Yes, I think “is this me” is an ethical question, and I also think ethics is purely physical (or more specifically a concept which only affects reality via physical representations of itself). This post is mostly about trying to establish a foundation that “I” is necessarily a caused by a physical thing in our brain running a concept to approximately sort things into “me” and “not-me”, with some blurriness. More details of how “I” works and its importance are planned :).
Yes, I think “is this me” is an ethical question, and I also think ethics is purely physical (or more specifically a concept which only affects reality via physical representations of itself).
Well, let’s take for granted that there’s nothing that’s super-natural or anything like that. But I guess I’d still caution against looking for certain kinds of physical explanations when they might not be appropriate to the subject matter. Let me explain by way of a couple of clear cases, so we can try to figure out where ‘I’ stand relative to each.
So if we want an explanation of hydrogen, I think we’d do well to look into a physical explanation. For every case of hydrogen, we can observe the relevant physical system and its properties, and these physical observations will directly inform and explanation (even, a complete explanation) of hydrogen in general. Hydrogen is an ideal case of physical explanation.
But what about the ‘rook’ in the game of Chess? Every rook and every chess game is a physical system. Indeed, we could go about and look for cases of a rook, and we will always find some physical object.
But we won’t learn much about chess rooks that way. For one thing, we won’t see that much in common in how rooks are physically instantiated. Some rooks will be little plastic castles, others will be made of wood or stone. Some will be computer code, others will be just neurological. And even if we did come up with a complete list of the physical instances of chess rooks, that wouldn’t do much to explain them: in principle, I can use anything as a rook: a penny, a wad of paper, a patch of colored light, a vintage Porsche 959, anything so long as I can move it around a chess board. The rook has to have some physical properties, but observations about these properties just aren’t very interesting. We can do a physics of chess rooks, but we won’t get very much out of it.
I think ethics, politics, economics, etc. are all more like chess rooks than they are like hydrogen. There’s nothing supernatural about the ethical, but that doesn’t mean physics, or even biology, is a good place to go looking for an explanation.
Okay, I think I see where you’re coming from. Let me sum it up to see if I’m getting this right:
The important aspects of some categories of objects (aka concepts) which humans recognize is not easily reducible to constituent parts (e.g. disassemble a plastic Rook, a wooden Rook, and a memory of a Rook and there’s nothing “Rooklike” to link them).
Even not-easily reducible concepts are technically reducible (they are still physical), but looking at the smallest structure is a hilariously inefficient and ineffective way to approach understanding them.
Identity is not an easily reducible by disassemble-to-parts-method category, and like ethics, politics, etc it is vastly more sensible to understand them by higher level patterns which the human brain is good at recognizing thanks to a few billion years of evolution.
If that’s what your point is, I agree with you entirely, and I think it’s compatible with fuzzy pattern theory. I don’t think it would be sane to try and work out what to identify as current!ete by disassembling my brain and trying to construct the pattern of the “is this me” algorithm, but it is important to realize that that algorithm exists. I know I’m saying it’s useful/important a lot without showing how and why, but that is coming. I just think it requires a full post to explain and justify at all properly.
the human brain is good at recognizing thanks to a few billion years of evolution.
It’s got something to do with evolution, but I’d say much more to do with a few thousand years of cultural maturation, science, and philosophy. I don’t expect the brains of Babylonians to be much different from ours, but I also don’t think we’d get very far trying to explain ethics as we understand it to the slaves of a god-king (and certainly not to the god-king).
I know I’m saying it’s useful/important a lot without showing how and why, but that is coming. I just think it requires a full post to explain and justify at all properly.
Fair enough. I’ll look forward to your future posts.
Excellent. That’s actually something I hope to explore more later.
I agree that “I” as a concept is very importantly viewed as an ethical or moral category, but was hoping to do a detour through some evolution before trying to tackle it in full.
Yes, I think “is this me” is an ethical question, and I also think ethics is purely physical (or more specifically a concept which only affects reality via physical representations of itself). This post is mostly about trying to establish a foundation that “I” is necessarily a caused by a physical thing in our brain running a concept to approximately sort things into “me” and “not-me”, with some blurriness. More details of how “I” works and its importance are planned :).
Well, let’s take for granted that there’s nothing that’s super-natural or anything like that. But I guess I’d still caution against looking for certain kinds of physical explanations when they might not be appropriate to the subject matter. Let me explain by way of a couple of clear cases, so we can try to figure out where ‘I’ stand relative to each.
So if we want an explanation of hydrogen, I think we’d do well to look into a physical explanation. For every case of hydrogen, we can observe the relevant physical system and its properties, and these physical observations will directly inform and explanation (even, a complete explanation) of hydrogen in general. Hydrogen is an ideal case of physical explanation.
But what about the ‘rook’ in the game of Chess? Every rook and every chess game is a physical system. Indeed, we could go about and look for cases of a rook, and we will always find some physical object.
But we won’t learn much about chess rooks that way. For one thing, we won’t see that much in common in how rooks are physically instantiated. Some rooks will be little plastic castles, others will be made of wood or stone. Some will be computer code, others will be just neurological. And even if we did come up with a complete list of the physical instances of chess rooks, that wouldn’t do much to explain them: in principle, I can use anything as a rook: a penny, a wad of paper, a patch of colored light, a vintage Porsche 959, anything so long as I can move it around a chess board. The rook has to have some physical properties, but observations about these properties just aren’t very interesting. We can do a physics of chess rooks, but we won’t get very much out of it.
I think ethics, politics, economics, etc. are all more like chess rooks than they are like hydrogen. There’s nothing supernatural about the ethical, but that doesn’t mean physics, or even biology, is a good place to go looking for an explanation.
Okay, I think I see where you’re coming from. Let me sum it up to see if I’m getting this right:
If that’s what your point is, I agree with you entirely, and I think it’s compatible with fuzzy pattern theory. I don’t think it would be sane to try and work out what to identify as current!ete by disassembling my brain and trying to construct the pattern of the “is this me” algorithm, but it is important to realize that that algorithm exists. I know I’m saying it’s useful/important a lot without showing how and why, but that is coming. I just think it requires a full post to explain and justify at all properly.
You have my point exactly. But...
It’s got something to do with evolution, but I’d say much more to do with a few thousand years of cultural maturation, science, and philosophy. I don’t expect the brains of Babylonians to be much different from ours, but I also don’t think we’d get very far trying to explain ethics as we understand it to the slaves of a god-king (and certainly not to the god-king).
Fair enough. I’ll look forward to your future posts.