This is a usenet post from Danielos Georgoudis in response to a thread I started, on why the problem of consciosness is so hard for materialists, and why it is something more than just a bump in the road for materialism.
DG: Well here are some of the reasons why consciousness can't be just
another property of material systems:
1. All other properties of material systems can be described in
materialist language; consciousness cannot. It's reasonable to claim
that if a problem cannot be described within a paradigm of thought then
it can't be solved either.
2. All other properties of material systems are directly or indirectly
observable; that is there are always some means to detect whether a
property is present - or at the very least somebody can propose some
speculative idea about how to detect the presence of that property in a
material system. No so in the case of consciousness. For example nobody
has any idea at all about how to measure whether frogs have conscious
experiences or not. Or whether salt crystals growing in brine have
them. Conversely nobody has any idea about how to measure that at death
a person's conscious experience is extinguished. Or that under
general anesthesia patients are not having conscious experiences (the
fact that when they wake up they don't remember having had them is
quite irrelevant).
3. Scientific thought is about explaining observations. The problem of
consciousness refers to the fact that we observe in the first place.
That's a different kind of problem. Nobody has any idea of how
scientific thought could by applied here.
4. There are several problems that science has not yet solved, e.g. how
life started, or how the human brain produces intelligent behavior.
These are hard problems and it may take a long time to solve them.
Still nobody really doubts that these are scientific problems or that
science can in principle solve them. Also there are many scientists
actively working in solving them. Not so in the case of consciousness.
Scientists are practical people; they won't use their time
investigating a problem nobody can cast in scientific terms. It's
materialist philosophers who must try to solve this problem, and they
are really stuck.
5. Contrary to all other material properties, conscious experience is
about quality rather than quantity. Nobody has any idea how one could
test that two people who are looking at the same red wall have a
conscious experience that is in any way similar.
6. In all other problems that science has encountered it was easy to at
least achieve consensus that the problem exists. Not so in the case of
consciousness; materialists cannot even agree whether consciousness
represents a problem for materialism or not. (Which is not surprising
considering that the problem of consciousness cannot even be described
in materialistic terms.)
The above is a rather quick and dirty exposition. The best book I know
about the problem of consciousness is David Chalmer's "Facing Up to the
Problem of Consciousness". Incidentally David Chalmers is considered
one of the brightest philosophers in the field of the philosophy of
mind. You can read more about him in the following wikipedia article
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Chalmers
It's interesting to compare the concept of consciousness with the
concept of God. Materialists famously point out that the hypothesis
that God exists is not required to explain any objective observation.
But, equally, the hypothesis that conscious experience exists is not
required to explain any objective observation either. If the former
fact is sufficient reason for believing that God does not exist, so
would the latter fact be sufficient reason for believing that conscious
experience does not exist, which would strike most people as absurd.
Actually there are a few people who go as far as to claim that
conscious experience does not *really* exist but is only an illusion
(whatever that exactly means in this context). Quite a few materialists
claim that free will does not exist - indeed the hypothesis that free
will exists is not necessary to explain any objective observation
either, and it's easier to deny that free will exist than to deny
that conscious experience exists. In any case materialism pushes people
into making claims that to most people sound absurd. Not a good sign.
It appears that materialism is incapable or producing a coherent
worldview. (Worldview is the set of all propositions one accepts as
true.) But theism can.
> Also, re the development of materialism, you'll know doubt be aware of
> many ancient non-dualistic philosophies/religions which have no problem
> seeng mind/body as one and not transcendent/imminent.
I think the most powerful worldview is not based neither on materialism
nor on dualism, but on idealism. Contrary to what many people believe
idealism is fully compatible with science and technology (actually in
simplifies the scientific endeavor) - and is also fully compatible with
theism.
9 comments:
{{But, equally, the hypothesis that conscious experience exists is not required to explain any objective observation either.}}
Although it _is_ required as at least a tacit formality in the making of any argument at all, of course. {s}
Interesting comparison, though.
JRP
Most naturalists believe that brain states fully explain mental states in some sense of 'fully explain'. They admit that we don't currently have all the explanatory details. And some, such as the New Mysterians, predict that we'll never have them all.
I say 'most naturalists', because there are some naturalists who are dualists---—either substance dualists or property dualists---—but hold that both material and non-material substances or properties are perfectly natural, and also hold that nothing is supernatural.
But let's just stick with anti-dualist naturalists. I'll call their position 'materialism' for the purpose of this post.
The materialist position is thus that living human bodies fully explain human minds. 'Fully explain', for my present purpose, includes both eliminative forms of materialist explanation, and epiphenomenalist accounts.
Eliminative explanations don't so much explain as puzzle. For, mental states don't exist on this view, and that entails the mental state of thinking that mental states do exist, er, doesn't exist. Eliminativists somtimes say mental states are illusions. But, illusions are mental states if anything is. At any rate it is hard to make sense of eliminativism.
But now consider non-eliminativist versions of materialism. Those versions hold that bodily states cause mental states, in some sense of ’cause'--—either ’cause by being the same thing as'; or ’cause by some material process'.
It is trivially true that mental states cause brain-states if mind-brain identity is true, since on that view, mental states just are brain-states. But even if true, the identity thesis is not obviously enlightening. We feel no wiser, because if it's true that minds=brains, why did anyone ever think otherwise? X=X is a necessary truth, so how could we have missed that minds=brains, if it's true that minds=brains? Well, a vast amount of philosophical labor has been expended on that question, and I don't wish to add to it here. I merely note the fact of the question.
The more interesting kind of materialism is the non-identity+epiphenomenalist kind. This basically says that:
M) All mental states are caused by brain-states; and no brain-state is caused by a mental state; and brain-states are not identical to the mental states they cause.
Now think about that for a second. If M is true, a mental state ms* is caused by a brain state bs*, and ms*=bs* is false. Notice that this idea takes two distinct states and asserts a causal relation exists between them. But if ms* is itself a brain-state (albeit, not the brain-state bs*, but rather, bs**), then we're just saying that one brain state bs* causes another brain state, bs**. So we are again stuck with the intellectually unsatisfying or unenlightening 'solution' that the identity theory leaves us with: how could we have missed, not this time that minds=brains, but that when a brain-state causes a mental state, what it's causing is just another distinct brain state?
Now suppose we interpret materialism as saying M, but also denying that mental states are reducible to brain states. Then we have: brain states cause mental states, but some or all of the mental states so caused are irreducible to any brain state. I will call this thesis non-reductive materialism:
Non-RM) All mental states are caused by brain-states; and no brain-state is caused by a mental state; and brain-states are not identical to the mental states they cause; and some or all mental states are irreducible to any brain state.
But notice now, a believer in Non-RM is faced with the same problem that dualists are supposed to face: how there can exist causal relations between brain-states and irreducible mental states. And, whatever the believer in Non-RM may say about that, she will have to say why causal relations between brain states and mental states cannot run in either direction, but only and always in the one way direction from brain-state as cause to mental state as effect.
A=B, if true, is a necessary truth. And so materialists claim to have revealed what the rest of us missed completely for millenia, namely that minds are brains. How could we have missed that necessary truth for so long? Well actually, it might not be quite that simple, since there might be minds in Andromeda that aren't identical with our brains. But even if that's so, materialists assure us, they're identical with something material. Well, actually it might not be that simple either; materialists, giving themselves a hugely deserved round of applause for their intellectual sophistication, can reveal what no-one had ever suspected: that bodily states are—-now get this—–in some sort of causal relation with mental states!
Did you know that?
What you also did not know is that, assuming materialism, none of your mental states have any causal effect whatsoever unless they are identical with one of your brain states. But now you do know. Sorry, I mean, now your brain is in a certain state.
How could our brain-states have missed the fact that when a brain-state causes a mental state, what it's causing is just another, distinct brain state? And now that we know that, sorry, I mean, now that our brains are in a certain state, it's so illuminating. Sorry, I mean, it's so, er, in that type of brain state.
Oh, but wait a minute. What am I saying? How can I say 'our' brain states or 'your' brain states or 'my' brain states? How can I say 'I'?
Hmmmm.
Previously I had said that a believer in non-reductive materialism is faced with the same problem that dualists are supposed to face: how there can exist causal relations between brain-states and irreducibly mental states. (There's not much point to being an epiphenomalist if one thinks mental states reduce to bodily states.) And, whatever a non-reductive materialist may say about that, she will have to say why causal relations between brain states and mental states cannot run in either direction, but only and always in the one-way direction from brain-state as cause to mental state as effect.
One argument for one-way causal direction the materialist is liable to proffer is that if you take away a brain state, you'll take away the mental state it causes. But hold on: a non-reductive materialist is one who thinks that at least some mental states are irreducible to brain-states. Sure, if you take away something that's causally necessary for a mental state to obtain, you'll take away that mental state. But this applies to lots of objects outside a person's body; if you take away a house a person was sitting in and replace it with a completely black room, that will get rid of a lot of mental states too. And no-one is denying that if your formerly living body is now a corpse, it's a corpse, or that if it's still alive, the brain will be causally active.
But equally, if you take away literally all of someone's mental states (both conscious and unconscious ones), then that person won't have a living brain either, for the simple reason that if you take away literally all of a person's mental states, you will have taken away that person, the person whose brain it is. That is, you will have rendered that brain ownerless. And an ownerless brain can't be a living brain. So that argument for only one-way causation doesn't work, since removing enough brain states or enough mental states will have ultimately the same result.
Well, I don't find it any easier to talk about how my will can cause me to type these words than to talk about how Jesus did what he is reported as having done a couple of millenia at Cana in Galilee.
How do I do it? I do it by doing what wills are designed to do, namely willing it. I feel I can move the particles that make up my fingers without any particles being unaccounted for in the process and with no violation of physics. Those particles are significantly under my control. They do what I want them to do. To me at least, that's almost a God-like ability. The paperweight lying on my desk right now can't decide where to send its particles. By contrast I can decide what to do with some of my particles. Which I find pretty amazing, if where and how every particle in my hands is really governed by cosmic laws over which I have no control.
So something's got to give somewhere. Am I a plaything of the laws of nature? I don't believe so. What ought to go instead is the notion that bodily states can cause mental states but not vice-versa (I mean here to exclude the trivial case where mental causes = bodily causes). That is, I think that some mental states exist which are neither identical with nor reducible to any bodily state, and that they are sometimes causes of bodily behaviors. The alternative is denying that I am really the agent who is causally and morally responsible for my own actions, since if there are no independently causal mental events, every particle of my body does what its wave-function dictates that it do, not what I choose that it do. As Schopenhauer put it, "…materialism is the philosophy of the subject who forgets to take account of himself."
So I'm basically a property dualist. One substance, but with fundamentally different kinds of property—--my bodily properties, and my spiritual properties, among which are my capacities for understanding and willing. Both types of property are mutually causally active—-my beliefs and choices are able to affect my bodily behavior, and my bodily states are able to afffect my thoughts and decisions.
One might be tempted to identify my substance with my body. But my body is a different body from the one I had when I was 12. I am still me, though. And if I have just died, the substance that is me is not my corpse.
It's always worth remembering something which is quite easy to forget, which is that the actual wavefunctions of all the particles of all actual human brains are actually not all, er, known.
So, it may be the case, for all we know, that there is a significant number of occasions in which the probability of the particle trajectories occurring which are required for a particular brain (mine, let's say) to be in state A ('choosing vanilla ice-cream soon'), and the probability of the particle trajectories occurring which are required for it to be in state B ("choosing mint chocolate chip ice-cream soon') are each significanty less than, but jointly equal to 1. If I then choose vanilla ice cream, no known law of physics will have been 'violated', even though we cannot identify a physical cause of the wavefunction collapsing.
So why not assume what appears obvious to consciousness–that on a significant number of occasions, what collapses the wavefunction is an irreducibly mental state, such as 'freely deciding to eat vanilla ice cream soon'?
It might be different if we knew that the probability of state A occurring was always 1 and the probability of state B occurring was always 0, such as might be the case if I hated mint chocolate chip inordinately and loved vanilla inordinately. But let's say I like both and don't have any strong preference for one over the other, and the probabilities are 55 for A to 45 for B. Consciously I feel quite open to choosing one or the other. No prior mental state is determining my choice, no prior material state is determining my choice. Nothing is determining my choice except my free will at that moment. It would be silly to say 'chance' chose vanilla. No, chance didn't. I did.
That was pretty good. {bowing in Stunney's direction!} Glad to see you around here again; hadn't seen you in a while. (But then, I've been more out of pocket myself recently, so that may just be me.)
JRP
Stunney: "How do I do it [type these words]? I do it by doing what wills are designed to do, namely willing it."
Yes, a model of illumination.
Anonymous wonders how illuminating it is to say that I am typing these words because I will that action.
But, how illuminating is it to say that it's false or not 'really true' that I'm typing these words because I will that action?
The materialist embarrassingly takes one of most obvious and fundamental 'givens' of human experience---that we often do things by intentional freely-willed agency---and declares it to be instead a huge mystery which we ought to be grateful to the materialist for resolving by introducing us to the much more illuminating science of brain mechanics.
Of course, it's only a huge mystery in the first place if one is a materialist.
1. All other properties of material systems can be described in materialist language; consciousness cannot.
That is a pile of horse petunias. The most fundamental properties of the universe cannot be described in materialist language -- for example, why it exists at all. (Of course, this is true of all other language.)
2. All other properties of material systems are directly or indirectly observable; that is there are always some means to detect whether a property is present - or at the very least somebody can propose some speculative idea about how to detect the presence of that property in a material system. No so in the case of consciousness.
This fellow should read Alan Turing.
3. Scientific thought is about explaining observations. The problem of consciousness refers to the fact that we observe in the first place.
It's nice that Georgoudis has managed to describe consciousness in such a succint manner -- and one that seems to be physically observable, at that. However, most of us who worry about such things find describing consciousness a bit more intractible than that.
4. There are several problems that science has not yet solved, e.g. how life started, or how the human brain produces intelligent behavior. [...] nobody really doubts that these are scientific problems or that science can in principle solve them. [...] Not so in the case of consciousness.
While at it, Mr Georgoudis might want to investigate the work of Douglas R. Hofsteader and many others.
5. Contrary to all other material properties, conscious experience is about quality rather than quantity.
As any artist knows, a sufficient accumulation of small quantitative changes can result in a qualitative change. The distinction between "quantity" and "quality" is vague at best.
I leave Mr Georgoudis' final point as an exercise; it is fully answered by statements made above.
Stunney wrote: "But, how illuminating is it to say that it's false or not 'really true' that I'm typing these words because I will that action?
"The materialist embarrassingly takes one of most obvious and fundamental 'givens' of human experience---that we often do things by intentional freely-willed agency---and declares it to be instead a huge mystery which we ought to be grateful to the materialist for resolving by introducing us to the much more illuminating science of brain mechanics.
"Of course, it's only a huge mystery in the first place if one is a materialist."
This passage is so full of straw men it looks like a scarecrows' convention. If Mr Stunney wants to critique "materialism" he would do better to engage the actual writings of self-declared materialists rather than stone the devil of his own imaginings.
'1. All other properties of material systems can be described in materialist language; consciousness cannot.'
Perfectly true.
We can describe fundamental particles using materialist language like, colour, charm, strangeness, up and down.
Everybody knows what these things are and what they mean.
We cannot describe conciousness using such terms.
If we even attempted do so, we would have to just make up new terms, not really knowing what they actually represented in materialistic terms.
Victor, you seem to argue that if an theory leads to a conclusion that many people believe to be absurd, that is a bad sign for the argument. Quantum mechanics leads to conclusions that most people believe to be absurd. Does that affect your views on quantum mechanics? The truth is that, at most times and in most places, a majority believes that anything that doesn't conform to the prevailing wisdom is absurd. Would you have it so? --Anonymous No. 2
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