The Knowledge Argument Against Physicalism

[public hermit]

I'm an "explanatory dualist" like this guy. Nicholas Maxwell.

The Mind–Body Problem and Explanatory Dualism | Philosophy | Cambridge Core

My argument is that any physical explanation is not adequate to account for "consciousness chatter" (c-chatter, or talk about inner life, qualia, mental events and pain etc.)

The zombie scenario proposes we cant be distinguished from p-zombies, creatures like us in every physical way but without a mind.

But there is a dilemma. How do they come to describe inner life (i.e. have c-chatter)? For a zombie it would be miraculous or inexplicable to say "I'm on pain" or " I have conscious experiences". Because they don't actually have them, I cant imagine a zombie realistically writing a quality text on conscious experiences.

OTOH, a purely physical approach - by that same standard - can't account for humans c-chatter. If we were purely physical in terms of describability, then we may as well be zombies, but that's been shown to lead to an absurdity in the last paragraph.

Therefore we have to posit an inner life to make sense of our c-chatter, but at the expense of physicalism. This ideas origin dates back to my hearing of W Dilthey's distinction between the natural and social sciences. Wilhelm Dilthey - Wikipedia



I'm not saying were not actually physical - there may be more to the physical than can be observed or described physically in textbooks etc. We just cant say that physical science is adequate at present. We may, it seems, be physical but beyond physicalisms reach...!

Yet, I still personally believe in some kind of dualism i.e. explanatory dualism.

As for "mental substance" (is it physical, natural, supernartural, spiritual etc...?) I'm a philosophical agnostic.

Explanatory dualism is a new term for me. Is it like property dualism which says there is one kind of substance- the physical kind- but two kinds of properties- physical and mental?

 

[GrowingSmaller]

Explanatory dualism is a new term for me. Is it like property dualism which says there is one kind of substance- the physical kind- but two kinds of properties- physical and mental?

I think it refers to two ways of explaining reality, rather than metaphysical properties.

We explain peoples actions in terms of intent etc. feeling, mood, motive....

That cant be captured by "neorobabble".

If neurobabble were adequate, we could eliminate consciousness from the equation, agency, mood etc. but consciousness is actually the intimate part of what science is trying to explain or account for.

A purely physical description couldn't account for self descriptions of conscious agents.

So its (i.e. conscious life) a descriptive or explanatory novelty! beyond the scope of atomistic level or neural level descriptions.

 

[GrowingSmaller]

edit

 

[Kylie]

I'm an "explanatory dualist" like this guy. Nicholas Maxwell.

The Mind–Body Problem and Explanatory Dualism | Philosophy | Cambridge Core

My argument is that any physical explanation is not adequate to account for "consciousness chatter" (c-chatter, or talk about inner life, qualia, mental events and pain etc.)

The zombie scenario proposes we cant be distinguished from p-zombies, creatures like us in every physical way but without a mind.

But there is a dilemma. How do they come to describe inner life (i.e. have c-chatter)? For a zombie it would be miraculous or inexplicable to say "I'm on pain" or " I have conscious experiences". Because they don't actually have them, I cant imagine a zombie realistically writing a quality text on conscious experiences.

OTOH, a purely physical approach - by that same standard - can't account for humans c-chatter. If we were purely physical in terms of describability, then we may as well be zombies, but that's been shown to lead to an absurdity in the last paragraph.

Therefore we have to posit an inner life to make sense of our c-chatter, but at the expense of physicalism. This ideas origin dates back to my hearing of W Dilthey's distinction between the natural and social sciences. Wilhelm Dilthey - Wikipedia



I'm not saying were not actually physical - there may be more to the physical than can be observed or described physically in textbooks etc. We just cant say that physical science is adequate at present. We may, it seems, be physical but beyond physicalisms reach...!

Yet, I still personally believe in some kind of dualism i.e. explanatory dualism.

As for "mental substance" (is it physical, natural, supernartural, spiritual etc...?) I'm a philosophical agnostic.

I'm wondering if you were to hook up a Human to a Functional MRI scanner (so we could not only see the structure of the brain, but what's actually happening when our brain is in use) and compare it to the same scan done of one of your zombies, would the results be different? I'd say yes. While a human brain and a zombie brain may be practically identical (and even completely identical if the person later becomes a zombie and we compare Pre-Z to Post-Z brain activity), the way it is used is very different. This may be similar to taking a computer and removing the operating system and replacing it with a much more basic operating system, or perhaps just crippling certain functions. You'll find that programs that used to run suddenly run slowly, or not at all. But it's still a physical change to the computer - not in the sense of changing any of the hardware, but in a change to the software, stored within the computers hard drives. Isn't this a plausible explanation?

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

I'm wondering if you were to hook up a Human to a Functional MRI scanner (so we could not only see the structure of the brain, but what's actually happening when our brain is in use) and compare it to the same scan done of one of your zombies, would the results be different? I'd say yes. While a human brain and a zombie brain may be practically identical (and even completely identical if the person later becomes a zombie and we compare Pre-Z to Post-Z brain activity), the way it is used is very different. This may be similar to taking a computer and removing the operating system and replacing it with a much more basic operating system, or perhaps just crippling certain functions. You'll find that programs that used to run suddenly run slowly, or not at all. But it's still a physical change to the computer - not in the sense of changing any of the hardware, but in a change to the software, stored within the computers hard drives. Isn't this a plausible explanation?

That depends on the definition of p-zombie being considered. A neurological zombie is behaviourally and physiologically indistinguishable from a human. Its brain looks identical and functions identically (e.g. under a Functional MRI scanner) - yet it has no conscious experience.

Make of it what you will... in my experience zombie arguments are often a concealed form of begging the question (by accepting the zombie premise), or equivocate 'conceivable' and 'possible'.

 

[Kylie]

That depends on the definition of p-zombie being considered. A neurological zombie is behaviourally and physiologically indistinguishable from a human. Its brain looks identical and functions identically (e.g. under a Functional MRI scanner) - yet it has no conscious experience.

Make of it what you will... in my experience zombie arguments are often a concealed form of begging the question (by accepting the zombie premise), or equivocate 'conceivable' and 'possible'.

Isn't this just assuming that what provides conscious experience is not made up of how the brain is structured or how it functions? Seems to me like it's just assuming that there's some separate thing that allows conscious experience in order to show that there's some separate thing that allows conscious experience.

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

Isn't this just assuming that what provides conscious experience is not made up of how the brain is structured or how it functions? Seems to me like it's just assuming that there's some separate thing that allows conscious experience in order to show that there's some separate thing that allows conscious experience.

That's why I suggest it's begging the question.

 

[GrowingSmaller]

Isn't this just assuming that what provides conscious experience is not made up of how the brain is structured or how it functions? Seems to me like it's just assuming that there's some separate thing that allows conscious experience in order to show that there's some separate thing that allows conscious experience.

I'm not sure what the original zombie argument meant to advocate. I think it has ben used to promote epiphenomenalism. If a human and a zombie are indistinguishable behaviourally and neurologically, then we can account for "a persons" activity without appealing to consciousness. So they say.

My point isn't metaphysical tho. Its more explanatory.

Another way of looking at it is if a zombie mirrored me and said "I'm conscious" just as I said "I'm conscious" the zombie would either be:


1) be lying


or 2) not really know first hand what he was taking about.

So, although behaviourally and neurologically the same, in theory, there seems to be a flaw in the zombie model. Cybernetic wise. And hermeneutically. In terms of causal systems, and also interpreting claims like "I'm conscious" in a coherent manner.

Now I could be a physicalist with further information, but at present Im not. I'm agnostic.

This is simply because all the current physical information we have is about the brain. This next point is more subtle. If all we needed were information about the brain, then we may as well be zombies because we could be treated as mere brains, mere machines, mere neurochemical processes (when, it seems, we are not to so be treated). So, brain-info is insufficient. You cant deduce the presence of consciousness form brain info, except with fallible premises.

As the OP suggests, knowing brains do such and such is not a "ontologically sufficient" way to know minds exist...

In fact, brain scientists depend on verbal expressions of consciousness and mental states. To orient their models and interpret data. So again, brain-ology on its own is not sufficient for consciousness-ology.

 

[GrowingSmaller]

"Hey zombie, this is gonna hurt me more than it hurts you...!"

 

[Kylie]

That's why I suggest it's begging the question.

Ah, gotcha. I missed that bit.

I've always figured that whatever happens to make someone into a zombie alters the way their brain works. I figured that most people had the same thought, which is why I was thrown.

 

[Kylie]

I'm not sure what the original zombie argument meant to advocate. I think it has ben used to promote epiphenomenalism. If a human and a zombie are indistinguishable behaviourally and neurologically, then we can account for "a persons" activity without appealing to consciousness. So they say.

I'd disagree.

If a zombie and a person had brains that were identical in both a neurological and a functional sense, then there must be something else to account for the obvious difference between the way a Human thinks and a Zombie thinks. We would have to appeal to a separate thing that grants consciousness to a Human that is lost in a Zombie, and this thing could not work on a neurological or functional level.

My point isn't metaphysical tho. Its more explanatory.

Another way of looking at it is if a zombie mirrored me and said "I'm conscious" just as I said "I'm conscious" the zombie would either be:


1) be lying


or 2) not really know first hand what he was taking about.

Agreed. It would be a tape recorder, just playing back the sounds it heard while having no understanding of them.

So, although behaviourally and neurologically the same, in theory, there seems to be a flaw in the zombie model. Cybernetic wise. And hermeneutically. In terms of causal systems, and also interpreting claims like "I'm conscious" in a coherent manner.

Only if you assume that the Zombie brain is physically identical and functionally identical to a Human brain.

Now I could be a physicalist with further information, but at present Im not. I'm agnostic.

This is simply because all the current physical information we have is about the brain. This next point is more subtle. If all we needed were information about the brain, then we may as well be zombies because we could be treated as mere brains, mere machines, mere neurochemical processes (when, it seems, we are not to so be treated). So, brain-info is insufficient. You cant deduce the presence of consciousness form brain info.

As the OP suggests, knowing brains do such and such is not a "ontologically sufficient" way to know minds exist...

In fact, brain scientists depend on verbal expressions of consciousness and mental states. To orient their models and interpret data. So again, brain-ology on its own is not sufficient for consciousness-ology.

I tend to think that consciousness is an emergent property of the brain. It's not something separate to the brain, but it's not something that can be anticipated to any great degree just by looking at the brain's construction.

 

[GrowingSmaller]

"Hey, stop looking at me!"

"I'm not looking at you, there is merely activity in the visual cortex..."

"Aren't they the same thing?"

"No, their philosophical grammar is different. As Wittgenstein said: "philosophical problems arise when language goes on holiday"...

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

Ah, gotcha. I missed that bit.

I've always figured that whatever happens to make someone into a zombie alters the way their brain works. I figured that most people had the same thought, which is why I was thrown.

Philosophical zombies are hypothetical creatures that are just posited for the sake of argument, they're not created from normal humans. Basically they're identical to humans but without conscious experience.

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

I'd disagree.

If a zombie and a person had brains that were identical in both a neurological and a functional sense, then there must be something else to account for the obvious difference between the way a Human thinks and a Zombie thinks. We would have to appeal to a separate thing that grants consciousness to a Human that is lost in a Zombie, and this thing could not work on a neurological or functional level.

Quite - this goes beyond epiphenomenalism to dualism, and would mean that conscious agency really is an illusion (since both p-zombie and human behave identically)...

I tend to think that consciousness is an emergent property of the brain. It's not something separate to the brain, but it's not something that can be anticipated to any great degree just by looking at the brain's construction.

Yes, I suspect it's a particular kind of embodied self-referential information processing.

 

[Kylie]

Philosophical zombies are hypothetical creatures that are just posited for the sake of argument, they're not created from normal humans. Basically they're identical to humans but without conscious experience.

Then the problem with them is that they are built on the assumption that a brain that is built and functions identically to a Human brain may not have conscious experience.

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

Then the problem with them is that they are built on the assumption that a brain that is built and functions identically to a Human brain may not have conscious experience.

Well, it's not really an assumption per se, proponents would say it's a conceivable (though not necessarily possible) hypothetical for exploring physicalism and its implications. But it seems to me that the most complete p-zombies (e.g. neurological zombies) do imply an unproductive dualism. Dualism doesn't explain the conscious experience problem any better than physicalism and introduces a raft of new problems.

It's the less complete p-zombies (e.g. behavioural zombies) that seem to raise more interesting questions about consciousness and conscious experience because they simulate consciousness only in their external behaviours. This prompts questions about the function of consciousness, and, for epiphenomenalists, whether, for a system to generate human behaviours, epiphenomenal consciousness is inevitable or just a result of particular implementations, and so-on.

These sorts of questions can be asked without the prompting of p-zombies, but I can see how they can be useful intuition pumps.

 

[GrowingSmaller]

I'd disagree.

If a zombie and a person had brains that were identical in both a neurological and a functional sense, then there must be something else to account for the obvious difference between the way a Human thinks and a Zombie thinks. We would have to appeal to a separate thing that grants consciousness to a Human that is lost in a Zombie, and this thing could not work on a neurological or functional level.

I agree, which is why the zombie model is flawed.

Agreed. It would be a tape recorder, just playing back the sounds it heard while having no understanding of them.

Tick!

Only if you assume that the Zombie brain is physically identical and functionally identical to a Human brain.

Tick!

I tend to think that consciousness is an emergent property of the brain. It's not something separate to the brain, but it's not something that can be anticipated to any great degree just by looking at the brain's construction.

This issue I have with that is "emergence" is just a fancy label that doesn't really solve anything.

 

[GrowingSmaller]

Dualism rocks.

 

[GrowingSmaller]

The interaction problem solved: I cause my body to move by intending to move it.

 

[hedrick]

Philosophical zombies are hypothetical creatures that are just posited for the sake of argument, they're not created from normal humans. Basically they're identical to humans but without conscious experience.

I don't think such a thing is possible. Basically this is a term that assumes for its meaning the thing it's trying to prove.