Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 21:38:16 -0800 (PST) From: stapp@thsrv.lbl.gov Reply-To: hpstapp@lbl.gov To: Stanley Klein Subject: Consciousness and Natural Selection [Was: Henry and hard problem] On Tue, 30 Jan 2001, Stanley Klein wrote: > I think the heart of this dialog is the issue we have with > epiphenomenalism. So let me directly ask Henry about it. > First here > are some snippets from the previous exchange: > > > > > [Stan previous] > > > Could you remind me why there is a problem with > evolutionary biology. > > [Henry] > >Unless the thoughts have effects on brains there is no mechanism > >that could keep our thoughts, percepts, and feelings properly in line > >with the physical situation: the consciousness could become > >altogether misaligned with physical reality because no corrective > feed-back could occur to keep it in line. > > >I draw a distinction between conscious feelings, thoughts, ideas > >or perceptions, which are described in psychological language, > >and brain processes, which are descibed in the language > >of physics, neurophysiology, neuroanatomy, chemistry etc. > > > >Until one draws the terminological/categorical distinction there > >is no mind-brain problem. > > > >Evolutionary biology cannot account for the evolution of > >consciousness if consciousness cannot affect the brain. > >So this problem involves the hard problem, namely the causal > >connection between mind and brain. > > > [Stan] > Let me review the epiphenomenal position again. First we have the > 'easy problems' that connect the neural circuitry of feelings, > thoughts, ideas and perceptions to action. Evolution acts on > those circuits because they affect behavior. As I said earlier > my research area is perception. I study mind and try to figure > out the circuits that produce lots of weird illusions. There > are evolutionary reasons that we come up with that explain why the > circuitry of perception evolved as it did. > > Then we have the 'hard problem' (the mind/body problem): how does the > neural circuitry produce subjective feels. That is the "easy" part of the hard problem, and it is not the part that I am concerned about. One can simply postulate that that certain patterns of brain activity generate, or cause, certain experiences. The "hard" part of the hard problem is: How do subjective feels influence brain activities that are already circumscribed by physical laws. How can subjective feels have any effect at all if the deterministic laws of classical physical theory hold. Those laws would exactly determine all brain activity completely in terms of "physical" variables, leaving no room for "subjective feels" to make any difference at all: brain activity is completely specified without acknowledging the existence of any conscious experience; of any feeling, thought, idea, or percept. > I don't understand the > notion that evolution needs to work on the subjective part since the > subjective is so tightly connected with the circuitry. Because of the > tight epiphenomenal coupling consciousness can be thought of as being > efficacious through the neural circuits of consciousness. Free will > would be understood as occurring when decisions are made with heavy > input from the NCC (I actually like having Henry's quantum ontology > for metaphysical reasons when dealing with free will). Now for the > question: Henry, what is the argument against this epiphenomenal > view? It is not an identity theory in that it acknowledges that there > may still be that hard problem. > My answer given above is a compact one-sentence bullet that the wonderfully clear writer Wm. James took two paragraphs to explain. Since this point is so crucial, let me give here James's exposition, of my point, and then also John Searles's. "There is yet another set of facts which seem explicable on the supposition that consciousness has causal efficacy. {ital: It is a well-known fact that pleasures are generally associated with benificial, pains with detrimental, experiences.} All the fundamental vital processes illustrate this law. Starvation, suffocation, privation of food, drink and sleep, work when exhausted, burns, wounds, inflammation, the effects of poison, are as disagreeable as filling the hungry stomach, enjoying rest and sleep after fatigue, exercise after rest, and a sound skin and unbroken bones at all times, are pleasant. Mr. Spencer and others have suggested that these coincidences are due, not to any pre-established harmony, but to the mere action of natural selection which would certainly kill off in the long-run any breed of creatures to whom the fundamentally noxious experiences seemed enjoyable. An anamal that should take pleasure in a feeling of suffocation would, if that pleasure were efficacious enough to make him immerse his head in water, enjoy a longgevity of four or five minutes. But if pleasure and pain have no efficacy, one does not see (without some such {ital: a priori} rational harmony as would be scouted by the `scientific' champions of the automaton-theory) why the most noxious acts such as burning, might not give thrills of delight, and the most necessary ones, such as breathing, cause agony. The exceptions to the law are, it is true, numerous,, but related to experiences that are either not vitalor not universal. Drunkenness, for instance, which though noxious, is to many person's delightful, is a very exceptional experience. But, as the excellentphysiologist Fick remarks, if all rivers and springs ran alcohol instead of water, either all men would now be born to hate it or our nerves would have been selected to drink it with impunity. The only considerable attempt, in fact, that has been made to explain the {ital: distribution} of our feelings is that of Mr. Grant Allen in his suggestive little book {ital: Pschological Aesthetics}: and his reasoning is based exclusively on that causal efficacy of pleasures and pains which the `double aspect' partisans so strenuously deny. "Thus, then, from every point of view the circumstantial evidence against that theory is strong. {ital: A priori} analysis of both brain-action and conscious action shows us that if the latter were efficaious it would, by its selective emphasis, make amends for the indeterminateness of the former; whilst the study {ital: a posteriori} of the {ital: distribution} of consciousness shows it to be exactly such as we might expect in an organ added for the sake of steering a nervous system grown too complex to regulate itself. The conclusion that it is useful is, after all this, quite justifiable. But, if it is useful, it must be so through its causal efficaciousness, and the auto-maton theory must succumb to the theory of common-sense." Wm. James, "Principles of Psycholgy", end of Ch. `Automaton theory'. Searle Considers Hypothesis I: Psychological Libertarianism and Neurological Determinism. .... " is intellectually unsatisfying ...epiphenomenalism ---psychological process ...do mot really matter ... systematic illusion...we experience the process as making a causal difference to out behaviour, but they do not in fact make any difference. The bodily movements would be exactly the same regardless of how these processes occurred. "Maybe that is how it will turn out, but if so, the hypothesis seems to me to rum against everything we know about evolution. It would have the consequence that the incredibly elaborate, complex, sensitive and --- above all --- biologically expensive human and animal conscious rational decision-making would actually make no difference whatever to the life and survival of the organisms." JCS (7/10) 2000. p.15-16. These passages spell out in some detail the problem with Evolutionary Biology that arises if one accepts the idea that deterministic classical physical theory rules the brain. Both James and Searle recognize the obvious conclusion: the causal closure of brain dynamics entailed by classical physical theory does not hold. James suggests that future physical theories would lead to indeterminism, and Searle cites QT. It is a long road from recogizing that classical determinism must fail to showing how QT can fix the problem. But I believe we now have a model of how it could work I do not grasp the meaning of your key assertion: > Because of the > tight epiphenomenal coupling consciousness can be thought of as being > efficacious through the neural circuits of consciousness. Hence I cannot address your question: > Henry, what is the argument against this epiphenomenal > view? But I hope this elaboration of my argument, through the words of James and Searle, will have either answered your question, or will allow you to explain more clearly your counter-proposal. Henry