Philosophical musings on Quanta & Qualia;  Materialism & Spiritualism; Science & Religion; Pragmatism & Idealism, etc.

What is the sound of one mind thinking?

Post 20.  March 10, 2018

The Riddle of Consciousness

   Mind in a Material World

In his recent book, From Bacteria to Bach and Back, philosopher and cognitive scientist Daniel Dennett, continues  his analysis of the puzzling phenomenon of Consciousness that he began in Consciousness Explained. From his no-nonsense scientist perspective, he is not troubled by the fact that, for most people, “it is almost inconceivable that a purely material brain could produce consciousness”. But that apparent anomaly1 is why I conceived of the Enformationism thesis, as a way to explain, both scientifically and philosophically, how such a seeming miracle could occur without any divine intervention. If Consciousness is a form of generic Information, which is a form of Energy, then we can trace its evolution back to a time before time, in the Big Bang Singularity. Thus dispensing with the need for interruption of ongoing physical processes for miraculous purposes.

If so, I reasoned that any signs of Intention behind evolution would not be evident in the physical details, but only in the meta-physical whole : ethe general direction of progression, not the specific zigs & zags of energy exchanges. Science, being methodically reductive, misses the big picture of a world born from a speck of nothing, which against all odds evolves into self-conscious creatures. The sheer unlikeliness of such an outcome is put down by Dennett to random chance instead of deliberate intention. For reductionists, zillion-to-one odds are merely a statistical oddity, instead of a sign of creative power.  

Both Dennett and I, begin with the assumption that current theories of Evolution adequately describe the mechanisms by which all changes have occurred since the beginning of time. But he asserts that humanity has only recently learned how «a process with no Intelligent Designer [evolution] can create intelligent designers . . .» He then explains his unassuming approach : «we must ask What has happened?” rather than asking “why” a feature evolved because no intentional purpose was involved.» And that's where I depart from his reductive scientific methodology. Philosophy is not restricted from asking “Why” questions, and is not limited to pursuing only reductive answers. Dennett is such a clear thinker and expositor of complex concepts primarily because he doesn't get distracted by irrelevant details, such as “what is it like?” or “why does it exist” when he is describing “what it is” and “how it works”. As a philosopher, he thinks like a scientist.

As an example of the difference his reductive approach makes, we can look at a description of how a machine works in minute detail, but if we don't know the function of that machine, such information would be meaningless. An Archaeologist describing a bent stick with a taut string connecting the ends doesn’t tell us why someone would go to the trouble of making such a device. Dennett is good at detailing the parts that add-up to Consciousness, but he seems to think that its overall purpose is irrelevant. He asks, if unconscious processes can accomplish so much, «What is consciousness for?» After a lengthy discussion, he concludes that humans are basically philosophical zombies2, that act as-if they are pulled toward future goals, but are actually impelled by past events.

Post 20 continued . . . click Next

Consciousness explained away

1. Anomaly :
Something unexpected and unpredictable from prior experience. A deviation from a rule or from what is regarded as normal; an outlier. Something un-explained by current theories.

2. Zombie :
 In the philosophy of mind and perception, a philosophical zombie is a hypothetical being that from the outside is indistinguish-able from a normal human being but lacks conscious experience, qualia, or sentience.

NOTE : The riddle of information-processing consciousness is not such a mystery, if you take into account that the Quantum foundations of reality consists only of information structures such as energy and matter.

Note :
  I agree with Dennett that there is no need for a bumbling meddling Judeo-Christian-Muslim god to fine-tune the world to fix unfore-seen problems as they come up. It does that auto- matically because it was originally designed and fine-tuned to be autonomous & self-adjusting, & self-correcting, & self-organizing.
  But all of his arguments for bottom-up creativity do not explain how the material world gained this talent for novelty & progression. Random Chance is not creative or progressive. And Natural Selection begs the question, selected by whom?
   The ability of bees and neurons to work together toward collective goals was not an accident. It was inherited from previous generations going back to the beginning of time. That creative power was inherent in the matter from which bees & neurons are made. Which is why I have concluded that Mind-Power pervades the universe, not as magical energy, but as normal energy, matter, and mind.

See Panpsychism in Glossary