forum.panpsychism.net

First, I think it's a good idea to explain why I don't think physicalism is the answer to consciousness. There are reasons.

1.
There are an uncountable number of things on Earth that would not exist if only matter/energy and laws of physics were at play. Matter/energy interacting only according the laws of physics will never produce a computer, automobile, rifle, steel plant, or pair of Air Jordans. They will never spontaneously produce a Bach cantata, either as manuscript or audibly; War and Peace, either a physical copy of the book or the ideas contained in the writing; or the Mona Lisa. These are all things that would not exist if they had not been imagined before they existed, wanted, and intentionally produced. The laws of physics do not imagine things that do not exist, want, or intentionally produce things.

2.
Consciousness is not physical. Although it is inextricably bound to the physical, and doesn't exist without a physical component (at least we are not aware of any consciousness without a physical component), it is not, itself, physical. It does not have any physical properties, like charge, mass, density, hardness. We cannot measure it's speed, direction, or any other characteristics of physical processes. It cannot be sensed with any of our senses, or our technology. It is not describable with mathematics, which can be used to describe physical things.


Therefore, I think consciousness is fundamental. Physical things - objects and/or processes - build physical things. There is no logic, precedent, or evidence for the idea that physical things can build non-physical things. And there is no theory, not even a guess from those who assume physicalism must be the answer to consciousness, as to how it can happen.

If consciousness is not present at all times, in all things, and nothing is guiding physical evolution toward configurations that produce it, how did a physical configuration come to be that has this new thing, which did not exist until this configuration, and is so very different in nature from the configuration, that was never the point or purpose of the configuration, yet which the physical configuration produces?

In The Conscious Mind, David Chalmers writes:

Chalmers wrote: Why should there be conscious experience at all? It is central to a subjective viewpoint, but from an objective viewpoint it is utterly unexpected. Taking the objective view, we can tell a story about how fields, waves, and particles in the spatiotemporal manifold interact in subtle ways, leading to the development of complex systems such as brains. In principle, there is no deep philosophical mystery in the fact that these systems can process information in complex ways, react to stimuli with sophisticated behavior, and even exhibit such complex capacities as learning, memory, and language. All this is impressive, but it is not metaphysically baffling. In contrast, the existence of conscious experience seems to be a new feature from this viewpoint. It is not something that one would have predicted from the other features alone.

That is, consciousness is surprising. If all we knew about were the facts of physics, and even the facts about dynamics and information processing in complex systems, there would be no compelling reason to postulate the existence of conscious experience. If it were not for our direct evidence in the first-person case, the hypothesis would seem unwarranted; almost mystical, perhaps.

In Until the End of Time, Brian Greene wrote:

Greene wrote: And within that mathematical description, affirmed by decades of data from particle colliders and powerful telescopes, there is nothing that even hints at the inner experiences those particles somehow generate. How can a collection of mindless, thoughtless, emotionless particles come together and yield inner sensations of color or sound, of elation or wonder, of confusion or surprise? Particles can have mass, electric charge, and a handful of other similar features (nuclear charges, which are more exotic versions of electric charge), but all these qualities seem completely disconnected from anything remotely like subjective experience. How then does a whirl of particles inside a head—which is all that a brain is—create impressions, sensations, and feelings?

In this Closer To Truth video, Donald Hoffman says:

It's not just that we don't have scientific theories, we don't have remotely plausible ideas about how to do it.
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How could it be that sodium, and potassium, and calcium ions going through holes in membranes of this particular neuron causes my experience of Red 31? Now the mystery is even more intensified. So the neural correlates of consciousness don't solve the problem, they make it more intense. Why should it be that consciousness seems to be so tightly correlated with activity that is utterly different in nature then conscious experience?

In
this Closer To Truth video, David Eagleman says:

Your other question is, "Why does it feel like something?". That we don't know. And the weird situation we're in in modern neuroscience, of course, is that, not only do we not have a theory of that, but we don't know what such a theory would even look like. Because nothing in our modern mathematics says, "Ok, well, do a triple interval, carry the 2, and then {clicks tongue} here's the taste of feta cheese." So that's the challenge we're up against.

In this Closer to Truth video, Alex O'Connor says:

Imagine if I said to you that, if I think the right thoughts, in the right order, as long as I get it right, and it's complex enough, I can just produce some matter. Produce, like, a tennis ball in my hand, or something. You wouldn't just say that you're suspicious of that, or, "How would that work"? You would say that doesn't literally make sense.

But when it's the other way around, it's totally fine.

In this Closer To Truth video, Paul Davis says:

None of the concepts that we get from fundamental physics, you know, concepts like mass, and momentum, and electricity, and so on, seem relevant at all.

We know a good deal about the physical particles, structures, and processes going on in the brain. The physical can explain all the things Chalmers and Greene mention. But that's all they explain. No neuroscientist will point to Structure 1, Process A, Impulse Alpha, etc., and say, "And that is how consciousness is produced. It is that combination of elements that makes it happen."

And no being studying all of that will conclude that we are conscious. No physical properties and processes describe or explain anything other than the physical properties and processes.

It all explains how we, for example, distinguish different frequencies of the spectrum within a certain range, beginning with photons entering our eyes. Just as we can describe how mechanical things we have made do the same thing. It doesn't explain how the clump off physical matter inside our skulls have subjective experience or awareness.

Most people don’t begin as physicalists, and indeed even most physicalists don’t have the implicit ontological understanding of physicalism, because they haven’t attempted to grapple with the problem of consciousness from the materialists perspective.

Or if they do, they tend to wave their hands of the problem and obfuscate that any problem exists, and so live in ignorance, of their own implicit understanding of their experience.

Without interrogating your own experience you cannot begin to even grapple with the question of consciousness, firstly because you are completely overlooking who is the one that’s looking.

Most physicalists believe they are the brain.

They are completely identified (their identity is tied to) their mentation and thoughts, so they have no ability to step back from their own mind and objectively observe thought happening in their mind.

If they were able to do that, if they would take a real interest in consciousness, they would then realise that the thoughts that occur in their heads seem to appear, and when they aren’t observing their own experiences they are completely identified with that mental stream of consciousness.

Secondly, they are identified with their intentions.

They haven’t observed their minds enough to realise that intentions simply appear, with or without their input.

So if they were to start observing their own minds like this they would start to wonder what is observing the contents of consciousness.

Once that happens, their worldview of materialism is shattered.

Because they assume that they are in the world, they assume they are the physical body.

But when they observe their own minds, they might realise that the world is in them. Then they might have to question what they are, and what consciousness is.

That doesn’t mean they would have to completely give up all the physicalist theories, just that they would be placed in their proper order or hierarchy of primacy.