Yeah, I don't think functionalism is very coherent, it sounds somewhat contrived or forced, as if we are able to determine that nature "built" this organism "for" this exact thing. A single organ can have multiple functions, so which is the main one? That's a subject for debate.

On the other hand, I don't have a proposal to determine how to proceed, other than doing experiments and figuring out what things something does, and this is broad.

In the case of consciousness, if all we were confronted with were large-scale behavior, and not with any subjective inner life, I think it could be argued that the two cases are analogous, even though the degree of complexity of human behavior is vastly higher than that of a tornado. But when we find ourselves conscious, not just with complex behavior, having also a first-person perspective and qualitative experiences, and we are told that this simply "emerges" from a special way of arranging bits of matter that in themselves have nothing even remotely like subjectivity, this seems vastly more surprising and harder to see how it could work. I don't think it is analogous at all. — petrichor

Why does that make it not analogous? Tornadoes are composed of things that don't have the properties of tornadoes. Consciousness is composed of things that don't have the properties of consciousness. It seems... still analogous.

Consciousness has to *happen* somehow - whether it's physical or something else - and it seems almost obvious to me that, however it happens, the things that facilitate it happening aren't conscious.

This take is tentatively the one I'm choosing to take:

https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/blog/2016/09/08/consciousness-and-downward-causation/

This take is the hidden option from the poll: physicalism is true, we are conscious, epiphenomenalism is NOT true, consciousness evolved.

Usually (or always?), when we say a feature evolved, we have some idea of when it first appeared on the scene. If consciousness is a product of evolution, when did consciousness first appear?

who is "we"? I have no idea when sight evolved, but I have very little doubt that sight did evolve.

who is "we"? I have no idea when sight evolved, but I have very little doubt that sight did evolve. — flannel jesus

I was using "we" to loosely mean "people".

From what I gleaned from a Google search, eyes first appeared 500-600 million years ago. Now, you claim that consciousness evolved. But there is no agreement among scientists when consciousness first appeared. So, if scientists don't know when consciousness first appeared, how can they/you be sure it is a product of evolution?

the question seems largely irrelevant to me. I also know when I bought most of my computer accessories, but if there's some computer accessory i have in my office that I don't know the time of purchase, I'm not going to stop believing I purchased it.

Do you think consciousness is a physical thing?

the question seems largely irrelevant to me. — flannel jesus

If a scientist has no idea when X first appeared in creatures, I'm going to be leery if he then claims that X is certainly a product of evolution. Do you see my point? Not knowing when X appeared implies a lack of understanding about X, which tarnishes any other claims about X.

no, I don't see your point. If science doesn't have ALL the answers about something, it can't have ANY answers about something? Is that the point?

The plurality of the scientific establishment is justifiably pretty certain that humans evolved. Either life was conscious from the beginning, or consciousness came into the picture later in the evolutionary process. Most people, I think, believe the latter (some believe the former, and I'm sure there are some very intriguing arguments for that). If it came later, then either its a consequence of evolved features, or it just appeared by magic. I don't think it's magic.

If it came later, then either its a consequence of evolved features, or it just appeared by magic. — flannel jesus

Isn't there another option besides "magic"? Is it possible consciousness appeared when a certain amount of information processing in brains was present? In that case, if consciousness just happens when a certain amount of information is processed, would you really say it's a "product of evolution"? Also, if all matter is conscious (panpsychism), it also wouldn't make sense to say consciousness is a product of evolution.

Is it possible consciousness appeared when a certain amount of information processing in brains was present? In that case, if consciousness just happens when a certain amount of information is processed, would you really say it's a "product of evolution"? — RogueAI

Yes, that's exactly what I would say. If our information processing capabilities increased because of evolution, and consciousness is a consequence of that, that's exactly what I would say.

Yes, that's exactly what I would say. If our information processing capabilities increased because of evolution, and consciousness is a consequence of that, that's exactly what I would say. — flannel jesus

Even if there's no survival benefit to consciousness and natural selection doesn't apply? Maybe so. What about if panpsychism is true? An electron's consciousness would not be a product of evolution, so why would a brain's consciousness be a product of evolution?

if pansychism is true, human consciousness (probably) isn't the result of evolution. But I don't think that's likely - I don't turn my nose up at it either, but I don't think it's likely.

Even if there's no survival benefit to consciousness and natural selection doesn't apply?

But if our information processing capabilities increased because of evolution, it's probably because there were survival benefits.

maybe what is fundamental in the universe isn't some kind of fixed set of objects at any particular scale but generally things like invariances, structures, patterns. after all physics seems to be centered around symmetries that seem in some sense emergent (e.g. splitting up of the different forces, emergence of mass during evolution of universe, also look at things like elementary particle decay, popping of particles in and out of existence - there seems no fixed set of things in universe).

maybe then consciousness is just what it is like to be these patterns, structures, invariances. not the fundamental physics ones specifically.. patterns, symmetries, invariances exist at all scales in nature, from small to large. seems to me my consciousness, my perceptions must be higher order structure, invariances, patterns, correlation, whatever you want to call them, in the brain.

Interesting conversation. I've been looking for just such a discussion. Care if I join? More questions than anything, really... for now.

if panpsychism is true, human consciousness (probably) isn't the result of evolution. But I don't think that's likely - I don't turn my nose up at it either, but I don't think it's likely. — flannel jesus

On the other hand, human existence presents the appearance of a concordance of improbabilities. In which case, perhaps it is the validation of an unlikely hypothesis.

I was thinking about this yesterday. From a panpsychism point of view. Think of consciousness like we think of height. I don't think height evolved. I think height is a characteristic, and it exists in different degrees along a spectrum, depending on how the matter is arranged. Plants and animals evolve with different heights. It's not the height that evolves. Even inanimate objects have different heights.

If panpsychism is the answer, then consciousness didn't evolve. Things evolve with greater or lesser consciousness, depending on how the matter is arranged.

The reason the arrangement of matter is important to consciousness may be along the lines of IIT. The way it's arranged in a rock, there's not much information processing, so not much consciousness. More information processing in bacteria > worms > bats > humans. A thermostat? What about AI? Maybe there is a degree of consciousness. But they don't process as many kinds of information as we do, even if they can process the kind they do much better than we can. We have a whole lot of different kinds of information processing all the time. Our brain is always working on our biological functions; different kinds of unconscious information; different kinds of conscious information... Maybe the variety is important.

This could be why we can't say when consciousness first appeared. It would also help with the question of what possesses consciousness and what doesn't.

Interesting conversation. I've been looking for just such a discussion. Care if I join? More questions than anything, really... for now. — creativesoul

Of course!

my reason for not liking panpsychism as an explanation for human consciousness is that panpsychism almost implies a certain kind of extremely local consciousness, which means you have a lot of extra work to do to explain the emergence of our apparent flavour of "nonlocal" consciousness - nonlocal in the sense that our consciousness integrates information from many space-separated information sources, and those information sources are processed in many space-separated parts of the brain.

By the time you've explained how "fundamental local consciousness" can integrate all of those non local sources of information and information processing, you probably can explain consciousness itself without even needing to rely on "fundamental local consciousness".

And even panpsychism doesn't have an obvious answer, any more than physically emergent consciousness, to how we experience the qualia of colour, for example. Panpsychism seems like a lazy shortcut to consciousness to me, for those reasons, rather than a full answer. It's the other side of the coin to "we're conscious because of a god-given soul" - another lazy shortcut.

That, of course, doesn't mean it's not TRUE. It just seems a little too convenient. Take this extremely complex thing that nobody quite understands and just declare it fundamental. But still, it could be the case.

panpsychism almost implies a certain kind of extremely local consciousness — flannel jesus

I don't see where panpsychism implies anything specific beyond that consciousness is a primordial feature of reality. I don't think it really coincides with what is traditionally conceived of as soul. Collective consciousness, perhaps.

anything specific beyond that consciousness is a primordial feature of reality. — Pantagruel

Primordial features of reality, as far as we know, all have a kind of locality to them. They aren't aware of the macroscopic "objects" we would perceive them to be a part of. An iron atom doesn't know if it's part of a hammer or part of a human - it just does things iron atoms do, no matter what it's a part of. That's what I mean when I say panpsychic consciousness implies a kind of locality. If consciousness is fundamental, then you still have all the explanatory work of figuring out how this fundamental consciousness becomes macroscopically aware, macroscopically integrated with a macroscopic brain.

I accept that panpsychism might be the case - I'm agnostic about it, only slightly betting against it. I want to see real evidence that it's the case before I change course, because it doesn't have as much explanatory power at the moment as many of its proponents might like.

Primordial features of reality, as far as we know, all have a kind of locality to them. They aren't aware of the macroscopic "objects" we would perceive them to be a part of. An iron atom doesn't know if it's part of a hammer or part of a human - it just does things iron atoms do, no matter what it's a part of. That's what I mean when I say panpsychic consciousness implies a kind of locality. If consciousness is fundamental, then you still have all the explanatory work of figuring out how this fundamental consciousness becomes macroscopically aware, macroscopically integrated with a macroscopic brain. — flannel jesus

This is all non-sequitur to me. Laws in the early universe were expressed stochastically. I'd hardly describe that as conforming to locality. The opposite.

okay

Our priors are too distant, I think, for you to understand my intuitions or for me to understand yours. That's fine.

I want to see real evidence that [panpsychism's] the case before I change course — flannel jesus

What would that evidence look like? How do we go about verifying something like panpsychism? It's not possible to "get outside" our own minds. We can infer the existence of other consciousnesses, but we can never prove they exist. I think this is at the heart of the mind-body problem. Scientific approaches won't do the job.

I don't know. I mean, I'm a layman, not an expert, so to be completely honest, the evidence of "most experts in cognition and consciousness agree that panpsychism is the case" would probably be the most likely kind of evidence to convince me. I'm comfortable with the fact that I can't be an expert in everything, and they I can outsource some of my knowledge to people who are experts.

I do know that many experts in relevant fields take the concept of the fundamentalness of consciousness seriously, but at the current moment it's not apparently the most liked take by relevant experts. Consciousness is hard, and for now, "I don't know" is kinda the best we got, with a little sprinkle of "but it might work like this" on top.

Is it possible consciousness appeared when a certain amount of information processing in brains was present? In that case, if consciousness just happens when a certain amount of information is processed, would you really say it's a "product of evolution"? — RogueAI

...in brains...

That was left out. The biological machinery evolved. That's too important to neglect. Certain brain structures (and other biological systems) evolved and as a direct result of having them, some creatures became capable of drawing correlations, associations, and/or connections between different things... and hence, simple cognition emerged.

Where does it all start? <-----that seems to be the underlying sentiment/question. Evolution of biological structures was/is and will continue to be a slow process. What sort of thing can consciousness be, such that it is capable of emerging and subsequently evolving over time given enough mutation and happenstance into the sort of extremely complex metacognitive endeavors we humans find ourselves engaged in?

I think that consciousness is a biproduct of meaningful thought and belief. Or, perhaps, is equivalent to meaningful thought and belief.

I want to see real evidence that [panpsychism's] the case before I change course
— flannel jesus

What would that evidence look like? How do we go about verifying something like panpsychism? — RogueAI

Evidence to disprove a theory that claims everything is conscious? I think that the standard for what counts as something being conscious takes center stage in such a debate.

We could start by examining obvious cases where we would agree that the candidate under consideration is conscious. Remove individual particulars and gather relevant common denominators.

On my view, it's all about meaningful thought and belief. If some thing or other is capable of thought and belief then they are conscious.

An electron's consciousness — RogueAI

Requires consciousness be something that it is possible for an electron to have. What ground/justification is there for holding such a belief?