From logant@U.Arizona.EDU Wed Sep 1 15:50:47 1999 Return-Path: Received: from Arizona.EDU (Penny.Telcom.arizona.edu [128.196.128.217]) by paradox.soc-sci.arizona.edu (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id PAA31917 for ; Wed, 1 Sep 1999 15:50:47 -0700 Received: from DIRECTORY-DAEMON by Telcom.Arizona.EDU (PMDF V5.1-12 #24137) id <01JFGMKXE2UOB8SC3K@Telcom.Arizona.EDU> for chalmers@paradox.soc-sci.arizona.edu; Wed, 1 Sep 1999 15:51:45 MST Received: from paradox.soc-sci.arizona.edu by Telcom.Arizona.EDU (PMDF V5.1-12 #24137) with ESMTP id <01JFGMKVZOV4B8S2L5@Telcom.Arizona.EDU> for chalmers@Arizona.EDU; Wed, 01 Sep 1999 15:51:44 -0700 (MST) Received: from pavo.U.Arizona.EDU (pavo-2.U.Arizona.EDU [128.196.137.196]) by paradox.soc-sci.arizona.edu (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id PAA31912 for ; Wed, 01 Sep 1999 15:50:43 -0700 Received: from localhost (logant@localhost) by pavo.U.Arizona.EDU (8.8.6 (PHNE_17190)/8.8.6) with ESMTP id PAA23539 for ; Wed, 01 Sep 1999 15:51:42 -0700 (MST) Date: Wed, 01 Sep 1999 15:51:42 -0700 (MST) From: Logan T Trujillo Subject: Functional role of intrinsic consciousness To: scicon@paradox.soc-sci.arizona.edu Message-id: MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Status: RO This question is directed at David, but may be replied by anyone in the class who has something to say. I noticed that when David presented his non-reductive strategy to investigating consciousness, he drew a single one-way arrow pointing from physical processes to consciousness. David, were you trying to imply that the causal-functional relationship between physical and qualitative processes is only one way (from physical to consciousness)? What reasons do we have to think that it couldn't go both ways (kind of like J. Sarfatti's idea of backaction between mental and physical)? I ask this because if we want to introduce consciousness as an explanatory primitive, and if we further wish to characterize it as playing a causal-functional role in the universe, then it may be that our current account of non-conscious physical processes is incomplete in that the intrinsic nature to material particles may be playing a role in the dynamics of physical systems that are currently characterized in terms of extrinsic relationships. Such a possibility could produce empirically testable consequences. Such a possibility would be consistent with both pan-experiential and interactionist viewpoints in that the ontology could be construed in the sense of the former - consciousness (or at least qualitative experience) is an intrinsic property to material processes - yet the dynamics could be understood in the sense of the latter in that there could be a functional, interactive relationship between the intrinsic and extrinsic parameters of physical reality. Physical reality would still be causally closed, but only if one takes both its inner and outer aspects into account. Just a thought. Best, Logan Trujillo Psychology From chalmers@paradox.soc-sci.arizona.edu Wed Sep 1 20:31:55 1999 Return-Path: Received: from Arizona.EDU (Penny.Telcom.arizona.edu [128.196.128.217]) by paradox.soc-sci.arizona.edu (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id UAA32244 for ; Wed, 1 Sep 1999 20:31:55 -0700 Received: from DIRECTORY-DAEMON by Telcom.Arizona.EDU (PMDF V5.1-12 #24137) id <01JFGWEF055CB8SBV9@Telcom.Arizona.EDU> for chalmers@paradox.soc-sci.arizona.edu; Wed, 1 Sep 1999 20:32:51 MST Received: from paradox.soc-sci.arizona.edu by Telcom.Arizona.EDU (PMDF V5.1-12 #24137) with ESMTP id <01JFGWEDQ3EOB8S7FC@Telcom.Arizona.EDU> for chalmers@Arizona.EDU; Wed, 01 Sep 1999 20:32:49 -0700 (MST) Received: (from chalmers@localhost) by paradox.soc-sci.arizona.edu (8.9.3/8.9.3) id UAA32236 for scicon@paradox.soc-sci.arizona.edu; Wed, 01 Sep 1999 20:31:45 -0700 Date: Wed, 01 Sep 1999 20:31:45 -0700 From: David Chalmers Subject: Re: Functional role of intrinsic consciousness To: scicon@paradox.soc-sci.arizona.edu Message-id: <199909020331.UAA32236@paradox.soc-sci.arizona.edu> MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII Status: R Logan writes: >This question is directed at David, but may be replied by anyone in the >class who has something to say. I noticed that when David presented his >non-reductive strategy to investigating consciousness, he drew a single >one-way arrow pointing from physical processes to consciousness. David, >were you trying to imply that the causal-functional relationship between >physical and qualitative processes is only one way (from physical to >consciousness)? What reasons do we have to think that it couldn't go both >ways (kind of like J. Sarfatti's idea of backaction between mental and >physical)? Actually, I didn't mean to rule out that the relation could be two-way. In my alphabetical taxonomy, the one-way relationship is a type-E dualism (epiphenomenalism), and the two-way relationship is a type-D dualism (D for Descartes, i.e. Cartesian dualism, or interactionism). The reason many people are suspicious of the type-D view is that it seems to introduce gaps in physical causation; i.e., it suggests that the physical world is not "causally closed". And many people think that the evidence from physics is that physics is causally closed, and that there is no room for "spooky causation". Of course some people deny that, and suggest that in particular quantum mechanics may leave room for interaction between physical and mental. Many are suspicious of the type-E view for a different reason, namely that it suggests that consciousness has no effect on the physical world. And seems very counterintuitive to hold that a pain doesn't cause our pain reaction, that the visual experience of the sunset doesn't cause me to keep looking at it, that my consciousness plays no causal role in my writing books about consciousness, etc. But then one might respond that the epiphenomenalist can explain the counterintuitiveness at least to some extent, by noting that there are strong regularities between experiences and consequent physical events, so that we tend to infer a causal connection even when it is not there. Of course all that is controversial. My own view is that if arguments against materialism are accepted, then the conclusion ought to be a disjunction of (i.e. a choice between) interactionism, epiphenomenalism, and panprotopsychism (i.e. the type-D, type-E, and type-F views I mentioned). The choice between those depends on a lot of subtle matters and is by no means obvious, and may to some extent depend on where a science of consciousness ends up going. >I ask this because if we want to introduce consciousness as an >explanatory primitive, and if we further wish to characterize it as playing a >causal-functional role in the universe, then it may be that our current >account of non-conscious physical processes is incomplete in that the >intrinsic nature to material particles may be playing a role in the >dynamics of physical systems that are currently characterized in terms of >extrinsic relationships. Such a possibility could produce empirically >testable consequences. > Such a possibility would be consistent with both pan-experiential >and interactionist viewpoints in that the ontology could be construed in >the sense of the former - consciousness (or at least qualitative >experience) is an intrinsic property to material processes - yet the >dynamics could be understood in the sense of the latter in that there >could be a functional, interactive relationship between the intrinsic and >extrinsic parameters of physical reality. Physical reality would still be >causally closed, but only if one takes both its inner and outer aspects into >account. Hmm, your talk of the "intrinsic aspects of material reality" suggests the panprotopsychist view to me. Of course on that view, the intrinsic aspects have causal effects (they are the ultimate causes of all physical action!), but on this view, the physical world will still be causally closed, so it isn't a type-D view. I'm not sure just how you mean the view to have empirical consequences, though. On my reading of such a view, the intrinsic aspects play a causal role in all physical interactions (they are the ultimate things doing the causing), so it's not as if there will be a new and special set of interactions that they do the causing in. So it's not clear that the view makes empirical predictions (at least about third-person matters such as the motion of particles) that are distinct from those made by ordinary physical theory. If, on the other hand, you want to introduce phenomenal properties as a new set of properties at the bottom level without having them underlie all causal interactions, then it seems that you'll be regarding them as a further property like mass, etc, right at the bottom. Then it's true that you could have new laws and new interactions governing them. But now you'll be up against the problem that there is no apparent evidence for them in physics, and that the view will thus require revolutionizing our well-supported physical theories to incorporate consciousness. Maybe this could happen, but it's going out on a big limb. Basically, on this view, we'll say that there's a certain physical parameter C (to be discovered) such that C has consciousness as its intrinsic nature. Maybe it would be easier to say that some existing physical parameter (mass or spin, say) has consciousness as its intrinsic nature, and that it interacts with all the others. Then, it seems to me, you might get the benefits of the view without the costs. Feel free to clarify... --Dave. From logant@U.Arizona.EDU Thu Sep 2 21:02:38 1999 Return-Path: Received: from Arizona.EDU (Penny.Telcom.arizona.edu [128.196.128.217]) by paradox.soc-sci.arizona.edu (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id VAA01587 for ; Thu, 2 Sep 1999 21:02:38 -0700 Received: from DIRECTORY-DAEMON by Telcom.Arizona.EDU (PMDF V5.1-12 #24137) id <01JFIBQYVP2OB8SPJA@Telcom.Arizona.EDU> for chalmers@paradox.soc-sci.arizona.edu; Thu, 2 Sep 1999 21:03:38 MST Received: from orion.U.Arizona.EDU by Telcom.Arizona.EDU (PMDF V5.1-12 #24137) with ESMTP id <01JFIBQXQXSGB8S5L9@Telcom.Arizona.EDU> for chalmers@Arizona.EDU; Thu, 02 Sep 1999 21:03:37 -0700 (MST) Received: from localhost (logant@localhost) by orion.U.Arizona.EDU (8.8.6 (PHNE_17190)/8.8.6) with ESMTP id VAA00859; Thu, 02 Sep 1999 21:03:36 -0700 (MST) Date: Thu, 02 Sep 1999 21:03:36 -0700 (MST) From: Logan T Trujillo Subject: Re: Functional role of intrinsic consciousness In-reply-to: <199909020331.UAA32236@paradox.soc-sci.arizona.edu> To: David Chalmers Cc: scicon@paradox.soc-sci.arizona.edu Message-id: MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Status: RO On Wed, 1 Sep 1999, David Chalmers wrote: > My own view is that if arguments > against materialism are accepted, then the conclusion ought to be a > disjunction of (i.e. a choice between) interactionism, > epiphenomenalism, and panprotopsychism (i.e. the type-D, type-E, and > type-F views I mentioned). The choice between those depends on a lot > of subtle matters and is by no means obvious, and may to some extent > depend on where a science of consciousness ends up going. > [Logan] > >I ask this because if we want to introduce consciousness as an > >explanatory primitive, and if we further wish to characterize it as playing a > >causal-functional role in the universe, then it may be that our current > >account of non-conscious physical processes is incomplete in that the > >intrinsic nature to material particles may be playing a role in the > >dynamics of physical systems that are currently characterized in terms of > >extrinsic relationships. Such a possibility could produce empirically > >testable consequences. > > Such a possibility would be consistent with both pan-experiential > >and interactionist viewpoints in that the ontology could be construed in > >the sense of the former - consciousness (or at least qualitative > >experience) is an intrinsic property to material processes - yet the > >dynamics could be understood in the sense of the latter in that there > >could be a functional, interactive relationship between the intrinsic and > >extrinsic parameters of physical reality. Physical reality would still be > >causally closed, but only if one takes both its inner and outer aspects into > >account. > [David] > Hmm, your talk of the "intrinsic aspects of material reality" suggests > the panprotopsychist view to me. Of course on that view, the > intrinsic aspects have causal effects (they are the ultimate causes of > all physical action!), but on this view, the physical world will still > be causally closed, so it isn't a type-D view. [Logan] I think that we should clarify what we mean by "physical". On a panprotopsychist account, the intrinsic aspects to material particles would still be "physical". However they have a distinction from physical properties that are characterized extrinsically (mass, charge, etc). It is this distinction that proponents of this view seek to utilize in an account for the "difference in kind" of experiential properties from the extrinsic properties we know. Another terminology that could be used is "material/immaterial" in place of "extrinsic/intrinsic". "Material" properties may be conceived as those arising due to extrinsic relationships, "immaterial" properties are those due to intrinsic. Now on a panprotopsychist viewpoint the intrinsic properties certainly may be construed as carrying the causal weight of the extrinsic interactions (see below). However physics for the most part maps out extrinsic properties (an argument against this may be made in the case of spin; spin is considered an "intrinsic" property because it does not depend explicitly on spatiotemporal parameters. However it does have extrinsic effects and thus may be characterized in terms of this relational ability). The intrinsic nature to reality may account for this causally, but the possibility remains that certain physical processes exist that are purely "immaterial", i.e. interact via direct relationships among intrinsic properties. These may have influences extrinsically in the sense that these interactions produce changes in the intrinsic state space of a system in a manner that carries over into the portion of the intrinsic causal network underlying extrinsic properties. Although panprotopsychist, this view is also interactionist in the sense of a material/immaterial categorization to the ONE physical reality that is causally closed on a global (intrinsic/extrinsic) scale (this would be a conjunction of type D and F). I guess it comes down to the question, can the possible set of intrinsic property relations and interactions outrun the possible set of extrinsic property relations and interactions? I see no reason why this couldn't be the case, and recent arguments based in physics approaches to understanding consciousness, as well as the data from parapsychology seem to suggest that this might be the case (although this is very controversial). An analogy from mathematics might help to illustrate: by definition, all real numbers are complex numbers, but not all complex numbers are real numbers. I would argue in analogy that the intrinsic stands to the complex numbers as the extrinsic stands to the reals. To be extrinsic is to have an accompanying intrinsic component; but being intrinsic does not imply that one has an accompanying component in any direct sense. [David] I'm not sure just how > you mean the view to have empirical consequences, though. On my > reading of such a view, the intrinsic aspects play a causal role in > all physical interactions (they are the ultimate things doing the > causing), so it's not as if there will be a new and special set of > interactions that they do the causing in. So it's not clear that the > view makes empirical predictions (at least about third-person matters > such as the motion of particles) that are distinct from those made by > ordinary physical theory. The consequences may be as everyday as a solution to phenomenal binding, to the existence of a freewill, to the more controversial "anomalies of consciousness" data mentioned above. These are all phenomena that seem to defy extrinsic relational explanations. > > If, on the other hand, you want to introduce phenomenal properties as > a new set of properties at the bottom level without having them > underlie all causal interactions, then it seems that you'll be > regarding them as a further property like mass, etc, right at the > bottom. Then it's true that you could have new laws and new > interactions governing them. But now you'll be up against the problem > that there is no apparent evidence for them in physics, and that the > view will thus require revolutionizing our well-supported physical > theories to incorporate consciousness. Maybe this could happen, but > it's going out on a big limb. Basically, on this view, we'll say that > there's a certain physical parameter C (to be discovered) such that C > has consciousness as its intrinsic nature. Maybe it would be easier > to say that some existing physical parameter (mass or spin, say) has > consciousness as its intrinsic nature, and that it interacts with all > the others. Then, it seems to me, you might get the benefits of the > view without the costs. > [Logan] This almost sounds like my viewpoint except that I suspect that phenomenal consciousness does underlie all extrinsic interactions. It is just that phenomenal properties may interact in a manner over and above the purely extrinsic interactions. Again I don't think there is any good reason to deny this, especially in the face of the fact that physics, when first conceived, split off primary qualities from secondary qualities a priori, with the former deemed proper subject of study. The whole edifice of physics is rooted in this distinction. Thus when trying to slip secondary (phenomenal) properties "under the carpet", so to speak, what a priori justification do we have to maintain that the relationships within and between intrinsics/extrinsic properties must match up in a one-to-one manner? > Feel free to clarify... > > --Dave. > Thanks for the opportunity! Logan From press@U.Arizona.EDU Mon Sep 6 12:11:20 1999 Return-Path: Received: from Arizona.EDU (Penny.Telcom.arizona.edu [128.196.128.217]) by paradox.soc-sci.arizona.edu (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id MAA02115 for ; Mon, 6 Sep 1999 12:11:20 -0700 Received: from DIRECTORY-DAEMON by Telcom.Arizona.EDU (PMDF V5.1-12 #24137) id <01JFNT1ALDKGB8SNV0@Telcom.Arizona.EDU> for chalmers@paradox.soc-sci.arizona.edu; Mon, 6 Sep 1999 19:12:18 MST Received: from paradox.soc-sci.arizona.edu by Telcom.Arizona.EDU (PMDF V5.1-12 #24137) with ESMTP id <01JFNT19D45SB8SSEM@Telcom.Arizona.EDU> for chalmers@Arizona.EDU; Mon, 06 Sep 1999 19:12:16 -0700 (MST) Received: from f1n8.u.arizona.edu (IDENT:press@f1n8.U.Arizona.EDU [128.196.137.108]) by paradox.soc-sci.arizona.edu (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id MAA02111 for ; Mon, 06 Sep 1999 12:11:14 -0700 Received: from localhost (press@localhost) by f1n8.u.arizona.edu (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id TAA02160 for ; Mon, 06 Sep 1999 19:12:12 -0700 Date: Mon, 06 Sep 1999 19:12:12 -0700 (MST) From: Joel K Press Subject: Dave's Principle of Structural Coherence To: scicon@paradox.soc-sci.arizona.edu Message-id: MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Status: RO All- This post deals primarily with Daves "Facing Up to the Problem of Consciousness," so I suppose it is directed somewhat at him (its terribly useful to have the author of the paper so readily available.) However, I think that the issue that follows may lend itself to lots of group input, at least for those interested. The point Im going to try to make is at least largely an empirical one, but I am pretty certain that my own knowledge of this subject only scratches the surface of the available evidence. So anyone who can think of other experimental results or examples that either confirm or disconfirm my point would be welcome to add their evidence to the pile. What I want to write about here is Daves Principle of Structural Coherence, which is intended as the backbone of his scientific theory of consciousness. But before I do, I should say that I think this part of his paper (and book) is tremendously important. This is because it defends him against one of the stronger arguments against dualism, namely the argument that dualism amounts to just giving up on explaining consciousness. Many materialists refuse to even consider dualism because most dualists claim that consciousness must forever remain a mystery. (See Dennetts Consciousness Explained, p. 37 for an example of this.) However, if something like Daves Principle of Structural Coherence could be confirmed, this might take the sting out of dualism by opening phenomenal consciousness to scientific investigation. The problem is that several psychological facts seem to disconfirm the Principle of Structural Coherence as outlined in section seven of "Facing Up to the Problem of Consciousness." The basic idea here is that the structure of "consciousness" (phenomenal consciousness) and the structure of "awareness" (direct availability for global control) mirror each other. The following are examples where the two seem (at least to me) to diverge: Awareness without Consciousness - In the Nelkin paper, "What is Consciousness," he defends several examples of what he takes to be intentionality without introspection, which I take to be awfully similar to awareness without consciousness. If a persons brain can be shown to be carrying on complex and integrated intentional behavior while they themselves report no consciousness of these facts, it seems that there is information in their brain that is available for global control but not conscious. Unified Consciousness vs. Dis-unified Awareness - In the Bisiach paper, "The (Haunted) Brain and Consciousness," he starts the section on "The modularity of consciousness" with the claim that "Data from investigation of brain-damaged subjects show dramatically how C2 is far from being a unitary process(and how vain it would be to try to map C1onto C2)." If awareness is generally dis-unified, with the brain processes responsible for various tasks working largely independently, at different speeds, and so on, this does not seem to correspond to our phenomenological consciousness of the goings on in our mind. Detailed Awareness vs. Approximate Consciousness - This example is just based on personal observation, though I wouldnt be surprised to find that more careful experiments have been done. Many tasks seem to require more detailed awareness than we are conscious of when we perform them. For example, if you ask a baseball player to guess the angle and initial velocity of the fly ball coming off the bat, even the most mathematically and scientifically astute baseball player will only be able to roughly estimate these quantities. The same player, however, will successfully position himself or herself to catch the ball. It seems that the player needs to be aware of data with a significantly smaller margin of error than he or she would report being conscious of. There are lots of responses that Dave can make to these sorts of observations. Indeed, as I am sure that other people have raised similar questions, I fully expect that he has ready responses for most of them. I realize that Ive been fairly vague about giving specific examples of the sorts of phenomena I think conflict with the Structural Coherence Principle, but I wanted to get the main points across. Perhaps if Dave doesnt have a way of dismissing the lot in one fell swoop, well get into talking about specific cases. If anyone has examples of phenomena that seem to fit the bill, let me know. Thanks, Joel PS - I really do know how to use apostrophes. MS Word and PINE don't seem to get along in this respect. From lan@U.Arizona.EDU Tue Sep 7 05:36:34 1999 Return-Path: Received: from Arizona.EDU (Penny.Telcom.arizona.edu [128.196.128.217]) by paradox.soc-sci.arizona.edu (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id FAA03912 for ; Tue, 7 Sep 1999 05:36:34 -0700 Received: from DIRECTORY-DAEMON by Telcom.Arizona.EDU (PMDF V5.1-12 #24137) id <01JFOTJ83E2OB8TGEU@Telcom.Arizona.EDU> for chalmers@paradox.soc-sci.arizona.edu; Tue, 7 Sep 1999 12:37:33 MST Received: from pavo.U.Arizona.EDU (pavo-2.U.Arizona.EDU) by Telcom.Arizona.EDU (PMDF V5.1-12 #24137) with ESMTP id <01JFOTJ6W4CWB8T40V@Telcom.Arizona.EDU> for chalmers@Arizona.EDU; Tue, 07 Sep 1999 12:37:31 -0700 (MST) Received: from localhost (lan@localhost) by pavo.U.Arizona.EDU (8.8.6 (PHNE_17190)/8.8.6) with ESMTP id MAA20793; Tue, 07 Sep 1999 12:37:30 -0700 (MST) Date: Tue, 07 Sep 1999 12:37:30 -0700 (MST) From: Lonnie A Nelson Subject: Re: Dave's Principle of Structural Coherence In-reply-to: <199909062333.QAA02540@paradox.soc-sci.arizona.edu> To: David Chalmers Cc: press@U.Arizona.EDU, scicon@paradox.soc-sci.arizona.edu Message-id: MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Status: RO > apparently not present in awareness. > > >Detailed Awareness vs. Approximate Consciousness - This example is > >just based on personal observation, though I wouldnt be surprised to > >find that more careful experiments have been done. Many tasks seem > >to require more detailed awareness than we are conscious of when we > >perform them. For example, if you ask a baseball player to guess the > >angle and initial velocity of the fly ball coming off the bat, even > >the most mathematically and scientifically astute baseball player > >will only be able to roughly estimate these quantities. The same > >player, however, will successfully position himself or herself to > >catch the ball. It seems that the player needs to be aware of data > >with a significantly smaller margin of error than he or she would > >report being conscious of. > > I think I would say that in these cases the player isn't aware of the > information, either. As you note yourself, the information isn't > available for verbal report. In effect it is playing a local control > role in the regulation of certain sorts of specific and practiced > behavior, but it isn't available in the sort of general and global > manner required for awareness. So again, if awareness is delineated > appropriately, there's no dissociation. It seems to me that the information that is being referred to here is of a cognitive domain (mathematically astute athelete) would be dealing in arbitrary units with which to quantify his (or her) experience. THe player would not experience the ball in terms of degrees, as a "degree" is not a naturally occuring concept to most of us, we give estimates of these sorts of measures in order to communicate, but when you are catching a fly ball, you are accessing a "natural" schema of prior experience. "What this particular fly ball is like" is very apparent to the player, and if you could be shown his (or her) mind, from the inside they could direct you to which set of memories merged to tell them how to behave. I realize that this came off sounding rather self assured, but really the above is only a string of hypotheses generated by my own experience. And therefore are entirely open to alternative interpretation...Anyone? --Lonnie > --Dave. > ___________________ It is a common fate of all knowledge to begin as heresy and end as orthodoxy. -Thomas Huxley Lonnie A Nelson Department of Psychology Human Energy Systems Laboratory University of Arizona lan@u.arizona.edu From press@U.Arizona.EDU Wed Sep 8 17:15:23 1999 Return-Path: Received: from Arizona.EDU (Penny.Telcom.arizona.edu [128.196.128.217]) by paradox.soc-sci.arizona.edu (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id RAA07282 for ; Wed, 8 Sep 1999 17:15:23 -0700 Received: from DIRECTORY-DAEMON by Telcom.Arizona.EDU (PMDF V5.1-12 #24137) id <01JFQHJ3L5J4B8TMC3@Telcom.Arizona.EDU> for chalmers@paradox.soc-sci.arizona.edu; Wed, 8 Sep 1999 17:15:26 MST Received: from paradox.soc-sci.arizona.edu by Telcom.Arizona.EDU (PMDF V5.1-12 #24137) with ESMTP id <01JFQHJ1VO74B8TBS0@Telcom.Arizona.EDU> for chalmers@Arizona.EDU; Wed, 08 Sep 1999 17:15:24 -0700 (MST) Received: from f1n8.u.arizona.edu (IDENT:press@f1n8.U.Arizona.EDU [128.196.137.108]) by paradox.soc-sci.arizona.edu (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id RAA07274 for ; Wed, 08 Sep 1999 17:15:17 -0700 Received: from localhost (press@localhost) by f1n8.u.arizona.edu (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id RAA36722; Wed, 08 Sep 1999 17:15:20 -0700 Date: Wed, 08 Sep 1999 17:15:19 -0700 (MST) From: Joel K Press Subject: Re: Dave's Principle of Structural Coherence In-reply-to: To: Lonnie A Nelson Cc: David Chalmers , scicon@paradox.soc-sci.arizona.edu Message-id: MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Status: R Lonnie, Actually, misleading remarks about mathematics to the side, I was thinking of the baseball player's visual representation. When I catch a fly ball, it seems to me as though the information contained in my phenomenal visual field is less precise than that needed to catch the ball. I'm not sure about this either. For one thing, I haven't caught many fly balls lately, so maybe I'm remembering it wrong. Or maybe I've just discovered the reason that I'm only a mediocre outfielder. Thanks for the reply, Joel From chalmers@paradox.soc-sci.arizona.edu Wed Sep 8 19:06:38 1999 Return-Path: Received: from Arizona.EDU (Penny.Telcom.arizona.edu [128.196.128.217]) by paradox.soc-sci.arizona.edu (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id TAA07541 for ; Wed, 8 Sep 1999 19:06:38 -0700 Received: from DIRECTORY-DAEMON by Telcom.Arizona.EDU (PMDF V5.1-12 #24137) id <01JFQLF17JO0B8TABQ@Telcom.Arizona.EDU> for chalmers@paradox.soc-sci.arizona.edu; Wed, 8 Sep 1999 19:06:41 MST Received: from paradox.soc-sci.arizona.edu by Telcom.Arizona.EDU (PMDF V5.1-12 #24137) with ESMTP id <01JFQLF07EZKB8T2JA@Telcom.Arizona.EDU> for chalmers@Arizona.EDU; Wed, 08 Sep 1999 19:06:40 -0700 (MST) Received: (from chalmers@localhost) by paradox.soc-sci.arizona.edu (8.9.3/8.9.3) id TAA07518 for scicon; Wed, 08 Sep 1999 19:06:34 -0700 Date: Wed, 08 Sep 1999 19:06:34 -0700 From: David Chalmers Subject: physics, emotion, and baseball To: scicon@paradox.soc-sci.arizona.edu Message-id: <199909090206.TAA07518@paradox.soc-sci.arizona.edu> MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII Status: R Some miscellanous comments on things that have come up: (1) Logan raises the interesting possibility that as well as the role that intrinsic properties play in grounding extrinsic properties (on a panprotopsychist view), there may also be the possibility of further "direct interactions" between intrinsic properties which would then be empirically testable. I guess my question here is what the principled difference is between this and standard "extrinsic" interactions. After all, when one particle affects another in standard ways, a panprotopsychist can construe this as the intrinsic properties of one directly having effects on the intrinsic properties of the other. Of course physics doesn't "see" the intrinsic part and characterizes only the extrinsic structure. But the same would go for Logan's new "direct" interactions, it seems to me. Even in parapsychology, one could characterize the causal structure extrinsically. All these would have an extrinsic structure that an objective science could characterize, and all would basic intrinsic properties that are really doing the causing and being affected. On either case, the extrinsic structure is just a way of getting at the basic causal relations among the intrinsic properties. So I'm not sure that I see the difference in kind here. (2) Lis raises lots of interesting issues re her study of dimensions of emotional experience. The distinction between identifying dimensions of experience and reducing experience to basic components is important. It may well be that we can do the former but not the latter. For certain experiences, we can do both: e.g. for color, it's arguable that the experience is reducible to the components of hue, brightness, and saturation. But maybe it will turn out that for emotional experience, we will find at best a limited number of parameters that don't come close to exhausting the phenomenal character of the experience. I guess it's partly an empirical question whether the sort of reductive analysis that works for color will work elsewhere, but there's no obvious reason to believe that it should. Philosophically, one might put the issue here in terms of supervenience. Just say one has identified a number of parameters of experience, and are wondering whether an experience is reducible to those parameters. I guess this comes down to whether the character of the experience supervenes on those parameters. I.e., would it be possible in principle (even logically possible) to have two different experiences with the same values of those parameters but different overall character? With color, one might well argue that it is logically impossible to have two experiences with the same hue, saturation, and brightness, but a different color quality. (Though maybe there are issues about further parameters such as shimmer, etc.) But with emotion, for any set of parameters we have identified at least so far, the parameters don't seem to determine the quality of the experience in the same way. Maybe that just means we have to come up with better parameters, but again, it's not obvious that any full set of such parameters should exist. I note that when I put forward the (very tentative and speculative) suggestion about five or six basic sorts of phenomenal states, I wasn't really suggesting anything quite this reductive. Here, the basic categories were as broad as perceptual experiences, emotional experiences, cognitive experiences, etc, and the claim was in effect that the overall character of a subject's experiences is fully determined by the character of these components. This is consistent with the view that within each category, there may be a huge variety of states that are not reducible to any more basic building blocks (as e.g. Lis suggests re emotion). In effect we have two questions: (i) whether a subject's overall state of experience is determined by the character of their experiences in the five or six categories, and (ii) whether the character of an experiences within those five or six categories is determined by some set of more basic parameters. Both of these seem to be interesting open questions, and the answer isn't obvious (at least to me) one way or another. (3) Re Lonnie's and Joel's discussion of the baseball player: Actually there is recent empirical work that bears on this. The research of Milner and Goodale, which we'll be discussing, suggests that there are two pathways in the visual system, one for making cognitive and conscious identifications, and one for controlling online motor action. In certain cases (e.g. due to brain damage), representations in these two pathways can come apart, and one finds subjects who can perform fine-grained motor actions on objects even when they apparently don't have conscious knowledge of those objects. (E.g., a subject who can "post" a letter through a horizontal or vertical slot even though she doesn't consciously know whether it is horizontal or vertical.) It even turns out that one can find such subtle versions of such dissociations in ordinary subjects under certain conditions, and in these cases one finds that how a subject acts with respect to (say) the position of an object may be out of line with their conscious judgments. It's not out of the question that Joel's observations re the phenomenology of baseball could be partly grounded in this framework. It could turn out that representations in the "cognitive" system are less fine-grained than representations in the "motor" system. Milner and Goodale believe that the contents of visual consciousness are determined by the cognitive system, not the motor system. If that's the case, then one would expect that one would be able to performed fine-grained motor tasks (e.g. catching a baseball) that rely on visual information that is not present in consciousness at all). --Dave. From logant@U.Arizona.EDU Sat Sep 11 17:11:01 1999 Return-Path: Received: from Arizona.EDU (Penny.Telcom.arizona.edu [128.196.128.217]) by paradox.soc-sci.arizona.edu (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id RAA03034 for ; Sat, 11 Sep 1999 17:11:00 -0700 Received: from DIRECTORY-DAEMON by Telcom.Arizona.EDU (PMDF V5.1-12 #24137) id <01JFUO9NXFB4B8TT37@Telcom.Arizona.EDU> for chalmers@paradox.soc-sci.arizona.edu; Sat, 11 Sep 1999 17:11:02 MST Received: from orion.U.Arizona.EDU by Telcom.Arizona.EDU (PMDF V5.1-12 #24137) with ESMTP id <01JFUO9MHIOWB8OJYA@Telcom.Arizona.EDU> for chalmers@Arizona.EDU; Sat, 11 Sep 1999 17:11:00 -0700 (MST) Received: from localhost (logant@localhost) by orion.U.Arizona.EDU (8.8.6 (PHNE_17190)/8.8.6) with ESMTP id RAA24092; Sat, 11 Sep 1999 17:10:59 -0700 (MST) Date: Sat, 11 Sep 1999 17:10:59 -0700 (MST) From: Logan T Trujillo Subject: Re: physics, emotion, and baseball In-reply-to: <199909090206.TAA07518@paradox.soc-sci.arizona.edu> To: David Chalmers Cc: scicon@paradox.soc-sci.arizona.edu Message-id: MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Status: RO On Wed, 8 Sep 1999, David Chalmers wrote: > Some miscellanous comments on things that have come up: > > (1) Logan raises the interesting possibility that as well as the role > that intrinsic properties play in grounding extrinsic properties (on a > panprotopsychist view), there may also be the possibility of further > "direct interactions" between intrinsic properties which would then be > empirically testable. I guess my question here is what the principled > difference is between this and standard "extrinsic" interactions. > After all, when one particle affects another in standard ways, a > panprotopsychist can construe this as the intrinsic properties of one > directly having effects on the intrinsic properties of the other. > > Of course physics doesn't "see" the intrinsic part and characterizes > only the extrinsic structure. But the same would go for Logan's new > "direct" interactions, it seems to me. Even in parapsychology, one > could characterize the causal structure extrinsically. All these > would have an extrinsic structure that an objective science could > characterize, and all would basic intrinsic properties that are really > doing the causing and being affected. On either case, the extrinsic > structure is just a way of getting at the basic causal relations among > the intrinsic properties. So I'm not sure that I see the difference > in kind here. [Logan] At the time I made the comment that Dave discusses above I had a misunderstanding of what philosophers meant by the term "intrinsic". Now that I have this term clarified in my mind, I believe that I can explain, in a more satisfactory way, what I was trying to get across by the notion of "direct interactions". Dave is absolutely correct in his statement that "the extrinsic structure is just a way of getting at the basic causal relations among the intrinsic properties". Essentially what I am trying to suggest is that proper characterization of the intrinsic properties (with regards to accounting for phenomenal consciousness) may lead to new extrinsic functional relationships among physical primitives that are not predicted by current scientific theory. Such new functional possibilities would presumably arise during the integration of said intrinsic properties with current theory. This possibility can be seen by considering Thompson's discussion of color spaces. Thompson asks on what basis may we consider Fred to be seeing a new hue as opposed to the possibility that what he is experiencing is not a new hue or color quale, but some other novel form of visual qualia. If I understood his argument correctly, he concluded that we may consider Fred's novel qualitative experience to be that of color if (through relevant psychophysical experimentation) we may determine that the nature of the functional relationships between the new "hue" and the originals are the same as those found in our 3-dimensional color space. Thus Fred's color space is just a 4-dimensional space containing our color space, with the same functional rules of the latter. It is on this basis that we may say that we can have some idea of what Fred's novel experiences are like, since we may use our knowledge of those functional relationships to extrapolate to Fred's experience (although as was discussed in class, we still wouldn't know very much). However if it was determined that Fred's extra qualia did not engage in the same functional relationships with the original elements of our color space, then we can no longer say that what Fred is experiencing is color; it must be some other form of visual qualia (by the way, could it be this type of distinction that Nagel was getting at in his discussion of the qualitative experiences of bats?). Now in either case the new qualitative feature that Fred is able to perceive may still be considered to be intrinsic in the sense that Dave uses the term in regards to qualia. And in the case that the presence of the new feature merely expands the dimension of the color space without changing the functional/relational rules between the intrinsic elements of the space, we may say that the intrinsic nature of the new "hue" is of essentially the same nature of the primitive elements that make up our color space (i.e. it is a color quale). However in the case that the presence of the new qualitative feature within the space results in a change amongst the functional relationships of the space, then it would seem that the new feature would have an intrinsic nature substantially different from the elements constituting our color space; it would be such a difference that presumably would be the cause of the change in functionality of the space. I guess the point that I was trying to make with my last listserve posting was that it may be that the proper characterization of the intrinsic properties (proper in the sense that the characterizations are forced upon us to adequately account for phenomenal consciousness) may lead to functional relationships not predicted by current scientific theory (physical /neuroscientific/psychologic) once such intrinsic properties are integrated into current theory. The existence of such functional relationships may lead to consequences that are empirically testable. Hence the notion of "direct interactions" between intrinsics is really meant to describe possible extrinsic interactions outside the scope of interactions currently postulated by conventional theory. Logan From chalmers@paradox.soc-sci.arizona.edu Mon Sep 13 11:56:13 1999 Return-Path: Received: from Arizona.EDU (Penny.Telcom.arizona.edu [128.196.128.217]) by paradox.soc-sci.arizona.edu (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id LAA06906 for ; Mon, 13 Sep 1999 11:56:13 -0700 Received: from DIRECTORY-DAEMON by Telcom.Arizona.EDU (PMDF V5.1-12 #24137) id <01JFX5U4RO8GB8TYJ4@Telcom.Arizona.EDU> for chalmers@paradox.soc-sci.arizona.edu; Mon, 13 Sep 1999 11:56:17 MST Received: from paradox.soc-sci.arizona.edu by Telcom.Arizona.EDU (PMDF V5.1-12 #24137) with ESMTP id <01JFX5U0VILSB8TH23@Telcom.Arizona.EDU> for chalmers@Arizona.EDU; Mon, 13 Sep 1999 11:56:11 -0700 (MST) Received: (from chalmers@localhost) by paradox.soc-sci.arizona.edu (8.9.3/8.9.3) id LAA06899 for scicon; Mon, 13 Sep 1999 11:55:58 -0700 Date: Mon, 13 Sep 1999 11:55:58 -0700 From: David Chalmers Subject: Experience as a Kind (from Sarah) To: scicon@paradox.soc-sci.arizona.edu Message-id: <199909131855.LAA06899@paradox.soc-sci.arizona.edu> MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII Status: R >From sawright@U.Arizona.EDU Sun Sep 12 21:16:37 1999 Date: Sun, 12 Sep 1999 21:16:39 -0700 (MST) From: Sarah A Wright Subject: Experience as a Kind To: chalmers@Arizona.EDU I just wanted to make a comment about an alternate form of Type -A Materialism that I find to be a bit more plausible than the general form the you gloss in Moving Forward on the Problem of Consciousness. In the analogies from Dennett and the Churchlands, the alternate property to be explained seems to be (at least plausibly thought of as) a natural kind. Life, light, and heat, if they are properties to be explained, all seem to be natural kinds. However in one of Dennett's other examples, that of cuteness, the properties admissibility as capturing a natural kind might be brought into question. Although you have objected to the general schema of using analogies with other properties to undermine the project of identifying consciousness, if you will bear with me, I think that one further analogy may be used to highlight a different objection. This is an analogy with the property (or at least those things that fall under the description) "In this room". As with those things that fall under the description "What it is like", we have a convenient way to pick out these entities. But having a catch phrase to pick out objects shouldn't lead us to automatically take the grouping as representing a natural kind. So, let us say that the objects falling under the description "In this room" do not in fact make up a natural kind. We will then absolve our best theories of the world from explaining what it is that gives an object its "In this room"ness; in particular we will not demand that our theories give us a unified explanation of "In this room"ness. Even so, we will want our theories to explain many facts about the individual objects in this room: How my computer works, why my desk weighs as much as it does, etc... One of these individual facts may be: how my desk got into the room. To explain this we do not need to explain the property of "In the room"ness, but rather need to give the history of the desk to trace its path into my house; we want to show how the property of being a desk, and the non-(full fledged)-property of "In the room" came to accidentally occur in the same object. Ok, so on to "What it is like". Let us say, for the moment that things falling under this description also do not make up a natural kind. If so then, in the same way, our theories do not need to give a unified explanation of "What it is like"ness. Still, of course, we will want to explain many facts about our experiences (those events that fall under the "What it is like"ness) and these are what I take cognitive science to be after. In addition we may want to explain how a particular neural state came to be associated with an experience; in this case we will give the history of the neural state, and how it came, accidentally, to fall under the description "What it is like".** [[**Also, as an interesting sidenote, if we are actually after a history for each type of experience, we run into further problems. For, as I think Richard Lewontin has argued quite forcefully, there are limitations on the historical explanations available for mental processes. We simply lack the record to make definite judgements about the (long term) history of our mental abilities.]] An argument based upon this sort of analogy seems to me to fit your Type-A Materialism, but without being eliminatvist. Rather than eliminating experiences as things to be explained, this approach simply sets limits on the kinds of explanations we should expect for our experiences. I don't know if anyone advocates exactly this view, but it seems like a plausible middle road to me. Sarah From acboch@U.Arizona.EDU Tue Sep 14 18:12:20 1999 Return-Path: Received: from Arizona.EDU (Penny.Telcom.arizona.edu [128.196.128.217]) by paradox.soc-sci.arizona.edu (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id SAA09371 for ; Tue, 14 Sep 1999 18:12:20 -0700 Received: from DIRECTORY-DAEMON by Telcom.Arizona.EDU (PMDF V5.1-12 #24137) id <01JFYX9V3Y00B8U9OM@Telcom.Arizona.EDU> for chalmers@paradox.soc-sci.arizona.edu; Tue, 14 Sep 1999 18:12:27 MST Received: from paradox.soc-sci.arizona.edu by Telcom.Arizona.EDU (PMDF V5.1-12 #24137) with ESMTP id <01JFYX9U4EPSB8U61U@Telcom.Arizona.EDU> for chalmers@Arizona.EDU; Tue, 14 Sep 1999 18:12:26 -0700 (MST) Received: from pavo.U.Arizona.EDU (pavo-2.U.Arizona.EDU [128.196.137.196]) by paradox.soc-sci.arizona.edu (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id SAA09366 for ; Tue, 14 Sep 1999 18:12:14 -0700 Received: from localhost (acboch@localhost) by pavo.U.Arizona.EDU (8.8.6 (PHNE_17190)/8.8.6) with ESMTP id SAA13983 for ; Tue, 14 Sep 1999 18:12:22 -0700 (MST) Date: Tue, 14 Sep 1999 18:12:22 -0700 (MST) From: Adam C Boch Subject: Forwarded mail.... To: scicon@paradox.soc-sci.arizona.edu Message-id: MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Status: RO ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Tue, 14 Sep 1999 13:59:59 -0700 (MST) From: Adam C Boch To: scicon@paradox.soc.sci.arizona.edu I want to point to an epistemological problem that underlies Chalmers' schema for a science of consciousness now (rather than the third-to-last week when we are scheduled to discuss epistemological issues) since the worry, if serious, seems to undermine the very foundation of the project. Blind Mary In class, in the context of altered Mary scenarios, Allen mentioned "blind Mary". It was in passing, and he didn't follow through with the concept, but I want to take the idea and use it to bring out the problem I'm concerned with. Now, it seems to me that a blind Mary scenario (blind, mind you, not just color-blind) would be problematic for the following reason: brain science is reliant on perception (i.e., the perception of the brain scientist(s)). Now it might be argued that any given brain scientist could learn all there is to know regarding the brain even if she were blind (still, I'd imagine there would be problems when she tried to conceptualize the spatio-temporal layout of even the most simple neural networks), but this is not my real worry. My real worry concerns not individual scientists but the nature of the brain sciences themselves. And it seems relatively obvious to me that such sciences rely heavily on perception (observation) for their data. Consider, say, neurophysiology--PET scans, single-cell investigation, brain imaging, exploratory surgery, etc.--without perception there is no data. The Problem with Perception or What It's Like to be a Human The problem put short is this: what it's like to be a human might not be what it's like...full stop. In other words, the structure of our experience might not match up as nicely as we might like with the structure of the world. Take Nagel's bat. There is this rich phenomenology--a phenomenological "world" if you will-- a this bat has access to. Now, presumably, it is different (perhaps VERY different) from our own phenomenology (the paper hinges on this point). What it's like for a bat to experience the world is very different from what it's like for a human to experience the world. The world for a human is a world of objects. The human body looks a certain way, feels a certain way, When we observe it, and do so rigorously, adhering to a scientific method, we get things like anatomy and physiology. When we observe the brain at a neuronal level, we get neurophysiology. Now, given that we think a bat's rich phenomenology is different from our own, a bat's neurophysiology (if it had one) would, presumably, look different. That is, depending how different it is to be a bat rather than a human, that's how different it's scientific picture would be from our own (if you don't like the bat analogy substitute your favorite species, earth-bound or no). But this sounds ridiculous. First, other species do not have science (at least no known one's, we think). Second, we seem to think that, as humans, we are the state of the art of species-making. We are as good as it has gotten so far. That is, we seem to think we stand in some epistemically priveleged position with respect to other species. Thus, our science, even if other species' had a science, would be the best. What the world seems like to humans is closer to what the world is actually like thans for any other species. The last claim needs some arguing, but it might turn out to be true. Yet even if it is true, it does not get us what we want (or think we already have). That is,we might be the closest of anyone trying to the real story, yet, what it's like to be a human may still not be what it is like. Kant and the Critique of Chalmers' Proposal for a Science of Consciousness The neumenal and the phenomenal. Kant thought that no matter how hard we tried, we were stuck in the phenomenal world. All we could ever get was the world as it appeared to humans. The world as it really was, was closed to us. Now, using Kant's distinction as a springboard, I want to make a criticism of Chalmers' proposal for a science of consciousness. Chalmers says that a science of consciousness will consist in something like the following: micro physical facts (facts got by the brain sciences, spec., neurophysiology), linked by bridging laws (perhaps psychophysical) to macro facts (facts about one's own (or human) phenomenology. That is, a science of consciousness will consist in facts about brain processes, or states, linked by laws to facts about human experience. The third person (data from brain observation) adequately linked to the first person (data from experience). The problem is that when it comes time to do the science, i.e., to glean the microphysical facts, we observe the brain. We form theories based on observation. But when we observe the brain we observe it as humans. It is part of what it is like to be a human to have that certain brain-appearance. So the microphysical facts are indexicals--they are facts-for-humans, as it were. In Kantian terms, we get phenomenal facts. So, our science of consciousness ends up linking certain phenomenal facts (i.e., 3rd person ones) with certain OTHER phenomenal facts (i.e., 1st person ones). This isn't what we want. What we want are NEUMENAL facts linked with phenomenal facts. Herein lies explanation. "But I thought Kant said we could never get neumenal facts." is what your thinking. True, but other philosophers after him, those taking the neumena/phenomena distinction seriously, didn't necessarily agree. I don't think we're stuck, and that therefore there can be no science of consciousness as Chalmers' construes it... so more needs to be said about why I think this. However, not today. See my next post (it will still be a pertinent worry as we are now discussing whether or not we can find the neural correlates of consciousness).