Since this series aims to confront dualism in its primary form as a mind/matter split, we should devote some time to mental matters. What are the central arguments for mind—or associated consciousness—as a phenomenon unto its own, not “reducible” to mind-numbingly complex material interactions (just reducible to a label of “mind,” apparently; simpler!). What is it, in fact, that we do with our brains, and how much of it depends on matter (i.e., physiology)?
Subjectivity: What it’s Like
At its core, belief in mind rests on the truth that one individual can’t experience another’s “inner” experiences. Language helps tremendously in providing a foggy window into others’ experiences. And while clumsy, language does at least help to confirm predominantly-similar sensations among humans. Yet even via language, how can we really know what another’s pain feels like? How can we know that seeing blue feels the same to them as it does to us? We can’t, really. And since individual life-experiences create differing associations within each of us, the full impact of seeing (or imagining) the color blue is surely a bit different from individual to individual. To my dad, it meant the Kentucky Wildcats, for instance.
Because our form of language is not shared among other species, we have far less insight into the quality of their experiences. It is understandable, then, that a default position could emerge that only chatterbox humans possess minds. Thankfully, only the hard-core supremacists still hold firm to the idea that only humans have “mindful” experiences, which is becoming less culturally tolerated. But we still have a long way (back) to go. It’s worth noting that lack of explicit communication did not stop animists from assuming that every animal, plant, river, mountain, and rock has experiences (that it is “like” something to be a rock, for instance).
Anyway, the essence of “mind” is that individuals hold a subjective, private sense of what it’s like to be them, and to feel all that they do. We do not have the means to measure, quantify, or compare any but the broadest similarities in experience. Functional MRI scans can reveal patterns of remarkable similarity in how different brains react to the same stimuli, but that’s not the same as being able to compare how something feels to a person. Scientific methods will likely never be able to cross this bridge of proving any two experiences to be the same.
The “what it’s like” phrase shows up constantly in philosophical discussions of mind or consciousness—sometimes under the fancier term of qualia. It’s what the whole argument for mind seems to boil down to: that unique “inner” experiences accompany various “outer” conditions, and these experiences are fundamentally intangible and incomparable. Asserted to be irreducible (out of incapacity and impatience, I would suggest), it’s where the buck often stops. “I feel it, therefore it is“—seems to be what it comes to… amid lots of discussion about the sensation of color!
As an aside that this series will address in more detail in the ninth installment, the word “irreducible” implies that something has already been reduced to the simplest form it can possibly take, brooking no further attempt to unpack or expand complexity. Ironically “reductionist” materialism explodes something like “mind” as a hyper-complex, multi-layer, hopelessly intricate collection of interacting phenomena beyond our capability to track, whose boundaries elude definition, and whose roots stretch back to deep time. Such practice hardly sounds like a “reduction” of any sort, whereas slapping on a label of “mind” and balking at attempts to break it up is, well…awfully reductionist. To an idealist or dualist, the suggestion that every experience is “made of atoms, somehow” is rejected on the grounds that it doesn’t seem remotely capable of accounting for how we perceive the experience—at least not obviously so (a key hangup). Meanwhile, it’s unclear to me whether individual experience is any more profound than the trivial fact that events are necessarily localized in space and time: no electron in the universe can have the exact same experience as another, for instance.
Other than that last caveat, I’ll save for later challenges to the convincing perception of mind—returning the the question of “what it’s like” in the eighth installment. For now, I just wanted to represent the standard take that mind/consciousness arguments rest heavily on this elusive concept of qualia: perhaps not the firmest of foundations.
Mental Models
Why do we—or any animal—possess brains? They demand a lot of energy, so must provide some net benefit or they would not have been tolerated and expanded by evolution. Well, it is probably obvious that brains are tools by which organisms make sense of the world to aid in finding food, avoiding danger, assessing novel situations, and—for social animals like us—navigating complex interpersonal relationships. Note that brains are not the only way to achieve many of these goals, and in fact are not employed by most successful living beings. Even amoebas (in slime molds) navigate a complex political decision when it’s time to make spores: some assume structural roles and thus forgo the chance to propagate their DNA.
A central feature of brains is: that’s where signals from the world are delivered. Sensors for touch, sight, hearing, taste, smell, balance, heat—and others that humans do not enjoy—are routed into brains (for the minority of organisms possessing them). No matter the hemisphere, the brain’s chief job is to synthesize a representation of reality from these inputs that has enough fidelity to guide responses that are—on average—appropriate and beneficial: fast enough to matter and flexible enough to deal with surprises. More complex brains often sport additional layers like the prefrontal cortex to provide an extra oversight function: monitoring and then encouraging or inhibiting reactions across the brain: a form of hard-wired self-awareness, or meta-cognition.
But the main take-away is that brains create mental models that try to capture reality. They never can get the full, actual reality, and are not even required or constrained to be correct. Nonetheless, they are generally good enough to provide adaptive advantage, or else they would not have developed under evolution as they did.
Optical (and other) illusions are a good way to illustrate that our mental perceptions are not correct, yet still utterly convincing. Dreams are another place where it becomes clear that our brains are perfectly capable of producing convincing non-realities.
Our mental models must necessarily limit the contextual breadth of consideration: they only have to be good enough to apply to the most relevant context and be right-enough often-enough to serve us well. An example that I will return to in the next post: thousands of years ago most people lived their entire lives without going very far from their place of birth. They sampled a tiny fraction of Earth’s surface. In this limited context, a Flat Earth model was perfectly valid and useful. Only when becoming connected to more distant places could one possibly learn, through keen attention to detail, that the sun is directly overhead in some places while it is not in others. Even then, it is easy to account for the phenomenon by a sun that isn’t terribly high in the sky, so that shadows of vertical poles might differ on the same day in different locations. Once, however, the scope expands to a global scale and it becomes clear that part of Earth is dark while another part is in daylight, the mental model of a flat Earth no longer matches the broadened context.
Hardware Dependencies
As we encounter the world, we place primary value on our direct experience, limited as we are by the senses we possess. Jakob von Uexküll used the term “umwelt” to describe the unique and diverse windows to the world various beings possess—recently explored in Ed Yong’s An Immense World. It is not surprising, therefore, that our mental models of the world would be impacted and limited by our particular portfolio of sensory input and cognitive processing capability. Now, communication and technology have augmented what we as individuals can directly and personally sense, so that any of us may benefit from experiments we personally have never performed, and learn about tiny particles we cannot perceive using our own direct senses, like atoms and their constituents. That said, our sense of the world is still strongly influenced by hardware constraints—in both corporeal and technology domains.
Note that in using the term “hardware,” I am not lining up to compare humans to computers running “software” (another dualist framing, after all). Rather, it’s a convenient term to denote the material or physiological basis of humans.
Because of a mostly-shared physiology between humans, it’s a really good bet that the contrasting experiences of a pinprick to the finger versus stepping into a hot tub share a rather similar contrast from one person to the next, or even across species to some extent. As a counter-example, colorblind people experience different visual sensations from most of the population, but this again traces to hardware differences rather than some habit of “mind.” Similar hardware produces similar experience. We’re not utterly clueless as to how things feel to others: it’s not particularly random—sharing an inherited material/structural basis as it does. Similarities—often taken for granted—vastly outnumber subtle differences, and the biggest differences likely originate from differences in physiology and/or life history. Subjectivity is, therefore, highly constrained (defined; constructed) by material reality. The pain of a stubbed toe for one person almost certainly doesn’t taste like chocolate to another, or we’d know… and life would be simultaneously far more entertaining and delicious… and bruising.
Our mentally-reconstructed reality, whatever the inputs, is necessarily limited by the architecture and capacity of our cranial and sensory hardware. Some people are allergic to the word “limited,” but rejection of limits, too, is an aspect of filtered reality: part of a mental model or even acculturated ideology. We can hope that our models are faithful representations of the salient features of reality, but such fidelity is not guaranteed.
Self-Limiting Models
Faith in our mental models can be unreasonably strong, however. A crazy person will seldom acknowledge that they are crazy if their mental model tells them they are not, while other “bad-actors” try to convince them that they are. How can we expect anyone to reject what their own brains—in no way obligated to truth—tell them? It’s our only conduit: our only constructed sense of reality. We have no choice in the matter. Thus, mental models become mistaken for core truths, even when overtly wrong.
It is perfectly understandable that the map becomes the territory in our heads, because our heads can only ever hold and access a map—never the actual territory. We then project our own limitations onto reality, forgetting the direction of flow. It is important to recognize that our mental models do not define what’s real (though I suppose an idealist says that’s exactly how it works). To the extent possible, we’re better off letting the universe itself dictate what is real, adding minimal cognitive embellishment—because that’s where things tend to go wrong.
While on the topic of mental models, one thing I’ve been slow to learn is that when presenting an unfamiliar or unpopular perspective, elements that I fail to articulate invite others to fill the void with mental models based on assumptions I do not share. It is then assumed that I am saying something I am not (have not; would not), which derails the process. Example: I might say “Modernity will fail.” Without explicitly painting the process as far from monolithic and transpiring over generations, the instant assumption is the Hollywood version, and then I’m perceived as being off my rocker for having “suggested” such a spectacle—even if said spectacle is 100% fabricated by the other. I will try to be careful in this series to anticipate and address likely misinterpretations, which is part of why I’m taking it so slowly and why I led with an exaltation for the universe and a paean to animism. All the same, I can’t anticipate all misinterpretations, and I certainly can’t address them all at once—leaving cracks that might get filled with erroneous assumption and solidified before I get to them (if I even do).
The next post will examine other major shifts in worldviews and how those experiences might guide us in consideration of ditching dualism.
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That graphic never fails to amaze me (moving, but not moving :-)).
Just wanted to add that we don't just think with our brains, we think with our entire bodies.
E.g. With our enteric nervous systems: https://www.mfi-therapy.com/the-second-brain-our-enteric-nervous-system/, https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10800657/
E.g. With our immune systems: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35718251/
The inability to separate the brain/mind from the body proves your point, I think!
Excellent point! My language does put inordinate focus on the brain. In fact, we could extend further and say that external material entities are integral actors in our thinking process. Writing, sculpting, and building things are examples (how many times have I "thought" through some project while holding pieces together in various arrangements so that they might suggest to me a way forward?). I recently read a (challenging) book by Lambrose Malafouris called How Things Shape the Mind that was all about this external component to cognition.
Indeed! In addition to the “embodied mind” idea there is also the “extended mind” thesis, which claims that cognitive processes are not just limited to the brain or even the body, but extend outward into an agent's world.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extended_mind_thesis
After reading Ed Yong’s books, one can’t help but start to wonder how much of our cognition might involve, for example, the microbes in our guts…
And I wonder if it might just be the human “I” state (activated by the inner voice perhaps?) that temporarily “separates” us from this extended mind/consciousness, which may extend to the the whole biosphere at least (Life as a whole on Earth)? Note that I don’t equate this line of thinking with panpsychism. Maybe it’s more along the lines of the Gaia hypothesis, with “Gaia” being seen as a conscious entity. But maybe my mind is just overdoing things again…
I thought I’d just quickly throw this into the mix also:
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1038/s44319-023-00004-6
Granting consciousness to all life seems reasonable to me, if we are to use the word at all.
Much to like in this. The other day, I watched a microbe (with my own optically-aided eyes) problem-solve as its flagella got stuck and it tried to free itself in a convincingly sentient way (not just unvarying repetition).
It isn't clear whether these authors have broken from dualist (or related panpsychist) metaphysics, as in: "Only living cells meet these requirements for consciousness. Physical systems do not." Umm. living cells are physical systems, no? Maybe it's semantics. Whatever the case, I certainly applaud the strong push against human supremacy and opening the club to single-cell organisms.
The article actually bears striking similarities to the upcoming posts in this series (#8 in particular, on sentience). For me, it comes to mechanisms favored by selection to be sensitive to (sentient of?) surroundings and act in ways that have adaptive advantage. No limit to the complexity (i.e., no problem if the complexity exceeds our mental capacity to track). Any viable being—no matter how small—will have "solved" this "hard problem" of figuring out its circumstances and acting in accordance.
And very lastly, this excellent review, which touches on many pertinent points:
https://thebcreview.ca/2024/06/24/2211-maingon-reber-baluska-miller/
I agree with your “Umm” above Tom! I read these things and there is always one or two jarring bits. Even that last review I highlighted contains some sentences that grate. But still a lot to like about works like “The Sentient Cell”. I think Philip Ball also offers a good review of this book, raising points about difficulties with definitions and some concerns about the authors overreaching in some of their claims: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.ado0065
I think words/language is a big issue in the debates about such works. But I think that the authors’ “watering down of definitions” of words such as “consciousness” is precisely part of the value/key message of their works.
As you stress all the time, the universe is a complex, interconnected “web” of inseparable particles, so there are no hard boundaries. This means that all our attempts to categorise it, and explain it, using words (especially those with precise definitions – “hard boundaries”) is going to be fraught with difficulties, if not flawed (poets perhaps do have a case when they argue that their works come closest to capturing truth in words…). We end up endlessly arguing over the definitions of words because you can’t neatly break the universe down into worlds. “Consciousness” is a particularly problematic word. What is it and what isn’t it? What is part of it and what isn’t? When did it begin? What has it and what doesn’t? etc. etc.
Some exclaim “Only humans and higher creatures have consciousness!”. Ok, fine (not really). So what exactly is a “human” then? Where are our boundaries? Are the microbes in our guts part of us? I think it is becoming more and more obvious that they are. And what else is part of us? A lot more than people think
So even if there were only human consciousness, it doesn’t belong to “us”, it’s not “our”consciousness!
Words with precise definitions imply separateness, and there is no true separateness in the universe.
Agreed. I can't exist (can't have existed?) without the sun, or preceding supernovae, or the Big Bang, etc. so all that is part of "me" (using the characteristic grandiosity of our culture). More accurately, "I" am a small and inseparable part of all that.
A seed may be separated from a plant for a time, but cannot exist in the first place without the plant, and the plant can't exist without the seed. Just because we can hold it in our hands (or heads) as a "separate" entity is deceiving: not the full picture, but a tiny, temporary sliver. Might be worth a whole post someday.
Thanks!!!
>It is perfectly understandable that the map becomes the territory in our heads, because our heads can only ever hold and access a map—never the actual territory. We then project our own limitations onto reality, forgetting the direction of flow. It is important to recognize that our mental models do not define what’s real (though I suppose an idealist says that’s exactly how it works). To the extent possible, we’re better off letting the universe itself dictate what is real, adding minimal cognitive embellishment—because that’s where things tend to go wrong.
In this regard, I would like to make a few comments and questions:
The map and the territory are rather verbal interpretations or silent experiences (observations) regarding objectivity (for a group of people). That is, what is real (tangible) for a color-blind person, and only for him, can be perceived (and perceived) completely differently by others. Therefore, sampling is important. It is also important to distinguish between what is seen/described/interpreted as conclusions. Often people live by conclusions, not noticing/neglecting the specific context and conditions, details, etc.
In essence, the territory is NEVER accessible.
This is the widest perception of a statistically large number of individuals (with their equipment) and additional data from other receptors (science, devices) that can give a more complete map, which is structurally more similar to the territory.
The universe always dictates to us, we simply ignore it (due to repetition, monotony and simplification/neglect).
Thank you!
In essence, direct bodily experience (the broadest) without words, emotions and arising feelings, usually sensory (mostly) provides a much brighter flow of data from the outside world. But our cortex and previous experience/training/conditions, etc. "cut" it to a template blank.
You look at a rose in all possible detail, after studying and contemplating botanical literature and the experience of seeing a lot of roses and training and notice the uniqueness of each, many dates, etc. And when you haven't looked at roses or connected with them much (because you are allergic to pollen), you just call it a red "unbearable" flower, wait, it's not real, but artificial, and then why the tearing and redness? From artificial pollen, of course! xD
For an interesting lesson in what our brains "do" to us, as opposed to what it is "we do with our brains," see "Determined," by Robert Sapolsky.
“…it’s unclear to me whether individual experience is any more profound than the trivial fact that events are necessarily localized in space and time: no electron in the universe can have the exact same experience as another, for instance”.
This gets to the heart of it for me, Tom, as far as the knots that people tie themselves over things like the “hard problem of consciousness”. It feels to me that the people that are adamant there is a “hard problem” will only be happy to say the problem has been solved when an explanation is provided that literally amounts to the actual experience of consciousness itself.
We can never posses the full knowledge/experience/explanation of anything – not even ourselves or a “lousy” single particle – because, to do so, we would have to both become both the thing (precluded by a sort of “Pauli’s exclusion principle”) AND the entire universe… and perhaps even more than this (even the universe can’t explain itself to itself? It is its own explanation?)
You can’t squeeze a universe into a brain. But, as you say, you can pin down the fundamental principles by which the universe operates and the rest can simply be complexity beyond our (or literally anything’s) ability to grasp.
This is almost certainly complete nonsense, but to me, the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle also in some ways reflects/captures/speaks to this idea that a complete knowledge/explanation of something would equate to us literally “becoming the thing”. In seeking to fully understand even a single particle, we are foiled from “becoming” the particle by the uncertainty principle. The particle “flits away” as we try to occupy the space that only it alone can occupy.
Hey Tom just wondering if you have ever read any of Ivan Illich's work? I feel like he's a softer version of the views (correct in my opinion) posted on Do the Math.
This was my introduction to him:
https://blogs.ubc.ca/landscapesofenergy/files/2010/11/ivan-illich-energy_and_equity.pdf
In it he argues that the advanced industrialization of society benefits the minority while oppressing the majority.
Hi Mr Murphy, what’s your timeline for the reduction/contraction? Im really young (19) so im likely to see a lot of what you write about in my own lifetime. Do you think im walking into an apocalypse? How long can Asia hold on?
Well, it's a bit off topic for the post, but I'll venture a few thoughts. First. I don't (can't) really know. Mostly, I think it's a slow-motion generations-long process rather than the Hollywood version. Although, the process may be punctuated by a number of shocks and re-adjustments. I would be surprise if major upheavals came before something like 2040, and would be surprised if they haven't arrived by 2100, but that's a pretty large window (appropriately, I think, given enormous uncertainty).
In some sense, the most certain large-scale corrective heading our way is demographic decline as a result of global drops in fertility rates across most of the globe. I expect this to start pinching before 2050. When it's not the oddball like Japan but entire regions (and basically all affluent nations) experiencing decline, economic markets will shudder mightily, and might trigger any number of unpredictable reactions as dominoes tip one by one.
So, I imagine you'll see some amazing developments in your lifetime (I might see the leading edge; born in 1970). But I'm not sure it will look like an apocalyptic movie. The demographic decline might take the sting out of ecological and resource crunches, allowing a more "adiabatic" phasing out of modernity over centuries rather than years or decades. But it's anybody's guess.
Thank you! By the way do you mean “amazing” as good for humanity (and the biosphere)?
I still want to have a family so this is pretty important to me.
Gotta play my part to prevent extinction!
I guess by "amazing" I mean "never imagined *that* was in the cards." The actual universe routinely outstrips our predictive capabilities. Some will be good, some bad, and some just weird. But even good/bad depends on what you value. If you value modernity, much of it will seem just plain bad. But from another angle, modernity makes a sixth mass extinction, so its termination is the best possible outcome.
If you want to have a family for the love/experience, that's great. But I would advise against doing so out of a sense of obligation to the species. If humans go extinct other than by the slow process of evolution (like in the next few thousand years), it will most likely be because of ecological collapse (self-started) or nuclear annihilation—not demographic fizzle (the projections that portray this just lock in some sub-replacement fertility rate forever as if the current weird context never changes for ever and ever: stupid). Earth might be able to support something like 10–100 million humans long-term, so this "haircut" is a necessary part of that trajectory. Those *not* having kids are helping us get back to sustainable numbers. Future generations will automatically take care of preventing extinction (bouncing back) when conditions are in better balance.
Do you think that ecological collaose extinction is happening/will happen?
Or is the demographic fizzle more likely?
I know it’s hard to predict these things, I just want to know your opinion
In this regard, I'm not sure I can do any better than my post called: Is the 6ME Hyperbole?
It is not that you are walking into an apocalypse. You already ARE in an apocalypse. Apocalypse is a loaded term so collapse might be better. But then you run into people who have a vested interest in preserving as much of state-level society as they can so they can keep their cushy lifestyle – like Nate Hagens and Tom Murphy – so a "kinder, gentler" term is The Great Simplification (Nate's term).
When I was your age, I was subject to the Draft, so that was apocalypse RIGHT NOW in 1969. People born around that time really have no conception of the gut punch it was to have to decide to go kill innocent villagers vs. going to jail or fleeing to Canada. In my case, I lucked out in the first Draft lottery, but I still continued my antiwar activities until the War ended in 1975. Then there are the efforts to build alternatives, which a lot of us "dirty hippie commie pinkos" are still involved in.
My advice is to get up to speed. Tom Murphy's blog is just a tiny segment of the alternative narrative. Then after getting up to speed, pick a positive alternative and work on it. As I have often said to interested young people (a small subset of the population!) over the years, "Pick one of two of your good ideas and work on them full-time for no money for ten years. Then get back to me. We'll talk."
Walter, I may/probably do have this completely wrong, but is the idea that if you “Pick one or two of your good ideas and work on them full-time for no money for ten years“ you will realise at some point along the way that *working* to make an idea a reaity is not a “natural” state of affairs (money or no money), and you will also start to question if there really are any “good ideas”, or just realise that the only truly good ideas are the ones that don’t require “work” at all (in the sense of working to “transform things” greatly from what they are). And maybe you will also realise along the way that us humans having too many grand ideas is part of the problem?
Indigenous peoples didn’t work (or what they did wasn’t seen as “work”) and they didn’t seek to transform the world with their grand ideas (I could be wrong in saying this of course).
Money, work and ideas – maybe they are all dodgy.
That sounds about right. Apart from the indigenous peoples remark. After all, all humans were indigenous at some point in the past. Look how that turned out.
Fair enough. The “sensible” indigenous peoples (of which there are some even today) didn’t seek to transform the world with their grand ideas then. Their worldview managed to keep a lid on things. At least until what many people (with 20/20 hindsight) would call “the inevitable” happened. But, again, there are still some people that are managing or trying to keep a lid on things.
But "sensible" is very subjective. And it may seem that way because they haven't had enough time to be assimilated into modernity. Of course, since modernity may be close to collapse, they may not "make it" this time round.
By the way, it's not through "hindsight" that this became inevitable. Since it happened, it must have always been inevitable. That is, it couldn't have been avoided since that is the way all the matter and energy interacted. That's the laws of physics for you.
Here we are again with the limitations of language. If every single event is said to be 'inevitable', the word becomes meaningless. A situation may arise such that we might say 'if path x is chosen, then outcome y is inevitable'. However, if another path is chosen then outcome y is avoided. In other words, we *choose* the path(s), and there is nothing 'inevitable' about it *except* after the event (i.e., with hindsight) – then *of course* 'what happened happened' – duh!
James,
I don't see it as just a language thing. When trying to project the future, of course we can use language to say that, if we do x then the outcome has a good chance of being y. And so on. We know, from the lack of free will that the choices which determine the actions depend totally on physics. What is meaningless is saying, if we had only done x then y might not have happened. As y happened, it happened through interactions between molecules and so could not have been avoided. It was inevitable. We can then move on and dream of some actions in the future that might have better outcomes than we fear.
Mike,
Yes, physics applies to all things and yes, we make choices. Those aren't mutually exclusive. Choices are not completely free – all kinds of factors influence them – and the more freedom an agent has, the more options are open to them.
Also, it isn't meaningless to say if we had only done x then y might not have happened, as experience of y can inform later behaviour. That y happened through interactions between molecules doesn't mean it wasn't also the result of great foolishness/hubris, which if recognised as such can be avoided in the future.
James,
I hate to belabour the point but I think this is crucial for people to recognise, though I can't do much to make that happen.
What you see as foolishness is an interaction of molecules. Physics. Nothing happens except through the interaction of matter and energy, and that follows the laws of nature. There is nothing we can do about that because we are only a collection of molecules.
You're right, though, that we can, in principle, learn something from studying the consequences of this or that action. That can alter brain configuration a little so that maybe in a similar future situations we will do something different.
No choices are free, the choices our brain makes are due to our brain configuration and that, indeed, is influenced by everything that went before. So we don't have freedom to make choices. At all. It seems like we have a choice but whatever we choose is the result of brain activity, which simply happens, without mystical external control.
Mike,
Is it foolish to believe foolishness does not exist. Whatever the microscopic causes of it, at the *macro* level it's clear that unwise choices are made by humans all the time (and wise ones, sometimes). No one is denying the molecules etc. We may only be a "collection" of them but, witness, – without violating any laws of physics – choices are made.
So what if whatever we choose is the result of brain activity? Everything is the 'result' of physics.
By focussing so much on the 'trees', you're missing the woods.
James,
Foolishness is in the brain of the beholder. You said humans make unwise choices all the time (apart from the odd wise one) but what is wise and what is unwise, what is foolish and what is rational is subjective. Otherwise why would anyone make a foolish choice? They make foolish (in the mind of another) choices because that's the way their brain works. They can't make any other choice. So choices don't really exist. It just seems like they do but the course of action taken is determined (by one's brain configuration); it can only be one way.
I'm not sure what woods I'm missing.
Mike,
Is it wise to reject the terms 'wise' and 'unwise' (or good/bad)? They have meaning in the real world, at the macroscopic level.
You can take whatever course of action you choose, and then attribute it to anything you like – brain configuration/evolution/God/morality/game theory… In the end actions, not thoughts, affect reality.
"what is foolish and what is rational is subjective"
But what *is* subjective? The distinctintion between subject and object breaks down, in the final analysis. That's the point. When you 'reduce' everything to particles (which are real, no doubt), you end up with an overly simplistic picture. Trees are real – but so are woods.
James,
I've no idea what your trees and wood analogy is but it really is that simple; everything operates on the laws of nature. The brain activity we call the mind, the actions that follow that activity all follow the laws of nature. Not that we can understand the whole world, as Tom has pointed out, but we suffer from thinking (due to our brain chemistry) that there is more to life than life.
Mike,
Ok, I won't say any more other than to agree that all things follow the laws of nature. (The analogy was supposed to be trees=molecules, woods=macroscopic organisms and their behaviour.)
"I feel it, therefore it is“, one recognizes the immediate conceit and inverted logic of believing that we're in control of the universe and not the other way around. The universe is much bigger than us and more subtle and complex than we can ever hope to understand. Of course, feelings are a part of the universe, though they exert only a nominal amount of control (and sometimes none).
Another thing that plagues complex systems and gives people anxiety that they deny almost as fervently as death is randomness. The antidote belief that it all must "mean something". But what if it doesn't? What if you really were just the lucky sperm, and the lucky genetic recombination, and are lucky that your parents met, and their parents, and so forth? (Luck itself existing only as a subjective opinion about randomness). What if our species really is just 1/100,000 the age of the universe on a tiny planet orbiting an insignificant star, and we aren't all that important or the center of anything?
Hi again Dr. Murphy, I went and read those posts you mentioned.
So your view is that modernity, if left unchecked, will precipitate total ecological collapse and doom humanity, although you believe it’s far more likely that modernity breaks down before that point, giving the earth time to recover?
In that case, what do you think earths population will be in 2100.2200, and 2300?
Damn it, what kind of world am I being forced to live in?
Like, I know it’s hard to predict these things and all but if just like the opinion of someone who reads these things, so j can expect to like, die of famine or something.
If it helps im thinking of southeast asia
Since you said you're 19, one thing you may only be starting to recognize is that there are no actual adults who are competently steering modernity toward a sound future: there is no complete plan—and never has been—that considers all (ecological) angles, because we can't understand something so complex well enough. Despite lots of bluster and projections of (false) confidence, no one can credibly claim to know how this plays out. Thus, my guesses are not worth a great deal, either. No one has the full context, but I tend to listen more to people who at least acknowledge that the brief and highly-anomalous experiment of modernity is charging into uncharted territory without evolutionary vetting (permission) and raising serious warning signs.
So, here are my guesses, worth next to nothing. Human population in 2100: 2 to 6 billion (or much lower possible in Hollywood version?); 2200: 0.5 to 4 billion; 2300: 0.1 to 1 billion. Not a lot of thought went into those numbers (because it's not worth a lot of thought—highly speculative). These are not *bad* numbers, but actually rather hopeful if that's the only way for long-term success to be supported by the biophysical world. The sooner we tuck into sustainability, the better our chances of making it through the bottleneck, in my view.
The world we were all born into was a temporarily-possible mode that will contain many lessons. No one planned any of this, in a big-picture sense. On the bright side, it's one of the more fascinating times to be on the planet, for the pure spectacle of it all. Optimistically, it could be a sort of awakening and willingness to trade hubris for humility. I guess that's what I'm working toward (in this series and beyond).
Thank you!
I still have hope that we’d get some alternate energy source like fusion in time to stabilise a good standard of living and a MUCH lower (and wise!) population.
Or maybe wed go back to boom and bust cycles like Rome and other empires, I wouldn’t mind that either.
I know both are unsustainable but it’s my hope that in the first we reign ourselves in while in the second our population is kept in check the same way it always was with collapses (black plague 2.0?)
But who knows maybe thats hubris too from someone who’s seeing his future burn in front of him
I could offer a non-Hollywood version of collapse (depending on how it's defined) on a tighter time-line that is based on empirical trends and credible science. I expect the next couple of decades to be tumultuous and generally not be that great of a time to be a kid or have a kid (I don't have kids).
You could always consider adopting. – Giving the option of having a family dynamic without tacking on additional population pressure in the midst of ecological overshoot. Having kids in the middle of overshoot tends to hurt not help the ecological situation (and thus our prospects).
Sure; what’s the timeline? Do I expect to starve to death soon? I don’t know if this changed anything but im not in the west, in a generally affluent family in a generally affluent country
It depends what you think is a good standard of living but, if it involves modern appliances, then that would surely be impossible as it will involve use of non-renewable resources. Even a hypothetical steady state economy would require extraction of non-renewable resources (since perfect recycling is impossible) which eventually will become uneconomic due to declining quality and accessibility.
Hi Jeffrey,
I'm 59 by the way. My 'operating system' to all of this is simple: prepare for the worst, plan for the best.
Where I am (UK), short-term threats are outages and water cut-offs, so I have two weeks supply of food, water and fuel in the garage. There's also increasing numbers of climate and war refugees causing increasing pressure on health/education/ law and order services, and consequently a reactionary right-wing lurch, politically. And, according the leader of NATO, there's the possibility of war with Russia in five years! My two-weeks supplies may seem like not very much. Obviously, that's the preparing for the worst bit.
The planning is more interesting and where I invest much more of my time. I am studying Tom's textbook: Energy and Human Ambitions on a Finite Planet. Where, incidentally, he covers fusion. My motivation in studying this is: I want to understand humanity's needs and wants and options, to the core of my being. Tom's textbook really enables me to understand stuff because he puts everything in context and quantitatively. I recommend it. I'm about two-thirds through. Tom is an astrophysicist and his sidereal point of view and his long time-frames contextualise all of this stuff and are invaluable. It is fascinating, apart from everything else! What constitutes the 'best' for me is: a planned reduction in population, energy use, consumption and pollution. This is based on a shared understanding of what's in Tom's textbook and elsewhere.
Optimistically, Life will go on whatever happens to us as individuals or as a species. Once I've finished Tom's textbook I intend to immerse myself in biological reality. I really like insects, especially flies! I love what Feynman said: Study what you like in the most irreverent, undisciplined way possible. It keeps me grounded (i.e. based on observation/data) and gives me a wider perspective on Life as opposed to human life.
Jeffrey, the main thing I would say to you is: don't trust the 'authorities'. At all. About anything. I have slowly come to see that I was lied to by the 'education' system (and by the system generally). It's all geared soley towards keeping modernity alive, like some insatiable parasite, sucking the life from the planet.
I used to watch programmes like 'Tommorow's World' that showed how wonderful scientific and medical breakthroughs were aiding humanity – I look back and laugh. It's not that the producers and presenters of such shows were deliberately lying. I'm sure they believed every word of it. But – the whole enterprise (modernity) and the belief in 'progress' was *mistaken*, based as it was (is) on the conversion of 'natural resources' into products/medicines/policies/profit that 'benefits' humans (in a short-term, shallow way) – and even then, the 'money' mostly goes to an ever smaller %. The resulting waste, pollution and habitat destruction are the bits that aren't celebrated quite so much.
TPTB have been in charge for ~10,000 years, and look at the state of the world. Don't vote for any of them, voting only legitimises their fake authority. If you're able, get some land, grow food and live simply, off-grid and well away from the 'government'.
I made a mistake in letting the camel's nose under the tent, here, motivated to provide a brief response in the face of anxiety. But it ballooned far from the post topic, and I've walked back some of the thread and will call this good. As to a last (unpublished) question about hunter-gatherers, I suggest looking at a post called Anthropological Summer and references therein.
Several interlocking ideas worth reinforcing. Bias in human cognition toward “good enough for now” without particular concern about overall accuracy is strong. I often argue that sufficiency bias is so commonplace one may never go back to revise with greater fidelity and thus sustain flatly incorrect notions more or less permanently. Further, if one develops good mental habits, knowledge is always kept in the provisional category in case new knowledge or better paradigms emerge that require rethinking.
Emphasis on the brain as the seat of consciousness/mind overstates the role of traffic cop coordination and deemphasizes the traffic, which is distributed throughout the body (nervous system) as sensation and perception. As mentioned in the comments, once an individual contacts the group, a sort of networked or distributed process takes hold, suggestive of mass mind or group consciousness. It’s not quite so woo as that but I acknowledge that, like the body, the mind is surprisingly porous. All manner of “external” thought flows through it. In light of that, it’s worth recognizing that the container metaphor used to establish boundaries and responsibilities is perhaps the wrong framing of a flow process that has few discrete contributors.