On naturalism and consciousness

[bennyboy]

I think I'm finally understanding the discrepency you have with physical monism. You think (correctly if I'm wrong) that physical monism says consciousness is a physical object like paper. It is not. Consciousness and the mind are a set of processes between physical things. Like an algorithm excuted by a program, the mind is to the brain. So I cannot give you a chunk of matter and say here is the mind because it is non-physical; it is a process. In the ANN example, the ANN is not the mind itself, but the processes that it has.

You could say mind is a thing, or a property of a thing, or a mechanical function, or that it supervenes on a thing, property or function. You could even say that there are layers of supervenient things, properties and functions which together manifest as the conscious human mind. Any of these views I would accept as being physically monist

But none of this explains why, in our universe, mind manifests rather than not.

Please don't reply saying that physical monism is wrong because I said the mind is non-physical. That would a staw man.

No, I wouldn't argue that. I think you could, however, make a case for things like mathematical truths being non-physical.


Let me phrase our opposition in the simplest terms I can. Given a universe in which objects and energy interact according to mathematically-determinable rules, which view is "correct"?
1) The underlying reality is mathematical (or otherwise conceptual), and this reality manifests in the form of matter and movement. For example, if you look at a wave, you'd say that the pure wave function is the reality, and the position of atoms around that idealistic wave represents a crude approximation.
2) The underlying reality is that of form of matter and movement, and the math is a symbolic representation of that underlying reality. Again looking at the wave, you'd say that the molecules are just moving in response to constantly-changing forces acting on them, and the wave function is a highly-simplified statistical "best fit" for a gazillion atoms, which we cannot possibly calculate individually.


I think all "things" ultimately will reduce down to concepts. Things get squirelly at QM, and if we try to discover what framework or sub-particles QM particles consist of, we'll end up with lots of beautiful math, and no actual things we can put our finger on. To me, this represents case (1) above. I'd argue that if all things are reducible only to concepts, then the universe is conceptual-- even though there is a subset of things which behave so incredibly consistently that for convenience's sake we address them on their own level without reference to that underlying reality.

I believe you and others here would flip the whole view, and say that even though we normally address mind without viewing it in physicalist terms, mind supervenes on a purely physical reality, and must therefore be more properly called physical.

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That applies to other living human beings in the here and now, doesn't it Benny? How do you even know that being an ANN would grant you this knowledge . . .

Quite right. Even with other people, I have to make a philophical assumption. In the case of people, it's a fairly comfortable assumption to make: I'm a person, and I think, so I look at other people, and assume they also think.
The same goes for mammals and birds. They have similar brains to mine, and they respond in ways that I do to much of their stimuli.

Mosquitos, I'm less sure. Microorganisms, I'm VERY unsure whether they have anything I'd call subjective consciousness. In the end, I can't even disprove a solipsistic world view in an absolute sense.