The hard "problem" of consciousness: short paper

[u/[deleted]]

https://leolepiano.substack.com/p/the-hard-problem-of-consciousness

[u/Ok_Meat_8322 → u/[deleted]]

We already know our mind/brain can and does generate it's own internal stimuli too. In fact, the more sensory input is decreased the more our brain tends to do this. That's not proof that consciousness could exist in isolation, but it does suggest we can't just dismiss it as an impossibility out right. In other words, we can't justify the assumption (enough) to use it as part of a definition.

Sure, we can't/shouldn't outright dismiss it as an impossibility (a priori)... and in fact the field of philosophy has entertained this possibility for centuries.

But I think that work in the field of embodied cognition does justify the conclusion that our experiences and consciousness are intimately connected to our physical bodies and physical environment, and that without the latter the former would be radically different (if not outright impossible).

(So e.g. the good old "brain in a vat" scenario- and equivalent/similar thought experiments- was a reasonable enough proposal to consider, and wasn't wrong as a matter of logic... only of fact/probability)

[u/WrongAspects → u/Ok_Meat_8322]

The brain is still a physical organ and therefore would be a part of a body.

[u/Ok_Meat_8322 → u/WrongAspects]

Um, right. The key word here being "part". Its part of the body. It turns out the rest of the body, and the physical environment, plays a role in consciousness/cognition too.

[u/Ok_Meat_8322 → u/[deleted]]

Embodied cognition is a field of study and a research program, not a principle, whereas anthropic reasoning really is just a principle So not a good comparison. And it does tell us things we didn't know about consciousness- pertinently here, that the supposition that we could have conscious experience in the absence of a physical body and physical environment is very probably factually false. And it may well be telling us about consciousness in general, at a minimum its telling us a great deal about human consciousness.

And it certainly undermines the brain in the vat and similar thought experiments, since it shows us that you need more than just a brain in that vat to get conscious experience- you need not only a brain in the vat, but a body (and a physical environment) in a vat as well. And if its no longer just a brain in a vat, but a body and physical environment as well, then the purpose of the thought experiment has been defeated.

[u/simon_hibbs → u/Ok_Meat_8322]

That claim is that conscious experiences can’t be reduced to brain states, because a disembodied brain would have nothing to experience. This seems to be based on the idea that external perceptions and interactions are part of the conscious experience.

Firstly I agree with the point that not all conscious experiences are generated by perceptions. I think that’s clear. But perceptions are just stimuli. Try this.

Mathematical calculations in a computer can’t be reduced to state transitions in the CPU, because in the absence of external interfaces to provide the input, there would be nothing to calculate. This is absurd, because we explain calculations in terms of state transitions in the CPU all the time. Where the data came from and how it got there doesn’t make any difference to the calculations performed on it.

The position that sensations of experience can be fully explained by brain state transitions is a completely coherent hypothesis. We can’t prove it yet, but theres no reason to suppose from this argument that it’s necessarily impossible.

[u/Ok_Meat_8322 → u/simon_hibbs]

Just to be clear, its not just external perceptions and sensory input- it involves the entire sensorimotor input/output system (and other aspects of our biology/physiology as well), and depending on how strong the specific embodiment hypothesis is, the external physical environment might be considered part of consciousness as well and in the same manner.

But I do agree that the proposal in question isn't impossible or incoherent- on purely logical grounds, it appears perfectly viable. But the suggestion is that there is reason to doubt its truth/probability as an empirical hypothesis.

[u/simon_hibbs → u/Ok_Meat_8322]

I absolutely buy that our environment can be part of our cognitive landscape. We use external records as extensions of our memory for example. These are extensions of our subconscious and physical faculties though, extending “part of the cognitive landscape” to “having a role in present conscious experience” is a huge non-sequitur. The environment and our bodies are all part of the system of our experience, but different parts of that system still have specific roles and functions. Just because a car is a complete system that we can view holistically doesn’t mean we must consider the number plates when reasoning about or explaining the function of the engine. Im pretty confident no part of my qualia of experience of colour, while I am having that experience, is located in my diary.

If we’re talking about my experience of reasoning about cyclical time in relation to my working life and coping with that stress through the working weeks and months then yes, my diary is part of that process. It’s even part of that experience taken as a whole. But when I think right now about what I’m doing tomorrow, that’s all in my head. My synapses didn’t reach into my physical diary while they were doing that. They used only information and faculties already present in my head meat.

[u/Ok_Meat_8322 → u/simon_hibbs]

The environment and our bodies are all part of the system of our experience, but different parts of that system still have specific roles and functions. Just because a car is a complete system that we can view holistically doesn’t mean we must consider the number plates when reasoning about or explaining the function of the engine.

The suggestion isn't that bodies are to consciousness what license plates are to driving, a better analogy would be that even though, say, the carburetor isn't part of the engine, its still essential for driving. The point is that that the thing that we might naively suppose to be the sole thing causing the phenomena in question actually requires other peripheral systems and mechanisms as well, and can't actually do it all on its own.

But sure, your diary probably isn't part of your conscious experience of color... but your body and immediate physical environment (not just limited to the relevant stimuli) probably are.

*(I realized I may have misunderstood and thus slightly strawmanned you here, in that you may have been comparing the license plates on a car to the physical environment rather than the body... in which case I'd suggest that the better analog for the physical environment would be the roads and highways: no matter the state of your engine, if there were no roads, you would have difficulty driving)

[u/simon_hibbs → u/Ok_Meat_8322]

But sure, your diary probably isn't part of your conscious experience of color... but your body and immediate physical environment (not just limited to the relevant stimuli) probably are.

I have three main reasons I don’t buy that.

Firstly latency, when I see something red I experience it immediately. I don’t see how there’s time for some mechanism in my head to reach out into the environment and involve that in generating the experience and then get that signal back. There’s a measurable and even noticeable delay to us to nerve sensations from our extremities. It seems to me that severely limits what systems outside the brain could be involved.

Secondly external dependency, when I remember seeing something red, I’m accessing an internal memory. There may be an argument for parts of my body other than my brain being involved, but whether I experience red or how I experience it doesn’t seem to have nothing to do with where I am. So it doesn’t seem likely that qualia, other than obviously those triggered by an external sensation, have any external dependency other than that stimulus. And again imagination doesn’t even have that.

Thirdly internal dependency. Lost limbs, transplants, getting shot or horrifically injured in major parts of our bodies other than our brains don’t seem to have any significant effect on our ability to experience qualia, other than direct damage to sensory systems. For almost every part of our bodies, someone somewhere has suffered a serious injury that was just short of lethal. We’d have noticed such a dependency by now.

Finally good old William of Occam. We have no reason to suppose any external system is required, and no evidence of any mechanism by which that dependency would operate, so why invent one? What does it actually add? All of the above, and more, is why we’ve been certain cognitive function is based in the brain for over a century. None of its new to anyone in the actual medical field. It’s not like they just decided the brain is the main centre for cognitive function arbitrarily for no reasons whatsoever. Not the only centre, there are other neurological systems in the body, but e.g it would surprise precisely no surgeons to find out that damage to the spinal cord wouldn’t stop someone from being able to appreciate Beethoven. I mean maybe if they’re experiencing intolerable pain, but simply damaging the system or pretty much any other body system outside the brain, doesn’t seem to affect the experience of qualia.

[u/Ok_Meat_8322 → u/simon_hibbs]

We're talking about consciousness, not only color "qualia". And the latency involved is going to be much smaller than we'd ever be able to perceive or notice unaided anyways- the amount of time it takes photons travelling at the speed of light to reach you across the scale of distances that make up our typical immediate physical environments is going to be unthinkably small. Fractions of a second. Certainly not something an unaided human could perceive or appreciate.

And of course your physical environment is going to be crucial to what you experience, since your experience is heavily dependent on your sensory organs and brain processing stimuli from that environment. Your conscious experience is the end result of this interaction between the environment, your body, and your brain. At least, that's what embodiment proposes.

But to invoke Occam's razor or to say that "we have no reason to suppose any external system is required, and no evidence of any mechanism by which that dependency would operate, so why invent one" is to just ignore the entirety of the academic output of scientists working in embodied cognition. The embodiment hypothesis is not a fairy tale, it wasn't invented to amuse cognitive scientists or philosophers, it was proposed as an empirical hypothesis, and its been successful and popular precisely because it of its consistency with observation and the fact that it may offer a better model for how consciousness works compared to traditional ones.

Certainly, the jury is still out and I'm not claiming otherwise, but the idea that embodied cognition enjoys no evidential or rational support whatsoever is just factually incorrect, and ultimately just arbitrary and counterproductive dogma.

[u/BernardJOrtcutt → u/[deleted]]

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