A cat has a desire, arguably even an intention, but can she have beliefs that accompany either desire or intention? — J

What would be an example of a belief that you wonder if a cat might have?

Something being alive or not is still a matter of opinion and definition, with yes, no clear definition that beats asking a 6-year old. — noAxioms

I don't think 6-year olds have been tested in ways that we are currently talking about. Mainly, because technology has only recently made such testing possible. I suspect most would think a little, highly programmed robot is alive. I might agree, because I'm coming to think "life" is more about autonomy and what something does with information than its origin.

Tye's theory what what this property is, is pretty vague. He refers to it as "consciousness*" (with the asterisk) to distinguish it from "consciousness" (without an asterisk). The latter is the thing we normally refer to, while consciousness* is the lowest level building block. If you do read it, I'll be interested in hearing your reaction. — Relativist

I once thought what you are describing. My thinking on the topic has undergo some changes in the last year or so, as I have taken part in conversations here. @bert1 made a very brief comment several months ago that altered this particular aspect of what I thought.

I'm going to try Tye's book. I'll let you know.

Consciousness is not generally considered to be the same as mind, — Janus

I agree.


My way of thinking about mind, conscious, and aware only cause arguments, so I won't get into it. But I'll say this...

Is consciousness reflective self awareness, and is language necessary for that? — Janus

I don't language is necessary. But things would be unrecognizable if we didn't have it.


I'll order Hoffmeyer. Thanks! Unfortunately not available as e-book, but at least not $100+, like most Biosemiotic books I've looked at are.

I agree that physicalism does not have a good answer for qualia, but I'm just arguing that qualia is the only serious problem with physicalism. — Relativist

Ah. I gotcha.


I haven't read Tye's book. I'll look for it. His hypothesis is similar to mine in thinking consciousness is due to some inherent property of matter. But, although I'm not sure based on your words, it might be that I think it plays a role with much less complexity than he does.

I think it's the same situation. I am not aware of any physicalist hypothesis explaining qualia. You may be right that the "feeling of self awareness" is explained by qualia, but that doesn't explain it in terms of physicalism.

Regarding "magic", I don't think we have reason to believe we are sufficiently familiar with every aspect of our reality to know that there can be nothing that is not physical. (I, of course, see consciousness as proof that there is something non-physical.) Also, anything in our reality could not possibly violate it's rules/laws, and is, therefore, not magic.

We could program an "executive function" that integrates sensory input, memories that these trigger, and other memories, that induce thoughts and directs activity. Is there more to awareness? — Relativist

I believe so. I don't think what you are describing is the feeling of self-awareness that you and I have. And I don't think that feeling is the programmer's intention. I don't see how any number of physical events can create such a thing. I'm not aware of any theory that attempts to explain it.

Nowhere in any of that is there a hint of our subjective experience of heat.
— Patterner
Yea, because you glossed over it with "x, y, and z happen" and then, far worse, make assumptions about them.

The Hard Problem is that nothing about the first suggests the second.
But it does if you start to work out the x,y,z. You just refuse to label it that, instead calling it correlation or some such. — noAxioms

Awesome!! I am very excited!! By all means, please proceed!!

Btw, I didn't gloss over. I just didn't write out 50,000 physical events. But now you can say which of them convert physical events to subjective experience.

True - it's function is not directed at itself but as part of a larger system. Nevertheless, it does meet their definition: it senses (temperature) and does (turn on or off). — Wayfarer

They say influencing the welfare of its body is crucial.

According to their definition, a thermostat is a mind. — Wayfarer

In what way does thermostat's outputs influence the welfare of its body?

but when we are self-aware, we are having a conscious experience of . . .. what, exactly? — J

Feedback loops in our brain. Mental feedback loops, as opposed to loops that are involved with, for example, homeostasis.

I always go back to Ogi Ogas and Sai Gaddam in Journey of the Mind: How Thinking Emerged From Chaos:

A mind is a physical system that converts sensations into action. A mind takes in a set of inputs from its environment and transforms them into a set of environment-impacting outputs that, crucially, influence the welfare of its body. This process of changing inputs into outputs—of changing sensation into useful behavior—is thinking, the defining activity of a mind.

Accordingly, every mind requires a minimum of two thinking elements:
•​A sensor that responds to its environment
•​A doer that acts upon its environment — Ogi Ogas and Sai Gaddam

It is difficult to think of the simplest molecule minds ("All the thinking elements in molecule minds consist of individually identifiable molecules."), such as those of archaea or bacteria, as minds that are thinking. But it must surely be the first step on the evolutionary road. Thinking and mental processes are physical events. We are conscious of - we subjectively experience - these events. These events are not consciousness. That's what I mean by "what we are conscious of is not what consciousness is."

Is it multiplying terms too far to discriminate between "con" and "being conscious"? — J

From my standpoint, that's like discriminating between "mass" and "being massive".

Maybe it helps to refer once again to meditative states, in which it's possible to experience a very simple, seemingly objectless state of awareness. Am I "viewing con itself" in such a state? What's especially interesting is that the literature of meditation claims that the ego, the (possible) source of conscious awareness, is largely absent in such states. Should we conclude that "I" am not doing anything at that moment, so the whole loop question can never get started? — J

I can't speak from experience. But everything I've read makes it sound to me that the meditator is (how to say it?) not engaging in thinking/mental processes. Thinking might be an automatic response to sensory input and other thoughts. But if they are doing what is claimed, that automatic response can be prevented. Maybe "suppressed". Perhaps better to say "not engaged in", because that sounds more passive. In essence, as far as consciousness goes, the meditator subjectively experiences only the sensory input, much as other species that do not have or mental abilities.

Or that. :rofl:

Yes, I also think I can have a self-aware experience, without running into the "eye seeing itself" problem. — J

I really don't see that problem, either. We are made up of many information processing systems. Some, are shared with many species, right down to single-celled bacteria and archaea. Even if our sensory input from light is much more precise and complex than theirs, they also subjectively experience it. (When it comes to light perception, plants leave us in the dust in some ways.) But we have mental abilities that nothing but us has. Our self-awareness is our subjective experience of some of those abilities.

My thinking is that, what we are conscious of is not what consciousness is. Consciousness is not self-awareness. So it's not a case of consciousness viewing itself. I think we have a subjective experience of the warmth. And we also have the subjective experience of feedback loops that are much more complex than single-celled (and many multi-celled) creatures.

Sorry for the disorganized structure of this post. I'm exhausted and this is the best I can get out right now before collapsing in bed.

If the reality we experience is the only thing that we have experienced, how do we know that there isn’t anything beyond our reality? — an-salad

Anything we are aware of is part of our reality. It cannot be otherwise.

Can my experiencing of, say, warmth also itself be an object of experience? — J

I think so. A bacterium experiences warmth, and that's maybe all there is to say. I experience warmth. But I have mental abilities the bacterium does not, which I experience as self-awareness. So I'm aware that I'm experiencing warmth, unlike the bacterium.

Is this an infinite situation? I experience the knowledge that I'm experiencing warmth. And I experience the knowledge of the knowledge that I'm experiencing warmth. And…

*consciousness. I'm tired of typing that word incorrectly! — J

:rofl:

Fair enough. We'd have to start by agreeing on what can be an object of experience. As you know, many philosophers believe that con* can never be an object for itself, that it is properly a transcendental ego of some sort. To "experience consciousness," for these philosophers, would be like saying that the eye can see itself.

I don't find that persuasive — J

I do agree with this, as it happens. I think everything is an object of experience. But I don't think the experience is an object that, itself, can be experienced. I don't think the problem is that an eye cannot see itself. I think the problem is that vision cannot see itself.

I think what is normally called human consciousness is the consciousness - the subjective experience - of being a human. We have mechanisms for mental abilities, and we experience them as, among other things, self-awareness. We are aware of our thoughts and feelings.

A bacterium experiences greater or lesser warmth, just as we do. But it doesn't think about it, or comment on it.



I very much agree regarding what you say about feelings. I agree with most of what you say. But I don't agree that "Most aspects of consciousness seem amenable to programming in software." I think only mental abilities can be programmed, like sensory input, responses to sensory input, storage of sensory input and responses, referencing the stored data... I don't think subjective experience of all that is programmable. we can program feedback loops, but we can't program those feedback loops being aware of themselves.

I agree that the feeling of warmth is an example of a conscious experience. We also agree, I suppose, that being conscious as such is a conscious experience -- sounds awkward, but how else could we put it? I certainly experience being conscious, and so do you. So I'm hypothesizing that, as with warmth, there's a compatible story to be told about the "outside" of our conscious experience. — J

Can you explain what you mean by "experience being conscious"? we come at consciousness from different directions. I'm happy to explore your idea, but not necessarily sure what it is.

We started, pre-science, with our experience of heat, and went on to discover the physical conditions upon which it supervenes, which are utterly unlike feeling warmth. Why couldn't this happen for consciousness as well? It seems like a good analogy to me, but maybe I'm missing something you have in mind. — J

Indeed, we are miles apart on this. Consciousness and the feeling of warmth are not two different things. The feeling of warmth is an example of a conscious experience. It is only through consciousness that we have the experience. Just as it is through consciousness that we hear music, see colors, and taste the sweetness of sugar.

We have will free from the laws of physics. Countless things exist that would not exist if particles and the things comprised of particles interacted only in accordance with the laws of physics. Nothing that exists violates the laws of physics, but many things cannot be explained by those laws. Therefore, something else is at work.

It's that "doubleness" that I referred to before. Heat really is two different things at the same time, from different perspectives — J

I've never thought about things in this particular way, so this is just my first reaction. But I don't know if that idea applies to heat. Heat is the kinetic energy of the air molecules. What's two different things is our interaction with heat. The first thing is the physical events, beginning with thermoreceptors in the skin releasing ions, which depolarize the neuron, which generates an electric signal, which...

The second thing is our subjective experience of all that as heat.

The Hard Problem is that nothing about the first suggests the second.

Put crudely, consciousness is the same thing as its physical substrate, but experienced from the inside, the 1st person.
-----------------
Of course, this stretches the use of "same thing," perhaps unacceptably. Phenomenologically, they are very far from the same thing. — J

There is no "perhaps" about it, in my opinion. Nothing about the physical substrate suggests qualia, self-awareness, or anything to do with subjective experience.

And yet, heat is the "same thing" as molecular motion, in one important sense of "same". They don't remotely resemble each other, experientially, but nevertheless . . . — J

"Experientially"? Whose experience do you mean by that?

The temperature in a room is the measure of the average kinetic energy of its air molecules. The mercury in a thermometer expands when the air molecules move faster, and kinetic energy transfers from the air into the mercury.

It's all fully described mathematically. What the average speed of the air molecules is at a given temperature on the thermometer. James Clerk Maxwell apparently came up with the equations for figuring out what percentage of molecules are moving at which speed relative to the average. How much energy is needed to raise the temperature of whatever volume of air.

Our nerves detect the kinetic energy of the air. We can detect electrical signals caused by the contact, follow them to the spinal cord, and to the brain, where x, y, and z happen. We can quantify all that, also. How fast do the signals move along the nerves? Which nerve pathways are used for which temperature ranges? What kind of ions are released at what points?

Nowhere in any of that is there a hint of our subjective experience of heat. Not any more than there is in the mercury expanding in the thermometer.

Excellent quote! Thanks! — boundless

:up: Yes, good stuff!

Wouldn't it be reasonable to assume that, in time, we'll have positive tests for the presence of consciousness, and be able to describe its degrees and characteristics? — J

I am skeptical, because we have absolutely nothing at this point. We know to test assumptions, and not just believe what we think must be true, as they did back when they thought heavier objects fell faster than lighter objects.

We know to pay attention to details, and not just think an unexamined big picture must be accurate, as they did when they thought the earth was the center of the universe.

Perhaps most important, we learned a good lesson from those in the past who thought living things were animated by a special vital force. Now we know that the "animation" is various physical processes that can be observed, measured, and explained. (Exactly which processes depends on each person's definition of "life". But I haven't heard of a definition that doesn't have various processes, such as metabolism, sensory input, reproduction...)

Yet, despite being on guard for all the things, people thinking outside the box all the time, and having technology that can do things like slam electrons together and measure what happens, we don't have any clue how physical properties and processes can produce something so different from them, and no evidence that that's what going on.

Hmmm… do I detect a similarity here? :chin: — Wayfarer

I suppose Husserl should get the credit.

If by natural we mean “what belongs to the order of things that occur independently of human artifice,” then consciousness is indeed natural — Wayfarer

Yes, consciousness is natural in that sense.

but not physical in the sense of being an object or process describable in terms of physics. To call it “non-physical” doesn’t mean “supernatural” or “mystical” — Wayfarer

Of course not. I have no idea why you're making this point. In this sense, consciousness is natural because it exists in this universe. Even things thatare of human artifice are not “supernatural” or “mystical”.

consciousness isn’t a part of the world in the same way the brain, trees, or galaxies are. — Wayfarer

Of course consciousness isn't the same kind of thing as those physical things.

It’s the faculty for which a world appears. — Wayfarer

As Albert Csmus said, Everything begins with consciousness, and nothing is worth anything except through it.

As I said, you cannot find or point to consciousness in any sense meaningful to the natural sciences. — Wayfarer

I do not agree that the only things that exist are things that are meaningful to the physical sciences. I know you said "natural", not "physical". But I think consciousness is natural.

The only instance of consciousness which you really know, is the instance which you are, because you are it. — Wayfarer

As I said, consciousness is part of the world.

I invite you to believe that you are also conscious, and also part of the world.

The fact that physicalism can't inquire into subjectivity doesn't mean that science can't -- because physicalism doesn't get to draw the line about what counts as science. (That's up to us philosophers! :wink: ) — J

Again, yes.

But, you know, that book was subject of a massive pile-on when it was published. Nagel was accused of 'selling out to creationism'. — Wayfarer

I'm not concerned with what he was accused of. I wouldn't even be concerned if the accusations are true. He, anybody, can be right about some things, and wrong about others.

I want us to agree wholeheartedly with the first two sentences, but take issue with the third. — J

You saved me the trouble of saying that. "Treating consciousness as part of the world..."?? Consciousness is part of the world. How is that in question?

But think that through. If it's not a physical science, then, according to physicalism, how could it be a science? It must by definition be metaphysics. — Wayfarer

Yes. That's why physicalism is untenable. Science is broader than that. — J

Right. Physicalism only gets to say what is and is not physical science.

I rather like this, from Mind and Cosmos

The intelligibility of the world is no accident. Mind, in this view, is doubly related to the natural order. Nature is such as to give rise to conscious beings with minds; and it is such as to be comprehensible to such beings. Ultimately, therefore, such beings should be comprehensible to themselves. And these are fundamental features of the universe, not byproducts of contingent developments whose true explanation is given in terms that do not make reference to mind. — Thomas Nagel

The problem is verification. I can't imagine how many internally consistent ideas can be developed. Including any physicalist ones. But how to tell which, if any, is right?

They used to think consciousness might be a physical property! How weird." — J

I'm a hundred years ahead of my time. :rofl:

I understand, and you're no more monotonous than I am. :grin: I just think that, since there's no hint of any physical properties of consciousness, despite many very smart people trying with our best technology, and leading experts in the physical sciences saying the physical properties of matter don't seem to be connected to it, we might want to explore other ideas.

Do you think science is hobbled by its methods so that it can only inquire into certain parts of that world? — J

I would think so. At least in regards to the physical sciences. We can't weigh, or measure in any way, consciousness with the tools of the physical sciences.

I'm not aware of any math for any other guess about the nature/origin/explanation for consciousness.
— Patterner

There's Penrose's conjecture that consciousness depends on quantum phenomena, which are understood (if at all) primarily in mathematical terms. I lean toward the idea that math is the language of deep structure, so if consciousness can be captured scientifically, it may require a mathematical apparatus at least as elaborate as what's been generated by physics in the past decades. Speculation, of course. — J

I don't suspect consciousness can be captured scientifically. Despite many very smart people trying their best; despite them not falling for another élan vital scenario; despite putting their efforts into scientific methods; despite everything - nobody has found a hint of physicality in consciousness. It's one thing to see physical properties of consciousness, but being unable to figure it all out. It's another thing to not have anything physical at all to examine in any way. I think we should be going about it in a new way.

If all agree that consciousness has always been there, and had just been ignored for certain purposes, then I don't know what the debate is about.
— Patterner

The debate is about what you mean when you say 'there'. — Wayfarer

I'm agreeing with what you said:

Scientific method disregards or brackets out the subjective elements of phenomenal experience so as to derive a mathematically-precise theory of the movements and relations of objects. Consciousness is 'left out' of this, insofar as it is not to be found amongst those objects of scientific analysis. — Wayfarer

Our subjective experience is in everything we do, every moment. It is ignored/disregarded/bracketed out, beginning, it is often said, with Galileo, who was trying to understand and describe the universe with mathematics. And you can't understand or describe our subjective experiences with mathematics.

Indeed. And isn't that the central factor in this debate? — Wayfarer

If all agree that consciousness has always been there, and had just been ignored for certain purposes, then I don't know what the debate is about.

Scientific method disregards or brackets out the subjective elements of phenomenal experience so as to derive a mathematically-precise theory of the movements and relations of objects. Consciousness is 'left out' of this, insofar as it is not to be found amongst those objects of scientific analysis. — Wayfarer

That is true, regardless of what guess anyone has about the nature of consciousness, and regardless of the actual answer. Consciousness has always been there. It's just been ignored for certain purposes.

They're all trying to preserve the veracity of the scientific model while injecting an element of subjectivity into it 'from the outside', so to speak.
— Wayfarer

I think panpsychism is less likely to prove true than some version of consciousness as a property only of living things, but still, I don't agree with this characterization. — J

Indeed. It's hard to see how a property of particles can be considered "from the outside." Mass and charge are not "from the outside."

If subjectivity is "really in there" in everything that exists, well, then that will be a feature of the objective world. What we lack is a vocabulary of concepts -- or, as it may be, mathematics -- to capture it. — J

I'm not aware of any math for any other guess about the nature/origin/explanation for consciousness. Which is not a surprise, since, to my knowledge, consciousness doesn't have any physical properties/characteristics to examine/measure mathematically.

It represents a clumsy attempt at overcompensating the consequences of adopting the intentional/objectifying stance needed to do science, by adding to it (or by replacing it with) patches of experience very similar to the patches of colour added on the surface of an uncoloured drawing. — Michel Bitbol, Beyond Panpsychism

I don't agree that this is what panpsychism is attempting to do. And I maintain that physical objects and processes cannot add up to subjective experience.

As for a cause- that may be different. Hitting a billiard ball causing another billiard ball to move is quite reliable, but to argue that, say, thinking about climate change leads to depression reliably, while true, is vastly more complex. There are many more variables as to what constitutes depression than the regularity in which a ball causes another ball to move. — Manuel

There is no way to predict what most thoughts will cause most people to think next. Different people have different memories; percentages of various hormones at any given moment, and in general; mental strengths (Mozart and Einstein); and other factors. So thinking about climate change might cause one person to think depressing things, but cause another person to think of the girl he had a crush on in the class he took on climate change. But in both cases, thinking of climate change caused the next thought.

A bold statement. Can you please reference any known lifeform that can live in the complete absence of both aerobic or anaerobic respiration? — javra

Mmmm... No. I asked google, and it said yes. I should have looked into it.

You more specifically mean certain reactions of organic chemicals, namely those which result in metabolism - or at least I so assume. — javra

What I mean is this... For a very long time, a writer took a feather, dipped it in ink, and wrote. A writer writes, eh? Pencils and pens came along at different times, but people still wrote with them.

Then came typewriters, and now computers. Nobody is writing any longer. So there are no writers any longer.

But, of course, there are writers today, typing away on their computers. And we write posts and emails all the time. Nobody bats an eyelash at the obvious misuse of the word. It's ludicrous to suggest we aren't wiring. Because writing is a pursuit. A goal. It's not the tools.

I'm wondering if the chemical reactions that we've called life are the quill and ink, pencils, and pens.

While this can be viewed as a tautology (the laws of physics allow life because there is life...), I also think that this is a very interesting point. To me this suggests that we perhaps do not know enough of the 'inanimate' and this is the reason why the properties associated with life seem so different from the properties associated with 'what isn't life', i.e. life is, so to speak, latent in 'what isn't life'. — boundless

I don't know. It seems to me life is processes, not properties. Our planet has various amounts of various elements, so that's what the laws of physics had to work with. But can't there be life on other planets that have different mixtures of different elements? I imagine there can be. I think different elements, different processes, different systems, can accomplish the work of life.

Compare a geometrical shape such as a trapezoid. One might learn how to use the word correctly, and thus recognize trapezoids, without being able to say exactly what are the qualities that make the shape a trapezoid. Or, one might be taught those qualities, along with the word "trapezoid," and then categorize the shapes one encounters. — J

I swear I'm not trying to be difficult, but I don't get it. How can you learn how to use the word correctly other than by being taught those qualities? And how can you categorize the shapes without recognizing them?

Which approach should we adopt in the case of consciousness? Do we already know what the word means, so that it's only a matter of finding the entities to which it applies? Or do we already know what's conscious and what isn't, without being able to define consciousness, and hence it's a matter of figuring out what conscious things have in common, and thus perfecting a definition? — J

I thought we were talking about life. As for consciousness, yes, I already know what the word means, and nothing you bring up applies. :grin: :lol: Anyway, my thought is that everything is conscious. More precisely, subjective experience is a property of all particles. They all experience their own being. Which, in the case of a particle, isn't much. There are no mechanisms for sensory input, storage of information from previous sensory input, feedback loops, or any other mental activity.

When a physical system processes information, the conglomerate of particles experiences as a unit. DNA is where it all began. But even though information is being processed when DNA is being replicated, or protein is being synthesized, there are no mechanisms for sensory input, storage of information from previous sensory input, feedback loops, or any other mental activity.

When the information processing includes sensory input, storage of information from previous sensory input, and feedback loops, it is experienced as vision and hearing, memory, and self-awareness.

You know, or not. Sadly, I can't think of a way to test for anything.

I agree. It is the goal of very few machines to endure or to be fit. That's not a fundamental difference with the typical life form, but it's still a massive difference. Machines need to be subjected to natural selection before that might change, and a machine that is a product of natural selection is a scary thing indeed. — noAxioms

I have to assume we could make a program that duplicates itself, but does so imperfectly. Since they operate so fast, they could doubtless go through a million generations in a fairly short time.

How much storage space and power would be needed to support such a thing? If one evolved to overwrites others, it might be manageable.ay least the space.

Hey, why not unnatural selection? We could give it mutations faster than nature works.

Yes, it can get sticky.

Google says:
Metabolism refers to all the chemical reactions that occur within an organism to maintain life.

That might be circular.
-Life is something that involves various chemical reactions.
-Various chemical reactions maintain life.

And not all life uses cellular respiration.

My overriding question is:. Can there be life without chemical reactions? Is it the chemical reactions that define life? Or maybe the chemical reactions are the means to an end, and that end is a better definition of life.