Split Thread Science cannot explain consciousness, therefore....

[Steve]

Go ask a solopsist.

But seriously just read David Mo's posts, he explained it multiple times in different ways in this very thread. I have never even read a philosophy book, just about all I know about it I read on this forum, with forays to Wikipedia for clarification.

But none that that stand up to scrutiny IMO.

 

[Cheetah]

Google "Epistemological solipsism".

All you have to accept is that the fact that you think and that all your experiences are secondhand and not real, if you can do that it can make sense, if not, it does not.
Of course me and everyone else, apart from possibly one poster, think solipsism is nonsense, but I understand the point of view intellectually. I thought David Mo explained things very nicely.

 

[RecoveringYuppy]

Go ask a solopsist.

But seriously just read David Mo's posts, he explained it multiple times in different ways in this very thread.

I have never even read a philosophy book, just about all I know about it I read on this forum, with forays to Wikipedia for clarification.

Choosing to believe in solipsism is purely a matter of personal choice. As the anti-solispists have pointed out, it is unfalsifiable. That means there is no evidence based reason for rejecting or accepting it.

 

[David Mo]

Thanks for your posts David Mo, I appreciate your patience and clear communication.

IanS, I think David, in his role as "solipsist", has answered your questions, you are just not quite managing to put yourself into the head of a solipsist and understand his point of view.

The problem is that the solipsist does not trust anything to be real, unless he can experience it directly. All that you experience via your senses takes place in your mind and is therefore secondhand and not real to him. All he can say for sure is that he is and thinks, there is no doubt about that, it is firsthand.
How a mind can exist without a brain therefore makes no sense, you have to prove a brain exists first and you cannot do so without using your senses, which are not to be trusted. Stalemate.

Thank you, Cheetah.
You summed up the situation perfectly.

It seems to me that there are people who do not understand that "the solipsist" is a logical problem, not a real person.

 

[David Mo]

Let the SCD be the abstract sequence creation device, that which produces the sequence of symbols which constitute our observations. So for example if we constantly let go off something ("L") and it falls down ("F") then the SCD would have produced "LFLFLFLF". Science is the goal of compressing that sequence, through finding regularities in it. So science would have given us a law of gravity "L -> LF" and compressed the sequence to "LLLL".

Can you translate this into an understandable language? I don't understand all these acronyms.

Now, methodological naturalism. Methodological naturalism isn't the assertion that the SCD should be considered "as if" materialism were true, that's just how materialists interpret it (I'm starting to think some materialists have serious ego issues, only being able to see anything else as a validation of their specific arbitrary ontological choice ). Methodological naturalism is the assertion that all the symbols produced by the SCD are there because of some, in principle knowable, rules, that the SCD operates by such rules. Or differently, it's the assertion that magic doesn't exist, symbols don't appear for no reason.

I don't think your psychological analysis of materialists makes sense. You don't seem to like them, but debates don't work out that way.
The materialist tends to believe that his ontology is correct because the spiritualist has failed a thousand times to explain and predict the facts. That is a good reason, even if it might be wrong.

 

[David Mo]

From what I remember, most idealistic beliefs lead to some sort of "oneness", so you could argue they are "solipsistic".

Maybe in some sense, because they don't feel themselves as solipsists.

 

[David Mo]

The issue for Larry (and the solpolist) is that they are simply assuming they experience things "directly", just as the realist assumes there is a world they are "indirectly" experiencing.

Neither stance (at the moment) can be "proven" to be 100% the truth as both rely on an assumption.

One ,stance however results in things that work

Imagine that you are seeing a cow. Can you deny that you have the image of a cow? No.
Can you deny that this cow really exists? Yes; it may be an hallucination.
The image of a cow in your mind is directly perceived. The existence of a cow is an inference. Almost immediate, but inference. It is not directly perceived.

There is not any difference in the practical consequences of solipsism and realism. There are differences of beliefs about the nature of sensations and ideas but a consistent solipsist can behave the same than you and me.

The realist doesn't have to prove that something exists. He just has to show that treating things that appear to exist as if they really do exist is useful. Which it is. The solipsist, on the other hand, has to show that treating things that appear to exist as if they are only figments is useful. Which it isn't. Check mate, solipsist.

I repeat, There is no difference between the behaviour of a solipsist and a realist. When the realist believes that he is operating with things the solipsist thinks he is manipulating impressions and ideas. But the practical outcome would be the same.

I think you misjudged the play. There was no checkmate because the king slipped again. The solipsist is a tough player. Slippery as an eel.

 

[IanS]

Thanks for your posts David Mo, I appreciate your patience and clear communication.

IanS, I think David, in his role as "solipsist", has answered your questions, you are just not quite managing to put yourself into the head of a solipsist and understand his point of view.

The problem is that the solipsist does not trust anything to be real, unless he can experience it directly. All that you experience via your senses takes place in your mind and is therefore secondhand and not real to him. All he can say for sure is that he is and thinks, there is no doubt about that, it is firsthand.

How a mind can exist without a brain therefore makes no sense, you have to prove a brain exists first and you cannot do so without using your senses, which are not to be trusted. Stalemate.

Well firstly David Mo has repeatedly said he is not a solipsist, he does not believe the world is unreal. So I am asking him, as a real person posting here, what he could give as the explanation for how any consciousness can arise without the reality of a brain ... what is the answer to that? ...

... David's answer is that he has no answer! ... he cannot explain how it could be possible.

But when you just described someone (unnamed, unidentified) who is said to be a "solipsist", you just said "put yourself into the head of a solipsist .." ... so you say this solipsist has a "head"??? ... where did any "solipsist" ever get a "head"?? ... the thing that you are describing as a "solipsist" is being described by you to be a disembodied consciousness (not a real adult person like David mo!), i.e. you are describing it to be merely thoughts that exist without the reality of a body!! ... so where did this "head" come from??

No! You are mixing up the the claim that real philosophers make when they say that reality does not exist, or that it may not exist, mixing-up that with a supposed hypothetical entity that can exist without a head or brain or anything else!... and you are calling that "the solipsist".

All that that you have is a claim from real existing people (philosophers, and people here who are impressed by philosophy), who claim that perhaps only their own thoughts exist ... OK well in that case the question is not merely entirely valid, it's absolutely crucial, if they cannot answer that question then their claims of solipsism vanish - how can any philosopher, or anyone here/anywhere, explain the existence of "consciousness" (i.e. just thoughts) without the need for a brain? ...

... and if you try to take the position of that claimed one-&-only disembodied consciousness, how how do you as a mere disembodied consciousness, explain the existence of your own thoughts and claims ... what is producing your thoughts and ideas? ... what is the cause of any such "consciousness"?

In fact who does that one-&-only consciousness (you in your example!) claim that it's talking to when it simultaneously claims that reality does not exist and also claims that it does exist?? IOW - in your own claim of putting yourself in the position of a disembodied consciousness for which you say you have no need to explain what was producing your consciousness, you are not only making that claim, but also you are yourself writing this reply which I am giving to you here, i.e. a reply in which your are totally contradicting yourself by claiming two completely opposing arguments at once! ... you as the disembodied solipsist-mind are just proving that you are in a state perpetual & immdeiate self-contradiction!

Those are not just my questions ... those are fundamental questions which anyone must answer if they claim un-reality. Because unless you can find a credible answer to those questions then you have no basis for any claim of solipsism (you have no basis for making the claim of un-reality).

As for your last sentence where you say this How a mind can exist without a brain therefore makes no sense, you have to prove a brain exists first and you cannot do so without using your senses, which are not to be trusted. Stalemate ... No! No, we do not have to firstly prove that a brain exists ... when you say things like that you are just trying shift what is called "the burden of proof" ... it does not matter whether we call it a “brain” or not … if you take that position of a disembodied solipsist mind then you have to explain what is causing or allowing you to exist as any thoughts at all … you may not want to answer that question, and you may even claim (as David Mo just did, and as you seem to be supporting) that you as the disembodied mind have no need to explain that to yourself, but if you are right to claim that only one solipsist mind exists then your own same solipsist mind is writing this very post here to to tell you that you do need to explain where your thoughts come from, so you are say both opposing things at once! … and that means the burden is most definitely upon you (since for start, you claim there is nobody else existing ever to have any burden of proof).

 

[Cheetah]

Well firstly David Mo has repeatedly said he is not a solipsist, he does not believe the world is unreal. So I am asking him, as a real person posting here, what he could give as the explanation for how any consciousness can arise without the reality of a brain ... what is the answer to that?

My answer is it can not, it needs a physical substrate, and I think David will agree, so?

... David's answer is that he has no answer! ... he cannot explain how it could be possible.

He was answering as a hypothetical solipsist, not as himself and that was not quite his answer.

But when you just described someone (unnamed, unidentified) who is said to be a "solipsist", you just said "put yourself into the head of a solipsist .." ... so you say this solipsist has a "head"??? ... where did any "solipsist" ever get a "head"??

It is a manner of speaking, it means mind.

All that that you have is a claim from real existing people (philosophers, and people here who are impressed by philosophy), who claim that perhaps only their own thoughts exist ...

Sure it is only a claim, but one that is unfalsifiable, like god.

... No! No, we do not have to firstly prove that a brain exists ... when you say things like that you are just trying shift what is called "the burden of proof" ... it does not matter whether we call it a “brain” or not … if you take that position of a disembodied solipsist mind then you have to explain what is causing or allowing you to exist as any thoughts at all …

The principle is simple, I will repeat it.

If you can think you must have a mind, no doubt about it.
Everything you experience happens in your mind.
IOW what you experience is not real, but a process in your mind.

Do you agree with the above?

 

[Darat]

Google "Epistemological solipsism".

All you have to accept is that the fact that you think and that all your experiences are secondhand and not real, if you can do that it can make sense, if not, it does not.
Of course me and everyone else, apart from possibly one poster, think solipsism is nonsense, but I understand the point of view intellectually. I thought David Mo explained things very nicely.

That should be "assume".

 

[Cheetah]

That should be "assume".

No, it really should not.

 

[Darat]

Imagine that you are seeing a cow. Can you deny that you have the image of a cow? No.

Yes - I can't imagine any such thing. I have no minds-eye.

Can you deny that this cow really exists? Yes; it may be an hallucination.
The image of a cow in your mind is directly perceived. The existence of a cow is an inference. Almost immediate, but inference. It is not directly perceived.

Agreed,

There is not any difference in the practical consequences of solipsism and realism. There are differences of beliefs about the nature of sensations and ideas but a consistent solipsist can behave the same than you and me.

Agreed.

I repeat, There is no difference between the behaviour of a solipsist and a realist. When the realist believes that he is operating with things the solipsist thinks he is manipulating impressions and ideas. But the practical outcome would be the same.

I agree that is what the solipsist would claim.

I think you misjudged the play. There was no checkmate because the king slipped again. The solipsist is a tough player. Slippery as an eel.

But again the reason such an entity was introduced into the thread was to support LarryS's claim that his viewpoint does not rely on an assumption that "external" reality exists, which I agree it doesn't but it does rely on an assumption that his experience, his internal reality exists.

 

[Darat]

No, it really should not.

Yes it is - the solpolist has to start with an assumption that their experience is real.

 

[IanS]

The problem is that the solipsist does not trust anything to be real, unless he can experience it directly. .

One more point re the above - what do you actually mean by asking for a so-called "experience" to had "directly"?

That sounds to me as if you are asking for things to be detected or "experienced" without any means of "detection" or "experiencing" any such things.

I did cover that same point in several earlier posts - whatever means of detection anyone had, even if it was an advanced space alien with some detection method that was not a brain & sensory system, you could always still claim that whatever means it used would not be truly "direct" detection or "experiencing" .

IOW - when you ask for things to be detected/experienced "directly", it seems you are deliberately insisting on an impossibility ... i.e., it looks as if that is only a form of words being used to rule out any argument except the one that will allow you to claim your are right.

To put that another way – what will you allow as a “direct” experience of anything?

Please do not say that your own thoughts are a direct experience, because if you say that, then you will have to explain what is causing/producing any such thoughts/consciousness in the first place … so that's just the same question all over again – how are you able to produce any thoughts at all? … what is the cause or reason for what you call your “consciousness”?

 

[IanS]

Well firstly David Mo has repeatedly said he is not a solipsist, he does not believe the world is unreal. So I am asking him, as a real person posting here, what he could give as the explanation for how any consciousness can arise without the reality of a brain ... what is the answer to that? ...

My answer is it can not, it needs a physical substrate, and I think David will agree, so?

He was answering as a hypothetical solipsist, not as himself and that was not quite his answer.


It is a manner of speaking, it means mind.


Sure it is only a claim, but one that is unfalsifiable, like god.



The principle is simple, I will repeat it.

If you can think you must have a mind, no doubt about it.
Everything you experience happens in your mind.
IOW what you experience is not real, but a process in your mind.

Do you agree with the above?

I'm happy to reply on the other points, but I think the answer to the first highlighted point makes all other answers redundant, so I can keep this fairly short by just answering that one –

- as soon as you admit the need for a “brain” then you admit the need for external reality … i.e. it's something which you have then agreed to as existing separately as the cause of what you call your "conscious thoughts".

Please do not say that the "brain" is not real either, because then you will just be asked where the brain came from and what caused that to be a thing producing any "conscious thoughts". And keep in mind here that we/science are not claiming a "proof" of reality ... all we can ever talk about (any of us) is what appears to be the most reasonable answer that fits best with anything we can detect as "evidence" ... we are just arguing about which is the most convincing explanation, either the scientific one or else the philosophical solipsist-type one.

 

[IanS]

The principle is simple, I will repeat it.

If you can think you must have a mind, no doubt about it.
Everything you experience happens in your mind.
IOW what you experience is not real, but a process in your mind.

Do you agree with the above?

No, actually I do not agree with those sentences in the way that you have phrased them, and I think that as I said much earlier in this thread, this looks very much like it's becoming a game of getting tangled up with words/semantics, just like so much of philosophy seems to descend into.

OK, so to explain what I disagree with in your above “principle” -

When you say “IOW what you experience is not real, but a process in your mind” … what do you actually mean by that word “experiencing”? … what is happening is that you have a sensory system that is exchanging electrochemical processes back and forth to the brain, and the brain is creating an impression of that very real input from the sensory system. That's what I think you are calling your “experience”.

But as far as any of us can honestly tell, that “experience” created by the functioning of the brain, is dependent entirely upon real input from a real sensory system which is detecting a real world around us.

The “experience” is a re-construction of the real world that is being detected by our sensory system. Afaik, if our sensory system never worked at all, i.e. if we had no sensory system, then the human brain would not be capable of producing any so-called thoughts or consciousness or “experience” of any kind. IOW – the so-called “experience” in your brain/mind, cannot appear for no reason at all and unconnected to any external reality … it only ever produces images, thoughts, feelings or “experiences” that are either direct representations of sensed reality, or else memorised examples of reality or imagination drawn from reality … afaik it's hard (perhaps impossible?) to even conceive of any “experiences” that are not connected in such a way to what our sensory system detects as “reality” … e.g., try to think of something that has no connection at all with anything you could ever have sensed as “reality” … I'm not sure you can ever do that?

So just to summarise that, in case the point is lost – when you say “what you experience is not real, but a process in your mind” … that does not mean that the events shown to you in your “experience” only take place in your mind. On the contrary the events themselves are the reality that is being detected by your sensory system … all that is happening in your brain in order to produce what you call your “experience”, is that the normal functioning of the brain is causing a rapid interchange of that detected information back-&-forth with the sensory system, so that it appears to us as if it is a continuous awareness, whereas in fact all that is happening is that information is rapidly updating and changing every microsecond, rather like running a long strip of still photographic images through a movie camera to make it appear like “real life”. IOW – it's an effect … what we “experience” as conscious imagery and sensations, is an effect produced by the brain rapidly and constantly processing sensory input.

Just to comment on your other two lines (for the sake of completeness) -

When you say “If you can think you must have a mind, no doubt about it” … no, actually I do not quite agree with that either. And I think we should all retain an element of doubt or skepticism about that. Just because something seems inescapably true, or seems to be “self evident”, we have learned in science, and even more clearly in maths, that you should avoid ever thinking thinking like that, as if to tell yourself that anything is a certainty without actual “proof”. In fact, the history of maths is littered with cases where in the middle of often very complex calculations, one seemingly certain thing was assumed to be true but without an actual “proof”, and where it later turned out that the calculations were wrong, it very often turned out that it was the seemingly “certain” assumption that was wrong.

However, in the present case I think this might be just another example of arguing about words, or of philosophical statements becoming misleading in their choice of words. That is - “if you can think”, then I agree something must be happening, but whether or not that means “you must have a mind”, depends on what you mean by a “mind”! … what science means by a “mind” is in effect the physical structure called your “brain” … as far as we can tell from all papers published in modern times by psychology, neuroscience and medicine … you cannot have a “mind” without the reality of a functioning brain. In fact afaik, you cannot have "consciousness, experiences, thoughts, a mind" etc. without a sensory system providing input to the brain.

OK, the last of your 3 points was to say “Everything you experience happens in your mind” … well again, No! Actually, not. You cannot say that everything you experience happens within your mind, because those “things” that you “experience” as thoughts in your mind, almost certainly all occur in reality outside of your mind/brain … what's happening in your mind/brain is only that you are re-creating an impression or sensation of that external reality. IOW I'm just saying that you need to be very careful in how you phrase any sentences like that – what you sense within your mind/brain as an experience of anything, does occur as a sensation within your "mind/brain”, but that does mean the events themselves are not happening outside of your mind in a real world, such that the only reason you are aware of any such events is simply because your sensory system is detecting those real events and causing the brain to create impressions of that external reality (the mentally created impressions are afaik, only ever just examples of inputs from vision, smell, hearing, touch etc. I.e., there are no other impressions or "experiences" except for those exact same sensations that are originally formed by the sensory system prior to any function of a brain/mind at all) … in fact, as we should all know, that is almost certainly what is happening … what you say are all “experiences in your mind” are simply rapidly updating sensations of reality being detected by your sensory system.

 

[IanS]

Google "Epistemological solipsism".

All you have to accept is that the fact that you think and that all your experiences are secondhand and not real, if you can do that it can make sense, if not, it does not.
Of course me and everyone else, apart from possibly one poster, think solipsism is nonsense, but I understand the point of view intellectually. I thought David Mo explained things very nicely.

I think we all understand what those particular philosophers are claiming (the ones who endorse ideas of solipsism). But the difference is that most of us here do not believe their solipsism claim stands up to scrutiny for all the reasons which I & others have explained.

In particular I do not think they can avoid the need for explaining themselves merely by saying they have no need to explain how consciousness could ever occur without a brain (or equivalent detection system).

Their claim is that only consciousness exists. But when asked how any such consciousness exists, i.e. asked what causes it, they say (well, David Mo eventually said, and you apparently agreed with him), there is no need to answer any such question. But that of course is no sort of answer at all.

If any philosopher makes a claim of solipsism, or even says that it could be possible, then he/she really must take responsibility for their own claims and explain how that could possibly happen without any cause for the "consciousness".

But afaik they never give any kind of honest credible answer to that question.

I suspect the reason for refusing to answer is that as soon as you suggest any kind of cause at all, you automatically invoke reality. ....

... and that is where the buck seems to stop ... it stops with the philosophical side being unable to justify their claim in any credible way at all.

 

[David Mo]

I apologize, but I will not reply to the comments one by one. You have written too many and I cannot go into all of them in detail. I'll try to explain what I'm doing. I thank Cheetah for clarifying a few things about my comments that I no longer need to clarify.

I'm not defending the position of the solipsist, which is not mine.
I'm trying to expose the solipsist position as correctly as I can. I cannot take it to its ultimate consequences because I do not know of any modern philosopher who is a solipsist, but I try to present what is commonly understood as solipsism as a logical problem and its implications.

I have also analysed the criticisms of solipsism that have been made here. They don't seem right to me. All of them start from the belief that impressions are impressions of real facts, which is precisely what the solipsist questions.

I am surprised that some people say that their conscience has direct contact with reality. That's nonsense.
When the mind/brain or whatever you want to call it is seeing a cow, it doesn't have a cow into the mind/brain. The mind/brain processes directly an image of the cow. That is what is in direct contact with consciousness. Then comes the inference that decides whether that brain/mental image corresponds to a cow-thing or not.
If we see a cow flying and singing God Save the Queen, we will infer that we are hallucinating. If the cow is grazing quietly in a green meadow, we will infer that we are seeing a real thing. (Note that I speak of mind/brain because whatever our ontology may be - realistic or idealistic - we have to admit what I just said: our mind only have direct contact with impressions in the mind).

Well, what the solipsist does is to put in question our inference. He sees no reason to believe that ideas in the mind are based on things. Now we are obligated to justify our belief, not him. This justification has not been given here.

To say that we see things directly is not true.
To say that science says this or that does not affect the issue because science, and even more, the idea of science that a solipsist may have is nothing more than a set of ideas put together. More or less complex, but ideas.
To say that his belief will negatively affect his behaviour is not true. The solipsist will act according to his impressions, which are the same as ours. Then his rational behaviour will be the same as ours.


Do we have to surrender to their closed and stubborn defence?
I don't think so. I think what we have to do is to change our tactics. And if you are interested in knowing which one is mine, I have no objection to explain it. But for the record, for the moment I have only mentioned it in passing. Don't confuse me with a solipsist, please.

 

[caveman1917]

Can you translate this into an understandable language? I don't understand all these acronyms.

I'm sorry but I just can't be bothered to start writing out an introduction on this. I'm going to give you a wiki link and you can go off on your own from there to understand the idea behind my argument.

I don't think your psychological analysis of materialists makes sense. You don't seem to like them, but debates don't work out that way.
The materialist tends to believe that his ontology is correct because the spiritualist has failed a thousand times to explain and predict the facts. That is a good reason, even if it might be wrong.

That has nothing to do with materialism. Materialists tend to take the package "science + materialism" and win against those using the package "non-science + non-materialism" but the victory is due to the science over non-science, not materialism over non-materialism. Someone using the package "science + solipsism" would explain and predict the facts just as well.

 

[David Mo]

That has nothing to do with materialism. Materialists tend to take the package "science + materialism" and win against those using the package "non-science + non-materialism" but the victory is due to the science over non-science, not materialism over non-materialism. Someone using the package "science + solipsism" would explain and predict the facts just as well.

Maybe, but nobody really thinks that he is the only thing in the world. Therefore the true debate is between the diverse branches of realism. Materialism is usually opposed to dualism, not to solipsism.

Don't confuse a logical paradox with a real debate, please.

Thank you for the link. I see it when I get some time.