I am just about to finish Being You and had a rising frustration which I did not quite where to take … so hope am not bothering anyone by raising it here.
Seth’s hope that his account of consciousness will dissolve the “Hard Problem of Consciousness” into the “Real Problem of Consciousness” did not at all work for me. He frequently uses terms like ‘causation’ and ‘correlation’ to describe the relationship between physical states of bodies and brains, on the one hand, and mental phenomena, on the other. The more I think about it, that just has to be wrong.
Please bare with me a moment to for an analogy.
If I imagine having complete information about the physical state of a billiard ball moving toward two other billiard balls it will soon come to strike sending them off in their respective (different) directions, it is accurate to say: 1) the first billiard ball “caused” the movement of the other two; 2) the movements of the other two are “correlated”; and 3) if I also have an account of the heat generated by the collision such that all of the energy present in the state at which I had complete information is accounted for in the collision, then I have a complete description of the causal effects of the collision (and so too the resulting correlations between the objects effected by that ‘causal’ event).
So the same ought to be true if I had a complete description of a neuron which is about to impart an electrical charge to two other previously uncharged neurons. The activity of the two other neurons will be correlated (as between each other) because their energized states would have been ‘caused’ by the activity of the first neuron. And if I also account for any additional energy present at the time at which I had complete information (e.g some heat), then there can be no other causes arising from the activity of the first neuron.
The problem is, unlike in the case of the billiard balls, there can be a phenomena in the consciousness of a person whose brain houses the three neurons. The mental phenomena associated with the first neuron’s activity can’t stand in a relationship of causation to that neuron because all of the energy present in the state at which I had complete information has already been accounted for. Correlation also doesn’t work as a term because if we assume that there is also mental phenomena associated with the activity of the two previously uncharged neurons, it would have to be a result of a prior causal effect on those two neurons, but we just said that the first neuron caused their energetic states and its energy has already been entirely accounted for.
So what is the right English word for the relationship at issue?
Up until today I thought “constitutive’ was the right word to use to describe the relationship; but I just realized that doesn’t quite work either, at least not in the ordinary sense. For example, if I were to see a black billiard ball standing against a white background from a distance, I might initially mistake it for a two dimensional picture of a billiard ball. Then when I get closer I would notice it is a three-dimensional object (an actual billiard ball). It’s depth is a constituent part of it which I had not initially noticed. But going back to the idea of having complete information about the physical state of such an object. If I had had that when I saw it from a distance, I would never have made the mistake of treating it as two-dimensional in the first place.
But that, again, isn’t what is going on with the appearance of phenomena in consciousness because, again, it is not described or anticipated by the dynamical states of the neurons any more than it would be for billiard balls.
The only way ‘constitutive’ seems to work as a description of what is going is if we treat the appearance in consciousness as another dimension in a similar way to how I just treated depth as an additional dimension I come to notice about the billiard ball. It is just that with the dimension of mental phenomena, it can’t be a ‘physical’ … because, again, all the physical consequences and correlates of the neurons’ dynamical activity has already been accounted for.
That seems to be a really hard problem which Seth—mistakenly to my mind—believes he has dissolved.
I am just about to finish Being You and had a rising frustration which I did not quite where to take … so hope am not bothering anyone by raising it here.
Seth’s hope that his account of consciousness will dissolve the “Hard Problem of Consciousness” into the “Real Problem of Consciousness” did not at all work for me. He frequently uses terms like ‘causation’ and ‘correlation’ to describe the relationship between physical states of bodies and brains, on the one hand, and mental phenomena, on the other. The more I think about it, that just has to be wrong.
Please bare with me a moment to for an analogy.
If I imagine having complete information about the physical state of a billiard ball moving toward two other billiard balls it will soon come to strike sending them off in their respective (different) directions, it is accurate to say: 1) the first billiard ball “caused” the movement of the other two; 2) the movements of the other two are “correlated”; and 3) if I also have an account of the heat generated by the collision such that all of the energy present in the state at which I had complete information is accounted for in the collision, then I have a complete description of the causal effects of the collision (and so too the resulting correlations between the objects effected by that ‘causal’ event).
So the same ought to be true if I had a complete description of a neuron which is about to impart an electrical charge to two other previously uncharged neurons. The activity of the two other neurons will be correlated (as between each other) because their energized states would have been ‘caused’ by the activity of the first neuron. And if I also account for any additional energy present at the time at which I had complete information (e.g some heat), then there can be no other causes arising from the activity of the first neuron.
The problem is, unlike in the case of the billiard balls, there can be a phenomena in the consciousness of a person whose brain houses the three neurons. The mental phenomena associated with the first neuron’s activity can’t stand in a relationship of causation to that neuron because all of the energy present in the state at which I had complete information has already been accounted for. Correlation also doesn’t work as a term because if we assume that there is also mental phenomena associated with the activity of the two previously uncharged neurons, it would have to be a result of a prior causal effect on those two neurons, but we just said that the first neuron caused their energetic states and its energy has already been entirely accounted for.
So what is the right English word for the relationship at issue?
Up until today I thought “constitutive’ was the right word to use to describe the relationship; but I just realized that doesn’t quite work either, at least not in the ordinary sense. For example, if I were to see a black billiard ball standing against a white background from a distance, I might initially mistake it for a two dimensional picture of a billiard ball. Then when I get closer I would notice it is a three-dimensional object (an actual billiard ball). It’s depth is a constituent part of it which I had not initially noticed. But going back to the idea of having complete information about the physical state of such an object. If I had had that when I saw it from a distance, I would never have made the mistake of treating it as two-dimensional in the first place.
But that, again, isn’t what is going on with the appearance of phenomena in consciousness because, again, it is not described or anticipated by the dynamical states of the neurons any more than it would be for billiard balls.
The only way ‘constitutive’ seems to work as a description of what is going is if we treat the appearance in consciousness as another dimension in a similar way to how I just treated depth as an additional dimension I come to notice about the billiard ball. It is just that with the dimension of mental phenomena, it can’t be a ‘physical’ … because, again, all the physical consequences and correlates of the neurons’ dynamical activity has already been accounted for.
That seems to be a really hard problem which Seth—mistakenly to my mind—believes he has dissolved.