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Wow. That's a lot of words. How exactly does consciousness "emerge" from matter? Are there some kind of psychophysical bits that aren't currently accounted for

Wow. That's a lot of words. How exactly does consciousness "emerge" from matter? Are there some kind of psychophysical bits that aren't currently accounted for in physics? Surely it's not merely epiphenomenal. How do intentions affect the physical world as seems to be happening when our minds move our bodies? What is the solution, here, to the mind-body problem? I just finished reading Thomas Nagel's "Mind and Cosmos" which highlights some of the salient issues with reductionist explanations of consciousness, cognition, and value. I don't think these things are just a state of matter. http://www.amazon.ca/Mind-Cosmos-Materialist-Neo-Darwinian-Conception/dp/0199919755 http://www.amazon.ca/Mind-Cosmos-Materialist-Neo-Darwinian-C...

duaneb 13y ago
Penrose addressed this (poorly, IMHO), but it gives a good idea as to his approach: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Emperor's_New_Mind http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Emperor's_New_Mind
kazagistar 13y ago
There is no "mind emerging from matter" in the same way a hand does not "emerge" from fingers and a palm. This is because the label we apply is only in our heads. Reality is perfectly ok just being a bunch of quantum interactions; it is humans who have to label things "chair" "hand" "conciousness". Reality is reductionistic.
- robmclarty 13y ago
  I don't agree that conscious experience is necessarily reducible. When I put a piece of cheesecake in my mouth, certain electrical signals will likely be firing in my brain, but those signals don't mean what it's like to consciously experience cheesecake in my mouth. That is, the signals themselves aren't indicative of the quality of my experience that only I, myself, can have in my conscious existence. The signals are only a physical correlate to my experience. I don't experience electrical signals in my brain. My experience is different than them. My point is, there is other stuff out there in the universe (mental stuff) that is different than physical stuff, that seems almost impossible to be explained as physical stuff. I believe in the physical sciences, evolution, and mathematics, but I don't think that they fully encapsulate all that there is, nor can they definitively explain things like consciousness (they at least need a little more added to them).
  - hcarvalhoalves 13y ago
    > My point is, there is other stuff out there in the universe (mental stuff) that is different than physical stuff, that seems almost impossible to be explained as physical stuff. I believe in the physical sciences, evolution, and mathematics, but I don't think that they fully encapsulate all that there is, nor can they definitively explain things like consciousness (they at least need a little more added to them). See, physics has explained the mechanics of what happens when you put cheesecake in your mouth. You do experience electrical signals in your brain. It is reproducible. You're just refusing to correlate that phenomena to what you feel, which is okay, because it's not entirely obvious, feeling is an internal feedback process. But consider this mental experiment: if I blindfold you and stimulate your brain the same way as cheesecake in your mouth by the use of electrodes, would you be able to discern?
    - robmclarty 13y ago
      I just think it's not as simple as that. I may very well not be able to distinguish the difference between electrode-stimulation and actual-cake-in-my-mouth. What I'm trying to say is that I don't believe that even an exhaustive list of physical information about my brain includes "what it is like" for me to have the experience qua experience.
      - hcarvalhoalves 13y ago
        I see you work with UX. I guess you have an underlying belief that we're unique snowflakes, based on your training/experience, so the idea that experience can be captured by brain states feels too reductionist and has to be explained by an unknown mechanism... but let me suggest that it seems to be quite the contrary. Attributing it entirely to matter actually validates the notion that each individual reacts differently to the same stimuli, because each organism has a unique constitution, neuronal activation levels, brain chemistry, etc., which in turn are all influenced by genetics, environment, study, diet. In other words, we're really the result of accumulated experiences, thus unique, and experience things uniquely. The point is that common physics alone seem enough to validate that intution.
- dgreensp 13y ago
  Rather, models of reality are reductionistic when they say a chair (or a human) can be explained as "just" a bunch of atoms. It's worth reflecting once in a while on whether this is true, or even meaningful. For example, what is the standard of explanation? The idea of a perfect mathematical model of low-level physics is just one abstract conception of understanding reality.

duaneb 13y ago

Penrose addressed this (poorly, IMHO), but it gives a good idea as to his approach: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Emperor's_New_Mind http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Emperor's_New_Mind

kazagistar 13y ago

There is no "mind emerging from matter" in the same way a hand does not "emerge" from fingers and a palm. This is because the label we apply is only in our heads. Reality is perfectly ok just being a bunch of quantum interactions; it is humans who have to label things "chair" "hand" "conciousness". Reality is reductionistic.

robmclarty 13y ago
I don't agree that conscious experience is necessarily reducible. When I put a piece of cheesecake in my mouth, certain electrical signals will likely be firing in my brain, but those signals don't mean what it's like to consciously experience cheesecake in my mouth. That is, the signals themselves aren't indicative of the quality of my experience that only I, myself, can have in my conscious existence. The signals are only a physical correlate to my experience. I don't experience electrical signals in my brain. My experience is different than them. My point is, there is other stuff out there in the universe (mental stuff) that is different than physical stuff, that seems almost impossible to be explained as physical stuff. I believe in the physical sciences, evolution, and mathematics, but I don't think that they fully encapsulate all that there is, nor can they definitively explain things like consciousness (they at least need a little more added to them).
- hcarvalhoalves 13y ago
  > My point is, there is other stuff out there in the universe (mental stuff) that is different than physical stuff, that seems almost impossible to be explained as physical stuff. I believe in the physical sciences, evolution, and mathematics, but I don't think that they fully encapsulate all that there is, nor can they definitively explain things like consciousness (they at least need a little more added to them). See, physics has explained the mechanics of what happens when you put cheesecake in your mouth. You do experience electrical signals in your brain. It is reproducible. You're just refusing to correlate that phenomena to what you feel, which is okay, because it's not entirely obvious, feeling is an internal feedback process. But consider this mental experiment: if I blindfold you and stimulate your brain the same way as cheesecake in your mouth by the use of electrodes, would you be able to discern?
  - robmclarty 13y ago
    I just think it's not as simple as that. I may very well not be able to distinguish the difference between electrode-stimulation and actual-cake-in-my-mouth. What I'm trying to say is that I don't believe that even an exhaustive list of physical information about my brain includes "what it is like" for me to have the experience qua experience.
    - hcarvalhoalves 13y ago
      I see you work with UX. I guess you have an underlying belief that we're unique snowflakes, based on your training/experience, so the idea that experience can be captured by brain states feels too reductionist and has to be explained by an unknown mechanism... but let me suggest that it seems to be quite the contrary. Attributing it entirely to matter actually validates the notion that each individual reacts differently to the same stimuli, because each organism has a unique constitution, neuronal activation levels, brain chemistry, etc., which in turn are all influenced by genetics, environment, study, diet. In other words, we're really the result of accumulated experiences, thus unique, and experience things uniquely. The point is that common physics alone seem enough to validate that intution.
dgreensp 13y ago
Rather, models of reality are reductionistic when they say a chair (or a human) can be explained as "just" a bunch of atoms. It's worth reflecting once in a while on whether this is true, or even meaningful. For example, what is the standard of explanation? The idea of a perfect mathematical model of low-level physics is just one abstract conception of understanding reality.