The Mind, Consciousness & Free Will: A conversation with Peter Tse

The Mind, Consciousness & Free Will: A conversation with Peter Tse

[ivan-nmxn]

One of the best conversations so far. Thanks to both of the Professors!

[ethicalantics]

I've been looking for clarification of theories of consciousness and free will for months, and this is the most rigorous, concise and consistently-thought-through I've found so far. Kudos! My one concern is Professor Tse's failure to note that there already are non-human conscious beings we "enslave" with little moral debate: dogs and other service animals. Our use of and directions to sheep dogs, attack dogs, search and rescue dogs, bomb-sniffing dogs and the like precisely mirror the Professor's "do the dishes" example of enslaving AIs.

[jimmyhjt]

Currently reading Peter Tse's contribution in the book Neuroexistentialism and found my way here. Great stuff.

[polymathpark]

Peter needs to talk with Sam Harris and John Vervaeke. great interview!

[marcobiagini]

I am a physicist and I will provide solid arguments that prove that consciousness cannot be generated by the brain (in my youtube channel you can find a video with more detailed explanations). Many argue that consciousness is an emergent property of the brain, but it is possible to show that such hypothesis is inconsistent with our scientific knowledges. In fact, it is possible to show that all the examples of emergent properties consists of concepts used to describe how an external object appear to our conscious mind, and not how it is in itself, which means how the object is independently from our observation. In other words, emergent properties are ideas conceived to describe or classify, according to arbitrary criteria and from an arbitrary point of view, certain processes or systems. In summary, emergent properties are intrinsically subjective, since they are conceptual models based on the arbitrary choice to focus on certain aspects of a system and neglet other aspects, such as microscopic structures and processes; emergent properties consist of ideas through which we describe how the external reality appears to our conscious mind: without a conscious mind, these ideas (= emergent properties) would not exist at all.

Here comes my first argument: arbitrariness, subjectivity, classifications and approximate descriptions, imply the existence of a conscious mind, which can arbitrarily choose a specific point of view and focus on certain aspects while neglecting others. It is obvious that consciousness cannot be considered an emergent property of the physical reality, because consciousenss is a preliminary necessary condition for the existence of any emergent property. We have then a logical contradiction. Nothing which presupposes the existence of consciousness can be used to try to explain the existence of consciousness.

Here comes my second argument: our scientific knowledge shows that brain processes consist of sequences of ordinary elementary physical processes; since consciousness is not a property of ordinary elementary physical processes, then a succession of such processes cannot have cosciousness as a property. In fact we can break down the process and analyze it step by step, and in every step consciousness would be absent, so there would never be any consciousness during the entire sequence of elementary processes. It must be also understood that considering a group of elementary processes together as a whole is an arbitrary choice. In fact, according to the laws of physics, any number of elementary processes is totally equivalent. We could consider a group of one hundred elementary processes or ten thousand elementary processes, or any other number; this choice is arbitrary and not reducible to the laws of physics. However, consciousness is a necessary preliminary condition for the existence of arbitrary choices; therefore consciousness cannot be a property of a sequence of elementary processes as a whole, because such sequence as a whole is only an arbitrary and abstract concept that cannot exist independently of a conscious mind.

Here comes my third argument: It should also be considered that brain processes consist of billions of sequences of elementary processes that take place in different points of the brain; if we attributed to these processes the property of consciousness, we would have to associate with the brain billions of different consciousnesses, that is billions of minds and personalities, each with its own self-awareness and will; this contradicts our direct experience, that is, our awareness of being a single person who is able to control the voluntary movements of his own body with his own will. If cerebral processes are analyzed taking into account the laws of physics, these processes do not identify any unity; this missing unit is the necessarily non-physical element (precisely because it is missing in the brain), the element that interprets the brain processes and generates a unitary conscious state, that is the human mind.

Here comes my forth argument: Consciousness is characterized by the fact that self-awareness is an immediate intuition that cannot be broken down or fragmented into simpler elements. This characteristic of consciousness of presenting itself as a unitary and non-decomposable state, not fragmented into billions of personalities, does not correspond to the quantum description of brain processes, which instead consist of billions of sequences of elementary incoherent quantum processes. When someone claims that consciousness is a property of the brain, they are implicitly considering the brain as a whole, an entity with its own specific properties, other than the properties of the components. From the physical point of view, the brain is not a whole, because its quantum state is not a coherent state, as in the case of entangled systems; the very fact of speaking of "brain" rather than many cells that have different quantum states, is an arbitrary choice. This is an important aspect, because, as I have said, consciousness is a necessary preliminary condition for the existence of arbitrariness. So, if a system can be considered decomposable and considering it as a whole is an arbitrary choice, then it is inconsistent to assume that such a system can have or generate consciousness, since consciousness is a necessary precondition for the existence of any arbitrary choice. In other words, to regard consciousness as a property ofthe brain, we must first define what the brain is, and to do so we must rely only on the laws of physics, without introducing arbitrary notions extraneous to them; if this cannot be done, then it means that every property we attribute to the brain is not reducible to the laws of physics, and therefore such property would be nonphysical. Since the interactions between the quantum particles that make up the brain are ordinary interactions, it is not actually possible to define the brain based solely on the laws of physics. The only way to define the brain is to arbitrarily establish that a certain number of particles belong to it and others do not belong to it, but such arbitrariness is not admissible. In fact, the brain is not physically separated from the other organs of the body, with which it interacts, nor is it physically isolated from the external environment, just as it is not isolated from other brains, since we can communicate with other people, and to do so we use physical means, for example acoustic waves or electromagnetic waves (light). This necessary arbitrariness in defining what the brain is, is sufficient to demonstrate that consciousness is not reducible to the laws of physics. Besides, since the brain is an arbitrary concept, and consciousness is the necessary preliminary condition for the existence of arbitrariness, consciousness cannot be a property of the brain. Based on these considerations, we can exclude that consciousness is generated by brain processes or is an emergent property of the brain. Marco Biagini

[John-lfxf]

24:34 This is impossible by the conservation of quantum information in the models in which it holds.

[REDPUMPERNICKEL]

Don't say 'life' as though it were a 'something'.
Instead say, 'the living process'.

Don't say 'consciousness' as though it were a 'something'.
Instead say, 'the being conscious process'.

A self is the thought at the heart of the being conscious process.
What I mean when I say, 'I am conscious' is,
it is my self who is conscious.
My self owns my body even though my body is the necessary substrate of my self.
My self is immaterial because my self is a thought.
Unlike all other thoughts the self thought is about its self (hence the name).

Thoughts are immaterial because they are what the discharge timing patterns of neurons encode.
Thus I am not a 'materialist' but instead I am a 'physicalist'.
Physicality entails both matter and movement whereas
materialism is about material existence only.
(Neural discharge is entirely the *movement* of ions).
(Lots of tiny related movements are what we refer to as 'process'
thus 'process' is an immaterial entity in the category labelled 'abstract'
where it rubs elbows with abstractions like 'pattern', 'time' and 'transportation').


We are conscious to maintain civilization and function within it.
Impossible to imagine civilization if we all still ran on instinct.
Civilization is what protects us from uncaring nature and
is what permits us to replicate in safety so that we became eight billion,
and still growing.
Self evidently civilization and the being-conscious-process co-evolved.
Wild dogs are not conscious but domesticated ones may be.

Disney has done no favors for good thinking by anthropocentrizing every living thing.
Children grow up indoctrinated by cartoons into believing that Alvin chipmunk is conscious.
Not a 'hard' indoctrination but definitely floating about in the unconscious
(which is of course the realm from which all conscious thoughts emerge).

[Dante]

I still cannot shake off Sam Harris's argument that in our own experience there is no freedom to be found in will. Even without scientifically examining the state of my brain, by paying attention to the arising of thoughts and actions, I can't claim ultimate ownership of them. They basically just appear and fade away.

[myothersoul]

Interesting but I don't get the 2nd order definition of consciousness. "Could have turned out otherwise" .... how could it have turned out otherwise? What would have had to been different? Neurons are made of atoms and we know how atoms behave. Is he saying the atoms could have behaved differently? Or there's something else pushing the atoms around that could have pushed them in a different way?

What is free will free from? The laws of nature?

"Free will" does suffer from a definition problem. Whatever people mean when they say free will they mean something determines our actions. Completely undermined actions would be chaos. Are the causes of our actions solely material or is there is something else? (Hint: there's no good reason to believe there's something else).