This is another ‘Question of the Month’ from Philosophy Now. I’ve submitted 6 in a number of years and they’ve published 5. In this case, I suspect they want an ontological discussion, which I’ve effectively side-stepped, so it may not make the grade. I always try and write something they won’t expect, and I’m vain enough to admit I’ll be disappointed if it fails. Regular readers of my blog will see that, philosophically, it’s consistent with what I’ve written elsewhere. There is a word limit of 400, but I’ve been unusually economical with 353.
The terms, ‘things’ and ‘exist’, seem self-evident yet they’re not. And the word, ‘how’, whilst the apparent key to understanding this, is probably the most enigmatic part of it. What does one mean by ‘things’? As well as a physical object, examples of which surround you everywhere you go, a thing can be an idea, a concept, a mathematical equation or a tune in your head. So I’d divide 'things' into two categories: those that are constructs of the mind and those that are independent of any mind. Not surprisingly, some have an existence that seems to bridge these two worlds, the physical and the mental. Take music, which can exist as a written score on a page or as physical compressional air waves; yet we experience it as some 'thing' transcending the physical that elicits emotions, memories and sometimes a tendency to dance or swoon or even cry. In this case, the 'how' is utterly unfathomable.
We all have dreams that deceive us into experiencing something that literally feels and looks real, yet when we awaken we know it isn’t. Dreams are solipsistic, which means they only exist in our minds, but so do colours even though they appear to exist externally. Then there are stories, which like music, can exist as words on a page, yet in our heads can evoke strong emotions and take us to completely imaginary worlds, not unlike dreams. In fact, if we didn't dream, I wonder if stories would even work. Stories embody imaginary 'things' by their very design, yet they are part of being human, as is all art.
Science, over centuries, has attempted to explain the physical world, yet it’s like peeling an onion. It has reached a stage where fundamental 'things' are described by quantum mechanical wave functions – mathematical entities that may or may not physically exist. Mathematics appears to be a product of the mind, yet there will always be mathematical 'things' that we can never know because they are infinite, like all the digits of pi or every prime number. So is this a third category of 'things' - abstract truths?
Addendum: This 'essay' was published in Philosophy Now, Issue 121, August / September 2017. I've included some of their edits (like the last 2 words), though not all.
17 comments:
You write, "Dreams are solipsistic, which means they only exist in our minds,"
That's accurate as far as it goes, but in actuality don't dreams cascade out of neurological activity, which of course is connected to our bodies and environments?
On a related side note - What do think of Dr. Mark Solms work? And the supposition that our consciousness is simply the inside reflection of our physical body/brain actively dealing with its ever changing situation, along with bodily housekeeping?
And doesn't that sort of explicit acceptance of the connection* between brain and consciousness put all that reasoning into a different context? (*It's my understanding that modern neuropsychoanalysis is accumulating the evidence to support the claim.)
You write:
"So I’d divide 'things' into two categories:
Those that are constructs of the mind and those that are independent of any mind."
Sounds to me like about the way most thinkers put it.
I'm wondering why doesn't the collective we use a more explicit declaration?
Recognizing the most fundamental of realization: "Physical Reality ~ Human Mindscape divide" and work out from there?
I think it would tend to forces us to reckon with our thought processes, BEFORE we started philosophizing about "reality" the "Hard" Problems, with that human sense of entitlement.
Or the fad of questioning reality itself, as though reality has to prove itself to us. (enter Hoffman, etc.)
Any thoughts?
I'm not familiar with Dr Mark Solms's work. I notice there is a talk he gave at the Royal Institute available on YouTube, which I might watch when I have time.
Earlier this year, I did 2 courses on The Brain and Consciousness through New Scientist (I can recommend their courses), which are aimed at laypeople but employ experts in their respective fields to provide lectures and materials. In both courses they talked about sleep and dreams.
Saying that dreams are solipsistic is not contentious, because it arises from the very definition of solipsism - the belief that you are the only conscious entity and everyone else is a 'product of your mind'. In dreams that's actually true. One might say it also applies to characters in stories, but the difference is that dreams feel like 'reality' whilst were in them.
There are 2 parts to dreams, which I already knew about, and was confirmed in the courses I took. There is a conscious and unconscious component to a dream. The dream landscape is created by your unconscious and you consciously react to it. I've long known this.
Anil Seth and Christof Koch were 2 of the people on the Consciousness course. Koch worked with Francis Crick.
The discussions centred around some major schools of thought:
Neural Correlates of Consciousness (NCCS).
Global Workspace theories.
Integrated Information theories.
Re-entry / predictive processing theories.
The last one is Anil Seth's pet project.
They also said there were others without saying what they were.
Regarding Solms, may I suggest the following introduction:
March 10, 2021
David Chalmers "Hard-Problem" demystified by Mark Solms and colleagues.
March 27, 2021
Students’ Resource: A representative cross-section of Dr. Mark Solms' scientific publications.
at ConfrontingScienceContrarians.blogspot.com
I'm aware of, (familiar would be taking it too far, this is my hobby not my job) with those people and the outlines of those concepts.
Your blog is so interesting to me and I had two thoughts on this one. First your mention of how unfathomable it is, as to why, when we hear music, it can illicit such strong emotions or memories. How that occurs is a mystery. I can see if it was a favorite tune or something significant happened when the tune was playing etc., memories or feelings would occur, but an example for me is when I heard a song I’d never heard the other day, it made me a little sad. it must have just been the cadence of the melody or some of the words that did it or most probably, the two combined. Or it could have been my mental frame of mind at the time.
And then when I sit and look out at the field behind me, I see green trees, bushes, blue sky, white clouds, birds flying over etc., but the butterfly or some lizard sitting on a leaf, sees different colors, different smells, different rate of time etc. and I think, if by some suspended reality, these creatures could think and write in English and describe what they are looking at, it would be totally different from what we would write. An alien from another planet who could also write in English, would wonder what was the correct "reality". So is there an ultimate reality? I say yes. I look at a tree and see so much of a distance up, a branch sticks out to the left at an 95° angle, say, and I think these creatures with eyesight, would see( although I suppose, their eyes could mirror image it or greatly blur it) this angle too, not the color, smell, temperature or the material it was , but the fact that something was there up at an angle and a certain ways up that angles out into smaller more frequent angles. We interpret it all different, but it is still "out there".
Lots of food for thought.
I visited your blog and watched the TED talk on his experience with apartheid. I'd already 'bookmarked' his RI talk and I'm yet to watch it. Anil Seth, by the way, argues that the 'hard problem' will 'dissolve', in as much as we won't worry about it in the same way we no longer worry about the 'life' problem - what makes something alive. I admit I don't really have a position on that, but I'll be very interested in what Dr Solms says.
The first thing I read on your blog, was your response to Donald Hoffman. I wrote something after I read an academic paper by him (co-authored, as it happens), sent to me by someone I worked with at the time. Back then, I didn't know he was a 'celebrity'. I have much the same response to him as you do, and can't understand why obviously intelligent people take him seriously. I've even seen an article he wrote in New Scientist.
This is my response. There is a link in this post to the actual paper on a website, and you can see where I got into an argument with someone over my response (on that site).
When evolution is not evolution
Thanks for the head-up.
That was by a friend of mine, though he no longer runs it.
Anyway, I've taken it down. Thanks.
Recognizing the most fundamental of realization: "Physical Reality ~ Human Mindscape divide" and work out from there?
I've actually thought this way for a long time. I even mention it on my first post on this blog, back in 2007. In fact, this is the very first thing I wrote on this blog:
This is merely a starting point, but it seems to be a starting point for many of my philosophical discussions. For each and every one of us there is an inner and outer world - it is the interaction of these 2 aspects of our experience that determines the self.
It's a very short post but has a lot to say:
Self
Hi Mary,
Yes, 'lots of food for thought' is what I aim for.
You mention: if these creatures could 'speak to us in English'. There is some debate about how much language determines how we perceive 'reality'. To give an example: in Aboriginal culture (in Australia) there are no words for left or right. When they specify a direction, it's effectively a 'compass' direction. Aborigines have a remarkable sense of direction, because over 10s of thousands of years, their very survival depended on it, in a landscape with not a lot of distinctive landmarks. So the language literally reflects the way they see the world, which is different to the way Westerners see it.
I remember someone relating a story of hunting in the outback with some black fellas. They were in a 4x4 and they stopped to chase a kangaroo through the bush. By the time they caught it, the vehicle was out of sight. The white fellas automatically went to go back the way they had come. But the black fellas knew exactly where the vehicle was as the crow flies (as we say) and turned in that direction.
More and more, humanity has used the language of mathematics to understand reality in detail that was unimaginable to our ancestors. And that is another theme that runs through my philosophy.
I'm familiar with your critique of Hoffman, and in fact, your's was about the first critique after looking at a lot of fawning, and it gave me heart at the time. I dedicate a post to your critique:
.......... (4.02) Paul Mealing: considers Hoffman's "Objects of Consciousness.” (Dec 12, 2020)
Check out my coming out party,
NOVEMBER 30, 2021
A preview of Cc's "Hoffman playing Basketball in zero-gravity" a critical review of his "Case Against Reality"
ConfrontingScienceContrarians.blogspot.com
Regarding - your response at 01 December, 2021 11:17 - I know you are,
that's why I think you should reconsider the appropriateness of using "objective reality" when we are talking about physical reality. Besides being oh so easy to misrepresent - No matter how we look at it, "objective" is a function of our brain/mind - not an actual physical thing, or agent. It's nit picking semantics perhaps, but it also reflects our collective outrageously self-centered ways of looking at this Earth and the Universe.
Thanks for your time.
I remember our little conversation now.
I'm flattered you'd post my entire essay on your blog.
Regards, Paul.
Objective is the opposite to subjective almost by definition, but people confuse them. For example, colour is seen as objective when, in fact, it’s totally subjective. Consciousness is a totally subjective experience, but without it, we wouldn’t know anything objective exists.
Then there are the natural laws of the Universe. Are they subjective or objective? Are they discovered or dreamt up? Is mathematics invented or discovered? I think mathematical truths are objective, but many would argue otherwise.
Hi CitizensChallenge,
I watched the video by Mark Solms on his ‘theory of consciousness', and I think it has a lot of merit. I went back through some of the course material I did on ‘Consciousness’ (through New Scientist) and there is nothing in there like it. I seem to remember vaguely that they might have mentioned the region he talked about as if it’s an on-off switch, but I may have that wrong, as I couldn’t find it perusing through the material. The overwhelming consensus seems to be that consciousness is in the neocortex, where he said: 'people are looking in the wrong place’.
One pertinent point he makes, which confirms an intuitive idea of my own, is that consciousness is related to ‘feeling.’ I’ve made the point on my blog (somewhere) that emotion evolved first, before logic. This seems obvious to me, but not to others. I think people’s obsession with the idea that the brain is a ‘wetware’ computer is what is misleading. Everyone thinks of everything in terms of ‘information’ these days, including the Universe itself, which is why the idea of a computer simulation is popular.
It’s also why I believe that AI will never be conscious, but that’s another argument. Early in his talk, I was reminded of the Mary’s Room thought experiment, and then he brought it up. I wrote my own post on that:
Mary's Room thought experiment
Paul, thanks for your response.
"It’s also why I believe that AI will never be conscious"
I would tend to agree with you, it seems to me a key to understanding conscious is, for starters, appreciating consciousness is an interaction, a dynamic, and not a thing like a "program."
It is intimately linked to a living creature, it is the result of complex systems functioning within a complex organic machine and is always dependent on the present moment, (though it can imagine future and past).
On a tangent, in David Quammen's The Tangled Tree: A Radical New History of Life", Quamman mentions a key realization among paleogeneticist was that the insides of cells can not be understood without understanding the environment the cells existed within. The same holds true for creatures, be they the most basic or complex. I believe the same thing holds true for humans, and on many different levels.
I think it also holds true to interpreting consciousness - which is why I'm convinced only a bottom up evolutionary approach offers real understanding.
Paul writes: “Objective is the opposite to subjective almost by definition”
I’m not questioning that. My point: both are players within our human Mindscape, an interjected filter between us and physical reality, one worth recognizing in a way humans like to avoid.
Physical Reality doesn’t depend on how objective or subjective we humans think our assessment is. We don’t have some ‘right’ to understand everything. (In particular, now I’m thinking of what seems to me a contrived Hard Problem of consciousness.)
I’m not knocking “objectivity” -
Defining “objectivity” and then developing rules for a limitless community of educated scientists to work together and develop observing tools, gather data, process that information into an objective reliable assessment, it’s been humanity’s greatest achievement, no doubt.
But, too often humans cross the line and act as though nature needs to prove itself to us. (Not you, I’m referring to others.)
Paul writes: “Consciousness is a totally subjective experience”
Please consider what those words are telling us, do you think it holds in light of living our lives?
Isn’t the reality of a creature’s conscious state of mind during the course of its day to day, (be it worm or human) intimately dependent on the range of certain material stuff its body needs to function through the day?
How about a “dynamic interchange” - complex systems and feedback loops and who knows what all.
That’s why I’m thinking a little mediating on our human condition and the
“Physical Reality ~ Human Mindscape divide”
would be beneficial for every serious thinking.
Take a moment and remove our human intellect from the picture, think of evolution, before and after Homo.
It doesn’t matter if we close our eyes, this earth will still unfold as a living organism adapting to conditions as they arise regardless.
Have a good day, Peter
Hi Peter,
I obviously have no problem with you posting anything of mine on another site, as you reference the source. I'm pretty sure that some of my essays get plagiarised by students, but I don't know that for sure. Besides, there's not much I can do about it.
I was cited by an online magazine once, and one of my essays was 'recommended reading' as part of a college course at one time.
My aim is to make people think rather than change their minds.
Regards, Paul.
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