this post was submitted on 16 Nov 2024
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I strongly disagree with that. Our brains construct models of the world that they are themselves a part of. The recursive nature of the mind creating a model of itself in order to reason about itself is very likely what we perceive as consciousness. These constructs form the basis for the patterns of thought that underpin our conscious experience. The neurons, with their inherent complexity, serve merely as a substrate upon which these patterns are expressed.
The same concept is mirrored in the realm of computing. The physical complexity of transistors within a silicon chip plays no direct role in the functioning of programs that it executes. Consider virtual machines: these software constructs faithfully emulate the operation of a computer system, down to the instruction set and operating system, without replicating the internal details of the underlying silicon substrate. The heart of computation resides not in the physical properties of transistors but in the algorithms they compute.
This notion is further underscored by the fact that the same computational architecture can be realized on vastly different physical foundations. From vacuum tubes and silicon transistors to optical gates and memristors, the underlying technology can vary dramatically while still supporting identical computing environments. Consequently, we are able to infer that the abstract nature of digital computation — the manipulation of discrete symbols according to formal rules — is not inherently tied to any particular physical medium.
Likewise, our consciousness isn’t merely a static property of our brains’ physical components; it’s a process arising from the dynamic patterns formed by the flow of electrochemical impulses across synapses. These patterns, emergent properties of the system as a whole, are what gives rise to our thoughts, feelings, and experiences.
The physical matter of the brain serves as a medium that facilitates the transmission of information. While essential for the process, the brain’s components, such as neurons and synapses, do not themselves contain the essence of cognition. Like transistors in a computer, neurons are merely conduits for information, creating the patterns and rhythms that constitute our mental lives.
These processes, much like the laws of physics or mathematics, can be described using a formal set of rules. Therefore, the essence of our minds lies in the algorithms that govern their operation as opposed to the biological machinery of the brain. Several lines of evidence support this proposition.
The brain’s remarkable plasticity, its ability to reorganize in response to experience, indicates that various regions can adapt to perform new types of computation. Numerous studies have shown how individuals who have lost specific brain regions are able to regain absent functions through neural rewiring, demonstrating that cognitive processes can be reassigned to different parts of the brain.
Artificial neural networks, inspired by biological neurons, further bolster this argument. Despite being based on algorithms distinct from those in our brains, ANNs have demonstrated remarkable capabilities in mimicking cognitive functions such as image recognition, language processing, and even creative endeavors. Their success implies that these abilities emerge from computational processes independent of their base substrate.
Approaching cognition from a computational perspective brings us to the concept of computational universality, closely related to the Curry-Howard Correspondence, which establishes a deep isomorphism between mathematical proofs and computer programs. It suggests that any system capable of performing a certain set of basic logical operations can simulate any other computational process. Therefore, the specific biology of the brain isn’t essential for cognition; what truly matters is the system’s ability to express computational patterns, regardless of its underlying mechanics.
Biological computers are better at certain things and worse at others. I wouldn't call the substrates we're designing inferior, they just optimize for different kinds of computation. Biological systems are well adapted to our environment. However, they're a dead end for expanding our civilization into space.
This is such a massive leap, though. Don't you see that? Why is it very likely? What effects the probability? What aspects of recursion lend themselves to consciousness? Where have we seen analogs elsewhere that provide evidence for your probabilistic claim? What aspects of the nature of models lend themselves to consciousness? Same questions.
Again, a significant ontological leap. As Hume would say, at best you have constant conjunction. There is no argument that patterns of thought underpin our conscious experience that isn't inherently circular.
This is an entirely inappropriate analogy. The physical complexity of transistors is physically connected, contiguously, with voltage differentials. The functioning of a program is entirely expressed in the physical world through voltage differentials. The very idea of a program or the execution thereof is a metaphor we use to reason about our tools but do not bear on the reality of the physics. Voltage differentials define everything about contemporary silicon-based binary microcomputers.
Only if we limit ourselves severely. Underlying technology varying greatly has a severe impact on what sorts of I/O operations are possible. If we reduce everything to the pure math of computation, then you are correct, but you are correct inside an artificial self-referential symbolic system (the mathematics of boolean logic), which is to say extremely and deleteriously reductionist .
Again, incredibly strong claim that lacks sufficient evidence. We've been working on this problem for a very long time. The only way we get to your conclusion is through the circular reasoning of materialist reductionism - the assertion that only physical matter exists and therefore that consciousness is merely an emergent property of the physical matter that we have knowledge off. It begs the question.
Again, I think this is entirely reductionist and human experience has plenty of evidence that runs counter to this, from mystical experiences to psychedelics to NDEs, there is sufficient evidence that is counter to that theory.
In physics, when we have such evidence, we work to figure out what's wrong with the model or with our instruments. But in pop psychology, AI, and Western philosophy of mind, we instead throw out all the evidence in favor of the dominant narrative of the academy.
Scientific history shows us we're wrong. Scientific consensus today shows us we're wrong.
Before we understood the EMF, we relied on all the data our senses could gather and as a Western scientific community, that was considered 100% of what was real. We discarded all the experiences of other people that we could not experience ourselves. Then, we discovered the EMF and realized that literally everything in our entire Western philosophy of science accounted for less than 0.000001% of reality.
Today, we have a model of the universe based on everything Western science has achieved in the last 600 years or so. That model accounts for about 3% of reality in so far as we can tell. That is to say, if we take everything we know, and everything we know we don't know, what we know we know makes up 3% of what we know, and what we know we don't know makes up about 97% of what we know. And then we have to contend with the unknown unknown, which is immeasurable.
To assume that this particularly pernicious area of inquiry has any solution that is more or less likely than any other solution is to ignore the history and present state of science.
However, even more to the point, the bioware plays a massively important part that digital substrates simply cannot mimic, and that's the fact that we're not talking about voltage differentials in binary states representing boolean logic, but rather continuums mediated by a massively complex distributed chemical system comprising myriad biologics, some that aren't even our own genetics. Our gut microbiota have a massive effect on our cognition. Each organ has major roles to play in our congition. From a neurological perspective, we are only just scratching the surface on how things work at all, let alone the problem of consciousness.
This is the clearest expression of circular reasoning in your writing. I encourage you to examine your position and your basis for it meticulously. In essence you have said:
I think there is a clear evolutionary reason why the mind would simulate itself since it's whole job is to simulate the environment and make predictions. The core purpose of the brain is to maintain homeostasis of the body. It aggregates inputs from the environment, and models the state of the world based on that. There is no fundamental difference between inputs from outside world and the ones it generates itself, hence the recursive step. Furthermore, being able to model minds is handy for interacting with other volitional agents, so there is a selection pressure for developing this capability.
I think Hofstadter makes a pretty good case for the whole recursive loop being the source of consciousness in I Am a Strange Loop. At least, I found his arguments convincing and in line with my understanding of how this process might work.
I disagree here, as I've stated above, I think patterns of thought arise in response to inputs into the neural network that originate both from within and without. The whole point of thinking is to create a simulation space where the mind can extrapolate future states and come up with actions that can bring the organism back into homeostasis. The brain receives chemical signals from the body indicating an imbalance, these are interpreted as hunger, anger, and, so on, and then the brain formulates a plan of action to address these signals. Natural selection honed this process over millions of years.
And how is this fundamentally different from electrochemical signals being passed within the neural network of the brain? Voltage differentials are a direct counterpart to our own neural signalling.
I don't see what you mean here to be honest. The patterns occurring within the brain can be expressed in mathematical terms. There's nothing reductionist here. The physical substrate these patterns are expressed in is not the important part.
I don't believe in magic or supernatural, and outside that one has to reject body mind dualism. The physical reality is all there is, therefore the mental realm can only stem from physical interactions of matter and energy.
Again, I fundamentally reject mysticism. All these human experiences are perfectly explained in terms of the brain simulating events that create an internal experience. However, there's zero basis to assert that these experiences are not rooted in physical reality. Just the same way it would be absurd to say that there's some mystical force that's needed to create a virtual world within a video game.
This statement is an incredible leap of logic. We know that out physics models are incomplete, but we very much do know what's directly observable around us, and how our immediate environment behaves. We're able to model that with an incredible degree of accuracy.
There's absolutely no evidence to support this statement. It's also worth noting that discrete computation isn't the only way computers can work. Analog chips exist and they work on energy gradients much like biological neural networks do. It's just optimizing for a different type of computation.
There is absolutely nothing circular in my reasoning. I never said patterns of thought underpin our conscious experience as a result of any system capable of performing a certain set of basic logical operations being able to simulate any other computational process.
What I said is that patterns of thought underpin our conscious experience because the brain uses its own outputs as inputs along with the inputs from the rest of the environment, and this creates a recursive loop of the observer modelling itself within the environment and creating a resonance of patterns. The argument I made about universality of computation is entirely separate from this statement.
We're talking past each other.
I asked:
and you replied:
Which doesn't answer the question at all. If you believe consciousness is not fundamental but rather emergent, you will need to explain your reasoning. There are plenty of examples of recursion that you would not classify as conscious and there are plenty of things that have evolutionary reasons for being that you would not associate with consciousness. You are making a leap here without explanation.
I am not intimately familiar with Hofstadter's work, but my understanding is that he is doing speculative and descriptive reasoning from the base premise that matter is inanimate and that consciousness is animate and that somehow consciousness arises from inanimate matter. That is his starting point. He assumes, axiomatically, materialist reductionism. This is the starting point of nearly all the concepts you've drawn from in your response.
You said:
I said:
And you replied with:
Which is literally an axiomatic statement - you assume that patterns of thought underpin our consciousness and then argue to conclude that patterns of thought underpin our consciousness. You are begging the question.
Good question! The answer is that neurons are not analogous to transistors because 1) they encode information through frequency not voltage, 2) frequency is mediated not only by the neuron's "purpose" but also by environmental factors that co-develop alongside the neuron, 3) neuron's are changed by virtue of their own activity and 4) neuron's are changed by virtue of the activity of other neurons and other environmental factors.
I said:
You said:
Mathematics is a form of linguistics. Any given system of mathematics is a system of symbols created to represent concepts. A given system of mathematics comprises a vocabulary, definition, postulates, and theorems. Any system of mathematics is inherently a self-referential system of symbols and therefore inherently reductionist, in that anything that cannot be represented by that systems is not only discarded but also not nameable or identifiable.
I said:
You said:
But you missed the key point, which is that material reductionists do not merely posit that physical reality is all there is, but also that everything we observe today can be explained by the ontology we have today. It is entirely possible that physical reality has far more components to it than that which we are of today. In fact, the scientific consensus is that what we have posited in our ontology today only accounts for 3% of observable phenomena. I'll get to that later.
You said:
This position is almost exclusively the position of Western dominance. Not a single culture outside of Western European culture took this position when encountering other cultures, ways of knowing, and systems of thought. It is only Western imperialism that fundamentally rejects mysticism. I encourage you to examine that.
They aren't perfectly explained at all. The only way to assert this is ultimately to beg the question. You assume that's what consciousness is, therefore assert that it's perfectly explainable as what you assume. This is why material reductionism is fundamentally circular. Nowhere else do we create identity relationships between things so fundamentally different as "patterns of electrical impulses" and "subjective experience".
I said:
You said:
Which misses the point entirely. Dark energy and dark matter, combined, make up 97% of the universe. Which is just an arrogant way of saying we know that we have no idea what 97% of the universe is. Dark matter and dark energy are not things, they are names given to the gaps between our observations. The observable behavior of the universe only makes sense when we posit the existence of so much additional stuff that literally dwarfs what we currently think we know. And the history of scientific discovery has shown us that as we discover more, we open up entirely new dimensions of observation. It's entirely possible that in the process of making it to 5% known known we end up discovering some previous unknown unknown and expanding the whole scope even further. What we have discovered is so minuscule compared to what we know we have left to discover that it is the height of dogmatic faith to champion the idea that consciousness can only possibly come from the 3% of the (assumed) scope of the universe that we have worked with so far.
Finally, you end with:
But you have no actual argument for this other than the following:
By definition, literally every phenomenon is the result of physical interactions of matter and energy and there's no argument to make at all. I am arguing that 3 is a faulty premise. The evidence we have is that the gap between what we know and what we will know is massive. Our known unknowns represent a body of knowledge 3000% larger than our known knowns. Our history of science has shown that our unknown unknowns are capable of being 1,000,000% larger than our total knowledge to date. It is more likely that we will discover new physics than that consciousness is explainable in our current physics, just from a pure statistical standpoint.
I did explain it though, I think consciousness is not a fundamental property, but a byproduct of the brain generating signals and those signals feeding back into the brain as part of the simulation of the world that the brain creates. I mean we could go into more detail of the specifics you want to focus on here.
He makes a rational argument for mechanisms that could plausibly underpin consciousness. I'm not sure why you keep using the word reudctionaism here. As far as I understand it, you subscribe to the dualism which implies that the mind is a product of some mystical forces outside the physical realm. There is zero evidence to support this notion.
The starting point is that the brain evolved to solve a specific problem, and it's purpose is to keep organisms alive. That's the basis for my argument. Patterns of thought are synonymous with the patterns of signals that fire within the brain. We have mountains of evidence that clearly and indisputably shows the relationship between the physical processes in the brain and the resulting thought patterns. Psychedelic drugs are a perfect example of this phenomenon. Altering the chemistry of the brain produces an immediate change in our conscious state of mind.
Meanwhile, anybody who argues that consciousness is a product of some other forces outside physical reality has a lot of explaining to do.
These aren't fundamental differences. These are just implementation details of how information is expressed and transferred within the computational system.
In fact, we can go further here. A traditional computing substrate can run a physics simulation that can express a living entity down to cellular level as seen with the OpenWorm project. The virtual worm behaves the same way as its living counterpart that exists in the physical world.
You're using the term reductionist here again, the incompletness of formal systems does not make them reductionist. In fact, we have plenty of examples of undecidable statements being computed all the time. That's what the whole halting problem is all about. The system does not need to be provable to do computation.
This is not a statement I made here. However, there is zero evidence to suggest that our current computational models are not able to express computation done by biological computers.
This is the basis for all modern science and technology. It has nothing at all to do with Western dominance. Scientists in China use exact same methods as scientists in the west do. I encourage you consider that Marxism is fundamentally a materialist ideology.
There is absolutely nothing circular here. In fact, there is a very clear cause and effect relationship. Once again, the onus is on people claiming that the mind cannot be explained in terms of material reality to show what specifically cannot be explained.
Dark energy and dark matter aren't proven things. You're not apply logic with any sort of rigor here. On the one hand you dismiss science and on the other hand you use scientific theories as the basis for dismissing it. That's actual circular logic.
Furthermore, the reality is that we have no idea what dark energy and dark matter are, or even if they exist in the first place. These are just kludges we use to make our theory of cosmology work and account for what we observe in experimental data. There alternative theories of cosmology that do not rely on these concepts.
And yes, I assume that all things must be physical because there is zero evidence for anything that's not physical. Unless somebody can actually demonstrate a thing that we have observed experimentally that does not have a physical basis in material reality there is zero reason to assume otherwise.
All you're doing is starting from a different assumption that has no basis, and then dismissing my assumption without presenting any actual evidence for your own position.
I think we can stop here and agree that we have fundamentally different world models. There is nothing we can say to one another that would prove that one model or the other is the correct one. I understand your position, and you understand mine. We also understand our point of disagreement. Therefore, I don't think much else can be said here.
I disagree, but I respect your desire to disengage. I will not ask you further questions, but I will say these last few things to clarify my position, because I do not think you understand my position at all nor that you understand our point of disagreement. I have not seen any evidence in your writing that supports this claim.
Dark energy and dark matter are words we apply to a specific problem in our current model of the universe. Specifically, there is more observable gravity in the universe than the matter we can account for. That excess gravity is represented by "dark matter", that is to say, we believe that the gravity is caused by matter, but we have no idea what matter because we've never observed it. We have observed the gravity, however, and 85% of the measured gravity is unaccounted for in all of the measured matter. As deGrasse Tyson says, Dark Matter is a misnomer, because it implies the gravity is caused by matter, when in actuality, we have absolute no idea what is causing the gravity. Dark Energy is the name we give to whatever is driving cosmic expansion, because again, when we take all of our observations, everything we believe exists accounts for only 4% of the behavior we observe. Call that Dark Matter and Dark Energy, or don't. It's just a symbol representing a real true fact about what we know we don't know.
That's not circular logic. That's reductio ad absurdum. I don't dismiss science. I dismiss unscientific dogmatic behavior, like ignoring evidence that doesn't fit the assumptions and begging the question. I'm a big fan of science, which is why I use science's own self-criticism as well as the criticism from the philosophy of science to work with it. This is the root of your confusion about my position - I am not anti-science and I still critique it.
Any possible evidence for non-physical things would, by the definition of philosophical materialism, make those things physical. It's not an evidence-based position. Philosophical materialism holds axiomatically that matter is the fundamental substance of nature. It is common that people don't understand this and instead believe that philosophical materialism was arrived at through scientific inquiry. It was not. Wikipedia has a pretty decent summary, but you can also use the Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy.
I described this happening in scientific history with the discovery of the EMF. There was a time before knowledge of the EMF where observations didn't fit the model of the universe at the time. That means that, at the time, we experimentally observed something that did not have a basis in the consensus material reality. Then, we discovered entirely new physics and were able to explain the observations but in doing so had to expand the definition of physical to include electro-magnetic phenomena. So, it started as outside of physics and then physics expanded to include it. I posit that, likewise, given how little we know about the universe, that it is more likely we will discover new physics than it is that everything about consciousness can be explained with current physics. Again, remember that 99% of the matter in the universe is neither solid, liquid, nor gas and that over 95% of the observable phenomena in the universe is completely unaccounted for in our current physics.
I have presented evidence:
Again, however, I am not arguing against philosophical materialism with evidence because philosophical materialism is an axiomatic assertion and not something arrived at by evidence. I am instead arguing against your assertion that consciousness is explainable by current physics on your purported basis that this is the only possible explanation for all possible phenomena. You will no doubt accept expansions of physics as just more physics, but you will not accept that current observed phenomena may require such an expansion and in fact denigrate such a possibility as magical/supernatural/unrigorous.
And finally:
I have wrestled with this. The literature is quite clear that Marxist materialism and philosophical materialism are separate and distinct concepts with confusingly similar names. Marxist materialism is an Ethical position (not to be confused with a moral position) that states that the only things Marxism chooses to concern itself with are things that have causal relationships. Marx and Engels had debates on this topic, specifically with Engels attempting to pin down the nature of the Universe and Marx stating quite clearly that it doesn't matter what's happening metaphysically, all that matters is how it works to produce society. As Marx said, nature is “relevant to dialectic only when there is an implied reference to the way in which it conditions social and historical activity”. Marxism makes no metaphysical claims, only claims on what ought (ethics) to be the focus of analysis and intervention.
Marxist materialism stands in opposition to idealist conceptions of society that posit non-causal relationships as explanations for why things are the way they are. These include things like suffering is the result of failing to live up to an ideal model of morality instead of part of a direct causal chain of social elements. Marxism doesn't have any opinion on whether magical spirits and angels and demons inhabit mystical bubbles in dimensions beyond our own, but it does have an opinion on when it would be appropriate to make them subjects of analysis and intervention - that is to say, only when such things have a causal linkage with social and historical activity.
Do not confuse Dialetical and Historical Materialism with Philosophical Materialism. They are fundamentally different despite sharing a name.
Just a few closing thoughts from my end as well.
Regarding dark energy/dark matter. I'm saying that we simply have no idea what those are or even if they're real. These things don't represent a counter to materialism because there are plenty explanations for them within the materialist world view. For example, perhaps these are all galactic civilizations that are efficiently consuming energy in all observable spectrums leaving only a gravity footprint. It's just a silly thought experiment to illustrate the point. More realistically, it could be that our model of the evolution of the universe is wrong or there are particles we haven't detected yet, or a myriad other reasons. For example, MOND theory does away with the need for dark matter, and gets results that are closer to what we observe in the cosmos.
The broader point though is that our theory of cosmic evolution has little to do with us being able to understand how the immediate material world around us works. We have a very solid understanding of matter and energy down to the quantum level. We have conducted countless experiments on the behavior of particles and energy. None of that is magically invalidated by the fact that our theory of cosmology is incomplete.
But we haven't discussed any such evidence. Everything I've said is based on observed evidence and fits with our best understanding of reality. We don't have conclusive proof of how consciousness arises in the brain, but that just means we have more research to do in this area.
It's perfectly fine to critique science, but scientifically valid the critique has to be rooted in science which is fundamentally rooted in materialism. Invoking something that's never been observed experimentally and for which we have no basis as a counter argument to ideas that are rooted in observation and material reality is not a sound critique from the scientific perspective.
The leap you're making with EMF is saying that sicne our current model of cosmology has holes in it, then it follows that there are things beyond material reality. This logic does not follow. A simpler explanation is that our model is limited.
A historical example would be when we were using Newtonian physics to try and explain the universe, and a lot of observations did not fit. That didn't mean that materialistic view of the universe was wrong, it meant that our model of the universe was limited. Einstein came along with relativity and we now have a better model. Asimov wrote a great essay on the subject incidentally https://mvellend.recherche.usherbrooke.ca/Asimov_anglosaboteurs.pdf
This is what science is all about, it's a dialectical process of forming theories and doing experiments to come up with an increasingly more accurate description of reality.
Regarding the three points, hopefully I've addressed the first two above. The last point is not scientific. We have lots of anecdotal reports of unexplainable experiences, but none of these reports are repeatable or observable. The most likely explanation is that they exist solely within the minds of people who experienced them. It's also worth noting how many unexplained phenomena started disappearing when things like cameras came into existence. A human mind is a fragile thing, and we are very much prone to hallucinating things. We have also evolved a predisposition to see agency where there is none.
Finally, the key part of Dialectical Materialism for me is that it states that physical reality has primacy. Our thoughts and actions do not exist in a separate realm disconnected from reality. They are fundamentally a product of the world around us.
I didn't want to interrupt your discussion but I just wanted to let you and @[email protected] know that I was following it and found it interesting.
The beauty of Lemmygrad is that you can have a discussion like this. :)
Yeah, I like slower forums, easier to follow and longer discussions.
indeed
The hard problem cannot be solved by "more research" because it’s not a scientific question but a contradiction within metaphysical realist philosophy. Such contradictions can’t be resolved through discovery, as it’s conceptually impossible to even begin to imagine what a possible solution could even look like. A philosophy built on contradictions is fundamentally flawed and must abandon its premises to progress, and that cannot be escaped through scientific discovery.
In Carlo Rovelli's Helgoland, he discusses how Lenin misunderstood Bogdanov's critique of metaphysical realism, falsely accusing him of idealism. Lenin couldn't let go of the idea that what we experience is a "reflection" of reality rather than reality itself, keeping dialectical materialism tethered to metaphysical assumptions.
These assumptions boil down to Kant’s division between phenomenon (reality as experienced) and noumenon (reality independent of experience). Most modern philosophy implicitly maintains this dualism. Thomas Nagel argued that perception is brain-generated because reality, being independent of perspective, cannot match our perspective-dependent experiences. David Chalmers encapsulated this in the term "consciousness," describing experience as distinct from reality.
This metaphysical framework assumes that reality is separate from perception, leading to the question of how the brain "gives rise" to perception. But this question is meaningless. If reality is independent of perception, it’s unobservable, and the claim becomes entirely metaphysical. Material sciences study observable reality, so distancing "true reality" from observation creates an unbridgeable gap that cannot explain how reality produces experience, and can't even explain how we know anything at all, as supposedly the material sciences would be based in studying something we can never even hope to ever have evidence even exists!
While too many materialists cling to metaphysics and vaguely promise science will solve this problem, this "promissory materialism" fails because the hard problem stems from a flawed metaphysical premise. Idealists fare no better, adding mysticism to resolve the same contradictions. The solution is not to "solve" the problem but to reject the framework that creates it.
Metaphysical realism, logically similar to Kant's dualism in its structure, assumes perception is separate from reality. Nagel’s and Donald Hoffman’s arguments for this fail: Nagel seems to have missed that in neither general relativity nor quantum field theory can you assign properties to physical systems without specifying a perspective, so there cannot meaningfully even be a perspective-independent reality, and thus the need for this division he demands isn't justified. Hoffman misinterprets illusions as proof we don’t perceive reality as it really is because, supposedly, we perceive things that are false. However, reality is neither true nor false—it just is what it is. Misinterpretation is a failure of the observer, not of reality. There are no "illusions," only misunderstandings.
Lenin still clung to the dualism implicit in metaphysical realism, insisting that what we experience is not reality itself, but a "reflection" of it created by the "mind." He thus misunderstood and basically slander Bogdanov, accusing him of being an "idealist" for believing everything is "mind," thinking he was denying that there even exists a reality independent of "consciousness." But that was not even close to Bogdanov's position. Bogdanov did not even believe experiences are "mind" or "consciousness" or some separate substance the brain "gives rise to." The reality we experience just is reality. It is not a denial of reality, it is an embracing of it: the world we are immersed in every day, that surrounds us, that is the object of study of the material sciences, that is reality.
This supposed imaginary thing that Lenin claims is being "reflected" is entirely metaphysical. In Jocelyn Benoist's Toward a Contextual Realism, this is why he rejects equally Kant's notion of the phenomenon. The term "phenomenon" literally means "the appearance of," suggesting that what is being perceived is merely the appearance of, reality as opposed to reality itself, kind of like a reflection of it. But this is not the stance of direct realism. The stance of direct realism is that what we observe is reality. It is neither the "appearance of" nor the "reflection of" anything. It just is, and what it is is neither true nor false, it is only real.
There is no "mind" or "consciousness" producing experience—it is not a product of anything or a reflection of anything, but simply is reality itself, which is precisely the subject of study of the material sciences. By rejecting this dualism, questions like "why does perception arise?" vanish because they stem from a false premise. The whole premise of Chalmers' notion of "consciousness" is just nonsensical and should be rejected. The moment you buy into it, you have already bought into dualistic premises, and you will never "solve" this problem through some future scientific discovery, because it is not a scientific problem.
There are, of course, many scientific problems involved in understanding human brains, intelligence, problem-solving, self-awareness, etc, but there is absolutely no problem of "consciousness" because there is no such thing as "consciousness." Indeed, even Chalmers admits that the notion of "consciousness" would be something that it would be impossible to distinguish between something that possesses it and something that does not, yet, somehow he doesn't realize that this argument only demonstrates just how absolutely meaningless his notion of "consciousness" is, how it is just completely pure abstract metaphysics without any real content.
Even if we can create a complete replica of human intelligence in machines, there will still be people debating over whether or not it has "consciousness." We can solve literally every scientific problem relating to understanding human minds and it would not even come close to putting to rest this debate, hence why no scientific discovery will yield anything here. We have to realize our premises are flawed and the "debate" is misguided in the first place, because "consciousness" should be entirely abandoned as a concept, as it relies on an unjustified metaphysical premise.
Yes, you've accurately summarized the issue. We possess subjective experiences or "qualia," which are inherent to our individual consciousness and cannot be directly communicated or proven in others. This makes it impossible for us to confirm whether another being also has qualia, as it remains an internal property of their experience that is uniquely personal and not sharable with others.
In the absence of concrete proof, we are left with two fundamental assumptions regarding the nature of consciousness and its relationship to the physical world. One perspective, dualism, posits that qualia or subjective experiences originate from a separate, non-physical realm distinct from the material reality we perceive. Conversely, materialism proposes that qualia is derived from physical processes within our brain and body, suggesting they should be understood as emergent properties of neural activity rather than supernatural phenomena.
In my view, dualism lacks any further explanatory value when compared to materialism. Given that it necessitates additional assumptions that require further justification, I find it more reasonable to consider qualia as an emergent property of the physical system in which our minds are a product. This perspective allows for a more straightforward explanation of consciousness and subjective experience within the framework of known physical laws and principles.
I would propose taking this argument even further by suggesting that many of the distinctions we make, such as differentiating between inorganic and organic realms or physical and mental domains, are fundamentally arbitrary constructs created by our minds to simplify complex phenomena. While these categories can be useful for comprehension, it's important to remember that they are simply abstract constructs and not inherently reflective of an underlying reality. In essence, the world operates as a continuum of dynamic patterns, with each layer representing an emergent property of the one beneath it.
The whole point of my post was to say that no, there is no such thing as "subjective experiences" because experiences are not products of the subject.
This is purely a linguistic issue. Perspectives are defined according to an object used as their basis, and so it definitionally would not make sense for one object to adopt the perspective of another, because doing so would require it to become that other object, and thus would cease to be itself any longer.
For example, my perspective and yours differ, we are standing in a different location, we have a different nose in the front of our face, etc. I could make my perspective more and more similar to yours by erasing differences between us, but I will never fully occupy your perspective until all differences are erased, which would mean I would literally become you, and so I would no longer occupy your perspective, because "I" would no longer exist.
There is literally no physical reason I could gradually move closer to your perspective, it is merely a linguistic issue that would prevent me from fully occupying it, because then by definition I would no longer be me.
There is no "consciousness," you have not established that there is, and so your "solutions" are not justified either. That was basically the whole point of my original comment. There is no convincing justification for such a dualistic split in the first place, so all these "solutions" are also unnecessary.
"Qualia" is also not interchangeable with "experience," as qualia is a set of abstract objects like blue, red, loud, quiet, etc. Like all objects, they are normative and socially constructed ways of judging a set of experiences to be something. They do not fundamentally occupy any sort of different realm than any other kind of object that demands a separate explanation.
Objects of qualia, or any category of objects at all, do not "emerge" from the brain, they are social constructs. You cannot dig into the brain and find them, you will never find "blue" or "red" in the brain any more than you will "cats" or "trees" or "circles" or "triangles." Objects are socially constructed norms which only have ontological reality in how they are applied in a social setting, and do not have autonomous existence inside of brains.
I would recommend you research Wittgenstein's "rule-following problem." The book Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language is a good overview of this.
I mean we all obviously have a qualia of experience. That's not really in question. What's in question is whether it's a product of the physical world or not.
That's not true. Let's say we develop technology that allows us to connect two brains together. This isn't purely hypothetical as there are cases of siamese twins who report having such shared experience.
I don't see consciousness as a dualistic split. I see it as an emergent phenomena that arises from the chatter of neurons within the brain. Much the same way a virtual world in a video game can be created from the underlying computation performed on a computer chip.
Again, I'm not suggesting that there is any separate realm. I'm arguing against such notion.
I disagree here. The primary purpose of the brain is to create a simulation of the world that can be used to extrapolate into the future to facilitate decision making. The objects are a part of the model the brain constructs, and that's the basis for social interactions. These would not be possible in the first place without our brains having a common internal representation of the world around us.
I'm familiar with Wittgenstein, but I don't agree with all of his ideas. He also also been demonstrably wrong on a grand scale with Principia Mathematica where he tried to show that formal systems can be proven to be self consistent. This whole notion was shown to be fundamentally misguided by Gödel.
Again, all objects are socially constructed norms. Objects of qualia do not demand a separate explanation from any other object.
If you connect two brains together then they are the same physical system. I'm not really sure the point you're trying to make here.
Both the virtual world and the computer chip can be observed, yet what you are arguing that observability itself arises from things that are fundamentally unobservable. I fail to see how this could ever be explained in a weakly emergent sense, as I fail to see how any arbitrary configuration of unobservable stuff could weakly emerge the property of observability. It would seem to inevitably have to be something strongly emergent, which is basically dualism, even if you call this strongly emergent property "physical," it would only be a change in language, not in kind.
Although, again, I am not advocating dualism, I am rejecting the premise that the reality we perceive is an illusionary product of the mammalian brain, but merely stating that what we perceive is reality, i.e. I am a direct realist. I am criticizing indirect realism as I fail to see how you can get from nonobservability to observability, nor have you provided a reason to believe that this supposedly entirely invisible reality even exists. As far as I am concerned, what we perceive is reality.
Then stop asking for explanations of qualia if you agree that they do not demand a special explanation.
These objects only exist as a relationship between the brain and the social structure and do not exist independently within the brain. Nobody has ever been able to peer into someone's brain and find a conceptual object. They can only correlate brain patterns to a set of stimuli which are pre-associated with some sort of socially recognized symbol, such as the experimenter has to first specify a symbol, such a "dog," then specify what set of stimuli would correspond to a "dog" in that particular social setting, then they have to show this to the patient, and then you can correlate these to the person's brain patterns. Everyone's brain patterns are different, and so it is not even possible to build a general mind-reading machine, as each machine has to be trained specifically on the person's brain and its associations with social symbols which require a specific social setting.
Okay, but that's not relevant, I am talking specifically about the rule-following problem. If you think objects exist autonomously inside of the brain, then how do you solve the rule-following paradox that this belief leads to? Since you are familiar with Wittgenstein, you should be able to address this paradox.
I didn't say qualia required any separate explanation. In fact, my whole argument is precisely that it doesn't. However, saying that objects are just social norms is superficial because social norms and interactions themselves are a product of how our brains interpret the world. The concept of objects isn't exclusive to humans either, other animals form these concepts as well without need to have social structures or language.
The point I'm making here is that you can share experience with another person without being that person. Once you disconnect the brains, then you're two separate people again who have a shared past experience.
I'm not arguing that, and the example I gave with connecting to minds together is an example of internal experience being observable.
I'm not sure what you're trying to say here to be honest or what you're basing the argument on. You're just stating this as fact without any reasoning provided.
That's not what I'm saying. What I'm actually arguing is that the reality we perceive is a simulation the brain creates internally based on the inputs from the senses. It's a model of reality derived from the information that feeds into the brain. There's plenty of evidence that what we perceive does not directly correspond to reality. Stuff like optical illusions is a perfect example where our inner model diverges from the primary reality. Another example can be found in psychedelic drugs. Somebody tripping on shrooms is going to perceive reality in a very different way. This has absolutely nothing to do with dualism however.
I'm not asking for explanation of qualia, I'm explaining that it is just an emergent phenomenon of how the brain models the world.
Of course they exist independently within the brain. They're part of the world model that the brain constructs. Words we use in our language are merely labels for the concepts encoded within the structure of our brains. The reason we're able to communicate with other humans and even animals is precisely because we form similar underlying representations of the world. For example, you can give directions to a dog and it can understand them.
The brain patterns may be different, but the overall structures are quite similar at high level. Everyone's internal model is indeed a product of their unique experience, however we all exist within the same shared environment and that's our common context. That's what facilitates communication.
The rule-following paradox has to do with problems of structuring formal systems. This has nothing to do with encoding concepts within the brain. The objects don't just magically appear within the brain. They're a product of reinforcement learning through our interactions with the environment. A child spends a long time learning concepts like object permanence through physical interaction with the world. This is how the world model is built. It's not arbitrary in any way, it's shaped by the sensory feedback loop.
Then why bring it up? It's pointless to talk about qualia at all if you do not think it need some sort of separate explanation than any other objects. It's not relevant to the discussion.
The concept of objects requires language and symbols. What other animals is there evidence of this?
I thought the reasoning was rather self-apparent, but I will explain in more detail. Weak emergence is when you can explain a system's properties as reducible to the laws that govern the behavior of what it is composed of in that particular configuration. Strong emergence is when you cannot reduce down a system's properties in this way. Strong emergence would be as if the property just appears when you have a particular configuration, with no underlying physical laws that could possibly explain where it comes from. All you can say for certain is that property comes into being when you have a particular configuration, and the properties are not reducible down to the individual parts.
Those aren't claims, but just definitions. All I am saying is that having a strong emergence view of consciousness is basically the same as dualism, because that's what dualism also posits, that in the arbitrary configuration of matter that is the human brain, consciousness just appears on top of it, and there is no explanation for it and it is not reducible to any physical laws that can explain its origin, as it would not be derivative of the physical laws that govern the brain's behavior. It is just a separate thing that is slapped on top of it, of which there can be no explanation as to its origin, only that it is always there whenever you have particular configurations of matter, such as the brains of living organisms.
If the universe is entirely invisible, you cannot explain how the visible world of our lived experiences "arises" without, at some point, just arbitrarily inserting it there, such as, in particular atomic configurations you can claim that experiences just appear. This is just a logical necessity and is unavoidable.
That is absolutely and undeniably what you are saying. If you argue that what we perceive is not reality as it really is, but something else, then by unavoidable logical necessity, you are claiming that "true" reality is beyond our perceptions, and if something is beyond our perceptions, it is invisible. If you think "true reality" is invisible, then you will never be able to explain, from a weakly emergent standpoint, how a collection of invisible stuff gives rise to the visible world of our experiences, i.e. how is it that a world that is nonperceptual gives rise to perception.
I addressed this in my very first reply. Illusions are not even close to an argument that we do not perceive reality as it really is. It is only evidence that we can misinterpret what we perceive.
No, they are labels encoded within the social structure which would not only have no meaning but also have no purpose if you lived in complete isolation. These objects only have existence and meaning as a correlation between the brain and the social structure, but not independently within the brain.
We can form similar representations because we are all taught to associate our experiences with the same symbols in the same social structure. We all have different physical bodies and experience the world differently, but are all taught under the same social institutions to assign the same set of stimuli with the same words, allowing us to then have a shared language. We agree on what "red" is or what "cats" are not because we all have the same physical object of "red" or "cat" floating around in our skull, but because we all live in the same society where everyone is taught to associate "red" and "cat" with the same set of stimuli.
That is not the rule-following paradox. The rule-following paradox is the notion that symbols cannot encode meaning independent of a social structure. If a person in complete isolation invented their own symbols to refer to what they categorize as different objects, and you discovered these symbols, it would be impossible to actually derive their meaning with certainty. If you want to define a symbol, you can do it using other symbols, but at some point, but this will be entirely circular unless at some point you connect the symbol to empirical content. If those symbols are connected to something like a basket of examples, the point of the rule-following paradox is that every basket is inherently ambiguous, because there is always an infinite number of way to interpret the meaning of the symbol from the basket. If you cannot derive the meaning of the symbols from the basket, then neither could the person who produced the basket, i.e. if you were in complete isolation, you could never have certainty that you are even using the symbols you are using today with the same meaning that you were using them yesterday. Enforcement of the consistent use of symbols requires social institutions, and those symbols are ambiguous unless they are correlated with those social institutions.
Yes, they only exist as a relationship between the brain and its social environment, hence they cannot be found in the brain, but only in correlations between the brain and the social structure.
It's absolutely not pointless to talk about the fact that we have an internal experience. The whole discussion you've hopped into is about whether this internal experience that we have can be explained purely in material terms.
It absolutely does not require that. There are mountains of research showing that other animals construct world models and use them to plan their actions. Corvids are one prominent example of this. In fact, symbols and language require this underlying machinery to work, that's why we can teach stuff like sign language to apes.
I understand the difference between weak and strong emergence. What I asked you is the basis for your claim of dismissing the possibility of weak emergence as an explanation for consciousness.
I'll try to explain this to you once again. Please try to actually read and understand what I'm saying before responding this time. The brain constructs an internal model using the data from the senses like eyes, ears, touch, and so on. This data is assembled into an internal model that is a representation of reality. The brain cannot simulate reality in its full fidelity because that would mean recreating the full complexity of the universe around us. Therefore, the model that is created must necessarily be an abstraction that loses detail. This has nothing to do with the universe being beyond our perception or being invisible.
This is no different from the act of a computer program creating a 3d scene using data from a camera. Nobody in their right mind would start claiming that this means that reality is beyond our perceptions, and if something is beyond our perceptions, it is invisible. The argument is equally absurd when applied to the human mind.
Again, try to think about how computer simulations work. What you're saying has no logic behind it.
The fact that we are able to misinterpret logically requires that what we perceive is a model of reality otherwise the whole concept of misinterpreting would be impossible to begin with.
That's complete nonsense. A human that grows up in isolation would still have a world model and would be able to interact with their environment. Language and symbols emerge from the underlying model. Ironically, it is you who are arguing for dualism claiming that language and social structures exist separate from underlying physical reality.
Except that these representations aren't unique to humans. We are able to communicate with other animals without having shared social structures or language. Furthermore, animals are able to communicate with each other, and even coordinate complex tasks. This doesn't even require complex animals. Even bees and ants can do complex tasks and coordination.
That's precisely the problem that shared environment solves. We are able to communicate with one another because symbols are rooted in the environmental context. If you met somebody who came from a completely different culture and spoke a different language, over time you would be able to create a way to communicate with each other.
If you grew up in isolation, you could absolutely create symbols that made sense to you. The fact that other people couldn't decipher them without help is a completely separate issue. You're conflating transmission of symbols with the origin of symbols here.
Once again you're peddling dualism here.
First, I commented on objects of qualia ("red", "blue", "loudness," "quietness"), not experience. That is, again, a very very very separate concept, and I am not sure what the adjective "internal" is doing here.
And there's evidence of them using objects in these internal models? Or is there evidence of them having certain behaviors which we associate those behaviors with our own conceptions of objects?
I'm not sure why you bring this up, nowhere did I deny that symbols and language require underlying machinery to work. Obviously a rock cannot make use of symbols or language.
I read it every single time and respond to every point in great detail. Do not pretend I am not reading your posts.
I am talking about the origin of experience itself, that which is sensed/observed/visible/experienced, whatever you want to call it. Telling me about how the brain constructs a model based on sensory data does not tell me anything about this question.
Yet again, an analogy that does not work at all. We can observe the camera, the computer, what the camera is recording, as well as the 3d scene that is being produced by the computer program. I am talking about the origin of experiences themselves. If we do not experience reality as it really is, then by definition reality lies outside of experience, and is something that is "given rise to" in the brain as you yourself stated in your own words, which is what I initially responded to. Hence, you have to explain how nonexperiential reality in a particular configuration can possibly weakly emerge experiences.
I know how computers work, I literally have a degree in computer science, and what you're saying has no relevance to the discussion at all. You keep providing examples of weakly emergent things, I know what weak emergence is. I do not need more examples of weak emergence. Every property of a system we know of, we know of because we observed/experienced it, and thus every example you provide of some property weakly emerging from other properties, those are all examples of things that can be observed/experienced weakly emerging new properties that can also be observed/experienced. None of these explain how experience itself could weakly emerge.
We form models of reality based on what we perceive, based on our sensory inputs. Our senses are not themselves models of anything. Saying that misinterpretation "logically requires" that the inputs themselves are incorrect models, I do not understand what this even means. The inputs are not models of anything, but the basis in which we use to form models of reality. It's kinda like data, that data we use to construct our interpretations and models of the world. The data itself cannot be right or wrong, it has no truth value. For something to have a truth value, it has to be compared to a normative standard. All truth values are assigned by basically answering the question, "are you interpreting the data correctly?" Which answering that question is in and of itself another interpretation.
This is just a lazy straw man. I never claimed social structures are separate from physical reality, you know I did not say that. Anyone can read what I quoted in saying that objects, labels, and symbols have no meaning in complete isolation, and then you turn around and switch it up to "they would still have a world model, so you're talking nonsense!" A model of reality does not need to be based on objects. You are entirely misrepresenting everything I am saying.
The reality in which we experience is not made up of discrete objects. It is a continuum. You cannot draw a hard-and-fast line between any two sets of objects which have no ambiguity at all as to its boundaries. Where does a mountain begin and where does it end? When does life begin and when does it pass away? There are no clear-cut boundaries, you can slice up reality in any way you want, set the boundaries anywhere that you find convenient.
There is no reason to form models of reality that have discrete and autonomous objects unless it is for the purpose of having symbols to communicate with others in a social setting. Reality is not actually composed of these kinds of discrete objects. As far as reality is concerned, there is no "cat," humans invent the word "cat" as a way to label and talk about a set of observable properties which have some relevance to us in our social context and thus we may wish to communicate with one another.
If an animal is in complete isolation from its birth, it would have no need for forming discrete conceptual objects because it would not need to communicate with anybody. It might develop a model that causes it to respond to a very loose collection of experiences, for example, it may see a bear and respond to it by running away. However, there is a key distinction here, which is that the animal never associates the loose collection of experiences which causes it to run away with a symbol like a "bear." It never promotes the experiences to objecthood, and the insistence that it does is anthropomorphizing the animal. This promotion only occurs if there is a need to communicate it.
...? So you agree that the meaning of symbols is rooted in the social conditions?
If you agree that nobody could decipher the symbols, then the "you" of tomorrow would not be able to decipher the symbols created by the "you" of the past, at least in a way that the meaning could be derived with certainty and without any ambiguity. You cannot escape this by speaking of "conflating transmission with origin," because in order to use your own symbol consistently, you have to repeatedly transmit it to yourself. If it is impossible for me to transmit my symbols unambiguously, then even if I do use them tomorrow the same as I did today, I would have no way of even being certain that I am.
No, you've just decided to devolve into straw man arguments. I was trying to have a genuine discussion with you but you're just being unreasonable. All your walls of text have constantly just avoided the question and are trying to run around it constantly, and now are trying to be "clever" by acting like you're somehow turning this on me by going "no you're the dualist!!!!"
I didn't even accuse you of dualism, I merely said that you need to make an argument regarding weak emergence. If experience is something that weakly emerges in the brain, then by definition what it emerges from must be nonexperiential, so you need to explain how nonexperiential reality can weakly emerge experience, or else you would fall into strong emergence which is logically parallel to dualism. The whole time has been me just asking you to make an argument. You have not explained anything at all, you just accuse people of not reading you when I clearly read everything you write and you just simply do not answer the question at all, and now want to intentionally misrepresent my point in order to avoid addressing it.
Since you have decided to turn this discussion into something that is not fruitful at all, I am just going to disengage from this discussion and do not plan to reply to you further, as I know nothing in your reply will even make an attempt to address how the crux of the matter.
Perhaps it helps to define what you mean by objects. My definition is that it's constructs created within the mind to describe aspects of the physical world sourced from sensory data.
Yes, there is plenty of evidence for that. This is a pretty actively researched area.
Then by extension you must understand that language and symbols don't have primacy, they are derived from simpler components. Hence why the ability to construct language and symbols is an emergent property of the brain.
I'm merely pointing out that you did not engage with my point.
That's a weird thing to say. Where do you think the experience comes from exactly if not from the model that the brain constructs. The brain models itself as part of the environment creating a recursive loop where there's feedback from the model back into the brain. Hofstadter describes this process in detail in I Am a Strange Loop. This seems like the most plausible explanation of the roots of consciousness to me.
It's in fact exact same thing. There is no difference here. We experience the reality constructed by the brain based on sensory date the same way a computer constructs a simulation based on data from a camera and whatever other senses are hooked up to it. In fact, this is also how modern robots experience the world and interact with it. The dichotomy you're attempting to create doesn't exist. I've explained the specific steps to you already. You have the environment that is sampled by the senses and you have a model of that environment created based on the data from the sense. There's no magic or mystery here.
This makes this whole discussion all the more bizarre to be honest.
You keep repeating this without having actually articulated any basis for your bombastic claim.
I didn't say senses were a model of anything. I said the model is generated within the neural network of the brain based on the data from the senses.
What I actually said was that the model the brain creates internally is a simplified, lower fidelity version of the real world. The senses do not and cannot capture every minute detail. Nor is there a reason to do that. We don't perceive the atomic structure of the objects we interact with, we don't see the quantum interactions within the physical world. These things are completely opaque to our experience.
The fact that we struggle to comprehend quantum physics is a perfect example of just how shallow our model of reality is. We know for a fact that at the quantum level reality defies our intuitions. The reason is that our intuitions are an abstraction created at a particular level. Since you have a degree in computer science, surely you can grasp the concept of abstraction.
The reality is a continuum, however that doesn't mean our brains have to model it as such. What I'm arguing is that objects is the way our brain creates abstractions and categorizes things in order to model reality efficiently. Think of it as analogous to how BSP trees work.
The purpose of forming discrete objects is efficiency. The symbols and communication arise from these models, hence why we use discrete symbols to describe things.
Yes, I entirely agree with that. However, we don't just create these concepts to communicate with one another. We also use them for our own individual reasoning. And if you think about this in evolutionary terms it becomes obvious that individual models must have formed before creatures could become social. Social behavior requires having compatible world models to exist.
It would need to form these concepts in order to process the world efficiently.
Parrots give each other names. https://academy.allaboutbirds.org/how-a-parrot-learns-its-name-in-the-wild/
It's amusing that you don't see the irony of talking about reality being a continuum on one hand and then trying to put social conditions into their own separate box here. Social conditions are part of the continuum of our reality, and the society we live in affects how we construct symbols along with all the other factors of our world. Social conditions aren't a separate realm and are themselves rooted in the material experience.
That's not what I said at all. I merely pointed out that if you came upon a set of symbols that were created by somebody else without any context, then it may be difficult to decipher them. However, we do in fact decipher dead languages based on common patterns and context.
I've repeatedly addresses this point, and you just keep ignoring what I said while telling me you are reading what I'm saying. The reason the symbols in our minds are stable is that they're part of the simulation of the world that our minds maintain. They don't exist in a vacuum, they're part of a stable world model.
I didn't devolve into any straw man arguments. I'm simply pointing out that social world doesn't exist in a separate realm from the physical world. It's a continuum.
I've repeatedly and directly addressed your points. The fact that you're claiming I've avoided the question shows that you either didn't bother reading what I wrote or you're not arguing in good faith here. As far as I can tell there is a contradiction in your own logic here. Instead of addressing this contradiction you're accusing me of making straw man argument.
I have made the argument, and I tried explaining it in several different ways here including providing examples.
Bye.