Author Topic: The "hard problem of consciousness"  (Read 48124 times)

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Offline General Battuta

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Re: The "hard problem of consciousness"
If I built an exact replica of your brain, I would duplicate your subjectivity too. Wherever the object, the subject.

 

Offline watsisname

Re: The "hard problem of consciousness"
I am reminded of an interesting thing.

As some of you know, I practice lucid dreaming, or being conscious and actively making decisions while within a dream.
Well, I was lucidly dreaming one night, some years ago, having a super fun time levitating and flying around.  Eventually the dream faded, I opened my eyes, and climbed out of bed while reflecting on the awesomeness of it all and ZAP!~





I found myself standing there, dumbstruck, unable to think of what I was doing or what had just happened.  It was as if this moment was the first moment of my existence, the whole thread of thought I was having had just ended, literally with a small electric-like shock felt in the head.

But I have memory.  I could recall those previous events, but they come as if from a distant past, not just mere seconds ago.  They were... fuzzy... and much of the fine details were lost, irretrievable.

This is the natural process of sleep.  It just happened that this time it (some part of it) happened while I was awake.  Data was massaged, some of it stored, some of it discarded, a brain state terminated and replaced with a fresh one ready to tackle the new day.


The me who is typing this is only a clone.  I died years ago.
In my world of sleepers, everything will be erased.
I'll be your religion, your only endless ideal.
Slowly we crawl in the dark.
Swallowed by the seductive night.

 
Re: The "hard problem of consciousness"
The 'choice' argument is flimsy. You think day to day life is as dangerous as teleporters, you just choose not to use the teleporter because you're helplessly resigned to constantly undergoing the same process?

Okay, good point. I need to argue that day-to-day life may not be as dangerous as teleportation.

Remember, in physicalism, saying 'I am the sum of my past configurations' is exactly the same as 'there is causal connection between my past brainstatea and my current one.'
Unless you are a dualist, the past has no influence on the present except for the information transmitted forward by causal rules.

(Emphasis mine.) This is the crux of the problem. If we assume monism/physicalism, I think your claims follow straightforwardly.

You make the scientific observation that physicalism is all we need to make predictions. I agree. Nevertheless, physicalism has no handle on consciousness, for fundamental reasons.
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The following statement is the starting point for all inquiry: "I exist, and I am conscious." This is the Ultimate Axiom. Call it the first level of knowledge.
The second level is the statement: "I exist in an external world that follows certain rules." Unlike the first statement, this one may be false, but the only sane option is to assume it.
The third level, built on the second, contains models of the external world. This is the objective level, and the domain of science.

The third level is the source of all predictions, while much of philosophy concerns the first and second. ("Why is there something rather than nothing?") The crucial point is that science is confined to the third level. It assumes the second level, which is based on the first. Using the third level to conclude anything about the other two is a logical error, akin to circular reasoning.

Now, consciousness has third-level correlates ("self-awareness", "metacognition", "brain state", etc.) that are theoretically explicable with third-level constructions and reasoning. Chalmers refers to these as "easy" problems. The "hard" problem (why there should be a strong connection between the first and third levels) is in a completely different category.
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I apologize for the pedantry, but I hope my argument is clear now.

 

Offline General Battuta

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Re: The "hard problem of consciousness"
Only one set of second and third-level models produces a useful explanation for anything - an internally consistent model which makes predictions we can test. This is physicalism. It also neatly predicts the mechanisms underpinning consciousness.

No other set of assumptions produces any useful predictions at all.

We have no reason to consider any model except monist physicalism. No other model has ever produced even the slightest utility.

 
Re: The "hard problem of consciousness"
If your objection is that dualist models of consciousness have no additional predictive power, then I agree - but this objection also applies to all of metaphysics and philosophy. There's nothing wrong with restricting oneself to topics of practical value, but it's the scientist's mindset, not the philosopher's mindset.
You make the scientific observation that physicalism is all we need to make predictions. I agree. Nevertheless, physicalism has no handle on consciousness, for fundamental reasons.
The third level is the source of all predictions, while much of philosophy concerns the first and second.

Again, you're arguing from a practical/utilitarian/predictive standpoint, which ignores virtually every branch of philosophy and hence has no bearing on philosophical issues.

This is physicalism. It also neatly predicts the mechanisms underpinning consciousness.

Physicalism can only explain third-level correlates of consciousness. Using the third level to conclude anything about the other two is a logical error.

 

Offline Scotty

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Re: The "hard problem of consciousness"
Using acceleration to conclude anything about velocity or position is a logical error (and obviously with a few assumed it known things, much like this thread!)?  I'm on a phone, so I trust the parallel in that is apparent.

 
Re: The "hard problem of consciousness"
Using acceleration to conclude anything about velocity or position is a logical error (and obviously with a few assumed it known things, much like this thread!)?  I'm on a phone, so I trust the parallel in that is apparent.

You cannot find an analogous situation in physics, because the third level of knowledge is self-contained. Velocity and acceleration don't exist in a vacuum; they stem from the same set of assumptions.

 

Offline General Battuta

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Re: The "hard problem of consciousness"
The physicalist model predicts subjective first-person experience: qualia arise in the brain as a consequence of the neural correlates of consciousness, whatever they might be. We don't know yet, but we do know with good confidence the boundaries inside which the solution will be found, because all other solutions to all other solved problems obey the same confinement. We can alter consciousness by altering the neural correlates of consciousness. They are, as far as we can tell, identical.

Philosophy once explained the behavior of moving objects and the causes of human behavior. As science has expanded, philosophy has yielded this territory. The same process is now underway with the mind.

 
Re: The "hard problem of consciousness"
Consciousness appears to supervene on physical properties. This is precisely the hard problem: why there should be a strong connection between the first and third levels.

Every phenomenon that science can explain is a third-level phenomenon, including human behavior and motion. Consciousness is in a completely different category, because it is the one brute fact.

 

Offline Scotty

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Re: The "hard problem of consciousness"
So the objection becomes "It is because it is and it isn't because it isn't"?

There is no point to discussing philosophy that holds as a core tenet that it may not be defined.  It is useless, both to us and to the world.

 
Re: The "hard problem of consciousness"
So the objection becomes "It is because it is and it isn't because it isn't"?

There is no point to discussing philosophy that holds as a core tenet that it may not be defined.  It is useless, both to us and to the world.

I don't understand your first sentence, but impracticality comes with the territory. If we only valued practical things, we wouldn't have philosophers.

From a philosophical standpoint, consciousness is extremely important.

 

Offline Mars

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Re: The "hard problem of consciousness"
GhylTarvoke, can you prove you're conscious? How are you even defining the word? Saying that nothing in life is provable beyond "I exist" is provable doesn't explain anything. If we're ever able to fully model consciousness, it will still be totally unexplained by your argument, because it's "first level."

Why should our own minds be any more certain than anything else? "We" as people may not even exist in the way we are inclined to think that we do.

 

Offline General Battuta

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Re: The "hard problem of consciousness"
We can build models of consciousness, predict how consciousness would change if we alter the brain, and test those predictions. Consciousness is nothing special.

 
Re: The "hard problem of consciousness"
Good questions. I haven't been clear on these points.

GhylTarvoke, can you prove you're conscious?

I can't prove it to you. I don't need to prove it to myself, because it's a brute fact, i.e. true by default - just as my own existence is true by default.

Saying that nothing in life is provable beyond "I exist" is provable doesn't explain anything.

The "levels of knowledge" aren't an argument for solipsism (that way lies madness), but a demonstration that there's an unbridgeable gulf between physicalism and consciousness.

Why should our own minds be any more certain than anything else? "We" as people may not even exist in the way we are inclined to think that we do.

My memories may be planted. I may be a digital simulation or a brain in a vat. But I cannot be mistaken in the belief that I am conscious.

If we're ever able to fully model consciousness, it will still be totally unexplained by your argument, because it's "first level."

Exactly. Science may eventually explain phenomena like self-awareness and metacognition, but scientific investigation of consciousness is doomed. Physicalists are going to wait in vain for a solution. The only possible solutions are philosophical, e.g. Chalmers' "node model" in the OP.

How are you even defining the word?

This is like the question, "What is existence?" The concept is intuitive, defying definition. But it's still important, and we still talk about it.

The OP has some quasi-definitions; Nagel's "what-it-is-like-to-be" is probably the most popular. Here's another one: your consciousness is one of the two things you can be sure of, with your existence being the other. You may claim that your existence is the only brute fact, or you may even claim that there are no brute facts. If so, we have reached an impasse.

We can build models of consciousness, predict how consciousness would change if we alter the brain, and test those predictions. Consciousness is nothing special.

If by "consciousness" you mean a third-level phenomenon like "self-report" or "self-awareness", then I agree.

 

Offline General Battuta

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Re: The "hard problem of consciousness"
If being a brain in a vat or a digital simulation has no consequences, in what way is it real? Something that does nothing and cannot be known doesn't exist. It's causally decoupled from us.

Consciousness is already 'solved,' in that we know where it is and what makes it happen. We can alter our own consciousness in the first person using 'third order' effects, and we do it every day. Philosophical examination of consciousness is doomed: it depends on the invention of a problem where in fact there is only a clear and inevitable identity.

 

Offline General Battuta

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Re: The "hard problem of consciousness"
Ironically this also seems like the final defeat of the 'teleporters are dangerous' argument. Even if you accept that consciousness is somehow an exceptional fact, the only absolutely certain and incontrovertible fact, then you now must concede the teleporter will be safe: barring dualism, you know that whoever comes out the other side has exactly the same first-person capacity to say 'I am conscious' and 'I exist'. The alternative is postulating that these capabilities somehow arise from nonphysical fantasy.

 

Offline Mars

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Re: The "hard problem of consciousness"
It's really easy to say something is unsolvable to physical science when it has no form, definition or requirements. It just "is true."

"I can't prove it to you. I don't need to prove it to myself, because it's a brute fact, i.e. true by default - just as my own existence is true by default."

There's no reason for those things to be true by default.

 
Re: The "hard problem of consciousness"
If being a brain in a vat or a digital simulation has no consequences, in what way is it real? Something that does nothing and cannot be known doesn't exist. It's causally decoupled from us.

Consciousness appears to have no causal effect, but saying "consciousness does not exist" is as absurd as saying "I do not exist". Consciousness is known.

Consciousness is already 'solved,' in that we know where it is and what makes it happen. We can alter our own consciousness in the first person using 'third order' effects, and we do it every day. Philosophical examination of consciousness is doomed: it depends on the invention of a problem where in fact there is only a clear and inevitable identity.

That there's a strong connection between the first and third levels is not in dispute (though verifying this requires either faith or firsthand experience). The hard problem is why there's a strong connection, and this is the question that physicalism has no handle on, whereas philosophy does.

It's really easy to say something is unsolvable to physical science when it has no form, definition or requirements. It just "is true."

But it does have form and requirements. It appears to be correlated with the brain.

"I can't prove it to you. I don't need to prove it to myself, because it's a brute fact, i.e. true by default - just as my own existence is true by default."

There's no reason for those things to be true by default.

If you claim that there are no brute facts, we have reached an impasse. That said, I find it hard to understand how you don't take your own existence as given.

barring dualism
This is the crux of the problem. If we assume monism/physicalism, I think your claims follow straightforwardly.

 

Offline General Battuta

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Re: The "hard problem of consciousness"
Dualism is fantasy. There are no grounds for conversation if you're a dualist.

 

Offline zookeeper

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Re: The "hard problem of consciousness"
It's really easy to say something is unsolvable to physical science when it has no form, definition or requirements. It just "is true."

"I can't prove it to you. I don't need to prove it to myself, because it's a brute fact, i.e. true by default - just as my own existence is true by default."

There's no reason for those things to be true by default.

Well, it's also easy to pretend to be a P-zombie and claim to not understand what the other person is referring to, simply because it cannot be defined or demonstrated. Which sure seems like what's been going on here (among other things) for a few pages. It's one thing to argue about qualia, but what some people here seem to do is deny its existence (in the "why is the world perceived through this brain and not some other" sense) just because they can.