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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Immanuel Can
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Re: Can consciousness be explained by “emergence”?

Post by Immanuel Can »

RogerSH wrote: Sat Aug 28, 2021 12:00 am Emergence is not at all the same as evolution (since it applies equally to inanimate entities such as bubbles), ...
I'm sorry to be contrary, Roger; and you probably find it a pain that I'm showing up again, because I'm going to throw a little sand in the works. But it's all to the good if you're seriously studying this question, because for sure, if you take this and use it in something important, you're going to get called on some of this stuff. So maybe I can be a help by raising the issue now, when you can correct it.

To advance your inquiry, you need to familiarize yourself with the "emergence" concept. It's not what you seem to think it is, judging by this summary. It's certainly not modelled in soap bubbles.

Here's a concise definition from a reputable, peer-edited source:

"...a property is emergent if it is a novel property of a system or an entity that arises when that system or entity has reached a certain level of complexity and that, even though it exists only insofar as the system or entity exists, it is distinct from the properties of the parts of the system from which it emerges...." (IEP)

What this means is that unlike the relationship between soap and soap bubbles (in which both have the same chemical composition and qualities like surface-tension, ability to hydrolize fats, and so on), the relationship posited by "Emergentism" between brain and mind is that mind is NOT something that has any of the properties attributable to brain. Rather, the theory says that mind sort of magically "jumps" out of brain when brain reaches a certain level of complexity, but with none of the same natural properties as brain has.

That's the important bit. In Emergentism, "mind" is not proposed to have any substance-continuity with "brain" at all.

That sounds weird and counter-intuitive to say. But see if you can wrap your head around that for a minute. Emergentism -- real Emergentism, if you use the word as Emergentists intend it to be used -- does not suppose any continuity at all between brain and mind. Mind is a "new thing," relative to brain development. It's not a natural outworking of identifiable brain properties at all. I explodes or "emerges" suddenly and discontinuously, acccording to Emergentism.

By contrast, soap bubbles come about predictably, in continuity with soap, and with the same substance and principles applying. That's not Emergence. In fact, it's so non-emergent that we can create soap bubbles at will. I have a bunch of them in my sink right now.

Try to do that with mind. You can't.

And that's why Emergentism is invoked. It's a way of trying to describe how a thing not-like the other thing it came from came from it in the first place.
Atla
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Re: Can consciousness be explained by “emergence”?

Post by Atla »

RogerSH wrote: Sat Aug 28, 2021 12:00 am 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.
Strong emergence (hard emergence, the whole is more that the sum of the parts) is the most commonly accepted form of magic in science. It demonstrates the unashamed incompetence of many scientists when it comes to philosophizing, when it comes to trying to make sense of the world.

Consciousness can't be explained by strong emergence, which is a necessarily basic insight when trying to figure out what consciousness is. How local human consciousness works can be functionally described using the help of weak emergence (more of the same stuff can exhibit unexpected patterns of behaviour, the universe also has larger scale movements), which is what neuroscience does, but that's another issue.
RogerSH
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Re: Can consciousness be explained by “emergence”?

Post by RogerSH »

Immanuel Can wrote: Sat Aug 28, 2021 4:30 am
RogerSH wrote: Sat Aug 28, 2021 12:00 am Emergence is not at all the same as evolution (since it applies equally to inanimate entities such as bubbles), ...
I'm sorry to be contrary, Roger; and you probably find it a pain that I'm showing up again, because I'm going to throw a little sand in the works. But it's all to the good if you're seriously studying this question, because for sure, if you take this and use it in something important, you're going to get called on some of this stuff. So maybe I can be a help by raising the issue now, when you can correct it.

To advance your inquiry, you need to familiarize yourself with the "emergence" concept. It's not what you seem to think it is, judging by this summary. It's certainly not modelled in soap bubbles.

Here's a concise definition from a reputable, peer-edited source:

"...a property is emergent if it is a novel property of a system or an entity that arises when that system or entity has reached a certain level of complexity and that, even though it exists only insofar as the system or entity exists, it is distinct from the properties of the parts of the system from which it emerges...." (IEP)
Which if you look carefully is exactly what I am saying! I would say the true meaning is the meaning used by scientists and complexity theorists, for example the meaning taken for granted in "The Emergent Multiverse" by David Wallace, a highly reputed philosopher of physics, and this meaning, which is consistent with your quote, has been mis-popularised into something that sounds like magic, which is exactly why I have tried to explain where the apparent magic actually comes from. Soap bubbles are about the simplest example to illustrate the essential steps - coarse-graining, the move from instances to types, the role of mathematical relationships. To understand the definition you really need to understand those steps. In fact what is quasi-miraculous is the fecundity of mathematical relationships: the highly complex relationships describing an arbitrary assembly of soap, water & air molecules happens under certain conditions to approximate very closely to the extremely simple relationship "the water & soap molecules form a spherical film of constant thickness". This mathematical fact results in a new type being added to the non-primitive ontology of the natural world.


What this means is that unlike the relationship between soap and soap bubbles (in which both have the same chemical composition and qualities like surface-tension, ability to hydrolize fats, and so on)...
Same chemical composition, yes. Same properties, no. "Surface tension" does not feature in the equations describing the balance of forces on individual soap models. They are just ordinary distance-dependent intra-molecular forces of attraction and repulsion, no different at the molecular level from such forces when no surface is involved. "Surface tension" only emerges when an aggregate of such forces at the interface with the air is coarse-grained.
the relationship posited by "Emergentism" between brain and mind is that mind is NOT something that has any of the properties attributable to brain. Rather, the theory says that mind sort of magically "jumps" out of brain when brain reaches a certain level of complexity, but with none of the same natural properties as brain has.
"Natural properties" is a concept that doesn't make sense in the context of multiple levels of organisation. Each level introduces new types with new properties. Does an atom have "natural properties"? Not according to you, since it is just an aggregate of electrons, quarks & gluons. "Natural properties" if you exclude emergence are just the properties of primitive, irreducible entities.

It explodes or "emerges" suddenly and discontinuously, acccording to Emergentism.
Like the discontinuity of properties between "atomic particles" & "atoms", in fact. (Though where I do part company with this account of consciousness is that it is unwarrantedly assumed to be a single thing, rather than a combination of synergistic things each of which is the top level of a hierarchy of emergent types in the organisation of the neurosystem, which I find far more plausible, as that is analogous to what "life" has turned out to be.)
RogerSH
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Re: Can consciousness be explained by “emergence”?

Post by RogerSH »

Atla wrote: Sat Aug 28, 2021 6:43 am
Strong emergence (hard emergence, the whole is more that the sum of the parts) is the most commonly accepted form of magic in science. It demonstrates the unashamed incompetence of many scientists when it comes to philosophizing, when it comes to trying to make sense of the world.
Unfortunately I could fairly respond by referring to the unashamed incompetence of many philosophers when it comes to science. I'm actually a retired engineer with a lifetime interest in both disciplines, and on this site I'm trying to clarify some of the insights of science in terms that some less scientifically-minded philosophers might find useful, but maybe it is an impossible task, & CP Snow was right about the Two Cultures.
Atla
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Re: Can consciousness be explained by “emergence”?

Post by Atla »

RogerSH wrote: Sat Aug 28, 2021 12:08 pm
Atla wrote: Sat Aug 28, 2021 6:43 am
Strong emergence (hard emergence, the whole is more that the sum of the parts) is the most commonly accepted form of magic in science. It demonstrates the unashamed incompetence of many scientists when it comes to philosophizing, when it comes to trying to make sense of the world.
Unfortunately I could fairly respond by referring to the unashamed incompetence of many philosophers when it comes to science. I'm actually a retired engineer with a lifetime interest in both disciplines, and on this site I'm trying to clarify some of the insights of science in terms that some less scientifically-minded philosophers might find useful, but maybe it is an impossible task, & CP Snow was right about the Two Cultures.
Wouldn't call it fair, the unashamed incompetence of many philosophers when it comes to science is even worse.

But the hard problem of consciousness is the problem of the first person "subjective" what it's like experience vs the third-person "objective" materialist structural explanations. The whole point is that this isn't a higher level behaviour, saying that the subjective emerges out of the complexity of the objective, is magical thinking gibberish. And the idea of actual "levels" in the universe is pseudoscience, we just use the idea of levels as a tool to describe weakly emergent behaviour. Not sure if you understand the problem.
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Re: Can consciousness be explained by “emergence”?

Post by RogerSH »

Atla wrote: Sat Aug 28, 2021 12:47 pm But the hard problem of consciousness is the problem of the first person "subjective" what it's like experience vs the third-person "objective" materialist structural explanations. The whole point is that this isn't a higher level behaviour, saying that the subjective emerges out of the complexity of the objective, is magical thinking gibberish. And the idea of actual "levels" in the universe is pseudoscience, we just use the idea of levels as a tool to describe weakly emergent behaviour. Not sure if you understand the problem.
Sure, I understand the problem, and I quite agree that emergence is no answer to the "hard problem", that's what the last para of my OP was about. Although I would call it a non-problem: it's not that we can't find the answer, just that the question is misconceived. Anything that emerges from objectivity is going to be objective. E.G. no theory could predict "what yellow feels like" because there is no form of words that conveys that feeling (without reference to other feelings), so if there is no form of words it is pointless looking for a theory that yields the right form of words as a prediction.

The distinction between hard & soft emergence is empty, however, unless you are specific about the meaning of "more than" before "sum of the parts".
When parts enter some arrangement that constitutes a new type of whole, the properties of that new type are both simpler than those of any instance and have greater explanatory value. This is the only useful sense of emergent properties. It is the reason that the material world has such a vast array of types from just a handful of families of fundamental particles.

So you think that distinguishing between the levels represented by atomic particles, atoms, molecules etc. is pseudoscientific?

Emergence isn't a "theory", it's a methodology (or meta-theory if you like), roughly complementary to "reduction".
Atla
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Re: Can consciousness be explained by “emergence”?

Post by Atla »

RogerSH wrote: Sat Aug 28, 2021 4:38 pm
Atla wrote: Sat Aug 28, 2021 12:47 pm But the hard problem of consciousness is the problem of the first person "subjective" what it's like experience vs the third-person "objective" materialist structural explanations. The whole point is that this isn't a higher level behaviour, saying that the subjective emerges out of the complexity of the objective, is magical thinking gibberish. And the idea of actual "levels" in the universe is pseudoscience, we just use the idea of levels as a tool to describe weakly emergent behaviour. Not sure if you understand the problem.
Sure, I understand the problem, and I quite agree that emergence is no answer to the "hard problem", that's what the last para of my OP was about. Although I would call it a non-problem: it's not that we can't find the answer, just that the question is misconceived. Anything that emerges from objectivity is going to be objective. E.G. no theory could predict "what yellow feels like" because there is no form of words that conveys that feeling (without reference to other feelings), so if there is no form of words it is pointless looking for a theory that yields the right form of words as a prediction.
If it's a non-problem, then you can surely tell where such "subjective" experiences happen? In only one brain, or in many advanced brains, or in all nervous systems, or in all life, or in some underlying field of the universe, or in the entire universe, or mental souls attach to the material body, or it's just an illusion etc.?
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Re: Can consciousness be explained by “emergence”?

Post by RogerSH »

Atla wrote: Sat Aug 28, 2021 4:54 pm
RogerSH wrote: Sat Aug 28, 2021 4:38 pm
Atla wrote: Sat Aug 28, 2021 12:47 pm But the hard problem of consciousness is the problem of the first person "subjective" what it's like experience vs the third-person "objective" materialist structural explanations. The whole point is that this isn't a higher level behaviour, saying that the subjective emerges out of the complexity of the objective, is magical thinking gibberish. And the idea of actual "levels" in the universe is pseudoscience, we just use the idea of levels as a tool to describe weakly emergent behaviour. Not sure if you understand the problem.
Sure, I understand the problem, and I quite agree that emergence is no answer to the "hard problem", that's what the last para of my OP was about. Although I would call it a non-problem: it's not that we can't find the answer, just that the question is misconceived. Anything that emerges from objectivity is going to be objective. E.G. no theory could predict "what yellow feels like" because there is no form of words that conveys that feeling (without reference to other feelings), so if there is no form of words it is pointless looking for a theory that yields the right form of words as a prediction.
If it's a non-problem, then you can surely tell where such "subjective" experiences happen? In only one brain, or in many advanced brains, or in all nervous systems, or in all life, or in some underlying field of the universe, or in the entire universe, or mental souls attach to the material body, or it's just an illusion etc.?
None of the above. "Where it happens" is trying to put it into an objective framework. It's a bit like asking "where" 2 & 2 makes 4. But I do believe it is only possible that there are things that are the case about my subjective experience because of the way that my brain works. There are many "difficult" problems about how differences of experience relate to differences of neural state, and various levels of emergent phenomena will certainly be involved. But a single explanation of subjective experience per se is a wild goose chase, that confuses different ways of being the case.
Atla
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Re: Can consciousness be explained by “emergence”?

Post by Atla »

RogerSH wrote: Sat Aug 28, 2021 5:42 pm
Atla wrote: Sat Aug 28, 2021 4:54 pm
RogerSH wrote: Sat Aug 28, 2021 4:38 pm

Sure, I understand the problem, and I quite agree that emergence is no answer to the "hard problem", that's what the last para of my OP was about. Although I would call it a non-problem: it's not that we can't find the answer, just that the question is misconceived. Anything that emerges from objectivity is going to be objective. E.G. no theory could predict "what yellow feels like" because there is no form of words that conveys that feeling (without reference to other feelings), so if there is no form of words it is pointless looking for a theory that yields the right form of words as a prediction.
If it's a non-problem, then you can surely tell where such "subjective" experiences happen? In only one brain, or in many advanced brains, or in all nervous systems, or in all life, or in some underlying field of the universe, or in the entire universe, or mental souls attach to the material body, or it's just an illusion etc.?
None of the above. "Where it happens" is trying to put it into an objective framework. It's a bit like asking "where" 2 & 2 makes 4. But I do believe it is only possible that there are things that are the case about my subjective experience because of the way that my brain works. There are many "difficult" problems about how differences of experience relate to differences of neural state, and various levels of emergent phenomena will certainly be involved. But a single explanation of subjective experience per se is a wild goose chase, that confuses different ways of being the case.
2+2=4 only exists as part of our abstract thinking, but subjective experience itself is CONCRETE, it's objectively happening. In fact it's the only thing we can tell for certain to be happening, and everything we know about science and brains is within this direct experience. You seem to have your world turned inside out, which is very common for people who mistake the scientific map of the world for the world.

In short you seem to be denying the existence of consciousness, denying that any of this is happening. And here philosophers very rightly criticize these existence-deniers.

(Of course what the experience is like in a human head is probably correlated with how that brain is shaped.)
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Re: Can consciousness be explained by “emergence”?

Post by RCSaunders »

RogerSH wrote: Sat Aug 28, 2021 12:00 am 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.
Without making any baseless assumptions, what exactly about consciousness do you think needs to be explained?
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Re: Can consciousness be explained by “emergence”?

Post by Dimebag »

What if we look at emergence from the brains point of view. In particular, how we make distinctions between “things”. Because the way that we make distinctions between things, is actually what is determining what is one layer of emergence vs it’s constituent parts. But emergent phenomena have a special criteria compared to say, man made things. That is, self assembly.

When we combine the aspect or tendency of self assembly, with our brains tendency to want to distinguish novel features, we get emergent phenomena. The “level” at which we deem something has emerged, has to do with these novel features which our brains pick out.

Take the “game of life” example, where a limited set of rules programmed into a visually displayed array or matrix of changing and interacting features. Based on these rules, seemingly discreet elements “emerge” from this array, which produce behaviours reminiscent of biological organisms.

Our brains are tuned to seek out these patterns of autonomy and agency, and thus, we see these discreet elements as worthy of “thingness”. But they are actually fairly arbitrary repeating patterns, only novel due to their resemblance of some primitive life form, they are actually not a “thing”, our minds just pick a pattern out of the chaos.

As far as we know, emergence only applies to physical entities, physical meaning, with extension in space. The game of life example is essentially simulating a physical “space”, it is the construct.

So, it is not such a mystical thing this emergence. But, now when we want to apply this to the question of consciousness, we have a problem. The problem is, for emergence to occur, there must be constituent parts. When we look at the game of life example, the parts are individual squares of “matter”, which can combine and create a persisting larger pattern. But, the difference is not one of a difference in kind, but only of type.

Where in nature do we see emergence of a wholly different kind? Going from matter in physics, to chemistry, we see different rules apply, but, the base substance remains the same, that is, matter.

Can we really apply emergence to what we are wanting to describe in consciousness? What is the physical nature of a subjective experience? It is a complete difference of kind. We are assuming that the matter of the brain and body is responsible for the subjective experience, but if consciousness is emergent, it is an entirely different case compared with the rest of nature and the emergence we see.
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Immanuel Can
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Re: Can consciousness be explained by “emergence”?

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RogerSH wrote: Sat Aug 28, 2021 12:01 pm
"...a property is emergent if it is a novel property of a system or an entity that arises when that system or entity has reached a certain level of complexity and that, even though it exists only insofar as the system or entity exists, it is distinct from the properties of the parts of the system from which it emerges...." (IEP)
Which if you look carefully is exactly what I am saying!
No, no...it's not. Because if it were, you'd know that a soap bubble is not even possibly an analogy for it. I tried to bold the important bits for your special attention.
Same chemical composition, yes. Same properties, no.
Chemical composition is a "property."

Properly understood, "Emergentism" is not the "course-grained/fine-grained" distinction, but rather more like a "grained/not grainable" distinction. And that's what makes it open to the objection that it's appealing to "magic." It implies that something totally unlike all the earlier steps involved in an alleged process can suddenly "appear" when that process reaches a certain level of complexity. But it's not just one or two new features of the same substance that can "emerge": rather, a truly "emergent" thing has to be totally unlike the thing that gave rise to it, in all regards...chemical, physical, attriubtional, and so on.

Mind is nothing like brain. Brain is a piece of meat. Mind is immaterial. The issue is how something totally unlike brain can be "explained" by doing nothing more than saying, "Well, the brain got very, very complex, and then, hey-presto, out came mind."
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Vendetta
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Re: Can consciousness be explained by “emergence”?

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Immanuel Can wrote: Sun Aug 29, 2021 11:20 pm But it's not just one or two new features of the same substance that can "emerge": rather, a truly "emergent" thing has to be totally unlike the thing that gave rise to it, in all regards...chemical, physical, attriubtional, and so on.

Mind is nothing like brain. Brain is a piece of meat. Mind is immaterial. The issue is how something totally unlike brain can be "explained" by doing nothing more than saying, "Well, the brain got very, very complex, and then, hey-presto, out came mind."o
How ironic. I was just looking into this. Not only does this come with the presumption that the mind indeed “advances” or becomes more complex to allow for the presence of mind, but it assumes that this supposed advancement can be linked to the formulation and alteration of mind. How can we consider an certain kind to be the product of an advanced brain? What properties indicate a certain form of mind to be further complex than others? Is it learning? Well, that is subjective in the sense that some people may have a great degree of knowledge in certain areas yet are lacking in others. This would imply a specific super-human advanced in all aspects mentally. As well, what knowledge can be defined as advanced, indicative of a graduated complexity of brain, assuming that mental states can be attributed to brain states at all?

Further argument for emergentism may come from considering the difference between brain and are quite different, in accordance to Immanuel Can’s definition, yet their difference and societal supposition of their connectedness cannot assume that this is proof of their linkage.
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Immanuel Can
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Re: Can consciousness be explained by “emergence”?

Post by Immanuel Can »

Vendetta wrote: Wed Sep 01, 2021 3:44 am ...assuming that mental states can be attributed to brain states at all?
Henry posted something on that, earlier. It's worth reading.

https://mindmatters.ai/2020/02/why-pion ... the-brain/
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