Downward Causation: Useful or Misguided Idea?

[untermensche]

There are clearly some things the brain does that the mind experiences and some things the brain does that the mind does not.

I'm not understanding you there. Could you give me an example?

Also, if, at a particular time, the mind isn't experiencing anything, what makes you think it's there, at that time?

The mind experiences finished products.

It does not experience the production.

It does not experience how the brain locates and produces the memory. It just experiences the memory. And it experiences actively searching for memories and sometimes finding them and sometimes not.

In your model there is no need for a mind.

Well, what exactly do you mean by the word 'mind'?

The mind is that which experiences "red".

There is no need for there to be something experiencing "red" if it can't act on that experience.

In my model, mind would be all the mental things a brain experiences, including thoughts, emotions, a sense of self, pain, sound, etc.

There is no evidence that the brain experiences anything. Again an experience is not merely a reaction to stimulation.

We know beyond a doubt the mind experiences.

 

[Subsymbolic]

The mind experiences finished products.

And how exactly does one get to that conclusion?

It does not experience the production.

Why not. You always have this tidy distinction between production and experience. It's a false one.

It does not experience how the brain locates and produces the memory. It just experiences the memory. And it experiences actively searching for memories and sometimes finding them and sometimes not.

Perhaps an explanation of how memories are located (in a massively parallel brain) and produced that gives any support to this bald assertion?

In your model there is no need for a mind.

Well, what exactly do you mean by the word 'mind'?

The mind is that which experiences "red".

DO you have any objective evidence of that? Sure, that's how it seems to you, but, well, you know...

There is no need for there to be something experiencing "red" if it can't act on that experience.

Really? what if the experience of red just happens to be what sharing information across the brain feels like?

In my model, mind would be all the mental things a brain experiences, including thoughts, emotions, a sense of self, pain, sound, etc.

There is no evidence that the brain experiences anything. Again an experience is not merely a reaction to stimulation.

Are you just unaware of the embarrassing double standard that you run constantly or are you aware and just don't care?

We know beyond a doubt the mind experiences.

And again. You, indefeasibly, know that that is how it seems to you. Subjectively.

That's as far as you can go.

In fact, you can't even go that far, because you have no way of demonstrating that the mind isn't just the brain from the inside.

Literally everyone in every thread can see you helping yourself to premises based on how things seem to you, but denying others those premises. If you want to look rational then you have to be consistent. Either you have to allow everyone subjective premises or deny them to yourself as well. You can't have both. Well you can't sanely have both.

I'm pretty sure that I pointed this out clearly enough already. Which bit don't you understand?

 

[ruby sparks]

There is no evidence that the brain experiences anything.

Yes there is. 'Red' is a candidate for something that the brain experiences.

You don't see it that way, but that's just your way of seeing it. You might say that 'red' is a 'thing' which the brain produces (you don't know how) and mind is another 'thing' that does the experiencing (you don't know how).

To say that the brain both creates and experiences red is just as valid as what you are saying, there's just fewer separate 'things', when an alternative is that they could all be different aspects of the same 'thing'. As such, your view is, imo, over-complicated. Neither of us know. You could be right. I could be right. Imo, you could stop baldly asserting your rightness and be more open to alternatives since your view is no better-founded than any other view. I get that 'being right' makes your nipples go all hard, but that's not a good reason.

 

[ruby sparks]

To me, a very good example of how something can emerge from 'lesser or lower', without itself being a separate 'thing', is life. Break any living thing down into small enough bits and they are not each alive. Life emerges from the complexity of their combination. Who would say that the 'life' of a worm or a daffodil is a separate 'thing' from the worm or daffodil? So perhaps there is no good reason to apply a different metric to another emergent phenomenon, consciousness. It would at least be a consistent approach if we viewed both in a similar way.

Interestingly, being alive does not exercise us as much as being conscious. "How could I possibly be alive?' is not a thread topic I can recall seeing in an online philosophy forum very often, possibly because science has naturalised the answer to an extent sufficient for most of us not to be as philosophically perplexed about it as for consciousness, even though it's arguably as mysterious.

 

[Subsymbolic]

To me, a very good example of how something can emerge from 'lesser or lower', without itself being a separate 'thing', is life. Break any living thing down into small enough bits and they are not each alive. Life emerges from the complexity of their combination. Who would say that the 'life' of a worm or a daffodil is a separate 'thing' from the worm or daffodil? So perhaps there is no good reason to apply a different metric to another emergent phenomenon, consciousness. It would at least be a consistent approach if we viewed both in a similar way.

Interestingly, being alive does not exercise us as much as being conscious. "How could I possibly be alive?' is not a thread topic I can recall seeing in an online philosophy forum very often, possibly because science has naturalised the answer to an extent sufficient for most of us not to be as philosophically perplexed about it as for consciousness, even though it's arguably as mysterious.

That's a nice comparison. With it in mind I think I'm going to try and carve out a new philosophical niche for myself. I think I'll become a life behaviourist. Ruby, you may earnestly claim that you are alive, but the fact is that you are not. All you are is chemistry. Obviously I happily concede that you are conscious and all that boring froth, but you are not alive. Certainly there are all sorts of homunculi inside you that are no more alive than you. The fact is that the only living things are those that produce energy rather than merely consume it. Everything but plants are basically just stages of decay. Obviously, the worst parasitic sin of all is to kill things that really are alive, As such, I'm becoming a Me-gan: I'll only eat things that are like me...

 

[untermensche]

The mind is that which experiences "red".

DO you have any objective evidence of that? Sure, that's how it seems to you, but, well, you know...

That is how it seems to what?

To seem like something requires both that to which it seems like (the mind) and the thing that seems like something (red).

You have no argument.

Perhaps an explanation of how memories are located (in a massively parallel brain) and produced that gives any support to this bald assertion?

Your position is to deny clear experience.

It is stupidity and a waste of time. Experience is the highest evidence possible. The experience may be a total lie but there is no doubt it is experienced.

We have the clear experience of actively searching for memories and sometimes finding them and sometimes not.

To deny this is just a waste of time.

- - - Updated - - -

There is no evidence that the brain experiences anything.

Yes there is. 'Red' is a candidate for something that the brain experiences.

How did it become a candidate?

What made it one?

What shred of evidence is there that the brain apart from the consciousness, the mind, "experiences"?

The brain reacts to stimulation. The mind experiences.

And the brain reacts to stimulation from the mind. That is why you do "something" with your mind to move your arm.

 

[untermensche]

Color is the perfect example that the brain is in service to the mind.

There is no need to create a color for something to experience unless it can act on that experience.

There is no need of a mind that experiences if it cannot act on those experiences.

Denying the mind experiences is stupidity and a last resort of a very bad and indefensible position.

 

[Subsymbolic]

That is how it seems to what?

To seem like something requires both that to which it seems like (the mind) and the thing that seems like something (red).

You have no argument.

Well I'm sure that's how it seems to you. but then it seems to you that Dennett was silenced by Dyson and you were painfully wrong about that.

Perhaps an explanation of how memories are located (in a massively parallel brain) and produced that gives any support to this bald assertion?

Your position is to deny clear experience.

No UM, that's what philosophers like me call a question I'm sorry that you don't know the difference between a statement and a question, but that's hardly my problem.

It is stupidity and a waste of time.

Only if you are talking about yourself from the third person.

Experience is the highest evidence possible. The experience may be a total lie but there is no doubt it is experienced.

Yeah, that was Descartes' error too. Until you can get your 'experience' to be objective then it's just anecdote and yes, it's perfectly possible that you can be mistaken about that too. I would explain the difference between indefeasible and true, but what's the point.

We have the clear experience of actively searching for memories and sometimes finding them and sometimes not.

I'm sure you remember that, but even Descartes knew to be suspicious of memories

To deny this is just a waste of time.

Yeah, because no one has ever had false memories.


All I'm doing is pointing out your double standard. Either you don't get it, don't see it or are just full of it.

 

[untermensche]

You are not pointing out anything but how fast and far you will run from all your delusions when pressed.

You have no more understanding of consciousness than anyone with one

You think there can be awareness without something capable of being aware and the things it is aware of.

You are a complete waste of time.

 

[Copernicus]

/mod

 

[Subsymbolic]

You are not pointing out anything but how fast and far you will run from all your delusions when pressed.

You have no more understanding of consciousness than anyone with one

You think there can be awareness without something capable of being aware and the things it is aware of.

You are a complete waste of time.

And you haven’t provided any evidence whatsoever for your assertions. I don’t blame you, last time you did, it turned out to be the very opposite of what you claimed.

Can you raise your game from insulting people while stating what seems obvious to you?

Or is that it?

 

[untermensche]

You don't need evidence for obvious truisms.

Truisms like awareness consists of two things.

That which can be aware.

And that which it can be aware of.

You can't have awareness any other way.

As far a Dennett I read his book. If he wrote it now it would be called click bait.

He called the book something like "consciousness explained".

One little problem.

He didn't have any objective explanations.

Just a bunch of worthless talk about consciousness.

 

[Subsymbolic]

You don't need evidence for obvious truisms.

One man's objective truism is another mans religious dogma. Science doesn't deal in obvious truisms,. it deals in evidence.

Truisms like awareness consists of two things.

That which can be aware.

And that which it can be aware of.

Which is precisely the sort of dogmatic claptrap I'm complaining about.

You can't have awareness any other way.

I'm sorry that you can't see past your certainty, but two different people have explained how you can.

As far a Dennett I read his book. If he wrote it now it would be called click bait.

Dennett has written well over a dozen books and hundreds of paper. Which one have you read?

He called the book something like "consciousness explained".

One little problem.

He didn't have any objective explanations.

That's the one thing he did have. He had an extended and brilliantly argued version of his understanding of Wittgenstein's argument about the relation between the grammar of talking about conscious experience and the putative experience itself. There's little to complain about in the argument, the failure, was in what we can't talk about not what we can. Now you might not have agreed with it. I didn't. But you cannot deny the absolutely superb work he did in that book. Well, you can. but you are going to have to first demonstrate you grasp the argument. then you are going to have to rebut it. To someone who knows Dennett's thought and the tradition he is writing in rather better than you do.

Just a bunch of worthless talk about consciousness.

Have you really read it? I haven't seen any evidence at all. How about a quick explanation of heterophenomenology and the relation of that to Wittgenstein's talk of 'states and processes' in the Investigations. My objection to it turns on the translation of Verknupfung in the Investigations. How about yours?

come on consciousness expert. Tell me the key problem in Dennett's argument. Personally I think there are two - Real Patterns and Verknupfung. But you haven't got the foggiest what I am talking about, have you?

 

[untermensche]

One man's objective truism is another mans religious dogma. Science doesn't deal in obvious truisms,. it deals in evidence.

Truisms are understood using reasoning not science. It takes the ability to reason.

Which is precisely the sort of dogmatic claptrap I'm complaining about.

It's indisputable. To question it is to look foolish.

You cannot have awareness unless there is something that has the ability to be aware.

And you cannot have awareness unless there are things to be aware of.

I'm sick of your stupid name dropping minus any argument.

Show me how there is awareness any other way.

I'm sorry that you can't see past your certainty, but two different people have explained how you can.

All you offer are lies. Nobody has shown a way around this. Claiming two aspects are not two things is just a bold lie.

You have nothing to offer on this topic.

He called the book something like "consciousness explained".

One little problem.

He didn't have any objective explanations.

That's the one thing he did have. He had an extended and brilliantly argued version of his understanding of Wittgenstein's argument about the relation between the grammar of talking about conscious experience and the putative experience itself.

That is gibberish. Pure gibberish devoid of any meaning.

It certainly isn't an objective explanation of the phenomena of consciousness.

You have nothing but lies, lack of reasoning skills when it comes to simple truisms, and a bunch of myths.

You have no objective understanding of consciousness. Not one tiny shred of an objective understanding.

 

[ruby sparks]

You have nothing but lies.

Religious dogma at its best.

 

[untermensche]

You have nothing but lies.

Religious dogma at its best.

It is a lie to say you can have awareness without both something capable of being aware and things it is capable of being aware of.

This dichotomy cannot be overcome.

To say it can is a lie.

 

[untermensche]

If there is the experience of "red" that means something is experiencing "red".

One thing is experiencing something else.

There is no other way.

 

[DBT]

The experience of 'red' is being formed and generated by a brain. The experience of red is not separate from the brain or its activity. Brain activity is an aspect of a functional brain.

 

[WAB]

A few nights ago, as I was trying to fall asleep, I asked my brain to give me some CEVs, or closed eye visions. My brain refused. I find that when I get those CEVs, I fall asleep more easily, as they charm and distract me from my usually negative thoughts.

Tonight I shall ask my brain to show me an object, an object colored red. But it will refuse.

I wonder why, since I am my brain, I cannot cause my brain to do something it doesn't want to do. I've asked my brain time and time again to stop that ridiculous pounding in my chest, since it keeps me from being able to sleep, but my silly brain refuses.

 

[Subsymbolic]

Truisms are understood using reasoning not science. It takes the ability to reason.



It's indisputable. To question it is to look foolish.

You cannot have awareness unless there is something that has the ability to be aware.

And you cannot have awareness unless there are things to be aware of.

I'm sick of your stupid name dropping minus any argument.

Show me how there is awareness any other way.

I'm sorry that you can't see past your certainty, but two different people have explained how you can.

All you offer are lies. Nobody has shown a way around this. Claiming two aspects are not two things is just a bold lie.

You have nothing to offer on this topic.

He called the book something like "consciousness explained".

One little problem.

He didn't have any objective explanations.

That's the one thing he did have. He had an extended and brilliantly argued version of his understanding of Wittgenstein's argument about the relation between the grammar of talking about conscious experience and the putative experience itself.

That is gibberish. Pure gibberish devoid of any meaning.

It certainly isn't an objective explanation of the phenomena of consciousness.

You have nothing but lies, lack of reasoning skills when it comes to simple truisms, and a bunch of myths.

You have no objective understanding of consciousness. Not one tiny shred of an objective understanding.

It amuses me no end that you start by defending your subjective seemings as indisputable and end by claiming I have no objective understanding. That, in the middle, you talk about having the ability to reason is just the icing on the cake.

Insulting me still isn’t a rebuttal. It never will be.