Chapter 2: The Argument against Physicalism

[loseyourname]

Bare differences are "ungrounded by any further facts about internal structural differences ... or internal relations of difference or contrast between unspecified intrinsic contents" (pg. 19).

I'll respond to the rest soon, but for now, just another piece of purely literary criticism. This is the third definition given of "bare differences." A good deal of the trouble that readers are having with the book thus far seems to result from concepts such as this that are never clearly specified before they are put into use. I realize that Gregg is using functional definitions - we should eventually come to know what he means by continued contextual analysis of how he uses the words. But when definitions are refined in such a way that it almost seems he is talking about one thing on one page and something else on another when he uses only one word, it's hard to follow.

 

[hypnagogue]

I'll respond to the rest soon, but for now, just another piece of purely literary criticism. This is the third definition given of "bare differences."

It's a somewhat different way of saying the same basic thing. If we accept that bare differences are fundamental, ungrounded facts, then it cannot be that a bare difference follows from further facts about internal structure, etc. But I do agree it'd be helpful if there were a single, explicitly demarcated, dictionary-like definition for this term that we could point to. (For what it's worth, there are a lot of explicit, demarcated definitions later on in the book when Rosenberg analyzes causation.)

 

[hypnagogue]

By the way, this thread is two weeks old, so although it looks like we'll continue our discussion here, it's also about time to progress further into the book. In next day or two I'll post new threads for chapters 3 and 4.

Chapter 3 is a rather long and detailed set of responses to various physicalist counterarguments. It's intended for graduate and professional level philosophers, and presupposes some familiarity with many of the arguments and terms used. Therefore, discussion of this chapter is optional, and will be conducted concurrently with discussion of chapter 4.

Chapter 4 will take us away from concerns about physicalism. Here we'll begin a portion of the book that examines some of the conceptual issues and problems that consciousness presents us with, problems that any theory of consciousness-- physicalist or not-- will have to own up to.

 

[Paul Martin]

I couldn't help jumping to conclusions

My intentions were good when I signed up as a participant in this forum. But,...since I don't have the time, and now obviously, the energy, or the intellect to keep up with the rest of you, I probably should have signed up only as a reader. But I will do my best to contribute from time to time anyway.

By way of introduction, I am reading Gregg's book but I have already violated his early admonition not to jump to conclusions and form opinions before reading the entire book. I broke that rule long before I picked up his book. From childhood, over 60 years ago, I have been intrigued by "The Hard Problem". I have been dismayed for most of that time by the more-or-less official ignoring or dismissal of the problem by Science. I have been delighted, however, in the past couple decades with the growth of consciousness studies. You people are all my heroes. I have been impatiently waiting for you to show up and begin seriously working on the problem. I will eagerly follow your developments to the best of my ability.

During that long period of frustration, I have gone ahead and formed opinions of my own about how The Hard Problem might be solved. Almost by definition, since I have adopted those opinions, they seem to me to make more sense than any alternative. (An introductory summary of them can be found at www.paulandellen.com/essays/essay140.htm ). And, naturally, these opinions present themselves for comparison whenever I consider any other ideas, including Gregg's.

In a nutshell, according to Chalmers' sieve, I am an Interactionist Dualist. It is my view that consciousness itself, or more basically "the ability to know", is uniquely ontologically fundamental. The inferences I draw from that premise are that nothing else exists in reality except for the "thoughts", i.e. apprehension of knowledge, of that consciousness. The physical world is, as Berkeley described, a vast structure of those thoughts.

I think Gregg is on the right track by pursuing causation as being fundamentally related to consciousness as follows: The Primordial Consciousness (PC for short) can cause new thoughts in at least two distinct ways: one we might call imagination, which is unconstrained. The other we might call inference, which is constrained by the choice (exercised by PC of course) to remain consistent with a set of rules (also chosen by PC). Roughly speaking, among the results of the latter is the physical universe. The results of the former include what we call Quantum Randomness, Martin Rees's "Just Six Numbers", and possibly others. Organisms which seem to be conscious are physical "vehicles" which are each "driven" by PC and which provide two-way communication between PC and neuronal activity similar to that between a remote-controlled vehicle and a human operator via radio signals. And, just as in the case of the RC vehicle, consciousness inheres only in the driver. I think this scenario answers all the Hard Problems.

In my reading, and in my conversations, I look for anything that might deflate my opinions and I solicit the same from you. My comments on "A Place for Consciousness" will usually be to try to understand some attack on my opinions, or to defend them against an attack I think I understand. I look forward to further discussion.

As for Chapter 2, I have only one comment. On page 28, Gregg quotes Lee Smolin speculating that Physics is likely to turn out to be an information process. I agree with this prediction in that I think physics will turn out to be a subset of the thoughts of PC, which can be seen as nothing but an information process. However, I think that Shannon's definition of 'information', as a difference that makes a difference, is incomplete. To be complete, we need to understand to whom or to what the difference makes a difference. I was encouraged to read where Gregg raised the same question (I'm sorry I failed to note exactly where). Gregg also begs the same question in his footnote 6 on page 28 (Forgive me for jumping ahead to Chapter 3) when he refers to "an ideal knower". In my view, the answer to these questions is, of course, PC. PC is not only the ideal knower, but PC is the only knower. And PC is the only entity to whom a difference could make a difference.

 

[Canute]

Nice post. I also had your experience of waiting around for decades waiting for science to get over Behaviourism. As far as it goes what you say makes a great deal of sense to me. One might call it the perennial view. Perhaps Rosenbergs' 'ideal knower' is the same knower that Wheeler (and Bohm?) conjectures was necessary to bring our universe of bare differences or 'dependent arisings' into existence.

 

[Paul Martin]

Thanks, Canute. I'm not sure why you called what I said, "the perennial view". Anyway, in my view, there is only one knower, so it would have to be the one Wheeler and Bohm had in mind.

Along those lines, I was impressed by one of the posters here who pointed out that the Life game is not completely described simply by the rules. There also must be some kind of substrate (a grid on paper and pennies, etc.) to support the evolving states of the game. But more importantly, in my opinion, is the necessity of some originator and possibly also the player of the game. I say "possibly" because the originator may implement some kind of autonomous machine which will allow the game to play out unattended, such as we do with our computer implementations of the game. But in any case, you need some kind of entity to originate the whole thing. I think that is also an obvious necessity for reality as a whole, and positing some kind of entity such as what I call PC does not seem unreasonable to me.

Paul

 

[Canute]

By 'perennial view' I meant that it is the recurring conclusion of researchers into consciousness (as distinct from researchers into brains) that there is only one knower, and that it is fundamental. (Erwin Scroedinger asserted this throughout the last forty years of his life).

I agree with you that the Life world metaphor has problems relating to the issues you mention. I think a few of us do. This is why I prefer the approach taken by George Spencer-Brown, who I mentioned earlier in the thread hoping someone would pick up on it. He models a universe of bare differences mathematically in the form of a calculus that does not have these problems.

His calculus is directly relevant to this discussion and I'd recommend a quick look at the principles of it it to anyone interested in this bare difference discussion. He starts at the very beginning, not with a Lifeword already created, but with an undifferentiated void. He then assumes a fundamental knower who creates (by a process akin to symmetry breaking) the universe of bare differences (the calculus) in, or out of, this void.

Thus he agrees that the phenomenal universe consists of nothing but bare differences, but grounds it ontologically without the ambiguities that arise from GR's Lifeworld approach. The ontological problem is solved by him in his calculus by saying that the undifferentiated void is the fundamental knower (or observer). Thus his void is the Tao of Taoism, the 'emptiness' of Buddhism, the 'Allah' of Sufism and so on.

He's quite a character. Excuse the name dropping but I spoke to him on the phone a while ago at some length, and the first thing he informed me was that he is a 'Buddha' meaning, among other things, that he is awake to the truth about reality.

Sorry if this is meandering off topic. Thought it wouldn't matter while we await Chapter three.

 

[Paul Martin]

Thank you once again, Canute. I was not aware, until you began pointing it out to me, (I think it was you who first told me about Schroedinger's view in another thread) that so many other people seem to agree with me. I had not heard of Spencer-Brown, or his calculus before. Where can I read more about it?

If this is off topic, then I am glad you meandered.

 

[StatusX]

Hi guys. I recently bought this book because it seemed to explore the view of consciousness that I've come to believe is the only viable option left: that the intrinsic base of reality that physics doesn't talk about is the cause of (or maybe the same as) consciousness. I hope no one minds if I join the discussion a little late.

I've been reading through this thread, and there are a couple comments I'd like to make about what's been discussed so far. First, as far as bare differences are concerned. I think the point Rosenberg was trying to make with the pure life universe is that facts about consciousness cannot be derived from just the facts about bare differences. It is an epistemological argument. It is possible, as he mentioned, that a universe consisting of pure bare differences and structure with no intrinsicness whatsoever is not logically possible, (although he mentioned this is difficult to prove), so it is possible that a pure life universe or a pure physical universe is not even a coherent idea. Now, it may be that there is some kind of experience in a life world, regardless of what its intrinsic basis is, but given only the facts about the rules and bare differences, we cannot derive any facts about experience, including whether or not it exists.

Second, I'm a little confused about the definition of intrinsic some of you are using. For example:

The qualitative content of conscious experience might not be intrinsic at all, despite the claims made in places that we know it is from experience (I certainly don't).

Also, there was mention of the qualitative properties of a novel. Could someone explain the difference between qualitative and intrinsic? Because I didn't know there was one.

 

[Canute]

Paul

If you didn't realize how many people agree with you then you're in for a nice surprise.

Here's some links.

http://www.enolagaia.com/GSB.html
http://www.lawsofform.org/
http://multiforms.netfirms.com/multiforms_1.html

StatusX - Now you mention it I agree about 'qualitative' and 'intrinsic'. I assumed we were all meaning the same by these words, but perhaps not. It'd probably be best if Hypnagogue defined them in line with GR's use. (Sorry H - hope this isn't becoming too much like hard work).

 

[loseyourname]

Also, there was mention of the qualitative properties of a novel. Could someone explain the difference between qualitative and intrinsic? Because I didn't know there was one.

In its most basic form, "qualitative" just refers to any description that doesn't use numbers. In the context of a novel, I used the example of character traits. Lady Macbeth is exceedingly conniving: that's a qualitative description of Lady Macbeth. This type of description is not identical to the word "intrinsic" as it is being used. For the purposes of this thread, "intrinsic" refers to any property of a fundamental unit of reality that cannot be reduced to a collection of other properties. In fact, as Rosenberg sets it up, consciousness cannot exist without these intrinsic properties. However, as it was conceded that zombies could still write novels with properties such as themes and character traits, "qualitative" in this thread cannot mean the same thing as "intrinsic." In fact, presumably the zombies themselves could have qualitative traits such as the propensity for being conniving.

 

[Paul Martin]

Canute

You are absolutely right. I am not only surprised but delighted.

Thanks for the links. Since we talked last, I found lawsofform.org by myself and have been digging into that. I will get right to the other two. I have also put "Laws of Form" on my list of books to buy. I haven't figured out yet whether it is even in print - but I will. Thanks again.

Paul

 

[Canute]

'Laws of Form' has been reprinted many times but is currently out of print. I managed to get a s/h copy from Amazon but it's pot luck. As I'm not a mathematician I found the more general discussion online more valuable than the book to be honest, which mostly concerns the detail of the calculus (but not entirely).

Somewhere online there are a couple of book chapters on GSB by psychologist Robin Robertson. In these he makes the link between GSB, Jung (esp. in regard to his gnostic views) and Lao-Tsu more explicit, which is useful. However I've mislaid the link. Also there might be something relevant under Varella (Franco I think) who applies GSB's calculus to biology and the structure of autopoetic systems. I've never looked into that however. Good luck. I'd very much like to know what you think when you've had a browse around.

 

[moving finger]

Maybe I'm missing the whole point here, but the OP stated :

1. The facts about a pure Life world do not entail facts about phenomenal consciousness.
2. If facts about a pure Life world do not entail facts about phenomenal consciousness, then facts about a pure physical world do not entail facts about phenomenal consciousness.
3. Therefore, facts about a pure physical world do not entail facts about phenomenal consciousness. (p. 18)

I can re-word this to "prove" that facts about a pure physical world do not entail facts about the law of universal gravitation :

1. The facts about a pure Life world do not entail facts about the law of universal gravitation.
2. If facts about a pure Life world do not entail facts about the law of universal gravitation, then facts about a pure physical world do not entail facts about the law of universal gravitation.
3. Therefore, facts about a pure physical world do not entail facts about the law of universal gravitation.

What is wrong with the logic?

 

[Tychic]

Hi moving finger,
the second premise of your argument will not work, because there is no argument for your second premise using "bare differences". Each physical theory is a mathematical theory and thus describes only bare differences. But p-consciousness is something more ore other than bare differences. See hypnagogue’s summary of Rosenberg's argument for 2.

Rosenberg goes on to argue that a pure physics world-- a world whose fundamental ontology consists only of those facts stipulated by physics-- cannot entail facts about p-consciousness, for the same general reason that facts about a pure Life world cannot entail facts about p-consciousness. He argues that the facts of a pure physical world consist entirely of bare differences; they are a stipulated set of relational, formal, schematic facts with no grounding, intrinsic basis. Thus, a pure physics world is saddled with essentially the same problem as a pure Life world: its ontology of bare differences cannot entail the observed qualitative content of p-consciousness.

 

[moving finger]

Hi moving finger,
the second premise of your argument will not work, because there is no argument for your second premise using "bare differences". Each physical theory is a mathematical theory and thus describes only bare differences. But p-consciousness is something more ore other than bare differences. See hypnagogue’s summary of Rosenberg's argument for 2.

if we take hypnagogue's summary at face value, then it would seem that Rosenberg is advancing a premise that "a pure physics world ...ontology of bare differences cannot entail the observed qualitative content of p-consciousness".

I don't see why this premise is necessarily true?

 

[moving finger]

the first thing he informed me was that he is a 'Buddha' meaning, among other things, that he is awake to the truth about reality.

sorry, but I cannot help but smile at the intellectual snobbery (intended or otherwise) inherent in such a view - it implies that those of us who are not "Buddhas" are therefore ignorant of the truth about reality?

Give me a break

 

[Moridin]

Empirical mind-brain dependence, such as argument from development, argument from brain damage and argument from split-brain patients completely shatters any objection to mind-brain physicalism.