[Wittrs] Re: Consciousness and Quantum Mechanics
- From: "gabuddabout" <gabuddabout@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: wittrsamr@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sat, 02 Jan 2010 21:54:33 -0000
--- In WittrsAMR@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, "SWM" <wittrsamr@...> wrote:
>
> Joe, I don't think we have too much difference about what's physical based on
> what you've said though I'm certainly not in the quale camp. I think, though,
> that the really important differences in our views came out in that last post
> you did and which I have already responded to. So we don't need to pay too
> much attention to what I take to be differences that aren't material to the
> question of the challenge posed to Dennett's model by your interpretation of
> von Neumann's quantum theory claim. So let's focus on what came out in that
> other post then, i.e., whether there is an argument in your interpretation of
> von Neumann for an extra-physical feature of what we mean by consciousness or
> whether it is just a matter of our working with different assumptions,
> reflecting a different conceptualization on each of our parts. If it is this
> latter, then there is probably no way to argue it as it will just be a matter
> of how we each see (as in "understand") the referent of the word
> "consciousness". -- SWM
Hi Stuart and Joe,
I'm going to riff a little below. Let me know if my jazz gets a bit to
improvizational to follow. I promise not to invent any impossible time
signatures while riffing away!
You (Stuart) say you're not in the quale camp (as Joe presumably is). I
understand perfectly why you'd want to say this. I also understand that Searle
is not in the quale camp either if by "quales" is meant entities (and even Joe
may not mean entities by qualia either!).
Searle remarks that discussions of quale are often simply confused. He points
this out even in reference to the great Francis Crick in his review of _The
Astonishing Hypothesis_.
The only daggummet quale is consciousness per se. Since it is field-like, one
can shift focus from the feel of the shirt on one's back to the aftertaste of
cunni... you get the point. Dennett is right to deny qualia if he denies
consciousness. Searle busts him for an eliminativism which is part of a
program for denying that the "hard problem" is a good scientific problem with
which scientists maybe ought to attempt to unravel.
I saw earlier that Stuart wanted to assume simply that if there were a solution
to the hard problem, it would have to be dualistic. I can see why he would say
this, following Dennett. I would submit that when Dennett is "explaining"
consciousness in _Consciousness Explained_, he is merely doing a
Wittgensteinian dissolution. For some philosophers that is as good as it gets.
Not so for Searle.
Here's how Searle sees it. The study of how the brain causes/realizes
consciousness (being the only quale in town, the "rest" being figments it makes
sense to talk about even if not entities in the way of direct perception of
real-world objects) need not (better not!) suppose consciousness to be
epiphenomenal from the start. That would be a priori hubris and no one really
wants any of that.
Searle concedes that we have to leave it empirically open whether consciousness
is epiphenomenal but notes that it is kind of awkward, say, to write a book
such that it gets written despite consciousness playing no role in its
production.
So the chase. Perhaps the study of how the brain causes/realizes consciousness
is akin to the discovery of the germ theory of disease. We find correlations
first, causes later. There simply must be a mechanics of how the brain does it
since we know independently that the brain allows for falling asleep and waking
from such. How? That's a matter for science and, good Wittgensteinian Searle
is, Searle "dissolves" the _philosophical_ mind-body problem only to (as
Austin's phrase has it) "kick it upstairs to science."
Caveat. There is a good sense in which once we have correlations (say, the
neurobiological correlates of consciousness, NCC's for short), there is forever
going to be a gap between these correlations and the real mechanics. Walter at
Analytic parsed it (but claimed not remembering to have) as a position that
will always have a flier attached, whatever he meant by flier. I assumed he
just meant that there will always be a gap between the NCC's and, for all we'll
ever (ever ever?) know, the real mechanics.
In _Freedom and Neurobiology_, to connect with a recent thread in this group,
Searle notes that he is an incompatibilist when it comes to freedom. He points
out that if there are no gaps at the bottom level of explanation, and the
bottom level causally explains the higher system feature (it being causally
reducible) of brains being conscious, then freedom is an illusion.
One way that freedom is not an illusion is if there are gaps in the bottom
level of "causation"/explanation. QM fits the bill for gaps at the bottom
level such that that type of explanation would be compatible with free will at
the system level where consciousness is explained (and not merely explained
away as in Dennett--sorry behaviorists, but you are well done and cooked, but
we see why you've overbaked your bread for so many years). Why, I pointed out
above why the hard proble really may seem to some to involve a dualistic
solution if there is one.
Not so, says Searle. Here are some options:
1. Brain causes consciousness in a mechanistic way having nothing to do with
the gappiness of QM explanation/"causation." Consequence: No free will.
2. Brain causes consciousness in a QM-style explanation/"way." Free will is
not contra-indicated.
Concluding remark:
1. really is no threat to human power even if it is true that there is no such
"thing" as free will. The fact that one is part of a vast power play of forces
is consistent with any common sense freedom ever thought to be worth having in
the first place.
Philosophy is easy. The hard problem is called such for a reason.
Some say the reason is that only a solution (dualism) is possible if we deny
other commitments (physicalism). (Dennett and others, say)
Others, like Searle, say that the hard problem need not involve miracles for a
solution.
And still others see that any possible solution to the hard problem will
involve a gap between the correlations and causation.
I suppose a gap will always be a possibility since the mechanics are going to
be inductively arrived at.
Say one gets a good group of lucid dreamers to perform protocols like moving
eyeballs up and down upon becoming lucid. It is (as it was, Cf. LaBerg) the
case that there is simply way too high a correlation between the objective data
and the lucid dreaming performances for dismissing the correlations as random.
Now, for a complication, say that we get really good inductive evidence
(super-high correlation) for exactly when lucid dreamers become lucid. And
then assume that in some cases the lucid dreamers don't remember (as they
normally do remember) having a lucid dream when the evidence inductively shows
the contrary.
Here we have possible cases where we might be justified in saying to someone:
You might not remember it, but our data suggest you had a lucid dream
regardless.
It may be possible to admit these sorts of cases even though we are most fond
of pointing out that being conscious is something normally considered to be
unfalsifiable by recalcitrant experiences given that, well, they are
experiences too.
I hope the Coda wasn't too long!
Cheers,
Budd
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