Further reading matter.

[zotz]

Yesterday there was a Guardian article about the philosopher (and sculptor, and jazz pianist, and sailor, and cidermaker . . .) Dan Dennett, who it turns out is a man too talented to be allowed to live. I have recommended his work to some of you before - especially Consciousness Explained and Darwin's dangerous Idea.

Comments

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

How so? To posit new physics before discounting the possibility that existing physics could account for what you observe would seem to be a very straightforward case of multiplying entities beyond necessity.

Roentegen was excited by the flourescence he observed from his Crookes tube because he took many steps to ensure that it could not be caused by anything already known in physics, and must therefore be the result of a new kind of ray. Becquerel knew that the fogging he saw on photographic plates was not a result of exposure to light, and no existing theory said that uranium salts could fog unexposed plates. Physics advances entirely through solving problems with existing theory (sometimes phenomena it can't account for, sometimes internal problems). It could hardly advance by someone positing a new theory for every leaf fall.

[steer.livejournal.com]

How so? To posit new physics before discounting the possibility that existing physics could account for what you observe would seem to be a very straightforward case of multiplying entities beyond necessity.

Well, perhaps we don't want to go to far down this argument because I think it is something of a side issue. It is usually impossible to know when the possibility of existing physics explaining a phenomenon can be discounted. Worse, it is usually subject to extreme controversy. Take Einstein's 1905 paper on quanta and black body radiation. At the time, most physics argued that there were perfectly acceptable explanations within the body of conventional physics it was just nobody had come up with them.

In the case of consciousness, we have nothing which approaches an explanation through conventional physics (I take it you would agree with that?). This does not, of course, mean that such an explanation is possible, but certainly it justifies the attempt to look for something more.

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

We were arguing about burden of proof. Even in the cases you cite, the burden of proof was on Einstein to argue that it wasn't just a failure of imagination, but that it would fundamentally not be possible to account for the photoelectric effect in classical mechanics.

Penrose recognises this, which is why he attempts to demonstrate the same for consciousness.

To me, trying to solve the problems with consciousness by extending physical law is as bizarre as trying to solve some mystery with the course of the English Civil War by extending physical law. I just don't see that any of the problems are of the sort that would be solved that way. But then, I also probably don't see the problems as even close to as severe as you do - for the most part I think Dennett's account in "Consciousness Explained" is about right.

[steer.livejournal.com]

We were arguing about burden of proof.

Indeed - but surely we were arguing more precisely about whether one needs to establish that "classical" explanations are insufficient (which Einstein did not do) or whether it is sufficient to have a new explanation with more predictive power (which I admit Penrose does not yet have).

for the most part I think Dennett's account in "Consciousness Explained" is about right.

(Grin) There I feel is where we fundamentally differ but that is another and a very long discussion. For me it is a beautiful book, intelligently written by a philosopher I admire tremendously, but a better title would have been "consciousness ignored."