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”.
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;-)