materialism

[Quine]

Given the amount of thought and discussion that has gone into the mind-body problem over the past 400 years, I am skeptical that any radically new solutions are possible. Someone would have thought of them by now.

This was a joke, ... right? Like when the head of the patent office announced that they were going to have to close because everything important had been invented, and the international physics community declared there was nothing left to do in physics but refine the measurements, both circa 1900? (Well they' gone about as fer uz they can go ...)

Sometimes I think about the conference that must have happened back in the days of Homo erectus. I can picture that things were going just fine until a guy called Archi stood up (not just to show off that he could stand up) and announced that he was not satisfied with a meaningless life of running around on two legs, hunting things down and then eating them or mounting them (or both). Archi went on to express his desire to have religion and art and to think about philosophy; maybe even work out calculus, someday. The group was not pleased, discussed the upcoming law against any genetic change in the germ line (either by breeding or accidental mutation), and told Archi to be more thankful he could walk and throw a stone at the same time (although there were also a few cracks about what, in Archi's case, passed for "throwing").

I am very thankful that the council was not able to get the restricted gene law passed. None of them could ever know how thankful. Their lives may have seemed meaningless, at the time, but by simply living their lives, and keeping the pattern going, they participated in the unfolding of the Universe that has resulted in you reading this, and having this moment (suchness).

Perhaps in the future, a gene sequence will be written that allows yet another layer of brain, a neoneocortex. Let's call these people Homo neo. These people are, for all practical purposes, just the same as us, except that at around age 60 their hat size starts going up like a baseball player on steroids, and a new layer of brain, structured very similar to the neocortex, grows on top of the neocortex. The neoneocortex sends down chemical trails that cause neocortex axons to grow up into it, and it sends axons down to be able to impact patterns of activity below. The world, for the neoneocortex is the neural activity ecology of the neocortex.

Suppose one of these new people is called, (you knew this was coming) Neo. While the new layer was growing, Neo experienced many weird things that, prior to the "Big Change" had been described to him as something like having electrodes stimulate you during awake brain surgery. Strange flashbacks would happen, strange ideas would "just pop up." When the moment of the BC happened, it was a great meta-awakening. Neo saw in a moment how the thoughts of his prior life had been produced. He realized that his prior life had been lived as what old time philosophers had called a "zombie." Yes, he had had what he thought was an "inner life" but could now see the swirling patterns that had formed his earlier personality. It was a very humbling experience.

Neo was reminded of when his prefrontal cortex had really kicked in at about age 20. This happened to be more sudden for him than for most of his friends, so he made some observations, and even wrote some of them down. Although many of the experiences he could remember were both beautiful and poetic, he also noticed just how stupid had been the impressions and conclusions he had had as a child. This was especially true of those things that happened before he could see himself as a separate being. He remembered that after age 20, he could still listen to the voice he had inside that was left over from being a child, but of course, knew better.

Neo was glad to no longer be a zombie. He still had the inner voice of the zombie he had been before the BC, and could listen to this voice, but of course, knew better.

[Edit: I forgot to put in how thankful Neo is to us for living our lives, here in our time.]

[UndercoverElephant]

Given the amount of thought and discussion that has gone into the mind-body problem over the past 400 years, I am skeptical that any radically new solutions are possible. Someone would have thought of them by now.

This was a joke, ... right? Like when the head of the patent office announced that they were going to have to close because everything important had been invented, and the international physics community declared there was nothing left to do in physics but refine the measurements, both circa 1900? (Well they' gone about as fer uz they can go ...)

Not a joke, no. This situation isn't really like the patent office because patents apply to all sorts of continually changing human situations. All sorts of new problems are arising, all sorts of new opportunities for new ideas. The mind-body problem is much more like chess, and all I am saying is that all of the decent openings have already been invented. Nobody is going to come along and discover a revolutionary new response to "P-K4". The best we might hope for is maybe a new twist on the Soltis variation of the Sicilian defence. In fact, it is even worse than that on two counts, first because in chess there are at least 32 pieces on the board whereas in the mind-body problem, we appear to be limited to 2, and second because the philosophies of people like Wittgenstein, Derrida and Heidegger have effectively shown us why no new openings are possible - or at least how no new openings are going to be any better than the ones we already know about. I think those people have shown that the mind-body problem, as normally understood, is unsolvable.

Put it this way - do you think anybody is ever going to devise a chess opening which can force a win for white?

Perhaps in the future, a gene sequence will be written that allows yet another layer of brain, a neoneocortex. Let's call these people Homo neo. These people are, for all practical purposes, just the same as us, except that at around age 60 their hat size starts going up like a baseball player on steroids, and a new layer of brain, structured very similar to the neocortex, grows on top of the neocortex. The neoneocortex sends down chemical trails that cause neocortex axons to grow up into it, and it sends axons down to be able to impact patterns of activity below. The world, for the neoneocortex is the neural activity ecology of the neocortex.

Suppose one of these new people is called, (you knew this was coming) Neo. While the new layer was growing, Neo experienced many weird things that, prior to the “Big Change” had been described to him as something like having electrodes stimulate you during awake brain surgery. Strange flashbacks would happen, strange ideas would “just pop up.” When the moment of the BC happened, it was a great meta-awakening. Neo saw in a moment how the thoughts of his prior life had been produced. He realized that his prior life had been lived as what old time philosophers had called a “zombie.” Yes, he had had what he thought was an “inner life” but could now see the swirling patterns that had formed his earlier personality. It was a very humbling experience.

Neo was reminded of when his prefrontal cortex had really kicked in at about age 20. This happened to be more sudden for him than for most of his friends, so he made some observations, and even wrote some of them down. Although many of the experiences he could remember were both beautiful and poetic, he also noticed just how stupid had been the impressions and conclusions he had had as a child. This was especially true of those things that happened before he could see himself as a separate being. He remembered that after age 20, he could still listen to the voice he had inside that was left over from being a child, but of course, new better.

Neo was glad to no longer be a zombie. He still had the inner voice of the zombie he had been before the BC, and could listen to this voice, but of course, new better.

[Edit: I forgot to put in how thankful Neo is to us for living our lives, here in our time.]

I read all that, but wasn't sure what it is supposed to be showing me.

Geoff

[speakpigeon]

LOGIC & REALITY
The logic we use when we try to argue is part of the cognitive process of our brain. As such, it is an objective reality and we can indeed use it in our discussions or even implement it on a computer and check that we agree with what it does. However, logic does not apply directly to nature for the same reason that there is no perfect square in nature. Proper squares only exist in our ideal representation of nature. Equally, logic only applies within our ideal model of objective reality. One example of the limit of logic is “If all men are mortal and Socrates is a man then Socrates is mortal”. This is obviously true in logical terms but the truth of it is abstract, not at all real (or only real as traces in brain tissue). This is because we don’t know how to apply it to real situations. For example, even if we believe this, we don’t know that “all men are mortal”. We also don’t know, even if we believe it, that Socrates is a man and this is because we don’t have a proper description the thing we call “man”. The formula is logically true but cannot apply strictly speaking to reality, only to our abstraction of it. We can still use logic as a practical instrument and that’s what we do all the time. We use logic to do maths, for example, and maths to do physics and physics to do very objective experiments and they usually work.
The validity of logic, therefore, has its limit. Because we form our model of objective reality through our interaction with nature, i.e. our individual environment, logic is only as good as our interactions are. We indeed all know people who don’t have good logic, yes? This is also because our individual logic takes shape while our brain is still taking shape itself when we are still young. Even though science allows us to improve our representation of nature, our individual logic remains at best that determined by our everyday macroscopic relations with our environment. Indeed, knowledge of the microscopic structure of material stuff doesn’t normally fundamentally change our operational relationship with, say, a table or even our own body.
Part of what we call consciousness has to lie within our objective processes, i.e. the cognitive process of our brain. That’s what I call the “objective mind” and we are able to talk about this aspect in detail. For the same reason, we can also expect that the neurosciences will explain the best part of it--and this is in fact well under way.
Subjective consciousness, however, if it exists at all has to be neutral in relation to any objective process. We cannot describe it. It does not provide a handle for Darwinian evolution. And we cannot prove that it exists or that it does not exist (because proof is an objective process). And it certainly does not have any input on the arts, on philosophy or on religion. Because of this, it would also lie outside the validity of logic. We cannot therefore produce a logical proposition about it (except trivial true statements like “consciousness is consciousness”). We cannot argue for example that consciousness as an independent substance does not exist because if it existed it would still have to interact with our cognitive process although it is supposed to be of a different substance.
While our individual logic has its limit, we could expect science to work out a more fundamental logic. I guess many people would argue that Quantum physics is already doing just that but I’m not a specialist.
However, even fundamental logic could only be regarded as a contingent on reality, and therefore could not be used to decide on the nature of reality.
Or am I wrong?
EB
---

[speakpigeon]

UE -- The mind-body problem is much more like chess, and all I am saying is that all of the decent openings have already been invented. Nobody is going to come along and discover a revolutionary new response to "P-K4".

Who then ever claimed that logical arguments about ultimate reality are patently absurd?
EB
---

[UndercoverElephant]

UE -- The mind-body problem is much more like chess, and all I am saying is that all of the decent openings have already been invented. Nobody is going to come along and discover a revolutionary new response to "P-K4".

Who then ever claimed that logical arguments about ultimate reality are patently absurd?
EB
---

They aren't patently absurd. You have to take a long and tortuous journey before you can claim they are absurd - it's not obvious. I suppose it is Kant and Wittgenstein who are primarily responsible for claiming that logical arguments about ultimate reality are unresolvable.

[UndercoverElephant]

LOGIC & REALITY
The logic we use when we try to argue is part of the cognitive process of our brain.

So is everything else we try to argue about, but not all of it is unresolvable.

....logic does not apply directly to nature for the same reason that there is no perfect square in nature.

Interesting claim, very similar to what Husserl claims in "The Crisis of the European Sciences". I agree with it.

Proper squares only exist in our ideal representation of nature. Equally, logic only applies within our ideal model of objective reality. One example of the limit of logic is “If all men are mortal and Socrates is a man then Socrates is mortal”. This is obviously true in logical terms but the truth of it is abstract, not at all real (or only real as traces in brain tissue). This is because we don’t know how to apply it to real situations. For example, even if we believe this, we don’t know that “all men are mortal”. We also don’t know, even if we believe it, that Socrates is a man and this is because we don’t have a proper description the thing we call “man”. The formula is logically true but cannot apply strictly speaking to reality, only to our abstraction of it. We can still use logic as a practical instrument and that’s what we do all the time. We use logic to do maths, for example, and maths to do physics and physics to do very objective experiments and they usually work.
The validity of logic, therefore, has its limit. Because we form our model of objective reality through our interaction with nature, i.e. our individual environment, logic is only as good as our interactions are.

This is true in the same way that "Garbage in, garbage out." is true of a computer program. If we have made errors in our basic data, accurately applying logic to it may still result in an incorrect answer.

We indeed all know people who don’t have good logic, yes? This is also because our individual logic takes shape while our brain is still taking shape itself when we are still young. Even though science allows us to improve our representation of nature, our individual logic remains at best that determined by our everyday macroscopic relations with our environment. Indeed, knowledge of the microscopic structure of material stuff doesn’t normally fundamentally change our operational relationship with, say, a table or even our own body.
Part of what we call consciousness has to lie within our objective processes, i.e. the cognitive process of our brain. That’s what I call the “objective mind” and we are able to talk about this aspect in detail. For the same reason, we can also expect that the neurosciences will explain the best part of it--and this is in fact well under way.
Subjective consciousness, however, if it exists at all has to be neutral in relation to any objective process. We cannot describe it. It does not provide a handle for Darwinian evolution. And we cannot prove that it exists or that it does not exist (because proof is an objective process).

Agreed.

And it certainly does not have any input on the arts, on philosophy or on religion.

Now you have lost me. Where did this claim come from? How is it derived from the previous claims? The creative process is not strictly logical. That's why it is magical.

Because of this, it would also lie outside the validity of logic. We cannot therefore produce a logical proposition about it (except trivial true statements like “consciousness is consciousness”). We cannot argue for example that consciousness as an independent substance does not exist because if it existed it would still have to interact with our cognitive process although it is supposed to be of a different substance.
While our individual logic has its limit, we could expect science to work out a more fundamental logic. I guess many people would argue that Quantum physics is already doing just that but I’m not a specialist.
However, even fundamental logic could only be regarded as a contingent on reality, and therefore could not be used to decide on the nature of reality.
Or am I wrong?
EB
---

I think you are wrong. I think logic is independent of reality. The reason we can't resolve the arguments about the absolute nature of reality has nothing to do with the ontological status of logic. The problem is that we have no absolute truths to feed in to the reasoning process, and that much of the time people try to use statements expressed in different language games into the same logical argument. So just like with the computer, we can't rely on the answer not being garbage because we can't rely on the input to the reasoning process not being garbage. We have no absolute data to feed in - or at least we don't have enough absolute data to feed in. The only fact we can be sure of (unless you agree with Gorgias) is "something exists". There is a limit to where logic can take you after that. I think you can safely arrive at "There can never have been a state of absolute nothingness" by adding the premise "nothing comes absolute nothingness". After that, you can't come to any positive conclusions. All you can do is take other people's arguments about the absolute nature of reality and show that those arguments don't work for some reason or other. In terms of the analogy with chess, all you can ever do is force a draw. Nobody can force a win. For regular readers of my contributions to this board, that also applies to a neutral monist - I can't force a win either. I claim I can show that materialism is false, but I do not claim I can show that neutral monism is true. I believe it because it seems intuitively appealing to me, not because I can arrive at it as the conclusion to a valid and sound logical argument. So in some ways thinking about this is more like the artistic-creative process, rather than being based on pure reason. Pure reason can only highlight logical mistakes in people's claims about the nature of reality. It can't lead to any deductive conclusions about the true nature of reality (apart from maybe "something necessarily exists".)

Geoff

[Krull]

[font=Arial] [/font]

Subjective consciousness, however, if it exists at all has to be neutral in relation to any objective process....
...And it certainly does not have any input on the arts, on philosophy or on religion

Isn't that epiphenomenalism? Subjectivity, 'qualia' must have input on self-expression because all attempts to express oneself are ultimately trying to 'show what cannot be said'. If 'it' could be said, then we've explained consciousness (and invented a new language). The brain must be 'noticing' something in order to later write songs or paint pictures about it, so subjectivity must have effects on behaviour. If it doesn't, then when we express qualia of some emotion through art, we're really referring to some brain process and subsequently can't have been talking about 'consciousness' in the first place.

[Scientifiq]

SCIENTIFIQ -- you don't understand the difference between consciousness and 'the state of consciousness'.

I understand perfectly well. You should read more carefully what people say.

From your post it follows that you don't. At least, you used mixed definitions.

SCIENTIFIQ -- If I am unconscious, am I conscious?

Hmm-It all depends, yes?

Yes, so? That is exactly what I am saying...

SCIENTIFIQ -- We are talking about the abstract entity consciousness

Ouch!
Well, OK then, some questions for you:
(1) Why would we be talking about any “abstract” something? Who would care?
(2) “Abstract entity consciousness”? What does it mean, exactly? Maybe you need to check first what “abstract” means. In an English dictionary, yes?
(3) This thread, as ARS LONGA put it, is about the mind as a “brain-dependent phenomenon”. Why are you suddenly talking about “abstract consciousness”.
(4) Can you give serious examples of any real phenomena that would be abstract?
(5) If in “we are NOT conscious” you meant “abstract consciousness”, why would memory be necessary to it? You are inducing such a philosophical vertigo in me I could faint.
(6) If in “we are NOT conscious” you meant “abstract consciousness”, how would you go about evidencing your claim that “without the memory, we are NOT conscious”.
Take you time, nobody is expecting answers.

LOL at the last line, how childish can you be? However, I'll give you the reply you deserve and clearly need so much. What do I mean by abstract? You clearly don't understand, 'yes'? With abstract I mean the concept of consciousness, not something like the opposite of 'being unconsciouss'. A concept is always abstract. Perhaps I could have phrased it more accurately but I didn't think it necessary at the time because I figured most people who are reading what I say have enough brains to understand what I am talking about. This answers for all your idiotic questions about the word abstract.. maybe you should use an English dictionary, 'yes'?

As to why memory is necessary for consciousness to work, or to be 'in the state of consciousness' (to make it easier for you to understand that it's not about conscious-vs.-unconscious that I am talking about here), I have explained in the post why I came to that conclusion. I suggest you re-read the post, perhaps in a less childish mood, yes?

[transhumanist]

I think you are wrong. I think logic is independent of reality.

Gödel speaks!

I probably agree. But my interpretation is most likely markedly different from yours.

Logic lies at the base of any universal computational system. If the universe is, in fact, universal, in the Church-Turing sense, then logic is intrinsic to physicality.

You haven't opined on the universality of the universe (which, I admit, is a rather speculative thing to hold an opinion on) but you've certainly opined on the universality of consciousness, and your current reply is a definitive no, at least until universal computers can speak for themselves in a way that's convincing to you. Which is fine, I certainly can't attest to my ability to tell a conscious being from a p-zombie at this point in time, beyond a simple "It seemed real enough to me".

The real test will be when you can jack-in, and suddenly your first person ontology becomes shared with another.

You probably think this can never happen. At least, my guess would be as a neutral monist you believe consciousness can never be decoded by physical systems to the point where SDOs will freely across technological devices as they can in our own heads. I assume you believe that SDOs could never move directly from mind to mind through some sort of technological bridge.

After all, wouldn't that indicate that SDOs are merely physical systems in motion?

Do you think logic is made out of SDOs?

[transhumanist]

UndercoverElephant, let me ask you this:

You claim that my usage of the word "is" is not apt when I say consciousness is a physical system.

All my usage of the word "is" would indicate there is that consciousness is a potential property of physical systems.

This is no different than saying a car is a physical system. Cars are reducible to physical systems.

You claim making any statement in the form of "is reducible to" discredits an "is" statement. This isn't the case. "... is reducible to" in the case of cars or consciousness describes the behavior of such systems, rather than making an ontological statement about the system itself. Beyond that it means equivalent expressions of the same system. 12/3 is reducible to 4. Is 12/3 the same as 4? For all intents and purposes, yes, but symbolically 12/3 is not the same as 4. It takes 4 bytes to express 12/3, but only one to express 4. But are they not equivalent?

There is nothing about the behavior of car that cannot be explained by the properties of physical systems. Carishness is a potential property of any physical system.

Can you demonstrate that consciousness is not a potential property of physical systems?