The Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy is an amazing resource. It goes in depth.

I'm not sure that is enough to understand what I mean. — Red Sky

An example might help.

Surely “consciousness” is synonymous with “living”? — Punshhh

Maybe ages ago before 'life' got redefined in functional terms.

Or maybe predictive model-formation does not really admit of rational analysis. If it has evolved it has done so without philosophy and intellectual reflection (perhaps), but that doesn't mean we can't apply reason to it anyway after the fact. Especially if there is a claim to truth.

Abduction includes elements of induction and deduction, no? The issue still remains.

Also consider Goodman's new riddle because it's fun. Lets say we have a model arrived at by abduction that predicts that water boils at 100C at earth surface pressure. Now let 'roil' mean 'boils at 100C before 2030 and boils at 150C after". Now do we have two model-predictions that are equally supported by evidence:

Model 1: Water will boil at 100C at Earth surface pressure next week
Model 2: Water will roil at 100C at Earth surface pressure next week

We all presumably think Model 1 is likely to survive the year 2030 and we will abandon model 2, but why? Is there a reason to prefer model 1 over model 2?

Science doesn't need to worry about this, it gets on fine. But this is philosophy, so we do this kind of shit.

This is traditionally framed as a problem for induction. But does abduction help particularly?

(hopefully I've got Goodman roughly right, correct me if not)

"All powerful"? Whatever gives you that idea? — Relativist

Just that on that view matter always obeys laws.

According to the theory, laws are relations between types of objects. — Relativist

Oh, OK. That weakens their claim to be real, perhaps, perhaps not. Maybe they are real, but not in the sense of having an independent existence from the systems they govern. I'm not familiar with the view. Interesting though. I can think of further problems - is the generation of objects governed by laws, or do the laws only exist once the object exist? Why does the same type of law always occur with the same type of objects? Why is there consistency across space and time?

To see if their "artificial" body can generate sapience or consciousness. — Copernicus

Can you think of a test that would detect sapience or consciousness?

i don't follow. Test them for what? What would that show?

This self-referential loop—where the cell both contains and enacts its own design—may be the root of sentience.
It embodies three critical principles:

1. Self-containment (it maintains boundaries separating self from environment)
2. Information feedback (it stores and interprets data through DNA and biochemical processes)
3. Adaptation and evolution (it changes in response to experience)

These mechanisms mirror the functional properties of consciousness itself: awareness, memory, and adaptation.
Thus, the cell might not only be the first living structure but also the proto-conscious one—a physical architecture enabling the emergence of the mind. — Copernicus

I applaud the OP for its clarity.

In this section there is the usual definitional conflation that functionalism seems to rely on (in my view). There are the functional aspects of mind, what mind can do (Block's 'access consciousness') and then there is the phenomenal aspect (Block's 'p-conciousness') whereby a system has experiences. Philosophers seem to be divided on whether this distinction is sustainable or not. Functionalists say it isn't - as functions are realised bit by bit, eventually they constitute the phenomenal. Pattee, and some other functionalists, do this by definition, saying that all we mean by 'consciousness' is this collection of functions (Cell phenomenology: The first phenomenon, H Pattee). Property dualists (for example) constantly point out the conceptual disconnect between the phenomenal and the functional, and insist that they certainly do not mean a collection of functions when they speak of consciousness. That's why we keep saying, ad nauseum, 'Yeah but why can't a Zombie do all that?'

There is conceptual work to be done before we can assess the value of any related science.

Cheers. If there is something in particular that I ought follow up on, let me know. — Banno

I feel a bit bad now. I was remembering conversations on the philosophy of mind. Your awareness of academic philosophy is valuable and noticed.

That is not the view of law realists. They suggests there to be an ontological basis for the observed regularities.

Example: two objects with opposite electric charge (e.g. electron & proton) have a force of attraction between them. This force is a necessary consequence of their properties. The properties and force are ontological. — Relativist

Sure, that is a possibility. But it raises a lot of questions about the details of this objective, but invisible and all-powerful, existence that laws partake of. Are the laws all omnipresent? If so, how does that fit with them being numerically distinct? Or is there really one big law that explains everything? Do laws change? Eternal god(s) without the personality?

Why think that, other than that it's possible? — Relativist

Sorry, missed this. Because laws are descriptive and don't really explain anything. Intention is explanatory. Although this might still be vulnerable to @unenlightened's defence of Hume, I'm not sure.

By “we”, you mean you. — apokrisis

While @Banno can be as annoying as you to try to have a conversation with, in this he speaks for me as well. You are obscure Apo. It took me ages to decode from your posts your view of consciousness, which turns out to be a fairly straightforward reductive functionalism. Presumably obscurity is your intent, or you wouldn't speak the way you do. You decline interrogation (unless sympathetic), which is your prerogative of course. You say interesting stuff sometimes, but it's hard going to ask questions to get it clarified. Which is what philosophers like to do. @Banno is hard going as well, and slides away. @180 Proof, like you, relatively quickly moves to insult and condescension, although perhaps less so now. Everyone else submits pretty much, except for some of the crazy ones who get banned.

Anything born out of (may or may not be within) the universe. — Copernicus

That sounds like general monism to me, rather than physicalism in particular.

When I said physical, I meant a product of physical events — Copernicus

Sorry I missed that. But what have you said about an event when you say it is physical? What is it about an event that makes it physical?

OK, so why does experience accompany it sometimes, and not others?

The universe is physical. — Copernicus

Are you able to flesh out your concept of 'physical'?

Sometimes people seem to mean 'not mental' or even 'not supernatural'

Sometimes people seem to mean 'possessing structure and function only'

I think that the latter view perhaps captures 'physicalism' best, because that's what physicalists tend to assert: structure and function is enough to account for or explain everything else, including consciousness. Is that your view?

Neural activity, hormonal feedback, and sensory processing together constitute what we experience as emotion, thought, and will. — Copernicus

They may well do, but why? What role does experience play in that? Why can't neural activity, hormonal feedback and sensory processing happen without experience?

I thought I was arguing against using a reifying term such as consciousness. — apokrisis

But you think consciousness is real.

And you seem to understand consciousness as a substance to be accounted for rather than as a process to be deflated. — apokrisis

The classic functionalist straw man trotted out yet again.

You're a functionalist, and therefore wrong. Your own view seems to be a case of what @Wolfgang calls metaphysical positing: when a system does such-and-such, you declare it to be conscious. Your 'answer' to the question "Why can't it do all that in the dark?" is another question, the explanation-free "Why wouldn't it?"

Ok, who did they borrow it off? — Punshhh

Dunno. Banks?

I suspect that more often than not, the conclusion of a separate thing is begged at the start and rationalized from there. — noAxioms

It's really only substance dualists who think consciousness is a 'separate thing' and even then it's a conclusion not an assumption, at least ostensibly. Most non-physicalists (that I'm aware of) do not think consciousness is a separate thing anyway (unless you count a non-physical property as a 'thing' which I wouldn't).

There seems to be a necessity of memory and predicting going on. It’s almost impossible to be a predictor without memory, and I cannot think of anything that ‘experiences’ that does not do both things, but I can think of things that monitor internal processes that do so without either. — noAxioms

A zombie or android could do all that. Nothing in there entails consciousness. You may be right (or not) that consciousness requires memory and predicting, but memory and predicting are not sufficient for consciousness.

Consciousness is just what it is like to be in this kind of mechanised modelling relation with a world — apokrisis

Ooooooh no it isn't

So what's the alternative? — Relativist

Attribute regularities to will rather than law, maybe.

Here's how I approach it: some explanation is needed for the constant conjunction of past regularities. I judge that the "inference to best explanation" for this is that there exist laws of nature that necessitate this behavior. Inferring a best explanation is rational - it's a form of abductive reasoning. — Relativist

Check out Goodman's new riddle of induction if you haven't already. It's fun.

"Desires" seem, at least, biologically indispensible. — 180 Proof

How does that fit with your view that desires play no role in causing behaviour? I think you explained it before but I can't remember.

There's lots of trinities. I struggle to reconcile them, maybe they're just different and i shouldn't try.

Substance, form, function
Cardinal, fixed, mutable
Will, intellect, feeling
Father, Son, Holly Ghost
Belly, head, heart
Strawberry, mint, hazelnut
Ready salted, cheese and onion, salt and vinegar
Red, blue, yellow
Labour, Tory, Lib Dem
Thesis, antithesis, synthesis
Voltage, resistance, current
Bowl, cherries, life

I should probably read some Pierce. Might help me out.

Are we free agents or are our choices determined by variables such as genes, environments, nutrients, and experiences? — Truth Seeker

I think both, but I'm not a compatibilist. To my horror, I'm probably going to sound a bit like @apokrisis. We are determined by things we give a shit about, and our giving-a-shits constrain our choices. But within those constraints we are free to arbitrarily choose between alternatives we don't give a shit about.

It would make things easier if only intentional causes were called causes, and the other kind called something else. — Patterner

Maybe, but ordinary usage intervenes.

As a panpsychist I've been been considering whether the distinction between intentional cause and non intentional is sustainable. I think it may be, but the non intentional would be derived from the intentional. The only causes we actually know about are intentional. Other causes are often attributed to laws, which are descriptive and don't need the notion of cause to work, perhaps. Not sure.

I enjoyed your OP. The section on 'Complex Systems' doesn't actually mention causation. What is being caused exactly, and what is causing it?

I've been thinking about causation a bit recently in terms of overdetermination of the physical. Not quite ready to blob out a thread of my own on that yet.

i think it's a theory rather than a definition. Most people who understand how to use the word 'consciousness' do not attribute it to matter in general.

You make a good point that theories or definitions might exclude consciousness from being casually efficacious. It needs some extra work to defend the causal efficacy of consciousness if all it is is the capacity to feel.

Yes, i think that's probably the most accurate way to think about it. Exactly what properties substance/matter/reality/whatever intrinsically has is interesting, and i think consciousness has to be on that list.

Yeah, we can always just make shit up. — Banno

And everyone does. Some made-up stuff works better than others, but it's all made up. There are no givens, apart from perhaps ordinary language.

There is nothing it is like to be conscious per se, unless, perhaps, there is something it is like to be conscious of consciousness. Consciousness is the property of a system whereby there is something it is like to be that system when it undergoes a change.

If the galley, all the people and all the parts, is one consciousness, it doesn't make sense to me that it would not be able to communicate with us. A consciousness that is made up of, among other things, a bunch of pretty competent communicators should be able to communicate at least as well as any of its independent parts. A human communicates far better than any if it's parts can. — Patterner

That's interesting, thanks. I hadn't thought of that that way before. Yes it's a serious objection I think.

I view the objects and phenomena of pretty much all the special sciences (e.g. biology, ecology, psychology, economics, etc.) to be strongly emergent in relation with the the objects and phenomena of the material sciences such as physics or chemistry. Some, like our apokrisis argue (and I would agree) that even within physics, especially when the thermodynamics of non-equilibrium processes is involved, many phenomena are strongly emergent in the sense that they aren't intelligible merely in light of, or deducible from, the laws that govern their smaller components. — Pierre-Normand

Presumably you'd say that the relationships between micro-properties and emergent properties are lawlike. If so are some laws emergent then? Or have all laws always existed, even if they never have a chance at any point in the history of the universe to describe an actual natural event?

No, the galley is not conscious as a unit. — Patterner

I think it may be. There are (at least) two problems the panpsychist must tackle at some point:

1) What are the units supposed to be? (Searle's challenge)
2) Relatedly, how do subjects sum, if at all? (The combination problem)

Both these may be rebutted by the idea that every system whatever, no matter how arbitrarily defined (the galley is a good example), is conscious. It may not be conscious of very much, it may have extremely limited content to its experience, but nevertheless there is some kind of unitary experience. This makes a colossal number of subjects. The galley minus one of its lignin molecules would also be conscious. The galley plus one of the water molecules from the sea a mile away would be a separate conscious entity. Neither would experience much. So to rebut the challenges: (1) the units are whatever you can think of, and (2) they don't sum. Each one is its own unique identity, and you can have 'nests' of subjects, there is no 'pooling' of identity.

This is still vulnerable to @Banno's Blank Stare of Incredulity of course. We sacrifice intuitive appeal on the altar of metaphysical possibility. But who cares? I don't. The universe is weird. Philosophers should be willing to follow the logic, or at least entertain odd possibilities.