Interaction ("mind body") problem

[GrowingSmaller]

I can't say that I understand what you're saying or asking.

I am saying that if emergent phenomena are reducible then why call them emergent? I thought that part of the idea behind emergentism was that emergent features (of the whole) were not reducible (to the parts) in the normal sense.

If that is right (not sure it is) then when you give a reductive account of mental causation ("It's just electrochemistry, and thats that") then you seem to be contradicting that emergentist clause that implies they are irreducible.

 

[KCfromNC]

I tend to agree that brains are the only consiocus things we know of, but you seem to take a gnostic stance about non-brains too, but I am not sure if the justification you use is strong enough. AFAIK you base what you say on dis-analogy of non-brains with brains

No, I use a complete lack of any observable signs of consciousness in things without brains. I try to base what I say about the real world on the real world, not word games.

 

[KCfromNC]

Maybe thats true, but a philosopher can still point out that materialism still has problems to be solved, which is all I am trying to do.

I think scientists are well aware that they don't know everything. If that's all you're trying to say, it's hardly a mystery.

Does your objection go any deeper than that? Seems like you're jumping all over the place - first there's an inherent intractable problem in monism. Next science can't explain stuff but you don't know what that missing something is. Now it's just that scientists aren't omniscient. Seems like a lot of work to get to that obvious point, so there has to be something more considering all of the work that philosophers have done to critique the idea.

 

[KCfromNC]

I am saying that if emergent phenomena are reducible then why call them emergent?

Because it's more efficient to model certain interactions at different levels. You don't need to use quantum mechanics to understand how to cook dinner - but that doesn't mean that there's an inherent cooking-physics problem requiring dualism.

If that is right (not sure it is) then when you give a reductive account of mental causation ("It's just electrochemistry, and thats that") then you seem to be contradicting that emergentist clause that implies they are irreducible.

I really have no idea who you're trying to paraphrase here, but I doubt you're representing them any more accurately than you're doing when you quote people in this thread. Can we get some direct quotes so we can figure out what you're trying to talk about?

Irreducible means the system stops working if you take away enough parts. It has nothing to do with the idea that you can't explain the system without resorting to magic.

 

[GrowingSmaller]

No, I use a complete lack of any observable signs of consciousness in things without brains. I try to base what I say about the real world on the real world, not word games.

I never knew that being observable to you was a necessary condition of there being consciousness there. Maybe there is consciousness, but you do not see it or know it? What exactly are you looking for amongst necessary and sufficient conditions of consciousness which can be observed? And if you don't know the necessary and sufficient conditions (or at least the sufficient conditions) then how can you claim to know that consciousness is not in ordinary matter? I think that saying "there must be a brain because we only know brains to be conscious" is a (possibly hasty) generalisation and (possibly weak) argument from analogy, but such argumets are more like puny philosophy than hard science because they are not that robust. And if the argumets are puny I don't see how there can be much of a knowledge claim except if you admitted you would also be extremely lucky to be right.

 

[GrowingSmaller]

I think scientists are well aware that they don't know everything. If that's all you're trying to say, it's hardly a mystery.

Does your objection go any deeper than that? Seems like you're jumping all over the place - first there's an inherent intractable problem in monism.

Where did I say that, for starters....

Next science can't explain stuff but you don't know what that missing something is. Now it's just that scientists aren't omniscient. Seems like a lot of work to get to that obvious point, so there has to be something more considering all of the work that philosophers have done to critique the idea.

Later.

 

[GrowingSmaller]

Because it's more efficient to model certain interactions at different levels. You don't need to use quantum mechanics to understand how to cook dinner - but that doesn't mean that there's an inherent cooking-physics problem requiring dualism.

I dont get your point sorry.

I really have no idea who you're trying to paraphrase here, but I doubt you're representing them any more accurately than you're doing when you quote people in this thread. Can we get some direct quotes so we can figure out what you're trying to talk about?

IIRC there was a post where Sandwiches *gave a brief account of how the brain worked, and said that If I wanted to know more then I sould ask a neuroscientist*. I searched the whole thread for that post, but coud only find this:

Roughly, our sensor nerves detect heat, send the signal to the spinal cord, another signal is sent to the brain and one to the limb where the sensor is. The Limb reacts to the signal by jerking away from the heat source and our brain gets the signal that we felt heat over the safety threshold, it then causes a reaction which we interpret as unpleasant to which we're either primally wired or trained to respond in a specific way by either screaming, yelping, cringing, etc.

Maybe I imagined the comment, or maybe it has been edited out. My point is that the explanation given above is reductive as it retranslates folk psychology into the 'more fundamental' language of brain science. My point is that I wouldn't expect emergentists to claim to be reductionists as the two (reductionism and emergentism, I believe) are incompatible.

Irreducible means the system stops working if you take away enough parts. It has nothing to do with the idea that you can't explain the system without resorting to magic.

What I mean by irreducible is that the initial set (experiences) cannot be redescribed completely in terms of a a more fundamental set. Maybe talk of heat can be translated into talk of mean molecular energy, but if heat were emergent then I don't think that the translation would be satisfactory precisely because emergent features (as far as I understand) are not meant to be amenable to simple reduction. I am not sure I have a grip on your idea of irreducible - is it from Behe's "irreducible complexity"?

BTW I am not saying that a general mind=brain identity style reduction is wrong, but that if you start to reduce 'emergent features' like pain to specific mechanics e.g. events in the limbic system, then that seems to defeat the idea of the whole being greater than the parts - which IIRC is an emergentist claim.

A relevant quote from Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergentism
A number of philosophers have offered the argument that qualia constitute the hard problem of consciousness, and resist reductive explanation in a way that all other phenomena do not. In contrast, reductionists generally see the task of accounting for the possibly atypical properties of mind and of living things as a matter of showing that, contrary to appearances, such properties are indeed fully accountable in terms of the properties of the basic constituents of nature and therefore in no way genuinely atypical.

So why did I mention all that? The point was that if mental causation is emergent and of the whole because the mind is emergent and of the whole, then reducing it to talk about the parts (for example sodium ion pumps and action potentials) is apparently reductionist and therefore inconsistent with the spirit of emergentism's non-reductionism.

AND

If the mental is not atypical then why is it not believed to be more prevalent?

 

[GrayAngel]

Well let's say I build my robot, with my technology I'm able to grow cells, tissues, organs (inc. brain) in a laboratory that are indistinguishable from a natural human's parts. I put my robot together and it grows up just like any other human. (It isn't a clone incidentally, it has unique DNA which I chose for it). What would be the difference between this biological robot that is indistinguishable from other humans and a regular human? How would I know whether it has a spirit or not, and if it is impossible to tell then how can we be sure that the spirit has any function at all, or even exists?


And how about if I change the material, so instead of being carbon based, like us, it is something else, but still functions the same, would this make a difference?

What you're describing sounds more like an engineered human rather than a robot. If you take human genes and put them together, even if they're not all from the same person, it's still a clone. And how would you bring this engineered human to life? The only way we know to clone is to put the lifeform into a living mother so that it could grow and mature until birth.

I doubt you could create a human being without carbon. We talk about it in theory, but I don't think it's ever going to happen. Hypothetically, if it were ever made possible, I wouldn't know if such a creature would have a spirit. I'd have to see it for myself, see how it's made (if it still requires nature to make, for instance), then I'd have more to work with.

 

[KCfromNC]

I never knew that being observable to you was a necessary condition of there being consciousness there. Maybe there is consciousness, but you do not see it or know it?

Then there's nothing for me to explain. I tend to worry about things which are real, not hypotheticals made up to try and prove a point.

What exactly are you looking for amongst necessary and sufficient conditions of consciousness which can be observed?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consciousness#Scientific_approaches for some examples. Medicine has similar tests with a more practical approach. But do you really not have any way to know if any particular object is conscious or not? I'm sure you make this determination all the time - show us how you know that there is consciousness which we can't observe.

I think that saying "there must be a brain because we only know brains to be conscious"

Who is saying that, and what is the context? I really can't be faulted for something you've made up or that was said by someone else.

 

[KCfromNC]

I dont get your point sorry.

Do you have a specific question about it, or just not see how it applies in this case? You see reductionism as something demanded by logic when in reality it's normally just a convenience scientists use to "reduce" the problem to a situation where we can approximate a useful answer in a reasonable amount of time. Reducing a problem to a level which best approximates the observations you need to explain or predict doesn't imply that there aren't more complex explanations which include more detail than you need.

Maybe I imagined the comment, or maybe it has been edited out.

I can't comment on comments which haven't been made.

What I mean by irreducible is that the initial set (experiences) cannot be redescribed completely in terms of a a more fundamental set.

Do you know of any physical processes where this happens, assuming by "cannot" you mean "it is known to be impossible to". And if it's just "we don't know how", refer back to my point that scientists are painfully aware that they aren't omniscient.

Maybe talk of heat can be translated into talk of mean molecular energy, but if heat were emergent then I don't think that the translation would be satisfactory precisely because emergent features (as far as I understand) are not meant to be amenable to simple reduction. I am not sure I have a grip on your idea of irreducible - is it from Behe's "irreducible complexity"?

No, just the basic idea that complex systems stop doing certain things if you take them apart. You seem to be having an argument between a straw-man reductionist and straw-man emergentist and I was just caught in the middle.

The point was that if mental causation is emergent and of the whole because the mind is emergent and of the whole, then reducing it to talk about the parts (for example sodium ion pumps and action potentials) is apparently reductionist and therefore inconsistent with the spirit of emergentism's non-reductionism.

If flight is an emergent property of particular collections of matter, is it a contradiction to talk in reductionist terms about weight, lift, thrust and so on? If there's anyone arguing that there's some magic that happens when you collect enough matter together in the right arrangement to make it fly, then they're not a materialist in any sense that I know. Same with someone who believes the same for brains - so I don't see how pointing out that their views contradict with people who don't believe in magic is somehow a surprise.

If the mental is not atypical then why is it not believed to be more prevalent?

More prevalent than what?

If flight isn't atypical then why is it not believed to be more prevalent? I don't know, but that tells us precisely nothing about how things fly.

 

[GrowingSmaller]

Then there's nothing for me to explain. I tend to worry about things which are real, not hypotheticals made up to try and prove a point.

Well you seem to claim to know the reality which is why I asked you to show us the necessary and sufficient conditions opf consciousness....

Consciousness - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

for some examples.

... which that like completely fails to do. All it say is that scientisis are working on developing understanding of consciousness in humans and animals, and have been since the 80s.

. Medicine has similar tests with a more practical approach.

Detecting consciousness in humans yes. Ruling out consciousness in non-animal matter, no.

But do you really not have any way to know if any particular object is conscious or not?

I am agnostic. I suppose I have a test like asking it ("hello chair are you conscious") but AFAIK that may not be an adequate test, even if it seems ok to you.

I'm sure you make this determination all the time - show us how you know that there is consciousness which we can't observe.

Remember I said I am agnostic about such things, which means I do not claim to know.

Who is saying that, and what is the context? I really can't be faulted for something you've made up or that was said by someone else.

I thought you were arguing that consciousness must arise in the brains of animals, but not in less complex matter.

 

[quatona]

I am agnostic. I suppose I have a test like asking it ("hello chair are you conscious") but AFAIK that may not be an adequate test, even if it seems ok to you.
Remember I said I am agnostic about such things, which means I do not claim to know.

Time for a reality check:
When interacting with your chair - how exactly do you account for the possibility that it´s conscious?

I´m agnostic about your chair being God.

 

[GrowingSmaller]

Time for a reality check:
When interacting with your chair - how exactly do you account for the possibility that it´s conscious?

Well its a theoretical possibility. Maybe quarks are self contained pixels of a strange kind of love fluttering through alternate dimensions or something odd like that. How do I account for that potentiality? Well, in the same way I account for the universe, in other words I don't really know that much... and it all seems very strange to me.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2jIyRZqVVl0http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-NSz-9qqgKE

 

[GrowingSmaller]

Do you have a specific question about it, or just not see how it applies in this case? You see reductionism as something demanded by logic when in reality it's normally just a convenience scientists use to "reduce" the problem to a situation where we can approximate a useful answer in a reasonable amount of time. Reducing a problem to a level which best approximates the observations you need to explain or predict doesn't imply that there aren't more complex explanations which include more detail than you need.



I can't comment on comments which haven't been made.



Do you know of any physical processes where this happens, assuming by "cannot" you mean "it is known to be impossible to". And if it's just "we don't know how", refer back to my point that scientists are painfully aware that they aren't omniscient.



No, just the basic idea that complex systems stop doing certain things if you take them apart. You seem to be having an argument between a straw-man reductionist and straw-man emergentist and I was just caught in the middle.



If flight is an emergent property of particular collections of matter, is it a contradiction to talk in reductionist terms about weight, lift, thrust and so on? If there's anyone arguing that there's some magic that happens when you collect enough matter together in the right arrangement to make it fly, then they're not a materialist in any sense that I know. Same with someone who believes the same for brains - so I don't see how pointing out that their views contradict with people who don't believe in magic is somehow a surprise.



More prevalent than what?

If flight isn't atypical then why is it not believed to be more prevalent? I don't know, but that tells us precisely nothing about how things fly.

I like the bird analogy. Iy explains how an "emergent" phenomenon can be understood in terms of simpler mechanisms.

However that defeats the idea that they cannot be understood or explained in terms of simpler interactions, which IIRC some "emergentists" believe. If you think thats a strawman, then why does the Wiki on strong emergence (@here) say

"These new qualities are irreducible to the system's constituent parts"?

 

[KCfromNC]

Well you seem to claim to know the reality which is why I asked you to show us the necessary and sufficient conditions opf consciousness....

Did you actually read it and follow the links, for example Neuropsychological assessment - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Detecting consciousness in humans yes. Ruling out consciousness in non-animal matter, no.

I am agnostic. I suppose I have a test like asking it ("hello chair are you conscious") but AFAIK that may not be an adequate test, even if it seems ok to you.

Why do you say that it is inadequate?

I thought you were arguing that consciousness must arise in the brains of animals, but not in less complex matter.

Where did I say that?

 

[KCfromNC]

Well its a theoretical possibility. Maybe quarks are self contained pixels of a strange kind of love fluttering through alternate dimensions or something odd like that. How do I account for that potentiality?

You ask yourself what reason you have to believe it is true, and realize you're just making it up by combining sciencey-sounding words in random patterns. We don't have to give any reason to reject something that there's no reason to accept in the first place.

I know there are branches of philosophy that enjoy defining stuff into existence by playing word games with potentiality and possibility, but that's just more evidence that many types of philosophy are ill-suited for dealing with questions of reality. You're complaining that scientists don't have a successful comprehensive theory of mind and yet are willing to accept the "theoretical" idea that office furniture is conscious - this points to a rather unusual approach to dealing with reality.

 

[quatona]

Well its a theoretical possibility. Maybe quarks are self contained pixels of a strange kind of love fluttering through alternate dimensions or something odd like that. How do I account for that potentiality? Well, in the same way I account for the universe, in other words I don't really know that much... and it all seems very strange to me.

That´s a little evasivem, but maybe my question was not clear.

When we deal with entities that we consider conscious we practically account for it. We treat them differently than non-conscious entities.

How, practically, do you account for the fact that you consider your chair potentially conscious? If you don´t treat your chair differently than I treat mine (which I consider unconscious), it´s pretty much irrelevant for all intents and purposes whether one considers a chair conscious or unconscious.

If your "agnosticism" is practically undistinguishable from the conviction that chairs are unconscious I don´t see the significance of your "agnosticism".

 

[GrowingSmaller]

That´s a little evasivem, but maybe my question was not clear.

Go ahead.

When we deal with entities that we consider conscious we practically account for it. We treat them differently than non-conscious entities.

True.

How, practically, do you account for the fact that you consider your chair potentially conscious?

There is no difference. Remember your earlier comment was about things we know to be conscious, bot things it is acceptable to believe might be. Perhaps if I knew my chair to be conscious I might change course.

If you don´t treat your chair differently than I treat mine (which I consider unconscious), it´s pretty much irrelevant for all intents and purposes whether one considers a chair conscious or unconscious.

I sit on chairs too.

If your "agnosticism" is practically undistinguishable from the conviction that chairs are unconscious I don´t see the significance of your "agnosticism".

But I suppose you will have double standards and see the significance of your gnosticism?

 

[GrowingSmaller]

Did you actually read it and follow the links, for example Neuropsychological assessment - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Those tests are designed for humans afaict. There are not conclusive judgements about the ultimate nature of consciousness wherever it might arise, notr are they intended to be. They are medical assessments, not scientists commenting on issues from the philosophy of mind. To expect a quark to resond to a medical test designes for a human is to be anthropomorphic.


BTW that was not the link you initially provided for inspection.

Why do you say that it is inadequate?

Afaict it leaves open a genuine possibility that there is consciousness in the chair of some sort which is undetected.

Where did I say that?

YOu seem to think asking a chair "Are you conscious?" and not recieving an answer proves there is no consciousness in the chair. Or that getting a doctor to give irt a medical examination proves the same. All it shows to me is that as we can tell there is no consciousness, butI still think there is a real possibility that we may be wrong.

 

[quatona]

There is no difference. Remember your earlier comment was about things we know to be conscious, bot things it is acceptable to believe might be. Perhaps if I knew my chair to be conscious I might change course.

I sit on chairs too.

Good.
Since your attitude towards chairs is the same as that of a person who feels that chairs are unconscious I fail to see what the significance, implication or relevance is of your "agnosticism".

But I suppose you will have double standards and see the significance of your gnosticism?

Sure (albeit this is not a double standard): I think chairs are unconscious and I treat them accordingly. My distinction between conscious and unconscious objects results in different attitudes towards them.