Consciousness: The Fun Part. :)

[UndercoverElephant]

I think she's made it clear that she wants speculation because she'd like to be able to actually participate in the thread she started. That isn't unreasonable, is it? I know we have high expectations in this forum, but it's not a Nature publication...

I'm not dismissing your claim, just pointing out that only dealing with the Hard Problem isn't very fun.

Philosophy can't always be fun, I guess. I wish we could get beyond the HP too, but it is quite hard to do so when "getting beyond" it actually implies moving in the wrong direction. If people want to bypass that discussion then it must be shelved rather than a particular outcome assumed. We could say "let's assume we can't actually resolve the debate about the Hard Problem...now, what else can we discuss about consciousness?" I would find such a discussion quite interesting, because I doubt it would take very long before the shelved Hard Problem started morphing into an assumed materialistic solution to it.

 

[Cynic]

Philosophy can't always be fun, I guess. I wish we could get beyond the HP too, but it is quite hard to do so when "getting beyond" it actually implies moving in the wrong direction. If people want to bypass that discussion then it must be shelved rather than a particular outcome assumed. We could say "let's assume we can't actually resolve the debate about the Hard Problem...now, what else can we discuss about consciousness?" I would find such a discussion quite interesting, because I doubt it would take very long before the shelved Hard Problem started morphing into an assumed materialistic solution to it.

I think there's value in running with assumption. In fact, I'd say the vast majority if science is based on just that. Wrong assumptions manifest themselves soon enough. But holding back on thr grounds that some philosophical problem hasn't been solved seems particularly quixotic, but perhaps that's just because I think of philosophy as being defined by the very intractibility of the problems that fall under it. We call problems that can be solved "science", not "philosophy".

Assuming a materialistic explanation for conscious isn't much of an "assumption" considering the alternative, if you ask me. I can't imagine why that would even be debated in a scientifc sense, since science can't even begin to touch a non-materialistic topic. If such an odious assumption is made here and we run into problems that demand (not a gap, but an actual demand) for a non-materialistic explanation, then I guess that would be the time to discuss it. Otherwise, it seems like refusing to discuss the nature of a backyard sliding board until we resove the nature of gravity. If I've completely misunderstood you, please let me know -- strawmen aren't something I engage in on purpose.

 

[Maia]

Assuming a materialistic explanation for conscious isn't much of an "assumption" considering the alternative, if you ask me. I can't imagine why that would even be debated in a scientifc sense, since science can't even begin to touch a non-materialistic topic. If such an odious assumption is made here and we run into problems that demand (not a gap, but an actual demand) for a non-materialistic explanation, then I guess that would be the time to discuss it. Otherwise, it seems like refusing to discuss the nature of a backyard sliding board until we resove the nature of gravity.

Yes, that's kind of what I mean. Is it really necessary to spend a zillion pages essentially doing nothing but rehashing one debate about consciousness-- whether or not it's only materialist-based? We already have a thread like that, and there are so many other things to talk about. At some point, it's a little like spending all of your time sitting around and trying to figure out whether all of your furniture was stolen and replaced with exact duplicates at three a.m. while you were asleep. Eventually, you've just got to get out of the house more.

I guess the basic question would be: is it possible to have a discussion about various aspects of consciousness, or various questions, arguments, and facts about it, without getting endlessly bogged down in that one kind of debate?

 

[Gate2501]

I guess the basic question would be: is it possible to have a discussion about various aspects of consciousness, or various questions, arguments, and facts about it, without getting endlessly bogged down in that one kind of debate?

When the discussion is happening on the internet in a public forum, the answer is a definitive NO.

 

[roger]

Maia, I am endlessly interested in this topic, but never participate because it gets stuck in that same rut.

So, can you explain what your objections to Dennett's Multiple Draft theory are - as in, why you think his arguments are wrong, even if his conclusions are correct?

(fan of Dennett here)

 

[UndercoverElephant]

Cynic,

There's no strawmen here, and your post raises all sorts of interesting questions.

I think there's value in running with assumption. In fact, I'd say the vast majority if science is based on just that. Wrong assumptions manifest themselves soon enough. But holding back on thr grounds that some philosophical problem hasn't been solved seems particularly quixotic, but perhaps that's just because I think of philosophy as being defined by the very intractibility of the problems that fall under it. We call problems that can be solved "science", not "philosophy".

That sounds like an implied claim that the Hard Problem cannot be solved.

Assuming a materialistic explanation for conscious isn't much of an "assumption" considering the alternative, if you ask me.

I can't imagine why that would even be debated in a scientifc sense, since science can't even begin to touch a non-materialistic topic.

But this isn't the science forum. This is the religion and philosophy forum.

If such an odious assumption is made here and we run into problems that demand (not a gap, but an actual demand) for a non-materialistic explanation, then I guess that would be the time to discuss it. Otherwise, it seems like refusing to discuss the nature of a backyard sliding board until we resove the nature of gravity.

I am very interested in learning about the relationships between brains, consciousness and physics. What I am worried about is people discussing those things under an assumption that is neither necessary nor justified. Why not just discuss what we DO know, instead of assuming things that at best we don't know and at worst are unknowable?

 

[UndercoverElephant]

Yes, that's kind of what I mean. Is it really necessary to spend a zillion pages essentially doing nothing but rehashing one debate about consciousness-- whether or not it's only materialist-based? We already have a thread like that, and there are so many other things to talk about. At some point, it's a little like spending all of your time sitting around and trying to figure out whether all of your furniture was stolen and replaced with exact duplicates at three a.m. while you were asleep. Eventually, you've just got to get out of the house more.

I guess the basic question would be: is it possible to have a discussion about various aspects of consciousness, or various questions, arguments, and facts about it, without getting endlessly bogged down in that one kind of debate?

OK...but the last one got bogged down in a "debate" about the socio-politics and genetics of homosexuality and then went off into mathematics...?

What is it that you want to discuss? Cognitive science?

 

[Cynic]

That sounds like an implied claim that the Hard Problem cannot be solved.

Not exactly how I intended it, but close. I have a very dim view of the suggestion that consciousness isn't possible purely on a physical/biological basis for a number of reasons. The important of those reasons is that unless it can be shown that it can't, there's no reasons to take other possibilities seriously anymore than evolutionists should take intelligent design seriously. At present, the brain is the most obvious candidate for the seat of consciousness and until there is a compelling reason to look elsewhere, that's the most parsimonious hypthesis.

But this isn't the science forum. This is the religion and philosophy forum.

*looks around* Huh. I actually thought it was the Science forum. Maybe this is Maia's assesment of the field of psychology. Neurobiology seems like a better place to start, IMO.

I am very interested in learning about the relationships between brains, consciousness and physics. What I am worried about is people discussing those things under an assumption that is neither necessary nor justified. Why not just discuss what we DO know, instead of assuming things that at best we don't know and at worst are unknowable?

Imagine making that statement about evolution. It's clear to me that people put consciousness on a pedistal and hold it to a different standard than anything else. No one questions the function of the heart or conversely sees the function of the heart and questions what performs it. The only reason to do so with consciousness is sentiment, plain and simple. As with freewill, there seems to be a too-close-for-comfort factor that causes people to invoke all manner of strange ideas to salvage some undefined aspect of it.


This thread belongs, as near as I can tell, in Science. Dragging it back into Philosophy seems to be exactly what Maia wants to avoid (which makes its presence here perplexing to me). While there's nothing wrong with wondering about the "relationship between brains, consciousness, and physics", it's unwarranted to assume that in stating it that way it follows that each is a distinct aspect that can be evaluated independently. Near as I or anyone else can tell, the brain is a physical structure, driven by the same laws that govern rocks and trees, and that conscious is its function, not something that interacts with it.

 

[Ron_Tomkins]

What's so funny about the "Cartesian theater" thing is that Dennett is the one who came up with it in the first place! So I can really kind of see the point when his critics say that he's created a straw man and then attacked that. It's easy to say that it's a "common-sense" belief-- okay, if it's such common sense, then why did he have to make up the phrase? Dennett himself says that "Many theorists would insist that they have explicitly rejected such an obviously bad idea." Is anyone actually saying it at all except for him? In fact, when reading this entry (as much as Wikipedia really isn't the be-all and end-all of wisdom), it really seems to me that he made up "Cartesian materialism" too.) Isn't it a BIT much to make something up and then attack it??

No, he just named it.

Did anyone else actually use the term before Dennett, though? I'd honestly like to know if they did, because I did give it a try, and I couldn't find any examples of this. A very common criticism seems to be that he keeps insisting others were trying to push the entire idea when this actually wasn't happening (I didn't see anyone who called themselves a Cartesian materialist until after Dennett came up with the term.)
Anyway, it all would make more sense if I wasn't up at four a.m. digging through everything in an attempt to find the Percoset, I'm sure...

I think that's exactly the point: Dennett was just the first one to give it a name. Giving it a name is certainly not the same as "believing it to be true". He just identified the problem (Which is: The belief that the Conscious experience is that of an observer inside the brain) and gave it a name, which I believe comes from the originator of the meme: Rene Descartes.

 

[Maia]

When the discussion is happening on the internet in a public forum, the answer is a definitive NO.

But couldn't we all at least debate about something ELSE??? The other thread is taking care of that particular endless debate. How about:

So, can you explain what your objections to Dennett's Multiple Draft theory are - as in, why you think his arguments are wrong, even if his conclusions are correct?

(fan of Dennett here)

I think that what most people actually experience is something very close to the "Cartesian theater" idea (and Wikipedia claims, anyway, that Dennett really did come up with that name.) So for most, a unified stream of consciousness all happening in one place might as well be the answer, because I don't think it makes any practical difference. However, the experience of consciousness is very different for another group of people, and I think that it tends to provide evidence for the idea that the multiple drafts model at least has something to it. For instance, here's an abstract of one criticism I found:

Throwing the conscious baby out with the Cartesian bath water
Article Abstract:

Dennett and Kinsbourne' s Multiple Drafts model of consciousness implies that in each person there are multiple conscious selves processing different stimuli. This is intuitively impossible as people's experiences prove....

author: Aronson, J., Dietrich, E., Way, E.
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Publication Name: Behavioral and Brain Sciences
Subject: Psychology and mental health
ISSN: 0140-525X
Year: 1992



Read more: http://www.faqs.org/abstracts/Psych...sing-the-Cartesian-Theatre.html#ixzz0Z8mkXQQh

The way that the statement is phrased doesn't exactly make sense, but if we change the idea of "multiple conscious selves" to "structural dissociation of one self", as the APA and AMA have, then it is absolutely not true that "this is intuitively impossible as people's experiences prove." That's also not a very scientific statement, to say the least. It seems to not only beg the question but to also assume that whatever is in question couldn't possibly be backed up by any evidence anyway. But this isn't true at all, and there is plenty of specific empirical evidence to show exactly why not.

One of my main fields of study is post-traumatic stress disorder. Nobody really knows how many returning vets have PTSD, but the proportion is at least 30%and, in clinical practice, is probably a lot higher. Official figures are probably drastic underestimations. Refugees and victims of war and torture suffer almost universally from PTSD, as do many inner city residents of lower socioeconic class who live in traumatic situations (I've worked with people who've had their entire families killed in front of them by gang violence.) Rape, incest, and child abuse also go on the list. People who are severely and persistently mentally ill have a very high incidence of co-occurring PTSD as well. So we're talking about a larger group than anyone has really wanted to admit.

There are three symptom clusters in the diagnostic definition of PTSD: numbing/dissociation, hyperarousal, and uncontrollable flashbacks. While PTSD has no heritability (schizophrenia, for example, has 50%), it causes measurable neurological changes, which is a very recent discovery.

The way that all of these symptom clusters actually affect the experience of consciousness for anyone who has PTSD does tend to provide evidence for the validity of the "multiple drafts" theory. (At least this would be the case when it comes to people with PTSD, and they are a neurologically distinct group.) As Onno van der Hart and Ellert Nijenhuis argue (and Pierre Janet before them), severe PTSD causes a structural dissociation of personality (not "multiple personalities.") While this causes neurological changes, there hasn't really been an underlying theory about consciousness that explains exactly what happens with ongoing information processing in PTSD folks. The "multiple drafts" theories makes so much more sense in these cases.

The reason why I think that Dennett might not be too happy with this is that he isn't coming from this perspective at all in terms of that theory. I'm not so sure that the "multiple drafts" theory even applies to people who don't have PTSD, and I just don't think that he would make that distinction. So he might not be any happier with somebody who agreed with him for the "wrong" reasons. Ultimately, I really think that accepting this theory of consciousness as being related to very specific groups of people who have had very specific experiences in the real world is so much more empirically based, because every single step can be empirically tested. Is there anyone really doing it from that end without pushing a big agenda? Dennett just relies too much on vague philosophical arguments and being snippy and snide towards easy targets for me. If he knows he's right, then why is it necessary to have that attitude? Why go on those shooting-fish-in-a-barrel expeditions? Is it really impossible to have a discussion/debate without people being so polemical about their viewpoints? Anyway, that's why I wanted this in the R&P forum.

 

[PixyMisa]

The really intractable problem with consciousness is precisely the fact that it looks highly unlikely that a purely brain-based explanation of consciousness is even possible.

Well, there's a problem here, because (a) your claim is completely unsupported, and (b) as Maia pointed out, consciousness is a function of the brain. No brain, no consciousness.

You cannot start by assuming that this is not the case, simply because you do not want to follow the line of debate which acknowledges the Hard Problem.

Sure we can, because if mind is what brain does - and we observe that this is indeed the case - the so-called "Hard Problem" is immediately defined out of existence. The "Hard Problem" does not exist under a coherent materialist metaphysics.

Sure, there are interesting questions other than the Hard Problem, but please do not expect for one second that anybody is going to let you get away with just assuming it out of existence.

We didn't assume it out of existence. Chalmers defined it that way.

 

[!Kaggen]

The really intractable problem with consciousness is precisely the fact that it looks highly unlikely that a purely brain-based explanation of consciousness is even possible.

Well, there's a problem here, because (a) your claim is completely unsupported, and (b) as Maia pointed out, consciousness is a function of the brain. No brain, no consciousness.

You cannot start by assuming that this is not the case, simply because you do not want to follow the line of debate which acknowledges the Hard Problem.

Sure we can, because if mind is what brain does - and we observe that this is indeed the case - the so-called "Hard Problem" is immediately defined out of existence. The "Hard Problem" does not exist under a coherent materialist metaphysics.

Sure, there are interesting questions other than the Hard Problem, but please do not expect for one second that anybody is going to let you get away with just assuming it out of existence.

We didn't assume it out of existence. Chalmers defined it that way.

As a biologist and not a computer scientist I find it hilarious how you define mind as what the brain does.

A brain does not do anything without a blood system.
A blood system does not do anything without respiratory system, excretory system, endocrine system, lymphatic system and digestive system
All these systems do nothing without an environment to supply oxygen, water, carbohydrates, proteins, fats, vitamins, minerals and an environmental sink to receive carbon dioxide, urine and faeces.

So saying the mind is what the brain does is useful for a computer geek pretending to play biologist or a philosopher justifying his metaphysics, but has nothing to do with reality.

Dream on Pixy.......

 

[UndercoverElephant]

Not exactly how I intended it, but close. I have a very dim view of the suggestion that consciousness isn't possible purely on a physical/biological basis for a number of reasons. The important of those reasons is that unless it can be shown that it can't, there's no reasons to take other possibilities seriously anymore than evolutionists should take intelligent design seriously. At present, the brain is the most obvious candidate for the seat of consciousness and until there is a compelling reason to look elsewhere, that's the most parsimonious hypthesis.

I don't think that is a fair comparison. There is a very real, very large, undisputably scientific body of evidence supporting the idea that biological design is either largely or completely driven by evolutionary forces, and this directly contadicts most forms of intelligent design theory. So ID is both completely unneccesary and contradictory of existing scientific knowledge. Even if you believe in the possibility of a teleological component to evolution, you still don't need to turn to theories involving an intelligent designer. The question of a materialistic explanation of consciousness is not like this at all. Firstly, there is no existing scientific evidence to support the claim "consciousness is entirely explainable in terms of brain activity". There's clearly some sort of connection/relationship, but it is far from clear what that connection/relationship actually is and it is not even clear that science is the correct tool for working out the answer to that question. Finally, not all of the alternatives to a materialistic explanation for consciousness contradict existing science.

*looks around* Huh. I actually thought it was the Science forum. Maybe this is Maia's assesment of the field of psychology. Neurobiology seems like a better place to start, IMO.

Sometimes when faced with a really tricky problem it is better to start in more than one place. I think with the case of consciousness this is what we have to do. Yes, we must account for any information that neuroscience can supply us with, but this does not require that we assume a materialistic solution to the Hard Problem.

Imagine making that statement about evolution. It's clear to me that people put consciousness on a pedistal and hold it to a different standard than anything else.

That is because it raises questions and causes problems that no other problem in biology does. The only other area of science which runs into similar problems to the debate about consciousness is quantum mechanics, and it is for exactly the same reason: in both cases hard science is accidentally spilling over into metaphysics and some elements of the scientific community do not want to acknowledge that this is the case. There is no big argument within the scientific community about evolution/ID. That debate is manufactured by the religious people who want it to look like a scientific controversy exists where none actually does. The same is not true of either consciousness or quantum mechanics. In these cases there really is a hum-dinger of an argument going on within the scientific community - especially if somebody (e.g. Penrose) has the temerity to mention both problems in the same sentence and suggest that they may be connected.

No one questions the function of the heart or conversely sees the function of the heart and questions what performs it. The only reason to do so with consciousness is sentiment, plain and simple. As with freewill, there seems to be a too-close-for-comfort factor that causes people to invoke all manner of strange ideas to salvage some undefined aspect of it.

This thread belongs, as near as I can tell, in Science. Dragging it back into Philosophy seems to be exactly what Maia wants to avoid (which makes its presence here perplexing to me). While there's nothing wrong with wondering about the "relationship between brains, consciousness, and physics", it's unwarranted to assume that in stating it that way it follows that each is a distinct aspect that can be evaluated independently. Near as I or anyone else can tell, the brain is a physical structure, driven by the same laws that govern rocks and trees, and that conscious is its function, not something that interacts with it.

Of course the brain is a physical structure. The problem is that if we stick strictly to physics, all we have is a brain and whatever it is doing. We don't have any "consciousness" or "sentience", and that's why it throws up unique problems for science.

 

[UndercoverElephant]

So saying the mind is what the brain does is useful for a computer geek pretending to play biologist or a philosopher justifying his metaphysics, but has nothing to do with reality.

Dream on Pixy.......

If you respond to his posts then I end up having to read them....

 

[Dancing David]

Maia, great idea, maybe a try later?

 

[Dancing David]

But couldn't we all at least debate about something ELSE??? The other thread is taking care of that particular endless debate. How about:



I think that what most people actually experience is something very close to the "Cartesian theater" idea (and Wikipedia claims, anyway, that Dennett really did come up with that name.) So for most, a unified stream of consciousness all happening in one place might as well be the answer, because I don't think it makes any practical difference. However, the experience of consciousness is very different for another group of people, and I think that it tends to provide evidence for the idea that the multiple drafts model at least has something to it. For instance, here's an abstract of one criticism I found:



The way that the statement is phrased doesn't exactly make sense, but if we change the idea of "multiple conscious selves" to "structural dissociation of one self", as the APA and AMA have, then it is absolutely not true that "this is intuitively impossible as people's experiences prove." That's also not a very scientific statement, to say the least. It seems to not only beg the question but to also assume that whatever is in question couldn't possibly be backed up by any evidence anyway. But this isn't true at all, and there is plenty of specific empirical evidence to show exactly why not.

One of my main fields of study is post-traumatic stress disorder. Nobody really knows how many returning vets have PTSD, but the proportion is at least 30%and, in clinical practice, is probably a lot higher. Official figures are probably drastic underestimations. Refugees and victims of war and torture suffer almost universally from PTSD, as do many inner city residents of lower socioeconic class who live in traumatic situations (I've worked with people who've had their entire families killed in front of them by gang violence.) Rape, incest, and child abuse also go on the list. People who are severely and persistently mentally ill have a very high incidence of co-occurring PTSD as well. So we're talking about a larger group than anyone has really wanted to admit.

There are three symptom clusters in the diagnostic definition of PTSD: numbing/dissociation, hyperarousal, and uncontrollable flashbacks. While PTSD has no heritability (schizophrenia, for example, has 50%), it causes measurable neurological changes, which is a very recent discovery.

The way that all of these symptom clusters actually affect the experience of consciousness for anyone who has PTSD does tend to provide evidence for the validity of the "multiple drafts" theory. (At least this would be the case when it comes to people with PTSD, and they are a neurologically distinct group.) As Onno van der Hart and Ellert Nijenhuis argue (and Pierre Janet before them), severe PTSD causes a structural dissociation of personality (not "multiple personalities.") While this causes neurological changes, there hasn't really been an underlying theory about consciousness that explains exactly what happens with ongoing information processing in PTSD folks. The "multiple drafts" theories makes so much more sense in these cases.

The reason why I think that Dennett might not be too happy with this is that he isn't coming from this perspective at all in terms of that theory. I'm not so sure that the "multiple drafts" theory even applies to people who don't have PTSD, and I just don't think that he would make that distinction. So he might not be any happier with somebody who agreed with him for the "wrong" reasons. Ultimately, I really think that accepting this theory of consciousness as being related to very specific groups of people who have had very specific experiences in the real world is so much more empirically based, because every single step can be empirically tested. Is there anyone really doing it from that end without pushing a big agenda? Dennett just relies too much on vague philosophical arguments and being snippy and snide towards easy targets for me. If he knows he's right, then why is it necessary to have that attitude? Why go on those shooting-fish-in-a-barrel expeditions? Is it really impossible to have a discussion/debate without people being so polemical about their viewpoints? Anyway, that's why I wanted this in the R&P forum.

Great post, more later!

I am not sure about multiple drafts, I would say multiple co-processing, but it will require some thinking.

 

[westprog]

Isn't this an argument from ignorance?

It's the only bit I can think of that can't be removed without affecting consciousness. If consciousness resided in the legs, for example, it would vanish on amputation.

 

[Beerina]

Also, maybe we could talk about why the idea that quantum physics has something profound to say about human consciousness seems to be so compelling in the first place.

I was unaware of this. I know Penrose is pushing that idea under two assumptions:

1. That the mind can solve problems a Turing machine cannot. Therefore it is either a more powerful, but still finite computing model (something the Church-Turing Thesis proposes is not possible) or it touches on something that's infinite in nature.

2. That Quantum Mechanics is one such thing that offers an infinite computational model.


The first, that the mind can solve problems a Turing machine cannot, is disputed, and Penrose seems to be on the wrong side of this.

The second also I don't think is proven by any means. Indeed, from what I read, even quantum computing, fast as it is, still falls afoul of the same old Turing issues, and isn't a higher level of computing at the end of the day.

 

[AkuManiMani]

As a biologist and not a computer scientist I find it hilarious how you define mind as what the brain does.

A brain does not do anything without a blood system.
A blood system does not do anything without respiratory system, excretory system, endocrine system, lymphatic system and digestive system
All these systems do nothing without an environment to supply oxygen, water, carbohydrates, proteins, fats, vitamins, minerals and an environmental sink to receive carbon dioxide, urine and faeces.

So saying the mind is what the brain does is useful for a computer geek pretending to play biologist or a philosopher justifying his metaphysics, but has nothing to do with reality.

Dream on Pixy.......

Heh. You should see what he has to say in the "My Take" thread. You'll be left speechless.

 

[AkuManiMani]

Firstly, there is no existing scientific evidence to support the claim "consciousness is entirely explainable in terms of brain activity". There's clearly some sort of connection/relationship, but it is far from clear what that connection/relationship actually is and it is not even clear that science is the correct tool for working out the answer to that question.

Just out of curiosity, if science is not the correct avenue of inquiry for understanding consciousness what do you suspect would be a better method? :-X