C1: Let me put it this way then, how do you combine all of these tiny little microexperiences into a coherent macroexperience? You have a combination problem.
C2: Okay, I don’t know, but at least this gives us a good starting for solving the hard problem right? We’ve reduced the hard problem into a combination problem. That seems more tractable.
C1: It sounds epiphenomenal to me. You couldn’t explain any observable behaviour by postulating these properties.
C2: Sure, it wouldn’t have any third person physical observables. But it would do the job of fixing the phenomenal character of experience from a first person perspective.
The structural properties of matter, or whatever the underlying substance is, are sufficient to predict everything physicists want to predict. To say that the intrinsic , nonstructural properties of matter are some kind of Qualia therefore entails epiphenomenalism. It allows you to predict conscious experience , but at the expense of the binding problem: if Qualia are just the intrinsic nature of quarks and electrons, then our sensorium should look like a fine grained brain scan. So Russerlian Monism, the scent faction of Qualia with intrinsic properties , has a bad case of the Binding problem.
@Signer something is a WF doesn’t mean it is nonlocal or particularly spatially extensive , since WFs can bunch down to any finite size. Most of the electrons in the human body are localised to orbitals that are some nanometers across (But not localised within them).
The structural properties of matter, or whatever the underlying substance is, are sufficient to predict everything physicists want to predict
Physics attributes properties like mass and spin even to elementary particles. Are those structural properties?
About the binding problem, because of entanglement, wavefunctions aren’t just for individual particles. If two particles are described by a single nonfactorizable wavefunction, you cannot attribute definite states to the individual particles without losing information about the entangled whole.
It’s a recurring theme in quantum mind theories that this might have something to do with the binding problem. But people often seem to imagine something like “quale1 entangled with quale2”, which in the language of quantum states we might write as |quale1> ⊗ |quale2>. The problem is, that this is not entangled. It’s a “product state”, which by definition is factorizable mathematically and hence mereologically.
Truly entangled states involve multi-object superpositions that can’t be factored into single-object superpositions. So they do provide complex unities, but they don’t provide a clear way to ontologically bind together definite local properties. One might say that entanglement offers a potential solution to the unity of consciousness, but not to the binding problem, or at least that how to interpret entangled states qualically is not self-evident.
something is a WF doesn’t mean it is nonlocal or particularly spatially extensive , since WFs can bunch down to any finite size.
Sure.
Most of the electrons in the human body are localised to orbitals that are some nanometers across (But not localised within them).
But WF of a human is spatially extensive enough.
our sensorium should look like a fine grained brain scan
Why not like a drawing of a head?
Anyway, the binding problem for qualia is no different from the binding problem for fire. There is just no reason to promote limits of human introspection into fundamental ontology, just like there is no reason why fire can’t look continuous, but actually consist of mostly empty space.
Approximately localized. And even without quantum effects there are definitely relevant interactions on the macro scale. And gravity. And space. I just don’t get how “physical human is not spatially extensive” objection makes sense. Of course, it doesn’t matter, because saying that qualia are spatially extensive is like saying that fire is continuous.
Why is there a binding problem for fire?
Because there is no fire in the ontology of modern physics and there are no laws of physics that say that some arrangement of atoms are fire. There are only extra-physical conventions that say that if atoms work approximately like fire you can say that fire reduces to atoms. That’s how reductionism works. It works the same way for observations—there are no physical laws that determine how precisely your measurement equipment must draw numbers for you to conclude your physical theory is correct. And it works the same way for qualia—there are no physical laws that say that some neural activity is your experience of blue.
Are you now saying that the binding comes from neurology?
Binding comes from a human desire to describe things in an approximate, useful way. Fundamentally, there is no binding between real physics and continuity of fire. And so the binding problem is an easy problem of scientifically describing a brain in enough precision that all pixels of your visual field are predictable from this description.
And so are qualia. The only difference is that the science haven’t yet provided a useful reduction. But laws of physics still don’t say how you should reduce things. And reductions doesn’t preserve everything—fire can look continuous, but actually consist of atoms.
No it comes from the observationthat our sensorium is not a picture of our brains?
You can also observe that fire is not a picture of atoms. Reductions are indirect, can have different precision and some parts of observations are just wrong. There are no observations that contradict future neurology predicting all your experiences more precisely than you can feel them now.
If Qualia are identified with microphysical properties, those properties need to be localised to solve the binding problem.
Again, there is no reason to directly identify qualia with microphysical properties. You don’t need to make atoms continuous to bind them to continuous-looking fire. The idea is to only identify phenomenal nature of qualia with physical existence. After that science can figure out specific useful model and just say “your observations of qualia are not sensitive enough to say anything about localization on nanometer scale” like it says in the case of continuous-looking fire.
I’m not saying that figuring out how brain implements human experiences is a solved or uninteresting problem. It’s just not a Hard, philosophical problem. At least no more, than in the case of fire.
And so are qualia. The only difference is that the science haven’t yet provided a useful reduction.
The other difference is that Qualia are subjective.
But laws of physics still don’t say how you should reduce things. And reductions doesn’t preserve everything—fire can look continuous, but actually consist of atoms.
Lossy reductions don’t preserve everything.
No it comes from the observationthat our sensorium is not a picture of our brains?
You can also observe that fire is not a picture of atoms.
Fire is a picture of atoms. As you zoom into it in ever more detail, you end up with individual atoms emitting photons.
Again, there is no reason to directly identify qualia with microphysical properties.
The structural properties of matter, or whatever the underlying substance is, are sufficient to predict everything physicists want to predict. To say that the intrinsic , nonstructural properties of matter are some kind of Qualia therefore entails epiphenomenalism. It allows you to predict conscious experience , but at the expense of the binding problem: if Qualia are just the intrinsic nature of quarks and electrons, then our sensorium should look like a fine grained brain scan. So Russerlian Monism, the scent faction of Qualia with intrinsic properties , has a bad case of the Binding problem.
@Signer something is a WF doesn’t mean it is nonlocal or particularly spatially extensive , since WFs can bunch down to any finite size. Most of the electrons in the human body are localised to orbitals that are some nanometers across (But not localised within them).
Physics attributes properties like mass and spin even to elementary particles. Are those structural properties?
About the binding problem, because of entanglement, wavefunctions aren’t just for individual particles. If two particles are described by a single nonfactorizable wavefunction, you cannot attribute definite states to the individual particles without losing information about the entangled whole.
It’s a recurring theme in quantum mind theories that this might have something to do with the binding problem. But people often seem to imagine something like “quale1 entangled with quale2”, which in the language of quantum states we might write as |quale1> ⊗ |quale2>. The problem is, that this is not entangled. It’s a “product state”, which by definition is factorizable mathematically and hence mereologically.
Truly entangled states involve multi-object superpositions that can’t be factored into single-object superpositions. So they do provide complex unities, but they don’t provide a clear way to ontologically bind together definite local properties. One might say that entanglement offers a potential solution to the unity of consciousness, but not to the binding problem, or at least that how to interpret entangled states qualically is not self-evident.
Sure.
But WF of a human is spatially extensive enough.
Why not like a drawing of a head?
Anyway, the binding problem for qualia is no different from the binding problem for fire. There is just no reason to promote limits of human introspection into fundamental ontology, just like there is no reason why fire can’t look continuous, but actually consist of mostly empty space.
It factors into localised parts. Humans aren’t Bose Einstein condensates.
Because you were saying that the binding comes from physics. That means the lack of it comes from physics, if the physics isn’t right.
Why is there a binding problem for fire?
Are you now saying that the binding comes from neurology?
Approximately localized. And even without quantum effects there are definitely relevant interactions on the macro scale. And gravity. And space. I just don’t get how “physical human is not spatially extensive” objection makes sense. Of course, it doesn’t matter, because saying that qualia are spatially extensive is like saying that fire is continuous.
Because there is no fire in the ontology of modern physics and there are no laws of physics that say that some arrangement of atoms are fire. There are only extra-physical conventions that say that if atoms work approximately like fire you can say that fire reduces to atoms. That’s how reductionism works. It works the same way for observations—there are no physical laws that determine how precisely your measurement equipment must draw numbers for you to conclude your physical theory is correct. And it works the same way for qualia—there are no physical laws that say that some neural activity is your experience of blue.
Binding comes from a human desire to describe things in an approximate, useful way. Fundamentally, there is no binding between real physics and continuity of fire. And so the binding problem is an easy problem of scientifically describing a brain in enough precision that all pixels of your visual field are predictable from this description.
Fire is reducible. If you want a physical explanation, you can have one.
No it comes from the observationthat our sensorium is not a picture of our brains?
If Qualia are identified with microphysical properties, those properties need to be localised to solve the binding problem.
And so are qualia. The only difference is that the science haven’t yet provided a useful reduction. But laws of physics still don’t say how you should reduce things. And reductions doesn’t preserve everything—fire can look continuous, but actually consist of atoms.
You can also observe that fire is not a picture of atoms. Reductions are indirect, can have different precision and some parts of observations are just wrong. There are no observations that contradict future neurology predicting all your experiences more precisely than you can feel them now.
Again, there is no reason to directly identify qualia with microphysical properties. You don’t need to make atoms continuous to bind them to continuous-looking fire. The idea is to only identify phenomenal nature of qualia with physical existence. After that science can figure out specific useful model and just say “your observations of qualia are not sensitive enough to say anything about localization on nanometer scale” like it says in the case of continuous-looking fire.
I’m not saying that figuring out how brain implements human experiences is a solved or uninteresting problem. It’s just not a Hard, philosophical problem. At least no more, than in the case of fire.
The other difference is that Qualia are subjective.
Lossy reductions don’t preserve everything.
Fire is a picture of atoms. As you zoom into it in ever more detail, you end up with individual atoms emitting photons.
Some sort of explanation is needed.