Yes. Chalmers believes that our present scientific approach to understanding consciousness is limited to explaining function. He believes we need to add experience as an explanandum in its own right.

On the other hand, you said:

He says it is intractable from the third-person perspective, due to its first-person character.. — Wayfarer

This isn't true. He believes a scientific theory of consciousness is possible. This would be a third-person account.

‘Facing up to the problem of consciousness’ concerns the difficulty, or even the impossibility, of a providing a scientific account of first-person experience due its subjective nature. — Wayfarer

You inserted "impossibility" there. That isn't Chalmer's view.

As I’ve said, I think Chalmer’s expression of ‘what it is like to be…’ is simply a rather awkward way of referring to ‘being’. And as I’ve also said, that is not something which can be framed in scientific terms, because there’s no ‘epistemic cut’ here. We’re never outside of it or apart from it. A Wittgenstein aphorism comes to mind, ‘We feel that even if all possible scientific questions be answered, the problems of life have still not been touched at all.’ — Wayfarer

Here you lay out your own view more clearly, and it's a view that has its place in philosophy of mind. It's called mysterianism. A famous proponent of it is Colin McGinn. David Chalmers doesn't hold to that view.

Yes. Chalmers believes that our present scientific approach to understanding consciousness is limited to explaining function. He believes we need to add experience as an explanandum in its own right. — frank

Thank you.

He believes a scientific theory of consciousness is possible. This would be a third-person account. — frank

Although he does say:

As I see it, the science of consciousness is all about relating third-person data - about brain processes, behavior, environmental interaction, and the like - to first-person data about conscious experience. I take it for granted that there are first-person data. It's a manifest fact about our minds that there is something it is like to be us - that we have subjective experiences - and that these subjective experiences are quite different at different times. Our direct knowledge of subjective experiences stems from our first-person access to them. And subjective experiences are arguably the central data that we want a science of consciousness to explain.

I also take it that the first-person data can't be expressed wholly in terms of third-person data about brain processes and the like. There may be a deep connection between the two - a correlation or even an identity - but if there is, the connection will emerge through a lot of investigation, and can't be stipulated at the beginning of the day. That's to say, no purely third-person description of brain processes and behavior will express precisely the data we want to explain, though they may play a central role in the explanation. So as data, the first-person data are irreducible to third-person data. — David Chalmers, First Person Methods...

You inserted "impossibility" there. That isn't Chalmer's view. — frank

Fair point. Might have gotten carried away.

I've read a little of Colin McGinn and listened to an interview with him recently. He doesn't really grab me. I'm interested in phenomenology and Buddhist philosophy of mind, although it's a digression from this OP.

Although he does say:

As I see it, the science of consciousness is all about relating third-person data - about brain processes, behavior, environmental interaction, and the like - to first-person data about conscious experience. I take it for granted that there are first-person data. It's a manifest fact about our minds that there is something it is like to be us - that we have subjective experiences - and that these subjective experiences are quite different at different times. Our direct knowledge of subjective experiences stems from our first-person access to them. And subjective experiences are arguably the central data that we want a science of consciousness to explain.

I also take it that the first-person data can't be expressed wholly in terms of third-person data about brain processes and the like. There may be a deep connection between the two - a correlation or even an identity - but if there is, the connection will emerge through a lot of investigation, and can't be stipulated at the beginning of the day. That's to say, no purely third-person description of brain processes and behavior will express precisely the data we want to explain, though they may play a central role in the explanation. So as data, the first-person data are irreducible to third-person data.
— David Chalmers, First Person Methods... — Wayfarer

He means that the information we have about how the visual system works, for instance, doesn't explain the experience of seeing, at least it hasn't yet. The knowledge about what the brain is doing during vision is third person data. The experience itself is first-person data.

But if, say, Penrose turns out to be right and experience has something to do with events on the quantum level, that would be a third person account. It may be that we as a species are like a patient who is "locked in." Maybe we can't have final answers, or maybe final answers simply don't exist. But that doesn't mean we're presently at an end of our journey to sort out what we can understand.

Of course, the subject of neuroscience is the human brain, and humans are subjects, but that it not the point at issue. — Wayfarer

The point I was addressing was the falsity to your claim that, "I agree with Chalmers, on the grounds that objective physical sciences exclude the first person as a matter of principle."

It seems that went over your head, but now that I am pointing it our more explicitly, can you recognize the falsity of that statement you made? Do you recognize that you are not well qualified to speak of "the principles of science"?

The bet which was the subject of the OP was placed in 1998 between David Chalmers and Kristoff Koch as to whether a neurological account of the nature of experience would be discovered in the next 25 years. — Wayfarer

People make dumb bets. If I had been there I would happily have bet ten cases of wine on Chalmer's side. Even a stopped clock is right twice a day, and Chalmers was right on the occasion when the bet was made.

BTW, people use "OP" here in a way that I haven't been able to clearly grasp the referent of. I think of "OP" as an acronym for "original post" referring to the initial post in a forum thread/discussion. However, some people use "OP" in ways that clearly do not fit with my understanding; your usage for example. What I consider to be the OP wasn't about the bet. It was about a "Nice little roundup of the state of consciousness studies"... ..."Over at Vox Future Perfect."

Have you read the original Chalmer’s paper? — Wayfarer

I haven't read this thread closely enough to know what paper you are referring to. Can you provide a non-paywalled link?

David Chalmer's doesn't say that consciousness is off-limits. He says it is intractable from the third-person perspective, due to its first-person character. — Wayfarer

Perhaps the Consciousness problem is "intractable" for empirical science because subjective experience is seamless & holistic, with no obvious joints for reductive science to carve into smaller chunks of Awareness. Equating the material Brain with the immaterial Mind is like carving thin air with a steak knife. Unfortunately, that means philosophers can only analyze theoretically, not empirically. Is that like a toothless man gumming a steak, then trying to swallow it whole? We can get a taste of 3rd person Consciousness, but not the full meaning/feeling. :smile:

The point I was addressing was the falsity to your claim that, "I agree with Chalmers, on the grounds that objective physical sciences exclude the first person as a matter of principle." — wonderer1

OK, I should have written 'excludes consideration of the first-person perspective....'

It seems that went over your head, — wonderer1

No need to be condescending.

people use "OP" here in a way that I haven't been able to clearly grasp the referent of. — wonderer1

I use to mean both Original Post and Original Poster. As the OP in this case linked to the Chalmers-Koch wager, I took it to be the central point of the OP.

Chalmers was right on the occasion when the bet was made. — wonderer1

And was still right 25 years later, as it happens.

Can you provide a non-paywalled link? — wonderer1

Facing up to the Problem of Consciousness, David Chalmers.

Perhaps the Consciousness problem is "intractable" for empirical science because subjective experience is seamless & holistic, with no obvious joints for reductive science to carve into smaller chunks of Awareness — Gnomon

I agree. A scientific paper I frequently refer to is The Neural Binding Problem(s) by Jerome S Feldman. 'In its most general form, “The Binding Problem” concerns how items that are encoded by distinct brain circuits can be combined for perception, decision, and action.' Under the heading The Subjective Unity of Perception, the paper discusses 'the mystery of subjective personal experience.'
It references Chalmer's paper directly, saying, 'this is one instance of the famous mind–body problem (Chalmers 1996) concerning the relation of our subjective experience (aka qualia) to neural function. Different visual features (color, size, shape, motion, etc.) are computed by largely distinct neural circuits, but we experience an integrated whole. This is closely related to the problem known as the illusion of a stable visual world (Martinez-Conde et al. 2008).' It says that there is no known neural system that accounts for what we all experience as a stable visual world picture. 'What we do know is that there is no place in the brain where there could be a direct neural encoding of the illusory detailed scene (Kaas and Collins 2003). That is, enough is known about the structure and function of the visual system to rule out any detailed neural representation that embodies the subjective experience. So, this version of the Neural Binding Problem really is a scientific mystery at this time.'

There's a Stanford Encyc. of Phil. article on this issue here https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/consciousness-unity/

He means that the information we have about how the visual system works, for instance, doesn't explain the experience of seeing, at least it hasn't yet. The knowledge about what the brain is doing during vision is third person data. The experience itself is first-person data. — frank

I'm currently reading a book by mathematical physicist Charles Pinter, subtitled : How the Mind Creates the Features & Structure of All Things, and Why this Insight Transforms Physics. After a chapter discussing Donald Hoffman's interface theory ("a necessary deception"), he raises the "binding problem"*2 of Consciousness, using vision as an example. "The retinal image is split apart at its very inception into disembodied aspects each of which is analyzed in different and specialized part of the brain". And, "the information parsed by the brain is assembled and comes together somewhere". Then he concludes, "no one knows where or how visual information comes together to yield a systematic, unitary image." He uses an old term from 20th century Psychology, Gestalt*3, to label those holistic concepts.

Apparently, incoming sensory information from the outside world is reductively "analyzed" by the brain into various qualia, like Shape or Motion, which are parceled-out according to their significance to the observer. But eventually, all those isolated parts must be re-integrated into the holistic concepts, we call Images or Ideas or Gestalts. Yet, there is no known mechanism for that transformation from parts to wholes. Even the Integrated Information Theory of Consciousness, doesn't specify by what magic the bits of physical neuronal information (codes) are transmuted into subjective metaphysical mental imagery (content). This implicit natural "magic" may be what Materialists dismiss as spooky "woo". Yet Pinter takes it seriously.

He uses several terms --- integrated, come together, convergence, confluence --- to describe the process of "binding" bits of information into meaningful bytes (words) of awareness. Yet his proposed mechanism is not a mechanism at all, but merely acknowledgement of the apparent duality of reality, and the necessary unity of the universe. "The mind seems to be non-material, though tied to the brain which is material. . . . . The very idea of mind acting on matter by a pure effect of will appears a little spooky". But it's only uncanny if your worldview has no place for immaterial stuff like Ideas & Ideals.

To explain the disdainful "woo" response to notions of matterless mental phenomena, Pinter notes that "contemporary philosophy is dominated by a materialist way of thinking strongly influenced by physics". Yet, since Materialism is an unproven presumption (axiom), the problem may be more of a "way of believing" than a "way of thinking". Although the term is not in the book's Index, his own monistic unifying approach to the Hard Problem of Consciousness sounds more like Panpsychism. :smile:


PS___He doesn't refer to Biosemiology by name, but the author mentions that "the signals merely code the content", implying that the personal significance (meaning) of those incoming symbols is a product of Mind, not Brain. He also says, "the brain constructs a coded representation of the visual array . . . . There is no known physical mechanism which could achieve this unification". Here again, the implication of Holism, which is a taboo concept for believers in monistic Materialism, living in an apparently dualistic world. :nerd:


*1. Interface Theory :
Within the interface theory of perception, neither primary nor secondary qualities necessarily map onto reality.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_D._Hoffman
Note --- "primary" = incoming Percepts ; "secondary" = processed Concepts ???

*2. The neural binding problem :
In its most general form, “The Binding Problem” concerns how items that are encoded by distinct brain circuits can be combined for perception, decision, and action. In Science, something is called “a problem” when there is no plausible model for its substrate.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3538094/
Note --- Incoming physically encoded Information (abstract dots & dashes) must be metaphysically decoded (into meaningful words & images) in order to make sense to the observer.

*3. Gestalt :
The classic principles of the gestalt theory of visual perception include similarity, continuation, closure, proximity, figure/ground, and symmetry & order
https://www.toptal.com/designers/ui/gestalt-principles-of-design
Note --- Pinter says "Gestalt is not an objective fact of the world, but is a way of being perceived. It is a property of perception, not a property of of the external world." Although I appreciate the alliteration, to be more accurate, I would change physical "perception" to mental "conception",

Perception = analysis (reductive science)
Conception = integration (holistic philosophy)

"The mind seems to be non-material, though tied to the brain which is material. . . . . The very idea of mind acting on matter by a pure effect of will appears a little spooky" — Gnomon

Is substance-dualism making a come back?

"The mind seems to be non-material, though tied to the brain which is material. . . . . The very idea of mind acting on matter by a pure effect of will appears a little spooky" — Gnomon
Is substance-dualism making a come back? — RogueAI

Apparently, Substance Dualism never went away. It seems to be compared or contrasted with Property Dualism in the never-ending debates on Brain vs Mind explanations for the mysterious-yet-familiar quality of Consciousness, by which we know both substances and properties. :smile:

PS__When I refer to "substance" in this context, I'm usually talking about Aristotle's definition as Essence.
Substance and Essence in Aristotle :
https://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9780801421266/substance-and-essence-in-aristotle/#bookTabs=1

The refrain of “no one knows” is being heard often. And yet the neuroscience exists.

The unification and stabilisation of perception is what falls out of the Bayesian Brain and its predictive modelling. Learning to ignore the world as much as possible by learning to anticipate the world as much as possible is what both solves this “binding problem” and also produces the sense of the still self at the centre of its coherently unfolding world.

Before you turn your head, you have already sent out the “reafference” pattern as the motor command to be subtracted from the resulting perceptual experience. You will know it is you that turns and not the world that suddenly lurches as that is the uncertainty which you just cancelled out in advance.

A lot of BS is being cited here about what “neuroscience doesn’t know”. Chalmers and Koch are perpetuating a giant public con. You are falling for it.

Chalmers and Koch are perpetuating a giant public con. — apokrisis

Really? Are they actively scheming to fool people or just unwitting dupes of a Bayesian mastermind?

I'm currently reading a book by mathematical physicist Charles Pinter, subtitled : How the Mind Creates the Features & Structure of All Things, and Why this Insight Transforms Physics. — Gnomon

:clap: I've been singing that book's praises on this forum ever since I read it about a year ago. I emailed the author and got a friendly reply (he's well into his nineties now). All of his other books are mathematics textbooks but his homepage notes his interest in neural modelling. I think it's an important but under-rated book - under-rated because Pinter isn't known as a cognitive scientist or philosopher, so it went under the radar. I think his use of the Gestalt is particularly brilliant, he even shows how very simple organisms like fruitflies can be shown to parse sensory information as gestalts (meaningful wholes. See this ChatGPT summary of convergences between Kant and Gestalt.)

Is substance-dualism making a come back? — RogueAI

One has to be very, very careful about the use of the word 'substance' in philosophy generally and this topic in particular. 'Substance' in normal parlance means 'a material with uniform properties'. In philosophy, 'substance' was originally 'substantia' which was the Latin translation of Aristotle's 'ousia'. And that word is a form of the verb 'to be', i.e. much nearer in meaning to 'being' or 'subject' than what we normally consider 'substance' (see this reference).

Among the pernicious consequences of this ambiguity is Descartes' use of the term 'res cogitans'. 'Res' is actually Latin for 'thing', so 'res cogitans' means literally 'thinking thing'. But we also inherit 'thinking stuff' or 'thinking substance', which is completely different from the idea of 'self-aware subject' (although no specific term may be an exact fit.)

Given all those caveats, I think there's a case to be made for a type of dualism. Perhaps it could be argued that consciousness is 'the capacity for experience' in an allegorical manner to energy as 'the capacity for work'// and that physical matter, in the absence of consciousness, lacks the capacity for experience. So that the emergence of organisms is also the emergence of the capacity for experience, which is absent in the non-organic domain.//

Chalmers and Koch are perpetuating a giant public con. You are falling for it. — apokrisis

Your metaphors and explanations are concerned with neural modelling as a function of survival, not with philosophy of mind per se. You referred to Karl Friston as exemplary - the Vox article points out that 'Stripped of all the math, (Friston) suggests that the behavior of all living systems follows a single principle: To remain alive, they try to minimize the difference between their expectations and incoming sensory input.' That would go for fruit-flies and crocodiles, as well as bats and humans on one level. But it says nothing in particular about the nature or meaning of conscious experience. The reason you dismiss Chalmer's paper is because it means nothing to you, given your interests and emphasis.

I dismiss Chalmers by reducing his claimed concern to the general epistemic issue that science can only proceed by way of testable counterfactuals.

That applies to anything science might investigate. It is not special to “consciousness”. It is why science has special contempt for “theories that are not even wrong”.

Which is the class of theory popular with crackpots who like the idea that the Hard Problem gives them licence for their furious speculations.

It is why science has special contempt for “theories that are not even wrong”. — apokrisis

And with it, much of philosophy. This thread has largely been characterised by measured consideration of claims and arguments. Very little by way of 'furious speculation'.

I'm currently reading a book by mathematical physicist Charles Pinter, subtitled : How the Mind Creates the Features & Structure of All Things, and Why this Insight Transforms Physics. After a chapter discussing Donald Hoffman's interface theory ("a necessary deception"), he raises the "binding problem"*2 of Consciousness, using vision as an example. "The retinal image is split apart at its very inception into disembodied aspects each of which is analyzed in different and specialized part of the brain". And, "the information parsed by the brain is assembled and comes together somewhere". Then he concludes, "no one knows where or how visual information comes together to yield a systematic, unitary image." — Gnomon

Great post btw. I read about the idea of a central processing hub a while back. It would take sensory cues, models, learned and innate reflexes, hopes, fears, etc. and smush it together somehow.

But it's only uncanny if your worldview has no place for immaterial stuff like Ideas & Ideals. — Gnomon

But if the cultural pendulum swings back toward thinking of ideas as some sort of stuff, or an interaction between stuff, then ideas would take their place among the material of materialism like gravity did.

Perhaps it could be argued that consciousness is 'the capacity for experience' in an allegorical manner to energy as 'the capacity for work'// and that physical matter, in the absence of consciousness, lacks the capacity for experience. So that the emergence of organisms is also the emergence of the capacity for experience, which is absent in the non-organic domain. — Wayfarer

So what is it about organisms that is so special? What characterises them beyond what the bare physics of matter can tell us?

The scientific view is that organisms display intelligence and behavioural autonomy because they use semiotic codes to construct a “selfish” or enactive modelling relation with their worlds. That is what can be seen plainly written into the structure of their nervous systems. It is not a mystery.

So what is the alternative you are trying to float here? That a by-product of starting down that path is that living bodies somehow … tune into a karmic plane of being, or something?

They are like fleshy receivers of cosmic signal? Having a metabolism not only allows organisms to do work but also download, glimpse, incorporate, something or other, a kind of “experiential energy” that radiates from some source beyond the physical realm?

Be specific as you like in answering. What ontology do you wish to commit to here?

So what is it about organisms that is so special? What characterises them beyond what the bare physics of matter can tell us? — apokrisis

I thought you had distanced yourself from philosophical materialism. Was I wrong?

Organisms are subjects of experience, which is something more than, or other than, simply objects of scientific analysis. This goes for all organisms but is more significant for self-aware animals and rational sentient beings such as humans. To regard living beings as objects is, I think, inhumane and rather presumptious.

Organisms act for reasons other than the physical, even if they're constrained by physical laws. They act for reasons, not simply as a consequence of prior material or efficient causation. The appearance of organisms signifies the appearance of intentionality, even without attributing intentionality to something mysteriously inherent in nature. Perhaps it could be understood in terms of emergence, but in another sense it is also something novel.

Incidentally, the word "karma" (कर्म) means "action," "deed," or "act." It is derived from the root "kṛ" (कृ), which signifies "to do" or "to act" (ultimately derivative from the word for "hand"). In its original context, karma represents the idea that every action has consequences, although plainly a lot more has been read into it. I nevertheless think it is a sound basis for an ethical philosophy.

The scientific view is that organisms zombies display intelligence and behavioural autonomy because they use semiotic codes to construct a “selfish” or enactive modelling relation with their worlds. That is what can be seen plainly written into the structure of their nervous systems. It is not a mystery. — apokrisis

Given all those caveats, I think there's a case to be made for a type of dualism. Perhaps it could be argued that consciousness is 'the capacity for experience' in an allegorical manner to energy as 'the capacity for work'// and that physical matter, in the absence of consciousness, lacks the capacity for experience. So that the emergence of organisms is also the emergence of the capacity for experience, which is absent in the non-organic domain.// — Wayfarer

I like that analogy. Mostly because it aligns with my own little reductive thesis, that everything in the universe is a form of Energy, in the sense of Causation, and from the perspective of information theory1. Complexity/panoply is ultimately simplicity.

Since Einstein equated Matter (Mass) with Energy (E=MC^2), most of us on this forum have come to accept the counter-intuitive notion that invisible intangible Energy/Force can transform*2 into the visible tangible matter-substance-stuff that our physical senses are attuned to. And since Shannon equated knowable Information with Entropy/Uncertainty, we can now trace the emergence of the "capacity for experience" back to the primal "capacity for work" (for change, causation).

Mental experience (knowing, awareness) is mostly an encounter with Change (difference) in the environment. Those Transformations (changes in physical form) are due to the Causal power --- ability to do the work of metamorphosis (a change of the form or nature of a thing). That natural constructive/destructive power is merely Energy (EnFormAction*3) in its various forms (light, heat, impulse, etc). And those bits of experience (knowledge) are recordings in the brain/mind of minor changes in the environment. Collectively, we call those incoming bits & bytes of potential experience : "Information" (meaning, relative to self).

I apologize for using your analogy to discuss my own unfamiliar mashup of Energy & Information & Consciousness. I'm still looking for ways to make such arcane sub-atomic science understandable for philosophical purposes. Now, back to your regular program. :smile:

PS__The thesis ultimately compresses the conventional dualism of Mind/Brain into the monism of Universal Causation (the power to enform).


*1. Formation : to cause changes in structure, both positive & negative
To "inform" is to introduce a formative (causal) principle into a mind. To "enform" is to inject a causal (formative) principle into a material object.

*2. Transform : make a thorough or dramatic change in the form, appearance, or character of.
Abstract Energy (light, heat) is a wave form, alternating from maximum to minimum, and passing through a zero point in between. Compression of the wave intensifies the energy value. When compressed to a degree defined by the cosmic constant ("C"), now known as the vacuum energy density, it apparently "squeezes" the nothingness of vacuum into the measurable Mass of Matter. The result is a complete transformation of abstract Potential into concrete Actual. Magic? No, Science.

*3. EnFormAction :
Ententional Causation. A proposed metaphysical law of the universe that causes random interactions between forces and particles to produce novel & stable arrangements of matter & energy.
https://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page8.html

I read about the idea of a central processing hub a while back. It would take sensory cues, models, learned and innate reflexes, hopes, fears, etc. and smush it together somehow. — frank

Yes. Daniel Dennett derisively labeled that hypothetical "central processing hub" as the Cartesian Theatre. And the "hub" was portrayed as a homunculus (little man in the head). Materialist scientists are still looking in vain for a central processor in the brain. :nerd:

INFINITE REGRESS OF CONCEPTION

But if the cultural pendulum swings back toward thinking of ideas as some sort of stuff, or an interaction between stuff, then ideas would take their place among the material of materialism like gravity did. — frank

Gravity --- spooky action at a distance --- is often imagined as-if it's a material substance, and portrayed in images as a two dimensional grid in space. But in reality, there is no physical "tractor beam" out in space, pulling heavy objects toward each other. That's why Einstein defined it as an invisible mathematical relationship, not a tangible "fabric" with hills & valleys. Those are merely metaphors --- like the sentient homunculus --- to aid us in conceiving of something otherwise inconceivable, because immaterial. :smile:

WARPED FABRIC OF EMPTY SPACE

I like that analogy. Mostly because it aligns with my own little reductive thesis, that everything in the universe is a form of Energy, — Gnomon

It's not an analogy, it's a proposition. The difficulty with your thesis being that energy does not itself exhibit a 'capacity for experience', it acts without any such capacity, which is specific to consciousness. And to say that consciousness is a product of matter-energy is falling back to philosophical materialism. You're not going to arrive at anything like an explanation for where consciousness fits in the grand scheme by equating it with energy (or information, for that matter.)

I'm not offering any thesis, other than to say that consciousness, so understood, is irreducible, i.e. can't be explained with reference to anything else. (Although I might add that if consciousness is the capacity for experience, human consciousness in addition exhibits the capacity for abstract reason.)

Consciousness Cannot Have Evolved, Bernardo Kastrup.

OK, I should have written 'excludes consideration of the first-person perspective....' — Wayfarer

But neuroscience does consider first person perspectives and is learning much about them. You can Google "neuroscience first person perspective" and see for yourself. Instead you are making up stories about a science you don't demonstrate much understanding of.

Did you read the article that this thread is about? Do you have any idea of what the issue being discussed is?

Did you read the article that this thread is about? Do you have any idea of what the issue being discussed is? — Wayfarer

What was it you said about being condescending?

Yes I read the article and a variety of things have been discussed. Are you trying to gaslight people into thinking that the subject of the thread is what you say it is?

What was it you said about being condescending? — wonderer1

I said there was no need for it. From what I can see you haven't really had much to say about the substance of the article being discussed. I have cited the original argument, and responses to that from others including Daniel Dennett, throughout this discussion. I'm not gaslighting anyone.

You can Google "neuroscience first person perspective" and see for yourself. — wonderer1

Indeed there are. Most of them were published subsequent to 2005, from what I can see. David Chalmer's article was published in 1996. I think much of the literature reflects that, as it was an influential article and put the idea on the agenda, so to speak. Chalmers is not a neuroscientist, his subject is the limitations of science in respect of understanding the nature of first-person experience, from the perspective of philosophy of mind.

A note on neurophenomenology (subject of one of the papers that was returned):



This is a talk from Evan Thompson (mentioned above) on some of the aspects of this approach. It is directly relevant to the question of 'facing up to the problem of consciousness'

Most of them were published subsequent to 2005, from what I can see. David Chalmer's article was published in 1996. I think much of the literature reflects that, as it was an influential article and put the idea on the agenda, so to speak. — Wayfarer

Again you are demonstrating that you don't know much about neuroscience. Off the top of my head, the Libet experiment made use of first person report more than a decade before Chalmer's paper was published. Split brain studies making use of first person report go back to the 1960s.

Did Chalmers write any papers as an infant?

It's not an analogy, it's a proposition. The difficulty with your thesis being that energy does not itself exhibit a 'capacity for experience', it acts without any such capacity, which is specific to consciousness. And to say that consciousness is a product of matter-energy is falling back to philosophical materialism. You're not going to arrive at anything like an explanation for where consciousness fits in the grand scheme by equating it with energy (or information, for that matter.) — Wayfarer

I'm sorry, if my equation of Energy & Mind annoys you. But, that's exactly why my thesis*1 is based on metaphysical Information instead of physical Energy. I sometimes call it "directed energy", or "causal energy", or "encoded energy", and sometimes "enforming principle"*2. But my primary alternative to the randomized matter-morphing Energy of Physics, is the notion of EnFormAction*3, which includes mental phenomena among its effects. Unfortunately, I have to repeatedly remind TPF posters that the original meaning of the word "Information", was " knowledge and the ability to know". Also, the relationship between metaphysical (mental) Information & physical (causal) Energy*4 is a recent discovery in science, hence not well known.

The Enformationism thesis is indeed intended to be an explanation for how metaphysical Consciousness could emerge from physical Evolution --- naturally and without divine intervention*5. Moreover, immaterial causal encoded Energy (EnFormAction) is proposed as the agent-of-Awareness in a material world. Unfortunately, that hypothesis is so far from the current dominant worldview, that it is counter-intuitive for those who are only familiar with Claude Shannon's narrow pragmatic definition of "information". So, I keep plugging away, to convey the notion that the reductive Physics definition of "Energy" captures only one aspect of its multifunction roles in the Real and Ideal realms of the World System. One eventual & eventful effect of that natural Causation is the mysterious emergence of mental phenomena in a constantly morphing material world. :smile:

PS__The gap-bridging monistic BothAnd principle*6 --- implicit in the EnFormAction concept --- is difficult for both dualistic-or-monistic Materialists and Spiritualists to accept.

*1. Enformationism :
A worldview or belief system grounded on the assumption that Information (Form), rather than Matter (Hyle), is the basic substance (essence) of everything in the universe. It is intended to be a 21st century update of the ancient paradigms of Materialism and Spiritualism.
https://enformationism.info/enformationism.info/page2%20Welcome.html

*2. Ultimate Enforming Principle :
A major dispute is that of Matter versus Spirit. The Bible describes God as a “spirit”, but the modern concept of Energy (a form of information) --- as an invisible power --- was not even a gleam in the eye of the Bronze Age scribes. Nevertheless, both Ward and I have used the novel Information Age notion of flowing data bits, pioneered by Claude Shannon, and many quantum physicists, as an analog of those invisible ancient agents known as ghosts & spirits.
https://bothandblog5.enformationism.info/page24.html

*3. What is EnFormAction? :
The BothAnd Principle is a corollary to the thesis of Enformationism, in that it is a mashup of both Materialism and Spiritualism, of both Science and Religion, of both Empirical and Theoretical methods. The novel concept of Enformation is also a synthesis of both Energy and Information. So I invented a new portmanteu word to more precisely encapsulate that two-in-one meaning : “EnFormAction”. In this case though, the neologism contains three parts : “En” for Energy, “Form” for Shape or Structure or Design, and “Action” for Change or Causation. But Energy & Causation are basically the same thing. And the “En-” prefix is typically used to indicate that which causes a thing to be in whatever state or form or condition is referred to.
https://bothandblog2.enformationism.info/page29.html

*4. Information as Energy :
The literal equivalence of physical energy and mental information is still a fringe notion among scientists. But it has many credentialed champions, including Paul Davies, editor of the book noted above. Energy = Information (power to cause changes in Form).
https://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page8.html

*5. Preternatural LOGOS :
So, I’ll skip the history lesson, and focus mainly on the emerging secular notion of some force behind Nature that functions like an “invisible hand”, guiding humanity toward a more inclusive “moral circle”. This god-like guide is not conceived in anthro-morphic mythical terms, but more like Plato’s philosophical creative principle, the Logos.
https://bothandblog6.enformationism.info/page47.html

*6. Both/And Principle :
My coinage for the holistic principle of Complementarity, as illustrated in the Yin/Yang symbol. Opposing or contrasting concepts are always part of a greater whole.
https://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page10.html

I'm sorry, if my equation of Energy & Mind annoys you — Gnomon

It doesn’t annoy me, but I’m not persuaded by it.

I have to repeatedly remind TPF posters that the original meaning of the word "Information", was " knowledge and the ability to know". — Gnomon

Not according to the Oxford Dictionary online edition. It says the first use of the term was in relation to:

accusatory or incriminatory intelligence against a person. Excepting specific legal contexts, that’s no longer an active sense, though it survives as a dominant meaning of related terms like ‘informant’ and ‘informer’.

Not according to the Oxford Dictionary online edition. It says the first use of the term was in relation to: accusatory or incriminatory intelligence against a person — Wayfarer

Perhaps, instead of original meaning of "information" I should have said "the pre-Shannon usage of 'information' " referred to the contents of a Mind. I wasn't talking about a particular dictionary definition, but to traditional usage over the years as indicated in synonyms : instruction, intelligence*1, knowledge, message.

The distinction I was trying to make is between Shannon's definition of "information" in terms of the meaningless carrier/container, as opposed to the message/content : meaning. The container of Shannon's Information is a material substance of some kind (neuron), but the content is immaterial knowledge (idea, meaning). Hence, the meaningful content of a bit of Information is mind-stuff. And a "bit" is a binary digit, expressed as a mathematical ratio*2. Which, incidentally is the root of "Reason" and "Rational". :nerd:

*1. Intelligence has been defined in many ways: the capacity for abstraction, logic, understanding, self-awareness, learning, emotional knowledge, reasoning, planning, creativity, critical thinking, and problem-solving. _____Wikipedia
Note --- For the purposes of my thesis, I refer to the various usages of "intelligible information" as contrasted with Shannon's "conveyable information".

*2. Information :
Knowledge and the ability to know. Technically, it's the ratio of order to disorder, of positive to negative, of knowledge to ignorance. It's measured in degrees of uncertainty. Those ratios are also called "differences". So Gregory Bateson* defined Information as "the difference that makes a difference". The latter distinction refers to "value" or "meaning". Babbage called his prototype computer a "difference engine". Difference is the cause or agent of Change. In Physics it’s called "Thermodynamics" or "Energy". In Sociology it’s called "Conflict".
https://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page11.html