Theories of Consciousness

[Skepdick]

Sounds interesting. What is your proposed solution?

Defining the problem is half the solution.

What is the problem? Is there one?

[anonymous66]

The more I think about this the more silly the 'consciousness' theories sound. No one even knows what they mean by 'consciousness'. We have brains. Our brains enable us to think about stuff, just as we have evolved hands that enable us to do other stuff. What else is there to know? Occam's razor every time. If 'consciousness' means thinking about stuff then yeah, everything with a brain is 'conscious' (unless of course it's unconscious). And who are we to presume to know what ants and cockroaches are thinking about?

There are a couple of reasons to think about consciousness. It would help answer the question - where did consciousness come from? and when and where did consciousness first occur? and what is primitive consciousness like? By the way, I don't know that we should just assume that all beings with a brain have thoughts. Isn't it more likely that the first hint of consciousness would be some sort of first hand experience? and then thoughts came along later with more advanced systems?

I suspect the major reason for thinking about consciousness for philosophers is the mind/body problem. Here is one way to describe the problem - from Ultimate Questions: Thinking about Philosophy 2nd ed.

When we talk about our bodies, we describe them as exhibiting physical properties. Physical properties are public in the sense that others can observe them and measure what kind of physical state my body is in. A medical doctor, for example, can easily measure a wide range of physical properties of my body (e.g., temperature, weight, size).

However, when we talk about our minds, we describe mental states and mental properties and thus talk about beliefs, desires, and wishes. These mental states are experienced from a first-person perspective and are inherently private. Others cannot tell from the outside what it feels like to have my desires or sensations. Although a medical doctor can tell me that my body is running a fever, she cannot tell me what it feels like to have this fever. The experience of having this fever happens in my mind and seems inaccessible to anyone but myself. This realization leads us to the central question of the mind/body problem: How exactly are the physical states of human bodies related to the mental states of human minds?

[accelafine]

The more I think about this the more silly the 'consciousness' theories sound. No one even knows what they mean by 'consciousness'. We have brains. Our brains enable us to think about stuff, just as we have evolved hands that enable us to do other stuff. What else is there to know? Occam's razor every time. If 'consciousness' means thinking about stuff then yeah, everything with a brain is 'conscious' (unless of course it's unconscious). And who are we to presume to know what ants and cockroaches are thinking about?

There are a couple of reasons to think about consciousness. It would help answer the question - where did consciousness come from? and when and where did consciousness first occur? and what is primitive consciousness like? By the way, I don't know that we should just assume that all beings with a brain have thoughts. Isn't it more likely that the first hint of consciousness would be some sort of first hand experience? and then thoughts came along later with more advanced systems?

I suspect the major reason for thinking about consciousness for philosophers is the mind/body problem. Here is one way to describe the problem - from Ultimate Questions: Thinking about Philosophy 2nd ed.

When we talk about our bodies, we describe them as exhibiting physical properties. Physical properties are public in the sense that others can observe them and measure what kind of physical state my body is in. A medical doctor, for example, can easily measure a wide range of physical properties of my body (e.g., temperature, weight, size).

However, when we talk about our minds, we describe mental states and mental properties and thus talk about beliefs, desires, and wishes. These mental states are experienced from a first-person perspective and are inherently private. Others cannot tell from the outside what it feels like to have my desires or sensations. Although a medical doctor can tell me that my body is running a fever, she cannot tell me what it feels like to have this fever. The experience of having this fever happens in my mind and seems inaccessible to anyone but myself. This realization leads us to the central question of the mind/body problem: How exactly are the physical states of human bodies related to the mental states of human minds?

I have thought about it. Quite a lot actually, hence the point of my post.

[promethean75]

"Panpsychism suggests a radically different worldview, one that is fundamentally at odds with the dominant mechanistic conception of the universe. Arguably, it is precisely this mechanistic view—which sees the universe and everything in it as a kind of giant machine—that lies at the root of many of our philosophical, sociological, and environmental problems"

Okay, what might be done differently, and how, if people x no longer have a mechanistic view of the universe but a Panpsychist view instead?

It would certainly change the contexts of many philosophical discussions around the world, but what would be different in daily life? What is something i would do differently if y happens, and i suddenly stop and say to myself 'wait I'm a Panpsychist, not a materialist with a mechanistic view'.

What we may have here, gentlemen, is a philosophical quandry drawn out from our peculiar use of language. I'm not entirely sure we have a genuine metaphysical or epistemological problem here. Or rather, this is only a genuine metaphysical and epistemological problem, not a real problem. A theoretical thought experiment that, however it is resolved, makes no real difference in reality. Let's say you don't squash a bug and hold the door for people because Panpsychism has changed the way you see the world and you want to be nicer. But is that the real.reason why you don't squash the bug and hold the door for people? Also, are there things other than Panpsychism that can act as a reason for not squashing a bug and holding the door for people? If so, it can't be terribly important that we all become Panpsychists. Same with Christianity. If you can also not commit adultery and murder people for another set of reasons, it wouldn't be terribly important that we become Christians.

Stawson is a hardcore determinist btw. Check out his 'basic argument'. It's pretty posh.

[accelafine]

"Panpsychism suggests a radically different worldview, one that is fundamentally at odds with the dominant mechanistic conception of the universe. Arguably, it is precisely this mechanistic view—which sees the universe and everything in it as a kind of giant machine—that lies at the root of many of our philosophical, sociological, and environmental problems"

Okay, what might be done differently, and how, if people x no longer have a mechanistic view of the universe but a Panpsychist view instead?

It would certainly change the contexts of many philosophical discussions around the world, but what would be different in daily life? What is something i would do differently if y happens, and i suddenly stop and say to myself 'wait I'm a Panpsychist, not a materialist with a mechanistic view'.

What we may have here, gentlemen, is a philosophical quandry drawn out from our peculiar use of language. I'm not entirely sure we have a genuine metaphysical or epistemological problem here. Or rather, this is only a genuine metaphysical and epistemological problem, not a real problem. A theoretical thought experiment that, however it is resolved, makes no real difference in reality. Let's say you don't squash a bug and hold the door for people because Panpsychism has changed the way you see the world and you want to be nicer. But is that the real.reason why you don't squash the bug and hold the door for people? Also, are there things other than Panpsychism that can act as a reason for not squashing a bug and holding the door for people? If so, it can't be terribly important that we all become Panpsychists. Same with Christianity. If you can also not commit adultery and murder people for another set of reasons, it wouldn't be terribly important that we become Christians.

Stawson is a hardcore determinist btw. Check out his 'basic argument'. It's pretty posh.

Oooh, check out the 'snooty intellectual'

[anonymous66]

"Panpsychism suggests a radically different worldview, one that is fundamentally at odds with the dominant mechanistic conception of the universe. Arguably, it is precisely this mechanistic view—which sees the universe and everything in it as a kind of giant machine—that lies at the root of many of our philosophical, sociological, and environmental problems"

Okay, what might be done differently, and how, if people x no longer have a mechanistic view of the universe but a Panpsychist view instead?

It would certainly change the contexts of many philosophical discussions around the world, but what would be different in daily life? What is something i would do differently if y happens, and i suddenly stop and say to myself 'wait I'm a Panpsychist, not a materialist with a mechanistic view'.

What we may have here, gentlemen, is a philosophical quandry drawn out from our peculiar use of language. I'm not entirely sure we have a genuine metaphysical or epistemological problem here. Or rather, this is only a genuine metaphysical and epistemological problem, not a real problem. A theoretical thought experiment that, however it is resolved, makes no real difference in reality. Let's say you don't squash a bug and hold the door for people because Panpsychism has changed the way you see the world and you want to be nicer. But is that the real.reason why you don't squash the bug and hold the door for people? Also, are there things other than Panpsychism that can act as a reason for not squashing a bug and holding the door for people? If so, it can't be terribly important that we all become Panpsychists. Same with Christianity. If you can also not commit adultery and murder people for another set of reasons, it wouldn't be terribly important that we become Christians.

Stawson is a hardcore determinist btw. Check out his 'basic argument'. It's pretty posh.

That quote, "Panpsyschism suggests...." is from my post a few days ago and appears to be editorial comments added by the editor of the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy's entry on Panpsychism, David Skrbina. (https://iep.utm.edu/panpsych/#H5 - scroll to the bottom of the page).

Does it look to you like Skrbina is claiming something like, "we will be able to solve 'philosophical, sociological, and environmental problems' if everyone converts to panspychism"?

[anonymous66]

please delete

[anonymous66]

just reposting this for you once because i'm not sure you saw it. especially the last paragraph:

Yes, anything that's not fundamental must be emergent. So minds must also be fundamental or emergent. Some materialists might think minds might be fundamental (which may disqualify them from being materialists, but who am I to say?), some may think minds are illusory (odd hypothesis, as it kind of presupposes a mind to experience an illusion, to have the illusion of a mind no?), and the rest are going to think it's emergent. Probably the majority, but I haven't run a survey.

Looking back at my OP - Galen Strawson accepts property dualism and panpsychism.

But - Galen Stawson (he wrote a paper with the title Physicalism entails Panpsychism) identifies as a materialist (or physicalist) - he agrees that there is only one type of matter - it's just that he accepts that Qualia are real, so physical stuff has mental properties. I find it hard to refute that sentiment.

I don't think physical stuff needs to have mental properties, in order for physical processes to result in mental properties. In general, I don't think any large-scale thing that's composed of tiny things needs those tiny things to have the same properties as the large thing they compose. I don't think the things that make up a chair need chair-like properties. I don't think the things that make up a penis need penis-like properties. I don't think the things that make up a cell need cell-like properties, etc.

Emergence isn't an explanation, it's a category of explanations. Maybe that's why you feel unsatisfied by it - you're putting too high expectations on it being something it's not trying to be. It's just a category. Emergent explanations are explanations in which the component pieces don't have the same properties as the large things they compose, but yet the large-scale properties are still the natural consequence of the small component pieces anyway. Any explanation for which that is the case is an emergent explanation. So the word 'emergence' is not *the explanation itself*, just a description of the kind of explanation.

If you've ever tried to explain a large-scale behaviour based on the behaviour of interacting component pieces, you've done an emergent explanation.

PS. an example of this would be how a car engine functions. You have a lot of component pieces, and every single one of those pieces is composed of molecules and atoms and chemicals, and - presumably - they're all individually following the laws of physics, right? Car engines don't require any component piece to break the laws of physics to make the engine work. The engine works *precisely because every element of that engine follows the laws of physics*. So if every atom of the car is following the laws of physics and the laws of chemistry to make the engine as a whole work -- that's emergence.

But the thing is... whenever you describe an example of emergence, both the first thing, and the thing that emerges are in the same category... but with mental properties - there is that "specialness" - that 1st person experience that must be explained.

The basic problem is this: emergence seems, at first glance, to be a reasonable enough idea, but when pressed for details it comes up sorely lacking. In fact, emergence of mind is very difficult to sensibly explain. Mind is not like five-fingered-ness, or warm-bloodedness. These things, which clearly did emerge, are ontologically unlike mind. They are simply reconfigurations of existing physical matter, whereas mind is of a different ontological order. It is too fundamental an aspect of existence to be comparable to ordinary biological structural features.

[promethean75]

Indeed, my post was snooty, pompous, and dismissive, and i would like it to be struck from the record.

Off the record, please understand that I'm in the post-philosophical stage similar to what Karl went through after the break-up with Hegel, so my attitude toward theoretical branches of philosophy such as epistemological and metaphysical - the nature of knowledge, justified belief, freewill or not, god or not, objective morality or not - that after thousands of years are still alive in debate and no closer to being resolved... well, my attitude is admittedly a little hostile sometimes.

It's my OCPD or obsessive compulsive philosophical disorder that gets me all anxious and uneasy when philosophical subjects aren't prioritized and organized right. Similar to what Vanguard Acidosis has, except I'm all about getting economics done right first and then doing all the Plato stuff.

So, for example, while thousands upon thousands of people die every day by some preventable thing, and people kill each other en masse over ideological and religious differences, i see philosophical discourse at forums go through the same rank and file stages of capping and recapping all the great classical subject matters without spending a fraction of that effort on examining the historical and material circumstances of society and its modes of production. I am posthumous in that i claim not only is capitalism not the end (as Fukuyama quipped), but it is a history already becomming and having become a history.

I see a future where property rights in production will be considerably different... somehow, much more corporatization will be happening in production, and owners of businesses producing x or more in profits and revenue will by law have to be subsumed by a corporation of its employees... who will decide democratically what is to be done with the company/business under the influence of market demand. Wages and product market value will be established naturally by supply and demand, just as it is now.

This being the case, big markets like housing and real-estate, pharma and health care, the automobile industry, will all be price deflated once they are taken over by the employees who produce those goods and services. This fact acts as a counterbalance to the duress we feel at the thought of citizen wage caps that might be caused in a worker controlled market. However, the same wage/salary range one would expect to be paid in now in the freemarket is about the same range one would expect in a worker controlled economy with no private businesses above a certain production capacity. And if wages dropped, again, prices are coming down as well as a result of the deprivatization of big business... so that must be factored in.

Pardon the rambling. Please understand my newest chemical romance THCa has me in these random directionless rants about the lack of direction of academic philosophy sans the Frankfurt school. THCa makes philosophy exciting and new for me again, mouse.

You gave to me a new belief, and soon the world will love you, Sweet Leaf

[Flannel Jesus]

Emergence of mind is very difficult to explain, you're right. There's no way around it, it's difficult.

Humanity has solved a lot of difficult problems.

I don't know exactly how mind emerges, but I think it's more likely that it does than that it doesn't.

But the thing is... whenever you describe an example of emergence, both the first thing, and the thing that emerges are in the same category

I don't know what you mean by that but it doesn't seem true to me. Is chat gpt in the same category as the matter that's used to store the data and code of chat gpt and run it?

[Iwannaplato]

I don't know exactly how mind emerges, but I think it's more likely that it does than that it doesn't.

What is it that makes you think that?
Wouldn't this then be an example of strong emergence?

[Flannel Jesus]

I don't know exactly how mind emerges, but I think it's more likely that it does than that it doesn't.

What is it that makes you think that?
Wouldn't this then be an example of strong emergence?

What is it that makes you think that?
Awareness and conscious experience is macroscopic - just take your visual experience for example. You can see a lot of things at once. You can experience a lot of things at once. If the entirety of our conscious experience were fundamental, that wouldn't be possible I think - fundamental things are unitary and have a lot less variety than what we find in experience. That's not to say that no aspect of consciousness could be fundamental - maybe the "what-its-like-to-be" of conscious experience is fundamental, but the conscious experience as a whole, I think, is not. Also fundamental things don't go through the variety of change we see minds and conscious experiences go through - fundamental things seem to have a limited number of states and explicit ways of behaving while in those states.

So the macroscopic nature of conscious experience and the variety of states and behaviours related to it are just, in my view, all too much to be anything close to fundamental.

Wouldn't this then be an example of strong emergence?
I would say weak (or middle) emergence. Weak emergence gives people the idea that this thing that's weakly emerging is an illusion - that's why I like to say middle emergence. Middle emergence is weak emergence, with more of a commitment to some kind of ontological realness of the thing emerging. I think our consciousness is REAL. I think it's the consequence of many interacting parts and processes.

Strong emergence, in contrast, is almost like a macroscopic-fundamentality. Like this macroscopic thing has its own fundamental existence. It seems to me that the drive to see things as strongly emergent is related to the intuition that only fundamental things can be real - because if someone agrees that non-fundamental things can be real, then you don't need any fundamental rules for macroscopic things, big things can emerge naturally without their own fundamental rules, and strong emergence becomes unnecessary.

[Iwannaplato]

What is it that makes you think that?
Awareness and conscious experience is macroscopic - just take your visual experience for example. You can see a lot of things at once. You can experience a lot of things at once. If the entirety of our conscious experience were fundamental, that wouldn't be possible I think - fundamental things are unitary and have a lot less variety than what we find in experience.

Could their not be simpler or base consciousness and then what you are describing has to do with functions, call them cognitive functions. When we 'see' we are combining guesses, filling in gaps, expectations based on memory and what might seem like a static image is actually something being combined from all these things and the eyes moving, both at the macro-scale (such as looking to the left side of an object or landscape) and then on the micro with microsaccades.

I am now raising a distinction between 'being aware' and cognitive functions. That may or may not hold, but if we think of some tiny few celled organism that is light sensitive, this may only 'see' a very simple 'brighter there' 'darker there' set of images, but perhaps is conscious. Or as you say in the next two quotes.......

That's not to say that no aspect of consciousness could be fundamental - maybe the "what-its-like-to-be" of conscious experience is fundamental, but the conscious experience as a whole, I think, is not.

Yes.

Also fundamental things don't go through the variety of change we see minds and conscious experiences go through - fundamental things seem to have a limited number of states and explicit ways of behaving while in those states.

So the macroscopic nature of conscious experience and the variety of states and behaviours related to it are just, in my view, all too much to be anything close to fundamental.

Wouldn't this then be an example of strong emergence?
I would say weak (or middle) emergence. Weak emergence gives people the idea that this thing that's weakly emerging is an illusion - that's why I like to say middle emergence. Middle emergence is weak emergence, with more of a commitment to some kind of ontological realness of the thing emerging. I think our consciousness is REAL. I think it's the consequence of many interacting parts and processes.

Strong emergence, in contrast, is almost like a macroscopic-fundamentality. Like this macroscopic thing has its own fundamental existence. It seems to me that the drive to see things as strongly emergent is related to the intuition that only fundamental things can be real - because if someone agrees that non-fundamental things can be real, then you don't need any fundamental rules for macroscopic things, big things can emerge naturally without their own fundamental rules, and strong emergence becomes unnecessary.

It seems to me if I read this response and the earlier post it is at least aligns with panpsychism. (oh, oh, cards on the table).

My response to the first part of your post above seems echoed by the two quoted sentences in the middle I did not respond to.

Note: I am not saying you are, actually, panpsychist or that you are now argued for panpsychism in particular. But it seems to fit, so far, with panpsyhcism. Which is why I raised the issue of emergence since I know you tend to think there isn't strong emergence. I may have misunderstood parts of the above, but I am putting your two positions together. What you think about consciousness and middle emergence being the strongeest.

It seems to me the transition between not at all conscious matter and conscious matter would be a strong emergence, even if that experiencing was very limited.

[Flannel Jesus]

I'm not remotely committed to panpsychism but I do have a somewhat similar-to-panpsychist speculation that I'm fond of. I won't bother sharing it though because it really is just a silly speculation.

[Iwannaplato]

I'm not remotely committed to panpsychism but I do have a somewhat similar-to-panpsychist speculation that I'm fond of. I won't bother sharing it though because it really is just a silly speculation.

It's probably like my beliefs

But would you consider the difference between unexperiencing matter to experiencing matter to be a strong emergence?

(if there is an evolutionary timeline: at point H in time, matter, perhaps having reached certain contents and a certain threshold of complexity was conscious - but before that time, none)

((if there isn't an evolutionary timeline, that raises other interesting questions, because then it would be some matter, I think then, has always been conscious and some not - not a model I've heard of))