Searle's Biological Naturalism view of Consciousness.

[Consul]

I see reducibility  of the process of conscious emergence as a sort of reverse engineering.  If the claim is that conscious experience emerges from or is caused by physical processes of material brain stuff, then if you reverse that process  all you're left with ontologically is the physical stuff which the physical processes have reconfigured (into simpler or more complex parts).  Reducibility in the materialist sense that ultimately everything is theoretically reducible to the physicalist standard model of particles interacting as a result of forces, rather than each part being splittable.  (I don't know what it would mean to say experiencing is splittable, or 'flavours' of experience like pain or joy or red are ontologically splittable into parts, it seems like a category error, and doesn't help us understand experience as emergent or caused).

New properties of brains resulting from processes are therefore reconfigurations of the same brain stuff, and therefore reducible to the brain stuff in that sense.   Is this a valid interpretation of reducibility in philosophy of mind? Or am I using the wrong terminology?

If certain neural mechanisms are the correlates of consciousness, then what is the ground of these psychophysical correlations? Is it the relation of causation or production (understood emergentistically), or the relation of constitution or composition (understood reductionistically)? If the former, then the neural mechanisms of consciousness are not identical with (states of) consciousness; and if the latter, they are.

There is a distinction between existential (ontological) reduction and explanatory reduction.

According to ontological emergentism, higher-level conscious phenomena are reductively explainable in terms of, but not existentially reducible to, i.e. not identifiable with, lower-level neural mechanisms. The conscious phenomena and the neural mechanisms producing them occur on different (distinct) levels or layers of being; so they are different from one another, and cannot be identified or equated with one another.
If X is an emergent phenomenon on level L_n reductively explainable in terms of (properties of and relations between) Ys on level L_n-1, then X is caused but not constituted by the Ys, such that X ≠ Ys.

According to ontological reductionism, conscious phenomena are both reductively explainable in terms of and existentially reducible to, i.e. identifiable with, neural mechanisms.
However, as Kim explains below, if X is identical with the Ys, and X is explainable in terms of (the properties of and relations between) the Ys, then it may be that this sort of explanation isn't properly called a reductive explanation, because it's a one-level explanation outside the emergentist context of levels or layers of being.

Scientific reduction: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/scie ... reduction/

QUOTE>
"Reduction is a procedure whereby a given domain of items (for example, objects, properties, concepts, laws, facts, theories, languages, and so on) is shown to be either absorbable into, or dispensable in favour of, another domain. When this happens, the one domain is said to be 'reduced' to the other."

("Reduction, Problems of," by Jaegwon Kim. The Shorter Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy, edited by Edward Craig. London: Routledge, 2005. p. 891)

"Central to the concept of reduction evidently is the idea that what has been reduced need not be countenanced as an independent existent beyond the entities in the reduction base—that if X has been reduced to Y, X is not something 'over and above' Y. From an ontological point of view, reduction must mean reduce—it must result in a simpler, leaner ontology. Reduction is not necessarily elimination: reduction of X to Y need not do away with X, for X may be conserved as Y (or as part of Y). Thus, we can speak of 'conservative' reduction (some call it 'retentive' or 'preservative' reduction), reduction that conserves the reduced entities, as distinguished from 'eliminative' reduction, which rids our ontology of the reduced entities. Either way we end up with a leaner ontology. Evidently, conservative reduction requires identities, for to conserve X as Y means that X is Y, whereas eliminative reduction has no need for (in fact, excludes) such identities."

(Kim, Jaegwon. "Making Sense of Emergence." In Essays in the Metaphysics of Mind, 8-40. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010. pp. 20-1)

"A certain picture seems widespread and influential in recent discussions of issues that involve reduction and reductive explanation—especially, in connection with the mind-body problem. The same picture is also influential in the way many think about the relationship between the 'higher-level' special sciences and 'basic' sciences. What I have in mind is the idea that reducing something is one thing and reductively explaining it is quite another. There supposedly is a vital difference, from both the scientific and philosophical point of view, between reducing psychological phenomena to biological/physical phenomena and reductively explaining the former in terms of the latter. The significance of the difference, on this line of thought, derives from the purported fact that reductive explanation is often an achievable scientific goal whereas reduction is an overreaching metaphysical aspiration that is seldom, if ever, realized.

To see what this picture is and appreciate its appeal, consider two domains (or 'levels', if you like) of phenomena, M and P. (For concreteness, we may think of M as 'mental' and P as 'physical'.) To reduce M to P, we must show, to use J.J.C. Smart’s suggestive phrase, that the M-phenomena are 'nothing over and above' the P-phenomena. A proposed reduction might be 'eliminative'—that is, it consists in showing that there really are no such things as M-phenomena ('there really are no such things as caloric fluids; there is only molecular motion'). If such a reduction goes through, there trivially are no M-phenomena over and above P-phenomena. Whether eliminative reduction is a serious form of reduction can be debated, but we should keep in mind that 'reduction' is a term of art and there need be no harm in the idea of eliminative reduction.

A more central form of reduction is 'conservative' (or 'preservative', 'retentive') reduction whereby the reduced phenomena survive as legitimate entities of the world. It’s only that they now turn up as entities in the base domain. Heat was conservatively reduced—it survives as molecular kinetic energy—whereas caloric fluids were eliminated. Genes were conservatively reduced; vital forces and entelechies were eliminated. If M-phenomena are to be conservatively reduced to P-phenomena, they must be shown to be 'nothing over and above' the P-phenomena, and it is hard to see how this could be done unless each M-phenomenon is claimed, and shown, to be identical with a P-phenomenon. That is, reduction appears prima facie to require the identification of M-phenomena with P-phenomena, and this means that M is turned into a subdomain of P. This is no surprise: reduction must reduce, and if M is reduced to P, M-phenomena no longer exist as something extra, something in addition to P-phenomena.

In contrast, when we think about reductive explanation—that is, explaining M-phenomena on the basis of P-phenomena (including P-laws)—a natural train of thoughts seems to lead to a considerably different picture. Suppose we explain an M-phenomenon in terms of P-phenomena. We now understand why, and how, this M-phenomenon arises from certain P-phenomena: it is because these particular P-phenomena constitute an underlying mechanism whose operations yield phenomena of kind M. Prima facie, this doesn’t seem to undermine, or affect in any way, the ontological status of the M-phenomenon vis-à-vis P-phenomena. It apparently remains an entity with a legitimate, independent standing in its own right; it’s only that its existence and character has now been made intelligible in light of the underlying phenomena and mechanisms. There seems no reason to think such an explanation of an M-phenomenon carries any commitment, explicit or implicit, to the claim that it is 'nothing over and above' the underlying P-phenomena; nor does it appear to imply, or suggest, that the M-phenomenon must be identified with a P-phenomenon. As an analogy, think about causal explanation: we do not think that a causal explanation of an event adversely affects its status as an entity. The effect remains an independent entity ontologically distinct from the cause. If something like this is right, reductive explanation should be possible even where there is no reduction. Or so it seems at first blush.

Conversely, it is difficult to see why we should expect reduction to yield reductive explanation: M-phenomena may be nothing over and above P-phenomena, but that in itself says nothing about explanation, something that has essential epistemic dimensions. If an M-phenomenon is identical with a P-phenomenon, there seems no specifically M-phenomenon that needs to be, or can be, reductively explained. The M-phenomenon is a P-phenomenon after all, and it is prima facie a bit incoherent to talk of ‘‘reductively’’ explaining a P-phenomenon in terms of other P-phenomena. It almost seems as though reduction might actually preclude reductive explanation. It is clear in any case that there are issues about reduction and reductive explanation that need to be sorted out and clarified."

(Kim Jaegwon. "Reduction and Reductive Explanation: Is One Possible Without the Other?" 2007. Reprinted in Essays in the Philosophy of Mind, 207-233. New York: Oxford University Press, 2010. pp. 207-9)
<QUOTE

I'm not sure if it makes a real difference anyway if you're a materialist monist.  Because these simple experiential properties or caused phenomena have to have some form of existence if you consider them real.  For property dualitists they are properties of the material brain, and  it is the sum of the properties which comprise the material brain.  So experiential properties are either material or something else. If experience is a  material emergent property of the brain, emergence hasn't explained anything,  and it's just a claim that material stuff can be third person undetectable, which is the antithesis of materialism.  If materialists believe experience is some other real thing which isn't material, what is it?

The concept of (causal) emergence as such isn't an explanatory one, since it doesn't explain how the (causal) emergence transpires, but only that it does.  

For Searle experiences  aren't properties of the brain, presumably to escape that issue, but something else (which brains generate causally by internal interactions) which aren't composed of material brain stuff.  So what is that real something else if it's not a substance or a property?

For both - if experience isn't a substance, but is real, what do they claim it is? 

Experiences surely don't belong to the ontological category substance or material (mass of matter), since they are neither a kind of thing (in the narrow ontological sense of this term) nor a kind of stuff. So they are either occurrences (occurrents)—facts/states (of affairs)/events/processes—or "adherences"/"inherences"—attributes: properties (qualities/quantities/quiddities) or relations.

If experiences are conceived as occurrences, they are (in my ontological understanding) havings (undergoings) of experiential properties/qualities by objects/subjects; and if they are conceived as "adherences"/"inherences", they are experiential properties/qualities (of objects/subjects).

There is a species of qualities which are called "passibiles qualitates" ("passible qualities") by medieval philosophers, and which had already been introduced by Aristotle with his category pathos, Lat. passio, Engl. passion. Passible qualities or passions (passive affections) of subjects are qualities of them which are dynamically "suffered" or "undergone" rather than statically possessed or had by them.
Experiences qua experiencings are properly called experiential passions. As a species of qualities they belong to the genus quality, which itself belongs to the family of properties—which itself belongs to the order attribute.

[Consul]

There is a distinction between existential (ontological) reduction and explanatory reduction.

According to ontological emergentism, higher-level conscious phenomena are reductively explainable in terms of, but not existentially reducible to, i.e. not identifiable with, lower-level neural mechanisms. The conscious phenomena and the neural mechanisms producing them occur on different (distinct) levels or layers of being; so they are different from one another, and cannot be identified or equated with one another.
If X is an emergent phenomenon on level L_n reductively explainable in terms of (properties of and relations between) Ys on level L_n-1, then X is caused but not constituted by the Ys, such that X ≠ Ys.

Alternatively, emergentists can simply claim that the emergence of experiences from neural processes is a brute, i.e. inexplicable, fact of nature that has to be accepted with "natural piety" (S. Alexander).

QUOTE>
"Material things have certain motions of their own which carry the quality of materials. In the presence of light they are endowed with the secondary quality of colour. Physical and chemical processes of a certain complexity have the quality of life. The new quality life emerges with this constellation of such processes, and therefore life is at once a physico-chemical complex and is not merely physical and chemical, for these terms do not sufficiently characterise the new complex which in the course and order of time has been generated out of them. Such is the account to be given of the meaning of quality as such. The higher quality emerges from the lower level of existence and has its roots therein, but it emerges therefrom, and it does not belong to that lower level, but constitutes its possessor a new order of existent with its special laws of behaviour. The existence of emergent qualities thus described is something to be noted, as some would say, under the compulsion of brute empirical fact, or, as I should prefer to say in less harsh terms, to be accepted with the "natural piety" of the investigator. It admits no explanation."

(Alexander, Samuel. Space, Time, and Deity: The Gifford Lectures at Glasgow 1916-1918. Vol. 2. London: Macmillan & Co., 1920. pp. 46-7)
<QUOTE

[GE Morton]

Please don't take this the wrong way, but you may want to study-up on Metaphysics, as I know you are desperately struggling to preserve your believe system by dichotomizing mental phenomena, I think? No worries, if Metaphysics is not your strong suit, perhaps logic is more in your wheelhouse. Let's test your ability to reason:

Nope. Let's start by you going back to my previous post and offering specific rebuttals to specific points made therein, rather than you ignoring those and repeating the same vacuous claims or offering new ones equally vacuous. After you've responded to those we can move on to any new claims you wish to make.

Proposition A: The brain is the cause of consciousness.

In your words, explain why that conclusion is both sound and valid, and what causes its premise(s) to be true.

Answered in the previous post.

[3017Metaphysician]

Please don't take this the wrong way, but you may want to study-up on Metaphysics, as I know you are desperately struggling to preserve your believe system by dichotomizing mental phenomena, I think? No worries, if Metaphysics is not your strong suit, perhaps logic is more in your wheelhouse. Let's test your ability to reason:

Nope. Let's start by you going back to my previous post and offering specific rebuttals to specific points made therein, rather than you ignoring those and repeating the same vacuous claims or offering new ones equally vacuous. After you've responded to those we can move on to any new claims you wish to make.

Proposition A: The brain is the cause of consciousness.

In your words, explain why that conclusion is both sound and valid, and what causes its premise(s) to be true.

Answered in the previous post.

GE!

You did?

Remember, I'm calling your bluff here. Are you saying that you are unable to objectively prove that the 'mind is the cause of consciousness'? In other words, where did you provide a logical syllogism that objectively supports your position?

[GE Morton]

Please don't take this the wrong way, but you may want to study-up on Metaphysics, as I know you are desperately struggling to preserve your believe system by dichotomizing mental phenomena, I think? No worries, if Metaphysics is not your strong suit, perhaps logic is more in your wheelhouse. Let's test your ability to reason:

Nope. Let's start by you going back to my previous post and offering specific rebuttals to specific points made therein, rather than you ignoring those and repeating the same vacuous claims or offering new ones equally vacuous. After you've responded to those we can move on to any new claims you wish to make.

Proposition A: The brain is the cause of consciousness.

In your words, explain why that conclusion is both sound and valid, and what causes its premise(s) to be true.

Answered in the previous post.

GE!

You did?

Yes, but not in the previous one, a prior one: "Not sure to what conclusion you refer. The proposition "The brain causes consciousness" is not the conclusion of any argument; it is a free-standing empirical proposition whose truth value is established by observation. The empirical evidence for its truth is ubiquitous and beyond question."

viewtopic.php?p=419900#p419900

You do that --- ask a question, ignore the answer, then ask the same question again later.

Remember, I'm calling your bluff here. Are you saying that you are unable to objectively prove that the 'mind is the cause of consciousness'?

Now, why would I attempt to prove that, since I've never claimed that? I've said that the brain --- not "the mind" --- is the cause of consciousness.

You seem to be badly confused here.

In other words, where did you provide a logical syllogism that objectively supports your position?

Answered above. The claim that brains cause consciousness is not the conclusion of any syllogism. It is an empirical proposition. No syllogisms are involved or necessary.

[3017Metaphysician]

Please don't take this the wrong way, but you may want to study-up on Metaphysics, as I know you are desperately struggling to preserve your believe system by dichotomizing mental phenomena, I think? No worries, if Metaphysics is not your strong suit, perhaps logic is more in your wheelhouse. Let's test your ability to reason:

Nope. Let's start by you going back to my previous post and offering specific rebuttals to specific points made therein, rather than you ignoring those and repeating the same vacuous claims or offering new ones equally vacuous. After you've responded to those we can move on to any new claims you wish to make.

Proposition A: The brain is the cause of consciousness.

In your words, explain why that conclusion is both sound and valid, and what causes its premise(s) to be true.

Answered in the previous post.

GE!

You did?

Yes, but not in the previous one, a prior one: "Not sure to what conclusion you refer. The proposition "The brain causes consciousness" is not the conclusion of any argument; it is a free-standing empirical proposition whose truth value is established by observation. The empirical evidence for its truth is ubiquitous and beyond question."

viewtopic.php?p=419900#p419900

You do that --- ask a question, ignore the answer, then ask the same question again later.

Remember, I'm calling your bluff here. Are you saying that you are unable to objectively prove that the 'mind is the cause of consciousness'?

Now, why would I attempt to prove that, since I've never claimed that? I've said that the brain --- not "the mind" --- is the cause of consciousness.

You seem to be badly confused here.

In other words, where did you provide a logical syllogism that objectively supports your position?

Answered above. The claim that brains cause consciousness is not the conclusion of any syllogism. It is an empirical proposition. No syllogisms are involved or necessary.

GE!

Please try not to equivocate, and provide the objective reasoning(s), for your claim. Please resist the temptation to use 'gibberish' in your response, by simply advancing a proposition(s), the typical three step argument, to support your claim. We're just using simple logic here.

I'll re-post for your convenience:

Please share how Searle's proposition completely explains the nature of conscious existence. And please resist the temptation for hyperbole and please spare the gibberish, if you are so inclined. Let's keep it simple and use pure reason, if you can. Ready?

Proposition A: The brain is the cause of consciousness.

In your words, explain why that 'conclusion' is both sound and valid, and what causes its premise(s) to be true. To support its premise, be succinct and use logico-deductive reasoning or a simple syllogism if you can.

Oh, to your concern, you're right, if it's not a 'conclusion' in the formal sense, provide the syllogism that makes your argument complete. Here, I know you're struggling:

Major premise: All M are P.
Minor premise: All S are M.
Conclusion: All S are P.

[GE Morton]

Please try not to equivocate, and provide the objective reasoning(s), for your claim. Please resist the temptation to use 'gibberish' in your response, by simply advancing a proposition(s), the typical three step argument, to support your claim. We're just using simple logic here.

Egads. Do you not understand the difference between a proposition derived as the conclusion of an argument and one asserted on the basis of an empirical observation? What makes you think that some syllogism must be involved in the proposition, "Brains cause consciousness"?

Here are some examples of empirical propositions:

* Heating water to 100C at sea level causes it to boil;

* Helicobacter pylori bacteria cause ulcers;

* A gunshot wound to the heart causes the heart to stop, which causes death;

* Shining a green light into the open eyes of an awake subject causes the subject to experience a sensation of greenness.

Please stop re-stating that misguided and irrelevant question and rebut the response already given.

You have a vastly overestimated conception of the role logic and syllogisms play in gaining knowledge about the world. In response to another commenter in another thread, who claimed that "Philosophy can explore the fundamental nature of reality," I wrote,

"No, it can't. Science does that. No amount of introspection or speculation or imagination or cogitation or even logic can reveal the slightest thing about "reality." Only observation can reveal anything about "reality," though imagination and cogitation can suggest observations. The most that philosophy can do is inform science with respect to methodology, and try to assure that what scientists and we SAY about reality is coherent and consistent. "

[3017Metaphysician]

Please try not to equivocate, and provide the objective reasoning(s), for your claim. Please resist the temptation to use 'gibberish' in your response, by simply advancing a proposition(s), the typical three step argument, to support your claim. We're just using simple logic here.

Egads. Do you not understand the difference between a proposition derived as the conclusion of an argument and one asserted on the basis of an empirical observation? What makes you think that some syllogism must be involved in the proposition, "Brains cause consciousness"?

Here are some examples of empirical propositions:

* Heating water to 100C at sea level causes it to boil;

* Helicobacter pylori bacteria cause ulcers;

* A gunshot wound to the heart causes the heart to stop, which causes death;

* Shining a green light into the open eyes of an awake subject causes the subject to experience a sensation of greenness.

Please stop re-stating that misguided and irrelevant question and rebut the response already given.

You have a vastly overestimated conception of the role logic and syllogisms play in gaining knowledge about the world. In response to another commenter in another thread, who claimed that "Philosophy can explore the fundamental nature of reality," I wrote,

"No, it can't. Science does that. No amount of introspection or speculation or imagination or cogitation or even logic can reveal the slightest thing about "reality." Only observation can reveal anything about "reality," though imagination and cogitation can suggest observations. The most that philosophy can do is inform science with respect to methodology, and try to assure that what scientists and we SAY about reality is coherent and consistent. "

GE!

Don't be afraid of yourself GE! Tell yourself, I'm good enough, smart enough and daggonit, people like you!

But seriously, I'm calling your bluff (again). You believe "the brain causes consciousness". Correct? You have to support your claim. Thus far you haven't. I'm trying to help you, but for some reason you don't want to use objective reasoning to defend your argument(s).

Are we to believe, then, that you are unable to make an objective argument to support your claims?

[GE Morton]

You believe "the brain causes consciousness". Correct? You have to support your claim. Thus far you haven't.

Oh, I have. The trouble is, that you don't understand how such claims are supported, what counts as supporting them. We determine what causes what by making observations, not by making arguments.

Logic is not a tool for determining how things work, or what is "real." It is a tool for assuring that what we say about the world makes sense.

But enjoy your frolicking in that Platonic fantasy.

[3017Metaphysician]

You believe "the brain causes consciousness". Correct? You have to support your claim. Thus far you haven't.

Oh, I have. The trouble is, that you don't understand how such claims are supported, what counts as supporting them. We determine what causes what by making observations, not by making arguments.

Logic is not a tool for determining how things work, or what is "real." It is a tool for assuring that what we say about the world makes sense.

But enjoy your frolicking in that Platonic fantasy.

GE!

Oh I see. Some things are starting to emerge here. I think I know why you are struggling with logic. There are two painfully obvious 'observations' (using your term) or ironies:

1. You're now attacking the messenger rather than the message. As in, please correct me if I'm wrong, you are wanting to distract attention from the 'inability' to use objective reasoning. But, that only serves to weaken your argument(s) though. For instance, specifically, what is the physical thing that's causing this behavior; only neurons, protons and other physical "brain" things? How does you 'feeling uncomfortable' over trying to respond correctly relate to physical brain stuff... More importantly, to effect meaning, how does the brain exclusively cause feelings of 'uncomfortableness'? Please share your specific theory if you can.

2. Like mathematical truth's, "observations" (using your term) about the world, relate to making statements about the facts of nature that can be tested. In-turn they are transformed into unchanging objective truth's that are universally true, regardless of how we feel about them. As such, your responses/arguments lack that sense of objectivity.

Please correct me if I'm wrong, in your methodologies you've specifically denied: phenomenology, metaphysics, now logic. If you cannot objectively support that "the brain is the cause of consciousness", as Spinoza might say, your words have no meaning. Instead, you seem to be justifying your arguments on arbitrary 'feelings' from 'your claim' of observation (not that that's necessarily a bad thing)?

Remember GE, you're good enough, smart enough and daggonit, people like you! Try this, it is much simpler than you think. Like Mikey says, try it you might like it! It will at least eliminate feeling (sort-of).

Proposition A: The brain is the cause of consciousness.

In your words, explain why that 'conclusion' is both sound and valid, and what causes its premise(s) to be true. To support its premise, be succinct and use logico-deductive reasoning or a simple syllogism if you can.

Oh, and to your concern, you're right, if it's not a 'conclusion' in the formal sense, please provide the syllogism that makes your argument complete:

Major premise: All M are P.
Minor premise: All S are M.
Conclusion: All S are P.

[GE Morton]

For instance, specifically, what is the physical thing that's causing this behavior; only neurons, protons and other physical "brain" things?

Yes. Feelings and behavior alike are caused by "brain stuff," and nothing else. How do we know that? Well, because we can elicit those feelings and behaviors by manipulating brain stuff in various physical ways, without adding anything else or doing anything else. Shining a green light into your eyes will evoke an experience of greenness in you; we can detect and measure the physical effects of that physical stimulus through your optic nerve to the visual cortex in your brain and from there to other parts of the cortex which present you with the conscious experience. That physical stimulus and the neural signaling that follows are sufficient to account for your experience. Nothing more is needed. Any further factor you may imagine to be involved would be superfluous. And, of course, any claim that there is one would be spurious and unverifiable; its existence wholly imaginary.

2. Like mathematical truth's, "observations" (using your term) about the world, relate to making statements about the facts of nature that can be tested. In-turn they are transformed into unchanging objective truth's that are universally true, regardless of how we feel about them. As such, your responses/arguments lack that sense of objectivity.

An "objective truth" is a proposition that is publicly confirmable. Very few objective truths are "universally true," though we may so consider some of them as long as no counterexamples appear.

Proposition A: The brain is the cause of consciousness.

In your words, explain why that 'conclusion' is both sound and valid, and what causes its premise(s) to be true. To support its premise, be succinct and use logico-deductive reasoning or a simple syllogism if you can.

Oh, and to your concern, you're right, if it's not a 'conclusion' in the formal sense, please provide the syllogism that makes your argument complete:

Major premise: All M are P.
Minor premise: All S are M.
Conclusion: All S are P.

And there we go again. Previous arguments ignored, same nonsense repeated.

[3017Metaphysician]

For instance, specifically, what is the physical thing that's causing this behavior; only neurons, protons and other physical "brain" things?

Yes. Feelings and behavior alike are caused by "brain stuff," and nothing else. How do we know that? Well, because we can elicit those feelings and behaviors by manipulating brain stuff in various physical ways, without adding anything else or doing anything else. Shining a green light into your eyes will evoke an experience of greenness in you; we can detect and measure the physical effects of that physical stimulus through your optic nerve to the visual cortex in your brain and from there to other parts of the cortex which present you with the conscious experience. That physical stimulus and the neural signaling that follows are sufficient to account for your experience. Nothing more is needed. Any further factor you may imagine to be involved would be superfluous. And, of course, any claim that there is one would be spurious and unverifiable; its existence wholly imaginary.

Once again, that dichotomizes the experience. You feel 'uncomfortable', in this instance, because you are not addressing the concern when posting in this forum. You're agitated. In other words, otherwise, you felt the need to initially post in this forum not because your brain caused you to, but because your meta-physical Will caused you to... . And since consciousness itself processes all experiences to happen, the proposition that 'the brain does not cause consciousness' is only half-true. The' shining green light' is only the observation (sense experience), not that which causes you any discomfort. Again, explain the real meaning of a human having 'discomfort', or being 'agitated' and so on in purely in physical terms if you can.

2. Like mathematical truth's, "observations" (using your term) about the world, relate to making statements about the facts of nature that can be tested. In-turn they are transformed into unchanging objective truth's that are universally true, regardless of how we feel about them. As such, your responses/arguments lack that sense of objectivity.

An "objective truth" is a proposition that is publicly confirmable. Very few objective truths are "universally true," though we may so consider some of them as long as no counterexamples appear.

Really? Is 'the brain causes consciousness' objectively false?

Proposition A: The brain is the cause of consciousness.

In your words, explain why that 'conclusion' is both sound and valid, and what causes its premise(s) to be true. To support its premise, be succinct and use logico-deductive reasoning or a simple syllogism if you can.

Oh, and to your concern, you're right, if it's not a 'conclusion' in the formal sense, please provide the syllogism that makes your argument complete:

Major premise: All M are P.
Minor premise: All S are M.
Conclusion: All S are P.

And there we go again. Previous arguments ignored, same nonsense repeated.

Until you can formulate your theory in a coherent form of objectivity, your theory is at best only a half-truth, at worst, relative to just you and to you only. It has little to no universal truth value. Unless of course, you want to argue that conscious is logically impossible.

I'll keep putting it up ( only as a subject line tickler so we don't loose sight of the argument) until you can objectively support your position:

"The brain is the cause of consciousness'. So far, I haven't seen where you've supported your arguments; they're 'dichotomized' responses lacking a complete explanation (?) No worries, we'll keep trying!

[GE Morton]

Once again, that dichotomizes the experience. You feel 'uncomfortable', in this instance, because you are not addressing the concern when posting in this forum. You're agitated. In other words, otherwise, you felt the need to initially post in this forum not because your brain caused you to, but because your meta-physical Will caused you to... .

Sorry, but feelings (moods, emotional states, etc.), just as with sensations, are caused by brain processes. If you wish to argue that "metaphysical will" is the cause, then you'll need to describe that entity (or force or whatever it is) in objective terms, isolate it (separate it from brain processes), and show how varying it --- but not brain processes --- will vary moods. If you can do none of those things then we can dismiss your "metaphysical will" as flapdoodle. While you're struggling with that I can show how a mood or feeling can be induced by strictly physical methods; and that therefore this additional factor you imagine is superfluous. It serves no demonstrable purpose and has no observable effects.

[3017Metaphysician]

Once again, that dichotomizes the experience. You feel 'uncomfortable', in this instance, because you are not addressing the concern when posting in this forum. You're agitated. In other words, otherwise, you felt the need to initially post in this forum not because your brain caused you to, but because your meta-physical Will caused you to... .

Sorry, but feelings (moods, emotional states, etc.), just as with sensations, are caused by brain processes. If you wish to argue that "metaphysical will" is the cause, then you'll need to describe that entity (or force or whatever it is) in objective terms, isolate it (separate it from brain processes), and show how varying it --- but not brain processes --- will vary moods. If you can do none of those things then we can dismiss your "metaphysical will" as flapdoodle. While you're struggling with that I can show how a mood or feeling can be induced by strictly physical methods; and that therefore this additional factor you imagine is superfluous. It serves no demonstrable purpose and has no observable effects.

Sure! No need to 'feel' sorry GE. BTW, what is causing you to feel sorry, the physical brain stuff again? Surely that couldn't be true could it? If so, insn;t that a half-truth? You know, do neurons in-themselves have feeling too? Don't half-truth's make things logically impossible?

Questions questions questions! You're batting 1000 GE!

If you 'feel' more comfortable, that is, if you feel like your brain will allow you to, you can make your case in 'The causes and qualities of experience' thread over in the Metaphysics section. Maybe ask your physical brain how it feels about that and let us know ok? Can phyisical structures talk too?


Seriously, please address my concerns with those metaphysical qualities associated with feelings themselves, that are located in the physical brain, as well as pure objective reasoning if you can. If not, just say you're stumped, it's ok GE. You're only dichotomizing your descriptions. Many philosophers do that. It's normal. Oh, and logically, did you miss this other questions too?

Really? Is 'the brain causes consciousness' objectively false?

Proposition A: The brain is the cause of consciousness.

In your words, explain why that 'conclusion' is both sound and valid, and what causes its premise(s) to be true. To support its premise, be succinct and use logico-deductive reasoning or a simple syllogism if you can.

Oh, and to your concern, you're right, if it's not a 'conclusion' in the formal sense, please provide the syllogism that makes your argument complete:

Major premise: All M are P.
Minor premise: All S are M.
Conclusion: All S are P.


Oh well, we'll keep trying! I wonder what Darwin would think about all this?

[GE Morton]

Do you think that for every predicate or concept there is some property represented by it? – I don't!

If the predicate term is one which enables us to distinguish an X from a non-X then yes, it denotes a property or a pseudo-property of X. (See below).

In the ontology of properties, some think the (kinds of) properties are "abundant", and others think they are "sparse", with me belonging to the "sparsists": https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/prop ... arAbunConc

Most so-called properties "are nothing but a shadow cast upon particulars by predicates." (D. M. Armstrong) These are pseudo-properties (or "properties-by-courtesy" as John Heil calls them), as opposed to real, natural properties that cannot be identified a priori through conceptual or linguistic analysis.

I have a different definition of the distinction between a property and a pseudo-property. We confirm that X has property P by (and only by) observing X. To confirm a pseudo-property Q of X we have to observe something external to X; the pseudo-property denotes some external, contingent fact about X. E.g., in "Alfie is 2 meters tall," being 2 meters tall is a property of Alfie. In "Alfie is a doctor," being a doctor is a pseudo-property of Alfie. We can't confirm that proposition by observing Alfie; we'll have to observe some school records, licensing records, etc.

Obviously these tests only apply to observable things. Propositions asserting or describing non-observable (imaginary or hypothetical/theoretical) things will also have predicates; these will denote hypothetical or defined properties.

Note that I don't think mereological simplicitly requires absolute partlessness; that is to say, simple entities do not have to lack parts (components/constituents) of any kind—be they substantial, spatial, temporal, or "modal" ones. (By a "modal part" of a thing I mean a property aka a mode (way) of being which is part of it.)

Is ice, then, a "part" of water, or just part of our concept of water? Parts of things (in ordinary speech) don't necessarily correspond to our concepts of things.

In my understanding, mereological simplicity requires only the absence of substantial (or objectual) parts, i.e. parts which are themselves (smaller) objects or substances (and thus belong to the same ontological category). Mereological simples may still have spatial, temporal, or modal parts, such that e.g. they don't have to be spatially unextended or zero-dimensional like a mathematical point. The whole world might be one spatially/spatiotemporally extended simple object!

Everything not a point will have spatial "parts," e.g., a left side and a right side, etc., and everything not instantaneous will have temporal parts (a beginning and an end). But I'm not clear on your last point there --- the "world," as I conceive the term, surely has many smaller parts of the same ontological category.

??

Due to the intractable vagueness of "part of" when applied to things, we should give up trying to decide "ontologically" whether a thing is "simple" or "complex." Does so characterizing a thing convey any useful information about it? It will always be possible to divide anything, other than spatiotemporal points, into "parts" in some sense of the word. But we can still speak of simple, or primitive, descriptive terms for denoting things, namely, those terms that can only be taught and learned ostensively. We can then, perhaps, define a simple "thing" as one denoted by a primitive term (if so describing it has any communicative utility). This illustrates my larger point --- how existents are categorized or related is a function of what say or can say about them in a given language (yes, there is some Wharfism there). Ontologies are implicit in language, and attempts by philosophers to regiment those categories, assume those "refined" categories describe "reality," then declare some of them to be "fundamental" is fatuous. They only describe "reality" as it is portrayed in some model, some theory, of reality.

What (kinds of) properties there really are is one question; but that there really are properties is not in question for me, because I am convinced that properties (attributes, modes, features, characteristics) are ontologically indispensable parts of the furniture of the world.

What makes them ontologically indispensible, other than the fact that talking about the world demands them?

Hmmm. Is "red" a simple property? We can't speak of a red car?

Yes, we can; but colors—I mean phenomenal colors, colors-as-experienced—aren't objective properties of things such as cars. Phenomenal or experiential reds are red-impressions or -sensations, which are nonsimple qualities of subjects (or their brains). Subjective "secondary qualities" such as colors may introspectively seem simple, but they aren't really so, because they are really complexes of objective "primary qualities" inherent in neural networks.

Oooh, you seem to jumping the mind-body dichotomy dogmatically there, begging the question. That those qualities are caused by neural networks doesn't entail that "they are really complexes of objective "primary qualities" inherent in neural networks."

I think the only sense we can make of an "objective property" is that it is one predicated of a thing via an objective proposition.

I find the distinction between emergence and resultance meaningful and usefuI. However, I know resultance can be interpreted both as causal resultance and as compositional/constitutional resultance; and if it is interpreted as causal resultance, there is no difference between it and emergence interpreted as causal emergence. But "emergence" is never used to mean "compositional/constitutional emergence", in the sense that if X emerges from the Ys, then X is composed of or constituted by the Ys. Quite the contrary: if X emerges from the Ys, then X is not composed of or constituted by the Ys.

Usually "emergence" is used when the causal chain cannot be fully articulated. It is a confession of ignorance. But though we can't articulate all the steps in the causal chain, we can still say "Neural processes cause consciousness," just as pre-atomic theory people could say, "Heating water to 100C (at sea level) causes steam."

Being composed of three quarks, a proton is not a simple object. Whether quarks are truly simple is unknown. They may have a structure too. Some even believe there are no simple material objects at all, so that no known or unknown physical particle is truly elementary. To put it mildly, I think the assumption that all material objects have smaller objectual parts ad infinitum is very questionable; but there are consistent atomless models of formal mereology—with atoms in the mereological sense (= "simples") being different from atoms in the physical/chemical sense, since physical/chemical atoms aren't mereological atoms (= "simples") due to their having smaller things as (substantial) parts.

Whether a theoretical thing (such as a proton) is deemed simple or complex will depend upon how much explanatory power the theory postulating it has. E.g., if imagining protons to be composed of quarks helps us explain (and predict) some of the results observed in particle accelerator experiments then we can deem the quarks "real." We can also deem the quarks "simple" if imagining more elementary components gains us no additional explanatory power. The basis for the distinction is different, however, for empirically apprehensible things. Then we deem them "simple" if they are denotable by a primitive term.

Are you a predicate nominalist about properties?

Oh, much worse. I'm an "ontological nominalist." What exists, beyond experiential phenomena, is whatever we SAY exists, provided that what we say exists enables us to predict and control future experience.

We postulate an external cause for the phenomena of experience (the noumena). We then construct a model of that postulated external world, and populate it with entities and processes which render the flux of experience coherent, predictable, communicable, and therefore more manageable. We have no knowledge of, and no grounds for claiming the existence of, anything not directly perceived or which has some utility for making sense of what is perceived and enabling communication about what is perceived. Thus trees and cats and stars are real because those terms denote complexes within our phenomenal experience we can use to direct someone else's attention to corresponding (but not necessarily identical) complexes within their phenomenal experience. Quarks and electromagnetic fields and the "strong force" are real because they enable us to predict and control certain types of experience. Gods and (disembodied) spirits and unicorns and Santa Claus are not "real" because they have no utility for predicting or controlling future experience or for communicating about it.

But isn't it highly implausible to say that something has some property P because some predicate "P" is true of it? Isn't it much more plausible to say that some predicate "P" is true of it because it has some property P (or properties P₁,…P_n)?

Recurring perceptual complexes (say, a tomato) have distinguishable features, i.e., color, shape, size, texture, flavor, etc.) which enable us to distinguish it from other perceptual complexes. Those features --- properties --- of the complex are real because the percept is real. But the hypothesized external object --- the physical tomato --- only has those properties because those property terms enable us to communicate about the tomato. Keep in mind here that I can have no idea what sort of phenomenal complex is evoked in your mind with the term "tomato." I have no means of knowing, for example, whether the term "red" denotes the same sensory experience for you as for me. But we can impute "redness" and other distinguishable features of the perceptual complex as properties to the hypothesized physical tomato if that assumption has communicative utility. I.e., if I ask a waitress to "hold the tomato" on my burger, and it arrives without a slice of tomato.

In short, phenomena, being real, have real properties. Hypothesized external entities have only those properties that are predicated of them via propositions having communicative utility. I do deny, of course, the existence of "universals" (in the Platonic sense). That is a postulate with no communicative or explanatory utility.

The good news is that particularists can offer formally equivalent substitutes for universals: sets of perfectly similar property-particulars (modes or "tropes"), i.e. sets of property duplicates, which are qualitatively but not numerically identical to one another. One such set of many duplicates can be represented by one predicate or concept. We can even use one predicate or concept to represent a set of many imperfectly (more or less) similar qualities. For example, we can use the one predicate "red" to represent an entire range of imperfectly similar shades of red.

That perhaps rids us of the mysticism of universals, but it doesn't satisfy Occam's Razor any better.

Our attributions of colors to external, material objects is an illusory mental projection. Of course, to say that color-experiences are brain processes is not to say that the brain processes the are are (intrinsically, objectively) colored. Brains look colored, and we call certain segments of them "grey matter" and "white matter"; but they are as intrinsically colorless as trees.

The whole concept of "external material objects" is a mental projection. But a useful one, and inputing colors and other properties to those objects is just as useful.

I've been talking about the ontological location and adherence/inherence problem with regard to properties in general, but there is a special location and adherence/inherence problem with regard to experiential/phenomenal qualia in particular.

Do you mean a problem in addition to and different from the more general question of the location of consciousness?

And, of course, what emergentists claim is that consciousness emerges from brain processes. And consciousness is not a primitive property; it is a complex one. Indeed, calling consciousness a "property" of brains is inaccurate. It is a unique phenomenon (mysteriously) produced by brains.

To speak of "production" here can be misleading, because the production of consciousness by the brain is unlike the production of bile by the liver, in that bile is a kind of stuff, while consciousness isn't.

Does that matter? Isn't it always correct to say of a cause/effect relationship that the cause produces the effect?

According to qualia emergentists, the introspective analysis of one's field of consciousness reveals that there really are simple (primitive/elementary) kinds of qualia, such that neurological reductionism about them is false.

As I've always understood the term, qualia are just those sensory differentia which allow us distinguish among sensory (or affective or autonomic) inputs or states, i.e., to distinguish red from blue, salty from sweet, sad from happy, etc. I'm not sure just how "simple" or "complex" applies. Most, if not all of them (per theory) are produced by complex combinations of signals from various neural sources. But claiming they are caused by neural phenomena doesn't make them reducible to neural phenomena.

Qualia reductionists will reply that this introspective impression is an illusion: Some kinds of qualia may introspectively seem simple, but they aren't really simple, because they are constituted by and identical to structural qualities of the CNS, which are innerly apprehended or perceived in a holistic ("gestalt") way that conceals their actual complexity and structure from introspective awareness. Therefore, an analytic introspective neurology is impossible, as opposed to an analytic introspective phenomenology or psychology.

As I said, I'm not sure any qualia can be meaningfully or usefully called "simple." What might be an example? But I certainly agree that an "analytic introspective neurology" is impossible.