Is consciousness really the mystery it seems?

[PoeticUniverse]

I haven't seen any work on this subject proposing that consciousness results from combinations of reflexes (which doesn't mean there isn't any). Most approaches view it as resulting from evolution of higher levels of abstraction and integration.

Damasio has both and more in his 'Self Comes to Mind' book.

[Sy Borg]

Like everything else, mentality is logically an extrapolation of what came before. So numerous reactions combined to become reflexes, and numerous reflexes combined to become consciousness.

Your first sentence there is essentially true with respect to consciousness (as defined behaviorally), but it is not true with respect to qualia. There is no logical path from observable neural phenomena to qualia (that is the subject of the extensive "philosophical zombie" literature).

I haven't seen any work on this subject proposing that consciousness results from combinations of reflexes (which doesn't mean there isn't any). Most approaches view it as resulting from evolution of higher levels of abstraction and integration.

That's not consciousness per se but human consciousness. Consider the higher levels of abstraction and integration of a tadpole. No, consciousness - being, or "being there" as Heidegger would put it - is more basic. High level abstraction is the end point (so far) rather than the basis.

[Well, emergence of that sort is reducible. So you are left either with physicalism or no explanation.

What are the credible alternatives?

I go for the "no explanation" alternative.

So you figure that consciousness is not necessarily a product of physical processes? If consciousness does not stem from the result of certain types of complex dynamic integration, then what?

[GE Morton]

From your Galen Strawson quote:

Some theorists see mental phenomena as forming a great continuum. The continuum stretches from the most complex human experiential episodes down to the nervous-system activity that goes on in seaslugs, or enables Cataglyphus, a desert ant, to go straight back to its nest in the dark without any environmental cues after pursuing a zigzag outward path. (It is as if it has done some complicated trigonometry.) These theorists see no line to be drawn on this great natural continuum of behavioral-control-system activity. They see no interesting line that sharply divides truly and distinctively mental activity from nonmental activity on this continuum. And they add, forcefully, that we don't really need to use the word 'mental' at all, or to determine its extension precisely. We can say all we want to say without using it.

Others, at the other extreme, propose to restrict the domain of truly mental phenomena to experiential phenomena—to the surface phenomena of the mind, as it were. Those who take this second view hold that none of the extremely complex subexperiential brain processes that subserve the stream of experience are to be counted as mental phenomena, sensu stricto. Only experiential phenomena (including brain processes that can be literally identified with experiential phenomena) should be counted as mental phenomena. Everything else is mere mechanism, ultimately nonmental process. These theorists may offer an analogy: plays are not possible without a great deal of activity behind the scenes, but none of this activity is, strictly speaking, part of the play.

I don't agree with Galen Strawson very often --- he argues elsewhere that "physicalism" entails panpsychism, and that free will does not exist --- but he does a decent job there outlining the different understandings/usages of "mind" and "mental."

He does assume the scopes of the two terms are co-extensive, which I don't think is the case. There is, however, contrary to what he says in the first paragraph above, quite a sharp line to be drawn among phenomena which can fairly be called "mental processes" --- some of them, the conscious phenomena, are not reducible to physical phenomena; others, such as memory, dispositions, emotional triggers, etc., probably are.

While other mental phenomena, such as memory, present philosophical problems also --- e.g., what is a "unit memory"? --- the philosophy of mind has been dominated over the last several decades by the metaphysical problem of consciousness, the "Hard Problem." That is the great mystery; the others are "easy problems" (comparatively speaking).

So I wouldn't restrict "mental phenomena" to conscious phenomena, but I would so restrict "mind" to those phenomena.

But, as he says, it doesn't much matter how those terms are used, as long as the writer makes it clear how he is using them.

Here is a link to Strawson's paper on panpsychism:

https://www.sjsu.edu/people/anand.vaidy ... rawson.pdf

[GE Morton]

I haven't seen any work on this subject proposing that consciousness results from combinations of reflexes (which doesn't mean there isn't any). Most approaches view it as resulting from evolution of higher levels of abstraction and integration.

That's not consciousness per se but human consciousness. Consider the higher levels of abstraction and integration of a tadpole. No, consciousness - being, or "being there" as Heidegger would put it - is more basic. High level abstraction is the end point (so far) rather than the basis.

As I said earlier, I take "consciousness" to be a pseudo-property we impute to organisms (or perhaps other systems) that exhibit certain characteristic behaviors. It is defined behaviorally. I'm not sure tadpole behavior would qualify those critters for that pseudo-property (their behaviors may be fully explicable via reflex arcs).

So you figure that consciousness is not necessarily a product of physical processes? If consciousness does not stem from the result of certain types of complex dynamic integration, then what?

Oh, no. I certainly agree that consciousness arises from physical processes. The evidence for that is overwhelming. The best candidate for just how that property is acquired I've come across is Metzinger's theory that it appears when a neural network becomes complex enough to generate phenomenal models of the organism itself and its environment. But neither Metzinger's theory nor any other provides a plausible derivation of the subjective aspects of experience from that neural complex. I.e., it does not explain why a certain frequency of light produces the particular sensation of "redness" we subjectively experience.

[Pattern-chaser]

If psychology is the science of the mind or the mental, I'd like to know what a mind or a mental entity is; since otherwise I don't know what the subject matter of psychology is.

For the purposes of this discussion, I wonder if we could define "mental" as meaning simply "non-physical"? As a universal definition, it's pretty rubbish. But for this topic, and for our purposes here, I think it will do. Do you? It will certainly simplify discussion...

[Consul]

If psychology is the science of the mind or the mental, I'd like to know what a mind or a mental entity is; since otherwise I don't know what the subject matter of psychology is.

For the purposes of this discussion, I wonder if we could define "mental" as meaning simply "non-physical"? As a universal definition, it's pretty rubbish. But for this topic, and for our purposes here, I think it will do. Do you? It will certainly simplify discussion...

I'm not sure that would help, because it would make dualism true by definition; and then we would have to define "physical" instead in order to know what "nonphysical" means.

By the way, Descartes equated mind with consciousness, and in late-19th- and early-20th-century textbooks of psychology the Cartesian conception of the mind is still dominant. For example, Wilhelm Wundt, one of the fathers of modern psychology, defines it as "the science of immediate experience"; and his student Edward Titchener defines "mind" as "the sum-total of human experience considered as dependent upon the experiencing person".

This is psychology defined as empiriology = the science of (subjective) experience/(phenomenal) consciousness.
(I've borrowed the uncommon term "empiriology" from Leonard Troland, and empiriology is not to be confused with epistemological empiricism.)

After the first world war, motivated by John Watson's 1913 paper "Psychology as the Behaviorist Views it", the behaviorists turned psychology into ethology = the science of behavior, with the mind being reduced to a set of dispositions to behavior.

From the 1920s to the 1950s, psychology was dominated by behaviorism; but in the 1950s-60s things began to change with "the cognitive revolution", when behavioral psychology was superseded by cognitive psychology or noesiology (to use another uncommon term coined by myself—derived from the Greek nouns "nous" = "mind", "intellect" and "noesis" = "the cognitive process; cognition" [American Heritage], "the mental process used in thinking and perceiving; the functioning of the intellect" [Collins]).

So we have three different definitions of psychology:
1. empiriology (experiential psychology—not the same as experimental psychology) = the science of experience/consciousness
2. ethology (behavioral psychology) = the science of behavior
3. noesiology (cognitive or informational psychology) = the science of cognition (cognitive, mental information-processing)

[Consul]

By the way, Descartes equated mind with consciousness, and in late-19th- and early-20th-century textbooks of psychology the Cartesian conception of the mind is still dominant.

Footnote: Here I mean only Descartes' view that mind = consciousness, and not his substance dualism.

[Sy Borg]

I haven't seen any work on this subject proposing that consciousness results from combinations of reflexes (which doesn't mean there isn't any). Most approaches view it as resulting from evolution of higher levels of abstraction and integration.

That's not consciousness per se but human consciousness. Consider the higher levels of abstraction and integration of a tadpole. No, consciousness - being, or "being there" as Heidegger would put it - is more basic. High level abstraction is the end point (so far) rather than the basis.

As I said earlier, I take "consciousness" to be a pseudo-property we impute to organisms (or perhaps other systems) that exhibit certain characteristic behaviors. It is defined behaviorally. I'm not sure tadpole behavior would qualify those critters for that pseudo-property (their behaviors may be fully explicable via reflex arcs).

There's nothing "pseudo"" about consciousness. It is everything to us.

Tadpoles will feel their existence, for sure. They have all the equipment to do so and they respond to anaesthetics. This reminds me of being a young child at Paddy's Markets and I watched a stall holder wrapping up a screaming, squawking chicken in newspaper as if it was an unfeeling object. It's very easy to dismiss sensations as reflex actions, which factory farmers have done for many years.

I have since written a story where aliens discuss performing experiments on humans, saying they have simple nervous systems and their screaming and writhing were just reflex actions. It's an easy assumption to make when it's not your own nervous system or that of a loved one.

That's the point, where is the evidence that humans actually feel their existence, that all humans responses can be explained by reflex actions? Aside from subjective experience, there no more proof that humans can feel their lives any more than tadpoles.

So you figure that consciousness is not necessarily a product of physical processes? If consciousness does not stem from the result of certain types of complex dynamic integration, then what?

Oh, no. I certainly agree that consciousness arises from physical processes. The evidence for that is overwhelming. The best candidate for just how that property is acquired I've come across is Metzinger's theory that it appears when a neural network becomes complex enough to generate phenomenal models of the organism itself and its environment. But neither Metzinger's theory nor any other provides a plausible derivation of the subjective aspects of experience from that neural complex. I.e., it does not explain why a certain frequency of light produces the particular sensation of "redness" we subjectively experience.

What an environment consists of subjectively entirely depends on sensory apparatus. A model of the environment will consist of a complex array of disparate entities for mammals but it will be only a chain of chemicals, heat or light to relatively simple organisms.

[Sy Borg]

From your Galen Strawson quote:

Some theorists see mental phenomena as forming a great continuum. The continuum stretches from the most complex human experiential episodes down to the nervous-system activity that goes on in seaslugs, or enables Cataglyphus, a desert ant, to go straight back to its nest in the dark without any environmental cues after pursuing a zigzag outward path. (It is as if it has done some complicated trigonometry.) These theorists see no line to be drawn on this great natural continuum of behavioral-control-system activity. They see no interesting line that sharply divides truly and distinctively mental activity from nonmental activity on this continuum. And they add, forcefully, that we don't really need to use the word 'mental' at all, or to determine its extension precisely. We can say all we want to say without using it.

Others, at the other extreme, propose to restrict the domain of truly mental phenomena to experiential phenomena—to the surface phenomena of the mind, as it were. Those who take this second view hold that none of the extremely complex subexperiential brain processes that subserve the stream of experience are to be counted as mental phenomena, sensu stricto. Only experiential phenomena (including brain processes that can be literally identified with experiential phenomena) should be counted as mental phenomena. Everything else is mere mechanism, ultimately nonmental process. These theorists may offer an analogy: plays are not possible without a great deal of activity behind the scenes, but none of this activity is, strictly speaking, part of the play.

There are assumptions here. Trouble is, humans classify nature, determining boundaries that do not actually exist. This is usually done for convenience, but also due to sensory limitations, eg. definitions of visible light vary from species to species.

There is no hard boundary between the mental and extra-mental, just as there's no firm boundary between life and non-life. Thus, there's no hard behavioural line between the simplest animals with brains and the most complex animals that use nerve cords or rings instead.

[GE Morton]

There's nothing "pseudo"" about consciousness. It is everything to us.

"Pseudo-properties" is a term of art, to denote properties we impute to things, rather than observe in/of things. We can't observe the contents of anyone's (including animals') consciousness other than our own. So we impute it to them based on observations of something else, in this case, their behavior. We infer from that behavior that they subjectively experience the world as we do, though we have no way of knowing whether their experiences are similar to our own or radically different. Others have referred to that distinction as "local" vs. "non-local" properties, or "natural" vs. "assigned" properties.

Tadpoles will feel their existence, for sure. They have all the equipment to do so and they respond to anaesthetics.

Anesthetics operate to suppress or block neural impulses. That is a physiological effect, and not evidence of consciousness (in the sense of subjective awareness). A tadpole would respond to anesthetics whether conscious in that sense or not.

But I certainly agree that which behaviors warrant assigning that pseudo-property is an open question, and, indeed, we may wish to impute degrees, or levels, of consciousness according to differences in behaviors.

That's the point, where is the evidence that humans actually feel their existence, that all humans responses can be explained by reflex actions? Aside from subjective experience, there no more proof that humans can feel their lives any more than tadpoles.

There is no evidence for either humans or tadpoles, other than their behavior. So we impute that property based on similarities in behavior --- that's all we have. We can have evidence that an organism may be capable of subjective experience, by examining the complexity of its nervous system. But the capability doesn't entail the reality.

What an environment consists of subjectively entirely depends on sensory apparatus. A model of the environment will consist of a complex array of disparate entities for mammals but it will be only a chain of chemicals, heat or light to relatively simple organisms.

I agree.

[Sy Borg]

Yes, behaviour gives an excellent indication of what goes on inside. Just because certain responses are unconscious for humans, does not mean they are so for other species. Humans have a great deal of "noise" in their heads, seemingly far more than other animals. For us, detecting subtle reflexive sensations that are actually noticed by other species would be akin to hearing someone snapping their fingers next to a jackhammer.

[Consul]

There are assumptions here. Trouble is, humans classify nature, determining boundaries that do not actually exist. This is usually done for convenience, but also due to sensory limitations, eg. definitions of visible light vary from species to species.
There is no hard boundary between the mental and extra-mental, just as there's no firm boundary between life and non-life. Thus, there's no hard behavioural line between the simplest animals with brains and the most complex animals that use nerve cords or rings instead.

But there's a sharp boundary between the experiential and the nonexperiential.

QUOTE>
"I am going to define 'mental being' in such a way that it does draw a sharp line, by linking it with another term that draws a sharp line (it is sharp, although we cannot be sure where it runs).

The term in question is 'experiential' or 'experiencing': B is a mental being, according to the present definition, if and only if B is an experiencing being, that is, a being of such a kind that there is something it is like to be it, experientially speaking. Or rather—since experiencing beings may be unconscious or in dreamless sleep—a being whose current state or structure makes it now capable of experience, given appropriate stimulation, say. (This qualification raises problems of detail, since the question 'Capable given what?' arises. But the general idea is clear: an experiencing being is one that currently possesses all the equipment necessary for experiential states, whatever exactly that equipment is.)

'Mental being', then, is an all-or-nothing term. It draws a sharp line. It inherits this property directly from the term 'experiencing'. For it seems very plausible to say that any being either is or is not, at any given moment, in an experiential state (in a state given which there is something it is like to be it, experientially speaking), or in a state of such a kind that it is currently capable of being in an experiential state (given appropriate stimulation)—whatever we can or cannot know about the matter. Just as any number greater than zero is unequivocally a positive number, however small it is, just as any object that emits any photons is unequivocally a source of light, so any experience, however faint or rudimentary, is unequivocally an experience. Whatever the epistemological indeterminability of the question of whether there is experience going on in certain cases, it seems plausible that there can be no objective indeterminacy in the matter. We can't be sure where the line between experiencing beings and experienceless beings runs. We cannot be sure where experience begins on the evolutionary scale, as we consider progressively larger living organisms—viruses, bacteria, paramecia, amoebas, grubs, insects, and so on. But there is, nevertheless, a fact of the matter.

It is true that the line between mental or experiencing beings and others may look unimportant from the point of view of animal ethology and general biology, which study the behavior of all living organisms without any regard to experience. The fact remains that it is a line of great importance. It is arguably the most important theoretical line to be drawn in the whole of reality. It is of great theoretical importance in the philosophy of mind (although some instrumentalists would deny this); the how and the why of its existence is one of the great unsolved problems of science; and it is of supreme moral importance.

I take it to be true by definition that only a mental being can have mental properties (be in mental states, etc.). It follows from the definition of 'mental being' just given, that only experiencing beings can have mental properties (be in mental states, etc.). Now it may well seem that any definition of 'mental being' ought to depend on a prior definition of 'mental' as applied to states, properties, and so on. On this view, a mental being is simply one that can have mental properties, etc., where the set of mental properties has already been determined. But I do not think we can do this, because of the particular way in which the word 'mental' is indeterminate. I do not think that we can fully determine the set of mental properties before settling the question of which beings are mental beings. Instead, it looks as if the best answer to the question of whether or not it is appropriate to count a certain property possessed by being B as a mental property may sometimes depend on whether or not one already has independent reason to think of B as a mental being, on the grounds that B has the key property of being an experiencing being.

The basic idea here is very simple: experience is crucial. (I am expounding an intuition, not offering an argument.) A being is a mental being just in case it is an experiencing being; only a mental being can have mental properties. And when we ask which, if any, of the properties of a mental being, other than its experiential properties, are mental properties, the answer may be no more than a matter of convenient theoretical or terminological decision."

(Strawson, Galen. Mental Reality. 2nd ed. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2009. pp. 153-4)
<QUOTE

[Consul]

As I said earlier, I take "consciousness" to be a pseudo-property we impute to organisms (or perhaps other systems) that exhibit certain characteristic behaviors. It is defined behaviorally. I'm not sure tadpole behavior would qualify those critters for that pseudo-property (their behaviors may be fully explicable via reflex arcs).

Behavioral criteria for consciousness aren't part of its definition. To say that certain types of behavior entail certain types of experience is not to say that experience is a type of behavior.

[John_Jacquard]

To " explain " something means to use symbols to describe a pattern of information.

Well, no. The use of "symbols to describe a pattern of information" would apply to all written descriptions of things or states of affairs: "The sun rose at 6:25 AM today" is not an explanation of why the sun rises.

An explanation is verbal description of the causal chain leading from event A to event B, listing the necessary and sufficient conditions for producing B given A.

( what is the reason reality has this attribute, since a symbol is arbitrary with no literal connection to the information component?

I'm not sure what "attribute" you have in mind. Our descriptions or explanations of things are not attributes of those things.

Any explanation involves the use of symbols to represent a pattern of information.

But a symbol has no literal connection to the pattern of information it represents .

" I'm not sure what " attribute " you have in mind "

The attribute of explanation being possible in reality .

What is the explanation for explanation?

( why should reality be able to be explained? )

[GE Morton]

As I said earlier, I take "consciousness" to be a pseudo-property we impute to organisms (or perhaps other systems) that exhibit certain characteristic behaviors. It is defined behaviorally. I'm not sure tadpole behavior would qualify those critters for that pseudo-property (their behaviors may be fully explicable via reflex arcs).

Behavioral criteria for consciousness aren't part of its definition. To say that certain types of behavior entail certain types of experience is not to say that experience is a type of behavior.

"Defined" was perhaps the wrong word (an adequate definition would have to mention the subjective aspects). "Determined" would have been better. Behaviors don't entail consciousness, logically speaking. The inference from behaviors to consciousness is an inductive, not a deductive, one.

You're right, of course, that experience is not a type of behavior; it is a phenomenon we infer from behaviors, for everyone other than ourselves.