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How is consciousness even possible?
materialism implies it cannot exist

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How is consciousness even possible?

The Escapist
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Posted 04/27/08 - 10:35 AM:	#101
reincarnated wrote: Each person’s conscious experience is unique. There is no way that agent A can know exactly what agent B’s conscious experience is like, because “being agent B” is part and parcel of the conscious experience of agent B. Hi Reincarnated, I think the way each person's conscious experience is not unique is more important. On average, in general, we are all experiencing the same thing.
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reincarnated
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Posted 04/28/08 - 07:36 AM:	#102
The Escapist wrote: I think the way each person's conscious experience is not unique is more important. more important in what respect? I am arguing here that it is impossible in principle for one agent to know the exact details of another agent's conscious experience, and this hinges on the critical issue that each person's conscious experience is unique. The Escapist wrote: On average, in general, we are all experiencing the same thing. are we? how do you know that?
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The Escapist
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Posted 04/28/08 - 11:31 AM:	#103
reincarnated wrote: more important in what respect? I am arguing here that it is impossible in principle for one agent to know the exact details of another agent's conscious experience, and this hinges on the critical issue that each person's conscious experience is unique. I know I don't and can't know at first hand what you experience when you see a colour. But I do know that on average, in general, we all have the same colour system, such that the average, "normal" person would place colours on a colour wheel or in a rainbow in the same order as me. I'm open to correction, but I think you are going too far: from the fact that I can't directly experience your experiences, you jump to a position that we can have no idea at all about what another person is experiencing, and moreover that all other people's experiences could easily be totally different from what we are experiencing ourselves. How do I know other people's experience is (generally, on average) the same as mine? Well, when I listen to other people's descriptions of all aspects of their experience, it usually sounds pretty much like my experience! When other people describe the world, the world they describe sounds like the same world I am in. And we have roughly the same sensory apparatus, and we are subjected to the same stimuli, light of a certain frequency for example. I think the sense in which our experience (the world we are in) is common is critical because it is the basis for every interaction with other people (including philosophical discussion). Why is it a critical issue that every person's conscience experience is unique?
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Posted 04/28/08 - 01:10 PM: Subject: Material Minds?	#104
Hi, Mike H, Mike H wrote: 1. Minds exist (our senses tell us so) 2. Only material objects exist (our senses, combined with modern science, tell us so) But from these two premises alone, it follows that C. Minds are material objects. Actually I would prefer to change the word "objects" in both 2 and C to "phenomena", so as to leave open the possibility that minds are material processes in the brain. That indeed is what Daniel Dennett seems to suggest in his Consciousness Explained. He suggests further that it is illusory to hypothesize a central Cartesian I that is the true subject of consciousness and the true agent of choice. On his analysis, the mind is more like a big committee meeting of ideas (memes), with no fixed president in charge. Dennett doesn't deny the existence of consciousness; he even argues that the content of consciousness is a viable subject of objective study (by the discipline of heterophenomenology). What he objects to his the simple theater model for explaining it. So the question before this forum is whether such a proposal manages to slip between the horns of the dilemma of dualism or materialism. Namiste, Dr. Free
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Posted 04/28/08 - 04:23 PM:
Subject: The Ontology of Action

#105

Hi, Simple Occam,

I was quite impressed with your profound point

Simple Occam wrote:
that understanding what consciousness is requires an ontological explanation, not an efficient-cause explanation. No doubt there are many things left to be discovered by science about how the brain and other things work. But none of the discoveries of science are a substitute for an ontology that can explain not just "how things work" but "what exists". Ontology can contribute a much broader and more profound insight into the nature of things that provides an understanding of the foundations of culture, morality and religion.

I was thus somewhat disappointed when you followed up with the following:

Simple Occam wrote:
The phenomenal properties of the animal's consciousness require no entities other than those in the brain and nervous system to exist and the qualia-reports given by the animal about it's experiences are references to the intrinsic properties of the animal's brain. The extrinsic properties are described in terms of efficient causation, while the intrinsic properties are postulated as an ontological assumption. The assumption becomes validated when it can be shown that it provides the BEST explanation of what consciousness is.

Now don't get me wrong. I don't mean that your ontology has overlooked mind, spirits, souls, the Cartesian I, or any of the purely mental objects that have been bandied about. But I still think it is impoverished.

Dennett, in Consciousness Explained, observes that most analyses of speech focus on speech recognition not on speech production. Similarly most discussions of consciousness focus on the theater of observation (an illusion, according to Dennett), where our central Cartesian I receives the messages from all the sense, and thereby watches indirectly what''s going on, both in the outside world and in his or her body. Little is discussed of the productive aspect of the theater, the exercise of will or choice.

I suggest consciousness cannot be understood except in conjunction with choice, that the function of consciousness is to enable effective, ultimately survivable choice. To this extent I think Dennett would agree.

What does this have to do with your ontology? The question to be answered is what kind of ontology is required to explain "phenomenal properties of the animal's consciousness", but the answer must address not only the qualia involved in perception, but also those involved in action. What kind of answer does that?

A number of posts in this thread have alluded to the problem of determinism. More years ago than I care to count, Roderick Chisholm published an article in Sidney Hook's Determinism and Freedom in the Age of Modern Science. In that article Chisholm formulated, almost as an aside, the following dilemma:

If an action is determined by prior circumstances, we cannot be responsible for the action unless we are responsible by the determining circumstances, but if an action is not determined by those circumstances (i.e, if it was only one of several things that could have happened in those circumstances), then it was only a matter of chance that that action took place, and we are not responsible for matters of chance.

What is interesting about this principle is that it takes the question of determinism out of play. Whether determinism is true or false, we are still forced to conclude from this principle that responsibility is impossible. Chisholm recognized that there is something far more fundamental going on than choosing between faith in determinism or faith in stochasticism. And he was deeply uncomfortable with the conclusion. Much of his subsequent work was aimed at finding a reasonable way of slipping between the horns of determinism on the one hand and mere chance on the other, thereby falsifying 1.

His approach took the form of agency theory, the hypothesis that actions are caused not by prior conditions (which may be necessary but not sufficient) but by the person, in ways that cannot be reduced to causal chains of events. Thus he harkened back to an Aristotelean concept in which people as well as circumstance can be invoked as efficient cause, as long as there is an explanatory final cause. Now it is one thing to assert a repudiation of such a long-cherished principle of western science as materialistic reductionism; it is quite a different challenge to offer evidence that will be taken seriously (and won't leave colleagues wondering about your sanity).

Chisholm's ploy began with the observation that we can and do explain human behavior in terms of what people believe, intend, hope, plan, and so on. He didn't oversimplify by claiming that for every action there was a corresponding intention, but he did point out that our ability to accurately predict a person's behavior depended on our knowledge of facts about the person, more precisely, of what he called intensional (with an 's') attributes of that person. These are attributes that are essentially expressed with sentences in whice the subject refers to the person, and the verb takes a that-clause as object. Examples include

John believed that his rook was in danger.
John intended that moving his bishop would protect his rook.
John hoped that his opponent would not notice that his bishop now endangered his opponent's queen.

Chisholm argued that

Intensional propositions, such as the above, can be known, with about the same certainty as we know things about the weather.
Our only knowledge of propositions about the states or our minds or brains comes from our knowledge of such intensional propositions about people.
Our knowledge of such intensional propositions enables us to explain and predict human behavior far more accurately and precisely than any theory that doesn't take those propositions into account.
Explanations of behavior by reference to intensional propositions follow the pattern of final causes rather than efficient causes, that is, they are non-deterministic and non-monotonic (i.e., a set of intensional attributes that explains an action in one case, can be part of a superset that explains its opposite in another case).
Since intensional propositions refer essentially to people (the subject of an intensional verb must be a person, whether human or computer or extraterrestial), people function as essential elements of the best available theory for explaining human action.

Now in an important sense this argument is epistemological rather than ontological. It says that the best approach to explaining what we know about human behavior is based on what we know about human (personal) intensionality.

Ontologically there are still puzzles. For example, what does it mean to say that a person causes behavior that is not caused by prior conditions, that is not reducible to material efficient causation at lower levels? Is there room for effective agent causation in the physical processes of the behavior of protons, neutrons, electrons and the like; or the chemical process of carbon, oxygen, etc., or in the biological processes of reproduction, metabolism, etc., or in the evolutionary processes of an ecosystem?

We should first note that chaos theory seems to have shown that none of those processes is demonstrably deterministic. At every level there is an element of statistical variation, of probability, of stochasticism. Strict determinism must now be recognized as a mere article of faith, not a theory provable by scientific means. That imples that there are occasions when physical conditions leave open multiple options among which a person can choose, if we can figure out what that means.

At this point in the development of the argument, my path diverged from Chisholm's, so what follows is my own speculation.

What I suggest is that consciousness and choice emerged from the cauldron of evolution when organisms adopted an integrated information management strategy.

Early in the evolution of animals, despite their growing complexity, each cell of the system that was the organism was autonomous. It monitored the environment for itself; it responded to that environment for itself. Its relationship to the whole organism was much like that of member to colony. Behaving that way had survival benefits over living by oneself, so the cell remained in the colony. (By the way much of what I am saying about evolution comes, with I am sure a number of errors, from Richard Dawkins' wonderful book, The Ancestors' Tale.)

At some point the colony as a whole began to behave as a whole, to coordinate the behavior of its cells for the benefit of the colony. When this coordination reached the point that

the colony evolved behavior that was directed toward the survival of the colony as a whole, and not just of the individual cells (and might even sacrifice cells to save the colony);
the colony reproduced itself as a whole, rather than merely recombining the products of reproduction of individual cells;
the death of the colony typically meant the death of the cells;

we could now distinguish the colony as not merely a colony but a whole organism. At this point the collection of cells swimming in close formation became a thing in and of irself.

As multi-celled animals evolved into complex systems of systems, they continued to rely on the inate behavior of organic molecules and the cells formed from them to do the things required for the survival of the organism as a whole. Survival seems to have converged on having systems that supported what Dennett referred to as the four F's: fight, flee, feed and mate. For simple animals those and other systems were relatively autonomous, though they might all have tapped into emerging sensory systems (light-sensitive or sound-sensitive cells, for example). Each system monitored the data it needed and behaved as appropriate in the circumstances to its function.

The problem often faced by these relatively simple animals is that they encounterd a dangerous overlap between the data that triggered a feeding response in one system and a fleeing response in another. For small animals that breed in great quantities, that's bad luck for the individual but no big deal to the survival of the species or the gene. But as animals evolved greater complexity, and concomitantly became less numerous, bad luck for the individual spelled danger for the species.

What was needed was a better way of coordinating decisions among the various subsystems so that one subsystem would give way to the inclinations of another when the needs of the whole system (the organism) warranted it. This coordination required two features:

Information Sharing. Data acquired by one system had to be made available to others.
Behavior Coordination. The organism needed the ability to choreograph the behavior of all of its subsystems for the benefit of the whole.

I suspect that these features exploited the ability of existing cells to communicate impulses from one cell to another, and grew those cells into nodes of neurons and ultimately into brains.

The point is that the evolution of information sharing and whole organism behavior provides the rudimentary beginnings of what has emerged in humans as consciousness and choice. On this reading both make sense only as features of the organism as a whole. Neither individual cells nor tissues nor organs can have any concept of a predator and consequent fleeing; those concepts are meaningful only to the whole organism.

Of course evolution enhances the abilities for consciousness and choice. It has provided humans with a rich and diverse toolbox of perceptual and behavioral capabilities, as well as a growing, culturally interchangeable library of memes to apply to the interpretation of our situations and our options.

But ultimately it is the person him- or herself, as a whole, that interprets the circumstances and acts on them. Thus I suggest an enlargement of your ontology to include people (and probably dogs and cats and dolphins and others as well) as essential objects in the explanation of conscious behavior.

Namiste,
Dr Free

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Simple Occam
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Posted 04/29/08 - 02:09 PM:	#106
DrFree wrote: #105 I don't mean that your ontology has overlooked mind, spirits, souls, the Cartesian I, or any of the purely mental objects that have been bandied about. But I still think it is impoverished. Dennett, in Consciousness Explained, observes that most analyses of speech focus on speech recognition not on speech production. Similarly most discussions of consciousness focus on the theater of observation (an illusion, according to Dennett), where our central Cartesian I receives the messages from all the sense, and thereby watches indirectly what''s going on, both in the outside world and in his or her body. Little is discussed of the productive aspect of the theater, the exercise of will or choice. I suggest consciousness cannot be understood except in conjunction with choice, that the function of consciousness is to enable effective, ultimately survivable choice. To this extent I think Dennett would agree. What does this have to do with your ontology? The question to be answered is what kind of ontology is required to explain "phenomenal properties of the animal's consciousness", but the answer must address not only the qualia involved in perception, but also those involved in action. What kind of answer does that? I think you are confusing will and consciousness. To me, consciousness is simply the having of qualia. Will is just the presence of a guidance system for animal behavior that engages the sensory-motor mechanisms of the brian to respond with adaptive behaviors, in order to achieve the ends dictated by animal desire and instinct. To call my, otherwise "profound" (your word) point that consciousness requires an ontological explanation "impoverished" is a bit extreme on both ends. It's not a failure of my analysis of consciousness that it doesn't explain action. In humans, behavior is guided by instinct and desire, as it is in other animals. What's different for us is that we have an additional aspect to our guidance system: reason. I think it's reason, rather than consciousness that you are referring to when you say "the answer must address not only the qualia involved in perception, but also those involved in action." Reason in humans derives from reflection, which results from the evolution of the neo-cortex into an organization of neurophysiology to represents the other psychological states involved in perception. Reflection allows us to create linguistic objects that represent our (otherwise internal) psychological states and the psychological staes of others. This makes our reflections available to other subjests in a way that is impossible for the other animals. So I not only have green qualia that are associated with objects reflecting light in the appropriate frequency range; I also have the word "green", which has a meaning common to other English speakers. Also with language comes the power to analyze and reason about the best way to behave to achieve a desired outcome that advantages the group (not just the individual) using a shared set of reference terms (language). Other animals also reason within the context of perception/instinct/desire in order to guide their behavior through the exercise of will. Indeed their sensory and instinct/desire mechanisms were selected because they provided the best solutions to the problems that would otherwise tend to kill them before they can reproduce. What's different about how we do it is that we have language and reason, which offer a much broader set of possible behaviors, especially the group-coordinated tasks that we do so much better than other animals. For instance, drawing a simple map in the dirt that shows where the prey is and where the hunters should position themsleves is something other predators simply cannot do. They must rely on instinct, rather than a public artifact. It's MUCH easier to draw a new map than to wait for evolution to catch up when the hunting conditions change over time. It's important also to distinguish conscious behavior from rational behavior. As I said, animals are conscious; it's like something to be them. Rocks are not conscious; it's not like anything to be them. Both rocks and people have an intrinsic nature...what they are in themselves. But the intrinsic nature of a rock is not "like anything", because it has no neuorophysiology. Animals that are not language-users cannot reason linguistically as we can, even though they are every bit as conscious as we are. They feel pain and pleasure, they have expectations and fears and even love. But they can't reason about their behavior like we can because they don't use language. Consciousness, as I mean it, is not "self-awareness" or a theatre of observation. This way of thinking leads to infinite regress of I's knowing I's and some kind of homonculous See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homunculus for a nice treatment of the philosophical problems with such a theory. Chalmers is corrct to point out that rational explanations differ from the efficient-cause type. We explain things rationally when we give the reasons an agent has for choosing as he does. You can't understand the behavior without understanding the reasoning that went into it, even though everything that happened was caused in a way that can be explained according to natural law. It was the intended outcome and the assumptions about relevant conditions that motivated the behavior; the various synapses and muscle movements tell how it got done but never WHY it got done.

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Posted 04/29/08 - 08:54 PM: Subject: Comment on Points Relating to Dualism or Materialism	#107
I am new to the forum and just stumbled upon this post, but wanted to mention that some of you might be interested in the work of the Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research lab before jumping into any kind of arguments that involve dualism or rely on materialistic arguments to refute or accept consciousness. I learned about the lab through a company called Psyleron - and their entire point seems to be that some element of human intention seems to be able to affect measurable physical processes in a way that can't be reduced or explained using the properties of the physical system in question or any known physical forces. It is as if physical probability can be shaped by some ineffable property of consciousness. It isn't mainstream stuff, but if it is true - many of these classical ideas are on the wrong track.

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Posted 04/30/08 - 05:41 AM:	#108
"...some element of human intention seems to be able to affect measurable physical processes " can you give us an example ?

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Posted 04/30/08 - 08:11 AM:	#109
dr Free, Dennett has long claimed that there is no ontological fact of the matter that constitutes intentionality, or having knowledge, or having mental representation; there is just that language-game, the intentional stance, that we as observers choose to adopt. Like most other philosophers and cognitive scientists, Dennett assumes that we have knowledge because things in our minds (structural mental representations) correspond to things in the world. Affirming a conception of knowledge by correspondence, Knowledge, on this view, consists of structures in a mind that correspond to structures in the world, and such correspondences are what make it knowledge. The posited mental structures can be regarded as digital and symbolic, or analogue and connectionist; the correspondences are what is important. Dennett's endorsements of knowledge by correspondence are glancing and indirect, for example, his presentation of ``functional role semantics''. If knowledge is a structural encoding of the world, then it makes sense to view linguistic structures as encodings of encoded knowledge. Linguistic communication becomes the recoding of mental structures into linguistic structures by the speaker, and their decoding into encoded mental structures by the listener. So for Dennett, the ``information-encoding properties of real language'' are utterly transparent: language just recodes encodings. But a theory of encodicism cannot overcome solipsism or the Cartesian gulf. How the esoteric corresponds to the exoteric? How and when the inherent properties of an agent came to existence? If there are a priori there must already know the outside world without having been in touch with the world. If they are encoded, then Dennet looses his footing, because he cannot overcome a critique of an ad infinitum homunculus reduction of the encodings. And just saying that there must exist some short of correspondence, does not have any explanatory value. Encodings have some kind of stability. How they become able to create something new, or correspond to something new in the environment? In short, I think Dennet has to overcome solipsism, circularity, innative idealism, at least.

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Posted 04/30/08 - 02:47 PM:	#110
That is interesting rakis, although I don't understand where solipsism comes in. What do you think of my suggestion that "the inherent properties of an agent" come about when "life" comes about?
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Posted 05/01/08 - 02:36 AM:	#111
Alright after thinking on this awhile, I've come up with what I think is a much sounder and more elegant argument for my conclusion (maybe even a proof of sorts!) Here you go: Let M" be the set of all the material objects originally contained in the universe. Define a "new entity" to be anything comes to exist that is not contained in M" (that is, a new entity is something that either emerges from M", or just spontaneously comes into existence from some other source) 1. If a new entity comes into existence and only material things ever exist, that new entity itself must be material. (by definition) 2. Material things cannot cause it to be the case that new material entities come into existence. (scientific law) So if only material things exist at the beginning of time, then no new material entities can come into existence. So if the universe begins with only M" and only material things ever exist, only M" exists. 3. But a new entity is not contained in M" (by definition) 4. Therefore, only M" exists implies that a new entity cannot be material. 5. Therefore, if the universe begins with only M" and only material things ever exist, a new entity cannot be material. 6. Therefore, if the universe begins with only M" and only material things ever exist, either new beings cannot come into existence, or it is not the case that only material things exist 7. But only material things exist, and the universe begins with only M" (by assumption) 8. Therefore, no new beings can come into existence. 9. If minds exist, they are new beings. 10. Hence, no minds can come into existence. Materialism implies that minds cannot exist!! In defense of 9: if minds are not new beings, then minds are contained in M" (by definition). But if minds are contained in M", then minds have no subjective character (they are just a collection of objects). But minds have a subjective character by definition. Therefore, it is not the case that minds are contained in M", and it is the case that minds are new beings. Now to make things a bit clearer for those of you familiar with set theory: Let E be that which exists. Let b be a new being in the set B of new beings. Let M be the set of all matter (so M" is in the set of M). let m stand for minds. My argument is of the form: 1. [ ( b contained in E ) and ( M <=> E ) ] => ( b contained in M ) 2. [ ( M" contained in E ) and ( M <=> E ) ] => ( M" <=> M ) 3. ( b not contained in M" ) 4. Therefore, ( M" <=> M ) => ( b not contained in M ) 5. Therefore, [ ( M" contained in E ) and ( M <=> E ) ] => ( b not contained in M ) => not [ ( b contained in E ) and ( M <=> E ) ] 6. Therefore, [ ( M" contained in E ) and ( M <=> E ) ] => either not ( b contained in E ) or not ( M <=> E ) 7. ( M <=> E ) and ( M" contained in E ) 8. Therefore, not ( b contained in E ) 9. m => ( m contained in b) 10. Therefore, not ( m contained in E) I apologize if this argument seems too complicated, but this seems to be the most effective way to express it. Edited by Mike H on 05/01/08 - 03:22 AM

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Posted 05/01/08 - 03:11 AM:	#112
reincarnated wrote: Mike H wrote: How can you give rational and coherent substantiation to a claim of absurdity, when absurdity only exists relative to a perspective, and perspectives cannot be rationally argued for? With respect, there seem to be contradictions here. In your last post you claimed that you “explained why I think the idea that matter can create new entities is absurd: it either violates physical laws (if new matter is created out of nothing) or it involves some kind of mystical process whereby non-matter emerges from matter. And I constructed a thought experiment designed to illustrate its absurdity.” (which to me seems a very good attempt at a rational and coherent substantiation to your claim of absurdity) – and yet in the same post you seem to claim that a rational and coherent substantiation to a claim of absurdity is not possible? I can explain my reasons why, according to my perspective, something is absurd. By I cannot provide reasons that are valid for anyone regardless of their perspective. For example, if someone has a religious fundamentalist perspective, they aren't going to accept that something is absurd because it is mystical and violates natural laws. But for someone with a scientific, modern worldview, my reasons should be more convincing. Please see my reformulated argument. Its pretty clear we're going to disagree on premise 9. I have to admit, its getting harder and harder for me to respond to your points as we get more abstract. So I'm going to reduce my objection to your arguments to the following: reincarnated wrote: Mike H wrote: How then, can thoughts and consciousness, be properties? How can mind itself be a property? Mind is indetectable, except to the mind itself. I disagree. There are subjective properties of mind and there are objective properties of mind. The subjective properties can be experienced by definition only from “within” the mind. So if mind is a property, it is either a subjective property or an objective property. It can't be an objective property, as there is nothing to detect from without. So if it is a property, it is a subjective property, which, as you say, can only be experienced from within the mind. But I don't think that makes sense. If your definition is correct, a subjective property pressupposes a mind within which it can be experienced. So if mind is a subjective property, wouldn't that pressupose that it exists within a larger (universal?) mind, within which this mind can be experienced? And wouldn't that enclosing mind pressuppose a mind that encloses that mind, and so on to infinity? ( That sounds like something I'd come with on mushrooms )

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Posted 05/01/08 - 06:57 AM:	#113
The Escapist wrote: That is interesting rakis, although I don't understand where solipsism comes in. What do you think of my suggestion that "the inherent properties of an agent" come about when "life" comes about? I’d better say methodological solipsism. Let’s see: For many philosophers of mind and Dennet (and reincarnated), encodings are defined in terms of what they represent. But that implies that our knowledge of what is represented is dependent on knowledge of the world, which, in turn, is dependent on our knowledge of physics and chemistry. Therefore, we cannot have an epistemology until physics and chemistry are finished so that we know what is being represented. This, however, contains a basic internal contradiction: we have to know what is being represented in order to have representations, but we can’t know what is being represented until physics and chemistry are historically finished with their investigations. Fodor concludes that we have a methodological solipsism — that we can only model systems with empty formal symbols until that millennium arrives. But how do actual representations work? 1) We can’t have actual representations until we know what is to be represented. 2) But to know what is to be represented awaits millennial physics. 3) But physics cannot even begin until we have some sort of representations of the world. 4) Hence, we have to already have representation before we can get representation. I agree with your thesis. (Mike H. I'll study your argument and I'll be back)

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Posted 05/01/08 - 11:50 AM: Subject: On Infinite Novelty	#114
Hi, Mike, Let's put this demon to rest so that it doesn't distract us from more pressing questions. Mike H wrote: Alright after thinking on this awhile, I've come up with what I think is a much sounder and more elegant argument for my conclusion (maybe even a proof of sorts!) Here you go: Let M" be the set of all the material objects originally contained in the universe. Your use of the term 'material objects' needs some refinement, as well as what you mean by 'originally contained in the universe'. If M" were to be interpreted as the set of discrete objects immediately after the big bang, then it would be empty. The things we normally think of as populating the early universe -- photons, electrons, protons, neutrons, etc. -- didn't emerge until much later. But let's give this definition its most generous interpretation: M" is the collection ('set' is too precise a word for non-discrete members) of all energy (normal and dark) available for formation into material objects. Mike H wrote: Define a "new entity" to be anything comes to exist that is not contained in M" (that is, a new entity is something that either emerges from M", or just spontaneously comes into existence from some other source) OK, so a proton that emerges from the separation of the four fundamental forces as the universe cools is a new entity. Mike H wrote: 1. If a new entity comes into existence and only material things ever exist, that new entity itself must be material. (by definition) Of course, a tautology. Mike H wrote: 2. Material things cannot cause it to be the case that new material entities come into existence. (scientific law) So if only material things exist at the beginning of time, then no new material entities can come into existence. So if the universe begins with only M" and only material things ever exist, only M" exists. False. Science does proclaim the conservation of energy, so the total amount of energy in the current universe is the same as that in M". This in no way precludes that energy from taking new forms, new configurations. The things we refer to as objects are all configurations of that energy. Mike H wrote: 3. But a new entity is not contained in M" (by definition) Here the fuzziness of your definitions comes home to rest. You confuse the energy available for object formation with the collection of discrete objects. Mike H wrote: 4. Therefore, only M" exists implies that a new entity cannot be material. 5. Therefore, if the universe begins with only M" and only material things ever exist, a new entity cannot be material. 6. Therefore, if the universe begins with only M" and only material things ever exist, either new beings cannot come into existence, or it is not the case that only material things exist 7. But only material things exist, and the universe begins with only M" (by assumption) 8. Therefore, no new beings can come into existence. Non Sequiter. New objects out of old energy come into being all the time. Mike H wrote: 9. If minds exist, they are new beings. 10. Hence, no minds can come into existence. Of course, a dualist would quibble with your premise 1 that only material things exist, but I'll leave them to make that case. The fact remains that your argument does not hinder the position that mind is in some way to be determined a manifestation of material objects such as brains. Such minds are conceived to be reconfigurations of the energy available in your M". No new energy; infinite new objects.
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Posted 05/01/08 - 12:02 PM:	#115
Hi again, Mike, Why would you claim that mind Mike H wrote: can't be an objective property, as there is nothing to detect from without. We detect each other's minds, i.e., their mental states, every day in every interpersonal interaction. From what you say and do, I learn much about what you believe and intend. Is that learning certain? Of course not, but what empirical knowledge is? Is it reliable? Yes, we make reliable inferences about what a person will say or do from what they have said or done. Is it objective? Yes, a community of observers can meaningfully and usefully discuss and come to agreement on those inferences. Dennett calls this kind of objective knowledge heterophenomenology.
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Posted 05/01/08 - 12:11 PM:	#116
Mike H, Think of consciousness as the intrinsic nature of the brain or what it is like to be an animal with such a brain. In this way you can distinguish it from the extrinsic nature of the brain, which is how it is observed from the outside through, say, a brain scan or even as the result of blunt force trauma (yuk). In this way mind is not a "new being" but a condition of being something (a brain) composed of material substances (elementary particles) that always existed. #9 in your new argument just begs the whole question because, in your explanation of it you say "But if minds are contained in M", then minds have no subjective character". I thought this is what you are trying to prove! You objection to 'reincarnated' contains another mistake: If your definition is correct, a subjective property pressupposes a mind within which it can be experienced. So if mind is a subjective property, wouldn't that pressupose that it exists within a larger (universal?) mind, within which this mind can be experienced? You assume that consciousness is "the experiencing of subjective properties". But what I've been suggesting to you is that it is a condition of BEING, not a kind of KNOWING. "What it is like to be something" is not the same as "what it is to know something". It is better to assume that consciousness is an intrinsic property of certain kinds of neurophysiology, than that it is a differnt kind of knowing and a different kind of substance. Edited by Simple Occam on 05/01/08 - 01:00 PM

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Posted 05/01/08 - 12:37 PM:	#117
Hi, Simple Occam, Simple Occam wrote: I think you are confusing will and consciousness. I'm not confusing them, but I am claiming that from the perspective of answering useful questions about what kind of things are conscious, they must be explored together. Being aware of objects in one's environment is necessary and sufficient for an organisms responding successfully to those objects. It is necessary because the development of successful strategies for dealing with a kind of object requires the ability to recognize when our senses are reporting an object of that kind. It is sufficient because without such an effect on behavior there is no way for such a capability to evolve. My philosophical strategy then is to explore when in the course of evolution behavior became object-oriented, to reuse a term from relatively contemporary computer science, i.e., when animals (plants never got around to developing either of these capabilities) made the transition from cool, green, stationary, quiet, tasty or hot, brown, moving, noisy, painful to edible leaf or dangerous predator. This transition marks the emergence of representative or symbol sensation. It also marks the point where organisms take a position on the mereological scalse of being, i.e., when we (quite unconsciously) organized the universe into things of roughly our own size (the things we can eat or be eaten by), rather than elementary particles or chemicals or solar systems or galaxies, which are all real (as we learned much later) but were much more indirectly involved in our survival than the objects of our primary ontology. Out of time. More later.
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Posted 05/01/08 - 01:12 PM:	#118
Dr Free, Awareness of objects in the environment is a part of perception. Perception is already tied up with will since an animal evolves to perceive precisely those aspects of the enviornment that affect its reproductive and survival strategies. Will is simply the operation of the behavior guidance mechanism that engages a conditioned response to what is perceived. Consciousness, in my view, is neither the awareness of the environment nor the generation of behaviors. It is simply the intrinsic nature of the animal's neurophysiology.

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Posted 05/02/08 - 01:24 PM:	#119
DrFree, Consensus does not offer objectivity: (A comment on your “Is it objective? Yes, a community of observers can meaningfully and usefully discuss and come to agreement on those inferences.”) You’ve also written: “responding successfully to those objects. for dealing with a kind of object …object-oriented,” What is the relationship between subject-object? Is an object independent from subject? How do you mean “…responding…” as corresponding? “from cool, green, stationary, quiet, tasty or hot, brown, moving, noisy, painful to edible leaf or dangerous predator. This transition marks the emergence of representative or symbol sensation.” This position I think supports an idea of intentionality of an agent as design rather than usefulness. Am I reading you correct?

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Posted 05/03/08 - 01:39 AM:	#120
Mike H wrote: So if mind is a property, it is either a subjective property or an objective property. It can't be an objective property, as there is nothing to detect from without. So if it is a property, it is a subjective property, which, as you say, can only be experienced from within the mind. But I don't think that makes sense. If your definition is correct, a subjective property pressupposes a mind within which it can be experienced. So if mind is a subjective property, wouldn't that pressupose that it exists within a larger (universal?) mind, within which this mind can be experienced? And wouldn't that enclosing mind pressuppose a mind that encloses that mind, and so on to infinity? ( That sounds like something I'd come with on mushrooms ) First we need to agree on the meaning of "mind" in this context, before we can agree whether all properties of "mind" are subjective. Consciousness creates "an experiencer" along with "the experience" as part and parcel of the process of consciousness. It is not the case that there is a little homunculus within a "Cartesian theatre" in the brain. The smallest unit of phenomenal conscious experience convolves the “conscious observer” with the “consciously observed object”. This is the fundamental building block of phenomenal consciousness, it is impossible in principle to deconvolve observer and observed (to claim that such a deconvolution is possible is tantamount to claiming the Cartesian theatre model of conscious perception is an accurate model, and that there is somewhere an homunculus within the brain - but as you rightly point out this Cartesian theatre "explanation" is incoherent, because it entails infinite regress). Or to put it another way, in the words of Antonio Damasio, "you are the music, while the music lasts" Edited by reincarnated on 05/03/08 - 10:38 PM
_____________________ �If one pays attention to the concepts being employed, rather than the words being used, the resolution of this problem is simple.� (Stuart Burns)

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Posted 05/04/08 - 06:10 AM:	#121
Reincarnated, Can you describe the way in which representation can emerge out of phenomena that are not themselves already representational? Edited by rakis on 05/04/08 - 06:26 AM

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Posted 05/04/08 - 06:31 AM:	#122
rakis wrote: Reincarnated, Can you describe the way in which representation can emerge out of phenomena that are not themselves already representational? (Unless you believe there is not an independent world.) I don't see why you believe there is a problem here? In principle, anything can represent anything else. A representation is simply a symbol which is taken by the agent concerned to have some kind of meaning in terms of (ie it stands for) something else. In very simple terms, we create a representation when we create a link between a perceived object (the thing represented) and an internalised symbol (the thing doing the representing). Could you explain in a little more detail why you think there is a problem, or perhaps give an example to illustrate the alleged problem?
_____________________ �If one pays attention to the concepts being employed, rather than the words being used, the resolution of this problem is simple.� (Stuart Burns)

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Posted 05/04/08 - 07:10 AM:	#123
Well, the incoherence problem itself focuses not on how encoding representations can be checked, nor on which ones to construct, but rather on the more foundational problem of how any representational content can be provided for a foundational encoding, and, thus, on how any logically independent encoding could exist at all. To postulate their existence, either explicitly, or implicitly as a presupposition, is to take a logically incoherent position. Your (spinozian) thesis does not provide a way in which representation can emerge out of phenomena that are not themselves already representational. I think you take the carrying of representational content as a theoretical primitive. It is simply assumed that symbols can provide and carry representational content, and, thus, are encoded representations. Representation is rendered in terms of elements with representational contents, but offer no model of how these elements can carry representational content. I judge that you presuppose phenomena of representation — symbols having content — in their supposed accounts of cognition and representation. But isn’t this circular?

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Posted 05/04/08 - 07:59 AM:	#124
rakis wrote: Well, the incoherence problem itself focuses not on how encoding representations can be checked, nor on which ones to construct, but rather on the more foundational problem of how any representational content can be provided for a foundational encoding, and, thus, on how any logically independent encoding could exist at all. To postulate their existence, either explicitly, or implicitly as a presupposition, is to take a logically incoherent position. Your (spinozian) thesis does not provide a way in which representation can emerge out of phenomena that are not themselves already representational. I think you take the carrying of representational content as a theoretical primitive. It is simply assumed that symbols can provide and carry representational content, and, thus, are encoded representations. Representation is rendered in terms of elements with representational contents, but offer no model of how these elements can carry representational content. I judge that you presuppose phenomena of representation �" symbols having content �" in their supposed accounts of cognition and representation. But isn’t this circular? I do not see the problem. I can take the symbol "A" as a representation of an apple. Why is this problematical, and why does it entail circular reasoning? Again I must ask you to pease explain what you think the problem is, and if possible to give an example which illustrates the alleged problem. All this talk of "foundational encoding" and "theoretical primitives" doesn't really throw any light on anything......
_____________________ �If one pays attention to the concepts being employed, rather than the words being used, the resolution of this problem is simple.� (Stuart Burns)

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Posted 05/04/08 - 08:11 AM:	#125
how representation is created ? what is your opinion?

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