No matter how many people I've seen interviewed about consciousness my two favorites I keep coming back to are David Chalmers and John Searle. They are both able to so clearly express their views as if they've already thought of every counterargument that can be made to their position and can refute it seemingly so easily.
Actually very strange to me that all take consciousness as something so special. It seems to me to be a continuum from various animal brains. Would you say dogs or Chimps have zero, absolute zero consciousness? Because emergence, like phase transition in physics, is a jump difference between zero and something of significant value. I don't see any proof or solid argument that consciousness is so different from other mental sensations, like fear, or elation.
What about the universe itself? That's even more important since it encompasses consciousness as well. What did the universe emerge from? Did it emerge at all?
I would argue that you cannot separate life from consciousness - that the emergence of life is in fact motivated by consciousness; or that in any case, part of the definition of life is conscious behavior - yes even for one-celled organisms and plants, albeit a more primitive version of what we would call consciousness - I would say, self-motivated behavior, which of necessity includes a subjective component. In any case my own argument about this is the following: if we posit that life and consciousness are merely (!) emergent properties of the physical universe, then we must logically conclude that life and consciousness are in fact intrinsic properties of the universe that manifest under the appropriate conditions.
Instead of a bottom up reduction, we need a top down reduction. Living beings needed to process their environment from _both_ objective _and_ subjective perspecitves. These functions formed consciousness, and this consciousness made the development of an organ that can handle these functions neccessary. So in this sense, through evolution mind created matter, consciousness created brains.
I like David's arguments here with one important exception. He says consciousness emerges from patterns, organisation and information in the brain but I don't think that leads to understanding. The patterns, organisation and information are all necessary but it is the process of neurons firing in particular orders that leads to structured thought and ultimately consciousness. The neurons that fire are influenced by nerve inputs for "changes in thought direction" and by the existing neurons that effectively form a fairly predetermined (but changing over time) path for firing and that is based on their history (ie our learned experience) At least that's how I see it.
For your consideration... Roughly speaking... A thought is not the thing it is about. A thought is a mere representation of a something or equivalently a thought is analogous to a something. Thoughts are analogies. Self is a thought analogous to a body. It is my self that is conscious. (Truer words were never spoke - Descartes). I am an analogy modulated synaptically by other analogies in the process we call thinking. Neurons are merely the necessary substrate of analogizing discharge frequency. I am an analogy (how and why I am an immaterial entity). So I assert, any analogizing mechanism that is functionally isomorphic to my substrate has the potential to be conscious given appropriate circumstances and tweaking.
@@medhurstt "IMO your description is too abstract to be useful" It is the briefest outline of a theory that enables me to understand how it is possible for mere matter to be entirely responsible for my being conscious. I like the theory because it contains no magic thinking and posits no unknowns on which it hinges. 'Analogizing mechanism' is a perhaps too terse way of saying approximately what it is our brains are doing. A sense organ of the body transduces impinging environmental energy into coded form as the discharge frequency of a neuron that connects the organ to the brain. The discharge frequency is analogous to the impinging energy. Brain neurons function in exactly the same way as does the connecting neuron. This is the foundation that permits analogy based language to find itself perfectly at home in brains. Putting it very crudely, thinking is the synaptically mediated interaction of a hundred billion analogies (a subset of which constitutes the concept of the self) existing in encoded form as neural discharge frequencies. Note that 'frequency' is abstract and the fundamental reason why self and mind and conscious all have an immaterial flavour to them. Cheers!
I wish he could answer whether an ant colony, or bee hive behavior is weak or strong emergence. Does each bee know what it's contributing to the whole? Or does an individual neuron know that it's giving rise to consciousness.
Their conversation and all of these comments are conducted in and by and through language and language is essentially the interplay of analogies. If neurons can support the existence of analogies then we should look there for the answers. Can neural discharge frequency be the encoded form of analogy? Yes, obviously (after a lot of thinking about it). It is my self that is conscious. What's a self? Self is merely the analogy for a body.
How would it look like, if it looked like a phenomenon is strongly emergent? -- Is there an _empirical_ way to determine if a certain phenomenon is _strongly_ emergent?
@@backwardthoughts1022 Sharpness refers to a shape not a function. Shape, pattern, process are all abstract notions. Take all the atoms of a thorn and rearrange them into a spherical pattern. Where has the thorn's sharpness gone?
@@REDPUMPERNICKEL sharpness is not a shape its an emergent property of a shape would be my point. furthermore a shape is an example of a function, specifically a physical one, hence not an abstraction, though you can construct concepts of them
What a wonderful conversation. Chalmers is clear, to the point, and utterly sensible while Khun's questions probe the heart of the matter in a spirit of openly fascinated enquiry, while allowing Chalmers to dispel any ambiguity and crystalise his position. Thanks for sharing this!
If an entity is able to form an abstract representation of it's environment, it should feel like something, if not why would we be emotionally inclined to do anything with this "emergent" information?
It's funny how Chalmers just pronounces it to be true, nonchalantly, that Laplace's demon certainly wouldn't be able to predict consciousness. What an absurd idea! Why on earth should anyone agree with that? Does Chalmers know a guy as smart as Laplace's demon and did that guy tell him he had know idea there'd be consciousness or something?? Either Chalmers is right, and there's this INSANELY cool/crazy/wild thing going on that we're lucky enough to know is there because we experience it directly, or ... or consciousness really is just another example of weak emergence and we're actually really pretentious if we think we can predict confidently what science could or couldn't predict in a thousand or a million or a billion years. There's simply no evidence to believe that consciousness is a case of strong emergence. It could be, of course, but there's just no evidence that it definitely is, and, tellingly, Chalmers not only doesn't provide any (he only says, in summary "I believe consciousness is different than what happened with vitalism"--cool, but why is that belief rational?) but he also doesn't even seem to be aware that evidence is the most important thing he should offer when making such an extraordinary claim.
chalmers begins by merely describing the reality of the situation, namely that there is no known mechanism as to how fat protein water and electricity aka the brain should be in any way associated with subjectivity. without some evidence to the contrary, they remain radically different objects with radically different functions and properties. if we then assert that mind is what brain does, meaning particular physical structures are the basis of emergence for the emergent property of consciousness, then this requires that upon observing the asserted basis of emergence eg. the neural correlate for blue, we should by definition observe the emergent property of blue as well. just as when we observe a shell, its emergent property of a pattern is observed, or when a knife is observed, its sharpness is observed in. all cases of weak emergence function this way. currently, after splicing testing and grinding up billions of mammal brains and bodies we have detected no such emergent property, ever. to the contrary the esteemed christof koch's fully funded thorough study to attempt to locate the NCC (the neural correlate for consciousness ie. the minimum physical structure requires for basic consciousness) failed completely to discern any results. as a result even he these days is less prone to physicalism and says such things as blue appearing from or as mass-energy is on the level of magical thinking, void of any meaning and basis in reality. also these days in quantum theory specialists, fewer and fewer are seeing it as a fundamental model of reality, since by definition a collapse in the function requires an observer whoms nature is completely unexamined and unknown despite continuing rigorous testing methods of the external. as usual our physicalist approach maintains the glaring blindspot and we cultivated for 400yrs while maintaining a complete distance on developing rigorous methods of observing the mind and potentially making severe progress in the measurement problem.
Though I respect Chalmers effort. I'm never convinced by the silicone brain idea. The underlying structure may be similar but the dynamics of the whole is fundamentally determined by the specific characteristics cells and chemicals, if you change the basic building blocks of the brain they might interact differently with certain particles and chemicals and radically alter the overall dynamics. While organization is very important, it itself still flows from the characteristics of the matter. I don't think it is helpful to simply discard that possibility. But I suspect it is partly due to Chalmers' idea that it is "strong emergence".
Maybe the example he gave was too figurative. At the base he says 'organizational' which is still valid. Include what's inside of the building blocks as part of the organization as it is still in the ream of function.
Very well put, I think I share your intuition. No doubt Chalmers would respond and say "but we can clearly imagine silicone replacements functionong exactly the same as neurons, causing all of the same brain processes which in turn cause all of the relevant behaviours etc." But I'm not sure if that's actually the case. The kinds of processes that the brain undergoes might necessarily flow from and only from the underlying structure of its constituent parts, these being neurons. It might simply not be possible for these processes to be multiply realizable.
I would add abiogenesis and cities as examples of strong emergence. Abiogenesis was only predictable based on hindsight. Cities can create skyscrapers and spaceships, not something that would be predictable in simians that not so long ago lived in grass huts. Strong emergence strikes me as a simplistic way of referring to a change of exponential scale. Our minds don't handle exponentials well. So the consciousness that we so value is basically of the same nature as the reflex actions of, say, microbes, but our consciousness is exponentially more complex. I visualise the difference between weak and strong emergence as a beach vs a tall seaside cliff. They are essentially the same thing - junctions where land meets sea, but the effect is vastly different.
Why does the interviewer never ask D. Chalmers about the implications of his own "paradox of phenomenal judgement". If weak emergence can explain everything we SAY about consciousness, including that it's very special, non physical and "first person", it appears we don't need strong emergence after all.
I'm with the host on his example of the earlier theory of vitalism being ultimately supplanted with evolution / DNA etc.. All things being equal, we are probably at a very primitive level of understanding of how consciousness could possibly work. The problem with really intelligent people like Chalmers is a little ego gets in the way - because they can't understand it right now, they assume that there must be something uniquely special about it that makes it impervious to human understanding. Sure consciousness is special, but in time (likely a long time) it will be solved and we will move onto the next seemingly impenetrable problem.
I don't see how they can make progress when they blithely accept that life is understood just because you can synthesize urea in the lab. Consciousness is a property of life. Life is the thing that is uniquely special. I figure that when life is actually understood completely, this understanding will include first person experience. As I enjoy pointing out to the Panpsychists, what good would consciousness do for a rock, or maybe more accurately, what would the difference be between a conscious rock and an unconscious rock.
@@caricue "Consciousness is a property of life." No it's not. Being conscious is half the concept of the self. The concept of the self exists only for linguistic organisms and its existence is of the abstract type.
@@REDPUMPERNICKEL If someone starts poking you with a sharp stick there will be nothing abstract about the situation. Concepts are useful mental constructs, but they are not reality. You (as in self) are a solid physical organism swimming in mud and poop like the rest of the beasts.
7 Years Ago. Great Word " Emergence". This Touches on the Evolution Dilemma of :- How does Evolution Explain Human Memory ? Memory being a Tool of Consciousness. How can Consciousness and Memory Emerge and be Assistants to one another ?. How can Life even come up with the Concept of Memory so as to Create it ?. But of Course More than this, Build the Senses, Sight, Hearing, Touch, Smell, Taste. All Tools of Consciousness. Try Building a Robot that Builds the Equivalent of a Human Eye, Good Luck with that. Hence Replacing a Nueron with a Microchip would Fail because the Chips Don't Know How to Build what They Don't Know.
Life does not emerge from biology. Biology is life. Emergence would apply in a transition from chemistry to biology. To my knowledge this has never been either seen or done. So to say life or biology emerges from chemistry is a strong claim; just as it is to say consciousness emerges from biology.
David Walsh I would agree, for instance, there are no known chemical forces that would choose the order of DNA base pairs, all base pairs are connected with identical hydrogen bonds.
David Walsh life is just chemistry. Chemistry is physics. You would never study the mating habits of the leatherback turtle using the large hadron collider. Charmers is lost when it comes to consciousness.
I don't think the definition of consciousness is even agreed upon so how would one even know if it emergent let alone more than an occasional memory refresh.
@@josephshawa You are right; there is no definitive account of consciousness. We each have to decide for ourselves from out own experience. Do you really believe all your consciousness amounts to is "an occasional memory refresh"? I would find that view equally sad and absurd to be honest. I am always amazed at how so many these days are so wedded to ideological physicalism they are driven to deny their own consciousness while actually using it to make their arguments.
@@david8157 Consciousness is the only thing I have as far as I'm concerned. The rest is an illusion. With that I have to say that I place the most importance on my consciousness. It will be the last thing to go and that which I will try to hang on to dearly as I do die. But come how I proceeded is not diminishing it at all. I do believe it is just a collection of memories that are brought forth from moment to moment to moment . That is how it feels to me and I can't imagine other arguments being any more valid at this point as there is no evidence or agreement on any other explanation : ) Some seem to see it as a purely quantum phenomenon.....to which i say, what isnt?
The one flaw in David's analogy to a siilicon brain is that such a brain would be HARDwired, unchangeable, whereas our human brain can indeed be rewired by experiences, desires, addictions, mental illnesses, etc.
Why would you make that assumption? If the silicon neurons were microchips they could absolutely re-wire themselves. This is called software. This is actually how neural networks (ala chatGPT) works.
Matter is an emergent property of the unified field of consciousness, not the other way around. At a sufficiently self-organized level of complexity matter then displays properties of consciousness. Refusal to accept and investigate this basic truth leads to a lot of unnecessary obfuscation and confusion.
I can say it but I think emerge is the wrong word. Emerge seems to me to be very much like what the psychologists call 'projection'. A process is not a material object. Rather it is an abstract entity, a description of activity. Life is a process, atoms are its substrate and DNA is an instance of chemistry. Processes exist in a way very different from the way atoms exist.
How only changing the number of protons in a nucleus of an atom could change the physical property say colour of the whole is there any scientific explanation or proof regarding the answer
If I'm not mistaken changing the number of protons in a nucleus will cause a change in the number of electrons of that atom. A change in the number of electrons will change the spacing between atoms of that type and it is the spacing that has something to do with the frequency of the light reflected.
First off, the answers David gave are incredibly thought provoking. But props where they're due: You ask some awesome questions that really bring out the best of your guests. Personal thought: Strong Emergence = the greatest example of 'we are greater than the sum of our parts'?
the replacement of our neurons is an interesting question, but i think the only appropriate reply is "i dont know". because until and unless we know what consciousness is and how it works, we can't answer that question with any degree of knowledge. i am also beginning to realize that david and myself use the term consciousness very differently. from some recent videos i have seen of him, it is becoming more evident that david equates the 2 words of consciousness and conscious. i seem to think of it more like peter russell talks about it. russell uses the term conscious to denote one aspect of our consciousness - that which we call awareness. but there are tons of other aspects of consciousness. one of the first steps we need in the discussion of consciousness is an exact meaning of the vocabulary we are using to discuss it.
The main problem with their replacement scenario is that they would be replacing living things with dead things. Just because Vitalism was nonsense doesn't mean that you can disregard being alive from the equation.
@@caricue i dont think dave was disregarding it, but he does seem to think that organization is the main, or maybe only, criteria for consciousness. i do not think our brain creates our consciousness, though. i have read too many things that would contradict this conclusion. and also if it was true, why have we not been able to discover something about it. we know zilch about what consciousness is.
@@jimmybrice6360 That's my point about life. We know so much about cells and metabolism but we don't have any idea what life is. I imagine that once we truly understand life, we will be able to make headway into consciousness and self, but you don't know what you don't know until you do know, you know?
I think theres a misleading dichotomy of weak and strong emergence, the underlying matter (W. E.) has to support the strong emergence, so it is fundamental to it, therefore baked into the basic nature of iterative fractal structure underlying S. E..
I like "baked in" very much. Everything that has happened, is happening, will happen only happens because it can. Everything that cannot happen doesn't.
One should distinguish between the ''inner experience of consciousness'' and, the ''origin of the inner experience of consciousness''. An inner experience, by definition, is ''inner'' to the individual only but, it may very well originate in physical processes accessible from ''out side'' in the brain (or more generally in the body) of the individual. The fruitful issue here, like that of ''life'' in the past, is the physical origin of the ''inner experience'' -- not, what it is ''as such''. (Then, also, the distinction between the ''weak'' and the ''strong'' emergence becomes hardly significant.)
'In principle' there is no unpredictable chaotic dynamics. If we...'in principle'...know the initial conditions of dynamic system with infinite precision, we would be able to predict the dynamics of each and every non-linear dynamic system....So the question is: what does 'in principle' mean. Does it mean 'to have infinite computational power'?
How about freedom of will as being a second candidate for strong emergence? Though this, of course, seems to require consciousness. Unless, of course, one is happy with compatibilism, but that's just determinism's weak sister and just as broken-backed, it seems to me. I think also that to say that consciousness "strongly" emerges from neural organisation is just a fancy way of admitting that we haven't the foggiest idea how it happens. (Which we indeed haven't.) It is fancy but also, perhaps a bit fishy, for it tries to keep intact physicalist scruples (that's the 'emerges' bit) while it simultaneously confesses that how brain organisation is supposed to do it can never be derived from physicalist resources (the 'strongly' bit). It would be better simply to give up on physicalism altogether, for if physicalism were true, one should surely expect that consciousness can be explained and understood purely in terms of brain organisation, that is, as something only _weakly_ emergent - something Chalmers eschews. I think Chalmers wants to both keep and eat his cake.
@@chrisrace744 A question: how would we know that an action or decision 'felt' free if there was no _real_ freedom for the illusion (falsely) to resemble? In general, illusions depend on reality in order to work or even count as illusions in the first place. Some things, for instance, can _look_ real even though they are not, but this is only because some things just _are_ real and the illusory case looks like the real case.
@@theophilus749 because we have consciousness which gives us a subjective experience. It's simulating free choice when in reality we've been able to detect and prove that the decision (e.g. anything we make a choice on) is already determined by our subconscious before our concious becomes aware of it. Lookup Sam Harris' tall on free will. It feels wrong to not actually have free will. But that's just how strong the illusion is.
@@chrisrace744 Greetings - and thank you. I have read the Sam Harris book and find two points worth making about it and others of similar ilk. His examples of supposed free will take place under highly circumscribed conditions and go nowhere towards showing that if I, say, go for a walk I do not do so quite freely. Secondly, alluding to the famous Libet experiment, it is an assumption on his part to interpret the brain events in the way he does. In general, brain science shows us nothing about free will. All we have in such cases made against free will are correlated brain events, where we left unclear on the point of interpretation - which give us no real headway. At most, all we are really entitled to infer from this is that when we act freely, things go on in our brains. The issue of free will is left wide open by all this. My question thus remains unaddressed. If there is no real free will then with what we can compare the supposed illusion in order to know it to be an illusion? We could never know that it felt like the real thing, even though it wasn't, because there would be no 'real' thing with which we could compare it. Compare this with acting under hypnosis. Here we may truly 'feel' free and not be but that is only because we can compare such occasions with times of not being under hypnosis and notice the difference that circumstances can make to our estimations of our freedom. In general, I am not insisting that we can _never_ feel free when in reality we are _not_ free, only that in order to make out this difference, we need to experience occasions of both the illusion of freedom and the genuine reality of it. We can be fooled by illusions but only because there is a corresponding reality behind them which we can come to know. If freedom of will were _always_ an illusion, its reality would not exist. If we can never coherently speak of the reality of free will, we could never coherently speak of the illusion of it either. All this is followed by the worry that if we had no genuine free will, we could never rationally conclude anything at all, including from scientific data. This is because that if all that is happening is that we are determined to draw the conclusions we in fact draw, there would be no grounds to suppose them to be true (or even approximating to the truth). Indeed, there would be no reasoning at all, only a series of determined events.
@@theophilus749 You are almost getting there " If freedom of will were always an illusion, its reality would not exist". Exactly. "ll this is followed by the worry that if we had no genuine free will, we could never rationally conclude anything at all, including from scientific data." This is because the universe from the moment of the big bang is entirely determined. There is no way for it to have gone differently, from the atoms colliding in stars to your illusion of free will. I understand you are trying to make a argument that to understand something we must understand its opposite (e.g. hot vs cold) or real free will vs illusion. But this is a fallacious argument. There are so many counter examples. E.g. its like saying that people who are destitute and suffering in a 3rd world country are "doing fine" because they "haven't fallen from an opulent lifestyle and are now suffering." We can claim things are universal and true, even without experiencing the alternative (suffering for e.g.). I think you are stuck on the idea that you posit free will exists and thinking I am saying we are getting the illusory version of it. This isn't what I mean. I am positing that free will doesn't exist, what we are experiencing we call "free will" (this is the label we give it because it feels like we can make a choice and if we could go back in time we can imagine making the alternative choice e.g. eating an apple or an orange). But since we cant go back in time, and since we know the universe is determined, the idea that our choice was a choice is debunked.
Can someone explain to me how strong emergence breaks the materialistic view of the world? He stated that your consciousness is based on the organization of the material (hundreds of billions of neurons).
I disagree with Chalmers about consciousness being the only strongly emergent thing in reality. The idea that chemicals could become life is at least as big a jump as consciousness is from biology. Each of the levels are similar. Space-time emerges from energy. Matter emerges from space-time. Chemistry emerges from matter. Biology emerges from chemistry. Consciousness emerges from biology. Each level of these dependencies is strongly emergent from the previous, and that isn’t the end. Think about all of the things that emerge from consciousness.
The intuition that conscious experience can never be explained results from conflating my own conscious experience with the conditions in the brain that make that experience possible. A scientific account of consciousness could explain these conditions (structures and processes) in the brain, but would not be able to say much about my own particular manifestation of consciousness (how it appears to me in feelings, experiences of color, etc. when I experience the processes of my own brain). My particular manifestation is an impossibly complex evolution that depends on my neurons and every impingement of the external world on them (including experiences, knocks to the head, interactions with other impossibly complex consciousnesses, etc.). A materialist explanation of consciousness will never give an account of what it's like to be me, only how consciousness can come about from a physical thing, but this is not a failure of materialism. I am nothing more than the result of physical things interacting with each other, however impossibly complex that may be.
If one insists on being careful with the concept of emergence, they ought to know that goes doubly for a word like consciousness. The only agreement we have when it comes to that is that it eludes definition. Our roll, everyone's roll, is very much in need of being constantly checked when it comes to consciousness. And if one might assert something as being "weakly emergent" (and supposedly tractable) such as what's done here with culture, I simply find attempts to avoid extending the same courtesy to consciousness a bit of a curious misstep. If we are able to look at quantum field perturbations and glean that yes...they will then give rise to fundamental particles...which will give rise to atoms...which will give rise to molecules...which will give rise to fundamental RNA matter...which will give rise to DNA...which will give rise to single-celled life...then multi-cellular life...and eventually animals; which will evolve with capacities for broad social interactions...that will then give rise to culture; and those latter jumps somehow warrant being called tractable...then I think the same has be done for various output states that a lifeform's primary information system might generate. As animals, we rely on our CNS to do the heavy lifting of processing. Other lifeforms do it differently. And we're only now finding out about how sophisticated those different ways are (for instance, plants). Setting that aside and instead strictly focusing on animals, brains produce a broad spectrum of states. All animals sense their environment. They are all sentient. For humans, we smuggle in a new word to handle our affinity for what we consider a reified brain state: sapience. Particularly, as it relates to having a sense of self. Humans aren't the only animals that have that. All apes do. Elephants. Birds. And the (small) list goes on. So sapience isn't what underpins our (supposed) greatness. I think we'll eventually just come to understand our decision to formalize language ended up creating a new kind of hyper-sapience. Language serves as a kind of steroid for sapience. As a chimp looks at itself in the mirror, it understands the reflection is itself. But s/he isn't using language in their mind. There's no "that's me." More vitally they aren't personalizing their existence as a "you." But we do. Extensively. Always. It's "me" and "you" 24/7 (even in our dreams). And that results in recursive information processing. It's still, however, at base no more impressive than the chimp's awareness. Or an elephant. Evolution conferred this attribute amongst various, highly different animals. If culture can be asserted to be weakly emergent, then sapience can too. As will consciousness, should it later be defined as something different than sapience. But sapience is all it's likely to be. I think our formalized language actually hurts us when we attempt to assess our sapience. We have competing demands. We want to be special. But we don't want to be without humility and recognize we may not be special. We end up being linguistically quite spastic about the whole thing. Because language/words aren't really perfectly tethered to reality. But we act as if they are.
Wouldn’t Chalmer’s argument that consciousness arises from the organization of neurons seemingly lead to the conclusion that science can ultimately explain consciousness, and contradict his earlier conclusion that the emergence of consciousness cannot be explained by science?
It is the self that is conscious. Entities that behave absent a self concept cannot be conscious. They can be reactive and or instinctive but they cannot be conscious.
I am wondering why Chalmers thinks that Laplace's demon could predict money. The same argument that convinces me that consiousness cannot be predicted, also convinces me that money cannot be predicted.
Or does the brain emerge from consciousness? In what manner does the brain exist except within and as a content of consciousness? And if the brain can only emerge within a consciousness already there to embrace it, then is consciousness a more fundamental metaphysical reality than all material forms, including the brain? And if so, can all forms of emergence be reduced to states of consciousness?
Laplace's demon would be able to predict that Chalmers would talk about consciousness and strong emergence making it a feature of weak emergence. Therefore there is only weak emergence and strong emergence is an illusion. If you can generate consciousness with silicon (undoubtedly true) then it is weak emergence because it is just a result of complex operations. The distinction between weak and strong emergence is nicely explained in this interview but the argument that strong emergence actually happens is lacking. The hypothesis seems to be that it applies only to consciousness and social patterns that depend on consciousness. This exception is unnecessary and relies on the illusion that conscious sensation is more than just physics.
But how could the human consciousness be a case of ‘strong emergence’ if animals also possess consciousness, albeit on varying levels than human beings? On the basis of such an argument, isn’t human consciousness, in fact, just another fancy case of ‘weak emergence’? In other words, there is no unpredictable X-factor involved in the emergence of the human consciousness; just another predictable/expected stage on the evolutionary spectrum of possible [weakly-emergent] consciousnesses.
Does this mean that animals with smaller brains cannot even have lower levels of consciousness? I would argue that my dog at least seems to be considerably more conscious of himself and the consequences of his actions than many humans that I have met.
Your dog has been infected by your being conscious. There's a difference between pets and wild animals and between us and humans who grew up in the absence of language.
"Strong emergence", otherwise known as "wishful thinking" - from those who have got it all wrong by putting the cart before the horse, i.e. matter over mind. But still, I wish them the best in their theorizing; perhaps they, too - like the string theorists - may inadvertently discover some Fields-medal-worthy math, thereby having something to contribute after all.
Sorry, but his declarations about what the all knowing demon could and couldn't predict fall flat for me. How does he know consciousness can't be understood someday. Seems like a god of the gaps argument in which God has been replaced with this mysterious emergence. How is that helpful?
callingeuterpe The point is that knowing all the standard physical facts about all the individual particles won't lead to a prediction of consciousness. x number of 3rd person object facts will never add to a subjective phenomenon. Doesn't matter how many particles there are or how complex their behavior is.
Perhaps consciousness is only the illusion resultant of memories "boiling up" from moment to moment. Kind of like our language...words seem to boil up without us having to generate them if even we knew how. Seems to me from my wakeful moment to moment that I am simple keeping a history and giving myself updates as I go. And it is these "refreshes" that make each "now" unique and labeled "consciousness ". Laplace's demon would be able to figure everything out if he could see all the interactions. He does not have enough information according to our David. It seems the demon is not looking at all the data just the classical data and missing the quantum data which any good demon should have access to.
Quite a leap of theorizing to say that consciousness emerges from the brain....might seem obvious on the surface but there's a whole order of philosophy that would argue that perhaps the brain emerges from consciousness.
No where here has Chambers mentioned that scientists have discovered quantum vibrations in the microtubules in the brain.Also Chambers hasn't mentioned that scientists have discovered that microtubules in the brain have information processing going on inside of them.Like a computer. The Brain might be a quantum computer.
I guess this is his way around the fact that there are no neurological correlates for consciousness (or a self or a soul). Yes, we have a subjective experience of things, but it's an illusion like watching a film that is processed through a projector. Not a "delusion" or ignorance, just the way we see things - it's just not real. Not to mention that there is no difference between an animals brain vs a human's - so where does this consciousness live? I like the Star Trek transporter question - if you believe in consciousness or a soul, would you ever step onto that platform?
Emergence is a delusion of Maya. Nothing has "emerged" from Consciousness, since objects have always been the eternally existing Substance (Spinoza's term) of the universe, Pure Consciousness. Obviously, new things can emerge in a relative sense, but all such entities are Pure Consciousness. To tap into That, no problem. Access "Mahamritunjaya mantra - Sacred Sounds Choir" and listen to it for 5 min per day for at least two weeks.
Hmmm. Let's change the thought experiment a bit. We continue replacing all the neurons in the brain, one by one, but instead of using silicon we use other neurons. What effect would that have on the consciousness of that brain, and at what point during this process would that effect begin? We already know the answer. Everything in our bodies is swapped out on a periodic basis. The brain you are using now is not the brain of your youth -- not one single neuron in common! And yet changing all the parts for new ones does not affect consciousness at all. You're still you despite the switcheroo. Conclusion: if the changes are gradual (organic?), consciousness can move from one brain to a replica. But is there something about the neurons themselves that is innate to consciousness? Why should or would there be? If a one celled amoeba can LEARN, and REMEMBER, with NO BRAIN and NO NEURONS, I deduce that consciousness must be far more common, and readily induced, than we give it credit for. Fascinating!
In other words - strong emergence is magic/miracle. I don't believe that there is anything in that category. Consciousness is just new "god of the gaps" and sooner or later we will be able to explain it. In other words, in the entirety of existence of the universe, there were no miracles.
I agree that you have expressed the truth of his argument. He thinks consciousness is above nature, or rather, supernatural. I sometimes think that the word emergence is just shorthand for "No one knows how this could possibly work, so let's give it a fancy name to hide our ignorance." If you start with your premise, no miracles, ever, then it is okay to just say that we don't know yet. Anyone who tries to insert his or her god into that gap can pound sand.
Glad hes wearing leather cuz he rocks! Sumbody please ask him about emergent behavior in AI.. As in when is AI gonna wake up an if emergent behavior is proof of this?
We are conscious for a purpose. That purpose is dictated by evolution. Replicate is evolution's dictate. Being conscious gets us laid more often. Certainly more often than going to a nightclub driven by instinct only, eh.
No matter how many people I've seen interviewed about consciousness my two favorites I keep coming back to are David Chalmers and John Searle. They are both able to so clearly express their views as if they've already thought of every counterargument that can be made to their position and can refute it seemingly so easily.
i guess searle can be considered coherent if u accept is baseless assumptions, otherwise he is merely stunningly stupid and irrelevant
@@backwardthoughts1022 apt name you chose there
They're both very clear but also very simplistic
@@connectingupthedots really genius?
The interviewer is lucky. He has interviewed some of the greatest minds I never moderns age like Witten, Dyson, Searle, Chalmers etc etc.
Dude is super bright. He is a mathematician and a philosopher.
Actually very strange to me that all take consciousness as something so special. It seems to me to be a continuum from various animal brains. Would you say dogs or Chimps have zero, absolute zero consciousness? Because emergence, like phase transition in physics, is a jump difference between zero and something of significant value. I don't see any proof or solid argument that consciousness is so different from other mental sensations, like fear, or elation.
It seems a bit off to say consciousness is the only known example of strong emergence. I guess it depends how you define it.
I would have thought life itself is the most impressive example of strong emergence.
What about the universe itself? That's even more important since it encompasses consciousness as well. What did the universe emerge from? Did it emerge at all?
@@stevekane8609 We do not know. Only guesses at this point.
I'm just as interested to know how his hair emerged from his head like that. Weird.
I expect he got tips from Brian May.
That’s got to be another example of strong emergence, right? There’s no way anyone could have predicted that.
@@danluba he is a philosopher, this hair is somewhat predictable from that underlying element.
quantum tunneling
I would argue that you cannot separate life from consciousness - that the emergence of life is in fact motivated by consciousness; or that in any case, part of the definition of life is conscious behavior - yes even for one-celled organisms and plants, albeit a more primitive version of what we would call consciousness - I would say, self-motivated behavior, which of necessity includes a subjective component. In any case my own argument about this is the following: if we posit that life and consciousness are merely (!) emergent properties of the physical universe, then we must logically conclude that life and consciousness are in fact intrinsic properties of the universe that manifest under the appropriate conditions.
Bull!!!
Instead of a bottom up reduction, we need a top down reduction. Living beings needed to process their environment from _both_ objective _and_ subjective perspecitves. These functions formed consciousness, and this consciousness made the development of an organ that can handle these functions neccessary. So in this sense, through evolution mind created matter, consciousness created brains.
David is such a good teacher and analyzer.
Analysis is good, conclusion is questionable
David Chalmers is a brilliant mind - one of the thought leaders in the concept of strong emergence! 👍🏼
I like David's arguments here with one important exception. He says consciousness emerges from patterns, organisation and information in the brain but I don't think that leads to understanding. The patterns, organisation and information are all necessary but it is the process of neurons firing in particular orders that leads to structured thought and ultimately consciousness. The neurons that fire are influenced by nerve inputs for "changes in thought direction" and by the existing neurons that effectively form a fairly predetermined (but changing over time) path for firing and that is based on their history (ie our learned experience)
At least that's how I see it.
For your consideration...
Roughly speaking...
A thought is not the thing it is about.
A thought is a mere representation of a something or equivalently
a thought is analogous to a something.
Thoughts are analogies.
Self is a thought analogous to a body.
It is my self that is conscious. (Truer words were never spoke - Descartes).
I am an analogy modulated synaptically by other analogies
in the process we call thinking.
Neurons are merely the necessary substrate of analogizing discharge frequency.
I am an analogy (how and why I am an immaterial entity).
So I assert,
any analogizing mechanism that is functionally isomorphic to my substrate
has the potential to be conscious given appropriate circumstances and tweaking.
@@REDPUMPERNICKEL Thoughts are analogies but IMO your description is too abstract to be useful. What is an "analogizing mechanism" precisely?
@@medhurstt "IMO your description is too abstract to be useful"
It is the briefest outline of a theory that enables me to understand how it is possible for mere matter to be entirely responsible for my being conscious.
I like the theory because it contains no magic thinking and posits no unknowns on which it hinges.
'Analogizing mechanism' is a perhaps too terse way of saying approximately what it is our brains are doing.
A sense organ of the body transduces impinging environmental energy into coded form as the discharge frequency of a neuron that connects the organ to the brain. The discharge frequency is analogous to the impinging energy. Brain neurons function in exactly the same way as does the connecting neuron. This is the foundation that permits analogy based language to find itself perfectly at home in brains.
Putting it very crudely, thinking is the synaptically mediated interaction of a hundred billion analogies (a subset of which constitutes the concept of the self) existing in encoded form as neural discharge frequencies.
Note that 'frequency' is abstract and the fundamental reason why self and mind and conscious all have an immaterial flavour to them.
Cheers!
I should have mentioned that I am in total agreement with your comment and consider mine to be mere elaboration.
I wish he could answer whether an ant colony, or bee hive behavior is weak or strong emergence. Does each bee know what it's contributing to the whole? Or does an individual neuron know that it's giving rise to consciousness.
It's very often difficult to distinguish between a 'projection' and
an actual property of something.
Wow, this interview addressed everything I wondered about after learning about emergence. Fantastic questions.
If something emerges from material (strongly) why then reject the materialistic world?
Their conversation and all of these comments
are conducted in and by and through language
and language is essentially the interplay of analogies.
If neurons can support the existence of analogies
then we should look there for the answers.
Can neural discharge frequency be the encoded form of analogy?
Yes, obviously (after a lot of thinking about it).
It is my self that is conscious.
What's a self?
Self is merely the analogy for a body.
How would it look like, if it looked like a phenomenon is strongly emergent? -- Is there an _empirical_ way to determine if a certain phenomenon is _strongly_ emergent?
all emergent properties are empirically observable eg. the sharpness of a thorn.
@@backwardthoughts1022
A thorn simply exists.
Sharpness we project on it.
@@REDPUMPERNICKEL no, being sharp is a physical function
@@backwardthoughts1022 Sharpness refers to a shape not a function. Shape, pattern, process are all abstract notions.
Take all the atoms of a thorn and rearrange them into a spherical pattern. Where has the thorn's sharpness gone?
@@REDPUMPERNICKEL sharpness is not a shape its an emergent property of a shape would be my point. furthermore a shape is an example of a function, specifically a physical one, hence not an abstraction, though you can construct concepts of them
What a wonderful conversation. Chalmers is clear, to the point, and utterly sensible while Khun's questions probe the heart of the matter in a spirit of openly fascinated enquiry, while allowing Chalmers to dispel any ambiguity and crystalise his position. Thanks for sharing this!
If an entity is able to form an abstract representation of it's environment, it should feel like something, if not why would we be emotionally inclined to do anything with this "emergent" information?
For emergence, is energy organizing groups or collectives into a new reality?
It's funny how Chalmers just pronounces it to be true, nonchalantly, that Laplace's demon certainly wouldn't be able to predict consciousness. What an absurd idea! Why on earth should anyone agree with that? Does Chalmers know a guy as smart as Laplace's demon and did that guy tell him he had know idea there'd be consciousness or something?? Either Chalmers is right, and there's this INSANELY cool/crazy/wild thing going on that we're lucky enough to know is there because we experience it directly, or ... or consciousness really is just another example of weak emergence and we're actually really pretentious if we think we can predict confidently what science could or couldn't predict in a thousand or a million or a billion years. There's simply no evidence to believe that consciousness is a case of strong emergence. It could be, of course, but there's just no evidence that it definitely is, and, tellingly, Chalmers not only doesn't provide any (he only says, in summary "I believe consciousness is different than what happened with vitalism"--cool, but why is that belief rational?) but he also doesn't even seem to be aware that evidence is the most important thing he should offer when making such an extraordinary claim.
Well put.
chalmers begins by merely describing the reality of the situation, namely that there is no known mechanism as to how fat protein water and electricity aka the brain should be in any way associated with subjectivity. without some evidence to the contrary, they remain radically different objects with radically different functions and properties.
if we then assert that mind is what brain does, meaning particular physical structures are the basis of emergence for the emergent property of consciousness, then this requires that upon observing the asserted basis of emergence eg. the neural correlate for blue, we should by definition observe the emergent property of blue as well. just as when we observe a shell, its emergent property of a pattern is observed, or when a knife is observed, its sharpness is observed in. all cases of weak emergence function this way. currently, after splicing testing and grinding up billions of mammal brains and bodies we have detected no such emergent property, ever. to the contrary the esteemed christof koch's fully funded thorough study to attempt to locate the NCC (the neural correlate for consciousness ie. the minimum physical structure requires for basic consciousness) failed completely to discern any results. as a result even he these days is less prone to physicalism and says such things as blue appearing from or as mass-energy is on the level of magical thinking, void of any meaning and basis in reality.
also these days in quantum theory specialists, fewer and fewer are seeing it as a fundamental model of reality, since by definition a collapse in the function requires an observer whoms nature is completely unexamined and unknown despite continuing rigorous testing methods of the external. as usual our physicalist approach maintains the glaring blindspot and we cultivated for 400yrs while maintaining a complete distance on developing rigorous methods of observing the mind and potentially making severe progress in the measurement problem.
Spinal tap just found their next drummer
More! More!
Check out the closer to truth website! You'll spend months there!
Though I respect Chalmers effort. I'm never convinced by the silicone brain idea. The underlying structure may be similar but the dynamics of the whole is fundamentally determined by the specific characteristics cells and chemicals, if you change the basic building blocks of the brain they might interact differently with certain particles and chemicals and radically alter the overall dynamics. While organization is very important, it itself still flows from the characteristics of the matter. I don't think it is helpful to simply discard that possibility. But I suspect it is partly due to Chalmers' idea that it is "strong emergence".
Maybe the example he gave was too figurative. At the base he says 'organizational' which is still valid. Include what's inside of the building blocks as part of the organization as it is still in the ream of function.
Very well put, I think I share your intuition. No doubt Chalmers would respond and say "but we can clearly imagine silicone replacements functionong exactly the same as neurons, causing all of the same brain processes which in turn cause all of the relevant behaviours etc." But I'm not sure if that's actually the case. The kinds of processes that the brain undergoes might necessarily flow from and only from the underlying structure of its constituent parts, these being neurons. It might simply not be possible for these processes to be multiply realizable.
Shouldn't there be a distinction between "emergence from X" and "emergence with X" (?)
I would add abiogenesis and cities as examples of strong emergence. Abiogenesis was only predictable based on hindsight. Cities can create skyscrapers and spaceships, not something that would be predictable in simians that not so long ago lived in grass huts.
Strong emergence strikes me as a simplistic way of referring to a change of exponential scale. Our minds don't handle exponentials well. So the consciousness that we so value is basically of the same nature as the reflex actions of, say, microbes, but our consciousness is exponentially more complex. I visualise the difference between weak and strong emergence as a beach vs a tall seaside cliff. They are essentially the same thing - junctions where land meets sea, but the effect is vastly different.
could weak emergence happen from gravity increasing density?
Why does the interviewer never ask D. Chalmers about the implications of his own "paradox of phenomenal judgement". If weak emergence can explain everything we SAY about consciousness, including that it's very special, non physical and "first person", it appears we don't need strong emergence after all.
I think Chambers doesn't think weak emergence explains it.
Why would explaining consciousness imply that we don't need strong emergence?
What is a "plasma demon" at 3:08?
It's Laplaces demon.
Could energy organize neurons in brain to have subjective conscious experience?
I'm with the host on his example of the earlier theory of vitalism being ultimately supplanted with evolution / DNA etc.. All things being equal, we are probably at a very primitive level of understanding of how consciousness could possibly work. The problem with really intelligent people like Chalmers is a little ego gets in the way - because they can't understand it right now, they assume that there must be something uniquely special about it that makes it impervious to human understanding. Sure consciousness is special, but in time (likely a long time) it will be solved and we will move onto the next seemingly impenetrable problem.
I don't see how they can make progress when they blithely accept that life is understood just because you can synthesize urea in the lab. Consciousness is a property of life. Life is the thing that is uniquely special. I figure that when life is actually understood completely, this understanding will include first person experience. As I enjoy pointing out to the Panpsychists, what good would consciousness do for a rock, or maybe more accurately, what would the difference be between a conscious rock and an unconscious rock.
@@caricue "Consciousness is a property of life."
No it's not.
Being conscious is half the concept of the self.
The concept of the self exists only for linguistic organisms and
its existence is of the abstract type.
@@REDPUMPERNICKEL If someone starts poking you with a sharp stick there will be nothing abstract about the situation. Concepts are useful mental constructs, but they are not reality. You (as in self) are a solid physical organism swimming in mud and poop like the rest of the beasts.
7 Years Ago.
Great Word " Emergence".
This Touches on the Evolution Dilemma of :-
How does Evolution Explain Human Memory ?
Memory being a Tool of Consciousness.
How can Consciousness and Memory Emerge and be Assistants to one another ?.
How can Life even come up with the Concept of Memory so as to Create it ?.
But of Course More than this, Build the Senses, Sight, Hearing, Touch, Smell, Taste. All Tools of Consciousness.
Try Building a Robot that Builds the Equivalent of a Human Eye, Good Luck with that.
Hence Replacing a Nueron with a Microchip would Fail because the Chips Don't Know How to Build what They Don't Know.
Did the interviewer get those shoulder pads from a 1980s Duran Duran video?
More videos please!
Could physics, chemistry, biology be weak emergence because physical, while psychology / consciousness strong emergence because about energy?
No.
Life does not emerge from biology. Biology is life.
Emergence would apply in a transition from chemistry to biology. To my knowledge this has never been either seen or done. So to say life or biology emerges from chemistry is a strong claim; just as it is to say consciousness emerges from biology.
David Walsh I would agree, for instance, there are no known chemical forces that would choose the order of DNA base pairs, all base pairs are connected with identical hydrogen bonds.
David Walsh life is just chemistry. Chemistry is physics. You would never study the mating habits of the leatherback turtle using the large hadron collider.
Charmers is lost when it comes to consciousness.
I don't think the definition of consciousness is even agreed upon so how would one even know if it emergent let alone more than an occasional memory refresh.
@@josephshawa
You are right; there is no definitive account of consciousness. We each have to decide for ourselves from out own experience.
Do you really believe all your consciousness amounts to is "an occasional memory refresh"? I would find that view equally sad and absurd to be honest. I am always amazed at how so many these days are so wedded to ideological physicalism they are driven to deny their own consciousness while actually using it to make their arguments.
@@david8157 Consciousness is the only thing I have as far as I'm concerned. The rest is an illusion. With that I have to say that I place the most importance on my consciousness. It will be the last thing to go and that which I will try to hang on to dearly as I do die. But come how I proceeded is not diminishing it at all. I do believe it is just a collection of memories that are brought forth from moment to moment to moment . That is how it feels to me and I can't imagine other arguments being any more valid at this point as there is no evidence or agreement on any other explanation : )
Some seem to see it as a purely quantum phenomenon.....to which i say, what isnt?
The one flaw in David's analogy to a siilicon brain is that such a brain would be HARDwired, unchangeable, whereas our human brain can indeed be rewired by experiences, desires, addictions, mental illnesses, etc.
Why would you make that assumption? If the silicon neurons were microchips they could absolutely re-wire themselves. This is called software. This is actually how neural networks (ala chatGPT) works.
maybe strong emergence, such as consciousness / intelligence, start or having something to do with expansion of space?
Matter is an emergent property of the unified field of consciousness, not the other way around. At a sufficiently self-organized level of complexity matter then displays properties of consciousness. Refusal to accept and investigate this basic truth leads to a lot of unnecessary obfuscation and confusion.
"Matter is an emergent property of the unified field of consciousness" is just a way of thinking.
Can we say that life and DNA strongly emergence from chemistry?
I can say it but
I think emerge is the wrong word.
Emerge seems to me to be very much like what the psychologists call 'projection'.
A process is not a material object.
Rather it is an abstract entity, a description of activity.
Life is a process, atoms are its substrate and
DNA is an instance of chemistry.
Processes exist in a way very different from the way atoms exist.
How only changing the number of protons in a nucleus of an atom could change the physical property say colour of the whole is there any scientific explanation or proof regarding the answer
If I'm not mistaken
changing the number of protons in a nucleus
will cause a change in the number of electrons of that atom.
A change in the number of electrons will change the spacing
between atoms of that type and
it is the spacing that has something to do with
the frequency of the light reflected.
First off, the answers David gave are incredibly thought provoking. But props where they're due: You ask some awesome questions that really bring out the best of your guests. Personal thought: Strong Emergence = the greatest example of 'we are greater than the sum of our parts'?
In psychology / consciousness, might energy about energy explain data of subjective experience?
the replacement of our neurons is an interesting question, but i think the only appropriate reply is "i dont know". because until and unless we know what consciousness is and how it works, we can't answer that question with any degree of knowledge. i am also beginning to realize that david and myself use the term consciousness very differently. from some recent videos i have seen of him, it is becoming more evident that david equates the 2 words of consciousness and conscious. i seem to think of it more like peter russell talks about it. russell uses the term conscious to denote one aspect of our consciousness - that which we call awareness. but there are tons of other aspects of consciousness. one of the first steps we need in the discussion of consciousness is an exact meaning of the vocabulary we are using to discuss it.
The main problem with their replacement scenario is that they would be replacing living things with dead things. Just because Vitalism was nonsense doesn't mean that you can disregard being alive from the equation.
@@caricue i dont think dave was disregarding it, but he does seem to think that organization is the main, or maybe only, criteria for consciousness. i do not think our brain creates our consciousness, though. i have read too many things that would contradict this conclusion. and also if it was true, why have we not been able to discover something about it. we know zilch about what consciousness is.
@@jimmybrice6360 That's my point about life. We know so much about cells and metabolism but we don't have any idea what life is. I imagine that once we truly understand life, we will be able to make headway into consciousness and self, but you don't know what you don't know until you do know, you know?
I think theres a misleading dichotomy of weak and strong emergence, the underlying matter (W. E.) has to support the strong emergence, so it is fundamental to it, therefore baked into the basic nature of iterative fractal structure underlying S. E..
I like "baked in" very much.
Everything that has happened, is happening, will happen
only happens because it can.
Everything that cannot happen doesn't.
@@REDPUMPERNICKEL The Fractal has a phase space and is absolutely rock solid in its character and emergence.
Immensely bright - and great in This is Spinal Tap too.
One should distinguish between the ''inner experience of consciousness'' and, the ''origin of the inner experience of consciousness''.
An inner experience, by definition, is ''inner'' to the individual only but, it may very well originate in physical processes accessible from
''out side'' in the brain (or more generally in the body) of the individual. The fruitful issue here, like that of ''life'' in the past, is the physical origin of the ''inner experience'' -- not, what it is ''as such''.
(Then, also, the distinction between the ''weak'' and the ''strong'' emergence becomes hardly significant.)
''inner experience of consciousness''
is a phrase that seems to me to contain multiple redundancies.
David Chalmers is a DUDE!
Love how you’re next to the mri machine lol
Just because conscious is so etherial doesn't mean it isn't a physical function.
He didn’t say anything otherwise.
It is OK if we are talking about strong emergence without modifying the standard model. Otherwise, it doesn't add up..
'In principle' there is no unpredictable chaotic dynamics. If we...'in principle'...know the initial conditions of dynamic system with infinite precision, we would be able to predict the dynamics of each and every non-linear dynamic system....So the question is: what does 'in principle' mean. Does it mean 'to have infinite computational power'?
How about freedom of will as being a second candidate for strong emergence? Though this, of course, seems to require consciousness. Unless, of course, one is happy with compatibilism, but that's just determinism's weak sister and just as broken-backed, it seems to me.
I think also that to say that consciousness "strongly" emerges from neural organisation is just a fancy way of admitting that we haven't the foggiest idea how it happens. (Which we indeed haven't.) It is fancy but also, perhaps a bit fishy, for it tries to keep intact physicalist scruples (that's the 'emerges' bit) while it simultaneously confesses that how brain organisation is supposed to do it can never be derived from physicalist resources (the 'strongly' bit). It would be better simply to give up on physicalism altogether, for if physicalism were true, one should surely expect that consciousness can be explained and understood purely in terms of brain organisation, that is, as something only _weakly_ emergent - something Chalmers eschews. I think Chalmers wants to both keep and eat his cake.
Its almost 100% proven that freedom of will is an illusion. It just feels like that, but our choices are already determined.
@@chrisrace744
A question: how would we know that an action or decision 'felt' free if there was no _real_ freedom for the illusion (falsely) to resemble?
In general, illusions depend on reality in order to work or even count as illusions in the first place. Some things, for instance, can _look_ real even though they are not, but this is only because some things just _are_ real and the illusory case looks like the real case.
@@theophilus749 because we have consciousness which gives us a subjective experience. It's simulating free choice when in reality we've been able to detect and prove that the decision (e.g. anything we make a choice on) is already determined by our subconscious before our concious becomes aware of it. Lookup Sam Harris' tall on free will.
It feels wrong to not actually have free will. But that's just how strong the illusion is.
@@chrisrace744 Greetings - and thank you.
I have read the Sam Harris book and find two points worth making about it and others of similar ilk. His examples of supposed free will take place under highly circumscribed conditions and go nowhere towards showing that if I, say, go for a walk I do not do so quite freely. Secondly, alluding to the famous Libet experiment, it is an assumption on his part to interpret the brain events in the way he does. In general, brain science shows us nothing about free will. All we have in such cases made against free will are correlated brain events, where we left unclear on the point of interpretation - which give us no real headway. At most, all we are really entitled to infer from this is that when we act freely, things go on in our brains. The issue of free will is left wide open by all this.
My question thus remains unaddressed. If there is no real free will then with what we can compare the supposed illusion in order to know it to be an illusion? We could never know that it felt like the real thing, even though it wasn't, because there would be no 'real' thing with which we could compare it.
Compare this with acting under hypnosis. Here we may truly 'feel' free and not be but that is only because we can compare such occasions with times of not being under hypnosis and notice the difference that circumstances can make to our estimations of our freedom. In general, I am not insisting that we can _never_ feel free when in reality we are _not_ free, only that in order to make out this difference, we need to experience occasions of both the illusion of freedom and the genuine reality of it. We can be fooled by illusions but only because there is a corresponding reality behind them which we can come to know. If freedom of will were _always_ an illusion, its reality would not exist. If we can never coherently speak of the reality of free will, we could never coherently speak of the illusion of it either.
All this is followed by the worry that if we had no genuine free will, we could never rationally conclude anything at all, including from scientific data. This is because that if all that is happening is that we are determined to draw the conclusions we in fact draw, there would be no grounds to suppose them to be true (or even approximating to the truth). Indeed, there would be no reasoning at all, only a series of determined events.
@@theophilus749 You are almost getting there " If freedom of will were always an illusion, its reality would not exist". Exactly.
"ll this is followed by the worry that if we had no genuine free will, we could never rationally conclude anything at all, including from scientific data."
This is because the universe from the moment of the big bang is entirely determined. There is no way for it to have gone differently, from the atoms colliding in stars to your illusion of free will.
I understand you are trying to make a argument that to understand something we must understand its opposite (e.g. hot vs cold) or real free will vs illusion. But this is a fallacious argument. There are so many counter examples. E.g. its like saying that people who are destitute and suffering in a 3rd world country are "doing fine" because they "haven't fallen from an opulent lifestyle and are now suffering." We can claim things are universal and true, even without experiencing the alternative (suffering for e.g.).
I think you are stuck on the idea that you posit free will exists and thinking I am saying we are getting the illusory version of it. This isn't what I mean. I am positing that free will doesn't exist, what we are experiencing we call "free will" (this is the label we give it because it feels like we can make a choice and if we could go back in time we can imagine making the alternative choice e.g. eating an apple or an orange). But since we cant go back in time, and since we know the universe is determined, the idea that our choice was a choice is debunked.
Can someone explain to me how strong emergence breaks the materialistic view of the world? He stated that your consciousness is based on the organization of the material (hundreds of billions of neurons).
Is consciousness strong emergence, with other emergences weak?
I disagree with Chalmers about consciousness being the only strongly emergent thing in reality. The idea that chemicals could become life is at least as big a jump as consciousness is from biology. Each of the levels are similar. Space-time emerges from energy. Matter emerges from space-time. Chemistry emerges from matter. Biology emerges from chemistry. Consciousness emerges from biology. Each level of these dependencies is strongly emergent from the previous, and that isn’t the end. Think about all of the things that emerge from consciousness.
The intuition that conscious experience can never be explained results from conflating my own conscious experience with the conditions in the brain that make that experience possible. A scientific account of consciousness could explain these conditions (structures and processes) in the brain, but would not be able to say much about my own particular manifestation of consciousness (how it appears to me in feelings, experiences of color, etc. when I experience the processes of my own brain). My particular manifestation is an impossibly complex evolution that depends on my neurons and every impingement of the external world on them (including experiences, knocks to the head, interactions with other impossibly complex consciousnesses, etc.). A materialist explanation of consciousness will never give an account of what it's like to be me, only how consciousness can come about from a physical thing, but this is not a failure of materialism. I am nothing more than the result of physical things interacting with each other, however impossibly complex that may be.
If one insists on being careful with the concept of emergence, they ought to know that goes doubly for a word like consciousness. The only agreement we have when it comes to that is that it eludes definition. Our roll, everyone's roll, is very much in need of being constantly checked when it comes to consciousness.
And if one might assert something as being "weakly emergent" (and supposedly tractable) such as what's done here with culture, I simply find attempts to avoid extending the same courtesy to consciousness a bit of a curious misstep. If we are able to look at quantum field perturbations and glean that yes...they will then give rise to fundamental particles...which will give rise to atoms...which will give rise to molecules...which will give rise to fundamental RNA matter...which will give rise to DNA...which will give rise to single-celled life...then multi-cellular life...and eventually animals; which will evolve with capacities for broad social interactions...that will then give rise to culture; and those latter jumps somehow warrant being called tractable...then I think the same has be done for various output states that a lifeform's primary information system might generate. As animals, we rely on our CNS to do the heavy lifting of processing. Other lifeforms do it differently. And we're only now finding out about how sophisticated those different ways are (for instance, plants). Setting that aside and instead strictly focusing on animals, brains produce a broad spectrum of states. All animals sense their environment. They are all sentient. For humans, we smuggle in a new word to handle our affinity for what we consider a reified brain state: sapience. Particularly, as it relates to having a sense of self. Humans aren't the only animals that have that. All apes do. Elephants. Birds. And the (small) list goes on. So sapience isn't what underpins our (supposed) greatness. I think we'll eventually just come to understand our decision to formalize language ended up creating a new kind of hyper-sapience. Language serves as a kind of steroid for sapience. As a chimp looks at itself in the mirror, it understands the reflection is itself. But s/he isn't using language in their mind. There's no "that's me." More vitally they aren't personalizing their existence as a "you." But we do. Extensively. Always. It's "me" and "you" 24/7 (even in our dreams). And that results in recursive information processing. It's still, however, at base no more impressive than the chimp's awareness. Or an elephant. Evolution conferred this attribute amongst various, highly different animals. If culture can be asserted to be weakly emergent, then sapience can too. As will consciousness, should it later be defined as something different than sapience. But sapience is all it's likely to be. I think our formalized language actually hurts us when we attempt to assess our sapience. We have competing demands. We want to be special. But we don't want to be without humility and recognize we may not be special. We end up being linguistically quite spastic about the whole thing. Because language/words aren't really perfectly tethered to reality. But we act as if they are.
Wouldn’t Chalmer’s argument that consciousness arises from the organization of neurons seemingly lead to the conclusion that science can ultimately explain consciousness, and contradict his earlier conclusion that the emergence of consciousness cannot be explained by science?
And beyond consciousness is self awareness which emerges out of consciousness but apparently only for human beings. Could that have been predicted?
It is the self that is conscious.
Entities that behave absent a self concept cannot be conscious.
They can be reactive and or instinctive but they cannot be conscious.
Is that a dot matrix printer in the background? They must be in a museum.
In Professional Environments legacy Equipment gets used quite long and quite often. It’s possible that this still works every day.
I am wondering why Chalmers thinks that Laplace's demon could predict money. The same argument that convinces me that consiousness cannot be predicted, also convinces me that money cannot be predicted.
My brain is oozing out of my ears
Dude looks like he stepped right out of Spinal Tap.
How could consciousness be emergent if it is fondamental?
Does consciousness emerge from the brain??
Or does the brain emerge from consciousness? In what manner does the brain exist except within and as a content of consciousness? And if the brain can only emerge within a consciousness already there to embrace it, then is consciousness a more fundamental metaphysical reality than all material forms, including the brain? And if so, can all forms of emergence be reduced to states of consciousness?
Laplace's demon would be able to predict that Chalmers would talk about consciousness and strong emergence making it a feature of weak emergence. Therefore there is only weak emergence and strong emergence is an illusion. If you can generate consciousness with silicon (undoubtedly true) then it is weak emergence because it is just a result of complex operations. The distinction between weak and strong emergence is nicely explained in this interview but the argument that strong emergence actually happens is lacking. The hypothesis seems to be that it applies only to consciousness and social patterns that depend on consciousness. This exception is unnecessary and relies on the illusion that conscious sensation is more than just physics.
Please tell me he's on the way to a 80s rock themed fancy dress party...
But how could the human consciousness be a case of ‘strong emergence’ if animals also possess consciousness, albeit on varying levels than human beings? On the basis of such an argument, isn’t human consciousness, in fact, just another fancy case of ‘weak emergence’? In other words, there is no unpredictable X-factor involved in the emergence of the human consciousness; just another predictable/expected stage on the evolutionary spectrum of possible [weakly-emergent] consciousnesses.
Does this mean that animals with smaller brains cannot even have lower levels of consciousness? I would argue that my dog at least seems to be considerably more conscious of himself and the consequences of his actions than many humans that I have met.
Your dog has been infected by your being conscious.
There's a difference between pets and wild animals and
between us and humans who grew up in the absence of language.
"Strong emergence", otherwise known as "wishful thinking" - from those who have got it all wrong by putting the cart before the horse, i.e. matter over mind.
But still, I wish them the best in their theorizing; perhaps they, too - like the string theorists - may inadvertently discover some Fields-medal-worthy math, thereby having something to contribute after all.
Walked away from spinal tap to do science … rock on 🤘
Awesome !
Sorry, but his declarations about what the all knowing demon could and couldn't predict fall flat for me. How does he know consciousness can't be understood someday. Seems like a god of the gaps argument in which God has been replaced with this mysterious emergence. How is that helpful?
callingeuterpe The point is that knowing all the standard physical facts about all the individual particles won't lead to a prediction of consciousness. x number of 3rd person object facts will never add to a subjective phenomenon. Doesn't matter how many particles there are or how complex their behavior is.
What is subjective phenomenon?
We are just missing a piece in the standard model to turn the strong into a weak emergence.
Perhaps consciousness is only the illusion resultant of memories "boiling up" from moment to moment. Kind of like our language...words seem to boil up without us having to generate them if even we knew how. Seems to me from my wakeful moment to moment that I am simple keeping a history and giving myself updates as I go. And it is these "refreshes" that make each "now" unique and labeled "consciousness ".
Laplace's demon would be able to figure everything out if he could see all the interactions. He does not have enough information according to our David. It seems the demon is not looking at all the data just the classical data and missing the quantum data which any good demon should have access to.
Peter Frampton is a philosopher apparently
The problem is where to see basic
Is he talking to one of the band members of Bon Jovi?
I honestly heard him saying wig emergence.
Quite a leap of theorizing to say that consciousness emerges from the brain....might seem obvious on the surface but there's a whole order of philosophy that would argue that perhaps the brain emerges from consciousness.
No where here has Chambers mentioned that scientists have discovered quantum vibrations in the microtubules in the brain.Also Chambers hasn't mentioned that scientists have discovered that microtubules in the brain have information processing going on inside of them.Like a computer. The Brain might be a quantum computer.
I think it's a mistake to confuse existence with information.
How about life??emerging from non living matter is that not strong emergence???
So good !!!
Derek Smalls brought me here.
I guess this is his way around the fact that there are no neurological correlates for consciousness (or a self or a soul). Yes, we have a subjective experience of things, but it's an illusion like watching a film that is processed through a projector. Not a "delusion" or ignorance, just the way we see things - it's just not real. Not to mention that there is no difference between an animals brain vs a human's - so where does this consciousness live? I like the Star Trek transporter question - if you believe in consciousness or a soul, would you ever step onto that platform?
"DUDE! Where's my consciousness??" .... I smoked too much grass
This :-) Think of ants, one ant is a dead ant but a colony emerges the structured survival hierarchy
Is that not a bit outdated ? What's new after 9 years 🤔
Interesting dude
Lead singer of Styx is smart AF
The demon! Makin his appearance
God is the underlying reality to existence, god is existence itself.
Emergence is a delusion of Maya. Nothing has "emerged" from Consciousness, since objects have always been the eternally existing Substance (Spinoza's term) of the universe, Pure Consciousness. Obviously, new things can emerge in a relative sense, but all such entities are Pure Consciousness. To tap into That, no problem. Access "Mahamritunjaya mantra - Sacred Sounds Choir" and listen to it for 5 min per day for at least two weeks.
This video should have been titled “Robert Laurence Kuhn destroys David Chalmers with facts and logic”.
I think you're just talking out of your rear end
Hmmm. Let's change the thought experiment a bit. We continue replacing all the neurons in the brain, one by one, but instead of using silicon we use other neurons. What effect would that have on the consciousness of that brain, and at what point during this process would that effect begin? We already know the answer. Everything in our bodies is swapped out on a periodic basis. The brain you are using now is not the brain of your youth -- not one single neuron in common! And yet changing all the parts for new ones does not affect consciousness at all. You're still you despite the switcheroo. Conclusion: if the changes are gradual (organic?), consciousness can move from one brain to a replica.
But is there something about the neurons themselves that is innate to consciousness? Why should or would there be? If a one celled amoeba can LEARN, and REMEMBER, with NO BRAIN and NO NEURONS, I deduce that consciousness must be far more common, and readily induced, than we give it credit for. Fascinating!
I had no idea he looked like an 80s metal gutarist.
The other example would be self replication.
Organizational invarience
Consciousness emerged independently of forces science has been willing to investigate. This is a safe approach.
In other words - strong emergence is magic/miracle. I don't believe that there is anything in that category. Consciousness is just new "god of the gaps" and sooner or later we will be able to explain it. In other words, in the entirety of existence of the universe, there were no miracles.
I agree that you have expressed the truth of his argument. He thinks consciousness is above nature, or rather, supernatural. I sometimes think that the word emergence is just shorthand for "No one knows how this could possibly work, so let's give it a fancy name to hide our ignorance." If you start with your premise, no miracles, ever, then it is okay to just say that we don't know yet. Anyone who tries to insert his or her god into that gap can pound sand.
He glitched out
You did.
Glad hes wearing leather cuz he rocks! Sumbody please ask him about emergent behavior in AI.. As in when is AI gonna wake up an if emergent behavior is proof of this?
Emergence is just God unpacking his mostly forgotten boxes after a loong journey
We are conscious for a purpose.
That purpose is dictated by evolution.
Replicate is evolution's dictate.
Being conscious gets us laid more often.
Certainly more often than going to a nightclub driven by instinct only, eh.