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Well, article won't load without js, but I've always boggled at the "problems" people come up with trying to separate the think from the meat. These are obvious

by t-3 5y ago

Well, article won't load without js, but I've always boggled at the "problems" people come up with trying to separate the think from the meat. These are obviously the same thing, but mystical concepts of "minds" and "souls" have warped and corrupted the terminology and thinking around themselves.

nathias 5y ago
Its always refreshing to come on hn and see that all the history of philosophy is garbage, because everything is really obvious to some guy.
- t-3 5y ago
  Hmm? Do you not notice changes in your perception and thought patterns relating to changes in physical condition or environment? When I am hungry, when I am fed, I think differently. When I am tired, when I am rested, I think differently. When I am sober, when I am drunk, I think differently. All showing a very clear relationship of thought:body.
  - Winsaucerer 5y ago
    The examples you give are all examples relating to 'easy' problems of consciousness -- that there is a link between the thinking and the meat. I don't think that's in any serious doubt, and is easy to establish (as you have just done!). The hard problem relates to how meat/the body could have consciousness at all. Showing more examples of changes to the physical body resulting in changes to thoughts/mind/consciousness does nothing to address the hard problem. Come up with your best description of the physical world, and you won't find consciousness anywhere in it unless you mix it in explicitly -- and mixing it in explicitly amounts to a dualism. Many of us think we can explain things like trees, rocks, motion, planets, etc, in terms of more fundamental physical things. We can reduce these things to lower level physical things. Once you've got all the atoms in the right place, the right forces in motion, you have a rock. There's nothing else left to say -- a particular rock is nothing more than these things appropriately arranged. Consciousness, on the other hand, is irreducible -- it cannot be reduced to just lower level descriptions of this sort. If you try, inevitably you'll leave something out.
    - wruza 5y ago
      Are there examples of failed reductions and where they fail? And what’s the problem with non-reduction? Let me try it. Can you reduce plasma? It’s an emergent property of “atoms” and fields. Can I try to reduce hard consciousness? It’s an aggregate form of a complexity, which is complex enough to try to self-describe and probably fall into some misconceptions. QED? Edit: Also, it’s theoretically possible to build a human out of atoms, or take a human, and slowly and continuously transform it into a less conscious being, back and forth. Or into more or less believing into some sort of philosophy, back and forth again (which happened to many philosophers naturally). If you can volume-down the consciousness, doesn’t that mean that it’s not even “a thing”, only a property?
      - Winsaucerer 5y ago
        > Are there examples of failed reductions and where they fail? A failed reduction would be a case where we try to say “x is really just y+z”, and in doing so we fail. “x” isn’t able to be accounted for wholly just in terms of “y+z”. That’s not a specific example, but we could make up some examples, some worse than others. An example: “chairs are just bits of wood stuck together”. Problems: there are plenty of things that are chairs that have no wood involved, and plenty of bits of wood stuck together that aren’t a chair. Or “money is nothing more than the physical notes and coins”, which is an attempt at reduction that misses out important things about the shared value we place on these notes and coins. > And what’s the problem with non-reduction? Let me try it. Can you reduce plasma? It’s an emergent property of “atoms” and fields. At some point, all our views will have irreducible components. For physicalists, our world of trees, oceans, stars, and so forth is made up of all and only physical stuff (I’m setting aside here questions about, for example, what mathematical things are). The physicalist says that they can explain things in terms of just physical stuff, but they won’t be able to answer the question of what physical stuff itself is made up of — at some point, there’s something that’s fundamental from which everything else is built. For the physicalist, the most fundamental physical objects exist but cannot be reduced to something else. So there’s no problem with non-reduction per-se. There’s only a problem when your ontology says “everything is composed of just such and such”, and then someone points to a thing and says “this thing isn’t composed of just such and such”. For the physicalist, consciousness/the mental is that thing which isn’t amenable to explanation in terms of just physical stuff. For a dualist, or an idealist of, say, Berkeley’s variety, there is no problem with consciousness being irreducible, because those ontologies take consciousness to be fundamental. Moreover, I'm not aware of any analogous problem for idealists -- no mirrored hard problem of non-consciousness (the dualist solves this problem by inflating their ontology with both physical and mental irreducible substances and/or properties). Regarding your specific example, there are non-reductionists who think that there are layers within science, and certain higher layers (e.g., chemistry) can’t be explained purely in terms of lower layers (e.g., physics). That is, chemistry can’t simply be reduced to, say, really complicated purely physical interactions. > Can I try to reduce hard consciousness? It’s an aggregate form of a complexity, which is complex enough to try to self-describe and probably fall into some misconceptions. QED? Are you saying that consciousness is merely an aggregate form of a complexity? You’ve lost me here at ‘self-describe’. Without appealing to any non-physical terms/concepts, what does it mean for something complex to be self-describing? I genuinely don’t know what you mean, so you’d need to share more for me to understand your proposal, and how it tells us anything about how consciousness is really just such and such physical states (and nothing else). > Edit: Also, it’s theoretically possible to build a human out of atoms, or take a human, and slowly and continuously transform it into a less conscious being, back and forth. Or into more or less believing into some sort of philosophy, back and forth again (which happened to many philosophers naturally). If you can volume-down the consciousness, doesn’t that mean that it’s not even “a thing”, only a property? No-one has done what you propose (continuously transform a human into a less conscious being), so it’s just a view you hold, and it may or may not be possible. Also, you’re using the word ‘conscious’ here a little different. It’s a word with different meanings in different contexts. In some circumstances, we speak about degrees of consciousness — e.g., being asleep is a state of being unconscious. But for the mind-body problem, what philosophers have in mind (or at least, those philosophers who think there is a hard problem) is the fact that there is something having experiences. E.g., as Nagel puts it, there’s something that it’s like to be a bat. In the same sense, there’s something that it’s like to be asleep (whether or not you remember it). So whether you’re less or more conscious in the sense of sleep (or of continual transformation), it’s always conscious in the sense that there’s something that it’s like to be that. If we suppose that the continual transformation you propose is indeed possible and the way the world works, then it shows what we already know — that there’s at least a one direction causal link from the physical to the mental. But we already know that’s the case. The hard problem is explaining how, using only physical terms and concepts, you get the mental from the physical. I don’t see how being able to scale up or down the intensity/volume/quality of the consciousness by tuning the physical entails that consciousness is nothing more than physical stuff appropriately arranged.
  - nathias 5y ago
    Woah, fascinating stuff. Nobody really thought about it this way, you should write a book. What is obvious is that you are ignorant of the field and still feel superior to everything in it. I don't understand this level of narcissim or lack of reflection, but good luck with that.
    - t-3 5y ago
      Please, disabuse me of my ignorance. Drop some links and share your precious knowledge of the mind.
    - bondarchuk 5y ago
      Oh, come on. Even the serious philosophers of mind who have (presumably) thoroughly studied all the relevant classic and modern works are wasting their time with obvious nonsense like philosophical zombies, Chinese rooms, brains in a vat, teletransportation, Mary the colour scientist, inverted qualia... You can spend years on this stuff not getting anything out of it other than a byzantine taxonomy of "stances" on consciousness, their interrelations, and the myriad ways everyone misinterprets each other. But maybe the problem is that after you cut the crap there's not that much philosophy of mind left to be done. Who would want to read a book that just says "well, guess we'll have to wait for neuroscience to figure out the details"?
      - nathias 5y ago
        The problem is you are expectng philosophy to do the work of neuroscience, but that isn't what it is for. Philosophy will help you understand the problem fields of concepts which in case of the mind are interconnected with epistemology and general metaphysics. Why is that important? Because otherwise we get guys that reinvent the same crap over and over and over and over again call it something new.
- wruza 5y ago
  Do philosophers really go deep or just train themselves into the way of their thinking?
mellosouls 5y ago
Considering you've essentially just dismissed over a thousand years of argument and counter-argument from some of the greatest minds in history, elaboration of your discovery would be very much appreciated so we can finally put this matter to bed.
- t-3 5y ago
  I thought I was clear, but I guess not: The mind does not exist (as a separate entity from the body - if that helps you).
  - mellosouls 5y ago
    Your belief was clear; as was your dismissive tone - it was the latter that indicated a lack of understanding of the complexity and depth of the issue, or respect for the many great minds who have tackled it over the centuries without resolution.
    - t-3 5y ago
      The thing is, I don't respect most of those "great minds" you would cite. Augustine? Plato? Why would I respect people with such disgusting philosophies? That their metaphysical ideas are obvious garbage is just another reason to ignore their political ideas, in my opinion.
      - mellosouls 5y ago
        The value of your opinion on this matter has been clearly established with the tone of your comments here.
- simonh 5y ago
  Everybody dismisses thousands of years of religious and philosophical traditions all the time. How many Christians give even a second thought to Buddhist philosophy of the mind? How many Hindus give a fig what Christians think about the nature of the soul? Some sure, but a teeny, tiny minority. I actually find Buddhism and various mystical practices fascinating because they involve practical disciplines. They actually invoke mental states and get repeatable results. Meanwhile neuroscience is busily sorting it all out once and for all, as science has done so many times before on so many previously intractable questions of natural philosophy. I’m confident we’ll figure it all out, but maybe not in my lifetime. Probably in those of my children though.

by t-3 5y ago

nathias 5y ago

Its always refreshing to come on hn and see that all the history of philosophy is garbage, because everything is really obvious to some guy.

t-3 5y ago
Hmm? Do you not notice changes in your perception and thought patterns relating to changes in physical condition or environment? When I am hungry, when I am fed, I think differently. When I am tired, when I am rested, I think differently. When I am sober, when I am drunk, I think differently. All showing a very clear relationship of thought:body.
- Winsaucerer 5y ago
  The examples you give are all examples relating to 'easy' problems of consciousness -- that there is a link between the thinking and the meat. I don't think that's in any serious doubt, and is easy to establish (as you have just done!). The hard problem relates to how meat/the body could have consciousness at all. Showing more examples of changes to the physical body resulting in changes to thoughts/mind/consciousness does nothing to address the hard problem. Come up with your best description of the physical world, and you won't find consciousness anywhere in it unless you mix it in explicitly -- and mixing it in explicitly amounts to a dualism. Many of us think we can explain things like trees, rocks, motion, planets, etc, in terms of more fundamental physical things. We can reduce these things to lower level physical things. Once you've got all the atoms in the right place, the right forces in motion, you have a rock. There's nothing else left to say -- a particular rock is nothing more than these things appropriately arranged. Consciousness, on the other hand, is irreducible -- it cannot be reduced to just lower level descriptions of this sort. If you try, inevitably you'll leave something out.
  - wruza 5y ago
    Are there examples of failed reductions and where they fail? And what’s the problem with non-reduction? Let me try it. Can you reduce plasma? It’s an emergent property of “atoms” and fields. Can I try to reduce hard consciousness? It’s an aggregate form of a complexity, which is complex enough to try to self-describe and probably fall into some misconceptions. QED? Edit: Also, it’s theoretically possible to build a human out of atoms, or take a human, and slowly and continuously transform it into a less conscious being, back and forth. Or into more or less believing into some sort of philosophy, back and forth again (which happened to many philosophers naturally). If you can volume-down the consciousness, doesn’t that mean that it’s not even “a thing”, only a property?
    - Winsaucerer 5y ago
      > Are there examples of failed reductions and where they fail? A failed reduction would be a case where we try to say “x is really just y+z”, and in doing so we fail. “x” isn’t able to be accounted for wholly just in terms of “y+z”. That’s not a specific example, but we could make up some examples, some worse than others. An example: “chairs are just bits of wood stuck together”. Problems: there are plenty of things that are chairs that have no wood involved, and plenty of bits of wood stuck together that aren’t a chair. Or “money is nothing more than the physical notes and coins”, which is an attempt at reduction that misses out important things about the shared value we place on these notes and coins. > And what’s the problem with non-reduction? Let me try it. Can you reduce plasma? It’s an emergent property of “atoms” and fields. At some point, all our views will have irreducible components. For physicalists, our world of trees, oceans, stars, and so forth is made up of all and only physical stuff (I’m setting aside here questions about, for example, what mathematical things are). The physicalist says that they can explain things in terms of just physical stuff, but they won’t be able to answer the question of what physical stuff itself is made up of — at some point, there’s something that’s fundamental from which everything else is built. For the physicalist, the most fundamental physical objects exist but cannot be reduced to something else. So there’s no problem with non-reduction per-se. There’s only a problem when your ontology says “everything is composed of just such and such”, and then someone points to a thing and says “this thing isn’t composed of just such and such”. For the physicalist, consciousness/the mental is that thing which isn’t amenable to explanation in terms of just physical stuff. For a dualist, or an idealist of, say, Berkeley’s variety, there is no problem with consciousness being irreducible, because those ontologies take consciousness to be fundamental. Moreover, I'm not aware of any analogous problem for idealists -- no mirrored hard problem of non-consciousness (the dualist solves this problem by inflating their ontology with both physical and mental irreducible substances and/or properties). Regarding your specific example, there are non-reductionists who think that there are layers within science, and certain higher layers (e.g., chemistry) can’t be explained purely in terms of lower layers (e.g., physics). That is, chemistry can’t simply be reduced to, say, really complicated purely physical interactions. > Can I try to reduce hard consciousness? It’s an aggregate form of a complexity, which is complex enough to try to self-describe and probably fall into some misconceptions. QED? Are you saying that consciousness is merely an aggregate form of a complexity? You’ve lost me here at ‘self-describe’. Without appealing to any non-physical terms/concepts, what does it mean for something complex to be self-describing? I genuinely don’t know what you mean, so you’d need to share more for me to understand your proposal, and how it tells us anything about how consciousness is really just such and such physical states (and nothing else). > Edit: Also, it’s theoretically possible to build a human out of atoms, or take a human, and slowly and continuously transform it into a less conscious being, back and forth. Or into more or less believing into some sort of philosophy, back and forth again (which happened to many philosophers naturally). If you can volume-down the consciousness, doesn’t that mean that it’s not even “a thing”, only a property? No-one has done what you propose (continuously transform a human into a less conscious being), so it’s just a view you hold, and it may or may not be possible. Also, you’re using the word ‘conscious’ here a little different. It’s a word with different meanings in different contexts. In some circumstances, we speak about degrees of consciousness — e.g., being asleep is a state of being unconscious. But for the mind-body problem, what philosophers have in mind (or at least, those philosophers who think there is a hard problem) is the fact that there is something having experiences. E.g., as Nagel puts it, there’s something that it’s like to be a bat. In the same sense, there’s something that it’s like to be asleep (whether or not you remember it). So whether you’re less or more conscious in the sense of sleep (or of continual transformation), it’s always conscious in the sense that there’s something that it’s like to be that. If we suppose that the continual transformation you propose is indeed possible and the way the world works, then it shows what we already know — that there’s at least a one direction causal link from the physical to the mental. But we already know that’s the case. The hard problem is explaining how, using only physical terms and concepts, you get the mental from the physical. I don’t see how being able to scale up or down the intensity/volume/quality of the consciousness by tuning the physical entails that consciousness is nothing more than physical stuff appropriately arranged.
- nathias 5y ago
  Woah, fascinating stuff. Nobody really thought about it this way, you should write a book. What is obvious is that you are ignorant of the field and still feel superior to everything in it. I don't understand this level of narcissim or lack of reflection, but good luck with that.
  - t-3 5y ago
    Please, disabuse me of my ignorance. Drop some links and share your precious knowledge of the mind.
  - bondarchuk 5y ago
    Oh, come on. Even the serious philosophers of mind who have (presumably) thoroughly studied all the relevant classic and modern works are wasting their time with obvious nonsense like philosophical zombies, Chinese rooms, brains in a vat, teletransportation, Mary the colour scientist, inverted qualia... You can spend years on this stuff not getting anything out of it other than a byzantine taxonomy of "stances" on consciousness, their interrelations, and the myriad ways everyone misinterprets each other. But maybe the problem is that after you cut the crap there's not that much philosophy of mind left to be done. Who would want to read a book that just says "well, guess we'll have to wait for neuroscience to figure out the details"?
    - nathias 5y ago
      The problem is you are expectng philosophy to do the work of neuroscience, but that isn't what it is for. Philosophy will help you understand the problem fields of concepts which in case of the mind are interconnected with epistemology and general metaphysics. Why is that important? Because otherwise we get guys that reinvent the same crap over and over and over and over again call it something new.
wruza 5y ago
Do philosophers really go deep or just train themselves into the way of their thinking?

mellosouls 5y ago

Considering you've essentially just dismissed over a thousand years of argument and counter-argument from some of the greatest minds in history, elaboration of your discovery would be very much appreciated so we can finally put this matter to bed.

t-3 5y ago
I thought I was clear, but I guess not: The mind does not exist (as a separate entity from the body - if that helps you).
- mellosouls 5y ago
  Your belief was clear; as was your dismissive tone - it was the latter that indicated a lack of understanding of the complexity and depth of the issue, or respect for the many great minds who have tackled it over the centuries without resolution.
  - t-3 5y ago
    The thing is, I don't respect most of those "great minds" you would cite. Augustine? Plato? Why would I respect people with such disgusting philosophies? That their metaphysical ideas are obvious garbage is just another reason to ignore their political ideas, in my opinion.
    - mellosouls 5y ago
      The value of your opinion on this matter has been clearly established with the tone of your comments here.
simonh 5y ago
Everybody dismisses thousands of years of religious and philosophical traditions all the time. How many Christians give even a second thought to Buddhist philosophy of the mind? How many Hindus give a fig what Christians think about the nature of the soul? Some sure, but a teeny, tiny minority. I actually find Buddhism and various mystical practices fascinating because they involve practical disciplines. They actually invoke mental states and get repeatable results. Meanwhile neuroscience is busily sorting it all out once and for all, as science has done so many times before on so many previously intractable questions of natural philosophy. I’m confident we’ll figure it all out, but maybe not in my lifetime. Probably in those of my children though.