Can physicalism explain qualia?

[MD]

Even if gravity is immaterial it exists because of matter. Gravity isn't a force unto itself.

Okay but we still don't know what gravity is. And it is immaterial.

*Edit: Okay so apparently gravity might be how space time is curved due to matter. Well that makes more sense. Now what's time-space?

When the particle wave function collapses it is because physical observation causes the particles to stop spinning which in effect collapses the wave function. The wave happens with particles because of their physical characteristics.

Well I don't know much about quantum physics but I will have to take your word for it. What causes elementary particles to exist?

 

[MD]

I'd say that it's a fully material process. That the mind exists is not evidence that it isn't physical. The mind could very well just be a function of the brain.

Calling the mind a function of the brain doesn't really explain anything and it doesn't remove the fact that the mind isn't separate from the brain.

These things you mention are all physical. I meant material as opposite to mental/spiritual. I would say that it's a great philosophical position. We can study this world and find objective evidence of the physical, but we have yet to be able to find any objective evidence for anything mental or spiritual.

When I say material, I mean in the classical sense of matter. Qualia is the strongest pieces of evidence for something mental existing. Qualia are the essence of existence. We try to explain the objective but have a very hard time explaining the very thing that makes us what we are.

You claimed that it was a growing consensus among neuroscientists, so I was mostly wondering where you got that from. If the mind isn't physical, but evolution is a fully physical process, how did the mind come to be? It must be connected to the brain, so how evolved must a brain be before the substance of mind arises?

I think we have to define terms here. First of all by 'mind' I mean consciousness. By consciousness I mean subjective experiences. For the mind to be a purely physical process we have to accept that it just exists and there's no way to explain it within the physical model. Okay I will give you cut copy and paste another post where I put the same thing. These are the top scientists of the field.


Guilio Tononi:
Developed the IIT, the integrated information theory of consciousness which is heralded as the best theory from classical neuronal physics perspective.

http://articles.boston.com/2012-08-1...-human-brain/5

TONONI: I think consciousness is a fundamental part of the universe—just as fundamental as mass, charge, and so forth, and it’s just as real. In fact, I think conscious things are more real [than material things] like stones and cars and mountains and planets. Conscious things are really real. They don’t need an external observer. They exist in and of themselves. It’s a more real form of existence, because it’s observer-independent.


Christof Koch
Worked with Francis Crick on consciousness. Chief scientific officer of the Allen Institute for Brain Science.

Enriched With Information - Science News

"Koch says he might be wrong, but he believes that consciousness, like an electron’s charge, is something inherent in the fabric of reality that gives shape, structure and meaning to the world. “Consciousness is not an emergent feature of the universe,” he says. “It’s a fundamental property.”


VS Ramachandran
Probably one of the coolest and most famous neuroscientists. One of the best of the best. Noted in Time 2011 as one of the most influential people.

The Human Brain and Cosmic Mind | The Costa Rican Times

"V.S. Ramachandran, a brain scientist at the University of San Diego, says there may be a soul in the sense of “the universal spirit of the cosmos,” but the notion of “an immaterial spirit that occupies individual brains and that only evolved in humans is complete nonsense.” That sounds right."

From Times Higher Education - Astute critic or just a philistine caricature?

"Ramachandran is no professional philosopher. He accepts that his position on the mind-brain relation has not been thought through, just taken off the shelf as a pragmatic working model. The fascinating thing is his choice of model. Not the functionalism or physicalism normally associated with reductionist science, but Russell's "neutral monism", another link from Rama to Spinoza."

What we're trying to do is filling in the gap with information. You're assuming here that your position must be the correct one, because if my position is correct then the explanation can very well be completed. How would we even go about studying this non-material substance?

No if you're position is correct the gap will always remain because the physicalist position cannot explain how qualia exist. Human imagination is fantastically powerful, we will eventually find ways to empirically test other newer concepts.

 

[mycorrhiza]

No if you're position is correct the gap will always remain because the physicalist position cannot explain how qualia exist. Human imagination is fantastically powerful, we will eventually find ways to empirically test other newer concepts.

If my position is correct, then we will be able to explain qualia with physical processes. You're still assuming that you are correct, as you say that qualia cannot be explain by physical processes.


Before we continue, could you just answer these few questions so that I understand what I'm actually debating here? I need to figure out whether you mean that conscioussness is a different substance such as the soul is in Christian dualism, or something more metaphorical, but still part of the physical world.

1. In what way is mind a different substance?
2. What are the characteristics of this substance?
3. How does this substance interact with the physical brain?
4. What part does the brain play in consciousness as opposed to the mental substance?
5. When does the mental substance place itself, or arise from the brain? Are even the simplest nervous systems connected to this substance?

 

[MD]

If my position is correct, then we will be able to explain qualia with physical processes. You're still assuming that you are correct, as you say that qualia cannot be explain by physical processes.

I don't think one can explain qualia through our current definition of physicalism. Either physicalism is incomplete and we add something else, or we change the definition of physicalism drastically that it isn't really the same as what we define today.

Before we continue, could you just answer these few questions so that I understand what I'm actually debating here? I need to figure out whether you mean that conscioussness is a different substance such as the soul is in Christian dualism, or something more metaphorical, but still part of the physical world.

1. In what way is mind a different substance?
2. What are the characteristics of this substance?
3. How does this substance interact with the physical brain?
4. What part does the brain play in consciousness as opposed to the mental substance?

I don't know if I can call the mind a 'soul'. I am actually a neutral monist, like Ramachandran.

1) The mind is a different substance because we have experiences, feelings, sounds and colors which do not exist anywhere else in the universe according to a physical model of the universe. To say that neural firing explains how color is formed is just like saying that rubbing a genie's lamp creates the genie. This is because color, light, etc do not exist in the universe, they are simply waves of energy and matter. We have created these mental perceptions of physical phenomenon and as such there exists a 'mind'. A computer program takes inputs and puts outputs on a screen, which we translate into meaning and qualia. We internalize our own outputs, but our outputs themselves have no explanation. Now I personally cannot accept that such things just pop into existence. As such I think that mental properties exist in nature as well.

2 and 3) I cannot define the characteristics of this substance, but if I had to guess it would somewhat analagous to electricity in the sense that just as a circuit channels electricity, our brains channel mental properties to create mind.

4) The brain is like a machine which channels the mental properties into higher states of being.

 

[idav]

Okay but we still don't know what gravity is. And it is immaterial.

We know lots about it and the immaterial aspect is debatable and is very much dependent on matter. In other words gravity wouldn't exist if matter didn't.

Well I don't know much about quantum physics but I will have to take your word for it. What causes elementary particles to exist?

I'm not sure what causes existence to exist, that to me is why I would even attempt to bring in a god label. Whatever the source might be I label that as god but whatever the source is, is entwined within existence. The problem I run into is that every immaterial aspect, even at the quantum level, has a material explanation.

 

[mycorrhiza]

I don't think one can explain qualia through our current definition of physicalism. Either physicalism is incomplete and we add something else, or we change the definition of physicalism drastically that it isn't really the same as what we define today.

That depends on what qualia and the consciousness is. I would say that the appearance of a subjective reality is ultimately an illusion. That there is no such thing as a subjective reality, but rather different interpretations of the same reality, based on varying characteristics in our physical processes. To me consciousness is a sum of several different processes. We're biological machines. We process data, and we give a result. These results are still information, but processed information that we falsely percieve as subjective reality. We overestimate our own abilities.

I believe that further studies of neuroscience as well as artificial intelligence could bring us further to the possibility of showing what I belive that consciousness actually is, that it isn't a separate substance. The human mind is complex, but it might not even be complex enough to fully explain what consciousness actually is.

We don't need to change the definition of physicalism. Our knowledge is vastly incomplete, but that doesn't mean that we must accept at second substance, but rather that we must understand all the properties of the first substance, something that we are far away from doing.

1) The mind is a different substance because we have experiences, feelings, sounds and colors which do not exist anywhere else in the universe according to a physical model of the universe. To say that neural firing explains how color is formed is just like saying that rubbing a genie's lamp creates the genie. This is because color, light, etc do not exist in the universe, they are simply waves of energy and matter. We have created these mental perceptions of physical phenomenon and as such there exists a 'mind'. A computer program takes inputs and puts outputs on a screen, which we translate into meaning and qualia. We internalize our own outputs, but our outputs themselves have no explanation. Now I personally cannot accept that such things just pop into existence. As such I think that mental properties exist in nature as well.

2 and 3) I cannot define the characteristics of this substance, but if I had to guess it would somewhat analagous to electricity in the sense that just as a circuit channels electricity, our brains channel mental properties to create mind.

4) The brain is like a machine which channels the mental properties into higher states of being.

Thanks for explaining! I don't agree with your views, but I have a better grasp of it now. I don't really think that the debate could be taken much further.

 

[MD]

We know lots about it and the immaterial aspect is debatable and is very much dependent on matter. In other words gravity wouldn't exist if matter didn't.

From my brief research it seems that gravity is how space and time curve due to matter. Would you say space and time are material? If not a component of gravity is immaterial. But it has a material component to it as well.

I'm not sure what causes existence to exist, that to me is why I would even attempt to bring in a god label. Whatever the source might be I label that as god but whatever the source is, is entwined within existence. The problem I run into is that every immaterial aspect, even at the quantum level, has a material explanation.

Although I have a similar definition of God, I would disagree that every immaterial aspect has a material explanation. By material first of all we mean matter. There is energy in the universe. Plus there is no explanation for why material processes create an immaterial mind. They call it the neural correlates of consciousness, not the neural causes of consciousness.

 

[idav]

From my brief research it seems that gravity is how space and time curve due to matter. Would you say space and time are material? If not a component of gravity is immaterial. But it has a material component to it as well.

Because of virtual particles at the quantum level, space acts as a fabric.

Although I have a similar definition of God, I would disagree that every immaterial aspect has a material explanation. By material first of all we mean matter. There is energy in the universe. Plus there is no explanation for why material processes create an immaterial mind. They call it the neural correlates of consciousness, not the neural causes of consciousness.

A thought can easily be immaterial by being a projection of something that is material which is how data and interpretation of data works.

 

[MD]

That depends on what qualia and the consciousness is. I would say that the appearance of a subjective reality is ultimately an illusion. That there is no such thing as a subjective reality, but rather different interpretations of the same reality, based on varying characteristics in our physical processes. To me consciousness is a sum of several different processes. We're biological machines. We process data, and we give a result. These results are still information, but processed information that we falsely percieve as subjective reality. We overestimate our own abilities.

I would have to strongly disagree because the human power to create, innovate and imagine is incredible. Look around you, everything is a product of human innovation and our minds. Even if subjective experiences are an illusion that would assume that someone is being fooled. What is being fooled? And it still doesn't explain where they came from in the first place, how such qualia were created.

For a physicalist I see only one possibility: there will always be a gap.

I believe that further studies of neuroscience as well as artificial intelligence could bring us further to the possibility of showing what I belive that consciousness actually is, that it isn't a separate substance. The human mind is complex, but it might not even be complex enough to fully explain what consciousness actually is.

I believe that neuroscience or artificial intelligence cannot progress far without understanding qualia and consciousness. We will continue to have breakthroughs but there will be a wall if we do not expand on the science.

If you're saying that the human mind cannot explain what consciousness is then you're suggesting that there is something outside the current physical model of the universe. If the universe is purely physical then we should be able to understand consciousness.

Thanks for explaining! I don't agree with your views, but I have a better grasp of it now. I don't really think that the debate could be taken much further.

Fair enough.

 

[MD]

Because of virtual particles at the quantum level, space acts as a fabric.

I always though space was immaterial. As far as I know it's a bunch of quantum fluctuations and energy. Can you please send me a link showing me that space consists of virtual particles which act together creating it as a fabric?

 

[idav]

I always though space was immaterial. As far as I know it's a bunch of quantum fluctuations and energy. Can you please send me a link showing me that space consists of virtual particles which act together creating it as a fabric?

It is all interconnected as the theory of general relativity describes. Spacetime is material since it can be bent, warped and stretched. We were recently able to confirm Einsteins theories with measurements.

[youtube]Rmof0-fNF3c[/youtube]
Space-Time Vortex Confirmed - YouTube

 

[mycorrhiza]

If you're saying that the human mind cannot explain what consciousness is then you're suggesting that there is something outside the current physical model of the universe. If the universe is purely physical then we should be able to understand consciousness.

What I'm saying is rather that humans aren't as intelligent as many people would like to think. Even if humans are never able to explain consciousness, perhaps a more intelligent form of life somewhere else in the Universe could.

I would say that you're overestimating the human intellect.

 

[MD]

It is all interconnected as the theory of general relativity describes. Spacetime is material since it can be bent, warped and stretched. We were recently able to confirm Einsteins theories with measurements.

[youtube]Rmof0-fNF3c[/youtube]
Space-Time Vortex Confirmed - YouTube

Nice, love the video. I always assumed material = matter. Energy can be stretched and bent (light), that doesn't make it material.

 

[MD]

What I'm saying is rather that humans aren't as intelligent as many people would like to think. Even if humans are never able to explain consciousness, perhaps a more intelligent form of life somewhere else in the Universe could.

I would say that you're overestimating the human intellect.

And I would say that you're vastly underestimating it, considering the evidence.

 

[idav]

Nice, love the video. I always assumed material = matter. Energy can be stretched and bent (light), that doesn't make it material.

Energy is material as matter and energy can transform into each other. It is theorized that the universe started off as pure energy until everything started cooling (getting less excited) to the point that you could have mass and gravity ends up being a sort of energy of its own based off of matter.

 

[MD]

Energy is material as matter and energy can transform into each other. It is theorized that the universe started off as pure energy until everything started cooling (getting less excited) to the point that you could have mass and gravity ends up being a sort of energy of its own based off of matter.

Oh yes Einstein's famous equation. I wouldn't call energy matter then, I would call matter energy

Btw the idea that an immaterial mind can arise from material causes is known as property dualism. I think that's what you believe.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

When the particle wave function collapses it is because physical observation causes the particles to stop spinning which in effect collapses the wave function. The wave happens with particles because of their physical characteristics.

This is a pretty fundamental mischaracterization of quantum mechanics. Whether one uses Dirac's Bras and Kets notation or simply represents the wavefunction like any other probability funtion, it remains a notational schema. For many, this formalism actually describes a probabilistic physical reality, For others, it doesn't. The formalism is an extension of the classical axiomized probability triplet <&#937;, F,p>, where the probability space is replaced with Hilbert space, the probability algrebra with a Lie algebra (the algebra of events in QM forms a lattice), and the probability measure is replaced by the wavefunction, making the following triplet:

The measurement problem (among other things), creates problems for anyone seeking to take quantum algebras, Riemannian geometry, and other formalisms used in QM as descriptions of reality. A simplistic analogy would be the comparison between arithmetic and reality: 4 + 2 = 6, but how does one add 4 books to 2 apples, and what does one get: 8 objects, or hundreds of pages and a snack?

Even under the Copenhagen interpretation, the quoted description of waves and particles isn't accurate. And as physicists are still arguing over whether the universe is fundamentally discrete, over the existence of particles and particles with 0-volumes, etc., saying much of anything about the "physical characterizations" of particles is to be overly optimistic.

In particular though, the point about waves and particles and quantum physics is not that a "wave happens with particles" but that the classical distinction between the two doesn't hold up.

 

[idav]

This is a pretty fundamental mischaracterization of quantum mechanics. Whether one uses Dirac's Bras and Kets notation or simply represents the wavefunction like any other probability funtion, it remains a notational schema. For many, this formalism actually describes a probabilistic physical reality, For others, it doesn't. The formalism is an extension of the classical axiomized probability triplet <&#937;, F,p>, where the probability space is replaced with Hilbert space, the probability algrebra with a Lie algebra (the algebra of events in QM forms a lattice), and the probability measure is replaced by the wavefunction, making the following triplet:

The measurement problem (among other things), creates problems for anyone seeking to take quantum algebras, Riemannian geometry, and other formalisms used in QM as descriptions of the reality. A simplistic analogy would be the comparison between arithmetic and reality: 4 + 2 = 6, but how does one add 4 books to 2 apples, and what does one get: 8 objects, or hundreds of pages and a snack?

Even under the Copenhagen interpretation, the quoted description of waves and particles isn't accurate. And as physicists are still arguing over whether the universe is fundamentally discrete, over the existence of particles and particles with 0-volumes, etc., saying much of anything about the "physical characterizations" of particles is to be overly optimistic.

In particular though, the point about waves and particles and quantum physics is not that a "wave happens with particles" but that the classical distinction between the two doesn't hold up.

OK it is debatable but my statement has to do with Shahz suggesting that a wave is immaterial which I don't think it is. Properties of physics even at the quantum level are because of something material.

edit: so that light having dual properties doesn't make light immaterial

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

OK it is debatable but my statement has to do with Shahz suggesting that a wave is immaterial which I don't think it is. Properties of physics even at the quantum level are because of something material.

What is material about a particle with no volume (or no mass)?

 

[idav]

What is material about a particle with no volume (or no mass)?

It is still material cause it is a particle. Just cause it doesn't have the particle to give it mass ie. the higgs boson, you would call it immaterial?