Life and awareness

Here's an interesting argument that ties together some of the issues we've been discussing on this blog. It comes from There Is a God: How the World's Most Notorious Atheist Changed His Mind, by Antony Flew with Roy Abraham Varghese.

Before continuing, I should acknowledge that some people disparage this book because Flew, who is quite elderly and suffers from aphasia, did not write it himself - as he has admitted. It was written by his coauthor, Roy Abraham Varghese. However, Flew says the book was based on his discussions with Varghese, and that he read the book and approved it as an accurate presentation of his ideas.

In any case, the controversy is largely irrelevant to this excerpt, which is taken from Appendix A. Unlike the body of the book, this appendix is credited exclusively to Varghese and reflects his ideas.

The part of the argument that concerns us begins with the always provocative topic of the origin of life. According to Varghese,

... current discussions on the question don't seem to even be aware of the key issues. There are four dimensions of living beings. Such beings are agents, goal seekers, and self-replicators, and fourthly, they are semiotically driven (their existence depends on the interplay between codes and chemistry). Each and every living being acts or is capable of action. And each such being is the unified source and center of all its actions. Since these agents are capable of surviving and acting independently, their actions are in some fashion driven by goals (nourishment), and they can reproduce themselves; they are therefore goal-seeking, self-replicating autonomous agents. Moreover, as Howard H. Pattee points out, you find in living beings the interaction of semiotic processes (rules, codes, languages, information, control) and physical systems (laws, dynamics, energy, forces, matter)....

He then segues into a discussion of consciousness or awareness  ("We are conscious, and conscious that we are conscious.... [A]ll mental actions are accompanied by conscious states, states in which we are aware of what we are doing") and of the related "phenomenon of thought, of understanding, seeing meaning."

But who or what understands? The brain? No.

[S]trictly speaking, your brain does not understand. You understand. Your brain enables you to understand, but not because your thoughts take place in the brain or because "you" cause certain neurons to fire. Rather, your act of understanding that eliminating poverty is a good thing, to take an instance, is a holistic process that is supraphysical in essence (meaning) and physical in execution (words and neurons). The act cannot be split into supraphysical and physical, because it is an indivisible act of an agent that is intrinsically physical and supraphysical....

Many misconceptions about the nature of thought arise from misconceptions about computers. But let's say we are dealing with a supercomputer like the Blue Gene, which does over two hundred trillion calculations per second. Our first mistake is to assume that Blue Gene is an "it" like a bacterium or a bumble bee. In the case of the bacterium or the bumblebee we're dealing with an agent, a center of action that is an organically unified whole, an organism. All its actions are driven by the goals of maintaining itself in existence and replicating. Blue Gene is a bundle of parts that jointly or severally perform functions "implanted" and directed by the creators of the collection.

Second, the bundle of parts does not know what "it" is doing when "it" performs a transaction.... There is no awareness, understanding, meaning, intention, or person involved when the computer performs [its] actions, even when the computer has multiple processors operating at superhuman speeds.... To suggest that the computer "understands" what it is doing is like saying that a power line can meditate on the question of free will and determinism, or that the chemicals in a test tube can apply the principle of contradiction in solving a problem, or that a DVD player understands and enjoys the music it plays....

The ultimate supraphysical/physical reality that we know from experience is the experiencer itself, namely, ourselves....

Varghese quotes David Hume's A Treatise of Human Nature: "When I enter most intimately into what I call myself,... I never can catch myself at any time without a perception, and never can observe anything but the perception." Then he asks:

But what is it that unifies [Hume's] various experiences, that enables him to be aware of the external world, and that remains the same throughout? Who's asking these questions? He assumes that "myself" is an observable state like his thoughts and feelings. But the self is not something that can be thus observed. It is a constant fact of experience and, in fact, the ground of all experience....

The most fundamental reality of which we are all aware, then, is the human self, and an understanding of the self inevitably sheds insights on all the origin questions and makes sense of reality as a whole....

So how did life, consciousness, thought, and the self come to be? ... The phenomena in question range from code and symbol-processing systems and goal-seeking, intention-manifesting agents at one hand to subjective awareness, conceptual thought, and the human self at the other. The only coherent way to describe these phenomena is to say that they are different dimensions of being that are supraphysical in one way or another. They are totally integrated with the physical and yet radically "new." We are not talking here of ghosts in machines, but of agents of different kinds, some that are conscious, others that are both conscious and thinking.

Comments

[Tony M]

Thanks, that was brilliant

[Michael H]

But who or what understands? The brain? No.

I'm reminded of the anecdote Craig Hamilton shares his 2005 exploration of consciousness studies, "Is God All in Your Head?":

In a recent New York Times column entitled “The Duel Between Body and Soul,” developmental psychologist Paul Bloom describes a conversation he had with his six-year-old son, Max, in which he asked him about the function of the brain: “[Max] said that it is very important and involved in a lot of thinking—but it is not the source of dreaming or feeling sad or loving his brother. Max said that’s what he does, though he admitted that his brain might help him out.” Bloom, who clearly aligns himself with the neuroscientific perspective, goes on to explain that “studies from developmental psychology suggest that young children do not see their brain as the source of conscious experience and will. They see it instead as a tool we use for certain mental operations. It is a cognitive prosthesis, added to the soul to increase its computing power.”

Kids already have a great grip on reality, until we educate them out of it. I'm sure Bloom has set Max straight by now.

As Varghese implies with the question, "Who's asking these questions?", it appears that the self Hume was trying to 'catch' was the self he was searching with.

[Rufus]

Maybe the author's line of reasoning led him to think there is a God but it wouldn't convince me. I don't object to the notions of intelligent design in the origin of life and evolution, or that consciousness does not arise from matter. However my reasoning is completely different. It is based on the much more evidential case for the afterlife. Once you recognize spirits exists, you have the likelyhood that there is a civilization (of spirits) in our universe much older than humankind. If mind is independent of matter you have eternity or at least the begining of the big bang from which to begin its development.

Once you have an acient non-material civilization and the observation that they like to send their children to school as physical beings, you can suspect that they might, using immeasurably ancient technology, create worlds or even universes for themsleves to incarnate in. We would call such beings gods.

I don't see the difficulty of evolving agents and goal seekers once you have a minimal self replicator available for evolution. I don't see the impossibility of such a self replicator arising through self-organization either. In the next post there is a discussion about ideas proved by science that were doubted in the beginning. Apply this to the origin of life and the origin of consciousness. Saying "it's impossible" has a very poor track record if you look at the history of science. I don't see how Flew's line of reasoning is going to impress anyone who understands science or has experienced how science works.

I haven't read the book. Is there any theoretical or mathematical argument as to why life and consciousness can't arise by un-intelligent means? Or, does he just say in effect "I doubt it"?

One can equally ask me what evidence I have about evolution - no one was there when life evolved. But, remember, I'm not convinced about evolution either.

What I claim to be convincing is the evidence from the cross correspondences etc.

I guess I am wondering, Michael Prescott, if your belief in the paranormal is influencing your judgement about the strength of Flew's type of reasoning. Are the conclusions correct? Maybe. Likely. Is his reasoning logical and compelling? I don't see it.

Should we be using this line of reasoning to "convert" materialists? I don't think so because, in my opinion, compared to the evidence for the afterlife and other paranormal phenomena, Flew's arguments weakens the case and distracts from much better arguments. Why resort to speculation when other lines of argument are based on proven facts?

Should we discuss it because it's interesting, and may lead to creative thinking in some form or another? I suppose so, it seems to be generating a lot of comments.

[Kevin]

No matter which variation of the argument we consider, we are left still with the fundamental realization that material neuroscience is (and,most likely, will continue to be) unable to solve the "Homunculus Problem", that being the origin of conscious intent.

As Michael H. implies in his offering, one of the great difficulties of understanding consciousness is that we have only our consciousness with which to ATTEMPT to understand it. Thus, for Rufus to ask about the possibility of "any theoretical or mathematical argument as to why life and consciousness can't arise by un-intelligent (sic) means" may well be moot. If this existence our consciousness is perceiving (including that consciousness itself) is the result of intelligent design, we would have nothing outside of that design with which to compare it. No form of argument, no system of logic, could either be perceived or created which was not derived from, existent in, or comparable to that a priori design. Asking MP if his attitudes concerning the paranormal have colored his judgements could as well be asked of anyone holding any preconceived notions about anything. We should stress to the advocates of materialist science that science itself is concerned with probabilities and not proof. The comparatively short history of science holds too many examples of "proven facts" which were subsequently overturned by further studies and accepted observations which ran counter to the "accepted consensus" previously held dear.

[Ulysses]

Rufus’ questions to MP make sense, but in a different way, as far as I understand it. I would paraphrase the questions asking if all the current debates between atheists and religious people about the existence of God is distracting everyone about the more practical question about the reality of the spirit world? Even more, would we ever be able to arrive to a conclusion about the existence of God if we cannot even agree on the “definition” of what God is? And if the reality of the spirit world could be established beyond a reasonable doubt, would that imply that there is fact a God? And what about the concept of Spirit (in uppercase)? If we define Spirit as the community of all spirits connected, can Spirit be synonym of God?

[Michael Prescott]

I guess I am wondering, Michael Prescott, if your belief in the paranormal is influencing your judgment about the strength of Flew's type of reasoning.

Actually, I studied the arguments for the fine-tuning of the universe and the "design" aspects of life before I ever started looking into the question of the afterlife. Back then (in the late '90s), I found the idea of life after death too unlikely to be worth looking at, but I was intrigued by the sort of arguments that Flew's book cites.

One of the books that first got me thinking seriously that there might be a God was Darwin's Black Box, by Michael Behe. I know this book has come under heavy fire from Darwinists, but I still find Behe's arguments intriguing. The issue of cosmological fine-tuning also influenced me quite a bit; I remember reading about it in God: The Evidence, by Patrick Glynn, another very worthwhile book.

It was only later that I started looking into NDEs and then, eventually, mediumship (about which I was initially very skeptical). It was John Edward's TV show Crossing Over that got me thinking about mediumship; when I searched the Web for a good skeptical debunking of it, I found only lame "cold reading" arguments. This made me start to wonder if Edward might be for real. But that was a relatively late development.

So, for me at least, the design/fine-tuning arguments are the ones that got me started on this road. But I don't think it matters where you start. What matters is where you end up!

[Michael H]

If this existence our consciousness is perceiving (including that consciousness itself) is the result of intelligent design, we would have nothing outside of that design with which to compare it. No form of argument, no system of logic, could either be perceived or created which was not derived from, existent in, or comparable to that a priori design.

Flew has identified himself as a deist, and many look at the order and organization evident in the physical cosmos as an implied proof of their particular theology. Each of these ideas suggest a designer outside of nature that set the creation in motion at a fixed time in the distant past, before stepping back to watch it all unfold.

As Kevin states, though, the consciousness question itself may be unanswerable. Yet, the consistency of mystical testimony of all traditions speaks to something even deeper than the idea that the individual consciousness may itself be a product of design. From the writings of Christian mystics Meister Eckhart, Jacob Boehme and William Blake, to the eastern concepts of the Tao and "Brahman and Atman are One", the recurring theme is the same: on the deepest level within us we discover that the design and the designer are one and the same, and remains fully present. Immanence is not expressed as a theory; the mystics unanimously express it as a fact.

It all reminds me of Mohrhoff's statement to conclude his review of God's Undertaker, by John Lennox:

[What] isn’t obvious yet is the shape the new paradigm will take. Lennox asks if science has buried God. Perhaps it is not science that has buried God but God who has buried himself. Evolution might well be the process of His resurrection.

[Art]

"It was John Edward's TV show Crossing Over that got me thinking about mediumship; when I searched the Web for a good skeptical debunking of it, I found only lame "cold reading" arguments. This made me start to wonder if Edward might be for real." - Michael Prescott
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Thanks for reminding me! I need to go check out WETV.com and see if John Edward's show Cross Country is going to be aired this month (August)? They have the schedule on there and last month I was able to watch 5 new John Edward shows that I hadn't seen before. I was so happy! I love that guy. He's ever so much more entertaining and charismatic than James Randy. Okay, I just checked and John Edward Cross Country will be on WE TV August 13, 2008 from 1:00 pm till 6:00 pm. http://www.wetv.com/john-edward/episodes

[Kevin]

"...the design and the designer are one in the same..."

I've been thinking in this direction for a number of years, especially how the unity of all consciousness seems so congruent with what quantum physics calls quantum non-locality. Significantly, the concept has the potential to explain various psi phenomena as well as giving deeper perspective into the veritable relationship between the (apparent) individual and the group. Those interested might try David Darling's "Zen Physics" & Jenny Wade's "Changes of Mind" in addition to the sources mentioned in the above posting from Michael H..

[rick]

Interesting conversation as usual. Let me offer this piece of reading which seems inline with the discussion: "The Metatheory of Spirituality" by Ede Frecska at:

http://www.metaelmelet.hu/pdfek/frecska_ede_the_metatheory_of_spirituality.pdf

I find that he makes a fairly good argument for spiritualism, and concludes with: "Here we got what the father of European rationalism (and irrationalism at the same time) said: “The mind will find the final truth after leaving the body.” Socrates – he was the man – believed that once his soul dissociated from the body after death, he would be able to engage in pure thought without any deceit from the senses. Stuart Hameroff puts it in a new language: “…when the metabolism … is lost, the quantum information leaks out to the space-time geometry in the Universe at large. Being holographic and entangled it doesn’t dissipate. Hence consciousness (or dream-like
subconsciousness) can persist.”"

Anyway, his thinking best matches my current thoughts on the subject.

[Teri]

Rick,
Can you be more precise about what is meant by "dream-like subconsciousness"?

[rick]

Hi Teri, sorry about the delay in responding...Can you be more precise about what is meant by "dream-like subconsciousness"? No, I can't, as I am not convinced that we survive the transition as a unique psych. I think the paper puts forth some interesting arguments, but I'm not completely sold, though it does reflect my current exploration of consciousness and is well worth considering, However, it could well be that we merge with 'others' to form a new unique 'identity'; I'm just not sure.