CF Debate

US Economy Argument

IdentityEpiphenomenalismEntity predictionsTargets functionalism

Overview

Existing materialist theories of consciousness identify various general principles for consciousness that we can identify also in spatially distributed group entities, such as the US Economy today or alternatives that we might imagine in the future. Such general principles are primarily special types of function, including global broadcast, higher order representation, predictive processing, self-modelling, world-modelling, self-preservation, energy generation, etc.

Responses

  1. Reject existing CF principles derived from materialist theories of consciousness and instead define a sufficiently complex or nuanced algorithm that would differentiate genuinely conscious beings from unconscious spatially distributed group entities.

    BUT: Need to motivate the specific algorithm that would never apply to any spatially distributed group entity, which then needs to be assessed on its own merits.

  2. Accept that spatially distributed group entities can be conscious.

    BUT: Need to either accept that consciousness of this style is epiphenomenal (see phenomenal binding problem) or identify some specific causality that cannot be explained by the interaction of its parts, where that causality is also relevant for the nature of consciousness in the system.

    The latter would typically require adopting a different view of causality/existence to the usual CF approach (in which logic gates/algorithms can be fully reduced to their parts), e.g. a mereology which creates (ontological) emergence perhaps by removing intrinsic existence from lower level entities, being the approach in Integrated Information Theory.

    Alternatively, other notions of causality beyond contemporary physics could be explored, such as allowing for co-causality across mental and physical aspects in certain forms of dualism, whether coincidental in nature or constrained by law, or rejecting the fundamental nature of physics equations in favour of strong emergence.

Further reading

Do you find this argument strong or weak?