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Manzotti makes good points about how Chalmers' dualist / panpsychist view has colored the debate and possibly hindered progress, but I was hoping for more discu

Manzotti makes good points about how Chalmers' dualist / panpsychist view has colored the debate and possibly hindered progress, but I was hoping for more discussion of alternatives. Instead there's only a brief footnote claiming that physicalism is obviously best. I myself am fond of Bernardo Kastrup's work on Idealism: https://www.reddit.com/r/philosophy/comments/41gb0j/bernardo_kastrup_on_why_idealism_is_superior_to/ https://www.reddit.com/r/philosophy/comments/41gb0j/bernardo...

danielam 9y ago
You might find "Philosophy of Mind" by Edward Feser interesting.
seoguru 9y ago
Yes Kastrup! Can't get enough of him :-) Donald Hoffman also has interesting ideas: https://www.google.com/search?q=donald+hoffman&source=lnms&tbm=vid https://www.google.com/search?q=donald+hoffman&source=lnms&t...
psyc 9y ago
I've often been frustrated by the seeming polarization in the debate, with dualism on one end, and substrate independent information processing on the other. I wish I knew how to spark a discussion about hypotheses that are physical, but don't reduce to information processing. Consider that incandescent light is not substrate independent - it requires tungsten or some other specific chemistry that works. Couldn't consciousness be simultaneously fundamental, like a physical field, but also have specific physical or chemical preconditions to manifest in a location? Gravity coalesces around mass concentrations. Could consciousness gather around local "concentrations" of hyper-connected networks with a lot of feedback circuits in them? To be clear, I am spit-balling vague hypotheses here to make a point, so please don't ask me for citations. What I'm looking for are hypotheses that are physical, maybe substrate dependent, and non-reducible to computation in the abstract (e.g. conscious water- or domino-based computers, a la Searle).
- naasking 9y ago
  > I wish I knew how to spark a discussion about hypotheses that are physical, but don't reduce to information processing You can't. Information is physical. Matter irreducibly contains information: https://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=3327 https://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=3327 What you need to do is get over the prejudice that information processing is undesirable as an explanation for consciousness.
  - psyc 9y ago
    I simply don't have a strong reason at this point to believe it is sufficient. That everything is information is, IMO a tautology, and citing it as an explanation is like citing matter and/or energy as an explanation. But is it inherently conscious, or is there a minimum necessary condition in terms of arrangement, data flow, or other physical evolution of a localized system?
    - naasking 9y ago
      All good questions, but do you really have strong reasons for thinking consciousness is not physical? There seems little need to posit consciousness as some irreducible property of matter, except for those who are mysteriously uncomfortable with the idea of being purely physical beings. Most arguments against physicalism are smoke and mirrors. As for specifically what physical process produces consciousness, it's an open question that's being studied. We're currently like Ada Lovelace studying a web browser and marvelling at what it does, having little idea how it actually works, yet we're mostly convinced it's not magic. I think you'd be more forgiving if Miss Lovelace took some time trying to reverse engineer the operation of a computer and it's program. Personally, I think [1] is a great starting point on this journey. The problem of apparent subjectivity was a huge stumbling block, and I think that paper is a great stab at it. [1] http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00500/full http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00...
      - monktastic1 9y ago
        Nice to see you again, naasking :) It doesn't require any "mysterious discomfort." Believing in the existence of a physical reality may seem like a totally reasonable extrapolation to make from our experiences, but it's not the only one.
RivieraKid 9y ago
I used to think about this a lot when growing up and had come to a philosophical view that I find so obvious and simple at this point, that I'm surprised I hadn't come across (exactly) the same view yet. Of course, this view could be wrong but I just can't imagine an alternative that would make sense. Basically (don't want to spend much time on this so it's not the best way summarize it): - Consciousness is defined as my current feelings, perceptions, thoughts. - In a way, consciousness (or experience) is the only thing that exists. - The idea that the physical world is everything is ridiculously wrong. Physics is just a way to summarize patterns observed through our consciousness. The physical world is just a mental model. - Physical state of the brain clearly affects consciousness but there could very well be an opposite casual link - consciousness affecting the brain by "pushing atoms" or making supposedly random quantum phenomena not-so-random. Why? Because I wouldn't be typing this otherwise - my brain would never realize it affects some consciousness in "parallel universe" (metaphorically speaking). - Other people (or computers) don't have consciousness as defined above. But we could define a separate term, say "consciousness2", to describe some physical processes typical for brains. If the "consciousness pushing atoms in brain" hypothesis is correct, we could say that all brains with this kind of fishy activity are "conscious2".
- monktastic1 9y ago
  Is this not a form of Idealism?
  - RivieraKid 9y ago
    Yeah, it seems to be vaguely similar.
    - monktastic1 9y ago
      By your second bullet, it seems to meet the broad definition: "In philosophy, idealism is the group of philosophies which assert that reality, or reality as we can know it, is fundamentally mental, mentally constructed, or otherwise immaterial." You might find it interesting to read about various forms: http://www.philosophybasics.com/branch_idealism.html http://www.philosophybasics.com/branch_idealism.html. Kastrup's work will probably interest you too.
visarga 9y ago
> I was hoping for more discussion of alternatives I think the best alternative is Reinforcement Learning. In RL, there is an agent which exists inside an environment. It can perceive the world around, move about and perform actions. The agent has a goal to achieve and receives reward signals from time to time. Such an agent can learn behavior that maximizes rewards. That's what consciousness is. It is not an experience, it is a whole loop "perception -> judgement -> action -> reward" that defines life moment by moment. This also explains the role of consciousness - it is to choose actions that lead to survival of the individual and of its genes (reproduction). It is all a self replicating loop, in the end. The purpose of life is life, the purpose of consciousness is to guard life. Consciousness is a set of four functions (perception, evaluating actions, acting, learning from reward signals) that work together to select the next action, to protect the body, on which consciousness depends - yep, full circle. This whole "RL agent inside environment = consciousness" theory has the advantage that it is concrete and not supernatural in any way, and has promising applications (such as AlphaGo and self driving car).
- monktastic1 9y ago
  That sounds like a useful model, but might be unsatisfying to those who (rightly or wrongly) perceive experience and qualia as sine-qua-nons of existence.
- RivieraKid 9y ago
  That doesn't make much sense to be honest. Consciousness has little to do with survival. Simple 100 lines of code robots can do "perception, evaluating actions, acting, learning from reward signals". By the way, to understand what you mean by consciousness, do you consider yourself conscious when sleeping?
  - visarga 9y ago
    Yet those robots aren't self replicators. They depend on our human brains to exist - they have human technology as an externality. But the human body is self bootstrapped, carrying with it everything. A neuron doesn't just compute signals, it also self replicates, assimilates nutrients and grows. Thus neurons and organisms have specific needs which become the goals of RL for the organism. You can't do that in 100 lines of code. Consciousness is that thing that allows me to make a sandwich when I get up in the morning, so as not to die of hunger. How do you like this short and concrete definition? The magic of consciousness happens when there are: 1- an agent, 2- the world around it, 3- self replication and evolution, that give the main thrust of purpose to the agent, the purpose of self replication being recurrent, it is just more self replication.
arstin 9y ago
I never heard of this Kastrup fellow, but it's pretty hard to want to keep reading about an issue so delicate with so heavy-headed a first page. For example, here's a thing he claims we know "about the universe irrespective of theory or metaphysics", an "empirical fact", he declares, "accessible to anyone through simple observation": "There is subjective experience. This is the primary and incontrovertible." This statement is a fine way of starting a conversation and far from a silly thing to assume as a first pass. But what happens if we try to square his claim that what he is presenting "avoids any a priori metaphysical assumption or bias" with the need to clarify what he means by "subjective"? Is subjectivity a means of knowing (from the inside)? The phenomenal aspect of consciousness (a rug appearing redly)? A way of categorizing facts (the domain of what can be seen from a perspective)? All that matters for now is that any of these responses will result in his first Grand Fact being completely different. And, further, that any answer will involve theoretical machinery, however implicit it is to most people. What if we then step to the next word and argue that the concept of "experience" is both dispensable (we can do all explanatory work without it) and adds to confusion (by muddling causal and justificatory dimensions of our behavior) and that we should replace it with a family of more restricted concepts? So much for incontrovertible. And what if we keep going with the second clause of the statement and counter that nothing, in general, can be primary and incontrovertible (that all concepts must earn their keep in explanation)? It would be tedious---but easy---to do this for every one of the "facts of nature" which ground his pretty pompous exposition. It's easy to think this sort of response is just being clever, but being comfortable with everything being up for grabs and being more modest about what we are actually doing is really the only way an issue as hazy and messy as consciousness can be seriously approached. The playfulness used by Dennett or Hofstader, for example, is not just superfluous or "mere rhetoric", but essential for the stage of understanding we're at. An aside: I was only scanning for modest evidence that the author was aware of and responsive to the complexity of the issue to see if it was worth my time to read further, not that he actually explicitly addresses every possible move! Also, his substantive position, as far as I glean it, can still be interesting. FWIW I personally have idealist sympathies (appropriately construed) and think both subjectivity and experience do earn their keep...so far.
- monktastic1 9y ago

danielam 9y ago

You might find "Philosophy of Mind" by Edward Feser interesting.

seoguru 9y ago

Yes Kastrup! Can't get enough of him :-) Donald Hoffman also has interesting ideas: https://www.google.com/search?q=donald+hoffman&source=lnms&tbm=vid https://www.google.com/search?q=donald+hoffman&source=lnms&t...

psyc 9y ago

I've often been frustrated by the seeming polarization in the debate, with dualism on one end, and substrate independent information processing on the other. I wish I knew how to spark a discussion about hypotheses that are physical, but don't reduce to information processing. Consider that incandescent light is not substrate independent - it requires tungsten or some other specific chemistry that works. Couldn't consciousness be simultaneously fundamental, like a physical field, but also have specific physical or chemical preconditions to manifest in a location? Gravity coalesces around mass concentrations. Could consciousness gather around local "concentrations" of hyper-connected networks with a lot of feedback circuits in them? To be clear, I am spit-balling vague hypotheses here to make a point, so please don't ask me for citations. What I'm looking for are hypotheses that are physical, maybe substrate dependent, and non-reducible to computation in the abstract (e.g. conscious water- or domino-based computers, a la Searle).

naasking 9y ago
> I wish I knew how to spark a discussion about hypotheses that are physical, but don't reduce to information processing You can't. Information is physical. Matter irreducibly contains information: https://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=3327 https://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=3327 What you need to do is get over the prejudice that information processing is undesirable as an explanation for consciousness.
- psyc 9y ago
  I simply don't have a strong reason at this point to believe it is sufficient. That everything is information is, IMO a tautology, and citing it as an explanation is like citing matter and/or energy as an explanation. But is it inherently conscious, or is there a minimum necessary condition in terms of arrangement, data flow, or other physical evolution of a localized system?
  - naasking 9y ago
    All good questions, but do you really have strong reasons for thinking consciousness is not physical? There seems little need to posit consciousness as some irreducible property of matter, except for those who are mysteriously uncomfortable with the idea of being purely physical beings. Most arguments against physicalism are smoke and mirrors. As for specifically what physical process produces consciousness, it's an open question that's being studied. We're currently like Ada Lovelace studying a web browser and marvelling at what it does, having little idea how it actually works, yet we're mostly convinced it's not magic. I think you'd be more forgiving if Miss Lovelace took some time trying to reverse engineer the operation of a computer and it's program. Personally, I think [1] is a great starting point on this journey. The problem of apparent subjectivity was a huge stumbling block, and I think that paper is a great stab at it. [1] http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00500/full http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00...
    - monktastic1 9y ago
      Nice to see you again, naasking :) It doesn't require any "mysterious discomfort." Believing in the existence of a physical reality may seem like a totally reasonable extrapolation to make from our experiences, but it's not the only one.

RivieraKid 9y ago

I used to think about this a lot when growing up and had come to a philosophical view that I find so obvious and simple at this point, that I'm surprised I hadn't come across (exactly) the same view yet. Of course, this view could be wrong but I just can't imagine an alternative that would make sense. Basically (don't want to spend much time on this so it's not the best way summarize it): - Consciousness is defined as my current feelings, perceptions, thoughts. - In a way, consciousness (or experience) is the only thing that exists. - The idea that the physical world is everything is ridiculously wrong. Physics is just a way to summarize patterns observed through our consciousness. The physical world is just a mental model. - Physical state of the brain clearly affects consciousness but there could very well be an opposite casual link - consciousness affecting the brain by "pushing atoms" or making supposedly random quantum phenomena not-so-random. Why? Because I wouldn't be typing this otherwise - my brain would never realize it affects some consciousness in "parallel universe" (metaphorically speaking). - Other people (or computers) don't have consciousness as defined above. But we could define a separate term, say "consciousness2", to describe some physical processes typical for brains. If the "consciousness pushing atoms in brain" hypothesis is correct, we could say that all brains with this kind of fishy activity are "conscious2".

monktastic1 9y ago
Is this not a form of Idealism?
- RivieraKid 9y ago
  Yeah, it seems to be vaguely similar.
  - monktastic1 9y ago
    By your second bullet, it seems to meet the broad definition: "In philosophy, idealism is the group of philosophies which assert that reality, or reality as we can know it, is fundamentally mental, mentally constructed, or otherwise immaterial." You might find it interesting to read about various forms: http://www.philosophybasics.com/branch_idealism.html http://www.philosophybasics.com/branch_idealism.html. Kastrup's work will probably interest you too.

visarga 9y ago

> I was hoping for more discussion of alternatives I think the best alternative is Reinforcement Learning. In RL, there is an agent which exists inside an environment. It can perceive the world around, move about and perform actions. The agent has a goal to achieve and receives reward signals from time to time. Such an agent can learn behavior that maximizes rewards. That's what consciousness is. It is not an experience, it is a whole loop "perception -> judgement -> action -> reward" that defines life moment by moment. This also explains the role of consciousness - it is to choose actions that lead to survival of the individual and of its genes (reproduction). It is all a self replicating loop, in the end. The purpose of life is life, the purpose of consciousness is to guard life. Consciousness is a set of four functions (perception, evaluating actions, acting, learning from reward signals) that work together to select the next action, to protect the body, on which consciousness depends - yep, full circle. This whole "RL agent inside environment = consciousness" theory has the advantage that it is concrete and not supernatural in any way, and has promising applications (such as AlphaGo and self driving car).

monktastic1 9y ago
That sounds like a useful model, but might be unsatisfying to those who (rightly or wrongly) perceive experience and qualia as sine-qua-nons of existence.
RivieraKid 9y ago
That doesn't make much sense to be honest. Consciousness has little to do with survival. Simple 100 lines of code robots can do "perception, evaluating actions, acting, learning from reward signals". By the way, to understand what you mean by consciousness, do you consider yourself conscious when sleeping?
- visarga 9y ago
  Yet those robots aren't self replicators. They depend on our human brains to exist - they have human technology as an externality. But the human body is self bootstrapped, carrying with it everything. A neuron doesn't just compute signals, it also self replicates, assimilates nutrients and grows. Thus neurons and organisms have specific needs which become the goals of RL for the organism. You can't do that in 100 lines of code. Consciousness is that thing that allows me to make a sandwich when I get up in the morning, so as not to die of hunger. How do you like this short and concrete definition? The magic of consciousness happens when there are: 1- an agent, 2- the world around it, 3- self replication and evolution, that give the main thrust of purpose to the agent, the purpose of self replication being recurrent, it is just more self replication.

arstin 9y ago

I never heard of this Kastrup fellow, but it's pretty hard to want to keep reading about an issue so delicate with so heavy-headed a first page. For example, here's a thing he claims we know "about the universe irrespective of theory or metaphysics", an "empirical fact", he declares, "accessible to anyone through simple observation": "There is subjective experience. This is the primary and incontrovertible." This statement is a fine way of starting a conversation and far from a silly thing to assume as a first pass. But what happens if we try to square his claim that what he is presenting "avoids any a priori metaphysical assumption or bias" with the need to clarify what he means by "subjective"? Is subjectivity a means of knowing (from the inside)? The phenomenal aspect of consciousness (a rug appearing redly)? A way of categorizing facts (the domain of what can be seen from a perspective)? All that matters for now is that any of these responses will result in his first Grand Fact being completely different. And, further, that any answer will involve theoretical machinery, however implicit it is to most people. What if we then step to the next word and argue that the concept of "experience" is both dispensable (we can do all explanatory work without it) and adds to confusion (by muddling causal and justificatory dimensions of our behavior) and that we should replace it with a family of more restricted concepts? So much for incontrovertible. And what if we keep going with the second clause of the statement and counter that nothing, in general, can be primary and incontrovertible (that all concepts must earn their keep in explanation)? It would be tedious---but easy---to do this for every one of the "facts of nature" which ground his pretty pompous exposition. It's easy to think this sort of response is just being clever, but being comfortable with everything being up for grabs and being more modest about what we are actually doing is really the only way an issue as hazy and messy as consciousness can be seriously approached. The playfulness used by Dennett or Hofstader, for example, is not just superfluous or "mere rhetoric", but essential for the stage of understanding we're at. An aside: I was only scanning for modest evidence that the author was aware of and responsive to the complexity of the issue to see if it was worth my time to read further, not that he actually explicitly addresses every possible move! Also, his substantive position, as far as I glean it, can still be interesting. FWIW I personally have idealist sympathies (appropriately construed) and think both subjectivity and experience do earn their keep...so far.

monktastic1 9y ago