What is Consciousness For?

[merjet]

On another thread, Metaphysics - Plato and Kant, Ellen Stuttle mentioned a name, Lee Pierson. I don't know if it's the same person, but here is an interesting article: What is Consciousness For?

Edit: There has been much discussion of it here. Many of the posts are by Lee Pierson.

Edited November 4, 2007 by Merlin Jetton

[Ellen Stuttle]

On another thread, Metaphysics - Plato and Kant, Ellen Stuttle mentioned a name, Lee Pierson. I don't know if it's the same person, but here is an interesting article: What is Consciousness For?

Edit: There has been much discussion of it here:

Yes, it's the same person, and I've been sounding board and editorial assist in the long history of versions of that article. Lee is one sharp guy -- though there are those topics on which we have our divergences of opinion. ;-) (The annual Thanksgiving Seminar sometimes includes interludes of outright shouting matches, literal shouting matches. ;-)

Elllen

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[tjohnson]

What do we refer to when we use the word 'consciousness'? Korzybski said that to have meaning we need to add consciousness of something.

[william.scherk]

What do we refer to when we use the word 'consciousness'? Korzybski said that to have meaning we need to add consciousness of something.

In the context of "What is consciousness for," your question is sharp. Although the danger in defining terms is that we can carve away all the wonderful connotations of a word and leave it like a boned fish on an empty plate . . . and while your question has a profound trap (how the hell can I know what is in the we-formation, the we-mind, besides consulting lexicons?), it is fun and can seed a hundred further discussions/tirades/obtuse idiomatic rants.

I am pig-ignorant of the recently burgeoning field of consciousness studies, but cling to the speculative work of Antonio Damasio as you do to your pathfinder Korzybski, of whom I am also pig-ignorant.

If you recommend to me an accessible Korzybski take on consciousness (of something), I will try to find you an accessible take from Damasio. **

But, at the risk of getting everything utterly wrong-ass, Damasio believes that consciousness in human terms is that which a normal, neurologically-sound person is aware of: the body foremost, the sensory 'images' pressing in from outside and the 'images' that flash through thought, and subsequent evolved capacities, emotions, feelings, self and conception of self in the temporal flux. His great book "The Feeling of What Happens" has a subtitle that captures for me the near-ineffable gestalt of his speculations: "Body and Emotion in the Making of Consciousness (see this review if you are unfamiliar).

If you can conceive of what it means to be "unconscious," and if you can read some of the case studies of Damasio (or Oliver Sacks, for good measure), you can sculpt your own conception of the common connotations of the word . . .

In terms of "what consciousness is for," accepting that this is a metaphor like "What the Fox gene is for," I find it helps to think as Steven Pinker or Richard Dawkins suggest -- as an attribute of an evolved species, consciousness is not strictly for anything, as telos, as end, as purpose. Yet by applying a reverse engineering perspective, one can ask "what does it do?" and "what does its absence imply for its purpose?" and "are there levels of consciousness?"

In my muddled understanding then, consciousness is a built-on extension of the senses that most living things have, an 'awareness-Plus,' a sophisticated homeostatic function of the organism. Consciousness of the type an amoeba does not possess is the function of the organism that says "I, me, mine, today, tomorrow, forever." And to stretch an analogy to its snapping point, consciousness is the Knowing of the Knower.

Fascinating angles on consciousness come from consideration of coma, persistent vegetative states, locked-in syndrome, various agnosias and effects of brain lesions from the neurological literature.

_______

** in the meantime, a quick summary of Damasio's levels of consciousness here.

[Ellen Stuttle]

People might want to bother with reading the article and finding out what it's about before analyzing. Just a suggestion.

Ellen

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[tjohnson]

If you recommend to me an accessible Korzybski take on consciousness (of something), I will try to find you an accessible take from Damasio. **

Wow,I wouldn't know where to begin. The term 'consciousness of abstracting' appears 134 times in Science and Sanity which is published online here

http://www.esgs.org/uk/art/sands.htm

It is the actual cornerstone of his theory of sanity and basically means consciously differentiating orders of abstraction, for example between words and what they represent, between descriptions and inferences, etc.

Here is one passage;

......From our daily experience, we are

familiar with what we usually denote as being ‘conscious’; in other words, we are

aware of something, be it an object, a process, an action, a ‘feeling’, or an ‘idea’. A

reaction that is very habitual and semi-automatic is not necessarily ‘conscious’. The

term ‘consciousness’, taken separately, is not a complete symbol; it lacks content,

and one of the characteristics of ‘consciousness’ is to have some content. Usually,

the term ‘consciousness’ is taken as undefined and undefinable, because of its

immediate character for every one of us. Such a situation is not desirable, as it is

always semantically useful to try to define a complex term by simpler terms. We

may limit the general and undefined term ‘consciousness’ and make it a definite

symbol by the deliberate ascribing of some content to this term. For this

‘consciousness of something’ I take ‘consciousness of abstracting’ as fundamental.

Perhaps the only type of meanings the term ‘consciousness’ has is covered by the

functional term ‘consciousness of abstracting’, which represents a general process

going on in our nervous system. Even if this is not the only type of meanings, the

term ‘consciousness of abstracting’ appears to be of such crucial semantic

importance that its introduction is necessary.

The term ‘consciousness’, because of its hitherto undefined and traditionally

undefinable character, did not allow us further analysis. Neither did we have any

workable, educational, semantic means to handle the vast field of psycho-logical

processes which this incomplete symbol indicated. If we now select the term

‘consciousness of abstracting’ as fundamental, we not only make the last symbol

complete by assigning functional content to it, but we also find means to define it

more specifically in simpler terms. Through understanding of the processes we gain

educational means of handling and influencing a large group of semantic psycho-

logical reactions.

[merjet]

I've now read the whole article by Pierson and Trout and agree with a lot of it. Indeed, there are some points in common with my article here.

Their primary hypothesis is: The ultimate adaptive function of consciousness is to make volitional movement possible.

I think this has too much emphasis. It's ultimate in the sense volitional movement often comes after other functions of consciousness. I can understand their stress given that the hypothesis is rarely argued for. On the other hand, it will meet resistance from readers who put far more emphasis on the function awareness (or another).

They even say volitional action is the raison d’être of consciousness. This undercuts non-volitional action being a part of the raison d’être of consciousness. From an evolutionary perspective the latter was likely first.

Maybe a more palatable way to say it is that consciousness is the interface between awareness and action, with volitional action being a very important part, which to date has been insufficiently recognized.

Pierson and Trout say, "there is no apparent reason why natural selection would make a dog seem to be deliberating when it is merely executing a program."

The appearance of deliberating might mask real deliberating -- the animal is choosing between or among alternatives -- and waiting while a "multi-threaded program" does not show a discernible direction emerging from competing threads. The direction becomes clear only when one thread becomes dominant.

[Ellen Stuttle]

I've now read the whole article by Pierson and Trout and agree with a lot of it. Indeed, there are some points in common with my article here.

Their primary hypothesis is: The ultimate adaptive function of consciousness is to make volitional movement possible.

I think this has too much emphasis. It's ultimate in the sense volitional movement often comes after other functions of consciousness. I can understand their stress given that the hypothesis is rarely argued for. On the other hand, it will meet resistance from readers who put far more emphasis on the function awareness (or another).

I don't think it has a speck too much emphasis. Indeed, Lee got stronger in the emphasis, under my urging, in earlier drafts.

They even say volitional action is the raison d’être of consciousness. This undercuts non-volitional action being a part of the raison d’être of consciousness. From an evolutionary perspective the latter was likely first.

Non-volitional action likely did come first, but I think it's most unlikely that consciousness (I'm including here the merest hint of awareness, far down the line from anything so developed as human awareness) came prior to an ability for differential motion -- moving here rather than there, moving in one style of motion rather than another. Where consciousness has a role is in in-forming re differential advantages of motion possibilities.

I think this way of approach to the issue -- and no other I've encountered -- makes possible solving a great many problems -- including an account of "volition" which doesn't run into confrontation with physics.

Ellen

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[Robert Campbell]

What's the current status of Pierson and Trout's paper?

Is it going to be published anywhere besides the online repository where sits at present?

Robert Campbell

[Ellen Stuttle]

What's the current status of Pierson and Trout's paper?

Is it going to be published anywhere besides the online repository where sits at present?

Robert Campbell

I think there still hasn't been a bite from a journal -- although it is getting a lot of reads at the cogprints site. Interestingly, Lee says that among those who have responded are some folks in AI who find the paper helpful as to why the AI dream of consciousness suddenly emerging from complexity keeps not panning out.

Some of the earlier revisions were because of objections from The Journal of Cognitive Studies (I hope I have the right name; it's a journal where more unorthodox stuff sometimes gets published). But then it still wasn't accepted even after revision.

I'll of course hear the latest update come Thanksgiving, and I'll let you know what I hear.

Ellen

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Edited November 5, 2007 by Ellen Stuttle

[Dragonfly]

I started to read the article, but when I encountered the tired old argument of the so-called "contradiction" of determinism, I knew that further reading would be a waste of time.

[Ellen Stuttle]

I started to read the article, but when I encountered the tired old argument of the so-called "contradiction" of determinism, I knew that further reading would be a waste of time.

I think you quit too soon. ;-)

AR did things like that, too, you know: dismissing everything a theorist might say on the basis of a particular disagreement.

And of course I, too, think there's a contradiction between determinism and the very possibility of knowledge -- including scientific knowledge -- unless the issues are framed very carefully, much more carefully than they are in the typical determinist argument. And yet thus far I haven't noticed you concluding that reading anything further I have to say would be a waste of your time.

Ellen

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Edited November 5, 2007 by Ellen Stuttle

[Robert Campbell]

Dragonfly,

You shouldn't set the Pierson and Trout piece down because they use a variant of the "contradiction of determinism" argument.

If I slammed down every article in psychology that assumed without argument that knowledge basically consists of "schemas" or some other kind of symbol structures, I wouldn't finish a whole lot of psych articles. That would lighten my reading load considerably, but at the expense of closing off all kinds of good ideas or results that the articles often turn out to contain.

Besides, the "contradiction of determinism" argument refers to the epistemic norms to which we are supposed to be adhering when we are doing science.

If acquiring scientific knowledge requires the conscious following of norms, and it is possible to violate those norms, determinism appears to have the following implication: Whenever someone follows scientific norms, he or she had to follow them in that particular context--and whenever someone does not follow them, he or she had to not follow them in that particular context.

At the very least, the determinist either needs to account for epistemic responsibility in strictly deterministic terms, or challenge our usual notions about it as mistaken.

Robert Campbell

[Ellen Stuttle]

At the very least, the determinist either needs to account for epistemic responsibility in strictly deterministic terms, or challenge our usual notions about it as mistaken.

There's the clincher: accounting for epistemic responsibility in strictly deterministic terms. One has to be clear, too, what one means by "determinism." Dragonfly means that the brain is a classical system. I've been coming to think in about the last year that the approach Lee takes -- extended; I've gone further than he has with the search for evolutionary roots -- could work for an epistemically sound "compatibilism." I used to think that no form of compatibilism could work. I'm still not 100% convinced. At any rate, the problem isn't trivially dismissable, and it's a problem which I think a lot of scientists just don't understand. They say, "the evidence shows...," but they don't grasp that the very idea of "evidence" requires being able to perform a test against an epistemic norm.

Ellen

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[BaalChatzaf]

At the very least, the determinist either needs to account for epistemic responsibility in strictly deterministic terms, or challenge our usual notions about it as mistaken.

There's the clincher: accounting for epistemic responsibility in strictly deterministic terms. One has to be clear, too, what one means by "determinism." Dragonfly means that the brain is a classical system. I've been coming to think in about the last year that the approach Lee takes -- extended; I've gone further than he has with the search for evolutionary roots -- could work for an epistemically sound "compatibilism." I used to think that no form of compatibilism could work. I'm still not 100% convinced. At any rate, the problem isn't trivially dismissable, and it's a problem which I think a lot of scientists just don't understand. They say, "the evidence shows...," but they don't grasp that the very idea of "evidence" requires being able to perform a test against an epistemic norm.

Ellen

___

I think most scientists are well aware that there is no theory-free mode of testing and justification of their dearest theories and models. All modes of justification are theory laden to one degree or another. The epistemic norm against which all scientists work is the principle of non-contradiction. The competent scientists grasp the matter quite well. There is no Bright Line between theory and fact in the context of testing hypotheses and theory.

The scientists looking for neurological models of mind and consciousness are well aware of the difficulties. They understand why they have not yet been successful in their quest to make volitional mind totally compatible with the physical goo that fills the space between their ears. For starters, the problem is many orders of magnitude more difficult than any problems the physicists have solved.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Edited November 6, 2007 by BaalChatzaf

[Dragonfly]

And of course I, too, think there's a contradiction between determinism and the very possibility of knowledge -- including scientific knowledge -- unless the issues are framed very carefully, much more carefully than they are in the typical determinist argument. And yet thus far I haven't noticed you concluding that reading anything further I have to say would be a waste of your time.

And who has been framing the issues carefully, defining what he exactly means by determinism? In contrast to what other people write, who summarily dismiss "determinism" (without any further qualification) in one sentence, that is exactly what I have done. A few examples can be found here (scroll down to my post of Mon Oct 29, 2007 5:13 pm), here (scroll down) and here (scroll down).

[Robert Campbell]

Dragonfly,

You haven't been putting anything like your full case here on this site.

My previous statement was informed by what you'd said recently on the RichardDawkins.net thread on Ayn Rand (under Philosophy). But a link to one of your posts there is of limited utility to participants here, because users of RichardDawkins.net have to register.

Meanwhile, I hadn't seen your comment over on ARCHN before. I'm going to take the liberty of reproducing it here:

First, there is strong empirical evidence that the brain in functional terms can be described as a classical, and therefore deterministic system. See for example the references given in the discussion on the Dawkins forum. Second, and that is the point that so many people fail to understand and therefore come to the wrong conclusion: determinism at the underlying, physiological level does not imply determinism at the conscious, intentional level. Therefore you cannot conclude from the lack of determinism in conscious thoughts that the underlying mechanism is not deterministic. Whether we call a system deterministic or not depends on the level of description.

A simple example: a description of a computer at the level of atoms and elementary particles is not deterministic, due to the essentially random character of QM. Nevertheless a description of the same computer in functional terms of bits and logic gates is a deterministic system, the computer is after all the deterministic system par excellence. And if we describe a particular program in terms of its functionality (what it takes as input and gives as output), this may not be a deterministic system (the description in functional states may contain insufficient information), while a description in terms of the softwarecode is deterministic. So we see that one physical system (a computer with software) may be indeterministic, deterministic and again indeterministic, depending on the level of description.

And therefore the whole "problem" of "free will" isn't a problem at all, it is an imaginary problem. The system of our consciousness in terms of conscious thoughts is not deterministic, as a state description of this system is far from complete: one single thought may correspond to gazillions of different underlying mechanisms. So from a description in terms of thoughts, we can never predict what future thoughts will be, and that gives us the illusion that we are free to choose among different alternatives. There is in every particular situation only one outcome (ever seen more than one outcome at the same time?), only we cannot know which one it will be, and therefore we see many other outcomes as real possibilities. It is our ignorance of our own brain processes that creates the illusion of free will.

It is impossible to conclude from introspection whether our thoughts are based on deterministic processes or not, as we cannot be aware of these processes. Every thought, every observation is itself based on such processes. Arguments from introspection are therefore invalid.

Arguments that we cannot know anything, that there is no reason to be ethical etc. etc. are therefore also invalid. Our conscious reasoning is no less valid if it is based on a deterministic substrate, as all the conclusions we draw, are drawn at the conscious, intentional level, regardless what happens at lower levels. What happens under the hood is irrelevant in terms of where we are driving (even if it is of course essential for the possibility of driving).

11/05/2007 08:20:00 AM

I'm not going to argue with you concerning the level of physics at which the brain functions. There are multiple levels of brain functioning to account for, but I don't see QM being applicable to any of them, so I am with you in rejecting the formulations of Penrose, Hameroff, and company.

However, you move way too quickly to your conclusion in the passage I just quoted (and you moved even quicker in your RichardDawkins.net post).

You say, "Our conscious reasoning is no less valid if it is based on a deterministic substrate." OK, fine, but won't you also have to endorse "Our conscious reasoning is no less invalid if it is based on a deterministic substrate"? After all, our conscious reasoning is not always valid.

The correct answer, given your framework, would seem to be that a person's conscious reasoning, on some topic, in some situation, is valid if such and such a chain of processes unrolled in the person's brain on that occasion--and that chain of processes, whatever it is, is the one that had to unroll, in that person's brain, on that occasion.

But it also follows in your framework that when a person engages in invalid conscious reasoning, his or her conscious reasoning, on some other topic, in some other situation, is invalid if some other chain of processes unrolled in the person's brain on that occasion--and that chain of processes, whatever it is exactly, is the one that had to unroll, in that person's brain, on that occasion.

At the very least, your model needs to be developed in further detail, or assumptions not presently stated need to be brought forward and examined, before anyone should conclude that you have produced a response to "contradiction of determinism"-style arguments.

For all that you seem to be contending is that a deterministic system of sufficient complexity will have unpredictable outcomes. That is true. And the fact that it is true rules out some of the deterministic systems from past eras in psychology, most notably behaviorist theories.

However, unpredictable is not the same as not determined. You make that clear in your own exposition, by referring to free will as an illusion.

Nor is it obvious how unpredictability helps with questions about following norms.

If it is unpredictable whether I will draw the conclusions I ought to draw, given the data that I have collected in my experiment, that is not the same as my being free to follow the appropriate norms of scientific reasoning, or not to follow them. Nor, obviously, is it a guarantee of the validity of my reasoning process. Rather, if the nondeterministic properties of my conscious thinking are simply due to my ignorance of the deterministic neural processes that give rise to them (and perhaps also of those neural processes being so complex that even I knew in full detail where they are now, I wouldn't be able to predict what they would do next), then it seems to follow that sometimes I will have to reason in accordance with the appropriate norms, and sometimes I will have to reason in violation of them--and I don't know when I will do one and when I will do the other--and that's all she wrote.

Robert Campbell

[Ellen Stuttle]

A very strong "bravo," Robert, for your reply to DF. I'd like to emphasize some of the details.

I'm not going to argue with you concerning the level of physics at which the brain functions. There are multiple levels of brain functioning to account for, but I don't see QM being applicable to any of them, so I am with you in rejecting the formulations of Penrose, Hameroff, and company.

Likewise. I'm of the opinion that the search for "free-will" in QM is a wild-goose chase. Or worse, because if QM effects were operative, the best they'd produce is random outcomes, which aren't what's needed -- which aren't even desirable -- for intentionally directed action.

However, you move way too quickly to your conclusion in the passage I just quoted (and you moved even quicker in your RichardDawkins.net post).

[....] At the very least, your model needs to be developed in further detail, or assumptions not presently stated need to be brought forward and examined, before anyone should conclude that you have produced a response to "contradiction of determinism"-style arguments.

Agreed; agreed. Frankly, DF, I think you aren't understanding the problem, why there is a problem. Hence it's doubly unfair when you just dismiss as not worth listening to anyone who hasn't come to your conclusions, when you're skipping the steps which would be needed to provide a solution to the problem which they're seeing.

For all that you seem to be contending is that a deterministic system of sufficient complexity will have unpredictable outcomes. That is true. And the fact that it is true rules out some of the deterministic systems from past eras in psychology, most notably behaviorist theories.

However, unpredictable is not the same as not determined. You make that clear in your own exposition, by referring to free will as an illusion.

Quite. You switch between saying that determinism isn't operable at the intentional level, and then saying that the "free will" operative at that level is an illusion. Well, which is it? Real or not? You have an outright contradiction there yourself.

Furthermore, to emphasis this point: unpredictability doesn't equal non-determinism. E.g., we can't predict outcomes in chaos theory, but chaos theory is entirely determinist, yes?

Nor is it obvious how unpredictability helps with questions about following norms.

It's entirely murky how unpredictability would get one anywhere with the issue of following epistemic norms. But it's the problem of epistemic norms which is the crux of the problem. So I think you don't actually address the issue; you skip it and say you've solved it. (Dennett, I think, does the same.)

Ellen

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[Ellen Stuttle]

I think most scientists are well aware that there is no theory-free mode of testing and justification of their dearest theories and models. All modes of justification are theory laden to one degree or another. The epistemic norm against which all scientists work is the principle of non-contradiction. The competent scientists grasp the matter quite well. There is no Bright Line between theory and fact in the context of testing hypotheses and theory.

What you said there doesn't address the issue. How can they tell if they're proceeding by non-contradiction or not?

The scientists looking for neurological models of mind and consciousness are well aware of the difficulties. They understand why they have not yet been successful in their quest to make volitional mind totally compatible with the physical goo that fills the space between their ears. For starters, the problem is many orders of magnitude more difficult than any problems the physicists have solved.

I agree that a lot of the scientists looking for neurological models are at least aware of the difficulties (with different degrees of awareness). But this group is a small subset of scientists.

Obviously I don't have any kind of systematic poll of course. I'm going by impressions. It has happened many times in discussions I've had with physicists who say they're determinists * that when I try to push the epistemic problem, they refer to the "evidence" without realizing that the very idea of "evidence" requires addressing the epistemic problem first. They're in a contradiction they don't know they're in.

* which of course isn't all physicists; some give what I call a cop-out answer of saying they believe in free-will but it's something physics can't address; some few others (again, keep in mind I'm speaking of ones I've personally talked with) see that there is a thus-far unbridged gap between the currently accepted laws of physics and some form of volition and see this as a problem to be solved but not yet solved.

Ellen

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[Dragonfly]

You haven't been putting anything like your full case here on this site.

I think that most of it has also been said in different posts on this site, but searching among my more than 1300 posts here for the relevant ones is a bit tiresome, so I chose the most recent posts on this subject, which happened to be on other forums.

You say, "Our conscious reasoning is no less valid if it is based on a deterministic substrate." OK, fine, but won't you also have to endorse "Our conscious reasoning is no less invalid if it is based on a deterministic substrate"? After all, our conscious reasoning is not always valid.

Of course.

The correct answer, given your framework, would seem to be that a person's conscious reasoning, on some topic, in some situation, is valid if such and such a chain of processes unrolled in the person's brain on that occasion--and that chain of processes, whatever it is, is the one that had to unroll, in that person's brain, on that occasion.

You mean: supposing that his reasoning is valid? Otherwise this doesn't make sense, I never claimed that a deterministic substrate somehow validates someone's reasoning, neither that it invalidates his reasoning.

But it also follows in your framework that when a person engages in invalid conscious reasoning, his or her conscious reasoning, on some other topic, in some other situation, is invalid if some other chain of processes unrolled in the person's brain on that occasion--and that chain of processes, whatever it is exactly, is the one that had to unroll, in that person's brain, on that occasion.

Correct.

If it is unpredictable whether I will draw the conclusions I ought to draw, given the data that I have collected in my experiment, that is not the same as my being free to follow the appropriate norms of scientific reasoning, or not to follow them. Nor, obviously, is it a guarantee of the validity of my reasoning process. Rather, if the nondeterministic properties of my conscious thinking are simply due to my ignorance of the deterministic neural processes that give rise to them (and perhaps also of those neural processes being so complex that even I knew in full detail where they are now, I wouldn't be able to predict what they would do next), then it seems to follow that sometimes I will have to reason in accordance with the appropriate norms, and sometimes I will have to reason in violation of them--and I don't know when I will do one and when I will do the other--and that's all she wrote.

But of course you can know when you will do one and when you will do the other! When your reasoning is wrong (for example you are proposing some bad scientific theory, or just make some simple error in daily life) you'll get feedback, you will be confronted with the results of your reasoning. Now you may ignore such feedback. In the case of the scientific theory that makes you a bad scientist, and if you always ignore errors your chances for survival will diminish dramatically. But you can also learn from the feedback and make corrections in your reasoning. The test is empirical evidence, in other words ultimately reality itself. Now different people will act differently, as their brains are all different, due to genetic factors, their experiences, memories, and that is what ultimately is responsible for the fact that some people may be successful scientists and other people pseudo-scientists or quacks, to use the science example. Some people may be just too dumb (genetic factors!) to realize that their reasoning is erroneous, while others are intelligent enough to realize their mistakes and correct them. Why should that be an argument against a deterministic substrate?

Edited November 6, 2007 by Dragonfly

[tjohnson]

Dragonfly,

You haven't been putting anything like your full case here on this site.

My previous statement was informed by what you'd said recently on the RichardDawkins.net thread on Ayn Rand (under Philosophy). But a link to one of your posts there is of limited utility to participants here, because users of RichardDawkins.net have to register.

Meanwhile, I hadn't seen your comment over on ARCHN before. I'm going to take the liberty of reproducing it here:

A simple example: a description of a computer at the level of atoms and elementary particles is not deterministic, due to the essentially random character of QM.

11/05/2007 08:20:00 AM

Wouldn't it be more accurate to describe QM as oo-valued determinism, rather than not deterministic at all?

[Dragonfly]

Quite. You switch between saying that determinism isn't operable at the intentional level, and then saying that the "free will" operative at that level is an illusion. Well, which is it? Real or not? You have an outright contradiction there yourself.

There is no contradiction. When I say that "free will" is an illusion, I mean that the notion that there are really different outcomes physically possible (that is what the proponents always claim) is incorrect, that it is merely the unpredictability of your own thoughts that creates that illusion. That doesn't in any way contradict the fact that the description at the intentional level is not deterministic. Following my definition of determinism it only means that the description of a certain state at that level gives insufficient information to determine the state at a later time, or S(t1) may correspond to S1(t2) but also to S2(t2) etc. (t2 > t1). But that doesn't imply that for any given S(t1) there may be more than one S(t2)! There is in fact only one S(t2) that will correspond to that given S(t1), and which one it is, is determined by the "hidden" variables in the lower level description. As we cannot be aware of those hidden variables, we ignore them, just as we ignore the deterministic variables when we use a die as a generator of random numbers. Therefore we have to limit our reasoning at the non-deterministic level, which doesn't imply however that it cannot be the result of a deterministic process. At the intentional level we do as if there is more than one outcome possible, as it's just the practical thing to do. But in fact we know better, just as we know better than to think that a die is really a random device.

Furthermore, to emphasis this point: unpredictability doesn't equal non-determinism. E.g., we can't predict outcomes in chaos theory, but chaos theory is entirely determinist, yes?

Sure, but not relevant. Reread my definitions of determinism.

It's entirely murky how unpredictability would get one anywhere with the issue of following epistemic norms. But it's the problem of epistemic norms which is the crux of the problem. So I think you don't actually address the issue; you skip it and say you've solved it. (Dennett, I think, does the same.)

But there is no problem! Do you deny the unpredictability of your own thinking?

[Ellen Stuttle]

I never claimed that a deterministic substrate somehow validates someone's reasoning, neither that it invalidates his reasoning.

What does validate and invalidate the reasoning? Evidence, and correct reasoning based on the evidence, yes? But how, according to you, can the person tell if he/she is reasoning correctly based on evidence or not?

See your subsequent comments replying to RC:

But it also follows in your framework that when a person engages in invalid conscious reasoning, his or her conscious reasoning, on some other topic, in some other situation, is invalid if some other chain of processes unrolled in the person's brain on that occasion--and that chain of processes, whatever it is exactly, is the one that had to unroll, in that person's brain, on that occasion.

Correct.

There you say, "Correct," i.e. the process was what had to unroll; thus the person had to come to an invalid conclusion.

You then proceed to say that the person can know if the person has done this or not, i.e., come to an invlaid or valid conclusion:

But of course you can know when you will do one and when you will do the other! When your reasoning is wrong (for example you are proposing some bad scientific theory, or just make some simple error in daily life) you'll get feedback, you will be confronted with the results of your reasoning.

You continue:

Now you may ignore such feedback [my emphasis].

There you would be providing yourself with a way out of the evidential problem -- the person having the possibility of ignoring (or vice versa, paying attention to) negative feedback. Except you then proceed, being consistent with determinism, to throw away the reality-check you've just provided, since you write:

Now different people will act differently, as their brains are all different, due to genetic factors, their experiences, memories, and that is what ultimately is responsible for the fact that some people may be successful scientists and other people pseudo-scientists or quacks, to use the science example. Some people may be just too dumb (genetic factors!) to realize that their reasoning is erroneous, while others are intelligent enough to realize their mistakes and correct them. [my emphasis] Why should that be an argument against a deterministic substrate?

I.e., if one person ignores feedback indicating error and another person doesn't, in each case the person did what the person had to do. But then how can either person tell which of these circumstances is applicable? If some people are "just too dumb" to realize that they're ignoring feedback indicating error, whereas other people just aren't too dumb, how can anyone tell which of these two categories he or she is in?

Ellen

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[Ellen Stuttle]

Quite. You switch between saying that determinism isn't operable at the intentional level, and then saying that the "free will" operative at that level is an illusion. Well, which is it? Real or not? You have an outright contradiction there yourself.

There is no contradiction. When I say that "free will" is an illusion, I mean that the notion that there are really different outcomes physically possible (that is what the proponents always claim) is incorrect, that it is merely the unpredictability of your own thoughts that creates that illusion. That doesn't in any way contradict the fact that the description at the intentional level is not deterministic. Following my definition of determinism it only means that the description of a certain state at that level gives insufficient information to determine the state at a later time, or S(t1) may correspond to S1(t2) but also to S2(t2) etc. (t2 > t1). But that doesn't imply that for any given S(t1) there may be more than one S(t2)! There is in fact only one S(t2) that will correspond to that given S(t1), and which one it is, is determined by the "hidden" variables in the lower level description. As we cannot be aware of those hidden variables, we ignore them, just as we ignore the deterministic variables when we use a die as a generator of random numbers. Therefore we have to limit our reasoning at the non-deterministic level, which doesn't imply however that it cannot be the result of a deterministic process. At the intentional level we do as if there is more than one outcome possible, as it's just the practical thing to do. But in fact we know better, just as we know better than to think that a die is really a random device.

I'm not following the above. It looks like you first said there is more than one possible state at time t2 and then said there isn't.

Excerpting the relevant part:

the description at the intentional level is not deterministic. Following my definition of determinism it only means that the description of a certain state at that level gives insufficient information to determine the state at a later time, or S(t1) may correspond to S1(t2) but also to S2(t2) etc. (t2 > t1). But that doesn't imply that for any given S(t1) there may be more than one S(t2)! There is in fact only one S(t2) that will correspond to that given S(t1), and which one it is, is determined by the "hidden" variables in the lower level description.

"may correspond to S1(t2) but also to S2(t2) etc. (t2 > t1)" but then that there isn't "more than one S(t2)."

Is the discrepancy due to 2 different meanings of "determine"?

Where you say:

"Following my definition of determinism it only means that the description of a certain state at that level gives insufficient information to DETERMINE the state at a later time," are you meaning there "predict" by "determine"? If yes, then all you're meaning in saying the intentional level is undetermined is that it's unpredictable, not that it isn't deterministic.

It's entirely murky how unpredictability would get one anywhere with the issue of following epistemic norms. But it's the problem of epistemic norms which is the crux of the problem. So I think you don't actually address the issue; you skip it and say you've solved it. (Dennett, I think, does the same.)

But there is no problem! Do you deny the unpredictability of your own thinking?

No, of course I don't deny the unpredictability of my own thinking. But this doesn't get near the epistemological problem of how to assess the validity of what your thinking processes produce. (See my previous post.)

Ellen

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[merjet]

I did some browsing at http://cogprints.org/ and found one titled The evolutionary origins of volition

here. Some of you may be interested in reading it.