2

Consider the following:

S1: The assumption that “the chair has certain affordances (weathered, rickety, sturdy, available, etc.)” is a non-arbitrary subroutine in an operant or respondent activity (sitting, avoiding sitting, using as an improvised ladder/a shelf, hanging my coat, burning for heat, etc.) that couples an agent x to the (chair).

S2: The assumption that “the patient has advanced artery disease” is a non-arbitrary subroutine in an operant or respondent activity (the administration of statin, nitro-glycerine, ACE inhibitors, advice about radical dietary changes, etc.) that couples the surgeon x to the (patient’s heart/cardiovascular system).

S3: The assumption that “consciousness has the property P (physicality, non-physicality, non- localness, universally distributed, etc.)” is a non-arbitrary subroutine in an operant or respondent activity that couples an agent x to the (phenomena of consciousness).

There’s obviously nothing controversial about S1 and S2. But, the glaring issue about S3 is precisely what ‘activity’ or ‘operation’ are we talking about here? What is it that you couldn’t actually do (and not just talk about doing) if you weren’t working with the assumption that “consciousness has whatever property P”?

hellyale
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jimpliciter
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  • Philosophy of mind isn't my specialty but I not sure I understand just as a matter of English what you're doing with that "couples the surgeon x to the." thing. Specifically, "to the ..." ? shouldn't there be a word or variable there? – virmaior Jul 16 '14 at 06:09
  • @virmaior. Thanks. I've used the 'greater/lesser than' symbol- symbols used in Barwise and Perry's situational semantics- to denote the extension. It's messed about with the html. – jimpliciter Jul 16 '14 at 07:59
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    I don't have any idea what you mean by "non-arbitrary subroutine" nor do I know what you mean by the "operant or respondent" clause. – virmaior Jul 16 '14 at 09:01
  • If you want to get > or < past the html interpreter, try > and < – Dave B Jul 16 '14 at 15:04
  • @virmaior. Can you make lasagne without a white/béchamel sauce (sautéing the onion/garlic; browning the mince; sans tomato passata, etc.)? No. So making a white/béchamel sauce is a non-arbitrary subroutine in a sequence of others that get you to the final product- lasagne. Surfing a wave is a good example of both operant and respondent activity: the surfer’s sensory motor activity is operant with respect to the surf board, which is operand; this activity as a whole is respondent with respect to what the wave in doing. – jimpliciter Jul 16 '14 at 21:12
  • I know what a "subroutine" is. The usage you're making of it seems utterly contrived and non-sensical. What do you think "subroutine" adds to a description that lacks this term? Same thing with "operant and respondent activity"; how is this different from "activity"? Also, the case of surfing and the case of the existence of cardiovascular disease seem utterly different in case. How we respond to someone's clogged arteries involves several arbitrary steps unrelated to the existence of the disease. – virmaior Jul 16 '14 at 21:19
  • There are endless theories of consciousness on offer- some more apparently plausible than others, depending on your education. I just don’t see how merely having a theory counts for anything if it fails to contribute to any genuine operationalization of the phenomena of consciousness. Stuart Hameroff suggests that anesthesiology might be a path; hence to reference to the cardiovascular stuff. Sorry, the way I worded my question is a tad cumbersome. – jimpliciter Jul 16 '14 at 21:36
  • To put it differently: there has to some other (inter-) activity or than just talking about it, since merely talking about x, doesn’t count as an operationalized interaction with x. Verbal understanding is neither here nor there- non-verbal interaction is where genuine understanding lies. – jimpliciter Jul 16 '14 at 21:48
  • The cardiologist understands the cardiovascular system not just from the safe confines of a theoretical armchair, but by the many ‘operationalised’ routines or interactions with patient’s cardiovascular systems. – jimpliciter Jul 16 '14 at 21:51
  • I guess by “arbitrary/non-arbitrary” I mean: any theory that fails to contribute in any significant way to the operationalization of the phenomena in question is itself arbitrary. Meaning: you can swap it out ‘till the cows come home for any alternative and our relationship to the phenomena in question remains unperturbed. – jimpliciter Jul 16 '14 at 21:58
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    Stripped of all the jargon, what I'm hearing is "the patient has advanced artery disease" is to surgeon as "consciousness has the property P" is to phenomenon of consciousness. Beyond that I cannot grasp the form of the analogy because I the jargon you are using after that is *sui generis*. – virmaior Jul 18 '14 at 04:12
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    Subroutine is a term specific generally to computer-code; I can't say I see the validity of using this to describe the parts of an activity or recipe. – Mozibur Ullah Jul 07 '15 at 23:37
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    Using jargon that is specific to oneself, or a small circle isn't conducive to communication - a point that the physicist Feynman realised as a teenager when he submitted work with symbols of his own design - for example, a long 'T' with its upper line extended over the 'argument' to represent 'Tan' , the abbreviation for the Tangent function. – Mozibur Ullah Jul 07 '15 at 23:42
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    It also means that people have to work to disentangle the language before even trying to understand the argument; and then answer it; also a pernicious effect of this - which I'm not saying is the case here - is that bad thinking can be hidden by it; or in software jargon *obfuscation*. – Mozibur Ullah Jul 07 '15 at 23:47
  • In S3, you have a sentence in quotes; if you are quoting this from somewhere (rather than highlighting it) - can you source it? – Mozibur Ullah Jul 08 '15 at 00:07
  • @ Mozibur Ullah It’s been a while since I posted this question and the “jargon” is not software related. I guess I’m thinking that the “hard-problem” needs a little less theoretical speculation and a lot more ‘operationalisation’ (e.g.: as in heart surgery) before we’ll start seeing ‘solutions’. – jimpliciter Jul 08 '15 at 00:19
  • Boiling spaghetti is a non-arbitrary subroutine in a routine that produces spaghetti Bolognese. Using a combination of lamb+beef+veal mince is arbitrary. In reference to Ramsey’s notion of ‘success’, the assumption that- P(x) can make or break one’s success with respect to some activity ψ. So if we assume consciousness has whatever property P, precisely what coordinated, controlled, predictable activity (operant or respondent) is this conducive to the success of? – jimpliciter Jul 08 '15 at 00:19
  • @jimpliciter do you normally say "non-arbitrary subroutine of ... " in regular conversation? If not, it's jargon and jargon that sounds like programming jargon to me. If so, I'd be quite surprised unless that's a stiff translation of something pretty normal in another language. – virmaior Jul 09 '15 at 04:25
  • @virmaior you're probably be right, but I know other way of stating it. "(non-) eliminable/omissable/obviable" aren't acceptable words in English. How would you express it, when there is something you have to do (which is a part of greater series of actions) in order to realise a certain outcome; or there is something you can omit without vitiating the outcome? Not sure if "regular conversation" is something that happens here to often. – jimpliciter Jul 09 '15 at 05:55
  • I would say "you have to boil spaghetti to make spaghetti bolognese". All of the non-X language you're suggesting sounds like a *theory* of what we must do rather than a way anyone would normally say it. – virmaior Jul 09 '15 at 06:10
  • 'Boiling spaghetti is a non-arbitrary subroutine in a routine that produces spaghetti Bolognese' is not how a *chef* or an Italian cookery book is going to describe this; but it might be how a programmer might describe it if say he was programming a machine that produces spaghetti Bolognese in a factory... – Mozibur Ullah Jul 10 '15 at 10:00
  • If the hard problem of consciousness is solvable maybe it will be solved by a demonstration that some component of the brain is performing some huge role in what we think makes us human. So e.g. a very small part of the brain which is responsible for language acquisition. If the neuroscientists can't do it I doubt philosophers will. –  Sep 21 '16 at 06:10

1 Answers1

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The hard problem of consciousness is not a question of "consciousness has the property P" so much as it is a question of why do we experience P as P.

For instance if you see the color red, or taste bacon, you have the qualia of such experiences. So Consciousness has the quality red (or the taste of bacon) in those cases. This is not the question that the hard problem of consciousness is seeking to answer however.

Let us disregard for a moment the inverted qualia argument/thought experiment, as interesting as the topic is, and let us say we are both staring at a patch of red paint, and chewing on bacon.

There is nothing controversial about the sentences: "I see red" and "I taste bacon" as we point to our mouths with one hand and the patch of paint with the other.

The hard problem of consciousness is WHY we experience red as red, and not some other color, and WHY we experience the taste of bacon when we chew it, and not, let us say, chocolate. Or why we experience anything at all because of the physical state of our brains? How do we go from a physical combination of things to an experience of red, or bacon, or any other qualia?

So no, the hard problem of consciousness is not a question of Operationalization, but a question of explanation.

Consider this quote by Chalmers from this article

What makes the hard problem hard and almost unique is that it goes beyond problems about the performance of functions. To see this, note that even when we have explained the performance of all the cognitive and behavioral functions in the vicinity of experience—perceptual discrimination, categorization, internal access, verbal report—there may still remain a further unanswered question: Why is the performance of these functions accompanied by experience? (1995, 202, emphasis in original).

There are many other formulations of the hard problem of consciousness.

To hear David Chalmers himself talk about Consciousness in a TED talk that is only 1 year old (yes he is still alive) click here

You'll see that some approaches to the hard problem of consciousness are to deny that there is a problem at all. Some do this by denying the existence of qualia. Some do this in other ways.

Those who accept it as a problem are still scratching their heads. The individual that comes forward with the solution to this problem will likely become quite famous.

hellyale
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  • doesn't the question also argue "why"? roughly, because it's useful to. i agree that misses something about consciousness. in no way is this rock alive because assuming it does anything for me at all –  Sep 20 '16 at 07:21