Lets try this another way: if you have faith the brain creates the mind, and that mind depends on brain, can we please see your logic and evidence?

[osgart]

How would you go about determining whether the robot had these qualities or not? We can't communicate with it to the extent of directly experiencing what it experiences. And that's no different from asking the question about another person. The big difference is that we have our own experience to study. I know that I have certain mental "states" or feelings, because I directly experience them (though the accuracy of that experience remains a question), and I imply that other people have similar feelings.

What concerns me about your conclusions is that you seem to be saying something like "the machine is not like me, so it can't behave as I do". That was something that people claimed years ago about non-human animals and it has been shown to be generally incorrect.

Of course it's all speculation at this point. We don't have this machine to examine.

Well how can anyone draw the conclusion that matter creates mind? At this point I think it is assumed to be the likely answer. Not that it is specifically demonstrated to be so. If it was demonstrated to be so then creating consciousness would be a possibility.

What are the odds that a thinking machine could become conscious? It's not very likely to me. It's more likely that the qualities of being alive are imitated with data and sensors and what else they can program into such a machine.

I don't see non human animals as machines. Humans to me are highly developed animals. All animals have consciousness. It's more pronounced in humans though. The order and involvements of consciousness are more evident in humans.

I suppose that someone can declare consciousness to be no more special than digestion, but the organization, involvement, and workings of the mind appear to be carefully put together to function as they do. Without memory we couldn't reason, without experience, and perception we couldn't relate to anyone or anything. Consciousness has so many necessary cognitive functions within a unified self that grows and adapts over time. And then to feel qualities of cares like love, and compassion. How can that all be reduced to physical calculation?

By force of physics/chemistry how does consciousness arrive on the scene? From nothing but physics what drives consciousness into existence?

Consciousness is clearly substantive, and about something carefully placed.

 

[Yerda]

Claim: the brain creates the mind. The mind depends on the brain. When the brain dies mind dies. Etc.

Evidence: ?????

This is a good thread.

I'm in the camp that thinks the mind is a product of what brains do, but I can see that the type of physical evidence I (and most other posters) put forward in support of this isn't enough to demonstrate that position. It does kind of miss the target - and for me that's interesting. And worth looking into.

As long as minds and brains are connected people can still study the relationship and hopefully develop deeper empirical and conceptual models of what is going on in there. That's enough to keep me happy.

 

[RestlessSoul]

And how is it being declared "naive"? Based on what facts?

There are no known "immaterial qualities" of consciousness. Feel free to correct me. There are assumptions, typically by theists who have a vested interest in an "immaterial" anything.

Give some examples. Then we can see if there is an actual problem in the facts, or you theists are just trying to create a dilemma that doesn't exist.

It's like gravity, we may not understand how it works, but what we observe is natural processes, and we see no signs of supernaural or immaterial phenomenon. The burden is on you theists to show there is a "ghost in the machine" thing going on in our brains. Thus far you make claims, and no evidence.

Abstract thought and qualitative experience are immaterial aspects of consciousness. An example of the latter is the experience of seeing colour.

Point to one thing in nature that is richer, deeper, more complex than your mind. If you can do that, and if you can point to one phenomenon which is not in your mind, I’ll take seriously the assertion that the mind is reducible to activity in the brain.

 

[F1fan]

Abstract thought and qualitative experience are immaterial aspects of consciousness. An example of the latter is the experience of seeing colour.

Abstract thinking is due to brain activity, thus a material process. Consciousness is ONLY observed in living, material brains, no where else. Experience of anything is due to brain activity, thus a material process. So where is this "immaterial"?

Point to one thing in nature that is richer, deeper, more complex than your mind.

You are asking for a value judgment, not analysis of data and fact. What I might value is not objective, so why ask?

If you can do that, and if you can point to one phenomenon which is not in your mind, I’ll take seriously the assertion that the mind is reducible to activity in the brain.

Irrelevant. You have yet to explain why you think what we call a mind is not a material process, that of a living brain processing via neural activity. Other things in nature are irrelevant to minds and brains.

 

[Copernicus]

I don't think this addresses the mental contents of aboutness. A thinking machine could imitate artificially the intentionality of being alive, but never produce the qualities of being alive. The subject, the experiencer, the selfhood identity that persists through time is not merely a computer making a calculation. It looks like you are artificially reducing aboutness to cold calculation...

First of all, I do not think of a brain as a digital computer that runs software. I think of the brain as a mechanical device whose structure is made up of biological components, primarily neurons, that facilitate and inhibit associative data structures (similar, but not identical, to linked lists used to implement so-called neural networks in computers). Without knowing how the brain actually produces selfhood identity through time, you assert that a thinking machine could not do that. Again, I think you are trapping yourself in an argument from incredulity, since you offer no other reason to accept your claim.

Science can tell you what behaves, and how a phenomena behaves, but it cannot tell you the intrinsic behaviour and qualities of conscious phenomena from mere third person observation. Science doesn't do why questions, it can only do natural processes and must limit itself to that.

Bold statements here about what the scientific method can and cannot tell you, but you toss out these terms "intrinsic behavior" and "conscious phenomena" as if they could not be described in the third person. All you are saying, as Alien pointed out, is that third person descriptions are not the same as subjective experiences. However, psychologists actually have been doing a fairly decent job of investigating the nature of subjective experiences. Indeed, "why questions" can be answered in the third person, so I don't think you make a valid argument here. Science tells us a lot about how physical matter interacts with other physical matter. What I suggest you do is start thinking about how that is qualitatively different from a human body having subjective experiences of the physical environment when it interacts with that environment. After all, bodies are physical objects that can be studied scientifically, just like other kinds of physical objects.

Tallis is also a neuro scientist as well as a philosopher. No one escapes philosophy in the evaluation and interpretation of evidence.

I am not criticizing Tallis for being a philosopher, only for being a philosopher who makes a rather lazy argument. Let's not paint ourselves into the corner of an argument from authority. It is the argument, not the credentials, that is being weighed here.

Aboutness is the conscious observer seeing out through his/her eyes and not just taking in the light from the environment processed to the brain.

But I never claimed seeing was just passive perception. Psychologists have known for a very long time that perception is an active process in which sensations generated by the peripheral nervous system are matched against internalized experiences. You haven't actually focused on my description of "aboutness" and contradicted it, but you seem to think you are disagreeing with it. Here is what I said:

...Animals have bodies that record memories of experiences and use those memories to understand situations that they find themselves in. They survive by figuring out that what they are experiencing in real time is about specific past experiences and act accordingly...

IOW, what an animal sees is not "just taking in the light from the environment". It interprets the visual sensations in light of past experiences. Perception is an active process, not just a passive one. The works of M. C. Escher prove that in a very artistic way.

 

[Alien826]

Well how can anyone draw the conclusion that matter creates mind? At this point I think it is assumed to be the likely answer. Not that it is specifically demonstrated to be so. If it was demonstrated to be so then creating consciousness would be a possibility.

I agree that it's difficult to understand, but what you said is largely correct. It's assumed to be the likely answer, lacking a better explanation. There is quite a lot of research these days, for example, linking particular electrical activity to say an emotion, so there is supporting evidence. My major problem is jumping from "we don't know how the brain does consciousness" to "there must be an immaterial thingy (but we don't know what it is composed of or where it comes from) that somehow (how?) uses the brain as a receiver for its thoughts and feelings".

What are the odds that a thinking machine could become conscious? It's not very likely to me. It's more likely that the qualities of being alive are imitated with data and sensors and what else they can program into such a machine.

What are the odds (from a pov of maybe 50 years ago) that there could be a machine that allows me to participate in a story, with my surroundings represented with near real representation and that continually and smoothly adjusts my view to match my movements within it? There's one sitting on my desk now, and we take it for granted. I'm a retired programmer, and I don't have a clue what the programming might be for that, but it works. What I'm getting at is that these difficult problems tend to become accepted as the problems get solved.

I don't see non human animals as machines. Humans to me are highly developed animals. All animals have consciousness. It's more pronounced in humans though. The order and involvements of consciousness are more evident in humans.

I agree.

I suppose that someone can declare consciousness to be no more special than digestion, but the organization, involvement, and workings of the mind appear to be carefully put together to function as they do. Without memory we couldn't reason, without experience, and perception we couldn't relate to anyone or anything. Consciousness has so many necessary cognitive functions within a unified self that grows and adapts over time. And then to feel qualities of cares like love, and compassion. How can that all be reduced to physical calculation?

By force of physics/chemistry how does consciousness arrive on the scene? From nothing but physics what drives consciousness into existence?

Consciousness is clearly substantive, and about something carefully placed.

Assuming a materialistic pov, I can explain how these things came to be without being "placed" there. And I can see how consciousness and the rest would be something that would have been selected for though the process of evolution. Now we need to find out how they work ...

Oh, and most bodily functions are pretty amazing once you look into them. How does the immune system "remember" that it has seen a particular bacterium or virus before and "know" how to deal with it? Quite amazing, but I haven't heard anyone suggest it needs an invisible "ghost" to function.

 

[Alien826]

IOW, what an animal sees is not "just taking in the light from the environment". It interprets the visual sensations in light of past experiences. Perception is an active process, not just a passive one. The works of M. C. Escher prove that in a very artistic way.

Absolutely. Seeing is so much more than just registering input from the cells in the retina. Quite apart from the modelling that has to be done to translate the bits of information from the eyes into a coherent picture, there's editing. I watched something that demonstrated this. They showed the audience a video of someone bouncing a ball and asked them to count the bounces. Afterwards they asked who saw the clown. I didn't see any clown, though a few people did. I watched it again without being concerned about counting. A clown in a brightly colored costume walked past the man bouncing the ball. My brain had deliberately ignored the clown as irrelevant (I guess) to the task in hand.

 

[F1fan]

Well how can anyone draw the conclusion that matter creates mind?

What alternative is there? Those who claim an immateralist cause offer nothing in the way of evidence.

At this point I think it is assumed to be the likely answer. Not that it is specifically demonstrated to be so. If it was demonstrated to be so then creating consciousness would be a possibility.

What test would convince you? Dead brains always result in minds no longer existing. What the "immaterialists" need is a mind that exists outside of a living brain. How is it even possible with what we understand of biology and minds?

What are the odds that a thinking machine could become conscious?

I suggest consciousness emerged first, and then thinking in more and more complex levels evolved. It's not very likely to me. It's more likely that the qualities of being alive are imitated with data and sensors and what else they can program into such a machine.

I don't see non human animals as machines. Humans to me are highly developed animals. All animals have consciousness. It's more pronounced in humans though. The order and involvements of consciousness are more evident in humans.

I suggest we humans take advantage of our consciousness due to our larger brains. I wouldn't say human consciousness is any more advanced than in other mammals.

I suppose that someone can declare consciousness to be no more special than digestion, but the organization, involvement, and workings of the mind appear to be carefully put together to function as they do. Without memory we couldn't reason, without experience, and perception we couldn't relate to anyone or anything. Consciousness has so many necessary cognitive functions within a unified self that grows and adapts over time. And then to feel qualities of cares like love, and compassion. How can that all be reduced to physical calculation?

At the most what we call consciousness in humans has to be the same as that in other animals. When we start adding our unique abilities it sounds dubious.

By force of physics/chemistry how does consciousness arrive on the scene? From nothing but physics what drives consciousness into existence?

Consciousness is clearly substantive, and about something carefully placed.

All ongoing study.

 

[RestlessSoul]

Philosophers, neuroscientists and physicists met recently in Poughkeepsie, not to pick their feet, but to consider whether consciousness may be fundamental.

Is Consciousness Part of the Fabric of the Universe? — Scientific American

 

[Kelly of the Phoenix]

An evil Creator would not create goodness

I disagree. An evil creator needs someone good to torture with the presence of evil.

 

[Yerda]

Philosophers, neuroscientists and physicists met recently in Poughkeepsie, not to pick their feet, but to consider whether consciousness may be fundamental.

Is Consciousness Part of the Fabric of the Universe? — Scientific American

Seems utterly bonkers that mainstream scientists and philosophers are proposing consciousness is fundamental. But here we are and I'm loving it.

Btw, Philip Goff's book and talks are worth a listen, and Galen Strawson never disappoints.

 

[Copernicus]

Seems utterly bonkers that mainstream scientists and philosophers are proposing consciousness is fundamental. But here we are and I'm loving it.

Btw, Philip Goff's book and talks are worth a listen, and Galen Strawson never disappoints.

The article points out that only about a third of academic philosophers buy into the panpsychism approach--that consciousness is somehow substrate-independent. It seems to me that they want to have it both ways, because panpsychism implies that consciousness is a property of the "fabric or reality" itself. However, it is difficult to see how that is different from saying that consciousness is an emergent property of physical systemic interaction, which is essentially the emergence approach that they are trying to reject. In fact, the Scientific American article really isn't clear on how they define consciousness other than to fall back on the assumption that third person descriptions of experiences are not the same as actually having experiences.

An objective observation of brain activity doesn't express what it is like to be conscious, because that is something that one can only experience by being conscious. However, when all the cognitive dissonant dust settles, we still don't arrive at the conclusion of a "ghost in the machine", which is what substance (Cartesian) dualism is all about. If consciousness is inseparable from physical reality, then it depends on that substrate for its existence and can't be separated from it. Emergence is an undeniable consequence of chaotic physical interactions. From the perspective of emergent materialism, consciousness is an emergent property of the physics that makes up the universe, but not the other way around.

See: Strawson's Consciousness Isn't a Mystery. It's Matter.

Think about the experience of the rock and a window when a rock strikes the window and breaks it. Is the rock conscious of the window? Is the window conscious of the rock? Both interact with each other, so it's not as if they don't affect each other. What is the difference between consciousness and a kind of rudimentary physical interaction? Animal interactions are so much more complex, but so are the systemic interactions of physical forces that define them.

 

[Yerda]

The article points out that only about a third of academic philosophers buy into the panpsychism approach--that consciousness is somehow substrate-independent. It seems to me that they want to have it both ways, because panpsychism implies that consciousness is a property of the "fabric or reality" itself. However, it is difficult to see how that is different from saying that consciousness is an emergent property of physical systemic interaction, which is essentially the emergence approach that they are trying to reject. In fact, the Scientific American article really isn't clear what on how they define consciousness other than to fall back on the assumption that third person descriptions of experiences are not the same as actually having experiences.

A third? Good lord that's much more than I has thought!

A couple of points:

The difference between "fundamental component of reality" and "emergent property of matter" seems significant to me. Philip Goff, for example, builds upon the work of Betrand Russell and expresses the issue this way: Physics doesn't tell us about the intrinsic nature of matter. It tells us how it behaves. The panspychist (following a kind of Russellian Monist approach) says that the intrinsic nature of matter is consciousness. Other panspychists might come at it in a different way, though the tend to defend the idea that consciousness is fundamental and not emergent.

In every case I've encountered philosophers discussing consciousness they are using the word to refer to experiences. As in, experiencing a pain, a flavour, a shrill note, a bright shade of green etc. Subjective qualitative states if you like. But "experience" is much better because we all know what that is.

An objective observation of brain activity doesn't express what it is like to be conscious, because that is something that one can only experience by being conscious. However, when all the cognitive dissonant dust settles, we still don't arrive at the conclusion of a "ghost in the machine", which is what substance (Cartesian) dualism is all about. If consciousness is inseparable from physical reality, then it depends on that substrate for its existence and can't be separated from it. Emergence is an undeniable consequence of chaotic physical interactions. From the perspective of emergent materialism, consciousness is an emergent property of the physics that makes up the universe, but not the other way around.

See: Strawson's Consciousness Isn't a Mystery. It's Matter.

No-one, that I'm aware of, is concluding there's a ghost in the machine. Panpsychism can be 100% physicalist. As far as I can tell Goff and Strawson are physicalists in that they think consciousness is part of the ordinary physical world. Just that physics doesn't have a way to account for this yet.

 

[soulsurvivor]

Why couldn't we say that a lack of evidence ---in this case ----is perfect evidence? In other words, just show us a mind gallivanting around after its brain has died?

About 25 years ago, I was at Toys R Us store in Sunnyvale California. I was looking for a StarWars action figure for my daughter. She had a whole collection which had one particular one missing. This was the one I wanted to buy. At the store there was a huge wall covered with StarWars figures. I could not find the one I wanted. I kept staring at the wall for maybe 5 or 10 minutes. Suddenly the exact action figure I wanted jumped off the wall by itself and fell at my feet.

So, was there a mind gallivanting around in the store without a brain? There was definitely no brain or a body nearby. Is this evidence that a mind can exist without a brain? This particular mind, if there was one, also seemed to have the ability to move objects -as well as read my mind because I had not told anyone which figure I was looking for.

Does just one piece of evidence (in this case just my testimony) invalidate your belief that a mind cannot exist without a brain? It definitely makes your evidence (or lack thereof) imperfect.

BTW, I found out later that this particular store was supposed to be haunted: Sunnyvale's haunted Toys R Us closed, but it has new life again

 

[Copernicus]

The difference between "fundamental component of reality" and "emergent property of matter" seems significant to me. Philip Goff, for example, builds upon the work of Betrand Russell and expresses the issue this way: Physics doesn't tell us about the intrinsic nature of matter. It tells us how it behaves. The panspychist (following a kind of Russellian Monist approach) says that the intrinsic nature of matter is consciousness. Other panspychists might come at it in a different way, though the tend to defend the idea that consciousness is fundamental and not emergent.

First of all, Bertrand Russell was no panpsychist, but he and Wittgenstein were linguistic philosophers who kicked off the concept of logical atomism, a precursor to logical positivism. Wittgenstein later went in an entirely different direction, which led to so-called Ordinary Language Philosophy. But you saying that "consciousness is fundamental and not emergent" doesn't really explain what you think the difference is or, indeed, what you think consciousness is.

In every case I've encountered philosophers discussing consciousness they are using the word to refer to experiences. As in, experiencing a pain, a flavour, a shrill note, a bright shade of green etc. Subjective qualitative states if you like. But "experience" is much better because we all know what that is.

We are physical objects that have conscious experiences, but that does not mean that consciousness is fundamental to brainless physical objects or a process that occurs independently of physical brain activity. After all, rocks don't have brains, so how are they "conscious"? How do they have "experiences" that are like the experiences that living animals have? What makes us conscious of flavors, odors, sounds, and sights is not just the sensations, but also the associations we have with other concepts--e.g. food, perfume, music, paintings. Human cognition is fundamentally associative in nature, and what brains do is they create those bundles of associations. Consciousness is a property of cognition, and there is no reason to believe that brainless objects have thoughts that can be associated with accumulated experiences. If you get conked on the head, you can lose consciousness, but you can conk a rock all you want without depriving it of anything but its shape.

No-one, that I'm aware of, is concluding there's a ghost in the machine. Panpsychism can be 100% physicalist. As far as I can tell Goff and Strawson are physicalists in that they think consciousness is part of the ordinary physical world. Just that physics doesn't have a way to account for this yet.

Actually, I do think that cognitive scientists do have ways of accounting for it that are quite satisfactory. There are ways of studying consciousness that go beyond trying to figure out how quantum mechanics plays a role in it. (And I don't think that it plays any direct role in consciousness, contrary to a lot of postmodernist ramblings.) Although I don't agree with a lot of Chomsky's generative linguistic theory, I do agree with his claim that "language is a window on the mind". If one wants to begin to understand human thought, then a good place to start is by examining the minutiae of the medium that people use to communicate their thoughts. Of course, there are other ways to communicate thoughts than through language, and that is why a multidisciplinary field like cognitive science is not grounded in just linguistics.

 

[John D. Brey]

About 25 years ago, I was at Toys R Us store in Sunnyvale California. I was looking for a StarWars action figure for my daughter. She had a whole collection which had one particular one missing. This was the one I wanted to buy. At the store there was a huge wall covered with StarWars figures. I could not find the one I wanted. I kept staring at the wall for maybe 5 or 10 minutes. Suddenly the exact action figure I wanted jumped off the wall by itself and fell at my feet.

So, was there a mind gallivanting around in the store without a brain? There was definitely no brain or a body nearby. Is this evidence that a mind can exist without a brain? This particular mind, if there was one, also seemed to have the ability to move objects -as well as read my mind because I had not told anyone which figure I was looking for.

Does just one piece of evidence (in this case just my testimony) invalidate your belief that a mind cannot exist without a brain? It definitely makes your evidence (or lack thereof) imperfect.

BTW, I found out later that this particular store was supposed to be haunted: Sunnyvale's haunted Toys R Us closed, but it has new life again

I believe your story since I've had similar experiences. Yours sounds more like telekinesis than that the action figure had a mind of its own. Your mind caused the toy to fall into your lap so to say.

One of my experiences was even more dramatic than yours in that I was consciously involved in the event in the sense that I was trying a thought experiment when it occurred. Like you I was at a store. And I needed something very badly. If I didn't get it I was screwed. I looked through everything they had and they didn't have what I needed. I went isle to isle in a panic. Then, based on a previous experience (narrated below), I wondered if I could actually make what I needed appear through a mixture of dumb, pure, faith, and necessity?

I calmed down and "believed" that I could make what I needed appear. Viola, like something out of a movie, I went back through the first isle where it should have been, and there, in a spot I'd looked multiple times, and carefully, it sat staring at me almost smiling.

I've thought back on that event many times, wondering if my subconscious awareness saw what I needed while my conscious mind hid it somehow knowing I was going to attempt the experiment? Nothing in my conscious awareness of the event, at any level, suggested I was complicit in the seeming miracle. More than that, the previous experience that gave rise to the one above occurred in a manner that couldn't have been mental shenanigans on my part.

I needed a particular, rare, building material, and even more than the situation above, I was screwed if I couldn't find it. I checked every outlet in the city I lived and no one had it. My financial life was about to capsize and I was more emotionally distraught than I'd ever been in my life. I remember driving down the road praying just like James Stewart in, It's a Wonderful Life, help me God, please help me God.

Right at the end of the last God in my crying out I notice the ironic simultaneity that I just happened to be passing by an outlet that would normally have what I needed though I'd already stopped by and called them too to check on it. Noticing, consciously, the simultaneity of the cry to God and the sudden realization I was passing a place that normally would have what I needed I made a sudden turn into the parking lot of the outlet. As I park my truck, there, right in front of my truck, right in front of the very spot I parked, looks to be precisely what I needed?

So I go to the front desk and ask if they have the product? They go through the computer and say sorry sir but we don't. I say that there's a pallet in front of where I'm parked that looks like what I need. The guy at the desk says lets go see. . . "I'll be damned . . . I don't know why that isn't in the computer."



John

 

[soulsurvivor]

Viola, like something out of a movie, I went back through the first isle where it should have been, and there, in a spot I'd looked multiple times, and carefully, it sat staring at me almost smiling.

Your story is superficially similar. As you say, you could have subconsciously noticed it earlier but still not seen it consciously.

However, in my story, the object physically moved and fell at my feet. There is a big difference. There was something non-physical or at least invisible to me (no wind inside the store) that moved the figure. That non-physical thing must have had a mind that knew what I wanted and somehow will that object to move, but it definitely did not have a brain.

 

[Yerda]

First of all, Bertrand Russell was no panpsychist, but he and Wittgenstein were linguistic philosophers who kicked off the concept of logical atomism, a precursor to logical positivism. Wittgenstein later went in an entirely different direction, which led to so-called Ordinary Language Philosophy. But you saying that "consciousness is fundamental and not emergent" doesn't really explain what you think the difference is or, indeed, what you think consciousness is.

Russell wasn't a panpsychist, no. But his metaphysical ideas are influential among a certain brand of panpsychist. See: Russellian Monism (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

The difference between fundamental and emergent seems fairly straightforward. One is an irreducible component of the world and one emerges from the interaction of fundamental components.

I'm saying consciousness is experience. Subjective phenomenal states.

We are physical objects that have conscious experiences, but that does not mean that consciousness is fundamental to brainless physical objects or a process that occurs independently of physical brain activity. After all, rocks don't have brains, so how are they "conscious"? How do they have "experiences" that are like the experiences that living animals have? What makes us conscious of flavors, odors, sounds, and sights is not just the sensations, but also the associations we have with other concepts--e.g. food, perfume, music, paintings. Human cognition is fundamentally associative in nature, and what brains do is they create those bundles of associations. Consciousness is a property of cognition, and there is no reason to believe that brainless objects have thoughts that can be associated with accumulated experiences. If you get conked on the head, you can lose consciousness, but you can conk a rock all you want without depriving it of anything but its shape.

I guess that's the issue. If consciousness is fundamental it isn't necessarily a product of cogntion.

Actually, I do think that cognitive scientists do have ways of accounting for it that are quite satisfactory.

Ok, can you share such an account with us?

There are ways of studying consciousness that go beyond trying to figure out how quantum mechanics plays a role in it. (And I don't think that it plays any direct role in consciousness, contrary to a lot of postmodernist ramblings.)

I don't either.

Although I don't agree with a lot of Chomsky's generative linguistic theory, I do agree with his claim that "language is a window on the mind". If one wants to begin to understand human thought, then a good place to start is by examining the minutiae of the medium that people use to communicate their thoughts. Of course, there are other ways to communicate thoughts than through language, and that is why a multidisciplinary field like cognitive science is not grounded in just linguistics.

I agree, though I don't see the relevance

 

[John D. Brey]

Your story is superficially similar. As you say, you could have subconsciously noticed it earlier but still not seen it consciously.

However, in my story, the object physically moved and fell at my feet. There is a big difference. There was something non-physical or at least invisible to me (no wind inside the store) that moved the figure. That non-physical thing must have had a mind that knew what I wanted and somehow will that object to move, but it definitely did not have a brain.

I was adding telekinesis to the powers of your unconscious mind.




John

 

[Copernicus]

Russell wasn't a panpsychist, no. But his metaphysical ideas are influential among a certain brand of panpsychist. See: Russellian Monism (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

Fair enough. Russell's writings have inspired a lot of people, even if the inspiration took them far from the source.

The difference between fundamental and emergent seems fairly straightforward. One is an irreducible component of the world and one emerges from the interaction of fundamental components.

I'm not so sure that any component can ever be said to be irreducible, but we can certainly imagine the components of any substrate as fundamental to the components of of a supervening system.

I'm saying consciousness is experience. Subjective phenomenal states.

And you believe that rocks can have experiences--subjective phenomenal states? I'm not really following how panpsychism is supposed to work. I'm pretty sure that animals can have experiences, but rocks and bricks?

I guess that's the issue. If consciousness is fundamental it isn't necessarily a product of cogntion.

But, if consciousness is not fundamental in the sense of irreducibility, then would you concede that it is a product of cognition?

Actually, I do think that cognitive scientists do have ways of accounting for it that are quite satisfactory.

Ok, can you share such an account with us?

I'm afraid that that I couldn't turn "ways of accounting for" into a single "account" very easily. I was thinking along the lines of embodied cognition, but that's a big subject that would likely take us far afield.

I agree, though I don't see the relevance

The relevance was that linguists are among those who provide analytic tools for deconstructing experiences into their component elements.