Can consciousness be reduced?

[Freddy]

Freddy:

As long as we agree that it just seems that way.

Well, I think it’s a little more than seems, but I recognize that my posts hardly count as a rigorous proof.

I think the proof has already been mentioned. Excise parts of the brain and you gradually lose the ability to reason. It’s like one of the scenes at the end of 2001 when Dave starts excising parts of Hal’s ‘brain’. Hal gradually loses his ability to reason and loses his sense of self.

It’s exactly what happens with us. Whether it’s a stroke or an accident or necessary surgery, ‘you’ can be reduced to.something less than ‘you’. This is patently obvious. Beyond any shadow of doubt. How the mind works is still something of a mystery but that it is the operation of the brain itself cannot be denied.

 

[SPBlitz]

I think the proof has already been mentioned. Excise parts of the brain and you gradually lose the ability to reason. It’s like one of the scenes at the end of 2001 when Dave starts excising parts of Hal’s ‘brain’. Hal gradually loses his ability to reason and loses his sense of self.

It’s exactly what happens with us. Whether it’s a stroke or an accident or necessary surgery, ‘you’ can be reduced to.something less than ‘you’. This is patently obvious. Beyond any shadow of doubt. How the mind works is still something of a mystery but that it is the operation of the brain itself cannot be denied.

I think this would only work if the various forms of dualism required thebrain and the mind to not be linked. But they don’t. Both Cartesian and hylomorphic dualism recognize that the brain and mind are linked, and have no problem as such with the idea of brain damage affecting the mind.

Your example, however, still does nothing to reconcile intentionality, mental causation, qualia, etc with Naturalism.

 

[Freddy]

Freddy:

I think the proof has already been mentioned. Excise parts of the brain and you gradually lose the ability to reason. It’s like one of the scenes at the end of 2001 when Dave starts excising parts of Hal’s ‘brain’. Hal gradually loses his ability to reason and loses his sense of self.

It’s exactly what happens with us. Whether it’s a stroke or an accident or necessary surgery, ‘you’ can be reduced to.something less than ‘you’. This is patently obvious. Beyond any shadow of doubt. How the mind works is still something of a mystery but that it is the operation of the brain itself cannot be denied.

I think this would only work if the various forms of dualism required thebrain and the mind to not be linked. But they don’t. Both Cartesian and hylomorphic dualism recognize that the brain and mind are linked, and have no problem as such with the idea of brain damage affecting the mind.

Your example, however, still does nothing to reconcile intentionality, mental causation, qualia, etc with Naturalism.

I don’t accept dualism in any form so I have no problem there. But I’ll accept, as I intimated in the last post, that qualia, intentionality etc are problems yet to be solved. It’s called the ‘hard question’ for good reason.

But it all occurs in that wet meat between your ears. There’s nothing but that.

 

[SPBlitz]

I don’t accept dualism in any form so I have no problem there. But I’ll accept, as I intimated in the last post, that qualia, intentionality etc are problems yet to be solved. It’s called the ‘hard question’ for good reason.

But it all occurs in that wet meat between your ears. There’s nothing but that.

This is question begging - because the very idea of if the wet meat between your ears can even, in principle, exhibit the qualities of intentionally, qualia, etc, is the point that is under discussion. It’s question begging to say “this is a problem for Naturalism, but Naturalism will eventually solve it, so this isn’t really a problem for Naturalism”. Whether or not Naturalism can solve it is the controversial point!

 

[Wesrock]

Often the argument I see made by skeptics/atheists is that there was a time when it was believed by many classical philosophers that life was something too beyond to simply be reduced to the processes of the natural world, that a life force was necessary. But now scientists no longer believe this as life can be described simply in terms of the arrangement of certain molecules and atoms in DNA and cells and proteins. Although consciousness seems very mysterious, like there must be some kind of “force” behind it, it has been suggested that perhaps in the next few centuries we’ll be able to describe consciousness in a reductionist way just as we have been able to do with life. Electrons and protons and neutrons, when arranged in a certain way, may give rise to consciousness just as they do for life. How do we respond to this argument or what is the Christian view of this?

Animal consciousness is material. So we have to be careful what we’re talking about. Human consciousness also involves many material operations (including memory, estimation, imagination, and the ability to take all that raw sense data and create a common/unified sensory experience). It’s intellection that is not reducible to material operations.

 

[Wesrock]

Intentionality is impossible to explain with a materialist philosophy of nature. And by “materialist philosophy of nature”, I don’t just mean “matter is all there is”, but the philosophical commitment that only what is materially quantitative is real (this commitment includes the rejection of formal and final causes in material things). Positivism and verificationism are also commitments that really rule out any possibility of intentionality.

 

[lelinator]

Intentionality is impossible to explain with a materialist philosophy of nature.

Dang, this is one of those times when I wish that I had time to join in the discussion, but unfortunately I don’t. However, I just wanted to say that I don’t think that the above statement is necessarily true. Any physical process that produces order, i.e a river flowing to the sea, or light traveling in a straight line, or flowers turning to face the sun, will at least give the illusion of intentionality. Simply because reality is coherent doesn’t mean that reality is anything more than the result of blind physical processes.

 

[Wesrock]

Wesrock:

Intentionality is impossible to explain with a materialist philosophy of nature.

Dang, this is one of those times when I wish that I had time to join in the discussion, but unfortunately I don’t. However, I just wanted to say that I don’t think that the above statement is necessarily true. Any physical process that produces order, i.e a river flowing to the sea, or light traveling in a straight line, or flowers turning to face the sun, will at least give the illusion of intentionality. Simply because reality is coherent doesn’t mean that reality is anything more than the result of blind physical processes.

Intentionality in respect to consciousness isn’t just “I intend this action” or “this looks like it was intentionally done.” It’s regarding the “aboutness” of a thought, of a thought having any intelligible, conceptual content, of a thought being “pointed at” or “directed to” a concept rather than just a blind operation with nothing there. Whether or not there’s “anyone home” inside a person, to use an expression.

 

[Freddy]

Freddy:

I don’t accept dualism in any form so I have no problem there. But I’ll accept, as I intimated in the last post, that qualia, intentionality etc are problems yet to be solved. It’s called the ‘hard question’ for good reason.

But it all occurs in that wet meat between your ears. There’s nothing but that.

This is question begging - because the very idea of if the wet meat between your ears can even, in principle, exhibit the qualities of intentionally, qualia, etc, is the point that is under discussion. It’s question begging to say “this is a problem for Naturalism, but Naturalism will eventually solve it, so this isn’t really a problem for Naturalism”. Whether or not Naturalism can solve it is the controversial point!

The discussion, as it evolved from your post a little upstream, was whether the mind was a function of the brain. I think I have offered good evidence that it is. So it’s entirely natural. No homunculus. No cartesian theatre. No ethereal essences. Any suggestion that there is something over and above the chemical, electrical and physical operation of the brain itself is akin to vitalism.

There is then a second question as to how this happens. And despite a lot of reading on the subject I am no closer to an answer than anyone else.

 

[SPBlitz]

The discussion, as it evolved from your post a little upstream, was whether the mind was a function of the brain. I think I have offered good evidence that it is. So it’s entirely natural. No homunculus. No cartesian theatre. No ethereal essences. Any suggestion that there is something over and above the chemical, electrical and physical operation of the brain itself is akin to vitalism.

There is then a second question as to how this happens. And despite a lot of reading on the subject I am no closer to an answer than anyone else.

The discussion is whether the mind can be wholly explained by the brain. I think the fact that the brain is made up of non-intentional, purely physical matter, and the mind exhibits intentionality and non-physical properties, is good evidence to believe that, no, the brain is not the whole story.

 

[Freddy]

Whether or not there’s “anyone home” inside a person, to use an expression.

I think we can see that there’s ‘someone home’ in our simian cousins. And even domestic animals as well. And as we move downwards through creatures of less and less complexity, we see that sense of self almost certainly reducing to a point where it ultimately dissapears. So there’s no bright line between ‘being home’ and being completely unaware.

So how else can we describe it other than an evolved feature?

 

[Freddy]

Freddy:

The discussion, as it evolved from your post a little upstream, was whether the mind was a function of the brain. I think I have offered good evidence that it is. So it’s entirely natural. No homunculus. No cartesian theatre. No ethereal essences. Any suggestion that there is something over and above the chemical, electrical and physical operation of the brain itself is akin to vitalism.

There is then a second question as to how this happens. And despite a lot of reading on the subject I am no closer to an answer than anyone else.

The discussion is whether the mind can be wholly explained by the brain. I think the fact that the brain is made up of non-intentional, purely physical matter, and the mind exhibits intentionality and non-physical properties, is good evidence to believe that, no, the brain is not the whole story.

So we go back to removing parts of it and find that our personality is concurrently being reduced. So ‘you’ are obviously within the features of your brain.

If you keep removing parts of a plane it will eventually stop flying. There isn’t something ‘flighty’ about it that keeps it in the air other than the surfaces and controls etc. Neither is there something other than the physical, electrical and chemical components of the brain.

Your answer is in there somewhere. Where else are you going to look?

 

[Wesrock]

Wesrock:

Whether or not there’s “anyone home” inside a person, to use an expression.

I think we can see that there’s ‘someone home’ in our simian cousins. And even domestic animals as well. And as we move downwards through creatures of less and less complexity, we see that sense of self almost certainly reducing to a point where it ultimately dissapears. So there’s no bright line between ‘being home’ and being completely unaware.

So how else can we describe it other than an evolved feature?

I never said “nobody’s home” in animals. I said intentionality is impossible to explain and can’t (or shouldn’t) exist under certain philosophical commitments (positivism, verificationism, excluding formal and final causes from nature).

No homunculus.

Agreed.

No cartesian theatre.

Agreed.

No ethereal essences.

Agreed.

Any suggestion that there is something over and above the chemical, electrical and physical operation of the brain itself is akin to vitalism.

Not true, going by Wikipedia’s more thorough and historically accurate definition (compared to Google’s hamstrung definition). "Vitalism is the belief that “living organisms are fundamentally different from non-living entities because they contain some non-physical element or are governed by different principles than are inanimate things.”

 

[SPBlitz]

So we go back to removing parts of it and find that our personality is concurrently being reduced. So ‘you’ are obviously within the features of your brain.

Again, this only would work if competing non-Naturalist theories of the mind rejected that the mind and the brain are linked. They don’t, so your example would do little to refute them.

If you keep removing parts of a plane it will eventually stop flying. There isn’t something ‘flighty’ about it that keeps it in the air other than the surfaces and controls etc. Neither is there something other than the physical, electrical and chemical components of the brain.

This is because a plane does not exhibit non physical properties. Everything about it’s behavior is explicable via physical processes. The aspects of the mind I keep point out (intentionality etc) are non-physical and do not have a Naturalist explanation, so you are comparing apples to oranges

 

[Freddy]

Not true, going by Wikipedia’s more thorough and historically accurate definition (compared to Google’s definition). "Vitalism is the belief that “living organisms are fundamentally different from non-living entities because they contain some non-physical element or are governed by different principles than are inanimate things.”

If we have intentionality and other animals do as well then it stands to reason that it is an evolved feature.

And as regards ‘vitalism’, it relates to life in the same way as the suggestion that there is something ‘other’ than the material operation of the brain. Some ‘non physical element’. It sounds almost Victorian in it’s view.

What you see is what you get. There’s nothing behind the curtain.

 

[Freddy]

Freddy:

So we go back to removing parts of it and find that our personality is concurrently being reduced. So ‘you’ are obviously within the features of your brain.

Again, this only would work if competing non-Naturalist theories of the mind rejected that the mind and the brain are linked. They don’t, so your example would do little to refute them.

I’ve given a reason to show that they are linked. You’ll need a reason that refutes that.

 

[SPBlitz]

I’ve given a reason to show that they are linked. You’ll need a reason that refutes that.

I agree they are linked. I don’t agree that the mind is wholly reducible to the brain. I’ve already given a reason why - the mind exhibits properties that do not follow from the physical properties of the brain (the physical structure of the brain lacks intentionality, and it’s components are ruled by physical laws and not logical laws, etc) Therefore, there must be something else to account for these properties.

 

[Wesrock]

If we have intentionality and other animals do as well then it stands to reason that it is an evolved feature.

You keep bringing it back to whether it involved through the natural order. As I wrote above, my issue isn’t regarding that at all. It’s regarding how certain philosophical commitments make it impossible to explain intentionality, whether in animal behavior or human thought.

And as regards ‘vitalism’, it relates to life in the same way as the suggestion that there is something ‘other’ than the material operation of the brain. Some ‘non physical element’. It sounds almost Victorian in it’s view.

Vitalism is the idea that there is some additional principle which distinguishes living things from non-living things. That’s a 18th - 19th century idea. It’s not the Aristotlean position, which is that all material things, living and non-living, are composites of prime matter and form. A vitalism approach to hylemorphism would be that non-living things are matter and form, and that living things are matter, form, and some vital principle. That is not the Aristotlean position. There is not a third principle that distinguishes living things from non-living things.

What you see is what you get. There’s nothing behind the curtain.

Well, that’s precisely my issue. You cannot “see” any type of purpose, intentionality, aboutness, or conceptual content in neuron’s firing or any other matter. But according to the claim that only what you see is what is there, it “can’t” be there at all. Yet we observe intentionality in action and experience it in thought. And to state I think for the third time, my issue is with certain philosophical commitments such as positivism, verificationism, and positions that rule out any type of formal or final causality in material things. According to these commitments, intentionality or aboutness can only be in a thing if we can measure it, and we can’t do that. Not just “we can’t do it yet”, it’s not possible under those commitments. Intentionality shouldn’t be behind the curtain according to these commitments.

 

[Wesrock]

There are two points being made here, and I’m afraid they’re being muddled.

(1) Philosophical materialism (or perhaps I should focus on material reductionism) isn’t sufficient to explain animals or human beings as anything more than empty robots, as it rules out any epistemic means to find more or ontic means for there to be more in material (I’m not even proposing anything non-material here).

(2) Human thought is not just about particulars but is about universals. That type of intentionality or universal abstraction is inexplicable through only material operations.

And to reiterate for number two, human consciousness does have material operations. The senses, of course. Memory, estimation, imagination, and the common sensory experience (from raw sense data) are also all material operations.

 

[Dan_Defender]

Just some advice here, Dan. I would strongly suggest that you say that life appearing naturally seems a very infrequent occurence as opposed to implying that it needed some divine sleight of hand. If you put all your eggs in the one abiogenesis basket and next week someone says - ‘hey, look what we’ve discovered - we just made life in the laboratory’, then that takes God out of the equation.

I believe there is a much higher probability of you finding that God undoubtedly exists (by your standard) at the end of your lifetime. Nothing you can say would ever make me doubt my faith, so do not waste your time on me, try with others.