Knowledge from first principles

[Mithrae]

This is an interesting thought exercise which I think everyone should indulge themselves in at least once in their lives. What do I actually know? What can I reasonably believe? The results may be enlightening. I've tried to do it a couple of times over the past decade and more, and this is something of a magnum opus at my ripe old age of 28, a culmination of views and information slowly gathered since my first reading of Berkeley's Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous when I was eighteen and very much honed by my time on this forum. Many thanks to the people who in discussion (and usually through disagreement and critiques) have helped me develop them, most notably Ionian Tradition, Ragna, Flail, Jax Agnesson, Haven, EduChris, Playhavoc, Bust Nak, Scourge99 and most recently FaerieStories



1> I think, therefore I am
This point is pretty well-known from the philosophy of Rene Descartes of course, though I've heard that the specific phrase cogito ergo sum doesn't actually appear in his work. When I was sixteen, wandering through the grounds of my school it occurred to me that The very act of questioning one's own existence begs the question "What is asking the question?" I didn't realise until some days later that this was merely a different expression of the catchier phrase above. The one thing which is absolutely certain for me, which I cannot even coherently question, is the fact of the thoughts which belong to me.

2> There are things outside my mind
I know that I exist, but what about other stuff? My mind produces all kinds of images of places, people and so on when I'm dreaming, most of which seem perfectly sensible at the time even when they're bizarre in waking memory. So how can I know that there's anything which isn't simply a product of my mind?

The first option is to simply assume it - call it an epistemic axiom, if you choose. Most folk don't ever bother trying to justify this belief, it's just taken for granted. No doubt that's partly because it's so very hard to justify even in part, let alone fully. I'm not a philosopher, but as far as I've yet encountered the only justification I can come up with is this: When I think, when I write or when I remember my dreams and so on, I almost always notice limitations on the speed, scope, depth and creativity of what my mind can do. But as I encounter more and more books, music, films and philosophy throughout my life, there seems to be far more than I could have even imagined previously. And what little I've learned about biology, chemistry, astronomy and physics seems to dwarf even those products of human creativity! This discrepancy between what I consciously recognise as products of my mind and what I encounter without knowing to be a product of my mind seems so vast and insurmountable as to cast serious doubt on any notion that it's all produced by my mind. This is not proof of course; but it's the only justification I can presently imagine for the presumption which we all share, that our senses generally reflect a reality which is not produced by our minds.

3> There are other minds
This is another point we all accept from childhood and is often presumed without much thought. My senses might be indicative of things which aren't from my own mind, but they can't detect any other person's mind at all. I have thoughts, feelings and so on, but I can never see or hear the thoughts or feelings of other people.

Belief in other people's minds is inferred by analogy, from observation of structure and behaviour. For example I'm told that my brother came into existence in a very similar fashion to me, right down to the same hospital and caesarian delivery, and I can see that his body is similar to mine - arms, legs, face and so on. Along with similarities of structure, both during childhood and in recent years of living with him I've seen that his behaviour is often quite similar to mine - complaining of hunger then eating, mentioning tiredness then sleeping, displaying signs of humour, anger and so on. From all of this I conclude that he experiences these things in the same way that I do, that he has a mind even though I cannot see it. I would say this conclusion given points 1 and 2 is more justified than point 2 itself is given only point 1. But it should be noted that while I have fairly good reasons for supposing that my immediate family have minds, it's a bit more of a leap in the dark to suppose that all humans have minds - though naturally I do believe that.

- - - - -

I imagine that these are things which we can all agree on. But how uncertain, or how strong is the justification, even for points 2 and 3? And consequently, how much more uncertainty must attend any additional conclusions building on them? There's a school of thought which suggests that all beliefs should be justified by sufficient evidence, that without sufficient evidence it's best not to believe. I reckon that's a pretty useful principle, though it's worth bearing in mind that both what constitutes evidence and what constitutes sufficient evidence can be more or less arbitrary (and sometimes inconsistently applied) standards.

But with that in mind, it seems to me that many people - theists and non-theists alike - hold to a particularly curious view which as far as I know is neither necessary nor validated by any evidence or justification:

4? Most things outside my mind are not other minds, nor direct products of other minds
The word 'physical' is often used to describe this new type or state of being. We know from <1> that at least one mind exists and that it can produce images of people, places and events in the form of dreams or imagination. As far as I'm aware, <2> can only be justified by the view that my own mind is not creative enough to account for all that I observe. And <3> is our inference from such observations that there are other minds also, a belief which pretty much all of us share. But where does this notion of some things which are neither minds, nor things produced by minds come from?

Once again it must be recognised that my knowledge and experience is quite limited, but as far as I'm aware the only explanation for this belief probably lies rooted in our earliest developments of perception and interpretation as infants. For it seems to me that it cannot be possible to have a concept of 'self' unless and until we have a concept of 'other.' As I explained to FaerieStories recently:

• My working hypothesis so far is that these distinctions, and ultimately all the most intellectual differences in the theism/atheism discussion are rooted in the fundamental self vs. other dichotomy (love that word). What I mean is that a baby in the womb really cannot have any sense of a world; it has no sight, no taste or smell, little in the way of hearing or touch and no way to contextualise that little it does experience. After birth there'd be something of an explosion of experience so to speak, which I'd guess would be somewhat overwhelming at first, but over the weeks would begin to resolve into some familiar sights, sounds and sensations (such as the mother's face, voice and breasts), and some which change or remain unfamiliar. The development of any kind of reasoning cannot begin until those kinds of differentiations begin, and alongside the recognition that those things are different from each other there can be no sense of 'self' without the recognition that I am different from them.
  
  In fairness what I've read about developmental psychology could probably be printed on quite a small business card depending on font, but I think the above makes sense Following the recognition that the world is not like me, toddlers in a healthy environment will begin to recognise that parts of the world are like them, most obviously their parents with whom they interact in quite different ways than with chairs, toys and the like - and that is followed by the period in which the child seeks to impose its desires on others, rather than being imposed upon, the idiomatic 'terrible twos.' Now most internet debating veterans of an enquiring disposition will probably be familiar with the ages old problem of other minds: How can we really know that behind that face and in the darkness behind those eyes there are experiences like our own, since we can never see or touch them?
  
  But what I consider to be an even more interesting conundrum is the question of other types of being, the sense of otherness which must necessarily precede a sense of self, and hence any concept of other 'selves.' Why, to what extent, and how can I know that the world is not like me?

If my guesses there are incorrect, then I must still remain curious about the basis for this notion of things which are neither minds nor produced by minds. But if my guesses are reasonable, this would seem to represent a confused mix of understanding <1> and <2>, with <3> probably creeping into awareness sometime after twelve months of age. While necessary for development, I don't think that this furnishes us with valid argument or evidence for the 'physical' notion which remains so commonplace.

The suggestion could be made (as FaerieStories did in that thread) that things like atoms, rocks, planets and so on can't be minds and can't have experiences like we do because we know what produces such experience (our brains) and these other things don't have it. But while I might infer from behaviour and structure (including presumably brains) that those close to me must have experiences similar to my own, that is obviously a weaker inference in the case of all humans, and weaker still in the case of non-human creatures with brains. I might argue that because a fish has some structural similarities to me, including a brain, and because it shares some behaviours with me, such as eating and reproducing, it probably has experiences in a mind that has at least some commonalities with my own. That's not a very strong argument, but not invalid either.

However it would be invalid to say that because there are obvious differences in structure between myself and a dog, and obvious differences in behaviour, the dog does not have experiences or a mind. We infer the presence of other minds by analogy, but analogy does not work in reverse like that. Thus we can only infer that brains produce or are otherwise associated with minds by increasingly weak inferences from analogy; and while we might be justified in supposing that the mind of a dog or fish is somewhat different from our own, and therefore that any hypothetical mind of a rock or planet would correspondingly be even more different from our own, we can't actually conclude that rocks and planets do not have minds - we can only presume it.

Moreover that's only half of the problem. In practice we do consider it acceptable to presume without justification that atoms, rocks, planets and so on don't have minds, and while that's treading on pretty shaky ground it may be nigh on inavoidable. But we also have no reason for supposing that they aren't produced by minds, like our own dreams or imaginations.

- - - - -

Perhaps most importantly, the idea that the sensory world consists of 'physical' stuff, stuff entirely unlike our minds or their contents, leads to a very difficult and possibly unsolvable problem: Why then do we have minds?

A common religious answer - that minds or 'souls' are a type of thing more or less unlike the world we experience through our senses - is often, and I believe correctly, criticised as being unprovable and unnecessarily complicated. But that's as much a criticism for religious folks' uncritical acceptance of this 'physical' world as their acknowledgement that our experience is something distinct from it.

If we rule that answer out, it seems to me (and this is a question which I've raised numerous times on various threads) that suggesting the development, production or emergence of a mind or subjective experience from 'physical' stuff quite unlike it would be a huge claim, one without parallel as far as I'm aware. It would be the only case I know of in which a whole has properties which are not reducible to the sum of its parts at the molecular level (if not beyond).

What I mean is that while we can't observe another person or creature's thoughts or feelings (because they're subjective experience), it must be the case that the subjective experience is either there or it is not. We presume with some justification that it's there in the case of other humans, with less justification that it's there in the case of fish, and validly or not we generally presume that it's not there in the case of atoms, rocks or planets. But when subjective experience is present in a thing, the capacity to produce or be associated with it must be an objective property of the thing. But as long as we suppose that atoms, molecules and so on themselves do not have subjective experience, the property of the whole (person, animal, brain or whatever) is not reducible to the sum of its parts.

If we look for comparison and contrast at water for example, it might be suggested that its wetness is a non-reducible property. But wetness is merely the manner in which we experience and describe water; it's not an objective property of water itself. We would probably not use the term wetness in description of certain other liquids like molten iron or liquid nitrogen, for example. The objective properties of water are its temperature and consequently fluidity, both of which are reducible; in terms of molecules' energy, and hence the rapidity of their movement (heat), and hence the breaking of their strong inter-molecular bonds from the solid state.

Again with the caveat of my limited knowledge - and I'm certainly open to learning on this point - I have not yet encountered any other example in which a whole is said to have objective properties which can't be reduced to the sum of its molecular parts. Given that, not only do I have no justification or reason to imagine some type of stuff which is neither mind nor product of mind, it seems to me that I have quite a strong reason to consider it unlikely that such a thing exists, or at least that it could provide a basis for minds.

--

So then, what is the most reasonable conclusion?

Obviously what I know is extremely limited by my own perspective, cultural context, experience and learning. I can't really claim any high degree of certainty about the minds of animals or folk I've never met, let alone the nature of reality itself!

But it seems clear to me that pending some kind of justification for an alternative view, it is most reasonable to suppose that the nature of reality consists of minds and their products; and given the general consistency of human observations across the globe and the centuries, we're probably talking about mind/s whose scope, depth and creativity far exceeds our own!

Is this the more reasonable view?
Or is there some justification - any justification - to suppose that an alternative is possible?

[AquinasD]

You'll have to be more specific about which of gold's macroscopic properties are not readily explained or reducible. The characteristics by which we define or recognise life - such as ingestion of nutrients and energy, their conversion, storage and use for cell division, growth and reproduction - are considerably more complicated than I myself understand, but from what I remember of high school biology a great deal of those processes are understood down to the chemical level by the folk who know such things. For example DNA replication, some of the specific gene coding in humans and other animals, photosynthesis in plants, chemosynthesis in bacteria, digestion in animals, respiration and so on. If 'life' is something distinct from all these processes (a cause or a product of them?) rather than simply the term by which we distinguish organisms with those processes from inanimate things or organisms without those processes (dead) then it may be irreducible; but I don't see why or how life should be considered something in itself, rather than the descriptive term. I'm not sure what you mean by animation (bringing to life?) apart from life itself, unless you're talking about animals' movement? If so, would you say that the movement of automated robots is the same irreducible form? Why or why not? If this is a different 'form' than life itself, you may be referring simply to the observable effects of consciousness; not something different from 'mind.'

Our understanding of these chemical processes as having to do with life is because we already understand the thing to be alive. The whole organism, all its parts and processes, are coordinated under the whole. What is lost when a thing dies? Ostensibly, the processes could be made to continue, even though the organism is dead. There isn't any essential material part that is added or subtracted to make a thing alive, only some different arrangement, and the necessity of the parts adhering in this arrangement in order that the whole be alive is due to the thing's form.

For instance, suppose I pointed to the chemical process that occurs in respiration. Removed from context, can you say whether it is accompanied by life? No. But you can do this for every biochemical process; ergo, life is not in the biochemical process. I would say that they hold together much like meaning and ink hold together; the ink might be necessary for the instantiation, but it is clear the the ink doesn't inform the meaning.

No two cats are identical, so there's a bit of a problem with that idea right there.

They are both essentially the same thing; they are both cats. Fine, but that misses my point. Let us suppose of something different, say, a gold atom. Two gold atoms can quite likely be identical in terms of material parts. They could both have the same amount of neutrons, protons, and electrons. But how do you distinguish between them, such that one inhabits one space and the other somewhere else? I propose that it is because they are individuated distinctly, so that while they may be identical in essence, they are not identical in existence.

You can't introduce space as the individuating element, since that presupposes that there is something which makes them distinct in existence such that they might inhabit two distinct places. In other words, they have to be distinct in existence before they can be distinct in place.

I'm trying to understand your alternative because I respect you, but I may not have enough background in philosophy to get it

That's okay, I'll try and explain as sufficiently as I can.

My ideas aren't particularly deep or complicated mostly, and I'd be the fourth to admit that I'm not the fastest thinker. The way I see it, once we've accepted the poorly-justified
2> There are things outside my mind
we ought to be cautious about supposing any additional distinctions about what reality is like. Distinctions based on observation or inferences from observation seem to be a fairly sound approach; but suggesting fundamentally different types of stuff (such as 'spiritual' vs. 'material') raises possible problems of unnecessary complexity, inadequate justification and incomprehensibility (how could these types of stuff interact if they're fundamentally different?). So a monistic view seems simplest and most reasonable to me.

There are two views on substance. One is to understand that "substance" distinguishes a set of different things, having some particular properties. Another is to disregard such a view, "substance" just being what a thing is. Say, instead of there being a monistic "material substance," there is just a bunch of substances in the world, and we understand their relations as being expressions of their potentiality to actualize effects in other things. At bottom, it is recognized that a thing must have a form, for it is forms which inform what a thing is. This is the view I take, and from your bare position of "There are things outside my mind," I do not think your view on substance is justified.

I'd propose that my view is superior because it doesn't create any antinomies. Whenever we can account for something's being actual in order to explain that something is, we don't need to be mired down in any pointless questions concerning "But how can one substance affect another?" This really boils down to asking how one form can affect another, but since each individual thing is a form, it is obvious that such effects are elementarily possible. If we can't go without using some concept in our explanation of something's being the case, then it must be included; form is just one of those concepts.

[ThatGirlAgain]

Is [that the nature of reality consists of minds and their products] the more reasonable view?
Or is there some justification - any justification - to suppose that an alternative is possible?

Possibly there is. Consider as an alternative this thing called consciousness being the product of evolution and essentially a tool to continue propagation of the genes that lead to presence of that consciousness. It appears that this genetically derived consciousness ought to have exactly the same characteristics we observe. . . .

Bodily functions like heartbeat, respiration, digestion, reflexive reactions to pain or danger and so on all occur without a need for consciousness - reliable, complex, quick and responsive. So where's the need or benefit from consciousness? The most successful types of species - bacteria, plants, insects and the like - are not noted for the development of their minds. In fact developing any kind of ego would probably be a distinct drawback for ant or bee colonies.

Indeed in any species, what immediate pay-off could there be from consciousness that couldn't be matched (if not exceeded) by its absense? Your comments on 3 require that there already be consciousness in the species (or others); on 2, it should be apparent that organisms' interaction with the 'real world' long preceeded consciousness; and on 1, there could be no self-doubt without a sense of self. Our technological developments illustrate long-term potential from consciousness and intelligence, but while some proposed short-term gains might be coherent just-so stories to explain the fact of consciousness, I wonder if they would be credible stand-alone theories for its plausibility?

The reproductive success of bacteria etc. is due to enormous profligacy and the rapid rate of the appearance of mutations someplace in a huge population, facilitating adaptation on demand. Ants, bees and other social insects have found their own alternative, the sharing of precise information about food sources in the environment and the like. In the world of evolution there is more than one way to de-fur a feline. What survives survives.

Full blown consciousness need not appear at once. Its precursors are useful as well. Kandle, whom I referenced earlier (deleted the links to save space, oh my), has shown that even sea slugs with their primitive (20,000 cell) nervous system can develop memories of potentially threatening actions and react specifically to counter them. The particular electro-chemical mechanisms that support this neurological activity has been determined and studied in detail. Nervous systems that remember and react accordingly are useful even in a very primitive form. Ongoing evolutionary development of more elaborate versions would be expected. It appears that the elaboration of nervous systems, especially brains, is in general inversely related to the appearance of the type of animal possessing it. Reptiles are ancient, mammals more recent, primates (including us) more recent still. Ongoing evolutionary exploitation of the capabilities of brains seems an entirely reasonable assumption.

Today we see examples of highly elaborated nerve clusters called brains. The activities we call consciousness occur mainly in the neo-cortex as determined by brain scans. Considering that the neo-cortex of the human brain is substantially larger than that of other primates, and primates in general have a rather larger (and more complex) neo-cortex than most mammals and mammalians have pretty much a monopoly on the neo-cortex, it is hardly a surprise that the 100,000,000,000 neurons of the human brain can do rather more sophisticated things than the 20,000 nerve cells in the entire sea slug body, especially when much of the power of a brain comes from the ability to form connections. Yet we recognize what the sea slug does as a vague shadow of things we do, learning from experience and acting accordingly.

I said that "while some proposed short-term gains might be coherent... to explain the fact of consciousness, I wonder if they would be credible stand-alone theories" for the plausibility of its development? And you focus on 'just-so stories' from the dots and infer that I'm dismissing all evidence on the matter, rather than asking for something with more substance than you'd provided. Interesting.

If consciousness were the product of evolution from nonconscious things, it appears that this genetically derived consciousness ought to have exactly the same characteristics we observe.
And if God became a human, the characteristics of that event ought to be remarkably similar to some Jewish fellow we know of.

But even if the reasoning were impeccable in showing that the expected outcome of the initial scenario matches known facts - obviously a much bigger IF in the second example - in neither case would it be a strong argument that the initial scenario is actually true. It would merely suggest the internal coherence of the theory.

Put another way, my OP asked if there is any justification for -
4? Most things outside my mind are not other minds, nor direct products of other minds
- and raised the potential problem of minds developing from non-mental stuff (or consciousness developing from non-conscious stuff). Your first post was aimed at answering that problem, rather than providing direct justification for 4. Fair enough, but as I pointed out you didn't show that consciousness could plausibly develop from non-conscious stuff - in fact you didn't really comment on the origins of consciousness at all: Your comments on <1> presuppose a sense of self, consciousness is to irrelevant your comments on <2>, your comments on <3> also presuppose other conscious minds and (though I didn't comment on it) your next paragraph also involved significantly developed mammalian consciousness. I did not intend for "just-so stories" to come across as offensive, and I apologise if that was the case; it just seemed a little shorter and snappier than 'hypothetical retrospective justifications,' which I used later in my reply.


Unless I've missed something, you haven't much argued for the origins or probable development of consciousness in this post either. I see no problems with your explanation of human consciousness - I've stopped being surprised by the breadth of your knowledge - but that doesn't answer the actual questions I'm asking:
> Do we have any reason to suppose that the stuff from which we evolved is/was neither conscious nor product of consciousness?
> Is it even possible for consciousness - the only non-reducible macroscopic property I know of - to develop from nonconscious stuff?
> Or (the question which I think you're trying to answer) assuming it's possible - I don't think we can know that it's impossible after all - can we infer that its development was probable, so as to at least offer a plausible alternative theory?

I have tried to flesh out how consciousness appears to have arisen from more basic neurological functioning. This sure seems like a plausible alternative theory, which if I recall correctly is somewhat more that you originally asked for. And again, it is not necessary to have a hard and fast dividing line between conscious stuff and non-conscious stuff if one considers it a neurological function. We recognize a little bit of ourselves even in the sea slug.

You are assuming that consciousness is a non-reducible coherent thing rather than a process. How can a hurricane develop from non-hurricane? Obviously impossible, right? A hurricane develops from certain conditions: e.g., ocean heat, coriolis effect, prevailing winds. None of those things are a hurricane, which gives every appearance of being a coherent thing. A hurricane is simply a feedback loop that is constantly regenerating itself when conditions are right to feed it. When conditions are not right, it dies out. With a hurricane it takes some time to dissipate all that energy, usually days. With a brain, there is a much lower supply of available energy versus consumption rate and it dies much quicker, along with the consciousness it supports. Where is the hurricane after it is gone? Where is your fist after you open your hand? These were never coherent things. They were circumstances that we put labels on. Where is your consciousness after your brain is dead and the physical substrate needed to sustain the feedback loop is no longer functioning?

The physical activities associated with consciousness can be seen in brain scans and other devices. External physical factors can modify consciousness or even permanently destroy it. It is no more irreducible and no more of a coherent thing than a hurricane. Show me evidence of consciousness when is no brain to sustain it.

Development of consciousness addressed further below where you ask the question again.

The payoff for consciousness is the combination of time-binding and communal-binding. We can make decisions based on subtle correlations not available to the knee-jerk brain. We can share correlations with others to facilitate the greater efficiency of group efforts. I fail to see how these things " enormously important factors in the success of the human species " are no better or even worse than the alternative knee-jerk brain.

I gave several examples of what we know to be nonconscious processes in our bodies - heartbeat, respiration, digestion, reflexive reactions to pain or danger - and of course there are many others. It seems to me that the 'knee-jerk' brain, as you characterise the nonconscious options, is far more complex, quick and reliable than my conscious awareness or decisions. There certainly are big benefits from our advanced consciousness and intelligence, as you've noted in your post. But how does the usefulness of the advanced product show the likelihood of its development in the earliest stages?

You provided something of a definition of consciousness:
The essence of consciousness is the ongoing review of sensory input, present and past, as abstracted and correlated with similar inputs and their results, with complex interlinking of current input and older memory items. In a nutshell, consciousness is active memory. This allows the coherent review of large amounts of information and the selection of appropriate material to bring to the foreground. It is this ongoing flow of information and the resulting decisions that constitutes consciousness.

Would that apply to fish, I wonder? Or were you describing only human consciousness? Or would you say that fish are do not possess consciousness?

It's an interesting topic and while thinking about my reply I recalled that I'd already discussed it somewhat back in November 2010 with Bernee and AkiThePirate. My working definition of consciousness back then was:
I'm just theorising here of course, but probably the most basic indicators of awareness are reaction to pain and movement/exploration to acquire more sensory data. While it's true that different species have different means of acquiring sensory data, and different levels in their capacity to evaluate, remember and extrapolate from it, those would seem more like faculties in addition to 'consciousness,' not differing types or levels of consciousness itself.

Some interesting contrasts between our respective views - and I'm not sure I'd agree now with all I wrote back then - but obviously the key point of comparison here is that consciousness involves acquiring and responding to sensory data. Including notions like 'pain' from my earlier ideas or 'decisions' from yours potentially raise more questions than they answer. But setting aside peripheral or semantic issues like those, would you agree with my 2010 comment that the "capacity to evaluate, remember and extrapolate from" sensory data is additional to basic consciousness, or would you say (as implied by your description) that these are the very essence of it? If the latter it would seem you're implying that 'consciousness' arose probably sometime during vertebrate development?

But if consciousness is more basic, and evaluation, memory and extrapolation are additional functions, I have to wonder (though I dismissed it back then) whether we might even say that bacteria have some form of consciousness, since they apparently meet that basic criteria of acquiring and responding to sensory data. I'd be interested in your thoughts

First, consciousness as we know it need not be present until there is sufficient sophistication in the substrate to support it. Where that might be is a debatable question and it is probably not a clearly marked point at which consciousness magically appears.

Second, the activities of bacteria mentioned appear to be simply direct reactions to sets of stimuli. It is not surprising that these reactions might take multiple factors into account. But the learning capability of even the sea slug is not present. The next time there is an identical circumstance, the bacteria will presumably react the same way. And the complex continuously varying feedback loops found in the neo-cortex are simply not there.

Consciousness is much more than the canned reaction to stimuli, no matter how complex the stimulus factors might be. It involves ongoing sensory input, input from other parts of the brain, the complex memories they might invoke, and up and down, back and forth, positive and negative feedback loops. Consciousness appears to be what complex neo-cortexes do.

You mean the dependence of human subjective states on the presence of the larger mental substrate? Unless mental states are a different type of thing than brains, bodies and so on, then the difference is purely one of perspective; what I/we experience as subjects, and what we don't. Distinguishing between mental and physical as you're doing seems to be either meaningless - what is one, except a contrast of the other? - or an unfortunate relic of dualism.

But whereas we know that we have subjective experience, and we know that we can produce new images, thoughts and so on in our minds, we don't know that the rest of the world is substantially different. Knowing that there is consciousness, it's one thing to offer hypothetical retrospective justifications for the plausibility of its evolution - obviously our intelligence had to evolve somehow - but that doesn't show that the stuff from which it evolved was fundamentally different (non-mental or 'physical') in the first place, and nor does it show that mental phenomena could develop from 'physical' stuff at all (we'd be merely presuming it must have happened).

I am not distinguishing between mental and physical. Describing certain brain operations as mental is a form of shorthand far more convenient than trying to describe every electro-chemical process. Weather is another complex phenomenon best described in macro terms. Yet there is no hurricane distinct from the activities of the air and water molecules involved. There is no mind apart from the physical substrate of the brain. I can talk about hurricanes with making them something metaphysical.

And we know perfectly well that the world at large is non-mental. If you are hit in the head by a falling tree, it does not matter in the slightest if anyone knew about the tree or its defects beforehand. The tree is physical and entirely separate from any mental process. It has real undeniable consequences based entirely on physical laws and no amount of thinking can make the tree behave otherwise without some intervening physical instrumentality. And if that tree destroys your brain, your mental life has ceased to exist. If you disagree, show me evidence of mental life continuing when the underlying physical substrate of the brain has been destroyed.

You can also (in principle at least) see the activities of the air and water molecules in a hurricane, as can we all. But no-one can see my pain There is obviously a very significant difference between a hurricane and my subjective experience. But is the difference merely between my experience and the hurricane's experience (mostly anger, one would imagine), or is the difference that I experience things whereas the hurricane is part of some other/s' experience, or is the difference that I can experience whereas the hurricane cannot?

To be honest I find it hard to see how that third view isn't somewhat dualistic or metaphysical. From what you're saying it seems that experience (and especially this 'I' concept) seems to be something rather different and new, whether with humans or with earlier vertebrates or with life itself. This is the problem I'm trying to come to terms with through the thread, and I'm afraid pointing out that trees are independant from human minds doesn't even come close to answering it.

- I see no reason to suppose that the quasi-dualistic emergence of this new quality/property/capacity of subjective experience, consciousness or 'mind' is even possible or comprehensible

- And beyond the rudimentary self vs. other distinction necessary for infantile development, as yet I see no reason to invoke some state of being different from minds and their products in the first place

Unsure on exactly what you mean when you say that we do not know if the rest of the world is different. Consciousness does not reside in the world at large from anything we can see. It resides in our brains. And the world at large constantly impinges on us in ways that we were not conscious of before they happened. The world does not consist of consciousness by any reasonable estimation.

Concerning qualia

Of course no one but ourselves directly experiences our consciousness. What kind of survival advantage would that be if we could not tell our consciousness apart from that of someone else? And as I said way back, it is exactly the belief that we are an individual that lends survival advantage to consciousness.

A hurricane does not have a complex neo-cortex and is presumably not conscious. You do have a complex neo-cortex and its activities can be monitored by machines. Consciousness is what a complex neo-cortex does.

Taking about consciousness rather than the fine details of electro-chemical neurological activity is not more dualistic than talking about a hurricane as an entity rather than how all those molecules are acting. We talk about ourselves that way because that is the optimal solution for using a neo-cortex for improved survival potential. One stop shopping for handling all the crazy complexities.

Best I can do for now. Off to class before long and then my usual weekend activities away from the forum.

[bernee51]

This is an interesting thought exercise which I think everyone should indulge themselves in at least once in their lives. What do I actually know? What can I reasonably believe?

Good questions.

As I have stated elsewhere, all I can actually know (AFAIK) is that we are biological creatures who have evolved a level of consciousness that facilitates self-awareness. Not only do we KNOW, but we KNOW that we KNOW. As such all else that we believe " all our thoughts, ideas, plans etc - al those things that come together to make up our sense of selfhood - are, and can only be, mental constructs.

I'm not sure I understand. It looks like you're suggesting there that self-awareness and mental constructs are merely a product of biological evolution, and 'less real' than the (different) stuff which produced them and on which they depend.

No less real...the reality of 'stuff' in the noosphere, however, depends on the individuals perception and 'agreements' with others.

But later you've said:
There is no fundamental difference between self and other, both are illusions, constructs on awareness. What actually exists is awareness and that awareness is the only reality.

There seems to be a contradiction there between awareness as a product of physio- and biospheres, and awareness as the only reality.

The only reality when viewed from the noosphere.

What? Am I in a different noosphere from you?

No, we are inhabit the same physiosphere, biosphere, noosphere and inform/are informed by the same 'spiritoshere'...how each manifests in Bernee or Mithrae is unique.

I like this way of thinking about it, as I've mentioned before. It makes sense to speak of interactions between parts of the self-aware sphere of being just as the parts of the living sphere interact, as do parts of the non-living sphere. But what makes you think that non-living stuff, the physiosphere, is the lowest holon?

The order of evolution...'big bang', sub-atomic particles coalesce and complixify, inot atoms, then molecules, then collections of molecules - which in turn complexify. The physioshere. Things could have stayed like that...and perhaps for the vast majority of the universe that is exactly how they continue. However, in this part of the physioshere there was a further coalescence and complexification and the bioshpere emerged...and so on.

It seems to me that these other distinctions - conceptually useful though they may be - are somewhat arbitrary, possibly vague and definitely based on our perspective; the living/non-living distinction could be viewed in terms of complex mechanical processes (or lack thereof), and even self-awareness varies according to individual, culture (as you've mentioned) and potentially species.

Indeed, but they are not arbitrary...it describes the universe as we see it and as the current theory of cosmic evolution would describe it.

So can we conclude that self-awareness or the noosphere is something fundamentally new and different? Or that the biosphere is? Or are they more along the lines of gradations in how we, from our perspective, view and categorise reality?

No they are emergent 'complexifications' (to use Teilhard de Chardin's terminology). Until the emergence of the noosphere there was no way for them to be described.

And if the latter, if our characteristics which we describe as 'physical' and biological are simply more refined (or more us-like) ways of organising the same basic stuff, surely the same would be true of consciousness or self-awareness also?

Sorry, don't quite follow you here.

What I mean is it seems possible that many of the mental properties of 21st century humanity are neither intrinsically human nor uniquely human. You've suggested that earlier cultures went through certain developmental periods and that their very way of thinking may have been quite different to ours (not merely different in education, access to information, worldviews and superstitions). I'm not sure I agree with that, but I don't know much about it to comment intelligently - it's certainly true that environment has a big impact on mental development.

We, as a culture (world-centric), and as individuals (as individuals make up a culture) are very much different from even a few hundred years ago. Not so long ago it was accepted behaviour to have execution sin the public square that were a 'social' event, with the heads of the unfortunates displayed on pikes. Except in cultures that we now describe as 'medieval' that no longer is acceptable. Slavery is another good example.

The god concept itself, which is a relection of the culture from which it emerges, has evolved and contiues to do so and the path of that evolution can not only be observed but, as evolution is a process of 'inclusion and transcendence' the stages through whicit haas progressed are apparent in the concept. Not surprisingly it follows a familiar pattern - the archaic, the magic, the mythic, the rational, the pluralistic...

Interestingly this is exactly the path that we as indviduals progress along as from birth toward psychological maturity.

It also seems clear that many of our mental properties are also shared (though often to a lesser degree) by other species, notably the likes of dolphins and other primates.

I don't see consciousness per se as an endpoint but as a continuum. The continuuum, to the best of our knowledge as evolved to the point of self awareness as that manifest in the species homo sapiens. That does not mean that other elements of the biosphere are not placed somewhere on that continuum.

Which of our mental properties, and to what extent, go back to the earliest mammals? The earliest fish? Or even further back in the evolutionary chain? The idea of a 'noosphere' may be a useful category or concept from our perspective, but it seems that it's not something fundamentally new or different.

The basic element of our neurology is the 'irritable cell' - Nicholas Humphrey (Seeing Red) does a fine job in setting out a possible pathway fopr the evolution of consciousness from primitive organisms.

As an aside, he held that our sense of self-hood is constructed in a 'thick moment of time' made up of the immediate past (as soon as something is recognised in our awareness it is past), the present instant and an apprehension of the immediate future.

Similarly 'life' or the biosphere is a category of certain inter-related characteristics which go back some 3-plus billion years on Earth (and as far as we so far know, only on Earth). But as far as I'm aware the difference between life and non-life is, as you've suggested, simply a matter of the manner and complexity into which the 'physical' stuff is organised. There's more or less the same kinds of things, rules of behaviour and properties within the most advanced life-form as there are on some distant moon or in the heart of a star.

Exactly - the same laws govern evolution - no matter where or at what level it is occuring.

We know of course that all the stuff we can observe was once a lot smaller, all of it expanding from a single point of origin - the big bang. So materialists seem to figure "Okay, we've got a pretty good idea about this 'physical' stuff, and since life isn't something fundamentally new or different, and since human intelligence isn't something fundamentally new or different, we can conclude that our own minds aren't something fundamentally new or different either." I'm not sure if that's the approach that you're taking, but your useful spheres make it seem clear (to me at least) that that's going about it the wrong way around. We know about our minds, but we don't know what (if anything) came before the big bang, or why it happened, or what the actual basic nature of reality is.

Each evlutionary step taken, each moment of emergence of this universe, is 'new and different'. As to the 'why' of the BB...we are at the leading edge of an emergent universe...I can see no reason for not concluding that the BB is also part of that process.

The 'basic nature of reality' is going to change depending on from which 'sphere' you are describing it. In the noosphere - where we are having this conversation - it is 'awareness'.

So since our consciousness or the noosphere isn't fundamentally new or different (there's things akin to it through the biosphere) and since the biosphere isn't fundamentally new or different (there's things akin to it through the physiosphere), shouldn't we be reasoning that the 'physiosphere' must have something that's vaguely akin to our consciousness - or be part of an prior or 'lesser' sphere which is?

A panentheist may hold this to be the case...that the manifest universe is an artifact in the consiousness of the 'divine'. Teilhard de Chardin argued that the progression of complexity is toward a Christofication - an Omega Point. At total turning back of the process onto that from which it emerged.

My POV is that this is somewhat irrelevent - this manifestation (i.e. me) is not going to be around to see it.

What IS important is how I live my life. This 'how' occurs across all the 'spheres' as well as the quadrants described earlier. Influenced by the evolutionary pathway that has brought me to this moment.

[Mithrae]

You'll have to be more specific about which of gold's macroscopic properties are not readily explained or reducible. The characteristics by which we define or recognise life - such as ingestion of nutrients and energy, their conversion, storage and use for cell division, growth and reproduction - are considerably more complicated than I myself understand, but from what I remember of high school biology a great deal of those processes are understood down to the chemical level by the folk who know such things. For example DNA replication, some of the specific gene coding in humans and other animals, photosynthesis in plants, chemosynthesis in bacteria, digestion in animals, respiration and so on. If 'life' is something distinct from all these processes (a cause or a product of them?) rather than simply the term by which we distinguish organisms with those processes from inanimate things or organisms without those processes (dead) then it may be irreducible; but I don't see why or how life should be considered something in itself, rather than the descriptive term. I'm not sure what you mean by animation (bringing to life?) apart from life itself, unless you're talking about animals' movement? If so, would you say that the movement of automated robots is the same irreducible form? Why or why not? If this is a different 'form' than life itself, you may be referring simply to the observable effects of consciousness; not something different from 'mind.'

Our understanding of these chemical processes as having to do with life is because we already understand the thing to be alive. The whole organism, all its parts and processes, are coordinated under the whole. What is lost when a thing dies? Ostensibly, the processes could be made to continue, even though the organism is dead. There isn't any essential material part that is added or subtracted to make a thing alive, only some different arrangement, and the necessity of the parts adhering in this arrangement in order that the whole be alive is due to the thing's form.

For instance, suppose I pointed to the chemical process that occurs in respiration. Removed from context, can you say whether it is accompanied by life? No. But you can do this for every biochemical process; ergo, life is not in the biochemical process. I would say that they hold together much like meaning and ink hold together; the ink might be necessary for the instantiation, but it is clear the the ink doesn't inform the meaning.

The processes might indeed be made to continue by external means when the 'life' of an organism ceases, and at times such techniques (such as CPR) can actually restore that 'life.' If a clinically dead person did not receive CPR or whatever, they would not live. So does that mean that the external aid to those processes actually replaces or re-creates the lost 'life'? Or does it mean that 'life' only ends several minutes after clinical death in those circumstances, and CPR or the like merely reinvigorate some quality or property which perseveres in the body after heartbeat and breathing cease? It seems more reasonable to me 'life' is simply the sum of all those processes - or more correctly, 'life' is simply the word which describes the state of things, namely organisms, which possess all those processes.

Did we already understand bacteria to be alive? Or viruses? I think not; we initially recognised characteristics in ourselves, horses, cattle and so on which are shared by all animals. We recognised that many of them were shared by plants and invertebrates also. Why do we say that bacteria are alive, and viruses are not? Simply because there are significantly more absences and differences in the existence/behaviour processes of viruses than there are in bacteria. Unless you have something else to point to in suggesting that we already know whether something is alive?

No two cats are identical, so there's a bit of a problem with that idea right there. . . . Even for things which might be truly identical, like two molecules of water, the individuating principle between the two would be space - if we could imagine that they were always perfectly superimposed on each other there'd only be one molecule, but if they're not then obviously they're two separate molecules.

They are both essentially the same thing; they are both cats. Fine, but that misses my point. Let us suppose of something different, say, a gold atom. Two gold atoms can quite likely be identical in terms of material parts. They could both have the same amount of neutrons, protons, and electrons. But how do you distinguish between them, such that one inhabits one space and the other somewhere else? I propose that it is because they are individuated distinctly, so that while they may be identical in essence, they are not identical in existence.

You can't introduce space as the individuating element, since that presupposes that there is something which makes them distinct in existence such that they might inhabit two distinct places. In other words, they have to be distinct in existence before they can be distinct in place.

There have to be two gold atoms which exist in order for them to occupy two spaces. There have to be two gold atoms which exist in order for them to be composed of different matter. The whole 'individuating principle' idea is a little strange to me, though no doubt useful, and I agree that space may not be a better example than matter. Fact is that either there's one gold atom or there's two. Heck, there could even be three! It seems absurd to say that the second or third gold atom becomes individuated from the first by instantiation through matter or space; as if there were some reservoir of non-individuated potential atoms hidden in some metaphysical dimension. The second and third atoms are individuated by existing in addition to the first: Matter, time and space are the manner and state in which they exist, but there is no second, third or even first atom apart from those things - no actual 'form' of a gold atom, just the concept we have of them.

Contemplating your separation of respiration, circulation and so on in consideration of 'life,' I was reminded of a brief exchange with Furrowed Brow. It's more appropriate to mention it here, because it seems that if you suggest matter as an individuating principle for 'forms,' then Mithrae or Aquinas are individuated at different stages in life just as much as two different cats at the same time - the matter which is my body now is different to the matter I had a decade ago. Furrowed Brow mentioned the Ship of Theseus as an example, and it looks to me that Indian philosophers got the right idea (and specifically Buddhist philosophers; traditional Buddhist cosmology being basically a form of idealism from what I gather):

Through these sequential analysis, one eliminates the impossible modes of existence for the ship. This points at the idea that "ship identity" is something which is merely designated conceptually onto our experience, but that there is no findable inherent, objective, or intrinsic existence on the side of the object. In Buddhism, this lack of inherent identity is called emptiness and its opposite is called ignorance. These two concepts are deeply related to the pursuit of happiness in Buddhism and are not merely philosophical games, as in the case of the Greek philosophers.

In brief, The Ship of Theseus remains that object during the period of time which it is validly designated as the Ship of Theseus, and expressly not because of any type of inherent identity, divine force, ideal, causal principal, or causal power from the side of the object. The valid designation of the term-concept "Ship of Theseus" is the part of that object which provides its name, identity, function, and conventional discreteness.

I'm trying to understand your alternative because I respect you, but I may not have enough background in philosophy to get it

That's okay, I'll try and explain as sufficiently as I can.

My ideas aren't particularly deep or complicated mostly, and I'd be the fourth to admit that I'm not the fastest thinker. The way I see it, once we've accepted the poorly-justified
2> There are things outside my mind
we ought to be cautious about supposing any additional distinctions about what reality is like. Distinctions based on observation or inferences from observation seem to be a fairly sound approach; but suggesting fundamentally different types of stuff (such as 'spiritual' vs. 'material') raises possible problems of unnecessary complexity, inadequate justification and incomprehensibility (how could these types of stuff interact if they're fundamentally different?). So a monistic view seems simplest and most reasonable to me.

There are two views on substance. One is to understand that "substance" distinguishes a set of different things, having some particular properties. Another is to disregard such a view, "substance" just being what a thing is. Say, instead of there being a monistic "material substance," there is just a bunch of substances in the world, and we understand their relations as being expressions of their potentiality to actualize effects in other things. At bottom, it is recognized that a thing must have a form, for it is forms which inform what a thing is. This is the view I take, and from your bare position of "There are things outside my mind," I do not think your view on substance is justified.

I'd propose that my view is superior because it doesn't create any antinomies. Whenever we can account for something's being actual in order to explain that something is, we don't need to be mired down in any pointless questions concerning "But how can one substance affect another?" This really boils down to asking how one form can affect another, but since each individual thing is a form, it is obvious that such effects are elementarily possible. If we can't go without using some concept in our explanation of something's being the case, then it must be included; form is just one of those concepts.

From back in my Christian days, learning a bit about transsubstantiation in order to stick it to the heretics, I gathered that a bit of philosophical baggage might be associated with the term 'substance.' So I didn't actually express a view on substance There's obviously different types of stuff around - energy, matter and whatever else there may be - and it seems obvious that if we can experience them or if they can interact in some way, they can't be fundamentally or irreconcileably different from each other.

So I don't disagree with the above. It's just this notion of 'forms' which I don't get. If it's just a concept describing our use of language to group similar things, processes or ideas into categories - cats, gold, life and so on - I can get on board with that. But then they're not actual properties or characteristics of a thing which are irreducible; the thing itself is explainable merely in terms of the sum of its parts and their interactions, in all macroscopic examples I've encountered besides minds in physicalist metaphysics. 'Life' is a potentially interesting one I agree, especially if it turns out that even the simplest life-forms have some kind of consciousness. But nevertheless, as far as I'm aware there is no distinct thing we can point to as 'life,' apart from those relevant biological processes.

------------------

You provided something of a definition of consciousness:
The essence of consciousness is the ongoing review of sensory input, present and past, as abstracted and correlated with similar inputs and their results, with complex interlinking of current input and older memory items. In a nutshell, consciousness is active memory. This allows the coherent review of large amounts of information and the selection of appropriate material to bring to the foreground. It is this ongoing flow of information and the resulting decisions that constitutes consciousness.

Would that apply to fish, I wonder? Or were you describing only human consciousness? Or would you say that fish are do not possess consciousness?

It's an interesting topic and while thinking about my reply I recalled that I'd already discussed it somewhat back in November 2010 with Bernee and AkiThePirate. My working definition of consciousness back then was:
I'm just theorising here of course, but probably the most basic indicators of awareness are reaction to pain and movement/exploration to acquire more sensory data. While it's true that different species have different means of acquiring sensory data, and different levels in their capacity to evaluate, remember and extrapolate from it, those would seem more like faculties in addition to 'consciousness,' not differing types or levels of consciousness itself.

Some interesting contrasts between our respective views - and I'm not sure I'd agree now with all I wrote back then - but obviously the key point of comparison here is that consciousness involves acquiring and responding to sensory data. Including notions like 'pain' from my earlier ideas or 'decisions' from yours potentially raise more questions than they answer. But setting aside peripheral or semantic issues like those, would you agree with my 2010 comment that the "capacity to evaluate, remember and extrapolate from" sensory data is additional to basic consciousness, or would you say (as implied by your description) that these are the very essence of it? If the latter it would seem you're implying that 'consciousness' arose probably sometime during vertebrate development?

But if consciousness is more basic, and evaluation, memory and extrapolation are additional functions, I have to wonder (though I dismissed it back then) whether we might even say that bacteria have some form of consciousness, since they apparently meet that basic criteria of acquiring and responding to sensory data. I'd be interested in your thoughts

First, consciousness as we know it need not be present until there is sufficient sophistication in the substrate to support it. Where that might be is a debatable question and it is probably not a clearly marked point at which consciousness magically appears.

Second, the activities of bacteria mentioned appear to be simply direct reactions to sets of stimuli. It is not surprising that these reactions might take multiple factors into account. But the learning capability of even the sea slug is not present. The next time there is an identical circumstance, the bacteria will presumably react the same way. And the complex continuously varying feedback loops found in the neo-cortex are simply not there.

An anecdote about bacteria working their way through a maze from my high school English teacher compelled me to google 'bacteria learning,' with an unrelated but interesting result. Seems that whereas E. coli normally alter their metabolism for low-oxygen conditions when temperature rises, in preparation for entering the digestive tract, less than two days (100 generations) of different conditions could have them learning different habits.

From what I gather, there's a few possible explanations for this:
> That a certain percentage of the E. coli population don't normally alter their metabolism for low-oxygen conditions, and by faring better under the experimental conditions these ones altered the general population's composition and created the apparent change. Question; is that actually the case of original E. coli populations?

> That a mutation occurred which inhibited the metabolism-alteration response to higher temperatures, and the mutated bacteria fared better and altered the population's makeup. Questions; how commonly does such a mutation occur, and does that invalidate the experiment's results as a fluke?

> That the bacteria themselves altered their behaviour as, over the generations, the unaltered metabolism proved more beneficial.

Obviously I myself couldn't rule out the first two options, and without accessing the original experiment I don't even know whether the folk offered a specific explanation for the results. There's quite possibly explanations besides those three. But I'd be interested in your more informed ideas on this; I didn't plan on responding to your post yet, but I figured a few minutes to offer this food for thought was worthwhile for now

[99percentatheism]

bernee51[/url]"]
A few thoughts and comments.

This is an interesting thought exercise which I think everyone should indulge themselves in at least once in their lives. What do I actually know? What can I reasonably believe?

Good questions.

As I have stated elsewhere, all I can actually know (AFAIK) is that we are biological creatures who have evolved a level of consciousness that facilitates self-awareness. Not only do we KNOW, but we KNOW that we KNOW. As such all else that we believe " all our thoughts, ideas, plans etc - al those things that come together to make up our sense of selfhood - are, and can only be, mental constructs.

Interesting perspective but others see something far greater:

"Creatures are not born with desires unless satisfaction for these desires exists. A baby feels hunger; well, there is such a thing as food. A duckling wants to swim; well, there is such a thing as water. Men feel sexual desire; well, there is such a thing as sex.

If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world."

- Mere Christianity, Bk. III, chap. 10, "Hope"

[Mithrae]

Full blown consciousness need not appear at once. Its precursors are useful as well. Kandle, whom I referenced earlier (deleted the links to save space, oh my), has shown that even sea slugs with their primitive (20,000 cell) nervous system can develop memories of potentially threatening actions and react specifically to counter them. The particular electro-chemical mechanisms that support this neurological activity has been determined and studied in detail. Nervous systems that remember and react accordingly are useful even in a very primitive form. Ongoing evolutionary development of more elaborate versions would be expected. It appears that the elaboration of nervous systems, especially brains, is in general inversely related to the appearance of the type of animal possessing it. Reptiles are ancient, mammals more recent, primates (including us) more recent still. Ongoing evolutionary exploitation of the capabilities of brains seems an entirely reasonable assumption.

Today we see examples of highly elaborated nerve clusters called brains. The activities we call consciousness occur mainly in the neo-cortex as determined by brain scans. Considering that the neo-cortex of the human brain is substantially larger than that of other primates, and primates in general have a rather larger (and more complex) neo-cortex than most mammals and mammalians have pretty much a monopoly on the neo-cortex, it is hardly a surprise that the 100,000,000,000 neurons of the human brain can do rather more sophisticated things than the 20,000 nerve cells in the entire sea slug body, especially when much of the power of a brain comes from the ability to form connections. Yet we recognize what the sea slug does as a vague shadow of things we do, learning from experience and acting accordingly.

Unless I've missed something, you haven't much argued for the origins or probable development of consciousness in this post either. I see no problems with your explanation of human consciousness - I've stopped being surprised by the breadth of your knowledge - but that doesn't answer the actual questions I'm asking:
> Do we have any reason to suppose that the stuff from which we evolved is/was neither conscious nor product of consciousness?
> Is it even possible for consciousness - the only non-reducible macroscopic property I know of - to develop from nonconscious stuff?
> Or (the question which I think you're trying to answer) assuming it's possible - I don't think we can know that it's impossible after all - can we infer that its development was probable, so as to at least offer a plausible alternative theory?

I have tried to flesh out how consciousness appears to have arisen from more basic neurological functioning. This sure seems like a plausible alternative theory, which if I recall correctly is somewhat more that you originally asked for. And again, it is not necessary to have a hard and fast dividing line between conscious stuff and non-conscious stuff if one considers it a neurological function. We recognize a little bit of ourselves even in the sea slug.

But if consciousness is more basic, and evaluation, memory and extrapolation are additional functions, I have to wonder (though I dismissed it back then) whether we might even say that bacteria have some form of consciousness, since they apparently meet that basic criteria of acquiring and responding to sensory data. I'd be interested in your thoughts

First, consciousness as we know it need not be present until there is sufficient sophistication in the substrate to support it. Where that might be is a debatable question and it is probably not a clearly marked point at which consciousness magically appears.

Second, the activities of bacteria mentioned appear to be simply direct reactions to sets of stimuli. It is not surprising that these reactions might take multiple factors into account. But the learning capability of even the sea slug is not present. The next time there is an identical circumstance, the bacteria will presumably react the same way. And the complex continuously varying feedback loops found in the neo-cortex are simply not there.

Consciousness is much more than the canned reaction to stimuli, no matter how complex the stimulus factors might be. It involves ongoing sensory input, input from other parts of the brain, the complex memories they might invoke, and up and down, back and forth, positive and negative feedback loops. Consciousness appears to be what complex neo-cortexes do.

The neurological information is interesting, but I don't think it's really answering the problem. The question is not whether an advanced capacity to evaluate, remember and extrapolate from sensory data might plausibly develop from a simpler capacity acquire and respond to sensory data. These could be programmed into a computer also. Using 'consciousness' is probably the reason for the confusion - you meant something different by it than I did. Here is how I expressed the problem in the OP:

• If we rule [a dualistic] answer out, it seems to me (and this is a question which I've raised numerous times on various threads) that suggesting the development, production or emergence of a mind or subjective experience from 'physical' stuff quite unlike it would be a huge claim, one without parallel as far as I'm aware. It would be the only case I know of in which a whole has properties which are not reducible to the sum of its parts at the molecular level (if not beyond).
  
  What I mean is that while we can't observe another person or creature's thoughts or feelings (because they're subjective experience), it must be the case that the subjective experience is either there or it is not. We presume with some justification that it's there in the case of other humans, with less justification that it's there in the case of fish, and validly or not we generally presume that it's not there in the case of atoms, rocks or planets. But when subjective experience is present in a thing, the capacity to produce or be associated with it must be an objective property of the thing. But as long as we suppose that atoms, molecules and so on themselves do not have subjective experience, the property of the whole (person, animal, brain or whatever) is not reducible to the sum of its parts.
  
  If we look for comparison and contrast at water for example, it might be suggested that its wetness is a non-reducible property. But wetness is merely the manner in which we experience and describe water; it's not an objective property of water itself. We would probably not use the term wetness in description of certain other liquids like molten iron or liquid nitrogen, for example. The objective properties of water are its temperature and consequently fluidity, both of which are reducible; in terms of molecules' energy, and hence the rapidity of their movement (heat), and hence the breaking of their strong inter-molecular bonds from the solid state.
  
  Again with the caveat of my limited knowledge - and I'm certainly open to learning on this point - I have not yet encountered any other example in which a whole is said to have objective properties which can't be reduced to the sum of its molecular parts. Given that, not only do I have no justification or reason to imagine some type of stuff which is neither mind nor product of mind, it seems to me that I have quite a strong reason to consider it unlikely that such a thing exists, or at least that it could provide a basis for minds.

Instead of addressing the question of subjective experience, you seem to have accidentally introduced 'consciousness' as "the ongoing review of sensory input, present and past, as abstracted and correlated with similar inputs and their results, with complex interlinking of current input and older memory items," pointed out that more basic neurological functioning has preceded this in earlier life-forms and said that "it is probably not a clearly marked point at which consciousness magically appears."

I'm sorry, but that doesn't address the problem at all. Let me know if I've missed something or misunderstood you, but it seems you've simply introduced a new term which is flexible enough that a clear delineation of its origin would be 'magical' to you. In fact that's rather my point; suggesting the development of subjective experience from non-subjective stuff does seem a bit like magical thinking (especially since even bacteria might have a form of subjective experience). I appreciate all the information you've provided, but as I see it the discussion stands as follows:
A> We know that we have subjective experience
B> You suppose that atoms and molecules do not have subjective experience
C> You have not shown how subjective experience could plausibly occur given B



Edit: Just found this...

TGA wrote: You are assuming that consciousness is a non-reducible coherent thing rather than a process. How can a hurricane develop from non-hurricane? Obviously impossible, right? A hurricane develops from certain conditions: e.g., ocean heat, coriolis effect, prevailing winds. None of those things are a hurricane, which gives every appearance of being a coherent thing. A hurricane is simply a feedback loop that is constantly regenerating itself when conditions are right to feed it. When conditions are not right, it dies out. With a hurricane it takes some time to dissipate all that energy, usually days. With a brain, there is a much lower supply of available energy versus consumption rate and it dies much quicker, along with the consciousness it supports. Where is the hurricane after it is gone? Where is your fist after you open your hand? These were never coherent things. They were circumstances that we put labels on. Where is your consciousness after your brain is dead and the physical substrate needed to sustain the feedback loop is no longer functioning?

Where is the pizza after I've eaten it? You must be implying that nothing is a coherent thing, because nothing is permanent. Weird. There are purely conceptual exceptions, I agree; but generally the labels we use refer to real phenomena or groups of phenomena - whether hurricanes, life, pizza, molecules or minds - and their impermanence doesn't mean they're not real phenomena or groups of phenomena. But all of them can be understood in terms of the sum of their parts and their interactions.

Unless of course we assume that subjective experience is unique to, and just somehow becomes associated with, certain complex configurations of organic molecules.

[AquinasD]

The processes might indeed be made to continue by external means when the 'life' of an organism ceases, and at times such techniques (such as CPR) can actually restore that 'life.' If a clinically dead person did not receive CPR or whatever, they would not live. So does that mean that the external aid to those processes actually replaces or re-creates the lost 'life'?

It seems clear to me that the person just wasn't dead in the first place. "Clinically" is just a legal term.

Did we already understand bacteria to be alive? Or viruses? I think not; we initially recognised characteristics in ourselves, horses, cattle and so on which are shared by all animals. We recognised that many of them were shared by plants and invertebrates also. Why do we say that bacteria are alive, and viruses are not? Simply because there are significantly more absences and differences in the existence/behaviour processes of viruses than there are in bacteria. Unless you have something else to point to in suggesting that we already know whether something is alive?

They seem to participate in some life-like behaviors, but then again, they also don't require respiration or any sort of energy gaining process, any "motions" they perform being just chemical-mechanical triggers. They're like zombie chemicals.

There have to be two gold atoms which exist in order for them to occupy two spaces. There have to be two gold atoms which exist in order for them to be composed of different matter. The whole 'individuating principle' idea is a little strange to me, though no doubt useful, and I agree that space may not be a better example than matter. Fact is that either there's one gold atom or there's two. Heck, there could even be three! It seems absurd to say that the second or third gold atom becomes individuated from the first by instantiation through matter or space; as if there were some reservoir of non-individuated potential atoms hidden in some metaphysical dimension. The second and third atoms are individuated by existing in addition to the first: Matter, time and space are the manner and state in which they exist, but there is no second, third or even first atom apart from those things - no actual 'form' of a gold atom, just the concept we have of them.

You're treating matter as thought it had form (and identity) unto itself. At bottom, matter is pure potentiality, and anything that has identity already has form, be it elementary particles or macroscopic objects. This should also answer your query regarding identity over time. Replacing matter replacing form. So while all my material elements may have changed, I'm still the same form, and by extension, the same person.

So I don't disagree with the above. It's just this notion of 'forms' which I don't get. If it's just a concept describing our use of language to group similar things, processes or ideas into categories - cats, gold, life and so on - I can get on board with that. But then they're not actual properties or characteristics of a thing which are irreducible; the thing itself is explainable merely in terms of the sum of its parts and their interactions, in all macroscopic examples I've encountered besides minds in physicalist metaphysics. 'Life' is a potentially interesting one I agree, especially if it turns out that even the simplest life-forms have some kind of consciousness. But nevertheless, as far as I'm aware there is no distinct thing we can point to as 'life,' apart from those relevant biological processes.

I'm not speaking of these ideas as just language games. I think we speak of things this way because they are there in reality. Then again, we speak of a thing like "light" because it's really there, after all. This is the same.

[bernee51]

Good questions.

As I have stated elsewhere, all I can actually know (AFAIK) is that we are biological creatures who have evolved a level of consciousness that facilitates self-awareness. Not only do we KNOW, but we KNOW that we KNOW. As such all else that we believe " all our thoughts, ideas, plans etc - all those things that come together to make up our sense of selfhood - are, and can only be, mental constructs.

Dear Mr Lewis, thanks so much for taking a few moments out of your eternal schedule of preaching to the converted to address my comments.

"Creatures are not born with desires unless satisfaction for these desires exists. A baby feels hunger; well, there is such a thing as food. A duckling wants to swim; well, there is such a thing as water. Men feel sexual desire; well, there is such a thing as sex.
If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world."

- Mere Christianity, Bk. III, chap. 10, "Hope"

I find it not unsurprising that you should resort to logical fallacy to make a pointyour writing is replete with them.

You claim creatures are born with desires " something creatures can and do survive and reproduce without necessarily having them met - and then proceed to describe needs " something that is essential to life. Desires are of the mind, needs are of the body

So in effect you support my argument quite wellthings of the mind are mental constructsyour another world is clearly one such construct.

[Mithrae]

The processes might indeed be made to continue by external means when the 'life' of an organism ceases, and at times such techniques (such as CPR) can actually restore that 'life.' If a clinically dead person did not receive CPR or whatever, they would not live. So does that mean that the external aid to those processes actually replaces or re-creates the lost 'life'?

It seems clear to me that the person just wasn't dead in the first place. "Clinically" is just a legal term.

So if we see a body without heartbeat and respiration, it might still be alive? Then what change indicates the absense of life? It seems you're trying to justify the notion of 'forms' in part based upon the way we think, yet in this case the form of 'life' requires some pretty awkward thinking to maintain and apparently contradicts your earlier claim that "we already understand the thing to be alive."

Did we already understand bacteria to be alive? Or viruses? I think not; we initially recognised characteristics in ourselves, horses, cattle and so on which are shared by all animals. We recognised that many of them were shared by plants and invertebrates also. Why do we say that bacteria are alive, and viruses are not? Simply because there are significantly more absences and differences in the existence/behaviour processes of viruses than there are in bacteria. Unless you have something else to point to in suggesting that we already know whether something is alive?

They seem to participate in some life-like behaviors, but then again, they also don't require respiration or any sort of energy gaining process, any "motions" they perform being just chemical-mechanical triggers. They're like zombie chemicals.

So we recognise the absense of life by the absense of certain biochemical processes when it comes to viruses - and recognise the presence of life by the presence of those processes in bacteria - but the absense of those processes in the case of people does not imply the absense of life, because CPR can't restore the form of life. Sounds like pretty solid philosophy

There have to be two gold atoms which exist in order for them to occupy two spaces. There have to be two gold atoms which exist in order for them to be composed of different matter. The whole 'individuating principle' idea is a little strange to me, though no doubt useful, and I agree that space may not be a better example than matter. Fact is that either there's one gold atom or there's two. Heck, there could even be three! It seems absurd to say that the second or third gold atom becomes individuated from the first by instantiation through matter or space; as if there were some reservoir of non-individuated potential atoms hidden in some metaphysical dimension. The second and third atoms are individuated by existing in addition to the first: Matter, time and space are the manner and state in which they exist, but there is no second, third or even first atom apart from those things - no actual 'form' of a gold atom, just the concept we have of them.

You're treating matter as thought it had form (and identity) unto itself. At bottom, matter is pure potentiality, and anything that has identity already has form, be it elementary particles or macroscopic objects. This should also answer your query regarding identity over time. Replacing matter replacing form. So while all my material elements may have changed, I'm still the same form, and by extension, the same person.

You earlier suggested that matter "is supposed to be the individuating principle between things," in that different matter separates two forms that are identical. Now you are saying that different matter does not imply a separation of forms. Please explain.

Also since anything that has identity has form - from elementary particles to my whole self - it seems you're saying that there is a 'form' of my fingernail (distinct from but instantiated through matter) and a 'form' of my finger (distinct from but instantiated through matter) and a 'form' of the knuckles in that finger (distinct from but instantiated through matter) and so on...?

I'm sorry, but I'm still not seeing the sense in all this. As I said earlier, at the most elementary-particle level (whatever that may be) the reason for their nature may not be understandable in material terms and then, just maybe, it might be acceptable to invoke some metaphysical notion to account for them. But invoking an infinite number of 'forms' for every conceivable thing we have and will label seems patently absurd to me, especially when (or so it seems) the implications lead into contradictions or counter-intuitive thinking. As long as things can be explained in terms of their parts, their interactions and our concepts of them (as it seems every observable non-quantum thing can be, to my knowledge at least), your 'forms' seem to flout parsimony as much as anything I've ever seen.

[ThatGirlAgain]

Mithrae

I can sum up up disagreement as follows:

You: Consciousness is non-physical. No physical explanation of its origin is possible because it misses that point.

Me: Consciousness is a process that arises from the physical. Slow evolutionary development is the means by which that happened.


BTW, almost nothing in the world is the sum of its parts. The essence of chemistry is synergy, with the property of the results not easily predictable from the properties of the parts. Most of physics is highly non-linear once we try to apply it to the real world. Not being the sum of its parts is the norm in the physical world, not something unique to consciousness.


Just do not have time for more and the posts were getting to the point of being unreadably huge. Good debate but how about we just agree to disagree?