5 ms·

It's only a thing if you can define it, but there is no agreed upon definition of what collection of things comprise consciousness. We have all the pieces, and

by epgui 4y ago

It's only a thing if you can define it, but there is no agreed upon definition of what collection of things comprise consciousness. We have all the pieces, and we know we have all the pieces (note: this doesn't mean we don't have a lot more to learn, both can be true). There is little controversy over how it all roughly works together. The only real controversy is semantics: what do we mean when we say "consciousness". In programmerland, one might say something like "the abstraction you're using is counter-productive", for whatever reason, when looking at some junior hire's code. It's very much the same here: trying to understand consciousness is asking the wrong question. It's like asking "Why is there a God?": it's an unproductive question because it's a question that can't be answered. The abstraction in the question simply doesn't map 1:1 to abstractions in the world in which we live. If we want to understand our world, we'll maximize our odds of success if we focus on studying the abstractions of this world. I wouldn't describe myself as a pessimist at all, and I'm not sure why you thought my comment was pessimistic... But this opinion of mine (because that's what it is, it's an opinion, not an argument) is a professional opinion. This isn't my field of expertise, but I do have expertise in very adjacent fields.

Nevermark 4y ago
A phenomena can be defined by a pattern, even if it’s not well defined in a technical sense. And a pattern is a thing. Consciousness is an everyday experience that appears to be reliably shared by billions of entities who communicate about it to each other. And have done so for at least millennia. To use a colloquialism: It’s a thing
- bbwbsb 4y ago
  There are types without values. That the type is itself a value does not mean that it has values itself. False is a type with no values. Consciousness is not a value. Replace type with concept and value with thing, and we get a rebuttal using the same language. You can also switch the terms, depending on how 'a thing' is interpreted. If you are more familiar with set theory, replace type with proposition, value with element. The critical difference is between reference and referent. Further if large numbers of people holding something is true for considerable duration is sufficient for something to 'be a thing', we'd also have an argument for 'the consciousness of the human heart' being a thing, which I don't think anyone would argue in good faith these days. There are probably better examples, but note that the duration of time and frequency of experience are parameters with no obvious values indicating at which point the underlying 'thing' should be accepted as undeniably 'a thing'. The whole point of requiring it to be technically defined is that all this confusion just goes away and it becomes possible to ask more meaningful and less ambiguous questions about it. That said, I will concede that the argument I have made does not say that consciousness is definitely not 'a thing', just that it is defensible to say that it is not a thing, given that it is held that either it does not represent a proposition, or that the proposition it represents is not true. (note I'm using the term proposition with some handwaving).
  - epgui 4y ago
    This commenter understands the importance of definition.
  - Nevermark 4y ago
    Nothing is fully defined formally. The most fundamental aspects of reality, and mathematics, are still not founded completely on formal definitions, without resorting to circular reasoning, and attempts to prove things assuming the things that are being proved. Existence isn't well defined. Yet Descartes' famous informal claim "I think, therefore I am" is still a compelling statement that each of us can use to verify we do exist. Despite many unanswered questions. Likewise, "I am aware of myself, my own thoughts, my interactions with a world around me" is a compelling statement supporting consciousness. The fact that we can all verify our own consciousness the same way, and discuss those experiences with each other, makes it even more compelling. Despite lots of unanswered questions. -- Your counter examples are also weak. Most subjective beliefs about hearts having consciousness are not nearly as credible as informal arguments for existence and consciousness. Conscious hearts are not virtually universally experienced. Informal reasoning about why a heart, a blood pumping organ, would correlate with consciousness are not generally accepted informal arguments. People whose hearts are replaced with artificial or donated organs don't reliably report a loss of consciousness.
    - bbwbsb 4y ago
      I concede that the subjective perception of consciousness is a thing, is a thing that I perceive, and that philosophy related to it is socially valuable work. I concede that there is no obviously correct choice of axioms for mathematics or logic. I concede that nothing is fully defined formally in that the formal definition will be of the conception of the concept and not of the thing which the concept might represent. I hold that the adequacy of a concept in representing something is an orthogonal concern to its formalization. My claim is that while tools to determine if consciousness exists do not presently exist, it is possible that they are discovered, and applied, and that the question of the existence of consciousness is open. Note that for me existence is a fundamentally formal notion. I cannot defend this except on grounds of its anecdotal usefulness because it is akin to an axiom or ground truth. The notion of consciousness I consider is with respect to its 'actual' existence[1]. Suppose I imagine a circle, and then a square, but believe I imagined at once a round square. That I can consider the notion of 'a round square' or may have had a direct perception of it does not require me to accept its existence. Likewise, I do not need to accept the existence of a unifying singular notion of what might be perceived as consciousnesses. This also does not necessitate I reject it. If consciousness cannot find an agreed upon definition, assertions regarding it lack semantic meaning and cannot be 'reasonably' (waves hands) assigned truth values. If an exact definition is determined with no logical contradictions, I defer to the physical sciences for determining its plausibility. The notion of conscious hearts was more credible in the past. The idea was that before the role of the heart was understood, a large population could have been convinced that 'the heart is the seat of consciousness', and thus a large population believing they were experiencing something a particular way may have been followed by the falsification of the existence of such a thing. At the time, it was very plausible that it was considered impossible to ascertain whether or not there were thinking hearts. I concede that the notion is not presently credible; for my purposes it is sufficient that it was ever credible. If you regard existence proofs as being extra-logical, it may not be the case we can find agreement since we will be effectively talking in different languages. Personally, I am very skeptical of the ability of the human mind to find truth informally, which is why I lean on formal notions heavily. -- 1: My favorite essay on this distinction is Quine's (admittedly polemic) "On What There Is". The distinction I consider is slightly different from his in that I am also expressing distrust of direct self-perceptions of the mind's functions.
- epgui 4y ago
  By your standards, a "soul" is also a "thing" which science struggles to explain, right?
  - Nevermark 4y ago
    Informal reasoning doesn't mean subjective reasoning. Just because someone believes something, doesn't mean there is a compelling argument it exists. But if something can be studied by many independent people, with strong agreement not based on passed-on beliefs, then there is likely to be something there. I.e. I am unaware of a universal experience of souls, or informal arguments for souls that are compelling. I am aware of informal arguments for existence ("I am, therefore I exist") and consciousness ("I experience myself, my own thinking, even this thought itself, so I am conscious of myself"). In both cases, the vast (vast, vast) majority of humans conclude they do exist and are conscious. And the informal reasoning is very strong, even informally tautological. Soul's don't have that kind of support.
    - epgui 4y ago
      That's reassuring! However, I find bringing the concept of "soul" into the equation to be helpful, because many people intuitively believe in such things. If you ask them if souls are important, they'll say yes. If you ask them if something special happens to souls after death, they might say yes. But ask them to define what they mean when they say "soul", and you'll get a ton of hand-waving. People can believe very strongly in things they can't even describe or point to: this always puzzles me, because it shows that people don't even know what it is they believe in in the first place. Whether the concept of "consciousness" is as ridiculous as the concept of a "soul" or not, I have found that they both suffer from the same definition problem. There are many, many concepts which throughout History entire societies have shared a belief in, but which didn't map to real things that could be defined precisely. A "soul" is one of those, but other examples abound in the History of science and in the History of medicine.
goatlover 4y ago
> but there is no agreed upon definition of what collection of things comprise consciousness Colors, sounds, tastes, smells, feels, emotions that makeup perception, imagination, inner dialog or visualization, dreams, hallucinations, illusions. Or qualia if you want to reference the philosophy of mind literature, where the debate and various positions are well defined and extensively argued.
- epgui 4y ago
  > Colors, sounds, tastes, smells, feels, emotions that makeup perception, imagination, inner dialog or visualization, dreams, hallucinations, illusions. All of which are things we can explain without any magic. The literature on qualia pretty much has the same problem as the literature on consciousness.
  - goatlover 4y ago
    Who said anything about "magic"? That's straw-manning the literature on qualia. I'd like to hear your explanations for our sensations, because I'm not aware of any that actually explains them.
    - epgui 4y ago
      Pick up any introductory textbook on functional neuroanatomy. I recommend Blumenfeld!

by epgui 4y ago

Nevermark 4y ago

A phenomena can be defined by a pattern, even if it’s not well defined in a technical sense. And a pattern is a thing. Consciousness is an everyday experience that appears to be reliably shared by billions of entities who communicate about it to each other. And have done so for at least millennia. To use a colloquialism: It’s a thing

bbwbsb 4y ago
There are types without values. That the type is itself a value does not mean that it has values itself. False is a type with no values. Consciousness is not a value. Replace type with concept and value with thing, and we get a rebuttal using the same language. You can also switch the terms, depending on how 'a thing' is interpreted. If you are more familiar with set theory, replace type with proposition, value with element. The critical difference is between reference and referent. Further if large numbers of people holding something is true for considerable duration is sufficient for something to 'be a thing', we'd also have an argument for 'the consciousness of the human heart' being a thing, which I don't think anyone would argue in good faith these days. There are probably better examples, but note that the duration of time and frequency of experience are parameters with no obvious values indicating at which point the underlying 'thing' should be accepted as undeniably 'a thing'. The whole point of requiring it to be technically defined is that all this confusion just goes away and it becomes possible to ask more meaningful and less ambiguous questions about it. That said, I will concede that the argument I have made does not say that consciousness is definitely not 'a thing', just that it is defensible to say that it is not a thing, given that it is held that either it does not represent a proposition, or that the proposition it represents is not true. (note I'm using the term proposition with some handwaving).
- epgui 4y ago
  This commenter understands the importance of definition.
- Nevermark 4y ago
  Nothing is fully defined formally. The most fundamental aspects of reality, and mathematics, are still not founded completely on formal definitions, without resorting to circular reasoning, and attempts to prove things assuming the things that are being proved. Existence isn't well defined. Yet Descartes' famous informal claim "I think, therefore I am" is still a compelling statement that each of us can use to verify we do exist. Despite many unanswered questions. Likewise, "I am aware of myself, my own thoughts, my interactions with a world around me" is a compelling statement supporting consciousness. The fact that we can all verify our own consciousness the same way, and discuss those experiences with each other, makes it even more compelling. Despite lots of unanswered questions. -- Your counter examples are also weak. Most subjective beliefs about hearts having consciousness are not nearly as credible as informal arguments for existence and consciousness. Conscious hearts are not virtually universally experienced. Informal reasoning about why a heart, a blood pumping organ, would correlate with consciousness are not generally accepted informal arguments. People whose hearts are replaced with artificial or donated organs don't reliably report a loss of consciousness.
  - bbwbsb 4y ago
    I concede that the subjective perception of consciousness is a thing, is a thing that I perceive, and that philosophy related to it is socially valuable work. I concede that there is no obviously correct choice of axioms for mathematics or logic. I concede that nothing is fully defined formally in that the formal definition will be of the conception of the concept and not of the thing which the concept might represent. I hold that the adequacy of a concept in representing something is an orthogonal concern to its formalization. My claim is that while tools to determine if consciousness exists do not presently exist, it is possible that they are discovered, and applied, and that the question of the existence of consciousness is open. Note that for me existence is a fundamentally formal notion. I cannot defend this except on grounds of its anecdotal usefulness because it is akin to an axiom or ground truth. The notion of consciousness I consider is with respect to its 'actual' existence[1]. Suppose I imagine a circle, and then a square, but believe I imagined at once a round square. That I can consider the notion of 'a round square' or may have had a direct perception of it does not require me to accept its existence. Likewise, I do not need to accept the existence of a unifying singular notion of what might be perceived as consciousnesses. This also does not necessitate I reject it. If consciousness cannot find an agreed upon definition, assertions regarding it lack semantic meaning and cannot be 'reasonably' (waves hands) assigned truth values. If an exact definition is determined with no logical contradictions, I defer to the physical sciences for determining its plausibility. The notion of conscious hearts was more credible in the past. The idea was that before the role of the heart was understood, a large population could have been convinced that 'the heart is the seat of consciousness', and thus a large population believing they were experiencing something a particular way may have been followed by the falsification of the existence of such a thing. At the time, it was very plausible that it was considered impossible to ascertain whether or not there were thinking hearts. I concede that the notion is not presently credible; for my purposes it is sufficient that it was ever credible. If you regard existence proofs as being extra-logical, it may not be the case we can find agreement since we will be effectively talking in different languages. Personally, I am very skeptical of the ability of the human mind to find truth informally, which is why I lean on formal notions heavily. -- 1: My favorite essay on this distinction is Quine's (admittedly polemic) "On What There Is". The distinction I consider is slightly different from his in that I am also expressing distrust of direct self-perceptions of the mind's functions.
epgui 4y ago
By your standards, a "soul" is also a "thing" which science struggles to explain, right?
- Nevermark 4y ago
  Informal reasoning doesn't mean subjective reasoning. Just because someone believes something, doesn't mean there is a compelling argument it exists. But if something can be studied by many independent people, with strong agreement not based on passed-on beliefs, then there is likely to be something there. I.e. I am unaware of a universal experience of souls, or informal arguments for souls that are compelling. I am aware of informal arguments for existence ("I am, therefore I exist") and consciousness ("I experience myself, my own thinking, even this thought itself, so I am conscious of myself"). In both cases, the vast (vast, vast) majority of humans conclude they do exist and are conscious. And the informal reasoning is very strong, even informally tautological. Soul's don't have that kind of support.
  - epgui 4y ago
    That's reassuring! However, I find bringing the concept of "soul" into the equation to be helpful, because many people intuitively believe in such things. If you ask them if souls are important, they'll say yes. If you ask them if something special happens to souls after death, they might say yes. But ask them to define what they mean when they say "soul", and you'll get a ton of hand-waving. People can believe very strongly in things they can't even describe or point to: this always puzzles me, because it shows that people don't even know what it is they believe in in the first place. Whether the concept of "consciousness" is as ridiculous as the concept of a "soul" or not, I have found that they both suffer from the same definition problem. There are many, many concepts which throughout History entire societies have shared a belief in, but which didn't map to real things that could be defined precisely. A "soul" is one of those, but other examples abound in the History of science and in the History of medicine.

goatlover 4y ago

> but there is no agreed upon definition of what collection of things comprise consciousness Colors, sounds, tastes, smells, feels, emotions that makeup perception, imagination, inner dialog or visualization, dreams, hallucinations, illusions. Or qualia if you want to reference the philosophy of mind literature, where the debate and various positions are well defined and extensively argued.

epgui 4y ago
> Colors, sounds, tastes, smells, feels, emotions that makeup perception, imagination, inner dialog or visualization, dreams, hallucinations, illusions. All of which are things we can explain without any magic. The literature on qualia pretty much has the same problem as the literature on consciousness.
- goatlover 4y ago
  Who said anything about "magic"? That's straw-manning the literature on qualia. I'd like to hear your explanations for our sensations, because I'm not aware of any that actually explains them.
  - epgui 4y ago
    Pick up any introductory textbook on functional neuroanatomy. I recommend Blumenfeld!