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”.
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”.