What I mean is, will thinking that objects 'possess an inherent attribute that can be labeled "number"' lead to a dead end? Will thinking it is not an attribute of objects, but of the universe's order, that we are recognizing lead to a dead end? After all, we might approach things differently, depending on which we take as our starting point.

No. I did not, and do not, declare the order is designed. — Patterner

Again, I did not, and do not, acknowledge design. — Patterner

No, I did not, and do not, describe cosmic mind. — Patterner

Yes. The order pre-existed the life that arose within it. — Patterner

What I mean is, will thinking that objects 'possess an inherent attribute that can be labeled "number"' lead to a dead end? Will thinking it is not an attribute of objects, but of the universe's order, that we are recognizing lead to a dead end? After all, we might approach things differently, depending on which we take as our starting point. — Patterner

You have raised the central question: Where is the starting point of order? If we can accept, within the confines of our discussion here, that number is the peerless marker of position and therefore of order, then we can acknowledge that there's presently toleration of the notion number and order are discovered not invented.

A second, central question: How did number and order pre-dating humans get internalized within the human understanding? This form of the question evaluates down to: Where is the starting point for order and design for humans? Is it the human hand suggesting to the inquisitive mind of its possessor that two fingers not looking like five fingers is both meaningful and useful? Is it, instead, the abstract mind of humans navigating the environment via notions of number relations abstracted from counting fingers? Is number an attribute of material objects, or is it an incorporeal abstraction confined to the realm of cognition?

A third, central question: does the biconditional operator in logic link number with order? If N = number and O = order finds true expression as n ⟺ o, then finding the start of one entails finding the start of the other.

I’ve already given my answer: both claims about number are true. Counting fingers is no less essentially mathematical than perceiving the obscurities of pure math. This is so because the foundation of math cognition is its necessary antecedent: counting fingers. As justification, I cite Aristotle’s Agent Intellect (human) meets intelligibility (material object first, then both material and cognitive objects).

Patterner, by implication, agrees with the equivalence of the two modes of discovery with his response to my question:

Do you believe a brain confined to a vat will eventually start counting? — ucarr

Certainly not. I don't believe a human could come to any intelligence or consciousness under those circumstances. I believe sensory input is essential. — Patterner

Now we come to the hotly controversial topic of design and its location within the cosmic history.
If it’s possible to pinpoint the advent of design within the phenomenal universe, where in the timeline of events does it lie?

Firstly, let’s consider a fourth central question: If O = order and D = design finds true expression as o ⟺ d, then finding one entails finding the other.

If there’s a hierarchy, it might be number, order, design.

Most importantly, if the two biconditionals are true, then we have a triad.

Can we make a theoretical placement of the triad of number_order_design within the infinitesimal interval of time following the Big Bang?

If we answer is “yes,” all we’re doing is tracking the start of the triad as natural phenomena.

If super-hot plasma is the first form of the material universe during inflation post-Big Bang, then we can infer its ontic status as pre-cursor to the formation of elemental atoms. With atoms clearly, we have number and order, whether as independent, unobserved entities, or as entities contingent upon observation. You ask what agent could act as observer in the micro-seconds following inflation? The question must be raised during the early expansion of the universe because the reflexivity of end-oriented consciousness, per our discovery-rather-than-invention thesis, requires a pre-cursor no less than does the triad. Remember, when I claim the early universe knew itself, even if only pre-cursively, I’m claiming nothing in scope beyond the phenomenal universe.

To summarize, we have a defensible argument to the effect that the triad of number_order_design was extant from the start of the universe because the highly ordered status of the atom and its sub-atomics must be assumed as prior to all assemblages thereof.

You have raised the central question: Where is the starting point of order? — ucarr

Perhaps cosmologists know the answer? They're always trying to figure out the math as close to the BB as possible, but they don't think it works within x billionths of a seconds? Something weird like that.

A second, central question: How did number and order pre-dating humans get internalized within the human understanding? — ucarr

We grew within the universe, which has consistent principles, and are made of the universe's materials, which are subject to those principles. Is there a reason to think an intelligence that developed in such a way would not be able to recognize these principles?

A third, central question: does the biconditional operator in logic link number with order? If N = number and O = order finds true expression as n ⟺ o, then finding the start of one entails finding the start of the other. — ucarr

What is the relationship between numbers and order? To what degree can you have one without three other? To what degree are they not the same thing?

Now we come to the hotly controversial topic of design and its location within the cosmic history.
If it’s possible to pinpoint the advent of design within the phenomenal universe, where in the timeline of events does it lie? — ucarr

You're on your own with the topic of design.

We grew within the universe, which has consistent principles, and are made of the universe's materials, which are subject to those principles. Is there a reason to think an intelligence that developed in such a way would not be able to recognize these principles? — Patterner

I agree with your first sentence and I believe it to be a sufficient explanation of our recognition of order within the matter_energy realm.

What is the relationship between numbers and order? To what degree can you have one without three other? To what degree are they not the same thing? — Patterner

I believe the number line is sine qua non to both math and order. The positions along the number line and their relationships are why math is the language of the ordering of spacetime phenomena. A number is a number line. A position along the number line is just an idealization about the ultimate compactness of a dimensionless point.

Is a random number sequence an instance of numbers separated from order? Even in this instance, the numbers still map to the number line. Furthermore, this question dovetails into the difficult question whether we can rationalize outside of order. A requisite for postulating about numbers, a rational entity, depends on numbers being coupled with order. Rationalizing outside of order also raises a difficult question about whether intelligibility can exist separate from order. You explanation for how humans internalized the consistent principles of the universe places heavy reliance upon intelligibility. How could humans recognize scientific truths without being engulfed within an environment essentially ordered?

I want you to give more thought to your decision to sign off from all discussions of design. Principles, being organizing, foundational truths, have an intimate relationship with design. If I'm not mistaken, you embrace them as essential components of metaphysics. How could organizing principles, acting in the role of designers, not be involved in the high ordering of atoms? As you say, the universe's materials are subject to the universal principles.

I’m trying to understand exactly what this problem is about. From my understanding, the biggest mystery is that we currently don’t have nearly enough knowledge in neuroscience to explain why some neural networks lead to conscious experience and others don’t.
But what if we did have that knowledge, would it solve the problem then?

Imagine we found some sort of wave that certain neural networks create, that is related to consciousness: whenever we observe this specific wave, conscious experiences comes along as well. Would that solve the hard problem of consciousness or would it still leave philosophers wondering how exactly that wave represents the conscious experience?

If the problem remains, then we have the same problem with a lot of other things like time, space,… However we try to rationalize it, no one can explain time and space, it’s just there in everything we know, there are building blocks of our world. The only way we can picture a world without time is if we imagine that time would stop. But that thought itself includes time. And it's the same with consciousness: consciousness is there whenever we think about it, any explanation would be self referencing.

So my question is: is the root of the hard problem self reference or is it our critical lack of knowledge in that domain? — Skalidris

I'd say some of both.

Assuming it is even possible to record the full detail of the physical activity occurring in human brains without killing a person, we aren't near to having the technology to do so. So the lack of knowledge is a significant issue.

If we did have such knowledge, what would we be able to do with it? A physical system can't simulate a physical system as complex as itself. On physicalism there is no reason to think that we could consciously grasp the full details of what occurs in our brains.

Not to say that there isn't (or won't be) progress being made in improving our understanding, but that there will inevitably be limits.

It's not mere insufficient knowledge of neuroscience. It just doesn't seem possible to account for certain aspects of consciousness through natural means Qualia are the most glaring. We can envision how to program things like belief, deduction, and intentionality - but not the actual experience of pain, sadness, pleasure, etc.

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/14873/what-could-solve-the-hard-problem-of-consciousness/p1

With or without neuroscience we have the Chinese Room to thank for explaining that a proper semantics (skill in pointing words and other symbols at things in the world, as opposed to merely co-ordinating them with each other) is what makes the difference between a neural network having or not having consciousness. (I.e. between it tending or not tending to think it has a theatre in the head.)

That just leaves unsolved those other, truly hard problems of philosophy that you allude to. Time and so on.

The hard problem of consciousness is largely misunderstood by many people. Its not that mechanics lead to consciousness. We know that. Its uncontroversial except to soul people.

The truly hard problem of consciousness is that we can never objectively test what it is like to be conscious from the subjects view point. Think of it like this, "What is it like to be a rock?" We understand the atomic make up and composition of the rock. But what it is it like to BE the rock AS the rock?

This is unknowable. Same as it is for anyone else but you to know what it is like to be you. We could reproduce your atomic makeup down to the T, but we could never objectively monitor what it is like for the subject itself to feel what it is feeling. We can measure your brain states and after testing say, "When the subject's brain state is X, we have learned this is when the subject feels happy." But we don't know what its like for that subject to be happy. We could learn the mechanics of your brain and body and predict everything you were going to think and say seconds before you thought or said it. But we can never know what its like to be the person with that brain, thinking or saying those thoughts.

As such, its unsolvable. Its simply a limitation of our ability to know. Only if we could erase our self-consciousness, place our self into another consciousness, then retain the memories of that consciousness when we reverted to our own, could we claim to know what its like to be another consciousness. So far, that's impossible.

I am 100% sure, there is absolutely no way that neuroscience can solve the hard problem of consciousness in a way where our descriptions in neuroscience fully explain our experience in the sense that there is some kind of necessary entailment between some neuroscientific description and some experience. This is impossible I think. Your wave example doesn't help. It wouldn't explain why the wave is associated with some particular experie ces in the same way that current descriptions of vidual cortex activity cannot tell us what experiences we are having. I think consciousness is a place where the natural limits of self-explanation really becoming prominent... the thing is, there is no reason we should be able to explain everything, especially the self (i.e. experience). I think its almost analogous to how self-reference always results in paradoxes in logic. We can never know just as a dog will never know somethings because its brain is designed in a way that is limiting to it.

So my question is: is the root of the hard problem self reference or is it our critical lack of knowledge in that domain? — Skalidris

Critical lack of knowledge. The easy problems of consciousness are the ones our present scientific "toolbox" are equipped to handle, such as how sight works functionally. Not that this kind of research is easy, but just that it's within the concepts we're used to. The hard problem is explaining phenomenal consciousness, so going beyond the function of sight to why there is an experience associated with it. It's supposedly "hard" because we don't yet have a place in the physical sciences for the idea of phenomenal consciousness.

Your wave example doesn't help. It wouldn't explain why the wave is associated with some particular experie ces in the same way that current descriptions of vidual cortex activity cannot tell us what experiences we are having. — Apustimelogist

I see growing scientific evidence, that learning more about phase relationships between brainwaves and neuron firings will enhance our understanding of the nature of our perceptual experience at the least.

Lots of relevant stuff here. (And pointers to more relevant stuff.)

It's supposedly "hard" because we don't yet have a place in the physical sciences for the idea of phenomenal consciousness. — frank

I've never heard anyone say that, who wasn't rather naive about what is going on in the physical sciences. See the link I posted above. It is certainly informative about ways my phenomenal consciousness differs from that of others.

Advocates for consciousness have built a theory from the top down and then wonder why it is without grounding. Conscious experience, mind, the soul…it’s just there. But what is actually there, the physiology, cannot serve to explain it.

I've never heard anyone say that, who wasn't rather naive about what is going on in the physical sciences. See the link I posted above. It is certainly informative about ways my phenomenal consciousness differs from that of others. — wonderer1

Sure. It's called first person data. It's there in the physical sciences. What we're looking for is an explanation for it. Why does it exist?

But what is actually there, the physiology, cannot serve to explain it. — NOS4A2

You're welcome to explain it to us. :strong:

Start from what is there and see where it leads you.

Start from what is there and see where it leads you. — NOS4A2

There is phenomenal consciousness. Where does it lead me?

Well, we've looked and there is nothing of the sort. Where does that lead you?

Where does that lead you? — NOS4A2

To wonder how you find life worth living.

You can start by valuing the things that are there instead of the things that aren't.

You can start by valuing the things that are there instead of the things that aren't. — NOS4A2

What do you value?

Pretty much everything and for its own sake. For example, I don’t need to posit spirits in a thing in order to find value in it.

I don’t need to posit spirits in a thing in order to find value in it. — NOS4A2

Me neither.

My understanding of the hard problem of consciousness is that it is a problem for a physicalist. Why is it a problem? Because the physicalist has not forwarded a physical account of why any physical system is conscious. Even if, as you suggest, some waveform of energy is responsible for consciousness, a natural question arises: why does that energy produce consciousness, while some other energy does not produce consciousness?

MODERATOR NOTE: the thread 'what would solve the hard problem of consciousness' was merged with this existing thread on the same topic.

The truly hard problem of consciousness is that we can never objectively test what it is like to be conscious from the subjects view point. Think of it like this, "What is it like to be a rock?" We understand the atomic make up and composition of the rock. But what it is it like to BE the rock AS the rock? — Philosophim

I think this demonstrates a failure to grasp the point at issue. In David Chalmers original paper, 'Facing Up to the Problem of Consciousness', nothing whatsover is said about what it is like to be an inanimate object such as a rock, as the paper is about the nature of experience. I take it that neither Chalmers nor anyone here will claim that rocks are subjects of experience.

The salient passage in the Chalmer's paper is this:

The really hard problem of consciousness is the problem of experience. When we think and perceive, there is a whir of information-processing, but there is also a subjective aspect. As Nagel (1974) has put it, there is something it is like to be a conscious organism. This subjective aspect is experience. When we see, for example, we experience visual sensations: the felt quality of redness, the experience of dark and light, the quality of depth in a visual field. Other experiences go along with perception in different modalities: the sound of a clarinet, the smell of mothballs. Then there are bodily sensations, from pains to orgasms; mental images that are conjured up internally; the felt quality of emotion, and the experience of a stream of conscious thought. What unites all of these states is that there is something it is like to be in them. All of them are states of experience.

My understanding of the hard problem of consciousness is that it is a problem for a physicalist. Why is it a problem? Because the physicalist has not forwarded a physical account of why any physical system is conscious. Even if, as you suggest, some waveform of energy is responsible for consciousness, a natural question arises: why does that energy produce consciousness, while some other energy does not produce consciousness?

All the physicalist needs to do is point to the physiology and say: “that’s why”. The answer covers every question from “why is it alive” to “why is it hungry”. The answers are inherently and necessarily physical because the adjective “conscious” describes the physical system itself and nothing besides.

It appears to me that the problem for the dualist is much more fundamental: distinguishing between “consciousness” on the one hand, and biology on the other. What is the difference?

Also note this paper 'The Neural Binding Problem(s)', Jerome S. Feldman, Cogn Neurodyn. 2013 Feb; 7(1): 1–11. Published online 2012 Sep 1. doi: 10.1007/s11571-012-9219-8

In the section on The Subjective Unity of Perception, the author mentions Chalmer's paper. The gist of that section is that although neuroscience has a pretty good grasp of all the individual systems that account for the perception of motion and the other elements of visual perception, the actual system that produces the unified subjective experience can't be identified: 'that there is no place in the brain where there could be a direct neural encoding of the illusory detailed scene . 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.

But what it is it like to BE the rock AS the rock?
— Philosophim

I think this demonstrates a failure to grasp the point at issue. — Wayfarer

I appreciate the citation to get the point home, but I think the rock analogy is also useful as well. We know about consciousness through our own behavior and then others mimicking that behavior. But we cannot know what it is like to actually be that other. A rock does not show any behavior of being conscious, and we do not believe a rock can have the experience of a rock, but we cannot know that either.

A rock does not show any behavior of being conscious, and we do not believe a rock can have the experience of a rock, but we cannot know that either. — Philosophim

I would have thought that the distinction between sentient beings and insentient objects is a fundamental not only in philosophy. I can't see any sense in the claim that rocks are subjects of experience. I suppose some forms of panpsychism might make such claims, but they're not credible as far as I'm concerned.

Besides, the problem is not only about not knowing what it is like to be another kind of being (the reference to Nagel is to his well-known article What is it Like to be a Bat). It's also about the fact that no objective description of brain-states can convey or capture the first-person nature of experience. The kind of detailed physiological understanding of pain that a pharmacologist or anaestheologist has, is not in itself pain. Knowing about pain is not the same as being in pain. It is also known as the 'explanatory gap'. Pain is something that is undergone by subjects of experience, not just a configuration of matter. It's that subjective dimension that is absent in any third-person description. That is the salient point.