Philosophy Now Forum

RogerSH wrote: ↑Sat Aug 28, 2021 12:00 am However, there is a major caveat. Consciousness is unique in being the means by which explanations are understood, which makes certain kinds of explanation inapplicable.

The output of an objective theory is necessarily objective,

. . . so that to seek a direct explanation of “what consciousness feels like” is a confusion of categories. Nevertheless, consciousness has many objective attributes, such as the capabilities it provides,

RCSaunders wrote: ↑Fri Sep 03, 2021 4:34 pm

Sculptor wrote: ↑Fri Sep 03, 2021 3:22 pm

RogerSH wrote: ↑Sat Aug 28, 2021 12:00 am Almost all of science - all except for the physics of space-time and fundamental particles - deals with “emergent” entities and properties, but the significance of this concept is, it seems to me, often misrepresented or misunderstood. Here is a brief summary of what I think are the key points, and the relevance for the suggestion of emergence as an “explanation” of consciousness.

Congratualtions - now all you will have to do is EXPLAIN emergence.
When you disappear up your own omphalos, please consider that all you are actuall doing is using emergence to DESCRIBE consciousness.

There are no explanations, except in the case of intentionality. Thus, I can explain my actions. For everything else there is only description; a system of metaphors to describe other metaphors.

I agree that all concepts for that which is not directly perceived is largely metaphors and analogies, but it can't all be metaphor, can it? It has to start somewhere.

RogerSH wrote: ↑Sat Aug 28, 2021 12:00 am Almost all of science - all except for the physics of space-time and fundamental particles - deals with “emergent” entities and properties, but the significance of this concept is, it seems to me, often misrepresented or misunderstood. Here is a brief summary of what I think are the key points, and the relevance for the suggestion of emergence as an “explanation” of consciousness....

RCSaunders speaking to RogerHS wrote: ↑Thu Sep 02, 2021 8:42 pm Questions like, "why is there something rather than nothing," or yours, "why is there consciousness," are based on an assumption that things like existence, life, and consciousness, are contingent on something. Without that assumption there is no basis for the question. What is certain is that there is existence, there is life, and there is consciousness else there would be nothing aware of existence. What is, just is. It does not require some explanation.

RCSaunders wrote: ↑Thu Sep 02, 2021 8:42 pm If you assume there must be an expanation for everything you meet an endless regress. Whatever you provide as the explanation becomes the basis for the next question, "what is the explanation for that."

Sculptor wrote: ↑Fri Sep 03, 2021 6:41 pm

RCSaunders wrote: ↑Fri Sep 03, 2021 4:34 pm

Sculptor wrote: ↑Fri Sep 03, 2021 3:22 pm

Congratualtions - now all you will have to do is EXPLAIN emergence.
When you disappear up your own omphalos, please consider that all you are actuall doing is using emergence to DESCRIBE consciousness.

There are no explanations, except in the case of intentionality. Thus, I can explain my actions. For everything else there is only description; a system of metaphors to describe other metaphors.

I agree that all concepts for that which is not directly perceived is largely metaphors and analogies, but it can't all be metaphor, can it? It has to start somewhere.

Please state the "it" in the last sentence! What is that "it", exactly?
It is s ure sign of a breakdown in description when we resort to "it"; the generalised and indefineable descriptor.

RCSaunders wrote: ↑Sat Sep 04, 2021 12:41 am

Sculptor wrote: ↑Fri Sep 03, 2021 6:41 pm

RCSaunders wrote: ↑Fri Sep 03, 2021 4:34 pm
I agree that all concepts for that which is not directly perceived is largely metaphors and analogies, but it can't all be metaphor, can it? It has to start somewhere.

Please state the "it" in the last sentence! What is that "it", exactly?
It is s ure sign of a breakdown in description when we resort to "it"; the generalised and indefineable descriptor.

Sorry. "It," refers to the, "everything else," in your sentence: "For everything else there is only description; a system of metaphors to describe other metaphors."

Sculptor wrote: ↑Sat Sep 04, 2021 10:35 am

RCSaunders wrote: ↑Sat Sep 04, 2021 12:41 am

Sculptor wrote: ↑Fri Sep 03, 2021 6:41 pm

Please state the "it" in the last sentence! What is that "it", exactly?
It is s ure sign of a breakdown in description when we resort to "it"; the generalised and indefineable descriptor.

Sorry. "It," refers to the, "everything else," in your sentence: "For everything else there is only description; a system of metaphors to describe other metaphors."

Well indeed.
If you have an example of a true "explanation" for a natural phenomenon perhaps we can chew it over. But eventually the why questions can only end in a description. of what is the case. And whilst some things look like explanation in the end they just decribe the universe we live in.
Perhaps you want to start with an example?

RogerSH wrote: ↑Sat Aug 28, 2021 12:00 am Almost all of science - all except for the physics of space-time and fundamental particles - deals with “emergent” entities and properties, but the significance of this concept is, it seems to me, often misrepresented or misunderstood. Here is a brief summary of what I think are the key points, and the relevance for the suggestion of emergence as an “explanation” of consciousness.

The natural world largely consists of a hierarchy of things made up of smaller things – take for example: a foam made up of, in turn, soap bubbles, liquid films, molecules, atoms, nuclei & electrons, protons & neutrons, quarks….

A key observation is that the rules of behaviour at each level may be entirely and often strikingly different from those at the level below. Indeed, in general there is a sense (to be described next) in which the higher level behaviour cannot even be strictly derived from that of the lower level. This is what is meant when the higher level behaviour is described as “emergent”: it “emerges” as a novel attribute from the assembly of the elements. Another key observation is that the actual nature of the ingredients is often of secondary importance; it is their arrangement that dominates the higher level behaviour. Many different liquids make very similar bubbles.

The behaviour of any single instance of a higher level assembly – such as a particular soap bubble at a particular instant - can, evidently, be derived in principle from the behaviour of all the elements acting together, even though in practice the simultaneous solution of trillions of equations describing the interaction of each pair of molecules is something that one would never attempt. However, when we turn from a single instance to a type, we are by definition eliminating the distinction between one instance and another, a process of approximation known to scientists as “coarse-graining”, and this is why higher level behaviour of types cannot be derived just from lower level behaviour. There also needs to be an informed guess as to how to approximate that behaviour – the next thing to be considered.

In practice, the rules of higher level behaviour can be found in one of two ways. One is to observe many cases, either of the real thing or of a simulation, to form hypotheses about the rules, and to test the hypotheses under enough different conditions to provide adequate corroboration. This doesn’t properly serve as an “explanation”, though. The other method is to guess how to approximate the rules of the lower level (which themselves will usually be approximations, of course) in such a way that higher levels rules can be derived by a mathematical analysis. Thus in the case of a soap bubble, approximations to the rules of intermolecular attraction enable the phenomena of thin-film stability and surface tension to be derived, and then with further approximations and a theorem of solid geometry, the phenomena of spherical bubbles can be predicted. Given that this phenomenon is observed, the guessed approximations may be presumed to be sound. This counts as a true “explanation”. In practice, most scientific knowledge is a hybrid of these two approaches. For example, crystallography convincingly explains many of the characteristics of metal fatigue – the emergent behaviour of assemblies of flawed crystals – but numerous tests are needed to provide the actual data on which statistical fatigue life prediction depends.

Emergence is not at all the same as evolution (since it applies equally to inanimate entities such as bubbles), although the potency of emergence does explain the enormous plethora of novel types of entity that have emerged in the living world, and natural selection then explains how many of them have come to endure. In recent years in such fields as microbiology, quite extraordinary and wholly unforeseeable behaviours of complex molecules have been discovered, and substantially explained by their extraordinarily complex molecular structure.

Many emergent entities (even soap bubbles) can be described as “self-organising” structures, a phenomenon that reveals the limits of “toppling domino” models of causality which disregard the hierarchic nature of the material world. A self-organising structure that emerges behaves like an initial cause at its own level in the hierarchy.

How does all this apply to the phenomena of consciousness? The fact that the brain is the most complex and dynamic compact structure known to science shows that there is scope for a hierarchy of structures of logical relationship to form that has far more levels even than that of a single cell, and with each level introducing new types of structure with new kinds of behaviour, it would be sheer stupidity to rule out any kind of behaviour as a priori “inexplicable” on such a basis merely because we haven’t the imagination to guess what the explanation might be.

However, there is a major caveat. Consciousness is unique in being the means by which explanations are understood, which makes certain kinds of explanation inapplicable. The output of an objective theory is necessarily objective, so that to seek a direct explanation of “what consciousness feels like” is a confusion of categories. Nevertheless, consciousness has many objective attributes, such as the capabilities it provides, so continuing the search for emergent structures that explain these attributes is an entirely rational way to proceed.

seeds wrote: ↑Fri Sep 03, 2021 9:31 pm

RCSaunders speaking to RogerHS wrote: ↑Thu Sep 02, 2021 8:42 pm Questions like, "why is there something rather than nothing," or yours, "why is there consciousness," are based on an assumption that things like existence, life, and consciousness, are contingent on something. Without that assumption there is no basis for the question. What is certain is that there is existence, there is life, and there is consciousness else there would be nothing aware of existence. What is, just is. It does not require some explanation.

The bolded part is pure and total nonsense.

Those are the words of someone who, because he has personally tried and failed to discover the answers to the deepest mysteries of reality, has simply "given up" (surrendered/waved the white flag) and declared the mission to be unnecessary.

RCSaunders wrote: ↑Thu Sep 02, 2021 8:42 pm If you assume there must be an explanation for everything you meet an endless regress. Whatever you provide as the explanation becomes the basis for the next question, "what is the explanation for that."

So what?

To me, that's no excuse for assuming that explanations literally do not exist in any context whatsoever.

Due to its extremely limited level of consciousness, it is impossible for an amoeba, for example, to understand the reason for the existence of the petri dish that contains it. Yet, clearly, the explanation for the dish resides in the higher context of the humans who created it.

And the point is that humans are in a similar situation as amoebas, in that we are simply not conscious enough to understand the true nature and reason for the existence of this "petri dish" we call a universe, and that there is no doubt a higher context of reality in which the explanation resides.

The bottom line is that "somewhere" within the context of the "All-That-Is" there exists an explanation for literally everything, including not only what consciousness is, but why there is something rather than nothing (which I deem to be the biggest mystery of all).

RCSaunders wrote: ↑Sat Sep 04, 2021 12:00 pm

Sculptor wrote: ↑Sat Sep 04, 2021 10:35 am

RCSaunders wrote: ↑Sat Sep 04, 2021 12:41 am
Sorry. "It," refers to the, "everything else," in your sentence: "For everything else there is only description; a system of metaphors to describe other metaphors."

Well indeed.
If you have an example of a true "explanation" for a natural phenomenon perhaps we can chew it over. But eventually the why questions can only end in a description. of what is the case. And whilst some things look like explanation in the end they just decribe the universe we live in.
Perhaps you want to start with an example?

Well, OK. I was not getting on your case. You were making a point that I have always made, that language is largely metaphor and analogy, because everything beyond what we are directly conscious of must be described in terms of what we can be directly conscious of.

Your original statement was about, "description," but now you are using the word, "explanation." If what you meant by, "description," was actually, "explanation," I agree.

Referring to description, when I use the words, "in," "on," "near," or, "heavy," for example, I can actually see things which are "in," the house, "on," the stove, "near the window, and, "feel," heavy, but most of my use of such terms are by analogy, as "in that case," "on further consideration," "the number nearest six," and, "a heavy atmosphere." Most scientific descriptions or totally metaphorical from atoms and sub-atomic particles, to concepts like fields and electromagnetic waves. I was just making the point that while light is described both as a, "particle," (photon) and a wave (lightwave), those analogies only work because I've seen actual physical particles and waves of water and vibrations in strings. One of the problems with most people's understanding of science is to confuse the metaphorical descriptions of science with physical facts.

Sculptor wrote: ↑Sat Sep 04, 2021 9:32 pm No. I am using the terms very clearly. Science is descriptive.

I didn't mean to imply you weren't clear. I just didn't which you meant. I agree that science is descriptive.

Sculptor wrote: ↑Sat Sep 04, 2021 9:32 pm
In the case above we have "emergence" which is not actually a reducible scientific phenomenon; but an abstraction, a way of describing what we feel might be an underlying phenomenon, and then this is used to "explain" the hard problem of consciousness?
It's all a bit too convenient.

I was not referring to any of that, only the use of metaphor in concepts for what is not tangible, demonstrable, or palpable.

seeds wrote: ↑Fri Sep 03, 2021 9:31 pm The bottom line is that "somewhere" within the context of the "All-That-Is" there exists an explanation for literally everything, including not only what consciousness is, but why there is something rather than nothing (which I deem to be the biggest mystery of all).

RCSaunders wrote: ↑Sat Sep 04, 2021 1:46 pm While not the biggest mystery, one that has always interested me is why any sane person (unless their mind is corrupted by some academic philosophy or religion) could possibly entertain that question. To both our consciousness and to reason, there is no alternative to existence...

RCSaunders wrote: ↑Sat Sep 04, 2021 1:46 pm ...I'm only explaining why I regard such questions as, "why is there something rather than nothing," and, "why is there consciousness," absurd.

• 1. How and from what source did the "eternal somethingness" acquire its being and properties?

• 2. Why are the properties of the "eternal somethingness" so amenable to being shaped into pretty much anything imaginable - as is witnessed in the near infinite phenomenal features of the universe?

• 3. How did the "eternal somethingness" manage to "wake up"? In other words, how did it manage to organize its constituent properties in such a way that would allow consciousness to "emerge" from the fabric of the "eternal somethingness" - especially if that consciousness might have been an initial Creator Being who then brought order to the "eternal somethingness"?

seeds wrote: ↑Sun Sep 05, 2021 9:12 pm What do you mean there's no alternative to existence? Obviously, the alternative would be the "non-existence" (of anything whatsoever).

RCSaunders wrote: ↑Sun Sep 05, 2021 10:26 pm

seeds wrote: ↑Sun Sep 05, 2021 9:12 pm What do you mean there's no alternative to existence? Obviously, the alternative would be the "non-existence" (of anything whatsoever).

To, "be," means, "to exist." "Non-existence," means to, "not be." If something does not exist, it cannot be, else it would exist. Therefore non-existence cannot be.

What you just said, ala circumlocution, is, "existence does not exist."

The denial of existence is a kind of insanity. Existence exists and it cannot be any other way, else you would have make the contradictory assertion you made, that, "existence does not exist." There is no alternative to existence.

"To be," means, "to be something." "Nothing," cannot be.