Interaction ("mind body") problem

GrowingSmaller · Oct 12, 2011

KCfromNC said:
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.

ok. Quarks have no primal awareness - you can prove that?

We don't have to give any reason to reject something that there's no reason to accept in the first place.

I don't understand that sentence sorry.

I know there are branches of philosophy that enjoy defining stuff into existence by playing word games with potentiality and possibility,

Is that comment meant to be related to this thread. Where am I "defining something into existence"?

...

just more evidence that many types of philosophy are ill-suited for dealing with questions of reality.

Philosophy does not claim to have all the answers, just like science.

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

I think the two fit well together froma logical perspective. Why not?

this points to a rather unusual approach to dealing with reality.

Well 99% of the world population are undereducated. The truth is not democratic. Personal attacks or arguments against the person are a form of logical fallacy. I think you will get the point.

GrowingSmaller · Oct 12, 2011

BTW I am no arguing that chairs as unified objects have conscious personalities (like a shintoist might imagine) but that there may be consciousness in the chair parts (e.g. quarks).

Tinker Grey · Oct 12, 2011

Yes. but why would you argue that there may be?

quatona · Oct 12, 2011

GrowingSmaller said:
BTW I am no arguing that chairs as unified objects have conscious personalities (like a shintoist might imagine) but that there may be consciousness in the chair parts (e.g. quarks).

I really have problems with nominalizations (e.g. "there is consciousness in [...]" instead of "[...]is/are conscious").
Personally, I can´t make much sense of the statement "quarks are conscious" when applying any meaning of "conscious" that I am familiar with.
You would help me understand what you mean by giving me an idea how to possibly determine the difference between a conscious quark and an unconscious quark.
(I do have a rough idea how to determine whether a complex organism is conscious or unconscious, though, and I do have my ways how my interaction is different with complex conscious systems and unconscious systems. I sort of am used to assume that consciousness is the product of complex systems - not of its tiniest components.)
I guess one of my main obstacles in calling chairs or their parts "conscious" is that I am somehow linking consciousness to the ability to act intentionally, to interact and to communicate.

quatona · Oct 12, 2011

Tinker Grey said:
Yes. but why would you argue that there may be?

...and what would be the implications of such an assumption?
(E.g. would that mean that we allow quarks human rights? )

quatona · Oct 12, 2011

Tinker Grey said:
Yes. but why would you argue that there may be?

I´m really wondering that, too. I´m used to start making assumptions not before there is some sort of indication (as weak as it may be) that suggests this assumption. I´m not used to pulling assumptions out of thin air.
So what would be an indication that quarks may be conscious? And - once there is some sort of reason to make such an assumption - why do you emphasize that you consider the possibility of quarks being conscious rather than chairs?

Tinker Grey · Oct 12, 2011

quatona said:
I´m really wondering that, too. I´m used to start making assumptions not before there is some sort of indication (as weak as it may be) that suggests this assumption. I´m not used to pulling assumptions out of thin air.
So what would be an indication that quarks may be conscious? And - once there is some sort of reason to make such an assumption - why do you emphasize that you consider the possibility of quarks being conscious rather than chairs?

Exactly

KCfromNC · Oct 13, 2011

GrowingSmaller said:
ok. Quarks have no primal awareness - you can prove that?

Why would I even want to?

I don't understand that sentence sorry.

If you've given us no reason to accept a statement as true, the standard of proof for rejecting it is unbelievably low. Merely bringing up the fact that you can conceive of a possible would where maybe it isn't impossible is as close to "no reason" as I can think of.

I can conceive of a world where I've conclusively answered your question. Does that mean anything at all about reality?

Is that comment meant to be related to this thread. Where am I "defining something into existence"?

By suggesting that the act of putting words together to describe something (office furniture having a mind) implies that there's some sort of logic or reason behind it that must be disproved.

I think the two fit well together froma logical perspective. Why not?

Why consider them in the first place?

Well 99% of the world population are undereducated. The truth is not democratic. Personal attacks or arguments against the person are a form of logical fallacy. I think you will get the point.

I have no idea what you're getting at here. You really think it's reasonable to assume that office furniture is conscious? I think you taking offense at us thinking poorly about you if you do tells us how much merit you actually give this red herring.

GrowingSmaller · Oct 13, 2011

Tinker Grey said:
Yes. but why would you argue that there may be?

See below.

quotona said:
You would help me understand what you mean by giving me an idea how to possibly determine the difference between a conscious quark and an unconscious quark

I do not know of a method, therefore I believe I am agnostic, not knowing one way or the other. If there is not way to know, no way to determine, then why claim to know?

But you seem to hold to this position: "there is no way to determine whether it is conscious or not, therefore I know it is not conscious".

GrowingSmaller · Oct 13, 2011

quatona said:
So what would be an indication that quarks may be conscious?

I do not know of one, but if non-conscious quarks (for all we know) act just like conscious ones, it seems odd to me to say that the belief that they are not conscious is more rational. If we have no observational test, then why favour one opinion (they're not conscious) rather than the other (they are)?

GrowingSmaller · Oct 13, 2011

KCfromNC said:
Is that comment meant to be related to this thread. Where am I "defining something into existence"?

Click to expand...

By suggesting that the act of putting words together to describe something (office furniture having a mind) implies that there's some sort of logic or reason behind it that must be disproved.

Are you suggesting I am expressing some kind of word salad or a making a blundering category mistake? I think if it was that bad neither Wikipedia or the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy would have entries on panpsychism (here and here), nor would panexperientialism (or in my case something like "quarks-in-the-chair experientialism" which is a little closer to what I am imagining) be seriously discussed at an academic level.

GrowingSmaller · Oct 13, 2011

KCfromNC said:
If you've given us no reason to accept a statement as true, the standard of proof for rejecting it is unbelievably low. Merely bringing up the fact that you can conceive of a possible would where maybe it isn't impossible is as close to "no reason" as I can think of.

Thats a little like the way I feel about your "not-consiousnessism". You have no reason to think its conscious, therefore you assume you know it isn't. But that to me seems like an argument from ignorance.

Wikipedia:

Argument from ignorance, also known as argumentum ad ignorantiam or "appeal to ignorance", is a fallacy in informal logic. It asserts that a proposition is true because it has not been proven false (or vice versa).

BTW If you believe you have shown a quark to be non-conscious because it fails a neurological test designed for humans then I reply I do not think that the test is actually shown to be appropriate in the first place.

sandwiches · Oct 13, 2011

GrowingSmaller said:
I do not know of one, but if non-conscious quarks (for all we know) act just like conscious ones, it seems odd to me to say that the belief that they are not conscious is more rational. If we have no observational test, then why favour one opinion (they're not conscious) rather than the other (they are)?

I'm not sure why you're complicating things so much. We infer consciousness of other beings through observation. They react and act like much like we, who are supposedly conscious, do. Nothing without some electronic circuitry of some kind that we have observed has ever shown itself to be conscious. That's pretty good reason to think they're not.

"But maybe they are conscious and we just can't see it!"

And maybe houses are made of chocolate and we can't see it or cars are pushed by invisible elephants and we just can't see them. If we're applying the standards of evidence and reason that we use every day to determine reality, objects without electronic circuitry are NOT conscious. If you wish to entertain wild speculation, then we'll get nowhere as anything is possible. If you want to talk about what we know to the best of our abilities, then, again, nothing without circuitry is conscious.

quatona · Oct 13, 2011

GrowingSmaller said:
See below.
I do not know of a method, therefore I believe I am agnostic, not knowing one way or the other. If there is not way to know, no way to determine, then why claim to know?

But you seem to hold to this position: "there is no way to determine whether it is conscious or not, therefore I know it is not conscious".

No. I have worded my position already: There is no indication whatsoever that chairs (or their components) are conscious, so I have no reason whatsoever to even entertain the idea." That´s parsimony.

You, however, claim agnosticism but behave exactly as if chairs were unconscious.

quatona · Oct 13, 2011

GrowingSmaller said:
I do not know of one, but if non-conscious quarks (for all we know) act just like conscious ones, it seems odd to me to say that the belief that they are not conscious is more rational.

Actually, going by anything that we attribute to conscious entities, quarks act like being unconscious.

If we have no observational test, then why favour one opinion (they're not conscious) rather than the other (they are)?

If it makes no difference whether they are conscious or unconscious - as per your premise - the question is completely moot, anyway. If consciousness and unconsciousness are indistinguishable I don´t even know what you are talking about.

GrowingSmaller · Oct 14, 2011

sandwiches said:
I'm not sure why you're complicating things so much. We infer consciousness of other beings through observation. They react and act like much like we, who are supposedly conscious, do. Nothing without some electronic circuitry of some kind that we have observed has ever shown itself to be conscious. That's pretty good reason to think they're not.

How does that differ from an argument from ignorance?

"But maybe they are conscious and we just can't see it!"

Yes, where is it guaranteed that we must see it?

And maybe houses are made of chocolate and we can't see it or cars are pushed by invisible elephants and we just can't see them.

No we have good reason to think that if houses were made of chocolate we could easily find out.

GrowingSmaller · Oct 14, 2011

quatona said:
No. I have worded my position already: There is no indication whatsoever that chairs (or their components) are conscious, so I have no reason whatsoever to even entertain the idea." That´s parsimony.

Well don't entertain the idea then, its up to you. But "all ideas I do not entertain are false" is not necessarily true, you should know that for sure. Being aloof is not a proof.

You, however, claim agnosticism but behave exactly as if chairs were unconscious.

How do you expect me to behave?

GrowingSmaller · Oct 14, 2011

quatona said:
Actually, going by anything that we attribute to conscious entities, quarks act like being unconscious.

How is that?

If it makes no difference whether they are conscious or unconscious - as per your premise - the question is completely moot, anyway.

Well it makes a difference in a debate like this. Maybe it makes no difference whether the universe is holographic, but people still like to debate the idea.

If consciousness and unconsciousness are indistinguishable I don´t even know what you are talking about.

Whty not? If idealism and realism are practically indistinguishable they may be practically irrelevant but they are still linguistically meaningful theories. Or perhaps you are, like Neitzsce, "big game hunting"?

KCfromNC · Oct 14, 2011

GrowingSmaller said:
Thats a little like the way I feel about your "not-consiousnessism". You have no reason to think its conscious, therefore you assume you know it isn't.

Nope, it's not an assumption. Based on the lack of evidence for the idea and lots of evidence against it, there's good reason to conclude that your idea has no merit. That may change if we learn new things in the future, but until that changes there's literally no reason to worry about it.

BTW If you believe you have shown a quark to be non-conscious because it fails a neurological test designed for humans then I reply I do not think that the test is actually shown to be appropriate in the first place.

What reason a priori do you have to believe the test is inappropriate? Sure, you can say that since it doesn't give the result you wished it did it isn't any good but that's just begging the question.

KCfromNC · Oct 14, 2011

GrowingSmaller said:
Are you suggesting I am expressing some kind of word salad or a making a blundering category mistake? I think if it was that bad neither Wikipedia or the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy would have entries on panpsychism (here and here), nor would panexperientialism (or in my case something like "quarks-in-the-chair experientialism" which is a little closer to what I am imagining) be seriously discussed at an academic level.

Sorry, I need more than "philosophers discuss this stuff" to think that there's any reason to believe it's true. It's strange you would reply to "just talking about it doesn't give a reason to even consider it" with yet more people just talking on and on about it.

Especially when your reference gives us this gem : "Perhaps the initially most obvious problem with panpsychism is simply the apparent lack of evidence that the fundamental entities of the physical world possess any mentalistic characteristics."

Interaction ("mind body") problem

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