A question for scientists: Primary and Secondary qualities

[69dodge]

Originally posted by Interesting Ian
I don't know, but I'm sure it can be given a scientific explanation.

Yes, but any scientific explanation of anything ultimately boils down to, "That's just the way it is." Why are you satisfied with this type of explanation regarding combustion but not regarding consciousness?

 

[69dodge]

Originally posted by Interesting Ian
BTW I note you ignored my question about whether it was me or Stimpy who was right about the twin paradox in relativity.

Oh, sorry. I said you were right, I think.

I didn't fully understand what Stimpy said, but I'd hesitate to say he was wrong, because I'm pretty sure he knows more about relativity than I do. Probably, he was just giving another equivalent way of looking at the problem.

 

[Titus Rivas]

Knowledge and the illusion of knowledge

Hi Loki,

You said:

Isn't this a resolution - the causal effect comes from the underlying physical processes?

Nope, because we can only know subjective experiences qua subjective experiences if these exert the necessary causal effect themselves. It isn't enough that there are underlying physical processes which could only give us the illusion we really know that we subjective experiences. As those physical processes wouldn't be caused or influenced by subjective experiences in any imaginable -direct or indirect- way, they can't contain any real knowledge of such subjective experiences either. Identity theorists don't just claim we have the illusion that we know that from a first person perspective we have subjective experiences. Identity theory acknowledges that we know this, as it is precisely a theory based on this knowledge (not just on an illusion that we'd have this knowledge).

That's the main difference between the identity theory and eliminative materialism. Identity theory acknowledges that there really is a first person perspective, whereas eliminative materialism denies this alltogether. For an eliminative materialist, the third person perspective is the only possible perspective. There wouldn't really be a first person perspective.

Titus

 

[Interesting Ian]

Yes, but any scientific explanation of anything ultimately boils down to, "That's just the way it is." Why are you satisfied with this type of explanation regarding combustion but not regarding consciousness?

Because (phenomenal) consciousness is only known through the first person perspective. Thus if materialism is correct and the world is physically closed, consciousness cannot play a fruitful role in our scientific theories describing physical reality because it is only objective facts about the world (by which I mean those facts discernable from the third person perspective) which are required to explain all things and processes within physical reality.

 

[Dymanic]

Originally posted by Interesting Ian
Because (phenomenal) consciousness is only known through the first person perspective. Thus if materialism is correct and the world is physically closed, consciousness cannot play a fruitful role in our scientific theories describing physical reality because it is only objective facts about the world (by which I mean those facts discernable from the third person perspective) which are required to explain all things and processes within physical reality.

I'd agree with that, with some qualifications. The first person perspective may play a fruitful role as a guide to what is interesting, but making 'what it feels like' the basis for scientific theory leads to endless absurdities. For instance, it really feels like the sun revolves around the earth.

 

[Mercutio]

Re: Re: Materialism rocks!

Dymanic I don't understand all this. You say consciousness is an emergent property. By what you say, this emergent property is causally efficacious (as consciousness is causally efficacious) and therefore this emergent property itself is physical. Right?

Ian, is it an assumption that consciousness is causally efficacious? Do you admit that? It seems to me at least equally likely (if not considerably more likely) that consciousness is an effect, not a cause, of behavior.

Take your time before answering--this is a very important bit, here, and worthy of more than merely a shot from the hip. I know you are honest enough not to just throw up a smoke cloud, so think about it for a bit...Your assumption is that consciousness is causal. why?

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Mercutio said:

Ian, is it an assumption that consciousness is causally efficacious? Do you admit that? It seems to me at least equally likely (if not considerably more likely) that consciousness is an effect, not a cause, of behavior.

Then how is it that we can have a conversation about consciousness?

~~ Paul

 

[Mercutio]

Mercutio said:
Then how is it that we can have a conversation about consciousness?

~~ Paul

Can we not have conversations about effects? I would suggest that most of the work of science is conversations about effects...An effect can influence future things, certainly, and even in a causal manner...but I would argue that consciousness is a response to environmental stimuli, at most a byproduct of life rather than an uncaused cause of anything...

Unless you can demonstrate to me that you can directly manipulate consciousness, to demonstrate its effects on other things... I'm sorry, but I have not seen any manipulation of consciousness separate from a manipulation of the environment that gives rise to what we label consciousness...it seems to me caused rather than causal.

As always, I am willing to be proven wrong...

 

[Win]

Titus:

I'll have a look at your paper later today, and get back to you with some comments.

For the nonce, let me address this comment:

Nope, because we can only know subjective experiences qua subjective experiences if these exert the necessary causal effect themselves.

Assuming a point similar to this is also expressed in your paper, chances are my response to your paper will involve what you mean by "we" and "know," with me arguing that "we" are really a combination of our physical and psychophysical properties such that "we" can and do *know* about phenomenal experiences, even though they are physically causally inefficacious.

More later.

Oh, and hey, Ian, what about the relationship between today Ian and yesterday Ian.

 

[Titus Rivas]

Hi Win,

with me arguing that "we" are really a combination of our physical and psychophysical properties such that "we" can and do *know* about phenomenal experiences, even though they are physically causally inefficacious.

I'm looking forward to your comments. In fact, the point you mention here (that we would know consciousness by direct acquaintance without it having any causal effect) is covered by my (and Hein van Dongen's) paper. I've discussed it after an e-mail correspondence with David Chalmers. When he found out I had done so, he included a link to my paper on his website of online papers about the philosophy of consciousness.

Best wishes,

Titus

 

[Interesting Ian]

Titus:

I'll have a look at your paper later today, and get back to you with some comments.

For the nonce, let me address this comment:



Assuming a point similar to this is also expressed in your paper, chances are my response to your paper will involve what you mean by "we" and "know," with me arguing that "we" are really a combination of our physical and psychophysical properties such that "we" can and do *know* about phenomenal experiences, even though they are physically causally inefficacious.

More later.

Oh, and hey, Ian, what about the relationship between today Ian and yesterday Ian.

Assuming materialism or epiphenomenalism is right?

Well having just crawled out of bed and feeling absolutely knackered I feel you and the materialists must be right ie no relationship whatsoever.

I look forward to your response to Titus' paper too.

Probably answer your question later on today.

And respond to other people too if have enough time.

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Mercutio said:

Can we not have conversations about effects? I would suggest that most of the work of science is conversations about effects...An effect can influence future things, certainly, and even in a causal manner...but I would argue that consciousness is a response to environmental stimuli, at most a byproduct of life rather than an uncaused cause of anything...

We cannot have a conversation about an effect unless it, in turn, causes whatever it is we observe about it---whatever it is we notice that makes us have the conversation. There must be some kind of feedback system in the brain that allows us to notice our own consciousness.

I think we fundamentally agree: Consciousness is a by-product of brain function. However, it appears that it was evolutionarily advantageous to develop the feedback system.

~~ Paul

 

[Interesting Ian]

Going to have to reply to you tomorrow Win. I'm knackered. Same goes for everyone else.

 

[Mercutio]

We cannot have a conversation about an effect unless it, in turn, causes whatever it is we observe about it---whatever it is we notice that makes us have the conversation. There must be some kind of feedback system in the brain that allows us to notice our own consciousness.

We can have conversations about unicorns and dragons. Are you suggesting that unicorns and dragons cause these conversations?

Once we put a verbal label on something, we can talk about it. If you need a "cause", the cause is our verbal ability. I guess I actually think about consciousness differently than you do (odd, since we are on the same side of this debate); I don't see it as causal in the least. I react to my daughter's smile; I don't react to my consciousness of seeing my daughter's smile. I can talk about the sight, the feeling, my memories that are evoked when she smiles, and these things taken together are what we call the consciousness of my experience (or experience of consciousness, if you will). We give the label "consciousness" to this class of private behaviors; the trouble arises when we treat a category as if it was a thing, and try to say what consciousness does.

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Mercutio said:

We can have conversations about unicorns and dragons. Are you suggesting that unicorns and dragons cause these conversations?

Unicorns and dragons are things we made up. I suppose we could be making up everything we feel about consciousness.

Once we put a verbal label on something, we can talk about it. If you need a "cause", the cause is our verbal ability. I guess I actually think about consciousness differently than you do (odd, since we are on the same side of this debate); I don't see it as causal in the least. I react to my daughter's smile; I don't react to my consciousness of seeing my daughter's smile. I can talk about the sight, the feeling, my memories that are evoked when she smiles, and these things taken together are what we call the consciousness of my experience (or experience of consciousness, if you will). We give the label "consciousness" to this class of private behaviors; the trouble arises when we treat a category as if it was a thing, and try to say what consciousness does.

But there has to be a reason why we even thought about the thing we wanted to label. If consciousness has no effect on the brain, why would we even come up with the concept in the first place?

First you say you don't react to your consciousness of seeing your daughter's smile, but then you go on to list ways in which you do react: Talking about the feeling of seeing her smile is reacting to your conscious experience of it.

I think our confusion arises from differences in exactly what we think of as the conscious portions of our inner experience. You might say that you can talk about your feelings concerning her smile because you have a memory of the smile, you can replay the memory, and then you can talk about how that makes you feel. If this is what you think, then you aren't including feelings in the pool of experiences that you call consciousness. If you were, you would say that consciousness has an effect on your speech.

Perhaps this is why some philosophers reject the notion of consciousness as folk psychology. When you look closely, you just find various brain processes. "Consciousness" seems to evaporate. Nonetheless, my daughter's smile is a wonderful thing.

~~ Paul

 

[Titus Rivas]

Beauty and 'science'

Paul,

Nonetheless, my daughter's smile is a wonderful thing.

How do you define beauty? I guess in your view it can't possibly be anything more than either a (physical reaction to) purely quantitative features of the smile as a physical phenomenon or -more likely- the quantitative structure of in themselves completely quantifiable physical 'emotional''processes in your daughter's brain expressed by her smile.

I would say your (or anyone's son's or) daughter's smile is beautiful because of the beautiful irreducible feelings it expresses.

Best wishes,

Titus

 

[Mercutio]

Unicorns and dragons are things we made up. I suppose we could be making up everything we feel about consciousness.

You misunderstand me. We are not making up the things we feel. We are refering to them improperly when we talk about consciousness as a thing. In a sense, "consciousness" is made up, but the things that we call consciousness are very real.

But there has to be a reason why we even thought about the thing we wanted to label. If consciousness has no effect on the brain, why would we even come up with the concept in the first place?

So we have a soul, and a god, and (sorry, perhaps they are more appropriate here) unicorns and dragons, because with all these smoking words, there has to be consciousness fire?

Actually, it is very convenient to speak of "consciousness", as it is convenient to speak of "sunrise". Both are natural products of our language-community, and we understand one another when we use them. But the fool on the hill sees the sun going down and the eyes in his head see the world spinning round (I always wanted to use that line). Sunrise and sunset are not the true story. Neither is "consciousness".

First you say you don't react to your consciousness of seeing your daughter's smile, but then you go on to list ways in which you do react: Talking about the feeling of seeing her smile is reacting to your conscious experience of it.

No, once again it is reacting to her smile. I can only infer a "consciousness" from my feeling, thinking and remembering--to then attribute feeling, thinking and remembering to "consciousness" is circular. Consciousness is defined by our thinking, feeling, remembering; it does not cause them.

I think our confusion arises from differences in exactly what we think of as the conscious portions of our inner experience. You might say that you can talk about your feelings concerning her smile because you have a memory of the smile, you can replay the memory, and then you can talk about how that makes you feel. If this is what you think, then you aren't including feelings in the pool of experiences that you call consciousness. If you were, you would say that consciousness has an effect on your speech.

I think I addressed this above. I include feeling, remembering, thinking, and probably a few more that escape me at present, in the category of behaviors that we label "consciousness". (I also don't like talking about "replaying memories" for similar reasons. It makes it sound like a memory exists separate from our remembering. All we do is replay this thing that exists...where? We infer "memories" from our remembering--they don't exist separately from remembering. I don't know if that helps or hurts in explaining my views on "consciousness".)

Perhaps this is why some philosophers reject the notion of consciousness as folk psychology. When you look closely, you just find various brain processes. "Consciousness" seems to evaporate. Nonetheless, my daughter's smile is a wonderful thing.

I'll bet it is! I would venture to say that her smile has an effect on your thinking and feeling. As an experiment, we could manipulate the smile (present vs. absent) and measure its effects. How can we manipulate consciousness to see its effects? We cannot, short of manipulating something else and thus affecting consciousness (or rather, affecting our thinking and feeling, from which we will infer that our consciousness has been affected). Why? because it is not a cause.

 

[Mercutio]

Re: Beauty and 'science'

How do you define beauty? I guess in your view it can't possibly be anything more than either a (physical reaction to) purely quantitative features of the smile as a physical phenomenon or -more likely- the quantitative structure of in themselves completely quantifiable physical 'emotional''processes in your daughter's brain expressed by her smile.

Well, yes...in the same sense that the Grand Canyon is an eroded ditch. The simplicity of the explanation belies the beauty in the actual thing.

The "brain reaction" caused by a smile will be unique for each smile, will depend on context, one's past history with the smiler, one's own history of smiling,...(this paragraph could take a week to write--that one smile is an imbedded part of a life, and that "brain reaction" for that one smile is probably more complex than anything I have ever asked my computer to do).

And yet, these are all "purely quantitative features of the smile as a physical phenomenon". There is nothing about this view of life that makes the smile any less stunning.

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Titus said:

How do you define beauty? I guess in your view it can't possibly be anything more than either a (physical reaction to) purely quantitative features of the smile as a physical phenomenon or -more likely- the quantitative structure of in themselves completely quantifiable physical 'emotional''processes in your daughter's brain expressed by her smile.

I would say your (or anyone's son's or) daughter's smile is beautiful because of the beautiful irreducible feelings it expresses.

I would say it makes not a wit of difference to me whether my feelings are irreducible or not. That only makes a difference if you overfocus on imponderable questions about the nature of love and beauty. It reminds me of the '70s, where everything thought to cure their psychological problems by a bizarre sort of constant inward-looking self-analysis. All it did was make everyone trip over their own feet.

Some people think that increasing scientific understanding decreases the inherent beauty in nature. Others do not. What possible difference does it make to my love of my daughter if I tag my feelings with some silly word like "irreducible"?

~~ Paul

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Mercutio said:

No, once again it is reacting to her smile. I can only infer a "consciousness" from my feeling, thinking and remembering--to then attribute feeling, thinking and remembering to "consciousness" is circular. Consciousness is defined by our thinking, feeling, remembering; it does not cause them.

I'm not saying consciousness causes thinking, feeling, or remembering. I am saying that the class of things we label as consciousness, which includes feeling (but I'm not sure I'd say includes thinking or remembering), are not only the result of brain processes, but are also the target of other brain processes. I think parts of the brain notice other parts of the brain. So we can feel our feelings, so to speak. We can remember them, not just as the memory of the event that triggered them, but as a direct memory of the feeling itself.

Have you every had the experience of remembering an incredibly strong feeling, but having no idea of the event that originally caused it? For example, I always get a strong feeling the first night it snows in winter. Perhaps I am remembering some event, which then triggers the feeling, but I sure can't bring the event into my consciousness. It feels like a memory of a pure feeling.

(I also don't like talking about "replaying memories" for similar reasons. It makes it sound like a memory exists separate from our remembering. All we do is replay this thing that exists...where? We infer "memories" from our remembering--they don't exist separately from remembering. I don't know if that helps or hurts in explaining my views on "consciousness".)

I don't understand you. Are you saying that our memories don't have a physical representation in our brains?

Why? because it [consciousness] is not a cause.

But it is! Consider the person with brain damage. As he looks at two squares, one red and one green, you can ask him which is which. He cannot tell you. Then you ask him to point at the red square, and he does. His color perception/motor control center is working fine, but he is not conscious of color, so he cannot speak the color name.

But, you say, it's not his consciousness that is broken, but his color perception/language center. I agree. It's just that I think of that center as an aspect of consciousness, whereas I do not think of motor control that way. It's pretty arbitrary, I guess.

Hard to define, this consciousness is.

~~ Paul