Evolutionary reason for consciousness?

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Re: Evolutionary reason for consciousness?

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Belinda, I would think that a formula is a configuration rather than a quale.

As you say, nervous systems convey information from the environment to the organism. By the same token, digestive systems transfer energy from the environment to an organism. If the brain, aside from processing information, also generates a sense of being, what equivalent additional generative qualities does a digestive system bring?

Or do only brains have this special extra quality over and above its function, unlike more "mundane" organs?
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Re: Evolutionary reason for consciousness?

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Greta wrote: January 12th, 2020, 8:37 pmTreating mind and consciousness as synonyms is anthropocentrism, a common logical fallacy. When we speak of "consciousness", most humans only show interest in - surprise, surprise - the human variety. Thus, the entire concept of panpsychism is infected with notions of "consciousness" as experienced by humans (or intelligent animals).

This brings us to the silly situation where educated, intelligent people earnestly inform other educated, intelligent people that atoms and molecules are not, in fact, tiny people. This, of course, is about as helpful as saying that Santa does not live inside Easter eggs.

Human consciousness is only helpful here as a limit marker, the upper (known) boundary of complexity. I find most people still imagine, like Descartes, that it's impossible to have a sense of being without thought. That is because thought is how humans and other big-brained creatures engage with the world, why 20% of our energy goes to the brain. So we assume that the only sense of being possible is human-style.

Yet most qualia seems to occur without thought. Being and thinking (especially thinking in words) are not the same. Hard to imagine for us humans.
* Whether there is more to the mind than consciousness is a contentious issue. Are there any nonconscious mental occurrences in addition to conscious ones (= experiences)? If yes, what nonconscious mental occurrences are there?

* Do you know panpsychists who believe and assert that single molecules, atoms, or particles have human-like consciousness (reflexive self-consciousness)? – I don't.
Do you know antipanpsychists who accuse panpsychists of ascribing human-like consciousness to single molecules, atoms, or particles and treating them like homunculi? – I don't.

* Indeed, sensing or feeling is not the same as and doesn't depend on thinking. Well, according to the higher-order thought theory of (phenomenal) consciousness, it does; but I think this theory is false. If it is true, then the number of conscious animal species is very low.
Greta wrote: January 12th, 2020, 8:37 pm
Consul wrote: January 11th, 2020, 11:26 am"You can get liquidity from non-liquid molecules as easily as you can get a cricket team from eleven things that are not cricket teams. In God’s physics, it would have to be just as plain how you get experiential phenomena from wholly non-experiential phenomena. But this is what boggles the human mind. We have, once again, no difficulty with the idea that liquid phenomena (which are wholly P phenomena) are emergent properties of wholly non-liquid phenomena (which are wholly P phenomena). But when we return to the case of experience, and look for an analogy of the right size or momentousness, as it were, it seems that we can’t make do with things like liquidity, where we move wholly within a completely conceptually homogeneous (non-heterogeneous) set of notions. We need an analogy on a wholly different scale if we are to get any imaginative grip on the supposed move from the non-experiential to the experiential." – Galen Strawson
+++When you quote a quotation of mine, please don't omit the reference! For if you do, it looks as if I wrote the quoted text; and I don't want to be accused of plagiarism!+++
Greta wrote: January 12th, 2020, 8:37 pm…Putting aside superfluids, liquidity, like consciousness, is gradual. That is, a fluid becomes ever more viscous until its fluidity status becomes uncertain. Whether once calls a very viscous substance a "fluid" or not becomes a matter of definition. This may well also be the case with qualia. For example, at what point does an aggregation of gases qualify as being a "cloud" rather than disparate? How many grains of sand does it take to qualify as a mound? How much complexity is needed to bring about a sense of being?
A great deal!

The evolutionary transition from primary consciousness to higher-order consciousness (introspective/reflective self-consciousness) was gradual, but the evolutionary transition from nonconsciousness to primary consciousness must have been non-gradual, abrupt. There are degrees of higher-order consciousness or self-consciousness other than 0 and 1, but there are no degrees of primary consciousness other than 0 and 1.

"For present purposes, the term consciousness refers to brain states that have an experiential feel to them, and it is envisioned as a multi-tiered process that needs to be viewed in evolutionary terms, with multiple layers of emergence. Primary-process consciousness may reflect raw sensory/perceptual feelings and the types of internal emotional/motivational experiences just discussed. Secondary consciousness may reflect the capacity to have thoughts about experiences, especially about how external events relate to internal events. Although animals surely do not think about their lives linguistically, they may think in terms of perceptual images. Finally, there are tertiary forms of consciousness—thoughts about thoughts, awareness of awareness—much of which is unique to humans and requires expansive neocortical tissues that permit linguistic–symbolic transformation of simple thoughts and remembered experiences.

Those who are not willing to give animals any consciousness are probably thinking about the tertiary human-typical linguistic variants. They may also be generalizing too readily from human perceptual consciousness, which is clearly dependent on neocortical functions, to an affective consciousness whose locus of control is largely sub-neocortical. There are reasons to believe that affective experience may reflect a most primitive form of consciousness, which may have provided an evolutionary platform for the emergence of more complex layers of consciousness."


(Panksepp, Jaak. "Affective Consciousness: Core Emotional Feelings in Animals and Humans." Consciousness and Cognition 14 (2005): 30–80. p. 32)
Greta wrote: January 12th, 2020, 8:37 pmIt depends on whether you treat the idea as black & white or in shades of grey. For instance, not all of properties of molecules can be explained by the properties of just one of its atoms. However, the properties of that atom are an essential aspect of the properties of the emergent entity. There is a relationship. A gradation.

Consider this at a larger and more relatable scale - cities emerge from humans. A city has properties that a human does not have - machines, size, etc - but they are infused with humanness. Our "fingerprints" are all over cities, based on our physical and mental needs. In fact, knowledge of humans is essential to understanding cities. But you cannot infer a city's properties from a single citizen.
Strawson's contention is that non-extended objects cannot possibly constitute the emergence base of an extended object—an extended non-scattered object, to be precise. For a scattered object composed of two 0D objects which are 1m apart from each other can be called an extended object too.

He argues analogously that non-experiencing objects cannot possibly constitute the emergence base of an experiencing object. He regards the postulation of an emergence of the experiential from the (wholly) non-experiential as a category mistake, concluding panpsychistically that experience is fundamental. However, panpsychists have their own emergence problem: How can "macroexperience" on the level of animals and humans emerge from "microexperiences" on the level of single molecules, atoms, or elementary particles?



"Let us say that a material object is scattered just in case the region of space it occupies is disconnected."

(Cartwright, Richard. "Scattered Objects." In Analysis and Metaphysics: Essays in Honor of R. M. Chisholm, edited by Keith Lehrer, 153-171. Dordrecht: Reidel, 1975. p. 157)

"x is a scattered object = Df there is a y and there is a z such that (a) x is composed of y and z and (b) no part of y is in direct spatial contact with any part of z."

(Chisholm, Roderick M. On Metaphysics. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 1989. p. 91)
Greta wrote: January 12th, 2020, 8:37 pm If we cannot understand internality in one fell swoop then we must abandon reason altogether? Really? :lol:

There is no "stark choice". The major problem with psychology is that very reliance on behaviouralism, with its numerous ambiguities. How many potential causes are there for depression? Psychologists are the only specialists not to routinely scan their speciality body system - to rely on guesswork than looking at what the brain is doing.

The "hard problem" is simple in essence, but hard in execution. We know that if a person looks at an apple then certain neurons will interact with a certain dynamic pattern. If they see a dog, that will be a different, but consistent, pattern that will only occur when a dog is perceived. The question is (says the broken record): how does a dynamic pattern generate a sense of being?

As you know, I an open to the idea that qualia may be simply a function of being alive rather than generated by neuronal dynamics, which may yet only shape qualia rather than generate it. We don't know. Still, as you maintain, the brain seems the most promising place to start, so then it comes down to translation.

For all we know, this search may not be wildly more mysterious than considering how your thoughts trigger particular responses in your various body systems, resulting in you pressing keys in a particular order, using basic symbols we variably assemble to construct ideas. The switching patterns from the keyboard travel down wires to a motherboard, which translates those signals so that a browser can decode them. From there you could trace the signal (again translated into other forms) as it travels through wires or the air, decoded in reverse order until the idea enters another human's mind.

That's the task with qualia. Recognising the brain activity patterns associated with different thoughts is powerful research, but does not address qualia. There's perhaps no commercial imperative to, not only identify "apple patterns" or "dog patterns", but to trace the paths of those thoughts as they impact other parts of the body, and the decoding between organs and systems.
Nobody denies that third-person science with its third-person methods can successfully deal with the behavior-causing and -controlling cognitive (functional-informational) mind/brain, but the conscious (experiential) mind/brain means trouble, because the ontological innerness or subjectivity of consciousness/experience is that distinctive feature of it which makes it so hard for scientists to develop a science of it from the external, third-person, "heterophenomenological" (Dennett) point of view. Inner, subjective experiences just aren't scientifically accessible and observable like all the other natural phenomena such as neural processes.

Of course, reductive materialists will object that subjective experiences are composed of or constituted by objective neural processes. But even if they are right, no subjective experience is introspectively perceptible and examinable as a complex of objective neural processes; and no complex of objective neural processes is extrospectively perceptible and examinable as a subjective experience.

"To understand ontological subjectivity more fully, however, we must bring in two negative features that prevent the scientific reduction of consciousness. Gordon G. Globus sets the stage for these features in the following quote:

The ontological claim that mental events are strictly identical with neural events unfortunately coalesces the perspectives of both subjective (S) and objective (O) observers. The term 'mental events' implies the perspective of S who has the mental events immediately given by direct acquaintance (without inference), whereas the term 'neural events' implies the perspective of O who is presumably observing the brain of S. Thus O cannot have S's mental events by direct acquaintance because they are private to S; for example, O cannot experience S's pain. For S, there are no neural events by direct acquaintance—that is, that his own mental events are physically embodied is not directly known by S, unless he observes his own brain in the manner of O using Feigl's imaginary 'autocerebroscope.' Mental events contain no information about any neural embodiments, for example, S's pain does not have the typical characteristics of physical objects in that S cannot see his pain or touch it. Nor is there anything about pain which seems at all like neurons. [For information about the neural embodiments, observation in the manner of O is required. Just as mental events contain no information about neural embodiments, the neural events per se contain no information that these events are neurally embodied.] It does not appear that the brain codes or represents in any way its own structure. (The nervous system has no sensory apparatus directed to its own structure.)
[Globus, Gordon G. "Unexpected Symmetries in the 'World Knot'." Science 180/4091 (1973): 1129-1136. p. 129]

This subjective-objective divide is expressed in the idea of auto-ontological and allo-ontological irreducibilities (figure 10.9). Auto-ontological irreducibility means that the subject cannot experience the workings of his or her own neurons, and allo-ontological irreducibility means that an outsider cannot access the subject's experience.
[Figure 10.9: … The problem of auto- and allo-ontological irreducibilities of consciousness. (1) Subject has access to his or her conscious experiences. (2) Auto-ontological irreducibility: subject lacks access to his or her own objective neurons. (3) Observer has access to subject's material neurons. (4) Allo-ontological irreducibility: observer lacks access to subject's experience.]"


(Feinberg, Todd E., and Jon M. Mallatt. The Ancient Origins of Consciousness: How the Brain Created Experience. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2016. pp. 220-1)
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Re: Evolutionary reason for consciousness?

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Consul wrote: January 13th, 2020, 7:02 pm+++When you quote a quotation of mine, please don't omit the reference! For if you do, it looks as if I wrote the quoted text; and I don't want to be accused of plagiarism!+++
The quote in question included inverted commas around the text, signifying a quote of a quote. Are you due for new screen-reading glasses?

Now some tips from me about writing for screen reading as opposed to writing for paper-based media.

1) Putting your long quotes in italics makes them difficult to read. It's not needed. No one else italicises most of their posts. People are bright enough to know what's a quote and what's not, and the opinions of those who can't tell the difference don't matter.

2) More paragraph breaks, please! You do not need to keep an author's original long paragraphs. It is not inappropriate, misleading or illegal. It's presenting their work for readability on a screen.

Writing for paper and the screen are not the same. There is much information about writing for the web.

3) Please express more in your own words and be less reliant on quotes.

Could do better 7.5/10
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Re: Evolutionary reason for consciousness?

Post by Gertie »

Consul
Critics object that it's not possible for entities to be constructed out of or produced by entities of a radically, essentially different and dissimilar kind, so that a natural emergence of subjective experiential entities from objective nonexperiential entities is impossible.

This is one (unconvincing and question-begging) argument for panpsychism:

"(5) Argument from Non-Emergence—it is inconceivable that mind should emerge from a world in which no mind existed; therefore mind always existed, in even the simplest of structures. Also expressed as 'nothing in the effect that is not in the cause.' Sometimes called the 'genetic' argument."

(Skrbina, David. Panpsychism in the West. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2007. p. 250)

That's what Martin (see the quote in a previous post of mind!) calls "the pipeline conception of causality". I think he's right in rejecting it, because I see no good reasons for believing that the emergence of the experiential from the nonexperiential is as impossible as the emergence of the extended from the nonextended.

"You can get liquidity from non-liquid molecules as easily as you can get a cricket team from eleven things that are not cricket teams. In God’s physics, it would have to be just as plain how you get experiential phenomena from wholly non-experiential phenomena. But this is what boggles the human mind. We have, once again, no difficulty with the idea that liquid phenomena (which are wholly P phenomena) are emergent properties of wholly non-liquid phenomena (which are wholly P phenomena). But when we return to the case of experience, and look for an analogy of the right size or momentousness, as it were, it seems that we can’t make do with things like liquidity, where we move wholly within a completely conceptually homogeneous (non-heterogeneous) set of notions. We need an analogy on a wholly different scale if we are to get any imaginative grip on the supposed move from the non-experiential to the experiential.

What might be an analogy of the right size? Suppose someone—I will call him pseudo-Boscovich, at the risk of offending historians of science—proposes that all ultimates, all real, concrete ultimates, are, in truth, wholly unextended entities: that this is the truth about their being; that there is no sense in which they themselves are extended; that they are real concrete entities, but are nonetheless true-mathematical-point entities. And suppose pseudo-Boscovich goes on to say that when collections of these entities stand in certain (real, concrete, natural) relations, they give rise to or constitute truly, genuinely extended concrete entities; real, concrete extension being in this sense an emergent property of phenomena that are, although by hypothesis real and concrete, wholly unextended.

Well, I think this suggestion should be rejected as absurd. But the suggestion that when non-experiential phenomena stand in certain (real, natural, concrete nonexperiential) relations they ipso facto instantiate or constitute experiential phenomena, experience being an emergent property of wholly and utterly non-experiential phenomena, seems exactly on a par.''
Emergence is appealing I think, because we see it in the material world.

Given neural correlation with experiential states, we can go Ah - that's kind of like the different states of H2O molecules being solid, liquid and gas, the same essential stuff but in different states. So maybe specific experiential states are an an emergent state of (perhaps specific configurations, perhaps of specific types of) matter. The similarity we see with material emergence looks like it might be a clue as to the Mind/Body relationship.

And it might be. Lord knows we need clues! Or it might just be us latching on to something because we see a sort of relational similarity.

The problem remains, that all material forms of emergence are in principle fully accountable/explicable by physics. Where-as experiential states have no place, currently at least, in physics.

It's not only the subjective/private nature of experiential states that's the problem, as you've pointed out, or just the reducibility issue, it's also that there are no models or equations or formulae for experiential states, there is no place for them in the Standard Model, and no clear 'bridging mechanism' for them to find a way in. Positing Emergence might be on the right track, but the Aha! Attractiveness of its familiarity might be leading us down the wrong alley.

So for now it gives us something to get a handle on which feels manageable, like something we can work with. But at best it points to the need for a deeper understanding of Physics, and quite possibly a fundamentally different understanding of the nature of the world.
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Re: Evolutionary reason for consciousness?

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Consul wrote: January 13th, 2020, 7:02 pm
Greta wrote: January 12th, 2020, 8:37 pmTreating mind and consciousness as synonyms is anthropocentrism, a common logical fallacy. When we speak of "consciousness", most humans only show interest in - surprise, surprise - the human variety. Thus, the entire concept of panpsychism is infected with notions of "consciousness" as experienced by humans (or intelligent animals).

This brings us to the silly situation where educated, intelligent people earnestly inform other educated, intelligent people that atoms and molecules are not, in fact, tiny people. This, of course, is about as helpful as saying that Santa does not live inside Easter eggs.

Human consciousness is only helpful here as a limit marker, the upper (known) boundary of complexity. I find most people still imagine, like Descartes, that it's impossible to have a sense of being without thought. That is because thought is how humans and other big-brained creatures engage with the world, why 20% of our energy goes to the brain. So we assume that the only sense of being possible is human-style.

Yet most qualia seems to occur without thought. Being and thinking (especially thinking in words) are not the same. Hard to imagine for us humans.
* Whether there is more to the mind than consciousness is a contentious issue. Are there any nonconscious mental occurrences in addition to conscious ones (= experiences)? If yes, what nonconscious mental occurrences are there?

* Do you know panpsychists who believe and assert that single molecules, atoms, or particles have human-like consciousness (reflexive self-consciousness)? – I don't.
Do you know antipanpsychists who accuse panpsychists of ascribing human-like consciousness to single molecules, atoms, or particles and treating them like homunculi? – I don't.

* Indeed, sensing or feeling is not the same as and doesn't depend on thinking. Well, according to the higher-order thought theory of (phenomenal) consciousness, it does; but I think this theory is false. If it is true, then the number of conscious animal species is very low.
1) Does non-mental equal non-conscious? That sounds anthropcentric to me. A simple creature can be awake and responsive, all with nary a thought.

2) Many theists believe that God infuses all things - including atoms etc.

3) Yes, I can name an anti-panpsychist - John Searle - who said that panpsychism was "absurd". He's hardly the first to make that claim, as anyone who has spent (too many) years on philosophy forums would know. I think Locke made the same claim.

Given that the idea of proto-consciousness is very far from absurd, Searle (and others) clearly assumed that panpsychists referred to a humanlike consciousness residing in each small, mechanistic entity. There is often a suspicion that panpsychism is a "gateway drug" to the opiate of religion, a back door allowing rational spaces to be infiltrated by the superstitious.

4) I agree. I can't see higher order thought being necessary to sense. As far as I can tell, the difference between a simple brained creature like a leech and a complex brainless one like a sea star, is that when any part of the leech is injured, the entire body will hurt. For sea stars, an injury will only register at the site. Its other arms will carry on regardless.
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Re: Evolutionary reason for consciousness?

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Greta wrote: January 13th, 2020, 5:47 pm Belinda, I would think that a formula is a configuration rather than a quale.

As you say, nervous systems convey information from the environment to the organism. By the same token, digestive systems transfer energy from the environment to an organism. If the brain, aside from processing information, also generates a sense of being, what equivalent additional generative qualities does a digestive system bring?

Or do only brains have this special extra quality over and above its function, unlike more "mundane" organs?
By a mathematical formula I meant a truth which besides being proved by deduction is also tautological. For instance E=MCsquared is the same if expressed as MCsquared =E. And Pythagoras' definition of the square on the hypoteneuse of a right angled triangle is the same whichever way round it's expressed. So I gather mathematical formulae are immediately and subjectively true like qualia are immediately and subjectively true. The difference between the medium of qualia and the medium of mathematical formulae is the latter is public knowledge the former private knowledge.

As private knowledge qualia are made more publicly available through the arts. Once the people know the idiom all the people enjoying the concert experience the same or much the same qualia .If those cognoscenti in the audience had their brains 'wired' together they would know for a fact they all experienced the same qualia.

I am dyed in the wool modernist about anatomy and physiology and I can see only one ultimate difference in function between the digestive system and the nervous system. The digestive system is for maintaining metabolism and has its dedicated nerves and part of the brain tissues and the cerebral cortex ultimately is for making decisions to do with movements of the joints and muscles. So yes, if by brains you mean cerebral cortices , they have what may be called a specialised function.

There are pain receptors in the digestive system and so the cortex is involved, although I can't think right now what evolutionary advantage this might be. I know my dog eats grass when she feels sick which is as much as I know. Otherwise what my cortex knows about how to alleviate tummy trouble is learned from the culture. Maybe some other humans like other animals are more instinctive.Certainly the pains of childbirth are meaningful pains.
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Re: Evolutionary reason for consciousness?

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Greta wrote: January 13th, 2020, 8:31 pm
Consul wrote: January 13th, 2020, 7:02 pm+++When you quote a quotation of mine, please don't omit the reference! For if you do, it looks as if I wrote the quoted text; and I don't want to be accused of plagiarism!+++
The quote in question included inverted commas around the text, signifying a quote of a quote. Are you due for new screen-reading glasses?
I noticed the quotation marks, but the author isn't mentioned and people first read "Consul wrote"; so it does give the wrong impression that I am the author. References must never be omitted!
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Re: Evolutionary reason for consciousness?

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Gertie wrote: January 13th, 2020, 8:48 pmEmergence is appealing I think, because we see it in the material world.
We seem to do so, but ontological emergence may be an illusion. (It is according to reductive physicalism.)

Another important point is that ontological emergentism presupposes that nonsimple, complex or compound objects, i.e. ones having two or more proper parts, can have properties and be property-bearers. This presupposition isn't accepted by all philosophers! John Heil is one who rejects it, arguing that only simple objects or substances can really have properties and really be property-bearers.
Gertie wrote: January 13th, 2020, 8:48 pmThe problem remains, that all material forms of emergence are in principle fully accountable/explicable by physics. Where-as experiential states have no place, currently at least, in physics.
If ontological emergence is causal in the sense that for x to emerge from y is for x to be caused by y, then causal explanations of (ontologically) emergent phenomena in physical terms are possible in principle at least.
Gertie wrote: January 13th, 2020, 8:48 pmIt's not only the subjective/private nature of experiential states that's the problem, as you've pointed out, or just the reducibility issue, it's also that there are no models or equations or formulae for experiential states, there is no place for them in the Standard Model, and no clear 'bridging mechanism' for them to find a way in. Positing Emergence might be on the right track, but the Aha! Attractiveness of its familiarity might be leading us down the wrong alley.
The entities constituting the respective subject matters of biology, psychology, and sociology aren't mentioned in the physical Standard Model, but it doesn't follow that they aren't ontologically reducible to entities constituting the subject matter of physics. According to reductive materialism, experiences are forms of matter of motion: configurations, motions, and interactions of elementary particles as described by the Standard Model.
Gertie wrote: January 13th, 2020, 8:48 pmSo for now it gives us something to get a handle on which feels manageable, like something we can work with. But at best it points to the need for a deeper understanding of Physics, and quite possibly a fundamentally different understanding of the nature of the world.
Some think the mystery of consciousness can only be solved on the level of quantum physics—but I remain skeptical:

"It is widely accepted that consciousness or, more generally, mental activity is in some way correlated to the behavior of the material brain. Since quantum theory is the most fundamental theory of matter that is currently available, it is a legitimate question to ask whether quantum theory can help us to understand consciousness. Several approaches answering this question affirmatively, proposed in recent decades, will be surveyed. There are three basic types of corresponding approaches: (1) consciousness is a manifestation of quantum processes in the brain, (2) quantum concepts are used to understand consciousness without referring to brain activity, and (3) matter and consciousness are regarded as dual aspects of one underlying reality."

Quantum Approaches to Consciousness: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qt-consciousness/

A big problem for these approaches is the unfortunate circumstance that "no consensus at all exists among physicists about how to understand quantum theory. There just is no precise, exact physical theory called “quantum theory” to be presented…. Instead, there is raging controversy."

(Maudlin, Tim. Philosophy of Physics: Quantum Theory. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2019. p. 2)
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Re: Evolutionary reason for consciousness?

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Consul wrote: January 14th, 2020, 1:37 pm
Another important point is that ontological emergentism presupposes that nonsimple, complex or compound objects, i.e. ones having two or more proper parts, can have properties and be property-bearers. This presupposition isn't accepted by all philosophers! John Heil is one who rejects it, arguing that only simple objects or substances can really have properties and really be property-bearers.
I'm not familiar with Heil's comments on this but I'd be interested to hear how he argues the above (even though I don't even agree with the "substance" and "properties" division so that substances are things that can be "property bearers" as if the substance is trying on a jacket).

I suppose part of it would hinge on how he defines "proper part," but I can't imagine either how he'd say that an automobile engine doesn't have different properties than its parts, or alternatively how an automobile engine doesn't have "proper parts."
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Re: Evolutionary reason for consciousness?

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Consul wrote: January 14th, 2020, 12:19 pm
Greta wrote: January 13th, 2020, 8:31 pm The quote in question included inverted commas around the text, signifying a quote of a quote. Are you due for new screen-reading glasses?
I noticed the quotation marks, but the author isn't mentioned and people first read "Consul wrote"; so it does give the wrong impression that I am the author. References must never be omitted!
It only gives the wrong impression to the unobservant. Why care so much about the opinions of the unthinking and distracted?

If people cannot follow a simple conversation and cannot interpret the meaning of quote marks, then they should not be here, or at any philosophy forum.
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Re: Evolutionary reason for consciousness?

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I apologize for the following off-topic excursion!
Terrapin Station wrote: January 14th, 2020, 2:01 pm
Consul wrote: January 14th, 2020, 1:37 pmAnother important point is that ontological emergentism presupposes that nonsimple, complex or compound objects, i.e. ones having two or more proper parts, can have properties and be property-bearers. This presupposition isn't accepted by all philosophers! John Heil is one who rejects it, arguing that only simple objects or substances can really have properties and really be property-bearers.
I'm not familiar with Heil's comments on this but I'd be interested to hear how he argues the above (even though I don't even agree with the "substance" and "properties" division so that substances are things that can be "property bearers" as if the substance is trying on a jacket).
I suppose part of it would hinge on how he defines "proper part," but I can't imagine either how he'd say that an automobile engine doesn't have different properties than its parts, or alternatively how an automobile engine doesn't have "proper parts."
A proper part is a part of a whole which isn't identical to it. All wholes with proper parts have at least two proper parts. (In the following I mean "proper part" by "part".)

Heil differentiates between predicates or concepts and properties. He doesn't deny that many predicates are true of or many concepts apply to wholes which aren't true of or don't apply to any parts of them. What he denies is that those predicates or concepts represent real properties of wholes qua (mereologically) nonsimple, i.e. complex/compound/composite, objects.
"Substances are property bearers; properties are ways substances are. If there are substances, there are properties; if there are properties, there are substances. Every substance is some way or other, every property is a way some substance is. Substance and property are complementary categories of being. The idea is expressed by Locke's contention that substance and property are 'correlative'; they 'stand or fall together'."

(Heil, John. The Universe As We Find It. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012. pp. 12-3)
For more on his ontology, see: viewtopic.php?f=2&t=16328&p=333540&hilit=heil#p333540

Heil's central argument is quite simple:
Consider a hydrogen atom:

Image

Let's assume that the electron and the three quarks the proton is composed of are simple, partless objects. Properties as ways of being or ways things are "adhere" to or "inhere" in their bearers (the things having them), so they are spatially located where their bearers are located in space.

(This presupposes that properties aren't abstract, transcendent universals that don't exist anywhere in space or time. Moreover, Heil believes properties are neither transcendent nor immanent universals, because he believes they aren't universals at all but particulars called modes or tropes.)

Now, the having of properties by (and their adhering to or inhering in) the simple basic parts of the atom is ontologically unproblematic, but how can the atom as a whole bear or have a property? You may say that its bearer is neither the electron alone nor one of the quarks alone but the sum of the electron and the three quarks; but the problem is that there is a nonzero spatial distance between the electron and the proton, and also between the three quarks in the proton. So in order for the property in question to be a property of the whole atom, being collectively borne or had by the electron and the three quarks, it would partly have to exist or be present outside them, in the space between them, which is ontologically impossible.

This example can be generalized, so no nonsimple object can bear or have (real) properties, which means that ontologically emergent properties are ontologically impossible in principle.

I asked Heil in personal communication whether he thinks two or more simple material objects could collectively have (real) properties if they "touched", i.e. were in spatial contact (which the particles composing atoms are not). He answered in the negative, but I think his argument becomes less plausible if the composite objects in question are non-scattered or compact.
"Let us say that a material object is scattered just in case the region of space it occupies is disconnected."

(Cartwright, Richard. "Scattered Objects." In Analysis and Metaphysics: Essays in Honor of R. M. Chisholm, edited by Keith Lehrer, 153-171. Dordrecht: Reidel, 1975. p. 157)
"We may philosophize well or ill, but we must philosophize." – Wilfrid Sellars
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Re: Evolutionary reason for consciousness?

Post by Terrapin Station »

Consul wrote: January 14th, 2020, 6:39 pm I apologize for the following off-topic excursion!
Thanks for answering so thoroughly. I didn't quote everything you said because folks can just up at the original post to see it.

I just want to ask this clarification question prior to picking apart his argument: so, basically, he's saying that the properties of an automobile engine, properties that obtain with the engine as a whole (combusting fuel to produce motion that can rotate a crankshaft, say), but not with proper parts (just a piston on its own, for example), are only conceptual but not real? (And he's seriously asserting that?)
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Re: Evolutionary reason for consciousness?

Post by Terrapin Station »

Dammit I can't make a post here without a typo, lol. "Folks can just look up at the original post to see it" that should have read.
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Re: Evolutionary reason for consciousness?

Post by Gertie »

Consul wrote: January 14th, 2020, 1:37 pm
Gertie wrote: January 13th, 2020, 8:48 pmEmergence is appealing I think, because we see it in the material world.
We seem to do so, but ontological emergence may be an illusion. (It is according to reductive physicalism.)

Another important point is that ontological emergentism presupposes that nonsimple, complex or compound objects, i.e. ones having two or more proper parts, can have properties and be property-bearers. This presupposition isn't accepted by all philosophers! John Heil is one who rejects it, arguing that only simple objects or substances can really have properties and really be property-bearers.
Gertie wrote: January 13th, 2020, 8:48 pmThe problem remains, that all material forms of emergence are in principle fully accountable/explicable by physics. Where-as experiential states have no place, currently at least, in physics.
If ontological emergence is causal in the sense that for x to emerge from y is for x to be caused by y, then causal explanations of (ontologically) emergent phenomena in physical terms are possible in principle at least.
Gertie wrote: January 13th, 2020, 8:48 pmIt's not only the subjective/private nature of experiential states that's the problem, as you've pointed out, or just the reducibility issue, it's also that there are no models or equations or formulae for experiential states, there is no place for them in the Standard Model, and no clear 'bridging mechanism' for them to find a way in. Positing Emergence might be on the right track, but the Aha! Attractiveness of its familiarity might be leading us down the wrong alley.
The entities constituting the respective subject matters of biology, psychology, and sociology aren't mentioned in the physical Standard Model, but it doesn't follow that they aren't ontologically reducible to entities constituting the subject matter of physics. According to reductive materialism, experiences are forms of matter of motion: configurations, motions, and interactions of elementary particles as described by the Standard Model.
Gertie wrote: January 13th, 2020, 8:48 pmSo for now it gives us something to get a handle on which feels manageable, like something we can work with. But at best it points to the need for a deeper understanding of Physics, and quite possibly a fundamentally different understanding of the nature of the world.
Some think the mystery of consciousness can only be solved on the level of quantum physics—but I remain skeptical:

"It is widely accepted that consciousness or, more generally, mental activity is in some way correlated to the behavior of the material brain. Since quantum theory is the most fundamental theory of matter that is currently available, it is a legitimate question to ask whether quantum theory can help us to understand consciousness. Several approaches answering this question affirmatively, proposed in recent decades, will be surveyed. There are three basic types of corresponding approaches: (1) consciousness is a manifestation of quantum processes in the brain, (2) quantum concepts are used to understand consciousness without referring to brain activity, and (3) matter and consciousness are regarded as dual aspects of one underlying reality."

Quantum Approaches to Consciousness: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qt-consciousness/

A big problem for these approaches is the unfortunate circumstance that "no consensus at all exists among physicists about how to understand quantum theory. There just is no precise, exact physical theory called “quantum theory” to be presented…. Instead, there is raging controversy."

(Maudlin, Tim. Philosophy of Physics: Quantum Theory. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2019. p. 2)
As regards ontological reductive materialism, the claim that experiential states don't exist or are an ''illusion'' - I personally disregard that as plain daft, or boiling down to wordplay. But some clever people take it seriously, so maybe I'm misunderstanding or missing something.

Do you think there is a credible argument for it? I just don't see how anybody can seriously be argued out of knowing they have experiential states! Calling such experiential states a C-fibre firing or somesuch is just using words inappropriately in my view.

So I'd say the current main contenders up against emergence are panpsychism or substance dualism, but they all have their problems.

I think quantum theory is worth exploring for precisely the reason your quote gives, it's currently our most fundamental level of understanding how the world works. And if classical physics has no place for consciousness, maybe quantum theory will have. The fact that there's no consensus and we're still getting our heads round it leaves that door open.
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Re: Evolutionary reason for consciousness?

Post by Consul »

Greta wrote: January 13th, 2020, 9:23 pm1) Does non-mental equal non-conscious? That sounds anthropcentric to me. A simple creature can be awake and responsive, all with nary a thought.
All nonmental states are nonconscious states, but nonthinking doesn't equal nonsensing or nonfeeling.
Greta wrote: January 13th, 2020, 9:23 pm 3) Yes, I can name an anti-panpsychist - John Searle - who said that panpsychism was "absurd". He's hardly the first to make that claim, as anyone who has spent (too many) years on philosophy forums would know. I think Locke made the same claim.
What Searle and others find absurd is not only the ascription of thoughts to single molecules, atoms, or particles but also the ascription of sensations or feelings to them.
Greta wrote: January 13th, 2020, 9:23 pmGiven that the idea of proto-consciousness is very far from absurd, Searle (and others) clearly assumed that panpsychists referred to a humanlike consciousness residing in each small, mechanistic entity. There is often a suspicion that panpsychism is a "gateway drug" to the opiate of religion, a back door allowing rational spaces to be infiltrated by the superstitious.
McGinn asks (rhetorically):

"Isn’t there something vaguely hippyish, i.e. stoned, about the doctrine?"

(McGinn, Colin. "Hard Questions: Comments on Galen Strawson." Journal of Consciousness Studies 13, no. 10/11 (2006): 90–99. p. 93)

I agree with him that panpsychism is "a complete myth, a comforting piece of utter balderdash".
Note that he and Searle aren't arguing against a straw-man version of it defined as the doctrine that all material things or some basic kinds of material things at least have humanlike consciousness. What they're arguing against is panpsychism defined as the doctrine that all material things or some basic kinds of material things at least have (phenomenal) consciousness, being subjects of sentience/experience.

I don't like the ambiguous term "protoconsciousness" or "protoexperience". The prefix "proto-" can mean "first in time", "first formed", "original", "primitive", and "primary". If protoconsciousness is simply the first, most primitive form of primary consciousness or sentience, then protoconscious states are (determinately) conscious states. However, "proto-" can also mean "relating to a precursor or ancestor" (as in "protozoan"), in which case protoconscious states are (determinately) non-/preconscious states.
Greta wrote: January 13th, 2020, 9:23 pm4) I agree. I can't see higher order thought being necessary to sense. As far as I can tell, the difference between a simple brained creature like a leech and a complex brainless one like a sea star, is that when any part of the leech is injured, the entire body will hurt. For sea stars, an injury will only register at the site. Its other arms will carry on regardless.
Can leeches feel pain?

"The central nervous system of the leech is composed of a chain of 21 ganglia, each of which has ∼400 neurons."

Source https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3841027/

Are ~8000 neurons in the CNS sufficient for subjective sentience? I don't know.
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