Gertie wrote: ↑May 30th, 2018, 9:21 amConsul wrote:What do you think is "the right toolkit for the job" if not the one of natural science? The pseudo- or unscientific one of a so-called "supernatural science" or "spiritual science" perhaps?
I should have said current science. And the reasons to doubt its suitability for the job are obvious. It's the study of public/objective/quantifiable stuff, not private/subjective/qualiative experience. Science has no place for experiential states in the standard model of what the world is made of and how it works, and it doesn't predict its existence or emergence from physical processes.
Experiential states don't have to be scientifically predictable in order to be scientifically explainable.
Epistemological emergentism, which defines emergent properties as unpredictable ones, is compatible with ontological reductionism.
Searle distinguishes between
epistemological objectivity/subjectivity and
ontological objectivity/subjectivity. Yes, experiences are O-subjective in the sense that for them to be is for them to be experienced by a subject from its first-person, egocentric perspective. Searle has argued that a non-eliminative ontological reduction of O-subjective experiences to O-objective neural processes is impossible. But what he has overlooked is that there's nothing contradictory about saying, as materialist reductionists do, that O-subjective experiences are non-eliminatively/conservatively reducible to O-objective neurological/physical entities
in the sense that the former are composed of or constituted by entities of the latter kind. Subjective experiences may well be composed of neurological/physical elements none of which is subjective, such that neuroscience has access to (experiential complexes of) them from its third-person perspective.
Gertie wrote: ↑May 30th, 2018, 9:21 amAll that suggests current science is missing something key, and it might be because experiential states are fundamental, and shouldn't be expected to be predicted as manifesting in physical processes, through some mechanistic emergent method.
What current neuroscience lacks is the requisite neuroimaging technology which would reveal all the microscopic, molecular details regarding the structure and functioning of supercomplex neural networks in the brain that need to be known for a neuroscientific explanation of consciousness.
"Certainly, we can make progress in NCC research, but we should also bear in mind that the results of the research do not amount to the literal discovery of consciousness. None of the data we get from the current research instruments can reveal a level of organization in the brain that would somehow correspond to our phenomenology, and we should not even expect them to find any such thing. The correlations we have detected are not sufficient for the construction of a multilevel model of consciousness, because the phenomena that constitute the sources of the signals (e.g., blood oxygenation levels, single-cell firing rates) detected by our best currently available research instruments are rather distant from the phenomenal level. Still, even the currently available signals might contain correlative information revealing when the phenomenal level is 'on' and when it is 'off' (say the difference between the conscious vs. unconscious state during anesthesia), or when a conspicuous change occurs in its global content (say during binocular rivalry). But this information, though very exciting in itself, is still hopelessly indirect and coarse for the purpose of building a detailed theoretical model.
In the philosophy of science, it has been noted that the development of science depends at least as much on new research instruments as it does on new ideas (Giere, 1988). Many biological phenomena could not have been discovered without the proper equipment and the development of very specific methods. For example, the complex internal structure of the mitochondrion could only be discovered with the electron microscope. Before the appropriate methodology was available the complete explanation of biological respiration and oxidative phosphorylation remained unknown (Bechtel & Richardson, 1992). In cognitive neuroscience, both our theories about the large-scale organization of brain activity and our instruments to observe such phenomena are still quite limited. Even if we forget about consciousness for the moment, there is a lot to be discovered in the brain. New methods and theoretical frameworks will be necessary to make those discoveries. We should not overestimate the state of our current understanding or the capabilities of the currently available research instruments; we are only beginning to open some restricted empirical windows to the living brain.
The difficulty in discovering and explaining consciousness is due to our crude research instruments and lack of established theories in neuroscience rather than to the mystical nature of consciousness. I am not implying that discovering consciousness in the brain is impossible in principle. I merely want to point out that even if consciousness turns out to be a real biological phenomenon in the brain, even our best research instruments are not yet capable of discovering empirically the relevant biological levels of organization in the brain."
(Revonsuo, Antti.
Inner Presence: Consciousness as a Biological Phenomenon. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2006. pp. 336-7)
Gertie wrote: ↑May 30th, 2018, 9:21 amNeuroscientists can observe greater detail of correlation, but they don't even know how to recognise such a mechanism.
Yes, they do.
"According to biological realism, the primary target is to find neural phenomena in the brain that go beyond mere correlative relationships with consciousness. The relationship between the phenomenal level and the lower neural levels is not correlation but hierarchical constitution. The phenomena at the lower neural levels constitute the higher phenomenal level. Thus, what neuroscience should be looking for, it if aims at discovering ad explaining consciousness, are the constitutive mechanisms of consciousness (CMC), rather than just the NCC."
(Revonsuo, Antti.
Inner Presence: Consciousness as a Biological Phenomenon. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2006. p. 297)
"If we accept that consciousness literally resides in the brain, then it follows that there must be some biological phenomenon in the brain that literally resembles or is similar to consciousness. Well, what phenomenon might that be? Of course, it is consciousness itself.
A particular experience is a specific pattern of phenomenal features at the phenomenal level of organization in the brain. Hence, to count as the discovery of the phenomenal level, the data we collect should reveal a level of organization in the brain that somehow directly corresponds to our subjective phenomenology. The data must in one way or another reveal the fact that there is a phenomenal world being constructed in the brain. Furthermore, the data should reveal what kind of bundles and patterns of phenomenal features are present at this level, and how they are spatiotemporally organized. The data should allow at least some sort of reconstruction of a model that includes the structure, organization, and content of the phenomenal level: the world experienced by the subject.
This is what discovering consciousness in the brain means: purely brain-based data that allow the construction of a model of the subject's phenomenal world.
In information-theoretic terms, the brain measurement adequate for the discovery of consciousness should constitute an information channel between the phenomenal level (as the object of the measurement) and the neuroscientist (as the subject doing the measurement). Physically, the research instrument serves as the information channel. When data are being registered, entities and activities at the phenomenal level should serve directly as the input domain of the information channel. The sensors pick signals directly originating from the phenomenal level. The outputs of the instrument convey the signals to the researcher. The data structures registered and stored by the measuring instrument (curves, maps, activation patterns, and what-have-you) constitute the output domain of the information channel. They are the only things directly accessible to the researchers. If they do not transmit any information about the state and the contents of the phenomenal level, then nothing does.
A measurement that fulfills these criteria would transmit information directly about the phenomenal level of organization. Such data would allow the reconstruction of a model of the phenomenal level (as it was experienced by the subject during the brain measurement).
…
The only way to distinguish the phenomenon itself from the myriads of its correlates is the fact that the CMC is the only NCC found in the brain that fully explains why the phenomenal world of the subject is in one configuration rather than another. A certain configuration of the CMC supports, constitutes, or realizes a certain configuration at the higher, phenomenal level. A detailed description of the state of the CMC should thus allow us to reconstruct the state of the phenomenal level of organization. In this way it is possible to create genuine understanding of how specific neural states constitute the phenomenal level, and why some other neural activities only show correlations with it."
(Revonsuo, Antti.
Inner Presence: Consciousness as a Biological Phenomenon. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2006. pp. 299-300)
Gertie wrote: ↑May 30th, 2018, 9:21 amAll that's possibly a systemic problem with our usual scientific way of objectively/sharedly knowing stuff (why Chalmers calls it the Hard Problem), and philosophers are taking it on. But philosophers can't then ask neuroscientists to look for Property Dualism or Panpsychism to test their hypotheses. Maybe people will come up with hypotheses which predict something which hasn't been discovered by science yet and scientists could go look for it, we'll see.
But panpsychism is scientifically untestable and useless; and it's theoretically incredible anyway.
Gertie wrote: ↑May 30th, 2018, 9:21 amConsul wrote:The mere logical possibility of nonanimal consciousness provides no reason at all not to disbelieve in its actuality, because the question is how probable or rationally plausible it is in the light of our (admittedly incomplete) scientific knowledge? And the answer is that the occurrence of nonanimal consciousness is extremely improbable and implausible.
When our current knowledge is so 'incomplete' that the Hard Problem is an open question, then we can't reasonably discount possibilities because they don't fit a preferred hypothesis. We can say that based on what we have to go on, plants and rocks aren't very similar to accepted conscious entities with brains, so it's less likely they're conscious. But as I've pointed out, if you're using similarity as your criterion, you have to bear in mind you simply might not recognise plant experience.
From the naturalistic perspective, the question is no longer
whether (all natural) conscious states are brain states, but
how they are constituted or produced by neurological brain states.
If brainless plants were conscious organisms, they would have to contain some recognizable material structure which could function as a CNS substitute capable of generating consciousness; but plants are known to lack such an "ersatz brain".
Gertie wrote: ↑May 30th, 2018, 9:21 amThere's a 'Heirarchy of Inference' which the argument for analogy rests on.
The only thing known for certain are one's own experiential states.
The content of those experiential states imply the existence of a world 'out there' which they describe - including other humans much like me, who report similar experiential states. Them being much like me makes their consciousness plausible, and I can observe they behave much like me when they burn fingers etc.
Scientists have observed neural correlation with experiential states in human reports, so it's plausible to assume that other species with a CNS who also behave as if they're conscious, are. The more like humans, the more similar the experiential states are likely to be. I can have a fair idea 'what it's like' to be another human, less what it's like to a chimp, and much less a bat experiencing sonar or less still a moth drawn to light. and less still a daffodil drawn to light.
A daffodil is so different, I might not recognise the behaviour associated with daffodil experiential states, and believe a daff growing towards light is all down to physical processes - but then the same could be said of bats and chimps and other humans whose behaviour can also in principle be explained solely by physical processes. So in the absence of knowing the necessary and sufficient conditions we should be agnostic. Because we don't even know how we could know.
I think we know enough to be justified in not staying agnostic(ally) neutral about phytopsychism, and in claiming that (certain types of) electrochemical processes in a CNS are both necessary and sufficient for consciousness.
Gertie wrote: ↑May 30th, 2018, 9:21 amConsul wrote:If it's mysterious how neurophysiological mechanisms can actualize consciousness, it is much more mysterious how any physical systems lacking neurophysiological or even all biophysiological structures and processes can possibly do so.
No it's not. You're used to the idea that brains are correlated with consciousness, but there's no scientific theory or reason which would have predicted that discovery.
So what? That conscious states (and its subjective contents) aren't (yet) predictable and scrutable
a priori on the basis of neurophysiological knowledge of the brain doesn't mean that they aren't reductively explainable in neurophysiological terms.
Gertie wrote: ↑May 30th, 2018, 9:21 amConsul wrote:And as soon as we leave the biological sphere, the (alleged) actualization of consciousness by non-biological systems becomes sheer magic. What is more and worse, systems are by definition complex objects; but fundamentalist/panpsychist property dualists even assert (absurdly) that noncomplex, structureless, i.e. simple, physical objects such as elementary particles can actualize consciousness as well.
Conscious emergence also looks like magic.
The emergence of consciousness from animal brains is still scientifically unexplained, but an emergence of it from things other than animal brains is scientifically unexplainable in principle and truly magical if consciousness is attributed to nonliving things, especially to single molecules, atoms, or particles.
Gertie wrote: ↑May 30th, 2018, 9:21 amWe have this concept because we see novel properties emerging in physical systems, but they are all scientifically predictable and causally reducible to the underlying processes. If you say experiential states are causally reducible to physical processes then you need a new explanation because it's not scientifically predictable.
There's a distinction between
epistemological ("weak") emergence and
ontological ("strong") emergence, and there's a further distinction between
causal/etiological reduction and
existential/ontological reduction.
E-emergence is compatible with O-reduction, but O-emergence is incompatible with O-reduction. Whether consciousness is merely E-emergent, i.e. E-emergent yet O-reducible, is the point at issue in the debate between reductive materialists and nonreductive ones.
To say that Xs are causally reducible to Ys is to say that Xs are (epiphenomenal or non-epiphenomenal) effects or products of Ys; and if causes/producers are different from their effects/products, then causal reduction is incompatible with existential reduction/O-reduction.
When we talk about "novel properties emerging in physical systems", we need to clarify first whether we're talking about
merely E-emergent ones, which are O-reducible, or about
O-emergent ones, which are O-irreducible (and also E-emergent).
E-emergent properties or states are higher-level ones which are not predictable or scrutable
a priori (non-empirically) on the basis of knowledge of those lower-level properties or states from which they emerge. As far as I know, there are E-emergent properties/states in chemistry and biology too that are not so predictable or scrutable—despite the fact that all chemical and biological entities are O-reducible to (complexes or systems of) microphysical ones. So phenomenological properties/states aren't the only E-emergent ones.
Gertie wrote: ↑May 30th, 2018, 9:21 amIf experience is fundamental to the universe, I'm not sure we can extrapolate from our materialist type ways of explaining the world. We don't know what its laws are, its maths or logic, or if it has anything comparable. We see a comprehensible material world of stuff and laws which look different at different levels of granularity (classical/qm), and we see neural correlation, which suggests there is some lawful correlation between the material and experiential. So we have that to ponder. If experience is fundamental it might require a further granular or paradigmatic shift to understand the correlation, the mind-body relationship, who knows.
As opposed to (theistic) substance dualism and substance spiritualism, naturalistic panpsychism (fundamentalistic attribute dualism) includes substance materialism about the substrates or subjects of mental/experiential attributes. If all material substances or objects, or at least some kinds of fundamental ones have (physically irreducible) mental/experiential properties in addition to their physical ones, then the set of basic physical laws must be supplemented by a large set of (physically irreducible) psychophysical laws (concerning psychophysical correlations, connections, or interactions).
However, one basic problem is that the defenders of the
interactionistic, non-epiphenomenalistic version of (fundamentalistic or emergentistic) attribute dualism seem unable to explain mental causation in non-magical, non-supernatural terms.
Gertie wrote: ↑May 30th, 2018, 9:21 amConsul wrote:The number of conscious animal species is unknown, and scientists cannot eliminate the possibility that all animals (with a brain) are conscious creatures. For example, insect consciousness seems to be a real possibility, and there's nothing inherently implausible about assuming e.g. that when a bee sees a flower, it has subjective color-impressions. But insects do have a (central) nervous system, whereas plants don't; and it is simply false that there are no good scientific reasons to disbelieve in the brain-independence of conscious states.
OK, so what is the scientific reason, aside from observed correlation?
There is very strong scientific evidence that experiential states don't just correlate with, but are both causally and existentially dependent on neural states: Anesthesiologists can switch consciousness off or on at will through chemical manipulation of neural processes.
"A commonsensical idea about causation is that causal relationships are relationships that are potentially exploitable for purposes of manipulation and control: very roughly, if C is genuinely a cause of E, then if I can manipulate C in the right way, this should be a way of manipulating or changing E."
Source:
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/causation-mani/
Correspondingly, if some manipulations of X are always followed by the same alterations of Y, then this is evidence for a causal relation between X and Y.
Gertie wrote: ↑May 30th, 2018, 9:21 amConsul wrote:There is compelling scientific evidence for the brain-dependence of human consciousness,
There is the observation of neural correlation, there is no explanatory scientific Theory.
As I already said myself, a mere description of correlations is not an explanation of them; but my point is that it is not the case that we aren't justified in believing
that animal brains are in fact the (only) organs of consciousness unless we have a reductive explanation of
how (exactly) conscious states are physicochemically realized by and in them.
Gertie wrote: ↑May 30th, 2018, 9:21 amConsul wrote:For where there is consciousness there must be a physical organ of consciousness; but what (material structure) could possibly and plausibly function as an organ of consciousness in a plant, a rock, a single molecule, atom, or particle? (As far as structureless, simple particles are concerned, it is obvious that the answer must be "nothing".)
I don't know and neither does anybody else.
This is what makes panpsychism totally incredible! If consciousness is not to be a supernatural phenomenon, it must be fully grounded in concrete material structures and processes; so if there aren't any such identifiable brain-like organs of consciousness in nonanimals, they cannot be subjects of consciousness.
Gertie wrote: ↑May 30th, 2018, 9:21 amPeople suggest possible underlying explanations like Panpsychism or Emergence, but they both have problems which our current science doesn't seem able to resolve, yet anyway. And if that's because experiential states require an explanation which goes beyond our current materialist-based scientific description of what the world is made of and how it works, then Panpsychism is a contender, and science will need to expand its purview.
If panpsychistic/fundamentalistic property dualism is true, the existence of the basic experiential properties or states of microphysical objects is a brute, i.e. inexplicable, fact of nature. So it is an attractive contender only insofar as it can offer an explanation of how non-fundamental experiential properties/states (macroexperience) can naturally emerge from the fundamental ones (microexperience). But this means that it has its own emergence problem!
I know panpsychists such as Strawson argue that the emergence of macroexperience from basic microexperience is less mysterious and more plausible than the emergence of experience from nonexperience; but in order not to end up with some form of the latter, they cannot help but make the absurd, utterly implausible claim that experiences and subjects of experience have always existed since the first instant of time after the Big Bang. Believe it if you can—I can't!
