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Post by bjorn on Oct 18, 2011 13:10:42 GMT
www.samharris.org/blog/item/the-mystery-of-consciousness/Interesting stuff - seems like Sam Harris is consciously entering a collision course with Dennett and eliminative materialists. "It is surely a sign of our intellectual progress that a discussion of consciousness no longer has to begin with a debate about its existence. To say that consciousness may only seem to exist is to admit its existence in full—for if things seem any way at all, that is consciousness. Even if I happen to be a brain in a vat at this moment—all my memories are false; all my perceptions are of a world that does not exist—the fact that I am having an experience is indisputable (to me, at least). This is all that is required for me (or any other conscious being) to fully establish the reality of consciousness. Consciousness is the one thing in this universe that cannot be an illusion".It gets even more interesting, though. "Most scientists are confident that consciousness emerges from unconscious complexity. We have compelling reasons for believing this, because the only signs of consciousness we see in the universe are found in evolved organisms like ourselves. Nevertheless, this notion of emergence strikes me as nothing more than a restatement of a miracle. To say that consciousness emerged at some point in the evolution of life doesn’t give us an inkling of how it could emerge from unconscious processes, even in principle." And more, as he starts to sound like Lane Craig: "The idea that everything (matter, space-time, their antecedent causes, and the very laws that govern their emergence) simply sprang into being out of nothing seems worse than a paradox. “Nothing,” after all, is precisely that which cannot give rise to “anything,” let alone “everything.” Many physicists realize this, of course. Fred Hoyle, who coined “big bang” as a term of derogation, is famous for opposing this creation myth on philosophical grounds, because such an event seems to require a “preexisting space and time.” In a similar vein, Stephen Hawking has said that the notion that the universe had a beginning is incoherent, because something can begin only with reference to time, and here we are talking about the beginning of space-time itself. He pictures space-time as a four-dimensional closed manifold, without beginning or end—much like the surface of a sphere.
Naturally, it all depends on how one defines “nothing.” The physicist Lawrence Krauss has written a wonderful book arguing that the universe does indeed emerge from nothing. But in the present context, I am imagining a nothing that is emptier still—a condition without antecedent laws of physics or anything else. It might still be true that the laws of physics themselves sprang out of nothing in this sense, and the universe along with them—and Krauss says as much. Perhaps that is precisely what happened. I am simply claiming that this is not an explanation of how the universe came into being. To say “Everything came out of nothing” is to assert a brute fact that defies our most basic intuitions of cause and effect—a miracle, in other words. "His solution seems to be some form of (pan?)theism, touching I guess his well known preference for a kind of mysticism: "Consciousness—the sheer fact that this universe is illuminated by sentience—is precisely what unconsciousness is not. And I believe that no description of unconscious complexity will fully account for it. It seems to me that just as “something” and “nothing,” however juxtaposed, can do no explanatory work, an analysis of purely physical processes will never yield a picture of consciousness. However, this is not to say that some other thesis about consciousness must be true. Consciousness may very well be the lawful product of unconscious information processing. But I don’t know what that sentence means—and I don’t think anyone else does either."The question is also what Harris's sentences mean.
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Post by unkleE on Oct 19, 2011 7:41:38 GMT
Bjorn, that is most interesting. Everything I have previously seen from Sam I thought was somewhere between silly and dangerous, but this is most interesting, and helps me overcome my previous prejudice at least a little.
Has he deliberately channelled the Cosmological argument and WL Craig, or, hopefully, is he simply following where the evidence and logic leads? Time will tell, but it might be worth keeping an eye out.
I wonder how his fellow atheists are responding to these thoughts?
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Post by fortigurn on Nov 7, 2011 11:11:29 GMT
That is an extraordinary series of comments from Harris. I expect PMZ is currently having conniptions.
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syzygy
Master of the Arts
Posts: 103
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Post by syzygy on Nov 7, 2011 12:31:23 GMT
Very interesting. How does he avoid Cartesian dualism, which he says he doesn't like?
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Post by fortigurn on Nov 7, 2011 12:32:45 GMT
Very interesting. How does he avoid Cartesian dualism, which he says he doesn't like? Hey, no one said he has to be consistent.
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Post by dannorcott on Nov 14, 2011 11:00:52 GMT
It's always good to read things in context. The section quoted here by bjorn:
misses out the preceding line:
"I believe that this notion of emergence is incomprehensible—rather like a naive conception of the big bang."
which makes it clear that what follows is addressing the naive conception of the big bang that many laymen have - namely that it means "EVERYTHING CAME FROM NOTHING" - when what it actually describes is the point in history where everything seems to have been in a singularity and our knowledge of the laws of physics do not enable us to extrapolate further. Also, time itself may have no meaning at this point or before.
With regard to what he means, I think he's just trying his best to explain a very difficult thing that even he doesn't understand - how the mental experience can be explained logically with reference to the physical universe. They are very different things, but it's hard to explain quite how. I'm buggered if I know.
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Post by fortigurn on Nov 14, 2011 15:11:42 GMT
With regard to what he means, I think he's just trying his best to explain a very difficult thing that even he doesn't understand - how the mental experience can be explained logically with reference to the physical universe. They are very different things, but it's hard to explain quite how. I'm buggered if I know. I agree with this, but I don't see how this, or the broader context, makes what he said any less surprising.
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Post by dannorcott on Nov 14, 2011 15:27:01 GMT
Hi fortigurn
What do you think is surprising about which bit exactly? A genuine, rather than facetious, question.
The first quoted para (in the original post) seems to be just saying phew, we finally seem to admit that consciousness exists.
The second is questioning the usefulness of the term "emergence" - I agree with him here. It's a very tempting thing to say, and I think of consciousness in the same way myself (as in, it emerging from certain kinds of complexity) - but what that actually means if I really look into the thoughts seems to not be a whole lot other than "It happens".
The third, which is what made me comment in the first place, is just shooting down the red herrings that appear when you think about the big bang simplistically, without really knowing the science at a fairly basic level. He's not saying the concept of a big bang is naive, just that if you have a naive conception of what it is, you are onto a loser.
Fourth paragraph, some quasi philosophical musing about nothing, and an acknowledgement that whilst everything *might* have sprang from nothing, it doesn't serve as an explanation as to how.
And the last one - he's just saying that consciousness is hard to describe. How could you get from the physical world of bricks, cheese, cheese, cells and brains to the sensorium we experience? We might be able to describe the physical components of a brain, but nothing there really helps to describe the experience of being alive and conscious.
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Post by fortigurn on Nov 15, 2011 0:03:51 GMT
The first quoted para (in the original post) seems to be just saying phew, we finally seem to admit that consciousness exists. Whereas I have yet to see Dennett state that consciousness as we understand it actually exists. He seems to be questioning the entire concept, not just the term. What he is calling naive is not a layman's understanding of consciousness, but the scientific 'emergence' view of consciousness, the view held by professionals in the field, not laymen. That surprised me also. Again, surprising. He's actually saying he doesn't believe it will ever be accounted for; 'I believe that no description of unconscious complexity will fully account for it'. That's also surprising given Dennett and others believe they have accounted for it completely and there's nothing more to know.
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Post by dannorcott on Nov 15, 2011 11:08:15 GMT
Hmm - the 'as we understand it' seems the important thing there. As *I* understand it, dennett doesn't say consciousness doesn't exist, just that it isn't what we tell ourselves it is. Harris says:
"To say that consciousness may only seem to exist is to admit its existence in full—for if things seem any way at all, that is consciousness"
which seems to me to leave him in no conflict. It's admitting "it's existence" - ie. fully admitting that it exists - not admitting that it is what everyone thinks it is.
He explicitly questions it's usefulness - which I would agree with him on, in this regard. Emergence itself is a solid concept - the way fractal patterns emerge from simple rules, etc - but when the thing that emerges is so different in character from the arrangements of atoms that seem to generate it, just deploying the phrase does no useful work. It describes that one thing generates another, but not *how* - I think he's just shining a light on the fact that it sounds like it's an explanation but it's not really, until more is known about the process - which I find pleasingly honest.
He's explicitly talking about the big bang here though, not consciousness. Using it as an example for how the phrase does little real work, other than pointing to a thing (the big bang, or the brain) and effect (the universe, or consciousness). He's not saying that it doesn't emerge - just that to say that doesn't really help much until you know how.
Suprising that he seems to be saying "just saying something emerges from something else doesn't really explain how"?
"I am simply claiming that this is not an explanation of how the universe came into being" - ie. if something DID just come from nothing, then the fact that it did doesn't really explain how or why.
That bit I think I agree with you a little more on - although I haven't read Dennett, so I have to take your word on how sure he is he's fully explained it. It would seem a rather grand claim if he makes it.
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Post by dannorcott on Nov 15, 2011 14:03:09 GMT
(I'm not trying to be disagreeable by the way - I know how these conversations can turn into partisan bickering - if I come across like that, I don't mean to!)
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Post by fortigurn on Nov 15, 2011 14:13:37 GMT
Harris says: "To say that consciousness may only seem to exist is to admit its existence in full—for if things seem any way at all, that is consciousness" which seems to me to leave him in no conflict. It's admitting "it's existence" - ie. fully admitting that it exists - not admitting that it is what everyone thinks it is. But I don't find Dennett saying this. I find Dennett saying consciousness is an illusion. When he says 'Nevertheless, this notion of emergence strikes me as nothing more than a restatement of a miracle', I take him to mean 'this notion of emergence of emergence strikes me as nothing more than a restatement of a miracle', not 'this term 'emergence' is used to describe something I don't find remotely miraculous'. When he says 'I believe that this notion of emergence is incomprehensible—rather like a naive conception of the big bang', then he is saying that 'this notion of emergence is incomprehensible', just like a naive conception of the big bang. He is saying that this notion of emergence (the notion of emergence held by professionals), is as incomprehensible as a naive conception of the big bang. That doesn't speak well for his opinion of the professional notion of emergence. As I have pointed out, he isn't addressing the term 'emergence', he's addressing 'the notion of emergence'; hence his use of the phrase 'notion of emergence', not 'this term, emergence'. Yes, because people like Hawking find it a perfectly acceptable explanation of 'how'. Hawking says that the universe brought itself into existence simply because it did, and as far as he is concerned this is sufficiently explanatory to warrant no other cause; he says explicitly that this is sufficient to eliminate God as an explanation. * 'Because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing' * 'Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the universe exists, why we exist' * 'It is not necessary to invoke God to light the blue touch paper and set the universe going' Dennett has made many grand claims; it's why he's so well known. Claiming that consciousness is a mere illusion is a pretty grand claim in itself. Claiming that there is no such thing as free will, such that people can't be rationally considered responsible for their actions (but that we should treat them as if they are anyway), is a pretty grand claim.
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Post by dannorcott on Nov 15, 2011 14:36:20 GMT
I'll try and bring myself to read some Dennett, to see where he's coming from - what I know of him comes only from general reading, and him in conversation, rather than his books. He did knock out another one, to try and clarify the initial (quoted) post: www.samharris.org/blog/item/the-mystery-of-consciousness-ii/Which might perhaps indicate that he knows he was a little too unclear the first time. Perhaps it's in the eye of the beholder - for me: Is just saying that whilst it describes that A has led to B, it doesn't illuminate how, any more than assuming it was miraculous would. I found Hawking's "Because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing" a bit nonsensical when I heard it - it strikes me as the silliest of the three claims you posted - however I fully agree with the last one. In my book, anyone who sets out to either prove or disprove god is onto a loser - I always find it odd when clever men think they have.
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Post by dannorcott on Nov 15, 2011 15:18:33 GMT
Regarding the last point, I'm quite fond of the notion that there is no free will, but that we should treat people as though there is - although I wouldn't claim to be in the least bit certain of it. I think a lot of the noise about it is due to people's different definitions of free will.
For me, I think that because the universe was in a certain configuration at some point in the past, it's inevitable that I was always going to do a certain thing in the future - just because I am part of the universe and my mind is subject to its laws. That for me means that in a sense I have no free will - but I can still choose to do what I want. It's just that whatever I choose, it happens to be what I was always going to choose.
If I choose to kill someone, you'd be right to choose to lock me up, and wrong to say "He was always going to do it anyway, leave him be".
[anyway - I don't mean to turn this into Tedious Amateur Philosophy Debate #3125 - I'll get my coat]
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Post by fortigurn on Nov 15, 2011 16:44:15 GMT
I found Hawking's "Because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing" a bit nonsensical when I heard it - it strikes me as the silliest of the three claims you posted - however I fully agree with the last one. It sounds to me a lot more like philosophy than science. Clearly 'nothing' in that sentence actually means 'an awful lot of something', because gravity is a property of mass. Agreed.
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