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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Atheism & Apologetics
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
Ikkyu
Have I said that there is an extra missing piece?
Your description is fine as a third person description. But we also have the experience of tasting chocolate, which is in the first person.
It just seems to me to be a philosophical issue. Science has (correctly) exiled subjectivity from its domain, therefore can't describe it.
I don't see this as a fault in science at all. I suppose some science fan-boys are a bit like the man with a hammer, who saw everything as a nail.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
Ikkyu
Just a footnote to that - I don't think that science can describe/explain itself, can it?
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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SusanDoris
Incurable Optimist
# 12618
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Posted
Ikkyu
Your post ending:
quote:
What does the extra missing piece do that these don't? And how does it do it?
Good one!
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I know that you believe that you understood what you think I said, but I am not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant.
Posts: 3083 | From: UK | Registered: May 2007
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by SusanDoris:
Ikkyu
Your post ending:
quote:
What does the extra missing piece do that these don't? And how does it do it?
Good one!
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Posts
It would be a good one, if I'd said that there is an extra missing piece. Have I?
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
Quetzalcoatl,
Science does not make claims, people make claims.
Seriously, though, one can attempt to describe God scientifically. The conclusions are the problematic part, not the study itself.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Adeodatus
Shipmate
# 4992
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ikkyu:
What happens when a person tastes chocolate? The piece of chocolate touches the taste buds. These send signals to the brain. Also we smell the chocolate at the same time and that is part of the experience.
Those messages generate activity in the brain. Put all of these together and you taste chocolate. If there is something wrong with your taste buds or your nose the signals that get to the brain are different and so is the experience. If you put something else and not chocolate it tastes different. If you have ever eaten chocolate before or have experienced something similar your memories will interact with the way your brain is processing this information and alter what it feels like.
Where is the need of a non-material component in that?
"Now, girl number twenty," said Mr. Gradgrind, "you know what a horse is."
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"What is broken, repair with gold."
Posts: 9779 | From: Manchester | Registered: Sep 2003
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Ikkyu
Shipmate
# 15207
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Posted
@Quetzalcoatl
So if there is nothing missing whats wrong with that scientific description of the Mind?
There is nothing in the scientific description that takes away from what people experience when they have subjective experiences. Knowing the non subjective facts about a rainbow does not detract from the subjective experience of watching one unless you try to do optics in your head while watching a rainbow instead of just watching it.
Knowing that the mind is a part of the physical world does not make our first person experiences somehow invalid.
If looking at neurons firing does not taste like chocolate should anyone be surprised? But If your neurons firing when you are tasting chocolate had nothing to do with your experience of tasting chocolate that would be surprising. And that is what would need to be explained.
Posts: 434 | From: Arizona | Registered: Oct 2009
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Ikkyu
Shipmate
# 15207
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
It just seems to me to be a philosophical issue. Science has (correctly) exiled subjectivity from its domain, therefore can't describe it.
That to me sounds like the job for a poet. (describing subjectivity)
Whats wrong with saying physical brains interacting with their environment have subjective experiences? That when we have subjective experiences we are having a physical experience?
Do dogs have subjective experiences? Or bats?
It seems to me that the scientific facts we know lead to that conclusion. And if so our neuro-anatomy has evolved in a way that allows for subjective experience.
Posts: 434 | From: Arizona | Registered: Oct 2009
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argona
Shipmate
# 14037
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ikkyu:
But what does "Ah yes, that's me being pissed off with my partner for getting crabby with me, just because our son was crabby with her" look like?
I haven't a clue what it might look like, but I know how it feels. Resentment, love, anger, anxiety, concern, all of those were present. And I can't see how they could be described in any kind of "the knee bone's connected to the thigh bone" account of things. The attempt to do so looks, to me, like a serious category error.
If I'm wrong, and as I've said, that may well be wrong, it seems to me that the understanding of ourselves necessary to operate in any culture that has existed - and, I suspect, in any human culture that could exist - is annihilated.
Posts: 327 | From: Oriental dill patch? (4,7) | Registered: Aug 2008
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Andromeda
Shipmate
# 11304
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ikkyu:
Where is the need of a non-material component in that? If somebody stimulates your neurons in the same way but you are not really eating chocolate it still would feel the same. What is missing? And what does the missing piece in this description DO.
Surely the point people are trying to make is that the experience itself is non-material. The causes may be physical but the experience itself cannot be shown to be physical.
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In this world you’ll have trouble. But cheer up! I have overcome the world.
Posts: 57 | From: South Wales | Registered: Apr 2006
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Ikkyu
Shipmate
# 15207
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by argona:
I haven't a clue what it might look like, but I know how it feels. Resentment, love, anger, anxiety, concern, all of those were present. And I can't see how they could be described in any kind of "the knee bone's connected to the thigh bone" account of things. The attempt to do so looks, to me, like a serious category error.
If I'm wrong, and as I've said, that may well be wrong, it seems to me that the understanding of ourselves necessary to operate in any culture that has existed - and, I suspect, in any human culture that could exist - is annihilated.
On the first point. If you did not have a body that includes a brain would you "feel" anything?
The problem here for me is that the language we use to describe this is Cartesian. According to how we speak the Mind Can't be Physical by Definition . But that is a mistake. I am following John Searle in this.
I am a Monist, there is only one world. Feelings and atoms exist in the same world.
how that understanding better what makes us work is annihilating that very same understanding.
Posts: 434 | From: Arizona | Registered: Oct 2009
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Grokesx
Shipmate
# 17221
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Posted
quote:
Meaning? Is there something about the year 2002 that somehow invalidates ideas that were expressed during it?
Meaning he has had eleven years to present the alternative view.
quote:
Not that I'm aware of. But since falsification is a principle of science ...
... that applies to scientific theories, there is not much else to say, but I rarely let that stop me. Scientific theories make predictions that can be tested empirically and that we can determine by observation and/or experiment whether they are wrong. No metaphysical theory can be falsified in that sense. Philosophers, bless em, always try to disprove each others metaphysical theories and rarely succeed in convincing anyone except themselves.
quote:
Of course, you could actually engage with the article and criticise what Williams has actually said,
If he can write this with a straight face, then the man is beyond criticism:
quote:
Just to take one example of the weirdness of physicalism: It is very strange to discuss whether my belief that I am hungry is to the left or the right of my belief that angel cake will satiate my hunger! Then again, what weight or mass should we attribute to the thought that an angel cake would be nice to eat?! How many thoughts about angel cakes will fit into the space of my brain?! If thoughts and beliefs were purely physical things one would expect such questions to be meaningful. Instead, they seem to be nonsensical.
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For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. H. L. Mencken
Posts: 373 | From: Derby, UK | Registered: Jul 2012
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Ikkyu
Shipmate
# 15207
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Andromeda:
Surely the point people are trying to make is that the experience itself is non-material. The causes may be physical but the experience itself cannot be shown to be physical.
Define non-material. If that "non-material" substance has any effect on the physical universe we could measure it, or observe it, and it would be part of the physical universe. If it does not, it is irrelevant because it makes no difference.
Posts: 434 | From: Arizona | Registered: Oct 2009
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
argona
Yes, 'category error' sounds right. Also, different points of view; one inside me; the other outside me, treating me in the third person. Entirely different perspectives, which don't seem commensurate. It's not actually a problem, as long as science doesn't think it can solve it.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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Grokesx
Shipmate
# 17221
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Posted
@Quetz
I really don't understand how the first person/third person stuff is supposed to be such a massive problem. If a psychologist or neurologist or cognitive scientist is studying my consciousness, it's in the third person to him, so no problem. Simples.
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For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. H. L. Mencken
Posts: 373 | From: Derby, UK | Registered: Jul 2012
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argona
Shipmate
# 14037
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Grokesx:
@Quetz
I really don't understand how the first person/third person stuff is supposed to be such a massive problem. If a psychologist or neurologist or cognitive scientist is studying my consciousness, it's in the third person to him, so no problem. Simples.
Simples? No problem? You jest. No, I'm sure you don't, but you have spelled out, more economically than any of us, why a third-person approach can only struggle with mind. Because mind, uniquely among objects of study, is a first-person entity. Science of mind, philosophy of mind, is the mind trying to understand itself. The critique of anthropocentrism is hitting the core. Do we exist in any form that can make sense of our acting in the world, rather than simply occurring as bundles of matter doing what matter does? Discuss, though you won't get anywhere without accommodating the first person.
Posts: 327 | From: Oriental dill patch? (4,7) | Registered: Aug 2008
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
Yes, I don't actually live in the third person, except to you of course.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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LeRoc
Famous Dutch pirate
# 3216
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Posted
quote:
Ikkyu: Where is the need of a non-material component in that? If somebody stimulates your neurons in the same way but you are not really eating chocolate it still would feel the same. What is missing? And what does the missing piece in this description DO. How does the missing piece work?
I'm not looking for a missing piece, but I'm looking for an explanation. In your story of us tasting chocolate, what you described comes down to a series of optical and electro-chemical impulses. What I'm looking for is an explanation how you get from there to me experiencing eating a piece of chocolate. There is a whole 'inner world' inside of me, and in this inner world, I experience the taste of chocolate. How do you get from the electro-chemical impulses to there?
It may be quite true that if we electrically stimulate some neurons in my brain I'll have the same experience, but that's not an explanation. Science doesn't accept this kind of reasoning as an explanation in other fields either, so it shouldn't count as one here.
Like I said before on this thread, I'm not a Cartesian. I don't believe that there is a non-material component that is responsible by itself for us having these experiences. We definitely need our brains for it, and the electro-chemical processes inside of it. But those aren't enough to explain this inner world, this experience.
Science doesn't give an explanation of how to get from these electro-chemical signals to an inner world, and I'm not sure if it can. Science describes the physical processes in this world, and I don't see how it can get to this inner world without postulating it in the first place.
I can't give an explanation of how to get there either. But since I believe that Science cannot either, I have the freedom to put my explanation there.
quote:
Ikkyu: Define non-material. If that "non-material" substance has any effect on the physical universe we could measure it, or observe it, and it would be part of the physical universe. If it does not, it is irrelevant because it makes no difference.
Yet it is very real. I experience this inner world. You do too. Science doesn't have an explanation for this.
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I know why God made the rhinoceros, it's because He couldn't see the rhinoceros, so He made the rhinoceros to be able to see it. (Clarice Lispector)
Posts: 9474 | From: Brazil / Africa | Registered: Aug 2002
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EtymologicalEvangelical
Shipmate
# 15091
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by grokesx
Meaning he has had eleven years to present the alternative view.
Which I am sure he has in his many writings (he's not limited to that website, if you really want to know).
quote:
Scientific theories make predictions that can be tested empirically and that we can determine by observation and/or experiment whether they are wrong. No metaphysical theory can be falsified in that sense. Philosophers, bless em, always try to disprove each others metaphysical theories and rarely succeed in convincing anyone except themselves.
Well, considering that the so called 'scientific world view' is a metaphysical theory, given that it makes statements about the nature of reality as a whole, then I guess it cannot be falsified, and therefore doesn't really count as 'scientific'.
As for the method of falsification: it is actually impossible to falsify anything by an exclusively empirical method. All 'empirical' means is 'by experience', which normally means sense experience. Anyone with even the smallest grasp of epistemology knows that we cannot draw any conclusions from sense experience alone. For example, if I put a pan of water on a flame and allow it to bubble up and produce steam when it hits 100 degrees centigrade, I can have no assurance that water boils at that temperature based entirely on my sense experience in this experiment. Why do I say this? Because all my sense experience is telling me is that I see certain colours and movement and perhaps hear certain noises and I feel a certain heat. Period.
I can only draw a conclusion from this sense experience if I apply another tool to it. This tool is known as... you guessed it... logic. I have already constructed the hypothesis in my mind by means of a question: what happens to water when it reaches a certain temperature? I already know what the markings on my thermometer mean and I am intellectually satisfied that they make sense and that the tool is reliable. I already understand the logic of the different states of matter and comprehend the concept of evaporation. I also believe in the uniformity of nature and the universal consistency of natural laws, which is a metaphysical construct utterly unproveable by science, and on which the validity of the scientific method depends (unless you violate the rules and talk about the Big Bang). I then conduct my experiment and observe that my question is answered by the reading of 100 degrees. I THEREFORE (note the word) draw my conclusion, which I then BY FAITH (in the metaphysical principle of the uniformity of nature) apply to reality as a whole (or at least to similar conditions on earth).
So therefore falsification is primarily dependent on logic. And that is why metaphysical theories can be falsified. The only problem is that some people may not accept the conclusions for ideological reasons, but that is more a problem of human nature than logic or philosophy.
As for your derision of Williams' angel cake example... he is quite right to apply the reductio ad absurdum argument to show the fallacy of attempting to explain the stuff of mind materially. But, hey, that won't stop the materialists from constantly attempting to argue that "everything is material" while also claiming that matter can throw up emergent non-material properties. A materialistic methodology is clearly invalid in attempting to explain various aspects of reality, and Williams is entirely justified in pointing that out.
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You can argue with a man who says, 'Rice is unwholesome': but you neither can nor need argue with a man who says, 'Rice is unwholesome, but I'm not saying this is true'. CS Lewis
Posts: 3625 | From: South Coast of England | Registered: Sep 2009
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
Where do 'they' claim that?
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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argona
Shipmate
# 14037
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Posted
As Nietzsche said: "There are no facts, only interpretations".
Science interprets data, building a (mostly) coherent body of theory. Testing a hypothesis is a matter of testing its coherence with related, and established, interpretations.
Nothing in the body of theory is in principle unrevisable, though - with an entirely correct conservatism - the deeper within that body an interpretation lies, the more that hangs on it, the more reluctant science will be to revise (though as I understand it, quantum theorists may have some fairly deep revisions in the offing).
Is this so different from our approach to any other field of theory?
Posts: 327 | From: Oriental dill patch? (4,7) | Registered: Aug 2008
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Ikkyu
Shipmate
# 15207
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by LeRoc:
It may be quite true that if we electrically stimulate some neurons in my brain I'll have the same experience, but that's not an explanation. Science doesn't accept this kind of reasoning as an explanation in other fields either, so it shouldn't count as one here.
Like I said before on this thread, I'm not a Cartesian. I don't believe that there is a non-material component that is responsible by itself for us having these experiences. We definitely need our brains for it, and the electro-chemical processes inside of it. But those aren't enough to explain this inner world, this experience.
Science doesn't give an explanation of how to get from these electro-chemical signals to an inner world, and I'm not sure if it can. Science describes the physical processes in this world, and I don't see how it can get to this inner world without postulating it in the first place.
I can't give an explanation of how to get there either. But since I believe that Science cannot either, I have the freedom to put my explanation there.
I agree that the scientific study of this topic is still a work in progress. A question, if you are not a Cartesian Dualist are you a Property Dualist? What is your position on this? What would constitute a scientific explanation?
When you say that the complex workings of the brain with its billions of neurons and trillions of interconnections, together with the interaction of the rest of the central nervous system to the outside world are never going to be enough to explain our inner world. I can only remind you of Grokesx's example of the flock of birds. 3 very simple rules lead to very complex behavior. What possibilities for complex behavior are in something as complex as the brain?
quote:
Originally posted by LeRoc:
quote:
Ikkyu: Define non-material. If that "non-material" substance has any effect on the physical universe we could measure it, or observe it, and it would be part of the physical universe. If it does not, it is irrelevant because it makes no difference.
Yet it is very real. I experience this inner world. You do too. Science doesn't have an explanation for this.
I never claimed we don't have an inner world. And I agree our experiences of it are indeed real.
But that does not mean there is anything non-material there. Just neurons firing that we experience as our “inner world” . If the claim is made that science cannot investigate this, I can foresee a time in the not too distant future (Maybe it will take longer than I think) in which we could make a recording of someones “inner” experience, the neurons firing etc. and then stimulate the same area in someone elses brain. Then if the other person has an “inner” experience that coincides with the previous one an identification of the 2 seemingly different things “inner” experience and brain states would be in an even more solid basis. If the other person does not experience anything then there would be something missing. So it is not “in principle” beyond scientific explanation.
Posts: 434 | From: Arizona | Registered: Oct 2009
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IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
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Posted
Ikkyu, you haven't understood the problem. For example, if I write the following command:
a=3
in a program then a computer may "set variable 'a' to three". In fact, some currents will flow and some transistors will change so as to represent this. So you then can say that the computer is in the "internal state of three-ness concerning variable 'a'", or some such. You can even go and try to determine such an internal state just from observing the currents and transistors, and then perhaps transfer such a state from one computer to the other by injecting currents and manipulating transistors.
But note that all this talk about internal states and three-ness and variables is not in the computer. It is in us, it is our reflected understanding of the computer. The computer just is, it is just in some configuration of currents and transistors. We are the ones doing all the state-talking here.
Of course, you could go and add to the program:
if a==3 then
a3state=.true.
print "I am in state three concerning variable a."
else
a3state=.false.
endif
So now the computer makes note of its internal state in a new variable 'a3state' and also says that it is in this particular state, if it is. But all this really does is to add more currents and transistor changes. It is not like the computer somehow has become aware of its internal state. Rather, we have become aware that there is now a "higher level" variable 'a3state' which keeps track of the "lower level" variable 'a' as far as three-ness goes. The computer itself however still just is and does. In this case it does a self-reflective thing (it acts upon its own state), but it does not self-reflect (the new variable 'a3state' represents the three-ness of 'a' only in our mind, the computer simply pushes electrons about).
Obviously you can now add near arbitrary complexity to this. But ultimately this will be just more of the same. You cannot step from what the computer is and does (an electron pusher) to what we do in looking at it (explaining it in terms of states). There is nothing in pushing electrons about that can get you there. People have near magic expectations of "emergence", as if in a complex system anything can happen. That's decidedly not the case. If you mix eggs and flour and sugar and many spices, then no matter how complex and sophisticated your baking recipe, you will not bake a functional gatling gun. You certainly can get a cake "emerging" from your baking, that goes beyond anything you can attribute to any single ingredient. But there is not the right sort of power in these things to make a gatling gun, no matter what you try. Likewise, there is no power in a computer program to become "conscious". Of course one can make a program that will fool people into thinking that it is conscious. But executing the program above does not make the computer experience its internal state, it merely makes it act upon it. And any number of similar instructions can only result in more bookkeeping and other reactions - more electron pushing - not in the sort of qualitatively different behaviour that we exhibit in thinking about the computer.
And it is not enough merely to say "one day we will find out how to do this." Because we are not merely saying here "we do not know how to do this." Rather we are saying "best we can tell, there is now way of doing this, in principle." One has to point to a serious flaw in our principle considerations here, or we can be sure that even in a billion years computer will not be able to do this, whatever other unimaginably fantastic things they may do.
Now, the usual descriptions of brains (neurons and all that) is basically like that of a computer. Not that neuroscientists claim that the brain literally is a computer (though some do). But it is described in a similar "physical object does certain things which can be described as representing information processing" manner. And while we largely have no idea what the "program" of the brain may be, we are thinking of its capabilities in a similar manner: neurons are firing, ions get pushed about, membrane potentials change, and in the end we recognise our grandma from retina input, or whatever. But in setting up our description in this way, we are setting up the same failure mode. It's just that we cannot state it so explicitly, since we know so little about the brain. But again, if the brain is roughly the same sort of deal as a computer, at least in a descriptive sense, then we do not know how to describe consciousness in terms of it. An ion pusher does not get us to that any more than an electron pusher.
Nobody knows at this point in time how to bridge this gap. And I mean in principle. This is not a problem that normal, steady scientific progress will eliminate. Perhaps "we" really are in our neurons (and glia, and...). But at this point in time we do not know how this can be. We do not even really know what this statement means. Something has to give there, something qualitatively new has to enter into our description. If I knew what, I would book a hotel room in Stockholm.
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They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear
Posts: 12010 | From: Gone fishing | Registered: Oct 2004
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
If you mix eggs and flour and sugar and many spices, then no matter how complex and sophisticated your baking recipe, you will not bake a functional gatling gun. You certainly can get a cake "emerging" from your baking, that goes beyond anything you can attribute to any single ingredient. But there is not the right sort of power in these things to make a gatling gun, no matter what you try. Likewise, there is no power in a computer program to become "conscious".
Doesn't making a declarative statement like that imply a knowledge of how consciousness works akin to our current knowledge of cakes and Gatling guns?
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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argona
Shipmate
# 14037
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
If you mix eggs and flour and sugar and many spices, then no matter how complex and sophisticated your baking recipe, you will not bake a functional gatling gun. You certainly can get a cake "emerging" from your baking, that goes beyond anything you can attribute to any single ingredient. But there is not the right sort of power in these things to make a gatling gun, no matter what you try. Likewise, there is no power in a computer program to become "conscious".
Doesn't making a declarative statement like that imply a knowledge of how consciousness works akin to our current knowledge of cakes and Gatling guns?
I have no idea at all how a Gatling gun works but I know what it is, I'd recognise one if I came across it (courtesy of numerous movies) and it's clear that it's not the same thing, and could not conceivably be the same as a cake.
Similarly I have no idea how mental states work, but I know what irritation, fascination, boredom, intention, need, anger, contrition, frustration, concern and recognising one's grandmother are. I understand them in myself and others, talk about them, write about them in my fiction and discern them in others' work. And none of those mental states could be described by any conceivable description of material events in a brain.
Posts: 327 | From: Oriental dill patch? (4,7) | Registered: Aug 2008
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IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
Doesn't making a declarative statement like that imply a knowledge of how consciousness works akin to our current knowledge of cakes and Gatling guns?
We know a lot about how our consciousness works, since it simply is a primary and fundamental experience. We know a lot about how physical entities work, since we have studied nature systematically for centuries. The problem is, as my post has argued at length, that nobody knows how to connect these two domains of our knowledge. And not just in the sense that we have not figured this out just yet, but in the sense that these domains seem to be irreconcilably at odds with each other.
This is, by the way, not a religious point. Among atheists these obvious problems often result in the claim that consciousness is an illusion, i.e., the conflict is resolved by declaring one domain as true and the other as false.
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They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear
Posts: 12010 | From: Gone fishing | Registered: Oct 2004
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Ikkyu
Shipmate
# 15207
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
Ikkyu, you haven't understood the problem.
I was not arguing in favor of Strong AI. I also have not mentioned Algorithms in
my discussion. In part because computer functionalism is not the only physicalist theory of the mind.
I believe there are at least two separate questions here.
Is the Mind a Physical process in brains? And. How does that work?
The evidence for the first of these is in my opinion overwhelming. Studies of patients with brain damage have provided us with lots of information and the detail in those studies improves with
our technology. If you damage a person's brain you also damage the mind. There are problems with perception, color vision, memories language ability and so on that are the direct result of brain damage. Including drastic changes in personality. Diseases such as the different types of dementia only add to that list. When the mind preforms certain tasks there is without a question Physical activity in the brain of the person that is “doing mental things”. You never observe minds without a brain. That is what I was mostly arguing for.
The second question is harder. A lot of the problems are not scientific they are philosophical problems that I suspect have a lot to do with our use of language.
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
There is nothing in pushing electrons about that can get you there.
Likewise, there is no power in a computer program to become "conscious"
[/QB]
But just because our intuition seems to tell some of us that “mind things” cannot be “physical things” by definition, this, in itself, is no proof. Our intuition amounted to nothing when attempting to deal with the subatomic world. Appeals to philosophical ideas about how things “have” to be, failed, and the result was Quantum Theory as you well know.
This is why I kept repeating in my previous posts that expecting to smell chocolate when dissecting the brain of a person who eats chocolate is a very strange notion. But its being used as an argument against the possibility that the experience of eating chocolate is a physical event in the brain.
Our normal intuition tells us nothing about what the experience of tasting chocolate should look like as seen from a third person perspective. Because we spend our lives in the first person. So it cannot be used as an argument against mental events being a physical process in the brain.
Posts: 434 | From: Arizona | Registered: Oct 2009
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IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
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Posted
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Originally posted by Ikkyu:
Is the Mind a Physical process in brains? And. How does that work? The evidence for the first of these is in my opinion overwhelming.
No, it isn't. The evidence that the functions of the mind depend on the physical workings of the brain is indeed overwhelming. It does not follow at all that mind is a physical process in brains. An analogy: you driving your car around be the mind, and the car be the brain. If I smash the lights of your car, you will find it difficult to drive at night. If I let air out the tires of your car, your driving around will be much hampered in general. If I steal its engine, you cannot drive around at all. Clearly your driving depends on the workings of the car. This does not mean that your driving exactly is a process of the car. If I lock you into your room, there is no "driving" happening spontaneously by the car. If I make you drunk, then driving is impeded without any mechanical fault of the car. Etc. Driving is something you do with a car, it is not something the car does as such.
Dependence is not identity. We do know that minds need brains (at least our sort of minds). We decidedly do not know that minds are brains. In fact, there are good reasons to doubt that brains as we now describe them (namely as physical entities representing "mechanical" information processing) can be minds. See my previous post above.
quote:
Originally posted by Ikkyu:
Our intuition amounted to nothing when attempting to deal with the subatomic world. Appeals to philosophical ideas about how things “have” to be, failed, and the result was Quantum Theory as you well know.
A more proper statement would be to say that people realised that the subatomic world was captured better by other intuitions and philosophical ideas than the classical ones. And they realised this precisely by running into principle problems when they tried to make classical ideas work in the subatomic domain. My point is in fact that concerning the question of mind and brain we are now slowly getting to the point where physics was just before inventing quantum theory. We increasingly see that there is a problem there that cannot be solved in terms of what we have been doing, but we do not know what else we should be doing. And if I am right, then after the paradigm change we will look back on current "explanations" and consider them as so many epicycles.
quote:
Originally posted by Ikkyu:
Our normal intuition tells us nothing about what the experience of tasting chocolate should look like as seen from a third person perspective. Because we spend our lives in the first person. So it cannot be used as an argument against mental events being a physical process in the brain.
All you are saying here is that the argument does not hold because you allow yourself to appeal to magic where things become problematic. According to you, if we had much better science, then we could "bottom up" construct a physical brain, which would somehow gain a first person perspective. But how does that happen? If this is mechanistically dependent on the physical entities and their arrangements, then we must be able to understand this. At least we must be able to understand this in the sort of constructive / predictive sense with which we understand quantum mechanics. Otherwise you are just injecting magic juice there. But the argument is precisely that we can see no mechanistic way of constructing a first person perspective from physical entities. We have no constructive / predictive idea how this could arise.
In terms of the car analogy, basically we can imagine that one day we learn how to create a car from scratch. From the raw materials to being ready to drive, we can perhaps get the entire production pipeline sorted out. But we have no indication so far of how to get a driver to actually drive the damn thing. Nothing in the production processes which we are investigating seems to bring about that driver. The iron gets smelted, the plastic gets moulded, but we do not know how to get that driver thing sorted out, because it does not seem to be of the same kind of thing. Of course you can say "just make the car, a driver will come". And maybe that's even true. But we would like to know where the heck he's coming from, how does he come into the picture? Otherwise this is just an appeal to magic. And yes, maybe if we are extra-smart we can even make a car that drives itself by inserting some cool video-processing driver electronics. But that's not really it either. It just pushes the definition of driving further up the sophistication level (not moving the steering wheel anymore, but now just pushing buttons to key in the drive target).
Something is odd here. Something is not quite right. And real science does not happen by ignoring what is odd and not quite right.
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They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
We know a lot about how our consciousness works, since it simply is a primary and fundamental experience.
I'm not sure that's true. We know a lot about what it's like to have consciousness, but that's not the same as knowing how it works. To borrow from your car analogy, saying "[w]e know a lot about how our consciousness works" because we're conscious entities is like saying that someone is a qualified car mechanic because they know how to drive.
And I'm a bit skeptical of reasoning by analogy. The analogy is never a perfect fit, and one that posits a hitherto unknown external* "driver" pushing around our meat-puppet bodies seems like it's made several highly speculative logical leaps.
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* "External" in the sense of not really being part of the body, not in the sense of being physically outside the body. In much the same sense that a driver is not part of the car despite being physically inside the car.
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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Ikkyu
Shipmate
# 15207
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
Driving is something you do with a car, it is not something the car does as such.
We are not cars, our brain is a part of us. Are you postulating we need a tiny invisible Homunculus to move us around? Are you claiming that If some future technology was able to assemble all of the material parts of a human being atom by atom, that factory assembled collection of atoms would NOT be conscious?
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
All you are saying here is that the argument does not hold because you allow yourself to appeal to magic where things become problematic. According to you, if we had much better science, then we could "bottom up" construct a physical brain, which would somehow gain a first person perspective. But how does that happen? If this is mechanistically dependent on the physical entities and their arrangements, then we must be able to understand this. At least we must be able to understand this in the sort of constructive / predictive sense with which we understand quantum mechanics. Otherwise you are just injecting magic juice there. But the argument is precisely that we can see no mechanistic way of constructing a first person perspective from physical entities. We have no constructive / predictive idea how this could arise.
I am not appealing to magic I am appealing to the fact that there are conscious entities walking around made of a complex arrangement of trillions of cells. Some of which are for some reason drawn to endless arguments over the internet. Those assemblies of cells have failed miserably under close examination to be made out of anything other than physical components. So assuming that the physical components account for the behavior observed is not an appeal to magic.
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
Something is odd here. Something is not quite right. And real science does not happen by ignoring what is odd and not quite right.
From wiki quote:
...the "paradox" is only a conflict between reality and your feeling of what reality "ought to be."
Richard Feynman, in The Feynman Lectures on Physics, vol III, p. 18-9 (1965)
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LeRoc
Famous Dutch pirate
# 3216
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Posted
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Ikkyu: I agree that the scientific study of this topic is still a work in progress.
If I got a dime for every time someone said that to me...
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Ikkyu: A question, if you are not a Cartesian Dualist are you a Property Dualist?
I'm a theist. Everything that happens in our brain, including its complexity, is necessary for producing our 'inner world', but it isn't a sufficient explanation of where it comes from. There is a Mystery here that I connect with God. I don't know how She does it, but I don't believe that She does it by putting an external 'soul' in.
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Ikkyu: Just neurons firing that we experience as our “inner world”.
First there were only neurons firing, and suddenly there is already a 'we' and an 'experience'. Where did they come from? How does the 'inner world' arise from these neurons firing? How do you get from the physical to the mental.
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Ikkyu: I can only remind you of Grokesx's example of the flock of birds. 3 very simple rules lead to very complex behavior.
That's just an aspect of Dynamic Systems, that simple equations can lead to complex patterns. However, there isn't a paradigm shift here.
Every bird can be described here as a point particle, a speed, and a formula giving its interaction with other birds, that can all be described in terms of Cartesian coordinates. What comes out is a pattern, that can also be described in terms of Cartesian coordinates. It's really the same thing. You don't get from 3 birds flying into the sky to a couple of giraffes preparing a sandwich.
Within the brain, there is a paradygm shift between the physical action of our neurons and our mental 'inner world'.
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I know why God made the rhinoceros, it's because He couldn't see the rhinoceros, so He made the rhinoceros to be able to see it. (Clarice Lispector)
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IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
We know a lot about what it's like to have consciousness, but that's not the same as knowing how it works. To borrow from your car analogy, saying "[w]e know a lot about how our consciousness works" because we're conscious entities is like saying that someone is a qualified car mechanic because they know how to drive.
Nope. In my analogy, driving corresponds to consciousness, not the ability to repair a car. That would be more curing a brain diseases, and the car mechanic would be a medical doctor. We do know a lot about how consciousness works because we have it. For example, you know that sometimes you are "plain" conscious (i.e., staring out of a window) and sometimes it seems to be more like an internal commentary (an inner voice that even sometimes seems to argue with itself, e.g., when contemplating difficulties). This is a form of knowing "how consciousness works". It just is not the kind of knowledge that connects mechanistically to neurons.
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
And I'm a bit skeptical of reasoning by analogy. The analogy is never a perfect fit, and one that posits a hitherto unknown external* "driver" pushing around our meat-puppet bodies seems like it's made several highly speculative logical leaps.
My analogy was originally made to make one point, and one point only: that dependence is not the same as identity, i.e., that the undeniable fact that our mind depends on brain activity to a huge degree does not allow the conclusion that our mind is brain activity. My analogy was not intended as a "theory of mind" in its own right.
And I did not simply reason by analogy. To the contrary, I have argued in detail why the typical "program-like" description of brain function that dominates neuroscience today runs into principle problems when one tries to construct consciousness mechanistically from its building blocks.
The primary point to make here is that there is a serious problem. It is entirely licit to point out that there is a problem without suggesting a solution. I do not know the solution, or at least I do not know a solution meaningful to natural science. I have philosophical ideas on these matters, but I do not know how to render them distinctively into natural science.
quote:
Originally posted by Ikkyu:
We are not cars, our brain is a part of us. Are you postulating we need a tiny invisible Homunculus to move us around?
No. First, as just mentioned, my analogy served a particular purpose, and that purpose was not to serve as a theory of mind. Second, I would class myself philosophically as a hylemorphic rather than Cartesian dualist on this matter. (See here for an explanation.) So no, I do not believe in a "homunculus". However, I do not believe either that I can - scientifically or philosophically - disprove such a homunculus currently. Furthermore, I do not know how to "cash out" my philosophical ideas in natural science, and that is in my opinion a necessary step for intellectual integrity on this matter. So simply put, I do not have a coherent opinion on this matter, merely a collection of vague ideas.
quote:
Originally posted by Ikkyu:
So assuming that the physical components account for the behavior observed is not an appeal to magic.
It is. Because you cannot point to any feature of these myriad of cells that could reasonably be seen as leading to consciousness. Quantity cannot stand in for quality. No matter how big a shit heap becomes, it never starts smelling of roses. De facto you are saying: well yes, none of these neural units show any capacity for supporting consciousness, but if I put many, many of them together then - abracadabra - consciousness arises. That's magic thinking.
Again, this is not a religious point. Many hardcore materialist atheists would agree with me here. They merely then come to a different conclusion than I, namely that in the absence of magic consciousness does not arise, but is merely an illusion (whatever that means). Whereas I believe that consciousness does arise, hence that it somehow must be a capacity down to the neural units and that we are missing something fundamental in our world description which makes us overlook this crucial feature.
quote:
Originally posted by LeRoc:
That's just an aspect of Dynamic Systems, that simple equations can lead to complex patterns. However, there isn't a paradigm shift here. Every bird can be described here as a point particle, a speed, and a formula giving its interaction with other birds, that can all be described in terms of Cartesian coordinates. What comes out is a pattern, that can also be described in terms of Cartesian coordinates. It's really the same thing. You don't get from 3 birds flying into the sky to a couple of giraffes preparing a sandwich. Within the brain, there is a paradygm shift between the physical action of our neurons and our mental 'inner world'.
Precisely. I feel this is a point that is somewhat lost on those who have not themselves worked with such mathematical models. "It's sophisticated, so it can do everything." No, it can't. "There are emergent features, so we cannot say what it is capable of doing." Yes, we can. There is no magical mystery in a Turing-Hopf bifurcation. One does not say the word "complexity" to work miracles. Deterministic chaos is not otherworldly. We are simply not out of our depth in that sense. That we cannot predict the weather a month in advance does not mean that the atmosphere is a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. These systems are "unpredictable" in somewhat the same sense as we say that some people are unpredictable. We do not mean by that that they will suddenly turn into a green frog travelling at a million miles per hour while singing La Marseillaise...
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They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear
Posts: 12010 | From: Gone fishing | Registered: Oct 2004
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
Because you cannot point to any feature of these myriad of cells that could reasonably be seen as leading to consciousness. Quantity cannot stand in for quality. No matter how big a shit heap becomes, it never starts smelling of roses. De facto you are saying: well yes, none of these neural units show any capacity for supporting consciousness, but if I put many, many of them together then - abracadabra - consciousness arises. That's magic thinking.
Except that it's also consistent with observation. Looking at the central nervous systems of the various species that have such a feature does a fairly clear job of indicating that in this particular case you can make qualitative changes in capability through both increasing the number of neurons and changing the configuration of neurons. I mean, I suppose you could argue that this is just a coincidental feature and the mind of a stoat (as an example of something with some consciousness, but less than a human) could just as easily reside in the brain of a flatworm (as an example of something with even less consciousness than a stoat), but this seems counter-intuitive and would need a more convincing argument. The very fact that you find variability in consciousness among animal species in rough proportion to the complexity of the central nervous system is a fairly good indicator that in this particular case you can make qualitative changes through quantitative increases.
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
The very fact that you find variability in consciousness among animal species in rough proportion to the complexity of the central nervous system is a fairly good indicator that in this particular case you can make qualitative changes through quantitative increases.
Correlation is not causation, as the old (scientific) saying goes. We can indeed conclude that more wetware is needed to instantiate higher cognitive performance. But this does not contradict the point I've made, it merely tells us something about the likely mode of its realisation. The performance increase appears to be relying on more (parallel) units, rather than the addition of some special unit. But this precisely suggests that we should find the capacity for consciousness in each of these many units, albeit in a distributed manner. It is unlikely that one day we will chance on a special "consciousness unit" that carries this function. Since we do not know how we can attribute consciousness to the neural units that we know, we remain stuck. Again by analogy: more transistors generally result in greater CPU performance. But this relies on the fact that a (pair of) transistor(s) can do something that can instantiate a basic logical operation. Hence heaping many of them together leads to powerful computation. If I instead heap the same number of stones together, no computation happens. Stones lack the relevant power of transistors. Our problem here is that we lack the kind of insight about neurons that I just expressed in talking about transistors and basic logical operations. We do not know what the basic consciousness operation of a neuron is supposed to be. Our problem is not that we cannot construct a conscious human brain. Our problem is that we do not even know what the equivalent to a NAND gate would be in terms of consciousness. What is the thing or action of neurons that we can heap to get consciousness? We do not know, even though we know quite a bit about how neurons work.
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They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear
Posts: 12010 | From: Gone fishing | Registered: Oct 2004
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
The performance increase appears to be relying on more (parallel) units, rather than the addition of some special unit. But this precisely suggests that we should find the capacity for consciousness in each of these many units, albeit in a distributed manner.
Isn't the expectation that if something possesses a characteristic then some (or all) of its components must also possess that characteristic known as the fallacy of division?
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
Isn't the expectation that if something possesses a characteristic then some (or all) of its components must also possess that characteristic known as the fallacy of division?
Nope. I'm not saying that every single neuron must be conscious. I'm saying that if a heap of them are conscious, then somehow that power to be conscious must be distributed among them. To use the Wikipedia example: if the 747 can fly, and can be split up meaningfully in functional parts, then something in those parts must provide the power of flight to the whole (even if in a distributed manner, i.e., without assuming that every part can fly on its own). And so it is. We can in that case for example identify the jet engines and wings as core contributors of "flying power" to the 747. And we can analyse how their powers add up towards the flight of a 747. We do not know in a similar manner how the powers of neurons could add up towards the consciousness of the brain.
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They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear
Posts: 12010 | From: Gone fishing | Registered: Oct 2004
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
Isn't the expectation that if something possesses a characteristic then some (or all) of its components must also possess that characteristic known as the fallacy of division?
Nope. I'm not saying that every single neuron must be conscious. I'm saying that if a heap of them are conscious, then somehow that power to be conscious must be distributed among them.
I'm not entirely certain what you're trying to convey here. You seem to be saying that if something possesses a characteristic then its components must possess characteristics which, if assembled into that something, would give that something its characteristics. Or, in short version, something which has a characteristic has that characteristic (and may be made of smaller components). I'm not sure that tells us anything. Clarification, please?
[ 09. August 2013, 20:12: Message edited by: Crœsos ]
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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LeRoc
Famous Dutch pirate
# 3216
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Posted
I've been trying to explain to Crœsos 4 times on the other thread that this isn't the fallacy of division. I wonder if IngoB can do a better job ![[Biased]](wink.gif)
The fact that a 747 can fly by itself doesn't mean that we can expect all of its constituent parts to be able to fly by themselves.
However, Science cannot claim to have explained a 747 without having given an explanation of why it can fly by itself while its parts can't. Shouting "fallacy of division!" doesn't release Science from giving such an explanation.
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I know why God made the rhinoceros, it's because He couldn't see the rhinoceros, so He made the rhinoceros to be able to see it. (Clarice Lispector)
Posts: 9474 | From: Brazil / Africa | Registered: Aug 2002
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IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
You seem to be saying that if something possesses a characteristic then its components must possess characteristics which, if assembled into that something, would give that something its characteristics.
Yes.
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
Or, in short version, something which has a characteristic has that characteristic (and may be made of smaller components).
That's not a short version of the previous statement.
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
I'm not sure that tells us anything. Clarification, please?
Sure. You took a causal claim about characteristics and turned it into a tautology by removing the explanatory significance it attributed to composition.
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They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear
Posts: 12010 | From: Gone fishing | Registered: Oct 2004
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
Sure. You took a causal claim about characteristics and turned it into a tautology by removing the explanatory significance it attributed to composition.
Except you didn't attribute any significance to composition in your original point. You just hypothesized that a if something possesses a property like consciousness it "must be distributed among [its component parts]". Sort of a "conservation of characteristics", like conservation of mass or angular momentum. I'm not sure that it's meaningful to say that, to continue with the Wikipedia example, a bisected 747 has 50% of the ability to fly unaided across the ocean. That proportion, by itself, tells us nothing (and would be deceptive if the sales agent said it would get us halfway there). At any rate, your assertion that "no matter how big a shit heap becomes, it never starts smelling of roses" seems to back up this interpretation of your position. Namely that a large, complex system can only have properties which exist in some (or all) of its component pieces.
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
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SusanDoris
Incurable Optimist
# 12618
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Posted
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Le RocWe do not know what the basic consciousness operation of a neuron is supposed to be
I am reading with great interest as always. May I ask : In case I am misinterpreting, do you imply, when u use the phrase 'supposed to be', that there is a purpose, rather than an evolved, adaptive feature?
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I know that you believe that you understood what you think I said, but I am not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant.
Posts: 3083 | From: UK | Registered: May 2007
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IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
Except you didn't attribute any significance to composition in your original point.
Of course I did, and you are just about to repeat my assertion, albeit with your own wrong interpretation.
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
You just hypothesized that a if something possesses a property like consciousness it "must be distributed among [its component parts]". Sort of a "conservation of characteristics", like conservation of mass or angular momentum. I'm not sure that it's meaningful to say that, to continue with the Wikipedia example, a bisected 747 has 50% of the ability to fly unaided across the ocean. That proportion, by itself, tells us nothing (and would be deceptive if the sales agent said it would get us halfway there).
Nobody has said anything about how the distribution of power, and hence the composition, works. In fact, the one example that has been worked out above - namely the 747 - refutes your assertion now that this would have to mean that every part receives a proportional percentage share. To remind you, there was talk about "core components", thus an uneven distribution. Furthermore, the components identified - the jet engines and the wings, respectively - contribute quite differently to the flying abilities of a 747.
That said, in the specific case at hand - the brain - you are most likely closer to the truth than for man-made objects. That is to say, all indications are that the brain really is to a large extent a "distributed" system in your simplistic sense. In fact, that is one of the mysteries of the brain, how so many differentiated response can arise from such undifferentiated tissue. However, this is a point about this specific object. Nothing in my general assertion means that it has to be this way.
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
At any rate, your assertion that "no matter how big a shit heap becomes, it never starts smelling of roses" seems to back up this interpretation of your position. Namely that a large, complex system can only have properties which exist in some (or all) of its component pieces.
Indeed, for an appropriately careful definition of what we mean by "exist" here, that is the case. And before you go on about "emergence", "chaos", "multistable states", "bifurcations" and whatnot: The point is not some kind of holographic principle that would attribute to every sub-unit every feature of the whole. The point is not some claim of complete predictability of the whole in terms of its sub-units. The point is rather that a composite inherits its features from its sub-units and their interactions, and that hence the space of possibilities for that composite is intrinsically limited by the features of those sub-units. There is never any "magic" that steps in and supplies features inexplicable in terms of the sub-unit. If you want to build a tall tower, you go shopping for strong building materials. You do not use jelly. That does not mean that a brick in a tall tower must be tall itself. It is quite flat, in fact. Rather it does mean that the load-bearing capabilities of the brick stack up (even literally) to the tallness of the tower. The tallness of the tower "emerges" from the toughness of the brick, but there is no "magic" here. We can understand why bricks can do this, whereas jelly can't. We understand the mechanistic principle by which the powers of the whole are composed from the powers of the parts.
This is then what I'm saying about the powers of parts and the powers of the whole. And my claim is that right now we do not know how the various powers of neurons that we have identified can stack up to the power of consciousness that we experience. Not only do we not know this, I say, rather it appears that there is a principle problem with this. So it is not like we are given several tons of brick, and somebody tells us to build a tall tower, but we have no experience with masonry and architecture and are confused what to do. Rather it is that we do know a bit of masonry and architecture, but somebody has given us what appears to be a few tons of jelly to create that tower. Whereupon we say "How the fuck is that supposed to work?" And that's basically where neuroscience is at with regards to consciousness...
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They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear
Posts: 12010 | From: Gone fishing | Registered: Oct 2004
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
You just hypothesized that a if something possesses a property like consciousness it "must be distributed among [its component parts]". Sort of a "conservation of characteristics", like conservation of mass or angular momentum. I'm not sure that it's meaningful to say that, to continue with the Wikipedia example, a bisected 747 has 50% of the ability to fly unaided across the ocean. That proportion, by itself, tells us nothing (and would be deceptive if the sales agent said it would get us halfway there).
Nobody has said anything about how the distribution of power, and hence the composition, works. In fact, the one example that has been worked out above - namely the 747 - refutes your assertion now that this would have to mean that every part receives a proportional percentage share. To remind you, there was talk about "core components", thus an uneven distribution. Furthermore, the components identified - the jet engines and the wings, respectively - contribute quite differently to the flying abilities of a 747.
But if you're cutting along a line of symmetry, there's an equal number of wings and engines in each half. That seems like a 50/50 split to me.
More to the point, we seem to be in agreement that a complex system can have characteristics that are not present, even fractionally, in any of it's components. Being derived from the interaction of other, different characteristics of the components isn't the same thing as the component having some fraction of the derived characteristic.
Which brings me back to this:
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
Obviously you can now add near arbitrary complexity to this. But ultimately this will be just more of the same. You cannot step from what the computer is and does (an electron pusher) to what we do in looking at it (explaining it in terms of states). There is nothing in pushing electrons about that can get you there.
This seems to be saying that a complex system can't have properties which aren't found in at least one of its component parts. Since this is the basis for you conclusion that there's something wrong in principle with trying to understand consciousness as a set of brain functions, I'm not sure that conclusion is supportable if it's acknowledged that a system need not have only the characteristics possessed by its component pieces.
[ 10. August 2013, 18:12: Message edited by: Crœsos ]
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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LeRoc
Famous Dutch pirate
# 3216
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Posted
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Originally posted by SusanDoris:
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Le RocWe do not know what the basic consciousness operation of a neuron is supposed to be
I am reading with great interest as always. May I ask : In case I am misinterpreting, do you imply, when u use the phrase 'supposed to be', that there is a purpose, rather than an evolved, adaptive feature?
It wasn't me who wrote that.
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I know why God made the rhinoceros, it's because He couldn't see the rhinoceros, so He made the rhinoceros to be able to see it. (Clarice Lispector)
Posts: 9474 | From: Brazil / Africa | Registered: Aug 2002
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SusanDoris
Incurable Optimist
# 12618
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Posted
Le Roc
Oh dear! Sorry about that.
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I know that you believe that you understood what you think I said, but I am not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant.
Posts: 3083 | From: UK | Registered: May 2007
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IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
But if you're cutting along a line of symmetry, there's an equal number of wings and engines in each half. That seems like a 50/50 split to me.
That's a physical 50-50 split (a plane is not really symmetric like that, but never mind...). It is not a split that assigns 50% of flying ability in a simplistic sense to either part: neither part can fly "half as good" (something may happen if you can still fire up the jet engine, but it's not going to be pretty). However, in this particular case it is indeed roughly a 50% split in flying ability in a more sophisticated sense: the ability of the whole to fly relies to roughly one half on the powers contributed by each part.
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
More to the point, we seem to be in agreement that a complex system can have characteristics that are not present, even fractionally, in any of it's components. Being derived from the interaction of other, different characteristics of the components isn't the same thing as the component having some fraction of the derived characteristic.
No, we are not in agreement. A complex system can never have characteristics that are not present in some way in its component. There is no magic that suddenly turns one sort of thing into quite another. The ability to have certain interactions is a characteristic of the parts having those interactions. That ability is not some separate entity. In my example, the toughness of the bricks allows the interaction of being stacked upon each other, leading to the characteristic of tallness in the resulting tower. Jelly does not have this ability: you cannot properly stack jelly, and so you cannot make a jelly tower. "Tallness" is not a characteristic that is in each brick in a simplistic sense, but it sure is in each brick through their ability to stack up with other bricks. In that sense in this specific case, it's even simply additive (each brick contributes its height to the total tallness).
We are not looking for a way here to make every single neuron "a little bit conscious". We are looking for a way how every single neuron (or perhaps, a specific subgroup of neurons) can by its own powers contribute to "stacking up" the whole to consciousness. And sure, we must consider interactions between neurons. Neurons are abundantly connected. But these connections are part of their cell powers (quite literally, since the connectivity - dendrites and axons - are simply outgrowths of the same cell).
You can of course argue that the precise arrangement of these connections is something beyond the single cells themselves, and should be considered as a contributing entity in its own right. By all means, please do. That is indeed where I see the interface to hylemorphic (matter-form) dualism...
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
This seems to be saying that a complex system can't have properties which aren't found in at least one of its component parts. Since this is the basis for you conclusion that there's something wrong in principle with trying to understand consciousness as a set of brain functions, I'm not sure that conclusion is supportable if it's acknowledged that a system need not have only the characteristics possessed by its component pieces.
Yes, but I'm not acknowledging that. At least not in the more sophisticated sense that I've been trying to communicate to you for several posts now. We are not talking about a simplistic "chopping up" of holistic characteristics into reductionist pieces. But we are talking about "bottom up" causality that is at least in principle explicable and traceable, and does significantly and understandably constrain the whole in terms of its parts. I understand how bricks make a tower. I do not understand how neurons make a consciousness. Worse, what I understand about neurons seems to speak against them ever making a consciousness. That's the problem.
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They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear
Posts: 12010 | From: Gone fishing | Registered: Oct 2004
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