Re: Dreamless Sleep and the Dream Argument

[Bruno Marchal]

On Jan 1, 2018, at 5:20 PM, David Nyman  wrote:

On 1 January 2018 at 15:02, Bruno Marchal  wrote:

On 01 Jan 2018, at 13:39, David Nyman wrote:


https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.01924/full

This link ​could serve as quite​ an illuminating adjunct to the  
dreamless sleep thread. The authors begin by asserting that  
'consciousness' - by which they do ​indeed ​appear to mean  
phenomenal awareness as distinct from any ​of its reductive  
correlates - has no causal powers distinct from those correlates  
or ​any of the ​deeper processes giving rise to ​them​.


I guess that you agree that this is already a sort of mistake; It is  
basically the same mistake that the lawyer who justify its client  
actions by saying that his/her client has no causal power distinct  
from the laws of physics. This eliminates consciousness  and  
responsibility, which is close to non-sense.


​Yes, I agree of course. But this is indeed the state of affairs if  
one follows, without tacit additions, what is *strictly* proposed by  
physics - or rather, by physicalism (i.e. the implicit metaphysics  
of physics).



Yes, although when I was young most theoretical physicists reacted  
rather enthusiastically to mathematicalism. Physicists are more aware  
than philosopher of mind that physics is confronted to conceptual  
difficulties, Mathematicalism explains also directly Wigner’s remark  
of the role in math in physics, and this by suppressing an ontological  
commitment, which is always a good thing,. Of course many just said  
that they are not interested in metaphysics, which is a noble and  
honest reaction. The bad faith is a recent phenomenon, probably a  
reaction against the progress in mathematical logic. In my university,  
the faculty of science has just suppress the course of mathematical  
logic, because too many understood that the critics against  
computationalism, and the use of reason in metaphysics,  is directly  
in violation of very elementary logic!





This then leads directly to the zombie problem. In fact it leads  
even beyond this, because as you go on to say vis-a-vis 'number  
reductionism', strictly speaking there would be no independent  
justification for the zombie as an 'emergent' causal entity, since  
ex hypothesi all 'causality' has already been accounted for at the  
level of elementary particles, fields, strings are what you will.


Or number, yes. If the number theorist extracts the physical laws from  
numbers, that might continue for one of two millennia, but not much  
more, I think. The key advantage of computationalism is that we get  
the modal nuances, and indeed physics is one of those nuances.






Of course, a mechanist knows that at its substitution level, he has  
the same causal power than its components when betting on some  
reality, but we can never know what are those components in a  
rational way, and our causal power (free will, or will) is a higher  
construct, not present in any subpart of any third person  
description of ourself.


​Yes. But the difference between mechanism and physicalism is that  
with the former one can infer a rationale​, via self-reference and  
its consequences,


Yes, and via acomputer science, provably deductible in arithmetic and  
its arithmetical metamathematics.




for the appearance and specific characteristics of these higher  
'emergent' constructs and thereby test to what extent they match the  
phenomena we seek to explain. Physicalism, by contrast, has so far  
discovered no such a priori rationale and so is forced into falling  
back on the (often tacit) assertion of a unique and mysterious  
species of 'non-identical' identity thesis in a purely a posteriori  
attempt to account for 'emergent' phenomena. Alternatively it tries  
to sweep those very phenomena under the rug with terminology such as  
'seemings' and 'illusions'. There's nothing in that move however  
that prevents us from demanding an explication of the how these so- 
called seemings or illusions produce the very particular impressions  
they do (i.e. our entire phenomenal reality) unless we're being  
asked in effect to believe in magic.



OK. But now, the good willing people, knows that it cannot work,  
except *may-be* with some very strong and special use of infinities.  
But only fake institutionalized churches and temples do that (beyond  
big-pharma and the criminals).


But then we can suspect that the humans are the irrational animals,  
contrary to Aristotle's definition ...






 If they did the same error when assuming Mechanism and its  
immaterialist consequence, they would eliminate not only  
consciousness, but the appearance of matter as well.
They would become "number reductionist", which is correct for the  
ontology, but nonsensical for the phenomenology. No consciousness  
and no matter!


​Actually, ​AFAICS, ​this applies to physicalism also,


Yes. My point is that 

Re: Dreamless Sleep and the Dream Argument

[David Nyman]

On 1 January 2018 at 19:34, Brent Meeker  wrote:

>
>
> On 1/1/2018 4:39 AM, David Nyman wrote:
>
> https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.01924/full
>
> This link
> ​could serve as quite​
> an illuminating adjunct to the dreamless sleep thread. The authors begin
> by asserting that 'consciousness' - by which they do
> ​indeed ​
> appear to mean phenomenal awareness as distinct from any
> ​of its
> reductive correlates - has no causal powers distinct from those correlates
> or
> ​any of the ​deeper
> processes giving rise to
> ​them​
> . But
> ​from this starting assertion they ​
> then
> ​g​
> o on to speculate about the 'evolutionary utility' of the 'narratives'
> thus created. They don't seem to have noticed the tacit elision from
> 'narrative' to (presumably) the correlates of narrative, thus bypassing
> entirely the notion of consciousness in their original sense, however much
> they might wish to analogise it as a 'rainbow effect'.
> ​ ​
> This is about as classic an example of the tacit switching between
> categories that characterises
> ​discussion of emergence in the philosophy of mind
> as you could
> ​wish to ​
> find.
>
>
> I think you are imagining a clean distinction between levels of discourse
> that cannot exist.
>

​Of course I agree that it cannot exist. What I don't seem to have conveyed
to you however is that my point is precisely that the apparently seamless
bottom-up causality of the physical narrative seduces people towards making
such a distinction where it suits them and evading it where it doesn't,
Both tendencies are exampled in this paper. The bottom-up effectiveness of
neurocognition (as a proxy for physical causality) is called upon to
explain away that of phenomenal consciousness. Then, no sooner has this
been stated, but the power of the conscious narrative is evoked as part of
an explanation at the level of evolution (equally a proxy for physical
causality). As I pointed out, to be consistent, 'conscious narrative' must
here be assumed to have tacitly elided from the phenomenal to the neural
correlative version. As you point out below, we do this sort of thing all
the time, usually without danger of losing the plot. But it won't do here,
because this elision simply results in the erasure of any principled
distinction between any putative 'neural correlates' of consciousness and
those of any other aspect of brain function. Either category, in the final
analysis, serves as a proxy for the physical causality of which each is
ultimately a re-description (aka emergent). Consequently we have now
contrived to lose the category of phenomenal consciousness altogether other
than as a so-called 'rainbow effect' (i.e. the notorious 'seemings' or
'illusions') or as an implicit brain-mind 'identity'.

  When we talk about the effect of a law, such as legalizing marijuana, we
> may discuss it in terms of action of the local Sheriff.  That's a tacit
> switch in categories, but it's not some intellectual sin.  So I see no deep
> problem in discussing the evolutionary utility of conscious narrative even
> if the narrative is an emergent epiphenomenon.  My theory is that the
> conscious narrative is a construct which summarizes and makes consistent an
> account of what is happening and it's utility is learning, including
> formulating questions and exchanges of social learning.  The link seems to
> subscribe to a version of the Cartesian theater, which Dennett sharply
> criticizes and instead proposes the mutliple-drafts model.  That's pretty
> close of Jeff Hawkins six layered hierarchical model of the function of the
> cortex in which consciousness accompanies integration of disparate inputs
> into a coherent thought at the top level.  I can imagine constructing an AI
> Mars Rover which integrates the input from all its sensors and their
> correlates from associative memory into a kind of log-book entry which then
> goes into memory for future reference when some unusual problem arises or
> when some long range plan is to be formulated.
>

​Forgive me, but these points are all too obvious. You must consider me a
terrible duffer for you to think it worth your while to keep re-explaining
them to me. No doubt you're correct about my dufferhood, but in this
particular case you can save yourself further effort. ​The reason that I
restated the thing in the form of the Dream Argument was in an attempt to
anchor the conversation at the level of the phenomenal. Thereafter the task
becomes one of reconciling that narrative with the highly-constrained
features of material causality with which the dreamer is confronted. For
example, how and why do emergent (non-reducible) 'material phenomena'
*appear* to be capable of stepwise structural and behavioural correlation
with nested sets of ever-smaller components (aka 'reduction') and with a
class of mathematical principles that *appear* to govern their detailed
behavior? Also how and why does this *appear* to have 

Re: Dreamless Sleep and the Dream Argument

[Brent Meeker]

On 1/1/2018 4:39 AM, David Nyman wrote:
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.01924/full 



This link
​could serve as quite​
an illuminating adjunct to the dreamless sleep thread. The authors 
begin by asserting that 'consciousness' - by which they do

​indeed ​
appear to mean phenomenal awareness as distinct from any
​of its
reductive correlates - has no causal powers distinct from those 
correlates or

​any of the ​deeper
processes giving rise to
​them​
. But
​from this starting assertion they ​
then
​g​
o on to speculate about the 'evolutionary utility' of the 'narratives' 
thus created. They don't seem to have noticed the tacit elision from 
'narrative' to (presumably) the correlates of narrative, thus 
bypassing entirely the notion of consciousness in their original 
sense, however much they might wish to analogise it as a 'rainbow 
effect'.

​ ​
This is about as classic an example of the tacit switching between 
categories that characterises

​discussion of emergence in the philosophy of mind
as you could
​wish to ​
find.


I think you are imagining a clean distinction between levels of 
discourse that cannot exist.  When we talk about the effect of a law, 
such as legalizing marijuana, we may discuss it in terms of action of 
the local Sheriff.  That's a tacit switch in categories, but it's not 
some intellectual sin.  So I see no deep problem in discussing the 
evolutionary utility of conscious narrative even if the narrative is an 
emergent epiphenomenon.  My theory is that the conscious narrative is a 
construct which summarizes and makes consistent an account of what is 
happening and it's utility is learning, including formulating questions 
and exchanges of social learning.  The link seems to subscribe to a 
version of the Cartesian theater, which Dennett sharply criticizes and 
instead proposes the mutliple-drafts model.  That's pretty close of Jeff 
Hawkins six layered hierarchical model of the function of the cortex in 
which consciousness accompanies integration of disparate inputs into a 
coherent thought at the top level.  I can imagine constructing an AI 
Mars Rover which integrates the input from all its sensors and their 
correlates from associative memory into a kind of log-book entry which 
then goes into memory for future reference when some unusual problem 
arises or when some long range plan is to be formulated.




That apart, their
​struggle to find a 'purpose' or 'utility' in consciousness might 
motivate a return to the Dream Argument as a point of departure, or at 
least an overarching metaphor, for computationalism. If we take 
Berkeley as the exemplar of this tendency in the Western canon, ​what 
was missing in his treatment was any attempt to understand in detail 
how the multiplicity of thoughts in the 'divine mind' could come to be 
correlated in the kind of consistent system of 'physical' action we 
observe (other than by divine decree, of course). Essentially, he 
re-proposed the antique Dream Argument in a Christian context but 
without too much of an an eye to its consilience with the other, 
ultimately more influential rationalist trends of his time. But the 
attraction of this point of departure still remains. For one thing it 
need not tempt us to deny the 'evidence of our own eyes'. But for 
another, it may enable us to reframe the problem that the authors of 
the above paper get so confused about - which is to say the 'purpose' 
or 'utility' of consciousness. But that is to set off down a rabbit 
hole that leads to a very different construction (literally) of 
things. And indeed to a reversal of, or perhaps/more correctly the 
idea of a two-way reciprocity between, the notions of mental and 
physical 'causality'./


Yes, I think that's the way to think about it...part of the virtuous 
circle of explanation.


Brent



David
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Re: Dreamless Sleep and the Dream Argument

[David Nyman]

On 1 January 2018 at 15:02, Bruno Marchal  wrote:

>
> On 01 Jan 2018, at 13:39, David Nyman wrote:
>
> https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.01924/full
>
> This link
> ​could serve as quite​
> an illuminating adjunct to the dreamless sleep thread. The authors begin
> by asserting that 'consciousness' - by which they do
> ​indeed ​
> appear to mean phenomenal awareness as distinct from any
> ​of its
> reductive correlates - has no causal powers distinct from those correlates
> or
> ​any of the ​deeper
> processes giving rise to
> ​them​
> .
>
>
> I guess that you agree that this is already a sort of mistake; It is
> basically the same mistake that the lawyer who justify its client actions
> by saying that his/her client has no causal power distinct from the laws of
> physics. This eliminates consciousness  and responsibility, which is close
> to non-sense.
>

​Yes, I agree of course. But this is indeed the state of affairs if one
follows, without tacit additions, what is *strictly* proposed by physics -
or rather, by physicalism (i.e. the implicit metaphysics of physics). This
then leads directly to the zombie problem. In fact it leads even beyond
this, because as you go on to say vis-a-vis 'number reductionism', strictly
speaking there would be no independent justification for the zombie as an
'emergent' causal entity, since ex hypothesi all 'causality' has already
been accounted for at the level of elementary particles, fields, strings
are what you will.


> Of course, a mechanist knows that at its substitution level, he has the
> same causal power than its components when betting on some reality, but we
> can never know what are those components in a rational way, and our causal
> power (free will, or will) is a higher construct, not present in any
> subpart of any third person description of ourself.
>

​Yes. But the difference between mechanism and physicalism is that with the
former one can infer a rationale​, via self-reference and its consequences,
for the appearance and specific characteristics of these higher 'emergent'
constructs and thereby test to what extent they match the phenomena we seek
to explain. Physicalism, by contrast, has so far discovered no such a
priori rationale and so is forced into falling back on the (often tacit)
assertion of a unique and mysterious species of 'non-identical' identity
thesis in a purely a posteriori attempt to account for 'emergent'
phenomena. Alternatively it tries to sweep those very phenomena under the
rug with terminology such as 'seemings' and 'illusions'. There's nothing in
that move however that prevents us from demanding an explication of the how
these so-called seemings or illusions produce the very particular
impressions they do (i.e. our entire phenomenal reality) unless we're being
asked in effect to believe in magic.


>  If they did the same error when assuming Mechanism and its immaterialist
> consequence, they would eliminate not only consciousness, but the
> appearance of matter as well.
>
They would become "number reductionist", which is correct for the ontology,
> but nonsensical for the phenomenology. No consciousness and no matter!
>

​Actually,
​AFAICS, ​
this applies to physicalism also, if you remove all the additional a
posteriori ​assumptions, such as
​'​
emergence
​' (other than as an explanatory device)​
. A fully-reduced physicalism does *not* give you the appearance of matter,
even when 'visualised'
​as​
the View from Nowhere. That view is always an implicit interpretation of
the reduced state of affairs, converting it once again into the 'emergent'
forms afforded by perception. But to present that as the 'solution' to the
Body Problem is to beg the question in the most egregious manner.


> We don't have that problem with mechanism. Consciousness has a big role,
> like speeding up our relative means of actions, computations, etc. (That is
> not obvious, but comes from a theorem by Gödel on the length of proof).
> Then matter is a sort of consciousness construct, but not a human
> consciousness construct, as all machine/number are involved below the
> substitution level.
>
> But
> ​from this starting assertion they ​
> then
> ​g​
> o on to speculate about the 'evolutionary utility' of the 'narratives'
> thus created. They don't seem to have noticed the tacit elision from
> 'narrative' to (presumably) the correlates of narrative, thus bypassing
> entirely the notion of consciousness in their original sense, however much
> they might wish to analogise it as a 'rainbow effect'.
> ​ ​
> This is about as classic an example of the tacit switching between
> categories that characterises
> ​discussion of emergence in the philosophy of mind
> as you could
> ​wish to ​
> find.
>
>
> Indeed. It is the nth attempt to deny the hard aspect of the mind-body
> problem. I think that their are blinded by the brain-mind identity thesis.
> But as they assumes an ontological deity (a primary material universe)
> 

Re: Dreamless Sleep and the Dream Argument

[Bruno Marchal]

On 01 Jan 2018, at 13:39, David Nyman wrote:


https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.01924/full

This link ​could serve as quite​ an illuminating adjunct to the  
dreamless sleep thread. The authors begin by asserting that  
'consciousness' - by which they do ​indeed ​appear to mean  
phenomenal awareness as distinct from any ​of its reductive  
correlates - has no causal powers distinct from those correlates  
or ​any of the ​deeper processes giving rise to ​them​.


I guess that you agree that this is already a sort of mistake; It is  
basically the same mistake that the lawyer who justify its client  
actions by saying that his/her client has no causal power distinct  
from the laws of physics. This eliminates consciousness  and  
responsibility, which is close to non-sense.


Of course, a mechanist knows that at its substitution level, he has  
the same causal power than its components when betting on some  
reality, but we can never know what are those components in a rational  
way, and our causal power (free will, or will) is a higher construct,  
not present in any subpart of any third person description of ourself.
 If they did the same error when assuming Mechanism and its  
immaterialist consequence, they would eliminate not only  
consciousness, but the appearance of matter as well. They would become  
"number reductionist", which is correct for the ontology, but  
nonsensical for the phenomenology. No consciousness and no matter!


We don't have that problem with mechanism. Consciousness has a big  
role, like speeding up our relative means of actions, computations,  
etc. (That is not obvious, but comes from a theorem by Gödel on the  
length of proof). Then matter is a sort of consciousness construct,  
but not a human consciousness construct, as all machine/number are  
involved below the substitution level.





But ​from this starting assertion they ​then ​g​o on to  
speculate about the 'evolutionary utility' of the 'narratives' thus  
created. They don't seem to have noticed the tacit elision from  
'narrative' to (presumably) the correlates of narrative, thus  
bypassing entirely the notion of consciousness in their original  
sense, however much they might wish to analogise it as a 'rainbow  
effect'.​ ​This is about as classic an example of the tacit  
switching between categories that characterises ​discussion of  
emergence in the philosophy of mind as you could ​wish to ​find.


Indeed. It is the nth attempt to deny the hard aspect of the mind-body  
problem. I think that their are blinded by the brain-mind identity  
thesis. But as they assumes an ontological deity (a primary material  
universe) together with some mechanism, they have not much choice:  
consciousness cannot exist, and still less have a role.






That apart, their ​struggle to find a 'purpose' or 'utility' in  
consciousness might motivate a return to the Dream Argument as a  
point of departure, or at least an overarching metaphor, for  
computationalism. If we take Berkeley as the exemplar of this  
tendency in the Western canon, ​what was missing in his treatment  
was any attempt to understand in detail how the multiplicity of  
thoughts in the 'divine mind' could come to be correlated in the  
kind of consistent system of 'physical' action we observe (other  
than by divine decree, of course).


Which both Descartes and Berkeley call for. But Descartes God is still  
a bit more closer to Pythagorus' god (arithmetic) than Berkeley. I  
should reread it, though.





Essentially, he re-proposed the antique Dream Argument in a  
Christian context but without too much of an an eye to its  
consilience with the other, ultimately more influential rationalist  
trends of his time. But the attraction of this point of departure  
still remains. For one thing it need not tempt us to deny the  
'evidence of our own eyes'. But for another, it may enable us to  
reframe the problem that the authors of the above paper get so  
confused about - which is to say the 'purpose' or 'utility' of  
consciousness. But that is to set off down a rabbit hole that leads  
to a very different construction (literally) of things. And indeed  
to a reversal of, or perhaps more correctly the idea of a two-way  
reciprocity between, the notions of mental and physical 'causality'.


Two ways, indeed, like the neoplatonist conversion/emanation. But the  
road is not one-one. We can attach one person to one machine, but a  
person can only attach an infinity of machines to its first person  
self, and indeed that is the first person indeterminacy: no machine  
can known which computations bring her among an infinities of  
computations, which exist like prime numbers exist.


Bruno





David

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Dreamless Sleep and the Dream Argument

[David Nyman]

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.01924/full

This link
​could serve as quite​
an illuminating adjunct to the dreamless sleep thread. The authors begin by
asserting that 'consciousness' - by which they do
​indeed ​
appear to mean phenomenal awareness as distinct from any
​of its
reductive correlates - has no causal powers distinct from those correlates
or
​any of the ​deeper
processes giving rise to
​them​
. But
​from this starting assertion they ​
then
​g​
o on to speculate about the 'evolutionary utility' of the 'narratives' thus
created. They don't seem to have noticed the tacit elision from 'narrative'
to (presumably) the correlates of narrative, thus bypassing entirely the
notion of consciousness in their original sense, however much they might
wish to analogise it as a 'rainbow effect'.
​ ​
This is about as classic an example of the tacit switching between
categories that characterises
​discussion of emergence in the philosophy of mind
as you could
​wish to ​
find.

That apart, their
​struggle to find a 'purpose' or 'utility' in consciousness might motivate
a return to the Dream Argument as a point of departure, or at least an
overarching metaphor, for computationalism. If we take Berkeley as the
exemplar of this tendency in the Western canon, ​what was missing in his
treatment was any attempt to understand in detail how the multiplicity of
thoughts in the 'divine mind' could come to be correlated in the kind of
consistent system of 'physical' action we observe (other than by divine
decree, of course). Essentially, he re-proposed the antique Dream Argument
in a Christian context but without too much of an an eye to its consilience
with the other, ultimately more influential rationalist trends of his time.
But the attraction of this point of departure still remains. For one thing
it need not tempt us to deny the 'evidence of our own eyes'. But for
another, it may enable us to reframe the problem that the authors of the
above paper get so confused about - which is to say the 'purpose' or
'utility' of consciousness. But that is to set off down a rabbit hole that
leads to a very different construction (literally) of things. And indeed to
a reversal of, or perhaps more correctly the idea of a two-way reciprocity
between, the notions of mental and physical 'causality'.

David

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