CEFISES Seminar: Alexandre Guay, “The emergence of consciousness”

Yes, we're live. >> So, we're live. Um, thank you for one more web seminar by our own le and he's going to talk about um the emergence of consciousness. >> Okay. Uh thank you very much and it will be a very very rip my slides have too much material because it's part of the paper I'm writing. So it's just to remind me I'm I'm not expecting for you to read the slides just just for me. And of course it's I don't know how much you know about philosophy of mind, philosophy of neurosciences. So of course you can ask questions at any moment. So we we don't care. Okay? We don't need to wait until the end to ask questions. Even the non philosopher you can ask. Okay? Maybe you will probably ask a question that they want to ask but they are ashamed. So don't worry. Okay. So is everybody knowing the hard problem of consciousness? Of course. Charmers, you all know that. >> No. >> Okay. Do you have a role? >> Okay. All right. >> So the hard problem of consciousness there's many formulation. It's a famous argument 1995 by chmer but it's an old argument is that how could you explain that the formulation I put it in in explaining could be formulated differently how could you explain the first person conscious phenomenal experience like I see blue now based on an ontology for example coming from neurology or physics that is just relational properties So how these relational properties that are the third person properties the the properties discovered by science could connect could explain could make sense depends how you formulate the thing of the first person. Okay. And that's that's the problem and it's called the hard problem because you don't want just a correlation between the physical and the mental. you want to have some a story to say how one reduced to the other or not and why and how it works. So that's the hard problem. It's called the hard problem for historical reason. It's not necessarily the hardest problem. Okay. So when I decided to stop doing philosophy of physics for time and I said what is the next best problem? Of course the hard problem is the best problem for me at least for my taste of problems and I say okay since I'm doing metaphysics so I will attack the problem from an ontological point of view which is not the only one we can attack this problem many ways I say is a is a discussion about the ontology the relation between the mind and the body or the or the brain or something else helping us to understand research, insist on new problem, etc., etc. And it's easy to see that that's the plan that I will follow as much as I can. Uh, and it's easy to see how some position about the ontology, the ontological relation of the of the mind and the body orient your research. It's not just I don't know which one is true. At the end of this conference, you will not know which one is the right one. I don't have this that I that I finally solved the hard problem. But at least the kind of ontology you adopt change the way you work on the problem. For example, so don't read that it's too long. If you are a dualist, what is a dualist? A dualist. A dualist about properties. So you believe that there's physical properties and there's mental properties and they are categorically distinct. They are completely different. They have a different uh relation to space and times etc. So that's the dualism of properties which is very popular among people in philosophy of mind. One of the difficulty of for to do research after that to do science if you believe it's it's your framework is that unfortunately you will be able to study the mind through psychological methods. You will be able to study the brain by biological neurological method. You will maybe even be able to to show some correlation but you will never be able to say something more. Why? Because you cannot do causation relation. Because if you act on on the body, you can have good reason to see that you can act on the mind. But you don't have tools to hack on the mind without acting at the same time on the body. If I talk to someone, if I try to change your mental state that I've put you in front of an image, I am working on the brain. I cannot say I work separately on the on the mind than on the brain to to to be able to exemplify a causal relation. For example, if it's a constitution relation, I cannot also be able to show at best I can I could show a supervenience and supervenience the weakest position. So it doesn't mean it's false. It means that it's a kind of a ontological answer that will make the research extremely complicated if you so maybe they are right it's defended by farmers for example but I think uh they are quite optimist about the way we could scientifically for example through empirical means u study the relation between the mind and the brain on the other extreme we have the monist reductionist I see that now Kevin is looking for literature to against my argument, but I'm I'm sure they are they are bad. They don't know I'm wrong. I'm right. >> If you are you say, okay, there's no such thing as different ontology between the mind and brain. The mind is just what the brain does. Okay, that has been a very successful and interesting position because it guided most of the actual research in neuroscience and neurossychology. But after 30 years where we are unable even to look at the brain and know if the person is awake, we still cannot know measuring a brain if the person is awake. it some philosopher like Fran who was a postoc here became less and less optimistic about will will we be able to solve the hard problem and here I want to quote France well because I think he's representing a certain tendency in the community however there has been recently growing concern that it is impossible to maintain that physicalism so monism is true of phenomenal consciousness And at the same time the account for our distinct epistic situation regarding phenomenal consciousness in virtue of which phenomenal consciousness seems persistently distain from the physical. So ontologically epistemologically even if it was uh the the the reductionist program is was interesting and went far there seems they seem to have hit a prof on the wall. They do not believe they will solve the hard problem. Okay. So they after that they have to define some kind of a or eliminationist in fact it's an illusion that we're conscious or a phenomenalist it's a side effect but it does not do anything. >> Yes. >> What is the relationship between monism and physicalism? Can you have a monism that is not physicalist? >> Yes. But today all the monies are physicalist most. And what do you mean by physicalist depend? What they mean is the brain. Okay. Most of them. Yeah. But of course you could you could defend all kind of reductionism. Yes. >> But what about the weird guys think consciousness is everywhere and >> yeah but that's exactly when you cannot explain. That's why Psychism is popular because if you cannot explain the relation between the mind and the other properties, you say that there's mind everywhere. >> It's not a physical. >> It's aism that is not physicalist. >> But I I I asked myself should I putism somewhere in the talk and I decided not to because it's an interesting position. So for those who doesn't know it's it's a graduation. So we are very conscious electron are less conscious but they are conscious in a certain sense they can exhibit consciousness and table too but much less than us and it's clearly a position completely adduct to to solve the hard problem. It's interesting. It could connect to other kind of position. I'm not against per se, but for now it's more uh okay, how can we get around the hard problem? Everything is conscious. But maybe in the future, yeah, I'm open to change in metaphysics. You know, metaphysics is at the service. I don't really believe we describe the world as it is anyway. So, so for now, psychism seems one very difficult to study. I'm not sure it will help neurologists to guide the research if you say oh yeah everything is potentially conscious. Yeah maybe so why what is the the project here of this paper is to say okay let's explore other possibilities like emergentist emergence of the mind. So emergence ontological metaphysical emergence is always understood as a compromise between dualism and monism. So why not explore this possibility to see how we can shed some shed some light on the relation between the mind and the body. Okay. Okay. First problem what is emergence? First problem. Second problem are there onlogical emergence phenomena? And here problem begins in order to say what is emergent. What is emergence? You need to know something that you believe emergent and it fits because it's not a concept where you say oh it's it's in natural language we know what is emergence. It's just I just have to analyze the concept on my chair and think about yeah emergence must be know blah blah blah blah blah. Emergence is one of these concept that is not that is philosophically interesting but is not clear what is the mean. So usually in order to be able to say what is emergent I have I need to know at least okay what kind of phenomena I want to modelize as emergent but how can I identify this class of phenomena if I don't know what is emergence so it's circular so the standard way in Anglo-Saxon angophone philosophy it's not the same in any kind of philosophy by the way but in angophone philosophy is to copy science. So I'll start with the class of phenomena that are supposed to be emergent are considered to be emergent and build the theory of emergence and after that go back to the class of phenomena. So if you look in the literature especially the scientific literature what scientists call emergent you have all these cases scientists will call all kind of face transition classical quantum topological social the passage from a crowd to a mob is often called emerging. You have all kind of functional properties of artifacts, organs mostly all functional properties are sometimes called emergent. You have all a lot of case where there are interaction between ontological level. People believe that there's level of reality, the physical one, the biological one, the psychological one, the social one. And if these level interact, that's emergence. or uh collective behavior like bird flux, fluid, dynamic emergent and of course scientists often say okay consciousness and free will or the case of emergence. The difficulty with you to build a theory of emergence based on a very this vast class is that it's it's a very non homogeneous class. Some case of emergence in the list are compatible with some kind of theoretical reduction other not. Some require the postulation of ontological level are not. Some involve a relation between the base and the emergent that is synchronic other diiaronic or not related to time at all. Some are compatible with causality other not. So it's a two two diverse class at the end. My guess is that the best you can do with a class that is that diverse is emergence equal dependent novelty which is a completely useless definition because it's too general. Okay. So in order to say something about the mind, I will spend most of this talk to discuss about theories of emergence. Okay? And it will be depressing if you sleep tell me I will skip slides because most of it is dead. Okay. I'm sorry. Okay. So what I will do I will go to select a a current a smaller case of of co case. I will show how such a theory of emergence works on this current case and I will do that for two theories of emergence and after that I will see if they can take in account the case other case than the one they were built on. Okay. So that's a methodology and hopefully after certain word by iterating the procedure we will get somewhere and I can already say we won't we won't get to a unification but we will get to something interesting. Okay. So the two theory of emergence I will treat here is Jessica Wilson metaphysical emergence who is giving a talk right now yesterday in Nam or the day before and mine because they are obviously the two best no because they are representative they are extreme Jessica Wilson is now one of the dominant position on certain kind of emergence now and it's the complete reverse first opposite of my theory. In fact, Jessica Wilson wrote explicitly that this is not a theory of emergence. It's not even wrong. It's not a case. Okay, I'm not saying that her theory is not a theory of emergence, but that could be discussed. Okay, let's see the kind of cases that inspire Jessica Wilson to build her theory of metaphysical emergence or ontological emergence is not explicit in the book but it's pretty clear through some passages that we know what what was her motivation her motivation if emergence exists she's not sure that it exists but she said if it exists it's because of that natural reality exhibit a kind of level or layer structure reflected in the broadlyarchical structure of the special sciences. If ontological emergence exists, this structure is in a way compatible with the appearance of cultural material dependence coupled with atomic. So the cases that interest Jessica Wilson why she developed a theory of emergence is that reality seems to be layered like the biological and the psychological for example and these layer are materially independent but they have a certain autonomy. Okay. So her theory of emergence is a way to formalize this in her book she's proposing two definition of kind of emergence a weak one and a strong one and uh no Jessica Wilson is also a metaphysician that is an adept of the power ontology so everything is in ter of pers okay so weak emerging what is it for a token feature S to be weakly metaphysically emerging from a token feature P on a given occasion is for it to be the case on that occasion. One that S could temporarily materially depends on P and two that S as an empty proper subset of the token power powers had by P. So I have a something something here they contemporally depend materally and here the power of here is a subset of the power here. So for this coition at least to be weakly emergent to be emergent is to have less power which is super bizarre because most people believe that emergence is more power. Okay, that's the weak for emergent has less power than its base. Yeah. >> Um, can you explain what you mean by power? >> I think disposition stuff that do stuff. It's why I don't defend power and I have no idea. I think they the the causal power stuff doing causally stuff in the world. >> I think it's what she needs. It's a primitive. I don't it's not it's not a critique is that it's her primitive and she tried to build everything else based on that. But I think if you push her push her she would say at one point you cannot define powers capacity to do something >> to do stuff. >> Okay. But it's not a disposition because it could be dispositional but it's not a disposition kind of the real disposition is that say it's a it's a thing that do does something under a certain trigger. >> Mhm. >> She does not. She said no it's more general than that. It's capacity to do stuff. >> Okay. >> Okay. Thanks. >> So there's less capacity to do stuff here than here. >> I expect the answer but what does she only physical. Okay, this is something also I wanted to understand and I read the book in details and at no point she explain what is I think she says that the g my best guess is that since she thinks here uh special sciences so what she's interested is like biology sociology the I think material is physics that's my best guess but it's not explicit And she's not a philosopher of science. She's a metaphysician. >> Yes. >> So yeah, there's a lot of uh interpretation to to apply the Okay. And of course there's she has the the strong one and the strong one is the is the intuitive one. The the emergent has more power in it space. So that's the that's the two version goes. Okay. answer. >> Yeah, sure. >> Sure. >> It's okay. >> These are definition that are you know very philosopher blah blah blah blah blah when people are not used it's it's quite dense. Yes. >> Um so just clarification if we power within capacity >> to do stuff >> to do stuff and the part is less capable to do stuff. >> Yeah. It's not the other way around. Conservative emergence. >> Exactly. No, but exactly. No, exactly. >> The the emergence you have in mind is what she calls strong emergence. >> Okay. >> Can you put an example of weak emergence or or or rather? >> Yes. I will give you a function a functional realization is a case of weak emergence. >> I I will I have a slide to show you in details. Okay. I don't know discussion is in a way the fact that something emerge from thing is still constrained by the physics bottom it's constrain the kind of power that can add so power because of the space >> I think that's what what you mean >> yeah for weak emergence yes but for here that's the point That's what most people that believe that the emergence and the base is cemporal. Okay, it's what they have in mind. There's strong reason to believe that there's we never spot an example of this at all. Okay. And Jessica Wilson is is quite a good metaphysician because she says yeah even in her book she says I didn't find any example of strong emergence a convincing example except things like free will or the mind which is already problematic. So already there's good reason to be skeptical about strong emergence. So it's difficult to reconcile with metabolical principle of closure of physics. It's also difficult to understand how we could understand conservation of local energy. We should if there were such a thing as strong emergent we should see signs in physics some missing physics somewhere and we don't. So it's not impossible of course but it's just not easy to have an example but an example of weak emergence realization of a function you have P max as a material object with all its properties and B as an ax. So the kind of property that participate to the axe are just the one that produce the function and all the ax of the same type they will share this core of functional property but they could be one in wood one in metal. So of course if you go and mirror with my colleague working on emergence all of them would say this is obviously not emergence but it's the same prejudice that she has against us. So I should not we don't know this emergence. There's no such thing as the concept of emergence that we already know. So I'm really to see how far can she goes goes with this definition. And that's interesting because that apply easily to resization of function in artifacts but also what is the the the the heart as effectively emerge the property of to be a pulp. Of course there's all the physical property of the heart with the know goes n it does that this does this that but as an object it has a new functional properties that is a subset of all the properties below. So all heart of the same type will share the same functional property even if physically they all are unique. So you see how she sees this strange conception of emergence but quite interesting. >> Sorry but how is that a subset of of the functions because it's a new function no >> the heart >> or or that the >> the the the I have the same intuition than you but I try to be charitable with the person that says that I don't know what I'm talking about. Okay. So you have the objects of course the acts as a material object cut. >> Mhm. >> Okay. But it also it has the capacity to burn because it's in wood. Okay. The capacity to burn is not part of the object as a tool but it's part of the object as a material object. But the capacity to cut is in the object as a material and as a tool. Therefore, it's a subset. >> But no, I mean the the the wood itself does not have the capacity to cut. >> No, but this part. Yes. >> Yeah. But only if if attached to the to the wood stuff. >> Yes. >> The capacity of all the objects. Yes. >> Okay. I try to make sense of everything. Okay. No, I'm Yes. >> Yeah. I don't want to reason, but a object is because if you call it an axe, it's a tool that is designed as an ax otherwise not object. objective of social. So >> she would say she would say that realization of function if you look at them without their history this is what you see it's emergent emergence is not a historical process for her it has a history but it's the emergence relation is not related to historical process okay contrary to me for example the for her I can see that it is that is the the the function of the axis emergent like the function of the art only if I at the moment I look at at the objects it's not something extended in time of course if I want to know how does we have art you have to go in time but the the emergence of the function is synchronic even if to explain its origin you have to go in time I I I should show you this graph Okay. So when you see something when you have any case of emergence there's always a new level descriptive level that appear. Yeah. Always a descriptive level. It's just the way we talk. Okay. For her this descriptive level is the emergence. For me it has nothing to do. It's just a descriptive level. It's a sign that something happened. For me the emergence is here. For her it's here. Okay. Okay. By the way, this is the not the dominant 98% of paper writing on emergence. It's that okay two person of emergence three person in the world if I'm that emergence it there it's gay s and the first emergence the people that in include emergence in the 20s they were also in that direction >> right sorry doesn't make much sense like semantic extension. It has nothing to do with metaphysics >> semantics of semantics of metaphysics. No for them it's a it's >> okay yeah okay yeah okay yeah okay yeah okay yeah okay yeah okay yeah okay yeah okay yeah okay yeah okay of course okay we can discuss but I have to say that the intuition that guide most of the literature on metaphysical emergence is really uh something like the the whole is bigger than the part it's always not in relation to time and I have to say this is an example among the the best because at least she's not defending in strong emergence the weirdest part that there would be new causal power completely new appear there from I don't know where >> at least we call metaphysical emergence >> okay >> maybe no no no maybe there's no case of emergence the goal is just to explore this spectrum of possibilities okay let's go back so that's Jessica Wilson it works well for all kind of stuff especially the weak emergence it works well at least there's examples after that we can say it's not really metical not emergent but okay and there's the case approach which the case that we had in mind to modelize is phase transition especially phase transition that do not seems to imply level or whole part relations and now I will go fast because it's philosopher of physics and it's boring. Okay. Okay. So the case that that I think we convince were quite convincing is the case of the fractional quantum all effects. Okay. I'm just thinking how far I should go in the explanation. Uh let's let's go fast to go to the mine as fast as possible. Okay. The idea why this is when it appeared this effect that was discovered by scientists and they won the Nobel Prize pretty rapidly is that when they produce this graph people literally fell from their chair. Okay? Because these not the peak but these things here where there's a what's the word? The reverse of a peak valley. A valley should not exist in nature. Okay. In this material, very low temperature, very high um magnetic field. Okay. What you see here is signs 4 5 75 are signs of that the material is exhibiting as bizarre what we call statistics. Okay. Why is it surprising? Because we have a theorem. It's a theorem based on really basic actions. That are the spin statistics theorems. Based on really basic action assume that this announce we will really believe okay physics has to be changed completely. That in three special dimension there could be only two kind of statistics for particle. two kind of general behavior firmians or bzons and this theorem is very convincing it's very if you say oh the cost to renounce to this theorem is high I would have to renounce to a lot of things like special relativity basic things and basic topological things in quantum mechanics how therefore how do you interpret something that is neither a firmian's are bzons. So the first reflex was to say okay it's just some kind of weird collective behaviors of electrons because what we measure is electron in the conductive electron and electron are firmians but maybe they do some kind of weird stuff and after that it was a very bizarre result is that if you understand the phen It's purely a collective phenomena. You see that many firmians together doing their bizarre stuff, collective stuff, produce a particles that has less charge than any of them. So each has a certain charge. They all have the same negative charge. You had them and you get less. So the collective behavior was reconsidered and after that there's other result saying that if we had a quantum field theory it's not important but quantum mechanics and we say okay let's have fian but for them to live in a world with two spatial dimension for x reason this is this result is exactly what you would expect. So in this material the dynamics I'm not saying the material becomes suddenly flat but the dynamics become strictly 2D. Particles lose their status of particles in 3D and the solution are dynamics in 2D which avoid the spin statistic because the spin statistic theorem in 2D say there could be an infinite number of statistics. So we call these uh extension these quasy particle anons because it's any statistics anons physicists have a lot of imagination and there's interpretive challenge okay so based on this of that kind of examples and there's many of them this is the definition of emergence of s and gay there's a dependent clause and no clause clause exactly two clause like like Wilson. So the state s_ub_2 is the product of a specially continuous process originating from or quasi continuous process originating from the state s1 for example a coal process in particular the real and I will discuss that the real later to which s_ub_1 and s_ub_2 both belong is closed such that nothing outside the real participate to in s to bring about s2. So that's the dependency clause. That's what she says materially depend. This is how we define dependence. And the novelty clause is S2 exhibit new entities, properties or power that do not exist in S1 and that are moreover forbidden to exist in S1 according to the natural law natural necessity we have to govern S1. Accordingly, different laws govern S2. So that's a very general definition and you can operationalize it in this graph. In order to have the continuity, you have to have a general theory that will represent S1 and S2 through two models of the general theory. And so therefore this translation should be com this transformation should be compatible with causality still woodward or pearl causality to a very low lowontologically causality but M1 cannot be deformed in M2. Therefore the laws governing M1 are different than the one governing it M2. Okay. So we have these two version of emergence. One that sits there and one that is here. Okay. Now we get to the third part of my methology. Check if one can explain the other examples and how it works. Can transformational emerging explain how you come from no ax to axe? So you have material to build a hack dx because at the beginning you don't have the function it's material bring the x exhibit among other properties a new one it's a function it is a genuine normative possibility the function was not impossible in the cell state but not particularly effective you could use to the wood to try to cut stuff but it's not that easy moreover the law governing the initial state there's no production of X spontaneously by the law of the material. However, here the imposition of the form the function come from the artisan the artisan or the machine that built the ax. So it's not obvious that it will respect this part of our definition because in particular the real to which s_ub_1 and s_ub_2 both belong is closed. What the dependence close tolerate is that contextual element jointly participate with s1 to bring s2. What this closed deny is true is that these elements acts as radically extrinsic inference to show. So in what way the work of the artisan is still inside the domain that we were exploring or is it outside? So my guess is that it's not working very well for axis. Maybe it works well more for if it's natural selection for the for the function, but for axis it depends of the status of humans and things like that. It's not bad. It's not it's not it's not completely it works but it works. I have to have a position about the status of artifact compared to uh function uh in in the biological world. Okay. I will not discuss how I really spend a long time in the paper to try to apply weak emergence and strong emergence to the case and it does not work at all. And I really try okay I really try to say okay can we see that as a power thing no there's no way that uh the fractional quantum effects could be the case of weak emergence or strong emergence I already tried okay so I will skip all that because it's very technical argument and it doesn't work so conclusion of my methodological exploration. Weak emergence partly effective in certain in the case it was built to develop not as effective to do something else is doing a little bit better but not that much. So what should we conclude? Should we conclude to pluralism? Should we say both theories capture part of the emergent world and if I was arguing that the paper would be accepted so fast because to be pluralist today is the dox okay the way to get around every problem is to say there's many solutions there's many things but I worry about that for the case of emergence why because there's a classical problem in metaphysics that is absolutely similar to that case. How could you say that the emergence also two kind of the same thing to say that I have to have a theory of emergence that it's a higher level that will be able to say that okay these two case are two version of the same thing how can I know what is this theory since the only way I found to develop an emergent theory is to start from cases and go up. So the problem is that if I had such a theory that would say okay gay sataya is a kind of emergence Wilson wikimemer is a kind of emergence this one is not a kind of emergent I would have to argue for this theory based on what on some cases and the only way to get cases is to build a local theory of emergence. So I worry about the pluralist. I can in the paper. It's pluralism of course, but I worry about I cannot even argue for it strongly because I would have to say something about what would be the the class the genus to classify these different species and I don't know how to do that. If I knew how to do that, I would not have to develop this inductive methodology. Of course, if you if someone has very strong intuition about what is emergence and it cannot be something else like here Jessica Wilson seems that by definition emergence incompatible with causality but I don't have that kind of intuition at all. Okay. So what should we do for here? So I say okay since I cannot find the right theory of emergence I will use both on the kind of mind body to see if one is more interesting than the others. So now the real subject. Oh my god. Sorry guys. It's exactly the same as in in Boo. It's just a paper is too long. Okay. What is interesting is that I don't have to guess the position of Wilson. She's explicit about the mind body problem in the book. Great. Because the the it's consciousness and the last chapter is free will. So good. What does she say? Is the mind weekly emergence? Uh she's arguing against the mind is strongly emergence and she says it's based on the zombie blah blah blah and makes no sense. I think she's right. Uh is the mind weekly emergence? Okay. And she says yes pro maybe qualitative conscious features are reasonably taken to be typically determinable rather than maximally determinate such that these determinable conscious state are closely seen as actually realized by determining lower level physical states. And now you try to connect with the power ontology and say what why she's changing completely vocabulary in the middle of the chapter. So what does it mean? Do you know the distinction in metaphysics determinable determining? >> Of course. No. >> No. Okay. So is the it comes from old discussion about the universal is all that if I have a determinable property is a more general property and the determinate pop is a is a instantiation of this concept. So I have a color red. >> Okay. >> Determined uh red uh crimson bread. >> Okay. So it's pretty irrelevant. Okay. But what she says it's pretty clever. She says the mind is a more exhibit the mindal state exhibit a more general property than the physical one. But the one depend of the other. This physical one is just a more determinate property than the exhibit by the mental state. Tada. If we put that in the in the in the power ontology to get to the definition we had of weak emergence. Feature P is a determinant of feature Q if and only if Q is associated with a proper subset of the power associated with P and the set of power had by P but not by Q is not associated with any properties. So mental state have a subset of the power of physical state but they depend on it. But physical state are just a way that they do not exhibit other mito. They only exhibit one. So that's the second part and that's the mind body problem solved for you metaphysically. Okay. Gan never wrote about the mind. So to have someone I asked a Gemini to apply my own theory just to see and it was pretty good and I just copy paste it on the on the board. So a system under goes a transformation. Okay that's transformational emergence. This transformation change the model profile. Like I said, you pass from a certain thing that it was forbidden to a certain thing that is allowed and the state cannot be produced without in an ordinary manner without changing the laws. So the base state would be you know a cognitive system that is do not exhibit consciousness. There's a transformation of the system. After that we have to say what is the difference? So is it a neuronal, synaptic, connective, biochemical? We have to say something more precise to understand the thing. And at some stage of the development of this system, the system reorganized and is able now of consciousness and that could be seen by new integrated neural architecture, global dynamics. We will see that later. What matter is not that the system becomes necessarily more complex. It's just it has access it has access to other possibilities can do different things. It's similar for uh when a being has an adaptation but change completely of ecological niche. It's a similar analysis transformation. Okay. So before in the base the system could not instantiate conscious mental state. After transformation it can. So there's new power, new ontological uh powers that appear but they are not fundamental. It's not new physical laws. It's the same. It's just at that level of description. It's a power coming from the organization. Okay. So that's both now I apply both theory but it's too vague to to be interesting. It's just too general. You know if does not connect to maybe interesting as metaphor but you know you have to connect to the the science if you want to say something that is interesting but you see how it's very different here higher level new propert subset of properties uh no discontinuity it's at the same time here it's a transformation and there's there must be some model change no model change this for us. Okay. How can Yes. >> Sorry, I'm still on the same question. So, in wisdom's case, the conscious mental states are a subset of the power of the the physical one. >> I don't understand that. But I think there's nothing more to understand that what she says. this is what she believes. >> You can disagree. You can say how could it be? Okay, but I think it's what she says a little bit like think about, you know, acts as a tool, acts as a material object. So it's brain state that have consciousness, brain state that are not conscious. that there's nothing physical that in the brain that has consciousness and that subset that then is picked up at the conscious level. >> Of course. Okay. Okay. >> Maybe maybe I'm >> No. So, so your feeling is that it does not solve the heart problem. >> Yeah. Yeah. Because there's nothing conscious in the neurons. But she said that it's not the way to think. It's like when you look at the at the the material of the axe, there's no function. Exactly. Function is when you understand it's a tool like like Kevin says, it's because of the intention of the person that build the object that specific way. So you have to think in a similar manner but now there's no creator. Okay. >> I think it's confusion. The thing is there there are a lot of there is a larger space of possibilities if you look at physics and the this larger space of possibilities posities which correspond to states is smaller >> smaller. Yeah. >> So it's more constraint. I think that's what she said. >> Yeah. So maybe the good way to describe the brain is not at the micro level. It's co grain or something like that. Okay. But still you still would say yeah but how do we pass from third person to one first person? Yeah. I don't know. I don't know. Okay. Okay. But the point is that at that point it's still too general and mind definition. So what is this conscious capacity that appear? How does it work? So you have to operationalize the thing and that's the part philosophy of mine of the dog. So one you have to specify exactly what base you're talking about. Okay. Then you have to choose what kind of emergent feature the conscious it's maybe too large. Find some conscious property specific that you you can say something interesting about. And you have to have a not a something to say about the relation. Okay? Because maybe maybe she she's right. Okay? Maybe the world is like she said, but if you have nothing to say about the relation, the scientist that want to use your worldview to explore does not know what to measure, what to influence, what to to probe. And now the operation the operation is become now it's becoming complicated because if you look at the literature about cognition and mind nobody not everybody agree where is the base where is the the cognition happening okay inside if you believe it's on inside the head there's at least three main research program some would say The cognition appear because the brain is analogous to a certain kind of computers a nondeterministic computers and that is doing symbolic calculation. So here the base would be the bunch of neurons how they compute. There's the connectionist and the the large scale neural they say no no no no no no the brain is one thing you have to study it as one object and it has a global state and that's what important the brain together the neurons together change their status do stuff there's a guy big that says yeah but some genes are pretty important in cognition and neurotransmitter better also. So you have to go below neurons at the biochemical level to say cognition happened there. And of course there's all the people that says no cognition is not in the head. It's in the interaction with the world like our colleague in work. And of course here you would not use as a base the neural network. You will use the neuron body environment as the base. So already after that you understand why Wilson says nothing about the base. She says the physical. She doesn't even say the brain because she does not want to deal with that. What would be the emergent? We are not all agreeing about what is consciousness. We have all kind of properties that are associated to consciousness and not everybody agree about that and which one is a real property of consciousness, which one is a property of mental state in general, unconscious or conscious blah blah blah. So you have to choose if I read carefully uh Wilson it seems that these two are important. So I will choose these two. So qualia the transparency of perception. So when I have the experience of a qualia I have the experience of an intrinsic properties and I think uh the way she understand determinate and deter it's probably she probably has qualia in mind and but sometimes there's agency also the theological goal oriented of course not not just conscious thing can have goal oriented behavior but conscious is a very is supposedingly very important important for consciousness. I found a lot of publications saying that probably not. But that's something else. That's something else. We'll come back. Okay. So, let's go. First case, if the base is neurotransmitters and genetic and so it's below neurons. So, you have a glycochemical state and Wilson will say there's a conscious state which is a subset of this one in power. In uh SA you will have a biochemical state that become a conscious biochemical state. Both theory are completely useless to say anything interesting about this case. So okay if this is the right level uh yeah okay these emerging theory do not help out. The mystery is the same. They just change the mystery of place if it is a neurocomputational base. So it's part of the brain computer state. You have conscious computer state. You have computer that are not conscious and after that the computer is able to compute a conscious state. So you have to see R here in Wilson as some kind of a analogous to the relation between a probabilistic machine and its program. I really try to see if there's a gain here thinking this relation in the way uh Wilson is saying and I don't see any because in the way Wilson is saying just think about an ordinary computer which isn't not really the brain but at least as an you look at the hardware states and The software state is a more general property of the specific hardware. And it seems to me that the fact that you identify the relation that way does not help at all to understand what is the relation between software and hardware which is the strong problem the the hard problem. So I don't know maybe I like imagination. Can Satan and and uh and and Gabe do better. So here you have computers that compute things and here you have computer that compute conscious things. So things that they could not compute before. So you need some model change. There's interesting tool in B theory of algorithmic emergence. He call it weak emergence but not to mix with Wilson I call it algorithmic emergence. The definition of is here if P is a macroperty of some system S then P is algorithmic emergent if and only E. If and only if P is generatively explainable from all of S prior microact but only in an incompressible way. So if your program is producing something new that cannot be explained except in just saying what happened just before before that's emergent in that sense. So that would give us an the case of model movement from here to here. And if it's income principle in principle and not just in practice that could be um transformational emergence however you have to buy you know this computer analogy and blah blah blah. So it it gave it it gave me pause let's say but at least it seems that this this way to understand emergence could be applied in goi good oldfashioned AI so that's what I blah blah blah blah blah blah okay connection is the brain is one thing we should study the network completely the network of neurons as one object complex X objects here the relation would be a determinant. Well would be a phase ch an apparent change phase. Do we have reason do we have independent reason to believe that change phase physical phase change could be interesting to understand the brain? Yes. In the last 15 years, we got a lot of empirical data that seems to show that the brain is a system, a critical system. Critical system is a system that change phase. Water, gas, film, magnetism, etc. Why do you believe that? Because of these properties that were measured. One, the brain is highly far from equilibrium. It's why most of the energy is going to the brain to maintain it so far from equilibrium. Two, the brain activity is essentially arithmetic. Regardless how we monitor, if you monitor at different scale, different way, it has some scale invariance at least when it's not stimulated. So when it spontaneously fire that's the sign to be clear close to the critical point in in under healthy condition no brain temporal scale take primacy. So even if the brain is sometime in a cycle if you change there's no le uh time scale that is privilege and under certain behavior when we calculate the interaction with the environment. So the brain is in fact very close to change phase most of the time. The most fundamental properties of the brain only are possible staying close to the critical instability independently of how such state is reached and maintained. So in fact if there's such a transformation I have to change my analogy. It's not a phase change. It's not passing from a stable to another stable state. It's passing from a stable to a metastable state. So a state is just close to the critical point. Okay. uh in order to operate. No. Okay. But to test to go beyond this hypothesis, we have to have an idea of what is happening in this complex object when it is conscious to be able to talk about the relation in a more interesting way. Unfortunately, there's more than 20 theories in neurology of consciousness and but most of them do not have a good good data good good empirical score. Only four families of theory have good empirical support good I should not say that some empirical support. Okay. And these four theory says when the brain is conscious, it must be because blah blah blah happening in the brain. The high order theories is that when the brain is conscious is because the brain is representing its own representation. When I'm conscious is because I'm I'm I am representing the fact that I'm representing I'm seeing the bag. So this definition is count lock. It's just their neurologists often do not say, "Yeah, we took that in lock." But some of them are honest enough to say, "Yeah, yeah, I took that in." The global workplace theories, they say there's all kind of stuff that's there's a lot of stuff happening in the brain at different place. But when a a a configuration of neurons fire a certain kind of states that is available to all part of the brain that is broadly broadcast that's consciousness. So consciousness is when the brain is sharing information among all part especially in the zone of the global workplace which is from here to here in the top. The integrate information theories come from feminology and we will discuss each of them according to the thing that I just given you a preview is that everything that respect five axum five six aum is conscious okay the re-entry and predictive theory sometimes they are considered separately these two theories sometimes they are considered together the re-entry theory is that the minimum to be conscious is that you Enter. Once you enter the information, it comes back in the beginning and it start again. So you just re-enter as a input the output you just produce. And the predictive process is the basian people because there's always basian people somewhere in science and they say yeah when the brain approximate basian stuff it's conscious. Okay. It's difficult to connect these each of these as a real theory of consciousness but together makes sense. How do you iteratively approximate a basian is because there's a loop in the brain and maybe predict his consciousness according to basian. Okay, let me just give the result because now you're completely tired and unable to photo and you just want to have a beer. Okay, let's try with higher order theory. To be conscious is to meta represent I don't know how the two level should work. the two-level representation inside this framework of Wilson. I just don't know. Maybe there's a way. I don't see that she would say this is the determinate, this is a determinable and this is the more determinable because that's that seems artificial. Um, yeah, I don't know how it could work in this framework. Okay, in this framework, higher order theory are pretty easy to accommodate because you just have to have two transformation. There's a transformation for the brain to be able to com to become to produce something that looks like mental mental state which is in fact goal oriented stuff and only a second one to get the qualia and to get to something like guia. And it's interesting because there's if you believe that consciousness is more sophisticated but not to be conscious you would say that there's related here two events in the evolution which would be nice to connect to evolution. Unfortunately there's no not a lot of data that to be conscious is to be conscious you are better to make decision and act than to be completely unconscious. So as uh in a review of literature lo and roantan said findings suggest that our less what would they call consciousness might not have special utility at least regarding an immediate impact on behavior which would be the thing that you need to select. So sometimes it's one after the other but it could be both at the same time. could be you gain one transformation gain to you mental and in a and connect almost at the same time consciousness and you won't maybe there's no evolution at least if if the empirical data uh are still saying for most be animals they don't need to be conscious to be efficient maybe us we are the exception I don't Okay, global workplace theory. Uh, so the idea is that the conscious state would be a broadcast the the brain is essentially model but when the the brain broadcast the same state everywhere it would be you would be conscious. So what is broadcast in the in the global workplace theory would be a determinate but each part of the brain would exemplify no would be a determinable but each brain of the brain would exemplify a determinant. So I think uh the theory of Wilson at least in this approach could fit well and is it really a determinable or determinant there's there's thing to explore there's thing to measure today if it looks like that uh what is what is a little bit depressing is that the Wilson seems to fit well global workplace theories I think it it it should go together could go together but this is the one that has the less to say about the heart problem of all the theory of neural neural consciousness because they identified access consciousness to consciousness which usually philosopher do not do. Okay. So for us it would be moving from a metastable to a to a a metastable to a metastable state of a of a larger thing. So since these state change the correlation inside the brain the correlation length when you're close to the the critical point or different distance the the correlation between different part of the brain change the length in which the brain is correlated or not even if it's scale invariant. So that could be an interesting metaphor for them. still metaphor. Come on. We don't know anything about the brain yet unfortunately. Okay. The feminologist. So the neuro feminologist what they say is that you buy this axion everything that exemplify this axum is conscious. Experience first person experience exist intrinsically. Experience is structure. Experience is specific, right? There's no two experiences are the same. Experience is unitary. It's structure, but it's one. And experience is definite. So there's not experience is not determin determinable. Okay? If I see something in color and I show you the same scene is in black and white, it's not less experience. Okay? Experience is always fully determined, full property. not graduate program. And the idea of this approach is to say we will refine things in the brain for to verify each of these axioms. And therefore the brain is a an object cause effect. So it's an object producing cause and producing effects structure in a way to produce at each time a maximum of irreducible integrated information. It's integrated because it's unitary and it's definite in time and in content and it but it's also structured. It's real information just 0000. It's real stuff. Okay. Yeah. >> Yeah. What is meant here by experience and by existing? >> Experience is first person experience. The fundamental one they start from experience phenology studying yourself >> because scientists do they have operational of experience? >> No. Okay. They don't have also okay not to my knowledge they they disagree among each other and they they also here this maximum irreducible thing it's related to a a quantity. Okay, they call it fi and it's by definition impossible to measure it but you can maybe measure this effect. One of the thing I'm not here I'm just discussing philosophy but one of the thing is that the when they say the brain exemplify that some part of the brain that are important for consciousness are different than the people here and the people here. So they there could be ways to differentiate at least these three theories even if it's difficult to prove one alone at least to say okay we would expect activities there if this theory is true okay when you do xyz okay uh where was it and of course in order to to exemplify the axum they have to look in the brain It's what they call the substrate of consciousness. So the different part of the brain that would exemplify these aims sometime and they are pretty generous. They would say maybe it's at the network level, maybe it's at the local neuronal group, maybe it's part they are agnostic about the which level of description we should go except that we have to take account all the brain. Okay, weak emergence is really in trouble with this one because there's no way they would say that the qualia experience is determinable. They really insist on it. And in fact, in her book, she's not arguing against these people, but she's trying to arguing against crimologist that says exactly the same. Okay? And if he does not have a good answer to that, we emergence out for this conception of consciousness. Okay. Uh one of the elegant thing about their approach is that this five function that is supposed to be what the brain is producing maximum information integration is a function. It's a mathematical function according to them. Even if it's not directly measur measurable, maybe we can in measure it indirectly. That's the goal. That's what they do now to prove that this is true. And it's a function. It could have an interesting nonlinear behavior or phase transition behavior. Sometimes you're not it's not integrated enough to be conscious. you're sleeping or you're you're you know not really paying attention and suddenly you pay attention the function goes to a maximum because you're focus your and that it could be that could be mapping by the transformation we could we could look to that I think it fits pretty well their function to the people discussing the thermodynamics of the brain there's some things that they could maybe discuss together I is to divide to design experience experiment pretty would not agree about experience what is experience but okay the re-entry one I will discuss it only if you want okay and only if you really want to know we'll go back during the question period the body mind body environment that's that's cool because I think it's they are probably right maybe cognition is in the relation into the world. It's why the brain is maybe metastable. It's because the world is a certain structure and the brain evolved to be a certain structure adapted to the environment. But if it's in the relation, this is even more complicated than just study the brain because you have to study brain, body, world. And what is in this relation that could be just a relation that does not imply consciousness and a relation that imply consciousness. So here I don't have a lot of things. Of course the people discussing affordance have a lot already lot of material to discuss how this relation is established because you see affordance in the world. That's what you see as a conscious being or unconscious being able to act in the world and you put aside the thing that are not relevant for certain things. So there's a a play between expectation and uh satisfi satisfaction. So there's a lot to more to say in the final paper about how it could fit some emerging pattern. And now I'm delivering you. What did you learn? I don't know. >> Okay. If you have minds to What kind of scientist? >> Okay. So, >> are we live? >> We have half an hour. >> Half an hour for question debate. Are we are we okay? Sorry. beer. No. >> Oh, but you you are going. So, >> yeah, just a clarification question. So, what of of Wilson's what uh what of the theories of emergence of what does it explain? Okay. of Wilson's uh proposal. It fits one of the four theories of the emergence of consciousness is the one that fits more than others because sorry I uh Wilson I think but it's it's me I think Wilson fit well uh global workplace >> and it's not that bad for the re-entry >> the the one that I did not discuss >> and then yours >> oh me it's it could fit everything because it's more vague >> but if you want to go in the details I I say what you should see you should see a meta stable you should see blah blah blah and maybe it's not there also but what the point about this metaphysical proposition is that we go outside dualism and monism and we try something else to see if it can fit and and work and the idea of of Wilson that it's not determinate like phenology us saying you know the the first person experience is determinate is a determinable rather to determinate even I'm not sure it will solve the hard problem but it's interesting to think like that when you go to see oh how do we interpret experiments and how does it work my position that bring the you need a model transformation is was I have to say too vague to be appliable at the beginning when I begin to think about this this subject I say when you will you say would you can you establish a model transformation empirically that there's good chance except say in the past there was blah blah blah but now that the literature about the fact that the metastable status of the brain is important whatever the theory of the consciousness because the brain is just an object that has certain strange properties. It become interesting maybe to use transformational emergence to try to understand why it is like that and how could could it help to give idea to test the theories of the mind. But at the end you know it's clear that the the people developed let me see the people developed this to solve the hard problem. Okay, the motivation of these people when you go to see why do they develop that is so blurred. I'm quite sure that even if they manage to prove that it's true it's a meta representation it's true that or or integrated the hard problem will still be my impression is that it won't change most especially integrated because integrated they say everything that exhibit these aums is conscious so in fact they don't solve the sol what kind of structure our conscious but it would be interesting if we manage to have a I don't know a robot with the five axioms that would be interesting because there they would say if we have something like a brain in the robot that follow these five axum boom it must be conscious that would be interesting I don't know if we would be able to know it's conscious >> but at least it's it's a stimulating position positions interesting position all the all these position are interesting I think they are quite interesting often all of them are developed empirically in the last 15 years because we have more way to probe the brain so these are all interesting but they are not embodied cognition at all at all so if you are an embodied cognition and you say no no there's a it's not just the brain it's there's something in the relations you will not find them satisfying. >> I've already spoken. >> Uh thank you so much. Two questions. One in general. >> What about probability? almost the first one is is kind of for a native point of view. I just I was asking uh myself about the difference between consciousness and condition >> because in all your talk you talk about consciousness. Yeah. And only when you have to specify the basis B you talk about condition another slide >> seems to me that coition is a sub one of the sub I don't know I'm going to say yes >> property of consciousness so this is the first one and the second >> can I answer it before forgetting the okay >> you're absolutely right in the literature it's not always clear and I was I had to speak too fast and okay so these are theories of consciousness okay not cognition they pretend that consciousness is associated to these process okay but how to identify the level uh here since we don't have a definition of consciousness that would exper conscious experience that would apply to the relations because we come from phenology for consciousness It's like the first person experience to to to decide the level of that could be interesting. We talk about the level of cognition. So I look at the literature on cognition to identify potential candidate for consciousness. Okay. But it's because of a lack in the literature on consciousness. So I had to turn to the cognition because the literature on consciousness does most of what I read does not even talk about the possibility that consciousness is in the relation to the other world external world and not just in the brain. Sometime they will include the body phenology will include the body. Phenology yes but not the scientific literature on consciousness. >> Okay. I think I think these guys they are saying the brain is complicated enough. Okay, the cognition it seems that you need the external world. Okay, because there's some cognitive process that makes no sense. It is just in the brain. But for consciousness usually it seems that the neural the neuroscientists even in in a review of literature in nature they don't even talk about body condition at all. They say yeah that's not our subject that's something else. So, but I think it's it's problematic because if you think cognition is outside the the hand, why not consciousness too? How could you exclude it? Appri at least you have to explore the possibility. But you see the four main families of theories of neural consciousness. There's nothing outside the brain. Nothing at all. They don't even think it could be outside the brain in the the the dominant one the four among the 21 22 okay your second question >> uh your second question is not about probability but about >> ah I knew >> because it's interesting actually when you um you relate your the wson proposal your proposal In the slide in which you said the con mental state is a genuinely new model profile. >> Mhm. >> That's my definition for me. If there's no models change there's no emergence at all. >> Okay. So uh and after that you say emerge required that the mental state was model impossible >> the new state >> the to get to the new state you cannot just follow the ordinary dynamics you had before there must be something new. >> Yeah. So to question is the model profile in other part you you talk about access to all the possibilities. So what kind of possibilities but not necessarily systemic objectives is also I don't know now I'm I'm reading uh some paper on the difference between repossibility and new possibility. So proposibility >> we have music notes is the symphony I guess you have possibility if not something and the other is about impossible. impossibility is very hard to >> to define or to to argue or I don't know something more soft uh okay improbability very >> no I want to say impossibility >> okay okay >> I want I want when something novelty is not emergent special novelty is emergence okay I think emergence if you if you don't put something strong like model barrier that is strong enough any change could be emergent so I I want some emergence is special it's rare okay so the idea is that okay you and of course it's another thing between gay and the metaphysic the metaphysician they like to talk about objects because that's what they like state objects level I don't care about objects I care about dynamics what they can do okay so I never say I our definition of emergence is that whatever it is before could do blah blah blah and now it could do something else okay so it was circulating as a certain face space whatever deterministic not deterministic And if you stay there, there will never be emergence ever. Of course, you can say, oh, the probability to get here is very low knowing blah blah blah. Okay, could be very very low. Is it the same space, same laws, same? Yes. No emergence. You have to change fit space. Okay. You have to have genuine new possibility. Of course after that you say yeah but Alex the objection I have always is that but in fact I could just draw a big space b space over and you just pass from this region this region I say yes but you're big you need to have good reason to put it of course philosopher would say I put it because it's possible okay I agree but do you have good reason that there's laws or something that looks like laws that allow you to define this big space not just like metaphysically possible okay if you say things like logically possible metaphysically possible for me it's just words what I want to say is that what kind of constraint you have here in I knew the constraint it's quantum electronamics a certain type here inside the the fractional quantum effect I know what is the space it's a certain kind of dynamics and it's not possible to pass from here to here. That's it. But of course, philosophers since they do not think concretely ever, they think they like things like metaphysically possible that it's always possible to bypass my definition by having a big circle. Yes, but I think it's useful to think like that. For example, you could imagine uh a species evolving in um a fitness landscape. Okay, let's imagine the environment is stable enough. It's not changing all the time and the species evolved in the in a certain landscape. So for certain pattern certain phenotype you have a certain fitness and it can move in this landscape evolving and suddenly it gains an adaptation where the landscape change completely because it has access for example hunting during the night and it could not before. It makes no sense to use the same fitness space the fitness change. Of course you can say yeah but in a bigger fitness space because you you you don't have constraint on your fitness space always possible to build the fitness space of everything but at least from you as a biologist you say no no the constraint of the species are blah blah blah and suddenly because of many adaptation this less adaptation switch I'm not I'm not sure there's a lot of case like that but case like flying There's a big difference between just limping, gliding, and actually flying. When you gain actual flying, it change everything. The predator cannot find you the same way. If you're um a being like a lesser and you are cold blood and you progressively at one point manage to maintain your temperature for long enough to be active during the night, it change everything. So that would be a change of face. But you're right if you're a platonician. When I discussed with Sha at the beginning, he was of course there's all possibility exists metaphysically in a big gigantic place. And I say yeah but I don't care about that. I talk about constraint in models the way we try to understand the constraint of what is existing in the real world not in the metaphysical blah blah blah that I don't understand. Does it shed some light? So, so then the possibility here the possibility that you're talking about changing. >> Yeah. >> Okay. >> So, you would think that there's system with brains that can do all kind of stuff and at one point there's system with brains that can be conscious. It was not possible before. >> Now, why you are saying that it was not possible before? Imposs was impossible. This is >> because they didn't have the configuration of the brain that could exemplify that at all. >> So of course it's not physical laws in that case. It's a constraint of the kind of being they are at that point. >> Would they have been brains if they are not capable of exhibiting consciousness? >> Do they what >> would they would they be brain at all? >> I don't know. That's a good question because I presume that there could be brain not conscious that are abled or goal oriented behavior but do not have qualia. I presume it's possible. I don't know if a neurologist said to me everything that has a brain is necessarily conscious. Okay, I buy it. It's the brain that is important here. I presume that there could be simple being with maybe not a lot of neurons. I don't know if fly are conscious for example. But they have goal directed behavior clearly. But I don't know if they are conscious. I don't know if they have qualia that I don't know. I presume that it could be possible they don't have I don't believe in the zombie for us but you know maybe fly or something. So, so why not finish? So, so, so this following this why still to consciousness and wonder sentence consciousness. >> Sorry. >> Why not go to the to sentence instead of consciousness? >> Oh, I'm talking because the literature is discussing consciousness. I could do the same. It goes to the neological literature about other stuff. because of plants. Yeah. >> Yeah. Talking about talking about consciousness. >> Yeah. Well, I don't know what he's talking about. >> So, >> yeah. Okay. >> I don't know. For me, consciousness consciousness is much stricter than cognition or goal behavior. It's is the what phenology says. is for me the thing that impressed me is qualia okay the thing that is really important because most of the time I have difficulty to understand even what my colleague philology are talking about because I don't have the vocabulary and I don't know of the tradition but the idea that when I look at this object I have really the experience of something intrinsic I don't have at any point the experience that I'm establishing a relation with this I really have the impression is the transparency of perception that I have in front of me a intrinsically black object. I think it's so strong that that's interesting. Maybe we are wrong about that. Maybe we're wrong to to have maybe we don't interpret this experience. But that the transparency of qualia I think it's a it's an interesting observation of phology that has deep consequence for me that there is not feminologist because I don't know how to explain that at all >> sociology >> could be could be could be it's the way we talk or the way we maybe maybe >> just a question of clarification so you said here for example it's A question of what is possible in the law or that? >> Yeah. So do you have a law is just rules to explain how you move in the face space and the law define the size of the face space? What is possible? What's possible? So if you change face space, you have to change laws. >> And here you said like once you have consciousness, you turn to a new law or you said it's not a question >> something model. I don't know if laws is what good to to explain behavior at the biological level. I'm not sure it's the right concept. But the thing that that make the dynamics that produce the dynamics is working in another space. That's what I say in physics. We would call that law. But law is maybe not the good concept to explain kind of dynamics in biology. But it's a difference face. If it's emergent in that sense, okay, of maybe it's not emergent in that sense and it's not emergent. >> Then if you don't have it, like how can you say it's impossible like it's impossible regarding what? >> But usually you have enough grasp on the dynamics even if you don't have formal laws to say that something is not possible. Of course, if you have laws that are well defined mathematically, it's much easier to make the the argument because you say I can show you it cannot these laws cannot get you there. But most most science do not have strong laws like that. You use models and you say okay what what is possible or not according to the behavior of this thing that what they can do >> like they don't fly so they can have access to certain stuff but once they fly everything change >> if it's regarding a behavior it's not like what is possible or not it's just what what is and then it's >> like no no it's not no no it's not Uh, no, no. Okay. Okay. Okay. It's because you're you're you think about model logic and you're lying now. Okay. Okay. Okay. No, no. You when you think about dynamics, you don't you okay. It's because you have a too much version in logic. You say a possible world is everything you can do. So, it's actual. So, it's not model. Okay. Nobody been work like that in the world. Okay. In science we don't think about possible work. We would say okay I have a system is it in this state and it has it has access to all these states depending of the circumstances. These are possible state it could get okay of course if I have something like a possible world I have to include a lot of stuff in it and also maybe all the thing that this thing can do as a puzzle. It's not the way I you understand possibility in face. In face it's contextual. In this blah blah blah I can access to this I I'm moving in this. If I was in another circumstance doing I will be moving in that. It's it's much more local than possible. It's more the the logic of situation which who was developed by the Californian guy Stanford u the guy that wrote the world uh on uh on the the the book procrastination who was this guy it's a manif philosophy book I have in my office explaining how procrastination is the best thing in the world >> as a philosopher. So he spend the time to write the book except the paper and rather than write the paper he was supposed to write. Uh it's a philosopher of and he has a logic of situation which are very contextual stuff. uh Kiran also uh in his book uh have a notion of possibility that is much more >> situated possibility >> much more situated possibility it's much more smaller than uh than possible world so it's more what I have in mind here when I talk about possibility of course it's not the semantic of possible world this is too big this is not contextual enough for me >> and so >> so it's model dependent >> the first is a lot of different context It can >> yeah the first is like the space space will be defined by laws or a certain model and you go to another model that cannot be uh in a linear way transformed in the the first one. So there's a break and you have another face piece >> and how can you not say it's just another context >> depends of the you can define it by context. It depends of the model. If the model says it's impossible to get from there to there but it's under the same theory something about it because you always can say most of change of context would be something from outside arrived and changed the situation. Okay, that's why we have this bizarre realm. In particular, the real R to which S1 and S2 both belong, for example, the physical real is closed such that nothing outside of R participate in S1 rhythm. Because the easiest way to get a change of face space is to say I go to change it by hand. Something from outside completely different. the artisan is going in the world and impose a new situation. This clause exclude that because for example typically in the fractional quantum effect need low temperature very um uh material that is uh easy to measure to have the all effects as plain as possible. Very low temperature very high magnetic field. You could say aha the magnetic field is changing the thing therefore it's not emergence according to you because there's something outside like the artisant imposing a form to the thing. So we we but in that fact the magnetic field is part of the general theory of electromagnetism. So it's not an external cause. It's a it's just a constraint because that's the difficulty with novelty. Okay. Physics is allergic to novelty. Physics a science of yeah I have this law everything according to this law could exist blah blah blah. It's not a very open to novelty. It's why we use physics to prove to to argue for this theory because it's the less welcoming meteor for emergence you can imagine it's physics in biology you go to argue you about emergence to biologist they would say yeah of course there's a lot of new stuff all the time and completely new so they are not hostile to emergence so we wanted to argue a theory of emergence to the more hostile people about emergence. They say if we convince them our theory of emergence could be interesting for other stuff because we convince the less the more reductionist people you can find. Physicists even believe that everything is physics. It's so crazy. Okay. Like sociology is physics, psychology is physics. Yeah. Like what the You're completely insane. But you have to argue against that, not just say they are insane. So here that's trouble them because that's a phenomenon they know. They are very proud of it. You know it won a Nobel Prize and you say this is clearly a change of face. Oh there could be other new stuff in the world. That's an absolutely unpredictable phenomena. They could not predict it because of the spin spin statistic theorem. It's why it was a big deal when it happened when it was discovered. Do we have time? Yes. Five minutes. Uh just here I mentioned at the start of your talk you were talking about how it's impossible to affect the mind without affecting the body. It was an issue of some sort but why is that wouldn't be an issue in the reverse but because that's what you're trying to do. trying to see how affecting the mind affect the body >> and so issue. >> This was an issue because uh when we had before you were all here we had a five-year project on free will here with neurologists and that was we speak for five years of is is downward causation. Could you see downward causation? Could you see effect of the mind on the body? But of course you can see effect of the body on the mind. You take drugs, you smoke, etc. And it we even if we try with neurologists we never find a confirmation that it was not ambiguous that we could say okay go measure that in the lab do some experiment some tests with people and it's it's a it's a clue that you can have change the mind change the body the reverse change the body drugs change the mind okay so that was uh quite depressing Because of course a big part of the theory that they were testing of free will necessitate the mind to be able to modify the body. So what we see in lab always is a co-change. So you see you you you cannot you you see that it's possible that the mind is a cause on the body but there's also a a cause doing and you don't know which one is doing which. So I'm very we didn't find any way. So it's it's the problem that Kim called the overdetermination of causality of the mind on the body and which is strange because in the other direction no problem if you take drugs you obviously have change in your mind. Yeah, I have a hard time understanding how it's going to direction. >> If you believe the mental state is over the you know, of course it's this this difficulty comes also from the fact that you believe that there's physical state mental state co-emporal. >> Sure. >> Yeah. Of course, if you don't believe that it's another but if you believe that it's very difficult to see how to do an experiment where this is influences is going uh influence the body. >> Aren't all the studies on like attention and this kind of stuff that's doing that? No, because you have people sitting in front of screens and they said okay now look at this and then they they they look at some happening in the brain. >> So what they say that they see is the mind seems to enter the brain through a loop. Okay. So there's a time delay. Mhm. So they don't have they have to say or it's not the body mind is not like that it's like that and here after that it's difficult to say which state influence what at what time >> is the time >> okay if it does not I I would put more my money that it works in that sense but in it's the other sense that was the more interesting for free will for example and does not it's not easy to identify. So when you have things like attention see oh okay attention but the the the guy will always say yeah but is it the mind or is it a stimulus that you have blah blah blah reflex that just happened to be just before the moment or you are conscious blah blah and when you measure time in the brain super difficult statistically it's garbage you know it's there's too and you do statistical analysis on many people very difficult to identify Which was the real causal crux? It's clear just bad stuff that the mind and then when you see effect no >> but but what you want what you want when you test a causal link is to be able to >> any measure do something here and look what happened here if I manage to keep the rest under control not necessarily fixed but under control and that's what is difficult with the mind body problem. Max Max has a good paper on that because it's not and Woodward has a paper because he says I want my theory to be tested and to show if there's mind over body and it's quite difficult if of course if both of them are the same thing okay reductionist problem but if you really believe they are not the same thing but they are codependent at and they move like that very difficult to establish that I can change this, have the rest under control to see the effect here knowing that changing this because of the dependence there will be something changing here at least a little bit later. So is it what is which what influence what because this relation is not causal by the way this relation between the mind >> I think you're thinking >> and the body is non-causal >> so for it doesn't make sense it's another problem >> that I think it's because we are not thinking like a dualist >> if it's only a problem if you think like a dualist >> no it's a problem also for these guys that are emergentist sure sure Go temporal go temporal >> if I have a more more interesting question just short question why because you talking about purism in emergency for it was an issue and not satisfying but do you remember the book by candidate about brandings why why couldn't we do the same solution that family of similar relation which has a formal structures and >> yeah but what >> and the is that if the family is is defined by dependent novelty. No, but maybe there is more interesting >> but but I but I I would be curious if someone says okay guys you Wilson and you and you you are under that umbrella I would say okay but I don't see the family is for now and especially I don't see them saying I'm in their family Wilson is quite explicit she spent a lot of page in a ver in a a recent book saying that his and phrase are completely beside the point of metaphysics >> because she says because for her the concept of emergence is incompatible with causes clearly be your time. Thank you.