#physicalism — Public Fediverse posts

🌀 #Panpsychism – #Whitehead’s Influence in the 20th Century

📎 Information: https://philosophies.de/index.php/2022/09/27/metaphysik-des-bewusstseins/

🎥 Interview: https://youtu.be/hoqiI_TElv4

#Zoomposium #GodehardBrüntrup #Metaphysics #Consciousness #PhilosophyOfMind #PhenomenalConsciousness #NearDeathExperience #NDE #NearDeathResearch #SemanticContent #MindBodyProblem #LiberalNaturalism #ProcessPhilosophy #ExplanatoryGap #Neuroskepticism #PhilosophyOfLanguage #Self #Physicalism #CognitiveNeuroscience #AlfredWhitehead

🌀 #Panpsychism – #Whitehead’s Influence in the 20th Century

📎 Information: https://philosophies.de/index.php/2022/09/27/metaphysik-des-bewusstseins/

🎥 Interview: https://youtu.be/hoqiI_TElv4

#Zoomposium #GodehardBrüntrup #Metaphysics #Consciousness #PhilosophyOfMind #PhenomenalConsciousness #NearDeathExperience #NDE #NearDeathResearch #SemanticContent #MindBodyProblem #LiberalNaturalism #ProcessPhilosophy #ExplanatoryGap #Neuroskepticism #PhilosophyOfLanguage #Self #Physicalism #CognitiveNeuroscience #AlfredWhitehead

Chill about metaphysics

This week I had to block a couple of people on different platforms. Neither seemed able to make their point without lacing in insults. One seemed to be on a mission to make me feel as bad about my outlook as possible. The disagreements were on purely metaphysical grounds, physicalism vs non-physicalism. And seem to be examples of something that appears pervasive in online discussions, the constant sniping between these different metaphysical camps.

Which, when you stop and think about it, is strange, since we’re not talking about something that will affect anyone’s fortunes or livelihood, or overall make any difference in their day to day life, except maybe psychologically. It pays to remember that in the debates between physicalism, property dualism, panpsychism, idealism, neutral and Russellian monism, and their variants, that these outlooks are all empirically identical.

(Interactionist dualism may be the one alternative where this wouldn’t be true. But a century and a half of neurological case studies seem to imply that the interactions would have to be pretty nuanced. Which I think is why most of the academic world has lost enthusiasm for this option, even though it remains popular in general.)

I often remember Karl Popper’s observation that what is metaphysical in one century could become science in a later one. But in the case of these basic viewpoints, they’re all ancient. Which implies that there’s no foreseeable experiment or observation which will conclusively prove or falsify any of them.

People often think quantum mechanics might provide the evidence, but there are many different interpretations of QM. Which ones seem sensible and which hopelessly crazy appear to be driven by your preexisting metaphysical viewpoint. And again, all of these outlooks long predate QM. Idealism was actually more popular during the reign of classical physics than it is today. So even if one of the QM interpretations is eventually shown to be correct, I suspect the various viewpoints will continue.

And when I listen to idealists like Barnardo Kastrup talk, and am able to look past all the provocative language, the world he describes often sounds a lot like the physicalist one, one where the planet and universe are billions of years old, and we’re the result of evolution through natural selection. He just sees the external world as being in the mind of God or Nature. And of course I agree with panpsychists that there’s nothing categorically unique about the physics of the brain.

All of which often makes my inner positivist wonder if there’s really any meaningful distinctions here. Maybe these are all just different ways of thinking about the same world. Or, from a purely empirical standpoint, maybe the best stance is a neutral one. These bouts of extreme empiricism don’t typically last very long, but I think they do stop me from being too strident in my views.

All of which is to say, calm down about your metaphysics. The fact that I can’t prove mine over yours and vice-versa, means that the only way you’re ever going to make your view more prevalent is by persuading people. Calling those with other views idiots, or implying that their view is trivially false, while it may play well with your own partisans, isn’t going to expand your camp.

The best way to do that seems to be the old fashioned way. Try to understand what others are saying, and try to be understood. Let them know the genuine blockers preventing you from taking up their view. Address the concerns others have about yours, and admit it when you can’t. That may not feel as good in the moment, but it often doesn’t lead to the acrimony the other approaches do.

Of course, others will still engage in their bluster. My advice is to ignore it. Or when it gets nasty, do as I did, and block them. Your life will be better off for it.

Unless of course I’m missing something?

#Idealism #Metaphysics #panpsychism #Philosophy #physicalism

Chill about metaphysics

This week I had to block a couple of people on different platforms. Neither seemed able to make their point without lacing in insults. One seemed to be on a mission to make me feel as bad about my outlook as possible. The disagreements were on purely metaphysical grounds, physicalism vs non-physicalism. And seem to be examples of something that appears pervasive in online discussions, the constant sniping between these different metaphysical camps.

Which, when you stop and think about it, is strange, since we’re not talking about something that will affect anyone’s fortunes or livelihood, or overall make any difference in their day to day life, except maybe psychologically. It pays to remember that in the debates between physicalism, property dualism, panpsychism, idealism, neutral and Russellian monism, and their variants, that these outlooks are all empirically identical.

(Interactionist dualism may be the one alternative where this wouldn’t be true. But a century and a half of neurological case studies seem to imply that the interactions would have to be pretty nuanced. Which I think is why most of the academic world has lost enthusiasm for this option, even though it remains popular in general.)

I often remember Karl Popper’s observation that what is metaphysical in one century could become science in a later one. But in the case of these basic viewpoints, they’re all ancient. Which implies that there’s no foreseeable experiment or observation which will conclusively prove or falsify any of them.

People often think quantum mechanics might provide the evidence, but there are many different interpretations of QM. Which ones seem sensible and which hopelessly crazy appear to be driven by your preexisting metaphysical viewpoint. And again, all of these outlooks long predate QM. Idealism was actually more popular during the reign of classical physics than it is today. So even if one of the QM interpretations is eventually shown to be correct, I suspect the various viewpoints will continue.

And when I listen to idealists like Barnardo Kastrup talk, and am able to look past all the provocative language, the world he describes often sounds a lot like the physicalist one, one where the planet and universe are billions of years old, and we’re the result of evolution through natural selection. He just sees the external world as being in the mind of God or Nature. And of course I agree with panpsychists that there’s nothing categorically unique about the physics of the brain.

All of which often makes my inner positivist wonder if there’s really any meaningful distinctions here. Maybe these are all just different ways of thinking about the same world. Or, from a purely empirical standpoint, maybe the best stance is a neutral one. These bouts of extreme empiricism don’t typically last very long, but I think they do stop me from being too strident in my views.

All of which is to say, calm down about your metaphysics. The fact that I can’t prove mine over yours and vice-versa, means that the only way you’re ever going to make your view more prevalent is by persuading people. Calling those with other views idiots, or implying that their view is trivially false, while it may play well with your own partisans, isn’t going to expand your camp.

The best way to do that seems to be the old fashioned way. Try to understand what others are saying, and try to be understood. Let them know the genuine blockers preventing you from taking up their view. Address the concerns others have about yours, and admit it when you can’t. That may not feel as good in the moment, but it often doesn’t lead to the acrimony the other approaches do.

Of course, others will still engage in their bluster. My advice is to ignore it. Or when it gets nasty, do as I did, and block them. Your life will be better off for it.

Unless of course I’m missing something?

#Idealism #Metaphysics #panpsychism #Philosophy #physicalism

https://youtu.be/9MURGjjG4aA

#astronomy #biology #consciousness #cosmology #cosmos #evolution #information #materialism #metaphysics #monism #neuropsychology #neuroscience #perception #philosophy #physicalism #physics #physiology #politics #psychology #quantum #reality #religion #secretsociety #science #society #socialsciences #spiritualism #technology #transhumanism #theism #theology #universe

(1/6)

https://youtu.be/9MURGjjG4aA

#astronomy #biology #consciousness #cosmology #cosmos #evolution #information #materialism #metaphysics #monism #neuropsychology #neuroscience #perception #philosophy #physicalism #physics #physiology #politics #psychology #quantum #reality #religion #secretsociety #science #society #socialsciences #spiritualism #technology #transhumanism #theism #theology #universe

(1/6)

#GalenStrawson - The #Nature of #Reality: #Metaphysics vs. #Materialism

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CuGH_cPwKYE

#Philosophy #PhilosophyOfScience #Science #Existence #Causation #Physicalism #PhilosophyOfConsciousness #Consciousness #Mind #FreeWill #Determinism #Physics #Empiricism #Qualia #Thoughts #Feelings #CloserToTruth #RobertKuhn

#GalenStrawson - The #Nature of #Reality: #Metaphysics vs. #Materialism

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CuGH_cPwKYE

#Philosophy #PhilosophyOfScience #Science #Existence #Causation #Physicalism #PhilosophyOfConsciousness #Consciousness #Mind #FreeWill #Determinism #Physics #Empiricism #Qualia #Thoughts #Feelings #CloserToTruth #RobertKuhn

What does the knowledge argument actually demonstrate?

The argument, which shows up in various forms in numerous philosophical papers and thought experiments, is that we can have a complete physical understanding of a conscious being, but still not know how it feels to be that being. We can know everything about a bat’s nervous system, Thomas Nagel argues, but still not know what it’s like to be a bat. The usual implication is that there must be something non-physical involved.

Maybe the most famous thought experiment on this is Mary’s Room, which I posted about a few years ago. However, that post was in the context of sharing a video, and so was a bit cursory, although it sparked a good discussion at the time. My views, although still similar, may have clarified a bit, so it feels like time for a fresh take.

In case you’re not already familiar with it, here’s a quote of Frank Jackson’s original description via the Stanford Encyclopedia article on the subject:

Mary is a brilliant scientist who is, for whatever reason, forced to investigate the world from a black and white room via a black and white television monitor. She specializes in the neurophysiology of vision and acquires, let us suppose, all the physical information there is to obtain about what goes on when we see ripe tomatoes, or the sky, and use terms like ‘red’, ‘blue’, and so on. She discovers, for example, just which wavelength combinations from the sky stimulate the retina, and exactly how this produces via the central nervous system the contraction of the vocal chords and expulsion of air from the lungs that results in the uttering of the sentence ‘The sky is blue’.… What will happen when Mary is released from her black and white room or is given a color television monitor? Will she learn anything or not? It seems just obvious that she will learn something about the world and our visual experience of it. But then is it inescapable that her previous knowledge was incomplete. But she had all the physical information. Ergo there is more to have than that, and Physicalism is false.

I think it pays to untangle two takeaways from this description. One is that there are some things that can only be known through experience. The second, Jackson’s main conclusion, is that experience is non-physical. The second takeaway is quicker to resolve, so I’ll address it first.

We can summarize the argument with these two points.

1. Mary has all the physical information on color perception prior to experiencing color.
2. When Mary experiences color for the first time, she learns new information.

The conclusion is that the new information Mary learns cannot be physical, since she already had all the physical information. However, the argument about physicalism seems circular. It appears to presuppose its conclusion. To see the implicit assumption, imagine we have the same description, but without any reference to what information is or isn’t physical.

1. Mary has all the information on color perception prior to experiencing color.
2. When Mary experiences color for the first time, she learns new information.

With the change, the premises become contradictory. How can she learn new information if she had all the information?

But what if we assume physicalism and change the description accordingly?

1. Mary has all the physical information on color perception prior to experiencing color.
2. When Mary has the physical experience of color for the first time, she learns new physical information.

Again, we end up with a contradiction. The premises only seem consistent by assuming the purported conclusion, that experience is non-physical. So, this part of the argument seems like a fail, and there are no implications for physicalism.

Okay, but what about the first takeaway, that there are some things that can only be known through experience?

Most people, whether they agree about the non-physical part, actually do think Mary learns something new when she experiences color for the first time. This revised view of the premise is that she had all the third person information that could ever be obtained about color perception, prior to experiencing it.

The question is, what is the new information she learns? It doesn’t seem like anyone can say what it is, other than referencing her experience of color in various synonymous ways, such as finding out what it’s like to experience color, having the mental qualities of color, acquiring phenomenal knowledge of color, etc. This fits since the redness of red is supposed to be private and ineffable. If anyone actually could describe it, Mary would have read their description and would know what to expect.

Some philosophers argue that she doesn’t acquire new propositional knowledge, just new abilities, the ability to remember, imagine, and recognize colors. Whether this argument works might depend on what we mean by “knowledge”.

What I think we can say is that Mary’s nervous system is allowed to discriminate colors for the first time. Her neural circuitry is exercised in a new way. And she is subsequently able to remember the discrimination.

But could she have imagined the discrimination prior to experiencing it? Would she be able to recognize her first experience of red or blue? Intuitively, it’s hard to see how she could.

However, imagine if someone slides a color spectrum chart under the door, and it becomes her first color experience. The version they provide has no labels for any of the colors or wavelengths. To be let out of the room, Mary is told she must identify red and blue on the chart.

Would she be able to do it? Again, intuitively, it might seem hopeless. However, consider what’s currently known about colors and perception. Mary knows the relationship between the colors, so that violet is adjacent to blue, which is next to cyan, followed by greens, yellows, oranges, reds, etc. She also knows that the reds, oranges, and yellows would jump out to her and be more distinct than the greens, blues, and violets. Maybe she couldn’t get the exact colors right, but it seems like logical deduction could get her in the ballpark.

Her captors can make it harder if they instead present her with a possibly inverted color wheel, or just give her the colors in isolated patches. It still seems like she could work out the relationships, even if she had to cut up and rearrange the various colors. The hardest case might be if they just give her one isolated color patch and demand she name it. Distinguishing your very first blue from green, or orange from red, seems hard to imagine. (And hardly seems fair given that lifelong color perceivers can’t always agree either.)

But remember, this is all based on a little bit of what we know today. Mary’s knowledge is supposed to be far more complete. In our revised understanding of the premises, she has all the third person information that will ever be obtainable. Given where current knowledge gets us, it’s plausible her far more complete information leaves little, if anything, for her to learn.

Can we say that beyond all doubt? No, because we don’t have Mary’s described level of knowledge, or what it might entail. And for all practical purposes, it probably isn’t feasible for her to ever really know enough to be impervious to learning something new.

But she would expect ripe strawberries, roses, and blood to have similar hues, as well as daffodils, bananas, and the sun. She would anticipate the sky and deep water having similarities, as well as leaves, grass, and emeralds. And as noted above, she would expect some colors to jump out more than others. She would anticipate the unease typically caused by walking into a red room. In other words, she would recognize a lot more in the experience than people commonly assume.

So it doesn’t seem like the knowledge argument works against physicalism. And it seems to overstate the case for experience being private and ineffable, at least in any absolute sense.

Unless of course I’m missing something. Are there consequences for physicalism here I’m overlooking? Would Mary have more challenges identifying colors than I’m thinking? Or would there be ways, even with current knowledge, she’d be able to confidently identify even the isolated patch?

https://selfawarepatterns.com/2024/09/21/the-problem-with-the-knowledge-argument/

#Consciousness #knowledgeArgument #MarySRoom #PhilosophyOfMind #physicalism #Qualia

#ColinMcGinn - Solutions to the #MindBodyProblem?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ie_ExKi63sY

#Philosophy #PhilosophyOfMind #Mind #PhilosophyOfConsciousness #Consciousness #Materialism #Physicalism #Physics #ContactCausation #Dualism #Metaphysics #Matter #Energy #Spirit #Thought #InteractionProblem #God #Panpsychism #CloserToTruth #RobertKuhn

#ColinMcGinn - Solutions to the #MindBodyProblem?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ie_ExKi63sY

#Philosophy #PhilosophyOfMind #Mind #PhilosophyOfConsciousness #Consciousness #Materialism #Physicalism #Physics #ContactCausation #Dualism #Metaphysics #Matter #Energy #Spirit #Thought #InteractionProblem #God #Panpsychism #CloserToTruth #RobertKuhn

Can we in principle ever deduce the mental from the physical?

Christopher Devlin Brown and David Papineau have a new paper out in the Journal of Consciousness Studies titled: Illusionism and A Posteriori Physicalism; No Fact of the Matter. (Note: the link is to a free version.) As the title makes clear, the overall gist is that the difference between illusionism and a posteriori physicalism amounts to a definitional dispute.

A quick primer. Illusionism is the stance that consciousness exists, but only in the sense of functional capabilities such as modeling the self in its environment, attention, learning, episodic memory, self monitoring, etc. What’s thought to be illusory is phenomenal consciousness, the “what it’s like” nature of subjective experience, but particularly in the strong sense as something distinct from functional capabilities, and with properties, such as fundamental subjectivity, that imply it’s non-physical.

Reductive physicalism is the stance that the mental can be reduced to physics. However, there are different views on exactly what can be understood in that reduction. In one, we can find correlations between conscious states and physical ones that imply an identity relationship, but one that can only be discovered and understood empirically, not justified in a logical sense. This is the a posteriori physicalism of the type the authors discuss in their paper.

The other view is a priori physicalism. It argues that we can go further than just brute identities, and understand the logical relationships, in a way where, in principle, we could deduce the mental from the physical. A common example of this view is analytic functionalism, which describes mental states in functional terms, such as the experience of pain being a negative reaction to a perceived state that motivates a system to try to avoid or ameliorate it.

It’s long been acknowledged that the distinction between illusionism and functionalism is definitional. Functionalists generally target functional capabilities for their explanation. If they speak about phenomenal consciousness, it’s usually in a weaker sense of being the inner perspective of a functional system without the non-physical attributes. (As a functionalist myself, this is certainly the sense I use it in older posts on this blog.)

This weaker sense is one that the authors seem to call for in their paper. They point out that it’s always a judgment call whether to eliminate or reconstruct the concept when it turns out not to have all the attributes we assumed in our pre-scientific understanding. (David Chalmers has a similar discussion in his book, Reality+, which I discussed a while back.) For example, we eliminated the concepts of ghosts and witches from our ontology after scientific investigation revealed too many of their properties didn’t exist. However, we retained planets and stars, holding reconstructed understandings very different from the medieval ones.

But I think this is the first time I’ve seen an argument that the differences between illusionism and a posteriori physicalism are definitional.

There is some resonance between illusionism and the phenomenal concept strategy, an argument often made by a posteriori identity theorists about why we tend to think phenomenal properties are distinct from physical ones. In short, our phenomenal concepts are thought to be isolated from our physical ones, making the relationship one we can’t bridge, leading to an epistemic gap, the notorious “hard problem”. This is similar to possibilities explored by some illusionists, such as François Kammerer, who see the illusion as deeply enmeshed in our cognition, something we can’t avoid, and so no explanation of consciousness, including of the illusion itself, will ever feel right.

But it seems like there are differences. For one, the phenomenal concepts strategy is often described as recognizing the conceivability of functional zombies, entities that are behaviorally indistinguishable from a conscious being, but aren’t actually conscious. Most illusionists I’ve read see zombies as an unproductive concept.

And many illusionists take the illusion to be more of a theory error, a failure in philosophical reasoning more than something universally embedded. That’s the feel I get from Daniel Dennett’s writing, although in reality I suspect he would have rejected the distinction.

Still, most illusionists seem in the a priori camp, rejecting any notion of an unbridgeable divide. The phenomenal concept strategy, and a posteriori physicalism overall, seem to skirt mysterianism, a view generally rejected by the a priori camp. To be sure, most of this camp see empirical investigation necessary for progress in any practical sense, but the idea that we can’t have a theory explaining the identity relations is rejected.

Of course, a lot depends on just how much work we’re asking these identities to do. Often the identity relationship between H2O and water, genes and DNA sequences, or heat and molecular motion are given as examples of identities that, once established, we don’t need to explain any further. But these identities have 1:1 relationships, and the reduced concept can in principle be used anywhere the higher level version can in descriptions, making the concepts causally equivalent.

Much depends on what we mean by a conscious concept like “pain”. Is pain a relatively simple primitive like water above? As a phenomenal property, the painfulness of pain is often assumed to be that kind of primitive, which is how many end up thinking of it as something separate from the functionality.

Or is pain more a complex collection of processes, in a way similar to the concept of “democracy”? In principle we could find the physical identity relationship between the concept and a physical occurrence of democracy, although it would be extremely complex. But more broadly, democracy as a type encompasses too many physical instantiations with too many variations for this kind of identity primitive to be useful. We need intermediate abstraction layers, such the role people play in governance. Such roles are multi-realizable, which puts us in functionalist territory, where I think most illusionists live.

Ultimately the difference between the views seems to remain, although it doesn’t seem vast. I suppose it could come down to what is expected of an explanation. If it doesn’t feel right, does that mean we’ve failed to bridge the gap? Given scientific theories like general relativity and quantum mechanics, it doesn’t seem like we have any right to expect an explanation of mental states to necessarily feel right, but that’s a view from someone firmly in the functionalist camp.

I do think the authors are right that “consciousness” is a semantically indeterminate concept. Its meaning has varied too much over the centuries for anyone to claim a particular version is the one true definition. It can mean introspection, perception of the outside world, attention, sentience, imagination, a non-physical ineffable essence, and a host of other notions. Which means these definitional disputes are probably unavoidable.

What do you think? Are these views more similar than I’m seeing? Are all physicalists basically illusionists, even if only implicitly? Or does the ambiguity of the word “consciousness” render these kinds of distinction a hopeless muddle?

Featured image credit

https://selfawarepatterns.com/2024/08/24/illusionism-and-types-of-physicalism/

#Consciousness #eliminativeMaterialism #illusionism #materialism #Philosophy #PhilosophyOfMind #physicalism

Can we in principle ever deduce the mental from the physical?

Christopher Devlin Brown and David Papineau have a new paper out in the Journal of Consciousness Studies titled: Illusionism and A Posteriori Physicalism; No Fact of the Matter. (Note: the link is to a free version.) As the title makes clear, the overall gist is that the difference between illusionism and a posteriori physicalism amounts to a definitional dispute.

A quick primer. Illusionism is the stance that consciousness exists, but only in the sense of functional capabilities such as modeling the self in its environment, attention, learning, episodic memory, self monitoring, etc. What’s thought to be illusory is phenomenal consciousness, the “what it’s like” nature of subjective experience, but particularly in the strong sense as something distinct from functional capabilities, and with properties, such as fundamental subjectivity, that imply it’s non-physical.

Reductive physicalism is the stance that the mental can be reduced to physics. However, there are different views on exactly what can be understood in that reduction. In one, we can find correlations between conscious states and physical ones that imply an identity relationship, but one that can only be discovered and understood empirically, not justified in a logical sense. This is the a posteriori physicalism of the type the authors discuss in their paper.

The other view is a priori physicalism. It argues that we can go further than just brute identities, and understand the logical relationships, in a way where, in principle, we could deduce the mental from the physical. A common example of this view is analytic functionalism, which describes mental states in functional terms, such as the experience of pain being a negative reaction to a perceived state that motivates a system to try to avoid or ameliorate it.

It’s long been acknowledged among illusionists that the distinction between illusionism and functionalism is definitional. Functionalists generally target functional capabilities for their explanation. If they speak about phenomenal consciousness, it’s usually in a weaker sense of being the inner perspective of a functional system without the non-physical attributes. (As a functionalist myself, this is certainly the sense I use it in older posts on this blog.)

This weaker sense is one that the authors seem to call for in their paper. They point out that it’s always a judgment call whether to eliminate or reconstruct the concept when it turns out not to have all the attributes we assumed in our pre-scientific understanding. (David Chalmers has a similar discussion in his book, Reality+, which I discussed a while back.) For example, we eliminated the concepts of ghosts and witches from our ontology after scientific investigation revealed too many of their properties didn’t exist. However, we retained planets and stars, holding reconstructed understandings very different from the medieval ones.

But I think this is the first time I’ve seen an argument that the differences between illusionism and a posteriori physicalism are definitional.

There is some resonance between illusionism and the phenomenal concept strategy, an argument often made by a posteriori identity theorists about why we tend to think phenomenal properties are distinct from physical ones. In short, our phenomenal concepts are thought to be isolated from our physical ones, making the relationship one we can’t bridge, leading to an epistemic gap, the notorious “hard problem”. This is similar to possibilities explored by some illusionists, such as François Kammerer, who see the illusion as deeply enmeshed in our cognition, something we can’t avoid, and so no explanation of consciousness, including of the illusion itself, will ever feel right.

But it seems like there are differences. For one, the phenomenal concepts strategy is often described as recognizing the conceivability of functional zombies, entities that are behaviorally indistinguishable from a conscious being, but aren’t actually conscious. Most illusionists I’ve read see zombies as an unproductive concept.

And many illusionists take the illusion to be more of a theory error, a failure in philosophical reasoning more than something universally embedded. That’s the feel I get from Daniel Dennett’s writing, although in reality I suspect he would have rejected the distinction.

Still, most illusionists seem in the a priori camp, rejecting any notion of an unbridgeable divide. The phenomenal concept strategy, and a posteriori physicalism overall, seem to skirt mysterianism, a view generally rejected by the a priori camp. To be sure, most of this camp see empirical investigation necessary for progress in any practical sense, but the idea that we can’t have a theory explaining the identity relations is rejected.

Of course, a lot depends on just how much work we’re asking these identities to do. Often the identity relationship between H2O and water, genes and DNA sequences, or heat and molecular motion are given as examples of identities that, once established, we don’t need to explain any further. But these identities have 1:1 relationships, and the reduced concept can in principle be used anywhere the higher level version can in descriptions, making the concepts causally equivalent.

Much depends on what we mean by a conscious concept like “pain”. Is pain a relatively simple primitive like water above? As a phenomenal property, the painfulness of pain is often assumed to be that kind of primitive, which is how many end up thinking of it as something separate from the functionality.

Or is pain more a complex collection of processes, in a way similar to the concept of “democracy”? In principle we could find the physical identity relationship between the concept and a physical occurrence of democracy, although it would be extremely complex. But more broadly, democracy as a type encompasses too many physical instantiations with too many variations for this kind of identity primitive to be useful. We need intermediate abstraction layers, such the role people play in governance. Such roles are multi-realizable, which puts us in functionalist territory, where I think most illusionists live.

Ultimately the difference between the views seems to remain, although it doesn’t seem vast. I suppose it could come down to what is expected of an explanation. If it doesn’t feel right, does that mean we’ve failed to bridge the gap? Given scientific theories like general relativity and quantum mechanics, it doesn’t seem like we have any right to expect an explanation of mental states to necessarily feel right, but that’s a view from someone firmly in the functionalist camp.

I do think the authors are right that “consciousness” is a semantically indeterminate concept. Its meaning has varied too much over the centuries for anyone to claim a particular version is the one true definition. It can mean introspection, perception of the outside world, attention, sentience, imagination, a non-physical ineffable essence, and a host of other notions. Which means these definitional disputes are probably unavoidable.

What do you think? Are these views more similar than I’m seeing? Are all physicalists basically illusionists, even if only implicitly? Or does the ambiguity of the word “consciousness” render these kinds of distinction a hopeless muddle?

Featured image credit

https://selfawarepatterns.com/2024/08/24/illusionism-and-types-of-physicalism/

#Consciousness #eliminativeMaterialism #illusionism #materialism #Philosophy #PhilosophyOfMind #physicalism

#EricSchwitzgebel - What is the #MindBodyProblem?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UanDuyeatE0

#Philosophy #PhilosophOfMind #Mind #PhilosophyOfConsciousness #Consciousness #PhilosophyOfScience #Science #Brain #Body #Dualism #Monism #Belief #Intentionality #Experience #Awareness #Qualia #Idealism #Materialism #Physicalism #CommonSense #CloserToTruth #RobertKuhn

#EricSchwitzgebel - What is the #MindBodyProblem?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UanDuyeatE0

#Philosophy #PhilosophOfMind #Mind #PhilosophyOfConsciousness #Consciousness #PhilosophyOfScience #Science #Brain #Body #Dualism #Monism #Belief #Intentionality #Experience #Awareness #Qualia #Idealism #Materialism #Physicalism #CommonSense #CloserToTruth #RobertKuhn

#TimothyOConnor - What’s the #Stuff of #Mind and #Brain?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-3WyaWP06Gk

#Philosophy #PhilosophyOfMind #PhilosophyOfConsciousness #Consciousness #PhilosophyOfScience #Science #Neuroscience #Metaphysics #Dualism #Soul #Plato #Causality #Experience #Qulia #Biology #Physicalism #Epiphenomenon #Epiphenomenon #BrainState #MentalState #PropertyDualism #CloserToTruth #RobertKuhn

#TimothyOConnor - What’s the #Stuff of #Mind and #Brain?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-3WyaWP06Gk

#Philosophy #PhilosophyOfMind #PhilosophyOfConsciousness #Consciousness #PhilosophyOfScience #Science #Neuroscience #Metaphysics #Dualism #Soul #Plato #Causality #Experience #Qulia #Biology #Physicalism #Epiphenomenon #Epiphenomenon #BrainState #MentalState #PropertyDualism #CloserToTruth #RobertKuhn

#KenMogi - Does the #Mind Work Like a #Computer?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I-0vfLt-LmA

#Philosophy #PhilosophyOfScience #Science #PhilosophyOfMind #PhilosophyOfConsciousness #Consciousness #Metaphysics #Computation #Physicalism #Materialism #Qualia #Neuroscience #CloserToTruth #RobertKuhn

#KenMogi - Does the #Mind Work Like a #Computer?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I-0vfLt-LmA

#Philosophy #PhilosophyOfScience #Science #PhilosophyOfMind #PhilosophyOfConsciousness #Consciousness #Metaphysics #Computation #Physicalism #Materialism #Qualia #Neuroscience #CloserToTruth #RobertKuhn

#SeanCarroll - #Physics of #Consciousness

Kuhn gets quite confused in this one. Many people make the mistake of believing that consciousness is a substance or something like that. Carroll's patient smile says all.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTaryrPqzgc

#Philosophy #PhilosophyOfConsciousness #Metaphysics #Physicalism #Materialism #Zombies #Qualia #Awareness #Emergence #Language #CloserToTruth #RobertKuhn

#SeanCarroll - #Physics of #Consciousness

Kuhn gets quite confused in this one. Many people make the mistake of believing that consciousness is a substance or something like that. Carroll's patient smile says all.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTaryrPqzgc

#Philosophy #PhilosophyOfConsciousness #Metaphysics #Physicalism #Materialism #Zombies #Qualia #Awareness #Emergence #Language #CloserToTruth #RobertKuhn

Another one.
-- Atheist Debunks Catholic Friar Fallacies --
(from TheSkepTick)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3B-OoZrCZGQ

#naturalism #determinism #physicalism #positivism #freeWill #theism #God

-- Friar Is Bitter That People Have Critical Thinking Skills --
(from TMM)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QAuLF6vXiCs

#naturalism #determinism #physicalism #positivism #freeWill #theism #God

#AndrewBriggs - Is #Information the #Foundation of #Reality?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ooooSBxfFZ8

#Philosophy #PhilosophyOfScience #Science #PhilosophyOfInformation #Metaphysics #Physicalism #Materialism #Shannon #QM #QuantumMechanics #QuantumTheory #QuantumPhysics #WaveFunction #OnticState #OnticStates #Religion #God #Christianity #Theism #Logos #CloserToTruth #RobertKuhn

#AndrewBriggs - Is #Information the #Foundation of #Reality?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ooooSBxfFZ8

#Philosophy #PhilosophyOfScience #Science #PhilosophyOfInformation #Metaphysics #Physicalism #Materialism #Shannon #QM #QuantumMechanics #QuantumTheory #QuantumPhysics #WaveFunction #OnticState #OnticStates #Religion #God #Christianity #Theism #Logos #CloserToTruth #RobertKuhn

#RebeccaNewbergerGoldstein - #Realism vs. #Antirealism

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xva6pJjg9Ig

#Philosophy #Metaphysics #Solipsism #Phenomenology #Senses #SenseData #Dualism #Physicalism #Materialism #Determinism #Imagination #Will #Mind #Consciousness #Writing #Novel #Plot #Character #Characters #CloserToTruth #RobertKuhn

#RebeccaNewbergerGoldstein - #Realism vs. #Antirealism

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xva6pJjg9Ig

#Philosophy #Metaphysics #Solipsism #Phenomenology #Senses #SenseData #Dualism #Physicalism #Materialism #Determinism #Imagination #Will #Mind #Consciousness #Writing #Novel #Plot #Character #Characters #CloserToTruth #RobertKuhn

#DavidChalmers - What #Exists?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w6FodXTwB04

#Philosophhy #Metaphysics #Existence #Things #Objects #Being #LawsOfNature #LawsOfPhysics #Physics #Science #PhilosophyOfScience #Metaphysician #Matter #Energy #SpaceTime #Universe #Physicalism #Physicalist #Consciousness #Mind #Panpsychism #Monism #Dualism #Contingency #Idealism #AbstractObjects #Aggregation #CloserToTruth #RobertKhun

#DavidChalmers - What #Exists?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w6FodXTwB04

#Philosophhy #Metaphysics #Existence #Things #Objects #Being #LawsOfNature #LawsOfPhysics #Physics #Science #PhilosophyOfScience #Metaphysician #Matter #Energy #SpaceTime #Universe #Physicalism #Physicalist #Consciousness #Mind #Panpsychism #Monism #Dualism #Contingency #Idealism #AbstractObjects #Aggregation #CloserToTruth #RobertKhun

#AndyClark - Can #Consciousness be #NonBiological?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=odDX8shg9UA

#Philosophy #PhilosophyOfMind #Mind #PhilosophyOfConsciousness #Qualia #SelfAwareness #Awareness #Intentionality #IntentionalStates #Zombie #Substrate #Brain #Neuroscience #InnerMovie #Zomnies #Subjectivism #Physicalism #Information #Searle #JohnSearle #CloserToTruth #RobertKuhn

#AndyClark - Can #Consciousness be #NonBiological?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=odDX8shg9UA

#Philosophy #PhilosophyOfMind #Mind #PhilosophyOfConsciousness #Qualia #SelfAwareness #Awareness #Intentionality #IntentionalStates #Zombie #Substrate #Brain #Neuroscience #InnerMovie #Zomnies #Subjectivism #Physicalism #Information #Searle #JohnSearle #CloserToTruth #RobertKuhn

#SeanCarroll - Why the #Cosmos?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5bSScvfGCVY

#Philosophy #PhilosophyOfScience #Science #PhilosophyOfCosmology #Cosmology #Origins #BigBang #Time #Space #SpaceTime #Entropy #Naturalism #PoeticNaturalism #EliminitavistNaturalism #AugmentedNaturalism #Physicalism #Transcendence #TranscendentPurpose #Purpose #Purposes #FreeWill #CloserToTruth #RobertKuhn

#SeanCarroll - Why the #Cosmos?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5bSScvfGCVY

#Philosophy #PhilosophyOfScience #Science #PhilosophyOfCosmology #Cosmology #Origins #BigBang #Time #Space #SpaceTime #Entropy #Naturalism #PoeticNaturalism #EliminitavistNaturalism #AugmentedNaturalism #Physicalism #Transcendence #TranscendentPurpose #Purpose #Purposes #FreeWill #CloserToTruth #RobertKuhn

#FreemanDyson - What's #Fundamental in the #Cosmos?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JkNTXzsYurA

#Philosophy #PhilosophyOfScience #Science #Physics #Fundamentalism #Physicalism #Materialism #Math #Maths #Mathematics #Matrices #FFT #FastFourierTransform #RandomMatrices #QM #QuantumMechanics #QED #QuantumElectrodynamics #Gravity #QuantumGravity #GR #GeneralRelativity #CloserToTruth #RobertKuhn

#FreemanDyson - What's #Fundamental in the #Cosmos?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JkNTXzsYurA

#Philosophy #PhilosophyOfScience #Science #Physics #Fundamentalism #Physicalism #Materialism #Math #Maths #Mathematics #Matrices #FFT #FastFourierTransform #RandomMatrices #QM #QuantumMechanics #QED #QuantumElectrodynamics #Gravity #QuantumGravity #GR #GeneralRelativity #CloserToTruth #RobertKuhn

#ACGrayling - #Realism vs. #AntiRealism

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0M1AUJVc1Ow

#Philosophy #Metaphysics #Epistemology #Materialism #Physicalism #Physics #Science #PhilosophyOfScience #Ontology #Idealism #Mind #Consciousness #Causation #Objectivity #Subjectivity #ThingsInThemselves #ThingInItself #DingAnSich #Kant #ImmanuelKant #ScientificMethod #CloserToTruth #RobertKuhn

#ACGrayling - #Realism vs. #AntiRealism

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0M1AUJVc1Ow

#Philosophy #Metaphysics #Epistemology #Materialism #Physicalism #Physics #Science #PhilosophyOfScience #Ontology #Idealism #Mind #Consciousness #Causation #Objectivity #Subjectivity #ThingsInThemselves #ThingInItself #DingAnSich #Kant #ImmanuelKant #ScientificMethod #CloserToTruth #RobertKuhn

#NedBlock - Can #Metaphysics Discover Surprises?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbWDl9UYqSQ

#Philosophy #PhilosophyOfScience #Science #Reality #Ontology #Consciousness #Dualism #Physicalism #Materialism #FreeWill #Determinism #Indeterminism #CloserToTruth #RobertKuhn

#NedBlock - Can #Metaphysics Discover Surprises?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbWDl9UYqSQ

#Philosophy #PhilosophyOfScience #Science #Reality #Ontology #Consciousness #Dualism #Physicalism #Materialism #FreeWill #Determinism #Indeterminism #CloserToTruth #RobertKuhn

#BasVanFraassen - How Does #Philosophy Illuminate the #Physical #World?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jN_Ds6mmino

#Philosophy #Metaphysics #Materialism #Physicalism #Science #PhilosophyOfScience #Fields #ManifestImage #Realism #Reality #Matter #Energy #ScientificMethod #Belief #Beauty #CloserToTruth

#BasVanFraassen - How Does #Philosophy Illuminate the #Physical #World?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jN_Ds6mmino

#Philosophy #Metaphysics #Materialism #Physicalism #Science #PhilosophyOfScience #Fields #ManifestImage #Realism #Reality #Matter #Energy #ScientificMethod #Belief #Beauty #CloserToTruth

#NedBlock - Do #Humans have #FreeWill?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JNaEvSeFGNs

#Philosophy #PhilosophyOfMind #PhilosophyOfConsciousness #Mind #Consciousness #Determinism #Indeterminism #Chance #Probability #Will #Intentionality #Compatibilism #Brain #Neuroscience #Materialism #Physicalism #Dualism #Soul #CloserToTruth #RobertKuhn

#NedBlock - Do #Humans have #FreeWill?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JNaEvSeFGNs

#Philosophy #PhilosophyOfMind #PhilosophyOfConsciousness #Mind #Consciousness #Determinism #Indeterminism #Chance #Probability #Will #Intentionality #Compatibilism #Brain #Neuroscience #Materialism #Physicalism #Dualism #Soul #CloserToTruth #RobertKuhn

#DeanZimmerman - How Does #Philosophy Illuminate the #Physical #World?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TRk1-VEBuFc

#PhilosophyOfScience #Metaphysics #Physicalism #Physics #Science #Materialism #Mind #Consciousness #God #Emergence #Emergentism #Explanation #CloserToTruth #RobertKuhn

#MichaelGraziano - Toward a #Science of #Consciousness

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWc79RDGO1M

#Philosophy #PhilosophyOfMind #PhilosophyOfCondciousness #Mind #Brain #Neuroscience #Attention #Awareness #Information #RichInformation #IntegratedInformation #Phi #Dualism #Materialism #Physicalism #CloserToTruth #RobertKuhn