Is the Hard Problem Just Silly?

[loseyourname]

I'm not familiar with that use of 'intrinsic.' It's not the way I have been using the word, at least. I would claim that the wetness of water is not intrinsic, since there is nothing to wetness above and beyond issues of structure and function. Even without a modern understanding of molecular properties and how they account for liquidity and the like, one could observe that wetness refers roughly to the manner in which the 'parts' of a substance interact with each other and the environment. There is nothing to wetness above and beyond how a wet substance tends to behave and interact with other substances.

Actually, there is one aspect of wetness which transcends issues of relationships, and that is the subjective feeling of wetness itself. But, of course, this 'hard problem' of wetness is about a particular kind of subjective experience, not about properties of liquids in themselves.

The thing is, if we weren't able to reduce water to a collection of molecules with certain properties, then we wouldn't be able to explain wetness as anything other than an intrinsic property. All we could say is that water feels wet, so it has wetness. I'll agree that this feeling depends upon interaction between water and human sense, but why should we consider subjective experience of anything to be any different? All experience is an interaction between the human mind and its environment, even if that environment is simply another part of the mind. I don't agree that there is anything about wetness that transcends relational description. There may be, but there doesn't have to be. The feeling of wetness, whether it be due to experience of water, hallucination, or daydream, only occurs when the brain is in a certain state and it can be fair to postulate that this brain state is all that the experience is.

Edit: I don't mean to word that so strongly. I'm not completely certain that subjective experience is just a brain state. I'm only saying that it can be. There is no reason to be certain that subjective experience is intrinsic in a non-reducable way any more than any other property that could be presumed intrinsic if not for reductive theory. The only reason to do so is intuition, and intuition hardly constitutes proof.

 

[loseyourname]

Could we ask 'what would a "physicalist solution" to the hard problem of consciousness look like?' Presumably, for those who consider it to be genuinely impossible, there is no answer to this question. However, for those who merely consider it hard, or are uncertain, how would you - speculatively - see it being solved? Of course, there may be quite a few ways, not all necessarily mutually independent.

By analogy, how did the philosophical question of vitalism fade, over time? If I recall some of the books I've read correctly, it didn't happen overnight - as the result of a single set of experiments - but was kinda gradual, 'physicalists' chipping away at the ediface over many decades (death by a thousand cuts?).

I'm going to run with this analogy. The idea of vitalism faded when we realized that life was not an indivisable entity. Life only came into existence when many different conditions obtained. Replicating molecules that can code and transcribe information are needed, along with a controlled environment contained by phospholipid bilayer membranes in which to do the replication and transciption. Enzymes are necessary for both of these processes, along with others, including both catabolic and anabolic processes that derive energy from the environment and then use it to build an organism against the forces of entropy. Once we realized that life was not a separate entity; that it was, in fact, nothing more than the sum total of all of these smaller phenomena, then the task of explaining became simply a matter of explaining these smaller phenomena.

I would imagine that, if there is to be a physicalist explanation of subjective experience, it would be similar. We would first come to realize that there is no one entity that can be called subjective experience, that subjective experience only occurs when many other conditions obtain, none of which are themselves subjective experience. If all of these conditions can be explained through physical theory, then we will have ourselves an explanation of subjective experience. It will likely be a difficult to grasp and counterintuitive theory, as evidenced by the resistance on imaginative grounds that are advanced by so many people. But if modern physics has taught us anything, nature is anything but intuitive and easy to grasp.

 

[hypnagogue]

By analogy, how did the philosophical question of vitalism fade, over time? If I recall some of the books I've read correctly, it didn't happen overnight - as the result of a single set of experiments - but was kinda gradual, 'physicalists' chipping away at the ediface over many decades (death by a thousand cuts?).

So, my guess on how the hard problem will be solved is 'it came to be seen as an ill-conceived problem - and several of the pieces to the 'solution' could have been barely guessed (at best) in the early years of the 21st century'

The problem with supposing that subjective experience will go the same route as elan vital is that the former is a 'given' phenomenon in nature, while the latter is an explanitory posit. One could side step a 'hard problem of elan vital' simply by dispelling the notion that it is really necessary to assume the existence of an elan vital in order to account for life. No elan vital, no problem.

One cannot make a similar move with the hard problem of consciousness without denying a manifest phenomenon in nature. And if we cannot simply ignore consciousness, then we must address the methodological and conceptual problems that make it unlike any other phenomenon heretofore addressed by physicalism. These methodological and conceptual problems suggest that a straightforward scientific approach will not be enough to get the job done. As Steve Esser has indicated, if we ever do get a solution to the hard problem of consciousness, in all likelihood it will not look like any other solution to any other problem of nature.

 

[StatusX]

I'm going to run with this analogy. The idea of vitalism faded when we realized that life was not an indivisable entity.

How would you divide red and explain its parts? Complex thought is divisible, but individual conscious experiences such as a pure color are not.

I would imagine that, if there is to be a physicalist explanation of subjective experience, it would be similar. We would first come to realize that there is no one entity that can be called subjective experience, that subjective experience only occurs when many other conditions obtain, none of which are themselves subjective experience. If all of these conditions can be explained through physical theory, then we will have ourselves an explanation of subjective experience. It will likely be a difficult to grasp and counterintuitive theory, as evidenced by the resistance on imaginative grounds that are advanced by so many people. But if modern physics has taught us anything, nature is anything but intuitive and easy to grasp.

I agree it may be possible that science may one day explain everything that accompanies conscious experience: why we talk about it, what our brain is doing when we look at a color and reflect on its intrinsic qualities, why we believe that we are conscious beings, etc. But is this all there is to consciousness?

Think of it like this. A blind person asks you to explain what the color red looks like. You can describe all the emotions and thoughts that you feel when you experience red. If you were a great poet, you might actually do a good job of conveying the feeling of red through words. Now, I don't argue that why you chose the words you did could be explained by tracing signals through the brain. But have you really explained the color red? Not at all. You only know what red is if you have experienced it. You can even functionally explain why I have this opinion, but this does not necessarily dismiss the hard question. I have been saying lately that non-functional consciousness is not possible, but once again, I'm changing my mind.

 

[loseyourname]

How would you divide red and explain its parts? Complex thought is divisible, but individual conscious experiences such as a pure color are not.

See, this is where we digress. I would agree that the experience of seeing red seems to be indivisable. That doesn't mean it is. This is why I said any physicalist model would be extremely counterintuitive and difficult to grasp. I would imagine there would be a great deal of resistance to it from philosophers like the ones one this forum. But that objection, and lack of intuitiveness, does not spell doom.

To answer your question, I have no idea how one would divide red and explain its parts. I'm not all that confident that it will be done any time soon, nor am I convinced that it is even possible to do it. I'm just not convinced that it is impossible to do it. I'm not going to step into a metaphysics forum and say what science can or cannot explain in principle on the basis of what I feel to be intuitively true.

 

[loseyourname]

Think of it like this. A blind person asks you to explain what the color red looks like. You can describe all the emotions and thoughts that you feel when you experience red. If you were a great poet, you might actually do a good job of conveying the feeling of red through words. Now, I don't argue that why you chose the words you did could be explained by tracing signals through the brain. But have you really explained the color red? Not at all. You only know what red is if you have experienced it. You can even functionally explain why I have this opinion, but this does not necessarily dismiss the hard question. I have been saying lately that non-functional consciousness is not possible, but once again, I'm changing my mind.

This is a variation on the Mary argument, and there are strong counterarguments to it. If you could give a person perfect neuroscientific knowledge, there is no telling what they could or could not do with it. If this blind person knew everything there was to know about the human brain (and assuming her eyes were the problem and not her capacity to envision) and you were able to tell her everything about the state of the brain that obtains when the seeing of red is experienced, there is no way to rule out the possibility that she might very well be capable of inducing what the feeling would be like. We have nothing even close to perfect knowledge to begin to imagine what might be or not be possible given it.

 

[selfAdjoint]

Here is my reply to Chalmers.

First, he does not anywhere that I have read prove that his "experience", otherwise known as phenomenal consciousness or p-consciousness, cannot be derived logically from the phenomena he agrees can be explained by reductive physical means. He waves his hands, tailors his definitions and talks in generalities, but he does not close with the necessary rigor to deserve the name proof. In a sense he is hoist with his own petard; he criticises physicalists for not providing a complete explanation and model of consciousness, but he does not himself provide a suffieciently detailed account of how they fail. In discussing various physicalist alternatives he adopts a cheap "Naw that ain't it" stance, acknowledging that various researchers and thinkers have made positive progress but insisting without details that there is still a gap.

Throughout, Chalmers relies on the immediacy and what I might call "presence" of our apperception of qualia as a wand to wish away physicalist explanations. Now in all the various criticisms of Dennett's book Consciousness Explained, I haven't seen much attentioned paid to the huge critical section of it. In this part, Dennett brings in tons of experimental psychology results to show that our apperceptions are an illusion, constructed by our nervous systems, that bear only a distant or analogous relation to the outside world. None of our qualia, not color or sound or even time, is a simple perception of reality. To try to erect this as a primary datum of science is like trying to base meteorolgy on fata morgana and mirages.

 

[Fliption]

Here is my reply to Chalmers.

Yahoo! I just won some money in Vegas. I bet you would have this opinion. Course it didn't pay very much

Dennett brings in tons of experimental psychology results to show that our apperceptions are an illusion, constructed by our nervous systems, that bear only a distant or analogous relation to the outside world.

Who is experiencing the illusion? Another illusion?

I would love to respond to your points myself but I must not be too bright because I don't understand most of it. You think you can state it in layman's english? To me, it reads more like a book review than a detailed argument.

 

[selfAdjoint]

Who is experiencing the illusion? Another illusion?

In Dennett's book he attacks the idea of the "homunculus", the "observer in the theater of the mind". He replaces it with a vast number of independent modules, no one of which is the master, which interact at various levels, inputting incomplete data from sense and memory and fresh created and competing to pass it on to other modules. This picture he bases on evolution; some modules will have a better chance of passing on their data than others, and the data will seldom or never focus down to a single transmission, but almost always retain a halo of the competing data, giving that feel of complex relationship that we associate with consciousness.

So the answer, Dennett's answer, to your question is that the highly processed descendents of the sensory data, fully tricked up to pretend to be direct apperceptions, will get into the area where it is tagged as "conscious experience" and stored in working memory. Just another set of modules blindly working away.

 

[StatusX]

[QUOTE='loseyourname]
This is a variation on the Mary argument, and there are strong counterarguments to it. If you could give a person perfect neuroscientific knowledge, there is no telling what they could or could not do with it. If this blind person knew everything there was to know about the human brain (and assuming her eyes were the problem and not her capacity to envision) and you were able to tell her everything about the state of the brain that obtains when the seeing of red is experienced, there is no way to rule out the possibility that she might very well be capable of inducing what the feeling would be like. We have nothing even close to perfect knowledge to begin to imagine what might be or not be possible given it.[/QUOTE]

Well maybe some kind of "science" we haven't yet conceived of will work, but how could math-based science explain a color? It can explain relationships between numbers, like velocity and spin number, but can you ever see the qualitative experience of color coming out of an equation? A computer can be made to "know" the laws of physics as they currently stand, but how can anything but another conscious being "know" a color?

Just to be clear, are you suggesting that there is no real experience, only the physical processes of our brain, or are you saying the experiences are real, but a description of these processes is sufficient to describe the experiences? I can see the first as logically consisitent, but not the second.
However, this is all just speculation. When you look at a color and think about it's intrinsic qualities, what is going on in your brain? Science will surely answer this question, probably within the next 50 years, and once it does we will be in a much better position to make arguments.

 

[Hellburner]

The "Hard Problem" is a large recursive multivariate nonlinear problem. If you do some hardcore real world work with ANN's you're often dealing with the same issue. The output makes sense and is explainable using accepted theories from the originating discipline, however a rigorous mathematical explanation of the results is so convoluted as to be preposterous. I could drone on ad infinitum about it until your eyes glaze over, that's not going to make you a believer.

 

[Nereid]

Thanks, and thanks too to loseyourname for having a go.

The problem with supposing that subjective experience will go the same route as elan vital is that the former is a 'given' phenomenon in nature, while the latter is an explanitory posit. One could side step a 'hard problem of elan vital' simply by dispelling the notion that it is really necessary to assume the existence of an elan vital in order to account for life. No elan vital, no problem.

One cannot make a similar move with the hard problem of consciousness without denying a manifest phenomenon in nature. And if we cannot simply ignore consciousness, then we must address the methodological and conceptual problems that make it unlike any other phenomenon heretofore addressed by physicalism. These methodological and conceptual problems suggest that a straightforward scientific approach will not be enough to get the job done. As Steve Esser has indicated, if we ever do get a solution to the hard problem of consciousness, in all likelihood it will not look like any other solution to any other problem of nature.

To expand a little: of course the 'same' way that vitalism shrivelled up won't work of p-consciousness - if it could've, it would've (a common approach in science is to apply tools and methods to new problems that have been successful on other problems). By analogy, I meant that there wasn't a brilliant 'Eureka' moment for some 17th, 18th, 19th, or 20th century scientist; rather it was a slow, mostly steady accretion of many little things.

So, re p-consciousness, it may also be seen - sometime in the future - as a slow, incremental path; a refinement of what 'subjective' is, a small change of scope/focus on 'phenomenon' and 'nature', a gradual but in the end radical new understanding of the nature of 'experience', ... who knows?

From what selfAdjoint wrote, it would seem that Dennett has started on the kind of path I envisioned ... a detailed look at what a subjective experience actually is, in terms of brain stuff, begins to make the hard problem look like an illusion.

But back to how might the problem be solved, or what might a solution look like?

I'm still curious to hear from those who think the problem is merely 'hard', or are uncertain ... any thoughts? (to repeat, if you, dear reader, feel it's impossible, then by all means tell us why ... but please also state clearly under no circumstances would you consider anything any physicalist - or scientist - could make or show as any kind of solution).

I like selfAdjoint's idea - at the start of this thread ... if an AI could be built that behaved just like a human, would that solve the problem? After all, the AI would state that it was conscious, and could hold a very 'human' dialogue with you about its subjective experiences. IIRC, this is quite similar to a 'zombie'. But if there were such a thing as a zombie, how could you - gentle reader - tell the difference between one and, say, Fliption?

 

[Les Sleeth]

By analogy, how did the philosophical question of vitalism fade, over time? If I recall some of the books I've read correctly, it didn't happen overnight - as the result of a single set of experiments - but was kinda gradual, 'physicalists' chipping away at the ediface over many decades (death by a thousand cuts?).

So, my guess on how the hard problem will be solved is 'it came to be seen as an ill-conceived problem - and several of the pieces to the 'solution' could have been barely guessed (at best) in the early years of the 21st century'

But see my friend, to me it seems you are predicting exactly what I fear will happen. Hypnagogue can’t see why I am so adamant about not letting vitalism be “dismissed,” but I see exactly the same fate in store for consciousness. Plus, it is being sped along because Chalmers and others are willing to let physicalists get away with it in an area they don’t care about (life). If we say it is fine to “dismiss” vitalism with the evidence physicalists now have, then when physicalists get that level of evidence about the brain, it won’t be long until consciousness is “dismissed” for the same reason.

This “chipping away,” what is it? It is a logical fallacy that physicalists won’t admit to or can’t see, and which they are now attempting to apply to the explanation of consciousness. It can be explained by the traditional complaint against reductionism, where by taking things apart, one loses the sense of wholeness previously present. The way I explain the problem is with what’s known as an “informal” type of fallacy called the fallacy of composition, where by analyzing the parts and their relationships one concludes it accounts for the whole.

So how did the chipping away proceed with vitalism?

First step. Explain all the parts and all the chemical processes; that is the goal, and the only goal of reductionist investigation. So of course, after completing (or nearly so) such a monumental task as explaining the components and processes of life, one is justified in being proud as well as certain of the empirical method one has relied on.

Second step. Since the goal all along was to explain the parts and processes, once it is completed all behaviors of the whole will be attributed to parts and processes. That is the perspective forced on one after doing nothing but that, going to school to learn it, and having one’s career advanced by doing it well.

Third step. Superficially account for, remain unaware of, or even ignore anything which doesn’t seem to quite be explained by the parts. In the case of vitalism, the organizing engine needed to get all those parts arranged into systems is missing. Is that important? It is not important to individuals trained in, obsessed with, and making a living at studying parts/processes, so it is given a superficial explanation using the Miller-Urey experiment and claiming “nature had a billions of years to achieve it, give us time” (even though life is believed to have appeared almost as soon as the Earth could accommodate it.)

So if it isn’t the slightest bit important to the reductionist world view, is it important objectively? I mean, does a life model really need an organizing principle more than reductionists can see or admit? Well, I’ve been claiming that if one isn’t already committed to physicalism or blinded by reductionist addiction, then that organizing quality should be looming large in one’s face. There is absolutely nothing like it known in the physical processes of this universe outside of life. It is so unusual and so effective at building adaptive, reproducing, systems that it should have been noticed. But no, getting a few amino acids to organize in a jar will do . . . let’s move on to the next thing we can disassemble and prove it is only physical: consciousness.

As I pointed out in another post, consciousness has that exact same organizing quality we need to explain how life processes got organized. We, as consciousness, are quite the creative little organizers. There is nothing built that “works” which doesn’t rely on that ability. Think about it, if consciousness could not organize both its thoughts, and the processes it works with in the world, nothing could be built. Creativity itself, in my opinion, is seeing a possibility based on one’s organizing skills. A great composer’s music is very much like that, where he “sees” possibilities based on his grasp of organizational steps leading to producing what he envisions.

Anyway, I’d be willing to bet that with the power science has in society today, if consciousness studies continues to try to fight functionalist/physicalist theories by talking about subjectivity, that too will be “dismissed” one day (which thinkers like Dennett already do) as the brain “parts” are better and better understood. Subjectivity, as well as all traits of consciousness not explained by part/process thinking, will be written off as epiphenomenal or illusory or as cascading data competing for the top spot or whatever else they can dream up to get it out of the way so they can take apart something new.

 

[Steve Esser]

Re: Selfadjoint’s discussion of Dennett. Dennett’s model is an interesting one of how what we experience as a stream of consciousness might emerge from various sub-modules. There are other good models of this out there as well, like Baars global workspace theory. These models suggest that what I would call our high-level reflective self-consciousness is a kind of construct which may indeed be misleadingly coherent.

But of course I would argue these models don’t address the “hard problem” of why there is any kind of first-person experience at all.

On the other hand, Selfadjoint’s and loseyourname’s criticisms of the types of arguments used by Chalmers do resonate with me. It has been 10 years since he wrote the paper and clearly his arguments (and others like them) have failed to convince those with more “Dennett-like” intuitions. A next step will need to be taken. My guess is that it will need to be shown that a theory which includes first-person experience as a fundamental feature of the natural world can do better than one that does not. And I personally think this can and will happen. (It may even have something to do with Les Sleeth’s argument for an organizing quality in nature – but I’m not sure of that).

 

[Les Sleeth]

I like selfAdjoint's idea - at the start of this thread ... if an AI could be built that behaved just like a human, would that solve the problem? After all, the AI would state that it was conscious, and could hold a very 'human' dialogue with you about its subjective experiences. IIRC, this is quite similar to a 'zombie'. But if there were such a thing as a zombie, how could you - gentle reader - tell the difference between one and, say, Fliption?

Lol, was that a shot? Fliption, I only think you vaguely resemble a zombie. Just kidding.

But here's my answer to your "what if." Do it, and then let's talk about it. Same with life. Demonstrate it, and then make the claim chemistry alone is responsible. It is science that requires sense observation, not philosphy. Anyone in the mode of being a philosopher gets to trust what one feels and experiences inside oneself, and not just what can be expressed as sense data and math (although I'd agree conclusion derived from the two modes shouldn't contradict one another).

Anyway, it is incumbent on science to demonstrate the corresponding reality a hypothesis predicts. Right now physicalists are making BIG claims. That's okay with me as long as everything claimed is properly supported by evidence. Is it? Heck no. There's lots of stretching and exaggerating and ignoring things that interfere with physicalist theory . . . so to me physicalist theory has a long way to go before it plausible as an explanation of all of existence.

 

[loseyourname]

Well maybe some kind of "science" we haven't yet conceived of will work, but how could math-based science explain a color? It can explain relationships between numbers, like velocity and spin number, but can you ever see the qualitative experience of color coming out of an equation? A computer can be made to "know" the laws of physics as they currently stand, but how can anything but another conscious being "know" a color?

This isn't a matter of what a non-conscious being can "know." This is a matter of what a human can know.

Just to be clear, are you suggesting that there is no real experience, only the physical processes of our brain, or are you saying the experiences are real, but a description of these processes is sufficient to describe the experiences? I can see the first as logically consisitent, but not the second.
However, this is all just speculation. When you look at a color and think about it's intrinsic qualities, what is going on in your brain? Science will surely answer this question, probably within the next 50 years, and once it does we will be in a much better position to make arguments.

I'm suggesting that we have no idea what a physical description could or could not do with respect to subjective experience. Maybe the description alone, which may or may not be mathematical (depending on whether you adhere to sentential or tensor network theories of cognition), could tell you what the feeling was like. We cannot know because we cannot have perfect knowledge. The Mary argument relies on Mary's having perfect knowledge, but the only being that has ever been postulated to actually have perfect knowledge is God. In fact, this reminds of the atheist argument against the omniscience of God. It is stated that God cannot be omniscient because he cannot know what it is like to ride a bike, for instance, since he has no legs and cannot ride a bike. Theists will rightly refute this argument by saying that we have no idea whether or not perfect knowledge would entail experiential knowledge, even without the experience. We don't know because we have no idea what perfect knowledge would or would not entail.

 

[Hellburner]

so to me physicalist theory has a long way to go before it plausible as an explanation of all of existence

Given the alternatives... I guess Occam has no place in this discussion?

 

[Steve Esser]

Dear Les Sleeth. The comment was meant to be read straight. I think the topic of complex systems (including living ones) is one of the underexplained areas of science which has a chance of tying back in some way to the problem of first person experience. Other candidate areas would be the reconciliation of quantum mechanics with the rest of science, and the explanation for the asymmetric arrow of time.

 

[Les Sleeth]

Given the alternatives... I guess Occam has no place in this discussion?

It does when it is relevant, but not if it's going to just be an excuse to ignore a real problem.

The reason I have been less than enthusiastic about the "hard problem" as described by Chalmer's zombie analogy or the general argument that physicalness can't account for subjectivity is because neither are proof. Nonphysicalists cannot prove subjecitivty is non-physical (and likely never will given the requirements for "proof").

However, physicalists cannot (yet) prove it is physical either. So to me, that is where the debate is most dynamic. Regarding Occam's razor, I've objected to the tactic of "dismissing" what is needed for physicalism to work as a theory but is presently missing. If that razor is being used to eliminate anything that can't be studied reductively, then it isn't proper parsimony and instead is just what one limited perspective is using in order to maintain itself.

 

[Les Sleeth]

Dear Les Sleeth. The comment was meant to be read straight. I think the topic of complex systems (including living ones) is one of the underexplained areas of science which has a chance of tying back in some way to the problem of first person experience. Other candidate areas would be the reconciliation of quantum mechanics with the rest of science, and the explanation for the asymmetric arrow of time.

Sorry Steve, I think you lost me. Which comment?

 

[Fliption]

I would imagine that, if there is to be a physicalist explanation of subjective experience, it would be similar. We would first come to realize that there is no one entity that can be called subjective experience, that subjective experience only occurs when many other conditions obtain, none of which are themselves subjective experience. If all of these conditions can be explained through physical theory, then we will have ourselves an explanation of subjective experience. It will likely be a difficult to grasp and counterintuitive theory, as evidenced by the resistance on imaginative grounds that are advanced by so many people. But if modern physics has taught us anything, nature is anything but intuitive and easy to grasp.

I'm not real clear on your position Loseyourname. You seem to acknowledge the issues around consciousness but then you reserve the right to be "unsure" whether a reductive theory can account for consciousness in principle. Your only basis for this seems to be because we just can't know everything. If this is your position then I think most people here would agree with you. I'm only making a conclusion based on the evidence and definitions we currently have. I don't make any claims about any future paradigms of physics. I only make the claim that the one we have now cannot reductively explain consciousnsess.

But if you are actually leaning toward the view that consciousness can be reductively explained in this paradigm simply because "we can't be sure", then I'm lost. Obviously, we can claim just about anything to be true using this tactic. If you do lean in this direction, I would expect to see some examples of exactly how consciousness can be reductively explained.

 

[loseyourname]

I'm not real clear on your position Loseyourname. You seem to acknowledge the issues around consciousness but then you reserve the right to be "unsure" whether a reductive theory can account for consciousness in principle. Your only basis for this seems to be because we just can't know everything. If this is your position then I think most people here would agree with you. I'm only making a conclusion based on the evidence and definitions we currently have.

Well, I don't think we quite have to know everything. But anyone that knows neuroscience knows that we know almost nothing. We're in the same position Newton was in before he came up with his mechanical laws.

But if you are actually leaning toward that view that consciousness can be reductively explained simply because "we can't know", then I'm lost. Obviously, we can claim just about anything to be true using this tactic. If you do lean in this direction, I would expect to see some examples of exactly how consciousness can be reductively explained.

I'm not leaning toward either view, although I'll generally talk more about physicalist models because I've studied neuroscience more than I've studied philosophy, to that's what I know. There are ideas on how subjective experience might be "reduced" to smaller component parts, but none is to be preferred over another at this point because there exists no theoretical framework of cognition in which to fit hypotheses. Until we have that, there is little to evaluate physicalist models. I still think it's worthwhile to conjecture, because without conjecture we'll never have such a theoretical framework, but no one here should take it too seriously.

Edit (in response to your edit): I really don't have an opinion on whether or not physical paradigms will need to be overhauled. We don't even have a neuroscience paradigm yet, so first things first. I'll contend that every argument I've seen that the physical paradigm we have cannot in principle explain subjective experience is just a variation on the lack of imagination argument, which is bound to fail because not everybody's imagination is as limited as the people making the arguments, and also because there is plenty that we now know to be true that would have been well beyond the imagination of people with less knowledge.

 

[Fliption]

Well, I don't think we quite have to know everything. But anyone that knows neuroscience knows that we know almost nothing. We're in the same position Newton was in before he came up with his mechanical laws.

Well you were quick to respond and I edited a bit above. I thought it would be clearer if I say that I don't believe consciousness can be reduced in the current paradigm. I won't guarantee what can happen in others.

I'm defining a paradigm as a set of assumptions about what is fundamental and what are the mechanics of how these things interact to create the diversity we see in the universe. I see neuroscience as a study of what brains do, assuming all the things we know under the current paradigm. I do not see neuroscience as a paradigm shifting exercise. I don't believe I've ever heard you or anyone else suggest that the brain is doing something beyond what we currently call the laws of physics.

So if you agree with what I've said above, then I don't see how neuroscience can reduce consciousness, in principle.

 

[Fliption]

Edit (in response to your edit): I really don't have an opinion on whether or not physical paradigms will need to be overhauled. We don't even have a neuroscience paradigm yet, so first things first. I'll contend that every argument I've seen that the physical paradigm we have cannot in principle explain subjective experience is just a variation on the lack of imagination argument, which is bound to fail because not everybody's imagination is as limited as the people making the arguments, and also because there is plenty that we now know to be true that would have been well beyond the imagination of people with less knowledge.

This edit would probably be your response to my last post. This is where we disagree. With the definitions in the current paradigm I see it as logically impossible to do what you're saying. If I gave you these assumptions

1) P = G
2) G < F

I would say it is not possible for you to come to this conclusion P = F.
There is no reliance on a lack of imagination as far as I'm concerned.

This is why I am open to new paradigms finding a place for consciousness because I realize I cannot imagine the possibilities. But in this current paradigm, it is not possible, by definition. To me, the arguments by Chalmers and others make this extremely clear. The fact that you disagree is evidence to me that we are all using different definitions. It is likely we actually agree on much of this.

 

[loseyourname]

So if you agree with what I've said above, then I don't see how neuroscience can reduce consciousness, in principle.

Just out of curiosity, how much do you know about neuroscience to be able to say that?

 

[Fliption]

Just out of curiosity, how much do you know about neuroscience to be able to say that?

Are you suggesting that neuroscience is open to the brain breaking current laws of physics?

 

[loseyourname]

This edit would probably be your response to my last post. This is where we disagree. With the definitions in the current paradigm I see it as logically impossible to do what you're saying. If I gave you these assumptions

1) P = G
2) G < F

I would say it is not possible for you to come to this conclusion P = F.
There is no reliance on a lack of imagination as far as I'm concerned.

This is why I am open to new paradigms finding a place for consciousness because I realize I cannot imagine the possibilities. But in this current paradigm, it is not possible, by definition. To me, the arguments by Chalmers and others make this extremely clear. The fact that you disagree is evidence to me that we are all using different definitions. It is likely we actually agree on much of this.

I don't know. I was careful to adopt the definition of physical that I thought Rosenberg to be using. Honestrosewater started a thread about Chalmers' arguments, and I've argued against them to some extent (although, granted, only the snippets that have been posted here, so excuse me if I don't address everything). I've read the arguments presented by Rosenberg as well, and do have responses that I don't think he addresses, but I'll save that for the discussion of his book.

Rosenberg talks about the arguments made before him, which he calls the "arguments from knowledge and conceivability." I think he knows that these kinds of arguments ultimately fail and that is why he goes a little further, but we ultimately run into the same problem. In reality, I think we run into a similar problem to the one we had with the logical empiricists. We have a group of people telling science what science does and what science can and cannot do, without enough regard for what science is actually doing.

Clearly under your set of axioms, we can never prove that P=F, but what is the analogue in the physicalist axioms that excludes subjective experience?

 

[loseyourname]

Are you suggesting that neuroscience is open to the brain breaking current laws of physics?

I don't know that anybody is expecting that, but all of science is open to the possibility that any of its theories and/or laws may be incorrect. There is also the possibility, that we see explicitly manifested in statistical mechanics, that known laws are really only probabilistic laws and not as absolute as is currently thought. The only thing I am actually suggesting, though, is that neuroscience strongly suggests that there exists no unified, holistic entity that can be called "subjective experience" that is any different from the unified entity we call "water" or "mountain." Unity at one level of observation is disunity at another. There seems to be a basic reliance by antiphysicalist philosophers on what they intutively "know" about their own experiences, but if the history of folk psychology has taught us anything, it is that what we think we "know" about our own minds is almost always a misperception.

 

[StatusX]

I think we may need to be clearer on the defintion of "explain." When we try to explain, say, matter, we reduce it to its fundamental constituents and try to find the most basic laws possible that these obey. But is this really an explanation? Why are these the constituents, and why are these the laws? We may be able to reduce the problem so that the new goal becomes explaining simpler phenomenon, but we can go no further. Likewise, with consciousness, you may or may not believe it can be reduced. But even if it can be, we still must explain the parts. Maybe the color red and a quark or photon (or string or whatever the most fundamental particles turn out to be) enjoy the same kind of fundamental, unexplainable existence.

 

[Fliption]

I don't know that anybody is expecting that, but all of science is open to the possibility that any of its theories and/or laws may be incorrect. There is also the possibility, that we see explicitly manifested in statistical mechanics, that known laws are really only probabilistic laws and not as absolute as is currently thought. The only thing I am actually suggesting, though, is that neuroscience strongly suggests that there exists no unified, holistic entity that can be called "subjective experience" that is any different from the unified entity we call "water" or "mountain." Unity at one level of observation is disunity at another. There seems to be a basic reliance by antiphysicalist philosophers on what they intutively "know" about their own experiences, but if the history of folk psychology has taught us anything, it is that what we think we "know" about our own minds is almost always a misperception.

I agree with much of this. But for neuroscience to strongly suggests that there exists no unified, holistic entity that can be called "subjective experience", it must be finding some non-holistic things that would explain the phenomenon. I'm not a neuroscientist and don't want to speak for one, but I don't think this has happened. So I'm not sure how neuroscience "suggests" anything when it comes to qualia. Especially when it doesn't even have a theoretical framework!

Also, I'll respond for Les. He would say that neuroscience isn't seeing this entity because it isn't looking for it. It's looking for brain activity.

 

[loseyourname]

I agree with much of this. But for neuroscience to strongly suggests that there exists no unified, holistic entity that can be called "subjective experience", it must be finding some non-holistic things that would explain the phenomenon. I'm not a neuroscientist and don't want to speak for one, but I don't think this has happened. So I'm not sure how neuroscience "suggests" anything when it comes to qualia. Especially when it doesn't even have a theoretical framework!

There are hints at it, in that different kinds of experience are hindered by different kinds of lesions. It is also the case that many types of perception can be carried out without the part of the brain responsible for verbal reporting being aware of it. It is clear at least that "subjective experience" may not be such a fundamental category of ontology as was previously suspected. Of course, "may not be" is far from conclusive. I'm not going to claim otherwise.

 

[loseyourname]

I think we may need to be clearer on the defintion of "explain." When we try to explain, say, matter, we reduce it to its fundamental constituents and try to find the most basic laws possible that these obey. But is this really an explanation? Why are these the constituents, and why are these the laws? We may be able to reduce the problem so that the new goal becomes explaining simpler phenomenon, but we can go no further. Likewise, with consciousness, you may or may not believe it can be reduced. But even if it can be, we still must explain the parts. Maybe the color red and a quark or photon (or string or whatever the most fundamental particles turn out to be) enjoy the same kind of fundamental, unexplainable existence.

I have no quarrel with this. In fact, Rosenberg has convinced me that this is where physicalism falls short. It can never given an account of the intrinsic properties of fundamental particles or "strings" of whatever the fundamental units of matter may be. He just hasn't convinced me that subjective experience is such an intrinsic property of fundamental units of matter.

 

[Fliption]

There are hints at it, in that different kinds of experience are hindered by different kinds of lesions.

Blind people don't see either. Perhaps the lesions damage a part of the brain responsible for collecting the sense data? There can be no experience if there's nothing to experience. Am I off base here?

It is also the case that many types of perception can be carried out without the part of the brain responsible for verbal reporting being aware of it.

I'm not sure what this means. Can you explain this one a little bit?

 

[loseyourname]

Blind people don't see either. Perhaps the lesions damage a part of the brain responsible for collecting the sense data? There can be no experience if there's nothing to experience. Am I off base here?

You're off-base in some cases, but not all. The first thing to consider is that perception can be cut off at many different points. If you want to use visual perception, this starts off with the eyes and ends (presumably) with the visual cortex. There is a difference between blindness and the inability to visually perceive, however. Note that, even with eyes closed, or while dreaming, a person can still perceive visual images. The ability to perceive can itself be damaged, but it is not always the case that the ability to visually perceive is completely inhibited. There may be only the inability to perceive certain colors, or certain patterns, or to recognize conspecifics, or to recognize written language. These are all inhibited by lesions of different parts of the brain, showing that visual perception is probably not a true category or perception. In fact, the ability to perceive language is not just inhibited visually by certain lesions. A lesion in the right location will inhibit the ability to perceive language in any way, whether written, spoken, or felt (in the case of braille). In fact, in the case of blindness, there are even instances of visual experience being induced by tactile sensations. The only conclusion we can come to so far is that perception in general is far more complicated than we think it is, built up from many small pieces to create a unified moment of experience that is in reality not unified at all.

I'm not sure what this means. Can you explain this one a little bit?

The classic example is split-brain patients, but sleepwalking, blindsight, and blindness denial might be similar phenomena.

 

[hypnagogue]

The thing is, if we weren't able to reduce water to a collection of molecules with certain properties, then we wouldn't be able to explain wetness as anything other than an intrinsic property. All we could say is that water feels wet, so it has wetness.

The issue here isn't so much explanation as it is classification. Perhaps one could not explain why water is wet without an understanding of molecular properties, and then come to the conclusion that wetness must be an intrinsic property. But this essentially a kind of 'vitalism' about wetness (wetness-ism?), which I've argued is disanalagous from the situation with p-consciousness-- in this case, we cannot see how wetness could arise from structural/functional properties, so we posit an intrinsic property of wetness to do our explanitory work.

But in the first instance, wetness presents itself (aside from the subjective feeling of wetness) entirely in structural and functional terms. That is, the phenomenon as it is observed in nature presents us with no problems to solve but ones of structure (e.g. how beads of water tend to form, or how damp bodies tend to sag, etc.) and function (e.g. how wet bodies tend to be slipperier or cooler than when dry, etc). Subjective experience appears to present us with problems above and beyond just structure and function.

There is no reason to be certain that subjective experience is intrinsic in a non-reducable way any more than any other property that could be presumed intrinsic if not for reductive theory.

I disagree. Subjective experience is the only phenomenon in nature that appears to present us with intrinsic properties directly. Observing an intrinsic property to exist is quite different from supposing an intrinsic property to exist, as one does in vitalism and in our examaple about wetness.

The only reason to do so is intuition, and intuition hardly constitutes proof.

I understand your concerns here, but I think you don't appreciate the depth of the problem.

Consider a subjectively experienced visual field whose only 'content' or property is a uniform and unchanging shade of red. What is structural or functional about this visual field? As it presents itself experientially, there is nothing structural or functional about it at all.

At this point, you will want to object that this may just be a misguided intuition; after all, it could be that this redness is actually some kind of emergent phenomenon and is really just a conglomeration of relational properties. But all other emergent phenomena of this type, such as liquidity, present themselves on the 'emergent scale' as a novel set of structural and functional properties, not as intrinsic properties. How can it be that redness, or subjective experience in general, is an exception to this rule? How can even the appearance of intrinsic properties arise from structural and functional properties alone?