Yes, that's a good point. Although I doubt that question (what a quantum field really is?) makes any sense. I was trying to say that there comes a point in any epistemic hierarchy where you can't reduce or describe any further. Quantum fields (currently) get to that baseline physically and what-it's-like-to-be gets to that phenomenally. — Christopher Burke
Isn't (phenomenal) consciousness what-it's-like-to-be sensing, perceiving, conceptualising, theorising, with attendant affect at each cognitive level? — Christopher Burke
Perhaps we can work on this. Perhaps a starting point could be asking: Is there a difference between, say, an electronic device with a sensor that can distinguish different frequencies of the visible spectrum, and is programmed to initiate different actions when detecting different frequencies; and me performing the same actions when I perceived the same frequencies? Or is my experience the same as the electronic device's?
I believe this is the same idea as what Douglas Hofstadter said in
I Am a Strange Loop:
'having semantics' (which means the ability to genuinely think about things, as contrasted with the "mere" ability to juggle meaningless tokens in complicated patterns...) — Patterner
Question is: If these experiences are representations of things in the outside world, why would I expect such a representation to be reducible to the brain activity that supports it? — Apustimelogist
If our experiences are always going to be irreducible regardless then how can this irreducibility be used as an argument against physicalism? — Apustimelogist
Which indicates the most coherent categorisation of the human condition (I believe): we are what-it-is-like-to-be our representations. A bit of reality representing those bits of reality we encounter, including ourself. — Christopher Burke
Better to see it as correlating parallel representations — Christopher Burke
The word "reducible" sounds problematic — Corvus
Well I think this is more or less what reducing is when we believe that this correlating as cogently justified under some context. — Apustimelogist
If experiences are purely representations or information about trees, then why should these representations carry information (that can be explained by) about brain states — Apustimelogist
Is it possible that electric devices (or anything) have subjective experience and awareness of things, but don't care about, desire, or want to avoid anything?Electronic devices don't care about anything, desire anything or want to avoid anything; animals and humans do. That seems to me to be the most salient difference and that is what I think it means to experience: to feel, to care, to want, to avoid and so on. I don't believe machines do any of that. — Janus
I would prefer to say "what it is to be conscious" than 'what it is like to be conscious". — Janus
I'd say rather that phenomenal consciousness is to be sensing, perceiving and reflective linguistically mediated consciousness is to be conceptualizing, theorizing, although I also think there is a prelinguistic mode of conceptualizing and theorizing. — Janus
Is it possible that electric devices (or anything) have subjective experience and awareness of things, but don't care about, desire, or want to avoid anything? — Patterner
Well, yes. Perhaps I didn't word my question well. I think Janus is saying the terms are not defined well. I'm trying to see if we can come up with anything. I'm not asking if we can recognize what it's likeness or subjective experience that lacks cares, desires, or wants in electric devices, or anything else. I'm asking if what it's likeness or subjective experience can exist without those things.Is it possible that electric devices (or anything) have subjective experience and awareness of things, but don't care about, desire, or want to avoid anything?
— Patterner
How could we ever know? — Christopher Burke
Is it possible that electric devices (or anything) have subjective experience and awareness of things, but don't care about, desire, or want to avoid anything? — Patterner
But all these indicative symbols point to something we all 'know' without recourse to any symbolic representation of that state of being ... simply by being it. — Christopher Burke
Personally, I do like the 'like' in what-it-is-like-to-be (what's not to like?) for that very reason. — Christopher Burke
Although I don't think I agree, let's just go with this. Is this not a coherent answer that distinguishes what it's like from merely seeing, hearing, feeling, tasting, and smelling?Is it possible that electric devices (or anything) have subjective experience and awareness of things, but don't care about, desire, or want to avoid anything?
— Patterner
I don't know, but I tend to think that out of all the raw sensory data that enters via the senses, only the tiny portion which is meaningful in some way, that is which is cared about, is attended to, and that that attention constitutes awareness or consciousness. — Janus
Although I don't think I agree, let's just go with this. Is this not a coherent answer that distinguishes what it's like from merely seeing, hearing, feeling, tasting, and smelling? — Patterner
I think sensing is always already affective and so I would not say that machines sense anything. Machines may have sensors that detect photons, sound waves, molecules and so on, but that is not what I would call sensing. — Janus
Do you prefer the terms "detectors" and "detecting"?I don't see the idea that there is an affective element to consciousness as distinguishing what it is like from merely sensing. I think sensing is always already affective and so I would not say that machines sense anything. Machines may have sensors that detect photons, sound waves, molecules and so on, but that is not what I would call sensing. I don't deny the term could be used other than the way I do, but if you want to use the term 'sensing' differently then we will just talk past one another. — Janus
I think 'reducing' should be confined to when one is accounting for a thing by referring to that thing's subparts. — Christopher Burke
No physical concepts can be applicable to the phenomenal image. — Christopher Burke
But that mode of representation is insufficient to represent all of life as experienced. — Christopher Burke
[1] Physicalism claims that physical representations can account for everything.
[2] We need non-physical psychical representations to account for some things.
[3] Ergo physicalism is a false claim.
...
Where is my error? — Christopher Burke
physicalists will not have some kind of naive physicalism where they believe the only way to describe the world is with physical concepts — Apustimelogist
[1]Physicalism claims that physicalrepresentationsprocesses occurring in nature can account for everything.
[2]For practical purposes we need to resort to simplistic non-physical psychical representations to account for some things, because we don't have detailed data about what is going on in our brains, nor do we have brains capable of processing such a mountain of data in an expeditious way. — wonderer1
Even if we had a complete model based on all possible data from observation, would we know what it is like to be that bit of reality?we don't have detailed data about what is going on in our brains — wonderer1
Once you concede that a purely physical stance is insufficient, how can you be a physicalist? I agree entirely that 'physical' needs a lot more work to define it, but whatever the definition is, it seems to me that there will be aspects of life which physical concepts don't account for. If you can actually provide a sufficient definition of the physical, then you have solved the Hard Problem. — Christopher Burke
I think the crux here is the implicit assumption that physical = real. — Christopher Burke
- Physical representations keep changing. 19th century physicists would have said the world is really made of atoms. Modern physicists would regard that as simplistic and have recourse to the much more epistemic concepts of fields and information. Has fundamental reality changed as we've changed our theories about it? A bit implausible. — Christopher Burke
Reality, since we have good grounds for assuming it contains conscious agents, is more complex than solely physical concepts can handle — Christopher Burke
Re your version of [1]: Can processes per se account for anything? I agree with Hume that causation is essentially epistemic. We can have a useful account (ie a symbolic representation) positing that A causes B. But causation is a not necessary concept. In a block universe where time is represented, A and B are part of a single spatio-temporal 'thread'. — Christopher Burke
Re your version of [2]:
'Practical purposes' do indicate something important about how we interact with extramental reality. I don't think they can be dismissed so easily as irrelevant to our understanding. You say "we need to resort to simplistic non-physical psychical representations", but most psychologists would dispute that pejorative classification as simplistic ... as would I. — Christopher Burke
The scientific theorist is not to be envied. For Nature, or more precisely experiment, is an inexorable and not very friendly judge of his work. It never says "Yes" to a theory. In the most favorable cases it says "Maybe", and in the great majority of cases simply "No". If an experiment agrees with a theory it means for the latter "Maybe", and if it does not agree it means "No". Probably every theory will someday experience its "No"—most theories, soon after conception.
Even if we had a complete model based on all possible data from observation, would we know what it is like to be that bit of reality? — Christopher Burke
“The last dollop in the theory [of Physicalism] – that it subjectively feels like something to be such [neural] circuitry – may have to be stipulated as a fact about reality where explanation stops.”
Steven Pinker, 2018, Enlightenment Now: the Case for Reason, Science, Humanism and Progress — Christopher Burke
It's what happens to the sense data immediately after the instant of interaction which differs. — Christopher Burke
I actually think and write about philosophical issues because I desire that theoretical coherence. It feels more comfortable than cognitive dissonance ... for a philosopher anyway. (Generally, alas, people seem to have a very high tolerance of cognitive dissonance: cf politics and religion!) — Christopher Burke
Yes, maybe I was a bit careless there. The trouble here is that we are paddling around at the bottom of the epistemic well. There are no sub-concepts to fall back on, so we end up swapping synonyms. So 'sentient', 'aware', 'conscious', 'what it's like to be' are interchangeable, although some philosophers discern subtle differences. — Christopher Burke
I'm afraid this "separate ontological being" makes no sense to me. If you do believe in such a realm, surely you are back to something like a Cartesian dualism, which then requires some formally inexplicable relation between the two different onticities ... such as 'embedding' in your proposal. Such a belief would violate Physicalism's claims of an exclusively physical monism. This is an indication of why I abstain from ontological declarations: I regard them as ultra vires.But that doesnt mean you dont believe in a universe where there is something called love floating about with its onwn separate ontological being to physical things. Its still something that is embedded in the physical very much so. — Apustimelogist
Explanation is hypothesising about posited causal relations between observables. Consciousness is not observable. Can you weigh a thought? The extra ideas (things?) you requested are found in psychology, which tries to map between psychical concepts representing subjective experience and physical concepts representing neuroscientific observation (ie NCCs - neural correlates of consciousness). But that doesn't imply the former are physical or even that they are caused by or embedded in the physical. It merely implies that some complex bits of reality need parallel representations (mind/brain) to exhaustively describe them and deal with them practically.I don't really understand what extra things would be needed to explain conscious agents above things related to the natural sciences, math, computation, information theory etc. — Apustimelogist
I would prefer to say that it is not possible to know what-it-is-like-to-be a different bit of reality because we only know what-it-is-like-to-be the bit of reality which is ourself. However the ability to think about (intramentally represent) this with psychical concepts allows us to putatively attribute similar psychical concepts to other bits of reality: ie we can empathise and have a 'theory of mind'. Furthermore with detailed observations and imagination, talented authors can even write fictional accounts of other minds providing readers with alternative virtual vicarious subjectivities. I agree with the rest of your post.We aren't capable of fully knowing what it is like to be each other. But that's a limitation that comes with having a physical mind. — wonderer1
Coherent theories can be wrong; most probably are. Or if not wrong then under-determined. For those who like thinking rationally consistency is important. — Janus
Connotations count as much as denotations ... maybe even more in most ordinary situations.I think terms find their meanings, their senses, in relation to contexts, to associative networks of understanding. That's why any term will mean more or less differently to different people. — Janus
Get involved in philosophical discussions about knowledge, truth, language, consciousness, science, politics, religion, logic and mathematics, art, history, and lots more. No ads, no clutter, and very little agreement — just fascinating conversations.