Consciousness and the Paranormal — Part 13

[marduk]

Strong emergence would be an example of non-supernatural dualism.

Consciousness “emerging” from physical processes in a way that can’t be predicted or explained and, if epiphenominalism isnt claimed, interacting with physical processes in ways that likewise can’t be predicted or explained.

Emergence from a physical process would be by definition itself a physical process. Therefore, there would be no dualism in play.

Bosons emerge from a physical process, and they themselves are physical, even though they have zero mass. For example.

The basic equations of the unified theory correctly describe the electroweak force and its associated force-carrying particles, namely the photon, and the W and Z bosons, except for a major glitch. All of these particles emerge without a mass. While this is true for the photon, we know that the W and Z have mass, nearly 100 times that of a proton. Fortunately, theorists Robert Brout, François Englert and Peter Higgs made a proposal that was to solve this problem. What we now call the Brout-Englert-Higgs mechanism gives a mass to the W and Z when they interact with an invisible field, now called the “Higgs field”, which pervades the universe.

The Higgs boson | CERN

home.cern

Non-predictability also does not imply a non-physical process. The three-body problem is a perfect example of this:

There is no general analytical solution to the three-body problem given by simple algebraic expressions and integrals.[1] Moreover, the motion of three bodies is generally non-repeating, except in special cases.

Three-body problem - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Godel's incompleteness theorem is another example that was totally unpredicted - and proves mathematical proofs itself are unpredictable, even with perfect domain knowledge for the underlying structures of math/number theory. There are islands of mathematical truths that cannot be derived mathematically - only guessed at and then proven. And we'll never understand them all, because they're uncountably infinite.

But none of that invalidates number theory, or implies there is a form of math that is not math, if you get my drift.

There are other forms of non-predictability that are interesting - chaos theory, quantum mechanics, etc. None of them imply dualism, though.

 

[Soupie]

Emergence from a physical process would be by definition itself a physical process. Therefore, there would be no dualism in play.

Weak emergence and strong emergence are very different.

In theory, if one accepts the possibility of strong emergence, a non-physical process (in this case consciousness) could strongly emerge from a physical process.

Since strong emergence would be unprecedented, there is no precedent that says whatever strongly emerges from strong emergence need be a physical process.

Whatever this consciousness substance that strongly emerged would be, we have no grounds for saying it’s physical.

Without being able to establish a causal trail of crumbs, we would simply have to broaden the definition of physical to include this new phenomenon. That’s fine I suppose. We just need to be honest about what we’re doing.

Bosons emerge from a physical process, and they themselves are physical, even though they have zero mass. For example.

The Higgs boson | CERN

home.cern

My understanding is that the emergence of particles is not equivalent to strong emergence.

If you can produce an explanation of how boson emergence is an example of strong emergence, that’d be wonderful.

Non-predictability also does not imply a non-physical process. The three-body problem is a perfect example of this:

Three-body problem - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Godel's incompleteness theorem is another example that was totally unpredicted - and proves mathematical proofs itself are unpredictable, even with perfect domain knowledge for the underlying structures of math/number theory. There are islands of mathematical truths that cannot be derived mathematically - only guessed at and then proven. And we'll never understand them all, because they're uncountably infinite.

But none of that invalidates number theory, or implies there is a form of math that is not math, if you get my drift.

There are other forms of non-predictability that are interesting - chaos theory, quantum mechanics, etc. None of them imply dualism, though.

Typically if we say we understand a physical process—say the weak emergence of waves in a substrate—we can make predictions about when this process will emerge.

If it’s the case that consciousness strongly emerges from neural processes, since we have no physical, mechanistic explanation for how this happens (ergo strong emergence) we have no way of making predictions about it. (I should say precise predictions: say why a neural activation correlated with a perception of red instead of a perception of salty.)

Brains could suddenly stop producing this consciousness substance one day, and we would have no idea how. Likewise, we have no idea how brains do produce this proposed consciousness substance.

 

[marduk]

Weak emergence and strong emergence are very different.

Not when it comes to dualism. Emergence from a physical process means that it's all physical. You can't create a physical process that has a non-physical outcome. It's turtles all the way down.

In theory, if one accepts the possibility of strong emergence, a non-physical process (in this case consciousness) could strongly emerge from a physical process.

Right. I'm with you. Except that process itself needs to be a physical one.

Since strong emergence would be unprecedented, there is no precedent that says whatever strongly emerges from strong emergence need be a physical process.

The laws of thermodynamics, which are isotropic across the universe, say otherwise.
If something non-physical emerges from a physical process, you'd have a consequent loss of energy in the form of information, heat, or some other mechanism.
So where would it go? How would it get there? Why do our brains obey the laws of thermodynamics if they somehow alter a non-physical universe?

Whatever this consciousness substance that strongly emerged would be, we have no grounds for saying it’s physical.

Why? How?

Without being able to establish a causal trail of crumbs, we would simply have to broaden the definition of physical to include this new phenomenon. That’s fine I suppose. We just need to be honest about what we’re doing.





My understanding is that the emergence of particles is not equivalent to strong emergence.

Why not?

If you can produce an explanation of how boson emergence is an example of strong emergence, that’d be wonderful.

Because it emerges in high-energy particle interactions.

Typically if we say we understand a physical process—say the weak emergence of waves in a substrate—we can make predictions about when this process will emerge.

If it’s the case that consciousness strongly emerges from neural processes, since we have no physical, mechanistic explanation for how this happens (ergo strong emergence) we have no way of making predictions about it. (I should say precise predictions: say why a neural activation correlated with a perception of red instead of a perception of salty.)

We also have no explanation for why the big bang happened. But a heck of a lot of evidence that it did. Or why bosons emerge. Or why any of the universal constants are the way they are. Do all of those imply a non-physical process?

Brains could suddenly stop producing this consciousness substance one day, and we would have no idea how. Likewise, we have no idea how brains do produce this proposed consciousness substance.

It doesn't have to be a substance. It can be a process, like the way neural networks have learning emerge. It's still a totally physical process, mediated by matter and energy set up just right. Like everything else appears to be.

 

[Soupie]

Not when it comes to dualism. Emergence from a physical process means that it's all physical. You can't create a physical process that has a non-physical outcome. It's turtles all the way down.

Right. I'm with you. Except that process itself needs to be a physical one.

The laws of thermodynamics, which are isotropic across the universe, say otherwise.
If something non-physical emerges from a physical process, you'd have a consequent loss of energy in the form of information, heat, or some other mechanism.
So where would it go? How would it get there? Why do our brains obey the laws of thermodynamics if they somehow alter a non-physical universe?

Why? How?

Why not?

Because it emerges in high-energy particle interactions.

We also have no explanation for why the big bang happened. But a heck of a lot of evidence that it did. Or why bosons emerge. Or why any of the universal constants are the way they are. Do all of those imply a non-physical process?

It doesn't have to be a substance. It can be a process, like the way neural networks have learning emerge. It's still a totally physical process, mediated by matter and energy set up just right. Like everything else appears to be.

Before I respond to all this, do you understand what strong emergence is? I ask because this post implies that you do not.

 

[Randall]

Weak emergence and strong emergence are very different.

Yes. However that doesn't change things much with respect to the discussion. Consider what Chalmer's has to say about it:

"Strong emergence has much more radical consequences than weak emergence. If there are​

phenomena that are strongly emergent with respect to the domain of physics, then our​

conception of nature needs to be expanded to accommodate them. That is, if there are​

phenomena whose existence is not deducible from the facts about the exact distribution of​

particles and fields throughout space and time (along with the laws of physics), then this​

suggests that new fundamental laws of nature are needed to explain these phenomena."​

So the key here is accepting that strongly emergent phenomena are a part of nature. When we do that, we're required to have some understanding of what we mean by "nature". It seems to me that in this context, nature is a label for the container in which all things exist. There can be no non-trivial explanation for why all these things exist. That is the "Why is there something rather than nothing? ( WSRTN ) question.

In this model, the "laws of nature" cannot deal with the WSRTN question. They can only deal with whatever exists within the container. It follows from there that if such things things exist, then those things must be composed of something rather than nothing, and in my view of physicalism, that something, regardless of what it is, is given the generic label of "physical" to differentiate it from the more abstract concept of nature itself.

NOTE: I suspect @marduk is on the same wavelength here because it accommodates his "turtles all the way down" analogy.

However, one could just as easily say that I embrace naturalism ( as opposed to supernaturalism ). Either way, we can now see why in this particular model, the "laws of nature" and "physical laws" are one in the same. Materials are just as physical as phenomena, even if they are radically different subsets of the larger picture.

Given this situation, what strong emergentism boils down to is a situation that arises while we're still ignorant that it can happen. Once we become aware that it can and does happen, it is no longer "strong". Chalmers himself has used the example of electricity and maxwell's equations to illustrate how something that was once totally radical became common knowledge over time.

Applying this to consciousness, we see that consciousness is only strongly emergent if we arbitrarily tell ourselves that we cannot expect it would happen when a new fully fully functional brain is born. But the fact is that do expect it. It's been proven literally billions of times. So once again, this notion of consciousness as being strongly emergent is, like the HPC, more of a koan.

That is to say, strong emergence, and the HPC aren't there to elicit explanations, as much as they are there to elicit contemplation on ways that the WSRTN question applies to consciousness, instead of to ( insert object or phenomena here ).

Brains could suddenly stop producing this consciousness substance one day, and we would have no idea how. Likewise, we have no idea how brains do produce this proposed consciousness substance.

Above, we need to clarify what we mean by the word "produce". It is markedly different from the word "cause". For example, it may not be the case that brains produce consciousness, but that they do cause consciousness. For example, a windmill doesn't actually produce energy. Rather, it causes wind energy to be converted into electrical energy.

---

 

[Soupie]

Yes. However that doesn't change things much with respect to the discussion.

Randall, how can you say this above, and then post the following?

Consider what Chalmer's has to say about it:

"Strong emergence has much more radical consequences than weak emergence. If there are​

phenomena that are strongly emergent with respect to the domain of physics, then our​

conception of nature needs to be expanded to accommodate them. That is, if there are​

phenomena whose existence is not deducible from the facts about the exact distribution of​

particles and fields throughout space and time (along with the laws of physics), then this​

suggests that new fundamental laws of nature are needed to explain these phenomena."​

“[T]his suggests that new fundamental laws of nature are needed to explain these phenomena."

New fundamental laws of nature.

So the key here is accepting that strongly emergent phenomena are a part of nature. When we do that, we're required to have some understanding of what we mean by "nature". It seems to me that in this context, nature is a label for the container in which all things exist. There can be no non-trivial explanation for why all these things exist. That is the "Why is there something rather than nothing? ( WSRTN ) question.

In this model, the "laws of nature" cannot deal with the WSRTN question. They can only deal with whatever exists within the container. It follows from there that if such things things exist, then those things must be composed of something rather than nothing, and as a physicalist, that something ( whatever it is ) is given the label "physical".

Are you going to pretend that this isn’t precisely what I have been saying for months, if not years?

Above, we need to clarify what we mean by the word "produce". It is markedly different from the word "cause". For example, it may not be the case that brains produce consciousness, but that they do cause consciousness. For example a windmill doesn't actually produce energy. Rather, it causes the energy of the wind to be converted into another form of energy.

If it’s weak emergence we’re talking about, cause is the appropriate term.

If we are talking about strong “emergence” where something entirely, ontologically new comes into existence with no causal chain back to the physical correlate, produce seems appropriate.

“produce is to yield, make or manufacture; to generate while cause is to set off an event or action”

Neural activation is producing/making something new in nature: consciousness field

We have no way of speaking of consciousness as a physical event or action causally connected to neural activations.

 

[Soupie]

Maybe if I repeat myself enough, you’ll eventually pretend you thought of the following by yourself, too.

The question of why anything exists and why consciousness exist are NOT equivalent if you believe the brain causes consciousness.

It’s the difference between fundamental forces and strong emergence. Not equivalent.

Furthermore, you can’t claim the HP is a koan, and then admit that we need to add new fundamental laws to physics to resolve it! If you believe this is the case, then you obviously don’t think the hp is simply a koan.

You can call consciousness physical, but as you finely seem to have realized, you have to change the definition of physical to do so.

 

[marduk]

Before I respond to all this, do you understand what strong emergence is? I ask because this post implies that you do not.

Strong emergence describes the direct causal action of a high-level system upon its components; qualities produced this way are irreducible to the system's constituent parts.[11] The whole is other than the sum of its parts. An example from physics of such emergence is water, which appears unpredictable even after an exhaustive study of the properties of its constituent atoms of hydrogen and oxygen.[12] It follows then that no simulation of the system can exist, for such a simulation would itself constitute a reduction of the system to its constituent parts.[10]

I used to create expert systems and complex state machines for a living. "I am a Strange Loop" is one of my favorite books.

I fully understand that complex systems and their interactions can create emergent behaviors that cannot be predicted, and cannot be reduced down to their component parts, because the interactions between them is the process.

This does not at all mean that what emerges is not physical.

An example of this kind of emergent behavior can be seen here: Full Page Reload

No-one predicted that this weak AI system would have turned racist. Yet it did. That AI is an emergent (physical) process running on physical hardware with physical inputs and outputs. All of it exists fully in the material realm, even though the emergent behavior was unexpected.

 

[marduk]

Randall, how can you say this above, and then post the following?



“[T]his suggests that new fundamental laws of nature are needed to explain these phenomena."

New fundamental laws of nature.

I guarantee that if humanity doesn't extinguish itself, we'll continue to discover new fundamental laws of nature.
That does not imply that the physical isn't all there is. Imperfect knowledge or understanding doesn't imply dualism.

Are you going to pretend that this isn’t precisely what I have been saying for months, if not years?


If it’s weak emergence we’re talking about, cause is the appropriate term.

If we are talking about strong “emergence” where something entirely, ontologically new comes into existence with no causal chain back to the physical correlate, produce seems appropriate.

Just because you don't understand the causality doesn't mean it's not there. Entropy exists in minds as evidenced by cognitive decline, for example.

“produce is to yield, make or manufacture; to generate while cause is to set off an event or action”

Neural activation is producing/making something new in nature: consciousness field

We have no way of speaking of consciousness as a physical event or action causally connected to neural activations.

Provably incorrect. One can stick a probe into someone's brain and electrically stimulate experience in the brain and therefore alter the consciousness experiencing it. Therefore, the experience was causally connected by the stimulation of the very physical electrical probe into the very physical brain, and then reported by the very physical person's mouth articulating said experience.

I'm all for complexity in the answer. What I'm on about is the non-physicality.

 

[marduk]

You can call consciousness physical, but as you finely seem to have realized, you have to change the definition of physical to do so.

That's a very good point actually, and maybe why we're getting fussed by it Soupie.
Here's my working definition:
Physical universe: the set of things that contain matter, energy and spacetime, and their motion and interactions.
The non-physical universe would be the set of things that do not contain those things.
My assertion is that second set is the empty set; {}.

 

[Randall]

Randall, how can you say this above, and then post the following?

One simple follows logically from the other.

“[T]his suggests that new fundamental laws of nature are needed to explain these phenomena." New fundamental laws of nature.

Are you going to pretend that this isn’t precisely what I have been saying for months, if not years?

Certainly not. A number of times I've said that we seem to be looking at the same thing from two slightly different vantage points.

If it’s weak emergence we’re talking about, cause is the appropriate term.

If we are talking about strong “emergence” where something entirely, ontologically new comes into existence with no causal chain back to the physical correlate, produce seems appropriate.

Agreed, but as mentioned, "ontologically new" is only relative to what is ontologically familiar ( to us ).

“produce is to yield, make or manufacture; to generate while cause is to set off an event or action”

Okay

Neural activation is producing/making something new in nature: consciousness field

Or perhaps neural activation is causing a conversion of energy into another form ( consciousness ) rather than producing any "new" energy. This would be in keeping with the principle of Conservation of Energy.

We have no way of speaking of consciousness as a physical event or action causally connected to neural activations.

Sure we do. Review the various ways that causation is defined and attributed. Within that pool ( and it is a rather large pool ) there is plenty of room for asserting causation between normally functioning brains and consciousness. Even if we go with this simplistic version below:

"Causality is influence by which one event, process, state or object ( functioning brains ) contributes to the production of another event, process, state or object ( consciousness ) where the cause is partly responsible for the effect, and the effect is partly dependent on the cause. - Wikipedia"​

 

[Randall]

You can call consciousness physical, but as you finely seem to have realized, you have to change the definition of physical to do so.

Among philosophers there are lots of different views on what constitutes the physical, and as we are doing the philosophizing here, we can go with whatever version seems to suit the situation best, as well as improve upon it as may be applicable. We aren't stuck with any particular version, and therefore we're not "changing" anything so much as we are doing our own interpreting.

The question is which interpretation makes the most sense given the situation? I've planted my flag where I think it makes the most sense, not where some other philosopher says I should, so as to conform to their views.

 

[Constance]

I think the current back-and-forth here would potentially become more interesting and significant if we were all to read this paper that I linked about a week ago and the now extended discussion of it, both available on this same page:

https://www.academia.edu/s/b581952915

 

[Randall]

I think the current back-and-forth here would potentially become more interesting and significant if we were all to read this paper that I linked about a week ago and the now extended discussion of it, both available on this same page:

https://www.academia.edu/s/b581952915

I believe I suggested that you to pick a specific section of that paper you feel is most interesting for you to discuss, but I don't recall you posting it. Sorry if I missed it. They're all numbered. Just pick a number. In the meantime here's a really simple diagram for how I organize things:

In this model, Nature is the container of everything, and everything inside that container is physical. Within this category are two sub-categories: Objects and Phenomena.

Objects include all the material stuff from subatomic particles to galaxies. Phenomena includes all the forces and other properties associated with those objects e.g. mass, charge, temperature, and whatever else may be the case, which with functioning brains includes subjectivity ( consciousness ).

So in this model we don't get phenomena in the absence of objects. For example we don't get light unless we have photons. We don't get gravity unless we have something with mass, and we don't get subjectivity without a working brain.

Phenomena are always tied in some way to some sort of object, and all objects supervene on the physical. I am not aware of there being any exception to this. But if anybody knows of one, then that could be of interest.

Related: Consciousness as a concrete physical phenomenon

 

[Constance]

This is not a paper that can be read piecemeal, Randall. The author is attempting to lay out the terrain within which we might one day learn what consciousness is -- and indeed what the nature of reality is -- by avoiding the pitfalls he identifies
in various forms of presuppositional thinking in consciousness studies today. The responses to the paper further foreground some of the critical issues. This paper can help refine our discussion.

 

[Randall]

This is not a paper that can be read piecemeal, Randall ...

You weren't talking about reading the paper, you were talking about discussing the paper, which of necessity cannot be done any other way than in a piecemeal fashion, which is convenient in this case because the segments are laid out in numerical order. But if you want to try some other method, go ahead, I'm listening.

Also: Reading is always "piecemeal" because it's done word by word in a linear fashion "gradually: little by little" - which is the very definition of piecemeal.

 

[marduk]

This is not a paper that can be read piecemeal, Randall. The author is attempting to lay out the terrain within which we might one day learn what consciousness is -- and indeed what the nature of reality is -- by avoiding the pitfalls he identifies
in various forms of presuppositional thinking in consciousness studies today. The responses to the paper further foreground some of the critical issues. This paper can help refine our discussion.

Not trying to start a dust up with you Constance, but you have a habit of throwing out extensive lists of papers for everyone to read, insist everyone read them all before you explain what it is you're trying to get at, and then even if people do read them, you tell them they got the point wrong.

These are of course logical fallacies in an argument to do, and feels very much like an attempt to shift the burden away from the one making the assertion (you) to the ones that don't agree with it. It's one thing to put forward papers with your curation/explanation as to why it bolsters your claim, but you just kind of seem to throw them out there and then say "read them and you'll agree with me" without saying why.

So... in your own words, what's the point of those papers and how do they bolster your argument?

 

[Randall]

Not trying to start a dust up with you Constance, but ...

Me neither, so I hope @Constance takes this in the spirit in which it intended, forgives us for talking about her in the third person, and offers some insight to help us understand her better. We're all on the same side here.

The way that you and I tackle a subject seems to be almost completely foreign to her. At first I thought her use of lengthy papers was a Gish Gallop strategy. More than once I've asked if she could please express the points she wants to make in her own words, but those requests were typically deflected. So then I actually began to wonder if she wasn't a sophisticated bot.

Eventually I decided that because we seemed to have arrived at a state of peaceful coexistence here, that when she posts papers, I'll read and comment on them without any expectation of a response. Most have turned out to be worthy of perusal. In kind, I decided to start posting papers of relevance back for her to read, and this often seems to go over well.

So my perspective now is that it seems that Constance simply enjoys absorbing and experiencing the flow of the information, rather than breaking it up and analyzing it. Which is perfectly fine. Again, to Constance, I say that is perfectly fine.

But for you and I, that can seem sort of pointless, or even frustrating, because analysis and constructive debate are the ways we extract the meaning from information. Unless it's fiction, we don't simply want to experience what it's like from the author's point of view. We want to know if it's true, or at least makes sense.

So my suggestion, is that when Constance posts a paper, that you check it out, and then see if you can find some sort of related paper that looks at the same issue in a slightly different way, and post that back as a response for her. If you want to discuss your analysis of a paper and explore points through debate, others like myself are often interested.

BTW, I've been hanging at The Good Earth down your way a lot lately. We ought to meet-up for another coffee sometime .

 

[Constance]

So my suggestion, is that when Constance posts a paper, that you check it out, and then see if you can find some sort of related paper that looks at the same issue in a slightly different way, and post that back as a response for her. If you want to discuss your analysis of a paper and explore points through debate, others like myself are often interested.

Or, in some cases, why not read the papers I post with an open mind, entertaining the information they provide for a bit, rather than immediately looking for an argument to counterpose? The Sipfle paper takes on the major issues in the field in an effort to resolve some of them and presents pathways in the research that can avoid the 'pitfalls' of hard and closed approaches that prevent progress in cooperative efforts to make progress in this vexed subject.

 

[Constance]

These are of course logical fallacies in an argument to do {?}, and feels very much like an attempt to shift the burden away from the one making the assertion (you) to the ones that don't agree with it. It's one thing to put forward papers with your curation/explanation as to why it bolsters your claim, but you just kind of seem to throw them out there and then say "read them and you'll agree with me" without saying why.

There's only one instance I can remember in which you engaged in reading a paper I posted in this forum on phenomenological approaches to consciousness and then protested that it made no sense to you. I don't consider myself a more expert exponent or explicator of phenomenological philosophy than the scholars whose papers I cite. If you don't find that philosophy grok-able from those sources, there's nothing I can do in a forum post to change your mind.

Also, re the underlined portion of your post above, the dominant paradigm in science has long been and continues to be based in materialism/physicalism [not yet well distinguished from one another], which as currently interpreted cannot engage with consciousness and lived experience as open and enabling the production of meaning not given, determined, by the brain or the universe. The bottom line, then, is that I and people like me in this forum are not the ones asserting a claim that we can account for everything that exists from rigid premises -- actually presuppositions -- such as the ones you and Randall habitually represent here. In the field of consciousness studies, in other words, you guys are the ones making the rigid assertions, and the challenge before you is to respond to the eminent philosophers and scientists who question those assertions. I'm just the messenger here, providing you with links to the texts you need to try to understand.