Emergent Dualism

[AgnosticBoy]

I've read, listened to, and watched many debates on consciousness between Christians and atheist philosophers and so far I'm left with more questions than answers. Then I read a book by Dr. David Chalmers called The Conscious Mind and realized that his position accounts for a lot of the evidence and objections that seem to plague the materialist and non-materialist sides.

In short, emergent dualism is the position that consciousness/mind is an emergent nonphysical property of the brain. Under this view, the brain is primary in that the mind depends on the brain, but what starts out as a physical process gives rise to a nonphysical nonphysical effect (i.e. the mind and its attributes). Another add-on to this position is that the mind has causal powers which it exerts on the brain - commonly referred to as 'downward' or 'top-down' causation. This turns the deterministic worldview (which also includes materialism) on its head.

After reviewing the arguments for emergent dualism, I'm left to conclude that materialism is incomplete when it comes to explaining consciousness. Substance dualism simply goes too far.

Debate requests: Leave materialism or explain why anyone should remain a materialists after learning about consciousness.

Have you considered emergent dualism? What are your objections?

[H.sapiens]

[Replying to post 1 by AgnosticBoy]

Take a look at:

The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind by Julian Jaynes

[Divine Insight]

Neatras, before I respond to specific quotes just let me say ahead of time that I am neither an expert, nor necessarily convinced, that panpsychism can even be a viable explanation for human subjective experience. None the less, I can offer you my perspective on these ideas.

Is that an accurate summation of panpsychism? That wherever the physical components that can give rise to the emergence of consciousness are located, consciousness is certain?

My personal answer to this would be, "yes". My intuitive guess would be that all matter is panpsychic. That is to say that all matter has some form of "experience". However, I would suggest that it doesn't "add up" simply because there are large amounts of matter.

Let's take your rock example:

I ask because I cannot yet buy into the idea that a 'primordial feature of all things' is that they are conscious. Given that we have no evidence to show that a rock is conscious,...

My idea here is that the material that the rock is made of has this pansychic property. However, it doesn't "add up" just because there is a large amount of matter.

In other words a large boulder isn't any more "conscious" than a tiny pebble. They both have the same level of "experience". And similarly if we imagine the entire Earth as being one "large rock" it too would have no more "experience" in a sense. Although my guess is that something as large as the earth would probably be having a lot of "experiences" in different locations.

Now, at this point, we aren't really talking about "Consciousness" as we normally think of it in humans. The reason is because in these lower-level structures there is no complex "Central Nervous System" to bring the primal panpsychic into a focal point.

More complex systems are required for this. And this is where "living organisms" come into play. When we see a system that has obtained a sufficient degree of complex "nervous system" (or information processing pathways) we begin to see systems that can focus the experience into a more organized central pattern.

At first (possibly with plants) the "focus" is spread out quite a bit. So plants never reach sentience, or self-awareness. This doesn't mean that they aren't having an experience. But one could argue that there is "Nobody home" to acknowledge this experience, or even pass judgements on it. In other words, plants, while actually having an experience, don't "think about it" (because they can't think) and they therefore don't "judge" the experience. But that doesn't mean that there is not experiencing occurring. It simply means that there is no sentience to pass judgement on it. This may be a difficult concept to grasp, but I believe this is a condition we can actually wrap our minds around if we really think about it.

Not saying that we can prove that plants are having any kind of experience at all. But I'm just trying to explain what panpsychism would be saying if it were indeed true.

But the idea here is that plants are having an experience, they just aren't "thinking" about it because they obviously aren't equipped with brains to think about it.

So we don't move up to "self-consciousness" or sentience, until we start to develop brains capable of "thinking". But the ability to have an experience is primordial. The ability to THINK is not.

So the ability to think emerges from the material brain. And we have no problem explaining how this could naturally occur using just normal laws of physics. If explaining how a brain can think would also explain how we can have an experience, there would be no problem. We would already be done.

This is why panpsychism is proposed. To explain what it is that is having an experience.

And the reason I favor this idea is because I do believe that things like plants and lower life forms are having an experience. I also have no problem imagining non-living matter to be having an experience as well, so that's not a problem for me personally.

So for me it works "all the way down".

~~~~~~

So why even bother considering panpsychism? Why not just imagining brains evolving to be able to "THINK" and then try to explain our subjective experience from that?

Well first off, the ability to think doesn't explain what it is that is having an experience. We can actually build computers and program them to "Think" That doesn't mean that they are automatically having an experience.

So the ability to think doesn't explain experience.

Moreover, we have the reverse problem going downward.

If we require that an ability to think must come first in order to explain experience, then how do we explain the experience of animals that are clearly orders of magnitude less able to think than humans? Where would we cut off the "experience?

Is a dog or cat having an experience? Is so, then their level of ability to think should be sufficient for having an experience. How far down can we take this? Does an insect have an experience? How about a worm?

Once we have chosen that the ability to think gives rise to experience, then we are stuck with having to accept that it doesn't take much ability to think in order to have an experience.

So for this reason, I personally favor the panpsychic hypothesis.

~~~~~

Just for the record, there are other possibilities as well. I don't really want to take the time to go into them here. I also tend to favor the "Analog Computer Feedback Loop" hypothesis. I don't know if I could point to any papers on this because as far as I know this is my own idea.

None the less, the idea is that conscious experience might somehow be explained by the mechanism of an analog computer creating some sort of self-feedback loop.

I'm not even sure precisely how this would work or whether it could be used to explain how an experience could be had, but I imagine this should at least be on the table as a possibility.

I personally think the panpsychic hypothesis is still the best promise. It would seem to me that even if an analog computer feedback loop was involved, there would still need to be a primal panpsychic nature to reality.

I really don't see how panpsychism could be avoided actually.

The more I think about it, the more I'm convinced that panpsychism has to be involved, especially if we are hoping to end up with secular materialism.

[Divine Insight]

[Replying to post 1 by AgnosticBoy]

Take a look at:

The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind by Julian Jaynes

Hi H.sapiens,

I would like to thank you for pointing to this book. I've never read it or even heard of it, but I quickly found the following youtube video below. And in this video they have an abstract of this theory from the 2 min mark to 4 min.

I'll comment on this further below the video:

[youtube][/youtube]

What they are actually talking about here is the evolution or "Self-Awareness" or "Sentience".

Clearly, there had to be some sort of primal subjective awareness prior to the emergence of "Self-Awareness".

So this isn't addressing the question of "Consciousness" as it concerns someone like David Chalmers. Remember, Chalmers is concerned with how we can be having any experience at all, not just the concept of "Self-Awareness".

Explaining how "Self-Awareness" might have evolved does nothing to explain how something was already having a "subjective experience" prior to that.

So it would be my position that pointing to this as an explanation for subjective experience misses the crux of the problem entirely.

Once we are given "subjective experience" as a given, moving up to "Self-Awareness" can easily be explained. So Julian Jaynes isn't addressing the problem of "primal consciousness" at all.

Jaynes is merely hypothesizing on how Self-Awareness might have evolved once subjective awareness had already been well-established. But Jaynes does nothing at all to explain how subjective awareness could arise in the first place.

I mean, I only listed to the video up to the 4 min mark. But is sounded to me at that point that Jaynes was solely addressing the emergence of Self-Awareness.

Correct me if I'm wrong about that. If there's more to Jayne's theories that go deeper into how primal subjective awareness could be explained that would certainly be interesting to hear. But after the intro to this video it doesn't sound like that's going to be the case.

[Neatras]

We can actually build computers and program them to "Think" That doesn't mean that they are automatically having an experience.

Why not? Why is it that a plant's "limited experience" is any more experiential than a computer simulation's "experience"? This is still under the context of a panpsychic explanation. An ant is still vastly complex due to its internal machinery, but it behaves in such a mechanistic way that one could compare it to a naturally grown computer with legs. Since I don't think you or AgnosticBoy are suggesting artificiality is the reason for not being inclusive of mechanical 'minds', I do wonder if you've taken enough time to consider the rapidly deteriorating line between naturally evolved neural networks and artificial processing units, and how this suggests that any boundary between a plant's "experience" and a machine's "experience" is so negligible as to not be worth distinguishing. A plant evolved to be as efficient as possible in growing and reproducing, and it does so by accumulating nutrients and recombining its DNA to spread over a locale. A machine is designed to take in electricity and use a series of internal logic circuits and software programming to produce an outcome that is decipherable by humans.

While I think your definition of panpsychism is fun to think about, I also think that in all of the reading I've done through your posts, it feels... vastly incomplete. Almost as though I can sense you observing a 'present' picture in time and trying to guess how all these different organisms have an experience as if imbued these properties, when in reality every organism alive today is just an offshoot replicant (with modification) of a precursor model, leading back to (probably) simple chemical reactions. The subjective experience you talk about either had precursor states, or was present in a single molecule of uracil before it was chained together in proto-RNA.

Clearly, there had to be some sort of primal subjective awareness prior to the emergence of "Self-Awareness".

I'm not sure. A precursor to subjective awareness could simply be an awareness of the natural world. The brain of some distant ancestor producing a simulated mind that attempted to make sense of reality according to a set of constraints that were, over countless generations, gradually refined by evolutionary selection until the mind produced instinctively has behaviors associated with living in a real world. Evidence for this would come from the fact that there are countless brain states, and the resultant people and animals produced are not perfect when interacting with reality. Those who have some defect are really just a genetic recombination of mind-simulating brain chemistry attempting to exhaust all possible combinations in an attempt to pass on genes, with success being measured by how closely experience matches up with reality.

To try and push things forward a little, I'll propose this: Panpsychism would be very, very conclusive for me if all subjective experiences from all rational agents were all equally precise and accurate when interacting with the real world. This would suggest to me that consciousness is firmly ingrained in reality, and anything over a certain threshold of complexity achieves the natural, pervasive "consciousness" essence, whether it be physical or not, to tap into and use "consciousness" to live and manipulate reality.

But here's the thing: I'm still not convinced that we should just assume, going forward, that the "subjective experience" is an adequate reason to dismiss materialism and decide that panpsychism is on the table. Shouldn't panpsychism do more for us than just wave off the dilemma by saying that subjective experience is some kind of ether we "tap into" when we achieve a certain level of complex conscious activity?

And please, somebody give me a really, really threadbare explanation of the phrase "What it is that is having an experience." I cannot, for the life of me, guess that it could mean anything other than a distinct subset of matter contained within a finite area that is running a series of chemical reactions that produce a simulated mind that operates according to a set of 'rules' semi-randomly generated to as closely align with reality's constraints as possible.

And that's another thing, the subjective experience isn't even really a coherent argument if we break down the idea of continuity. If we take a snapshot of someone's brain and their personality at a given moment, then the next moment we see an atom has moved. By physical standards, therefore the mind must also be changed (and it is, since no macroscopic object ever stays exactly the same from one moment to the next). The subjective experience isn't continuous, it's always a brain making a mind in the 'present' that thinks it is conscious, using previous brain states to form a sense of continuous memory. Every nanosecond, you're a different person, DI.

Let's borrow from the premise of Last Thursdayism. You are a mental state that is produced by a "current" set of chemical reactions firing in your brain. That's your identity, your existence. In the time it took you to read this sentence, a new you is already being simulated, and this process is happening constantly; your brain's ability to store memory is the only reason you maintain consistency in your behavior. Is the subjective experience something that transcends this, and actually has continuity? Or is it just a series of snapshots that are each individually produced by their corresponding brain state and strung together through the storage and recollection of memory? I need this squared away before I can delve deeper.

[Bust Nak]

[Replying to post 1 by AgnosticBoy]

My only objection is that it is not different from materialism and does not warrant another name.

I also reject your idea that materialism is tied to determinism.

[Divine Insight]

And please, somebody give me a really, really threadbare explanation of the phrase "What it is that is having an experience." I cannot, for the life of me, guess that it could mean anything other than a distinct subset of matter contained within a finite area that is running a series of chemical reactions that produce a simulated mind that operates according to a set of 'rules' semi-randomly generated to as closely align with reality's constraints as possible. .

I can only explain what I mean when I ask, "What is it that is having an experience?"

Let's look at this from a view of pure secular physics.

We have the following known properties of the universe.

Energy and matter. And according to Einstein these are actually one thing that is interchangeable via E=mc². So in a sense we can actually say that only one thing exists and this is "energy". All matter is just a particular standing wave of energy. In fact, this is what String Theory hopes to show.

But what do we know in physics about this primal "energy".

Well, we have four forces:

1. Gravity
2. Electromagnetism
3. Strong nuclear force
4. Weak nuclear force

We can continue to suggest other properties we have also observed such as the Pauli Exclusion Principle of Quantum Mechanics that it actually responsible the hardcore "material aspect" of the world. Without the Pauli Exclusion Principle matter could not exist at all since everything would be like bosons. The entire physical world would be Ghost-like.

We can even go further and talk about the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, and perhaps the new discovery of the Higgs field, etc.

However, none of this can explain why anything should be able to have an "experience".

In short, we cannot explain the phenomena of experience via physics.

Therefore even if we start talking about computers that can perform complex "logical thought" processes, (all of which can be explained by physics), there is still nothing in physics that provides us with a clue for how anything could actually be having an experience.

In other words it can't be explained, via

1. Gravity
2. Electromagnetism
3. Strong nuclear force
4. Weak nuclear force
5. Pauli Exclusion Principle
6. Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle.
7. Higgs Field
etc.

In other words, there is nothing in physics that can explain how or why anything could actually be having an experience.

Thus my question, "What is it that is having an experience?"

You might be tempted to say, "The entire brain as a whole".

But that doesn't really answer the question because the entire brain can't be using anything beyond our list above. Saying that the entire brain is having an experience does not answer the question.

We would need to explain how "experience" itself was able to arise from the basic physics.

What is it that is having an experience?

I think this is a valid question. In fact, I would suggest that this is THE question that needs to be answered for a secular explanation of conscious experience.

I'm not suggesting that it can't be answered in a secular fashion. I'm simply saying that a secular explanation needs to answer this question.

If the answer can be explained and understood as some sort of electromagnetic "feedback loop" or "standing wave" then that's super great! That would be a physics answer that uses electromagnetism as the explanation. But thus far we don't have our hands on that explanation.

Moving forward:

A machine is designed to take in electricity and use a series of internal logic circuits and software programming to produce an outcome that is decipherable by humans.

Let's talk about computers and the possibility of a computer ever having an experience.

A Digital Computer

I begin by asserting that I believe a digital computer can never evolve to obtain a genuine experience.

My reasoning is as follows:

A digital computer consists of the following components

1. Storage or "memory"
2. Static data and software
3. A central processing unit or CPU.

Question: What is it in a digital computer that could ever evolve to "Conscious awareness"?

I suggest that there is nothing here to work with. No matter how complex the data and software become it is always just static information sitting in some memory or storage unit.

The only active part of the computer is the CPU. But the CPU only executes a few machine code instructions in any given operation. Therefore the CPU, or any dynamic activity associated with the CPU, could ever become 'aware' of, or experience anything more than a few machine instructions at time. The CPU itself isn't even capable of simultaneously processing enough information to even begin to "experience" what the "software program" located on static memory storage is even about.

So it is my conclusion that a digital computer can never reach as state of true dynamic subjective awareness. At the very best, it can merely mimic behavior that appears to be subjectively aware in terms of the results performed by the overall software. But that appearance would necessarily need to be false. In other words, it would be safe to say that any digital computer that even appears to be sentient or self-aware, cannot actually be having any experience associated with that behavior.

An Analog Computer or Neural Network

With an analog computer things change dramatically.

An analogy computer consists of the following components

1. Storage or "memory" <--- which is stored in the actual architecture of the computer itself.
2. Dynamic data and hardware <--- there actually is no "software" in an analog computer. The architecture of the computer is the program.
3. NO central processing unit or CPU.

Now we have a computer where the entire content of the "program" and data, is simultaneously available to the computer without restriction. There is no CPU as the entire analog computer itself is the CPU.

Now we have a situation where the computer itself can 'experience' the entire program at once, because there is no distinction between the program and the computer. The computer itself is the program.

Now we can begin to describe this entire analog computer as a "single standing wave pattern of energy". Now we are at least in a situation where we can possibly apply physics again. Especially if we are fans of "String Theory" where standing wave patterns do give rise to all known phenomena.

We are now getting very close to explaining conscious experience. Especially since a human brain is indeed an analog computer (i.e. a neural network) It's not a digital computer using a CPU and digitized program code and date.

Even so, we aren't quite finished yet, unless perhaps we can apply mathematics from String Theory that might explain how experience arises from this standing wave pattern of a neural network.

However, at this point it my be beneficial to reexamine the panpsychic hypothesis too.

Coming Full Circle back to Panpsychism

If energy is the "thing" that has panpsychic capability, then we now have an explanation for why an analog computer or neural network explains why how experience becomes more profound with increased "standing wave patterns of thought".

The more complex the standing wave patterns of thought, the more clear experience becomes. The less complex the standing wave patterns are the less clear experience becomes.

Then would then explain how conscious experience "grows" or "evolves" to higher degrees from atoms to humans. And it would indeed imply that everything is having some sort of experience, from water molecules to rocks, to plants to animals to humans.

The neural networks would then just be a way to facilitate a large standing wave of experience.

This would also fit in with pantheistic religions where they aren't claiming "god" to necessarily be anything more than the panpsychic nature of the material world or "energy".

Could physics explain "What is it that is having and experience?" without restoring to postulating panpsychism?

Perhaps so. But thus far I have not heard that explanation.

I'm totally open to hearing explanations, but thus far I have not heard one.

That's all I know to say.

[AgnosticBoy]

Actually pure emergence of consciousness from a physical brain would still be a secular materialistic view. So this is not what David Chalmers is arguing for.

The emergence of consciousness from a purely materialistic brain could "theoretically" be explained via the natural electromagnetic and logical feedback loops of an analog computer which is what the brain is.

So this would be the secular materialist's view. There is nothing in David Chalmers' proposal that would cause a secular materialist to need to abandon a purely materialistic worldview.

I see that you're making the error of conflating processes and functions with the effects/properties/states that the processes bring about - i.e. consciousness/subjective experience. An emergent dualists would not claim that there is no room for the physical, but rather they'd say that the physical components/processes are necessary but not sufficient. This is why I consider materialism to be "incomplete" rather than false when people try to use it as a complete explanation for consciousness.

His view would go against the materialist worldview for two reasons:
- we have a nonphysical property in existence

That doesn't rule out the possibility that this so-called "non-physical property" hasn't arisen from physical complexity. In other words, if what we are calling a "non-physical property" is actually logic itself, then there is still the question of why this logical processing even exists. If it exists because of the physical computer that is processing information, then calling it a "non-physical property" is premature. It would only appear to be "non-physical" at first glance because we have failed to take into consideration and recognize how it actually arose.

Well we already have the phenomena of consciousness and various mental attributes. If we are to develop a process then it should take all of this into account. For instance, with the exception of those born blind, everyone experiences mental images which can not be characterized as physical since it has no mass, occupies no space, nor is it physically observable. Throughout the history of science, many have tried to ban consciousness/subjective experience from science for this very reason and I find this to be a copout.

I would like very much to see that evidence.

It's extremely easy for people (even ambitious scientists) to proclaim to have evidence for things which may not actually be as they had first imagined.

If any scientist has evidence for the existence of an "non-physical" properties of this universe I would think that would be huge news!

I have yet to hear of any credible discoveries claiming to have evidence for non-physical properties that cannot be explained via physics.

That would be extremely interesting news to be sure. In fact, I'm hoping to hear of any major breakthroughs in science before I die. I think that would be fantastic. Thus far, I've been quite disappointed for many decades. We have indeed made some great discoveries to be sure, such as the Higgs field. But that was expected and remains within the bounds of the physical sciences.

So let me know where this evidence for non-physical properties is. I would love to read about it. That would clearly be a brand new frontier in science to be sure.

Well the evidence is the affects of the mind or subjective experience on the physical body. For example, mental imagery, which is unobservable and/or subjective phenomena has been found to increase or sustain physical strength.

Mental imagery has been reported to induce a performance improvement in skilled movements in a comparable way to physical training, which could be explained in terms of adaptation in motor cortex neurons (Guillot and Collet, 2005).
…
Recently, Tod et al. (2015) showed a significant effect of mental imagery on muscular strength (63%) similar to that reported in the studies detailed previously in the present review.
…
Typically, mental imagery with muscular activity was higher in active than passive muscles, and imagining “lifting a heavy object� resulted in more EMG activity compared with imagining “lifting a lighter object�.
…
Also, the present review indicates that imagery injury prevention interventions have a large effect on reducing strength loss during ACL or when injured athletes remain inactive. Accordingly, Newsom et al. (2003) showed that imagery prevention intervention was effective in reducing strength loss of wrist flexion/extension after short-term muscle immobilization. More recently, Clark et al. (2014) found the effectiveness of integrating mental imagery in a rehabilitation process on the reduction of strength loss and voluntary activation.

Source: Effects of Mental Imagery on Muscular Strength in Healthy and Patient Participants: A Systematic Review

[AgnosticBoy]

My only objection is that it is not different from materialism and does not warrant another name.

Under emergent dualism, the mind is nonphysical which also goes with why it is not entirely reducible to the physical. This view incorporates some of the strong points from the materialists side while also incorporating some of the strong points from common experience and philosophy. I go into more detail in post 8.

I also reject your idea that materialism is tied to determinism.

Determinism is the only evidence that materialist offer to support their view that the mind is physical. Materialist resort to showing all of the evidence that shows that altering brain states, like brain damage, effects mental states. In other words, the brain causes and controls the mind. When we trace this causal chain back it's referred to as reductionism.

However, now there's evidence that causation is not limited or initiated only at the basic levels of organizations (neurons?) but can also occur at higher levels of organization, even among apparent nonphysical properties like the mind! I provided one study earlier but there are also countless of examples of mental causation in the field of psychiatry.

[AgnosticBoy]

. If the person having the subjective experience accepts they are a simulated mind resultant from a dynamic and physical brain state, the dilemma doesn't really present itself to me. Or maybe I've either resolved the dilemma on a personal level without removing naturalistic explanation, or I am too blind to the real dilemma and have need of it being explained more concretely. Less of the "subjective experience exists, therefore something nonphysical is going on," which reeks of non sequitur.

I'd only be impressed if you could not only explain but demonstrate the following:

Finally, the famous physicist Richard Feynman once said if you really want to show you understand how something works, build it. And it is here that we can clearly identify the limits of our knowledge regarding consciousness. I put experienced in quotes earlier because no one knows how to engineer the flow of information into emergent states of first person experience (i.e., sentience). The engineering problem of consciousness remains a great mystery.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/th ... s-the-mind

[Divine Insight]

An emergent dualists would not claim that there is no room for the physical, but rather they'd say that the physical components/processes are necessary but not sufficient.

Isn't this my position as well? Haven't I already proposed that I feel that something additional is required like possibly panpsychism?

This is why I consider materialism to be "incomplete" rather than false when people try to use it as a complete explanation for consciousness.

My position as well. Although, I'm open to the possibility of materialistic explanations that I may not have thought of. I just haven't yet heard any compelling proposals in that area. This isn't going to cause me to prematurely proclaim that they must then not be able to exist. I need to leave open the possibility that there may be things I have not yet thought of myself.

You seem to want to rule out materialism without having yet shown why it must be ruled out.

Well we already have the phenomena of consciousness and various mental attributes. If we are to develop a process then it should take all of this into account. For instance, with the exception of those born blind, everyone experiences mental images which can not be characterized as physical since it has no mass, occupies no space, nor is it physically observable. Throughout the history of science, many have tried to ban consciousness/subjective experience from science for this very reason and I find this to be a copout.

I'm afraid I have failed to follow the above reasoning. What exactly is it that are you claiming has no mass, occupies no space, nor is physically observable?

You lost me on that one.

We haven't yet determined how experiences are being experienced. So how could we claim that they have no mass, occupy no space, nor are physically observable?

Sounds to me like your jumping to conclusion about an ill-defined concept here.

Well the evidence is the affects of the mind or subjective experience on the physical body. For example, mental imagery, which is unobservable and/or subjective phenomena has been found to increase or sustain physical strength

To the best of my knowledge mental imagery is associated with brain activity. Therefore to say that it's totally non-physical seems to me to be a mistake.

I mean, in a sense you could make the same argument for a computerize robot. A seeming "non-physical" program algorithm can actually make decisions and control the behavior of a physical robot. But we don't have a problem with this being a totally physical process.

So I'm not buying into the idea that mental imagery is "non-physical". I think that is a grossly misguided idea. If any scientists are suggesting that this represents a non-physical phenomenon, all I could say at that point is "Shame on them".