Interaction ("mind body") problem

[variant]

No. A computer may run Windows, or Linux, or even run standalone programs with no operating system. The last is not much done these days, except in very special circumstances, but the program is not part of the computer.

It must be. Data and arrangement have physical form.

For a program to operate a computer it must have physical code and apsect wether it is digital or not, 1's and 0's in the code contexually operate circuits and commands literally become part of the machinery.

To say otherwise would be like saying the arangment of bricks in my house is an unimportant to it's physical properties. Things like position and context ARE important physical things.

 

[variant]

I inferred that because he said (IIRC) that consciousness is not an object.

That seems wrong, the arrangement or system might be what is important, but arrangements of physical things are still things (objects).

The arrangement of molecules in DNA is what is important for instance, the medium is indistinct from the message.

Without this particular arangement of atoms (a ribosome) DNA is meaningless, the system only functions contexutally and as a whole, and it's arangement is definitely important.

 

[Gracchus]

It must be. Data and arrangement have physical form.

There is no "data" in the computer. There are patterns of charge and magnetic fields that we can interpret as data. Data exists in our minds, where it has context.

For a program to operate a computer it must have physical code and apsect wether it is digital or not, 1's and 0's in the code contexually operate circuits and commands literally become part of the machinery.

By that reasoning, the driver is part of the machinery of the car. Seems to me that is straining at gnats and swallowing camels, just to protect an untenable position.

To say otherwise would be like saying the arangment of bricks in my house is an unimportant to it's physical properties.

Whether the lights are on or off, or whether the doors are open or closed can also be part of the physical properties of the house. Do you use one bedroom for storage? Does that change the nature of the house?

One mind can think many different, even things, and can even hold contradictory opinions simultaneously. The software is not the hardware. The program controls the machine and (we hope) determines the output, but different programs will deliver different outputs from the same machine.

Grow up in the Bible Belt, and you become a drunk, an adulterer, a serial polygamist, and a deacon in the Baptist Church. Grow up in Saudi Arabia, and you become a suicide bomber. Same machine, different programs!

Things like position and context ARE important physical things.

So, a Buick in Antarctica is different in nature than a Buick in DesMoines? Context and position are important, but the machinery is the same, even if the functionality is very different.

The computer, combined with the software constitutes a single system. That is so. But the computer without the software is still a computer. Conflate too many ideas under a single label, and your meaning becomes problematic. It is well to stick to rigid definitions when possible.

 

[sandwiches]

Sorry you have lost me. I would have thought that the program runs on the conmputer, and it is part of the working computer (screen etc) that windows appears. The programme is not over and above, it is simply an expression of the working machine.

The Excel program is a process executed by a machine and visualized for humans on a monitor. Excel is indeed not "over and above" the computer but it is a result of the specific non-Excel processes on non-Excel components.

Now, your last sentence makes me think that you see consciousness as "over and above" the brain; am I correct?

 

[Gracchus]

The Excel program is a process executed by a machine and visualized for humans on a monitor. Excel is indeed not "over and above" the computer but it is a result of the specific non-Excel processes on non-Excel components.

But your computer can run without Excel. And Excel can run on a Mac or a PC.

Now, your last sentence makes me think that you see consciousness as "over and above" the brain; am I correct?

No. Consciousness is something the brain may do, but doesn't do, for instance, when it is unconscious. So, consciousness isn't the brain.

Now it is certainly true that the program may not run correctly on faulty hardware, but if the program is faulty (Hey! It's a Microsoft product!) then you won't get good results even if your computer is in perfect working order.

If your computer has a virus, you may not be able to trust the output, even though the computer is working perfectly and there is nothing wrong with Excel. And if your mind has contracted ... oh say, "The Religious Virus", you may not be able to trust the output.

The hardware and software are two different things. Mind is something the body does. Or to put it another way, a wheel is still a wheel, even if it isn't turning.

 

[variant]

There is no "data" in the computer. There are patterns of charge and magnetic fields that we can interpret as data. Data exists in our minds, where it has context.

No the "data" exists in the interaction between the mind and computer. As well as in the commands that exist within the computer where the context exists as well driving the physical structure of the interactions.

It's been programmed in. There is physical data (the magnetic states) and command structure (code) driving physical interactions, in order to relate the relational data that your mind can understand (which only exists when there is a mind present to form the interelationships).

By that reasoning, the driver is part of the machinery of the car. Seems to me that is straining at gnats and swallowing camels, just to protect an untenable position.

Why isn't the driver part of the machinery of the car when in motion? That is exactly what a car is FOR, incorporation of a mechanical driver.

What is the point of a distinction here between incorporated parts and interchangeable ones? How incorperated to the parts have to become before we call them a part of the system we are talkinga bout?

Is the mechanical energy I am using any less part of my physical body than the physical cellular structure simply because it is transient?

Which atoms are a part of my physical makeup? Just the ones that stick around?

Whether the lights are on or off, or whether the doors are open or closed can also be part of the physical properties of the house. Do you use one bedroom for storage? Does that change the nature of the house?

Yes? Why don't you tell me how large a change I need to make to change the physical properties of my house. Do I need to knock out a wall? Will adding a shelf do? Does throwing a stone in a river change it's course slightly? The real question is wether we care enough to make a linquistic adjustment.

I am saying that the arrangement of molecules changes the physical properties of a substance so pretty much everything is in physical flux.

We experience everything as averages but that doesn’t mean we ever walk into the same river twice.

One mind can think many different, even things, and can even hold contradictory opinions simultaneously. The software is not the hardware. The program controls the machine and (we hope) determines the output, but different programs will deliver different outputs from the same machine.

Grow up in the Bible Belt, and you become a drunk, an adulterer, a serial polygamist, and a deacon in the Baptist Church. Grow up in Saudi Arabia, and you become a suicide bomber. Same machine, different programs!

The software and hardware are intertwined regardless of the complexity of the result. A PC with windows installed will function differently than a computer with linx.

So, a Buick in Antarctica is different in nature than a Buick in DesMoines? Context and position are important, but the machinery is the same, even if the functionality is very different.

What did I just say? Position is a physical property. You are just hung up on the idea of categories and sameness. The two cars seem identical enough to treat in an identical manner so you disregard.

This is a product of your consciousness simplifying things in order to make it's job easier. This is the reason people have a hard time understanding how a system of changing states like a bunch of neurons discharging in various sequences can cause a self aware consciousness.

The computer, combined with the software constitutes a single system. That is so. But the computer without the software is still a computer. Conflate too many ideas under a single label, and your meaning becomes problematic. It is well to stick to rigid definitions when possible.

The computer being a computer is not in question, I am saying that a computer is different when there is software installed, and that the software becomes a part of the computer.

Rigid definitions are for people seeking simplicity. Simplicity is admirable because it is functional. If you want to understand the details of what is happening you have to understand the interconnectedness of physical things.

GS here wants to understand how relational things work and so I am speaking in terms of interrelated physical systems. Where things like interrelatedness, position and state start to matter greatly to the physical makeup of certain things.

So, yes, the conscious system of a human being is woven into the system via it's physical structure in terms of things like the states of neurons. The loss of the conscious system dramatically changes the system we call a human being.

A brain dead human is still a human after all in your scheme, but we all know there is a dramatic difference.

 

[Gracchus]

The computer being a computer is not in question, I am saying that a computer is different when there is software installed, and that the software becomes a part of the computer.

No. The software becomes part of the system. The computer is the computer, on or off, barebones or OS installed.

Rigid definitions are for people seeking simplicity. Simplicity is admirable because it is functional. If you want to understand the details of what is happening you have to understand the interconnectedness of physical things.

I kind of understand it. I used to do punched card processing. I used several machines, card punches, sorters, summary punches, collators, and accounting machines, to perform the same functions that computers perform today.

I used to program with mechanical switches. I once designed an "adder" using light switches to program the functions of addition, comparison, and subtraction, and other switches to enter the data. It had no "memory" save the switch settings. If you want to understand (and not just use) the system you start with the mechanics and then get to the programming.

I have programmed with machine language, assembler, and high level languages, like Cobol, Basic, Fortran, Forth, Lisp, Pascal, and C++. So I know about interconnectedness. Those punch card devices performed, with human operators, some of the same functions as computers. But, those systems, with re-wirable circuits, and human operating systems were not computers.

GS here wants to understand how relational things work and so I am speaking in terms of interrelated physical systems. Where things like interrelatedness, position and state start to matter greatly to the physical makeup of certain things.

But the physical parts are physical parts. The system is a relationship of the parts, and functional components that operate on the parts but are not part of them.

So, yes, the conscious system of a human being is woven into the system via it's physical structure in terms of things like the states of neurons. The loss of the conscious system dramatically changes the system we call a human being.

A human under anesthesia is still human. The change may be dramatic, but not so dramatic as to change the fact of humanity.

At some level, the brain is still working, but you cannot say that the mind is. The wheel rolls, the brain thinks, but when the wheel isn't rolling it is still a wheel, and when the mind is shut down, the brain is still the brain.

A brain dead human is still a human after all in your scheme, but we all know there is a dramatic difference.

Drama is for the theater, not for science. The brain is not the mind.

 

[quatona]

Ok if consciousness is electrochemiostry then some (not all) electrochemistry is conscious. But we can argue from analogy and generalisation that other electrochemistry may be conscious. What I am saying is how do we know, what standards of justification are there to establish the opinion either way?

I guess I basically go with "If it walks like a duck..." in this case.
I have an idea what it means for an animal to be conscious (after all, that´s how we coined the term "consciousness" - by observation of behaviour), but I have no idea what it means for electromchemistry to be conscious.

 

[quatona]

Ok but I am not sure what that means.

If you are unable or unwilling to distinguish between an object and an event I suspect there is not much common ground for a conversation.

What is an event without objective existence (if that is what consciousness may be)?

Where did the criterion "objective existence" come from? Certainly not from my post.

 

[GrowingSmaller]

And yes, we are learning. So, what is the problem?

Well in my opinion in order to solve the problem of mental or phenomenological causation* the so called hard problem of consicousness would have to be solved first. So its a problem additional to and after the "hard problem". That's the problem.

*I mean give a phsyical account of how feeling pain, or seeing a apple, causes certain behaviour. A physical account that actually explains the consciousness involved and the conscious process, rather than one that just gives us the correlates of consciousness etc but does not really get the the heart of experience.

 

[GrowingSmaller]

Now, your last sentence makes me think that you see consciousness as "over and above" the brain; am I correct?

Sorry.

 

[GrowingSmaller]

If you are unable or unwilling to distinguish between an object and an event I suspect there is not much common ground for a conversation.

Not uinwilling but unable. I thought that an event was an object in space time, or a series of objects. For instance the "event" of a rock concert is a series of objects e.i. fingers, hands, amplifiers etc doing different things.

Where did the criterion "objective existence" come from? Certainly not from my post.

I mean that consciousness would have objective existence if it were part of the brain, because the brain has objective existence. And because the brain is an object, so is consciousness (or so it would be if all this were true, which it may well be).

 

[KCfromNC]

The argument I use is this. If pleasure and pain had no causal power they may as well be randomly distributed in experience.

There's other options. For example, it could be that pleasure and pain are effects of an unconscious decision making process, just like actions are. That unconscious decision wouldn't be random, so conscious feelings wouldn't be either.

Sorry to snip out the rest of your writing, but if you're going to throw out a false dilemma as your only evidence, providing a third alternative is all it takes to dismiss the argument completely. That's why philosophy is ill-suited to this sort of discussion - it's a question of evidence, not of idle speculation. And so far, the dualists seem to be on the losing end of that scale.

 

[KCfromNC]

Not uinwilling but unable. I thought that an event was an object in space time, or a series of objects. For instance the "event" of a rock concert is a series of objects e.i. fingers, hands, amplifiers etc doing different things.

If what the objects are doing is significant to the equation, then the event is more than just the objects.

But to use your argument, you have a musician-concert problem with your idea. If it is only fingers, hands and so on, it seems a little arbitrary to assume that the vast majority of fingers and hands are non-musical and that concerts are somehow extra special, when there seems to be little warrant for that assertion if we are arguing from analogy. Other arrangements of hands and fingers share many properties with ones in concerts, so we ought not dogmatically claim they are not concerts . I think that an agnostic stance is more reasonable (i.e we don't know if non-musical arrangements of hands are musical in some way or not). At least if we are making a positive claim either way, we ought to acknowledge that claim is made with little confidence. Agreed?

I mean that consciousness would have objective existence if it were part of the brain, because the brain has objective existence. And because the brain is an object, so is consciousness (or so it would be if all this were true, which it may well be).

What do you mean by "objective existence" in this context? Does a concert have an objective existence?

 

[sandwiches]

But your computer can run without Excel. And Excel can run on a Mac or a PC.

Absolutely.

No. Consciousness is something the brain may do, but doesn't do, for instance, when it is unconscious. So, consciousness isn't the brain.

Now it is certainly true that the program may not run correctly on faulty hardware, but if the program is faulty (Hey! It's a Microsoft product!) then you won't get good results even if your computer is in perfect working order.

If your computer has a virus, you may not be able to trust the output, even though the computer is working perfectly and there is nothing wrong with Excel. And if your mind has contracted ... oh say, "The Religious Virus", you may not be able to trust the output.

The hardware and software are two different things. Mind is something the body does. Or to put it another way, a wheel is still a wheel, even if it isn't turning.

I agree. I think you may have replied to the wrong person as I don't think I said anything contrary to that and I agree entirely with you.

Now, if you're saying that the mind is separate from the body, well sure, I'd say it's as separate as blood is separate from our body. But I think this is irrelevant to my point in using the analogy. I was merely pointing out that the mind is not a magical thing with no link to the physical.

 

[sandwiches]

Well in my opinion in order to solve the problem of mental or phenomenological causation* the so called hard problem of consicousness would have to be solved first. So its a problem additional to and after the "hard problem". That's the problem.

*I mean give a phsyical account of how feeling pain, or seeing a apple, causes certain behaviour. A physical account that actually explains the consciousness involved and the conscious process, rather than one that just gives us the correlates of consciousness etc but does not really get the the heart of experience.

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.

 

[quatona]

Not uinwilling but unable. I thought that an event was an object in space time, or a series of objects. For instance the "event" of a rock concert is a series of objects e.i. fingers, hands, amplifiers etc doing different things.

Yes, it´s not a series of objects (fingers, hands etc.) but of fingers, hands etc. doing something (i.e. a series of events).

I mean that consciousness would have objective existence if it were part of the brain, because the brain has objective existence.

I´m wondering what that had to do with my statements, then. Whether consciousness is objective or not was not its subject. Of course you are free to type anything you want - but I´m somewhat expecting a response to a quoted post to refer to the quote.

And because the brain is an object, so is consciousness (or so it would be if all this were true, which it may well be).

I have issues with this logic (or with this terminology). How does that follow?
Because fingers are objects movements are objects, too?

 

[GrowingSmaller]

There's other options. For example, it could be that pleasure and pain are effects of an unconscious decision making process, just like actions are. That unconscious decision wouldn't be random, so conscious feelings wouldn't be either.

I accept that but the fact that pleasures were associated with life giving things (food, sex etc) would be purely incidental. That I cannot believe is the truth.

Sorry to snip out the rest of your writing, but if you're going to throw out a false dilemma as your only evidence, providing a third alternative is all it takes to dismiss the argument completely.

Go at the above. You actually believe that a being whose [bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse] just happened to be painful would be as fit as the opposite (who found pleasure)? You seem to say that pain has nothing to do with bevavior, nor pleasure - because they do not cause actions. So that follows from your belief.

That's why philosophy is ill-suited to this sort of discussion - it's a question of evidence, not of idle speculation. And so far, the dualists seem to be on the losing end of that scale.

Who said I am dualist? Are you inferring "he has a catholic icon, the RCC teaches dualism, therefore he is a dualist"?

 

[GrowingSmaller]

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.

But why is there being conscious rather than a p-zombie (see "philosophical zombie")? You have told us about the concominants of consciousness, but not why there is consciousness! That is known as Chalmer's "hard problem of consicousness". And you might have told us what the concominants of pain are, but not why there is pain as a conscious experience. Nor have you told us (if it is the case) why pain as a conscious experience deters people. So you have to explain why there is consciousness first of all, and then give an full account (not a mere concominant) of why conscious experiences affect people in certain ways i.e. phenomenology and the existential condition of man need explaining from the scientific point of view. Merely saying "there are c-fibres firing" etc does not do the job. That gives us the correlates or concominants of experience but does not explain why there is experience when such things occur. Nor does it explain (if it is the case) how expeiences influence things, it merely shows how concominants of experience affect one another which is another matter. Science is at level 1, there are more thresholds to cross.

 

[GrowingSmaller]

Do you not have a set of standards you use to determine if, say, the chair you're sitting on is actually a conscious being? Come on, we weren't born yesterday.

Honestly I htough I knew but thatwas just a belief i was brought up with. I bdo not believe (like a shintoinstmight ) that the chair has a personal soul, but I connot exclude that there is some form of isolated "consciousness reaction" amongst the atoms or particles of the chair.