Philosophy Now Forum

bahman wrote:
You are wrong. The same set of laws explain fluid as it can explain solid. That is why it is called laws of nature.

I think you would better understand what is going on by accepting that nature does not follow "laws'.
Natural Laws are a human device used to describe nature. Once you understand that, reality becomes more clear.
Otherwise you are putting the cart before the horse.

bahman wrote:I just divide state of matter, a person for example, into two parts, namely body, S, and mind, C. Let me know if things is clear now.

Great. The S' = L(S) is then false. In fact, S' = L(M), and your problem with physicalism goes away.

Conde Lucanor wrote: Nope. This does not work like Moses coming down from the mountain saying: "here they are, the laws of nature". There are general laws that apply to the world as a whole, but in order to understand the causes of specific events in nature, scientists most come up with specific principles related to those systems, even though many principles can be derived from others. Knowing your Pascal's law of fluid mechanics won't be of much help when designing an electrical circuit, where Ohm's law becomes handy. And none of them will be of much help when studying the mating habits of butterflies, as many other variables come in place and make the systems more complex. In general, mechanical systems are more closed and deterministic, therefore more predictable. Biological systems are more open and less deterministic, therefore less predictable. All those complexities of causes and effects in the world can be put under the general concept of "laws of nature", but that's about it, a general concept, not one general law.

The Ohm's law and Pascal's law can be derive from basic laws of nature in microscopic scale considering that we are dealing with many particles. You need to read a little about condensed matter physics to see how the behavior of a system in macroscopic scale can be derive from laws of nature in microscopic scale. In reality you have bunch of electrons, protons and neutrons which interact with each other.

bahman wrote:

Conde Lucanor wrote: Indeed, humans belong to a specific biological system, where both determinism and indeterminism applies. Humans experience the world and make choices about courses of actions. That is not against the notion of the world and we being material, physical entities.

Laws of nature is deterministic. What do you mean with indeterminism?

Noax wrote: Sorry, I'm not. What is the difference between the M complete state of matter and S, the 'state of matter'. The wording implies S is not complete, but after half a dozen askings of that question, you will not state that. Exactly what is S the state of if not matter? If S is not complete, then S' is not a function only of S. So S'=L(S) is wrong. S'=L(M) would be better.

S could be state of your body for example where as C could be state of your mind so at each time you have a set of state, S and C, which can give rise to another set of state, S' and C', by a set of operators, L and P, such that S'=L(S) and C'=P(S).

Hobbes' Choice wrote: I think you would better understand what is going on by accepting that nature does not follow "laws'.

Nature follows laws of nature. That is all physics about.

Hobbes' Choice wrote: Natural Laws are a human device used to describe nature. Once you understand that, reality becomes more clear.

So you are contradicting what you state earlier.

bahman wrote:

Hobbes' Choice wrote: I think you would better understand what is going on by accepting that nature does not follow "laws'.

Nature follows laws of nature. That is all physics about.

Hobbes' Choice wrote: Natural Laws are a human device used to describe nature. Once you understand that, reality becomes more clear.

So you are contradicting what you state earlier.

That's the point. You don't know what you are talking about.
Nature is nature.
Laws are human constructions. Nature does not follow laws. Nature IS, and humans talk about it. Laws are that discussion. 90% of natural law has been show to be wrong. All that time nature was not following those laws; laws mimic nature.

If you think I AM contradicting myself, then you need to re-read what I said buddy.

Hobbes' Choice wrote: ...90% of natural law has been show to be wrong...

That is not true. All physicists are doing vain if your claim was true.

bahman wrote:Materialism is a system of belief which claims that everything is constituted of matter and any motion of matter can be described by laws of nature. In close form, S'=L(S), where S is the initial state, S' is final state and L is laws of nature. There is however an anomaly in this system of view so called consciousness, C, which is simply the awareness of surrounding. C is simply the expectation of what S' should be. Materialist believe that C can be derived from S by the following equation C=P(S) where P is the act of experience. There is however no reason to believe that there exist a relation between C and S' in this framework. We however always observe a fantastic correlation between what we expect to happen, C, and what happens, S'. This means that we are dealing with a logically impossible situation since C could be anything.

Your thought?

I think you're onto something here. How does consciousness emerge out of inert matter? How can a non-living entity suddenly become conscious? It's very weird.

Let's take the evolutionary story. Once upon a time, there was nothing in this universe that had any life. Somehow, chemicals appeared, such as hydrogen and helium. Maybe quark-gluon plasma, too. Anyway, for some reason, they exploded, producing a thing we call "The Big Bang." But there's no life. None. Zero. Just chemicals and random energy. Nothing is conscious.

So when did the consciousness bit begin? It can't have been prior to the coming together of amino acids, because they're the basic building blocks of life. But even amino acids are not life, and are not conscious. They're just "building blocks," so to speak. Still no consciousness exist.

Somehow the amino acids got together and had an amino acid party, forming a single-celled animal. Was that when consciousness appeared? If so, how did it suddenly appear? What material quantity or chemical process transformed totally inert chemicals and energy into an aware being? And if the jump to consciousness came later, when and why did it happen? What was its real cause?

Nobody knows, at present. And in fact, the desire to know is a later product of this strange thing we call "consciousness," for which we have no account.

At one time the universe was as dead as a rock. Later, it was filled with conscious beings. Now, if I started to claim I had a rock that had suddenly become aware of its existence, people would call me completely batty. And yet that's how the story seems to go.

How?

Immanuel Can wrote:I think you're onto something here. How does consciousness emerge out of inert matter?

If you're using "inert" in the sense of "chemically reactive," only some matter is inert.

If you're using "inert" in the sense of whether something is in motion/has energy, all matter is not inert.

If you're using "inert" to hint at "not living," that would be question-begging in context.

Consciousness is a property of at least a particular combination of matter, in a particular structure, undergoing particular processes--namely, human brains, in normal, living humans.

It seems reasonable to believe that it would be a property of similar combinations of matter, in similar structures, undergoing similar processes, too--namely, the brains of other normal, living animals when those brains are relatively close in structure etc. to human brains.

In general, by the way, it's not at all unusual for particular combinations of matter, in particular structures, etc. to have unique properties. That's the whole basis of using particular materials for particular tasks, after all. Because those particular materials have properties that other materials do not have.

Terrapin Station wrote:

Immanuel Can wrote:I think you're onto something here. How does consciousness emerge out of inert matter?

If you're using "inert" in the sense of "chemically reactive," only some matter is inert.

If you're using "inert" in the sense of whether something is in motion/has energy, all matter is not inert.

If you're using "inert" to hint at "not living," that would be question-begging in context.

Consciousness is a property of at least a particular combination of matter, in a particular structure, undergoing particular processes--namely, human brains, in normal, living humans.

It seems reasonable to believe that it would be a property of similar combinations of matter, in similar structures, undergoing similar processes, too--namely, the brains of other normal, living animals when those brains are relatively close in structure etc. to human brains.

In general, by the way, it's not at all unusual for particular combinations of matter, in particular structures, etc. to have unique properties. That's the whole basis of using particular materials for particular tasks, after all. Because those particular materials have properties that other materials do not have.

Not at all. What's clear from the story is that at one time...put it as early as you like...everything was, in any necessary sense you want to quote, "inert."

Today, everything is very far from "inert" -- and with this transformation has appeared the ubiquitous phenomenon we call "consciousness."

Describe that line any way you like, and you arrive at the same problem. Either you have to deny that "consciousness" really exists -- which is absurd, given that one must perform cognition to make the denial -- or you have to think it was always there...that the deep secret behind everything that is going on is an Intelligence. And if neither of those routes appeals to you, then it seems to me that you are saying a non-consciousness-containing pre-universe somehow came to contain consciousness. And if you do that, then you owe it to explain how we can regard such a theory as sensible.

In other words, at which stage did "consciousness" emerge, why then, and how did it happen?

Immanuel Can wrote:Not at all. What's clear from the story is that at one time...put it as early as you like...everything was, in any necessary sense you want to quote, "inert."

What story are you talking about, exactly?

Terrapin Station wrote:

Immanuel Can wrote:Not at all. What's clear from the story is that at one time...put it as early as you like...everything was, in any necessary sense you want to quote, "inert."

What story are you talking about, exactly?

It's as listed above. Some story like it must lurk behind any evolutionary explanation of the origin of the universe, though in my experience all tellers of the story want to start at the moment after all the essential elements of self-replicating DNA and so forth are already in place. They don't want to talk about what happened before that, at least in terms of evolution, because evolution -- like consciousness -- can't even get started without those elements being in place already.

Immanuel Can wrote:

Terrapin Station wrote:

Immanuel Can wrote:Not at all. What's clear from the story is that at one time...put it as early as you like...everything was, in any necessary sense you want to quote, "inert."

What story are you talking about, exactly?

It's as listed above. Some story like it must lurk behind any evolutionary explanation of the origin of the universe, though in my experience all tellers of the story want to start at the moment after all the essential elements of self-replicating DNA and so forth are already in place. They don't want to talk about what happened before that, at least in terms of evolution, because evolution -- like consciousness -- can't even get started without those elements being in place already.

Wait--so then you're using "inert" in the sense of it referring to life/consciousness? Again, that would be question-begging, because you're assuming that (or at least hinting at/appealing to an "intuition" that) matter can't amount to life/consciousness.

Terrapin Station wrote:Wait--so then you're using "inert" in the sense of it referring to life/consciousness? Again, that would be question-begging, because you're assuming that (or at least hinting at/appealing to an "intuition" that) matter can't amount to life/consciousness.

No, I'm not "question begging"; I'm question posing. I'm asking, not telling.

In so doing, I'm not assuming anything that the evolutionary story does not itself take for granted. I'm only asking how the story of consciousness can make sense in the very same terms the evolution story takes for granted.

Immanuel Can wrote:No, I'm not "question begging"; I'm question posing. I'm asking, not telling.

It's question-begging (which I'm instructing you, by the way--not asking you) because the question is asked with an implication that life and/or consciousness can't simply be a property of matter. In fact, the very sense you're using of "inert" is question-begging in context. You're describing matter as "inert" where you mean "not conscious" (at least), and you're framing it as if you're asking how "inert matter" could amount to consciousness . . . and then now you're pretending that you're not assuming that it can't, despite using the term "inert" in the way you're using it.

I'm only asking how the story of consciousness can make sense in the very same terms the evolution story takes for granted.

That's extremely vague, but it makes sense because consciousness is (at least) a property of brains. There's no difficulty in accounting for how brains developed evolutionarily.