On naturalism and consciousness

[Surgenator]

I didn't say the mind uses the brain to express itself. I said the mind, if it is supervenient on the brain, is a transcendental property-- i.e. that it is not specific to that particular medium.

My complaint is the term transcendental. It implies an existence on it's own volition, i.e. no medium required. I have no problem a mind arising on another medium.

As for evidence and experiments-- who cares?

I do. Thats why I asked the question.

There's no good evidence for any kind of mind except the ones we've already accepted for philosophical reasons.

There is no single piece of evidence, but there are lots of little bits of evidence that suggest it to be so.

[bennyboy]

I didn't say the mind uses the brain to express itself. I said the mind, if it is supervenient on the brain, is a transcendental property-- i.e. that it is not specific to that particular medium.

My complaint is the term transcendental. It implies an existence on it's own volition, i.e. no medium required. I have no problem a mind arising on another medium.

It's not an implication. That's exactly what I'm saying. IF mind can be created by different mechanisms functioning differently, then it is transcendent-- "mind-ness," the capacity for mind, should not be said to be in the brain, but in the brain's logical parents: maybe the universe, maybe organic chemistry, maybe any mechanism capable of certain kinds of data function. Whatever physical arrangement is minimally responsible for consciousness is the actual "creator," not specifically the brain.

Let's take an .mp3 song. It can be translated from medium to medium, can be processed by various processes; and has only the requirement that a recorded song can be reproduced eventually on a sound-creating device. So what is the true nature of an .mp3 song? Is it now-silicon, now-optics, now-magnetic? No. While you need some kind of medium to carry it, the essential nature of the .mp3 song has nothing to do with those media: it is about the relationships of digitized sound waves to each other. The .mp3 is not best seen an expression of the media being decoded and converted to sound, but of the interaction between encoding ideas and sound waves.

There's no good evidence for any kind of mind except the ones we've already accepted for philosophical reasons.

There is no single piece of evidence, but there are lots of little bits of evidence that suggest it to be so.

No, there aren't. There are lots of little assumptions that allow us to accept it to be so.

[Surgenator]

My complaint is the term transcendental. It implies an existence on it's own volition, i.e. no medium required. I have no problem a mind arising on another medium.

It's not an implication. That's exactly what I'm saying. IF mind can be created by different mechanisms functioning differently, then it is transcendent-- "mind-ness," the capacity for mind, should not be said to be in the brain, but in the brain's logical parents: maybe the universe, maybe organic chemistry, maybe any mechanism capable of certain kinds of data function. Whatever physical arrangement is minimally responsible for consciousness is the actual "creator," not specifically the brain.

You didn't adress my complaint. I'm not stating that a mind cannot be on another medium. I'm stating that the medium creates the mind. As long as the required architecture and processes can exist on the medium in a stable form, a mind can be created on that medium.

The .mp3 is not best seen an expression of the media being decoded and converted to sound,

Actually, that is exactly what it is seen as. The encoded song is what humans give meaning to. The mp3 is just a fancy algorithm that allows for compact storage of the song.

No, there aren't. There are lots of little assumptions that allow us to accept it to be so.

No, there is one assumption, and lots of bits of evidence supporting that assumption.

[bennyboy]

You didn't adress my complaint. I'm not stating that a mind cannot be on another medium. I'm stating that the medium creates the mind. As long as the required architecture and processes can exist on the medium in a stable form, a mind can be created on that medium.

You can also say that molecules "create" mind, since the brain supervenes on molecules, or that subatomic particles "create" atoms, or that the universe "creates" subatomic particles, or that _____ creates the universe. If you follow that supervenience through each layer, then you inevitably end up at a layer whose origin or dependencies aren't known, and what then? Ultimately, everything supervenes on an unknown quantity.

What you're saying is that celluloid film creates Casablanca, or that a CD creates an .mp3 song. Yes, in a simplistic physical sense, those things supervene on a particular medium in any given single instance. But the essence of Casablanca and the .mp3 song aren't in the medium-- they are in the ideas, the organization, etc. that caused those molecules to end up in that particular form. The ideas are biggybacking on an arbitrary medium, which can therefore be disregarded as a causal factor.

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No, there aren't. There are lots of little assumptions that allow us to accept it to be so.

No, there is one assumption, and lots of bits of evidence supporting that assumption.

No, there are many assumptions. That people don't see this means that they are living inside them. Don't believe me? What is the evidence that others than myself are sentient? Their bodies: the way they move, the way they talk, etc. But what is the evidence that this is good evidence? What says that because things are similar in some ways which can be observed, they must be similar in ways which cannot be observed? This is not the kind of thing for which there can be evidence. It is assumed, and this assumption serves as the foundation for a whole culture of ideas-- which are nevertheless only valid given that assumption.

[Surgenator]

You didn't adress my complaint. I'm not stating that a mind cannot be on another medium. I'm stating that the medium creates the mind. As long as the required architecture and processes can exist on the medium in a stable form, a mind can be created on that medium.

You can also say that molecules "create" mind, since the brain supervenes on molecules, or that subatomic particles "create" atoms, or that the universe "creates" subatomic particles, or that ? creates the universe.

No you can't because that would be a fallacy of division. The collection of parts having a property doesn't mean the individual parts also have that property.

What you're saying is that celluloid film creates Casablanca, or that a CD creates an .mp3 song.

No, I'm saying Casablance was made by the actors, producers, etc... Their work was stored on celluloid film and a copy was made to a CD (or whatever other format you want to choose).

No, there is one assumption, and lots of bits of evidence supporting that assumption.

No, there are many assumptions. That you don't see this means that you are living inside them.

We seem to be at an impasse on this point.

[bennyboy]

No you can't because that would be a fallacy of division. The collection of parts having a property doesn't mean the individual parts also have that property.

So the brain doesn't have the property of mind? Hey, that's what I said!

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We seem to be at an impasse on this point.

Impasse? Read: different set of arbitrary assumptions.

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What you're saying is that celluloid film creates Casablanca, or that a CD creates an .mp3 song.

No, I'm saying Casablance was made by the actors, producers, etc... Their work was stored on celluloid film and a copy was made to a CD (or whatever other format you want to choose).

lol

Analogies. . . they are real.

[Surgenator]

No you can't because that would be a fallacy of division. The collection of parts having a property doesn't mean the individual parts also have that property.

So the brain doesn't have the property of mind? Hey, that's what I said!

Thats a strawman.

Analogies. . . they are real.

Now your making even less sense.

[bennyboy]

So the brain doesn't have the property of mind? Hey, that's what I said!

Thats a strawman.

Yeah, I misread your last statement. I'll try again.

No you can't because that would be a fallacy of division. The collection of parts having a property doesn't mean the individual parts also have that property.

I didn't say that parts have the properties of the things that supervene on them. I said that supervenience is a chain, and that all things ultimately supervene on an unknown quantity.

In the case of supervened properties which generalize to multiple mechanisms, then the mechanisms should not be said to be the cause of the properties. The more general principle which underlies them all must be said to be the cause. In the case of movies, for example, movies piggyback on many different media. The common cause for all are the ideas and artistic sensibilities of the people who captured and edited the movie. Casablanca is all about the creators, and the medium is irrelevant.

Let's say that it is found, as Rhythm claims, that any mechanism consisting of logic gates, if sufficiently complex, is conscious. In that case, it's not very useful to say a computer creates consciousness, or a brain does, or a series of pneumatic tubes to. The common cause, i.e. the one that is both required and sufficient, would be the gate.

[Mudhammam]

This quote from the current text I'm reading stuck out to me:

"If, instead of supposing that material structures themselves sometimes think, we assumed that there are immaterial substances, minds, or souls, associated with our bodies, we should have to say that matter somehow acts upon these immaterial things (in perception). This is as hard to understand as how material structures could think; yet we have to accept one or other of these. The problem is one that Berkeley saw very clearly: once we admit that there is a material world at all, we cannot deny that material things casually affect consciousness; but then we have no good reason for saying that material things could not be conscious; nor, finally, for saying that material things could not in themselves give rise to consciousness." - J.L. Mackie, 'The Miracle of Theism'

(Mackie's conclusion at the end of the chapter is that "once we have rejected, as we must, both the extreme materialism that would deny even distinctively mental properties and the complete immaterialism of Berkeley or of phenomenalism, we are stuck with some kind of dualism; and unless this is an absurdly extreme dualism it must admit psychophysical laws or lawlike correlations of some sort.")

[Ben Davis]

This quote from the current text I'm reading stuck out to me:

"...but then we have no good reason for saying that material things could not be conscious; nor, finally, for saying that material things could not in themselves give rise to consciousness." - J.L. Mackie, 'The Miracle of Theism'

Yeah, we do: neural networks. The only time consciousness is observed is when there are brains & nervous systems or their equivalent. Consequently...

Mackie's conclusion at the end of the chapter is that "once we have rejected, as we must, both the extreme materialism that would deny even distinctively mental properties and the complete immaterialism of Berkeley or of phenomenalism, we are stuck with some kind of dualism; and unless this is an absurdly extreme dualism it must admit psychophysical laws or lawlike correlations of some sort."

...doesn't follow. In fact, the reverse is true.