Yeah, we are going to continue running in circles given how we define and think about "strong emergence" and "weak emergence".

So it's best if you ask him.

Heavy under the example you provided.

If you are saying it is a fundamental property, then it's a fundamental property of matter. That's not emergent.

I believe you can email him at: nchomsky3atgmaildotcom

I mean, you are asking several times if he believes in radical emergence, I've said yes numerous times.

Alternatively, you can just email him yourself, he usually answers very quickly.

If by irreducible you mean that these properties are not to be found in the isolated molecules, then I believe he would.

I've got an idea. Let's say the brick is fundamental and its only fundamental property is mass. No brick is a wall, but 100 bricks form one. The wall has the property of being heavy. No brick is heavy, but the wall is. Surprising, but not really. The wall is nothing more than bricks, and ''heavy" is nothing more than mass. Liquidity is the same, only that it is more complex. But the most important thing is that they're both 100% weakly emergent.
Now let's say that the wall, besides being heavy, it is also conscious. And even its consciousness arises because of mass, it is not reducible to mass, it is a totally new property.

So let's assume mass is all there is to know about bricks. So we've defined bricks. Now we would conclude that mass is the secret ingredient to consciousness, but consciousness is not mass, it's something totally different.

Now let's take this one step further.
2049 - physicists find a new property called X, where X is NOT subjective experience. Now, they're able to make a complete theory of quantum and relativity, and everything works in physics. Everything except... consciousness. There are still obnoxious philosophers who state that X and the other properties of what we call matter don't explain consciousness.
Now, what would Chomsky say?
A. Consciousness is 100% reducible to X, mass, electrical charge, etc., therefore weakly emergent
B. Obviously, consciousness is strongly emergent in the way Eugen understands strong emergence, i.e. irreducible property — Eugen

Ok, I think I understand what you say somewhat better, not unlike Dennett's views. I don't happen to think that heavyness is trivial in an obvious sense. But let's put that aside.

Consciousness is somehow different than these other things for some reason that is not explained. I would add that heaviness would be just as strange as consciousness on this view, as Chomsky says about motion.

Here is a crucial quote about motion:

"History also suggests caution [about assuming that consciousness is uniquely difficult]. In early modern science, the nature of motion was the “hard problem.” “Springing or Elastic Motions” is the “hard rock in Philosophy,” Sir William Petty observed, proposing ideas resembling those soon developed much more richly by Newton. The “hard problem” was that bodies that seem to our senses to be at rest are in a “violent” state, with “a strong endeavor to fly off or recede from one another,” in Robert Boyle’s words. The problem, he felt, is as obscure as “the Cause and Nature” of gravity, thus supporting his belief in “an intelligent Author or Disposer of Things.” Even the skeptical Newtonian Voltaire argued that the ability of humans to “produce a movement” where there was none shows that “there is a God who gave movement” to matter, and “so far are we from conceiving what matter is” that we do not even know if there is any “solid matter in the universe.” Locke relinquished to divine hands “the gravitation of matter towards matter, by ways, inconceivable to me.”

pp. 178-179

On Chomsky's view, not only would consciousness be "strongly emergent" so would heaviness. Just like the quote I provided through Priestley.

These are different intuitions, even if you say they're not. You say "...[t]he wall is nothing more than bricks, and ''heavy" is nothing more than mass. Liquidity is the same, only that it is more complex."

"Nothing more" implies that it's all perfectly obvious. And it's also obvious that these properties are nothing more than bricks doing what they do.

So liquidity is "nothing more" than molecules interacting. Ok. You call this weakly emergent. I think it's strongly emergent, and I think Chomsky would agree that it's strongly emergent.

which is rather silly in my opinion because there's nothing puzzling about liquids. — Eugen

I mean, if you take that attitude literally, we wouldn't have modern science. The reason why Newton discovered gravity, is because he was puzzled as to why apples fall to the ground instead of levitating or going up to the sky.

It was literally this trivial - once people started being puzzled by trivial things, we got modern science. If Galileo was not puzzled as to why we think heavier objects fall faster to the ground than light objects, he wouldn't have bothered to do the experiments showing that this assumption was false.

So, it may not be surprising to you, but to others it is.

It seems to me Chomsky denies the possibility of consciousness being fundamental on the basis of empirical evidence. So he doesn't care if for instance panpsychism makes perfect sense from a logical point of view, he will still dismiss it because there is no empirical evidence for atoms being conscious. — Eugen

Quoting Joseph Priestley, Chomsky says:

"Priestley then considers the claim that mind “cannot be material because it is influenced by reasons.” To this he responds that since “reasons, whatever they may be, do ultimately move matter, there is certainly much less difficulty in conceiving that they may do this in consequence of their being the affection of some material substance, than upon the hypothesis of their belonging to a substance that has no
common property with matter”—not the way it would be put today, but capturing essentially the point of contemporary discussion leading some to revive panpsychism. But contrary to the contemporary
revival, Priestley rejects the conclusion that consciousness “cannot be annexed to the whole brain as a system, while the individual particles of which it consists are separately unconscious.” That “A certain
quantity of nervous system is necessary to such complex ideas and affections as belong to the human mind; and the idea of self, or the feeling that corresponds to the pronoun I,” he argues, “is not essentially different from other complex ideas, that of our country for example.” Similarly, it should not perplex us more than the fact that “life should be the property of an entirely animal system, and not the separate parts of it” or that sound cannot “result from the motion of a single particle” of air... That seems to be a reasonable stance."

- p. 193

Weak emergence: new properties appear, but they are 100% reducible to more fundamental properties.
Strong emergence: new properties appear, and they are new in the real sense, they are irreducible to any other properties.

So forgive me for repeating the same question over and over again. Does Chomsky believe in what I call strong emergence? — Eugen

I don't understand reduction then. If you are arguing that liquidity is "reducible" to molecules, you mean to say that liquid arises from molecules? And this is weakly emergent because our theories describe the phenomenon?

So, maybe an example of weak emergence that is not liquidity would be heat, right? Heat is just particles moving extremely rapidly, and the faster they move the hotter the object is, while conversely, the slower they move, the colder an object is.

If this is what have in mind as a new property that is fully reducible, no, I don't think it is weakly emergent. It doesn't help that we don't know what a particle is, literally:

https://www.quantamagazine.org/what-is-a-particle-20201112/

To answer your question:

Yes, he does.

I'll add the final caveat (based on what I've read, talked with him, etc.), there obviously must be something in the constituent parts that gives rise to new properties: there is something about the constituent elements of the world that give rise to liquidity, heat, even life, but we don't know what they are.

Finally, I would add, that it could be that we have different intuitions. I agree with Chomsky on these topics, but he could be wrong, and you could be correct. Or maybe you have better or more scientific intuitions. If so, then that's fine.

"Knows" in English, can be misleading, I think "understanding" is less ambiguous (not that it makes it perfectly clear, but, maybe less confusing.)

If we had the capacity to understand all the properties of particles, then I think emergence would not be surprising. But "understanding" needs to include intuitions if we are going to say that we understand the phenomena.

Our built-in cognitive capacities are mechanistic: if we see a billiard ball hitting another one, we expect one ball to be the cause of movement of the other, until the other ball loses force.

If we kick a football (soccer) ball, we expect it to go a certain trajectory and then fall, because that's what balls do.

If I take the lid off a boiling pan, steam rises because it's going to its natural place, kind of like a big machine.

That's what we understand intuitively, it doesn't puzzle us to see steam rising or billiard balls stopping, etc.

Of course, this is not what is actually happening, the ball billiard ball stops because of friction, objects fall because of gravity, etc.

The actual explanations is science, not folk psychology or intuition. If we had a different cognitive constitution (maybe an advance alien species) gravity, friction and even liquidity could be intuitive to us and we could also have a theory that explains the intuitions, that happens to apply to the external world.

So, to answer your question yes, I think so in principle, but probably beyond us.

I know the video very well, he didn't say consciousness was emergent, he just said radical emergence was real. I was very intrigued by this part because it seemed to me that after RLK argued that water wasn't radical emergence, Chomsky didn't defend his view but rather he ran away abruptly using the movement analogy. I think it's a soft spot for Chomsky, it seemed that way for me. — Eugen

Radical emergence is the idea that a new property arises which was not evident in its constituent parts. Some people like to say that since we understand the theory in which molecules turn into liquids, then it isn't radical emergence.

Chomsky can follow the theory and understands it, but doesn't see how particles could lead to liquidity. In a similar, if not significantly more complicated manner, a physicist can understand quantum entanglement, but the phenomenon doesn't make sense.

I know you asked, but it's not entirely possible to do away with intuitions. If we could see how particles combined in a certain way could lead to liquidity, then we'd understand the theory and the phenomenon. It's the phenomenon which is puzzling, not the theory.

So mind is strongly emergent, but it is lower than the brain, the reason being that we discover brains through consciousness. Am I right? — Eugen

That was a very poor explanation on my part, happens when I get carried away. What I should have said is that "saying consciousness is reducible to brains... doesn't say much in our current state of knowledge", instead of saying "doesn't make any sense". Thanks for pointing it out and letting me clarify.

We know that consciousness arises in specific configurations of matter, but not in our pinkies or noses. It's in our brains. We lose a limb; we still think rather well. We lose our heads, we don't think much, etc.

In our current state of understanding, if we say that consciousness is simply brain activity, then we are leaving out almost everything we value about consciousness, including emotions, colors, music, reflection, etc. Our studies of the brain say very, very little about these phenomena so far.

Chomsky is following Russell's "Three grades of certainty", in which Chomsky seems to agree with Russell, that what we are most confident about are out own conscious experience, following that we are confident about what other people say about their own conscious experience - if they're being honest. Following that we are confident about our theories about the world.

It's in this sense that, as Russell points out, when a neuroscientist is looking at a patient's brain, they are actually having an experience of looking at another person's brain, it's not as if the scientist can get out of his body to study a patient's brain, in a "view from nowhere".

A brain, in this respect, is a construction we postulate to make sense of our anatomy. It doesn't mean brain aren't real or that they're "only in our minds", but that, neuroscience is part of our capacity for formulating a science.

That would be more accurate. But there's a lot to add as well.

1. He doesn't care much about the logical arguments in the debate between those who claim consciousness is fundamental and those who don't because he believes science (and not logic) should answer this question. When science tells us what are the properties of what we call matter, then we will have the answer. — Eugen

I'm not clear on what you have in mind here. In the video, he was interpreting what Galen Strawson's view are, and he takes it that Strawson argues that if we want to find out what a mind is, you need to find out more about the nature of the world, because the mind is a part of the world.

He doesn't believe consciousness is fundamental, as opposed to Strawson, he sees no good evidence for panpsychism. The arguments for it are interesting, but not persuasive to him.

2. He has the intuition that there is nothing in the current way of doing science that would ever give us a fully satisfactory answer.
Therefore, it seems we're stuck with a mystery. — Eugen

That's more or less accurate. I think he'd say that we currently have no theory of consciousness, but we could have one, one day. But even if we do, it wouldn't do away with the issue of the misleadingly called "hard problem", because as Locke pointed out, we don't understand how matter could lead to consciousness, even if we are confident that that's what consciousness is, matter specifically arranged.

V. You didn't answer my initial question, or I simply missed your answer. So...
Does Chomsky believe consciousness is one of the three (fundamental, weakly, strongly emergent), or he believes there are many other options that our logic cannot comprehend? — Eugen

As for this question, I don't think he distinguishes much between these views. Radical emergence has become a problem recently in philosophy, these new properties, of liquidity or heat just arose from the phenomena, they're emergent. But if you call it strong or weak is mostly terminological.

As I interpret him, if pushed, he'd probably say that he takes emergence to be "radical" or "brute", in that new properties constantly arise from parts which seem to lack the new property in isolation. He'd also say that calling it "radical" would likely be misleading, because it's normal science.

We do the best we can to construct theories from these new properties.

I know that was long, and I probably left something out, but I needed to clarify a badly phrased reply. Obviously if you want more clarifications or have doubts, let me know, I'll try and help.

Oh sure. And as suggested by you implicitly, much of this depends on what one takes "God" to imply or cover. If it is belonging to the Abrahamic tradition, then obviously giving medicine to a sick person would be contrary to God's plan.

Of course, if one takes God to be somewhat akin to what Plotinus did, then medicine is not a problem.

You and Paine made me have a mini panic (don't worry these are good) and I started reading (skimming to be honest) some of the classics on "free will", Locke and Hume, but I thought Locke's take on the will to be quite more intuitive (if not reasonable) than Descartes.

The difficulties which one can find in his philosophy, is decently covered in the SEP.

To continue in the Cartesian tradition in a contemporary setting, we'd have to turn "God" into nature, and proceed from that, it seems to me.

All I'm saying is that I perceive that in a single mental act, or object of knowledge, there is more at play than the will.

I don't have anything against the will, nor is it trivial or unimportant or of little consequence.

If you want to add something, please do, you certainly know Descartes very well.

I'll read whatever you say, as there is plenty more here to consider.

↪Manuel
Maybe it would help if you gave a definition of the will as expressed by a philosophy that rings true for you. The concept has been approached many different ways and those ways have prompted very different 'psychological' perspectives.

I am reading Descartes as saying will is freedom of choice rather than him speaking of " having freedom of the will. The latter suggests there could be an unfree will. In this context, I read that as a contradiction in terms. — Paine

I'd define will as the ability to do or not to do something, this can range from trivial things like lifting a finger, to participating in protests and everything in between.

Hmmm. For Descartes having will at all is freedom of choice, I don't have much of an issue with that definition, save minor caveats than needn't be raised.

I suppose I unconsciously had Schopenhauer in mind, as when he says "Man can do what he wills, but cannot will what he wills." But he was a determinist.

I think that D is saying it will always help in making better choices but the inclusion of 'divine grace' in the statement is important too. We did not give ourselves freedom of choice nor what is our Good. The freedom of choice is a condition discovered through the limits of our intellect:

Were I always to see clearly what is true and good, I would never deliberate about what is to be judged or chosen.
— ibid. Fourth Meditation page 38 — Paine

That's a very thorny issue. It enters into the whole "causa sui" debate, of whether it is possible for one to be the cause of one's action. If the will is free, as I think it is, then it's possible.

Now, if my definition is not too problematic, then we can do, or not do something. With the intellect we judge, discern, reason, suppose, contemplate, compare, distinguish, evaluate, consider, combine, etc., etc.

That seems to be quite larger in scope than doing or not doing something. Granted, the latter is very important, no doubt about that.

Interesting replies.

My concern and interest here specifically is in the claim that the will is broader than the intellect. I'm questioning if that follows. In as much as we can (which is not trivial) differentiate mental faculties "the will" from "the intellect", it either is the case that the will is broader, or it isn't.

Then again, it could be that the distinction made between the two today can't be made too explicit.

That there are enormous consequences from having freedom of the will, (unless you are a determinist), is clear, we just look at the development of history.

I could very well be hyper-focusing on a topic that deviates from the goal of the Meditations. But again, my issue here is narrow.

It's a different thing if some of you believe that what Descartes said is correct. If it is, then that's fine. I wouldn't want this to be an impediment to the larger discussion.

The "increase in natural knowledge" increases our power and effect upon the world. — Paine

Missed this in my last reply. Sure, I don't debate or doubt that. My question is, do all aspects of natural knowledge play a role in the will?

For although the faculty of willing is incomparably greater in God than it is in me, both by virtue of the knowledge and power that are joined to it and that render it more resolute and efficacious and by virtue of its object inasmuch as the divine will stretches over a greater number of things, nevertheless, when viewed in itself formally and precisely, God’s faculty of willing does not appear to be any greater. This is owing to the fact that willing is merely a matter of being able to do or not do the same thing, that is, of being able to affirm or deny, to pursue or to shun; or better still, the will consists solely in the fact that when something is proposed to us by our intellect either to affirm or deny, to pursue or to shun, we are moved in such a way that we sense that we are determined to it by no external force. — ibid. Fourth Meditation page 38

That's my issue with it, he says this is what the will consists of.

But why should this be the total extent of the will? We have this capacity in dramatically larger proportion than other animals, if it can be said they have will at all. Maybe they have minimal will. A dog can be "taught" not to eat a treat until the owner says so. Maybe this is minimal will, maybe not.

But it's not inconceivable to me that another even more intelligent species could have dramatically stronger capacity of will compared to us. What it would look like, I cannot exactly say, but, I don't think it can be ruled out.

Just because we can't conceive of a greater capacity for willing, does it mean that it cannot exist, at least in principle.

There is, however, another side to this. We get some sense of this when we look again at his provisional morality:

In the Discourse on Method Descartes presents his "provisional morality".

"My third maxim was to try always to master myself rather than fortune, and to change my desires rather than the order of the world."

It is provisional because his method will allow man to master fortune. Man will no longer have to accept things the way they are. Descartes method of reason is, as he says in the Meditations, the Archimedean point from which he can move the world. — Fooloso4

The desire to master fortune comes from the will, but to accomplish it requires the intellect. It is by the use of reason that he can move the world, but it is by the will that he seeks to do so. The will is without limits in that there is nothing but the will itself that limits what we want. It is provisionally necessary to change our desires because we cannot accomplish all that we desire.

But it is Descartes' ambition to master fortune. Knowledge and will work together not simply to understand the world as it is but to transform it into what it could be. Knowledge provides the ground and the will the ambition and determination to build. — Fooloso4

Apologies for my lack of clarity. These comments suggest to me that he seeking to master his fortune, that is, control his own desires - which is what he has control over after all, we cannot will to change the world, we can will to change ourselves, in order to try and have an effect on the world, however small this change may be.

These sound to me to be strongly inclined to moral considerations, I master my will in order to change my desires so as to make them adequate for the task at hand. This is what I ought to do.

This is all well and good and true. But it seems to me as if, even taking all of this into account, and granting the will the scope Descartes gives it, still falls short of his original statement, or at least, the statement under contention, that the will is wider than the intellect.

I just see much more aspects to the intellect than I do to the will, there are more elements to it that "merely" doing this or doing that, or not doing anything. I say no more than this, it's my only doubt, pardon the pun.

That's an interesting inversion. I once thought, though am not longer certain, that it was hard to justify math, that is, not so much the results of elementary problems, 2+2=4 and so on, but the very foundations, what enables me to justify the postulation of "1" or any number?

But it's given in our minds/brain somehow.

As for the will, if the goal is right or correct moral judgments, that limits of focuses the intellect on morality. But there is a lot more to consider than morality, in mental life in general.

Very cool! I'd heard that the quite long film version of Satantango was actually very well made and well received, but I've yet to see it.

I didn't know Werckmeister Harmonies existed, nor that it was an adaptation of the novel. I'd think that Melancholy of Resistance would make a better movie than Satantango, so I might check it out. Thanks for the heads up.

Part of what makes this interesting is that the force that math has to constrain us (because it is true, independent of who is doing it) is not the same as the shame, confusion, or unintelligibility that may persuade us to take a certain action, but does not have the same force upon us, on our will. — Antony Nickles

Sure, outside of his thought experiments, to deny basic mathematical outcomes is hard to imagine. Maybe a crazy person would say that 2+2=5, but to believe it, is hard to grasp, for me at least.

On the other hand, most of the time, mathematical results are of little to no significance.

That actions you have been doing all along can suddenly have distinctions and rationale that you had not considered, but that, when you do, causes you to acknowledge the truth of it; part awe in its being there already, and part uncanny that it is not always apparent. — Antony Nickles

That's a good description.

I believe he says God is more certain than math.

But, you tell me when you are done with the section.

Thanks for the extra context. I remain unconvinced though. I could imagine situation in which my capacity for willing could be greater, it could for instance, be transparent to me how it is that I choose to do something or not do something. Even something as simple as raising my arm, is shrouded in mystery to me, I have no clue how I actually do it, even though I can, I don't know how I can.

Alternatively, my will could have the power to move objects beyond my body - surely God has such powers. And so on.

The ability of man to do whatever he wills to do is limited only by the limits of our knowledge. It is in this sense that the will is more extensive than the intellect. Descartes' will is for man to do whatever he wills to do, and this is accomplished by the increase his increase in knowledge. — Fooloso4

In the end, it seems to me that knowledge provides better information on which to make a better informed decision. A man could do whatever he wills, but If I compare that to an idea - say reading a novel or thinking about the weather, it seems to me to be far more intricate and complex than the will.

Unless, of course, I am misreading or misunderstanding some aspect of the will, as Descartes conceives it.

Oh sorry man, I briefly saw this and forgot to reply, just came to my mind all of a sudden.

“Well, then, where do my mistakes come from? Their source is the fact that my will has a wider scope than my intellect has, so that I am free to form beliefs on topics that I don’t understand… That is the source of my error and sin.”

So Descartes’ will and judgment is falible, indirect. We must not assume we have immediate access to the truth by some internal calculation or connection to something outside us; it takes time to get clear about what makes this situation or practice distinct from others. — Antony Nickles

Yes, he says this quite astonishing quote about the will being wider than the intellect, briefly mentioned when talking to @Fooloso4.

I tried to understand that, even attempting to look at that statement as if I lived back then, but I can't make sense of it. I mean, it just seems obvious to me that intellect is far broader than will in scope. Of course, we use the will all the time (arguably), but it's scope is somewhat reduced to do this or do that or don't do, more or less.

I believe you have said you tend to follow the late-Wittgenstein tradition, so maybe the impact will be different, but I really do find the whole "remembering" and "from within me" to be quite accurate in my experience and surprising. We need not follow its religious aspects, but it's a powerful thought.

So he retreats to mathematics as his example, and the properties it has are repeatable, predictable, thus proveable and so contain the certainty he needs to extrapolate that, if he understands something, it’s properties must be true as well, which is his justification that the property of existence must be true about God. — Antony Nickles

Back in his time everything was still mixed, philosophy and science and math, not to the level of the Greeks, but, still, no huge distinctions arose. And thus he probably mistook one our capacities - the capacity to do math, with something almost entirely different, our capacity to recognize objects and things in the world.

And while I think there are strong reasons to take them to be innate, they are of a different nature. And certainty in one, is not translatable to certainty on another.

That's true.

I don't know of many substance dualists today, maybe some theological-leaning philosophers might be substance dualists, but there aren't many.

It seems to me as if most people try to aim for a monist account. Within this, you find a significant amount of property dualists.

If we are having trouble with one "substance", matter of the physical, it's difficult to argue that we need to add another substance, but, as you point out, view vary.

If you need any more clarifications or have doubts, don't be afraid to ask, this much I should be able to explain. :cool:

Well, one should keep in mind that he "privileges science" (which is a fair assessment, in my opinion), in respect to trying to understand the nature of the (external, mind-independent) world. If someone wants to find out things about the world, you should follow what science says about it.

Nevertheless, there is far more to life than what science says about it, in our human experience. When it comes to issues about understanding human psychology and thinking, he frequently says that a work of great literature is quite a deal more insightful than most modern psychology.

By him saying we don't know what the physical is, he usually (not necessarily always) says this to anticipate "non-physical" talk, as if saying "the mind is non-physical" means something substantive. He sometimes says that by now, use of the word "physical" implies that we have a theoretical understanding of a problem, when we don't understand something some tend to say that consciousness is "non-physical", signaling theoretical ignorance as well.

But aside from this terminological choice, until someone can say what the physical is (does it exclude the mind? Why?, etc.) there is in fact, no physical, non-physical distinction.

When he says, we don't know what matter is, it's literally that, we don't know what it is, we don't know what a particle is, we know some of the properties of particles, but not what it is, yet. But he takes it that the brain is "modified matter", and that experience is the fact of existence of which we are most confident about.

Do you believe that if the nature of physical matter is beyond our understating then idealism gets a boost as an alternative ontology? — Tom Storm

Until we can define materialism, we aren't debating substance, is what I guess he would say. All this is explained in the article I shared.

Apologies for the length.

My pleasure.

Sure! :up:

I'm surprised at the way (it appears to me) that Chomsky seems to hold up intuition as the standard for what qualifies as understanding. Human intuitions generally arise as matters of pattern recognition based on things we observe all the time. However, observing hydrogen and oxygen atoms either in isolation or when combined into a water molecule is not something we do all the time. We simply don't have the sensory capabilities to make such observations unaided, let alone under all the conditions that would be needed in order for us to develop accurate intuitions about such things.

If we were able to resolve individual atoms and observe them under a wide enough variety of conditions, we would observe that hydrogen and oxygen themselves form liquids and even solids under the right conditions of temperature and pressure. For example a phase diagram for hydrogen — wonderer1

He doesn't hold intuition to be the standard for a scientific account of a phenomenon of nature at all. In fact, the whole essay I shared is trying to show how Newton proved that the world was inherently unintuitive, contrary to what Newton, and all the great scientists and philosophers of his time, and before (throughout human history), thought to be the case.

What happened was that the goal of science shifted with Newton, science was now tasked with giving intelligible theories of the world, not with understanding the world. Descartes, Newton, Leibniz and all others looked for the latter, but the former prevailed, again, to Newton's own astonishment.

Now we take this utterly for granted. But it wasn't so until quite recently. That's the point, we are no longer bothered that we don't understand gravity intuitively, but are perfectly content with the theory and sometimes have trouble comprehending what this issue of understanding could even mean. Wasn't always this way.

From a scientific perspective (that doesn't put human intuition on a pedestal) there are more sophisticated ways of understanding the details of what it is going on in the case of H2O, and no need for the notion of "the potential for liquidity". — wonderer1

I'm sure there are such ways. I don't doubt that. Of course, human intuition has enormous flaws, I don't recall arguing otherwise.

And I'd also add that science, is also a human creation, it comes from us. When some aspects of the external world happen to coincide with some of our scientific capacities (including mathematics, generalizations, abduction, hypothesis creation, projections, retrodictions, etc.) we construct a science of that phenomena.

It's not as if science exists in some objective world out there. Not that you are saying this, but, it should be mentioned.

It is certainly true that liquid's property of taking the shape of the vessel it is in is radically different to the molecule's property of having a rigid structure and not taking the shape of the vessel it is in, but isn't this what we would intuitively expect. — RussellA

Then I believe we agree in this instance, but are calling the phenomena by different terms, "weak" vs. "strong" emergence. So on the topic of liquidity, it's a terminological issue, which doesn't matter much if we agree on the fundamentals, as it seems we do here.

If panpsychism is true, when particles collide, consciousness would not emerge from the collision, as consciousness was already present in the particles before colliding.

If panprotopsychism is true, when particles collide, consciousness could emerge from the collision, as a proto-consciousness was present in the particles before colliding.

IE, there are some theories whereby consciousness doesn't emerge, as it is already fundamental and ubiquitous. — RussellA

Correct. That's a big "if". I don't find the reasons given, either in Strawson's or Goff's account (or anyone else, that I've seen) to be particularly persuasive.

Additionally, there's no test we can put forth to determine if it's correct or not.

Proto-consciousness? That's fine, I suppose, but I'd add the caveat that whatever matter ends up being, it is also almost a "proto-everything", including proto-sensations, proto-liquid, proto-heart, etc.

I mean, I mostly agree with your summary. And it's been a problem for hundreds of years, if not more, and probably shows a natural limit in our cognitive capacities.

As for the weak or strong emergence, I think the stress in Chomsky's quote should be focused on "Can there be what he calls radical emergence, entirely new properties somehow developing without any elements of them in earlier structures. I think that happens all the time."

I take him to mean that "strong emergence" happens all the time. I don't see any intuitive (I'm not speaking of a theoretical account) reasoning that would get a rational human being to expect or not be surprised that liquid can emerge from what looks to me to be completely liquid-less particle, in isolation.

Of course, we are then forced to say, that the particle is not liquid-less, it has the potential for liquidity in certain configurations. But I don't see how the end result of liquidity, is evident from the constituent parts.

A lot of people seem to think that consciousness of free will should be strongly emergent, but there's absolutely no reason to think that this is the case. For all we currently know, consciousness is weakly emergent, as any other collective phenomenon in large systems. — RussellA

If by "strong emergence" she means that particles in the LHC should show signs of consciousness when they collide, then of course it's not "strongly emergent" in that case.

If she means that the new properties (consciousness, will, in this case) should be expected from the constituent parts, then I don't think that's true, and would call consciousness and will "strongly emergent".

This again, doesn't mean that we should expect that planets has free will when it moves in its orbit, or something like that, but weak emergence suggests to me a certain kind of obviousness which I don't see. But I may very well have wrong intuitions, that's certainly possible.

Thanks. The lectures are quite interesting to watch (I've probably seen a dozen or so) but I often find at the end of them I haven't been left with anything much. — Tom Storm

Exactly, same thing happened to me. Granted, some are more interesting than others, but one is often left with the feeling that although much was said, sometimes amusingly, there wasn't much content.

I view it in terms of intelligibility. You are correct that we have a theory as to how liquids emerge from molecules, but we have no intuitions about it. We don’t (yet) have a theory about consciousness, nor do we have an intuition of how matter could give rise to experience (this goes as far back as Locke indcidently). We may get a theory of consciousness, we may not, if we do get a theory then we would say the same thing about consciousness as we do about liquids. We can’t yet say this about consciousness, but the issue of radical emergence is one of intelligibility- we have a theory of liquids, but no intuition- we don’t know how particles could have the property of liquidity in them, that only arise in specific configurations, not in isolation. So if you want to call the liquid case “weak emergence” that’s fine, but I think it’s misleading.

Actually you can, you can email him any time, and he would answer. I've met him personally and have asked him about the topic, it was part of my thesis.

But, if you have doubts, see the following.

See starting min. 59:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kzRkho1s5FA

I suppose that what matters here is not so much which feeling is worse - they are both bad, but instead - how long one of these feelings last.

It's fine to be sad for a while, or bored for a while, but not for too, too long, otherwise it becomes a very serious issue.

unlike the emergence of liquids from molecules, where the properties of the liquid can in some reasonable sense be regarded as inhering in the molecules. — RussellA

I think it is meant as somewhat ironic, because as he says later on in the same page:

"It should be noted that the molecule-liquid example, commonly used, is not a very telling one. We also cannot conceive of a liquid turning into two gases by electrolysis, and there is no intuitive sense in which the properties of water, bases, and acids inhere in Hydrogen or Oxygen or other atoms." (my bold)

As the quote in your quoting of him in p.171, says, "even if we are certain it does." We can't doubt that experience comes from the brain.

As for the quote in page 178, the point is stress that it might not only be neurons that are the cause of consciousness, there is a whole lot of other activity going on in the brain. These other parts of the brain likely play an important role on consciousness, but we've still to figure it out.

He references Randy Gallistel, who he thinks is persuasive on this topic.

Where does Chomsky say that "consciousness is emergent" ?

There is a difference between weak emergence, as liquid from molecules, and strong emergence, as minds from brains. — RussellA

He doesn't make a difference between strong and weak emergence.

He doesn't say it explicitly, but I think it's quite clear:

https://web.ics.purdue.edu/~drkelly/ChomskyMysteriesNatureHidden2009.pdf

Top of page 192.

Interesting and cryptic.

There is much merit to the idea of what we ought to do and not expecting others to follow. The moral situation is simply overwhelmingly complex, in so far as we blame the world but are also part of it.

I believe that we have, to varying degrees, levels of hypocrisy in us.

Nice quote from Oasis, I also get a feeling that part of this post is reflected in another song by them, "D'ya Know What I Mean?"

:cheer:

He's entertaining and provides some interesting observations on certain curious or strange phenomenon. Contrary to others here, although I have read his Less Than Nothing and one of his essay collection books (forgetting the name now), I find his lectures to be better. In fact, I notice little distinction between long lectures and reading his stuff.

He has drawbacks: his scholarship is quite bad; he is prone to exaggeration and even makes things up(!) and he has a tendency to want to complicate or extend a certain type of "Hegelian logic" way beyond specific instances in which such a counter-intuitive way of thinking may be of use or of interest.

Roger Scruton was not a fan of Zizek, nor is Pinker, though most of us can say Pinker has his own issues.

On the other hand, Varoufakis and Cornel West think well of him, and these are serious people.

So, it's a mixed bag, for me he is not as bad as Mikie puts it, but he does have serious flaws, beyond the usual "we are all humans" complaint.

But for ''II)" I have some things to say. Logic is enough to accept that consciousness is either a. 100% reducible, b. not 100% reducible, or c. fundamental. — Eugen

According to him, consciousness is emergent (he says that "radical emergence" happens all the time, which I think is true), as is liquid from molecules who appear to lack this property in isolation.

You would perhaps reply by saying that this means consciousness must be reducible to particles, because if it is emergent, the reduction follows. Not quite. Consciousness arises in brains, which are a very specific arrangement of matter, as far as we can see 99.999999% of the universe doesn't have creatures with brains.

But saying consciousness is reducible to brains doesn't make any sense, how is that a reduction? I don't see how a brain is a "lower level" phenomena of mind, it seems to me to be a higher one, in terms of, we discover brains through consciousness, otherwise, we couldn't even postulate them.

So Chomsky would invert the now classical slogan "the mental is the neurophysiological at a higher level." I believe he discusses this in New Horizons in the Study of Language and Mind. Or if not, in the first essay of Power and Prospects. Don't remember which one.

Q1. So by saying consciousness isn't reducible to matter, does Chomsky leave the room open for options b and c, or he is saying that there are other options that our mind cannot comprehend?
Q2. If the latter, why would he believe that? — Eugen

It's in the provided essay. We don't know what matter is, almost nothing about it. Physicists don't even agree on what a particle is - that's a problem. What we do know about matter quite intimately, are its (conscious) mental aspects, what we see, feel, talk with others, read, etc. That's as clear as anything could be for a human being.

Newton proved we don't understand motion: we provide descriptions for in our theories, but we don't have the capacity to understand it, which he made clear in his famous "It is inconceivable..." quote.

Understanding the world vs. understanding theories of the world, are very different things. The latter is a massive lowering of standards of understanding.

And what happened with the problem of motion? We simply got used to it, in fact, we take it for granted, forgetting we don't understand it, outside our theories.

If we can't understand motion, it is unlikely we will comprehend how matter can think. We know we are thinking matter, but we don't understand how it is possible. He quotes Locke and Priestley here, and several others, worth looking at the article.

I dedicated a reading group on this topic, the attached essay is, I believe, the clearest articulation of "mysterianism", which he thinks should instead be called "common sense". I'll repost the link of the article below, and if you so choose, you can browse the thread.

https://web.ics.purdue.edu/~drkelly/ChomskyMysteriesNatureHidden2009.pdf

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/12417/chomskys-mysteries-of-nature-how-deeply-hidden-reading-group/p1

I) He's said that science is not reductionist, that it instead is opportunist, you get what you can from it. He has said several times that we no longer have a clear notion of "matter", so reducing consciousness to matter doesn't make sense.

This can be found on YouTube, on many interviews on this topic, including this one:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kzRkho1s5FA

II) More so type 2, simply put: given we are natural creatures, we will have the capacity to understand some things and others not. If we had no natural limit to understanding, we would have no scope, thus we couldn't develop anything.

This is discussed with significant depth and sources in the attached article, but, it is a long-ish read.

Nah. I make it up as I go along. Seriously. Of course it is based on what is found in the text, but the connections are things I am working out as I write. — Fooloso4

You coulda fooled me. In any case they have been fantastically helpful.




In effect, it seems merely a point of emphasis on something particular (this specific clock, this specific human being) or something broad (clocks and human beings). Something seems off, just a little, maybe it's our modern way of understanding, but in contemporary (scientific) understanding, you gain knowledge of general things (human beings) by studying - in principle - one person.

In practice we need much more.

But not completely wrong. The details of his biomechanics might be wrong, but much has been gained by seeing the body as a mechanical system. — Fooloso4

As an example of human anatomy, it can be a useful heuristic.

But in terms of physics, or the way the world works, it was way off the mark. I mean, it was very intuitive and coherent, and everyone believed in it until Newton demolished it, to his surprise and lament.

Our freedom is that, when we are presented with the possibilities in a context, “we have no sense that we are pushed one way or the other by any external force.” So our will may very well be impinged, and our freedom is not about unfettered internal agency; as Descartes puts it, “I can be free without being inclined both ways.” The will is not having every option open (being “indifferent” he says), but having a will, an inclination, passion, desire, wish; Descartes focuses on acting on principle or knowledge, but the picture is that we are partial (made whole in the act Emerson says), personal, not simply intellectual, rational. — Antony Nickles

I mostly agree with this interpretation, though Descartes does mention that sometimes we are not compelled one way or another, he also mentions that (as per Chomsky's highlight of Descartes, which Descartes actually says) we are inclined to do or say such and such in a specific situation X, but we are not compelled to do so.

We could be talking to a friend about a basketball match (for example) and we would know what topics are relevant to the conversation. But if I want to, I could perfectly well begin to talk about the political situation in Argentina, which is not relevant to the conversation, nor are we usually inclined to do such things, but we can do them, if we so decide to do so.



You have such mastery of the text that one feels intimidated in saying much, if anything.

That passage about a particular nature was perplexing, for he discusses, as you mention two uses of the word "nature", one being broader than the other. The more narrow sense refers to (as I take it now) human nature, a combination of body and mind. The other use of "nature" refers to the whole world. It sounds like an artificial distinction, as if we are somehow removed from the world.

But even "soul" stuff would have to be part of the world in some way, otherwise these distinctions don't make sense.

What's interesting to note, is that despite his famous dualism, he does mention the relation of the brain with the soul. Of course, most of us have heard about the famous "pineal gland", but the general point is that Descartes account of the mind and the body was quite naturalistic, for his time.

The frequent mockery he gets from neuroscientists or just scientists in general is very unfair and ignorant.

The example of the clock is illustrative, for he thinks that bodies, including human bodies, are similar to clocks, just more complex. On this he turned out to be quite wrong, as history would show, but his intuitions were quite sensible.

I don't have a general comment on temporality here, just commending you for your impressive contributions.

This is good advice, especially when the books are quite long.

Having said that, I'll likely wait some time before following your advice, otherwise I risk the habit of not reading novels and finishing them (now that I've started a new one).

Thanks.