Truth, Knowledge, and Belief: An Exploration

[disillusioned]

Very briefly, regarding the free will article linked to above: a very interesting read, but I don't find that there's anything in it to challenge my position.

 

Consciousness is one of the things that the brain does. Because the brain does consciousness, we are capable of choice. This doesn't mean that we don't sometimes act instinctually/automatically. Another thing that the brain does is to cause us to react reflexively. But, when sufficent time is available, we can overcome our insticts and behave in the ways that we choose. Or, at least, so it seems to me.

[disillusioned]

I want to have a go at the hard problem of consciousness. Briefly, the hard problem of consciousness is to explain how consciousness can arise out of unconscious matter. The challenge, in other words, is to give an account of consciousness and how it arises that is based in fundamental physics, and nothing else.

 

Now, if you've read this thread then you are likely already aware of my view that consciousness exists, and that it is one of the things that the brain does. This is a (roughly) similar claim to the fact that digestion exists, and it is one of the things that the stomach does. I acknowledge that the brain consists of atoms, molecules, etc, and that it must therefore be the case that consciousness emerges from the interaction of these physical objects in some way. I haven't got the faintest idea how this happens, but it must happen, because we are conscious.

 

Now, the above is not a solution to the hard problem. In fact, what I'm going to try to show here is that there can't be a solution, because the problem is poorly constructed. Notice that I claim that it must be the case that consciousness emerges, but I specifically do not give an account of how that happens. I actually think that this is all we can ever hope to do. To illustrate why, we need to go all the way back to basics.

 

We are biological creatures, which have evolved in a particular environment. As we know, evolution favours traits that enable creatures to survive and reproduce in their environments. It does not favour traits which are, in general, correct, just those which allow for survival/reproduction of a particular species in a particular environment. Take a fish and throw it in a field, and its gills won't work very well. It isn't that the gills are bad, its just that they are not good at extracting oxygen from the air.

 

This much, I think, is relatively straightforward. However, it follows from this that our cognitive abilities are traits which have been beneficial to the survival and reproduction of our species. We have no reason at all to think anything other than this. When we do science, we are using our evolved consciousness to build models of our surroundings. As the models get more sophisticated, we gradually move from treating only our immediate experiences to doing fundamental physics. We build epistemically objective models of an ontologically objective world, to put it in the language of the thread. And this is great. It lets us do all kinds of wonderful things. But, we need to be careful that we don't get carried away. The models never perfectly match the world. Thus, the laws of the models are not laws of the universe per se. They are just laws of our models of the universe.

 

Physics, on this view, is a product of our consciousness. It is an epistemically objective model of the world. When we are doing physics, therefore, we are trying to get at ontological truth via an epistemic model. What we end up generating is knowledge, and as we've seen already, knowledge is not certainty. This has already been covered in this thread.

 

Now, where is the relevance to the hard problem? Well, consider it carefully in light of the above story. The hard problem is to give an account of consciousness that is based in fundamental physics. Well, I've just given an account of physics that is based in consciousness. If what I've said above is correct, then there can't be the type of account that the hard problem demands which avoids falling into circularity.

 

Again, I don't mean to say that we aren't physical objects, or that our consciousness doesn't somehow arise out of the interactions of particles, molecules, and so on. What I am saying is that when we do physics, we are relying on consciousness. It shouldn't, therefore,  be surprising that we find ourselves unable to give an account of consciousness based in physics. That's trying to put the cart before the horse. So, on my current view, it isn't the case that the hard problem of consciousness can be solved; it's that it's an illusory problem. Therefore, it doesn't need to be solved. In fact, it specifically can't be solved, because what it asks for isn't possible. But it also isn't necessary.

 

As it turns out, then, if this is correct, there simply is no hard problem of consciousness.

[◊ Krowb ◊]

6 hours ago, disillusioned said:

Thus, the laws of the models are not laws of the universe per se. They are just laws of our models of the universe.

This specifically bears repeating.