How can "Consciousness is awareness of existence." be validated.

[libertarianbob01]

Greetings:

Ayn Rand wrote that "...If nothing exists, there can be no consciousness: a consciousness with nothing to be conscious of is a contradiction in terms. A consciousness conscious of nothing but itself is a contradiction in terms: before it could identify itself as consciousness, it had to be conscious of something. ..." in Galt's famous speech.

Recently I had a message exchange with a Christian. I made the following argument, and he

responded with the italicized comment.

1. To believe that a theistic creator deity exists and is responsible for reality, the believer must imagine their deity was in some timeless fashion akin to "before" existence alone in a timeless, non-spatial, void without anything. That is alone as a consciousness, conscious of nothing or only itself without time, space, energy, location, dimensions, fields, concepts, knowledge, symbols, perceptions, physical natural law, logic or matter. Believers imagine that their deity was a primordial, immaterial, non-spatial, consciousness that wished existence to instantiate.

2. Consciousness is an irreducible primary.

3. Consciousness at the most common denominative rung on the ladder of complexity consists of awareness of existence.

4. Consciousness of consciousness necessarily requires primary consciousness to first obtain as awareness of existence.

5. Prior to existence there could not have been anything to be aware of.

6. Without anything to be aware of, there could not have been any awareness.

7. Without awareness there could not have been any consciousness.

8. From 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 there could not have been a primordial consciousness prior to existence.

9. Creator gods are defined as primordial consciousness.

10. From 8 and 9 Creator gods cannot exist.

Following are the Christians comments.

my point is 1) I can have the capacity to be aware of things without actually being aware of anything.

We need to make a distinction here:

A) Consciousness is having the capacity to be aware of things and

B) Consciousness is being aware of things. You sound like you accept B. I accept A.

And my second point is 2) Even if B were true, God could be aware of himself. One can be introspectively aware of themselves, their feelings, their thoughts, their character, etc. There is no contradiction there.

And my third point 3) Even if B were true, God the Father could be aware of God the Son. ...snip...

In responding to this person, I pointed out that all the standard definitions of consciousness easily found online either directly assert or presuppose consciousness is awareness. I wrote a very lame reply in addition to the dictionary reference.

"To be conscious is to be aware of external reality. Meta-consciousness necessarily must rest upon a foundation of awareness of reality. If there is no reality, there can be no consciousness. The fallacy you are making is know as asserting the primacy of consciousness."

I then referred the person to Anton Thorn's Metaphysical Primacy of Existence essay

My point in all of this is to ask how an objectivist may most correctly respond to those who assert consciousness can be something other than awareness of existence? Such assertions are the foundation of primacy of consciousness thinking. I suspect others have written on this subject many times. Is there a thread on the board where this specific issue is discussed?

An if you notice an error with the argument based on Rand's consciousness stuff from Galt's speech against creator gods, shout out. I need to get this thing fixed.

Thank you for your help.

Edited June 19, 2008 by libertarianbob01

[Guyau]

Mr. Brown, there may be some help in these:

http://www.objectivistliving.com/forums/in...amp;#entry14643

http://www.objectivistliving.com/forums/in...amp;#entry14672

http://www.solopassion.com/node/3325#comment-40815

http://rebirthofreason.com/Forum/Dissent/0070_1.shtml#37

[think]

*getting feet wet in topic of discussion here; I can't wait to get to that speech in Atlas Shrugged *

in my theories of reality as it is and the consciousness of being aware of that is subdivided ad infinitum but not in the "normal way." It is not as if its compositional subdivisions are subsets, I think they are not subsets but recursive ideas that rely on the previous consciousness that is being aware of.

I am aware of consciousness.

That consciousness is aware of Itself.

I am aware of that consciousness that is aware of Itself

That consciousness that is aware of being aware of itself is "now" aware as well.

and so forth in a self defined loop like structure of Ideas that goes endlessly into the future.

IMO ., semantics rely on a conscious understanding of the points that are being made. (sorry about the misspell)

Bill N.

---------------------

Schrodinger wrote:

“Vedanta teaches that consciousness is singular, all happenings are played out in one universal consciousness and there is no multiplicity of selves.”

Edited January 20, 2009 by think

[libertarianbob01]

I am aware of consciousness.

That consciousness is aware of Itself.

I am aware of that consciousness that is aware of Itself

That consciousness that is aware of being aware of itself is "now" aware as well.

Bill N.

---------------------

Schrodinger wrote:

“Vedanta teaches that consciousness is singular, all happenings are played out in one universal consciousness and there is no multiplicity of selves.”

Bill is not aware of consciousness, nor is any other man. Consciousness is awareness of existence that results from brain processing. Without existence or a brain process there can be no awareness and no consciousness. If Bill were to be surgically altered to disable all his brain neurological sensory cortices, he would have no sensory perception. Yet he would still be aware of his own thoughts because Bill is the processing of the brain that lives in his skull. The autonomic nervous system provides feedback to the various cortices and lobes in Bill's brain. Bill, however, would die when his brain dies. Without a physical brain to process, no consciousness can occur. As the end result of a casual process of awareness, consciousness cannot sense the material physical medium wherein it occurs, nor the casual operation of the brain leading to consciousness. Man can sense external reality via perceptual sensations and can recognize his own thoughts but not the processes by which he is aware of reality or by which those thought occur. Man qua man is an organic biological being and not a "supernatural" entity disassociated from reality as he would have to be in order to sense his own awareness of existence.

Schrodinger was a brilliant physicist, but quite delusional when it came to the notion of a cosmic consciousness. All animals with a central nervous system that are capable of awareness of existence are conscious. The degree of intelligence, sentience, and sapience a particular organism is capable of varies due to and with the evolutionary history of their species.

I wish all who read these words to live long and prosper save those who are my enemies.

[BaalChatzaf]

2. Consciousness is an irreducible primary.

Bzzzzt! Wrong! Consciousness is an effect of a working physical neurological system. Something with a physical cause is not irreducible. Asserting Consciousness as an irreducible primary is the same kind of category error as is Intelligent Design. D.O.A. Dead on Arrival.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Selene]

Ba'al:

Whoa! Not so fast, "Consciousness is an effect of a working physical neurological system." How so?

Adam

[BaalChatzaf]

Ba'al:

Whoa! Not so fast, "Consciousness is an effect of a working physical neurological system." How so?

Adam

Have a PET scan done and see yourself think in Real Time. Arguing that thought is non-physical is like arguing that the Earth is flat. I have seen myself think in Real Time. It is all neurons a-buzzing.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Selene]

Ba'al:

Yes, I am quite familiar with the explosion in brain imaging technology.

"...is an effect..." why not a cause as in consciousness is a cause of a working physical neurological system.

Adam

[Christopher]

"...is an effect..." why not a cause as in consciousness is a cause of a working physical neurological system.

Adam

I like it.

[BaalChatzaf]

"...is an effect..." why not a cause as in consciousness is a cause of a working physical neurological system.

Adam

I like it.

What are the physical laws of consciousness? How does consciousness impart energy to the neurons? No energy, no action. Write us when you have an empirically testable and objective theory of consciousness.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Edited February 14, 2009 by BaalChatzaf

[Christopher]

What are the physical laws of consciousness? How does consciousness impart energy to the neurons? No energy, no action. Write us when you have an empirically testable and objective theory of consciousness.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Hrrmm... I think this has everything to do with epistemology. Can you "prove" the causal relationship between the existence of consciousness and the existence of the physical universe such that the physical universe causes consciousness?

Not a single solitary conscious event is objectively testable, and not a single objective event is experienced independent of consciousness. Yet you're claiming to know the causal relationship between these two integrated universes? You write your theory first.

Chris

[Roger Bissell]

What are the physical laws of consciousness? How does consciousness impart energy to the neurons? No energy, no action. Write us when you have an empirically testable and objective theory of consciousness.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Hrrmm... I think this has everything to do with epistemology. Can you "prove" the causal relationship between the existence of consciousness and the existence of the physical universe such that the physical universe causes consciousness?

Not a single solitary conscious event is objectively testable, and not a single objective event is experienced independent of consciousness. Yet you're claiming to know the causal relationship between these two integrated universes? You write your theory first.

Chris

Given the existence of both a physical universe and consciousness, there are only three possible ways they can be causally related. 1. Consciousness is dependent upon the physical universe (viz., living beings that develop consciousness). 2. The physical universe is dependent upon consciousness. (This takes two main forms: the physical universe was created and is sustained by an infinite supernatural consciousness--or the physical universe is somehow generated by consciousness, which is Idealism, e.g., Bishop Berkeley.) 3. The physical universe and consciousness are both dependent upon some other factor, which is assumed to be neutral with respect to matter and consciousness, a viewed usually called "neutral monism." (Since God is understood as being consciousness, his causally generating the universe falls under 2, not this view.) Otherwise than these three views, consciousness and the physical universe cannot be causally related.

There is very good empirical evidence for 1, which is the view I hold--and no evidence I am aware of for 2 or 3. The main evidence is that, wherever we look, we often encounter physical things that are not conscious, but we never encounter a free-floating consciousness, i.e., a consciousness that is not the consciousness ~of~ some physical being. Those who have claimed to have encountered free-floating consciousnesses--or that we will one day after we die--have never provided evidence for such, so claims of such are arbitrary assertions and to be rejected out of hand. (There is no "get out of jail" card to escape the onus of proof on this issue.)

A second important fact is that the consciousnesses we ~are~ aware of are all functions of ~living~ beings, which are helped to survive by that function, which strongly suggests that when living beings reached a certain stage of complexity, they developed the capacity for awareness as a means for gaining the things they needed to survive (and avoiding the things that would threaten their survival). It is highly unlikely that such a function would arise in nature, if it did not serve a purpose for beings whose continued existence was conditional on their getting certain things and avoiding others; and even if it did arise in non-living beings, if it didn't help them survive, there would be no reason for it to "take root" and remain in them, any more than it would in living beings if it didn't help ~them~ survive.

Is free-floating consciousness or non-survival-promoting consciousness, perhaps, like black swans? Even though we don't now find any, isn't it possible we might find such in the future? No. There is a fundamental difference between them. The difference between white and black swans is a non-essential matter of pigmentation; but the difference between embodied consciousness, on the one hand, and free-floating or non-survival-promoting consciousness, on the other, is fundamental. There are clearly discoverable causal reasons why black feathering occurs, even if it is rare in some locales, but there are no conceivable causal reasons why free-floating or non-survival-promoting consciousness might arise, let alone persist.

One final point: consciousness is not a universe. It is ~something in~ the universe. It is an attribute of living beings, viz., their capacity for awareness of the universe. We are aware of it directly through introspection (i.e., by using our brains to monitor internally what our brains are doing). Once babies develop spindle cells in their forebrains (sometime during the first two years), they become able to do this. Check it out. Neurology is discovering amazing things about how our brains work in being conscious, both of external reality and of their own internal processes.

REB

[Rich Engle]

Roger always can be counted on for getting into the meat of the matter, because he has done his homework, through, I would think, some mixture of being persistent, and being around for a bit:

"One final point: consciousness is not a universe. It is ~something in~ the universe. It is an attribute of living beings, viz., their capacity for awareness of the universe. We are aware of it directly through introspection (i.e., by using our brains to monitor internally what our brains are doing). Once babies develop spindle cells in their forebrains (sometime during the first two years), they become able to do this. Check it out. Neurology is discovering amazing things about how our brains work in being conscious, both of external reality and of their own internal processes."

That's right. And also worth noting, as Roger has, the breakthroughs...to me the most striking being the work done in evolutionary psychology. Ah, the "empathy gene." Identifying "components."

I would only modify slightly what he has said here (and I think mainly I say the same thing, really)... Consciousness is clearly something "in" the universe. And, always, at the same time, it is ~part~ of the universe, because it exists. So in that respect, the mindset of monism appeals to me. But one cannot use monism, one-ness, in language, communication: it is only good to be felt, understood. Language can onlly circumspect it, but that does not mean there is no truth to it.

I don't spend as much time as I used to being sharp on technical philosophy, because other matters at hand always seem to make more sense to attend to, assuming my basics remain. Plus, I find the verbage to be unnecessarily cumbersome, preferring plain talk. Anyway, here, I think we brush up into areas like temporal physics, maybe. At the least.

And whether or not it is truly a chicken and the egg situation (consciousness vs. reality), this is where pragmatism (pure pragmatism, not social) is a trusty guide, because regardless of that connundrum, reality is at least so real that it hurts were one to disown it. Everybody knows that: all you have to do is hit your thumb with a hammer. Real enough for me.

r

Thanks REB. I might even someday forgive you for working for the evil Disney empire. I would do so because after all, a gig is a gig, and they're hard to come by, least of all ones that can be enjoyed... ;)

Edited February 15, 2009 by Rich Engle

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

How about a 4th alternative, where both consciousness and the physical universe are different parts of the same thing, but not dependent on anything else?

In this perspective, human consciousness is a matter of degree of a state where awareness goes down and down and down for other existents, and volition goes goes down to self-motivated action even to the pre-molecular level.

Michael

[Rich Engle]

I'm in on that one, Mike.

See...I think it's simply that we have to talk about these things a whole bunch of different ways, saying the same things more or less. I like how you sharpened the description. That's a very concise, user-friendly way of talking about something this major; I think the way you put it is more accessible, but surely not vague.

EDIT/ADD: I think that here again, we get to semantics, in a way. More pointedly: I get the impression that not ony does one have to re-read, try to grasp the words, but... There are some that need what I call "Linguistic Certainty<tm>" And I can feel that...you get worn down trying to "get" "grok" it, but I view language as art, to a certain extent, so there is a thing there where you have to keep re-framing it. That way, you have a better chance of getting across, while meanwhile refining your own thoughts. I find that natural and forgiveable, while others do not. It requires self-confidence, for one thing. And, there is a clear difference between communication, which is a mode of conveying, vs. actual reality. Reality is not language. Language is just a beautiful thing we have to work with. No wonder if you read the Adam and Eve story on face value, you can see why "God" got pissed off that we could conceptualize and share, inaccurate as that might ever be. It was written (by men) more as a warning about what you are in for when you start talking about existence.

r

Circumspect, shmurkumspect.

Edited February 15, 2009 by Rich Engle

[tjohnson]

One final point: consciousness is not a universe. It is ~something in~ the universe. It is an attribute of living beings, viz., their capacity for awareness of the universe.

I agreed with most of your post except I would say their capacity to be aware of their awareness of the universe. Animals are conscious of the universe but what separates man is his capacity for self-consciousness which amounts to a higher order intelligence. To animals, their environment is everything but to man, there is an observer and an environment.

[Roger Bissell]

How about a 4th alternative, where both consciousness and the physical universe are different parts of the same thing, but not dependent on anything else?

In this perspective, human consciousness is a matter of degree of a state where awareness goes down and down and down for other existents, and volition goes goes down to self-motivated action even to the pre-molecular level.

Michael

Michael, unlike Rich, this doesn't seem clear to me. Please spell out a little bit more what you mean (and don't mean).

It ~sounds~ like you are describing the view that ~everything~ in the universe is aware. That view is usually called "panpsychism," though most advocates of that idea also believe that both matter and consciousness are causally dependent upon a more primitive kind of being, and they are just necessarily co-occurring manifestations of that whatever-it-is. Rand, Peikoff, and Branden all privately discussed this idea and called the whatever-it-is "little stuff." Peikoff mentioned it in a lecture Q&A about 10 years ago, and Branden referred to it in a private email to me and Bill Dwyer at about the same time. Interesting.

I'm not aware of a version of pan-psychism that has matter and consciousness ~not~ causally dependent upon something more basic. What you are describing is a kind of miraculous (a-causal) parallelism of the two. Do you know something we don't?

Also, your idea of volition existing even below the molecular level sounds suspiciously like "voluntarism," where the most basic force in the universe is "will," and everything has it, even non-living things. Is this what you are describing?

Also, do you subscribe to these ideas? Do you find any evidence to support them? Or any other reason to believe them?

REB

[Roger Bissell]

One final point: consciousness is not a universe. It is ~something in~ the universe. It is an attribute of living beings, viz., their capacity for awareness of the universe.

I agreed with most of your post except I would say their capacity to be aware of their awareness of the universe. Animals are conscious of the universe but what separates man is his capacity for self-consciousness which amounts to a higher order intelligence. To animals, their environment is everything but to man, there is an observer and an environment.

Where is the disagreement?

Consciousness is the capacity for awareness of the universe. That includes the special, human capacity for awareness of one's awareness of the universe. One's awareness of the universe ~is~ a thing in the universe, but it is a thing that only humans (so far as we know) can be aware of.

So, while I agreed with everything else you wrote, I didn't understand why you wrote your first sentence. It does not describe consciousness--which is what I was describing--but self-consciousness.

I think you were not disagreeing, but simply adding an important point, one which I certainly endorse, but which was not relevant to what I was saying.

REB

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Michael, unlike Rich, this doesn't seem clear to me. Please spell out a little bit more what you mean (and don't mean).

Roger,

This is nice and prompts discussion.

It ~sounds~ like you are describing the view that ~everything~ in the universe is aware. That view is usually called "panpsychism," though most advocates of that idea also believe that both matter and consciousness are causally dependent upon a more primitive kind of being, and they are just necessarily co-occurring manifestations of that whatever-it-is. Rand, Peikoff, and Branden all privately discussed this idea and called the whatever-it-is "little stuff." Peikoff mentioned it in a lecture Q&A about 10 years ago, and Branden referred to it in a private email to me and Bill Dwyer at about the same time. Interesting.

"Sounds like" and "is" are worlds apart in strawman-making. But "sounds-like" is the straw. Still, this is good for discussion so far.

I'm not aware of a version of pan-psychism that has matter and consciousness ~not~ causally dependent upon something more basic. What you are describing is a kind of miraculous (a-causal) parallelism of the two. Do you know something we don't?

The strawman is now up and flapping in the wind. And, of course, you are knocking him down with a religious insinuation and almost-derogatory quip. This starts to impede discussion. Which part should I respond to? Your opening question? Fleshing out your "sounds like" and setting right the ideas? Or the derision?

So I wonder. Should I leave what I perceive to be a false trichotomy alone?

But so long as you are interested in something "~not~ causally dependent upon something more basic," why don't we start with existence per se? That has no cause.

Or maybe Branden's "underlying reality" discussed in your own post here: Nathaniel Branden on Mind-Body and the Dual-Aspect Theory.

Or do you mean...?

Because it sounds like...

You couldn't possibly mean...

Since you are saying this, I don't cotton to that "blank-out" and "uga uga" stuff...

(Fill in the blanks at will and we can complete this post.)

Also, your idea of volition existing even below the molecular level sounds suspiciously like "voluntarism," where the most basic force in the universe is "will," and everything has it, even non-living things. Is this what you are describing?

I'm starting to get an overdose of "isms." I fully agree that concepts need to be formed, even "isms," but since a concept is open-ended, it intersects with other concepts and such intersections form countless others in a web of concepts. Too many "isms" are like straight-jackets on the identified referents, forcing the concept to leave out some of the ones initially making up any particular category. I prefer trying to understand, or even formulate, a new category, and only then seeing if it fits established ones, rather than trying to automatically force a partially examined idea (i.e., group of referents in the meaning used here) into pre-existing categories in order to dismiss it.

For instance, your "voluntarism" does not fit, except vaguely, with what I was talking about. It comes from a body of work that I have read only partially, so my referents are already different than yours on that level alone. And you are trying to push me into a position posited by some of those others. But your attribution of this premise to me is wrong. I do not hold with "dualism" (to use that particular jargon), which is what "voluntarism" is based on.

Also, do you subscribe to these ideas? Do you find any evidence to support them? Or any other reason to believe them?

Why on earth would I subscribe to ideas I did not express and do not hold?

Here is how I see our premises:

You: Everything is causally dependent on something else except the starting point of existence itself (which has no cause), so on the basic level, awareness can be boiled down to mind being dependent on matter.

Me: The universe is one thing and many things at the same time, where both top-down and bottom-up natures exist on all levels for all things, including the universe itself.

In my view, awareness/volition (at least in one sense) is degree, not kind. As a state of existence, it is part of something bigger than itself, so you have existents that have low levels and others that have high levels. Qua concept, this concept (which really needs a different word to be clear) has to be open-ended. This means that human awareness/volition is not necessarily the pinnacle, although it might be.

On the other end, awareness/volition cannot exist without its bottom-up components. Within this context and on this level of abstraction, I am not so sure what you mean by "evidence" unless it is ostensive (Rand's pointing and saying "I mean this.")

Also, in my view, the interaction between bottom-up and top-down natures is the source of causality. (But this is for another discussion.)

Now I can ask the same thing you asked me, except in relation to your own premise. Do you have any evidence that existence has no cause? (I don't believe it does, but that's not the question I am asking, nor the reason I am asking it.)

If not, isn't existence just some "miraculous (a-causal)" state (or starting point) according to your own standard?

Michael

[Rich Engle]

This has the attributes of a fruitful discussion. Hmmm...I am thinking about going back over some Ken Wilber stuff that might be of use. Mind you, he's an integrator, more than a system builder. I think. Ken is pretty intense.

Keep it up, boys. No pinching or spitting...

r

[Christopher]

[i agree that humans have no grasp of the fundamental existential standpoint of the universe, therefore causal relationship between matter and consciousness is not known.

We can argue that it is the presence and activation of electrochemical behavior in brain regions that causes consciousness (this is ultimately deterministic); likewise we can argue that consciousness invigorates regions of the brain such that consciousness is causing detectable behavior. If we also stay within the physical universe, we can argue that probabilities are affected by consciousness (Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle; Schrodinger’s Cat). However, this is beside the meat of the main point.

When we attempt to define consciousness as rooted in the metaphysics of the material universe, we have already limited our capacity to effectively address consciousness as consciousness per se. Consciousness limited strictly by the universe is ultimately deterministic because it can be explained by equations and probabilities. The phenomena of consciousness are also not observable as consciousness per se in the material universe; therefore consciousness cannot be effectively proven to exist.

If instead we start from a perspective of consciousness rather than material, all things create experiential phenomena such that all things might be said to contain an “essence of consciousness.” Much as western philosophy attempts to reduce consciousness to an aspect of the physical universe, eastern philosophy has attemptedo reduce the physical universe to consciousness. This isn’t necessarily wrong. We as humans need to understand that it is epistemologically impossible toonfirm the presence of consciousness directly other than our own. This would normally lead “hard science” to dismiss consciousness (absurdly). But, as Wilber does point out, we confirm using a different method:

One person observes a conscious phenomenon (like experiencing God), confirms that it can be repeatedly observed through specific behavior, then verifies with others who have experienced it that they have followed a similar process and resulted in the same observation. (or as N. Branden puts it, we can’t prove the existence of the feeling of an orgasm).

One final note: Wilber said something that was exceptionally difficult for me to understand, but which is becoming clearer now: ontology is dependent upon the stage of development of the observer. Can we say we finally have a final metaphysical understanding of reality after a mere 6 thousand years?

[Roger Bissell]

Michael, unlike Rich, this doesn't seem clear to me. Please spell out a little bit more what you mean (and don't mean).

Roger,

This is nice and prompts discussion.

It ~sounds~ like you are describing the view that ~everything~ in the universe is aware. That view is usually called "panpsychism," though most advocates of that idea also believe that both matter and consciousness are causally dependent upon a more primitive kind of being, and they are just necessarily co-occurring manifestations of that whatever-it-is. Rand, Peikoff, and Branden all privately discussed this idea and called the whatever-it-is "little stuff." Peikoff mentioned it in a lecture Q&A about 10 years ago, and Branden referred to it in a private email to me and Bill Dwyer at about the same time. Interesting.

"Sounds like" and "is" are worlds apart in strawman-making. But "sounds-like" is the straw. Still, this is good for discussion so far.

I'm not aware of a version of pan-psychism that has matter and consciousness ~not~ causally dependent upon something more basic. What you are describing is a kind of miraculous (a-causal) parallelism of the two. Do you know something we don't?

The strawman is now up and flapping in the wind. And, of course, you are knocking him down with a religious insinuation and almost-derogatory quip. This starts to impede discussion. Which part should I respond to? Your opening question? Fleshing out your "sounds like" and setting right the ideas? Or the derision?

So I wonder. Should I leave what I perceive to be a false trichotomy alone?

But so long as you are interested in something "~not~ causally dependent upon something more basic," why don't we start with existence per se? That has no cause.

Or maybe Branden's "underlying reality" discussed in your own post here: Nathaniel Branden on Mind-Body and the Dual-Aspect Theory.

Or do you mean...?

Because it sounds like...

You couldn't possibly mean...

Since you are saying this, I don't cotton to that "blank-out" and "uga uga" stuff...

(Fill in the blanks at will and we can complete this post.)

Also, your idea of volition existing even below the molecular level sounds suspiciously like "voluntarism," where the most basic force in the universe is "will," and everything has it, even non-living things. Is this what you are describing?

I'm starting to get an overdose of "isms." I fully agree that concepts need to be formed, even "isms," but since a concept is open-ended, it intersects with other concepts and such intersections form countless others in a web of concepts. Too many "isms" are like straight-jackets on the identified referents, forcing the concept to leave out some of the ones initially making up any particular category. I prefer trying to understand, or even formulate, a new category, and only then seeing if it fits established ones, rather than trying to automatically force a partially examined idea (i.e., group of referents in the meaning used here) into pre-existing categories in order to dismiss it.

For instance, your "voluntarism" does not fit, except vaguely, with what I was talking about. It comes from a body of work that I have read only partially, so my referents are already different than yours on that level alone. And you are trying to push me into a position posited by some of those others. But your attribution of this premise to me is wrong. I do not hold with "dualism" (to use that particular jargon), which is what "voluntarism" is based on.

Also, do you subscribe to these ideas? Do you find any evidence to support them? Or any other reason to believe them?

Why on earth would I subscribe to ideas I did not express and do not hold?

Here is how I see our premises:

You: Everything is causally dependent on something else except the starting point of existence itself (which has no cause), so on the basic level, awareness can be boiled down to mind being dependent on matter.

Me: The universe is one thing and many things at the same time, where both top-down and bottom-up natures exist on all levels for all things, including the universe itself.

In my view, awareness/volition (at least in one sense) is degree, not kind. As a state of existence, it is part of something bigger than itself, so you have existents that have low levels and others that have high levels. Qua concept, this concept (which really needs a different word to be clear) has to be open-ended. This means that human awareness/volition is not necessarily the pinnacle, although it might be.

On the other end, awareness/volition cannot exist without its bottom-up components. Within this context and on this level of abstraction, I am not so sure what you mean by "evidence" unless it is ostensive (Rand's pointing and saying "I mean this.")

Also, in my view, the interaction between bottom-up and top-down natures is the source of causality. (But this is for another discussion.)

Now I can ask the same thing you asked me, except in relation to your own premise. Do you have any evidence that existence has no cause? (I don't believe it does, but that's not the question I am asking, nor the reason I am asking it.)

If not, isn't existence just some "miraculous (a-causal)" state (or starting point) according to your own standard?

Michael

Michael, I honestly did not understand about 3/4 of your post. And you give some rather bizarre descriptions of my views, as well as hearing derision where none exists. (Why is disagreement and argumentation perceived or experienced so often as ridicule or derision?)

But some quick comments on what I did understand.

1. I'm sorry that you were (or seem to be) put off by the term "voluntarism." But that is the accepted label for the view that will, or something like it, is an attribute of everything in the universe. Peikoff discusses it in his lectures on history of philosophy. I think even Rand writes about it in "What is Romanticism?" (The Romantic Manifesto) Rather than trying to pigeon-hole or constrain your thought processes, I am merely pointing out that the notion that (something like) will pervades the universe is not a new idea in philosophy.

2. You are the one who referred to a "fourth possibility", that consciousness and matter were not causally dependent on anything else, but just exist together, interacting with one another. I am merely saying that, to me, that view is brute, miraculous nonsense. If I have mis-characterized the view you mentioned -- and I am NOT attributing it to you, just pointing out that you MENTIONED it as a "fourth possibility" -- then feel free to clarify.

3. There are two kinds of support for claims: evidence and logic. When I was arguing about the Primacy of the Physical World (in relation to consciousness), I was primarily relying on evidence, mainly on the lack of evidence for people's claims that consciousness can exist in disembodied form, or that it has always existed alongside matter, or that it generates matter rather than the other way around. These are all arbitrary speculative ideas. The fact that some people claim to know or be sure they are true because of their spiritual experiences does not cut the philosophical mustard. You just as well claim that you are sure that green gremlins exist, because you feel or believe they do.

4. As for how the fact that ~anything at all~ exists ~does not~ need a causal explanation, that seems to me to rely on logic, on the reduction to absurdity or to infinite regress of assuming the opposite view. Suppose the fact that anything at all exists ~did~ need a causal explanation. That cause would have to be something else that existed, which itself would have been the preceding totality of existence, which itself would need a causal explanation, etc., etc. Thus, trying to argue that existence per se needs a causal explanation involves an infinite regress (which is why positing God as cause of the universe is useless). But the fact that ~something in particular~ exists -- such as trees, solar systems, snowflakes, or a relationship between matter and consciousness -- ~does~ need a causal explanation. What produced it? It could not have come from nowhere, only from something else. Sorry if this offends your very reasonable sensibilities against pontificating, but I don't know how to say it any more simply, and the logic of it seems inescapable to me.

REB

[Selene]

Roger:

Despite this little imbroglio that you and Michael are engaged in, your question has always gotten me into trouble because I love to argue. To me it is mental gymnastics. Moreover, I taught argumentation, rhetoric and debate so it is second nature to me.

However,

"Why is disagreement and argumentation perceived or experienced so often as ridicule or derision?" is a fascinating question which might deserve a separate thread.

In the following statement, you argue that no enlightened person would ask that question, but it popped into my mind as I was reading this thread and I was going to pose the same question that Michael proposed.

"You are the one who referred to a "fourth possibility", that consciousness and matter were not causally dependent on anything else, but just exist together, interacting with one another. I am merely saying that, to me, that view is brute, miraculous nonsense."

That last sentence merely dismisses the fourth possibility. Clearly it is a viable possibility worth of an answer or at least a qualifying question.

Out of curiosity, "...brute, miraculous nonsense." how are you meaning the word "brute" for your weak argument?

Adam

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Michael, I honestly did not understand about 3/4 of your post.

Roger,

I hate to say it, but you have to want to understand instead of being dismissive in order to understand. If Socrates's statement, "I only know that I do not know," means anything in philosophy, it means looking at something without prejudgments. I call this identifying before judging, i.e., cognitive before normative.

The rest of your post shows that you have prejudged what I am talking about and slammed shut your mind on a prejudice.

And you give some rather bizarre descriptions of my views, as well as hearing derision where none exists. (Why is disagreement and argumentation perceived or experienced so often as ridicule or derision?)

Point 1: I am open to correction. What is the bizarre part? Merely saying "bizarre" does not tell me much except your evaluation.

Point 2: Even as Adam noticed, what do you call this below if not derision?

You are the one who referred to a "fourth possibility", that consciousness and matter were not causally dependent on anything else, but just exist together, interacting with one another. I am merely saying that, to me, that view is brute, miraculous nonsense.

That's an opinion, not an argument. And the idea is is not nonsense just because you say so. But once again, prejudice does not lead to understanding the sense. It leads to dismissal without examination.

All I can conclude is that you have no interest in this idea.

(You even stated that you did not understand 3/4 of my post, but I have no idea which part you did not understand, since you didn't say. But you seem to understand enough to call it "brute, miraculous nonsense." That's a lot of understanding for not understanding 3/4.)

Just as you judge the idea that consciousness exists in the same manner that matter exists, i.e., as part of the same universe, as proposing something "miraculous" (and consistently misrepresenting it as meaning that consciousness exists in a disembodied form), I judge your prejudice as a type of faith, i.e., an opinion accepted as fact. I haven't seen any argument to lead me to any other conclusion.

I don't know what part of "both exist as part of the same thing" or that "things have both top and bottom" are difficult to understand, but I am having one hell of a difficulty communicating the idea.

Michael

EDIT: My main gripe is as follows. If you say, "I see what you are getting at, but I disagree for X, Y or Z," that is one thing. This, to me, is the best path that leads to conceptual clarity, which is the only rational path to understanding. Agreement or disagreement without conceptual clarity is merely obedience or bickering, nothing more intellectual than that.

When you say, "I have no idea what you mean, but it's nonsense," that is quite another thing. It gets even worse when you say, "I have no idea what you mean, but it is voluntarism (or some other "ism"), and that is nonsense." This is the path to derision and prejudice on all sides.

I am trying to cut through that.

Here is another attempt to get at what I mean. (I hope this time it is not in vain.)

I believe that causality is both proactive and reactive on all levels and both types of activeness are part of the nature of a thing, whether subatomic or macrocosmic. In other words, there are fundamental aspects of the universe where it has the same nature at all levels. I believe causality is one of them, just like existence, identity, etc.

The individual existent both causes stuff to happen from self-generation and reacts against stuff happening from other existents (thus causing other stuff to happen) in a daisy-chain of events. I reject the wold-view that some things generate causality, but other things don't.

If you consider one part of human volition to be a form of self-generated causality, and perceptual (animal) volition to be another form of self-generated causality with a narrower scale of causation, and so on, it is like a spectrum. Thus I say it's all part of the same spectrum from this angle, and the argument I get is that this is nonsense because (to use an analogy from another spectrum) red cannot exist because color means only blue. (Red being self-generated causality on an inanimate level and blue being human awareness.)

I consider that "self-generated causality" coexists with "caused." Both "being caused" and "generating cause" exist within the same existent, whether we are talking about the tiniest subatomic particle, life forms or the entire universe. I call this part of the law of identity.

Maybe that's clearer or maybe not.

But it is certainly not "brute, miraculous nonsense."

[Roger Bissell]

Michael, I honestly did not understand about 3/4 of your post.

Roger,

I hate to say it, but you have to want to understand instead of being dismissive in order to understand. If Socrates's statement, "I only know that I do not know," means anything in philosophy, it means looking at something without prejudgments. I call this identifying before judging, i.e., cognitive before normative.

The rest of your post shows that you have prejudged what I am talking about and slammed shut your mind on a prejudice.

And you give some rather bizarre descriptions of my views, as well as hearing derision where none exists. (Why is disagreement and argumentation perceived or experienced so often as ridicule or derision?)

Point 1: I am open to correction. What is the bizarre part? Merely saying "bizarre" does not tell me much except your evaluation.

Point 2: Even as Adam noticed, what do you call this below if not derision?

You are the one who referred to a "fourth possibility", that consciousness and matter were not causally dependent on anything else, but just exist together, interacting with one another. I am merely saying that, to me, that view is brute, miraculous nonsense.

That's an opinion, not an argument. And the idea is is not nonsense just because you say so. But once again, prejudice does not lead to understanding the sense. It leads to dismissal without examination.

All I can conclude is that you have no interest in this idea.

(You even stated that you did not understand 3/4 of my post, but I have no idea which part you did not understand, since you didn't say. But you seem to understand enough to call it "brute, miraculous nonsense." That's a lot of understanding for not understanding 3/4.)

Just as you judge the idea that consciousness exists in the same manner that matter exists, i.e., as part of the same universe, as proposing something "miraculous" (and consistently misrepresenting it as meaning that consciousness exists in a disembodied form), I judge your prejudice as a type of faith, i.e., an opinion accepted as fact. I haven't seen any argument to lead me to any other conclusion.

I don't know what part of "both exist as part of the same thing" or that "things have both top and bottom" are difficult to understand, but I am having one hell of a difficulty communicating the idea.

Michael

EDIT: My main gripe is as follows. If you say, "I see what you are getting at, but I disagree for X, Y or Z," that is one thing. This, to me, is the best path that leads to conceptual clarity, which is the only rational path to understanding. Agreement or disagreement without conceptual clarity is merely obedience or bickering, nothing more intellectual than that.

When you say, "I have no idea what you mean, but it's nonsense," that is quite another thing. It gets even worse when you say, "I have no idea what you mean, but it is voluntarism (or some other "ism"), and that is nonsense." This is the path to derision and prejudice on all sides.

I am trying to cut through that.

Here is another attempt to get at what I mean. (I hope this time it is not in vain.)

I believe that causality is both proactive and reactive on all levels and both types of activeness are part of the nature of a thing, whether subatomic or macrocosmic. In other words, there are fundamental aspects of the universe where it has the same nature at all levels. I believe causality is one of them, just like existence, identity, etc.

The individual existent both causes stuff to happen from self-generation and reacts against stuff happening from other existents (thus causing other stuff to happen) in a daisy-chain of events. I reject the wold-view that some things generate causality, but other things don't.

If you consider one part of human volition to be a form of self-generated causality, and perceptual (animal) volition to be another form of self-generated causality with a narrower scale of causation, and so on, it is like a spectrum. Thus I say it's all part of the same spectrum from this angle, and the argument I get is that this is nonsense because (to use an analogy from another spectrum) red cannot exist because color means only blue. (Red being self-generated causality on an inanimate level and blue being human awareness.)

I consider that "self-generated causality" coexists with "caused." Both "being caused" and "generating cause" exist within the same existent, whether we are talking about the tiniest subatomic particle, life forms or the entire universe. I call this part of the law of identity.

Maybe that's clearer or maybe not.

But it is certainly not "brute, miraculous nonsense."

1. Go back to my previous post, and you will see that I ~did~ supply an answer to, or argument against, the fourth possibility. Point 4 addresses it explicitly. You either did not bother to read it, or did not understand its relevance to this point. You certainly did not quote it. I wrote:

the fact that ~something in particular~ exists -- such as trees, solar systems, snowflakes, or a relationship between matter and consciousness -- ~does~ need a causal explanation. What produced it? It could not have come from nowhere, only from something else.

That is my point: an interactive relationship between matter and consciousness does not miraculously appear from nowhere, and it does not just HAPPEN. It has to be CAUSED to come into existence. That is why alternative #4 is simply a non-starter. It is absurd on the face of it. It certainly ~is~ brute, miraculous nonsense.

2. You argue that "self-generated causality" exists all up and down the scale of entities in the universe, in both pro-active and reactive forms. I beg to disagree. You can CALL it "part of the Law of Identity" if you want, but that doesn't make it so. "Self-generated" refers ONLY to pro-active actions by entities that are capable of doing more than just reacting like billiard balls to forces impinging on them, and can actually internally generate their own responses to them. Billiard balls are NOT capable of proactive causality, only reactive. This distinction has existed at least since Aristotle. Take just one example, yours, the idea that redness is self-generated causality on inanimate level. It is not! The redness of an apple is the apple's capacity to absorb certain wavelengths of light and to reflect others, causing us to perceive it as red. If no light impinged on the apple, it would NOT "self-generate" ANYTHING. Its causality is not pro-active and/or self-generated, but entirely a REACTION to the light striking it.

3. You wrote:

The individual existent both causes stuff to happen from self-generation and reacts against stuff happening from other existents (thus causing other stuff to happen) in a daisy-chain of events. I reject the wold-view that some things generate causality, but other things don't.

Again, you are rejecting the Aristotelian/Randian world-view that sees a fundamental difference in kind between living and non-living entities, with living beings being distinctive in their capacity for self-generated action. Yours is a very Schopenhauer-like viewpoint. The World as Will and Idea. Check it out. You really are outlining and advocating voluntarism here. Nothing wrong with that, if you can make it stick. But I think it's a non-starter, for reasons I've already given.

4. As for derision...first of all, I didn't even state the point you and Adam quoted until AFTER you accused me of derision! Did you have some OTHER statement of mine in mind that I made BEFORE you accused me of derision?? If you had accused me, without basis, of displaying a nasty temper in a post, and I then lost my temper and blew up at you for the unsupported accusation, would you then say, "what do you call that, if not losing your temper?" See what I mean. You're playing a bit fast and loose here, Michael.

5. Secondly, I do not regard the phrase "brute, miraculous nonsense" as even being particularly derisive. It is descriptive and accurate, and I explained (in my point 4) why it can't be anything other than a miracle -- to have mind-body interaction without anything on which it causally depends. That is the DEFINITION of a miracle. "Brute" does not mean Atilla, if that's what you were wondering. It just means bare, as in "brute fact," a fact "just because that's the way it is, with no WHY to support it." As for "nonsense," I regard the fourth alternative as something that literally DOES NOT MAKE SENSE. Sure, you can state it. I'm not saying I don't understand what it means, any more than I would say that I don't understand what people mean when they say God is capable of a-causal miracles. But if you apply the Law of Causality to it, you can see that it just cannot be. It is a contradiction. It is nonsense. So, if you want to squeeze derision out of my descriptive phrase, go ahead. But that's nonsense, too.

6. "Slamming my mind shut"? Gee, it sounds like I'm a narrow-mind bigot, doesn't it. (You also referred to my How awful. But then, it sounds to me like you didn't even read my point 4 and integrate it with the earlier point in my post, or you wouldn't have said that nasty thing about me. Yes, indeed, you DO have to "want to understand rather than being dismissive." But what else can your disregard for my full post, and your instead seizing upon certain phrases that bothered you, be than dismissively slamming YOUR mind shut on MY arguments? If the twain aren't going to meet here, fine. But you don't have a lot of wiggle room with the Law of Causality and the Law of Contradiction. And you aren't going to convince any Aristotelian (let alone Randian) worth his/her salt that animate objects have self-generated causality, nor that consciousness-matter interactions are not causally dependent on other things.

7. You wrote:

Just as you judge the idea that consciousness exists in the same manner that matter exists, i.e., as part of the same universe, as proposing something "miraculous" (and consistently misrepresenting it as meaning that consciousness exists in a disembodied form), I judge your prejudice as a type of faith, i.e., an opinion accepted as fact. I haven't seen any argument to lead me to any other conclusion.

Michael, again you are mis-characterizing my view. I AGREE that consciousness exists as part of this universe, and I do not argue that THAT is miraculous, just that the fourth alternative, that the relation of matter and consciousness is not causally dependent on something else (and therefore just a brute fact), is miraculous, a-causal nonsense. This is not an issue of "faith," any more than accepting the Law of Contradiction is an issue of "faith." You see that it cannot be otherwise. It's called Reaffirmation Through Denial, and it goes back at least to Aristotle....As for the bit about "disembodied" consciousness, I was listing THREE DISTINCT errors, not conflating them. There appear to be people on this list who believe that consciousness can cause matter to do things. Well, I wouldn't doubt that they also think consciousness can actually CREATE matter. Yeah, theists lurk everywhere, probably here on OL, too. (I've seen some pretty vigorous debates between theists and Objectivists on Rebirth of Reason.) So, PLEASE...spare me this glomming together of views in Frankenstein-like manner. This sloppy reading/thinking -- which includes your missing the argument in my point 4 -- is what leads you to slapping me in the face with the dead fish of "faith."

8. You wrote:

That's an opinion, not an argument. And the idea is is not nonsense just because you say so. But once again, prejudice does not lead to understanding the sense. It leads to dismissal without examination. All I can conclude is that you have no interest in this idea.

I admit I have no interest in nonsense, once I've proved to myself and indicated to you my reasons for thinking it is so. But that is dismissal WITH examination. And I DID offer an argument in my point 4 (previous post). You haven't offered any reply to my point 4, so your objection here (that I am just "saying so") has no foundation.

9. You wrote:

When you say, "I have no idea what you mean, but it's nonsense," that is quite another thing. It gets even worse when you say, "I have no idea what you mean, but it is voluntarism (or some other "ism"), and that is nonsense." This is the path to derision and prejudice on all sides. I am trying to cut through that.

Not very effectively, Michael. For one thing, you have again made an inedible salad out of what I wrote. When I say that one part of your post makes no sense, but another part is very clear and very clearly nonsense, I am not conflating the two. Yet that is what you do in this comment. When I say that I have no idea what one part of your post means, but that another part is very clear and very clearly depicts voluntarism, which I regard as nonsense, again I am not conflating the two. Yet that is what you do in this comment.

Conflating people's views is not a tool of understanding or clarity. It is a way of dismissing your opposition and those who disagree with you. It is often a sign of intellectually dishonesty. I cannot think that you did this deliberately. It must just be extremely sloppy thinking on your part. So, if you really want to cut through "derision and prejudice on all sides," I would try reading and thinking more carefully, and not mis-characterizing and conflating different statements your opponents make.

10. You wrote:

(You even stated that you did not understand 3/4 of my post, but I have no idea which part you did not understand, since you didn't say. But you seem to understand enough to call it "brute, miraculous nonsense." That's a lot of understanding for not understanding 3/4.)

What's the problem? I referred to what I DID understand, and I critiqued it. So? Do I have to dissect and guess or ask what you mean about the stuff I truly DIDN'T understand? I have enough problems with what I DO understand from your posts to keep me busy full-time, Michael. And there are only so many hours in the day.

You can have the last word on this. I'm through. And not because I'm "prejudiced" or "slamming my mind shut" or "derisive" or relying on "faith" or whatever. I'm just tired of how you treat me.

REB