reject the B.I.V hypothesis.

Any attempt to study consciousness is self-defeating.

Even purely introspective ones ?

Anything that can be communicated through symbols has nothing to do with the thing that gives meaning to those symbols, as the symbols cannot possibly contain meaning in themselves.

Symbols about purely physical entities do not "contain meaning in themselves"
so that is a red herring. And anything that can be communicated must
have *something* to do with symbols, or no form of communication would be possible.

 

[hypnagogue]

But this does not constitute insight into what is happening in ones own brain at any time, not if we are using 'insight' in the same way as we would when we say we have insight into out conscious states at any time. This is why I said that to use 'insight' in both these ways is playing with words, using 'insight' with two different meanings.

Well, we don't have insight to anything in the same way we have insight to our subjective experiences. We know experience directly and phenomenally, and all else we know indirectly via structural and functional characterizations. But certainly, that which we know phenomenally gives us some kind of insight into what is structurally/functionally going on in our brains in a more direct sense than for phenomena outside of our brains/bodies.

Again I cannot quite see your objection. Pensador is making a point that has been made by many physicists. Science cannot study the thing that is doing the studying, cannot include in the model the thing that is making the model. The task is too self-referential.

I don't see any reason why this must be the case, at least as regards humans as theory makers. What is mysterious is experience itself, not our behavioral dispositions to study nature and make theories about it. The latter can, in principle, be thoroughly understood in the backdrop of a physicalist ontology, while the former cannot.

This really just falls back to the distinction between the easy problems of consciousness and the hard problem. The way we observe and interact with nature and come to make theories about it depends on perception, reasoning, memory, etc.-- all features of access consciousness, all susceptible to scientific understanding. I certainly agree that phenomenal consciousness eludes this approach and transcends understanding via a structural/functional analysis (or as you say, via symbols), but p-consciousness does not figure into an intractible Godel-esque self-referential problem. Self reference is nothing but a type of function in a given structure; it's access consciousness, and therefore lies outside of the scope of the hard problem (or at least, is not that aspect of consciousness that makes the hard problem truly hard).

It would be helpful to invoke zombies here. By definition, there is no hard problem for zombies. But Pensador's dilemma applies just as much to zombies as it does to us. Essentially, Pensador is claiming that physicalists could not even fully explain zombies. I disagree with this claim, and I must also point out that whether this claim is true or false, it certainly is not getting at the heart of the hard problem.

 

[Tournesol]

I think Pensador's point was that we must make up our minds. If the currently most orthodox scientific model is correct then consciousness is not a scientific topic.

Huh? Of course it is a topic for pschology and related sciences.

But if consciousness is a scientific topic then the scientific model is not correct.

Because it doesn't include consc.? Here you seem to be following Pesc. in
thinking that "to be included scientifically" means "to be included explicitly in physics".

To attempt to study something scientifically which is defined by science as non-causal but physically caused, non-physical but existent, not observable nor measurable except second-hand and on hearsay, not deducable or inferable from studying the brain yet epiphenomenal on it, not in any way the cause of our behaviour yet inferable from our behaviour, and so on, is absurd.

That isn't a scientific defintion,that is a rag-bag of philosophical opinion.

To say that consciousness is not a scientific topic is fair enough, (and I'd agree), but to define it such a way that science cannot study it and then to argue that science can explain it is a very odd thing to do, and this is what is being done all the time.

By some people. Have you noticed how I have been arguing against absolute ineffability, the causal closure of the physical, etc ? Why do you think that is?

Peansador argues that science cannot find consciousness because science, by its very definition and methodology, studies only what consciousness is not.

You could hardly say that about psychology.

For the sake of charity I will read that as "physical science studies only what consciousness is not".

Until this assertion can be shown to be false then consciousness remains beyond science, and unless it can be shown false then consciousness will be permanently beyond science.

I have already argued that it is incoherent to suppose that there is
a realm of subjectivity, and another, distinct, realm of objectivity;
what is subjective for you is objective for me.

Descartes reached the same conclusion. "I could suppose that I had no body and that there was no world or place where I was, but I could not by the same token suppose that I did not exist . . . From this I knew that I was a substance the essence or nature of which simply was to think; and which, to exist, needs no place and has no dependence on any material thing. Consequently, I, that is to say my mind --- what makes me what I am --- am entirely distinct from the body; and, furthermore, the former is more easily known than the latter, while if the latter did not exist the former could be all that it is." (Rene Descartes - Discourse on the Method IV)

Since then we have learned that logical possibility does not entail acual truth.

In any case, perhaps consiousness is caused by brain and perhaps it isn't, or perhaps it not quite so simple as saying that it is or it isn't.

The evidence is that it is.

The scientific evidence leaves the question open since, to parody the situation a little, according to science consciousness is a verbal report and not a scientific entity.

I have never heard of a scientist who thinks that, although some philosphers
wish they would.

 

[Tournesol]

It would be helpful to invoke zombies here. By definition, there is no hard problem for zombies. But Pensador's dilemma applies just as much to zombies as it does to us. Essentially, Pensador is claiming that physicalists could not even fully explain zombies. I disagree with this claim, and I must also point out that whether this claim is true or false, it certainly is not getting at the heart of the hard problem.

Hear, hear!

 

[Pensador]

It would be helpful to invoke zombies here. By definition, there is no hard problem for zombies.

Well, then that definition is incoherent. You mean, zombies couldn't possibly talk about "the hard problem"? They could talk about cosmology, astrology, angels, extra-sensorial perception, out-of-body experiences, but they could not talk about "the hard problem of consciousness"?

This is nonsense. You could perhaps argue that if zombies talk about the hard problem then they wouldn't know what they would be talking about, that they would just be playing with words whose meaning they think they understand but actually don't. I can certainly agree with that, far more than you realize!

Pensador's dilemma applies just as much to zombies as it does to us. Essentially, Pensador is claiming that physicalists could not even fully explain zombies. I disagree with this claim, and I must also point out that whether this claim is true or false, it certainly is not getting at the heart of the hard problem.

I do not claim that physicalists cannot fully explain zombies, quite the contrary. You clearly don't understand my point.

When Newton thought about apples falling from trees, he conceived of an impersonal, non-conscious entity he gave the name 'gravity'. Newton could just as well have invoked some sort of conscious entity to describe the same phenomenon. At the end of the day, all we have is an apple falling, and to this day no one has verified the existence of the "force" of gravity other than by, essentially, watching apples fall. Ascribing "consciousness" to physics would be just as safe as postulating the existence of "forces", since either one of them can only be known by their effects.

But Newton didn't postulate the existence of a conscious entity, and he had good reason why. That reason is being ignored by those who insist we must postulate the existence of consciousness behind physical processes, quantum or otherwise.

As to this talk about zombies and hard problems, I don't know what it has to do with this. Just because we are not zombies are we required to ultimately resort to some sort of pan-psychism to explain the world? What is the exact reason why consciousness can't possibly be left out of the picture?

 

[hypnagogue]

Well, then that definition is incoherent. You mean, zombies couldn't possibly talk about "the hard problem"? They could talk about cosmology, astrology, angels, extra-sensorial perception, out-of-body experiences, but they could not talk about "the hard problem of consciousness"?

Zombies can talk about the hard problem, but ex hypothesi, there is no hard problem about zombie ontology that needs solving.

As to this talk about zombies and hard problems, I don't know what it has to do with this. Just because we are not zombies are we required to ultimately resort to some sort of pan-psychism to explain the world?

No, of course we're not required to resort to panpsychism just from the observation that we are not zombies. (I think panexperientialism is a compelling route, but only as a result of further considerations.)

What is the exact reason why consciousness can't possibly be left out of the picture?

Well, we cannot leave p-consciousness out of the picture entirely, due to the plain fact that we are p-conscious. But I presume you mean to ask here why we can't leave p-consciousness out of the picture for basic physical systems that are not usually taken to be subjects of experience. Under physicalism, there is no reason to suppose the existence of consciousness in anything but certain classes of cognitive systems. But if we reject physicalism on the grounds that it cannot account for p-consciousness, there is good reason to accept panexperientialism (see Chapters 5 & 6 of the "A Place for Consciousness" discussion).

After re-reading some of what you've wrote, it seems that perhaps you were trying to argue against something like interactionist dualism. If that's the case, then I'm with you. I see no compelling reason to invoke consciousness as some sort of "mover" that participates in the world's flux of efficient causation by interfering with, or 'filling in the gaps of,' physical laws.

 

[Tournesol]

What is the exact reason why consciousness can't possibly be left out of the picture?

Do you think it can be left out of our picture of the brain ?

 

[Pensador]

What is the exact reason why consciousness can't possibly be left out of the picture?

Do you think it can be left out of our picture of the brain ?

Consciousness has already been left out of the picture of our body except for something like 1% of its volume. According to the scientific picture, everything that we feel happens in the brain, and the strong subjective sense that feelings come from parts of our body is essentially an illusion (more specifically, a projection - same thing)

I believe that is a major error of categorization. It's not long before that remaining 1% is found to be as devoid of consciousness as our left feet. We used to have the problem of explaining how the body was conscious, and scientists naively believe the problem can be solved by hiding the source of consciousness behind something they don't currently understand (the brain). Such a view is bound to give rise to paradoxes as soon as we start to understand the brain.

Many people can see those paradoxes already. Some people can sense them and express them as hard problems or artificial divisions of consciousness into different categories, but they are not clearly seeing the problems for what they are. And of course some people are completely oblivious since they don't worry about those issues anyway.

I have been trying to point out that the current scientific picture of our senses does not rule out solipsism. Some people think I'm a solipsist, some people think I'm wrong. So far no one except Canute has really understood what I'm talking about.

 

[Tournesol]

It's not long before that remaining 1% is found to be as devoid of consciousness as our left feet.

So now you are saying consc. doesn't exist at all?! ALthough elsewhere you
agree with Canute that it is ubiquitous?!

I'm going for a lie down.

 

[Pensador]

So now you are saying consc. doesn't exist at all?! ALthough elsewhere you agree with Canute that it is ubiquitous?!

I can't speak for Canute, but I didn't say consciousness is ubiquitous. I don't think a stone is conscious.

Read my reply to "Implications of a single consciousness". Science is concerned about what is true and what is false, not about meaning. When you study meaning, then you find consciousness, but that is something science does not do.

 

[Tournesol]

I can't speak for Canute, but I didn't say consciousness is ubiquitous. I don't think a stone is conscious.

You have claimed that matter cannot exist without mind. That means the clouds of gas that constituted the early universe were conscious.

 

[Pensador]

You have claimed that matter cannot exist without mind. That means the clouds of gas that constituted the early universe were conscious.

No, it doesn't mean that at all.

 

[Tournesol]

Well, maybe you will tell us what it does mean. Maybe.

 

[Pensador]

Well, maybe you will tell us what it does mean.

I can try, but by now I doubt you'll understand it:

You have claimed that matter cannot exist without mind. That means the clouds of gas that constituted the early universe were conscious

If I claim languages could not exist without mind, would you rush to the conclusion that sentences in English are conscious?

Ah, but clouds of gas are not languages. I know that. What are clouds of gas then?

 

[Tournesol]

Ah, but clouds of gas are not languages. I know that. What are clouds of gas then?

1. THings that cannot be described (thought) without language(mind).

2. THings that can exist perfectly well wihtout thought and language.

Presumably you are playing the idealists' game of conflating 1 and 2.

 

[Doctordick]

Symbols about purely physical entities do not "contain meaning in themselves"so that is a red herring. And anything that can be communicated must have *something* to do with symbols, or no form of communication would be possible.

That association only reflects massive assumptions about related "symbols" and the belief that they are accurately attached to your personal qualia.

Think about it; please -- Dick

 

[Tournesol]

That association only reflects massive assumptions about related "symbols" and the belief that they are accurately attached to your personal qualia.

Think about it; please -- Dick

No it doesn't.

 

[Doctordick]

No it doesn't.

That appears to be a sufficiently authoritative response to stop this discussion.

Have fun -- Dick

 

[Paul Martin]

Symbols about purely physical entities do not "contain meaning in themselves"so that is a red herring.

I agree that "Symbols about purely physical entities do not 'contain meaning in themselves'".

The reason I agree is that the definition of 'symbol' is a recognizable artifact assigned to "something" which it is agreed to represent. (I just made up this definition, so if you disagree with it, we should start our discussion there.) It is assumed by whomever set forth the artifact and proposed the assignment, that the artifact would be persistent enough, and recognizable enough, so that at some future time, another consciousness (I assume that "whomever" was conscious.) would likely be able to recognize the artifact and make the association with the "something" to which the assignment was made. Thus, there is no meaning in the artifact, or symbol, in itself. There is also no meaning inherent in the assignment either. Any meaning would be in some conscious activity in which this particular symbol and/or the "something" which it represents was part of the context of the conscious activity.

I have no comment on whether or not that statement is a red herring.

And anything that can be communicated must have *something* to do with symbols, or no form of communication would be possible.

To agree with this, I would have to stretch the definition either of 'communication' or of 'symbol'. If we narrow the definition of 'communication' to what we normally think of as symbolic communication, such as languages, then I would agree that languages are expressed only in symbols so any such communication would necessarily involve symbols. But limiting 'communication' in this way, we would have to modify Tournesol's conclusion to say that "no form of [symbolic] communication would be possible [without symbols]. This adds nothing.

On the other hand, if we were to consider all possible forms of communication, I don't think we can necessarily rule out non-symbolic communication. For example, we can somehow communicate fear to dogs without using any acknowledged symbols. The dog undoubtedly picks up information of our fear somehow, but we have not produced that information using assigned symbols.

But beyond that, when we consider all possible forms of communication, we have no justification to rule out telepathic communication in which information might be communicated directly without intermediate symbols or languages.

That association only reflects massive assumptions about related "symbols"

I'm not sure whether what I wrote are all of the "massive assumptions" you are referring to, but at least they are some of the assumptions.

and the belief that they are accurately attached to your personal qualia.

Here I will grant you "massive assumptions", Dick. I think this is the essence of the issue.

Working backward, we start with "qualia". These mysterious things are at the heart of the discussions in this entire subject of consciousness and the "Hard Problem".

Next, to call them "personal qualia" makes what I think is a huge assumption that there are multiple "persons", each of whom experiences some of these qualia. I am aware that most people make this assumption and actually believe that there are multiple, distinct, conscious individuals, but I am not one of them (i.e. I am not one of the people making the assumption). Yet, I am aware that there are distinct human beings, each of whom reports experiencing qualia. I think it is a naïve assumption that there is a one-one correspondence between human beings and experiencers of qualia.

Next, to say "your" personal qualia, you assume your interlocutor is an experiencer of qualia. Are you sure you aren't talking to a zombie? Or that solipsism is true and you are talking to a figment of your imagination?

Next, is the question of whether the symbolic attachment is accurate. I don't think this is much of a problem because I don't think the assignment of symbols can be inaccurate. When Samuel F.B. Morse assigned the symbol '-.-.' to the letter 'C', was he "accurate"? Assignments might be made inconsistently, or non-sensically, but I don't think they can be made inaccurately.

And finally, you mention "belief". Not only is this a vaguely understood term, but I think there is a typically unacknowledged assumption as to exactly who or what qualifies as a "believer". I think the question of who or what can have beliefs is every bit as mysterious as the question of exactly who or what can have experiences.

I agree with you, Dick, that there is a lot of complexity lurking behind our notions of communication.

Paul