Consciousness and the Paranormal — Part 10

[smcder]

I hope we can develop a discussion here of Whorf's seminal research and his resulting theory concerning language, experience, and thought. It's well-summarized in this paragraph from his 1956 book, Language, Thought, and Reality: Selected Writings of Benjamin Lee Whorf, MIT Press:

"We dissect nature along lines laid down by our native language. The categories and types that we isolate from the world of phenomena we do not find there because they stare every observer in the face; on the contrary, the world is presented in a kaleidoscope flux of impressions which has to be organized by our minds—and this means largely by the linguistic systems of our minds. We cut nature up, organize it into concepts, and ascribe significances as we do, largely because we are parties to an agreement to organize it in this way—an agreement that holds throughout our speech community and is codified in the patterns of our language [...] all observers are not led by the same physical evidence to the same picture of the universe, unless their linguistic backgrounds are similar, or can in some way be calibrated."

This looks like an interesting resource:

Ask A Linguist FAQ: The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis

 

[Pharoah]

re the paper I linked.
In section IV O'Connor makes his case in support of emergentism to combat Kim. This is something approximating to what I wanted to achieve with @smcder 's help when trying to formalise a logical framework to support HCT

 

[smcder]

re the paper I linked.
In section IV O'Connor makes his case in support of emergentism to combat Kim. This is something approximating to what I wanted to achieve with @smcder 's help when trying to formalise a logical framework to support HCT

I'm not sure I'm fully convinced by O'Connor's arguments ... I am also not sure I fully understand them! ;-)

Kim cites O'Connor's paper here:

http://cs.calstatela.edu/~wiki/images/b/b1/Emergence-_Core_ideas_and_issues.pdf

6: I believe one pressing item on the emergentist agenda is to provide an illuminating positive characterization of emergence. Some current work on emergence, in fact, can be seen as attempts in that direction.6

"What we have in supervenience and irreducibility, therefore, are two essentially negative conditions, and they do not amount to a positive account of what emergence really is. They tell us what emergence is not; they do not tell us anything—at least, not much—about what it is. I believe one pressing item on the emergentist agenda is to provide an illuminating positive characterization of emergence. Some current work on emergence, in fact, can be seen as attempts in that direction.6 However, it remains to be seen whether any of them will succeed. Success here includes at least two things: first, the proposed characterization of emergence must explain why emergents so characterized supervene on their base properties and why, in spite of the supervenience relation, the former are not reducible to the latter; second, it must successfully cope with the problem of downward causation.We turn to this problem in the next section."

 

[smcder]

@Pharoah

List of citations of O'Connor's paper: (19)

Timothy O'Connor, The metaphysics of emergence - PhilPapers

most of them so far are behind pay walls, but I haven't searched PhilPapers or Academia.edu or done an open Google search ... or searched the author's site ... etc.

Kim's concerns may be the most relevant since you mention it is O'Connor's response to Kim that interested you ... and O'Connor may have made a response to Kim ... haven't looked for that yet.

 

[smcder]

@Pharoah

This looks interesting ...

Richard Corry, Emerging from the causal drain - PhilPapers

full paper here:

https://philpapers.org/archive/COREFT.pdf

Abstract

For over twenty years, Jaegwon Kim’s Causal Exclusion Argument has stood as the major hurdle for non-reductive physicalism. If successful, Kim’s argument would show that the high-level properties posited by non-reductive physicalists must either be identical with lower-level physical properties, or else must be causally inert. The most prominent objection to the Causal Exclusion Argument—the so-called Overdetermination objection—points out that there are some notions of causation that are left untouched by the argument. If causation is simply counterfactual dependence, for example, then the Causal Exclusion Argument fails. Thus, much of the existing debate turns on the issue of which account of causation is appropriate. In this paper, however, I take a bolder approach and argue that Kim’s preferred version of the Causal Exclusion Argument fails no matter what account one gives of causation. Any notion of causation that is strong enough to support the premises of the argument is too strong to play the role required in the logic of the argument. I also consider a second version of the Causal Exclusion Argument, and suggest that although it may avoid the problems of the first version, it begs the question against a particular form of non-reductive physicalism, namely emergentism.

 

[smcder]

@Pharoah

This looks interesting ...

Richard Corry, Emerging from the causal drain - PhilPapers

full paper here:

https://philpapers.org/archive/COREFT.pdf

Abstract

For over twenty years, Jaegwon Kim’s Causal Exclusion Argument has stood as the major hurdle for non-reductive physicalism. If successful, Kim’s argument would show that the high-level properties posited by non-reductive physicalists must either be identical with lower-level physical properties, or else must be causally inert. The most prominent objection to the Causal Exclusion Argument—the so-called Overdetermination objection—points out that there are some notions of causation that are left untouched by the argument. If causation is simply counterfactual dependence, for example, then the Causal Exclusion Argument fails. Thus, much of the existing debate turns on the issue of which account of causation is appropriate. In this paper, however, I take a bolder approach and argue that Kim’s preferred version of the Causal Exclusion Argument fails no matter what account one gives of causation. Any notion of causation that is strong enough to support the premises of the argument is too strong to play the role required in the logic of the argument. I also consider a second version of the Causal Exclusion Argument, and suggest that although it may avoid the problems of the first version, it begs the question against a particular form of non-reductive physicalism, namely emergentism.

imagine that ... a philosophical argument standing for over twenty years ...

;-)

 

[Pharoah]

imagine that ... a philosophical argument standing for over twenty years ...

;-)

@smcder. Of course, Kim's argument can be defeated. The problem is understanding it (as far as I am concerned), finding the flaw and finally being able to articulate why it is flawed. Thanks for the links particularly to Kim's response to O'C. I'm on this.

 

[Pharoah]

Kim says: "It is clear then that we must consider supervenience as a component of emer- gence—that is, we need to accept the following proposition:

Supervenience: If property M emerges from properties N1,...,Nn, then M supervenes on N1,...,Nn. That is to say, systems that are alike in respect of basal conditions, N1 , . . . , Nn must be alike in respect of their emergent properties "

This is one, if not, the flaw.

 

[smcder]

A bit of an aside - on the history of neural networks.

Perceptron AND - the spreadsheet below is a very simple example of a Perceptron, one of the earliest concepts in neural networks. It shows how a Perceptron "learns" the AND function. (you can simulate some fairly sophisticated neural networks in Excel ...)

The Perceptron looks like this:

"1" and "2" are inputs 1 and 2 in the spreadsheet, the bias is the "ON" indicating it is always on (this keeps the network active and may help keep it out of "local minima" i.e. getting stuck in a false solution, w31 and w32 are the "weights" or strength of the "neural" connection from input1 and input to 2 to the "neuron". "3" is the neuron that is either ON or OFF depending on the sum of its inputs. The neuron takes in the weighted input, sums it up and decides to fire or not fire depending on whether or not the inputs sum > threshold - more sophisticated neurons use a sigmoid function to normalize the input to a range of values. Delta is a simple error function that takes the difference in the output and the target value and feeds it back into the network in the form of adjustments to the weights - either increasing or decreasing the weights according to the error. You can see the weights being adjusted in each step of the spreadsheet.

A physical instantiation of a Perceptron can be done with op-amps on a circuit board - (the feedback function is more easily done with a micro-controller)

The training data is for the AND function. The goal is for the neuron to be ON, to fire, only when both inputs are HIGH (1). We start with all weights at zero and feed back the error into the network, adjusting the weights as we go. As you can see, the last block of outputs is 0,0,0,1 which is the desired output, 1 only when both inputs are 1.

Now, you can take this spreadsheet and feed in the data for any other logical function and repeat the steps and it will converge to the correct answer ... but XOR presented a problem (just as it did in digital logic gates) ... turns out you need more than one Perceptron to compute the XOR function ... and that is when neural networks were born.

So this shows the great insight of McCullough and Pitts, which was that logic could be done with neurons (or something essentially like neurons) as well as digital logic gates ... but, here is the historical twist, in response Minsky and Papert wrote the book "Perceptrons" demonstrating the limitations of the Perceptron ... but did not mention that these limitations did not apply to Perceptron(s) plural - to networks of Perceptrons, which, it turns out, can be formed into Turing machines, in other words, can compute any computable function ... just like any other Turing computer. So Minsky and Papert's book set off an "AI Winter" as far as neural networks were concerned ... the best I can tell from the various histories:

1. they knew better (they were students of Warren McCullough)
2. they may have written the book in aid of the rise of digital computing - a case of dueling paradigms - and so may have sincerely felt that digital was the way to go and in fact, it wasn't until very recently, the past few years, that there has been enough computing power to really vindicate neural networks - in the form of "deep learning". Deep learning, by the way, means "really big neural network". ;-)

Enjoy!

 

[smcder]

Kim says: "It is clear then that we must consider supervenience as a component of emer- gence—that is, we need to accept the following proposition:

Supervenience: If property M emerges from properties N1,...,Nn, then M supervenes on N1,...,Nn. That is to say, systems that are alike in respect of basal conditions, N1 , . . . , Nn must be alike in respect of their emergent properties "

This is one, if not, the flaw.

Right, I think this is what O'Connor argues:

http://www.indiana.edu/~scotus/files/Em_Prop.pdf

O'Connor in Metaphysics of Emergence

Of central importance is to recognize that the relationship of micro-level structures
and macro-level emergent properties is dynamic and causal, not static and formal (in a
quasi-logical sense).

"Contemporary discussions of emergence by (Kim 1999),
(McLaughlin 1997, though apparently not 1992), and (Shoemaker 2002) all tend, to
varying degrees, to assimilate the concept of emergence to the nonreductive physicalist’s
picture. Insofar as this leads them to assume that the emergent property synchronically
supervenes on the microphysical property which is its ‘base’, the assimilation generates
confusion. Emergent properties are basic properties, token-distinct in character and
propensity from any microphysically structured properties of their bearers. If their
appearance in certain systems is to be explained at all, they must be explained in terms of
a causal, not purely formal, relationship to underlying, immediately preceding structures.
And the whole question of whether there is any sense in which they supervene on lower
level features -- which we discuss in §IV -- is subtle, and should not be built in
definitionally from the outset.7"

I don't know if Kim responds to this.

 

[smcder]

Kim in Emergence: Core Ideas and Issues:

He is really on about a positive characterization of emergence. He sees O'Connor's attempts to do this - but is stuck on downward causation.

What we have in supervenience and irreducibility, therefore, are two essentially
negative conditions, and they do not amount to a positive account of what emergence
really is. They tell us what emergence is not; they do not tell us anything—at least, not
much—about what it is. I believe one pressing item on the emergentist agenda is to
provide an illuminating positive characterization of emergence. Some current work
on emergence, in fact, can be seen as attempts in that direction.6 However, it remains
to be seen whether any of them will succeed. Success here includes at least two things:
first, the proposed characterization of emergence must explain why emergents so characterized
supervene on their base properties and why, in spite of the supervenience
relation, the former are not reducible to the latter; second, it must successfully cope
with the problem of downward causation.We turn to this problem in the next section.

I think this is what O'Connor attempts in section four of Metaphysics of Emergence - Kim must not be satisfied with this - but I don't kn0w if he explicitly responds to it.

 

[Pharoah]

Right, I think this is what O'Connor argues:

http://www.indiana.edu/~scotus/files/Em_Prop.pdf

O'Connor in Metaphysics of Emergence

Of central importance is to recognize that the relationship of micro-level structures
and macro-level emergent properties is dynamic and causal, not static and formal (in a
quasi-logical sense).

"Contemporary discussions of emergence by (Kim 1999),
(McLaughlin 1997, though apparently not 1992), and (Shoemaker 2002) all tend, to
varying degrees, to assimilate the concept of emergence to the nonreductive physicalist’s
picture. Insofar as this leads them to assume that the emergent property synchronically
supervenes on the microphysical property which is its ‘base’, the assimilation generates
confusion. Emergent properties are basic properties, token-distinct in character and
propensity from any microphysically structured properties of their bearers. If their
appearance in certain systems is to be explained at all, they must be explained in terms of
a causal, not purely formal, relationship to underlying, immediately preceding structures.
And the whole question of whether there is any sense in which they supervene on lower
level features -- which we discuss in §IV -- is subtle, and should not be built in
definitionally from the outset.7"

I don't know if Kim responds to this.

Kim presents his arguments as issues for the British Emergentists' positions on emergence. So, I read Kim 2006 and think, 'this part of his argument isn't right, and this bit has problems... etc', but then I realize that he is attacking emergentists of old and that the arguments are, kind of, irrelevant anyway. So the only part that I take from him is the conclusion where he says what neo-emergentists need to do to make sense of emergence.

And I think HCT does this:

"If we say that a certain environmental impetus I, instantiates a certain kind of corresponding action A1 by a certain system S1, then one might state I is causing A1 in virtue of S1. If we say that that same I instantiates an alternative kind of corresponding action A2 by an alternative system S2, then we have reason to conclude that I is also the cause of A2 in virtue of S2 (noting arguments in Alexander 1920, p. 43; van Cleve 1990, p. 221; O’Connor & Wong 2005 pp. 665–70). What HCT advocates is that correspondence, in certain distinct examples of such kinds as above, can be of a different class in virtue of the nature of the interactive mechanism that different systems instantiate. A1 and A2 indicate a different class of causal action pertaining to the nature of the meaning derived by the particular mechanisms of S1 or S2 concerning the same I. Thus, the nature of the effect E of an interaction from a cause C is indicative, not of C causing E, but of S's mechanism of interactive engagement enacting the meaningful correspondence that its mechanism ascribes to C, and acting in accordance with that particular class of mechanism. The nominal appearance is that C causes E (as often presented in Kim 2006), that is, that there is a direct correspondence of E to C. But this appearance is deceptive, a point that Merleau-Ponty (1963, pp. 137–161) takes some pains to emphasize. Typically, when thinking of cause and effect, people think of objective physical interaction. Alternatively, the notion of an ontologically distinct hierarchy demands that we reconsider this view and understand that the mechanism of interactive engagement determines distinct classes of effects (namely, qualitative, phenomenal, conceptual). The fact that a higher level may influence a lower level (downward causation) is coincidental to the purpose of the actions of that higher level system in consequence to its meaningful response to environmental interaction.

What we might note then, is that the phenomenal content that informs experiential environmental discourse is restricted by the physiological sophistication of an individual (which has been determined by a entirely distinct mechanism of environmental discourse); the reliance of the former on the latter means that the former cannot exist without the latter. And while the mechanisms of the former emerge from those of the latter, the mechanisms of environmental engagement for both remain entirely distinct; the meaningful correspondence of each is of a distinct ontological class. There is no causal correspondence of one to the other. In this sense, I understand this to indicate a strong emergence. It is an ontological rather than epistemological emergence, which is why, in text, I use the term transcendence to denote the transformational nature of the ontological boundaries separating each class. One might conclude that HCT introduces the notion of novel causal roles for emergent mechanisms." (from my latest work)

 

[smcder]

One thing that has been very useful to me is to think of the physicalist/determinist position as a kind of "game" - this is deep in Western Philosophy:

"What can I get with the minimum number of assumptions?"

This has led to a lot of technological success but began to break down in terms of explaining things in the 20th century.

O'Connor notes:

http://www.indiana.edu/~scotus/files/Em_Prop.pdf

"In attempting to develop an ontology adequate to account for some of the more puzzling features of the natural world, several philosophers and scientists in the past century have tried to articulate a via media between the extremes of radical dualism and reductionism. This middle road consists in the claim that the phenomenon in question is at once grounded in and yet emergent from the underlying material structure with which it is associated. At various times, this claim has been made with respect to the so-called secondary qualities, biological life, and, most commonly of all, consciousness. In spite of its obvious attractions as a way to reconcile apparently conflicting data (both philosophical and empirical), the emergentist strategy is regarded with grave suspicion by many contemporary philosophers. Clearly one reason it has been viewed in this way is that various formulations of the very notion of 'emergence' have been imprecise and not obviously reconcilable with one another. And even more worrisome for many is the seeming violation of the maxim that you can't get something from nothing."

... or very little

So what motivates emergence is the puzzle of consciousness. The default is to stick with what has worked so far (so far as it has worked) ... and I think Kim's argument reflects the general philosophical tradition here. So part of the problem is simply momentum - for most, why go looking into exotic explanations when old ones will "probably" solve the problem ... in due time.

So I do think arguments that more of the same won't get an answer are premature, it may be that brute force will win the day - but it is very interesting to me that brute force has played the role it has in the endeavor to understand consciousness ... it's written deeply into a masculine, muscular scientific and mathematical culture. By no means is philosophy immune to masculinization (I understand women have a particularly difficult time in philosophy, I hope that is changing with the current awareness of sexual harrasment) but it is an area of relatively low "horsepower" technologically ... brains and subtlety over brawn ... and you can see this in the recent philosophy-bashing antics of physical scientists ... or Daniel Dennett (who I think would have liked to have been a physical scientist)

Kim presents his arguments as issues for the British Emergentists' positions on emergence. So, I read Kim 2006 and think, 'this part of his argument isn't right, and this bit has problems... etc', but then I realize that he is attacking emergentists of old and that the arguments are, kind of, irrelevant anyway. So the only part that I take from him is the conclusion where he says what neo-emergentists need to do to make sense of emergence.

And I think HCT does this:

"If we say that a certain environmental impetus I, instantiates a certain kind of corresponding action A1 by a certain system S1, then one might state I is causing A1 in virtue of S1. If we say that that same I instantiates an alternative kind of corresponding action A2 by an alternative system S2, then we have reason to conclude that I is also the cause of A2 in virtue of S2 (noting arguments in Alexander 1920, p. 43; van Cleve 1990, p. 221; O’Connor & Wong 2005 pp. 665–70). What HCT advocates is that correspondence, in certain distinct examples of such kinds as above, can be of a different class in virtue of the nature of the interactive mechanism that different systems instantiate. A1 and A2 indicate a different class of causal action pertaining to the nature of the meaning derived by the particular mechanisms of S1 or S2 concerning the same I. Thus, the nature of the effect E of an interaction from a cause C is indicative, not of C causing E, but of S's mechanism of interactive engagement enacting the meaningful correspondence that its mechanism ascribes to C, and acting in accordance with that particular class of mechanism. The nominal appearance is that C causes E (as often presented in Kim 2006), that is, that there is a direct correspondence of E to C. But this appearance is deceptive, a point that Merleau-Ponty (1963, pp. 137–161) takes some pains to emphasize. Typically, when thinking of cause and effect, people think of objective physical interaction. Alternatively, the notion of an ontologically distinct hierarchy demands that we reconsider this view and understand that the mechanism of interactive engagement determines distinct classes of effects (namely, qualitative, phenomenal, conceptual). The fact that a higher level may influence a lower level (downward causation) is coincidental to the purpose of the actions of that higher level system in consequence to its meaningful response to environmental interaction.

What we might note then, is that the phenomenal content that informs experiential environmental discourse is restricted by the physiological sophistication of an individual (which has been determined by a entirely distinct mechanism of environmental discourse); the reliance of the former on the latter means that the former cannot exist without the latter. And while the mechanisms of the former emerge from those of the latter, the mechanisms of environmental engagement for both remain entirely distinct; the meaningful correspondence of each is of a distinct ontological class. There is no causal correspondence of one to the other. In this sense, I understand this to indicate a strong emergence. It is an ontological rather than epistemological emergence, which is why, in text, I use the term transcendence to denote the transformational nature of the ontological boundaries separating each class. One might conclude that HCT introduces the notion of novel causal roles for emergent mechanisms." (from my latest work)

Typically, when thinking of cause and effect, people think of objective physical interaction. Alternatively, the notion of an ontologically distinct hierarchy demands that we reconsider this view and understand that the mechanism of interactive engagement determines distinct classes of effects (namely, qualitative, phenomenal, conceptual). The fact that a higher level may influence a lower level (downward causation) is coincidental to the purpose of the actions of that higher level system in consequence to its meaningful response to environmental interaction.

The nominal appearance is that C causes E (as often presented in Kim 2006), that is, that there is a direct correspondence of E to C. But this appearance is deceptive, a point that Merleau-Ponty (1963, pp. 137–161) takes some pains to emphasize. Typically, when thinking of cause and effect, people think of objective physical interaction. Alternatively, the notion of an ontologically distinct hierarchy demands that we reconsider this view and understand that the mechanism of interactive engagement determines distinct classes of effects (namely, qualitative, phenomenal, conceptual). The fact that a higher level may influence a lower level (downward causation) is coincidental to the purpose of the actions of that higher level system in consequence to its meaningful response to environmental interaction.

I think that's one way to look at it - but I don't think the text above solves the problem of over-determination/downward causation in mental causation. One could just say that the physical mechanisms of the brain account for all aspects of the response to C in the environment.

physicalism nerves firing ------> thoughts (epiphenomenal)
\------> actions

emergence nerves firing ------->thoughts---/ (thoughts are causal)
\-------->actions <-/ (but now actions are over-determined)

And the big question is how do our thoughts have physical effects? Emergence seems to say that thoughts arise from the (physical) actions of the brain but then take on a causal power of their own and then work back downward to have physical effects.

 

[smcder]

Here is another critique of Kim - somewhat like O'Connor, he refers to another paper he wrote that I'll try to find because this one is short and doesn't really develop his arguments:

https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/429d/3b8cc3b399f181ceaa0336e87a5400cd2433.pdf

Another argument against downward causation would be to revive Braitenberg's ideas in the book Vehicles and apply it to "deep learning" in neural networks - as I posted above, NNs operate on relatively simple rules of feedback, so do genetic algorithms - but they produce systems that do surprising things. Similarly, in Vehicles Braitenberg showed that very simple systems produce surprising behaviors to which it is easy to attribute ideas like "love" "fear" etc, even though the mechanisms are very simple (wiring a sensor directly to a motor). I do think the argument has its weaknesses when it comes to more complex behavior - but that shows the space another explanation needs to effectively occupy.

Back to the paper above:

https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/429d/3b8cc3b399f181ceaa0336e87a5400cd2433.pdf

My own view is that we can justify the instinctive appeal of the word emergence by defining it in terms of relative improbability. The more closed we frame a situation, the more probable will be its outcome. It the outcome of a process moves toward a state less probable than its base level or initial state, we can usefully categorize it as being emergent.

Lots of problems here, the main one is how do we determine such probabilities?

This simple equation, used to predict animal populations:

does this:

When r begins to move past 3 ...

Is that probable?

Logistic Equation - Chaos & Fractals

 

[smcder]

to my mind, the main counterargument is consciousness itself - why did nature bother? The brain uses 20% of the body's energy but I don't think we have a good measure of the cost of consciousness per se if it can be separated out from the whole functioning of the brain - NDEs suggest it can and further suggest that consciousness may require absolutely minimal levels of energy (at least we don't seem to have instrumentation to detect and differentiate its presence - if that's the right way to think about it - during NDEs). So it may be that the biological costs per individual are minimal, but you might still argue that the whole evolutionary enterprise of getting to human consciousness was very "expensive" ...

And then there is evidence that certain complex tasks can't be learned or executed without conscious effort - evidence and experience, that's how it seems to us -particularly the most important kind of tasks - novel thinking and problem solving - you have to do this intentionally and consciously ... but that can still be argued as an effect, that it is not the consciousness itself that has the effect but rather the activity of the brain that produces both the learning and the consciousness ...

 

[smcder]

A hundred years of consciousness

Funny!

 

[Pharoah]

Why did nature bother with consciousness?
If consciousness is a view of the world that is qualitatively and spatiotemporally differentiated, it services the requirements of the individual to act in a manner that benefits its qualitatively and spatiotemporally differentiated experience of that world. i.e., it exists and acts for its individual's self.

@smcder: “Emergence seems to say that thoughts arise from the (physical) actions of the brain but then take on a causal power of their own and then work back downward to have physical effects.”
The problem, as I see it, concerns causation.
You say “thoughts arise from... physical actions...” i.e. “Physical actions cause thoughts”
You see what you have done? You have jumped from ‘material physicalism’ to the ephemeral notion of ‘thought’, and assumed that there is a direct connection from one to the other in mechanistic causal terms.
Ditch the idea that anything causes anything i.e. ditch ‘cause and effect’.
Instead, think of it like this: any effect is a form of action by an entity which is determined by the nature of its dynamic construction. As such, its actions mean something about its construction and what kind of meaning is placed on the interactive cause that incites the action.
Then, you have to think as follows: there are different classes of construction that determine different classes of meaning from interactive engagement. The meaning they derive from environmental interaction is of a specific class… it is still physical, but not of the physical class that material physicalism accounts for.
Think of there being layers of physicalism (or layers of physical realms) that are detached from one another. What detaches them from each other is the kind of meaning certain physical mechanisms derive from environmental interaction.

If an environmental event instigates a meaningful correspondence of a particular mental kind, then that mental mechanism will generate an effect that relates to mental-type meanings. Those meanings may, for example, qualify the nature of our existential being. The process of our existing, as instructed by the mental-type meanings, will be what determines (or qualifies) our actions of a mental kind—they are the actions of the existential being. There is no overdetermination because the mental actions that ensue, relate to what those actions mean in mentalistic terms only, not in microphysical terms. I act on the world in my response to what the world means to me, and those acts are of a kind that relate to the nature of my particular meaningful correspondence.
Downward causal consequences are incidental to the meaning behind the actions and the consequence of those actions in that class of meaning about the world.

 

[smcder]

Why did nature bother with consciousness?
If consciousness is a view of the world that is qualitatively and spatiotemporally differentiated, it services the requirements of the individual to act in a manner that benefits its qualitatively and spatiotemporally differentiated experience of that world. i.e., it exists and acts for its individual's self.

@smcder: “Emergence seems to say that thoughts arise from the (physical) actions of the brain but then take on a causal power of their own and then work back downward to have physical effects.”
The problem, as I see it, concerns causation.
You say “thoughts arise from... physical actions...” i.e. “Physical actions cause thoughts”
You see what you have done? You have jumped from ‘material physicalism’ to the ephemeral notion of ‘thought’, and assumed that there is a direct connection from one to the other in mechanistic causal terms.
Ditch the idea that anything causes anything i.e. ditch ‘cause and effect’.
Instead, think of it like this: any effect is a form of action by an entity which is determined by the nature of its dynamic construction. As such, its actions mean something about its construction and what kind of meaning is placed on the interactive cause that incites the action.
Then, you have to think as follows: there are different classes of construction that determine different classes of meaning from interactive engagement. The meaning they derive from environmental interaction is of a specific class… it is still physical, but not of the physical class that material physicalism accounts for.
Think of there being layers of physicalism (or layers of physical realms) that are detached from one another. What detaches them from each other is the kind of meaning certain physical mechanisms derive from environmental interaction.

If an environmental event instigates a meaningful correspondence of a particular mental kind, then that mental mechanism will generate an effect that relates to mental-type meanings. Those meanings may, for example, qualify the nature of our existential being. The process of our existing, as instructed by the mental-type meanings, will be what determines (or qualifies) our actions of a mental kind—they are the actions of the existential being. There is no overdetermination because the mental actions that ensue, relate to what those actions mean in mentalistic terms only, not in microphysical terms. I act on the world in my response to what the world means to me, and those acts are of a kind that relate to the nature of my particular meaningful correspondence.
Downward causal consequences are incidental to the meaning behind the actions and the consequence of those actions in that class of meaning about the world.

1. "There is no overdetermination because the mental actions that ensue, relate to what those actions mean in mentalistic terms only, not in microphysical terms."

but

2. "Downward causal consequences are incidental to the meaning behind the actions and the consequence of those actions in that class of meaning about the world."

?

"Ditch the idea that anything causes anything i.e. ditch ‘cause and effect’.
Instead, think of it like this: any effect is a form of action by an entity which is determined by the nature of its dynamic construction. As such, its actions mean something about its construction and what kind of meaning is placed on the interactive cause that incites the action."

I'll ditch it when you do!

 

[Pharoah]

1. "There is no overdetermination because the mental actions that ensue, relate to what those actions mean in mentalistic terms only, not in microphysical terms."

but

2. "Downward causal consequences are incidental to the meaning behind the actions and the consequence of those actions in that class of meaning about the world."

?

"Ditch the idea that anything causes anything i.e. ditch ‘cause and effect’.
Instead, think of it like this: any effect is a form of action by an entity which is determined by the nature of its dynamic construction. As such, its actions mean something about its construction and what kind of meaning is placed on the interactive cause that incites the action."

I'll ditch it when you do!

event not "cause" i.e. event that incites a particular meaningful correpondence from the entity.
I don't get the "?" does it mean the two statements conflict with one another, or does it mean both ststements don't make sense?

 

[smcder]

event not "cause" i.e. event that incites a particular meaningful correpondence from the entity.
I don't get the "?" does it mean the two statements conflict with one another, or does it mean both ststements don't make sense?

To your first point, I do think its partly an "effect" ;-) of the way its worded.

The second part too...as you have written it, there appears to be some tension between 1 and 2.