How Does Evolution Produce Consciousness/Reason?

[peter]

I think we are the only animals that are aware of our own mortality in the sense that we understand that we 'are' and that one day we will no longer 'be'. This is the true curse of our knowledge - the awareness that each and every one of us is born with a death sentence hanging over our heads and all that we do not know is the time and place that it will be executed. In the absence of this understanding, any self awareness possessed by an animal would have to be partial at best. Beyond this much will depend on to what degree you conflate consciousness with self-awareness.

[Vraith]

Do animals contemplate their existence and ponder their impending doom?

Or is that [un]happy fate our signature privilege?

yea. at least some of them do...though not as deeply/holistically and somewhat unavoidably as humans.

Side note--I once had an idea, and you've reminded me, and I should do it, for a take on things in musical form...
one song:
I am the very model of a modern existentialist.

edited to add: peter, there isn't a likely identity between those things, so conflation is a worry. OTOH...consciousness, self-awareness, and intelligence I think are totally Venn. Mutually contingent. Inter-causal.

Next song:
Boson and fermion
Boson and fermion
they go together like cation a'nion.
Let me tell you brother...
you can't have one without the
Other.

[Fist and Faith]

But gravity isn't a force in consistent with your description "created by warping spacetime" Fist. Objects aren't "attracted" by gravity, matter doesn't generate it materially or non-materially...they follow [and create/participate IN] the warp because they can't break/separate from spacetime.

Matter warps spacetime, and matter follows the warp because it can't break/separate from spacetime. That's how this particular force is made. Don't call it a force if you don't want to, but that's what we've been calling if for a long time. Regardless, it's something that is not materially reducible, would not exist without matter, and affects matter. Matter makes something outside itself, which then affects matter. Seems like those two sentences apply as well to consciousness.

I only pull that out cuz, Fisty, I want to change your conception a bit on material reducibility. [still. I keep trying this. I must really want to do it...
]

When you say it's not...in all the ways you say it's not taken together...you are building an impenetrable wall between consciousness and the material world. You're not just implying it's inexplicable by current knowledge/properties of the material, you're implying it will always be inexplicable by ANY knowledge/properties of the material. It's an independent kind of magic.

It seems you don't necessarily want to claim that...you believe brains or something like them are necessary to create/experience/embody/know consciousness.
But you can't have both.

It's either independent/existent in itself, or it has a material foundation...it won't exist without brains [and will always arise with enough brains, I suspect].
And I think part of the problem is how you see materials and reducibility and properties.

I am thoroughly perplexed by this entire topic. Something seemingly impossible is happening, and I often don't know how to clearly articulate my questions, much less answer them. To make matters worse, as a result of the thought I've put into it due to these threads, I think I've changed my thinking on some things.

All in all, it comes as no surprise that you see me wanting things both ways, and I wouldn't be surprised if it looks like I want it three or four ways.

To try to be clear...

On what I currently believe...

I think the mind is the brain behaving in ways we cannot explain with what we currently know about particles/matter/material reducibility. I don't know that we'll ever figure it out. We haven't gotten anywhere with it so far, because the non-reducible aspects are, by definition, not things we can examine with all the tools we use to study things. However, I think we are starting to think of things in different ways. Z's paradigm shift/Nagel. Einstein showed us that the very structure of reality is things we had not thought possible, and are still counter-intuitive. Yet we know they are true, because we have ways of testing for such things. Maybe we'll one day be able to say the same about consciousness.

Earlier, you said in response to me, that Carbon is materially reducible to Helium despite the emergent property differences between them.

No I didn't. I said: "The emergent properties of carbon and helium are materially reducible."

One thing I think is a deep error here [probably], is that is seems to me from all you've said that because it's all dissectable into the same constituent parts/forces, it's all reducible. BUT is that true? In some ways, yes.
But I'd say:
Most interactions we see all over and easily are electromagnetic, carried by photons. Lets stick with just that. You're saying because most interactions happen using photons [real and virtual], they're reducible.

BUT that's like saying that because we both post here using photons, our POSTS are reducible to the same thing.

A mountain and a cloud are very different things. Yet both reducible to protons, neurons, and electrons.

Our posts are reducible to the same things, and are, in ways, more alike than a mountain and cloud are. Of course, our posts are products of consciousness, and the meaning in them is not materially reducible.


I've never read Schopenhauer, or anybody else. Wikipedia suggests Kant is necessary for Schopenhauer.

[Vraith]

A mountain and a cloud are very different things. Yet both reducible to protons, neurons, and electrons.

PRECISELY! They are MADE of identical stuff...AND YET have wholly different properties/behaviors/information/interactions.
What mountains produce, clouds and brains cannot. [nor can the raw components]
What clouds produce, brains and mountains cannot. [nor can the raw components]
What brains produce, mountains and clouds cannot. [nor can the raw components]
You can rip all of them into identical particles [and it's REAL identical, no difference whatsoever between any proton and the near infinite other protons]...and if you DO, you LOSE all the properties they have.

So, what reason, if any, do you have for defining irreducible as you do, and/or for preferring that perspective to consciousness as an emergent property of an exponential difference in material complexity?

[Wosbald]

+JMJ+

[...]

So, what reason, if any, do you have for defining irreducible as you do, and/or for preferring that perspective to consciousness as an emergent property of an exponential difference in material complexity?

Color me crazy, but it seems to me that if someone is identifying a reality/phenomenon as "irreducible", then by definition, it excludes any "principled reason" to which it could be ... well ... reduced.

Just as when, for example, one might respond to the issue of [self-]consciousness with the principled reason "because matter".

[Vraith]

+JMJ+

[...]

So, what reason, if any, do you have for defining irreducible as you do, and/or for preferring that perspective to consciousness as an emergent property of an exponential difference in material complexity?

Color me crazy, but it seems to me that if someone is identifying a reality/phenomenon as "irreducible", then by definition, it excludes any "principled reason" to which it could be ... well ... reduced.

Just as when, for example, one might respond to the issue of [self-]consciousness with the principled reason "because matter".

Hah...sure.
It's hard to come up with a principled reason when the totality/topic under consideration is not fully known/understood.
But I think his definition of irreducible is questionable.
That's the big thing.
And that connects to...
Given what is, and is not, known about the fundamentals, the totality of what is known, it seems arbitrary or even ANTI-reasonable/principled to choose the position with the LEAST support.
[[which is not, at all, to suggest questions should stop, skepticism not be maintained, options foreclosed, intuition dismissed/excluded...especially since this is chattering and exploring]]

[Fist and Faith]

Z and I have spoken about it frequently. I don't understand why you don't understand my position.

Everything about mountains and clouds is understandable as the interactions of the particles they are composed of. Solids do not pass through each other because of things like how tightly packed the molecules are, and the way the electrons on the surface of one solid repel the electrons on the surface of another. The compositions of different parts of a mountain are explained by the different ways the subatomic particles -> atoms -> molecules can combine. Carbon's structure allows it to bond with itself and other elements more easily than other elements.

Clouds are composed of droplets that are so tiny that gravity does not pull them strongly enough to counteract the currents in the air, and even the resistence of still air.

Brains are made of the same subatomic particles as everything else. So tell me how thoughts of mathematics are reducible to those subatomic particles? What is the progression of subatomic -> atoms -> molecules -> ... -> mathematics? We can see the progression leading to neurons, neurotransmitters, etc. But none of that is math. Where is the math?

[Vraith]

Z and I have spoken about it frequently. I don't understand why you don't understand my position.

But none of that is math. Where is the math?

It's not that I don't understand your position, it is perfectly clear.

I just think you're erasing differences because you have some understanding of explanation/how they arise, and what things are at both ends, but then assuming a difference, a totally different KIND of difference, once you get to a point where you don't fully understand the things at either end.

Where is the mountain "in" the particles? It's not, it's in the totality. But we understand the particles and the mountain and the processes.
Where is the math in a calculator? It's not. But we [at least real pros/experts] understand both ends, and the machine in between.
So the differences are erased, even though they exist.
[[and even though our understanding is certainly incomplete]].
And when we finally get up to what we're talking about, the differences are reinstated...not because of what we know, but because of what we don't know.
I'd claim the mountain and calculator have irreducible properties. You disagree. That's fine.
BUT our lack of knowledge of how math is in brains doesn't mean there is a different KIND of thing [whether reducible or not, whatever our difference in speaking of/defining reductions] happening.
And even if it is, in some way, a different kind of thing that doesn't mean it won't be reducible by a similar process/method. [[quarks and electrons are much different, but the structures of explanation are the same...that representational/descriptive similarity is how we get to the mountain]]

[Fist and Faith]

I agree with your last sentence. It's possible that there are properties of particles for which we have not yet seen any hint. Or maybe consciousness is the hint for these properties, and we have simply not yet figured out the properties. And, since consciousness IS in these specific types of groups of particles, it should HAVE to be reducible to the properties of those particles.

However, if that's the case, we are entirely clueless as to what's going on. As I've said previously, we know a lot of things about the properties of even subatomic particles. Gluons and photons acting as exchange particles for forces. Six flavors of quarks, for crying out loud. And on and on. But everything we know has a function, and no function hints of a building block, or precursor, or whatever, of consciousness.

Any part of a mountain can be reduced to particles, and the micro properties of those particles explain the macro properties of that part of the mountain. No part of our awareness - of ourselves, of others, of math, or of anything else - reduces to any particles that we know of, and no micro properties that we know of of any particle that we know of explain the macro phenomenon of consciousness.

Arrangements of particles in calculators and computers represent numbers and the ways they are manipulated. Arrangements in our brains represent the same. Of course, much more is going on in our brains. Many different pathways and webs of pathways going on at the same time, many having nothing to do with math. But which are the ones giving us an awareness of the idea of mathematics - of the meaning of those arrangements that represent numbers and how they are manipulated? And how do they do it using identical stuff?

You have to give me SOMEthing, V! How can you claim it is materially reducible without any hint of it in our not inconsiderable understanding of material, and not even an outlandish theory?

[Vraith]

I agree with your last sentence. It's possible that there are properties of particles for which we have not yet seen any hint.

You have to give me SOMEthing, V! How can you claim it is materially reducible without any hint of it in our not inconsiderable understanding of material, and not even an outlandish theory?

On the first...yea, it's possible. I'm sure there are things we have little or no information on as yet. But I'm not sure it's at all necessary for what we're talking about.

But I have given you something. I'll give it again in a second...after reiterating that we don't agree on what reducible/irreducible are, how they work.

So...what is the one thing that you KNOW, as far as we can "know" anything, that is different between you and every other thing...including other things like me that seem to be also brain-having and showing evidence of consciousness?

Every other thing you ONLY know, and only CAN know, from the outside. By watching them...and not them in isolation, only them in relation to other things. [[if you can't "see" them interact, by effects with other things, you can't "see" them at all]]

But you know YOU from the "inside." And probably ONLY from the inside.
IF you could watch on a monitor, or in VR, or whatever, ALL the things your brain was doing at some point...would seeing it from the outside cause you to think whatever you had been thinking when the recording was made?
No, because you'd be in the wrong position, have the wrong perspective.
What you COULD see is the brain tumor that kept causing you to read vraith's posts no matter how often he repeated himself...and that "inside" you had no idea existed.
OTOH---
IF a recording and tool were used to make your brain DO those same things, THEN you'd "think" the thoughts.
Because you'd be inside it again.

[[would someone else's brain think the same thoughts if the stimulation was input?? How similar/different might they be? How sensitive are brains/thoughts to initial conditions? If you are afraid of flying, and you pipe the brain-state of your last trip into a pilot...would s/he feel EXACTLY what you did? Or "recognize" the state/fear without feeling it...or as a secondary/parallel with own flight experiences [like stimulating his/her own memory of that near-crash in rough weather, when flying WAS scary for a bit] running at the same time? Or edit out/suppress it? OR--god forbid--be infected with it, his/her neurons altered and have to give up that sweet job at Delta?]]

I think that path, that and associated kinds of experiments will be extremely enlightening/revealing.
Because we know that electronic recordings and brain-probes don't have or carry consciousness/thoughts. What's the same, what's different, in what ways, to what degree...will piping in recordings of learning and doing geometry and proofs cause the second brain to be confused [cuz s/he doesn't understand math], cause it to do math---but some other math problem s/he has/had some memory/experience of? TEACH the second brain, s/he sits up afterwards "HOLY SHIT, I failed intro to algebra! But now [or "for a minute there"] I understand/stood Hilbert Space!"

MAYBE that inside awareness requires a new particle/force/fundamental thing.
But more likely, to me, is it emerges from outrageous complexity.
I think it more likely that because, even for non-living things, and even with only the outside perspective, greater complexity tends to yield different properties, behaviors, and information.

[Zarathustra]

It's not that I don't understand your position, it is perfectly clear.

Where is the mountain "in" the particles? It's not, it's in the totality. But we understand the particles and the mountain and the processes.
Where is the math in a calculator? It's not. But we [at least real pros/experts] understand both ends, and the machine in between.
So the differences are erased, even though they exist.
[[and even though our understanding is certainly incomplete]].
And when we finally get up to what we're talking about, the differences are reinstated...not because of what we know, but because of what we don't know.
I'd claim the mountain and calculator have irreducible properties. You disagree. That's fine.

Who said anything about calculators? Calculators are entirely reducible. The fact that we use them to "do math" doesn't make them irreducible in the way that Fist means.

Perhaps you were to hasty to say you understood his position.

Every state of a mountain or a calculator follows directly from its previous state according to physical laws. But mental states can cause other mental states. And this causation happens according to the formal and/or ideal structures and/or meaning of the content of the mental state. That cannot be reduced to matter, because matter doesn't have content or meaning. For instance, when I'm composing this post, my mind is following a train of thought. Each next word is dependent upon both the meaning of the previous words and the meaning I still intend to convey. It is a teleological activity, in this sense, because I have a goal in mind, and that goal is to express a meaning or idea. If each mental state were simply caused by previous brain states according to laws of physics, without taking into account this "looking forward" and "looking behind," not to mention this understanding, then this process would be nonsense. There would be no meaning to the phrase, "I'm trying to convey an idea." The act of moving toward a fully explicit idea which is as of yet unexpressed would be jibberish.


Now, mountains and calculators don't change their states in this way. They don't progress toward goals, much less have goals. They don't have content (not even calculators . . . no more than an abacus has content). And their states do not follow one upon the other in relation to any content or meaning.

So, this process of mental state causing other mental states can't be reduced to matter because the content/meaning isn't in the matter. Atoms don't have ideas or goals. And yet our minds move in ways that follow ideas and seek goals.

There's the "principled reason," Wos mentioned. If matter doesn't contain content, ideas, meaning, or goals, then mind can't be reduced to matter even in principle. And matter cannot contain these things and still be matter, according to our current understanding of matter.

[Vraith]

Who said anything about calculators? Calculators are entirely reducible. The fact that we use them to "do math" doesn't make them irreducible in the way that Fist means.

Perhaps you were to hasty to say you understood his position.

If matter doesn't contain content, ideas, meaning, or goals, then mind can't be reduced to matter even in principle.

I understand it. I don't agree with it. I don't think "fully explainable" necessarily or sufficiently means or implies "reducible to." Some people do, some don't.

I put in the calculator precisely because the full expression/enactment of its properties requires something like us...I was delineating a scaffold/bridge.

Different things, made from the same elements, have different properties. Things emerge. Here's a fun thing that just popped up today. Not directly on topic, but pertinent. [[[fun quote: "Certain materials act like their own universes with their own physical laws.....[snip].....we're in possession of these materials - say, a topological insulator - which have different sets of rules inside]]]

https://www.quantamagazine.org/quantum- ... -20180925/

I understand your position and principle, too. I don't KNOW that it's incorrect. It contains a good encapsulation of the problem, and why it's hard, and makes a reasonable outline of argument. But you can't know that it's correct, either. I think the answer is in emergence, perspective, and complexity. In my perspective/view, mountains [to a small extent] calculators [to a greater one] and mind [to an even greater one, one with large unknowns as yet] are all irreducible. In yours, only the mind is. That's fine. But I suspect future discoveries will show your "irreducible in principle" principle to be mistaken...but I could very easily be wrong.
Fun thing I mentioned elsewhere I think.
You can teach a mouse a maze.
Then destroy a neuron or two.
The content vanishes...the mouse no longer knows the maze.
If you replace the destroyed neuron...the content comes back.
[[I tried to find that article, but apparently it's not available publicly anymore...the only public ones are about restoring function or overcoming chemical suppression. Those aren't the one I want/not the same thing]]

[Zarathustra]

I think the answer is in emergence, perspective, and complexity. In my perspective/view, mountains [to a small extent] calculators [to a greater one] and mind [to an even greater one, one with large unknowns as yet] are all irreducible. In yours, only the mind is. That's fine. But I suspect future discoveries will show your "irreducible in principle" principle to be mistaken...but I could very easily be wrong.

If you think all three are irreducible, then why say my "irreducible in principle" principle is wrong?

I do not think that a mountain has properties that are not reducible to its constituent parts. Which properties would these be? A mountain is functionally nothing more than a big pile of atoms.

I do, however, think that what makes a mountain distinct from, say, a river is irreducible. If we are going to distinguish these as distinct objects whatsoever, rather than simply two different collections of atoms, it can only be on the basis of an essence. A meaning. If there is a meaningful difference, a basis upon which make a distinction worth giving them different classifications as objects--as members of a class, each to its own--then this is something that is over and above their existence as collections of atoms. It is based on the totality of its own existence, the holistic understanding of its being, rather than reductive.

So perhaps this is what you are saying is irreducible about mountains. The meaning of "mountain" as a distinct classification of object isn't a property given to its by its constituent parts (i.e. atoms), but rather how it "participates" meaningfully within a physical environment as part of a geology, an ecosystem, a climate. This relation to its environment gives it a characteristic meaning that we can understand in poetic terms from "making a mountain out of molehill" to "because it's there." Whether it's a symbol of exaggeration or a challenge to our physical endurance, a mountain has a meaning that is both distinct from a river and irreducible to its atoms. And yet, it is not imaginary. It is based on what a mountain is as a member of a class.

If it is meaningful to say there are objects at all, rather than just collections of matter, then I believe this is an unavoidable conclusion. And if it were not meaningful to say there are objects, then it would be impossible to have scientific explanations, and everything we know about the universe would be meaningless stories. Myths.

[Fist and Faith]

I still don't understand you, Z. The difference between a mountain and a river is the different ways the particles are piled. The differences at the micro level give rise to differences at the macro level. We can perceive those differences, which allows us to use different things in different ways. We cannot travel up and down a mountain range in a boat, for example.

And we categorize the differences, and the overall objects, so that we can communicate. After all, if I never saw another person, but I lived in a place of mountains and lakes, I wouldn't ever try to sail up the mountain, even if I never came up with names or categories even for my own amusement.

What is added by whatever you mean by essence or meaning?

[Fist and Faith]

V, still trying to understand what we disagree on. My apologies if you've answered this, but I'm just not following. Do you think our thoughts, and chains of thoughts, are the result of the properties of particles and the laws that govern their interactions?

And what aspect of a mountain do you think is irreducible?

[Vraith]

If you think all three are irreducible, then why say my "irreducible in principle" principle is wrong?

I meant the distinction between reducible mountains and irreducible mind you were pointing at would vanish.
It might require discovery of a new property [or group of them], or only a new perspective on/deeper understanding-implication-properties of already known things...but the end would be an explanation from the fundamentals all the way up, of the same form/structure as the current explanation from quarks to mountains. Complexity, emergence, state/phase changes---absolutely. But not disconnection/separation.

I do mean and agree with most of the rest you said,...but I take it all the way down.
The instant some quarks make a proton, new property/interaction/behavior/existential state/informational content arises that is different from what the quarks were/did before.

Which kinda points me to you, Fist, this you said:
"" Do you think our thoughts, and chains of thoughts, are the result of the properties of particles and the laws that govern their interactions? ""
Yea...although there are things we still don't know...AND the thing---in many ways the most important thing, the thing we'll get nowhere until we understand---is the causal connection/relation/feedback in the other direction...thoughts able to DO things...including think other thoughts, but also [which can't be unrelated/disconnected] "storing" memories in the physical processes and geometry of the brain.
Because if consciousness IS anything...the apparent gap Z keeps showing is a real gap in our knowledge scheme.
I think that something like, if not identical to, being "inside" the interactions, immersed in and participating in the particles/forces/fields, is more likely than something that requires a physical thing [a brain] but is separable, immune to/beyond the boundaries of the physical embodied universe.

I could be not just wrong, but not even not even not EVEN wrong.
But, it seems to me that the irreducible form/nature that you and Z seem be implying/describing/defining has a problem: It can be manipulated/restated to the shape----"All that stuff is just the soul God gave you, the way God created things."

[Fist and Faith]

I feel the same about a lot of what you're saying, V. The mind is entirely dependent upon the physical brain. Aspects of the mind are clearly functions of the physical. Memory storage being a great example. Mood, and even the ability to think rationally, are easily altered by chemicals.

Also, as I've said before, the body is physical, and voluntary body movements are directed by the mind. If the mind isn't physical, how does it accomplish physical movement?

So I believe the mind is the brain. The Awakened Brain. And, to the degree I understand what you're trying to say, I agree with your "inside" idea.

But that does not suffice. Something is going on that is not the result of the cause & effect interplay of particles and groups of particles, and that is not addressed by this inside talk. Z has been posting eloquently about it for a very long time, most of it trying to make me understand. I won't bother repeating what he's said. But I just tried to think of something that couldn't come from any thought that came before it. I came up with monkeys driving cars. Do you think my brain's wiring, the current amounts of chemicals, and the specific positions of all the particles are the cause of the thought of monkeys driving cars? All particles moved from one position inevitably to the next, in order to bring about that particular thought?


(And I'm not going to dismiss the possibility of something just because someone will say it's because of God. Let them say it. If this is what it seems to me it is, than I want to understand it.)

[Wosbald]

+JMJ+

[...]

(And I'm not going to dismiss the possibility of something just because someone will say it's because of God. Let them say it. If this is what it seems to me it is, than I want to understand it.)

I think that part of the problem may be a modern, hypertrophic concern with -- a monomaniacal focus upon -- Causality. A "causolatry", so to speak.

Philosophical Realists don't proceed with the axiom of universal causation: "because [fill in the blank], therefore Man (and mountains, rivers, lakes, and whatnot)".

Rather, Realists (at least, the anthropocentric type*) begin with the open question: "Man is, therefore [?]".





* FWIW, there are some new anthropo-decentric Realists who attempt to think outside of both Man and Universal Causation, and this has issued in results which vary from Graham Harman's experiment in a sort of neo-Neoplatonic mythopoesis to Ray Brassier's project of Absolute Nihilism ("Transcendental Nihilism").

[Vraith]

Do you think my brain's wiring, the current amounts of chemicals, and the specific positions of all the particles are the cause of the thought of monkeys driving cars? All particles moved from one position inevitably to the next, in order to bring about that particular thought?


(And I'm not going to dismiss the possibility of something just because someone will say it's because of God. Let them say it. If this is what it seems to me it is, than I want to understand it.)

On the first, NOT a single cause, NOT inevitable, NOT "in order to" NOT linear.
Like---and don't take this too literally---a space that is totally vacuum, things happen, things occur, things come to be. Also, apparently, in any sufficient space [[I don't remember what minimum was, but it was incredibly small]]---even supposedly strictly causal spaces---where particles/energy can be, there exist particles free of history/prior cause--determinations. Always. And quite a lot of them.
So the brain/mind space should have all of that...PLUS it is infinitely more complex/full of things and information. And all of that connected/interconnected multiply. The pieces/forces affect the whole...but the whole affects the parts.
And [probably] there are nested sets. The set of all things that can possibly be thought, the things YOU could possibly think, the things you do think, the things you must think---all of which overlap to some extent, and a significant portion of the thought-like processing happens below what we call conscious thought, but informs it.
And a lot isn't "in" the things, the particles, the "being in a state." It's in the process/flow/shape. I can't think of any good and easy way to describe it what I'm thinking.
Kinda like a dance...what it does, what it is, what it conveys/carries, all of it...isn't in the DANCER, his/her BODY, it's in the dancING.
The content is the motion.

On the second [and a nod to what Wos said after]...I'm not dismissing because someone will say it's god. [[I'm not dismissing it at all, really]]
I'm saying it's either true that it's god-originated, or it's something else...and as it stands there's a problem, cuz you can't tell WHICH. No way to tell them apart. And which is the actual explanation is important.

[Fist and Faith]

Well, it's not like people aren't going to stop working on finding the actual explanation. Not all people. Some might assume they know the answer - God - and stop, feeling they are done. Others might assume the same answer, but still want to understand the "mechanics" of it. And, of course, those who don't think it's God will continue looking.

I'm always working on trying to understand your view of this. I appreciate your continued efforts.