https://wmpeople.wm.edu/asset/index/.../nagelmindbody

The mind-body problem has no doubt been discussed here before, but I don't remember it, and in this thread I'd like some answers. Specifically, if no amount of scientific observation of the brain processes that occur when eating chocolate can determine what chocolate tastes like, what is to be inferred about the relationship between the mental and the physical?

Here you go:

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/consciousness/

Granted, it doesn't answer your question, but will give you something to read that is related to your question.

You didn't specifically ask, but chocolate tastes pretty nice.

Maybe the insistence that for anything that's happening there must be an answer to the question, "where is it happening?" is a false cognitive imperative. For example, if by "universe" we mean all that is, then it makes no sense to ask, "where is the universe happening?". It's just happening and that's all there is to it.

I'm reminded of the recent hubbub over whether hell is a place. Some of the faithful say hell is the experience of separation from God and needs no place in which that experience is happening. But the traditionalists won the day and the Pope declared that hell is indeed a place. Thus relieving believers of the cognitive dissonance they would have to live with by accepting a tenant that denies a hard wired cognitive imperative telling them that everything that happens requires a place in which it is happening.

If we indeed have such hard wired false cognitive imperatives it calls into question our confidence in human reasoning. The implication is that our "reason" is bound to take us down all sorts of false paths unless we live with the cognitive dissonance of denying our false cognitive imperatives. Insisting that consciousness and experience must happen either in the mind or in the brain may be one such false path.


PairTheBoard

There are fairly good indications that the brain has something to do with it. Surgery of and disease states in and the brain seem to have profound effects on consciousness. Also, it is difficult to see how caffeine would work if conscious experience were somehow not in the brain.

We could try removing someone's brain and have them post about the experience if anyone wants to volunteer.

I agree that the brain has something to do with it in the compelling ways you describe. You might say that conscious experience depends on what's happening in the brain. It's the concept of conscious experience happening in the brain that I find suspicious. I'm wondering whether you are being driven to that conclusion by a false cognitive imperative ("it is difficult to see" otherwise).


PairTheBoard

I don't think I have an imperative. It is, of course, hard to tell whether I do have one, but I think I'd be fine with just about any better explanatory/descriptive/predictive* model** than I currently have so long as I were capable of understanding on a basic level and it didn't conflict with data. That shouldn't really be that hard, given that my model nearly doesn't exist at all. I've no idea why I experience stuff.

I don't expect that any of that counts as an imperative as you meant it, but you can let me know.

*or otherwise useful

** model is meant loosely here. I'd also accept a full on perfect and direct thingamajig, but that seems a bigger request than a model.

"Cognitive imperative" is a new one to me, but google thinks it is either Kantian ethics, or this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collec...ive_imperative

which I'm not sure fits the bill.

Regarding "cognitive imperative", I would not be surprised if you heard it here first because I just made it up. The motivating example is what feels like an insistence of our sense for understanding something that's happening by getting an answer to the question, "where is it happening?". To illustrate why that question might sometimes be inapplicable I gave the example; If by "universe" we mean "all that is", then it's ridiculous to ask "where is the universe happening?". It's just happening and that's all there is to it. I suggest the same might be true of conscious experience. If this is a new idea then hurrah! Something to think about.

The thing is, there are a lot of people who are uncomfortable with "it's happening in the brain" as an answer to "where is it happening?". But they insist it must be happening somewhere. So they create the conceptual inventions of "the mind" or "the soul". Thus what's called "dualism" as a solution to the so called mind/body problem. I suggest discarding both approaches by simply denying the admissibility of the question, "where is it happening?" in the first place.

However, I do agree that conscious experience seems to depend on what's happening in the brain. Going further, it's probably ok to say that what's happening in the brain "produces" conscious experience. I think the more fruitful approach is to ask, exactly what is the nature of what's happening in the brain that produces conscious experience? If we can answer that question we might aim toward designing an AI machine that does the same kind of thing. If we could do that we might get an AI that not only produces conscious experience but which is actually intelligent enough to have a little common sense.

I'm thinking what's unusual about the brain is that it's acting as a sense organ that is constantly sensing itself. The brain senses input from the nervous system. It processes that input and then produces output of its own. The thing is, nearly all the output the brain produces is input directly back to the brain. The brain senses its own output, processes it, and produces more output back to the brain which the brain then senses anew. So what's happening in the brain is an intense, complex, recursive feedback of sense data which the brain both senses as a sense organ and after processing sends back to the brain like it's part of the nervous system.

I don't think we design AI machines to do anything like that. Or at least, not enough of it.


PairTheBoard

But no amount of successful predictive theory or recursive AI design is going to make the Martian reptile scientists any the wiser as to what chocolate tastes like, goddamit.

There is this view...

From Wikipedia:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eliminative_materialism

Not sure if this is a response to behaviourism or something, it just seemed like it might be compelling, and or relevant... Not sure though

I suspect the question, "Does conscious experience exist?" is also a nonsense question closely related to the nonsense hypothetical question, "if conscious experience exists then where does it exist?". I think what's true is most all of us are convinced that conscious experience "happens". Just deny the admissibility of those nonsense questions and we're left with the simple observation that conscious experience happens and that's all there is to it.

You might complain that while my previous post attempts to explain the nature of what's happening in the brain to produce conscious experience, it doesn't answer the question of why conscious experience is produced. I think the "why" question is a problem for physicalists because there's a problem with physicalism. First of all, no matter how hard you try to pin down the meaning of physicalism with precise definitions you end up in a confusing Babel Tower of metaphors supported by the fundamental explanatory metaphor of the "machine".

This goes back to Newton's "clockwork universe". Physicalism is about understanding the universe as a machine, one gear turning another and so on. Therefore, determinism, no free will, and inconveniently no conscious experience. A clock is like a rock, just more complicated. The amazing thing is that this explanatory metaphor has persisted for many physicalists despite the discovery of quantum effects. It's even embedded in the language of quantum theory by way of the name for its mathematical model. Quantum mechanics. Yet quantum effects are very un-machine-like. It may be that the universe is a machine but not all machines behave like a machine.

Why does the universe have the chemistry that it does? Why is it possible for matter to convert to energy in nuclear reactions? Why are the fundamental forces what they are? Why do we need neutrons? Why is conscious experience produced by the nature of what's happening in our brains? Maybe this is just the way existence is and that's all there is to it. Maybe the best we can do is describe what's happening and how things are working. Thus enabling us to invent better tools for dealing with it all.


PairTheBoard

Maybe Mr. Spock could do a Vulcan mind melt in your mouth not in your hand.


PairTheBoard

If ze becomes our mate, ze will think ze understands.

Ah, well if some people feel a need to have answers for everything, then I can relate to the martian scientist not understanding what chocolate tastes like to a human. I don't get that feeling.

I'm quite comfortable not understanding everything. This is fortunate because I'd be quite uncomfortable otherwise.

I'm uncomfortable with not understanding. Trying to get by by improving. Mercy on oneself is key. Acknowledging you are part of the things you don't understand enough (yet )

That is part of the having mercy on oneself.

I don't see how consciousness (or free will) has anything to do with stuff being probabilistic rather than deterministic.

"Consciousness exists because of the probabilistic nature of phenomena," seems to be missing quite a few steps in the explanation. I've never seen a more thorough treatment of the subject than that, once the gobbledygook is boiled out.

I'm, as mentioned above, comfortable with that.

I'd be very surprised to find a person who was unaware that they are part of the universe.

I'm occasionally surprised by people who think that there is something profound in the observation that they are.

Consciousness just happens.

Whether or not you get the feeling, it is relevant to the debate.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_I...ke_to_Be_a_Bat

Oh, I agree. I have a feeling that I don't even really have a good handle on what it is like to be a Charlie, let alone a bat.

The most contentious part of the debate (amongst the published philosophers) seems to be whether the hard problem of consciousness is something worth working on, or whether we should be working on more solvable problems.

I've no clue how one would even begin to solve it, but thinking about it does pass the time somewhat pleasantly.

Ditto. I never even wanted this thread to be about the mind-body problem. I just wanted to stop cluttering the morality thread, and the chocolate example always intrigued me.

The language and interpersonal communication of qualia has always intrigued me.

Mirror neurons are also pretty cool. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirror_neuron

I'm practicing acting like a utilitarian in relationship to the other thread. I'll probably get caught up with it tomorrow, but I need to make at least some attempt at guestimating whether any good will come of it before writing.

Originally Posted by PairTheBoard
"This goes back to Newton's "clockwork universe". Physicalism is about understanding the universe as a machine, one gear turning another and so on. Therefore, determinism, no free will, and inconveniently no conscious experience. A clock is like a rock, just more complicated. The amazing thing is that this explanatory metaphor has persisted for many physicalists despite the discovery of quantum effects."

I'm not making that argument. I'm saying the machine metaphor for the universe is inadequate. People should have picked up on that when quantum effects were discovered. However, that's not to say that quantum effects explain all the ways in which the machine metaphor goes wrong.


PairTheBoard

Well, that is generally how scientific progress (especially one that involves a paradigm shift) works.

Now the universe is better described as a probabilistic machine

The word "determine" is interesting. From dictionary.com we have "to settle or decide (a dispute, question, etc.) by an authoritative or conclusive decision. to conclude or ascertain, as after reasoning, observation, etc. Geometry. to fix the position of. to cause, affect, or control; fix or decide causally".

We might determine the brain activity that produces the experience of tasting chocolate. We might even determine that brain activity in the sense of "to cause" by artificially stimulating the brain activity so as to produce the experience of tasting chocolate without the use of chocolate in the mouth. That might even be said to "determine" the experience of tasting chocolate in the sense of "to cause". But how would you "determine" the experience of tasting chocolate in the sense of "to ascertain"?

Normally we make such determinations via measurements. But aren't all our measurements ways of conveying relevant data to us through our senses so we can experience some sense of understanding what the data relates to? In other words, aren't all our measuring devices just tools to extend our senses? If that's the case then wouldn't the best extended sense device for measuring the experience of tasting chocolate be the sense of taste with no extension required.

You might object that my tasting chocolate does not measure your experience of tasting chocolate. But it is a valid experiment for the general question of "what does chocolate taste like?" It can be repeated by everybody who has the sense of taste. And if that is done then I'd say "what chocolate tastes like" has been "determined". Brains in a vat with no sensory input are left out but then they're also left out of everything determined by science.


PairTheBoard