Philosophy Now Forum

Our philosophical science correspondent Massimo Pigliucci asks.

https://philosophynow.org/issues/99/What_Hard_Problem

Philosophy Now wrote:Our philosophical science correspondent Massimo Pigliucci asks.

https://philosophynow.org/issues/99/What_Hard_Problem

I certainly do not see any problem here.

Consciousness just is. It only becomes a problem, hard or soft, when the consciousness of the observer has a preference for no consciousness. And that doesn't occur until the consciousness is created, future preference be damned.

The writer is focused on function and not the actual sense of being.

I never agreed with Dan Dennett's views in this either. It's just a whitewash because there are unknowns.

Greta wrote:The writer is focused on function and not the actual sense of being.

I never agreed with Dan Dennett's views in this either. It's just a whitewash because there are unknowns.

Too many unknowns. And because we look from the standpoint of consciousness, it's impossible to understand the whole, being a part of it. That's why I just accept consciousness as a starting point of pretty much everything we are, without getting weighed down by its details. It really just is.

Dalek Prime wrote:

Greta wrote:The writer is focused on function and not the actual sense of being.

I never agreed with Dan Dennett's views in this either. It's just a whitewash because there are unknowns.

Too many unknowns. And because we look from the standpoint of consciousness, it's impossible to understand the whole, being a part of it. That's why I just accept consciousness as a starting point of pretty much everything we are, without getting weighed down by its details. It really just is.

Yes, we still have unknowns, although I'm glad for all attempts to learn more, even if ultimately futile. You have no doubt already noticed that doing ultimately futile things seems to be what being an organism is all about :) We organisms participate in material reality in more or less the same way as inanimate objects - we all break down, break other things down and either rebuild or are rebuilt by something larger - just that biology does it more quickly and with more local order and nonlocal disorder. And we care about it.

I enjoy the observation of a straight materialist narrative but, as you say, it can't be complete. Many of advocates (especially amateurs) seem inclined to treat the materialist story as the gospel truth, which I guess is inevitable.

Why phenomenal consciousness exists is a typical question for evolutionary biology.

Wrong. No other question for evolutionary biology deals with a property that is other than a form of loco motion.

Consciousness is a biological phenomenon, like blood circulation,

"Circulation" is by definition the locomotion of blood. "Consciousness" is by definition awareness.

It is true that "its appearance in a certain lineage of hominids seems to be squarely a matter for evolutionary biologists to consider" but it is not true that it is a typical problem.

(they also have a very nice story to tell about the evolution of the heart).

The heart is just a pump. False analogy. Deals with the locomotion of matter.

If you were asking how the heart works, you’d be turning to anatomy and molecular biology, and I see no reason things should be different in the case of consciousness.

Because it is not trying to explain how some matter moves.

But what it is like is an experience

Exactly. What must be explained is how physical material can do something other than move.

– which means that it makes no sense to ask how and why it is possible in any other senses but the ones just discussed.

It makes sense to define for an arbitrary configuration of matter whether and what it is experiencing

Of course an explanation isn’t the same as an experience,
but that’s because the two are completely independent categories, like colors and triangles.

So the explanation is not what is being explained. But there is no category error because the required novelty in the explanation is required by what is being explained.

Newton''s law of gravity could not be explained by his law of inertia. Should we argue that he commited a category error because any explanation of gravity is not gravity itself?

You do not need to know what it is like for me to see blue to explain what material conditions cause what it is like for me to see blue but you must know that there is something that it is like for me to see blue and that that you do not know it even if you know what material conditions cause it.

A blind man may know what causes sight but makes a mistake if he thinks that what he understands is seeing.

Very late to the party but just wanted to add that I've rarely read a worse article on consciousness, and the competition is fierce. He seems to have as much understanding of consciousness as he does of Stoicism. Note that he does not even mention metaphysics and assumes that thirty centuries of research by the mystics, who do little else but study consciousness, can be safely ignored as tosh. He gives no evidence that he's even bothered to study the relevant literature. Poor scholarship at its best.

I cannot grasp how such articles are approved for publication, and certainly not in a philosophy journal. An example of scientism at its worst. Not a good way to attract subscribers.

Philosophical hard problems aren't the problem... the scientific hard problems are the problem. For instance the hard problem of consciousness is a pseudo-problem derived philosophically from a misunderstanding of language... while the hard problem in my pants is not just a linguistical problem but a very real empirical problem belonging to the natural sciences.

promethean75 wrote: ↑Mon Jan 30, 2023 6:17 pm while the hard problem in my pants is not just a linguistical problem but a very real empirical problem belonging to the natural sciences.

This seems like an invitation to solve the hard problem in your pants...

PeteJ wrote: ↑Mon Jan 30, 2023 3:41 pm Very late to the party but just wanted to add that I've rarely read a worse article on consciousness, and the competition is fierce. He seems to have as much understanding of consciousness as he does of Stoicism. Note that he does not even mention metaphysics and assumes that thirty centuries of research by the mystics, who do little else but study consciousness, can be safely ignored as tosh. He gives no evidence that he's even bothered to study the relevant literature. Poor scholarship at its best.

I cannot grasp how such articles are approved for publication, and certainly not in a philosophy journal. An example of scientism at its worst. Not a good way to attract subscribers.

I agree. Although Pigliucci did refute the notions of Dennett (it is an illusion) and Churchill (it is brain processing). He agreed with Searle that it is real. Both see it as a biological process, without any real evidence to support that view.

It appears to be the case that if you do not know what it is then just go with your bias. That stance neither fulfills the requirements of science nor of philosophy.

owl of Minerva wrote: ↑Mon Jan 30, 2023 7:08 pm I agree. Although Pigliucci did refute the notions of Dennett (it is an illusion) and Churchill (it is brain processing). He agreed with Searle that it is real. Both see it as a biological process, without any real evidence to support that view.

It appears to be the case that if you do not know what it is then just go with your bias. That stance neither fulfills the requirements of science nor of philosophy.

If it's a physical process of any kind then it's computational.

So.. what hard problem?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Process_calculus

The "hard problem" revolves for me around taking whatever technical -- logical, epistemological -- conclusions you arrive at here "down to Earth" and in regard to "phenomenological interactions" precipitating conflicts pertaining to moral and political value judgments, distinguishing between things we are all conscious of in the same way and things we are always disputing.

Being conscious of abortion as a medical procedure vs. being conscious of abortion as a moral conflagration.

Which problem is harder here?

Consciousness is a biological phenomenon

Says the article author. But how does he know this? IOW how does he know it is restricted to those parts of matter that biology studies. He doesn't. So, things get easy when you just state stuff.

I'm not thrilled with his colors adn triangles analogy.

Of course an explanation isn’t the same as an experience, but that’s because the two are completely independent categories, like colors and triangles

.
We can perceive both of those things. But the interesting thing about other consciousnesses is that we cannot experience them. Cannot observe them. And it seems he thinks it is simply not possible. Setting aside how he would know that, where did this unobservable process/thing called consciousness come from? How is it different from other phenomena or why cannot it not be experienced by others, even via mediating devices, like pretty much every other thing that science studies?

And how does he know this....

Consciousness as we have been discussing it is a biological process, explained by neurobiological and other cognitive mechanisms, and whose raison d’etre can in principle be accounted for on evolutionary grounds. To be sure, it is still largely mysterious, but (contra Dennett and Churchland) it is no mere illusion (it’s too metabolically expensive,

If we don't know the mechanism for it, how it forms, we cannot estimate the metabolical expense.

Thigns become easy if you make assumptions you don't realize you are making and just assert stuff.

Skepdick wrote: ↑Mon Jan 30, 2023 7:20 pm

owl of Minerva wrote: ↑Mon Jan 30, 2023 7:08 pm I agree. Although Pigliucci did refute the notions of Dennett (it is an illusion) and Churchill (it is brain processing). He agreed with Searle that it is real. Both see it as a biological process, without any real evidence to support that view.

It appears to be the case that if you do not know what it is then just go with your bias. That stance neither fulfills the requirements of science nor of philosophy.

If it's a physical process of any kind then it's computational.

So.. what hard problem?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Process_calculus

The Wikipedia doc. is technical jargon to anyone not in that field. If the physical is computational so be it. It does not solve the problem of what consciousness is unless it can be computed and it is hard to imagine awareness or intellect as computational. It is intangible unlike physical processes.

Hence the hard problem.