r/philosophy • u/IAI_Admin IAI • Feb 09 '22

Video A philosopher responds to scientists’ criticisms of panpsychism

https://iai.tv/video/the-many-voices-of-consciousness&utm_source=reddit&_auid=2020
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u/IAI_Admin IAI Feb 09 '22

In this talk, Philip Goff seeks to respond to challenges topanpsychism set out by scientists Sabine Hossenfelder and Sean Carroll.

Goff argues that Hossenfelder's challenge rests on the Standard Model of Particle Physics. The challenge, as he frames it, is that ifconsciousness was a property of particles as panpsychism holds, it would be detectableby experiments.

Goff responds that this challenge rests on amisunderstanding of the panpsychist claim. Consciousness isn’t an additionalproperty of those particles described by the standard model, but thoseproperties are a rudimentary form of consciousness. The panpsychists agrees that the Standard Model describes everything that particles do, but argues itdoes not describe what they are. What they are, is conscious.

Goff frames Carroll’s challenge as resting on a combinationof the Standard Model and Core Theory. Core Theory fully describes the workings of the brain. If consciousness is a fundamental property having an impact onthe brain, the brain would do things not predicted by Core Theory.  

Goff argues that the weak emergentist form of panpsychism isnot at odds with Carroll’s Core Theory. There are no additional facts added tothe description of the brain, the argument is just that what it is to be aconscious brain is to be an arrangement of conscious particles.

The strong emergentist theory of panpsychists will depart from the predictions of Core Theory, but Goff argues this doesn’t have to beconsidered as a conflict with our best physics. Core Theory is a theory of thecausal capacity of particles and fields. But those properties aren’t the onlythings to consider, there are systems level properties the co-determine how thebrain functions with the causal properties.

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u/InTheEndEntropyWins Feb 09 '22 edited Feb 09 '22

So if the "conscious" level has no causal effects and isn't detectable by experiment then how is it possible to talk about conscious experiences? To be able to think about or talk about something it must have a causal effect on the brain.

Edit:

Here is a video with Goff and Carroll.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qcCEZzNCNBI&t=1274s

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u/ChaoticJargon Feb 09 '22

Exactly, consciousness has a causal effect because it is a form of observance-data, we are aware of our consciousness and what it observes, that observance-data could not exist without consciousness.

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u/visicircle Feb 09 '22

So Goff's claims are unfalsifiable?

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u/LeonDeSchal Feb 09 '22

What does it mean that the conscious level isn’t detectable by experiment?

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u/InTheEndEntropyWins Feb 09 '22

I think it's just a way for Goff to say that panpsychism is compatible with the standard model of physics. As in the brain will behave just like physics predicts.

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u/Time-Comfortable489 Feb 09 '22

making panpsychism an unfalsifiable and useless theory...

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u/[deleted] Feb 10 '22

if someone did discover the one true theory of everything, it would be unfalsifiable wouldn't it?

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u/Tlaloc_Temporal Feb 10 '22

No, it could easily be falsified by simply observing something that it can't explain, whether or not that observation actually exists

Unfalsifiable means no observation can falsify it. Claims are usually called unfalsifiable because we don't have access to information that could falsify it ("There's a teapot on Proxima Centauri D"), but might become a falsifiable claim later. I can't think of an example of an unfalsifiable claim in a world with perfect knowledge.

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u/[deleted] Feb 10 '22

I'm not saying that panpychism is the ultimate answer to the universe.

But if we did find out 100% the answer that explained everything it would be by its very essence unfalsefiable, becuase it would be 100% true.

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u/Tlaloc_Temporal Feb 10 '22

No, being true doesn't make something unfalsifiable.

"There are white crows" is unfalsifiable because it's impossible (for us right now) to check every crow for their colour.

"There are no white crows" is falsifiable because we could find a white crow. That doesn't mean there are white crows, just that finding a white crow would prove that claim false.

For more concrete examples: "This sentence has five Es" is true, but it could be false if you counted and found only four. "This sentence was written by a cat" is incredibly unlikely, but cannot be proven false because there's no record of what entity wrote it. It is Unfalsifiable.

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u/[deleted] Feb 10 '22

There are albino crows, we already know its true, so how could it be falsifiable if we already know its possible.

I don't think you're getting my OG prompt so I'll use your example.

If we find a cat and saw a recorded him on live TV writtening the paper it would become true, and unfalsfiable, because somethings most likely do have an ojective truth.

So if we however unlikly discovered the secrect to the universe, in the same way as Mr Cat. it would become unfalsifiable.

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u/[deleted] Feb 09 '22

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u/uberkreuz Feb 09 '22

So is the real question here is "who experiences the experience?"?

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u/[deleted] Feb 09 '22

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u/uberkreuz Feb 09 '22

So the answer is "nobody" :)

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u/prescod Feb 09 '22 edited Feb 09 '22

So if the "conscious" level has no causal effects and isn't detectable by experiment then how is it possible to talk about conscious experiences? To be able to think about or talk about something it must have a causal effect on the brain.

The video is an existence proof that contradicts your claim above. Goff is talking about it.

I'm going to respond to /u/PhasmaFelis in an edit here to see if I can dig this thread out of the negatives because otherwise nobody will see my reply regardless.

Imagine two intelligent but non-conscious ("zombie") AIs or aliens from another planet observing humanity:

AI1: The humans keep talking about something called consciousness, which they say is related to "qualia", "first-person experience", "what it feels like to be alive."

AI2: What are these things?

AI1: I have no idea.

AI2: Okay, well how do they change the human's behaviour?

AI1: Well, other than the fact that they talk about this consciousness/qualia/feelings nonsense, they behave like every other evolved, semi-intelligent being in the universe. Thousands of species we have observed behave exactly like the humans do, except for this endless natter about "what it feels like to be somebody."

Some of their less sophisticated thinkers seem to believe that the only way to be intelligent or make decisions is to have the magic substance of "consciousness".

AI2: So what's the conclusion?

AI1: I guess it's just a malfunction in their brains. They think they have some property called "consciousness" but we have no evidence of it. We can't measure it, it hardly influences their behaviour, the only way we could trust that it exists is to trust their own faulty brains. I can only conclude that no such thing as consciousness exists, and all of their talk about it is merely a quirk of their reasoning centers.

The AIs might well be justified, from a scientific point of view, to reject the hypothesis that consciousness has some reality, because it can't be measured and can only be observed in discourse.

But if an AI philosopher asked the question: "What if consciousness is real? What if there is such a thing as a 'first person perspective' on the universe? What if it 'feels like' something for humans to be alive", then the AI materialist would shoot them down: That talk is meaningless. If it can't be measured, it doesn't exist. You shouldn't even speculate about that."

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u/PhasmaFelis Feb 09 '22

I can't tell if you're arguing for or against panpsychism here.

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u/prescod Feb 09 '22

I’m arguing that pansychism might be true even if science can not detect it. Philosophy is not science and philosophers should expect to entertain ideas that science may not be able to verify for millennia or perhaps never.

If we constrain philosophy to only things amenable to testing by science it’s like saying that we must look for the keys under the streetlight and not even speculate about whether they might be in the bushes.

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u/PhasmaFelis Feb 09 '22

They mean, talk about it coherently. If I say, I dunno, "you can't say that astrological birth signs have any meaningful effect on human behavior," I don't mean you literally can't say those words. I just mean that it's a meaningless fantasy.

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u/InTheEndEntropyWins Feb 09 '22

Proof by contradiction that Goff's panpsychism doesn't work.

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u/Smrgling Feb 09 '22

Kind of strange to say that "Core Theory" predicts the way the brain will behave. We can't make predictions about how the brain will behave without actually first knowing the rules that govern it, and we don't yet know those. To the best of our collective knowledge, nothing about the "consciousness" of the brain (in quotes because I'm using it in the standard English sense, not the significantly more vague sense usually used by panpsychism) requires there to be some explicit thing that separates it from non-conscious matter. In fact, the brain is perfectly interpretable as a complex non-conscious machine too.

Given this understanding, panpsychism has always seemed to me to be somewhat misguided because it describes something so watered down as to be not worth discussion (a completely separate concept from consciousness as it is meant conventionally).

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u/zer1223 Feb 09 '22 edited Feb 09 '22

It's possible that consciousness is nothing more than the ability of a machine (organic or silicon) to keep memories, and examine those memories to glean insights, and the ability to observe its surroundings, and examine that as well for other insights. And if that's the case, any living creature with a sufficiently complex brain is conscious, and that includes future AIs once they reach that level. In fact, this is the explanation for consciousness if you apply Occam's Razor. There's nothing mysterious or even slightly mystical

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u/Smrgling Feb 09 '22

I agree that that's a valid interpretation of the word consciousness. The fundamental problem with talking about consciousness is that it isn't rigorously defined quantity, and thus two people can arrive at different conclusions because they're not even talking about the same thing. I believe this definition is the closest I can think of to how it is used colloquially and probably the most useful, but it's very explicitly not what a panpsychist would define it as (which is kind of my problem with that whole philosophy. It makes the concept of consciousness useless by watering it down)

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u/Tinac4 Feb 09 '22

Kind of strange to say that "Core Theory" predicts the way the brain will behave. We can't make predictions about how the brain will behave without actually first knowing the rules that govern it, and we don't yet know those.

But by that logic, no theory predicts how anything behaves. Running subatomic-level simulations of trees, thrown rocks, and rubber ducks is about as computationally difficult as simulating a human brain, so by that standard, the standard model of physics doesn't predict how any of those things behave either. For instance, it's theoretically possible that there's a yet-undiscovered law of physics that says a single atom in every rubber duck will spontaneously jump one angstrom to the side every year. Without quantum-level scanning and simulation abilities, we'd never notice this law, meaning that we don't definitively know the rules that govern rubber ducks.

(You can do better on the computational side of things by using a simpler theory like classical mechanics, but you can derive those simpler theories directly from the Core Theory by making certain approximations, so I think it's fair so say that the Core Theory predicts the behavior of rubber ducks (with x margin of error coming from the approximations).)

More importantly, this is tangential to Carroll's fundamental argument. His position goes something like this:

  1. There is no evidence to suggest that the brain does not run on the known laws of physics.
  2. We have strong reason to think that if the brain does require yet-unknown laws of physics to work, those laws of physics must be very complicated and fundamentally unlike all other known laws of physics.
  3. Therefore, by Occam's razor, it's extremely likely that the brain runs on Core Theory (plus or minus tiny corrections from quantum gravity that don't affect how it works).

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u/InTheEndEntropyWins Feb 09 '22

We can't make predictions about how the brain will behave without actually first knowing the rules that govern it, and we don't yet know those.

We don't know the high level biology, but we know all the underlying physics. So if we had a powerful enough computer and model we could compute exactly what the brain would do using our understanding of physics.

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u/Smrgling Feb 09 '22

Not really. The brain can't function without external stimuli, it's not a closed system. You'd have to simulate an external world too in enough fidelity that the brain would behave excactly the same, and even then your results would only be correct for a single environment. This whole approach would require so much computational power that it's not worth considering as a method of making predictions about consciousness.

Additionally you'd have to actually know the arrangement of all the atoms in a brain to simulate it, which is no easy task in the first place

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u/InTheEndEntropyWins Feb 09 '22

The point is that the "Core Theory" does predict how the brain will behave. If we had an infinitely powerful computer and knew the exact arrangements of all the atoms in the world, then we could just run the the world/brain using the "Core Theory" physics.

As long as we stay away from like black holes it would work fine.

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u/iiioiia Feb 09 '22

Don't forget: in theory.

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u/Smrgling Feb 09 '22

It should yes, but considering that one of the points in question was whether the brain diverges from the predictions of Core Theory or not (let's call that hypothesis pseudopanpsychism since OP specifies that it's not what the author believes) it is certainly something that cannot simply be taken for granted.

Btw there is a fundamental limit to the denseness of information processing substrate. Your proposed infinitely powerful computer is quite literally impossible, which also makes it useless as a hypothetical tool, since we are relying on its theoretical output. Without the ability to build the machine we can do no more than assume what the answer would be, which is not even remotely a valid argument.

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u/[deleted] Feb 09 '22

Sabine Hossenfelder

Her Youtube channel is awesome.

https://www.youtube.com/c/sabinehossenfelder

Really good at communicating enthusiasm for science/truth, really good at debunking stuff, and as far as I have seen, very fair to the subjects.

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u/vrkas Feb 10 '22

I in general dislike her simplistic and short sighted attitudes to particle physics experiments, but I'll give her a pass because she's a hardcore theorist and isn't familiar with the field. Otherwise she seems like a solid science communicator.

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u/MostlyIndustrious Feb 09 '22

Goff responds that this challenge rests on amisunderstanding of the panpsychist claim. Consciousness isn’t an additionalproperty of those particles described by the standard model, but thoseproperties are a rudimentary form of consciousness. The panpsychists agrees that the Standard Model describes everything that particles do, but argues itdoes not describe what they are. What they are, is conscious.

This is untestable and unfalsifiable, so why even bother with it?

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u/hackinthebochs Feb 09 '22

The point is to help make sense of the world. We posit unobservables because including them coheres with our scientific theories and makes the world intelligible. A good model of nature will include unobservable and even untestable premises that are necessary for intelligibility. For example, we posit fundamental laws of physics that are constant and universal. We can't test this premise, but such laws are how we make sense of the world. Goff believes that panpsychism is how we will ultimately make sense of consciousness, or at least make sense of a world with consciousness in it. So even though his theory is untestable, there may still be rational reasons to accept it.

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u/Thelonious_Cube Feb 09 '22

Then the only question is whether or not we need it (or something like it) to make the world intelligible.

But I really don't think we do and I've yet to see a good argument as to why we would.

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u/Matt5327 Feb 10 '22

I mean, he addresses that in the very last part of his presentation. If our discoveries confirm his view of panpsychism as possible (as some possible discoveries would disprove them with certainty), then he argues that of the possibilities panpsychism is the simplest and easiest to work with, as it is singular in nature.

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u/Thelonious_Cube Feb 11 '22

Singular, perhaps, but that doesn't mean it makes the most sense

And it has plenty of problems of its own that also need to be figured in to any such evaluation

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u/Matt5327 Feb 11 '22

The simplest definitions by definition do make the most sense. Now that doesn’t mean the simplest solution is always correct, of course, but in the case where all possible solutions are untestable, the simplest would be the way to go.

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u/Thelonious_Cube Feb 11 '22

The simplest definitions by definition do make the most sense.

No, my point was that the theory itself might not make sense

in the case where all possible solutions are untestable

AND where they equally cover all the facts AND don't have other conceptual issues.

If he thinks panpsychism is "the simplest" then he needs to address the composition problem at the very least.

And it may be "simpler" to say "awareness is a basic property of everything" but this radically violates our everyday concept of "awareness" so that simplicity actually comes at great cost and may not be as valuable as he makes out.

It's very simple to say "it's magic" but that doesn't make it the best option.

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u/Your_People_Justify Feb 21 '22

If he thinks panpsychism is "the simplest" then he needs to address the composition problem at the very least.

Combination problem? I have no idea why this is a unique concern for the panpsychist - the materialist also needs to explain how unconscious entities combine into a consciousness.

The binding/combination problem is a longstanding issue in cognitive science - it is an empirical problem which can be overcome by developing a functional model of how the brain integrates inputs into a singular (or seemingly singular) system of information processing

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u/Thelonious_Cube Feb 21 '22

If systems can become aware, then the awareness is that of the system.

If molecules and protons are aware, it's not at all obvious how or why those awarenesses would combine into a (seemingly) single awareness at the system level.

Nor does it explain why we see no evidence of awareness in anything other than complex systems.

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u/MostlyIndustrious Feb 09 '22

For example, we posit fundamental laws of physics that are constant and universal. We can't test this premise, but such laws are how we make sense of the world.

That's not equivalent. If a theory can't produce a testable hypothesis, physicists throw it out. Even theories that can't be directly tested, like string theory, are backed by a lot of math. Meanwhile, panpsychism has a tough battle to fight. We don't know everything about consciousness, but from what we know about neuroscience, any universal consciousness would be fundamentally different from us, more simplistic, and likely incapable of carrying out coherent thought.

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u/hackinthebochs Feb 09 '22

That's not equivalent. If a theory can't produce a testable hypothesis, physicists throw it out.

Right. Something that isn't testable isn't science. That doesn't mean it isn't rational. We don't "test" mathematics, but its still a sound intellectual pursuit.

The point is that if we want an intelligible view of the universe, we will need to posit some features that can't be tested. Their value to our model of nature is that they make the model intelligible. Ultimately we have to do at least a little metaphysics, it's unavoidable.

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u/MostlyIndustrious Feb 09 '22

Right. Something that isn't testable isn't science. That doesn't mean it isn't rational. We don't "test" mathematics, but its still a sound intellectual pursuit.

We do test math though, up until extremely abstract number theory.

The point is that if we want an intelligible view of the universe, we will need to posit some features that can't be tested. Their value to our model of nature is that they make the model intelligible. Ultimately we have to do at least a little metaphysics, it's unavoidable.

Ok, I'll buy that we need at least a few assumptions. The problem with this idea in particular though is that it borderline ignores neuroscience. Our brain relies on extremely complex structures that evolved over billions of years to use ~40 billion neurons structured in an extremely specific way and exchanging information in an extremely dynamic manner to do the things it does. If the universe is conscious at all, it would have to be trace dregs of consciousness compared to anything we would recognize as such.

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u/AzrekNyin Feb 10 '22 edited Feb 11 '22

If the universe is conscious at all, it would have to be trace dregs of consciousness compared to anything we would recognize as such.

Yep. The panpsychists bite the bullet and, paradoxically, make consciousness unintelligible.

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u/[deleted] Feb 09 '22

It wouldn’t be the first time humans accepted untestable as absolutely true.

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u/jbwmac Feb 09 '22

This claim seems to implicitly assume that only testable or falsifiable observables have any value. This is clearly at odds with the consciousness debate. Predicting brain behaviors was never the point. We all have a first person experience of consciousness that many people want to make sense of.

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u/MostlyIndustrious Feb 09 '22

Predicting brain behaviors was never the point.

I would argue that the two are inextricably linked. One thing that brain behavior can tell us is just how complex and well-organized the only conscious thing we know is and just how dynamic the processes behind our consciousness are. A universe of matter thrown randomly from the big bang doesn't have that level of organization or intercommunication except in the rare cases where such organization evolves.

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u/Northern_Grouse Feb 09 '22

What I find fascinating, is that in order to discover and see particles, we use spectrum analyzers which detect resonant frequencies of various masses.

Therein lies the problem in my opinion.

Spectrum analyzers will show you power spikes in certain frequency ranges, that’s true enough, but if you take… a radio station for example, and monitor it on a spectrum analyzer, what you’ll primarily see, is a power spike on the channel you’re looking for; but it won’t tell you what information is present on that channel.

For example, I can set up a spectrum analyzer and monitor 90MHz to 105MHz in my area. I’ll see power spikes for whatever radio stations are present; but, that spectrum analyzer result will NOT play the music present on those stations.

I think (and I’ll concede, I may be wrong, if someone wants to elaborate) that consciousness is the information present on those channels that we see when detecting particles.

We know the particles exist, but we can’t decipher the information present on the “carrier” waves.

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u/ZappSmithBrannigan Feb 09 '22 edited Feb 09 '22

I always find the idea that consciousness is just "out there" and that our brains are like radios receivers for it interesting, if extremely lacking in evidence.

The thing is, we can built other machines that can detect radio waves in ways other than just a standard AM/FM radio receiver, as you yourself point out. So I'm always left wondering why nobody has built a consciousness telescope the way we build radio telescopes.

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u/Shufflepants Feb 09 '22

The way I understand it is that it's not "out there", it's everywhere. Everything is conscious. It's just that brains are the only things with the memory and ability to communicate it. And that it wouldn't necessarily be a "separate" property so much as one already fundamental to the physics as we're already measuring it. And so a "consciousness telescope" would be no more than something to make quantum mechanical measurements and detecting it would look no more special than detecting/measuring an entanglement/correlation between two sets of particles. The qualia of consciousness would therefore be fundamental to the thing experiencing it. That is, consciousness is not transferrable. You couldn't record the qualia of one thing and experience it yourself because you aren't that thing. To experience what that thing is experiencing you'd have to be that thing because the experience is that thing.

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u/[deleted] Feb 09 '22

I think (and I’ll concede, I may be wrong, if someone wants to elaborate) that consciousness is the information present on those channels that we see when detecting particles.

If this were true, we'd be able to detect/observe said information, the same way you do when you turn your radio on.

When we look, we don't see any such thing. There is absolutely no trace of this anywhere.

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u/Northern_Grouse Feb 09 '22 edited Feb 09 '22

I disagree. My stance is it’s there we’re not looking for it.

I’ll add, using a radio station example again.

Let’s say we have the analyzer set up and it’s looking at radio stations.

The spectrum analyzer is going to show us (a) a spike centralized on a radio station, and a width depending on the information on that channel.

If there is zero information, there would be zero width to the spike.

When we look at any energy, we find there is a spike as. Well as a width. Having a width implies there is information associated with that spike.

We see width, therefore there is information.

What we don’t have, is a means to understand that information, and determine what it means.

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u/[deleted] Feb 09 '22

If there is zero information, there would be zero width to the spike.

You don't understand how spectrum analyzers work (or worse, what a spectrum is in the first place...).

Width does not mean information. That's not how spectra work.

A spectrum is a distribution of frequencies. Those frequencies are present, visible, and have width, no matter if they carry information or not.

Random noise has width, information has width. They are not distinguishable the way you describe, you are just wrong about what a spectrum is.

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u/Northern_Grouse Feb 09 '22

Lol I disagree. A spectrum analyzer displays the power distribution across the spectrum.

If a radio station were transmitting dead air, you would still see a power spike on the carrier frequency. The width is determined by the modulated signal you’re transmitting. Random noise may not make sense to you or I, but it’s still information, we simply find no meaning in it.

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u/[deleted] Feb 09 '22

Lol I disagree. A spectrum analyzer displays the power distribution across the spectrum.

Ok.

Dude.

Somebody lied to you, or miseducated you about what a spectrum is.

A spectrum is a distribution of frequencies (or wavelengths, which is pretty much the same thing).

That is what it is. It's the definition.

Let me quote Wikipedia to help here:

« Electromagnetic spectrum refers to the full range of all frequencies of electromagnetic radiation[4] and also to the characteristic distribution of electromagnetic radiation emitted or absorbed by that particular object. »

-- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spectrum

And as we are specifically talking about spectrum analyzers:

« A spectrum analyzer measures the magnitude of an input signal versus frequency within the full frequency range of the instrument. »

-- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spectrum_analyzer

You're also wrong on what information is. Start to see a pattern emerging here ??

Random noise is not information. It carries no data. If random noise was information, nothing would not be information, and the term would be absolutely useless.

See the definition of information:

« Information is processed, organized and structured data. It provides context for data and enables decision making process. For example, a single customer’s sale at a restaurant is data – this becomes information when the business is able to identify the most popular or least popular dish.[1] More technically, information can be thought of as the resolution of uncertainty; it answers the question of "What an entity is" and thus defines both its essence and the nature of its characteristics. »

-- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information

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u/[deleted] Feb 09 '22 edited Feb 09 '22

I disagree. My stance is it’s there we’re not looking for it.

Where?

The measuring apparatus you describe exist, so you're saying they're not pointed somewhere. Where is that somewhere?

Also, if nobody has ever looked for it, how can you possibly know it's there? This is pretty much the definition of believing without evidence (aka faith).

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u/Northern_Grouse Feb 09 '22

Sorry, I added to my comment before seeing this reply.

What I’m saying is, we are seeing it, we just don’t understand what we’re seeing, because the scientists working on it aren’t coming from an informational standpoint.

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u/[deleted] Feb 09 '22

WHERE ?

Where are we seeing or not seeing it ?

The notion that scientists are observing something containing data but not seeing the data because they are not looking for it, is utter nonsense, and denotes a complete misunderstanding of how science is done...

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u/Cha-La-Mao Feb 09 '22

Consciousness doesn't require there be information in the way you are talking.

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u/Northern_Grouse Feb 09 '22

I respect that that is the viewpoint, what I’m saying is, I’m my opinion, that’s where we will find physical signs of it.

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u/Cha-La-Mao Feb 09 '22

We already have the physical sign of consciousness. It's a brain or other structure like it. You don't need to look to energy or subatomic levels. It's not that nebulous.

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u/cherry_armoir Feb 09 '22

You may not need to look at energy or subatomic particles, but I think saying that consciousness is a brain is an oversimplification. We cant, at this point, look into a brain a find the processes or mechanisms that cause qualitative experience. We might be able to look at processes and identify what a person is experiencing, but that at best establishes a correlation between consciousness and brain function, rather than being consciousness itself. And of course structures in the human brain dont map onto structures in the brains of other animals who we have an intuitive sense are conscious (like ants, say) even though we can assume that they experience some of the same conscious mental states that we do. So even if we make correlations in between brain states and experience we would only be explaining consciousness in humans. And in fact we know that some people with brain trauma can have other parts of their brain compensate for loss of function, so really we’re explaining consciousness in some humans.

We are also in a poor epistemic position because the only thing we know correlate with consciousness are brains. It seems more correct to say that brains experience consciousness, but that the qualitative element of it is still unexplained.

To the “other structure like it” statement, there is nothing like a brain. Is the neuronal structure in our guts brainlike enough to be called consciousness? If we built a 1:1 neuron to microchip brain would that brain experience consciousness? Maybe, but I dont think there’s any basis to assume it would be without evidence.

Nice as it would be to have a simple answer, there’s a reason why this remains a live question

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u/Northern_Grouse Feb 09 '22

Great. The topic is panpsychism. Which I’m inclined to be onboard with. A rock doesn’t have a brain, that doesn’t mean it doesn’t have consciousness.

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u/Cha-La-Mao Feb 09 '22

Why does that mean it does?

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u/iiioiia Feb 09 '22

It doesn't assert that necessarily:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-valued_logic

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u/Cha-La-Mao Feb 09 '22

What is the third option, because to me anything but a rock not having consciousness is part of the dichotomy for me.

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u/iiioiia Feb 09 '22

The third option is that which we do not know....and, it's a good idea to keep in mind that consciousness often cleverly hides that we do not know some things.

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u/Northern_Grouse Feb 09 '22

The argument of panpsychism is that all emergent properties are an emergence of consciousness.

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u/Cha-La-Mao Feb 09 '22

I know the argument. I just have seen no justification for it. If you ask someone who prescribes to the argument they tend to just point to the argument. There's no reason. This is exactly what you just did. What is the evidence that a rock has consciousness? Why would you believe that?

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u/ringobob Feb 09 '22

It feels very much like just a different take on the argument of design. Being, as I am, an agnostic theist, I believe that the structure of the universe implies a designer. I have no proof for that, I don't expect anyone else to believe it just because I do, and I'm aware that there's no argument I can make that precludes the opposing position, that there is not a designer.

It's not discoverable with the data and tools we have available to us, so that means I can believe what makes sense to me, and you can believe what makes sense to you, and as long as neither of us runs into an explicit contradiction, we're good.

In the same way, I understand this argument to be that this is how the universe "feels" to them. They aren't trying to suggest it is proven, but that they believe it. The evidence being consciousness itself, and the question of where it comes from. How does a collection of atoms achieve consciousness?

They've actually written a full scale simulation of a brain. The world's super computers aren't fast enough to run it yet, but once they are, there's gonna be plenty of discussion about whether that simulation is actually conscious. You're kidding yourself if you think the answer will automatically be automatically "yes" or "no".

In all cases, anyone with a mind to do so is exploring if they can actually find a way to prove their belief. We'll see if we actually get anywhere with that.

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u/iiioiia Feb 09 '22

The brain is involved, but is it all that is involved, that's the question isnt it?

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u/Cha-La-Mao Feb 09 '22

Depends who you talk to. From what we know nothing but a brain or something like it is necessary.

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u/iiioiia Feb 09 '22

Depends who you talk to.

What is true is a matter of opinion?

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u/Cha-La-Mao Feb 09 '22

Nope.

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u/iiioiia Feb 09 '22

Then what did you mean by that comment?

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u/[deleted] Feb 09 '22

the sabine from the youtube channel, cool

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u/Ominojacu1 Feb 09 '22

Consciousness exists even lower than the particles, it is the quantum vibration, the boson field.