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Because our entire perception system functions as a mediation between the teleological affordances an object presents at a given level of organization/analysis

Because our entire perception system functions as a mediation between the teleological affordances an object presents at a given level of organization/analysis and how those affordances relate to our motivational system's current objective and directed action. The emergence only "is" at a certain level of analysis and its emergence at that level is dependent entirely on the perception of an observer. If a car is hurtling towards you, you don't perceive its handle. But if you're trying to go somewhere, you have to open the door. "Threat", "vehicle", or "handle" aren't just convenient framing device, but an accurate depiction of the object within your perceptual/motivation systems based on the current level of organization and analysis you're participating in. We choose to see the mind because we are minds. Consciousness is. There is something which it is like to be. Denying our emergent experience of it, or reducing it to a "convenient framing device" tosses out the most fundamental empirical experience we have: to exist.

BriggyDwiggs42 2y ago
I completely agree with you, I’m just being more reductive when I say it’s a practical categorization rather than essential reality. Certainly it’s also reasonable to say there’s no essential reality, just subjective levels of analysis, so everything is practical categorization. The issue is that we’ve gotten nowhere in explaining why we seem to exist. A video game is relatively easy, at least seemingly, to reduce down to its underlying principles. The content dissolves the more closely I look at the game. The issue here isn’t whether the game still exists (it does, in the place I’m no longer looking), the issue is in seeing why the game arises from its component parts, and not something else. Easy-ish for the game, it follows directly from what we know about physics and such, but hard for the mind. Why do neurons together produce pain that exists, rather than pain as a purpose-driven internal signal to help organize the escape from a predator? Emergence doesn't tell us why one or the other, just that whatever it is must emerge from constituent parts.
- heyjamesknight 2y ago
  I don't think its a question of whether there is an essential reality or not, but rather whether we have access to essential reality. Donald Hoffman makes a strong game theoretical argument for how natural selection chooses effective presentations of reality rather than necessarily accurate ones [1]. Based on your level of interest in this conversation I'd expect you would really enjoy that book! The game is certainly easier than the mind—I like it as an example because most of us have a hands-on knowledge of what the qualitative experience of "playing a game" is like. But the game still only emerges because the game developer, computer manufacturer, and player jointly give it a emanating system into which it can emerge. On its own, the raw game data doesn't really mean anything at all—if the bitstream of Diablo IV washed up on the beach, there's nowhere in that data encoding the experience of killing Diablo for the first time. One wouldn't even recognize it as something that could be decoded into such an experience [2]. I agree with you that the "why" is tough. Why have a conscious experience? Why have a sense of self at all? Why experience emotions rather than have them be—like you described—a purpose-driven internal signal? And then you get into theories like Internal Family Systems, which has empirical support at least within a prescriptive context if not necessarily a descriptive one [3]. The whole thing is a mess. A great, big, beautiful mess. [1: https://www.amazon.com/Case-Against-Reality-Evolution-Truth/dp/0393254690 https://www.amazon.com/Case-Against-Reality-Evolution-Truth/...] [2: https://benjamincongdon.me/blog/2021/02/21/Three-Layers-of-Information/ https://benjamincongdon.me/blog/2021/02/21/Three-Layers-of-I...]

BriggyDwiggs42 2y ago

I completely agree with you, I’m just being more reductive when I say it’s a practical categorization rather than essential reality. Certainly it’s also reasonable to say there’s no essential reality, just subjective levels of analysis, so everything is practical categorization. The issue is that we’ve gotten nowhere in explaining why we seem to exist. A video game is relatively easy, at least seemingly, to reduce down to its underlying principles. The content dissolves the more closely I look at the game. The issue here isn’t whether the game still exists (it does, in the place I’m no longer looking), the issue is in seeing why the game arises from its component parts, and not something else. Easy-ish for the game, it follows directly from what we know about physics and such, but hard for the mind. Why do neurons together produce pain that exists, rather than pain as a purpose-driven internal signal to help organize the escape from a predator? Emergence doesn't tell us why one or the other, just that whatever it is must emerge from constituent parts.

heyjamesknight 2y ago
I don't think its a question of whether there is an essential reality or not, but rather whether we have access to essential reality. Donald Hoffman makes a strong game theoretical argument for how natural selection chooses effective presentations of reality rather than necessarily accurate ones [1]. Based on your level of interest in this conversation I'd expect you would really enjoy that book! The game is certainly easier than the mind—I like it as an example because most of us have a hands-on knowledge of what the qualitative experience of "playing a game" is like. But the game still only emerges because the game developer, computer manufacturer, and player jointly give it a emanating system into which it can emerge. On its own, the raw game data doesn't really mean anything at all—if the bitstream of Diablo IV washed up on the beach, there's nowhere in that data encoding the experience of killing Diablo for the first time. One wouldn't even recognize it as something that could be decoded into such an experience [2]. I agree with you that the "why" is tough. Why have a conscious experience? Why have a sense of self at all? Why experience emotions rather than have them be—like you described—a purpose-driven internal signal? And then you get into theories like Internal Family Systems, which has empirical support at least within a prescriptive context if not necessarily a descriptive one [3]. The whole thing is a mess. A great, big, beautiful mess. [1: https://www.amazon.com/Case-Against-Reality-Evolution-Truth/dp/0393254690 https://www.amazon.com/Case-Against-Reality-Evolution-Truth/...] [2: https://benjamincongdon.me/blog/2021/02/21/Three-Layers-of-Information/ https://benjamincongdon.me/blog/2021/02/21/Three-Layers-of-I...]