openpolitics.com

.. nobody has provided even the beginnings of a satisfying solution to what David Chalmers called “the hard problem” of consciousness. More recently a quiet revolution has been occurring in philosophy of mind which aims to turn the brain-first approach on its head

.. It is the nature of consciousness that we really understand–through being conscious–and hence the philosophical task is to build our picture of the brain around our understanding of consciousness. We might call this a “consciousness-first” approach to the mind-body problem.

.. . How on earth can quality-rich experience be accommodated within soggy grey brain matter? The Russellian monist solution, inspired by certain writings of Bertrand Russell from the 1920s

..  There must be some intrinsic nature to the cerebellum, some way it is in and of itself independently of what it does. About this intrinsic nature physical science remains silent.  Accepting this casts the problem of consciousness in a completely different light, and points the way to a solution.

.. Our discussion has led to another question, “What is the intrinsic nature of physical brain processes?” The Russellian monist proposes answering both question at once, by identifying phenomenal properties with the intrinsic nature of (at least some) physical brain processes. Whilst neuroscience characterises brain processes extrinsically, in terms of what they do, in their intrinsic nature they are forms of quality-rich consciousness.

.. Russellian monism is a general framework for unifying matter and mind and thereby avoiding dualism: the view of Descartes that mind and body are radically different kinds of thing.

.. panpsychism, the view that all matter involves experience of some form

..  The idea is that it is only by supposing that there is consciousness “all the way down” to electrons and quarks that we can render the emergence of human and animal consciousness intelligible. Experience can’t possibly emerge from the utterly non-experiential

.. How do the interactions of trillions of tiny minds produce a big mind? This is the so-called ‘combination problem’ for panpsychism

.. many significant developments in science have arisen not from experimental findings in the lab but from a radical reconceptualization of our picture of the universe formulated from the comfort of an armchair.

..  My hunch is that progress on consciousness, as well of course as involving neuroscience, will involve this kind of radical reconceptualization of the mind, the brain, and the relationship between them. Russellian monism looks to be a promising framework in which to do this.