[ExI] Fwd: New article: EM Field Theory of Consciousness

Fri Jun 17 20:50:09 UTC 2022

On Sat, 18 Jun 2022 at 06:36, Jason Resch via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

>
>
> On Fri, Jun 17, 2022, 3:22 PM Stathis Papaioannou via extropy-chat <
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> On Sat, 18 Jun 2022 at 00:39, Jason Resch via extropy-chat <
>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>>
>>> If epiphenomenalism were true we wouldn't have access to reliably talk
>>> about our inner states of consciousness, our feelings, our awareness, etc.
>>>
>>> The author of "epiphenomenal qualia", Frank Jackson, which introduced
>>> the thought experiment of Mary the color scientist, later had this epiphany
>>> leading him to reject his original conclusion that qualia were
>>> epiphenomenal:
>>>
>>>
>>> FJ: “Epiphenomenalism was unbelievable, and indeed that was a
>>> consideration that eventually made me change my mind.”
>>>
>>> Interviewer: “So why did you change your mind?”
>>>
>>> FJ: “Well, the biggest factor was the picture of myself writing
>>> ‘epiphenomenal qualia’, but not being caused to write ‘epiphenomenal
>>> qualia’ by qualia. I said in ‘epiphenomenal qualia’ that you had to be an
>>> epiphenomenalist about qualia, and what that meant was that qualia didn’t
>>> change the words that came out of my mouth or the movements of my pen on
>>> pieces of paper, so that meant that when I gave the talk defending
>>> ‘epiphenomenal qualia’, when I wrote the paper defending ‘epiphenomenal
>>> qualia’, the qualia weren’t causing the talk and they weren’t causing the
>>> writing, and I just decided this was sort of unbelievable.”
>>> [...]
>>> “It was the picture of myself writing the paper, uncaused by the
>>> qualia.. I said that I can’t believe this. And I came to think that was the
>>> triumph of philosophical cleverness over common sense.”
>>>
>>
>> Qualia are epiphenomenal if the physical world is causally closed. So
>> when Jackson writes his paper, the movement of his hand is entirely
>> explained by the observable physical forces on the hand. If he has qualia,
>> they cannot have any separate causal efficacy of their own, because if they
>> did to an observer it would look like the hand was moving contrary to the
>> laws of physics, due to some magical force.
>>
>
>
> I disagree that the causal closure of physics necessarily means qualia are
> epiphenomenal. Consider the multiple levels involved, as Roger Sperry
> explains in his 1966 paper "Mind, Brain, and Humanist Values" where he asks
> "who pushes whom around inside the cranium":
> https://sci-hub.hkvisa.net/10.1080/00963402.1966.11454956
>
> “I am going to align myself in a counterstand, along with that
> approximately 0.1 per cent mentalist minority, in support of a hypothetical
> brain model in which consciousness and mental forces generally are given
> their due representation as important features in the chain of control.
> These appear as active operational forces and dynamic properties that
> interact with and upon the physiological machinery. Any model or
> description that leaves out conscious forces, according to this view, is
> bound to be pretty sadly incomplete and unsatisfactory. The conscious mind
> in this scheme, far from being put aside and dispensed with as an
> "inconsequential byproduct," "epiphenomenon," or "inner aspect," as is the
> customary treatment these days, gets located, instead, front and center,
> directly in the midst of the causal interplay of cerebral mechanisms.
>
> Mental forces in this particular scheme are put in the driver's seat, as
> it were. They give the orders and they push and haul around the physiology
> and physicochemical processes as much as or more than the latter control
> them. This is a scheme that puts mind back in its old post, over matter, in
> a sense-not under, outside, or beside it. It's a scheme that idealizes
> ideas and ideals over physico-chemical interactions, nerve impulse
> traffic-or DNA. It's a brain model in which conscious, mental, psychic
> forces are recognized to be the crowning achievement of some five hundred
> million years or more of evolution.”
>
> “To put it very simply, it becomes a question largely of who pushes whom
> around in the population of causal forces that occupy the cranium. There
> exists within the human cranium a whole world of diverse causal forces;
> what is more, there are forces within forces within forces, as in no other
> cubic half-foot of universe that we know. At the lowermost levels in this
> system are those local aggregates of subnuclear particles confined within
> the neutrons and protons of their respective atomic nuclei. These
> individuals, of course, don't have very much to say about what goes on in
> the affairs of the brain. Like the atomic nucleus and its associated
> electrons, thes ubnuclear and other atomic elements are "moleculebound"
> for the most part, and get hauled and pushed around by the larger spatial
> and configurational forces of the whole molecule.
>
> Similarly the molecular elements in the brain are themselves pretty well
> bound up, moved, and ordered about by the enveloping properties of the
> cells within which they are located. Along with their internal atomic and
> subnuclear parts, the brain molecules are obliged tos ubmit to a course
> of activity in time and space that is determined very largely by the
> overall dynamic and spatial properties of the whole brain cell as an
> entity. Even the brain cells, however, with their long fibers and impulse
> conducting elements, do not have very much to say either about when or in
> what time pattern, for example, they are going to fire their messages. The
> firing orders come from a higher command.”
>
> “In short, if one climbs upward through the chain of command within the
> brain, one finds at the very top those overall organizational forces and
> dynamic properties of the large patterns of cerebral excitation that
> constitute the mental or psychic phenomena.”
>
> “Near the apex of this compound command system in the brain we find ideas.
> In the brain model proposed here, the causal potency of an idea, or an
> ideal, becomes just as real as that of a molecule, a cell, or a nerve
> impulse. Ideas cause ideas and help evolve new ideas. They interact with
> each other and with other mental forces in the same brain, in neighboring
> brains, and in distant, foreign brains. And they also interact with real
> consequence upon the external surroundings to produce in toto an explosive
> advance in evolution on this globe far beyond anything known before,
> including the emergence of the living cell.”
>

It is certainly useful to think of higher level phenomena affecting
behaviour, but that does not mean they are not epiphenomenal. It is useful
to consider a computer’s behaviour in terms of the program, but the program
cannot do anything that is not fully explained by low level phenomena in
the circuitry.

> Jason
>
>
>
>> Jason
>>>
>>> On Fri, Jun 17, 2022, 10:27 AM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat <
>>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>>>
>>>> I can't say that I understand your reply fully.  All behavior,
>>>> intelligent or not, comes from your unconscious mind.  Maybe I don't
>>>> understand epiphenomenal as well as I think I do.
>>>>
>>>> I do understand this:  : a secondary mental phenomenon that is caused
>>>> by and accompanies a physical phenomenon but has no causal influence itself. Like
>>>> seeing tuba notes in color.  bill w
>>>>
>>>> On Fri, Jun 17, 2022 at 8:48 AM Stathis Papaioannou via extropy-chat <
>>>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> On Fri, 17 Jun 2022 at 23:01, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat <
>>>>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> OTOH - it could be that our conscious mind is like God looking down
>>>>>> on us and observing our behavior - meaning that the conscious has no role
>>>>>> in our behavior at all - it is superfluous - epiphenomenal.  So if that is
>>>>>> true, trying to make robots conscious is a waste of time.  No advantage to
>>>>>> it.  It has programs that monitor all output like our conscious mind  .
>>>>>>  All is done by our unconscious and the conscious is just an observer.  No
>>>>>> free will, but we don't need it - our unconscious (which is really
>>>>>> conscious of all inputs) does all the work.
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> If consciousness is epiphenomenal, it isn’t an optional extra. It is a
>>>>> side-effect of intelligent behaviour.
>>>>>
>>>>> bill w
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On Fri, Jun 17, 2022 at 2:13 AM Colin Hales via extropy-chat <
>>>>>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Hi,
>>>>>>> This is to let you know of the arrival of this publication:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Hales, C.G., and Ericson, M.L. (2022). Electromagnetism’s Bridge
>>>>>>> Across the Explanatory Gap: How a Neuroscience/Physics Collaboration
>>>>>>> delivers Explanation into all Theories of Consciousness. Frontiers in Human
>>>>>>> Neuroscience 16.
>>>>>>> https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnhum.2022.836046/full
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnhum.2022.836046/full#supplementary-material
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> This is the full and final argument.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Note that on page 9 there is a brief discussion of a new kind of
>>>>>>> chip. That is the one I am building at unimelb. AGI because it can't be
>>>>>>> anything else. Actual artificial neurons (no general-purpose computing, no
>>>>>>> software, no models, no programming). Bottom line line: put the signalling
>>>>>>> physics of the brain in in natural form, naturally interacting, naturally
>>>>>>> adapting on the chips, NOT the physics of a general purpose computer.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> The abstract is below. Overall:
>>>>>>> 1) all theories of consciousness are actually EM field theories.
>>>>>>> 2) bringing explanation of the 1st person perspective requires an
>>>>>>> epistemic upgrade to the standard model of particle physics.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Turns out that to properly cover all the bases needed 22 pages and
>>>>>>> an 8 page supplementary. Sorry about that.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Interesting times.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> cheers,
>>>>>>> Colin
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> ==========================================
>>>>>>> A productive, informative three decades of correlates of phenomenal
>>>>>>> consciousness (P-Consciousness) have delivered valuable knowledge while
>>>>>>> simultaneously locating us in a unique and unprecedented explanatory
>>>>>>> cul-de-sac. Observational correlates are demonstrated to be intrinsically
>>>>>>> very unlikely to explain or lead to a fundamental principle underlying the
>>>>>>> strongly emergent 1st-person-perspective (1PP) invisibly stowed away inside
>>>>>>> them. That lack is now solidly evidenced in practice. To escape our
>>>>>>> explanatory impasse, this article focuses on fundamental physics (the
>>>>>>> standard model of particle physics), which brings to light a foundational
>>>>>>> argument for how the brain is an essentially electromagnetic (EM) field
>>>>>>> object from the atomic level up. That is, our multitude of correlates of
>>>>>>> P-Consciousness are actually descriptions of specific EM field behaviors
>>>>>>> that are posed (hypothesized) as “the right” correlate by a particular
>>>>>>> theory of consciousness. Because of this, our 30 years of empirical
>>>>>>> progress can be reinterpreted as, in effect, the delivery of a large body
>>>>>>> of evidence that the standard model’s EM quadrant can deliver a 1PP. That
>>>>>>> is, all theories of consciousness are, in the end, merely recipes that
>>>>>>> select a particular subset of the totality of EM field expression that is
>>>>>>> brain tissue. With a universal convergence on EM, the science of
>>>>>>> P-Consciousness becomes a collaborative effort between neuroscience and
>>>>>>> physics. The collaboration acts in pursuit of a unified explanation
>>>>>>> applicable to all theories of consciousness while remaining mindful that
>>>>>>> the process still contains no real explanation as to why or how EM fields
>>>>>>> deliver a 1PP. The apparent continued lack of explanation is, however,
>>>>>>> different: this time, the way forward is opened through its direct
>>>>>>> connection to fundamental physics. This is the first result (Part I). Part
>>>>>>> II posits, in general terms, a structural (epistemic) add-on/upgrade to the
>>>>>>> standard model that has the potential to deliver the missing route to an
>>>>>>> explanation of how subjectivity is delivered through EM fields. The revised
>>>>>>> standard model, under the neuroscience/physics collaboration, intimately
>>>>>>> integrates with the existing “correlates of-” paradigm, which acts as its
>>>>>>> source of empirical evidence. No existing theory of consciousness is lost
>>>>>>> or invalidated.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
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>>>>> --
>>>>> Stathis Papaioannou
>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>> extropy-chat mailing list
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>>>>>
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>> --
>> Stathis Papaioannou
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-- 
Stathis Papaioannou
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