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How is consciousness even possible?
materialism implies it cannot exist

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How is consciousness even possible?

reincarnated
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Posted 05/04/08 - 08:41 AM:	#126
What kind of representation? Please give an example so that I know what you are talking about.
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rakis
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Posted 05/04/08 - 09:19 AM:	#127
lets say of a "wall"

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Posted 05/04/08 - 09:19 AM:	#128
I think the problem is that dualism does not help explain the mind any more than materialism/monoism. At least the monoists are honest about it If no combination of materials can make anything close to a mind (notice i say mind, not brain), then perhaps it is impossible for consciousness to exist for monists. Let me state here that I am rather a fan of the idea of "emergent properties", and don’t believe this to be the case - but for the purposes of argument ill accept it as a conditional. Even having accepted this, there is still some thinking to do: how does a dualist universe to contain consciousness? how does the "other substance/dimension" create consciousness? I suspect that you will want to say that it is mysterious, unexplainable etc. It occurs to me that though I cannot see how many separate elements of matter can come together to create a mind, I cannot comprehend how two separate and distinct dimensions can come together and create a mind. Either process is equally un-thinkable: And by this I mean we are not able to imagine consciousness arising in either system. just because we cannot imagine it does not mean it cannot happen. After all, if you kept adding billiard balls together in your thought experiment, eventually they would do unexpected things: after several million million balls, they would start to clump together because of gravity. the more you add, the stronger their joint gravitational field, and eventually they would collapse in upon each other, and maybe form a star. Now I know this is true because that is what physics tells me: but I cannot work this out from my idea of a billiard ball. Perhaps there is something to the idea of emergent properties after all. Cheers

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Posted 05/04/08 - 09:45 AM:	#129
rakis wrote: lets say of a "wall" and what representation do you want to make of this "wall"?
_____________________ �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 - 09:54 AM:	#130
Makarismos wrote: If no combination of materials can make anything close to a mind (notice i say mind, not brain), then perhaps it is impossible for consciousness to exist for monists. What makes you think that no combination of materials can make a mind? We know of one combination of materials that can make a mind - the human brain. Makarismos wrote: And by this I mean we are not able to imagine consciousness arising in either system. I have no problem imagining consciousness arising in a physical system
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Posted 05/04/08 - 10:46 AM:	#131
reincarnated wrote: What makes you think that no combination of materials can make a mind? We know of one combination of materials that can make a mind - the human brain. I have no problem imagining consciousness arising in a physical system You should read what I wrote - then perhaps you would realise that I do not think that a monist view of the universe is impossible. My position is less arrogant than your own - I admit it is almost impossible to "imagine consciousness arising in a physical system". does your brain work like a universe simulator, with each atom clearly visualised at the moment "consciousness" is reached? I would suggest that the problem is akin to the difficulty reached trying to simulate the universe from within the universe. Trying to consciously visualise consciousness seems rather more of a problem than you are willing to admit. As stated though, the fact that it is hard to visualise is meaningless: it is still seems most likely to be the case, given the alternative of dualism (which I was in the process of attacking...).

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Posted 05/04/08 - 01:10 PM:	#132
reincarnated wrote: and what representation do you want to make of this "wall"? how the "ideatum" : "wall" is created and exists?

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Posted 05/04/08 - 05:04 PM:	#133
Makarismos wrote: I admit it is almost impossible to "imagine consciousness arising in a physical system". Does your brain work like a universe simulator, with each atom clearly visualised at the moment "consciousness" is reached? I'm not clear what you mean by "almost impossible to imagine". I find it entirely straightforward to imagine that consciousness arises in a physical system, that actually seems to happen to me most mornings. My brain seems to work like a universe simulator, loosely speaking, yes. It is responsible (with my body) for perceiving everything that I perceive. I don't perceive each atom of everything, I don't think there are such things as atoms. But when I am not perceiving it, there is no universe, for me.
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Posted 05/04/08 - 05:33 PM:	#134
The Escapist wrote: I'm not clear what you mean by "almost impossible to imagine". I find it entirely straightforward to imagine that consciousness arises in a physical system, that actually seems to happen to me most mornings. In that way you understand it, and perhaps I look too deeply for understanding. I, for example, cannot understand how the experience of seeing the colour red can be accomplished by a delicate arrangement of matter. It seems impossible that inert matter can, from its constituent parts, generate such an experience all for itself. Yet, the fact I cannot imagine it does not preclude me from admitting the possibility - even likelihood of this occurrence. In this way, I see the criticisms of monism for what they are: an error in the frame of reference used. If we try to use every day thinking upon things at the limits of our understanding, then of course we will become confused. The mind is not a similar type of thing to billiard balls, and so the comparison seems to show incoherence on the part of the monist. It is a rhetorical trick, which misses the point: dualism does not offer better answers to the question of consciousness. It mystifies the problem further, by putting consciousness behind a veil of mystery. My position is one of reasonable alternatives, and to me the alternative seems the less reasonable viewpoint. My brain seems to work like a universe simulator, loosely speaking, yes. It is responsible (with my body) for perceiving everything that I perceive. I don't perceive each atom of everything, I don't think there are such things as atoms. But when I am not perceiving it, there is no universe, for me. You don’t believe in atoms? How sceptical of you. And quite correct upon your reasoning of the universe’s existence: the universe in your head which you are aware of will always be impermanent: some would question what the universe would be like if not perceived by mankind. The answer I believe is not possible, for perception as we know it is requires a perceiver. So here we are, with an impermanent reality, uncertain by nature, left to work out what we can within those limits.

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Posted 05/04/08 - 08:08 PM:	#135
Makarismos wrote: You should read what I wrote I did. What you wrote was "If no combination of materials can make anything close to a mind" - a proposition which is clearly false since we do know of a combination of materials which makes something close to a mind. Makarismos wrote: My position is less arrogant than your own - I admit it is almost impossible to "imagine consciousness arising in a physical system" You may think it almost impossible to imagine - but I don't. With respect, why is it "arrogant" for me to be able to easily imagine consciousness arising in a physical system? Makarismos wrote: Trying to consciously visualise consciousness seems rather more of a problem than you are willing to admit. I don't understand why you seem to have a problem with it - seriously. Consciousness is simply a very particular kind of dynamic process - nothing more nor less. What is difficult to imagine about that?
_____________________ �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 - 08:25 PM:	#136
rakis wrote: how the "ideatum" : "wall" is created and exists? Now we are talking about ideas, and not representations? The ideatum of an idea is the object which the idea is "about". An ideatum is thus not a representation, rather it is the object being represented. In general terms, a representation within a particular instance of consciousness will likely correspond to a collection of various states of phenomenal consciousness with some common factor. In the case of "wall" this is likely to be associated with perceptual states with a common factor something akin to "solid obstruction".
_____________________ �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 - 08:40 PM:	#137
Makarismos wrote: In that way you understand it, and perhaps I look too deeply for understanding. With respect, you are moving the goalposts. "Imagination" is not synonymous with "understanding". Now, by "understanding" should I assume that you mean a reductivist explanation? If so, then on this definition of "understanding" I agree that to achieve a full understanding of how a physical system gives rise to consciousness IS impossible - simply because the subjective aspect of phenomenal consciousness does not permit a reducible explanation. Consciousness may be ontologically reducible (the premise of physicalism), but it does not follow from this that it must also be epistemologically reducible (the premise of scientism).
_____________________ �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 05/05/08 - 04:04 AM:	#138
reincarnated wrote: In general terms, a representation within a particular instance of consciousness will likely correspond to a collection of various states of phenomenal consciousness with some common factor. In the case of "wall" this is likely to be associated with perceptual states with a common factor something akin to "solid obstruction". yes but how a representation comes in existence? dont you pressupose its existence? and what do you mean by common factor: this very crucial for my understanding of you

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Posted 05/05/08 - 04:23 AM:	#139
rakis wrote: yes but how a representation comes in existence? dont you pressupose its existence? and what do you mean by common factor: this very crucial for my understanding of you A representation within a consciousness is simply a particular state of that consciousness - a particular subset of the dynamic processes which go to make up that consciousness. These dynamic processes are coming and going all the time, they correspond simply to dynamical arrangements of the constituent components. The representation is therefore not a "physical object", rather it is a process. By common factor I mean that not all conscious representations of "wall" are identical even within the same consciosness - rather there is a set of representations which share a common factor of each being representations of walls.
_____________________ �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 05/05/08 - 05:06 AM:	#140
reincarnated wrote: me wrote: You should read what I wrote I did. What you wrote was "If no combination of materials can make anything close to a mind" - a proposition which is clearly false since we do know of a combination of materials which makes something close to a mind. Um no, really, try reading my first post. You still haven’t have you - let me help you:- me wrote: If no combination of materials can make anything close to a mind (notice i say mind, not brain), then perhaps it is impossible for consciousness to exist for monists. Let me state here that I am rather a fan of the idea of "emergent properties", and don’t believe this to be the case - but for the purposes of argument ill accept it as a conditional. Do you know what a conditional statement is? Look at the quote, It states that If no combination of materials can make anything close to a mind, then it is impossible for consciousness to exist for monists. The IF at the start is the key - I believe that this is possible. If I were denying its possibility, then I would not have said if. Do you get it? reincarnated wrote: You may think it almost impossible to imagine - but I don't. With respect, why is it "arrogant" for me to be able to easily imagine consciousness arising in a physical system? I don't understand why you seem to have a problem with it - seriously. Consciousness is simply a very particular kind of dynamic process - nothing more nor less. What is difficult to imagine about that? You don’t understand why I have a problem, then you go on to say:- "Imagination" is not synonymous with "understanding". Now, by "understanding" should I assume that you mean a reductivist explanation? If so, then on this definition of "understanding" I agree that to achieve a full understanding of how a physical system gives rise to consciousness IS impossible - simply because the subjective aspect of phenomenal consciousness does not permit a reducible explanation. Consciousness may be ontologically reducible (the premise of physicalism), but it does not follow from this that it must also be epistemologically reducible (the premise of scientism). So we agree. You too have a problem understanding how consciousness can arise – you say it’s impossible to understand. I quite agree with this sentiment, and we both agree that consciousness can still arise. I take it you agree that we agree? Or do you still think were having a meaningful dispute? We both think that consciousness is difficult to visualise - don’t we? Our only dispute seems to be about the meanings of the words imagination and understanding - I will concede that they are not synonymous, but point out that they are heavily intertwined: To imagine something one does not understand seems empty, wouldn’t you agree? I thought the whole point of the billiard ball experiment was to show (to understand) that consciousness could never come from any combination of simple material elements? If we are to refute such an experiment, perhaps we might need to use the word understand.

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Posted 05/05/08 - 08:42 AM:	#141
Makarismos wrote: So we agree. No, we do NOT agree. Your original statement was NOT that you could not understand how consciousness arises - it was that you could not imagine how consciousness arises. You have now changed your position, but that doesn't alter the fact of your earlier statement. "Imagine", "visualise" and "understand" do not mean the same thing. If you wish to change your position to "I do not understand, in the sense of reductive explanation, how consciousness arises from a physical system" then I agree with that sentiment. However I still maintain that I can imagine how consciousness arises from a physical system.
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Posted 05/05/08 - 01:36 PM:	#142
reincarnated wrote: rakis wrote: yes but how a representation comes in existence? dont you pressupose its existence? and what do you mean by common factor: this very crucial for my understanding of you A representation within a consciousness is simply a particular state of that consciousness - a particular subset of the dynamic processes which go to make up that consciousness. These dynamic processes are coming and going all the time, they correspond simply to dynamical arrangements of the constituent components. The representation is therefore not a "physical object", rather it is a process. By common factor I mean that not all conscious representations of "wall" are identical even within the same consciosness - rather there is a set of representations which share a common factor of each being representations of walls. I agree with the process, but allow me to ask smthg more. How from an endless process, comes something distinguished? by the help of common factor? [If yes, what a common factor does?Do you mean some kind of an agent who gathers similarities(and if yes , then similarities of what)?]

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Posted 05/05/08 - 02:49 PM:	#143
Makarismos wrote: I, for example, cannot understand how the experience of seeing the colour red can be accomplished by a delicate arrangement of matter. We understand a fair bit about how the arrangement of matter produces sight: lens, rods and cones, retina, optic nerve, we know which areas of the brain are responsible for seeing lines at different angles, to give one very specific example. When the light from such a line enters my eyes my nervous system goes into a particular configuration. When my nervous system is in that configuration, I feel like this. I can manipulate the configurations, so that I can make a copy of part of a configuration, replay sequences of configurations. A lot of this can be accomplished without consciousness apparently. Very simple creatures move away from or towards light. We respond to pain when we are unconscious. Messages pass from our pinpricked toe to our brain and back to the toe, the nervous system assumes certain highly-patterned configurations. Consciousness is awareness of configurations. My feeling is that an understanding of the mechanism that allows us to be aware of successive configurations of the nervous system may be the crucial factor in explaining consciousness. I don't believe we know anything about the nervous system, considered in this way as a succession of states, we don't have any tools to investigate it, but it doesn't seem to me that it is inherently unknowable.
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Posted 05/05/08 - 02:53 PM:	#144
I still maintain that I can imagine how consciousness arises from a physical system. How? Does it arise as I do from a sound sleep, by rolling out of bed? Or, as I suspect, is this just an analogy for something that does not involve motion or spatial location at all? And, if the latter, what you are imagining happens as consciousness "arises" from a physical system. Emergentism undermines reductionistic explanation because "emerging" and "arising" are not physical processes, nor could they be. Edited by Simple Occam on 05/05/08 - 03:23 PM

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Posted 05/05/08 - 03:07 PM:	#145
reincarnated wrote: No, we do NOT agree. Your original statement was NOT that you could not understand how consciousness arises - it was that you could not imagine how consciousness arises. You have now changed your position, but that doesn't alter the fact of your earlier statement. "Imagine", "visualise" and "understand" do not mean the same thing. If you wish to change your position to "I do not understand, in the sense of reductive explanation, how consciousness arises from a physical system" then I agree with that sentiment. However I still maintain that I can imagine how consciousness arises from a physical system. yeah it was. Still havnt read it have you. try reading it - please. until then, stop aserting:- me wrote: I think the problem is that dualism does not help explain the mind any more than materialism/monoism. At least the monoists are honest about it Here you see me chose a position: I am atacking dualism, and defending monoism. I claim that there is no foolproof way of understanding the human mind, though to me monoism makes alot of sense. I go on:- me wrote: If no combination of materials can make anything close to a mind (notice i say mind, not brain), then perhaps it is impossible for consciousness to exist for monists. Let me state here that I am rather a fan of the idea of "emergent properties", and don’t believe this to be the case - but for the purposes of argument ill accept it as a conditional. Here, the sentences you would hang me for. I admit I perhaps did not phrase them as clearly as is possible - But I do not understand how you could gather from this that I believe consciousness to be impossible from a monist perspective: when that is the opposite of what I was saying. I even add that "I don’t believe this to be the case" referring to the impossibility of a monist consciousness. I say things like "perhaps" and - don’t forget - the all important "If", which acts as a conditional on the whole statement. I rather think you have decided that I was arguing against you, have attacked with all your spite, and now are looking for a way out. You’re attacking your own position for goodness sake. me wrote: Even having accepted this, there is still some thinking to do: how does a dualist universe to contain consciousness? how does the "other substance/dimension" create consciousness? I suspect that you will want to say that it is mysterious, unexplainable etc. It occurs to me that though I cannot see how many separate elements of matter can come together to create a mind, I cannot comprehend how two separate and distinct dimensions can come together and create a mind. Here again I have stated that dualism seems very sketchy on the details. Dualism gives no explanation, monism (as it were) gives some explanation - therefore I believe monism seems the more elegant theory. This was all here in my first post - which you still have not understood, despite your attacks. me wrote: Either process is equally un-thinkable: And by this I mean we are not able to imagine consciousness arising in either system. just because we cannot imagine it does not mean it cannot happen. After all, if you kept adding billiard balls together in your thought experiment, eventually they would do unexpected things: after several million million balls, they would start to clump together because of gravity. the more you add, the stronger their joint gravitational field, and eventually they would collapse in upon each other, and maybe form a star. Now I know this is true because that is what physics tells me: but I cannot work this out from my idea of a billiard ball. Perhaps there is something to the idea of emergent properties after all. Cheers Now perhaps I should write in a clearer way, this I accept. But please stop making a straw man of my position: after all, it is your position as far as I have read what you have to say; although you have now made some rather hasty, unsupported claims you might have to drop. You are now left with the rather laughable proposition of being able to imagine consciousness arising, while claiming that understanding it is impossible. What is it exactly that you imagine? Do Billiard balls turn in to a giant brain in these fevered imaginings? Or do you simply not understand what you are imagining enough to explain what it is you see? Please, do tell. Edited by Makarismos on 05/05/08 - 03:49 PM. Reason: Claraty

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Posted 05/05/08 - 11:41 PM:	#146
Makarismos wrote: You are now left with the rather laughable proposition of being able to imagine consciousness arising, while claiming that understanding it is impossible. What is it exactly that you imagine? Do Billiard balls turn in to a giant brain in these fevered imaginings? Or do you simply not understand what you are imagining enough to explain what it is you see? Please, do tell. If you think that "imagine" and "understand" mean the same thing then with respect the joke is on you. If you agree they mean different things then why should it not be possible to imagine something without being able to understand it? Another example : I can imagine that life emerged somehow from non-living things, but I do not understand how it does (in the sense of being able to explain it in detail).
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Posted 05/05/08 - 11:54 PM:	#147
rakis wrote: I agree with the process, but allow me to ask smthg more. How from an endless process, comes something distinguished? by the help of common factor? [If yes, what a common factor does?Do you mean some kind of an agent who gathers similarities(and if yes , then similarities of what)?] The process is not necessarily endless. We are born and we die, and the process of consciousness which emerges sometime after birth and is extinguished on death is finite, not endless. What you call "distinguished" is simply a subset of the overall dynamic processes, this particular subset characterised by the fact that it contains processes of phenomenal conscious which in one way or another correspond to or are linked to "wall". The similarities in common factors are not necessarily pre-defined. We can create any representation we wish within our consciousness by simply drawing upon the common factors which we desire - I can create a representation of a "brick wall" for example, as opposed simply to a "wall". Or a "glass wall" or a "blue wall". All my consciousness is doing is then drawing upon (linking) previous experiences of phenomenal consciousness to create a set of factors which go together to make the representation.
_____________________ �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 05/06/08 - 12:02 AM:	#148
Simple Occam wrote: Emergentism undermines reductionistic explanation because "emerging" and "arising" are not physical processes, nor could they be. An interesting assertion - could you defend it? Why do you think emergence is not a physical process? Emergence simply refers to the way complex systems and patterns arise out of a multiplicity of relatively simple interactions - what is there about this type of process which makes emergence, in your opinion, "non-physical"? If, as I suspect, you are referring to "strong emergence" (see Wikipedia) then I would agree that such strong emergence (if it exists at all, which is debatable) could be argued to be "non-physical" in nature. However the emergence I refer to in my posts in this thread is simply "weak emergence", and there is nothing implicitly non-physical about weak emergence. Edited by reincarnated on 05/06/08 - 12:19 AM
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Posted 05/06/08 - 06:00 AM:	#149
reincarnated wrote: Simple Occam wrote: Emergentism undermines reductionistic explanation because "emerging" and "arising" are not physical processes, nor could they be. An interesting assertion - could you defend it? Why do you think emergence is not a physical process? Emergence simply refers to the way complex systems and patterns arise out of a multiplicity of relatively simple interactions - what is there about this type of process which makes emergence, in your opinion, "non-physical"? If, as I suspect, you are referring to "strong emergence" (see Wikipedia) then I would agree that such strong emergence (if it exists at all, which is debatable) could be argued to be "non-physical" in nature. However the emergence I refer to in my posts in this thread is simply "weak emergence", and there is nothing implicitly non-physical about weak emergence. I think the discussion needs some examples of what we might mean by emergence so as to frame the debate. The primary example of emergence I have encountered is that of grains of sand. One grain of sand has recognized properties, If one were to add a few grains to a stack, they would stack up in an ordered way - however their stacking does not continue to be predictable from their basic natures for long. After a rather high number of grains is added to a stack, the phenomena of avalanching occurs, and this cannot be predicted by looking at individual grains. Would this be an example of weak emergence? Other examples I have heard include weather pattern analysis being disassociated/dislocated from knowledge of how oxygen, water, or nitrogen molecules interact. Weather prediction does not seem to be possible under a strictly reductionism method, and so weather patterns might be called emergence. Would this be weak emergence? Perhaps my favourite – for its simplicity – is one supplied by wiki:- wiki wrote: No physical property of an individual molecule of air would lead one to think that a large collection of them will transmit sound. If all of these are examples of weak emergence, then what would be required for a thing to be classed as an example of strong emergence? Edited by Makarismos on 05/06/08 - 06:07 AM. Reason: claraty

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Posted 05/06/08 - 08:08 AM:	#150
Makarismos wrote: The primary example of emergence I have encountered is that of grains of sand. One grain of sand has recognized properties, If one were to add a few grains to a stack, they would stack up in an ordered way - however their stacking does not continue to be predictable from their basic natures for long. After a rather high number of grains is added to a stack, the phenomena of avalanching occurs, and this cannot be predicted by looking at individual grains. Would this be an example of weak emergence? “cannot be predicted” is an epistemic statement. Even if we cannot predict avalanching in principle (which I would dispute) it does not follow that the property of avalanching is not ontologically supervenient on the properties of individual grains, and yes I would say this is an example of weak emergence. I think the best way to distinguish between strong and weak emergence is as follows: A weakly emergent property of a system can be accounted for reducing it to accounts of the properties of individual constituents. A strongly emergent property of a system, however, requires the “emergent” property to be not only completely new and different to the properties of the constituent parts , but importantly it should be impossible to account for the emergent property by reducing it to accounts of the properties of individual constituents. The PROBLEM with this definition is that it is locked in an epistemic perspective. Why is this a problem? Because just because we cannot account for an emergent property by reducing it to accounts of the properties of individual constituents (an epistemic statement), it does not follow that the emergent property is not somehow simply related to the properties of individual constituents (an ontological statement). I believe this is the case with consciousness - a weakly emergent property which APPEARS to be strongly emergent but simply because we judge this from perceived epistemic strong emergence, and we cannot see the underlying ontological weak emergence at work. Makarismos wrote: Other examples I have heard include weather pattern analysis being disassociated/dislocated from knowledge of how oxygen, water, or nitrogen molecules interact. Weather prediction does not seem to be possible under a strictly reductionism method, and so weather patterns might be called emergence. Would this be weak emergence? Imho the main reason why weather patterns seem largely unpredictable is due to complexity and chaos, not emergence. Makarismos wrote: Perhaps my favourite – for its simplicity – is one supplied by wiki:- wiki wrote: No physical property of an individual molecule of air would lead one to think that a large collection of them will transmit sound. I disagree with Wikipedia here. The electrical forces inherent in an individual molecule of air imply that such molecules will have electromechanical properties which lead to the molecules “bouncing” off each other in collisions in a similar manner to billiard balls on a pool table. A large collection of such molecules will therefore have dynamic properties which include the transmission of kinetic energy through such collisions and oscillations. Given that “transmission of sound” is simply the concerted transmission of kinetic energy through a medium of elastic and interacting particles, it is relatively easy to see that a large collection of air molecules will transmit sound. Makarismos wrote: If all of these are examples of weak emergence, then what would be required for a thing to be classed as an example of strong emergence? A strongly emergent property of a system requires the “emergent” property to be not only completely new and different to the properties of the constituent parts , but importantly it should be impossible to account for the emergent property by reducing it to accounts of the properties of individual constituents. Note however that again we are stuck in viewing emergence epistemically – just because a property seems to be epistemically strongly emergent it does not follow that it is also ontologically strongly emergent.
_____________________ �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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