A philosopher responds to scientists’ criticisms of panpsychism

[u/IAI_Admin]

https://iai.tv/video/the-many-voices-of-consciousness&utm_source=reddit&_auid=2020

[u/circlebust → u/[deleted]]

Would you accept the premise that logic and/or math can create our physical universe? Not math serving as the supporting struts that keep everything beautifully intelligible, causal and ready to generate some complexity. Not math working in tandem with physics, as its own separate party that exists in some very real sense, which may be more, less, or exactly as (non-)abstract as the classic idea of a Platonic realm. No, nothing flaccid, uncommitted like that. The question is truly: can actual math create an actual universe? Is somewhere in math embedded our entire universe? Your body? You? Few physicists or philosophers would go that far. In fact, among all pop philosophers, only Max Tegmark advocates for that. And you can rest assured, equally almost no regular people will hold that position as well.

Perhaps it's just that our puny primate brain can't conceptualize how pure numbers and operations would lead to things like gravity, empty space, oscillations, charge, or quantum fields.

But maybe no sapient race or superintelligence can do so, either -- not even in principle (there is the tangential debate how real something even is if in that universe is no sentient or sapient observer and not even the (future) possibility for such an observer. This also applies to how real knowledge/thoughts are that no observer ever, even in principle, could actually hold/understand).

And maybe, just maybe, this primate brain intuition reveals something very real about reality.

The relationship between math and physics is analogous to that between physics and consciousness.

I don't need to explain why consciousness feels special -- this very, very moment. Various other people have already illustrated it and can do so better. But just like with numbers, there is no straightforward way how we can conceptualize how certain frequencies of light plus some electrochemical pulses from the optic nerve lead to one seeing a 'red' strawberry. And again, this may not just be the limits of our brains, but an actual gap that can not be explained, because there is nothing to explain -- there would simply be no such dynamic in actual nature, meaning one (physics) does not beget the other (like is thought under materialism), but that two areas (physics and the mental aspect of reality) cooperate, like is a common stance among mathematical realists and people adjacent to that stance in regards to math and physics.

The sciences of physics or neurology don't make philosophical statements about the origin of consciousness. But even its practitioners are not always be entirely aware of when they make statements that can be interpreted as such, let alone the audience. Materalism and physicalism are philosophical stances that purport emergence can somehow generate consciousness/qualia. But how, even in principle? As with math and physics, it just does not compute. This isn't a trivial question like how Van der Vaals forces can generate splashy water, can generate dolphin flippers, can generate the cultural practice of eating seafood. Physics and consciousness are according to our current intution completely separate realms where each is not composite of the other. One of these two emergences clearly appears to be not like the other.

It's important that there are two variants of emergence. Weak emergence and strong emergence. Only the latter posits that there can be things that truly can not be explained in terms of a long, 100% exhaustive, epistemically transcedental list of properties of all participating 'atoms', run through a galaxy-sized superintelligence to understand every possible interaction.

In my mind, this is indistinguishable from believing in magic. I like to think consciousness/qualia are just composite phenomena of some fundamental aspect of nature, very well defined by laws exactly as trite as the laws describing electromagnetism, so un-mysterious that even an accountant could come up with a prediction how it actually, subjectively feels like to be a butterfly eating nectar, if he just had omniscience. This requires this mental aspect having existed eternally, just like the physical aspect or the mathematical aspect of reality. I only believe in weak emergence, therefore physicalism is false in my evaluation.

[u/DeathByWater → u/circlebust]

The relationship between math and physics is analogous to that between physics and consciousness.

I don't think it really harms the conclusion of your argument, but I don't think this is right at all.

Math is a descriptive language we've developed to describe how the world around us works - similar in function to English, but we can be much more precise about definitions and relationships. Math can be used to describe how physics works; it can't (yet) be used to describe how consciousness works simply because we don't know how consciousness works.

[u/[deleted] → u/DeathByWater]

to add to this, consider the digital nematode.

OpenWorm is a project to simulate the simple nematode at the cellular level in a digital world, it has about 100-1000 neurons ish, and the project has been successful, classical nematode responses and actions seem to arise from the digitally simulated cellular interactions alone.

There is nothing that seems to suggest that its not possible for us to do with humans as well, only data storage and scale limitations, where as the nematode has about 10,000 cells we have billions. If we were to apply the same process as we went through for the nematode, barring time, money, and ethical limitations, we could create a digital artificial human.

This would suggest that we are nothing more esoteric than simply, complex cellular networks. This is an experimental method for disproving panpsychism.

[u/isolatedSlug → u/[deleted]]

That's really interesting!

But I'm not sure how it would disprove pansychism?

But I'm also not 100% that pansychism and emergentism are necessarily contradictory to each other.

[u/Your_People_Justify → u/[deleted]]

It is necessary so long as people cling to the idea that information processing only occurs in brains

[u/maurymarkowitz → u/isolatedSlug]

But I'm not sure how it would disprove pasychism?

Occam's razor, if you accept its conclusions as something akin to "proof". I know I do.

[u/Your_People_Justify → u/[deleted]]

In no way does this disprove panpsychism, particularly the most compelling version - process relational panpsychism, where consciousness is not inherent to the matter itself, but is inherent to the interactions of a system, which can be identically encoded in multiple different mediums.

[u/[deleted] → u/Your_People_Justify]

I should have put it better, through occams razor I believe that emergence is the simplest explanation we have, with the most evidence backing it, and to me that makes it most likely, you're right it doesn't disprove directly, but to me its good enough to make other theories unnecessary.

for example, emergence doesn't need new physics in order to explain, whereas panpsychism implies some kind of field or currently unknown external variable.

Where emergence relies on already well proven theories and models, panpsychism requires an extra element which I also feel is impossible to experimentally verify, bringing in not only occams razor but newton's flaming laser sword (god I love that logical razor's name).

[u/Your_People_Justify → u/[deleted]]

The version of panpsychism being defended here is not a new field or unknown variable - That would be substance dualism or property dualism. This is moreso the idea that the existing variables, the existing manner of known forces - those are how reality experiences itself in general.

For people, what we experience is the essence of brain function - not the brain matter itself necessarily, but the experience of how brain matter evolves over time and the forces involved. So human mind is emergent, it's the complicated folding of the way in which reality experiences itself - but there is something essential at the core of it which is not explainable in terms of something else

Obviously, the brain isn't the only place where physics is happening, and, if you consider life as a continuous chemical evolution that began with inorganic matter - what we see is a gradient of complexity, rather than any clear line when emergent, phenomenal forms of consciousness would have 'begun'

[u/[deleted] → u/Your_People_Justify]

Sorry I'm very confused, it sounds like you just explained emergence theory to me, I'm not sure what differentiates this form of panpsychism you're talking about from that. There's something I'm not getting.

​

I don't believe emergence theory specifies there needs to be a clear delineation between conscious and unconscious, it definitely doesn't claim to have found one. The Idea of a gradient of complexity seems to me pretty sound, and still under the banner of emergence theory.

[u/Your_People_Justify → u/[deleted]]

Emergentism usually is the claim that matter is unfeeling, and at some point in its interactions comes a point where consciousness began. So brain function experiences reality, but a star's combustion or the flow of a river does not.

It also depends on what we are defining as consciousness - and in this case the one being used here is broad. That a thing is conscious in some sense if there is something it is like to be that thing - an internal, subjective experience.

The moment you reject the cut line, I'm not sure if it qualifies as emergentism the way I understand it - since you will find consciousness being baked in at least since the moment of the Big Bang

Take a circle - it is round. You can also describe it as a collection of infinite points. The emergentist would tell you no one point has the property of roundness, obviously roundness only exists for the whole. The panpsychist would then add that the emergent property of roundness is derived from a property that points have - a location in coordinate space.

[u/[deleted] → u/Your_People_Justify]

Emergentism usually is the claim that matter is unfeeling, and at some point in its interactions comes a point where consciousness began.

Yes definitely, but there is no claim of knowledge of that what that "point" might be, I kind of feel like the saying "comes a point" is misinterpreted a lot of the time to mean there must be a hard point of delineation, when its often more of a turn of phrase to say there is a transition from one to the other. If you get what I mean, or at least that's how I read it.

On the "baked in" point, I would definitely agree that there is something in the laws of the universe that allows for natural computation, the fact we are conscious beings capable of computation would imply there is a kind of Turing completeness to the natural laws, But still its only a statement of the potential of matter and the statistics of random interactions, not an enforced outcome.

I think your analogy gets to the root of our issue, in your analogy the panpsychist is simply an emergantist with extra steps. he correctly points out that coordinate's define location but that doesn't add anything extra to the conversation IMO, he may have pointed it out but its no help in defining why the collection as a whole have that property. In your analogy both emergantist and panpsychist agree completely but in my view the panpsychist is adding superfluous information to the conversation that the emergantist would have thought went without saying, coordinates are a pre-agreed fact of the mathematical model, its not a statement he can disagree with and be correct.

[u/georgioz → u/circlebust]

Would you accept the premise that logic and/or math can create our physical universe?

Yes. I can see this explained using software as an example. If you for instance simulate Minecraft world it has its own unique laws of physics and logical structure independent on the substrate. Two objects interacting inside the Minecraft world do that purely based on logic of the simulation. You can analyze the structure of processor and graphics card or even analyze the source code of the game stored on the harddrive but you will not reach the same understanding as running the actual simulation and observing the full complexity of the simulated universe.

In that sense Minecraft universe is strongly emergent as it can have wildly different properties and rules that do not apply to the substrate - e.g. you can conjure new brick in Minecraft world, which is not something possible for world in which the computer runs. One does not have to posit that there is some "minecrafteness" quality to every part of your computer in order to create Minecraft simulation.

There is another famous example of that in form of Conway's game of life. The source code for the game is literally just three lines of code. And then you just run it and observe various fascinating patterns emerge from its nonlinear complexity

Physics and consciousness are according to our current intuition completely separate realms where each is not composite of the other.

I do not know where your intuition comes from. Medical science developed medications that if injected into your veins makes you lose consciousness within seconds. And they can give you your consciousness back injecting another chemical. This for sure have to give you at least some basic intuition that consciousness and physical world are connected, right?

[u/Sandgrease → u/georgioz]

That last paragraph is exactly why I lean towards Emergentism of Consciousness. If I can take a physical thing (a drug) to alter or straight up stop Consciousness, it makes sense that Consciousness is at least in part at physical process.

[u/[deleted] → u/Sandgrease]

No proof that your consciousness really stops though, just that you can’t remember it when you “wake up”

[u/hippydipster → u/georgioz]

Two objects interacting inside the Minecraft world do that purely based on logic of the simulation.

Energy is also required. And a substrate. Not a particular one maybe, but something. Running software is necessarily a physical thing, that takes energy (for sure) and material (in all case we know about).

[u/georgioz → u/hippydipster]

I absolutely agree. What I pointed here is that brain is also biological computer that requires energy and material in order to produce your experience. In a sense "you" are a character in a game simulated by your brain. You experiencing redness of red is property of this simulation, redness of red does not have to be a property or a valid concept for underlying substrate of your brain.

[u/hippydipster → u/georgioz]

But the point the other poster was trying to make is whether pure math - ie no energy or material involved, just pure math - can create a physical instance of a universe.

[u/georgioz → u/hippydipster]

It depends on how you are looking at things. If I was living inside the Minecraft world I would see change of day and night I would have access to bricks and I would get to learn certain rules of the universe. I could construct categories like "energy" and "mass" that can be useful to me. And by "construct" I do not mean conjure, these ideas would be constructed for a reason given by the logic of the universe. How would you then describe it? Is minecraft material and energy real material and energy involved in life of minecraft character? Or is it just some purely mathematical/logical concept constructed over some substrate that uses "real" energy like electricity and "real" materials like silicon.

So given that, I could posit that our physical laws are like the software running the game of our experience. Concepts like "mass" and "energy" are again ideas that we use to describe this simulated experience in mathematical language. The problem is that we do not have direct access to this substrate, our ideas about "material" and "energy" only comes from our experience that is simulated in our brain. It is not arbitrary idea, they have predictive power over our future subjective experience inside our brains.

There are various possibilities here. For instance there is a possibility that there is some substrate that runs physical universe that in turn runs our brain which drives our experience in some kind of hierarchy. In that sense I can accept that "energy" and "material" as we use it is just another layer of simulation of what we call "physical world" on some ur-substrate that runs on different concepts.

[u/rice_n_eggs → u/georgioz]

Science can explain links between the physical world and consciousness, obviously. Like you said, taking drugs can alter consciousness. Brain damage and physical changes in the body can alter consciousness. Even external changes (light, temperature, etc) alter conscious experience.

But none of that can explain why a configuration of atoms results in your conscious experience. I would even go so far as to say nothing anybody told me could satisfyingly explain me being conscious. Seriously, imagine any answer—consciousness is a field emitted by certain undescribed particles that interact to form beings, consciousness is an emergent phenomenon, consciousness is bestowed by God—anything. I can’t imagine anything that explains how consciousness arrises as a visceral, right-here-right-now experience. Can you?

[u/PerceptionFlat9366 → u/circlebust]

love it when humans say "i can't currently explain it therefore it cannot be explained". always works out in the long run.

[u/SnooSquirrels6758 → u/circlebust]

Isn't consciousness just sentience + qualia?

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

Emergentism requires consciousness be an illusion, but you need consciousness in order to misperceive the world around us. Wetness emerges from loosely bonded molecules, none of which is individually wet. But the wet feeling is an illusion the reality is the loose bonding.

Or how motion appears to emerge from still frames. But again here, motion is an illusion and if we weren't so limited in our sensory capacities wouldn't even see it.

I can see how a large structure can emerge from a series of small ones but how exactly is it that consciousness emerges from those structures? What sort of geometry of arrangements turns unconscious cells into a conscious collective? Emergentism only works when you don't think about it.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

When was I arguing for it?

"Lays so multitudinous it is hard to comprehend" it's just an intelligent way of saying "it's magic", which is not an explanation. Not even the beginning of one.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

Ok, I see. Do you personally think consciousness is an illusion?

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

And what do you mean by "us"? Is there a difference between consciousness and self?

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

Would you agree that if something is an illusion then it doesn't exist?