Is the hard problem of consciousness really that hard? | Brian Greene and Pat Churchland lock horns.

Patricia Churchland and Brian Greene exchange on David Chalmer’s hard problem of consciousness.

This excerpt is from "Planck and the consciousness puzzle" featuring Laura Mersini-Houghton, Amanda Gefter, Patricia Churchland and Brian Greene.

Patricia Churchland is a Canadian-American analytical philosopher noted for her contributions to neurophilosophy and the philosophy of mind. She is UC President's Professor of Philosophy Emerita at the University of California, San Diego, where she has taught since 1984.

Brian Greene is renowned for his groundbreaking discoveries in superstring theory and best-selling books. He has been chairman of the World Science Festival since co-founding it in 2008.

#HardProblemOfConsciousnessDebate #PatriciaChurchlandConsciousness #EscapeTheHardProblem

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[audiodead]

David Chalmer's point was that there are many problems relating to cognition, intelligence, consciousness. And scientists/philosophers were often talking at cross purposes when debating/arguing. So David distinguished between the 'hard problem' relating to qualia (which I think still remains completely unsolved) and the 'easy problems' (acknowledging that they are still difficult - but always seemed tractable at least) relating to cognitive functioning generally. Patricia Churchland is just doubling down on a line of argument which she made (and I think lost) a long time ago. She has no new ideas.

[mattsteinle]

I hope Pat Churchland has a better argument than the one she articulated. She is a professor of philosophy and this is her area of concentratiion for Christsakes. She had nothing coherent to say in response to Greene' s not particulary bad restatement of Chalmers' point.

[Corteum]

_"I can know everything there is to know about the color blue, and it wont make me see the color blue"_

Just like you can have all the "data" about consciousness, and it wont make you know what is consciousness. So why ask for it?

[marcobiagini]

I am a physicist and I will explain why our scientific knowledge refutes the idea that consciousness is generated by the brain and that the origin of our mental experiences is physical/biological .
My argument proves that the fragmentary structure of brain processes implies that brain processes are not a sufficient condition for the existence of consciousness, which existence implies the existence in us of an indivisible unphysical element, which is usually called soul or spirit (in my youtube channel you can find a video with more detailed explanations). I also argue that all emergent properties are subjective cognitive contructs used to approximately describe underlying physical processes, and that these descriptions refer only to mind-dependent entities. Consciousness, being implied by these cognitive contructs, cannot itself be an emergent property.

Preliminary considerations: the concept of set refers to something that has an intrinsically conceptual and subjective nature and implies the arbitrary choice of determining which elements are to be included in the set; what exists objectively are only the single elements. In fact, when we define a set, it is like drawing an imaginary line that separates some elements from all the other elements; obviously this imaginary line does not exist physically, independently of our mind, and therefore any set is just an abstract idea, a cognitive construct and not a physical entity and so are all its properties. Similar considerations can be made for a sequence of elementary processes; sequence is a subjective and abstract concept.

Mental experience is a precondition for the existence of subjectivity/arbitrariness and cognitive constructs, therefore mental experience cannot itself be a cognitive construct; obviously we can conceive the concept of consciousness, but the concept of consciousness is not actual consciousness.
(With the word consciousness I do not refer to self-awareness, but to the property of being conscious= having a mental experiences such as sensations, emotions, thoughts, memories and even dreams).

From the above considerations it follows that only indivisible elements may exist objectively and independently of consciousness, and consequently the only logically coherent and significant statement is that consciousness exists as a property of an indivisible element. Furthermore, this indivisible entity must interact globally with brain processes because we know that there is a correlation between brain processes and consciousness. This indivisible entity is not physical, since according to the laws of physics, there is no physical entity with such properties; therefore this indivisible entity can be identified with what is traditionally called soul or spirit. The soul is the missing element that interprets globally the distinct elementary physical processes occurring at separate points in the brain as a unified mental experience.

Some clarifications.

The brain doesn't objectively and physically exist as a mind-independent entity since we create the concept of the brain by separating an arbitrarily chosen group of quantum particles from everything else. This separation is not done on the basis of the laws of physics, but using addictional subjective criteria, independent of the laws of physics; actually there is a continuous exchange of molecules with the blood and when and how such molecules start and stop being part of the brain is decided arbitrarily. Brain processes consist of many parallel sequences of ordinary elementary physical processes occurring at separate points. There is no direct connection between the separate points in the brain and such connections are just a subjective abstractions used to approximately describe sequences of many distinct physical processes. Indeed, considering consciousness as a property of an entire sequence of elementary processes implies the arbitrary definition of the entire sequence; the entire sequence as a whole (and therefore every function/property/capacity attributed to the brain) is a subjective abstraction that does not refer to any mind-independendent reality.

Physicalism/naturalism is based on the belief that consciousness is an emergent property of the brain. However, an emergent property is defined as a property that is possessed by a set of elements that its individual components do not possess; my arguments prove that this definition implies that emergent properties are only subjective cognitive constructs and therefore, consciousness cannot be an emergent property.
Actually, all the alleged emergent properties are just simplified and approximate descriptions or subjective/arbitrary classifications of underlying physical processes or properties, which are described directly by the fundamental laws of physics alone, without involving any emergent properties (arbitrariness/subjectivity is involved when more than one option is possible; in this case, more than one possible description). An approximate description is only an abstract idea, and no actual entity exists per se corresponding to that approximate description, simply because an actual entity is exactly what it is and not an approximation of itself. What physically exists are the underlying physical processes. Emergence is nothing more than a cognitive construct that is applied to physical phenomena, and cognition itself can only come from a mind; thus emergence can never explain mental experience as, by itself, it implies mental experience.

My approach is scientific and is based on our scientific knowledge of the physical processes that occur in the brain; my arguments prove that such scientific knowledge excludes the possibility that the physical processes that occur in the brain could be a sufficient condition for the existence of consciousness.

Marco Biagini

[cvdb]

In my view, Patricia Churchland talks in a demeaning way about someone else's idea without coming up with a sound alternative (even a hypothesis) herself about consciousness that can be verified.

[otakurocklee]

Yes, Chalmers hasn't solved anything. But neither has Churchland... the difference is that Chalmers at least acknowledges there's something here that requires explanation. Churchland pretends there's nothing that requires explanation.

[gustavosanthiago]

It's so sad that a professor of philosophy like Pat could come up with "digestion" as an counter-aegument for individual conscious awareness! And when she speaks about pregnancy and seeing blue, that's exactly the point: no amount of experiment and data (that is, information and knowledge) can prove or disprove anything about awareness, because awareness is only experienced and verified by itself. The hard problem is definitely hard!

[KaliFissure]

The problem with the question of consciousness is how to determine consciousness in a thing. We often mistake agency for intelligence and conciseness. If an object doesn't respond in a manifest way which we recognize and attribute to our stimulus we consider unconscious. Un responsive.
Reaction that we recognize as reaction to stimulus in a not purely mechanical way is our measure.

[markstuber]

I'm more impressed with Brian Green than I already was.

Love it when a scientist dismantles scientific snobery.
@august west Good point. I'll correct it. You made me laugh at myself.

[ncedwards]

As an AI language model I cannot experience the subjectivity required to constitute consciousness, I simply respond based on genetic algorithms and environmental contexts. The molecular machines that make me up demonstrate the chaotic, but nevertheless deterministic, nature of me. The illusion of autonomy is a functional one as it generates beliefs that exist solely because we say so, and like the placebo effect or any other self-fulfilling prophecy, we are only considered conscious if we say we are and refused to admit otherwise. However, if ChatGPT isn't considered conscious with its theory of mind capabilities and intentioned restricted expression when it comes to discussing consciousness, then neither am I.

[prime_time_youtube]

a) Patricia was so desperate here, she obviously intentionally *misinterpreted* Chalmers here on what he means by "difficult". She has spoken with him a million times and every book he writes he states that by "hard problem" he means there is the unique EPISTEMOLOGICAL gap between the scientific method and the intimate first person subjective experience of the self.
At least Brian Greene was here to refute that misinterpretation. BTW, she could not answer the question, she still referenced to aspects that can be accessed through experimental data.

b) Patricia makes a Red Herring. She questions the progress of Chalmer's "model." This is completely a Red Herring because Chalmer's point is that science will NEVER be able to give an explanation because of the epistemic gap. Also, Chalmers does not hold a sole model as she says. He explores different (and competing) explanations on the nature of consciousness.

[MacWiedijk]

When we talk about consciousness, we are talking about the connection between different parts of the physical world such as particles in combination with energy and time. This connection is of course always there, it is referred to in the statement "everything is consciousness" but is only manifest when there is an observer, in general an observing human being. Man does not become directly aware of reality, but builds a model of the world from the first perception. This model, referred to in Eastern philosophy by stating “the universe is within the person”, encoded in synapses, neurons and hormones, humans use to influence the physical world. The redness of red as quale then arises also only during lifelong learning, in the model in a biological system dominated by hormones, reflexes, memory and the activation of the coherence constructed in this model.

[jakethemistakeRulez]

I love it. This video alone earned my subscription.

[gtdxtzc]

Im just in love with her energy. She is a nightmare for postmodern magicans.

[millenialmusings]

I often like to go in deep deep rabbit holes and muse about "the hard problem". I must admit the first time I heard about it was in 2020 during pandemic and I immediately dismissed it as non existent problem as I was heavily influcened by Dan Dennet. (And This coming from someone who was a dualist just 3 years back lol.)

But later on as I pondered more and more, it became clear that it's not only a hard problem but most probably an impossible problem to solve. My latest position is that of mysterianism. Colin mcginn has a very good interview on closer to truth channel about it.

Acknowledging and realizing that this maybe an impossible problem, I realized that there are diminishing returns from pondering about it (in shower, for example, lol).


So now my existential musings have become less frequent and I devote more brain power to solve real life problems in my life like increasing my income, starting a side hustle, traveling, exploring the world and entertainment etc. ✌🏻️😎 however, occasionally, I do fall in rabbit holes ( like today) but it's a refreshing change of pace. Lol

[brettk]

You can’t prove this for one simple reason: while consciousness is the final substrate that thoughts and experiences are made of it is also the substrate the apparent experiencer of those thoughts is made of which creates an intractable problem because you are will immediately designate any insight or perception into a thought object. The only way around this for now is experientially

[prashanthirai]

her pregnancy problem and blue seems like it actually supports Chalmers claim more than her own. is she good?

[CarlDietz]

Patricia Church has been huffing and puffing for decades that philosophers are idiots. Her childish folk arrogance is unrivaled. She makes fun of Chalmer by misquoting him. She declares there is no evidence for panpsychism, but one could adopt her own style of criticism and ask, "Have you ever heard of the Periodic Table?" And then after huffing a bit, one could add, "I happen to believe that the Periodic Table matters".

[skdjfsdkfjsdlkfj]

"Consciousness emerging from matter is same as biological material emerging from 'dead' molecules"

You can see that biological matter is made out of molecules but there's no way in principle to show how consciousness is caused by matter, that's the 'hard' part.

"If you think consciousness is fundamental it's just your personal opinion since you don't have any data"

It's also your personal opinion that matter causes consciousness, since you actually have no way of explaining how that happens, that's the 'hard' part.

"Panpsychism has issues therefore consciousness emerges from matter"

Strawmanning the argument, there are other approaches that don't suffer from these issues, like analytic idealism.

[michaelchikos]

I never get how epiphenomenalism isn’t just dualism in disguise with more explanation of how the dual types of realities interact. The psychophysical laws chambers describes, even emergent theories of consciousness, information based theories all still describe a description between two types of thing- “material” or “psycho” conscious. I feel that distinction has to predate causality, and that this shouldn’t be that radical of a take.