Is there more to consciousnesses than just physics?
I'm having real trouble deciding on what to write today. I started to make a list, but after getting to about 20 different topics, I thought I should just start typing and see what comes out.
Not that there are many people reading my posts yet, but if you have any suggestions for what I could or should think/write about, please make suggestions in a comment.
I thought I'd go with a short post on consciousness (as I know @psychphilosopher is interested in this): why there might be more to it than just atoms and electrons etc. Before we get any further, I should insert a disclaimer: I'm not sure if I believe what follows, nor is this super comprehensive - it's just a sketch of an influential idea.
Our experiences have qualities like texture, colour (e.g.: redness), pressure, pain etc. Because philosophers like to make things difficult for everyone, we made up a word for those sort of qualities: qualia. This refers to the subjective quality of a sensation or experience, 'from the inside'. If someone wanted to argue for physicalism - that there's nothing more to our mental states than physical explanations because there's nothing more in the universe than physical stuff, then they must be able to explain (at least potentially) everything about us and our experiences in those terms.
Trouble is, there's a simple thought experiment that caused, and continues to cause, a lot of grief for those who think there's nothing more to life than what physics describes. It's known variously as the 'Knowledge Argument' or 'Mary's Room', and it was developed in the 1980s by Australian philosopher Frank Jackson in his article, Epiphenomenal Qualia. The key bit is in a couple of paragraphs on p130:
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 cords and expulsion of air from the lungs that results in the uttering of the sentence "The sky is blue".
So, Mary knows everything there is to know about the physics of coloured light and the neuro-biology of how we see it. She has never actually seen colour though.
Here's the key question: If we let her out of the room, and she sees a red apple🍎 in colour for the first time, does she learn something new? Does she know something she didn't know before?
Intuitively, it's hard to say 'no' - because she didn't know what red looked like, and now she does! But if that's true, then her supposedly complete knowledge was actually incomplete. But, as Jackson says: "...she had all the physical information. Ergo there is more to have than that, and Physicalism is false." (1982, p130).
People have been arguing about this ever since, so there's a lot more to it than this - but the core idea is there. Something to think about, eh?
Thanks for reading. Feel free to leave a comment - including suggestions for future posts (or maybe to beg me to never write about this again).
Photo by Michał Grosicki on Unsplash
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nice article. I think I am going to enjoy it a lot to read future articles from you.
I wanted to add one thing to the key question:
"Here's the key question: If we let her out of the room, and she sees a red apple🍎 in colour for the first time, does she learn something new? Does she know something she didn't know before?"
I think that experience is the answer.
She already knew the colour "red". So she is not learning a new thing (the red).
Of course she also don't know something she didn't knew before, for she knows it all.
But when we let her out of that room (at last, poor woman) and she sees this actual red apple, he will experience that what she already knew.
From that point on the only learning she does about it, is how to handle that experience.
On a smaller level you might say her visual part of the brain is learning to connect the info to the new experience, because "red" has never been processed before by the brain.
So a part of the brain is learning to do that, but she as a person isn't learning that.
She just experience a new impuls which she knows, see and feel, but in a whole new way.
(you could even compare this to tripping)
But that is just my humble view on your marvelous article ;)
Philosophers arguing against Jackson make similar points to yours.
But I would still say this - she might know about red, but she doesn't actually know what it looks like! She doesn't know what it's like to experience 'red-ness'.
Either way, I'm glad you liked the article, and if it made you think, then I'm doubly happy.
But by saying:
"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."
you basically say she does experience the "red-ness" but on a totally different level as you and I.
We have seen the color and been taught it is red, where she learned what red is before ever seeing it. then red is the mere word she has to link to it when te visual part actual sees the red.
She experience something that is the red in this case. But have not linked it to the actual visual of the color itself.
That is a new experience, because if we then tell her that red is blue or green, that is what it is then for her.
Because she experienced something that is true. then, when let out of the room she also experience something that is true. We have a word for that experience, she has not yet.
But she knows she sees red because that is what she has learned, she experience red the same way as she did in that black and white room where she only based it on wavelengths....
She now only has to endure the new impuls of the actual vision of the red....
So she sees what she learned and is experiencing it the same way with the visual exception which is new to her, but not newly learned except the word itself, that as to be linked to the experience.
does she learn something new? No, for she knows what is red and also has experienced red-ness, just not like us.
Does she know something she didn't know before? no, she knew it al the time. she is experiencing a new way of red: the visual experience
I even confuse myself at this point. You certainly got me thinking big time.....cheers for that.
I think I have contradicted myself a few times all ready....
Nah man, you're doing fine. It's getting late here though, so we might have to continue the conversation another day.
Nice post. In my view, there are many modern thinkers - particularly scientists - who follow what I've dubbed "the cult of materialism". This is the first time I've heard of "physicalsim", but it seems quite similar to the philosophy of materialism. I call it a cult because all we humans ultimately have at the end of the day are the stories we tell ourselves - about who we are and our place in the universe, about what's real, about everything. Materialism has become the religion of science - though it seems this may be changing. I'm all for a skeptical and critical eye, but it's impossible to remove the observer from the observation (and, in my experience, the duality of the two is a mere illusion). At some point, one may come to the conclusion that Alan Watt's did: that you're not just a walking meat-sack. When that happens, the world of simple matter magically comes alive and transforms into something so much greater than any mere mechanical model can possibly account for.
Some think that physicalism developed from materialism in line with increasingly sophisticated physics: not everything described by physics is 'material' - e.g.: gravity. Historically, I think 'physicalism' was coined by the Vienna Circle - more info here: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/physicalism/
But the conventional view is that the terms physicalism and materialism are basically interchangeable, and that's good enough for me on a hot Melbourne afternoon.
And yes, some people are very attached to their ideas. Dualism is a dirty word in much of science. But people are coming around - David Chalmers (another ANU philosopher) is a great ambassador for dualism and panpsychism.
I have a friend you might enjoy talking to. He just joined Steemit and hasn't been approved yet, though. He did his Bachelor's thesis combining Whitehead and Parmenides, and he wanted to touch on panpsychism (a big part of his personal philosophy) and Taoism, but he was already 8 pages over the 30 page limit lol.
I think the only way to really come to a comprehensive and solid philosophy of reality is to incorporate a lot of these more mystical traditions that have gone beyond the limitations of what can be put into words. That's one reason I also like Parmenides, because he's basically like the Lao Tzu of ancient Greece. Eastern and Western philosophy aren't at odds; they're two sides of the same coin. The trouble is when we get caught in the literalist surface layers.
By chance, have you read "A Brief History of Everything" by Ken Wilber?
Cool - I look forward to talking to your friend about this. If he's into Whitehead and panpsychism, and wants to read something a bit different, he should read Noumenautics by Peter Sjöstedt-H.
The limitations of words thing is important too. That why I like Wittgenstein: 'What can be shown cannot be said'.
Great article @samueldouglas
Thank you very much for sharing your valuable post, I would like upvote to your post, Also I am following you. Thanks again
I went to a public philosophy lecture by Frank Jackson once back in my student days.
I've completely forgotten about the contents & the only thing I remember was his funny way of talking.
When delivering a critique of some other philosopher's idea, Jackson frequently cupped his hands to his mouth & whispered loud to the audience in a title-tattling tone, as if he was delivering some scathing gossip!
I had a beer with him after a symposium on consciousness that our student philosophy society organised a few years back. He's pretty normal for a philosopher :D.
I say she already knew everything because she'd watched so much TV.
My next door neighbour watches TV all day too and he's a Fkn genius.
I mean, totally - that Dr Oz guy knows everything, right?
Great article and certainly something to think about. I like your explanation and will be sharing this to the group.
Thanks @pyschphilosopher! There's so much traffic on your FB group, it's hard to cut through, but you'll get there eventually.
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Interesting article. It really opens your mind and makes you think. Will be following and hope to read some more of your thoughts.