Thanks, good quotes. Nagel, as I read him, seems to veer between "science" and "physical sciences."

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. — Thomas Nagel, the Core of Mind and Cosmos

So, two questions: 1) Why is an objective description of subjective experience necessary to explain subjective experience? This goes back once again to the difference between accepting and inquiring into consciousness, versus also having to claim an impossible 3rd-person experience while doing so. 2) Do we want to conclude that Nagel thinks psychology isn't a science? I doubt it. I think he would say that it isn't a physical science.

To summarize: Are there not objective inquiries into subjective experiences? I guess you could say that any such inquiry is, by definition, not a scientific one, but that seems awfully inflexible.

the world is opened up, made meaningful, or disclosed through consciousness. The world is inconceivable apart from consciousness. Treating consciousness as part of the world, reifying consciousness, is precisely to ignore consciousness’s foundational, disclosive role. — Routledge Intro to Phenomenology

I want us to agree wholeheartedly with the first two sentences, but take issue with the third. Suppose we altered that final sentence to read: "Treating consciousness as part of the world is precisely the enormous challenge that philosophy is presented with -- how do we give full weight to consciousness' foundational, disclosive role while equally acknowledging that somehow there is a necessary act of self-reflection that also places it, and us, in the world? How can I, a subject, be both in, and constitutive of, the world?"

In other words, this application of phenomenology is trying to solve the difficult problem by flatly denying that consciousness is part of the world. That seems both too simple and too unlikely. The truth will turn out to be more bizarre, and more wonderful, than that.



Yes, here Nagel hits it on the head. It's both/and, not either/or.

I think he (Nagel) would say that it isn't a physical science. — J

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

Yes. That's why physicalism is untenable. Science is broader than that. Do you read Nagel as arguing against physicalism alone, for the most part? I do.

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

But think it through in relation to Chalmers' 'facing up to the problem of consciousness'. What you're saying is, you already agree that physicalism is untenable. But Chalmers, Nagel and Husserl are giving arguments as to why it is. And while their arguments are different, the distinction between the first- and third-person perspective is intrinsic to all of them. @noAxioms has already explained that he can't see any distinction. To be sure, many others say the same. But I think there's a real distinction that is not being acknowledged.

I think there's a real distinction that is not being acknowledged. — Wayfarer

I do too, and it's captured in Nagel's question about whether "I am J," said by me, is a fact about the world (just to pick one example). We need to preserve the distinction between 1st and 3rd person perspectives, but . . . does that necessarily put science on one side of an impermeable line? I think that's what we're discussing here. If you interpret Chalmers et al. as explaining why physicalism doesn't work, we have no issue. But I took you to be offering a much broader characterization, going back centuries, about what the scientific project amounts to, and what is and isn't permissible within it. That's where I think we have to be careful. The fact that physicalism can't inquire into subjectivity doesn't mean that science can't -- because physicalism doesn't get to draw the line about what counts as science. (That's up to us philosophers! :wink: )

does that necessarily put science on one side of an impermeable line? — J

It certainly puts modern Western science, as understood since Galileo, on one side of it. Unambiguously. You know that German culture has a word, Geistewischenschaft, meaning 'sciences of the spirit', right? You could put Ricouer, Hegel, Heidegger, and Husserl under that heading, but there's no way you could include them under the heading 'science' in a Western university.

I think there's a clear, bright line.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Again, yes.

Consciousness is part of the world. How is that in question? — Patterner

Because it's not! You can observe other people. and animals, which you can safely assume to be conscious, and which you can safely assume feel just like you do. But you will not observe consciousness as such - only it's manifestations. The only instance of consciousness which you really know, is the instance which you are, because you are it. Not because it's something you see. You can't experience experience. The hand can only grasp something other to itself (from the Upaniṣad).

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

As I said, consciousness is part of the world.

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

There's an important perspectival shift missing in that account, somewhat analogous to 'figure and ground'. As I said, you cannot find or point to consciousness in any sense meaningful to the natural sciences. You can only infer it. This is why Daniel Dennett continued to insist right until the end that it must in some sense be derivative, unreal or non-existent.

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

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

That’s a reasonable point and one that turns on what “natural” means.

If by natural we mean “what belongs to the order of things that occur independently of human artifice,” then consciousness is indeed natural — but not physical in the sense of being an object or process describable in terms of physics. To call it “non-physical” doesn’t mean “supernatural” or “mystical”; it means that it doesn’t present as a measurable phenomenon, as an object.

Mind is that to which the physical appears. It is the horizon within which things become present as physical, as measurable, as anything at all. So the distinction isn’t between “natural” and “supernatural,” but between 'that which appears' and the subject to whom it appears. That is what I'm saying (and not just me!) has been bracketed out by science. It is also what Husserl, and before him Kant, were getting at: consciousness isn’t a part of the world in the same way the brain, trees, or galaxies are. It’s the faculty for which a world appears.

I hope you can see that distinction, because I think it's important.

I get what you mean, and that particular line is pretty clear, I agree. But what about the human sciences -- psychology, economics, history, textual hermeneutics, etc.? I'm fine with the first two, at any rate, being a science, aren't you?

you cannot find or point to consciousness in any sense meaningful to the natural sciences. You can only infer it. — Wayfarer

Let's say it's true that, at the moment, the natural sciences can only infer consciousness. (I think we can do a little better, but no matter.) This was also true of electromagnetic forces, before the 19th century. Everyone knew something was there, but not what or why. Wouldn't it be reasonable to assume that, in time, we'll have positive tests for the presence of consciousness, and be able to describe its degrees and characteristics? This isn't to say that consciousness is a force like electromagnetism -- I doubt it -- but only that science often starts with phenomena that are widely acknowledged but badly understood.

what about the human sciences -- psychology, economics, history, textual hermeneutics, etc.? I'm fine with the first two, at any rate, being a science, aren't you? — J

In a broad sense, but they are not counted amongst the ‘exact sciences’, are they? Their proponents might aspire to it, but there are many difficulties. Furthermore, as far as psychology is concerned, what are the broader questions that underlie it? What vision, or version, of humanity? That we’re species like other species, vying for survival and adaption? And that itself is not a question for psychology.

The genius of modern science was deciding what to exclude from its reckonings. For example, intentionality or telos. Such factors are invisible to precise definition and measurement. So, leave them out! Consider only what can be measured and predicted according to theory.

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

I’m sure that medicine does have such tests, they would be extremely important in the treatment of comatose patients. But the ‘how much’ and ‘what kind’ of consciousness questions are still within the ambit of what Chalmers designated solvable problems. (And for that matter, maybe the whole use of ‘problem’ in this regard is mistaken. Others have pointed out that it’s more of a mystery - the distinction being that problems are there to be solved, while mysteries are something we’re a part of, meaning we can’t step outside of them and ‘explain’ them.)

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

Yes, consciousness is natural in that sense.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

the world is opened up, made meaningful, or disclosed through consciousness. The world is inconceivable apart from consciousness. — Routledge Intro to Phenomenology

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I suppose Husserl should get the credit.

Existentialism grew out of phenomenology. But neither of them are the subjects of Chalmers’ argument in ‘facing up to the problem of consciousness’.

we don't have any clue how physical properties and processes can produce something so different from them — Patterner

Everything you say in your post is true, including the above. Once again, I'm speculating, but perhaps the conclusion we ought to draw is that physical processes don't produce consciousness; i.e., it is not a cause/effect relation, occurring in a temporal order. This is the essential premise of supervenience, as I understand it. Put crudely, consciousness is the same thing as its physical substrate, but experienced from the inside, the 1st person. This is not reductionism, because we could just as well say that the physical substrate is the same thing as consciousness, viewed from the outside. Neither reduces to the other. Of course, this stretches the use of "same thing," perhaps unacceptably. Phenomenologically, they are very far from the same thing. And yet, heat is the "same thing" as molecular motion, in one important sense of "same". They don't remotely resemble each other, experientially, but nevertheless . . .

But suppose this speculation is correct. We still don't know how to talk about this sameness or doubleness, because we don't (yet) have a scientific conception of what philosophers call the 1st and 3rd persons. So I agree with your cluelessness on the whole question; I'm just more optimistic that a path will open.

I believed they're the two most important questions, but the answer to both turned out to be 'wrong question'. Both implied premises that upon analysis, didn't hold water. Hence the demise of my realism. — noAxioms

If they turned out to be 'wrong questions', then they aren't important. What is important is removing the illusion that they are. I disagree but I think I can understand why you think so.

Cool. Consciousness quanta. — noAxioms

Sort of. I see it more like that consciousness comes into discrete degrees and that there is some kind of potency of the higer degrees into the lower degrees. So, I'm a sort of emergentist myself I suppose but I would put 'emergence' as in 'actualizing a potential' (think of Aristotle). So, not in a way in which current 'physicalists' models frame it.

A river is a process, yes. If it was not, it wouldn't be a river. — noAxioms

But note that you're using the notion of 'pragmatic' versus 'rational' in a way that the above statement is, ultimately, false.

I can agree with the 'rational' model that the we aren't the same person as we were in the past to exclude a static model of the 'self'. Conceptual models are, of course, static and, being static, might not be able to fully capture a 'dynamic entity'. I can even agree with the Buddhist notion that the 'self' is ultimately illusory if it is interpreted as implying that we can't be identified by anything static.

As an example, consider a song. The song 'exists' when it is played. Its script isn't its 'identity' but, rather, what we might call its form, its template. However, we can't even say that the song is something entirely different from its script as the script is something essential to the song. In a similar way, something like my DNA is essential to me but, at the same time, it can't 'capture' my whole being.

No description, no matter how articulate can ever capture the being of a person.

The caluclator is (pragmatically) an individual — noAxioms

Yes, I agree with that. But I disagree that it has the sufficient degree of autonomy to make its pragmatic distinction from its environment as a real distinction. It is certainly useful to us to distinguish it from its environment and label it with a name and think it as an 'entity'. But is it really one?

and your assertion was that QM doesn't give a definition of it, which is false, regardless of how different interpretations might redefine the word. — noAxioms

Ok, fine. I concede that. But I believe that in 'interpretation-free QM' measurement is a fuzzy notion. Once you define it clearly, the definition gives an interpretation of QM.

Yes, exactly. Theories are about science. Metaphysics (QM interpretations in this case) are about what stuff ultimately is. — noAxioms

Well, up until the 20th century it was common to think that the purpose of science was at least to give a faithful description of 'how things are/behave'. I personally do not make a hard distinction between metaphysics and physics but I get what you mean here.

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

Excellent quote! Thanks!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Excellent quote! Thanks! — boundless

:up: Yes, good stuff!

Nowhere in any of that is there a hint of our subjective experience of heat. — Patterner

Quite right. And yet, if a child asks for an explanation of what heat is, you're going to tell the story about the molecular motion. We can finesse this by simply pointing out that "what heat is" is equivocal: it can mean "what does it feel like" or "what causes it". But I think the issue goes deeper than language. It's that "doubleness" that I referred to before. Heat really is two different things at the same time, from different perspectives -- maybe that's a better way to put it than calling it "the same thing."

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

I'm contrasting the subjective experience of heat with the objective explanation of it. Perhaps "experiential" isn't the right term for how a scientist observes molecular motion. What I meant was, the feeling of heat doesn't at all resemble the picture described by the scientist. But again, as above: any description of what heat is would be incomplete without the 3rd person perspective as well.

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

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

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

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

What's two different things is our interaction with heat. The first thing is the physical events, beginning with thermoreceptors in the skin releasing ions, which depolarize the neuron, which generates an electric signal, which...

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

Yes, that's what I'm suggesting. But I would change the terminology in a small but crucial way: Both in ordinary language and from a phenomenological perspective, "heat" is the subjective experience. Everyone knew what "heat" meant long before chemistry. So I don't think we ought to talk about "our interaction with heat." The only "heat" out there with which we can interact is "heat" in the first sense, molecular motion, etc. The "two different things" are the results of the two perspectives -- and again, I'm not arguing that the same thing/different thing question has to be settled firmly. After all, what makes a "thing"? Rather, what we should be clear about is that the situation is a peculiar one: We have two uses of the term "heat," both widely accepted by their communities of users. They refer to different events, phenomenologically and perhaps extensionally. Yet they also refer to one single event, seen objectively. No one, I think, will deny that the 1st and the 2nd ways of understanding heat are intimately connected, such that you can't get 2 without 1. (Can you get 1 without 2? . . . interesting.)

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

So, you're asking whether this is a good analogy for consciousness. But is there anything about the molecular-motion description of heat that would suggest the subjective experience of warmth? We started, pre-science, with our experience of heat, and went on to discover the physical conditions upon which it supervenes, which are utterly unlike feeling warmth. Why couldn't this happen for consciousness as well? It seems like a good analogy to me, but maybe I'm missing something you have in mind.

Heat really is two different things at the same time, from different perspectives — J

Another snippet from Michel Bitbol, this one from a paper Is Consciousness Primary? (I’m on a Bitbol bender at the moment.)

Let me give an illustration of this process of objectification, borrowed from the dawn of thermodynamics. The long and difficult process by which the thermodynamic variables such as temperature, pressure, and even volume (though at a much earlier period of history) have been extracted from their experiential basis is a locus classicus of the philosophical history of science (Bachelard, 1938, 1973 ; Mach, 1986). In the beginning, there were bodily “sensations”, ordinary practices, and an overabundance of qualitative observations about color of metals, fusion or ebullition of materials, expansion of liquids according to whether they are cold or hot etc. Heat and temperature were hardly distinguished from one another, and from the feeling of hotness. As for pressure, it was little more than a name for felt strain on the skin. But, progressively, a new network of quantitative valuations emerged from this messy experiential background, together with the laws that connect them (such as the ideal gas law). Even though sensations of hotness and strain still acted as a root and as a last resort for these valuations, they slipped farther and farther away from attention, being the deeper but less reliable stratum in a growingly organized series of criteria for assessing thermodynamic variables. At a certain point, the sensation of hotness no longer played the role of an implicit standard at all ; it was replaced by phase transitions of water taken as references for a scale of variable dilatations in liquid thermometers. This scale, which posits a strict order relation of temperatures, replaced the mixture of non-relational statements of hot or cold and partial order relation of hotter and colder which tactile experience together with qualitative observation of materials afford. Accordingly, the visual experience of graduation readings, or rather the invariant of many such visual perceptions, was given priority over the tactile experience of hotness. Later on, when the function “Heat” was clearly distinguished from the variable “temperature”, and its variation defined as the product of the “heat capacity” times the variation of temperature, tactile experience was submitted to systematic criticism : the feeling of hotness was now considered as a complex and confused outcome of heat transfer between materials of unequal heat capacities and the skin, and also of the physiological state of the subject. From then on, declarations about tactile experience, which had acted initially as the tacit basis of any appraisal of thermic phenomena, were pushed aside and locked up in the restrictive category of so-called “subjective” statements (Peschard & Bitbol, 2008).

It is an example of how the ‘primary/secondary’ distinction emerged in a real-world context.

Good description, thanks, very clearly explained. I'd like Bitbol better if he just told it straight, though, and stopped trying to scare his readers with phrases like "pushed aside and locked up." Come on, no one has forgotten what heat feels like! What would he have the scientists do, insist on a reference to tactile experience every time a measurement is taken?

The danger you and I both recognize comes not from the story Bitbol tells here, but from the further story which physicalists try to tell, in which heat is "really" or "actually" or "reduced to" its objectively measurable components.

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

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

Indeed, we are miles apart on this. — Patterner

No, I don't think so. I agree that the feeling of warmth is an example of a conscious experience. We also agree, I suppose, that being conscious as such is a conscious experience -- sounds awkward, but how else could we put it? I certainly experience being conscious, and so do you. So I'm hypothesizing that, as with warmth, there's a compatible story to be told about the "outside" of our conscious experience.