Why materialism is wrong regarding consciousness

[Left Coast]

Let us start from the beginning. The materialists point to numerous correlation between physical brain states and behaviours to deduce causal relationship. They conclude that brain generates consciousness.

The scientific assertion that brain states cause mental states is not derived merely from correlation, but from causation. Scientists have literally done experiments in which they have stimulated parts of the brain and observed the effect that stimulation has on consciousness. And those effects have been observed to be consistent and predictable, to the point that scientists have been able to map which parts of the brain are responsible for which aspects of conscious experience.

Suppose, we observe that whenever there is a visible shaft of lightning in the air there is a corresponding electrical discharge. We might be confident that the lightning and the electrical discharge are aspects of one and the same thing.

Such analogies cannot apply to the mind-body problem (M/BP) (Nagel 1974, 1986). There is no problem if we accept that two sets of empirical observations are "aspects" of the same thing, given a causal model that unifies them. But there is no such causal model in the case of the mind-body problem. For, unlike all other empirical observations, such as lightning/electricity (or water/H2O, heat/molecular-motion, life/biogenetic-function, matter/energy, etc.), in the special case of M/B, the correlated phenomena are not of the same KIND. And that makes this particular set of "correlations" different, and the forecast that M/B will simply turn out to be yet another set of correlations like the rest does not hold. The question arises because of the obvious disanalogies: public ("3rd person") data, as in all the other analogies, vs. private ("1st person") data.


Empirically detectable shafts of lightning and empirically detectable electrical discharges are the same kind of thing (empirical data, detectable by instruments). So are empirically detectable brain activities and empirically detectable behaviour and circumstances. For example, pains can be correlated to realisers — suppose an area in brain. If pain is so functionalized, the problem of mental causation has a simple solution for all pain instances. So when I say or act out that something hurts (especially when something is indeed damaging my tissues), and there is corresponding brain-image, we may have a correlation between things of the same kind. And out of that correlation we can construct a causal theory of pain function (tissue injury, avoidance, learning, recall, etc.).

Again, we have demonstrated more than inference of causation. We have literally demonstrated that brain states affect states of consciousness.

But when the correlate in question is my feeling of pain, there's now an explanatory gap that neither the pain function theory (which is only a functional theory of tissue-damage-related doing) nor any amount of reconfirmation of the tightness of the correlation can close. What should we say about the causal powers of pain as a mental kind? The answer is that as a kind, pain will be causally heterogeneous.

This doesn't make sense. If I want to know if you're in pain, I can ask you. Or I can observe that you yelp or scream in pain, etc. Now, it's true I can't literally feel your pain myself. So sure, you could be lying, or I could be mistaken - my eyes could be deceiving me. But that is true of literally any phenomena we ever observe. What we observe could be inaccurate. Heck, what we observe could be a completely fabricated delusion. We could all be in the Matrix. Unless we're going to throw out all observation as useless because we can't confirm that we're not in the Matrix, then this pain example is fundamentally no different than any other.

Why is person ‘xyz’ in pain? Can we derive the statement “xyz is in pain” from information exclusively about xyz’s physical/behavioral properties?

Yes, as much as we can derive any information about anything in the world based on its physical/behavioral properties.

The phenomenal mental properties are not functionally definable and hence functionally irreducible. Hence, the problem of mental causation is not solvable for phenomenal mental properties.

Nonsense.

Similarly, only if consciousness is functionally reducible it’s mystery will be solvable. But what stands in the way of solving the problem of consciousness is the impossibility of interpreting or defining it in terms of its causal relations to physical/biological properties.

It's not impossible at all. That is absurd. If you've ever had a headache and taken ibuprofen and felt better, you have personally, directly experienced the causal relationship between consciousness and its physical/biological properties.

 

[Left Coast]

The problem here is that we really do not know what actually 'matter or 'nature'' is. We know only the aspect that we can grasp with mind-senses and we assume that is all matter-nature is. OTOH, I have pointed out several times that we exist, UNCONSCIOUS TO MIND, in deep sleep.

And why do we know that, my friend? Because of what we have consciously experienced with our mind-senses.

So, it cannot be that only that which is consciously manifest to mind-senses exists naturally. There may be a lot hidden from mind-senses.

I agree.

However, the issue is...

Just because something may exist somewhere out there, beyond the ability of our mind-senses to perceive, does not mean we are rationally justified in believing that such a thing actually does exist. We are only rationally justified in believing a thing exists when we see good evidence for it, which obviously we must perceive with our mind-senses.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

...
It's not impossible at all. That is absurd. If you've ever had a headache and taken ibuprofen and felt better, you have personally, directly experienced the causal relationship between consciousness and its physical/biological properties.

How come I feel better at all? How come I feel at all? How come a physical and chemical process causes first person experiences at all?
How do you 3rd person know "better" in a brain?
You are taking for granted, what you haven't explained! How come you feel at all? How does a physical and chemical process produce a first person experience?

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

...

Just because something may exist somewhere out there, beyond the ability of our mind-senses to perceive, does not mean we are rationally justified in believing that such a thing actually does exist. We are only rationally justified in believing a thing exists when we see good evidence for it, which obviously we must perceive with our mind-senses.

Well, the word existence has no properties, it is empty. It is nothing but an idea.
If you change in western terms to phenomenology your view changes as for what existence and things are. They are words in minds, which describe how we understand the world.
BTW rationality is not a thing. So you use using a non-thing to claim, that things are primary.

 

[Left Coast]

How come I feel better at all?

Ibuprofen: Uses, interactions, and side effects

How come I feel at all?

Your nervous system.

How come a physical and chemical process causes first person experiences at all?

No idea.

How do you 3rd person know "better" in a brain?

I don't know what this means. How do I know if a person is feeling better? Typically by asking them.

You are taking for granted, what you haven't explained! How come you feel at all? How does a physical and chemical process produce a first person experience?

Again, I don't know.

But my ignorance doesn't mean that physical/chemical processes are insufficient to explain the experience.

 

[Left Coast]

Well, the word existence has no properties, it is empty. It is nothing but an idea.
If you change in western terms to phenomenology your view changes as for what existence and things are. They are words in minds, which describe how we understand the world.

How do you know I'm responding to you right now? Are you replying to an illusion or hallucination? How do you know?

BTW rationality is not a thing. So you use using a non-thing to claim, that things are primary.

Rationality is not a thing? I don't know what in the world that means. If you don't believe in rationality I have no clue why you're attempting to reason with me. Much less doing it in a human language with known grammatical logic and rules.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

...
No idea.

Again, I don't know.

But my ignorance doesn't mean that physical/chemical processes are insufficient to explain the experience.

I have no idea and I don't know, yet physical/chemical processes are sufficient to explain the experience! Can you see the problem now? Physical/chemical processes are insufficient to explain the experience. It follows from what you said.

 

[Left Coast]

I have no idea and I don't know, yet physical/chemical processes are sufficient to explain the experience! Can you see the problem now? Physical/chemical processes are insufficient to explain the experience. It follows from what you said.

No, it doesn't.

I didn't claim physical/chemical processes are sufficient to explain it. Read carefully.

I said my ignorance does not demonstrate that physical/chemical processes are insufficient. Because that's a fact.

Just because we don't know how x causes y, doesn't mean x can't cause y. See the difference?

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

How do you know I'm responding to you right now? Are you replying to an illusion or hallucination? How do you know?



Rationality is not a thing? I don't know what in the world that means. If you don't believe in rationality I have no clue why you're attempting to reason with me. Much less doing it in a human language with known grammatical logic and rules.

How can an illusion or hallucination be real, if this has no physical/chemical referent? You can't observe an illusion or hallucination as a physical/chemical process, yet you speak of those as if they exist, yet they are not actual things.

You speak of non-things; belief, rationality, illusion or hallucination as if they are self-evident, yet you can't explain them as things.
They have none of the properties that things have and they are not observable like things.
You take for granted words, which are not about things and yet you defend that things are primary.
You use rules for organizing your thinking, but a rule is not a thing. That is the point: You use a non-thing, a rule/principle, to claim that things are primary.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

No, it doesn't.

I didn't claim physical/chemical processes are sufficient to explain it. Read carefully.

I said my ignorance does not demonstrate that physical/chemical processes are insufficient. Because that's a fact.

Just because we don't know how x causes y, doesn't mean x can't cause y. See the difference?

If we don't know how x causes y, it is unknown whether x causes y or not. You can't reason about the unknown as a known and then build a rule around that. If it is unknown, nothing follows from that with reason, other than it is unknown.

 

[Left Coast]

How can an illusion or hallucination be real, if this has no physical/chemical referent? You can't observe an illusion or hallucination as a physical/chemical process, yet you speak of those as if they exist, yet they are not actual things.

Illusions/hallucinations do have physical/ chemical references though. How do you think antipsychotic medications work?

You speak of non-things; belief, rationality, illusion or hallucination as if they are self-evident, yet you can't explain them as things.
They have none of the properties that things have and they are not observable like things.
You take for granted words, which are not about things and yet you defend that things are primary.
You use rules for organizing your thinking, but a rule is not a thing. That is the point: You use a non-thing, a rule/principle, to claim that things are primary.

First of all, I don't know what "things are primary" even means, much less whether it accurately describes my view.

Second, your issue is that I use abstract concepts or ideas? Those are descriptions humans use to explain and organize our experiences. I can identify the experience of belief, of rationality, of hallucination, and of illusion. So what's your beef?

Third, you didn't answer: how do you know I'm responding to you, and I'm not a hallucination?

 

[Left Coast]

If we don't know how x causes y, it is unknown whether x causes y or not.

Not exactly. I can conclude that the food I ate last night made me sick to my stomach without understanding the exact physiology of my GI tract.

You can't reason about the unknown as a known and then build a rule around that. If it is unknown, nothing follows from that with reason, other than it is unknown.

Agreed. Meaning if it's unknown how physical processes produce first person experience, you can't claim they're insufficient.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

...

Third, you didn't answer: how do you know I'm responding to you, and I'm not a hallucination?

And we have arrived as what is at play! I don't know that with proof/truth. I assume God is fair and that I am not a Boltzmann Brain. See, we ended it up where it always ends. At the combination of metaphysics and epistemology and what reality really is? I don't know, I believe.
You apparently believe in a natural world but that is without proof, truth, knowledge or evidence. It is a belief. It is different that mine if you do believe in a natural world, but they are both nothing but beliefs.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Not exactly. I can conclude that the food I ate last night made me sick to my stomach without understanding the exact physiology of my GI tract.



Agreed. Meaning if it's unknown how physical processes produce first person experience, you can't claim they're insufficient.

Well, yes, you have a point. You can't claim they are sufficient and I can't claim they are insufficient. But I can claim, that you don't have sufficient knowledge to claim, what you claim. See above.
We are playing different belief systems.

 

[Left Coast]

And we have arrived as what is at play! I don't know that with proof/truth. I assume God is fair and that I am not a Boltzmann Brain. See, we ended it up where it always ends. At the combination of metaphysics and epistemology and what reality really is? I don't know, I believe.
You apparently believe in a natural world but that is without proof, truth, knowledge or evidence. It is a belief. It is different that mine if you do believe in a natural world, but they are both nothing but beliefs.

Yikes. So you literally have no idea how to conclude the difference between a hallucination and a real experience? That is terrifying.

If you're just appealing to the problem of hard solipsism, then okay. In that case all bets are off and all beliefs are equally plausible, no matter how absurd. Appealling to a God doesn't help you, he's just another figment of your imagination.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Yikes. So you literally have no idea how to conclude the difference between a hallucination and a real experience? That is terrifying.

If you're just appealing to the problem of hard solipsism, then okay. In that case all bets are off and all beliefs are equally plausible, no matter how absurd. Appealling to a God doesn't help you, he's just another figment of your imagination.

No, I don't even know that I exist as I. I am a skeptic, not an ontological solipsist. Funny how a part of your answer is nothing but in the end first person feelings/emotions.
You can't believe that I believe differently, because it is absurd to you. To end then you believe as you do, because it makes sense to you. That is where we always end. How to make sense of reality. That is first person, you do it and I do it, I am just honest.

So here is how I am not an ontological solipsist. That I have experiences, may not be correct if they come to me and are not mine, external causation. In a sense, the "I" is an illusion, that seems to work. Now what is outside my mind is that, which is different than me, but that is all. All I know about the "objective reality", I know as how it works for me. Some relationship are objective; i.e. e.g. gravity, others are intersubjective; e.g. that we communicate and some are subjective; e.g. how I make sense versus how you make sense.

Now your external causation is natural, mine is from God. And all you will do, if you argue against my belief, is that you take yours for granted, i.e. that you with reason, logic, evidence, knowledge and objective can show that my position is absurd or what ever. All I then point out, is the my position is not absurd in itself. It is absurd to you.

Appealing to a natural world doesn't help you, it is just another figment of your imagination. It works both ways. You have no evidence, proof, knowledge of a natural world. You believe. I do too. I am just honest.

And I resent that you judge me based on a double standard. You assume a knowledge you don't have, and then judge me for not having knowledge. But neither do you. You have a belief system, which apparently works, though it is nothing but a figment of your imagination, just like mine.

Never however indirect claim knowledge you don't have. You might run into an old school, hard core skeptic. I am not an ontological solipsist, I am worse. I am a skeptic.

 

[Spirit of Light]

The problem with materalism is that one clinging to the objects, and create attachments to it. There are no need to be attached to anything, because when we die, we can not take physical objects with us. In a way we only borrow them as long we are human beings.

 

[Heyo]

The hard problem of consciousness is that we have no definition of consciousness. But we can at least exclude some things from (a dualistic) consciousness.
1. Perception: we can follow the neurological path to a brain region. We know how injuries of that region influence perception. We can induce illusions of perception by electrical or trans cranial stimulation.
2. Memory: although we can't point to a "grandmother cell" in the brain, we have enough evidence from brain injuries that memory is a physical property.
3. Thought: again, enough evidence to link rational thought to the physicality of the brain.
4. "Free will": in quotes because it isn't. The Libet experiments have shown that decisions are made in the unconscious parts of the brain and later rationalized.

Now, what remains for a dualistic consciousness?

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

The hard problem of consciousness is that we have no definition of consciousness. But we can at least exclude some things from (a dualistic) consciousness.
1. Perception: we can follow the neurological path to a brain region. We know how injuries of that region influence perception. We can induce illusions of perception by electrical or trans cranial stimulation.
2. Memory: although we can't point to a "grandmother cell" in the brain, we have enough evidence from brain injuries that memory is a physical property.
3. Thought: again, enough evidence to link rational thought to the physicality of the brain.
4. "Free will": in quotes because it isn't. The Libet experiments have shown that decisions are made in the unconscious parts of the brain and later rationalized.

Now, what remains for a dualistic consciousness?

Now I shouldn't say "hate", but I hate that one. But it is absurd as it nullifies itself - if all decisions are totally unconscious and can't at least sometimes be changed by the conscious parts of the brain and everything is a rationalization after the fact, then this and Libet's claim is a rationalization and not really a fact.

So here is another example: Give humans a moral paradox and some use emotions and others use emotions in combination with reason. It is not just unconsciousness as such, because the frontal lopes are engaged.

So back to "Now, what remains for a dualistic consciousness?" Nothing, but you have only used one frame to tackle the problem.
Another is that not everything can be reduced to physical processes, because - everything can be reduced to physical processes - can't be reduced to physical processes. In other words outside metaphysics, you can't turn everything objective. If you concentrate on objective and subjective without metaphysical baggage, the problem changes.
The world is neither just objective, nor just subjective and the world can't be reduced down to the one or the other. They are connected and then forget all about ontology and metaphysics. That is a lot of fun, but nothing but thinking about reality.

All versions of positive metaphysics are "wrong", not just materialism, because they are all brain "gymnastics" and nothing else.

 

[atanu]

The unresolved issue for dualists is how an immaterial mind could have a causal effect on material reality.

It goes both ways. In order to force a monist model, one cannot presume that the ‘datum’ (the experiencer) itself is illusion. It is ridiculous to reject direct experience claiming it to be representational or folk psychology but accept the third party data generated on brain, as if that is devoid of all representation. Either these guys think that we are fools and will accept anything or they themselves are fools who cannot even see that anomaly.

Much simpler and elegant is the proposition that the very fabric of existence is awareness. In it evolves (and devolves) space-time-objects.

One cannot see pure fabric of awareness (like in deep sleep) unless subject-object contrast is created (like in dream). This model proceeds from singularity and can explain all particular objects, physical or biological.