It started with: “Chalmers’ Hard Problem and the Living Moment of Now.” Then I came to understand that essay was actually all about my own impression of philosophy’s Hard Problem. So in that regard it was a necessary chapter in this project, that I could build on with some hard work into understanding the Hard Problem as philosophers understand and discuss it. This is reflected in, “Addendum — A Philosopher Schools Citizenschallenge.” After a false start and more work I wrote, “Why the Hard Problem of Appreciating Physical Reality?” To which Robin Retallick offered some constructive pushback which I felt compelled to respond to and share, while hoping for a little more dialogue. As written up in; “Fielding questions regarding the problem of appreciating physical reality.” Retallick has offered some more interesting pushback. It has offered me another opportunity to try and clarify some of the finer details of what I’m trying to get to the table.
Retallick: “Peter, some time back, I posited the story of VR — that movies in 120 years have gone from black and white to color, from lo-fi mono to hi-fi surround sound, from low-res to very high-res, but we still see the walls around us. Reality is never in doubt. VR is as yet primitive technology — but when we turn our heads, we see what’s making that sound behind us. With direct brain implants are already being produced, we can imagine a time when direct inputs will be capable of mimicking the entire sensory bubble within which we live.”
Cc: For what purpose?
Retallick: “At that point, if the projected story is plausible, how will you be able to distinguish it from reality?”
Cc: I don’t think it is plausible. (As for your example, being assaulted by mimicked sensory signals coming from every direction, we’d meltdown from sensory overload.)
Retallick: “Your response was “I don’t know. I’m a dinosaur.” I can’t get past wondering what happens to that VR reality when the power goes out.”
I’m wrestling a little here with whether to take you seriously or not, but I’ll respond to your statement.”
Cc: I was trying to be polite and cute — If you expect me to take your VR analogy as relevant to understanding “mind,” I’m probably not worth your time. I proudly declare my allegiance with a pre-digital humanity, but that’s a whole different essay. ;-)
You see, I am not at all enthralled with our race towards some future technological singularity, or whatever it is so many are chasing. Nor do I see much explanatory power in it.
As an aside, I think it’s our doom to have gained the smarts of the gods over natural forces, without gaining the slightest inkling of self-awareness, let alone a touch of wisdom and compassion, nor appreciation — to guide our astronomically increasing needs.
Retallick: “If the system responds by reestablishing your “normal” neural connections, you’ll return to normal physical awareness. If the simulator hasn’t provided that capability, you’ll be in total sensory deprivation.But the whole point of that story was not about technical feasibility. It was to establish our inability to declare what’s real and fundamental, only from what seem to be our senses, seem to be telling us.”
Cc: How did you establish that? It feels more like a non sequitur.
You presented a hypothetical with a personal conviction.
My senses includes what I can learn from scientific study. Sure conjecture is part of thinking and learning, but it’s observation and evidence based and that makes all the difference — and that doesn’t deserve belittling.
This reminds me of someone saying we can’t tell the difference between dreaming and being awake — when in my experience being in bed, going into and out of dream states isn’t anything at all like being on my feet and active with the day. It’s the sort of suggestive thinking that doesn’t compute in my mind, based on my experiences.
Retallick: “Specifically responding to your response, retreating to “the physical is all there is because it feels real” is an explicit abandonment of logic.”
Cc: What’s going on? “Because it feels real?” Sound like you are reducing it to whim.
Are you questioning our own evolved biological reality?
The physical is all we have outside of our mind — but you’re sounding like the lesson of evolution means nothing? I mean we were created to survive in this particular Earthly environment, physical conditions and time — why claim I’m the one abandoning logic because I take evolutionary reality as a given?
Retallick: “You are using the subjective output of a biological system to prove the independent, objective reality of the mechanism that generated it — which is textbook circular reasoning.”
Cc: This isn’t about “subjective feelings” — this is about our biological reality and respecting deep time and how incremental changes added up to produce us.
“Subjective output” is what our human mind does, and our biology interacting with the world is what produces our mind — so you’ve lost me with that mash up.
Brings me back to the need for appreciating the Human Mindscape ~ Physical Reality divide.
Retallick: “Pointing to Nick Lane’s bioenergetics or half a billion years of evolutionary refinement does not bridge the ontological chasm between electrochemical reactions and felt experience. It merely describes the complexity of the machinery.
Cc: What were you expecting? It was through increasing complexity of biological machinery that incipient awareness was able to take form and get refined, as bodies and lifestyles drove competition over deep-time scales.
Retallick: “Saying “membrane potentials are intrinsically meaningful” is an unfalsifiable assertion;”
Cc: How do you figure that?
Membrane potentials react in specific ways; for specific reasons; then influencing specific future behavior. That is “intrinsically meaningful” by definition.
Retallick: “it smuggles consciousness into the base components and then acts amazed when it shows up downstream.”
Cc: “Smuggles,” “then act amazed”? We should be clear my examples were reporting on observations. Nothing has been smuggled in. In fact, it’s all sort of self evident once one digs down into learning about the evolutionary biological details unfolding in time.
Besides, obviously conscious behavior did show up down stream. Why be surprised that in essence our conscious mind is best understood as the inside reflection of your body communicating with itself, as it is dealing with life, inside and outside?
Retallick: “Dismissing the entire framework as an idle exercise of the “mind-scape” while taking refuge in “actual lived experience” doesn’t solve the problem — it begs it. If your foundational premise requires you to assume that objective physical matter is the ultimate ground of being, while ignoring that “matter” is itself a perceptual construct of consciousness, you aren’t doing science.”
Cc: Wait a minute, did you actually say that? “Matter” is itself a perceptual construct of consciousness?
You don’t believe that do you? How would that work?
Wouldn’t you rather be saying, “our perception of matter is a construct of consciousness.” That is a key distinction worth getting clear on.
What about evolution? Matter created this miracle planet, which in turn created us out of the dust of the universe over the course of billions of years, long before any consciousness existed?
We are the observers, we compose our own impressions of the world, according to our particular body plan, perceptual lens, life style, etc.
It’s worth adding that “truth’ is meaningless without a defined framing. We do the best we can with what we have. Close enough, is good enough, is how the evolving unforgiving natural world functions.
This is why I find that appreciating the Physical Reality ~ Human Mind divide is so important to grasping our consciousness, and our selves for that matter.
Retallick: “You’re just drawing a circle around your own presuppositions and calling it a worldview.”
Cc: Okay, we each possess our unique worldviews since every living creature is the center of their own world.
My presupposition came down to deciding: either I possess an ultra imagination to conjure up this world I witness — or perhaps it makes more sense to appreciate I am simply another evolved animal on this planet one of billions, unique, but not really. The cumulative product of Earth’s deep time evolutionary story that science keeps learning more about, with half a billion years worth of 100% successful generations under my bellybutton, so to speak. (Yes, made up of cells who’s heritage goes back some four billion years.)
My origins started long before I was here and Earth will remain long after I am gone. I am an animal, perhaps the most magnificent animal Earth has produced, but still made of the same stuff and belonging to the same family as all the creatures out there.
I don’t see where I’m engaging in any sort of circular thinking. I’m a rationalist and appreciate I am also a filament in Earth’s tapestry of evolution, I have my life to live, then I will be going back into the dust of this Earth, while memories and my genetic heritage continues forward. Same as it ever was.
Retallick: (Cc writes)“As to “I’m an old man, that’s all beyond my pay grade. At this point I’m strictly a one day at a time person. AI is real until the power grid collapses. When I look at how humanity is behaving, sorry at this point I need to check out, go for a walk on this land that surrounds me with as much appreciation and grace as possible, while I still can.”
I’m an 86-year old man, and I agree with your assessment of the version of reality that seems to surround you in yours, and me in mine. I’m just not prepared to accept that as an unchangeable story — because it’s highly changeable.”
Cc: Congratulations! And thanks for sharing. I don’t see much chance of another 15 for me. I’ve been a tree climber and tree hugger since a kid and am too familiar with our unsustainable ways and I’ve been shocked at our inability to learn along with our utter disregard towards this planet’s biosphere’s health and the future. It’s been tough to watch and process. I thought we had better in us, but after all, it turns out we humans remain the instinct driven brutes we started as.
We’re each the product of our story. Thanks for the conversation, I hope I’ve managed to clarify some questions without offending.
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