In any knowledge that we create, we can always generate new "why" questions that we aren't able to answer, this isn't specific to consciousness — Skalidris

First part of the problem: we can never produce knowledge that perfectly matches reality. This problem isn't specific to consciousness — Skalidris

I think neither of these really reflect the problem of explaining phenomenal experiences. There is something very different about the way experience cannot be described or explained.

Well arguably these are not analogous scenarios in the respective worlds.

Yes, this is a good point which always gets me thinking.

I guess this is an open question depending on how someone conceives phenomenal experiences.

I am not familiar with this Thales thing but I would argue maybe things like this add extra things (extra scientific hypotheses) to the world beyond what is in current science. I suspect many idealists and panpsychists would also add extra things or at least extra explanations which are beyond what is in current science.

Maybe some idealists or panpsychists wouldn't be so ornate. But then again, isn't the idea that the world itself is just consciousness also an extra scientific hypothesis? If this notion of physicalism I brought forward is just about the rejection of certain hypotheses then having physicalist beliefs doesn't add any scientific hypotheses in the same way. I guess this view of physicalism would be kind of minimalist metaphysically.

I think maybe I would also say that without some additional distinctive structure beyond current scientific hypotheses then the metaphysical idea that everything is mental is just as vague and empty as the idea everything is physical.

Just a random thought. But seems to me that things like materialism, physicalism, naturalism are all kind of difficult to define in a way that doesn't come with some triviality, e.g. Hempel's dilemma, also the thought that if something like the "supernatural" ever became confirmed, it would just trivially become natural. Methodology also to me seems to just appeal to whatever scientists happen to do which is complicated, not easily summarized, perhaps doesn't even have any hard rules (which might seem trivial if anything that gets results is included). Metaphysical views like structuralism that seem to have been created as improvements on physicalism seem to be just as difficult to define - notion of structure seems extremely vague and general, to me at least.

Seems to me these kinds of views seem most useful when you have something to contrast them against like dualism.

I wonder if these views, rather than a metaphysical view, maybe could be seen as closer to like a loose grouping of scientific hypotheses about the absence of certain type of things like extra mental substance and against things like parapsychology, cryptozoology, pseudoscience (pseudoscience maybe just being more like a label applied to certain ideas that are considered false but are still discussed as true in some fringe communities). Arguably the same denouncements could be said applied to methods too.

My remark about recognising the limitations of the model is based on two issues. First, all this simply assumes that we can count a causal process as a cognitive or symbolic activity. But there's an issue about whether this is legitimate. Second, the example is fascinating because it simply ignores the so-called "hard problem". — Ludwig V

Oh I see, quite right; however, I was not trying to invoke that kind of model of the brain or mind. I wouldn't say efficient coding necessatily entails that kind of idea and my views of the brain and mind don't hinge strongly on symbol or representation.

I think we both more or less agree about what is happening in the picture physically and causally in the scenario you are talking about so maybe there is not much more to be said. I just have a kind of "No-Self" kind of view (" " from wikipedia personal identity page) which makes me view those events differently - the causo-historical significance is for the components of the system but nothing about those components or their causal relationships carves out an objective self-boundary. But again, I think we agree on what is happening here physically.

Yes but my point is that if there is no objective identity then this seems trivial in the sense that it is trivial that we are always constantly changing. Its trivial different events have different consequences. Its not trivial how to objectively construe those consequences as a self-contained identities with continuity over time amidst changes.

A popular matephor, but wrong. Nature does not sit out there (wherever that is), like a joint of meat, waiting to be carved up and served up. Nor are we separate from nature, hovering over it looking for the joins. Nature prods us and we prod it back. Interaction, all the time. Nothing is possible without it. — Ludwig V

Yes, I agree this is a much better way of looking at it.

It goes back to the question whether we can say that computer calculates or speaks. Unlike Searle (if I understand him right) I think we not only do say that but that it is not a mistake to do so.
Nonetheless, I’m sure that in the end, we will have to recognize the limitations of this model/metaphor, if only so that we can get round them. — Ludwig V

What do you mean on this bit?

I think my point in the context of this post here is that if "personal identity" is not objective then the gamete point is trivial because there is no objective fact of the matter that the possibilities belong to a single individual. At the same time there is the strange counterexample of two possible world where everything in someone's life was the same except for the fact that in one world that individual had been conceived with different gamete that had identical genetic information. The difference the gamete brings here then seems about as significant as if one day that person had decided to put on a different pair of socks. You could say that the person is not the same but given that everything else in the world is identical, surely there is claim to say that this is a version of that person in another world. Looking at your Ryle considerations, in general I think often there is no fact of the matter about what makes these counterfactuals the case. We infer that things could have been otherwise purely through our ability to imagine things and there seems no bounds on what could have been the case without having to place an artificial restriction on what seems plausible or not. There's nothing to substantiate these.

Well @Moliere can correct me if I am wrong but I think they are using intension to motivate an argument which is about extension.

Perhaps it would be better to think of what is going on as simplification. We have to decide (and agree) what features of the world are important in a particular context and need to be attended to and which are not. — Ludwig V

Yes, I think this is a core part of science. We carve up nature into systems that are easier to handle, ignoring its interactions with the outside world, averaging over the details to produce simple rules or descriptions. This is exactly what we do in experiments too by controlling the environment so inferences are simpler. Arguably, brains even do this when you consider some common ways of conceptualizing how neurons work like efficient coding.

I am denying objective identity and so I am denying that the developmental trajectory of an organism is deeply intwined with some objective identity. The organism is a collection of components, always changing, always in flux, taking things in from the environment, spitting things back out. There is no essential self there.

My view:

1. There is no dualism; this is demonstrated by the incoherence of the p-zombie concept.

2. The question then becomes about epistemological reasons why we cannot reduce the experiential to the physical.

There is a logical argument, A: If experiences are information about the outside world then it is inconsistent that information about the brain should be derivable. However, this does not mean there is no information about how brains divide up the information in the world - e.g. see that opponent processing and trichromacy in our retinal neuronal architectures were all but predicted by observations about the phenomenal structure of colour - at the same time, what was inferred was not the actual physiology of brain processing but just the way that the brain divides up sensory input that enters the retina by frequencies. It didn't tell us that a brain as we know it was doing the dividing, just that a division or organizing was being made.

There is a skeptical/indeterminacy argument, B: The way brains are structured simply does not give them access to information about the micro-physical causes of input (whether externally or internally) - such causes are inherently indeterminate (and much of the information lost anyway at larger scales).

Conceptual primitives argument, C: A description or explanation is just outlining/modeling relations in a conceptual space. Descriptions or explanations cannot go outside of the space / framework they sit in. If our conceptual space is founded on primitives that are experiential qualities then there is no way of explaining or describing those experiences in a satisfactory way since they are the primitive foundations of the entire explanatory space. They cannot be decomposed or reduced further so they seem ineffable, but this ineffability is unavoidable in any inferential system like our brain that can make explanations.

3. It also must be acknowledged that our scientific theories don't say anything about ontology, they are part of the same explanatory framework as C above. Scientific theories are like predictive tools and there can be a plurality of descriptions. There is therefore no inherent contradiction between physics and experiences if we say that physics doesn't tell us about inherent ontology. Equally we might say that the notion of experience doesn't tell us much about ontology other than the fact it is informative about the external world. If anything, coherently non-trivial fundamental ontologies are inherently unattainable.

Next part is more speculative:

4. If my experiences are what its like to be a brain then we might want to try vaguely conceptualize the world in a way that accomodates their existence. We might look to a kind of structuralist but minimalist metaphysics where all structure is on ontologically equal ground. What we may deem most fundamental in the world may be things like symmetries, invariances, regardless of the scale they occur. Experiences are what its like to be some structure, invariances, information (difference that makes a difference). Specifically my experiences reflect particular macroscopic invariances in the vicinity of the brain among many others that exist and are described in physics, chemistry, biology at various scales.

Simply because if one is skeptical about a coherent ontology for identity then there is nothing for it to be potent about. All it would then be about is labelling things and keeping track of those labels.

Yes, yes. I think we must have got some wires crossed in this topic. I don't think people necessarily really mean h2O when they say water.

Other notes:

It seems to be idealizations everywhere though. Even if you want to go past the idealization of water=H2O, then the less idealized descriptions will include idealizations as per the nature of chemistry where various models still involve idealization.

I think even if a model is considered true, there are ways that we can envision it being underspecified in some way. Maybe the example of quantum mechanics interpretations. Two different interpretations may afford the same empirical description of water in terms of quantum theory, physics, theoretical chemistry. Yet they may have radical metaphysical different implications for what water is. So then, is water picking out the same thing everywhere if it cannot distinguish between interpretations of H2O with extra interpretational or underlying structure like this?

Well I think this is a different topic to what I was saying in my post you replied to but I would say this causo-historico thing presumes a coherent ontology of the individual to which the causo-historical connection has a non-trivial consequence for. When I think about it deeply, I am skeptical about such coherent ontology of the individual where the causo-historico thing has any signicance beyond a kind of bookkeeping role of keeping track of things.

I best be careful then. If my account means that people cannot refer then it's in trouble since we do successfully refer! — Moliere

I think there's been some wires crossed as I don't understand whats being implied here.

Quite so. Not wanting to be picky, but what makes these abstractions arbitrary? Isn't it rather that the idea of natural kinds proposes a certain kind of model, but the facts (nature) undermine it. — Ludwig V

Yes, I think you are right about proposing a certain kind of model and it being undermined in the sense that either the model is outright wrong or the idealization ignores meaningful distinctions.

I was meaning that once you lift the lid on the issue of the model and probe past what was once seen as some essential nature; then, in probing the specifics about how something like H2O may behave in different contexts then there is not really a limit on how specific you want to go or where you want to place the boundaries for classification or on what basis you want to make separations between different things. H2O with different ion concentrations, isotopes. Ice, vapour, etc. We can always cut arbitrary lines or boundaries.

though very little in comparison. — Moliere

Yes but they are still necessary for the properties of water like electrical conductivity, even if little in comparison - if they were not present, it would imply there was no water there or at least that the water didn't possess its characteristic properties. Hence why different concentrations lead to different properties. The isotope example is also interesting because its not trivial at all the changes it makes. D2O can kill things because of how different it is to water.

I think the concept of idealization always strengthens this kind of direction you are going in since at the very least it questions or complicates the idea that people are actually referring to what they say they are referring to when they use particular terms or phrases.

It just means that H2O represents more than just "H2O" perhaps. — schopenhauer1

Yes, I was reading an article suggesting that it isnt really problematic for saying H2O is water since you can say that all that is required (under certain conditions) is that you have many H2O molecules and in their interactions, these ionization phenomena happen... so you still don't need anything more than H2O really. I don't have a problem with saying H2O is water since there is a pragmatism of ignoring these kind of details.

But at same time to me that means acknowledging an aspect of pragmatism or choice into it about where I draw the lines/boundaries. It complicates the notion that we are talking about some essentialistic natural kind here imo.

But the point is that it becomes a posteriori necessary, which is Kripke's controversial theory. The evidence provides the necessity of identity's content, which can be changed with more evidence. So the content can change, but the link of necessity does not, with whatever it is that that content provides. — schopenhauer1

Yes, I see this but it seems that was is posteriori necessary trivially depends on what I happen to decide I should call something so to me it doesn't seem that interesting or have deep consequences. Can you even call that necessary?

Then it comes to the issue of deciding what is water in all possible worlds. Does that trivially mean that water in all possible worlds is identical to water in this world? Or might there be other possible worlds with water that is different in some way but still similar? It seems this is down to my decision in some ways about what I want to deem as water or not depending on what I want to ignore in possible worlds.

But even here I'd note that a chemist differentiates between aqueous solutions and water, and the normal usage calls the sea "water" even though it's actually a mixture of water, ammonia, salt, etc. So that the common usage does not always pick out the very same thing even in our world, and so the claim to necessity is hampered by that possibility. — Moliere

I'm afraid common usage is too messy for us. Common usage can distinguish between water, sea water, sewage water, rain water, &c. Pure or distilled water is part of that range, but is really a technical idea, now adopted by common usage. Perhaps we need a natural kind for each of them? — Ludwig V

Its interesting because really, we can get arbitrarily specific about different kinds of water. When H2O molecules react it results in various different ions which are essential for its properties so if you want to be more specific, you could say that water isn't really just H2O - that water is H2O may be a straightforward statement since it emerges from H2O molecules interacting, but then it has to be qualified that this is idealizing the details.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-ionization_of_water

We might then see that different concentrations of these ions result in different properties of water and then we might have water with different isotopes of hydrogen which impart different properties too.

Seems to me anyone can get as precise as one wants in distinguishing things and all "natural kinds" require ignoring some kinds of details, differentiation, contextual relevance. Nothing we categorize in the world avoids arbitrary abstractions.

Ha, have any of your suspicions been verified? I had a suspicion of that kind of nature once about another poster who hasnt posted in this thread, there was just another poster with a very similar writing style who started posting in the same thread as them.

Totally agree about this water thing. I more or less have the same idea but I extend it to individuals too.

Well said on these various posts.

I wouldn't say research like this would be helping with the Hard Problem of consciousness though. Ofcourse, the more we learn, the more we might precisely we will be able to relate experiences to neural activity but that isnt necessarily the same as explaining why specific phenomenal experiences are related to certain mechanisms.
And I don't think there an explanation to that is even possible as I think such a duality is illusory.

Oh, this is an actual question about another poster?

No I am not him. Why did you think that? Never heard of that name until I looked it up just now.

I am 100% sure, there is absolutely no way that neuroscience can solve the hard problem of consciousness in a way where our descriptions in neuroscience fully explain our experience in the sense that there is some kind of necessary entailment between some neuroscientific description and some experience. This is impossible I think. Your wave example doesn't help. It wouldn't explain why the wave is associated with some particular experie ces in the same way that current descriptions of vidual cortex activity cannot tell us what experiences we are having. I think consciousness is a place where the natural limits of self-explanation really becoming prominent... the thing is, there is no reason we should be able to explain everything, especially the self (i.e. experience). I think its almost analogous to how self-reference always results in paradoxes in logic. We can never know just as a dog will never know somethings because its brain is designed in a way that is limiting to it.

P-zombies are definitely incoherent by any normal standard of a good, coherent description of how the world probably works.

It makes absolutely no sense that there could be things out there with no conscious yet they routinely claim they are conscious and enter into debates about the hard problem of consciousness.

Moreover, because our brains are the things which are functionally responsible for our conscious claims, it follows that the reason I, as a conscious being, believe that I am conscious is for the exact same reasons that a p-zombie believes it is consciousness, even though the p-zombie is wrong and I just happen to be correct.
To me, science doesn't seem to give or necessitate any room for anything additional to routine physics and biology as explanations for why our brains behave the way they do so it is strange that a p-zombie would make these claims from the physical interactions of the brain. And the fact that my brain is only interacting with physical things brings up the question of how I can even know I am phenomenally conscious if the brain mediates all my knowledge. My knowledge about my own consciousness would be entirely incidental.

So it follows that phenomenal consciousness is entirely redudnant.

The simplest explanation is that there is no duality between the mind and brain. P-zombies are incoherent and don't make sense in the actual world at all.

For me here I think it gets hazy because since in my example everything is completely identical except for this gamete part, it seems to me I could plausibly say they are the same person.

At the same time, I do see the causal intuition. But then again, in this context, I am inclined to ask what makes the causal-historico thing impart this you-ness in a way which is not just kind of arbitrary labelling. And I don't think that I can give myself a good response of what it is that is being imparted by the historico-causal connection.

As I mentioned in another poster, the closest I can find is some kind of intuitive notion that in this world, the lights of my consciousness are switched on, while in that world they are switched off. But I don't think that is well founded at all or gives some good criteria in terms of identity either.

What about a possible world where the only thing that was different was that George 1 came from gamete 2 instead of gamete 1, which just happen to be "twin" gametes. Everything else in that world is identical.

Well given that a p-zombie:

1) Behaves identically to a regular person;

2) The reason it behaves are for the same reasons as a regular person (i.e. it has a human brain that performs functions just like ours); and

3) The circumstances about the world under which I myself am "accepting" or "considering" things is the same as which apply to the p-zombie (in regard to the p-zombie performing acts of p-"considering" and p-"accepting", etc);

Then maybe it makes sense to attribute to it these things you mentioned after all. For all intents and purposes they cannot be distinguished in either case.

Edit: attempt at clarification same points, partly by formatting.

But that's my point about the gametes. That is the point where that very individual cannot be that very individual anymore. Then it is back to being open to simply "a possibility of some individual". — schopenhauer1

Well in the the gamete example, it is about a world where that person was not born as opposed to a world where some property of the person has been changed.

Very interesteing reading all of these experiences.


Thank you, this has been very insightful!

When we think of ourselves as experiencing something, don't we generally think that what we experience is other than ourselves? — Janus

Well yes, but our selves are also experiences. And then consider that experiebces are going on in our heads as part of the goings on of a physical system which one might consider to be their self. So its interesting to see where the dividing lines are. Thinking about this, it seems that my experience of self is just a model of my body interacting, exercising its agency with its environment. Even though, given a thought experiment of removing my brain from my body, I wouldn't necessarily identify myself with my body.

You can lose parts of your body that are not critical to your survival and still be a living, experiencing body. — Janus

Yes, no doubt.

However, if you lose your eyes or lose your hearing you will not experience in those domains. A mere population of cells does not necessarily experience anything like you as an organism consisting of a self-regulating population of specialized cells does — Janus

I'm not sure I understand what you are saying here.

Roughly speaking the boundary of your being is your skin; it is natural enough to think of whatever is sensed within that boundary as part of oneself and whatever is sensed outside of that boundary as other. — Janus

There's lots of counterexamples to this kind of thing I think, such as the thought experiment of a brain transplant or something. At the same time, your body is itself full of living systems with their own boundaries. It is ofcourse natural to think that way, but I am skeptical that it is like an objective fact of the matter. *We might also characterize ourselves as parts of broader social and ecosystems, parts of a China brain perhaps even. There is also people who even propose extended mind theses about how our environment is an important part of cognition.

I would say your dead body is the dead you, which is very different than the living you, because it is no longer capable of internal self-regulation or of experiencing anything at all, either internal or external to it. It has become like any non-living object, but every particular non-living object is still thought to have a unique identity. — Janus

Yes, it seems complicated. There are a few different ways I could distinguish the concept of self here.

Edited: Minor addition * ... *

Do you mean in the sense that I might think of my identity as consisting in being a mother, a scientist, an artist, a policewoman or whatever? — Janus

Uhh maybe not necessarily against that way of looking at it but I was thinking more just about exactly what parts of your physicality you consider you, what bits are essential, what bits could be changed and you would intuitively still consider yourself yourself.

Some people believe in an immortal soul and would say it is that soul and not their body that constitutes their identity. — Janus

I wouldn't say soul but then again I do think what I am experiencing in an ongoing way is what I liken to the self strongly. I imagine its plausible that my brain being transported into a vat, my self could be maintained. Then again, I don't think I identify all parts of my experiences with myself even though they are going on in parts of my brain... which are part of me???

then what alternative do we have but to think of the body — Janus

Yes but clearly its not all essential and I think identifying myself just as a population of cells misses something in the same way that I don't think there is necessarily a single way of identifying or labelling or drawing boundaries within/around bodies or animals, other objects etc., even though doing so and thinking about it may have practical benefits or be interesting in some ways.

If each body has a unique genotype and phenotype, then DNA would be the most accurate way to establish bodily uniqueness, since differences of form can sometimes be hard to discern as can be the case with identical twins. — Janus

Yes true, DNA certainly makes it easy to discern or pick you out; but then again, my dead body will have my DNA. I think there is at least a debate to be had about whether my dead body is me. Since I wouldn't be alive anymore. Maybe you would say it is me.

Yes, I think I understand your view.. at least the notion that alternative gametes wouldn't be you.

I guess my view is just that there isn't an objective fact of the matter about identities or self.

but strictly consisting of meanings, or else the content of concepts (rather than their labels). — javra

Would you say these are like specific experiences? With phenomena? Its strange because I don't think I can express meanings without words so it is not clear to me what active cognizance of wordless meaning could be like in the moment.

The whole notion of identity and discerning it. I don't even have to look this up, and I would guess there would be hundreds or more papers written on things tangential to this regarding identity, essence, genes, and the like. It just seemed you were a bit too hastily dismissive of any sort of notion related to that. But we don't have to dwell on this odd dismissiveness and hostility to the concept — schopenhauer1

Well I haven't had a deep look at the topic so myabe, but this type of view is my general inclination, which I think I could argue as holding in this area too. I would gladly discuss opposing points though. But I did say I get the intuition of what you said; it makes sense to me from an intuitive standpoint that the different gamete would not be you. At the same time, it brings up the question of what that statement actually means - that the different gamete person would be you, or the same gamete person not being you - beyond just the labelling of something as "you". When I think more about it, I am inclined away from a kind of essentialistic view of the self or even criteria for identity (or even truth) counterfactually.

It's also a function that you missed a broad portion of the debate on the thread here and then just came in with these ideas focusing mainly on the genetic component aspect of my argument, and not the idea that it is combined with the causal. — schopenhauer1

I did read the thread or I wouldn't have acknowledged some people made some good points.

I was just clarifying my views on the genetics as I was preoccupied with that bit.

I also mentioned that the genetics aspect is not some blank slate. It does have uniqueness that contributes to various aspects of the self that would be different than if the gametes were another set. It isn't just "any set of gametes" that makes you, you. It has to be those gametes, along with the other factors I mentioned. — schopenhauer1

Yes, sure, I just think its interesting to think about whether the genetics are the most important bit or not. If you have different gametes that all are genetically different, its not exactly a good experiment for answering that question. So I was think about that beyond whether just being a different gamete would make you a different person counterfactually *to the question of the role of genes in general in identity... whether they are incidental or not to identity*.

Edit: Just clarifying * ... *

It is well established that the links between genes and specific characteristics are very complicated and often surprising. — Ludwig V

I admit was thinking in a much more simplistically. These are some excellent points and the kind of complexities I find very interesting about biology! I will have to consider more subtleties like this into my view.



That definitely is an interesting way of looking at it, certainly worth thinking about. I think the stage view looks a bit more appealing to me. I guess it really depends what you want from a theory of identity.

I think it is uncontroversial from a science perspective that each sperm would produce a different genotype and hence a different phenotype (body). — Janus

Very much so, but I think there are still important questions about whether you would consider your phenotype the same as your identity. Realistically, yes I am sure every conception event leads to a different person who is very different from every other person. But then I think that our biology incidentally does this (as a matter of just how our biology seems to work), it doesn't let us probe exactly the limits on how we might perceive a change of DNA to affect identity like you would in an experiment. I think DNA can be a good way of identifying different individuals, but is that just incidental to the actual identity itself? Do all DNA changes, do all phenotype changes correspond to identity change? Is DNA essential to what characterizes my identity as a person (could something else perform a similar role)? All that is why I said in another post my intuition was that maybe the historical chain role in the gamete fusion scenario may be just as if not more important as the blueprint role. The blueprint role is in many ways limited if the actual phenotype that emerges depends hugely on the environment... in fact it must always depend on the envrionment. I imagine just in many cases, the environment is very well controlled (e.g. inside a womb), which in some ways is incidental. Someone could have genes which normally produce five digit hands but in the wrong prenatal environment, they only end up with 4. The role we attribute to genes normally is not inherent to the genes but, we can just assign that function because of how nature happens to be commonly.

I am sure philosophers have broad range of beliefs on the issue. I doubt I am the only person drawn toward that kind of view.

I am not sure what you're saying I dismissed