
Daniel Dennett’s Science of the Soul - sergeant3
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/03/27/daniel-dennetts-science-of-the-soul
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metaxy2
There's a lot of talk in here about whether consciousness is binary, whether
it can turn on and off like a lightswitch, as if that's a good proxy for
dualism vs. materialism.

I would argue that this is a totally separate question. In terms of my core
intuitions, I'm a hardcore dualist. Chalmers is my favorite philosopher. But
the idea of something being "weakly conscious" makes plenty of sense to me. In
fact, I have _been_ weakly conscious--waking up from being knocked out for one
reason or another. During the process of coming out if it, I remember being in
a hazy state, where experiences didn't have the vividness or clarity that they
normally do. Of course, it's possible that it's just my memories that are
weak, but at any rate the idea that these experiences didn't have the full
character of normal conscious experience doesn't strike me as any kind of
evidence for materialism.

In my father's last months, I saw him medicated on morphine to the point of
being near unconscious, and it's easy to imagine that he was having the same
sort of weak experiences as I've had. None of this rattles my dualist
intuitions at all.

What most dualists say is that it's incredibly mysterious that anything has
any level of consciousness above _zero_. Saying consciousness doesn't need a
special explanation because it's possible to be weakly conscious is like
saying gravity doesn't need to be explained because it's possible for objects
to have small amounts of gravitation. It's an unrelated issue.

~~~
Aaargh20318
> In my father's last months, I saw him medicated on morphine to the point of
> being near unconscious, and it's easy to imagine that he was having the same
> sort of weak experiences as I've had. None of this rattles my dualist
> intuitions at all.

But if your consciousness is separate from your physical brain, how come
pumping certain chemicals affect consciousness on a very fundamental level ?

With your examples, you could explain those 'weak experiences' as some kind of
signal-degradation between the incorporeal consciousness and the physical
brain; but if you look at psychoactive drugs this explanation no longer flies.

I've taken psilocybin a few times and while there are sensory effects that you
could explain as a transmission error it's a very tiny part of the experience.
It really affects the way you think for a few hours, how can you explain that
if consciousness is separate from the physical brain, why is it affected ?

Same goes for brain injury, people have complete changes in personality after
suffering brain damage. How do you explain that if the brain is just a
transceiver ?

Also, why do you trust your intuitions at all ? Intuition evolved to be able
to deal with every day situations quickly. It breaks down when you start
thinking about things outside human experience.

~~~
metaxy2
Modern, sophisticated dualists tend to think that consciousness just sits "on
top" of brain activity, experiences are generated based on what's going on the
brain. Many are "epiphenomenalists," who say that the content is determined
_only_ by brain activity, so the information flow is one way: brain ->
conscious experience.

This has loads of problems (if consciousness has _some_ influence over
behavior, then what's the physical mechanism? And if there's none, then why
are we able to even talk about it?). But dualists argue that materialism is
even worse because it leaves you with outright paradoxes.

So, on this account, a weakly conscious system is just a system that's
physically organized in a way that generates only weak experiences.

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vinceguidry
> “Right,” Dennett replied. “He would be so different from regular lions that
> he wouldn’t tell us what it’s like to be a lion. I think we should just get
> used to the fact that the human concepts we apply so comfortably in our
> everyday lives apply only sort of to animals.”

That's just silly. We taught Koko the gorilla how to talk, the effort was
supremely insightful in helping us to understand animal cognition. Animals
communicate with us all the time, they just do it non-verbally. We often just
choose not to listen.

A talking lion would still be a lion. He wouldn't be able to tell us
_directly_ what life on the fields is like, but that's what the researchers
are for.

I would not continue the 17th century delusion of non-sentient animals any
further than we absolutely have to. Animals have exceedingly rich inner lives,
and so do humans that don't have language. They just lack certain tooling. I'd
put not having language on par with not having sight. A handicap for sure, but
you're still a person and you still have thoughts.

There is, literally, a part of the brain that if you shut it off, you lose
language. Dennett would have you believe that it's that one part that makes us
human.

~~~
ctdonath
_There is, literally, a part of the brain that if you shut it off, you lose
language. Dennett would have you believe that it 's that one part that makes
us human._

That's an interesting position for him, considering (IIRC) his co-author
Douglas Hofstadter (The Mind's I) has a sister who is a perfectly normal &
functional adult except for her complete incapacity for language.

~~~
bbctol
To be fair, that is a ludicrous misrepresentation of Dennett's position.

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duncancarroll
I think my problem with Dennett boils down to the fact that he's a wet blanket
=) His attitude would be fine if it really did seem like there was nothing
more to be learned about consciousness.

To me his perspective seems a lot like our primitive ancestors looking at the
stars and calling them holes poked in the sky--case closed. But you don't have
to believe in a soul or anything like that to suspect that there's something
significant about self-awareness that we haven't figured out yet. I feel like
Dennett is the odd man out here. I suppose we'll have to wait and see if
anyone can prove him wrong.

~~~
naasking
> His attitude would be fine if it really did seem like there was nothing more
> to be learned about consciousness.

On the contrary, he's just saying that conscious is not an irreducible
phenomenon like some of his philosophical contemporaries believe. There's
still a lot to learn about the reduction. In fact, his is the _less_ lazy way
out, because how consciousness reduces to physical laws is completely unknown,
but if you take consciousness as irreducible in some way, then you have
nothing else to explain: consciousness just is.

~~~
duncancarroll
Ah-- interesting. Then it's certainly possible I have him all wrong. I'll take
another look. Thanks!

------
WouterZ
"If it’s easy for you to imagine a conscious robot, then you probably side
with Dennett."

The Zero shot translation for google translate is system generated language
that a computer created itself. If we were to extrapolate that to a computer
that can do the creation of sometjing and go about its own path of creation
that is to some extent random - can't we create some form of conscious...? I
side with Daniel - consciousness is a muscle the brain.

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ozy
The sword of not knowing cuts two ways. The so called hard problem of
consciousness[1], where does "qualia" come from. We don't actually know if it
is hard at all.

Maybe qualia arises trivially.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_problem_of_consciousness](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_problem_of_consciousness)

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simonh
My take on zombies is that I don't think it's possible to construct a system
that exhibits all the characteristics and behaviours of a mind without
constructing a mind.

~~~
andybak
I go in circles in this. Yes - that argument seems watertight but I cannot
make the 'hard problem' go away. The one thing Descartes got right is that
there is a single existence proof for qualia. All the difficulties we have in
defining them or either logically or experimentally finding evidence for their
existence is irrelevant.

Solipsism strikes me as a more defensible position than consciousness as an
emergent phenomenon in a purely materialist universe.

------
danielam
First problem: philosophers are not divided into two camps, so Rothman is
misinformed. Aristotelianism is another. But let's return to these "two camps"
for a moment. Typically, these two purported camps are some variation of
dualism and elimnativism. Both ultimately rest on the Cartesian metaphysical
legacy.

Dualism comes in a variety of forms. Examples include property dualism
(Searle, though he denies it) and panpsychism (Chalmers, it seems). Regardless
of the version expounded, all such dualisms divorce the mental from the
physical, hence the dead horses that are the so-called mind-body problem or
the problem of qualia. On this view of matter, we can't account for things
like color because, by definition, matter does not have color in the way that
we commonly understand it as having color. Physical theories, instead of
explaining color, redefine color in other terms. The only place left to locate
color, as it is commonly understood, is the mind that's been so brutally split
off from matter. Fun fact: Cartesian dualism is not a "religious residue". It
is a philosophical position. In its lingering incarnation, we can credit
Descartes through whose work it bears an interesting relation to the
development of modern empirical science. Prior to Cartesianism, Aristotelian
views were dominant. Indeed, while the Roman Catholic Church does not have an
"official" metaphysical doctrine (metaphysics is philosophical, not
theological or doctrinal), the preferred metaphysical theoretical apparatus
has been Aristotelian since Aquinas. No such dualism exists in Aristotle or
Aquinas.

On the other hand, eliminativism manages to take an even whackier view of
things than dualism. Whereas dualism has painted itself into a corner by
refusing to reexamine its suppositions, eliminativism "resolves" the problem
by shutting its eyes, that is, by denying the existence of those things it
must explain. As a result, it is an incoherent position.

What's interesting is that Dennett does distinguish between "function" and
"intention", though I'm not entirely sure how he reconciles (if he does at
all) all of these with materialism. The reason I draw attention to this point
is that teleology/final causality is frequently misunderstood owing to a
confusion between conscious intent and function. When an Aristotelian talks
about the "purpose" of an organ, he has in mind what the organ is ordered and
organized toward, not what intelligent design theorists would describe as
"design". (Interestingly, ID theories are also rooted in Cartesian ideas about
matter and thus need to appeal to imposed, extrinsic divine intent to locate
and explain the function of things like organs. Their scientistic (not
scientific) opponents take the eliminativist approach and deny that organs
have functions at all because they hold to the same concept of matter as ID
theories while rejecting that divine intent exists. On the other hand,
Aristotelianism maintains the intrinsic finality of things like organs and
thus does not need to appeal to some externally imposed divine intent to
explain function as such.)

~~~
naasking
> On the other hand, eliminativism manages to take an even whackier view of
> things than dualism. Whereas dualism has painted itself into a corner by
> refusing to reexamine its suppositions, eliminativism "resolves" the problem
> by shutting its eyes, that is, by denying the existence of those things it
> must explain. As a result, it is an incoherent position.

Not even remotely. I'm not even sure how you could possibly form such a
conclusion, except by some deep misunderstanding of all of the various
materialist arguments that discuss qualia. Dennett is himself a materialist by
the way.

Materialism can classify qualia as an illusion while still recognizing that
some reduction of qualia to physical laws is needed. This reduction would be
left to the domain of science though, because that's where it would belong.

~~~
Qcombinator
> _Materialism can classify qualia as an illusion_

But can it? To say something is an illusion is to say that is really an
experience of something else. And qualia are qualitative experiences, so the
claim is that certain experiences are not experiences… which is problematic.
Of course, a proper argument needs to be fleshed out more than that, but
eliminativists face a real difficulty, unless they broaden the definition of
materialism (which would take us closer to Aristotle).

~~~
danielam
Adding to your post, let's consider an example, i.e., "redness" as it is
commonly understood. Dualists will relegate "redness" to an experience
because, to them, matter is devoid of things like "redness" by virtue of the
dualist's presupposed concept of matter. The dualist still have to deal with a
number of problems stemming from his position, e.g., the interaction problem,
but he can at least ostensibly locate "redness" in reality, viz., the
Cartesian mind. Even if it is an illusion, it exists as an illusion in the
mind. Materialists, who typically dispense with the Cartesian immaterial mind
but stick with a broadly Cartesian concept of matter, either live in the vain
hope that they can eventually locate "redness" somewhere in matter, or come to
the absurd eliminativist conclusion that "redness" simply doesn't exist or
that it is an illusion. Of course, if it is an illusion, then it still exists
as an illusion, hence the incoherence of eliminativist materialism.
Aristotelianism accepts a richer view of matter in which "redness" does exist,
so there is no need to posit this bizarre and unbridgeable division between
physical things and immaterial mental qualium.

"Selves" and zombies also crop up in these conversations, but they are neither
here nor there. We're talking about the existence of things like "redness".
Talk of "selves" is no doubt related to the Cartesian identification of mind
and self, but something that is entirely irrelevant to the question at hand.

~~~
naasking
> Materialists, who typically dispense with the Cartesian immaterial mind but
> stick with a broadly Cartesian concept of matter, either live in the vain
> hope that they can eventually locate "redness" somewhere in matter, or come
> to the absurd eliminativist conclusion that "redness" simply doesn't exist
> or that it is an illusion.

Funny how you keep calling materialism "absurd" and "incoherent", yet provide
no coherent argument of your own to support this position. If anyone
unfamiliar with this subject is reading this thread, rest assured that the
anti-materialist sentiments espoused here are a minority view. A recent survey
of academic philosophers found that the majority support a materialist
philosophy of mind, so frankly, these charges of incoherency and absurdity
don't pass a lay person's basic sniff test.

As for the existence of "redness" specifically, I can easily point out how the
various thought experiments that allegedly support the existence of redness
are fallacious. So instead of making further bold claims, would you care to
present such an argument for scrutiny?

> Of course, if it is an illusion, then it still exists as an illusion, hence
> the incoherence of eliminativist materialism.

A car is also an illusion under materialism. But clearly I drove something to
work this morning. So does this apparent incongruity entail some incoherency
in materialism? Or is the problem really that you're attacking a straw man?

