Theories of Consciousness

[Noax]

Then what are you babbling about events measuring each other. A point can't measure anything.

A measurement takes place at a location in space and time. A specific location in space and time (spacetime) is an event.

I still don't know how you think spacetime can be violated. My guess was apparently off the mark.

Look up what the M stands for in MWI and think about it for a second. Do you know what an objectively real universal wavefunction means.

You make it sound like other worlds are some distance away, all arranged in a neat sorted line. Everett's thesis has no 'M' in it, and even DeWitt's coining of that didn't suggest a dimension with coordinates and such.

Anyway, other worlds are not in a new spatial location any more than the dead and live cat are in different boxes.

[Atla]

A measurement takes place at a location in space and time. A specific location in space and time (spacetime) is an event.

I still don't know how you think spacetime can be violated. My guess was apparently off the mark.

"A measurement takes place at a location in space and time." LOL almost certainly not in QM, never mind. And no this isn't even the nonlocality issue, it's another one.

You make it sound like other worlds are some distance away, all arranged in a neat sorted line. Everett's thesis has no 'M' in it, and even DeWitt's coining of that didn't suggest a dimension with coordinates and such.

It's implicit in the philosophy of the universal wavefunction duh. Of course you don't need coordinates for them since you ignore them and only look at the branch you're in.

[Noax]

It's implicit in the philosophy of the universal wavefunction duh.

I guess you're the expert then.

[Andy Kay]

None of this stuff is addressable by science because consciousness on Nagel's use and on Chalmers' use of that term is entirely non-empirical. There is an epistemic constraint here in that nothing arising within consciousness that can "get outside" of consciousness to find out what, if anything, is "really out there." The best we can do is construct metaphysical hypotheses and check for logical consistency. The upshot is that all logically consistent hypotheses must remain in play... the prejudicial elimination of any one of them is no better than religious dogma. I make one concession to prejudice and it is that ontological solipsism is sterile so, unable to take this any further, I pay no further heed to it. The remaining metaphysical hypotheses each lead in turn to a serious problem. Materialism (physicalism) leads to what Chalmers calls the "Hard Problem of Consciousness." Cartesian dualism leads to the "Interaction Problem." And Idealism leads to the "Combination Problem" (first identified by William James who referred to it as the "Mind Dust Problem"). The challenge, then, is to find a way past one or more of these problems. All else is hubris.

[promethean75]

Well then. I think that settles that.

Pack it up. Let's go home, boys.

[Atla]

None of this stuff is addressable by science because consciousness on Nagel's use and on Chalmers' use of that term is entirely non-empirical. There is an epistemic constraint here in that nothing arising within consciousness that can "get outside" of consciousness to find out what, if anything, is "really out there." The best we can do is construct metaphysical hypotheses and check for logical consistency. The upshot is that all logically consistent hypotheses must remain in play... the prejudicial elimination of any one of them is no better than religious dogma. I make one concession to prejudice and it is that ontological solipsism is sterile so, unable to take this any further, I pay no further heed to it. The remaining metaphysical hypotheses each lead in turn to a serious problem. Materialism (physicalism) leads to what Chalmers calls the "Hard Problem of Consciousness." Cartesian dualism leads to the "Interaction Problem." And Idealism leads to the "Combination Problem" (first identified by William James who referred to it as the "Mind Dust Problem"). The challenge, then, is to find a way past one or more of these problems. All else is hubris.

Materialism and idealism are dualistic pseudo-monisms derived from Cartesian dualism. What is hubris is to think that these three are the only remaining hypotheses; all three need to be rejected and we need to leave Western philosophy. "Mental" and "material" are one and the same thing, without any kind of explicit or implicit dualism.

(Views like panexperientialism, dual aspect theory are a step in the right direction. But still not serious attempts as they retain the imaginary dualism.)

[Andy Kay]

Well then. I think that settles that.

Pack it up. Let's go home, boys.

If these problems don't interest you then yes, that's your best option.

[Andy Kay]

Materialism and idealism are dualistic pseudo-monisms derived from Cartesian dualism. What is hubris is to think that these three are the only remaining hypotheses; all three need to be rejected and we need to leave Western philosophy. "Mental" and "material" are one and the same thing, without any kind of explicit or implicit dualism.

(Views like panexperientialism, dual aspect theory are a step in the right direction. But still not serious attempts as they retain the imaginary dualism.)

Ssince you seem to be arguing that Materialism and Idealism follow only from Cartesian Dualism, I'm interested in why you you think Cartesian Dualism needs to be rejected.

[Atla]

Materialism and idealism are dualistic pseudo-monisms derived from Cartesian dualism. What is hubris is to think that these three are the only remaining hypotheses; all three need to be rejected and we need to leave Western philosophy. "Mental" and "material" are one and the same thing, without any kind of explicit or implicit dualism.

(Views like panexperientialism, dual aspect theory are a step in the right direction. But still not serious attempts as they retain the imaginary dualism.)

Ssince you seem to be arguing that Materialism and Idealism follow only from Cartesian Dualism, I'm interested in why you you think Cartesian Dualism needs to be rejected.

Because "mental" and "material" probably refer to one and the same one reality twice. Cartesian dualism has divided this indivisible one reality into two different realities, mental and material, but that division is all made up and impossible. We Westerners have lived with sort of a cognitive double vision for like 400 years. Or 2400 if we consider Plato's abstract realm vs physical realm dualism.

[Andy Kay]

Because "mental" and "material" probably refer to one and the same one reality twice. Cartesian dualism has divided this indivisible one reality into two different realities, mental and material, but that division is all made up and impossible. We Westerners have lived with sort of a cognitive double vision for like 400 years. Or 2400 if we consider Plato's abstract realm vs physical realm dualism.

Nice. I can see we're on a kind of convergence path here, and William James makes the same observation in his 1904 essay Does Consciousness Exist? But I can't bring myself to prejudicially eliminate any empirically adequate logical possibility. The upshot is that it's the "probably" bit of your reply that makes me hesitate. Do you have deeper thoughts on this?

[Atla]

Because "mental" and "material" probably refer to one and the same one reality twice. Cartesian dualism has divided this indivisible one reality into two different realities, mental and material, but that division is all made up and impossible. We Westerners have lived with sort of a cognitive double vision for like 400 years. Or 2400 if we consider Plato's abstract realm vs physical realm dualism.

Nice. I can see we're on a kind of convergence path here, and William James makes the same observation in his 1904 essay Does Consciousness Exist? But I can't bring myself to prejudicially eliminate any empirically adequate logical possibility. The upshot is that it's the "probably" bit of your reply that makes me hesitate. Do you have deeper thoughts on this?

By "probably" I meant that if 100% of what we know about the world can coherently be explained without any dualism, and there is zero actual evidence for dualism, then according to Occam's razor, dualism is probably just made up. Positing dualism is 1 assumption, not positing dualism is 0 assumption, 0 assumption is simpler than 1 assumption.

Sure, still anything is possible even if we have zero evidence for it, but it's unreasonable to bet on such things.

[Andy Kay]

By "probably" I meant that if 100% of what we know about the world can coherently be explained without any dualism, and there is zero actual evidence for dualism, then according to Occam's razor, dualism is probably just made up. Positing dualism is 1 assumption, not positing dualism is 0 assumption, 0 assumption is simpler than 1 assumption.

Sure, still anything is possible even if we have zero evidence for it, but it's unreasonable to bet on such things.

I'm convinced that we cannot coherently explain 100% of what we know about the world and that we must begin, as Chalmers puts it, Facing Up to the Problem of Consciousness. So we start creating metaphysical hypotheses, and the first one that comes to mind is a distinction between "conscious substance" (mind) and "non-conscious substance" (matter). Yes of course there is no actual (i.e. empirical, objective) evidence to support substance dualism, but neither is there any actual evidence to refute it, so the hypothesis is empirically adequate. And yes of course substance dualism is "just made up" ... the creation of hypotheses is exactly that ... we make up explanatory accounts, and if our accounts make testable predictions then we can "do science" with them. Otherwise they can only be eliminated by exposing logical fallacies, and the existence of the Interaction Problem, as onerous a problem as it is, is not a logical fallacy.

Occam's Razor exhorts us to eliminate any unnecessary entities from our stories, but if we wish to eliminate one of these substances then we must say why we consider it to be surplus to requirements. I'm with Galen Strawson on the subject of Eliminative Materialism when he calls it "the silliest claim that has ever been made" [Strawson: Things That Bother Me, Ch.6]

I'm not betting on substance dualism. I'm just uncomfortable with prejucice.

[Atla]

By "probably" I meant that if 100% of what we know about the world can coherently be explained without any dualism, and there is zero actual evidence for dualism, then according to Occam's razor, dualism is probably just made up. Positing dualism is 1 assumption, not positing dualism is 0 assumption, 0 assumption is simpler than 1 assumption.

Sure, still anything is possible even if we have zero evidence for it, but it's unreasonable to bet on such things.

I'm convinced that we cannot coherently explain 100% of what we know about the world and that we must begin, as Chalmers puts it, Facing Up to the Problem of Consciousness. So we start creating metaphysical hypotheses, and the first one that comes to mind is a distinction between "conscious substance" (mind) and "non-conscious substance" (matter). Yes of course there is no actual (i.e. empirical, objective) evidence to support substance dualism, but neither is there any actual evidence to refute it, so the hypothesis is empirically adequate. And yes of course substance dualism is "just made up" ... the creation of hypotheses is exactly that ... we make up explanatory accounts, and if our accounts make testable predictions then we can "do science" with them. Otherwise they can only be eliminated by exposing logical fallacies, and the existence of the Interaction Problem, as onerous a problem as it is, is not a logical fallacy.

Occam's Razor exhorts us to eliminate any unnecessary entities from our stories, but if we wish to eliminate one of these substances then we must say why we consider it to be surplus to requirements. I'm with Galen Strawson on the subject of Eliminative Materialism when he calls it "the silliest claim that has ever been made" [Strawson: Things That Bother Me, Ch.6]

I'm not betting on substance dualism. I'm just uncomfortable with prejucice.

I can coherently explain 100% of it. Chalmers pointed out the problem but failed to solve it. For a start, we don't eliminate one of the substances, we eliminate the original dualism. There are no two substances to begin with.

I agree eliminative materialism is one of the silliest claims ever made.

[Andy Kay]

I can coherently explain 100% of it. Chalmers pointed out the problem but failed to solve it. For a start, we don't eliminate one of the substances, we eliminate the original dualism. There are no two substances to begin with.

I agree eliminative materialism is one of the silliest claims ever made.

Chalmers pointed out that what he refers to as Experiential Consciousness presents a uniquely Hard Problem for traditional physicalism. That's not a "failure to solve it." It's a call to re-examine our metaphysical axioms.

Eliminating one of the two substances of substance dualism eliminates substance dualism. These are not two different scenarios.

Where I think we continue to converge is that the conception of a 'substance' becomes increasingly troublesome, and I'm with David Hume who intimated that the idea of an unchanging quality-less substance in which all of a thing's changing qualities inhere is nonsensical. All that is needed to describe what we might want to refer to as 'reality' is bundles of changing qualities, and the idea of a particular bundle's underlying 'substance' (that ensures its continuation as whatever it is) is merely a misconceived habit of thought. A conceptual error that follows on the heels of our ability to name things. This is the point of the Ship of Theseus problem, stripped to its most basic form in the UK TV comedy series Only Fools and Horses (if you don't know what I'm talking about then you should look it up on YouTube... look for the relevant clip from the episode entitled Trigger's Broom).

Given that we are both in alignment with Strawson's claim that Eliminative Materialism is the silliest claim ever made, we shouldn't have any argument about the claim that traditional physicalism (which I take to be updated terminology for materialism) is lumbered with Chalmers' Hard Problem of Consciousness (HPC). But once again I'd have to say that, as onerous as the HPC is, it's not a logical fallacy and so I can't bring myself to dismiss traditional physicalism. I'm not betting on physicalism... it's just that I'm uncomfortable with prejudice.

[Noax]

By "probably" I meant that if 100% of what we know about the world can coherently be explained without any dualism

That will never happen. No matter what we know, the dualists can always claim correlation, not causation. I do agree with the Occam's razor thing.

It's not like the dualists have a better explanation. Putting the questionable in a completely black box is not a better explanation that the grey box that the naturalists have. The black box has no explanitory power, being only a punt to a realm beyond certain kinds of empirical investigation.

I'm convinced that we cannot coherently explain 100% of what we know about the world and that we must begin, as Chalmers puts it, Facing Up to the Problem of Consciousness.

Translation: If one feels that one explanation is insufficiently explanatory, one can replace it with an ontology that is even less explanatory. So Chalmers seems to argue. The necessity of the new thing is never demonstrated, hence the favoring of the simpler model.

The complex model seems to have been rationalized from a need to explain the afterlife when it seems pretty empirically obvious that dead people are not in a better place, but rather in a hole in the ground.