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It seems contradictory because of our intuitions regarding what is required for phenomenal properties, i.e. access to some non-physical substance. But these int

It seems contradictory because of our intuitions regarding what is required for phenomenal properties, i.e. access to some non-physical substance. But these intuitions don't rule out functionalism if there's a functional explanation for why we have these intuitions. Stated more clearly: the explanandum here is the "seemings" of phenomenal properties, not the ontology of phenomenal properties. Functionalism needs to explain why the proposition "it seems to i that P" is true, where "i" indexes a conscious system and P is a phenomenal property.

foldr 9y ago
I don't have any intuitions about non-physical substances. It's just not possible to even define what a phenomenal property is without making reference to non-relational or non-functional notions. Note that Searle is a physicalist, so he certainly doesn't think that non-physical properties are relevant here. > Functionalism needs to explain why the proposition "it seems to i that P" is true, where "i" indexes a conscious system and P is a phenomenal property. We aren't trying to explain why people think that they are conscious, we are trying to explain why they are conscious. A non-conscious system could believe that it was conscious, given a functionalist account of belief.
- hackinthebochs 9y ago
  > It's just not possible to even define what a phenomenal property is without making reference to non-relational or non-functional notions. We haven't really defined it at all. The only thing we can do is reference in some manner the thing we all presumably share. We're all trying to get at the nature of that thing. >Note that Searle is a physicalist In name only. He has strange beliefs on the subject that are hard to pin down. >We aren't trying to explain why people think that they are conscious, we are trying to explain why they are conscious. This isn't a meaningful distinction due to the ambiguity in what consciousness actually is. Our usual casual talk about conscious often assume more than is warranted. In actuality, the only definite explanandum is that "it seems that [phenomenal property]". Cashing out exactly what this means, and how it is the case that "it seems that [phenomenal property]" is what properly done philosophy of mind is about. Chalmers' recent paper on the meta-problem of consciousness spells this out well: https://philpapers.org/archive/CHATMO-32.pdf https://philpapers.org/archive/CHATMO-32.pdf
  - foldr 9y ago
    >We're all trying to get at the nature of that thing. Sure, I'm not worried about defining the term 'phenomenal property'. My point is that functionalist accounts of the property of e.g. 'being in pain' are transparently not accounts of anything we can recognize as potentially being a phenomenal property. I'm therefore baffled by your suggestion that phenomenal properties might be 'purely relational or functional'. It's all very well to say that a seeming contradiction might turn out not to be a real contradiction, but in the absence of any positive argument to this effect, why assume so? You suggest that there may be a functional explanation for why we believe there's a contradiction, but that isn't any use unless you can conjoin it with an argument that there is not in fact any contradiction. >In name only. He has strange beliefs on the subject that are hard to pin down. None of Searle's arguments against functionalism rely on the premise that physicalism is false. It's perfectly clear that one could accept the full force of the Chinese room argument while being a physicalist in the strictest imaginable sense. The conclusion of the argument is that consciousness (or 'understanding') cannot be the result of merely executing a particular program. Nothing Searle says suggests that the extra ingredient needs to be something non-physical. >In actuality, the only definite explanandum is that "it seems that [phenomenal property]" There isn't any distinction between feeling pain and seeming to feel pain. Chalmers agrees on this point ("illusionism is obviously false", p. 35). In fact, section 6 of the paper is devoted to arguing against exactly what you are arguing for in your last paragraph. A solution to the metaproblem won't help very much because, as Chalmers puts it: > On my view, consciousness is real, and explaining our judgments about consciousness does not suffice to solve or dissolve the problem of consciousness.
    - hackinthebochs 9y ago
      >My point is that functionalist accounts of the property of e.g. 'being in pain' are transparently not accounts of anything we can recognize as potentially being a phenomenal property. To me this is assuming more than we have a right to. It's presupposing an ontological distinction between phenomenal appearances and functional processing. Sure, we have an intuition that says they are distinct as well as explanatory gaps that cause us to question such an identity. But that in itself isn't enough. >but in the absence of any positive argument to this effect, why assume so? Depends on what you consider a positive argument. There are certainly many reasons to prefer a functionalist approach, e.g. its the most parsimonious way to cash out the correlations between brain states and phenomenal states, it doesn't suffer from the combination problem, inverted spectrum/valence problems, etc. >None of Searle's arguments against functionalism rely on the premise that physicalism is false. It depends on what you mean by physicalism. Often there's an ambiguity between physicalism and materialism, so let me clarify. Physicalism is the idea that brain processes are logically identical to phenomenal properties. To put it another way, there's no possible world where you have physical properties identical to this world that doesn't have consciousness. But physics tells us that physical properties just are sets of physical interactions. Thus physicalism leads directly to substance independence, and so a perfect simulation of a brain would be conscious. >There isn't any distinction between feeling pain and seeming to feel pain. I agree, but the point of the "it seems that P" is to cast the problem in a theory-neutral manner. You take functionalism to be a non-starter as an explanation of consciousness, and so you're quick to erase the "it seems that..." from the equation. This wording is necessary to avoid our biases from infecting our language thus biasing the investigation. The point of referencing Chalmers paper was for his exploration of the problem space that was theory-neutral. I disagree with Chalmers' conclusions but he always offers good exposition.

foldr 9y ago

I don't have any intuitions about non-physical substances. It's just not possible to even define what a phenomenal property is without making reference to non-relational or non-functional notions. Note that Searle is a physicalist, so he certainly doesn't think that non-physical properties are relevant here. > Functionalism needs to explain why the proposition "it seems to i that P" is true, where "i" indexes a conscious system and P is a phenomenal property. We aren't trying to explain why people think that they are conscious, we are trying to explain why they are conscious. A non-conscious system could believe that it was conscious, given a functionalist account of belief.

hackinthebochs 9y ago
> It's just not possible to even define what a phenomenal property is without making reference to non-relational or non-functional notions. We haven't really defined it at all. The only thing we can do is reference in some manner the thing we all presumably share. We're all trying to get at the nature of that thing. >Note that Searle is a physicalist In name only. He has strange beliefs on the subject that are hard to pin down. >We aren't trying to explain why people think that they are conscious, we are trying to explain why they are conscious. This isn't a meaningful distinction due to the ambiguity in what consciousness actually is. Our usual casual talk about conscious often assume more than is warranted. In actuality, the only definite explanandum is that "it seems that [phenomenal property]". Cashing out exactly what this means, and how it is the case that "it seems that [phenomenal property]" is what properly done philosophy of mind is about. Chalmers' recent paper on the meta-problem of consciousness spells this out well: https://philpapers.org/archive/CHATMO-32.pdf https://philpapers.org/archive/CHATMO-32.pdf
- foldr 9y ago
  >We're all trying to get at the nature of that thing. Sure, I'm not worried about defining the term 'phenomenal property'. My point is that functionalist accounts of the property of e.g. 'being in pain' are transparently not accounts of anything we can recognize as potentially being a phenomenal property. I'm therefore baffled by your suggestion that phenomenal properties might be 'purely relational or functional'. It's all very well to say that a seeming contradiction might turn out not to be a real contradiction, but in the absence of any positive argument to this effect, why assume so? You suggest that there may be a functional explanation for why we believe there's a contradiction, but that isn't any use unless you can conjoin it with an argument that there is not in fact any contradiction. >In name only. He has strange beliefs on the subject that are hard to pin down. None of Searle's arguments against functionalism rely on the premise that physicalism is false. It's perfectly clear that one could accept the full force of the Chinese room argument while being a physicalist in the strictest imaginable sense. The conclusion of the argument is that consciousness (or 'understanding') cannot be the result of merely executing a particular program. Nothing Searle says suggests that the extra ingredient needs to be something non-physical. >In actuality, the only definite explanandum is that "it seems that [phenomenal property]" There isn't any distinction between feeling pain and seeming to feel pain. Chalmers agrees on this point ("illusionism is obviously false", p. 35). In fact, section 6 of the paper is devoted to arguing against exactly what you are arguing for in your last paragraph. A solution to the metaproblem won't help very much because, as Chalmers puts it: > On my view, consciousness is real, and explaining our judgments about consciousness does not suffice to solve or dissolve the problem of consciousness.
  - hackinthebochs 9y ago
    >My point is that functionalist accounts of the property of e.g. 'being in pain' are transparently not accounts of anything we can recognize as potentially being a phenomenal property. To me this is assuming more than we have a right to. It's presupposing an ontological distinction between phenomenal appearances and functional processing. Sure, we have an intuition that says they are distinct as well as explanatory gaps that cause us to question such an identity. But that in itself isn't enough. >but in the absence of any positive argument to this effect, why assume so? Depends on what you consider a positive argument. There are certainly many reasons to prefer a functionalist approach, e.g. its the most parsimonious way to cash out the correlations between brain states and phenomenal states, it doesn't suffer from the combination problem, inverted spectrum/valence problems, etc. >None of Searle's arguments against functionalism rely on the premise that physicalism is false. It depends on what you mean by physicalism. Often there's an ambiguity between physicalism and materialism, so let me clarify. Physicalism is the idea that brain processes are logically identical to phenomenal properties. To put it another way, there's no possible world where you have physical properties identical to this world that doesn't have consciousness. But physics tells us that physical properties just are sets of physical interactions. Thus physicalism leads directly to substance independence, and so a perfect simulation of a brain would be conscious. >There isn't any distinction between feeling pain and seeming to feel pain. I agree, but the point of the "it seems that P" is to cast the problem in a theory-neutral manner. You take functionalism to be a non-starter as an explanation of consciousness, and so you're quick to erase the "it seems that..." from the equation. This wording is necessary to avoid our biases from infecting our language thus biasing the investigation. The point of referencing Chalmers paper was for his exploration of the problem space that was theory-neutral. I disagree with Chalmers' conclusions but he always offers good exposition.