It's interesting to me that when I've lately wanted to explore the philosophy of emotions and mood, I've found that even analytic philosophers writing about such matters find themselves going back to Heidegger... — mcdoodle

You have my attention. Please elaborate upon the connection. Thanks.

To get on the way to my question, I'm asking the preliminary question, whether Being is simply a semantic tool that allows language a way to refer to things, or if Being has some significance in itself beyond that. What do you say? — tim wood

Being is an English language present participle (i.e., present tense verbal form used as an adjective) which refers to something that actually exists.

Does each thing "be" in the exact same way? — tim wood

Things may be a property, condition, context, action, event, process, interaction, or behaviour.

I previously noted one relevant fact: consciousness exists. Criterial evidence: the conscious behaviour of animals.

From this:
1) What are some examples of conscious behaviour?
2) Is there criterial evidence of consciousness in anything other than animals?
3) What is the efficient cause of conscious behaviour?

Is this really a dispute over objective facts, or is it merely a rhetorical exchange of subjective behavioural preferences?

How are metaphysical disagreements different from disputes over the best flavour of ice-cream? — sime

In resolving conceptual questions, fact should be the starting point for Philosophy. It is the remit of Science, not Philosophy, to establish fact. The remit of Philosophy is to determine concept coherence.

The OP poses a conceptual question, presupposing that relevant facts have not been established.

So, in order to progress the OP:
1) Have any relevant facts been established by means of empirical investigation? If so, what are they?
2) If not, what are the relevant metaphysical concepts, and which one(s) make(s) sense?

Cheers.

If one asks me is there a reasonable way to explain how life pops out of a salad of chemicals, I would c say no and there doesn't seem to be any overriding reason why one should pursue such a line of thought since accepting mind as it explains everything quite adequate and is in conformance with every day experience. — Rich

Fair enough. Thanks.
So, just to clarify: it's "mind" which is "the creative force that permeates the universe"? And do all living organisms have minds, or only some?

The creative force? It's fundamental and irreducible. — Rich

If so, do you have an answer for the OP (i.e., "how one can logically go from inanimate matter to conscious agency")?

I tend to stay away from labels since labels tend to mean different things to different people. Suffice to say there is a creative force that has memory and will that is evolving as it v experiments and learns. — Rich

Definitions aren't labels. What is "the creative force that permeates the universe"?

It is the creative force that permeates the universe. — Rich

Is this your definition of consciousness? And is it a panpsychist conception?

A field that is being researched with interesting findings: — Rich

Thanks for the link. Javra has mentioned similar research in previous posts. I'm not sure whether the explanations offered are analogous or metaphorical with respect to animal psychology.

Is the type of information being "acquired", "processed", "integrated", and "transmitted" by plants (i.e., chemical and electrical signals) the same type of information which animal minds acquire, process, etc. (i.e., concepts and models)? In other words, do plants have minds which are analogous to animal minds?

If plants are conscious, my psychological definitions No.6&7 need to replace "brain" with another term. Any suggestions?

Hence the sentence "a functioning brain is aware" is analytic, and therefore meaningless, and everyone is free to invent their own definition of "awareness", irrespective of observed matters of fact. — sime

I would say that sentence is meaningless because I connected awareness with mental (i.e., mind) experiences, not with brains. In any case, you are correct that "everyone is free to invent their own definition of", not only awareness, but any other term. Do you have another definition of consciousness that you would like to propose?

A good experimenter will creatively design experiments that transcend human biases. — Rich

I agree.
It's obvious to me that plants and bacteria are at least responsive to their environments. But are plants sensitive in that they have mental experiences of interoception? Is it an empirical or conceptual question? Can you devise an experiment that is capable of testing that hypothesis (i.e., plants are sensitive, as defined)? If not, isn't it a conceptual question?

Since a living human has a functional brain and sensory organs, is there any point in trying to devise an experiment to test the hypothesis that a human is conscious, given the fact a human is *by definition* said to be conscious in virtue of possessing a functioning brain and sensory organs? — sime

Another good question. Answer: No.

But since it doesn't cost much to establish the fact that not only conscious, but also semi-conscious and non-conscious human mind-body conditions exist, anyone is free to conduct their own empirical investigation: simply observe that people can be awake, asleep, or in a coma.

Suppose someone said "Bacteria are unconscious because in lacking a nervous system they lack the capacity for certain stimulus-response behavioural dispositions"

Does Is (sic) it ["because"] mean 'by empirical implication' or 'by definition'? — sime

Good question. Given the following tentative definitions:

1) Conscious: fully responsive and fully aware.
2) Responsive: receptive and/or reactive.
3) Aware: sensitive and perceptive.
4) Sensation: the mental experience of interoception.
5) Perception: the mental experience of sensory stimulation.
6) Interoception: the reception of a physiological stimulus by an internal organ which transmits neural signals to the brain.
7) Sensory Stimulation: the reception of a physical stimulus from the environment by a sense organ, which transmits neural signals to the brain.

If bacteria do not have a brain and sense organs, is there any point in trying to devise an experiment to test the hypothesis?

Though mumbo jumbo to some, it can further be noted that base natures of people are (overly) selfish and elevated natures of people are (relatively speaking) selfless. This singular geometric point example is, in so many other words, a perfectly selfless being: the pinnacle of elevated nature as viewed from within space and time. — javra

And as viewed apart from space and time. Both immanent and transcendent. Perhaps immanently perfect because also transcendent?

The repetition of the same point in time, over and over again, as temporal order, is the existence of the self. This is the temporal continuity of existence. — Metaphysician Undercover

ego eimi (Greek present tense): continuous self existence.

The question at hand is how it comes to be that there are multiple points existing at the same time. The different points cannot be of a different universe because they exist at the same time. How does it come to be that the points may have spatial separation in the first place, that there may be numerous selves? — Metaphysician Undercover

Conscious agency (i.e., creative power)?

What transcendent thing is semiosis missing, given it covers both information and dynamics? — apokrisis

The subject is pansemiosis, not semiosis. Sorry, I'm not interested in playing word games. Enjoy yourself!

What are you not understanding?

So in terms of metaphysical reasoning, it [pansemiosis] can lay claim to being the best model of triadic systems causation - if you apply the epistemic constraint of demanding a scheme with the least possible transcendent mystery or uncertainty...But hey, I get it. Most folk are really into mystery. — apokrisis

Most scientists should be "into" complete explanations which transcend spatiotemporal domains. Since human beings are natural, living, psychophysical unities, and pansemiosis only describes physical phenomena, pansemiosis is an incomplete (i.e., reductionist) explanation of nature as a whole.

Where evolutionary theory misleads us is with the idea that the special traits of the different species are created by the survival process. It is a fact, that the special traits which we can observe today, are the ones which have survived, but this does not lead to the conclusion that these traits were caused by survival. — Metaphysician Undercover

Good point.

The traits must have been produced by the creativity of the living creatures in the first place. This creativity, which is the actual cause of variations and species is completely neglected by evolutionary theory, which dismisses it as randomness. — Metaphysician Undercover

Quite plausible.

I agree with Hoffman to this extent: conscious agency is a creative power and fact of human nature.

Creativity, just like metaphysics, cannot be made sense off from an evolutionary perspective because it does not necessarily increase one's chance of survival, nor does it necessarily increase propagation. — Metaphysician Undercover

I agree. To address human creativity requires different toolsets (i.e., social sciences, humanities, philosophy).

What is the nature of this disagreement? — Pneumenon

Lower levels of description always underdetermine higher levels.
Newell, A. (1990). Unified theories of cognition. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Hence, the nature of the disagreement is substantive.

Thanks for your careful reply.

To start, I question the value of trying to define consciousness as that already puts it in the class of a thing rather than a process. — apokrisis

Surely, even a process can be defined. And the value of defining consciousness lies in the fact that it is the topic of this thread (i.e., its definition facilitates discussion).

Once you know enough about how the brain executes any function, you can see why it has the particular qualitative character that it does. — apokrisis

What types (i.e., classes) of functions do you think brains execute?

But the question of "why any qualitative character at all - when perhaps there might be just zombiedom?" is the kind of query which already reifies awareness in an illegitimate way...So I am starting with the belief that awareness is the outcome of a certain species of systems complexity. — apokrisis

How is awareness related to consciousness and mind?

To think the Hard Problem actually makes sense is to have already concluded consciousness is an ontic "simple", against all the scientific evidence that it is what you get from an unbelievably complex and integrated world modelling process. — apokrisis

Please cite a scientific paper which concludes that consciousness emerges from "an unbelievably complex and integrated world modelling process" (or even from neurophysiological processes). I will email it to Hoffman.

In addition to consciousness, do you think mind is an emergent property of this "world modelling process"? If so, is there any empirical evidence which can be cited in support? If not, is it an empirical or conceptual question?

What do you think about Hoffman's mathematical derivation of quantum physics from conscious agent interaction (apparently, it's the only bit of Conscious Realism the scientific community is taking seriously)?

Salthe coined the idea of infodynamics. Pattee really sharpened things with his epistemic cut. And then this particular group of systems biologists heard about Peircean semiotics - which had pretty much been lost until the 1990s - and realised that they were basically recapitulating what Peirce had already said. So as a group they did the honourable thing and relabelled themselves bio-semioticians. — apokrisis

The Tartu Schools of Semiotics (Moscow) and Biosemiotics (Copenhagen) produced work from many scholars beginning in the 1960s.

There were other allied groups around. Dozens of them. I was part of Salthe and Pattee's group - having looked around and found they were head and shoulders above the rest. — apokrisis

In what way were you "part of Salthe and Pattee's group"? Were you enrolled in one of their courses at, or employed as a research assistant by, SUNY Binghamton?

The proper question we ought to be asking is what kind of fundamental system or process is a brain (in a body with a mind)? That is, we know the brain with its embodied modelling relation with the world is a really complex example of living mindfulness. It meets your working definition in terms of "the set of conditions experienced, and functions exercised, by a psychophysical being which produce personal and social behaviour." — apokrisis

Thanks for endorsing my working definition of "mind", however; it says nothing about brains or modelling relations, because I don't think brains model anything; human beings model the world, brains host neurophysiological activity. So, if you think that brain=mind, my definition of mind should be inadequate.

Is there such a thing as non-living mindfulness? If so, please provide a one or two sentence definition (i.e., not an explanation of systems, complexity, information, emergence, or pansemiosis, although I would gladly accept the use of any of these words in your definition).

Donald Hoffman has a religious background. So, I think that Conscious Realism only works as part of a theological system. What I find interesting about it is this claim:

The ontology of conscious realism proposed here rests crucially on the notion of conscious agents. This notion can be made mathematically precise and yields experimental predictions (Bennett et al. 1989, 1991; Bennett et al. 1993a,b; Bennett et al. 1996). — Donald Hoffman

Finally, the YouTube video where Hoffman presents his mathematics (skip to 27:20):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6eWG7x_6Y5U
Physics from Consciousness (skip to 34:40): the equations for Conscious Agent Asymptotics and Free Particle Wave Function are the same.

Why not say something interesting rather than make lame garbled posts like that? — apokrisis

Your scientific knowledge base is (at least) extensive, and your scientific understanding is, in many respects, profound. So, I suspect that you are more than capable of providing a comprehensive definition of "conscious" and "human mind" without using figurative language. That exercise could be instructive for everyone, and beneficial to the progress of this discussion in particular.

I have been working on an over-arching model of cognitive, social, and moral psychology for a number of years, and use this forum to test propositions and concepts; mostly with positive results which cause me to make modifications at both conceptual and model level.

For example:

1) My current working definition of human mind is: the set of conditions experienced, and functions exercised, by a human being which produce personal and social human behaviour, and

2) My current working definition of mind is: the set of conditions experienced, and functions exercised, by a psychophysical being which produce personal and social behaviour. This is intended to comprehend animal minds. I am undecided whether or not plants have minds. If I remember correctly, Javra thinks that is the case.

It would be great if pansemiosis could produce a general definition of mind which applies to both inanimate objects and living organisms, and a definition of human mind which takes psychology (the relevant scientific discipline) into consideration.

And that is why materialism becomes inadequate. You need pansemiosis to deliver the "other" of general laws and constraints. — apokrisis

Why always retreat to pansemiosis as if it were some type of panacea when it is apparently only capable of defining conscious experience as a feeling, and the human mind as a feeling with memory? These are obviously incoherent conceptions.

Mind is not epiphenomenal but just what it feels like to be a model in interaction with a world, really doing something. — apokrisis

So, mind is a feeling? Is this a general definition of mind, or just a definition of human mind?

And yet when you get high, neuroscience finds that messing with neural signalling is the prosaic cause. — apokrisis

It's true that if brain anatomy has been injured, or brain physiology is not functioning normally, psychological function will also be abnormal. That is a causal relationship. However, the fact of neuroplasticity provides sufficient reason to reject epiphenomenalism. In other words, physical and mental conditions and activities have mutual effects.

Or if you recognise your grandmother, specific neural connections light up. — apokrisis

This is evidence of correlation, not necessarily of causation. In other words, is it neurophysiological activity which causes recognition, or recognition which causes neurophysiological activity?

So, Donald Hoffman says, "Despite substantial efforts by many researchers, we still have no scientific theory of how brain activity can create, or be, conscious experience. This is troubling, since we have a large body of correlations between brain activity and consciousness, correlations normally assumed to entail that brain activity creates conscious experience. Here I explore a solution to the mind-body problem that starts with the converse assumption: these correlations arise because consciousness creates brain activity, and indeed creates all objects and properties of the physical world."

It's just the last clause of his last sentence that I'm currently struggling with.

This is an engaging introduction to semiotics, written by an acknowledged leader in the field (cheers, darthbarracuda): Sebeok, Thomas A. (2001). Signs: An Introduction To Semiotics. Canada: University of Toronto Press.
https://monoskop.org/images/0/07/Sebeok_Thomas_Signs_An_Introduction_to_Semiocs_2nd_ed_2001.pdf

What are you talking about? — apokrisis

It's a fair question. I have obviously not used the term "dual aspect" as it is traditionally used in philosophy of mind, but have applied it to Aristotle's formula for substance. So sue me.

I think Aristotle had an intuitive sense of genetic predisposition, and that his psuche ("the form of a natural body that has life") is the constraint which causes the development and exercise of a set of species-specific powers (including not only psychological functions such as perception, but also locomotion, homoeostasis, fine motor skills, etc., in short: everything that a being does).

Yes. That is the debate within the semiotics community apokrisis and I have been referring to. http://biosemiosis.blogspot.co.uk/2008/07/re-pan-and-bio.html

Dual aspect monism just starts with substance as unexplained fundamental stuff and then claims it has two different faces - the material and the experiential. It is not a causal story of nature at all. — apokrisis

Incorrect. Dual aspect monism: form+matter=substance (i.e., genetic predisposition plus living matter produces a living being having a set of powers).

You accept the weak form [of semiosis] and reject the strong form. — apokrisis

I reject pansemiosis as category error. Its acceptance requires the use of metaphorical explanations, which have no scientific or philosophical value.

neurotransmitters/neuroarchitecture/physiological----------------->Qualia/inner experience
Now, how to bridge this gap? — schopenhauer1

I don't see a gap to bridge. Your equation is an expression of Aristotle's form (species-specific genetic predisposition to develop and exercise a particular set of functions) - matter (body) unity which is species substance (dual aspect monism).

Pansemiosis was not devised by Peirce. In fact, there is disagreement within the semiotics community whether the field should include physiosemiotics and, by extension, pansemiotics (which would presumably include physiosemiotics and biosemiotics), or be limited to biosemiotics.
http://biosemiosis.blogspot.co.uk/2008/07/re-pan-and-bio.html

In my opinion, pansemiosis is a physicalist device which attempts to reduce "mental" to "physical". However, semantic information is processed by living beings on a psychological level, not by inanimate objects, and not on any other level.

But is maths also species-specific? And, if so, why have confidence in it? — Wayfarer

Because it works?

There's quite a good profile of his ideas in the Atlantic. Here is his TED talk. — Wayfarer

Bohm2 mentioned Hoffman in a post on the old site about 15-18 months ago, complete with a link to a fascinating YouTube video where Hoffman demonstrated that equations from two different scientific domains (quantum and evolutionary theories?) were the same.

I found the following article to be helpful in providing more information on his Multimodal User Interface theory of perception and Conscious Realism: http://www.cogsci.uci.edu/~ddhoff/ConsciousRealism2.pdf
Hoffman, D. (2008). Conscious Realism and the Mind-Body Problem. Mind & Matter Vol. 6(1), pp. 87–121.

His philosophy is not: dualism, idealism, panpsychism, or physicalism. It does not contradict dual aspect monism, and MUI is consistent with species-specific semiotic modelling. Beyond that, I understand very little.

For us to have sentience, and I'm pretty sure you'll agree we do, and for our cells to have sentience, sentience must also be present in the molecules that make those cells and it must be in the atoms that make those molecules. — MikeL

Psychophysical unity makes sense to me; some might call it dual aspect monism.

But what is sentience? A capacity for sensation? And what is sensation? A localised corporeal feeling? In other words, can plants have sentience in the same way that animals have sentience?

Also, sentience is a psychological function, so why try to reduce psychology to physiology, chemistry, and physics? Doesn't emergence preclude lower level explanations?

There is certainly a sentience above us, that we have created, just like cells create the organism. We call that sentience the economy or society, and it acts to preserve itself too. — MikeL

Again, it is reductionist to apply lower level explanations to emergent phenomena. In other words, isn't it a category error to attribute sentience to atoms, chemicals, molecules, cells, organs, human social groups, and human cultures? Beings have sentience.

Most nations want unbounded growth. It would be a major change to switch to a steady state ambition as things stand. Even if natural environmental constraints say we should. — apokrisis

I agree. Of course, most are aware that the global economy is currently experiencing an engineered "prosperity" which will be subjected to a natural correction. In that event, steady state ambition may become much more appealing.

You seem to be asking about cultural trends in particular. I would say that remains at the heuristic stage of argument. If you could pinpoint some trend of interest, that might jog my memory on relevant mathematical strength modelling. — apokrisis

It would be a useful public policy tool to have a model which predicts the optimal number and type (age range, religion, academic and professional qualifications, ethnicity, sexual orientation, family and marriage status, etc.) of immigrants that should be permitted to enter a country, based on its sustainable assimilative capacity in terms of:
1) Labour force needs.
2) Social welfare demographics.
3) Social institution budgets.
4) Tolerance for diversity.
5) Land development costs.

In view of the existence of natural limits on resource availability and economic growth, shouldn't all social systems be engineered (i.e., not be permitted to fluctuate naturally in the interest of social stability), and all public policy modelling be Gaussian?

...the paradigm shift is seeing that it is a natural, probabilistic and self-organising thing. It is a mutuality or dichotomy that emerges through "pure statistics". That is why the new wave of system modelling - based on complexity and thermodynamical thinking - offers the right analytic tools. — Apokrisis

The largest and most complex type of human social group is the stratified society, which is composed of nested complex systems (e.g., political, economic, legal, etc.).

In society formation, culture (the collective mindset and consequent products of a human social group) emerges spontaneously from the resolution of dominance and territorial conflicts (Sherif & Sherif).

Cultures develop over time. Changes in mindset/convention have cascading effects on nested systems, transforming society. Sudden and/or dramatic changes in mindset/convention can cause societal breakdown.

What type of predictions can be expected of complex system modelling with regard to cultural development in stratified societies?

I have a similar reaction to Hanover but from a different angle: that the tag-example is oddly individualistic. — mcdoodle

How is the tag example oddly individualistic?

It would only start applying to political economy if alliances, whether overt or not, began. — mcdoodle

If the problem is presented in terms of game theory, isn't it applicable to many types of behaviour (including those addressed by social psychology, political science, economics, etc.)? Does the problem become irrelevant to one discipline when the terms of another discipline are substituted?

So, if the tag example is a mixed motive game (i.e., a conflict problem) where convention is ignored by one player, the other players will also disregard convention (Bicchieri). Further, if the other players adopt a form of reciprocal altruism (e.g., a tit for tat strategy) toward the deviant group member, cooperation ensues (Axelrod).

Suggested initial response to the bully: all players repeatedly tag the bully.

Caveat: isolation is the only viable solution for psychopathy.

I don't really see any of this as a game in terms of it being a fair contest where there can be a meaningful winner. It's really just social interaction where kids are learning to interact with one another. — Hanover

Good point. But, if a learning game, then not applicable to political economy?