I don’t get why it’s still not mainstream that panpsychism with weak illusionism about “self” solves the Hard Problem. It’s not even that unintuitive to think “I am made from the same stuff as rocks, therefore rocks are conscious”. Any difference with rocks, bats, counties, you and you, when you was a meter to the left, are of easy, non-mysterious, ethical kind.
I don’t get why it’s still not mainstream that panpsychism with weak illusionism about “self” solves the Hard Problem.
In the sense that shooting someone and also cutting off their head kills them. It’s not clear why would need both … and there are good arguments against each.
What is hard about the hard problem is the requirement to explain consciousness, particularly conscious experience, in terms of a physical ontology. Its the combination of the two that makes it hard. Which is to say that the problem can be sidestepped by either denying consciousness, or adopting a non-physicalist ontology.
Examples of non-physical ontologies include dualism, panpsychism and idealism . These are not faced with the Hard Problem, as such, because they are able to say that subjective, qualia, just are what they are, without facing any need to offer a reductive explanation of them. But they have problems of their own, mainly that physicalism is so succedsful in other areas.
Eliminative materialism and illusionism, on the other hand, deny that there is anything to be explained, thereby implying there is no problem, But these approaches also remain unsatisfactory because of the compelling subjective evidence for consciousness.
Well, the trick is that panpsychism is physicalist in broad sense, as they say. After all it’s not like physicalist deny the concept of existence, and saying that the thing, that is different between us and zombies, that we call “consciousness”, is actually that thing that physicalist call “reality” does not make it unphysical and doesn’t prevent physicalism from working where it worked before. It’s all definitional anyway—if panpsychism solves everything, then it doesn’t matter whether it is physicalist or not.
If you make “physical” broad enough, it ceases to mean anything, and everything is compatible with it. That’s not a just a problem for panpsychism: physicalists are often in the position of fervently defending something they can only vaguely define. But if you try to make physicalism precise, it turns out that the concept of reductionism is the one doing the work: the idea that the only fundamental properties are physical ones, and all higher level properties must be explicable in terms of lower level ones.
if panpsychism solves everything, then it doesn’t matter whether it is physicalist or not.
Matters to whom? There’s no shortage of people who would rather leave cosnsciosuness unexplained (or illusory or non existent) than abandon physicalism.
The Hard Problem is basically “what part of the equation for wavefunction of the universe says that we are not zombies”. The answer of panpsychism is “the part where we say that it is real”. When you imagining waking up made of cold silicon and not feeling anything, you imagining not existing.
Non-fundamental “self” is there just to solve decomposition problem—there is no isolation of qualia, just qualia of isolation. And it works because it is easier to argue that you can be wrong about some particular aspects of consciousness (like there being fundamentally distinct conscious “selfs”, or the difference between your current experience of blue sky and your experience of the same blue sky in the past) than that you can be wrong about there being consciousness at all.
It doesn’t answer what all the interesting differences between rocks and human brains are, but these differences are not “Hard” or mysterious—only the difference between zombies and us is “Hard”. Interesting parts are just hard to answer because they depend on what you want to know. And if you want to know whether something have that basic spark of consciousness, then the answer is that everything has it.
The Hard Problem is basically “what part of the equation for wavefunction of the universe says that we are not zombies”. The answer of panpsychism is “the part where we say that it is real”.
I don’t think I understand. I would say that the Hard Problem is more “why and how do we have subjective experience, rather than experiencing nothing”. If you say that “everything has it”, that doesn’t seem to answer the question—okay, everything is conscious, but why and how is everything conscious?
Oh, and if by “why and how is everything conscious” you mean “why believe in panpsychism” and not “what causes consciousness in panpsychist view” then, first, it’s less about how panpsychism solves The Hard Problem, and more about why accept this particular solution. So, moving goalposts and all that^^. I don’t quite understand why would someone be so reluctant to accept any solution that is kinda physicalist and kinda non-epiphenomenal, considering people say that they don’t even understand how solution would look in principle. But there are reasons why panpsychism is the only acceptable solution: if consciousness influences physical world, then it either requires new physics (including strong emergence), or it is present in everything. You can detect difference between different states of mind with just weak emergence, but only “cogito, ergo sum” doesn’t also work in zombie world.
why and how do we have subjective experience, rather than experiencing nothing
Because we exist. “Because” not in the sense of casual dependency, but in the sense of equivalence. The point is that we have two concepts (existence and consciousness) that represent the same thing in reality. “Why they are the same” is equivalent to “why there is no additional “consciousness” thing” and that is just asking why reality is like it is. And it is not the same as saying “it’s just the way world is, that we have subjective experience” right away—panpsychism additionally states that not only we have experience, and provides a place for consciousness in purely physical worldview.
And for “how”—well, it’s the question of the nature of existence, because there is no place for mechanism between existence and consciousness—they are just the same thing. So, for example, different physical
configurations mean different (but maybe indistinguishable by agent) experiences. And not sure if it counts as “how”, but equivalence between consciousness and existence
means every specific aspect of consciousness can be analysed by usual scientific methods—“experience of seeng blue” can be emergent, while consciousness itself is fundamental.
I mean, sure, “why everything exists” is an open question, so it may seem like pointless redefinition. But if we started with two problems and ended with one, then one of them is solved.
But the problems with existence don’t become more severe because of merging of “existence” and “consciousness” concepts. On the contrary: before we didn’t have any concrete idea of what it would mean to exist or not, but now we can at least use our intuitions about consciousness instead. And, on the other hand, all problematic aspects of consciousness (like surprising certainty about having it) are contained in existence.
Amusingly, I’ve just got from a flight where I put my backpack into my bag, so I could use it for luggage on the return flight^^.
Weakly illusory—meaning non-fundamental. Being illusionist about any consciousness at all I can see as problematic, but is “self is just an ethical construct” is so controversial?
As for panpsychism, I think Strawson’s argument pretty much doesn’t leave viable alternatives: you can only choose between new physics, epiphenomenalism, panpsychism and strong illusionism (“there is no such thing as consciousness”). Epiphenomenalism requires coincidence (“I am conscious, I think I am conscious, but that facts aren’t connected in any way”). And if your bet is for new physics that works only in brains (including strong emergence in sufficiently complex computations or whatever), well, good luck. That leaves illusionism, but even if you don’t care what part of the Schrödinger equation says that we are not zombies, how is saying that there is no Hard Problem is better than having a solution?
Again, all of it is just to solve the mysterious part—there are still differences and similarities between computational processes, and there even may be something mathematically interesting going on with attention/awareness (personally I think something like global workspace is right, because you need a tape for a Turing machine, and plenty of Python programs do the same thing).
That makes of “weakly” a weasel word, that sucks the meaning out of the concept it is attached to. What would it be, for something to be or not be “fundamental”? You could argue (and some do) that nothing is fundamental, but then it says nothing of the self in particular that it is not “fundamental”.
“self is just an ethical construct”
How did ethics come into it?
you can only choose between [list]
These are just some ideas that people have thought up. I don’t have to choose any of them. I can simply say: neither I nor anyone else has any idea how to solve the hard problem. No-one even knows what a solution would look like. No-one even knows how there could be a solution. Yet here we are, stubbornly conscious in a world where everything we know about how things work has no place for it. That is the hard problem. Every purported solution I have seen amounts to either grabbing onto one side of the contradiction and insisting the other side is therefore false, or saying “la la la can’t hear you” to the question.
Well, it would be strange for “weakly” to strengthen, would it?^^ There is still may be a difference between “self” not existing in the sense unicorns don’t exist, and “self” not existing precisely in the way people hope it to exist. By “non-fundamental” I mean the way tables are non-fundamental as opposed to the universe—tables are just approximate description of a part of universe, where the universe itself is actually real. And you would only need approximate descriptions for their usefulness/utility/value—therefore ethics. I am not arguing for “fundamental/emergent” being meaningful distinction here. Just that, nevermind over things, “self” is more like a table.
I can simply say: neither I nor anyone else has any idea how to solve the hard problem. No-one even knows what a solution would look like. No-one even knows how there could be a solution. Yet here we are, stubbornly conscious in a world where everything we know about how things work has no place for it.
You can, but I argue you would be wrong—panpsychism is the solution and the place for mysterious part of consciousness in how things work is in that these things are real. There are arguments for why there are no other options—whatever consciousness is, it either does or does not influence how neurons work, for example. And assuming panpsychism, there are answers to all of the usual questions about consciousness, like if you simulate a brain that feels pain, there would be an experience, but whether it is the same experience is an ethical question and therefore ultimately arbitrary. Well, all questions modulo open questions about existence, like what happens when your quantum measure decrease. I wouldn’t describe it as any side of contradiction, as reality is kinda assumed in materialism, but on the other hand panpsychism says that consciousness is (fundamental feature of) existence… But anyway, it’s not strictly implied by what you said, but is you main objection to panpsychism is how it interacts with “self”?
If selves exist in the same way that tables exist, that’s good enough for me. *kicks table* There’s nothing illusory about tables. Yes, they’re made of parts, so are selves, but that doesn’t make them illusions.
And assuming panpsychism, there are answers to all of the usual questions about consciousness
Here are a few questions:
How can I study the consciousness of a rock?
How can I compare the consciousness of a small rock vs. a big one?
What happens to the consciousness of an iceberg when it melts and mingles with the ocean?
Am I conscious when I am unconscious? When I am dead?
What observations could you show me that would surprise me, if I believed (as I do, for want of anything to suggest otherwise) that rocks and water have no consciousness at all?
is you main objection to panpsychism is how it interacts with “self”?
My main objection to panpsychism is that it makes no observable predictions. It pretends to solve the problem of consciousness by simply attaching the word to everything.
Yeah, I agree that calling it illusionism was a bad idea.
How can I study the consciousness of a rock?
How can I compare the consciousness of a small rock vs. a big one?
As in all these questions, it depends on whether you want to study that consciousness which the Hard Problem is about, or the “difference between conscious and unconscious”-one. For the former it’s just a study of physics—there is a difference between being a granite rock and a limestone rock. The experience would be different, but, of course, indistinguishable to the rock. If you want to study the later one, you would need to decide what features you care about—similarity to computational processes in the brain, for example—and study them. You can conclude that rock doesn’t have any amount of that kind of consciousness, but there still would be a difference between real rock and rock zombie—in zombie world reassembling rock into a brain wouldn’t give it consciousness in the mysterious sense. I understand, if it would start to sound like eliminativism at this point, but the whole point of non-ridiculous panpsychism is that it doesn’t provide rocks with any human experiences like seeing red—the difference would be as much as you can expect between rock and human, but there still have to be an experience of being a rock, for any experience to not be epiphenomenal.
What happens to the consciousness of an iceberg when it melts and mingles with the ocean?
It melts and mingles with the ocean. EDIT: There is no need for two different languages, because there is only one kind of things. When you say “I see the blue sky” you approximately describe the part of you brain.
Am I conscious when I am unconscious? When I am dead?
In the sense of the difference between zombies and us—yes, you would be having an experience of being dead. In the sense of there being relevant brain processes—no, if you don’t want to bring quantum immortality or dust theory.
What observations could you show me that would surprise me, if I believed (as I do, for want of anything to suggest otherwise) that rocks and water have no consciousness at all?
If you count logic as observation: that belief leads to contradiction. Well, “confusion” or whatever the Hard Problem is—if you didn’t believe that, then there would’t be a Hard Problem. The surprising part is not that there is a contradiction—everyone expects contradictions when dealing with consciousness—it’s that this particular belief is all you need to correct to clear all the confusion. You probably better off reading Strawson or Chalmers than listening to me, but it goes like that:
Rocks and water have no consciousness at all.
You can create brain from rocks and water.
Brains have consciousness.
Only epiphenomenal things can emerge.
Consciousness is not epiphenomenal.
It pretends to solve the problem of consciousness by simply attaching the word to everything.
Well, what parts of the problem are not solved by attaching the word to everything?
Well, what parts of the problem are not solved by attaching the word to everything?
All of it.
1. Rocks and water have no consciousness at all.
2. You can create brain from rocks and water.
3. Brains have consciousness.
4. Only epiphenomenal things can emerge.
5. Consciousness is not epiphenomenal.
I agree with all of that except 4. (A piano “emerges” from putting together its parts. But there is nothing epiphenomenal about it, as anyone who has had a piano fall on them will know.) But it gets no farther to explaining consciousness.
If you count logic as observation: that belief leads to contradiction.
Logic as observation observes through the lens of an ontology. If the ontology is wrong, it doesn’t matter how watertight the logic is.
I agree with all of that except 4. (A piano “emerges” from putting together its parts. But there is nothing epiphenomenal about it, as anyone who has had a piano fall on them will know.) But it gets no farther to explaining consciousness.
The charitable reading of 4 would be that the piano has no causal powers beyond those of its parts: it’s a piano-shaped bunch of quarks and electrons that crushes you.
A piano-shaped bunch of quarks and electrons is a piano. The causal powers of the piano are exactly the same as a piano-shaped bunch of quarks and electrons. Mentioning the quarks and electrons is doing no work, because we can talk of pianos without knowing anything about quarks and electrons.
It’s the quarks and electrons that are epiphenomenal to the piano, not the other way round.
A piano-shaped bunch of quarks and electrons is a piano. The causal powers of the piano are exactly the same as a piano-shaped bunch of quarks and electrons. Mentioning the quarks and electrons is doing no work, because we can talk of pianos without knowing anything about quarks and electrons.
That’s what I meant: if two things are identical, they have identical causal powers. The Singer/Strawson argument seems to be that nothing exists or causes anything unless it is strongly emergent.
Less like I oppose ever using words “exist” and “causes” for non-fundamental things, and more like doing it is what makes it vulnerable to conceivability argument in the first place: the only casual power that brain has and rock hasn’t comes from different configuration of quarks in space, but quarks are in the same places in zombie world.
The Hard Problem according to your description is that there is no place for consciousness in how things work. Why then making everything to be that place is not considered as solving the problem?
And about emergence—what TAG said. I also strongly agree about the importance of the ontology.
You can’t “make everything be conscious”. The thing we have experience of and call consciousness works however it works. It is present wherever it is present. It takes whatever different forms it takes. How it works, where it is present, and what forms it takes cannot be affected by pointing at everything and saying “it’s conscious!”
Make in my mind. Of course you can’t change reality by shuffling concepts. But the idea is that all the ways consciousness works that are problematic are separate from other (easy) aspects of consciousness. So consciousness works how it worked before—you see clouds because something made you neurons activate in that pattern. You just recognise that confusing parts of consciousness (that I think all boil down to the zombie argument) are actually what we call “existence”.
I don’t get why it’s still not mainstream that panpsychism with weak illusionism about “self” solves the Hard Problem. It’s not even that unintuitive to think “I am made from the same stuff as rocks, therefore rocks are conscious”. Any difference with rocks, bats, counties, you and you, when you was a meter to the left, are of easy, non-mysterious, ethical kind.
In the sense that shooting someone and also cutting off their head kills them. It’s not clear why would need both … and there are good arguments against each.
What is hard about the hard problem is the requirement to explain consciousness, particularly conscious experience, in terms of a physical ontology. Its the combination of the two that makes it hard. Which is to say that the problem can be sidestepped by either denying consciousness, or adopting a non-physicalist ontology.
Examples of non-physical ontologies include dualism, panpsychism and idealism . These are not faced with the Hard Problem, as such, because they are able to say that subjective, qualia, just are what they are, without facing any need to offer a reductive explanation of them. But they have problems of their own, mainly that physicalism is so succedsful in other areas.
Eliminative materialism and illusionism, on the other hand, deny that there is anything to be explained, thereby implying there is no problem, But these approaches also remain unsatisfactory because of the compelling subjective evidence for consciousness.
Well, the trick is that panpsychism is physicalist in broad sense, as they say. After all it’s not like physicalist deny the concept of existence, and saying that the thing, that is different between us and zombies, that we call “consciousness”, is actually that thing that physicalist call “reality” does not make it unphysical and doesn’t prevent physicalism from working where it worked before. It’s all definitional anyway—if panpsychism solves everything, then it doesn’t matter whether it is physicalist or not.
If you make “physical” broad enough, it ceases to mean anything, and everything is compatible with it. That’s not a just a problem for panpsychism: physicalists are often in the position of fervently defending something they can only vaguely define. But if you try to make physicalism precise, it turns out that the concept of reductionism is the one doing the work: the idea that the only fundamental properties are physical ones, and all higher level properties must be explicable in terms of lower level ones.
Matters to whom? There’s no shortage of people who would rather leave cosnsciosuness unexplained (or illusory or non existent) than abandon physicalism.
Well, how do those solve the hard problem?
The Hard Problem is basically “what part of the equation for wavefunction of the universe says that we are not zombies”. The answer of panpsychism is “the part where we say that it is real”. When you imagining waking up made of cold silicon and not feeling anything, you imagining not existing.
Non-fundamental “self” is there just to solve decomposition problem—there is no isolation of qualia, just qualia of isolation. And it works because it is easier to argue that you can be wrong about some particular aspects of consciousness (like there being fundamentally distinct conscious “selfs”, or the difference between your current experience of blue sky and your experience of the same blue sky in the past) than that you can be wrong about there being consciousness at all.
It doesn’t answer what all the interesting differences between rocks and human brains are, but these differences are not “Hard” or mysterious—only the difference between zombies and us is “Hard”. Interesting parts are just hard to answer because they depend on what you want to know. And if you want to know whether something have that basic spark of consciousness, then the answer is that everything has it.
I don’t think I understand. I would say that the Hard Problem is more “why and how do we have subjective experience, rather than experiencing nothing”. If you say that “everything has it”, that doesn’t seem to answer the question—okay, everything is conscious, but why and how is everything conscious?
Oh, and if by “why and how is everything conscious” you mean “why believe in panpsychism” and not “what causes consciousness in panpsychist view” then, first, it’s less about how panpsychism solves The Hard Problem, and more about why accept this particular solution. So, moving goalposts and all that^^. I don’t quite understand why would someone be so reluctant to accept any solution that is kinda physicalist and kinda non-epiphenomenal, considering people say that they don’t even understand how solution would look in principle. But there are reasons why panpsychism is the only acceptable solution: if consciousness influences physical world, then it either requires new physics (including strong emergence), or it is present in everything. You can detect difference between different states of mind with just weak emergence, but only “cogito, ergo sum” doesn’t also work in zombie world.
Because we exist. “Because” not in the sense of casual dependency, but in the sense of equivalence. The point is that we have two concepts (existence and consciousness) that represent the same thing in reality. “Why they are the same” is equivalent to “why there is no additional “consciousness” thing” and that is just asking why reality is like it is. And it is not the same as saying “it’s just the way world is, that we have subjective experience” right away—panpsychism additionally states that not only we have experience, and provides a place for consciousness in purely physical worldview.
And for “how”—well, it’s the question of the nature of existence, because there is no place for mechanism between existence and consciousness—they are just the same thing. So, for example, different physical configurations mean different (but maybe indistinguishable by agent) experiences. And not sure if it counts as “how”, but equivalence between consciousness and existence means every specific aspect of consciousness can be analysed by usual scientific methods—“experience of seeng blue” can be emergent, while consciousness itself is fundamental.
I mean, sure, “why everything exists” is an open question, so it may seem like pointless redefinition. But if we started with two problems and ended with one, then one of them is solved.
You won’t escape an excess baggage charge by putting both your suitcases into one big case.
But the problems with existence don’t become more severe because of merging of “existence” and “consciousness” concepts. On the contrary: before we didn’t have any concrete idea of what it would mean to exist or not, but now we can at least use our intuitions about consciousness instead. And, on the other hand, all problematic aspects of consciousness (like surprising certainty about having it) are contained in existence.
Amusingly, I’ve just got from a flight where I put my backpack into my bag, so I could use it for luggage on the return flight^^.
Well, I don’t get how anyone can take panpsychism and illusory selves seriously, so there! :)
Weakly illusory—meaning non-fundamental. Being illusionist about any consciousness at all I can see as problematic, but is “self is just an ethical construct” is so controversial?
As for panpsychism, I think Strawson’s argument pretty much doesn’t leave viable alternatives: you can only choose between new physics, epiphenomenalism, panpsychism and strong illusionism (“there is no such thing as consciousness”). Epiphenomenalism requires coincidence (“I am conscious, I think I am conscious, but that facts aren’t connected in any way”). And if your bet is for new physics that works only in brains (including strong emergence in sufficiently complex computations or whatever), well, good luck. That leaves illusionism, but even if you don’t care what part of the Schrödinger equation says that we are not zombies, how is saying that there is no Hard Problem is better than having a solution?
Again, all of it is just to solve the mysterious part—there are still differences and similarities between computational processes, and there even may be something mathematically interesting going on with attention/awareness (personally I think something like global workspace is right, because you need a tape for a Turing machine, and plenty of Python programs do the same thing).
That makes of “weakly” a weasel word, that sucks the meaning out of the concept it is attached to. What would it be, for something to be or not be “fundamental”? You could argue (and some do) that nothing is fundamental, but then it says nothing of the self in particular that it is not “fundamental”.
How did ethics come into it?
These are just some ideas that people have thought up. I don’t have to choose any of them. I can simply say: neither I nor anyone else has any idea how to solve the hard problem. No-one even knows what a solution would look like. No-one even knows how there could be a solution. Yet here we are, stubbornly conscious in a world where everything we know about how things work has no place for it. That is the hard problem. Every purported solution I have seen amounts to either grabbing onto one side of the contradiction and insisting the other side is therefore false, or saying “la la la can’t hear you” to the question.
Well, it would be strange for “weakly” to strengthen, would it?^^ There is still may be a difference between “self” not existing in the sense unicorns don’t exist, and “self” not existing precisely in the way people hope it to exist. By “non-fundamental” I mean the way tables are non-fundamental as opposed to the universe—tables are just approximate description of a part of universe, where the universe itself is actually real. And you would only need approximate descriptions for their usefulness/utility/value—therefore ethics. I am not arguing for “fundamental/emergent” being meaningful distinction here. Just that, nevermind over things, “self” is more like a table.
You can, but I argue you would be wrong—panpsychism is the solution and the place for mysterious part of consciousness in how things work is in that these things are real. There are arguments for why there are no other options—whatever consciousness is, it either does or does not influence how neurons work, for example. And assuming panpsychism, there are answers to all of the usual questions about consciousness, like if you simulate a brain that feels pain, there would be an experience, but whether it is the same experience is an ethical question and therefore ultimately arbitrary. Well, all questions modulo open questions about existence, like what happens when your quantum measure decrease. I wouldn’t describe it as any side of contradiction, as reality is kinda assumed in materialism, but on the other hand panpsychism says that consciousness is (fundamental feature of) existence… But anyway, it’s not strictly implied by what you said, but is you main objection to panpsychism is how it interacts with “self”?
If selves exist in the same way that tables exist, that’s good enough for me. *kicks table* There’s nothing illusory about tables. Yes, they’re made of parts, so are selves, but that doesn’t make them illusions.
Here are a few questions:
How can I study the consciousness of a rock?
How can I compare the consciousness of a small rock vs. a big one?
What happens to the consciousness of an iceberg when it melts and mingles with the ocean?
Am I conscious when I am unconscious? When I am dead?
What observations could you show me that would surprise me, if I believed (as I do, for want of anything to suggest otherwise) that rocks and water have no consciousness at all?
My main objection to panpsychism is that it makes no observable predictions. It pretends to solve the problem of consciousness by simply attaching the word to everything.
Yeah, I agree that calling it illusionism was a bad idea.
As in all these questions, it depends on whether you want to study that consciousness which the Hard Problem is about, or the “difference between conscious and unconscious”-one. For the former it’s just a study of physics—there is a difference between being a granite rock and a limestone rock. The experience would be different, but, of course, indistinguishable to the rock. If you want to study the later one, you would need to decide what features you care about—similarity to computational processes in the brain, for example—and study them. You can conclude that rock doesn’t have any amount of that kind of consciousness, but there still would be a difference between real rock and rock zombie—in zombie world reassembling rock into a brain wouldn’t give it consciousness in the mysterious sense. I understand, if it would start to sound like eliminativism at this point, but the whole point of non-ridiculous panpsychism is that it doesn’t provide rocks with any human experiences like seeing red—the difference would be as much as you can expect between rock and human, but there still have to be an experience of being a rock, for any experience to not be epiphenomenal.
It melts and mingles with the ocean. EDIT: There is no need for two different languages, because there is only one kind of things. When you say “I see the blue sky” you approximately describe the part of you brain.
In the sense of the difference between zombies and us—yes, you would be having an experience of being dead. In the sense of there being relevant brain processes—no, if you don’t want to bring quantum immortality or dust theory.
If you count logic as observation: that belief leads to contradiction. Well, “confusion” or whatever the Hard Problem is—if you didn’t believe that, then there would’t be a Hard Problem. The surprising part is not that there is a contradiction—everyone expects contradictions when dealing with consciousness—it’s that this particular belief is all you need to correct to clear all the confusion. You probably better off reading Strawson or Chalmers than listening to me, but it goes like that:
Rocks and water have no consciousness at all.
You can create brain from rocks and water.
Brains have consciousness.
Only epiphenomenal things can emerge.
Consciousness is not epiphenomenal.
Well, what parts of the problem are not solved by attaching the word to everything?
All of it.
I agree with all of that except 4. (A piano “emerges” from putting together its parts. But there is nothing epiphenomenal about it, as anyone who has had a piano fall on them will know.) But it gets no farther to explaining consciousness.
Logic as observation observes through the lens of an ontology. If the ontology is wrong, it doesn’t matter how watertight the logic is.
The charitable reading of 4 would be that the piano has no causal powers beyond those of its parts: it’s a piano-shaped bunch of quarks and electrons that crushes you.
A piano-shaped bunch of quarks and electrons is a piano. The causal powers of the piano are exactly the same as a piano-shaped bunch of quarks and electrons. Mentioning the quarks and electrons is doing no work, because we can talk of pianos without knowing anything about quarks and electrons.
It’s the quarks and electrons that are epiphenomenal to the piano, not the other way round.
That’s what I meant: if two things are identical, they have identical causal powers. The Singer/Strawson argument seems to be that nothing exists or causes anything unless it is strongly emergent.
Less like I oppose ever using words “exist” and “causes” for non-fundamental things, and more like doing it is what makes it vulnerable to conceivability argument in the first place: the only casual power that brain has and rock hasn’t comes from different configuration of quarks in space, but quarks are in the same places in zombie world.
The Hard Problem according to your description is that there is no place for consciousness in how things work. Why then making everything to be that place is not considered as solving the problem?
And about emergence—what TAG said. I also strongly agree about the importance of the ontology.
You can’t “make everything be conscious”. The thing we have experience of and call consciousness works however it works. It is present wherever it is present. It takes whatever different forms it takes. How it works, where it is present, and what forms it takes cannot be affected by pointing at everything and saying “it’s conscious!”
Make in my mind. Of course you can’t change reality by shuffling concepts. But the idea is that all the ways consciousness works that are problematic are separate from other (easy) aspects of consciousness. So consciousness works how it worked before—you see clouds because something made you neurons activate in that pattern. You just recognise that confusing parts of consciousness (that I think all boil down to the zombie argument) are actually what we call “existence”.
Well, panpsychism is the claim that consciousness is fundamental , or at least co-fundamental with material properties.
Only? I would add dual-aspect neutral monism to that list;-)