elativist
wrong thread? — Pfhorrest

Oops. Sorry bout that. (although it does have something to do with philosophy of mind).

That’s the part where my panpsychism comes in. Whatever it is besides mere function that human consciousness involves, I hold that EVERYTHING already has that in some form or another, and the specific form of it becomes more sophisticated along with the functionality, because it is the other half of functionality besides the behavioral output. — Pfhorrest

Jaegwon Kim's answer is more appealing to me: he considers qualia to be epiphenomenal, a causally effete byproduct of minds. It's still not entirely satisfactory, but it makes more sense to me to consider it to be something that only minds have. The notion that rocks experience qualia makes no sense to me.

Other than that, I'm fine with the rest of your views.

I have recently, in another conversation, realized there is some similarity between an epiphenomenal view and my own view, in that on an epiphenomenal view something doing a mental function both produces epiphenomenal experiences and the behavior we would expect of someone having those experiences (though as this other person was asking me, it does seem like a weird coincidence that a certain biological view should just happen to produce experiential states, and also produce behavior that we would expect of someone having those experiential states, even though the experiential states don't actually cause the behavior); while on my view, a mental function, like any function (all objects in the universe being defined entirely by their function), is a function from experience to behavior, so as that function changes both experience and behavior change with it, in an entirely not-coincidental way.


Earlier parts of this conversation with you tangentially got me to thinking of a concise, mock-dialogue way of summarizing my view on this topic and my reasons for it. Let M = me and N = some other interlocutor.

M: "...and that's why I don't believe in anything supernatural or otherwise non-physical."

N: "So you don't believe in minds then? Minds are non-physical things."

M: "No, I believe in minds, I just believe that they're functions of our physical brains."

N: "But functionality isn't everything! Qualia are separate from physical behavior! Consider Mary's Room."

M: "That just shows that there is a first-person, experiential perspective to account for, as well as the third-person, behavioral perspective."

N: "So you admit that there's something non-physical! This first-person experience."

M: "No, I think there's a first-person account that can be given for anything. That's an ordinary aspect of all ordinary physical things, and so not anything non-physical."

N: "That's absurd! Rocks don't have minds! Only things that are functionally like humans can have that first-person, mental experience. Other things obviously don't have it. It must emerge somewhere in the development from rocks to humans."

M: "Only things that are like humans can have a first-person experience that is genuinely mental in the way we normally mean of humans, sure. But other more elementary things must have some kind of experience out of which that human-like experience can emerge. Otherwise it could only spring into being from nothing, like magic... which is supernatural, and not physical."

N: "So your solution to preserving minds in a physicalist account is to grant everything some magical non-physical capacity for experience."

M: "Capacity for experience is not necessarily magical or non-physical. And granting it to everything is the only reasonable way of preserving the existence of minds in a physicalist account, since the only logical alternatives are that either nothing, not even humans, have any first-person experience (and so minds in the normal sense don't really exist); or else some things, like humans, magically get it from nothing (and so something non-physical happens)."

Capacity for experience is not necessarily magical or non-physical. And granting it to everything is the only reasonable way of preserving the existence of minds in a physicalist account, since the only logical alternatives are that either nothing, not even humans, have any first-person experience (and so minds in the normal sense don't really exist); or else some things, like humans, magically get it from nothing (and so something non-physical happens)." — Pfhorrest

Well done on the dialog, but it needs to continue. As defined so far, the capacity for experience is inherent in anything we consider to have a persisting identity.

Consider some particular boulder. It was "born" when a metamorphic outcrop collapsed due to a stress fracture. This is the boulder's first experience, and that experience gave it its shape. Our boulder sits on a slope for a few thousand years where it gets rained upon, which gradually starts to cause some erosion. Other rocks fall on it from upslope, chipping off pieces here and there. Each of these experiences changes the rock. This boulder has the capacity for experience, but it differs in two important ways from us: 1) it lacks self-reflection on those experiences; 2) it does not experience qualia.

You can easily accommodate self-reflection, even self-reflection of qualia (thinking about the pains of the past). But this still does not account for the pain itself. I can write a hundred sentences describing the pain, but nothing I say will be equivalent to the raw experience.

Not all matter is wet, even in the slightest degree, but liquids usually are.

Not all matter is (phenomenally, of course) conscious, even in the slightest degree, but animals able to play a social game of pointing symbols at things usually are.

some arbitrary line somewhere, the line between things that are held to be entirely without anything at all like phenomenal consciousness and things that suddenly have it in full, — Pfhorrest

No need.

If one must admit that rocks have consciousness in order to save their philosophical position, then something else is horribly wrong somewhere along the line.

If minds/consciousness consists of both physical and/non physical elements, then they cannot be properly taken into account in terms of one or the other. If one does not grant the existence of non physical things, and minds are non physical in part, then one cannot take proper account of minds. The same holds good of those who hold that minds are not physical, and minds are physical in part.

Minds existed in their entirety prior to our taking them into account. The approach is crucial.

N: "That's absurd! Rocks don't have minds! Only things that are functionally like humans can have that first-person, mental experience. Other things obviously don't have it. It must emerge somewhere in the development from rocks to humans."

M: "Only things that are like humans can have a first-person experience that is genuinely mental in the way we normally mean of humans, sure. But other more elementary things must have some kind of experience out of which that human-like experience can emerge. Otherwise it could only spring into being from nothing, like magic... which is supernatural, and not physical."

This is one of panpsychism's biggest problems: rocks don't have experiences. What is it like to be an electron? is a nonsensical question. If the claim is that things like rocks have experiences, you're so close to idealism, just go whole hog and ditch the physical.

If minds/consciousness consists of both physical and/non physical elements, then they cannot be properly taken into account in terms of one or the other. — creativesoul

Sure, but you have the burden of showing that minds are things, not just a reified abstraction, and that these things have non-physical parts.

The physicalism project is to account for mental activity, not some incompatible, abstract concept of "mind". IMO, the one thing physicalism has a problem with is certain qualia, like pain. If that is fatal, then all accounts of mental activity are also dead - because they all have things they don't account for.

The physicalism project is to account for mental activity, not some incompatible, abstract concept of "mind". — Relativist

I agree, with the correction that that is but one challenge for physicalism, not the entire physicalism project. Redefining 'mind' to be any response function simply leaves us in want of a new word to describe what used to be called mind. This does not mean that mind is a different kind of thing, e.g. irreducible or strongly emergent. It is simply what unifies a category for study that includes humans, horses and fish but not rocks, trees or electrons, namely those things with central nervous systems and sense apparatus, irrespective of whether they have access consciousness.

Can you fix your post?

If minds/consciousness consists of both physical and/non physical elements, then they cannot be properly taken into account in terms of one or the other.
— creativesoul
Sure, but you have the burden of showing that minds are things, not just a reified abstraction, and that these things have non-physical parts. — Relativist

Minds consist entirely of thought and belief. Thought and belief... correlations between different things. Correlations are not physical. Not much of a burden really.

This boulder has the capacity for experience, but it differs in two important ways from us: 1) it lacks self-reflection on those experiences; 2) it does not experience qualia. — Relativist

Agreed on point 1, but completely disagreed on point 2. The capacity for experience is exactly the capacity to experience qualia. Qualia just are are occasions of experience. (And on my ontology, if you read that web of reality thread too, absolutely everything is made out of such occasions of experience, which I hold are identical to physical interactions: to be is to do, to be is to be perceived*, so to do is to be perceived*, and conversely to perceive* is to be done-unto).

*(I'd say "experience" rather than "perceive", but Berkeley's adage uses "perceive").

I can write a hundred sentences describing the pain, but nothing I say will be equivalent to the raw experience. — Relativist

Agreed. But that says nothing at all about what kinds of things can have such experiences.

Not all matter is wet, even in the slightest degree, but liquids usually are. — bongo fury

Sure, but wetness is an aggregate product of particles interacting in the normal ways all particles interact, so there's nothing new about wetness above and beyond the stuff all matter could already do; being wet is just one of the kinds of things matter was already capable of doing.

Phenomenal consciousness is defined in opposition to that kind of process. Nothing that the ordinary mechanical properties of matter can build up to, including the full complex and nuanced behavior of a human being, can constitute phenomenal consciousness by itself, as it is defined by the people who came up with the idea.

So if we want to say that everything that does instantiate that fully complex and nuanced behavior of a human being must have phenomenal consciousness like a human being (i.e. that philosophical zombies are not possible), then we either have to say that something wholly new pops into existence from nothing like magic, or say that there was something already there for it to be built up out of, something besides behavior -- a first-person experience.

rocks don't have experiences. What is it like to be an electron? is a nonsensical question — RogueAI

You're just arguing by assertion here. It sounds absurd to you to think that this could be the case, so you insist that it is not... but then if you follow through on that back through the chain of implications it ends up requiring even more absurd things. Basically: Rocks have some kind of experience, or else humans don't, or else magic happens. Saying humans don't have experiences or that magic happens are far more absurd than saying there is some trivial prototypical first-person perspective of a rock that's not even worth speaking of.

What is is like to be an electron? Well, let's start with a human and go from there. What's it like to be a human brain disconnected from a body? What's it like to be such a brain that's asleep, or heavily sedated on drugs? Basically, take what it's like to be a normal able-bodied awake adult human being and start stripping aspects of that away. Well before you get down to the level of an inert hunk of matter that used to be part of a brain, you've gotten something so distant from ordinary human experience that we don't have the words to describe it.

It's something we're already experiencing right now, underneath everything else we're experiencing right now, but it's such a trivial part of our experience that we never need speak of it. It's a little like the sound of your own heartbeat, or the sight of your own nose: it's technically always there in your experience but you never need take note of it because it's always there. Except, in this case, far more so than that.

Likewise, I think that what it's like to be a rock, or an electron, is such a trivial experience that there's no need to ever say what it's like. But for reasons I've already gone over many times here, we have to affirm that there is something to it, something trivial and non-noteworthy and leave it at that, or else we end up having to affirm even crazier things.

If the claim is that things like rocks have experiences, you're so close to idealism, just go whole hog and ditch the physical. — RogueAI

If you followed the previous thread that this is a successor to, you'll see that my ontology is a kind of phenomenalism, as well as a kind of physicalism. Physical stuff is empirical stuff, and empirical stuff is phenomenal stuff. Phenomenal stuff is "mental" stuff, except it doesn't require that there actually be minds (in the normal, substantive, functional sense) to experience it, only that it be the kind of stuff that minds could experience, e.g. empirical. Any minds that do exist are physical things themselves, and therefore empirical things, and therefore phenomenal things, and therefore "mental" things in the floofy sense just described.

Minds are programs, matter is data, all programs are just made of data, data is all that feeds into and comes out of a program, and all data can be run as a program, but most of it just does nothing interesting when you do.

Minds consist entirely of thought and belief. Thought and belief... correlations between different things. Correlations are not physical. Not much of a burden really. — creativesoul

And correlation occurs all the way down. What is referred to as ‘consciousness’ or ‘experience’ at the level of inanimate matter such as rocks is the extent to which this correlation is manifest in the physical, not the extent to which thought and belief can be identified as ‘mind’. After all, we identify thought and belief only through correlation between different things...

I can write a hundred sentences describing the pain, but nothing I say will be equivalent to the raw experience.
— Relativist

Agreed. But that says nothing at all about what kinds of things can have such experiences. — Pfhorrest

Let's talk about the kinds of things that experience pain.

Start with its function: it alerts us to damage, induces us to seek remediation, and to avoid the behavior that caused it. So only objects that can function in this way can have it: complex, living organisms. Maybe they don't all experience pain (do grapevines experience pain?), but this at least narrows it a good bit.

This doesn't get us any closer to understanding how to reproduce the experience in a robot.

And correlation occurs all the way down... — Possibility

No. Correlation is existentially dependent upon a creature capable of drawing correlations between different things. So...

Sure, but you have the burden of showing that minds are things, not just a reified abstraction, and that these things have non-physical parts.
— Relativist

Minds consist entirely of thought and belief. Thought and belief... correlations between different things. Correlations are not physical. Not much of a burden really. — creativesoul

I'm glad it's not going to be much of a burden, si make the case. Assertions don't do it. Show that the mind is a non-physical thing. I will then have a number of additional questions.

"Show", as in... ???

You need to account for the mind-brain relationship. For example, you say the mind is immaterial, but is it spatially located? If so, where is it? My thoughts can cause me to raise my hand. Why can't my thoughts cause your hand to raise?

Thoughts draw on memories. Aren't memories stored in the brain? Memories become lost, or at least inaccessible, when the brain is damaged by trauma or disease. How do you account for that? If memories are in the brain, how does an immaterial mind access them? If my mind can access my memories, why can't it access yours?

Thoughts draw on memories. Aren't memories stored in the brain? — Relativist

Have you heard the theory that the memory is stored in the tissue of the body, analogous to tape recording, and the brain merely acts as the processor for accessing those memories? I think there is a name for it but I can't recall. ironic huh?

Have you heard the theory that the memory is stored in the tissue of the body, analogous to tape recording, and the brain mere acts as the processor for accessing those memories? I think there is a name for it but I can't recall. ironic huh? — Merkwurdichliebe

How does an immaterial mind extract the data in a physical medium? The mind also stores data into the brain: we can remember past thoughts, so it can't just be a passive reading.

How does an immaterial mind extract the data in a physical medium? — Relativist

By mediating the content into a negative form

The mind also stores data into the brain: we can remember past thoughts, so it can't just be a passive reading. — Relativist

Maybe the data that is recorded in brain tissue is thought, afterall, the brain is a strange organ, being that it is incapable of physical sensuousness

That's not an answer. Explain the physical-immaterial interface, both input and output. Is there a single point of access into the brain? Can the mind directly access every component of the brain? Can my mind interact with physical things other than my brain? If not, why not?

What becomes of the mind when the brain is dead? Did it exist before my body? If not, when did it come to exist? Did it pop into existence all at once, or did it slowly develop, like the brain?

Explain the physical-immaterial interface, both input and output. — Relativist

Is there a single point of access into the brain? — Relativist

If by access, you mean what is available to and can become accessible by the "brain", I might say through sensuality. But that wouldn't exactly be a single point, since there are five known senses.

Can the mind directly access every component of the brain? — Relativist

The mind: viz. what is known, or perhaps what could be apprehended through consciousness, knows very little about how the brain functions, especially in humans. So, this is yet to be determined by those scientist who entertain the notion that there is a correlation between mind and brain.

My opinion is "no", but if I have to speculate I might say that any component data in the brain, which could be hypothetically accessed by mind, would be experienced as memory.

Can my mind interact with physical things other than my brain? If not, why not? — Relativist

Again, mind is a very cool metaphysical concept. I could only hope things like telekinesis and teleportation were a reality. So I would answer here, based on the course of inquiry, that mind only has access to the organism to which it is fixed.

What becomes of the mind when the brain is dead? — Relativist

It definitely becomes brain dead. But I don't even know what the mind is, so I can't tell you what happens to it afterwards. If it is some type of ethereal medium which is somehow capable of assimilating corporeal substance, perhaps it has an autonomous existence independent of the body.

Did it exist before my body? If not, when did it come to exist? Did it pop into existence all at once, or did it slowly develop, like the brain? — Relativist

I'm not sure. But I know my mind came to be through a gradual development that in some way seems to recapitulate the historical consciousness of mankind as as species.

No. Correlation is existentially dependent upon a creature capable of drawing correlations between different things. So... — creativesoul

Not the way I see it. Correlation is existentially dependent upon a physical system capable of structurally manifesting evidence of that correlation.

Rock molecules manifest correlations with each other, transferring temperature changes, electrons, etc. If you break a rock, those molecules suddenly exposed to the air manifest a correlation with interacting oxygen molecules instead. The correlation may exist only in each instant of interaction, but there is physical evidence of its existence, nonetheless.

That evidence is relevant information to a creature capable of extrapolating the potential existence of correlations between different things.

Correlation is existentially dependent upon a creature capable of drawing correlations between different things. — creativesoul

That is a bit of a tautology. It makes more sense to say "Correlation is existentially dependent upon a creature capable of distinction of determinate forms."

You need to account for the mind-brain relationship. — Relativist

Minds are existentially dependent upon brains. Brains are one elemental constituent of minds.

For example, you say the mind is immaterial, but is it spatially located? If so, where is it? — Relativist

I do not say that minds are immaterial. Minds do not have a spatiotemporal location, at least not in the way that we usually mean that. Correlations between different things often include things that are light years away or thousands of miles apart.

My thoughts can cause me to raise my hand. Why can't my thoughts cause your hand to raise? — Relativist

They can. Imagine a classroom setting.

Thoughts draw on memories. Aren't memories stored in the brain? — Relativist

Memories are thought and belief. Thought and belief, consisting of correlations between different things that are not in the brain cannot be said to be stored in the brain.

Memories become lost, or at least inaccessible, when the brain is damaged by trauma or disease. How do you account for that? — Relativist

Certain brain structures are necessary for certain kinds of correlations. When such structures are damaged those correlations can no longer be drawn.

If memories are in the brain, how does an immaterial mind access them? — Relativist

Memories are not in the brain.

If my mind can access my memories, why can't it access yours? — Relativist

It can. Imagine a conversation.

Let's talk about the kinds of things that experience pain.

Start with its function: it alerts us to damage, induces us to seek remediation, and to avoid the behavior that caused it. So only objects that can function in this way can have it: complex, living organisms. Maybe they don't all experience pain (do grapevines experience pain?), but this at least narrows it a good bit.

This doesn't get us any closer to understanding how to reproduce the experience in a robot. — Relativist

On my account, reproducing the function will necessarily reproduce the experience, because the experience of anything correlates completely with its function.

That's not the same as saying that describing the behavioral output of that function in the 3rd person is all there is to say about it. There's also the 1st person experience of being a thing with that function yourself.

But if you make something with that function, it will both exhibit that behavior, and undergo that experience.

Not the way I see it. Correlation is existentially dependent upon a physical system capable of structurally manifesting evidence of that correlation.

Rock molecules manifest correlations with each other, transferring temperature changes, electrons, etc. If you break a rock, those molecules suddenly exposed to the air manifest a correlation with interacting oxygen molecules instead. The correlation may exist only in each instant of interaction, but there is physical evidence of its existence, nonetheless.

That evidence is relevant information to a creature capable of extrapolating the potential existence of correlations between different things. — Possibility

Seems to me that you're conflating causal physical systems/interactions with correlations, or more directly, conflating causality and meaning. The former is not existentially dependent upon a mind. To quite the contrary, minds are existentially dependent upon causality.

Fire causes pain when touched. The pain is the result of physical interactions between fire and body. It is not the result of correlations. When a creature draws correlations between it's own behaviour(touching fire) and the ensuing pain, it has rightly attributed and/or recognized causality. The experience of touching fire becomes meaningful to the creature as a result of those correlations. The creature will no longer touch fire as a result of drawing correlations between the behaviour and the pain, and that holds good regardless of whether or it it is capable of taking it's own experience into account. Contrary to Hume and those who hold his problem of induction so dear, such recognition/attribution of causality does not require repeated experience. Once is enough.

All attribution of meaning requires a mind capable of drawing correlations between different things. Purely physical causal relationships do not. All meaning is existentially dependent upon a plurality of things and a creature capable of drawing correlations between them. So, minds are existentially dependent upon both physical and non physical things.