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I have no problem with substrate-independence, but given substrate independence that doesn't mean the "consciousness" property is transitive in the way needed t

I have no problem with substrate-independence, but given substrate independence that doesn't mean the "consciousness" property is transitive in the way needed to claim the US is conscious. You need additional assumptions beyond just materialism and substrate independence. Computations are mechanistically clear, deterministic and substrate independent, but they still have properties that we use to classify them. Just because some component of a larger computational system has a property (or classification), it does not entail that the larger system has that property (or classification). Consciousness could be like this.

skissane 2y ago
Schwitzgebel‘s isn’t assuming any property of consciousness is transitive. Rather what he is saying is this: given many candidate substrate-independent materialist definitions of consciousness, if the property is true of individual humans and animals, it will true of their social collectivities. But, he says “many”, not “all”-he’s not claiming you can’t define properties of consciousness for which that is false, he’s simply putting the onus on the proponents of the “materialism can explain consciousness” project of explaining in detail how, and justifying such a definition. Furthermore, he’s not claiming that properties of consciousness are transitive from individual organisms to any arbitrary grouping of them. Rather, he’s pointing to social collectivities such as countries or governments as being so coordinated they sometimes act like they have will of their own emerging from the coordinated wills of their individual members. This isn’t true of arbitrarily defined wholes of which those individuals are part, e.g. the set of all humans (anywhere on earth) whose first name starts with the letter A. You are interpreting his point in terms of part-to-whole transitivity in general, but that’s not the case-the emergent properties of social groups are far more complex than simple part-to-whole transitivity. And it is those emergent properties he points to as evidence they may have a consciousness distinct from those of their individual members
- naasking 2y ago
  > Rather, he’s pointing to social collectivities such as countries or governments as being so coordinated they sometimes act like they have will of their own emerging from the coordinated wills of their individual members. The complexity of this behaviour could be at the level of an amoeba rather than a human mind. It's just not persuasive without knowing more about the specific characteristics of what materialist consciousness requires.

skissane 2y ago

Schwitzgebel‘s isn’t assuming any property of consciousness is transitive. Rather what he is saying is this: given many candidate substrate-independent materialist definitions of consciousness, if the property is true of individual humans and animals, it will true of their social collectivities. But, he says “many”, not “all”-he’s not claiming you can’t define properties of consciousness for which that is false, he’s simply putting the onus on the proponents of the “materialism can explain consciousness” project of explaining in detail how, and justifying such a definition. Furthermore, he’s not claiming that properties of consciousness are transitive from individual organisms to any arbitrary grouping of them. Rather, he’s pointing to social collectivities such as countries or governments as being so coordinated they sometimes act like they have will of their own emerging from the coordinated wills of their individual members. This isn’t true of arbitrarily defined wholes of which those individuals are part, e.g. the set of all humans (anywhere on earth) whose first name starts with the letter A. You are interpreting his point in terms of part-to-whole transitivity in general, but that’s not the case-the emergent properties of social groups are far more complex than simple part-to-whole transitivity. And it is those emergent properties he points to as evidence they may have a consciousness distinct from those of their individual members

naasking 2y ago
> Rather, he’s pointing to social collectivities such as countries or governments as being so coordinated they sometimes act like they have will of their own emerging from the coordinated wills of their individual members. The complexity of this behaviour could be at the level of an amoeba rather than a human mind. It's just not persuasive without knowing more about the specific characteristics of what materialist consciousness requires.