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Can you explain why? I've yet to see a convincing rebuttal to the argument I linked, I'd like to hear it.
Tbh I’m a bit surprised you find that argument convincing to begin with, there are a number of issues with it that jump out at me
First this, the premise of the entire argument, is not true. This is not how evolution works, and the entire argument is based on this incorrect idea about evolution.
A lot of the rest of it is semantic sleight of hand. Like
The “something it feels like to see the colour red” not being the same thing as the wavelength of the color red doesn’t mean that both things aren’t the result of material reality. He’s making one argument “the feeling of seeing the color red is different from knowing the physical quantities that make the color red” (which is obvious) and passing it off as another argument “the feeling of seeing the color red is immaterial”, which he doesn’t actually offer any support or evidence of.
Ultimately buying into his argument requires rejecting materialism, but he’s more or less just asserting that consciousness is this thing that can’t be the result of material reality, I don’t see any convincing argument in support of this assertion.
Uh you didn't really do a good job responding to the argument, it seems like you didn't even read it properly and instead want to nitpick semantics.
The point of the argument is, if phenomenal consciousness doesn't have a causal effect on the material world, why did we evolve it? If something is to evolve, that something has to have some causal feedback loop with nature, and in a physicalist viewpoint this is not so.
You could argue phenomenal consciousness is an accident (a spandrel is the official term I think) but it's a hell of an accident if you ask me. I don't think you can really convince me that something that doesn't have a causal effect in nature evolved to align so well with what's happening in nature.
It's literally in the rest of the article, you should probably just read it in its entirety.
I literally JUST told you that this is not how evolution works, all you’re doing is restating the false premise.
The article is shit, the argument is shit, in fact it’s not even really an argument, it’s only an assertion so there’s not much more to respond to.
Then how does it work then?
Uh okay, I literally just wanted to have a discussion, why be a dipshit about it?
Also you do realize "matter is the only substance and everything comes from it" is also "just an assertion"? The point is to argue your assertions.
Harmful traits are selected against, positive traits aren’t selected for, evolution is not some teleological process where every trait has a “why”, it’s a process of random mutations. Forgive me if I can’t take seriously an argument that revolves entirely around a fictitious version of evolution, the author couldn’t take it seriously himself by actually reading something about how evolution works first before making it the cornerstone of his argument.
You started being a “dipshit” claiming I didn’t read the whole article when I did, starting your comment with the purposely pretentious reddit “uh”, shut up. Nothing more obnoxious than somebody who does this crap and plays victim when their shit gets flung back at them.
Sure, but for natural selection to work you need some causal feedback loop, right? The evolved traits in the end need to interact with matter so they can be judged by nature (in the abstract sense of course, I don't want you accusing me of believing in Gaia or whatever) as positive or negative. They "why" is the mechanism of natural selection, and I just don't see how consciousness fits there.
Also you didn't respond to my "spandrel" argument at all, which is what you're seemingly implying consciousness is, correct me if I'm wrong on this.
Fair point I guess, but you still escalated for no good reason, but fine we can do the debatebro shit, I can take it.
What is the negative effect of consciousness on the ability to pass down one’s genes that would cause it to definitely be selected against to the point that anybody could say it “couldn’t have evolved”?
It's not about consciousness being either positive or negative, by definition it has to be neutral from a physicalist perspective since all is matter and consciousness is wholly a product of matter and by itself has no chance of showing itself as either positive or negative. So a physicalist view kinda forces you to think of consciousness as an accident in evolution.
Now if it's an accident why has consciousness even evolved in the exact way it did given these physicalist assumptions? It seems to have no reason to, unless you bring into the picture an intelligent designer or that it's this one in a trillion accident, both of which seem unlikely to me.
To me (and the author of the article) it would make much more sense to assume consciousness itself is a basic substance of existence.
It is about that. You can’t make a convincing case that something “could not have evolved” unless it has a negative affect on the ability to survive or reproduce, or is not heritable.
It could have evolved, but if it has no causal effect then you can only regard it as a "evolutionary spandrel", or an accident basically. Neutral traits exist.
The whole point of the argument is examining whether declaring it a spandrel makes sense. I don't think it does.
Literally all evolution is “accidental”, there is no such thing as purposeful evolution.
I don't know how to explain it better honestly, but I'll try again.
You believe everything is matter and consciousness is somehow reducible to matter, right? That means consciousness in of itself does not have any causal effect on the material world, correct?
If so that means that consciousness cannot be part of any natural selection process, and if it wasn't why did it evolve in the exact way it did? Why even is there consciousness? And if there is why isn't it just a random collection of experiences that don't at all correspond to the material world at all? The only real answer from a physicalist perspective is that it's just this big coincidence, which just seems very unlikely to me. If your theory depends on assuming this huge coincidence then your theory is kind of in trouble IMO.
No, what? It doesn’t mean that at all.
Alright, can you elaborate? What is consciousness from your point of view and how does it causally interact with matter?
I honestly do not even understand the question “how does it causally interact with matter”? Consciousness is awareness of existence, and it is the result of some processes of the body and brain.
Alright, what is the "awareness of existence"? I'm talking about the qualitative, subjective aspect of consciousness, the "feels" if you will, the redness of red, the pain and pleasure etc. Where does that fit in your view? Is all of it caused by interactions of matter?
Yes
If that is so then you agree with the premises of my previous comment: https://hexbear.net/post/91483/comment/1013036
Or am I missing some nuance here?
Why would consciousness being the result of interactions of matter mean that it doesn’t itself have any effect on other matter? That simply doesn’t follow logically
How does it have an effect then if the subjective contents of the consciousness are wholly dependent on configurations of matter?
Having a causal effect would mean the subjective feels themselves exert some kind of influence over matter.
Literally everything is the result of material things, what you’re saying makes no sense at all, it would be equally (not) applicable to literally any quality of any living thing. It’s mumbo jumbo
Not sure I understand honestly. You admit the subjective qualities of consciousness are purely the result of matter interacting. That necessarily implies only a one way causal direction, meaning that subjective feels in of themselves don't actually do anything in the material world.
NO, IT DOESNT
Yeah that's the part I don't get, how doesn't it?
How does it? You can’t jump from “X is the result of material reality” to “X can have no affect on material reality”. What is the logical process you’re using to claim that the first thing “necessarily implies” the second? It’s a complete non sequitor
I guess it isn't necessarily implied in of itself but it sure is heavily implied in a physicalist framework. Otherwise you have to admit there's some kind of "consciousness particle" that interacts with matter, which is something no physicalist admits to.
Not sure why we're arguing this is not even that controversial, most scientists and physicalist philosophers admit that subjective feels have no causal effect on reality and are wholly a product of the material brain doing stuff (except Daniel Dennet and other illusionists I guess but honestly their viewpoint is just a bunch of rhetorical slights of hand and are completely missing the point)
No, I don’t agree that would need to be “consciousness particle”, I’m not sure where you’re getting all this stuff to be honest, it just keeps coming out of nowhere. Consciousness is a quality that we ascribe to things, whether something has that quality or not affects the way that thing interacts with other things.
What you’re saying doesn’t make any more sense for consciousness than it would for any other quality. “If pregnancy is the result of material processes, then pregnancy can’t have any affect on the material world unless there’s a pregnancy particle”. This is literal gibberish, it’s not an argument from logic. I feel that you assign some sort of mystical otherworldliness to the quality of consciousness and assuming that I share this idea about it. I don’t.
Edit: good talking with you, I’m going to bed as it’s quite late here. If I log on tomorrow I’ll try to continue discussing
Alright, you're getting there. Now you just have to realize that all qualities are in essence mental constructs, nowhere in the material world does "pregnancy" exist, atoms and EM fields don't know nothing about babies. "pregnancy" is an abstract quality of organisms that exists only in our minds that we use to make sense of the material world, and our minds are made up of subjective experiences, which is what the discussion is about. When you're doing logic and math and science you're doing it within the confines of your awareness, which again is "just" a bunch of subjective feels. You can't really hope to separate qualities as you understand them from your own mind, because you are your mind and you understand everything through your mind. The material world can function just fine without knowing about pregnancy and other quality or abstract concept, but your mind cannot. The question is where does the mind fit in the whole picture.
I'm not assigning any mysticism, you're ignoring the relevance of mind existing in a seemingly exclusively material universe. That's what the "hard problem of consciousness" is all about, explaining how our minds fit in the material world. It's a question as old as philosophy itself and it has not yet been adequately solved.
This isn’t true, the words we use to describe things are just language games, sure, but words like “pregnancy” or “consciousness” are referring to actual real world phenomena. You can’t say because a word referring to something is an abstraction that the thing itself is abstract.
I don’t believe in a hard problem of consciousness, this isn’t a “problem” in my materialist world view. Consciousness is just one of many aspects of certain living things, it may be more complicated than other aspects but that doesn’t mean it “couldn’t have evolved” or “isn’t material” or whatever.
What is the actual real world material phenomenon of "pregnancy"? It's just a clump of matter slowly growing inside another clump of matter, material reality doesn't need your concept of pregnancy to do its work. Why does it need a name? The actual concept of pregnancy lives entirely in your mind, not in the material world. It's a symbol for you to make sense of the world, and it's a part of your mind. Now again, what is the mind?
What are living things? It's all just clumps of matter, why do clumps of matter develop consciousness? Those are pretty big questions for your worldview, you don't really get to just brush them off like that, you need to account for the existence of your mind somehow.
Yes, so it is a real world, material phenomenon, which is what I said.
I did, my mind exists as a result of physical/chemical processes within my body and brain. That’s it. This poses absolutely no problem for me, it’s a problem for you because you insist on treating consciousness as unique, other or above matter. That’s a you problem, I don’t have that problem.
Which brings us back to this comment again: https://hexbear.net/post/91483/comment/1013036
I was literally you a year or two ago when I started researching this stuff, I get that you think you've got it figured out but please give it a chance. You're making logical errors in your thinking without realizing it.
No, I’m not.
Yes, you are. The subjective feeling in of itself cannot be equal to configurations of matter, it's literally like saying the cup on your desk is literally the abstract concept of the number "2". It makes no sense at all, it's a complete non sequitur.
You literally twisted your mind in a knot to force yourself not to think about this properly.
No, you’re honestly just rambling now and projecting. Be a non-materialist if you want, but you’ve presented nothing resembling a coherent argument in favor of it, just circular reasoning and mumbo jumbo.
I could say the same to you too, your viewpoint makes absolutely 0 sense. Like I get saying consciousness is a stuff that's caused by matter interacting but what you're proposing is just patently absurd.
It's fascinating, it's like you're completely unable to metacognize your own awareness, this is beyond me, I give up.
Please don’t message me anymore, I don’t have any interest in arguing against pseudoscientific nonsense anymore.
Little do you know how pseudoscientific you're being, but whatever, it was a good talk I guess, bye.