Craig, nothing you have said so far diminishes by a single iota the significance of the paradox to your theory. It's not so easy to disarm it as insouciantly interpolating armfuls of non-sequiturs couched in an impenetrable private jargon. You quote Chalmers, but you consistently dodge (or perhaps don't really get) the point he is making. His analysis isn't merely that physics seems to make consciousness causally irrelevant, though that in itself would be daunting enough. The paradoxical entailment comes from confronting the stark realisation that, despite this, physically-instantiated bodies and brains (i.e. the appearances in terms of which we interact both with "ourselves" and with each other) continue to behave *as if* they were laying claim to such conscious phenomena. Furthermore, they apparently do so by means of a causally-closed mechanism that entails that they neither possess these phenomena nor could plausibly have any access to them. Hence the problem is not merely that consciousness is a further fact about the world; rather it is how the world, considered as functioning bodies, could plausibly gain any purchase on such a fact.
I recall at some point you said that you "didn't care" about the relation of function and phenomena, or some such thing. Bully for you (though not for your explanatory enterprise). But Chalmers knows he has put his finger on a stark contradiction - a paradox in fact - and he is intellectually honest enough to acknowledge its force. He shows that it should lead us to the conclusion - per impossibile - that we ourselves are in effect merely zombies or physical puppets. The problem is that he cannot, however, actually do much to disarm it. He talks rather vaguely about information without being very clear about how to derive the concept unambiguously from function, and about the need to elucidate psycho-physical laws that could plausibly correlate functional and phenomenal levels of representation, without denying or eliminating either. But he doesn't assist us much in the matter of what these laws might be. You, it would appear, are much more sanguine about the nature of the contradiction because you appear to believe you can ignore or dodge its impact if you start from the position of "everything" being a matrix of appearance or sensation (Hume or Berkeley, anyone?). But such an assumption does nothing whatsoever to vitiate the paradox as it is precisely a paradox of appearances in the first place. After all, Craig, if it were that simple wouldn't it be rather likely that someone other than yourself might have noticed this? The contradiction shows up in any direct attempt to reconcile two determinedly orthogonal categories of appearance (the functional and the phenomenal) point-for-point and this continues to be the case whatever the assumed common ontological basis. In your remarks you refer to the orthogonality (which is all too obvious) but blithely omit the reconciliation (which I guess is less so). To sum up: Your insight that sensory and physical categories of representation appear to be "orthogonal" to each other is hardly original; indeed it is the common point of departure for any theory that seeks to make sense of the subject area. The peculiar virtue of Bruno's approach (even considered simply as a bracing intellectual tune-up) is that there are concepts naturally to hand in computational theory that offer some hope of elucidating that orthogonality in principle. They at least point in the direction of how two apparently orthogonal categories can nonetheless be synthesised in a third category that may plausibly be coterminous with the phenomena of consciousness (in all their first-personal indubitability). Furthermore they don't vitiate or do irreparable violence to the lawful appearances of physics; rather they hold out some hope of filtering these phenomena and those laws from some plausible codification of "everything". None of the foregoing guarantees the correctness of this approach of course, merely that it recognises the peculiar difficulties of what is to be confronted and consequently attempts to marshal adequate conceptual means to face precisely those difficulties. If you think you have a viable non-comp alternative it falls on you to show (i.e. in a way that non-initiates can follow) that you can marshal similarly effective resources and use them to confront rather than avoid those difficulties. Thus far I see little evidence that you do much more than underestimate them or blithely wave them away. David On 2 Feb 2014 03:49, "Craig Weinberg" <[email protected]> wrote: > > > On Saturday, February 1, 2014 6:30:52 PM UTC-5, David Nyman wrote: >> >> On 1 February 2014 21:49, Craig Weinberg <[email protected]> wrote: >> >>> >>> Found it! >>> >>> On Friday, January 31, 2014 11:45:24 AM UTC-5, David Nyman wrote: >>> >>>> On 31 January 2014 01:52, Craig Weinberg <[email protected]> wrote: >>>> >>>> The "we" of individual human beings relies on physical consistency >>>>> because that is a common sensory experience of the >>>>> animal>organism>substance context. The substance context however relies on >>>>> the "we" of the Absolute context. The biological context relies on those >>>>> "we"s, and the animal context relies on the biological "we"s. It's all >>>>> nested but the bottom of each extrinsic level is being supported by the >>>>> top >>>>> of the previous intrinsic level. >>>> >>>> >>>> I'm not sure I fully grasp all of the above, but I would like to tackle >>>> you again on the POPJ, because I still can't see how your model can succeed >>>> in avoiding it. Let me start by telling you about a movie I streamed last >>>> night - "Inception" (I'm a bit behindhand on popular movies!). It was quite >>>> an enjoyable yarn, but it struck me as pretty flaky, even as science >>>> fiction, not least because the plot is built on the idea that dreams could >>>> be experienced (and even nested dream-within-dream) with near-waking >>>> "physical" consistency. This got me reflecting on what does indeed >>>> distinguish dreams from "waking reality" (acknowledging of course that both >>>> are virtual presentations from the personal perspective). I don't know >>>> about your dreams, but in mine things have the darnedest habit of >>>> disappearing or turning into something else when I look away and this, >>>> presumably, is because sleeping-dreams are different to waking-dreams in >>>> that their appearances are not in general stabilised by anything >>>> "extrinsic" to the brain and body. >>>> >>>> By extrinsic here I am not committing to the ultimate nature of the >>>> brain and its environment, merely that all our experiences - metaphorised >>>> as dreams, or in a more up-to-date image, a multi-player video-game - must >>>> depend on some generalised and consistent system of appearances for >>>> consistency and stabilisation. It turns out, indeed, that the system of >>>> appearances our internal video game depends on is detailed, consistent and >>>> stable to the most extraordinary degree; let us call this stable, >>>> exhaustive and reliably causally-complete set of appearances the >>>> game-physics. And the "avatars" that appear to us within the game - bodies >>>> and brains, our own and others' - turn out to follow the rules of the >>>> game-physics precisely in conformity with the set of appearances as a >>>> whole, to the furthermost extent we can explore. >>>> >>>> The logical consequence of the above is just this: Even if you consider >>>> that the sensory nature of that-which-exists extends, beyond our personal >>>> virtual presentations, to the whole of "reality itself", one can still not >>>> avoid the encounter in waking-dreams with avatars (including one's own) >>>> that cheerfully lay claim to sensory phenomena that are supernumerary in >>>> explaining their behaviour in terms of its own rules-of-appearance (i.e. >>>> the game-physics), and which they could not logically have access to in >>>> terms of those very rules. Hence these sensory phenomena cannot be the >>>> cause of these claims. This, again is the POPJ. ISTM that it is unavoidable >>>> in any schema, whether primitive-sensory or primitive-physical, in which no >>>> further logical entailment is discoverable in the causally-complete >>>> machinations of the game-physics. >>>> >>> >>> The POPJ is not a problem at all for MSR. >>> >> >> Pleased to hear it. Why? >> >> >>> MSR is a solution to POPJ because judgments are just other kinds of >>> sensations than public facing sensations. >>> >> >> Doesn't help. In your theory, everything is of course hypothesised to be >> just one sort of sensation or another - that's obviously the case for any >> kind of idealist or panpsychist schema. >> > > I separate my view from idealism or panpsychism in that both of those > imply a human-like first person experience, so that people might presume we > are talking about rocks that can feel or rocks that disappear when nobody > is looking at them. With pansensitivity, I am not talking about a public > world which is 'maya', but privacy and publicity as opposite ends of a > single continuum of fantastic and realistic qualities. Everything is not > 'just one sort of sensation or another', but rather that "thing" itself is > an expectation within sense. > > >> The point I'm laboriously trying to get you to acknowledge is that move >> doesn't get you off this particular hook. See below. >> >> >>> Judgments are cognitive qualia, and qualia is 1) beyond function, and 2) >>> transparent and reflective (metaphorically) to other kinds of qualia. >>> >> >> That's as may be, but we're precisely talking about >> qualitatively-instantiated appearances >> > > There aren't any other kind of appearances. > > >> and likewise the ubiquitous evidence of a rigorous and causally closed >> set of game-physics followed by those appearances. >> > > Evidence = evident to perception. If you try to find evidence of your > visual blind spot, you cannot look for a hole in your vision. Your visual > field is causally closed within its own context. Likewise, you can see that > in dreams you are able to accept plainly illogical conditions without ever > questioning them, so that surrealism can have the appearance of causal > closure as well. Since the only evidence we can have is our perception of > how objects interact, it should not be surprising that this view presents a > unified front. That is the nature of sense. It makes sense from many angles > and to different degrees. > > >> I take it that you don't deny that this is a defining aspect of your own >> experience? It certainly is of mine. The stabilisation of experience by >> stringently rule-following appearances is what I was alluding to in my >> contrasting of the dreaming and waking states. >> > > You don't seem to be hearing what I am saying about the degree to which > appearances are causally closed being directly proportional to the distance > from the observer. If you look for realism out there, you will find it. If > you look for realism 'in here', you'll find instead a spectrum from realism > to surrealism. > > >> Instead of starting from the assumption of isolation in which sensations >>> have to be added on top of our separateness, I start from the assumption of >>> unity at the Absolute, which is diffracted locally through insensitivity. >>> Thus in some sense we are all the same experience. In others we are >>> experience of all organisms. In others we are experiences of animals, etc, >>> all the way down to our unique narrative experience. With sense as >>> primordial, all appearances of separation are derived from insensitivity. >>> >> >> You must surely have noticed, if you ever read posts not addressed to >> yourself, that there have been plenty of discussions recently of "universal >> personhood" and how in some sense, we could all be thought of as proxies >> for a multiple-personality compartmentalised by mutual amnesia. >> > > That's not what I'm talking about. Pansensitivity does require that > persons ever exist. Persons are a type of sensory experience. > > >> But I don't see how this, however poetic and interesting in itself, is at >> all relevant to the point in dispute. (This by the way, is an example of >> what I mean by rhapsodising instead of addressing the specific matter at >> hand.) >> > > I don't know what you are saying is not clear. POPJ assumes that > judgements of phenomenal awareness don't make sense functionally if > phenomenal awareness is nothing but a representation of functional states. > MSR assumes that from the start. Function is not primary. The universe is > an aesthetic proliferation. It does function and structure to prop up the > aesthetics, not the other way around. Judgments are just a way of further > elaborating the phenomenal level awareness. They are aesthetic also, but > they inherit functional relations as well, since humans are elaborated to > an almost perverse degree. I'm not sure how much clearer an answer someone > could give. POPJ is not a problem for MSR because function does not drive > sense at the fundamental level. I don't make that assumption, so it is not > a paradox that the assumption is violated empirically. > > >> Revenons a nos moutons, the point is painting the scenario in this way >> wouldn't be worth a theoretical damn if we had couldn't ultimately account >> for how "normal" experience could be recovered from it. I assume that a >> consequence of all of this must be that (at least occasionally!) you >> acknowledge that the stability of your "normal" experience sensitively >> depends on these selfsame rule-following extrinsic appearances. >> > > There are no 'rules'. There is only nested sense on every level. The > appearance of rules is an epiphenomenal reflection of numerous overlapping > histories of experience. Cracking the code of those histories, or doing a > workaround on it mathematically is great, but that's not my area. My area > is about starting from scratch and explaining the hard problem, so that it > agrees with the total picture of what has been observed scientifically. I > think that I have done that, and none of the points you are making really > relate to the promise of the framework that I suggest. > > > >> I further assume that you are at least aware, even if you do not yourself >> conduct detailed experiments, that these appearances follow similarly >> rigorous rules all the way down as far as it is possible to probe. >> > > Of course. There rules of language also, but those rules do not produce > the semantic content of language. All buildings have in common the rules of > masonry or construction, but that doesn't mean that the shape of the Taj > Mahal can be reverse engineered to those rules. > > >> If so, like me, you no doubt regularly find yourself in the presence of >> appearances that you take to be the bodies of other persons and one that in >> particular you take to be your own. These bodies, when probed, appear to >> follow the rules of the game-physics exactly like every other part of the >> experiential environment. >> > > Of course. When you use your body to inspect other bodies, the result is > highly or even absolutely normative. So what? That's exactly what MSR > assumes. > > >> >> Now curiously, such bodies regularly produce behaviours that you >> interpret as their laying claim to possessing conscious phenomena. >> > > When did I ever say that the behaviors of bodies have to do with > possessing conscious phenomena? This whole time I have been saying that the > conscious experience is primary. The behavior of bodies are experiences, > not existential objects. > > >> Moreover, on reflection, you notice that your own thoughts, which >> according to the game-physics can also be "reduced" without remainder to >> the behaviour of your own brain, lay similar claim to such phenomena. >> > > Not at all. It can only seem that way if we take our own word for our > experience. Nothing at all in game-physics can possibly suggest anything > like "thoughts". To paraphrase Chalmers, the account that physics gives is > consistent with the absence of consciousness, so that the presence of > consciousness must be a further fact about the world. > > > >> This is where you should feel the POPJ sinking its sharp teeth into the >> soft body of your theory. >> > > Not even the tiniest bit. I would hope that at this point you would > realize that I'm not baffled by this problem at all, and that I have > explained thoroughly why it is only in the assumption of functionalism > (which MSR opposes directly) that it seems paradoxical. Can we move on to > the next Red Herring yet? > > >> And none of this reasoning depends on the ultimate nature of the >> appearances or any other component of the schema; it's all inherent in the >> perceived correlations between appearances at different levels. Therefore >> ISTM that you can only avoid it by denying any necessary correlation >> between, for example, your thoughts and the game-physics of your brain >> > > The game-physics of the brain is orthogonal to my personal thought. This > is what I was trying to demonstrate with my Shoelace Causality diagram. Our > personal thought correlates to microphenomenal and superphenomenal > contents, not to microphysical or superphysical contents. Every cell in my > body is the same experience on one level, and I am an experience that is > different in some sense and the same in some sense. The experience of the > body and its components is a whole other thing that involves the history of > the public side of the universe, not the private range. All that we have in > common with the body that the body can see and touch is that our presence > is spatiotemporally synchronized on every level. > > >> but then you would have a real problem explaining how those selfsame >> thoughts get to have any apparent purchase on the game-physical environment >> to which that brain is connected. Tell you what, it's some paradox this >> POPJ. >> > > Stop assuming that the game-physical environment is a monolithic and > literal location. It is nested spatially by scaled perception, we are > nested super-temporally by significance. The POPJ is not a P at all. > > >> >> Do us both a mitzvah, will you Craig? If you think you really have an >> effective means of disarming the POPJ, it would be really helpful if you >> could present it point-for-point in the terms in which I have presented the >> original argument. >> > > How many times do you want me to repeat it. It's not complicated. Function > is irrelevant to consciousness. The function of human physiology is of > course relevant to human consciousness, but that's because we are nested > deep within sense, not because sense itself requires function. > > >> The gist of this argument is an attempt to show a fatal contradiction and >> if there's a flaw in the logic I'm the first person who would want to know >> about it. >> > > Now you know, but will you hear it? > > >> So you would be helping me here. The larger point I'm getting at though >> relates to theories that, in Einstein's words are "too simple to be >> possible". I have long suspected that physical-primitive and >> sensory-primitive theories are both, in the final analysis, of this type. >> The former effectively eliminates the mind, and the latter the body, from >> their attempts to account for "everything". The value of the POPJ is in >> showing up the implicit contradictions involved in either of these >> over-simplifications. >> > > I don't eliminate the mind or the body, I reduce them both to a common > sense of orthogonally defined, nested aesthetics. I have blogged dozens of > posts talking exactly about the limitations of both idealism and > functionalism. It's kind of my thing. > > http://multisenserealism.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/aslide21.jpg > > Craig > > >> David >> >> Thanks, >>> Craig >>> >>>> >>>> I've tried to set out the problem as clearly as I can and I would be >>>> grateful if you could respond directly with a reasoned consideration of how >>>> your theory might circumvent this formidable logical obstacle. >>>> >>>> David >>>> >>> -- >>> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google >>> Groups "Everything List" group. >>> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send >>> an email to [email protected]. >>> To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. >>> Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. >>> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. >>> >> >> -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Everything List" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected]. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. > Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. 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