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

Post 35. 05/10/2018

Consciousness & Freewill

Are we Zombie Robots?

Many modern scientists and philosophers have come to reject certain traditional beliefs that were taken for granted by earlier generations. Descartes began his quest for truth by doubting everything, but eventually concluded that the only thing he was sure of was his own mind, thus verifying his own existence. But as Neuroscience reveals the mechanics of the brain, the Mind and the Self/Soul are now described as nothing more than phantoms of the imagination1.

In their probings, the mind-mappers haven't found any evidence of a substance (soul) or entity (homunculus2) to account for our awareness of what the brain is perceiving. So, they assume that we simply make-up names for abstract neural processes, in order to make them seem more real. For example, just as “Transportation” is merely what an automobile does, “Mind” is what the brain does. Likewise, as “redness” is an attribute of an apple, Consciousness is simply the brain's property of awareness, not a thing unto itself. So far, I concur with the scientist's assessment. But I don't agree with their dismissive attitude toward Qualia.

Conscious-ness is an immaterial quality like red-ness : it doesn't exist in the molecular or atomic level of neurons, but on the metaphysical level of whole systems. The color of an apple is a mental construct from information conveyed by colorless photons. A molecule of H20 lacks the quality of wet-ness that emerges only at some ill-defined level of water-ness. In a similar manner, a frog brain lacks the quality of willful-ness, but a much more complex human brain is capable of choosing from options, such as projected future states, that a frog could never imagine.

In humans, self-aware-ness allows us to choose the best option from an array of behaviors automatically generated by lower-level subsystems in the body/brain4. Emergence of novel functions & qualities, such as fluidity or wetness in water, is accepted as a scientific fact. Yet, the emergent quality of Consciousness in brains is controversial. So what's the difference? Is wetness just a name, or is it a meaningful feature of reality? Is my self-concept3 as a willful meta-physical "person" a useful distinction from my animated meat body?

The frog, with only a reptilian brain-stem, is undoubtedly conscious, but it shows no sign of self-consciousness. It is animated and motivated, but can it view itself objectively, and give itself a name? Since humans do display knowledge of their own personhood, we need to understand what makes the difference. Consider the ladder of Enformation: Self-conscious-ness is an advanced type of Aware-ness (frog), which is a higher level of goal-directed Animation (amoeba), which is an emergent form of random physical Activity (atoms).

That hierarchy of self/other distinctions can be traced on down to molecules, atoms, electrons, then to non-local fields. For practical purposes, we can assume that a quantum field is not aware of itself as an entity distinct from other fields. But, physicists have discovered  that those holistic unbounded fields have the potential for creating actual (discrete) particles from nothing more substantial than statistical possibilities for future things. Once divided from the whole though, each thing becomes a "self", whether or not it is aware of that distinction.

Post 35 continued  . . . . Click Next

Mindless
Robots

Reference :
Philosophy Now, feb/mar 2108
Freewill is still alive!

1. You are an illusion :
Dennett : Consciousness Explained

2. Homunculus :
The hypothetical little man in the brain who interprets incoming raw data into meaningful concepts.    Maybe neuroscientists are looking in the wrong “place”. Where would you expect to find the seat of “alertness”, or “absent-mindedness”, or “carefulness”? All of these are qualities that exist only in minds as attributes of other human minds. They are not measurable by scientific methods, but we accept their validity for social & moral judgments.
   Likewise, consciousness is a holistic attribute of thinking creatures. The scientific method is reductive, and useless for measuring wholes.
   Dismissing Conscious-ness as a figment of imagination is a logical category error. It compares apples and redness with the same criteria.

3. Self image :
The brain can create the image of a fictional person (the Self) to represent its own perspective in dealings with other things and persons.
   This imaginary Me is a low-resolution construct abstracted from the complex web of inter-relationships that actually form the human body, brain, mind, DNA, and social networks in the context of a vast universe.    In the Enformationism worldview, only G*D could know yourself objectively in complete detail as the mathematical definition of You. That form-ula is equivalent to your Self/Soul.

4. Body/Brain :
see post 34

Quantum Field :
A mathematical concept to explain how actual particles emerge from nothing (empty space). Fields have been described metaphorically as “the fabric of reality”. But the “fabric” is woven from in-tangible threads of mathe-matical relationships, such as geometric ratios and statistical probabilities.
https://medium.com/@caseymitchell/quantum-field-theory-the-fabric-of-reality-ac02fdc4f3ab

Suffix “-ness” :
a state or quality of being, or a measure of the idea referred to by the word.