'Astonishing creativity' and 'blind but ingenious processes' are expressions of the same kind of projection. Surely it can only appear to be 'astonishing' and 'ingenious'. And that's why I’m very dubious about the expression ‘the appearance of design’, which is frequently used by Dawkins. If you follow that through, it means that the only instances of actual design in the universe, are those created by human agents. Everything that appears to be designed in nature actually is not, but is 'accidental' or at any rate, unintentional. And for that matter, I presume another implication of this is that we ought to adopt the same attitude to intention - everywhere, creatures appear to act intentionally, but only humans are capable of conscious intention, whereas creatures are said to 'act from instinct'. So I am very sceptical about this division, or the dichotomy it introduces between conscious human agency and the purported 'blind watchmaker' - not least because our abilities to actually design things, appear to have sprung from this 'accidental' process.

To gain an insight into how all this came about is the shared goal of scientists

I agree with 'how' but I think the broader question of 'why' is not addressed by the science. Although perhaps it is, in the sense of the declaration that 'there is no why' - that there is no cause or reason, other than material or efficient causes. That after all is part of the import of a strictly materialist interpretation of evolution.

It is not surprising or inherently wrong that culture adopt some of the language that we used in older belief systems that asserted how we came to be here. — Read Parfit

It is a something to be aware of, as it has implications well beyond the obvious. I mean, many people simply assume the physicalist interpretation of evolutionary biology, but I think this can be questioned, without questioning the literal facts of evolution. And that's what I think philosophy ought to be doing.

There's a philosopher by the name of Michael Ruse who has been called as an expert witness in various court cases that the evolution debate has precipitated in the US, always on the side opposing ID and creationism. It's turned out to be a kind of speciality of his, and he writes very intelligently on the question of the cultural interpretation and meaning of Darwinian theory. He penned an OP in a science journal in 2003 called Is Evolution a Secular Religion?

Three things. First, if the claim is that all contemporary evolutionism is merely an excuse to promote moral and societal norms, this is simply false. Today's professional evolutionism [by which he means, actual biology] is no more a secular religion than is industrial chemistry. Second, there is indeed a thriving area of more popular evolutionism, where 'evolution' is used to underpin claims about the nature of the universe, the meaning of it all for us humans, and the way we should behave. I am not saying that this area is all bad or that it should be stamped out.... I am saying that this popular evolutionism—often an alternative to religion—exists. Third, we who cherish science should be careful to distinguish when we are doing science and when we are extrapolating from it...

(What's interesting about Ruse, is that in the mid-2000's, he fell foul of the New Atheist movement; he wrote an OP very critical of Dawkins, whose multitude of followers all turned on him.)

Anyway - I am perfectly comfortable with the facts of evolutionary science, but philosophical materialism is another matter. It's the link between the two that I'm questioning. There is a widespread assumption nowadays that we understand the nature of mind or consciousness, purely by virtue of the grasp of the outline of evolutionary history. And I think that can be deeply questioned, as I don't think it's even really in scope for biology as such.

@Wayfarer

Yes, it is complicated. It is much easier to talk of some God shaping us into being over a few days than to wrap our heads around a natural process evolving over 4.5 billion years. Our culture is still struggling to grasp the implications of evolution and incorporate these concepts into everyday language, and to this end will need to extend a couple of words like 'invent' and 'agent' to get it done.

I agree with Ruse that there is the science of evolution, and the philosophical implications of evolution, and these are two different things. I also agree that while in science class the teacher and students should stick to the science. Once the bell rings is another matter, and in my view, it is a virtuous act to try to communicate the implications of what they know to the public at large.

what they know... — Read Parfit

...doesn’t provide a solution to the problem articulated in the OP.

`

To recap.

My point in the OP was that concepts (even concepts involving truths, numbers and fictional things) exist in physical form inside our head. It is not the most profound point in the world, but it does provide an answer to Quine asking "how can we talk about them?" if they do not exist in his narrow view of ontology. I am saying the even in his narrow view of ontology, we can talk of all concepts as physical products of the human mind. I don't think you really even challenged that.

You and apokrisis said yeah, but that these theoretical physical brain patterns that hold these concepts say nothing, by themselves, about the meaning of these concepts, and I said yeah, that is right, that is a tougher question. I also said I was simply pointing out that the concepts exist in a physical way.

apokrisis then brought up the signal grounding problem, which is interesting, and I hope to get to, but in my view this represents an extension of the discussion, rather that a challenge to whether these concepts take a physical form in our head.

In the meantime, you and I have vered into a discussion about my use of the term 'evolutionary invention' to describe our brains, which was the point we were doing some back and forth on when you said "it doesn't provide a solution to the problem articulated in the OP".

apokrisis then brought up the signal grounding problem, which is interesting, and I hope to get to, but in my view this represents an extension of the discussion, rather that a challenge to whether these concepts take a physical form in our head. — Read Parfit

This is still overlooking the point.

You say you see the concept when all you can see is some set of physical marks. That there is a conception in play is a further interpretation you then make.

So regarding the fact that there is some pattern of marks, you can say the marks are there ... because there is material stuff happening that doesn’t seem to be there for normal natural reasons. You see a rock and it has this weirdly regular set of scratches on it. So because it doesn’t look like normal weathering, you would feel right to presume some mind etched them on purpose and so it is likely they are symbols that mean things to some interpreting mind.

That is what you actually see when you see what you believe to be the physical marks that speak to the further possibility of a state of conception as their immaterial or informational cause.

It is really inportant to science to get this right.

My point in the OP was that concepts (even concepts involving truths, numbers and fictional things) exist in physical form inside our head — Read Parfit

And that is what I am taking issue with. The reason the conversation veered into evolutionary biology, is because this is what is almost universally invoked to support the notion of 'physical' that you are arguing for here. And almost everyone believes that, so I'm not saying you believe something outlandish or odd. Indeed, I would say a majority of people would agree that 'concepts are physical', and that mine is a minority view. But I also believe that in this case the majority view is mistaken, and that it's an important mistake.

This is why the work of Thomas Nagel is important. His three books, The View from Nowhere, The Last Word, and Mind and Cosmos, make a dispassionate but solidly-reasoned case for the shortcomings of what he calls 'neo-Darwinian materialism'.

[Nagel says that] if the mental things arising from the minds of living things are a distinct realm of existence, then strictly physical theories about the origins of life, such as Darwinian theory, cannot be entirely correct. Life cannot have arisen solely from a primordial chemical reaction, and the process of natural selection cannot account for the creation of the realm of mind. Biology, in his view, becomes a variety of science that is radically distinct from physics—it deals with a vast and crucial realm of phenomena that physics doesn’t, and can’t, encompass, precisely because they’re aspects of living things that are not physical:

subjective consciousness, if it is not reducible to something physical, … would be left completely unexplained by physical evolution—even if the physical evolution of such organisms is in fact a causally necessary and sufficient condition for consciousness.

Since neither physics nor Darwinian biology—the concept of evolution—can account for the emergence of a mental world from a physical one, Nagel contends that the mental side of existence must somehow have been present in creation from the very start. ...He argues that the faculty of reason is different from perception and, in effect, prior to it—“an irreducible faculty.” He suggests that any theory of the universe, any comprehensive mesh of physics and biology, will need to succeed in “showing how the natural order is disposed to generate beings capable of comprehending it.”

And this, he argues, would be a theory of teleology—a preprogrammed or built-in tendency in the universe toward the particular goal of fulfilling the possibilities of mentality. In a splendid image, Nagel writes, “Each of our lives is a part of the lengthy process of the universe gradually waking up and becoming aware of itself.” ¹

Notice that Nagel was criticized for, among other things, lending support to intelligent design advocates, even though he himself strenuously insists that he's not in the least religious. But the reason any such argument will be regarded as religious is because it is challenging the implicitly materialist attitude of modern secular culture. But what Nagel is doing is exposing the unstated assumptions of that view, which is the kind of 'default position' of much modern philosophy. We actually have a metaphysical problem; but as we no longer believe that 'metaphysics' is real, then we can't even see what kind of problem it is!

Life cannot have arisen solely from a primordial chemical reaction, and the process of natural selection cannot account for the creation of the realm of mind.

Those are two big unqualified assumptions. I'm guessing that is not a direct Nagel quote.

subjective consciousness, if it is not reducible to something physical, … would be left completely unexplained by physical evolution—even if the physical evolution of such organisms is in fact a causally necessary and sufficient condition for consciousness.

--Nagel?

I have heard the human brain described as the most complex structure in the universe. I see no good reason to assume that this marvel of an organ, along with the rest of the body, is an insufficient host for consciousness to emerge.

I’m also not sure the concept of consciousness not being ‘reducible’ makes sense. If you take the view that consciousness, as we know it, emerged from processes in the body, then reducing consciousness to a body makes no more sense than reducing the harmonics of a car engine to a car engine. These things go the other way around.

Each of our lives is a part of the lengthy process of the universe gradually waking up and becoming aware of itself.

--Nagel?

This is the way I see it too. Nick Lane argues that there is not a hard line where life begins. Bacteria are completely driven by the chemical reactions that assemble, shield, energize, and propel their activities. How are they more alive than the molecules that assembled and drive them? The answer seems to be a matter of degree, rather than a hard line. In this broader sense, I think both Nick and I agree with Nagel’s characterization. I also remember Carl Sagan and others having said something similar.

I'm guessing that is not a direct Nagel quote. — Read Parfit

It's a fair representation of what he says. There's a summary in The Core of Mind and Cosmos.

I see no good reason to assume that this marvel of an organ, along with the rest of the body, is an insufficient host for consciousness to emerge. — Read Parfit

But, in terms of causation, where does the process originate? Scientific accounts are naturally 'downward looking' and, so, bottom-up - that is, they are seeking an account which can be ultimately resolved in terms of chemistry and physics - known natural laws, as they are called, which provide the explanatory framework. After all, that is the naturalist project in a nutshell. So we would like to work backwards from the most complex, which is the immensely complex architecture of the brain, to the simple elements in terms of which it originated. Isn't that what reductionist accounts must do? That is the sense in which the discovery of natural selection and genetics was felt to provide a naturalistic explanatory framework. But that is also just what Nagel is questioning:

The physical sciences can describe organisms like ourselves as parts of the objective spatio-temporal order – our structure and behavior in space and time – but they cannot describe the subjective experiences of such organisms or how the world appears to their different particular points of view. There can be a purely physical description of the neurophysiological processes that give rise to an experience, and also of the physical behavior that is typically associated with it, but such a description, however complete, will leave out the subjective essence of the experience – how it is from the point of view of its subject — without which it would not be a conscious experience at all.

So the physical sciences, in spite of their extraordinary success in their own domain, necessarily leave an important aspect of nature unexplained. Further, since the mental arises through the development of animal organisms, the nature of those organisms cannot be fully understood through the physical sciences alone. Finally, since the long process of biological evolution is responsible for the existence of conscious organisms, and since a purely physical process cannot explain their existence, it follows that biological evolution must be more than just a physical process, and the theory of evolution, if it is to explain the existence of conscious life, must become more than just a physical theory.

Each of our lives is a part of the lengthy process of the universe gradually waking up and becoming aware of itself.
--Nagel

This is the way I see it too. — Read Parfit

It's not something represented by many scientists; it's rather more associated with underground or esoteric currents in Western thought, like hermeticism, for which 'man is the epitome of the cosmos'.

The answer seems to be a matter of degree, rather than a hard line. — Read Parfit

That's the crunch. To affirm an 'essential non-difference' between living and non-living is to maintain that there is only one kind of substance (in the philosophical sense) which is the basis of philosophical materialism. Whereas, a non-reductionist account is obliged to acknowledge that there is a difference in kind - an ontological distinction - between living and non-living. This doesn't have to lead to the idea of there being a 'non-physical substance', which I think is a deeply flawed idea; more, that knowledge of anything whatever, even so-called physical objects, is only ever partial or perspectival, even if their attributes and behaviours can be specified pretty exactly in mathematical terms. It's a deep issue. What I would like to question, though, is that 'science has an in-principle understanding of the nature of living beings'. I see that as an inherently hubristic attitude; I think it oversteps the bounds.

My point in the OP was that concepts (even concepts involving truths, numbers and fictional things) exist in physical form inside our head. — Read Parfit

I think you are missing the essence of conception here. Since concepts exist in the form of definitions, and a definition must be agreed upon to form "a concept", then the essence of conception is in the agreements, or conventions, which dictate how we use language and symbols. The symbols "1.2,3" for example, must be used in the conventional way in order for the arithmetical concepts to exist. These conventions do not exist "in physical form inside our head", they exist as relations between us. Since the existence of a concept can only be understood through reference to relations between human beings, then we cannot say that the existence of a concept is something "inside our head", because it is just as much something outside our heads, in between us, as it is inside our heads..

Nick Lane argues that there is not a hard line where life begins. — Read Parfit

Not really. Like all biologists, he sees the line defined by the combination of metabolism and replication. Life has to have both the chemistry and the control.

So what he is doing is instead nudging the needle on the metabolism-first story of abiogenesis. For a long time, people felt it would have to be the replication-first story. You would need RNA coding for the proteins that structured the chemical reactions. But he is nicely arguing that metabolism could travel a long way down the self-organising route without a code in the very specific conditions provided by warm alkaline vents in the sea floor.

So the less that replication needs to account for, the smaller that jump becomes. The line that defines life becomes one that is not hard to cross rather than not a hard line.

After reading Nagel's argument, I'm skeptical. I see consciousness as an emergent phenomenon (he uses the term fluke) of complex life so it is hard for me to see how consciousness predates life. But hey, in 2018 no-one has proof for this stuff, and I give him points for keeping the debate in the realm of science.

The symbols "1.2,3" for example, must be used in the conventional way in order for the arithmetical concepts to exist. These conventions do not exist "in physical form inside our head", they exist as relations between us. Since the existence of a concept can only be understood through reference to relations between human beings, then we cannot say that the existence of a concept is something "inside our head", because it is just as much something outside our heads, in between us, as it is inside our heads. — Metaphysician Undercover

While I do think that a concept itself can 'exist physically' inside a single head, I also think you bring up a good point that a concepts real utility is it can be communicated and refined through sharing with others, possibly becoming ingrained in lots of heads through our culture. I hope this is not getting to headdy :)

Not really. Like all biologists, he sees the line defined by the combination of metabolism and replication. Life has to have both the chemistry and the control. — apokrisis

Thanks for for pulling Nick Lane out of the muck where I was treading.

After reading Nagel's argument, I'm skeptical. I see consciousness as an emergent phenomenon (he uses the term fluke) of complex life so it is hard for me to see how consciousness predates life. But hey, in 2018 no-one has proof for this stuff, and I give him points for keeping the debate in the realm of science. — Read Parfit

Fair enough. Thanks for the feedback, and also for the very civil discussion.

Signal Grounding Problem

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symbol_grounding_problem

The symbol grounding problem is related to the problem of how words (symbols) get their meanings, and hence to the problem of what meaning itself really is. The problem of meaning is in turn related to the problem of consciousness, or how it is that mental states are meaningful.

In the NYT opinion piece that @Wayfarer linked, Nagel pointed out that even if science figures out the exact physical process that our body uses to produce consciousness, it will not address what it feels like to be conscious. Science will likely be able to identify the chemicals that are released and the receptors that are excited when we have these feelings but, again, that will not be what it feels like to us when it happens.

My first question after reading this is “so what?.” What it feels like is an answer I experience every day. What I am interested in are the mechanics of consciousness; to gain insight into how my feelings work.

It strikes me that the signal grounding problem hits the rocks at ‘yeah, but that analysis doesn't tell us what it feels like.” How could it? In terms of hard scientific analysis of the process, I am guessing it will have to stop at something like 'and then the dopamine is released.'

My first question after reading this is “so what?.” What it feels like is an answer I experience every day. What I am interested in are the mechanics of consciousness; to gain insight into how my feelings work. — Read Parfit

I agree that scientific theories are not conventionally about explaining "what it is like to be this particular thing" but about "how generally could I make that kind of thing". So a neurocognitive theory would be the kind of general blueprint that would allow us to build something that was conscious - in whatever useful sense of the word that would mean. If we could produce true AI, then we would have a theory of what we meant as the essential trick involved in being conscious.

But still, a causal explanation of "why it would feel like something, rather than nothing" is desired by most people. They don't ask science to actually build consciousness, just talk to them about brains and stuff in a way that reassures them they can "get" why it exists as a result of physical processes.

This is a little crazy in one way. It is like when a scientist gives a layperson an image of how fundamental physics works. Oh, there are these little atoms flying about. Or spacetime warps and so objects just roll along that gravitational curvature.

A mental picture gets painted. It seems logical in itself. The layperson "gets its". No further questions asked.

Now it is in fact just as easy to paint a picture like that with consciousness. Brains model the world. To be modelling the world ought to feel like something, right? Why wouldn't it?

But now the typical layperson is not at all satisfied. It is easy to believe in a world composed of little atoms, or waves, or whatever. But there is not the same cultural preparation to understand nature in terms of structures or functions. If you point at a brain, folk are only expecting to find a lump of meat. A bunch of chemicals. Talk of its structure - grounded in a play of symbols - is just not a conventional way to look at anything. It does not give the same easy intuitive pictures of concrete stuff happening.

In terms of hard scientific analysis of the process, I am guessing it will have to stop at something like 'and then the dopamine is released.' — Read Parfit

No. The right scientific answer is going to be focused on the abstract structure - the modelling relation that is in play.

That is what cognitive psychology was pursuing - a functional description of mind. And that is where the symbol-grounding issue arose as a foundational problem for the overly computational road that cogsci was taking. Science took a big wrong turning for a couple of decades because it thought pure syntax - symbolic processing - would light up and be conscious all by itself.

So symbol grounding was cogsci slowly realising it had taken the wrong path. It had to back up, rediscover the neural networking and other embodied relational approaches it had trampled over, and begin again.

The best current approach to my taste is Karl Friston's Bayesian Brain framework. It is neural networking married to thermodynamics - the mental equivalent of the marriage of genetic constraints and metabolic dissipation in life science.

So you have information and physics united in the one theoretical framework. You have symbols, but they are grounded ... by being the thing inbetween, mediating the relation that connects the information and the physics.

I'm sure this all sounds pretty confusing and abstract. But check out Friston. Our best theory of mind will have to be one that speaks to the embodied modelling relation that exists between minds and worlds, or the functional structure of a brain and the affordances that manifests in some material environment.

When if comes to the "conscious feels" question, it won't be about dopamine but about understanding why I see the butter as "yellow". What function does it serve to reduce the complexity of matter and energy that is "the world" to this informational token?

And then understanding how much information processing went into arriving at this perceptual judgement - a sensation of yellow - would go towards the general question of "why it would feel like anything?". Once you really do get down to the level of understanding the complexity of stuff like the modulatory role of dopamine as an informational signal, then you are going to have to respond, "well, why wouldn't all this intricate world modelling not feel like something rather than nothing?".

Looks like Firiston has worked on a new collaborative book The Pragmatic Turn

It looks interesting. I think I will check it out.

Thanks.

Looks like Firiston has worked on a new collaborative book The Pragmatic Turn — Read Parfit

Hey, I didn't even realise. That is going to be a pretty technical volume though.

There is this New Sci article - https://www.fil.ion.ucl.ac.uk/~karl/Is%20this%20a%20unified%20theory%20of%20the%20brain.pdf

Or another introduction - https://www.fil.ion.ucl.ac.uk/~karl/Seed%20The%20Prophetic%20Brain.pdf

As well as all his publications - https://www.fil.ion.ucl.ac.uk/~karl/

While studying this question I ran across Parfit who argues, roughly, that human thoughts (where our math, morality and fiction are developed) map to physical entities in our mind through neuron patterns and such, and thereby exist in the ontological sense. Although these concepts would not exist in the universe without minds, that fact makes them no less real than sun rays, which would not exist without suns. — Read Parfit

I agree with that.

Once we grant thoughts themselves an ontological status, the next question becomes, can we apply objective criteria to the claims expressed by these thoughts? — Read Parfit

I don't think "objective criteria" makes sense, since criteria is necessarily subjective. We can produce criteria that we measure objective (i.e. external-to-mind) things against though, if that's what you mean.

How are the concepts expressed in the rules of Math, different from the concept of Pegasus? — Read Parfit

Mathematical concepts are based on a formal axiomatic system whereas concepts like Pegasus aren't.