I've been reading some of the responses to the Edge 2015 question "What do you think about machines that think?":
http://edge.org/contributors/q2015 Lee Smolin's contribution contains the following statement: "So let us hypothesize that qualia are internal properties of some brain processes. When observed from the outside, those brain processes can be described in terms of motions, potentials, masses, charges. But they have additional internal properties, which sometimes include qualia. Qualia must be extreme cases of being purely internal. More complex aspects of mind may turn out to be combinations of relational and internal properties." This formulation seems to be a version of panpsychism. Earlier in the piece, Smolin states a commitment to 'naturalism', which I presume commits him ultimately to grounding all explanation in the material (whatever that may specifically entail). Within this framework, his hypothesis is that there are internal properties of matter that are inaccessible to external observation. Such internal properties must be involved, he says, in the phenomenon of qualia (their 'extreme' form) and in addition they are somehow implicated in other more 'complex' aspects of mind. My question is this: is this position just obviously wrong? My reason for asking it is that ISTM that Smolin and other proponents of this view seem to entirely miss the glaring problem of reference. Smolin suggests that "the more complex aspects of mind may turn out to be combinations of relational and internal properties". But if this were indeed the case, how are such relational (i.e. observable) properties (which, lest we forget , are supposed to constitute a closed causal system) supposed to refer to (i.e. be lawfully or logically connected with) those that are 'internal' (i.e. unobservable)? Is this supposed to be a merely adventitious parallelism, on the lines of epiphenomenalism? If it were, it would leave the mysteries untouched, in my view. ISTM that panpsychist notions such as these founder hopelessly on this issue, even though it doesn't seem to be generally recognised as their Achilles' heel. Any thoughts? -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
