Which questions have been answered? Do you have any reading suggestions on this? — Patterner

Here’s a link to a David Chalmers paper. He’s the guy who came up with the idea of the hard problem of consciousness, which I reject. Still, at the beginning of this paper, he lays out a pretty good summary of the problems he thinks can be effectively addressed by scientific inquiry. In the course of doing that, he also gives a pretty good summary of the different ways of thinking about consciousness.

https://consc.net/papers/facing.pdf

For a cognitive science approach to consciousness, I like Antonio Damasio “Feeling and Knowing.”

"We do not understand how consciousness can be realized in physical neuronal activity" is an important thing. — Patterner

This isn’t entirely true. Certainly there’s a lot that needs to be explained, but that’s true of many scientific inquiries. I don’t think it’s true that any aspect of consciousness or the mind in general cannot be studied effectively by science.

My point was consciousness is function and ability of the living biological agents, not something emerges from matter. Do you still disagree on the point? — Corvus

There’s no reason it can’t be a function of living biological agents and also emerge from matter.

There’s no reason it can’t be a function of living biological agents and also emerge from matter. — T Clark

I disagree with that. Matter cannot give birth to consciousness. Could you give some examples of consciousness emerged from matter?

I don’t think it’s true that any aspect of consciousness or the mind in general cannot be studied effectively by science. — T Clark

You can study consciousness by science. But the problem is, you will not see or observe actual consciousness itself, no matter what you dissect and look into. It is not in the form of matter.

You will only observe the telltale signs, functions and behavior of consciousness from the conscious living people and animals.

"We do not understand how consciousness can be realized in physical neuronal activity" is an important thing.
— Patterner

This isn’t entirely true. Certainly there’s a lot that needs to be explained, but that’s true of many scientific inquiries. I don’t think it’s true that any aspect of consciousness or the mind in general cannot be studied effectively by science. — T Clark

I don't think being able to scientifically study various aspects of consciousness means we "understand how consciousness can be realized in physical neuronal activity." Tse obviously doesn't, either.

Can you tell me which aspects of consciousness have been studied by science? I know there has been a lot of work done on the neural correlates of consciousness. But that's about which parts of the brain are active when specific thoughts and/or feelings are being reported. I have not heard how a part of the brain, or the physical activity taking place in it, has a felt experience if itself. Which I guess explains why I've never heard them called the "neural causes of consciousness."

I have Antonio Damasio's “Feeling and Knowing.” I really like it. But I don't see him addressing this. He says x, y, and z are happening, but not how those events have a felt experience of themselves. As Chalmers says in in The Conscious Mind:

That is, consciousness is surprising. If all we knew about were the facts of physics, and even the facts about dynamics and information processing in complex systems, there would be no compelling reason to postulate the existence of conscious experience. If it were not for our direct evidence in the first-person case, the hypothesis would seem unwarranted; almost mystical, perhaps. — Chalmers

You will only observe the telltale signs, functions and behavior of consciousness from the conscious living people and animals. — Corvus

Yes. Just as studying the motion of galaxies might suggest the existence of what we call dark matter, it is not a study of dark matter.

Yes. Just as studying the motion of galaxies might suggest the existence of what we call dark matter, it is not a study of dark matter. — Patterner

:up: :fire:

Matter cannot give birth to consciousness. — Corvus

Sez you.

Could you give some examples of consciousness emerged from matter? — Corvus

The only one I know of is the one we are discussing.

You can study consciousness by science. But the problem is, you will not see or observe actual consciousness itself, no matter what you dissect and look into. It is not in the form of matter. — Corvus

I don't think being able to scientifically study various aspects of consciousness means we "understand how consciousness can be realized in physical neuronal activity." — Patterner

I have not heard how a part of the brain, or the physical activity taking place in it, has a felt experience if itself. Which I guess explains why I've never heard them called the "neural causes of consciousness." — Patterner

We are fully in the realm of "the hard problem of consciousness." We've discussed it here on the forum many times. Some people think it's a big deal. Others, including me, just don't get why it's considered a problem at all. Never the twain shall meet. I'm not particularly interested in taking it up now.

Just as studying the motion of galaxies might suggest the existence of what we call dark matter, it is not a study of dark matter. — Patterner

Of course it is. It may not tell us all we need to know, but there is not just one way of studying.

We are fully in the realm of "the hard problem of consciousness." We've discussed it here on the forum many times. Some people think it's a big deal. Others, including me, just don't get why it's considered a problem at all. — T Clark

Because there is no explanation, from any side of the hundred-sided fence, that is more than speculation.

Never the twain shall meet. I'm not particularly interested in taking it up now. — T Clark

Fair enough.

Just as studying the motion of galaxies might suggest the existence of what we call dark matter, it is not a study of dark matter.
— Patterner

Of course it is. It may not tell us all we need to know, but there is not just one way of studying. — T Clark

We are inferring the existence of dark matter by studying the movement of galaxies. We are not learning anything else about it in this manner, and can't study it in any other manner.

Because there is no explanation, from any side of the hundred-sided fence, that is more than speculation. — Patterner

Seems to me, from a scientific point of view you’re dismissing even the possibility of speculation.

No, speculation is fine. My speculated answer is quite different from that most people here, but we're all just speculating. Speculation is the first step. So far, we haven't been able to figure out how to test any.

I can only speak for myself, but I don't think you've understood the view.

It has nothing whatsoever to do with whether scientists can study consciousness. Nothing. The point is a very simple one. You can't get out what you don't put in. You can't get a sized thing from combining sizeless things.

This argument is valid: 1. If umbrellas are up, it is raining. 2. Umbrellas are up. 3. Therefore it is raining. The conclusion contains nothing not already there in the premises. It extracts their implications, but it does not add anything. Whereas this is invalid: 1. if umbrellas are up, it is raining. 2. Umbrellas are up. 3. Therefore I am rich. That conclusion doesn't follow from those premises. Why? Because nothing it claims is in the premises.

Now unless you think that you can make a sized thing from sizeless things, and that you can validly extract a conclusion about wealth from premises that don't mention it in any form, then you accept that you can't get out what has in no way been put in.

Thus, applying that same principle to consciousness, you cannot get consciousness out unless it has been put in. Thus, if you think that a complex physical thing has consciousness, then you must - on pain of believing in magic - believe that some of its components had consciousness. Otherwise, whence came it?

Note: I am not challenging 'science'. Nothing in science challenges what I've just said. Nothing in science challenges the idea that you can't get out what you didn't put in. It is those who believe that you can get a wholly new kind of property from ingredients none of which possess it who are being unscientific.

Sez you. — T Clark

If you care to read about consciousness, you will notice that it is a vast subject. There are range of different views on the topic from the hard materialism to psychologism, idealism, functionalism and even spans to religious spritualism.

One thing that is common with the topic is that they all view consciousness as "awareness" based on the biological living body and brain. The point you must remember is that awareness is NOT the same thing as matter or brain itself.

Awareness and consciousness is the word describing aspects, operations, states and functions of mind, not the physical matter.

The only one I know of is the one we are discussing. — T Clark

If you keep reading the OP's post, he has not been talking about science or matter. Rather he means consciousness must have come from something that you put into the mind, not from nothing.

I think what he means is, that when you see physical objects (input into your mind), your consciousness must be also physical in nature (output), because the physical matter input cannot come out in any other form than physical matter.

So it appears that you are not reading the OP accurately.

We are fully in the realm of "the hard problem of consciousness." We've discussed it here on the forum many times. Some people think it's a big deal. Others, including me, just don't get why it's considered a problem at all. Never the twain shall meet. I'm not particularly interested in taking it up now. — T Clark

There is no problem in revisiting already discussed topic in the past, if new truths could come out from it. After all, many folks are still discussing the topics in discussion over 2000 years ago in philosophy.

The real problem - one that I, at least, can see 'is' a problem - is that you can't get out what you don't put in. For example, you can't make something that has size by combining lots of sizeless things. That's just not going to work. The only way to make a sized thing, is to combine things of size - no size in, no size out.

Similarly then, you aren't going to be able to make a conscious object out of objects that are not already conscious (or at least disposed to be). For that would be alchemy. Call it 'strong emergence' if one wants - but that's just a label for what is in fact something coming from nothing. Thus, as our brains are made out of atoms, then either atoms have consciousness (or are disposed to) or brains simply can't have consciousness. — Clarendon

Coordinate geometry does in fact represent a line as a combination of points. Of course, it is not just a combination of points, it is points plus structure. But then nothing is just some other thing, otherwise it would be that other thing. Water is not just hydrogen and oxygen, but you do get water with all its uniquely watery properties from those two very un-water-like substances - no alchemy involved.

Chalmers’s “hard problem” concerns explanation: we can explain what a system does without mentioning consciousness.

That is not the problem I am raising. Explaining an object’s behaviour without mentioning one of its properties is not in itself a problem. We can explain how a key opens a lock without mentioning its colour. Does that mean there's a problem with locks and keys having colour?

My problem is not about explanatory superfluity. It is about generation: how a property of a wholly new kind could come into existence from ingredients that entirely lack it. (Indeed, it can't - and so the problem confronting the physicalist is that they must either abandon their physicalism or attribute consciousness to base materials).

I think people are making the mistake of thinking that because Chalmers coined the (somewhat unoriginal) phrase 'the hard problem of consciousness' then any hard problem must be the one he was talking about. My project was to find a genuine hard problem and distinguish it from pseudo problems.

Note: Chalmers believes in the strong emergence of consciousness. So he doesn't seem to recognize the problem I am raising.

My project was to find a genuine hard problem and distinguish it from pseudo problems. — Clarendon

I think you did, but I also think "pseudo" problem is probably wrong. We can't really explain consciousness, or describe its instantiation.

Note: Chalmers believes in the strong emergence of consciousness. So he doesn't seem to recognize the problem I am raising. — Clarendon

I am under the impression he has dealt to this exact issue? I don't recall what his response is at present though. I've not read his last couple.

I think he's certainly aware of this proper hard problem of consciousness.
But he has no solution to it. His response is to posit fundamental psychophysical laws. That is, he thinks we can just say that at a certain level of complexity and arrangement it is a law of nature that consciouos states strongly emerge. Now, that's not a solution at all. For one cannot overcome a profound metaphysical problem by simply relabeling it. We can call this special law a 'hey presto' law, for that is what it is. It just says 'and at this point - hey presto - consciousness appears, despite in no way being present up to this point'.

This is why Chalmers would rather we see the 'hard' problem as consisting of the pseudo problems I mentioned in the OP and not foreground the real problem - for the real problem is one that defeats him.

Note too that Chalmers is as committed a physicalist as the next contemporary philosopher, for though he calls himself a 'property dualist', this is once more a matter of labels rather than substance. For he means by this just that he thinks consciousness is not reducible to any other arrangement of states. But that's true of size and shape, but it would be absurd to call oneself a property dualist because one holds that shape is not reducible. Kinds of state are, by their very nature, not reducible- they would't be basic if they were!

The fact is that property dualism makes no real sense (unless by it one means simply that there is more than one kind of property). If one does not think consciousness is a property of a wholly distinct kind of entity, then one is not a dualist about consciousness. For states cannot exist absent the objects of which they are states. And so one can't in all seriousness describe oneself as a 'property dualist' where consciousness is concerned if one holds - as he does - that it is nevertheless a property of an arrangement of physical things.

The point you must remember is that awareness is NOT the same thing as matter or brain itself.

Awareness and consciousness is the word describing aspects, operations, states and functions of mind, not the physical matter. — Corvus

I never claimed otherwise. When one level of organization emerges from another, they aren’t the same thing. Living organisms are not the same thing as the chemicals that make them up.

physical matter input cannot come out in any other form than physical matter. — Corvus

Yes, that’s what @Clarendon has been saying. I’ve already told him I disagree with him. Now it appears I disagree with you too.

There is no problem in revisiting already discussed topic in the past, — Corvus

In general, that’s true, but I’m not interested in taking it up right now.

You and I don’t seem to be getting anywhere. As I noted previously, I think it’s a good time to end the conversation.

For he means by this just that he thinks consciousness is not reducible to any other arrangement of states. But that's true of size and shape — Clarendon

I think perhaps confusing types of property like size and shape with consciousness might be causing some issues here...

This is why Chalmers would rather we see the 'hard' problem as consisting of the pseudo problems I mentioned in the OP and not foreground the real problem - for the real problem is one that defeats him. — Clarendon

I think you're perhaps just finding a target to knock down with this. It seems that he's fairly squarely given you an answer (albeit, not a solution - but to expect this in order to charge someone with failing is rich particularly among philosophers). In 1995 he was squarely across this issue:

"Even when we have explained the performance of every cognitive and behavioral function in the vicinity of experience, the question of why there is experience at all remains unanswered.”

and then further on, he's given other comments:

"The emergence of consciousness from the physical is not like the emergence of liquidity from molecules. It is not conceptually entailed by the physical facts."

He is rejecting strong emergence by complexity alone here. So far, so good.

His solution is that consciousness is a fundamental property of the building blocks. It's wholly unsupported, but has complete explanatory power. If things are conscious, then they are. We are not drawn to further questions until we're given some reason to suggest otherwise... In the case of the strong materialist, there are already questions on the table. For someone like Chalmers, or even Jaegwon Kim, those questions arise but can be answered in novel ways. That's all that's going on, is that Chalmers hit a dead-end and was/is looking for cracks in the pavement. I think, anyway.

I don’t think Chalmers really recognises the force of the problem I am highlighting. He never explicitly states it, after all.

I mean, he is certainly aware that it is hard to see how consciousness could arise from the physical. But he treats this as a difficulty about explanation or theory choice, rather than as a principled barrier grounded in reason. He doesn't articulate the point I am making: which is that it is hard because you'd be trying to get out what you haven't put in. When that is highlighted as the hard-making factor, it goes from hard to insurmountable. Consciousness must be attributed to the base - so atoms have now to be said to have consciousness - or physicalism must be abandoned. I am not merely pointing out that we lack a scientific story or that conciousness is weird. the whole project of trying to make sense of consciousness against a physicalist background is misguided from the get go.

Chalmers’s response is to posit fundamental psychophysical laws: at a certain level of organisation, consciousness appears. But claerly that does not address the problem at all. It simply stipulates around it. It is a “hey-presto” move: consciousness appears because the laws say so. Only in this case too. Everywhere else you can't get out what you don't put in - logic, and so on. But in this one case there is this magical exception - you can get consciousness out without putting it in. So let's not beat about the bush: Chalmer's theory of consciousness is that it's magic - it just magically appears. You can't normally get a real rabbit out of an empty hat, but you can get real consciousness out of a meat hat, despite none having been put in.

That is precisely why he does not foreground this issue. Taken seriously, it would undermine the entire physicalist framework within which he wants to work. So he treats consciousness as a datum to be accommodated, rather than as the decisive reason why physicalism cannot make sense of consciousness in the first place. And thus he is driven to suppose magic occurs.

He'd have us believe that the 'hard' problem of consciousness is one to do with its apparent explanatory superfluity - we don't hve to posit conscious states to explain why our bodies do what they do. But that's a strawman problem compared to the one I'm drawing attention to.

He never explicitly states it, after all. — Clarendon

I just gave you a direct quote where he does.

He'd have us believe that the 'hard' problem of consciousness is one to do with its apparent explanatory superfluity - we don't hve to posit conscious states to explain why our bodies do what they do. — Clarendon

This misunderstands Chalmers to a degree I have to ask - have you read any?

Coordinate geometry does in fact represent a line as a combination of points. Of course, it is not just a combination of points, it is points plus structure. But then nothing is just some other thing, otherwise it would be that other thing. Water is not just hydrogen and oxygen, but you do get water with all its uniquely watery properties from those two very un-water-like substances - no alchemy involved. — SophistiCat

The point is more along the lines of you can't gather water in any amount, or in any configuration, and end up with wood.

Which quote - this one? "Even when we have explained the performance of every cognitive and behavioral function in the vicinity of experience, the question of why there is experience at all remains unanswered.”

That does not articulate the problem I am raising. He is saying what I said he says - that consciousness is expalnatorily superflous.

I have read him. I think you need to read him more carefully. you seem to be committing the fallacy I mentioned earlier. That is, of thinking that as he has talked about a 'hard' problem of consciousness then any hard problem of consciousness is the one he's talking about.

That does not articulate the problem I am raising. He is saying what I said he says - that consciousness is expalnatorily superflous. — Clarendon

No. That's not what he's saying. What he's saying is that all our work is ahead of us.

I don't quite think this is going to go anywhere. Take care.

No, you're conflating two different points. the quote you gave does not state my principle. It states the familiar explanatory point that functional and behavioural explanation leaves experience unaccounted for.

I am saying a physical base that contains nothing of the phenomenal kind - so, no consciousness - cannot intelligibly generate anything that has it. That is why appeals psychophysical laws do not answer the objection. They stipulate that consciousness appears at some level of complexity without explaining how a new kind can arise from ingredients that lack it.

So yes, I have read Chalmers. My point is that he does not confront this stronger problem head on. He treats the hardness as a challenge due to consciousness's explanatory superfluity, rather than recognizing that there is a principled barrier to ever getting consciousness out when it hasn't been put in.

But if you're just going to insist that any hard problem of consciousness must be whatever Chalmers is talking about - and that it suffices to have raised the problem I am raising just to say 'it's hard to explain how physical things can be conscious' then yes, I agree that we are not going to get anywhere.

I am saying a physical base that contains nothing of the phenomenal kind - so, no consciousness - cannot intelligibly generate anything that has it. — Clarendon

Yep, didn't miss this. I think you're either missing that it's been dealt with, or you are not being honest about reading Chalmers.

If consciousness is a fundamental property of matter, your question is superfluous. If you do not grasp this, you will continue to ask that question and you will never get an answer in Chalmer's terms.

If you wanted my position, you could ask for it.

This isn't worthwhile. You don't seem to understand either Chalmers or me.

I haven't denied that consciousness can be a fundamental property of matter. I don't think it is. But I haven't denied the possibility. I have said quite explicitly - numerous times now - that the physicalist must either attribute consciousness to the base (which is what that would be doing) or give up physicalism