The raw data of the video must go through a machine to turn into a "living" video. In essence, the raw notepad data goes through an INTERPRETIVE MECHANISM to become a video proper.
This all goes back to what I will repeat 1000 times: Consciousness is essentially reducable to the problem of symbols existing in nature. Symbols arrise because of an interpreter in a semiotic loop. The "problems" of consciousness are actually the problem of the emergence of symbols in nature.
Have uploaded that lecture by Putnam. I'm not sure if some of his arguments against isomorphism now hold sway, seeing as connectionism can be seen as a a variant of functionalism . But his argument from semantic externalism,
I think, will be of interest to you. I do prefer the more ontological ones though, simply because you'd be apt to counter him with something like: okay, we can have a socio-functionalism of sorts, not as some restrictive ideal,
but as a pragmatic inference from our best science etc.
So you have consciousness = x or c = x. If you exclude c or any of its synonyms, metonyms, from the x-side then all you have left to put there is matter.
Matter however is not as innocent as you would like, it is permeated by consciousness, in fact it is quite a recent and complex concept devised by Aristotle who said it does not appear without form.
So now you have c = x(c) or c = c(x), you can't avoid it so embrace it.
Did you put this comment in the wrong place? I ask since this is an argument not a matter of opinion, also what has pan-experientalism to do with what I said.
Well, perfidil, at least your getting some kind of a response. This is the third or fourth time I've put something down only to have it completely ignored by Lordimmolation, sob. Time to "free your mind", Kyle, and make an attempt at either answering my questions or refuting my arguments. Try the one below first. If you fail to respond to it, I'll take it that there is no (putative) response to it. That, in turn, means to say you can't have the kind of heterophenomenolical point of view
I am sorry I haven't replied to any of your comments but to be honest the points you raise deserve far more than merely a comment on a page. And I do intend to clarrify my position. And you are correct, I am downplaying (2), because I believe our metaphysical assumptions of what consciousness is are influenced heavily by (1) so much so that any distinction is almost arbitrary. What I will hopefully try to argue is that the metaphysics of consciousness are not what they appear to be.
I am basically putting forward a pragmatic view (based slightly early Wittgenstein). The only way in which we can express scientific or philosophical notions of any ontology is through proposition. If our propositions adequately model and predict the behaviour of all that we can observe, that is the best we can ever hope for. This is why I endorse functionalism. - I do enjoy your comments and will try to be more responsive in the future - Kyle
In general I think you are using words naively, you mention these things but never elaborate what it is that they mean to you.
If you want to study consciousness they you better start by saying loosely what it is, how you pick it out in the world. Functionalism too, what do you mean by function etc. is it what is not idle or useless. Otherwise I think science is a better category for this.
Well, forgive me, I do have other things to do,than reply to every youtube comment-like find a job, so I can get some money so I can actually do my MSc in the Psychology of Consciousness next year.
Let's start with your last question:
"what has panexperientialism to do with what I said?"
"Matter however is not as innocent as you would like, it is permeated by consciousness"
If that is not Panexperientialism I don't know what is. And again, I informed you I had made a video on this.
I apologise if I have come across short tempered, but I have made but a few videos on the subject and it is difficult to cover every definition of the words I am using (although I try to be clear). And I felt your statement:"If you want to study consciousness.." was very patronising considering I have been studying consciousness and done very well in it. Again though, I do not wish to engage in ad hominems and accept responsibility and apologise for the slightly rude first comment which I made.
It is not panexperientialism at all! But I presume that being a materialist you do know what matter is. What matter is, as I said, is not simple. Look at Aristotle's explanation of matter for example it is quite complex, quite advanced, to understand it requires much consciousness. So if it already requires so much knowledge it is not as simple ("innocent") as you might like to think, its concept already requires a modern consciousness or knowledge.
No problem, Kyle. That's a very good and revealing reply, because I can now see where you're coming from as regards epistemology in general, and, moreover, that you do have an ontology within which to couch your scientific propositions. I do think computationalism must go through if we're entitled to the position that you describe. But, as you might have gathered by now, I think any pragmatic or Quinean style of ontological commitment is rather tendencious. In fact,
I would go as far as saying it's constitutive of analytic philosophy's inability over the last fifty years to come to terms with a whole range of topics in the philosophy of mind and language . It's all so much more interesting now I know you have some kind of conceptual scheme in place. So, thanks for that. If you work on
what you mean by (1)'s bearing so heavily on (2) as to dissolve any real distinction between them (i.e. whenever you have the time), that would go a long way to having a pretty robust theory of mind. Who knows, maybe then I'll have to come over to your side! I'll post a Putnam lecture on his computationalism, and his more recent lack of it, sometime soon.
Are you not conflating the use of consciousness in asserting "we need to leave consciousness out of the explaination" There's two distinct notions of consciousness at work here - one conceptual, and the other metaphysical.
(1)conceptual: the notion of "consciousness" as consisting within the explaination of what consciousness is putatively going to be.
(Okay, we can't use that, agreed).
(2)Metaphysical; "consciousness" (or states) as operative in or as a neccesary condition
for the very possibility of laying out any theory of consciousness whatever. Or else - but with no ontological or epistemic commitment to qualia - "something like" a consciousness as operative in or as a neccesary...
Okay, Kyle, say (2) involves a materialist construal of consciousness or something-like-consciousness, but is not a variant of
(3)If the "state" of water's being water is a neccesary condition for the very possibility of explaining what water is, then the analogy is a good one. because (2)
(4)Water plays no such a role in explaining how it is to be defined.
(5)Therefore, the water analogue fails. Advocates of the third-person stance use their rebuttal of (1) to infer the rebuttal of (2), or, as is usually the case, they ignore (2) altogether.
You're right that the hard problem is not an intellectual problem, but an intuitive one. This corresponds well to the notion that we will not make the problem go away through some epistemological means (ie, correlating brain and experiential processes), but only be reorienting ourselves ontologically with respect to the mind/brain dichotomy.
Any explanation, even if it does not explicitly mention consciousness, still necessarily contains an implicit reference to consciousness. Just try explaining something without first being conscious...
Even the processed code/the video on this screen does not contain words, ideas, sounds, etc. The video, whether in code or expressed, is barren until interpreted by conscious experience. This conscious experience is certainly correlated with particular brain states/processes, but it is not identical to them. Relating various subsystems in the brain to the experiences they seem related to does not even begin to solve the hard problem. It is not an epistemic, but an ontological problem.
Yeah. Someday we might be able to perfectly map out the brain, but even with a perfect understanding of the brain, we will still be left with the problem of understanding the causal mechanism (if there be one). Indeen, an apparent ontological problem.
"If we believe that heat is correlated with but not identical to molecular kinetic energy, we should regard as legitimate the question why the correlation exists and what its mechanism is. But once we realize that heat is molecular kinetic energy, questions like this will be seen as wrongheaded."
-- Ned Block and Robert Stalnaker from "Conceptual Analysis, Dualism, and the Explanatory Gap"
I don't think the analogy holds in this case, Lenny. Heat and molecular kinetic energy are not related in the same way that experience is to the brain. A more appropriate analogy might be: heat is to molecular kinetic energy as overall brain dynamics are to individual neurons. Nowhere does experience enter the picture here. The hard problem remains.
I know very little about the hard problem in general, but it seems to me that "neutral monism" might be a potential solution. We merely say that 1st person mental phenomena and 3rd person physical phenomena are merely two different perspectives on a single underlying primal substance that is neither mental nor physical, but is capable of mental and physical aspects and attributes.
In this way the buzzing neurons in one's head are merely a different perspective on one's mental experiences, and therefore reconciling the two is not ontologically problematic.
But even with this monistic view, it seems that Leibniz's law and the identity of indiscernibles might cause some problems. :-/
I think you hit it right on the money mate
MJRockX 2 years ago
The raw data of the video must go through a machine to turn into a "living" video. In essence, the raw notepad data goes through an INTERPRETIVE MECHANISM to become a video proper.
This all goes back to what I will repeat 1000 times: Consciousness is essentially reducable to the problem of symbols existing in nature. Symbols arrise because of an interpreter in a semiotic loop. The "problems" of consciousness are actually the problem of the emergence of symbols in nature.
otonanoC 3 years ago
Have uploaded that lecture by Putnam. I'm not sure if some of his arguments against isomorphism now hold sway, seeing as connectionism can be seen as a a variant of functionalism . But his argument from semantic externalism,
sssswwwsssss 3 years ago
I think, will be of interest to you. I do prefer the more ontological ones though, simply because you'd be apt to counter him with something like: okay, we can have a socio-functionalism of sorts, not as some restrictive ideal,
but as a pragmatic inference from our best science etc.
sssswwwsssss 3 years ago
So you have consciousness = x or c = x. If you exclude c or any of its synonyms, metonyms, from the x-side then all you have left to put there is matter.
Matter however is not as innocent as you would like, it is permeated by consciousness, in fact it is quite a recent and complex concept devised by Aristotle who said it does not appear without form.
So now you have c = x(c) or c = c(x), you can't avoid it so embrace it.
perfidil 3 years ago
Well that's your opinion, I have given 10 reasons for rejecting panexperientialism and I stick by them.
LordImmolation 3 years ago
Did you put this comment in the wrong place? I ask since this is an argument not a matter of opinion, also what has pan-experientalism to do with what I said.
perfidil 3 years ago
Well, perfidil, at least your getting some kind of a response. This is the third or fourth time I've put something down only to have it completely ignored by Lordimmolation, sob. Time to "free your mind", Kyle, and make an attempt at either answering my questions or refuting my arguments. Try the one below first. If you fail to respond to it, I'll take it that there is no (putative) response to it. That, in turn, means to say you can't have the kind of heterophenomenolical point of view
sssswwwsssss 3 years ago
you're espousing, which entails that computationalism is false.
sssswwwsssss 3 years ago
I am sorry I haven't replied to any of your comments but to be honest the points you raise deserve far more than merely a comment on a page. And I do intend to clarrify my position. And you are correct, I am downplaying (2), because I believe our metaphysical assumptions of what consciousness is are influenced heavily by (1) so much so that any distinction is almost arbitrary. What I will hopefully try to argue is that the metaphysics of consciousness are not what they appear to be.
LordImmolation 3 years ago
I am basically putting forward a pragmatic view (based slightly early Wittgenstein). The only way in which we can express scientific or philosophical notions of any ontology is through proposition. If our propositions adequately model and predict the behaviour of all that we can observe, that is the best we can ever hope for. This is why I endorse functionalism. - I do enjoy your comments and will try to be more responsive in the future - Kyle
LordImmolation 3 years ago
Well I don't see any reply here to my message.
In general I think you are using words naively, you mention these things but never elaborate what it is that they mean to you.
If you want to study consciousness they you better start by saying loosely what it is, how you pick it out in the world. Functionalism too, what do you mean by function etc. is it what is not idle or useless. Otherwise I think science is a better category for this.
perfidil 3 years ago
Well, forgive me, I do have other things to do,than reply to every youtube comment-like find a job, so I can get some money so I can actually do my MSc in the Psychology of Consciousness next year.
Let's start with your last question:
"what has panexperientialism to do with what I said?"
"Matter however is not as innocent as you would like, it is permeated by consciousness"
If that is not Panexperientialism I don't know what is. And again, I informed you I had made a video on this.
LordImmolation 3 years ago
I apologise if I have come across short tempered, but I have made but a few videos on the subject and it is difficult to cover every definition of the words I am using (although I try to be clear). And I felt your statement:"If you want to study consciousness.." was very patronising considering I have been studying consciousness and done very well in it. Again though, I do not wish to engage in ad hominems and accept responsibility and apologise for the slightly rude first comment which I made.
LordImmolation 3 years ago
It is not panexperientialism at all! But I presume that being a materialist you do know what matter is. What matter is, as I said, is not simple. Look at Aristotle's explanation of matter for example it is quite complex, quite advanced, to understand it requires much consciousness. So if it already requires so much knowledge it is not as simple ("innocent") as you might like to think, its concept already requires a modern consciousness or knowledge.
perfidil 3 years ago
No problem, Kyle. That's a very good and revealing reply, because I can now see where you're coming from as regards epistemology in general, and, moreover, that you do have an ontology within which to couch your scientific propositions. I do think computationalism must go through if we're entitled to the position that you describe. But, as you might have gathered by now, I think any pragmatic or Quinean style of ontological commitment is rather tendencious. In fact,
sssswwwsssss 3 years ago
I would go as far as saying it's constitutive of analytic philosophy's inability over the last fifty years to come to terms with a whole range of topics in the philosophy of mind and language . It's all so much more interesting now I know you have some kind of conceptual scheme in place. So, thanks for that. If you work on
sssswwwsssss 3 years ago
what you mean by (1)'s bearing so heavily on (2) as to dissolve any real distinction between them (i.e. whenever you have the time), that would go a long way to having a pretty robust theory of mind. Who knows, maybe then I'll have to come over to your side! I'll post a Putnam lecture on his computationalism, and his more recent lack of it, sometime soon.
sssswwwsssss 3 years ago
Are you not conflating the use of consciousness in asserting "we need to leave consciousness out of the explaination" There's two distinct notions of consciousness at work here - one conceptual, and the other metaphysical.
(1)conceptual: the notion of "consciousness" as consisting within the explaination of what consciousness is putatively going to be.
(Okay, we can't use that, agreed).
(2)Metaphysical; "consciousness" (or states) as operative in or as a neccesary condition
sssswwwsssss 3 years ago
for the very possibility of laying out any theory of consciousness whatever. Or else - but with no ontological or epistemic commitment to qualia - "something like" a consciousness as operative in or as a neccesary...
Okay, Kyle, say (2) involves a materialist construal of consciousness or something-like-consciousness, but is not a variant of
functionalist. Then,
sssswwwsssss 3 years ago
(3)If the "state" of water's being water is a neccesary condition for the very possibility of explaining what water is, then the analogy is a good one. because (2)
(4)Water plays no such a role in explaining how it is to be defined.
(5)Therefore, the water analogue fails. Advocates of the third-person stance use their rebuttal of (1) to infer the rebuttal of (2), or, as is usually the case, they ignore (2) altogether.
sssswwwsssss 3 years ago
BTW, where do I sign up for the consciousness alteration experiments?
0ThouArtThat0 3 years ago
There's this little coffee shop in Amsterdam ...
SpiritualAtheist 3 years ago
Lol Matt, I'll put you in touch with Sue ;)
LordImmolation 3 years ago
You're right that the hard problem is not an intellectual problem, but an intuitive one. This corresponds well to the notion that we will not make the problem go away through some epistemological means (ie, correlating brain and experiential processes), but only be reorienting ourselves ontologically with respect to the mind/brain dichotomy.
0ThouArtThat0 3 years ago
Any explanation, even if it does not explicitly mention consciousness, still necessarily contains an implicit reference to consciousness. Just try explaining something without first being conscious...
0ThouArtThat0 3 years ago
Even the processed code/the video on this screen does not contain words, ideas, sounds, etc. The video, whether in code or expressed, is barren until interpreted by conscious experience. This conscious experience is certainly correlated with particular brain states/processes, but it is not identical to them. Relating various subsystems in the brain to the experiences they seem related to does not even begin to solve the hard problem. It is not an epistemic, but an ontological problem.
0ThouArtThat0 3 years ago 2
Yeah. Someday we might be able to perfectly map out the brain, but even with a perfect understanding of the brain, we will still be left with the problem of understanding the causal mechanism (if there be one). Indeen, an apparent ontological problem.
Fichte9233 3 years ago
"If we believe that heat is correlated with but not identical to molecular kinetic energy, we should regard as legitimate the question why the correlation exists and what its mechanism is. But once we realize that heat is molecular kinetic energy, questions like this will be seen as wrongheaded."
-- Ned Block and Robert Stalnaker from "Conceptual Analysis, Dualism, and the Explanatory Gap"
LennyBound 3 years ago
I don't think the analogy holds in this case, Lenny. Heat and molecular kinetic energy are not related in the same way that experience is to the brain. A more appropriate analogy might be: heat is to molecular kinetic energy as overall brain dynamics are to individual neurons. Nowhere does experience enter the picture here. The hard problem remains.
0ThouArtThat0 3 years ago
I know very little about the hard problem in general, but it seems to me that "neutral monism" might be a potential solution. We merely say that 1st person mental phenomena and 3rd person physical phenomena are merely two different perspectives on a single underlying primal substance that is neither mental nor physical, but is capable of mental and physical aspects and attributes.
LennyBound 3 years ago
In this way the buzzing neurons in one's head are merely a different perspective on one's mental experiences, and therefore reconciling the two is not ontologically problematic.
But even with this monistic view, it seems that Leibniz's law and the identity of indiscernibles might cause some problems. :-/
LennyBound 3 years ago
This is definitely a respectable position to take. It is in some degree similar to my own favored position of panexperientialism.
0ThouArtThat0 3 years ago