But you can't get weight from that which has none. — Clarendon

Not to be pedantic, but E = mc^2. Matter, which has mass, is created out of energy, which has no mass, everywhere and always.

In other words, one cannot get a 'kind' from that which does not possess it - for that would be to get out what was in no sense there in the originals — Clarendon

This is clearly wrong. Living organisms developed out of nonliving matter. If you don’t think that’s true, let’s not get sidetracked by discussing it here.

The person who thinks consciousness can strongly emerge from physical entities that do not already possess it is insisting that consciousness just pops into being out of nothing - that really does seem like magic and we would not accept such a proposal in other contexts. — Clarendon

Again, this is clearly not true. You should read some cognitive science and cognitive psychology.

you cannot generate a property of a given kind from ingredients that wholly lack that kind. — Clarendon

Benzene, which has a sweet gasoline-like smell, is made up of hydrogen and carbon, neither of which have odors.

Consciousness means that you are awake, and able to see things around you, and respond to others in rational linguistic manner in interpersonal communication. You are also able to do things for you in order to keep your well being eating drinking good food, and sleeping at right times caring for your own health, your family folks and friends. — Corvus

This is not typically what people who believe in the hard problem of consciousness mean when they say “consciousness.” For them, it means an awareness of subjective experience. That type of consciousness is not limited to humans or other animals with near-human intelligence. This discussion has a problem which is common to this type of discussion— they fail to define what they mean by “consciousness.”

Examples are not only plentiful, I suspect almost everything, living or nonliving, that everyone on this site has ever interacted with has properties its constituents lack. It is the norm. It is what nature does. Criminy.

almost everything — Srap Tasmaner

Depending on how far down you go. It's obviously everything, if you get to subatomic particles.

Eight hundred leaf-tables and no chairs? You can't sell leaf-tables and no chairs. Chairs, you got a dinette set. No chairs, you got dick!

This is not typically what people who believe in the hard problem of consciousness mean when they say “consciousness.” For them, it means an awareness of subjective experience. That type of consciousness is not limited to humans or other animals with near-human intelligence. This discussion has a problem which is common to this type of discussion— they fail to define what they mean by “consciousness.” — T Clark

Sure. But if you think where the meaning of consciousness comes from, it is just a word describing awareness of biological being. It has little to do with subatomic particles. Stretching the meaning of the word that far sounds like seeing a rainbow and saying - there must be a divine being up there somewhere doing some painting.

Sure. But if you think where the meaning of consciousness comes from, it is just a word describing awareness of biological being. It has little to do with subatomic particles. Stretching the meaning of the word that far sounds like seeing a rainbow and saying - there must be a divine being up there somewhere doing some painting. — Corvus

I wasn’t finding fault with anything you said. I was pointing out that the term was [not] well defined in the OP. That is a common problem with discussions about consciousness.

Bracketed text was added to correct the original statement.

Criminy — Srap Tasmaner

Agreed.

Seems to me you haven't understood the problem. No amount of empirical detail explains how a wholly new kind of property could come into existence from ingredients that entirely lack it.

Again, you seem not to grasp the problem.

E = mc2 is not a case of something coming from nothing. Energy has mass equivalence. Mass is not conjured out of an absence of all relevant properties. This is weak emergence grounded in antecedent physical structure and laws and not an example of strong emergence.

Second, the origin of life is not a counterexample either, for either you don't mean conscious life - in which case we have weak emergence - or you mean conscious life, in which case we have strong emergence.

Third, appealing to cognitive science or psychology simply changes the subject. Those fields study correlations, functions, and mechanisms given that consciousness exists. They do not address the metaphysical question of how consciousness could come into existence from ingredients that entirely lack it.

I wasn’t finding fault with anything you said. I was pointing out that the term was well defined in the OP. That is a common problem with discussions about consciousness. — T Clark

I wasn't saying you were. I was just reiterating the point that philosophy doesn't deal with atoms and particles in physical or biological science. Only thing it deals with is the meaning of words and sentences one uses and makes in communication and statements for clarity and logical coherence.

I am not sure I follow. You have said that it seems consciousness seems to depend on internal structure. But if the parts of that structure wholly lack conciousness, then appealing to structure and complexity just assumes that a new kind of property can arise from their arrangement. That is strong emergence. In other words, it just assumes magic happens - that one can get out what wasn't put in.

Invoking an “irreducible composition relation” does not help either. It simply labels the point at which something genuinely new appears without explaining how that is coherent. Calling the relation irreducible is another way of saying “here be magic”.

if the parts of that structure wholly lack conciousness, then appealing to structure and complexity just assumes demonstrates that a new kind of property can arise from their arrangement. — Clarendon

FTFY.

Right. And by the same reasoning, a magician has demonstrated that rabbits can come from nothing. You must be very impressed at magic shows - presumably you think you're witnessing miracles!

I think strong emergence is saying that matter has the potential to become conscious under the right circumstances.

With weak emergence, we're saying matter has the potential to become liquid. In a sense liquidity comes from no-liquidity.

I am not sure I follow. You have said that it seems consciousness seems to depend on internal structure. But if the parts of that structure wholly lack conciousness, then appealing to structure and complexity just assumes that a new kind of property can arise from their arrangement. — Clarendon

The parts may lack consciousness as we know it (sensations of pain, redness, sweetness, etc.) but they don't lack qualities. Every thing in itself is an unstructured quality. And consciousness as we know it consists of unstructured qualities - qualia.

Invoking an “irreducible composition relation” does not help either. It simply labels the point at which something genuinely new appears without explaining how that is coherent. Calling the relation irreducible is another way of saying “here be magic”. — Clarendon

That composition relation might ultimately be the set membership relation, which is at the foundation of mathematics (set theory) and is regarded as fundamental, irreducible. Pure mathematics doesn't talk about qualities or sensations, only about relations that are reducible to the set membership relation, but it doesn't seem to make metaphysics incoherent if we add qualities to it. Actually, we could just say that the qualities are the sets in themselves.

by the same reasoning — Clarendon

Uh huh.

Is it just consciousness?

Are there any other properties of things that, in your judgment, would require strong emergence?

The real problem of consciousness is people treat it like a unified entity and run off into the bushes hunting for the faculty that makes consciousness possible! It's mostly a virtus dormativa activity. As Kant would say "Consciousness is possible due to the consciousness causing faculty!"

The real problem of consciousness is people treat it like a unified entity and run off into the bushes hunting for the faculty that makes consciousness possible! — DifferentiatingEgg

What's wrong with that? It's what we did with gravity.

I haven't argued that consciousness requires strong emergence. I've argued that strong emergence is just fancy for magic and that it violates a truth of reason: that you can't get out what was in no sense put in. Thus, physicalism is either false - meaning that consciousness is a property of a non-physical entity - or consciousness is a property of atoms. Hence this is a real problem for the committed physicalist.

If I have understood you correctly, you are saying that atoms are conscious?

That seems to be the only option available to the physicalist if they are not to invoke magic.

I don't think there is anything incoherent in the idea of atoms - and by atoms here, I mean whatever the basic unit of physical stuff may be - having conscious states. But this does mean that we are atoms, not brains or anything like that. Atoms. Or at least, if one insists upon the truth of physicalism this would be the conclusion we are driven to. (I don't think we should insist upon the truth of physicalism as that seems to assume what should be discovered or refuted).

the term was well defined — T Clark

Revisiting your point here, I don't believe that consciousness is something which can be defined clearly.
Does it cover only being awake with the knowledge of self identity?, or seeing objects too?, what about intelligence?, how about characters and personality, will power?, creativity?, thinking? etc etc.

One thing for sure is that consciousness is not something that "emerges" from physical entity. Of course, it starts in the biological body, but it evolves into very complex abstract ability and functions of the biological body which has foundation in the lived experience with the social and cultural back ground.

It doesn't belong in the category of physical force or mechanical nature.

I see.

I was wondering if you had other examples of deductions that rely on this principle:

you can't get out what was in no sense put in — Clarendon

With other examples, we could compare the case of consciousness.

Aside from that, this "truth of reason", as you describe it, strikes me as patently false.

If I have understood you correctly, you are saying that atoms are conscious? — Clarendon

I am saying that atoms have qualities. Are they the same qualities as we find in our consciousness? Probably not. Whether the atoms are conscious depends on whether you include their qualities in consciousness, it's a question of definition of consciousness.

It's clearly not patently false - it's patently true!

There is no example of a feature strongly emerging. If you know of one, say. Strong emergence is ruled out a priori by reason, and there is no example of it either to challenge what our reason tells us. Not, that is, unless you insist that consciousness itself is the example - but that's clearly question begging.

To check if I am following, is your point that atoms have states of some sort and as consciousness is a state then there is nothing incoherent in the idea that an arrangement of atoms could create conscious states - for we have states in and states out?

My point is that atoms have not just states but qualities - pieces of unstructured stuff. And the qualia of consciousness are pieces of unstructured stuff too. So we have qualities in and qualities out.

But an object can't have qualia without being conscious, so it sounds as if you're attributing consciousness to the base materials.

On the other hand, if the point was - and it seems it wasn't, but as I have a reply anyway, I might as well post it! - that so long as we have states in we can get states out, even if the states we get out are of a different kind from those we put in, then I think that's false.

One kind of state cannot transform into, or generate, another kind of state at all. Size does not become shape, even though anything shaped will have size. Likewise, shape does not become size. Perhaps even more vividly and aptly, a conscious state does not turn into a geometrical state. No amount of rearranging experiences yields triangles or lengths. And conversely, no amount of rearranging geometrical states yields consciousness.

The same holds in general. A state can only confer its own kind of state on anything it is part of. The shapes of atoms can confer shape on the larger object they compose. The sizes of atoms can confer size on the larger object they compose. But the size or shape of atoms cannot confer consciousness on the object they compose.

So saying that atoms have states, and consciousness is a state, will not work, I think. Unless the base states are already of the phenomenal kind, appealing to organisation merely assumes that one kind of state can give rise to a fundamentally different kind.