Iain McGilchrist on Existence, Being, the Limits of Reason and Language, and Schizophrenia

[Astra052]

material

adjective derived from or composed of matter
“the material universe”

The word "material" is descriptive of objects, not an object itself, so mental events could be described as material. The notion of that consciousness must be identical to material is absurd. It would be like a saying the red painted wall can't be red because it is not exactly identical to red, which is a nonsensical statement.



https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/epiphenomenalism/

The materialist position shouldn't be that difficult to understand. Consciousness is the intrinsic image of the activity of the brain in an way analogous to the idealist view that the brain is extrinsic image of mind. Since it is physical itself (actually the activity the brain) then, of course, it can affect the brain and, hence, affect the body which in turn can act in the physical world.

I'm still looking for that quote about "unquestionable essence". It sounds more like something an idealist could use to describe mind.

Yes and that is what makes it epiphenomenal. The qualia of experience are not actually causing anything under materialism, we are just under the illusion it is because the material processes in control are hidden from our normal experience. I am not sure why you are having such a hard time understanding your own position. And a red painted wall we perceive under materialism has no real qualities of redness or paintedness or wallness, but rather is some unspecified configuration of quantum stuff which in no way resembles our experience.

One last attempt. The qualia under materialism are material. The qualities are material. There is no difference.

But don't misunderstand. I am not a materialist. You are laboring under the same matter/mind illusion that materialists are. The fact you need to argue so hard against materialism is proof that you are still trapped in the illusion.

The idea of consciousness being a material substance is not one I've heard nay materialists say honestly. No materialists seriously argue that consciousness is something other than a process created by the mind in a way that we have yet to figure out. It's not just that it's not causal (which wouldn't be possible if consciousness is just something created by the brain) but also not really anything other than a way to trasmit/recieve information. Consciousness being a material substance is one that I've actually never even heard of before and I have no idea how it could work. Could you explain what your views on consciousness are by the way? You consistently say you're not a materialist but you always seem to be arguing for materialist viewpoints. I'm really curious as to what viwe you take.

[Jim Cross]

Astra,

I don't really consider myself a materialist or idealist. What I think I have stated here and there is I am arguing what a materialist might argue. Personally I consider the materialist and idealist views mirror images and that they functionally amount to the same thing.

That aside, I think we understand the world by observing and creating theories and hypotheses about it. Atoms, particles, forces, and such are hypotheses about the world. They have pragmatic value for prediction and for creating useful devices but do not tell us anything of ontological value. My argument about materialism is that for it to be consistent it must argue that consciousness is in some way material even as it appears to be immaterial. If it is material, it could affect the physical world. If we could find one thing that isn't material, then it would be falsified.

Some materialists actually do believe consciousness is an epiphenomenon. This makes little sense to me since we would be left with no explanation about how it arose. Although sometimes in evolution traits with no selection value arise that are accidental by-products of other traits, it is difficult for me to see how something which is so widespread across nature and something which actually consumes a great of energy would be of no evolutionary value. However, a materialist who thinks consciousness is an epiphenomenon might argue it is material in similar way to images in a virtual reality simulation are physical. Everything in such a simulation is electrons, photons, and sound waves yet the way they are organized present a reality.

Others, such as integrated information theorists, think consciousness is highly integrated information. Since information itself is physical, it would be how the information is structured and organized that would distinguish conscious matter from mindless matter. Consciousness would arise when the amount and structure of the information reaches some critical point.

Personally, if we are looking for scientific theories, I am most persuaded by McFadden's cemi theories. He has an article explaining it in Aeon.

https://aeon.co/essays/does-consciousne ... etic-field

I have written pretty extensively on his views and Susan Pockett's variation of it on my blog.

https://broadspeculations.com/2019/12/0 ... ciousness/

But to be clear these are scientific theories, not ontological positions.

[Simon Adams]

Astra,

I don't really consider myself a materialist or idealist. What I think I have stated here and there is I am arguing what a materialist might argue. Personally I consider the materialist and idealist views mirror images and that they functionally amount to the same thing.

That aside, I think we understand the world by observing and creating theories and hypotheses about it. Atoms, particles, forces, and such are hypotheses about the world. They have pragmatic value for prediction and for creating useful devices but do not tell us anything of ontological value. My argument about materialism is that for it to be consistent it must argue that consciousness is in some way material even as it appears to be immaterial. If it is material, it could affect the physical world. If we could find one thing that isn't material, then it would be falsified.

Some materialists actually do believe consciousness is an epiphenomenon. This makes little sense to me since we would be left with no explanation about how it arose. Although sometimes in evolution traits with no selection value arise that are accidental by-products of other traits, it is difficult for me to see how something which is so widespread across nature and something which actually consumes a great of energy would be of no evolutionary value. However, a materialist who thinks consciousness is an epiphenomenon might argue it is material in similar way to images in a virtual reality simulation are physical. Everything in such a simulation is electrons, photons, and sound waves yet the way they are organized present a reality.

Others, such as integrated information theorists, think consciousness is highly integrated information. Since information itself is physical, it would be how the information is structured and organized that would distinguish conscious matter from mindless matter. Consciousness would arise when the amount and structure of the information reaches some critical point.

Personally, if we are looking for scientific theories, I am most persuaded by McFadden's cemi theories. He has an article explaining it in Aeon.

https://aeon.co/essays/does-consciousne ... etic-field

I have written pretty extensively on his views and Susan Pockett's variation of it on my blog.

https://broadspeculations.com/2019/12/0 ... ciousness/

But to be clear these are scientific theories, not ontological positions.

Isn't this just putting lipstick on the physicalism bunny? I'm assuming that any materialist understanding of consciousness includes electrical reactions in the neurons, which inevitably create EM fields. The is how the NCC are measured. Yes the EM fields can interact in various ways, and I would expect these fields to be in some sense an image of conscious activity. But I can't see how you could get from this to 'experience' any more than "neurons firing" ? I haven't read much of it, but I assume you then have the neurones being senders and receivers, either "side" of the phenomena-in-waves ?

[Jim Cross]

Simon,

If you read McFadden's article and a more technical article I discuss, it does quite a bit more . It addresses the binding problem and free will issues. It would account for how consciousness can be causal and it would suggest why consciousness feels differently from matter.

https://broadspeculations.com/2020/10/2 ... -in-brain/

But these are scientific theories, not philosophical ones. There is no philosophical answer as more than two thousand years of debate has demonstrated. If the issue could be resolved philosophically, then everyone would be on board with side or the other.

[Jim Cross]

Simon,

BTW Susan Pockett in her book engages in some far reaching speculations about a universal EM field that starts to resemble a mind at large.



I have also speculated a bit about roles for EM fields in evolution of the universe.

https://broadspeculations.com/2020/07/1 ... -universe/

[AshvinP]

That aside, I think we understand the world by observing and creating theories and hypotheses about it. Atoms, particles, forces, and such are hypotheses about the world. They have pragmatic value for prediction and for creating useful devices but do not tell us anything of ontological value. My argument about materialism is that for it to be consistent it must argue that consciousness is in some way material even as it appears to be immaterial. If it is material, it could affect the physical world. If we could find one thing that isn't material, then it would be falsified.

Some materialists actually do believe consciousness is an epiphenomenon. This makes little sense to me since we would be left with no explanation about how it arose. Although sometimes in evolution traits with no selection value arise that are accidental by-products of other traits, it is difficult for me to see how something which is so widespread across nature and something which actually consumes a great of energy would be of no evolutionary value. However, a materialist who thinks consciousness is an epiphenomenon might argue it is material in similar way to images in a virtual reality simulation are physical. Everything in such a simulation is electrons, photons, and sound waves yet the way they are organized present a reality.

I see you have now restated my argument against materialism which you thought was so absurd before - materialists take the abstractions with "pragmatic value for prediction" and posit those as the fundamental constituents of Reality which give rise to phenomenal consciousness. Hence, the latter is epiphenomenal.

McFadden claims most of what the brain does is temporal integration but it is unconscious. Consciousness itself is produced by the brain’s EM field that occurs at single points in time. Temporal integration is similar to Turing machine computing where instructions are executed serially (although instructions could be executing serially in multiple threads in parallel) to arrive at a result. Fields in contrast can integrate information at a single moment in time.
...
Especially notable is the expressed dualism which seems to preserve our intuitive sense about the world – that it is composed of matter and mind – without appealing to the supernatural. By replacing the Cartesian mind with energy and force, we remain rooted in physics and the physical.

So maybe you can explain how the brain's EM field temporal integration giving rise to phenomenal consciousness is not yet another example of abstractions of consciousness being used to explain consciousness?

[Jim Cross]

So maybe you can explain how the brain's EM field temporal integration giving rise to phenomenal consciousness is not yet another example of abstractions of consciousness being used to explain consciousness?

Wow. You really misunderstood. What I wrote is that temporal integration IS unconscous so it can't explain consciousness.

How do idealists explain unconsciousness?

Answer: They don't.

[Jim Cross]

Ashvin,

Mind is an abstraction. How can it be used to explain anything?

You are still obsessed with this matter/mind illusion, think it is very important to come down on one side of it. It really isn't.

[AshvinP]

So maybe you can explain how the brain's EM field temporal integration giving rise to phenomenal consciousness is not yet another example of abstractions of consciousness being used to explain consciousness?

Wow. You really misunderstood. What I wrote is that temporal integration IS unconscous so it can't explain consciousness.

How do idealists explain unconsciousness?

Answer: They don't.

Jim wrote, "Consciousness itself is produced by the brain’s EM field that occurs at single points in time." - so what do those words mean when connected together in a sentence?

Idealists recognize that conscious activity is the only given underlying our experience of the world, not particles, waves, fields, information, etc., so they endeavor to explain all other phenomenon in terms of conscious activity rather than vice versa. Clearly most people here find that an endeavor which has been fruitful over the millennia, while materialism has not been fruitful in explaining our experience of the world over the two centuries it has been around, despite most everyone accepting it as true by default.

Mind is an abstraction. How can it be used to explain anything?

Conscious activity is not an abstraction - it is what we experience constantly. Only the forms in which we represent that activity are abstractions. A good idealist does not mistake the forms for the activity itself.

It seems your position is basically that metaphysical speculation is a waste of time (even though you do it as well). No one can explain the essence of anything. There are many reasons why I disagree, but those are irrelevant. What I am wondering is why you jump through so many hoops to defend materialism when you agree it is not a viable worldview if conscious activity is real? Why do you assume people here who criticize materialism have no idea what it claims?

[Jim Cross]

Consciousness itself is produced by the brain’s EM field that occurs at single points in time."

Yep. McFadden's argument is that consciousness is spatially integrated information not temporally integrated information.

Bizarrely you actually quoted me where I explained "McFadden claims most of what the brain does is temporal integration but it is unconscious".

Temporal integration takes place in time through a sequence of steps. Spatial integration takes place at a single point in time. Temporal integration allows multiple processes to take place in parallel whereas spatial integration captures at a single point a single integrated image. This image like the interference patterns of multiple waves interacting reinforces and boosts some waves, some pieces of information, and nullifies others.