Mindfulness or Mindlessness?

[vulcanlogician]

You see red because one of three spectrum filtering cone structures in your retina picks up red. 

The spectrum filter in your eye picks up light of different wavelengths. Certain cones (the ones we say pick up "red") actually pick up light of around 680-700 nanometers in wavelength. The eye/brain/mind then interprets this as red. Red does not exist in the world.

Now, light with a wavelength of 680-700 nanometers does exist. So in that way, "red exists." But there is no necessity for us to perceive that as red. It is a quirk of our organism that we do. This property "red" exists nowhere outside of our minds.

The first thing to remember is that colour does not actually exist… at least not in any literal sense. Apples and fire engines are not red, the sky and sea are not blue, and no person is objectively "black" or "white".

What exists is light. Light is real.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-14421303

[The Grand Nudger]

Sure, and electric current is only in our test meters.

I'd have to insist again that purple would be a much better example of interpretation in the manner that you're referring to. Purple is a quirk of our organism, not red. That light exists, we're interpreting external data about wavelengths of light. Purple doesn't - we're making it up whole cloth on the basis of data supplied by colorless sensors.

If we're simulating this data for a model, it doesn't have to look like anything in particular, but it does have to look like something. The closer our simulation hews to the external environment, in fact, the more competent any system of control will be. This goes well beyond just color. A mushroom doesn't have to look like a mushroom - once we introduce interpretative simulation....but if mushrooms appeared to us like lions and lions like mushrooms...there would be fewer of us. Similarly, we don't have to perceive our bodily dimensions as they are, but it helps to fit through doors.

Evolutionarily speaking, a consciousness that sees shrooms for lions, lions for shrooms, and cant even accurately model it's body...is a dead end. It's not that it couldn't happen - but that when it does...it ends poorly. There was probably a time when that wasn't the case, fwiw. At the dawn of consciousness, even with a small c, even a little bit of it might have been advantageous - even a (more) wildly inaccurate one. The arms race since makes that moot point for us, today, ofc.

The TLDR version, is that a functionalist sees these things as a representative fascimile, within the limits of the apparatus, of the external environment. Consider this, human beings can't "just see" things even if those things are there exactly..and I mean exactly, as seen. There's no direct pass through. This is the function of a mind, in the minds of functionalists.

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-just for clarity, I don't think that anything I'm sharing resolves any and all questions - but I do think that functionalism and scientific theories of consciousness lay to rest a great many objections and questions - as well as the idea that the mystery is quite as large as we might individually imagine - informed..no doubt, by the lack of any such information -in- our apprehension.

Our first machine consciousnesses (if that can be arranged) will probably have a broad range of self diagnostic function. Our little gift to them, lesson learned by hard experience, lol. Not necessary, but necessarily useful.

[vulcanlogician]

I get that it is a faculty of our organism to distinguish certain phenomena. The reason I brought color into the argument was to show the irreducibility of qualia.

Using machines or something, we can measure the dimensions of a mushroom in the wild. We can determine that the mushroom is x centimeters high/wide etc. And this measurement, even though it is done by a machine, will more-or-less line up with the average person's perceptions of it. So, in the case of dimensions there is a 1:1 reducibility with the perceived phenomena and reality.

Not so with color. With color, there is a 1:1 reducibility between 700 nm wavelengths of light and what we see as red. That is not a complete 1:1 reduction. Our minds "add" something to our perceptive experience that DOES NOT EXIST in the real world-- a "red" quality to all wavelengths of light within certain parameters. It has help from the eye. It has help from the brain (the entire rest of the process may take place in the brain). But remember, there is no color outside of our conscious experience. That means there cannot be a 1:1 reducibility between the perceived world and the natural world as far as redness goes. (The only correlation is that some non-red things --wavelengths of light-- get represented as red.)


To be fair to the functionalists, they actually don't want to ignore the mind completely. Functionalism arose to combat theories of mind (like behaviorism) who seemed to altogether deny the mind's existence. Functionalism wanted to "add a few thin layers of mind back in," so to speak. Functionalists want to say that qualia are a function of the organism's perceptive faculties. After all, there's no sense in an organism having a pain response system, unless it hurts.

There is a reason I think functionalism is a solid theory. Since I have direct apprehension of consciousness, I reject those theories that try to dismiss it as an illusion. Functionalism doesn't quite do this. In fact, where I'm at as far as the metaphysics goes is between functionalism and [some better theory]. So I kind of "default" to functionalism, but find it dissatisfying. Of course, I would like a more comprehensive explanation of mind's existence. (Wouldn't we all.)

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Pain may be the better example for qualia. There is no "pain" out there in the world (outside of our experience of it).

[Angrboda]

I get that it is a faculty of our organism to distinguish certain phenomena. The reason I brought color into the argument was to show the irreducibility of qualia.

It seems to me that positing qualia as a thing needing explanation inevitably leads to some version of the Cartesian theater. For good or ill, ontologies of mind seem to reflect naive folk theories more than anything which suggests that we haven't actually identified the phenomenon needing to be explained. Does the qualia need to be explained, or simply the phenomenon of thinking that I'm experiencing qualia? I'm reminded of dream consciousness in which impossible things seem to be real. Can we say anything beyond the brute Husserlian facts about what is and isn't a thing in a mind? Are beliefs a thing? What about memory -- are memories things? Most evidence suggests that memories are not things. But they're as "real" as qualia. So why give qualia a pass but not memories?

[vulcanlogician]

Descartes laid out the mind-body problem for us. His solution to it, substance dualism, is lacking. But he asked the right questions, at least. Functionalism, if anything, is an answer to those questions. Substance dualism relies on folk intuitions. But the mind-body problem itself may not. I mean, there is a mystery there, isn't there? And we can't explore that mystery without covering the territory first travelled by Descartes.

Qualia doesn't demand an explanation. Conscious experience demands an explanation. Qualia is simply something we march out in front of those who say there is a 1:1 reduction between conscious states and brain states.

***

Are beliefs a thing? Well, in a metaphysical sense, they are. I have a belief that my car is parked in my driveway. The cause of this belief is the firing of neurons in my brain. But what the belief says (its truth-value, etc.) is not determined by looking at my neurons. The belief has a metaphysical structure, and you determine the truth value of it by looking at the structure of the belief, and comparing it to the physical world (ie. by looking at my driveway) to see if it's true. For this reason I want to say beliefs (and by proxy, memories) are on different ontological ground than qualia. "Caused by brain states" is the only common denominator.

[The Grand Nudger]

I get that it is a faculty of our organism to distinguish certain phenomena. The reason I brought color into the argument was to show the irreducibility of qualia.

Right, but I don't think that it does, or that if we were to use color to make that argument red would be the strongest candidate.  

Using machines or something, we can measure the dimensions of a mushroom in the wild. We can determine that the mushroom is x centimeters high/wide etc. And this measurement, even though it is done by a machine, will more-or-less line up with the average person's perceptions of it. So, in the case of dimensions there is a 1:1 reducibility with the perceived phenomena and reality.

We can also measure colors with a spectrophotometer...and find the same thing - that the measurements will line up with the average persons perception of it.  Some accuracy is a common assumption of selective explanations for conscious experience.   We get that our native equipment is flawed, but if redness weren't a thing it would be hard to explain why it's such a solid indicator of ripeness in fruit or the coming doom of winter.  We don't think that flowers are mimicking.... our mental state .....when they entice us and others to spread their genetic material by doing color.  

Not so with color. With color, there is a 1:1 reducibility between 700 nm wavelengths of light and what we see as red. That is not a complete 1:1 reduction. Our minds "add" something to our perceptive experience that DOES NOT EXIST in the real world-- a "red" quality to all wavelengths of light within certain parameters. It has help from the eye. It has help from the brain (the entire rest of the process may take place in the brain). But remember, there is no color outside of our conscious experience. That means there cannot be a 1:1 reducibility between the perceived world and the natural world as far as redness goes. (The only correlation is that some non-red things --wavelengths of light-- get represented as red.)

There's no color outside of our experience like there is no current outside of our meters like there are no centimeters outside of our rulers like there's absolutely none of that or anything else, in our experience, meaningfully outside of our minds..... in this way.  I don't think it's a particularly good objection (to anything....) no matter how many times it's repeated, but particularly in the context of functionalism and an explanation of mind or qualia. 

To be fair to the functionalists, they actually don't want to ignore the mind completely. Functionalism arose to combat theories of mind (like behaviorism) who seemed to altogether deny the mind's existence. Functionalism wanted to "add a few thin layers of mind back in," so to speak. Functionalists want to say that qualia are a function of the organism's perceptive faculties. After all, there's no sense in an organism having a pain response system, unless it hurts.

Pain, in the functionalist view, is whatever causes attentive behaviors towards bodily damage. That could be different species to species, machine to machine - and it may even be that there are phenomenal concepts absent between groups of real or hypothetical beings.  We don't think that ants can be in pain, and wouldn't expect a sentient ruler to "see red" even if it could measure wavelengths of light...for example....and this is why the existence of a phenomenal concept in one example and it's absence in another is not really any demonstration that the contents only exist in their minds or are not meaningfully representative of their external environments. We just don't all come equipped with the same stuff - and it shows.

There is a reason I think functionalism is a solid theory. Since I have direct apprehension of consciousness, I reject those theories that try to dismiss it as an illusion. Functionalism doesn't quite do this. In fact, where I'm at as far as the metaphysics goes is between functionalism and [some better theory]. So I kind of "default" to functionalism, but find it dissatisfying. Of course, I would like a more comprehensive explanation of mind's existence. (Wouldn't we all.)

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Pain may be the better example for qualia. There is no "pain" out there in the world (outside of our experience of it).

The functionalist would tell you that there is pain anywhere that anything is making anything else hurt, ofc. In this sense..and I think you'll appreciate this..qualia may not reduce to brain states specifically even for a functionalist, and even if human qualia does.

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But the mind-body problem itself may not. I mean, there is a mystery there, isn't there? 

You tell me..what's the mystery?  All available evidence seems to indicate that the thing we've been calling mind is very much body.  Plenty of mysteries about that body....but a mystery about some mind-body problem? You sure that's not an example of folk intuition, itself?

[vulcanlogician]

Pain, in the functionalist view, is whatever causes attentive behaviors towards bodily damage.

That's the behaviorist's model. The behaviorist doesn't need to posit any kind of conscious experience in that formula, though. And when people hear that, they want to ask the behaviorist "How come we have conscious experiences then?" There are two ways out of this. 1) straight epiphenomenalism, and 2) functionalism. Functionalism says something like a pain state plays an intermediary role... that IT is just one causal artifact in the line of succession between the firing of neurons and a motor response. It's there because it plays a role in the causal chain. And its qualities are explicable by what role it plays in that causal chain. No other explanation, according to the functionalist, is necessary.

This is a succinct view. That's what I like about it. But then ontological irreducibility comes along as a challenge to that view.

That could be different species to species, machine to machine - and it may even be that there are phenomenal concepts absent between groups of real or hypothetical beings.

Sure. But bringing machines into the realm of potentially conscious beings raises further questions. Some postulate that any information feedback mechanism produces conscious states. If they are correct, then the back of our toilets are "slightly conscious." And if that's true, there is some law of the universe concerning production of conscious states that we have yet to discover.

You tell me..what's the mystery?  All available evidence seems to indicate that the thing we've been calling mind is very much body.  Plenty of mysteries about that body....but a mystery about some mind-body problem?  You sure that's not an example of folk intuition, itself?

It's intuition, yes. At least half of it. But I think I've done due diligence concerning exactly where my intuitions may err. Maybe that makes it less "folky"? (shrug)

You and Angrboda seem to think that asking questions about the mind is a rejection of physicalism. It isn't. I have no problems accepting the view that mind is a physical phenomenon. I thought I made this clear when I stated that I think all mental states are causally reducible to brain states. If that is the case (and that's what I believe) there is no room (or need) for the Cartesian soul in there.

My issue is the ontological reduction. It doesn't gel. There is no physical thing called "pain" on the tip of a pin that transfers into your finger during a pin prick. When you examine a neuron, or the brain, you won't find the quality of pain there. The universe is colorless. The brain is colorless. We know that. The question is: how do you produce color from non-color? How do you produce pain from non-pain? The brain does both of these things, and we have no idea how. It *IS* a mystery. Consciousness is a mystery. Plain and simple.

[The Grand Nudger]

Pain, in the functionalist view, is whatever causes attentive behaviors towards bodily damage.

That's the behaviorist's model. The behaviorist doesn't need to posit any kind of conscious experience in that formula, though. And when people hear that, they want to ask the behaviorist "How come we have conscious experiences then?" There are two ways out of this. 1) straight epiphenomenalism, and 2) functionalism. Functionalism says something like a pain state plays an intermediary role... that IT is just one causal artifact in the line of succession between the firing of neurons and a motor response. It's there because it plays a role in the causal chain. And its qualities are explicable by what role it plays in that causal chain. No other explanation, according to the functionalist, is necessary.

This is a succinct view. That's what I like about it. But then ontological irreducibility comes along as a challenge to that view.

I don;t think that it does - but I do want to point out that my very short description was not the behaviorists model.  There is nothing between attentive behavior and damage, no other thing causing the one n reference to the other.  The functionalists view doesn't just differ in some intermediary whatsit..but in the breadth of allowable whatsists-as-intermediary.  It allows for there to be pain in an organism or machine that absolutely does not and even cannot feel pain..the way we feel pain.  Our pain ceases to be a unique set, and becomes a member of a set.

Sure. But bringing machines into the realm of potentially conscious beings raises further questions. Some postulate that any information feedback mechanism produces conscious states. If they are correct, then the back of our toilets are "slightly conscious." And if that's true, there is some law of the universe concerning production of conscious states that we have yet to discover.

Well, we say sure, but we're just casually agreeing with the functionalists main point of distinction between their idea of mind and everyone else's.  You say it raises further questions, and maybe it does, but functionalism also premises our only scientific theory of mind, and it's not even a theory of human mind - but machine mind.  Before we knew about control and control models and physical control of systems we may have lacked the phenomenal concept required to understand the phenomena itself.  Mind, or at least human mind... wasn't just stranger than descartes supposed, but stranger than he could suppose....and still purely physical, purely monist.

It's intuition, yes. At least half of it. But I think I've done due diligence concerning exactly where my intuitions may err. Maybe that makes it less "folky"? (shrug)

You and Angrboda seem to think that asking questions about the mind is a rejection of physicalism. It isn't. I have no problems accepting the view that mind is a physical phenomenon. I thought I made this clear when I stated that I think all mental states are causally reducible to brain states. If that is the case (and that's what I believe) there is no room (or need) for the Cartesian soul in there.

My issue is the ontological reduction. It doesn't gel. There is no physical thing called "pain" on the tip of a pin that transfers into your finger during a pin prick.

That's a proposition, not a demonstration or assertion of fact.  FWIW, and accepting that we could be wrong, it's a proposition that flies in the face of observation.  Pain..in humans..... appears to be very much a thing.  C fibers, one of many classes of nerves...firing - for example. As much a thing as the trigger of a gun.

When you examine a neuron, or the brain, you won't find the quality of pain there. The universe is colorless. The brain is colorless. We know that. The question is: how do you produce color from non-color? How do you produce pain from non-pain? The brain does both of these things, and we have no idea how. It *IS* a mystery. Consciousness is a mystery. Plain and simple.

You're using those phrases again..... In mere reality, neither the universe nor our brains are colorless (if color only existed in our brains..our brains still exist in the universe..and so too their contents), we mouth those words to explain how things aren't -exactly- as they appear...but we do think that plants really do absorb a particular spectrum of light, leaving the remainder to be detected by a specific receptor in our eyes, to be interpreted for effect by a specific region of our brain. We do think that our eyes and our experience of red map and reduce to a thing actually happening to light and actually happening to plants and actually signalling a change in the plant or the environment - and we can measure or detect all of that.

That we're not space cadets..just visually disabled, to some extent...relative to other animals or instrumentation - and that this inability to see necessarrily colors our perception of seeing.

[Angrboda]

Descartes laid out the mind-body problem for us. His solution to it, substance dualism, is lacking. But he asked the right questions, at least. Functionalism, if anything, is an answer to those questions. Substance dualism relies on folk intuitions. But the mind-body problem itself may not. I mean, there is a mystery there, isn't there? And we can't explore that mystery without covering the territory first travelled by Descartes.

Qualia doesn't demand an explanation. Conscious experience demands an explanation. Qualia is simply something we march out in front of those who say there is a 1:1 reduction between conscious states and brain states.

***

Are beliefs a thing? Well, in a metaphysical sense, they are. I have a belief that my car is parked in my driveway. The cause of this belief is the firing of neurons in my brain. But what the belief says (its truth-value, etc.) is not determined by looking at my neurons. The belief has a metaphysical structure, and you determine the truth value of it by looking at the structure of the belief, and comparing it to the physical world (ie. by looking at my driveway) to see if it's true. For this reason I want to say beliefs (and by proxy, memories) are on different ontological ground than qualia. "Caused by brain states" is the only common denominator.

What is there to conscious experience besides qualia? Qualia is the what of intentionality. It's qualia all the way down. If qualia needs no explanation, then conscious experience needs none.

I'm very skeptical of people who talk about various "whats" of consciousness. To me it's like hearing a noise and concluding there is a bear in the brush. Assuming the bear brings a truckload of properties that may not belong to the noise. Assuming that whats like qualia and experience are existent is assuming a lot about them. As noted in the dream analogy, these may be just our brain telling us we have a what. This, as noted, leads to the Cartesian theater, which is almost certainly wrong. So some of the properties you're inheriting by assuming a whatness about qualia or experience are most certainly wrong. Take memories for example. If we assume a whatness to them, then we bring in a property of persistence and exteriorality, neither of which are supported by the science. Memory is a process, not a thing. So I think the evidence leans in favor of considering consciousness and experience as a process rather than a what. I'm reminded of Searle's Chinese Room; a skeptic might look in vain for where the meaning lies by assuming it is a what that exists in or out of the room. My favored response is the systems response, but in terms of consciousness, that's basically functionalism, which you seem unhappy with. I have to wonder if you found square circles in a dream whether you'd be looking to explain their whatness in the dream similarly.

ETAS: I think what you are referring to as beliefs are more properly termed propositions. Beliefs are the feeling associated with propositions. That feeling isn't metaphysical.

[HappySkeptic]

What is there to conscious experience besides qualia?  Qualia is the what of intentionality.  It's qualia all the way down.  If qualia needs no explanation, then conscious experience needs none.

Exactly.  Consciousness is about experience, and qualia are the elements of experience.