tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13617569.post3730440976827107917..comments2024-03-27T02:13:58.088-07:00Comments on Integral Options Cafe: Nicholas Humphrey - Soul Dust: The Magic of Consciousness (A Review)william harrymanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06981478282688361274noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13617569.post-89979889441883528952012-04-08T22:15:01.624-07:002012-04-08T22:15:01.624-07:00Thanks for the interest. As I alluded to in my com...Thanks for the interest. As I alluded to in my comment, I have great respect for Humphrey. His work is in fact very critical to DE. He was one of the first to propose, more than thirty years ago, that social organization may have been a driving force in the evolution of the brain (the social intelligence hypothesis). That we needed a large brain primarily in order to keep track of all the interactions we make with others. This notion has had a major influence on my thinking. A central theme of DE is in fact a generalization of the idea to other organisms, even to other forms of life. So I’m always interested in what he has to say, and will probably buy the book and get a lot out of it even if I don’t accept the major premise.<br /><br />Some more thoughts on that premise. The hard problem of consciousness really goes even deeper than I suggested. According to the Bloch review you linked, Humphrey claims that “consciousness has enabled us to enjoy life and beauty.” And this is what he thinks provides its evolutionary value. But according to the zombie argument, consciousness is not really necessary for this. That is, anything that we enjoy consciously can be enjoyed unconsciously. In this case there would be no conscious experience of joy, to be sure, but the functional purpose of enjoyment is there, and that is all that matters. That is, if conscious experience enhances the chance of survival, it must be because it makes certain behavior more likely (in this case, it seems, the behavior is simply not committing suicide). But according to the scientific worldview, this can only happen through neural processes in the brain. Neural processes are associated with enjoyment of “life and beauty”, and these processes result in other processes that lead to adaptive behavior. <br /><br />So one can just eliminate the consciousness and the neural processes alone explain everything. A zombie could look at a sunset, and though there would be no conscious awe or joy, the neural processes that go on in our own brains when we experiences such joy or awe would also occur in the zombie. These in turn would trigger certain forms of adaptive behavior, in the same way that humphrey says happens for us.<br /><br />Again and again, I find that even philosophers and scientists who ought to know better miss the subtlety of the hard problem, even the seemingly more tractable aspect of trying to account for the evolution of consciousness (as opposed to accounting for how consciousness emerges from neural activity). According to evolutionary theory, only behavior is adaptive. So no conscious experience by itself can have any effect on survival except to the degree that is associated with some behavior. But any form of behavior can be accounted for entirely by neural activity. Consciousness doesn’t seem to add anything necessary. That is the nub of the problem.<br /><br />And this is true even if the behavior is entirely inner. E.g., conscious experiences of pleasure may reduce the odds of developing certain diseases, not by any outward behavior we make, but through effects on the immune system, blood pressure, etc. Again, the zombie argument indicates that all of this can be explained in terms of neural activity.Andy Smithnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13617569.post-91750776788540138352012-04-08T20:29:41.290-07:002012-04-08T20:29:41.290-07:00Thanks for your recent comments here, Andy - I app...Thanks for your recent comments here, Andy - I appreciate your perspective. I just bought an ebook of your history of consciousness - I look forward to reading your views on this very complex and conflict-prone field.william harrymanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06981478282688361274noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13617569.post-2119124201960056642012-04-08T18:45:29.920-07:002012-04-08T18:45:29.920-07:00I haven’t read the book, but I see nothing in the ...I haven’t read the book, but I see nothing in the review that suggests any kind of explanation for the hard problem (and I have trouble believing an author as intelligent, articulate and informed as Humphrey could really be so delusional as to think he has “solved” a problem that has stumped everyone else for so long). <br /><br />What the review does suggest is that Humphrey is proposing a solution to a related problem, viz., the evolutionary function of consciousness. Though many thinkers think the solution to this problem is simple—consciousness allowed our behavior to be more flexible and creative—they don’t seem to understand that there is no reason in principle why behavior every bit as flexible and creative could not be manifested by a neurally complex yet completely unconscious organism (what philosophers call a zombie). <br /><br />Anyway, here is what the reviewer says in regard to this:<br /><br />“With an objectified representation of the self/soul as an exterior object came the realisation that one will die. This fact is so depressing that there would be little reason not to commit suicide on the spot. However, consciousness has enabled us to enjoy life and beauty and to create all sorts of ideas about these things; hence poetry and literature.”<br /><br />This is no explanation of the hard problem, since it doesn’t address how consciousness could emerge, but only why it emerged, in the sense of its adaptive fitness, or ability to enhance survival. Even on these terms, though, there is a problem. If an organism is unconscious, it can’t feel depressed, in the way we usually understand the term. The effect that discovering its existence is ultimately doomed might have on it might better be described by a word like “negative”, which is only meant to imply that it triggers aversive behavior, that is, behavior that will avoid this fate. <br /><br />I can understand how consciousness, by bringing experiences of pleasure, could act as a counter to the effects of negativity. But these effects do not include suicide. Why would an unconscious organism seeking to avoid death commit suicide? So beyond the fact that there is no explanation for how consciousness emerged (in the review; again, I can’t speak for the book), there really is no explanation for its survival value, either, that I can see.Andy Smithnoreply@blogger.com