I think that an atoms behaviour is not the same as my behaviour when I move my arm.

I believe in freewill and so when I decide to move my arm the atoms have to move. Otherwise who decides what an entity does?

Also if I am moulding clay to make a jar I think my will is what causes the clay to take a particular shape.

This makes me think will is another aspect of consciousness where even if you are paralysed you can express a desire or preference for a certain course of action.

Human civilisation and innovation to me is testament to the power of human desire and will.

I think for panpsychists, experience is different than consciousness. My question to you is how you get passed the homunuculus argument in regards to physicalist explanations: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homunculus_argument

You discussed Australian philosophers.. David Chalmers essentially coined the term "hard question of consciousness". You know the key points I think. I don't see how a misuse of language is necessarily the case. How is physical phenomena equivalent to "feeling" or an "inner aspect" without creating a dualism at some point? This is the problem with emergentism (an "emeregence" of a mind realm from a physical). The problem with most physicalist arguments is they are dualists and they don't even know it :lol:! So how do you address this?

I think using Wittgenstein to try to "dissolve" this is actually a misuse of philosophical methods. Rather, the question is posed to you regarding the hard problem. Can you answer it without hiding behind the idea that everything is just language games?

Words are used different ways in different contexts, and acknowledging that isn’t abusing language.

Many philosophers frequently use “consciousness” to refer to something entirely besides the kind of functional states you’re quoting above. The whole debate about “where consciousness comes from”, whether philosophical zombies are possible, etc, hinges on that use of the word.

I don’t think that that is a very useful use of the word. That’s not a thing of any practical importance to talk about. The important thing is the kind of thing you’re talking about. But people are nevertheless asking about the other thing, asking where does it come from, in between rocks they presume don’t have it and humans who they each know first hand do have it, and could something otherwise just like a human somehow not have it.

The panpsychist waves away that problem by saying that that thing they’re asking about is just a trivial thing that everything has. We know first hand that we have it, we grant that things similar to us have similar versions of it, so why not just grant that very different and simpler things just have very different and simpler versions of it.

What matters then is just those differences, which brings us back around to the important thing, the one you’re talking about.

I believe in freewill and so when I decide to move my arm the atoms have to move. Otherwise who decides what an entity does? — Andrew4Handel

Where does that “free will” come from? If it’s some function of your brain, then since your brain is made of atoms it’s the behaviors of those atoms that add up to your behaviorally free will. If it’s just indeterminism, the atomic scale is less deterministic than the macroscopic scale, and it is still the indeterminism of your atoms that adds up to the indeterminism of your actions.

(There are, again, multiple things to talk about here, all being referred to by the same name.)

My question to you is how you get passed the homunuculus argument in regards to physicalist explanations: — schopenhauer1

When all else fails, change topics.

acknowledging that isn’t abusing language. — Pfhorrest

Meh. It's the root cause of metaphysics, hence...

But people are nevertheless asking about the other thing, — Pfhorrest

...and the aim of philosophical analysis is to show them the error of their ways.

The alternative is the argument that @schopenhauer1 presents, which seems to be that since we can't solve the hard problem it must be turtles all the way down.

My question to you is how you get passed the homunuculus argument — schopenhauer1

Don't pass it to me.

If one assumes there are degrees of consciousness, from zero to partial to full, then one may conclude a rock has zero degree and a bright, functioning human has over ninety degrees when fully awake. If one assumes partial consciousness does not exist, then when we awaken there is no continuity and its like a light being switched on instantly. Is that possible? More likely, consciousness underlies everything, always there, and we become aware of it.

But this is naive metaphysical babble on my part, and I apologize.

But this is naive metaphysical babble on my part, and I apologize. — jgill

It's stuff we want to say, up until we say it and it is revealed to be nonsense.

Or gets posted here.

Don't pass it to me. — Banno

Exactly.. notice the wrong word there didn't change the semantics of what I'm trying to say :p.

The alternative is the argument that schopenhauer1 presents, which seems to be that since we can't solve the hard problem it must be turtles all the way down. — Banno

Well, again, how do you get past the homunculus argument against emergentism? Also, how do you NOT fall into dualism unintentionally (actually related to the homonuclus argument too).

...the homunculus argument against emergentism — schopenhauer1

Can you set out why you think I am committed to emergentism?

I suspect it would be revealing.

To be candid, my suspicion is that you have panpsychism were you should have embodied cognition.

Can you set out why you think I am committed to emergentism?

I suspect it would be revealing. — Banno

I can't really say whether you are committed to emergentism, but it does seem like the logical foil to pansychism, which is as you say "turtles all the way down". With emergentism it's duck, duck, duck, TURTLE!!. So just giving the theory most directly opposite. Emergentism is often implied by most physicalist theories. Example:

C. Lloyd Morgan and Samuel Alexander
Samuel Alexander's views on emergentism, argued in Space, Time, and Deity, were inspired in part by the ideas in psychologist C. Lloyd Morgan's Emergent Evolution. Alexander believed that emergence was fundamentally inexplicable, and that emergentism was simply a "brute empirical fact":

"The higher quality emerges from the lower level of existence and has its roots therein, but it emerges therefrom, and it does not belong to that level, but constitutes its possessor a new order of existent with its special laws of behaviour. The existence of emergent qualities thus described is something to be noted, as some would say, under the compulsion of brute empirical fact, or, as I should prefer to say in less harsh terms, to be accepted with the “natural piety” of the investigator. It admits no explanation." (Space, Time, and Deity)

Despite the causal and explanatory gap between the phenomena on different levels, Alexander held that emergent qualities were not epiphenomenal. His view can perhaps best be described as a form of non-reductive physicalism (NRP) or supervenience theory. — https://psychology.wikia.org/wiki/Emergentism

I also brought up the idea that maybe properties are not "real" as in, inhering in the matter arrangements or matter itself, but observer-dependent. I've also mentioned this theory goes back to Locke and earlier, but Locke arbitrarily split primary and secondary properties. Of course, Kant has a full blown theory of it, but his "categories" are a bit too much of speculative idealism.

I can't really say whether you are committed to emergentism, — schopenhauer1

Then the point is moot.

So back, if we can, to my objection to panpsychism. We have a clear idea of what it is to be conscious, as opposed to being unconscious; but that's not the sort of consciousness a panpsychist might attribute to a rock.

So, what is this different sort of consciousness?

The thing that a philosophical zombie, if it existed, would lack: the having of a first-person phenomenal experience, not merely the performance of third-person observable behavior.

The panpsychists says everything has that experience just like everything has behavior, and it's the differences in quality of both of those things between different things that matters.

(And therefore philosophical zombies are impossible).

So, what is this different sort of consciousness? — Banno

That aspect, property, function (or whatever) whereby its possessor is the subject of experiences.

That sense is listed in most dictionaries in some form or another.

This thread does not strike its participants as a misuse of language?

Here's a scale for assessing consciousness...
The AVPU scale has four possible outcomes for recording (as opposed to the 13 possible outcomes on the Glasgow Coma Scale). The assessor should always work from best (A) to worst (U) to avoid unnecessary tests on patients who are clearly conscious. The four possible recordable outcomes are:[2]

Alert: The patient is fully awake (although not necessarily oriented). This patient will have spontaneously open eyes, will respond to voice (although may be confused) and will have bodily motor function.
Verbal: The patient makes some kind of response when you talk to them, which could be in any of the three component measures of eyes, voice or motor - e.g. patient's eyes open on being asked "Are you OK?". The response could be as little as a grunt, moan, or slight move of a limb when prompted by the voice of the rescuer.
Pain: The patient makes a response on any of the three component measures on the application of pain stimulus, such as a central pain stimulus like a sternal rub or a peripheral stimulus such as squeezing the fingers. A patient with some level of consciousness (a fully conscious patient would not require a pain stimulus) may respond by using their voice, moving their eyes, or moving part of their body (including abnormal posturing).
Unresponsive: Sometimes seen noted as 'unconscious', this outcome is recorded if the patient does not give any eye, voice or motor response to voice or pain.

Where do atoms rate?

Are you going to classify their participation in, say, oxidation, as proof of their responsiveness to stimuli?

You sure 'bout that?

Or is this thread a neat example of philosophy as language on holiday? — Banno

This is just trolling. Obviously medical usage is not the only usage.

What I'm really interested in is how you personally have arrived at your belief. As javra answered earlier "for me, it’s not a fundamental axiomatic belief, but a fundamental known regarding what is. The "how is it so" is tangential to its so being.". That's the sort of thing I'm looking for. Is it axiomatic for you or is it derived from some other belief? How certain are you of it? etc. I may have poked about a bit to get at the meat of your beliefs, but it's those I'm interested in, not the persuasion either way. If that's OK with you.

This distinction @Pfhorrest made of 'phenomenal consciousness' seems very useful to this end. It's exactly that that I want to understand your beliefs about. It's not a distinction which makes any sense to me, not something distinct which requires a name, so I'd like to know how it seems that way to you. As I said, I shan't reply, but I will read with interest at some point. — Isaac

I've always been fine with the distinction between 'phenomenal consciousness' and other concepts of consciousness. The term has a very clear and straightforward meaning for me. The concept of consciousness in this sense is a given for me, at least I have no reason to question it. It has been pointed out many times that this idea of consciousness might just be illusory, i.e. it seems that we have consciousness in this sense, but in fact, we don't. However any 'seeming' at all about anything is sufficient for consciousness, as that is its very definition: that 'something seems to be the case', something appears in consciousness, there is a phenomenon I am aware of. The existence of an illusion of any kind is proof of the reality of phenomenal consciousness. So I am sure about what the word means, and the concept is simple and clear, at least to me.

The philosophy of phenomenal consciousness is in part about the problem of other minds. I know I have experiences, but I can't be sure if other things do, because I am not them. The possibilities are:
1) that nothing else has it (I am in a lonely world of Australian zombies)
or
2) that some things have it and others don't (lets say things with some kind of nervous system have it, but not, say, single-celled organisms. This is some kind of emergentism.)
or
3) that everything has it in some sense (panpsychism).

There are several routes to panpsychism, but the one I think is the most persuasive is probably the argument from non-vagueness. If you are unfamiliar with the topic of vagueness in logic, look up stuff on the Sorites Paradox, the Paradox of the Heap and you should find plenty of stuff. It's easy enough. Anyway, it has struck me, and also a number of other philosophers (Goff and Antony, for example) that phenomenal consciousness is one of the very few concepts that is is NOT vague. It does not admit of degree. There is no 'grey area' between consciousness and non-consciousness. And indeed this is a good way of determining if you share the same concept with someone, as others will often say "Yes, but there are degrees of consciousness, like when you are waking up. You start off asleep, then you have vague fuzzy impressions, and eventually you have clear thoughts and perceptions when you are fully awake." This is a clear indication that people are talking about the content of consciousness, rather than phenomenal consciousness itself. The idea of phenomenal consciousness is that no matter how vague and insubstantial your content of consciousness is, you are still conscious, because you are aware of something, whatever it is. And that is all that is needed to fulfil the definition, so you are fully conscious in the phenomenal sense. (NOT in the medical sense like Banno keeps returning to - that sense indeed admits of any number of degrees.) So the idea is that anything is either phenomenally conscious or not, there is no middle ground, there is no partial consciousness, there are no borderline cases, there exist no states, functions, configurations or whatever in which it is indeterminate as to whether a thing is conscious or not.

So, if we accept that this concept is non-vague, what implications does this have for a theory of phenomenal consciousness? If we think some things are conscious and others not (either in the case of my solipsism, or in the case that I think some other things are conscious as well as me) then I need to find a plausible break in nature which I can point to and say "Consciousness is on one side of that break, but not the other." It's got to be an absolutely sharp break, because consciousness cannot emerge gradually as physical systems change. It has to emerge suddenly, if it is to emerge at all. But here is the punchline: there are no sharp breaks in nature at which consciousness can plausibly emerge. In the development of an embryo, there are a million million tiny changes. The development of any macro characteristics, like a nervous system or a brain or the creation of a protein or whatever, at any relevant scale, is vague. There are borderline cases of each of these structures and any function that depends on them. Arguably, the only sharp break in nature is a jump in energy levels in an atom. Picking ONE single one of those in an evolving organism to place the emergence of consciousness would be absurdly arbitrary, and a million miles from something any emergentist is likely to want to claim. Given the absence of sharp distinctions in nature, if consciousness is somewhere, it has to be everywhere, because consciousness is not a vague concept.

Then the point is moot. — Banno

I don't think so. Emergentism I see in various forms that are not panpsychism.. Really it's one or the other. It's more binary than what you are implying actually. I don't even see a third, fourth, fifth, sixth way.. those ways are not recognizing the hard problem for what it is and mistaking it for easier problems. That happens a lot in these discussions.

To be candid, my suspicion is that you have panpsychism were you should have embodied cognition. — Banno

I am reading Terrence Deacon's Incomplete Nature who commits to this kind of theory now, actually. I am not very far in it though. However, as I said above- the hard problem is often mistaken for easier problems. It all ends up being in the emergentist camp in one way or the other. You can re-arrange the furniture to whatever starting place you want, it doesn't change that. But if you would like to tell me how embodied cognition theories are not emergentist, and how they are not committing to a hidden dualism (by having X mind "arise" or "emerge" at some point), I'm all ears.

So back, if we can, to my objection to panpsychism. We have a clear idea of what it is to be conscious, as opposed to being unconscious; but that's not the sort of consciousness a panpsychist might attribute to a rock.

So, what is this different sort of consciousness? — Banno

I would imagine that just as the consciousness of a fruit fly is different than a human, perhaps the experience of a cell is different than that of a fruit fly. It just doesn't have a clear distinction between arrangements of matter that are animals and not animals. Unless you are some sort of "vitalist" or something like that. It's more just process of elimination. I'm not even saying I am committing to panspychism, but I think it's better than other, supposedly more sophisticated theories that don't get at the hard problem at all.

So let's look at some ideas contra panspychism:
1) There is something special about biological organisms- specifically ones with neuronal activity. Great, what about neuron architecture makes it equivalent to mind?

2) There is something about interactions of body, brain, and environment (your embodied cognition). Great, how does this clear the assumption of mind either not already being in the equation somewhere when these things interact (hidden dualism), or at some point X "arising" (magic emergentism, which amounts to dualism anyways).

:up: :clap:

I think that it not at all clear how to define consciousness before attributing it to things. How you define it will probably determine how widespread you believe it is.

Well that will save you from having to think.

y "Consciousness is on one side of that break, but not the other." It's got to be an absolutely sharp break, because consciousness cannot emerge gradually as physical systems change. It has to emerge suddenly, if it is to emerge at all. — bert1

Why?

Here's a container. It has a pressure of around a hundred thousand Pa. Reduce the pressure continually to zero. It has a pressure all the way down. Allow air back in until it returns to normal. At no point was there no pressure in the container.

Is that the sort of argument that leads you to think that consciousness goes all the way down? Similar to .

Perhaps it's more like the emergence of snow flakes from a cloud; as a certain point the random movement of water molecules become ordered. Too much moisture and all you will get is hail. Too much heat and it will rain.

It does not have to be snow flakes all the way down.

Perhaps it's more like the emergence of snow flakes from a cloud; as a certain point the random movement of water molecules become ordered. Too much moisture and all you will get is hail. Too much heat and it will rain.

It does not have to be snow flakes all the way down. — Banno

It depends on how radically different experiential states are to physical states. You are still in the realm of physical arrangements of matter, not experience and internal feeling when discussing crystalline lattice structures or whatnot. Also, you have to remember, properties are wrapped in this whole conundrum of mind/body. See again here:

Are properties something inhering in matter or is it presumed to have something that gives the measurements property? I mentioned the possibly arbitrary divide in Locke between primary and secondary qualities, for example. But what are properties really without experiential knowledge? Properties seem to be something that are observed, not necessarily an actual "real" thing out there. — schopenhauer1

With that being said, it would be odd to talk about properties like liquidity, independent of mind if they are truly not something that inheres in anything but a mind. In fact, if that is the case, the only true property would be a mind, the rest stems from that (pace Locke and Kant). Talk about misuse of language.. Liquidity independent of observation might fall in your Wittgenstein misuse :).

Meh. Seems to me that you are assuming the cartesian divide, when you should be demonstrating it.

Meh. Seems to me that you are assuming the cartesian divide, when you should be demonstrating it. — Banno

I believe I have.. Lightwaves hit rods and cones.. goes through optical nerves to cortical nerves.. these nerves go through various networks and feedback loops...

Nothing seems experiential there because you simply assume it to be there when this type of activity happens. That would be a dualism of sorts. A property dualism in this case. That's odd though, as most scientific theories strive for a monism whereby what is assumed is physicalism. So, the Cartesian theater gets shoe-horned in somewhere.

Another interesting thing is these neural networks and inputs/outputs can be likened to a computer. Yet a computer is only ever interpreted by an observer. Someone has to see the outputs happen. The observe has to be in the equation. This is unlike the very basis of experience itself, which is not in the equation already before its supposed "emergence". Thus, it is not analogous to something like a computer.

This is just trolling. — bert1

Seems Banno is inclined to ignore that critical word "Constructive", in the title of the thread.