The Extent of Cartesian Dualism

[Shane Roach]

If there is any more to your argument, feel free to post it. I have to imagine you are aware you have not even touched the particular point in the process I am interested in, which is how physical processes suddenly manifest consciousness and do not just go on and on without anyone ever being aware of them.

 

[TeddyKGB]

I didn't jump to the conclusion, I simply have never in my life heard of any explanation for the observed phenomenon of thoughts and feelings and ideas that unifies them wholly with the potasium/sodium chemical-electric processes of the brain.

Probably because Cartesian dualism has been drilled into our heads by sloppy philosophy, and thus is a difficult concept to disregard. It seems intuitive enough, that is until you get to the part where the non-physical aspect is put under scrutiny.

This is an especially confusing use of the quotation marks around a phrase you seem to be having trouble putting into a sentence grammatically, since you coinded the term and applied it to my motives.

I use the term as a catch-all for the stuff that is packed into the "mind" concept. That does not mean I know how to identify any of the "mind" stuff.

My point is merely that your motives nor my motives have anything to do with the truth or falsehood of either of our beliefs.

Okay.

I have no idea what you are asserting or denying with this. The play, in its pre-verbalized form, is an idea. The fact that you can make shorthand for it should not really confuse that?

The components of the play would exist even if we had no shorthand reference. The play does not take on existence apart from its components simply because we decide to call those 11 actions "I right dive option strong."

 

[TeddyKGB]

Dennett gives a neat example of the untenability of the common notion of qualia in the book.

The visual-field inversion experiment seems to have originated with Stratton in 1896 (he was his own subject), but Ivo Kohler's are the most widely-known.

Basically, the subject is fitted with goggles that invert the visual information before it reaches the lens, causing the subject to "see" upside-down. The interesting thing is not that they were able to adapt within a few days - and do things like ride a bike and snowski within a couple of weeks - but that when asked later if they adapted by re-inverting their mental image or by getting used to an upside-down image, they considered the question unanswerable.

I am still reading Dennett's deconstruction of qualia, but I think examples like this strongly suggest that there are no independently-existing things that correspond to thoughts.

 

[Shane Roach]

Dennett gives a neat example of the untenability of the common notion of qualia in the book.

The visual-field inversion experiment seems to have originated with Stratton in 1896 (he was his own subject), but Ivo Kohler's are the most widely-known.

Basically, the subject is fitted with goggles that invert the visual information before it reaches the lens, causing the subject to "see" upside-down. The interesting thing is not that they were able to adapt within a few days - and do things like ride a bike and snowski within a couple of weeks - but that when asked later if they adapted by re-inverting their mental image or by getting used to an upside-down image, they considered the question unanswerable.

I am still reading Dennett's deconstruction of qualia, but I think examples like this strongly suggest that there are no independently-existing things that correspond to thoughts.

Two things. First off, MAN I wish I could try that experiment! I doubt seriously that I personally would find that question unanswerable.

Secondly, and I have only a cursory understanding of what people mean by "qualia", but this example does nothing to address the fact that the perceptions are still not physical.

Also, If there is no God and no spiritual reality whatsoever, this feature of our consciousness which you believe to be illusory no doubt plays a strong part in the reason why people thought there was a spiritual reality. Trying to pass it off on any specific philosophy would seem to me to be putting the cart before the horse. It would make more sense to believe that religion evolved out of that perception. If and when that perception can be more thoroughly explained, you might be on to something, but as of yet I am not seeing it.

That's just my opinion.

 

[David Gould]

Ok. Here goes.

In my opinion, there are six possibilities for the relationship between brain function and thoughts.

1.) Thoughts are brain function.
2.) Thoughts cause brain function.
3.) Brain function causes thoughts.
4.) Something else causes both thoughts and brain function.
5.) There is no relationship.
6.) Brain function sometimes causes thoughts; sometimes thought cause brain function.

We can probably agree that 5 is not worth considering. All the evidence suggests that there is a definite relationship between the two. The fact that machines can use this relationship to read thoughts, if crudely as yet, is pretty much proof that there is a relationship.


I think we can rule out 2 and 4 pretty easily. After all, we know that when we do certain things to the brain - drugs, surgery, damage - thinking changes. The alterations happen first. Therefore, the causal relationship does not flow from thoughts to brain function - at least, some of the time.

Further, this means that the relationship has to be a direct one, not an indirect one as postulated in 4. If something else causes thoughts and brain function (x happens and causes thought Y to happens and brain function Z to happen) then altering brain function would have no affect on thoughts.


As such we are left with 1, 3 and 6.

Examining 3 - that brain function causes thoughts - we can see that it is a position that is in opposition to both of our particular philosophies. That is no reason to rule it out, but I think we can set it aside for now.

The real dispute between us comes from you supporting position 6 and me supporting position 1.

I will pause there for a moment, as I have to do some work.

 

[Shane Roach]

Ok. Here goes.

In my opinion, there are six possibilities for the relationship between brain function and thoughts.

1.) Thoughts are brain function.
2.) Thoughts cause brain function.
3.) Brain function causes thoughts.
4.) Something else causes both thoughts and brain function.
5.) There is no relationship.
6.) Brain function sometimes causes thoughts; sometimes thought cause brain function.

We can probably agree that 5 is not worth considering. All the evidence suggests that there is a definite relationship between the two. The fact that machines can use this relationship to read thoughts, if crudely as yet, is pretty much proof that there is a relationship.


I think we can rule out 2 and 4 pretty easily. After all, we know that when we do certain things to the brain - drugs, surgery, damage - thinking changes. The alterations happen first. Therefore, the causal relationship does not flow from thoughts to brain function - at least, some of the time.

Further, this means that the relationship has to be a direct one, not an indirect one as postulated in 4. If something else causes thoughts and brain function (x happens and causes thought Y to happens and brain function Z to happen) then altering brain function would have no affect on thoughts.


As such we are left with 1, 3 and 6.

Examining 3 - that brain function causes thoughts - we can see that it is a position that is in opposition to both of our particular philosophies. That is no reason to rule it out, but I think we can set it aside for now.

The real dispute between us comes from you supporting position 6 and me supporting position 1.

I will pause there for a moment, as I have to do some work.

I don't really think so. I do believe 6, but the real problem we have is that you keep asserting that thoughts are physical things. Even if thoughts are brain functions, they manifest themselves within the brain differently than they manifest to those observing the brain. So even if I hypothesize and agree to 1, I still don't really get your drift.

Fact is, I don't really have a problem with believing 1. After all, I can believe in the trinity... LOL Uniting things that seem to have some sort of required disconnect is not a problem to me as long as I see the connection.

 

[David Gould]

I don't really think so. I do believe 6, but the real problem we have is that you keep asserting that thoughts are physical things. Even if thoughts are brain functions, they manifest themselves within the brain differently than they manifest to those observing the brain. So even if I hypothesize and agree to 1, I still don't really get your drift.

Fact is, I don't really have a problem with believing 1. After all, I can believe in the trinity... LOL Uniting things that seem to have some sort of required disconnect is not a problem to me as long as I see the connection.

I am only part way through this. I just want to explicitly lay out the options and then look at the evidence for them and the theory that binds my position together.

I do not assert that thoughts are physical things, though - I assert that they are things that physical things do. Process, remember?

 

[Shane Roach]

I am only part way through this. I just want to explicitly lay out the options and then look at the evidence for them and the theory that binds my position together.

I do not assert that thoughts are physical things, though - I assert that they are things that physical things do. Process, remember?

Well, put me down for 1 or 6 I guess. I don't really think it matters. Heck, make it 1 if it makes things easier on you.

 

[MartinM]

Shane, how are you defining 'physical?' I ask since, as a physicalist myself, I don't use it in the way you do. You seem to be using it as a placeholder for 'material,' in the ontological sense of the word.

 

[Shane Roach]

Shane, how are you defining 'physical?' I ask since, as a physicalist myself, I don't use it in the way you do. You seem to be using it as a placeholder for 'material,' in the ontological sense of the word.

I suppose yes, material. Thoughts are not material. Placeholder?

Sounds like I might as well have said, "thoughts are not yellow bellied sapsuckers!

LOL

*cough* Sorry, sorry... it's just. Are the two words or are they not more or less synonyms?

 

[MartinM]

*cough* Sorry, sorry... it's just. Are the two words or are they not more or less synonyms?

Not really, no. 'Material' tends to be connected with ontological materialism, where the material 'substance' is all that exists. 'Physical' doesn't refer to ontology at all; rather, something is physical if and only if it interacts with something else which is physical. The recursive definition is completed by the statement 'I am physical'. To a physicalist, ontology is somewhat meaningless - it simply doesn't make sense to discuss 'material' or 'immaterial' except as arbitrary (though possibly useful) subsets of 'physical'.

 

[TeddyKGB]

Two things. First off, MAN I wish I could try that experiment! I doubt seriously that I personally would find that question unanswerable.

That is what most people would say. But how would you tell? If you come to regard your phenomenological visual world as "normal," it seems like there would be little difference between the two adaptations.

Secondly, and I have only a cursory understanding of what people mean by "qualia", but this example does nothing to address the fact that the perceptions are still not physical.

Sure it does. At least, experiments like these argue against the Cartesian Theatre model where a nonphysical representation sits somewhere in the mind, waiting for the "central controller" to acknowledge it.

Also, If there is no God and no spiritual reality whatsoever, this feature of our consciousness which you believe to be illusory no doubt plays a strong part in the reason why people thought there was a spiritual reality. Trying to pass it off on any specific philosophy would seem to me to be putting the cart before the horse. It would make more sense to believe that religion evolved out of that perception. If and when that perception can be more thoroughly explained, you might be on to something, but as of yet I am not seeing it.

I think you are asking for something that is not possible. A fully materialist reductionist model of thought will not produce a miniature picture externally discernable from a pattern of exited neurons.

I might some day be able to look at your brain when you are looking at a baseball and understand that you are looking at a baseball, but I will never see a picture of a baseball in your neurons. That does not mean the baseball in your brain is nonphysical, just that our perspectives differ.

 

[Shane Roach]

Not really, no. 'Material' tends to be connected with ontological materialism, where the material 'substance' is all that exists. 'Physical' doesn't refer to ontology at all; rather, something is physical if and only if it interacts with something else which is physical. The recursive definition is completed by the statement 'I am physical'. To a physicalist, ontology is somewhat meaningless - it simply doesn't make sense to discuss 'material' or 'immaterial' except as arbitrary (though possibly useful) subsets of 'physical'.

These sound like they are ontology specific definitions that I am not concerned with. The thoughts themselves are not material, whether it is useful to someone's beliefs about ontology or not. This is a problem I have with trying to shoe-horn words into tight holes that shunt off any possible understanding other than the one the person already has. The mind closes and the game is over. The problem is there is no agreement reached on the subject, and having taken the words normally used to discuss it off the table, there is no longer even room for discussion. This makes no sense to me.

To answer my own question, the words are indeed synonyms, and I would say that using your definitions thoughts are immaterial yet physical, which is nonsense of course, which is why I do not accept those definitions. Clear as mud?

 

[Shane Roach]

That is what most people would say. But how would you tell? If you come to regard your phenomenological visual world as "normal," it seems like there would be little difference between the two adaptations.

Sure it does. At least, experiments like these argue against the Cartesian Theatre model where a nonphysical representation sits somewhere in the mind, waiting for the "central controller" to acknowledge it.

I don't see how. I may be picturing things in a more odd way than I would have thought, but from my weird little world the self is somehow connected to the reactions of the brain cells, and if the brain cells behaviors get turned upside down, the self merely adapts to that.

I think you are asking for something that is not possible. A fully materialist reductionist model of thought will not produce a miniature picture externally discernable from a pattern of exited neurons.

I might some day be able to look at your brain when you are looking at a baseball and understand that you are looking at a baseball, but I will never see a picture of a baseball in your neurons. That does not mean the baseball in your brain is nonphysical, just that our perspectives differ.

This to me is a bunch of wordstuff that basically translates to, "Of course I can't show you that, but it is true nonetheless."

Your use of "perspective" here even is not the normal use. The problem is not perspective. The problem is you are looking at my brain, and my thoughts are not the same thing as the cells you are looking at. I keep hearing, "thoughts are a brain process," but when put to the test, these statements are merely statements not only without proof, but as you suggest, I think probably without even the possibility of proof, one way or the other.

I am not insisting that my way is right here, I just am at a loss to understand where anyone gets any confidence in this way you are looking at things. If anything, it seems an even longer stretch than the concept of a soul. Certainly I can't imagine it as somehow more sensible or less troublesome from a philosophical point of view.

 

[Shane Roach]

I hope no one is getting frustrated or irritated here. I prefer these sorts of discussions. I wish I could come closer to understanding your ideas, but even if I do not, it is more enjoyable to me to simply present the ideas and lay them out than to argue the case as if it were some sort of court.

Just my two cents.

 

[Shane Roach]

I am still reading Dennett's deconstruction of qualia, but I think examples like this strongly suggest that there are no independently-existing things that correspond to thoughts.

It's weird, but there is a verse in the Bible that says something about the difference between the spirit and the soul. Likewise, there is of course the trinitay, which is one of those things that gets constantly mulled over.

In the Revelation, it says that people will have new and incorruptible bodies. I do not know what happens to the soul and spirit upon death. Absent from the body is present with the Lord, so it is said. But in what form? Or do we suddenly simply find outselves at the judgement as if we had slept? Does the Bible suggest that we actually are one with our bodies, and need them in order to exist at all in that sense?

I don't know.

Point being, there is really none of this that could be specifically applied against Christianity, nor really other religions to my way of thinking. The idea is that perception is an entirely natural phenomenon, but that just means that perception might occur in circumstance we do not yet know about. The whole idea of a living planet, or a living universe becomes not just a religious fiction, but entirely possible scientifically. Unless you just think there is something specific about the shape, size, and quality of reactions in the brain that could not be approximated by other sorts of physical processes.

All you've really managed to do then is to redefine the "supernatural" as perfectly natural, and in the process undone any fundamental objection to conscious beings of immense power as being outside the scope of the known universe. They would merely be like us, but bigger in some sense.

 

[David Gould]

Well, put me down for 1 or 6 I guess. I don't really think it matters. Heck, make it 1 if it makes things easier on you.

Hmm. I will just assume for the moment that I accept 1 and that you accept 6.

How can consciousness arise from thoughts being brain processes?

1.) Brains - and indeed nervous systems - are mainly detection and pattern recognition systems.
2.) These detection and pattern recognition systems point inwards as well as outwards - for example, pain sensors indicate damage to the system.
3.) When these detection and pattern recognition systems point inwards sufficiently, they detect and recognise the processes of the brain.
4.) These processes of the brain are detected as thoughts - much like electromagnetic waves of a certain frequency are detected as 'blue'.

An important point to consider here is that the detection and pattern recognition of our internal brain processes then becomes part of our internal brain processes which is itself detected and recognised and so on and so on.

The system becomes capable of - in theory, although not in practice - an infinite number of recursive loops. This creates incredible ability to work through tasks at high speeds - and also creates the ability for information paralysis, and things like existential angst.


Just out of interest, Shane, if a machine that was developed that could read thoughts by examining brain processes, what would be your opinion as to what was happening? In other words, how would this fit into a non-physical explanation of thoughts?

 

[TeddyKGB]

I don't see how. I may be picturing things in a more odd way than I would have thought, but from my weird little world the self is somehow connected to the reactions of the brain cells, and if the brain cells behaviors get turned upside down, the self merely adapts to that.

And yet the self at some point loses the ability to distinguish qualia from the perception of qualia. The self cannot differentiate two different adaptive modalities.

This to me is a bunch of wordstuff that basically translates to, "Of course I can't show you that, but it is true nonetheless."

Perhaps now you know how I feel when I see explanations that appeal to the non-physical.

Your use of "perspective" here even is not the normal use. The problem is not perspective. The problem is you are looking at my brain, and my thoughts are not the same thing as the cells you are looking at. I keep hearing, "thoughts are a brain process," but when put to the test, these statements are merely statements not only without proof, but as you suggest, I think probably without even the possibility of proof, one way or the other.

I am not insisting that my way is right here, I just am at a loss to understand where anyone gets any confidence in this way you are looking at things. If anything, it seems an even longer stretch than the concept of a soul. Certainly I can't imagine it as somehow more sensible or less troublesome from a philosophical point of view.

Forgive me for revisiting motives, but it is perhaps your theistic bias that leads you to find epistemological comfort in a position that I find to be more of an explanatory black hole. In fairness, it is possible that I have a bias in the other direction. Of course, if I had a more concrete notion of the non-physical (pun sort of intended) I might be able to better bridge the gap in my understanding.

In any case, I have been trying to outline the problems with dualistic models, to which you have thus far limited your rejoinders to variations on, "But what about the obviously non-physical part?" I hate to be overly dismissive, but the fact that I do not share your phenomena does not entail something non-physical.

 

[Shane Roach]

Hmm. I will just assume for the moment that I accept 1 and that you accept 6.

How can consciousness arise from thoughts being brain processes?

1.) Brains - and indeed nervous systems - are mainly detection and pattern recognition systems.
2.) These detection and pattern recognition systems point inwards as well as outwards - for example, pain sensors indicate damage to the system.
3.) When these detection and pattern recognition systems point inwards sufficiently, they detect and recognise the processes of the brain.
4.) These processes of the brain are detected as thoughts - much like electromagnetic waves of a certain frequency are detected as 'blue'.

An important point to consider here is that the detection and pattern recognition of our internal brain processes then becomes part of our internal brain processes which is itself detected and recognised and so on and so on.

The system becomes capable of - in theory, although not in practice - an infinite number of recursive loops. This creates incredible ability to work through tasks at high speeds - and also creates the ability for information paralysis, and things like existential angst.


Just out of interest, Shane, if a machine that was developed that could read thoughts by examining brain processes, what would be your opinion as to what was happening? In other words, how would this fit into a non-physical explanation of thoughts?

As a thought experiment I can envision a machine that could read everything in the brain and perhaps even translate it electronically and then put it in another person's brain and I would still feel that the thoughts themselves were immaterial. The relative complexity of any given mechanism is not, to my mind, the determining factor, nor indeed is recursive.. ness? Recursivity. The quality of being a system that reacts to its own output, *cough*

I'm just impressed by the fact that all of these things ought to be able to go on without anyone ever being aware that they themselves, as a living thing, even exist. It is the awareness that is the interesting puzzle in my view, not the complexity of the mechanism itself, but the elegant simplicity of just being aware of the world around. Why am I aware? That makes no logical sense to me, and is the reason why I search outside the material, to give a nod to Martin's terminology.

I often get a little miffed at people using movie analogies, but for example, androids like in Star Trek's new generation or whatever it was. I can imagine a machine that complex, with the exact behaviors of a person, which nevertheless was not actually aware.

I don't see the link between the mechanism and awareness.

 

[David Gould]

As a thought experiment I can envision a machine that could read everything in the brain and perhaps even translate it electronically and then put it in another person's brain and I would still feel that the thoughts themselves were immaterial. The relative complexity of any given mechanism is not, to my mind, the determining factor, nor indeed is recursive.. ness? Recursivity. The quality of being a system that reacts to its own output, *cough*

I'm just impressed by the fact that all of these things ought to be able to go on without anyone ever being aware that they themselves, as a living thing, even exist. It is the awareness that is the interesting puzzle in my view, not the complexity of the mechanism itself, but the elegant simplicity of just being aware of the world around. Why am I aware? That makes no logical sense to me, and is the reason why I search outside the material, to give a nod to Martin's terminology.

You detect yourself, which is the definition of awareness. Once a detector gets complex enough, this is what can happen.

I often get a little miffed at people using movie analogies, but for example, androids like in Star Trek's new generation or whatever it was. I can imagine a machine that complex, with the exact behaviors of a person, which nevertheless was not actually aware.

I don't see the link between the mechanism and awareness.

Ah, the Zombie Argument.

The thing is, you may well be able to imagine such a machine. But does that mean that such a machine is possible?

By using the Zombie argument, basically you are arguing that awareness does nothing at all. This to me seems like a weird argument to be making. If self-awareness does absolutely nothing to influence behaviour then I can see why you might think it illogical for it to have arisen.

However, it appears to me that humans, who are aware, do things that are completely different to things which are not aware. Might it be that awareness does something after all?

If awareness does something, then machines which duplicated our behaviour without actually being aware themselves would not be possible. In other words, we behave the way we do because we are aware. If we were not aware, we would behave differently.

So ask yourself this question: do you think awareness adds nothing to our actions or do you think it adds something?