The hard problem of materialism - multiverse

Eugen

Lately, materialists have found an oasis of hope in the Multiverse. There is no big deal consciousness is here, because there's an infinite number (or a very big number) of universes out there with different laws and constants and this is just another universe where the constants happen to be suited for consciousness, they say. Well, this doesn't change absolutely anything, it is just another tactic of inventing something new and state that ''it proves this and that''.

So let's play this game and assume we have an infinite Mega/Multi-verse:
1. No restrictions: all possibilities that we can and cannot imagine are there. The problem is that this includes supernatural because we imagine it - fatal for materialism;
2. Restricted: only materialistic infinite reality. The problem with this view is that it basically makes absolutely no difference if materialism does not show that consciousness itself is nothing special.

This is not a statement that consciousness is something special, but if it is, then the mere fact that it exists even in an infinite reality represents something extraordinary, due to the restrictive nature of that infinite reality. So size does not matter here.

Conclusion: even if the reality is infinite, materialism has to go back at the same core-issue and prove consciousness either does not exist, or to state the identity theory, both having very implausible successful outcomes.

''Consciousness is special'' imply:
1. Strong emergence/panpsychism/dualism, other non-materialistic views
2. It exists
3. Movement of atoms in the brain are not the same thing with consciousness

Streetlight

Exactly who posits the multiverse as a solution to the question of consciousness? Name names.

Eugen

↪StreetlightX

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z27k9_NP4FU

tim wood

↪Eugen

1. No restrictions: all possibilities that we can and cannot imagine are there. The problem is that this includes supernatural because we imagine it - fatal for materialism; — Eugen

Eh? How is that? How did supernatural become natural?

I do not understand the reasoning in your OP. What is your point, your conclusion? What the arguments for it?

Conclusion: even if the reality is infinite, materialism has to go back at the same core-issue and prove consciousness either does not exist, or to state the identity theory, both having very implausible successful outcomes.

''Consciousness is special'' imply:
1. Strong emergence/panpsychism/dualism, other non-materialistic views
2. It exists
3. Movement of atoms in the brain are not the same thing with consciousness — Eugen

Consciousness exists, given, yes? I do not know what "special" means in your context. The identity theory seems to mean that consciousness is accounted for by physical nature. Is there a problem with that?

Pfhorrest

Strong emergence/panpsychism/dualism, other non-materialistic views — Eugen

Panpsychism isn't necessarily non-materialist (assuming by "materialism" you just mean "physicalism"). One of the biggest contemporary proponents of it is Galen Strawson, who straight up titled a paper on the topic "Physicalism Entails Panpsychism".

Eugen

How did supernatural become natural? — tim wood

What you define as supernatural for this universe may be natural in other universes.

The identity theory seems to mean that consciousness is accounted for by physical nature. Is there a problem with that? — tim wood

You were a bit vague with that. The identity theory states that consciousness is exactly the same thing with a particular particles interaction, not an effect of that, not correlated with it. Is there a problem with that? Many say it is, but it is not the topic of this discussion.

Eugen

Panpsychism isn't necessarily non-materialist (assuming by "materialism" you just mean "physicalism"). — Pfhorrest

You are right, but the mainstream ideologies are called materialism and panpsychism, and they are competitors.

Pfhorrest

↪Eugen

I wouldn't call panpsychism mainstream at all. The main ideologies seem to be "materialism" (physicalism) and Cartesian dualism mixed with neo-Platonism. The contemporary proponents of panpsychism are mostly physicalist, and prefer it over emergentism because emergentism has uncomfortable shades of dualism.

Eugen

emergentism has uncomfortable shades of dualism. — Pfhorrest

Interesting, could you please give me more details on that?

Pfhorrest

↪Eugen

Basically, if when you arrange a bunch of physical stuff, suddenly something metaphysically new starts happening that's not just a sum or aggregate of what the physical stuff was doing, then there's something non-physical that's going on, so you've got physical stuff and non-physical mental stuff both happening, basically a kind of dualism.

The alternatives are that either nothing metaphysically new starts happening then, because there is nothing metaphysically mental going on in anything ever -- eliminative materialism -- or else nothing metaphysically new starts happening then, because everything metaphysically necessary for mind as we know it is already going on everywhere all the time -- panpsychism.

Basically, whatever is metaphysically necessary for minds as we know them either happens for nothing (eliminative materialism), for only some things (dualism, and strong emergentism), or everything (panpsychism). Only the first and last are really compatible with physicalism, the middle ones are not.

Stan

↪Eugen

“ 1. No restrictions: all possibilities that we can and cannot imagine are there. The problem is that this includes supernatural because we imagine it - fatal for materialism;”

I think this is incorrect. An infinite multiverse does not mean anything one may imagine can actually happen. What an infinite multiverse implies is that everything that is physically possible must happen, and then logically must happen an infinite number of times.

In an infinite multiverse there’d be an infinite number of exact copies of you and me and everyone else.

Eugen

I think this is incorrect. An infinite multiverse does not mean anything one may imagine can actually happen. — Stan

I didn't say that's the case. I wrote it as a variant. Read 2. And by the way, who decides what's physical, natural and what is not?

Stan

↪Eugen

I’m pretty sure your variant is false. Everything that happens must obey the laws of physics.

Pfhorrest

who decides what's physical, natural and what is not? — Eugen

What's physical or natural is what can be checked against empirical experience.

The supernatural therefore definitionally makes no difference that anybody could possibly tell, so its existence and its non-existence are indistinguishable and therefore identical.

Eugen

↪Stan

But maybe ''the laws of physics'' are very different in other universes, so different that you'd consider them magic.

Stan

↪Eugen

Yes, I thought about that right after I posted. :rofl:

Stan

↪Eugen

..but even supposing the universe/multiverse is infinite, we don’t know if it’d have or allow more than one set of laws, but I don’t see why not. Could an infinite multiverse entail an infinite number of different physical laws? Sure, why not?

I guess if string theory is true it probably sets limits on the number of possible physical laws.

Eugen

Basically, whatever is metaphysically necessary for minds as we know them either happens for nothing (eliminative materialism), for only some things (dualism, and strong emergentism), or everything (panpsychism). Only the first and last are really compatible with physicalism, the middle ones are not. — Pfhorrest

It totally makes sense to me, but.... But as always, things are complicated! I should open a discussion called ''Why things are so damn complicated!?''. But let's assume there's a law of nature that allows consciousness to exist only in some circumstances, let's say in a DNA structure. So the law exists there, is fundamental, but consciousness appears only when criteria are met. Maybe consciousness is a kind of information that contains information about itself and it can be created when two types of information meet. None of them is conscious, but when they combine, they become something new and conscious. I'm not saying it's probable, but I don't see it impossible.

tim wood

How did supernatural become natural?
— tim wood
1) What you define as supernatural for this universe may be natural in other universes.

The identity theory seems to mean that consciousness is accounted for by physical nature. Is there a problem with that?
— tim wood

You were a bit vague with that. The identity theory states that consciousness is exactly the same thing with a particular particles interaction, not an effect of that, not correlated with it. Is there a problem with that? Many say it is, but it is not the topic of this discussion. — Eugen

Then anything at all may be. That's not reasonable conjecture. The identity theory is in the OP - I had to look it up.

I do not understand the reasoning in your OP. What is your point, your conclusion? What the arguments for it? — tim wood

And you missed this.

If you want a discussion on the basis anything is possible, therefore is, have at it - but what's the point?

Eugen

And you missed this.

If you want a discussion on the basis anything is possible, therefore is, have at it - but what's the point? — tim wood

The OP isn't meant to argue the Identity theory. All I am saying is that over time, materialism has come up with all sorts of answers for consciousness which are really not convincing (e.g. identity theory). So now, some of them invented this multiverse argument in order to solve the problem. So the main topic was the multiverse argument, not the identity theory.

tim wood

↪Eugen

It seems to me consciousness is an accident of time, place, and circumstance. What does that, or any account of it, have to do with larger issues of cosmology?

As you say here:

But let's assume there's a law of nature that allows consciousness to exist only in some circumstances, — Eugen

Just Six Numbers, Martin Rees, is a short readable science book for the rest of us that looks at six significant values that were they otherwise, our universe wouldn't be. In a conjectural coda he muses on the possibility of a multi-verse in which universes come and go, their "lives" governed by variations in those values.

Consciousness isn't to be accounted for in the large, but instead on the basis of the small. It appears to be among the possibilities of matter - obviously so. Maybe what's more interesting is why we're smarter than we need to be.

Eugen

It seems to me consciousness is an accident of time, place, and circumstance. What does that, or any account of it, have to do with larger issues of cosmology? — tim wood

1. And how can we prove it is an accident? It is just an assumption.
2. Even if it is an accident, the hard problem remains and as long as it remains, it is going to be problematic for materialism.

Pfhorrest

↪Eugen

That is similar to my kind of functionalist panpsychism. On my account, everything has whatever is metaphysically necessary for conscious experience, everything in some trivial sense “has experience”, but what that experience is like depends entirely on the function of the thing, and consciousness proper is a kind of reflective functionality, self-awareness basically, and only things that have that functionality have what we ordinarily mean by “conscious experience”. But it’s not like the emergentist account where when mindless matter arranges just right suddenly a new kind of thing, mind, occurs; rather, the elementary constituents of mind are already present in everything, and fully fledged mind as we usually mean it is built up out of that just like our physical behaviors are built up out of the physical behaviors of the atoms etc we’re made of.

Gnomon

So let's play this game and assume we have an infinite Mega/Multi-verse: — Eugen

Absolute Infinity does indeed imply that all things are possible, and all possible things are actual. But the Multiverse is not timeless or changeless, hence not absolute. Instead, it is a dynamic directional process with no known beginning and an unknowable ending. Only spaceless-timeless Infinity-Eternity (Enfernity) is absolute. And the powers of being & causation exist necessarily in Enfernity.

Sorry to intrude with such a strange out-of-this-world comment. But your post triggered a train of thought relevant to my own little game of knowns. :chin:

Eugen

↪Pfhorrest

That is similar to my kind of functionalist panpsychism. On my account, everything has whatever is metaphysically necessary for conscious experience, everything in some trivial sense “has experience”, but what that experience is like depends entirely on the function of the thing, and consciousness proper is a kind of reflective functionality, self-awareness basically, and only things that have that functionality have what we ordinarily mean by “conscious experience”. But it’s not like the emergentist account where when mindless matter arranges just right suddenly a new kind of thing, mind, occurs; rather, the elementary constituents of mind are already present in everything, and fully fledged mind as we usually mean it is built up out of that just like our physical behaviors are built up out of the physical behaviors of the atoms etc we’re made of. — Pfhorrest

Sounds very elegant and in my opinion plausible, but being at the beginning of my quest for answers, I also find plausibility in other theories. But I can say what has convinced me not to be true so far :
- ''The illusion of consciousness''
- Idenity Theory
- Consciousness is a classic ''weak emergence'' phenomenon

Eugen

Absolute Infinity does indeed imply that all things are possible, and all possible things are actual. But the Multiverse is not timeless or changeless, hence not absolute. Instead, it is a dynamic directional process with no known beginning and an unknowable ending. Only spaceless-timeless Infinity-Eternity (Enfernity) is absolute. And the powers of being & causation exist necessarily in Enfernity. — Gnomon

You've raised something interesting hee, but please answer me a question first: the Absolute Infinity you mentioned, if it exists, it also include what we would call supernatural? (magic, gods, etc.)

jgill

Absolute Infinity does indeed imply that all things are possible, and all possible things are actual. — Gnomon

1. What is "absolute infinity"?
2. Give a rational explanation of how that implies anything. :chin:

Enai De A Lukal

↪StreetlightX

not surprising, given the poster's other contributions, that the OP has almost nothing whatsoever to do with the Susskind video the OP themselves have offered as a purported example. Susskind is concerned with fine-tuning and the anthropic principle; so life, not consciousness, and certainly not consciousness in the sense of the so-called "hard problem". Something about hammers and nails, I guess, but still.. c'mon.

Eugen

↪Enai De A Lukal

It's a nice OP, you have to admit. Not my best but still...

Eugen

It seems to me consciousness is an accident — tim wood

Let's assume it was an accident indeed, not a purpose of nature. But in order to happen, it must be possible. So I am arguing that the very possibility of its existance in a finite/infinite universe is incredible by itself. From quantity to quality, from non-aboutness to aboutness, etc.

Enai De A Lukal

↪Eugen

its another lazy strawman OP, but sure.

The hard problem of materialism - multiverse

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