Downward Causation: Useful or Misguided Idea?

[untermensche]

It is not hard to conceive of a mechanism that is designed to make decisions.

Everybody understands that decisions are being made.

Some claim the brain makes them all with mechanisms. With some kind of decision making mechanisms.

Yet somehow they exclude the mind as one of those mechanisms.

Decisions based on memories and ideas. Learned decisions. With feedback mechanisms that can cause the brain to react.

It's been a great survival mechanism.

 

[Speakpigeon]

' That’s downward causation; the higher levels acting causally on the lower levels. '

Actually we see that in what in engineering we call Control Systems. Google state variable feedback. In feedback systems thinking in terms of reductionism causal chains .are fed back to affect lower levels which in turn affects higher levels and so on.


You can also google Mealy Moore State Machines

Actually, no.

In all machines with a control system, the control system and the parts of the machine controlled by it are exactly on the same level of reality. They're all just different parts of the machine and one of them is the control system and it interacts with the other parts by exchanging information to achieve control. I'm stating the obvious here. There's no "downward causation", at all.
EB

 

[DBT]

You have shown that you have no comprehension of the nature of the experiments that I referenced, or their implications. You just repeat your assertions.

What consciousness is needs to be understood before what it can and can't do can even be tested.

Claiming that autonomy is excluded is impossible until what an idea in the mind is is known.

There is no evidence for autonomy of consciousness. There is abundant evidence that what physically effects the brain also effects consciousness in related ways....anesthetic renders the brain unconscious, etc.

 

[untermensche]

No evidence?

If there is no autonomy of your mind how do you come to conclusions?

Why do you trust conclusions you claim you don't even make?

 

[ruby sparks]

There is no evidence for autonomy of consciousness. There is abundant evidence that what physically effects the brain also effects consciousness in related ways....anesthetic renders the brain unconscious, etc.

Or, imagine, hypothetically, if I could 'tickle' a small area of neurons, or even one neuron, in your brain, with a mild electric current, and you then, while I was doing that (but not when I wasn't doing it) felt a desire to move your arm (or thought you had moved it when you hadn't).......no hang on, that's been done in actual experiments......

How can the electric stimulation appear to make that 'mindstuff' happen? Now, if, as suggested by an uninformed person I will not name, the brain and the nervous system did not run on electricity, it might be puzzling, but since they do.....

There is, of course, as you say, abundant evidence that conscious thoughts and sensations arise out of brain activity, and no evidence (other than 'it reely feeelz like it too mee') that they arise from or because of anything else.

 

[untermensche]

You need to watch that Chomsky video I posted.

There is no evidence the mind is generated by electrical activity.

There is no evidence the mind is generated by neurophysiological activity.

There is no objective understanding of how the mind is generated.

If it is some unknown quantum effect then changing cellular activity could also change it.

You can introduce a foreign artificial current and get neurons to fire and produce an abnormal effect.

It is no different from introducing LSD or any drug that has activity in the brain.

All it tells us is that when normal function is altered whatever is generating consciousness (possibly an unknown effect of matter) is also altered and therefore experience is altered.

Of course no matter if under the influence of LSD or having sensations artificially stimulated it is always the same thing experiencing them.

Consciousness does not change. What changes are the things consciousness experiences and the things it can do and levels of awareness.

 

[steve_bank]

' That’s downward causation; the higher levels acting causally on the lower levels. '

Actually we see that in what in engineering we call Control Systems. Google state variable feedback. In feedback systems thinking in terms of reductionism causal chains .are fed back to affect lower levels which in turn affects higher levels and so on.


You can also google Mealy Moore State Machines

Actually, no.

In all machines with a control system, the control system and the parts of the machine controlled by it are exactly on the same level of reality. They're all just different parts of the machine and one of them is the control system and it interacts with the other parts by exchanging information to achieve control. I'm stating the obvious here. There's no "downward causation", at all.
EB

In reductionism, in which I lived and died by, complex systems have levels of abstraction or hierarchies if you will.

Don't know what you mean by same realities.

Unless you are a dualist who belives mind is a reality separate from brain, mind/brain is essentially a state machine.

We process inputs through our thought processes, aka algorithms. We look at results, evaluate against memory, and modify outputs based on current inputs plus our memory.

The physical brain is subject to causality, as is a machine. A machine like the brain can have memory which combined with current inputs and outputs affects the next iteration of outputs.

Backwards causality of a sort, but causality always applies.

If not you open the possibility of effects preceding causes.

You feel a kick in but before you are kicked.

When you invoke reductionism and systems causality applies. I know what the OP is saying, but backwards causality is an awkward way to say it. Sate machines are better,

 

[steve_bank]

You need to watch that Chomsky video I posted.

There is no evidence the mind is generated by electrical activity.

There is no evidence the mind is generated by neurophysiological activity.

There is no objective understanding of how the mind is generated.

If it is some unknown quantum effect then changing cellular activity could also change it.

You can introduce a foreign artificial current and get neurons to fire and produce an abnormal effect.

It is no different from introducing LSD or any drug that has activity in the brain.

All it tells us is that when normal function is altered whatever is generating consciousness (possibly an unknown effect of matter) is also altered and therefore experience is altered.

Of course no matter if under the influence of LSD or having sensations artificially stimulated it is always the same thing experiencing them.

Consciousness does not change. What changes are the things consciousness experiences and the things it can do and levels of awareness.

I know who Chomsky is. Not in person, I've heard him speak. I read him a long time ago. He said some interesting things on language. A number of people thought he hid behind tenure. You seem to be quoting Chomp ski much like a Christian quotes an imaginary Jesus.

It is either or. If you reject mind as a function of brain then you are a dualist.

It is a demonstrated fact brain chemistry imbalances affect perceptions and mind functions. I had a subdural hematoma that affected speech and cognition, and recovered.

It is like saying the oxygen carried by blood is not what makes cells work.

Trying to define consciousness is like a dog chasing its tail. It never gets there but has a good time trying.

Imagine a computer system becoming aware or conscious, and learns it is comprised of electronic circuits, and begins saying 'it' exists separate from the computer.

 

[ruby sparks]

In reductionism, in which I lived and died by, complex systems have levels of abstraction or hierarchies if you will.

Don't know what you mean by same realities.

Unless you are a dualist who belives mind is a reality separate from brain, mind/brain is essentially a state machine.

We process inputs through our thought processes, aka algorithms. We look at results, evaluate against memory, and modify outputs based on current inputs plus our memory.

The physical brain is subject to causality, as is a machine. A machine like the brain can have memory which combined with current inputs and outputs affects the next iteration of outputs.

Backwards causality of a sort, but causality always applies.

If not you open the possibility of effects preceding causes.

You feel a kick in but before you are kicked.

When you invoke reductionism and systems causality applies. I know what the OP is saying, but backwards causality is an awkward way to say it. Sate machines are better,

I know who Chomsky is. Not in person, I've heard him speak. I read him a long time ago. He said some interesting things on language. A number of people thought he hid behind tenure. You seem to be quoting Chomp ski much like a Christian quotes an imaginary Jesus.

It is either or. If you reject mind as a function of brain then you are a dualist.

It is a demonstrated fact brain chemistry imbalances affect perceptions and mind functions. I had a subdural hematoma that affected speech and cognition, and recovered.

It is like saying the oxygen carried by blood is not what makes cells work.

Trying to define consciousness is like a dog chasing its tail. It never gets there but has a good time trying.

Imagine a computer system becoming aware or conscious, and learns it is comprised of electronic circuits, and begins saying 'it' exists separate from the computer.

That all sounds sensible to me.

As regards what the OP is saying (or asking) it is specifically about that favourite intractable chestnut, what Sean Carroll calls at an early stage 'the good old mental/physical divide'. This, I think, is the only 'downward causation' that is significantly contentious to us, fascinated as we are by our own mental lives (and 'selves') precisely because it feels like it crosses (backwards) over a 'weird' divide between two types of reality, if you like, which is not the case, and different from (as far as we can tell) causation between 'higher' and 'lower' functions of other machines or systems, such as the ones you seem to be describing. So in one sense, if mental-to-physical is the sort of downward causation which perplexes us, we are obliged to consider thorny issues, such as substance dualism, and so the thread ends up not really being about downward causation at all but veers into well-worn territory about the nature of the mental, when in fact the question of downward causation could be addressed regardless of what the mental is (somewhat similar to how we can investigate claims of god intervening in the world without needing to know what god is).

Even untermenche, ironically, describes how physical processes give rise to particular mental experiences, so the causal link in that direction is undeniably established and agreed, no matter whether it crosses a divide (between 'two types of reality') or not. The OP question is specifically about whether there is a causal link in the other direction. In a way, it's about psychokinesis, of an 'internal' (inside our skulls) sort. Oddly, I reckon most of us would scoff at the idea that thoughts can actually make a cup move across a table, but somehow we (especially substance dualists, but people generally) tend to believe they can move (much smaller) stuff in our brain (and via that, an arm).

Imo, we don't know. It does subjectively feel like it though. But certain neuroscientific experiments cast some doubt, with some findings indicating that awareness comes after actions have already begun in the brain and others where it appears we can consciously feel like we mentally control/cause stuff (sometimes in our bodies, sometimes in the outside world) when we don't. At the very least, if the mental does affect the physical, then it would seem to be unreliable (not robust) and at times illusory, as if it were an epiphenomenon without causal power at least some of the time. Whether its causality is wholly illusory or not is uncertain, imo.

 

[untermensche]

I know who Chomsky is. Not in person, I've heard him speak. I read him a long time ago. He said some interesting things on language. A number of people thought he hid behind tenure. You seem to be quoting Chomp ski much like a Christian quotes an imaginary Jesus.

He is just the man who took Linguistics from the Dark Ages and brought it into the modern world.

Saying a man who writes constantly and lectures constantly, one of the leading minds in the world, still, on many topics from politics to the philosophy of science, even in his eighties, hid behind tenure is about the most ignorant thing I have ever read.

And I do not quote him very much. I can express ideas he has expressed if I agree with them however. I am not totally ignorant of the man and his many works like you.

It is either or. If you reject mind as a function of brain then you are a dualist.

Total unsupported nonsense.

The idea of dualism is about some alleged dualism between mind and body.

What is body? What is it at the quantum level?

What is mind? Is it just some quantum effect?

A quantum entity having quantum effects is no more a dualism than a magnet having magnetic effects.

It is a demonstrated fact brain chemistry imbalances affect perceptions and mind functions. I had a subdural hematoma that affected speech and cognition, and recovered.

That doesn't tell you anything about the mind beyond a mind needs a normally functioning brain.

If the mind and it's contents are quantum effects that arise from neurophysiological activity then the mind can be altered when the neurophysiology is altered and still not be an effect of neurons communicating with transmitters.

It is like saying the oxygen carried by blood is not what makes cells work.

That is a childish statement. Oxygen does not "make cells work". Oxygen is one of many necessary components of the energy cycle.

Cells "work" for many reasons and many of the things cells are doing are unknown.

Trying to define consciousness is like a dog chasing its tail. It never gets there but has a good time trying.

Consciousness is something we have and experience. We know what it is.

We know that we do "something" with our mind and our arm moves as we desire it to move. And if we don't do that "something" the arm will not move.

First hand experience is worth more than some model.

We just don't know how consciousness arises. We know what it is.

 

[Speakpigeon]

There is no evidence for autonomy of consciousness. There is abundant evidence that what physically effects the brain also effects consciousness in related ways....anesthetic renders the brain unconscious, etc.

Or, imagine, hypothetically, if I could 'tickle' a small area of neurons, or even one neuron, in your brain, with a mild electric current, and you then, while I was doing that (but not when I wasn't doing it) felt a desire to move your arm (or thought you had moved it when you hadn't).......no hang on, that's been done in actual experiments......

How can the electric stimulation appear to make that 'mindstuff' happen? Now, if, as suggested by an uninformed person I will not name, the brain and the nervous system did not run on electricity, it might be puzzling, but since they do.....

There is, of course, as you say, abundant evidence that conscious thoughts and sensations arise out of brain activity, and no evidence (other than 'it reely feeelz like it too mee') that they arise from or because of anything else.

We didn't wait for science to know that the contents of consciousness and the presence of consciousness is directly affected by events in the physical world. Human beings have always known this. In a way, even the first Homo sapiens knew it, if they could understand of course. In any case, I'm pretty sure David Chalmers knows this fact.

Given this, it is clear that the hard problem of consciousness is not that we still have to established this well-known fact. The problem is to explain how the quality of the contents of subjective experience, i.e. qualia, but also in my opinion the quality of "bare consciousness", i.e. consciousness without contents, i.e. without qualia, could exist at all in a physical world that we seem only to be able to describe in quantitative terms.
EB

 

[ruby sparks]

...... it is clear that the hard problem of consciousness is not that we still have to established this well-known fact. The problem is to explain how the quality of the contents of subjective experience, i.e. qualia, but also in my opinion the quality of "bare consciousness", i.e. consciousness without contents, i.e. without qualia, could exist at all in a physical world that we seem only to be able to describe in quantitative terms.
EB

I pretty much agree.

However, that would make the topic of the OP 'what is consciousness?'

Imo, there is (possibly) no need for every thread related to the topic to turn into or on that question, if you see what I mean. Though I can see why most threads do. But they never get very far. I'm not saying we can 'get far' on the specific topic of downward causation (of which mental-to-physical is of course only one type anyway) and try to 'establish that well-known fact' too, but.....I wonder if it's possible to avoid 'the usual quagmire' by sticking to the OP more closely, or even at a pinch, the question of mental-to-physical causation, other types being less controversial and possibly covered under the umbrella term 'feedback loops'. That of course is a very simplistic umbrella, even if appropriate or correct, but understanding the complexities of complicated systems is above my pay grade.

In fact, now that I read the OP again, I notice that it asks if downward causation is useful. Hooray. That is a much lower bar than 'is there actually mental causation?', and means we could, in theory, agree that it is useful (ie a useful model) even if it's incorrect in the case of mental-to-physical, just as we could agree that concepts of free will are useful, in at least some ways, even if they are flawed.

I suspect a case could be made for the answer being 'yes' in both cases (mental causation and free will). Personally, I also suspect that they, along with 'selves' are, ultimately, related user illusions, in the final analysis.

I'm also not entirely sure if we are restricted to quantitative for the physical world and qualitative for the mental? Pain, for example, can be experienced at a range of intensities.

 

[DBT]

No evidence?

If there is no autonomy of your mind how do you come to conclusions?

Why do you trust conclusions you claim you don't even make?

You come to a conclusion because 'your' brain has acquired information, processed this information and represents this information in conscious form. Conscious form as an experience of 'you' thinking and acting consciously, something we call conscious mind. Which is inseparable from electrochemical brain activity.

 

[untermensche]

No evidence?

If there is no autonomy of your mind how do you come to conclusions?

Why do you trust conclusions you claim you don't even make?

You come to a conclusion because 'your' brain has acquired information, processed this information and represents this information in conscious form. Conscious form as an experience of 'you' thinking and acting consciously, something we call conscious mind. Which is inseparable from electrochemical brain activity.

Nice story from your imagination.

You can't prove a word of it.

Disrupting function randomly tells you nothing about normal function.

It just tells you a way to disrupt normal function.

 

[Speakpigeon]

...... it is clear that the hard problem of consciousness is not that we still have to established this well-known fact. The problem is to explain how the quality of the contents of subjective experience, i.e. qualia, but also in my opinion the quality of "bare consciousness", i.e. consciousness without contents, i.e. without qualia, could exist at all in a physical world that we seem only to be able to describe in quantitative terms.
EB

I pretty much agree.

However, that would make the topic of the OP 'what is consciousness?'

Imo, there is (possibly) no need for every thread related to the topic to turn into or on that question, if you see what I mean. Though I can see why most threads do. But they never get very far. I'm not saying we can 'get far' on the specific topic of downward causation (of which mental-to-physical is of course only one type anyway) and try to 'establish that well-known fact' too, but.....I wonder if it's possible to avoid 'the usual quagmire' by sticking to the OP more closely, or even at a pinch, the question of mental-to-physical causation, other types being less controversial and possibly covered under the umbrella term 'feedback loops'. That of course is a very simplistic umbrella, even if appropriate or correct, but understanding the complexities of complicated systems is above my pay grade.

Sure, but it's difficult to discuss "downward causation" if we disagree about what it is we're talking about. Causation from mind, understood as the activity of the brain, to the environment of the mind is just uncontroversial, if not entirely understood, far from it (the mind can move the arm of the subject, but what can it do to his brain exactly?).

And then I think the issue of the possible interaction of qualia and bare consciousness with the physical world is just a complete mystery. So, in my view, it's crucial to be clear as to what it is we're discussing.

In fact, now that I read the OP again, I notice that it asks if downward causation is useful. Hooray. That is a much lower bar than 'is there actually mental causation?', and means we could, in theory, agree that it is useful (ie a useful model) even if it's incorrect in the case of mental-to-physical, just as we could agree that concepts of free will are useful, in at least some ways, even if they are flawed.

I suspect a case could be made for the answer being 'yes' in both cases (mental causation and free will). Personally, I also suspect that they, along with 'selves' are, ultimately, related user illusions, in the final analysis.

I think the concept of downward causation is useless at best and possibly toxic.

Thinking in terms of the interaction of the mind (as the activity of the brain) with the environment is of course useful and that's what many specialists do routinely.

Science, too, I think is an illusion to some extent, but it's also probably useful.

I'm also not entirely sure if we are restricted to quantitative for the physical world and qualitative for the mental? Pain, for example, can be experienced at a range of intensities.

I think not. Your experience of pain is entirely qualitative. The "quantity" of pain is derived from that. It's an abstraction. You could just as well observe that colours can be classified, which is "quantitative" abstraction too. All our quantitative abstractions can only come second, on the basis of our qualitative experience. And that would be true of every quantity we know of, simply because our experience is entirely qualitative. We don't subjectively experience anything physically quantitative. We've even no idea how it would feel.

We don't subjectively experience the physical world at all. We experience something our brain does. The environment of our subjectivity is the brain itself. There's nothing else.

This may come as a shock to you, so sorry to break the news to you. You'll get over it.
EB

 

[ruby sparks]

Causation from mind, understood as the activity of the brain, to the environment of the mind is just uncontroversial, if not entirely understood, far from it (the mind can move the arm of the subject, but what can it do to his brain exactly?).

I would have to beg to differ on the bolded part. I don't mean to say the mind cannot move the arm, I just mean that I would beg to differ that it's clear and uncontroversial that it actually does. Whether it actually does or not is arguably the 100 million dollar question that we do not know the answer to.

As I said earlier, I think that to say the bolded part is essentially to believe in telekinesis. We have these really weird and interesting apparently knitted-together sensations most of the time (when we're awake) that we call a 'self' and we're really keen on the idea that it does stuff, that it's in control (imagine what waking life would feel like if we didn't think that). Let's not forget that it's not just that we tend to intuitively believe that the mental causes the physical, but also that we are able (by being some sort of uncaused cause) to freely will it to do so. Oh bugger now I've mentioned free will.

And then I think the issue of the possible interaction of qualia and bare consciousness with the physical world is just a complete mystery. So, in my view, it's crucial to be clear as to what it is we're discussing.

In an ideal situation, yes. But given that we do not know what it (consciousness) is, we will never get anywhere if we wait for the answer to that. What I'm saying is we don't, I don't think need to wait. It's a bit like for example saying that 'Sumthing Verry Misteriouss' causes, say, stuff to happen. Well, we should be able to check the effects without knowing what the SVM is, exactly. I used the analogy of god earlier, we don't have to understand what a god is to test the claim that it intervenes in the world (eg answers prayers).

And that, I think, is what certain neuroscientific and psychological experiments do, albeit in a non-conclusive way. If, for example, an action is started in the brain before conscious awareness of it (or an intention about it) then in a way that's useful and interesting no matter what consciousness is. Similarly if stimulating a certain part of your brain with a mild tickle of electricity results in you believing that you moved a body part (because you felt a conscious, albeit induced, desire to) but the body part did not in fact move, that again is interesting no matter what consciousness is. And in both cases, a mental-to-physical causation model would seem to be at least slightly undermined, or to some extent put in doubt. Ditto for other experiments, such as the ones where someone is fooled into claiming responsibility for doing stuff (eg drawing a line or moving a cursor on a computer screen) that they did not do (the interesting feature being that they claim it and having intended it).

 

[ruby sparks]

An interesting and readable article (from a layman's pov) on Mental Causation:
http://www.iep.utm.edu/mental-c/



The writer uses the example of stubbing one's toe and suggests there are 4 different causal models. Above the horizontal grey bar represents mental events and below, physical events, so the arrangement already reinforces the possibly arbitrary notion that 'mental' is 'higher'. That said, one could, I suppose, imagine that the diagrams represent aerial views, in which case it would be as if we were looking down on a highway or street with 2 adjacent lanes. Worth noting that in that case it would be a one-way street, because of time's arrow. Or at least that is a limitation of the artificial simplicity of the models, because in reality I'd expect stuff to go 'back and forth' (feedback loops etc).

Anyhows, here are the suggested 4 models:

1. Parallelism (no causality across the divide in either direction):




2. Interactionism (causality across the divide in both directions):




3.Epiphenomenalism (causation from physical to mental only):




4. Reductionism (everything is physical, so no divide to cross):






I think I'm right in saying that the first 3 are essentially substance dualist, only the last is not (as I understand it, though I have a sneaking feeling it's not as clear cut as that).

Parallelism seems the weakest, because without any direct connections between mental and physical events we'd have to ask what makes them coordinate? God? Some preset coordinating condition of the universe?

Interactionism. This one seems flawed too, because it implies that a mental route is necessary to get to a physical state, and it seems that there are just too many instances of non-conscious processing to make this likely (so I can get to stage e, the neural correlate for annoyance, without consciously knowing why, on many occasions). At the very least, this diagram might need another arrow between b and e, as an option. Note also that this is (I think) the only one of the 4 which has mental-to-physical causation. As such, my main issue with it is that it seems to involve telekinesis.

Epiphenomenalism. This might be my intuitive favourite of the 4. But there is the issue of how placebos work. At this point, I can't think of a better example than placebos to illustrate how the mental does (seem to) demonstrably affect the physical (because it appears you have to have a belief to make the placebo work).

Reductionism has its own problems, not least that it seems counterintuitive to say that thoughts are physical. In its favour, there is no 'weird' barrier to cross. Perhaps the idea that thoughts can't be physical is just a problem for our limited ability to think it so, or to grasp what 'physical' could include.

I always like it when philosophers try to focus on specific applications (such as here, stubbing a toe) because it starts to go at least in the general direction of empiricism and science, which imo can be brought to bear, as a method, even if we don't know exactly what we're dealing with, as has often been the case in science, routinely in fact. What I mean is, in theory, for example, one might be able to imagine hypothetical experiments to try to test the above 4 models, although I'm nor sure if toe-stubbing (being reactive) is necessarily the best process for testing. Dunno. I haven't thought out what sorts of experiments could be done. I just like it when philosophical investigations go in that direction.

 

[Speakpigeon]

Causation from mind, understood as the activity of the brain, to the environment of the mind is just uncontroversial, if not entirely understood, far from it (the mind can move the arm of the subject, but what can it do to his brain exactly?).

I would have to beg to differ on the bolded part. I don't mean to say the mind cannot move the arm, I just mean that I would beg to differ that it's clear and uncontroversial that it actually does. Whether it actually does or not is arguably the 100 million dollar question that we do not know the answer to.

As I said earlier, I think that to say the bolded part is essentially to believe in telekinesis. We have these really weird and interesting apparently knitted-together sensations most of the time (when we're awake) that we call a 'self' and we're really keen on the idea that it does stuff, that it's in control (imagine what waking life would feel like if we didn't think that). Let's not forget that it's not just that we tend to intuitively believe that the mental causes the physical, but also that we are able (by being some sort of uncaused cause) to freely will it to do so. Oh bugger now I've mentioned free will.

???

Do you really mean to deny that it's uncontroversial that the activity of the brain has a causal effect on its environment?

I'm sure we could always find a few people in institutions...

And then I think the issue of the possible interaction of qualia and bare consciousness with the physical world is just a complete mystery. So, in my view, it's crucial to be clear as to what it is we're discussing.

In an ideal situation, yes. But given that we do not know what it (consciousness) is, we will never get anywhere if we wait for the answer to that. What I'm saying is we don't, I don't think need to wait. It's a bit like for example saying that 'Sumthing Verry Misteriouss' causes, say, stuff to happen. Well, we should be able to check the effects without knowing what the SVM is, exactly. I used the analogy of god earlier, we don't have to understand what a god is to test the claim that it intervenes in the world (eg answers prayers).

Again, we're clear that the mind, understood as the activity of the brain, has causal powers, and we've been investigating this for a long time now. The problem we don't know how to solve is that of subjective experience (i.e. qualia + "bare consciousness").

Here I would acknowledge that a lot is being done and that might help at some point. Still, I think the situation is similar to the one Einstein got us out of. And, as far as I understand it, according to his own recollection of the events, he got to the solution of General Relativity through a thought experiment, rather than the kind of empirical science used for example by Max Planck to stumble in the dark on QM. To me, what Einstein did was typically coming up with an entirely new conception of the problem. And I believe that's what we need to achieve in the case of consciousness. Unfortunately, there's no methodology I know of the achieve that. Still, we should at least try it, rather than repeat ad nauseam that subjectivity is an illusion.

And that, I think, is what certain neuroscientific and psychological experiments do, albeit in a non-conclusive way. If, for example, an action is started in the brain before conscious awareness of it (or an intention about it) then in a way that's useful and interesting no matter what consciousness is. Similarly if stimulating a certain part of your brain with a mild tickle of electricity results in you believing that you moved a body part (because you felt a conscious, albeit induced, desire to) but the body part did not in fact move, that again is interesting no matter what consciousness is. And in both cases, a mental-to-physical causation model would seem to be at least slightly undermined, or to some extent put in doubt. Ditto for other experiments, such as the ones where someone is fooled into claiming responsibility for doing stuff (eg drawing a line or moving a cursor on a computer screen) that they did not do (the interesting feature being that they claim it and having intended it).

Again, we've always known that the physical had an effect on our minds. It's definitely a progress that we should be able to carry out scientific experiments on how this works in details. We might even stumble on something in the dark like Max Planck. Still, in this case, we've already stumbled on something, subjective experience, that presently doesn't fit into our physical explanatory framework.

I guess it all comes down to whether we agree that subjective experience (i.e. qualia + bare consciousness) and the mind as the activity of the brain, are two distinct problems. You seem unwilling to go that route. I can understand that. Entertaining two concepts rather than one is double the cost in terms of mental ressources.
EB

 

[Subsymbolic]

' That’s downward causation; the higher levels acting causally on the lower levels. '

Actually we see that in what in engineering we call Control Systems. Google state variable feedback. In feedback systems thinking in terms of reductionism causal chains .are fed back to affect lower levels which in turn affects higher levels and so on.


You can also google Mealy Moore State Machines

Actually, no.

In all machines with a control system, the control system and the parts of the machine controlled by it are exactly on the same level of reality. They're all just different parts of the machine and one of them is the control system and it interacts with the other parts by exchanging information to achieve control. I'm stating the obvious here. There's no "downward causation", at all.
EB

In reductionism, in which I lived and died by, complex systems have levels of abstraction or hierarchies if you will.

Don't know what you mean by same realities.

Unless you are a dualist who belives mind is a reality separate from brain, mind/brain is essentially a state machine.

We process inputs through our thought processes, aka algorithms. We look at results, evaluate against memory, and modify outputs based on current inputs plus our memory.

The physical brain is subject to causality, as is a machine. A machine like the brain can have memory which combined with current inputs and outputs affects the next iteration of outputs.

Backwards causality of a sort, but causality always applies.

If not you open the possibility of effects preceding causes.

You feel a kick in but before you are kicked.

When you invoke reductionism and systems causality applies. I know what the OP is saying, but backwards causality is an awkward way to say it. Sate machines are better,

There appears to be an assumption here that the Church Turing thesis holds for brains, and that brains are entirely algorithmic. Do you have an argument for that assumption?

He asks rhetorically.

 

[Subsymbolic]

An interesting and readable article (from a layman's pov) on Mental Causation:
http://www.iep.utm.edu/mental-c/



The writer uses the example of stubbing one's toe and suggests there are 4 different causal models. Above the horizontal grey bar represents mental events and below, physical events, so the arrangement already reinforces the possibly arbitrary notion that 'mental' is 'higher'. That said, one could, I suppose, imagine that the diagrams represent aerial views, in which case it would be as if we were looking down on a highway or street with 2 adjacent lanes. Worth noting that in that case it would be a one-way street, because of time's arrow. Or at least that is a limitation of the artificial simplicity of the models, because in reality I'd expect stuff to go 'back and forth' (feedback loops etc).

Anyhows, here are the suggested 4 models:

1. Parallelism (no causality across the divide in either direction):
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2. Interactionism (causality across the divide in both directions):
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3.Epiphenomenalism (causation from physical to mental only):
View attachment 15355



4. Reductionism (everything is physical, so no divide to cross):
View attachment 15356





I think I'm right in saying that the first 3 are essentially substance dualist, only the last is not (as I understand it, though I have a sneaking feeling it's not as clear cut as that).

Parallelism seems the weakest, because without any direct connections between mental and physical events we'd have to ask what makes them coordinate? God? Some preset coordinating condition of the universe?

Interactionism. This one seems flawed too, because it implies that a mental route is necessary to get to a physical state, and it seems that there are just too many instances of non-conscious processing to make this likely (so I can get to stage e, the neural correlate for annoyance, without consciously knowing why, on many occasions). At the very least, this diagram might need another arrow between b and e, as an option. Note also that this is (I think) the only one of the 4 which has mental-to-physical causation. As such, my main issue with it is that it seems to involve telekinesis.

Epiphenomenalism. This might be my intuitive favourite of the 4. But there is the issue of how placebos work. At this point, I can't think of a better example than placebos to illustrate how the mental does (seem to) demonstrably affect the physical (because it appears you have to have a belief to make the placebo work).

Reductionism has its own problems, not least that it seems counterintuitive to say that thoughts are physical. In its favour, there is no 'weird' barrier to cross. Perhaps the idea that thoughts can't be physical is just a problem for our limited ability to think it so, or to grasp what 'physical' could include.

I always like it when philosophers try to focus on specific applications (such as here, stubbing a toe) because it starts to go at least in the general direction of empiricism and science, which imo can be brought to bear, as a method, even if we don't know exactly what we're dealing with, as has often been the case in science, routinely in fact. What I mean is, in theory, for example, one might be able to imagine hypothetical experiments to try to test the above 4 models, although I'm nor sure if toe-stubbing (being reactive) is necessarily the best process for testing. Dunno. I haven't thought out what sorts of experiments could be done. I just like it when philosophical investigations go in that direction.

Can I have box 5 please? The one in which they are all the same thing from two different perspectives (at least for pain)