Seeing red

[The Grand Nudger]

Opinion 2 apparently considers ideas to be identical with certain types of sensible bodies and/or their behaviors. It ignores the fact that sensible bodies, like physical desks or glasses, aren’t about anything in the way that thoughts and feelings refer to things beyond themselves.

Why not just say opinion 2 ignores that opinion 2 is wrong?   This says nothing, and demonstrates less.  

A person who is of opinion 2 will simply point out all of the things that -are- "about something"...like every component of any computational system.

[bennyboy]

The writer implies a kind of pan-psychism (option 3) and seems unaware of property dualism and functionalism. However, ruling out substance dualism is premature for two reasons. First, dismissing substance dualism because its proponents currently lack a robust theory explaining how the material and the immaterial interact is an argument from ignorance.

Just because we don't know something doesn't make it an argument from ignorance.  Your position is that there are two distinct substances which are causally connected, but no interface.  Because if there were an interface that is not one of those two substances, you'd be a triplist or a pluralist.

Your argument:




Stage 1: Mind wants to do something
Stage 2: ???
Stage 3: Stuff happens in a body that is completely substance-independent of mind.

[LadyForCamus]

Just because we don't know something doesn't make it an argument from ignorance.  Your position is that there are two distinct substances which are causally connected, but no interface.  Because if there were an interface that is not one of those two substances, you'd be a triplist or a pluralist.

Your argument:




Stage 1: Mind wants to do something
Stage 2: ???
Stage 3: Stuff happens in a body that is completely substance-independent of mind.

Piper executed this plan quite prosperously on Orange is the New Black!!! Dirty men LOVE dirty underwear...[emoji13]

[emjay]

I understand and agree with your point, Chad; it's very easy to talk past each other in these sorts of discussions if we don't share or aren't clear on the definitions we're using, and that's made even worse by the fact that our opinions on these sorts of questions tend to be very personal and idiosyncratic, making use of a lot of 'private logic' that is not necessarily transparent to everyone else. For instance I'm pretty sure I don't know exactly what Benny means by an idea, or for that matter what I mean by one, and likewise the terms I use... like abstraction... possibly require an understanding of neural networks to be understood in the sense that I mean them.

So what should we do, each define our terms so we can see how they differ and if we can reach a consensus for each of them, so that we're assured we're all talking about the same thing? And also make sure to define any future terms that could be contentious, rather than just assuming others know - or can work out - what we're talking about?

And finally with regard to my opinion... opinion 3... and your appraisal of it:

Opinion 3 uses the terms ‘abstractions’ and ‘information’ and sees them manifested by functions and structures. What benefits does qualitative experiences add to functions and structures? It seems that by so defining mental phenomena they become either redundant or unnecessary.

Yes, that's correct. In my current world view, mental phenomena are both redundant and unnecessary... and only mirror/represent the underlying system activity but do not influence it ... so we may as well be philosophical zombies, and the puzzle is why we're not.

[Angrboda]

Opinion 2…ideas are things just as much as a desk or a glass is a physical thing…The evidence from science and medicine is that the mind behaves consistent with it being an object like any other.

Opinion 2 apparently considers ideas to be identical with certain types of sensible bodies and/or their behaviors. It ignores the fact that sensible bodies, like physical desks or glasses, aren’t about anything in the way that thoughts and feelings refer to things beyond themselves.

Speaking of arguments from ignorance, this is nothing but one. Since you can't imagine how things or systems of things can be about other things, you simply declare it cannot be so. There are at least two kinds of aboutness to which this might refer. The first is the aboutness of words in a language game. The bulk of the mental processing in language occurs below the level of consciousness, so claiming you have full lucidity on how words refer would be sheer excess. We may have evolved language millions of years ago, so untangling its behavior and operation may take some time. The other type of aboutness is what philosophers refer to as intentionality. For this, a simple counter-example will suffice. Every year there is a race held in the desert to compare completely robotic vehicles' performance on a pre-determined course. These vehicles use a variety of sensors to track the terrain as they drive along. They 'map' the road as they come upon it. To suggest that the data in these onboard computers is not 'about' the road in front of them is ridiculous. This is a clear example of a system having a form of intentionality; the data in these robots is about the road conditions just as surely as my visual perception is about the computer in front of me.

[bennyboy]

Yes, that's correct. In my current world view, mental phenomena are both redundant and unnecessary... and only mirror/represent the underlying system activity but do not influence it ... so we may as well be philosophical zombies, and the puzzle is why we're not.

This is the essence of this thread, and the mind-body problem, for sure. Well put.

If you are going to have a side-effect, consciousness is a pretty amazing one to have. I mean, we're talking Pinocchio, here. Not only that, but it is a seemingly extra property that arises with no apparent loss of efficiency.

It is for this reason that I think IF the universe is material, matter must have a conscious component. Otherwise, it's as though a new dimension has supervened on a system just because it is processing information.

[emjay]

Yes, that's correct. In my current world view, mental phenomena are both redundant and unnecessary... and only mirror/represent the underlying system activity but do not influence it ... so we may as well be philosophical zombies, and the puzzle is why we're not.

This is the essence of this thread, and the mind-body problem, for sure.  Well put.

If you are going to have a side-effect, consciousness is a pretty amazing one to have.  I mean, we're talking Pinocchio, here.  Not only that, but it is a seemingly extra property that arises with no apparent loss of efficiency.

It is for this reason that I think IF the universe is material, matter must have a conscious component.  Otherwise, it's as though a new dimension has supervened on a system just because it is processing information.

Thank you And agreed, certainly a pretty amazing side effect to have, though it can be both a gift and a curse... but mainly a gift

I was just pondering something when I saw your post, so I thought I may as well put those thoughts in my reply to you, rather than a separate post, because they are relevant to what you're saying. It's now 11am for me and I still haven't slept, so I'm probably on your time now, assuming you're American. Isn't it strange that you do your best thinking - or I do - about these things... philosophical zombies etc... when you essentially are a zombie That's certainly how I feel at the moment.

Anyway I was thinking about philosophical zombies, and yes, I do believe that there would be absolutely no difference in the world if no-one experienced qualia of any kind. The world would be exactly as it is... people would still talk, watch TV, appreciate art, act with compassion, or not. Civilisation would still exist and all it's advances. All the processing that consciousness mirrors phenomenally would still go on under the hood arriving at all the same conclusions, just not perceived, only represented neurally.

But thinking about it like that made me think of something. Is there anything, at all, that could show that consciousness provides extra information to the system? In consciousness, anything we can focus on we can name, and anything we can name we must be able to associate with that name. But in our unique human consciousness we can not only notice what appears to be 'out there' but also our own apparatus for perceiving it... ie we can notice something we see but also notice the visual field in which we see it. So in order to associate a name with something it has to have a neural representation. So for my neural network theories to be true (not thinking about comp mind at the moment, but just neural networks and the 'differentiating' theory I put forward earlier) it must be the case that everything we can notice in consciousness - including all the qualia itself - has to have a neural representation that can be associated with. If it does not... if there's any aspect of qualia that could be entered into the system literally by word of mouth but does not have a neural representation, then I would concede defeat and probably accept some form of dualism. And given that a neuron is a malleable detector that learns and makes itself a better detector of whatever it detects, can detect anything that is prepared to synapse with it, and the brain itself is plastic so the 'wiring' is not fixed, it makes me wonder how deep these connections go. It makes me wonder what connectivity is required for a neural network to become self-aware. A neural network is self-organising... it will learn to detect whatever patterns there are to detect... so if there is a pattern that represents the visual field as a 'meta-thing', I see no reason why another neuron (saying singular for simplicity) could pick up on that and become a specialised visual field detector, which is then associable throughout the network as a representation. So that's how I now think it happens - self-awareness in the network - and I'm gonna have a lot of fun exploring this possibility

So after all that, to address your final point, I'm now even more convinced by the integrating/differentiating theory I put forward earlier, so I would have to opt for the latter of your two suggestions, but I can't rule out the former either I'm so excited (but still a zombie - so if I sound stoned or something, just put it down to that ) - there's nothing more fun than neural network theorising Well okay, there are a few things

[bennyboy]

You will be surprised to find, maybe, that in the context of talking about brain and mind, I doubt there are any experiences we have that don't have some neural correlate. Keep in mind that this is throwing out skepticism about the source of experiences, etc., which we've already probably talked about enough.

I'd like to list a few possibilities for consideration, not all (maybe not any) which are my own ideas.

First of all, let's start with the assumption that there's a physical universe, and that mind is exclusively a product of brain function, or at least of properties or functions of material in the brain. Even given this, there are many levels upon which mind could supervene. Let's list out a few of these levels just for hoots.

1) Experience only supervenes through the coordinated effort of at least several brain parts. Perhaps you need at least enough input to determine patterns, you need an organ capable of measuring events through a sense of time, etc. Without all these components, you can't have anything said to be remotely conscious.
2) Experience supervenes whenever certain brain parts (say the visual cortex) receive sufficient stimulation. So if you stimulated a dead brain, little bubbles of "consciousness" would flash into that mental canvas for a moment despite the total lack of coherence of function in the brain in death.
3) The essence of consciousness exists at a neuronal level-- this is the basis of perception, and every firing neuron has a kind of miniscule "awareness," although the person himself may not actually have access to it. The conscious mind would be a kind of dynamic structure composed of billions of these tiny "idealets," if I can coin a word here.
4) The most elemental "spark" of consciousness exists whenever information is exchanged, anywhere in the universe-- for example when a photon is absorbed with light information from a distant star by a receiving atom-- even if this is not part of an organism. In this case, the cascade of information through electrochemical transmission in a single neuronwould represent already a relatively massive corridor of "consciousness", though it would likely still be too insignificant to raise the conscious attention of a human being.

I think the latter case is interesting. It would mean that mind is intrinsic to all matter, not just special systems. It would be the coordination of idealets into larger ideas, then concepts, and then a world view that WE would perceive as conscious awareness, much like only a gazillion particles working together can appear as a "thing" to us.

This would then eliminate the need to ask how mind supervenes on a physical brain. Instead, all material interactions would be seen as mindful, with ours just being a unique case.

Let's try a reductio process here, because that's how I arrive at this idea. Take a brain, and kill a single neuron. Then another. Then another. What would happen? Would there be a kind of critical mass, at which the brain would suddenly go into a coma? Or would the quality of experience degrade imperceptibly but steadily, neuron after neuron, after neuron? I suspect the latter, in which case not more than 2 neurons would be needed to support at least some kind of experience, although so primitive it would be almost quantum.

Now, let's take our 2 neurons, and start pulling molecules, 1 by 1. Would there be a critical mass at which the neuron could no longer function, or would it gradually become less and less responsive? Again, I suspect the latter. I don't think any 1 particular pulled molecule would "turn off the lights," but instead you'd have shades of gray. At some point, you'd have that structure which would allow the most minimal possible perception, though again I'd call it something like a "perceptling" or something like that to indicate its primitive elemental nature.

What, now, if you replaced the body of the neuron with wiring? Would it still function? One might suppose that so long as the emission and reuptake of neurotransmitters was possible, the method of transmission along the body wouldn't matter. What now if you swapped out the synaptic mechanism with an electric mechanism, would it matter? It's hard to see how, right? So this would mean that a simpler system-- an electric wire-- should also be able to support the same elemental "perceptling."

Now we can go freaking nuts and continue pulling out metal molecules, maybe replacing them with fiber optics, or even just photons transmitting across a "synapse" of empty space."

Well, this is not really different than say a photon leaving the sun and being absorbed by an atom in a rock on Earth.

Sorry for the long ramble, but my point is this: without being able to determine otherwise, it seems to me that the most elemental structure capable of having some primitive perception would be a single body transmitting or receiving a photon. In other words. . . mind is intrinsic to all matter, and matter is therefore not energy/matter, but energy/matter/mind.

[The Grand Nudger]

Well, this is not really different than say a photon leaving the sun and being absorbed by an atom in a rock on Earth.

No it isn't...and yet you think there's mind there, somewhere, somehow.....  While we can, in edge cases, do without a great deal of our nuerons, there's no reason to believe that a single nueron has mind, let alone that a "single body transmitting or receiving a photon" has mind. You seem to realize this yourself, deciding instead to call it "a primitive perception". Well, a camera has a little bit -more- than a primitive perception - of the type described. Why do we lapse back into "mind" in our conclusion? Are we talking about the sort of "mind" that a camera possesses...is that the sort of "mind" that's intrinsic to all matter? Meh, you can have it. I call that material interaction, information. Photons hitting rocks don't seem to produce the phenomena we're discussing when we discuss mind.

[bennyboy]

Well, this is not really different than say a photon leaving the sun and being absorbed by an atom in a rock on Earth.

No it isn't...and yet you think there's mind there, somewhere, somehow.....  While we can, in edge cases, do without a great deal of our nuerons, there's no reason to believe that a single nueron has mind, let alone that a "single body transmitting or receiving a photon" has mind.  You seem to realize this yourself, deciding instead to call it "a primitive perception".  Well, a camera has a little bit -more- than a primitive perception - of the type described.  Why do we lapse back into "mind" in our conclusion?  Are we talking about the sort of "mind" that a camera possesses...is that the sort of "mind" that's intrinsic to all matter?  Meh, you can have it.  I call that material interaction, information.  Photons hitting rocks don't seem to produce the phenomena we're discussing when we discuss mind.  

Keep in mind that this was a speculative exploration, GIVEN the assumption that mind is purely physical-- an assumption I don't normally make.  So I'm not trying to reinforce my normal world view, but to examine the physicalist position from more angles and in more detail.

I'm trying to figure out exactly what complexity of structure is required to support qualia.  Let me put it this way:
1)  There is nothing called mind except at the macro level-- mind only "spawns" when you hit a certain critical mass of processing;
2)  It's a spectrum-- the simplest kind of processing represents the simplest kind of mind-- so in this case, just as the human brain is made of large structures, sub structures, and microstructures, the human mind would be composed not just of ideas, but would be a composition of atomic "idealets."

My point is that if you don't think the SIMPLEST data processing represents the simplest mind, then at what arbitrary level of complexity would you draw it?  Arbitrary lines in the sand aren't really good either in science or in philosophy, IMO.