Why materialism is wrong regarding consciousness

[Left Coast]

1000 assertions that third party verbal reports or brain images of ‘orgasm’ equal ‘orgasm’ cannot make the assertions true.

The verbal reports I'm talking about are first person, not third person. I am the best source of data on my own conscious experience. If I honestly tell you how I'm feeling, you can generally take that to the bank.

Let me put it in another way.

I record correlations of my behaviours and subjective experiences with brain images.

Then, Dennett like, I conclude that the brain images constitute the mind. The experiencer (myself) and the experiences are illusions. Basically it amounts to that.

If that's an accurate reduction of Dennett's position, then yes that seems a bit far. Again, I would emphasize that we have more than correlation. We have empirically demonstrated causation. We can even know this subjectively about our own selves, if you're going go deny we can ever know what is in anyone else's mind. Have you ever been hangry (angry/irritable due to hunger)? I have. That's a change in my conscious experience caused by a physical change in my body/brain.

 

[atanu]

The verbal reports I'm talking about are first person, not third person. .

Okay. Please prepare a report on your recent orgasmic experience. Let us see whether that report is equal to first person experience of orgasm or not?

 

[Left Coast]

Okay. Please prepare a report on your recent orgasmic experience. Let us see whether that report is equal to first person experience of orgasm or not?

You cannot literally experience my orgasm in my place. You can understand my description of orgasm as well as you can understand any observation of anything outside your head that you've ever observed in your life. And particularly if you've had an orgasm before, you will know when I describe my orgasm exactly what I am likely conveying given your own experiences. This is the foundation of empathy (which is neurological, btw).

 

[atanu]

You cannot literally experience my orgasm in my place. You can understand my description of orgasm as well as you can understand any observation of anything outside your head that you've ever observed in your life. And particularly if you've had an orgasm before, you will know when I describe my orgasm exactly what I am likely conveying given your own experiences. This is the foundation of empathy (which is neurological, btw).

Yeah. Do you agree the importance of first person experience then? Furthermore, do you think that physical parameters such as mass, spin, momentum, charge, of the physical ultimates give rise to sense of "I" and then sense of warmth, sweetness of sugar, and bitterness of failed love, and the thrill etc. etc.

How?

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Yeah. Do you agree the importance of first person experience then? Furthermore, do you think that physical parameters such as mass, spin, momentum, charge, of the physical ultimates give rise to sense of "I" and then sense of warmth, sweetness of sugar, and bitterness of failed love, and the thrill etc. etc.

How?

We don't know.

 

[atanu]

We don't know.

Physicalists have instituted a law of causal closure, which mandates that for physical, (including behavioural ) events, the cause has to be physical alone. There is another general principle of ‘exclusion’, which stipulates that one event will have one unique cause. And a third assumption is that mental causation and consciousness are supervenient on material objects and causes.

With such presumptions, how can a mental causation or a conscious experience be ever explained?

The physical ultimates are characterised by measurable parameters: mass, location, spin, momentum, charge etc. . There is yet no formula that shows how these physical ultimates suddenly develop power of cognition and perception.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Physicalists have instituted a law of causal closure, which mandates that for physical, (including behavioural ) events, the cause has to be physical alone. There is another general principle of ‘exclusion’, which stipulates that one event will have one unique cause. And a third assumption is that mental causation and consciousness are supervenient on material objects and causes.

With such presumptions, how can a mental causation or a conscious experience be ever explained?

The physical ultimates are characterised by measurable parameters: mass, location, spin, momentum, charge etc. . There is yet no formula that shows how these physical ultimates suddenly develop power of cognition and perception.

Yes, but from there doesn't follow anything. No God or anything else. How come we are conscious, is unknown, remember?

 

[Left Coast]

Yeah. Do you agree the importance of first person experience then?

Of course I think first person experience is important! What I don't think is that simply because we can't somehow connect your brain to my brain to allow you to feel exactly what I feel as I feel it means there's a God.

Furthermore, do you think that physical parameters such as mass, spin, momentum, charge, of the physical ultimates give rise to sense of "I" and then sense of warmth, sweetness of sugar, and bitterness of failed love, and the thrill etc. etc.

Yea, I do think so, because they've given rise to literally everything else we've ever discovered and explained.

How?

No idea. But our ignorance does not mean God did it. That is simply a God of the gaps.

 

[atanu]

Of course I think first person experience is important! What I don't think is that simply because we can't somehow connect your brain to my brain to allow you to feel exactly what I feel as I feel it means there's a God.

Yea, I do think so, because they've given rise to literally everything else we've ever discovered and explained.

No idea. But our ignorance does not mean God did it. That is simply a God of the gaps.

I am not talking of God. I am trying to demonstrate that the explanatory gap: the senseless fundamental particles somehow becoming replete with sensual desires is a too big a gap. It is absurd.

OTOH, my aim is modest. Why can we not even consider
Idealism: Reality consists exclusively of mind and its contents?

 

[Left Coast]

I am not talking of God. I am trying to demonstrate that the explanatory gap: the senseless fundamental particles somehow becoming replete with sensual desires is a too big a gap. It is absurd.

Yes, when you ignore all intermediate steps, I can see how it would appear, "too big a gap." We didn't spring from the primordial ooze in our present form.

Let me ask you, does my cat have "sensual desires?"

OTOH, my aim is modest. Why can we not even consider
Idealism: Reality consists exclusively of mind and its contents?

Sure, we can consider it. How do we test to see if it's true?

The thing is, reality acts just like it's really there and not just a product of my mind, and it benefits me to behave as though it's really there. So if we're all in the Matrix or this is all a dream, I really don't care because it has zero impact on how I understand and interact with reality.

 

[atanu]

Yes, when you ignore all intermediate steps, I can see how it would appear, "too big a gap." We didn't spring from the primordial ooze in our present form.

Let me ask you, does my cat have "sensual desires?"

Why not. It has preference for milk and fish.

Sure, we can consider it. How do we test to see if it's true?

We can discuss it. But it will take time.

The thing is, reality acts just like it's really there and not just a product of my mind, and it benefits me to behave as though it's really there. So if we're all in the Matrix or this is all a dream, I really don't care because it has zero impact on how I understand and interact with reality.

Consider your current world view.

There are some particles and their arrangements out there. There is also a particular arrangement of neurones in brain. The brain recreates a picture of what is out there.

So, what is realistic about that? It is the most abstract situation. How do we ever know that there is something out there? How do we know that the representation manufactured by the particular arrangement of material (brain) is actually what it is? How do we even know that brain itself is not a representation?

Furthermore, how these material entities that are characterised by mass, spin, momentum etc. generate phenomenal experiences?


OTOH, science is not very comfortable with realism that we speak highly about.

An experimental test of non-local realism


...

 

[Left Coast]

Why not. It has preference for milk and fish.

Okay, so you grant that there are versions of "sensual desire" less sophisticated than human ones. Is the gap you think is too large from inorganic matter to any "sensual desire" of any life form, no matter how rudimentary, or from the sensual desires of other animals to humans?

Consider your current world view.

There are some particles and their arrangements out there. There is also a particular arrangement of neurones in brain. The brain recreates a picture of what is out there.

So, what is realistic about that?

From the perspective of a layperson who knows minimal science, it is as realistic as it gets. I perceive a stove turned on, I place my hand on it. Lo and behold, the stove is hot and I feel pain. In the future when I avoid the hot stove, I do not feel the same heat or pain.

As I learn more, I can discover that I can actually measure how hot the stove is, and that measurement is consistent over time. I can discover that there is a degree of heat at which the stove no longer hurts when I place my hand on it.

As I learn even more, I can discover that the heat of an object is actually caused by how energetically its particles are moving around, and I can change the heat of an object by applying more or less energy to it.

As I learn even more, I can discover my nervous system, connected to my brain, and that it allows me to feel that heat and pain. If my nerves get damaged, I can observe that I can no longer perceive the heat or pain that I did before, until those nerves are healed.

Now again, could all of the above be a dream, a hallucination, a figment of my over-active imagination? Maybe. But again, if the reality I interact with acts exactly like I would expect an external reality to work, then who cares?

It is the most abstract situation.

How? It is literally as pragmatic as one can get. The reason empirical explanations of phenomena stick around is because they are useful. If they weren't, people would abandon them.

How do we ever know that there is something out there? How do we know that the representation manufactured by the particular arrangement of material (brain) is actually what it is? How do we even know that brain itself is not a representation?

By testing it. This is how we help people who suffer from psychotic disorders, who hallucinate things that aren't actually there.

Philosophically, I don't know a way around the problem of hard solipsism, because like all unfalsifiable assertions there's no way to ever completely rule it out.

Furthermore, how these material entities that are characterised by mass, spin, momentum etc. generate phenomenal experiences?

Even if we don't understand every step of the process (scientists who study this surely know more than I do), the fact that they are generated via physical/natural processes is undeniable. Again, we know this because we have tested it. When people have disorders that distort their perceptions, the only testable, verifiable solutions we have ever come up with to help them in the history of our species are physical/natural remedies. I'm near-sighted. How do we fix that? I wear glasses that supplement my eyes' deficient ability to properly refract light. And when I wear them, lo and behold, my vision is corrected. Again, if physical properties of reality don't produce phenomenal experiences, that shouldn't work. And yet it does work.

OTOH, science is not very comfortable with realism that we speak highly about.

An experimental test of non-local realism


...

Looks like you have to buy the article to get access beyond the abstract. Sounds interesting, I don't know much about the concept of "locality," so I'll have to read up.