Quite a sweeping generalization! — BC

Isn't it just!

I have a typical formal education - bachelors degree and a masters degree. Quite a bit of the bachelor degree education was good instruction. I liked it. I learned quite a bit. The masters program was a credential generator--not a fraud, but not very good, either. — BC

Graduate teaching is often different because the students have volunteered to be there, it's in a subject they've chosen to pursue, and most of the effort is on them. It's not my target.

I have known a few self-taught individuals, and their intellectual accomplishments are impressive. But not everyone has the talent, early on, to guide their own education. I certainly didn't. — BC

Yet...

A lot of what I have learned between graduating from college and retiring, I learned through my own effort. — BC

... you underestimate yourself.

I certainly didn't. Most people don't. That's why we "educate". — BC

To you have any cause to believe that, have you tested it, or read of anyone having done so? Is your ground for believing it sufficient to imprison children against their will and punish them for failure to comply?

Education is not 'intervention'; it is a basic necessity to all intelligent life-forms. — Vera Mont

As above, do you have any grounds for this claim or is it just idle speculation?

I wouldn't recommend setting a young wolf free in the wild without teaching it how to hunt and how to relate to other wolves. I wouldn't recommend setting up shop as a carpenter, without first learning how to use a saw, an adze and a chisel. — Vera Mont

Learning and teaching are two different things. I can learn carpentry without being taught carpentry.

I do advocate for safe, clean, respectful and inclusive public schools from kindergarten through college, trade and technical school and university, accessible to all students, at all levels. — Vera Mont

I know. I'm not unclear on what you advocate, I'm unclear of the grounds on which you do so.

I didn't say one word in approval of the current state of public education in the disunited states; I may have implied a few against it. You seem to assume it's the only kind of education in existence or the realm of possibility. — Vera Mont

And why would I think that? If one claims "we ought to do more routine CT scans for brain tumours", I think it's ridiculous, when someone refers to the radiological risk of that strategy, to later argue "Oh, I didn't mean using the current CT scanners, I meant using some theoretical yet-to-be-invented ones which I don't even know are possible". Schools are what we have. If you advocate more education, that's where it's taking place. If you don't like the schools we have, don't advocate more education in them. Advocate for them to be changed.

I didn't say a word against improving the working conditions or standard of living for working people; you seem to think having access to education somehow impedes those efforts, rather than enhancing them.
I don't know why you think that, and I hold forth little chance of discovering it. — Vera Mont

I explained it quite clearly. Education improves job prospects. So it only improves the lives of the working class by removing them from the employment pool of working class jobs and placing them in the employment pool of middle-class jobs. This does nothing to change either the conditions of those jobs or, more importantly, the relative proportions of the jobs available. All it does is mean that a larger number of near retirees and recently unemployed need to take the low-paid, poor condition jobs the working class would have done, as a some small proportion of the working class are now able to take the better paid, better condition jobs they would otherwise have walked into.

No net improvement in human well-being is engendered because there's been no change to the nature of the lowest paid jobs. There's just been a little more social mobility between classes and job-types. The myth that education leads to better employment (overall) does however, act as distraction to real change in those low-paid jobs, which is why conditions and pay have stagnated for those workers for decades. People like you keep lending succour to the idea that they can merely 'educate' themselves out of that labour pool and so solve their own problem.

But yes, I suspect your blind political bias will probably prevent you from understanding that argument. Perhaps wait until someone writes it in The Atlantic. Then I suspect you'll suddenly 'get it'.

The questions are simple.

1. How did you learn critical thinking skills sufficient for you to vote the 'right' way (in your interests)?
2. Why is this method not available to the working class without formal pedagogy?

You were not taught formal critical thinking skills. So why do the working class need such intervention?

As to...

every child - and now I will extend that to every intelligent creature - needs to be taught how to survive, how to communicate, how to relate to the world. — Vera Mont

Your evidence?

You seem to think this doesn't include blue-collar workers. — Vera Mont

I don't think it includes anyone. No one needs formal education, it's a myth designed to produce compliant little consumers. It stops people thinking because they expect all the information they need to be handed to them, they don't develop enquiring minds, but instead are hewn into mindless cogs.

A bit of a stretch. — Arne

Check the context.

Wouldn't it follow, if Direct Realism is true, that our private perception of pain is also a direct presentation of something existing in a mind-independent world. — RussellA

Yes. It is. Some trauma in the body.

Read what's written, then reply.

I wonder why. — Vera Mont

I couldn't possibly say seeing as the whole thing seems to be taking place in your imagination.

Back in the real world. You advocated the teaching of critical thinking, I argued that this was unhelpful since education is only helpful in procuring better jobs (a competitive market) rather than improving the conditions of the jobs they already have. I also suggested it was insulting since it carries the implication that the choices they make are the result of a lack of skill (critical thinking) which you naturally have, but they need teaching.

Thanks for the detail. Yes, I see the issue if changes are being made without the knowledge of the person whose image it is. I'm not sure I share your level of concern though (I'm more inclined to think people will just come to terms with it), but I see how one might be more concerned.

I'm not exactly trying to defend the ideas, just gatekeeping how they're argued against. I'm also not strongly committed to what I've written. — fdrake

That's fair enough.

I think this is dealt with by "consciousness cannot be explained in physicalist/functional terms (see prior arguments)". So it turns on the prior arguments. — fdrake

Can we have a reason why it cannot be (not 'isn't', or 'would prefer not to' - 'cannot' is big word here)? Coming back to satisfaction. I'm satisfied with the explanation in physicalist/functional terms. So how do we accommodate that? Am I wrong to be satisfied (if so where is my error, what criteria of satisfaction should I be employing)? Are some people satisfied by explanations others find incomplete (a psychological issue)?

I think for Chalmers the bridge is one of conception otherwise. — fdrake

This is my interpretation of the issue, but I can't get past the fact that it comes down do something more psychological than philosophical. Why can't Chalmers conceptualise it. I can (or at least, I think I can). Is there something wrong with Chalmers? We seem to be talking about someone's capabilities (I can/can't conceptualise it) not about the bridge itself (which would be more like 'no one can conceptualise it').

As Patricia Churchland put it

One set of reasons for dooming the reductionist research strategy is summed up thus: "I simply cannot imagine that seeing blue or the feeling of pain, for example, could consist in some pattern of activity of neurons in the brain," or, more bluntly, "I cannot imagine how you can get awareness out of meat." There is sometimes considerable filler between the "it's unimaginable" premise and the "it's impossible" conclusion, but so far as I can tell, the filler is typically dust which cloaks the fallacious core of the argument.

Chalmers is arguing against the "necessarily" part by tweaking/analysing/finagling the relevant concept of necessity. — fdrake

I don't really understand this. Are you saying he's making a point about what it is to be a necessary explicator for consciousness? Does he have an answer to that question, or a reason to doubt?

does this make you more happy? — fdrake

Things very rarely do. If you sweetened it with a bottle of Talisker...

In this thread, it's like your second example: "Why is the sky blue?" - physical cause of 'blueness'

I want to know the physical 'cause' of consciousness, if anyone thinks there can be a plausible account of this. — bert1

OK so taking like for like...

"Why is the sky blue?" (according to Nasa)

Sunlight reaches Earth's atmosphere and is scattered in all directions by all the gases and particles in the air. Blue light is scattered more than the other colors because it travels as shorter, smaller waves. This is why we see a blue sky most of the time.

Why does blue light travel a shorter waves? Why are shorter waves scattered further? Why should it be blue light thus treated and not red light or yellow? Why should gases scatter light at all? How is it that photons (energy) even interact with gases (particles) and why do wavelengths (shapes) have any impact on eyes (cells)?

I could go on, but I don't. I'm satisfied with the answer given, as it seems are you. Can you explain why you're not satisfied with any of the many answers given to the question of how/why we're conscious?

Now the situation in Ukraine was different, — ssu

So? You haven't countered the point that some land grabs are relatively harmless. some economic power grabs are devastating. there's nothing about territorial acquisition which makes it somehow automatically worse than economic power grabbing.

The choice we have to to invoke the US's version of power to fight of Russia's version of power and the US's version is demonstrably the worse. — Isaac

I think people would opt to live in your country than in Belarus, Isaac. — ssu

Non-sequitur. It's not about living in the UK/US or Russia. The choice is to live in a Ukraine under US monetary influence, flooded with weapons, still fighting Russia (because no-one has come up with a plan for actually defeating them), or one under Russian oligarchy/puppetry. Just because on option is shit, doesn't mean the other is automatically better.

The US is 'helping' in Syria, Yemen, Nigeria, Afghanistan, Iraq... Are those utopias compared to Crimea? would people rather live in those places than in Crimea? Or Belarus?

No. We know this because of the migration figures.

Make-up is however part of the whole experience, they see the same "made-up" face in the mirror every day and there's the physical act of applying and being part of the transformation. But a filter that isn't even known to the user, i.e something working underneath the experience of taking photos and is officially just "part of the AI processing of the images to make them look better", can have a psychological effect on the user since it's not by choice. — Christoffer

Really? This is a hidden feature not openly declared?

What do you think the liberal and socialist parties have been doing? — Vera Mont

Mostly telling the working class how stupid and bigoted they are and how they need more 'education' so that they can stop doing/saying such stupid things.

Biden's just removed 15 million form healthcare.

Have I missed some amazing policy the liberal parties have put in place to help the poor?

They offer scapegoats, security, responsibility, morality and greatness. They always deliver on the scapegoats, and the pricetag is always higher than they 'estimate'. — Vera Mont

So because the right wing are bad, no criticism of the left stands?

If part of the theory is "it cannot be bridged", that does put an onus on an opponent to show the gap doesn't exist or alternatively that it's already been bridged. — fdrake

I think that's only true though if there's some within-frame theoretical support for the notion that "it cannot be bridged", which I think is lacking. I don't think it's reasonable to start one's Ramsey sentence with "suppose the gap between neurological goings on and first-person consciousness is unbridgeable..." it seems the oddest thing to suppose as a foundational, but more than that it imports assumptions which then need examining - like what does 'unbridgeable' actually mean in this context?

I think it's unfair to expect a concise definition of content from a nascent field of inquiry. Like "hey Mr Newton, can you define what a force is for me? It doesn't seem to be a substance... is it immaterial? How can it be part of a physical law without a physical body?" — fdrake

I agree, but that's not what I'm doing here (at least I don't think it is). I'm not asking the proponents of a 'hard problem' to define terms, or the components of their model. I'm asking for the criteria of sufficiency being used in the expression "neuroscience does not explain why/how we have consciousness". I'm just asking what is insufficient about the explanations given (say by the Churchills - to go extreme eliminativist).

It's quite acceptable to me to say "my model of consciousness involves this bridge/force/realm which I can't quite define" no problem at all with that, but what I do not understand is when asked "why have you invoked this bridge/force/realm in your model" the answer comes back blank.

Essentially, as with all philosophy, if we can't say anything about why one frame is preferable to the other then it's redundant (as a social exercise) we have to have criteria - even if it's aesthetics, parsimony, clarity, coherence... something has to be the matter we can discuss when comparing models/frameworks, otherwise what are we discussing?

And... point of order about charity. This thread is entitled "Neuroscience is of no relevance to the problem of consciousness" it is a direct attack on eliminativist or reductionist explanations of consciousness (elsewhere described as 'evil' with virtually no comeback). Can you honestly say that the problem with a lack of charity is toward non-reductionism? I've been as open as possible to the arguments put forward, accepting any framework (despite my personal preference for functionalist ones), short of just laying down at the feet of the non-reductionist problem, I'm not sure how I could possibly be more charitable whilst still disagreeing.

I don't think anyone could say the same of the treatment of reductionist approaches here, which are routinely dismissed as simply 'not understanding' the arguments, if not openly treated as coming from soulless nihilists.

I also don't think this is particularly charitable, you can treat arguments like Mary's Room, zombies etc as attempts to show why consciousness is "special" in this way. Furthermore, expecting a functionalist answer to those is in some regard begging the question. — fdrake

Unless I've misunderstood your use of the term 'functionalist' then I'm not expecting a functionalist account. '"Why/How?" is taken directly from the question posed by the hard problem (and its proponents), I've not added anything to that question. I'm simply saying that one can continue to ask 'why?' to any given explanation. "... but why?"... We choose when to stop. that's all I'm saying here. Nothing functionalist, nothing beyond the simple grammar of the word 'why?' It expects some reason. Questions beginning "why..." are universally answered in the form "because...", and I'm not the one posing the question in that format, they are.

Another way of seeing the debate is not about sufficient conditions for consciousness, but about sufficient conditions for positing consciousness, experience and so on as primitives for a theory. Like you might not expect necessary and sufficient conditions for something to count as "matter" or an "institution". Just whether positing something helps alleviate problems with hitherto existing accounts.

And that's addressed by attacking arguments which purport to show that hitherto existing accounts from functionalist/physicalist philosophers don't or cannot account for some phenomena consciousness exhibits (narrow vs wide content from Chalmers eg). — fdrake

I agree. In a sense, that's what I'm trying to ask here for a clearer (to me) explanation of, simply what it is that the reductionist model doesn't account for.

So far, the answers given seem question-begging. I'm asking why the need to invoke 'first-person consciousness' as an entity/property, and the answer given begins "assume there's first person consciousness..." Let's assume there isn't. Assume it's a story, nothing more. Now... why do we need to bring it back? That's the question.

It's not the question because eliminativism is (or should be) the default. It's the question because they are attacking us, not the other way round. The OP is an attack (in the non-personal 'combat of ideas' sense) on eliminativist neuroscience. And already the whole debate has been skewed into painting Chalmers et al as the victims of an uncharitable, superficial attack on their position which they are being asked, quite unfairly, to defend.

I'd invite you to look again at the title of the OP. Who is asking whom to defend their position?

What happens when the majority of photos being taken use AI to manipulate people's faces? What happens when such manipulation starts to reshape or beautify aspects of someone's face that essentially reconstructs their actual look, even if it's barely noticeable? — Christoffer

Yes. So I'm asking, how is that any different from make-up. Because if it's no different, then you have your answer. Women (mostly) in many cultures will have the features of their face altered by the effect of make-up in virtually all of their public images (bigger eyes, redder lips, higher cheekbones).

If this has caused a terrible cognitive dissonance, then we can assume AI facial 'beautifying' will do the same. If it hasn't really caused much problem, and people just quickly learn that some women look different without make-up, then it probably won't cause much problems as people will soon learn that about online photographs too. In fact, I suspect online photographs will mostly include make-up already (for those that wear it).

So, the question "how is it different form make-up?" bears on your question about how it will impact society.

That has never persuaded them to stop voting against their best interest. Ignorance may be blissful - though I doubt it - but it's neither a virtue nor an advantage. — Vera Mont

Wow, you really don't pull punches with your bigotry do you? Now you know what their 'best interests' are better than they do? Have you got any justification for that assumption beyond a grossly insulting assumption that you're smarter than they are?

Maybe p-zombies are impossible. How could we tell? — Dawnstorm

This is the question that I think is ill-formed.

How could we tell if anything is impossible?

There's nothing peculiar about consciousness (as it's described here). You've posited a property (consciousness) that can't be detected (the p-zombie is identical apart from this property), and then asked "how could we tell if it's real?"

So If I suggest that there's a property - wockishness (after the Jabberwocky), that might be present in some rocks, but not others, but it's not possible to tell since 'wockish' rocks appear identical to 'non-wockish' rocks... you'd think me mad. Why would I even postulate such a thing if I've no cause to?

'Consciousness' when conceived as the difference between p-zombies and non-p-zombies has this same lack of role. What's it doing, as a property? I'm sure it's doing a perfectly functional job of describing how you feel - "I feel like a person", "I feel like I have experiences" etc, but your feelings are not properties. The difference between you and a p-zombie in this sense would be that the p-zombie didn't feel that way, not that it lacks a property you have. There's nothing odd about that. I don't feel like I have experiences in the sense that some proponents of the idea feel.

I think there's a fundamental incoherence in confusing a personal feeling for an objective property in need of any kind of explanation. There's a step where the feeling is reified (which is a fine step to take), but then what's not fine (in my view) is to pretend that step wasn't taken and proceed to seem dumbfounded that this deep mystery hasn't been addressed. It's not a deep mystery. A property has been speculated to exist, specifically with the criteria that it is not merely the actions of neurons and then it is treated with faux surprise that it turns out not to be reducible to the actions of neurons.

The onboard AI "improves" your photos as a standard. If that is taken to the extreme and it starts to "beautify" people without them knowing it, we might see a breakdown of the sense of external identity. A new type of disorder in which people won't recognize their own reflection in the mirror because they look different everywhere else and people who haven't seen them in a while, other than online, will have this dissonance when they meet up with them, as their faces won't match their presence online. — Christoffer

How's that any different from make-up?

You said that you would create a questionnaire, consult students, and so on. I expect groups like Pew Research might have surveys on such questions. That's the kind of thing psychologists do. — Wayfarer

The argument (a philosophical one about epistemology) is that this is the approach which is best. the one which yields the most useful, accurate answers. That is not a question that can be settled scientifically, it's a philosophical question.

What makes Thomas Nagel's book The Last Word a philosophy text? Well, Nagel is 'the University Professor of Philosophy and Law Emeritus at New York University,[3] where he taught from 1980 to 2016.[4] His main areas of philosophical interest are legal philosophy, political philosophy, and ethics.[5]' (Wikipedia) He's written a number of books on philosophy in addition to The Last Word. He's one of the few academic philosophers who is well-known outside the academy. — Wayfarer

None of that answers the question. If Nagel (with all those qualifications) speculated on the speed of light, would that make the speed of light a philosophical question, simply because it was addressed by a qualified philosopher? If not, then what is it about that question that puts it outside the realms of philosophical speculation?

(Note, the above is also a philosophical question, suited to a philosophy forum).

Oh, so an ad hominem against philosophers, presumably, and Thomas Nagel, in particular. Too lazy to cut it as a psychologist. Obviously I'm outmatched by such rhetorical firepower. — Wayfarer

Seriously? This started with an accusation that reductionists were just scared of religion. This is apparently not an ad hominem against reductionists, but my counter-suggestion is an ad hominem against philosophers?

In what way is it not and offence for you to claim that reductionists are all just scared of religion, but it is an offence for me to claim that anti-reductionists are just scared of the work required for empirical approaches? They are literally identical in form.. Group X hold the belief they do, not because of intelligent thought, but because of a fear of Y.

I respect the hell out of those people, but I wish they could have an easier life and a little more security. — Vera Mont

Good. Then perhaps avoid the suggestion that their condition is in any way the result of their own stupidity and simply campaign to give them higher wages and better conditions for the jobs they already do (and do with great skill and knowledge).

Then perhaps, when the working class are well-paid and respected, they might actually vote for the parties which seem to have their interests at heart as a result of their perfectly intelligent and well-informed reasoning.

Since we're speculating on motives (and apparently this is a proper topic for philosophy). Here's my counter to Nagel.

Opposition to scientific explanations regarding human mentality (consciousness, motives, reasoning...) is not motivated by a lack of fear, as Nagel guesses, but by a presence of fear. A fear of hard work. It's is difficult to get one's theories approved if one opts to follow an empirical methodology. A pet theory can be quashed irreparably by the weight of statistics. People are afraid that their cherished narratives will be undone by the hard stare of statistical analysis - so they retreat to the safety of their armchairs from which they can pontificate endlessly without fear of any deeply held belief having to ever be challenged, and without fear of their ever having to do the hard slog of proving them to others.

t's not an essay in social psychology, but an essay on philosophy — Wayfarer

In what way? What makes it an essay on Philosophy. It makes claims about how humans think (their motives in this case). So what makes that a topic for philosophy? Simply that a philosopher said it?

If Nagel speculated on the speed of light, would that become then a philosophical question?

And in what sense is the argument I put forward about the differences in approach not itself a philosophical question entirely suited to a philosophy forum?

I’m expecting substantial claims that are sharply formulated and accompanied with required evidences. Your blah blah blah is still flying in the domain of vague possibilities. Namely, more hand-waving. — neomac

Is the latter claim supposed to be an example of this sharply formed, evidence-accompanied type of claim you're wanting to advocate? "Your blah blah blah is still flying in the domain of vague possibilities" I'm not sure I can live up those standards.

What do you mean by “the one that causes most death and misery”? Do you mean that since the end of WW2 until today at least more than 50% of the non-Western World misery (=poverty and sickness?) and death was the direct and exclusive consequence of “the western world under US leadership”’s policies? All right. Quote your preferred expert’s report concluding as much. Or prove it yourself. — neomac

It's already been cited several times over. I'm not playing this stupid game where every few pages you all pretend that there's been no evidence presented in the hope that no one will bother to go back and look. I've already discussed the papers showing the deaths from the US's 'war on terror', the deaths and near starvation condition of nations in the developing world, the links between those conditions and US/European trade policy, IMF loan terms, colonial history... There's plenty of scope for disagreement, but don't sink to this childish level. The evidence is there. If you disagree with it, that's fine, it's underdetermined enough for you to do so, but then I'd ask why.

A part from the fact that I already abundantly argued against such accounting model of understanding geopolitics and its moral implications — neomac

It's not 'apart from the fact...'. I know this will be a difficult concept to get into your messianic brain, but I disagreed with your argument. I did not find it persuasive. Strangely, you merely writing it down did not have the magical effect you might have expected.

give a concrete example of what such calculation looks like — neomac

Again, I already have. A concrete example looks exactly like the arguments I've already given. If a policy leads to over 300,000 civilian deaths and has no demonstrable effect, I don't need to do any "maths" to derive a sound opinion that the policy is flawed. If a country bathes in opulence whilst one it is trading with, has investments in, has a colonial history of abuse with... has 50 million starving children in it, I don't have to do any "Maths" to hold the sound opinion that one country is probably exploiting the other.

Maybe you should rephrase it, but if you accuse your opponents to claim a false couple of alternatives (no matter if accurate), then you should show at least a third alternative clearly distinct from the other two, not just hand-wave at it. — neomac

again, this has already been asked and already answered. Diplomacy, sustainable development, fair trade, disarmament, international law, human rights courts, democratic reform, dis-coupling of politics from industrial influence (share holdings and lobbying)... I'm not about to list the entire agenda of the various progressive, socialist, or human rights groups in the world. That's why I talk about it in terms of your imagination. It is utterly ridiculous to paint only two alternatives as if we lived in a world where no one was presenting any other. It's an absurd tactic to suggest that the third (or fourth, or fifth) options are somehow these mysterious options barely mentioned. There's entire global movements advocating for them.

Have you read the essay that this is quoted from, Evolutionary Naturalism and the Fear of Religion, by Thomas Nagel? I think what he says in that essay is extremely relevant to many of the arguments we see on this forum, including this one, which is why I quoted it. — Wayfarer

I wasn't asking you if you thought it was relevant (I pretty much assumed that), I was asking about the understanding you have of people who differ in opinion from you. I can ask you. I can't ask Nagel.

I've read the article. It's quality can be summed up in one quote...

My guess is that this cosmic authority problem is not a rare condition and that it is responsible for much of the scientism and reductionism of our time.

... and says so much about the tension between philosophy and science.

Why the fuck should we pay the slightest attention to what Nagel 'guesses'?

Do you know how much time and effort goes into a piece of psychology research? If I wanted to try and answer a question even on the periphery of whether fear of religion motivates scientism, I would have to spend the best part of a year in discussion with my statistician and post-grads about what sort of experiment might have some statistical power and how to run it. I'd have to deal with ethics committees, grant bodies, faculty staff... Then I'd finally publish the methodology on a pre-print server, have the entire field of research psychology comment on whether they think that methodology will work, yield significant results. Then, finally, I'd actually carry out the experiment, reproduce the results (even if they were negative) and write it up - including letting everyone know exactly what results I got, how I got them, what statistics I used to check their significance, and what model I was using to test them against. Not to mention I'd write any competing interests, any funding I'd got and properly credit my team. Then it would be reviewed by a panel of my peers for errors, and by an editor for it's 'significance' to the field. Finally, after all that, it would be published in a journal and I could quote "Fear of religion does not drive most appeals to scientism"

And you want to claim that Nagel's 'guess' stands as an equally valid counter to that.

Specifically I was referring to the eliminative materialism of Daniel Dennett and the way he uses Darwinian biology in support of that view, which I (and a lot of people) regard as anti-humanist. I was certainly not characterising anyone I differ with as evil. — Wayfarer

I really don't see how specificity is a defence against describing an alternative view as 'evil'. The accusation is not one of bigotry, it's of hubris. I'm not concerned that you offend the actual proponents of such a view (thought that is heavily implied), It's that your position is indefensible - literally you admit this yourself "if you don't see it, there's nothing more to say", and yet positions that differ can themselves be 'evil'.

If the only grounds on which you think your position right is that it just 'feels' that way to you, can you not even see that others might defend their own contrasting positions the same way?

Why invoke 'fear of religion', or nihilism, or lack of understanding... when you know from your own personal experience that some positions simply 'feel' right and do so with such strength that it is impossible to really see how they could be mistaken. Can you not empathise then with Dennett, Dawkins, and others who might feel the same way - why must you invoke such nefarious motives to them when you own contrasting position is held with no less passion and with no more defensible ground?

And who is acting as the judge of what information is 'sound'? — Isaac


Rupert Murdoch, Meredith Koch.... — Vera Mont

Seriously? What world are you living in? Which of the 'fact checkers' seek out Rupert Murdoch? Which teaching establishments ask Meredith Koch for an opinion? You're sounding paranoid. Murdoch may have an enormous reach regarding what people read, but no one - absolutely no one - is claiming he has any access to 'the truth', not even him. You may be terrified of the reach that right wing news outlets have, but that's not anywhere near as terrifying as letting the government determine what 'the truth' is.

I don't recall 'rights' lessons. — Isaac


They used to call it 'civics'; came in a package with history and geography. — Vera Mont

More modern schooling than mine then, I imagine. Is there some reason a book couldn't provide the same data you got from those lessons? Was your teacher the sole repository of that knowledge? Are poor kids just too stupid to look it up for themselves on the internet, they need their hands held?

The problem with your (I'm going to generously call it an argument) is that you're not providing any reason why schooling is necessary, only that it is (sometimes) sufficient. I'm sure some children in some schools can turn out just fine, can learn about 'civics' and find a passion for nineteenth century literature (because God knows they won't be exposed to anything else!), but just because they can is not an argument that schools are necessary, or even advisable.

And your personal middle class utopia is not an argument against the charge that focus on 'education' is an insult to workers who just want to be respected for what they actually already do.

if we're quibbling about necessary and sufficient conditions for consciousness, sentience, experience, having a perspective and so on, how and why we would have a consciousness of any indicated sort would be determined by the conceptualisation fixed "upstream". — fdrake

That's fine, I don't deny that, but then from within the definition of consciousness used by the protagonists here, there should still be a set of sufficiency criteria for the reasons given in answer to a question 'why?'. It's not that I'm demanding those criteria should match my definition, just any definition. The problem is I've not been given any criteria at all.

I could see that the qualia people may have a similar move available to them. Like the enactivists did in my fictional example above. If an enactivist criticised the state of neuroscience as being unable to study the dynamic interplay of body, brain and environment in a meaningful way, it similarly makes sense to allow the qualist to accuse neuroscience of the same, unjustified, filter. Which isn't a filter on the level of data, it's a filter on the level of conceptualising data and how people ask questions. — fdrake

I'm not sure I go along with that. I see what you're saying to a point but I think the enactivist/qualist would be overstating their case if they were to make such a move. Unless it is assessed within some higher order meta-framework, then at the very most such a thinker might say that they don't have a place for a representationalist paradigm (and vice versa) in their models. To criticise the field thus would be unjustified. Representationalists clearly do study the dynamic interplay of body, brain and environment in a meaningful way, if they didn't the papers they write on the subject would be incoherent to all.

If anything, I think the approach shackles, certainly enactivists in some cases. Take, for example, the difference in approach between Andy Clark and Evan Thomson on this. Andy's work has been really productive in pushing at the boundaries of the two positions and we've got some promising synthesises as a result. contrast that with Thompson's shambles of a paper attempting to rule out any common ground.

Note that what's being claimed here is not "Phenomenology is of no relevance to the problem of consciousness", quite the opposite. The OP is "Neuroscience is of no relevance to the problem of consciousness" and already the tenor of the thread is one of defending the poor mistreated phenomenological philosophers against the reductionist bullying of Neuroscience. I'm exaggerating for effect, of course, but the pattern is not an unfamiliar one.

I think, eg Chalmers, has tried to show that there really is this gap between what can be accounted for with (current) descriptions from neuroscience - assuming they are physical. And if that's true, there'd need to be a new but related science regarding how qualia and brains track each other, and how qualia correlate with others. Conceived of in this way, Chalmer's arguments play the role of the enactivist in the above example. And, I think, be treated with the same courtesy. — fdrake

As above really, apart from maybe the Churchlands et al (but even then with significant pulling of punches) I don't see this as a matter of neuroscience closing off perspectives from philosophy at all. If anything, the feeling from my side of the debate is one of Chalmers et al being afforded some kind of untouchable status, where criticisms, or even requests for clarity, are summarily waived away with little more than "you just don't get it do you". I understand that Chalmer and others may have a perspective that some definitions of consciousness in neuroscience don't accommodate, but I think that the divide is not unbridgeable. To do so, however requires that the neuroscientist (or the cognitive scientist) be able to legitimately interrogate the philosopher's position (and vice versa of course). That's what I'm trying to do here.

My original question didn't specify a framework, or perspective at all. It's simply asking about sufficient conditions for satisfaction. What constitutes a 'reason' from within the perspective that sufficiently contains neuroscience to justify the claim of the OP .

If you believe that "how" and "why" are being equated with "how" and "why" in a context which, it sees, necessarily removes relevant things from its study, you'd be contesting the entire context, which is roughly anything which seeks to explain everything about consciousness with physical laws. — fdrake

That's all very well, but still lacks (if not more so) any details about sufficiency from that perspective. If it's not a law of physics that's being sought to explain the mechanism, then a law of what? If no law at all, then in what way is just any mechanism not an answer?

How can we rule out potential answers (which must be being done - the claim is that no answer yet suffices) without grounds against which to rule?

What woo am I trying to monger? — bert1

It's not about 'mongering' it. I'm just saying that one could render exactly the same level of mystery about how it is that legs result in walking, or how bricks could make a house, or how a load of syllables make a poem, or how patterns of light could produce the words I'm reading, or how some grains of sand become a 'pile', but we don't know how many...

Pretty much anything can be made to sound mysterious by just asking '...but why?' until the answers run out.

What I'm saying is that you (we all) pick what we're going to see as 'mysterious' and what we're going to accept as normal, not on the basis of some objective state of affairs, but on an arbitrary and personal decision about when we're going to stop asking 'why?' There's nothing special about consciousness beyond the fact that you choose to see it as special, you choose to not stop asking 'why?'

Useful outcome does not imply goal, purpose, or reason. — T Clark

Again, I think this just depends on what you're prepared to accept as a reason. I'm quite happy to say that the reason cell membranes have protein channels is to facilitate active transportation. I'm not claiming any teleology, just that within the context of cell function we can identify the reason that protein channels exist. I don't think we're stepping outside the boundaries of science in doing so, nor invoking a designer, but we are invoking purpose, quite unproblematically, I think. The purpose of protein channels is to transport molecules against the concentration gradient. I don't see how that's at all controversial.

Given we could agree (possibly) on the above, I'm not sure how there'd be any difference in saying that the purpose of consciousness is X, simply by restricting our frame of reference to the functioning of the organism.

The relationship between legs and walking is clear, the latter is what the former does. — bert1

Is it? Why? (by which I mean why is it clear?)

It's not at all clear to me. Legs don't always walk. I wouldn't say "my legs are going for a walk", I might say they're moving, or that walking is the result of me moving my legs just so. I might say moving my legs produces the effect of 'walking'. I might say such movement gives rise to a 'walking' person.

Saying that legs 'do' walking doesn't seem any less fraught than saying neurons 'do' consciousness. It's just that there's little woo potential in pretending the relationship between legs and walking is deeply mysterious so we just accept it as simple.

I didn't learn anything by myself: I was surrounded by people who answered when I was curious, and explained patiently when I didn't understand, and questioned what I did understand and paid attention to my concerns. I was surrounded by books and literate people who didn't lie to me.
I was lucky. — Vera Mont

Indeed you were. None of which is the modus operandi of school and none of which is the 'teaching' of critical thinking skill.

Schools take thirty children force them to sit still, shut up and do as they're told, regurgitate the curriculum without question, and then pointlessly cram the whole thing into their short-term memory for an exam which they will forget five minutes after leaving the hall.

I don't know where this fucking hippy commune you were evidently brought up in was, but it is about as far from an actual school as it is from a coal mine.

I'm happy for a carpenter to be happy in his work, yet I still think he should also be able to enrich his life with whatever interests he has besides. — Vera Mont

What's that got to do with education? Do you think carpenters don't know how to use the internet? Do they need a Liberal to hold their hand whilst they access a library?

I'm happy if a nurses' aide is happy in her work; I still think she should have a right in engage in the democratic process of her governance on the basis of sound information. — Vera Mont

And who is acting as the judge of what information is 'sound'? You? Your friends? Because it's certainly not any sensible measure of academic capability.

I think they should know what their rights are and have the opportunity to judge who is lying to them. — Vera Mont

I don't recall 'rights' lessons. I recall having to glue facts about Romans to a piece of sugar paper to put on the wall. Not sure what that achieved.

not be be massacred by lunatics. — Vera Mont

What the fuck? Where did 'massacre by lunatics' enter into the choices being discussed? We were talking about schooling. The alternative is not-schooling; it's not school or massacre. What sort of insane upbringing did you have!

It's only that... — Wayfarer

But it's not 'only' that. You described one of the alternatives as "evil". You regularly frame disagreement as your interlocutors "not understanding" something about the argument (rather than just disagreeing with it). It's this certainty, and righteousness I was wanting to explore. Retreating to an "only..." just pretends all that didn't happen, but it's in black and white, some examples literally a few posts above this one.

I'm wondering where that self-confidence comes from.

Policies don't happen in isolation. They're part of a national strategy. Of course you can pick one single policy and show it was not particularly harmful on its own, it would be patently absurd to suggest that every single policy of every country maximises harm.

What I'm talking about is the overall approach. The overall approach of Russia is belligerence at the border and territorial acquisition, by war if necessary. The overall approach of the Us and Europe is economic dominance with control over friendly foreign governments, again with wars to change regimes if necessary. Russia made the Crimean territorial acquisition with very little bloodshed. Grabbing territory is not always as massively destructive as the Ukraine campaign is.

Of these to overall approaches, the Russian one has caused less overall harm. Obviously it would be much better if neither bloc pursued either policy and just focussed on the sort of positive humanitarian goals that our most progressive politicians are talking about. But that's not the choice we have in front of us. The choice we have to to invoke the US's version of power to fight of Russia's version of power and the US's version is demonstrably the worse. One of the main reasons why absolutely none of the African nations support them (with some even openly supporting Russia), why so few Latin American nations support the US, why so little support from Asia. These are the countries which have suffered the most from the US's methods and have no reason to think it a good idea to give them more power here.

I myself don't think it needs to be demonstrated, but that if I need to demonstrate it, then probably nothing I could say would be effective. — Wayfarer

Does this not strike you as slightly messianic? Do you not think others feel the same way about their own cherished beliefs? Yet here you are deriding as 'evil' world views which others may hold to be just as self-evident and foundational as you hold yours to be.

As ever with these arguments, they just come down to you claiming to have some insight into the way things are that others lack.

It's not that other lack the insight, it's not that they fail to understand. It's that they disagree. They differ from you in what they find plausible, important, useful...

It's difference, not evil, not failure, not inadequacy... Just difference.

Maybe just the ones whose state governments have forbidden them to read books or study science or learn their own history or ask questions. And I don't mind if it's classist to demand that the children of the working class have education of the same quality as the children of executives and bankers. — Vera Mont

It's got nothing to do with differences in education between rich and poor. The rich get a crap education too and then walk into board-room jobs, not because they're well-educated, but because daddy knows the CEO.

The myth of education is just another trope designed to avoid any actual progress for the poor, it just further feeds this ugly lie that the poor are poor because of their own inadequacies. Here, that's tempered (only slightly) by the suggestion that, even though they're poor because they're too stupid to get proper jobs, it's a little bit our fault for not educating them enough, not passing on to them our (presumably divinely supplied) wisdom.

A lot of working class are quite happy being miners, carpenters, mechanics... I worked with some of the ex-miners after the strikes (famous in Britain at least), the stories told weren't about wanting to get out of mining, they were about having mining 'in their blood'. What they wanted was to be paid a decent fucking wage for it.

The pernicious idea behind this whole 'education' movement is that rather than actually paying manual labourers a decent wage and giving them decent working conditions, we can merely provide them with sufficient 'education' to get one of the other jobs where wages and conditions are not a problem.

Perpetuating the Neo-liberal competition trope, work hard, tread on the faces of your fellow community members and you too could be one of these well-paid middle managers, and you too could have the opportunity to screw the workers by cutting their wages and making them work under near-slave conditions.

Education is not the problem. There's already plenty of people educated to the standard required to enter middle management, we don't need any more. There is however, a crisis of skilled plumbers, skilled mechanics, agricultural workers... A crisis which modern education does fuck all to address.

Modern education is nothing more than a tool to give false hope to masses of underpaid over-exploited workers by dangling the carrot of the one middle-management job available which they must all compete, gladiator-like, for.

Children are quite capable of learning what they need to learn for themselves. They need information, practice, and time. Three things they're being robbed of in increasing quantity. They certainly don't need draconian education establishments more concerned with their haircuts and obedience to authority than with an enquiring mind.

Just had to commend the use of Nirvana on a philosophy forum - not an easy task, well played.

Feel free to tell, please. Findings? — jorndoe

That would not really be appropriate to this (or perhaps, any) OP. As I've probably made quite plain before, my models relate to narrative building as a post hoc device to draw together otherwise disparate beliefs which arise from behaviour. (behaviour >> belief about the cause of that behaviour >> narrative which puts that belief into context with others). So here I'm interested in what happens when that middle stage is disrupted, when people challenge one of the beliefs, what methods are used to draw it back into the overarching narrative.

It's those methods that I can get good wide-field feeling for in responses here. If social media had been around when I first started out in research, the whole field would be different now, it's a radical shift (but one I'm now too old to take part in).

The 'social structure' I'm referring to is not the sort of structure you appear to be thinking of (which I'd call a social hierarchy), I'm referring here to the literal structure, the bare bones of the way a social media platform works - the anonymity, the permanence of everything that's been said, the freedom to leave (and perhaps return as someone else? - don't know how strict that system is), sock-puppetry (again, not sure how strictly that's enforced)... these are all structural elements of the means of engagement here that offer new tools for this narrative maintenance that's been my bread and butter for these last decades.

It's a very hard to grasp concept — Dawnstorm

What is?

A p-zombie and a person with first-person experience would both behave the same, and thus share the same evolution. What sort of test could we devise to tell if one is a p-zombie or not? If p-zombies are impossible, how can we conceptualise evidence for this? — Dawnstorm

That's begging the question. The evolutionary frame (in my example) comes first so that we can ask - what's the benefit of being conscious - to get at our "why?" question.

If you don't like the evolutionary frame, then there may well be another, but I'm arguing it would still be of the same form, there'd be something which constitutes a measure of satisfaction with the reasons given.

When I say that my keyboard is made up of atoms, I can conceptualise this a matter of scale. It's easy. When I say, consciousness is made up of neural activity (which is my default working assumption), all I have is a correlation; the nature of the connection eludes me. — Dawnstorm

But that's just a matter of willing, not of some deep conceptual problem. After all, if you're able to imagine your keyboard is really made of atoms by seeing it as just a matter of scale, then you're just imagining atoms wrong. They're not (so I'm told) just smaller bits of keyboard. they're these weird energy particles and probabilities and quantum maths I don't even understand.

You're willing to simply 'allow' that rule (weird quantum stuff can become keyboards), not, I'd suggest, because it's somehow easier to conceptualise, but because it's not a mystery you find particularly interesting that it remain one. It's a less good story, in other words.

I remember an essay by Stephen Jay Gould. In it he described what happens when animals get larger. Their brains tend to get larger at a faster rate than their bodies in general. Conclusion - selection for a larger body might coincidently select for a even larger brain. Not really random, but not selected either. — T Clark

Yes, I like that idea. It's what would go into my category of 'random' still though. Random, as in coincidence, no reason.

But, importantly for this discussion, it doesn't give an alternative 'why?', it just gives no 'why?'

It may be before you came into this conversation, but I started out down this evolutionary route as an attempt to firm up @bert1's original dissatisfaction with the explanations given, his sense that there was a 'why?' still unanswered. Drawing that feeling together into something coherent automatically rules out anything random or without reason. There'd be no sense of wrongness in the question 'why?' being unanswered if there was also a sense that the feature arose randomly.

What Stephen Pinker says about language makes sense to me - humans have an instinct to learn language. The structures of our nervous systems and minds are built that way. Obviously, social factors also are involved. Pinker's views are not accepted by everyone. apokrisis in particular believes language behavior can be explained by a generalized cognitive function. As always, apokrisis, forgive me if I misrepresented your views. — T Clark

I agree with neither, but that's a topic for another conversation.

consciousness could arise out of interactions between abilities for abstract thinking, language, and other higher level neurological function. Again - that's speculation. Which isn't to say that consciousness doesn't provide an evolutionary advantage. — T Clark

I agree, I think that's perfectly likely, but as I said above, in the context of this question in the OP, it wouldn't even arise if randomness (or lack of reason) were one of the options.

So if we include it as a frame for answering "why do we have consciousness?" answers could be of the form that;
1) 'there are no reasons (it just happened)' - the sort of option you're suggesting
2) 'because it confers some evolutionary advantage' - the kind of functionalist account
3) because God gave us it - the theological account

... but @bert1 (as representative of the consciousness mysterians) seems unhappy with either of these, and yet cannot say what is wrong with each (should any turn out to be true). that's the incoherence I'm trying to iron out.

Why should we care if the rest of the world doesn’t share our view? — neomac

Because unless you're wildly hubristic, it might just indicate that you're wrong. I realise for someone with your who that would be difficult to comprehend, but for the rest of us, a mass of peers disagreeing is at least cause for consideration.

If you can give some plausible account of why the rest of the world light disagree with the west about the lost appropriate course of action, then by all means provide it. But absent of such an account the mere fact alone is worthy of comment. Its cause for concern.

Why is “the most destructive force” supposed to mean? — neomac

The one that causes most death and misery. It's not complicated.

What is “taking into account” “those victims’ lives” supposed to mean? — neomac

Including them in the calculation about what course of action we ought.morally support.

It’s left to people to guess. — neomac

It really isn't. To most normal people the terms were sufficiently clear to carry a message.

it must be acknowledged as well that the western world under US leadership fought against its perceived enemies — neomac

Again, your lack of imagination is not our problem. If seriously the only two alternatives you van think of are than the us was killing people for.fun, or that it.must believe they're genuine collateral damage in an existential fight against 'enemies', then I don't know what to say. Try a little harder, perhaps?

I think this is how some progressives seem to operate. Echos of Hilary's, "Basket of deplorables'. — Tom Storm

Yeah, and far from recognising such approaches as being instrumental in the rise of populism we've seen these last few years, these people have, since then, seemed if anything to 'double down' on those tactics, in defiance of their very obvious failure to work.

But then I've long since given up the notion that modern progressive have any interest at all in actually getting a progressive agenda securely put in place. It seems for most it's far more important to be wearing the right badge than it is taking any steps that might demonstrably be shown to actually yield progress in the real world.

There's a long history in evolutionary biology of people off-handedly assigning evolutionary reasons why certain traits were selected with no evidence — T Clark

Yes, a pretty sorry history, particularly in psychology, where just about everything has at one time been justified because "...that's what we evolved to do".

And yet...

I don't think anyone would seriously argue that cells eliminate waste ions for anything other than evolved reasons to do with survival within a niche.

So I suppose the extent to which one is content with an evolutionary frame is the extent to which one is willing to allow for other influence. With behaviour that might be culture. With anything we might have randomness, or God, or our alien simulation managers...

For me, I think evolutionary psychology is almost all bollocks. I think that because cultural influences are just too obviously at least a possible factor.

With consciousness, however, I can't really think of that conflicting influence. We could invoke randomness (it just turned up), but then we'd also have to explain why humans who didn't have it weren't easily able to outbreed those that did.

We could argue, as Dennet does, that it's an illusion, there's nothing to find a purpose to. But I dislike defining things away.

I don't dispute the plausibility of non-evolutionary accounts, they just seem far more complicated, have more loose ends, and don't seem to explain anything that isn't covered in a functional account.

What I think Isaac is pointing to is that it's likely few of us esteemed members of TPF had such a privilege yet we seemed to have turned out OK, so why therefore should it be necessary for the good citizens of Texas. Is there something patronizing in that? — Baden

Yes, that's indeed the point. I find something quite offensive in people who have not been taught critical thinking skills (presumably getting by on the basis of their own superhuman natural talent) suggesting that others (lacking such natural brilliance as themselves) need to be taught these skills. The evidence for this...? They disagree with these born savants about voting Democrat.

It's about as gross a classist condescension as it gets.

"We, the born clever, have to teach you, the born stupid, how to think so that you vote properly for our preferred candidate"

With the meaning by "soft imperialism" I referred to a situation where countries have the influence over others (political and economic) without territorial annexations or war. — ssu

Yep. Me too. Still the total toll of death and misery is higher.

US actions in the Middle East or Central Asia (Afghanistan) aren't examples of this. — ssu

So you're talking about an entirely hypothetical approach to foreign policy not shown by any nation on earth? Fine. Then I agree. Some hypothetically less destructive approach would have been...less destructive.

Lol.

...

Your concern over Putin is well noted. — ssu

If in doubt, stick a 'lol' in and randomly accuse your opponent of supporting Putin. Pretty much the standard MO round here in the absence of any ability to actually address the argument.

OK, what you're saying makes a lot of sense, but I'm having trouble applying it to the 'Why?" and "How?" questions that were posed originally here.

If I understand you correctly, you're saying that an account (such as neuroscience might give) might be missing a component which serves a function in the coherence of an account, and we know it's missing by it's function, not by it's identity?

Like if I proposed the function...

$x = {b \pm \sqrt{b^2-8c} \over }$

... you'd be able to say there's something missing without being able to say what it is, simply because there needs to be a denominator?

Yet if one asks "why do we have consciousness?" I think the answer needs to consist of a set of satisfactory reasons, simply by the structure of the question, no?

And so if a set of reasons are given, they can only be rejected on two grounds; they're not reasons, or they're not satisfactory.

Evolutionary, or functional accounts are clearly reasons, so it must be that they're not satisfactory - which is presumably where this missing type comes in. There's some component a satisfactory reason has (which we might not know the token of in this instance), which is missing.

The trouble is I'm not even getting what the category is when specifically related to the question "why do we have consciousness?", or "how do neurons produce consciousness?".

If I could at least get as far as understanding the type of measure of satisfaction missing, that would be progress. The kind of reason that would suffice. But I'm so far missing even that.