Mental Causation

You think therefore you are mentally ill as the saying goes.

@philochristos

epiphenomenalism

"a philosophical view that mental events (like thoughts and feelings) are caused by physical events in the brain but do not themselves cause anything." - Darn Google AI

I think concept doesn't 'exist again until it exists.

Potential existence is always there, but until it 'exists written on some paper or a brain, it 'can't do anything.

When my brain thinks this is X Concept, I think the concept is 'written somewhere.

Maybe it's just a problem of classifications, language, and concept awareness.

I vaguely recall some philosophers have wanted to create 'perfect language in the past, I don't think they succeeded.

Maybe it'd take a 'really long time to say anything 'correctly. 'If there 'is any correct way to look and say of existence.

I think there is no problem, we are our body, and our mind is our body.

Mental State is just a way of describing particular Body State.

I think,

1s and 0s in a computer are still physical,

Maybe we talk of Software and Hardware, for ease of communication, I suppose we 'could just say Hardware.

@Rambling

I had a dream last night where I split in two, and fully regenerated.

We found it very upsetting to our. . Value of Ego, Self.

. . .

I don't understand where Mind could come from or 'Be.

I 'think I understand that Material Existence 'Is.

. . I read disturbing fiction now and then where people are changed mentally by physical means.

Arguably emotional, spiritual as well.

. . . I know that in 'Real 'Life, not fiction, people change as well. In reaction to physical experiences.

I don't think there is any 'problem, just a Truth that I find unpleasant.

And I can't really imagine any Theoretical that satisfies me.

Due to my fondness of Ego and Me at the moment, though I'm not who I was, and are not who I'll be. . .

Thanks for the response. I want to say something about the analogy you draw between computers and ourselves.

The ones and zeros in a computer behave independently of what those ones and zeros are about or what they represent. If our brains are analogous to computers in this way, then doesn't the problem of epiphenomenalism (at least in the semantic sense) remain? The chemicals in our brains fizz and react according to the laws of nature, independently of what they represent, what they are about, or what mental states are associated with them.

Besides that, computers don't experience mental states, so the analogy seems to break down. We have this intuition that our thoughts, beliefs, desires, and intentions have some bearing on our behavior by virtue of what they are about. Computers don't have thoughts, beliefs, desires, etc., so there's something missing in the analogy.

Computers and AI work in the abstract where as humans work with experience and past knowledge.

"The ones and zeros in a computer behave independently of what those ones and zeros are about or what they represent. If our brains are analogous to computers in this way, then doesn't the problem of epiphenomenalism (at least in the semantic sense) remain? The chemicals in our brains fizz and react according to the laws of nature, independently of what they represent, what they are about, or what mental states are associated with them."

-philochristos

epiphenomenalism

"a philosophical view that mental events (like thoughts and feelings) are caused by physical events in the brain but do not themselves cause anything." - Darn Google AI

There is not only material, there is shape.

There is not only material, there is weight.

There is not only material, there is attraction.

I'd argue 'concepts are analogous to shape/weight/attraction.

Arrowheads and their shapes, some shapes piercing armor easier, some piercing flesh easier.

X amount of weight breaking X object.

It's just another law of nature, same as with magnetism, magnets and metal.

Placebo effect, morale in an army.

Concepts 'still effect the world,

. . . But I still don't think concepts are immaterial once present.

Ah, this lucky stone will help me run faster, is materially etched in the brain, or electrons like 1s and 0s.

It is an 'idea 'doing something, but that idea is 'still material.

I think representation is 'part of nature.

Just one that one see's more with humans than other parts of nature that we have yet met.

"Besides that, computers don't experience mental states, so the analogy seems to break down. We have this intuition that our thoughts, beliefs, desires, and intentions have some bearing on our behavior by virtue of what they are about. Computers don't have thoughts, beliefs, desires, etc., so there's something missing in the analogy."

-philochristos

Just because we haven't built a computer that can experience a mental state, doesn't mean we couldn't in the future.

Design a computer program to value X, it will behave as though it values X.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YNMkADpvO4w

Simulating the Evolution of Aggression

Write a book on the concept of justice, the concept is written down, it is there,

But it won't effect, unless it is written into a brain, and connects to various other physical human body parts,

We all have various ideas of justice written into our brain by life experiences and learning of the concept from others, that just seeing the book and the title, cause us to read the words 'already written into our brain.

It seems reasonable that thoughts are written onto the brain, because one can rip pages out of a book, one can rip pieces out of a brain.

One can shake an Etch A Sketch, once can shake a brain (Takes a bit longer) but look at boxers in their old age.

The so called “mind/body” problem has been debated for over two thousand years with little, if any, progress towards clarity or understanding.

It’s become quite clear that physicalism’s traditional a priori commitment to materialist presuppositions, reductionist thinking and mechanistic explanations are counterproductive to understanding consciousness. Physicalism is conceptually inadequate.

Consequently, I am a dualist, I believe consciousness should be taken as a “given”. There is nothing demonstrably false about recognizing our experiential reality is a function of two essentially different kinds of things; those that are mental and those that are physical, and I believe consciousness is simply one of the constituents of reality.

The very process by which physicalism attempts to translate qualitative experiences into measurable quantities that do not themselves exhibit the qualitative constituents of experience, fundamentally changes the subject matter of the investigation such that the resultant account of consciousness is a contradiction in terms. It’s become quite clear that science’s traditional a priori commitment to materialist presuppositions, reductionist thinking and mechanistic explanations are counterproductive to understanding consciousness.

Mental causation is a topic I've been interesting in for a few years now. There are different ways of accounting for it, depending on your perspective on the mind/body problem. It strikes me as being an especially difficult problem for people who take the emergent property view. Emergentism seems to lead to epiphenomenalism.

Physicalism’s so called “explanations” of emergentism and/or epiphenomenalism, are contrived attempts to deny the immateriality of consciousness, they offer no argument or evidence that seriously challenges dualistic alternatives. It can’t even be said that they are working hypotheses, because a working hypothesis is one that will rise or fall on the basis of relevant evidence, and there is no “evidence” that could tell for or against these “hypotheses” because they are not scientific hypotheses, they are only phrased as if they were. Invoking either emergentism or epiphenomenalism equates to “giving up” as far as explaining the mental is concerned.

Most people I've pressed on this issue who subscribe to some form of physicalism tend to want to equate mental states with brain states. They're just different ways of talking about the same thing, or they are different levels of abstraction. That does avoid some of the problems with emergentism, but it doesn't resolve the issue to my satisfaction.

On a material level, Consciousness represents a supervenient structure that bears properties that its subvenient parts do not exhibit. Consciousness is not coextensive with brain, it exists independently of material brain as a higher order structure that cannot be decomposed into its parts and their relationships, so it is an ontologically novel entity. It exists independently of the physical materials and properties of its parts and yet, exerts causal influence on events in the world, exerting a causal influence that its constituent components, in sum, cannot exert. Consequently, it has an ontological status of existence without material components, and it logically follows that it is itself a causal agent as well as an entity that is acted upon by external causes.

The reason is because if mental states are the same things as brain states, then sure, you could say there's mental causation since there is physical causation. But it seems to me that in that case, it wouldn't matter what the mental states were about. All that would matter would be the physical structure of the mental states, as far as causation is concerned. So you'd still be left with semantic epiphenomenalism.

Consciousness has causal influence due to its content, not solely because of the physical aspects of its neural correlates. A continuous conscious state includes desires or intentions; it includes the ability to envision a future state and establish a strategy for attaining that state. That makes it more than a purely physical state, it is a conscious state with reference to a future possibility, and no such reference is part of any purely physical state. The self can exert the force of consciousness to some effect in the material world; such conscious states can have causal effect to bring about further states for the sake of values and purposes. Intents, values, and purposes are not reducible to a purely physical state unless one attributes consciousness to the constituent matter itself; consequently, they exist as properties of a consciousness which clearly entails a distinct ontological existence apart from its constituent material components.

I'm just curious about your point of view. I'd like for you to tell me what your point of view is on the mind/body problem (e.g. property dualism, substance dualism, emergentism, reductionism, etc.), and tell me how you explain (or deny) mental causation on your view.

With respect to physicalism held as an empirical hypothesis about the mind/body problem, the evidence against it is overwhelming.

Physicalism is an unwarranted and faith-based ontological commitment which buys us nothing in the way of insight or explanation. The self-evident experiential reality of the interaction between the mental and the physical is undeniable; physicalism is based on denial of the evidence. The so-called interaction problem is contrived, simply declaring the observed and experienced interaction between mind and physical reality is metaphysically impossible is not a coherent argument.

The physicalist argument completely overlooks the fundamental experiential aspect of consciousness. We perceive the world as an integrated whole, a singular field of phenomenal experience where consciousness acts as a dynamic force. As causal agents, we have the capacity to interact with, engage in, and influence the universe. Our interaction with physical reality is inherently transactional.

The strongest argument for the existence mental causation is that we all observe it during every conscious moment, it is a fundamental and significant part of our experiential reality at all times, hence it is self-evident. Consequently, the contrived denial of the possibility of the interaction between the mental and the physical is necessarily a rejection of the very concept of empirical evidence, and the argument against mental causation becomes a rejection without “proof”, which eliminates induction as valid. These two aspects of the approach clearly reject the very basis of science and scientific knowledge, leaving nothing but detached abstractions that have nothing whatsoever to do with the real world.

Philosophy is concerned with saying something which is true or significant, science with doing something which is effective. Science is about the real world, grounded in perceiving and doing, the argument against mental causation is completely abstract and invalidates both perception and doing, it is a complete rejection of science as valid, and philosophically it amounts to a rejection of the very basis of truth and significance.

In the end, there is no valid basis upon which the rejection of mental causation can be said to be true of reality.

>I'd argue 'concepts are analogous to shape/weight/attraction.

I can see how physical things can have causal influence over other physical things by way of their shape/weight/attraction. Those are just physical properties. What I'm having a hard time seeing is how a mental state can have causal influence over something physical, not merely by virtue of its tangible third person properties (e.g. size, weight, charge, etc.), but by virtue of its semantic content, i.e. what it is about. It could be that I'm not explaining myself very clearly.

Take my desire to eat ice cream. Allegedly, this desire has physical properties that can be expressed in teh language of physics and chemistry. There's a certain brain structure associated with that desire. It seems to me it's that brain structure and all its third person properties that affect my behavior, causing me to get up and get some ice cream. But how is it that the felt experience of wanting the ice cream affect my behavior by virtue of the first person subjective experience of it? Do you know what I mean?

Suppose, hypothetically, that there's some physical structure in my brain, some configuration of molecules, neurons, chemical reactions, etc. that cause me to get up and fetch some ice cream. How or why does it matter what the subjective experience associated with that physical structure is? Couldn't it be just anything? If it happened to be associated with the thought that triangles are not circles or that George is a nice name, but it still had the same underlying physical structure, wouldn't it still result in me getting up to get some ice cream?

Do you see what I'm asking? How do our mental states, by virtue of their "aboutness' or "intentionality," affect our behavior? Or does it?

Thank you for that well-thought out response. When you say you're a dualist, I assume you mean a substance dualist rather than a property dualist. I can understand wanting to reject physicalism because of its inability to account for conscious experience, which is incorrigible and undeniable. But it seems to me substance dualism has issues of its own when it comes to mental causation, one of which I was happy to see you brought up.

The so-called interaction problem is contrived, simply declaring the observed and experienced interaction between mind and physical reality is metaphysically impossible is not a coherent argument.

As I think I said before, we do have an intuition that our mental states, by virtue of their intentionality/aboutness, have some causal influence over our behavior. But what puzzles me is how that happens. I've already articulated why I think that's problematic on physicalism, but it seems to me to be problematic on dualism as well.

We have a fairly good understanding of how physical things can have causal influence over other physical things, but how does something that isn't physical have causal influence over something that is? For reductionists, they at least equate mental states with physical states, and that's how they explain it (though it doesn't solve the semantic issue). But how does it work if there's no physical component to mental states--if mental states are part of a non-physical substance of some sort?

Do you just accept that it does happen and leave it an open question as to how it happens? Or do you have some thoughts on the "how"?

"how is it that the felt experience of wanting the ice cream affect my behavior by virtue of the first person subjective experience of it?"

-philochristos

Because you became aware of it.

A robot programmed to eat ice cream when X internal and external parameters are met,

Ice cream is in the freezer external,

Let's say every hour the robot rolls an internal dice, 1-6, 6 it will get ice cream.

6 It will get ice cream, it now wants ice cream.

Maybe if it messed up at work, it rolls a die 1-6, on a 3,4,5,6 it will get ice cream,

It rolls a 1.

It doesn't get ice cream.

Maybe it has more advanced programming, where it keeps rolling every minute, but with a 1-1000 die, on 1000 it will get ice cream,

In a sense it wants ice cream here too, it keeps thinking and trying for it.

"Do you know what I mean?"

-philochristos

I think so,

I'm not fully satisfied with my explanation myself, and I still don't think I 'know what consciousness is.

I worry what I 'think it is,

Then I try to act and ignore that conclusion for other conclusions I like more.

I'm not fully satisfied with my explanation myself, and I still don't think I 'know what consciousness is.

Well, I appreciate you chiming in. I like to hear other people's points of view on things I'm not sure about myself because maybe they'll think of something I hadn't thought of. Or maybe they'll inspire me to look at things from a different perspective. As Sidewalker said, this is a subject people have been debating for a long time without any definite resolution, so I didn't expect to get it all ironed out in one conversation. But I do appreciate your input.

You are in a confused state of consciousness.

I hold the view of complete determinism. In other words, not only does free will not exist, but "your choices" are not your own at all. You cannot possibly choose a different path than the one you will choose, and omniscience vs free will paradox proves that when there is omniscience, choices dont exist but there only exists 1 path and different path cannot be chosen.

Do you think mental states (e.g. beliefs, desires, motives, etc.) play a roll in the causal chain leading to behavior, or are they inert?

They are all part of behaviour and can be analyzed separately.

Do you think mental states (e.g. beliefs, desires, motives, etc.) play a roll in the causal chain leading to behavior, or are they inert?

I do think mental states cause behavior, but its really just going in circle, because behavior can also cause mental states, especially behavior of others. All of it, however, is logically linked to cause. The believers in free will sadly cannot solve the true dichotomy of pattern and random. Pattern is opposite of random. So in this sense, something can either be in pattern or random. There is truly no 3rd option. Both options, however, when applied to human will, disprove free will. If will follows a pattern, where it is linked to some cause, it cannot be free will. If will is random, it is also not free will, not even will, but just dice roll. I have never seen people disprove this argument, yet this argument makes free will logically impossible to exist.

I do think mental states cause behavior

How do you think that happens on your view?

Thank you for that well-thought out response.

Thank you for giving us something of substance to discuss. I'm glad it seems well-thought out, I've been thinking about it for decades.

When you say you're a dualist, I assume you mean a substance dualist rather than a property dualist.

Yes, you could say I'm a substance dualist, but I absolutely hate that term, referring to consciousness as a substance is misleading and jacks up the conversation from the very beginning. Let’s just say I believe the physical world and consciousness are two ontologically distinct kinds of things.

I can understand wanting to reject physicalism because of its inability to account for conscious experience, which is incorrigible and undeniable. But it seems to me substance dualism has issues of its own when it comes to mental causation, one of which I was happy to see you brought up.

The so-called interaction problem is contrived, simply declaring the observed and experienced interaction between mind and physical reality is metaphysically impossible is not a coherent argument.

As I think I said before, we do have an intuition that our mental states, by virtue of their intentionality/aboutness, have some causal influence over our behavior.

I'm not usually a semantic stickler, but I don't think it's helpful to call it an intuition, if your philosophy is to be grounded in reality, then it is more appropriate to consider it an observation. It is a straightforward and undeniable fact that we observe the interaction of the mental and physical during most of our waking moments.

It is true that minds perceive intra-mental states differently from sensory phenomena, and this cognitive difference results in mental and physical phenomena having seemingly disparate properties, but that should have no bearing on our understanding of causation between the two.

But what puzzles me is how that happens. I've already articulated why I think that's problematic on physicalism, but it seems to me to be problematic on dualism as well.

We have a fairly good understanding of how physical things can have causal influence over other physical things, but how does something that isn't physical have causal influence over something that is?

I don’t really think there is a dichotomy there, I think our understanding of both are the same.

David Hume defined how we understand cause and effect, and three hundred years later I don’t think our understanding has changed all that much. Our current understanding of cause and effect does not involve any kind of explanatory causal power or forces, we do not understand cause and effect to be rationally related through logical deduction, causation is inductively presumed. The extent of our understanding of causation results from observations of the sequencing of events that are presumed to be related. That’s why science is inductive, what science presents to us are generalizations of observed patterns of the sequence of events that we understand to be cause and effect. That’s also why science is descriptive rather than explanatory. Causation is based on the observation of patterns in nature; science can tell us that force equals mass times acceleration (f=ma), which is nothing but a mathematical generalization of the observations, but it does explain to us why f=ma, nor does it tell us why force doesn’t equal mass squared times acceleration times 4.

So, if that is our understanding of how physical things have causal influence over other physical things, why isn’t it the same with our understanding of something that isn’t physical. As I already mentioned, we observe that our mental thoughts have causal effects in the physical world, it would be a pretty good trick to type an argument that proves that it is metaphysically impossible to type the argument. Our understanding of causation between immaterial thoughts and the material world should similarly be a matter of observing the sequential connection between an intention and the resultant action in the physical world.

For reductionists, they at least equate mental states with physical states, and that's how they explain it (though it doesn't solve the semantic issue). But how does it work if there's no physical component to mental states--if mental states are part of a non-physical substance of some sort?

Do you just accept that it does happen and leave it an open question as to how it happens? Or do you have some thoughts on the "how"?

I’ve been typically verbose already, but I’d also like to point out that there is nothing illogical or unscientific about this analysis.

A large part of current physical science examines non-physical realities, including other dimensions, and the fact is that current scientific understanding is that you cannot reduce all of reality to a single ontological level; it certainly doesn’t in any way say that all of reality is purely physical,

In science there are plenty of things that are not physical, but that have causal power to affect things that are physical, in fact, the study of immaterial entities are foundational to physics. The concept of a field in physics is not a physical or material thing, but it has an effect on physical objects. Newtonian gravity is a field that has an observable and measurable effect on anything with mass, but it is certainly an immaterial thing. In Relativity theory, gravity is a curvature of spacetime, still not a physical or material thing. All of the unifying theories of physics postulate more dimensions, most reference ten or eleven dimensions, that is to say that reality ultimately consists of at least six additional dimensions that transcend the four-dimensional frame of reference of physicalism. Physicalism is not supported by science, quite the opposite, physicalism would require the causal closure of the material world and science pretty much abandoned the attempt to demonstrate that over a hundred years ago. In fact, Kurt Godel provided a logically consistent proof that such causal closure is impossible, even in principle. 

When science drilled down into the material world as far as it could, it found the physical world to consist of probability waves in Hilbert space, “particles” that move from place to place without traveling the distance in between, and a very strong argument that a conscious observation is required to collapse the wave function making potential reality become actual. Physical science does not support the argument that the mental is an effect of the material world, it does make a strong argument that the physical world is an effect of the mental.

Even the mentally ill shape the physical world according to their image. Eg Hitler and Trump.