Can we solve the mind-body problem?

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The so-called "hard" problem of consciousness (e.g. mind-body problem) ranks in the top few unanswered scientific questions:

Journal Ranks Top 25 Unanswered Science Questions
http://www.sciencemag.org/site/feature/ ... eat/125th/

Please vote and discuss why you hold your position. Here are some arguments that summarize what I believe to be the major points. First there's Chomsky:

There are some philosophers (e.g. Nagel), however, who question this view, as they argue that even with future revision of science/physics the mind-body problem or so-called "hard problem" of consciousness will remain intractible:

So, Nagel is arguing that physics is finished for all intensive purposes; thus, the mind-body problem is different from all other so called previous "problems" seen in science, because unlike the others, subjectivity/qualia cannot be reduced/unified to any future “material” entity regardless of future revisions of our "material"/“physical” theories. Nagel believes this because he argues that regardless of future revisions of the physical, it can never expand to include mental phenomena because, in principle, the "physical" would have to assign them an objective or mathematical and/or computational character but any any such character cannot possibly shed any light on subjectivity/qualia/the phenomenal or "feel" of our experience/thoughts. My own position is that it can never be solved. Here is why I believe this:

1. Science only reveals the causal / relational properties of physical objects, and that "we know next to nothing about the intrinsic nature of the world. We know only its causal/relational nature." (Russell)

2. While physics can tell us only about the dispositional or relational properties of matter, dispositions ultimately require categorical properties as bases, and relations ultimately require intrinsic properties as relata so there must also be categorical or intrinsic properties about which physics is silent. Yet these are properties of physical objects and thus are physical properties in one central sense. Instantiations of such properties would therefore constitute physical facts of which we are ignorant, as per the ignorance hypothesis. (Stoljar)

3. Matter must have an intrinsic nature to ground its dispositional properties. We know nothing of this nature, and in fact the only intrinsic nature with which we are familiar is consciousness itself. It is arguable that we cannot conceive of any other intrinsic nature because our knowledge of the physical is entirely based upon its dispositions to produce certain conscious experiences under certain conditions. Of course, we can assert that matter has a non-experiential intrinsic nature which is utterly mysterious to us, but this would seem to make the problem of emergence yet more difficult. An emergentism which made the generation of consciousness intelligible would be one that showed how experience emerged from what we know about matter, that is, from its dispositional properties. But it seems impossible to see how the dispositions to move in certain directions under certain conditions could give rise to or constitute consciousness, save by the kind of brute and miraculous radical emergence discussed above. If granting some kind of experiential intrinsic aspect to the fundamental physical entities of the world eliminates this problem, it might be worth the cost in initial uncomfortable implausibility. (Seager/Strawson)

All this sounds plausible (except the last hi-lited part); the part that leads these authors to favour a type of panpsychism. Why do I think this last part of Seager's/Strawson'a argument is flawed? Jussi Jylkkä summarizes it nicely:

I personally cannot see how we will ever be able to break this impasse even with future revisions of physics/science. I do think that Colin McGinn has come the closest to suggesting something that would be required but I don't think that will ever be achievable because non-locality/non-spatiality doesn't seem enough:

Consciousness and Space
http://www.nyu.edu/gsas/dept/philo/cour ... Space.html

Chomsky on the mind-body problem
http://www.chomsky.info/onchomsky/20030401.pdf

Mind as an Intrinsic Property of Matter
http://users.utu.fi/jusjyl/MIPM.pdf

The ‘Intrinsic Nature’ Argument for Panpsychism
http://www.utsc.utoronto.ca/~seager/intnat.pdf

Last edited by Kon on 25 Feb 2013, 1:51 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I may be biased due to my extreme adherence to the unity of science, but I am somewhat reluctant to accept that a Mind-Body problem exists at all (so I chose the "other" vote). This also leads me to reject many of the philosophical terms used to describe consciousness, as I perceive it as physical phenomenon as any other.

I generally see 3 positions when it comes to the Mind-Body problem:

1. Consciousness is part of the physical world, and it can currently be comprehended by the standard tools of scientific inquiry.
2. Consciousness is part of the physical world, but it can not currently be comprehended by the standard tools of scientific inquiry.
3. Consciousness is not part of the physical world.

Option (3) seems to be the favourite of many philosophers who are proponents of dualism (the Mind-Body problem). But is it necessary?

First of all, from a strict Popperian perspective, option (3) is an extraordinary ontological claim ( that some aspects of reality exist outside the laws of physics). It would only be reasonable, then, to adopt the criteria for evidence for such claims as described by Carl Sagan: "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence".

Furthermore, it would be incorrect to use the current inability of science to account accurately for the mechanisms of human consciousness as proof of Mind-Body dualism, as this would be a classic case of the Argument from Ignorance fallacy. Yet option (3) is often taken at face value by philosophers without the demonstration of evidence.

Second of all, does science really *have* a problem accounting for consciousness?

The following sources suggest otherwise. Degrees of consciousness have been found in several species (including mammals, bird and even octopuses)

http://faculty.bennington.edu/~sherman/ ... proach.pdf
http://fcmconference.org/img/CambridgeD ... usness.pdf

Now, it would be silly to claim that a pigeon is as conscious as a human being, but it nonetheless illustrates that consciousness should probably not be considered a taxon, but rather a continuum, and that some animals possess it to a greater degree than others.

If we stop seeing consciousness as a distinct feature of humanity, and instead as an example of heightened cognitive ability among some animals compared to others, then consciousness stops being a fundamental problem from science, and it instead becomes just another biological difference that needs to be explained.

My guess is that we are somewhere in between option (1) and (2), and that we will move closer and closer to (1) as our scientific understanding of the human brain continues to expand. Pioneer studies have already found links between individual genes/groups of genes and specific cognitive traits like ADHD and intelligence, so I see no fundamental obstacle in acquiring greater knowledge of the human mind through the scientific method.

Summary: In my opinion, treating consciousness as something distinct from physical reality violates the Occam's Razor rule (the most parsimonious explanation). Mind-Body dualism is a radical scientific claim, and I am unaware of any fundamental scientific difficulties in understanding human cognition which could justify such a claim.

Yes. As soon as we solve the Stomach-Digestion Problem?

ruveyn

Both the stomach and digestion is knowable from a third person (objective) point of view. Consciousness/qualia/subjectivity is not. To be in a subjective state is to have a first-person point of view. The same is not the case with digestion. And functionalism doesn't cut it either. The argument is that phenomenal qualities are essentially intrinsic, while physical properties are solely structural/dynamic and a future physics will not change that. Consider Frank Jackson's knowledge argument:

Qualia: The Knowledge Argument
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qualia-knowledge/

This is a new concept to me, so apologies if I've completely missed the point.
It can be observed that consciousness and awareness grows as a person develops.
Brain activity can be measured in electrical impulses and chemicals transmitted.

You can observe and measure consciousness going bit by bit due to chemical or organic alterations (overdose, anaesthesia, stroke, Alzheimers)
The suggestion of a separate "plane/ space" for awareness seems to have undertones of the "ether" where spirits were supposed to live - a superstitious hangover.

You can measure neural correlates of consciousness/qualia but not consciousness/qualia.

The neural events are consciousness. We just can't see it right from the Inside.

ruveyn

Well, if you can't see/measure them, how can be so sure that they are same thing (e.g. neural events=consciousness), particularly given the vastly different nature of the two? And also particularly because you need the latter (mental) to infer the former (neural events)?

Spend a few hours with a PET scanner and that will make a believer out of you. I have. I have seen myself think. Fascinating. I am now more convinced than ever there is no such think as mind as a separate substance not conformable to physical laws. Everything in the Cosmos is physical.

As Carl Sagan said (billyuns and billyuns of times) the Cosmos was, is and always will be all that there is.

ruveyn

I doubt that you have ever "seen" yourself think and you have never "seen" anybody else think. Thoughts are not spatial, don't have dimension and can't be measured directly. They are inferred from stuff like behaviour, brain scans, etc. And I have spent many hours on PET scan and other brain scans, etc. My previous degree was in Radiation sciences and Neuroscience. I didn't "observe" my thoughts at some place or anybody else's thoughts.

What's your definition of "physical"?

Last edited by Kon on 25 Feb 2013, 1:53 pm, edited 2 times in total.

I understand your meaning, but I think the neural correlates are as accurate as consciousness can be defined with the tools we currently have.

eg you can feel the back of your head, hear tone through its bone, view it in a mirror or video, but you cannot actually see it with your eyes.
you can assume that because the back of other people heads look as they do, that your viewing tools are accurate.

I think that at this stage, we are looking at consciousness without the equivalent of a mirror or video.

Position 4. 'Consciousness' in this context is just some nonsense uttered by some mystics and so called 'philosophers'.



No. You cannot infer such mystical thing as 'consciousness' from behaviour, brain scans, etc. At best you can use the theory of thought as a model to explain behaviour, brain scans, etc.

Thus Spoke Zarathustra.

Were's the "this problem is dissolvable" option?

Umm when did consciousness get all mystical and woo?
Its simply the state of being awake, aware of surroundings and able to process input and output through the brain .

Or did someone hijack the word when I wasn't looking?

I doubt the mind-body problem can ever be "solved" in the sense that we'd get a tidy little theory that explains the entirety of consciousness, including the subjective. It's just too complex. The best we can do is model its components in ever-increasing detail, approaching, but never quite reaching, complete understanding.

I always seem to fall back on panpsychism when trying to wrap my tiny brain around the problem, but I suspect that's just a local maximum rather than something resembling true reality. The truth is probably far weirder.

Perhaps our hyperintelligent machine / cyborg / genetically enhanced descendants will look back on this and laugh at our feeble attempts. Like ants trying to understand general relativity.