I hope you'll be discussing more on this. As a once reluctant but now sanguine non-physicalist I'd enjoy your explorations. I'm brewing something on the topic too.
Perhaps a fruitful playspace for you might be where these questions intersect with moral principles.
>2 There are not borderline cases where there is no fact about whether something is conscious or not.
Assuming dualism: you have your qualia/subjective character on the one hand, and your cognitive neuropsychological systems on the other. If your qualia never communicated with your cognitive systems, your physical self would never report that you're conscious. If your cognitive systems never communicated with your qualia, your subjective self would never experience anything.
Assume that your qualia are completely epiphenomenal (your cognitive systems communicate with your qualia but never receive any feedback from your qualia). Then your physical self will never know it is qualitatively conscious. Now start letting the qualia filter through the physical-nonphysical barrier - various cognitive structures will start to become excited, but most of this will be in the form of unconscious priming, not global broadcast/awareness. Eventually, once the barrier is completely stripped away, global broadcast of the qualitative info leaking in will occur .
Now, when did your brain gain the ability to report on its own qualitative consciousness? It can't have been at the first leakage of qualitative info because (by stipulation) this would not have activated global reporting in the brain. (Again, priming seems to be an established empirically tested psychological phenomenon that physically demonstrates this possibility). Your brain could definitely report on its own qualitative consciousness once there was complete unrestricted interactionist dualism taking place. But where's the cutoff point? Somewhere in the middle, somewhere vague it seems.
1. Vagueness is not a property of physicalism. Just because there is no gray area where my laptop is between being off and on doesn’t mean some non-physical essence explains the workings of my laptop.
2. Consciousness is not physical, it’s an experience. Just because I cannot see sound doesn’t mean some non-physical essence explains sound. However, consciousness “arises” from something physical. And these neural correlates of consciousness are publicly observable.
1. Precise doesn’t mean borderline. There can be a precise way that a device turns on, without there be any borderline cases of it being on and without the need to explain it in terms of a non-physical essence.
2. Physicalism doesn’t posit that all things are physical. Clearly things like experiences (consciousness, perception) aren’t physical. What it posits is that those experiences can be explained by physical phenomena. Based on what we know about consciousness and it’s physical neural correlates, the theory holds up.
However, what do you argue supervenes on the physical?
I hope you'll be discussing more on this. As a once reluctant but now sanguine non-physicalist I'd enjoy your explorations. I'm brewing something on the topic too.
Perhaps a fruitful playspace for you might be where these questions intersect with moral principles.
Anyway, keep going 👍
Imo this is one of your most doubtful opinions, borderline cases seem obvious and intuitive. Although I do need to read a lot more.
>The vagueness argument
>2 There are not borderline cases where there is no fact about whether something is conscious or not.
Assuming dualism: you have your qualia/subjective character on the one hand, and your cognitive neuropsychological systems on the other. If your qualia never communicated with your cognitive systems, your physical self would never report that you're conscious. If your cognitive systems never communicated with your qualia, your subjective self would never experience anything.
Assume that your qualia are completely epiphenomenal (your cognitive systems communicate with your qualia but never receive any feedback from your qualia). Then your physical self will never know it is qualitatively conscious. Now start letting the qualia filter through the physical-nonphysical barrier - various cognitive structures will start to become excited, but most of this will be in the form of unconscious priming, not global broadcast/awareness. Eventually, once the barrier is completely stripped away, global broadcast of the qualitative info leaking in will occur .
Now, when did your brain gain the ability to report on its own qualitative consciousness? It can't have been at the first leakage of qualitative info because (by stipulation) this would not have activated global reporting in the brain. (Again, priming seems to be an established empirically tested psychological phenomenon that physically demonstrates this possibility). Your brain could definitely report on its own qualitative consciousness once there was complete unrestricted interactionist dualism taking place. But where's the cutoff point? Somewhere in the middle, somewhere vague it seems.
In the middle doesn't equal vague.
1. Vagueness is not a property of physicalism. Just because there is no gray area where my laptop is between being off and on doesn’t mean some non-physical essence explains the workings of my laptop.
2. Consciousness is not physical, it’s an experience. Just because I cannot see sound doesn’t mean some non-physical essence explains sound. However, consciousness “arises” from something physical. And these neural correlates of consciousness are publicly observable.
1) It is, for the reasons I explain in the article. Physical systems admit of borderline cases, consciousness doesn't.
2) Then you deny physicalism. How does a physical thing give way to non-physical things without bridging laws?
1. Precise doesn’t mean borderline. There can be a precise way that a device turns on, without there be any borderline cases of it being on and without the need to explain it in terms of a non-physical essence.
2. Physicalism doesn’t posit that all things are physical. Clearly things like experiences (consciousness, perception) aren’t physical. What it posits is that those experiences can be explained by physical phenomena. Based on what we know about consciousness and it’s physical neural correlates, the theory holds up.
However, what do you argue supervenes on the physical?
> There are not borderline cases where there is no fact about whether something is conscious or not.
One can experience semi consciousness waking up and falling asleep.
That's consciousness--there's something it's like to be in that state.
If one ends up unconscious, there must be a borderline of absolutely minimal consciousness.
No (though I do cringe reading my polemical phrasing). Consciousness is not the same as personal identity