How Does Evolution Produce Consciousness/Reason?

[Zarathustra]

Reductionism can be used in many ways, but in terms of philosophy of the mind, it is a solution to the mind/body problem wherein the mental is reduced entirely to the physical. One way to achieve this is identity theory, in which mental states are equated to brain states, so that they are supposed to be literally the same thing.

This has problems, however, because we can describe brain states entirely in objective terms, whereas mental states are subjective. An objective description completely leaves out experiential "remainders" like qualia (i.e. the redness of red, the softness of a soft touch, etc.) and intentionality (i.e. how mental states are always directed towards or about some object. Nothing in the objective world is about something else or directed to something else. Objective facts simply exist. For instance, one billiard ball does not direct itself toward another billiard ball, it makes no difference to it which way it goes. But for the human aiming to make these balls connect his intent is a mental state that has as its conceptual object the goal of making these balls connect. The mental state is about this goal.

It's even more puzzling when we direct our mental states to ideal objects, like numbers and conceptual meaning. A mental state can be about the Pythagorean theorem, but it makes no sense to say that a brain state or any collection of neurons are about this theorem.

So identity theory--and the attempt to reduce mind to body--fails to capture everything about the mind. How can there be two descriptions (subjective/objective) of the same thing if this thing is actually identical to itself? How can there be a description "from the inside" of a mental state if it is nothing more than an objective occurrence in my brain?

As for animal consciousness, there is an entire spectrum. Plants are probably at the lowest, then insects, then reptiles, then mammals, etc. I think any active response to the environment may involve some form of consciousness. Plants certainly do this, with their growth cycles and "awareness" of the sun. Next would be a response in spatial terms, like insects moving about. You move on up to mammals that have social awareness and emotions. And finally you have humans who are aware of time.

Most animals probably do not "store data," as you say. They probably have very little awareness of time, and few memories. They rely upon instinct. However, we make plans for the future and adapt consciously to imaginary factors, conceptual analysis of risk/reward, even to the extent that we're planning beyond our own lives. This could not be possible without memories.

There are most likely higher levels of consciousness awaiting us.

[Fist and Faith]

I'm not insisting, and not particularly expecting or hoping, that we find a way to reduce consciousness to a physical process. I just think we should be able to get some sort of grasp on the damned thing, whatever it is. The stuff off the universe - whether we call it matter, particles, local excitations of fields, or any other name - is behaving in ways other than we can account for with our not-inconsiderable understanding of things. We have an incredible amount of scientific know-how. We can measure billionths of seconds and inches. We can slam freakin' protons together at some ridiculous speed, breaking then apart, and learn crazy shit. We know this or that light in the sky is a galaxy that's ten billion light-years away. We understand that time - TIME, for crying out loud! - passes at different rates under different circumstances.

We can't overestimate how much we still have to learn. But still, we know a thing or two about the reality we find ourselves in.

And yet, with all the things we know, from unimaginably big to unimaginably small, we can find no hint of a property anywhere that accounts for consciousness. It would seem we need a new way of gathering knowledge. A way that gathers definite, verifiable knowledge, because, even if there is not full agreement on what characteristics consciousness has, there are consistent aspects. There must be underlying properties to account for that. Properties that turn the properties of matter into meaning. How the hell do we find them?!?!?!?!?!!!

[Vraith]

we can find no hint of a property anywhere that accounts for consciousness.

And I suspect that is both more-or-less true AND more-or-less false.
In many ways, we overestimate our understanding of the nature, function, and possibilities of things.
And set aside/mystify what we DO know about consciousness...

As Z noted, we've got hard problems with aspects of consciousness---the redness of red, the subjective content/experience of that content.

But, as "objectively" as we can/do know about an electron, we don't know ITS internal state, how IT experiences the universe.
In itself, it probably doesn't "experience" the way we mean it.
And...back to my previous...in no way can it be water UNTIL it binds in specific ways with specific other things, and the nature of water-tivity emerges.
Why must consciousness be different?
And we do have evidence that consciousness is the state of the brain.
We can mechanically measure the state of a brain and know a fair amount about what that brain is experiencing.
We can mechanically manipulate a brain and cause things to happen...and know in advance exactly what those things will be.
It is still pretty rough, of course...they can zap a specific locale and know it will cause the person to recall a very old memory. We don't know exactly from when, or what that memory will be, for many reasons.
We can cause the pain of a severed leg without touching the leg.
We can also STOP the pain of a severed leg--even the knowledge the leg is severed---when it is, in fact, a severed leg---without doing anything to or with the leg/wound.

I'm not saying there is little or nothing to figure out---there sure as hell is.
I'm just saying there is no separation between the material nature of the universe and the existence/production of consciousness....just like there is no separation between quark/gluon plasma and water.

I sometimes think we'll make progress on knowing what consciousness is if we can FIRST make progress on a different issue---pointed at by Z.
The "gap" between concepts/abstracts and instantiations.
Because there is no connection, materially, between the concept of bird and an actual bird. Yet, despite the lack of connection, there is a correspondence, an information/data set.
The concept could exist in some theoretical/meta/potential "space" even without minds to think it. And obviously the bird doesn't need any outside minds to conceive it into instantiation.
A large part of what consciousness DOES is actualize the potential of the conceptual...build the frame and power conduits between them...enact the transformations/transmutations. [[Because bird, bird-concept, and builder---none are unscathed/unaltered when it is done/doing/becoming]]

[Skyweir]

Thanks so much Z .. another great post.

Yes it is frustrating FF Maybe the Collective consciousness here in the Close will crack this, or at least foster a greater understanding.

Youre all pretty phenomenal minds.

Yet another interesting read from you V .. cheers ... so much rigour if thought to further contemplate.

I just love reading your collective thoughts and how you spark off each other. Nice work.

[Fist and Faith]

we can find no hint of a property anywhere that accounts for consciousness.

And I suspect that is both more-or-less true AND more-or-less false.

Yeah, I suspect you're right. We could be right on the cusp, and not realize how close we were until it hits us.

In many ways, we overestimate our understanding of the nature, function, and possibilities of things.

Some may, but that's not what I'm trying to do. I'm just saying we know a lot of things; and we have some ideas about specific things that we DON'T know (like maybe dark matter). It's difficult to imagine finding room on a quark for more properties that have eluded us so far; properties that can explain any aspect of all this.

Unless the properties are not at all in the realm of science. In which case, how would we spot them? There IS consistency. Although there is variety between minds, even within a species, minds aren't random things. So there's a consistent principle that turns brain functions into mind functions. WTF is it?!

As Z noted, we've got hard problems with aspects of consciousness---the redness of red, the subjective content/experience of that content.

Heh. Yeah, those would be the kinds of things I'm thinking of. Although I like the math idea best when trying to make the point.

I'm not saying there is little or nothing to figure out---there sure as hell is.
I'm just saying there is no separation between the material nature of the universe and the existence/production of consciousness....just like there is no separation between quark/gluon plasma and water.

Well that's the question, isn't it. There is other. But is that other separate? I feel that it is not, but wouldn't bet the farm on it.

Either way, how can it possibly work!

I sometimes think we'll make progress on knowing what consciousness is if we can FIRST make progress on a different issue---pointed at by Z.
The "gap" between concepts/abstracts and instantiations.
Because there is no connection, materially, between the concept of bird and an actual bird. Yet, despite the lack of connection, there is a correspondence, an information/data set.
The concept could exist in some theoretical/meta/potential "space" even without minds to think it. And obviously the bird doesn't need any outside minds to conceive it into instantiation.

Not sure I agree with this. Without a thinker, there is no concept. There are no theories without theorizers.

A large part of what consciousness DOES is actualize the potential of the conceptual...build the frame and power conduits between them...enact the transformations/transmutations. [[Because bird, bird-concept, and builder---none are unscathed/unaltered when it is done/doing/becoming]]

Brightly brightly and with beauty.

[Fist and Faith]

I was thinking about these two exchanges:

But nothing about it violates the laws of physics.

Well, no. Nothing that exists in the universe violates its laws of physics. Nothing that violates the universe's laws of physics can exist in the universe.

Z asked how thoughts about mathematics can be reduced to properties of particles. How does atomic structure lead to x, then y, then z, resulting in me, say, hearing someone say there are twenty cows, and me thinking that, with four legs each, there are eighty legs? What interaction of electron shells, or anything else, makes that happen? And if it IS such a process, how can I ever come up with the wrong answer?

Your last question is the key insight. If our neurons are doing math by firing according to mathematical rules, then how could they ever be wrong? Why is math so hard to learn? If our ability to think mathematically comes from nothing else than neurons' inescapable property of following deterministic, physical laws that are themselves mathematical, then it should just come naturally. We couldn't get the wrong answer any more than an asteroid could get the "wrong" orbit (i.e. not follow the path we can calculate with math).

We can think of something that violates the laws of physics. We can concoct such an idea in pretty good detail of we put our minds to it. I guess this is further proof that our ability to think does not come from nothing other than our neurons' inescapable property of following deterministic, physical laws. I can't imagine it would be possible for such a process to produce something that lies outside the process.

So does this idea exist in the universe, in violation of the laws of physics? The thing that we are thinking of may not exist, but the idea of it does. Does it exist, not in violation of, but outside of the laws of physics? Which would mean other things could exist within the universe but outside of its laws of physics.

Or does it exist within the laws of physics, and not violate them? There is certainly activity on the brain scan. But that's the brain thinking the idea; not the idea itself.

I assume I'm reinventing the wheel. But I'm posting things as I think of them. Not sure how deterministic that is...

[Skyweir]

The idea .. no more than the creative capacity of the mind .. it really doesnt violate laws of physics, does it

Is the idea even relevant isnt the fact that the mind can conceive ideas the critical structural point .. the elemental point

The fact that ideas are generated by specific neutrons firing and making connections is what consciousness is

And its the same processes or very similar to all sentient creatures .. animals .. they all possess brains, minds, the capability to think, construe ideas, be creative, make judgement calls, develop personalty, show affection etc.

I also am posting thoughts .. not well structured .. but thoughts as they arise in my mind

[Fist and Faith]

One review of Mind and Cosmos said Nagel did not support his own position as well as he could have. One thing mentioned was At Home in the Universe: The Search for the Laws of Self-Organization and Complexity, by Stuart Kauffman.

Most biologists, heritors of the Darwinian tradition, suppose that the order of ontogeny is due to the grinding away of a molecular Rube Goldberg machine, slapped together piece by piece by evolution. I present a countering thesis: most of the beautiful order seen in ontogeny is spontaneous, a natural expression of the stunning self-organization that abounds in very complex regulatory networks. We appear to have been profoundly wrong. Order, vast and generative, arises naturally.

The emergent order seen in genomic networks foretells a conceptual struggle, perhaps even a conceptual revolution, in evolutionary theory. In this book, I propose that much of the order in organisms may not be the result of selection at all, but of the spontaneous order of self-organized systems. Order, vast and generative, not fought for against the en-tropic tides but freely available, undergirds all subsequent biological evolution. The order of organisms is natural, not merely the unexpected triumph of natural selection.

[Skyweir]

Nice quote FF

Order occurs naturally .. organisms progress towards order and organisation not entropy and decay ..

[Fist and Faith]

Ha, I was thinking about the toe issue, wondering if anyone would bring it up.

I'm watching you!

I think that there is consciousness "in" the toe, in as much as the nervous system extends to the toes. Your consciousness would change if you lost a toe, but you'd still be human.

More important, you'd still be you.

If you lost your brain, you couldn't say this. Was that unclear in the original discussion?

Not to me it wasn't!

I never thought anyone would interpret it as the toe being a necessary criteria for being human.

No one did, afaik.

Consciousness can't be separated from its physical incarnation. But that's entirely different from saying that a physical incarnation (of whatever sort) is all that it takes to be conscious. You can take the consciousness out of the body*, but not the body out of consciousness. Does that make sense? Consciousness is always going to be an embodied consciousness, whether that's a deformed body, a mutilated body, a robot body, or an underdeveloped body.

So what my brain was floating in liquid, kept alive by whatever means? Could I not still be there, thinking?

[Vraith]

I think that there is consciousness "in" the toe, in as much as the nervous system extends to the toes. Your consciousness would change if you lost a toe, but you'd still be human.

More important, you'd still be you.

So what my brain was floating in liquid, kept alive by whatever means? Could I not still be there, thinking?

On the first...no. At least not fully. You'd be a different you. And you'd be a different you than a you that was originally born without the toe, and a different you than the one who never lost the toe.
OTOH...no matter your toe situation, if you didn't have a brain you wouldn't become any you, and if you lost it but kept your toe, you'd instantly become not-anyone. A simple blood-oops or knock on the head can utterly change you to not-you.
That's a couple minor alters, a couple not-at-all you's, and a couple raw no ones.

Floating brains fall apart and die without paths of input and output. Like from toes and shit. They exist for that.
The reason solitary confinement is a punishment is cuz it hurts brains.
The reason it is evil is cuz it tortures brains, achieves no goal, and damages, drives insane,---even destroys, [murders].

A brain in a bottle---especially one that never HAD any input---might be forced to not die, have signaling. But "thinking?" Highly doubt it.
.tangent, but, what exactly would it be thinking ABOUT? and HOW? What information would it be operating ON?
We already have a hard time with the qualia of "red"---
How we [it] even frame the qualia of "nothing/void"---and how compare one void/nothing qualia from another void/nothing qualia?
[[as far as I know...and I've searched this often...the actual brain cells where we "think" about vision or sound, for instance, are not different. the difference is entirely in what it is hooked up to...where it gets the input from...your bottle brain has no real difference in inputs. Where/when/how would those cells/regions "learn" to treat things differently? and what distinctions would/could they make?---that all is a real quandary. If it COULD do those things, how/why and WHAT would be the differences, basis for distinctions?]]
Did you know labs actually HAVE mini-brains in dishes?
They're leaning a lot from them.
One of those things is the earlier claim...input or death.
Hell, even SKIN cells don't do well without input.

None of that contradicts or alters the fact that without certain specific structures, complete and ready, you don't have a human being...you just have meat with a human composite structure.

And none of that eliminates [pertinent to other thread] my visceral human feelings surrounding miscarriages, abortions, corpse-violations and such.

[Fist and Faith]

On the first, true. And if I break a stick in half, it is not the same universe that it would be if I had not broken the stick. But, really, it is. And I'm the same me, toed or un-. I would still have the same memories, the same ability to do math, the same love of Bach. Because all of those things, things that are a much more important part of the definition of me than than toes, are in my head. Which is the very reason a knock on the head can utterly change me to not me.

On the second, I was thinking of my brain removed now now, and put in that scenario. Would I still be there thinking and remembering? I don't see why not. I could compose music. I could do math. I could remember a swim in the ocean. None of those things require input any longer.

[Vraith]

Would I still be there thinking and remembering? I don't see why not. I could compose music. I could do math. I could remember a swim in the ocean. None of those things require input any longer.

Yea...it's an interesting question. Maybe you could still do those things.
I suspect---just a not entirely baseless intuition/speculation---it would be very much like maximum solitary confinement. First you'd lose your mind/your you...then the brain itself would physically deteriorate/disorganize.
Even the "normal" kind---where you still have sensory connection to the world, it's just a limited world, and it only lasts a limited time---it changes people. And not in good ways. Even the least affected become a bit strange. And most never fully recover.

OTOH, there are some techniques---meditational kinds of tools, for instance---that can preserve, or even enhance, the "you." At least if the isolation isn't permanent, and the person can hang on to discipline/intention/practice.
And these outcomes are more likely if the isolation is voluntary/purposeful.
So maybe if you go into your bottle with a well-equipped mental tool-box, and on purpose, you'd not only survive/think, you'd actually flourish and grow. [[though no one would get the benefit of your genius/production unless you were hooked up with an ethernet or wifi or other upload/output means. Out-only, of course, input would defeat the purpose.
I wonder if you knowing you could/were outputting would make a huge difference or not compared to you not knowing you were outputting. I think it would. Audiences, real or potential/anticipated, change behavior. Knowing would alter the nature of your processes. But also might provide an additional reason to hang on to you-ing and doing.

[Zarathustra]

One review of Mind and Cosmos said Nagel did not support his own position as well as he could have. One thing mentioned was At Home in the Universe: The Search for the Laws of Self-Organization and Complexity, by Stuart Kauffman.

Most biologists, heritors of the Darwinian tradition, suppose that the order of ontogeny is due to the grinding away of a molecular Rube Goldberg machine, slapped together piece by piece by evolution. I present a countering thesis: most of the beautiful order seen in ontogeny is spontaneous, a natural expression of the stunning self-organization that abounds in very complex regulatory networks. We appear to have been profoundly wrong. Order, vast and generative, arises naturally.

The emergent order seen in genomic networks foretells a conceptual struggle, perhaps even a conceptual revolution, in evolutionary theory. In this book, I propose that much of the order in organisms may not be the result of selection at all, but of the spontaneous order of self-organized systems. Order, vast and generative, not fought for against the en-tropic tides but freely available, undergirds all subsequent biological evolution. The order of organisms is natural, not merely the unexpected triumph of natural selection.

Looks like one I'll have to read! I think lots of people are converging on similar conclusions, namely, that we're missing a big part of the picture with our current understanding of evolution, perhaps even with our understanding of nature as unfolding according to a "blind, accidental" processes. If something can self-organize, it is organizing itself toward a goal, an endpoint. What it is tending toward is part of the cause, thus, future determining the past. Teleology.

Nagel may not have defended his position sufficiently, but he did point out it was just a blueprint for the way forward, not a definitive proof. He was pointing out specific problems with our current understanding and mapping out the possible forms that a solution to those problems might take. There are several different routes we could explore in doing that, though they follow basic patterns (e.g. nonreductive).

The brain in the jar still has an embodiment. It's a very limited one, and hence, Vraith/Broth is right that it might quickly go insane.

Maybe this is why dream ... the illusion of freedom, of externalization, necessary to keep us sane while we're locked in our own heads. I doubt we could exist that way long. I know I've had dreams where I kept telling myself, "This doesn't feel right. This doesn't seem real. Something is wrong. I have to get out." Kind of like Neo in the Matrix. Reality calls ...

[Vraith]

I think lots of people are converging on similar conclusions, namely, that we're missing a big part of the picture with our current understanding of evolution, perhaps even with our understanding of nature as unfolding according to a "blind, accidental" processes. If something can self-organize, it is organizing itself toward a goal, an endpoint. What it is tending toward is part of the cause, thus, future determining the past. Teleology.

It would take massive evidence and a totally unexpected discovery for me to think purpose is an inherent and/or foundational thing, [force or property or law or whatever] and not a result of sufficiently complex and organized life.
BUT--
yea, things are converging/emerging. There's the guy I'm pretty sure I linked proposing a path where self-organizing/life-generating events are a natural result/outcome of entropy, not an exception, dodge, or violation of it.
[[[there are really several folk I've run across seeminly doing things similar, making similar but not identical claims/arguments. I'm sure I linked one of them. Maybe not the exact one I just described, though. ]]]

Several conceptually/structurally similar/related ideas/developments are scattered all around several distinct disciplines that are mixtures of math/geometry/physics.

In evolutionary theory, multi-level and group selections are finding firmer ground to stand on. [[though there are still many with rank/influence who poo-poo it]]

EDITED TO ADD: forgot to mention the AI someone built that can make very good guestimate predictions of the future states of chaotic/turbulent things---fluid flows, forest fire paths, and such---BUT...the neat trick is it doesn't actually calculate/solve any of the impossibly hard and complicated math/equations underneath such events. It does it more like people do [kinda. sorta]. It just looks at the event and the environment, and "intuits." Heuristic/holistic.

As peter and I were discussing elsewhere, it sure SEEMS like we're at or near a cusp or paradigmatic moment.

[Skyweir]

Yes you did link an article regarding self organisation being natural outcome of entropy. Fascinating and quite the opposite line that has occupied most previous narratives, were entropy was deemed to lead to chaos and disorder.

[Fist and Faith]

Unfortunately, I haven't read nearly as much of Stuart Kaufman's At Home in the Universe: The Search for the Laws of Self-Organization and Complexity as I wish I had. Apnea's been kicking my ass lately, and I can barely make it through scifi novels with plots and dialog. Anyway, one idea he discusses is demonstrated with a box of buttons. Say you have 100. Pick two at random and tie them together. Pick two at random and tie them together. Repeat. When you've randomly picked two buttons fifty times, you will not have fifty pairs of buttons tied together. I'm sure that's obvious to all of us without even trying it. You will possibly have a few that were not picked at all. But you'll also have chains, and webs. Through random chance, complexity arose.

With that in mind, he discusses individual molecules near each other. A molecule can be an ingredient or product of a reaction, but it can also be a catalyst for another reaction. And the webs arise.

Then today I googled "the mind is not physical". One of the hits references this article, from Nature's Scientific Reports. I have not read it yet, but it starts with this:

Prediction and control of the dynamics of complex networks is a central problem in network science. Structural and dynamical similarities of different real networks suggest that some universal laws might accurately describe the dynamics of these networks, albeit the nature and common origin of such laws remain elusive. Here we show that the causal network representing the large-scale structure of spacetime in our accelerating universe is a power-law graph with strong clustering, similar to many complex networks such as the Internet, social, or biological networks. We prove that this structural similarity is a consequence of the asymptotic equivalence between the large-scale growth dynamics of complex networks and causal networks. This equivalence suggest that unexpectedly similar laws govern the dynamics of complex networks and spacetime in the universe, with implications to network science and cosmology.

I'll have to read more of each, and see if these possible universal laws seem to be as random as the buttons, or more along the lines of the teleology Nagel is looking for.

[Skyweir]

Wow that was hard going .. methinks I will have to read it a few more times before I can get my head around all of it.

[Vraith]

Unfortunately, power-laws seem to have been a flash in the pan, over-reach by overheated and over-fitting folk.

Here's a bit that covers a few of the issues with such from Quanta:


https://www.quantamagazine.org/scant-ev ... -20180215/

[Fist and Faith]

Spoilsport!!