Every time I open an OP containing the words ''consciousness, emergent, fundamental", there's this weird pattern. Basically, ↪180 Proof comes and says ''This OP is nonsense." It's like this all the time. None of you or other people on my other OPs seem to have this issue except him. — Eugen

This is a bad rhetorical strategy. Trying to get us to back you up with @180 Proof won't work. He's a pain in the ass, but he's our pain in the ass. We've all had to figure out to work around his... idiosyncrasies. You will too.

Here's the right approach - write a good, well supported OP. Layout what you want to discuss. Have good arguments at hand. Listen to what other people have to say and be responsive. Then, if people try to take the discussion off on an irrelevant tangent, ask them to stop. That will usually do the trick.

I enjoyed it.

I was totally clear on that: if you don't agree with my notion of ''emergence", ignore it and focus on ''reduction". — Eugen

As I indicated in my previous response, I think phenomena you have identified as non-fundamental would all generally be considered reducible. Isn't that the definition of "non-fundamental?" From what I have seen in posts subsequent to my previous one, that seems to be the question you have put on the table. I don't think I have any insights to add.

Some thoughts:

You've left terms undefined or at least not clearly defined, e.g. consciousness, emergence, fundamental.

I. Consciousness is or is not fundamental - 100% of the possibilities — Eugen

If consciousness is somehow fundamental, it still clearly requires physical, biological, neurological processes to manifest. As far as I know, we don't have any evidence of a conscious entity without a nervous system.

A. It is 100% reducible to the fundamental properties of reality - weak emergence.
B. It is not 100% reducible to the fundamental properties of reality - strong emergence. — Eugen

This is a misrepresentation of the meaning of "emergence." Emergence applies to processes at one scale or level of organization that are manifestations of processes at a smaller scale or lower level. All emergent processes are "reducible to fundamental processes of reality" if by that you mean consistent with the laws of physics. The difference between what you call weak vs. strong emergence is that while both are reducible to physical processes, strongly emergent processes can not be derived, predicted, from those lower level processes. Here's a link to a famous paper - "More is Different" by P.W. Anderson that explains the difference.

https://www.tkm.kit.edu/downloads/TKM1_2011_more_is_different_PWA.pdf

This model looks like this:

I. Consciousness is or is not fundamental - 100% of the possibilities

II. If it is not fundamental, then:
A. It is 100% reducible to the fundamental properties of reality - weak emergence.
B. It is not 100% reducible to the fundamental properties of reality - strong emergence.
A + B = 100% of the possibilities

I + II = 100% of all possibilities — Eugen

This model could be applied to any phenomenon. It really doesn't have any explanatory power.

I am not a fan of Myers-Briggs and I hadn't heard of the other system you described, but I had some thoughts I hope are responsive.

First, I sometimes call myself a pragmatist. Pragmatism as a philosophy focuses on how knowledge and understanding are used and how they can be useful. Myers-Briggs at least was developed and is used for practical purposes, e.g. to help people work together and understand each other better or for human resources purposes. I've always seen it as more a psychological engineering method rather than scientific or philosophical. My father and I were both engineers. In later years, his work involved labor relations with a strong emphasis on giving workers a role in work decision making. He used testing like Myers-Briggs a lot. He and I sometimes argued about the way it organized and characterized people. So - pragmatism.

I think the main reason I dislike Myers-Briggs is that it is just a way of labelling people without ever having to see them. Lao Tzu is one of my favorite philosophers. As he wrote (Tao Te Ching, Verse 1, Stephen Mitchell translation):

The tao that can be told
is not the eternal Tao
The name that can be named
is not the eternal Name.

The unnamable is the eternally real.
Naming is the origin
of all particular things. — Lao Tzu

I guess I would say the person who is characterized by Myers-Briggs is not the real person.

I'm trying to think what other philosophies might have something to say about this. I'm not really much of a student of philosophy. This type of testing attempts to characterize people using methods that are claimed to be objective. Does that make this a materialist approach? The term "reification" is applied to situations where an abstract idea is treated as if it were real, concrete. I would say that M-B classifications are reifications and that claims they represent something "real" are open to question.

One final thing, which may seem to contradict things I've said so far. My understanding of how people come to adopt philosophies is that it is strongly dependent on temperament - our general attitude and outlook toward life. It would be interesting to see if anyone has compared different people's M-B categories with their philosophies.

This is a really good, nuanced, response. Much better than mine was going to be. Maybe I'll go back and think of something better to say.

A charitable interpretation of T Clark’s position is that he is not saying, for example, that in a discussion entitled “What is truth?” we have to agree on what truth is at the start to make any progress—that obviously couldn’t work—but that in a discussion about something else, some other concept, one that depends on the concept of truth, a way of directing the debate is to decide on the definitions of those dependencies, otherwise the wrangling over definitions never ends. — Jamal

Yes, it is a charitable interpretation. And in line with my thinking. Thank you.

I am at a loss as to what it is you are supposing we are doing in philosophy. — Banno

Oh, Banno. You should be ashamed. You're just trying to provoke me.

To restrict the use of a term at the beginning is to shut down the philosophy. I understand your position. My last post was a response to the post of yours in which you appeared to conflate definitions at the beginning of a discussion with definitions as an aim. This is the crucial point. — Jamal

I'll just repeat what I wrote previously - a lot of the discussions on the forum stink because people never get beyond disagreeing on definitions.

I have explained as clearly as I can what I think is wrong with personalizing everything, so I don’t think I’ll say any more on it. — Jamal

As far as I can tell, you haven't made any kind of case at all beyond that you don't like it, which is ironic. Yes, let's leave it there.

A definition of a philosophical concept might be required at the beginning of a discussion only in the case that the term is equivocal. — Jamal

I fall back on my experience here on the forum as the basis for my response - many discussions quickly descend into confusion and lack of direction caused by lack of agreement on what words mean. Prime examples are "consciousness," "metaphysics," "truth," and "reality," but there are plenty more.

It’s possible that T Clark’s approach is more relevant than I thought, although it’s an approach to analyzing TPF discussions in terms of psychology rather than analyzing definition itself. What I mean is, I’ve noticed that people are disagreeing in what seems a temperamental or polarized way rather than substantively. It’s not clear that, for example, @Janus and @Isaac, or @T Clark and I, would really differ much given an actual discussion to look at, and what differences there would be might be to do with temperamental levels of tolerance for troublemaking. — Jamal

This isn't the place to take up the subject, but I don't understand your objection to "personalizing" philosophical issues. As I've noted before, one of the goals of philosophy is self-awareness. For me it is the primary goal. This is certainly true of eastern philosophies, but also western ones. After all, some guy supposedly said "The unexamined life is not worth living." The point, at least the only point, isn't to discuss ideas and reason, we're also here to examine our lives.

I think it's interesting that this thread, aimed to demonstrate that definitions are not needed in philosophical arguments, has become a platform not just for definitions, but definitions of "definition."

It is still reductionist, and if it's not, then what does it actually say? — Wayfarer

I gave examples, which you didn't respond to.

The reductionist wants to say of such mental acts that they are actually neural processes, and that they are real via this grounding in their material constituents; that they exist as physical constituents in the brain, to which we assign meaning. — Wayfarer

That's not what I said and it's not what I meant. I don't deny that mental acts exist as mental acts. Trees exist as biological organisms. They are also manifestations of chemical processes. They are not equivalent to those chemical processes. They are something different.

Meaning and thought can be seen as manifestations of mental processes, which can be seen as manifestations of biological, neurological processes. I don't see that as reductionism.
— T Clark

But that is the textbook definition of reductionism, to wit:

Neuro-reductionism is the argument that the mind can be "reduced" (made equivalent) to the brain. This sees the brain as identical to its thoughts and feelings. In neuro-reductionism, as neuroscientists study the brain, they gain an understanding of the mind. — Wayfarer

I was trying to use language carefully so that my meaning would be clear. I guess I failed, although I put part of the blame on you for not even trying. "Manifesting as" is not the same as "equivalent to." Broadcast TV signals manifest as images on your TV set. Are the signals equivalent to the images? Are they the same thing? Of course not. DNA manifests itself as an organism through reproduction and development. Are DNA and the organism the same thing?

personal experience/consciousness is instrinsically dependent on judgement and the discernment of meaning
— Wayfarer

I'm not sure, but I don't think this is true.
— T Clark

That itself is a judgement. — Wayfarer

So. Language games, as if you don't know what I mean. I didn't say I don't make judgements, I said consciousness is not intrinsically dependent on judgement.

I don't see that as reductionism.
— T Clark
And not seeing it, doesn't mean that it isn't so. — Wayfarer

And yet another language game, again as if you don't know what I mean.

I watched a Quinn's Ideas YT video about blindsight a few months ago. — Marchesk

I enjoyed the video, especially the graphics, and even more the narrator's shirt. They made a five minute film out of the book. I don't know if you saw it. Very good.

personal experience/consciousness is instrinsically dependent on judgement and the discernment of meaning — Wayfarer

I'm not sure, but I don't think this is true.

The tendency of reductionism is to conflate the two kinds of causation, physical and logical: which is what we do when we say that 'the brain' acts in a particular way, and so 'produces' thought, because of physical causation. — Wayfarer

I don't agree. I understand the distinction between types of reason described in your post, but I don't see any conflict. Meaning and thought can be seen as manifestations of mental processes, which can be seen as manifestations of biological, neurological processes. I don't see that as reductionism.

That's a good book, but at one point aren't they inflicting pain on one of the aliens? When they try to test its communication abilities? — RogueAI

That was a very interesting, maybe the most interesting, part of the book. You had to try to imagine what pain would be like with no sense of personal identify.

Doesn't torture imply that the aliens have subjective experience? — RogueAI

No. Yes. I don't know. I guess that's the point.

I watched a Quinn's Ideas YT video about blindsight a few months ago. — Marchesk

Thanks, I'll take a look. People can argue about what consciousness is and what experience feels like, but it is hard to imagine how it works. "Blindsight" puts you in a place where you have to try to imagine what it would feel like to be intelligent but not self-aware. I found it very effective.

And if you if you think you can make physicalism work with phenomenal consciousness, then good luck with that. — Marchesk

By the way, if you are a science fiction reader, I just read a good book - "Blindsight" by Peter Watts. In it, humans meet up with intelligent aliens who have no personal consciousness, no self-awareness. The interactions between the humans and the aliens are very interesting.

If you think we have phenomenal consciousness, then how do you square that with physicalism? — Marchesk

I've never understood why people think there is any contradiction between believing that phenomenal consciousness is a mental, neurological, process that manifests itself as personal experience. The nervous system is at one level of organization while the mind is at another, higher level. This is analogous to how chemical processes manifest themselves as biological processes.

...if you think you can make physicalism work with phenomenal consciousness... — Marchesk

Although I don't call myself a "physicalist," I think a physicalist explanation is a good one for this situation.

I am very good at science, and the answers to the questions in established science are either correct or incorrect, except in frontier science. Many things in life have no simple answers. Most people learn by going through life facing the unknowns. — Largo

I'm a civil engineer. I took two philosophy courses in college, but I can't remember what we read. I recommend the Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu, probably the Stephen Mitchell translation since it's the most accessible to westerners. It takes two hours or less to read. The Taoist world view has been the most helpful, useful for my work as an engineer. Engineers, and scientists too I guess, are pragmatic. The Tao Te Ching lays out the most scientific, pragmatic metaphysics I've seen. I also loved R.G. Collingwood's "Essay on Metaphysics" and "Philosophy of Art." I think @Jamal is reading "An Essay on The Philosophical Method." Again, as a pragmatic engineer - "Pragmatism" by William James. And "Self Reliance" by Emerson because I love it.

I just finished Werner Heisenberg's intellectual autobiography, in English titled "Physics and Beyond," in it's original publication in Europe "Der Teil und das Ganze" (The Part and the Whole). @Pierre-Normand suggested it to me. I tentatively recommend it. I had hoped it would have more science like another book I read a while ago "Subtle is the Lord," which is a really good scientific biography of Einstein.

Heisenberg's book, written in the early 1970s, is told mostly as a series of conversations with his contemporaries starting when he was starting college in 1919 through the end of the 1950s. The recollections are very detailed. He must have kept a journal. I wonder also whether or not they were more dramatizations than memories. He knew everyone in physics in Germany during that period - Pauli, Hahn, Planck, Schrodinger, Bohr, and many others who I wasn't familiar with. He met Einstein. Some of this recollections, especially those during the war, seemed as if they might be self-serving.

The part I found most interesting was the timeline of discoveries in quantum mechanics and how each affected the scientific community. His explanation of the discovery of nuclear fission as a sustainable reaction with possible uses for energy generation and weapons was probably the most interesting part, along with his explanation why wartime Germany never put much effort into nuclear weapons.

Although thin on science, the book is very heavy on philosophy of science. Those sections were actually pretty interesting, especially the fact that Heisenberg and his colleagues were having the same kinds of discussions of truth and knowledge we have here on the forum.

All in all, pretty good but not enough science. And short, which makes up for some of the shortcomings.

Let's not clutter up your discussion any further. If you want to continue, we can take it out to the parking lot.

I don't think it means that because it's personal to you, the very fact that it's personal to you is all you need to talk about. — Jamal

You brought it up, not me.

There are the philosophical issues too. You often seem to forget that. — Jamal

I don't think that's true. Example please.

This is what we're exploring here. — Jamal

I was dealing with your OP in a straight ahead way. This is a discussion about whether or not definitions are needed in a philosophical discussion. How have I strayed from that? These are the posts that set this off:

Getting into arguments about the meaning of words is examining the substance and details of a particular position.
— Banno

Sometimes yes. Often no. As I noted, and you ignored, sometimes I want to look at a particular view of an issue and not talk about how others might define the issue. You often don't respect that desire. It is inconsiderate and unphilosophical. The solution is always simple, if you don't want to address the issues as laid out in the OP, go somewhere else. You seem to be unable to do that. — T Clark

It's right on the money. You and @banno apparently don't like the fact I think definitions are important. I'm making my case, which is completely in line with the question raised by the OP.

It's irrational, anti-philosophical, trivial and distracting. — Jamal

As I've noted, all my posts have been right on the subject of your OP. That's rational, philosophical, substantive, and responsive.

It might be inconsiderate, but it is not necessarily unphilosophical. Classically in philosophy, there is questioning the question. To do this might be to go against the wishes of the asker, who just wants a straight answer. It’s a refusal to abide by the terms of the debate as set out. But this is exactly what philosophy ought to do. The same goes for definitions. — Jamal

Baloney. If you don't want to play by the rules I set up in my OP, there are other threads to go too. My OPs always leave plenty of room for disagreements, but they focus on the issue I am interested in discussing. I don't start discussions offhandedly. I have a specific purpose in mind. Generally, it's because I don't understand something and want to examine it closer and I want help from you guys.

Some would say it’s inconsiderate of you to disrespect the topic in this way, in that you have failed to follow your own advice and “address the issues as laid out in the OP”. In this case I think it’s also unphilosophical. — Jamal

Baloney. I made a comment that was fully responsive to your OP. Then @Banno stuck his nose in in his usual smug, bullshit, lazy way. He pretends he's involved but he doesn't put any effort in.

Which is fine, but it pisses me off and I say so.

I see you’ve managed to personalize things again. — Jamal

In one of your posts in reply to me a few pages ago, you appeared to interestingly combine this personalizing approach — Jamal

This is very personal to me. I think I've made that clear throughout my six years here. Why would anyone participate if it weren't personal?

I asked you how this played out, but you were not interested enough to answer, so that avenue fizzled out. — Jamal

Remind me what I wrote that indicated I wasn't interested. Metaphysics and epistemology are at the center of who I am and how I see the world. Again - it's very personal to me.

The Self is Moses, leading his people out of evil Egypt. It's Martin Luther, breaking away from the mother church. It's Marx: the social critic. To the extent that these images become naturalized in the collective psyche, the Self endures, and will endure any assault on it. — frank

All this high sounding stuff is baloney. The self is regular old everyday reality. Real as a lug nut. We all have one. Health people feel at home with it. I recognize and sympathize with the idea that the self is an illusion, but only in the sense that everything is an illusion. Maybe the difference is that the self is the first illusion. The one that makes all the rest possible.

Then there is the mother, or indeed any close carer, of a baby: she recognises a something in the baby that is very particularly that new human being, a unique identity in the movements and eyes and responses and 'personality' that soon merges: if this were true, the self would be no myth, at least, not to others. 'Why is he acting that way?' 'He's just being himself.' — mcdoodle

I like the way you've put this.

Getting into arguments about the meaning of words is examining the substance and details of a particular position. — Banno

Sometimes yes. Often no. As I noted, and you ignored, sometimes I want to look at a particular view of an issue and not talk about how others might define the issue. You often don't respect that desire. It is inconsiderate and unphilosophical. The solution is always simple, if you don't want to address the issues as laid out in the OP, go somewhere else. You seem to be unable to do that.

you can stay with bert1's "Neuroscience has nothing to say about phenomenal consciousness", if you like. — Alkis Piskas

Except that, to me, it clearly does.

A good reason to imagine p-zombies is that they illustrate differences between philosophical theories of consciousness very well, and are an intuitive way to think about the issue. — fdrake

In my experience, p-zombies are just more pointless, unrealistic thought experiments like the trolley problem. They seem to be made up by people with too much time on their hands.

I don't like them personally. But I'm trying to put on my charitable hat for this thread. — fdrake

You can be the good cop and I'll be the bad cop.

Yes, yes. But to understand it you'll need to have done a lot of preliminary reading on Free Energy principles and understand a little of basic neuroscience and Bayesian probability. Nothing super in-depth, but the arguments simply won't be persuasive without that grounding. — Isaac

Thanks, I'll take a look. Most of the non-fiction I read these days mostly just makes me realize how much I don't know. I tend to just plow ahead and then go back and try to fill in the blanks.

Like that, for a start. Setting out a definition in order to ground an argument is already taking a stance, which may itself be brought into question. — Banno

Yes. We had this discussion once, at least once, when you tried to shanghai one of my threads. Sometimes, often, I want to examine the substance and details of a particular position. Getting into arguments about the meaning of words can make that impossible. Making every discussion a free-for-all makes it so you can't dig deeply into anything. That happens every day here on the forum. That's why, for most discussions, laying out definitions at the beginning is important.

What would a life without any wants look like? — schopenhauer1

I live as close to a life without wants as I ever have or ever will again. Not rich but enough money to live on with the things that matter to me. A house with the mortgage paid. No debt. No desire for expensive things. A 10 year old car that runs well. Reasonably good health. Health insurance. Loved and admired by the semi, sort of philosophy community.

Now that I don't have to do things any more, I pay more attention to why I do the things I do. It takes some getting used to. That's what's good about having a life without wants - lots of time to pay attention.

Try reading my post again you pillock. — Jamal

I suggest that we don’t know that other people are conscious, insofar as it is simply part of what it means to be a person. Maybe you could describe it as an animal certainty, but it seems a stretch to describe it as a knowing. — Jamal

Your comment does not stand, because it takes me to be saying something I’m not saying, something I did not say in the post you responded to. You projected a position onto me that I do not hold. — Jamal

Ok then, I guess the subtlety of your argument confused me. We don't know people are conscious because... I think we're about to get into another discussion of what it means to know, which I'd rather not.

I think I can almost accept that I wasn’t clear enough. My criticism of the use of “I know that x” in cases of indubitable certainty is just a repeat of what Wittgenstein says in On Certainty, and I shouldn’t assume people are familiar with that. — Jamal

That rings a bell. I think I read it 53 years ago in one of the two philosophy classes I took in college. Maybe I'll even agree if that will put an end to the p-zombie bullshit.

Try reading my post again you pillock. — Jamal

I read it the first time. I read it again just now. My comment stands.

And don't call me Willcox.

I fully agree. In fact, I will make this statement a little stronger: Neuroscience has nothing to do with human consciousness. (At the level of the mind, of course.)

One must also recognize that there are prominent neuroscientists today who admit that and differentiate mind from brain. But this doesn't change the nature of Neuroscience. — Alkis Piskas

Saying that the brain and mind are different things is not the same as saying the brain has nothing to do with the mind or that neuroscience has nothing to do with human consciousness.

I can't conceive of any of the leading theories in quantum physics. — Isaac

Albert Einstein couldn't conceive of the leading theories of quantum physics. As you said, that doesn't mean they are wrong.

But if you think it would be easier with an example, we could use https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10057681/1/Friston_Paper.pdf — Isaac

Have you read it? Is it worth it?

Do you not find the argument from analogy completely compelling? I know some don't, but I struggle to understand why not. — bert1

I agree. I don't get it either.

I suggest that we don’t know that other people are conscious, insofar as it is simply part of what it means to be a person. Maybe you could describe it as an animal certainty, but it seems a stretch to describe it as a knowing. — Jamal

In what plausible universe would I be the only one who has this characteristic, even though everything physical about me and other humans is the same; even though my biology and neurology and that of other people is the same; even though my behavior and that of other humans is the same; even though what I report as my experience and what other humans report is the same. It's an argument looking for a issue to argue about when there's none there. What value is there in having this argument? What do we learn from it beyond the fact that humans will argue about anything.

I'm saying I've never heard of any cogent explanation for how matter can give rise to consciousness. I'm not claiming there are none. — Janus

See "The Feeling of What Happens" by Damasio. I'm not saying it will be convince you, but it is a serious scientific attempt at a preliminary explanation.