[Serious Phil] Rejecting the Hypothesis of Phenomenal Information

[Peter D]

--- In Phil-Sci-Mind at yahoogroups.com, "truthhunter55" <Philscimind at ...> wrote:

A very insightful comment. SWM should study this carefully.

> I think that "this is not the whole of it since the empirical issue is paramount." is correct. There is one type of base that that type of explanation does not cover. Here is what I mean:
> 
> I think you have to be careful with using the word "explains". The reason has nothing to do with the "consciousness" or "qualia" issue per se. It has to do with how physicists view "explanation". If I lay out the mass of the proton and neutron (or quarks) and electron and assert that a certain isotope of Helium is made of so many of each then I can say that I have explained the mass of Helium. But if you say why does the proton have a certain mass then physicists will say that there is no explanation. In other words the mass of the fundamental particles is not derivable from that theory. The theory says what it is, but does not derive it. The fact is "empirical" in the sense that you use it I think. Now that makes it a target, and they are trying to find some explanation for these masses with the CERN large hadron collider. They may get to where they explain that but that will leave new unexplained things and the process repeats with more and more general theories but never with completely eliminating their assumptions.
> 
> Now when you say that "Dennet has a model" I thought originally you meant that he had eliminated an assumption with an explanation. That there was a way that he was able to show why consciousness will result if matter of a certain structure moves a certain way. That he had a way of *eliminating* an assumption of "non-physically observable" properties of matter. But in fact Dennet has no such model or explanation and indeed in posts that you have made - the video on magic, I think - he may claim even that that kind of explanation would be impossible. His multi-draft model does not predict that a certain motion of the brain will result in consciousness based on the nature of that motion, but posits (assumes) that certain types of motion of matter will be conscious under certain conditions and that the brain may be an instance of these general principle and therefore that these general principles explain the consciousness of the brain like in any other science. I think that is true.
> 
> I think that what you mean by explanation is then not that a particular physically observable motion of the brain implies that it is conscious but only that if we make the assumption that matter is configured and moves in such and such a way then the fact of experience can be assigned to that structure and motion "as being it". Thereafter the theory will then be able to predict what structures will be conscious based solely on their motion. (Whether we can test it is another matter)
> 
> Traditionally in physics an "assumption" is an "unexplained assumption". But in fairness all of physics makes assumptions like that and uses them to produce explanations so the only difference here would be that what is being explained is no longer the "physically observable" properties which I think you consider a small matter or at least that the term "physical" should not be reduced to only what is "physically observable". 
> 
> We must remember to make explicit the fact that the presence of "not physically observable properties" is not predicted by a theory of "physically observable properties". Additional assumptions are required.
> 
> As Dennet says it is the only explanation that can be had. That I think is correct. But it is based on assumptions not derived as a conclusion solely from the motion of the apparatus.
> 
> Just as science posited the mass of the proton (and other particles) and then used that to explain the mass of a helium atom so Dennet may assume "not physically observable" properties of matter exist and then use them to explain how the consciousness of the brain works. This is ordinary brain science and it is surely possible and surely useful. However, one must be clear that there is no way to explain the fact of properties that are "not physically observable" by the ones that are. It requires an assumption. 
> 
> Science tries to eliminate these assumptions precisely because they are elements of the theory that are not based on explanation but are used in explanation. Science tries to eliminate as many of these assumptions as are possible and that is why and how it achieves more and more generality. One should not however mask whether these assumptions are present and when you claim that it covers "all the bases" necessary you should exclude the kind of explanation that can be had where an assumption is replaced by an explanation.
> 
> There is no model solely of the physically observable properties of matter that predicts that there will be a non physically observable property of that matter. You have to posit that there are non-physically observable properties. In that sense there is no explanation. That sense usually counts in science. Like all science, a science of consciousness, requires assumptions that do not count as explanation and tries to see where it makes them.  You have to be careful that you do not imply that Dennet has eliminated the need for an assumption of "non-physically observable properties" in his theory and explained in that sense.
> 
> By the way, my read is that your theory is actually not Dennet's but Chalmers because of the presence of those assumptions. In this post I have described what I think you think Dennet's theory is not what I think he would necessarily say. He seems to come down on both sides.
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