Consciousness, the mind-body problem and physics?
29 Nov 2010, 12:33 am
I think consciousness is one of the most bizarre things in the known universe. We know it exists. In fact, it's the only thing that I know exists and yet one can envision a similar universe without consciousness. A universe of "consciousless zombies":
There seems to be a huge gap/divide between consciousness (the mental) and neurons/bio-chemical processes (the physical):
"The specific problem I want to discuss concerns consciousness, the hard nut of the mind-body problem. How is it possible for conscious states to depend upon brain states? How can technicolour phenomenology arise from soggy grey matter? What makes the bodily organ we call the brain so radically different from other bodily organs, say the kidneys-the body parts without a trace of consciousness?"
"Thus we quickly find ourselves resorting to invitations to look inward, instead of specifying precisely what it is about consciousness that makes it inexplicable in terms of ordinary physical properties. And this can make it seem that the problem is spurious. A creature without consciousness would not properly appreciate the problem (assuming such a creature could appreciate other problems)."
"The mind-body problem is the problem of understanding how the miracle is wrought, thus removing the sense of deep mystery. We want to take the magic out of the link between consciousness and the brain."
http://philosophy.fas.nyu.edu/docs/IO/1 ... eiving.pdf
"Yet the problem here is much more serious, for an obvious reason: Identifying sounds with waves in the air does not require that we ascribe phenomenological qualities and subjectivity to anything physical, because those are features of the perception of sound, not of sound itself. By contrast, the identification of mental events with physical events requires the unification of these two types of properties in a single thing, and that remains resistant to understanding."
"The search for the possible form of a theory of the relation between mind and brain has to continue, and if there can be no such theory, that too requires explanation. I believe that the explanatory gap in its present form cannot be closed -- that so long as we work with our present mental and physical concepts no transparently necessary connection will ever be revealed, between physically described brain processes and sensory experience, of the logical type familiar from the explanation of other natural processes by analysis into their physico-chemical constituents."
"The subjectivity of consciousness seems to block all reductionist proposals because, given any physicalist or functionalist description, however sophisticated, it seems logically possible that there should be an organism or system satisfying those conditions but nevertheless lacking any subjective point of view -- a zombie, in current jargon."
"The following things seem prima facie conceivable which are pretty certainly impossible in a very strong sense, namely:
(1) a living, behaving, physiologically and functionally perfect human organism that is nevertheless completely lacking in consciousness, i.e. a zombie;
(2) a conscious subject with an inner life just like ours that behaves and looks just like a human being but has electronic circuitry instead of brains.
http://philosophy.fas.nyu.edu/docs/.../conceiving.pdf
To me this crap suggests that there has to be something radical in physics that we're missing. Something that can explain this gap between the mental (consciousnes) and the material. A number of physicists argue that quantum theory is beginning to offer such a possibility, since it may have some very primitive properties of the mental (e.g. non-spatiality, etc,). Well, you might say this is not likely but think about gravity. General relativistic effects would totally escaped attention had that attention been confined to the study of the behaviour of tiny particles.
Last edited by Kon on 29 Nov 2010, 12:38 am, edited 2 times in total.
29 Nov 2010, 12:34 am
29 Nov 2010, 12:44 am
I tend to be a bit skeptical of the Quantum Conciseness theory. It seems to be a bit silly; stating 'that conciseness is weird, quantum mechanics is weird, therefor there must be a link'. Though I have seen some evidence relating to how certain anesthetic gases interface with mucrotubes within the brain, there is little solid evidence linking the two together.
Master pendant, we can demonstrate when someone is not conscious; ie when they are under anesthesia, thats a big hint, aside from the obvious subjective validation of the objective experience of conciseness.
_________________
Life is real ! Life is earnest!
And the grave is not its goal ;
Dust thou art, to dust returnest,
Was not spoken of the soul.
29 Nov 2010, 12:48 am
Descarte's argument:
A lot of mental stuff seems unconscious but I have a difficult time proving to myself that "I" may not exist (there's no "I"/"You"). Even if the thoughts are put in there by someone else, there still seems to be an "I" having those thoughts. I have come across some arguments to the contrary but I don't find them very convincing. I suppose I equate thought with existence. Descarte's "I think, I exist" kinda stuff. There seems to be an "I" or else who's doing the thinking?
29 Nov 2010, 12:52 am
Well, I think Master_Pedant is actually going the direction of the eliminative materialists. Basically, one of the major steps of eliminative materialism is to push back the notion of consciousness by criticizing it based upon a large number of delusions we have about consciousness.
Here's Dennett:
http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_dennett_on ... sness.html
You don't have to watch it, but it does get into his position on the issue.
29 Nov 2010, 12:55 am
I wouldn't really regard myself as an elimantive materialist (I ain't as radical as you, AG, at least not yet). I'm really just questioning the certitude of the OP's belief, as the "I think, therefore I am" is a circular argument as it presumes "I" to prove that "I exist".
As muddled as my neurophilosophy is, I'm probably more of a radical reductive physicalist than an elimativist, though I am (in part because of your arguments over the years) somewhat sympathetic to eliminativism.
29 Nov 2010, 1:05 am
A lot of mental stuff seems unconscious but I have a difficult time proving to myself that "I" may not exist (there's no "I"/"You"). Even if the thoughts are put in there by someone else, there still seems to be an "I" having those thoughts. I have come across some arguments to the contrary but I don't find them very convincing. I suppose I equate thought with existence. Descarte's "I think, I exist" kinda stuff. There seems to be an "I" or else who's doing the thinking?
Honestly, "I" don't think there is an "I". (both in quotes, because our language is built around "I" as an practical expression)
This author, I think, does an alright job challenging this through challenging the continuity of identity:
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/arc ... ural/7055/
(Basically, it is just a bunch of empirical work on problems with the notion of continuity, as well as comments on related issues, which is why I am not summing it up myself. Other issues emerge once we start getting into all of the disconnects that can happen due to brain damage.)
As for you, M_P. Well, I never have actually fully identified with them. If I did more reading, I'd probably go their direction, but honestly, I have just not spent enough time reading the various writings on the issue, or even listening to talks by one or more of these figures. I just simply said that you were going that direction.
29 Nov 2010, 1:14 am
For me it's more than the Penrose stuff. The two people that kinda said some stuff that I found interesting were N. Chomsky and David Bohm:
N. Chomsky:
"The familiar slogan about the mental and the neurophysiological has the matter backwards: it should not be taken as a characterization of the mental, but rather as a hypothesis about neurophysiology: perhaps the neurophysiological is the mental at a "lower' level, perhaps not. As of now, we have more reason to feel secure about the mental than about the neurophysiological."
"[The terms] 'body' and 'the physical world' refer to whatever there is, all of which we try to understand as best we can and to integrate into a coherent theoretical system that we call the natural sciences . . . If it were shown that the properties of the world fall into two disconnected domains, then we would, I suppose, say that that is the nature of the physical world, nothing more, just as if the world of matter and anti-matter were to prove unrelated."
W. G. Lycan:
"I have heard at least one respected physicist avert that "physics is finished," meaning that even microphysics is already empirically adequate and its physical ontology, its ontology of substances, is reasonably well understood; the remaining projects of microphysics – positing superstrings, constructing a unified field theory and the like – are only matters of interpreting and mathematizing the physical ontology. If that is so, then there is no reason to think that physics will expand its ontology in so fundamental a way as to afford a reduction of the mental that was not already available."
Bohm:
"At each such level, there will be a 'mental pole' and a 'physical pole'. Thus as we have already implied, even an electron has at least a rudimentary mental pole, represented mathematically by the quantum potential. Vice versa, as we have seen, even subtle mental processes have a physical pole. But the deeper reality is something beyond either mind or matter, both of which are only aspects that serve as terms for analysis."
http://evans-experientialism.freewebspa ... hysics.htm
29 Nov 2010, 1:45 am
For me it's more than the Penrose stuff. The two people that kinda said some stuff that I found interesting were N. Chomsky and David Bohm:
N. Chomsky:
"The familiar slogan about the mental and the neurophysiological has the matter backwards: it should not be taken as a characterization of the mental, but rather as a hypothesis about neurophysiology: perhaps the neurophysiological is the mental at a "lower' level, perhaps not. As of now, we have more reason to feel secure about the mental than about the neurophysiological."
"[The terms] 'body' and 'the physical world' refer to whatever there is, all of which we try to understand as best we can and to integrate into a coherent theoretical system that we call the natural sciences . . . If it were shown that the properties of the world fall into two disconnected domains, then we would, I suppose, say that that is the nature of the physical world, nothing more, just as if the world of matter and anti-matter were to prove unrelated."
W. G. Lycan:
"I have heard at least one respected physicist avert that "physics is finished," meaning that even microphysics is already empirically adequate and its physical ontology, its ontology of substances, is reasonably well understood; the remaining projects of microphysics – positing superstrings, constructing a unified field theory and the like – are only matters of interpreting and mathematizing the physical ontology. If that is so, then there is no reason to think that physics will expand its ontology in so fundamental a way as to afford a reduction of the mental that was not already available."
Bohm:
"At each such level, there will be a 'mental pole' and a 'physical pole'. Thus as we have already implied, even an electron has at least a rudimentary mental pole, represented mathematically by the quantum potential. Vice versa, as we have seen, even subtle mental processes have a physical pole. But the deeper reality is something beyond either mind or matter, both of which are only aspects that serve as terms for analysis."
http://evans-experientialism.freewebspa ... hysics.htm
I am not opposed to the theory, but you have to remember that so far there is not alot of evidence of quantum computing taking place in the brain. Before one can infer the logic of superposition on free will it stands to reason that superposition in the brain would have to be demonstrated to be possible or evident. It is also worth noting that the evidence against quantum conciseness is pretty hefty. Max Tegmark has already proven that based on our present understanding of quantum mechanics the temperatures in the brain are too high for atoms, photons, or electrons to remain in a super position of states for longer than 10^-13 seconds.
_________________
Life is real ! Life is earnest!
And the grave is not its goal ;
Dust thou art, to dust returnest,
Was not spoken of the soul.
29 Nov 2010, 3:46 am
This has been on my mind lately and part of the reason why I wanted to come back to WP. I'm reading about nanotechnology now and I think that may offer some clues as to what is missing here.
If consciousness is a particle; thoughts are matter in a sense. We should be able to deconstruct it, or contruct it. There must be some laws which govern this that I am not aware of at this time.
techstepgenr8tion
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29 Nov 2010, 5:15 am
I can't really understand how an argument would work to dismiss the existence of consciousness simply by changing its definition or telling yourselves that we're not seeing what we think we're seeing or have no subjective 'I' because we're locked into a grid where there's no free will. Without an 'I' there would be no one in our heads to have such hallucinations or hypochondria.
Also, regarding evolutionary arguments for its value, looking around us does anyone see where its made vast improvements in our gene pool?
29 Nov 2010, 5:18 am
[quote="techstepgenr8tion"]I can't really understand how an argument would work to dismiss the existence of consciousness simply by changing its definition or telling yourselves that we're not seeing what we think we're seeing or have no subjective 'I' because we're locked into a grid where there's no free will. Without an 'I' there would be no one in our heads to have such hallucinations or hypochondria.
Also, regarding evolutionary arguments for its value, looking around us does anyone see where its made vast improvements in our gene pool?[/quote
There is no one in our heads. Check out any skull x-ray to verify that.
ruveyn
29 Nov 2010, 9:52 am
Kon posted: I think consciousness is one of the most bizarre things in the known universe.
[Agree.]
We know it exists. In fact, it's the only thing that I know exists and yet one can envision a similar universe without consciousness. A universe of "consciousless zombies":
There seems to be a huge gap/divide between consciousness (the mental) and neurons/bio-chemical processes (the physical):
[Consciousness occurs in the brain/mind of humans. Possible insights: sports concussions, brain injuries, coma, anesthesia, locked-in syndrome, the many epilepsies, the ADHDs including ADHD Inattentive, and so on.]
"The specific problem I want to discuss concerns consciousness, the hard nut of the mind-body problem. How is it possible for conscious states to depend upon brain states? How can technicolour phenomenology arise from soggy grey matter? What makes the bodily organ we call the brain so radically different from other bodily organs, say the kidneys-the body parts without a trace of consciousness?"
[The human brain/mind - the stuff within a human skull - is like a computer motherboard vs the keyboard.]
"Thus we quickly find ourselves resorting to invitations to look inward, instead of specifying precisely what it is about consciousness that makes it inexplicable in terms of ordinary physical properties. And this can make it seem that the problem is spurious. A creature without consciousness would not properly appreciate the problem (assuming such a creature could appreciate other problems)." "The mind-body problem is the problem of understanding how the miracle is wrought, thus removing the sense of deep mystery. We want to take the magic out of the link between consciousness and the brain."
[Possible insights: Dilantin (epilepsy medicine) - Jack Dreyfus (book); Nerves In Collision (book) - Walter C. Alvarez, M.D.; How To (understand) Hyperactivity book (1981) about ADHD Inattentive - C. Thomas Wild (about FDA approved alertness aids Tirend, NoDoz); L-Dopa in Awakenings (1990 movie) with Robin Williams based on Sacks, M.D. book; Hallucinogens like LSD - Albert Hoffman, Ph.D., etc.; other concepts like bicameral mind, lateralization of the brain.]
http://philosophy.fas.nyu.edu/docs/IO/1 ... eiving.pdf
"Yet the problem here is much more serious, for an obvious reason: Identifying sounds with waves in the air does not require that we ascribe phenomenological qualities and subjectivity to anything physical, because those are features of the perception of sound, not of sound itself. By contrast, the identification of mental events with physical events requires the unification of these two types of properties in a single thing, and that remains resistant to understanding."
[Human brain/mind compared to sonar, radar, radio, black and white TV, color TV, movies with sound, holograms, 3-D movies.]
"The search for the possible form of a theory of the relation between mind and brain has to continue, and if there can be no such theory, that too requires explanation. I believe that the explanatory gap in its present form cannot be closed -- that so long as we work with our present mental and physical concepts no transparently necessary connection will ever be revealed, between physically described brain processes and sensory experience, of the logical type familiar from the explanation of other natural processes by analysis into their physico-chemical constituents." "The subjectivity of consciousness seems to block all reductionist proposals because, given any physicalist or functionalist description, however sophisticated, it seems logically possible that there should be an organism or system satisfying those conditions but nevertheless lacking any subjective point of view -- a zombie, in current jargon." "The following things seem prima facie conceivable which are pretty certainly impossible in a very strong sense, namely:
(1) a living, behaving, physiologically and functionally perfect human organism that is nevertheless completely lacking in consciousness, i.e. a zombie;
(2) a conscious subject with an inner life just like ours that behaves and looks just like a human being but has electronic circuitry instead of brains.
[Robbie the Robot, Hal the Computer compared to thinking human beings such as Homer Simpson.]
http://philosophy.fas.nyu.edu/docs/.../conceiving.pdf To me this crap suggests that there has to be something radical in physics that we're missing. Something that can explain this gap between the mental (consciousnes) and the material. A number of physicists argue that quantum theory is beginning to offer such a possibility, since it may have some very primitive properties of the mental (e.g. non-spatiality, etc,). Well, you might say this is not likely but think about gravity. General relativistic effects would totally escaped attention had that attention been confined to the study of the behaviour of tiny particles.
[Reticular formation of the brain stem, feedback loops to surrounding areas; what is known about the thalamus connection to petit/absence and temporal/other lobes connection to TLE/complex partial, and so on.]
Words
Executive Function (concept)
Purpose - Definite Life Purpose (Career, Family, and so on)
Silva Method
Emile Coue (hypnotist)
Newer developments: Provigil/Nuvigil for narcolepsy
Wakefulness/being awake vs sleep
Neurology
Body electricity / brain/mind electricity
Neuron - Neurons - Neurotransmitters - Norepinephrine, Dopamine, Epinephrine, etc.
Constructional apraxia
and so on.
Questions:
A lump of potter's clay on a table can become what? The head of a human? An animal? Rubik's Cube? (Normal imagination)
How is a written word in a book such as the two words filet mignon converted into a vivid, color mental image in the brain/mind? (Normal imagination)
Why do many persons (temporarily) believe in the fantastic images from the original Star Trek TV series? (Transporter room, etc.). (Normal suspension of the natural world during imaginative storytelling)
How can garage doors be opened and TVs turned on (without wires) using remote control?
Topic = Consciousness, the mind-body problem and physics
29 Nov 2010, 11:18 am
Part of the problem is we don't know what "matter" is. I suppose it's what physics tells us but that's not that useful because physics hasn't ended and continues to evolve. Even spatio-temporality seems to break down at the sub-atomic level. So these concepts like "materialism" or "idealism" seem kinda pointless because it's kinda hard to define matter, I think?
The interesting question to me is:
1. How is it possible for something so "dead" like matter (at least as presently conceived) can give rise to thought (the mental)?
2. Assume you were looking for the most primitive qualities of the mental (that could give rise to consciousness, mental stuff) at the sub-atomic level. What qualities would it have? I think, two for sure are non-locality and non spatio-temporality. I say this, because most definitions of qualia/consciousness use these descriptions for properties of consciousness. I find this interesting because this is exactly what physicists are saying about the the quantum level. There seems to be a break up of space and time and non-locality seems to be an essential feature of that level.
The weird thing (if accurate):
Why is it that this non-local, non-spatial property appears evident at the quantum level and then disappears (ot at least seems to disappear) with non-living/non-thinking objects like say, rocks, etc (unless you're a panpsychist) and then become very obvious when you get to objects like human beings who are first and foremost thinking, conscious beings. (Sidebar: There are a few macroscopic objects that do show these features, I think: SQUIDs, superconductivity?) This assumes that these non-local, non-spatio-temporal aspects are responsible for mental objects. I interpreted Bohm as essentially saying this when he speaks of the primtive "mental" pole of electrons. He is basically arguing that the basic elements for thought/the mental can be found at the most basic level in physics, I think.
With gravity the same thing kinda happens. But the pattern is different. If we looked for gravity at the sub-atomic level we would have never found it because it's such a weak force. But at the macroscopic level, it is by far the dominant force (governing motion of galaxies, stars, etc).
29 Nov 2010, 11:48 am
[Consciousness is likely not a single particle. Consciousness may be a kind of stream of particles/a kind of electrical current in the brain/mind. Words: Engram, train of thought, and so on.]
Part of the problem is we don't know what "matter" is. I suppose it's what physics tells us but
[In humans: neuron - neurons - the CNS - anatomy of the brain - etc.]
that's not that useful because physics hasn't ended and continues to evolve. Even spatio-temporality seems to break down at the sub-atomic level. So these concepts like "materialism" or "idealism" seem kinda pointless because it's kinda hard to define matter, I think?
The interesting question to me is:
1. How is it possible for something so "dead" like matter (at least as presently conceived) can give rise to thought (the mental)?
[It does appear that certain objects like rocks cannot think yet certain animals like porpoises, dogs, and human can think.]
2. Assume you were looking for the most primitive qualities of the mental (that could give rise to consciousness, mental stuff) at the sub-atomic level. What qualities would it have? I think, two
[Consciousness does seem to involve the idea of more brain cells vs less brain cells. What was the minimum number of computer chips needed to trigger a first computer - like an Apple - to work? Apparently too few computer chips/brain cells, it doesn't work. Then at a certain critical mass of computer chips, it does work. Simplified/oversimplified.]
for sure are non-locality and non spatio-temporality. I say this, because most definitions of qualia/consciousness use these descriptions for properties of consciousness. I find this interesting because this is exactly what physicists are saying about the the quantum level. There seems to be a break up of space and time and non-locality seems to be an essential feature of that level.
[How are images and sounds stored on a 35 mm camera film? - The five senses: sight, hearing, smell, taste, touch.]
The weird thing (if accurate): Why is it that this non-local, non-spatial property appears evident at the quantum level and then disappears (ot at least seems to disappear) with non-living/non-thinking objects like say, rocks, etc (unless you're a panpsychist) and then become very obvious when you get to objects like human beings who are first and foremost thinking, conscious beings. (Sidebar: There are a few macroscopic objects that do show these features, I think: SQUIDs, superconductivity?) This assumes that these non-local, non-spatio-temporal aspects are responsible for mental objects. I interpreted Bohm as essentially saying this when he speaks of the primtive "mental" pole of electrons. He is basically arguing that the basic elements for thought/the mental can be found at the most basic level in physics, I think. With gravity the same thing kinda happens. But the pattern is different. If we looked for gravity at the sub-atomic level we would have never found it because it's such a weak force. But at the macroscopic level, it is by far the dominant force (governing motion of galaxies, stars, etc).
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