On 6/4/2018 7:13 AM, Telmo Menezes wrote:
I am very grateful for mother medicine, but
we should not pretend that its operative assumptions solve the
fundamental questions.
What fundamental question do you refer to? How to detect consciousness?
How to produce consciousness? How to prove (in the empirical sense) that
consciousness is linked to brain activity? That's my concern, that one just
throws up things that are syntactically questions but with no thought as to
what might constitute an answer.
I understand your concern. I will just tell you what my main curiosities are:
OK, I'll take a stab at them.
- Why does consciousness even exist? Darwinism does not seem to require it.
It's a necessary feature of intelligence. Intelligence requires
"what-if" modeling of situations in order to foresee consequences. Even
a the lower animal level this implies modeling oneself in the
simulation. In higher, social animals it includes being able to put
yourself in the place of others in order to anticipate their repsonses,
i.e. having a theory of mind.
- What is the relationship between consciousness and matter?
Consciousness, as explained above, is the ability to perceive and act
intelligently in the world by doing "what-if" simulations to foresee
events. It is something that is instantiated by complex material
systems that include memory and information processing; but we don't
know exactly what kind.
- Is there a reality that is external to conscious perception?
It is a theory I have held a long time and it seems very well supported
in my experience. So I'm thinking that you exist and will read this.
My view is scientifically speaking we never know anything "fundamental" and
the search for it is like the hunting of the snark. We seek theories with
more scope and more accuracy, but being "more fundamental" doesn't entail
that something is most fundamental. Mystics like Bruno postulate something
and then build structures on it which, by some (often small) agreement with
experience, PROVE their postulates. But as Feynman used to point out, this
is Greek mathematics. Science is like Persian mathematics in which the
mathematician seeks to identify all the possible axiom sets that entail the
observations.
I tend to agree that scientifically we never know anything
fundamental. I do believe that it is possible to use reason to acquire
knowledge by means that are not the scientific method. I am certain
that I possess knowledge that was not acquired by scientific means,
for example I know how it feels to be me.
It ain't so much what you don't know that gets you into trouble, as what
you know that ain't so.
--- Josh Billings
Even if my metaphysical
obsessions are a fool's errand, I do think it is valuable to know
where the boundaries of scientific knowledge are, and be humble enough
to recognize them.
I think it is scientists who are most aware of the boundaries of
scientific knowledge. Non-scientists tend to look at technology and
think, "Oh we can make airplanes so we know all about flying."
Scientists know that there's no proof that the Navier-Stokes equations
will converge to a solution for a particular case. That doesn't however
mean that the boundary is fixed and can't be pushed back. So when
scientists propose to study consciousness, non-scientists think, "Oh
they want to explain it like Newton explained gravity and Maxwell
explained radio waves. Put it in mathematical formulae. That's
impossible. I have consciousness and I know it's not mathematical (I
can't even do math)." Scientists are thinking, "We'll make an
approximate but limited model of consciousness, like Newton did of
gravity, so we'll be able to predict some phenomena of consciousness,
like Maxwell did for EM."
I feel that a lot of resistance to this stuff comes from a fear that
one is trying to slide religion or the supernatural through the back
door, so to speak. I trust that you believe that I am not trying to
sell anything like that. I only proclaim my ignorance, and the
ignorance of everyone else.
Just like a lot of resistance to materialism comes from people who want
an immortal soul.
Brent
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