I encourage him to school me.

"Saying I can break down (analyze) mental phenomena into biological processes isn't the same as saying I can build (synthesize) mental processes up from biological leggo blocks." I believe that we will eventually build robots with consciousness. Do you really think that's impossible?

But the Churchland's (and by the way I don't agree with everything they write) use the term eliminative materialism. Anti-materialists seem to have this image of science "destroying" things by explaining them with science. I hope I don't have to list all the misconceptions humans had before science took off the blinders. And each time removing the false beliefs - in this case I would argue consciousness is a separate "thing" from the brain - caused great fear and disbelief.

I don't agree with the Churchland's about folk psychology. We still say "the sun rises everyday" when we know that's not how it works. We still say "love is in the heart" when it's not. And we WILL still talk about consciousness, what-it's-likeness if/when it's proven to be the actions of neurons or another brain process(es).

Historically, explaining nature scientifically, and disproving God to many (I'm an atheist) caused a lot of panic. Ex. "How will I know right from wrong without God??" In my opinion, we will eventually realize consciousness is part of the amazing processes swirling through our brains. And we'll still have intentionality, qualia, and philosophy, and the world will still be beautiful.

ps - I think consciousness may require a NEW method of study - that we don't yet have. You know - like when they invented those "microscopes" to study bacteria? But - sigh - I could be wrong.

An interesting corollary of this fact is that it's likely that syntax evolved way before semantics in the primate brain. — Agent Smith

That does not follow, though, because evolution did not have to mimick computer science. My understanding is that apes and even birds have a vocabulary, but they lack syntax -- the capacity not just to say a word but to combine several words into a meaningful whole.

That does not follow, though, because evolution did not have to mimick computer science. My understanding is that apes and even birds have a vocabulary, but they lack syntax -- the capacity not just to say a word but to combine several words into a meaningful whole. — Olivier5

Yeah, one point of interest is syntax has, how shall I put it?, semantic functions as well. I mean grammar serves to remove semantic ambiguity that can crop up in language without grammar.

I was kinda working from a biomimetic angle: all that humans have invented and are capable of creating are mirrored in nature (planes - birds, rockets - octopus siphon, so on and so forth). I would've expected our copies of nature's creations to be hi-fi so to speak, right down to the sequence in which they occurred.

I would've expected our copies of nature's creations to be hi-fi so to speak, right down to the sequence in which they occurred. — Agent Smith

More likely, the sequence reflects what was necessary or possible. You cannot invent syntax before vocabulary, because the latter is needed for the former to exist.

More likely, the sequence reflects what was necessary or possible. You cannot invent syntax before vocabulary, because the latter is needed for the former to exist. — Olivier5

I don't know how computers handle syntax so well and score zero on semantics then! I can't quite wrap my head around that. They (computers) seem to be able to mimic semantic capabilities though but that could be a case of infinite monkey theorem actualizing on a small scale.

Perhaps for the same reason than an abacus can help you count, but will never help you think.

A computer is basically a sophisticated abacus, right? It can mimick logic like an abacus mimics arithmetics.

and without reference to neuroscience, which is the point. — Wayfarer

Reification of metaphysical predicates with empirical principles, destroys both.

Perhaps for the same reason than an abacus can help you count, but will never help you think.

A computer is basically a sophisticated abacus, right? — Olivier5

Perhaps, but abaci, to my reckoning, don't possess even the basic architecture to do logic-apt Boolean algebra like a calculator or a computer. In a sense abaci are like crutches (you have to do the work) but computers are bionic prostheses, like but not exactly the robotic arms of Otto Octavius (it does the work for you). :confused:

it is the first-person nature of consciousness which they are obliged to deny. — Wayfarer

They're neither obliged to deny it, nor blind to it. They voluntarily deny it's relevance as part of their theory. It a decision made using that judgement you're so fond of telling us about. You, clearly, have reached a different conclusion. Saying they are blind to it is begging the question.

The issue is the means by which such differences can be resolved. Adding controls and statistical analysis is just a method for such resolution we've found agreeable. You can derive theories by whatever means you like, but it's nothing but storytelling if you can't come up with an agreeable method for resolving disagreements between them. The approach taken by the Churchlands is a framework for resolving such disagreements between theories. Unless you can produce an equally agreeable method, their progress on the problem exceeds yours, their frame is the more useful.

I'm actually curious about what it is about their method that you dislike? — GLEN willows

I'm most familiar with their work on belief where I don't think they've sufficiently accommodated the extent to which we take an active part in the environmental modelling process in the lower brain hierarchies. Their approach tends to minimise the role of noise reduction in neural signalling to more of a 'housekeeping' role whereas I see it more as and integral and two-way process between the somato-sensory system itself, the lower sensory systems and the higher cognitive modelling areas.

It doesn't really impact their work on consciousness much, but I think the degree of stress one places on noise reduction is crucial to any understanding of brain function and so that disagreement, although slight, does rather crop up quite often.

Good metaphor. I would say a computer is still a sort of clutch. It doesn't really do the work for you, it just assists.

Like an abacus cannot count, like a clutch cannot walk, a computer cannot think.

The Churchands, Paul and Patricia? — GLEN willows

Yes. I find their reductive materialism to be boring. Explains nothing.

I'm being careful NOT to claim it WILL be explained by science, just that it could. — GLEN willows

And will consciousness then be "eliminated"? Could you give an entirely speculative picture of how that might happen?

‘Rational inference’, which neuroscientists, materialists, and everyone else rely on whenever they use the word ‘because’, neither has, nor requires, a scientific grounding. Rational inference depends wholly and solely on the relations of ideas - ‘is’, ‘is not’, ‘is greater than’, ‘is the same as’, and so on. Judgements based on those simple elements are intrinsic to any rational claim about anything whatever, including the claim that thought can be explained in physical terms. Yet those very same elements of thought are not the object of scientific analysis, because they precede scientific analysis - in order to engage in scientific analysis, such judgements are needed in the first place. — Wayfarer

I'm kind of lost. Is this intended as an argument against rational inference about mental phenomena or against any rational inference at all?

A practical example. Consider a neurological expert who claims that data shows that some area within the brain performs a function. You won’t see anything like ‘a function’ when you look at the data, which presumably consists of graphical images of neural activity and so on. You must take the experts word for it that this data means such-and-such. That ‘meaning’ is always internal to the act of judgement - you won’t see that in the data, not unless you are likewise trained in the interpretation of what the data means. — Wayfarer

Again, inference from observations is the way we know almost everything. When I'm reading about some scientific finding, I often say to myself "How did they get that conclusion from that data?" I assume that they know what they are talking about. Is that the problem?

That's mice, right? With smells. So good luck with working out the neurology of Justice, or Truth, or Beauty! — Wayfarer

This is not a very convincing story. Some thoughts:

• Smell is a different kind of thing than justice.
• Just cause I can't do it now doesn't mean I won't be able to.
• Just because the results I've gotten are complex and hard to understand doesn't mean my conclusions are wrong.
• Even if I can never determine the neurology of justice, that doesn't mean it isn't the result of neurological processes.
• I've read that scientists are working to develop a vocabulary of brain states as measured by PET scan or MRI. They can use that to tell what people are thinking in a very crude way. That may not be crude forever or even for long.

But the Churchland's (and by the way I don't agree with everything they write) use the term eliminative materialism. — GLEN willows

I've tagged an article about the Churchlands in the Atlantic, but I haven't read it yet. I'll see if I have anything to add after I read it.

I would argue consciousness is a separate "thing" from the brain — GLEN willows

I agree with this.

I think consciousness may require a NEW method of study - that we don't yet have. You know - like when they invented those "microscopes" to study bacteria? — GLEN willows

There is already a method of study for consciousness and other mental processes - psychology, of which cognitive science is a branch. Advances in brain imaging in the last 20 years or so have changed psychology in the same way that microscopes changed biology. That doesn't mean more new methods won't be found.

Thoughts and the like possess inherent meaning or intentionality; brain processes, like ink marks, sound waves, and the like, are utterly devoid of any inherent meaning or intentionality; so thoughts and the like cannot possibly be identified with brain processes. — Ed Feser

I don't find this very convincing. Again, it comes back to the hierarchical knowledge. It is not reasonable to expect processes and phenomena at one level to fully explain those at a higher level. Chemistry does not fully explain living organisms, but life can certainly "be identified with" chemical processes.

First person consciousness is not objective, it is 'what observes'. — Wayfarer

Calling consciousness "first person consciousness" is redundant. It is possible to study consciousness objectively just like it is possible to look at eyes, think about minds, etc. Introspection is a valid method of inference, as is observing conscious actions and speech.

By the way, I'm always ambivalent about your posts. They are generally well-written, interesting, and well-thought out, and sometimes even right. On they other hand, you always have long quotes and links to articles that I have to read or I'll miss something important. I'm a busy man!! Why can't you write facile, snarky, trivial, brief posts like...well, you know who?

@GLEN willows

But the Churchland's (and by the way I don't agree with everything they write) use the term eliminative materialism.
— GLEN willows

I've tagged an article about the Churchlands in the Atlantic, but I haven't read it yet. I'll see if I have anything to add after I read it. — T Clark

Forgot to ask. Do you have a reference for a relatively brief discussion of the Churchlands' ideas that you like.

Good metaphor. I would say a computer is still a sort of clutch. It doesn't really do the work for you, it just assists.

Like an abacus cannot count, like a clutch cannot walk, a computer cannot think. — Olivier5

A computer is, to my knowledge, an automated alogrithm executing device. What happens, as far as I know, is that some aspects of our thinking can be reduced to an algorithm (a step-by-step sequence of instructions on what to do with what). This instruction-based thinking, it was realized by luminaries such as Babbage and Turing, could be done by mechanical and electronic devices. If when we follow an algorithm, we call it thinking, are computers doing the same also not, sensu amplo, thinking?

I agree with your description. But isn't there something more to 'thinking' than mechanical logic? I think Niels Bohr said to Einstein once: "you're not thinking, you're just being logical."

Another way to present what a computer does -- and one that gets closer to your initial puzzlement at the fact that to teach a machine syntax is easier that to teach it the meaning of words -- is the Chinese room argument of John Searle. Which is intended to refute a position Searle calls strong AI: "The appropriately programmed computer with the right inputs and outputs would thereby have a mind in exactly the same sense human beings have minds."

I think Searle is right: following the right instructions, he could process Chinese sentences into other Chinese sentences (or into English sentences) without understanding a word of Chinese. And there lies a response to your question: even a human being (like Searle in his Chinese room) will find it easier to learn a few rules of grammar than the nuanced meanings of thousands words. You could learn Chinese grammar in a week or two. But the vocabulary will take you half a lifetime.

:up: :up:

‘Rational inference’, which neuroscientists, materialists, and everyone else rely on whenever they use the word ‘because’, neither has, nor requires, a scientific grounding. Rational inference depends wholly and solely on the relations of ideas - ‘is’, ‘is not’, ‘is greater than’, ‘is the same as’, and so on. — Wayfarer

And the distinction between valid and sound inferences is completely lost on you (or are you just disingenuously obfuscating the distinction under the label "rational" make a quixotic point)? Intelligible demonstrations – historical, juridical, clinical, technical, scientific – about matters of fact require soundness. Otherwise, mere validity suffices.

a quixotic point — 180 Proof

I have to admit, your choice of words is from time to time, impressive.

Fundamentally, it's a question of how mindless matter, when arranged a certain way (e.g., functioning brain), can produce a mind. We're no closer to the answer now than we were during Descartes' time, which makes me think there will never be an explanation for how minds emerge from matter, which makes me think minds don't emerge from matter. And since I can't be wrong that at least one mind exists, It's probably the case that matter doesn't exist.

minds don't emerge from matter — RogueAI

That is what I think.

Churchlands, Dennett, et al, are called 'eliminativists' - it is the first-person nature of consciousness which they are obliged to deny. — Wayfarer

As usual, another facile distortion. "Eliminativists" argue that folk psychological concepts (e.g. "consciousness", "qualia", "intention", etc) occult more than elucidate and therefore are useless in formulating explanatory models of (meta)cognition which in no way "obliges them to deny" subjectivity, or first-person phenomenal awareness. If your disagreement is rational (i.e. philosophically non-trivial) with the eliminativist argument, Woofarer, make a counter-argument which soundly concludes that folk psychological concepts are needed to explain (meta)cognition in neuro-cognitive science. :chin:

... minds[/u[ don't emerge from matter. — RogueAI

Just as digesting doesn't emerge from guts and walking doesn't emerge from legs.

It's probably the case that matter doesn't exist.

That depends on how "matter" is defined as well as what you mean by "exist".

Fundamentally [ ... ] We're no closer to the answer now than we were during Descartes' time, ...

:sweat: This spectre of Lord Kelvin needs exorcizing.

. It is possible to study consciousness objectively just like it is possible to look at eyes, think about minds, etc — T Clark

Right. Which is optometry, psychology, and cognitive science. Not philosophy per se.

Eliminative materialism (or eliminativism) is the radical claim that our ordinary, common-sense understanding of the mind is deeply wrong and that some or all of the mental states posited by common-sense do not actually exist and have no role to play in a mature science of the mind. Descartes famously challenged much of what we take for granted, but he insisted that, for the most part, we can be confident about the content of our own minds. Eliminative materialists go further than Descartes on this point, since they challenge the existence of various mental states that Descartes took for granted. — SEP, Eliminative Materialists

The reason they assert that the first-person nature of consciousness 'occults more than elucidates' is because it cannot be accomodated by third-person description as a matter of principle. As scientific method relies on third-person description, it therefore can't be accomodated, and so is to be eliminated.

Dennett asks us to turn our backs on what is glaringly obvious—that in consciousness we are immediately aware of real subjective experiences of color, flavor, sound, touch, etc. that cannot be fully described in neural terms even though they have a neural cause (or perhaps have neural as well as experiential aspects). And he asks us to do this because the reality of such phenomena is incompatible with the scientific materialism that in his view sets the outer bounds of reality. He is, in Aristotle’s words, “maintaining a thesis at all costs.” — Thomas Nagel

Very simple. No point trying to obfuscate.

Again, inference from observations is the way we know almost everything. When I'm reading about some scientific finding, I often say to myself "How did they get that conclusion from that data?" I assume that they know what they are talking about. Is that the problem? — T Clark

Not at all! It is of course perfectly valid across all kinds of subjects. But think about the subject of this particular claim - that consciousness - let's say thought - can be wholly explained in neuroscientific terms. Among the things that are purportedly being explained, then, is the very process of rational inference which is used to draw inferences from data. In other words, the process of reasoning itself. That's what makes this claim different from other scientific claims.

The Churchlands - they are a married couple - Daniel Dennett, and other philosophers of that school generally hold to a materialist theory of mind. This is that mind is what the brain does, so that if you sufficiently understand neural science, then you will understand the nature of thinking.

“My brain and I are inseparable.” For Churchland, “I equal my brain” and “brain equals me.” On its own, the former equation is hardly an existential challenge. The brain’s central role in selfhood is well known. (A loose screw affects both you and your brain.) But flip the equation—“brain equals me”—and a whole new cosmology is provoked. The implication is that I am definable, accessible, even divisible. The seeming solidity of me comes from a place, the brain—and what is the brain? The mental image Churchland conjures is that of a thicket of neurons and specialized regions of activity, all of them subject to pervasive unconscious actions and designs. Far from an ethereal soul or some intangible essence, then, selfhood means that I am the end result of innumerable processes occurring inside a pale pink, three-pound sack of meat. No spirit, no soul, no opaque differentiation between mind and brain. Put another way, I am just a brain.

Of course, many, probably even most, philosophers take issue with this attitude - I could provide yet more quotes, but I'm trying to keep it short and snarky. Suffice to say, the particular argument that I am trying to marshall, is that reason comprises the relation of ideas - all the way down! In other words, you can't deduce the primitive articles of reason, such as the rules of valid inference, from neuroscience. And you can't see them from the outside - you won't literally see the operations of reason in neural data - you have to make inferences about how neural systems instantiate reason, in order to explain how reason is the product of such operations*. And, I say, there's an unavoidable circularity involved in doing that, because in this case, the mind is both the object of analysis, and the analysing subject. So it's not the same as other branches of science - whereas the whole point of Churchlands' argument is that it has to be same, and any conceptual difference has to be eliminated.

----

* That is where the article about 'representational drift' in mice is relevant: the neural areas involved in mice reacting to smells keep drifting throughout the rodent brain, in a way that can't be predicted or understood by the models. So, if something that simple defies neurological explanation, then how to account for such abstractions as reason in the human brain?

And your point is?

Something you're not capable of seeing, apparently.

You've not countered either of my previous posts within which I took issue with your mischaracterizations of argumentation & eliminativism, respectively. As usual, you reply with quotes which fail to support your contentions or defeat mine. So "apparently", sir, "you're not capable" of making a defensible point.

And the distinction between valid and sound inferences is completely lost on you (or are you just disingenuously obfuscating the distinction under the label "rational" make a quixotic point)? Intelligible demonstrations – historical, juridical, clinical, technical, scientific – about matters of fact require soundness. Otherwise, mere validity suffices. — 180 Proof

Perfectly correct, but not germane to the point.

"Eliminativists" argue that folk psychological concepts (e.g. "consciousness", "qualia", "intention", etc) occult more than elucidate and therefore are useless in formulating explanatory models of (meta)cognition which in no way "obliges them to deny" subjectivity, or first-person phenomenal awareness. — 180 Proof

Refer to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy article, and Thomas Nagel's comment. What is being 'eliminated' by eliminative materialism, is the idea of there being a first-person point of view which cannot be completely explained without residue.

Just to be unequivocal, Dennett himself says it:

What, then, is the relation between the standard ‘third-person’ objective methodologies for studying meteors or magnets (or human metabolism or bone density), and the methodologies for studying human consciousness? Can the standard methods be extended in such a way as to do justice to the phenomena of human consciousness? Or do we have to find some quite radical or revolutionary alternative science? I have defended the hypothesis that there is a straightforward, conservative extension of objective science that handsomely covers the ground — all the ground — of human consciousness, doing justice to all the data without ever having to abandon the rules and constraints of the experimental method that have worked so well in the rest of science. — Daniel Dennett

So, I understand quite clearly what eliminative materialism proposes, and I stand by my argument against it.