wholly defined, described and explained — Pattern-chaser

This is similar to what I was getting at earlier. What in the world would it be for any phenomenon to be wholly defined, described and explained?

Our wish to understand whether our beliefs are justified or not? — Pattern-chaser

Justification is simply a matter of an individual feeling that they have good reasons to believe something.

Do you agree with that?

Yes. :smile:

Justification is simply a matter of an individual feeling that they have good reasons to believe something — Terrapin Station

How exactly do you mean this? Surely people can feel like they have good reasons even if they do not, such as concerns empirical claims at least?

What makes any explanation necessary or not necessary? (I mean in general, not just re this issue.)

Also what makes any explanation sufficient/adequate or insufficient/inadequate? (Again, in general.) — Terrapin Station

I don't want make any generalizations. But for this specific case the disparate nature of the Phenomenon of Neural Activity and the Phenomenon Conscious Activity demand an Explanation. The Neural Activity is in a Category of Phenomena that is quite different than the Category of Phenomena that Conscious Activity is in. It is not reasonable to say they are the same thing given their different basic realities.

The sufficiency of Explanation for this case would be to logically show how something like Neural Activity could produce, for example, that experience of the Redness of the Color Red in the Mind. With the Physicalist premise as stated you must just Believe that the Redness experience just happens with no Explanation.

↪SteveKlinko Leaving Aside your Questions, You Don't need to Randomly Capitalise Words.

Do you believe in God, or is that a software glitch?

An article about the promises and pitfalls of fMRI



...when you divide the brain into bitty bits and make millions of calculations according to a bunch of inferences, there are abundant opportunities for error, particularly when you are relying on software to do much of the work. This was made glaringly apparent back in 2009, when a graduate student conducted an fM.R.I. scan of a dead salmon and found neural activity in its brain when it was shown photographs of humans in social situations. Again, it was a salmon. And it was dead. — Wayfarer

That's funny. Might not be as consistent as I would like but the Capitalizations are not Random.

I don't want make any generalizations. But for this specific case the disparate nature of the Phenomenon of Neural Activity and the Phenomenon Conscious Activity demand an Explanation. — SteveKlinko

Are you saying that the explanations of neural etc. activity don't seem like consciousness to you, and you wouldn't count something as an explanation that doesn't seem like consciousness?

Are you saying that the explanations of neural etc. activity don't seem like consciousness to you, and you wouldn't count something as an explanation that doesn't seem like consciousness? — Terrapin Station

The explanations of neural activity are not consciousness FULL STOP.

How could they be?

The explanations of neural activity are not consciousness — Marchesk

Exactly. And explanations of photosynthesis, say, are not photosynthesis.

And explanations of how to play a C major seventh chord are not a C major seventh chord, and so on.

And explanations of how to play a C major seventh chord are not a C major seventh chord, and so on. — Terrapin Station

But if we want to explain consciousness, it's not sufficient to point to neural activity, unless the neural activity actually explains consciousness. But nobody has shown this to be the case.

Neurons firing and having a red experience aren't conceptually the same thing. It's a category mistake to say they are.

But if we want to explain consciousness, it's not sufficient to point to neural activity, unless the neural activity actually explains consciousness — Marchesk

Explanations are sets of words, right?

Explanations are sets of words, right? — Terrapin Station

Sets of words that make sense of some phenomenon, showing how such phenomena works and came to be. That sort of thing.

Sure. So neural activity isn't going to itself explain consciousness (if we read that literally). A person would have to explain consciousness.

What "makes sense of some phenomenon" is going to be different for different people, no?

Sure. So neural activity isn't going to itself explain consciousness (if we read that literally). A person would have to explain consciousness. — Terrapin Station

But an explanation of how neural activity results in a red experience would show how some neural activity is conscious, and it would dissolve the hard problem, because you could reductively explain consciousness in terms of neuroscience.

The problem with that is the terms of neuroscience are conceptually different from the terms of experience. That makes it a category mistake to say an explanation of neural activity is the same as talking about having a red experience.

What "makes sense of some phenomenon" is going to be different for different people, no? — Terrapin Station

Make sense of it scientifically or philosophically.

Things make sense to individual people or not. Not to anything else.

Presumably you think that we have explanations of photosynthesis, for example, right? But those explanations, of course, are not themselves photosynthesis (the explanation is a set of words; photosynthesis is not a set of words), and they're not going to "seem like" photosynthesis, either--at least they shouldn't, because photosynthesis, again, isn't qualitatively anything like a set of words.

So what we'd need to look at is why you take the explanations of photosynthesis to be sufficient to "make sense of photosynthesis" to you, and why you take them to be sufficient to show how photosynthesis works and came to be, while you don't take explanations of how color activates different areas of the brain to "make sense of color experiences" to you, and why you don't take them to be sufficient to show how color experiences work or came to be.

So what we'd need to look at is why you take the explanations of photosynthesis to be sufficient to "make sense of photosynthesis" to you, — Terrapin Station

Because photosynthesis can be understood in terms of chemistry, physics and biology, but experience cannot be understood in terms of brain activity.

Of course the explanation of photosynthesis isn't photosynthesis, but the explanation makes sense of what photosynthesis is. This is not the case for neuroscience when it comes to subjectivity.

Or to put it another way, we can write down the process for photosynthesis or simulate it. We don't know what that would mean for consciousness.

Or to put it another way, we can write down the process for photosynthesis or simulate it. — Marchesk

In what sense can you simulate it, though?

And statements like this, "Because photosynthesis can be understood in terms of chemistry, physics and biology, but experience cannot be understood in terms of brain activity" merely sound like arbitrary stipulations. Why can't experience be understood in terms of brain activity? We'd have to examine what the differences amount to re what's counting as "understanding" in the one case and not the other.

Are you saying that the explanations of neural etc. activity don't seem like consciousness to you, and you wouldn't count something as an explanation that doesn't seem like consciousness? — Terrapin Station

If Neural Activity seemed like Conscious Activity, in any sense of the word "Seemed", then we would have a starting point at least. But Neural Activity is in a Category of Phenomena that is quite different from the Category of Phenomena that Conscious Activity would be in. Seriously, are you implying that Neural Activity seems like Consciousness to you?

Seriously, are you implying that Neural Activity seems like Consciousness to you? — SteveKlinko

What I'm saying is that no explanation of anything seems like what it's explaining.

If someone says, "This explanation of neuronal activity (etc.--again, it's not just neuronal activity) doesn't seem like consciousness. Therefore this explanation of neuronal activity can't be an explanation of consciousness," I don't think, "Yeah, that's a good argument." What I think is, "Wait a minute--for this person, there are explanations (about anything) that seem like what they're explaining?? How in the world would that work for this person?"

Basically I think that the person must not really understand what explanations are and what the relations are between explanans and explanandum.

Seriously, are you implying that Neural Activity seems like Consciousness to you? — SteveKlinko
What I'm saying is that no explanation of anything seems like what it's explaining. — Terrapin Station

So you are playing some kind of Semantic game with this. There exist Explanations for Neural Activity. There are no Explanations for what Property in the Neurons is the cause of Conscious Activity. There is in fact Zero understanding of what that Consciousness Property of Neurons could be. The Explanatory Gap is Huge in this case.

So you are playing some kind of Semantic game with this. — SteveKlinko

You'd have to explain how you're reading it that way, because that comment makes no sense to me.

Your argument is based on the explanation not seeming like consciousness. But no explanation seems like what it's explaining. Explanations for neural activity do not SEEM like neural activity. That's the nature of explanations. There's nothing semantic about that. It's that you're using a rather odd double standard and/or you don't really understand the relationship between explanans and explanandum.

If you're going to forward an argument hinging on explanations, you'd better have a theory of explanations that is coherent, consistent, etc.

So you are playing some kind of Semantic game with this. — SteveKlinko
You'd have to explain how you're reading it that way, because that comment makes no sense to me.

Your argument is based on the explanation not seeming like consciousness. But no explanation seems like what it's explaining. Explanations for neural activity do not SEEM like neural activity. That's the nature of explanations. There's nothing semantic about that. It's that you're using a rather odd double standard and/or you don't really understand the relationship between explanans and explanandum. — Terrapin Station

It's a Semantic game and it's a Diversion from the issue which was: How can Neural Activity produce Conscious Activity? We need an Explanation for that question, and not some Dive into the meaning of the word "Explanations". If what you are saying is relevant to answering that question then I apologize because I don't get what you are driving at.

We need an Explanation for that question, and not some Dive into the meaning of the word "Explanations". — SteveKlinko

"If you're going to forward an argument hinging on explanations, you'd better have a theory of explanations that is coherent, consistent, etc."

Objecting to critically looking at your theory of explanations isn't a good argument.

We need an Explanation for that question, and not some Dive into the meaning of the word "Explanations". — SteveKlinko
"If you're going to forward an argument hinging on explanations, you'd better have a theory of explanations that is coherent, consistent, etc."

Objecting to critically looking at your theory of explanations isn't a good argument. — Terrapin Station

I don't have a theory of Explanations. Where did you get an idea like that? Ok then what did I say that seems like a theory of Explanations. All I ever intended was to get an Explanation for how Neural Activity can produce or lead to Conscious Activity. Nothing exotic about this question. It just needs an answer.

Right, so the first thing I typed there was, ""If you're going to forward an argument hinging on explanations, you'd better have a theory of explanations that is coherent, consistent, etc."

Right, so the first thing I typed there was, ""If you're going to forward an argument hinging on explanations, you'd better have a theory of explanations that is coherent, consistent, etc." — Terrapin Station

Ok, I give up. What is your theory of Explanations? Lets just use your theory and answer the question: How does Neural Activity produce Conscious Activity?

"How does Neural Activity produce Conscious Activity?"

Neural activity is something that we see with the eyes through some instrument. According to the physicalists everything is deep down made of particles whose sole property is to move one another in a certain way, as described in the mathematical equations that make up their theories. So according to the physicalist, neural activity is merely motion of particles in the brain.

Then indeed the physicalist is faced with the problem that the experience of red or of a high-pitched sound or of love is not made of moving particles, it is something of its own. The physicalist may see that certain patterns of his own neural activity correlate somewhat with certain feelings he experiences, but at no point in his mathematical equations there is the possibility of there being any feeling at all, for all there is in his equations is particles in motion with the sole ability to provoke motion. He could make endless simulations from his models and at no point would he find the emergence of a feeling, of a conscious experience. That's the case with all modern fundamental physical theories, general relativity, quantum field theories, the standard model of particle physics, string theory and so on, their equations are missing something fundamental about existence.

The best they could do is say that maybe all conscious experiences correlate perfectly with a corresponding pattern of particle motions, but that still wouldn't explain how conscious experiences emerge from particle motions at all, and if they claim that there is nothing to explain beyond the correspondence at the very least they would need to include in their equations the potential of particles to elicit conscious experiences, which they haven't done. As it stands these equations are empirically wrong, and you test that every time you have a conscious experience.

Then the view that conscious experiences have a one-to-one correspondence with particle motions and thus serve zero survival advantage is hard to reconcile with the theory of evolution, if what we desire and feel doesn't cause anything and choice is an illusion then why did we evolve that at all? And why does it feel bad when something threatens our survival, that would be quite the extraordinary coincidence.

A more coherent view than the widespread physicalist one would be that particles are not all that is, that it's not just that particles have the ability to elicit feelings through their relative motions but that there is more than particles, that particles are only one aspect of the "more", that our eyes are one tool we have to see the universe and what we feel is another tool, which we really shouldn't discard as an unecessary byproduct.

Very Good, You get it. Thank You for the great post!