# Wherein SentientMeat tries to convince other-wise that physicalism is reasonable **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [April 19, 2006, 9:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wherein-sentientmeat-tries-to-convince-other-wise-that-physicalism-is-reasonable/353273 "2006-04-19T09:36:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 19\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![other-wise](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/4bbf92/32.png) [@other-wise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/other-wise)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2006, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wherein-sentientmeat-tries-to-convince-other-wise-that-physicalism-is-reasonable/353273/21 "2006-04-25T18:18:22Z")
[QUOTE=SentientMeat] _Sentence_: That which can be characterised as an arrangement in time and space of Matter, Energy and Forces (MEF). [/quote] Does MEF have any characteristics in common that distinguishes them _all_ as physical? Or are their individual characteristics axiomatic for the designation “physical” (i.e., does anything with any of the characteristics of either M, E, or F automatically qualify as “physical”)? > [@](#): > > _Summary_: Examples of entities which _cannot_ be characterised this way (according to the vast majority of philosophers regardless of whether they ascribe to physicalism or not) are God, the afterlife, epiphenomenal ectoplasm, the _elan vital_, and consciousness under the panpsychic position. Modern physics at the very cutting edge could be said to propose that matter, energy and forces are _themselves_ contingent on **spacetime** Is **spacetime** physical (i.e., does it share any of the characteristics of MEF, or are the characteristics of spacetime axiomatically “physical”)? Also, what specifically eliminates consciousness under the panpsychic position? > [@](#): > > However, for the purposes of this thread, it might be useful to forego such esoterics and begin from a mutual understanding of _ **things like** _ molecules, rocks, cells and PC’s. From here, these _spatial_ MEF arrangements can be devloped into _temporal_ MEF arrangements (remember the sentence: arrangement in **time and** space), which we can call “processes”. Here’s where we’re probably going to hit our first point of contention. You say that the spatial MEF arrangements can be developed into temporal MEF arrangements called “processes”, but don’t the MEFs _already_ possess temporal arrangements? If they didn’t, they would not exist in time, which I believe would render them non-physical under your characterizations. If all spatial MEF arrangements are indeed _already_ part of some process, then I would expand on my response to **AHunter3** : if physical entities are inextricably involved in processes at every level of inspection, what is the justification for embracing a physicalist philosophy vs. an interactionist philosophy? > [@](#): > > I simply (don’t) understand how a chap as bright as you finds the three premises in my OP and the ‘couple of points’ below them so difficult: they really are as simple as they evidently seem to all your friends. If you plain _disagreed_ with them and offered alternatives, like **Lib** , I can understand that just fine. But saying you don’t _understand_ them? Is that _really_ what you mean? Well, yeah, I _think_ that’s what I mean. It mystifies me that people champion physicalism as _the_ explanation of subjective awareness rather than as an interesting, fruitful way to explore the questions surrounding the subject. I’ve argued before that as far as I can tell, “the effect on consciousness of certain physical molecules” is _nil_, and that the correlations between cognitve functions and brain regions are spotty, controversial, and in the end still only _correlations_, and still only address putative cognitive functions, not awareness. That’s why I can’t understand the impression I get from many physicalists: “Well, ‘case closed’! We have a few important details to work out, but basically, we’ve nailed it”. When I look at the same evidence they do, I just see[this.](http://www.sciencecartoonsplus.com/miracle.gif) Also, I can’t tell from your last post whether you consider MEFs to tightly, but imperfectly, reflect reality-as-it-is; or if you consider them as metaphors: extremely _useful_ fictions, but fictions nonetheless. Also, part 2: What characteristics do MEFs share with subjective awareness? How are you translating (or building) from MEF to awareness? (This question may or may not be jumping the gun, but it’s inevitable considering the thread’s emphasis on PM/CS) Also, part 3: your response to **begbert2** : > [@Sentient Meat](#): > > (and who said anything about physical processes being predictable? Heck, I can’t tell you the weather here next month) … seems to contradict your post to me: > [@Sentient Meat](#): > > Summary: The worth of such a model is measured by its ability to provide falsifiable predictions from which to construct “laws”, statistical regularities, causal mechanisms or any other central requirement of what I’d call an explanation. ---
**Author:** ![duchesspukington](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/57b2e6/32.png) [@duchesspukington](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/duchesspukington)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2006, 6:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wherein-sentientmeat-tries-to-convince-other-wise-that-physicalism-is-reasonable/353273/22 "2006-04-26T06:59:14Z")
Wow…I’m new here and I’m duly impressed with y’all 🙂 Certainly I cannot hope to match wits with such great minds, however, I do have a question, maybe even two: If, in fact, someone could tell you/him/her/them the definite, undeniable truth about what is really ‘what’, would it enrich your/their life, make everything all better? What would be solved if every single person on earth knew, beyond all doubt, that everything is about physicalism? If your answer to this is yes, in what ways would knowing make a difference? In actuality, aren’t there pretty darn good arguments for all philosophies, be it physicalism, theism, solipsism, panpsychism, pantheism, merrimism, etc. Isn’t it even possible that they can all be subscribed to…all jumbled up together and used as one? Creating jumblism\<\<\<\<\< I’m kidding, but still… ---
**Author:** ![duchesspukington](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/57b2e6/32.png) [@duchesspukington](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/duchesspukington)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2006, 10:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wherein-sentientmeat-tries-to-convince-other-wise-that-physicalism-is-reasonable/353273/23 "2006-04-26T10:10:11Z")
Oh, another thing…how do we even know we’re really here, existing? Maybe we’re imagining everything. That would put a whole new light on physicalism, or any ism, for that matter. Is there proof that we are really here? Or maybe we’re like a huge “Truman Show” that some other life force is watching? Placing bets on what we’ll do next. Ok, that’s a bit ‘out there’…interesting though. ---
**Author:** ![SentientMeat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/43a26b/32.png) [@SentientMeat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SentientMeat)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2006, 11:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wherein-sentientmeat-tries-to-convince-other-wise-that-physicalism-is-reasonable/353273/24 "2006-04-26T11:02:43Z")
> [@other=wise](#): > > Does MEF have any characteristics in common that distinguishes them _all_ as physical? Or are their individual characteristics axiomatic for the designation “physical” (i.e., does anything with any of the characteristics of either M, E, or F automatically qualify as “physical”)? I’d suggest the latter: like I keep saying, all definitions must start somewhere. You’re asking the equivalent of “Do metabolism, growth and reproduction have any characteristics in common that distinguishes them all as _alive_?”, which rather strays from the point. > [@](#): > > Is **spacetime** physical (i.e., does it share any of the characteristics of MEF, or are the characteristics of spacetime axiomatically “physical”)? Your question should rather be posed the other way around: Do MEF share characteristics of _spacetime_? Like I said, absolute cutting edge physics might suggest a formulation like this – that matter, energy, forces and even time are all manifestations _of space itself_. But this is, again, a somewhat esoteric bifurcation. So, yes, it’s probably more useful here to take the physicality of _spacetime and the stuff in it_ as axiomatic. (Which, of course, I tried to make explicit with my **premises** in the OP with which you could disagree at will, thus cutting short the debate in an instant.) > [@](#): > > Also, what specifically eliminates consciousness under the panpsychic position? From physicality? Fuck knows – you’d best ask one, since I have trouble getting anything other than simple _assertions_ that consciousness can’t be physical out of _any_ of them. (They also simply assert that the _lan vital_ is just different, without saying how.) > [@](#): > > Here’s where we’re probably going to hit our first point of contention. You say that the spatial MEF arrangements can be developed into temporal MEF arrangements called “processes”, but don’t the MEFs already possess temporal arrangements? If they didn’t, they would not exist in time, which I believe would render them non-physical under your characterizations. Of course they can possess temporal arrangements – that’s _the point_, but it’s the point you seem to have trouble accepting, so I took it a little further back. Remember, I suggested a starting point of mutually understood “things like” molecules, rocks, cells and PC’s. These things _in particular_ we can think of as being frozen, static **spatial** arrangements of smaller bits, whatever they are. We can _photograph_ them (_ie._ capture the arrangement at a single frozen instant) and you recognise them just as easily. This, I think, is what you generally refer to as a _thing_ (correction invited again – in fact, just append these 3 words silently to every sentence). From there, consider a _movie_ of these objects. We are then, yes, watching that spatial arrangement develop over _time_ - a spatio-_temporal_ arrangement. We can see the _reactions_ of the molecule, the _geological change_ of the rock, the _metabolism_ of the cell, the _computations_ of the PC. This is why the definition I offer for “physical” (which, by the way, I don’t think is really all that important here anyway – any more than an evolution debate requires a definition of life) involves arrangements in **spacetime** – all one word, _per_ Einstein. Thus if you don’t like matter, energy and forces having no temporal component, fine, I agree: that’s why I suggested teh definition in the first place. The distinction between spatial and spatio-temporal arrangements was only for your edificational benefit anyway! > [@](#): > > If all spatial MEF arrangements are indeed already part of some process, then I would expand on my response to AHunter3: if physical entities are inextricably involved in processes at every level of inspection, what is the justification for embracing a physicalist philosophy vs. an interactionist philosophy? Hair-splitting irrelevance IMO, since I’d characterise interactions _as_ physical (space **time** , remember). So that really is as insubstantial a tomato-tomahto distinction as I’ve ever seen (which perhaps explains why the Stanford site doesn’t even have a separate entry for it). If you adopted interactionism, great – I’d think of you as joining the same side as me. (Indeed, I find the whole emergent vs. eliminative materialism rather a non-debate, so let’s not wind up in _that_ muddy field either). > [@](#): > > Well, yeah, I think that’s what I mean. It mystifies me that people champion physicalism as _the_ explanation of subjective awareness rather than as an interesting, fruitful way to explore the questions surrounding the subject. Then I think you’re strawmanising physicalism a little. Like I said, it’s the position _that_ consciousness has a physical basis. It doesn’t provide **the** explanation _itself_ – that is the Challenge of the Millennium for _cognitive science_. And you’re as entitled to be as dissatisfied with the gaps in that as with those in evolutionary biology, cosmology or any other science. > [@](#): > > I’ve argued before that as far as I can tell, “the effect on consciousness of certain physical molecules” is nil, Desflurane is a physical molecule. It makes me _un_consciousness. How it does so is the Challenge, but we cannot deny _that_ it does so. > [@](#): > > and that the correlations between cognitve functions and brain regions are spotty, controversial, and in the end still only correlations, and still only address putative cognitive functions, not awareness. I am aware of far less when my brain shows only a tiny fraction of waking activity. When correlations become so strong after all other factors have been investigated, we _can_ IMO start to talk about _causation_. The “how” is then the eminently scientific enterprise of filling explanatory gaps, which still exist in al other sciences. > [@](#): > > That’s why I can’t understand the impression I get from many physicalists: “Well, ‘case closed’! We have a few important details to work out, but basically, we’ve nailed it”. For the Nth time, cognitive science has all kinds of explanatory gaps – it’s anything but ‘closed’. But so do all other sciences, since otherwise we could close their university departments worldwide. Physicalism is merely the position that those explanations, whatever they are, don’t require anything other than generally biological stuff doing generally computational things: no God, no soul, no epiphenomenal ectoplasm, no vitalistic equivalent - _you know what I’m talking about_. It really is that reasonable, straighforward and conservative a position for an ape to set forth, so there’s no reason to “get impressions” which are altogether more radical, unless you particularly want to debate _them_ rather than what I’m actually saying. > [@](#): > > When I look at the same evidence they do, I just see this. That cartoon appearing at the **start** of _Consciousness Explained_, of course. That you still feel it applies having read it suggests to me that your difficulties are in what can be explained _in principle_ in science (cognitive or not), hence this thread. > [@](#): > > Also, I can’t tell from your last post whether you consider MEFs to tightly, but imperfectly, reflect reality-as-it-is; or if you consider them as metaphors: extremely useful fictions, but fictions nonetheless. There’s _no such thing_ as matter, energy and forces? I don’t _really_ feel a force of gravity or impact? I’m not _really_ made of matter? Energy is _fictional_? That barks up the tree of idealism quite loudly to me – if matter, energy, forces and spacetime are fictional then I’d struggle to come up with something which _isn’t_. Reality as far as I can tell is based on arrangements of these elements: minds are caused by brains, and brains are _made of stuff_. > [@](#): > > Also, part 2: What characteristics do MEFs share with subjective awareness? How are you translating (or building) from MEF to awareness? (This question may or may not be jumping the gun, but it’s inevitable considering the thread’s emphasis on PM/CS) Not **directly** , except perhaps for a small subset of phenomena: Like I say, I’m a physicalist but [not a reductionist](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=7152662&postcount=38). We look back through evolution, forming atoms from subatoms/energy (stellar nucleosynthesis), then atoms togther into molecules (chemistry), molecules together into bigger molecules (polymolecular chemistry), bigger molecules into self replicating molecules (molecular biology), forming structures (cellular biology), and further _multicellular_ structures, which replicate-mutate-compete (evolutionary biology) to ultimately become primitive jawless fish (first working memory), and on to reptiles (first R-complex brains), mammals (first limbic system), primates (first frontal cortex) and homo sapiens sapiens (first _enormous_ frontal cortex). Somewhere in there, a transition from lack of awareness (_ie._ what my corpse has) to awareness (_ie._ what I have right now) took place, if only gradually. We don’t have to refer to _eg._ quantum mechanics for each step: biologists don’t need physics degrees to do biology, even though they can easily _consider_ animals to be machines which are ultimately made of atoms and molecules. > [@](#): > > Also, part 3: your response to begbert2 … seems to contradict your post to me: Not at all - that’s the _some/all_ set fallacy rearing its ugly head again. When I say that falsifiable predictions are the hallmark of a valuable model, **of course** I’m not saying that _every aspect is or should be predictable_. I’ve said this many times, but I’ll say it again. Understanding the weather _in terms of_ matter, energy and forces does not require us to predict it for the year 3000. If that were the absurdly high threshold for what counts as “understanding”, there is arguably _no such thing_ as understanding at all in most sciences. ---
**Author:** ![Spiritus\_Mundi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c68b51/32.png) [@Spiritus\_Mundi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spiritus_Mundi)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2006, 1:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wherein-sentientmeat-tries-to-convince-other-wise-that-physicalism-is-reasonable/353273/25 "2006-04-27T01:15:08Z")
> [@](#): > > Processes. > > It’s verbs all the way down Without diving into the details of string theory and whether it really has replaced other theories based upon Quantum Dynamics, the above statement is an abuse of language. Admitedly, it is difficult not to abuse language when discussing quantum events and explanations, but this kind of easy aphorism does nothing to illuminate the basic paradox that **II Gyan II** was questioning. **Inter** actions do, indeed, require two or more entities. Now, the question of whether those entities meet the requirements of traditional physicalism might be interesting, but the message of “vacuum fluxuations” is not that “it’s all verbs”. The messge of vacuum fluxuations is that a quantum vacuum is not as empty as it seems. One can argue whther an energy potential is physical (I would argue that it is, under the definitions of conventional physicalism), but when using English one cannot meaningfully describe an energy potential as a verb. ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2006, 2:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wherein-sentientmeat-tries-to-convince-other-wise-that-physicalism-is-reasonable/353273/26 "2006-04-27T02:19:59Z")
“verbs all the way down” wasn’t a dead-serious post. The notion that the entire universe is essentially a vacuum fluctuation (not merely the notion that vacuum fluctuations do exist), however, was. > [@](#): > > Interactions do, indeed, require two or more entities OK, fair enough, but not necessarily of objects, “things”. Matter at the bottom rung would appear to consist of the interaction of quantum possibilities, which in turn are reciprocal deviations from a net sum of 0. If you limit yourself to talking about particles that do not consist of interactions, you have nothing to say and nothing to say it about, there’s no there there. ---
**Author:** ![Spiritus\_Mundi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c68b51/32.png) [@Spiritus\_Mundi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spiritus_Mundi)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2006, 4:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wherein-sentientmeat-tries-to-convince-other-wise-that-physicalism-is-reasonable/353273/27 "2006-04-27T04:00:43Z")
> [@](#): > > “verbs all the way down” wasn’t a dead-serious post. The notion that the entire universe is essentially a vacuum fluctuation (not merely the notion that vacuum fluctuations do exist), however, was. Well – the whole idea of what constitutes a “thing” in such a Universe is actually pretty interesting. From my perspective, it appears that you are trying to make statements about a “matter”::“not matter” dichotomy from within a contex tin which there is essentially (and I do mean essentially) no such distinction. > [@](#): > > Matter at the bottom rung would appear to consist of the interaction of quantum possibilities, which in turn are reciprocal deviations from a net sum of 0. “Interactions” is a pretty tricky word to use, here. The expression of a quantum possibilitiy as a “real” (or virtual, for that matter) particle can be described in probabilistic terms. However, describing that expression as an interaction between possibiliities is not necessarily more apt than describing it as the outcome of an event or as a member of a sequence or even as a note in a symphony. Perhaps I am misinterpreting the thrust of your comment, though. The line about “reciprocal deviations from a net sum of 0” confuses me: zero-point energy is not zero, that’s pretty much the interesting thing about it and the basic explanation for virtual particles and the cosmological constant. ---
**Author:** ![SentientMeat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/43a26b/32.png) [@SentientMeat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SentientMeat)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2006, 8:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wherein-sentientmeat-tries-to-convince-other-wise-that-physicalism-is-reasonable/353273/28 "2006-04-27T08:26:43Z")
Great to have you along, **Spiritus**. Any suggestions regarding what I’m under- or over-emphasising here, or whether I’m taking an entirely wrong tack, would be welcomed. ---
**Author:** ![other-wise](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/4bbf92/32.png) [@other-wise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/other-wise)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2006, 2:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wherein-sentientmeat-tries-to-convince-other-wise-that-physicalism-is-reasonable/353273/29 "2006-04-27T14:09:48Z")
**Sentient** , at first it seemed sensible to me that since we were trying to come to a mutual understanding of the term “physical”, we should start at the simplest level and work our way up. In hindsight, I see what should have been obvious to me in the first place: in physics, the “simplest” level is inherently the most controversial and difficult to understand. So, with your indulgence, let me once more sweep the table clear, take your suggestion to concentrate (at least for the time being) on the molecules/rocks/cells/computers level of inquiry, and bring the focus down to a few key issues (and again, I’m not trying to ignore or side-step your posts; I’m just trying to keep us off the roundabouts, and I repeat my offer to address directly anything you’ve posted thus far). Let me start with the following because it seems like one of the few areas where we’re not talking past each other, i.e., I think we understand each others view, we just flat-out _disagree_: > [@SentientMeat](#): > > > [@otherwise](#): > > > > I’ve argued before that as far as I can tell, “the effect on consciousness of certain physical molecules” is nil, > > Desflurane is a physical molecule. It makes me unconsciousness. How it does so is the Challenge, but we cannot deny that it does so. I can and do deny it. As I’ve said before, more than once I’ve had a noseful of Desflurane (at least, I’m pretty sure it was Desflurane): what I was aware of got all blurry and strange, then sharpened into the worried/relieved faces of my loved ones peering over me in the recovery room. There was no point at which I had _no_ subjective awareness, i.e., subjective awareness never “disappears” - you’re always subjectively aware, and always have been. There is no way to substantiate that claim with third-person science, of course, which is one reason I think third-person science is demonstrably limited when it comes to exploring consciousness. However, instead of third-person science, we can look at it analytically: If ever, at some point, you were _not_ aware, how would you know? What would non-awareness be an awareness _of_? In the same way, as long as you can remember, you’ve always been aware. What would a memory of non-awareness be a memory _of_? > [@SentientMeat](#): > > I am aware of far less when my brain shows only a tiny fraction of waking activity. Aware of “far less” is still aware. We’re not discussing the extent or quality of what you’re aware of, we’re discussing _being_ aware, and being aware is like being pregnant: there’s no such thing as “more or less” pregnant, you either are or you aren’t. > [@SentientMeat](#): > > When correlations become so strong after all other factors have been investigated, we can IMO start to talk about causation. I don’t know what you’re referring to here. _What_ other factors and how were they investigated? > [@SentientMeat](#): > > ( **bolding mine** )We look back through evolution, forming atoms from subatoms/energy (stellar nucleosynthesis), then atoms togther into molecules (chemistry), molecules together into bigger molecules (polymolecular chemistry), bigger molecules into self replicating molecules (molecular biology), forming structures (cellular biology), and further multicellular structures, which replicate-mutate-compete (evolutionary biology) to ultimately become primitive jawless fish (first working memory), and on to reptiles (first R-complex brains), mammals (first limbic system), primates (first frontal cortex) and homo sapiens sapiens (first enormous frontal cortex). **Somewhere in there, a transition from lack of awareness (ie. what my corpse has) to awareness (ie. what I have right now) took place, if only gradually**. This is a sticking point for me. Nothing in the chain you describe implies awareness, or a mechanism for its occurrence. Atoms form molecules, molecules form neurons, and neurons form brains, and then it stops cold: “electro-chemical neuronal activity” is the end of the story, with no awareness anywhere along the line. It’s as if we put the alarm clock back together and it seemed to be working perfectly when we suddenly realized there was a part left over. I have a few questions around this, but let me start here: Physically, what is the function of awareness? (i.e., what physical purpose does awareness serve that cannot be served by non-aware cognitive processing?) > [@SentientMeat](#): > > Not at all - that’s the some/all set fallacy rearing its ugly head again. When I say that falsifiable predictions are the hallmark of a valuable model, of course I’m not saying that every aspect is or should be predictable. I’ve said this many times, but I’ll say it again. Understanding the weather in terms of matter, energy and forces does not require us to predict it for the year 3000. If that were the absurdly high threshold for what counts as “understanding”, there is arguably no such thing as understanding at all in most sciences. Ok; you draw a line, or establish some kind of threshold, for predictions in order for them to qualify as evidence. What is the “threshold for prediction” in the case of subjective awareness? ---
**Author:** ![SentientMeat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/43a26b/32.png) [@SentientMeat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SentientMeat)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2006, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wherein-sentientmeat-tries-to-convince-other-wise-that-physicalism-is-reasonable/353273/30 "2006-04-27T17:20:17Z")
> [@other-wise](#): > > So, with your indulgence, let me once more sweep the table clear, take your suggestion to concentrate (at least for the time being) on the molecules/rocks/cells/computers level of inquiry, and bring the focus down to a few key issues OK, but what with all this table-sweeping it’s rather difficult to tell whether I’m making any _progress_ in my quest to make physicalism seem reasonable to you. If I answer one of your questions with the best paragraphs I can muster and no more mention is made of it, I can’t tell whether you’re ignoring it because I’ve _convinced_ you or because it’s such utterly evasive balls that you recognize a dead end when you see one. Some indication of those issues which _have_ attained the magical “not unreasonable anymore” threshold would be very useful. > [@](#): > > I can and do deny it. As I’ve said before, more than once I’ve had a noseful of Desflurane (at least, I’m pretty sure it was Desflurane): what I was aware of got all blurry and strange, then sharpened into the worried/relieved faces of my loved ones peering over me in the recovery room. There was no point at which I had no subjective awareness, i.e., subjective awareness never “disappears” - you’re always subjectively aware, and always have been. What about that **hour or so which demonstrably passed between the blurriness and the loved ones**? If you _were_ aware of that hour, great, please go right ahead and tell me or them all about it. If you **weren’t** , then that hour constitutes a **point at which you were not aware**. Really, what you’re proposing seems to me to be far more unreasonable and, dare I say it, _perverse_ a use of plain English than anything I’ve ever seen even in anti- or non-physicalist literature. When you ask those loved ones why the clock seems wrong, don’t you _believe_ them when they say that you’ve been doing an incredibly convincing corpse impression for an hour, and even play you the video? If you sat on the jury in an assault trial in which the prosecution told the court that in front of numerous witnesses the defendant **knocked the victim unconscious** , would you raise your hand and ask the judge to strike the comment from the record because you think no such thing is possible? What about the years before you were conceived? I’d love to hear your account of what you were aware of then, if you _always have been_. Come, I implore you, let us ditch this sophistry. But if for some bizarre reason you _cannot_ bring yourself to do so, let us at least not deny that physical molecules like LSD and psilocybin _affect_ our consciousness despite being mere arrangements of everyday atoms (which in other arrangements have no such effect whatsoever). Your position that the effect on consciousness of certain physical molecules is nil is simply absurd on its face, but if that’s the hill you want to fight on, fair enough: We can explore your alternative explanations for such effects. > [@](#): > > If ever, at some point, you were _not_ aware, how would you know? **Evidence** , similar to that which convinces me that there’s a real place called Australia, Ancient Greeks built the Acropolis and the Holocaust actually happened. How else do you **explain** the clocks, loved-one testimony and video? > [@](#): > > What would non-awareness be an awareness of? Nothing, of course: they’re _mutually exclusive entities_. Are you seriously asking this? > [@](#): > > In the same way, as long as you can remember, you’ve always been aware. What would a memory of non-awareness be a memory of? It wouldn’t be a memory at all. Why are you positing one? > [@](#): > > Aware of “far less” is still aware. We’re not discussing the extent or quality of what you’re aware of, we’re discussing being aware, and being aware is like being pregnant: there’s no such thing as “more or less” pregnant, you either are or you aren’t. Interesting experiments beckon there: we use graduated desflurane doses, and after X minutes ask the patient what they were aware of in that X minutes. Do you think that no matter how high the dose, the answers will all be the same? > [@](#): > > I don’t know what you’re referring to here. What other factors and how were they investigated? I mean a well designed **control** , _ie._ trying to be as certain as possible that the variable the experiment is testing is the _only_ significant thing changed in one case but not in the other. > [@](#): > > This is a sticking point for me. Nothing in the chain you describe implies awareness, or a mechanism for its occurrence. Atoms form molecules, molecules form neurons, and neurons form brains, and then it stops cold: “electro-chemical neuronal activity” is the end of the story, with no awareness anywhere along the line. But you agree that _homo sapiens_ are aware, at the very very least. If you think that, say, homo erectus _wasn’t_, we can look at the differences between the two. If you think he was, but Australopithecus wasn’t, we can look at the differences between the two. If you think he was, but earlier primates weren’t, we can look at the differences between the two, _etc._ Or, we could work our way up using _today’s_ animals and ask you whether, say, ants or bees or fish or pigeons have awareness by examining precisely what their electro-chemical neuronal activity _encodes_. Either way, you draw the threshold where you dare and then we talk, or you refuse to draw any threshold whatsoever and we talk about the awareness of molecules, corpses and rocks (which even ‘awkward’ philosophers like Searle and McGinn consider “ludicrous” and “absurd”, but good luck with it anyway). > [@](#): > > Physically, what is the function of awareness? (i.e., what physical purpose does awareness serve that cannot be served by non-aware cognitive processing?) Why must there be one? > [@](#): > > Ok; you draw a line, or establish some kind of threshold, for predictions in order for them to qualify as evidence. What is the “threshold for prediction” in the case of subjective awareness? As in any heterophenomenonlogical experiment, _repeatability_ is effectively a prediction that if you run the same experiment again in the future, you’ll get results which are just as statistically significant. Again, this is just the methodology of all kinds of other sciences (\*eg.\*biological, medical or environmental science) applied to responses from supposedly aware entities. Having said all of this, note that I think we’re rather starting to jazz-improv free-associate again – _any_ thread will spiral out of control without dedicated focus. In My Opinion, none of what we’re talking about in this particular post is _all that_ important in relation to your first bullet point regarding what I mean by physical. Has that been resolved yet to something approaching your satisfaction? ---
**Author:** ![other-wise](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/4bbf92/32.png) [@other-wise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/other-wise)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2006, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wherein-sentientmeat-tries-to-convince-other-wise-that-physicalism-is-reasonable/353273/31 "2006-04-28T20:59:33Z")
[QUOTE=SentientMeat] OK, but what with all this table-sweeping it’s rather difficult to tell whether I’m making any _progress_ in my quest to make physicalism seem reasonable to you. If I answer one of your questions with the best paragraphs I can muster and no more mention is made of it, I can’t tell whether you’re ignoring it because I’ve _convinced_ you or because it’s such utterly evasive balls that you recognize a dead end when you see one. Some indication of those issues which _have_ attained the magical “not unreasonable anymore” threshold would be very useful. [/quote] Sorry, I thought we had covered all this. Let me recap: I do not find physicalism _per se_ unreasonable. This is not an altering of position on my part; you have to remember that this whole thing started when I stated my bewilderment concerning the dominance of the physicalist philosophy in PM/CS. I did not introduce the term “reasonable” into our exchange; _you_ did when, in response to my statement, you asserted that my bewilderment was tantamount to saying that the alternatives to physicalism seem just as **reasonable** as physicalism. You’ve said yourself that at this stage of the game, physicalism does not have an explanation for subjective awareness. Neither do the alternatives. The lack of explanation for subjective awareness is why I find the physicalist philosophical position as unreasonable as the alternatives when it comes to PM/CS. > [@](#): > > What about that **hour or so which demonstrably passed between the blurriness and the loved ones**? If you _were_ aware of that hour, great, please go right ahead and tell me or them all about it. If you **weren’t** , then that hour constitutes a **point at which you were not aware**. Really, what you’re proposing seems to me to be far more unreasonable and, dare I say it, _perverse_ a use of plain English than anything I’ve ever seen even in anti- or non-physicalist literature. When you ask those loved ones why the clock seems wrong, don’t you _believe_ them when they say that you’ve been doing an incredibly convincing corpse impression for an hour, and even play you the video? If you sat on the jury in an assault trial in which the prosecution told the court that in front of numerous witnesses the defendant **knocked the victim unconscious** , would you raise your hand and ask the judge to strike the comment from the record because you think no such thing is possible? What about the years before you were conceived? I’d love to hear your account of what you were aware of then, if you _always have been_. > > Come, I implore you, let us ditch this sophistry. But if for some bizarre reason you _cannot_ bring yourself to do so, let us at least not deny that physical molecules like LSD and psilocybin _affect_ our consciousness despite being mere arrangements of everyday atoms (which in other arrangements have no such effect whatsoever). Your position that the effect on consciousness of certain physical molecules is nil is simply absurd on its face, but if that’s the hill you want to fight on, fair enough: We can explore your alternative explanations for such effects. Nope, I’m sticking to muh guns on this one. And accusations of sophistry don’t exactly further the conversation; I have no history of presenting deceptive arguments on this board (_stupid_ arguments, maybe; _inchoate_ arguments, certainly. But not deceptive.) Now then… first of all, you’re conflating a lack of awareness with a lack of behaviors you’ve _associated_ with awareness. The latter is the only thing you or anyone else can test for or observe (whether video taped or live). That there are many credible (and disturbing) reports of completely unresponsive patients who were nonetheless fully aware during their operations, and that observations of behavior start becoming highly problematic in cases of people afflicted with, say, paralysis or catatonia demonstrates the inherent unreliability of those observations when it comes to determining awareness. Simply put, there is no way to confirm awareness (or lack thereof) from behavioral observation. Second, you don’t take into account that someone may simply not _remember_ what they were aware of. We’ve all been in the position of forgetting things we were once aware of, and that situation is even more likely to occur with an anesthetized patient, seeing as how [some](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=9447768&dopt=Abstract) anesthetics are formulated specifically with such an outcome in mind. Third, you say that according to the clock an hour has passed. But the only reason we _need_ clocks in the first place is because our awareness of time is ridiculously malleable. When we’re bored, minutes are experienced like hours; in deep concentration, hours disappear so quickly we wonder why it’s “suddenly” dark outside. And that occurs even _without_ time-distorting, psychoactive drugs like anesthesia. Fourth, my experience of awareness is _atemporal_. Rudolf Carnap once wrote: “_Einstein said the problem of the Now worried him seriously. He explained that the experience of the Now means something special for man, something essentially different from the past and the future, but that this important difference does not and cannot occur within physics. That this experience cannot be grasped by science seemed to him a matter of painful but inevitable resignation. So he concluded that ‘there is something essential about the Now which is just outside the realm of science’._” (BTW, if anyone can document Carnaps’s claim, or has found similar sentiments in writings by or about Einstein, I’d appreciate a reference.) Yogi Berra, as usual, highlighted the problem more succinctly: **Teamate** : “Hey, what time is it?” **Yogi** : “You mean now?” From an experiential standpoint, it’s never the past or the future; it’s always _now_ and always has been. Sure, _what_ I’m aware of is in constant flux, but _that_ I’m aware is not. Which brings us to: > [@SentientMeat](#): > > But if for some bizarre reason you cannot bring yourself to do so, let us at least not deny that physical molecules like LSD and psilocybin affect our consciousness despite being mere arrangements of everyday atoms (which in other arrangements have no such effect whatsoever). Your position that the effect on consciousness of certain physical molecules is nil is simply absurd on its face, but if that’s the hill you want to fight on, fair enough: We can explore your alternative explanations for such effects. I disagree. LSD and psilocybin do _not_ affect my awareness at all; they only affect _what_ I am aware of. With LSD molecules I’m aware of the trails my hands seem to be leaving in the air. With ethanol molecules, I’m aware of a doubling of objects in my vision. Pretty much _any_ molecule that I ingest will have an effect, whether I’m consciously aware of that effect or not. As I said above, _what_ I’m aware of is constantly changing: one minute I’m sleepy, the next drunk, the next absorbed in a movie, etc.. But **being** aware doesn’t change; it’s just what I _am_. > [@](#): > > **Evidence** , similar to that which convinces me that there’s a real place called Australia, Ancient Greeks built the Acropolis and the Holocaust actually happened. How else do you **explain** the clocks, loved-one testimony and video? See previous. > [@](#): > > Interesting experiments beckon there: we use graduated desflurane doses, and after X minutes ask the patient what they were aware of in that X minutes. Do you think that no matter how high the dose, the answers will all be the same? See previous. > [@](#): > > I mean a well designed **control** , _ie._ trying to be as certain as possible that the variable the experiment is testing is the _only_ significant thing changed in one case but not in the other. Since _no one knows how neurons process information_, we’re a long way from controlling enough variables to be able to determine that a specific cognitive function is caused by specific neural correlates in a given brain region. You’re free to leap that explanatory chasm; I’ll wait until the gap has closed a bit. > [@](#): > > But you agree that _homo sapiens_ are aware, at the very very least. If you think that, say, homo erectus _wasn’t_, we can look at the differences between the two. If you think he was, but Australopithecus wasn’t, we can look at the differences between the two. If you think he was, but earlier primates weren’t, we can look at the differences between the two, _etc._ Or, we could work our way up using _today’s_ animals and ask you whether, say, ants or bees or fish or pigeons have awareness by examining precisely what their electro-chemical neuronal activity _encodes_. Either way, you draw the threshold where you dare and then we talk, or you refuse to draw any threshold whatsoever and we talk about the awareness of molecules, corpses and rocks (which even ‘awkward’ philosophers like Searle and McGinn consider “ludicrous” and “absurd”, but good luck with it anyway). Where did “drawing thresholds” come from? I said that nothing in the chain of physicality that you describe implies awareness, or a mechanism for its occurrence. If that’s correct, what _other_ evidence are you drawing on in order to ascribe awareness to _anything_? > [@](#): > > Why must there be one? **???** Are you suggesting awareness is an epiphenonomenon? > [@](#): > > Having said all of this, note that I think we’re rather starting to jazz-improv free-associate again – _any_ thread will spiral out of control without dedicated focus. In My Opinion, none of what we’re talking about in this particular post is _all that_ important in relation to your first bullet point regarding what I mean by physical. Has that been resolved yet to something approaching your satisfaction? Well, no, but as I said, I realized that there was no way that my simple question was gonna have a simple answer (as the exchange between \*\* AHunter3\*\* and **Spiritus** demonstrates), and for our purposes, it probably doesn’t need one. But the contents of the post are indeed important in relation to my first bullet point because _all_ the bullet points were in relation to physicalism in PM/CS. ---
**Author:** ![SentientMeat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/43a26b/32.png) [@SentientMeat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SentientMeat)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2006, 10:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wherein-sentientmeat-tries-to-convince-other-wise-that-physicalism-is-reasonable/353273/32 "2006-04-28T22:45:21Z")
> [@other-wise](#): > > I did not introduce the term “reasonable” into our exchange; you did when, in response to my statement, you asserted that my bewilderment was tantamount to saying that the alternatives to physicalism seem just as **reasonable** as physicalism. And what is “bewilderment” _but_ a Buridanian inability to offer even a slight preference for one alternative over another? All I can do in the face of such all-encompassing confusion is to satisfy myself that you are no _less_ bewildered about such elementary things as whether or not _eg._ anaesthetic knocks you out or the Holocaust happened – if you really are so _terminally_ bewildered, well, I’ll have done all I can. I’m just asking whether you’re the tiniest bit _more_ convinced of my position with each post, since if you’re _less_ convinced I might be better off stopping now (if it were only you and not an additional audience I was trying to be convincing before). > [@](#): > > You’ve said yourself that at this stage of the game, physicalism does not have an explanation for subjective awareness. Only if, by that criterion, there’s no explanation for galaxies, fossils or hurricanes either. I’d say there are _modes_ of explanation for each of them, _and_ subjective awareness, the latter being primarily by reference to senses and working memory. > [@](#): > > I have no history of presenting deceptive arguments on this board (stupid arguments, maybe; inchoate arguments, certainly. But not deceptive.). OK, I apologise for ‘sophistry’ (I meant _fallacious_ rather than _deceptive_, by the way). Your argument is stupid and inchoate. > [@](#): > > first of all, you’re conflating a lack of awareness with a lack of behaviors you’ve associated with awareness. The latter is the only thing you or anyone else can test for or observe (whether video taped or live). Agreed (as I have agreed many times regarding the ubmyterious “privacy” of subjectivity), just like I can only observe the lack of behaviour of _living_ things when I look at a corpse, not the lack of life itself. This is irrelevant. You still have to _accommodate the evidence_ regarding that hour. > [@](#): > > That there are many credible (and disturbing) reports of completely unresponsive patients who were nonetheless fully aware during their operations Not credible to me, they’re not. Don’t go woo woo on me now, friend. Would repeated appearances in these “visions” of bizarre _verbal suggestions_ from the surgeons (“Hey get that green sheep out of theatre!” … and later … “Doctor, where did the green sheep come from?”) convince you that these stories were only powerful dreams? > [@](#): > > Simply put, there is no way to confirm awareness (or lack thereof) from behavioral observation. Great – if you _were_ aware during that hour, go right ahead and describe the operation. Or were you **not aware** during that hour? You are evading this fundamental and obvious point. I’ve not asked you any (non-rhetorical) questions so far, but I’d like you to answer these questions from that paragraph _as worded_, if you would: When you ask those loved ones why the clock seems wrong, don’t you believe them when they say that you’ve been doing an incredibly convincing corpse impression for an hour, and even play you the video? If you sat on the jury in an assault trial in which the prosecution told the court that in front of numerous witnesses the defendant knocked the victim unconscious, would you raise your hand and ask the judge to strike the comment from the record because you think no such thing is possible? What about the years before you were conceived? I’d love to hear your account of what you were aware of then, if you always have been. > [@](#): > > Second, you don’t take into account that someone may simply not remember what they were aware of. I do take account of it – in fact I keep saying that I consider working memory to be a crucial element _of_ awareness. > [@](#): > > Third … the only reason we need clocks in the first place is because our awareness of time is ridiculously malleable. Like when we’re _not aware_ for an hour. Again, what’s you _description_ of what you think happened in that hour, given the evidence. If you say “nothing”, how do you explain the results of the surgery? > [@](#): > > what I’m aware of is in constant flux, but that I’m aware is not. So you were aware for that whole hour, then? > [@](#): > > LSD and psilocybin do not affect my awareness at all; they only affect what I am aware of. Are you saying that they affect the light incident on your retina or the objects in the room? Nonsense – they affect _your mind_. > [@](#): > > Pretty much any molecule that I ingest will have an effect, whether I’m consciously aware of that effect or not. So physical molecules affect your consciousness, yes? > [@](#): > > But being aware doesn’t change; it’s just what I am. And it doesn’t change for that anaesthetised hour? > [@](#): > > See previous. Non-answer: Please complete the sentence: The explanation for the clock, video and my loved ones telling me I was unconscious is … > [@](#): > > See previous. Just walk me through it, if you could: You think the answers will be _different_ for tiny and large doses? > [@](#): > > we’re a long way from controlling enough variables to be able to determine that a specific cognitive function is caused by specific neural correlates in a given brain region. So if we had two identical twins and one suffered brain damage to a specific brain region and subsequently lost a _very very specific cognitive ability_ (like, say, new memory formation), that’s not a good enough control? > [@](#): > > I said that nothing in the chain of physicality that you describe implies awareness, or a mechanism for its occurrence. You agree that homo sapiens has awareness, yes? (And it wasn’t a chain of physicality (that’s what I’m trying to ultimately _convince_ you of), it was a chain of _evolution_. My position is tht awareness emerged from non-awareness, just as life emerged from non-life. The precise threshold fo awareness doesn’t really matter, any more than the precise threshold for “life” > [@](#): > > Are you suggesting awareness is an epiphenonomenon? No, I’m asking why you posit a _purpose_ to it. (_Of course_ I don’t believe in zombies, which can give the same HP results wihtout awareness). > [@](#): > > I realized that there was no way that my simple question was gonna have a simple answer … and for our purposes, it probably doesn’t need one. Great, I assume we can tick that box as “done”, then, and move onto the second where we can discuss what constitutes evidence and statistical significance in biological and computational science and then ask if cognitive science is any different. The way this anaesthetic stuff is going, what I’m strongly getting from you is a tendency towards an “–ism”. This is great progress! I don’t want my curiosity to kill the cat by prematurely making an observation which disturbs the system, but the “–ism” I’m smelling very strongly is **solipsism**. I had thought it highly unlikely that we’d ever actually get one here on the SDMB, but you would do it proud. The next few posts should make the smell stronger or weaker, and should be very interesting. ---
**Author:** ![SentientMeat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/43a26b/32.png) [@SentientMeat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SentientMeat)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2006, 7:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wherein-sentientmeat-tries-to-convince-other-wise-that-physicalism-is-reasonable/353273/33 "2006-04-29T07:11:36Z")
Ah, reading again I thought you were referring to Pam Reynolds or some such guff. Yes, of course some patients don’t get a big enough dose - that’s why anaesthetists are paid so handsomely for such a difficult skill. I’m talking about the vast majority of anaestehetes (_not aesthetes_ - even the very word must be objectionable to you, surely?) who get a proper dose and say, like you, that they were inly aware of blurriness and loved ones. ---
**Author:** ![other-wise](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/4bbf92/32.png) [@other-wise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/other-wise)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2006, 3:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wherein-sentientmeat-tries-to-convince-other-wise-that-physicalism-is-reasonable/353273/34 "2006-05-02T03:48:34Z")
[QUOTE=SentientMeat] And what is “bewilderment” _but_ a Buridanian inability to offer even a slight preference for one alternative over another? All I can do in the face of such all-encompassing confusion is to satisfy myself that you are no _less_ bewildered about such elementary things as whether or not _eg._ anaesthetic knocks you out or the Holocaust happened – if you really are so _terminally_ bewildered, well, I’ll have done all I can. I’m just asking whether you’re the tiniest bit _more_ convinced of my position with each post, since if you’re _less_ convinced I might be better off stopping now (if it were only you and not an additional audience I was trying to be convincing before). [/quote] You misunderstand. My bewilderment is over why it is supposedly preferable to cleave to a doctrine, spending copious amounts of energy in defense of premises that are self-described as provisional, and encumbered with large explanatory gaps, rather than just simply carrying on with the inquiry. > [@](#): > > Only if, by that criterion, there’s no explanation for galaxies, fossils or hurricanes either. I’d say there are _modes_ of explanation for each of them, _and_ subjective awareness, the latter being primarily by reference to senses and working memory. Sorry, but I’m not going to accept the attempted devolution from an explanation to a _mode_ of explanation. If subjective awareness _can_ be explained by reference to senses and working memory then by all means, give us the details. > [@](#): > > OK, I apologise for ‘sophistry’ (I meant _fallacious_ rather than _deceptive_, by the way). Well, since you cannot experience my consciousness directly, you have absolutely no way of demonstrating my argument to be fallacious. Your charge of sophistry remains unwarranted. > [@](#): > > Your argument is stupid and inchoate. :rolleyes: > [@](#): > > Agreed (as I have agreed many times regarding the ubmyterious “privacy” of subjectivity), just like I can only observe the lack of behaviour of _living_ things when I look at a corpse, not the lack of life itself. This is irrelevant. You still have to _accommodate the evidence_ regarding that hour. What?! _You just agreed_ that the only evidence available to observers in that hour cannot confirm awareness or a lack thereof. I’m under no obligation to accommodate inconclusive evidence. > [@](#): > > Great – if you _were_ aware during that hour, go right ahead and describe the operation. Or were you **not aware** during that hour? You are evading this fundamental and obvious point. I’ve not asked you any (non-rhetorical) questions so far, but I’d like you to answer these questions from that paragraph _as worded_, if you would: > > When you ask those loved ones why the clock seems wrong, don’t you believe them when they say that you’ve been doing an incredibly convincing corpse impression for an hour, and even play you the video? Of course. I expect that their experience of time and the content of their awareness would be very different than mine considering that I was under anesthesia. In fact, I expect that their experience of time and the content of their awareness is going to be at least somewhat different than mine _all_ the time. > [@](#): > > If you sat on the jury in an assault trial in which the prosecution told the court that in front of numerous witnesses the defendant knocked the victim unconscious, would you raise your hand and ask the judge to strike the comment from the record because you think no such thing is possible? Of course not. The same way that if my wife said “Damn, this ice cream is _cold_.” , I wouldn’t say “You are incorrect. What you refer to as ‘cold’ is actually a relative lack of heat energy transfer from the ice cream’s environment”. And the same way that if someone said “Come look; the sun is setting”, I wouldn’t immediately correct them by launching into a lecture on heliocentrism with allowances for special relativity. When people say “He was (knocked) unconscious”, it may not accurately describe the phenomenon they’re observing, but it’s good enough for the conversation at hand; just like the phrase “The sun is setting”. > [@](#): > > What about the years before you were conceived? I’d love to hear your account of what you were aware of then, if you always have been. I said as far as I can remember I have been aware. I certainly have no knowledge or memories of not being aware. > [@](#): > > Like when we’re _not aware_ for an hour. Again, what’s you _description_ of what you think happened in that hour, given the evidence. If you say “nothing”, how do you explain the results of the surgery? I’ve already described numerous possibilities for what might have happened in that hour, and I have no need to explain the results of the surgery: not being aware of the surgery doesn’t imply that I wasn’t aware of _anything_. > [@](#): > > So you were aware for that whole hour, then? Could be. A smeary, time-distorted awareness is still awareness. Or, I could have been aware and just forgotten most of it due to the anesthesia. > [@](#): > > Are you saying that they affect the light incident on your retina or the objects in the room? Nonsense – they affect _your mind_. That’s exactly what I’ve repeated ad nauseaum: under their influence, _what_ I’m aware of changes dramatically, but the fact that I _am_ aware does not change. > [@](#): > > So physical molecules affect your consciousness, yes? Physical molecules affect the content of my conscious awareness. > [@](#): > > And it doesn’t change for that anaesthetised hour? In my own experience, as far as I can tell? No. And as far as _you_ or anyone else can tell, definitely not. > [@](#): > > Non-answer: Please complete the sentence: The explanation for the clock, video and my loved ones telling me I was unconscious is … … that people will frequently describe phenomenon they’re observing with only a superficial accuracy, or simply metaphorically, especially when that description is good enough for purposes of the conversation at hand. > [@](#): > > Just walk me through it, if you could: You think the answers will be _different_ for tiny and large doses? What in the hell difference does that make when we’ve already established that an inability to answer questions does not guarantee a lack of awareness? > [@](#): > > So if we had two identical twins and one suffered brain damage to a specific brain region and subsequently lost a _very very specific cognitive ability_ (like, say, new memory formation), that’s not a good enough control? Of course not. Just because the water stops flowing when a pipe breaks doesn’t mean the pipe _caused_ the water. The inability to lay down new memories may mean the area is one of many factors _involved_ in memory formation, or perhaps even just memory _retrieval_. > [@](#): > > You agree that homo sapiens has awareness, yes? (And it wasn’t a chain of physicality (that’s what I’m trying to ultimately _convince_ you of), it was a chain of _evolution_. My position is tht awareness emerged from non-awareness, just as life emerged from non-life. The precise threshold fo awareness doesn’t really matter, any more than the precise threshold for “life” Ok, since you can’t answer _when_ awareness emerges from non-awareness, at least tell me _how_ awareness emerges from non-awareness. And since you side-stepped the statement, I’ll resubmit it as a question: What in the physicalist description of MEF/spacetime implies awareness, or a mechanism for its occurrence? > [@](#): > > No, I’m asking why you posit a _purpose_ to it. (_Of course_ I don’t believe in zombies, which can give the same HP results wihtout awareness). Let me simplify: What is the physical effect of awareness? How are other potential physical causes of that effect eliminated? > [@](#): > > The way this anaesthetic stuff is going, what I’m strongly getting from you is a tendency towards an “–ism”. This is great progress! I don’t want my curiosity to kill the cat by prematurely making an observation which disturbs the system, but the “–ism” I’m smelling very strongly is **solipsism**. I had thought it highly unlikely that we’d ever actually get one here on the SDMB, but you would do it proud. The next few posts should make the smell stronger or weaker, and should be very interesting. Hmmm, let’s see… in this thread you’ve referred to me as Buridan’s ass, you’ve accused my position of being absurd and me of sophistry, you’ve compared me to a Holocaust denier, and _now_ you’ve decided that I “smell” like a solipsist (solipsism is a position I flatly reject, which you would have known had you simply bothered to _ask_). This crap is tiresome and annoying, and worst of all, dealing with it wastes my time. If these snide remarks are going to continue appearing in this thread, I’m not. ---
**Author:** ![SentientMeat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/43a26b/32.png) [@SentientMeat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SentientMeat)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2006, 10:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wherein-sentientmeat-tries-to-convince-other-wise-that-physicalism-is-reasonable/353273/35 "2006-05-02T10:38:39Z")
> [@other-wise](#): > > My bewilderment is over why it is supposedly preferable to cleave to a doctrine, spending copious amounts of energy in defense of premises that are self-described as provisional, and encumbered with large explanatory gaps, rather than just simply carrying on with the inquiry. Because, like I said in my ‘couple of points’, there will _never_ be a stage in our enquiry at which we have anything **more** than results and alternative interpretations thereof. If the presence of a single ‘provisional’ premise or explanatory gap is enough to confound even _stating one’s preferred option_, then Buridan’s asses are we all, and absurd denials of scientific or historical consensus become reasonable. > [@](#): > > Sorry, but I’m not going to accept the attempted devolution from an explanation to a _mode_ of explanation. Then, due to the presence of explanatory gaps in **every single field of human endeavour** , there’s _no such thing_ as explanation. > [@](#): > > What?! _You just agreed_ that the only evidence available to observers in that hour cannot confirm awareness or a lack thereof. No, I said it was _as conclusive as_ confirming _life_ or lack thereof by oberving a corpse. I still think that’s _as conclusive as_ we need things to be to make progress away from Buridan assism. > [@](#): > > Of course. I expect that their experience of time and the content of their awareness would be very different than mine considering that I was under anesthesia. In fact, I expect that their experience of time and the content of their awareness is going to be at least somewhat different than mine all the time. Yes, but that wasn’t quite the question. They weren’t looking at any old thing – a field, a TV programme, someone else – they were looking at **you** , saying that you seemed corpse-like and utterly unresponsive and unaware of what was happening to you. Do you believe them, given that you can’t tell them what you were aware of either? > [@](#): > > it may not accurately describe the phenomenon they’re observing, but it’s good enough for the conversation at hand Is _any_ phenomenon “accurately” described, then? Is “good enough for conversation” not _as good as it gets_? > [@](#): > > I said as far as I can remember I have been aware. I certainly have no knowledge or memories of not being aware. **This is crucial** – we can develop this a long way, with your permission. There are clearly times you _cannot remember_ (1944, for instance). You were **not aware** then, and therefore have not **always** been aware, yes? > [@](#): > > I’ve already described numerous possibilities for what might have happened in that hour, and I have no need to explain the results of the surgery: not being aware of the surgery doesn’t imply that I wasn’t aware of _anything_. OK, what _were_ you aware of then? When _I’m_ aware of things, I don’t need to speak of “possibilities” – I just go right ahead and say _precisely_ what I was aware of. > [@](#): > > Could be. A smeary, time-distorted awareness is still awareness. Or, I could have been aware and just forgotten most of it due to the anesthesia. And when I’m aware, I _respond immediately_ to those things I’m aware of – even if I forget them later there’s still clear _evidence_ that I’m not just some slab of unresponsive meat. > [@](#): > > under their influence, what I’m aware of changes dramatically, but the fact that I am aware does not change… Physical molecules affect the content of my conscious awareness. OK, save this for a moment. > [@](#): > > In my own experience, as far as I can tell? No. There is _no difference_ between you being unanaesthetised for an hour and being anaesthetised for an hour? On second thoughts, scratch that – I’ll address it more directly in a moment. > [@](#): > > … that people will frequently describe phenomenon they’re observing with only a superficial accuracy, or simply metaphorically, especially when that description is good enough for purposes of the conversation at hand. Can you give an example of something which _isn’t_ “superficially accurate”? > [@](#): > > What in the hell difference does that make when we’ve already established that an inability to answer questions does not guarantee a lack of awareness? But the ability to respond to stimuli is still an important _datum to be accommodated_ in our entire inquiry. Again, more on this in a moment. > [@](#): > > The inability to lay down new memories may mean the area is one of many factors involved in memory formation, or perhaps even just memory retrieval. And which other factors would you suggest have comparable relevance? > [@](#): > > at least tell me how awareness emerges from non-awareness. Just as I suggest that life emerges from non-life via the replication of molecules, I suggest that awareness emerges from non-awareness via the processing of sensory input in working memory. If the presence of a single explanatory gap counfounds such mechanistic explanations entirely, then both cognitive science and biology are equally worthless endeavours. > [@](#): > > What in the physicalist description of MEF/spacetime implies awareness, or a mechanism for its occurrence? I’m not sure I understand the question, or at least, what answer you could possibly find satisfactory. Is there anything in the physicalist description of MEF/spacetime which **implies** _weather_, or _erosion_, or _life_, or _computation_? I’m genuinely struggling to think of it. If I can’t, would you consider climatology, geology, biology and computer science to be equally flawed in their explanations? > [@](#): > > Let me simplify: What is the physical effect of awareness? How are other potential physical causes of that effect eliminated? Again, I can’t help running a CATEGORY ERROR AT LINE 1: DOES NOT COMPUTE when I read these questions, although please believe me that I’m trying my very best to answer them helpfully. Again, could we use “life” as a template in place of “awareness” just to see what kind of answers you’re seeking? The only answers I can think of have to do with heterophenomenology and encrypted activity in a computer chip and the like, and even then they seem a poor fit. > [@](#): > > Hmmm, let’s see… in this thread you’ve referred to me as Buridan’s ass, you’ve accused my position of being absurd and me of sophistry, you’ve compared me to a Holocaust denier, and now you’ve decided that I “smell” like a solipsist I apologise yet again, unreservedly. (Well, OK, my reservations are that 1. The bit about seeking a “perfect philosophy” in my OP was a general observation not specifically aimed at you, so I was surprised when _you_ brought up Buridan’s ass. 2. I _do_ think your position is absurd, but that’s what debate is all about, and I’d consider you an honest friend if you thought the same of mine. 3. I apologised and withdrew the ‘sophistry’ charge. 4. I think Holocaust denial is a very interesting point in this thread – I’m not comparing you _yet_, but I’d like to explore why you so easily step off the fence on the side of Holocaust-Actually-Happened-ism but have such trouble with other –isms. 5. I apologise for any negative connotations of “smell” – that was absolutely not my intention, and I’ll use “I’m, perhaps mistakenly, detecting a tendency towards …” or some such phrase instead if you like.) > [@](#): > > (solipsism is a position I flatly reject, which you would have known had you simply bothered to ask). But you seem to flatly reject _everything_ – I’m trying to gauge whether you reject solipsism _more_ than panpsychism, theism, physicalism or whatever. Physicalism is merely the position **I** reject _least_, too! > [@](#): > > This crap is tiresome and annoying, and worst of all, dealing with it wastes my time. If these snide remarks are going to continue appearing in this thread, I’m not. I apologise yet again but, please, let us not be overly sensitive – apart from my characterisation of your anaesthete argument as stupid (and it’s getting less stupid the more we discuss it – result!), I can assure you that all of the remarks you consider snide were made completely innocently. So let me explain why the anaesthetic thing came up in the first place, and why it’s an important part of this thread (despite being slightly peripheral to the main “bullet point” issues for each of us). I think we can still make progress despite the IMO unnecessarily confusing terminology you insist upon, but I’ll just have one more shot at clarifying it for our audience. “A large dose of the simple physical molecule desflurane doesn’t result in a lack of awareness, it just changes what you’re aware _of_”, right? That’s still the datum I’m saying is fundamentally important which we’ll debate in a moment, but let’s just explore your personal language a little more. Hypothetically, if the desflurane changed what I was aware of to _nothing_, _ie._ I was aware _of nothing_, then that makes me _not aware, period_, agreed? It will have caused a _lack of_ awareness, yes? There is no difference between _not being aware of anything_ and _not being aware_. So what are you aware _of_ under a large dose of desflurane? You’ve said you were **only** aware of blurriness and loved ones. If you can’t tell me _anything_ you were aware of **between the two** , how is that different to being aware of _nothing_ between the two? You might say that there was a something you were aware of, but you couldn’t tell me at the time and you didn’t remember later. But you are then _asserting_ awareness with absolutely no evidence for it whatsoever, behavior-based or not, not even _your own personal, subjective testimony_! It would be the equivalent of me saying “there are no faeries in my garden” and you saying “oh yes there are, and the burden of proof is on you to demonstrate they’re _not_”. If you want me to help you understand why physicalism is so overwhelmingly dominant, here we have a crucial point at which you are in the underwhelming minority. I’m not suggesting the argument _ad populum_ that you’re therefore _wrong_, but I think you should understand **why** all your physicalist friends don’t ascribe to the, let’s say, _eccentric_ position on the limb you’re choosing here: because awareness under anaesthetic is an _unnecessary_ entity given the evidence _for_ it. (And note that positing awareness despite no behaviour which suggests anything like it strongly suggests _panpsychism_, but I digress). Nevertheless, I think the two premises you posited in that post:[ul][li]You are always aware.[/li][li]There are no levels of awareness – it’s as binary as pregnancy.[/ul]… do have interesting logical consequences which might allow some progress. Neither I nor any physicalist I know would ascribe to them, but we can explore what kind of alternative “-isms” they _do_ suggest.[/li] Let’s, for your argument’s sake, say that under desflurane you’ re aware of _less_. You _were_ aware of the lights and objects in the room (visual), the pain which the operation aimed to remedy along with your muscle positions _etc_. (tactile/motor sensory), and your “thoughts” (let’s call it _cortical function_ – the combination of you memories and the like), but under desflurane you are no longer. That is still a crucially important _explicandum_ here. It’s just a bunch of atoms! Fluorine, oxygen, carbon, hydrogen – the stuff in your toothpaste! And yet, the arrangement in your toothpaste doesn’t make clocks jump hours and loved ones tell strange stories with accompanying videos. These simple physical molecules, these specific alternative arrangements of toothpastey stuff, **affect what we’re _aware_ of**! They **cause** a difference in it! Do you not see the importance of this fact? It means that this “awareness”, whatever it is, must as the very least have some physical _component_, otherwise how could a simple _molecule_ have such bizarre consequences? _Even if_ your premises are correct, and you are no **less** aware – the “subject” of your awareness is merely your heartbeat, breathing and maybe the odd sound in the operating theatre – that a simple physical molecule even has such an _effect_ is a devastating blow against the idea that awareness has _nothing to do with_ the physical. But let’s go on from there. The absolutely minimal neural activity under desflurane is confined to the ancient R-complex at the centre of the brain. It’s effectively the only neuroanatomical element we share with the dinosaurs and reptiles. You see the conclusion here? If “You under anaesthetic” are _as aware as_ you sitting there awake, _despite clearly different behaviour (or lack of)_, there is no reason to consider, say, _crocodiles_ to lack the same awareness as you. But the **crucial** line of reasoning I alluded to earlier concerns the absence of your awareness **before your conception**. _What was it_ about those specific years called “ **other-wise** ’s infancy” which brought about a transition from non-awareness to awareness? Surely, it was the development of the **physical organ** , your brain and nervous system. Just as the atoms in desflurane can form toothpaste, which has no strange effects like making clocks seem to jump, so the atoms of your brain which were disparately spread all over the world such that they engendered no “awareness” (_ie._ you weren’t aware _of_ anything when you were disparate atoms – or do you find _this_ statement objectionable?) gradually formed an **arrangement** in space and time such that awareness _emerged_. But back to the anaesthetised hour. Because you are positing “awareness” in that hour despite no memory thereof, heterophenomenological (HP, or third-person-observed) responses or evidence of any other kind, that is the beginning of a step away from _science_, you see? You say that you flatly reject solipsism, but you cannot be _sure_ that, say, **I** have this awareness thing as well as you. You can only _believe_ so, _state your positive opinion of such_, based solely on my behaviour and responses. HP is _all cognitive science can deal with_ and still be called “science”. If _this_ is the point which makes you say you don’t understand why physicalism is overwhelmingly dominant, well, maybe you never will. But I’ll still try my very best: my outputs have plenty more permutations yet! 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![other-wise](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/4bbf92/32.png) [@other-wise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/other-wise)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2006, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wherein-sentientmeat-tries-to-convince-other-wise-that-physicalism-is-reasonable/353273/36 "2006-05-04T17:17:18Z")
[QUOTE=SentientMeat] Because, like I said in my ‘couple of points’, there will _never_ be a stage in our enquiry at which we have anything **more** than results and alternative interpretations thereof. If the presence of a single ‘provisional’ premise or explanatory gap is enough to confound even _stating one’s preferred option_, then Buridan’s asses are we all, and absurd denials of scientific or historical consensus become reasonable. [/quote] If someone feels that explanatory gaps are small and provisional premises few when it comes to a satisfactory accounting of conscious awareness, I have no objection to them selecting and stating their preferred option (and never have). Since I, however, feel that the explanatory gaps are very large and the provisional premises numerous, there is, for me, no clear preference among the options: I prefer to wait until more information is forthcoming. > [@](#): > > Then, due to the presence of explanatory gaps in **every single field of human endeavour** , there’s _no such thing_ as explanation. You said that physicalism has no explanation for conscious awareness, and I agreed. Now you’re saying that physicalism can only offer a _mode_ of explanation, and that it, like everything else, has explanatory gaps. I agree with that too, but, what of it? I can get a mode of explanation (with explanatory gaps) from the Raelians, fer crissakes. > [@](#): > > No, I said it was _as conclusive as_ confirming _life_ or lack thereof by oberving a corpse. I still think that’s _as conclusive as_ we need things to be to make progress away from Buridan assism. Well, since you’ve set me up to beat my wife, I’ll decline further comment on your statement. > [@](#): > > Yes, but that wasn’t quite the question. They weren’t looking at any old thing – a field, a TV programme, someone else – they were looking at **you** , saying that you seemed corpse-like and utterly unresponsive and unaware of what was happening to you. Do you believe them, given that you can’t tell them what you were aware of either? To reiterate: Yes, of course I believe that I _appeared_ to _them_ to be unresponsive and unaware. My ability or inability to tell them what I was aware of is irrelevant. (more on this below) > [@](#): > > Is _any_ phenomenon “accurately” described, then? Is “good enough for conversation” not _as good as it gets_? That depends, of course, on the conversation. When I’m talking to my inexperienced, computer-abhorring friend about how websites “work”, the demand for accuracy and detail will be much less stringent than when I’m talking to a website developer. > [@](#): > > **This is crucial** – we can develop this a long way, with your permission. There are clearly times you _cannot remember_ (1944, for instance). You were **not aware** then, and therefore have not **always** been aware, yes? Hmmm. I’ll take this up below. > [@](#): > > OK, what _were_ you aware of then? When _I’m_ aware of things, I don’t need to speak of “possibilities” – I just go right ahead and say _precisely_ what I was aware of. I cannot offer a more precise description than blurry, smeary, vague, disjointed, etc. The possibility that awareness under anesthesia may be somewhat or wholly ineffable doesn’t bother me in the slightest; ineffability of the contents of awareness is hardly confined to anesthesia. > [@](#): > > And when I’m aware, I _respond immediately_ to those things I’m aware of – even if I forget them later there’s still clear _evidence_ that I’m not just some slab of unresponsive meat. Awareness and response are not inextricably linked. This is not even a point of contention. > [@](#): > > Can you give an example of something which _isn’t_ “superficially accurate”? The conversation with the website developer I alluded to earlier. > [@](#): > > And which other factors would you suggest have comparable relevance? _Comparable_ relevance? Comparable to what? > [@](#): > > Just as I suggest that life emerges from non-life via the replication of molecules, I suggest that awareness emerges from non-awareness via the processing of sensory input in working memory. **HOW**? You’ve only told me that awareness emerges from non-awareness via the processing of sensory input in working memory, not how it supposedly occurs. > [@](#): > > Again, I can’t help running a CATEGORY ERROR AT LINE 1: DOES NOT COMPUTE when I read these questions, although please believe me that I’m trying my very best to answer them helpfully. Again, could we use “life” as a template in place of “awareness” just to see what kind of answers you’re seeking? The only answers I can think of have to do with heterophenomenology and encrypted activity in a computer chip and the like, and even then they seem a poor fit. No, I’m not willing to use “life” as a template in place of “awareness”. I’m not convinced it’s an appropriate substitution, and I don’t see the need for a template; the scenario is simple and straightforward: if awareness emerges from non-awareness, there must be _some_ way to physically distinguish between that which is aware, and that which is not. Awareness must leave some physical trace of its presence, and there must be a way to identify the cause of that trace _as_ awareness. Hence my questions: What is the physical effect of awareness? How are other potential physical causes of that effect eliminated? > [@](#): > > So let me explain why the anaesthetic thing came up in the first place, and why it’s an important part of this thread (despite being slightly peripheral to the main “bullet point” issues for each of us). I think we can still make progress despite the IMO unnecessarily confusing terminology you insist upon, but I’ll just have one more shot at clarifying it for our audience. “A large dose of the simple physical molecule desflurane doesn’t result in a lack of awareness, it just changes what you’re aware _of_”, right? That’s still the datum I’m saying is fundamentally important which we’ll debate in a moment, but let’s just explore your personal language a little more. > > Hypothetically, if the desflurane changed what I was aware of to _nothing_, _ie._ I was aware _of nothing_, then that makes me _not aware, period_, agreed? It will have caused a _lack of_ awareness, yes? There is no difference between _not being aware of anything_ and _not being aware_. I understand that you find my terminology unnecessarily confusing, but you must understand that the feeling is mutual. The last paragraph above is not only unnecessarily confusing, but _wholly_ unnecessary. If I said to you “I ate nothing”, it doesn’t mean I sat down with a plate of nothing, sliced off a chunk of nothing, put nothing in my mouth and chewed on nothing. It means I did not eat. The way you worded that last paragraph, I have to make sure that when you say the desflurane hypothetically “caused a lack of awareness”, you do not mean it caused an _impoverishment_ of awareness, but an utter cessation of awareness; _no_ awareness, none, zippo, nada. Saying “the desflurane changed what I was aware of to _nothing_, ie. I was aware _of nothing_”, is tantamount to saying “I was aware of something, but the deflurane changed what I was aware of to nothing, i.e., _I was still aware, but what I was aware of was “nothing”_. I’ll pick one more nit just to make sure we’re in agreement: when you say “There is no difference between _not being aware of anything_ and _not being aware_”, you mean _anything at all, whatsoever_, right? (i.e., if what I was aware of happened to be ineffable, undifferentiated, or unidentifiable, I’m nonetheless still aware, right? ) > [@](#): > > So what are you aware _of_ under a large dose of desflurane? You’ve said you were **only** aware of blurriness and loved ones. If you can’t tell me _anything_ you were aware of **between the two** , how is that different to being aware of _nothing_ between the two? Between the two? There is no between the two; that implies a gap in my awareness, and as I’ve been arguing, that has not been my experience, nor is it logically possible. > [@](#): > > You might say that there was a something you were aware of, but you couldn’t tell me at the time and you didn’t remember later. But you are then _asserting_ awareness with absolutely no evidence for it whatsoever, behavior-based or not, not even _your own personal, subjective testimony_! It would be the equivalent of me saying “there are no faeries in my garden” and you saying “oh yes there are, and the burden of proof is on you to demonstrate they’re _not_”. On what basis are you discounting my “own personal, subjective testimony” of blurriness sharpening into loved ones as evidence? If I _was_ aware of more than that during the operation, and forgot it by the time I reported my experience to you, so what? If you asked me what color tie Jack Nicholson was wearing in the movie I just saw, and I couldn’t remember, you couldn’t conclude that I must not have been aware during the movie. > [@](#): > > If you want me to help you understand why physicalism is so overwhelmingly dominant, here we have a crucial point at which you are in the underwhelming minority. I’m not suggesting the argument _ad populum_ that you’re therefore _wrong_, but I think you should understand **why** all your physicalist friends don’t ascribe to the, let’s say, _eccentric_ position on the limb you’re choosing here: because awareness under anaesthetic is an _unnecessary_ entity given the evidence _for_ it. (And note that positing awareness despite no behaviour which suggests anything like it strongly suggests _panpsychism_, but I digress). That’s interesting and ironic, because the way you’ve been describing it, conscious awareness under physicalism seems in many ways similar to panpsychism. [quote] Nevertheless, I think the two premises you posited in that post:[ul][li]You are always aware.[/li][li]There are no levels of awareness – it’s as binary as pregnancy.[/ul][/li][/quote] For the sake of clarity, I should jump in here and point out that it’s binary only to a third-person observer who is judging for themselves whether or not I am aware. While they have absolutely no direct access to my awareness, _I do_, and in _my_ experience, awareness is not binary; I’m just aware and that’s it… I have no access to or knowledge of a state of non-awareness. It’s as if we were arguing about my current location and you said “Well, the choice is binary; either you’re south of the north pole, or you’re north of the north pole”, and I’m thinking “Huh? There _is no_ ‘north of the north pole’”. > [@](#): > > Let’s, for your argument’s sake, say that under desflurane you’ re aware of _less_. You _were_ aware of the lights and objects in the room (visual), the pain which the operation aimed to remedy along with your muscle positions _etc_. (tactile/motor sensory), and your “thoughts” (let’s call it _cortical function_ – the combination of you memories and the like), but under desflurane you are no longer. That is still a crucially important _explicandum_ here. It’s just a bunch of atoms! Fluorine, oxygen, carbon, hydrogen – the stuff in your toothpaste! And yet, the arrangement in your toothpaste doesn’t make clocks jump hours and loved ones tell strange stories with accompanying videos. These simple physical molecules, these specific alternative arrangements of toothpastey stuff, **affect what we’re _aware_ of**! They **cause** a difference in it! > > Do you not see the importance of this fact? It means that this “awareness”, whatever it is, must as the very least have some physical _component_, otherwise how could a simple _molecule_ have such bizarre consequences? _Even if_ your premises are correct, and you are no **less** aware – the “subject” of your awareness is merely your heartbeat, breathing and maybe the odd sound in the operating theatre – that a simple physical molecule even has such an _effect_ is a devastating blow against the idea that awareness has _nothing to do with_ the physical. Well, I can’t mount a defense for something I’ve never said. I’ve never once claimed, stated, or argued for the idea that awareness has nothing to do with the physical. That would be like saying the Mona Lisa had nothing to do with _paint_. > [@](#): > > But let’s go on from there. The absolutely minimal neural activity under desflurane is confined to the ancient R-complex at the centre of the brain. First of all, I’ll need a cite for “The absolutely minimal neural activity under desflurane is confined to the ancient R-complex at the centre of the brain”… that statement doesn’t sound right at all, at least not the way it’s worded. > [@](#): > > You see the conclusion here? If “You under anaesthetic” are _as aware as_ you sitting there awake, _despite clearly different behaviour (or lack of)_, there is no reason to consider, say, _crocodiles_ to lack the same awareness as you. I’m having a hard time even making sense of this one. You compare the “R-complex” within a human brain with the brain of crocodile as if they were interchangeable. That alone is enough to sink your argument. You go on to conclude that an unanesthetised crocodile has the same awareness as me, despite the fact that you’ve specified that the measures of awareness you’re utilizing are _behavioral_. If you think an anesthetised other-wise and an unanesthetised crocodile have the same awareness, then go ahead and try to operate on an unanesthetised crocodile and see if it exhibits the same behaviors. > [@](#): > > But the **crucial** line of reasoning I alluded to earlier concerns the absence of your awareness **before your conception**. _What was it_ about those specific years called “ **other-wise** ’s infancy” which brought about a transition from non-awareness to awareness? Surely, it was the development of the **physical organ** , your brain and nervous system. Just as the atoms in desflurane can form toothpaste, which has no strange effects like making clocks seem to jump, so the atoms of your brain which were disparately spread all over the world such that they engendered no “awareness” (_ie._ you weren’t aware _of_ anything when you were disparate atoms – or do you find _this_ statement objectionable?) gradually formed an **arrangement** in space and time such that awareness _emerged_. I’m incredibly hesitant to start into a discussion which attempts to delineate the nature of time, the nature of awareness, and the implications of one for the other. I suspect we would die long before the thread does, and would have little progress to show for our efforts. However, you conclude by stating that my disparate atoms gradually formed an arrangement in space and time such that awareness emerged. We can definitely start that conversation: How does awareness emerging from non-awareness occur? In fact, since we’re attempting to cover so many issues and our posts are getting loooonger and loooonger, I’m strongly in favor of picking out one point of clear disagreement and concentrate on that. The question of if and how awareness emerges seems ideal because it’s at the heart of PM and the physicalist approach to PM. > [@](#): > > But back to the anaesthetised hour. Because you are positing “awareness” in that hour despite no memory thereof, heterophenomenological (HP, or third-person-observed) responses or evidence of any other kind, that is the beginning of a step away from _science_, you see? Well, that’s a mischaracterization of my position, which I hope has now been clarified. ---
**Author:** ![SentientMeat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/43a26b/32.png) [@SentientMeat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SentientMeat)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2006, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wherein-sentientmeat-tries-to-convince-other-wise-that-physicalism-is-reasonable/353273/37 "2006-05-04T19:32:52Z")
> [@other-wise](#): > > Since I, however, feel that the explanatory gaps are very large and the provisional premises numerous, there is, for me, no clear preference among the options Just help me out here: you’ve said you “flatly reject solipsism”. Am I to take it that, however unreasonable physicalism or panpsychism are to you, that solipsism is _more_ unreasonable? I’m just trying to rank your preferences, since I would describe myself as a physicalist only because it’s the one I \* reject least\*. > [@](#): > > I can get a mode of explanation (with explanatory gaps) from the Raelians, fer crissakes. Of course: yet again, we are both well-read enough to know _what the options are_. I’m merely asking you is whether you personally find that mode of explanation _as reasonable as_ those of cognitive science. > [@](#): > > Well, since you’ve set me up to beat my wife, I’ll decline further comment on your statement. It being a statement of _my_ position, not yours, so I don’t see how I’m setting _you_ up for anything. > [@](#): > > I’m talking to my inexperienced, computer-abhorring friend about how websites “work”, the demand for accuracy and detail will be much less stringent than when I’m talking to a website developer. But even with the website developer, you’ll be using all kinds of inaccuracies throughout. It’s not really a “_wall of fire_”, it’s a series of reflective regions on a spinning disc which _yadda yadda yadda_ … until the light emitted by your monitor attains an arrangement you call, for some reason, “satisfactory”. My point is that language **is** “shortcuts”, and I entirely agree that the “accuracy threshold” depends on the conversation. I merely think that _this_ conversation needs some leniency if we’re to make progress. > [@](#): > > I cannot offer a more precise description than blurry, smeary, vague, disjointed, etc. Blurry, smeary, vague, disjointed _what_, might I ask? Sights, sounds, pain? Remember, we’re talking about _in_ that hour, not merely the first and last minute when you were leaving or entering wakefulness. > [@](#): > > Awareness and response are not inextricably linked. This is not even a point of contention. Well, I _can_ think of ways to contend, actually, but they won’t add to progress so I won’t for the sake of this argument. > [@](#): > > Comparable relevance? Comparable to what? Comparable to the _obvious_ relevance of the fact that he’s just had a physical chunk of his brain messed about. But since you’re not suggesting that awareness has _nothing_ to do with the physical, I needn’t pursue this. > [@](#): > > **HOW**? You’ve only told me that awareness emerges from non-awareness via the processing of sensory input in working memory, not how it supposedly occurs. This is the entire purpose of this thread: to convince you that it is reasonable to believe that the processing of sensory input in working memory **is** ultimately what this thing we call awareness **is** , and that _human_ awareness **is** the sum of its (poorly understood) processing parts. Not to convince you to _believe_ it – I don’t give to hoots, just as I don’t with **Lib** – just to convince you that considering physicalism to be the least unreasonable position of the various options isn’t …well… whatever you currently think it _is_. Again, I said at the start that I would sometimes only be able to argue by analogy. So I can only say that I think the 19th Century vitalist being told the mechanism for molecule replication and asking “Yes, but **how** is that _life_??” is a very close analogy here. > [@](#): > > Awareness must leave some physical trace of its presence, What if the trace it left of its presence **was** neural activity? > [@](#): > > and there must be a way to identify the cause of that trace _as_ awareness. Why? Again (analogy only), is the behaviour of cells and molecules identifiable _as_ “life”? No – “life” is **just what we call it**. (Who knows?, perhaps _inaccurately_.) > [@](#): > > “There is no difference between not being aware of anything and not being aware”, you mean anything at all, whatsoever, right? (i.e., if what I was aware of happened to be ineffable, undifferentiated, or unidentifiable, I’m nonetheless still aware, right? ) Right. I’d like to explore the difference between being aware of “something ineffable” and being aware of “nothing” (_ie._ not being aware at all, _ie._ having no awareness). If you _were_ aware of “nothing”, _that_ would be pretty ineffable and impossible to describe, wouldn’t it? > [@](#): > > Between the two? There is no between the two; that implies a gap in my awareness, and as I’ve been arguing, that has not been my experience, nor is it logically possible. I’m finding this a little confusing – please, I’m doing my best not to misrepresent you here so I explicitly invite correction. You’ve said that what you were aware of in that hour was “Blurry, smeary, vague, disjointed”, so the timeline goes: Loved ones saying “goodbye” - Blurry, smeary, vague, disjointed – loved ones saying “hello” (\*ie.] “Blurry, smeary, vague, disjointed” being _between_ the two). Here you’re saying there is _nothing_ between the two. “Blurry, smeary, vague, disjointed” != “nothing”, right? So _is_ there a between the two, or not? > [@](#): > > If I was aware of more than that during the operation, and forgot it by the time I reported my experience to you, so what? How would _you_ later know if you were? And if you don’t, what is the necessity of positing awareness then? > [@](#): > > If you asked me what color tie Jack Nicholson was wearing in the movie I just saw, and I couldn’t remember, you couldn’t conclude that I must not have been aware during the movie. But if you were _blind_ I’d be pretty sure you were _never_ aware of Jack’s tie colour, agreed? > [@](#): > > That’s interesting and ironic, because the way you’ve been describing it, conscious awareness under physicalism seems in many ways similar to panpsychism. I suppose it is in some ways: physicalists just draw a threshold of what counts as “awareness” and what doesn’t (just as for “life”), while panpsychists don’t (just as vitalists don’t for “life”). In fact, panpsychism can reasonably be called _dualistic_ physicalism (as, indeed, I said [here](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=315717). > [@](#): > > in my experience, awareness is not binary; I’m just aware and that’s it… I have no access to or knowledge of a state of non-awareness. I’d suggest that hypothetical non-aware entities wouldn’t _by definition_ have “experience” or “knowledge”, either – even the word “you” is pretty much synonymous. I’m trying to steer away from what I see as a tautology there. > [@](#): > > It’s as if we were arguing about my current location and you said “Well, the choice is binary; either you’re south of the north pole, or you’re north of the north pole”, and I’m thinking “Huh? There is no ‘north of the north pole’”. Hmm, I’d suggest the analogy is more “Either you existed in 1944 or you didn’t”, but I’ll com to that in a moment. > [@](#): > > never once claimed, stated, or argued for the idea that awareness has nothing to do with the physical. That would be like saying the Mona Lisa had nothing to do with paint. Great, thanks for clearing that up – I beg your indulgence in just helping me straighten out things that might seem obvious (since you often _do_ object to what what _I_ think is obvious). Now, the question is what **else** has awareness “to do with” _other than_ the physical. The Mona Lisa **is** an _arrangement_ of paint, agreed? There is nothing _non-physical_ about the Mona Lisa, agreed? > [@](#): > > First of all, I’ll need a cite for “The absolutely minimal neural activity under desflurane is confined to the ancient R-complex at the centre of the brain”… that statement doesn’t sound right at all, at least not the way it’s worded. OK, _largely_ confined so (_ie._ it’s by far the _most_ active part). But I can’t deny the non-zero energy of the rest of the brain so, OK, let’s scratch this completely. > [@](#): > > I’m having a hard time even making sense of this one. You compare the “R-complex” within a human brain with the brain of crocodile as if they were interchangeable. That alone is enough to sink your argument. OK, consider it sunk – my point was that _human_ R-complexes aren’t identical either, only _similar_. > [@](#): > > You go on to conclude that an unanesthetised crocodile has the same awareness as me, No, I didn’t, I said that there was _no reason to consider it **lacked** the same awareness as you_, but like I say I don’t think this will be very productive so I withdraw it. > [@](#): > > I’m incredibly hesitant to start into a discussion which attempts to delineate the nature of time, the nature of awareness, and the implications of one for the other. I suspect we would die long before the thread does, and would have little progress to show for our efforts. Please, I beg your indulgence – I think it’s the most promising avenue of all! > [@](#): > > However, you conclude by stating that my disparate atoms gradually formed an arrangement in space and time such that awareness emerged. Do you **agree with me** that it did? Or do you consider the alternative, that you _were_ aware in 1944, just as reasonable? > [@](#): > > How does awareness emerging from non-awareness occur? Like the emergence of life from non-life … I don’t know. I know only _that_ it did. Explaining them both in physical terms is the Challenge of the Millennium. ---
**Author:** ![SentientMeat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/43a26b/32.png) [@SentientMeat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SentientMeat)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2006, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wherein-sentientmeat-tries-to-convince-other-wise-that-physicalism-is-reasonable/353273/38 "2006-05-04T20:46:24Z")
> [@](#): > > Do you agree with me that it did? Or do you consider the alternative, that you were aware in 1944, just as reasonable? Sorry, that sounds like a false dichotomy. I’m just seeking to ascertain your position on whether you **were** or **were not** “aware” in 1944. Surely you agree that you _weren’t_ (because there _was_ no “you”!), don’t you? We can then explore what **more** than the development of your physical anatomy is correlated with the transition from an absence of awareness to a presence in that time period. ---
**Author:** ![SentientMeat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/43a26b/32.png) [@SentientMeat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SentientMeat)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2006, 9:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wherein-sentientmeat-tries-to-convince-other-wise-that-physicalism-is-reasonable/353273/39 "2006-05-15T09:41:09Z")
Absent any reply for 12 days, friend, I assume you’re either inordinately busy or have rather lost the motivation to continue. Either way, I’m happy to accommodate another table-sweep to get back to your bullet points or whatever it is which you consider so unreasonable about physicalism that you simply cannot understand its domination of today’s intellectual culture. However, I think the status of awareness or not-awareness in, say, 1944 (or 6 Bn years ago, for that matter) is a crucial datum to be accommodated in one’s position. If awareness was _absent_ then, it must have **emerged over time**. (Similarly, if _life_ was absent in 6 Bn BC _it_ must have emerged over time too, although I cannot confidently tell you precisely **how**.) To thus consider _emergentism_ as marginally less unreasonable than its alternatives is an important step to take since it _excludes_ certain positions. Nevertheless, if you don’t find this particularly interesting we can drop it. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wherein-sentientmeat-tries-to-convince-other-wise-that-physicalism-is-reasonable/353273.md?page=1)