We have a pretty clear physicalist understanding of how, for example, a material object can become hot; by agitation of the molecules. — Janus

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0378437122009475

Quantum coherence associated with the superpositions of basis vectors in the two representations has been demonstrated to be essential in thermodynamics. The power is completely generated by the coherence work in the spin precession process, while the heat is mainly determined by the coherence heat in the spontaneous emission process.

According to quantum mechanics, all objects can have wave-like properties (see de Broglie waves). For instance, in Young's double-slit experiment electrons can be used in the place of light waves. Each electron's wave-function goes through both slits, and hence has two separate split-beams that contribute to the intensity pattern on a screen. According to standard wave theory[16] these two contributions give rise to an intensity pattern of bright bands due to constructive interference, interlaced with dark bands due to destructive interference, on a downstream screen. This ability to interfere and diffract is related to coherence (classical or quantum) of the waves produced at both slits. The association of an electron with a wave is unique to quantum theory.

When the incident beam is represented by a quantum pure state, the split beams downstream of the two slits are represented as a superposition of the pure states representing each split beam.[17] The quantum description of imperfectly coherent paths is called a mixed state. A perfectly coherent state has a density matrix (also called the "statistical operator") that is a projection onto the pure coherent state and is equivalent to a wave function, while a mixed state is described by a classical probability distribution for the pure states that make up the mixture.

Macroscopic scale quantum coherence leads to novel phenomena, the so-called macroscopic quantum phenomena. For instance, the laser, superconductivity and superfluidity are examples of highly coherent quantum systems whose effects are evident at the macroscopic scale. The macroscopic quantum coherence (off-diagonal long-range order, ODLRO)[18][19] for superfluidity, and laser light, is related to first-order (1-body) coherence/ODLRO, while superconductivity is related to second-order coherence/ODLRO. (For fermions, such as electrons, only even orders of coherence/ODLRO are possible.) For bosons, a Bose–Einstein condensate is an example of a system exhibiting macroscopic quantum coherence through a multiple occupied single-particle state.

The classical electromagnetic field exhibits macroscopic quantum coherence. The most obvious example is the carrier signal for radio and TV. They satisfy Glauber's quantum description of coherence.

Recently M. B. Plenio and co-workers constructed an operational formulation of quantum coherence as a resource theory. They introduced coherence monotones analogous to the entanglement monotones.[20] Quantum coherence has been shown to be equivalent to quantum entanglement[21] in the sense that coherence can be faithfully described as entanglement, and conversely that each entanglement measure corresponds to a coherence measure. — https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coherence_(physics)

Does that sound like a remotely clear physical understanding to you? Are the understandings of quantum physics remotely settled?

No.

You accept the understanding of how an object can become hot simply because you stop asking '...but how?' You are satisfied with the answer.

There are clear answers to how matter becomes conscious. You are just not satisfied with them but prefer to continue to ask '...but how?'

There's nothing wrong with that, your own personal satisfaction is your own lookout. What's wrong would be implying your own personal dissatisfaction has any bearing on the relevance of a field of enquiry.

The difference is we have a basic idea of how things become hot; and idea which is consistent with all our understanding of combustion, chemical action and friction, but I can't see how we have even the first idea about how matter becomes conscious.

There is a difference between...

...we have... — Janus

...and...

...I can't see... — Janus

The former is about the state of the field, the latter is about your personal knowledge/grasp of it.

— fdrake

What I would like is an argument, or observation, or evidence, that shows the emergence of consciousness from human bodies is conceptually possible.
— bert1

I know this wasn't addressed to me. But I can think of two possible requirements you might want from this? The first demands a bare bones functional account, "how does body make consciousness?", which would perhaps make that production conceptually possible by making it empirically possible. — fdrake

Yes, that would be good. We have another verb 'make'.

Like you, I have always though that empirical possibility entails conceptual possibility. But maybe that's not right. Maybe some would say there might be a whole load of things that are empirically possible that, even if we knew what they were, wouldn't make sense conceptually. That's a weird position. That should be distinguished from mysterianism, which (I guess) is the position that we may never know how consciousness arises from the physical (because of our own limitations), nevertheless it would make conceptual sense if we could grasp it.

The second is a conceptual demand, "can a method of producing consciousness be articulated without internal contradiction?". — fdrake

That's a logical rather than conceptual demand isn't it? Further upstream? I'm not sure, I haven't thought a great deal about the different kinds of possibility and how they interact. But if so, I'm definitely demanding that as well.

For the conceptual demand, someone could say "consciousness arises from the eggs the moon lays in human skulls" - which seems to be conceptually possible. — fdrake

Oh, OK. I would say this was definitely logically possible. But not conceptually possible. (Maybe our concepts of possibility are different, not sure). I don't think it's conceptually possible for consciousness to be 'produced' (random verb!) by brains. Nor do I think it's conceptually possible for consciousness to arise from the moon laying eggs in human skulls, for exactly the same reasons. Neither brains nor moon-laid eggs can produce consciousness, because both brains and moon-laid eggs are physical. By 'physical', I mean defined in terms of structure and function. Consciousness is not defined in terms of structure and function. The conceptual difficulty arises from explaining non-structure and function in terms of structure and function. I have been accused of begging the question here, and assuming that consciousness isn't structure and function. But assuming is not the same thing as starting from what we mean by a word, especially when the referent of that word is a given, the least doubtable thing possible (and I know many reject that as well).

But it goes against what we know about eggs, the moon, the body, and human skulls. Regardless of that, those contradictions seem only to come from the inconsistency of that concept of consciousness with an aggregate of empirical data. So something can be conceptually possible even if we know it is empirically false. — fdrake

Something can indeed be conceptually possible if it is empirically false. If your claim had not been about consciousness, but about, say, cars, which are definied in terms of structure and function, I would agree. So:

"cars arise from the eggs the moon lays in human skulls" is conceptually possible but not empirically possible because of what we know about moons, laying, eggs and skulls. We've got structure and function producing more structure and function, which is conceptually easier, an 'easy problem' if you like.

Like Lord of the Rings. Does conceptually possible mean something more than "can be imagined"? — fdrake

Yes, I think it means more than that. I vaguely remember Aule creating the dwarves from the earth (or something) and it didn't work, they weren't alive. Aule, perhaps, was trying to get non-structure and function from structure and function, which Tolkien might have thought was impossible as well, I have no idea. But Iluvatar took pity on the dwarves and gave them life. Assuming 'life' means 'consciousness' here, which I think it may well do, the earth didn't spontaneously become conscious on its own, that would have been conceptually impossible. Iluvatar had to do something radically different. Aule's creating consciousness (if he had succeeded) is imaginable in the sense that I can just suspend disbelief and sort of gloss over it in my head, sort of do an [insert magic here] exercise, but not conceptually possible. Of course, Iluvatar breathing consciousness into dwarves has its own conceptual difficulties if we interpret this as substance dualism. Conceptually, substance dualism seems impossible because of the interaction problem.

Edit: something I assumed was that empirically possible implies conceptually possible. Another alternative is that something can in fact be true, but nevertheless cannot be conceptually possible. Reality as Lovecraftian abomination.

That is a worrying thought.

Promissory notes or wrigglin' and squirmin' won't cut it. Present an account or admit you cannot.

Promissory notes or wrigglin' and squirmin' won't cut it. Present an account or admit you cannot. — Janus

Why? There is an entire canon of neuroscience around consciousness. Papers and books by the truckload. Are you seriously saying that a reasonable burden of proof is that unless I summarise the entire field of neuroscience of consciousness you can justifiably suggest it doesn't exist.

If you want to engage in a philosophical discussion about the implications of our beliefs and meta-theories regarding consciousness, then I'm interested.

If you want to claim there's no neuroscientific theories of consciousness unless I reveal them to you, then we might as well leave it there. I'm not interested in that game.

A similar pattern is emerging here of conflict between a person's individual mental capability and some metaphysical implication.

@Janus want his/her lack of being able to 'see' the state of some field to have implications for it's actual state.

Chalmers (if @fdrake's interpretation is correct) wants his inability to 'conceive' a bridge to have metaphysical implications.

But 'seeing' and 'conceiving' are both mental capacities. Why do the limits of mental capacity have these implications?

I haven't been following this thread, although I probably should be. It's a good OP. I think I agree with your title, but probably for reasons you might not like: I don't think "phenomenal consciousness" makes a lot of sense. It has the smell of ineffable qualia and such other nasties. — Banno

No worries, I know we disagree on the substantive issues. I was invoking you on one or two of the logical matters which I thought you might already know about. The types of possibility and how they interact, for example. No matter.

I don't like qualia either, although I'm fine with phenomenal consciousness. I know they are supposed to be the same, but I think the notion of qualia are unnecessarily confusing. Too evocative of invisible pixies, which I don't think phenomenal consciousness is.

The producer is so different from the product it seems impossible that they are the same kind of thing. But maybe that's my failing.
— bert1

An orchestra produces a Beethoven symphony. Do you find that equally impossible? Is an orchestra the same kind of thing as a symphony? — Isaac

Good question. I find that conceptually possible, because I do think the symphony is the same kind of thing as the orchestra. Beethoven symphony, however conceived (Is it the score? Or the playing? Or the sound waves?) are structure and function. An orchestra is also structure and function. That the other produces the one does not seem difficult to me.

What I would like is an argument, or observation, or evidence, that shows the emergence of consciousness from human bodies is conceptually possible.
— bert1

OK...

Consciousness is the label we give to the re-telling of recent mental events with a first-person protagonist. — Isaac

If that's what it is, then it's perfectly explainable in terms of structure and function, at least to a certain depth. We agree on that. It's just not how phenomenal consciousness is typically defined.

It evolved to give a coherent meta-model to various predictive processing streams so that responses could be coordinated better in the longer term which provides a competitive advantage worth the calorie cost of doing to in large bodies living in complex environments (usually social ones). It doesn't 'feel like' anything, we use the term 'feels like' in conversations such as these as it's something we've learned to say in these circumstances from a particular position (those taking that position use the term, it's like a badge or token of membership of that group). Our linguistic response to consciousness within social hierarchies is not the same as actual consciousness.

How was that? Not "do you agree with that?", I mean in what way do you find that not even conceptually possible?

Yes, I do find that conceptually possible. But you started with a concept that was not too different from the explanation. If you're happy with your definition and explanation, good for you.

Beethoven symphony, however conceived (Is it the score? Or the playing? Or the sound waves?) are structure and function. — bert1

I don't think so. I could be conceived as a set like S={all the notes}. Is a set the same kind of thing as an orchestra?

It could be conceived, as some musicians do, as s kind of 'realisation' from the realm of musical possibilities. Are realisations the same kind of thing as orchestras?

It could be conceived as an expression of the universe realising itself...

...and so on.

You choose to see it in such a way as it is the same kind of thing as an orchestra. You choose not to with consciousness. That choice, whilst perfectly legitimate, is not a failing of neuroscience.

If you're happy with your definition and explanation, good for you. — bert1

Can you explain why you're not? What is it about that definition and/or explanation that you find unsatisfactory?

Are you seriously saying that a reasonable burden of proof is that unless I summarise the entire field of neuroscience of consciousness you can justifiably suggest it doesn't exist. — Isaac

No, I'm saying just give me a brief rundown of a current theory.

If you want to claim there's no neuroscientific theories of consciousness unless I reveal them to you, then we might as well leave it there. I'm not interested in that game. — Isaac

I'm saying I've never heard of any cogent explanation for how matter can give rise to consciousness. I'm not claiming there are none. You say there is such a theory, but you apparently can't say what or where it is. That inspires little confidence.

OK, science geeks, how do we determine whether an AI is conscious? What do we do? What tests do we give it? — bert1

How do we know other people are conscious? What standards do we use? — T Clark

I suggest that we don’t know that other people are conscious, insofar as it is simply part of what it means to be a person. Maybe you could describe it as an animal certainty, but it seems a stretch to describe it as a knowing.

But then, how do we know people are persons? Again, what is significant here isn't knowing or judging that they are persons but relating, communicating, giving and asking for reasons, and so on.

It follows that we don’t use standards to make that judgement, because there is no judgement--unless the question comes up. And now that the question has come up, we find it difficult to judge. This I suppose is why it's also a difficult philosophical question.

Neuro-science today cannot explain how consciousness is created - the hard problem is not just one problem but can be broken into three. 1- how are qualities like the color red created, 2 - how are qualities from different modalities like a visual field and feelings and sounds bound together to be experienced simultaneously, 3 - assuming such consciousness is created how is it causally efficacious so that it adds something beyond mere automation. Any enhancement to the current physicalist worldview to explain these things would be paradigm shifting - much more so then even quantum physics.

Some people I know think religion is so stupid - how could people believe such silly superstition. My answer is this. Science tells us how lasers and computers work and can put a man on the moon but is silent on the most important question - who and what am I. In a world of interacting particles I do not exist. At least religion says something. Perhaps I am a soul and some God may guide my journey beyond the body.

So there two incompatible worldviews - science and religion. Philosophy perhaps can bridge that gap and point the way to a single coherent worldview by naturalizing the mind. Panpsychism is an attempt to do so - there are little souls everywhere even in electrons. Rocks may not be sentient, but particles that have self-movement and agency and seem to interact with their peers to create crystaline rocks may. And single celled eukaryotic creatures like amoebas may have mentality and animal cells may interact with their peers to create bodies and brains.

I suggest that we don’t know that other people are conscious, insofar as it is simply part of what it means to be a person. — Jamal

Really? Do you not find the argument from analogy completely compelling? I know some don't, but I struggle to understand why not.

1- how are qualities like the color red created, 2 - how are qualities from different modalities like a visual field and feelings and sounds bound together to be experienced simultaneously, 3 - assuming such consciousness is created how is it causally efficacious so that it adds something beyond mere automation. — lorenzo sleakes

All very good questions. Each worth a thread.

I'm saying I've never heard of any cogent explanation for how matter can give rise to consciousness. — Janus

Is that unusual?

I've never heard of any cogent explanation for how long chain polymers are made.

I don't find that at all odd, nor do I think it carries any implication for the field of organic chemistry. I haven't heard any such explanation because I'm not an organic chemist, why would I have?

I'm avoiding the presentation of any neuroscientific theory because I'm on a philosophy forum, it's not the place to discuss the merits of any such theories. What's of philosophical interest (I think) is that you (in common with @bert1 and Chalmers it seems) want to say that your ability to comprehend any given theory's model, to conceive of things the way it does, has some bearing on its veracity. It's that oddity I'm interested in.

The mere existence of a theory that someone thinks explains consciousness should be a given, which is all that's required to explore the philosophical question. But if you think it would be easier with an example, we could use https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10057681/1/Friston_Paper.pdf

What's of philosophical interest (I think) is that you (in common with bert1 and Chalmers it seems) want to say that your ability to comprehend any given theory's model, to conceive of things the way it does, has some bearing on its veracity. It's that oddity I'm interested in. — Isaac

Conceivablility isn't a subjective feat, it's a reasonably public property of propositions. Just as the validity of inferences is objective. If we disagree about them, someone is wrong. I'm turning into @Banno

Imagination might be a subjective feat, perhaps.

Really? Do you not find the argument from analogy completely compelling? I know some don't, but I struggle to understand why not. — bert1

Maybe you didn't read all of my post. My point was that what cannot be doubted cannot be known. I'm happy enough to drop the stipulation that using "know" here is wrong. It's certain, more than any argument could be.

Conceivablility isn't a subjective feat, it's a reasonably public property of propositions. — bert1

Do you have some argument in favour of that conclusion, or is it just a foundational principle for you?

To me it seems clearly about capability. I wouldn't expect a five year old to be able to conceive of a Bayesian predictive model. I can't conceive of any of the leading theories in quantum physics. I don't think that makes either wrong.

Chalmers (if fdrake's interpretation is correct) wants his inability to 'conceive' a bridge to have metaphysical implications. — Isaac

If that's true, fdrake is wrong. The conceivability of the p-zombie just shifts the burden to functionalists to explain why we talk about having experiences when we don't actually have them.

Do you have some argument in favour of that conclusion, or is it just a foundational principle for you? — Isaac

Something might be conceivable even without anyone to conceive it. It's about possibility. It's more obvious to think of in terms of logical possibility. - (a & -a) was as true 13bn years ago as it is now, no? Same with conceivability.

The conceivability of the p-zombie just shifts the burden to functionalists to explain why we talk about having experiences when we don't actually have them. — frank

Who says we don't have them. The argument is about the kind of thing they are, not whether they are. It's about whether 'experience' describes a set of mental events, an epiphenomena of human fancy, or a type of thing the relationship to which neurons have needs explaining.

No one is saying there's no subject matter there at all.

We 'talk about' life-force, luck, auras, God, unicorns, gut instinct, premonition... Doesn't mean they all default exist in any particular form.

Something might be conceivable even without anyone to conceive it. It's about possibility. It's more obvious to think of in terms of logical possibility. - (a & -a) was as true 13bn years ago as it is now, no? Same with conceivability. — bert1

Yes, but we're not talking here about the possibility, we're talking about the actuality. Chalmers' actual failure to conceive it. Not its impossibility of being conceived. Why does the one indicate the other? Is Chalmers the pinnacle of human mental ability such that if he can't conceive it, no one can?

I can't solve Navier-Stokes equations. They're not unsolvable, I'm just not that good at maths.

Yes, but we're not talking here about the possibility, we're talking about the actuality. Chalmers' actual failure to conceive it. Not its impossibility of being conceived. Why does the one indicate the other? Is Chalmers the pinnacle of human mental ability such that if he can't conceive it, no one can? — Isaac

I'm not that interested in Chalmers, probably because I suspect I'll agree with him about most things. I haven't actually read much of his hard problem stuff. I'm saying it's about conceptual possibility, not someone's actual ability to conceive it. I haven't seen any evidence of people conceiving it anyway. When they claim to, it usually using a different definition of 'consciousness' than phenomenal consciousness. Just like your earlier definition.

I'm saying it's about conceptual possibility, not someone's actual ability to conceive it. — bert1

Yes, but the only measure anyone is giving for conceivability is their own ability to conceive it.

I haven't seen any evidence of people conceiving it anyway. — bert1

What would that evidence consist of?

Starting with a concept of phenomenal consciousness which is not defined functionally, and then offering an explanation of that in terms of structure and function. An example of this is Tononi's IIT. He starts off great in his paper with a concept of phenomenal consciousness. Then he goes on to develop and ingenious idea of integrated information. And then he just declares that they are the same thing. Which they're not. Integrated information is integrated information. Consciousness is consciousness. If he could explain why a system could not integrate information without being conscious, he would have conceived it, and we would have a credible theory.

Who says we don't have them. The argument is about the kind of thing they are, not whether they are. It's about whether 'experience' describes a set of mental events, an epiphenomena of human fancy, or a type of thing the relationship to which neurons have needs explaining. — Isaac

Chalmers has no particular viewpoint on the constitution of experience. I have to explain this every time his name comes up. :confused:

No one is saying there's no subject matter there at all.

We 'talk about' life-force, luck, auras, God, unicorns, gut instinct, premonition... Doesn't mean they all default exist in any particular form. — Isaac

Cool. So you've accepted that experience exists in some form. You've taken up the burden of explaining what we refer to when we speak of it. I'll call yours the Unicorn Theory of Phenomenal Consciousness. :strong:

Like you, I have always though that empirical possibility entails conceptual possibility. But maybe that's not right. Maybe some would say there might be a whole load of things that are empirically possible that, even if we knew what they were, wouldn't make sense conceptually. That's a weird position. That should be distinguished from mysterianism, which (I guess) is the position that we may never know how consciousness arises from the physical (because of our own limitations), nevertheless it would make conceptual sense if we could grasp it. — bert1

I get the opposie impression. But honestly I can't be bothered going through Chalmers or secondary literature to decide what's right.

Oh, OK. I would say this was definitely logically possible. But not conceptually possible. (Maybe our concepts of possibility are different, not sure) — bert1

I imagine they have different scopes. I DM for Dungeons and Dragons. To me it's perfectly cromulent to say that parasitic toad people from another dimension have infected a planet sized teratoma with a disease which will turn the planet into a sea of tadpoles in 4 days.

That is a worrying thought. — bert1

Screamingly sentient, dumbly delirious, only the gods that were can tell. A sickened, sensitive shadow writhing in hands that are not hands, and whirled blindly past ghastly midnights of rotting creation, corpses of dead worlds with sores that were cities, charnel winds that brush the pallid stars and make them flicker low. Beyond the worlds vague ghosts of monstrous things; half-seen columns of unsanctified temples that rest on nameless rocks beneath space and reach up to dizzy vacua above the spheres of light and darkness. And through this revolting graveyard of the universe the muffled, maddening beating of drums, and thin, monotonous whine of blasphemous flutes from inconceivable, unlighted chambers beyond Time; the detestable pounding and piping whereunto dance slowly, awkwardly, and absurdly the gigantic, tenebrous ultimate gods—the blind, voiceless, mindless gargoyles whose soul is Nyarlathotep. — H P Lovecraft, Nyaralathotep

Neuroscience has nothing to say about phenomenal consciousness. — bert1

I fully agree. In fact, I will make this statement a little stronger: Neuroscience has nothing to do with human consciousness. (At the level of the mind, of course.)

One must also recognize that there are prominent neuroscientists today who admit that and differentiate mind from brain. But this doesn't change the nature of Neuroscience.

Neuroscience has plenty to say about other concepts of consciousness, the difference between being awake and asleep, various arousal levels, identifying neural correlates of particular experiences — bert1

Exactly. One cannot stress that enough. This kind of consciousness is what I call "bodily consciousness", i.e. consciousness at a body level.

Good to see posts like these! :up:

I suppose it's possible to walk the path; there are some physical observables (behaviour etc) which provide sufficient justification for claiming that a test subject has narrow content - the thing is it would always be return that the subject would have narrow content as a p-zombie is stipulated to be able to emulate any physical aspect of a human. The fork in the road is that there are non-physical observables which suffice for that justification - but I've no idea what they could be. — fdrake

The whole p-zombie thing has always driven me crazy. Of course other people have internal lives that are like mine, i.e. phenomenal consciousness, experience, what it's like to be them. Doubting that is the same as Descartes doubting everything but his own existence. What possible value is there in doubting it. By the way the argument is phrased, it is impossible to tell by any objective means. It's like the multiverse - metaphysics at best, meaningless otherwise.