Can consciousness be explained by “emergence”?

Is the mind the same as the body? What is consciousness? Can machines have it?

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RogerSH
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Can consciousness be explained by “emergence”?

Post by RogerSH »

Almost all of science - all except for the physics of space-time and fundamental particles - deals with “emergent” entities and properties, but the significance of this concept is, it seems to me, often misrepresented or misunderstood. Here is a brief summary of what I think are the key points, and the relevance for the suggestion of emergence as an “explanation” of consciousness.

The natural world largely consists of a hierarchy of things made up of smaller things – take for example: a foam made up of, in turn, soap bubbles, liquid films, molecules, atoms, nuclei & electrons, protons & neutrons, quarks….

A key observation is that the rules of behaviour at each level may be entirely and often strikingly different from those at the level below. Indeed, in general there is a sense (to be described next) in which the higher level behaviour cannot even be strictly derived from that of the lower level. This is what is meant when the higher level behaviour is described as “emergent”: it “emerges” as a novel attribute from the assembly of the elements. Another key observation is that the actual nature of the ingredients is often of secondary importance; it is their arrangement that dominates the higher level behaviour. Many different liquids make very similar bubbles.

The behaviour of any single instance of a higher level assembly – such as a particular soap bubble at a particular instant - can, evidently, be derived in principle from the behaviour of all the elements acting together, even though in practice the simultaneous solution of trillions of equations describing the interaction of each pair of molecules is something that one would never attempt. However, when we turn from a single instance to a type, we are by definition eliminating the distinction between one instance and another, a process of approximation known to scientists as “coarse-graining”, and this is why higher level behaviour of types cannot be derived just from lower level behaviour. There also needs to be an informed guess as to how to approximate that behaviour – the next thing to be considered.

In practice, the rules of higher level behaviour can be found in one of two ways. One is to observe many cases, either of the real thing or of a simulation, to form hypotheses about the rules, and to test the hypotheses under enough different conditions to provide adequate corroboration. This doesn’t properly serve as an “explanation”, though. The other method is to guess how to approximate the rules of the lower level (which themselves will usually be approximations, of course) in such a way that higher levels rules can be derived by a mathematical analysis. Thus in the case of a soap bubble, approximations to the rules of intermolecular attraction enable the phenomena of thin-film stability and surface tension to be derived, and then with further approximations and a theorem of solid geometry, the phenomena of spherical bubbles can be predicted. Given that this phenomenon is observed, the guessed approximations may be presumed to be sound. This counts as a true “explanation”. In practice, most scientific knowledge is a hybrid of these two approaches. For example, crystallography convincingly explains many of the characteristics of metal fatigue – the emergent behaviour of assemblies of flawed crystals – but numerous tests are needed to provide the actual data on which statistical fatigue life prediction depends.

Emergence is not at all the same as evolution (since it applies equally to inanimate entities such as bubbles), although the potency of emergence does explain the enormous plethora of novel types of entity that have emerged in the living world, and natural selection then explains how many of them have come to endure. In recent years in such fields as microbiology, quite extraordinary and wholly unforeseeable behaviours of complex molecules have been discovered, and substantially explained by their extraordinarily complex molecular structure.

Many emergent entities (even soap bubbles) can be described as “self-organising” structures, a phenomenon that reveals the limits of “toppling domino” models of causality which disregard the hierarchic nature of the material world. A self-organising structure that emerges behaves like an initial cause at its own level in the hierarchy.

How does all this apply to the phenomena of consciousness? The fact that the brain is the most complex and dynamic compact structure known to science shows that there is scope for a hierarchy of structures of logical relationship to form that has far more levels even than that of a single cell, and with each level introducing new types of structure with new kinds of behaviour, it would be sheer stupidity to rule out any kind of behaviour as a priori “inexplicable” on such a basis merely because we haven’t the imagination to guess what the explanation might be.

However, there is a major caveat. Consciousness is unique in being the means by which explanations are understood, which makes certain kinds of explanation inapplicable. The output of an objective theory is necessarily objective, so that to seek a direct explanation of “what consciousness feels like” is a confusion of categories. Nevertheless, consciousness has many objective attributes, such as the capabilities it provides, so continuing the search for emergent structures that explain these attributes is an entirely rational way to proceed.
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bahman
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Re: Can consciousness be explained by “emergence”?

Post by bahman »

No. There is no strong emrgence.
popeye1945
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Re: Can consciousness be explained by “emergence”?

Post by popeye1945 »

Frankly its all emergence!
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bahman
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Re: Can consciousness be explained by “emergence”?

Post by bahman »

popeye1945 wrote: Fri Mar 11, 2022 10:20 pm Frankly its all emergence!
Here is my argument against strong emergence: viewtopic.php?f=12&t=28824
popeye1945
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Re: Can consciousness be explained by “emergence”?

Post by popeye1945 »

bahman wrote: Fri Mar 11, 2022 10:31 pm
popeye1945 wrote: Fri Mar 11, 2022 10:20 pm Frankly its all emergence!
Here is my argument against strong emergence: viewtopic.php?f=12&t=28824
bahman,

I have read your statement, but it sounds like you are not taking into consideration one very profound reality, the properties that are the system are not the properties of individual parts but the emergence of their combined quality, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. I believe chemistry itself is a good example, the relational properties of the parts give rise to properties that do not belong to any of the parts, but is the emergent whole or in chemistry a given substance as the whole. The fact that life arose from the physical world itself is a statement of emergence and consciousness is part of life processes. Is not it the case, that the collective of the parts creates a condition and through this condition, a thing or a quality is then realized, as the mind is a quality of the brain, the brain being the thing and the mind its quality, it is all somehow process? Decay is the breaking down of relational processes back to parts with no relational qualities producing a condition/thing/quality.
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RCSaunders
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Re: Can consciousness be explained by “emergence”?

Post by RCSaunders »

RogerSH wrote: Sat Aug 28, 2021 12:00 am ...
Without making any baseless assumptions, what about consciousness needs to be explained? Some claim to doubt their own consciousness, which claim I respect (perhaps they aren't conscious), but most people do not doubt their own consciousness and their own ability to consciously learn, think, and choose.

So, what is the assumption that consciousness needs to be explained, beyond being recognized and identified (I am conscious) based on? The question sounds very much like those who think existence itself needs to be explained (where did everything come from? There must be a God [or some other supernatural explanation.])
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Sculptor
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Re: Can consciousness be explained by “emergence”?

Post by Sculptor »

No. Consciousness can be described by the idea of emergence, but since emergence is not a force of nature in and of itself, it can only be used to describe some instances whereby emergence since to happen. This is not an explanation in any meaningful way.

For example. If I were to drop a pen on the floor people would like to be able to say that gravity explains the downward motion.
In the case of consciousness there is an untold, and as yet unstated plethora of physical interactions and causalities by which conscious ness "emerges" from healthy neural matter, and there are a large range of necessary conditions demanded by the emergence of consciousness.

SO, there is no "emergence" in the sense of a simple causal law.
I would also argue, in fact that "Gravity", is no more a true explanation, but is also in effect purely descriptive. And by extension all science is descriptive in the same sense.
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RCSaunders
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Re: Can consciousness be explained by “emergence”?

Post by RCSaunders »

Sculptor wrote: Fri Apr 01, 2022 2:57 pm SO, there is no "emergence" in the sense of a simple causal law.
I would also argue, in fact that "Gravity", is no more a true explanation, but is also in effect purely descriptive. And by extension all science is descriptive in the same sense.
Just so! Science does not explain, "why," anything happens or is what it is. Science only describes what happens and what there is. Very good, Sculptor. I suspect you'll get some resistance that view.
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Sculptor
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Re: Can consciousness be explained by “emergence”?

Post by Sculptor »

RCSaunders wrote: Sat Apr 02, 2022 1:44 am
Sculptor wrote: Fri Apr 01, 2022 2:57 pm SO, there is no "emergence" in the sense of a simple causal law.
I would also argue, in fact that "Gravity", is no more a true explanation, but is also in effect purely descriptive. And by extension all science is descriptive in the same sense.
Just so! Science does not explain, "why," anything happens or is what it is. Science only describes what happens and what there is. Very good, Sculptor. I suspect you'll get some resistance that view.
Not from me.
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bahman
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Re: Can consciousness be explained by “emergence”?

Post by bahman »

popeye1945 wrote: Fri Apr 01, 2022 11:07 am
bahman wrote: Fri Mar 11, 2022 10:31 pm
popeye1945 wrote: Fri Mar 11, 2022 10:20 pm Frankly its all emergence!
Here is my argument against strong emergence: viewtopic.php?f=12&t=28824
bahman,

I have read your statement, but it sounds like you are not taking into consideration one very profound reality, the properties that are the system are not the properties of individual parts but the emergence of their combined quality, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. I believe chemistry itself is a good example, the relational properties of the parts give rise to properties that do not belong to any of the parts, but is the emergent whole or in chemistry a given substance as the whole. The fact that life arose from the physical world itself is a statement of emergence and consciousness is part of life processes. Is not it the case, that the collective of the parts creates a condition and through this condition, a thing or a quality is then realized, as the mind is a quality of the brain, the brain being the thing and the mind its quality, it is all somehow process? Decay is the breaking down of relational processes back to parts with no relational qualities producing a condition/thing/quality.
The chemical properties of elements can be described by underlying laws of physics. You can define the mind as a set of processes but that can be explained by laws of physics as well.
popeye1945
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Re: Can consciousness be explained by “emergence”?

Post by popeye1945 »

["I have read your statement, but it sounds like you are not taking into consideration one very profound reality, the properties that are the system are not the properties of individual parts but the emergence of their combined quality, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. I believe chemistry itself is a good example, the relational properties of the parts give rise to properties that do not belong to any of the parts, but is the emergent whole or in chemistry a given substance as the whole. The fact that life arose from the physical world itself is a statement of emergence and consciousness is part of life processes. Is not it the case, that the collective of the parts creates a condition and through this condition, a thing or a quality is then realized, as the mind is a quality of the brain, the brain being the thing and the mind its quality, it is all somehow process? Decay is the breaking down of relational processes back to parts with no relational qualities producing a condition/thing/quality.
[/quote]

The chemical properties of elements can be described by underlying laws of physics. You can define the mind as a set of processes but that can be explained by laws of physics as well.
[/quote]

Bahman,

Yes, of course, but that really isn't the issue is it? Some things we have come to know ahead of time in chemistry. As to what the emergent quality will be, but that does not change the fact that it is an emergent quality one not possessed by any of the variables of the formula.
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bahman
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Re: Can consciousness be explained by “emergence”?

Post by bahman »

popeye1945 wrote: Mon Apr 04, 2022 5:12 am ["I have read your statement, but it sounds like you are not taking into consideration one very profound reality, the properties that are the system are not the properties of individual parts but the emergence of their combined quality, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. I believe chemistry itself is a good example, the relational properties of the parts give rise to properties that do not belong to any of the parts, but is the emergent whole or in chemistry a given substance as the whole. The fact that life arose from the physical world itself is a statement of emergence and consciousness is part of life processes. Is not it the case, that the collective of the parts creates a condition and through this condition, a thing or a quality is then realized, as the mind is a quality of the brain, the brain being the thing and the mind its quality, it is all somehow process? Decay is the breaking down of relational processes back to parts with no relational qualities producing a condition/thing/quality.
The chemical properties of elements can be described by underlying laws of physics. You can define the mind as a set of processes but that can be explained by laws of physics as well.
[/quote]

Bahman,

Yes, of course, but that really isn't the issue is it? Some things we have come to know ahead of time in chemistry. As to what the emergent quality will be, but that does not change the fact that it is an emergent quality one not possessed by any of the variables of the formula.
[/quote]
That is weak emergence if you like but not strong emergence.
popeye1945
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Re: Can consciousness be explained by “emergence”?

Post by popeye1945 »

Bahman.

What then do you call strong emergence? Is there not simply emergence? Bare with me, must do a little research. One example they give is of strong emergence, if there is such a thing as strong emergence it is consciousness, something is conscious if, there is something that it is like to be that consciousness. Example: what is like to be a bat. Just getting into this, if you can enlighten me along the way I would most appreciate it.
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bahman
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Re: Can consciousness be explained by “emergence”?

Post by bahman »

popeye1945 wrote: Tue Apr 05, 2022 3:22 am Bahman.

What then do you call strong emergence? Is there not simply emergence? Bare with me, must do a little research. One example they give is of strong emergence, if there is such a thing as strong emergence it is consciousness, something is conscious if, there is something that it is like to be that consciousness. Example: what is like to be a bat. Just getting into this, if you can enlighten me along the way I would most appreciate it.
By strong emergence, I mean a property that the system has and this property is not a function of the properties of parts. To the best of our knowledge matter cannot create the conscious field. For example, a current creates an electromagnetic field that can be measured but not a conscious field no matter how you rewire the system. If there was a conscious field given a configuration then all sorts of matter are conscious. But that means that the conscious field is a function of properties of parts since it is subject to change given the configuration therefore we are dealing with weak emergence.
popeye1945
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Re: Can consciousness be explained by “emergence”?

Post by popeye1945 »

[" By strong emergence, I mean a property that the system has and this property is not a function of the properties of parts. To the best of our knowledge matter cannot create the conscious field. For example, a current creates an electromagnetic field that can be measured but not a conscious field no matter how you rewire the system. If there was a conscious field given a configuration then all sorts of matter are conscious. But that means that the conscious field is a function of properties of parts since it is subject to change given the configuration therefore we are dealing with weak emergence.
[/quote]

Hi Bahman,

I believe our very existence establishes the fact that matter can and has created conscious life. The fact that a function or a system that arises does not display the qualities of the parts, just infers that what does arise, is through the means of processes contributed by all its parts, and indeed possibly a chain of developing interrelated products of the original parts, as all things seem to be in their natures process. I simply do not believe that there exists a property, a system, read object which is not the result of a process. So, what would this mean in a discussion of weak and strong emergence, it is true that conditions exist, but this is prior to the manifestation of matter/object or system, a condition may be simply a stage of development, of that which is interrelated and in an on going process.
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