Consciousness and the Paranormal — Part 2

[marduk]

Oh, man, this guy is exactly what I hated about academic philosophy:
http://organizations.utep.edu/portals/1475/nagel_bat.pdf

It is most unlikely that any of these unrelated examples of successful reduction will shed light on the relation of mind to brain.

That's a pretty big bias.
Even more here:

With consciousness it seems hopeless.

Ok, with that being said, perhaps he'll settle down a bit...

Nope.

The most important and characteristic feature of conscious mental phenomena is very poorly understood. Most reductionist theories do not even try to explain it. And careful examination will show that no currently available concept of reduction is applicable to it. Perhaps a new theoretical form can be devised for the purpose, but such a solution, if it exists, lies in the distant intellectual future.

Whee!

Conscious experience is a widespread phenomenon. It occurs at many levels of animal life, though we cannot be sure of its presence in the simpler organisms, and it is very difficult to say in general what provides evidence of it. (Some extremists have been prepared to deny it even of mammals other than man.)

We don't know any of that, and it's contradictory. It happens a lot, although we're not sure about it, and it may not happen at all outside us but I think that's dumb.

Well, that's a good argument.

But no matter how the form may vary, the fact that an organism has conscious experience at all means, basically, that there is something it is like to be that organism. There may be further implications about the form of the experience; there may even (though I doubt it) be implications about the behavior of the organism. But fundamentally an organism has conscious mental states if and only if there is something that it is to be that organism—something it is like for the organism.

That doesn't mean anything, except "I think therefore I am."

We may call this the subjective character of experience. It is not captured by any of the familiar, recently devised reductive analyses of the mental, for all of them are logically compatible with its absence.

No it isn't! Hoefsteader himself proposed that we are "strange loops!"
OMG, he's really starting to piss me off.

It is not analyzable in terms of any explanatory system of functional states, or intentional states, since these could be ascribed to robots or automata that behaved like people though they experienced nothing.

We don't know that at all. In fact, the turing test surmises that if we can't tell if something is conscious or not, we should assume that it is.

I do not deny that conscious mental states and events cause behavior, nor that they may be given functional characterizations.

OK, so your idea that thoughts can't lead to causation just went poof smcder.

I deny only that this kind of thing exhausts their analysis.

Do we "reductionists" know everything about it? No!
Does that mean that we're done? No!
God, has this guy picked up a textbook on logic?

With out some idea, therefore, of what the subjective character of experience is, we cannot know what is required of physicalist theory.

While an account of the physical basis of mind must explain many things, this appears to be the most difficult. It is impossible to exclude the phenomenological features of experience from a reduction in the same way that one excludes the phenomenal features of an ordinary substance from a physical or chemical

reduction of it—namely, by explaining them as effects on the minds of human observers.4 If physicalism is to be defended, the phenomenological features must themselves be given a physical account. But when we examine their subjective character it seems that such a result is impossible. The reason is that every subjective phenomenon is essentially connected with a single point of view, and it seems inevitable that an objective, physical theory will abandon that point of view.

And now I just laughed out loud in a boardroom, thanks for that.

That's like saying since "physicalism" doesn't currently have all the answers, it never will, and because I (at list think I have) a subjective experience, it must not exist physically!

My god.

I give up.

Reason didn't just go right out the window, it went down to the corner pub, got loaded, into a fight, and thrown in the gutter to be found by it's angry wife at 3 am.

I can't go on.

 

[smcder]

It's kind of a big area, can you tell me what bit you're interested in?

Axioms are generally quite simple, self-evident statements. One basic one in logic and math is equivalency:
x = x for all values of x.

You can find a lot of them. In set theory (part of mathematics), there's an axiom such that a set exists of which there is no set contained in that set (the "empty set" axiom).

There's a bunch in the formal domains:
List of axioms - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

You generally take the list of axioms and use them to derive theorems out of them.

Not sure what more you want me to say about it.

The Zen stuff I'll leave aside. I know enough that I don't know much about it, but I think I'm starting to know what I don't know.

I know about axioms, I was just saying if you want to bust out the math I'll try to keep up.

Very Zen answer!

I just pulled 185 deadlift, 5 lbs over bodyweight, the old man ain't dead yet.

 

[technomage]

No it isn't.

I've written quite a few learning systems, and none of them were conscious, neither did they have free will.

At least I hope not. I made one play Doom several tens of thousands of times. It learned how to kill sprites very well.

I don't think it new what it was doing, or what the sprites were. I just set up it's goal conditions (Kill sprites, kill!), gave it the ability to learn, and let 'er rip.

Not one of them decided to make friends with the demon sprites and rebel against me as it's creator, for example.

They were only "learning systems" because you programmed the "learning" for them. You told them what was true and what wasn't. Without your free will directing how they should behave under various conditions, they wouldn't do anything. The learning you describe is not what I mean by learning, where I evaluate and try to identify what is true or not true. They don't do any of that.

While I think it's very likely you have free will, I can only speak for myself and know that I have free will through introspection.

As I said, arguing for determinism usually presupposes that you can listen to the argument, evaluate the evidence and change your mind, which contradicts the determinist position, since you have free will to evaluate the argument and can agree or disagree. If on the other hand, the determinist doesn't believe that one can focus one's mind and make a free choice, then they also can't claim that their position is true, since this evaluation involves choosing to identify truth from falsehood. They can only say that their position has been determined for them.

 

[marduk]

They were only "learning systems" because you programmed the "learning" for them. You told them what was true and what wasn't. Without your free will directing how they should behave under various conditions, they wouldn't do anything.

Ah, but again, if you could adequately model my mental state one hour before I began writing it's state, maybe you could have predicted that I would have done so, therefore would it actually be my act of free will?

The learning you describe is not what I mean by learning, where I evaluate and try to identify what is true or not true. They don't do any of that.

They act based upon the rules I put in place.
We act based upon the rules that nature and our society put in place.
I don't see the distinction, except for what we may mean by "truth."

While I think it's very likely you have free will, I can only speak for myself and know that I have free will through introspection.

As I said, arguing for determinism usually presupposes that you can listen to the argument, evaluate the evidence and change your mind, which contradicts the determinist position, since you have free will to evaluate the argument and can agree or disagree. If on the other hand, the determinist doesn't believe that one can focus one's mind and make a free choice, then they also can't claim that their position is true, since this evaluation involves choosing to identify truth from falsehood. They can only say that their position has been determined for them.

Yes. Maybe.

 

[technomage]

Lots of hand waving! ;-) read Nagels what it's like to be a bat on why the salt analogy doesn't hold ... I'll find a link

The salt analogy was just something I made up right now. Maybe there is a better example, but I'd like to hear what's wrong with the salt analogy.

 

[smcder]

Oh, man, this guy is exactly what I hated about academic philosophy:
http://organizations.utep.edu/portals/1475/nagel_bat.pdf


That's a pretty big bias.
Even more here:

Ok, with that being said, perhaps he'll settle down a bit...

Nope.

Whee!

We don't know any of that, and it's contradictory. It happens a lot, although we're not sure about it, and it may not happen at all outside us but I think that's dumb.

Well, that's a good argument.

That doesn't mean anything, except "I think therefore I am."

No it isn't! Hoefsteader himself proposed that we are "strange loops!"
OMG, he's really starting to piss me off.

We don't know that at all. In fact, the turing test surmises that if we can't tell if something is conscious or not, we should assume that it is.

OK, so your idea that thoughts can't lead to causation just went poof smcder.

Do we "reductionists" know everything about it? No!
Does that mean that we're done? No!
God, has this guy picked up a textbook on logic?

And now I just laughed out loud in a boardroom, thanks for that.

That's like saying since "physicalism" doesn't currently have all the answers, it never will, and because I (at list think I have) a subjective experience, it must not exist physically!

My god.

I give up.

Reason didn't just go right out the window, it went down to the corner pub, got loaded, into a fight, and thrown in the gutter to be found by it's angry wife at 3 am.

I can't go on.

Good, better we lose you now.

 

[smcder]

The salt analogy was just something I made up right now. Maybe there is a better example, but I'd like to hear what's wrong with the salt analogy.

Read the paper ... salt, lightning and I forget what else ... just tell your spouse you'll be home late.

 

[marduk]

Good, better we lose you now.

Well, do you agree with him?

If you do, your "thoughts can't cause things" argument just got contradicted.

If you don't, I don't know why you offered it (unless I'm mixing things up).

 

[technomage]

Ah, but again, if you could adequately model my mental state one hour before I began writing it's state, maybe you could have predicted that I would have done so, therefore would it actually be my act of free will?

We predict how people behave all the time, but that doesn't mean we "are their free will". Antecedent factors are a huge part of our decision making so understanding them can give us a high probability estimate of what actions someone will take.

They act based upon the rules I put in place.
We act based upon the rules that nature and our society put in place.
I don't see the distinction, except for what we may mean by "truth."

Yes, and the rule that nature put in place is: free will (I don't do a lot of things society tells me to do so I don't think that's a good example). You know this as well or else you wouldn't be having a discussion with me because there would be no point, since knowing what is true is impossible. We would simply be playing our pre-determined roles with no hope at arriving at any kind of truth (i.e. an understanding of reality).

 

[Constance]

I have a feeling that you fellas might like this (c.f. pages 7 to 8):
http://www.fqxi.org/data/essay-contest-files/Klingman_Gravity_and_Nature.pdf

I certainly like it, especially this:

"Smolin: "the universe naturally self organizes to increasing levels of complexity, driven by gravitation."

This is an anti-entropic characteristic that only gravity seems to exhibit—and living beings!

One can accept the physics of the field and reject the interpretation of awareness associated with the field. The physics still works. But then one must explain awareness. No one has done so, and it’s not for lack of trying. Physics has been averse to bringing consciousness into the picture, but this may be changing. In April Phys Rev Letters,31 “Causal Entropic Forces” connects intelligence and entropy maximization!

Bits and information imply consciousness; knowledge and meaning of information require awareness!

From Oppenheimer’s deep interest in Zen, to Cristi’s Tao essay32, physicists are fascinated by the idea that unity underlies an apparent surface division of the world into related and correlated entities. Yet Zen koans remind us how terribly difficult it is for brains that have mastered the skill of partitioning and relating systems to reach mindful awareness of undivided Nature: the ‘Not two’ aspect of reality. This difference in awareness separates ‘It from Bit’ and ‘Bit from It’—the difference in believing ‘math lives’ versus awareness of a unitary, self-aware universe.
Those focused on bits may say (as stated twice already in this contest) “we don’t have access to reality”. This claim is symptomatic of belief that "math is real, but reality isn't".

But we do have access to reality. I am aware of gravity right now—it’s not ‘bits’ I feel, but gravity.

And I'm aware of time passing. I am self-aware—that too is real. My self-awareness is integral, not fractured or fragmented. So I see light —not a photon, not a ‘bit’—but images focused by my lens on my retina in stable organized patterns that reflect the real source or at least the surface of last scattering. And I can touch that surface. It’s hard. Korzybski was right about that.

One doesn’t have to give up awareness of territory to appreciate the maps of physics."

The author's phrase "the surface of last scattering" denotes well the temporality and the reality of phenomenal experience, which is celebrated (and bodied forth) in phenomenological poetry and philosophy.

 

[technomage]

Read the paper ... salt, lightning and I forget what else ... just tell your spouse you'll be home late.

I have barely enough time to do what I'm doing no, let alone read a philosophical paper. And I'm home now; I'm just supposed to be working.

 

[marduk]

We predict how people behave all the time, but that doesn't mean we "are their free will". Antecedent factors are a huge part of our decision making so understanding them can give us a high probability estimate of what actions someone will take.

Ya, what I'm getting at is where does free will enter into it. Is there some "free will" process executed in our mind that takes our probability of doing something and overrides it?

If so, based on what? How is that "overriding" not itself predictable given sufficient information?

Yes, and the rule that nature put in place is: free will (I don't do a lot of things society tells me to do so I don't think that's a good example). You know this as well or else you wouldn't be having a discussion with me because there would be no point, since knowing what is true is impossible. We would simply be playing our pre-determined roles with no hope at arriving at any kind of truth (i.e. an understanding of reality).

Agreed.

Again, I really really really want there to be free will. I just can't prove that we have it.

 

[smcder]

Well, do you agree with him?

If you do, your "thoughts can't cause things" argument just got contradicted.

If you don't, I don't know why you offered it (unless I'm mixing things up).

Your mixing things up. With your permission I'd like to email your comments to Nagel .., I've got some other questions to ask him and I think there's a good chance he will respond.

 

[marduk]

This is an anti-entropic characteristic that only gravity seems to exhibit

Hawking says they don't, and I tend to believe him.
Gravitational Entropy - Stephen Hawking

—and living beings!

No they don't. We eat energy to fight entropy on a local level, and excrete disorder to do so. We actually increase entropy on the broader scale.

 

[marduk]

Your mixing things up. With your permission I'd like to email your comments to Nagel .., I've got some other questions to ask him and I think there's a good chance he will respond.

Give'r.

 

[smcder]

I have barely enough time to do what I'm doing no, let alone read a philosophical paper. And I'm home now; I'm just supposed to be working.

So get to work.

It's short and, apparently, humorous! ;-)

 

[technomage]

Ya, what I'm getting at is where does free will enter into it. Is there some "free will" process executed in our mind that takes our probability of doing something and overrides it?

If so, based on what? How is that "overriding" not itself predictable given sufficient information?

I have no idea how free will works, only that it does for me (and presumably for everyone else). When anyone finds out, please let me know.

Again, I really really really want there to be free will. I just can't prove that we have it.

You can't prove something axiomatic. Proof requires premises which are built on other premises until you reach axioms which can't be proven or dis-proven because any attempt to do so presupposes them. This is the case with free will. Any attempt to disprove it pre-supposes a non-deterministic choice can be made to accept or reject that argument.

 

[marduk]

So free will is an axiom? In what system?

 

[Constance]

Oh, man, this guy is exactly what I hated about academic philosophy:
http://organizations.utep.edu/portals/1475/nagel_bat.pdf


That's a pretty big bias.
Even more here:

Ok, with that being said, perhaps he'll settle down a bit...

Nope.

Whee!

We don't know any of that, and it's contradictory. It happens a lot, although we're not sure about it, and it may not happen at all outside us but I think that's dumb.

Well, that's a good argument.

That doesn't mean anything, except "I think therefore I am."

No it isn't! Hoefsteader himself proposed that we are "strange loops!"
OMG, he's really starting to piss me off.

We don't know that at all. In fact, the turing test surmises that if we can't tell if something is conscious or not, we should assume that it is.

OK, so your idea that thoughts can't lead to causation just went poof smcder.

Do we "reductionists" know everything about it? No!
Does that mean that we're done? No!
God, has this guy picked up a textbook on logic?

And now I just laughed out loud in a boardroom, thanks for that.

That's like saying since "physicalism" doesn't currently have all the answers, it never will, and because I (at list think I have) a subjective experience, it must not exist physically!

My god.

I give up.

Reason didn't just go right out the window, it went down to the corner pub, got loaded, into a fight, and thrown in the gutter to be found by it's angry wife at 3 am.

I can't go on.

Good, better we lose you now.

I'm almost ready to agree. But then we'd miss the drama of marduk's acting out his outrage at ideas he's not to ready to listen to, much less entertain.

@marduk, why not at least read the Chalmers papers Steve linked for you and the lucidly argued paper that Pharoah linked a little while ago?

 

[technomage]

So free will is an axiom? In what system?

No system; it's based on my direct perception and also by demonstrating (in previous comments) that it has the qualities of an axiom in that it can't be proved or disproved.