[MD] The Edge 2006 Annual Question

[Scott Roberts]

Ian,

Ian said:
This takes me back a few years to my first few exchanges on MD, when I
first used the term "bootstrap".

Firstly Yes, even from a physicalist point of view, first cause needs
explaining. It is not exempt from that. It's just the hard bit, the
hole that can only be nibbled at from the outside edge, with a few
bits of conjecture thrown into the middle, so we can review the
ripples at the edge of the unknown.

Scott:
So you think that Leibniz' question "why is there something rather than 
nothing" has an answer? If so, wouldn't that answer consist of some 
somethings, which in turn need explaining? Put another way, it is possible, 
even likely, that the physical laws we now know have a deeper explanation, 
but then that deeper explanation is something and not nothing. How to 
explain them, or their sublaws, etc?

Ian continued:
The point I made (repeatedly now) is that your choice of that
something (rather than nothing) cannot be entirely arbitrary or
arbitrarily fantastic. The more complex the something, the more is
unexplained. That's all.

Scott:
>From this I assume that you consider physical reality to be less complex 
than consciousness. But don't you think so because you assume that 
consciousness emerged from physical reality? Remember the problem that all 
that we know of physical reality has been filtered through sense perception. 
Can we say we understand physical reality without an understanding of 
perception, and if not, doesn't that make physical reality more complex than 
perception?

Ian said:
Are some things ultimately unexplainable ? Maybe, but that'll be for a
reason that itself can be explained - something Godelian I'd guess.

Scott:
Well, this "ultimately unexplainable" is what I assumed something rather 
than nothing to be -- see above. I don't think one needs Godel to see that.

Ian said:
BTW the "eventually get around to" language is pejorative rhetoric.
People have been "around to it" for millenia, they're just getting better at 
it.
Ian

Scott:
I still don't see a whisper of a physicalist explanation, so I think my 
language is justified. Nor have people been thinking about it for millenia. 
It only became a problem when mechanism arose in the 17th century, and I 
think that you would agree that any mechanistic attempt at an explanation 
(such as the "brain excreting thoughts like an organ excreting bile", or the 
behaviorists' totally ignoring consciousness) was of no value at all.

- Scott

On 1/13/06, Scott Roberts <jse885 at localnet.com> wrote:
> Ian,
>
> Ian said:
> As I said before ... so you have something unexplained, even if you
> invent the category of things that don't need explanation. I'm sure
> the physicalists would not be alone in crying - Foul !
>
> Scott:
> What I was trying to distinguish in that category business was my view 
> (that
> consciousness is not the sort of thing that "explanation" applies to, 
> since,
> like value, it is fundamental) from (a) the usual physicalist view (that 
> it
> is something that eventually we will get around to explaining as emerging
> from a non-conscious universe) and (b) the view of Colin McGinn that, 
> though
> he is a materialist of some sort, claims that consciousness is not
> fundamental, yet is unexplainable.
>
> And did I invent the category of things that don't need explanation?
> Wouldn't you say that physical reality does not need explaining, given 
> that
> you are a physicalist? Or do you think "why there is something rather than
> nothing" could conceivably have an explanation?
>
> - Scott
>
> On 1/12/06, Scott Roberts <jse885 at localnet.com> wrote:
> > Ian,
> >
> > Ian said:
> > Scott I agree with your points.
> > Something I said earlier in another conversation with you was that
> > this ineffable gap may be a common theme in any metaphysics, but the
> > size and complexity of the gap in terms of the explanation missing
> > does of course vary. This is the point I have against people like
> > yourself, who (seem to) claim that the gap is bootstrapped by
> > pre-existing "sophisticated" consciousness.
> >
> > Scott:
> > I'm not sure I understand the last sentence. But in any case,  I don't 
> > see
> > consciousness (or DQ) as being a gap in "things that are explained (or
> > explainable)" -- that's only a problem for a physicalist. Rather, I see
> > consciousness as not belonging to the category of things explained,
> > unexplained, explainable, or unexplainable.
> >
> > - Scott
> >