Downward Causation: Useful or Misguided Idea?

[Subsymbolic]

Not following. Please clarify. At this point, that looks like gibberish, or at best your personal subjective opinion.



Exactly. And what's the problem with that model?

You are saying "exactly" to my point that the creation of "red" is only necessary if there is a mind to experience it.

If there is just a brain experiencing there is no reason to create "red".

If the brain turns some stimulation into red it knows what red is from the stimulation. It has no reason to convert the stimulation into a presentation for the mind.

It doesn't have to do anything, that stimulation is jest what red feels like.

 

[ruby sparks]

It doesn't have to do anything, that stimulation is just what red feels like.

Or, some intermediary 'experiencing thing' has to be created first in order for red to be experienced.

The model is not entirely unlike saying that apples could not fall from a tree unless some intermediary thing carried them down.

 

[Subsymbolic]

It doesn't have to do anything, that stimulation is just what red feels like.

Or, some intermediary 'experiencing thing' has to be created first in order for red to be experienced.

The model is not entirely unlike saying that apples could not fall from a tree unless some intermediary thing carried them down.

You know what happens when you don't believe in the gravity elves. Don't blame UM when you start to float away.

 

[DBT]

Damn those Gravity Elves, they'll be going for a pay rise and better working conditions before long. They need to be kept down.

 

[ruby sparks]

It's also on a par with the idea that something can't just of itself 'be alive' without the existence of some vitalist element (read: 'thing') which enables that. How else could there be life from non-life, without a 'life-enabling thing' to enable it?

In a nutshell, when it comes to experiencing red, the supposed extra entity adds no explanatory power. It's as if it is superfluous, excess theoretical baggage. A bit like a gravity elf. It's also, I think, unfalsifiable. and therefore arguably outside the remit of science or empiricism and beyond objectivity. To be convinced of it is and to denounce all alternatives is therefore surely just dogma.

It could be correct of course. But that's not the point. The point is we can't be sure. And it seems to be as unpopular a model among neurobiologists as vitalism is among biologists, who both prefer more parsimonious models.

 

[untermensche]

Not following. Please clarify. At this point, that looks like gibberish, or at best your personal subjective opinion.

Exactly. And what's the problem with that model?

You are saying "exactly" to my point that the creation of "red" is only necessary if there is a mind to experience it.

If there is just a brain experiencing there is no reason to create "red".

If the brain turns some stimulation into red it knows what red is from the stimulation. It has no reason to convert the stimulation into a presentation for the mind.

It doesn't have to do anything, that stimulation is jest what red feels like.

There is the clear repeated undeniable experience of red.

Created from something that is not red.

A conversion has taken place to turn this thing (electromagnetic stimulation) that has nothing to do with "red" into the experience of "red".

There is no reason for the conversion except in service to the mind.

The brain already knows the electromagnetic stimulation is "red" without a conversion. That is how the brain can make a repeated conversion from the same wavelength. It knows what it is converting.

 

[untermensche]

It's also on a par with the idea that something can't just of itself 'be alive' without the existence of some vitalist element (read: 'thing') which enables that. How else could there be life from non-life, without a 'life-enabling thing' to enable it?

In a nutshell, when it comes to experiencing red, the supposed extra entity adds no explanatory power. It's as if it is superfluous. A bit like a gravity elf. It's also, I think, unfalsifiable. and therefore arguably outside the remit of science or empiricism and beyond objectivity.

There cannot be something alive without many many things.

Something doesn't just have "life" as a quality.

It has many things that add up to "life".

 

[ruby sparks]

There cannot be something alive without many many things.

Something doesn't just have "life" as a quality.

It has many things that add up to "life".

Sure. But an organism entity's 'life' is not understood as a separate 'thing' (entity) to the organism entity, that's my point.

 

[untermensche]

There cannot be something alive without many many things.

Something doesn't just have "life" as a quality.

It has many things that add up to "life".

Sure. But an entity's 'life' is not understood as a separate 'thing' to the entity, that's my point.

The mind is not a separate entity.

It is a part.

The part that experiences and acts in ways on those experiences.

 

[ruby sparks]

The mind is not a separate entity.

It is a part.

The part that experiences and acts in ways on those experiences.

The mind is a part of the brain? I'm tempted to ask you where it is and what is it made of.

 

[untermensche]

The mind is not a separate entity.

It is a part.

The part that experiences and acts in ways on those experiences.

The mind is a part of the brain? I'm tempted to ask you where it is and what is it made of.

That requires a scientific model that explains the phenomena.

No objective knowledge of the mind exists in the absence of one.

That is how science works.

It explains natural phenomena within models.

Not through talk of grammar or with the timing of inklings.

 

[ruby sparks]

That requires a scientific model that explains the phenomena.

No objective knowledge of the mind exists in the absence of one.

That is how science works.

It explains natural phenomena within models.

Not true. There is a wealth of scientific knowledge and understanding. It's just not conclusive. We do not yet know how consciousness emerges or what it is. Actually, we don't know how life emerges either, but current explanations mostly suffice for most people, even though the problem is arguably as tricky.

But there is nothing demonstrably wrong with any of the (many) models of consciousness. They are all possible.

My main beef with you is that yours is also in the same boat, so to insist on it being the correct one, when you can't possibly know that for sure, let alone demonstrate, is dogmatic and inflexible.

 

[Subsymbolic]

There cannot be something alive without many many things.

Something doesn't just have "life" as a quality.

It has many things that add up to "life".

Sure. But an entity's 'life' is not understood as a separate 'thing' to the entity, that's my point.

The mind is not a separate entity.

It is a part.

The part that experiences and acts in ways on those experiences.

So the mind experiences things and acts on that experience, but it isn't the brain? That's the definition of a homunculus. So how do you explain the homunculus' ability? You've just pushed the problem down a turtle.

 

[ruby sparks]

So the mind experiences things and acts on that experience, but it isn't the brain? That's the definition of a homunculus. So how do you explain the homunculus' ability? You've just pushed the problem down a turtle.

Possibly the homunculus itself cannot act. Perhaps it must create or engage with an 'action entity' that is capable of acting. Iow, the homunculus is possibly in the audience, the acting entities are on stage, the director is backstage. Don't even ask me who wrote the play.

 

[untermensche]

The mind is not a separate entity.

It is a part.

The part that experiences and acts in ways on those experiences.

So the mind experiences things and acts on that experience, but it isn't the brain? That's the definition of a homunculus. So how do you explain the homunculus' ability? You've just pushed the problem down a turtle.

That's your definition of a homunculus.

The real definition is the one I gave.

You can pretend the mind cannot act all you want.

Your mind has that power.

 

[ruby sparks]

So the mind experiences things and acts on that experience, but it isn't the brain? That's the definition of a homunculus. So how do you explain the homunculus' ability? You've just pushed the problem down a turtle.

That's your definition of a homunculus.

The real definition is the one I gave.

Ffs sake Um don't be an idiot. The homunculus argument is a well-rehearsed and commonly understood concept in philosophy and cognitive science and you are conversing with someone who has relevant formal qualifications in both. You, on the other hand, just googled an online dictionary. Your dunning-kruger is staggering.

 

[untermensche]

That requires a scientific model that explains the phenomena.

No objective knowledge of the mind exists in the absence of one.

That is how science works.

It explains natural phenomena within models.

Not true. There is a wealth of scientific knowledge and understanding. It's just not conclusive. We do not yet know how consciousness emerges or what it is. Actually, we don't know how life emerges either, but current explanations mostly suffice for most people, even though the problem is arguably as tricky.

But there is nothing demonstrably wrong with any of the (many) models of consciousness. They are all possible.

My main beef with you is that yours is also in the same boat, so to insist on it being the correct one, when you can't possibly know that for sure, let alone demonstrate, is dogmatic and inflexible.

We don't know how life began.

We know how a life emerges. A human life begins as two cells. They merge and a new life begins. It differentiates and grows.

But these are processes, not phenomena.

Phenomena are the electrons in the cells. Those are explained with models.

We can explain processes with flow charts.

But phenomena, like consciousness, takes much more.

And there are no models that explain the phenomena of consciousness.

It is not as insignificant as some suppose.

 

[untermensche]

So the mind experiences things and acts on that experience, but it isn't the brain? That's the definition of a homunculus. So how do you explain the homunculus' ability? You've just pushed the problem down a turtle.

That's your definition of a homunculus.

The real definition is the one I gave.

Ffs sake Um don't be an idiot. The homunculus argument is a well-rehearsed and commonly understood argument in philosophy and cognitive science and you are conversing with someone who has relevant formal qualifications in both. You, on the other hand, just googled an online dictionary.

The homunculus stupidity is worthless.

The mind is the mind. It is what it is and does what it does.

It is not a homunculus.

This is "science" by witchcraft, by incantation, by saying the magic words to make unpleasant ideas go away. "Homunculus". "Homunculus". "Homunculus". "Oh my! The mind just disappeared." "Like magic."

The mind is what you are using to engage here.

And it is capable of growth and change.

 

[ruby sparks]

The homunculus stupidity is worthless.

Well you're the only one using an equivalent concept, a 'thing' in (lately a 'part' of) the brain which both experiences stuff and makes decisions.

And yet you haven't even demonstrated that it does the first of those, because it could be the brain which experiences red. It's only you here and nobody else who believes there's a 'magic word', red-experiencing, ghost-thing in your brain.

And nobody is trying to make 'mind' go away. There are just different explanations for what 'mind' is. Your intuitive, folk-psychology model, however vague, amateur and badly-informed (by clinical studies you don't bother to even read and thus get wrong) is one explanation, even if not a very popular one among non-god bothering experts these days, since they mostly consider the ghost in the machine idea to be a religious relic. Your reluctance or inability to accept any of the widely-accepted non-ghostie-thing models as possible alternatives is why you are being so dogmatic. Maybe your brain, unlike that of most other rational sceptics, creates a 'dogma-thing' which interferes with your ability to be open to other possibilities, or something.

 

[untermensche]

Calling the mind a "thing" is saying it exists.

It has to be a "thing" since it can move a "thing", the arm.

It is not a fantasy or fiction.

It cannot be talked away with examination of grammar.

The timing of guesses about inklings tells us nothing about it.

And how many times do I have to say it?

The brain does not need "red".

There would be no reason for a brain to make a conversion of EM energy to an experience of "red" if it could experience.

It would just act on the EM energy since it knows what it is.

We know the brain knows what it is because it can faithfully transform it into "red".