Theories of Consciousness
Re: Theories of Consciousness
No one, not even any materialist has ever directly seen "matter"..
-
anonymous66
- Posts: 56
- Joined: Fri Jan 12, 2018 9:08 pm
-
anonymous66
- Posts: 56
- Joined: Fri Jan 12, 2018 9:08 pm
Re: Theories of Consciousness
There is an article in the latest issue of Philosophy Now (164) that considers emergence. It's called - From Birds to Brains. "Jonathan Moens considers whether emergence can explain minds from brains."
Here are the last 2 paragraphs
"But perhaps there's a simpler explanation for the mystery underlying emergent properties: perhaps the science just isn't mature enough. Consider that centuries ago scientists thought life was driven by an elusive 'vital force' - the theory called 'vitalism'. But scientific progress has now debunked this theory, replacing vital force with a mechanistic explanation of how DNA, metabolism, and other basic cellular processes work in concert to produce life. This scientific theory of life isn't complete, but it is largely resolved. Couldn't scientific progress do the same with all emergent phenomena? Is it just a question of time?
As I watch the starlings break in and out of their dance, whirling and tumbling as a lissome mass, I wondered not just about their murmuration, but also about tornadoes, waves, consciousness - are they really beyond the reach of science? Every fall, the starlings come back to fly over Il Vittoriano. And every fall, I'm left amazed, stupefied - and totally clueless."
The author of the article is pointing out that we still haven't figured out if emergence is possible.
Here are the last 2 paragraphs
"But perhaps there's a simpler explanation for the mystery underlying emergent properties: perhaps the science just isn't mature enough. Consider that centuries ago scientists thought life was driven by an elusive 'vital force' - the theory called 'vitalism'. But scientific progress has now debunked this theory, replacing vital force with a mechanistic explanation of how DNA, metabolism, and other basic cellular processes work in concert to produce life. This scientific theory of life isn't complete, but it is largely resolved. Couldn't scientific progress do the same with all emergent phenomena? Is it just a question of time?
As I watch the starlings break in and out of their dance, whirling and tumbling as a lissome mass, I wondered not just about their murmuration, but also about tornadoes, waves, consciousness - are they really beyond the reach of science? Every fall, the starlings come back to fly over Il Vittoriano. And every fall, I'm left amazed, stupefied - and totally clueless."
The author of the article is pointing out that we still haven't figured out if emergence is possible.
Re: Theories of Consciousness
I personally find the philosophical school of contextual realism to be the most convincing on this topic.
The concept of "consciousness" largely arises from metaphysical realism. Metaphysical realists treat the reality that we perceive as not equivalent to reality itself, but something else. Sometimes it is said to be a kind of illusion created by the mammalian brain, although it is sometimes described differently. Usually, however, it is agreed upon to call this thing "consciousness." This assumption in metaphysical realism is sometimes outright stated, but also sometimes implicit. It is intrinsically bound up with the notion of *object permanence.*
If what we perceive is not reality as it really is, then this "true" reality must necessarily lie outside of perception. It then becomes difficult to explain how a world completely devoid of perceptible properties—a world that is effectively entirely invisible—could suddenly give rise to the very visible perceptions we experience in a particular configuration. This is what David Chalmers calls the "hard problem of consciousness."
It seems impossible to solve this problem without arbitrarily introducing this property of perception, experience, observability, visibility, or whatever you want to call it, in a particular configuration. In other words, it seems like it could only be strongly emergent. Even if you call this strongly emergent thing "physical," it would still be effectively dualist in its logical structure, because what dualists propose is that consciousness is something not reducible to the traditional natural laws. It is no surprise, then, that Chalmers sees himself as a dualist.
However, all this relies on the premise of metaphysical realism, which itself rests on the premise that we do not perceive reality as it really is. If you reject this premise, then there is no reason to introduce the concept of "consciousness" at all. What we perceive would not be some byproduct of the mammalian brain and would have little to do with "mind" at all. What we perceive would be raw reality as it really is, independently of the observer.
As I interpret contextual realism, philosophers like Jocelyn Benoist or Francois-Igor Pris have recognized that this "hard problem" isn't really even a "problem" at all but instead a logical contradiction within the metaphysical realist framework. It thus cannot be "solved" but can only be dissolved by altering the premises of the framework. This led them to reevaluate the reasons why we feel so confident in metaphysical realism. Benoist, for example, has pointed out that many of the arguments in favor of metaphysical realism, often taken for granted, are actually fairly weak. Optical illusions, for instance, do not demonstrate that we do not perceive reality as it really is; they merely show that we sometimes interpret reality incorrectly.
Contextual realism takes a Wittgensteinian approach to ontology, which I personally favor for its deflationary nature. There is much debate about different categories of objects: objects of qualia like red, blue, loud, quiet; objects of mathematics like squares, triangles, circles; and material objects like dogs, cats, atoms, and galaxies. Philosophers endlessly debate the ontology of these objects, what they mean, and whether they operate in separate "realms."
The contextual realist approach simplifies this. All qualitatively discrete things you can identify, such as cats, blueness, or circles, are categorized as objects. All objects are socially constructed norms used to identify something in a particular context. If we share a common language, it is because we were raised in similar schools, consumed similar media, and were socially engineered to identify things in reality similarly, using shared words. These objects are normative in the sense that they are used to judge reality to be something in some context.
On their own, in the abstract, no object has ontological reality. There are no abstract cats, circles, or atoms. However, if a norm is applied in a particular context, such as a social setting, it becomes tied to some perception of the real world. For instance, talking about cats in the abstract does not reference anything real. But if I point to a cat and say, "Look at that cat over there," I am employing the concept of "cat" to identify something in reality, within my perception. Even if the cat runs away and I no longer see it, when I continue to speak about that cat, I am still referencing the real context in which I observed it.
Objects become real objects when tied to some real context in which the norm is employed. This application of a norm in a particular context, typically a social setting, to identify something is sometimes called a "language game." All objects can be considered ontologically real as long as their language game is taken into account in a particular context. As Wittgenstein once said, if you want to know the meaning of a word, don't think, but instead look! Look at how it is actually used in reality.
This applies to all objects. Something that is red can be considered red in ontological reality as a real property of a system if it is applied in a real-world setting. For instance, pointing out the red spot on someone's shirt is something others can agree upon—they, too, can look at the shirt and see the red spot. Similarly, mathematical objects like triangles, which may seem abstract, are real when employed in context. Remember learning about triangles in middle school, when your teacher drew them on the board? Those triangles were real. Even something like the Higgs boson is ontologically real when physicists employ its concept in experimental contexts to identify specific phenomena.
Contextual realism ultimately adheres to direct realism, which treats what we perceive/experience as directly equivalent to reality itself. There is no separation of objects into different "realms." All objects are treated equally. The focus on "consciousness" in philosophical discussions often tries to elevate qualia to some special realm, as if "red" or "green" is somehow less real than "cats" or "atoms." Contextual realism denies such separations and treats all objects the same.
If you read Nagel's paper "What is it like to be a bat?" you’ll notice one of its core premises is that reality is not dependent upon any particular point of view, i.e., perspective, yet our experiences clearly come through unique perspectives. Nagel concludes that experience must be something intrinsic to subjects and tied to properties of the "mammalian brain." However, from a direct realist and contextual realist perspective, what we perceive is simply reality as it truly is. If our perception depends upon our particular perspective within reality—our context—then it follows that ontological reality itself is perspective-dependent.
There is no "cosmic" or universal point of view; no objective reality independent of some perspective within it. Reality exists solely in terms of fragmented perspectives. Even in physics, assigning properties to systems requires specifying a reference frame. A "cosmic reference frame" would be nonphysical, so it seems odd for physicalists to insist on its necessity.
Some might argue that a physical reference frame is not the same as the qualitative, personal experiences that arise from individual points of view. For instance, physical descriptions are "quantitative," while direct experiences are "qualitative." However, this difference arises because mathematical models inherently describe reality—they do not constitute it. A description of Shanghai, no matter how detailed, can never substitute for visiting and experiencing it directly. Physical models describe reality from different perspectives, but experiencing reality is fundamentally being in that context. There is a categorical difference between describing a reference frame and existing within one.
This makes it nonsensical to ask for an explanation for "what it is like" to exist in a particular context from other physical laws. The phrase "to be" inherently refers to being, or reality itself. Explaining "what it is like" to be in a particular context means explaining the raw reality of that context, which is not something that can be derived from laws or descriptions. Asking for an explanation for reality itself is akin to asking, "Why is there something rather than nothing?" It is an unanswerable question because reality just is. We can explain specific phenomena within reality—like why planets orbit stars—but explaining reality itself is nonsensical.
Some also worry about the inability to fully occupy another's context. I cannot see through your eyes or experience reality as you do, just as I cannot perceive the world as a bat does. However, this is more of a linguistic problem than a philosophical one. Context fragments differ inherently. To make my perception more like yours, I could eliminate differences. For instance, if you are colorblind and I am not, I could undergo surgery to mimic your condition. Similarly, I could modify my nose to resemble yours to share your view of the world more closely.
But even if I became a perfect clone of you down to the atom, I would still occupy a different spatial position than you, thus a different context. The only way to perfectly match your perception would be to overlap your position exactly. But if I remove all differences between us, then I would cease to be "me" and would instead become "you." The distinction between "you" and "me" would vanish entirely. It is, therefore, definitionally impossible for me to fully perceive reality from your perspective while remaining myself.
This leads to a broader concern: if reality exists as fragmented perspectives, and objects are socially constructed, aren't these fragments arbitrary? For instance, where does a mountain "begin" or "end"? Or when does a living organism "start" or "stop" existing? Friedrich Engels, in Dialectics of Nature, argued there are no "hard-and-fast lines" separating one object from another.
David Bohm suggested this is because objects are constructs, and the universe is actually a continuum with no inherent boundaries. Humans draw these boundaries for convenience, simplifying the world to make it intelligible. Bohm even explored creating a language without discrete objects. If discrete objects don’t exist, then perspectives (context frames) might be illusory, and reality would lack true separations.
However, Jocelyn Benoist offers an alternative. Rather than treating objects as illusions, he suggests it is a property of reality that it can be divided into an infinite number of discrete objects, each real within its own context.
An example clarifies this distinction. Imagine someone from another culture visits your home. They see a patterned carpet but don’t notice the specific design you value because it has cultural significance for you. Both Benoist and Bohm might agree that this cultural significance is socially constructed. But Bohm might argue that even the pattern itself as an object is not real—it’s a human mental creation. Benoist, on the other hand, would assert that the pattern is real, but the visitor suffers from concept blindness, preventing them from identifying the pattern in that context.
From Benoist's perspective, all meaningful ways to divide reality into objects have reality, and the context of each object defines its reality. Your context is what you experience now. My context is what I experience now. The rock's context exists too, even though we can’t directly ask it about its experience. But we can indirectly query it. For instance, we could attach a GoPro to a rock as it flows down a stream. Later, reviewing the footage, we observe the world from its perspective. If there were no reality from the rock's perspective, how could such a recording exist at all?
Of course, a recording is not the same as direct experience, just as asking a friend about their day is not the same as living it yourself. But if you argue that only personal experience validates reality, you would have to embrace solipsism—the idea that only your experiences are real. If solipsism is rejected, then records and observations of other perspectives must suffice to acknowledge their reality.
Modern philosophy often recognizes the reality of your perspective and mine but denies it for non-mammalian objects. This seems arbitrary. "To experience" simply means "to undergo something." I can experience hardship, and a rock can experience erosion. A thermometer can experience temperature changes. Critics might argue this trivializes the meaning of "experience," but direct realism dismisses such distinctions. There is a reality from a rock's context, even if it is one we cannot occupy. Denying this because we cannot occupy that context risks slipping into solipsism.
This perspective isn’t really a "theory of consciousness" because "consciousness" ceases to be relevant. Metaphysical realism, by treating what we perceive as a "non-real illusion" created by the brain, often mistakes direct realism for idealism. Direct realism denies this division. What we perceive is reality, and it is independent of "mind" or "consciousness." Our perception depends not on being observers, but on occupying a context, because reality only exists in terms of fragmented context frames. To perceive reality as it is is to perceive it from a particular perspective, because reality itself exists only in those terms.
Indeed, I would go as far as to say that this would mean "subjective experience" does not even make sense as a concept in this approach, because experience is reality as it really exists, so it seems a bit strange to call it "subjective." One rebuttal I have heard to this is that if reality depends upon context, and context fragments are tied to the perspective of objects, then "your perspective" only exists because you exist, so you can say it is dependent upon an observer and is subjective.
In a sense, yes, but we can also apply this same logic to say that "my house" must be subjective and observer-dependent because the object "my house" could not exist without me. If I didn't exist, there would still be other houses, but there would be no my house. Similarly, yes, if I didn't exist, my perspective would not exist, but usually when people call experience subjective or observer-dependent they mean that the very concept of experience is intrinsically tied to conscious subjects/observers in particular. If no conscious observer or subject existed, inanimate objects would still "undergo something," rocks would still experience erosion in the rain, for example, and there would still be a reality from the context of that object.
It is thus more meaningful to say that experience is context-dependent rather than to call it "observer-dependent" or "subjective." The former statement makes it clear that the properties of reality, as it really qualities of its existence, "what it is like to be," depends upon context and is not fundamentally tied to observers or subjects. Observers and subjects will perceive reality differently, but that is in spite of them being observers/subjects, not because of it.
In contextual realism, people who are searching to explain "emergence" or how this so-called "consciousness" "arises" are all ultimately barking up the wrong tree. The reality we perceive just is what it is. It does not emerge from anything, nor does anything "give rise to it." It just is.
The concept of "consciousness" largely arises from metaphysical realism. Metaphysical realists treat the reality that we perceive as not equivalent to reality itself, but something else. Sometimes it is said to be a kind of illusion created by the mammalian brain, although it is sometimes described differently. Usually, however, it is agreed upon to call this thing "consciousness." This assumption in metaphysical realism is sometimes outright stated, but also sometimes implicit. It is intrinsically bound up with the notion of *object permanence.*
If what we perceive is not reality as it really is, then this "true" reality must necessarily lie outside of perception. It then becomes difficult to explain how a world completely devoid of perceptible properties—a world that is effectively entirely invisible—could suddenly give rise to the very visible perceptions we experience in a particular configuration. This is what David Chalmers calls the "hard problem of consciousness."
It seems impossible to solve this problem without arbitrarily introducing this property of perception, experience, observability, visibility, or whatever you want to call it, in a particular configuration. In other words, it seems like it could only be strongly emergent. Even if you call this strongly emergent thing "physical," it would still be effectively dualist in its logical structure, because what dualists propose is that consciousness is something not reducible to the traditional natural laws. It is no surprise, then, that Chalmers sees himself as a dualist.
However, all this relies on the premise of metaphysical realism, which itself rests on the premise that we do not perceive reality as it really is. If you reject this premise, then there is no reason to introduce the concept of "consciousness" at all. What we perceive would not be some byproduct of the mammalian brain and would have little to do with "mind" at all. What we perceive would be raw reality as it really is, independently of the observer.
As I interpret contextual realism, philosophers like Jocelyn Benoist or Francois-Igor Pris have recognized that this "hard problem" isn't really even a "problem" at all but instead a logical contradiction within the metaphysical realist framework. It thus cannot be "solved" but can only be dissolved by altering the premises of the framework. This led them to reevaluate the reasons why we feel so confident in metaphysical realism. Benoist, for example, has pointed out that many of the arguments in favor of metaphysical realism, often taken for granted, are actually fairly weak. Optical illusions, for instance, do not demonstrate that we do not perceive reality as it really is; they merely show that we sometimes interpret reality incorrectly.
Contextual realism takes a Wittgensteinian approach to ontology, which I personally favor for its deflationary nature. There is much debate about different categories of objects: objects of qualia like red, blue, loud, quiet; objects of mathematics like squares, triangles, circles; and material objects like dogs, cats, atoms, and galaxies. Philosophers endlessly debate the ontology of these objects, what they mean, and whether they operate in separate "realms."
The contextual realist approach simplifies this. All qualitatively discrete things you can identify, such as cats, blueness, or circles, are categorized as objects. All objects are socially constructed norms used to identify something in a particular context. If we share a common language, it is because we were raised in similar schools, consumed similar media, and were socially engineered to identify things in reality similarly, using shared words. These objects are normative in the sense that they are used to judge reality to be something in some context.
On their own, in the abstract, no object has ontological reality. There are no abstract cats, circles, or atoms. However, if a norm is applied in a particular context, such as a social setting, it becomes tied to some perception of the real world. For instance, talking about cats in the abstract does not reference anything real. But if I point to a cat and say, "Look at that cat over there," I am employing the concept of "cat" to identify something in reality, within my perception. Even if the cat runs away and I no longer see it, when I continue to speak about that cat, I am still referencing the real context in which I observed it.
Objects become real objects when tied to some real context in which the norm is employed. This application of a norm in a particular context, typically a social setting, to identify something is sometimes called a "language game." All objects can be considered ontologically real as long as their language game is taken into account in a particular context. As Wittgenstein once said, if you want to know the meaning of a word, don't think, but instead look! Look at how it is actually used in reality.
This applies to all objects. Something that is red can be considered red in ontological reality as a real property of a system if it is applied in a real-world setting. For instance, pointing out the red spot on someone's shirt is something others can agree upon—they, too, can look at the shirt and see the red spot. Similarly, mathematical objects like triangles, which may seem abstract, are real when employed in context. Remember learning about triangles in middle school, when your teacher drew them on the board? Those triangles were real. Even something like the Higgs boson is ontologically real when physicists employ its concept in experimental contexts to identify specific phenomena.
Contextual realism ultimately adheres to direct realism, which treats what we perceive/experience as directly equivalent to reality itself. There is no separation of objects into different "realms." All objects are treated equally. The focus on "consciousness" in philosophical discussions often tries to elevate qualia to some special realm, as if "red" or "green" is somehow less real than "cats" or "atoms." Contextual realism denies such separations and treats all objects the same.
If you read Nagel's paper "What is it like to be a bat?" you’ll notice one of its core premises is that reality is not dependent upon any particular point of view, i.e., perspective, yet our experiences clearly come through unique perspectives. Nagel concludes that experience must be something intrinsic to subjects and tied to properties of the "mammalian brain." However, from a direct realist and contextual realist perspective, what we perceive is simply reality as it truly is. If our perception depends upon our particular perspective within reality—our context—then it follows that ontological reality itself is perspective-dependent.
There is no "cosmic" or universal point of view; no objective reality independent of some perspective within it. Reality exists solely in terms of fragmented perspectives. Even in physics, assigning properties to systems requires specifying a reference frame. A "cosmic reference frame" would be nonphysical, so it seems odd for physicalists to insist on its necessity.
Some might argue that a physical reference frame is not the same as the qualitative, personal experiences that arise from individual points of view. For instance, physical descriptions are "quantitative," while direct experiences are "qualitative." However, this difference arises because mathematical models inherently describe reality—they do not constitute it. A description of Shanghai, no matter how detailed, can never substitute for visiting and experiencing it directly. Physical models describe reality from different perspectives, but experiencing reality is fundamentally being in that context. There is a categorical difference between describing a reference frame and existing within one.
This makes it nonsensical to ask for an explanation for "what it is like" to exist in a particular context from other physical laws. The phrase "to be" inherently refers to being, or reality itself. Explaining "what it is like" to be in a particular context means explaining the raw reality of that context, which is not something that can be derived from laws or descriptions. Asking for an explanation for reality itself is akin to asking, "Why is there something rather than nothing?" It is an unanswerable question because reality just is. We can explain specific phenomena within reality—like why planets orbit stars—but explaining reality itself is nonsensical.
Some also worry about the inability to fully occupy another's context. I cannot see through your eyes or experience reality as you do, just as I cannot perceive the world as a bat does. However, this is more of a linguistic problem than a philosophical one. Context fragments differ inherently. To make my perception more like yours, I could eliminate differences. For instance, if you are colorblind and I am not, I could undergo surgery to mimic your condition. Similarly, I could modify my nose to resemble yours to share your view of the world more closely.
But even if I became a perfect clone of you down to the atom, I would still occupy a different spatial position than you, thus a different context. The only way to perfectly match your perception would be to overlap your position exactly. But if I remove all differences between us, then I would cease to be "me" and would instead become "you." The distinction between "you" and "me" would vanish entirely. It is, therefore, definitionally impossible for me to fully perceive reality from your perspective while remaining myself.
This leads to a broader concern: if reality exists as fragmented perspectives, and objects are socially constructed, aren't these fragments arbitrary? For instance, where does a mountain "begin" or "end"? Or when does a living organism "start" or "stop" existing? Friedrich Engels, in Dialectics of Nature, argued there are no "hard-and-fast lines" separating one object from another.
David Bohm suggested this is because objects are constructs, and the universe is actually a continuum with no inherent boundaries. Humans draw these boundaries for convenience, simplifying the world to make it intelligible. Bohm even explored creating a language without discrete objects. If discrete objects don’t exist, then perspectives (context frames) might be illusory, and reality would lack true separations.
However, Jocelyn Benoist offers an alternative. Rather than treating objects as illusions, he suggests it is a property of reality that it can be divided into an infinite number of discrete objects, each real within its own context.
An example clarifies this distinction. Imagine someone from another culture visits your home. They see a patterned carpet but don’t notice the specific design you value because it has cultural significance for you. Both Benoist and Bohm might agree that this cultural significance is socially constructed. But Bohm might argue that even the pattern itself as an object is not real—it’s a human mental creation. Benoist, on the other hand, would assert that the pattern is real, but the visitor suffers from concept blindness, preventing them from identifying the pattern in that context.
From Benoist's perspective, all meaningful ways to divide reality into objects have reality, and the context of each object defines its reality. Your context is what you experience now. My context is what I experience now. The rock's context exists too, even though we can’t directly ask it about its experience. But we can indirectly query it. For instance, we could attach a GoPro to a rock as it flows down a stream. Later, reviewing the footage, we observe the world from its perspective. If there were no reality from the rock's perspective, how could such a recording exist at all?
Of course, a recording is not the same as direct experience, just as asking a friend about their day is not the same as living it yourself. But if you argue that only personal experience validates reality, you would have to embrace solipsism—the idea that only your experiences are real. If solipsism is rejected, then records and observations of other perspectives must suffice to acknowledge their reality.
Modern philosophy often recognizes the reality of your perspective and mine but denies it for non-mammalian objects. This seems arbitrary. "To experience" simply means "to undergo something." I can experience hardship, and a rock can experience erosion. A thermometer can experience temperature changes. Critics might argue this trivializes the meaning of "experience," but direct realism dismisses such distinctions. There is a reality from a rock's context, even if it is one we cannot occupy. Denying this because we cannot occupy that context risks slipping into solipsism.
This perspective isn’t really a "theory of consciousness" because "consciousness" ceases to be relevant. Metaphysical realism, by treating what we perceive as a "non-real illusion" created by the brain, often mistakes direct realism for idealism. Direct realism denies this division. What we perceive is reality, and it is independent of "mind" or "consciousness." Our perception depends not on being observers, but on occupying a context, because reality only exists in terms of fragmented context frames. To perceive reality as it is is to perceive it from a particular perspective, because reality itself exists only in those terms.
Indeed, I would go as far as to say that this would mean "subjective experience" does not even make sense as a concept in this approach, because experience is reality as it really exists, so it seems a bit strange to call it "subjective." One rebuttal I have heard to this is that if reality depends upon context, and context fragments are tied to the perspective of objects, then "your perspective" only exists because you exist, so you can say it is dependent upon an observer and is subjective.
In a sense, yes, but we can also apply this same logic to say that "my house" must be subjective and observer-dependent because the object "my house" could not exist without me. If I didn't exist, there would still be other houses, but there would be no my house. Similarly, yes, if I didn't exist, my perspective would not exist, but usually when people call experience subjective or observer-dependent they mean that the very concept of experience is intrinsically tied to conscious subjects/observers in particular. If no conscious observer or subject existed, inanimate objects would still "undergo something," rocks would still experience erosion in the rain, for example, and there would still be a reality from the context of that object.
It is thus more meaningful to say that experience is context-dependent rather than to call it "observer-dependent" or "subjective." The former statement makes it clear that the properties of reality, as it really qualities of its existence, "what it is like to be," depends upon context and is not fundamentally tied to observers or subjects. Observers and subjects will perceive reality differently, but that is in spite of them being observers/subjects, not because of it.
In contextual realism, people who are searching to explain "emergence" or how this so-called "consciousness" "arises" are all ultimately barking up the wrong tree. The reality we perceive just is what it is. It does not emerge from anything, nor does anything "give rise to it." It just is.
-
Ansiktsburk
- Posts: 515
- Joined: Sat Nov 02, 2013 12:03 pm
- Location: Central Scandinavia
Re: Theories of Consciousness
Hey Amihart, isnt it still kinda strange that we do have a conciousness? That we do experience stuff? And that this conscience boils down to a single point that thinks, takes input from the senses and the memories and whatever and just like is there, as a kind of indivisible monad?
To me its kinda uninteresting what we experience, all discussions on ”reality” of what we experience to me kinda spins down to making the Hard problem easier. That bat, or another human for that matter, what makes it probable that it does have like a single point of consciousness? And not just a mishmash of parallel brain activities going on?
This singlepointishness is what always have fascinatined me and first time I read of the Hard problem I found Chalmers kinda nailing it.
Reading McGilchrist for the first time now, the brain halves doing this and that, there seems like a lot going on in parallel but it all boils down to that singe point of “me”, doesn’t it? And is that mystery so easy to get disposed of?
To me its kinda uninteresting what we experience, all discussions on ”reality” of what we experience to me kinda spins down to making the Hard problem easier. That bat, or another human for that matter, what makes it probable that it does have like a single point of consciousness? And not just a mishmash of parallel brain activities going on?
This singlepointishness is what always have fascinatined me and first time I read of the Hard problem I found Chalmers kinda nailing it.
Reading McGilchrist for the first time now, the brain halves doing this and that, there seems like a lot going on in parallel but it all boils down to that singe point of “me”, doesn’t it? And is that mystery so easy to get disposed of?
Re: Theories of Consciousness
I know this topic is old and sort of ran itself out after 3 weeks, but I just now see it and wasn't planning on reading it all.
I would call the 3 main options M, SD, and PD respectively, M for Monism since materialism is an unlikely subset of what I'll call scientific naturalism.
As an M person myself, I distinguish conscious process (the part you educate in a classroom) from subconscious process (the part you educate with practice). The latter is waaay more efficient and can to 6th order calculus problems in seconds that would take the inefficient conscious part probably half a day.
So anyway, for at least the substance dualists, or any one positing an afterlife, where does conscious thinking/pondering go on? In the physical part or the mental part? Same question with memory. Many people lose their memory near death, especially Alzheimer's victims. Does one get that back upon death, and if so, why isn't it accessible? What of all the other memories lost, including the bad ones, possibly suppressed?
When is the 'soul' assigned to a physical entity? Conception? What if said entity subsequently splits in two? That would mean that for identical twins, one of them is the original and the rest not. You say SD has low probability, but there's an awful lot of people who've bought into the afterlife story. Most of them don't actually attempt to rationalize the opinion, and I suppose we're confining the discussion to those that do.
For both PD and SD, are humans special in having access to this sort of thing? Regardless, do you deny evolution theory? If not, do all creatures have it, like say lichen or a virus? I suppose the panpsychists would say yes to that, but anybody that says not, there has to be a transition somewhere where a parent that operates in the physical way breeds a child that has access to the other way. For the SD case, this amounts to a sort of possession by a new thing with a will of its own, discarding everything evolution put there to have the being do the same task on its own. For the PD case I suppose it can be a gradual leverage of something that was always there but not used well or at all.
Anyway a66, if there are answers to any of this in the 10 pages, I didn't see them.
I would call the 3 main options M, SD, and PD respectively, M for Monism since materialism is an unlikely subset of what I'll call scientific naturalism.
How can anything not actually conscious experience an illusion? That seems self contradictory. I suspect you define the word differently than do I.anonymous66 wrote: ↑Sun Sep 22, 2024 9:17 pm Anyone else enjoy exploring the different theories of Consciousness? I'd like to be able to understand as many of them as I can.
For the most part, they can be broken down into 3 main theories.
Materialism - the mind is the brain (or created by the brain). Brain states=mind states. It appears that for this to be the case, consciousness itself would have to be some kind of illusion. I've read some Daniel Dennett - including Bacteria to Bach.
As an M person myself, I distinguish conscious process (the part you educate in a classroom) from subconscious process (the part you educate with practice). The latter is waaay more efficient and can to 6th order calculus problems in seconds that would take the inefficient conscious part probably half a day.
OK, I don't know enough about the dualism views to actually assert what they posit, but what they all have in common is a prediction of interaction between the substance or property, and normal physical effects. It can't work without that, so there has to be a structure somewhere sensitive to some cause that isn't a physical one. Sans finding such a thing, it all seem like bunk to me, but that's me. Every dualist I've seen (except Descartes) has hand waved it away, apparently letting it fall to 'magic'.Substance dualism - there are 2 types of stuff - mind stuff (or soul stuff) and physical stuff. This appears to be the least popular right now - but there are a few reputable philosophers (i.e. Richard Swinburne) who defend the idea. This is the traditional idea that humans have an immortal soul.
Property dualism - I tend to lump this in with panpsychism. Panpsychism is the idea that everything has some kind of consciousness. Property dualism is the idea that in addition to the "regular" physical attributes like mass and size, there also exist mental properties. In reality, one could accept that property dualism is the case, but reject panpsychism... but I don't think that one could accept panpsychism and reject property dualism. I've read Thomas Nagel, David Chalmers, and Galen Strawson.
So anyway, for at least the substance dualists, or any one positing an afterlife, where does conscious thinking/pondering go on? In the physical part or the mental part? Same question with memory. Many people lose their memory near death, especially Alzheimer's victims. Does one get that back upon death, and if so, why isn't it accessible? What of all the other memories lost, including the bad ones, possibly suppressed?
When is the 'soul' assigned to a physical entity? Conception? What if said entity subsequently splits in two? That would mean that for identical twins, one of them is the original and the rest not. You say SD has low probability, but there's an awful lot of people who've bought into the afterlife story. Most of them don't actually attempt to rationalize the opinion, and I suppose we're confining the discussion to those that do.
For both PD and SD, are humans special in having access to this sort of thing? Regardless, do you deny evolution theory? If not, do all creatures have it, like say lichen or a virus? I suppose the panpsychists would say yes to that, but anybody that says not, there has to be a transition somewhere where a parent that operates in the physical way breeds a child that has access to the other way. For the SD case, this amounts to a sort of possession by a new thing with a will of its own, discarding everything evolution put there to have the being do the same task on its own. For the PD case I suppose it can be a gradual leverage of something that was always there but not used well or at all.
Anyway a66, if there are answers to any of this in the 10 pages, I didn't see them.
Re: Theories of Consciousness
Indirect realism can indeed be dualistic, but there is no good reason for it to be. Not perceiving reality as it really is, by default only means that in your head there is a representation of the external world. But the representation and the external world are both parts of the "true" reality. You are experiencing a representational part of "true" reality right now.amihart wrote: ↑Sun Dec 15, 2024 6:47 am If what we perceive is not reality as it really is, then this "true" reality must necessarily lie outside of perception. It then becomes difficult to explain how a world completely devoid of perceptible properties—a world that is effectively entirely invisible—could suddenly give rise to the very visible perceptions we experience in a particular configuration.
The representation isn't an "illusion" in the sense that it doesn't exist. Instead it's a part of the spatiotemporal physical world like everything else.
"Context" is imo just another abstract concept that has zero ontological explanatory power fundamentally.
Last edited by Atla on Tue Dec 17, 2024 5:35 am, edited 1 time in total.
Re: Theories of Consciousness
If you have a distinction similar to the phenomenon-noumenon distinction, it does not make it any less dualistic to just say that both are "real." If you say that what we perceive is a "representation" then reality that is not a representation is still not perceptual. Unless you mean to say that the reality we perceive is both a representation and reality as it really is, but then that is just direct realism, and it means that reality is perceptual.Atla wrote: ↑Tue Dec 17, 2024 5:28 amNot perceiving reality as it really is, by default only means that in your head there is a representation of the external world. But the representation and the external world are both parts of the "true" reality. You are experiencing a representational part of "true" reality right now.
If reality is perceptual, then is it only beings with mammalian brains who experience things? If so, then perceptions/experience must only arise in the particular configuration of the human brain, and then it would be strongly emergent, which is logically dualist even if you say both parts are "real" or "physical," it would just be a change in name and not a change in meaning.
If the answer is "no," well, then I really do not know what route you are going down without you explaining further.
Well, that's just like, your opinion man."Context" is imo just another abstract concept that has zero ontological explanatory power fundamentally.
Re: Theories of Consciousness
Not sure about the point you're making. "You" are a part of that representation, it's not outside of you. There is no "I" outside the universe, perceiving the representation. Reality as a whole isn't perceptual.amihart wrote: ↑Tue Dec 17, 2024 5:35 am If you have a distinction similar to the phenomenon-noumenon distinction, it does not make it any less dualistic to just say that both are "real." If you say that what we perceive is a "representation" then reality that is not a representation is still not perceptual. Unless you mean to say that the reality we perceive is both a representation and reality as it really is, but then that is just direct realism, and it means that reality is perceptual.
If reality is perceptual, then is it only beings with mammalian brains who experience things? If so, then perceptions/experience must only arise in the particular configuration of the human brain, and then it would be strongly emergent, which is logically dualist even if you say both parts are "real" or "physical," it would just be a change in name and not a change in meaning.
If the answer is "no," well, then I really do not know what route you are going down without you explaining further.
Re: Theories of Consciousness
I meant "you" as in "you are saying/positing/arguing/claiming," I was not literally talking about your interpretation containing "you" as if you were making claims about the self.
To rephrase it...
"You" or "I" here is not relevant to this point. I am discussing perception/experience as a property of reality.If there is a distinction similar to the phenomenon-noumenon distinction, it does not make it any less dualistic to just say that both are "real." If perception is a "representation" then the reality that is not a representation is still not perceptual. Unless what is meant is that perception is both a representation and reality as it really is, but then that is just direct realism, and it means that reality is perceptual.
If reality is perceptual, then is it only beings with mammalian brains who experience things? If so, then perceptions/experience must only arise in the particular configuration of the human brain, and then it would be strongly emergent, which is logically dualist even if both parts are "real" or "physical," it would just be a change in name and not a change in meaning.
If the answer is "no," well, then I really do not know what route you are going down without you explaining further.
Where does the property of experience come from? How does a reality made of stuff that lacks the property of experience give rise to experience, in the qualitative sense, in the specific configuration of the mammalian brain?Reality as a whole isn't perceptual.
Re: Theories of Consciousness
The Occam's razor view is that the brain per se has nothing to do with experience. All of reality is experience. Experience is one and the same thing as stuff. Western civilization posits that there are two different things, stuff and experience, which view is probably completely insane.amihart wrote: ↑Tue Dec 17, 2024 6:20 amI meant "you" as in "you are saying/positing/arguing/claiming," I was not literally talking about your interpretation containing "you" as if you were making claims about the self.
To rephrase it...
"You" or "I" here is not relevant to this point. I am discussing perception/experience as a property of reality.If there is a distinction similar to the phenomenon-noumenon distinction, it does not make it any less dualistic to just say that both are "real." If perception is a "representation" then the reality that is not a representation is still not perceptual. Unless what is meant is that perception is both a representation and reality as it really is, but then that is just direct realism, and it means that reality is perceptual.
If reality is perceptual, then is it only beings with mammalian brains who experience things? If so, then perceptions/experience must only arise in the particular configuration of the human brain, and then it would be strongly emergent, which is logically dualist even if both parts are "real" or "physical," it would just be a change in name and not a change in meaning.
If the answer is "no," well, then I really do not know what route you are going down without you explaining further.
Where does the property of experience come from? How does a reality made of stuff that lacks the property of experience give rise to experience, in the qualitative sense, in the specific configuration of the mammalian brain?Reality as a whole isn't perceptual.
Re: Theories of Consciousness
Well, yes, but saying what we experience is directly equivalent to reality itself (not that reality and experience just correlate, or that somehow experience "creates" reality, but that reality and experience are just literally synonyms) is the definition of direct realism, which is my position. Yes, the overwhelmingly dominant position in western philosophy is that what we experience is not reality itself but something else, and this "something else" is popularly called "consciousness." That's precisely what I am critical of.Atla wrote: ↑Tue Dec 17, 2024 3:18 pmThe Occam's razor view is that the brain per se has nothing to do with experience. All of reality is experience. Experience is one and the same thing as stuff. Western civilization posits that there are two different things, stuff and experience, which view is probably completely insane.
If you take what we perceive to be reality itself, then you have to draw conclusions about reality based on the nature of how we perceive it. For example, Nagel draws a distinction between "reality" which is independent of a particular point of view, and what we experience, which clearly depends upon point of view. That is where Nagel sees a problem, because this would make experience separate from reality itself, so he concludes it is something unique to subjects, "mammalian brains."
However, if we take a direct realist approach, then we would just have to conclude that reality, as it really is, is just dependent upon point of view, i.e. reality is contextual. There is no reality independent of context, and so the division Nagel speaks of just doesn't exist. Direct realism does not make much sense without adopting some kind of contextualism, or something similar, like relationalism, or perspectivism. That's the reason why most of the major direct realist philosophers like Mach, Bogdanov, Benoist, and arguably Rovelli, all upheld/uphold some kind of notion of contextuality or relationality, because experience clearly depends upon perspective and so that has to be integral to your notion of reality if you are a direct realist.
There is no "consciousness," there is just reality, which is what we are immersed in and surrounds us every day. At least, if "consciousness" is meant in the sense that people like Chalmers use it. If you define consciousness in different terms, such as in terms of intelligence, that's a different topic, but one that would be less philosophical and more scientific. Consciousness in the sense of some product of the "mind" that is separate from reality itself and requires some additional explanation beyond the physical features and behavior of the brain (or at least would require some additional physics we have yet to discover), I do not believe in such a thing as I have not seen particularly good arguments for it.
Re: Theories of Consciousness
Sorry you are conflating representationalism with experience/stuff dualism. Denying experience/stuff dualism doesn't automatically mean direct realism at all.amihart wrote: ↑Tue Dec 17, 2024 5:52 pmWell, yes, but saying what we experience is directly equivalent to reality itself (not that reality and experience just correlate, or that somehow experience "creates" reality, but that reality and experience are just literally synonyms) is the definition of direct realism, which is my position. Yes, the overwhelmingly dominant position in western philosophy is that what we experience is not reality itself but something else, and this "something else" is popularly called "consciousness." That's precisely what I am critical of.Atla wrote: ↑Tue Dec 17, 2024 3:18 pmThe Occam's razor view is that the brain per se has nothing to do with experience. All of reality is experience. Experience is one and the same thing as stuff. Western civilization posits that there are two different things, stuff and experience, which view is probably completely insane.
If you take what we perceive to be reality itself, then you have to draw conclusions about reality based on the nature of how we perceive it. For example, Nagel draws a distinction between "reality" which is independent of a particular point of view, and what we experience, which clearly depends upon point of view. That is where Nagel sees a problem, because this would make experience separate from reality itself, so he concludes it is something unique to subjects, "mammalian brains."
However, if we take a direct realist approach, then we would just have to conclude that reality, as it really is, is just dependent upon point of view, i.e. reality is contextual. There is no reality independent of context, and so the division Nagel speaks of just doesn't exist. Direct realism does not make much sense without adopting some kind of contextualism, or something similar, like relationalism, or perspectivism. That's the reason why most of the major direct realist philosophers like Mach, Bogdanov, Benoist, and arguably Rovelli, all upheld/uphold some kind of notion of contextuality or relationality, because experience clearly depends upon perspective and so that has to be integral to your notion of reality if you are a direct realist.
There is no "consciousness," there is just reality, which is what we are immersed in and surrounds us every day. At least, if "consciousness" is meant in the sense that people like Chalmers use it. If you define consciousness in different terms, such as in terms of intelligence, that's a different topic, but one that would be less philosophical and more scientific. Consciousness in the sense of some product of the "mind" that is separate from reality itself and requires some additional explanation beyond the physical features and behavior of the brain (or at least would require some additional physics we have yet to discover), I do not believe in such a thing as I have not seen particularly good arguments for it.
Re: Theories of Consciousness
You don't understand the topic at hand. Equating experience to reality (not as mere correlations or as an analogy, but that they are literally being used as synonyms) is direct realism, and to deny this would require an enormous amount of mental gymnastics. Hence why you do not actually explain yourself but just hurl an accusation against me without any elaboration, because you know for a fact such a point cannot be elaborated on.
Anyways, I came here for a discussion, not accusation-flinging without any elaboration. That is clearly something you are not interested in, so I will end this conversation here from my end.
Re: Theories of Consciousness
No that's not what direct realism means. Look up the definition anywhere. Equating experience with reality doesn't tell us whether we perceive external objects directly or indirectly.amihart wrote: ↑Mon Dec 23, 2024 7:05 amYou don't understand the topic at hand. Equating experience to reality (not as mere correlations or as an analogy, but that they are literally being used as synonyms) is direct realism, and to deny this would require an enormous amount of mental gymnastics. Hence why you do not actually explain yourself but just hurl an accusation against me without any elaboration, because you know for a fact such a point cannot be elaborated on.
Anyways, I came here for a discussion, not accusation-flinging without any elaboration. That is clearly something you are not interested in, so I will end this conversation here from my end.
Direct Realism: we can directly perceive ordinary objects.
Direct realism is the view that: The external world exists independently of the mind (hence, realism). And we perceive the external world directly (hence, direct).
Direct realism postulates that conscious subjects view the world directly, treating concepts as a 1:1 correspondence.
Maybe you equate "experience" with "my personal subjective experience".