I’m unsure of how to interpret the third question. We know that our current theories of physics aren’t complete, so at least for “the laws of physics as we currently understand those laws” the answer would be “incorrect”; you cannot exhaustively describe the evolution of physical stuff using the laws that we currently know. But I guess that’s not actually what you’re asking? And you probably mean to talk about something like “an idealized version of the laws of physics that’s waiting to be eventually discovered”?
But then the answer seems to hinge on whether or not we define the ideal version of the laws of physics as something that exhaustively describes everything? So I’m still not quite sure what the actual intent behind this question is.
Right, good point. The question is whether you think the future version is some (in most contexts) tiny modification, like Newton → Einstein, or something that adds new laws to account for what consciousness is doing. E.g., interactionism is (usually) considered to work outside the current laws, so you would need something very different to explain the role of consciousness.
Changed it to
The laws of physics (or a future refinement of them) are causally closed. (I.e., they exhaustively describe how physical stuff evolves.)
I just took this and answered “unsure” since this version still confuses me. If “conciousness” is doing something that’s not currently understood, why wouldn’t it be included in future/better laws of physics?
Think about it as how much changes and under what conditions. Special Relativity only becomes relevant when you move things with close to the speed of light. But if Interactionism is true, the laws of physics are violated every time a human decides to something. So it happens under perfectly normal circumstances, and the effects ought to be sizeable. It might be included in future laws, but they would contradict the old laws much more than Relativity contradicts Newtonian mechanics.
I mean, it’s not a formal distinction, but I still think it’s a useful one.
In the first item, “consciousness is fundamental; matter is emergent from consciousness and does independently exist” should there be a “not” after “does”?
No, that’s correct as is. It’s to differentiate it from Subjective Idealism, according to which it doesn’t independently exist. (But I see how you expect a “not” there, gonna rephrase it just slightly.)
(Also, note that I shuffled the order to make sure not to bias anyone, so “first” is random.)
Edit: I changed it to “but does independently exist” (from “and does independently exist”)
I’m not sure if you only want answers from people who are familiar with all of these, but at least for me, I don’t know the difference between most of the options off the top of my head. It’s unclear to me what the difference is between these options:
Illusionism (strong/weak): matter is fundamental; consciousness either doesn’t exist or only exists as an abstraction.
Reductionist Functionalism: consciousness is inherently tied to [movements of matter that implement algorithms]; causal effects of consciousness happen within the laws of physics.
Dualism + Epiphenomenalism: matter is fundamental and can give rise to consciousness; consciousness has no causal power.
Panpsychism: consciousness is inherently tied to matter; causal effects of consciousness happen within the laws of physics.
I want everyone to answer. In your case, I’d say “Unsure” is the correct pick.
Trying to explain the difference briefly:
illusionism (at least strong illusionism) says consciousness doesn’t exist at all, that makes it different from any other one.
epiphenomenalism is different because it says consciousness doesn’t do anything. So e.g. an epiphenomenalist doesn’t get to say “I talk about consciousness because I am conscious” since that would be a causal effect.
the other two are similar. The difference is that panpyschism says consciousness is about matter, whereas RF says it’s about computation. So panpyschism would say a rock is conscious (however slightly) and RF would strongly reject this since the rock isn’t computing anything. Conversely, RF would probably say a distributed digital simulation of a human brain is conscious.
I must be a splitter, because I find more than four claims there. In particular, there is a distinction between reductive materialism and functionalism. Functionalism holds that consciousness is just the performance of certain functions by whatever....it’s substrate neutral. Reductive materialism can holds that the substrate matters (ie No Chinese rooms or blockheads).
The characteristic claim of panpsychism is that everything is at least a little bit conscious. Rafael brings that out in the comment below. As well as believing that nothing material is unconsciousnes (contra physicalists), they also believe that nothing conscious is immaterial, (contra idealism and substance dualism).
I’m unsure of how to interpret the third question. We know that our current theories of physics aren’t complete, so at least for “the laws of physics as we currently understand those laws” the answer would be “incorrect”; you cannot exhaustively describe the evolution of physical stuff using the laws that we currently know. But I guess that’s not actually what you’re asking? And you probably mean to talk about something like “an idealized version of the laws of physics that’s waiting to be eventually discovered”?
But then the answer seems to hinge on whether or not we define the ideal version of the laws of physics as something that exhaustively describes everything? So I’m still not quite sure what the actual intent behind this question is.
Right, good point. The question is whether you think the future version is some (in most contexts) tiny modification, like Newton → Einstein, or something that adds new laws to account for what consciousness is doing. E.g., interactionism is (usually) considered to work outside the current laws, so you would need something very different to explain the role of consciousness.
Changed it to
I just took this and answered “unsure” since this version still confuses me. If “conciousness” is doing something that’s not currently understood, why wouldn’t it be included in future/better laws of physics?
Think about it as how much changes and under what conditions. Special Relativity only becomes relevant when you move things with close to the speed of light. But if Interactionism is true, the laws of physics are violated every time a human decides to something. So it happens under perfectly normal circumstances, and the effects ought to be sizeable. It might be included in future laws, but they would contradict the old laws much more than Relativity contradicts Newtonian mechanics.
I mean, it’s not a formal distinction, but I still think it’s a useful one.
In the first item, “consciousness is fundamental; matter is emergent from consciousness and does independently exist” should there be a “not” after “does”?
No, that’s correct as is. It’s to differentiate it from Subjective Idealism, according to which it doesn’t independently exist. (But I see how you expect a “not” there, gonna rephrase it just slightly.)
(Also, note that I shuffled the order to make sure not to bias anyone, so “first” is random.)
Edit: I changed it to “but does independently exist” (from “and does independently exist”)
I’m not sure if you only want answers from people who are familiar with all of these, but at least for me, I don’t know the difference between most of the options off the top of my head. It’s unclear to me what the difference is between these options:
All of these descriptions sound the same to me?
I want everyone to answer. In your case, I’d say “Unsure” is the correct pick.
Trying to explain the difference briefly:
illusionism (at least strong illusionism) says consciousness doesn’t exist at all, that makes it different from any other one.
epiphenomenalism is different because it says consciousness doesn’t do anything. So e.g. an epiphenomenalist doesn’t get to say “I talk about consciousness because I am conscious” since that would be a causal effect.
the other two are similar. The difference is that panpyschism says consciousness is about matter, whereas RF says it’s about computation. So panpyschism would say a rock is conscious (however slightly) and RF would strongly reject this since the rock isn’t computing anything. Conversely, RF would probably say a distributed digital simulation of a human brain is conscious.
I must be a splitter, because I find more than four claims there. In particular, there is a distinction between reductive materialism and functionalism. Functionalism holds that consciousness is just the performance of certain functions by whatever....it’s substrate neutral. Reductive materialism can holds that the substrate matters (ie No Chinese rooms or blockheads).
The characteristic claim of panpsychism is that everything is at least a little bit conscious. Rafael brings that out in the comment below. As well as believing that nothing material is unconsciousnes (contra physicalists), they also believe that nothing conscious is immaterial, (contra idealism and substance dualism).