This week I had to block a couple of people on different platforms. Neither seemed able to make their point without lacing in insults. One seemed to be on a mission to make me feel as bad about my outlook as possible. The disagreements were on purely metaphysical grounds, physicalism vs non-physicalism. And seem to be examples of something that appears pervasive in online discussions, the constant sniping between these different metaphysical camps.
Which, when you stop and think about it, is strange, since we’re not talking about something that will affect anyone’s fortunes or livelihood, or overall make any difference in their day to day life, except maybe psychologically. It pays to remember that in the debates between physicalism, property dualism, panpsychism, idealism, neutral and Russellian monism, and their variants, that these outlooks are all empirically identical.
(Interactionist dualism may be the one alternative where this wouldn’t be true. But a century and a half of neurological case studies seem to imply that the interactions would have to be pretty nuanced. Which I think is why most of the academic world has lost enthusiasm for this option, even though it remains popular in general.)
I often remember Karl Popper’s observation that what is metaphysical in one century could become science in a later one. But in the case of these basic viewpoints, they’re all ancient. Which implies that there’s no foreseeable experiment or observation which will conclusively prove or falsify any of them.
People often think quantum mechanics might provide the evidence, but there are many different interpretations of QM. Which ones seem sensible and which hopelessly crazy appear to be driven by your preexisting metaphysical viewpoint. And again, all of these outlooks long predate QM. Idealism was actually more popular during the reign of classical physics than it is today. So even if one of the QM interpretations is eventually shown to be correct, I suspect the various viewpoints will continue.
And when I listen to idealists like Barnardo Kastrup talk, and am able to look past all the provocative language, the world he describes often sounds a lot like the physicalist one, one where the planet and universe are billions of years old, and we’re the result of evolution through natural selection. He just sees the external world as being in the mind of God or Nature. And of course I agree with panpsychists that there’s nothing categorically unique about the physics of the brain.
All of which often makes my inner positivist wonder if there’s really any meaningful distinctions here. Maybe these are all just different ways of thinking about the same world. Or, from a purely empirical standpoint, maybe the best stance is a neutral one. These bouts of extreme empiricism don’t typically last very long, but I think they do stop me from being too strident in my views.
All of which is to say, calm down about your metaphysics. The fact that I can’t prove mine over yours and vice-versa, means that the only way you’re ever going to make your view more prevalent is by persuading people. Calling those with other views idiots, or implying that their view is trivially false, while it may play well with your own partisans, isn’t going to expand your camp.
The best way to do that seems to be the old fashioned way. Try to understand what others are saying, and try to be understood. Let them know the genuine blockers preventing you from taking up their view. Address the concerns others have about yours, and admit it when you can’t. That may not feel as good in the moment, but it often doesn’t lead to the acrimony the other approaches do.
Of course, others will still engage in their bluster. My advice is to ignore it. Or when it gets nasty, do as I did, and block them. Your life will be better off for it.
Unless of course I’m missing something?
SelfAwarePatterns 
Some people are more on the side of one camp, others more on the side of another … and then some are just morons.
I thought discussing philosophical topics was supposed to be fun, as nothing life shattering is likely to be discovered, but I guess some folks didn’t get that memo.
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I’m the same way as seeing these topics as fun, but like with anything, some people just have a tendency to get carried away. I know some of them will say even that is all in fun, a bit of rough play we should all just take in stride, but they rarely keep that opinion when they’re on the receiving end.
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Metaphysical positions have consequences. Much of continental philosophy is dedicated to exploring how the metaphysical assumptions of modernity have led to its discontents, whether psychological or environmental or political or economic.
So there is something at stake here. Unfortunately, some activists on all sides of the debate happen to be unreconstructed jerks.
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I mentioned psychology but probably underplayed it in the post, particularly since you’re right; psychological effects cascade into sociological ones. It seems like people arguing for minority metaphysical views might be well served by exploring that aspect more.
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I’m with you Mike, “we’re not talking about something that will affect anyone’s fortunes or livelihood…” On the other hand some feel deeply threatened when anyone questions their conception of reality. It’s the same as questioning religion. Living with a modern, open, and questioning mind means living with a certain level of uncertainty. I think that’s what drives folks to embrace various forms of fundamentalism—having that calm feeling of certainty. Not that I eschew spirituality by any means.
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Thanks Matti. I agree. People don’t like having their worldview questioned, but admitting when things are uncertain does come with benefits.
I mostly stay away from religion because there I do understand some of the psychological factors involved, and, aside from fundamentalists, see little benefit from upsetting that applecart. Most of the people arguing for the viewpoints I mentioned aren’t coming at it from a religious perspective. At least by traditional meanings of “religion.”
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I think metaphysics has consequences, but belligerence is uncalled for. And you’re right, it’s completely useless if you’re trying to win someone over to your way of thinking. Sorry you had to block people. That’s disheartening.
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I mentioned the psychological effects in the post but probably underplayed them, particularly since those do lead to sociological effects if enough people are onboard.
I’ve had to block people before, so nothing too tragic. I’m more willing to do it these days than I used to be, particularly when someone is trolling right out of the gate. I’ve never had it get better from there. Maybe I’m just getting too impatient in my old age.
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Some years ago, I decided to as much as possible recuse myself from discussing, let alone debating, unresolvable topics (like consciousness, QM interpretations, and so on). I’ve been doing that since the 1980s, and it just got old for me. I’ll write posts and then try to clarify any questions, I’ll even exchange views, but I try to avoid persuasion of any kind (other than in the post). It really is true that the more you learn, the less you know.
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I’m probably too attracted to those kinds of discussions. For me they’re fun, at least as long as they stay friendly. And online communities offer a chance to have them since most people in real life aren’t into it. But it definitely pays to step back occasionally and remember how academic the subject matter often is.
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Used to be the same for me, but many of those topics involve essentially the same conversation over and over. As you point out, it’s not like you’re going to sway anyone’s opinion. There’s also that, for me, I’ve lost some interest in consciousness and QM interpretations pending future discoveries or improved theories.
I benefit from having a few friends who are at least semi-into discussions like this. It would suck to have no one to talk to about it, so I can see why it would be compelling, especially if it’s a topic of interest.
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I’m kind of there for consciousness. It seems like forever since I’ve heard a new argument. Suzi Travis had me interested in it again for a while, but when she dropped off, so did much of my interest.
With QM I’m still uncertain enough that I still occasionally enjoy cycling through the options, and sometimes learn something new, but it’s becoming increasingly rare.
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Heh, yeah, Suzi Travis’s posts got me interested in consciousness again. And likewise.
I keep an eye on QM experiments and am still chewing on the math.
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A couple of things Mike. One would be that online discourse seems to naturally devolve to a “gangsta” rather than “Gandhi” theme. This seems very short sighted. Gandhi was only able to succeed by permitting his opposition to go “gangsta”. It’s a lesson that Trump is now failing with his unhinged ICE goons.
You can imagine my disappointment, for example, when Elan Barenholtz posted this Note: “We’re software. The “I” is a pattern running on biological hardware. AI shows this kind of pattern can run on other hardware too—so it’s not the stuff, it’s the process. The mind/body problem is the software noticing it isn’t the hardware. Stuff the stuff. We are information.” Still I also realized that only a “Gandhi” type of response could even potentially help him grasp the magic in such a position. https://substack.com/profile/312741572-eric-borg/note/c-207460256?r=5674xw&utm_source=notes-share-action&utm_medium=web Not that I suspect my argument will sway him. We all believe what’s in our own interests to believe — his now seem aligned with yours here.
Then secondly, I can’t help but tie your new post in with our last conversation (or the one that started with my “metascience” post and ended with your “usefulness” post). Without various professionally accepted, explicit rules of metaphysics, epistemology, and axiology, associated disputes should cause science to operate in various a sub optimal ways. Therefore I challenge status quo interests in this respect as well — the structure of science itself is still in need of formal founding.
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Gandi’s methods required taking a beating while continuing to protest peacefully. It’s a pretty hard road, one forced on him by his situation. The Socratic method involves asking questions, eventually in the hopes that the person answering sees the issues with their position. It works a lot less often than in Plato’s dialogues, but people are usually happy to answer questions about their view, providing the questions aren’t nakedly hostile. That said, it has its limits. And it’s worth remembering that Socrates was still eventually forced to drink hemlock.
Right. I continue to think science works best by focusing on results. We may not understand why a particular theory works, and some of the proposed explanations may pull from various metaphysical beliefs we disagree with, but that’s a reason for further investigation, not for throwing the theory out because it doesn’t meet some doctrinal test.
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To turn the OG term on its head, Socrates might have been the “Original Gandhi”. 😀 I think he was having so much fun in jail thinking about how stories would be told about how he could have easily escaped and yet willingly met state execution for poisoning minds, to happily meet this fate!
Asking people about their own beliefs can be a great way to go. You tend to become an adversary however when you ask for further implications that haven’t quite been thought through. This all goes to validate my central point that each of us are ultimately self interested products of our circumstances — in the end we simply want to feel good about ourselves regardless of how reality works. I think economists succeed by accepting this premise, though the converse is displayed in psychology.
To get Socratic with my position on science needing explicit rather than merely implicit rules (and my own rules particularly), you seem to be saying that science gets “results” by permitting magical theory to mingle with non-magical theory? And various standards of epistemology for quality science must remain certain? And the concept of value must effectively remain undefined rather than develop a physics based reduction? In academia today this is all implicitly accepted status quo belief. I do nevertheless object. I suspect that better results would occur by means of certain professionally accepted explicit rules, and so seek dialog on the matter.
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Speaking of Socrates and his method, for purposes of the question you’re asking me, how would you define “magic”? In answering, consider any terms you might be tempted to use, like “supernatural,” and what their definition might be as well.
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Sounds good Mike. I do think I’ve thought through the question of magic reasonably well. Of course the old contrary term that’s still around is “materialism”. But that implies everything be some sort of tangible substance, like atoms, quarks, or whatever. What about the time and space that we presume they reside under? What about massless waves of energy that affect “matter”? So that term needed updating.
Then the term “physicalism” came along. This seems better for implying that all of reality is “physics based”. But it also seems a bit open. What technically isn’t “physics based”? To help clarify things I go directly to a more basic term, and fortunately hear others reference it when they try to get specific. I’m referring to causality itself. A “systemic” modifier seems required as well. We can’t let people claim that their gods “cause” things here to thus reside under such an ontology. Do they consider their gods causal elements of our world? No? Then they’d fail the “systemic” condition and so be magical.
One thing that seems mandated about perfect systemic causality, is that everything which happens at a given point of spacetime (including any unknown dimensions as well), must be perfectly determined by means of such causality. Any deviation would constitute a violation of systemic causality and so would be magical. Here people of course ask about quantum mechanics. QM changes nothing however. Either systemic causality never fails, or it does and so reality functions magically to the degree of this QM failure. I personally presume that systemic causality never fails, and specifically for my own convenience. If it does fail however then science itself would be rendered obsolete to the magnitude of this failure.
My AI buddy tells me that “systemic causality” is essentially “Ontic Structural Realism”, though perhaps a bit cleaner. So if you like you could object to this reduction. Or am I using any terms vaguely enough for you to not grasp what I mean by a failure in systemic causality, or thus my definition for “magic”?
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Ok, what you’re calling “perfect systematic causality” is roughly what I would call “structural completeness.” And we’ve established before that we share this preference for theories. However, what do we do about theories that seem to make accurate predictions, but have gaps, points where we can don’t yet understand all of the causality (or structure in more fundamental theories)?
In our previous conversation, I asked about historical theories which received criticism for exactly those gaps, but were eventually accepted anyway because they still marked progress. Kepler improved orbital predictions by allowing that they were ellipses, even though he had no idea why heavenly bodies moved that way. Newton was accused of bringing in “occult” forces with his universal gravitation concept. And Darwin couldn’t explain how traits were inherited, the origin of life, or why the Cambrian Explosion happened.
If you say you would have accept these theories, then how do they get in under your criteria?
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That’s easy Mike. They get in under my criteria from the concept of incompleteness or ignorance. To be productive a given model needn’t explain everything in one go. Here it can be sufficient to simply acknowledge where there’s more to potentially discover in support, or even how a given model might be empirically dismissed. For example, even if EMF consciousness were empirically validated, this shouldn’t explain everything. Why is causality such that certain specific parameters of electromagnetic field reside as vision, sound, pain, and so on? Regardless of how well such things become empirically cataloged in this way, we might never go further regarding this apparent “hard problem”.
Also I’m only against permitting blatantly magical theories from entering standard science. When a given author says they’re proposing something that violates systemic causality, then that would be a good reason for it to be explored under causal plus science rather than standard science. Furthermore all speculative theory could potentially be critiqued for violating systemic causality. Consider my proposal that “information” is productively defined such that it can only exist by means of informing something causally appropriate. If this is essentially true then it seems to mandate that computational functionalism violates systemic causality.
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But if we have incompleteness or ignorance, then we don’t have “perfect systemic causality,” right? So what distinguishes theories that only have this incompleteness or ignorance vs those that are “blatantly magical theories”?
In particular, for the theories you tend to criticize, computational functionalism and the Everett interpretation, where is the magical component in those theories? I know you’ve written about computational functionalism before, but I can never find an explicit statement of what is supposed to be the magic component. (I know you think the “needing to inform something causally appropriate” thing is an answer; have you found anyone who agrees?)
And for whoever is supposed to be making the decision about which theories are “causal-plus,” how can we be sure they actually understand the theory? Or are we going to let the field itself make that determination? If so, who in academia will agree with you that these are magical theories? (You can find legions of critics, but how many of them are prepared to say they’re not at least attempts at a causal or at least structural model?)
Or are we talking about having non-scientists override scientists, essentially non-experts telling experts which theories have value? Why should scientists pay any attention?
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The tangled web you’re describing helps make my points Mike. Without effective rules of operation, or the situation that we’ve inherited, there should naturally be problems in modern science. But people naturally invest in status quo institutions “as is”, and so changing them can indeed be difficult even given massive failures. And of course you’re entirely correct to observe that I’m effectively “a nobody” and so it doesn’t really matter what I say. But I can still have fun pointing out the failures of status quo supporters in ways that they can’t sensibly dispute. That’s my thing. And if my perspective does happen to be as effective as I think it is, then who knows what might start an avalanche that ends up bringing down all manners of failure in academia?
My presumption is that systemic causality never fails. Obviously our models fail. Furthermore I’m saying that if we had a community of respected professionals with the exclusive task of deciding how to metaphysically found science, that they would decide the very same thing that I’ve decided. Because science goes obsolete to the extent that systemic causality fails, blatant magic would then be excluded from standard science. Instead it would need to be explored in “causal plus” science. It would be up to a related scientific community to decide if a given theory happens to violate systemic causality. Once metaphysically founded, science would police itself.
My theory that information can only exist as such in respect to what it informs, is indeed a bold one. I know of no exceptions to it. Furthermore I challenge anyone to find such an exception. You’ve known of it for several years, but have never proposed an exception. Given its effectiveness I don’t think you’ll ever find one. Could this be a status quo disturbance that brings down the mountain? Tread carefully my friend!
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If there’s one area of human endeavor where personal authority doesn’t count for much, it’s in science. Michael Faraday, with no formal training, discovered electromagnetic fields, although he was hampered by limited math skills and James Clark Maxwell had to provide the theoretical foundations. The obstacles to doing today what Faraday did are immense, although not impossible. But without being able to establish to experts that we know what we’re talking about, no scientist will spend much time listening to you or me.
Certainly it’s fun to comment on and criticize various theories and papers. But as far as telling scientists how to do their job, I try to stay strictly away from that. I’ve had amateurs try to tell me how to do my job in IT before. Very few actually understand the complexities and trade offs involved. I imagine it’s far worse for scientists. High profile physicists get emails all the time from people who think they’ve solved quantum gravity, but usually they’re making very basic mistakes an undergraduate physics student learns to avoid, much less a PhD in the subject.
As I’ve said before, I’m onboard with preferring causally/structurally complete theories. Given a choice between two theories that are equally parsimonious and accurate, I’ll go for the more structurally complete one. But given a choice between a more accurate theory and a less accurate but structurally complete one, the accurate one gets my vote, with the hope that the missing structure will be filled in someday. If that situation lasts, there may be people pointing to the gaps and saying they’re fundamental and unfillable; I disagree with them, but that’s not a reason to reject a working theory.
“You’ve known of it for several years, but have never proposed an exception.”
How about tree rings in a tree that’s never been cut down, gravitational waves passing through Earth prior to 2015, or radio waves prior to 1886? You’ll likely say these don’t count as information, but that would be defending your point by definitional fiat. Even if we allow that, there’s no reason that neural information processing can’t recursively inform itself before it leads to motor system actions; that’s pretty much what neuroscientists are talking about when they talk about recurrent processing.
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I’m not exactly telling scientists how to do their jobs, and this is because there are no scientists of metaphysics, or epistemology, or axiology. (Actually I do suspect that psychologists will take over axiology after their house is put in order, though certainly not yet!) Instead I’m telling philosophers how to do their jobs. I’m saying that they’ve permitted science to function with merely implicit rules in these regards so far, and so science has suffered. I’m asking them to fill this gap. Furthermore I’m suggesting my own metaphysical, epistemological, and axiological rules from which to found science more effectively than today. I welcome philosophers to propose different rules if they like. In that case we’d see how their rules would stand up against mine. Science itself should be the arbiter in the end.
Okay, you think you’ve found some examples of “information” that exists as such inherently rather than needing to inform anything causally appropriate. Great! You observe that when we cut a tree down we can look at its rings and get a sense of its age. And yes I agree, in that sense we would be what these rings inform. That’s why I say information only exists to the extent that something causally appropriate becomes so informed (and that’s us in this scenario). So if no one ever sees these rings then they wouldn’t be informative in this sense. So there’d be no such information, or perhaps just information in a “potential” sense.
Here you challenge me however by saying that the rings in a tree that is never cut down, would inherently be informative. I call this an unproductive definition for “information” however, in the sense that the instrument to be informed (us) gets no such information. But if the uncut tree were monitored by means of some sort of electromagnetic field technology, then sure, the tree rings might inform us about the tree.
You also mentioned gravitational waves and radio waves being inherently informative before we knew about them. Though they certainly existed and had causal effects, if you’re talking about them informing us before they were informing us, well there’s again nothing here that challenges my proposal. It wouldn’t be productive to call them “information” in that specific sense.
Since your examples happen to reference “informing humanity”, I should emphasize that my proposal goes far beyond that. I’m talking about the nature of all causality in reference to an extremely productive definition for “information”. My stock example is a DVD. What’s encoded on it is only potentially informative, and specifically to a DVD player. But it could also inform a table leg by being slipped under to serve as a shim. Or in the human case again, light that hits it might reflect into your eyes and so inform you about where it is. In each of these three cases something causally appropriate must be informed for such information to exist.
Then to take this back to computational functionalism, here it’s said that whacked thumb information gets sent to your brain for algorithmic processing. I agree. But it also says that the processed information itself will exist as the experiencer of thumb pain. That’s where things get fishy. Thus if marks on paper correlated well enough with your whacked thumb information were scanned into a computer and processed to print out paper with marks on it that correlate well enough with your brains processed information, then something here would feel thumb pain. Either would violate causality because information can only exist as such by informing something causally appropriate. So what might your processed brain information inform to reside as your vision, hearing, pain, and so on? What might have not only enough bandwidth, but be able to change just as fast as your consciousness changes? You know my quite testable answer.
On your answer of “neural information recursively informing neurons”, only if a causally appropriate instrument gets informed by, for example, processed brain information that results from a thumb whack. Note that the mandate for something causally appropriate to be informed, would seem to kill off the standard trinity of sci-fi speculation. But one might then at least gain a testable proposal, as in “here’s input neural function, here’s processing neural function, and here’s the output neural function informed by the processing”. Thus thumb pain, vision, or whatever would be said to exist by means of that physics. I’d welcome such a proposal.
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I’ve said it before, but you’re basically talking philosophy of science here. But again, the same issues apply. If you want philosophers to listen, then you need to show you understand the issues they’ve historically grappled with. I’d recommend becoming familiar with all the major works at least from the 1920s forward. If you’re still getting familiar with concepts like verificationism, falsifiability, paradigms, and similar concepts, you have a lot of work to do. On the positive side, it’s a lot easier than trying to learn the science side, although good philosophers of science also know a lot about the science.
As I noted above, rejecting my information examples because they’re exceptions to your standard, when you asked for exceptions, is just arguing from definitional fiat. It’s circular reasoning.
As usual, I don’t know what “causally appropriate” means. You seriously need to flesh that part out. Right now, I’m sorry, but it just looks like non-sequiturs to get to your preferred answer.
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I’ve been actively engaged in philosophy and science blogging since 2014, so I do think I’ve picked up a thing or two during that time. And I’ve done so with a critical eye that philosophers of science, like Massimo Pigliucci and Dan Kaufman, have not appreciated. It was at least a decade ago listening to their tirades against the evils of “scientism”, that incited my plan to devise a community of professionals with the exclusive purpose of reaching agreed upon principles from which to found science. People over there mainly hated the things that I’d say, though few beyond Dan would heroically try to put me in my place. It was great fun! As for Massimo, he quickly noticed that my Gandhi style rhetoric might instead get the better of him! So he’d steer clear of me for softer prey on the hope that others would effectively challenge me. And likewise, as a grateful patron I’d almost never challenge him by name. That was well before you taught me about the magic of computational functionalism, or the thing that might similarly be held against me around here. But I’m quite gratified that you seem to enjoy our discussions!
My point is that I’m not persuaded by the thought that it’s merely my own lack of education that puts me under a false belief that the powers that be actually have things under control. Indeed, you might be clinging to this thought because it helps you fight off my general attack against computational functionalism? Not that you should be expected to notice such biases any more than I notice my own. Regardless, I doubt that learning more about philosophy of science than I already know, would pacify me. There are several ways that I’ll always be a rebel, and this particular issue is not even the one I feel most strongly about.
On the exceptions that I asked for, they’ve got to be exceptions that don’t follow the pattern of informing something causally appropriate. Then you could say “See, processed brain information needn’t inform anything causally appropriate for consciousness to result, just like this other situation where information exists independently”. What you’ve instead suggested was tree rings, gravitational waves, and radio waves. These can all be informative, though only potentially so in respect to something causally appropriate that becomes informed by them. It’s useful to say that a clock I see can inform me in that sense, and a clock that I don’t see is not informational in that sense. You’d rather say that the clock is inherently informational, and in order to deny that processed brain information needs to inform something causally appropriate to reside as consciousness. But perhaps once again, you’ll only concede after scientists empirically determine that processed brain information informs an electromagnetic field to reside as consciousness.
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The fact is, few philosophers are going to pay attention if you’re not familiar with the literature. If all you can cite are blog posts for your views (or AI), they’ll quickly write you off. Which I think you should consider as an alternate interpretation of why Massimo ceased engaging.
You can rationalize away my warnings if you want. But consider, have you managed to convince even one professional philosopher yet? If your answer is that all the philosophers you’ve tried so far are just resisting for psychological reasons, what does that say about your chances with the broader profession? At a minimum, a change in tactics seems merited.
On information, so the patterns that are there transform from non-information to information once someone or something is informed? Are we talking about a physical change in the state of those patterns? If so, I’d call this an example of magical thinking Eric. If there is no physical change in state, then why is that definition more productive than one where something is information before someone or something knows it?
In any case, even under your definition, neural processing doesn’t need an exception. It’s informed by the world through the senses, informs itself, and then informs the world through motor output, all in a continuous churn. There’s no logical necessity in that for your preferred answer. You need a better rationale.
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I’ve never implied that epistemology has any effects upon ontology Mike. We’re agreed that this would indeed be magical. You’re of course very skilled in both these sorts of attacks, as well as in defense (and particularly the “I don’t understand” platform). If fate has it that my perspective will at least help break the ice of status quo failure, I’ll always kick plenty of credit back to you. Who knows what lies ahead? For now however, it is indeed fun!
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Maybe there’s a bit of Dunning Kruger effect in play? I don’t know. In general, if I don’t sense a bit of humility in someone, they’re probably a long way away from being a true expert on whatever topic they’re talking about.
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On Dunning Kruger, possibly. But I agree. Stridency more often reflects shallow knowledge than true understanding. Everything is more complicated than it initially looks, and true experts learn caution.
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Particularly with Kastrup, I noted on another forum years ago that if you took everything in physicalism – brain, electron, atom, etc. – and put an “m” in front of it – m_brain, m_electron, m_atom, etc. – to denote they were “really” mental then you could just about sum up his philosophy. The foundation of his mental reality is not much different from the vibrating strings (m_strings, that is) of String Theory.
Here’s a quote:
Inanimate objects: these are excitations of consciousness, like vibrations are excitations of a guitar string or ripples are excitations of water. There is nothing to a vibrating guitar string other than the string itself, yet the string manifests a discernible behavior that we call vibrating. Analogously, there is nothing to a ripple other than water, yet water manifests a discernible behavior that we call rippling. Both behaviors obey certain patterns and regularities that can be modeled mathematically, which is what science does. Now, in exactly the same way, inanimate objects are simply ‘vibrations’ or ‘ripples’ of consciousness and, ultimately, nothing but consciousness itself. They are images in mind of excitations of mind.
https://www.bernardokastrup.com/2014/07/ripples-and-whirlpools.html#:~:text=Inanimate%20objects:%20these%20are%20excitations,and%20'consciousness'%20interchangeably.)
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That fits with his remarks in an interview with Alex O’Conner. In it, he uses the phrase “useful fictions” a lot. He remarked that a scientist once asked him, “Why not just call all this stuff physical?” His reply was that words mattered. He intensely feels like his view is very distinct from both physicalism and panpsychism and can’t see how any alternative makes sense.
It never seems to occur to him that his own ontology itself might just be a useful fiction.
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I had an email exchange with Kastrup once and he readily admits that idealism has its problems. The only defense he offered for his metaphysics is that compared to idealism, materialism is even more absurd.
But, it’s like I asked him: Why do you feel that you have to choose between mind or matter as an explanation? All I got in response was the incredulous stare.
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I am shocked, shocked that he admitted his idealism has problems. Are you sure it was really him?
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One of the dangers of publishing your ideas, particularly when you make a career out of it, is it can make it harder to contemplate alternatives. It involves not just changing your own mind, but changing your public profile.
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What strikes me about Kastrup’s position, and the position of most/all panpsychists, is that I don’t see the motivation for connecting whatever they’re talking about to the word “consciousness”. They could just as well use any word. I think Dennett talked about “niftiness”.
This comes up most often for me in talk about philosophical zombies. I accept that pzombies are conceivable, just as souls are conceivable. But pzombies are conceivable only if consciousness is epiphenomenal, having no impact on anything that happens in the physical world. The consciousness I’m interested in is the one that zombies are talking about when they talk about their own consciousness.
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Those are pretty much my stances as well. The epiphenomenal issue in particular strikes me as a major issue for the p-zombie concept. Chalmers in his book, The Conscious Mind, talks about a number of arguments to avoid it, but from what I recall, they involve things like saying that causality itself is consciousness, or just saying that consciousness is in the intrinsic nature of matter and the cause behind the cause we see, leading to panpsychism and getting to your first point about why call what we’re now talking about “consciousness,”
Like you, I’m more interested the consciousness we actually talk about.
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We could also call it “green cheese,” but by calling it anything we are implying that there is some sameness about it in all its varied forms. Neither “physical” nor “mental” actually have much coherence in their sameness even in their minimalist forms. Perhaps not calling it would make better sense.
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“Neither “physical” nor “mental” actually have much coherence in their sameness even in their minimalist forms.”
Actually they do Jim. That sameness is called motion as a first cause that results in form. Since the underlying physics is identical, why make an ontological distinction between physical and mental?
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I’m saying ontology doesn’t work at all. “Mental” and “physical” only make sense at all in their common usage. A “mental” tree limb doesn’t hurt when it falls on my head; a “physical” tree limb probably would.
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And that’s my point Jim. It’s the common usage that is screwed up, not the ontology.
Physicalism (or materialism) is the scientific doctrine that the physical facts about the world exhaust all of the facts, in that every positive fact is entailed by the physical facts. This is a fair enough characterization, but this explanation is empty until we define “physical.”
I choose to define physical as motion that results in form. Just because mental things can’t be measured objectively doesn’t mean the physics of motion as a first cause that results in form is nonexistent. The physics is consistent across the entirety of complexity.
Additionally, my explanation does not correspond to the common usage of our scientific language either. So I guess I’m S.O.L. to boot.
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I’m content with the menagerie of particles, forces, and fields and the things they produce as a useful, but preliminary, definition of “physical” and one that more or less matches the “physical” limb dropped on my head.
Motion implies some kind of thing that moves, a spacetime it moves in, and usually forces that cause the motion. So, that’s stuff outside your ontology that I can’t see how motion itself accounts for since motion depends on them for its existence. That is, unless you going for some kind “motion in itself” without anything really moving – kind of like a “mental” motion – or sort of like Kastrup’s vibrating strings. Even if motion is critical for form, I would argue that energy is more fundamental as a concept.
Energy is the only life and is from the Body and Reason is the bound or outward circumference of Energy. ― William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell
Physicalism and Idealism are products of Reason.
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“…definition of “physical” and one that more or less matches the “physical” limb dropped on my head.”
Fair enough, but it does not include the “mental” tree limb that doesn’t hurt when it falls on your head; and that’s a problem.
“Energy is the fundamental ability to do work or cause change, existing in many forms.” That is the official stance of physics. Without form there is no energy and without motion as a first cause there is no form. I would argue that as the thing-in-itself, indeterminate intensity that tends is fundamental, and that tendency is toward motion that results in form. And it is only through a very unique and specific type of form that consciousness emerges.
“Physicalism and Idealism are products of Reason.”
Correct; and that metaphysical framework is called subject/object metaphysics (SOM). As you already know, I reject SOM and substitute it with reality/appearance metaphysics (RAM), a framework that does not divide our reality into two ontologies. As a result, I do not have to jump through a menagerie of intellectual hoops in a feeble attempt to reconcile a division that essentially does not exist.
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“Fair enough, but it does not include the “mental” tree limb that doesn’t hurt when it falls on your head; and that’s a problem.”
That’s only a problem if physicalism is your metaphysics and it isn’t in my case. But neither is idealism. But it isn’t dual aspect monism either. It’s none of the above.
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Is your metaphysical position to simply abstain from a commitment of any kind?
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Let me restate something I posted below.
For me it isn’t a question of neutrality. It is more an opposition to any attempt to extrapolate from what we know to some all-encompassing categorization of what reality is.
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“It is more an opposition to any attempt to extrapolate from what we know to some all-encompassing categorization of what reality is.”
I don’t have a problem with that position because not matter what we say about reality it will be woefully incomplete. However, great minds (if there is such a thing) should be able to come up with schemas that are not constituted by metaphors, analogies or projections.
If you’re looking to science or academia for leadership, you’d be better off to swing by Walmart and pick up a lamp to rub.
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If considering it to all be the same type category of stuff doesn’t work, the other option is dualism. But of course that has it own issues.
Personally, I think the monist options solve more problems, but I’ll admit the solutions aren’t intuitive.
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Or other option is nothing at all. Why feel compelled to call the one or the other or both?
If the set of all things in existence contains both mental and physical things, then how can the whole set be described as either “mental” or “physical?”
Of course, you can eliminate the mental things by arguing they are really physical, but then you are still faced with the incoherence of the word “physical.” Mental things can’t be physical from a measurement standpoint, because they can’t be measured objectively. That leaves the menagerie of particles, forces, and fields to explain it away.
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We can always just stay neutral. I have that impulse myself, particularly when people are getting nasty in their disagreements.
That said, I wouldn’t be honest if I didn’t admit my biases skew reductionist and mechanistic. Although evidence is always the final arbiter.
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For me it isn’t a question of neutrality. It is more an opposition to any attempt to extrapolate from what we know to some all-encompassing categorization of what reality is.
But what do you mean by “mechanistic?” If you simply mean physically determined, then additionally describing it as “mechanistic” seems to be misleading. In what way is reality like a machine? The natural world is chaotic with vast areas of unpredictability – hardly like a machine.
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It still seems like when we can isolate variables, we find regularities that don’t vary. Classical physics mostly worked for a reason. The problem is Nature mixes it all up, so it doesn’t help that much with complex systems. Things become more uncertain as we move up levels of abstraction where variables can’t be easily isolated, such as in biology or ecological systems. Still, even at the level of complex system, it’s remarkable what we can predict, even if only probabilistically.
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Yes, but you have captured exactly why the machine metaphor fails.
Machines that don’t work according to exact prediction usually are broken. An adding machine that doesn’t consistently add the same two numbers to the same result would be either be taken on a trip to the repair shop or thrown in the trash.
Chaos and complexity generate order but they only allow prediction because their create a secondary order in their emergent properties.
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And yet complexity is a factor in technological systems. There are well known examples of emergence in Conway’s game of life. And anyone who’s ever had to support complex IT systems knows that they’re behavior is frequently surprising. And that’s all before we get to all the anxiety about AI and our inability to account for how they work. All of these meet the traditional understanding of mechanistic systems.
Things are definitely more complex than the original mechanical philosophy envisioned, but we still use words like “mechanics” to understand things, such as quantum mechanics.
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Conway’s Game of Life is deterministic but not predictable. That is what chaos is definitionally. It’s great example of how complexity and unpredictable order can arise from simple rules even in closed systems.
That is not the same as “surprising behavior” in IT systems where troubleshooting can always find an answer (if it looks hard enough) that could be predicted from knowing the software and the inputs, unless there is an actual defect in the machines.
QM can only predict a statistical range of outcomes until a measurement occurs. Despite its name, I’m not seeing it similar to an adding machine. But the fact that we can trick exact answers (with great difficulty) out of some entangled particles/molecules might make a borderline case for its mechanical nature.
On the other hand, some view quantum indeterminacy is the ultimate underlying noise that generates chaos in the macro-world and makes it unpredictable in the end.
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Conway’s game, IT systems, and AI all run on the same types of hardware. And some of the IT systems I have in mind actually have AI in them.
I know many view quantum mechanics that way; assumptions seem widespread but evidence more limited. And chaos from complex systems would exist even if reality were rigidly deterministic. I also think it’s important to remember that chaos can be quantified and tracked based on the propagation of initial uncertainties. We can’t rule out that QM indeterminism bleeds through within that propagation, but it does seem to put a cap on its influence.
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I’m on the borderline about the effects of quantum indeterminacy. That is, not sure about its potential effects.
It could be uncertainties have embedded in them actual differences at 20th decimal level which we could never detect because of the inherent uncertainty in measurement itself. Either way uncertainty grows as effects propagate and exact prediction becomes impossible.
In CGOL there are no uncertainties, but different starting conditions result in different outcomes with only some showing complex secondary order. Other patterns get stuck in simple unvarying patterns; others don’t change at all. In the natural world, quantum indeterminacy may keep the universe from effectively becoming stuck by providing additional rolls of dice to get us out of bad loops. It might also be a source of novelty.
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Lucky you’re not talking about religion – that gets even more insane. Some religious nutter told me I was destined for the lake of Gehenna as a sinful non believer. I had to tell him, eventually, that I was in fact Gandalf and had defeated the Balrog in the mines of Moria. His wretched Satan was a puny adversary by comparison. Didn’t shut him up of course. I didn’t ban him – it was all far too amusing for that and I hope he will come back for another shot. He was a member of the distinguished Christian Right in the US and insisted, amongst other things, that the world was created 6000 years ago. It seems the debate on consciousness can provide similar amusement.
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When I used to debate religion (before starting this blog), a believer told me that he’d watch me burn in hell one day from a window in heaven. He didn’t mean it in any mean fashion, just earnestly warning what would happen if I didn’t get back on the path. I wouldn’t necessarily block someone like that, at least unless they made a pest out of themselves.
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Memento Mori.
I try to follow Thumper’s mom’s advice.
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Good advice for a lot of situations.
I do think there’s room for reasoned debate. The trick is to focus on the ideas and not the person. As soon as it starts becoming personal, it’s no longer a friendly chat and things tend to escalate.
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Somewhere or other you or somebody else says that until there is a significant scientific breakthrough, there is little point thrashing through the same dull old arguments about consciousness or QM. I feel very much the same.
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Hi Zeno,
I goofed on the reply. It’s below.
https://selfawarepatterns.com/2026/01/31/chill-about-metaphysics/comment-page-1/#comment-177299
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The physical sciences have reached the limits of its capabilities and furthermore, empiricism is not the final arbiter of truth anyway. As you will notice, bullet point number 6 of my latest project establishes that fact as an axiom.
Unlike Eric the philosopher, it is my opinion that we don’t need to reinvent science, we actually need a new field of research. I think the title “Synthetic Sciences” would be appropriate, founded on the principle of bullet point number 6.
Mission Statement:
Institute for Ontic Realism is dedicated to discovering the true nature of reality through metaphysics in correspondence with and in agreement with the findings of the physical sciences. Currently, Institute for Ontic Realism has established six foundational axioms for its ontology.
These axioms are as follows:
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Thank you. I am now fully enlightened 😂
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You might be thinking of this statement I made in the post on the survey of physicists about QM.
I do think we should keep trying to reason as best we can until the data breaks the stalemate. Although we do have to realize we’ll never know if we’ve hit the final answer. Those unhappy with whatever the current answer is can always say we have a “useful fiction” and hold out for a lower level explanation more to their liking.
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I guess maybe it’s worth discussing new insights on existing theories even in the absence of empirical evidence in support. “Your” Ontic Structural Realism for instance has some fascinating implications for consciousness and free will. I can certainly subscribe to “compatibilism” within the OSR context whereas I simply cannot see its use within the traditional deterministic universe. OSR opens up a whole new dimension.
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I’m curious what you’re seeing in “my” OSR that has those implications. OSR is generally seen as compatible with both determinism and indeterminism. My personal bias is it’s all ultimately deterministic, but it’s not a determinism we can ever cash out. QM seems unavoidably random for any particular observer, and even on macroscopic scales, complex systems are impossible to predict with certainty.
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