Then you have to accept that consciousness is a property of matter. Sometimes it shows up depending on something and sometimes doesn't show up. Otherwise we are dealing with magic. — bahman
Interesting. Do you propose that there can be mind where there is no matter? That is, that mind is based in something not (in any way) matter out of which it emerges? Presumably you agree there is such a thing/phenomenon called mind. And presumably you agree it emerges. Or do you have it Athena-like coming into being (somehow) entirely complete? (Which would lead to either humans possessing a complete mind, or not any mind at all. In the latter case whatever it is still needs to be accounted for.) — tim wood
Absolutely - I think consciousness is an emergent property of matter. I could have used that as my example of emergence except I thought it might complicate things. Other emergent phenomena - the market, climate, ecological communities, human communities, etc., etc., etc. — T Clark
bahman, I cannot make sense of your arguments. Likely you can express them clearly and unambiguously in fewer than five short and simple propositions. Please do so, otherwise I shall have to give up because of what appears to be incoherence on your part. — tim wood
But this merely leaves consciousness - mind - as grounded in matter at some higher level of aggregation. This seems not only reasonable, but also the only way it can be. Else mind without matter, which is already rejected.Lets see if this works. What I am trying to say is that can not observe consciousness if matter which is constitutes of electron, proton and neutron (quarks) considering the fact that they have properties like, mass, charge, etc. but not consciousness. — bahman
No, consciousness is not an emergent property but a property of matter. Otherwise your argument wouldn't cut. I however think that you will have difficult time to convince people that consciousness is a property like charge and mass of electron. — bahman
It seems, then, that mind must come into being as mind qua mind. How is this coming into being not an emergent quality from parts that don't have the quality? — tim wood
"The whole universe of science is built upon the world as directly experienced, and if we want to subject science itself to rigorous scrutiny and arrive at a precise assessment of its meaning and scope, we must begin by reawakening the basic experience of the world of which science is the second-order expression"
That simply mean that science cannot explain consciousness. — bahman
I don't see where you read that. That simply means that some properties will appear as emergent as long as we have not found the proper scientific paradigm to make them fit. Re consciousness, that again simply means that, if consciousness appears to be an emergent property, then it is because we have no scientific paradigm ready to explain away those properties. Or perhaps that the properties we ask to explain away themselves no longer fit the scientific paradigm we use to explain away everything else. — Akanthinos
How a unique consciousness could arises from parts motions and configurations? We don't observe separate consciousness related to separate parts. — bahman
I think thats the correct usage of the word. Yes? No? — T Clark
Emergence is not an easy thing to define, and how you define it is half the problem itself, so the idea of a correct usage is already deleterious. Emergence can be presented as an acausal synchronic supervenience of properties, or it can be presented as a dynamical nonsynchronic causal relata, like Timothy O'Connor does. And in dozens of other ways. I would agree that standard supervenience emergentism is wrong, at least because it does not properly explain how these relata could be primitives. — Akanthinos
I went back through the past 10 or so of your posts but I'm not sure what your argument is in this context. Can you briefly restate it. — T Clark
Because each parts are vested in the same context, from the same point of view, that of a singular organism.
The problem of passive synthesis is solved through a proper analysis of the multitude of "selves" generated by a living organism, and even more dramatically by a mature human being. We don't "observe separate consciousness related to separate parts" because we are normally functionning living beings that relate directly to their sense-data through a unification of those different inputs on a singular field. This could and sometime is different. Alien Hand Syndrome is a thing, you know.
We also don't have a tendency to question the unity of our consciousness because we all have an autobiographical and historical selves which remain more or less the same in-between our daily losses of consciousness. Everytime I wake up I could start by questionning who I am, if I'm not a new being that just started existing. But then I would each time remember that I am myself, that I have my particular history, and that as far as I can tell, that history is just about the same one as the one I would have come up with yesterday, and would come up with tomorrow. That, although it is not an exercise we actually need to consciously perform, unifies my experiences and consciousness just as much as the peculiarity that is passive synthesis. — Akanthinos
For what regards consciousness which is a side topic one can argue that it is impossible to measure it. — bahman
We were discussion whether electron for example is conscious. He answered yes. Then I question how a unique consciousness is possible when all parts of your body are conscious separately? — bahman
Well, this thread was about emergence. I argue that it is impossible. — bahman
Let me if I can summarize the discussion. Matter is made of parts which each part has a set of properties. For example electron has, charge, mass, spin, position and motion. The properties of the system however is a function of its parts' properties. There is always an observable which is defined as average of properties of parts. Let me give you an example: Think of pressure that a gas exerts to the wall of container. Pressure is an observable. It is related to average force which atoms/molecules of gas exert to the wall of container. That is true for any other observable such as density, average velocity, temperature, and more complex things such as conductivity in more complex system such as superconductor, etc. In all these physical examples an observable in macro scale is expressed in term of average properties of the parts. There is no such a thing as emergence in physics. — bahman
For what regards consciousness which is a side topic one can argue that it is impossible to measure it.
— bahman
The smallest measurement possible is a token of presence : if you can't measure something, you either haven't defined it well enough for measurement, or there is nothing at all there to measure. — Akanthinos
We were discussion whether electron for example is conscious. He answered yes. Then I question how a unique consciousness is possible when all parts of your body are conscious separately?
— bahman
Then my answer still holds, despite not being about electrons. A unique consciousness is possible through the passive synthesis of our inputs, when it is acheived. If it is not, and perhaps it is the normal state of affairs for certain living beings, then you truly have multiple consciousness related to different body parts in a single organism. There is nothing a priori wrong with this, and there is no deep philosophical connection to make with this, except perhaps in regards to the fact that, seemingly, most living beings do unify their experiential data into a single "stream of consciousness". — Akanthinos
Well, this thread was about emergence. I argue that it is impossible.
— bahman
I've already shown you why your, let's say, your meriology doesn't represent O'Connors type of causal asynchronous emergence, but it doesn't represent the standard supervenience account of emergence either. — Akanthinos
In your account, all properties are defined en bloc, at once, with no regards to dynamic relations. In the standard supervenience account, it becomes necessary to define further subsets of Pi, where each of those subsets may also be attributed properties. The relational properties of those subsets are seen, by virtue of their structural peculiarity, as equally primitive as those properties we generally would define as primitives. Since the effects described are not technically the result of causal relationships, but of relationships betweens sets of causally entangled properties, they are additionnally often not described as 'causal' events, but rather as 'synchronous' events. — Akanthinos
I don't have any problem with the examples you provide, except they are not examples of emergence. They are examples of statistical mechanics. Those are completely different things. — T Clark
Also, forgive me for being a nitpicker, but temperature is a measure of the average kinetic energy of the particles, not force. I recognize that doesn't affect the point you're trying to make. — T Clark
Dynamic is important and I included it as a property of parts.
The question is how a unified subjective experience is possible when each part experience different thing. You are not providing an answer to that. — bahman
Can you give me an example, except than consciousness, of a property of a system that is not function of properties of system's parts? — bahman
This idea is problematic, relations are not intrinsic properties of parts. — aporiap
As a quick example, the words 'Dog' and 'God' are composed of the same letters but form different words. The difference is in the relative position of each letter. If you decompose these words into letters, you don't conserve the relations between the parts and so you loose the properties intrinsic to the whole word (that it sounds like 'dog' vs 'god'; that it means 'dog' and not 'god'). You can make the same point with molecular systems -- e.g. constitutional isomers. These are compounds that are formed of the same atoms but with a different bonding pattern [e.g. 2OH vs H2O2; 1-propanol vs 2-propanol]. It's the bonding pattern in combination with the properties of the constituent atoms that determine the properties of the whole compound. — aporiap
Since the relations are unique to the whole and determine the whole's properties, you can make a case for a kind of 'soft' emergence:
1) The properties of wholes are determined by the parts of a whole and their unique relations with each other [e.g. [behind(x, y); in front of(x, y)]:
2) A system is reducible if all components are reducible
3) Relations are not reducible
Therefore by (1), (2), (3) the properties of wholes are not reducible. — aporiap
The question is how a unified subjective experience is possible when each part experience different thing. You are not providing an answer to that.
— bahman
That question is essentially like wondering why is it that an entire car is capable of movement when that movement is entirely born out of motion of its parts. It is not terribly relevant philosophically. In General System terms, it marks the difference between an output of a part of the system, and an output of the system itself, that is all. — Akanthinos
Can you give me an example, except than consciousness, of a property of a system that is not function of properties of system's parts?
— bahman
Urban traffic, movements in flock of birds, hell, even hashtags and retweets. — Akanthinos
No, the problem of emergence of a unique consciousness is different from example you gave. — bahman
Of course urban traffic is a function of number of cars and structure of road. — bahman
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