Randall
J. Randall Murphy
I gave your post a like because it represents fair-minded counterpoint, but I think we need to still find our common footing with respect to a couple of points.
Sort of. It's more a case on non-reducibility. But I'll assume that's what you were getting at in less technical terms.
Close enough for most casual conversation, but the importance of the minor distinction will hopefully become more clear in the next segments.
That is an interesting observation. To reconcile it with the case that one or another of those situations can also be true, we might want to consider that fundamental forces can influence other fundamental forces in particular ways. One of those ways is to produce the materials we associate with the brain, which we know influences fundamental forces like EM fields, which according to some models, is where virtually everything else originates ( except gravity - but even that's up for debate ).
So we might hypothesize that a brain is a collection of fundamental forces have been organized in such a way that it influences the other fundamentals in such a way that from a physicalist perspective, forms the structure of consciousness. In other words we can point to the brain and say, "It's in there someplace. We just don't know exactly where, but we have a pretty good idea".
On one level you are entirely correct. But I might say it a little differently e.g. We can understand consciousness objectively, but we cannot experience it objectively. For clarification on this, I would return to the example of a simple eyesight test. This is a test designed specifically to objectively measure a subjective experience, and we've become so good at doing it, that we can use those measurements to create lenses to directly influence our subjective experience of eyesight. So that might be a way of looking at that problem that can move us forward on the relationships between the conscious experience and objective measurement.
Again, I would contend that the example of an eyesight test clearly illustrates how such things as photons, optics, electricity, biochemistry, and neuroscience are all directly related to the subjective experience of eyesight, and that we understand these relationships well enough to create conditions ( such as lenses ) which can directly influence that subjective experience in predicable ways.
Therefore, logically, it seems to me that we have a pretty good idea of how ( how - in a general sense ) these things are related, and we can apply the same reasoning to all our other senses as well. Now perhaps there will be a few people who deny or dodge the science on these examples, so there might not be a "consensus", but I'm pretty sure from our past conversations that you are definitely smart enough to see the truth in what I'm saying.
Consequently, I would suggest we've found common footing on something that floats, but exactly where this raft is drifting I cannot say. I'm left to conclude that although we can map all the relationships we want between the conscious experience and other phenomena of nature, exactly how to explain any of its existence is beyond my capability. I've tried for years. Initially I thought I could crack the problem of existence. Now the more I think about it, the more I feel that I'm drifting helplessly on the thin surface something far bigger and deeper than me.
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. Do you mind if I create a post for it on the Philosophy, Science, & The Unexplained thread, and upload a copy to The Paracast as a direct attachment for members?
