He says it is intractable from the third-person perspective, due to its first-person character.. — Wayfarer
‘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
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
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
He believes a scientific theory of consciousness is possible. This would be a third-person account. — frank
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
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
Of course, the subject of neuroscience is the human brain, and humans are subjects, but that it not the point at issue. — Wayfarer
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
Have you read the original Chalmer’s paper? — 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: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
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
It seems that went over your head, — wonderer1
people use "OP" here in a way that I haven't been able to clearly grasp the referent of. — wonderer1
Chalmers was right on the occasion when the bet was made. — wonderer1
Can you provide a non-paywalled link? — wonderer1
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'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.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
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:"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
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
Is substance-dualism making a come back? — RogueAI
Chalmers and Koch are perpetuating a giant public con. You are falling for it. — apokrisis
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
But it's only uncanny if your worldview has no place for immaterial stuff like Ideas & Ideals. — Gnomon
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? — apokrisis
The scientific view is thatorganismszombies 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
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.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
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: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
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: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
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
OK, I should have written 'excludes consideration of the first-person perspective....' — Wayfarer
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? — wonderer1
You can Google "neuroscience first person perspective" and see for yourself. — wonderer1
Neurophenomenology is an interdisciplinary approach that seeks to bridge the gap between the first-person subjective experience (phenomenology) and third-person scientific understanding (neuroscience). It was first proposed by the French philosopher and cognitive scientist, Francisco Varela, in collaboration with the neuroscientist, Evan Thompson, and the Buddhist scholar, Eleanor Rosch. They introduced the concept in their 1991 book titled "The Embodied Mind: Cognitive Science and Human Experience."
The term "neurophenomenology" itself emerged in the early 1990s, but its roots can be traced back to the work of philosopher Edmund Husserl and his development of phenomenology in the early 20th century. Phenomenology is a philosophical approach that focuses on understanding conscious experience as it is subjectively lived, rather than reducing it to objective measurements and explanations.
In "The Embodied Mind," Varela, Thompson, and Rosch argued that subjective experience should be taken into account alongside objective data in neuroscience to form a more complete understanding of the mind. They proposed that the study of consciousness should involve not only objective observations of brain activity but also a careful examination of the subjective experience itself.
By integrating the empirical findings of neuroscience with the introspective and experiential insights of phenomenology, neurophenomenology aims to create a more comprehensive and holistic understanding of the mind and consciousness. This approach has since been further developed and refined by various researchers and philosophers, leading to a growing interest in interdisciplinary studies between neuroscience and philosophy.
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
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.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 — Gnomon
I have to repeatedly remind TPF posters that the original meaning of the word "Information", was " knowledge and the ability to know". — Gnomon
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’.
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.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
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