Adrian Selby

"The firing of c-fiber x produces the experience y"--BB (characterising a position to make a point)

While the word 'produces' is used, one can be forgiven for thinking that something mental has occurred, separate from the firing.

I prefer 'The firing of c-fiber is the experience y.'

How could it be anything else. Personally I go for the identity theory, that the mental is in fact a way of describing the physical in terms that are useful for certain (and the most common) kinds of discourse. In other words, the mental is simply the perspective one has when one is having the neurons firing in the manner that is exemplified.

The beauty of saying one thing is the other is it really does need no further meanderings into the problems of positing mental concepts as having separate ontological status.

The experience y you talk of is something you have because its your neuron that's firing. I won't have it because its not my neuron thats firing. Its not separate from that neuron firing, except in the way you try to conceive of it or understand it. If its my skin that's burning, the nerve fibres that are activated just are the pain. The same with the brain full of neurons firing, whatever it is to be those neurons firing is whatever it is to be conscious etc.

One standard response is that an experience cannot be a neuron firing, invoking Leibniz. This is to assert that the experience and the neuron are metaphysically distinct objects, such that they must fall under the law of identity. But if one categorises the experience as a description of the physical state, from the perspective of that physical state, i.e. that brain that's having the physical state, then one isn't talking about two 'things' that obviously cannot be one thing. The onus is on the dualist to argue how the 'mental' description of a physical event must be more than just a description. WHy think its anything more than a common usage description that refers to ourselves, when ourselves are just brains housed in bodies. Surely its a description of brain states that makes sense for the purposes of communication, almost a short hand way of describing ultra complex brain states without the terminology used by neuroscientists, who, after all, were unable until recently to get any handle on vocabulary that dealt with brain states in more objective terms. THis to me is the root of the problem, for all the thousands of years before we had an objective description of brain states in scientific terms, our descriptions were going to cause a conflict between themselves and the new descriptions because they seemed to refer to something that neurological descriptions did not. I'm suggesting that the difference is an illusion, metaphysically, a simple clash of vocabularies and descriptions of ourselves, when both vocabularies remain useful, but for entirely different explanatory reasons.

I don't understand why, when we use a vocabulary which describes what it is to be the brain in various states, such a vocabulary includes 'thoughtful' or 'happy' one should then be led to think 'hmm, being happy cannot be x neurons firing together in an immensely complex way'. To think so is to have to then think up some alternative 'something' that is 'happy' and distinguish it from neurons firing. That seems the redundant explanation, not the complete one.

I also have to disagree on the point of the mental/physical distinction offering 'too' complete an explanation. It explains nothing to me, that is an assumption. For the physical to cause the mental (and to necessarily cause it), suggests a link between two 'things', a caused b. Why set up a link, I can find no rationale for it, why separate the two? What is the nature of the mental thing. BB, you haven't described that at all, you just posit its there, and it explains something. How can it explain anything if you haven't even described it for those that can't conceive it. Just pointing at me when I am happy and saying, there is your proof, which is one possible track you could take, gives no evidence to support any conclusion alternative to my own.

As for recommending books, well, it wasn't just a reading list for you, it was additions which I thought would interest everybody. The identity theory as I've (poorly) outlined it above, does seem to have some use in explaining how things are only physical, and the differences are only those of the way in which we speak about physical things.

Adrian

Gurdur

Now just who said that they did, Boneyard Bill ?

Again, this is dishonest of you.

I have asked about other explanations of mind which are genuine explanations - with usable results, since you brought up the point of usefulness - and not simply extended imaginative will-o'-the-wisps (in all senses of that word).
You simply try to get polemical yet again about reductionism.
Boringly trollish.


Wrong. I pointed out that a 'materialist' position could be quite ethically better in some circumstances than any other. The fact that non-'materialist' endevours had a helping hand in building up that 'materialist' position is neither here nor there.
Newton, after all, believed in some whacky things. Not a great problem.

Now: you keep trying to get polemical. This is simply not honest, and I will draw attention to that every time. Childish provocations, Bill, along the lines of "what's your materialist theory of mind then? You'll be rich and famous!" are simply that: rather childish. This is not the Socratic way, Bill, not at all.
You've already claimed to have inferred a theory of mind yourself, or at least the beginnnings of one; so let's look at your faulty inference.

In one way, since particular material organized in particular ways under particular circumstances can evince the emergent property of self-aware consciousness, your throw-away line - no matter how dreadfully simplistically and misleadingly put - that a rock has 'mind-stuff' at least in potentiality is trivially true.

The emergence of new properties and of organizational complexities, BTW for all,was handled very well on an excellent level by:

Poundstone, William:
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0688039758/qid=1013260836/sr=1-9/ref=sr_1_9/103-5947974-5670219" target="_blank">The Recursive Universe</a>

Now I contend as before: self-awareness is simply an ideational construct, a system (if you like) being aware of other systems.
Somewhat simplistically put, but let's use that for a moment.

THE QUESTION, Boneyard Bill

City skyscrapers and termite hills are products of, let's say, emergent properties.

Therefore in every rock there is the potential 'stuff' of sky-scrapers, termite hills, oh, and stromalites.

A bacteria reacts to its enviroment; it is not conscious of its enviroment - or better said, there is no evidence of it being conscious at all.

I put it to you, Bill, that self-aware consciousness is nothing special, that on one level it is no different from stromalites.
Explanations of mind therefore need not presuppose any dualist notions of a seperate world or stuff of consciousness.

If you disagree, please say why. Exactly why.

[ February 09, 2002: Message edited by: Gurdur ]</p>

boneyard bill

Synaesthesia writes:

But I don't see your point. Materialism isa specific theory of mind. And if you're claiming, as you seemed to, that materialism is some kind of epistemology, then you have to presuppose its validity.

Well, I agree that the term "beliefs" anthropomophizes the concept perhaps too much. I was trying to get the point across within the framework that excreationist had presented. However, I don't see where my claim needs independent empirical justification. If material processes produce something that is not material, then that non-material something tells us something about the nature of material processes. And what it tells us is that material processes are not of the same nature as we have been assuming them to be.

What you have to explain is that humans have actual experience of the world. We don't just receive visual information. We see. We don't just receive audio information. We hear. And so on.

I wouldn't necessarily disagree with what you say here. That is why I have tried to stress matter "and material processes." Mind may exist in a rock only in potential form that would never manifest without transforming the rock into something else. The analogy of the flea and gravity is misleading insofar as we impute gravity to a flea in direct proportion to its mass. However, I would agree that for mind to be instantiated it might take a certain form of material organization. A rock is actually a rather complex structure, however. So I think consciousness would correlate more with some other kind of structure, like metabolism perhaps.

excreationist

Such as...?

John Searle's book "The Mystery of Consciousness" contains many summaries and comments on authors of books on consciousness. I think Searle said that Chalmers is a functional dualist and maybe claims to be a materialist. (I think?)
He said that for Chalmers, everything can have a certain amount of consciousness, including a thermostat. He said that Chalmers believes that our behaviour can be totally explained by the laws of physics - but we just have a consciousness attached to our brain that serves no purpose at all. Maybe because of our universe this consciousness is automatically attached to systems that are sophisticated enough (according to Chalmers).

BTW, recently I have been organising my awareness defintions a bit... I think I mentioned about "primitive awareness" earlier. Well now I don't need to mention aware at all, for simple systems.

I don't know what to call this hierarchy of systems... maybe the hierarchy of intelligent systems....?

1. processing systems (just detect, process inputs and respond)
2. aware systems (self-motivated acting on "personally" learnt beliefs)
3. consciousness systems (second-order awareness)

Well I've got to go to sleep soon. I'll write more tomorrow.

boneyard bill

Adrian Selby writes:

The firing of c-fiber x is y. Where x is an electrical impulse and y is a pain in my foot. There is nothing in a description of the term "electrical impulse" that is included in the term "pain in my foot." This is not a matter of linguistic convention. An electrical impulse simply isn't a pain in my foot. If you mean to say that a pain in my foot is what the firing of c-fiber x feels like "on the inside," I have no problem with that. But then you are positing a fundamental relation between the two. And I am saying that that is the position best supported by the evidence.

To claim, however, that the subjective language "pain in my foot" describes nothing more that the objective language "electrical impulse" is tantamount to denying the validity of subjective experience altogether. And that is nothing more than assuming what you set out to prove.

excreationist

Gurdur:
I read that he spent 90% of his time researching those things. He did maths as a hobby.

Now I contend as before: self-awareness is simply an ideational construct, a system (if you like) being aware of other systems.[/quote]
Specifically, being aware of representations of its reasoning process (so it can "think" about its "thoughts").

BTW, "Introducing Chaos" has an interesting definition of a system - an entity that changes over time. And I believe that awareness requires change. I don't believe that a static entity can possess meaningful awareness because I think meaning requires a function and that requires change.

How about using my little model where the fundamental ingredients are detecting, processing and responding to the physical world? Using "awareness" in your definition just creates a lot of problems. It is better to try and break awareness into mechanical-sounding pieces (like I did earlier). Otherwise awareness sounds like an undivideable and mystical concept.

In my scheme of things, it would have class 1 intelligence - it would be a simple processing system. (Like ordinary computer software)

Gurdur

excreationist,

I agree with you mostly on your points - however, I think the problems in semantics and premises already exist; I use the term "awareness" since I'm thinking of something that will come up here about 2 iterative cycles of this discussion later.

Your model is a good one; I'll get into that later, but for now I'm simply trying to get Boneyard Bill to be a bit more concrete.

[ February 09, 2002: Message edited by: Gurdur ]</p>

boneyard bill

Gurdur writes:

The point is neither polemical nor dishonest. You keep making those claims, but it is a red herring and you know it is.

Here is the context:

So your claim was that if there is no materialist explanation, then by the same criteria, there is not other explanation either. But that is not the case because the materialist positions carries with it a particular burden of proof that other positions do not.

There is not dishonesty here and no polemics. It is a straightforward refutation of your claim.

Where did I say that? You put quotes around it, but you obviously didn't paste it from a post. I don't know what you're talking about here.

It is not trivially true. If it were trivially true then you could logically prove that a reductionist explanation is impossible and Thinker would be right in his claimed refutation of materialism. But we cannot prove that. If a reductionist explanation were found, then my view would be false, so it can hardly be trivially true. I am arguing that it is true on the basis of the best available evidence.

Anthills, skyscrapers, and stromalites can be completely, and reductively, explained with reference to their material components and their structure. The structure of the brain and its processes does not completey explain my experience of the color orange or the taste of blueberries. If you want to claim that consciousness is an emergent property of brain processes, I have no argument with that. But it becomes a fundamental axiom of the system. Material processes give rise to non-material experiences. But the experience is still non-material.

As for a separate world of "mind-stuff" or consciousness, I'm not making a dualist claim although it is sometimes necessary to sound that way. The claim is that there is a single mind/matter stuff. That mind is a fundamental characteristic of matter and material processes. This position has sometimes been referred to a "property dualism" but that is misleading since it isn't really a dualist claim, as I've noted. I think Chalmers uses the term "naturalist panpsychism." I don't particularly like that term either. It sounds like some kind of New Age therapy. It is simply the view that mind and matter constitute a single, fundamental characteristic of the universe. How the mind part of that characteristic manifests in insentient objects is impossible to determine and may exist only as a potential. Furthermore, I contend that, in the absence of a reductionist explanation of mind, it is the view that best fits the available evidence. There is nothing dishonest or polemical about this position. It is quite straightforward and logical.

[ February 09, 2002: Message edited by: boneyard bill ]</p>

boneyard bill

excreationist writes:

Yes. I think Chalmers speculates a bit too far beyond the evidence, and I totally disagree that our consciousness is epiphenomenal. He seems to think it is a necessary conclusion of his system based on the assumption that the universe is causally closed. But I don't see why. The universe may be causally closed physically but still allow for conscious causality. If I see a tiger, I run away. The physical cause of my running is the movement of my legs, not my seeing of the tiger.

Titanpoint

Can I interject into this conversation about our wondrous Elephant troll on the JREF forum?

The JREF board promotes free speech by not having any moderators at all. This means that:
a) once accepted into the board you're in for life.
b) you may spam, cross-post, contradict yourself, insult, inflame and generally be an asshole without fear of any consequences.
c) If at first you don't succeed with an argument, assume that your opponents are half-witted imbeciles. Feel free to insult them.
d) Someone posts something that unambiguously disproves your argument? Go for the flood defence. BIG posts on irrelevancies are better than small carefully constructed propositions. Mention obscure philosophers and bring in as much bizarre metaphysical claptrap as you possibly can. If your opponents can't understand you it's because they're imbeciles and not because you're deliberately trying to bamboozle them.
e) Ignore questions that lead to obvious contradictions in your pet theory. Instead, go off at a tangent or better still, answer somebody else's much simpler question.
f) Where possible stick to propositions that are completely untestable and unproveable.
g) Mistake your opponents references to your recreational (and daily) drug habit as jealousy and narrow-mindedness.
h) Never ever concede a point of logic, no matter how insignificant, in case it proves to be the one thing that sends the entire edifice crashing down.
i) Remember you've found the key to the Universe so if someone dismisses your argument, ARGUE BACK IN CAPITALS FOR AS LONG AS POSSIBLE!!!

Remember, feel free to abuse the freedom of the board. Don't worry about FAQ's or guidelines for posting, because on JREF there aren't any. Post where you like. If you threaten people with blindness to demonstrate you God's power and it doesn't happen (repeatedly), keep going because there's no-one there to stop you.

Oh and by the way, any attempt to enforce a code of conduct in a forum of debate is censorship. And anyone who questions such a status quo is in favor of censorship. (which is true: I delight in nothing but to enforce my own view of the world upon everyone else.)