The “hard” (non-)problem of phenomenal consciousness is whatever’s left after that: if we built perfect functional simulation of a human, would it have a first-person experience like we do? If no, why not, what’s different about it, besides the functionality that we’ve already stipulated is the same? If yes, then what is it besides the functionality, which we’ve already bracketed, that gives it that first person experience? My answer is “nothing” — Pfhorrest

So you would be inclined to agree with Daniel Dennett, then? David Bentley Hart's observation about his work is that 'it is all very obvious: Under certain chemical and environmental conditions, life will emerge in time and develop organisms with large brains, and these organisms will of necessity be social organisms. And social organisms require mental activity to survive and flourish. For Dennett, all evolutionary developments occur because they incorporate useful adaptations.'

That seems to mesh well with your account.

There, that explains everything. — Zelebg

It's the kind of thing a demon would have you believe, were there such beings.

You mean if we take all the bees that compose an emergent whole, so that their "collective consciousness" is parallel to brain consciousness? — Zelebg

What I meant was the swarming effect reminds us of observing quantum mechanics/randomness, and EM moving particles associated with the conscious energy analogy. Or brain waves as it were.

Obviously something supernatural has to explain our stream of consciousness and connect the dots, but the point is to posit concepts that seem relevant:

1. Metaphysical Will- causation
2. Emergence- natural phenomena
3. Panpsychism- consciousness

Are those things still relevant as starting points in the discussion? Or did we say that they were not all that helpful...it seems there are bits and pieces of those concepts to everyone's theory... .

It's a pseudo-materialist solution, in my view. It says there must be some extra, magical ingredient in everything which is 'consciousness' in some latent or implicit form, which then manifests in living beings in particular. — Wayfarer

Panpsychism, which assumes that every particle in the cosmos is Conscious, does make it sound like there is some "magical ingredient" in addition to the material substance. That's why my thesis avoids using the misleading terms "psyche" and "consciousness". Not because they are inherently wrong, but they can be misinterpreted as implying that particles are conscious in the same way humans are. But atoms mechanically absorb & emit energy, and change physically, without forming any abstract images (imagination). Instead, I propose a view that could be called Pan-Informationism.

In the 21st century, we are familiar with computers that process mathematical (immaterial) information, but are not perceived as conscious, though some can fake it (Chinese Room thought experiment). So, "Information" per se, does not necessarily imply Qualia : the "what it's like" of conscious conception. Ironically, the original meaning of "Information" referred to the metaphysical quality of Knowledge (awareness). But, we now know that it can also refer to physical states and mechanical processes of matter/energy (electrical logic gates in computers).

So, I take that dual definition of "Information" literally, and infer that Qualia only emerged from Quanta after 14 billion years, not by magic, but by evolution. The potential for awareness was inherent in Energy (EnFormAction) from the beginning. And Emergence is not an act of magic, but of evolution (turning the page to reveal something that was there all along). Thus, your assessment is correct that " 'consciousness' in some latent or implicit form, which then manifests in living beings in particular." But the imputation of "magic" is unnecessary, because Emergence of new properties is a function of Whole Systems, that is completely natural, but immaterial. By that I mean, qualitative properties exist only in subjective Consciousness, not in objective Matter. Hence, all Magic is subjective. :cool:


Emergence : emergence occurs when an entity is observed to have properties its parts do not have on their own. These properties or behaviors emerge only when the parts interact in a wider whole.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergence

Emergence : Emergence is 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.
http://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page8.html

Qualia : the internal and subjective component of sense perceptions, arising from stimulation of the senses by phenomena.

Dualistic Information : The act of enforming (energy) and the product (material form). Both verb and noun.

it has no possible answer as to what this 'stuff' is or how it can be observed or brought into the ambit of empirical analysis. So it becomes another of the 'promissory notes of materialism', something which we are assured 'science will one day come to understand'. — Wayfarer

On my account there isn’t any “stuff” that would need to be observed or empirically analyzed, and there isn’t anything more for science to understand about it. I’m not positing that there are any other kinds of substances or properties besides physical things and their ordinary empirical properties — I’m saying that noting the difference between a first person and third person perspective on that same physical/empirical stuff is sufficient account of “phenomenal consciousness” and there’s nothing more that needs saying about that.

It sounds like you’re talking about a function that I would call perception, which is the interpretation of sensations, which are one direction of fit of phenomenal experiences, which are what I’m talking about. Such perception is the second to last major class of function in the larger function that I picture access consciousness to be, the last one being reflexive judgement of those perceptions and the formation of belief through one’s self-awareness and self-control. I suspect you are instead picturing the whole of access consciousness as just that last reflexive step, and so everything before it as “phenomenal consciousness”, but I don’t think that’s consistent with the original definitions of the terms.

In the picture below, the first layer is what I consider phenomenal consciousness, and I think you think the third layer is access consciousness, and you group the second layer with the first while I group it with the third:



That bit you quoted sounds like something I agree with, but not anything to do with phenomenal consciousness.

I'd say the question is: what or who is the subject of experience? — Zelebg

I think the most important thing to realise is that it's an open question. — Wayfarer

There isn’t a “subject of experience”, per se, but only the representation of an inherent, dedicated, human capacity, which each your propositions have contained in it.

If one thinks himself the subject of experience, he does so only because he thinks in relation to the object being experienced. In doing that, he still has thought nothing of the one who is thinking himself the subject, which he cannot do without the use of exactly the same phenomenon to account for the phenomenon he is using. A silly employment of the homunculus argument.

The only way to install a subject at all, is to create one within the tenets of a epistemological theory, such that something which appears to be the case (thinking) is justified. If it be granted the human cognitive system is representational, then the fundamental condition for thinking must be merely representational itself.

“....Consequently, only because I can connect a variety of given representations in one consciousness, is it possible that I can represent to myself the identity of consciousness in these representations. (...) The thought, "These representations given in intuition belong all of them to me," is accordingly just the same as, "I unite them in one self-consciousness, or can at least so unite them"; and although this thought is not itself the consciousness of the synthesis of representations, it presupposes the possibility of it; that is to say, for the reason alone that I can comprehend the variety of my representations in one consciousness, do I call them my representations, for otherwise I must have as many-coloured and various a self as are the representations of which I am conscious. Synthetical unity of the manifold in intuitions, as given a priori, is therefore the foundation of the identity of apperception itself, which antecedes a priori all determinate thought. This principle is the highest in all human cognition....”

Identity of apperception is then represented by what is commonly called the thinking subject, the “I” in I think, that to which all experiences belong as objects, to a subject that cognizes them as such.

Theoretically.

The hard problem is hard because it assumes emergence.
— bert1

Why is emergence a problem? Emergence is a well known property of complex physical systems. — Pantagruel

It is. But it needs to be considered on a case by case basis. Most stories about emergence are perfectly plausible. But some bugger the mind. For example, its a headfuck to try and figure out how spatial stuff could emerge from non-spatial stuff. If you have a bunch of things that don't take up any space at all, what are they supposed to do to each other such that they end up with something that takes up space? Maybe it's possible, but you need a fuck of a good storyteller to make this convincing. Similarly with consciousness - I want the story of how non-conscious stuff interacting can end up with conscious stuff. Maybe it's possible. Some take a piecemeal approach, and divide up the concept of consciousness into several parts, and then set about attempting to move from one to the next. I haven't heard anything convincing at all so far. It's not enough to say 'hey, fluidity emerges from interactions of hydrogen and oxygen without a problem, therefore I can say anything emerges from anything without a problem.' No, you have to tell a convincing story.

And there are structural problems that work against the emergentist. One big one is that things are either conscious or not. Consciousness seems to be a non-vague concept. That is, if something is conscious at all, it is conscious. And if it isn't, it isn't conscious at all. There are no states that are indeterminate as to whether they are conscious or not. Are there? Maybe that's wrong. But if it's right, that presents a problem for emergence. Emergent properties typically emerge gradually in systems whose defining properties are vague. Fitting in a sudden switch from non-conscious to conscious in such systems is difficult and arbitrary. Such stories are unlikely to be convincing. But if you have such a story to present, please do so.

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. — Gnomon

Why can't all these emergences happen in the dark? Why is consciousness a necessary consequence of all this?

I want the story of how non-conscious stuff interacting can end up with conscious stuff. — bert1

I just read von Bertalanffy's book on Systems Theory. Near the beginning he talks about how metaphysical theories are validated by their "elegance".

Any attempt to conflate systems of different hierarchical levels inevitably results in category confusion. Mental concepts are valid within mental realms. Experiments in sociology (which is pure human behaviour) validate the use of NDS analysis. If you are looking for the touchpoint of mind and matter well, I don't think that's out of the question. What it concerns, though, is the relationship of nested hierarchical systems. And, specifically, the appearance of "trigger" subsystems whose function is to focus interaction from a subsystem to its parent. Kind of like the study of encephalization, the development of the central nervous system and brain.

What it concerns, though, is the relationship of nested hierarchical systems. And, specifically, the appearance of "trigger" subsystems whose function is to focus interaction from a subsystem to its parent. Kind of like the study of encephalization, the development of the central nervous system and brain. — Pantagruel

That sounds interesting, but I don't understand it.

Not because they are inherently wrong, but they can be misinterpreted as implying that particles are conscious in the same way humans are. — Gnomon

Particles are conscious in exactly the same way humans are. Particles have experiences. Humans have experiences. In so far as they both have experiences, or are capable of experience, they are both conscious. They have different experiences, but we are talking about consciousness, not content.

"Everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler." ~Albert Einstein

But the "information-processing" part in general doesn't suddenly spring into being; everything all the way down is capable of processing information, at some level.
— Pfhorrest — fdrake

@Pfhorrest Well, yeah, but not all "information processing" is the same. Below some-as-yet-determined physical threshhold (perhaps this), information processing is irreflexive, or insufficiently (e.g. too much lag-time) reflexive, for any degree of "phenomenal self-representation" to inhere. Just as e.g. below a certain atomic mass (96u or less) atoms are not radioactive.

Two accounts:

(A)

So - phenomenal consciousness is defined as independent of access consciousness. These are conceptual distinctions.

But:

Observations:

Phenomenal consciousness and access consciousness track each other.

Access consciousness comes in degrees.

Conclusions:

Therefore, phenomenal consciousness comes in degrees.

Therefore, panpsychism + no explanatory gap + no p-zombies.

The counter argument (@180 Proof) seems to be:

(B)

Observations:

Consciousness (Phenomenal consciousness and/or access consciousness) tracks reflexive information processing.

Reflexive information processing comes in degrees.

Conclusions:

Therefore, a conceptual distinction between phenomenal consciousness and access consciousness is useless. There's only one aspect of consciousness, which when present in a large degree, seems to yield phenomenal consciousness ("what is it like" states).

Therefore no p-zombies, no explanatory gap, but also no panpsychism (maybe).

It looks to me like the difference between (A) and (B) arises solely through propagating the conceptual distinction between phenomenal and access consciousness through the same evidence; the argument is really over whether the distinction makes sense in light of what we know about consciousness. — fdrake

:clap: Yeah, in a nutshell ... Thanks for summarizing us.

Is there one construct (functionality alone, account B) or two (functionality and phenomenality, account A)? — fdrake

Gone to Occam's barber (mindful though of what Uncle Albert says ...) :wink:

Such perception is the second to last major class of function in the larger function that I picture access consciousness to be, the last one being reflexive judgement of those perceptions and the formation of belief through one’s self-awareness and self-control. I suspect you are instead picturing the whole of access consciousness as just that last reflexive step, and so everything before it as “phenomenal consciousness”, but I don’t think that’s consistent with the original definitions of the terms.

I'm not talking about consciousness, perception, or judgment. I’m talking about the simple fact that experience implies experiencer.

There isn’t a “subject of experience”, per se, but only the representation of an inherent, dedicated, human capacity, which each your propositions have contained in it.

I am not talking about the subject in the contents of the experience, but the subject outside of the experience which is subjected to experience that experience. This subject is the subject per se, and it is the only mystery here, so I have no idea why after 5 pages we are still not talking about the same thing.

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01656/full
“I” and “Me”: The Self in the Context of Consciousness

Why can't all these emergences happen in the dark? Why is consciousness a necessary consequence of all this? — bert1

Emergence is in the mind of the beholder. So no Mind, no illusion of sudden change. A magician could try to make his assistant disappear without using a cape, but then the trap door that's usually hidden in the dark would be apparent, and nobody would be fooled. Emergence only seems like magic, because the audience is figuratively "in the dark".

What I meant was the swarming effect reminds us of observing quantum mechanics/randomness, and EM moving particles associated with the conscious energy analogy.

Far more interesting parallel is between ants or bee colony and the brain as a colony of brain cells. Perhaps it's due to our lack of understanding, but right now ontologically there is no difference to claim that a single unified consciousness arises from the bee colony as a whole due to bee-signals, and that it arises in the neuron colony as a whole due to neuron-signals.

There is a lot to be said about many interesting aspects of the mind that this parallel brings into focus, but I'll just mention one more for now. It can not be denied that at least part of the consciousness is an emergent system or entity simply due to the fact there is this unification of elements, seemingly independent and autonomous agents, working together as a whole to achieve a common goal, which they individually might not even be aware of.

Okay, so am I, but then that is prior to any kind of processing of the experiences.

Particles are conscious in exactly the same way humans are. — bert1

How do you know this? I can only infer that other humans are conscious because they behave the same way as I do in similar situations. Do particles behave like humans? Do they show signs of fear as a strange energetic particle approaches? Do they love their entangled partners? Is your little toe conscious in "exactly the same way" as you are?

Consciousness is an evolutionary advantage for living creatures, but how would it be adaptive for atoms and billiard balls? My worldview makes a functional distinction between raw Information and highly evolved Consciousness.

For example, its a headfuck to try and figure out how spatial stuff could emerge from non-spatial stuff. If you have a bunch of things that don't take up any space at all, what are they supposed to do to each other such that they end up with something that takes up space?

Why do you say mental properties are non-spatial? Do you mean non-material? In any case emergence does imply that new emergent entities and their properties are functions ultimately based on spatial interaction of material elements, at least as much as you can say for a software algorithm at the time of execution to be a function of moving electrons in the hardware components of a computer.

Why do you say mental properties are non-spatial? — Zelebg

I didn't mean to imply that at all. Sorry if I was not clear. I was simply making an analogy between space and consciousness. Being spatial is not the kind of thing that can emerge intuitively. Similarly with consciousness, I am suggesting.

I am not talking about the subject in the contents of the experience — Zelebg

Good. All we are allowed to talk about, with respect to experience, are the objects in the contents of it; experience is always of phenomena, because they are conditioned by the categories. The self, the entity that reasons, is not conditioned by the categories, hence is not phenomenon, hence not found in the contents of experience.
————————-

subject outside of the experience which is subjected to experience that experience. — Zelebg

Yes, the theory-specific, metaphysical “I”, that under which the plurality of objects of experience are united in a single representational consciousness. What I meant when I said your proposition and wayfarer’s proposition both have contained in them as subject (as conjoined with predicate in a propositional construction): you both use the representational “I”........as we all do as a matter of course.
———————-

This subject is the subject per se, and it is the only mystery here — Zelebg

Yes, the subject of whichever theory of mind, or general cognitive theory, chosen to dignify its validity.

It can not be denied that at least part of the consciousness is an emergent system or entity simply due to the fact there is this unification of elements, seemingly independent and autonomous agents, working together as a whole to achieve a common goal, which they individually might not even be aware of. — Zelebg

Absolutely. That speaks to the existential piece relative to Schopenhauer's Metaphysical Will in nature.

My takeaway there is that another concept of self-awareness deserves inclusion... meaning lower forms of consciousness would then be not self-aware. Seems obvious.

Yet a genetic code makes those natural things (lower life forms) work appropriately. However, the bridge that still has to be built is, how does higher life-forms emerge or evolve from the lower life-forms?

Metaphysical Will is one explanation. But unfortunately it's not a purely empirically based theory.

So back to your 'analogies' that help us come close to 'plausibility' here... which of course is still worth exploring...

Consciousness reveals itself not only in our subjective experiences, but it also reveals itself in others, which makes it objective too. So, it has both a subjective component and an objective component. We see and hear from others those same subjective experiences that we experience; and in so far as they are separate from our experiences they are not only subjective, but objective too.

If I was to speculate about consciousness, I would say that consciousness unites everything. It's at the bottom of all reality. It creates all that we experience. There is nothing more fundamental than consciousness.

If I was to speculate about consciousness, I would say that consciousness unites everything. It's at the bottom of all reality. It creates all that we experience. There is nothing more fundamental than consciousness.

Why the brain then, what's it for? And what do we do with this theory, does it explain any experiment, does it propose any experiment, or something, anything?

Our consciousness seems to access this reality through the brain. My best guess is that experiments must be done with DMT, and more studies need to be done on NDEs.

Yes I agree with you.If I am conscious and others exhibit similar behaviours to me then it would be churlish to deny that they have consciousness too. Particularly if they claim to be conscious as it would be nigh impossible for a non-conscious person to grasp the concept of consciousness.

Self awareness would seem to be closely linked to consciousness. Perhaps awareness of one's own existence generates consciousness or at least is a pre-requisite for consciousness.

But self awareness is different as it can be scientifically detected as when animals are presented with a mirror to see if they can identify the image in the mirror as being themselves or merely another of the same species.

It would certainly seem that most 'higher' mammals have some degree of self awareness and by inference consciousness.

It may be interesting to speculate on which animals have consciousness and which do not. Certainly chimpanzees do but what about lobsters? Perhaps not.

In the 21st century, we are familiar with computers that process mathematical (immaterial) information, but are not perceived as conscious, though some can fake it (Chinese Room thought experiment). So, "Information" per se, does not necessarily imply Qualia : the "what it's like" of conscious conception. Ironically, the original meaning of "Information" referred to the metaphysical quality of Knowledge (awareness). — Gnomon

The issue I have is that there is no information 'per se'. The word itself has many meanings, depending on the context; it's not as is there is an identifiable fundamental type called information. It also seems to me the only naturally-occuring process it makes sense to speak in terms of 'information' is living organisms, as DNA encodes biological information. But there is no such information encoded in the vast majority of matter and energy found throughout the cosmos.

If one thinks himself the subject of experience, he does so only because he thinks in relation to the object being experienced. In doing that, he still has thought nothing of the one who is thinking himself the subject, which he cannot do without the use of exactly the same phenomenon to account for the phenomenon he is using — Mww

That there is a subject is evidenced by the fact of your post - the words didn't spontaneously organise themselves on a screen and then post themselves - a person did it, to convey a point, to persuade another to change their view.

the foundation of the identity of apperception itself, which antecedes a priori all determinate thought. This principle is the highest in all human cognition....” — Mww (quoting Kant)

'Highest' in what sense? Along what axis? Compared to what?

The issue I have is that there is no information 'per se'. The word itself has many meanings, depending on the context; it's not as is there is an identifiable fundamental type called information. It also seems to me the only naturally-occuring process with reference it makes sense to speak in terms of 'information' is living organisms, as DNA encodes biological information. But there is no such information encoded in the vast majority of matter and energy found throughout the cosmos.

All information we know of is embedded in spatial arrangement of matter, so information is just 'geometrical relations of matter' in essence. Context is given when one arrangement interacts with another, say a program running on a computer prints stuff on the screen. It's hard or impossible to tell how meaningful any interaction is without knowing or understanding the "purpose", i.e. future consequences the product of that interaction may have on other arrangements of matter.

Therefore, there is information in every atom. Context for H and O is given by their specific interaction which produces water. How water is meaningful is hard to tell until you land on planet Earth, for example.

All information we know of is embedded in spatial arrangement of matter, so information is just 'geometrical relations of matter' in essence — Zelebg

No, that just won't do it. Crystals don't convey or contain any information unless it is encoded in them intentionally. And information is not 'every atom'. Nor is water, nor anything else. intrinsically information-bearing, unless it is intepreted.

This idea that 'everything is information' is a furphy, I'm sure.