why do we enjoy poetry From the perspective of neuroscience?

[bennyboy]

"Electrochemical events in the brain are perceived by the subject as experiences because it's an emergent property and someday we'll know why that is" is about the same.

No, electrochemical events in the brain are perceived by the subject as experiences because they are happening to the subject's body, to him or her.  We won't understand it in the way you prefer because it doesn't reduce to simple explanations.  This is implied by emergentism: New properties of a complex arrangement of matter like the human brain cannot be explained by simply examining its components working in isolation.  In other words, they don't reduce to mere physics or even to component parts.  Thus the orchestra analogy.

You may think you're making me look foolish, but you're making yourself look foolish to me for not understanding what emergentism implies.

What neither you nor Bennyboy seem to understand is that I am trying to provide my own interpretations of what I have read from scientific experts.  In fact, I'm presently working on a summary of points from the book The Consciousness Instinct by Michael Gazzaniga to explain what I mean, since you obviously won't take it from me.  I will likely post that within the week.  If that doesn't help, I will stop trying to explain this subject to you.

The bottom line is that scientific experts do offer complex explanations for "Unraveling the Mystery of How the Brain Makes the Mind" -- the subtitle of the book.  You and Bennyboy simply don't agree with them.  Thus your overstated arguments against them.

So far, you've stated as fact ideas which beg the question-- they define consciousness in such a way that they can be operationalized for scientific discussion.

"Scientific experts" is a clear appeal to authority, but I don't recognize scientists as authorities in the philosophy of mind.  That's because I know that science is based on physical observations, and I do not believe that there are any physical observations which can establish that mind is even an existent thing, let alone study it directly.  What you must do is to make philosophical assumptions about things which ARE observable-- neural correlates, reports of experience, certain behaviors and so on.

It's easy for me, a human, to make the jump that other humans likely experience roughly as I do.  Knowing that humans have brains, and that their behaviors change in certain ways in response to drugs, brain damage, or select stimulus, I can be pretty comfortable that I'm doing science of mind.

But all this requires a few philosophical assumptions to be made which cannot be made scientifically at all:
1)  There actually IS a physical universe with brains and people in it.  We are not in the Matrix, the Mind of God, or otherwise deceived about the ultimate source of experience.
2)  Minds outside my own exist at all, in any form.
3)  Things that correlate for me personally-- like feelings, ideas and behaviors-- DO in fact correlate to real feelings and ideas in other physical systems, rather than just seeming to.

I'd argue that (1) quantum mechanics demonstrates conclusively that the Universe as we perceive it  does not, in fact exist.  It's something very different than whatever I think it is.  So this assumption isn't a safe one to make.

I'd argue that (2) is never provable, ever, by any observations I can make.  At best, other minds can seem to me  to exist, and I will accept seems-as-is for pragmatic reasons.  But this kind of philosophical assumption, while fine for my sense of purpose in life, begs the question if I attempt to use it as a foundation for the study of mind.

(3) Seems fine as long as I've already accepted (1) and (2), and as long as I'm talking about people or people-like animals (i.e. ones with nervous systems which exhibit motivated behavior).  But I don't think you can say you have a good scientific theory of mind if you cannot identify for sure whether any physical system X (say something found on an alien planet or an advanced AI robot in 2050) really experiences the universe subjectively rather than seeming to.

---

So can we program robots to be intuitive and thus fallible and would that be worth doing if possible?

I'd say that any "intelligence" which simplifies data into symbols will always be fallible, because in a complex Universe, some accidental artifacts will reduce down to symbols.  A car's computer, for example, will have to determine what collection of input photons represents a traffic line-- but it may be that due to shadows, coloration on the road, glare from other vehicles, etc., that a false match sometimes comes up.

[Belacqua]

"Electrochemical events in the brain are perceived by the subject as experiences because it's an emergent property and someday we'll know why that is" is about the same.

No, electrochemical events in the brain are perceived by the subject as experiences because they are happening to the subject's body, to him or her.  We won't understand it in the way you prefer because it doesn't reduce to simple explanations.  This is implied by emergentism: New properties of a complex arrangement of matter like the human brain cannot be explained by simply examining its components working in isolation.  In other words, they don't reduce to mere physics or even to component parts.  Thus the orchestra analogy. 

To me the orchestra analogy doesn't work because a single note and a symphony are ontologically the same; the difference is complexity. But an electrochemical event and an experience are not, in my view, ontologically the same.

It's true that there are emergent properties in the world that come about due to complexity, but I haven't seen it demonstrated yet that consciousness is one of those things. Some people think it is. If you have some argument for this I will read it.

You may think you're making me look foolish, but you're making yourself look foolish to me for not understanding what emergentism implies.

It's not my goal to make anyone look foolish, and I don't know why you'd suggest that. Nor do I think I look foolish. This is an ongoing question among people who know a lot more about than you or I. 

You and Bennyboy simply don't agree with them.

We remain unpersuaded by them. We have reasons for that, which are shared by people who know more about it than you or I. 

This is not a personal fight. This is how questions get worked out -- by discussion.

[GrandizerII]

Maybe you've posted this already in this thread (and if so, I missed it), but what view of consciousness do you lean towards? Is it panpsychism? I've been hearing a lot about it lately, and it's interesting to say the least.

No idea whatsoever-ism! 

To me it's a total mystery. Though panpsychism sounds sort of appealing, I don't see it as more than speculation yet. If you know some good links about it I'd be interested to read more.

Speculation, sure, in the sense that we lack concrete evidence for it. But if you're a naturalist who has problems with emergentism when it comes to the mind, panpsychism would be a very reasonable (and perhaps the natural) conclusion to follow.

I don't know what would constitute a good link in this case, but here's one on Aeon (if you haven't read it):

https://aeon.co/ideas/panpsychism-is-cra...bably-true

[bennyboy]

Panpsychism seems like a sensible philosophical idea to me, especially given the observer effect and quantum eraser effect in QM. I do not like what I call brain-waving as an explanatory device (i.e. wave toward the brain and say "obviously, that's what makes consciousness!").

I'd probably even go with an idealistic monism before a material one. But all of these have the same problem-- how could we, even theoretically, move from sensible philosophy to an attempt at confirmed knowledge?

[The Grand Nudger]

This is the essence of the material monist problem:
(1)  Believe in a deterministic, mechanistic, objective monism.
(2)  Still say that subjective experience is important.  Hint at some kind of evolutionary narrative, but don't bother to explain how subjective experience has anything to do with the behavior of the evolved system.

Not seeing the problem.  

Unless someone can demonstrate substantial differences between subjective experiencing machines (e.g. brains) and non-subjective experiences machines (e.g. super-convincing androids 50 years from now), then there's a problem.

Why?  I think that you may have mistaken who/what the bit above would be a problem for.  It's not an issue for material monism..it's an issue for folks who need to feel unique and special, lol. In a material monists world where there were convincing androids........there would be convincing androids. It's not as if the fabric of space and time would rip open.

We're natures very own bioautomotons...and yet we scoff at the idea of other automata. 

The first step would be-- demonstrate that subjective experience exists, anywhere and in any form, using purely objective observation (hint: it can't be done!)

OFC it can be, to the same standard and by the same means as any other observation/explanation about the world.

Panpsychism seems like a sensible philosophical idea to me, especially given the observer effect and quantum eraser effect in QM.  I do not like what I call brain-waving as an explanatory device (i.e. wave toward the brain and say "obviously, that's what makes consciousness!").

I'd probably even go with an idealistic monism before a material one.  But all of these have the same problem-- how could we, even theoretically, move from sensible philosophy to an attempt at confirmed knowledge?

Simply, in the case of a material monism - pretty much as we have been. That's what made (contemporary)idealism ultimately give way and reconcile itself to materialism. The sheer amount of evidence is overwhelming, and the material explanations both compelling..and fruitful.

[bennyboy]

Simply, in the case of a material monism - pretty much as we have been.  That's what made (contemporary)idealism ultimately give way and reconcile itself to materialism.  The sheer amount of evidence is overwhelming, and the material explanations both compelling..and fruitful.

No, the focus on the utility of objectivity and the decline of religious ideas has done that. The "sheer amount of evidence" you're talking about is a sheer amount of begging the question. If you're trying to hit a melon with a hammer and say, "See? Evidence of an objective material monist reality," then you're doing it wrong.

I'd say that if you have an idea about a material monism, and none of the constituent elements cannot be represented unambiguously in both time and space, then that's such a strained view of material that the term means very little. "Oh. . . that particle (which has no definite shape or position) went back in time and manifested as a wave because we decided not to check its state. That other particle, being entangled by interacting with a partner, allows for spooky changes in velocity at any distance." You can say "Yeah yeah, that's just physics, we know more about matter."

But I wouldn't say that. I'd say that when reality is expressible only in statistical ideas, then it would be better of seeing space as a virtualization of ideas, rather than ideas as a virtualization of space.

[The Grand Nudger]

Simply, in the case of a material monism - pretty much as we have been.  That's what made (contemporary)idealism ultimately give way and reconcile itself to materialism.  The sheer amount of evidence is overwhelming, and the material explanations both compelling..and fruitful.

No, the focus on the utility of objectivity and the decline of religious ideas has done that.

The decline of religious hegemony helped, sure.  It was that hegemony that had granted idealism more credence than it was due..going all the way back to pagan greece.

The "sheer amount of evidence" you're talking about is a sheer amount of begging the question.  If you're trying to hit a melon with a hammer and say, "See?  Evidence of an objective material monist reality," then you're doing it wrong.

Begging what question?  It was just a comment on the nature and amount of evidence available to us. Smashing a melon with a hammer is actually a pretty good demonstration of material monism.  See the hammer..see the melon?  Those two things are evident.  Do the two evident things account for what's about to happen, or is there some non-evident special sauce that we have to add before we get to the fun bit with melon flying everywhere? That's the trick, for idealism..to make something of nothing in the minds of a bunch of material girls, living in a material world. That, itself, may account for some of the confluence of interest between idealism and religious hegemony in the first place.

: shrugs :

[bennyboy]

Begging what question?  It was just a comment on the nature and amount of evidence available to us.    Smashing a melon with a hammer is actually a pretty good demonstration of material monism.  See the hammer..see the melon?  Those two things are evident.  Do the two evident things account for what's about to happen, or is there some non-evident special sauce that we have to add before we get to the fun bit with melon flying everywhere?  That's the trick, for idealism..to make something of nothing in the minds of a bunch of material girls, living in a material world.  That, itself, may account for some of the confluence of interest between idealism and religious hegemony in the first place.  

The problem is that you can have an experience without depending on the ontological nature of the object. It might be in the Matrix or the Mind of God. So long as your experiences are consistent enough to provide utility, then that's fine. What you can't do, however, even hypothetically, is have an experience, even an "objective" one, without the agency of a sentient experiencer. No scientific measurements, no rehashing experiments, no discussions of science over coffee, no amount of listening to the brightest scientific minds at MIT-- none of these experiences upon which your world view depends are anything other than ideas so far as you can ascertain.

"I see a watermelon, I hear the smashing sound. I've done this before, and I think that smashed watermelons will almost always say SPLAT!" works in all contexts without regard to philosophical positions. "I have a mind, it must come from the brain, because all of reality is material and exclusively so" does not-- it requires the acceptance of that objective material reality BEFORE you can say those things meaningfully. To hit this with a virtual hammer-- it requires the IDEA of an objective material reality. And the utility of this idea does not shed any light on whether it represents reality or not.

In fact, I'd argue that QM very much proves that reality, whatever it is, is NOT representable as anything other than a collection of ideas.

+1 for using the song reference, though for maximum points you should have linked the video. Also, in a sense, it brings us back to the OP, which is about the nature of consciousness as it relates to enjoyment of the arts.

[Alan V]

To me the orchestra analogy doesn't work because a single note and a symphony are ontologically the same; the difference is complexity. But an electrochemical event and an experience are not, in my view, ontologically the same.

It's true that there are emergent properties in the world that come about due to complexity, but I haven't seen it demonstrated yet that consciousness is one of those things. Some people think it is. If you have some argument for this I will read it.

Not just complexity, but relationships. Single notes of an orchestra piece may be ontologically the same, but the timing and relationships between them over time are not. Those are new properties which only exist in the full piece. That's where the music exists, and that music is similar to the emergent property of consciousness in that sense. The music doesn't exist without the timing and relationships between the notes. I will describe this in more detail in my book report about the human brain.

Thanks for remaining reasonable and patient. I guess I'm having a hard time articulating my thoughts well enough to be understood. That's part of the reason I'm working on a longer presentation. I will add this much, however: another way to express one of my main points is that the hard problem of consciousness isn't really about how consciousness arose, but about how life arose. The latter is what created subjects from objects. Thus my comment that consciousness is necessarily an experience of bodies, and that it couldn't exist without them. That wasn't intended as a tautology.

[Belacqua]

To me the orchestra analogy doesn't work because a single note and a symphony are ontologically the same; the difference is complexity. But an electrochemical event and an experience are not, in my view, ontologically the same.

It's true that there are emergent properties in the world that come about due to complexity, but I haven't seen it demonstrated yet that consciousness is one of those things. Some people think it is. If you have some argument for this I will read it.

Not just complexity, but relationships.  Single notes of an orchestra piece may be ontologically the same, but the timing and relationships between them over time are not.  Those are new properties which only exist in the full piece.  That's where the music exists, and that music is similar to the emergent property of consciousness in that sense.  The music doesn't exist without the timing and relationships between the notes.  I will describe this in more detail in my book report about the human brain.

Thanks for remaining reasonable and patient.  I guess I'm having a hard time articulating my thoughts well enough to be understood.  That's part of the reason I'm working on a longer presentation.  I will add this much, however: another way to express one of my main points is that the hard problem of consciousness isn't really about how consciousness arose, but about how life arose.  The latter is what created subjects from objects.  Thus my comment that consciousness is necessarily an experience of bodies, and that it couldn't exist without them.  That wasn't intended as a tautology.

I got the Gazzaniga book just now. I'll look at it over the weekend. 

And I'm looking forward to your report.