The reason why science has trouble with consciousness

Discuss any topics related to metaphysics (the philosophical study of the principles of reality) or epistemology (the philosophical study of knowledge) in this forum.
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Rr6
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Re: The reason why science has trouble with consciousness

Post by Rr6 »

Burning ghost---I gave three options. To employ your terms I will say you have these three options:
1- Physical comes before non-physical.
2- Non-physical comes before physical.
I've answered these questions many times. Both exist in eternal complementation to each other.

Some prefer to remain ignorant irrespective of all information they have access too. Reminds me of Trumpty Dumpty candidate.

Biological physical does exist before access to metaphysical-1, mind/intellect/concepts can occur.

BG-
1- Do natural laws cause matter/energy to exist?
No, they do not. Metaphysical-1, mind/intellect/concepts do not cause or effect occupied space existence.

We do see that geometric shape has direcet effect of air-flow, however, that, effect only takes place because of existence of occupied space.
2- Does matter/energy cause natural laws to exist?
No. However, occupied space cannot exist without the complementary existence of metaphysical-1, mind/intellect/concepts and that is inclusive of all catagorys of matmatics ex geometric patterns. occupied space cannot exist without having a corresponding shape.

Our finite, occupied space Universe, shapes the metaphysical-2, macro-infinite non-occupied space from within.

Obviously we cannot get outside of infinite space, however, our finite occupied space exists with that infinite non-occupied space. Not sure why so many have such difficulty grasping this simple set of concepts, much less acknowledging their rational, logical common sense validity.

The truth exists for those who seek it, those who don't and those who scoff at it. imho

r6
"U"niverse > UniVerse > universe > I-verse < you-verse < we-verse < them-verse
Togo1
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Re: The reason why science has trouble with consciousness

Post by Togo1 »

Consul wrote:
Bohm2 wrote:The argument is not that physics is vacuous but physicalism as a metaphysical view is vacuous. Physicalism can't be challenged because it's empty. To the extent that we understand something, we will undoubtedly label it as being "physical" but the term tells us nothing since our conception of " physical" is undefined, and continually changes; that is, our conception of the physical/matter continues to evolve as we discover new phenomema in nature or come up with new models. And you can't challenge something that is unstable or undefined. For the same reason, it is also a useless/vacuous/empty term/position.
I disagree.

"Physical realism, or materialism, is the doctrine that the whole of what exists is constituted of matter and its local motions, not Aristotelian 'prime matter' but physical matter, and is hence 'physical' in the literal sense that all its constituents are among the subject matter of physics. Every entity—stone or man, idea or essence—is on this principle a vulnerable and effective denizen of the one continuum of action, and in the entire universe, including the knowing mind itself, there is nothing which could not be destroyed (or repaired) by a spatiotemporal redisposition of its components."
(p. 213)

<snip>

" ...but most of the populace of Christendom, and most metaphysicians dignified with livings, lay or ecclesiastical, have emphatically refused to admit that everything in the universe can be ruined or repaired by local rearrangement. They have believed in enormous amounts of nonphysical, nonspatial, and even nontemporal reality, beyond the corruption of moth and rust, either supplementing material reality or supplanting it: minds, soul, spirits, and ideas, transcendent ideals and eternal objects, numbers, principles, angels, and Pure Being."
(p. 224)
You sure about this? You reckon the concept of '3' can be runined or repaired by local rearrangement? You mind explaining how that works?

It seems to me that most emperical science, including physics, rely absolutely on ideas that are not material, not temporal, and can not be ruined or repaired by local rearrangement. Numbers, physical laws, the very idea of a measurement, all of these depend on concepts that are not-physical and non-local.
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Bohm2
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Re: The reason why science has trouble with consciousness

Post by Bohm2 »

An interesting quote by the physicist Edward Witten in the piece below supports the view of people like Noam Chomsky, B. Russell, Colin McGinn and Steven Pinker who argue that the so-called "hard" problem will always remain intractible:
He feels confident that the workings of the mind will be greatly clarified by ongoing research so that we will come to understand much better how the mechanisms operate. But why these processes are accompanied by something like consciousness seems likely to remain a mystery; no extension of physics that he can imagine seems likely to do the job, including the kind of new quantum mechanics that Roger Penrose believes is needed.

Witten is merely recording his intuitions, so we shouldn’t try to represent him as committed to any strong theoretical position; but his words clearly suggest that he is an optimist on the so-called Easy Problem and a pessimist on the Hard one. The problem he thinks may be unsolvable is the one about why there is “something it is like” to have experiences; what it is that seeing a red rose has over and above the acquisition of mere data.

If so, I think his incredulity joins a long tradition of those who feel intuitively that that kind of consciousness just is radically different from anything explained or explainable by physics. Horgan mentions the Mysterians, notably Colin McGinn, who holds that our brain just isn’t adapted to understanding how subjective experience and the physical world can be reconciled; but we could also invoke Brentano’s contention that mental intentionality is just utterly unlike any physical phenomenon; and even trace the same intuition back to Leibniz’s famous analogy of the mill; no matter what wheels and levers you put in your machine, there’s never going to be anything that could explain a perception (particularly telling given Leibniz’s enthusiasm for calculating machines and his belief that one day thinkers could use them to resolve complex disputes). Indeed, couldn’t we argue that contemporary consciousness sceptics like Dennett and the Churchlands also see an unbridgeable gap between physics and subjective, qualia-having consciousness? The difference is simply that in their eyes this makes that kind of consciousness nonsense, not a mystery.
The Incredible Consciousness of Edward Witten
http://www.consciousentities.com/2016/0 ... rd-witten/

The only way out, if one is willing to accept that view (many are not) is to argue for some type of panpsychism of fundamentality with respect to consciousness (as per Hoffman). But both these views seem a bit too hard to swallow, in my opinion.
Tamminen
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Re: The reason why science has trouble with consciousness

Post by Tamminen »

My view is that science has trouble with consciousness because it is committed to a false monistic ontology. It assumes that there is one isolated universe where all phenomena are on the same level of being. Furthermore it assumes that complex phenomena can be explained by the simple, basic components of physics. And what is the key point in this context, it assumes that the phenomena of consciousness can in principle be explained by biological and finally physical principles.

But the universe is not an isolated phenomenon. It is one component of a relation whose other member is the subject, the 'I' that is ”in the universe”. So I have a relation to the universe, and that relation we call consciousness. We cannot break that relation so that the relation itself would come part of the universe. This means that there is a primordial gap between the world of physics and consciousness. Those two phenomena are not on the same ontological level. However, there is a correlation between the two, and it is this correlation that should be the object of scientific inquiry, not ”explaining” consciousness by biology, which is impossible and will stay such.
Eaglerising
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Re: The reason why science has trouble with consciousness

Post by Eaglerising »

I feel Universal/Alien has done an excellent job addressing why science has trouble with consciousness. I would also like to point out, that there are some scientists past and present who don't have trouble with consciousness. In fact they rely upon it. Unfortunately, their numbers are small. They also have learned to be quiet about it.
Tamminen
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Re: The reason why science has trouble with consciousness

Post by Tamminen »

Eaglerising wrote:They also have learned to be quiet about it.
Consciousness is so self-evident that it needs no explaining, because we essentially are what is meant by it. So let us try to explain other things like matter, universe or the being of others, and leave our own being, consciousness, where it belongs, as the self-evident starting point. This is of course an ontological argument against materialism, which tries to explain consciousness by physical concepts.
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Re: The reason why science has trouble with consciousness

Post by Eaglerising »

Tamminen –
Consciousness is so self-evident that it needs no explaining, because we essentially are what is meant by it. So let us try to explain other things like matter, universe or the being of others, and leave our own being, consciousness, where it belongs, as the self-evident starting point. This is of course an ontological argument against materialism, which tries to explain consciousness by physical concepts.
There are many types of consciousness and levels of consciousness. My use of it pertains to relying upon consciousness as opposed to thought.
Tamminen
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Re: The reason why science has trouble with consciousness

Post by Tamminen »

Eaglerising wrote:There are many types of consciousness and levels of consciousness. My use of it pertains to relying upon consciousness as opposed to thought.
I have used the concept of consciousness in the general sense meaning all forms of subjectivity as opposed to the being of stones, computers etc. that are not conscious because they are not subjects. Consciousness in this sense constitutes an ontological level of its own which differs conceptually from the material world in a radical manner, although there is probably a one-to-one correspondence or correlation between them.
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