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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 th

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.
  - wruza 5y ago
    Are you saying that consciousness is merely an aggregate form of a complexity? Yes, essentially that. 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? No, not self-describing, but trying to do that (see the original wording). I was basically portraying all of us in this thread. “A complexity big enough to ask questions and trying to answer them”. But at the same time I don’t deny consciousness from animals who ask easier questions like where’s the food at. Also, you’re using the word ‘conscious’ here a little different I see that after your explanations. What I was describing is “smart” to you, not “conscious”. But I think these two are (cor)related because smart means complex, simply by information laws. So I’m aware of true-consciousness which you’re talking about, but am looking at it from a different angle. 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. But can’t we extend that to something that it’s like to be a chair? Or air, or empty space. We don’t perceive anything momentarily, it’s a process. And if it is a process, it means its state has to be stored somewhere. Isn’t that our subject? If yes, then you can gradually reduce the processing capabilities and state volumes until both become zero.
raspasov 5y ago
A rock has a precise definition. And there's strong evidence to support that statement. For example, many species can be taught to distinguish, say, rock from food. Consciousness does not have a precise definition. It's a very nebulous concept.
- Winsaucerer 5y ago
  > Consciousness does not have a precise definition. It's a very nebulous concept. And yet, it is more familiar and sure to us than anything else :) Ala Descartes, I can doubt that the rock I see exists, that perhaps I am deceived, but I cannot doubt that there is an 'I', some conscious self, that is having that experience.
  - raspasov 5y ago
    "I" can doubt but we can all most likely get many millions of people plus some monkeys and other species to more or less agree that there is a rock with very much the same characteristics. That's a good enough description of the rock in my book. The above definitely does not apply to consciousness.
bondarchuk 5y ago
>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. >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. These are just empty assertions without any proof. To show that there really is a hard problem you can't just say "nobody has given a physical explanation of consciousness at this moment in time", you have to prove that such a thing would be impossible, even just in theory/principle, or sometime in the future when we have better science and tech. As a counterpoint, I would like to offer the following: our thoughts, while we are thinking about consciousness and puzzling over it and writing posts on HN about it, are manifested in the physical world as neuron firings and chemicals in the brain. A sufficient explanation of the physical world would include an explanation of how and why these thoughts emerged (through a chain of previous thoughts), and this explanation, I think, has a good chance of showing that the hard problem is just a collection of easy problems after all.
- Winsaucerer 5y ago
  > you have to prove that such a thing would be impossible, even just in theory/principle, or sometime in the future when we have better science and tech. You should take these comments in a different spirit that I intended — I am representing the side of philosophers that thinks ‘the hard problem of consciousness is a real and hard problem’. In short, I’m presenting what this side of the debate thinks, and I absolutely think what I said is true. There are philosophers who disagree with those who say what I say, and we certainly haven’t offered anything that’s convincing enough to be considered a proof. I didn’t claim to have a proof, though I think my confidence is warranted. > As a counterpoint, I would like to offer the following: our thoughts, while we are thinking about consciousness and puzzling over it and writing posts on HN about it, are manifested in the physical world as neuron firings and chemicals in the brain. A sufficient explanation of the physical world would include an explanation of how and why these thoughts emerged (through a chain of previous thoughts), and this explanation, I think, has a good chance of showing that the hard problem is just a collection of easy problems after all. Here you present that which looks very much like a standard reductionist physicalist account. For what it’s worth, I think reductionist physicalism is the only physicalism worth giving consideration to, but it doesn’t do anything to explain the thing that I'm really concerned about, how such firings and chemicals are/produce experiences/consciousness. When looking at the physical story alone (the neurons firing, etc), there's no reference to consciousness/experiences. It doesn't appear at all until the physicalist says "and c-fibers firing just are pain" -- at which they are like a magician, having pulled something from thin air.

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.
- wruza 5y ago
  Are you saying that consciousness is merely an aggregate form of a complexity? Yes, essentially that. 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? No, not self-describing, but trying to do that (see the original wording). I was basically portraying all of us in this thread. “A complexity big enough to ask questions and trying to answer them”. But at the same time I don’t deny consciousness from animals who ask easier questions like where’s the food at. Also, you’re using the word ‘conscious’ here a little different I see that after your explanations. What I was describing is “smart” to you, not “conscious”. But I think these two are (cor)related because smart means complex, simply by information laws. So I’m aware of true-consciousness which you’re talking about, but am looking at it from a different angle. 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. But can’t we extend that to something that it’s like to be a chair? Or air, or empty space. We don’t perceive anything momentarily, it’s a process. And if it is a process, it means its state has to be stored somewhere. Isn’t that our subject? If yes, then you can gradually reduce the processing capabilities and state volumes until both become zero.

raspasov 5y ago

A rock has a precise definition. And there's strong evidence to support that statement. For example, many species can be taught to distinguish, say, rock from food. Consciousness does not have a precise definition. It's a very nebulous concept.

Winsaucerer 5y ago
> Consciousness does not have a precise definition. It's a very nebulous concept. And yet, it is more familiar and sure to us than anything else :) Ala Descartes, I can doubt that the rock I see exists, that perhaps I am deceived, but I cannot doubt that there is an 'I', some conscious self, that is having that experience.
- raspasov 5y ago
  "I" can doubt but we can all most likely get many millions of people plus some monkeys and other species to more or less agree that there is a rock with very much the same characteristics. That's a good enough description of the rock in my book. The above definitely does not apply to consciousness.

bondarchuk 5y ago

>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. >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. These are just empty assertions without any proof. To show that there really is a hard problem you can't just say "nobody has given a physical explanation of consciousness at this moment in time", you have to prove that such a thing would be impossible, even just in theory/principle, or sometime in the future when we have better science and tech. As a counterpoint, I would like to offer the following: our thoughts, while we are thinking about consciousness and puzzling over it and writing posts on HN about it, are manifested in the physical world as neuron firings and chemicals in the brain. A sufficient explanation of the physical world would include an explanation of how and why these thoughts emerged (through a chain of previous thoughts), and this explanation, I think, has a good chance of showing that the hard problem is just a collection of easy problems after all.

Winsaucerer 5y ago
> you have to prove that such a thing would be impossible, even just in theory/principle, or sometime in the future when we have better science and tech. You should take these comments in a different spirit that I intended — I am representing the side of philosophers that thinks ‘the hard problem of consciousness is a real and hard problem’. In short, I’m presenting what this side of the debate thinks, and I absolutely think what I said is true. There are philosophers who disagree with those who say what I say, and we certainly haven’t offered anything that’s convincing enough to be considered a proof. I didn’t claim to have a proof, though I think my confidence is warranted. > As a counterpoint, I would like to offer the following: our thoughts, while we are thinking about consciousness and puzzling over it and writing posts on HN about it, are manifested in the physical world as neuron firings and chemicals in the brain. A sufficient explanation of the physical world would include an explanation of how and why these thoughts emerged (through a chain of previous thoughts), and this explanation, I think, has a good chance of showing that the hard problem is just a collection of easy problems after all. Here you present that which looks very much like a standard reductionist physicalist account. For what it’s worth, I think reductionist physicalism is the only physicalism worth giving consideration to, but it doesn’t do anything to explain the thing that I'm really concerned about, how such firings and chemicals are/produce experiences/consciousness. When looking at the physical story alone (the neurons firing, etc), there's no reference to consciousness/experiences. It doesn't appear at all until the physicalist says "and c-fibers firing just are pain" -- at which they are like a magician, having pulled something from thin air.