Philosophical Speculations

Hello all,

I've been following Kastrup's work for a while now and thought I'd join the message board for the first time. In doing some research on current materialist theories of consciousness, I stumbled upon this paper by Mark Solms - https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10 ... 14/full#h6

It's quite long and I'm having quite a bit of trouble understanding it, but it seems to rely on something called the Free Energy Principle (which judging by the response I have seen, is not well received) and traces consciousness to homeostasis. The conclusion to the paper is as follows;

"In this paper, I have drawn attention to two impediments to solving the “hard problem” of consciousness—one philosophical and one scientific—and I have suggested how these impediments might be removed. The first is the popular idea that the brain “produces” consciousness, i.e., that physiological processes literally turn into experiences, through some curious metaphysical transformation. The second impediment is the conventional notion that consciousness is a function of cerebral cortex, i.e., that visual awareness (or any other form of conscious cognition) serves as the model example of consciousness. Adopting a dual-aspect monist position on the philosophical mind/body problem allows us to find the causal mechanism of consciousness not in the manifest brain but rather in its functional organization, which ultimately underpins both the physiological and the psychological manifestations of experience. In order to transcend the figurative language of dualism, this unifying (monist) organization should be described in abstract terms (i.e., neither in physiological nor psychological terms but rather in mathematical ones). ‘Against this background,’ I (like Damasio and others) suggest that the long-sought mechanism of consciousness is to be found in an extended form of homeostasis, which describes the mode of functioning of both the deep brainstem nuclei that provide the NCC of affective arousal and the experience of feeling itself (which appears to be the foundational form of consciousness). This type of homeostasis (formalized here as free-energy minimization) entails the generation of affects (formalized as homeostatic prediction errors) which must be contextually prioritized in relation to each other and not-system events (formalized as precision weighting), leading to modulation of perception and action (formalized as error correction) on the basis of felt uncertainty. This modulatory arousal process, in turn, leads to learning from experience through reconsolidation, which bestows an enormous adaptive advantage over simpler types of homeostasis—such as those found in autonomic (involuntary) nervous systems and refrigerators—the advantage being a capacity for life-preserving intentional behavior in unpredicted situations."

What confused me about this paper is that I'm used to seeing neuroscientists fail to interact with the philosophical literature. However, Solms seems quite well versed in Philosophy of Mind, citing Chalmers, Crick and Searle in the paper. Of course, like most origins of consciousness, the framing inevitably ends up being materialism vs dualism, although to give credit where it is due, Solms opts for a form of dual aspect monism.

I'm wondering if anyone can help make sense of this paper and the implications it has for idealism. I'm usually not impressed by materialists theories of mind but this one has me thoroughly baffled. Any light that can be shined on this would be most appreciated.

There is no doubt the "hard problem" can be resolved within the dual aspect monism, this is what Chalmers suggested long time ago. This paper just discusses the details of how the adaptive learning processes in the neural networks of the brain might be correlated with conscious experiences.

Eugene I wrote: ↑Thu Aug 19, 2021 3:33 pm There is no doubt the "hard problem" can be resolved within the dual aspect monism, this is what Chalmers suggested long time ago. This paper just discusses the details of how the adaptive learning processes in the neural networks of the brain might be correlated with conscious experiences.

Any problems for idealism here? It seems like he wants to say that consciousness emerged from complex natural choices (although his definition of consciousness seems limited to feeling. Plus, he thinks that one is unconscious while they are asleep/comatose)

Forwardon82 wrote: ↑Thu Aug 19, 2021 11:10 pm Any problems for idealism here? It seems like he wants to say that consciousness emerged from complex natural choices (although his definition of consciousness seems limited to feeling. Plus, he thinks that one is unconscious while they are asleep/comatose)

I think in dual property monism the particulars of conscious phenomena emerge from natural neural states, but the conscious experiencing of those phenomena ("what it is like" to experience them) is not emergent but fundamental property/aspect of the ontic fundamental. In such approach the "hard problem" does not arise. Another name for this metaphysical scheme is panpsychism. The problem for idealism here is that it is the idealism's competitor in metaphysics. There are still serious problems that panpsychism is facing, one of them is the subject combination problem.