Philosophy Now Forum

Chaz:

Then explain how a rock has this quality.
Stop avoiding the question.
Now demonstrate THAT a rock has this quality.
You can do neither.

...

Now tell me how is it a rock can have this occult quality of which you speak and can you demonstrate it?


MGL:

If you care to read carefully what I posted, you will see that I have not avoided the question, but you certainly seem to be ignoring my answer.
I have already stated that I cannot demonstrate that a particle has a primitive consciousness and explained why. To make it easier for you I will repeat the two points I made earlier only one of which seemed to elict a response from you which I have to say was far from enlightening.

1) Of course panpsychism cannot explain how a particle has a 'psychic' quality any more than physics can explain why a particle has a mass or a spin. Its part of the theory that it is a primitive property of matter.


2) Of course it cannot be demonstrated that a particle has this quality in the same way it can be demonstrated a particle has mass or spin. This quality has only been inferred from the argument for panpsychism, which, if you disagree with, then you have to provide an explanation of how phenomenal consciousness emerges only from special properties of the brain.



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Chaz: All examples of conscious activity are the special characteristics of living nervous matter. It is not found anywhere else.

MGL:

Please explain how only living nervous matter has this occult quality of which you speak. Perhaps the only reason why we don't find consciousness anywhere else is just because nothing else is sufficiently complex enough to report itself as being conscious.

Our discussion might actually get somewhere if you stop avoiding to provide a non-reductionist account of phenomenal consciousness. I can't find anything you said which addresses the hard problem of phenomenal consciousness. All I sense is that you just take it for granted that phenomenal consciousness magically emerges from the the activities of a brain because of its special properties. Your analogy with the conductivity of metal only seemed to serve my point.

Chaz: I can show you that consciousness does indeed emerge from the living brain

MGL: you keep saying this, but when are you actually going to show it?

Drop over to my place and I'll kill you a rabbit, George.

MGL: Please explain how only living nervous matter has this occult quality of which you speak. Perhaps the only reason why we don't find consciousness anywhere else is just because nothing else is sufficiently complex enough to report itself as being conscious.

Chaz: There is much evidence of consciousness in systems that cannot actively report it - they are all living systems.
Dead matter has not this quality. That makes your idea bankrupt.

MGL: the evidence of consciousness in systems that cannot actively report it is inferred from the correlation of conscious phenomena to brain events of those creatures that can report it and by extending this inference to any creature with a brain. This certainly justifies the assumption that the form that consciousness takes is mediated by the brain, but it does not warrant the assumption that it is the brain which produces consciousness. It is this assumption I am, still waiting for you to prove.

You are only demonstrating that a conscious mind emerges from the living brain, not consciousness itself.

There is no "consciousness itself'. Now I see what your problem is- you are an undigested Platonist.

Is there such a thing as "Stupidity itself" too? Is it not enough to merely demonstrate it in you, or do I have to demonstrate its ideal Form??

Interesting. So sum it up MHD , what are you proposing consciousness is?

OK, it seems to me that this is what your link as saying:

there is apparently mind and there is appearnelty matter.
So, how do we reconsile these?

like this:
what is apparent must be true.
there is real matter, and there is real mind.
so there must be some aspect of what is real that links the two.
the real then can be translated a 'mind/matter' elemental particle or aspect of what is real.

If I am correct in this summary then I say this:

The Real here is the pivotal element. and so the argument look into the Real for something that can mediate the apparent duality. It does this by a transmuting of terms. it takes 'real' and divides it up by some sort of logical surgery. and I think this is what Chaz is getting at (Im not toally sure though):
1.There is not evididence (factual-actual science) which has found such link. It is pure speculation (metaphysics).
2. if such evidence is found is would not make sence, or it would only make sense in this same type of metaphysical way.

Suppose we found such a particle (I use this term for ease)/ qualia. Is it matter? or is it mind?
You can use all the physics analogies you want but such item cannot exist except as pure math, or knowledge. It can only exist as movement or position. Which mimics and parallels you thesis. there is not in between. the descriptopns of mathemetical equasion is a colloquialism; it does not explain the event in such a way that we can take the explanations and ring them through a philosophical grinder and come to truths. it is the difference between clasical or convnetional and quantum mechanics
.
If it is both, how am I knowing this?

Thus the whole basis of your argument is merely a thought experiment.
It is taking a term and chopping it up into other terms as if the chopping is finding something more true or essential.
motion and position in your synthesis becomes motion/position. Mind or matter becomes mind/matter. What ever terms you use the resultant idea is merely an idea; the only truth it reflects is that the mind is capable of using logic in strange ways: metaphysics.

there is no way to overcome the mind aspect. The mind cannot know something that is not itself knowledge. It cannot know of an essential 'matter', and it cannot come to know that there must be something which joins mind and matter except as if is mind knowing it.

thus i ask you: how do you overcome existance sufficiently enough to know of something essentially 'other'?
this is how: you positon yourself as a priviledged entity, ordained or established by something essentially not of this existance. this is the only way that you can assert that there is a knowlable matter that is not mind. Or the converse: that everything has an aspect of mind is really saying the same thing, since you are still relying upon some 'real' matter of which 'mind' is linked to.

The only way to avoid seeing the inherent priviledge is to contain oneself in mind, to deny the aspect i have above explained, and shot out the notion that it is really all 'mind'.

the problem is not solved by inventing new 'things' or 'qualia' (a thing that is not a thing due to the defining of it as 'more than quality of a thing', which is positin an essential thing), it is solved by understanding what the world is in a different manner.

It is not 'if mind is the universe then how do we explain other minds and matter'; it is 'what is it about my knowing of the condition of reality that is informing me of what reality is'? How does my condition of knowing allow me what reality is?

Panpsychism appears to completely avoid this question, and inso is a reality of 'bad faith', but faith nonetheless. A metaphysical religion.

The other way ( which is the same way) to avoid the 'hard' question, is to confine oneself to a scheme that grants one truth, the proper basis and method one may use to see reality. To block out what contradicts this truth through: faith.

If one is going to claim philosphy, it helps if they are thourough.

(PS: Im such a great speller and typer)

Chaz: I can show you that consciousness does indeed emerge from the living brain

MGL: you keep saying this, but when are you actually going to show it?

Chaz:Drop over to my place and I'll kill you a rabbit, George.

MGL: You are only demonstrating that a conscious mind emerges from the living brain, not consciousness itself.

Chaz: There is no "consciousness itself'. Now I see what your problem is- you are an undigested Platonist. Is there such a thing as "Stupidity itself" too? Is it not enough to merely demonstrate it in you, or do I have to demonstrate its ideal Form??


MGL: if there is no consciousness, what is a conscious mind made up of? I infer from your reasoning - if it can be called that - you would deny the existence of electricity and electrons and only admit bolts of lightning and electric shocks.

I suspect it is my use of the term "itself" that has made you presume I was talking about consciousness as a platonic object. However, I was merely using it to emphasise the distinction between consciousness and a conscious mind. I trust you will agree that an experience of redness is an example of consciousness. The fact that our only examples of consciousness are part of a conscious mind is no reason to presume such a distinction cannot be made.

Now please either explain why such a distinction cannot be made or explain how consciousness emerges from the brain. If you can only resort to the lingusitic equivalent of throwing a custard pie I would rather you did not bother answering at all.

So a conscious mind is separate from consciousness. How are you able to bridge this gap; how may the conscious mind (matter) be released from itself so that it may see a consciousness (mind)?

When I talk about a distinction between consciousness and a conscious mind I am talking about a conceptual distinction, not some physical or meta-physical separation. To use a very simple analogy, consider a blue roof made up of blue tiles. A blue roof is distinct from the colour blue - they are distinct concepts. The blueness of the roof emerges from blueness of the tiles of which it is composed. This kind of emergence is understandable, because the blueness of the roof is reducable to the blueness of the tiles of which it is composed. To propose that the brain produces consciousness is like proposing that the roof produces the blueness of its tiles.

Now, assuming your question is still relevant, I need to understand it first so perhaps you could elaborate on the following:

what is the gap that needs bridging?
what does it mean to say something is released from itself?
what does it mean to say something sees a consciousness?
Why are you associating conscious mind with matter and associating consciousness with mind? Ar you trying to make some sort of distinction here?

You are suffering from the Platonic fallacy.
Where does stupidity exist?
Where does gravity exist?
These things are not ideal forms to which matter has to conform. It is the other way round.
These are not forces of nature but words used to describe actions of nature.
It is no wonder than you cling to this delusion about panpsychism.
Consciousness is what the living brain DOES. It is not a thing it collects from somewhere else.

Exactly!

Chaz:

You are suffering from the Platonic fallacy.
Where does stupidity exist?
Where does gravity exist?
These things are not ideal forms to which matter has to conform. It is the other way round.
These are not forces of nature but words used to describe actions of nature.
It is no wonder than you cling to this delusion about panpsychism.

MGL:

I have absolutely no idea how you have arrived at the inference I am suffering from a Platonic fallacy. I am not talking about qualia as things in a platonic realm, but as properties of things in the physical realm.

When I experience a red object there exists - in the physical world - not a platonic one - a conscious sensation of redness.

This conscious sensation of redness will correspond to some physical state of the brain.

This physical state of brain will have various properties we can reduce to properties of the ultimate consituents of reality.

The property of redness that constitutes the content of this conscious experience, must be identifiable with some property of the physical state of the brain.

This property is either reducable to properties of the ultimate consituents of reality or it is not.If it is not, then this property is something that just magically pops into existence when other properties of the brain state are present.

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Chaz: Consciousness is what the living brain DOES. It is not a thing it collects from somewhere else.


MGL:


The living brain stores memories, constructs a model of the world, makes plans and directs the actions of the creature whose skull it is incased in. That is what the living brain DOES. The interesting thing about all this doing, is that it is being done consciously. All this doing is what constitutes the mind and becasue it is doing it consciously, it is a conscious mind.

Your claim, suitably clarified, suggests that it is what the brain does that makes it conscious. What I would like to know is HOW these brain activities make it conscious. So far you have merely stipulated this with no explanation as if it is something we are all expected to take for granted.