Four Objections To Cartesian Dualism Options

[Rick]

This thread started with objections to dualism and I would like to return to that topic, if I may. A quantum mechanical explanation of free will is interesting, but may not be necessary. A deterministic system is not necessarily predictable by 1) chaos theory and by 2) Turing undecidability. We are free, and a deterministic explanation of consciousness cannot chain us.

Epiphenominalism eliminates dualism, but renders consciousness useless (acausal) in the functioning of the brain, and there is strong evidence that consciousness is important in the way our minds work. First, consciousness focuses our attention. Consider a motorist talking on his cell phone. His consciousness and attention are on his conversation, so he's driving like a zombie, and presents a documented hazard to other drivers and pedestrians. Second, consciousness is important in memory formation. When our cell phone-using motorist strikes a pedestrian, he will have no memory of driving-related events leading up to the accident, but will probably remember what he was talking about on the phone. So we can rule out epiphenominalism as an explanation based on evidence from consensual reality.

Identity theory is superficially attractive but leaves open the question of unconscious mental activity. Sigmund Freud was so wrong about so many things, but his great contribution was his recognition of the role of the unconsious. Many times I have awakened in the morning with a ready-formed solution to a hard problem I had been pondering the day before. A good explanation is that unconscious mental processes are spun off to go work on problems, either in the background during waking, or during sleep. If identity theory is correct, then why aren't all mental processes conscious? Consciousness seems to move around, illuminating those things that have the attention of the ego. Identity theory might be modified to say that consciousness is identical with only those mental processes that happen to be conscious, but that leaves the question of how it is decided which mental processes are identical to consciousness and which are not.

Finally, identity theory doesn't seem to address the so-called hard problem of consciousness that asks "why?" (after Chalmers): Why should it be that there is something that it is like to be a person?

[Nebulous Inferno]

[Nebulous Inferno]

To add to my last post:

Pain feels terrible because, in relation to the rest of the body it *is* terrible. You may ask: "Why is it terrible?". The answer in this case is that it is terrible to the survival, reproduction or basically the natural selection of the genes of the body.

However, there are certain kinds of feelings related to synthetic ideas - ideas created by humans which are "independent" of our bodies. I spoke above about memes, which are communicable ideas which evolve over time, giving rise to cultural and moral evolution, and society itself. I need to make a distinction, now, between the "firmware" and the "software" of the brain. Obviously, everyone feels physical pain and everyone can taste food (well, almost everyone). This I would call "firmware". "Software" should probably be reserved for more complex ideas that can be communicated. Lets call these ideas 'memes' from now on.

Memes are expressed in each individual by sets of instructions (algorithms). Somehow your brain knows how to run memes on its animal machinery - somehow *you* know how to think. With practice you can express ideas in your mind with ease - basically you have implemented or installed many ideas into your mind through thought and communication.

Lets go back to our original example of pain. Pain from "firmware", for example getting burned, is terrible in relation to the genes of our bodies. With pain resulting from "software" (memes), it may be different. Pain from loss of a game of chess is probably terrible in the context of many different systems. It is a different matter for each instance of pain. In some cases pain may actually be a learned response, not good for our genes at all, but useful for society. Society itself is exapted indirectly from the genetics of humans, but it need not be slave to these genes - it often works for the good of itself, just as multi-cellular organisms often work for the good of themselves instead of their individual cells, although the individual cells have their own genes. You may think still think that social ideas must be slave to biology, but just consider social ideas to be *new* genes, and now you can see that these new social "genes" (actually they are memes) can be as selfish as can be - perhaps acting with no regard to some biological genes. Here, game theoretic accounts of biological and cultural evolution can give the best explanations. I won't go any further into it right now.

I want, right now, to say that we should forget about Descartes mind-first assumption. Descartes *assumed* there was a self, then went on from there. He believed he was being really cautious, but I think he assumed too much. I am more of an existentialist, so I don't even assume that there is a self. Instead I surmise that things exist (thoughts, feelings, etc.), and that somehow a "self" surrounds many of these observations. It should not be assumed that this "self" is any more valid than observations of things outside of the "self", or that this "self" is anything special or native to the universe, until it is determined otherwise.

[Nebulous Inferno]

One more short post for me, then I need to run.

All of these ideas from quantum mechanics change nothing with regards to consciousness. There is no moral or metaphysical significance to some randomness coming from "beyond" the brain. Even if it is true that quantum mechanics adds "true" randomness, it doesn't matter. We already have "selves" implemented by our brains (and possible quantum randomness, if you want to make that claim), and we already have pseudo-randomness from chaos theory.

So, if you think quantum mechanics adds randomness, fine. Maybe it even affects the way the physical brain operates in some unique ways. It doesn't matter, philosophically.

Here is where people will begin claiming there is an ultimate "I" that exists beyond the shield of quantum mechanics. However, we can already explain what "I" is using biology, psychology and memetics, so such a claim is just an unwarranted but understandable last grasp at dualism.

I don't mean to say that quantum mechanics doesn't affect the brain. But unless the mythical "I" behind quantum mechanics can be explained in terms of evolution, then it is just an assumption (assumptions can be correct, but in this case it doesn't seem likely).

If you get confused about determinism and free-will here, read up on some recent writers on free-will. Determinism can co-exist with free will. There is no conflict between these two ideas when they are defined coherently.

[Rick]

[Nebulous Inferno]

[Rick]

[Unknown]

"Many brain researchers believe that lower animals are unconscious, that consciousness is somehow related to only the very highest brain (neocortex) functions found in humans and primates."

Check out the writings of Dr. Maurice Bucke.

[Rick]

Thank you for the reference, dear Mr. Unknown. I hadn't realized the connection with the poet, Walt Whitman.

[Trip like I do]

Cosmic Consciousness



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A consciousness of the cosmos, knowing the life and order of the universe. It is considered a higher, yet at present an exceptional peak in human evolution which the race is expected to reach in a distant future.

According to Dr. Richard M. Bucke (1837-1902), a friend of Walt Whitman, some individuals, mostly of the male sex, between 30 and 40, and who are highly developed with good intellect, high morals, a superior physique, and an earnest religious feeling can acquire this consciousness.

Dr. Bucke considered thirteen individuals to have possessed such a consciousness: Gautama, Jesus, Paul, Platinus, Mohammed, Dante, Las Casas, John Ypes, Francis Bacon, Jacob Behmen, William Blake, Balzac and Walt Whitman.

The experience comes suddenly without warning with a sensation of being immersed in a flame or rose-colored cloud and is accompanied by a feeling of ecstasy, moral and intellectual illumination in which, like a flash, a clear conception in outline is presented to the mind of the meaning and drift of the universe.

The man or woman going through this experience knows that the universe is a living presence, that life is eternal, the soul of man is immortal, the foundation principle of life is love, and the happiness of every individual in the long run is absolutely certain. All fear of death, all sense of sin is lost, and the personality gains added charm and is transfigured. In a few moments of the experience the individual will learn more than in years or months of study and will learn much that no study will teach.

Walt Whitman described cosmic consciousness as "ineffable light, light rare, untellable, light beyond all signs, descriptions and languages."

Dr. Bucke, whose conclusions was presented in his remarkable book Cosmic Consciousness, was a descendent of Sir Richard Walpole, and was in the position of superintendent of the Asylum for the Insane at London, Onterio, Canada, for 25 years.

Distinctly there are many degrees of higher consciousness from the elementary awareness of shared consciousness with other individuals to the perception of profound scientific insight, and the transcendental experience of the mystic. These represent the varying degrees of creative intelligence of the cosmos, the infinite divine principle represented in the anthropomorphic symbolism of "God" in the many religions of the world. A.G.H.

[Trip like I do]

In Richard Maurice Bucke's magnum opus, "Cosmic Consciousness", he explains it this way:

It is, in my opinion, that there exists in Whitman a function, faculty, sense, or whatever it may be called that does not exist in ordinary people, and it is from this faculty or sense that the charm and influence of the man and his words flow...

.....It may be that Walt Whitman is the first man who, having Cosmic Consciousness very fully developed, has deliberately set himself against being thus mastered by it, determining, on the contrary, to subdue it, and make it the servant along with simple consciousness, self consciousness and the rest and the united, individual Self. He saw, what neither Gautama nor Paul saw, what Jesus saw, thought not so clearly as he, that though this faculty is truly Godlike, yet it is no more supernatural or preternatural than sight, hearing, taste, feeling, or any other, and he consequently refused to give it unlimited sway, and would not allow it to tyrannize over the rest. He believes in it, but he says the other self, the old self, must not abase itself to the new; neither must the new be encroached upon or limited by the old; he will see that they live as friendly co-workers together. And it may be here said that whoever does not realize this last clause will never fully understand the "Leaves".

.....To the Buddhist Nirvana (the Cosmic Sense) is all in all; the body is nothing or less than nothing. It is against this most natural view (for the glory of Cosmic Sense is well calculated to throw into deep shade all the rest of life) that Whitman from first to last set himself. He saw with the eye of a true seer – with the eye of absolute sobriety and common sense – that the self consious life was as great in its way as was that of the new sense – let that be as divine as it would; saw that nothing ever was or could be greater than simple seeing, hearing, feeling, tasting, knowing – and on that he took his stand. "The other I am," he says (the old self) "must not be abased to you" (the new sense) "and you must not be abased to the other."

.....Whitman has, and always will have, the eternal glory of being the first man who was so great that even the Cosmic Sense could not master him."

[Robert the Bruce]

I was called The Cosmic Kid by the older brother of a friend who heard me prattle on about Whitman and Bucke. This man spent a night ridiculing me as we drank and played shuffleboard. He had just finished his Master's in History and I was 19 and visiting my old haunts for the last time I was there for years. I heard that he went to Thailand and joined a lamasery where he spent seven years shortly after that night.

[Rick]

I think "Platinus" in the above is a typo and should be "Plotinus," the neo-Platonist.