What experiment you suggest could help explain?

No, again, the whole point is that the concept of a "system" is the most generic and fundamental. Properties are features and functions of systems.....It's a new vocabulary.

Probably some sort of intrusive examination of the body while it is fully conscious. Who knows, one day we might be able to do so.

No, again, the whole point is that the concept of a "system" is the most generic and fundamental. Properties are features and functions of systems.....It's a new vocabulary.

System can not be without at least two elements, each of which must have at least one property able to interact with a property of another which will then define the force between them, and the force will define how the system behaves. Right? So I am asking, can we agree then, sentience, or basic element of it, must be either property or force?

Emergence is only one proposed solution to the hard problem. — Pfhorrest

Sure. The formulation of the hard problem does not strictly assume emergence, I was being a bit glib. But I think it springs from naturally emergentist assumptions. Namely that the universe started out unconscious, and then, as a result of non-conscious stuff doing things, consciousness arises. And explaining how this happens is hard in the strong sense Chalmers meant it. Eliminativism and panpsychism (and objections based on language and misapplications of concepts etc) sidestep the problem. The only people who have to tackle the hardness of the hard problem are emergentists it seems to me, as they are the ones who have to build this conceptual bridge between the non-experiential and the experiential.

Your thesis explains nothing, it postulates another question as an answer. And questions are not answers, you know? — Zelebg

No. My thesis takes a stand, and like math, reasons answers from axioms. The Multiverse theory is likewise a non-answer, but it allows physicists to continue thinking in materialistic terms. Which led them to the Big Bang conundrum in the first place.

The multiverse thesis explains nothing; it just kicks the ball further down the road. At least my approach allows me to think outside the box of classical cause & effect physics, and to apply the implications of quantum queerness to Big Questions.

PS__If it will make you feel any better, I'll note that my Enformationism thesis requires no miracles or magic in the world after the Big Bang. Presumably, only in Eternity/Infinity can creatio ex nihilo occur. Admittedly, some quantum phenomena, and emergences, and phase changes can seem magical, but all require exchanges of Information/Energy. In space-time reality, with natural laws, all Magic is done with smoke & mirrors to obscure the cause & effect steps between the set-up and the volia! :wink:

Namely that the universe started out unconscious, and then, as a result of non-conscious stuff doing things, consciousness arises. — bert1

Indeed. Great discussion nonetheless!

I think if the emergentist can somehow connect, say, [just as a crude example] Schopenhauer's metaphysical Will in Nature to the micro system of consciousness, then perhaps the broad-er bridge can be built....

I think you are using "system" in a non-technical, everday usage kind of way, and it sounds like you are focussing mostly on the properties of a system in classical physics.

In general systems theory, "forces" translates to relationships defined or at least represented by non-linear equations. "Properties" are combinations of variables related to one and other through salience.

You might believe that you have evidence that you are conscious, but I have absolutely none. — A Seagull

you dont need evidence, its known omnisciently.

Kant accidentally found this hidden category of knowing, and layed it out in his epistemology, but he didnt realize what it was

it was the 'analytic aposterori' category which he thought was an anomaly and empty category but was actually the greatest category of them all. omniscience. the highest, realest, way to know. and the foundation of all other knowing

Analytic a posteriori is like what Kripke talks about in "Naming and Necessity", e.g. about how it's necessarily true that Batman is Bruce Wayne, because those are just names for the same person, but we can't work out that truth with a priori reasoning, because we have to learn from the outside world that those are two names for the same person. It's about words, so it's analytic, but it's a posteriori, known from the outside world: it's about knowing what words mean, which we learn from observing other people using them.

And that subjective reality is precisely what can never be made an object - at least, not without completely changing the perspective from which it is being examined. — Wayfarer

All perspectives are defined as "subjective" and anything we can examine is by definition an object of that subjective examination isn't it? If this is right and if consciousness can be examined, then it can be an object and your talk of "completely changing the perspective" is meaningless.

The problem with this notion of rigid designation is that 'Bruce Wayne' can be a name for more than one individual, and only one of those individuals is also Batman; so it is not necessarily or "analytically" true that Bruce Wayne is Batman.

:up:

I think it springs from naturally emergentist assumptions. Namely that the universe started out unconscious, and then, as a result of non-conscious stuff doing things, consciousness arises. — bert1

Unfortunately, some people interpret Emergence Theory as a technical-sounding term for Magic. But it's not a perceptual gap, obscured by smoke & mirrors & black capes. Instead, Emergence is simply a conceptual phenomenon.

In my thesis, the universe began as non-conscious creative Energy, or as I call it, EnFormAction : the power to enform. Then via a long gradual process of Phase Transformations (emergences) raw Information (mathematics) was developed into the complex chemistry of Life (animation), and thence into the compounded complexities of Mind (intention). The Potential for Consciousness was there all along, but only at the tipping-point was it actualized, or crystallized, into the power to know. The link below is a brief overview of Evolution via EnFormAction. No magic; just continual incremental changes.


Emergence : a continuous process that appears to be sudden only because the mind reaches a tipping-point of understanding between an old meaning and a new meaning, causing a phase-change from one logical category to another.

The EnFormAction Hypothesis : http://bothandblog3.enformationism.info/page23.html

Get human thought and belief right. That's where to start. The purported 'hard problem' is dissolved - as is many other so-called 'problems' - when we quit using utterly inadequate frameworks to talk about stuff.

The purported 'hard problem' is dissolved - as is many other so-called 'problems' - when we quit using utterly inadequate frameworks to talk about stuff.

Maybe if you are a robot and wish to claim qualia is an illusion. But what is it you want to say anyway, you forgot to explain.

The problem with this notion of rigid designation is that 'Bruce Wayne' can be a name for more than one individual, and only one of those individuals is also Batman; so it is not necessarily or "analytically" true that Bruce Wayne is Batman. — Janus

I was just saying that that kind of thing, not what OmniscientNihilist was calling "omniscience", is what analytic a posteriori knowledge is about.

But to defend Kripke, what you are saying is that it is not necessary that names "Bruce Wayne" and "Batman" refer to the same individual; those words can be used to refer to other people besides that one individual we're talking about. That is true, but Kripke's point is that that individual (the one we're talking about) is necessarily identical to himself, like all individuals are, and so if that is the person being referred to by both the names "Bruce Wayne" and "Batman", then it is necessarily true that Bruce Wayne (the "Bruce Wayne" we're referring to) is Batman (the "Batman" we're referring to); but we cannot know a priori that those names are used to refer to the same individual, we learn who those names are used to refer to (and that they're used to refer to the same person) a posteriori. This is a kind of analytic knowledge, because it's about the meaning of words; but not all analytic knowledge is a priori.

For another example: the classic example of a necessary, a priori, analytic truth is that "all bachelors are unmarried". But that hinges on the meanings of "bachelor" and "married". And we acquire the knowledge of what those words mean a posteriori. That "bachelor" means "unmarried man of marriageable age" is an analytic a posteriori (and contingent) fact; that bachelors (meaning unmarried men of marriageable age) are unmarried is an analytic a priori (and necessary) fact.

In my thesis, the universe began as non-conscious creative Energy

You keep making empty statements. How does that have anything to do with this thread and what I said in the opening post?

The problem is based upon a gross misunderstanding(misconception) of human thought and belief as a result of being based upon the objective/subjective dichotomy. As is qualia...

The problem is based upon a gross misunderstanding(misconception) of human thought and belief as a result of being based upon the objective/subjective dichotomy. As is qualia...

Empty statement with no explaination, again. I conclude it is you who has gross misunderstanding of what the problem is.

On a panpsychist account the specific kind of internal perspective that humans have "emerges" along with our evolving functionality just like the "external perspective" of our behavior does [ ... ] but the mere having of an "internal perspective" at all is something that was always there at the fundamental level, and didn't suddenly pop into existence when things with no "internal perspective" were combined just right. — Pfhorrest

This 'speculation on mind' called "panpsychism" has always seemed to me nothing but a facile woo-of-the-gaps compositional fallacy proffered as a solution to the MBP which, for my money, was effectively dissolved in the 17th century by Spinoza (re: plural-aspect holism - my coinage (which, unfortunately, has been, academically degenerated into quasi-speculative flavors such as "reflexive monism", "dual-aspect monism", "neutral monism", "anomalous monism", etc)). But ok - if not fallacious as I contend it is - as a conjecture about the world of facts, what extraordinary evidence is there that corroborates this extraordinary claim? Btw, how is "panpsychism" even testable? :chin:

if that is the person being referred to by both the names "Bruce Wayne" and "Batman", then it is necessarily true that Bruce Wayne (the "Bruce Wayne" we're referring to) is Batman (the "Batman" we're referring to) — Pfhorrest

This just says that if two names refer to one person then inasmuch as they do refer to that one person, they do so necessarily. This is true in one sense, but trivially so. If that is all there is to it, then I am puzzled as to why so much fuss has been made about Kripke's contribution.

The irony of one who charges another with exactly what they are guilty of doing. I'm not interested in continually explaining with someone who doesn't even accept and/or understand when an adequate explanation has been given. I'll add this and see how it goes...

If consciousness is not adequately accounted for in terms of "objective" and "subjective", then any and all notions of human thought and belief based upon that dichotomy cannot take consciousness into proper account. Consciousness consists - in very large part - of human thought and belief.

The problem is the historical notion of "necessary". When the criterion for what counts as "necessary" is being true in all possible worlds, then all we've done is cloud our own understanding.

Something can be existentially dependent upon something else(in this world), and if we adhere to that archaic notion of "necessary" we're forced to to either deny the existential dependency in this world or say that it matters less than what we can imagine another world to be.

Flies and bottles.

What exactly was it you were applauding in this post that is different from anything I've said that you've been arguing against since? I've just been rephrasing the same thoughts since then and for some reason it seems you heartily agreed the first time and have disagreed ever since.

To answer your latest question, panpsychism is not supposed to be a "conjecture about the world of facts", the likes of which should be testable; most philosophical claims are not the kinds of things meant to be testable, they're ways of thinking that are more or less useful as part of the framework within which we think about the kinds of things that are testable. But as for an argument for it, I'll just try rephrasing the same thing I've been saying over and over again, in more detail:

There are three exhaustive possibilities when it comes to what things have any first-person experience at all, where that having of a first-person experience at all is what is meant by "phenomenal consciousness", which is the topic of the "hard problem of consciousness". Either:

-Nothing at all has it, not even humans; or
-Some things don't have it, but other things do (and if there is ultimately only one kind of stuff, which doesn't have it in its simplest form, then somehow that stuff can be built into things that somehow do have it); or
-Everything has it.

The first of those three options ends up telling people that no, they really don't have any first-person experience at all, which is prima facie absurd. I think thought experiments like Mary's Room also show the significance of first-person experience apart from third-person experience, though I don't think that that disproves physicalism like it claims to.

The second option raises this big thorny problem of figuring out exactly where in the process first-person experience comes into being, and whether things like philosophical zombies could be possible, something that is exactly like a human being except that it lacks this having of a first-person experience, since on this (second option) account it's possible for some things to not have it while other things do.

The third option dissolves that big thorny problem of the second option, without falling into the absurdity of the first option. Since (as you've elsewhere agreed) philosophy is all about dissolving illusory problems, that makes this third option the best philosophical answer to the "hard problem of consciousness".

But that only means that there isn't anything wholly new popping into being from whole cloth at any stage of development between quantum fields and human beings. What's going on in human beings is built out things that are going on in the stuff human beings are made out of. New, more complex forms of the same general kind of stuff can still arise, weakly emergent, from simpler forms of that same general kind of stuff. I think that the mere having of a first-person experience at all, "phenomenal consciousness", is completely trivial, and trying to figure out where it starts and ends is a useless quagmire. What matters is the functionality of a thing, which can be seen both in the third person through its behavior, and in the first person (by the thing itself) in its experience. That functionality, and with it features of both the behavior and the experience of the thing, can emerge (weakly) from simpler functionality of things the thing is made of, but at no point does there start or stop being any first-person experience at all, the quality of that experience just changes, enhances or diminishes, just like the mechanical behavior of the thing does.

In another post recently I wrote this really nice little summary of my whole view on this topic that I'll copy and paste here:

I think there are only physical things, and that physical things consist only of their empirical properties, which are actually just functional dispositions to interact with observers (who are just other physical things) in particular ways. A subject's phenomenal experience of an object is the same event as that object's behavior upon the subject, and the web of such events is what reality is made out of, with the nodes in that web being the objects of reality, each defined by its function in that web of interactions, how it observably behaves in response to what it experiences, in other words what it does in response to what is done to it.

In an extremely trivial and useless sense everything thus "has a mind" inasmuch as everything is subject to the behavior of other things and so has an experience of them ("phenomenal consciousness", the topic of the "hard problem"), but "minds" in a more useful and robust sense are particular types of complex self-interacting objects, and therefore as subjects have an experience that is heavily of themselves as much as it is of the rest of the world ("access consciousness", the topic of the "easy problem").

This just says that if two names refer to one person then inasmuch as they do refer to that one person, they do so necessarily. — Janus

Not quite. The necessity isn't about what the names refer to. The necessity is the identity of "two" individuals, who are actually one individual under two different names. If the Morning Star is Venus, and the Evening Star is Venus, then the Morning Star necessarily is the Evening Star because Venus is necessarily Venus. But it's possible that "Morning Star" or "Evening Star" might be used to refer to something other than the same planet, Venus; the fact that those words mean those things is contingent, and a posteriori, though still analytic because it is about words.

The irony of one who charges another with exactly what they are guilty of doing. I'm not interested in continually explaining with someone who doesn't even accept and/or understand when an adequate explanation has been given. I'll add this and see how it goes...

Continually? You never explained anything even once. I explained in the opening post why the problem is hard, what exactly is not clear to you?

If consciousness is not adequately accounted for in terms of "objective" and "subjective", then any and all notions of human thought and belief based upon that dichotomy cannot take consciousness into proper account. Consciousness consists - in very large part - of human thought and belief.

You keep making vague and empty assertions. How does that have to do with anything I said?

Not quite. The necessity isn't about what the names refer to. The necessity is the identity of "two" individuals, who are actually one individual under two different names. — Pfhorrest

This just says that if two names refer to one person then inasmuch as they do refer to that one person, they do so necessarily. — Janus

I can't see how what you say here differs in meaning from what I say. I mean the necessity is about what the names refer to, because if what two different names refer to is the same individual, then they necessarily have the same reference.

A subject's phenomenal experience of an object is the same event as that object's behavior upon the subject

Behaviour? Are you saying robots able to mimic human behaviour are consciouss?

if what two different names refer to is the same individual, then they necessarily have the same reference. — Janus

I think the confusion here might be about what this quoted bit means. I suspect you are trying to say:

[](two names refer to the same individual -> those names have the same references)

But what I've been hearing (and I'd argue is the more literal reading of your words) is:

(two names refer to the same individual) -> [](those names have the same references)

Kripke isn't saying it's necessary that "Batman" and "Bruce Wayne" refer to the same individual; it's possible for them to refer to different individuals. But [](Batman = Batman), and [](Bruce Wayne = Bruce Wayne], and if those should happen to be the same individual, then [](Batman = Bruce Wayne], because every individual is necessarily identical to themselves. The assignment of meaning to words is contingent; the identity of an individual to itself is necessary. The words don't necessarily mean the same thing, but when they do mean the same thing, the things meant by them are necessarily identical to each other because the things meant by them are just one thing.