Consciousness Trilemma

[bennyboy]

Eliminative materialim isn't going to tell you how you should feel about anything, or why some x should matter.  Honestly, you're going to feel the way you do regardless, right?  

Void?  This is like claiming that the person who establishes that dragons don't exist has to fill the void they leave behind.  There were never dragons to begin with.  There is no void, all is exactly as it was before.  

Eliminative materialism is a position on how the brain might achieve these things.  A position on what is or is not true with regards to that operation.  That's it, that's all.

I don't think eliminative materialism IS a position on how the brain might achieve these things. I think it's mainly the philosophical position that certain views best be avoided on grounds they aren't represented in any observable material reality. In other words, it tells us what NOT to think, not what to think, amirite?

[Whateverist]

First of all, so far as I can tell, eliminativism isn't a theory of mind.  It's a theory of nope-not-that.  You can say, for example, that morality, free will, and a sense of self are illusory because it doesn't "map" to any locatable physical system, process or property.  What you can't say is what it is like to experience moral ideas and feelings, and why that should matter.

The sense of it is that we are clearly highly social animals, and that our social behaviors are mediated by emotions, experiences and ideas.  Claiming that this-or-that feeling is illusory leaves a void-- you have to explain why we DO behave certain ways, and hopefully be able to establish some sense of how we SHOULD behave.

I can pretty simply explain moral ideas in subjective terms-- mothers feel great pain at the idea of harm coming to their offspring, and so they will struggle very hard to avoid that happening.  Where does eliminativism stand on ANY description of any part of humanity except nitpicking about what consciousness-is-not, what love-is-not, what self-is-not and so on?

Eliminative materialim isn't going to tell you how you should feel about anything, or why some x should matter.  Honestly, you're going to feel the way you do regardless, right?

Someone needs to give you an "amen" right here. Not even sure why would anyone want to reason to what they ought to feel. Is that even possible? By all means, reason to what you ought to do about how you feel - you know, develop the capacity for some delayed reaction. But the feeling is determinative, not determinable. Even if you always act on what you reason your way to what you think is the best course of action, that reasoning will be guided by feeling.
 

Void?  This is like claiming that the person who establishes that dragons don't exist has to fill the void they leave behind.  There were never dragons to begin with.  There is no void, all is exactly as it was before.  

Eliminative materialism is a position on how the brain might achieve these things.  A position on what is or is not true with regards to that operation.  That's it, that's all.

Amen, brother Khem. Preach it!

[The Grand Nudger]

I don't think eliminative materialism IS a position on how the brain might achieve these things.  I think it's mainly the philosophical position that certain views best be avoided on grounds they aren't represented in any observable material reality.  In other words, it tells us what NOT to think, not what to think, amirite?

The difference is semantic.

[bennyboy]

I don't think eliminative materialism IS a position on how the brain might achieve these things.  I think it's mainly the philosophical position that certain views best be avoided on grounds they aren't represented in any observable material reality.  In other words, it tells us what NOT to think, not what to think, amirite?

The difference is semantic.

Oh yeah?  Okay. . . take a position on what mind is, or any of its states.  Tell us how to identify what material systems do or do not experience qualia.

My prediction is we're back to brain-waving and question-begging assumptions by materialists who simply cannot explain mind or explain exactly what allows for it.

[pocaracas]

Oh yeah?  Okay. . . take a position on what mind is, or any of its states.  Tell us how to identify what material systems do or do not experience qualia.

What does it mean "to experience"?

[bennyboy]

Oh yeah?  Okay. . . take a position on what mind is, or any of its states.  Tell us how to identify what material systems do or do not experience qualia.

What does it mean "to experience"?

Oooh. . . semantics is fun!  You gonna spin me on the merry-go-round for a while?

Experience is the subjective awareness of qualia.

OR. . . if you wanna get super-precise: Ya know when you open your eyes in the morning, and you see colors and shapes 'n' stuff? When you realize "I wasn't aware of the redness of the early-morning sun or the chirping of birds a minute ago, but now I am"? That's experience.

[pocaracas]

What does it mean "to experience"?

Oooh. . . semantics is fun!  You gonna spin me on the merry-go-round for a while?

Experience is the subjective awareness of qualia.

OR. . . if you wanna get super-precise:  Ya know when you open your eyes in the morning, and you see colors and shapes 'n' stuff?  When you realize "I wasn't aware of the redness of the early-morning sun or the chirping of birds a minute ago, but now I am"?  That's experience.

Well.... if you want to "identify what material systems do or do not experience qualia", then you need to first identify the material systems that coordinate this "I" that you talk about.

Would it make sense to discriminate between hardware and software, in order to facilitate the search of such a system?
Perhaps it's not a material thing, but rather a dynamic collection of things sending signals to each other?

[bennyboy]

Oooh. . . semantics is fun!  You gonna spin me on the merry-go-round for a while?

Experience is the subjective awareness of qualia.

OR. . . if you wanna get super-precise:  Ya know when you open your eyes in the morning, and you see colors and shapes 'n' stuff?  When you realize "I wasn't aware of the redness of the early-morning sun or the chirping of birds a minute ago, but now I am"?  That's experience.

Well.... if you want to "identify what material systems do or do not experience qualia", then you need to first identify the material systems that coordinate this "I" that you talk about.

Would it make sense to discriminate between hardware and software, in order to facilitate the search of such a system?
Perhaps it's not a material thing, but rather a dynamic collection of things sending signals to each other?

"I" is a label that we use in retrospect, I think.  An object was beheld by a subject, but who is that subject?  Then the linguistics kick in, and you use the first label at hand: I.  "I" in its most essential meaning really is just an acknowledgment of qualia, isn't it?  Every "I" really is the awareness that there's a context drawing unlike properties together: sound with color, for example.

As for hardware and software. . . given the state of QM, it becomes very hard to tell the difference, or to tell which supervenes on which.  Does the hardware "run" the software, or is it just a carrier for contexts that precede it?  Maybe the hardware itself is really another layer of software, Turtles forever, or vice versa.

Okay, so back to systems: I cannot and would not attempt to define systems, for "I" or anything else, because I believe that the truth of these things varies not with anything in them, but in the perspectives and definitions we use to realize them.  If someone wants to take a discrete subsection of the Universe, and say "There is mind here, and this is why. . ." then it is their duty to follow through with a proof.

Short answer: I don't know.  And I'd drop the "materialism" from "eliminativism," because I think the biggest idea we have to let go is the idea that we are in control, that we have real knowledge of reality, or can.  Any philosophical system which attempts a linguistic remedy for the paradoxes or ambiguities all around us is no explanation at all, but rather an expression of fear given a limited understanding in an unlimited context.

This is why I like the idea of truth-in-context. Given X, you can say that Y is true; but given the ambiguities all around us, it's perfectly fair to treat "X" as a perspective rather than as a guess about reality. You can be safe, and also be right, so long as you don't try to conflate every perspective into one context.

--edit--
Sorry if the above is a little schizophrenic. My language breaks down when I really try to comprehend things like this.

[pocaracas]

Well.... if you want to "identify what material systems do or do not experience qualia", then you need to first identify the material systems that coordinate this "I" that you talk about.

Would it make sense to discriminate between hardware and software, in order to facilitate the search of such a system?
Perhaps it's not a material thing, but rather a dynamic collection of things sending signals to each other?

"I" is a label that we use in retrospect, I think.  An object was beheld by a subject, but who is that subject?  Then the linguistics kick in, and you use the first label at hand: I.  "I" in its most essential meaning really is just an acknowledgment of qualia, isn't it?  Every "I" really is the awareness that there's a context drawing unlike properties together: sound with color, for example.

As for hardware and software. . . given the state of QM, it becomes very hard to tell the difference, or to tell which supervenes on which.  Does the hardware "run" the software, or is it just a carrier for contexts that precede it?  Maybe the hardware itself is really another layer of software, Turtles forever, or vice versa.

Okay, so back to systems: I cannot and would not attempt to define systems, for "I" or anything else, because I believe that the truth of these things varies not with anything in them, but in the perspectives and definitions we use to realize them.  If someone wants to take a discrete subsection of the Universe, and say "There is mind here, and this is why. . ." then it is their duty to follow through with a proof.

Short answer: I don't know.  And I'd drop the "materialism" from "eliminativism," because I think the biggest idea we have to let go is the idea that we are in control, that we have real knowledge of reality, or can.  Any philosophical system which attempts a linguistic remedy for the paradoxes or ambiguities all around us is no explanation at all, but rather an expression of fear given a limited understanding in an unlimited context.

This is why I like the idea of truth-in-context.  Given X, you can say that Y is true; but given the ambiguities all around us, it's perfectly fair to treat "X" as a perspective rather than as a guess about reality.  You can be safe, and also be right, so long as you don't try to conflate every perspective into one context.

--edit--
Sorry if the above is a little schizophrenic.  My language breaks down when I really try to comprehend things like this.

yeah, it's because I too feel the language breaking down that I tried to get clarification on "I" and "to experience".
Those terms are fine for colloquial speech, but, when we get to the level we got here, they need some refinement... a refinement which I am unaware exists or is even possible.

We do know that most of our thought process resides in the brain. Where exactly in that mess of billions of neurons? possibly everywhere and nowhere in particular.

The software distinction I mentioned comes about because of our inability to restart a dead brain. A dead brain probably retains all the neuron connections... it's just the signal patterns that have stopped (or so it seems).
Sure, the signals follow neural pathways that mostly get built up during childhood, strengthened during the teens years and then tweaked during adulthood... and each person has their own pov, so each person gets their own neural pathways, ever so slightly different from everyone else's... and that's enough to account for all of our different minds.
And then, on top of that, you still get the signal patterns, the software.

Or maybe not. maybe those signals are just what arises from neurons doing their mostly predetermined job. I don't buy the QM uncertainty at the level of cells.... they're too big for QM to have a non-negligible effect.

[bennyboy]

The software distinction I mentioned comes about because of our inability to restart a dead brain. A dead brain probably retains all the neuron connections... it's just the signal patterns that have stopped (or so it seems).

Yeah, let's consider death by asphyxiation. Why is it that a lack of oxygen leads to such a permanent condition? Why can't we just filter someone's blood back full of oxygen and zap them? I'm pretty sure it has to do something with electrical potentials and materials crossing the cell wall-- i.e. you'd have to pump salts back into every cell to make it able to fire electrical signals again. But that's based on a 15 year-ago Neuropsych 101 course so. . .

Sure, the signals follow neural pathways that mostly get built up during childhood, strengthened during the teens years and then tweaked during adulthood... and each person has their own pov, so each person gets their own neural pathways, ever so slightly different from everyone else's... and that's enough to account for all of our different minds.

Yes. I'd add, though, that there is information carried into this system even before conception: DNA is normally seen as a formative code, but rarely viewed as a record of events, which I'd argue it is. In other words, even a new brain may been seen as the expression of software (i.e. functional ideas), not just as a material structure waiting to be fed a program. In other words, the brain is a carrier for a history of events, much as any given machine is a carrier for Windows, but is not really responsible for it in an ultimate sense. Windows needs a carrier, but it transcends the specific mechanism of whatever carrier it happens to find itself running on.

In Khemical's eliminativism, I'd go much farther than he has, and eliminate all the arbitrary divisions among discrete physical subsystems in the Universe, because there really is no such thing. There's no "input" and "output" anywhere, except in our conception of things.

Or maybe not. maybe those signals are just what arises from neurons doing their mostly predetermined job. I don't buy the QM uncertainty at the level of cells.... they're too big for QM to have a non-negligible effect.

Let's flip this and look for material structures capable of carrying "software." An atom is as empty, materially speaking, as our solar system-- its main existence is that it is a stable relationship among many QM particles, each of which has no volume. I'd describe an atom not as a collection of things interacting, but instead as an expression of the rules of interaction, if that makes sense. So the electrochemistry that allows for the brain is not really a property of organic materials except in a proximate sense.

I think it will be very hard to look at any particular subsystem in the Universe, and say, "This has the kind of information flow which allows for awareness, and that does not," except for the special case that we know about the brain.